Tyrconnell then formed the bold design, without the knowledge of the king, of placing Ireland under the protection of France. The proposition was well received by Louis, but events culminated with such rapidity during the autumn of 1688, that no time was left for diplomacy, for it required the undivided attention of Tyrconnell to repress the spirit of disaffection throughout Ulster as the winter approached. The leaders of the Protestant party in Ireland were alive to all that was taking place, and premonitory symptoms of open revolt were apparent to all. In Ulster, Lord Blaney, Rawdon, Skeffington, Keames, Kelso, and Walker, who had kept a close correspondence with the Prince of Orange since the death of Monmouth, sounded the alarm, and called their followers to arms. Every action or word of the deputy was seized on to excite the passions and fears of their people, and every counter-effort on his part to allay the growing excitement was futile. The time was propitious, and they seized on every event to magnify their danger. The alarm became wide-spread, and the old hatred that so often left the country a prey to foreign adventure was revived in all its bitterness. Fanaticism overruled common sense, and the people were divided. A report was industriously circulated that a massacre of the entire Protestant population of the country was arranged for the 9th of December, with a minuteness of detail that convinced the most incredulous. This was about the date that was to usher in the Prince of Orange. The conspirators knew it, but the people were ignorant. The utmost consternation prevailed; the Protestant people in considerable numbers abandoned their homes, flocked to the sea-shore, and stowing themselves away in the hold of every available craft that presented, passed over to England, while the boldest of them fled to the North to join the standard of William's adherents. Those who reached England awakened the liveliest sympathy for the condition of their Irish brethren, and the most bitter indignation against "the murdering Irish." The arrival of William at Whitehall was the signal for a general onslaught on the English Catholics, and the Irish residents there had to take refuge in immediate flight. The regiments imprudently sent there at the suggestion of Tyrconnell, being placed in small detachments throughout the country, were forced into the usurper's service, or, trying to make their way home, were set upon in detail, and slaughtered mercilessly in the streets and by-ways wherever they passed. Some few fought or forced their way to the seaboard, and through the kindly offices of the English Jacobites, made their way back in the most wretched condition.[8]