Moore's diary remains a key
source for the 1798 rebellion in Ireland being one of the half dozen generals
involved in Lake's attempts to affect a ring of steel around the rebels encamped
on Vinegar Hill. He's more often cited for his initiative in dispatching two
regiments (contrary to orders) to relieve Wexford town thereby saving perhaps a
hundred or more captive loyalists from certain execution at the hands of
renegade demagogue James Dixon but his real merit (any good general would've
done likewise) lies in the quality of commentary he provided;
"I made a speech yesterday to the troops. I reprobated some meetings of Orange boys (Protestants) which, as I had heard, had taken place. I said that if by such meetings they had intended to form a union to defend their country, they were unnecessary, as every good man had already determined in his heart to do so, and they, as soldiers had already sworn to do it; but if it was to create a distinction and second interest from the Catholics, it was wicked and must be punished. Ireland was composed of Roman Catholics and Protestants. The Government had entrusted both equally with her defence. A union of both was necessary for this purpose. Distinctions of this kind were illiberal, and for a man to boast or be proud of his religion was absurd. It was a circumstance in which he had no merit; he was the one or the other because his parents were so before him, and it was determined for him before he had any choice. Any man might fairly pride himself on being just and honest, but not on his religion. If they followed the doctrines of the one or the other they would be upright."
The government hadn't in fact trusted both "equally", as the militia, though drawn from Catholic ranks were officered exclusively by Protestants and were moreover balloted compulsorily after the disbanding of the Volunteers in 1794; leading to the infamous 'militia riots' up and down the country. It's a forgivable rhetorical sleight of hand though. Bottom line, as far as Dublin Castle were concerned, the defence of the country couldn't be left in the militia's hands with any confidence (United Irish infiltration was on-going & pervasive) which is why they authorised the raising of a Yeomanry Guard drawn initially from the Protestant tenantry of the Ascendency but increasingly in 1797/8 from the multitude of Orange Lodges which had rapidly proliferated after the Battle of the Diamond (1795).
It was to counter this negative tendency; the slide towards further sectarianizing the conflict which "Orange" recruitment inevitably entailed, that Moore principally objected. He was consistent throughout on this point and backed Abercrombie's attempts to reform the military governance in Ireland on the grounds that the hitherto dispersed regiments were at the beck and call of over zealous magistrates eager to quash any and all suspected oath takers & arms hoarders. Imbibing their bad habits this led to the calamitous over-extension of house-burnings, floggings & tortures which characterised the weeks preceding the outbreak.
All of this could have been nipped in the bud had Abercrombie been listened to; but Camden (the Viceroy) was overpowered by the ultra-Protestant cabal in his privy council (Foster, Beresford, Fitzgibbon) who pushed for an increasingly punitive military response. An Indemnity Act was passed which nullified legal proceedings against criminal acts performed by the military in their attempts to recover pikes and other weaponry but in effect it was more utilised by Protestant 'ultras' and their yeomanry hell-bent on stamping out what they took to be a generalised Catholic conspiracy to extirpate their religion and reclaim lost lands and title a-la the doom-laden prognostications of John Temple & co.
The Catholics for their part were fed a corresponding myth of Orange intentions to extirpate them in turn; circulated in handbills possibly originating in the O'Connor faction of the United Irish National Executive. When Abercromby was forced to step down Moore offered to hand in his own resignation along with that of his old West Indies colleague but his mentor would hear none of it - a good thing for the country in the grand scheme of things because Moore's level-headed liberalism & uncommon sympathy with the 'lower orders' were direly needed qualities in those days; Cornwallis restoring some semblance of sanity in July in replacing the appalling Lake and instituting the reforms both Abercromby and Moore had called for all along.
Arthur Bryant's comment seems consistent with the type of character you meet in the diary;
"Moore's contribution to the British Army was not only that matchless Light Infantry who have ever since enshrined his training, but also the belief that the perfect soldier can only be made by evoking all that is finest in man - physical, mental and spiritual".
Moore supported a fully enfranchised Catholic electorate in Ireland including the right to hold parliamentary seats so his speech to the troops quoted above wasn't mere rhetoric - and this stance certainly put him at odds with the majority Protestant landlord opinion with whom he had to work throughout the Rising. He takes a delicious swipe at some of the Cork gentry who make incessant demands of him to dispatch his troops to one troublesome spot in order to retrieve pikes on account of the amount of trees that have been felled in the vicinity. This was a sure sign that pike-making was being carried out on an industrial scale and Moore knew it; but he refused to allow his men free quarters (i.e. imposing themselves on the peasantry and using all means at their disposal to extract 'confessions') telling the increasingly paranoid squires that had they treated their tenantry better they wouldn't be in such dire need for fuelstuffs!! - this was the essence of the stand-off between Abercromby and Dublin Castle and Moore was one of his staunchest supporters in the country.
