Walks through Ireland, in ... 1812, 1814, and 1817; described in a series of letters to an English Gentleman. (Biographical Memoirs of J. B. Trotter.)

Front matter

WALKS through IRELAND, IN THE YEARS 1812, 1814, AND 1817,- DESCRIBED $n a &em$ of Ec t trrs ro AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN BY JOHN BERNARD TROTTER, Esq. frivate secretary to the late RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX, &c. &«. Non hie mihi primus, erga populum Romanum fidei et constantiæ diet: — ex quo a divo Augusto civitate donitus sum amicos inimicosque ex vestrit utilitatibus dilegi ; neque odio patriæ, (quippe proditores, etiam iis quos antiponunt, invistrunt) verura, quia Romani?, Gerrtianis que idem condu cere: et pacem quam bellum probabam." Tacitus, LONDON: Published bt SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS and Co. Bride-court, Bridge-street ; AND SOLD BY JOHN CUMSftNG, DUBLIN. 1819. W. Lkwh, Printer, Finch-lane, Cornhill

Preface

. The following Letters were commenced, and the pedestrian Tours pursued, under the idea of subsequently forming an historical work on Ireland. This object has been impeded and re tarded by unexpected obstacles, and the fruits of considerable observation on that country are now submitted, with great diffidence, to the public,- in Letters, partly penned on the spot, and partly extracted from notes. The situation of Ireland is highly interesting. That her misery is great, and that no adequate remedy appears to have been applied, cannot be denied by impartial men. The body of her people can scarcely pro cure the conveniences and necessaries of life. The country seems retrograde rather than pro gressive. Improvident legislative provisions have turned dearth to famine ; — pestilence has followed.

Political injustice keeps alive the fever of the mind. The Author submits his Letters to the judgment ofthe Public, hoping that a just considera tion of his motives may lead men to excuse the defective nature of his performance. 2$w>8rapl)tcal J&emotr$ OF JOHN BERNARD TROTTER, ESQ. .Biography, though always an highly interesting branch of literature, is by no means so instructive as it ought to be. It is a display of the conduct and character of an individual in the real occurrences of life; his fortunes are usually found to depend upon his own deserts, and therefore moral truths are inculcated, not by scenes of amusing, though fallacious, fiction, but by facts which all must feel and assent to, because all have had a similar experience. But biographers are friends or associates ofthe parties, and therefore bring to their work feelings too favourable to the life and writings ofthe ob jects they describe.

Prepossession thus takes the place of impartiality, and the love ofthe individual insensibly supersedes the love of truth ; failings are palliated, merits are exaggerated, and the pleasure wliich the biographer feels in thus drawing a favourable portrait of his friend, easily reconciles him to a deception, which, at the same time, flatters his own self-love, by describing the virtues of a congenial object. From this cause of defect, at least, the present sketch is exempt. Whilst an opportunity of intimate knowledge of the subject has given all the requisite means of information, no undue partiality for the a VI BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF man has biassed the detail ; and whatever instruction the chequered scenes of his life may afford, it has not been rendered less by extenuation or concealment.

John Bernard Trotter was born in the year 1775, in the county of Down. His family were originally from Scotland, and descended from the Earl ofGowry, whose actions are recorded among the historical events of that country. They left their native land, and took refuge in the moutains of Mourne, in Ireland, where their de scendants, at this day, are among the respectable gentry of the country. The father of Mr. Trotter was a clergy man of the established church. He had three sons : Sowthwel, who inherited the paternal estate, and was a member of parliament for Downpatrick; John Bernard, the subject of this sketch ; and Ruthven, a major in the army, who was killed at Buenos Ayres. John Bernard was intended for the church. He was educated in the grammar-school at Downpatrick, under Mr. Wilde; and, in 1790, was entered a pensioner of Trinity College, Dublin, under Dr. Stack.

