The Age of the Democratic Revolution. A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800

734 Chapter XXX

mously, and, when found out, apologized for it as intended only for “the vulgar.” Its
tone and message may be judged from the following excerpt:

Tom: Pooh! I want freedom and happiness the same as they have got in

France.

Jack: What, Tom, we imitate them?... Why. I’d sooner go to the Negers to

get learning, or to the Turks to get religion, than to the French for freedom

and happiness.... Instead of indulging in discontent... (for envy is at the

bottom of your equality works), I read my Bible, go to Church, and think of

a treasure in Heaven.

Tom: Aye, but the French have got it in this world.

Jack: ’Tis all a lie, Tom. Sir John’s butler says, his master gets letters which say

’tis all a lie.^46

THE ABORTIVE IRISH REVOLUTION OF 1798

Whether the Irish rebellion of 1798 should be thought of as an unsuccessful revo-
lution is perhaps optional. As Wolfe Tone said shortly before his suicide in prison,
in such matters it is success that counts: “Washington succeeded, and Kosciuszko
failed.”^47 In any case the Irish uprising was of significant magnitude, involving a
population equal to that of the United States, and half that of England. The dis-
contents were put down by force, and a good deal of force proved to be necessary.
Late in 1798 there were 140,000 British troops in Ireland, of whom half could be
called regulars; and this half, or 70,000, was twice as many as the number of British
soldiers that ever fought on the Continent against the French Republic and Em-
pire from 1793 through the battle of Waterloo.^48

46 Village politics, addressed to all the mechanics, journeymen and day labourers in Great Britain, by Will
Chip, a country carpenter, 3rd ed. (London, 1793), 5, 18; Altick, English Common Reader, 67–77.
47 Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 2 vols. (Washington, 1826), II, 531. Tone’s diary and autobiography,
especially in this first edition with its large appendix of other documents, remains a principal source
for the United Irish movement. For sources and older studies see S. Simms, “A Select Bibliography of
the United Irishmen,” in Irish Historical Studies, I (1938), 158–80. For more recent work: R. Jacob, The
Rise of the United Irishmen, 1791–94 (London, 1937); R. Hayes, Biographical Dictionary of Irishmen in
France (Dublin, 1949); R. B. McDowell, Irish Public Opinion 1750–1800 (London, 1944); H. Nicol-
son, The Desire to Please; A Story of Hamilton Rowan and the United Irishmen (New York, 1943); B. Ing-
lis, The Freedom of the Press in Ireland, 1784–1841 (London, 1954); C. Dickson, The Wexford Rising in
1798 (Tralee, 1956); and the studies by two Americans: H. L. Calkin, “La propagande en Irlande des
idées de la Révolution française,” in Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 139 (1955),
143–60, and Les invasions d ’Irlande pendant la Rév. fr. (Paris, 1956); and J. H. Stewart, “The French
Revolution on the Dublin Stage,” in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, XCI (1961),
183–92; “Burke’s Reflections in the Irish Press,” in French Historical Studies, II (1962), 376–90, and
“The Irish Press during the French Revolution,” in Journalism Quarterly, X X XIX (1962), 507–18.
48 Buckingham to Grenville, Dublin, November 5, 1798: communications are “almost stopped”
despite “71,000 effective regulars and 47,000 yeomanry” (plus some militia), Dropmore Papers, IV, 362.
Not counting Hanoverians and other Germans in the British army, the British had about 36,000