[I]t is our principle that if a nation wills a bad government it ought to have that government. We have no power, and we have no right, to force men … - Wolfe Tone

<nowiki>[</nowiki>Charles de La Croix<nowiki>]</nowiki>...asked me did I know one Simon, a priest. I answered...that I had a strong objection to letting priests into the business at all; that I had the very worst opinion of them, and that in Ireland especially they were very bigotted and very ignorant, slaves to Rome and of course enemies to the French Revolution.

What will the French government do in the present crisis? After all, their aid appears to be indispensable, for the Irish have no means but numbers and courage—powerful and indispensable instruments, it is true, but which after all require arms and ammunition, and I fear they are but poorly provided with either. They have an army of at least 60,000 disciplined men to contend with, for, to their immortal disgrace and infamy, the militia and yeomanry of Ireland concur with the English tyrant to rivet their country's chains and their own; and, to my great mortification, I see some of my old friends in the number, Griffith and his yeomen, for example, in county Kildare, and Plunkett in the House of Commons. They may be sorry yet for this base prostitution of their character and talents. If ever the day of retribution arrives, as arrive I think it must, they will fall unpitied victims, and thousands of other parricides like them, to the just fury of the people, which it will be impossible to restrain.

Nothing could exceed the alarm, the terror and confusion which this most unexpected coalition produced in the breasts of the English Government and their partizans, the Protestant aristocracy of Ireland. Every art, every stratagem, was used to break the new alliance and revive the ancient animosities and feuds between the Dissenters and Catholics. Happily such abominable attempts proved fruitless. The leaders on both sides saw that they had but one common interest, as they had but one common country; that while they were mutually contending and ready to sacrifice each other, England profited of their folly to enslave both; and that it was only by a cordial union and affectionate co-operation that they could establish their common liberty and establish the independence of Ireland. They therefore resisted and overcame every effort to disunite them, and in this manner has a spirit of union and regard succeeded to 250 years of civil discord, a revolution in the political morality of the nation of the most extreme importance, and from which, under the powerful auspices of the French Republic, I hope and trust her independence and liberty will arise.