great and four smaller native armies or military spokes, by which co-operation the whole of the hostile force could not escape being destroyed, captured, or driven out of the country! If, finally, according to the only alternative that remains to be considered, the invader should so far "strive with things impossible and get the better of them," as to drive in all the provincial and minor armies of the island upon that of the Centre at Athlone, he would there have to meet, with his harassed and lessened force, a consolidated mass of troops augmented by a numberless amount of enthusiastic irregulars, armed with Montecuculi's " queen of weapons," the pike, of which General Cockburn said, that even, in 1804, there were materials, carpenters and smiths enough to arm ALL Ireland in a fortnight!"49 But, this is a position of Phocian desperation to which such a country as Ireland, if united in herself, could never be driven.50

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49 Military Observations respecting Ireland, &c. p. 57. Sir Jonah Barrington says, that in 1782, the Volunteers would have been aided, in case of a war, by" a million of enthusiasts!" and how much more could Ireland furnish now than it could then?

50 Every Irish reader will, of course, recollect the noble passage in poor Emmet's speech, in contemplation of Ireland's being placed in such a position as the above:

......

"God forbid that I should see my country under the hands of a foreign power. When it has liberty to maintain and independence to keep, may no consideration induce it to submit! If the French come as a foreign enemy, oh my countrymen! meet them on the shore with a torch in one hand-a sword in the other: receive them with all the destruction of war-immolate them in their boats, before our native soil shall be polluted by a foreign foe! If they suc ceed in landing, fight them on the strand, burn every blade of

The above outline of a system of defending Ireland against an invader is analogous in substance to the plan adopted by Napoleon in Spain, in 1808, with this advantage in favour of Ireland, that HER forces would be fighting in their

grass before them, as they advance; raze every house; and, if you are driven to the centre of your country, collect your provisions, your property, your wives and your daughters-form a circle around them—fight while two men are left; and when but one remains, let that man set fire to the pile, and release himself and the families of his fallen countrymen from the tyranny of France!" The bold enthusiasm of these ideas of Mr. Emmet, in reference to a hostile French invasion of Ireland, is conceived in the true spirit of those brilliant periods of ancient patriotism and bravery with the history of which HIS classical imagination was so familiar. "When on the point of sinking under the power of the Thessalians, who had invaded their country with superior forces," says the author of Anacharsis respecting the Phocians, "they constructed a large pile, near which they placed their women, their children, their gold and silver, and all their valuable effects, and left them under the care of thirty of their warriors, with orders, in case of a defeat, to kill the women and children, to throw everything into the flames, and either to destroy each other, or repair to the field of battle and perish with the rest of the nation. The conflict was long, the slaughter dreadful, the Thessalians took to flight, and the Phocians remained free!"—(Travels of Anacharsis, chap. xxii. vol. 11. p. 29.) See, likewise, the undaunted conduct of the Xanthians and Caunians, when invaded by Harpagus, lieutenant of Cyrus (Herodotus 1. 176.); and, again, of the Xanthians, when invested by Brutus (Plutarch, vit. Bruti. Appian, tom. 11. p. 632-3, edit. Schweighauser.); of Boges, the Persian governor of Eion, in Thrace, against the Greeks under Cimon (Herod. vII. 107. Plutarch, vit. Cimon.); of the Sidonians, against Darius Ochus, king of Persia (Diodorus Siculus, XVI. 45. edit. Wesseling.); of the Marmarians, a Lycian people, against Alexander the Great (Diodorus, XVII. 28.); of the Saguntines, when attacked by Hannibal (Livy, XXI. 14. Appian, tom. 1. p. 113-14.); of the Acarnanians, when menaced with a Roman and Ætolian invasion (Livy, XXVI. 25.); of Astapa, a Spanish city, when besieged by Marcius, the lieutenant of Scipio (Livy, XXVIII. 22-23, Appian, tom. 1. p. 140-41.); of Abydus, in similar cir

war.

