Downshire and Foster, Government carried the day by 123 to 103 (15th
February). Fear worked on behalf of Union. A great fleet was fitting out
at Brest, the Dutch ports were alive with work, and again Ireland was
believed to be the aim of the Republicans. As was the case in 1798, they
encouraged numbers of Irishmen to make pikes, to muster on the hills of
Cork and Wicklow, dealing murder and havoc in the plains by night.
Cornwallis therefore proclaimed martial law, armed the yeomen, and
sought to crush the malcontents, a proceeding which led critics to
charge Government with inciting the people to outrage in order to coerce
them. Those who flung out the sneer should also have proved that the
naval preparations at Brest and the Texel were instigated from Downing
Street in order to carry the Union.

The real feelings of Dublin officials appear in the letters of
Beresford, Cooke, and Lees to Auckland. On 15th March 1799 Beresford
writes: "Our business is going on smoothly in Parliament; from the day
that Government took the courage [_sic_] of dividing with the
Opposition, they have grown weaker and weaker every day as I foretold to
you they would. The Speaker [Foster], as I hear, appears to be much
softened. I am sure he sees that he has pledged himself too far, and
that he cannot depend upon those who heretofore supported him: and both
he and Ponsonby are conscious that the point will be carried and they,
of course, left in the lurch.... The country is in a wretched way,
organization going on everywhere; and if the French should land, I much
fear that there will be very universal risings." On the subject of
inter-insular trade Beresford informs Auckland on 29th March that
Ireland depends almost entirely upon Great Britain and her colonies,
having a balance in her favour in that trade but an adverse balance in
her dealings with foreign lands. She exports 41,670,000 yards of linen
to Great Britain and only 4,762,000 yards to other lands. Besides, the
British trade is increasing fast, as England uses less and less foreign
linen. On the morrow, Cooke declares that, if the French do not land,
the Irish malcontents will settle down. Commending the policy of going
slowly with the Union, he says: "By letting the subject cool, by opening
its nature, tendencies, and advantages, and seeming not to press it, and
by insinuating that no other course of safety to property remains, the
mind begins to think seriously and faints. I think d