Chapter XXXIV…

Chapter XXXIV

Formation of the Irish Brigade--Violation of the Treaty of Limerick--Enactment of the Penal Laws--Restrictions on Trade--The Embargo Laws--The Sacramental Test introduced--The Palatines--The Irish forbidden to enlist in the Army--Dean Swift and the Drapier's Letters--Attempts to form a Catholic Association--Irish Emigrants defeat the English in France, Spain, and America--The Whiteboys--An Account of the Cause of these Outrages, by an English Tourist--Mr. Young's Remedy for Irish Disaffection--The Peculiar Position and Difficulties of Irish Priests--The Judicial Murder of Father Nicholas Sheehy--Grattan's Demand for Irish Independence--The Volunteers--A Glimpse of Freedom.

[A.D. 1691-1783.]

St. John's Gate and the Irish outworks were surrendered to the English; the English town was left for the Irish troops to occupy until their departure for France. The men were to have their choice whether they would serve under William III. or under the French. A few days after they were mustered on the Clare side of the Shannon, to declare which alternative they preferred. An Ulster battalion, and a few men in each regiment, in all about 1,000, entered the service of Government; 2,000 received passes to return home; 11,000, with all the cavalry, volunteered for France, and embarked for that country in different detachments, under their respective officers. They were warmly received in the land of their adoption; and all Irish Catholics to France were granted the privileges of French citizens, without the formality of naturalization. And thus was formed the famous "Irish Brigade," which has become a household word for bravery and the glory of the Irish nation.

The Treaty, as I have said, was signed on the 3rd of October, 1691. The preamble states that the contracting parties were Sir Charles Porter and Thomas Coningsby, Lords Justices, with the Baron de Ginkell as Commander-in-Chief, on the part of William and Mary; Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount Galmoy, Colonel Purcell, Colonel Cusack, Sir J. Butler, Colonel Dillon, and Colonel Brown, on the part of the Irish nation. The articles were fifty-two in number. They guaranteed to the Catholics (1) the free exercise of their religion; (2) the privilege of sitting in Parliament; (3) freedom of trade; (4) the safety of the estates of those who had taken up arms for King James; (5) a general amnesty; (6) all the honours of war to the troops, and a free choice for their future destination. The articles run to considerable length, and cannot, therefore, be inserted here; but they may be seen in extenso in MacGeoghegan's History of Ireland, and several other works. So little doubt had the Irish that this Treaty would be solemnly observed, that when the accidental omission of two lines was discovered in the clean copy, they refused to carry out the arrangements until those lines had been inserted. The Treaty was confirmed by William and Mary, who pledged "the honour of England" that it should be kept inviolably, saying: "We do, for us, our heirs and successors, as far as in us lies, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause, matter, and thing therein contained." Two days after the signing of the Treaty, a French fleet arrived in the Shannon, with 3,000 soldiers, 200 officers, and 10,000 stand of arms. Sarsfield was strongly urged to break faith with the English; but he nobly rejected the temptation. How little did he foresee how cruelly that nation would break faith with him!

Two months had scarcely elapsed after the departure of the Irish troops, when an English historian was obliged to write thus of the open violation of the articles: "The justices of the peace, sheriffs, and other magistrates, presuming on their power in the country, dispossessed several of their Majesties' Catholic subjects, not only of their goods and chattels, but also of their lands and tenements, to the great reproach of their Majesties' Government."[547] These complaints were so general, that the Lords Justices were at last obliged to issue a proclamation on the subject (November 19, 1691), in which they state that they had "received complaints from all parts of Ireland of the ill-treatment of the Irish who had submitted; and that they [the Irish] were so extremely terrified with apprehensions of the continuance of that usage, that some of those who had quitted the Irish army and went home, with the resolution not to go to France, were then come back again, and pressed earnestly to go thither, rather than stay in Ireland, where, contrary to the public faith, as well as law and justice, they were robbed in their persons and abused in their substance." Let it be remembered that this was an official document, and that it emanated from the last persons who were likely to listen to such complaints, or relieve them if they could possibly have been denied.

The men who had hoped for confiscations that they might share the plunder, now began to clamour loudly. It was necessary to get up a popular cry against Papists, as the surest means of attaining their end. Individuals who had as little personal hatred to the Pope as they had to the Grand Turk, and as little real knowledge of the Catholic Faith as of Mahometanism, uttered wild cries of "No Popery!" and "No Surrender!" William, whose morals, if not his professions, proclaimed that he was not troubled with any strong religious convictions, was obliged to yield to the faction who had set him on the throne. Probably, he yielded willingly; and was thus able, in some measure, to make a pretence of doing under pressure what he really wished to do of his own will.

On the 28th of October, 1692, the Parliament in Dublin rejected a Bill which had been sent from England, containing restrictions on certain duties, solely to proclaim their independence. A few days after they were taught a lesson of obedience. Lord Sidney came down to the House unexpectedly, and prorogued Parliament, with a severe rebuke, ordering the Clerk to enter his protest against the proceedings of the Commons on the journals of the House of Lords. The hopes of the English were raised, and the Parliament brought forward the subject of the Limerick articles, with torrents of complaints against the Irish in general, and the Irish Catholics in particular. William received their remonstrance coolly, and the matter was allowed to rest for a time. In 1695 Lord Capel was appointed Viceroy. He at once summoned a Parliament, which sat for several sessions, and in which some of the penal laws against Catholics were enacted. As I believe the generality even of educated persons, both in England and Ireland, are entirely ignorant of what these laws really were, I shall give a brief account of their enactments, premising first, that seven lay peers and seven Protestant bishops had the honorable humanity to sign a protest against them.

(1) The Catholic peers were deprived of their right to sit in Parliament. (2) Catholic gentlemen were forbidden to be elected as members of Parliament. (3) It denied all Catholics the liberty of voting, and it excluded them from all offices of trust, and indeed from all remunerative employment, however insignificant.[548] (4) They were fined £60 a-month for absence from the Protestant form of worship. (5) They were forbidden to travel five miles from their houses, to keep arms, to maintain suits at law, or to be guardians or executors. (6) Any four justices of the peace could, without further trial, banish any man for life if he refused to attend the Protestant service. (7) Any two justices of the peace could call any man over sixteen before them, and if he refused to abjure the Catholic religion, they could bestow his property on the next of kin. (8) No Catholic could employ a Catholic schoolmaster to educate his children; and if he sent his child abroad for education, he was subject to a fine of £100, and the child could not inherit any property either in England or Ireland. (9) Any Catholic priest who came to the country should be hanged. (10) Any Protestant suspecting any other Protestant of holding property[549] in trust for any Catholic, might file a bill against the suspected trustee, and take the estate or property from him. (11) Any Protestant seeing a Catholic tenant-at-will on a farm, which, in his opinion, yielded one-third more than the yearly rent, might enter on that farm, and, by simply swearing to the fact, take possession. (12) Any Protestant might take away the horse of a Catholic, no matter how valuable, by simply paying him £5. (13) Horses and wagons belonging to Catholics, were in all cases to be seized for the use of the militia. (14) Any Catholic gentleman's child who became a Protestant, could at once take possession of his father's property.

I have only enumerated some of the enactments of this code, and I believe there are few persons who will not be shocked at their atrocity. Even if the rights of Catholics had not been secured to them by the Treaty of Limerick, they had the rights of men; and whatever excuse, on the ground of hatred of Popery as a religion, may be offered for depriving men of liberty of conscience, and of a share in the government of their country, there can be no excuse for the gross injustice of defrauding them of their property, and placing life and estate at the mercy of every ruffian who had an interest in depriving them of either or of both. Although the seventeenth century has not yet been included in the dark ages, it is possible that posterity, reading these enactments, may reverse present opinion on this subject.

But though the Parliament which sat in Dublin, and was misnamed Irish, was quite willing to put down Popery and to take the property of Catholics, it was not so willing to submit to English rule in other matters. In 1698 Mr. Molyneux, one of the members for the University of Dublin, published a work, entitled The Case of Irelands being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, stated. But Mr. Molyneux's book was condemned by the English Parliament; and after a faint show of resistance, the Irish members succumbed. The next attention which the English Houses paid to this country, was to suppress the woollen trade. In 1698 they passed a law for the prevention of the exportation of wool and of manufactures from Ireland, "under the forfeiture of goods and ship, and a penalty of £500 for every such offence." The penal laws had made it "an offence" for a man to practise his religion, or to educate his children either in Ireland or abroad; the trade laws made it "an offence" for a man to earn[550] his bread in an honest calling. The lower class of Protestants were the principal sufferers by the destruction of the woollen trade; it had been carried on by them almost exclusively; and it is said that 40,000 persons were reduced to utter destitution by this one enactment. In addition to this, navigation laws were passed, which prohibited Irish merchants from trading beyond seas in any ships except those which were built in England. The embargo laws followed, of which twenty-two were passed at different periods during forty years. They forbade Irish merchants, whether Protestant or Catholic, to trade with any foreign nation, or with any British colony, direct-to export or import any article, except to or from British merchants resident in England. Ireland, however, was allowed one consolation, and this was the permission to import rum duty free. I am certain that none of the honorable members who voted such laws had the deliberate intention of making the Irish a nation of beggars and drunkards; but if the Irish did not become such, it certainly was not the fault of those who legislated for their own benefit, and, as far as they had the power to do so, for her ruin, politically and socially.

William had exercised his royal prerogative by disposing, according to his own inclination, of the estates forfeited by those who had fought for the royal cause. His favourite, Mrs. Villiers, obtained property worth £25,000 per annum. In 1799 the English Parliament began to inquire into this matter, and the Commons voted that "the advising and passing of the said grants was highly reflecting upon the King's honour." William had already began to see on what shifting sands the poor fabric of his popularity was erected. He probably thought of another case in which his honour had been really pledged, and in which he had been obliged to sacrifice it to the clamours of these very men. He had failed in the attempt to keep his Dutch Guards; his last days were embittered; and had not his death occurred soon after, it is just possible that even posterity might have read his life in a different fashion.

Anne succeeded to the throne in 1702; and the following year the Duke of Ormonde was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. The House of Commons waited on him with a Bill "to prevent the further growth of Popery." A few members, who had protested against this Act, resigned their seats, but others were easily found to take their places, whose opinions coincided with those of the majority. The Queen's Tory advisers objected to these strong measures, and attempted to nullify them, by introducing the clause known as the "Sacramental Test," which excludes from public offices all who refused to receive the sacrament according to the forms of the Established Church. As dissenters from that Church had great influence in the Irish Parliament, and as it was well known that their abhorrence of the Church which had been established by law was little short of their hatred of the Church which had been suppressed by law, it was hoped that they would reject the bill; but they were assured that they would not be required to take the test, and with this assurance they passed the Act. It seems to those who look back on such proceedings, almost a marvel, how men, whose conscience forbade them to receive the sacrament according to certain rites, and who, in many cases, certainly would have resigned property, if not life, sooner than act contrary to their religious convictions, should have been so blindly infatuated as to compel other men, as far as they had power to do so, to violate their conscientious convictions. The whole history of the persecutions which Catholics have endured at the hands of Protestants of all and every denomination, is certainly one of the most curious phases of human perversity which the philosopher can find to study.

Two of the gentlemen, Sir Toby Butler and Colonel Cusack, who had signed the Treaty of Limerick, petitioned to be heard by counsel against the Bill. But appeals to honour and to justice were alike in vain, when addressed to men who were destitute of both. The petitioners were dismissed with the insulting remark, that if they suffered from the Act it was their own fault, since, if they complied with its requirements, honours and wealth were at their command. But these were men who would not violate the dictates of conscience for all that the world could bestow on them, and of this one should think they had already given sufficient proof. The Bill was passed without a dissentient voice; and men who would themselves have rebelled openly and violently if the Sacramental Test had been imposed on them, and who would have talked loudly of liberty of conscience, and the blasphemy of interfering with any one's religious convictions, now, without a shadow of hesitation, imposed this burden upon their fellow-men, and were guilty of the very crime of persecution, with which they so frequently charged their Catholic fellow-subjects.

One Act followed another, each adding some new restriction to the last, or some fresh incentive for persecution. In 1709 an attempt was made to plant some Protestant families from Germany in various parts of the country. These settlements obtained the name of Palatines. But it was labour lost. Sir John Chichester once observed, that it was useless to endeavour to root Popery out of Ireland, for it was impregnated in the very air. A few of the Palatines, like other settlers, still kept to their own religion; but the majority, as well as the majority of other settlers, learned to understand and then to believe the Catholic faith--learned to admire, and then to love, and eventually to amalgamate with the long-suffering and noble race amongst whom they had been established.

It would appear that Queen Anne wished her brother to succeed her on the throne; but he had been educated a Catholic, and he resolutely rejected all temptations to renounce his faith. Her short and troubled reign ended on the 1st of August, 1714. Before her death the Parliament had chosen her successor. Her brother was proscribed, and a reward of £50,000 offered for his apprehension. The rebellion in favour of James III., as he was called on the Continent, or the Pretender, as he was called by those who had no resource but to deny his legitimacy, was confined entirely to Scotland; but the Irish obtained no additional grace by their loyalty to the reigning monarch. A new proclamation was issued, which not only forbid them to enlist in the army, but offered rewards for the discovery of any Papist who had presumed to enlist, in order that "he might be turned out, and punished with the utmost severity of the law." In the next reign we shall see how the suicidal effect of this policy was visited on the heads of its promoters.

The Irish Parliament now came into collision with the English on a case of appellate jurisdiction, but they were soon taught their true position, and with becoming submission deferred to their fate. The Irish Parliament had long been such merely in name; and the only power they were allowed to exercise freely, was that of making oppressive and unjust enactments against their Catholic fellow-subjects. It is a poor consolation, but one which is not unfrequently indulged, when those who are oppressed by others become themselves in turn the oppressors of those who are unfortunate enough to be in their power.

A new phase in Irish history was inaugurated by the versatile talents, and strong will in their exercise, which characterized the famous Dr. Jonathan Swift. The quarrels between Whigs and Tories were at their height. Swift is said to have been a Whig in politics and a Tory in religion. He now began to write as a patriot; and in his famous "Drapier's Letters" told the Government of the day some truths which were more plain than palatable.[551] An Englishman named Wood had obtained a patent under the Broad Seal, in 1723, for the coinage of copper halfpence. Even the servile Parliament was indignant, and protested against a scheme[552] which promised to flood Ireland with bad coin, and thus to add still more to its already impoverished condition. There was reason for anxiety. The South Sea Bubble had lately ruined thousands in England, and France was still suffering from the Mississippi Scheme. Speculations of all kinds were afloat, and a temporary mania seemed to have deprived the soberest people of their ordinary judgment. Dr. Hugh Boulter, an Englishman, was made Archbishop of Armagh, and sent over mainly to attend to the English interests in Ireland. But he was unable to control popular feeling; and Swift's letters accomplished what the Irish Parliament was powerless to effect. Although it was well known that he was the author of these letters, and though a reward of £300 was offered for the discovery of the secret, he escaped unpunished. In 1725 the patent was withdrawn, and Wood received £3,000 a year for twelve years as an indemnification--an evidence that he must have given a very large bribe for the original permission, and that he expected to make more by it than could have been made honestly. One of the subjects on which Swift wrote most pointedly and effectively, was that of absentees. He employed both facts and ridicule; but each were equally in vain. He describes the wretched state of the country; but his eloquence was unheeded. He gave ludicrous illustrations of the extreme ignorance of those who governed in regard to those whom they governed. Unfortunately the state of things which he described and denounced has continued, with few modifications, to the present day; but on this subject I have said sufficient elsewhere.

George I. died at Osnaburg, in Germany, on the 10th of June, 1727. On the accession of his successor, the Catholics offered an address expressing their loyalty, but the Lords Justices took care that it should never reach England. The next events of importance were the efforts made by Dr. Boulter, the Protestant Primate, to establish Charter Schools, where Catholic children might be educated; and his equally zealous efforts to prevent Catholics, who had conformed exteriorly to the State religion, from being admitted to practise at the Bar. It may be observed in passing, that these men could scarcely have been as degraded in habits and intellect as some historians have been pleased to represent them, when they could at once become fit for forensic honours, and evinced such ability as to excite the fears of the Protestant party. It should be remarked that their "conversion" was manifestly insincere, otherwise there would have been no cause for apprehension.

The country was suffering at this period from the most fearful distress. There were many causes for this state of destitution, which were quite obvious to all but those who were interested in maintaining it. The poorer classes, being almost exclusively Catholics, had been deprived of every means of support. Trade was crushed, so that they could not become traders; agriculture was not permitted, so that they could not become agriculturists. There was, in fact, no resource for the majority but to emigrate, to steal, or to starve. To a people whose religion always had a preponderating influence on their moral conduct, the last alternative only was available, as there was not the same facilities for emigration then as now. The cultivation of the potato had already become general; it was, indeed, the only way of obtaining food left to these unfortunates. They were easily planted, easily reared; and to men liable at any moment to be driven from their miserable holdings, if they attempted to effect "improvements," or to plant such crops as might attract the rapacity of their landlords, they were an invaluable resource. The man might live who eat nothing but potatoes all the year round, but he could scarcely be envied or ejected for his wealth. In 1739 a severe frost destroyed the entire crop, and a frightful famine ensued, in which it was estimated that 400,000 persons perished of starvation.

In 1747 George Stone succeeded Dr. Hoadley as Primate of Ireland. His appointment was made evidently more in view of temporals than spirituals, and he acted accordingly. Another undignified squabble took place in 1751 and 1753, between the English and Irish Parliaments, on the question of privilege. For a time the "patriot" or Irish party prevailed; but eventually they yielded to the temptation of bribery and place. Henry Boyle, the Speaker, was silenced by being made Earl of Shannon; Anthony Malone was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the opposition party was quietly broken up.

An attempt was now made to form a Catholic Association, and to obtain by combination and quiet pressure what had been so long denied to resistance and military force. Dr. Curry, a physician practising in Dublin, and the author of the well-known Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars of Ireland; Charles O'Connor, of Belanagar, the Irish antiquary, and Mr. Wyse, of Waterford, were the projectors and promoters of this scheme. The clergy stood aloof from it, fearing to lose any liberty they still possessed if they demanded more; the aristocracy held back, fearing to forfeit what little property yet remained to them, if they gave the least excuse for fresh "settlements" or plunderings. A few Catholic merchants, however, joined the three friends; and in conjunction they prepared an address to the Duke of Bedford, who was appointed Lord Lieutenant in 1757. The address was favourably received, and an answer returned after some time. The Government already had apprehensions of the French invasion, and it was deemed politic to give the Catholics some encouragement, however faint. It is at least certain that the reply declared, "the zeal and attachment which they [the Catholics] professed, would never be more seasonably manifested than at the present juncture."

Charles Lucas now began his career of patriotism; for at last Irish Protestants were beginning to see, that if Irish Catholics suffered, Irish interests would suffer also; and if Irish interests suffered, they should have their share in the trial. A union between England and Ireland, such as has since been carried out, was now proposed, and violent excitement followed. A mob, principally composed of Protestants, broke into the House of Lords; but the affair soon passed over, and the matter was dropped.

