Editing Wolfe Tone (section)

=== Rivalries in Paris ===
Back in Paris, Tone recognised the rising star of [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], but was unable to deflect the [[Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars|conqueror of Italy]] from his grander vision of still greater conquests in the East. In May 1798, with the men and materiel that might have possible another descent upon Ireland, [[French campaign in Egypt and Syria|Bonaparte sailed for Egypt]].<ref name=":0" />{{rp|350–351, 364}} Bonaparte was later to claim that he might have been persuaded to sail for Ireland had the United Irish agents in Paris not constantly quarrelled among themselves.<ref name=":03">{{Cite news |last=Fahey |first=Denis |date=21 September 2015 |title=An Irishman's Diary on Napoleon and the Irish |language=en |newspaper=The Irish Times |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-on-napoleon-and-the-irish-1.2357328 |access-date=2023-12-20}}</ref>

After his return from Bantry, Tone had been joined by a co-conspirator in the Jackson affair, Edward Lewines accredited by the Leinster directory in Dublin.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |last=Woods |first=C. J. |date=2009 |title=Lewines, Edward Joseph |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/lewines-edward-joseph-a4820 |access-date=2024-01-02 |language=en}}</ref> With Lewines heavily reliant on Tone for introductions, Tone was unchallenged as a representative of the Irish cause until, returning again to Paris from Texel, he found Tandy recently arrived from the United States.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|332, 353}}

Willing to exaggerate his military experience, his standing in Ireland, and the readiness of the country to rise, Tandy appeared the more imposing figure. He won over the radical luminaries in exile, Thomas Paine and the Scottish republican and escaped convict, [[Thomas Muir of Huntershill|Thomas Muir]], but also—and critically—new arrivals from Ulster.<ref name=":9" /> These included [[James Coigly]], [https://www.dib.ie/biography/mcmahon-mcmechan-arthur-a5734 Arthur McMahon], [[John Tennant (Irish Legion)|John Tennent]] and [[Bartholomew Teeling]]. Witness to [[Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake|General Lake]]'s "dragooning of Ulster", they insisted that the movement in Ireland had to act, if necessary in advance of the French, or face the break-up of its entire system. It was an outlook (further encouraged by Coigly's reports of radical societies ready to act in England and Scotland)<ref name=":152"/>{{rp|184–185}} more in keeping with the policy of the French. After Bantry Bay, they were waiting for reports of a rising in Ireland before again hazarding their own troops.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|339}}