he had reached the county of Longford he found himself faced,
or indeed all but surrounded, by the royal troops under the command of
Lord Cornwallis. There was nothing for Humbert but to {324} surrender,
and he and his French followers were treated as prisoners of war after
a final and brilliant fight and sent back to France. The Irish
insurgents who had fought under his leadership dispersed and fled after
the surrender, well knowing that they would not be included in its
terms and treated as prisoners of war, and they were pursued by the
royal troops and most of them were killed. Matthew Tone, a brother of
Wolfe Tone, was one of those who had fought under Humbert. He was made
prisoner, taken to Dublin, and executed there within a few days. Thus
ended the second expedition from France for the relief of Ireland.

Wolfe Tone meanwhile was waiting in France, hoping against hope. He
had as yet known nothing of the fortunes and failure of Humbert's
expedition. Some extracts from a letter written to his wife about this
time have a melancholy interest.

"Touching money matters, I have not yet received a sou, and last night
I was obliged to give my last five guineas to my countrymen here. I
can shift better than they can. I hope to receive a month's pay
to-day, but it will not be possible to remit you any part of it; you
must therefore carry on the war as best you can for three or four
months, and before that is out we will see further. . . . I am
mortified at not being able to send you a remittance, but you know it
is not my fault.

"We embark about 3000 men, with 13 pieces of artillery, and I judge
about 20,000 stand of arms. We are enough, I trust, to do the
business, if we arrive safe.

"With regard to myself, I have had every reason to be satisfied; I
stand fair with the General and my _camarades_; I am in excellent
health and spirits; I have great confidence in the success of our
enterprise; and, come what may, at least I will do what is right. The
time is so short that I must finish this; I will, if possible, write to
you again, but if we should unexpectedly sail my next will be, I hope,
from Ireland."

[Sidenote: 1798--The capture of Wolfe Tone]

The embarking to which Tone referred was that of an expedition which
the Directory had at last resolved to {325} despatch from Brest for the
Irish shore. By a somewhat touching coincidence Tone found himself on
board a war-vessel called the "Hoche," which w