George II. died suddenly at Kensington, and was succeeded by his grandson, George III. But I shall request the attention of the reader to some remarks of considerable importance with regard to foreign events, before continuing the regular course of history. The predilections of the late King for his German connexions, had led him into war both with France and Spain; the imprudence of ministers, if not the unwise and unjust policy of colonial government, involved the country soon after in a conflict with the American dependencies. In each of these cases expatriated Irishmen turned the scale against the country from which they had been so rashly and cruelly ejected. In France, the battle of Fontenoy was won mainly by the Irish Brigade, who were commanded by Colonel Dillon; and the defeat of England by the Irish drew from George II. the well-known exclamation: "Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects!" In Spain, where the Irish officers and soldiers had emigrated by thousands, there was scarcely an engagement in which they did not take a prominent and decisive part. In Canada, the agitation against British exactions was commenced by Charles Thompson, an Irish emigrant, and subsequently the Secretary of Congress; Montgomery, another Irishman, captured Montreal and Quebec; O'Brien and Barry, whose names sufficiently indicate their nationality, were the first to command in the naval engagements; and startled England began to recover slowly and sadly from her long infatuation, to discover what had, indeed, been discovered by the sharp-sighted Schomberg[553] and his master long before, that Irishmen, from their habits of endurance and undaunted courage, were the best soldiers she could find, and that, Celts and Papists as they were, her very existence as a nation might depend upon their co-operation.

The agrarian outrages, the perpetrators of which were known at first by the name of Levellers, and eventually by the appellation of Whiteboys, commenced immediately after the accession of George III. An English traveller, who carefully studied the subject and who certainly could have been in no way interested in misrepresentation, has thus described the cause and the motive of the atrocities they practised. The first cause was the rapacity of the landlords, who, having let their lands far above their value, on condition of allowing the tenants the use of certain commons, now enclosed the commons, but did not lessen the rent. The bricks were to be made, but the straw was not provided; and the people were told that they were idle. The second cause was the exactions of the tithemongers, who were described by this English writer as "harpies who squeezed out the very vitals of the people, and by process, citation, and sequestration, dragged from them the little which the landlord had left them." It was hard for those who had been once owners of the soil, to be obliged to support the intruders into their property in affluence; while they, with even the most strenuous efforts, could barely obtain what would keep them from starvation. It was still harder that men, who had sacrificed their position in society, and their worldly prospects, for the sake of their religion, should be obliged to support clergymen and their families, some of whom never resided in the parishes from which they obtained tithes, and many of whom could not count above half-a-dozen persons as regular members of their congregation.

Mr. Young thus suggests a remedy for these crimes, which, he says, were punished with a "severity which seemed calculated for the meridian of Barbary, while others remain yet the law of the land, which would, if executed, tend more to raise than to quell an insurrection. From all which it is manifest, that the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a radical cure, from overlooking the real cause of disease, which, in fact, lay in themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the gallows. Let them change their own conduct entirely, and the poor will not long riot. Treat them like men, who ought to be as free as yourselves; put an end to that system of religious persecution, which, for seventy years, has divided the kingdom against itself--in these two circumstances lies the cure of insurrection; perform them completely, and you will have an affectionate poor, instead of oppressed and discontented vassals."[554]

How purely these outrages were the deeds of desperate men, who had been made desperate by cruel oppression, and insensible to cruelty by cruel wrongs, is evident from the dying declaration of five Whiteboys, who were executed, in 1762, at Waterford and who publicly declared, and took God to witness, "that in all these tumults it never did enter into their thoughts to do anything against the King or Government."[555]

It could not be expected that the Irish priest would see the people exposed to all this misery--and what to them was far more painful to all this temptation to commit deadly sin--without making some effort in their behalf. There may have been some few priests, who, in their zeal for their country, have sacrificed the sacredness of their office to their indignation at the injury done to their people--who have mixed themselves up with feats of arms, or interfered with more ardour than discretion in the arena of politics; but such instances have been rare, and circumstances have generally made them in some degree excusable. The position of the Irish priest in regard to his flock is so anomalous, that some explanation of it seems necessary in order to understand the accusations made against Father Nicholas Sheehy, and the animosity with which he was hunted to death by his persecutors. While the priest was driven from cave to mountain and from mountain to cave, he was the consoler of his equally persecuted people. The deep reverence which Catholics feel for the office of the priesthood, can scarcely be understood by those who have abolished that office, as far as the law of the land could do so; but a man of ordinary intellectual attainments ought to be able to form some idea of the feelings of others, though he may not have experienced them personally; and a man of ordinary humanity should be able to respect those feelings, however unwise they may seem to him. When education was forbidden to the Irish, the priest obtained education in continental colleges; and there is sufficient evidence to show that many Irish priests of that and of preceding centuries were men of more than ordinary abilities. The Irish, always fond of learning, are ever ready to pay that deference to its possessors which is the best indication of a superior mind, however uncultivated. Thus, the priesthood were respected both for their office and for their erudition. The landlord, the Protestant clergyman, the nearest magistrate, and, perhaps, the tithe-proctor, were the only educated persons in the neighbourhood; but they were leagued against the poor peasant; they demanded rent and tithes, which he had no means of paying; they refused justice, which he had no means of obtaining. The priest, then, was the only friend the peasant had. His friendship was disinterested--he gained nothing by his ministration but poor fare and poor lodging; his friendship was self-sacrificing, for he risked his liberty and his life for his flock. He it was--

"Who, in the winter's night, When the cold blast did bite, Came to my cabin door, And, on the earthen floor, Knelt by me, sick and poor;"

and he, too, when the poor man was made still poorer by his sickness,

"Gave, while his eyes did brim, What I should give to him."[556]

But a time came when the priest was able to do more. Men had seen, in some measure, the absurdity, if not the wickedness, of persecuting the religion of a nation; and at this time priests were tolerated in Ireland. Still, though they risked their lives by it, they could not see their people treated unjustly without a protest. The priest was independent of the landlord; for, if he suffered from his vengeance, he suffered alone, and his own sufferings weighed lightly in the balance compared with the general good. The priest was a gentleman by education, and often by birth; and this gave him a social status which his uneducated people could not possess.[557] Such, was the position of Father Nicholas Sheehy, the parish priest of Clogheen. He had interfered in the vain hope of protecting his unfortunate parishioners from injustice; and, in return, he was himself made the victim of injustice. He was accused of encouraging a French invasion--a fear which was always present to the minds of the rulers, as they could not but know that the Irish had every reason to seek for foreign aid to free them from domestic wrongs. He was accused of encouraging the Whiteboys, because, while he denounced their crimes, he accused those who had driven them to these crimes as the real culprits. He was accused of treason, and a reward of £300 was offered for his apprehension. Conscious of his innocence, he gave himself up at once to justice, though he might easily have fled the country. He was tried in Dublin and acquitted. But his persecutors were not satisfied. A charge of murder was got up against him; and although the body of the man could never be found, although it was sworn that he had left the country, although an alibi was proved for the priest, he was condemned and executed. A gentleman of property and position came forward at the trial to prove that Father Sheehy had slept in his house the very night on which he was accused of having committed the murder; but the moment he appeared in court, a clergyman who sat on the bench had him taken into custody, on pretence of having killed a corporal and a sergeant in a riot. The pretence answered the purpose. After Father Sheehy's execution Mr. Keating was tried; and, as there was not even a shadow of proof, he was acquitted. But it was too late to save the victim.

At the place of execution, Father Sheehy most solemnly declared, on the word of a dying man, that he was not guilty either of murder or of treason; that he never had any intercourse, either directly or indirectly, with the French; and that he had never known of any such intercourse being practised by others. Notwithstanding this solemn declaration of a dying man, a recent writer of Irish history says, "there can be no doubt" that he was deeply implicated in treasonable practices, and "he seems to have been" a principal in the plot to murder Lord Carrick. The "no doubt" and "seems to have been" of an individual are not proofs, but they tend to perpetuate false impressions, and do grievous injustice to the memory of the dead. The writer has also omitted all the facts which tended to prove Father Sheehy's innocence.

In 1771 a grace was granted to the Catholics, by which they were allowed to take a lease of fifty acres of bog, and half an acre of arable land for a house; but this holding should not be within a mile of any town. In 1773 an attempt was made to tax absentees; but as they were the principal landowners, they easily defeated the measure. A pamphlet was published in 1769, containing a list of the absentees, which is in itself sufficient to account for any amount of misery and disaffection in Ireland. There can be no doubt of the correctness of the statement, because the names of the individuals and the amount of their property are given in full. Property to the amount of £73,375 belonged to persons who never visited Ireland. Pensions to the amount of £371,900 were paid to persons who lived out of Ireland. Property to the amount of £117,800 was possessed by persons who visited Ireland occasionally, but lived abroad. Incomes to the amount of £72,200 were possessed by officials and bishops, who generally lived out of Ireland. The state of trade is also treated in the same work, in which the injustice the country has suffered is fully and clearly explained.

The American war commenced in 1775, and the English Parliament at once resolved to relieve Ireland of some of her commercial disabilities. Some trifling concessions were granted, just enough to show the Irish that they need not expect justice except under the compulsion of fear, and not enough to benefit the country. Irish soldiers were now asked for and granted; but exportation of Irish commodities to America was forbidden, and in consequence the country was reduced to a state of fearful distress. The Irish debt rose to £994,890, but the pension list was still continued and paid to absentees. When the independence of the American States was acknowledged by France, a Bill for the partial relief of the Catholics passed unanimously through the English Parliament. Catholics were now allowed a few of the rights of citizens. They were permitted to take and dispose of leases, and priests and schoolmasters were no longer liable to prosecution.

Grattan had entered Parliament in the year 1775. In 1779 he addressed the House on the subject of a free trade[558] for Ireland; and on the 19th of April, 1780, he made his famous demand for Irish independence. His address, his subject, and his eloquence were irresistible. "I wish for nothing," he exclaimed, "but to breathe in this our land, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chain and to contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied as long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clinging to his rags; he may be naked, but he shall not be in irons. And I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted; and though great men should apostatize, yet the cause will live; and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it; and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him."

The country was agitated to the very core. A few links of the chain had been broken. A mighty reaction set in after long bondage. The newly-freed members of the body politic were enjoying all the delicious sensations of a return from a state of disease to a state o partial health. The Celt was not one to be stupefied or numbed by long confinement; and if the restraint were loosened a little more, he was ready to bound into the race of life, joyous and free, too happy to mistrust, and too generous not to forgive his captors. But, alas! the freedom was not yet granted, and the joy was more in prospect of what might be, than in thankfulness of what was.

The Volunteer Corps, which had been formed in Belfast in 1779, when the coast was threatened by privateers, had now risen to be a body of national importance. They were reviewed in public, and complimented by Parliament. But they were patriots. On the 28th of December, 1781, a few of the leading members of the Ulster regiments met at Charlemont, and convened a meeting of delegates from all the Volunteer Associations, at Dungannon, on the 15th of February, 1782. The delegates assembled on the appointed day, and Government dared not prevent or interrupt their proceedings. Colonel William Irvine presided, and twenty-one resolutions were adopted, demanding civil rights, and the removal of commercial restraints. One resolution expresses their pleasure, as Irishmen, as Christians, and as Protestants, at the relaxation of the penal laws. This resolution was suggested by Grattan to Mr. Dobbs, as he was leaving Dublin to join the assembly. It was passed with only two dissentient votes.

The effect of this combined, powerful, yet determined agitation, was decisive. On the 27th of May, 1782, when the Irish Houses met, after an adjournment of three weeks, the Duke of Portland announced the unconditional concessions which had been made to Ireland by the English Parliament. Mr. Grattan interpreted the concession in the fullest sense, and moved an address, "breathing the generous sentiments of his noble and confiding nature." Mr. Flood and a few other members took a different and more cautious view of the case. They wished for something more than a simple repeal of the Act of 6 George I., and they demanded an express declaration that England would not interfere with Irish affairs. But his address was carried by a division of 211 to 2; and the House, to show its gratitude, voted that 20,000 Irish seamen should be raised for the British navy, at a cost of £100,000, and that £50,000 should be given to purchase an estate and build a house for Mr. Grattan, whose eloquence had contributed so powerfully to obtain what they hoped would prove justice to Ireland.

FOOTNOTES:

[547] Government.--Harris' Life of William III. p. 357.

[548] Insignificant.--A petition was sent in to Parliament by the Protestant porters of Dublin, complaining of Darby Ryan for employing Catholic porters. The petition was respectfully received, and referred to a "Committee of Grievances."--Com. Jour. vol. ii. f. 699. Such an instance, and it is only one of many, is the best indication of the motive for enacting the penal laws, and the cruelty of them.

[549] Property.--It will be remembered that at this time Catholics were in a majority of at least five to one over Protestants. Hence intermarriages took place, and circumstances occurred, in which Protestants found it their interest to hold property for Catholics, to prevent it from being seized by others. A gentleman of considerable property in the county Kerry, has informed me that his property was held in this way for several generations.

[550] Earn.--One of the articles of the "violated Treaty" expressly provided that the poor Catholics should be allowed to exercise their trade. An Act to prevent the further growth of Popery was passed afterwards, which made it forfeiture of goods and imprisonment for any Catholic to exercise a trade in Limerick or Galway, except seamen, fishermen, and day labourers, and they were to be licensed by the Governor, and not to exceed twenty.--Com. Jour. vol. iii. f. 133.

[551] Palatable.--In his fourth letter he says: "Our ancestors reduced this kingdom to the obedience of England, in return for which we have been rewarded with a worse climate, the privilege of being governed by laws to which we do not consent, a ruined trade, a house of peers without jurisdiction, almost an incapacity for all employments, and the dread of Wood's halfpence."

[552] Scheme.--The very bills of some of the companies were so absurd, that it is marvellous how any rational person could have been deceived by them. One was "for an undertaking which shall be in due time revealed." The undertaker was as good as his word. He got £2,000 paid in on shares one morning, and in the afternoon the "undertaking" was revealed, for he had decamped with the money. Some wag advertised a company "for the invention of melting down sawdust and chips, and casting them into clean deal boards, without cracks or knots."

[553] Schomberg.--He wrote to William of Orange, from before Dundalk, that the English nation made the worst soldiers he had ever seen, because they could not bear hardships; "yet," he adds, "the Parliament and people have a prejudice, that an English new-raised soldier can beat above six of his enemies."--Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 178. According to the records of the War Office in France, 450,000 Irishmen died in the service of that country from 1691 to 1745, and, in round numbers, as many more from 1745 to the Revolution.

[554] Vassals.--Young's Tour, vol. ii. pp. 41, 42. It should be remembered that Mr. Young was an Englishman and a Protestant, and that he had no property in Ireland to blind him to the truth.

[555] Government,--Curry's Historical Review, vol. ii. p. 274, edition of 1786. This work affords a very valuable and accurate account of the times, written from personal knowledge.

[556] Him.--The ballad of Soggarth Aroon (priest, dear) was written by John Banim, in 1831. It is a most true and vivid expression of the feelings of the Irish towards their priests.

[557] Possess.--While these pages were passing through the press, a circumstance has occurred which so clearly illustrates the position of the Irish priest, that I cannot avoid mentioning it. A gentleman has purchased some property, and his first act is to give his three tenants notice to quit. The unfortunate men have no resource but to obey the cruel mandate, and to turn out upon the world homeless and penniless. They cannot go to law, for the law would be against them. They are not in a position to appeal to public opinion, for they are only farmers. The parish priest is their only resource and their only friend. He appeals to the feelings of their new landlord in a most courteous letter, in which he represents the cruel sufferings these three families must endure. The landlord replies that he has bought the land as a "commercial speculation," and of course he has a right to do whatever he considers most for his advantage; but offers to allow the tenants to remain if they consent to pay double their former rent--a rent which would be double the real value of the land. Such cases are constantly occurring, and are constantly exposed by priests; and we have known more than one instance in which fear of such exposure has obtained justice. A few of them are mentioned from time to time in the Irish local papers. The majority of cases are entirely unknown, except to the persons concerned; but they are remembered by the poor sufferers and their friends. I believe, if the people of England were aware of one-half of these ejectments, and the sufferings they cause, they would rise up as a body and demand justice for Ireland and the Irish; they would marvel at the patience with which what to them would be so intolerable has been borne so long.

[558] Free trade,--A very important work was published in 1779, called The Commercial Restraints of Ireland Considered. It is a calm and temperate statement of facts and figures. The writer shows that the agrarian outrages of the Whiteboys were caused by distress, and quotes a speech Lord Northumberland to the same effect.--Com. Res., p. 59.

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Chapter XXXV

Celebrated Irishmen of the Eighteenth Century--BURKE--- His School and College Life--Early Hatred of Oppression--Johnson's Estimate of Burke--Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful--Commencement of his Political Career--Opinions on the American Question-English Infatuation and Injustice--Irishmen Prominent Actors in the American Revolution--Its Causes and Effects--Burke on Religious Toleration--Catholic Emancipation--His Indian Policy--MOORE--His Poetry and Patriotism--CURRAN--SWIFT--LUCAS--FLOOD--GRATTAN--EARL OF CHARLEMONT--Irish Artists, Authors, and Actors--SHERIDAN--Scene in the House of Lords during the Impeachment of Warren Hastings--GOLDSMITH.

[A.D. 1700-1800.]

Each century of Irish history would require a volume of its own, if the lives of its eminent men were recorded as they should be; but the eighteenth century may boast of a host of noble Irishmen, whose fame is known even to those who are most indifferent to the history of that country. It was in this century that Burke, coming forth from the Quaker school of Ballitore, his mind strengthened by its calm discipline, his intellect cultivated by its gifted master, preached political wisdom to the Saxons, who were politically wise as far as they followed his teaching, and politically unfortunate when they failed to do so. His public career demands the most careful consideration from every statesman who may have any higher object in view than the mere fact of having a seat in the cabinet; nor should it be of less interest or value to those whose intellectual capacities are such as to enable them to grasp any higher subject than the plot of a sensational novel. It was in this century also that Moore began to write his world-famed songs, to amaze the learned by his descriptions of a country which he had never seen, and to fling out those poetical hand grenades, those pasquinades and squibs, whose rich humour and keenly-pointed satire had so much influence on the politics of the day. It was in this century that Sheridan, who was the first to introduce Moore to London society, distinguished himself at once as dramatist, orator, and statesman, and left in his life and death a terrible lesson to his nation of the miseries and degradations consequent on indulgence in their besetting sin. It was in this century that Steele, the bosom friend of Addison, and his literary equal, contributed largely to the success and popularity of the Spectator, the Guardian, and the Tatler, though, as usual, English literature takes the credit to itself of what has been accomplished for it by Irish writers.[559]

Burke is, however, unquestionably both the prominent man of his age and of his nation in that age; and happily we have abundant material for forming a correct estimate of his character and his works. Burke was born in Dublin, on the 1st of January, 1730. His father was an attorney in good business, and of course a Protestant, as at that period none, except those who professed the religion of a small minority, were permitted to govern the vast majority, or to avail themselves of any kind of temporal advancement. The mother of the future statesman was a Miss Nagle, of Mallow, a descendant of whose family became afterwards very famous as the foundress of a religious order.[560] The family estate was at Castletown-Roche, in the vicinity of Doneraile; this property descended to Garrett, Edmund's elder brother. A famous school had been founded by a member of the Society of Friends at Ballitore, and thither young Burke and his brother were sent for their education The boys arrived there on the 26th May, 1741. A warm friendship soon sprang up between Edmund and Richard Shackleton, the son of his master, a friendship which only terminated with death. We have happily the most ample details of Burke's school-days in the Annals of Ballitore, a work of more than ordinary interest written by Mrs. Leadbeater, the daughter of Burke's special friend. His native talent was soon developed under the care of his excellent master, and there can be little doubt that the tolerant ideas of his after life were learned, or at least cultivated, at the Quaker school.

