These small storm-centres were all soon to be drawn into a larger one. In 1791 the "Society of United Irishmen" was formed at Belfast. It was merely a patriotic attempt to sink minor differences in an organization in which all could join. With the rising of the general tide of misery it changed in character, and fell into the control of a band of restless spirits led by Wolfe Tone, who maintained that since constitutional reforms had failed, force must be their resort. He sent agents to Paris, and the new French republic consented to assist in an attempt to establish a republic in Ireland. {237} When the year 1798 closed, there had been another unsuccessful rebellion. Ferocity had been met by ferocity, and Wolfe Tone and Edward Fitzgerald (a Geraldine) had perished in the ruin of the structure they had wildly built. Flood and Grattan had stood aloof from this miserable undertaking. It was now eighteen years since the constitutional triumph which had proved so barren. England was in stern mood. Pitt had long believed that the effacement of the Irish Parliament and a legislative union of the two countries was the only solution. The Irish Protestants were shown the benefits of the protection this would afford them, while the bait offered to the Catholics was emancipation, the removal of disabilities which it was intimated would quickly follow. But no one was won to the cause, Grattan, in the most impassioned way protesting against it, and the measure was defeated. Then followed the darkest page in the chapter. It is well known that large amounts of money were paid to the owners of eighty-five doubtful boroughs--boroughs which would be effaced by the union--that peerages and {238} baronetcies were generously distributed, and that shortly after, the measure was again brought up and carried! So by the Act of Union, 1800, the Irish Parliament had ceased to exist, and the two countries were politically merged. It is certain that the union was hateful to the Irish people, and that it was tainted by the suspicion of dishonorable methods, which one hundred years have failed to disprove. It may have been the best thing possible, under the circumstances, for Ireland; but to the Irish patriots it seemed a crowning act of oppression accomplished by treachery.