the autumn of 1802, Emmet concluded that in their contest with England (paused by the Treaty of Amiens, March 1802) the French would have scant regard for Ireland's interests. The most that should be sought was money, arms, ammunition and perhaps officers but not, as had been attempted by Wolfe Tone in December 1796, the landing of a French army. Emmet's scepticism regarding French assistance, was a mark of his emerging leadership. Michael Fayne, a Kildare conspirator, later testified that Emmet used the talk of French assistance only to "encourage the lower orders of people", as he often heard him say that as bad as an English government was, it was better than a French one", and that his object was "an independent state brought about by Irishmen only". Meanwhile, in England hopes of reviving the allied network ("United Englishmen"/"United Britons") that Irish emissaries had helped build out of disparate democratic clubs in the 1790s was dealt a blow in November 1802. The government arrested, and February 1803 executed, the alleged ringleaders of a United conspiracy (the "Despard Plot”) to assassinate of the King, seize the Tower of London and spark a rising in the northern mill towns. In the proclamation he was to issue on the day of the rising in Dublin, Emmet felt it necessary to offer the assurance that the defeat of this "similar attempt in England" had neither "retarded" not "accelerated" republican preparations in Ireland. These had proceeded "without hope of foreign assistance". Preparations for the rising After his return to Dublin in October 1802, Emmet assembled a cadres of what, in the old society, had been mid-level activists, including, in addition to McCabe, William Dowdall, Michael Quigley, Malachy Delaney, James Hope and Nicholas Stafford. From Paris they were joined in January 1803 by William Henry Hamilton, and in April by Thomas Russell (like Dowdall a former state prisoner), who was himself sceptical of the French commitment. Assisted by a legacy of £2,000 left to Emmet by his father, they set about preparing an insurrection proposed for the end of July 1803. On St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1803, Myles Byrne recalls Emmet, in a stirring address to his confederates, justifying their resort to arms. He reiterated the case presented in Paris: if the Irish felt that they had cause in 1798, it had only been compounded by the legislative union with Britain. As long as