Yet the time, as I have said, was full of excitement, political and social. There were wars and rumours of wars, some men’s hearts failing them for fear, others beating with the expectation of a millennium of Liberty. It was impossible that the great agitation of the country should not reach the ardent spirits whom the late Provost had permitted or encouraged to mix in the world. They had, moreover, started a debating club, the Historical Society, which, after various modest beginnings and failures, became of recognised importance towards the waning of the century. The very essence of these debating societies is to transgress sober discipline; for while it is the duty of Governors of a College to keep their students’ attention upon abstract science, pure philosophy, and classical languages, it is the one aim of debaters to avoid such subjects, and choose those of present and burning interest. Moreover, in those days the modern engines of the press and the platform had not accustomed men to discount the mendacities, the false passion, the gross exaggerations of political oratory. Generous natures were more easily carried away than they now are, when the poison and the antidote succeed one another in the columns of the same newspaper. Wolfe Tone found even among the Fellows two distinguished men, John Stack and Whitley Stokes--these family-names have been for more than two centuries frequent in the honour-rolls of the College--who adopted the views of the United Irishmen, and admitted the principle of making Ireland an independent nation. It is hard to avoid the observation that Boulter’s policy of filling every post of importance with English placemen must have been a powerful agent in turning the opinions of the professional men in Ireland in this direction. Presently the College was seized with military ardour; a yeomanry corps was established, in which four companies were commanded by four lay Fellows, for the purpose of aiding the Government in the impending crisis. But along with the ardour for amateur soldiering so universal among civilians, there crept in the feeling that, with arms in their hands, men should secure not only peace and order in the country, but some recognition of the claims of Ireland, so long neglected and postponed to the most vulgar English interests. One of the captains was, in fact, already an United Irishman, though he seems to have been deterred from going as far as Wolfe Tone would lead him, by Tone’s open assertion that the liberties of the country must be attained even through arms and blood.