^1^^ OF THE UNIVERSITY or ILLINOIS 9415 L79c Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library .;;^ -Si::^i ,'. '1 1 ■ M/1R2 5 APR 2 5 tggb m i .7 L161— H41 A CONSIDERATION OF THE STATE OF IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A CONSIDERATION OF THE STATE OF IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BY G. LOCKER LAMPSON " Hou) is it that the King is none the richer for Ireland ? ' LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. Ltd. J907 Richard (Xav & Sons, Lihitbd, BREAD STRBCT HILL, B.C., AND BUNCAT, SUFFOLK. AUTHOR'S PREFACE There is no gratitude in the world, which is a very lament- able consideration. Every man is born without his permission, and born graceless. A conclusive proof of the first is that men continue to be born, of the second that not half-a-dozen of them will thank the author for his trouble. To suppose such a thing provokes hilarity. And yet his book was written with a moral purpose. It is intended to gibbet the incompetence of Ireland's governors for five centuries, and, in suffusing British cheeks with shame, to evoke better intentions for the future. Its collateral object is to lay bare the secret of the repeated failures, the worm in the heart of the tree, the want of know- ledge of Irish temperament and history, so conspicuous in the rulers of Erin. And yet hardly a man will feel indebted to the writer for these meritorious aspirations. Forty-two out of forty- two millions will possibly skim the pages. Twenty-two of these may be Milesians, who will condemn them, because issuing from a Saxon who is not a " Home Ruler." Fifteen of the other twenty will be bluff Britishers, who will vote them anti-English Qand lurch by on the other side. The remaining five may see 2i that an intrinsic error lies curled up at the centre of Irish rule, C and, if one of the five be destined some day to wield power ^sufficient to cure the disease, these leaves will not have been ^ altogether stitched in vain. [-•> 283485 CONTENTS CMArTER PAGE Author's Preface v I. Before the Union ; or, the Sowing of the Seed i II. The Act of Union, 1801 . 60 III. Catholic Emancipation, 1829 79 IV. The National System of Education, 1831 . .125 V. The Seven Years' Tithe War, 1830-1838 . .148 VI. Poor Law of 1838 180 VII. Municipal Reform Act, 1840 190 VIII. O'Connell's Two Constitutional Agitations for a Repeal of the Union, 1830 and 1842-1844 . . 2c» IX. The Encumbered Estates Act, 1849 . . . . 223 X. Revoluticwary and Unconstitutional Efforts to OBTAIN the Severance of Ireland from Great Britain— Emmet, Smith O'Brien, and Fenianism up TO 1867 266 XI. Irish Reform Bills of 1832, 1850^. and 1868 . . 294 XII. Disestablishment of the Irish Church, 1869 . 303 XIII. Land Act of 1870 317 XIV. Intermediate Education Act, 1878. Establishment OF the Royal University, 1879 3H XV. Land Act of i88i 366 vii viii CONTENTS CHArTEK nuam XVI. From the Land Act of i88i to the Rejection of the First Home Rule Bill, 1886 399 XVII. The Fall of Parnell and the Rejection of the Second Home Rule Bill, 1893 431 Epilogue 463 Appendices 477 Index 677 r' . STATE OF IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY CHAPTER I BEFORE THE UNION; OR, THE SOWING OF THE SEED " Ireland has the same reason to spurn at this power of external legislation, because it has hitherto been employed for the purpose only of oppressing and distress- ing her. Had Ireland never been made to feel this power as a curse, she never would have complained of it, and the best and most effectual way to have kept it alive, would have beep not to have made use of it. Ireland would then have suffered this harmless power to exist in the statute book, she never would have called out for a renunciation of it. But, fatally for this country, this power of external legislation has been employed against Ireland as an instrument of oppression to establish an impolitic • monopoly in trade ; to enrich one country at the expense of the other. . . . Thus the supreme power of the British Parliament is employed to gratify a few, .and to distress a whole kingdom." — Charles James Fox, House of Commons, May 17, 1782. Lord Shelburne^ observes in one of his numerous Memor- anda, and that statesman was no mean judge of Irish affairs — "The history of Ireland may be read to considerable advantage, and more than the history of most countries, for as every other country had always more or less of a settled government, their history consists of little more than an account of sieges and battles, except now and then some civil wars r whereas the history of Ireland is in fact a history of the policy of England in regard to Ireland, and will be found to give the best idea of the principles, knowledge and passions which prevailed in each reign and characterized the times. It will be found to have always been the shame of England, as Sicily was of Rome, and is now of Naples, and Corsica was of Genoa." That this is true, few^ persons who prefer truth to hypocrisy will be inclined to deny. The character of successive Adminis- trations is undoubtedly to be found in their treatment of the Irish people, and a slight sketch of that treatment we now propose to offer. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Ireland were a 1 William Petty, first Marquis of Lansdowne, belter known as Lord Shelburne (1737-180S). I 2 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY • wilderness of crime, the cradle of the present Irish portent, the nursery of the weak and sickly child that has developed as men have seen, suckled in vice and dandled in infamy, to be finally gibbeted before the world as a spectacle of how fine and healthy an offspring may be reared under the tender solicitude and firm guidance of wise and honourable parents. We pass by the disgraceful confiscations of the lands of the O'Moores and the O'Connors in Leix and Offaley in the Bloody Mary's reign, by the war waged by Elizabeth against Shan O'Neil — the Shan O'Neil whom the Lord-Lieutenant did his best to poison when he feared to meet him in the field. We pass by the black treachery of Sidney — the massacre of Mullaghmast — where hundreds of the Irish chiefs were decoyed and slaughtered with the vilest cruelty, and we pass by the savagery of Essex and the wars against Desmond and Tyrone. 'The Irish were scared into rebellion by the conviction that they were doomed to be harried from their homes by the English settlers, and the suppression of Tyrone's insurrection was a veritable orgy of butchery and exter- mination, the slaughter of Irishmen being merely regarded as the necessary destruction of loathsome and plague-infected vermin. The Irish, however, had but touched with their lips the rim of the chalice they were destined to exhaust. The result of Elizabeth's wars was the confiscation of the vast estates of Desmond, extending over the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford, and amounting to 295,379 acres. Soon after this spoliation Ulster and Leinster were planted by James I with English settlers, the proprietary rights of the clans being altogether disregarded, and great numbers of the old proprietors were driven from the land — 2,836,837 acres in the former, and 450,000 acres in the latter province being wrested from their owners. A partial plantation of Ulster had already been attempted by Queen Elizabeth.but had not taken root. Conquest, however, had prepared the way for plunder and the new effort was more successful. Thomas Carte, in his Life of Ormonde, records the terms upon which the plantation of Ulster by James I was carried out, and his remarks are peculiarly interesting for two reasons. In the first place, the conditions laid down for observance by the new guarantees formed the source from which the Ulster " tenant-right " ultimately sprang ; and secondly, the terms upon which the new owners settled upon their lands still hold good, and are a forcible argument for the substitution of a peasant proprietary, or a tenure very similar to it, in the place of that unsatisfactory system which embittered the relations between landlord and tenant throughout the nineteenth century.^ ' See Appendix VI, quotation from W. E. H. Lecky. ' See Appendix VII, quotation from Thomas Carte. BEFORE THE UNION 3 There were three classes of new proprietors — 104 English and Scotch undertakers or adventurers ; 56 Irish servitors, that is, persons who had been previously engaged in the Irish service of the Crown,and 286 native Irish proprietors. Now after a certain lapse of time the original conditions imposed upon the grantees were felt to be a burden and were gradually overlooked. Proper government supervision was wanting, and the tenants them- selves, scarcely able to keep body and soul together, were not strong enough to hold their landlords to the covenanted terms. "It was in such a state of things," wrote Isaac Butt in 1867, " that the Ulster custom of tenant-right had its origin. These tenants held under terms which bound the landlords to give them fixity, in some instances perpetuity, of tenure. The landlord, while he was evading this obligation, could not venture, even if he were disposed, to interfere with their possession. They were somewhat in the condition of persons holding lands under what are termed accepted proposals, without a legal title, but with a claim in equity strong enough to prevent them from being disturbed. Matters continued in this unsettled state for years. In the troubles which soon after agitated Ulster as well as the rest of the kingdom, arising from the war which has been called 'the Great Rebellion' — it was scarcely to be expected that there 'should be any authoritative adjustment of these claims. During these troubles it was not probable that landlords would interfere with the tenants, upon whose fidelity they relied ; and at the end of the Great Rebellion the tenants' claim for security for their holdings resulted in the establishment, in the case of the Protestant tenantry with an acquiescence on the part of the landlords, of that virtual fixity of tenure which has puzzled us in modem days under the name of the ' Ulster tenant-right.' " James I did not confine his activity to Ulster ; he made large grants in Longford, Westmeath, Kildare, and Wicklow, and in each case the conditions of the grants were similar to those imposed in Ulster. Sir John Davis even states that the proper- ties in Munster were held on the same condition of giving fixity of tenure to the tenants. In the other settlements that have taken place in Ireland very similar terms were imposed upon the grantees, but the issue has been different, for in Ulster the tenantry belonged to the dominant class, and were accordingly treated with greater consideration, whilst in other parts of Ireland the landlords were able to entirely disregard the conditions of settlement, and in course of time to destroy almost every vestige of the original privileges accorded to their tenantry, who for the most part belonged to the oppressed and hated race of Catholics. As a salve for this wound — the confiscation of Irish land and the plantation of Ulster — came the shameless treachery of the " Graces." The Irish gentry had consented to raise by voluntary assessment, as a grant to Cheirles I, the sum of ;^ 120,000 in three 4 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY annual instalments, in return for certain concessions or " Graces," from the King, which, considering their load of grievances, did not err on the side of extravagance: The most important of them were the limitation of Crown claims on real estate by an undisturbed possession of sixty years ; the legalization of the Connaught titles by the enrolment of the patents of the in- habitants of that province; and the permission to Popish recusants to sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches without taking the oath of supremacy, and to practise in the Courts of Law. The Government, with the light of cunning shining in its eyes, accepted the Irish terms ; the Royal promise was given, and the money paid over with ingenuous confidence by the passive gentry. But the latter little knew the veiled capacities of Stuart fraud. On the receipt of the sum, the dark and brooding Strafford,^ who was sent to Ireland in 1633, with- drew without a blush the first two and most important " Graces," in direct violation of the King's word and to his own everlasting infamy. In the gloomy recesses of his fertile and daring brain he had planned the colonization of Connaught and the establishment of an army there, so as to enable Charles to become independent of his English Parliament and dictate his own terms to his subjects by means of a large force and revenue the other side of the Irish Channel. But his scheme, undoubtedly a great one, was indefinitely deferred, as the proposed colonization would certainly have lit a rebellion, and the rulers of Ireland had not the courage to face that conjuncture, although they were quite prepared to filch what they could without putting their necks in danger. Hundreds of titles were vested in the King, and Strafford, ambitious, bold and bad, finally left the shores of Ireland — left her seething with rage and burning for her revenge. The seeds of retribution had been flung broadcast over the land. The Great Rebellion broke out in Ulster in 1641. Roger O'Moore,^ an able man, had been the prime mover in the plot and succeeded in bringing together the Catholics of both races. The rising was a vast upheaval of an outraged people, a protest by despairing nature, and the result was in keeping with the treatment that had caused it.^ Sir Phelim O'Neil,* the most prominent leader of the rising, did his utmost to keep it within moderate bounds, and published a proclamation from Dungannon in which he declared that his insurrection was in no wise directed * Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford (1593-1641). ^ Also known as Rory O'More (1620-1652). ' Henry Hallam, the historian, says — " The primary causes of the rebellion are not to be found in the supineness or misconduct of the Lords- Justices, but in the two great sins of the English Government, in the p>enal laws as to religion, which pressed on almost the whole people, and in the systematic iniquity which despoiled them of their possessions." * Sir Phelim O'Neil (i6o4?-i6S3). Executed March 10 in Dublin. BEFORE THE UNION 5 against the King, or " for the hurt of any of his subjects, either of the English or Scotch nation ; but only for the defence and liberty of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom." But in spite of the knowledge of this declaration and a mass of other evidence that points to the same conclusion a vast perversion of facts has been indulged in regarding the rebellion, which would be unaccountable were it not a matter of common knowledge that bigots are not confined to Scotland and can rarely tell the truth. Thus it has been asserted that the rising was on the part of its leaders a concerted butchery from the first, and pseudo-historians have gravely argued as though the Irish had massacred without any provocation the helpless English, who passively fell, unconscious of any crime, like innocent sheep in a slaughter-house.^ \f rom the commencement of the rising the English Parliament strained every nerve to turn the struggle into a war of extermina- tion. It enacted that no toleration of the Romish religion should be henceforth permitted in Ireland, and that two and a half million acres of profitable land, besides bogs, woods, and barren mountains, should be assigned to English adventurers in return for small sums of money which they raised for the subjugation of the country. ' The cruelties committed by the victorious party in this carnival of fury beggar description. Thus in the Island of Maggee thirty families were butchered in their beds by the garrison of Carrickfergus, and when Sir Henry Tichborne ^ drove O'Neil from Dundalk, the slaughter of the Irish was such that for some weeks after "there was neither man nor beast to be found in sixteen miles between the two towns of Drogheda and Dundalk ; nor on the other side of Dundalk, in the county of Monaghan, nearer than Carrickmacross — a strong pile twelve miles distant." One of the items in Sir William Cole's^ catalogue of the services performed by his regiment in Ulster is exquisitely laconic — " Starved and famished of the vulgar sort, whose goods were seized on by this regiment, 7,000." Finally in 1648 a peace was negotiated between the Confederate Irish on the one side and Ormonde,* the Lord-Lieutenant, and Henrietta Maria on the other, and a treaty signed early in 1649. But dissensions soon sprang up between the two parties ; the Catholic oil and Protestant water would not mix, and when Cromwell arrived * W. E. H. Lecky, who knew better, wrote — " I cannot undertake to pronounce upon the question, and shall be content if I have conveyed to the reader my own firm conviction that the common assertion that the rebellion of 1641 began with a general massacre of Protestants is entirely untrue, although, in the course of the long and savage struggle that ensued, great numbers of Englishmen were undoubtedly murdered. The num&r of the victims, however, though very great, has been enormously and often deliberately exaggerated." ^ Sir Henry Tichborne (1581 ?-i667). Governor of Drc^heda. ' Sir William Cole (d. 1653), appointed Governor of Enniskillen on the outbreak of the rebellion. * James Butler, twelfth Earl and first Duke of Ormonde (1610-1688). 6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY he found a divided camp. The barbarities of 164 1 were followed by the bloody massacres at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649, and those in turn by the Cromwellian Settlement which was carried out by degrees from 1652 to 1654.^ Under the Cromwellian Settlement all who had taken part in the rebellion before November 10, 1642, or who before that date had assisted the rebels in any way, as also about a hundred specified persons, were condemned to death and to the absolute forfeiture of their estates. All other landowners who had at any period borne arms against the Parliament, either for the rebels or the King, were to be deprived of their estates, but were promised land of a third of their value in Connaught. If, how- ever, they had held a higher rank than major, they were to be banished from Ireland. Papists who had abstained throughout the war from bearing arms against the Parliament, but had not manifested a " constant good affection " towards it, were to be deprived of their lands, and to receive two-thirds of their value in Connaught. In this manner eleven million acres of Irish soil were dealt with and handed over to men who were expected to advance the " English Interest," whilst all the old proprietors belonging to the noblest and most respected families in Ireland were forced from their ancient homes, and driven to seek a strange asylum in Connaught, or some other place beyond the sea. The iniquity of this confiscation has never been forgotten in Ireland. The wrong is indelibly stamped upon the Irish heart, for men who were absolutely innocent of political or other offence were turned adrift, and all that was most respected in Ireland was made the subject of vulgar outrage.^ On the reinstatement of the monarchy Irish landed relations were again transformed. By the Act of Settlement of 1660 Charles II, on the advice of Clarendon,* confirmed to the adventurers all those lands possessed by them on May 7, 1659, which had been allotted under the Cromwellian Settlement. With a few exceptions the lands granted to soldiers instead of pay were likewise confirmed, and officers who had served before June 5, 1649, but had not yet been given lands, were to receive them to the value of rather more than half of what was due to ' Henry Hallam says of the Cromwellian conquest — " After the King's person had fallen into their hands, the victorious party set themselves in earnest to effect the conquest of Ireland. This was achieved by Cromwell and his powerful army after several years, with such bloodshed and rigour, that, in the opinion of Lord Clarendon, the sufferings of that nation, from the outset of the rebellion, to its close, have never been surpassed but by those of the Jews in their destruction by Titus. " " As W. E. H. Lecky says — "A very large proportion of them had committed no crime whatever, and it is probable that not a sword would have been drawn in Ireland in rebellion if those who ruled it had suffered the natives to enjoy their lands and their religion in peace. The Cromwellian settlement is the foundation of that deep and lasting division between the proprietary and the tenants which is the chief cause of the political and social evils of Ireland." ' Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674). BEFORE THE UNION 7 them. Protestants, however, whose estates had been handed over to adventurers or soldiers, were to be immediately restored, unless they had been in rebellion before the cessation of Sep- tember 15, 1643, or had taken out decrees for lands in Connaught and Clare ; and the adventurers or soldiers who were thus displaced were to receive compensation. The next class dealt with under the Settlement were those termed "Innocent Papists." No one was to be deemed an " Innocent Papist " who before the Cessation had been of the rebels' party ; or who had enjoyed his estate real or personal in the rebels' quarters (with the exception of the inhabitants of Cork and Youghal, who were driven into these quarters by force) ; or entered into the Roman Catholic Confederacy before the Peace of 1648 ; or had at any time adhered to the Nuncio's party against the Sovereign ; or in- herited his property from those who were guilty of those crimes ; or sat in any of the confederate assemblies or councils, or acted upon any commissions or powers derived from them. Thus, all Catholics who had in sheer despair risen in defence of the threatened existence of their religion, were excluded from the category of grace, although they might be and generally were entirely innocent of and unconnected with the crimes that were perpetrated in Ulster. The " Innocent Papists " who were able to establish their claim, and who had taken and still held lands in Connaught, were to be restored to their old estates by May 2, 1661 ; but those who had sold the Connaught lands were to satisfy the purchasers of their old estates for the price they had paid, and the necessary repairs and improvements they had made, whilst the adventurers and soldiers who were removed in this manner were to receive immediate compensation. If, how- ever, the properties of " Innocent Papists " had been within corporations, and had consequently carried with them political weight, the old owners were not to be re-established in their possessions unless the King specially determined it, but to be compensated with land in the neighbourhood. The next class consisted of those who had taken part in the rebellion of 1641, but who had submitted and constantly adhered to the Peace of 1648. If these had remained at home and accepted lands in Connaught, they were to be bound by this arrangement, and not restored to their former properties. But if they had served under the King abroad, and sued out no decrees in Connaught or Clare in compensation for their former estates, they were to be restored, although this restitution was to be postponed until reprisals had been made for the adventurers and soldiers who had become possessed of their estates, and also until the other restitutions had been effected. In addition to these, thirty-six persons, who were perfectly innocent, or constant adherents to the peace, were restored at once by special favour. 8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The terms of the Act of Settlement very clearly indicated that the political influence of the adventurers and soldiers was in the ascendant, whilst that of the Catholics was virtually extinct. Nevertheless, the Protestants in Ireland were so dis- contented with the arrangement that the clouds of a fresh rebellion rolled up, and a Bill explanatory of the Act and consolatory to the tender susceptibilities of the Protestants had to be passed. The Act of Explanation provided that the adventurers and soldiers should give up a third of their grants to be applied to the purpose of increasing the fund for reprisals ; that the Connaught purchasers should retain two- thirds of the lands they possessed in September 1663 ; that in all cases of competition between the Protestants and Roman Catholics every ambiguity should be interpreted in favour of the former ; that twenty more of the Irish should be restored by special favour, and that all the other Catholics, whose claims had not hitherto, for want of time, been decided by the Com- missioners, should be treated as disqualified. In this manner more than three thousand old proprietors were, without the benefit of a trial, without a word in their own defence, for no other reason than that of Protestant greed, excluded for ever from the inheritance of their fathers. The immense Cromwellian confiscations were confirmed, and by the time the cup of injustice was full it was estimated that the Protestants possessed four- fifths of the whole kingdom, whilst of the Protestant landowners in 1689 two-thirds are said to have held their estates under the Act of Settlement of 1660. But the shuffling of the cards was not yet complete. At the end of 1687 Ireland was ripe for another struggle. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel,i who had succeeded Clarendon ^ as Deputy that year, had denounced the Act of Settlement, and was apparently meditating another huge transfer of Irish land. In 1688 the Irish rose, and 100,000 levelled their pikes for the exiled James in spite of the memory of Stuart tyranny and the dishonesty of kings. In 1689 James II landed at Kinsale and summoned a Parliament, which met at Dublin on May 7 and sat until July 18, and in the Lower House of which there are reported to have been only half-a-dozen Protestant members. It immedi- ately proceeded to repeal the Settlement of 1660, actuated as it was by the desire to re-establish the descendants of the old proprietors upon their ancestral lands. This was followed by James' impolitic and sweeping Act of Attainder, which prac- tically aimed at another complete subversion of the existing Irish land system. A list of more than two thousand land- owners.was drawn up who were to be attainted of high treason, and whose estates were to be forfeited, unless they could prove 1 (1630-1691), titular Duke of Tyrconnel. " Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon (1638- 1709), eldest son of the first earl. BEFORE THE UNION 9 themselves to be innocent and appear for that purpose in their own defence. The whole proceeding was grossly unfair, for every member of the Parliament was encouraged to contribute the names of those of his neighbours whom he believed to be disloyal or happened to have a grudge against. The Act, however, was nipped in the bud, and the rickety fabric of Stuart legislation hurled to the ground in the general ruin of the Boyne and Aghrim. The Treaty of Limerick followed in 1691, and Sarsfield's^ heroes, kicking off the dust of their feet against Ireland's rulers, embarked for a foreign shore. But they tasted their revenge, for the Irish exiles of Limerick and their descendants took their part in defeating British troops at Stainkirk, Landen, Almanza, and Fontenoy. The violation of the Treaty was the next step, followed by a fresh shuffle of Irish estates. Under the Treaty of 169 1 the Irish people had been granted freedom of worship, the use of their arms, the possession of their estates, and the right to sit in Parliament and vote at elections, as well as the right to practise law and medicine, and to engage in trade and commerce. Lord Sydney .^ the Viceroy, had opposed the breach of a sacred pact and was driven out in consequence, but his successor, Capel,^ one of the Lords-Justices, had a tougher conscience more suited to his masters, and the violation was quietly carried out, the two other Lords- Justices, Wyche and Duncombe, who shared Sydney's scruples, being forced to retire. A so-called " Confirmation of the Treaty of Limerick " was, as a preliminary move to the premeditated breach, enacted in 1697, by which the first Article of the Treaty was omitted which secured the Catholics in the free exercise of their religion, and an alteration made in the second Article which practically cancelled it, the words which William had reinserted with his own hand being deliberately struck out. That portion of the Treaty was also excised which guaranteed to the Catholics " the use and practice of their several and respective trades and callings," and the 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and loth Articles were rejected in a body. This, indeed, was an Irish " confirmation " with a vengeance. Not long afterwards, in 1699, a commission, which had been appointed by the English Parliament to inquire into the condi- tion, extent, and value of the forfeited lands in Ireland, reported upon the result of its investigations, and as a result a Bill of Resumption was passed in April 1700, by which all the King's grants, with the exception of seven, were resumed, 391,412 acres being restored to their former owners, and 716,374 acres sold. This Act, we may well believe, drew iron tears down William's ^ Patrick Sarsfield, titular Earl of Lucan, died of his wounds at Huy in 1693. His wife, who was the daughter of Lord Clanricarde, subsequently married the Duke of Berwick. ^ Henry Sydney, Earl of Romney (1641-1704), appointed Lord-Lieutenant in March 1692. * Sir Henry Capel, created Lord Capel of Tewkesbury, 1691-2. 10 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cheek, for by it Mrs. Villiers (Countess of Orkney) lost 95,000 acres, which this prim Protestant had bestowed upon her as the price of their unlawful amours. The shuffling of Irish lands for the past hundred years had been such that a large part of Ireland had been confiscated two or three times in the course of a century. This was recognized by Lord Clare in the Irish House of Lords during the debate on the Union in 1800, when he said — " The superficial contents of the island are calculated at 1 1,042,682 acres. The state of the forfeitures was as follows — In the reign of James I, the whole province of Ulster, 2,836,837 acres ; Set out by the Court of Claims at the Restoration, 7,800,000 acres; Forfeitures of 1688, 1,060,792 acres: Total number of acres forfeited, 11,697,629. So that the whole of your island has been confiscated, with the ex- ception of the estates of five or six families of English blood, some of whom had been attained in the reign of Henry VIII, but who recovered their possessions before Tyrone's rebellion, and escaped the pillage of the republic inflicted by Cromwell, and no inconsiderable portion of the island has been confiscated twice, or perhaps thrice in the course of a century. The situation therefore of the Irish nation at the Revolution stands unparalleled in the history of the habitable world. . . . What then, was Jhe situation of Ireland at the Revolution and what is it at this day ? iThe whole power and property of the country have been conferred by successive monarchs of England upon the English Colony, composed of three sets of English adventurers, who poured into this country at the termination of three successive rebellions. Confiscation is their common title ; and from their first settlement they have been hemmed in on every side by the old inhabitants of the island, brooding over their discontents in sullen indignation." « Here is the answer to the Irish riddle in a nutshell. The Celt never forgets. He has a more enduring memory and more tenacious instincts than the Anglo-Saxon, and, until he is re-established upon the land on the terms that he believes he is entitled to, we shall have our Irish question and the disgrace that has attached to it.* The difficulty has been different to that experienced by most conquerors in history. Other countries have been overrun by strangers and lands confiscated, but the former inhabitants have generally either been extermin- ated or driven out, or the victors have settled down in their midst to rule them. ' In the case of Ireland the conquerors left the great majority of the inhabitants where they found them, and instead of settling among the conquered and attempting to govern, have resided in the original country of their birth as absentees ; the only connection between the two parties being the rent drawn from the land, t This is one of the primary ' The Land Act of 1903 has gone a great way towards effecting the necessary ^reform, and was passed after this passage was written. BEFORE THE UNION ii reasons why Ireland has always been a discontented country, and why the old wounds have never properly healed. We will now consider with a dispatch rendered congenial by natural aversion to the subject a few of those grievances under which the people of Ireland groaned, when the convulsions of rebellion and the rage of civil war had done their work ; wrongs that darkened nearly every poor threshold, and rankled in the breast of every sufferer who was not constitutionally a slave. We will discuss the Catholic Penal Code as a whole more particularly later on, and at present confine our view to the commercial re- strictions, the Pension List, the abuses in the Established Church, the prohibition of intermarriages (a part of the Penal Code), and the agrarian system, which taken together form a suitable and sombre background to the picture of later Irish history. Up to the time of the Restoration the free play of Irish industry was practically unimpeded by any legislative restric- tion, but after 1660 English landowners began to be alarmed lest Irish enterprise, backed by pluck and patriotism, should impair their State-fed monopolies and increase Irish power, and laws were passed in 1663, 1665 and 1680, which absolutely prohibited the importation from Ireland into England of all cattle, sheep and swine, of beef, pork, bacon and mutton, and even of butter and cheese.^ ^ By the original Navigation Act of 1660 Irish vessels had enjoyed all the privileges accorded to English ones, but in 1663 Ireland was omitted from tfte amended Act, and thus deprived of the whole colonial trade. With a very few specified exceptions, no European articles could be imported into the English Colonies except from England, in ships built in England, and chiefly manned by English sailors, 'in 1670 this exclusion of Ireland was confirmed, and in 1696 it was further enacted that no goods of any kind could be imported directly into Ireland from the Colonies. V- But worse was to follow. After the Revolution the English wool manufacturers, trembling at the thought of what Irish energy and ability might do, petitioned with tears in their eyes for the total and instant destruction of that Irish industry which was their bugbear, and an accommodat- ing Parliament was summoned in Dublin in 1698 for the express purpose of realizing their wish. fLaws were passed imposing heavy additional duties upon the export of Irish woollen goods, sufficiently penal, it was hoped, to cripple all the advantages derived from a persistent and honourable labour. But their * James Anthony Froude wrote of this legislation — "The real motive for the suppression of agricultural improvement was the same as that which led to the suppression of manufactures — the detestable opinion that to govern Ireland conveniently, Ireland must be kept weak. The advisers of the Crown, with an infatuation which now appears like insanity, determined to keep closed the one remaining avenue by which Ireland could have recovered a gleam of prosperity. " 12 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY greed was not yet surfeited, and in spite of the warning voice of Molyneux^ another Bill was carried in 1699 prohibiting the exportation of manufactured wool from Ireland to any other country whatever. Thus, as Jonathan Swift said, "the con- veniency of ports and harbours which nature had bestowed so liberally on this kingdom, was of no more use to us than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon." These were the steps by which the English wool manufacturers were to clamber to the wealth of Dives, and down which the Irish Parlia- ment was to slink, almost unconscious of its base servility, to its bribed and final extinction.^ There was no need to put Bishop Berkeley's * question — " What hindereth us Irishmen from exerting ourselves, using our hands and brains, doing something or other, man, woman, or child, like all the other inhabitants of God's earth ? " ^ The Irish Pension List was another measure of the moral worth of Irish rule. It was the shameful custom to quarter upon Irish poverty those bawds and bastards whom public opinion would have made it dangerous to provide for on the English Pension List. The Duke of St. Albans, one of the illegitimate spawn of Charles II, received an Irish pension of ;^8oo a year; and Catherine Sedley, the concubine of James II, one of ;^5,ooo. Erengard Schulenburg, Duchess of Kendal, and Duchess of Munster in the Irish peerage, and the Countess of Darlington, the two concubines of George I, enjoyed Irish pen- sions of the united value of another ;^ 5, ooo; Lady Walsingham, the daughter of the former, had one of ^^1,500 ; Lady Howe, the daughter of the second, one of ;^500 ; and Madame Walmoden, one of the concubines of the second George, a pension of ;^3,ooo a year ; whilst there were many other such who battened upon Irish indigence, equally deserving, both on account of the high example of their private virtue, as well as the long and dis- tinguished record of their public services. In fact, the Irish Pension List amounted in the first half of the eighteenth century to more than ;^30,ooo a year, while the men who countenanced this gross and naked scandal were those righteous Solons who presumed to censure the conduct and to legislate for the morals ^ of the Irish people. In regard to the Protestant Church in Ireland an impartial historian has given it as his opinion that, " the abuses of Church patronage from the time of the Restoration were probably un- paralleled in Europe," nearly the whole of the extensive patron- age being concentrated upon Englishmen, who were relations or followers of the leading officials, the parasites of the Castle, or ' William Molyneux(i656-i698), one of the representatives of Dublin University. ^ Appendix VIII, quotations from Jonathan Swift, and from Caesar Otway's report. ' George Berkeley (1685-1753), Bishop of Cloyne. BEFORE THE UNION 13 " King-fishers " as they were called. Racket, Bishop of Down, held Siat diocese for twenty years, during the whole of which time he never put his foot in it, faring sumptuously at Hammer- smith and maybe praying to his God there, but putting his benefices up for sale. Digby, Bishop of Elphin from 1 691 to 1720, owed his promotion exclusively to his creditable skill in water-colour painting ; whilst Pooley, Bishop of Raphoe, resided during the ten years from 1702 to 17 12 barely eighteen months. These are not exceptions dragged in by the head and shoulders, but examples of what was the common state of the Church. The Protestant Establishment was looked upon as a well-kept preserve for the relations of great men, and the cure of souls no more entered into the consideration of these benefice-hunters than into that of any bookmaker upon a race-course. Utinain nugis tota ilia dedisset tempora saviticB, but marriage was not forgotten in this catalogue of grace. By the penal code inter-marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics were sternly and relentlessly repressed. The first statute on the sub- ject in 1697 enacted that no Protestant woman, who either pos- sessed or was heir to any form of real property, or who possessed real property to the value of ;^5oo, should marry a ^^pist, under penalty of losing her whole property, which passeS at once to the nearest Protestant relation. Moreover, any clergyman or priest, who married such a woman without a certificate proving the Protestantism of her husband was liable to a year's imprison- ment and a fine of ;£^20. No Protestant man was to be permitted to marry without a certificate from the bishop or magistrate proving his bride to be a Protestant, under pain of being himself regarded as a Popish recusant, and disabled from being heir, executor, administrator, or guardian, from sitting in Parliament, and from holding any civil or military employment, unless he should, within a year after his marriage, procure a certificate to the effect that his wife had accepted the Protestant faith. In 1725 another law was passed to prevent clandestine inter- marriages, the celebration of which was to be punishable with death. By the Bills of 1743 and 1745^ all marriages between * Edmund Burke, in a letter of February 21, 1782, said of the Irish Protestant Parliament in connection with these later marriage laws — " They set to work, but they were at a loss what to do ; for they had alrehdy almost gone through every contrivance which could waste the vigour of their country ; but, after much struggle they produced a child of their old age, the shock- ing and unnatural Act about marriages, which tended to finish the scheme for making the people not only two distinct parties for ever, but keeping them as two distinct species m the same land. Mr. Gardiner's humanity was shocked at it, as one of the worst parts of that truly barbarous system, if one could well settle the preference, where almost all the parts were outrages on the rights of humanity and the laws of nature." The eloquence of Burke is the least part of him, and yet is he not the supremest orator that these islands have produced of whose speeches we have any authentic record ? His delivery is said to have been bad, his taste was certainly not in&llible, his tropes may have been too abundant, and his judgment was at times perverted by 14 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Protestants and Catholics, or between two Protestants, cele- brated either by a priest or a degraded clergyman, were to be held null and void, and a further law enacted that those who celebrated them were liable to the penalty of death. Even amid this economy of prescription and ingenious malice the agrarian system was notoriously bad, perhaps the worst agrarian system the world has ever seen. Planted like strangers upon a foreign soil, the whole idea of the average Irish landlord was to squeeze his rent out of the tenants and to spend it any- where but on the land. What improvements were made upon the holdings were effected by the tenants, and the whole system of relations between landlord and occupier was unknown the other side of the Irish Channel. Swift asserted that at least one-third of the rent of the country was spent in England. Prior, in 1730, calculated the rental spent by absentees in England at about ;^620,0CX) ; and another list, drawn up in 1769, placed it at ;^i,200,ooo; whilst Arthur Young, ten years later, estimated the rents alone of the absentees at about ;^732,ooo. This abuse led to the institution of the middleman, and that again to rack- rents, half-clad starving cottiers, and all the horrors of agrarian outrage.^ « It would be an easy task to quote a hundred authors, not Irishmen, who have described the terrible condition of the Irish peasants at this time ,* but it would be trouble thrown away, for the truth of their statements is a matter of common knowledge, and to urge it would be to labour the argument that black is not white. In addition to this state of serfdom the growth of pa^ure formed another grievance, for pasture-land had been made tithe- free by an Act of the Irish Parliament in 1735, and thus all the his passion. But with all this he is our foremost orator, and this is the least part of Burke. He is also our greatest writer of English prose, our profoundest political philosopher, and, since Cromwell's time, the most prescient and comprehensive states- man that has adorned the Legislature. We will go further — Macaulay declared that he was altogether the greatest man since Milton s time ; in the year 1903 we agree with him. What makes him so eminent as an orator is his consummate style, his incomparable mastery of his mother-tongue, his inexhaustible stores of language, his unrivalled lucidity, his broad Ic^ic, and manly common-sense. He is the least barren of all orators. One idea gives birth to a stream of others, and so vast is his knowledge and so teeming his imagination, that, compressed as his speeches had to be within the limits of Parliamentary debate, every sentence is loaded like a page of Shakespeare with sympathy and wisdom and philosophic truth. You cannot read Burke's speeches without feeling that you are in the presence of a grand and capacious intellect, and appreciating the immeasurable inferiority of all other political discourses in our langUE^e. No man but Burke could have constructed the oration on the Nabob of Arcot's debts. The colossal labour 01 its preparation, the irresistible force of its pitiless indictment, the poetry and splendour of many of its passages, the noble moral strain that illumines the whole constitute it one of the greatest forensic efforts of all time. But the rhetoric of Burke was the least part of him. His works were published in nine volumes, we would they had been published in twenty. ' Appendix IX, quotations from Jonathan Swift, the author of Letters from an Armenian in Ireland to his friends at Trebizonde, and a tourist in Ireland in 1764. BEFORE THE UNION 15 burden of the impost had to be borne by land under tillage, and, therefore, by the poorer classes, the great and wealthy graziers escaping from a tribute which they alone could afford to pay. Thus ground down, it was wonderful that any peasants were left upon the land at all, or that the whole nation did not rise against a mindrity that brought in its train a curse like one of the plagues of Egypt^ The middleman, or the " tornybeg," as the Irish used to call him, was the natural result of absenteeism and one of the worst scourges of the agrarian system. The pestilence was of two kinds — those men who leased lands from the owner of the soil for the express and only purpose of collecting rents from the occupying tenants ; and others, who having originally farmed their holdings, sub-divided and sub-let them to a multitude of smaller occupiers. The first description were mere farmers of rents who sprang into existence by reason of those absentee landlords who, desirous of enjoying their rents without the trouble of collecting them, transferred the labour and profit of the collection to a third person for a certain fixed sum. They were the result of a radically unsound system, the swollen flies that gorged themselves upon the rotting carcass, and which in a sound and stable social economy would never have existed at all. A further oppression under which the Irish tenant groaned was what was known as the "duty days." In addition to his rent, every tenant was bound by his lease to work a certain number of days in the year free of charge for his landlord, and in the larger farms the tenants had even to supply horse labour as well. *The tenants, moreover, were frequently compelled to exceed the stipulated number of days, and a miserably small wage was usually given to them in consideration of this exten- sion. As might have been expected, the days upon which their labour was in particular requisition were generally in that season of the year when labour upon their own farms was imperative ; so that not only had they often to give their labour to their land- lord in return for no payment whatever, but to see their crops at the same time deteriorating in consequence before their eyes. 'Hunger and starvation, therefore, stared them in the face at every turn.v They had their God, it is true, at least in their imagination, and pathetically clamoured to Him ; but, like the deity of those men who slashed themselves with knives, He was plunged in sleep and there was none to help them.^ These manifold and cruel sufferings soon led by the broad and easy path of human nature to retaliatory outrages on the part of the victims. The practice of houghing made its appearance ' Appendix X, qnotations from Lord Chesterfield and Arthur Young. ^ Appendix XI, quotations from Arthur Young, Sir George Comewall Lewis, and William Paley. i6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY in the early part of 171 1 in Galway. The immediate causes that produced it were the increase of pasture land which re- stricted more and more the means of the people's subsistence, and the plantation in their midst of a new tenantry from the plains, who raised the price of land, outraged the clan spirit, and steadily drove the natives to the mountains. Hundreds of cattle' perished in this manner by the hands of the houghers, who prowled about at night in organized bands and transformed many well- stocked districts into reeking slaughter-yards. Ireland thus groaned under an accumulation of sorrows and was expected by the violators of the Treaty of Limerick to bear her cross without a cry.