ution in local, or baronial, committees being modelled
on that of the United Irishmen. A society of United Scotsmen was founded
about the same time; a society of United Britons also came to being, and
issued a fraternal address to the United Irishmen on 5th January.

Most significant of these effusions is one, dated 6 Pluviose An VI [25th
January 1798], by "the Secret Committee of England" to the French
Directory, containing the assurance that Pitt had come to the end of his
borrowing powers and that the people were ready to throw off his yoke.
"United as we are," it concluded, "we now only await with impatience to
see the Hero of Italy and the brave veterans of the great Nation.
Myriads will hail their arrival with shouts of joy: they will soon
finish the glorious campaign." This address was drawn up fourteen days
before Bonaparte set out for Dunkirk. It is clear, then, that its
compilers were not so ignorant as that consequential tailor, Francis
Place, represented them. Their chief mistake lay in concluding that
Bonaparte intended to "leap the ditch." As we now know, his tour on the
northern coast was intended merely to satisfy the Directors and
encourage the English and Irish malcontents to risk their necks, while
he made ready his armada at Toulon for the Levant.[490] Meanwhile the
United Britons and United Irishmen sought to undermine Pitt's Government
so that it might fall with a crash at the advent of the hero of Italy.
They knew not that the chief efforts of the "soldiers of liberty" were
then being directed to the pillage of Rome and of the cantonal
treasuries of Switzerland in order to provide funds for Bonaparte's
oriental adventure.

Already Irish, English, and French democrats had been fraternizing. In
January 1798 the United Englishmen sent over two delegates to Dublin to
concert action, and about the same time a priest of Dundalk, named
O'Coigly (_Anglice_ Quigley), came over from Ireland as a delegate from
the United Irishmen to Evans's Society. Place asserts that his plan of
proceeding to France was not known. But, as Place habitually toned down
or ridiculed the doings of that Society, this is doubtful. Owing to
secret information (probably from Turner, a British spy at Hamburg) the
Government arrested Quigley, Arthur O'Connor, and Binns, a leading
member of the London Corresponding Society, at Margate as they were
about to board a hoy for France (28th February). A little later Colonel
Despard, Bonham,