ideas of a naval expedition against England. Meanwhile the gallant General Hoche had died, and Wolfe Tone lost a true friend, with whom, from the beginning of their acquaintance, he had been in thorough sympathy. [Sidenote: 1798--The brink of an Irish rebellion] All this time the condition of things in Ireland was becoming desperate. After the appearance of the fleet in Bantry Bay, and the hopes which it created on the one side and the alarms on the other, the ruling powers in Dublin Castle, and indeed at Westminster, had no other idea but that of crushing out the rebellious spirit of the Irish people by Coercion Acts and by military law. The national sentiment of Ireland counted for nothing with them. It may be safely laid down as an axiom in political history that the men who are not able to take account of the force of what they would call a mere national sentiment in public affairs are not and never can be fit to carry on the great work of government. Ireland was overrun by militia regiments, sent over from England and Scotland, who had no sympathy whatever with the Irish people, and regarded them simply as revolted slaves to be scourged back into submission or shot down if they persevered in refusing to submit. Other forces representing law and order were found in the yeomanry, who were chiefly Orangemen and officered by Orangemen, and who regarded the Catholic peasantry as their born enemies. A state of tumult raged {319} through the greater part of the unhappy island, and there cannot be the slightest doubt that the floggings, hangings, and shootings inflicted by the militia and by the yeomen were in many cases done not so much in punishment as in anticipation of rebellious movements on the part of the Catholics. In the mean time preparations were unquestionably going on in many Irish counties, more especially in Ulster, for an outbreak of rebellion. The organization of United Irishmen was adding to its numbers of sworn-in members every day, and the making of pikes was a busy manufacture all over many of the counties. Grattan and some of his friends made many efforts in the Irish House of Commons to induce the Government to devise some means for the pacification of Ireland other than Coercion Acts, the scourge, the bullet, and the gallows. Finding their efforts wholly in vain, Grattan, Arthur O'Connor, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his brother, and many other men of high character and position withdrew from the Dublin Parliament altogether, and left to the Government the whole responsibility for the results of its policy. It is always to be regretted that a man like Grattan should ever recede from his position as a constitutional patriot in the assembly where alone his counsels can have any practical weight; but of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor the same is not to be said, for these men and many of their friends had made up their minds that the time had come when only in