^ j It is not to be marvelled at that emigration should have followed in the wake of Irish distress. The rulers of Ireland had gradually beaten the wretched country down, emptied her savings with a callous indifference into the laps of harlots, and strangled her young industry to feed the avarice of huckstering tradesmen at home. It is not at all to be wondered at that impotent discontent was left to keep house. In 1719 occurred the celebrated case of Sherlock versus Annesley. The cause was tried in the Irish Court of Exchequer between Esther Sherlock and Maurice Annesley, and the decree which the latter obtained was reversed on an appeal to the Irish House of Lords. Annesley thereupon appealed to the English House of Lords, who confirmed the judgment of the Irish Exchequer and ordered Annesley to be put in possession of the disputed property. Upon this Esther Sherlock petitioned the Irish Lords against the intervention of the English House of Lords, and the Irish Upper House resolved to support their privileges by giving effectual relief to the petition, Sherlock was therefore put in possession by the Sheriff of Kildare ; and when an injunction soon afterwards issued from the Court of Exchequer in Ireland directing him to restore Annesley, the ^ Lecky says — "It would be difficult in the whole compass of history to find another instance in which such various and powerful agencies concurred to degrade the character and to blast the prosperity of a nation. That the greater part of them sprang directly from the corrupt and selfish government of England is incontestable. No country ever exercised a more complete control over the destinies of another than did England over those of Ireland for three-quarters of a century after the Revolution. No serious resistance of any kind was attempted. The nation was as passive as clay in the hands of the potter, and it is a circumstance of peculiar aggravation that a large part of ihe legislation was a distinct violation of a solemn treaty. The commercial legislation which mined Irish industry, the confiscation of Irish land which disorganized the wh(Me social condition of the country, the scandalous misapplication of patronise which at once impoverished and demoralized the nation were all directly due to the English Government and the English Parliament. The blame of the atrocious penal laws rests, it is true, primarily and principally on the Parliament of Ireland, but it must not be forgotten that this Parliament, by its constitution and composition, was almost wholly subservient to English influence, and that it was the English Act of 1691 which, by banishing Catholics from its walls, rendered it exclusively sectarian." BEFORE THE UNION 17 Sheriff roundly refused compliance. In this refusal to obey he was supported by the Irish Lords, who addressed the Throne in support of their rights ; but the English House reaffirmed its proceedings, and an Act was passed in the English Parliament in 1719 enacting and declaring that the King, with the advice of the Lords and Commons of England, " hath had of right, and ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of different force and validity to bind the people and the Kingdom of Ireland. And be it further enacted and declared, by the authority aforesaid, that the House of Lords of Ireland have not, nor of right ought to have, any jurisdiction to judge, affirm, or reverse any judgment, sentence, or decree, given or made in any court within the same kingdom ; and that all proceedings before the said House of Lords, upon any such judgment, sentence, or decree, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void, to all intents and purposes whatever." In this manner originated the famous Act, the 6th of George I, which asserted for the first time various rights that had not been included in Poyning's Law. Between 1724 and 1764 Primate Boulter,^ who occupied the See of Armagh from 1724 to 1738, and then Primate Stone, known as the " Beauty of Holiness," practically managed Ireland in the King's interest — the one an incurable bigot, and the other a salacious and scented reprobate, accused, among other offences, by those who had every opportunity of judging, of indescribable crimes. In 1720 Swift published his Drapier Letters, and for the next few years roused the Irish people with a pen of fire to a sense of their potential power, and with a genius unsurpassed in literature for its bitter intensity kept alight the flame of national spirit and blasted with ridicule the plausi- bilities and specious reasonings from across the Channel. In 1729 there occurred a horrible famine, and in 1741 another. The Irish fell like autumn leaves, and were cared for as little. During this last visitation Charles Lucas ^ lit again the candle that had gone out with Swift's life, and in his Citizen Journal tried with a feebler flame to inspire the Irish with courage and with hope. In 1742 Primate Boulter died and entered Paradise, and was succeeded in the Primacy of the Irish Church for a short time by Hoadly,^ and soon afterwards by George Stone,* Bishop of Derry. In 1745 Chesterfield^ was * Hugh Boulter (1672-1742). Dr. Johnson speaks well of him in his Lift of Ambrose Philips ; but then they were both tarred with the brush of intolerance. ^ Charles Lucas died in 1 77 1 . The first number of his Freeman's fournal appeared in 1763. ^ John Iloadly (1678-1746). * George Stone, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, was the son of Lord Hervey the memoir- writer. He fell into the hands of the French in 1799, and was imprisoned at Milan for eighteen months. He died in Rome in 1803. " Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), the celebrated letter-writer, who wisely counselled his son how not to carve a fowl with a lady seated on his right hand. In spite of this, the son turned out a very stupid fellow. 2 i8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY appointed Lord-Lieutenant, and in accordance with his policy of conciliation the penal code was somewhat relaxed ; the laws for a while were not enforced, and evasion of them was connived at. Not one of them, however, was repealed ; and as Burke with characteristic felicity of expression said, " connivance was the relaxation of slavery, not the definition of liberty." On Chesterfield's recall the old policy was renewed with greater ardour than before, and the old despair, intensified by reaction, was roused once more in the Irish heart. In 1 75 1 the Irish Parliament, instead of being permitted to act upon their own initiative without interference from outside, was forced to submit to the "consent" of the Crown to the appropriation of their surplus revenue to the discharge of the debt. The question arose again in 1753, and a quarrel took place in consequence between Archbishop Stone and several chiefs of the leading Irish families. The " Irish Interest " insisted, and with some ground, that it had a right to appropriate a surplus of national money without reference to the Crown for its consent, and came into conflict with the men in power, who were represented by Stone. The Government, backed by all the authority of placemen, triumphed in the end, for on Parlia- ment declining to appropriate the money with the consent of the Crown, the whole surplus revenue was taken out of the Treasury without its consent by means of a Royal letter, and appropriated in the manner which had been originally intended. But from this time forward the Opposition, with Anthony Malone ^ as its real leader, was a force to be reckoned with in the Irish Parliament. In 1759 Admiral Conflans set out with a few ships on his expedition to Ireland, but he had the ill-luck to fall in with Hawke on the way and was entirely defeated. In 1760 Thurot, the celebrated French privateer, who had been co-operating with Conflans, made a similar attempt, and entered Lough Foyle in February with only three out of the five vessels he had started with. After taking Carrickfergus, and spreading con- siderable alarm amongst the neighbouring towns and villages, he re-embarked, but he too encountered some English ships on his way back, and being outnumbered was beaten and killed. We will now record in rapid and unconnected succession the chief political events in Ireland, exclusive of those connected with Catholic Relief, between the years 1760 and 1782. The Whiteboy rising, which Lord Chesterfield, the former Lord-Lieutenant, ascribed in one of his letters "to the senti- ment in every human breast that asserts man's natural rights to liberty and good usage, and which will and ought to rebel when provoked to a certain degree," occurred in I76i,and smouldered * Anthony Malone (1700- 1776). BEFORE THE UNION 19 through a decade.^ The members of the society were first of all called " Levellers " in Tipperary from their practice of level- ling the fences of newly-enclosed waste land, and derived their later name in Munster from the white shirts which they usually wore over their clothes during their midnight raids. The real cause of the disorder, which was the first outbreak of agrarian outrage of which we have any distinct notice in Irish history, was the increase of pasture and the consequent diminution of tillage land, the evictions that followed, and the enclosing of those common lands, which the Irish peasants had from an immemorial time looked upon as inviolable. The increase of pasture land was due partly to a murrain among cattle, which had spread over the Continent and over England, but had spared Ireland, and thus encouraged landlords to undertake cattle farming in the hope of large profits. Halifax,^ the Lord- Lieutenant, stated to a commission appointed to inquire into the causes of the rising — " I know that it is impossible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable peasantry in the province of Munster. I know that the unhappy tenantry are ground to powder by relentless landlords. Far from being able to pay tithes, they have neither food nor raiment for themselves." *" The lot, indeed, of the Irish peasant at this time might have drawn pity from a stone. He was regarded as belonging to an inferior race of men. He was treated as a serf, for a serf he was, although a very little lower than the angels. His religion was insulted, the filth and destitution of his appearance were a matter for astonishment to every man who visited the country, and his spirit was well-nigh broken by years of unrelenting tyranny. He was rack-rented and loaded with tithe dues. The relaxations of life were even forbidden him lest solace should dip her finger in his gall. He could indulge in no amusements on Sunday, such as hurling or football, on pain of a shilling fine or two hours in the stocks, although upon his own saints' days he was compelled to work, or pay a fine of 2s., in default of which he was subjected to a whipping. If he was found with a switch in his hand or a common walking-stick, a fine of los. was the penalty, or, in default, a month's imprisonment or the ignominy of a whipping. Any poor woman who engaged herself as a nurse, knowing herself to be with child, or continued to nurse a child under those circumstances without informing the parents, or who had any foul or infectious disease, was condemned to forfeit her wages, suffer three months' hard labour, and be ' The Whiteboys had almost ceased to disturb Munster by 1770, but re-appeared in the county of Kildare and the Queen's County in 1775, *"d continued to terrorize until 1785, when they spread to the southern districts once more. The Munster and Kilkenny insurgents of 1 785 and the following years were known generally as the Right-boys, and directed their eneigies more particularly against the clergy. ^ George Monti^ Dunk, second Earl of Hali&x (1716-1771). 20 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY publicly whipped on some market-day, between the hours of eleven and twelve in the morning, through the streets of the town where the house of correction stood ; " provided " — and the con- siderate tenderness of this proviso is truly affecting — " that no nurse who is with child shall be whipped for offending this law till two months after her delivery." ^ The Irish landlords, anxious for any excuse to light the torch of religious persecution, attempted first of all to persuade the Government that the Whiteboy movement was a Popish plot, but Halifax, the Viceroy, suspicious of their zeal in reporting this discovery, made conscientious inquiries into the matter, and having collected a mass of evidence from every quarter reported very differently. On the 17th of April, 1762, he wrote to Lord Egremont — " Protestants as well as Papists have been concerned in these tumults — one or two of the most considerable of those we have hitherto detected are Protestants ; these outrages have fallen indiscriminately on persons of both persuasions, and I cannot yet find that any matter of state or religion has been mentioned at their meetings." Sir Robert Aston, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who had been selected to try the Whiteboy prisoners, made a similar declaration — " In some instances their (the .Whiteboys') resentment pro- ceeded against particular persons for their having taken mills or bargains over the head of another . . . and turning out, by a consent to an advanced price, the old tenant. In the perpetra- tion of the disorders (however industriously the contrary has been promoted), Papists and Protestants were promiscuously concerned, and, in my opinion, the majority of the former is with more justice to be attributed to the odds of number in the country, than the influence arising from the difference of principles." Indeed the "odds of number" might have accounted for a good deal, considering that the Catholics formed five-sixths of the whole population. In order to crush these disturbances, a Coercion Act was passed making all persons who went about at night in parties of more than four, assaulting any one, administering illegal oaths, or injuring property, liable to the punishment of death. Grand juries, moreover, were empowered to levy a fine on the inhabitants of a district where a crime was committed, and magistrates were given the right to summon and examine sus- pected persons, and to send to gaol for six months those who ' Appendix XIa, quotation from Arthur Young. BKFORK THK UNION 21 refused to appear. Special commissions were also issued to try Whitcboy offenders ; and a yeomanry corps was enrolled by the rich inhabitants for the purpose of hunting down the insurgents. In fact, Lord Charlemont declared that the hunting of Whiteboys became a fashionable pastime, and that he had himself heard Lord Carrick exclaim with rapture, " I have blooded my young dog ; I have fleshed my bloodhound," alluding to a successful chase after these miserable wretches, in which his son with hereditary sporting instincts had taken- part. The Oakboy^ movement took place in Ulster in ,1763, the name being derived from the oak-twigs which the members of the League were accustomed to wear in their hats during their raids. It was an exclusively Protestant agitation, which springing up originally in the county of Armagh, spread afterwards to those of Tyrone, Fermanagh, and Derry, and originated in the grievance of work upon the roads, to which every householder had to con- tribute under a system of local taxation administered under the laws known as the Grand Jury Laws. Another object of the insurgents was to deprive the clergy of a portion of their tithe, as well as to regulate the price of land, especially of peat-bogs.^ But this rising was less determined than that of the Whiteboys, and was crushed in a few weeks. In 1772 occurred the rising in Ulster of the Presbyterian " Hearts of Steel " or " Steelboys," caused by the evictions on the estates of Lord Donegal, an absentee landlord, and a certain Mr. Upton. Lord Donegal, who found London an expensive town, suddenly discovered that he was in need of ;£^ioo,cxx), and refused to renew the leases which were expiring without a compensatory fine. The tenants rose first of all in Antrim against this h^dship, but they rose in vain. Many of them were shot doT^n like rabbits, and the rising which had spread over a great part of Ulster was ultimately suppressed, a large number of the outcasts flying to America rather than starve in their native land.^ ' Dr. Campbell gives the year 1764; but Francis Hardy, in his Lifi of Lord Charlemont, as well as James Alexander Gordon in his History of Ireland, gives the date of the rising of the Oak boys as 1763. ^ Hardy in his Life of Lord Chdrlemoni says of them — " It is to be observed, that though they talked much, though they insulted several gentlemen, erected gallowses, and menaced ineffable perdition to all their enemies, no violent cruelty was exercised, as Lord Charlemont said, nor was a single life lost, or any person maimed, in the county of Armagh ; a species of conduct totally opposite to that of the southern insurgents, but which his lordship ascribed, not to any diversity of religion, but to the oppression under which the unfortunate creatures in the south laboured. ' A rebellion of slaves ' (continued he) ' is always more bloody than an insurrection of freemen.'" ' Froude, speaking of these Antrim evictions, wrote — "In the two years which followed the Antrim evictions 30,000 evicted Protestants left Ulster for a land where there were no legal robbers, and where those who sowed the seed could reap the harvest." 22 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In the end, however, Lord Donegal had to renew his leases without the fines on account of the wave of popular indignation which spread over Ulster in favour of the Protestant tenants, and no Ulster landlord dared for some considerable time to attempt on a large scale a similar encroachment of the *' tenant-right." Although the Donegal evictions were dragged into peculiar notoriety by the action of the " Hearts of Steel," the occurrence had not been isolated. Almost every day something of the sort had taken place, prompted by the same greed and accompanied by the same indifference to the feelings of powerless poverty. Every day some starving peasant prayed to his God to mercifully release him from the weariness of living. For what must have been the state of the peasantry, when to draw breath was to court destruction ; when the necessaries of life and the bare comforts of existence had to be hidden from the rapacity of rent squeezers, whose maws craved not merely for the superfluities of the poor man's profits, but for his crust of bread ? ^ In this state of affairs outrage might well have been expected to be chronic, and it was. In 1775 a fresh Whiteboy rising took place, and the disorder raged with such violence in Kildare, Kilkenny, and Queen's Counties that a special Act was passed for its suppression. The insurgents maltreated various Protest- ant clergy and Catholic priests who had attempted to quell the rioters and dared to denounce the agitation, and a Distress Bill was introduced in 1786 for their protection. But the measure was rejected in the Irish House of Commons through the influence of the landlords, who did not like the proposal contained in it to levy a fine on the land of the parishes where terrorism had been practised. In fact, not only did the landlords neglect to insure the safety of the dignitaries of their own Church, but there is every reason to suppose that they looked with favour upon the rioting and actually encouraged it secretly for their own dis- honourable ends.2 The Whiteboy movement of 1775 continued for ten years until 1785, when it subsided only to reappear in Munster as the insurrection of the " Rightboys," who directed their illegal energies with particular animosity against the clergy, who fled in terror from them into the towns. In 1788 these disturbances had gradually grown weaker, and were soon after- wards suppressed. ^We will now glance for a moment at the machinery of the Irish Legislature, which was a body constituted on different lines from the one that sat at Westminster. Instead of the King, Lords, and Commons, it was composed of five different parts — King, Lords, Commons, and the English and Irish Privy • Appendix XIb, quotations from Townshend, Lord Charlemont, and Dr. Campbell. ^ Appendix XIc, extract from speech by Fitrgibbon. BEFORE THE UNION 23 Councils. The Irish Privy Council, in which the English interest of course largely predominated, prepared measures for Parliament in the form of heads of Bills, which were laid before the Irish House of Commons, debated, and, if approved of, sent to the Lords. If the latter agreed to them, the Draft Bill was sent to the English Privy Council, who might amend it, or "cushion" it — that is to say, not return it, at its will. On the return of a Bill, the Irish Parliament might pass or reject it as it stood, but could not amend it. The Irish Privy Council, however, might cushion the heads of a Bill, even after they had been approved by both Irish Houses of Parliament. Private members, too, might originate the heads of a Bill ; but the Irish House of Commons claimed the sole right of originating money Bills — a right obstinately contested by the English Ministry. By 1761 the Irish Parliament had gradually obtained the privilege of originating heads of Bills, except in the case of the summoning of a new Parliament, when the Irish Privy Council resumed the right, two or more Bills being then sent over to England as a cause for the summoning, and it being customary for one of these Bills to be a Bill of Supply. On the accession of George III the Irish Lords-Justices attempted to secure the privilege of originating money Bills, and a Bill of that description coming down as usual from the Executive Govern- ment was rejected on the ground of privilege; but they failed in their endeavour, as might have been expected, and Walsingham's motion in favour of the innovation, although supported by Gren- ville and Burke, was defeated by a large majority in the English House of Commons. In 1767 the Irish made an attempt to secure a Septennial Act for the purpose of abridging the duration of their Parliaments and the power consequently of any administration who might get the reins of government into its hands and be loath to part with them. Dr. Lucas, who had failed in a former attempt in 1 76 1, succeeded in passing a Septennial Bill through both Houses, but it was rejected by the English Privy Council. A second and similar Bill was passed the same year, and with the view of throwing the responsibility of rejecting it upon the Irish Parliament was changed by the English Privy Council into an Octennial Bill. The Irish Parliament, however, accepted the amended measure, and passed it in 1768. It was also in 1767 that the Judges Bill was introduced in the Irish Parliament. Townshend ^ had just been appointed Lord- Lieutenant, and as he was in favour of the irremovability of the judges, a Bill was brought into the Irish Parliament to that eflfect. It passed through the preliminary stages there, and was sent over to ^ George Townshend, fourth Viscount'and first Marquis Townshend. i ^4 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ] England, but was so altered by the English Privy Council that on its return the Irish Parliament rejected it, and the reform was not effected till 1782. In 1768 an Army Augmentation Bill was introduced, but rejected. It was a very unpopular proposal in Ireland, as a large increase of expenditure would necessarily have been entailed, and the " Undertakers," who were the great borough owners, and had been originally so nick-named because they " undertook " to carry the King's business through the Irish Parliament, opposed it. In 1769 a money Bill, which had been originated by the Irish Privy Council, was through the influence of the " Undertakers " rejected by the first Octennial Parliament by a majority of twenty-three on the ground that it did not take its rise in that House, whilst at the same time the latter, to prove its loyalty, voted large supplies to the Crown. Upon this Townshend pro- rogued the Parliament, and with a profound knowledge of human nature began to bribe. In 1770 he purchased a majority at a price which Fitzgibbon ^ twenty years later admitted to have been upwards of half-a-milHon sterling, in order to counteract the power of the " Undertakers," but in vain, for, when another altered money Bill was introduced in 1771, it was rejected on the motion of Flood without a division. Townshend then tried to augment his Parliamentary influence by increasing the Com- missioners of Revenue, who had seats in the Irish Commons, from seven to twelve, and by other methods of Court persuasion not unknown in the history of Dublin Castle.^ But the scandal created by this unvarnished jobbery was too gross even for the Irish Parliament, and brought down a vote of censure upon his head, which necessitated his recall in 1772. The next year, how- ever, a proposed absentee tax was defeated in the Irish Parliament by the same corrupt means, eighteen peerages being created in a single day ; which proved that the political market, in spite of the previous outcry, had never been closed in reality. While Townshend was bribing placemen, and corrupt placemen were bargaining for bribes, there appeared in Dublin a series of political squibs under the title of " Baratariana." " Baratariana " consisted of a history of " Barataria," which was in reality a sketch of the Viceroy's administration, and contained a number of letters which mercilessly probed the vulnerable parts of Town- shend's Government, together with three or four poetical satires. The history and poems were written by Sir Hercules Langrishe,^ the friend of Burke, the dedication and the letters signed * John Fit^bbon, Earl of Clare, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. ^ In the letter to the Duke of Grafton on the 27th of November, 1771, Junius wrote — "I beg you will convey to our gracious master my humble congratulations upon the glorious success of peerages and pensions, so lavishly distributed as the rewards of Irish virtue." ^ Sir Hercules Langrishe (1738-1811). BEFORE THE UNION 25 " Posthumous " and " Pertinax " by Grattan, and those signed " Syndercombe " by Flood. These vfritings created an immense sensation, and lit up the sharp practices of the Castle with a fierce and damaging light. Not until the rulers of Ireland had been coerced at Saratoga into the generosity of fear, did Irish trade experience a slight measure of relief ; a relaxation which it deserved, for it had had, as we have seen, a chequered and obstructed career. In 1705 the Irish had been allowed, as a sort of compensation for the an- nihilation of their woollen trade, to export their white and brown linens, and these only to the English Colonies, but not to bring back any colonial produce in return. This unwonted charity, however, was intended for the Protestants ; for the linen trade had been practically founded by the French Protestant refugees, and was chiefly carried on in the Protestant portion of the island. In fact, the preamble of the Act of 1705 runs — "Forasmuch as the Protestant interest of Ireland ought to be supported by giving the utmost encouragement to the linen manufacturers of that kingdom, with due regard to Her Majesty's Protestant subjects of her said kingdom, be it enacted, etc." With these restrictions it was not likely that Ireland would become very rich. Wherever she turned, up rose the obstacle of commercial consternation on the part of Ireland's rulers. It would have been ludicrous, had it not been revolting in its mean and shameless avarice, the mono- tonous wail of these money-scrapers, whenever a little Irish industry showed its head. But Jonathan Swift ^ had now seized his pen, and continued for many years to fight with unrivalled genius in the cause of Irish reform. In 1720 he published his " Proposal for the universal use of Irish manufacture," in which he urged the Irish peoplq to abstain from importation, and to use Irish products, until the restrictions upon Irish trade had been removed.- Four years later Wood's Hali-pence appeared, followed by the celebrated Drapiers Letters, and never was fraud more success- fully gibbeted in the pages of a great writer. He roused Ireland to a sense of her own strength, and tore from the face of humbug ' Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, and died in 1747, being buried in his own cathedral. Who shall take the measure of his genius, who has not himself felt sometime the inward gnawings of that savage spirit ? He stands alone in English literature ; indeed there IS nothing resembling his style in all the domain of letters. Gall was his ink, and wormwood his paper, and the exceeding bitterness of his own soul guided the hand that held the pen. His terrible, wit fell like a blight upon the abuses of his age. They were so stroiig and green in the early morning, so luxuriant and unab^hed and comely, and in the evening they were black and rotten, such a heap of stenching refuse that no man could stand the wind of them. Is not this power ? — and this was th P"^'^*" °^ Swift. His scEva indignatis died with him. The world had never seen tne like of it before, and will probably never witness it again. Appendix XId, quotation from Jonathan Swift. 26 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY its thin veil of plausible respectability. The violators of the Treaty of Limerick winced, but had to pocket the affront, and no more contracts were sold by King's drabs to corrupt patentees to coin base money for the people of Ireland.^ The Drapier Letters and those less known tlwt we have quoted from in the Appendices, demolished Wood, disconcerted the impudence of his patrons, and kindled a flame in Ireland that all the buckets at the Castle failed to put out. But many years passed before Ireland obtained a really effective reform. There were a number of ardent spirits who worked for her, but the strength ol the nation was unorganized ; her energies were debilitated from want of use, and the power of monopoly was too strong for any isolated breath to thaw the ice and frost of indifference, and worse than indifference, that bound the Parliament and its rulers. At length on October ii, 1775, Lord North moved in the English Parliament for a Committee of the whole House to consider what encouragement might be afforded to the fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland, and several bounties were granted, as a result of the deliberations which followed, to the ships of Great Britain and Ireland for the encouragement of their Newfoundland fishery. Moreover, Ireland was to be permitted to export clothes and accoutrements for such regiments on the Irish establishment as were employed abroad, and a bounty of five shillings per barrel was allowed on all flax seeds imported into that country. The Irish also were to be allowed to export provisions, hooks, lines, nets and tools for the purpose of their fishery, and bounties were given for the encouragement of the whale fishery in those seas which were southward of the Greenland and Davis Straits fisheries. The duties payable upon the importation of oil, blubber, and bone from Newfoundland were also taken off as well as that upon the importation of seal-skins. But the meagre Act was of little use, and this the Government knew. It was not their policy to go out of their way to remove restrictions, except when the fear of foreign complications drove them to it. From 1743 bounties had been granted for the encouragement of the linen trade, but until 1777 all dyed or chequered Irish linens were excluded from the Colonies, and were subject to a duty amounting to prohibition, if imported into England. All efforts to obtain a relaxation of these regulations for a long time failed of success. The English manufacturers were too powerful, and no minister dared face the outcry with which he would have been greeted, had he listened to the arguments of Irish reason. Thus Lord Nugent had introduced a Bill in the English House of Commons which provided for the removal of certain prohibitory duties upon some of the staple articles of Irish manufacture. When its contents, however, became known throughout the country, all ' Appendix XII, quotation from Jonathan Swift. BEFORE THE UNION 27 the respectable manufacturers girded up their loins and loaded the table of the House with petitions against this invasion of their vested rights, and, as North yielded to their clamour, the chief parts of the Bill were lost.^ In 1775 the English Government demanded the services of 4,000 Irish troops for the war which had just broken out in America — a war that never would have occurred if the Govern- ment had listened to the wisdom of Burke — and offered to supply their place in Ireland with Hessians. The Irish Parlia- ment granted the former request, but, as may be imagined, refused the offer of the Hessians, assuring Harcourt,^ the Lx)rd- Lieutenant, that they would exert themselves in the matter of recruiting, and make the importation of foreign troops unnecessary, a promise which they faithfully carried out to the great discomfiture of the Government in the shape of the Volunteers. In 1777 the Irish Parliament was dissolved, and on the meeting of the new one an unparalleled number of peerages was created by the Government to bolster up the influence of the Castle. Five viscounts were advanced to earldoms, seven barons to viscountcies, and eighteen new barons created in the same day, a piece of manoeuvring the Government were much pleased with. But whilst enjoying the after-flavour of the trick, the disgrace of Saratoga was being drunk to the dregs across the water, which when the news of it arrived considerably cooled the ardour of official intolerance. The same year witnessed the movement that had already germinated in favour of the creation of an Irish Volunteer force. Originally an exclusively Protestant movement, and due to the apprehension of a French invasion that had appeared imminent in 1778, it was organized by the accomplished James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont, the friend of Horace Walpole, Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, and Reynolds ; and a Militia Bill having been passed for the emergency, the Irish flew to arms to be ready to defend their shores. Before the close of the summer of 1779 a force of about 42,000 men had been armed and drilled into discipline, and soon became a political factor to be reckoned with. Charlemont, who had at first refused, finally accepted the command of the Armagh Volunteers, and under their aegis the abuses of the Secret Service and Pension List were attacked in the Irish Parliament, whilst Grattan carried an amendment to the Address demanding free trade as the natural birthright of the people. As the Volunteers said — "They knew their ^luty to their Sovereign and they were loyal ; they knew their duty to themselves and they were resolved to be free." Many ' Appendix XIIa, quotations from W. N. Massey and Thomas Newenham. ^ Simon Harcourt, first Earl Harcoart (1714-1777), appointed to succeed Townshend as Lord- Lieutenant in 1772. Resigned January 25, 1777. 28 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of the corps adopted the " non-importation agreement " by resolution, and encouraged men of a like opinion to do the same. This new and unforeseen apparition was naturally distasteful to the men in power. In order, therefore, to draw the teeth of trade reformers, the Government in the beginning of 1779 granted new bounties to linen and hemp, and per- mitted the cultivation of tobacco in Ireland. But this policy of chaining a thirsty man within reach of the spray of a delicious fountain only exasperated the sufferers, and the cry for reform became more menacing than ever. The Govern- ment now became thoroughly alarmed at the determined aspect of this armed confederacy, and the result was that in 1779 a further alleviation was afforded to Irish trade. North, melting under the genial influence of intimidation and generously recoiling before the necessities of the hour, introduced on the 13th of December 1779 three propositions — to permit the export of glass, to permit the export of woollen goods, and to allow the Irish free trade with the English Settlements in America, the West Indies and Africa. These propositions were passed, and with Foster's resolutions were made the basis of a Bill which was successfully carried a few months later. Under its provisions the Acts which had . prohibited the exportation of the Irish glass and woollen manufactures were repealed : and the trade of the Colonies was at length thrown open to the Irish, on the condition that their Parliament should impose duties on their exports and imports equal to those paid in British harbours. The Acts prohibiting the carrying of gold and silver coin into Ireland were likewise repealed. The Irish were, moreover, to be allowed henceforth to import foreign hops and to receive a drawback on the duty on British hops. They were also to be permitted to become members of the Turkey Company and to carry on a direct trade between Ireland and the Levant Sea. Thus manna was scattered amongst them, as has always been the case in the history of their country, not with the open-handed largesse of a loving protector but by the grudging hand of fear. The benefit derived from the removal of the restrictions upon the export of woollen manufactures was soon apparent. In three years the export of woollen stuffs increased from 8,CXX) to 538,000 yards of old, and from 494 to 40,000 yards of new draperies, an increase which represented the employment of a large amount of additional labour, and consequently greater prosperity among the working population of the country. The same year the Tenantry Act was passed to protect property which legally belonged to one person, but which "the old custom" of the country has always regarded as morally and equitably vested in another. The Irish Parliament thus interfered p»^ BEFORE THE UNION 29 to prevent the harsh application of legal principles and the con- fiscation of property, and under the Act a large portion of Irish land was transfered to those to whom it rightfully belonged. In 1780 the Irish Dissenters were relieved of the Sacra- mental Test. Their history had been a chequered one. There had been no Toleration Act passed for the Irish Dissenters, as had been the case with their English co-religionists after the Revolution. The Regium Donum, re-introduced and aug- mented by William III, had amounted to only £1,200, and as a permanent instrument of relief was insignificant, but it involved the whole principle of legal recognition. In 1704 the Test clause became law in Ireland, and remained on the Statute Book for more than seventy years, the Presbyterians being excluded by it from all civil and piilitary offices under the Crown. In 17 19 Toleration and Indemnity Acts were passed in favour of Irish Nonconformists, and in 1737 a further Act was carried for the benefit of Irish Presbyterians, which, without authorizing the celebration of marriages by them, secured them from persecution in the ecclesiastical courts. In 1778, on the same day that relief for the Roman Catholics had been moVed in the Irish Parliament, a motion was brought forward by Sir Edward Newnham for the relief of Dissenters ; but the Bill which was prepared by him and Sir Boyle Roche ^ was remitted to another session. The repeal of the old law in 1780 drew one more fang from the jowl of injustice. During the course of the same year Bushe's Irish Perpetual Mutiny Bill was also passed, which added a perpetuity clause to the English Act, that had been found insufficient as it stood. There was a proposal too at this time to create an Irish navy for the protection of the coast against foreign invasion, but the discussion of the project was postponed at the desire of the Irish Government until a more convenient season. In 1781 Ireland was granted the protection of a Habeas Corpus Act which had been withheld for so long. This act of grace was undoubtedly due to the dangerous state of affiiirs in America. It would have been unwise to irritate Ireland at such a moment, with her force of Volunteers and her determination to get justice, and soon afterwards this danger became even more apparent. For the English Government were decisively defeated and their armies captured at Saratoga and Yorktown. In fact, the War of Independence was over and the rulers of Ireland had lost a continent. In the memorable year 1782 the Dungannon meeting of the Volunteer delegates was held. They had elected Charlemont as their commander-in-chief in 1780, and, flushed with their ' Sir Boyle Roche (1743-1807). He was taaster of the ceremonies at the Irish Viceregal Court. 30 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY success in carrying the commercial reform in 1779, were deter- mined to strike yet another blow for freedom. Grattan ^ had made his first great speech declaratory of the independence of the Irish Parliament in 1780, but his motion was rejected, and in December of that year Carlisle,^ who succeeded Buckingham * as Lord-Lieutenant, had been instructed by his Government to oppose the several attempts to carry a declaration of in- dependence, the repeal of Poyning's Act, and the limitation of the Mutiny Act. Flood's motion on the i ith of December, 178 1, for an inquiry into the operation of Poyning's Law was, there- fore, defeated by 139 to 6^. On the 28th of December, 178 1, the officers and delegates of the First Ulster Regiment met at Armagh, and resolved to hold a Convention of the Ulster delegates at Dungannon; and on the 15th of February, 1782, the celebrated Dungannon Meeting took place. The delegates claimed complete independence for the Irish Parliament, passing resolutions to the effect that the power exercised by the Privy Council of both kingdoms under Poyning's Law was uncon- stitutional and a grievance, and that a Mutiny Bill, not limited in point of duration from session to session, also laboured under the same defects.* These resolutions formed a remarkable document ; they were the first real national expression of the Irish mind. Had the Irish Volunteers had a man of iron to lead them, had they held together for a few more years, they might have swept the Augean stable clean and obtained the independence of the Irish Parliament, but an Irish Parliament loyally attached to the English Crown and the British Constitution, and which might have lasted possibly to this day. But there was no man to show them the way. Indecision, lack of a settled policy, the want of cohesion that characterizes all political and military bodies which are without a rallying point and a trusted pro- tagonist, rendered them useless for any sustained effort and determined persistency after they had once gained their im- mediate object. Flood appreciated the situation, and Grattan did not ; but Flood had not the authority, nor perhaps the ability to follow up in practice the prescient reasonings of his common-sense. North's Administration had now fallen, and the weak but conscientious Rockingham, the patron of Burke, succeeded to power, the Duke of Portland ^ taking Carlisle's place as Lord- 1 Henry Grattan was bom on July 3, 1746. In 1775 he entered the Irish Parliament as member for the borough of Charlemont through the favour of his patron, the Earl. He died on June 4, 1820. * Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825). * John Hobart, second Earl of Buckinghamshire. * Appendix XIlB, Resolutions. ■> William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, third Duke of Portland (1738-1809). Twice Prime Minister. BEFORE THE UNION 31 Lieutenant. Soon after the Dungannon meeting, Grattan, backed by all the authority of the Volunteers, delivered himself of the most celebrated of all his celebrated speeches, which was in substance a demand for an Irish Bill of Rights. This was to include the repeal of the Act of George I, which declared the right of the King and Parliament of Great Britain to make laws binding the kingdom and people of Ireland ; the repeal of that portion of Poyning's Law which reserved the initiation of Irish legislation to the English Council ; the repeal of the Perpetual Mutiny Act ; and the recognition of the Irish House of Lords as a Court of Appeal in the last resort. The great oration was a landmark in Irish history, and such was the power of Grattan's eloquence and the enthusiastic determination which he was able to infuse into the breasts of his followers, that opposition melted at the reformer's touch and the Act of Irish Independence was finally passed. On the 17th of May, 1782, Lord Shelburne in the Lords and Fox in the Commons, having read the Address, moved, " That it is the opinion of that House that the Act of the 6th of George I entitled 'An Act for the better securing the dependency of Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain ' ought to be repealed " ; and repealed the Act accordingly was. Parliament then proceeded on Yelverton's^ motion to repeal Poyning's Law, and Grattan introduced and carried a Bill to punish mutiny and desertion, which had the effect of repealing the Perpetual Mutiny Act and restoring to Parliament a due control over the army. A further Bill was also passed to reverse erroneous judgments and decrees, a measure which was introduced with a view of taking from the English House of Lords and the King's Bench their usurped appellate jurisdiction. By this great reform, the last corporate act of the patriotic Volunteers, the custom of suppressing, altering, or rejecting Irish Bills or heads of Bills in the English and Irish Privy Councils was swept away, whilst the duration of the Mutiny Act was at the same time limited to two years. English Acts of Parliament were here- after not to bind Ireland ; the Irish House of Lords regained its rights over appeals, and Poyning's Law being rescinded, the Viceroy's initiative in legislation was taken from him. The Irish Parliament was henceforth to be free to discuss and to make laws in the same way as the British Legislature ; but it was provided that any Bills it might pass should be returned to Ireland under the Great Seal of England — a proviso which subjected it to a kind of Ministerial veto in addition to the ' Barry Yelverton, first Viscount Avonmore (1736-1805), Irish Attorney-General ?nd later on Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. He was a man of simple and ingenuous nature. As a speaker he was remarkable for figurative language equally powerful and beautiful. 32 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Constitutional veto of the Crown. On the passing of this reform Grattan's grateful countrymen, wishing to show their sense of the value of his labours, offered him ;£■ 100,000 as a gift from the nation, but he refused it, and was with difficulty persuaded to accept half that sum, an amount which henceforth enabled him to devote himself exclusively to political affairs without the daily anxiety of having to earn his livelihood at the bar. Grattan deserved this tribute. He had worked hard for his country, had sorrowed much for her, and hoped much ; as he himself said — " I found Ireland on her knees ; I watched over her with a paternal solicitude ; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift ! Spirit of Molyneux ! ^ your genius has prevailed ! Ireland is a nation. In that character I hail her, and, bowing in her august presence, I say, esto perpetua ! " The work of the Volunteers, in the absence of an un- flinching and sagacious leader of the Cromwellian type, was now practically done.^ The Irish had wrung from their rulers, almost at the point of the bayonet, a great concession, which was granted with a very poor grace, but earned by a single week of the centuries of intolerable subjection under which they had lain. There was no cause to grudge them this tardy modicum of justice, and there was no danger in doing so, for on the passing of the Bill of Inde- pendence Grattan proposed in the Irish Parliament that they should show their loyalty to Great Britain and their gratitude for the measure by voting ;^ 100,000 to raise and equip 20,000 Irish seamen for the common defence of the Empire, and his proposal was adopted with the greatest enthusiasm. If the monarchs of Ireland had been wise in their generation, they would have cried out as a king formerly exclaimed of the same people — " Cursed be the laws that rob me of such subjects." This celebrated year also witnessed the removal of one of the last grievances of the Irish Dissenters, their Ministers being placed upon the same footing as the Anglican clergy in regard ' William Molyneux, the friend of John Locke. He wrote the Case of Ireland, an interesting little book describing various Acts of Parliament, and was the first to formulate Ireland's constitutional .claim to independent existence. 2 W. N. Massey says of them — "This noble body, which, for purity and loftiness of purpose, may be advantage- ously compared with any patriotic association of ancient and modem times, seems to have exhausted for the time all that was wise, generous or true in the political character of their country. ... It was not for the purpose of a brawling agitation or to barter their country to a foreign power, that the bravest and noblest of the land by a spontaneous impulse sprang to arms. It was the defence of their country from foreign aggression ; and her liberfition from those fetters and badges of servitude which her imperious sister had imposed, that the Volunteers of Ireland had resolved to effect. These great ends accomplished, their mission had been fulfilled." BEFORE THE UNION 33 to the right of celebrating valid marriages between the member^ of their flock. About the same time, under Portland's Irish Administration, Eden's ^ Act was passed for the establishment of the national bank under the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland. The subscribers to it were to pay in ;^6oo,ooo, either in cash or debentures at 4 per cent, which were to be taken at par and considered as money. This sum was to be the capital stock of the bank, and the debentures to that amount, when received, were to be cancelled by the vice-treasurers-; i an annuity of £2^,000 being paid to the Company as equivalent to the interest payable upon them. The stock was to be redeemable at any time, upon twelve months' notice, after January ist, 1794. Under the same administration the Sacramental Test, by which Protestant Dissenters had been excluded from offices of trust under the Crown, was repealed, and another Act was passed by which the Commission of Irish judges was made to continue quamdiu se bene gesserint ; whilst a further measure enabled the King to draw from Ireland, at his pleasure, a force not exceeding 50,000 men. In 1783 arose the question of what was known as " Simple Repeal." It was argued by Irish Parliamentarians, among whom Flood was conspicuous for his brilliant and conclusive reasoning, that the English Parliament should pass a " Renunciation Act" in addition to and sealing as it were the " simple repeal " of the Declaratory Act of George I. The proposal was agreed to, and a " Renunciation Act " was passed at Westminster confirming the Act of 1782, and abandoning the old pretensions of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland. / But the Irish required something more than a barren Act of Renunciation. Their system of Parliamentary government was rotten to the core, and they commenced soon afterwards to agitate for a radical reform of the Legislature, which was not only poisoned by the corrupt influence of the boiough-mongers and the selfish ascendency of the English Ministers, but had through a long period of base subserviency to the Castle almost lost the desire for independent action. Its composition, indeed, was a farce of representation. One hundred and sixteen nomination seats were divided among some five-and-twenty proprietors. Lord Shannon returned no fewer than sixteen members, and the great family of Ponsonby fourteen ; Lord Hilsborough had nine seats, the Duke of Leinster seven, and the Castle twelve. The whole rateable strength of Government in the Irish House of Commons amounted to one hundred and eighty-six votes, which were divided into five classes: (i) Eight-six proprietary seats, the owners of which had let them out in consideration of titles, offices, and pensions, in * William Eden, first Lord Auckland, Chief Secretary under the Earl of Carlisle's vice-royalty. 