Editing Robert Emmet (section)

=== Moved by "a sinister hand"? ===
As preparations were made early in July, according to one of his many biographers, Helen Landreth, Emmet believed that "he had been tricked into the conspiracy", that he had been "a pawn moved by some sinister hand". Such may have been the suggestion of Hope's later remarks to the historian [[Richard Robert Madden|R. R. Madden]]. Emmet, according to Hope, realised that "the men of rank and fortune" who had urged him to head a new rising had had ulterior motives, but that, with Russell, he nonetheless placed his confidence in the great mass of the people to rise.<ref>Landreth (1948), pp. 153-154</ref> This would have been despite Emmet's recognition that: "No leading Catholic is committed. We are all Protestants".<ref>{{Cite book |last=MADDEN |first=Richard Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E9pUAAAAcAAJ&dq=Madden,+the+United+Irishmen,+Their+Lives+and+Times,+Volume+3&pg=PA424 |title=The United Irishmen, Their Lives and Times. Volume 3 |year=1858 |pages=357 |language=en}}</ref>

Parts of his plan were known, through spies and informers, to an undersecretary at Dublin Castle, Alexander Marsden and in turn by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, [[William Wickham (1761–1840)|William Wickham.]] Yet they kept reports from the Lord Lieutenant and stayed the hand of the Town [[Henry Charles Sirr (town major)|Major, Henry Sirr]], who had wished to move against the rebels following the St. Patrick Street explosion.<ref>Landreth    (1948), p. 179</ref>

Drawing on research in the 1880s by Dr Thomas Addis Emmet of [[New York City]], a grandson of Emmet's elder brother, Landreth believes that Marsden and Wickham conspired with [[William Pitt the Younger|William Pitt]], then out of office but anticipating his return as Prime Minister, to encourage the most dangerously disaffected in Ireland to fatally compromise the prospects for an effective revolt by acting in advance of a French invasion. Landreth believes that Emmet was their unwitting instrument,<ref name=":9" /> drawn home from Paris for the purpose of organising a premature rising by the calculated misrepresentations of [[William Putnam McCabe]] and [[Arthur O'Connor (United Irishman)|Arthur O'Connor]].<ref>Landreth (1948), pp. 121, 121n, 246n, 247n</ref> Her evidence, however, is circumstantial, relying not least on Pitt's reputed cynicism in accepting the prospect of a rebellion in 1798 in order to frighten the Irish Parliament into dissolving itself.<ref name=":9">Landreth (1948), pp x-xi</ref>

Emmet biographer, Patrick Geoghegan, finds it entirely "implausible" that Pitt, in or out of office, would risk the credibility of the union he had accomplished, and perhaps much else, for "some negligible security gains".<ref>Geoghegan (2002) pp. 40-41.</ref> He argues that Wickham was genuinely complacent and notes that, while he may have too long delayed moving against the rebels in the hope of discovering the full scope of their conspiracy, on the 23rd Marsden did sound the alarm in advance of the day's action.<ref>Geoghegan (2002), pp. 152, 166-167</ref> Madden, however, did suggest that the [[Orange Order|Orange]]-[[Protestant Ascendancy|Ascendancy]] faction around Marsden, alarmed by Pitt's attempt to include Catholic emancipation in the Acts of Union, had hopes that insurrectionary attempt would harden British policy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Madden |first=Richard Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N6YDAAAAYAAJ |title=The Life and Times of Robert Emmet, Esq |date=1847 |publisher=James Duffy, 10, Wellington Quay. |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|102}}<ref name=":134">{{Cite book |last=Clifford |first=Brendan |title=Thomas Russell and Belfast |publisher=Athol Books |year=1988 |isbn=0-85034-0330 |location=Belfast}}</ref>{{rp|78-79}}