Two final incidents, either of which a few months earlier might have produced formidable results, brings the dismal story to an end.  In August, just after the rising had been definitely stamped out, General Humbert with a little over a thousand French troops under his command landed at Killala, where he was joined, if hardly reinforced, by a wild mob of unarmed peasants.  From Killala he advanced to Ballina, defeated General Lake, who was sent against him, and moved on to Sligo.  Shortly afterwards, however, he found himself, after crossing the Shannon, confronted with an overwhelming force under Lord Cornwallis, who had recently succeeded Lord Camden, and held double offices of Lord-Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief.  Yielding to the inevitable, Humbert surrendered at discretion, and he and his men were received with due courtesy as prisoners of war.  The account given by the bishop of Killala who was kept prisoner while that town was occupied by the French, will be found to be extremely well worth reading.

The last scene of the drama brings Wolfe Tone appropriately back upon the gloomy stage.  When General Humbert sailed for Killala a much larger French force under General Hardi had remained behind at Brest.  In September this second detachment sailed, Wolfe Tone being on board the principal vessel called the Hoche.  Outside Lough Swilly they were overtaken by an English squadron, and a desperate struggle ensued.  The smaller French vessels escaped, but the Hoche was so riddled with shot and shell as to be forced to surrender, and was towed by the victors into Lough Swilly.  Here the French officers including Wolfe Tone were hospitably entertained at dinner by Lord Cavan.  While at table Tone was recognized by an old school friend, and was at once arrested and sent prisoner to Dublin.  A court martial followed, and despite his own plea to be regarded as a French officer, and therefore, if condemned shot, he was sentenced to be hung.  In despair he tried to kill himself in prison, but the wound though fatal, was not immediately so, and the sentence would have been carried rigorously out but for the intervention of Curran, who moved for a writ of Habeas Corpus on the plea that as the courts of law were then sitting in Dublin, a court martial had no jurisdiction.  The plea was a mere technicality, but it produced the required delay, and Wolfe Tone died quietly in prison.

LIV.

THE UNION.

By the month of August the last sparks of the rebellion of ’98 had been quenched.  Martial law prevailed everywhere.  The terror which the rising had awakened was finding its vent in violent actions and still more violent language, and Lord Cornwallis, the Lord-Lieutenant, was one of the few who ventured to say that enough blood had been shed, and that the hour for mercy had struck.  The ferocity with which the end of the contest had been waged by the rebels had aroused a