[Illustration:  Theobald Wolfe tone. From a Portrait by his Daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sampson Tone.]

Such was the state of affairs when, in the early part of 1794, an emissary from the French government arrived in Ireland, to ascertain to what extent the Irish people were likely to co-operate with France in a war against England.  This individual was the Rev. William Jackson, an Irish Protestant clergyman, who had for some years been resident in France, and had become thoroughly imbued with Democratic and Republican principles.  Unfortunately, he was not one of the most prudent of envoys.  He revealed his mission to an acquaintance of his, an English attorney, named Cockayne, who repaid his confidence by betraying his secrets to the government.  Cockayne was immediately employed as a spy upon Jackson’s further proceedings, in which capacity he accompanied his unsuspecting victim to Ireland, and acquired cognizance of most of his negotiations.  On the 28th of April; 1794, Jackson was arrested on a charge of high treason.  He was brought to speedy trial, was found guilty, but was not sentenced, for, on the day on which the law’s award was to have been announced to him, he contrived, before entering the court, to swallow a dose of poison, from the effects of which he expired in the dock.  Tone, with whom Jackson was known to have been in confidential communication, was placed by those events in a very critical position; owing, however, to some influence which had been made with the government on his behalf, he was permitted to exile himself to America.  As he had entered into no engagement with the government regarding his future line of conduct, he made his expatriation the means of forwarding, in the most effective manner, the designs he had at heart.  He left Dublin for Philadelphia on the 20th of May, 1795.  One of his first acts, after arriving, was to present to the French Minister there resident a memorial on the state of Ireland.  During the remaining months of the year letters from his old friends came pouring in on him, describing the brightening prospects of the cause at home, and urging him to proceed to the French capital and impress upon the Directory the policy of despatching at once an expedition to ensure the success of the Irish revolutionary movement.

Tone was not the man to disregard such representations.  He had at the time a fair prospect of securing a comfortable independence in America, but with the full concurrence of his heroic wife, who had accompanied him across the Atlantic, he sacrificed those chances and resumed the perilous duties of an Irish patriot.  On the 1st of January, 1796, he left New York for Paris to try what he could do as a diplomatist for the cause of Ireland.  Arrived at the French capital, he had his business communicated to the Directory through the medium of an Irish gentleman, named Madgett, and also by memorial, representing always that the landing