3 34 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY possession or expectancy ; (2) The twelve seats belonging to the Government ; (3) Forty-four seats occupied by placemen ; (4) Thirty -two votes of gentlemen who had promises, or who had avowed their expectations of favours and qualifications ; and (5) Twelve members not registered in the secretary's book as demand- ing either peerages, places, or pensions, and, therefore, set down as supporting the Government on public grounds. Besides these there was a party of twenty-nine, who affected and sometimes asserted an independent position in the House, The regular Opposition was limited to eighty-two, and of these thirty were the nominees of Whig proprietors, and fifty-two represented the popular party. Lord Charlemont, the organizer of the Volunteer movement, favoured a constitutional agitation for the purpose of dragging these abuses into notice and obtaining a Parliamentary reform, and, in accordance with this policy, the Volunteer Con- vention met in the Rotunda in 1783 to discuss the matter. Soon afterwards Flood brought in his Reform Bill as a result of these consultations and, with an eloquence only surpassed by Grattan, unfolded his scheme of reconstruction in the Irish Lower House. He proposed to throw open the doors of the close boroughs by admitting to the franchise all Protestant forty- shilling freeholders and leaseholders of thirty-one years, of which thirteen were unexpired ; whilst in the case of decayed boroughs the franchise was to be extended to the adjoining parishes. Pensioners during pleasure were to be excluded from Parliament, and persons accepting a pension for life or a Government post were to vacate their seats. Each member, moreover, was to take an oath that he had not been guilty of bribery at his election ; and Parliaments were henceforth to be triennial. The chief flaw in the Bill was that whilst the franchise was considerably extended, no provisions were made for giving political power to the Catholics, and as the Catholics formed the vast majority of the population, the omission was a blot upon the whole measure. But in spite of this defect it was a long step in advance. Those, however, who had so long fed off the spoils of place were in no haste to abandon their offal, and the Bill was rejected by 159 votes to 85. The Volunteer Convention was dissolved the same year. Flood ^ had always been in favour of retaining the Volunteer force as a reserve for the support of the Irish patriots, so as to enable them to carry the necessary Parliamentary and other reforms ; but Grattan had opposed him, and trusting to the magnanimity of the English Government, had generously * Henry Flood was bom near Kilkenny in 1732, and entered Parliament in 1759 as member for Kilkenny in his twenty-seventh year. He married Lady Frances Maria Beresford, who brought a large dowry with her, and he died on December 2, 1791, on his estate at Farmley, near Kilkenny. BEFORE THE UNION 35 renounced this formidable weapon. There is very little doubt that Flood was strategically right and Grattan wrong upon this question, which formed the rock on which their friendship foundered after a voyage of many years.^ Temple had meanwhile succeeded Portland as Lord- Lieutenant, and the former was in his turn followed after a few months in 1783 by Northington,^ and the latter again by Portland in February 1784. In that year Flood made another effort to carry a Reform Bill, but his proposals were again thrust back with contumely, and in face of this ingrained and selfish dishonesty that had infected the whole brood of official flunkeys, the conviction from this time sank deep into the minds of earnest Irishmen that the reform of Irish parliamentary institutions, and consequently of Ireland as a whole, could only be effected by the thunders of a revolution. The Irish Parliament now proceeded to turn its attention to commerce. In spite of the restrictions upon Irish trade the country had made vast strides in industry and prosperity. The Irish name was respected by merchants all the world over, and the Irish fisheries were renowned for their excellence and the honesty with which they were carried on. Although the Irish herring-barrel only contained twenty-eight gallons whilst the Scotch barrel held thirty-two, the former sold at an equal or superior price. A Parliamentary Report of 1785 showed that the Irish name stood so high that their herrings sold at 14J per cent, dearer than the Scotch, whilst the Irish fisheries were never charged with the " fraud, perjury, and all the tricks which ingenuity could invent to rob the public," such as partly filling barrels with stones and rubbish, which had almost entirely destroyed the sale of British herrings in European markets. It is well to record such facts, which are historically certain, in view of that claim to commercial purity which was some- times made by the rulers of Ireland in their attacks upon Irish character. In 1784 Foster's* important Corn Bill was passed, which provided that large bounties should be given on the export of corn, and heavy duties imposed upon its import- ation. This measure, which alleviated Irish agriculture and gave ' W. E. H. Lecky observes in this connection — " Had he (Flood) succeeded he would have placed the independence of Ireland on the broad basis of the people's will ; he would have fortified and completed the glorious work that he had himself begun, and he would have averted a series of calamities which have not even yet spent their force. We should never have known the long night of corruption that overcast the splendour of Irish liberty. The blood of 1798 might never have flowed. The Legislative Union would never have been consummated or, if there had been a Union, it would have been effected by the will of the people, and not by the treachery of their representatives, and it would have been remembered only with gratitude or with content." ^ Robert Henley, second Earl of Northington (1747-1786). '■' John Foster, Lord Oriel (1740- 1828), last speaker of the Irish House of Commons. 36 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY a great impulse to cultivation, may be said to have changed the face of the land, for it converted enormous tracts which had hitherto been pasture into tillage. The same year Foster carried another measure successfully through the Irish Parliament. By the terms of his Press Bill the true names of every newspaper proprietor had henceforth to be registered ; the sale of un- stamped papers in the streets was also forbidden, and the acceptance or the offer of any money for printing or forbearing to print libels was to be held a high misdemeanour. On the rejection of Flood's second Reform Bill a National Congress of delegates from the counties and cities of Ireland had met in October, 1784, to discuss the question of Parliamentary Reform. They then adjourned and met again at Dublin on the 2nd of January, 1785, when resolutions were passed in regard to the method in which the matter should be agitated in the Irish Legislature. On February 22nd, 1785, Pitt introduced his Irish "Com- mercial Propositions" at Westminster. The terms of the proposed settlement had already been negotiated between Orde.i the Chief Secretary, and certain Irish Commissioners. Ireland, already free to trade with Europe and the British Colonies in the West Indies, was now to have the American and African trade thrown open to her, and colonial produce which could already be conveyed in Irish bottoms to British ports, was henceforth to be allowed to be reshipped from Ireland to any part of Great Britain. In return for this concession the surplus of the Irish hereditary revenue was to be appropriated to the navy and general defence of the Empire. Now, the public revenue of Ireland was of two kinds, the one hereditary and the other temporary. The hereditary revenue itself was of two descriptions, that which had been established by ancient custom, and that granted by Act of Parliament to the Crown. Before the Revolution the hereditary revenue had sufficed for carrying on the government of the country ; but after the Revolution the expenses of a large army rendered an augmentation of revenue absolutely necessary. Thus there arose what was known as the temporary revenue, the Irish Parliament voting every session certain sums to make up the deficiency in the hereditary revenue. On Pitt's proposals being sent over to Ireland, the Irish Parliament passed a resolution modifying Pitt's plan by making the contribution of the surplus in time of peace contingent upon the establishment of a balance between revenue and expenditure, and his pro- posals thus amended were accepted and returned with the resolutions to England. But this spectre of reform unmanned 1 Thomas Orde, afterwards Orde-Powlett, first Lord Bolton, Chief Secretary under the Duke of Rutland's Viceroyalty from February 1784 to October 1787. BEFORE THE UNION 37 the tradesmen across the Channel, and sixty-four petitions were immediately drawn up and presented .with every symptom of injured innocence against the measure, one signed by 80,000 persons being sent from Lancashire. A herd of bloated « Nabobs " also tramped to Westminster, and implored Minis- ters, for the love of God, to put a spoke in the Irish wheel and so earn a sharper's gratitude. Impressed by this clamour, and not at all reluctant to do itself a good turn*, the Commercial Party at Westminster, with the same lust for gain and disregard of justice as in 1699, hereupon pro- ceeded to modify the resolutions by nine other Articles, one of which excluded Ireland from the participation in the Indian trade on equal terms with Great Britain by stipulating that so long as the British Parliament wished to have commerce carried on beyond the Cape of Good Hope by an exclusive company, dealing through the Port of London, so long should Ireland be debarred from dealing direct with any country what- ever beyond the Cape and the Straits of Magellan, It was also stipulated that all trade or navigation laws which had been or should be made by the English Parliament, should also be enacted by the Irish Parliament, and that nothing but colonial produce should be transhipped through Ireland into Great Britain. The measure thus amended was carried at Westminster ; but Fox denounced these shopkeeping proclivities — " I will not barter English commerce for Irish slavery. This is not the price I would pay nor is this the thing I would purchase " ; and the Irish Parliament, agreeing with that statesman, refused to accept this mutilation by a selfish and interested section ; whereupon the Chief Secretary, Orde, foreseeing that he would have a majority against him, decided to drop the mangled Bill. In this manner arose the first of the two great differences between the English and Irish Parliaments, the second being occasioned, three years later, by the question of a Regency. Thus the fair hopes of Irish industry were dashed to the ground, for Pitt, with lightning discernment of personal advantage, scenting, as he did, the possibility of unpopularity should he stand by a measure which he knew to be just, dropped Irish Commercial Reform like a red-hot coal and never touched it again. He dropped it, as he afterwards dropped Catholic Emancipation, the endowment of the Catholic Clergy, the commutation of tithes, and Parliamentary Reform in his own country.^ The same year in which Pitt's commercial propositions fell through (1785) a petition bearing 117,000 signatures was presented by the City of Manchester praying for the prohibi- tion of Irish linens. This selfishness, however, was too much ■^PPSidix XIII, extract from speech by William Pitt, and quotations from iliomas Newenham, Richard Cobden, and Lord Pufferin, 38 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY even for the commercial prudence of the predominant partner, and her one remaining industry was allowed to stand. On the 6th of March, 1785, Forbes moved in the Irish Lower House for a consideration of the Pension List, urging a reduction in the amount of those allowances, which were not only devoted to the reward of merit, but lavished on the ministers of vice. But his motion was lost, and the Bill which he subsequently intro- duced for the purpose of effecting his object was rejected by a majority of fifty-six.^ A Police Bill was passed in 1786 to remedy the scandalous state of the administration of justice in Dublin, and the Crimes Bill and Whiteboy Act were carried during the course of the following year in consequence of the increase of Whiteboy outrages, which were directed against the payment of tithes. That the tithe system was a brutal and exasperating one in face of the misery of the Irish people and the enormous preponder- ance of Catholics over Protestants, not even the vilest parasite that ever licked the boots of Castle patronage could venture publicly to deny. Even Clare, the hard, unyielding man of the Ascendency, of whom it might be said, as Marlborough said of James II, that a marble mantelpiece was not so hard as that man's heart, admitted that the poverty of the Irish peasant was indescribable, and the tyranny of the landlords a disgrace to humanity.^ In October 1787 the hair-brained Rutland ^ died, and the Marquis of Buckingham,^ of whom more anon, succeeded him as Lord-Lieutenant. In the early part of the following year Grattan submitted eight resolutions for the modification of the tithe system, but they were stifled by a prorogation. Such a reform was, as may be supposed, unpalatable to the English interest, and the Irish Parliament refused to accept the principle of commutation, the old system of fleecing the poorest of the * Appendix XIIIa, extract from speech by John Philpot Curran. * In 1787 {circ.) he said — "I agree with the right honourable gentleman (Grattan) that the lower order of the jjeople in Munster are in a state of oppression, abject poverty, slotli, dirt and misery, not to be equalled in any other part of the world. ... I am very well acquainted with the province of Munster, and I know that it is impossible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable peasantry in that province. I know that the unhappy tenantry are ground to powder by relentless landlords. I know that far from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they have no food or raiment for themselves — the landlord grasps the whole." Clare was a malignant and petty foe and an execrable bad shot. In his duel with John Philpot Curran, after the latter had fired, he took aim at him for nearly half-a- minute, and even then missed. One day when it was known that Curran was to make an elaborate speech in Chancery, Clare brought a large Newfoundland dog into Court with him, and during the progress of the argument ostentatiously con- centrated his attention upwn fondling the animal. Curran upon perceiving this stopped. "Go on, go on, Mr. Curran," said Clare.' "Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, my Lord," replied Curran, " I really took it for granted that your Lordship was employed in consultation." ' His trull was the shameless and impudent Peg Plunket. ■• George Nugent Temple Grenville, first Marquis of Buckingham (1753-1813), BEFORE THE UNION 39 poor continuing to be the chief source of Irish crime until it was eventually strangled in 1838. Pension reform was in a like predicament, the disclosure of gross abuses merely hardening the official heart, and rendering more obdurate than ever the determination of the Court to brook no interference with its darlings. On January i, 1788, the Pension List had swollen to the unsightly bulk of ;^96,289, exclusive of military pensions and additions to salaries. In 1789 sixteen peers were created or promoted, whilst the Pension List was increased by ;£^ 13,000 a year. Ponsonby declared that there were 1 10 placemen in the Irish Lower House, and that one-eighth of the revenue of the country was divided between members of Parliament. But Forbes' motions in 1788 to remedy this state of affairs were rejected. A motion was also made at this time for a return of the hearth-money, an impost long since abolished in England and pressing heavily upon the poorer classes ; but this request likewise was treated with contempt. In 1788 arose the question of the Regency during the im- becility of George III. Pitt argued, contrary to the spirit of the Constitution of 1782, that the English Parliament had a right to select a Regent and define the scope of his powers. Fox, on the contrary, and with him the Irish Parliament, held that the heir to the throne alone had a right to enter into the full exercise of Royal power in such circumstances, but that Parliament was entitled to pronounce what time the Prince ought to assume this power. The controversy, which was beginning to arouse great bitterness, and might have caused a serious difference in Ireland between the views of the Parliament and those of the Castle, was finally hushed by the King's recovery. Several other noticeable features of the time may be glanced at. In view of the corruption shamelessly indulged in by the Government, such as the buying of votes and the sale of peerages and office, as well as the intimidation employed against those persons whose courage and virtue were alike superior to the sinister ill-will of a court or the suggestions of a political procurer, a "Round Robin" was signed 'by the leading Peers and Commons denouncing the licentious attempts to compel honour to doff her cap at the shadow of the Castle. Out of this " Round Robin" sprang the Whig Club. The Duke of Leinster, Charlemont, Grattan, Ponsonby, and John Philpot Curran ^ were among its members ; and James Napper Tandy, and the * It was Curran who wrote the poem, The Deserter. His wit was spontaneous and never ill-natured. An instance of it was his reply to a learned judge in court who asked him what a laugh without a joke was like. "A laugh without a joke," faid Curran, " is like a contingent remainder without any particular estate to support "• He was Grand Prior of a social club, called " The Monks of the Screw," which numbered among others. Flood, Grattan, Father O'Leary, Lord Charlemont, Judges JJay, Chamber laine, and Metge, Bowes, Daly, George Ogle, Lord Avonmore, and Mr. Keller. 40 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY majestic and quixotic Archibald Hamilton Rowan soon joined it. The Club, which professedly acted in concert with the Whig Club in England, declared its object in 1789 to be to maintain in its integrity the Constitution of 1782, and to agitate for a Place Bill, a Pension Bill, a Bill for the abolition or modification of the Dublin Police, and Bills for the disqualification of revenue officers, and the curtailment of unnecessary offices which had been recently created and distributed among various accommodating members of Parliament. The same year that these attempts were made to stem the tide of knavery that welled from Dublin Castle, Buckingham died, and was succeeded in Ireland by the Earl of Westmorland.^ We promised to return to the Marquis of Buckingham and we now keep our promise. Grattan said of him in a speech delivered in Parliament on January 22, 1790, whilst the former was still alive — and we recommend the criticism to the attention of those who would form an idea of what an Irish Viceroy could be like in those days — "This was the man; you remember his entry into the capital, trampling on the hearse of the Duke of Rutland, and seated in a triumphal car, drawn by public credulity ; on one side fallacious hope, and on the other many-mouthed profession; a figure with two faces, one turned to the treasury, and the other presented to the people ; and with a double tongue, speaking contradictory languages. "This minister alights; justice looks up to him with empty hopes, and peculation faints with idle alarms ; he finds the city a prey to an unconstitutional police — he continues it ; he finds the country over- burdened with a shameful pension list — he increases it ; he finds the House of Commons swarming with placemen — he multiplies them ; he finds the salary of the Secretary increased to prevent a pension — he grants a pension ; he finds the kingdom drained by absentee employ- ments, and by compensations to buy them home — he gives the best reversion in the country to an absentee, his brother ! He finds the Government, at different times, had disgraced itself by creating sinecures to gratify corrupt affection — he makes two commissioners of the rolls, and gives one of them to another brother ; he finds the second council to the commissioners put down, because useless — he revives it ; he finds the boards of accounts and stamps annexed by public compact — he divides them ; he finds three resolutions declaring that seven com- missioners are sufficient — he makes nine; he finds the country has suffered by some peculations in the ordnance — he increases the salaries of offices, and gives the places to members — Members of Parliament ! " The picture was not overcharged, but he spoke to deaf ears. The Castle nominees were not going to cut their own throats, and three motions which were brought forward respectively by Forbes, Ponsonby, and Grattan in 1789, to investigate the state > John Fane, tenth Earl of Westniorlftnd (1759-1841), held office of Lord- Lieutenancy from 1790 to 1795. r BEFORE THE UNION 41 of the Pension List and the action of Buckingham's administration in regard to the granting of places and peerages were rejected, the last by a majority of sixty-two. In 1791, Grattan and Ponsonby made another attempt. On the 3rd of February, the latter moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the Pension List ; whilst Grattan asked for an investigation into the practice of selling peerages ; but both motions were lost, the former by a motion for adjournment and the latter by a majority of fifty. Another movement had also made itself felt about this time. The Peep of Day Boys (known also by the name of " Protestant Boys " or in some places as " Wreckers ") and the Defenders (the latter of whom had organized a new Whiteboy agitation, which aimed especially at the reduction and abolition of tithes, and the general redress of grievances) had gradually merged more or less into Orangemen and United Irishmen respectively.^ The first sign of the formation of the United Irish Society, the idea of which originated with Samuel Neilson,^ was the union in 1791 of the Presbyterians with Roman Catholics. In that year Wolfe Tone, the son of a coachbuilder and born in Dublin in 1763, founded and organized the first society of United Irishmen* in Ulster for the promotion of Parliamentary Reform, with Napper Tandy as Secretary of the Dublin Branch, and Hamilton Rowan one of his principal coadjutors. Keogh, of the Catholic Com- mittee, also lent him his invaluable help in bringing over the Catholics to his scheme. Grattan, whose Bill of 1789 for the disfranchisement of officers employed in the collection or management of the Irish revenue had been defeated, was like- wise in favour of Parliamentary Reform and the enfranchisement of the Catholics, but, unlike Tone and the United Irishmen, who were persuaded that Ireland could flourish, if necessary, as a separate state, vehemently urged the necessity of the maintenance of the English connection. In order to disseminate the principles of their league the United Irishmen now established a paper of their own under the name of the Northern Star, of which Samuel Neilson was chosen editor, its object being to promote the co-operation of all Irishmen, Protestant as well as Catholic, in the cause of National Independence. ' Appendix XIIlB, quotation from G. Cornewall Lewis. ^ Samuel Neilson (1761-1803). Died in America. * The United Irishman's oath was as follows — " I, AB, in the presence of God, do pledge myself to my country, that I will use all my abilities and influence in the attamment of an adequate and impartial representation of the Irish nation in Parlia- ment ; and as a means of absolute and immediate necessity in the attainment of this chief good of Ireland, I will endeavour, as much as lies in my power, to forward a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a community of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions, without which every reform in wliament must be partial, not national, inadequate to the wants, delusive to the wishes, and insufficient for the freedom and happiness of this country." ■ ■? 42 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY By 1792, although much remained to be done and much had been illiberally refused her, Ireland had wrung from her rulers by uninterrupted agitation and an importunity bred of prolonged distress, an Octennial Act, free trade, a full participation in the commercial intercourse with the British Golonies, a Habeas Corpus Act, the benefit of all the English treaties, the inde- pendence of her Legislature and of her judges, and the re- establishment of the final judicature. The Test Act had also been repealed ; the validity of Dissenters' marriages had been fully recognized ; and by far the greater part of the accursed Penal Code had been blotted from the Statute Book. Agitation, pure and simple, had effected these reforms. The officials at Dublin Castle had taught the Ixish that no other method was of any use, that their taskmasters were sanguine cowards, that, although they never gave way to reason, they were always ready to yield to fear; and the Irish had learnt their lesson well. Other reforms were to be obtained on the same principle — that a poltroon understands a horsewhip better than an argument. The problem of Parliamentary Reform was again discussed in the Irish Parliament, and the solution of it again rejected in 1792, Forbes' Place and Pension Bills suffering the same fate they had undergone before. The efforts of the Volunteer Con- vention of 1783 in this direction had been prejudiced by the endeavours of Flood, its representative, to overawe the Govern- ment and Parliament by too menacing a display of military force ; and Grattan and the more moderate reformers had been deterred from participating in an agitation that might possibly become treasonable and had already become dangerous. The same danger indeed still existed ; for the subtle influence of the French Revolution on men's minds had begun in 1792 to assert itself in the conduct of Irish affairs, and the new spirit of volunteering had gradually assumed a menacing republican shape. French agents began to conspire with Irish agitators, and the Catholics, the United Irishmen, and the Volunteers, recognizing the expediency of co-operation, had insensibly drawn nearer together. The Association of the " Friends of the Con- stitution" was formed by Grattan in 1792, as the Whig Club, whose fundamental principle was the maintenance of the Con- stitution of 1782, was unable to agree with his view as to Catholic Enfranchisement and Parliamentary Reform. The new Association faithfully embodied his policy and differed from that of the United Irishmen, amongst whom a seditious «:pirit was rapidly spreading, in not countenancing hazardous or illegal methods of agitation and in resisting all subversive republican innovations. In 1792 the National Guard was formed in Dublin. They wore green uniforms with buttons engraved with a harp under a cap of liberty instead of a crown, and their leaders were BEFORE THE UNION 43 Hamilton Rowan ^ and Napper Tandy. The spirit that fired them was that of the French Revolution, and the Castle junto therefore looked upon them all with undisguised disfavour. In 1793 the great Catholic Relief Bill was passed, admitting Catholics to the franchise. One of the results of this measure, which will be discussed later, was the increase of small Catholic freeholders, who were purposely created by the great landlords for the sake of political power. This new feature in the Irish land system contributed to further aggravate the relations between landlord and tenant, for on the disenfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders in 1829, many of these mushroom occu- piers having served their purpose were driven from their homes. Several other events were included in the history of this notable year. Various measures of redress were granted by the Irish Government with a view to conciliate the more violent reformers and thus postpone the cure of the paramount malady — the destruction of the corrupt influence of the nomination boroughs. The sop took the form of a Responsibility Bill, which brought the signatories of money warrants under control of Parliament. Henceforth no money could be disposed of by the sole order of the King ; for Irish officers were to sign all warrants and every warrant and officer came before Parliament. The con- sequence was that the so-called hereditary revenue was voted annually. An Irish Board of Treasury was also created and the Civil List reduced and fixed. A Pension Bill, too, was passed, excluding from Parliament all future pensioners at will or for years, and reducing the total amount of pensions from .^120,000 to ;^8o,ooo, and a Place Bill was carried, excluding revenue officers whose duties required their absence from Dublin, and vacating the seats of members who should henceforth accept Government offices. A Barren Land Bill, introduced by Grattan, was passed to encourage the cultivation of the great tracts of barren land that still existed in Ireland by exempting them for a period of seven years from the burden of tithes, and the East India trade was at length thrown open to Irish enterprise. A Libel Act, corresponding to Fox's Libel Act, provided that juries in libel cases might give their verdict upon the whole matter at issue, instead of being confined to the bare questions of public- ation and meaning ; and a Hearth Tax Bill rearranged the impost, providing that all cottages that had only one hearth and tenancies of a not greater value than five pounds a year should be wholly exempt from the tax. These measures of reform, so salutary for the country, were odious to the Castle pack, who forthwith proceeded to direct their ordnance against Volunteers, Conventions, and Catholic He was a very majestic-looking man and all)rays on the look out for a cause to champion, preferably a female cause. 44 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Committeemen, and to pass a Gunpowder Bill which not only for- bade the importation of arms and ammunition, but the removal or keeping of gunpowder, arms, and ammunition without a licence, and authorized magistrates and police to search for arms. The Convention Act, introduced into the Irish Upper House by Lord Clare, followed for the purpose of gagging inconvenient discontent. It forbade the assemblage of large and therefore possibly dangerous bodies of men to discuss political affairs. After reciting that the election of assemblies, purporting to re- present the people, under pretence of preparing or presenting petitions, etc., for redress of alleged grievances in Church and State, might be made use of for seditious purposes, it proceeded to enact that all such gatherings were unlawful, and that all persons giving or publishing notice of the election to be made of such persons were guilty of a high misdemeanour. One more measure of 1793 may be mentioned. The army had been raised to 20,000 men, and a Militia Bill, which caused great discontent among the Catholics, was now introduced by Lord Hillsborough and passed into law. It provided for the raising of 16,000 men, upon a rough estimate of 500 for each county. In spite of the Convention Act, which was passed in order to stifle the efforts of the Reformers, the good legislation of this year largely predominated over the bad. The dark pall of degradation had lifted in Ireland and every gaze was turned to the morning light in expectation of a bright future. But on the horizon was a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, and these several acts of grace of 1793 were only the treacherous unveiling of the heavens before the approaching storm. In 1794 Ponsonby's Bill to reform the abuses of the nomin- ation boroughs was rejected by the Irish Parliament, notwith- standing the unquiet social state of Ireland and the simmering of the political cauldron, troubled as it was by the energy of the United Irishmen and the levelling principles of the French Revolution. The same year also witnessed the secession of Portland, Fitzwilliam, Spencer, Wyndham, and other Whig statesmen from their old party, Portland seceding on the understanding that he should be allowed the management of Irish affairs. Fitzwilliam became President of the Council ; Lord Spencer, Privy Seal ; Portland, Secretary of State ; and Wyndham, Secretary of War. On the 4th of May in the same year the Tailors' Hall in Dublin, where the meetings of the United Irishmen were held, was raided by the Govern- ment and the papers belonging to the society seized. From this time the less violent members of the Association began to secede from the United Irish League, and in the course of the following year the society was reorganized on a military and more revolutionary basis. A few days before this raid took BEFORE^THE UNION 45 ~^ place the Reverend WilUapi Jackson was apprehended in Dublin on a charge of high treason. He had come with (revolu- tionary instructions from France and was tried, convicted, and condemned to death. But the thought of execution unnerved him, and, determined to elude the clutches of the hangman, he swallowed poison in court. Hamilton Rowan was convicted for the publication of an address from the United Irish Society to the Volunteers of Ireland, after being defended by Curran. However he neither wrote nor distributed the address. Willis, who did distribute it, and who resembled him, was never indicted. Its actual author was Drennan, who was prosecuted and acquitted. Rowart contrived to escape from prison. The Government offered a reward of ;^i,ooo for his apprehension, the City of Dublin ;^SOO, and certain individuals i^SOO more. But the bribe of ;^2,ooo failed to sap the loyalty of three fishermen, two of them of the name of Sheridan, who, though aware of his identity, proved true to him and carried him abroad in a fishing- smack. Dr. Reynolds, another plotter, also escaped. In 1795 occurred the Fitzwilliam incident, a curious mixture of imposture and misunderstanding, and pregnant with fWture Irish calamity. It had been expected that Lord Fitzwilliam would succeed Westmorland as Lord-Lieutenant ; in fact the former had been offered and had accepted the post, although it had not yet been officially declared vacant, and the 'mere rumour of the change raised the hopes of the Irish Catholics, who looked primarily to the Whigs for a measure of emancipa- tion. Grattan had, a short time before, been to London, where he had i~.ad an interview with Pitt, who informed him that while the Government were desirous of postponing the Catholic ques- tion and would not bring it forward at present on their own responsibility, they would not oppose it, if brought forward by others. On the strength of this declaration, which they read between the lines, Grattan and his followers naturally imagined that they had a free hand in the matter, and that though they could expect no direct help from Ministers, they at least had their secret good-will and authorization. But before many weeks had elapsed a quarrel broke out between Pitt and the Whig seceders. Pitt stipulated that Fitzgibbon and others of the same political colour should retain their posts under the new administration at the Castle, and complained that Fitzwilliam and his Whig friends had exceeded their powers in prematurely making promises and committing themselves to various engagements in regard to the Catholics in Ireland without his knowledge and without his sanction. This spleen on the part of Pitt and his sudden change of front in regard to a conciliatory policy naturally incensed the Irish Catholics and Irish Whigs, who loudly protested that they had been fooled, and that he had obtained the benefit of their 46 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY alliance under fa!se pretences : and their complaint was not unfounded. They had indeed been the dupes of a superior intelligence. This estrangement, however, was bridged over for the time being. Fitzwilliam arrived in Ireland on January 4, 1795, jubilantly hailed by the expectant Catholics as their deliverer ; for they knew him to be, unlike Portland, strongly in favour of complete emancipation ; and they determined to bring the question of their rights of citizenship to an issue on the first opportunity. Every description of Catholic petitioned for emancipation, and as the bulk of the Protestants of Ireland were on their part ready to concede it, the English Government, had it been willing, might have carried the great measure that year instead of in 1829 and thereby earned the gratitude of the Irish people. The Parliament of 1795 met in Dublin just as the war between England and France was breaking out. Fitzwilliam was determined to inaugurate an independent policy, and perceived that the great bar to reform was the implacable bigotry of the Ascendency. He, therefore, commenced by boldly removing some of the members of it from the Administration. Arthur Wolfe, the Attorney-General, was elevated to the peerage,! and his place given to George Ponsonby ; John Toler, the callous and good-tempered Solicitor-General,^ was also removed and provided with a sop ; Edward Cooke, the Under- Secretary to the Military Department, was pensioned off; and the powerful Chief of the Beresford family, a Commissioner of Revenue, retired on full pay. No word of remonstrance came from England in regard to these proceedings. The silence of Ministers could have no other meaning but acquiescence, and it appeared as though the Home Government not only fully concurred but almost rejoiced in the liberal spirit of the new . arrangements. Meanwhile the hearth-tax was abolished, duties being imposed upon the wealthier classes in order to makeup for loss of revenue. On February 12, 1795, Grattan moved for leave to bring in a Bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics, and there were but three dissentient voices. Enfranchisement was within reach, it almost lay like an adored mi.stress in the * As Baron Kil warden ; appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1798. Murdered in 1803. ^ Toler, afterwards Lord Norbury, was a curious study for any one interested in human nature. He had a heart of flint and an angelic temper. To show the sort, of character this man bore among his contemporaries two anecdotes are appended. Travelling one day with John Parsons, one of the Irish Commissioners of Insolvency, in a carriage, they passed a gibbet. "Parsons," said Norbury, with a chuckle, " whefe would you be now if every one had his due?" "Alone in my carriage," replied the literal and imperturbable Parsons. Harry Grady irritated by Norbury once said to him in court, "The incident reminds me, my lord, of a judge I once heard of, who was never known to weep but once, and that was in a theatre." " Deep tragedy, I suppose, Mr. Grady?" "No, indeed, my lord ; it was at the Beggar's Oper.i, when Macheath was reprieved." BEFORE THE UNION 47 arms of Catholic Ireland. Then, suddenly, like a bolt from heaven, came two letters from England, one from Pitt rebuking Intzwilliam for the dismissal of Beresford, the other from Portland urging a postponement of the Catholic Relief Bill. Fitzwilliam in despair summoned all his eloquence to demon- strate the extreme gravity of the situation and the danger of disappointing the expectations of the Irish, but in vain. The arbiters of Ireland's fate were proof against argument, although endowed with a large measure of political cunning. After several months of shuffling they had at length shown their hand, and having peremptorily bidden Fitzwilliam do all in his power to prevent a Catholic Relief Bill from coming before the Parliament and censured him for his previous philo-Catholic attitude, recalled him the same year. Camden ' was appointed in his place and directed to stifle, if possible, the growing vitality of the Catholic cause. The reason of this sudden change of policy has never been fully elucidated, but it is not improbable that Pitt had been startled into this decision by letters from high officials in Ireland, who were enraged with Fitzwilliam on account of his well-known desire to get rid of Fitzgibbon and curb the Ascendency, and on account of the actual dismissal of the Chief of the Beresfords from his employment, who assured Pitt with practised duplicity of the strong anti-Catholic feeling prevalent in the country and the danger of making further concessions to the Irish Catholics. However that may be, the die was cast, and there will always be those who believe that the accumulated horrors of 1798 were the direct outcome of his policy. For this unpardon- able piece of folly, to call it by the gentlest name, which was followed by the rejection of the Bill for Catholic Emancipation in the Dublin Parliament and which showed that there was nothing more to hope for by constitutional means, drove the most energetic of the Catholics into the arms of the United Irishmen and may be regarded as the fatal turning-point in Irish history. We have now reached the events which led directly to the rebellion of 1798. The agrarian system, as we have seen, was radically unsound. The actual owner of the soil seldom made or directly paid for any improvement on his land — a custom which constituted one of the fundamental differences between Irish and English land-tenure — but left the work of making them to large tenants, who, in return, received great tracts at very low rents on leases for lives, sometimes renewable for ever on the payment of a small fine at the fall of each life, but more frequently extending over fifty, sixty, seventy, or even eighty years. By a series of "Timber Acts" the Irish Parliament John Jeffreys Pratt, second Earl and first Marquis of Camden (1759- 1 840). 48 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY had endeavoured to encourage planting by giving tenants for life or for years a partial or absolute property in the trees they planted. All this led to subletting (a tendency which was increased still more by the Catholic Relief Act of 1793), to fierce competition and to high rents, as well as to the system of "canting," or the putting up of farms to auction without regard to the claims of the old tenants. An increase of extravagance among the upper classes and larger tenants and a rise in the value of land had also lately become noticeable, and the raising of rents and greater subdivision of farms had followed as a natural consequence. Thus the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century witnessed a growing competition between landlord and tenant, although the salutary impetus which had been given to tillage by the Barren Land Act prevented evictions from increasing in the same proportion. On May 4, 1795, Grattan moved his Catholic Relief Bill in the Irish House of Commons, but it was rejected by 155 to 84. The policy of the Ascendency was now disclosed, and they began to direct their whole energies to exasperating the Catholics and rousing them to rebellion. This system of exacerbation was only too successful, and at the end of 1795 Catholic Defender Riots broke out in Armagh. Defenderism had become by this time strongly tinctured with political animus, and was associating itself more decidedly than ever with the United Irish movement into which it finally became absorbed in 1797. The original test of the United Irish Society, which bound them to unite to procure the fair representation of all the Irish people in Parliament, was changed in 1795 into an engagement to co-operate for the purpose of obtaining a fair representation of all the people — the words "in Parliament" being omitted from the formula. Thence- forward separation from England and a Republican Government was the deliberate aim of the principal leaders, but not the avowed object until a little later, when, at the conclusion of every United Irish meeting, the chairman had to inform the members of each society that " they had undertaken no light matter " and to ask every delegate present what were the views of his particular society, each individual being expected to reply — "A republican government and a separation from England." The fear of fusion between the Defenders and United Irishmen led the same year to the formation of the celebrated Orange Society as an instrument of mutual defence against the members of the hostile faith, and a hot persecution of Catholics followed in Armagh, which was in reality a con- tinuation of the old struggle between the Peep of Day Boys and Defenders and contrary to the policy of the United Irish Party, whose aim was to weld into co-operation the different BEFORE THE UNION 49 sections of the two creeds. The latter, therefore, made haste to spread the report that the Government was conniving at Orange outrages, in order to exasperate the Catholics against the men in power ; and this rumour was naturally swallowed very greedily both by Orangemen and friends of the Catholics, in the one case from a desire to lighten a load of dangerous responsibility by transferring it to the shoulders of official authority, in the other as an argument for the speedy disruption of the existing political system. In view of these disturbances a severe Insurrection Act was passed in 1796, which with a truly remarkable sense of doctrinal companionship was drawn up in such a manner as to exclude from the scope of its severity all the acts of outrage committed by Protestants. That these outrages were not imaginary is proved by the testimony of the thirty magistrates whom Lord Gosford, Governor of Armagh, called together on December 28, 1795, and who declared, with the mass of evidence at their disposal, that it was necessary to stay "the progress of the persecution now carried on by an ungovernable mob against the Roman Catholic inhabitants of this country." Lord Gosford in his written address stated that "neither age, nor sex, nor acknowledged innocence " obtained mercy. " Confiscation of all property and immediate banishment " were the doom of every Catholic. There was no parallel for the horrors and cruelty of a proscription by which " more than half the inhabitants of a populous county" were "deprived at one blow of the means as well as the fruits of their industry," and driven out " in the midst of an inclement season." Colonel Craddock who was sent by the Government to Armagh endorsed Gosford's view of the matter, declaring that the Protestants were guilty of barbarous practices which ought to be put down. Posters with the words " To Hell or Connaught " were fixed upon the cabins of the Catholics, and if the inmates declined to remove at .the bidding of their persecutors they soon had to fly from their burning roofs and seek shelter elsewhere. As Edward Wakefield wrote — "The enormities committed by the partisans of Government, at this time, were such as must disgrace our annals, tarnish the character, and stigmatize the memory of His Majesty's Ministers." An Indemnity Act was passed at the same time as the Insurrection Act in order to safeguard the magistrates and military officers in any steps they might think it advisable to take in pushing forward the persecution. There was no effort at concealment A certain frank brutality had always been the characteristic of dealings with the Irish race. A rebellion was 4 so IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY wanted, and it mattered little by what means it was kindled, or how extinguished. The chief point was that it should be sufficiently bloody. The Habeas Corpus Act was soon after- wards suspended, and the last plate inserted in the armour of Protestant ascendency. Lord Edward Fitzgerald ^ and Arthur O'Connor had meanwhile joined the Society of the United Irishmen, as well as Thomas Addis Emmett and Dr. William James MacNeven, a Dublin physician. These four men became members of the "Executive Directory" of the Society, and the volatile Lord Edward Fitzgerald was soon afterwards placed at the head of the military forces which were organized for the purpose of a rising. These deliberate preparations for civil war — the last expedient of an exasperated people — took definite shape in May 1796, after the passage of the Insurrection and Indemnity Acts and between the two sessions of Parliament. Rumours now commenced to reach the ears of the Govern- ment that a French invasion, to be followed by an Irish rebellion, was waiting only for a fair wind, and the enrolment of Yeomanry began apace. The invasion came in 1796. A French fleet of forty-three ships and 15,000 troops, commanded by Hoche and accompanied by Wolfe Tone, left the French coast on the 1 5th of December to reap one more harvest for the rights of man ; but through a series of misfortunes and the absence of its leader the expedition eventually terminated in a complete fiasco. Only sixteen sail arrived in Bantry Bay, where they lay for six days within five hundred yards of the shore. Grouchy was second in command, and refused to incur any responsibility, and thus, not for the last time in his life, threw the game away.^ During the crisis the vast majority of Irish Catholics did not betray the slightest desire to rid themselves of the English yoke, but, on the contrary, openly displayed their sympathies for Great Britain, a fact which ought to have disconcerted the assurance of their Protestant foes, who had attempted to palliate the cruel persecution of the Papists through the whole eighteenth century on the ground of their incurable disloyalty to the British flag.* On the 14th of October, 1797, William Orr was executed for his alleged action in administering the United Irishmen's oath in his own house to a soldier of the name of Wheatly. He was the first victim under the Act which made that offence a capital 1 Appendix XIIIc, Biographical Sketch. 2 Napoleon said at Sl Helena — " If Hoche had landed in Ireland, he would have succeeded. He possessed all the qualities necessary to insure success. He was accustomed to civil war, and knew how to conduct himself under such circumstances. He had pacified La Vendue, and was well adapted for Ireland. If Hoche had landed, Ireland was lost to you." ' Appendix XIV, extract from speech by J. P. Curran, and quotations from Edmund Spencer and Goldwin Smith. BEFORE THE UNION 51 felony, and there is practically no doubt whatever that he was convicted on perjured evidence and lowered into his grave a murdered man. The same year Finnerty was prosecuted for printing a letter on the 26th of October in the Press newspaper, signed Marcus, addressed to Lord Camden, and commenting on this travesty of justice. Curran, the famous advocate, who had stood up in Orr's defence, now defended Finnerty, and his speech on the occasion was universally considered one of the finest specimens of forensic pleading ever heard in a court of law.