In 1795 he took his degree ; and, after attending the usual course of divinity lectures, he took deacon's orders. He did not long continue in the clerical profession. His maternal uncle, Dr. Dixon, had been an early friend to Charles James Fox, by whose interest he was afterwards created Bishop of Down. From him he naturally had great ex pectations; but, preferment not coming as early as he expected, he became disgusted with a profession to whieh he was never attached, and left the church for the bar, after having once^ or twice officiated as a clergyman. He now entered himself at the Temple, where his first acquaintance] with Mr. Fox commenced, which termi nated only with the death of that great man. At this period the question of the Union was first agitated in Ireland, and he immediately took up his pen in opposition to it.

His first public essay, as a writer, was a pamphlet on the subject, which he immediately sent to Mr. Fox. His opinion of it was characteristic. " You " have put your objection to the Union," said he, " on " right grounds ; but whether there is a spirit in Ireland " to act up to your principles is another question. I do " not know whether you have ever heard, that it is a " common observation, that Irish orators are generally " too figurative in their language for the English taste ; " perhaps I think part of your pamphlet no exception to " this observation ; but this is a fault, if it be a fault, " easily mended." — It was a fault, which, unfortunately, he never corrected. Immediately after the short peace of Amiens, among the English, whose curiosity, or other motives, led to visit France, was Mr. Fox.

He wished to consult certain documents necessary for the completion of his historical work ; and he wrote to request Mr. Trotter would accom pany him, to assist him in transcribing materials. Mr. Trotter was then in Wales, and he immediately joined Mr. Fox at St. Anne's Hill, and set out on this highly interesting tour in the latter end of July, 1802. After passing through Holland and Flanders, the party arrived in Paris, where Mr. Trotter accompanied his patron to examine the most important documents in the archives of the Bureau des Affaires Etrangeres. Here, in company with Mr. Fox, Lord St. John, and Mr. Adair, late am bassador to Constantinople, he was sedulously employed in taking extracts from such state-papers as were neces sary for the completion of Mr. Fox's history. Among the characteristic incidents which enlivened Mr. Trotter's interesting account of this tour, detailed in the last years of the Life of Fox, is their introduction to the a2 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF first consul, of which he used to mention many circum stances in conversation, which he has not inserted in his work.— When the group ofthe English who wished to be introduced were formed into a circle, the first consul en tered it and passed from one to the other, sayingsome brief obliffina* thinoto each in succession.

When Mr. Trotter was introduced as " Un Hibernois," the chief cousul stopped for a moment, as if detained by some sudden re collection—then replying rather to his own thoughts than to the words of the introduction, he muttered " Ca tholique sans doute," and passed rapidly ou. In three months he voluntarily left Mr. Fox ancl those fascinating scenes which Paris presented, and returned to Ireland to commence his professional pursuits, and was called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas term, 1802. His health was at this time so delicate, as materially to interfere with hia practice. After an interrupted attendance on the courts for a short time, he was compelled to abandon them, and retired to Glasnevin, a pleasant village in the vicinity of Dublin. Here he was known for his active and extensive benevolence on every occasion where it could be exercised ; and he has left behind him a character of kindness and good-will, which, after a lapse of sixteen years, is yet recent in the memory of some of the poor people of the neighbourhood.

Among the incidents which called forth his sympathy, and en gaged his active kindness, was that of a poor young wo man who had been the victim of much calumny. She retired with a broken heart to die in obscurity at Finglas, and was attended, with zeal and assiduity, in her last moments, by Mr. Trotter. She imparted to him the strange incidents of an eventful story just before her death ; and on those he founded an interesting novel, which he afterwards published. After three years inactivity, he first appeared in public life in a manner creditable to his spirit and ability. In 1805 was the memorable election for the county of Down, in which Lord Castlereagh was a candidate. This great contest was the touchstone of the feelings of the people at that time, on the subject of the Union, by the acceptance or rejection of Lord Castlereagh.

