It was not till the autumn of 1794 that the disturbances in Ireland
became alarming; and in a letter to Dr. Darwin, Edgeworth writes:
'Just recovering from the alarm occasioned by a sudden irruption of
defenders into this neighbourhood, and from the business of a county
meeting, and the glory of commanding a squadron of horse, and from
the exertion requisite to treat with proper indifference an
anonymous letter sent by persons who have sworn to assassinate me; I
received the peaceful philosophy of Zoonomia; and though it has been
in my hands not many minutes, I found much to delight and instruct
me. . . .
'We were lately in a sad state here--the sans culottes (literally
so) took a very effectual way of obtaining power; they robbed of
arms all the houses in the country, thus arming themselves and
disarming their opponents. By waking the bodies of their friends,
the human corpse not only becomes familiar to the sans culottes of
Ireland, but is associated with pleasure in their minds by the
festivity of these nocturnal orgies. An insurrection of such people,
who have been much oppressed, must be infinitely more horrid than
anything that has happened in France; for no hired executioners need
be sought from the prisons or the galleys.
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