^ In 1797, amid growing anarchy in Ireland, the Absentee Tax Bill was introduced in the Irish Parliament, but through the influence of placemen summarily rejected. Another proposal made by Sir Lawrence Parsons shared the same fate. He moved for the creation of a force of Yeomanry or Militia to defend the country in view of the recent French attempt to land a body of troops in Ireland, but the Government had the dread of the Volunteers in their hearts, and the proposal was defeated. The condition of the country was now becoming very ominous, and with a view to meet any sudden danger a proclamation was issued by Lake placing Ireland under martial law, of which the Yeomanry in Ulster took immediate advantage by com- mitting nameless outrages against the Catholics, tturning down houses, and killing feeble old men and defenceless women.^ During the same year, Ponsonby, with that rare fortitude which refuses to bend before continually recurring defeat, introduced a series of resolutions in favour of the admission of Catholics to Parliament, as well as various franchise reforms. His proposals, however, were once more rejected on May 15, by 170 to 30 votes, and soon afterwards Parliament was adjourned. It was on this occasion that Henry Grattan, feeling the dull weight of despair at his heart, seeing the work to be done and the impossibility of doing it, left the incorrigible house and temporarily retired from Parliamentary life. Symptoms of disaffection now began to appear among the Militia which was composed mainly of Catholics. Cornwallis,^ who was offered the military command in Ireland, conscientiously declined it on grounds of policy, for, unlike his employers, he considered that a measure of emancipation should, in the presence of this imminent Catholic danger, be at once conceded to the Papists so as to wean them in time from co-operation with the Dissenters and their own treasonable desire for revenge. Rumours for the purpose of infuriating the Catholics continued to be spread by the United Irish Party to the effect that the outrages ' Appendix XIV, extract from speech by J. P. Curran, and quotations from Edmund Spencer and Goldwin Smith. ^ Appendix XIVa, quotations from W. N. Massey. Charles Cornwallis, first Marquis and second Earl Comwallis (1738-1805). 52 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY committed by Orangemen in Ulster were sanctioned by the Government in the hope of driving the Papists to frenzy and so to some desperate deed of vengeance, which might serve as an excuse for the annihilation of the whole Catholic community, and collisions occurred between the Yeomanry and Militia in consequence.^ Wolfe Tone had meanwhile been at The Hague planning with General Hoche a descent upon the Irish coast, and a Dutch expedition was preparing to sail to Ireland in order to feed the revolutionary flame. It was to have been commanded by Daendels. The naval force consisted of fifteen sail of the line, ten frigates, and many sloops and transports. The land force amounted to 13,500 men, with three months' pay and spare arms and ammunition. But during July and August 1797 it re- mained wind-bound in the Texel, and soon afterwards the Dutch fleet was shattered by Duncan at Camperdown and the expectations founded upon it sent to the bottom of the sea. Hoche, moreover, had also died, so that the hopes of the Irish foundered in two quarters at the same time. In the early part of 1797 Arthur O'Connor had been arrested on suspicion of trea.son, but liberated after a confinement of six months for want of sufficient evidence. In the beginning of 1798 he went with Binns, James Coigley, and Allen to England with the intention of sailing to France, but before they could effect their purpose they were arrested. All of them, however, were ac- quitted, except Coigley, who was executed on account of an incriminating document which was found upon him in the shape of an address from " the Secret Committee of England to the Executive Directory of France." By this time Sir Ralph Aber- cromby^ had succeeded Carhampton as Commander-in-Chief, and on February 26, 1798, issued his celebrated general order reflecting upon the gross ill-discipline of the army, little dream- ing how rude a blast can blow from a plain truth — " The very disgraceful frequency of courts-martial, and the many complaints of the conduct of the troops in this kingdom, having too unfortunately proved the army to be in a state of licentiousness, which must render it formidable to every one but the enemy ; the commander- in-chief thinks it necessary to demand from all generals commanding districts and brigades, as well as commanding officers of regiments, that they exert themselves, and compel, from all officers under their com- mand, the strictest and most unremitting attention to the discipline, good order, and conduct of their men ; such as may restore the high and distinguished reputation the British troops have been accustomed to enjoy in every part of the world. It becomes necessary to recur, and most pointedly to attend to the standing Arders of the kingdom, which 1 Appendix XlVli, Declaration!;. * Sir Ralph Abercromby (1734-1801). BEFORE THE UNION 53 at the same time that they direct military assistance to be given at the requisition of the civil magistrate, positively forbid the troops to act (but in case of attack) without his presence and authority ; and the most clear and precise orders are to be given to the officer commanding the party for this purpose." These strictures produced, as might have been expected, a wave of rage in Government circles, and a cabal against him was accordingly hatched. An honest man had been appointed by mistake, but it must be confessed in justice to the Government that the regrettable blunder was speedily repaired ; for soon afterwards, thwarted at every step by the tortuous intrigues of unscrupulous enemies, he resigned his post in disgust, and his resignation completed the fatal policy which the recall of Fitz- william had inaugurated and destroyed the last possibility of averting the catastrophe of 1798. It was not wonderful, indeed, that Abercrombie was unsuited to the taste of the Ascendency. He had declared that its gentry were uneducated — " Only occupied in eating and drinking and uttering their unmanly fears. They know that they have been oppressors of the poor, and that a day of vengeance is at hand." He stated that — " Within these twelve months every crime, every cruelty that could be committed by Cossacks and Calmucks has been- committed here." On April 23, 1798, he wrote to his son — " The late ridiculous farce " (/. e. orders to crush the Catholic rebellion) " acted by Lord Camden and his Cabinet must strike every one. They have declared the country in rebellion when the orders of his Excellency might be carried over the whole country by an orderly dragoon, or a writ executed without any difficulty, a few places in the mountains excepted." Pelham,! the Chief Secretary, was the next to leave Ireland. He, too, had tried to swim against the stream of corruption and persecution and the policy of goading the Irish to madness, but in vain ; and preferring to abandon his post to sacrificing his honour retired from the country on the eve of the rebellion. Castlereagh took his place at Dublin, at first in the capacity of a locum tenens and afterwards officially as Chief Secretary, and inaugurated that policy of political malignity which conferred upon him the rare and unenviable distinction of being, at the time of his death, equally feared and execrated on both sides of the Irish Channel. Abercrombie was succeeded by General Lake,^ who immediately threw himself into the arms of those very abuses which the former had attempted to check. The Thomas Pelham, afterwards second Earl of Chicester, Chief Secretary to Lord '-amden in Pitt's Ministry. Gerard Lake, first Viscount Lake of Delhi and Leswarree (1744-1808). 54 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY whole country was placed under martial law on March 30, and the atrocities of the military thus encouraged surpassed what can be decently set down in narrative. The country, which up till now had been comparatively quiet, was goaded to madness. Hanging and shooting were regarded as over-merciful, and fear- ful floggings, often a thousand lashes which tore off skin and muscles, were inflicted on the bare suspicion of anti-Ascendency sympathies : and who, in God's name, was not entitled to such sympathies in the face of this appalling provocation ? To extort confessions, the son was compelled to kneel under the father while the latter was being flogged, and the father under the son, whilst the blood spurted out upon them hot from the lash. Half- hanging was another form of torture, and picketing a third — a peculiarly diabolical invention by which the victim, strung up by one arm, was made to rest the weight of his body with bare foot upon a pointed stake. Hot pitch was poured into canvas caps which were pressed on the heads of the wretched sufferers and could not be removed from the inflamed and blistered sur- face without tearing off" both hair and skin. To devise new methods of ingenious torture for the Catholics was the amuse- ment of the Protestants during those leisure hours in which the body, wearied by the physical infliction of torment upon the Catholic victims, surrendered its energies to the brain. Was it extraordinary that human nature should rise up against such treatment, or that rebellion should have been embraced by the Catholics as the last escape from the extremity of their afflictions .' Accumulated evidence bears witness to the sufferings of these poor people at the hands of a brutal soldiery, and the callous indifference manifested towards these outrages by the officers in command. Lord Holland, in his Memoirs, writes that — " Many were sold at so much a head to the Prussians. . . . The fact is incontrovertible the people of Ireland were driven into resistance, which possibly they meditated before, by the free quarters and the excesses of the soldiers, which were such as are not permitted in civilized warfare, even in an enemy's country." In speaking of Wicklow, where he had been chiefly employed, Sir John Moore said — " That moderate treatment by the generals, and the preventing of the troops from pillaging and molesting the people would soon restore tranquillity, and the latter would certainly be quiet if the gentry and yeomen would only behave with tolerable decency, and not seek to gratify their ill-humour and revenge upon the poor." Major-General William Napier, commenting in the Edinburgh Review, on the life of Sir John Moore, and the indignation always expressed by the latter at the cruelties perpetrated by BEFORE THE UNION 55 the troops, and dwelling upon his own recollections at that period, wrote — "What manner of soldiers were thus let loose upon the wretched districts which the Ascendency-men were pleased to call disaffected ? They were men, to use the venerable Aber- crombie's words, who were ' formidable to everybody but the enemy.' We ourselves were young at the time ; yet being connected with the army, we were continually amongst the soldiers, listening with boyish eagerness to their conversation, and we well remember — and with horror to this day — the tales of lust, and blood, and pillage — the record of their own actions against the miserable peasantry — which they used to relate." In the Life of Lord Plunket there is the following description of a deed of savagery — " A justice of the peace for the county of Antrim, who was also a colonel of Yeomanry, added to many other vices a libertinism which he practised heartlessly among the wives and daughters of his poorer tenantry. One of his victims, a poor girl of eighteen, finding herself in a condition in which she had a claim at least for the protection of her seducer, applied to him for assistance. He not only refused this, but, on some frivolous pretext of complicity with the rebels, handed her over to his troops to be scourged. His brutal order was only too faithfully carried out. The poor woman died almost immediately after the infliction of the torture, having given birth to a still-born child." These atrocities, which might have shamed a Gunga Covin Singh, drove thousands of the Irish from a desperate sense of self-preservation into the asylum offered by the ranks of the United Irishmen. There was a short and ominous lull in Ulster before the storm, during which the conspiracy silently spread and the ranks of the United Irish filled, and then the great rebellion, which might never have occurred had Ireland been governed on Grattan's instead of on Clare's principles, and the Irish people not been hounded to desperation by a deliberate policy of cruel persecution, burst through its sluices and swept over the land.^ During the summer of 1797 a secretly-printed newspaper appeared, called the Union Star, with a man named Cox as editor, and openly advocated assassination. In December 1797 Cox turned informer, and told Cooke, the Under-Secretary, that Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor were acquainted with him and approved his designs. Through the activity of Appendix XIVc, quotations from Dr. Madden, the report of the Secret Com- mittee of Lords, and Lady Sarah Napier. 56 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Thomas Reynolds, the Government spy, and others, the arrest of thirteen delegates of the United Irishmen took place at Oliver Bond's house on March 12, 1798. May 23 was the date finally fixed for the general rising simultaneously in the four provinces. On May 1 1 the Government issued a proclamation offering a reward of ;^ 1,000 for Lord Edward's apprehension, and it was this offer that led to his capture on the information either of the Government spy, Francis Higgins, known as the " Sham Squire," and proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, or Francis Magan, the barrister. It had been decided to seize Lord Edward on his way to visit Magan from Thomas Street to Usher's Island, where the latter lived. The Town-Major, Sirr, with this object, posted his men in two parties, so as to intercept Fitzgerald and his comrades by whichever of the alternative routes they might choose. There was a fierce scuffle, and Fitzgerald escaped to the house of Murphy, a feather-merchant, where he had been given shelter before. His freedom, however, lasted but a short time, and he was finally captured on May 19, in Murphy's house in Thomas Street. He was lying in bed, with his coat off, when Town-Major Swan and Captain Ryan entered the room. He had in his hand a weapon which belonged probably to his negro servant, consisting of a strong blade, with a double waving edge, stuck in a coarse buck-horn handle. He severely wounded Swan, and stabbed Ryan mortally in the abdomen, when a shot fired from behind the door by Sirr dis- abled him. While thus helpless he received a sabre-wound across the neck. He died in prison of the wounds he had received, on June 9, 1798.^ No means were spared to stifle every suspect. Captain Armstrong, an officer of the Kildare Militia, particularly dis- tinguished himself in effecting the conviction of two brothers named John and Henry Sheares. Castlereagh had persuaded Armstrong to dine with these men at their house in Dublin in order to take advantage of his intimacy with them and to extract from their hospitable confidence and convivial expansion of heart sufficient information to convict and hang them.^ This he pro- ceeded to do with an exemplary attention to instructions on * William Cobbett told Pitt that Lord Edward Fitzgerald was "a most humane and excellent man and the only really honest officer he had ever known." His widow Pamela married the American Consul at Hamburg, and was afterwards separated from him. She died at length worth only ;^ioo. The Consul paid her debts, and the funeral was provided by her old playfellow, Madame Adelaide. * John Mitchel in his History of Ireland has the following passage — "In his (Captain Armstrong's) interview with Dr. Madden, touching some alleged inaccuracies in the work of the latter, he denied having caressed any children at Sheares'. He said ' he never recollected having seen the children at all ; but there was a young lady of about fifteen there, whom he met at dinner. The day he dined there (and he dined there only once), he was urged by Lord Castlereagh to do so. It was wrong to do so, and he (Captain Armstrong) was sorry for it ; but he was persuadea by Lord Castlereagh to go there to dine, for the purpose of getting further information. " BEFORE THE UNION 57 Sunday, May 20, 1798, sitting at the table of his hosts in the company of the two brothers, their aged mother, their sister, and the wife of one of them, who after dinner played to him on the harp. Having accumulated sufficient evidence for his purpose, the smiling fiend, gorged with food and loaded with kindness, then slunk from their roof and went out into the night. The next morning the Sheares were arrested, and soon afterwards hanged — a deed that for its low-bred and cowardly infamy has few equals in the history of any government The comparative tranquillity of Ulster during the greater period of the rising was due principally to the military govern- ment established there, the enthusiasm of the Orangemen, the failure of the French expedition to effect a landing, and in a minor degree, to what was considered the scurvy treatment of America by France, who had claimed the right to search and seize enemies' goods on board neutral vessels. After a period of protracted and painful suspense English reinforcements began to arrive in Ireland in June, and the rebel Irish were gradually drowned in their own revolutionary blood. No attempt was made to discriminate between the innocent and guilty. Every Catholic was deemed a traitor, every Protestant a loyalist in this carnival of butchery. General Lake wrote to Castlereagh — " The carnage was dreadful ; the determination of the troops to destroy every one they think a rebel is beyond description." Gordon, a Protestant clergyman, in his History of the Rebellion, says — " I have reason to think more men than fell in battle were slain in cold blood. No quarter was given to persons taken prisoners as rebels, with or without arms." On July 8, 1798, Cornwallis wrote to the Duke of Portland— " The Irish Militia are totally without discipline, contemptible before the enemy when any serious resistance is made to them, but ferocious and cruel in the extreme when any poor wretches, either with or without arms, come within their power — in short, murder appears to be their favourite pastime." On July 24 of the same year he wrote to Major-General Ross — "The Yeomanry are in the style of the Loyalists in America, only Much more numerous and powerful, and a thousand times more ferocious . inese men have saved the country, but they now take the lead in rapine and murder. The Irish Militia, with few officers, and those chiefly of 'he worst kinds, follow closely on the heels of the Yeomanry in murder and every kind of atrocity, and the fencibles take a share, although 58 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY much behind-hand with the others. The feeble outrs^es, burnings, and murders, which are still committed by the rebels, serve to keep up the sanguinary disposition on our side ; and as long as they furnish a pretext for our parties going in quest of them, I see no prospect of amendment." More than a year later, on November 6, 1799, Cornwallis again wrote to Ross, that — " The vilest informers are hunted out from the prisons to attack, by the most barefaced perjury, the lives of all who are suspected of being, or of having been, disaffected ; and, indeed, every Roman Catholic of influence is in the greatest danger." In two respects especially the conduct of the military compared unfavourably with that of the insurgents. It was acknowledged by friend and foe that the latter abstained to a remarkable degree from outrages on women, whilst the Pro- testant troops disgraced their religion as well as their humanity by their cowardly violations of female honour. The rebels, moreover, very rarely attacked any Protestant places of worship. They kept their hands from the symbols of the religion whose followers had blasted their country for a century. The church of Old Ross was probably the only one which they deliberately burnt, although in the general conflagration of a mass of meaner build- ings others may have been unthinkingly destroyed or plundered. There were huge districts, however, over which not a single Catholic chapel was left standing by the Protestant troops. Not contented with rape, they glutted their cruelty with sacrilege ; and Archbishop Troy drew up a list of thirty-six Catholic chapels that were destroyed in six counties of Leinster alone. Yet the Catholics were expected to reverse the human passions and fawn upon the power that so cruelly distressed them. And this was the work of the rulers of Ireland. This was the intro- duction to the nineteenth century, this the bloody prolusion to Emmett and O'Brien, to the Fenians and Phoenix Park, and the difficulties that were to follow them. Molyneux, Swift, Lucas, Flood, Burke, and Grattan — had they all lived in vain ? It seemed so.* Meanwhile Wolfe Tone had been in Paris urging the French Government to organize another expedition to Ireland. This third projected expedition under Kilmaine was frustrated by the impatience of General Humbert, who with a few frigates, 1,000 men, 1,000 muskets, and 1,000 guineas sailed prematurely from Rochelle. He eflTected a landing at Killala while the rebellion was still smouldering, on August 22, 1798, and, before his final defeat by the forces which were poured into the district every day, routed a British force overwhelmingly superior in * Appendix XV, extract from a speech by Sheridan. BEFORE THE UNION 59 numbers to himself. The soldiers under Genera! Lake ran like hares before the veteran troops of France, and the " Race of Castlebar" is generally omitted from the expurgated annals of their military glory.^ On September 20 a fresh expedition left the shores of France. It set sail from the Bay of Camaret, and consisted of the Hoche, eight frigates, and one schooner under Commodore Bompart, and 3,000 men commanded by General Hardy. The fleet was dispersed by a storm, and on October 10 the Hoche, two frigates, and the schooner were signalled by Sir John Borlase Warren in the Bay of Lough Swilly. I3ut before the troops were able to effect a landing they were attacked by an English squadron and defeated, Bompart fighting till the Hoche was a wreck. Several of the officers who were taken prisoners were brought to Lord Cavan's house on Lough Swilly, and amongst them was Theobald Wolfe Tone. Sir George Hill,^ one of his old college friends, who was staying in the house, immediately recognized him and made him known ; whereupon he was sent to Dublin to be tried for the crime of rebellion. John Philpot Curran, who pleaded his cause, moved for a writ of habeas corpus, and obtained it ; but before it could reach its destination, Tone cut his own throat in prison in order to escape the disgrace of a public execution, and he died very soon afterwards from the effects. He was buried in the churchyard of Bodenstown, near the village of Sallins, about eighteen miles from Dublin, He was the ablest of the revolu- tionists, bold and enthusiastic ; but there was a lamentable lack of judgment in his composition, and he measured the chances of success rather by the dash and recklessness of his temperament than by the unpopular rule of probabilities. His diary is so entertaining and so original, his lively humour so full of observa- tion, that had he not been a rebel he might have been a Sterne. The fate of the other revolutionary leaders was as might have been expected. Bagenal Harvey, of Bargy Castle, and Anthony Perry, both of them Protestant gentlemen of large means and distinguished position, were publicly hanged. The two brothers Sheares, who had fallen into the trap so vilely laid for them by Captain Armstrong and Castlereagh, were also executed. M'Cann suffered the same fate. Oliver Bond died in Newgate, and Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet,^ and MacNevin were banished from the kingdom. The rebellion was over. It had been all that could be desired, and Ireland's governors now sat down to the strains of " He's a jolly good fellow " to devise with the heartiest good-will a project for the happiness of the Irish people. ^ Appendix XVI, quotation from Jonah Barrington. Some accounts say it was Sir George Hill's brother. He was an able man, a brother of Robert Emmet, and afterwards became Attorney-General of the State of New York. CHAPTER II THE ACT OF UNION, 1801 "Such are the arguments that are used (against the Irish) both publicly and privately, in every discussion upon this point. 'Ihey are generally full of passion and of error, and built upon facts which in themselves are most false. It cannot, I confess, be denied, that those miserable jxirformances, which go about under the names of histories of Ireland, do indeed represent those events after this manner ; and they would persuade us, contrary to the known order of nature, that indulgence and moderation in governors is the natural incitement in subjects to rebel. But there is an interior history of Ireland, the genuine voice of its records and monuments, which speaks a very different language from these histories, from Temple and from Clarendon ; these restore nature to its just rights, and policy to its proper order. For they even now show to those who have been at the pains to examine them, and they may show one day to all the world, that these rebellions were not produced by toler- ation, but by persecution ; that they arose not from just and mild government, but from the most unparalleled oppression." — Edmund Burke (7>ar/j on the Popery Laws). Dr. Johnson, discussing the subject of a Union between the English and Irish Legislatures, once said to an Irishman — " Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you only to rob you ; we should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them." The remark is noteworthy and forms a particularly appro- priate introduction to a consideration of the Union. The learned lexicographer seems thus to have been of much the same opinion as " Junius," who wrote in the celebrated letter to the King — " The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and oppressed." In 1703, and again in 1707, the Irish Parliament had advocated a Union of the Legislatures of Great Britain and Ireland, but their proposals had been rejected with contempt, and a long period of commercial restrictions, penal laws, and complete parliamentary servitude had followed. In 1759 a report was spread that a Union was in contemplation, but so unpopular was the idea, that some of the members of the Irish Parliament were seized by the mob in Dublin and compelled to swear that they would vote against any measure of the sort. The failure of the commercial propositions in 1785 was very unfortunate for the immediate prospect of a Union, as the Irish were embittered by the mutilation of their Bill by the English Parliament, and realized that a union would probably mean a 60 THE ACT OF UNION 6i one-sided arrangement to the detriment of their commercial interests, and might also involve an assimilation of taxation and the growth of absenteeism. Grattan, the great paraclete of their enfranchisement, had also scented in the amended commercial propositions of 1785 an embryo Union which he shrank from. In fact, before 1785, and up to the rebellion of 1798, the Irish had disliked the idea of a measure of the kind and clearly shown their aversion by the way in which they greeted and afterwards cherished the Act of Independence of 1782. English statesmen, on the contrary, began soon after 1785 to desire such a consum- mation, for they felt, in view of the Act of Independence of 1782 and the Renunciation Act of 1783, that it would be hazardous for the integrity of the Empire to make too many concessions to Ireland without it ; and this feeling was increased after 1793, when the Catholics were given the franchise and the large political power which it entailed. The Irish Parliament of 1782, however, was, notwithstanding its anti-Union proclivities, per- fectly loyal to England as a whole, and essentially an assembly of the leading landed gentry ; but it was determined to preserve its independence, and this resolution was intensified during the last decades of the eighteenth century. The recall of Fitzwilliam in 1795 gave the final impulse to Catholic disloyalty. " The cup of concession," as Sheridan said, "was just presented to their lips, but, instead of permitting them to taste it, it was dashed in their faces," and this temper was aggravated by an unfortunate passage in one of Portland's^ dispatches, in which he remarked that the postponement of the Catholic Relief Bill would be "the means of doing a greater service to the British Empire than it has been capable of re- ceiving since the Revolution, or at least since the Union," — an observation which reflected the attitude of Ireland's rulers towards her, and displayed the spirit of intolerance which she was doomed to combat. Then came the Rebellion of 1798, which was so cruelly suppressed, and which several writers of distinction accused Ireland's governors of having stirred up in the belief that they would never be able to secure a Union of the two countries without a national convulsion, which would shake the social fabric to its base and thus necessitate a readjustment of the whole form of government.^ The Rebellion of 1798 and the danger of foreign invasion brought about a change of feeling among a good many persons in Ireland ; for many Catholics, and in a lesser degree Pro- testants, were forced into a favourable view of a Union, afraid, 'William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, third Duke of Portland, twice Prime Minister, and at this time Home Secretary in Pitt's Ministry. Appendix XVIa, quotation from Tliomas Newenham : opinion of Miss ■fc-dgeworth. 62 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY as they were, one of the other. The germ of the idea of a Legislative Union in the mind of Pitt had already shown itself in a letter to Westmorland^ in November, 1792, in which he said — " The idea of the present fermentation gradually bringing both parties to think of a union with this country has long been in my mind. I hardly dare flatter myself with the hope of its taking place, but I believe it, though itself not easy to be accomplished, to be the only solution for other and greater difficulties." But the first formal discussion by Pitt in favour of such a step did not take place until nearly six years later, in June 1798. In a letter to Auckland ^ in that year he said that he had lately been discussing with Lord Granville the expediency of taking steps for carrying a Union immediately after the suppression of the rebellion. However, Cornwallis,^ in view of the great ferment of men's minds, thought it dangerous to propose the question yet, and was of opinion that, when the time came for that measure, an act enfranchising the Catholics ought to accompany it. Clare, on the other hand, hard-grained, masterful, and ambitious, was in favour of an immediate Union, and crossed over to England in October 1798 to urge it upon the Prime Minister and his colleagues, but on the one condition that Catholic emancipation should not be concurrently conceded, and his view prevailed with Pitt. From this time forward Ireland was doggedly wooed to a Union and experienced a courtship which gave her a foretaste of her married life. About the same period Edward Cooke, the Under-Secretary in Ireland, published a pamphlet, drawn up at the desire of the Government, advocating a union of the two countries for the following reasons. He argued that great benefits had resulted from the Union of Wales and Scotland ; that the great power of France would find a counterpoise in a united empire ; that the British Cabinet and the Parliament sitting in London would be strongly influenced by the opinions and the ability of Irish members • that partial laws and restrictions in favour of Great Britain alone would come to an end ; that the value of Irish estates would rise with the increase of security ; that the Irish Protestants, being incorporated with those of Great Britain, would form a majority, and not as at present a minority ; and that an opening would also be afforded to the Catholics for various * John Fane, tenth Earl of Westmorland, Lord- Lieutenant from January 1790 to January 1795. '^ William Eden, first Lord Auckland. At this time joint Postmaster-General in Pitt's Ministry. ^ Charles Cornwaliis, first Marquis and second Earl Cornwallis ; Governor- General of India during the Third Mysore War. THE ACT OF UNION 63 gratifying privileges. John Foster,^ on the contrary, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was opposed to a Union, and he had the Irish Bar on his side. One hundred and ninety-eight members of the latter met together to discuss the question on December 9, 1798, and by a majority of 134 they decided to oppose the suggestion at the present juncture on the following grounds. They alleged that the payment of priests and the commutation of tithes could be effected without the accomplish- ment of a Union — an argument not to be despised ; that such a measure would bring in its train an increase of taxation, as the debt of England was much greater than that of the smaller island ; that the Loyalists of Ireland were already as loyal as they could be, and that a Union could not make them more so ; that an increase of disaffection would be caused among those classes already disaffected to the British rule ; that the parallel urged between the Scottish and Irish Unions was fallacious, as the conditions were entirely different in the present case ; and that the Irish Parliament would be utterly unable to carry a legislative Union in the teeth of national opposition. The opponents of a Union did not recognize, however, how greatly the revived religious and social antagonism produced by the rebellion had aggravated the difficulty of self-government in Ireland. The Catholics before 1785 had been ready to support a measure of the kind, as they looked forward to their own emancipation, the darling of their hopes, which they believed would accompany it ; but after the recall of Fitzwilliam, they veered round, and between the end of 1798 and the beginning of 1799 realized that there was no chance of the boon of freedom being given to them. And they were right, for, as we have seen, Clare had influenced Pitt to effect a Union on a purely Pro- testant basis. This change of opinion caused Sir George Shee in 1799. one of the most active and loyal of the Irish magistrates, to advise a postponement of the measure until the agitation caused by the idea of it had subsided. But the English Govern- ment were aware that the unusual ferment consequent upon rebellion was their opportunity, and they instructed the Lord- Lieutenant to make it known that a Union would on the contrary be pressed forward. The next move was a proposal on the part of the Government to endow the Irish Catholic priests in order to gain their support for the intended Bill. The bribe would have proved insufficient in any case, but the Government were afraid of their own proposal and the suggestion was not carried out. The Irish Parliament met in January 1799, and an amend- nient to the Address proposed by George Ponsonby,^ and ^ Afterwards Lord Oriel. George Ponsonby, afterwards member for Wicklow County in the Imperial parliament, and made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1806. Died in 1817. 64 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY seconded by Sir Lawrence Parsons, advocating separate Legislatures was rejected by a majority of only one, whilst the clause in the Address respecting the intended Union was, on the motion of Parsons, defeated by five votes. Thus the inde- pendent members of the Irish Parliament were clearly opposed to a Union with Great Britain. Thereupon Ponsonby moved — " That this House will ever maintain the undoubted birthright of Irishmen, by preserving an independent Parliament of Lords and Commons residing in this kingdom, as stated and approved by His Majesty and the British Parliament in 1782." But, although Ponsonby's supporters had voted against the Union clause of the Address, they flinched at the last moment. They were afraid of estranging the Court party for ever and were tempted by Government bribes, and having observed with chagrin the change of the tide, Ponsonby decided to withdraw his motion. As Sir Henry Cavendish remarked — " It was a retreat after a victory." During the same Session the Loyalist Claim Bill was passed which charged Ireland with more than a million sterling to compensate " Loyalists " who had suffered by the insurrection. An attempt was also made to pass a " Rebel Disqualification Bill " for preventing persons who had ever taken the oath of the United Irishmen from voting for members to serve in Parliament; but the proposed disfranchisement was defeated at the second reading. Before the adjournment of the Irish Parliament the anti-Unionists introduced a Regency Bill providing that the Regency in Ireland should always be exercised by the same person who should be Regent of England. They thought thus to deprive the Unionists of their argument ; but Castlereagh opposed the proposal, and the measure was rejected. It was about this time that Castlereagh wrote to Portland enumerating the Irish votes at the disposal of the Government. Although the letter was suppressed in the " Cornwallis Correspondence " as derogatory to the dignity of Government, an analysis is given of it there — Voted with Government on the Address, or on the Report. 113 Friends absent ......... 39 152 Voted against, who had been expected to vote for (most of them having distinctly promised support) . . .22 Voted against or absent enemies .129 Of these might be bought off ... . . . 20 Vacancies. ... 7 178 THE ACT OF UNION 65 Thus leaving, according to Castlcreagh, a majority of at least nineteen against the Union. During the same year the question was debated in the English Parliament. On the 22nd of January, 1799, a message from the Sovereign recommending a Union had been delivered to the Upper House by Lord Grenville, and the same day a similar one was presented to the Commons by Henry Dundas.^ On the strength of these Pitt brought forward the measure of the Union on January 31, and his resolutions having passed through both Houses were embodied in an address which was finally adopted by Parliament. During his speech on this occasion he betrayed a remarkable want of prescience. He said — " Among the great and known defects of Ireland, one of the most prominent features is its want of industry and of capital. How are these wants to be supplied, but by blending more closely with Ireland the industry and capital of Great Britain ? " How well the blend has succeeded may be seen throughout the whole history of the nineteenth century. But Pitt possessed a curiously small measure of political foresight for such an astute politician, and this instance of his shortsightedness does not stand alone. For he was the statesman who reduced the revenue of his country and the resources of the Exchequer a few months before the most expensive war in English history, and the financial prophet who cut such a sorry figure in the sinking-fund scheme. Has the reader perchance ever perused the younger Pitt's speeches ? If not, let him pause before adventuring upon them. The author unfortunately has read them hoping to find therein some matter of entertainment or instruction ; but hardly a sentence or a phrase has remained even involuntarily in his recollection. Cold, formal, stately verbiage, they were the image of the man himself — intellect without genius, ambition without enthusiasm, scholarship with- out originality, pride without passion, and morality without love. The English Government were now beginning to be afraid lest the Castle should make concessions to the Catholics, and thus neutralize one of the reasons which inclined the latter to support a Union. They also feared lest the Protestants should join hands with the Catholics and promise to secure emancipa- tion for them in return for Catholic help in fighting the Union. These considerations made Ministers all the more anxious to accelerate the negotiations with the Irish Parliament and effect their desired object before any complications could arise. Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville. Impeached by the Commons in 1805, out acquitted by the Peers. 66 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Castlereagh, therefore, who had succeeded Pelham as Chief Secretary, followed in Pitt's footsteps, and argued in favour of a Union that in the future England could not defend Ireland for nothing, and that the latter country would have to contribute towards the cost of wars and other eventualities, which she would not willingly do, unless she possessed members sitting in the Parliament of England who would represent her on the spot and be able to influence the discussion of those matters which touched her interests. Foster, on the other hand, keeping to his original opinions, maintained that the legislation of 1782 and 1783 was a final adjustment of the relations between the two countries ; that, as the Cabinet in England was answerable to the British nation that no Irish law injurious to the Empire should receive the Royal Assent, the Union was unnecessary as a safeguard in this respect ; that an Irish Parliament on the spot was much more alive to the welfare of the Irish people than any number of Irish members sitting many miles away in London ; and that, as there had been enormous commercial progress since the Act of Independence of 1782, there was sufficient evidence on this score alone to prove that the Irish Constitution since that date was all that could be wished for. It was about this time that the old houghing outrages reappeared, and many districts suffered severely from them. They were largely owing to the memory of the military enormities during the suppression of the rebellion, as well as to the rack-rents, and the insatiable greed of the middlemen who devoured the substance of the poorer classes. As a consequence of the disorder a Coercion Act was passed in 1799, which placed Ireland at the will of the Lord-Lieutenant formally and legally under martial law, notwithstanding the activity of the ordinary courts of justice which remained open as usual. Soon after- wards, in the same year, a Regency Bill was brought forward in the Irish Parliament in order to supply an omission in the law observable in 1798 and also for the purpose of destroying part of the case for a Union. It asserted in the strongest terms the dependence of the Crown of Ireland on that of England and the inseparable connection of the two countries, and enacted that the person who was ipso facto Regent of England should always be, with the same powers. Regent de jure in Ireland. The Bill was, however, on the motion of Castlereagh, who particularly disliked any addition of argument to the armoury of the anti-Unionists, ultimately postponed. Shortly before the prorogation of the Irish Parliament an Act of Indemnity had been passed at the instance of the Government, and without the least opposition, for the purpose of shielding such miscreants as Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald from the penalties of the law. This scoundrel, a Protestant magistrate THE ACT OF UNION 6; of Tipperary, had made it his usual practice during the rebellion to whip, torture, and murder Catholics without the slightest semblance of proof or even probability of guilt. His customary method was to seize persons whom he chose to suspect of revolutionary tendencies, or whom he wished from a cold- blooded malice to maltreat, and by dint of the lash and threats of a horrible death to extort from them in their agony of mind and body confessions of imaginary guilt or accusations of other persons. In the case of a certain Mr. Wright he commanded his victim to be torn with 500 lashes and then to be shot ; but during the actual process of scourging it turned out from a paper found upon the person of the sufferer that the latter was wholly innocent of the offences imputed to him. Fitzgerald, neverthe- less, ordered the lashing to be continued, till at length the quivering entrails of the victim became visible through the lacerated flesh. The hangman was then urged to apply his thongs to a part of the body that had not yet been flayed, while Fitzgerald himself hurried off to procure an order from the commanding officer to put his prisoner to death.^ This, however, was not granted, and Wright was ultimately set at liberty. When Fitzgerald stood at length upon his trial for his manifold offences, the character of the man became even more apparent than before. He had the shameless audacity to name with exultation several persons whom he had flogged under still more aggravated circumstances, and mentioned one man who had cut his own throat in order to escape the horrors and ignominy of undeserved torture. But in spite of this phenomenal depravity he was acquitted. The Act of Indemnity, thanks to the maudlin compassion of a Protestant Parliament, shielded him from the arm of justice, and on being recommended for his signal services to the special favour of the Crown he was created a Baronet of the United Kingdom with a considerable pension. Although Fitzgerald's case was peculiarly notorious, it was proved beyond a doubt that many other Protestants in a position of authority had caused Catholics to be cruelly tortured, and that the custom was a common one.^ Complaints now arose that the priests were forcing Catholic peasants to withdraw their children from Protestant schools, and whether these were well founded or not, they contributed to the fuel which was feeding the desire of the English Government for a settlement of the great question, and an Address in favour of the Union passed the English Parliament about this time with- out any opposition. The instrument of bribery was also employed with unscrupulous and unflagging zeal. Comwallis An order as cruel as that ascribed to Caligula by Suetonius—" Ita feri ut se tnori ^ AppendixXVlB.quotationsfrom W.N.Massey, Dr. Madden,and Lord Comwallis. 68 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY wrote to Alexander Ross, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, on May 20, 1799, that it was the wish of his life to "avoid all this dirty business," and on January 21 he wrote to the same man — " My occupation is now of the most unpleasant nature — negotiating and jobbing with the most corrupt people under heaven. I despise and hate myself every hour for engaging in such dirty work. . . . " ^ These were the means the Government employed to force the union of the two Legislatures. They were not unversed in the art. A long succession of Ministers had been past-masters in corruption, and now their tool, up to his elbows in this shame- ful commerce, though loudly lamenting the dishonourable part he had to play, was still not ashamed to play it. An accommo- dating sense of duty and an easy political virtue led directly to riches and to place, and peerages and offices were lavished among the supporters of the Government with as much regard to personal merit as when a carcass is flung to a pack of wolves to keep them busy awhile. Provision was made in addition that compensation should be allowed to the holders of Irish nomina- tion boroughs, and everything in the gift of the Crown in Ireland was devoted without stint to the single-minded object of buying placemen and bribing the owners of influence. The recalcitrant, on the other hand, were got out of the way. Sir John Parnell, one of the most stubborn of the opponents of a Union, being stripped of his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt was even . huckstering for petitions in favour of the Union in order to putr I a decent colour on the jobbery, but, like some too prosperous- looking beggar, he returned almost empty handed. There was plenty of the article against the measure, but scarcely any for it.^ At all costs the Union must be pushed forward, for without it English Ministers believed that the disaflfected Irish would succeed in effecting a separation between England and Ireland, and this fear was the real foundation of the policy they had set themselves to carry out. Meanwhile there was a wide-spread anxiety in Ireland lest a Union should bring with it equality of taxation in the two countries, that is to say, the raising of the taxation of Ireland to the much higher level of that of England. On January 15, 1800, commenced the memorable last session of the Irish Parliament, and Grattan, who was now but the shadow of his former self, made his re-appearance, wrapped in a blanket and supported by two members, in order to follow the corpse of the old assembly to the grave. Although weak with illness, he * Appendix XVIc, further extracts from letters of Cornwallis. ^ Appendix XVII, extract from speech hy Lord Grey. THE ACT OF UNION 69 was still full of the old fire, and poured forth his eloquence on Sir Lawrence Parsons' amendment to the Address in favour of maintaining an independent Parliament. But Parsons' amend- ment was rejected by a majority of forty-two. Meanwhile the Irish Government insisted that the maintenance of the Irish Established Church should be made an article of distinct treaty obligation, and guaranteed as a fundamental portion of the compact under which the Union was to take place. A message not long afterwards arrived from the King recommending a Union, which was delivered to the Parliament by the Lord- Lieutenant ; and Castlereagh in an elaborate speech brought forward his Union resolutions. Grattan opposed the committal of the Bill on May 26 with consummate eloquence, and crowned a noble oration with one of his noblest perorations.