They arrested and imprisoned, without any charge, multitudes of innocent persons, and many of these were only removed from prison to be sent to serve in the navy. Footnote 49: The first Orange lodge was formed on September 21, 1795, at the house of a man called Sloan, in the village of Loughgall, Co. Armagh. Footnote 50: James Hope says that in reality what the Orangemen aimed at was to get the farms of the Catholics who had recently, by their industry in the linen trade, acquired the means of renting desirable farms. Parliament—the famous Irish Parliament, Grattan’s Parliament, came to the rescue of the oppressed by passing the Insurrection Acts and the Indemnity Acts—the objects of which were to give the magistrates a free hand to commit the most illegal outrages against the people without fear of any unpleasant consequences for themselves. It is true that Grattan fought gallantly against these measures, and to his splendid speech in opposition to them we owe much of our information concerning the outrages perpetrated by the “banditti of persecution.” It was felt by the most far-seeing and patriotic of the Irishmen who deplored this appalling state of affairs that the one hope of the country lay in the system of the United Irishmen, which aimed at a real union of Irishmen of all denominations in the bonds of love and loyalty to their common country. In the North, especially, the urgency of this union of hearts was keenly felt, and hence we find the younger men of the advanced party like Henry Joy MacCracken and Lowry, working strenuously with Charles H. Teeling and his brother-in-law, John Magennis, to get “the Defenders” into the ranks of the United Irishmen. Government showed its appreciation of their labours by an unexpected _coup_. The most active protagonists of the policy were suddenly arrested on a charge of high treason and clapped into prison in Dublin. * * * * * On a delightful September morning of the year 1796, Mary Teeling stood on the doorstep of her beautiful home in Lisburn waving a farewell greeting to her husband and her son Charles ere they rode off together on one of those business expeditions—of which the extraordinary affection uniting this father and son always made a pleasure excursion. As she gazed on her stately husband, now in the pride of his years and his honourable prosperity, making a superbly gallant figure, as he always did on horseback, and saw how fine a pendant Charles’s dashing youth and fresh good looks, offered to his father’s, can we wonder if her heart swelled with wifely and maternal pride, and she turned to her home duties with a prayer of thankfulness to God for all the good things that were hers. Alas! Alas! Sorrows and crosses beyond all telling were to follow that radiant moment, and ere the day was over, the fair structure of her life’s peace was to be laid in ruins.