After the collapse of the rebellion, the young militants William Putnam McCabe (the son of founding member Thomas McCabe) and Robert Emmet (the younger brother of Thomas Addis Emmet), with the support and advice of state prisoners Thomas Russell and William Dowdall, sought to reconstruct the Society on a strictly military basis. Members would be chosen by officers meeting as an executive directory. The immediate aim of the directorate was again to solicit a French invasion with the promise of simultaneous risings in Ireland and England. To this end McCabe set out for France in December 1798, stopping first in London.