^ But it required more than eloquence to snatch the prize from the briber. It had not been without a deal of greasing that the Parliament had surrendered its independence, and was one man's probity to restore it .' It was not likely. The Ministers had fouled their hands, and the Irish members were traitors, but they were not bad business men over a deal, and the money having changed pockets, the bargain was closed. Castlereagh's resolutions, therefore, were carried in the Irish Commons ; whilst Clare's resolutions to the same effect passed with even less difficulty through the Irish House of Lords. Thus the die was cast in Ireland in spite of Grattan's patriot speeches and another eloquent oration by Foster as a last tribute to the cause. The Union had been smuggled out of Pitt's desk under a heap of titles and other patronage, and when sufficient bribes had been stuffed into the mouths of gaping Irish members, a passive and purchased senate had duly recorded its mercenary vote. The Articles of Union having passed both Houses of the Irish Parliament were sent to England for ratification, and after being agreed to were returned to the Irish Parliament for the final stages. It was at the death- bed of the Irish Parliament that William Conyngham Plunket, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor, made a celebrated speech denying the competency of Parliament to abolish the 'Appendix XVIIa, extract from spaecli by Grattan. Orattan's speeches as literary efforts are not of the highest order. They are not t^h° fi"" "^''l^^"^ are they very pohshed. But as rhetorical masterpieces they are in . ^ l^^^' ^"^f'ca'j graphic, ebullient as a mountain stream, by turns declama- ry. pathetic, pleading, scornful, witty — they sweep almost every chord of the human passions, and there is no orator in the English tongue whose orations read aloud can har^^^-^" ^l?dience more with their vivid imagerj' than those of Grattan. When we antith • ' ^^ ^'^^^ ^'^ nearly everything. Their weakness is a surcharge of of re^' *" ^^^gei^tion of sentiment, a tenuity of fibre, an occasional shallowness great "'"^ »nd a judgment dominated by the orator's art. But Grattan's is a hgnou"^"*^ symbolic of tumultuous and patriotic eloquence, and as such is worthy of 70 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Irish legislature.^ The arguments he used were unanswerable. The Act of Union was unconstitutional to the core. The Irish Parliament had been elected for certain purposes of government, and no other, and they could no more annihilate their own existence and the power of the people to elect them or any other representatives they might choose, without submitting such a policy for their country's consideration, than a landlord's agent would have the right to give away his property to a stranger. And did we hear that an agent had been so wanting in the knowledge of his craft and the principles of property as to commit such an act, we should expect to see the landlord summarily eject the adventurer and resume his land. He would have the right to do so, and would be a fool if he did not.^ The Irish Opposition now took the opportunity to present an address against the measure to the English Parliament, in order to place a record of their case upon the journals of that house. But the address was rejected, and was in truth but a half-hearted demonstration from the first. In fact, the growing apathy of the Irish nation was the only condition which made it at all possible for the Union to be carried, and this is one of the most curious features of the time. Clare once said that the Irish were "a people easily roused and easily appeased," and this trait was never more clearly shown than at the election which took place after the Union, when the question does not seem to have held any prominent position among the other ' Appendix XVIIb, extract from speech by Plunket. * Fox said at the Whig Club during the debates on the Union — "The whole scheme (the Union) goes upon that false and abominable presumption that we can legislate better for the Irish than they can do for themselves — a principle founded upon the most arrc^ant despotism and tyranny. . . . There is no maxim more true in philosophy or politics than the great moral doctrine, ' Do as you would be done by.' What Englishman would submit to see his destiny regulated and his affairs conducted by persons chosen for Belfast or Limerick ? . . . We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation, in whose feelings and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have no sympathy. It can only be attempted on the principle of the most arrogant despotism. Fox's speeches were so imperfectly reported and have been confided in so truncated a condition to the care of posterity, that little literary pleasure is now to be derived from them. But his oratorical style could never have been highly wrought. His ideas started from him like a torrent, issuing from his heart rather than from his reason, and whatever shape they may have assumed in the furnace of his passion? was due more to nature than to study. He had no time to gild the statue of Liberty when its destroyers were battering the pedestal. His ardent soul and large humanity could not be riveted by formalism. They scorned the elaborate and vapid periods of a Pitt, and his enthusiasm, like a broad and swift river welling up from its deep source, gathered its forces as it flowed, and poured its impetuous volume in un- conscious power and sublime prodigality in defence of the poor, the feeble, and the oppressed. Generosity, truth, courage, and hatred of injustice, under whatever form, were the chief characteristics of Fox's speeches. They were admirably adapted to the moment of their delivery, and for that veiy reason it is improbable that, could we even restore them in their original integrity, they would perceptibly add to »'* reputation. That reputation rests upon a more stable basis — the contemporar)' testimony of friend and foe. THE ACT OF UNION yt controversies, and it was stated that not a single member who had voted for the Union was for that reason deprived of his seat. But the riddle is explicable. The Catholics believed that emancipation was assured to them. They had kept their hands off the Bill of Union on the faith of a Minister's word, and it was not until some time after its consummation that they discovered their betrayal. The measure finally passed through its last stages in the Irish Parliament, and then the English one, and received the Royal Assent in 1800; the occasion being made use of to drop the gratifying but false title of " King of France." The Act of Union, in the shape in which it eventually became law, leftras before described, the expectations of Catholic Ireland out of its scope. It made no provision for the commutation of tithes, nor for the endowment of the Catholic priesthood, nor was the question of Catholic Emancipation even referred to. Bribery had done its work, and Pitt in order to insure the passage of the Bill had even gone so far as to let it be distinctly understood by the Catholics that no measure of relief would ever be permitted to become law in an Irish Parliament. Castlereagh had also been informed by his employers that the principle of Catholic Emancipation was approved by the Cabinet, and Cornwallis on the strength of these and similar assurances had not hesitated to call forth all available support on behalf of a Union. That is to say, the Catholic Irish were deluded into the belief that the Union was to be made the door to their liberty, and Pitt deliberately gained his end by the aid of shameless corruption and those promises which he knew perfectly well would never be fulfilled.^ But Pitt's hints and promises, on the faith of which the Irish Catholics had sur- rendered a Constitution, proved to be mere dust thrown in their eyes, a crutch thrown to a cripple to help him out of the way, and then broken across his shoulders when of no more use. It was not, therefore, to be expected that the Irish would regard with any particular affection the motherly features of the British Constitution, or be eager to implant in the breasts of their children a traditional respect for the august code of British honour. They would be more likely, unfortunate and mistaken creatures, to conjure their children to follow in the Tins is clear from what Lord Clare wrote to Castlereagh before the measure was introduced—"! have seen Mr. Pitt, the Chancellor, and the Duke of Portland, who seem to feel very sensibly the critical situation of our damnable country and that the Union alone can save it. I should have hoped that what has passed would have opened the eyes of every man in England to the insanity of their present conduct Avith nw' '° *^^ Papists of Ireland, but I can very plainly perceive that they were as lull of their Popish projects as ever. I trust and hope I am not deceived that they "^K u'^ inclined to give them up and to bring the measure forward unencumbered With the doctrines of emancipation. Lord Cornwallis has intimated his acquiescence on that point, and Mr. Pitt is decided on it." 72 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY steps of the gallant Volunteers ; to regard the rulers of Ireland as a sort of syndicate, in which fraud was only considered dis- honest and jobbery reprehensible when detrimental to the members in their corporate capacity, and where lust of money and contempt for any character different to their own was taken for prudence and a sure proof of patriotism — a syndicate, in fine, from whom concessions to justice and morality could never be extorted except under the influence of interest or fear.^ '• By the Act of Union, which was to take effect from the first of January i8oi, the Irish House of Lords was abolished, but it was provided that Ireland was to be represented in the Imperial Upper House by twenty-eight Peers elected for life and by four Prelates of the Established Church ; whilst the Irish Peers were to retain their titles. The Irish House of Commons was also extinguished, together with two hundred of the Irish seats ; but the Irish counties were to return sixty-four, and the Irish boroughs and University thirty-six members, that is to say, a hundred members in all to the Imperial Parliament ; the huge sum in compensation to the Irish borough-mongers on the loss of their seats being charged to the Irish National Debt. At the same time all prohibitions and bounties on the export of articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture of either country, were removed. The perpetual maintenance of the Established Church of Ireland was made a fundamental part of the Union. In regard to the future financial arrangements of the two countries, Pitt resolved to " assimilate Great Britain and Ireland ultimately in finance," and the Act accordingly provided that Ireland should contribute yyths of the whole expenditure of the State, or about 12 per cent.; which thus left England and Scotland to contribute on their side about 88 per cent. The treaty also empowered Parliament, should the debts of Great Britain and Ireland be extinguished, or the contributions thus adjusted become to the debts in the same proportion, to change the pre- sent order of things, and bring Ireland under the existing fiscal system. This procedure, however, was to be expressly subject to the proviso that Ireland, and, indeed, Scotland, should have special " exemptions and abatements " of taxation, were the cir- cumstances of the case to require it ; that is to say, as Pitt and Castlereagh frequently stated, Ireland was not to be unfairly taxed out of proportion to her resources. In accordance with the bargain which had been struck with the Irish Parliament, a sum of .^1,260,000 was distributed among the proprietors of 84 disfranchised boroughs, returning 168 members; £^,$00 being the amount awarded for each seat. Every member who had paid for this seat had the purchase money returned by the * Appendix XVIIc, extract from speech by Charles Kendal Bushe, etc. THE ACT OF UNION 73 Government, Twenty-two Irish peerages were also created ; five Irish peers received English peerages, and twenty-two peers were advanced to higher titles in the Irish peerage. A multi- tude of other offices, honours, and emoluments were likewise scattered among the supporters of the Government. In this manner was bought with money, place, and promise the celebrated Irish Union, which Curran predicted would mean the emigration of every man of consequence from Ireland, a participation of British taxes without British trade, and the extinction of the Irish name as a people.^ The sting in the wound was not so much that Ireland had been deprived of her Parliament, but that her rulers had bribed her own represent- atives to betray her. She never forgot this, and it seemed to be a sort of judgment upon the conduct of those rulers on that occasion that for many years she infected their Parliament at Westminster with the least worthy element of the Irish nation.^ The persuasion of the Irish people that " Catholic Emancipa- tion " would follow the Union had secured the neutrality of the Irish Catholics and rendered it possible to carry the measure. The scales were not long in falling from their eyes. Pitt brought the question of emancipation before the Cabinet soon after the passage of the Bill, but the King, influenced by Lord Lough- borough and others, declared himself against all concessions, and the Minister, with loyal consideration for the King's health, promised that he would not again urge the question during the reign, and thereupon, hoping to save what remained of his honour, resigned. After this he continued to support an anti- Catholic Ministry with Henry Addington,^ a man of straw, at its head, Cornwallis, the Lord-Lieutenant, had meanwhile taken upon himself to assure the Irish Catholics that Pitt, and those with him, had pledged themselves not to take office again except on the condition of the Catholic demands being granted. He had, it is true, no i.uthority for making this statement, but it was not contradicted by Pitt at the time, as it should have been, and the latter shortly afterwards offered to resume office and to abandon without a scruple his policy of Emancipation. Thus the Catholics were once more thrown over as in 1785, and once again the policy of the inexorable Clare prevailed, a man whom several historians have sought to enshrine as a spe- cimen of sagacious statesmanship. The entire transaction was 2 Appendix XVIId, quotations from W. E. H. Lecky and R. B. Sheridan. /^^is was foreseen by Grattan, who, with a prescience as remarkable as that of niuke, who foretold the advent of Napoleon, once remarked to an English gentleman— h n^i. swept away our Constitution ; you have destroyed our Parliament, but we snail have our revenge. We will send into the ranks of ^wr Parliament, and into tne very heart of jfour Constitution, a hundred of the greatest scoundrels in the Kingdom ! " •■ Henry Addington, first Viscount Sidmouth (1757-1844). 74 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY admittedlya fraud.an undisguised piece of trickery and sharp prac- tice on the part of one who has been long held up to admiration as the most immaculate Minister that this country, or any other, has produced.^ The whole of Pitt's action was, in fact, of a piece. He was a man who loved power more than the principles of strict honour. He studied the barometer of public opinion and felt the pulse of national temper with infinite solicitude to adjust himself to them, and when he had done that he thought that he had done all. Power was the breath of his nostrils, the blood that flowed in his veins, and the idol he worshipped in the solitude of his chamber. The world still admires his Parliamentary courage and ability, but hesitates to praise the methods of his ambition. It does not read his speeches, nor treasure his sayings, nor curiously inquire into what manner of man he really was, and for this reason, that he was essentially lacking in that human interest which is the universal test of a great man, and markedly deficient in that imagination, without which true genius cannot exist, or at least is very soon forgotten. The effect of the Union upon the relations between the native Irish and the Colonists at once made itself discernible. On several occasions in the eighteenth century the two parties had joined hands for the purpose of forcing a reform upon the Orange faction and the Castle junto of the day. After 1800, however, the Colonists severed themselves entirely from the native Irish, and throwing in their lot with England unreservedly resisted all demands for reform made upon her. This momentous result of the Union left the native Irish without support, and delayed by half-a-century several of the remedial measures, which, had they been passed in time, might have arrested the stream of emigra- tion and the swelling tide of anarchy and hatred, and converted the reproach and shame of Ireland's rulers into an asset worthy of a moneyed nation.^ The consolidation of the Irish and British Exchequers was deferred until 18 17, and a short discussion on this subject will not be out of place at the end of a chapter upon the Union. The revenue of Ireland amounted in 1800 to rather more than three millions, whilst her expenditure exceeded six and a half, and the Irish Government had, therefore, been dependent for some time on the assistance of the British Exchequer, which had remitted one and a half millions to it in 1798, two millions to it in 1799, and three millions in 1800. As the Irish debt at the time of the Union bore but a very small proportion to the British, only one- fourteenth, it was held that the Exchequers, each of which had their separate chancellors, could not be imme- ' Appendix XVIIe, quotations from W. E. H. Lecky and W. E. Gladstone. 8 Appendix XVIIf, quotation ftom Sydney Smith.. THE ACT OF UNION 75 diately amalgamated and the same system of taxation introduced in both countries, without doing injustice to Ireland by throwing upon her the burden of contributing to the charges of the heavy debt that had been accumulating for years in Great Britain. Two tests were therefore applied for ascertaining the capacity and resources of Great Britain and Ireland respectively : 1. A comparison of the average annual values of the imports and exports, which resulted in a proportion of nearly 7 to i. 2. A comparison of the values of certain dutiable articles of consumption, as used in each country, which resulted in a pro- portion of about 8 to I. The combined results of these two tests furnished a proportion of i to 7 J or 2 to 15. It was argued at the time by the opponents of this proportional result, and several of the Royal Commissioners in 1896 agreed with them, that the calculation was fallacious for at least two reasons : (a) because it reckoned as permanent annual Irish expenditure the temporary military charges, amounting to ten millions, in connection with the insurrection of 1798 and the steps leading up to the Union, as well as so much of the cost of the French war as happened to be incurred in Ireland, and (d) because it left out of the British expenditure the great annual British charge for debt, amounting to fifteen millions. If these had been taken into consideration, so they said, the proportion would have shown itself to be not 1 to 7I, but I to 18. The critics, however, had to bow before superior Parliamentary strength. The proportion of i to 7|, or 2 to 15, was to remain in force for twenty years, if the Ex- chequers had not been amalgamated before that time. That is to say, Great Britain was to contribute fifteen and Ireland two parts (f-y) of the sum required for the joint expenditure of the United Kingdom, whilst each country was to bear the burden of its own debt. Parliament, however, was to be free to alter this proportion of contribution after the lapse of twenty years, and thereafter at intervals of not more than twenty or less than seven years; and if, in the meantime, the "debts of Great Britain and Ireland should become to each other in the same proportion with their respective contributions," it was to be at liberty to complete the union of the two countries by declaring that all future expenditure should be defrayed indiscriminately by equal taxes imposed on each. Now, the principle of meeting the expenditure of the year by revenue raised within the year had been adopted more com- pletely by the British than by the Irish Government, and it was hoped that the reduction of the British debt would bring about such a proportion between the two debts as would in due course permit the Exchequers to be merged. At the same time it was not overlooked that, if the war continued, the proportion might be effected by the greater comparative increase of the Irish 76 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY rather than by the reduction of the British debt. As a matter of fact, it was the latter contingency which occurred, Irish debt grew until it bore to the British debt the proportion of i to 7|, and the amalgamation of the Exchequers took place in 1817, three years before the time allotted for the revision of the terms of contract. In 181 1 it had been reported that the Irish portion of the debt was nearly tyths of the whole, so that the foreseen development had all but taken place. But the reform was deferred. By 181 5 the expenditure of Great Britain had in- creased from fifty-one millions in 1800 to ninety-one millions, and that of Ireland from six and a half to nearly fifteen millions. The gross revenue of Great Britain during the same period had risen from thirty-one and a half to seventy-eight and a half millions, and that of Ireland from three to six and a half millions ; whilst the charge of the English debt had mounted from sixteen and a half to twenty-eight, and that of Ireland from one to over one and three-quarter millions. Thus, in 181 5 the Irish debt constituted more than -rV^hs of the entire liability of the United Kingdom. The two conditions upon which financial consolidation was dependent were therefore declared to be fulfilled by a Select Committee in the House of Commons in 1 8 16, and a Bill consolidating the debts and public revenue of the two countries was introduced on June 13, 1816, and received the Royal Assent on July i. From January 5, 1817, all revenues in Great Britain and Ireland were to constitute a general fund, known as the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. Ireland ceased to be separately liable for the charge of the Irish debt, or to contribute to joint expenditure in a fixed proportion, and the produce of Irish taxes, whatever they might be, was to be held to discharge her liability. The amalgamation was certainly a relief to the poorer countrj', but it was a relief from burdens imposed upon her by the Union, and it is to be remembered that, if Great Britain was henceforth to share the debt of Ireland, the latter was also to participate in the burden of the pre- Union debt of Great Britain, from which she had hitherto been free. It must also be borne in mind in connection with the taxation imposed on Ireland during the next hundred years, that there was a proviso in Article 7, paragraph 8, of the Act of Union to the effect that the imposition of such taxation should be "subject to such par- ticular exemptions or abatements in Ireland and Scotland as circumstances may appear from time to time to demand." Pitt himself fully realized that Ireland ought to be fairly treated in this respect. In fact, he had expressly stated during the course of the debates in 1785 on the commercial treaty then pending between Great Britain and Ireland, that "the smallest burthen on a poor country was to be considered when compared THE ACT OF UNION 77 with those of a rich one, by no means in a proportion with their several abilities ; for, if one country exceeded another in wealth, population, and established commerce in a proportion of two to one, he was nearly convinced that that country would be able to bear ten times the burthens that the other would be equal to." These considerations, however, were neglected, and, in fact, during the next eighty years seem to have been totally forgotten. Although the consolidation of the Exchequers took place in 1 8 17, it was found necessary, in order to conciliate various mer- cantile interests, to continue for a time certain protective duties, and up to 1823 Ireland possessed a distinct system of customs.^ The rates of duty on tobacco were equalized in 1819. Stamp duties, which had been generally lighter in Ireland than in England, were assimilated by Peel in 1842, but a reduction took place in them both in Great Britain and Ireland in 1850, which went to counterbalance the increase of the Irish duties in 1842. In 1853 Gladstone, in order to relieve the burdens on manufac- tures and articles of consumption in Great Britain, extended the income-tax to Ireland, a step which Peel had abstained from taking in 1842, and he also increased the rate of the spirit duty. In 1819, the Irish spirit duties were 5j. 'j\d. a gallon ; in 1835, 2s. 4d ; in 1858, they were assimilated to the English duty of 8^., almost completing the equalization of taxation in Great Britain and Ireland ; and towards the end of the century they stood at los. 6d. In compensation for these additional burdens on Ireland he extinguished a capital debt amounting in 1853 to over four millions. This debt had been converted into termin- able annuities lasting as to three-fourths for forty years, and as to one-fourth for various periods of froni ten to thirty years. It had been contracted mainly for the r^ief of the poor during the great Irish famine, and ought to have been remitted anyhow ; for a Select Committee of the House of Lords, who made an ex- haustive inquiry into the whole matter in 1852, reported that not only had a great proportion of the expenditure been quite useless, but that some of it had been most mischievous, causing more harm than good, and that, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, a remission of at least half the amount was required. Gladstone, however, disregarded this report, and, as it eventually turned out, more than five times the capital value of the annuities was collected under the income-tax in Ireland by the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth cen- tury ; so that the extinction of the capital debt of four millions as compensation for the imposition of the income-tax has proved scarcely any relief at all. The consolidation of the three Pension Lists of England, Scotland, and Ireland *as effected in 1830. 78 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY As a result of these financial operations between 1850 and i860 the permanent taxation of Ireland was raised by two and a quarter millions per annum, a far higher percentage of increase than in Great Britain ; whilst the proportion of the Irish to the British revenue, which in the first sixteen years of the century was between ^^^th and xx^h, rose in the years after 1852 toy^thor ^th. There was not only nothing in the circumstances of Ireland to justify this increase, but her social and economic condition was such as imperatively demanded a diametrically opposite policy. For during the preceding decade tiie poor law system had been established in Ireland, involving an immense increase of local rates ; the Corn Laws had been repealed, causing the rapid destruction of the Irish export trade in cereals ; Ireland had suffered great losses through the potato disease and its conse- quences, such as a vast diminution of population ; and a great decline had been taking place in her manufacturing industries. In fact, the treatment meted out to her was the very reverse of the pledge given by Ministers at the time of the Union that Ireland should have special "exemptions and abatements" of taxation, and should not be unfairly taxed out of proportion to her resources. But party pledges are like lovers' vows, and seldom conform to the ordinary rules of morality.^ ^ See the joint and separate Reports, as well as the Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland, 1896. CHAPTER III CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, 1829 " It (the Penal Gxie) was intended to degrade and impoverish, to destroy in its victims the spring and buoyancy of enterprise, to dig a deep chasm between Catholics and Protestants. These ends it fully attained. It formed the social condition ; it regu- lated the disposition of property ; it exercised a most enduring and pernicious influ- ence upon the character of the people, and some of the worst features of the latter may be traced to its influence. It may indeed be possible to find in the Statute-booli both of Protestant and Catholic countries laws corresponding to most parts of the Irish Penal Code, and in some respects introducing its most atrocious provisions, but it is not the less true that that code, taken as a whole, has a character entirely dis- tinct. It was directed not against the few, but against the many. It was not the persecution of a sect, but the degradation of a nation. It was the instrument employed by a conquering race supported by a neighbouring power to crush to the dust the people among whom they were planted, and indeed when we remember that the greater part of it was in force for nearly a century, that the victims of its cruelties formed at least three-fourths of the nation, that this degrading and dividing influence extended to every field of social, political, professional, intellectual, and even domestic life, and that it was enacted without the provocation of any rebellion, and in defiance of a statute which distinctly guaranteed the Irish people from any further persecution on account of their religion, it may justly be regarded as one of the blackest pages in the history of persecution." — James Anthony Froude. Dr. Johnson once exclaimed to Boswell — "The Irish are in a most unnatural state; for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the ten persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics. Did we tell them we have conquered them, it would be above-board ; to punish them by confiscation and other penalties, as rebels, was monstrous injustice." Now Johnson was a Tory, and may have been predisposed to regard the Catholics of Ireland with an exaggerated affection induced by pity for their treatment at the hands of his own party. But Brougham^ was a versatile Whig of a veistly different mould, and what was his opinion of the matter? On bringing forward a motion, in 1823, in regard to the administration of the law in Ireland, he said — 1 k ^^^ ^^^ °^ England esteemed all men equal. It was sufficient to oe bom within the King's allegiance to be entitled to all the rights the Henry Pet^r Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor of England, 79 8o IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY loftiest subject of the land enjoyed. None were disqualified ; the only distinction was between natural-born subjects and aliens. Such, indeed, was the liberality of our system in the times which we called barbarous, but from which, in these enlightened days, it might be as well to take a hint, that if a man were even an alien-born, he was not deprived of the protection of the law. In Ireland, however, the law held a directly opposite doctrine. The sect to which a man belonged, the cast of his religious opinions, the form in which he worshipped his Creator, were grounds on which the law separated him from his fellows, and bound him to the endurance of a system of the most cruel injustice." The history, forsooth, of the Roman Catholics in Ireland during the eighteenth century is instructive to a student of national character as showing the capacity for blundering possessed by some people, as also the want of moral principle, the ignorance and the intolerance of men who actually regarded themselves as the true and only type of what a nation of gentlemen should be. The penal laws against Catholics, which existed in the time of Charles II, had never been very oppressively observed.. By the letter of the law Catholics had been excluded from corporations and from certain civil offices ; they had been subject to fines for non-attendance at the places of worship of the Established Church on Sundays ; and the Chancellor had the power of appointing a guardian to the child of a Catholic parent.^ The Treaty of Limerick followed in 1691. By the first article of Limerick, the Roman Catholics were to enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they enjoyed in the reign of Charles II, whilst further security was hereafter to be afforded them. By the second article, all the inhabitants or residents of Limerick or any other garrison, all officers and soldiers then in arms in various counties, and all such as were under their protection in those counties, were to hold possession of their estates and all rights and titles which they had held under Charles II, whilst all persons were to be allowed to practise their several callings as freely as they had done under that monarch. This was fair enough ; but Dopping,^ Bishop of Meath, proclaimed from the pulpit that Protestants were not bound to keep faith with Papists; whilst Lord Chancellor Bowes and Chief Justice Robinson declared from the Bench that the law did not even suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Catholic. The Protestants were not slow to take the hint. The Act of 1695, in spite of the declarations contained in the * Six penal laws against recusants had been in force before the time of Williani of Orange. Between the seventh year of William's reign and the twenty-ninth of that of George II twenty-four Acts were passed against the Catholics. * Anthony Dopping, D.D. (1643-1697), bishop successively of Kildare and Meath. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 8i Articles of Limerick, deprived the Roman Catholics of the power of educating their own children either at home or abroad, and of the privilege of being guardians either of their own or of any other person's children. Another Act of the same year took away from them their right of possessing or bearing arms, or of keeping any horse worth more than £$, and a later one of 1697 ordered the expulsion of every Roman Catholic priest from Ireland. In fact, the Articles of Limerick had been repudiated. But the violators of treaties had only just begun. Three other Acts affecting Roman Catholics were passed during William's reign. One of 1697 forbade the inter-marriage of Protestants and Papists — and what a grievance is included in these few words! A second of 1698 stripped Papists of the power of being solicitors, whilst a third Act of the same year prohibited their employment as gamekeepers. These laws were harsh, but not inconsistent with the temper of the murderer of the MacDonalds of Glencoe. When the good Queen Anne came to the throne these measures were continued, and two Acts, which Burke described as the " ferocious Acts of Anne," were passed for the prevention of the further growth of Popery. By the first of these, a Papist having a Protestant son was debarred from selling, mortgaging, or devising any portion of his estate ; whilst the son, of however tender an age, was to be taken from his father's hands and confided to the care of a Pro- testant relation. The estate of a Papist, who had no Protestant heir, was to be divided equally among his sons. The Papist was declared incapable of purchasing real estate or of taking land on lease for more than thirty-one years. He was further declared incapable of inheriting real estate from a Protestant, and was disqualified from holding any office, civil or military. With twenty exceptions, Papists were forbidden to reside in Limerick or Galway ; and advowsons, the property of Papists, were vested in the Crown.>jThus the Roman Catholics were deprived of every office, civil and military ; were forbidden to educate their own offspring, and debarred from purchasing real estate ; were incapable by law of following a profession, carrying a gun, or riding a decent horse ; were moreover forced to see premiums placed upon the apostasy of their own children ; and under this load of savage legislation were expected to turn their white faces to England, and bless her in their unmitigated misery ; were expected to live in Ireland with the flame of British loyalty burning in their breasts.^ In order to prevent any invasion of the penal law, such as the deposition of property in the friendly hands of a Protestant, or ' Appendix XVIII, extract from speech by Sir Theobald Butler, 82 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY pretended conversions to the Established Church, a resolution was carried unanimously in the Irish Lower House on the 17th of March, a few days after the passage of the Act of 1704, " that all magistrates and other persons whatsoever, who neglected or omitted to put it in due execution, were betrayers of the liberties of the kingdom." In June 1705 the same assembly decided " that the saying or hearing of mass by persons who had not taken the oath of abjuration tended to advance the interest of the Pretender " ; and they also resolved unanimously, as an encouragement to the trade of informers, " that the prosecuting and informing against Papists was an honourable service to the Government." In 1708 an Act was passed suppressing the " Patron " fairs in Ireland, which were religious gatherings at certain holy wells dedicated to the patron saint, St John. This Act imposed a fine of ten shillings (and in default of payment a whipping) upon every person " who shall attend or be present at any pilgrimage or meeting held at any holy well, or imputed holy well." A fine of £20 was, moreover, to be inflicted upon any one who should build a booth, or sell ale, victuals, or other commodities at such pilgrimages or meetings ; and magistrates were required to demolish all crosses, pictures, and inscriptions set up publicly as emblems of the Catholic faith.^ In 1709, the Parliament, finding that its enactments had no effect upon the steadfastness of the Catholic believer, passed another measure, the second of the ferocious Acts of Anne, empowering the Court of Chancery to compel the Papist to discover his estate, and at the same time to make an order for the maintenance of an apostate child out of the proceeds of it The Act of 1704 had made it illegal for a Papist to take lands on a lease of more than a certain term of years ; the Act of 1709 now disabled him from receiving a life annuity. The Act of 1704 had compelled the registry of priests; that of 1709 now forbade their officiating in any parish except that in which they were registered. The present Act also enjoined that the wife of a Papist, if she became a Protestant, was to receive a jointure out of her husband's estate, a provision which must have proved an excellent cement for conjugal fidelity. A popish priest aban- doning his religion was to receive an annuity of ;^30 a year. Two justices might compel any Papist to state on oath when and ^ Another law of 1708 enacted — " That from the first of Michaelmas Term, 1708, no Papist shall serve, or be returned to serve, on any Grand Jury in the Queen's Bench, or before Justices of Assize, Oyer and Terminer, or gaol-delivery or Quarter Sessions, unless it appear to the Court that a sufficient number of Protestants cannot then be had for the service ; and in all trials of issues (that is, by petty juries) on any presentment, indictment, or information, or action on any statute, for any offence committed by Papists, in breach of such laws, the plaintiff or prosecutor may challenge any Papist returned as juror, and assign as a cause that he is a Papist, which challenge shall be allowed." CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 83 where he had heard mass, who had officiated, and who had been present at it, and, in case of a refusal to comply, a fine of ;^20 was to be imposed, or, in default, twelve months' imprisonment. For the discovery of an archbishop, bishop, vicar-general, or other person exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction the informer was to receive ;^50 ; for any monk or friar, or secular clergyman not duly registered, ;^2o; for every Papist school-teacher or tutor, ;^io. For a first offence an ecclesiastic was transported ; and if any bishop who had once been transported was found in Ireland again, he was to be hanged. In the same year the scheme originated of inducing Protestant foreigners to go to Ireland, and offering them the benefits of natur3,lization, with a view of strengthening the Protestant element in ihe country and giving an impulse to industry. Eight hundred and seventy-one Protestant Palatine families were brought over from Germany, and twenty-four thousand eight hundred and fifty pounds five shillings and sixpence appointed for their maintenance out of the revenue. But the scheme, as might have been expected from its artificial nature, turned out a ridiculous fiasco, as Swift wittily observed — " It appeared manifestly, by the issue, that the public was a loser by every individual amongst them ; and that a kingdom can no more be the richer for such an importation than a man can be fatter by a wen." In 17 1 3 an order was made in the Irish House of Commons, " that the Sergeant-at-Arms should take into custody all Papists that were or should presume to come into the galleries." This, though a feather in the balance of the other disabilities, evinces the temper of the times. Every man's hand was against the Catholics. They were pariahs, they were helots, they were worse than helots, for the general scheme of Irish society did not pre- sume them to exist. Debarred from so much, they could hardly take a step without transgressing one of the penal laws, and the watch-dogs were ever on the alert to proclaim any encroachment upon Protestant privilege.^ This scorpion legislation, however, was not yet complete. Mobilitate vigit, viresque acquirit eundo. An Act of George I ^ Burke, comparing this mass 01 persecution to the Exlict of Nantes, wrote in Tracts on the Popery Laws — "this act of injustice, which let loose on that monarch such a torrent of invective and reproach, and which threw so dark a cloud over all the splendour of a most illustrious reign, falls far short of the case in Ireland. The privileges, which the Pro- Jf*'^"ts of that kingdom enjoyed antecedent to this revocation, were far greater than the Roman Catholics of Ireland ever aspired to under a contrary establishment. The number of their sufferers, if considered absolutely, is not half of ours ; if considered relatively to the body of each community, it is not, perhaps, a twentieth part. And then ne penalties and incapacities, which grew from that revocation, are not so grievous in neir nature, nor so certain in their execution, nor so ruinous, by a great deal, to the «vil prosperity of the State, as those which we have established for a perpetual law in our unhappy country." 84 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY disabled Papists from serving in the Irish Militia, but with a refinement of insult worthy of the descendant of those laws which convicted on the evidence of Titus Oates, compelled them to find Protestant substitutes, and to pay double towards the support of the force. The same Act also rendered their horses liable to seizure for Militia purposes. In 1719 a tediously elaborate Bill was introduced in the Irish House of Commons for the pre- vention of any one married to a Catholic wife from holding any office under the Government, or a convert from holding any office or practising as a solicitor or attorney for seven years after his conversion, and not even after that period of time unless he were able to produce a certificate showing that he had received the Sacrament three times in each year of the seven. This measure, one of the clauses of which sentenced all unregistered priests found in Ireland to be branded upon the cheek with a red-hot iron, was carried through the Irish House without any opposition. The Irish Privy Council, however, gravely changed the penalty of branding into that of castration, and sent this unparalleled Bill to England for ratification. But the Ministry shrank from a pre- cedent that through unexpected vicissitudes of fortune might some day be turned against themselves, and overflowing with the milk of human kindness, restored without a dissentient note the mild penalty of branding. The Bill, nevertheless, was eventually thrown out by the Irish House of Lords, not on account of the brutality of its provisions, but on a minor and quite different issue. Primate Boulter^ now became the evil genius of Catholic per- secution. On the 9th of March, 1731, it was resolved unani- mously through his influence " that it is the indispensable duty of all magistrates and officers to put the laws made to prevent the further growth of Popery in due execution," and "that Members of that House, in their respective counties and stations would use their utmost endeavours to put the several laws against Popery in due execution." By acts passed in George IPs reign the Papists were, through the same bane- ful influence, disfranchised : Roman Catholics were disqualified from practising as solicitors, the only branch of the pro- fession of the law that had been left to them ; barristers or solicitors marrying Papists were to be deemed Papists ; all marriages between Protestants and Papists were annulled ; and Popish priests celebrating any illegal marriages were to be hanged. Lastly, by an Act of George HI, Papists refusing to deliver up or declare their arms were liable to be placed in the pillory or to be whipped, as the Court should think proper. Such were the Irish Penal Laws. Devoured by a satyriasis 1 Hugh Boulter (1672-1742), Archbishop of Armagh, CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 85 of coercion, the Parliament, like some wild beast of the forest, had grown gluttonous upon what it fed. Having once tasted of cruelty it could not leave it alone, and the mania of proscription was only arrested \yhen a great volume of public opinion rose up and barred the way. A few Roman Catholics, more witty than conscientious, deserted their own faith and became Protestants, pleading, as did Mr. Myers of Roscommon, as the " grounds " of his conversion, 2,500 acres of the best ground in the county of Roscommon. And yet the rulers of Erin were a Christian people and their country a Christian country — a people who prided themselves upon the advanced state of their civilization, and held themselves to be the true and only type of what a nation of gentlemen should be. How transparently thin, how indecently insufficient is the civilized veneer over the natural savagery of man.^ Having sufficiently sketched the outlines of the Penal Code, we will now proceed to the history of its reform. Gradually, not from remorse, but from shame at the nakedness of its wicked- ness and fear at the consequences of its continuance, the Penal Code was modified. The curtain was at last to be lifted before the astonished gaze of Christian gentlemen who did not realize the full enormity of the. Penal Code until the discussions took place over the clauses that were to be abolished. Two factors now ranged themselves upon the side of the Catholics in their struggle with Protestantism, — namely, the fear engendered in the hearts of the rulers of Ireland by the possibility of foreign complications, and the strife for supremacy which was now almost for the first time waged between the Ascendency and the English Government. In 1759 the Catholic Committee was formed in Dublin to sustain the Catholic cause. On the 25th of November, 1763, Mason^ introduced a Bill to empower Papists to lend money on real securities. The measure was opposed by Le Hunte on the ground that it would tend to make Papists pro- prietors of a great part of the property of the kingdom, and was finally postponed until 1764, when it was rejected by a majority of 44- About this time a supposed Catholic conspiracy was employed by the Protestants of Ireland for the purpose of supplying an excuse for measures of peculiar severity against the Papists. Several Catholics of eminent character were hanged Without a particle of evidence to support the accusations levelled against them, and informers drawn from the dregs of the people, such as strumpets, pimps, pickpockets, and common snarpers, were taken from the prisons and placed in the box as B] .Appendix XIX, quotations from Arthur Young, Edmund Burke, Sir William I^J' ,' ^' ^- Sheridan, Geoi^e Canning, Henry Grattan, Sir George Comewall ^^s, and Matthew Arnold. fa' / , B John Monck Mason, Shakespearean commentator (1726-1809). 86 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY witnesses against men whom perhaps they had never seen or even heard of. In 1766 occurred the execution of the Reverend Nicholas Sheehy, the parish priest of Clogheen, a village situated in the valley between the Galtees and the range of Knockmaol- down, in Tipperary. He had ventured to denounce Church rates as an iniquitous imposition, and his parishioners had in consequence refused to pay them. He had then proceeded to denounce also the payment of the tithes of two Protestant clergymen which were farmed to a tithe-proctor of the name of Dobbyn. Several years passed, but the Government had snuffed his blood and did not forget Sheehy. He was tried various times on different false charges, but they could not trip him up. At length in 1765 he was indicted for rebellion, but again acquitted, although the bribed evidence of a common prostitute and of a convicted thief were brought against him. He was next accused of the murder of an informer of the name of Bridge, whose evidence in some recent riots had been the cause of various executions, and, although the body of the latter was never found, nor a shred of evidence produced, he was convicted and hanged, and his head spiked over the gates of Clonmel Jail.i In 1768 a Bill for the mitigation of the Penal Code was intro- duced and passed without a division in the Irish Parliament, but it was lost in England. Three years later, in 1771, a fresh allurement was held out to the Catholic priest to change his Popish shackles for the free breath of Protestantism. A pro- vision had been made in one of Anne's Acts that every Catholic priest, who became a convert, should receive ;^30 a year for his maintenance, until provided with some ecclesiastical preferment beyond that amount. But it had been found, contrary to the usual laws of human nature, that the Catholic most foolishly pre- ferred his slave's gyves to the proffered liberty, and the Govern- ment had therefore kept its money and been obliged to swallow its annoyance. By the Act of 1 771 it was enacted that a sum of £^0 should in future be allowed annually, in lieu of £'^0, to every convert from the Roman faith; the additional sumsof >f loeach, " Townshend's golden drops," as they were called, being levied on the inhabitants of the district, wherein the convert last resided ; a policy which defeated itself, for a strong inducement was in this manner held out to every district not to contribute a single convert for the fear of being taxed. The same year an Act was passed permitting Papists to hold on lease fifty plantation acres 1 Small wonder that Burke wrote, in 1782, in a Letter to a Peer 0/ Ireland — " I was three times in Ireland, from the year 1 760 to the year 1 767, where I h^" sufficient means of information concerning the inhuman proceedings (among which were many cruel murders, besides an infinity of outrages and oppressions, unknown before in a civilized age) which prevailed during that period, lu consequence of a pretended conspiracy among Roman Catholics against the King's Government." CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 87 of unprofitable and unwholesome bog, and half-an-acre of arable land adjoining as a site for a house, or for the purpose of digging gravel or limestone for manure. The tenant was to be free for the first seven years from all tithes and cesses ; but it was pro- vided that if half the bog were not reclaimed at the end of twenty-one years the lease should be void. No bog was to be con- sidered unprofitable, unless the depth of it from the surface, when reclaimed, were four feet at least ; and no person was to be entitled to the benefit of the Act, unless he reclaimed a minimum of ten plantation acres. The Act, moreover, was not to extend to any bog within one mile of a city or market-town. On the 9th of November, 1773, leave was given to bring in the heads of a Bill to enable Papists, on certain conditions, to take leases of lives, lands, tenements, and hereditaments ; and on the loth of the same month further permission was given to introduce the heads of a Bill to secure the repayment to Catholics of loans advanced by them to Protestants on mortgages of lands, tenements and hereditaments ; but neither of the measures were proceeded with at the time. In 1774 an oath of allegi- ance was framed to meet their religious objections, a con- cession which, immaterial in itself, was a proof that the tide had at last begun to turn. But this dribble of reform did scarcely any good. The spirit of religious intolerance was as bitter as ever, and spread itself through every relation in life. None felt it more than the Catholic tenant upon his holding — the man upon whom of all others the prosperity of the Irish race de- pended, and whom the Protestant Ascendency should have striven to conciliate. He was treated as a different being to his Protestant fellow occupier, and might consider his circumstances fortunate, if he were permitted to live upon the land at all.