h are probably unparalleled in
the history of other countries at moments of such terrible excitement;
we can contrast them for instance with the steps that were taken in
putting down the outbreak of the Commune in Paris in 1871. It is easy
now to argue that, as the force of the rebellion was being broken, it
would have been more humane to have allowed those who had plotted and
directed it to go unpunished. But as Lecky has pointed out, "it was
scarcely possible to exaggerate the evil they had produced, and they
were immeasurably more guilty than the majority of those who had
already perished.

"They had thrown back, probably for generations, the civilization of
their country. They had been year by year engaged in sowing the seed
which had ripened into the harvest of blood. They had done all in
their power to bring down upon Ireland the two greatest curses that
can afflict a nation--the curse of civil war, and the curse of foreign
invasion; and although at the outset of their movement they had
hoped to unite Irishmen of all creeds, they had ended by lashing
the Catholics into frenzy by deliberate and skilful falsehood. The
assertion that the Orangemen had sworn to exterminate the Catholics
was nowhere more prominent than in the newspaper which was the
recognised organ of the United Irish leaders. The men who had spread
this calumny through an ignorant and excitable Catholic population,
were assuredly not less truly murderers than those who had fired the
barn at Scullabogue or piked the Protestants on Wexford Bridge."

A strong party, however, led by Lord Clare were in favour of clemency
wherever possible; and there seemed good reason for hoping that the
rebellion would slowly die out. Cooke, the Under Secretary, wrote
on the 9th of August: "The country is by no means settled nor secure
should the French land, but I think secure if they do not." Suddenly,
however, the alarming news came that the French were actually in
Ireland. Wolfe Tone and his fellow-plotters, undaunted by their
previous failures, had continued ceaseless in their efforts to induce
Napoleon to make an indirect attack on England by invading Ireland;
and if they had succeeded in persuading the French Government to send
an expedition two months earlier when the rebellion was at its height
and the English reinforcements had not arrived, Ireland must have been
lost. Once again, however, fortune favoured the English cause. The
first instalment of the French