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 nies, convinced Hope that the fundamental question of the time was social rather than political, and only to be solved by restoring to the people ‘their natural right of deriving a subsistence from the soil on which their labour was expended.’ But it was the religious feuds between the Peep-o'-Day Boys and the Defenders, nowhere more bitter than in his own neighbourhood, that first seriously attracted his attention to politics. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the movement for a union between the Roman catholics and presbyterians, which should be directed mainly to an extension of civil and religious freedom among all classes of the community, and he became a member of the Roughford volunteer corps, and at a later period a member of the Molusk Society of United Irishmen. On the reconstruction of the United Irish Society in 1795, he consented, though reluctantly, to take the oath of secrecy and fidelity, and was appointed a delegate to the upper baronial committee of Belfast. In the spring of 1796 he was sent to Dublin to extend the principles of the society among the operatives of the capital. For a time he resided at Balbriggan, working as a silk-weaver; but his object being suspected by the Orangemen in the factory, he removed to Dublin, working in the liberties as a cotton-weaver. Here he managed to found a branch society, but again becoming suspected he narrowly escaped assassination, and was obliged to return to Belfast. On the outbreak of the rebellion in Ulster in 1798 he remained true to his principles, and took part in the battle of Ballinahinch (13 June). After lurking about in the neighbourhood of Ballymena and Belfast for four months, he made his way undetected to Dublin in November 1798. Here he was joined in the following summer by his family; but for four years he lived in continual expectation of being arrested. While in Dublin he became acquainted with Robert Emmet in 1803, and assisted him in his plot, but he took no part in the insurrection, being at the time engaged in organising a rising in co. Down. After the failure of Emmet's rebellion he avoided arrest, and on the political amnesty that followed the death of Pitt and the accession to office of Fox and Grenville in 1806, he returned to Belfast, and resumed his work as a linen-weaver. In 1843 he wrote his memoirs at the request of R. R. Madden, and was apparently alive at the time of their publication in 1846. He was of medium height, slightly but firmly built, and of a modest and retiring disposition.

Hope married the daughter of his first master, Rose Mullen, who died in 1831, after bearing him four children. 

HOPE, JAMES (1808–1881), admiral of the fleet, born 3 March, 1808, was son of Rear-admiral Sir George Johnstone Hope, K.C.B. (1767–1818), who as a captain commanded the Defence at Trafalgar. Admiral Sir Henry Hope, K.C.B. (1787–1863) [q. v.], was Sir James's first cousin. In 1820 he was entered at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, and in June 1822 was appointed to the Forte frigate going out to the West Indies; afterwards he served in the Cambrian in the Mediterranean, and was promoted to be lieutenant on 9 March 1827. On 16 Sept. he was appointed to the Maidstone, but a fortnight later was transferred to the Undaunted, which carried Lord William Bentinck out to India as governor-general. In August 1829 Hope was appointed flag-lieutenant to the Earl of Northesk, then commander-in-chief at Plymouth, and on 26 Feb. 1830 he was promoted to commander's rank. From 1833 to 1838 he commanded the Racer on the North American and West Indian station, and was posted on 28 June 1838. In December 1844 he commissioned the Firebrand steam frigate for service on the South American station, and on 20 Nov. 1845 had a prominent share in the engagement with the batteries at Obligado on the Parana [see ], where he distinguished himself by pulling up in his gig to a heavy chain moored across the river, and there waiting under a continuous fire while the chain was cut by a young engineer, Mr. George Tuck, who, many years later, was instructor in steam at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. Hope was nominated a C.B. on 3 April 1846. During the Russian war from 1854 to 1856 he commanded the Majestic in the Baltic, but without any opportunity of personal distinction. On 19 Nov. 1857 he attained the rank of rear-admiral. In March 1859 he was appointed commander-in-chief in China, and reached Singapore on 16 April, where he relieved his predecessor, Sir Michael Seymour (1802–1887) [q. v.]

The war of the three previous years had been terminated in a treaty signed at Tientsin on 26 June 1858, the ratifications of which were to be exchanged at Pekin within