^ By this time the American war had commenced, and it was thought advisable, when unforeseen dangers were menacing the rulers of Ireland, to conciliate with a little kindness the inhabit- ants of an island so near their own shores. Coerced at Saratoga into a sense of their inefficiency, the courage of the Government began to ebb and their intolerance to lose its backbone. In these circumstances was passed the first great Catholic Relief ' Arthur Young describes the case of one of these improving " Popish " tenants — "July 4th — Lord Longford carried me to a Mr. Marly's, an improver in the neighbourhood, who had done great things, and without the benefit of such leases as Protestants in Ireland commonly have." (He then describes how greatly Marly had improved his land, and how the rent had been raised in consequence.) " It was with regret I heard that the rent of a man who had been so spirited an improver should be raised so exceedingly. He merited for his life the returns of his industry. But the cruel laws against the Roman 'Catholics of this country remain the marks of illiberal barbarism. Why should not the industrious man have a spur to his industry, whatever be his religion ? . . . It is impossible that the industry of a nation should have its material progress where four-fifths of the jjeople are cut off from these advantages which are heaped upon the domineering aristocracy of the remainder.'' 88 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Bill in 1778, which, although it still left the Catholics without arms, horses, education, a seat in Parliament, a vote at elections, or the right to sit upon juries or enter municipal corporations, enabled them, on taking the oath of allegiance and a prescribed form of declaration, to hold leases of land for 999 years, although they were still debarred from purchasing the freehold, and also permitted them to inherit land in the same manner as Protestants. A child of Catholic parents, moreover, was now no longer to be encouraged to bite the hand that fed it, nor to be able to benefit at their expense by an interested conformity to the Protestant creed. Two more relief Bills for Irish Roman Catholics, intro- duced by Gardiner on February 5, were passed in the year of Independence. The first enabled them henceforth to purchase and bequeath land in the same manner as Protestants, with the exception of advowsons, manors, and land situated in a Parlia- mentary borough. A ntimber of obsolete laws making it penal for Catholic bishops to live in the country, subjecting priests to the necessity of registration, enabling any two justices of the peace to oblige Catholics to declare on oath where they had last heard mass, and forbidding the latter to live in Limerick or Gal- way, were likewise repealed by the new measures. A Catholic was no longer forced to sell his horse to the first devotee of the other faith who chose to offer ;^5 for it, nor could the horses of Catholics be seized in the future for Militia service on every alarm of invasion. Moreover they were no more required to provide Protestant watchmen at their own expense, nor to pay compen- sation for the damage done by the privateers of an enemy. By the second Bill they were allowed to become schoolmasters, ushers under Catholic schoolmasters, and private tutors, pro- vided they took the oath of allegiance, subscribed the declaration, received a licence from the Ordinary, and took no Protestant pupils. They were still debarred from possessing a Catholic university, college, or endowed school, but laymen of the Roman faith were now permitted to be guardians to Catholic children. A third Bill, however, which was also introduced by Gardiner, to legalize intermarriages between Protestants and Catholics, was defeated by a majority of eight. These welcome concessions were nevertheless fettered by various slight but irritating restrictions, the provisions against proselytism, perversion to Catholicism, the assumption by Catholics of ecclesiastical titles or rank, and the wearing of vestments outside the precincts of their chapels being expressly reaffirmed ; as well as those against chapels having steeples or bells, and priests officiating anywhere except in their accustomed places of worship. The Catholics were thus gradually being permitted to step within the sacred precincts of civilization, and to feel that they had a stake in the fortunes of their depressed country.^ * Appendix XX, quotations from Henry Grattan and Edmund Burke. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 89 In 1792 a Catholic petition for the abolition of the Penal Code was laid before the King, and the services of Richard Burke, a feeble reflex of his father, were enlisted in the Catholic cause. Dundas, who favoured the gradual and peaceful enfran- chisement of the Catholics, instructed the Lord-Lieutenant to review the Penal Code with the object of recommending to the Irish Parliament the repeal of some of the restrictions. But the Irish Government, with the Lord-Lieutenant, shrank from Dundas' proposal to give the Catholics the franchise or to permit them to carry arms, and he and Pitt, in view of this opposition, abandoned their scheme. Nevertheless an important measure of Catholic relief was soon afterwards passed by the Irish Parliament, which swept away a large portion of the code, and let in a flood of hope upon the Catholics, who, lifting up their eyes, saw that the dawn of their liberty was breaking. Sir Hercules Langrishe introduced the Bill, which was prepared by its author in concert with Edmund Burke, on January 25. It enabled Catholics to be attorneys,solicitors, notaries, and attorneys' clerks, and to practise at the Bar, although they could not rise to the position of King's Counsel or Judge. It repealed the laws prohibiting barristers from marrying Catholics, and solicitors from educating their children in the Roman faith ; as well as those of William and Anne directed against the intermarriage of members of the opposed faiths. It also repealed the obsolete Act against foreign education, and the equally obsolete clause of the Act of 1782, which made the licence of the Ordinary necessary for Catholic schools ; and finally it removed all the restrictions on the number of apprentices permitted to Catholic trade. John Keogh and his Presbyterian allies were not in favour of the measure, as it did not provide for Catholic Eman- cipation, and a petition was presented by the Roman Catholics for admission to the franchise, but it was rejected on the motion of Mr. Latouche. The Bill was then read a third time on February the 24th and passed. The Catholics had at last shaken off the greater part of their dishonourable bonds, and their jailers were surprised to find that their own heavenborn generosity had not entailed the dissolution of a kingdom. Meanwhile Wolfe Tone and Hamilton Rowan had drawn up ^ series of resolutions against the summary rejection of the Catholic petition, which they had caused to be inserted in all the Dublin papers ; but their protest came to nothing, their hardiness in hazarding the indignation of the Parliament by this breach of privilege being forgotten in the great fire which consumed, before men had had time to realize the calamity, one of the finest legislative houses in the world. During the same year a comical incident occurred in connection with Richard ^urke. He was the agent of the Catholic Committee, and, soon after the first Catholic petition of 1792 had been laid 90 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY before the King, proceeded to draft a second one, more vigorous in its language than the first and proportionately disagreeable to the Castle brood. O'Hara, member for Sligo, undertook to present it, and when the day arrived Richard Burke went to the House to witness the debate upon it. It was vehemently opposed by the Ascendency, and the weak but worthy Richard, excited by this attack upon his offspring and forgetting the place in which he stood, precipitately descended into the body of the House and attempted to speak in defence of the measure. But he was greeted by a roar of privilege, and when the Sergeant-at- Arms approached him, took ignominiously to his heels, leaving the amazed members thunderstruck at his impudence and thoroughly tickled by his short-lived courage. The petition was then withdrawn, and soon afterwards Richard Burke, the admired darling of his father, threw up his appointment as paid agent to the Catholic Committee. After the retirement of Burke, Keogh engaged Wolfe Tone as the agent of the Catholic Committee, and the two men threw themselves energetically into the work of organization and preparation for a powerful agitation. On December 2nd of the same year a meeting of the Catholic Convention took place in Tailor's Hall, Back Lane, Dublin, for the purpose of discussing the prospects of Catholic reform, and the best means of advancing its cause. The Catholics were full of zeal but surrounded by cunning foes. The obstacles they were obliged to face and the prejudices they had to overcome were legion, and the latter from their nature were fundamentally unjust.^ Valmy, however, which was fought on the 20th of September, 1792, roused the spirits of the Catholics, and the Convention, whose assembly the Castle had wished to prevent, but with which the Cabinet had forbidden any interference, finally adopted resolutions demanding the complete repeal of the Penal Code, and decided to send the King an address which was signed by Arch- bishop Troy on behalf of the Bishops. The delegates started on their journey, and Tone accompanied them to London in the capacity of Secretary! Westmorland, the Lord-Lieutenant, ' Edmund Burke had long recognized this. Making the Ascendency Party speak, he wrote — " We mean to preserve as our life-blood, all the liberties and immunities (of the Presbyterians). We mean to cultivate them as brethren whom we love and respect-;- with you (the Catholics) we have no fellowship. We can bear with patience their enmity to ourselves, but their friendship with you we will not endure. ... All our quarrels with them are always to be revenged upon you. Formerly, it is notorious, that we should have resented with the highest indignation your presuming to show any ill-will to them. You must not suffer them now to show any good-will to yoo. Know — and take it once for all — that it is, and ever has been, and ever will b*i " fundamental maxim in our politics, that you are not to have any part or shadow 0' name of interest whatever in our State ; that we look upon you as under an irreversible outlawry from our Constitution — as perpetual and unalterable aliens." CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 9t believed that the majority of Protestants in Ireland were very uneasy at the conciliatory spirit manifested towards the Catholics by the English Government and by certain other Protestants and Dissenters, and that the slightest show of opposition to the Catholics on the part of the Government would revive the old anti-Catholic feeling. Richard Burke, on the other hand, held the opinion that a measure of Catholic enfranchisement could be carried without much Protestant resistance, and that the anti-Catholic antagonism at this time was of a purely artificial nature, Pitt and Dundas, differing from Westmorland in this respect, decided that a conciliatory spirit ought to be chown to the Papists on the questions of their enfranchisement and the formation of juries, and that the Speech from the Throne should contain a clause to that effect. The King had meanwhile accepted the Catholic petition, and the memorable Irish session of 1793 commenced therefore on the loth of January 1793 with a declaration favourable to the Catholic cause, the King's Speech containing, as arranged, a clause recommending to the Irish Parliament the consideration of the Papist claims. Keogh had meanwhile severed himself from the United Irish Society, as he was content to agitate for the Catholic franchise alone, whilst the latter insisted upon complete emancipation and had ulterior views which were dangerously allied to the spirit of revolution. The future conqueror of Waterloo, curiously enough, approved of the conciliatory policy announced in the Royal Speech, and said in the Irish House of Commons — " I have no doubt of the loyalty of the Catholics of this country, and 1 trust that, when the question shall be brought forward respecting this description of men, we will lay aside all animosities, and act with moderation and dignity, and not with the fury and violence of partisans." An opinion which the Duke of Wellington found it a little later convenient to disguise, when his blood was heated with party passion and he had an important office to lose. In accordance with the sudden invitation to magnanimity on the part of the Crown, Major Hobart ^ on the 4th of February moved for leave to bring in a Relief Bill granting the franchise to Papists and reforming the jury system. But this was too much for Dr. Patrick Duigenan,^ the member for Old Robert Hobarf, Lord Hobart, fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire ; Secretary to ^uckinghain, the Lord-Lieutenant, in 1789, and, contrary to the usual custom, ■Secretary to Lord Westmorland, Buckingham's successor. Curiously enough his father had originally intended him for the Catholic Prjesthood. Although an anti-Catholic of the most extreme kind, he fell in love with * Koman Catholic, but she spumed him and married another. Forty years afterwards ■^ey met ^ain as widow and widower. This time he was more successful in his suit and was so infatuated that he allowed her to keep a Catholic chaplain. 92 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Leighlin, and a fair type of the Ascendency breed. Catholics, he admitted, were indeed excluded from the franchise, but that was their own fault ; why did they not conform ? They were interdicted from obtaining degrees in the University of Dublin, and he hoped that that grievance would never be redressed.^ After a good deal of opposition, Hobart obtained leave to introduce his measure, which he did with ill-concealed hostility to it. On the occasion of its introduction Ponsonby declared that the object of the English Government in proposing to grant the franchise to the Catholics was to win their gratitude, and, in this manner, to gain a point against the Irish Protestants who had thrown out the Franchise Bill in the last session. The latter, therefore, proposed to admit the Catholics to the Irish Parliament, to sweep away all distinctions between the two faiths, and thus by earning the thanks of the Catholics towards the Irish Protestants to cleverly turn the tables upon the English Govern- ment. Ponsonby's proposal of complete emancipation, that is to say, the admission of Catholics to Parliament, was of course rejected, the future Duke of Wellington being put forward to oppose the motion ; and a similar amendment by George Knox, member for Dungannon, was likewise refused. Sir Lawrence Parsons even deprecated the grant of the franchise to all Catholics, and wished to withhold it from the forty-shilling freeholders by limiting the franchise among Catholics to such only who possessed a freehold property of twenty pounds a year, from a fear that the whole power of Government would otherwise fall into the hands of a rabble, a consequence which would be extremely distasteful to the higher sort of Catholics. As a compensation for this restriction, Parsons proposed to give the franchise to the upper class Catholics and to admit them also to Parliament, but at the same time maintained that without a measure of Parliamentary Reform these other changes would merely be the shifting of colours in a kaleidoscope without a permanent change of substance. But the Government, with that keen sense of their own interest which never slackened with their wit, were determined to leave the latter out of their consideration, whilst Parsons was unwilling to carry one without the other. Fitzgibbon, on the other hand, was rigidly opposed to allowing the Catholics even a shadow of electoral power, and Henry Flood, Charlemont, and Foster agreed with him. But in spite of this opposition, Hobart's Bill finally passed the Commons in 1793, and the forty-shilling Catholic freeholders were admitted to the franchise, but, with a want of statesmanship that was eventually to bring a Government to its knees. Papists were still excluded from the possibilities of a Parliamentary career. ' Appendix XXI, extract from speech by Dr. Duigenan. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 93 The same Act also swept away the few remaining disabilities attaching to property, which had formed part of the Penal Code. Catholics were now enabled to vote and to become elected mem- bers of all corporations except Trinity College; to keep arms subject to some specified conditions ; to hold all civil and military offices in the kingdom, from which they were hot specifically ex- cluded, and the medical professorships on the foundation of Sir Patrick Dun ; and to take degrees and hold offices in any mixed college connected with the University of Dublin that might here- after be founded. They were also admitted to the degrees of that University. With all this they were, as we have seen, excluded from Parliament ; they were shut out from almost all Government and judicial appointments, they could not sit on parish vestries, and they could not become Privy Councillors, King's Counsel, Fellows of Trinity College, Mayors, Sheriffs or sub-Sheriffs, or Generals of the Staff, Catholics, moreover, with less than ;^30O a year in land or ;^i,ooo personalty, were forbidden to wear arms — an amendment carried by Clare, ;^ioo a year in land having been the sum stipulated in the original Bill. The Government fondly hoped that in spite of the accompanying disabilities, these large concessions would silence the agitators for Parliamentary Reform, who would now in self-defence try to keep Parliamentary influence in their own hands. Catholic relief, however, was not to be granted without a flavour of the Castle salt which has always been flung into the kettle when the ministers to Irish wants have been at work. Three coercive measures accompanied the Relief Act of 1793 to prove, if any proof were necessary, the irascibility of those who liad been forced to pull from their breast-pockets and burn before the public eye their title-deeds of persecution. The Con- vention Act was one of these measures, framed with a view to stifle in the future any unauthorized attempts to chip at the Protestant monopoly. The Catholic Convention — the " Back Lane Parliament" — was the first nest of hornets it was deemed desirable to smother. Simon Butler, Lord Mountgarret's brother and chairman of the United Irishmen, and Oliver Bond were arrested, imprisoned and fined. Hamilton Rowan, secretary to the Convention, suffered the same penalty, but succeeded in escaping from his jailers and reaching America. Wolfe Tone also decamped, seeking refuge in that asylum of Irish discontent; and the dreaded Tailor's Hall, the abominable head-quarters of the ever-aspiring Catholics, was bfoken into by the guardians of the law and all the papers of the United Irishmen were seized. Uuring the course of the same year a Catholic College was established by laymen, the College of Maynooth having been since the Revolution the establishment for the education of the priesthood. Up to this time a criminally cruel law had forbidden 94 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Catholics to be educated at home and had not allowed them to seek education abroad. Hely Hutchinson Mn 1782 had suggested their being educated in seminaries in Ireland and finishing their training in Protestant Colleges, and Edmund Burke had, on the whole, agreed with him, but gone further than the latter and advocated the establishment of a Catholic College in Ireland in which the priesthood might complete their education. Both proposals had, however, been neglected, and Irish priests had been forced to seek an illegal education in various educational institutions in France and elsewhere.^ This grievance was now remedied and an opportunity held out to the Catholic population of at last learning in the beloved home of their fathers those principles of liberty and justice with- out which a nation is a herd of slaves and unworthy of the very name. Thus after a period of cruelty, anguish, and hopeless combat that would have crushed into the dumb servility of despair any other race of men not fired by the noble love of country and religion, the indomitable Catholics rose from their mother soil, not, forsooth, without the scars and weals of ill-usage, nor with the memory of their great torments blotted out, but nevertheless unconquered, and proud, and joyful, confident of the strength of their cause and of its final triumph. In fact, at the time, their relief was much greater than that of their English co-religionists. In Ireland the army was open to Roman Catholics below the rank of a general officer, in England all ranks were closed to them. In Ireland they could be Justices of Peace, in Great Britain the door of the magistracy was shut against them. In the former country every qualified Roman Catholic could vote, in the latter he was denied the sufirage. The Irish Roman Catholic could serve on a corporation, the British could not. The former might graduate in any college, except Trinity College, Dublin ; the latter was excluded from every English University ; and these distinctions became naturally much more marked after the Union, when the two kingdoms had been politically combined. 1 Richard Hely-Hutchinson, first Earl of Donouglimore (1756- 1825), at this time member for Sligo. He was the eldest son of John Hely-Hutchinson {1724-1794), the venal and grasping Prime Sergeant, who was tlie .author of The Commercial Restraints of Ireland, a series of nine cleverly written letters. Lord Townshend seeing the latter one day toddling up the drawing-room of the Castle in some apparent impatience, exclaimed to Sir John Blaquiere — " See, see, here comes the Prime Sergeant : is there anything vacant ? " " Nothing that I know of," replied Blaquiere, "but a majority in a cavalry regiment." "Oh, well, give it to him at once, to stop his mouth." * Grattan had said truly — " In the same way are our laws respecting education so many provisions against conformity, they exclude the Catholic, in his docile years, from our society and our information, and enact that they from their earliest infancy shall live and learn only from another. We send them and punish them for being sent to foreign and catholic countries to imbibe the principles of religion and politics and then we make the preju- dice of their education a reason for the continuance of their proscription, proceeding in a succession from cause to consequence, and from consequence to cause." CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 95 But the position of the Catholics of Ireland, notwithstanding the amelioration of their lot and this favourable comparison with that of their fellow believers in England, continued long afterwards to be invidious and galling. They could not sit in either House of Parliament. No Catholic could be a guardian to a Protestant, and no priest could be a guardian at all. No Catholic could present to an ecclesiastical living, though Protestant Dissenters and even Jews could do so. The permission to Catholics to keep arms was girt about with restrictions ; and no Catholic could be employed as a fowler, or keep any warlike stores for sale or any other purpose. The pecuniary qualifica- tion of Papists was higher than that of Protestant jurors, and they were practically excluded from the public service. They were also liable to the penalties of the severest of the old laws, if they did not punctually exempt themselves by taking the oath and declaration prescribed by 13 & 14 George III, c. 3. They were, moreover, systematically excluded from juries in Ireland ; and in some districts were forced to submit to an absolute banishment from the soil. In fact, the Catholic was so effectually excommunicated in certain parts of Ireland, that he could not preserve his property nor remain upon the spot ; and if he happened to die before he could effect his retreat, the pass- ing bell was jerked to a merry measure by the followers of the Protestant faith. After Pitt's resignation, the " Talents " administration did, it is true, make a show of seeking some relief for Roman Catholics in England, but this so terrified the feeble old King, that he threw himself into the arms of Port- land, and relief was thereby more thoroughly obstructed than by even the resignation of Pitt. On February 16, 1805, a Catholic deputation waited upon the Premier and requested him to present a petition for the alleviation of their grievances, but Pitt refused, and the Catholics had recourse to Grenville and Fox, who presented their petition to both Houses of Parlia- ment on March 25.^ But it was decided by a majority of two hundred and twelve votes to maintain those restrictions which galled the Irish people without doing any one else any appreciable good. It was during the debate in the Lower House upon this peti- tion that the first distinct mention of the Veto was made. Sir John Cox Hippesley, who supported the Catholic Bill, proposed to give the Crown a veto upon the appointment of Bishops by the Pope, so as to obviate the objections of those who apprehended the baneful supremacy of the Pontiff over Irish Catholics. Al- though this was the first direct reference to the Veto its origin p?^,of earlier date. In fact, it had been a favourite scheme of "'tts since 1799, and in that year a proposal had been made to * Appendix XXII, extract from speech by Charles James Fox. 96 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY give a State endowment to Catholic Bishops in Ireland on con- ditions which amounted in principle to the Veto. It was weary, thankless work, this agitation for Catholic Emancipation. Grati- tude on the part of the Catholics there could be none, neither for past concessions nor for the measure that was eventually carried in 1829.^ On February 9, 1807, a committee was appointed by the Catholic party to draw up a petition to be presented to Parlia- ment, and one of the members of the committee was Daniel O'Connell.^ But the Whig Administration soon afterwards resigned, and Spencer Perceval's "No Popery Ministry" having succeeded to power, the Catholic Committee in Dublin, on Grattan's advice, decided to defer the presentation of the petition until a more convenient season. On the 3rd of March of the same year Lord Howick introduced a Catholic Officers Bill for the opening of commissions in the army and navy, a privilege already possessed by the Catholics in Ireland under the Relief Bill of 1793. Howick's Bill also proposed that private soldiers who were Catholics should not be compelled to attend a Pro- testant service. But the King was against the measure, and the resignation of the Whig Ministry and Perceval's ^ assassination stopped its farther progress. Parliament met on January 21, 1808, and the Catholics determined to renew their petition for the repeal of the remaining disabilities attaching to their faith. Two days before Parliament had assembled, a meeting of Catholics had been held in Dublin, with Lord Fingal in the chair, and on the motion of Colonel Dalton it was resolved to bring forward the question immediately. As a result of this resolution, Grattan presented the petition on May 25, and tried to induce the Government to take it into consideration by stating that the Catholics had authorized him to offer a ministerial veto on episcopal appointments. But the Government would have none of it, and the motion for a committee to consider it was rejected by 281 to 128 ; a similar motion brought forward by Lord Grenville in the Upper House being lost by 181 to 74. The petition which Grattan had presented in vain was a general petition of the Catholics of the kingdom. Separate ones had also been presented from the Catholics of the counties of Tipperary, Wexford, and Kerry, and the cities of Waterford and Kilkenny. The corporation of the City of Dublin had presented a petition against the Catholic claims, but this seems to have been the only instance of a counter petition to that of the ' Appendix XXIII, extract from speech by Lord Darnley. 2 Appendix XXIV, O'Connell's duel with D'Esterre and his bloodless quarrel with Peel. , * Spencer Perceval was shot dead by John Bellingham, in mistake for Lo" Granville, on May 11, 1812, in the Lobby of the House. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 97 Catholics on this occasion. The rejected general petition was then returned to Ireland to be re-signed, as the ostensible reason for its rejection had been the doubtful character of some of the signatures, and on the 25th of May it was once more presented by Grattan, but Parliament was inexorable, and it was once again rejected. On the 30th of May the same year it was moved in the Lower House " That the Catholics ought to be considered eligible to become governors, deputy-governors, and directors of the Bank of Ireland, if otherwise qualified," but the motion was defeated by a majority of three. It was on the question of the Veto that Grattan separated from O'Connell, thus delaying the redress of the Catholic griev- ance for several years. When the offer of a provision for the Irish Catholics had been made in 1799 during the negotiations between the Irish Executive and the Catholic Bishops on the subject of the Union, the trustees of Maynooth College sent Castlereagh a resolution declaring on behalf of the Hierarchy, "That in the appointment of prelates of the Roman Catholic religion to vacant sees within the kingdom, such interference of the Government as may enable it to be satisfied of the person appointed is just and ought to be agreed to." In. 1808 Pius VII let it be known that he would accept this proviso, and the principal Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland also concurred ; and on the occasion of the Catholic claims being brought for- ward in Parliament, the Veto was made a part of them. But O'Connell opposed the proviso and succeeded in persuading the Irish Catholics to pronounce against the project, so that a split was created among Catholics on the question, the Earl of Fingall leading the Catholic gentry, who were generally in favour of the Veto, and O'Connell the democracy. In September 1808 the Irish Bishops had declared in a synod held in Dublin, only three Bishops of the twenty-six prelates present dissenting, that it was inexpedient to introduce any alteration in the mode of nominat- ing Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, and an address of thanks to the Hierarchy for their resolution was signed by 40,000 laymen. On being asked as to the exact import of this declaration by Sir Edward Bellew and Lord Southwell, Archbishop O'Reilly ex- plained that it did not mean that the Veto, with the consent of the Holy See, was contrary to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, but that the prelates were merely giving expression to their apprehension that it might possibly be used to the detri- ment of the Church of Rome. However, in February 18 10, the Irish Bishops reiterated their decision in synod. This determin- ation was communicated to the Catholic Committee, of which yConnell was secretary, and unanimously endorsed by the latter. In 1809 Grattan again brought forward the Catholic claims 7 98 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY in Parliament, but in vain. In July of that year occurred what is known as the " Defection of the Bandon Orangemen." On July the 1st the Yeomanry had assembled at Bandon to celebrate, according to custom, the Battle of the Boyne ; but their com- mander and grand-master. Lord Bandon, requested them, in view of the feelings aroused by such a demonstration among the Roman Catholics, not to wear the usual Orange emblems. This order so disgusted the force of 600 men, that, with the exception of twenty-five, they all laid down their arms. The consternation caused in Government circles by this display of pique was not ungraceful. It was the sympathy of one bigot for the discom- fiture of another, and care was taken in the future to leave undisturbed upon the manly persons of these bully braves the symbols of their honest loyalty. In February 18 10 a petition was presented to the Lower House from the Roman Catholics of Tipperary, and another on the 22nd of the same month from the Catholics of England. On the 27th of February Grattan once more presented the general Irish petition for emancipation ; but he only agreed to it subject to the Veto, and in May moved that this and other petitions since drawn up — one from the Catholic freeholders of the Queen's County, and another from the Roman Catholics of the City of Cork — should be referred to a committee. But his motion was rejected by a majority of 104. In June the petition was pre- sented by Lord Donoughniore to the Upper House, and experienced a like fate there, being defeated by a majority of eighty-six. A month after this rejection of the petition, the general committee of the Catholics issued an address urging all Catholics of Ireland to combine for a great agitation for Catholic emancipation, and the document bore the signature of Daniel O'Connell. In October George III sank into his final and incurable insanity, and the Catholics were filled with hope, the chief obstacle to reform being thus removed by the hand of God. They now determined to strengthen their organization, and suggestions were made that the business of petitioning should be carried on by ten managers in each county, working in subordination to the Central Committee. In view of this activity Wellesley Pole, the Irish Secretary, sent a circular order to the Sheriffs and Magistrates instructing them to strictly enforce the provisions of the Convention Act of 1793, which, while admitting the right to petition, declared all bodies appointed by delegation or having any representative character to be un- lawful. Hereupon a prosecution was instituted against the Catholic Committee in the persons of two of its members, Kirwan and Dr. Sheridan. A conviction was obtained, and thencefor- ward the Catholic Committee in that form ceased to exist. As might have been expected, this was a signal for a fresh campaign CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 99 against the Papists. The opportunity was too good to be lost ; the Government had given the sign, and its Protestant followers were not the sort of men to lose any time in girding up their loins. Calling upon their Saviour, and crossing their palms, they there- fore set about with holy satisfaction to persecute the defenders of the Catholic faith. Means were subordinated to ends ; scruples had to give way to the Protestant religion, for were not the Roman Catholics a perpetual defilement to Ireland, and was it not the duty of the crusaders to drive them from the temple .-• ^ On the 27th of May the Marquis of Downshire presented a general petition in the Upper House from the Catholics of Ireland, but Lord Donoughmore's motion to consider it was defeated by % majority of fifty-nine on the i8th of June. The Catholic petition had been once again presented in the Lower House in May, but Grattan's motion that it should be referred to a committee of the whole House was rejected by one hundred and forty-six votes to eighty-three. This state of affairs continued until the Regency in 181 2, when early in that year Lord Morpeth moved that the House should resolve itself into a committee to consider the state of Ireland, but this motion also was rejected by a majority of one hundred and thirty-five. On the 22nd of April, 1812, the claims of the Catholics were again brought forward in the House of Lords, but the motion for their consideration was defeated by a majority of seventy- two, and a similar motion in the Commons by one of eighty- five. An increase of the Maynooth grant from eight thousand to thirteen thousand pounds was likewise refused. In the same year Grattan's motion for Catholic Relief was lost in the Commons. Year after year was his attempt destined to fail, but it made no difference in his enthusiasm. He had a fervent belief in the justice of his cause and was confident of its ultimate success.^ In spite of many rebuffs, Canning's motion for the consider- ation of the laws affecting Roman Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland was carried this year. During the debate upon the Catholic question on the 3rd of February, 18 1 2, he asked — " Does my right honourable and learned friend only think that these wise and salutary regulations, though abolished, ought not to be forgotten ; that though we have partially, perhaps improvidently, removed the weight of the chain from the limbs of the Catholic, we ought to leave a link or two behind, to remind him that he was once in fetters ? " ^ ^ Appendix XXV, extract from speech by Lord Gosford. J Appendix XXVa, quotation from Grattan. Canning's speeches, as contributions to English literature, are perhaps superior . "*°se of any other orator of the nineteenth century. Polished as a mirror, faultless '" '^'Si they might have been fashioned in the workshop of ancient Athens. Noble lOO IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY It seemed indeed that this was the opinion of a majority of the rulers of Ireland. The question that on the face of it appeared so absurd, was not so ridiculous after all. In Great Britain liberty was a temple to worship in, but in Ireland it was a totally different thing, an object of suspicion, a false god, a hundredfold more hateful than the meanest bondage. What was good for one nation was not good for the other. The one might bear the imprint of freedom and bask in the sunshine of her liberal institutions, but the other was to bear the mark of the beast. Her religion was too odious, her priests too infamous, her people too perverse to enjoy the free breath of an unrestricted liberty. On the nth of May, 1812, Perceval was assassinated in the Lobby of the House of Commons, and Liverpool^ succeeded to the premiership. Canning and Lord Wellesley moved a resolution in each House proposing a pledge that Parliament would in the ensuing session seriously take up the question of Catholic Emancipation. In the Upper House it was only lost by one, the numbers being 125 to 124 on Lord Eldon's amendment; but the Commons destroyed it by a large majority. On the 25 th of February of the following year Grattan renewed Canning's motion of the year before, and supported by Ponsonby, Whitbread, Canning, and Lords Castlereagh and Palmerston, moved for the immediate consideration of the laws affecting Roman Catholics. Canning finely said, in urging the acceptance of the motion — "There is a tide in the affairs of men, on the height of which we are now riding towards the accomplishment of our object. The hands of Protestant and Catholic are outstretched to meet each other, and nearly touching." ^ On Grattan's motion being carried by a majority of forty, he proceeded to bring in a Bill for Catholic Emancipation. It provided for the admission of Catholics to Parliament, to corporations, and to civil and military offices, those of Lord- thoughts are clothed in noble images, and so fine is the texture of the language that il is impossible to add or withdraw even a word without detracting from its el^ance. His dialectical skill is on a level with his literary excellence, and the track of a subor- dinate argument may frequently be traced throughout a whole speech, from the subtle windings of its first suggestion, to the final demonstration of its truth. If Canning's speeches have a fault, it is that they are too elaborately chiselled, too finished, too scholarly. Immense care was taken with them, and you feel it. ^ Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828). He was a mere figure-head. 2 Sir James Mackintosh said of Plunket's speech on this occasion — " This admirable speech has made more impression than any other speech since Mr-^ Sheridan's, in 1787, on the charge against Hastings respecting the Begums of Oude" (Memoirs). CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION loi Lieutenant of Ireland and Lord Chancellor of England being excepted, as well as all posts connected with the Irish Church establishment. Between the first and second readings Canning added certain clauses providing for the Veto in the case of the appointment of any suspected bishop. The Catholic Board of England were quite favourable to the insertion of such a provi- sion and endeavoured to have it accepted at Rome ; a certain Monsignor Quarantotti, the secretary and vice-prefect of the Sacred College for the Propagation of the Faith, who exercised in i8i4the authority of the Pope during the imprisonment of Pius VII at Fontainebleau, being induced through English influence to recommend submission to the Veto. He sent a Rescript, dated February i6, 1814, to Dr. William Poynter, Vicar- Apostolic of the London District, stating that the Veto was approved by the most learned divines in Rome. The action of Quarantotti was later on disowned by the Pope on the ground of the issue of the Rescript without proper formality. But in any case the Irish Catholic Bishops would have none of it. It was hardly likely that they were going to place the dignitaries of the Church at the mercy of a hostile denomin- ation. They had had experience of this mercy in the past. Grattan, on his part, acquiesced in Canning's clause, and this caused an estrangement between Grattan and the Catholic Board who were under the sway of O'Connell, which resulted in the former abandoning for the future the charge of the Board's petitions. Although the second reading had been carried by a majority of forty-two, he had finally to drop his Bill on account of the opposition he encountered from Speaker Abbot, who, as soon as the House was in committee, moved that the first clause ad- mitting Catholics to Parliament be omitted, the amendment being carried by 251 to 247. However, a slight reform was conceded this year, in the shape of a Relief Bill for Roman Catholic officers. Irish Roman Catholic officers were now enabled to hold all such civil or military offices in England, as by the Act of 1793 they were entitled to hold in Ireland. On the 3rd of June, 1814, the "Catholic Board" was finally suppressed by a Proclamation of the Lord-Lieutenant under the Convention Act; but O'Connell immediately proceeded to evade the penalties of the law and to carry on the agitation by organizing "Aggregate Meetings," which were even more effectual than the Board for the purpose of disseminating the opinions of the ^atholic leaders, a meeting of the kind being held in Clarendon Street Chapel in January 181 5, with the O'Conor Don in the chair. The Ascendency now began to loathe O'Connell with an execration that was all the more bitter for being tinged with the sentiment of fear. Here was a man in deadly earnest, determined to emancipate the country of his birth ; heeding no I02 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY more the frown of monopoly and the scowl of hereditary influence than the eagle cares for the meaner fowl that straggle in his wake. Single-minded, courageous, he went upon his way, a great man upon a great mission, the guardian of his own conscience. This was not the type of statesman that exactly suited the conforming spirit of the Orange anti-Catholics. They were so nicely rounded off, so polished, so outwardly clean and so rotten at the core, that they could not comprehend the rugged strength of this upstart Irishman ; they could not understand him, and they hated him for it.^ Meanwhile the Quarantotti Rescript had been referred to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. The decision was communicated to Dr. Poynter in a letter dated April 26, 181 5, from Cardinal Lita, Prefect of the Congregation. The proposal to grant to the Crown the right to examine Papal rescripts and the documents sent to the United Kingdom was condemned on the ground that it would be an interference with the supremacy of the See of Rome, but the Pope, it was said, had no hesitation in agreeing to submit the names of candidates for vacant dioceses to the Crown for approval. The aversion of the Catholic Bishops to the Veto was dealt with in a reply of the Pope's dated February i, 18 16. He declared that their apprehensions were without foundation, as it was only proposed to give the British Government power to erase from the list of candidates for a vacant bishopric to be presented to the See of Rome those w^hose loyalty was suspected. " In doing this," continued His Holiness, "we have acted according to the in- variable rule of the Holy See — that is, never to promote to vacant' sees persons who were known to be displeasing to the Powers under whom the dioceses to be administered were situated. Such a concession, therefore, might well be made to the friendly British Government, and its refusal would certainly be displeasing to the Government, which is so powerful for good or evil throughout the whole Church." In 1815 a committee of inquiry was moved by Sir Henry Parnell, who had been entrusted with the care of the Catholic petition after Grattan's abandonment of it, but his motion was defeated by 228 to 147. The following year Grattan again brought forward the question in Parliament, but with as little success. In 18 17 the Military and Naval Officers Oaths Act was passed, a measure which virtually opened all ranks in the army and navy to Roman Catholics and Dissenters. This Act and the similar relief of 181 3 had been refused in 1807, although their expediency had been acknowledged. During the same year Grattan repeated his attempt of 1 816 with a like result, and ' Appendix XX Vb, quotation from R. L. Shiel. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 103 in 1 8 19, with one foot in the grave and his eyes fixed on eternity, he once more made his old essay in favour of the Irish people, and once again was defeated. The rulers of Ireland thought they could stave off the demand of the Catholics, that the old Irish energy would waste itself with chagrin and disappointed hopes, while they could stand upon the bank and smile. But it was not to be — ^^ Ruslicus expectat dum dejluat amnis, at ilk Labitur et labetur." During the course of the same year Ireland was visited by the Royal voluptuary who was seated on the throne. On parting from her shores the tender-hearted libertine completely broke down. Tears trickled down the cheeks that were furrowed by debauch, and sighs, those gentle interpreters of the soul, rose from the breast that up till then had kindled with no passion save that of lust. What was the secret of this grand emotion } What wizard's spell had tapped the fountains of this rake's sorrow .' Had the faces that stared at him from Irish hedge- rows, pinched with want and grinning with hunger, had the in- delible mark of national prostration, notwithstanding the efforts of Government to conceal them from his view, pierced the seared conscience and melted the heart of the worthless debauchee? We think not. No, George IV was too well-bred for any breach of polished profligacy. He had merely feasted well in Ireland. The carefully prepared carouse had mounted to his head ; the farewell applause of a hired rabble had heightened the consciousness of unearned contentment ; and the over- charged pleasure of the senses had found an easy vent through the ready sluices of the eye.^ On the 14th of October, 18 17, died John Philpot Curran, the celebrated Irish advocate. He was famous even at a time when the Irish Bar was renowned throughout Europe for its wit and eloquence. The names of Grattan, O'Connell, Flood, Fitz- gibbon, Charles Kendal Busche, Walter Huzzey Burgh, Barry Yelverton and Plunket bear witness to its brilliancy at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and Curran's name is not the least among them. Indolent by nature and over-fond of plccisure, his genius, in spite of these failings, propelled him to the front, although even that gift might have proved powerless to win him success had not the spur of early poverty been there to help. Whether in the Courts or the beloved social circle of his intimates, his vivacious and stimulat- ing personality gave a flavour to the proceedings to which they were strangers in his absence, and he must have been a dull man Appendix XXVI, extract from Lord Byron's verses on the occasion. 