Military hard-liners like Lake were later congratulated for the 'successful' dragooning of Ulster in the spring and Autumn of 1797 and there's no doubt the methods employed (house-burning, floggings & torture) were a major setback to the underground resistance there but your essentially playing with fire adopting these tactics - in Wexford it backfired catastrophically, most people who "came out" and assembled at Oulart, Enniscorthy and Vinegar Hill did so for fear of their lives - not because they were sworn United men; "better die like men than be chased like rabbits" as Fr. Murphy of Boolavogue put it. A priest who all along compelled his parishioners to adopt the official line of the Church - which was complete co-operation with the authorities.
Militia and Yeomanry simply over-stepped the mark, hung and burnt out too many innocents; pikes were retailing ten times their face value as people were desperate to hand in something, anything to the authorities lest their homes be set on flame. Certificates were being issued in return for weaponry but Yeomanry started to attack those with the vouchers on the grounds that this clearly implicated guilt. In the end folks were afraid to hand in anything; damned if you do, damned if you don't - the transparent lack of logic behind the policies stemmed from poor discipline as Abercromby forewarned; "an army formidable to everyone but the enemy"; the regulars are always meant to hold out a higher standard to be emulated by irregular fencibles, militia & yeomanry and this leadership was sorely lacking. The other point about Abercromby's tactics in keeping the army centrally located and under a tighter command structure (as opposed to the dissipation entailed in being levelled on the peasantry) was to ensure the presence of cohesive well-drilled units if and when the widely expected French landing were to take place.
Throughout 1798, Pitt's intelligence contacts knew of a rapidly burgeoning French fleet in Brest & the Mediterranean; a launch was imminent but they had no idea the decision had been taken by the Directory/Napoleon to take to Egypt thereby cutting off the Indian trade routes - best guesses were for another attempt at Bantry, Killala or Lough Swilly - so having your army dispersed throughout the country goading the peasantry into rebellion instead of stiffening up coastal defences seems counter-productive on multiple levels. There's a logic too to the ultras position of course; inflaming an early rising by terrorist means would dismantle the underground structure on the castle's terms - a delicate question of timing, intelligence & resources - perhaps Abercromby, like Cornwallis were the 'good cops' used to placate the Whig opposition and the moderate majority with Lake viewed as the necessary mailed fist in times of heightened danger?
Either way, if he hadn't before, Moore certainly cut his teeth in Ireland.
"I made a speech yesterday to the troops. I reprobated some meetings of Orange boys (Protestants) which, as I had heard, had taken place. I said that if by such meetings they had intended to form a union to defend their country, they were unnecessary, as every good man had already determined in his heart to do so, and they, as soldiers had already sworn to do it; but if it was to create a distinction and second interest from the Catholics, it was wicked and must be punished. Ireland was composed of Roman Catholics and Protestants. The Government had entrusted both equally with her defence. A union of both was necessary for this purpose. Distinctions of this kind were illiberal, and for a man to boast or be proud of his religion was absurd. It was a circumstance in which he had no merit; he was the one or the other because his parents were so before him, and it was determined for him before he had any choice. Any man might fairly pride himself on being just and honest, but not on his religion. If they followed the doctrines of the one or the other they would be upright."
The government hadn't in fact trusted both "equally", as the militia, though drawn from Catholic ranks were officered exclusively by Protestants and were moreover balloted compulsorily after the disbanding of the Volunteers in 1794; leading to the infamous 'militia riots' up and down the country. It's a forgivable rhetorical sleight of hand though. Bottom line, as far as Dublin Castle were concerned, the defence of the country couldn't be left in the militia's hands with any confidence (United Irish infiltration was on-going & pervasive) which is why they authorised the raising of a Yeomanry Guard drawn initially from the Protestant tenantry of the Ascendency but increasingly in 1797/8 from the multitude of Orange Lodges which had rapidly proliferated after the Battle of the Diamond (1795).
It was to counter this negative tendency; the slide towards further sectarianizing the conflict which "Orange" recruitment inevitably entailed, that Moore principally objected. He was consistent throughout on this point and backed Abercrombie's attempts to reform the military governance in Ireland on the grounds that the hitherto dispersed regiments were at the beck and call of over zealous magistrates eager to quash any and all suspected oath takers & arms hoarders. Imbibing their bad habits this led to the calamitous over-extension of house-burnings, floggings & tortures which characterised the weeks preceding the outbreak.
