formula and Martha’s concealed authorship stratagem, for the new work. He sent seven relatively short letters anonymously to the Belfast Newsletter, which he later published as a pamphlet under his own name. The title of the pamphlet was Letters of Orellana, an Irish Helot, the work that was to establish his national reputation.9
Although Will and Martha both often expressed worry about their respective poor health, it was Martha’s ongoing illness which caused them both the most concern. In May 1783, Martha and Nancy stopped at Newry on their way to Bristol via Dublin. They hoped the change of air and the spa waters of Bristol might be beneficial to them. After a pleasant stopover at Drennan’s lodgings, the sisters endured a most unpleasant coach journey on the road to Dublin. They arrived, ‘sick, sore, crammed and sorry at the Man of War Inn’, fifteen miles north of Dublin city. They both felt so miserable that they quit the coach and spent the night at the Man o’War. The following day they made their way to Dublin where they were warmly received by William Bruce’s family. They were frustrated by having to delay in Dublin awaiting the departure of their ship but enjoyed their time with the Bruces. When they finally embarked on 2 June, they were accompanied by William Bruce’s brother, Sam.10
In Belfast three days later, on Thursday 5 June, Anne Drennan received a letter from Newry pressing her to come immediately, as her son was dangerously ill with a fever. At three o’clock, within an hour of receiving the summons, she and Sam McTier set out on the road, reaching Newry after midnight. The next morning, they found Will in a terrible condition in the seventh day of his fever. They greatly feared for his life. They nursed him through several nights as his condition continued to worsen. Sam described to Martha how very ill her brother was, on the Sunday following their arrival:
What a melancholy object poor Will is this day, shouting with pain and trembling so that in the drawing room I hear his teeth gnashing together. We have a nurse keeper to assist us, George [Will’s man servant] and I can do no longer without one, and your mother is so affected she is of little use. He purges greatly without being sensible to it. We have terrible work watching and cleaning him, not the smallest trifle can he do for himself, even when we lift him to the close stool George or I were obliged to wipe for him.11
Eventually the crisis passed and Drennan began a slow recovery and to regain his strength. Dr Haliday had warned Sam that the patient would continue to rave a little until he was fully recovered. Will at first proved troublesome and cross, accusing Sam of trying to starve him when he discouraged him from eating solid food before he was ready. Sam and Mrs Drennan stayed in Newry until early July. Just before they set off for Belfast, Mrs Drennan wrote to Martha enclosing a short note she had encouraged Will to write. He told his sister:
My mother has asked me to add a few lines if I am able. I am just newly arisen from the dead after an interment (for such surely is a gloomy bed surrounded by three physicians, a surgeon, an apothecary and two nurses) which has lasted no less than five weeks on Saturday. I am gathering strength daily and my head is grown more clear and serene.12
Sam and Dr Haliday could see some silver lining in the cloud of Drennan’s suffering. Sam had no doubt that ‘the attack would add vigour to his constitution that before it was a stranger to’ and that he would possibly be stronger than ever. Dr Haliday observed that ‘it was worth Will’s while to have fever for the sake of those unaffected testimonies of regard his situation drew from the good people both in Newry and Belfast’.13
When Mrs Drennan and Sam were leaving Newry, there was heavy election canvassing going on in relation to filling two seats in the House for County Down. The mobs were gathering each night but the quarrelling and breaking of heads (which Sam liked), was yet to begin.14 The contest was a three-cornered fight, involving Edward Ward, son of Lord Bangor, and the two sitting MPs, Robert Stewart of Mount Stewart, supported by the Whigs and dissenters, and Lord Kilwarlin, son of the Earl of Hillsborough, supported by the High Church interest and the Tories.15
When fully recovered from his illness, Drennan wrote some squibs and letters to the freeholders of County Down in support of Stewart. As well as his political commitment to the independent interest, Sam was hoping for employment through the patronage of Stewart. He arranged to have Drennan’s letters printed in Belfast and worked hard in Downpatrick as Stewart’s election agent.
To preserve anonymity, Drennan signed himself ‘Sidney’, after Algernon Sidney the republican theorist and Whig martyr. Martha reported that Sidney’s letters were much admired in Belfast but many thought William Bruce was the author.16 Others were touting the names of Crombie and Haliday as Sidney’s identity. The dilemma Drennan now found himself in was one which was to dog him throughout his writing career. He felt he needed to balance his desire for literary fame as a radical propagandist with his anxiety not to alienate and lose the custom of his more conservative patients. He told Martha, ‘it might perhaps be of service to me to be known as the author by the Stewart party here but would not at all with the other. They are indeed so unconnected with each other that the one would scarcely know anything that the other did’.17
The latter remark shows how polarised politics were amongst well-to-do Protestants, even in a relatively small town like Newry. Martha warned him not to reveal himself as Sidney for, in her view, ‘Newry or its people are not to be trusted.’18
Stewart ran a very lacklustre and disorganised campaign. Martha, William and their friends, who were Stewart’s natural supporters, were appalled when, after promising to stay independent, he tried to do a deal and made commitments to Lord Kilwarlin. Martha regarded those commitments as ‘full of madness and folly’ and she believed that he had no right to give them. Stewart’s conduct was such that Martha felt he deserved to lose the election.19
Drennan was also disgusted at Stewart’s behaviour:
I sicken at the Down elections. I like none of the candidates. Stewart as little as any. Had it not been for his nauseous neutrality which is not to be forgiven he and Ward, I believe would have had the country. I don’t believe he regards the independent interest a fig and his whole ambition was to please both parties and to be returned by both. He has nearly met with his merited punishment.20
In the event, Kilwarlin and Ward defeated Stewart and Sam was left disappointed and unemployed but not greatly surprised.
While sister and brother shared their dismay regarding the conduct of the Down election, Martha reported on what she felt were more interesting political goings on in Belfast. In preparation for yet another Volunteer convention in Dungannon, a committee was sitting to consider appropriate resolutions that might form the subject for deliberation at the forthcoming convention. Letters were sent to prominent reformers both at home and abroad. Amongst those whose advice was sought were the Duke of Richmond, Dr Price, Dr John Jebb and Christopher Wyvill in Britain, Dr Franklin and Abbé Raynal in Paris and Charlemont, Flood and Grattan in Ireland. Martha thought the responses of Richmond and Dr Price were very satisfactory and useful. They had not heard from Paris by the time she reported but she felt that the Irish responses were poor, trifling, polite, short and unsatisfactory.21
The reason the Irish responses were so cool was because Charlemont and Grattan had no enthusiasm for further political involvement of the Volunteers. Flood was anxious to keep the Volunteers onside as part of his rivalry with Grattan but he had never been a supporter of reform or broadening the franchise, much less the extension of political rights to Roman Catholics. The third Dungannon Convention was held on 8 September and 272 corps attended, as did fifteen MPs. Charlemont and Grattan stayed away. Flood started out for Dungannon but never made it due to an attack of gout. In the event, the Convention ‘achieved little beyond issuing the summons for a National Reform Convention in Dublin for 10th November’.22
In November, the National Reform Convention of the Volunteers met in the Exchange Rooms in Dublin but, because of the large attendance, it had to move to the much larger venue at the Rotunda. The earlier successful convention in Dungannon in 1782
