of Louis XVI shown more vigour at the outset of the Revolution, the Reign of Terror would probably never have taken place.  Through evidence obtained by torture, the Government got possession of vast stores of arms which the rebels had prepared; by twice seizing the directors of the movement they deprived it of its central organization; and if they were the cause of the rebellion breaking out sooner than had been intended, the result was that they were able to quell it in one district before it had time to come to a head in another.

War at best is very terrible; and there were two circumstances which made the war in Ireland more terrible than others.  It was a religious war, and it was a civil war.  It often happens that when religion is turned to hatred it stirs up the worst and most diabolical passions of the human breast; and the evil feelings brought on by a civil war necessarily last longer than animosity against a foreign foe.  The horrors of 1798 make one shudder to think what must happen in Ireland if civil war ever breaks out there again.

From Ulster the United Ireland movement spread during 1797 to Leinster, as far south as Wexford, and began to assume a more decidedly religious character.  As a contemporary historian wrote:—­

“So inveterately rooted are the prejudices of religious antipathy in the minds of the lower classes of Irish Romanists, that in any civil war, however originating from causes unconnected with religion, not all the efforts of their gentry, or even priests, to the contrary could (if I am not exceedingly mistaken) restrain them from converting it into a religious quarrel.”

(Had he lived a century later, he might have used the same words.) But though this was generally the case, there were complications as embarrassing as they usually are in Irish affairs.  The yeomanry were mainly Protestants, but the majority of the militia were Roman Catholics, and those commanded by Lord Fingall entirely so.  There was much disaffection in both branches of the service; besides which, officers and men alike lacked the discipline and experience of regular troops; but as the supply of soldiers from England was wholly inadequate for the situation, the Government were obliged to rely on any forces they could obtain.  As the rebellion drifted into being a Roman Catholic movement, the Orangemen became intensely loyal, and were eager to fight on the king’s side, but the Government dreaded lest by employing them they might offend the militia.  By 1798, when the rebellion in the south was at its height, the north had become comparatively calm.  The severities of the previous year had had some salutary effect; the staunch Protestants had no desire to aid in what had become a Roman Catholic rebellion; and the republican party had seen that the universal fraternity of the Jacobin Government of France had turned into a military despotism which was engaged in crushing the neighbouring republics and was almost at war with the sister Republic of America.