My Lords of Strogue Volume Iii Part 17

Lord Cornwallis writes to General Ross under date of 1779: 'We have every reason to believe that the French are undertaking a serious attack, and from the most authentic channels we learn that the disaffected are more active than ever in swearing and organising the southern provinces.'[2] And again later: 'That the French will persevere in their attempt to invade Ireland there can be no doubt, and if they should succeed, which G.o.d forbid, in establis.h.i.+ng a war in this country,'[3] etc. At page 86 we find, 'Though the new Directory was never fully formed, yet the spirit of rebellion was carefully kept alive--the flame subtly fanned--till it burst out in 1803 under Robert Emmett.' H. Alexander, Esq., writes to the Rt. Hon. T. Pelham under date January, 1800, that 'Dublin is much and seriously agitated.'

Footnote 2: Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii., p. 56.

Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 60.

My portrait of Lord Clare differs in some respects from the usual conception of that statesman; but I have diligently studied everything concerning him which was attainable, and am convinced that his character was as it is here depicted.

I gratefully take this opportunity of thanking the Press for the unanimously indulgent manner in which they treated 'Lady Grizel'--with one exception, that of a certain weekly print whose _raison d'etre_ is its scurrility; and I further embrace this occasion of reminding the anonymous critic of the said ill-natured print that facts may be slightly distorted for a set purpose rather than through ignorance, and that the critic doth not transcendently exalt either his wisdom or his attainments by pointing out with magnificent scorn that such an event took place in January instead of March; for Macaulay's celebrated schoolboy could do as much or more in a diligent half-hour by the help of that invaluable book 'The Encyclop[oe]dia of Chronology.' For the special benefit of the said sapient critic, however, I append to this discourse a list of the works upon Irish affairs to which I have been indebted, in order that he too may improve his mind, and be the better prepared to hold up to derision the rents and slits in my poor pasteboard armour.

LEWIS WINGFIELD.

Garrick Club, _July_, 1879.

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED IN THE COURSE OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THIS STORY.

Barrington's Personal Sketches, 3 vols.

Barrington's Historic Memoirs of Ireland, 2 vols.

Madden's Irish Political Literature, 2 vols.

Madden's United Irishmen, 4 vols.

Croker's Memoirs of Holt, 2 vols.

Gilbert's History of Dublin, 3 vols.

Maxwell's Irish Rebellion, 1 vol.

Curran's Speeches, 1 vol.

Hardy's Memoirs of Charlemont, 2 vols.

Memoirs and Journals of Wolfe Tone, 2 vols.

Life and Times of Geo. R. Fitzgerald, 1 vol.

Fitz Patrick's Sham Squire, 1 vol.

Fitz Patrick's Ireland before the Union, 1 vol.

Curran's Life, by his son, 2 vols.

Philips's Curran and Contemporaries, 1 vol.

Memoirs of the Earl of Clare, 2 vols.

Walsh's Ireland Ninety Years Ago, 1 vol.

The Spirit of the Nation, 1 vol.

Cornwallis Correspondence, 3 vols.

Castlereagh Correspondence, 3 vols.

Gentleman's Magazine, vols. 53 to 72--19 vols.

Memoirs of Captain Rock, 1 vol.

Father Burke's Refutation of Froude, 1 vol.

Goldwin Smith's Irish History And Character, 1 vol.

Ladies' Museum and Polite Repository, 6 vols.

Martin's Before and After the Union, 1 vol.

Sufferings of Charles Jackson at Wexford. June, 1798, 1 vol.

PAMPHLETS.

Both Sides of the Gutter.

Irish Catholics in 1725.

Ireland: A Satire.

Account of Ireland: A Letter.

Aphorisms Relating to the Kingdom of Ireland.

Causes of the Rebellion, 1799.

THE END.