.
Before we quit this subject, it may be useful to record that the French generals who headed this invasion declared they had been completely deceived as to the state of Ireland.

They had expected to find the people in open rebellion, or at least, in their own phrase, organised for insurrection; but to their dismay they found only ragamuffins, as they called them, who, in joining their standard, did them infinitely more harm than good.

It is a pity that the lower Irish could not hear the contemptuous manner in which the French, both officers and soldiers, spoke of them and of their country.

The generals described the stratagems which had been practised upon them by their good allies--the same rebels frequently returning with different tones and new stories, to obtain double and treble provisions of arms, ammunition, and uniforms--selling the ammunition for whisky, and running away at the first fire in the day of battle.
The French, detesting and despising those by whom they had been thus cheated, pillaged, and deserted, called them beggars, rascals, and savages.

They cursed also without scruple their own Directory for sending them, after they had, as they boasted, conquered the world, to be at last beaten on an Irish bog.