there were
gentlemen informers also, who, in many cases, were never so much as
suspected by their dupes. MacNally, the advocate of the United Irishmen,
and Mr. Graham, their solicitor, were both of that class. Thomas
Reynolds, of Killeen Castle, entered their body on purpose to betray
them. Captain Armstrong did the same. John Hughes, a Belfast bookseller,
had himself arrested several times, to allay their suspicions. John
Edward Nevill was equally base and treacherous. However necessary it may
be for the ends of government to employ spies and informers, there is no
necessity for men to commit crimes of the basest treachery. Such men and
such crimes will ever be handed down to posterity with the reprobation
they deserve.

Attempts were now made to get assistance from France. Mr. O'Connor and
Lord Edward FitzGerald proceeded thither for that purpose; but their
mission was not productive of any great result. The people were goaded
to madness by the cruelties which were committed on them every day; and
it was in vain that persons above all suspicion of countenancing either
rebels or Papists, protested against these enormities in the name of
common humanity. In 1797 a part of Ulster was proclaimed by General
Lalor, and Lord Moira described thus, in the English House of Lords, the
sufferings of the unhappy people: "When a man was taken up on suspicion,
he was put to the torture; nay, if he were merely accused of concealing
the guilt of another, the punishment of picketing, which had for some
years been abolished as too inhuman even in the dragoon service, was
practised. I have known a man, in order to extort confession of a
supposed crime, or of that of some of his neighbours, picketed until he
actually fainted; picketed a second time, until he fainted again;
picketed a third time, until he once more fainted; and all upon mere
suspicion. Nor was this the only species of torture; many had been taken
and hung up until they were half dead, and then threatened with a
repetition of this cruel treatment unless they made confession of the
imputed guilt. These," continued his Lordship, "were not particular acts
of cruelty, exercised by men abusing the power committed to them, _but
they formed part of a system_. They were notorious; and no person could
say who would be the next victim of this oppression and cruelty." As
redress was hopeless, and Parliament equally indifferent to cruelties
and to remonstrances, Mr. Grattan and his col