One fact has to be mentioned, and must be kept constantly in mind when we are studying the grim story of "Ninety-Eight." Every step taken by the rebel leaders {314} was almost instantly made known to the English Government. The spy, the hired informer, was then, as he has always been, in the very thick of the Irish national movement. Some of the informers in "Ninety-Eight" were of a different class from that of the ordinary police spy; and it has been made quite certain by subsequent discoveries that Wolfe Tone and Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Connor and the Emmets were in the closest friendly association with men whom they believed to be as genuine Irish patriots as themselves, but who were all the time in the pay of Pitt, and were keeping him well informed of every plan and project and movement of their leaders. As political morals were then and are perhaps even now, it would be absurd to find fault with Pitt because he made use of the services of spies and informers to get at the plans of a number of men who proposed to invite a foreign enemy of England to invade the Irish shores, and were doing all they could to secure by armed rebellion the independence of Ireland. The wonder that will now occur to every reasonable mind is that the Irish leaders should have failed to guess that whatever money would do would be done by the English Government, as it would have been done by any other Government under similar conditions, to get at a knowledge of their designs and to counteract them. At all events, it is quite certain that while Tone and Fitzgerald and their comrades were playing their gallant, desperate game, the British Minister was quietly looking over their shoulders and studying their cards. [Sidenote: 1797--A French fleet in Bantry Bay]