reaped. Willing to fight and ready to die, he would not consent to
conduct a revolution on revolutionary lines. The departure of Doheny and
others--save Devin Reilly, who urged the abandonment of the insurrection
as hopeless--was in pursuance of their plan to await the gathering of
the harvest.

O'Brien's attitude at the Council of War destroyed the last hope of the
insurrection. He expected to get men to fight under his standard while
he essayed no adequate provision for their support in the field, and
interdicted them from interference with private property to supply them
with the necessaries of the campaign. No nobler and braver man has
appeared in modern Irish history than William Smith O'Brien, but at the
head of an insurrectionary movement he was incompetent. There was none
of his lieutenants who, in his position, could not have made the
insurrection to some extent formidable.

That it could have been successful, few will believe. Mitchel and
Meagher agreed that 1848 would not have been the year of Liberation. But
the former held very justly that the insurrection if it grew to
respectable dimensions might have forced terms from England. The
attitude of France at the time was a factor in the situation. The
pro-Irish minister, Ledru-Rollin, had been checked by the pro-English
minister, Lamartine, but General Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon were, for
divergent reasons, inclined to help Ireland against England, and
assurances had been given that if an Irish insurrection gained
considerable initial successes the French Government would exert
influence on England. A successful blow at Carrick and a subsequent
seizure of Kilkenny and proclamation of Irish independence from that
city was possible, and if realised would have probably led to the
counties of Waterford and Tipperary rising en masse. How far the