February 28th, 1798: Maj Joseph Hardy, of the Antrim Militia, issues a pessimistic report from Baltinglass (Wicklow) to the absentee magnate, Earl Fitzwilliam, urging him to postpone his support for religious tolerance in favour of backing only "the loyal armed Protestant". A cache of pikes and firearms is discovered on the Downshire estate at Hollywood on the 25th and Hardy, a childhood tenant of the absentee Englishman, Fitzwilliam, comments: "Liberal as Your Lordship's intentions has been to our enlargement of the material rights of Roman Catholicks (sic), even despairing as they do of foreign aid . . . I do assure you the mass of them look for nothing else but insurrection . . . and are strengthening themselves by pikes and concealed arms . . . In this, their priests do not sufficiently discourage them."
Weakening United Irish resolve in French assistance is also alleged by double-agent Leonard McNally, the associate of Curran and legal adviser to the Ulster Directory. His insights are so valued by Downshire that his precise identity is shielded even from the Castle Executive, who are anxious for him to prosecute the United Irish leadership for high treason.
The reluctant McNally, referred to as "Lord Down shire's friend" or "J.W.", reports that "total separation from England, either with or without foreign aid, is a determined and fixed object, and that to obtain that object the organisation going forward is of its nature perfectly military . . . Men of considerable property are daily uniting, and its progress is no longer slow . . . In Cork, the new organisation is going on rapidly".
Claims of rapid expansion in Ireland and London stem in part from the adoption in early February of a revised structural format by the United Irishmen, rendering their movement more amenable to waging war. Cell size is reduced from 36 to 12 men, led by a sergeant, and they are grouped by tens into companies of 120 and regiments of 1,200 men under elected captains and colonels. The colonels are required to forward three nominees per county to the Dublin leadership, who will appoint one adjutant-general. Lord Edward Fitzgerald's new military sub-committee of the Ulster Directory also orders the colonels to collect comprehensive intelligence on army dispositions and to follow guidelines which will assist mobilisation.
The National Committee's report of the 26th announces the dispatch of delegates from Ulster to Connaught "to organise that province". It declares that it will "pay no attention whatever to any attempt that may be made by either House of Parliament to divert the public mind from the grand object which we have in view, as nothing short of the complete emancipation of our country will satisfy us". The committees of Carlow, Meath, Wicklow, Kerry, Down and Antrim are commended "for their manly offer of emancipating directly", but they are "requested to bear the shackles of tyranny a little longer until the whole kingdom shall be in such a state of organisation".
Returns of 110,990 men for Ulster and 100,634 for Munster are reported, along with figures of 10,865 for Kildare, 11,689 for Queen's County, 9,414 for Carlow and 14,000 for Meath. In all, the committee claims 279,896 adherents, and it has 1,485 pounds in finances in hand from subscriptions.