Editing Robert Emmet (section)

===Emissary for the new United Irish Executive===
In April 1798, Emmet was exposed as the secretary of a secret college committee in support of the [[Society of United Irishmen]] (of which his brother and Tone were leading executive members). Rather than submit to questioning under oath that might inculpate others, he withdrew from Trinity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Helen |first=Landreth |title=The Pursuit of Robert Emmet |publisher=McGraw Hill |year=1948 |location=New York, London |pages=73}}</ref>

Emmet did not participate in the disordered [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|United Irish uprising]] when it broke out in counties to the south and north of a heavily-garrisoned Dublin in May 1798. But after the suppression of the rebellion in the summer, and in communication with state prisoners held at [[Fort George, Highland|Fort George in Scotland]] (including his brother), Emmet joined [[William Putnam McCabe]] in re-establishing a United Irish organisation. They sought to reconstruct the Society on a strict military basis, with its members chosen personally by its officers' meeting as the executive directorate. Following the example not only of Tone but also of [[James Coigly]], their aim was to again solicit a French invasion on the prospective strength both of a rising in Ireland and of a radical conspiracy in Britain. To this end McCabe set out for France in December 1798, stopping first in London to renew contact with the network of English [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobins]], the United Britons.<ref name="Elliott">{{cite journal|last1=Elliott|first1=Marianne|date=May 1977|title=The 'Despard Plot' Reconsidered|journal=Past & Present|issue=75|pages=46–61|doi=10.1093/past/75.1.46}}</ref>

On the new United Irish executive in Dublin, Emmet assisted veterans Thomas Wright (from April 1799, an informer)<ref>{{Cite web|title=Wright, Thomas |work=Dictionary of Irish Biography|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/wright-thomas-a9136|access-date=2021-06-12 |archive-date=12 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612105013/https://www.dib.ie/biography/wright-thomas-a9136|url-status=live}}</ref> and Malachy Delaney (a former officer in the Austrian army),<ref>{{Cite web|title=Delaney, Malachy |work=Dictionary of Irish Biography|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/delaney-malachy-a2508|access-date=2021-06-12|archive-date=12 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612105013/https://www.dib.ie/biography/delaney-malachy-a2508|url-status=live}}</ref> with a manual on insurgent tactics. In the summer of 1800, as secretary to Delaney, he set out on a secret mission to support McCabe's efforts in Paris. Through his foreign minister [[Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord|Talleyrand]], Emmet and Delaney presented Napoleon with a memorial which argued that the [[Acts of Union 1800|parliamentary Union with Great Britain]], imposed in the wake of the rebellion, had "in no way eased the discontent of Ireland", and with lessons drawn from the failure of '98, the United Irish were again prepared to act on the first news of a French landing.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=Kleinman|first=Sylvie|date=2013-02-22|title=French Connection II: Robert Emmet and Malachy Delaney's memorial to Napoleon Buonaparte, September 1800|url=https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/french-connection-ii-robert-emmet-and-malachy-delaneys-memorial-to-napoleon-buonaparte-september-1800/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-11|website=History Ireland|archive-date=11 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210611234129/https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/french-connection-ii-robert-emmet-and-malachy-delaneys-memorial-to-napoleon-buonaparte-september-1800/}}</ref>

Their request for an invasion force almost double that commanded by [[Lazare Hoche|Hoche]] in the aborted [[French expedition to Ireland (1796)|1796 Bantry expedition]] possibly told against them.<ref name=":2" /> The [[French Consulate|First Consul]] had other priorities: securing a temporary respite from war (the [[Treaty of Lunéville|treaties of Lunéville]] in 1801 and [[Treaty of Amiens|of Amiens]], March 1802) and [[Saint-Domingue expedition|re-enslaving Haiti]].<ref>{{Citation|last=Girard|first=Philippe R.|title=Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World|date=2019-08-28|url=http://oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414-0317.xml|work=Atlantic History|publisher=Oxford University Press|language=en|doi=10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0317|isbn=978-0-19-973041-4|access-date=2021-06-11}}</ref>