Dropmore, May 1st, 1798.
MY DEAREST BROTHER,
I got your letter here last night. I should not have gone out of
town even for one day, if I had not understood from Dundas that the
Duke of York, though quite determined against adopting the
substitution you propose, seemed to think that in order to avoid
putting you under difficulties of any sort, he could forbear to
make the demand on your regiment.
I do not say that I like this expedient, but I see no other without
his abandoning a measure which, for one, I should be very sorry to
see abandoned, believing, as I do, that things of much more
importance than the matter of any legal question of a Militia Act,
depend upon it. I really believe that you are not accurately
informed when you speak of the wishes of the Militia in general
being against this measure. But on this point you have certainly
better means of knowing individual opinions than I can have. On the
legal point, the opinion of the King's law servants must of course
be the only guide for a Commander-in-chief, even if he were not a
Prince of the blood, but much more when he is so, and consequently
not supposed to enter into discussions of that sort, or to be
responsible for them.
I grieve that in these times you should set the example of raising
these questions; but I am confident you would not do so if you did
not think it right. I own I should have thought that any idea of
_disobeying, as a Militia officer_, a command of the
Commander-in-chief, was out of the question in the present moment,
and that if the case (I had almost said) which you yourself put,
had occurred, that of being ordered to embark on board Lord
Bridport's fleet, you would have done so, with a protest of _ne
trahatur in exemplum_.
Dundas will, as I understand from him, explain to you what he
considers to be the case about your letter, which he states to me
to have been an official letter addressed, I think, to P. W. Howe
or his Adjutant-General, and which therefore he did not consider in
any other light than as an accurate statement of the doubt given in
officially and meant to be so considered. But all this is of very
little consequence in comparison of that of the light in which the
thing itself places you, if it were possible that you could adopt
the resolution you speak of.
I take it for granted that Dundas's Bill is meant only to extend to
British subjects, or may easily be so limited. As such, it is
surely highly advantageous in the present moment to have the
services of the men who, of all British officers, have seen the
most real service.
I do not think that the Vienna news at all lessens the expediency
of calling out the remaining third of the Militia. It is highly
probable that the French, seeing that they cannot hope to contend
again with England and Austria joined together, may determine to
accelerate their attack on us, and put the whole on that one
desperate issue.
Ever, my dearest brother,
Most affectionately yours,
G.
The insurrection in Ireland was now approaching the moment which had
been arranged by the rebels for the final move upon the capital. The
whole plan of the rising, which was to have taken place on the 23rd of
May, appeared in the details of a paper found upon the person of Lord
Edward Fitzgerald, whose capture on the 19th frustrated the designs of
the infatuated conspirators. Measures of the most careful precaution had
been previously taken by the Government. Sir Ralph Abercromby, who had
been in command of the army, and expressed a wish to retire, was
replaced by General Lake, whose knowledge of the country afforded the
strongest assurance of success in the vigorous proceedings it became
necessary to adopt.
The presence of the military in the disturbed districts, and the
numerous seizures of arms and arrests of members of the provincial
committees that were organized over the country, had considerably
deranged the plans and weakened the resources of the confederacy
previously to the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, which effectually
crushed the hopes of the rebels, although for some months afterwards
they carried on a sort of flying campaign, with a desperation and
ferocity that constantly baffled the operations of the regular troops.
Lord Edward Fitzgerald died on the 3rd of June from the effects of the
wounds he received in the frantic resistance he offered to the persons
who arrested him.