One instance of the early development of his talent for humour, and another of his keen sense of injustice, must find record here. The entrance of the judges to the county town of Athy was a spectacle which had naturally special attraction for the boys. All were permitted to go, but on condition that each of the senior pupils should write a description of what he had seen in Latin verse. Burke's task was soon accomplished--not so that of another hapless youth, whose ideas and Latinity were probably on a par. When he had implored the help of his more gifted companion, Edmund determined at least that he should contribute an idea for his theme, but for all reply as to what he had noticed in particular on the festal occasion, he only answered, "A fat piper in a brown coat." However Burke's ideas of "the sublime" may have predominated, his idea of the ludicrous was at this time uppermost; and in a few moments a poem was composed, the first line of which only has been preserved--

"Piper erat fattus, qui brownum tegmen habebat."

"He loved humour," writes Mrs. Leadbeater,[561] "and my father was very witty. The two friends sharpened their intellect and sported their wit till peals of laughter in the schoolroom often caused the reverend and grave master to implore them, with suppressed smiles, to desist, or he should have to turn them out, as their example might be followed, where folly and uproar would take the place of humour and wisdom."

His hatred of oppression and injustice was also manifested about this time. A poor man was compelled to pull down his cabin, because the surveyor of roads considered that it stood too near the highway. The boy watched him performing his melancholy task, and declared that, if he were in authority, such scenes should never be enacted. How well he kept his word, and how true he was in manhood to the good and holy impulses of his youth, his future career amply manifests.

Burke entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1744; Goldsmith entered college the following year, and Flood was a fellow-commoner; but these distinguished men knew little of each other in early life, and none of them were in any way remarkable during their academic career. In 1753 Burke arrived in London, and occupied himself in legal studies and the pursuit of literature. His colloquial gifts and his attractive manner won all hearts, while his mental superiority commanded the respect of the learned. Even Johnson, who was too proud to praise others, much as he loved flattery himself, was fain to give his most earnest word of commendation to the young Irishman, and even admitted that he envied Burke for being "continually the same," though he could not refrain from having a fling at him for not being a "good listener"--a deadly sin in the estimation of one who seldom wished to hear any other voice but his own. Burke, sir, he exclaimed to the obsequious Boswell--Burke is such a man, that if you met him for the first time in the street, and conversed with him for not five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner, that, when you parted, you would say that is an extraordinary man.[562]

Some essays in imitation of Dr. Charles Lucas, and a translation of part of the second Georgic of Virgil, which, in finish of style, is, at least, not inferior to Dryden, were among the earliest efforts of his gifted pen; and, no doubt, these and other literary occupations gave him a faculty of expressing thought in cultivated language, which was still further developed by constant intercourse with Johnson, ever ready for argument, and his club, who were all equally desirous to listen when either spoke. His Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, unfortunately better known in the present day by its title than by its contents, at once attracted immense attention, and brought considerable pecuniary help to the author. But the constant pressure of intellectual labour soon began to tell upon a constitution always delicate. His health gave way entirely, and he appeared likely to sink into a state of physical debility, entirely incompatible with any mental exertion. He applied for advice to Dr. Nugent; the skilful physician saw at once that something more was required than medicine or advice. It was one of those cases of suffering to which the most refined and cultivated minds are especially subjected--one of those instances which prove, perhaps, more than any others, that poor humanity has fallen low indeed. The master-mind was there, the brilliant gems of thought, the acute power of reasoning, that exquisitely delicate sense of feeling, which has never yet been accurately defined, and which probably never can be--which waits for some unseen mystic sympathy to touch it, and decide whether the chord shall be in minor or major key--which produces a tone of thought, now sublime, and now brimming over with coruscations of wit from almost the same incidents; and yet all those faculties of the soul, though not destroyed, are held in abeyance, because the body casts the dull shadow of its own inability and degradation over the spirit--because the spirit is still allied to the flesh, and must suffer with it.

There was something more than perfect rest required in such a case. Rest would, indeed, recruit the body, worn out by the mind's overaction, but the mind also needed some healing process. Some gentle hand should soothe the overstrained chords of thought, and touch them just sufficiently to stimulate their action with gentlest suasion, while it carefully avoided all that might irritate or weary. And such help and healing was found for Burke, or, haply, from bodily debility, mental weakness might have developed itself into mental malady; and the irritability of weakness, to which cultivated minds are often most subjected, might have ended, even for a time, if not wisely treated, in the violence of lunacy. It was natural that the doctor's daughter should assist in the doctor's work; and, perhaps, not less natural that the patient should be fascinated by her. In a short time the cure was perfected, and Burke obtained the greatest earthly blessing for which any man can crave--a devoted wife, a loving companion, a wise adviser, and, above all, a sympathizing friend, to whom all which interested her husband, either in public or private, was her interest as much as, and, if possible, even more than his. Burke's public career certainly opened with happy auspices. He was introduced by the Earl of Charlemont to Mr. Hamilton in 1759, and in 1761 he returned to Ireland in the capacity of private secretary to that gentleman. Mr. Hamilton has acquired, as is well known, the appellation of "single speech," and it is thought he employed Burke to compose his oration; it is probable that he required his assistance in more important ways. But the connexion was soon dissolved, not without some angry words on both sides. Hamilton taunted Burke with having taken him out of a garret, which was not true, for Burke's social position was scarcely inferior to his own; Burke replied with ready wit that he regretted having descended to know him.

In the year 1765, when Lord Grenville was driven from office by the "American Question," the Marquis of Rockingham succeeded him, appointed Burke his private secretary, and had him returned for the English borough of Wendover. His political career commenced at this period. Then, as now, Reform, Ireland, and America were the subjects of the day; and when one considers and compares the politics of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the progress of parliamentary intellectual development is not very encouraging. The speeches of honorable members, with some few very honorable exceptions, seem to run in the same groove, with the same utter incapacity of realizing a new idea, or a broad and cosmopolitan policy. There were men then, as there are men now, who talked of toleration in one breath, and proclaimed their wooden determination to enforce class ascendency of creed and of station in the next. There were men who would tax fresh air, and give unfortunate wretches poisonous drinks on the cheapest terms. There were men whose foreign policy consisted in wringing all that could be wrung out of dependencies, and then, when the danger was pointed out, when it was shown that those dependencies were not only likely to resist, but were in a position to resist--to a position in which neither shooting nor flogging could silence, if it did not convince--they hid their heads, with ostrich-like fatuity, in the blinding sands of their own ignorance, and declared there could be no danger, for they could not discern it.

I have said that there were three great political questions which occupied the attention of statesmen at that day. I shall briefly glance at each, as they form a most important standpoint in our national history, and are subjects of the first interest to Irishmen and to Irish history; and as Burke's maiden speech in the House of Commons was made in favour of conciliating America, I shall treat that question first. The facts are brief and significant but by no means as thoroughly known or as well considered as they should be, when we remember their all-important results--results which as yet are by no means fully developed.[563] The actual contest between the English nation and her American colonies commenced soon after the accession of George III.; but, as early as the middle of the eighteenth century, Thomas Pownal, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts, South Carolina, and New Jersey came to England, and published a work on the administration of the colonies. He seems even then to have had a clear view of the whole case. There is an old proverb about the last grain of rice breaking the back of the camel, but we must remember that the load was made up of many preceding grains. The Stamp Act and Tea Duty were unquestionably the last links of an attempted chain of slavery with which England ventured to fetter the noblest of her colonies, but there were many preceding links. Pownal's work affords evidence of the existence of many. The crown, he said, in theory considered the lands and plantations of the colonists its own, and attempted a far greater control over the personal liberty of the subject than it dared to claim in England. The people, on the other hand, felt that they had by no means forfeited the rights of Englishmen because they had left England; and that, if they submitted to its laws, they should at least have some share in making them. A series of petty collisions, which kept up a state of constant irritation, prepared the way for the final declaration, which, flung aside the bonds of allegiance, and freed the people from the galling chains by which that allegiance was sought to be maintained. A wise policy at home might have averted the fatal disruption for a time, but it is doubtful that it could have been averted for many years, even if the utter incapacity of an obstinate sovereign, and the childish vindictiveness of a minister, had not precipitated the conclusion.

The master intellect of Burke at once grasped the whole question, and his innate sense of justice suggested the remedy. Unfortunately for England, but happily for America, Burke was beyond his age in breadth of policy and in height of honour. Englishmen of the nineteenth century have very freely abused Englishmen of the eighteenth century for their conduct on this occasion; and more than one writer has set down the whole question as one in which "right" was on the side of England, but he argues that there are circumstances under which right should be sacrificed to policy. I cannot agree with this very able writer.[564] The question was not one of right, but of justice; and the English nation, in the reign of George III., failed to see that to do justice was both morally and politically the wisest course. The question of right too often develops itself into the question of might. A man easily persuades himself that he has a right to do what he has the power and the inclination to do; and when his inclination and his opportunities are on the same side, his moral consciousness becomes too frequently blinded, and the question of justice is altogether overlooked.

It was in vain that Burke thundered forth denunciations of the childish policy of the Treasury benches, and asked men to look to first principles, who could hardly be made comprehend what first principles were. He altogether abandoned the question of right, in which men had so puzzled themselves as almost to lose sight of the question of policy. The King would tax the colony, because his nature was obstinate, and what he had determined to do he would do. To such natures reasoning is much like hammering on iron--it only hardens the metal. The minister would tax the colony because the King wished it; and he had neither the strength of mind nor the conscientiousness to resist his sovereign. The Lords stood on their dignity, and would impose the tax if only to show their power. The people considered the whole affair one of pounds shillings, and pence, and could not at all see why they should not wring out the last farthing from a distant colony--could not be taught to discern that the sacrifice of a few pounds at the present moment, might result in the acquisition of a few millions at a future day.

Burke addressed himself directly to the point on all these questions. He laid aside the much-abused question of right; he did not even attempt to show that right and justice should not be separated, and that men who had no share in the government of a country, could not be expected in common justice to assist in the support of that country. He had to address those who could only understand reasons which appealed to their self-interest, and he lowered himself to his audience. The question he said was, "not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do."

The common idea about the separation of the States from England, is simply that they resisted a stamp duty and a tax on tea; the fact is, as I have before hinted, that this was simply the last drop in the cup. Previous to this period, the American colonies were simply considered as objects of English aggrandizement. They were treated as states who only existed for the purpose of benefiting England. The case was in fact parallel to the case of Ireland, and the results would probably have been similar, had Ireland been a little nearer to America, or a little further from England. For many years the trade of America had been kept under the most vexatious restrictions. The iron found there must be sent to England to be manufactured; the ships fitted out there must be at least partly built in England; no saw-mills could be erected, no colony could trade directly with another colony, nor with any nation except England. This selfish, miserable policy met with a well-deserved fate. Even Pitt exclaimed indignantly, in the House of Commons: "We are told that America is obstinate--that America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that she has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all sentiments of liberty as voluntarily to become slaves, would have been fit instruments to enslave their fellow-subjects."

In 1765 an agitation was commenced in Philadelphia, by Mr. Charles Thompson, an Irishman, who, after ten years devoted to the cause of his adopted country, was appointed the Secretary of Congress. It has been well remarked, that the Irish, and especially the Irish Catholics, were, of the three nationalities, the most devoted to forwarding the Revolution; and we cannot wonder that it was so, since the Government which had driven them from their native land, ceased not to persecute them in the land of their exile.[565] The first naval engagement was fought under the command of Jeremiah O'Brien, an Irishman.[566] John Barry, also an Irishman, took the command of one of the first American-built ships of war. The first Continental Regiment was composed almost exclusively of Irish-born officers and men, and was the first Rifle Regiment ever organized in the world. Thompson, its first, and Hand, its second colonel, were natives of Ireland. At the siege of Boston the regiment was particularly dreaded by the British.

In 1764 Franklin came to England[567] for the second time, and was examined before the House of Commons on the subject of the Stamp Act. He was treated with a contemptuous indifference, which he never forgot; but he kept his court suit, not without an object; and in 1783, when he signed the treaty of peace, which compelled England to grant humbly what she had refused haughtily, he wore the self-same attire. Well might the immortal Washington say to Governor Trumbull: "There was a day, sir, when this step from our then acknowledged parent state, would have been accepted with gratitude; but that day is irrevocably past."

In 1774, Burke was called upon by the citizens of Bristol to represent them in Parliament, and he presented a petition from them to the House in favour of American independence; but, with the singular inconsistency of their nation, they refused to re-elect him in 1780, because he advocated Catholic Emancipation.

The same principle of justice which made Burke take the side of America against England, or rather made him see that it would be the real advantage of England to conciliate America, made him also take the side of liberty on the Catholic question. The short-sighted and narrow-minded politicians who resisted the reasonable demands of a colony until it was too late to yield, were enabled, unfortunately, to resist more effectually the just demands of several millions of their own people.

It is unquestionably one of the strangest of mental phenomena, that persons who make liberty of conscience their boast and their watchword, should be the first to violate their own principles, and should be utterly unable to see the conclusion of their own favourite premises. If liberty of conscience mean anything, it must surely mean perfect freedom of religious belief for all; and such freedom is certainly incompatible with the slightest restraint, with the most trifling penalty for difference of opinion on such subjects. Again, Burke had recourse to the argumentum ad hominum, the only argument which those with whom he had to deal seemed capable of comprehending.

"After the suppression of the great rebellion of Tyrconnel by William of Orange," writes Mr. Morley,[568] "ascendency began in all its vileness and completeness. The Revolution brought about in Ireland just the reverse of what it effected in England. Here it delivered the body of the nation from the attempted supremacy of a small sect; there it made a small sect supreme over the body of the nation." This is in fact an epitome of Irish history since the so-called Reformation in England, and this was the state of affairs which Burke was called to combat. On all grounds the more powerful party was entirely against him. The merchants of Manchester and Bristol, for whose supposed benefit Irish trade had been ruined, wished to keep up the ascendency, conceiving it to be the surest way of replenishing their coffers. The majority of Irish landlords, who looked always to their own immediate interest, and had none of the far-sighted policy which would enable them to see that the prosperity of the tenant would, in the end, most effectively secure the prosperity of the landlord, were also in favour of ascendency, which promised to satisfy their land hunger, and their miserable greed of gain. The Protestant Church was in favour of ascendency: why should it not be, since its ministers could only derive support from a people who hated them alike for their creed and their oppressions, at the point of the sword and by the "brotherly agency of the tithe-procter," who, if he did not assist in spreading the Gospel, at least took care that its so-called ministers should lack no luxury which could be wrung from a starving and indignant people?[569]

There were but two acts of common justice required on the part of England to make Ireland prosperous and free. It is glorious to say, that Burke was the first to see this, and inaugurate the reign of concession; it is pitiful, it is utterly contemptible, to be obliged to add, that what was then inaugurated is not yet fully accomplished. Burke demanded for Ireland political and religious freedom. Slowly some small concessions of both have been made when England has feared to refuse them. Had the grant been made once for all with manly generosity, some painful chapters of Irish history might have been omitted from this volume--some moments, let us hope, of honest shame might have been spared to those true-hearted Englishmen who deplore the fatuity and the folly of their countrymen. In 1782 the Irish Volunteers obtained from the fears of England what had been vainly asked from her justice. Burke's one idea of good government may be summed up in the words, "Be just, and fear not." In his famous Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, written in 1792, upon the question of admitting the Catholics to the elective franchise, he asks: "Is your government likely to be more secure by continuing causes of grounded discontent to two-thirds of its subjects? Will the constitution be made more solid by depriving this large part of the people of all concern or share in the representation?"

His Indian policy was equally just. "Our dealings with India," says an English writer, "originally and until Burke's time, so far from being marked with virtue and wisdom, were stained with every vice which can lower and deprave human character. How long will it take only to extirpate these traditions from the recollections of the natives? The more effectually their understandings are awakened by English efforts, the more vividly will they recognize, and the more bitterly resent, the iniquities of our first connexion with them." The Indian policy of England and her Irish policy might be written with advantage in parallel columns. It would, at least, have the advantage of showing Irishmen that they had been by no means worse governed than other dependencies of that professedly law and justice loving nation.

I have treated, briefly indeed, and by no means as I should wish, of two of the questions of the day, and of Burke's policy thereon; of the third question a few words only can be said. Burke's idea of Reform consisted in amending the administration of the constitution, rather than in amending the constitution itself. Unquestionably a bad constitution well administered, may be incomparably more beneficial to the subject than a good constitution administered corruptly. Burke's great leading principle was: Be just--and can a man have a nobler end? To suppress an insurrection cruelly, to tax a people unjustly, or to extort money from a nation on false pretences, was to him deeply abhorrent. His first object was to secure the incorruptibility of ministers and of members of parliament. When the post of royal scullion could be confided to a member of parliament, and a favourable vote secured by appointing a representative of the people to the lucrative post of turnspit in the king's kitchen, administration was hopelessly corrupt. There were useless treasurers for useless offices. Burke gave the example of what he taught; and having fixed the Paymaster's salary at four thousand pounds a year, was himself the first person to accept the diminished income.

He has been accused of forsaking his liberal principles in his latter days, simply and solely from his denunciations of the terrible excesses of the French Revolution. Such reprobation was rather a proof that he understood the difference between liberty and licentiousness, and that his accusers had neither the intellect nor the true nobility to discriminate between the frantic deeds of men, whose bad passions, long indulged, had led them on to commit the crimes of demons, and those noble but long-suffering patriots, who endured until endurance became a fault, and only resisted for the benefit of mankind as well as for their own.

So much space has been given to Burke, that it only remains to add a few brief words of the other brilliant stars, who fled across the Channel in the vain pursuit of English patronage--in the vain hope of finding in a free country the liberty to ascend higher than the rulers of that free country permitted in their own.

Moore was born in the year 1780, in the city of Dublin. His father was in trade, a fact which he had the manliness to acknowledge whenever such acknowledgment was necessary. He was educated for the bar, which was just then opened for the first time to the majority of the nation, so long governed, or misgoverned, by laws which they were neither permitted to make or to administer. His poetical talents were early manifested, and his first attempts were in the service of those who are termed patriots or rebels, as the speaker's opinion varies. That he loved liberty and admired liberators can scarcely be doubted, since even later in life he used to boast of his introduction to Thomas Jefferson, while in America, exclaiming: "I had the honour of shaking hands with the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence." His countryman, Sheridan introduced him to the Prince of Wales. His Royal Highness inquired courteously if he was the son of a certain baronet of the same name. "No, your Royal Highness," replied Moore; "I am the son of a Dublin grocer." He commenced writing his immortal Melodies in 1807, soon after his marriage. But he by no means confined himself to such subjects. With that keen sense of humour almost inseparable from, and generally proportionate to, the most exquisite sensibility of feeling, he caught the salient points of controversy in his day, and no doubt contributed not a little to the obtaining of Catholic Emancipation by the telling satires which he poured forth on its opposers. His reflections, addresed to the Quarterly Review, who recommended an increase of the Church Establishment as the grand panacea of Irish ills, might not be an inappropriate subject of consideration at the present moment. It commences thus:

"I'm quite of your mind: though these Pats cry aloud, That they've got too much Church, tis all nonsense and stuff; For Church is like love, of which Figaro vowed, That even too much of it's not quite enough."

Nor was his letter to the Duke of Newcastle, who was an obstinate opposer of Catholic Emancipation, less witty, or less in point at the present time, for the Lords would not emancipate, whatever the Commons might do:

"While intellect, 'mongst high and low, Is hastening on, they say, Give me the dukes and lords, who go, Like crabs, the other way."