All of this could have been nipped in the bud had Abercrombie been listened to; but Camden (the Viceroy) was overpowered by the ultra-Protestant cabal in his privy council (Foster, Beresford, Fitzgibbon) who pushed for an increasingly punitive military response. An Indemnity Act was passed which nullified legal proceedings against criminal acts performed by the military in their attempts to recover pikes and other weaponry but in effect it was more utilised by Protestant 'ultras' and their yeomanry hell-bent on stamping out what they took to be a generalised Catholic conspiracy to extirpate their religion and reclaim lost lands and title a-la the doom-laden prognostications of John Temple & co.
The Catholics for their part were fed a corresponding myth of Orange intentions to extirpate them in turn; circulated in handbills possibly originating in the O'Connor faction of the United Irish National Executive. When Abercromby was forced to step down Moore offered to hand in his own resignation along with that of his old West Indies colleague but his mentor would hear none of it - a good thing for the country in the grand scheme of things because Moore's level-headed liberalism & uncommon sympathy with the 'lower orders' were direly needed qualities in those days; Cornwallis restoring some semblance of sanity in July in replacing the appalling Lake and instituting the reforms both Abercromby and Moore had called for all along.
Arthur Bryant's comment seems consistent with the type of character you meet in the diary;
"Moore's contribution to the British Army was not only that matchless Light Infantry who have ever since enshrined his training, but also the belief that the perfect soldier can only be made by evoking all that is finest in man - physical, mental and spiritual".
Moore supported a fully enfranchised Catholic electorate in Ireland including the right to hold parliamentary seats so his speech to the troops quoted above wasn't mere rhetoric - and this stance certainly put him at odds with the majority Protestant landlord opinion with whom he had to work throughout the Rising. He takes a delicious swipe at some of the Cork gentry who make incessant demands of him to dispatch his troops to one troublesome spot in order to retrieve pikes on account of the amount of trees that have been felled in the vicinity. This was a sure sign that pike-making was being carried out on an industrial scale and Moore knew it; but he refused to allow his men free quarters (i.e. imposing themselves on the peasantry and using all means at their disposal to extract 'confessions') telling the increasingly paranoid squires that had they treated their tenantry better they wouldn't be in such dire need for fuelstuffs!! - this was the essence of the stand-off between Abercromby and Dublin Castle and Moore was one of his staunchest supporters in the country.
Military hard-liners like Lake were later congratulated for the 'successful' dragooning of Ulster in the spring and Autumn of 1797 and there's no doubt the methods employed (house-burning, floggings & torture) were a major setback to the underground resistance there but your essentially playing with fire adopting these tactics - in Wexford it backfired catastrophically, most people who "came out" and assembled at Oulart, Enniscorthy and Vinegar Hill did so for fear of their lives - not because they were sworn United men; "better die like men than be chased like rabbits" as Fr. Murphy of Boolavogue put it. A priest who all along compelled his parishioners to adopt the official line of the Church - which was complete co-operation with the authorities.
Militia and Yeomanry simply over-stepped the mark, hung and burnt out too many innocents; pikes were retailing ten times their face value as people were desperate to hand in something, anything to the authorities lest their homes be set on flame. Certificates were being issued in return for weaponry but Yeomanry started to attack those with the vouchers on the grounds that this clearly implicated guilt. In the end folks were afraid to hand in anything; damned if you do, damned if you don't - the transparent lack of logic behind the policies stemmed from poor discipline as Abercromby forewarned; "an army formidable to everyone but the enemy"; the regulars are always meant to hold out a higher standard to be emulated by irregular fencibles, militia & yeomanry and this leadership was sorely lacking. The other point about Abercromby's tactics in keeping the army centrally located and under a tighter command structure (as opposed to the dissipation entailed in being levelled on the peasantry) was to ensure the presence of cohesive well-drilled units if and when the widely expected French landing were to take place.
Throughout 1798, Pitt's intelligence contacts knew of a rapidly burgeoning French fleet in Brest & the Mediterranean; a launch was imminent but they had no idea the decision had been taken by the Directory/Napoleon to take to Egypt thereby cutting off the Indian trade routes - best guesses were for another attempt at Bantry, Killala or Lough Swilly - so having your army dispersed throughout the country goading the peasantry into rebellion instead of stiffening up coastal defences seems counter-productive on multiple levels. There's a logic too to the ultras position of course; inflaming an early rising by terrorist means would dismantle the underground structure on the castle's terms - a delicate question of timing, intelligence & resources - perhaps Abercromby, like Cornwallis were the 'good cops' used to placate the Whig opposition and the moderate majority with Lake viewed as the necessary mailed fist in times of heightened danger?
Either way, if he hadn't before, Moore certainly cut his teeth in Ireland.
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