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334 THE NAVAL MUTINIES OF 1797
warning to Admiral King that Connolly was " a very
dangerous person," and H was intended to be sent by
the United Irishmen of Dublin to stir up sedition in the
fleet." And he added that Connolly was a poet and had
composed several seditious songs about the Mutinies.
But these events came after the first outbreak in 1796.
The question remains whether the same plan had been
adopted before any actual mutiny had occurred. Wolfe
Tone's letter is not conclusive in itself, because it is
not dated. The doubt is resolved, however, by evidence
from another source. In a letter written by Cooke, the
Under-Secretary at Dublin Castle, in June 1797, it
is said
that more than a year before that time the United Irishmen
in Ulster had openly discussed the chance of a
mutiny in the fleet. 2 This important letter tends to
confirm the date that has been assigned to Tone's address,
and it leaves no room for doubt that the United Irishmen
helped in some measure to bring about the Mutinies, that
long before there was any sign of disorder in the fleet it
had been a part of their policy to seduce the seamen
.from their allegiance.
In all probability the extent of their influence in the
fleet will never be known. It would be easy to refer to
them the whole responsibility for the outbreak; to imagine
that they had planned a general mutiny in the home
fleets in order to clear the seas for the invasions from
France and Holland.
But there are general indications that they had no such
complete plan of campaign before the Mutinies. Even
in 1798 there was no proper co-operation between the
1. Captain Lambert Brabazon to Sir Richard King, 2 June. With
King's dispatch B 456, A.S.I. 312.
2. Cooke to Greville, 21 June (A.S.I. 4172). I have not been able to
find the letter to which he alludes, written by him in the previous year
and containing the rumour of an intention to mutiny. It was probably
a private letter which was not sent to the Admiralty. Cooke was
transferred from the Irish War Office at the beginning of 1795. See an
interesting letter to Buckingham, in which Cooke says :
" It was through
your Lordship's kind and affectionate partiality that I was placed in the
War Office." Buckingham Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 329.