o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

VAGUE EXPECTATIONS 335
different forces concerned in the rebellion. The great
weakness of the United Irishmen was the failure to concentrate
their power, to bring all their operations under
the control of one authority. Their intelligence was
always faulty, and for lack of proper information they
were always unduly sanguine. Baseless hopes and
exalted visions took the place of solid and useful plans
of action. Such records of their counsels as remain
show that they cast about for any casual means of
injuring their enemy, and were ready to believe the most
deceptive rumour if only it would bring them hope. In
particular they held the extravagant idea that threequarters
of the men in the fleet were Irish and the
1
-,
whole
of their naval policy seems to have been based on this
misconception. The belief would naturally suggest the
possibility of a general desertion, and it may have
occurred to some of the leaders that a time of mutiny
would be a suitable occasion for the landing of a French
army. But they never made any arrangement for a
combined movement of this sort. In all probability they
expected not so much a mutiny, which would only give
them a temporary advantage, as the complete downfall
of the British fleet, which would leave the French and
Dutch in command of the seas.
If they had had any foreknowledge of the Mutinies
they would surely have given information both to the
French government and to Wolfe Tone. But while the
Mutinies were at their height the preparations at Brest
and in the Texel were being carried on with such leisure
as proves that they cannot have had any connexion with
the disturbances in the British fleet. Apart from the
incredible story of Moreau de Jonnes, who pretended
that he had been involuntarily an agent of the Directory
in the Nore mutiny, there is no sign that anything was
1. This is the proportion mentioned in the proclamation of the Central
Committee (see above, p. 333). Wolfe Tone, as we have seen, thought
that the proportion was at least two-thirds ; and even this estimate was
more than five times too great (see above, p. 330 n.).