and Evans were arrested. The evidence against all but
Quigley was not conclusive, and they were released. The case against
Quigley depended on a paper found by a police officer in his pocket,
urging a French invasion of England. He was therefore condemned for high
treason and was hanged on 7th June 1798. Probably Quigley had that paper
from a London Society; but if so, why were not its officials seized? In
some respects the Quigley affair still remains a mystery. Certainly it
added fuel to the hatred felt for Pitt by British and Irish
Jacobins.[491]

The evidence against O'Connor was weighty. It was proved that he was the
leader of the party and that he knew Quigley well. He had a cipher in
his possession, which was surely superfluous if, as he stated, he was
travelling on private business. Probably his acquittal was due to his
relationship to Lord Longueville, an influential Irish peer. Fox,
Sheridan, and the Duke of Norfolk also proceeded to Maidstone to answer
for the virtuous and patriotic character of O'Connor, a fact which
probably led the judge to give a strangely favourable summing-up. The
conduct of the Opposition leaders in this matter led their former
comrade, the Earl of Carlisle, to declare that they had now sunk to a
lower political hell than any yet reached. The Government, however, had
not done with O'Connor. He was at once arrested at Maidstone on another
charge (22nd May), and was in prison in Dublin during the rebellion. He
then confessed that he had done more than any one to organize Leinster
for revolt, also that he had had conferences with French generals with a
view to invasion so far back as 1793; and he stated that he knew the
member of the United Irishmen who in the winter of 1796 advised the
French not to come until the spring of 1797.[492] There certainly was
some misunderstanding between the Irish rebels and their would-be
helpers; but the full details are not known. Finally O'Connor was
allowed to retire to France; he became a French general, and helped
Napoleon to concert plans for the invasion of Ireland, assuring him
that, after the work of liberation was done, 200,000 Irishmen would help
him to conquer England.

Meanwhile further news respecting the Franco-Irish plans reached Pitt
through a man named Parish at Hamburg. An American friend of his at
Brussels, while waiting at the municipal office for passports, saw those
of two young Irishmen, named O'Finn, delegates of the United Irish