Curran had been called to the bar a few years earlier. He was the son of a poor farmer in the county of Cork, and won his way to fame solely by the exercise of his extraordinary talent. Curran was a Protestant; but he did not think it necessary, because he belonged to a religion which professed liberty of conscience, to deny its exercise to every one but those of his own sect. He first distinguished himself at a contested election. Of his magnificent powers of oratory I shall say nothing, partly because their fame is European, and partly because it would be impossible to do justice to the subject in our limited space. His terrible denunciations of the horrible crimes and cruelties of the soldiers, who were sent to govern Ireland by force, for those who were not wise enough or humane enough to govern it by justice--his scathing denunciations of crown witnesses and informers, should be read at length to be appreciated fully.[570]

Swift's career is also scarcely less known. He, too, was born in Dublin of poor parents, in 1667. Although he became a minister of the Protestant Church, and held considerable emoluments therein, he had the honesty to see, and the courage to acknowledge, its many corruptions. The great lesson which he preached to Irishmen was the lesson of nationality; and, perhaps, they have yet to learn it in the sense in which he intended to teach it. No doubt, Swift, in some way, prepared the path of Burke; for, different as were their respective careers and their respective talents, they had each the same end in view. The "Drapier" was long the idol of his countrymen, and there can be little doubt that the spirit of his writings did much to animate the patriots who followed him--Lucas, Flood, and Grattan. Lucas was undoubtedly one of the purest patriots of his time. His parents were poor farmers in the county Clare, who settled in Dublin, where Lucas was born, in 1713; and in truth patriotism seldom develops itself out of purple and fine linen. Flood, however, may be taken in exception to this inference; his father was a Chief Justice of the Irish King's Bench. When elected a member of the Irish House, his first public effort was for the freedom of his country from the atrocious imposition of Poyning's Law. Unfortunately, he and Grattan quarrelled, and their country was deprived of the immense benefits which might have accrued to it from the cordial political union of two such men.

But a list of the great men of the eighteenth century, however brief, would be certainly most imperfect if I omitted the name of the Earl of Charlemont, who, had his courage been equal to his honesty of purpose, might have been enrolled not merely as an ardent, but even as a successful patriot. He was one of the Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,--one of those who came to plunder, and who learned to respect their victims, and to repent their oppressions. It is probable that the nine years which the young Earl spent in travelling on the Continent, contributed not a little to his mental enlargement. On his return from countries where freedom exists with boasting, to a country where boasting exists without a corresponding amount of freedom, he was amazed and shocked at the first exhibition of its detestable tyranny of class. A grand procession of peers and peeresses was appointed to receive the unfortunate Princess Caroline; but, before the Princess landed, the Duchess of Bedford was commanded to inform the Irish peeresses that they were not to walk, or to take any part in the ceremonial. The young Earl could not restrain his indignation at this utterly uncalled-for insult. He obtained a royal audience, and exerted himself with so much energy, that the obnoxious order was rescinded. The Earl's rank, as well as his patriotism, naturally placed him at the head of his party; and he resolutely opposed those laws which Burke had designated as a "disgrace to the statute-books of any nation, and so odious in their principles, that one might think they were passed in hell, and that demons were the legislators." In 1766, his Lordship brought a bill into the House of Lords to enable a poor Catholic peasant to take a lease of a cabin and a potato-garden; but, at the third reading, the Lords rushed in tumultuously, voted Lord Charlemont out of the chair, and taunted him with being little better than a Papist. The failure and the taunt bewildered an intellect never very clear; and, perhaps, hopelessness quenched the spirit of patriotism, which had once, at least, burned brightly. In fear of being taunted as a Papist, like many a wiser man, he rushed into the extreme of Protestant loyalty, and joined in the contemptible outcry for Protestant ascendency.

The eighteenth century was also rife in Irishmen whose intellects were devoted to literature. It claims its painters in Barrett, who was actually the founder of the Royal Academy in England, and in Barry, the most eminent historical painter of his age; its poets in Parnell, Goldsmith, Wade, O'Keeffe, Moore, and many others; its musician in Kelly, a full list of whose operatic music would fill several pages; its authors in Steele, Swift, Young, O'Leary, Malone, Congreve, Sheridan, and Goldsmith; and its actors in Macklin, Milliken, Barry, Willis, and Woffington.

Sheridan was born in Dublin, in the year 1757. He commenced his career as author by writing for the stage; but his acquaintance with Fox, who soon discerned his amazing abilities, led him in another direction. In 1786 he was employed with Burke in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The galleries of the House of Lords were filled to overflowing; peers and peeresses secured seats early in the day; actresses came to learn declamation, authors to learn style. Mrs. Siddons, accustomed as she was to the simulation of passion in herself and others, shrieked and swooned while he denounced the atrocities of which Hastings had been guilty. Fox, Pitt, and Byron, were unanimous in their praise. And on the very same night, and at the very same time, when the gifted Celt was thundering justice to India into the ears of Englishmen, his School for Scandal, one of the best comedies on the British stage, was being acted in one theatre, and his Duenna, one of its best operas, was being performed in another.

Sheridan died in 1816, a victim to intemperance, for which he had not even the excuse of misfortune. Had not his besetting sin degraded and incapacitated him, it is probable he would have been prime-minister on the death of Fox. At the early age of forty he was a confirmed drunkard. The master mind which had led a senate, was clouded over by the fumes of an accursed spirit; the brilliant eyes that had captivated a million hearts, were dimmed and bloodshot; the once noble brain, which had used its hundred gifts with equal success and ability, was deprived of all power of acting; the tongue, whose potent spell had entranced thousands, was scarcely able to articulate. Alas, and a thousand times alas! that man can thus mar his Maker's work, and stamp ruin and wretchedness where a wealth of mental power had been given to reign supreme.

Goldsmith's father was a Protestant clergyman. The poet was born at Pallas, in the county Longford. After a series of adventures, not always to his credit, and sundry wanderings on the Continent in the most extreme poverty, he settled in London. Here he met with considerable success as an author, and enjoyed the society of the first literary men of the day. After the first and inevitable struggles of a poor author, had he possessed even half as much talent for business as capacity for intellectual effort, he might soon have obtained a competency by his pen; but, unfortunately, though he was not seriously addicted to intemperance, his convivial habits, and his attraction for the gaming table, soon scattered his hard-won earnings. His "knack of hoping," however, helped him through life. He died on the 4th April, 1774. His last words were sad indeed, in whatever sense they may be taken. He was suffering from fever, but his devoted medical attendant, Doctor Norton, perceiving his pulse to be unusually high even under such circumstances, asked, "Is your mind at ease?" "No, it is not," was Goldsmith's sad reply; and these were the last words he uttered.

FOOTNOTES:

[559] Writers.--As a general rule, when Irishmen succeed either in literature, politics, or war, the credit of their performances is usually debited to the English; when they fail, we hear terrible clamours of Irish incapacity. Thackeray commences his "English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century" with Swift, and ends them with Goldsmith! I do not suppose he had any intention of defrauding the Celtic race; he simply followed the usual course. Irishmen are, perhaps, themselves most to blame, for much of this is caused by their suicidal deference to a dominant race.

[560] Order.--The Presentation Order was founded by Miss Nano Nagle, of Cork.

[561] Leadbeater.--Annals of Ballitore, vol. i. p. 50, second edition, 1862. I shall refer to this interesting work again.

[562] Man.--The exact words are: "If a man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke, under a shed to shun a shower, he would say: 'This is an extraordinary man.'"--Boswell's Johnson, vol. iv. p. 245. Foster's version is as above.

[563] Developed.--Since this sentence was penned, I find, with great satisfaction, that a similar view has been taken by a recent writer. See Secularia; or, Surveys on the Main Stream of History, by S. Lucas, p. 250. He opens a chapter on the revolt of the American States thus: "The relations of Great Britain to its colonies, past and present, are an important part of the history of the world; and the form which these relations may hereafter take, will be no small element in the political future. Even our Professors of History ... abstain from noticing their system of government, or the predisposing motives to their subsequent revolt.." The italics are our own. Neglect of the study of Irish history is, I believe, also, one of the causes why Irish grievances are not remedied by the English Government. But grievances may get settled in a way not always satisfactory to the neglecters of them, while they are waiting their leisure to investigate their cause.

[564] Writer.--Morley. Edmund Burke, an Historical Study: Macmillan and Co., 1867. A masterly work, and one which every statesman, and every thinker would do well to peruse carefully. He says: "The question to be asked by every statesman, and by every citizen, with reference to a measure that is recommended to him as the enforcement of a public right, is whether the right is one which it is to the public advantage to enforce."--p. 146.

[565] Exile.--Maguire's Irish in America, p. 355: "It would seem as if they instinctively arrayed themselves in hostility to the British power; a fact to be explained alike by their love of liberty, and their vivid remembrance of recent or past misgovernment." The italics are our own. The penal laws were enacted with the utmost rigour against Catholics in the colonies, and the only place of refuge was Maryland, founded by the Catholic Lord Baltimore. Here there was liberty of conscience for all, but here only. The sects who had fled to America to obtain "freedom to worship God," soon manifested their determination that no one should have liberty of conscience except themselves, and gave the lie to their own principles, by persecuting each other for the most trifling differences of opinion on religious questions, in the cruelest manner. Cutting off ears, whipping, and maiming were in constant practice. See Maguire's Irish in America, p. 349; Lucas' Secularia, pp. 220-246.

[566] Irishman.--See Cooper's Naval History.

[567] England.--He wrote to Thompson, from London, saying that he could effect nothing: "The sun of liberty is set; we must now light up the candles of industry." The Secretary replied, with Celtic vehemence: "Be assured we shall light up torches of a very different kind." When the Catholics of the United States sent up their celebrated Address to Washington, in 1790, he alludes in one part of his reply to the immense assistance obtained from them in effecting the Revolution: "I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic religion is professed."

[568] Morley.--Edmund Burke, an Historical Study, p. 181.

[569] People.--Chesterfield said, in 1764, that the poor people in Ireland were used "worse than negroes." "Aristocracy," said Adam Smith, "was not founded in the natural and respectable distinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all distinctions, those of religious and political prejudices--distinctions which, more than any other, animate both the insolence of the oppressors, and the hatred and indignation of the oppressed."--Morley's Edmund Burke, p. 183.

[570] Fully.--See Curran's Letters and Speeches: Dublin, 1865.

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Chapter XXXVI

The Volunteers deserted by their Leaders--Agrarian Outrages and their Cause--Foundation of the United Irishmen--Cruelties of the Orangemen--Government Spies and Informers--Lord Moira exposes the Cruelty of the Yeomanry in Parliament--Mr. Orr's Trial and Death--Details of the Atrocities enacted by the Military from a Protestant History--Tom the Devil--Cruelties practised by Men of Rank--Licentiousness of the Army--Death of Lord Edward FitzGerald--The Rising--Martial Law in Dublin--The Insurrection in Wexford--Massacres at Scullabogue House and Wexford-bridge by the Insurgents--How the Priests were rewarded for saving Lives and Property--The Insurrection in Ulster--The State Prisoners--The Union.

[A.D. 1783-1800.]

Parliament was dissolved on the 15th of July, 1783, and summoned to meet in October. The Volunteers now began to agitate on the important question of parliamentary reform, which, indeed, was necessary, for there were few members who really represented the nation. The close boroughs were bought and sold openly and shamelessly, and many members who were returned for counties were not proof against place or bribes. But the Volunteers had committed the fatal mistake of not obtaining the exercise of the elective franchise for their Catholic fellow-subjects: hence the Irish Parliament obtained only a nominal freedom, as its acts were entirely in the hands of the Government through the venality of the members. On the 10th of November, one hundred and sixty delegates assembled at the Royal Exchange, Dublin. They were headed by Lord Charlemont, and marched in procession to the Rotundo. The Earl of Bristol, an eccentric, but kind and warm-hearted character, who was also the Protestant Bishop of Derry, took a leading part in the deliberations. Sir Boyle Roche, an equally eccentric gentleman, brought a message from Lord Kenmare to the meeting, assuring them that the Catholics were satisfied with what had been granted to them. He had acted under a misapprehension; and the Bishop of Derry, who was in fact the only really liberal member of the corps, informed the delegates that the Catholics had held a meeting, with Sir Patrick Bellew in the chair, in which they repudiated this assertion. Several plans of reform were now proposed; and a Bill was introduced into the House by Mr. Flood, on the 29th of November, and warmly opposed by Mr. Yelverton, who was now Attorney-General, and had formerly been a Volunteer. A stormy scene ensued, but bribery and corruption prevailed. The fate of the Volunteers was sealed. Through motives of prudence or of policy, Lord Charlemont adjourned the convention sine die; and the flame, which had shot up with sudden brilliancy, died out even more rapidly than it had been kindled. The Volunteers were now deserted by their leaders, and assumed the infinitely dangerous form of a democratic movement. Such a movement can rarely succeed, and seldom ends without inflicting worse injuries on the nation than those which it has sought to avert.

The delegates were again convened in Dublin, by Flood and Napper Tandy. They met in October, 1784, and their discussions were carried on in secret. Everywhere the men began to arm themselves, and to train others to military exercises. But the Government had gained a victory over them in the withdrawal of their leaders, and the Attorney-General attempted to intimidate them still further by a prosecution. In 1785 a Bill was introduced for removing some of the commercial restraints of the Irish nation; it passed the Irish House, but, to satisfy popular clamours in England, it was returned with such additions as effectually marred its usefulness. Grattan now saw how grievously he had been mistaken in his estimate of the results of all that was promised in 1782, and he denounced the measure with more than ordinary eloquence. It was rejected by a small majority, after a debate which lasted till eight o'clock in the morning; and the nationality of the small majority purchased the undying hatred of the English minister, William Pitt. The people were still suffering from the cruel exactions of landlords and tithe-proctors. Their poverty and misery were treated with contempt and indifference, and they were driven to open acts of violence, which could not be repressed either by the fear of the consequences, or the earnest exhortations of the Catholic bishops and clergy.[571]

In the north some disturbances had originated as early as 1775, amongst the Protestant weavers, who suffered severely from the general depression of trade, and the avariciousness of commercial speculators. Their association was called "Hearts of Steel." The author of the United Irishman mentions one instance as a sample of many others, in which the ruling elder of a Presbyterian congregation had raised the rents on a number of small farms, and excited in consequence severe acts of retaliation from them.[572] In 1784 two parties commenced agrarian outrages in Ulster, called respectively Peep-o'-Day Boys and Defenders. As the Catholics sided with one party, and the Protestants with another, it merged eventually into a religious feud. The former faction assumed the appellation of Protestant Boys, and at last became the Orange Society, whose atrocities, and the rancorous party-spirit which they so carefully fomented, was one of the principal causes of the rebellion of 1798. The Catholics had assumed the name of Defenders, from being obliged to band in self-defence; but when once a number of uneducated persons are leagued together, personal feeling and strong passions will lead to acts of violence, which the original associates would have shrunk from committing.

Pitt was again thwarted by the Irish Parliament on the Regency question, when the insanity of George III. required the appointment of his heir as governor of England. The Marquis of Buckingham, who was then Lord Lieutenant, refused to forward their address; but the members sent a deputation of their own. This nobleman was open and shameless in his acts of bribery, and added £13,000 a-year to the pension list, already so fatally oppressive to the country. In 1790 he was succeeded by the Earl of Westmoreland, and various clubs were formed; but the Catholics were still excluded from them all. Still the Catholics were an immense majority nationally; the French Revolution had manifested what the people could do; and the rulers of the land, with such terrible examples before their eyes, could not for their own sakes afford to ignore Catholic interests altogether. But the very cause which gave hope was itself the means of taking hope away. The action of the Irish Catholics was paralyzed through fear of the demonlike cruelties which even a successful revolution might induce; and the general fear which the aristocratic party had of giving freedom to the uneducated classes, influenced them to a fatal silence. Again the middle classes were left without leaders, who might have tempered a praiseworthy nationality with a not less praiseworthy prudence, and which might have saved both the nation and some of its best and bravest sons from fearful suffering. A Catholic meeting was held in Dublin, on the 11th of February, 1791, and a resolution was passed to apply to Parliament for relief from their disabilities. This was in truth the origin of the United Irishmen. For the first time Catholics and Protestants agreed cordially and worked together harmoniously. The leading men on the Catholic committee were Keogh, M'Cormic, Sweetman, Byrne, and Branghall; the Protestant leaders were Theobald Wolfe Tone and the Hon. Simon Butler. Tone visited Belfast in October, 1791, and formed the first club of the Society of United Irishmen. He was joined there by Neilson, Simms, Russell, and many others. A club was then formed in Dublin, of which Napper Tandy became a leading member. The fundamental resolutions of the Society were admirable. They stated: "1. That the weight of English influence in the government of this country is so great, as to require a cordial union among all the people of Ireland, to maintain that balance which is essential to the preservation of our liberties and the extension of our commerce. 2. That the sole constitutional mode by which this influence can be opposed, is by a complete and radical reform of the representation of the people in Parliament. 3. That no reform is just which does not include every Irishman of every religious persuasion."

Tone had already obtained considerable influence by his political pamphlets, which had an immense circulation. There can be no doubt that he was tinctured with republican sentiments; but it was impossible for an Irish Protestant, who had any real sympathy with his country, to feel otherwise: it had endured nothing but misery from the monarchical form of government. The Catholics, probably, were only prevented from adopting similar opinions by their inherent belief in the divine right of kings. In 1791 the fears of those who thought the movement had a democratic tendency, were confirmed by the celebration of the anniversary of the French Revolution in Belfast, July, 1791; and in consequence of this, sixty-four Catholics of the upper classes presented a loyal address to the throne. The Catholic delegates met in Dublin in December, 1792, and prepared a petition to the King representing their grievances. It was signed by Dr. Troy, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, and Dr. Moylan, on behalf of the clergy. Amongst the laity present were Lords Kenmare, Fingall, Trimbleston, Gormanstown, and French. Five delegates were appointed to present the petition, and they were provided with a very large sum of money, which induced those in power to obtain them an audience. They were introduced to George III. by Edmund Burke. His Majesty sent a message to the Irish Parliament, requesting them to remove some of the disabilities; but the Parliament treated the message with contempt, and Lord Chancellor FitzGibbon brought in a Bill to prevent any bodies from meeting by delegation for the future.

In 1793 a Relief Bill was passed, in consequence of the war with France; a Militia Bill, and the Gunpowder and Convention Bills, were also passed, the latter being an attempt to suppress the Volunteers and the United Irishmen. A meeting of the latter was held in February, 1793, and the chairman and secretary were brought before the House of Lords, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of £500 each. The following year, January, 1794, Mr. Rowan was prosecuted for an address to the Volunteers, made two years before. Even Curran's eloquence, and the fact that the principal witness was perjured, failed to obtain his acquittal. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of £500. His conviction only served to increase the popular excitement, as he was considered a martyr to his patriotism. An address was presented to him in Newgate by the United Irishmen, but he escaped on the 1st of May, and got safely to America, though £1,000 was offered for his apprehension.

The English minister now appears to have tried the old game of driving the people into a rebellion, which could be crushed at once by the sword, and would spare the necessity of making concessions; or of entangling the leaders in some act of overt treason, and quashing the movement by depriving it of its heads. An opportunity for the latter manoeuvre now presented itself. A Protestant clergyman, who had resided many years in France, came to the country for the purpose of opening communications between the French Government and the United Irishmen. This gentleman, the Rev. William Jackson, confided his secret to his solicitor, a man named Cockayne. The solicitor informed Mr. Pitt, and by his desire continued to watch his victim, and trade on his open-hearted candour, until he had led him to his doom. The end of the unfortunate clergyman was very miserable. He took poison when brought up for judgment, and died in the dock. His object in committing this crime was to save his property for his wife and children, as it would have been confiscated had his sentence been pronounced.

