"My Lords-Here, in the presence of this legal court, this crowded auditory-in the presence of the Being that sees and witnesses, and directs this judicial tribunal,-here, my lords, I, myself, in the presence of God, declare, I take the oath.'

"He then took the book that was on the table, kissed it, and sat down. No steps were taken by the court against the newly-sworn United Irishman: the amazement of its functionaries left them in no fit state of mind either for remonstrance or reproval, The prisoners received a very lenient sentence."

His future connection with the revolutionary proceedings of the United Irishmen, and subsequent political career, belongs to another epoch in this history.

That, with very rare exceptions, the leaders of the United Irishmen were persons of very moderate abilities, may be inferred from the popularity which Napper Tandy for a considerable period enjoyed with the disaffected. Without the recommendation of birth or fortune, his talents were common-place, his courage very questionable, "his person was ungracious, his language neither eloquent nor argumentative, his address neither graceful nor impressive; but he was sincere and persevering, and though in many instances erroneous and violent, he was considered to be honest. Like many of those persons who occasionally spring up in revolutionary periods, he acquired celebrity without being able to account for it, and possessed influence without rank or capacity."

For breach of privilege and sedition, he was prosecuted by the solicitor-general, to whom he had previously sent an invitation to fight, which had been readily accepted. Having placed himself in a position from which no man of honourable feeling could recede a step, to the disgust of every party, his conduct was so vacillating and spiritless, that he exposed himself, justly, to a charge of cowardice, which cost him the popularity he enjoyed. He fled to the Continent, where he remained until the insurrection had broken out.†

Henry and John Shears were brothers and sons of a banker in Cork. They had received a liberal education, and both been called to the Irish bar. Travelling during the wildest period of the French revolution, they became residents of Paris while the reign of terror was at its height-and, as it has been stated, witnessed the horrible scenes enacted daily under the tyranny of Robespierre, with an apathy from which accomplished gentlemen should have recoiled. The fearless manner in which their political opinions were promulgated, exposed them to the suspicions of the executive-and shortly before the outbreak they were arrested and confined.

The personal sketches given by Sir Jonah Barrington of these unfortunate gentlemen is highly characteristic.

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Henry the elder, had a competent fortune, and was an excellent domestic character, with a most amiable family; he was not possessed of talents-plain and friendly-occasionally warm-generally credulous-and always full of prejudices-his mind was never strong enough

* Barrington's Personal Sketches.

C

+ Historic Memoirs.

to resist his feelings and though unexceptionable in character, he had neither capacity, firmness, nor discretion for a public life. Personally he was not remarkable, except that a mark of red wine nearly covered the left cheek. The younger brother, John, was tall, fair, handsome, and of gentlemanly address. His countenance was sensible, and firm to inflexibility, but not amiable, and far from prepossessing. He was well educated, but mistook the phrases of republicanism, for a power of writing in its defence, and of being a leader in its cause. With many qualities of a tyrant, and with much more talent than his brother, he guided him at his discretion, and finally led him to his destruction. They were inseparable as brothers, and were united by almost unparalleled attachment."

Oliver Bond was a woollen-draper-the son of a dissenting minister in Donegal-and had realized a considerable fortune. Among the United Irishmen he took a prominent part, and as early as 1793, was committed to Newgate for sedition. It is said that from being a struggling trader, he rose rapidly into opulence-the party spirit of the times investing him with the mantle of political martyrdom.* He was a second time arrested, when the Leinster Delegates were surprised. Thomas Russell's father was a retired officer, and he himself had held an ensigncy in the British service. For some years he had been placed upon half-pay-but in 1791, was appointed to the 64th, then quartered in Belfast. Too deeply imbued in revolutionary principles, he cultivated the intimacy of the United Irishmen, and sacrificed his profession to his politics. On the 16th of September, 1796, he was arrested, transmitted to Dublin, and, with Neilson and Teeling, committed to the gaol of Newgate, where Crawford, Gordon, and others of the suspected were already confined.

Russell's personal appearance was favourable, and his military setting-up gave him a marked advantage over his compatriots,† who

*When Bond and the Honourable Simon Butler were fined 5007, each and committed to Newgate for libel and breach of privileges, by the House of Lords-beyond restriction of personal liberty, they appear to have had little to embitter their captivity. By Musgrave's account, their dietary was unexceptionable. "While in prison, they were maintained in the following manner, by the members of the society:They made four hundred tickets, of which a certain number were blanks, the remainder were marked with the dates of the days that the prisoners were to remain in confinement; and any person who drew one of the latter, was obliged to provide a dinner, with twelve covers, on the day specified in his ticket. Four persons were invited by each of the prisoners, and three by the person who procured the repast, who, with himself, made twelve.'