After a long and spirited contest, the secretary of state was obliged to retire defeated ; but, with his characteristic good temper, he retired with a conciliating speech. It was on this occasion that Mr. Trotter, then a very young man, made a first and unexpected display of those talents which gave an early promise of future greatness. He started up, when Lord Castlereagh had ended, and re plied to his Majesty's minister in a strain of spontaneous and unstudied eloquence that surprised and delighted the auditors. The freeholders crowded round the young orator when he had concluded, with thanks and congra tulations. Lord Castlereagh retired without a reply. In the year following his friends were called to political power ; as part of the arrangement, the Duke of Bedford was appointed viceroy of Ireland ; and Mr. Trotter, to prepare for his approach, established, in Dublin, a news paper called " The Herald," which was conducted with much spirit and ability, whereby he acquired a high de gree of reputation.

He was now a second time sent for by Mr. Fox, who first placed him in a high situation in the foreign-office, and afterwards appointed him his private secretary, which he held at the time of bis death. It, perhaps, never fell to the lot of any young man to start into life with more flattering prospects of rank and distinction than now opened on Mr. Trotter; highly connected and popular in his own country, he was called, at a critical period, X BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF without any solicitation on his part, to fill an eminent situation in another. The first offices in the state pre sented themselves to his distant view at home, and he bad immediate prospect of going abroad to a foreign court, in a high diplomatic situation. It should appear that Mr. Fox entertained as well a high opinion of his talents, as the greatest personal esteem and regard : he employed him not only as his political coadjutor in the great concerns in which, as prime-minister of England, he was engaged at that most critical and important period, when the very existence of this country and the other states of Europe seemed to hang on those negoci ations for peace which Mr. Fox was labouring to effect ; but he took him to his most intimate confidence, and he was bis friend and inseparable companion in private as in public life.

It is impossible to read the interesting and most affecting narrative detailed of the last days of Mr. Fox, with out being struck with this circumstance : When borne down by an oppressive malady, the minister was com pelled to retire from the weight of public business, which he was no longer able to support, he took with him his faithful secretary. He was his friend, his confident, his companion, and his nurse. He supported him in his walks, he drew hiiu in bis chair when he was no longer able to move, he administered to him his medicines, be sat beside his bed when he could not sleep, and "the morning sun often found him diverting the restless vigi lance of his friend by reading and conversation. From these attentions Mr. Fox received the greatest consola tion, when nearly all his other friends were excluded ; and he seemed to die with more tranquillity, from the prospect of breathing his last sigh in Trotter's arms.

Surely, then, if the memory of this great political lumir nary is held in deserved respect and veneration by his countrymen, the friend who shared with him his minis terial labours, and whom he thought worthy of such confidence, ought not to have been forgotten ; if his whole household were provided for by the bounty of the nation, his chief secretary and bosom-friend should not have been overlooked. Yet, so it was; and posterity will hardly believe, that, while the menial who attended at his table was appointed to a situation of £200 per an num in the foreign-office,* the friend, whom he entrusted with the concerns of that important department, was dis missed without tbe slightest remuneration at his death, and suffered to pine in want and obscurity, f On the death of Mr. Fox, Trotter returned to Ireland; his spirit was then sound and unbroken, and he asked for no provision which he thought ought to have been offered to him; careless of money, of which be had yet experienced no want, he preferred the independence of a literary life to an office or pension shackled with restric tions.

It was his great misfortune to hold himself inde pendent of circumstances, and think himself right in asserting and displaying the same spirit on all occasions. Vain of the distinction ofthe rank he lately held, the secretary could not condescend to resume the drudgery of a junior barrister in the courts of Dublin ; and, indig- * Mr. Conway, Mr. Fox's butler. f A nobleman, high in the confidence of his majesty's governmenl, thus expresses himself, in a letter to Mr. Trotter on this occasion : " I think, have said, and always will repeat, that I think you very " hardly used, in being removed from an office not within the usual " removals or change of government, without some other being given " to you ; leaving you, (the friend and secretary of the late foreign se " cretary of state,) destitute, was unkind and indefensible."

