November 28th, 1798: Dublin Evening Post accurately reports on the 22nd that "the county about Arklow has been reduced to a state of perfect tranquillity". But allocating the credit for this to the "unceasing exertions of General Eustace" is somewhat generous, given that the officer in question was twice almost killed by the rebels.
Legal problems continue to arise from the continued presence in Ireland of English militia regiments but many units and individuals are keen to volunteer.
Lieut John Collett of the Warwick fencible cavalry, an Irish speaker, writes from the regimental winter quarters in Yorkshire on the 22nd to put himself at the disposal of Dublin Castle. Collett insists his presence in Limerick, Cork, Tipperary and Waterford where his "connections are numerous and respectable", would "do more . . . than a thousand men in arms."
Intelligence is passed from Whitehall to Lord Castlereagh on the 23rd concerning Capt Doyle, master of the Patrick and Fanny, who couriers messages between the city United Irishmen and those self-exiled in Hamburg. Doyle's continental associates include "Call, a Colonel in the rebel army at Wexford, Reed, who fled lately from Dublin, Duff alias Campbell, but whose real name is Dornan" and one Fullerton.
Dornan is wanted for murder in Drogheda and is part of the circle led by the influential Kerry emissary, William Duckett. They are in contact with the French Directory and with their exiled comrades in Paris. William Wickham is informed several Irish rebels who landed on Rutland Island with Napper Tandy in September have arrived in Hamburg from Bergen, Norway.
The complicated task of effecting union between the legislatures of Britain and Ireland moves Castlereagh to contact his powerful ally, John Beresford, on the 24th. The basic assessment of the Chief Secretary is that "Cork is . . . strongly for it; Limerick also. The subject, though much talked of, is little understood. We shall endeavour in a few days to have it stated; it is necessary to encourage the discussion, else there is some degree of danger of its being disposed of by acclamation".
Shootings and robberies draw part of the Athy garrison from the safety of their barracks to patrol Gracefield Wood on the 25th. Houses suspected of harbouring fugitive rebels and bandits are searched by small groups of the military, one of which is fired upon when approaching a building.
Two armed men attempt to flee but only one escapes, carrying several wounds. The prisoner is found with a musket taken from a Clare militiaman and is consequently suspected of the recent killings of five members of that regiment.
The Limerick mails are robbed outside Monasterevin on the 26th but progress is made against such elements to the south of the capital. Eight United Irishmen, described as "freebooters", are taken from Baltinglass gaol and hanged for a series of "depredations".
This reckoning follows an incident in Dunlavin, Co Wicklow, in which yeoman cavalryman Joseph Molyneaux was seriously wounded by a nervous sentry. The burden of loss, as always, falls most heavily on the dissidents and yet more perish in Wicklow, near Rathdrum, when they are trapped by yeomen in a dugout "under a rock".
Four resist arrest and are shot dead while the remainder are summarily executed upon emerging from the hide. Violence of this order is condoned by Finn's Leinster Journal, which points out on the 28th that the yeomen recover "a quantity of plunder, the spoils of several houses that had lately been robbed in that neighbourhood".