Theobald Wolfe Tone, commonly known as Wolfe Tone (June 20, 1763 – November 19, 1798) was a leading figure in the United Irishmen Irish independence movement and is regarded as the father of Irish republicans. He died from a self-inflicted wound after being sentenced to death for his part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Born in Dublin, the son of a coach-maker, Tone studied in Trinity College, Dublin where he studied law and qualified as a barrister at the age of 26 and attended the Inns of Court in London. As a student, he eloped with Elizabeth Witherington, whom he renamed Matilda; they had two sons and a daughter. She was only 16 when they married and she lived for 50 years after his death.

Disappointed at finding no notice taken of a scheme for founding a military colony in Hawaii which he had submitted to William Pitt the Younger, Tone turned to Irish politics. An able pamphlet attacking the administration of the marquess of Buckingham in 1790 brought him to the notice of the Whig club; and in September 1791 he wrote a remarkable essay over the signature "A Northern Whig," of which 10,000 copies were said to have been sold.

In October 1791 Tone converted these ideas into practical policy by founding, in conjunction with Thomas Russell (1767-1803), Napper Tandy and others, the Society of the United Irishmen. The original purpose of this society was no more than the formation of a political union between Roman Catholics and Protestants, with a view to obtaining a liberal measure of parliamentary reform. It was only when it was obvious that this was unattainable by constitutional methods that the majority of the members adopted the more uncompromising opinions which Wolfe Tone held from the first, and conspired to establish an Irish republic by armed rebellion.

Tone himself admitted that with him hatred of England had always been "rather an instinct than a principle", though until his views should become more generally accepted in Ireland he was prepared to work for reform as distinguished from revolution. But he wanted to root out the popular respect for the names of Charlemont and Grattan, transferring the leadership to more militant campaigners. Grattan was a reformer and a patriot without democratic ideas; Wolfe Tone was a revolutionary whose principles were drawn from the French Convention. Grattan's political philosophy was allied to that of Edmund Burke; Tone was a disciple of Georges Danton and Thomas Paine.

In 1794 the United Irishmen, persuaded that their scheme of universal suffrage and equal electoral districts was not likely to be accepted by any party in the Irish parliament, began to found their hopes on a French invasion. An English clergyman named William Jackson, who had imbibed revolutionary opinions during his long stay in France, came to Ireland to negotiate between the French committee of public safety and the United Irishmen. Tone drew up a memorandum for Jackson on the state of Ireland, which he described as ripe for revolution; the memorandum was betrayed to the government by an attorney named Cockayne, to whom Jackson had imprudently disclosed his mission; and in April 1794 Jackson was arrested on a charge of treason.

Several of the leading United Irishmen, including Reynolds and Hamilton Rowan, immediately fled the country; the papers of the United Irishmen were seized, and for a time the organisation was broken up. Tone, who had not attended meetings of the society since May 1793, remained in Ireland until after the trial and suicide of Jackson in April 1795. Having friends among the government party, including members of the Beresford family, he was able to make terms with the government, and in return for information as to what had passed between Jackson, Rowan and himself, he was permitted to emigrate to the United States, where he arrived in May 1795. Before leaving, he and his family travelled to Belfast, and it was at the summit of Cave Hill that Tone made the famous Cave Hill compact with fellow United Irishmen, Russel and McCracken, promising "Never to desist in our efforts until we subvert the authority of England over our country and asserted our independence". Living at Philadelphia, he wrote a few months later to Thomas Russell expressing unqualified dislike of the American people, whom he was disappointed to find no more truly democratic in sentiment and no less attached to authority than the English; he described George Washington as a "high-flying aristocrat," and he found the aristocracy of money in America still less to his liking than the European aristocracy of birth. Tone also lived briefly in West Chester, Pennsylvania and Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

The French Directory, which possessed information from Lord Edward FitzGerald and Arthur O'Connor confirming Tone, prepared to despatch an expedition under Louis Lazare Hoche. On December 15, 1796, the expedition, consisting of forty-three sail and carrying about 14,000 men with a large supply of war material for distribution in Ireland, sailed from Brest. Tone accompanied it as "Adjutant-general Smith" and had the greatest contempt for the seamanship of the French sailors, who were unable to land due to severe gales. They waited for days off Bantry Bay, waiting for the winds to ease, but eventually returned to France. Tone served for some months in the French army under Hoche; in June 1797 he took part in preparations for a Dutch expedition to Ireland, which was to be supported by the French. But the Dutch fleet was detained in the Texel for many weeks by unfavourable weather, and before it eventually put to sea in October (only to be crushed by Duncan in the battle of Camperdown), Tone had returned to Paris and Hoche, the chief hope of the United Irishmen, was dead.

Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom Tone had several interviews about this time, was much less disposed than Hoche had been to undertake in earnest an Irish expedition; and when the rebellion broke out in Ireland in 1798 he had started for Egypt. When, therefore, Tone urged the Directory to send effective assistance to the Irish rebels, all that could be promised was a number of small raids to descend simultaneously on different points of the Irish coast. One of these under General Humbert succeeded in landing a force near Killala, County Mayo, and gained some success in Connacht (particularly at Castlebar) before it was subdued by Lake and Charles Cornwallis. Wolfe Tone's brother Matthew was captured, tried by court-martial, and hanged; a second raid, accompanied by Napper Tandy, came to disaster on the coast of Donegal; while Wolfe Tone took part in a third, under Admiral Bompard, with General Hardy in command of a force of about 3000 men. This encountered an English squadron at Rathmullan on Lough Swilly on October 12, 1798. Tone, on board the Hoche, refused Bompard's offer of escape in a frigate before the action, and was taken prisoner when Hoche surrendered.

When the prisoners were landed a fortnight later, Sir George Hill recognized Tone in the French adjutant-general's uniform. At his trial by court-martial in Dublin, Tone made a speech avowing his determined hostility to England and his intention "by frank and open war to procure the separation of the countries"[1]. Recognizing that the court was certain to convict him, he asked "... that the court should adjudge me to die the death of a soldier, and that I may be shot...". Instead, he was sentenced to be hanged on November 12, 1798. Before this sentence was carried out, he suffered a fatal neck wound, self-inflicted according to contemporaries, from which he died several days later at the age of 35 in Provost's Prison, Dublin, not far from where he was born.

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