Above : Painting Of Lord Gosford

Meanwhile, the treatment of the Irish rural population by the authorities was calculated rather to exasperate than to appease their discontents.

In September, 1795, the Orange Society had been founded in the county of Armagh. From the first it was a secret and wholly Protestant association. Armagh had already gained for itself an unenviable notoriety through the bitterness of the religious animosities of its inhabitants and the continual outrages and frequent armed encounters between the opposing creeds which resulted. Scarcely was the new society established when a regular reign of terror set in. Lord Gosford, Governor of Armagh, in an address to thirty of the magistrates of the county, spoke with indignation of the state of affairs. ” A persecution, accompanied with all … circumstances of ferocious cruelty … is now raging in the country,” he declared. Of late no night passes that houses are not destroyed, and scarce a week that dreadful murders are not commuted.” But though, in consequence of this terrible indictment some efforts were made to bring the criminals to justice, and some persons were even punished, the Government was far from showing prope vigour m the matter. On the other hand, the Catholics were treated often on small provocation or none at all; new Coercion Acts will passed; and Corpus Act was suspended. General Lake proclaimed more than half Ulster, and ordered all arms to be surrendered (March, 1797). All sorts of licence was permitted to the soldiers, who tortured the peasants by ” picketings,” half-hangings and the pitch cap. The object generally was to make them reveal where stores of arms were concealed, and numbers of arms do appear to have been discovered by this means. It is certain, however, that hundreds of persons were subjected to cruel treatment who knew nothing of the existence of such stores, and had had no share in any revolutionary projects. Districts always hitherto perfectly peaceful were often provoked into retaliation by the brutalities ‘ of the soldiers sent among them.

Meanwhile, the United Irishmen were vigorously pushing on their preparations for an insurrection. They were collecting and storing arms; obtaining and noting information as to roads, the strength of garrisons, the means of supplying food for troops, and so forth. The first attempt made to bring aid from France had failed; they hoped that another and more successful one would soon be made.