ve been lost to
England. But once more the unexpected was destined to occur. Early in
February Jervis shattered the power of the Spanish Fleet off Cape St.
Vincent; and in the summer, just when the Dutch ships, with 14,000
troops on board, were ready to start, and resistance on the part of
England seemed hopeless, a violent gale arose and for weeks the whole
fleet remained imprisoned in the river; and when at length they did
succeed in making a start, the English were ready to meet them within
a few miles of the coast of Holland; after a tremendous battle the
broken remnant of the Dutch fleet returned to the harbour defeated.
The rage and mortification of Wolfe Tone at his second failure knew no
bounds.

In the North of Ireland, however, the rebellion had practically begun.
The magistrates were powerless; the classes who had supported the
gentry during the Volunteer Movement were amongst the disaffected. The
country was in a state of anarchy; murders and outrages of every
sort were incessant. That the measures which the Government and
their supporters took to crush the rising rebellion were illegal
and barbarous, cannot be denied; that they in fact by their violence
hurried on the rebellion is not improbable. But it is still more
probable that they were the means of preventing its success; just as,
had the Government 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