10 October 1798: The first reliable accounts of Nelson's stunning naval victory in Aboukir Bay, Egypt, on August 1st, dominates press coverage.
Dispatches regarding the "Battle of the Nile" reveal the action to be one of the most decisive achieved by the royal navy. The transports which landed Napoleon's army in Egypt are destroyed, not merely sapping the offensive capacity of French sea power in the Mediterranean but stranding a major element of their ground forces in north Africa.
Provisions are made on October 6th by the navy pay office to return the personal effects of 10 disaffected Irish seamen executed for attempted mutiny on HMS Defiance. Wicklow woman Jane Drifferdon, of Bellvue (Delgany); Mary Keegan, of Church Lane, Drumcondra (Dublin); and the Bradys, of Ennisbeg (Cavan); are amongst those to receive the goods.
Supporters of government are encouraged by the enactment of legislation setting up a commission "for the relief of suffering loyalists". Lord Kilwarden, the Archbishop of Cashel, the bishops of Killaloe and Kilmore, Justices Downes and Chamberlain, P Annesley, E Latouche and S Hamilton will dispense compensation to those incurring losses in defence of the government. Claims for less than £100 are delegated to a panel of three magistrates.
Cork's "respectable inhabitants" make known their "general resolution" to change the name of Grattan Street to Duncan Street. This honours the victor of the battle of Camperdown at the expense of the distrusted former patriot leader.
Bishop Caulfield is "really sorry" for the impending transportation of "innocent simple Dixon". The bishop speculates that an "unfavourable report" on the Wexford priest's case must "have been made by the committing officer in Waterford, where he was tried". The Wexford commander, Maj Gen Hunter, is sympathetic to this patent miscarriage of justice but is powerless to interfere in Asgill's Waterford jurisdiction.
The death of Capt William Hume takes place on October 8th when the Wicklow MP falls in at Kaideen with mounted and uniformed rebels he mistakes for yeomen. A well-liked moderate, Hume is ahead of his corps and wearied by an overnight patrol when he becomes the third Wicklow yeomanry leader killed in action. To Lord Charlemont he was "that best of men, the friend and favourite of his country`' whose death is an "atrocity which perhaps exceeds all that went before it".
The Courier ascertains that "one of the desperate villains, who was dressed in an officer's outside coat . . . drew forth a pistol, the ball from which entered the captain's side, and being brought to the ground by the wound, another of the party shot him through the head in view of his own corps".
A worrying pattern of disaffection in the navy is implied by a Freeman's Journal report concerning trials held at Plymouth on October 9th. Eight Irish crewmen of the Glory are convicted of plotting to "murder the Protestants" and will hang at Cawland Bay. More specific information available to the Hibernian Journal reveals that they are suspected United Irishmen who intended killing their officers and defecting with their ship to a French port.
This was also the plan of 16 United Irishmen on board the 50-gun Diomede who are now under arrest in Sheerness. Glory sailors William Regan, Patrick Murphy, George Norton, James Clancy and Lawrence Dowd and marines John Hoare, William Gibbon and Thomas Dillon are capitally convicted. John O'Brien, Denis Mahoney and Richard Holmes will receive 100 to 200 lashes, 12 months solitary confinement and be "mulct of all their pay".