"The chief command in Down had been early assigned to Russell, and the military organization of this county was considered complete, when talent and virtue were combined in the person of its chief. The early days of Russell had been devoted to military pursuits, but the milder lessons of classic science had not been forgotten. Gentle by nature, but lofty in soul, he was enthusiastic in all his attachments; and while he bore personal privations with an heroic firmness, he felt the keenest sensibility for the misfortunes of others. A model of manly beauty, he seemed formed no less for admiration than command, and won by the mildness of his manners, and the purity of his heart, that marked distinction which was more the spontaneous offering to superior worth, than looked for or assumed by the unconscious possessor."-Teeling's Personal Narrative.

were generally very common-place-looking personages. IIe is described as a wild and warm-hearted enthusiast-a man in whose character there was much to admire and much to condemn.

Samuel Neilson was the son of the dissenting minister of Ballyroney, in the county of Down. He was educated by his father, bound to a woollen-draper in Belfast, and afterwards commenced business for himself. His mercantile career appears to have been so prosperous, that at one time he was reputed wealthy, but his private affairs were subsequently neglected for the less profitable pursuit of speculatiɣe reform. Like most of the other leaders of the United Irishmen, he commenced his political career in the ranks of the volunteers." In 1791, he originated a most sedicious newspaper, called "The Northern Star." In 1795, he was an active member of the Ulster Directory, and with Tone, Teeling, and others, was occasionally engaged as a travelling mediator between the Peep-o'-day-Boys and Defenders. "The Star" was the avowed organ of the revolutionary party-and as its violence increased, a numerous proprietary retired by degrees. The stupid ruin into which political insanity will hurry individuals, was never more strongly evidenced than in the following extract from his own biographer :

"The various persecutions carried on against it, had obliged Neilson, about this period, to dispose of all his property, and to relinquish his business, in order to meet the enormous expenses attendant on these proceedings, and the unexpected demands arising from them. The other proprietors, shortly after the prosecutions, disposed of their shares to Neilson, and thus, encompassed with peril, he became the sole proprietor of the paper. In 1792, the printer and proprietors had been prosecuted and acquitted. In January, 1793, six informations were filed in the King's Bench against them for seditious libels, and in November, 1794, they were prosecuted for publishing the address of the United Irishmen to the volunteers. In September, 1796, the office was attacked and ransacked, and Neilson and several others were arrested, conveyed to Dublin, and committed to Newgate, where they remained till the latter part of 1797. In the month of May, 1797, the office was again attacked by a military rabble, the presses broken, the types thrown into the street, and the paper finally suppressed."

These prefatory notices of Neilson will be sufficient-his subsequent proceedings as an actor in the conspiracy, being reserved for their proper place.

Another of the northern leaders was Henry McCraken.

His father

was master and part owner of a merchantman. In boyhood, he was taught weaving, afterwards became a cotton-spinner, and, subsequently, overseer of a calico manufactory, established by his uncles and father. With Russell, he was an original member of the first society of United Irishmen. McCraken, it would appear, was at first in very humble consideration with his party-he " was contented to do the work of the society, and leave its honours to those who sought them;" and, according to the shewing of a confederate, was rather engaged as a crimp

than a commander. A low association met in a Belfast public-house, which was employed as a fitting place wherein to introduce strangers, and tamper with the military,* and to these objects McCraken's field of action at that period appears to have been limited entirely.

McCraken's subsequent employment was to unite the opposite religionists-the Defenders and Peep-o'-day-Boys. He came under the surveillance of the executive, was arrested in October, 1796, transmitted to Dublin, and committed first to Newgate, and afterwards to Kilmainham.

After an imprisonment of about a year, McCraken was liberated upon bail. His health had suffered by confinement-but within a few months he once more took an active part in the insurrectionary proceedings, and was placed by the Belfast leaders in communication with the Leinster Directory. His subsequent career belongs to the more advanced period of this memoir.

Some of the Presbyterian ministers were deeply concerned in the conspiracy, and others secretly inclined to favour the revolutionary principles of the times. Generally however, a Generally however, a sense of religious propriety influenced the conduct of that most respectable body—and whatever might have been the extent of private opinion, very few overt exhibitions of it were made.

Among the exceptions, Kelburn, Birch, and Dickson, were most remarkable.

