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290 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
had received sufficient aid from France. But the excesses committed by the Crown forces and sanctioned by the aforementioned Acts, forced the people into a premature and irregu- lar revolt. The force on which the Irish Government mainly relied was the brutal yeomanry. The yeomanry was a volunteer body recruited by the Protestant gentry and well-to-do farm- ers and employers and largely composed of bigots, and set up to aid the Government.
Together with the militia, the yeomanry were let loose upon the country, and both yeo- men and militia, and to a lesser extent the regular troops, practiced flogging, half-hanging, carding, and pitch-capping, among other atrocities, throughout Ireland in the course of searching for arms and rebels. In fact, General Abercromby, who at the time was com- manding the British forces in Ireland, was so disgusted by the brutal antics employed by the various military bodies serving under him that he resigned his command, saying ‘that the soldiers’, meaning the regulars, militia, and yeomen, ‘had sunk to such a depth that they were formidable to everybody except the enemy’. But instead of herding and yoking the people into submission, this campaign of savagery roused them, and sent thousands into the ranks of the United Irishmen.
Now, that said, the Government was well informed of the plans of the ever growing Society of United Irishmen. But, despite great provocation, the Society shrewdly refrained from rising as their leadership were acutely aware that a largely unarmed and undisciplined force, no matter how large, could easily be wiped out by a disciplined regular army.
At the time, Theobald Wolfe Tone was continuing with his lobbying in France, a land which was still at war with England, and emissaries were constantly coming and going be- tween the Directory of the United Irishmen and Tone and the French Directory, who were still promising, but delaying further aid.
The Dutch, too, at this time, were also yearning to topple the power of the English, and with this desire in their sights they too turned their eyes to Ireland. At length, both the Dutch and the French arranged that a joint fleet, acting in concert, would set sail for Ireland. Unfortunately, the Dutch fleet, with an army of 14,000 which sailed in October 1797, was disastrously defeated by the English, thus ending another hoped for expedition.
Though ill-prepared as they were, the United Irishmen now realised that they had to act themselves, in some form, and consequentally they began preparations for a planned rising in 1798. To this aim, Lord Edward Fitzgerald was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of the Society, while Father James Coigly-modern Quigley, and the Cork born
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