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF nant at what he supposed the apostacy of some of his party, he was fond of displaying an impotent anger against them. In this spirit he never resumed his situation to the bar, and ostentatiously affected to break off" all connection with Mr. Grattan, because he supported the disarming and insurrection bills ; and, with the Downshire family, because he thought they wished to make a monopoly of the representative of the county of Down. He seemed to think himself the only representative of consistency and public spirit, and that nothing more was wanting than an opportunity of displaying it to rally the country round him. He took a house at Phi lipsburgh, near Dublin, and commenced an " Historical Register," a periodical work, published by Lewis, in An glesea-street. About this time his brother, Major Trotter, was killed in the attack in Buenos Ayres, and he devoted some pages of his Register to an eloquent and just eulo gium on that gallant officer ; he further displayed his affection, and wish to encourage the arts in Ireland, by directing a monument, sculptured by a native artist, to be erected to his memory.

This was completed by Ryan of King-street, and was publicly displayed in Dublin for some time, as a monument equally creditable to the artist and his employer ; but it was never erected. Having utterly failed in the speculations ofhis " His torical Register," he left Philipsburgh, and went to reside at Lark-Hill, in the county of Down, near which was a spa-well, of which Mr. Trotter was advised to drink. Here another circumstance occurred, strongly indicative of that visionary and speculative turn of mind wbich seemed to unfit him for the purposes of common life. He wanted a friend, and he wished to have one ofhis own creation. He, therefore, took a poor boy, whom he accidentally met with in the humblest rank of life, and, undeterred by the failure of a similar project of the celebrated and unfortunate Mr. Day,* he resolved to edu cate him so as to fit him to be his friend and companion.

He, therefore, took him into his family, not as his do mestic, but his eleve, and the relations of roaster and servant were obliterated in those of tutor and pupil. Aster a suitable education, he appointed him to hold that station in his family which he himself held in that of Mr. Fox, and he made him his confidant and private secretary, a rank which he held in all the melancholy vicissi tudes of his future life. In the year, 1808 the question of the veto was much agitated in Dublin, and Mr. Trotter stepped forward in the controversy " to support," as he says, in a pamphlet he published on the occasion, " his own consistency, to " offer to his country a pledge of his independence of " ministers, of his disdain of party, and of his respect for " the venerable fragments which scatter the base of that " temple, once dedicated, in Ireland, to religion and " liberty."

In this pamphlet, which he dedicated to the Catholic prelates of Ireland, his opinions are decidedly hostile to his former political friends. He says the veto was a point crudely and inconsiderately brought forward by a party in parliament, and that Ireland was by no means bound to their proceedings, or responsible for them. And that the Catholic prelates are resolved to barter to no minister, under any reign whatever, the in tegrity and independence of their church, for the false grandeur, or vile emolument, which an English minister might propose, or an ambitious monarch might bestow. * The eccentric experiment of Mr. Day was made on two females, of which there is a curious account in Sc ward's Life of Darwin. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF The pamphlet was suited to the popular spirit of the time ; it was read with avidity, as the unbiassed opinion of a protestant, and contributed, perhaps unfortunately, to increase the obstacles to setting at rest, for ever, an agitating question.

He now applied himself to finish a work of fancy, the foundation of which was laid in the incidents of real life. In 1809 he published his " Stories for Irish Calumniators," drawing all his characters from living models. In Fitz morice he depicted himself; iu Frank, his secretary; in Miss Saxly, a young lady who had died, at Finglas, the victim of calumny ; and in the vicar and his family, the Rev. Doctor Dobbyn, and the gifted and benevolent re sidents of the parsonage-house of that parish, whose amiable features he has sketched with a just and delicate pencil. This work, which was dedicated to Lord Hol land, breathes a benevolent and patriotic spirit, and con tains much judicious remark and interesting detail. The style, however, is loose and declamatory, the characters strained, and the incidents unnatural ; and though popular for some time as a local work, it was soon forgotten.

He published also, at this time, a " Letter to Lord South well," on the Catholic claims and Irish prelates. This was a subject which now engrossed every one's attention. The letter was read with avidity, as coming from a source respected by the party to whom it was ad dressed, and acquired for the author much popularity and celebrity. It was always his opinion, that music had considerable influence on the national character of a people, and that it was no less wise than patriotic to cherish and promote the practice of it. The music of his native country he regarded with enthusiastic admiration, and he was anxi ous to be instrumental in reviving the race of Irish Bards, which was nearly extinct in the country. In the year 1792 a patriotic society had been established in Bel fast for that purpose, and his view was to enlarge a provin cial society into one which would embrace the whole kingdom.