Sinclair Kelburn represented the revolutionary party in Belfast on the memorable occasion in 1792, when the Catholic body despatched their chairman, Edward Byrn, to form a political union with the northern malcontents, and fraternize the opposite religionists. During the succeeding years, Kelburn took a prominent part in the proceedings of the party he had attached himself to, and in 1797 he was arrested and imprisoned. The violence of Birch in and out of the pulpit exposed him also to Government persecution. Dickson, the most talented and dangerous of the three, was a bold and fluent speakerbut the "drum ecclesiastic" was beneath the flight of his ambitionhe aspired to military distinction--and a man who could not direct the relief of a sentry, was actually, after Russell's arrest, advanced

"The Mudler's club,' of Belfast, held at a public-house in 'Sugar-House Entry,' was resorted to a good deal by strangers on coming from the country, and by townsmen of the middle class. The rules of the club were set in a frame, and left on the chimney-piece every evening. Its ostensible business was jovial amusement, its real one, extending the connection of the Society of United Irishmen, and it was visited by every man of known integrity who came on business to town; and if any of the members could not attend, it was always known where they were to be found in case of necessity. Its members were also expert in observing and frustrating the designs of the enemy. In this club many things were told in personal confidence that could not be safely communicated to the society; yet this secrecy was merely imaginary, for Hughes the informer was one of its earliest visitors. But, until Castlereagh got initiated by Jemmy Brees into the secrets of the Union, and thereby gained a knowledge of all its ramifications, there was no design of our opponents for which Henry Joy McCraken was not an overmatch. This club, on all important occasions, had the advantage also of the solid advice of Russell, and of Neilson's ability and activity."-Madden's Lives, &c.

from the responsible appointment of adjutant-general, and nominated commander-in-chief! No stronger proof of the miserable incapacity of the rebel leaders could be offered, than that the insurrectionary direction of 20,000 men, whose movements must, of necessity, be desultory, uncombined and irregular, and which required no common military tact and experience to systematize and render effective, should be intrusted to a noisy demagogue, whose soldiership, like Michael Cassio's, was mere prattle without practice." And yet to the arrest of this individual the total failure of the northern rising has been attributed.*

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Of the Presbyterian clergy many were so seriously implicated in the conspiracy, that three expiated their offences on the scaffold, and others were expatriated, or subjected to arrest and long imprisonment.

With a short notice of one who actually, like McCraken, commanded when the sword was unsheathed, and the brief and illdirected outbreak in Ulster was idly made, and bloodily suppressed, we shall leave the United Irish leaders of Leinster and the North, to future notices, when their respective parts were individually enacted. The person we allude to, was the commander at Ballanahinch.

Henry Munro carried on the business of a linen-draper in Lisburn. Early in life he had been a volunteer-and from having acted as adjutant to a corps, it was supposed that he had acquired some military experience. To "play at soldiers," is one thing to "handle troops," another. Among the rebel leaders many individuals of splendid literary and legal abilities were found; but, with a solitary exception, not a man exhibited the slightest proof of possessing military talent. I was assured by an old French officer who knew Tandy, that his strategic abilities were so mean, that he could not comprehend the simplest movements-Tone's revelations shew that he had no conception whatever of the duties of an officer-and Munro evinced a drivelling folly, which, were it credible, would place him even beneath contempt. Indeed, throughout the short and bloody struggle which attended the explosion of the conspiracy, the daring courage frequently displayed by the peasant, was generally proportionate to the imbecility exhibited by the leader.

The Southern chiefs were generally confined to priests and farmers -ignorant, bigoted, and sanguinary, the violence of their followers

* That we have not undervalued the military qualifications of the insurgent leaders, may be collected from the following passage, in which, Teeling, in his "Personal Narrative," describes the effect of the arrest of the dissenting minister :-"To supply the place of Dickson was not an easy task, nor to restore that confidence to the minds of his countrymen which his arrest had sensibly weakened. Down urged the necessity of delay, but Antrim was resolved-was already committed. Her military chiefs had assembled in council; numbers had quitted their homes for the field; they had bidden an affectionate, and some an eternal adieu to the objects of their tenderest regard. All waited orders from the first in command, when, to their inexpressible astonishment, his formal resignation was announced. There was now no safety in return, no encouraging hope in advance; the secession of the chief communicated doubt and alarm to others; mutual suspicion and mutual fears were excited in the breasts of all the council wavered in their decisions-they ordered and counter-ordered, and eventually retired to deliberate anew,"

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