Page 299 - Demo

Chapter eight 299
“Had he arrived in Ireland six months earlier and displayed the same intrepidity and enterprise by which he forced his way through Castlebar and on to the Shannon, events might have taken a diferent turn and a new chapter be written in the history of Ireland.”
(The French Invasion of ‘98, Western People, 30 April, 1904)
Shortly after the Battle of Ballinamuck, a French vessel containing a small military force commanded by James Napper Tandy landed in Donegal, but being made aware of Hum- bert’s surrender, the vessel quickly set sail and departed.
A inal French expedition under the military command of General Hardy with ten ships commanded by Admiral Bompart, and about 3,000 men, and with Wolfe Tone aboard, came into Lough Swilly in September. Bompart’s small armada was attacked by a large and powerful English squadron commanded by Admiral Sir John Borlace Warren and after a long and iercely contested naval battle, the French were overcome and the survivors, Tone among them, were taken prisoner. Theobald Wolfe Tone was later tried by courtmartial in Dublin and sentenced to be hanged-despite his plea that as a commissioned oicer of the French Army he should be shot by a platoon of soldiers. His request was not granted, and he died, it is alleged, by his own hand, on the eve of his execution.