104 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY indeed who had once been in Curran's society without relishing it or desiring more. His character was pictured in his countenance. That uplifted eager face and protruded underlip, that beaming and intellectual eye, that dilated nostril and broad brow proclaimed a man with a magnanimous heart and generous, bubbling impulses. There was no meanness about him. Quick to resent injustice, he was always the friend of the oppressed and foe of the oppressor. Even his detractors fell under the spell of his persuasive and pathetic eloquence, and paid unwilling tributes to his disinterested devotion to the cause of liberty. With bayonets pointed at his breast, he defended the client who was too poor to fee him, and in the teeth of the most rancorous and remorseless hostility, when a temporary subservience to envious and arrogant power might have propitiated an enemy and improved his worldly pros- pects, he never deviated by so much as a hair's breadth from the straight path of duty. His eloquence was the impassioned eloquence of the Celt without its usual faults of tautology and extravagance. It breathed sympathy for his less fortunate fellow-countrymen. You felt he was entreating from his heart, a capacious and intrepid heart, and that he pleaded not because he was paid to do it, but because he yearned for justice. Like all great speakers he seemed to kindle as he spoke, and as the sweet stream of reason and pathos issued from his lips, warmed into life by exquisite imagery and apposite illustration, the audience could not help loving the man and being convinced by the orator, In 1820 Grattan died at the age of seventy-four, the most fervent patriot who ever devoted himself to his country's cause, and one of the greatest orators that ever adorned the English or the Irish Parliament. Clarum et veiierabile nomen. His speeches may not possess the profundity or philosophy of Burke, the fire of Chatham, the wit of Sheridan, the spontaneity of Fox, the stateliness of Pitt, the finish of Canning, the lucidity of Cobden, or the noble simplicity of Bright, but he outstrips them all in his marvellous fertility of phrase, his poetical flow of imagery, his fecundity of antithesis, and his thaumaturgical mastery of the English language.^ Above all, and let it not be forgotten, the Parliament, his Parliament of 1782, was probably the only establishment which might have lasted to this day and satisfied the restless ambition of the Irish people. It was swept away by trickery and corruption, and we have now had one hundred years of retribution ; but for a long ' The effect produced by his eloquence was all the more remarkable when his in- significant presence is taken into account. The gestures of his arms were ungainly in the extreme, and he used to double himself up at intervals, as though he were suffering from some acute internal disorder. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 105 time it maintained its place in practical politics, as the only institution upon which could have been modelled any attempt to give a separate legislature to their unfortunate country. In 1 82 1 William Plunket, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor of Ireland, proposed six resolutions in Parliament. The first two were for the repeal of all those declarations required to be made by members of Parliament against transub- stantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass ; and the last four for the explanation or repeal of the word " spiritual " in the passage of the oath of supremacy affirm- ing " that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate ought to have any jurisdiction, authority, etc, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within these realms." He then introduced two Bills founded on these resolutions, the first providing for the removal of every disability from the Roman Catholics and their admission to every office, except that of the Chancellorship of England and the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland ; and the second giving the Crown a veto on the appointment of a Roman Catholic bishop by the Pope, and exacting an oath from every Roman Catholic priest not to concur in the appointment of any dignitary of his church except such as he should deem unimpeachably loyal and peaceful, nor to correspond with the Pope or any of his agents as to the disestablishment of the Church of England, Scotland, or Ireland. Plunket was sup- ported by Canning, and their speeches on this occasion are specimens of almost the highest flights of oratory. The Bills passed successfully through the Commons, but with patient regularity were rejected by the Lords. The same year the King visited his dependency, and after many loyal addresses left its shores at Dunleary, which in honour of that happy event was thenceforward known as Kingstown. In 1822 Canning intro- duced a bill to allow Roman Catholic peers to sit and vote in Parliament. In 18 17 Peel had delivered a very able speech against the Catholic claims, and in 1821 Plunket had made a remarkable one in favour of them, in which Peel acknowledged that his opponent " had torn to pieces " the web of his argument of four years before, and that Plunket was " worthy to wield the arms of the dead Achilles." ^ But for the purposes of reform our " flexible Constitution " was not flexible enough, and the Catholics had to wait eight years longer for the benediction.^ Canning's Bill was passed by the Commons but with undeviating consistency rejected by the Lords. The riot in the theatre of Dublin, known as the " Bottle Plot," also occurred in 1822. The Dublin Protestants had decided on a great demonstration on November 4. On that day it had been ^ i. e. Grattan. 2 Appendix XX VI a, extract from speech by Canning. 'Tf- io6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the custom to decorate the statue of the Prince of Orange ; but Lord Wellesley, fearing that a riot might occur among the Catholics whom he had been sent to Ireland to conciliate, and whose claims he advocated, persuaded the Lord Mayor to prohibit the decoration. This order set all Dublin in a blaze. Wellesley was already unpopular with the Orangemen, as he was known to favour the cause of the Catholics, and this last incident enraged them beyond measure. A few weeks later on entering the theatre he was hissed by the Protestant mob, and a quart bottle and half a policeman's rattle were thrown into his box. This piece of horseplay on the part of a few Orange clowns was very foolishly interpreted as a plot against his life, and a rising against those in power. The rioters were tried, but soon afterwards acquitted, and the " Bottle plot " served only to bring its object into ridicule. In 1823 Plunket again moved for the emancipation of the Catholics. He had made a great speech on the subject in 1821, but in vain; seven years being still required to complete that surgical operation upon the skulls of Peel and Wellington, and to drive into their heads that very ordinary sense of justice and expediency, which most people had been possessed of twenty years before.^ The Roman Catholics at this period were in the habit of forming for every Orange Club established an antagonistic Ribbon Society. The Catholic Board, which had taken the place of the Catholic Committee suppressed in 1812, had never been of any importance, and the formation of the Great Catholic Association by Daniel O'Connell in 1823 opened up a new road to reform. It was agreed that the offices of the Association should be at Coyne's, the Catholic bookseller, No. 4, Capel Street, and it was there, on May 3, 1823, that the first meeting of the Catholic Association was held under the chairmanship of Lord Killeen. In order to escape the penalties of the Convention Act of 1 796, the Association was expressly declared not to be a delegated body. It was not limited to Catholics, any one who subscribed £i 2s. gd. a year being entitled to become a member. Reporters could attend the meetings, which were to be held at three o'clock on Saturday afternoons ; and if by four o'clock the members had not assembled, the meeting was to be adjourned. O'Connell's principal coadjutor was Richard Lalor Shiel, and the great object of the new movement was Catholic Emancipation. After a few meetings enthusiasm began to wane and audiences to diminish, but O'Connell's ' Plunket must have been, if we can judge by what has been handed down to us, one of the most brilliant orators of the nineteenth century. He was impassioned by nature, but calm and logical in practice ; fired with the divine flame of genius, but not allowing it to scorch him. He was ascetic-looking, and had a cold exterior which belied the ardent spirit within. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 107 fertile and ready brain devised a new plan. A " Catholic Rent " was to be collected by the emissaries of the priesthood, and devoted to the supreme end of acquiring political liberty for the members of the oppressed religion. Monthly subscriptions were to be raised, and collectors were appointed for each parish to receive them, the lowest being fixed at a penny, and the highest at two shillings. On the formation of O'Connell's new association agrarian disorder almost ceased in Ireland, and the energies of the Irish Catholics were absorbed in advancing the cause of emancipation. This was largely due to the action of O'Connell himself; for he sternly repressed all tendencies to disorder, wishing rather to appeal to the reason and generosity of opponents than to their fear. Speaking at Limerick on March 22, 1824, and alluding to agrarian crime in Munster, he said — " Many a widow, many an orphan, grieves over the consequences of these disturbances. Murder — oh, it brings the curse of heaven on their heads; the hand of man pursues to punish it; the red right arm of God's avenging justice hangs over the head of the murderer and of the midnight assassin ! Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say you do not labour under grievances ; that the tithe system. Church rates, grand jury robbing, Orange bigotry, corporate monopoly, are not grievances. Your wrongs I pity ; whatever of life and talent I possess, it is directed to redress them ; but until you drop your evil proceedings I can be of no use to you." On December 17, 1824, O'Connell delivered a speech at the Catholic Association in which he eulogized Simon Bolivar and the methods employed by him to attain the liberty of a people. For this he was prosecuted, but the grand jury, which was composed of persons of various political opinions, threw out the bills on January i. By 1825 the Association had, by dint of indomitable perseverance and courage bred of a great cause, become very formidable to the Government. Within two years after its origin the penny subscriptions to the rent averaged ;^500 a week, representing half-a-million enrolled associates, and O'Connell began to feel himself strong enough to show his hand. Even some years before this time he had ventured in a speech to quote the lines — " Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not, who would be free, themselves must strike the blow ? " ; and he was not without support in high places in his desire to bring the question to a settlement, for Althorp ^ had also begun to take up the cause of Ireland, and, although his motion had been rejected, his efforts were imitated, and Joseph Hume in 1824 had moved for an inquiry into the existing Irish Church Establish- ' John Charles Spencer, Viscount Althorp and third Earl Spencer (i 782-1 845). io8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ment. It was in truth time for reform. The Church rate was chiefly levied on Irish Roman Catholics. Clerks received extravagant salaries, whilst houses were built for them at the expense of the parish, and the Protestants were actually, in some cases, provided with prayer-books at the expense of the Catholic ratepayers. The King's Speech, read at the opening of Parlia- ment on February 3, 1825, contained a passage urging Parliament to consider without delay a remedy for the undue activity of the Catholic Association, and Henry Goulburn, Chief Secretary to Wellesley, the Lord-Lieutenant, in view of the unwelcome virility of the newly-formed league, brought in a Bill on the loth of February for the suppression of " Unlawful Associations in Ireland," which ostensibly aiming at political associations in general, was really directed against O'Connell's.^ The Bill declared it unlawful for any political association to continue its sittings, by adjournment or otherwise, for more than fourteen days; or to levy contributions for His Majesty's sub- jects ; or for any such societies to have different branches, or to correspond with other societies, or to exclude members on the ground of religious faith, or to require oaths or declarations otherwise than as required by law. The measure was supported by Plunket and Canning on the ground that such an association was opposed to the spirit of the British Constitution, whilst the Association was defended by several of the Radicals, including Sir Francis Burdett, Sir James Mactintosh, Sir Henry Parnell, and Henry Brougham. On February 18 there was a debate on the petition of the Catholic Association to be heard by counsel at the Bar of the House. There was an important deputation of Irish Catholics in London at the time, O'Connell and Sheil having been requested by the Catholic Association to go to England and demand a hearing against Goulburn's Suppression Bill. The motion that they should be heard was moved by Brougham, on February 17, seconded by Burdett, and supported by Hobhouse^ and Spring Rice,^ and after a warm debate in which Peel called O'Connell " an attainted traitor," was defeated by 222 to 89. Goulburn's Bill meanwhile, having been read a second time in the Commons by 253 to 107, passed into law, but the measure was a failure. O'Connell called it "the Algerine Act," and cleverly evaded it, driving, as he boasted, " a coach and six " through it. This he affected by merely altering the title of the old Association and continuing it as vigorously as ever under that of the " New Catholic Association." While the debate on the Suppression Bill was proceeding, select committees of both Houses had been appointed to consider the state of * Appendix XXVIb, extract from speech by Henry Brougham. * John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton. * Thomas Spring Rice, first Baron Monteagle of Brandon, in Kerry. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 109 Ireland, and, although they made no report, a fierce h'ght was thrown upon the grievances of the Irish and evidence accumulated for future use. The same year in which Goulburn brought in his Bill for the suppression of O'Connell's Association, a series of resolutions were introduced by Sir Francis Burdett for the relief of the Roman Catholics. The first resolution abolished the oaths disavowing beliefs in transubstantiation and the worship of the Virgin and the Saints ; the second modified the oath of supremacy so far as to admit the Pope's supremacy in spiritual matters, and the third dealt with the securities of the loyalty of bishops. Under the terms of this third resolution a Royal Commission was to be appointed to certify as to the loyalty of any future bishop or dean ; but instead of consisting in part of laymen and Protestants, as in Plunket's proposals in 1822, it was to be selected exclusively from the Catholic episcopate. The fourth resolution dealt with intercourse between the priest- hood and Rome ; all instruments whatsoever coming from Rome and dealing with other than purely spiritual matters were to be submitted to the Commission. These resolutions for the admission of Catholics to Parliament were submitted to O'Connell and met with his approval. They were then carried by a majority of thirteen, and Burdett introduced his Bill which was founded upon them.^ But the hearts of the Protestants were hardened, and once more the Catholic cry for relief was drowned in the bray of Exeter Hall. Before it was read a second time in the House of Commons notice was given of an Elective Franchise Bill and a Clergy Support Bill, which it was hoped would buoy up the body of the principal measure. These two supplementary Bills became known therefore as " wings," and O'Connell gave his assent to their introduction. For this he was attacked on March 15, 1825, by John Lawless, editor of the Irishman, a Catholic weekly journal published in Belfast, who alleged that he had supported the " wings " of the Catholic Bill on account of a promise that if emancipation were carried he would be made a King's Counsel. But no proofs were offered in support of the allegation, which was merely the venom of a newspaper hack. The first "wing," of which Lord Francis Leveson- Gower had charge, proposed to set aside one quarter of a million a year for the State endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy, which was to be paid out of the Treasury at the rate of one thousand five hundred pounds a year to each of the four archbishops ; one thousand pounds to each of the twenty- two bishops ; three hundred to five hundred pounds to each of ' Appendix XXVII, extract from speech by W. C. Plunket. no IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the three hundred deans ; two hundred pounds a year for one class of parish priests ; one hundred and twenty pounds for a second class ; and sixty pounds to curates. The second " wing," of which Littleton ^ had charge, proposed to disfranchise the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland and confine the benefit of the suffrage to persons having ten pounds a year in land. Burdett's Bill, although opposed by Peel, passed safely through the Commons, being read a second time by 268 to 241. The Bills embodying the securities were then introduced. The measure for raising the suffrage was read a second time by 233 to 185, and that for the endowment of the Catholic clergy, which was introduced on April 29, passed its second reading by 205 to 162. Burdett's Bill was then read a third time on May 10. But on Monday, April 25, the Duke of York had presented a petition from the Dean and Chapter of St. George's, Windsor, and, alluding to his determination to resist all proposals of Catholic relief, he declared that " these were the principles to which he would adhere, and which he would maintain and act up to, to the latest moment of his existence whatever might be his situation in life. So help him God ! " This speech was one of the most remarkable for vigour ever delivered by a Royal personage in Parliament, and it led directly to the rejection of the Bill in the Lords on its second reading on May 17, by 178 to 130. The old Chancellor, Eldon,^ listened from the Woolsack with the rapture of second childhood to the truths embedded in the Royal speech, and copied them into his note-book before retiring to bed that night, whilst fanatics of the same colour, out-Eldoning Eldon, had the speech printed in letters of gold, framed it, hung it upon their drawing-room walls, and cir- culated it as an example of more than Royal wisdom throughout the country. But the Duke was not allowed to die without being made to feel the sting of a rebuke, that will keep alive the memory of the Royal puppet, when most of his dull fraternity are buried in oblivion. Shell had a short time before fiercely denounced a proposal to drink the Duke's health at a banquet at Mullingar, and seizing the occasion to strip the worthless spendthrift of his hereditary trappings, had displayed the man himself in all the nakedness of his mean nature. Soon afterwards the Duke of York lay upon his death-bed, and Shell felt it his duty as a Christian to offer a public apology to the lump of clay that was so soon to be committed to the ground. This he did ; but the apology was worse than the rebuke ; the forgiveness was more bitter than the accusation. The scorn of it is withering ; it does not bruise, it shrivels the object of its attention. ' Edward John Littleton, first Baron Hatherton (1791-1863). 2 John Scott, first Earl of Eldon (1751-1838). CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION in " It is right that the offence which the Duke of York committed against our country should be committed to forgetfulness. Indeed, it is almost unnecessary to express a desire which the natural oblivdon that must befall the greatest as well as the humblest of mankind cannot fail to accomplish. In a month hence the ]3uke of York will be forgotten. The pomp of death will for a few nights fill the gilded apartments in which his body will lie in state. The artist will endeavour to avert the decay to which even princes are doomed, and embalm him with odours which may resist the cadaverous scent for a while. He will be laid in a winding-sheet fringed with silver and gold ; he will be enclosed in spicy wood, and his illustrious descent and withered hopes will be inscribed upon his glittering coffin. The bell of St. Paul's will toll, and Ix)ndon — rich, luxurious, Babylonic London — will start at the recollec- tion that even kings must die. . . . The coffin will go sadly and slowly down ; its ponderous mass will strike on the remains of its regal kindred ; the chant will be resumed, a moment's awful pause will take place — the marble vault, of which none but the Archangel shall disturb the slumbers, will be closed — the songs of death will cease — the pro- cession will wind through the aisles again and restore them to their loneliness. The torches will fade again in the open daylight — the multitude of the great will gradually disperse ; they will roll back in their gilded chariots into the din and tumult of the great metropolis ; the business and the pursuits and the frivolities of life will be resumed, and the heir to the three kingdoms will be in a week forgotten. _ We, too, shall forget ; but let us, before we forget, forgive him ! " We can imagine the Philistines, swollen with dinner and wiping their mouths, thanking God that they at least had no ideas higher than their soup-plates; we can imagine them not quite understanding, maybe unable to thoroughly appreciate the irony of the words, but let us, before we forget, forgive him. Perhaps these Philistines, with their loud laughter and their mill-stone of provincialism hanging round their necks, did not care to comprehend the insult levelled against their doll, — the most corrosive acid ever applied to the pachydermatous hide of stale bigotry. The tidings of the loss of the Bill reached Dublin at an early hour on the 20th of May. A preliminary meeting was held three days afterwards under the presidency of Mr. VVoulflfe, and on June 8, 1825, an aggregate meeting was held in St. Michan's Chapel, North Anne Street, Dublin, to consider the position of the Catholic cause. Jack Lawless, commonly known as " Honest Jack Lawless," proposed that " the wings " of the Relief Bill had never obtained the assent of the Catholics of Ireland, and although the motion was withdrawn, it received the support of a large minority. Another aggregate meeting was held on July 13 to receive the report of the Committee from the last meeting on the scope of the New Catholic Association. Ostensibly it was to be iortned merely for the purposes of public or private charity, and 112 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY such other purposes as were not prohibited by the statute of 9 George IV, cap. 4. The first object of the Association was declared to be the promotion of public peace and concord. The second, the encouragement of an enlightened and religious system of education founded on the basis of Christian charity and perfect fair dealing. The third object was stated to be the distinctive enumeration of the people according to their various creeds, and the number of children of each sect receiving education. The next purpose was the rendering of aid in the erection of places of public worship, and interment for the dead. Then the pro- motion of improvements in native agriculture and manufactures, and, finally, the diffusion of information calculated to advance the cause of religious toleration, and the support of a liberal press. Petitions to Parliament were in future to be adopted at separate local meetings, instead of issuing, as heretofore, from a central body. The first meeting of the New Association took place on the 20th of August. On October 14 of the same year, the first important meeting was held in New York, with Judge Swanton in the chair, for the purpose of expressing sympathy with the Catholic Emancipation movement, and an association was formed in the United States on the same lines as the one founded by O'Connell, and a " rent " similarly collected. The Irish emigration to America at this time was considerable. In 1824, 45,000 Irish emigrated to Canada, and many of these found their way to the States. In 1826 occurred the Waterford election. The Marquis of Waterford, discerning in his relative a latent aptitude for the affairs of his country, had put forward his brother, Lord George Beresford, as his nominee for the County of Waterford. Villiers Stewart, the popular candidate, opposed him, and backed by the influence of O'Connell and a wave of national enthusiasm routed the astounded nominee. The result of this election fired the ambition of other counties to do likewise, and Monaghan and Louth both returned popular candidates over the puppets of the landlords, Alexander Dawson being elected in the latter case by a majority of 300 in the teeth of the immense interest of Lords Oriel and Roden, who had put forward Fortescue and Leslie Foster. Each of these successes was one more step in the direction of Emancipation. In 1827 Canning brought forward a motion for the consideration of the laws against Catholics, but his attempt was unsuccessful. In the same year Burdett made a similar endeavour, but his motion for the consideration of the laws inflicting penalties on Roman Catholics was rejected, although by a majority of only four. In January 1828 the Catholic Association adopted a resolution to oppose the return to Parlia- ment of every supporter of the Wellington and Peel administra- tions. On February 26 Lord John Russell moved for the repeal CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 113 of the Corporation Act, which excluded from corporate office persons who had not, in the preceding twelve months, received the Sacrament according to the rites of the Established Church and the Test Act, which made the receiving of the Sacrament an essential qualification also for offices of profit under the Crown. The motion was carried by a majority of 44, supported by Q'Connell, although the Dissenters who were to benefit by the measure were against the Catholic claims. A Bill was thereupon introduced by the Government for the abolition of the Sacramental Test, and passed. Russell then tried to persuade O'Connell, in view of this repeal, to cancel the hostile resolution of the Catholic Association in regard to the supporters of the Administration, and on May 20 O'Connell moved that the pledge be rescinded. But the opposition to him was so great that the motion had to be withdrawn. On the 8th of May, 1828, Sir F. Burdett with commendable persistence again brought forward a motion in favour of Catholic Emancipation, supported by Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, Lord F. L. Gower, and others, and succeeded, in spite of Peel's opposition, in carrying it in a House of 538 by a majority of six, but the Lords treated it like its predecessors and strangled it. Lord Lansdowne's motion in favour of Burdett's resolution being rejected by one hundred and eighty-one votes to one hundred and thirty-seven. Peel and Wellington, however, now suddenly bathed in an intellectual flood of light, and almost suspicious of the colour of their new shrewdness, perceived for the first time that they would have to bring forward some such proposals of their own, if they wished with any probability of success to save their places and their reputation. The actual cause of the Catholics was nothing to them. What after all was a Catholic dog ? — only a being with a soul in him. To them a Catholic was a little worse than a rebel ; but like rebels it was sometimes desirable to humour them. In fact, by this time the heretics were very near upsetting the whole paraphernalia of Government, and it was found neces- sary not only to humour them, but to treat with them on equal terms. There was something laughable in this sudden surrender on the part of the soldier and the statesman of the age ; in this knuckling under, this base truckling to a dog of a Catholic, to a rank Papist, the scum of Ireland. What ! O'Connell turn the tables on Peel and Wellington ! The idea was monstrous. What plan out of a frenzy could have imagined such an issue ? But so •t was to be ; Wellington had helped to corner the Corsican, but could not defeat justice. It towered up above him and beat him to his knees. Another rent was to be torn in the web of the old irotestant monopoly. It had formerly been impossible for a . apist to squeeze himself into Paradise ; but he was now to stalk "ito the great council-chamber of the kingdom, and deal blows 114 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY right and left at the only true believers. O'Connell and the Catholic Association were to complete this transformation. They had caused this shocking turmoil in the breasts of the saints, and were now to gather the harvest of their indomitable energy. No one dared now to stop them, or if he ventured it, did so at his own peril.^ A proposal to transfer the seat of the rotten borough of East Retford to Birmingham now led to the sudden secession of Canning's followers from the Government ; and the monotony of politics was likewise broken by the famous Clare election. William Vesey Fitzgerald, on his appointment to the Board of Trade, had been obliged to seek re-election at the hands of his former constituents in Clare, and O'Connell determined to bring all his influence to bear against him. The Catholic Association sent two envoys to Clare to invite William Nugent MacNamara — the Major MacNamara who acted as O'Connell's second in his duel with D'Esterre — a Protestant, to stand in opposition to Fitzgerald. One of the envoys was James Patrick O'Gorman Mahon (called the O'Gorman Mahon), an M.A. of Dublin University and a Catholic, and the other Thomas Steele, a Protestant, and a graduate of both Dublin and Cambridge Universities. Steele had joined the patriots in the Spanish revolt of 1820 against Ferdinand VII, and impoverished his estates in Clare by raising ;^io,ooo in mortgages in aid of the insurgents. Major MacNamara refused to stand, as he felt him- self to be under too many obligations to Fitzgerald. Accordingly on Tuesday, June 24, 1828, at a meeting of the Catholic Associa- tion, held at the Dublin Corn Exchange, with Stephen Coppinger, a barrister, in the chair, O'Connell was, on the motion of the O'Gorman Mahon, seconded by Richard O'Gorman, adopted as the Association's candidate for Clare. On Saturday, July 5, the poll was closed, the result being 2,057 votes for O'Connell, and 982 for Fitzgerald, that is to say, a majority for O'Connell of 1,075.^ The Government now became alarmed lest the great agitator should plunge Ireland in rebellion, for the Protestant Ascendency had experienced a signal defeat in the person of the Government's own creature, and O'Connell was virtual master of Catholic Ireland. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of the Irish Protestants of the better class pronounced in favour of the Catholic claims, and a great meeting presided over by the Duke of Leinster, which was held shortly afterwards in Dublin, declared itself on the side of Emancipation. ' Appendix XXVIIa, extract from speech by R. L. Sheil. ^ At the close of the first day the numbers were : Vesey Fitzgerald, 194 ; O'Connell, 200 — majority 6. At the close of the second day O'Connell's majority had slightly increased. On the Thursday the numbers were : Vesey Fitzgerald, 842 ; O'Connell, 1820— majority, 978. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 115 The Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland at this time was Dr. Patrick Curtis. He had been rector of the Irish College at Salamanca, and during the Peninsular War had given Wellington some useful strategic information. For these services he obtained a pension from the Government and was appointed Archbishop of Armagh by the Pope on the recommendation of Lord Castle- reagh, the Foreign Secretary, at the time when Ireland was in a turmoil of protest against the inclination of the Holy See to agree to the Veto. On December 11, 1828, Wellington wrote in reply to Dr. Curtis that he desired a settlement of the Catholic claims, but saw no prospect of such a consummation. " If," he con- tinued, "we could bury it in oblivion for a short time, and employ that time diligently in the consideration of its difficulties on all sides, for they are very great, I should not despair of seeing a satisfactory remedy." Although the letter was not intended for publication, the Primate sent it to the Catholic Association, where, greatly to Wellington's annoyance, it was read by O'Connell. A letter written by the Viceroy also got into the Press, criticizing Wellington's attitude and stating that the Catholic question "should not for a moment be lost sight of; that anxiety should continue to be manifest ; that all constitu- tional (in contra-distinction to merely legal) means should be resorted to to forward the cause, but at the same time the most patient forbearance, the most submissive obedience to the law, should be inculcated." For this and other previous similar utterances Anglesey^ was recalled. He left Dublin on the igth of January, 1829, amid vast crowds, and was succeeded by the Duke of Northumberland. Peel and Wellington, now thoroughly alarmed at the complexion of the agitation and the possible consequences of further resistance on their part, came to the convenient conclusion that something must be done for those Roman Catholics to whom for years they had denied the ordin- ary privileges of their fellow creatures. The slightest hint from O'Connell would have set all Ireland in a blaze. The men of the South, marshalled horse and foot, were anxiously awaiting O'Connell's commands, whilst Sheil and Lawless, his lieutenants in the Catholic Association in Dublin, were equally eager and zealous to take some decisive step for the promotion of the cause. O'Connell was more sagacious. He knew that he was not power- ful enough to fight the Protestants olF England, although he might crush those of Ireland ; he saw that a life and death struggle must eventually end in a defeat which might postpone the emancipa- tion of the Catholics for years, and he gave, with a consciousness that he was doing his duty, the signal of peace to his followers, and so great was his authority that the whole nation without a ' Henry William Paget, first Marquis of Anglesey. Ii6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY murmur settled down at his bidding. At length Peel, unaware of the convulsion which Ireland had escaped, wrote to Wellington offering to remain in office even were a Catholic Relief Bill to be passed, and thus broke the ice of his own intolerance. In the Speech from the Throne, 5th of February, 1829, both Houses were recommended to take into deliberate consideration the whole condition of Ireland, " with a view to the strengthening of the Executive for the repression of an Association whose con- tinued existence was dangerous to the public peace, and incon- sistent with the spirit of the constitution " ; and at the same time " to review the laws which impose civil disabilities on His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." On the loth of the month, in accordance with the first of these recommendations. Peel introduced a Bill for the suppression of the Catholic Association, but O'Connell was persuaded by some Whigs in London to anticipate the law, and voluntarily dissolve it. Accordingly on February 12, three weeks before the Suppression Bill received the Royal Assent, the Catholic Association met in the Corn Exchange, Dublin, for the last time, under the presidency of Sir Thomas Esmonde, and the motion for its dissolution was moved by Sheil and seconded by Lawless. The King meanwhile had been persuaded in the extremity of his bewilderment to consent to the new Ministerial apostasy, and a Relief Bill was accordingly prepared. But the Ministers little knew the character of their Monarch. What cowardice had gained for them, cowardice and vacillation were to take away. The Catholic Association had been suppressed, and the Bill was on the point of entering Parliament, when George IV at the last moment withdrew his consent to the measure. Peel and Wellington immediately resigned. This step shook the King's resolution, and on the evening of the same day he once more withdrew his opposition and gave his assent to the introduction of the Bill. Upon this Wellington and Peel thankfully resumed office, and the latter, who had for so long blocked the way to all reform in this direction, introduced the long-delayed measure into the House of Commons. In bringing it forward he observed — "I have for years attempted to maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics from Parliament and the high offices of the State. I do not think it was an unnatural or unreasonable struggle. I resign it in consequence of the conviction that it can be no longer advantageously maintained; from believing that there are not adequate materials or sufficient instruments for its effectual and permanent continuance. I yield therefore to a moral necessity which I cannot control, unwilling to push resistance to a point which might endanger the establishments that I wish to defend. ... It is because the evil is not casual and temporary, but permanent and inveterate — it is because the detail of CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 117 misery and outrage is nothing but the ' old story ' that I am contented to run the hazards of a change. ... I ask you to go back to a remoter period than it is generally the habit to embrace in these discussions I ask you to examine the state of His Majesty's Government for the last thirty-five years, and to remark the bearing of the Catholic question upon that Government, the division it has created among our statesmen, the distraction it has occasioned among our councils, and the weakness it has consequently produced. I ask you then to observe what has been the course of Parliament for the same period. And, lastly, what has been the consequence of the divisions in the councils of the King, and of disunion between the two Houses of Parliament — the practical consequences as to Ireland." There are few great careers in English political history which kindle the imagination so little as that of Sir Robert Peel. He was a model public servant, laborious, reliable, conscientious, devoted to official business however dry, and engrossed by one ambition only, the conduct of affairs of State. There was nothing that afforded him keener pleasure than to sit at an office-table up to his elbows in a pile of papers, surrounded by obsequious experts helping him to concoct a Budget out of their united information, and had any one suggested in a burst of philosophic candour that a Shake- speare sonnet was after all of more value to the human race than the best commercial report, the departmental grinder would have laughed in his face. He could work sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, and regarded with feelings akin to contempt any product of the human brain which could not be measured by a minimum scale of daily labour or so many shillings spent in lamp-oil. His watchwords were " prudence " and " respectability," and backed by the reputation of a " double- first" at Oxford, he managed the affairs of his country with the assurance of a master-pedant and the instincts of a tradesman. There was nothing he so much dreaded, therefore, as a street mob threatening to force the Government door, and life-long principles were flung overboard without a shiver, as the vane of public opinion veered round. There was at least one public occasion on which he betrayed some- thing of the inner man — and is there any one who does not at times reveal the secret thoughts that pulse behind the mask of everyday wear.^ It was when he declined to serve in Canning's Administration in 1827, on the ground that he could not agree with the Prime Minister's policy of Catholic Emancipation; the true reason being the unendur- able thought of playing second fiddle to a brilliant con- temporary, who was just as good a scholar as himself and a greater orator : for little more than twelve months later he had himself made up his mind to concede to the Catholics that ii8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY very reform which Canning for many years had slowly bled to death for. In spite of these blemishes, however, Peel had great political courage curiously allied with a horror of physical pain ; for when he fell from his horse in 1850 and fractured two of his ribs, he refused to allow the doctor to examine the seat of the mischief, the thought of any additional discomfort being too much for him, and so he perished. His manner was haughty, and his demeanour cold and almost forbidding, and the ordinary observer never dreamt how painfully sensitive to criticism he really was, or how highly strung. As a speaker he was weighty, and in debate unequalled in his time. He knew the House of Commons as a huntsman knows his hounds, but the feeling for him of his followers was less like the devotion of a dog for its master, than the respect of a tyro for the expert in a game. They heard the crack of his whip and came to heel, and he retained an absolute mastery over his party until at length they found he had betrayed them. But a less magnetic personality has rarely ruled in Downing Street. The man had hardly a flaw, and possessed therefore scarcely any charm. Frigid, austere, incorruptible, priggish, painstaking, and unassailably reserved, his virtues failed to preserve for him the allegiance of his friends, . and merely served as a mark for the ran- cour of his enemies. We cannot picture him regaling a lady of easy virtue with a well-turned compliment or begging his creditors for an extra day, nor even giving vent to bad language or talking at random in his cups. Sir Robert Peel could have no more done these things than the Archangel Gabriel. But neither can we imagine him making an original observation or saying or doing anything without previously calculating its consequences with a foot-rule. An erring fellow- creature had no chance of sympathy from him, for his standard of morality did not acknowledge the inevitableness of vice, and therefore made no allowances for the frailties of humanity. There was no kinship between him and the sinner, and when he caught sight of a backslider he passed by on the other side. In fact, nothing would have convinced him that spiritual un- worthiness and worldly respectability are quite compatible, and that charitableness is not only more important than the cast-iron code of egoistic prudery, but a necessary ingredient in the composition of a good man. Peel will go down to posterity as a consummate Parliament- arian, who worked himself to the bone in the service of his country for the good reason that he had an absorbing passion for power, and honestly believed that no one had the character or the ability to manage the affairs of the nation so efficiently as himself. With a tincture of imagination, with a wider CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 119 sympathy for his fellow-creatures, and a more embracing philosophy, he would have transacted as much business and done it better. The Catholic Relief Bill was read a first time on March 10, 1829, and passed the Commons by a majority of 178. It then proceeded to the Lords. During the debate in the Upper House, Wellington said — " I am one of those, who have probably passed a longer period of my life engaged in war than most men, and principally, I may say, in civil war ; and I must say this, that if I could avoid, by any sacrifice what- ever, even one month of civil war in the country to which I am attached, I would sacrifice my life in order to do it" He believed Ireland was on the verge of civil war, and so after having for years strenuously resisted every step in the direction of reform, himself led a measure for the purpose and passed it. He thus laid himself very naturally open to the charge of inconsistency, which resulted in the celebrated duel between himself and Lord Winchelsea. Winchelsea had written a letter to the Secretary to the University of London in which occurred the following sentence — " Late political events have convinced me that the whole transaction was intended as a blind to the Protestant and High Church Party ; that the noble Duke who had, for some time previous to that period, determined upon breaking in upon the Constitution of 1688, might the more effectually, under the cloak of some outward show of zeal for the Protestant religion, carry on his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties and the introduction of Popery into every department of the State." Hereupon, Wellington demanded that satisfaction "which a gentleman has a right to require, and which a gentleman never refuses to give." The Prime Minister and the Earl met early in the morning in Battersea Fields, and were posted fifteen paces apart. The Duke fired first but without effect, and Winchelsea fired in the air. The latter tiien drew from his pocket a paper con- taining an apology ; whereupon the Duke touched his hat, mounted his horse, and rode away, and the childish incident was closed. The result in the Commons was 320 for the Bill, against 142, or a majority of 178. In the Lords, who at that time could vote by proxy, there were 226 present, and for the second reading 147 voted for and 79 against the Bill. The proxies were 70 for and 33 against — a majority of 105 for the measure. The division in the Lords on the third reading took place on Friday, the loth of April, 1829, the majority for the Bill being 104. The Royal Assent was given on April 13, and the Act came into operation the following day. Roman Catholics had 120 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY previously been disqualified, not expressly as Roman Catholics, but by reason of a passage in the oath of supremacy denying; the spiritual and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Pope, and a declaration against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass, administered to members in addition to the oath of allegiance before they were permitted to take their seats. Under the Bill, the old declaration against transubstantiation and other Catholic doctrines were abolished, and an oath of allegiance and supremacy substituted, testifying allegiance to the Crown ; promising to maintain the Hanoverian settlement and succession ; declaring that it is no article of the Catholic faith " that Princes excommunicated by the Pope may be deposed or murdered by their subjects ; that neither the Pope nor any other foreign prince has any temporal or civil jurisdiction within the realm ; promising to defend the settle- ment of property as established by law ; solemnly disclaiming, disavowing, and abjuring any intent to subvert the present Church Establishment as settled by law ; and engaging never to exercise any privilege conferred by that Act to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant Government." On taking this oath Catholics were permitted to become members of Parliament, or of any lay body-corporate, to do corporate acts, and vote at corporate elections. They were admitted to the enjoyment of all municipal advantages and to the adminis- tration of civil and criminal justice. The army and navy had been open to them before. The only offices from which they were excluded were those of Regent, Lord Chancellor of England and Ireland, Viceroy of Ireland, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as well as all those connected with the Church, its universities and schools, and they were also precluded from all disposal of Church patronage. The insignia of office were for- bidden to be displayed in any place of worship but those of the Established Church. Priests were prohibited from wearing their robes or vestments outside their places of worship; the introduction of further Jesuits was forbidden ; other religious orders were rendered ineligible to receive property by bequest, and Catholic ecclesiastics were denied the right to assume the titles of archbishop, bishop and dean within the United King- dom.^ The extension of monachism within the Empire was likewise prohibited. Thus the long-delayed reform was accom- plished and the doors of the Legislature were at last thrown open to Roman Catholics. Peel had turned his coat, and Wellington had followed the example, not out of remorse for the long obstinacy of their opposition to a just cause, or a sudden awakening to the truth that the Catholics had a right to * Appendix XXVIII, the oath of supremacy, the declaration, and the new oath of allegiance and supremacy. CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 121 relief, but from political expediency, and a very natural desire to preserve their places and secure their ease. As Macaulay said of this measure in 1844 — " But those concessions were made reluctantly, made ungraciously, made under duress, made from the mere dread of civil war. How then was it possible that they should produce contentment and repose? What could be the effect of that sudden and profuse liberality following that long and obstinate resistance to the most reasonable demands, except to teach the Irishman that he could obtain redress only by turbulence? Could he forget that he had been, during eight-and- twenty years, supplicating Parliament for justice, urging those un- answerable arguments which prove that the rights of conscience ought to be held sacred, claiming the performances of promises in vain? Could he forget that two generations of the most profound thinkers, the most brilliant wits, the most eloquent orators, had written and s[K)ken for him in vain ? Could he forget that the greatest statesmen who took his part had paid dear for their generosity?" It was not to be expected that Ireland would be very grateful. Such churlish wooing never won an Irish heart ; so she shrank from it with a shudder, leaving the lover to swallow his rejection. But, what did Hippoclides care ? The measure of relief was accompanied by the suppression of the Catholic Association as an illegal and dangerous society, as well as by a Bill, which Peel introduced on the 5th of March, disfranchising the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland and substituting in their stead ten-pound freeholders. The Irish forty-shilling freeholders were much less well ofif than the forty- shilling freeholders in England ; in fact, they were little better than leaseholders, and entirely dependent on the landlord who created them.