Editing Wolfe Tone (section)

=== Secretary to the Catholic Committee ===
In the new year, 1792, the [[Catholic Committee (Ireland)|Catholic Committee]] appointed Tone as an assistant secretary.<ref name="Milligan32"/> He replaced [[Richard Burke Jr.|Richard Burke]], the son of [[Edmund Burke]] to whose critical ''[[Reflections on the Revolution in France]]'', Paine's ''Rights of Man'' had been a response.<ref name="Webb3" />

In December 1792, with the support and participation of United Irishmen,<ref name=":622">{{Cite book |last=Smyth |first=Jim |title=The Men of No Property: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the Late Eighteenth Century |publisher=Macmillan Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-333-73256-4 |location=London |pages=74–76}}</ref> Tone helped the Committee in Dublin stage a national Catholic Convention. Elected on a broad, head-of-household, franchise, the "Back Lane Parliament" was seen to challenge the legitimacy of the [[Irish House of Lords|Irish Lords]] and [[Irish House of Commons|Commons]].<ref name=":522">{{Cite journal |last=Woods |first=C. J. |date=2003 |title=The Personnel of the Catholic Convention, 1792-3 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25484204 |journal=Archivium Hibernicum |volume=57 |pages=(26–76) 26–27 |doi=10.2307/25484204 |issn=0044-8745 |jstor=25484204}}</ref> The impression was confirmed when the convention decided to make its appeal directly to London where the government, in advance of war with revolutionary France, had signalled a willingness to solicit Catholic opinion. In January 1793, Tone was included in the Convention delegation that, after being hosted by Presbyterian supporters in Belfast,<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |last=Elliott |first=Marianne |title=The Catholics of Ulster, a History |publisher=Allen Lane, Penguin Press |year=2000 |isbn=0-7139-9464-9 |location=London |pages=236–237}}</ref> was received by [[George III]] at [[Windsor Castle|Windsor]]. It was an audience with which, at the time, Tone believed he had "every reason to be content".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bardon |first1=Jonathan |title=A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes |date=2008 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |isbn=9780717146499 |location=Dublin |pages=296}}</ref>

Through its appointed [[Dublin Castle administration|Dublin Castle executive]], the British government pressed the [[Parliament of Ireland|Irish Parliament]] to match [[Parliament of Great Britain|Westminster]]'s [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791|1791 Catholic Relief Act]]. This lifted the sacramental bar to the legal profession, to military commissions and, in the limited number of constituencies not in the "pockets" of either landed grandees or the government, to the property franchise, but not yet to Parliament itself or to senior Crown offices.<ref>Patrick Weston Joyce (1910) An Installment on Emancipation [http://www.libraryireland.com/JoyceHistory/Instalment.php (1790–1793)] p. 867. www.libraryireland.com</ref> But there was a substantial price to be paid for the passage, in April 1793, of similar legislation in Ireland.

In the wake of the 1793 Relief Act, the Catholic Committee voted Tone a sum of £1,500 with a gold medal, subscribed to a statue of the King and, as agreed in London, voted to dissolve.<ref name="Lee222"/> The government then passed legislation raising militia regiments by a compulsory ballot system and outlawing extra-parliamentary conventions and independent militia.<ref>{{cite book |last=Connolly |first=S. J. |title=Oxford Companion to Irish History |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-923483-7 |page=611}}</ref> United Irishmen at the time were seeking to revive the Volunteer movement on the model of the [[French National Guard]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blackstock |first=Allan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkayx77nQLQC |title=Double Traitors?: The Belfast Volunteers and Yeomen, 1778-1828 |date=2000 |publisher=Ulster Historical Foundation |isbn=978-0-9539604-1-5 |location=Belfast |pages=11–12 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Garnham |first=Neal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lB1vsTaIKC4C |title=The Militia in Eighteenth-century Ireland: In Defence of the Protestant Interest |date=2012 |publisher=Boydell Press |isbn=978-1-84383-724-4 |pages=152 |language=en}}</ref>