For this purpose he searched out one of the last of the Irish harpers, whom he found in the person of a blind old man, and taking the bard with his harp into a coach and four horses, he proceeded with his venerable companion to the metropolis. Here he published his proposals for forming a society, and roused the public interest to an intense degree, upon a novel and romantic subject. The Irish melodies were at this time in high and deserved repute ; but the Irish harper had never been seen, except by the curious in the College Museum. To display his bard and instrument, therefore, he took a house at Richmond, fitted it up in a style correspondent to his plan ; and while he entertained numerous and successive companies with profuse hospitality, his bard sat in his bower, or bis hall, and delighted his guests with unheard-of strains of melody.

A national society was soon formed, embracing a highly respectable list of no blemen, gentlemen, and professors, and a concert in commemoration of Carolan and the Irish Bards was per formed, which will be long remembered, for the enthusiastic ardour which it excited. Intoxicated by the popularity and interest of which he supposed himself now the object, he indulged in a profuse and careless ex pence, which involved him in difficulties, from which he never extricated himself. From Richmond he retired, in embarrassment, to the county of Wicklow, and rented a small villa, called Montalta. Here he built a cottage, on the solitary banks of a romantic mountain-stream, and with a mind harmo nized to the undertaking, he wrote his " Last Years of BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF the Life of Charles James Fox."

This celebrated work has much to censure and much to praise : the loose and desultory manner, the quantity of irrelevant matter, the wanton offence offered to many of the friends of Mr. Fox, and the weak and unjustifiable attack on the conduct of his physicians, were all subjects of just censure and severe criticism ; but the touching details of a distressing malady, the minute traits ofa great man at the approach of dissolution, the clear insight ofthe private habits and turn of mind of a public minister, on whom the eyes of the world were fixed, detailed by a faithful eye-witness, who never for a moment left his bed-side, gave to the work so great an interest, that it was bought with avidity, and in a very short period passed through three editions. Notwithstanding the success of this work, bis embarrassments daily increased, and his character, compromised by some unfortunate pecuniary transactions, was daily attacked.

Labouring under anxiety and dis tress, which he was not yet broken in to bear, be at length applied to his majesty's ministers for some situa tion ; he was proffered, through Mr. Canning, a small employment in the revenue, of £150 per annum, which he indignantly rejected.* His health now declined, and his spirits sunk to a state of morbid depression. A circumstance at this time occurred strongly indicative of the perturbed and desponding state of his mind. He had been some time before engaged with Mr. Fox in a course * In a letter to Lord Liverpool he thus expresses himself: " I " think he (Mr. Canning) never knew that the small revenue-place " offered me by the Duke of Richmond was unfit for rae to accept. " Mr. Trail was ashamed when he proposed it to me; that which was " degrading I could not take." of classical reading, and had paid particular attention to Horace, some of whose odes he had translated; there was one, however, which he now dwelt on with persever ing fondness, as peculiarly congenial to his present circumstances.

It was the seventeenth ode of the first book, addressed to Macænas, in which the poet anticipates the death of his patron, and intimates his intentions not to survive him. Non ego perfidium Dixi sacraraentum ; ibimus, ibimus Ut cunque præcedes, supremum Carpere iter comites parati. This ode he was most anxious to have well translated, and importunately applied to a classical friend, of whose powers of versification he had a high opinion, to do that justice to the subject which he found he could not do himself. His friend complied with his request, and unwit tingly fed a despondency, which he subsequently dreaded would ultimately terminate in suicide. Indeed, his con duct justified the apprehension; he frequently left his house, and wandered about the mountains without a wish or intention of returning.

