[3] At the end of this unhappy experience he moved to Belfast where, through his elder brother William, a sugar merchant, he made the acquaintance of leading United Irishmen, including the Dublin attorney Theobald Wolfe Tone.

While he readily sympathised with the cause of civil and religious liberty and of national independence, he attributed his decision to take the United Irish test or pledge in March 1793 to his indignation at the sight of dragoons dragging people through the streets many of them maimed and gashed.

Reportedly provoked by their displays of the likenesses of Dumouriez, Mirabeau and Franklin, the soldiers had attacked taverns in the town as well as the homes and businesses of those associated with the democratic cause.

[4][5] The unsuccessful French expedition to invade Ireland in December 1796 alerted the Crown authorities to the real and present danger posed by the United Irishmen.

Throughout 1797, severe measures were taken to break up and disarm the United organisation which, in the hope of French assistance, was increasingly intent on insurrection.

William was later to suggest his arrest was due to his being mistaken in an informant's report for his younger brother who had been in the chair at a meeting of the United Irish northern executive at which a rising was discussed.

[9] They assured him that, with Irish assistance, the United system had taken hold in some of the principal manufacturing towns, such as Paisley and Glasgow, but they were unable to say whether Scottish patriots were ready to rise in the case of an invasion.

The failure of the French to strike during the five weeks in the spring when the British navy was paralysed by the mutinies at Spithead and Nore had caused United men to almost suspect their leaders of having deceived them.

[10] When in October the British naval victory at Camperdown dispelled any hopes of a Franco-Dutch assault, Tennent and Lowry accompanied Tone to Paris.

For reasons that remain unclear, Tennent did not accompany Tone on his ill-fated expedition to Ireland under Admiral Bompart in October 1798 (two months after the last significant rebel resistance in the country had been broken).

[7] In 1799, Tennant enlisted with the French, serving first, with the provisional rank of chef de bataillon, in the Army of the North under General Brune.

Recognised as the two senior captains in the Legion by virtue of their prior service with the army, Tennent and William Corbet had the honour of representing the regiment.

[15] Fortunately, given the enormous losses and hardships the Grand Army was to suffer during the Russian Campaign of 1812, the Irish Regiment remained in Holland until February 1813.

On the other hand, they were stationed on the island of Goree and the towns of Bergen op Zoom, and Willemstadt, all three in the low-lying, malaria-stricken, district of southwest Holland.

He was cut completely in two; the cannon ball striking a belt in which he carried his money served as a knife to separate the body.

As he had pressed forward in the meeting to raise the issue of a deadly Orange Order outrage in the town, he was accused of assaulting a prominent member of the local Tory establishment (and subsequently served three months).