of France's client state, the Batavian Republic, at Camperdown. Tone had attempted to convince the increasingly influential general Napoleon Bonaparte, who had recently mounted a successful campaign in Italy that another landing in Ireland was feasible. Bonaparte initially showed little interest: he was largely unfamiliar with the Irish situation and needed a war of conquest, not of liberation, to pay his army. However, by February 1798 British spies reported he was preparing a fleet in the Channel ports ready for the embarkation of up to 50,000 men. Their destination remained unknown, but the reports were immediately passed to the Irish government under the Viceroy, Lord Camden. In early 1798, a series of violent attacks on magistrates in County Tipperary, County Kildare and King's County alarmed the authorities. They also received information that a faction of the United Irish leadership, led by Fitzgerald and O'Connor, felt they were "sufficiently well organised and equipped" to begin an insurgency without French aid; they were opposed by Emmet, McCormick and NcNevin, who favoured an approach protecting life and property and wanted to wait for a French landing. Camden came under increasing pressure from hardline Irish MPs, led by Speaker John Foster, to crack down on the disorder in the south and midlands and arrest the Dublin leadership. Camden prevaricated for some time, partly as he feared a crackdown would itself provoke an insurrection: the British Home Secretary Lord Portland agreed, describing the proposals as "dangerous and inconvenient". The situation changed when United Irish documents on manpower were leaked by an informer, silk merchant Thomas Reynolds, suggesting nearly 280,000 men across Ulster, Leinster and Munster were preparing to join the "revolutionary army". The Irish government learned from Reynolds that a meeting of the Leinster "Directory" had been set for 10 March in the Dublin house of wool merchant Oliver Bond, where a motion for an immediate rising would be voted on. Camden decided to move to arrest the leadership, arguing to London that he otherwise risked having the Irish Parliament turn against him. On the tenth, most of the moderates among the leadership such as Emmett, McNevin and Dublin City delegate Thomas Traynor were taken: several of the 'country' delegates arrived late to the meeting and escaped, as did McCormick. The only other senior member to escape was Fitzgerald himself, who went into hiding; the incident had the effect of strengthening Fitzgerald's faction and pushing