own, and consequently in a friendly country, whereas NAPOLEON'S armies in Spain were in a foreign and a hostile territory. Again, the French, besides fighting against the military, had also to watch over and keep down the civil population of Spain. They had, moreover, to maintain a long, intricate, and continually-menaced communication with France, since, from it alone, the imperial forces could draw any recruits to make up for the "wear and tear" of Colonel Napier's description of the mode in which Napoleon distributed his troops in the Peninsula, after hearing of the commotion at Aranjuez, is to the following effect. The French, while ranged with reference to the occupation of the most important points, were so stationed, with respect to Murat's head-quarters at Madrid, (at once the capital, and the centre, or Athlone of Spain,) that from that Grand Centre, as regarded the entire kingdom, and from the subordinate centres connected with it, and formed by the respective head-quarters of the French armies branching into the provinces, (on the principle of the four Irish military spokes of 25,000 men,) the forces of no three of those Spanish provinces (such forces being similar to the invader's armies in Ireland between her occupying military

cumstances, against Philip II. of Macedon (Livy, XXXI. 1718. Polybius, tom. XVI. p. 629--637. edit. Schweigh.); and, lastly, the glorious end of the noble wife of Asdrubal at the destruction of Carthage, dying like an emblem of the lofty genius of her country, amidst the last conflagration of its last uncaptured fortress! (Appian, tom. 1. p. 491–493. Tertullian, p. 72 & 157. edit. Rigalt. Zonaras, lib. ix. tom. I. p. 469.)

spokes,) could act in concert without first beating a French corps;" while, adds Colonel Napier, "IF any of the Spanish armies succeeded in routing a French force, the remaining corps could unite without difficulty and retreat without danger!" though, as has been before observed, they were NOT in a friendly but a hostile territory. By this plan Napoleon enabled 70,000 men, the greater part of whom were mere raw recruits, to maintain themselves in a strong and spacious country, inhabited by 11,000,000 of a proud, fierce, fanatical, and exasperated population, who, as the Colonel remarks, were sufficient to have trampled the French under foot, were the latter not so skilfully disposed. On such a Napoleon system of military arrangement, containing all the inherent strength, unaffected by any of the weakness, incidental to the position of the French in Spain, might Ireland be triumphantly defended against any foreign power, however formidable, either by means of a completely Irish or a popular Anglo-Irish army, receiving support and assistance from a friendly country, instead of being situated, like the French, in the midst of a hostile nation.

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The local advantages which a native army, defending Ireland and British connexion, would possess over a foreign enemy, may be divided into the two heads of GENERAL and PARTICULar. The first of these are well summed up and illustrated in

51 Hist. of the Peninsular War, vol. 1. p. 45, 47, 48, 53, 55, 58, and 59.

the following words of the great Frederick of Prussia. "War," says Frederick," must be carried on, either in our own, or in a neutral, or in an enemy's country. If I had no view but to my own glory, I would always prefer making my own dominions the seat of war. As there every man serves for a spy, and the enemy cannot stir a step without its being known, I can then send out large or small parties without apprehension, and make any movements I please without risk! If the enemy is beaten, every peasant becomes a soldier, and harasses the enemy! Of that the elector Frederick William had experience, after the battle of Ferhbellin, where the peasants killed more of the Swedish soldiers, than there were slain in the action; and the same circumstance happened to me after the battle of Hohenfriedberg, where the mountaineers of Silesia brought me in a multitude of Austrian prisoners...... That party always has the advantage which is able to obtain the good will of the people!... In regard to detachments, &c. all that must be entirely regulated by the good or ill disposition of the common people towards you!" 52 Thus much for the GENERAL advantages which a native army would possess in the defence of this country; and, even without taking into consideration the natural military strength of the interior surface of the island, the PARTICULAR advantages that would result from the

52 Cited from Colonel Keatinge's work, chap. xi. p. 82 and 83.

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