circles in London, by the brothers Arthur and Roger O'Connor, and by Jane Greg. In the summer of 1797 James Coigly, a Catholic priest who had risen to prominence among the United Irishmen during the Armagh Disturbances, arrived from Manchester where he had been administering as a test for "United Englishmen" an oath to "Remove the diadem and take off the crown ... [to] exalt him that is low and abuse him that is high". In London Coigly met with the leading Irish members of the LCS. In addition to Despard, these included Society President Alexander Galloway, and the brothers Benjamin and John Binns. Meetings were held at Furnival's Inn, Holborn, where, convening as the "United Britons", delegates from London, Scotland and the regions committed themselves "to overthrow the present Government, and to join the French as soon as they made a landing in England" (in December 1796 only weather had prevented a major French landing in Ireland). At this point it appears that Despard held "a pivotal position between British republicans and France". In June 1797, a government informer reported that a United Irish delegation, travelling to France via London, had applied to Despard for the necessary documents. It is possible that this was Coigly's party. In December 1797 Coigly returned from France with news of French plans for an invasion, but on the February 28, 1798, when seeking again to cross the Channel in a party of five he and Arthur O'Connor were arrested. O'Connor, able to call Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Henry Grattan in his defence, was acquitted. Coigly had been caught with a letter to the French Directory from the United Britons was convicted of treason and hanged in June. While its suggestion of a mass movement primed for insurrection had been scarcely credible, it was sufficient proof of the intent to invite and encourage a French invasion. Despard, who at his trial Coigly had admitted meeting, remained in contact with United Irishman Valentine Lawless, was reported as frequenting seditious conclaves a various ale houses in London. Detention The government swooped on the London Corresponding Society. On March 10, Despard was detained at lodgings in Soho, where The Times reported he had been found in bed with "a black woman" (his wife, Catherine). Along with around thirty others, he was held without charge in Coldbath Fields, a recently rebuilt high security prison in