The Viceroyalty of Earl FitzWilliam once more gave the Irish nation some hope that England would grant them justice. But he was soon recalled; Lord Camden was sent in his stead; and the country was given up to the Beresford faction, who were quite willing to co-operate in Mr. Pitt's plan of setting Protestants and Catholics against each other, of exciting open rebellion, and of profiting by the miseries of the nation to forge new chains for it, by its parliamentary union with England. Everything was done now that could be done to excite the Catholics to rebellion. The Orangemen, if their own statement on oath[573] is to be trusted, were actually bribed to persecute the Catholics; sermons[574] were preached by Protestant ministers to excite their feelings; and when the Catholics resisted, or offered reprisals, they were punished with the utmost severity, while their persecutors always escaped. Lord Carhampton, grandson of the worthless Henry Luttrell, who had betrayed the Irish at the siege of Limerick, commanded the army, and his cruelty is beyond description. An Insurrection Act was passed in 1796; magistrates were allowed to proclaim counties; suspected persons were to be banished the country or pressed into the fleet, without the shadow of trial; and Acts of Indemnity[575] were passed, to shield the magistrates and the military from the consequences of any unlawful cruelties which fanaticism or barbarity might induce them to commit.

Grattan appealed boldly and loudly against these atrocities. "These insurgents," he said, "call themselves Protestant Boys--that is, a banditti of murderers, committing massacre in the name of God, and exercising despotic power in the name of liberty." The published declaration of Lord Gosford and of thirty magistrates, who attempted to obtain some justice for the unfortunate subjects of these wrongs, is scarcely less emphatic. It is dated December 28, 1795: "It is no secret that a persecution, accompanied with all the circumstances of ferocious cruelty which have in all ages distinguished this calamity, is now raging in this country; neither age, nor sex, nor even acknowledged innocence, is sufficient to excite mercy or afford protection. The only crime which the unfortunate objects of this persecution are charged with, is a crime of easy proof indeed; it is simply a profession of the Roman Catholic faith. A lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges of this species of delinquency, and the sentence they pronounce is equally concise and terrible; it is nothing less than a confiscation of all property and immediate banishment--a prescription that has been carried into effect, and exceeds, in the number of those it consigns to ruin and misery, every example that ancient or modern history can supply. These horrors are now acting with impunity. The spirit of justice has disappeared from the country; and the supineness of the magistracy of Armagh has become a common topic of conversation in every corner of the kingdom."

One should have supposed that an official declaration from such an authority, signed by the Governor of Armagh and thirty magistrates, would have produced some effect on the Government of the day; but the sequel proved that such honorable exposure was as ineffective as the rejected petition of millions of Catholics. The formation of the yeomanry corps filled up the cup of bitterness. The United Irishmen, seeing no hope of constitutional redress, formed themselves into a military organization. But, though the utmost precautions were used to conceal the names of members and the plans of the association, their movements were well known to Government from an early period. Tone, in the meantime, came to France from America, and induced Carnot to send an expedition to Ireland, under the command of General Hoche. It ended disastrously. A few vessels cruised for a week in the harbour of Bantry Bay; but, as the remainder of the fleet, which was separated by a fog, did not arrive, Grouchy, the second in command, returned to France.

Meanwhile, the Society of United Irishmen spread rapidly, and especially in those places where the Orangemen exercised their cruelties. Lord Edward FitzGerald now joined the movement; and even those who cannot commend the cause, are obliged to admire the perfection of his devoted self-sacrifice to what he believed to be the interests of his country. His leadership seemed all that was needed to secure success. His gay and frank manner made him popular; his military bearing demanded respect; his superior attainments gave him power to command; his generous disinterestedness was patent to all. But already a paid system of espionage had been established by Government. A set of miscreants were found who could lure their victims to their doom--who could eat and drink, and talk and live with them as their bosom friends, and then sign their death-warrant with the kiss of Judas. There was a regular gang of informers of a low class, like the infamous Jemmy O'Brien, who were under the control of the Town-Majors, Sirr and Swan. But there were gentlemen informers also, who, in many cases, were never so much as suspected by their dupes. MacNally, the advocate of the United Irishmen, and Mr. Graham, their solicitor, were both of that class. Thomas Reynolds, of Killeen Castle, entered their body on purpose to betray them. Captain Armstrong did the same. John Hughes, a Belfast bookseller, had himself arrested several times, to allay their suspicions. John Edward Nevill was equally base and treacherous. However necessary it may be for the ends of government to employ spies and informers, there is no necessity for men to commit crimes of the basest treachery. Such men and such crimes will ever be handed down to posterity with the reprobation they deserve.

Attempts were now made to get assistance from France. Mr. O'Connor and Lord Edward FitzGerald proceeded thither for that purpose; but their mission was not productive of any great result. The people were goaded to madness by the cruelties which were committed on them every day; and it was in vain that persons above all suspicion of countenancing either rebels or Papists, protested against these enormities in the name of common humanity. In 1797 a part of Ulster was proclaimed by General Lalor, and Lord Moira described thus, in the English House of Lords, the sufferings of the unhappy people: "When a man was taken up on suspicion, he was put to the torture; nay, if he were merely accused of concealing the guilt of another, the punishment of picketing, which had for some years been abolished as too inhuman even in the dragoon service, was practised. I have known a man, in order to extort confession of a supposed crime, or of that of some of his neighbours, picketed until he actually fainted; picketed a second time, until he fainted again; picketed a third time, until he once more fainted; and all upon mere suspicion. Nor was this the only species of torture; many had been taken and hung up until they were half dead, and then threatened with a repetition of this cruel treatment unless they made confession of the imputed guilt. These," continued his Lordship, "were not particular acts of cruelty, exercised by men abusing the power committed to them, but they formed part of a system. They were notorious; and no person could say who would be the next victim of this oppression and cruelty." As redress was hopeless, and Parliament equally indifferent to cruelties and to remonstrances, Mr. Grattan and his colleagues left the Irish House to its inhumanity and its fate.

In the autumn of this year, 1797, Mr. Orr, of Antrim, was tried and executed, on a charge of administering the oath of the United Irishmen to a soldier. This gentleman was a person of high character and respectability. He solemnly protested his innocence; the soldier, stung with remorse, swore before a magistrate that the testimony he gave at the trial was false. Petitions were at once sent in, praying for the release of the prisoner, but in vain; he was executed on the 14th of October, though no one doubted his innocence; and "Orr's fate" became a watchword of and an incitement to rebellion. Several of the jury made a solemn oath after the trial that, when locked up for the night to "consider" their verdict, they were supplied abundantly with intoxicating drinks, and informed one and all, that, if they did not give the required verdict of guilty, they should themselves be prosecuted as United Irishmen. Mr. Orr was offered his life and liberty again and again if he would admit his guilt; his wife and four young children added their tears and entreaties to the persuasions of his friends; but he preferred truth and honour to life and freedom. His end was worthy of his resolution. On the scaffold he turned to his faithful attendant, and asked him to remove his watch, as he should need it no more. Mr. Orr was a sincere Protestant; his servant was a Catholic. His last words are happily still on record. He showed the world how a Protestant patriot could die; and that the more sincere and deep his piety, the less likely he would be to indulge in fanatical hatred of those who differed from him. "You, my friend," he said to his weeping and devoted servant--"you, my friend, and I must now part. Our stations here on earth have been a little different, and our mode of worshipping the Almighty Being that we both adore. Before His presence we shall stand equal. Farewell! Remember Orr!"[576]

Alas! there was more to remember than the fate of this noble victim to legal injustice. I have before alluded to that strange phenomenon of human nature, by which men, who, at least, appear to be educated and refined, can, under certain circumstances, become bloodthirsty and cruel. The demon enters into the man, and make him tenfold more demoniacal than himself. But fearful as the deeds of officers and men have been in India, where the unhappy natives were shattered to atoms from the cannons' mouths: or, in more recent times, when men, and even women, have all but expired under the lash; no deeds of savage vengeance have ever exceeded those which were perpetrated daily and hourly in Ireland, before the rebellion of 1798. For the sake of our common humanity I would that they could be passed over unrecorded; for the sake of our common humanity I shall record them in detail, for it may be that the terror of what men can become when they give way to unrestrained passions, may deter some of my fellow-creatures from allowing themselves to participate in or to enact such deeds of blood. Historical justice, too, demands that they should be related. Englishmen have heard much of the cruelties of Irish rebels at Wexford, which I shall neither palliate nor excuse. Englishmen have heard but little of the inhuman atrocities which excited that insurrection, and prompted these reprisals. And let it be remembered, that there are men still living who saw these cruelties enacted in their childhood, and men whose fathers and nearest relations were themselves subjected to these tortures. To the Celt, so warm of heart and so tenacious of memory, what food this is for the tempter, who bids him recall, and bids him revenge, even now, these wrongs! What wonder if passion should take the place of reason, and if religion, which commands him to suffer patiently the memory of injuries inflicted on others, often harder to bear than one's own pain, should sometimes fail to assert its sway![577]

I shall give the account of these atrocities in the words of a Protestant historian first. The Rev. Mr. Gordon writes thus, in his narrative of these fearful times: "The fears of the people became so great at length, that they forsook their houses in the night, and slept (if, under such circumstances, they could sleep) in the ditches and the women were even delivered in that exposed condition, These facts were notorious at the time.... Some abandoned their house from fear of being whipped; and this infliction many persons appeared to fear more than death itself. Many unfortunate men were strung up as it were to be hanged, but were let down now and then, to try if strangulation would oblige them to become informers." He then goes on to relate at length how the magistrates tortured smiths and carpenters at once, because it was supposed from their trade they must have made pikes; and how they, at last, professed to know a United Irishman by his face, and "never suffered any person whom they deigned to honour with this distinction, to pass off without convincing proof of their attention." He also mentions the case of a hermit named Driscoll, whose name and the same details of his sufferings are given in Clancy's account of the insurrection. This man was strangled three times, and flogged four times, because a Catholic prayer-book was found in his possession, on which it was supposed that he used to administer oaths of disloyalty.

I shall now give the account of another historian. Plowden writes thus; "These military savages [the yeomanry corps--it will be remembered what Lord Moira said of them in Parliament] were permitted, both by magistrates and officers, in open day, to seize every man they wished or chose to suspect as a Croppy, and drag him to the guardhouse, where they constantly kept a supply of coarse linen caps, besmeared inside with pitch; and when the pitch was well heated, they forced the cap on his head; and sometimes the melted pitch, running into the eyes of the unfortunate victim, superadded blindness to his other tortures. They generally detained him till the pitch had so cooled, that the cap could not be detached from the head without carrying with it the hair and blistered skin; they then turned him adrift, disfigured, often blind, and writhing with pain. They enjoyed with loud bursts of laughter the fiendlike sport--the agonies of their victim. At other times, they rubbed moistened gunpowder into the hair, in the form of a cross, and set fire to it; and not unfrequently sheared off the ears and nose of the unfortunate Croppy." Plowden then details the atrocities of a sergeant of the Cork Militia, who was called Tom the Devil. He concludes: "It would be uncandid to detail only instances of the brutality of the lower orders, whilst evidence is forthcoming of persons of fortune and education being still more brutalized by its deleterious spirit." He then mentions an instance, on the authority of both an eyewitness and the victim, in which Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Beresford, and an officer whose name he did not know, tortured two respectable Dublin tradesmen, one named John Fleming, a ferryman, the other Francis Gough, a coachmaker. The nobleman superintended the flagellation of Gough, and at every stroke insulted him with taunts and inquiries how he liked it. The unfortunate man was confined to his bed in consequence, for six months after the infliction. On Whit-Sunday, 1798, these men were again tortured with pitchcaps by the gentlemen. Other instances might be added, but these will suffice to show the feeling which actuated the rulers who permitted, and the men who perpetrated, these deeds of blood. "With difficulty," says Mr. Plowden, "does the mind yield reluctant consent to such debasement of the human species. The spirit which degrades it to that abandonment is of no ordinary depravity. The same spirit of Orangeism moved the colonel in Dublin, and his sergeant at Wexford. The effect of that spirit can only be faintly illustrated by facts. Those have been verified to the author by the spectator and the sufferer."[578]

From a letter of Lady Napier's, never intended for publication, and above all suspicion of any sympathy with the lower order of Irish, it will be seen how the tenantry of the Duke of Leinster were driven to revolt. It is dated Castletown, 27th June, 1798, and addressed to the Duke of Richmond. "The cruel hardships put on his tenants preferably to all others, has driven them to despair, and they join the insurgents, saying: 'It is better to die with a pike in my hand, than be shot like a dog at my work, or to see my children faint for want of food before my eyes.'"

Sir Ralph Abercrombie was appointed to command the army in Ireland, in 1797; but he threw up his charge, disgusted with atrocities which he could not control, and which he was too humane even to appear to sanction.[579] He declared the army to be in a state of licentiousness, which made it formidable to every one but the enemy. General Lake, a fitting instrument for any cruelty, was appointed to take his place; and Lord Castlereagh informs us that "measures were taken by Government to cause a premature explosion." It would have been more Christian in the first place, and more politic in the second place, if Government had taken measures to prevent any explosion at all.[580]

On the 12th of March, 1798, the Leinster delegates, who had been long since betrayed, were seized by Major Swan, in Dublin. Fifteen persons were present, the greater number of whom were Protestants. Emmet, MacNevin, Jackson, and Sweetman, were seized the same day. Arthur O'Connor had already been arrested on his way to France, with Father Coigley. The latter was convicted on May 22, at Maidstone, and hanged on evidence so inconclusive, that Lord Chancellor Thurlow said: "If ever a poor man was murdered, it was Coigley!" The arrest of Lord Edward FitzGerald occurred soon after. The room in which he was arrested and the bed on which he lay is still shown, for the brave young noble had won for himself the heart's love of every true Irishman. The story of his life would occupy more space than can be given to it. To abridge it would be to destroy more than half of its real interest. A severe wound which he received in the struggle with his captors, combined with the effects of excitement and a cruel imprisonment, caused his death. He was a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. Even his enemies, and the enemies of his country, could find no word to say against him. With him died the best hopes of the United Irishmen, and with his expiring breath they lost their best prospect of success.[581]

Lord Edward died on the 4th of June. The 23rd of May had been fixed for the rising; but informations were in the hands of the Government. Captain Armstrong had betrayed the Sheares, two brothers who had devoted themselves to the cause of their country with more affection than prudence. The base traitor had wound himself into their confidence, had dined with them, and was on the most intimate social relations with their family. On the 12th of July he swore their lives away; and two days after they were executed, holding each other's hands as they passed into eternity.

The rising did take place, but it was only partial. The leaders were gone, dead, or imprisoned; and nothing but the wild desperation, which suggested that it was better to die fighting than to die inch by inch, under inhuman torture, could have induced the people to rise at all. The ferocity with which the insurrection was put down, may be estimated by the cruelties enacted before it commenced. Lord Cornwallis, in his Government report to the Duke of Portland, declared that "murder was the favourite pastime" of the militia. He declared that the principal persons in the country and the members of Parliament were averse to all conciliation, and "too much heated to see the effects which their violence must produce." To General Ross he writes: "The violence of our friends, and their folly in endeavouring to make it a religious war, added to the ferocity of our troops, who delight in murder, must powerfully counteract all plans of conciliation; and the conversation, even at my table, where you will suppose I do all I can to prevent it, always turns on hanging, shooting, burning, &c.; and if a priest has been put to death, the greatest joy is expressed by the whole company."

On the 23rd of May, Dublin was placed under martial law; the citizens were armed, the guard was trebled, the barristers pleaded with regimentals and swords, and several of the lamplighters were hung from their own lamp-posts for neglecting to light the lamps. The country people were prepared to march on the city, but Lord Roden and his Foxhunters soon put down their attempt. The next morning the dead were exhibited in the Castle-yard, and the prisoners were hanged at Carlisle-bridge. Sir Watkins Wynn and his Ancient Britons distinguished themselves by their cruelties. The Homsperg Dragoons and the Orange Yeomanry equalled them in deeds of blood. The fighting commenced in Kildare, on the 24th, by an attack on Naas, which was repelled by Lord Gosport. Two of his officers and thirty men were killed, and the people were shot down and hanged indiscriminately. "Such was the brutal ferocity of some of the King's troops," says Plowden, "that they half roasted and eat the flesh of one man, named Walsh, who had not been in arms." At Prosperous the insurgents attacked and burned the barracks, and piked any of the soldiers who attempted to escape from the flames. This regiment, the North Cork Militia, had been specially cruel in their treatment of the people, who were only too willing to retaliate. A troop of dragoons, commanded by Captain Erskine, was almost annihilated at Old Kilcullen. But reverses soon followed. At Carlow the insurgents met with a severe defeat; and the defenceless and innocent inhabitants, who fled into their houses for shelter from the fire, were cruelly and ruthlessly burned to death in their own habitations by the military.

A body of 2,000 men, under a leader named Perkins, encamped on the Hill of Allan, and agreed with General Douglas to lay down their arms. The General was honorable and humane, but his subordinates were not so. Major-General Duff, to whom the arms were to have been delivered up, ordered his troops to fire on the people, when they had assembled for that purpose. Lord Roden's cavalry cut them down, and an immense number were slaughtered in cold blood. Another attack took place at Tara, where the Irish were again defeated. The insurrection now broke out in Wexford. The people in this part of the country had not joined the movement in any way, until the arrival of the North Cork Militia, commanded by Lord Kingsborough. The men paraded in orange ribbons, fired at the peaceful country people, and employed pitchcaps and torture, until their victims were driven to desperation. The county was proclaimed on the 27th of April, by the magistrates; and before any riot had taken place, Mr. Hunter Gowan paraded through Gorey at the head of his yeomanry, with a human finger on the point of his sword, which was subsequently used to stir their punch in the evening.

On Whit-Sunday, the 27th of May, the yeomen burned the Catholic Chapel of Boulavogue. Father John Murphy, the parish priest, who had hitherto tried to suppress the insurrection, placed himself at the head of the insurgents. The men now rose in numbers, and marched to Enniscorthy, which they took after some fighting. Vinegar Hill, a lofty eminence overlooking the town, was chosen for their camp. Some of the leading Protestant gentlemen of the county had either favoured or joined the movement; and several of them had been arrested on suspicion, and were imprisoned at Wexford. The garrison of this place, however, fled in a panic, caused by some successes of the Irish troops, and probably from a very clear idea of the kind of retaliation they might expect for their cruelties. Mr. Harvey, one of the prisoners mentioned above, was now released, and headed the insurgents; but a powerful body of troops, under General Loftus, was sent into the district, and eventually obtained possession of New Ross, which the Irish had taken with great bravery, but which they had not been able to hold for want of proper military discipline and command. They owed their defeat to insubordination and drunkenness. A number of prisoners had been left at Scullabogue House, near Carrickburne Hill. Some fugitives from the Irish camp came up in the afternoon, and pretended that Mr. Harvey had given orders for their execution, alleging, as a reason, what, indeed, was true, that the royalists massacred indiscriminately. The guard resisted, but were overpowered by the mob, who were impatient to revenge without justice the cruelties which had been inflicted on them without justice. A hundred were burned in a barn, and thirty-seven were shot or piked. This massacre has been held up as a horrible example of Irish treachery and cruelty. It was horrible, no doubt, and cannot be defended or palliated; but, amid these contending horrors of cruel war, the question still recurs: Upon whom is the original guilt of causing them to be charged?

