ddresses in favour of
conciliation were moved in the lords by the prince's friend, Lord Moira,
an Ulster magnate, and in the commons by Fox. They were resisted as
attacks on the government and were rejected. Moira laid the excesses of
the soldiers before the lords in November and again in February, 1798.
The government refused to credit his accounts, or to interfere with the
measures taken by the Irish ministers to suppress rebellion.

The progress of the conspiracy was reported by informers, of whom there
was no lack. Great preparations were, as we have seen, made in France
for a possible invasion of England; the United Irishmen expected that
the French would land in Ireland in the spring, and an organised army
was ready to co-operate with them, under the command of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald. The conspiracy was directed by a committee in Dublin. One of
its leaders, Arthur O'Connor, a priest named O'Coighly, and three more
were arrested at Margate while on their way to France to make further
arrangements. O'Coighly was hanged for treason. Fox, Sheridan, and other
members of the opposition bore witness to O'Connor's character, and he
and the rest were acquitted. He was arrested on another charge and was
sent to Dublin. After the rebellion he, in common with the other
political prisoners, gave evidence as to the conspiracy, and they were
eventually released. No government is worthy of the name that sits still
and allows conspiracy to ripen unchecked. The Irish government did not
do so. It adopted measures of repression which wrecked the plans of the
conspirators and caused secret conspiracy to break prematurely into open
rebellion. It was thus enabled to put an end to a prolonged state of
danger before it could be augmented by the anticipated foreign invasion.
It struck swiftly at the heads of the conspiracy. In pursuance of
information from an officer of the rebel army named Reynolds, fifteen of
them were arrested together in Dublin on March 12. Fitzgerald escaped
for the time. A reward of L1,000 was offered for his detection, and in
May his hiding-place was betrayed. He made a desperate resistance,
mortally wounded one of the officers sent to take him, and was himself
wounded in the arm. He was conveyed to prison, where he died on June 4.

[Sidenote: _REPRESSIVE SEVERITIES._]

The government having crushed the head of rebellion in Ulster, proceeded
to combat it in the midland and southern counties, where it was
distinctl