, and in the autumn the _habeas
corpus_ act was suspended. Corps of yeomanry and infantry were formed by
the gentry for their own protection, and were accepted by the crown. The
defenders coalesced with the United Irishmen, and the society adopted a
military organisation. On different pretexts, such as a potato-digging,
funerals, or football matches, large bodies of men assembled in military
array; guns were collected, and pike-heads forged. Leading members of
the United Irishmen pressed the directory to send an expedition to
Ireland, representing that the catholic peasantry and the dissenters of
Ulster were alike ripe for revolt. Among the most active of these agents
were Wolfe Tone, Arthur O'Connor, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a son of
the Duke of Leinster, a young man of romantic disposition and no special
abilities, who had married a lady of great beauty, well known in French
society, Pamela, supposed to be a daughter of Madame de Genlis by the
Duke of Orleans.

The directors appointed Hoche to command an invading force, and a fleet
of seventeen ships of the line, thirteen frigates, and other vessels
sailed from Brest on December 15 with 15,000 troops and a supply of arms
for distribution. Though an invasion was expected, the fleet met with no
enemy, and evaded a squadron which was on the look-out off Ushant. Some
of the ships, however, were separated from the others, and one of
seventy-four guns was wrecked through the incapacity of the French naval
officers. On the 21st thirty-five ships of the fleet arrived at the
mouth of Bantry bay, "in most delicious weather," wrote Tone, who
accompanied the expedition. Then the wind changed and blew hard. Only
fifteen ships managed to enter the bay, and five of them were forced by
the gale to put out to sea again. The ship on which Hoche sailed did not
arrive. No landing was effected, and, on January 17, the battered fleet
returned to Brest, less five ships lost, six captured by some British
ships lying at Cork, and one of seventy-four guns, which was attacked on
its way home by two English frigates off Ushant, driven ashore, and
wrecked.

If the wind had remained light and favourable, or if the French had been
better seamen, and their force had landed, Ireland would probably have
been conquered for a time, for the country was drained of regular
troops. Between Bantry and Cork were only 4,000 men hastily collected at
Bandon, and stores and artillery were virtually non-existe