Father Murphy[582] was killed in an attack on Carlow, and his death threw the balance strongly in favour of the Government troops, who eventually proved victorious. After the battle of Ross, the Wexford men chose the Rev. Philip Roche as their leader, in place of Mr. Bagenal Harvey, who had resigned the command. The insurgents were now guilty of following the example of their persecutors, if not with equal cruelty, at least with a barbarity which their leaders in vain reprobated. The prisoners whom they had taken were confined in the jail, and every effort was made to save them from the infuriated people. But one savage, named Dixon, would not be content without their blood; and while the army and their leaders were encamped on Vinegar Hill, he and some other villains as wicked as himself found their way into the jail, and marched the prisoners to the bridge, held a mock trial, and then piked thirty-five of their victims, and flung them into the water. At this moment a priest, who had heard of the bloody deed, hastened to the spot; and after in vain commanding them to desist, succeeded at last in making them kneel down, when he dictated a prayer that God might show them the same mercy which they would show to the surviving prisoners. This had its effect; and the men who waited in terror to receive the doom they had so often and so mercilessly inflicted on others, were marched back to prison.

The camp on Vinegar Hill was now beset on all sides by the royal troops. An attack was planned by General Lake, with 20,000 men and a large train of artillery. General Needham did not arrive in time to occupy the position appointed for him; and after an hour and a-half of hard fighting, the Irish gave way, principally from want of gunpowder. The soldiers now indulged in the most wanton deeds of cruelty. The hospital at Enniscorthy was set on fire, and the wounded men shot in their beds. At Wexford, General Moore prevented his troops from committing such outrages; but when the rest of the army arrived, they acted as they had done at Enniscorthy. Courts-martial were held, in which the officers were not even sworn, and victims were consigned to execution with reckless atrocity. The bridge of Wexford, where a Catholic priest had saved so many Protestant lives, was now chosen for the scene of slaughter; and all this in spite of a promise of amnesty. Father Roche and Mr. Keogh were the first victims of the higher classes; Messrs. Grogan, Harvey, and Colclough were hanged the following day. A mixed commission was now formed of the magistrates, who were principally Orangemen, and the military, whose virulence was equally great. The Rev. Mr. Gordon, the Protestant clergyman whose account I have principally followed, as above all suspicion, declares that "whoever could be proved to have saved an Orangeman or royalist from assassination, his house from burning, or his property from plunder, was considered as having influence amongst the revolters, and consequently as a rebel commander." The reward for their charity now was instant execution. The Rev. John Redmond, the Catholic priest of Newtownbarry, had saved Lord Mountmorris and other gentlemen from the fury of the exasperated people, and had preserved his house and property from plunder. He was now sent for by this nobleman; and, conscious of his innocence, and the benefits he had rendered him, he at once obeyed the summons. On his arrival, he was seized, brought before the court, and executed on the pretence of having been a commander in the rebel army. He had, indeed, commanded, but the only commands he ever uttered were commands of mercy. Well might Mr. Gordon sorrowfully declare, that he had "heard of hundreds of United Irishmen, during the insurrection, who have, at the risk of their lives, saved Orangemen; but I have not heard of a single Orangeman who encountered any danger to save the life of a United Irishman." With equal sorrow he remarks the difference in the treatment of females by each party. The Irish were never once accused of having offered the slightest insult to a woman; the military, besides shooting them indiscriminately with the men, treated them in a way which cannot be described, and under circumstances which added a more than savage inhumanity to their crime.

The next act of the fatal drama was the execution of the State prisoners. The rising in Ulster had been rendered ineffective, happily for the people, by the withdrawal of some of the leaders at the last moment. The command in Antrim was taken by Henry McCracken, who was at last captured by the royalists, and executed at Belfast, on the 17th of June. At Saintfield, in Down, they were commanded by Henry Monroe, who had been a Volunteer, and had some knowledge of military tactics. In an engagement at Ballinahinch, he showed considerable ability in the disposal of his forces, but they were eventually defeated, and he also paid the forfeit of his life. A remnant of the Wexford insurrection was all that remained to be crushed. On the 21st of June, Lord Cornwallis was sent to Ireland, with the command both of the military forces and the civil power. On the 17th of July an amnesty was proclaimed; and the majority of the State prisoners were permitted eventually to leave the country, having purchased their pardon by an account of the plans of the United Irishmen, which were so entirely broken up that their honour was in no way compromised by the disclosure.

Several men, however, were executed, in whose fate the country had, for many reasons, more than ordinary interest. To have pardoned them would have been more humane and better policy. These were the two Sheares, M'Cann, and Mr. William Byrne. Their history will be found in the Lives of the United Irishmen, by Dr. Madden, a work of many volumes, whose contents could not possibly be compressed into the brief space which the limits of this work demands.

Some painfully interesting details of this fearful period may be found in the Annals of Ballitore, a work already referred to in this volume. The writer being a member of the Society of Friends, must be beyond all suspicion of partiality for rebels or Papists; yet, happily, like many members of that Society, was distinguished for humanity and toleration for the opinions of others. Her account of '98, being the annals of a family and a village, is, perhaps, almost better calculated to give an exact idea of the state of the times than a work comprising a more extended range of observation; and yet what was suffered in Ballitore was comparatively trifling when compared with the sufferings of other villages and towns. The first trial was the quartering of the yeomen, "from whose bosom," writes this gentle lady, "pity seemed banished." The Suffolk Fencibles and the Ancient Britons were next quartered on the unfortunate inhabitants. Then commenced the cruel torturing, for which the yeomen and militia obtained an eternal reprobation; the public floggings, of which she writes thus--"the torture was excessive, and the victims were long in recovering, and in almost every case it was applied fruitlessly;" yet these demons in human form never relaxed their cruelty. "The village, once so peaceful, exhibited a scene of tumult and dismay; and the air rang with the shrieks of the sufferers, and the lamentations of those who beheld them suffer."[583] Then follow fearful details, which cannot be given here, but which prove how completely the people were driven into rebellion, and how cruelly they were punished. Reprisals, of course, were made by the unfortunate victims; and on one occasion, Mrs. Leadbeater relates how Priest Cullen begged the life of a young man on his knees, and, as a reward of his humanity, was apprehended soon after, and condemned to death. The most cruel scene of all was the murder of the village doctor, a man who had devoted himself unweariedly to healing the wounds of both parties; but because he attended the "rebels," and showed them any acts of common humanity, he was taken before a court-martial, and "hacked to death" by the yeomen with their swords. "He was alone and unarmed when seized," writes Mrs. Leadbeater, "and I believe had never raised his hand to injure any one."

The French allies of Irish insurgents appear to have a fatality for arriving precisely when their services are worse than useless. On the 22nd of August, 1798, Humbert landed at Killala with a small French force, who, after a number of engagements, were eventually obliged to surrender at discretion.

Ireland having been reduced to the lowest state of misery and servitude, the scheme for which much of this suffering had been enacted was now proposed and carried out. The first parliamentary intimation was given in a speech from the throne, on the 22nd of January, 1799; a pamphlet was published on the subject by Mr. Cooke, the Under-Secretary; but it required more cogent arguments than either speeches from the throne or pamphlets to effect the object of Government. Mr. Pitt had set his heart upon the Union, and Mr. Pitt had determined that the Union should be carried out at any expense of honour. The majority of the Irish lawyers protested against it. The Irish people, as far as they dared do so, opposed it. At a meeting of the Irish bar, on the 9th of December, there were 166 votes against the Union and only thirty-two in favour of it. The published correspondence of Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh has revealed an amount of nefarious corruption and treachery at which posterity stands aghast. "These noblemen," writes Sir Jonah Barrington, "seemed to have been created for such a crisis, and for each other. An unremitting perseverance, an absence of all political compunctions, an unqualified contempt of public opinion, and a disregard of every constitutional principle, were common to both." But Lord Cornwallis had some compunctions; for he wrote to General Ross, describing his office as "the most cursed of all situations," and expressing, in language more forcible than gentlemanly, his ardent desire to "kick those whom his public duty obliged him to court."

The immediate arrangements made for carrying out the Union were extremely simple. A scale of "compensation" was arranged--a word which could, by a slight perversion of the ordinary meaning of the English language, be used as a new form of expressing what was formerly called bribery. Every one was promised everything that he wished for, if he would only consent to the measure. The Catholics were to have emancipation, the Protestants ascendency, the bar promotion, the people higher wages, the boroughmongers magnificent compensation. FitzGibbon, who had been made Lord Clare, and was then Chancellor, bribed, threatened, and cajoled the Upper House; Mr. Secretary Cooke employed himself with equal ability in the Lower House. Grattan had left Ireland; Flood was in retirement; the members of the bar who had voted against the Union were dismissed from office, and the Prime Serjeant, Mr. FitzGerald, was the first victim. The thirty-two who formed the minority were at once removed. I have not space for the details of the various attempts which were made to pass the unpopular measure. Barrington has given a list of the members for the Union, and the rewards they received. His description of the last night of the Irish Parliament is too graphic to be omitted:--

"The Commons' House of Parliament, on the last evening, afforded the most melancholy example of a fine, independent people, betrayed, divided, sold, and, as a State, annihilated. British clerks and officers were smuggled into her Parliament, to vote away the constitution of a country to which they were strangers, and in which they had neither interest nor connexion. They were employed to cancel the royal charter of the Irish nation, guaranteed by the British Government, sanctioned by the British Legislature, and unequivocally confirmed by the words, the signature, and the Great Seal of their monarch.

"The situation of the Speaker on that night was of the most distressing nature. A sincere and ardent enemy of the measure, he headed its opponents; he resisted with all the power of his mind, the resources of his experience, his influence, and his eloquence. It was, however, through his voice that it was to be proclaimed and consummated. His only alternative (resignation) would have been unavailing, and could have added nothing to his character. His expressive countenance bespoke the inquietude of his feeling; solicitude was perceptible in every glance, and his embarrassment was obvious in every word he uttered.

"The galleries were full, but the change was lamentable; they were no longer crowded with those who had been accustomed to witness the eloquence and to animate the debates of that devoted assembly. A monotonous and melancholy murmur ran through benches, scarcely a word was exchanged amongst the members, nobody seemed at ease, no cheerfulness was apparent, and the ordinary business, for a short time, proceeded in the usual manner.

"At length the expected moment arrived. The order of the day for the third reading of the Bill for a 'Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland,' was moved by Lord Castlereagh. Unvaried, tame, coldblooded, the words seemed frozen as they issued from his lips; and, as a simple citizen of the world, he seemed to have no sensation on the subject.

"At that moment he had no country, no God but his ambition: he made his motion, and resumed his seat with the utmost composure and indifference.

"Confused murmurs again ran through the House; it was visibly affected. Every character in a moment seemed involuntary rushing to its index--some pale, some flushed, some agitated; there were few countenances to which the heart did not despatch some messenger. Several members withdrew before the question could be repeated, and an awful momentary silence succeeded their departure. The Speaker rose slowly from that chair which had been the proud source of his honours and of his high character; for a moment he resumed his seat, but the strength of his mind sustained him in his duty, though his struggle was apparent. With that dignity which never failed to signalize his official actions, he held up the Bill for a moment in silence; he looked steadily around him on the last agony of the expiring Parliament. He at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are of opinion that this Bill do pass, say aye.' The affirmative was languid but indisputable; another momentary pause ensued; again his lips seemed to decline their office; at length, with an eye averted from the object which he hated, he proclaimed, with a subdued voice, 'The Ayes have it.' The fatal sentence was now pronounced; for an instant he stood statue-like; then indignantly, and with disgust, flung the Bill upon the table, and sunk into his chair with an exhausted spirit.

"An independent country was thus degraded into a province--Ireland, as a nation, was extinguished."

FOOTNOTES:

[571] Clergy.--Barrington says, in his Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, p. 67, the Catholic clergy had every inclination to restrain their flocks within proper limits, and found no difficulty in effecting that object. The first statement is unquestionably true; the second statement is unfortunately disproved by many painful facts.

[572] Them.--Vol. ii. p. 93.

[573] Oath.--I give authority for these details. In the spring of 1796, three Orangemen swore before a magistrate of Down and Armagh, that the Orangemen frequently met in committees, amongst whom were some members of Parliament, who gave them money, and promised that they should not suffer for any act they might commit, and pledged themselves that they should be provided for by Government. The magistrate informed the Secretary of State, and asked how he should act; but he never received any answer, for further details on this head, see Plowden's History of the Insurrection.

[574] Sermons.--On the 1st of July, 1795, the Rev. Mr. Monsell, a Protestant clergyman of Portadown, invited his flock to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne by attending church, and preached such a sermon against the Papists that his congregation fell on every Catholic they met going home, beat them cruelly, and finished the day by murdering two farmer's sons, who were quietly at work in a bog.--Mooney's History of Ireland, p. 876.

[575] Indemnity.--Lord Carhampton sent 1,300 men on board the fleet, on mere suspicion. They demanded a trial in vain. An Act of Indemnity was at once passed, to free his Lordship from any unpleasant consequences.

[576] Remember Orr.--Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, second series, vol. ii. p. 380.

[577] Sway.--An important instance of how the memory or tradition of past wrongs excites men to seize the first opportunity of revenge, if not of redress, has occurred in our own times. It is a circumstance which should be very carefully pondered by statesmen who have the real interest of the whole nation at heart. It is a circumstance, as a sample of many other similar cases, which should be known to every Englishman who wishes to understand the cause of "Irish disturbances." One of the men who was shot by the police during the late Fenian outbreak in Ireland, was a respectable farmer named Peter Crowley. His history tells the motive for which he risked and lost his life. His grandfather had been outlawed in the rebellion of '98. His uncle, Father Peter O'Neill, had been imprisoned and flogged most barbarously, with circumstances of peculiar cruelty, in Cork, in the year 1798. The memory of the insult and injury done to a priest, who was entirely guiltless of the crimes with which he was charged, left a legacy of bitterness and hatred of Saxon rule in the whole family, which, unhappily, religion failed to eradicate. Peter Crowley was a sober, industrious, steady man, and his parish priest, who attended his deathbed, pronounced his end "most happy and edifying." Three clergymen and a procession of young men, women, and children, scattering flowers before the coffin, and bearing green boughs, attended his remains to the grave. He was mourned as a patriot, who had loved his country, not wisely, but too well; and it was believed that his motive for joining the Fenian ranks was less from a desire of revenge, which would have been sinful, than from a mistaken idea of freeing his country from a repetition of the cruelties of '98, and from her present grievances.

[578] Sufferer.--Plowden, Hist. p. 102.

[579] Sanction.--His son says: "His estimate of the people led him to appreciate justly the liveliness of their parts. But while he knew their vices, and the origin of them, he knew that there was in their character much of the generosity and warmth of feeling which made them acutely sensitive when they were treated considerately and kindly. His judgment of the upper classes of society, and of the purity and wisdom of the government, was less favorable. He saw that the gentry were imperfectly educated; that they were devoted to the pursuits of pleasure and political intrigue; and that they were ignorant or neglectful of the duties imposed on them as landlords, and as the friends and protectors of those who depended on them for their existence."--Memoir of Sir Ralph Abercrombie, p. 72.

[580] All.--Lord Holland says, in his Memoirs of the Whig Party: "The fact is incontestable that the people of Ireland were driven to resistance, which, possibly, they meditated before, by the free quarters and excesses of the soldiery, which are not permitted in civilized warfare, even in an enemy's country." The state prisoners declared the immediate cause of the rising was "the free quarters, the house-burnings, the tortures, and the military executions."

[581] Success.--The real betrayer of this brave but unfortunate nobleman has only been discovered of late years. Dr. Madden was the first to throw light upon the subject. He discovered the item of £1,000 entered in the Secret Service Money-book, as paid to F.H. for the discovery of L.E.F. The F.H. was undoubtedly Francis Higgins, better known as the Sham Squire, whose infamous career has been fully exposed by Mr. Fitzpatrick. In the fourth volume of the United Irishmen, p. 579, Dr. Madden still expresses his doubt as to who was the person employed by Higgins as "setter." It evidently was some one in the secrets of Lord Edward's party. The infamous betrayer has been at last discovered, in the person of Counsellor Magan, who received at various times large sums of money from Government for his perfidy. See the Sham Squire, p. 114. Higgins was buried at Kilbarrack, near Clontarf. In consequence of the revelations of his vileness, which have been lately brought before the public, the tomb was smashed to pieces, and the inscription destroyed. See Mr. Fitzpatrick's Ireland before the Union, p. 152.

[582] Murphy.--Rev. Mr. Gordon says: "Some of the soldiers of the Ancient British regiment cut open the dead body of Father Michael Murphy, after the battle of Arklow, took out his heart, roasted his body, and oiled their boots with the grease which dropped from it."--History of the Rebellion, p. 212.

[583] Suffer.--Annals of Ballitore, vol. i. p. 227.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXXVII

The State of Ireland before and after the Union--Advancement of Trade before the Union--Depression after it--Lord Clare and Lord Castlereagh in the English Parliament--The Catholic Question becomes a Ministerial Difficulty--The Veto--The O'Connell Sept--Early Life of Daniel O'Connell--The Doneraile Conspiracy--O'Connell as Leader of the Catholic Party--The Clare Election--O'Connell in the English House of Parliament--Sir Robert Peel--George IV. visits Ireland--Disturbances in Ireland from the Union to the year 1834, and their Causes--Parliamentary Evidence--The "Second Reformation"--Catholic Emancipation--Emigration, its Causes and Effects--Colonial Policy of England--Statistics of American Trade and Population--Importance of the Irish and Catholic Element in America--Conclusion.

[A.D. 1800-1868.]

It is both a mistake and an injustice to suppose that the page of Irish history closed with the dawn of that summer morning, in the year of grace 1800, when the parliamentary union of Great Britain and Ireland was enacted. I have quoted Sir Jonah Barrington's description of the closing night of the Irish Parliament, because he writes as an eyewitness, and because few could describe its "last agony" with more touching eloquence and more vivid truthfulness; but I beg leave, in the name of my country, to protest against his conclusion, that "Ireland, as a nation, was extinguished." There never was, and we must almost fear there never will be, a moment in the history of our nation, in which her independence was proclaimed more triumphantly or gloriously, than when O'Connell, the noblest and the best of her sons, obtained Catholic Emancipation.

The immediate effects of the dissolution of the Irish Parliament were certainly appalling. The measure was carried on the 7th of June, 1800. On the 16th of April, 1782, another measure had been carried, to which I must briefly call your attention. That measure was the independence of the Irish Parliament. When it passed, Grattan rose once more in the House, and exclaimed: "Ireland is now a nation! In that new character I hail her, and bowing to her august presence, I say, Esto perpetua!" period of unexampled prosperity followed. The very effects of a reaction from conditions under which commerce was purposely restricted and trade paralyzed by law, to one of comparative freedom, could not fail to produce such a result. If the Parliament had been reformed when it was freed, it is probable that Ireland at this moment would be the most prosperous of nations. But the Parliament was not reformed. The prosperity which followed was rather the effect of reaction, than of any real settlement of the Irish question. The land laws, which unquestionably are the grievance of Ireland, were left untouched, an alien Church was allowed to continue its unjust exactions; and though Ireland was delivered, her chains were not all broken; and those which were, still hung loosely round her, ready for the hand of traitor or of foe. Though nominally freed from English control, the Irish Parliament was not less enslaved by English influence. Perhaps there had never been a period in the history of that nation when bribery was more freely used, when corruption was more predominant. A considerable number of the peers in the Irish House were English by interest and by education; a majority of the members of the Lower House were their creatures. A man who ambitioned a place in Parliament, should conform to the opinions of his patron; the patron was willing to receive a "compensation" for making his opinions, if he had any, coincide with those of the Government. Many of the members were anxious for preferment for themselves or their friends; the price of preferment was a vote for ministers. The solemn fact of individual responsibility for each individual act, had yet to be understood. Perhaps the lesson has yet to be learned.