When his family, alarmed with his absence, sent in search of him ; he was sometimes found at midnight, stretched on the banks of a mountain stream in the wet grass, soaked with dew and benumbed with cold. At length his creditors seized on his house, and he was driven from his home without knowing where to turn his steps. He retired to Dalkey, near Dublin, and composed, for his immediate subsistence, a novel, called " Margaret of Waldemar." His work, which he completed in a month, was composed under great agi tation of mind, and bears the stamp of a wild and morbid imagination. It was rejected by the booksellers as too BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF XVIII extravagant even for the regions of romantic fiction. Dis appointed in this expectation and only resource, he be came a fugitive without any fixed residence ;* and after many wanderings, he proceeded on foot, without any de finite object, through the mountains of Wicklow, and finally arrived at Hook Tower, at the extremity of the coast of Wexford. , This sequestered spot is a peninsula running several miles into the sea, and forming the eastern coast of the entrance into the great estuary into which the rivers Suir and Barrow discharge themselves.

At its extremity stands a round tower, erected, it is supposed, by the Danes, and found standing when tbe first English ad venturers landed near this spot in 1171. It is now a * Chi one of these occasions he called upon some friends ; they lived in a lone country, in a new house and demesne not yet finished, for whom he felt a particular regard. His friends were from home, and he had departed before their return ; he left, however, behind him a trace which marked his progress ; they found on the chimney-piece an impromptu, written during the few minutes he had stayed. It is here given, as a specimen of that easy and ready versification which he could always command. To Mr. and Mrs. L , When first the infant Muses chose their seal On earth, and sought with care a lone retreat, No flowret smil'd, no foliage deck'd the place, Till poesy display'd enchanting grace ; Whose magic breath soon vivifi'd the scene, And the dull spot arose in bloom serene — Thus here the hand of Genius forms around The varied charms that deck the wondering ground; And .here the Muses haste — they gently press And hail the spot which all the Virtues bless.

J. B. T. light-house, marking the entrance of the harbour of Waterford. On this peninsula he became the inmate of a sequestered cabin, unknown and secluded from the world; and hoped to find refuge among the solitary haunts of seals and sea-mews. One day, as he wandered along the coast of this wild region, in attempting to pass a rock, rendered slippery by the spray of the sea, he lost his infirm footing, and fell from the summit, and was taken up severely contused. While labouring under the effects of this accident, and yet scarcely able to walk abroad, early one morning at sun-rise, two men entered the cabin, and asked for the refreshment of a drink of water. Mr. Trotter, who was just risen, with his accustomed good-nature, directed that the poor meu, who seemed to be travellers, should be supplied with some thing better ; and while some of his family were prepar ing to set before them the best his house afforded, the men seized him suddenly and violently by the collar.

Surprized by this unexpected attack, at an unseasonable hour, and in a solitary place, he resisted, from an im pulse of self-preservation ; and the young man, his se cretary, coming to his aid, assaulted the men witb more zeal than discretion, and they were expelled from the house. It soon appeared that they were bailiffs execut ing a writ, though they never shewed it, or even declared the purpose for which they assaulted him. They immediately applied to the nearest magistrate, and lodged an exaggerated information of an assault and rescue. The magistrate proceeded to the house witb a body of armed servants ; and when Mr. Trotter refused to open his door, from an apprehension of an arrest for debt, they brought a file of soldiers from Duncannon-fort, and laid siege to the cabin. The whole country was now alarmed ; crowds were collected from all quarters ; and while they were XX BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF preparing to burst open the door with a sledge, Mr. Trotter came quietly forward and surrendered himself.

It appears, by his uncontradicted statement, that he was treated with the most unfeeling brutality by the magistrates, particularly by one of them. He was called a " ruffian," and addressed in the language of wanton and unnecessary insult, and a common flat-backed car and straw were brought to convey him. This is the usual carriage prepared for the commonest felon, and, from the structure of the rude machine, is the most painful and uneasy at any time ; but, in bad roads, and to an invalid, labouring under the effects of recent wounds, would be intolerable. He, therefore, declined a mode of conveyance at once ignominious ancl painful ; and having petitioned in vain for a carriage, or even a jaunting-car, he was marched with a delicate female, and the young man, his secretary, on foot, through the country, to Wexford, with military parade, and the way lengthened by an unnecessary circuit of several miles.