While he would admit no principle that distinguished his position from the "conspirators of Ninety-Eight" (the original United Irishmen), Mitchel emphasised that he was not recommending "an immediate insurrection": in the "present broken and divided condition" of the country "the people would be butchered". With Finton Lalor he urged "passive resistance": the people should "obstruct and render impossible the transport and shipment of Irish provisions" and by intimidation in necessary suppress bidding for grain or cattle if brought "to auction under distress", a method that had demonstrated its effectiveness in the Tithe War. Such actions would be illegal, but such was his opposition to British rule that in Mitchel's view, no opinion in Ireland was "worth a farthing which is not illegal".