One of the first acts of the Irish independent Parliament, was to order the appointment of a committee to inquire into the state of the manufactures of the kingdom, and to ascertain what might be necessary for their improvement. The hearts of the poor, always praying for employment, which had been so long and so cruelly withheld from them, bounded with joy. Petitions poured in on every side. David Bosquet had erected mills in Dublin for the manufacture of metals; he prayed for help. John and Henry Allen had woollen manufactories in the county Dublin; they prayed for help. Thomas Reilly, iron merchant, of the town of Wicklow, wished to introduce improvements in iron works. James Smith, an Englishman, had cotton manufactories at Balbriggan; he wished to extend them. Anthony Dawson, of Dundrum, near Dublin, had water mills for making tools for all kinds of artisans; this, above all, should be encouraged, now that there was some chance of men having some use for tools. Then there were requests for aid to establish carpet manufactories, linen manufactories, glass manufactories, &c.; and Robert Burke, Esq., of the county Kildare, prayed for the loan of £40,000 for seven years, that he might establish manufactories at Prosperous. These few samples of petitions, taken at random from many others, will enable the reader to form some faint idea of the state of depression in which Ireland was kept by the English nation--of the eagerness of the Irish to work if they were only permitted to do so.

The Irish revenue for the year 1783 was, in round numbers, £900,000, which amounted to a tax of about six shillings per annum on each person. It was distributed thus:

For the interest of the National Debt, £120,000 Army and Ordnance, Civil Government, and other funds, 450,000 Pensions, grants, bounties, and aids to manufacturers, 250,000 Surplus unappropriated, 80,000 -------- Total, £900,000

More than £200,000 was spent during that year in erecting forts, batteries, and other public buildings, which gave employment to the people in certain districts. Large sums were granted to the poor of Cork and Dublin for coals; and large grants were made to encourage manufactures. I have observed, however, in carefully examining these grants, which are by far too numerous for insertion, that they were principally, and, indeed, I might say exclusively, made to persons in Dublin and its neighbourhood, in the north of Ireland, and in the cities of Cork and Limerick. Hence, the prosperity of Ireland was only partial, and was confined exclusively, though, probably, not intentionally, to certain districts. This will explain why the misery and starvation of the poor, in the less favoured parts of the country, were a principal cause of the fearful insurrection which occurred within a few short years.

Lord Clare proclaimed, in the House of Parliament, that "no nation on the habitable globe had advanced in cultivation, commerce, and manufactures, with the same rapidity as Ireland, from 1782 to 1800." The population increased from three millions to five. There were 5,000 carpenters fully employed in Dublin; there were 15,000 silk-weavers. Nor should we be surprised at this; for Dublin possesses at the present day substantial remains of her former prosperity, which are even now the admiration of Europe. All her great public buildings were erected at this period. The Custom-house was commenced, and completed in ten years, at a cost of a quarter of a million sterling. The Rotundo was commenced in 1784. The Law Courts, the most elegant and extensive in the British Empire, were begun in 1786. In 1788 there were 14,327 dwelling-houses in Dublin, and 110,000 inhabitants. Two hundred and twenty peers and three hundred commoners had separate residences. Dublin was fashionable, and Dublin prospered.[584]

I have already said that corruption soon did its fatal work. It sanctioned, nay, it compelled, the persecution of the majority of the nation for their religious creed; and with this persecution the last flame of national prosperity expired, and the persecutors and the persecuted shared alike in the common ruin. In 1792 Lord Edward FitzGerald denounced the conduct of the House in these ever-memorable words: "I do think, sir, that the Lord Lieutenant and the majority of this House are the worst subjects the King has;" and when a storm arose, the more violent from consciousness that his words were but too true, for all retraction he would only say:

"I am accused of having said that I think the Lord Lieutenant and the majority of this House are the worst subjects the King has. I said so; 'tis true; and I am sorry for it."

On the 1st of January, 1801, a new imperial standard was exhibited on London Tower, and on the Castles of Dublin and Edinburgh. It was formed of the three crosses of St. George, St. Patrick, and St. Andrew, and is popularly known as the Union Jack. The fleur de lis and the word France were omitted from royal prerogatives and titles; and a proclamation was issued appointing the words Dei Gratia, Britaniarum Rex, Fidei Defensor. The Dublin Gazette of July, 1800, contained the significant announcement of the creation of sixteen new peerages. The same publication for the last week of the year contained a fresh list of twenty-six others. Forty-two creations in six months were rather an extensive stretch of prerogative; and we cannot be surprised if the majority of the nation had more respect for the great untitled, whose ancestry were known, and were quite above accepting the miserable bribe of a modern peerage.

Strangely enough, from the very day on which the Union was proclaimed, the Catholic question became a ministerial difficulty. Pitt's administration failed on this very point, although it had seemed invincible a few weeks before. The obstinacy of the King, which, indeed, almost amounted to a monomania, was the principal cause. He made it a personal matter, declared it the "most jacobinical thing he had ever heard of;" and he informed the world at large that he would consider any man who proposed it his personal enemy. Pitt resigned. Opinions varied as to his motives. He returned to office in 1804, having promised that he would not again press the subject; and he adhered to his determination until his death. The Irish nobles, who had worked hardest to carry the Union, were somewhat disappointed as to the result. Lord Clare was told by the Duke of Bedford, that the Union had not transferred his dictatorial powers to the Imperial Parliament. He retired to Ireland deeply chagrined, and was soon borne to his grave, amid the revilings of the people whom he had betrayed. Lord Castlereagh, who had been less accustomed to command, and had less difficulty in stooping to conquer, succeeded better with his English friends, and in a few years he ruled the cabinets of Europe; while the Iron Duke, another Irishman, dictated to their armies.

In 1803 the flame of insurrection again broke out, and again French aid was expected, and the expedition ended in disappointment. Napoleon himself regretted that he had turned his armies towards Egypt, instead of towards Ireland. Emmet's career was brief, and would probably have been almost forgotten, but for his famous speech at the moment of receiving sentence, and for the history of his love and her devoted attachment to his memory.

In 1805 Grattan entered the Imperial Parliament, at the request of Fox. An English constituency was found for him. At the same time, Plunket was brought into the house by Pitt; and thus these two famous men, the one so full of the brilliant, and the other so full of the powerful, gifts of mental science, again pleaded their country's cause together, and in perfect harmony, though differing on some political points. When Grattan first rose to address the British Senate, there was a hushed attention to his every word; as his eloquence kindled with his subject, there were suppressed murmurs of approbation; when he had concluded, there were thunders of applause. His subject was a petition from the Irish Catholics, which was presented to both Houses in 1805. The division gave 339 to 124 against going into committee; still it was something gained, when Englishmen even listened to Irish grievances, or made some effort to understand them.

The Veto was now suggested. The object of this was to allow the crown a passive voice, if not an active one, in the nomination of Catholic bishops. Happily for the Catholic Church in Ireland, the proposal was steadily rejected, though with a determination which brought even members of the same Church into collision. Connexion with the State might have procured temporal advantages, but they would have been in truth a poor compensation for the loss of that perfect freedom of action so essential to the spiritual advancement of the Church.

The Duke of Richmond came to Ireland in 1807, with Sir Arthur Wellesley as Chief Secretary. The young man, whose fame was yet unattained, showed himself as clearheaded in the cabinet as in the camp. He made every attempt to suppress the party demonstrations which have been the curse of Ireland, and induced the Wexford people to discontinue their annual celebration of the battle of Vinegar Hill. If he could have suppressed a few other anniversaries in the north, it would have been a blessing to the United Kingdom. In 1806 Mr. Grattan was returned for Dublin, and generously refused the sum of £4,000, which his constituents had collected to pay his expenses. The Catholic question was now constantly coming up, and more than one cabinet was formed and dissolved according to the views of the different members on that matter. A new element of vitality had been introduced by the relaxation of the penal laws. Men were no longer afraid to ask for a grace which they wanted, lest they should lose a grace which they had. The people found that they might speak their real opinions without apprehensions of attempts at conversion in the shape of pitchcaps and half-hangings; and when the people were ready for a leader, the leader was ready for the people; and Daniel O'Connell took the place in the guidance of the Irish nation, which he will never lose in their memory and in their affections.

The history of Ireland and the life of O'Connell are convertible terms for five-and-forty years. O'Connell represented Ireland, and Ireland was represented by O'Connell. We have had our great men and our good men, our brave men and our true men; but, to my poor thinking, the greatest of our men was O'Connell--for who ever approached him in his mighty power of ruling a nation by moral suasion only? the best of our men was O'Connell, for who dare assert that he was ever unfaithful to his country or to his country's faith? the bravest of our men was O'Connell, equally fearless in every danger, moral or physical; and the truest of our men was O'Connell, dying of a broken heart in a faraway land, because he saw his country's cause all but ruined--because he knew that with his failing breath one of his country's surest helpers would pass from her for ever. A thoughtfully written "History of the life and Times of O'Connell," by some one really competent to do justice to the subject, is much wanted. I believe that posterity will do justice to his memory as one of the best and noblest patriots which the world has ever seen--a justice which as yet has been scarcely accorded to him as fully as he has merited. Had O'Connell accomplished no other work for Ireland than this--the giving of a tone of nationality and manliness to the people--he had accomplished a most glorious work. He taught Irishmen that chains do not make the slave, but rather the spirit in which the chains are worn. He awoke, in the hearts of his countrymen, that love of freedom, which is the first step towards making a successful effort to obtain it. He showed them how they might intimidate their oppressors without injuring themselves--a lesson eminently necessary where the oppressors are incomparably more powerful than the oppressed.

The sept of O'Connell, from which this noble man was descended held a prominent position among the early Milesian clans. Pure Celtic blood ran in his veins; the fire of Celtic wit sparkled in his utterances; the lighthearted happiness of a Celtic spirit guided his actions; and the undaunted bravery of a Celtic warrior's courage looked out of his clear beaming eye. A nobleman, in truth, was Daniel O'Connell--a nobleman of whom any nation might justly be proud--a nobleman to whom we must hope that Ireland will yet raise some monument of enduring fame. The O'Connell sept were driven from their ancestral homes, in 1172, by Raymond, Strongbow's son-in-law. Their territory lay along the Shannon. They were now compelled to take refuge in a wild and desolate part of Kerry, too wild and too desolate to attract English cupidity. A MS. is still preserved in the British Museum, written by one of the O'Connell family; it is in the Irish language, and bears date 1245. In this document mention is made of a Daniel O'Connell, who proceeded to the north of Ireland, at the head of a large body of men, to resist an invading force. The Celts were successful; and when they had won the day, the chieftain and his vanquished foes feasted together. In 1586 Richard O'Connell was High Sheriff of Kerry; but, from the accession of William III., until the illustrious Liberator obtained some degree of freedom for his country, all the O'Connells were prescribed from positions of emolument, for having held with unswerving fidelity to the old faith.

O'Connell was born on the 6th of August, 1775, "the very year," as he himself says, in a letter to the Dublin Evening Post, "in which the stupid obstinacy of British oppression forced the reluctant people of America to seek for security in arms, and to commence that bloody struggle for national independence, which has been in its results beneficial to England, whilst it has shed glory, and conferred liberty, pure and sublime, on America." He was educated at St. Omers, and it is said manifested some inclination for the priesthood; but there can be no doubt that his vocation lay in another direction, as he was incomparably too deeply religious and too thoroughly honest not to have obeyed the call of God at any cost, had such a favour been vouchsafed to him. It is said, whatever his dislike of physical force may have been in after-life, that he unquestionably knew how to use the argumentum baculinum in his early days; and that more than one student was made to feel the effects thereof, when attempting ill-natured jokes on the herculean Celt. During his residence abroad he had some opportunities of witnessing the fearful effects of the French Revolution; and it is probable that a remembrance of these scenes, added to his own admirably keen common sense, saved him from leading his countrymen on to deeds of open violence. He was called to the Irish bar in the memorable year of 1798. For some time he failed to obtain practice; for who would confide their case to a young Catholic lawyer, when the fact of his creed alone would be sufficient to condemn his client in the eyes of Protestant juries, judges, and attorneys? His maiden speech was made in opposition to the Union, even as his life was spent in the most strenuous efforts to obtain the reversal of that most fatal measure. A meeting was held in the Royal Exchange, Dublin, at the close of the year 1799, to petition against it; but even as O'Connell was denouncing, in his most eloquent language, the new attempt at national degradation, Major Sirr and his file of military rushed into the apartment, and separated the assembly. O'Connell now retired into private life, and, with the marvellous foresight of true genius, devoted himself to storing up that forensic knowledge which he felt sure he should one day use for the benefit of his countrymen.

One of the most important instances in which O'Connell's legal acumen saved the lives of his countrymen, is known as the "Doneraile Conspiracy;" and as all the facts are eminently illustrative of the history of Ireland at that period, and of the character and abilities of one of her most distinguished sons, I shall relate the circumstances. Several Protestant gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Doneraile, had been making those abortive efforts to "convert" their tenants from Popery, which usually end in no small amount of ill-feeling on both sides; another of these gentlemen, with equal zeal and equal want of common sense and common humanity, had devoted himself to hunting out real or supposed rebels. This gentleman had at last brought on himself an armed attack, for which he deserved little pity. He contrived, however, to capture one of his assailants, who, of course, was hung. The gentlemen having thus excited the unfortunate peasantry, pointed to the results of their own folly as though these results had been the cause of it; and an informer came forward, who, with the usual recklessness of his atrocious class, accused some of the most respectable farmers of the district of having entered into a conspiracy to murder the Protestant gentlemen,--a cruel return certainly had it been true, for their earnest efforts to convert the natives from "the errors of Popery to those of the Protestant Church." A special commission was sent down; the wildest excitement prevailed on all sides; and, as was usual in such cases, the bitterest prejudice against the unfortunate accused. The Solicitor-General led for the crown: the defence was a simple denial. In such cases the examination of the approvers is the great point for the accused, and should be confided to the ablest counsel. One of the unfortunate prisoners was a respectable farmer, aged seventy, of whom the highest character was given. But it was all in vain; after five minutes' deliberation, the jury gave in the verdict of guilty. As the men were to be made an "example of," they were sentenced to be hanged in six days. This was on Saturday. The next lot of prisoners was to be tried at nine o'clock on Monday morning. There was one universal cry for "O'Connell," from the great multitude who knew these poor victims were perfectly innocent. On Saturday night a farmer mounted the best horse that could be found in Cork, and, after a night of incessant riding, he reached Derrynane Abbey on Sunday morning at nine o'clock. His name was William Burke: let it be transmitted with all honour to posterity! He told his errand to one who never listened unmoved to the tale of his country's sorrows and wrongs; and he assured O'Connell that, unless he were in Cork by nine next morning, the unfortunate prisoners, "though innocent as the child unborn," would all be hanged. The great man at once prepared for his journey; and so wild was the joy of Burke, so sure was he that there would now be a hope, if not a certainty, of justice, that only the earnest entreaties of O'Connell could induce him to remain a few hours to rest his weary horse. On the same good horse he set out again, and reached Cork at eight o'clock on Monday morning, having travelled 180 miles in thirty-eight hours. Scouts had been posted all along the road to watch the man's return: even as he passed through each little village, there was an anxious crowd waiting the word of life or death. "O'Connell's coming, boys!" was enough; and a wild cheer, which rent the very mountains, told how keenly an act of justice could be appreciated by the most justice-loving people upon earth. And O'Connell did come. He has himself described the sensations of that midnight journey, through all the autumn beauties of the most beautiful scenery in the United Kingdom. And then he exclaims: "After that glorious feast of soul, I found myself settled down amid all the rascalities of an Irish court of justice."

The Solicitor-General was actually addressing the jury, when the shouts of the excited crowd announced the arrival of one who, by this act of his life alone, deserves, par excellence, the proud and glorious title of the LIBERATOR. He entered the courthouse, apologized for his unprofessional attire; and as he had no refreshment, and there was no time to lose, he requested permission of the judges to have a bowl of milk and some sandwiches sent to him. The Solicitor-General resumed his address, but had not proceeded far before the stentorian voice of O'Connell was heard exclaiming: "That's not law." The bench decided in his favour. He was rapidly swallowing as much food as was necessary to sustain nature, and once more, with his mouth full, he exclaims: "That's no longer law; the Act is repealed." Again the mortified counsel proceeded with his case, and once more O'Connell's knowledge of law served him in good stead. "The learned Solicitor," he exclaimed, "has no right to make such a statement; the crown cannot give such matters in evidence." For the third time the ruling was in favour of the Liberator. Then came the all-important cross-examination of the approvers; and the men who had lied so well and so boldly on Saturday, prevaricated, cursed, and howled under the searching questions of their new examiner; Nowlan, the vilest of the lot, exclaiming at last: "It's little I thought I'd have to meet you, Counsellor O'Connell." Alas! thrice-wretched man, who thought still less of another Court and another Judgment. O'Connell won the day. He threatened the very Solicitor-General with impeachment before the House of Commons, for the way he conducted the case. He taunted him, bewildered him, scolded him, laughed at him, as he only could do; and when at last the unfortunate man came out with some observation about "false facts," O'Connell threw the whole court into a roar of laughter by directing attention to the bull, and by his inimitable imitation of his English accent. The jury could not agree, and the men were acquitted. Another trial came on next day, and it was then discovered that one of the approvers differed in most important matters from his statements on oath before the magistrates of Doneraile, and in what he now stated. This was enough; and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, though, on the very same evidence, a verdict of guilty had been given on Saturday. As an act, however, of great clemency, the men who had been sentenced to be hanged in six days, were now only transported.

During the time of O'Connell's retirement and study, he had but too many opportunities of knowing how little justice was likely to be meted out to Irishmen accused, justly or unjustly, of political crimes; and, doubtless, he directed his studies to those special points most likely to be helpful hereafter. Robert Emmet's execution took place in October, 1803; and from that hour, until the accession of the Whigs to office, in 1806, Ireland was ruled by martial law. The Habeas Corpus Act and trial by jury were suspended, and the jails and transport ships were crowded with the victims of military ferocity and magisterial vengeance. In the debate of 1805, when the Catholic petition was brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Fox, and treacherously opposed by Pitt, Mr. Ponsonby exclaimed, speaking of the Irish Catholics: "I know them well; and I know, at the same time, that whatever is good in them, they owe to themselves; whatever is bad in them, they owe to you, and to your bad government." Mr. Grattan accused the English Tories of "running about like old women in search of old prejudices; preferring to buy foreign allies by subsidies, rather than to subsidize fellow-subjects by privileges." He might have said by justice, for the Irish have never asked for privileges; they ask simply for the same justice as is shown to English subjects. Mr. Foster, the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, declared that, "under the Union Act, by compact, the Protestant boroughs were suppressed, and a compensation of £1,400,000 paid to Protestant owners, and not one shilling to the Catholics."

O'Connell came prominently forward as a leader of the Catholic party in 1810. A meeting was held in the Royal Exchange, Dublin, to petition for Repeal of the Union, at which the High Sheriff of that city presided, and many distinguished men were present--a proof that, however corrupted Irish Parliaments may have been by English gold, there was still some advantage to be gained to the country by possessing even a partial independence. O'Connell's speech was published, and circulated widely. To give the full details of his career as a leader of the people, would require a volume the size of the present work; to give even a sufficiently comprehensive outline, would require several chapters: I can but hope that some able hand will take up the subject, and with equal earnestness do I hope that it may be some one really capable of doing justice to it. One who would write the "Life and Times of O'Connell" as such a work should be written, would require to bring more than ordinary abilities to the task, and would deserve, at the hands of his countrymen, the highest expression of gratitude which they could give. Such a work would be incomparably the noblest monument which could be dedicated to his memory.

The Clare election is undoubtedly the culminating point in O'Connell's career. Men stood aghast in amazement at the boldness of the man who presumed to make such an attempt. Even his friends could scarcely believe that he was in earnest, or that he was wise. His success was a splendid example of what the energy and determination of one single man could accomplish. Well might the Lord Chancellor declare that "this business must bring the Roman Catholic question to a crisis and a conclusion." The words were prophetic; the prophecy was realized. On the 5th of March, 1829, Mr. Peel moved a committee of the whole House, "to go into the consideration of the civil disabilities of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." The motion was carried by a majority of 188. On the 15th of May, 1829, O'Connell appeared in the House to take his seat. He was introduced by Lords Ebrington and Dungannon. The House was thronged. The very peeresses came to gaze upon the arch-agitator, expecting to see a demagogue, and to hear an Irish brogue. There were whispers of surprise when they saw a gentleman, and a man who could speak, with the versatility of true talent, to suit his audience. The card containing the oath was handed to O'Connell; he read a portion of it over in an audible voice--the portion which required him to say that "the sacrifice of the Mass, and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints, as now practised in the Church of Rome, are impious and idolatrous;" and to deny the dispensing power of the Pope, which never existed, except in the imagination of its framers. With a courteous bow he said, in a voice to be heard throughout the House: "I decline, Mr. Clerk, to take this oath: part of it I know to be false; another part I believe not to be true."

Again he sought the votes of the electors of Clare, and again he was returned by them. On the 13th of April, 1829, the royal signature was affixed to the Act of Emancipation, and Irishmen were no longer refused the rights of citizens because they respected the rights of conscience.

In the year 1812, the late Sir Robert Peel came to Ireland as Chief Secretary, unfortunately destitute of the enlargement of mind and the native genius of his predecessor, Sir Arthur Wellesley. His abilities, however great, were not such as to enable him to understand a nationality distinct from his own; and hence he could not deal with the Irish, either to his credit, or for their advantage. From the year 1815 to 1817 the conduct of the English Parliament towards Ireland was regulated with the nicest attention to the movements of the General who ruled the Continent. In 1817 an Act was passed, which, with admirable policy, excused Catholic officers, naval and military, from forswearing transubstantiation. In 1821 George IV. visited Ireland. It was the first time that an English King had come to Ireland as the acknowledged sovereign of the people. Their hopes were high; and the deference for royalty, so eminently characteristic of the Celt, had at last found an opportunity of expressing itself. All that loyalty could do was done; all that the warmest heart could say was said. The King appeared impressed by demonstrations so entirely new to him; he wore a large bunch of shamrocks constantly during his brief stay; but before the shamrocks were faded, Irish wants and Irish loyalty were alike forgotten.

In the year 1824 the subject of Irish disturbances was carefully inquired into by Select Committees of both Houses of Parliament. Some extracts from their reports will give the best and most correct idea of the state of the country from the Union to the year 1834, when another investigation was made. In 1807 the county Limerick was alarmingly disturbed. In 1812 the counties of Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny, Limerick, Westmeath, Roscommon, and the King's county, were the theatre of the same sanguinary tumults. Limerick and Tipperary remained under the Insurrection Act until 1818. In 1820 there were serious disturbances in Galway, and in 1821, in Limerick.

These disturbances are thus accounted for Maxwell Blacker, Esq., Barrister, who was appointed to administer the Insurrection Act, in 1822, in the counties of Cork and Tipperary: "The immediate cause of the disturbance I consider to be the great increase of population, and the fall in the price of produce after the war; the consequence of which was, that it was impossible to pay the rent or the tithes that had been paid when the country was prosperous." Sir Matthew Barrington, Crown Solicitor of the Munster Circuit for seventeen years, was asked: "Do you attribute the inflammable state of the population to the state of misery in which they generally are?" "I do, to a great extent; I seldom knew any instance when there was sufficient employment for the people that they were inclined to be disturbed; if they had plenty of work and employment, they are generally peaceable." John Leslie Foster, Esq., M.P., in his examination, states: "I think the proximate cause [of the disturbances] is the extreme physical misery of the peasantry, coupled with their liability to be called upon for the payment of different charges, which it is often perfectly impossible for them to meet." Matthew Singleton, Esq., Chief Magistrate of Police in the Queen's county, said, on his examination: "I have seen, and I know land to be set one-third above its value."

It would be useless to give more of this evidence, for the details are always the same. The people were almost starving. They could scarcely get a sufficiency of the poorest food, yet they were compelled to pay rent and tithes far above the value of their land. If they were unable, they were thrown out upon the wayside to die like dogs.

There can be no doubt that the outrages thus perpetrated were very fearful. Every man's hand was against them, and their hand was against every man. They shot their landlords, and they "carded" the tithe-proctors. Gentlemen's houses were barricaded, even in the daytime. Many families of the higher classes lived in a state of siege. The windows were made bullet-proof; the doors were never opened after nightfall. It was a fearful state of society for a Christian country, and the guilt and disgrace of it was surely on those who had caused it. Yet we do not find that the knowledge of these facts produced any effect upon the men who heard them, and who alone had it in their power to apply the remedy. Still something was done; and although it is one of the stern facts of history, one can scarcely choose but smile at the simplicity of those who planned and carried out such a scheme for the improvement of Ireland.

The "second reformation" was commenced in 1827. The Catholic priests were challenged to controversy; even laymen interfered. Theology and theological differences became the town and table-talk of Ireland. Bibles and tracts were distributed in all directions amongst the starving poor, food and clothing were occasionally added; yet, notwithstanding these powerful inducements, the people starved and remained Catholics. Writs of ejectment were then tried; and the Irish poor had their choice between the Bible and beggary--but they chose beggary.

So far did the Bible craze go, that it almost amounted to a monomania. One noble lord, to show his reverence for that book, and to convince his tenantry of the estimation in which he held it, flung every volume of his library into the lake of his demesne, and with the Bible in his hand, which commanded him to feed the hungry, refused to feed them unless they complied with his commands. Moore's satires were, unquestionably, the best weapons against such fanaticism. Sheil wrote in the Gazette de France, and hundreds of pens wrote in the American papers. A loud cry of "Shame!" arose in every quarter of the world; the echo reached the ears of the promoters of the movement; and the force of public opinion succeeded in suppressing the futile attempt.

The influence of Irish emigrants in America was already beginning to be felt. Large sums of money poured in from that country to swell the Catholic rent, and a considerable portion of the funds were employed by O'Connell in providing for men who had been ejected by their landlords, for refusing either to believe a creed, or to give a vote contrary to their conscience. He even threatened to buy up the incumbrances on some of these gentlemen's estates, to foreclose their mortgages, and to sell them out. His threat, added to his well-known determination, was not without its effect.

The whole subject of Irish emigration may be safely predicted to be the key which will unlock the future fate of Great Britain. It is true that, at this moment, every effort is being made by the English nation to conciliate America; it remains to be seen how Americans will be disposed to accept present flattery as a compensation for past injustice, and scarcely past contempt. A better knowledge of Irish history might prevent some fatal mistakes on both sides of the Atlantic. I have, therefore, felt it a duty to devote the concluding pages of this History to this important subject.

The great tide of western emigration was undoubtedly caused, in part, by the sufferings of the famine year; but these sufferings were in themselves an effect, rather than a cause; and we must look to more remote history for the origin of the momentous exodus. It has, indeed, been well observed, that "when a man leaves his country for one subject to foreign rule, it must, in general, be that he does not care for it, or that it does not care for him; it must either be that he is so little attached to the institutions of his own country, that he is willing to submit to those of another; or that he despises the latter sufficiently to look forward to replacing them by those of his own."[585] No unprejudiced person can for a moment doubt which of these causes has been most active in producing Irish emigration. The Irishman's love of home and of his native land, is a fact beyond all dispute: his emigration, then, can have no other cause than this, that his country, or the country which governs his native land, does not care for him; and when we find noble lords and honorable members suggesting "the more emigration the better," we cannot doubt that he is the victim to indifference, if not to absolute dislike. Undoubtedly, if the Irishman did not care for his country, and if the Englishman, when planted in Ireland, did not become equally discontented and rather more indignant than his predecessors under English rule in Ireland, the arrangement might be a very admirable one; but Irishmen, to the third and fourth generation, do not forget their country, neither do they forget why they have been compelled to leave it. A work has been published lately on the subject of the Irish in America. It is much to be regretted, that the very able writer did not give statistics and facts, as well as inferences and anecdotes. A history of the Irish in America, should include statistics which could not be disputed, and facts which could not be denied. The facts in the work alluded to are abundant, and most important; but they should have been prefaced by an account of the causes which have led to emigration, and as accurate statistics as possible of its results.

Some few English writers have had the honesty to admit that their colonial policy has not been the most admirable; "nor should we forget," says the author of the History of the United States, "that the spirit in which these colonies were ruled from England was one, in the main, of intense selfishness. The answer of Seymour, an English Attorney-General under William and Mary, or towards the close of the seventeenth century, to the request of Virginia, for a college, when her delegate begged him to consider that the people of Virginia had souls to be saved as well as the people of England: Souls! damn your souls! plant tobacco!" is scarcely an unfair exponent of that spirit.[586] Another writer says: "Historians, in treating of the American rebellion, have confined their arguments too exclusively to the question of internal taxation, and the right or policy of exercising this prerogative. The true source of the rebellion lay deeper--in our traditional colonial policy."[587] One more quotation must suffice: "The legal rights of those colonies have been perpetually violated. Those which were strong enough were driven to separation; those which adhered to us in that great contest, or which we have subsequently acquired or founded, are either denied constitutions, or, if the local authorities oppose the will of the Imperial Parliament, find their constitutions changed, suspended, or annulled."[588] It will be remembered that the original colonists of America were principally Englishmen, who were driven from their own country by religious intolerance; yet no sooner had they established themselves in their new home, than they commenced to practise even more fearful persecutions on others than those from which they had fled. There was one honorable exception; the Roman Catholics who fled from persecution in England, never, even in the plenitude of their power, attempted the slightest persecution, religious, social, or legal.

It will be seen, then, that the first emigrants to America from the British dominions, could not have had any special attachment to the country they had left; that, on the contrary, their feelings were embittered against the mother country before their departure from her shores; and after that departure she did nothing to allay the irritation, but much to increase it. For several centuries after the arrival of the "May Flower," the number of emigrants from England and Ireland were, probably, tolerably equal, and by no means numerous. It was not an age of statistics, and no accurate statistics can be given.

The disruption between the States and England, or rather the causes which led to it, re-opened whatever feelings there may have been against the mother country, and at the same time increased its bitterness a hundredfold. The tide of Irish emigration had set in even then--slowly, indeed, but surely; and it will be remembered that the Irish in America, few though they were, became the foremost to fan the flame of rebellion, and were amongst the first to raise the standard of revolt. The States obtained a glorious freedom--a freedom which, on the whole, they have used wisely and well; and even their bitterest enemies cannot deny that they have formed a powerful nation--a nation which may yet rule the destinies of the world. Let us endeavour now to estimate in some degree the influence of Irish emigration on American society. If the history of Ireland were written in detail up to the present day, fully one-fourth the detail should comprise a history of the Irish in America. Never in the world's history has an emigration been so continuous or so excessive; never in the world's history have emigrants continued so inseparably united, politically and socially, to the country which they have left. The cry of "Ireland for the Irish," is uttered as loudly on the shores of the Mississippi as on the shores of the Shannon. It is almost impossible to arrive at accurate statistics of the number of Irish in America, but a fair approximation may be obtained. The population of America, according to a recent writer, was, in 1840, 17,063,353; in 1850, it had risen to 23,191,876; it is now [1868], 35,000,000. In 1842, the imports were in value, $100,162,087; the exports, $104,691,534; and the tonnage was 2,092,391. In 1859, the imports were $383,768,130; the exports were $356,789,462; and the tonnage was 5,146,037. This increase is beyond all historical precedence, and a future historian, who found such amazing statistics of increase, and knew nothing of emigration, would be strangely puzzled to account for it. But if he searched the files of an old English or Irish newspaper office, whatever might have been the creed or politics of its proprietors, he would soon arrive at a satisfactory solution. In the Irish Times, the leading Irish paper of the day, he would find the following reference to the present history of Ireland: "The Emigration Commissioners notice with some surprise the fact, that, during the past year [1867], the emigrants from Ireland were better clothed, and carried with them better furnished kits, than either the English or foreign emigrants. During the past year, 51,000 Irish emigrants left Liverpool alone--a regiment nearly one thousand strong every week. The loss of 100,000 persons annually, chiefly of the labouring classes, and generally strong, active, well-built men, affords matter for serious consideration. If the Government be contented that 100,000 yearly of the Irish population should, increase the power of America [the italics are our own], they have but to refuse those generous and considerate measures which alone can keep our people at home, by giving them a chance of progressing as they do in America."

This is the honestly avowed opinion of a Protestant paper, whose editors are beyond all suspicion of writing to encourage "Popery," or preach Fenianism. An admirable parliamentary comment has just occurred in the rejection of the Protestant Church Suspension Bill by the House of Lords, though there is no doubt that the good sense and the native justice of the English nation will at length compel its acceptance.

The fact is, that at this moment nearly one-half the population of America are Irish and Catholics. The writer lately quoted, cannot refrain from a sneer at the "low Irish" in America, to whom he attributes the "insult and injury" which he is pleased to consider that Americans manifest to foreign nations, and especially to England; he forgets the old sources of injury, which no American can forget; and he forgets, also, how easily the same "low Irish" might have been prevented from exhibiting the feeling which he attributes to them.

Let those who wish to understand the present history of Ireland, read Mr. Maguire's Irish in America, carefully and thoughtfully. If they do so, and if they are not blinded by wilful prejudices, they must admit that the oft-repeated charges against Irishmen of being improvident and idle are utterly groundless, unless, indeed, they can imagine that the magic influence of a voyage across the Atlantic can change a man's nature completely. Let them learn what the Irishman can do, and does do, when freed from the chains of slavery, and when he is permitted to reap some reward for his labour. Let him learn that Irishmen do not forget wrongs; and if they do not always avenge them, that is rather from motives of prudence, than from lack of will. Let him learn that the Catholic priesthood are the true fathers of their people, and the true protectors of their best interests, social and spiritual. Let him read how the good pastor gives his life for his sheep, and counts no journey too long or too dangerous, when even a single soul may be concerned. Let him judge for himself of the prudence of the same priests, even as regards the temporal affairs of their flocks, and see how, where they are free to do so, they are the foremost to help them, even in the attainment of worldly prosperity. Let him send for Sadlier's Catholic Directory for the United States and Canada, and count over the Catholic population of each diocese; read the names of priests and nuns, and see how strong the Irish element is there. Nay, let him send for one of the most popular and best written of the Protestant American serials, and he will find an account of Catholics and the Catholic religion, which is to be feared few English Protestants would have the honesty to write, and few English Protestant serials the courage to publish, however strong their convictions. The magazine to which I refer, is the Atlantic Monthly; the articles were published in the numbers for April and May, 1868, and are entitled "Our Roman Catholic Brethren." Perhaps a careful perusal of them would, to a thoughtful mind, be the best solution of the Irish question. The writer, though avowing himself a Protestant, and declaring that under no circumstances whatever would he be induced to believe in miracles, has shown, with equal candour and attractiveness, what the Catholic Church is, and what it can do, when free and unfettered. He shows it to be the truest and best friend of humanity; he shows it to care most tenderly for the poor and the afflicted; and he shows, above all, how the despised, exiled Irish are its best and truest supports; how the "kitchen often puts the parlour to the blush;" and the self-denial of the poor Irish girl assists not a little in erecting the stately temples to the Almighty, which are springing up in that vast continent from shore to shore, and are only lessened by the demands made on the same willing workers for the poor father and mother, the young brother or sister, who are supported in their poverty by the alms sent them freely, generously, and constantly by the Irish servant-girl.

Nor have the Catholics of America overlooked the importance of literary culture. A host of cheap books and serials are in circulation, and are distributed largely and freely in convent schools, collegiate establishments, and country parishes; and with a keen appreciation of the religious necessities of the great mass of non-Catholics, of which, unfortunately, English Catholics are oblivious, tracts are published in thousands for general reading, and given to travellers in the railcars, and steamboats. Nor has a higher class of literature been overlooked. The gifted superior of the Congregation of St. Paul has been mainly instrumental in getting up and superintending the labours of the Catholic Publication Society, which, in addition to the multitude of valuable works it has published, sends forth its monthly magazine, well entitled The Catholic World, which is unquestionably the best serial of its kind, and may vie with those conducted by the most gifted Protestant writers of the day, while it is far superior to anything which has as yet been published by the Catholics of this country.

Such is a brief outline, and scarcely even an outline, of the present history of Ireland, in which the hearts of so many of our people are in one country, while their bodies are in another. There is another phase of this present history on which I could have wished to have dwelt much longer; I mean the political union between America and Ireland. So long as Irish emigration continues--I should rather say, so long as real Irish grievances are permitted to continue--so long will this state of things be dangerous to England. Justice to Ireland may be refused with impunity just so long as there is peace between England and America; but who shall dare predict how long that peace will continue, when, as must assuredly happen in a few short years, the Irish in America, or their direct descendants, shall form the preponderating class, and therefore guide the political affairs of that mighty people?

The maps which are appended to this edition of the Illustrated History of Ireland, will, it is hoped, be found not only interesting, but important. Irishmen in America will see, by a glance at the map of family names, the territories in Ireland formerly held by their ancestors. Statistics showing the fearful depopulation of the country, which, notwithstanding all the boasts of those who advocated it, has not benefited those who remain, will be found in another map. The third map is not less important; by that will be seen the immense preponderance of Catholics to Protestants; and it will suggest, no doubt, to thoughtful minds, the injustice of sacrificing the multitude to the individual few.

A few words must also be said about the two full-page illustrations which have been added to this Edition. One of the most important events in the life of O'Connell has been chosen for the one; and, alas! one of the most frequent occurrences in Irish history, from the first English invasion to the present day, has been chosen for the other. In the engraving of O'Connell, it was impossible to preserve the likeness, as the expression demanded by the incident could not be produced from any of the portraits extant; with regard to the eviction scene, it is unfortunately true to the life. Those who have read Mr. Maguire's Irish in America, will recognize the special subject represented. Those who read the Irish local papers of the day, may continually peruse accounts of evictions; but only an eyewitness can describe the misery, and despair of the unfortunate victims. When shall the picture be reversed? When will Irishmen return from America, finding it possible to be as free and as prosperous here? Finding that a man who is willing to toil may obtain a fair remuneration for his labour, and that a man may have the rights of men;--then, and not till then, may we hope that Irish history will, for the future, be a record of past injustice, amply compensated for by present equity.

FOOTNOTES:

[584] Prospered.--This gives an average of about eight persons to each house. There were 22,276 inhabited houses in Dublin in 1861, and the population was 254,480. This would leave an average of eleven persons to each house. There are only seventy-five carpenters in Thom's Directory, and sixty-four cabinet makers: if we give them an average of ten men each in their employment, it would not give more than 680 at the trade in all.

[585] Own.--History of the United States, p. 3. Ludlow and Hughes; Macmillan, London, 1862. The title of this work is singularly infelicitous, for it is merely a sketchy and not very clear account of the late war in America.

[586] Spirit.--History of the United States, p. 7.

[587] Policy.--Morley's Burke, p. 153.

[588] Annulled.--Historical and Philosophical Essays, Senior, vol. i. p. 197.

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