^ On some estates the subdivision of lands had been carried to such an extent for the sake of creating this description of voters that they had been known as " warrens of freeholders." In view of this immense political power the Government were afraid that, were their votes preserved to them, only Roman Catholics would have any chance of being returned to Parliament, and they consequently determined to ^ Brownlow, an Ulster member, said in 1829 — " The freeholders were not free agents. They were driven by their landlords to the county-town, and locked up there until they gave their votes for their landlord's favourite candidate."' Lord Holland also said on April 6 of the same year in the House of Lords — J, Look, my lords, at the evidence of Archdeacon French before the Committee of fi?" i' ^ ^^^^ seen,' he says, ' herds of voters driven to the poll like cattle by a man With a large whip, riding on a mule.' I asked him whether he saw the man use the Whip m beating the voters. He replied, ' I did not see the man use the whip in that f ^^i, '^^° asked how he knew that the whip was intended for the voters, and not or the mules. To which he replied that the whip was of such a kind, so large and so long, that the mules could not be struck with it, but that the voters might." 122 Ireland in the nineteenth century obviate the difficulty by simple disfranchisement. What O'Connell had declaimed against was therefore on the point of taking place. He had said in 1828, "Sooner than give up the forty-shilling freeholders, I would rather go back to the Penal Code. They form part of the Constitution ; their right is as sacred as that of the King to his throne ; and it would be treason to the people to attempt to disfranchise them. ... I would conceive it just to resist that attempt with force ; and in such resistance I would be ready to perish in the field, or on the scaffold." But O'Connell had decided not to push his agitation farther, now that he had obtained the grand object of his ambition. Moreover, the Disfranchisement Bill did the Govern- ment considerable harm, for it was notoriously the result of fear that Catholic opinion might become strong enough to obtain a farther redress of grievances. Lord Duncannon, who opposed the second reading on the 19th of March, recognized this when he declared that, *' But for the constitutional exercise of their franchise by the forty-shilling freeholders of Louth, Waterford, and Clare, the measure would never have been heard of." Palmerston also arraigned the bad policy of this restrictive clause, and the mean spirit shown by its originators, for in supporting Dancannon he said that he felt " an insurmountable dislike to the Bill, believing it to be unjust and unnecessary, and conceived in a spirit, not of conciliation, but of punishment and vengeance." England, he said, would not tolerate such a measure. How- ever, the Bill passed the second reading ; the third reading was carried by a majority of 200, and the measure, which reduced the county constituency from 200,000 to 27,000 votes, finally became law before the end of March.^ The flaws in this great reform were, that no concurrent pro- vision was made for the Irish Catholic clergy, nor a commutation of the tithe effected at the same time. Moreover, O'Connell was not permitted to retain his seat for Clare, a mischievous prohibi- tion savouring of petty spite, which was ultimately to do the Government infinite harm. He was anxious to be the first to take his seat under the Act, and, to avoid the delay of a county election, offered Sir Henry Denny, the proprietor of the borough of Tralee, ;^ 3,000 for its representation during the remainder of ^ The number of Roman Catholics returned for thirty years after the passing of the Act was as follows — New Parliament 1835 England 2 Ireland 38 1837 2 ,> 27 1841 6 „ 33 1847 5 „ 44 1852 3 ., 51 1857-58 1859 ;} Arundel ;; 34 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 123 the session, but Denny refused the offer. On May 4, the Earl of Surrey, eldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, took the oath and his seat for the borough of Horsham, which belonged to his father, and was thus the first Catholic member under the Act O'Connell presented himself in the House on May 15, and declared himself willing to take the oath set forth in the Relief Act which had just been passed, but not the old oath of supremacy. As, however, he had been elected before the passing of the Relief Act into law, the Commons, influenced by Peel, rejected his claim by 190 to 116, and decided that he must take the former oath, there being a clause in the Emancipation Act to the effect that the new oath was to be taken by Catholic mem- bers " hereafter to be elected," and as he declined to do so they ordered on May 21 that a new writ should be made out for Clare, and preparations commenced for a fresh election. Fitz- gerald declined to stand again, so O'Connell was again proposed as candidate on July 30, 1829, by the O'Gorman Mahon and Tom Steele, and was returned without opposition. The Govern- ment and their supporters were angry with the great Irish agitator. After fighting him tooth and nail for many years, they had at length been driven into a corner with their tail between their legs ; and, forced to drop the old bone of conten- tion, could only impotently snarl at the man who had given them such a beating. The price the Government was doomed to pay for this fit of temper and O'Connell's temporary exclu- sion was a dear one. Fresh disturbances occurred in Ireland ; an Orange procession in Armagh was attacked by Roman Catholics, and ten men were killed ; whilst a pitched battle, in which one Protestant was killed and seven were wounded, took place in Clare. As a spur to this ill-feeling between the two creeds, Protestants who killed Roman Catholics were as a matter of course acquitted by Protestant juries, and as men's passions became inflamed by this flagrant perversion of justice every sort of lawlessness was let loose upon the country. In this spirit was the great Act carried out by the rulers of Ireland. Smarting under their ignominious defeat, their Ministers whining like whipped hounds in the corners of their offices, they had resolved at least to snap once more at their unsuspecting enemy before running away.^ One of the results of the measure of Emancipation, foreseen probably by Ministers in passing the Bill, was that the Catholics belonging to the upper classes in Ireland were more or less reconciled to the Government ; whilst their anxiety to help their Catholic brethren of humbler social position was rather diminished than otherwise.- The reason for this is clear. The ' Appendix XXVIIIa, quotations from Lord Wellesley and W. E. H. Lecky. 124 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Bill opened the doors of Parliament and municipal corporations, and as this admission only directly affected Catholics of a certain fortune and status, their own personal grievance was removed, and with it the interest they had in agitating for reform. What scope there would be for a philosophic pen in winding up a history of Catholic Emancipation ! For it is an epitome of the policy of Ireland's governors — robbery followed by cruel persecution; then a gradual growth of public opinion, strong enough to irritate, but too weak to force the hand of the Ascend- ency of the day. Then agitation, exasperation, outrage, promises of reform, failure to fulfil them, and crass ignorance and sense- less brutality vying with one another in the government of the disordered country. Then increased agitation, crime and coer- cion, a greater volume of public opinion, a growth of menial fear in the rulers of Ireland, and lastly, after many years of insult and indifference, redress forced from authority, not through a consciousness of justice inexcusably delayed, but under the influence of menace, and menace alone. CHAPTER IV THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION, 1831 "The difficulty of governing Ireland lies entirely in our own minds; it is an incapability of understanding." — ^John Stuart 'iAiiA. {England and Ireland). " Of the Irish qualities none is stronger than the craving to be understood. If the English had only known this secret we should have l^en the most easily governed people in the world. For it is characteristic of the conduct of our most important affairs that we care too little about the substance and too much about the shadow." — Horace Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century. The first scheme of primary education in Ireland of which there is any record was due to the policy of Harr>' the Eighth.^ An Act was passed under his auspices by the Irish Parliament in 1537 for the establishment of elementary schools in different parishes, which should be genuinely English institutions, where the Irish poor would be taught the English language. It was also enacted that such persons as could speak English should be promoted in the Church, and that every ecclesiastic in authority should take an oath not only that he would preach in English and instruct all under his authority to do likewise, but that he would keep a school for the teaching of that tongfue. Under this Act the so-called " parish schools " were founded ; their object being to afford instruction to those who spoke or desired to learn the English language, but to none other. The Act however was soon found to be nugatory. In 1788 there were, in 29 dioceses, containing 838 benefices, 361 parish schools, at which 11,000 children were being educated; but no Parlia- mentary grants were jnade for their maintenance, and the burden of keeping them up therefore devolved, nominally at least, u(>on the clergy, who had not the means, even if they had had the will, to charge themselves with their support. In 18 10 there were, in 736 benefices — out of a total of 1,125 — 549 parish schools, probably the largest number they ever attained, attended by 23,000 children, the greatest number of the schools being in the northern dioceses and the fewest in the provinces of Munster and Connaught. Their founders had originally intended them to be thrown open to all children without any distinction of creed, but in course of time, owing to causes which even then were in embryo, they became confined to the lower classes of Protestants ; The author is indebted to B. Barry O'Brien's comprehensive chapter on the national Education System in his interesting Fifty Years of Concessions to Irelatid. 125 126 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY for they were under the control of the clergy of the Established Church and were therefore avoided, whenever any other source of instruction was available, by the parents of Catholic children. Another class of seminary known as the Diocesan Free Schools, in part elementary, in part of a secondary type, was founded by Elizabeth in 1 570. It was enacted that free schools should be kept in every diocese in Ireland, the whole diocese pay- ing for the cost of the school-house, which was to be built in every shire town. The school-master, who was to be an Englishman, was to be appointed by the Lord-Deputy in all dioceses, except in Armagh, Dublin, Meath, and Kildare, where the Archbishops and Bishops of these dioceses were to be responsible for the appointment. Free Schools were hereupon established in most of the dioceses of Ireland. In the reign of George I, with a view to the further efficiency of these schools, the Archbishops and Bishops were empowered to set apart an acre of ground out of every property belonging to them for the site of a free school to be approved of by the Lord-Lieutenant ; but, in spite of this, little progress was made. In 18 10 the annual stipend of the master of a Diocesan Free School averaged from £2$ to £40. The schools were all kept by Protestant clergymen, and Protest- ant children of the middle classes formed by far the greater part of the pupils. The total number of free scholars in 1810 was only 380, and the number of schools probably never amounted to more than sixteen. In 1857 there were only fourteen Diocesan Free Schools in operation, and in 1 880-1 they were reported by the Endowed Schools Commissioners to be in a state of decay. In fact, they in their turn became exclusively Protestant from the same causes that influenced those of Henry VIII, and thus were shunned in like manner by the parents and children of the Roman faith. The next educational step was taken in the reign of James I. In 1608 an order was issued from the Privy Council, applicable to the plantation counties — Armagh, Tyrone, Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh, and Cavan — to the effect that at least one free school should be appointed in every county. For this purpose 100,000 acres of the confiscated estates were set apart for " Church School and Corporation purposes," it being stipulated as regards the Corporate lands that a small portion of them should be reserved for the site of a public school. By 162 1 four such schools had been established. The policy of James was continued by Charles I, and by 1632 seven Royal Schools, as they were called, had been established, six of them being grammar schools and the seventh an English school. They were nominally open to children of all religious persuasions, and Catholics, Presbyterians, and Anglicans were capable of becoming teachers. As a matter of practice, however, the headmasters belonged exclusively to the THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 127 Established Church, as in fact did the majority of the pupils. In 1633 Strafford, the " thorough " Strafford, complained to Laud that school lands were being misappropriated and the schools applied to the mere maintenance of Popish school-masters, and an Act in consequence was passed the same year by the Irish Parliament to redress the alleged evil. After the Restoration the state of all the Royal Free Schools was taken into consider- ation, and a measure was carried in 1662 regulating their future management, the Lord-Lieutenant being empowered among other things to remove all schools which were inconveniently situated to places more accessible to pupils and teachers. Although these schools were a trifle more flourishing than the Parish or the Diocesan Free Schools, their progress was insigni- ficant, as was shown by the Commissioners of 179 1, who reported that the number of pupils at them in that year was 211, and that out of that number there were only 38 free pupils. In 1879 the whole number of pupils on the rolls amounted to 380, the average attendance, however, being only 361. Of the 380, 322 were members of the Disestablished Church, 21 were Catholics, and 37 were Presbyterians. Therefore the Royal Free Schools were not really "free" in any practical respect, but devoted almost wholly to Protestant Episcopalians, an anomaly which was in keeping with the other features of Irish life. The Erasmus Smith Schools had a more important history. In 1657 Erasmus Smith,^ conscience-stricken perhaps by the irregularity of his gains, gave some land which he had acquired under the Cromwellian Settlement for the purpose of establishing and endowing a number of free grammar schools in Ireland. He expressed a wish that these schools should be Protestant in character, but he was apparently a man of broad mind, and they were first of all Nonconformist and subsequently Episcopalian. On the downfall of the Commonwealth he obtained a new Charter from Charles II, and consented that religious instruction should henceforward be given in the schools in accordance with the principles of the Established Church. According to the terms of Charles' Charter, those who desired to eventually enter Dublin University were to be prepared for that career. The number of poor scholars whom the Governors were empowered to admit was to be limited to twenty, save in the case of the tenants' children on the Erasmus Smith estate, where no limit was fixed. Provisions were further made for clothing those poor children and binding them, when fit, as apprentices to Protestant masters for the purpose of acquiring the knowledge of some craft. It was further provided that the surplus revenues of the estates ^r^?""^ ?™"*' (1611-1691). At the Cromwellian Settlement he received 666 thev u^ ■'" ^'"I'y Tipperary, and subsequently enlarged his holdings, till y reached in 1684 a total of 46,449 acres in nine counties. 128 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY should be applied to increasing the number of indigent scholars in the schools, and, whenever the rents exceeded ;^30O a year, to repairing and adorning the school-houses. Erasmus Smith had originally intended to found five schools, but he finally deter- mined upon three, which he established in Galway, Drogheda, and Tipperary. In 1723, as the income of the estates had con- tinued to increase, sanction was obtained for the establishment of an Erasmus Smith Exhibition in Trinity College. The Act which provided for the Exhibition also empowered the Govern- ors to apply future surpluses to any of the four following objects at their discretion: (i) Trinity College, (2) The Bluecoat Hos- pital, (3) The education and apprenticing of poor children, and (4) The forming one or more Erasmus Smith English schools in Ireland. In 1791 the Commissioners reported favourably upon the management of the Erasmus Smith Trust and the general condition of the schools, and by 1807 the surplus rents had reached the sum of ;^3 5,000, which the Governors proceeded in accordance with the Act to apply to the foundation of English schools. Between 1808 and 181 5, sixty-nine had been estab- lished, all of them being based upon the same principles as regards religious teaching, as had been laid down by the Charter of 1669, under which the grammar schools had been founded. Between 1839 and 1845, fifty-two additional English schools were established, and a new departure was taken in them in regard to religious teaching. Instruction out of the Church of England Catechism was to be no longer obligatory, the reading of the Bible and Bible instruction for all the children being required instead. This alteration of religious method had a tendency to make Catholics and Presbyterians look upon the schools with greater favour than before, although their Protestant Episcopalian character remained undisturbed. According to the Royal Commissioners' report for 1855-6, the total number of pupils in all the grammar schools at that time was 160, the average attendance being 116. Of these 160, 128 were members of the Established Church, 23 were Catholics, and one was a Pres- byterian. The number of the English schools had meanwhile risen from 121 in 1843 to 140 in 1854-8, and in the latter year the number of pupils on the roll was 7,010, of which 4,293 belonged to the Established Church, 1,420 were Presbyterians, 875 were Catholics, and 47 adhered to various other religious persuasions. As regards religious instruction in 1880, the rules required that the children should read a chapter in the Bible to the teacher every day, whilst the latter was to explain the sense, but not to touch upon controversial grounds. These rules, which were strictly observed in the English schools, were relaxed in the grammar schools, and the reason assigned for this indulgence in the latter case was that as the children attending these last THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 129 establishments belonged to the better classes, they were more likely to receive religious instruction at home. The total number of pupils in the grammar schools rose from 160 in 1854 to 244 in 1880. The number of English schools diminished after 1854. There has moreover since that date been a decrease in the attendance of Catholics and Presbyterians in proportion to the total number of pupils. Out of a total of 7,010 pupils, there were at that time 825 Catholics, 1420 Presbyterians, 4,293 members of the Established Church, and 47 of other religious persua- sions ; whilst out of a total of 5,217 pupils in 1880, there were only 163 Catholics and 951 Dissenters, the members of the Disestablished Church numbering 4,103. In this manner were these schools also almost entirely con- fined to Protestant children. Catholic educational propensities were therefore cramped, and the light that was necessary to illumine the minds of the poorer and larger population was concentrated upon and monopolized by a prejudiced and in- tolerant minority. The enlightenment of the Irish Catholic, from the first discouraged, was soon sternly prohibited by a savage penal code. The Catholic child was cut off from learning even the rudiments in his own land, and yet was expected to grow up and flourish like a young oak-tree, his roots strongly planted in loyalty to England, and possessed of sufficient knowledge, acquired God knows where, to be able to discriminate between the insufferable tyranny which springs from ignorance and intolerance and the beneficent policy of the rulers of his country. But, in spite of this legislative portent, hundreds of hedge schools sprang up throughout the country during the eighteenth century, where crouching under any shelter that offered, ragged little urchins drank in the words which their God had intended them to hear, but of which wiser men whom God had made were determined to deprive them. The Bluecoat Hospital was the next institution in point of time, and exclusively Protestant Episcopalian. In 1672 the Corporation of Dublin obtained a Charter from Charles II for the purpose of erecting a hospital for the maintenance of the poor and aged, and also a free school for the education of the young. The establishment, which was thus created, was not used as a hospital, but as a school where poor children were instructed in the Bible, the principles of the Protestant (Epis- copalian) religion, the English language, Euclid, navigation, and practical mathematics. Boys were admitted at eight years of ^ge and apprenticed at fourteen to a trade or the sea service, i *'^^ ^" apprenticeship fee of ^5 for each boy. On the passing 0' the Irish Municipal Reform Act in 1840, it was declared that as the Charter of the hospital limited the benefits of the institu- tion to members of the Established Church, the Corporation, 9 I30 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY which had ceased to be exclusive, should no longer exercise control over its affairs. In 1880 the governing body consisted of fifty members, forty-six of whom were nominated by the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the Bishop of Meath, The other four members were the Treasurer and three Governors of the Erasmus Smith Schools. The number of pupils at the same date was one hundred and one, and all of them were Protestants ; in fact, both parents had to be Protestant in order to entitle a boy to admission. In 1704, during Ormonde's ^ Administration, the Foundling Hospital was established for the accommodation and education of deserted children. The unhappy foundlings were received into the hospital from the time of their birth. They were then dispatched to the country to be nursed, and were brought back to the hospital at the age of eight, where they received education and were maintained until fit to be apprenticed to some calling. The Foundling Hospital, like the other institution, the Bluecoat Hospital, was an essentially Protestant Episcopalian establish- ment, the infants being as a matter of course cradled and reared in the doctrines of the Church of England. The abuses of this institution were incredibly bad. It seemed as though the whole object of its internal economy was to disencumber itself of the infants thrust upon its care, rather than to preserve their lives and rear them up to be useful and grateful citizens. The art of destruction through long practice was at length brought to per- fection, and habit grew into the most callous indifference to the cruel sufferings of the wretched little Irish babes. A committee of inquiry into the state of the hospital was appointed in 1791.^ The villainous system upon which it was managed was made evident by the number of deaths that occurred in proportion to the admissions during seven years of its existence. In 1791, 2,192 children were admitted into the hospital, and 1,205 died; in 1792, 1,998 were admitted, and 1,281 died ; in 1793, 2,205, and 1,287 died ; i" 1794, 2,253, and ^>^^S died; in 1795,2,101, and 1,470 died; in 1796, 2,037, ^"d 1,279 died; and in I797> 1,922 were admitted, and 1,457 perished of neglect and of ill- treatment worse than neglect. In 1797, certain necessary reforms were introduced in the management of the hospital, but the results shown by the institution were still of a highly unsatis- factory character. Between 1796 and 1826, 52,150 children were received, of whom 41,524 died either while in the hospital or at nurse in the country, whilst of the remainder 413 ran away, 5^^ ^ James Butler, second Duke of Ormonde (1665-1745). His was the thankless task of having to succeed the great Marlborough in 1712 in the conduct of the warm Flanders, when the latter was dismissed from all his employments. * Appendix XXVIIIb, quotation from J. A. Froude. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 131 were transferred to the Charter schools, 1,127 were delivered up to the parents, 204 were apprenticed to school-masters, and 5,466 apprenticed to various trades. On January 5, 1826, 6,339 were in hospital, or at nurse, including 3410 received prior to June 21; 1796. It was found that the children (a most unnatural crime) became devoted to their nurses, and this touching attach- ment of the motherless infants to these Catholic women at length alarmed the fearful Governors of the hospital, who resolved, in 1824 to remove from Catholic care all children above the age of four years. Between June 1824 and January 1826, 2,150 children were taken from Catholic, and placed in the country near Dublin under Protestant nurses, who were selected by clergymen of the Church of England. The parting scenes between nurse and child were in many cases heart-rending, but the Protestant authorities were proof against sentiment, and they conducted the transfer without a particle of remorse. The children brought up in the Foundling Hospital seem, after all these attempts to put them on the right path, to have often sunk very low. In fact, the Reverend John Beaseley, the Protestant chaplain of the Asylum in Leeson Street for the reception of unfortunate females, stated that "a very large proportion of Oijr inmates came from the parochial schools and the Foundling Hospital." The hospital, which was chiefly supported by State aid, continued in existence up to 1838. In 1733 a systematized policy was inaugurated and continued for a long period for the purpose of weaning the children of Catholics from their faith. Primate Boulter had in 1730 advo- cated the education of young Papists, and in 1733 the " Incor- porated Society for promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland" was established by Charter. During the year 1735 the first Charter school was erected in the town of Castle Dermot, and its founders charitably hoped that their system would make " the young of the Papists " Protestant, by attract- ing them to seminaries where they would be boarded and lodged and thus cut off from all the evil influence of their parents and priests, and where they could be eventually handed over stuffed with anti-Catholic prejudice and anointed with the holy oil of orthodoxy to Protestant tradesmen. The average annual income of the Society for the first four years of its exist- ence amounted to ;^ 1,600 ; but the greater part of this sum was subscribed in England, where the "Corresponding Society" had been established as a helpmate of the Irish institution. In 1747 an Act was passed by the Irish Parliament by which hawkers and pedlars were obliged to take out licences, and the income accruing from this impost, which amounted to about ;^i,i5oa year, was devoted to the support of the Association. In 175 1 it obtained a Parliamentary grant of ;^5,000, and, seven years 132 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY later, another grant of the same amount was voted for the reception of those children who were of too tender an age to be admitted to the schools. Between 1761 and 1771 the annual average of grants to the schools amounted to ;^S,820, between 1771 and 1781 it rose to £6,100, between 1781 and 1791 to ;^9,ooo, and between 1791 and 1801 to ;^ 11,800. From 1807 to 1832 State aid was regularly voted to the Charter schools, so that between 1801 and 1832 the Society received altogether from Parliament the sum of ;^625,707. In 1832 the grant ceased altogether, the schools having received in this manner between 1733 and 1832 the large sum of ;^i, 300,000. Although children of all religious persuasions were entitled by the Charter to enter the schools, the General Board and the Committee of Fifteen initiated the policy as early as 1733 of admitting Catholic children only ; and in 1776 the Committee having discovered that Pro- testant children had been admitted to the schools, passed a series of strict regulations against the practice. When once a Catholic child had obtained admission, all communication between itself and its parent was from that moment completely severed ; whilst in order to render the child the less susceptible to the influence of domestic affections, it was removed to some seminary situate as far as possible from its own home, where once kennelled within the walls of the school-house, it was permitted to see neither father, mother, sister, brother, nor friend, save in the presence of the master or mistress of the establishment. In 1784 the noble- minded John Howard,^ the self-sacrificing prison reformer, who had visited many of them, urged an inquiry into the terrible state of the schools, but the apathy of the authorities could only be stirred by the instrument of the law, and no steps were taken. In 1787, therefore, he again demanded an investigation, and a Committee was appointed for the purpose iri 1788, before which he himself. Sir Jeremiah Fitzpatrick, and others were examined in regard to the condition of these State establishments. It was stated by the Committee of Fifteen that the Society's establish- ments, schools, and nurseries amounted altogether to 2,100. Howard proved, however, that they were no more than 1,400. In his evidence before the Committee of Inquiry he said — " The state of most of the schools which I visited was so deplorable as to disgrace Protestantism, and to encourage Popery in Ireland rather than the contrary," whilst in many of the schools the " instruction, cleanliness, and health of the children had been grossly neglected ; that they had not been allowed sufficient food, 1 He died at Kherson, in Southern Russia, on January 20, 1 790, of camp fever caught while in attendance on a young lady, who had been stricken down with the com- plaint. He was buried in a walled field at Dclphinovka (now known as Stevano»ka), six versts north of Kherson. A brick pyramid was built over his grave, and a cenotapD of white freestone, with a Russian inscription, was erected to his memory at Kherson. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 133 clothing, or other necessaries ; that in many of these schools they were half starved, half naked, and covered with cutaneous disorders, the effect of filth and negligence ; while in some of those schools the children of the masters and mistresses appeared fresh, clean, and in good health." And before the Committee of the Irish House of Commons he attested that— " The children in general were sickly, pale, and such miserable objects that they were a disgrace to all society, and their reading had been neglected for the purpose of making them work for the masters." At Longford he found twelve "sickly boys almost naked," and thirteen "miserable objects" at Clonmel. At the Innis- shannon boys' school the children " very dirty, and their clothes in rags. Several had the itch, and some had scald heads." On the very day that Howard saw these things, the doctor of the school, who was also a member of the local committee, reported " all the boys now healthy." He described the children at Castlebar as "puny, sickly objects, almost naked." Seven had scald heads, and almost all the itch. " The children had never been to church since they came." In the Leinster nursery at Monasterevan, he found all the children crowded into one room, seventy-eight of them being between two and six years of age. Of this nursery he said — " The master calls himself an apothecary, and was lately paid six guineas for medicines. The impropriety of thus vesting the power of an apothecary and of the master in one man appears too plainly from the uncommon mortality among the children." At the Connaught nursery at Monivea, he found twenty-two children, most of them from two to four years old, " in a very sickly condition, with the itch, scald heads, and sore eyes ; some lay grovelling in the turf ashes. . . . The children lay in a large cold room, which extends the whole length of the house." So much for Howard's evidence in proof of the solid comfort amid which the Irish children were taught the true faith. Sir Jeremiah Fitzpatrick visited twenty-eight out of thirty-two of the Charter schools between the years 1786 and 1787. Before the Committee of Inquiry in 1788 he said— " ^^^ barbarous treatment which I had witnessed of some of the children in the school at Kilkenny was one of the first and principal inducements to persevere in the inspection of the other Charter schools." 134 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In those other schools he found "the children puny and not in the state of health in which children generally are ; they were in general filthy and ill clothed," He had seen them " without shifts or shirts, and in such a situation as it was indecent to look on. The diet was insufficient for the support of their delicate frames ; their instruction was very much neglected. In general the children had the itch and other eruptive disorders. At Castle Carbery there was no appearance of a school-room ; part of the window was stuffed with a turf- kish and dung, and there were about twenty-four ragged shirts and shifts. There were eighteen girls and fourteen boys in the school, most of them sickly, wretched-looking creatures, covered with the itch ; two only could read, and all order appeared to have been neglected ; but the masters' and mistresses' apart- ments were comfortable and well-furnished, and likewise the parlour, which served as a committee-room." This shows the care with which the young Catholics of Ireland were reared, in the hope of reconciling them to the Protestant religion and the rule of the governors of their country. But in the eyes of Parliament, nauseated as it was by the evidence of Irish distress, the abuse was not bad enough, and nothing was done to remedy the evil. The Commissioners of Education in 1807 pointed out another grievance — " We are concerned to state that a large proportion of the masters of children apprenticed do not receive the last part of their apprentice-fee, and the children the bounty for faithful service." There were moreover other abuses which flourished in the Charter schools, and poisoned the relations, already hostile, which existed between Protestant and Catholic. Until 1808 a Protestant Catechism was used in the Charter schools which purposely misrepresented the doctrines of the Roman Catholic religion, and was so worded as to instil into its young readers an unnatural hatred towards the followers of that faith.^ At length in 1825 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the matter, and after a full investigation it issued its report condemning the state of the schools and the results shown by them — " Independent of the objections, which, as it appears to us, may justly be made to the principle on which this society was established, we think that its constitution and management are each so defective, that no hope of any permanent improve- ment in the schools can reasonably be entertained." ' Appendix XXIX, quotation from Edward Wakefield. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 135 As the shortest road to redress the Royal Commissioners recommended the discontinuance of Parliamentary grants ; but their suggestions remained unheeded, and in the year after their report a grant of ;^i9,50O was actually voted as though nothing had occurred. But not even gold could keep these putrid bodies alive. The organs being rotten the generative system impotently failed, and what remained of the disgraced and useless tenements silently hastened to decay and dissolution. Thus the Charter schools had disappointed the expectations of their originators, and having swallowed up several millions of public money completely and shamefully collapsed. They had never contained more than 1,400 pupils, and having finally degenerated into State-fed, but lean, discoloured establishments worthy of their origin, and lingered out their existence until the year 1832, when they received a grant of ;^5, 700, they totally disappeared when their subsidies ceased. So much for the Charter schools, which were a discreditable example of the system of proselytism practised by the Protestants of Ireland.^ In 1880 there were twenty-two schools in Ireland belonging to the Incorporated Society. Although they retained their Pro- testant Episcopalian character, they lost in a great degree their tendency to proselytize, and thus grew more in favour with the Roman Catholics. In the same year the number of all the pupils on the rolls of the schools of the Society amounted to 677, of which 27 were Catholics, 40 were Presbyterians, and 7 belonged to various other persuasions, the remainder being members of the Disestablished Church. In addition to the foregoing educational establishments, there were various other proselytizing State institutions : namely, the Hibernian Military and the Hibernian Marine Schools ; the Society for " Discountenancing Vice, and Promoting the Know- ledge and Practice of the Christian Religion " ; the " Royal London Hibernian Society " ; the " Baptist Society " ; and the " Society for Promoting the Education of the Irish through the Medium of their own Language." The Hibernian Military School was incorporated in 1769 for the purpose of maintaining, educating, apprenticing, or placing in the army the orphans and other children of soldiers in Ireland. In 1818 it obtained a charter which provided that the children should be taught to read the Bible especially, and be instructed in the principles of the Protestant religion — a provision which remained in force until 1846, when pupils of the Catholic faith were at length admitted and permitted to receive religious instruction from the clergy of their own Church, who were appointed for the purpose. The school on the whole seems ' Appendix XXIXa, quotation from J. A. Froude. 136 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY to have been satisfactory, the Education Commissioners of rSio, 1854-8, and 1 879-80 reporting favourably upon its administration and the general results shown. The Hibernian Marine School was founded in 1775, six years after its military colleague, and on religious principles similar to those of the latter, for the purpose of " maintaining, educating, and apprenticing the orphans and children of decayed seamen in the Royal Navy and Merchant Service." But this school never enjoyed as prosperous a career as the military establish- ment, and its results were comparatively insignificant. The Association for " Discountenancing Vice, and Promoting the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion," was the next in date, being formed in 1792. In 1800 it was incorporated by an Act of Parliament, and the following year a grant of ;^3oo was voted for its support. In 1806-8 the Society, though still adhering to its Protestant Episcopalian character, evinced a certain latitude in framing regulations for the management of the schools founded in connection with it. It was, of course, an indispensable condition that the teachers should be members of the Established Church, and that the catechism of the Church of England should exclusively be used, whilst the reading of the Bible assumed a prominent position in the curriculum of instruc- tion. But members of all persuasions were now admitted to the schools, and although the reading of the Bible was obligatory upon every pupil, none, save a member of the Church of England, was compelled to attend the catechetical class. In this manner, notwithstanding that the schools established in connection with the Society were distinctly Protestant, Catholic children were not obliged to receive religious instruction in them. Between 1820 and 1824, however, their complexion changed, and they gradually evinced tendencies of a more proselytizing type. The Catholics, therefore, commenced to denounce them, and finally withdrew from them altogether, whilst the Parliamentary grants, which between 1801 and 1824 had amounted to ;^8o,ooo, were shortly afterwards discontinued. The schools thereupon collapsed. The betrayal of trust had deservedly brought retribution in its train. The next foundation of the kind was the " London Hibernian Society," established in 1806-8 by some London citizens for the purpose of promoting " pure religion " in Ireland. As a means to this end it was decided to distribute copies of the Bible and a multitude of religious tracts, and to found and support a number of schools. The latter, although directly controlled by clergymen of the Establishment, were to be thrown open to members of every sect ; the teachers, who were to receive result-fees, were selected exclusively on the ground of their competency as such ; and ministers of all persuasions were to be invited to attend. It was, moreover, laid down as a general rule that no teacher should THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 137 obtrude on the attention of his pupils the idiosyncrasies of his own religious opinions. The policy followed in these new establishments was to cram as great a quantity of Bible extract into the mouth of a child as it could hold in its cheek until the inspector made his periodic round, when it was once and for all, in the appropriate language of the Society's prospectus, " dis- persed," the teacher being paid so much per quantum of holy, expectorated, undigested excerpt. After about thirty years of unprofitable existence, these ludicrous institutions, founded for the purpose of promoting " pure religion," were themselves dispersed, and vomited forth into the limbo of forgetfulness. Public ridicule had been too much for them. The" Cavan Regimental School for the Cavan Regiment of Militia was also established about the same time; and a society was formed for promoting the education of the poor of Ireland. The " Baptist Society," another Protestant undertaking, first saw the light in 18 14, and was worked upon the same principles as the London Hibernian Society. It also expired about the same period as the latter, circa 1838, its labours having been attended with similar inappreciable results, with the exception of furnishing material for three or four loud and echoing cachinnations at the expense of its educational methods. The foundation of the Baptist Society was followed four years later by that of the " Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through the Medium of their own Language." The principle was defensible, for out of a total population of 3,059,281 in the provinces of Munster and Con- naught more than two millions spoke Irish, and of this number half-a-million spoke no other tongue. The organization, which was supported by voluntary subscriptions and received substantial assistance from the British and Foreign Bible Association and the London Hibernian Society, did not strain its energies in the general education of the Irish-speaking people, for it restricted itself almost wholly to the dissemination of the Bible printed in Irish. As a proselytizing institution it utterly failed and is hardly deserving of the attention of history. Among the various educational establishments the Noncon- formist schools should not be forgotten. A Quaker school was established in 1774, a second in 1776, and two others in 1796 and 1798. The Royal Commissioners of 1857-8 said of these Quaker institutions — " The Friends' schools are remarkable for neatness, order, cleanliness, economy, and attention to health, which prevail in them ; for the business- like management of the trust funds, the judicious expenditure of the income, and the zealous and efficient nature of the local supervision exercised by the members of the community." 138 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY In 1785 the Presbyterian Belfast Academy was founded, and nearly a hundred years later it was reported by the Educational Commissioners (of 1879-80) not to be absolutely closed, work being carried on in two rooms temporarily erected for the purpose, and the number of pupils amounting to eighteen. Its results, however, were a negligible quantity. In 1807-8 the Belfast Academical Institution was founded by the Northern Presbyterians, and in 18 10 an Act passed for its incorporation and regulation. Its doors were thrown open in 1 8 14, and for the next three years it received from Parliament an annual grant of;^i,500. Although the management of the Institution was essentially Presbyterian, no attempt seems to have been made to interfere with the religious convictions of the Catholic and Anglican students, who entered either the college or the schools. But in 1824 differences arose between the Synod of Ulster and the Board of Faculty of the Collegiate Department, which disturbed the prevailing religious calm and detrimentally affected the working of the Institution. The Presbyterians of Ireland were divided into four principal bodies — the Synod of Ulster, the Seceding Synod, the Presbytery of Antrim, and the Synod of Munster. Now the suspicions of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster were roused against the Academy on account of the Arian heresies which they alleged had been allowed to creep into its system during a course of years, and they therefore practically assumed a veto in the election of candidates to pro- fessional chairs in the college. A temporary compromise was, however, arranged, but the management of the Department con- tinued in the hands of the Arians, and the Synod of Ulster finally split into two sections, and shaking the dust of Arianism from its feet, separated itself from the Academy and went its own way. The Collegiate Department, which suffered very much from the action of the Synod of Ulster, continued in receipt of State aid until the opening of the Queen's College in Belfast in 1849, but this support was then withdrawn, and the Department there- upon ceased to exist. In 1878-81 there were on the rolls of the Academical schools 230 pupils. The members who had separated themselves from the Synod of Ulster in conse- quence of the Arian controversy resolved themselves into a new body, called Non-Subscribing Presbyterians ; whilst the non-seceding followers of Dr. Henry Cooke, that is to say, the great majority of the members of the Synod, adopted the title of the General Assembly.^ ' The Munster Presbytery, formerly non-subscribing, was incorporated with the Assembly in 1854. Cooke must have been a man of great force of character. He drove the Arian leaders out of the Synod, and practically transformed Belfast from a stronghold of Liberalism into a Conservative centre. The leader of the Arian opposi- tion to Cooke in the Synod was Henry Montgomery, and even he in later life dropped his political Liberalism. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 139 We now approach the subject of the Catholic schools. In 1 78 1 the Act was passed repealing so much of the statutes of William and Anne as prohibited Catholics to teach in schools. But this unwonted grace was accompanied by a reservation to the effect that no member of the Catholic faith should teach or keep a school without having previously obtained the licence of the Ordinary, that is to say, of the Protestant Bishop of the diocese ; whilst the licence might at any moment be arbitrarily recalled. This reservation was the causei of the Catholics omit- ting to make use of the Relief Act of 1781, as they would assuredly otherwise have don6. In 179 1 the Educational Com- missioners recommended the abolition of distinctions in schools between scholars of different religious persuasions ; and in the course of the next year an Act was passed for this purpose re- moving all the restrictions upon Catholics in regard to education, and placing them on more of a level with their Protestant fellow- countrymen, except that Parliamentary grants were, save in the single case of Maynooth, exclusively reserved for Protestant schools and colleges. In 1793 a Catholic college was founded in Carlow by Dr. O'Keefe, the Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, and Maynooth College was established and endowed by Parliament two years later, to be wholly devoted to the education of students intended for the priesthood. Finally, in 1802, when the relaxation of the Penal Laws at length permitted the children of Irish Catholics to be in- structed in the rudiments, the society of the " Christian Brothers " began to found their schools. These establishments were primary and strictly sectarian, and, although receiving no en- dowment and still less encouragement from the State, grew from very humble beginnings into a number of sound afid efficient Catholic institutions. These saintly men, in addition to covenants of poverty, chastity, and obedience to superiors, took a vow to teach children without payment or reward. In 1881 there were 170 of these schools in Ireland, attended by 31,614 pupils, of whom 31,596 were Catholics, 15 Protestant Epis- copalians, two Methodists, and one a Presbyterian. The important "Kildare Street Society" was formed in 181 1. The Managing Boards of all the schools established prior to that date had been exclusively composed of Protestants, and the Catholics, tiring of this monopoly and aware of a strong current running in their favour, now demanded that members of their faith should be appointed jointly with Protestants on the airection of the new schools ; and as the Penal Code had long since been abolished their reasonable request was conceded. In 181 1 the Association, at first known by the name of the i50ciety for Promoting the Education of the Poor of Ireland," I40 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and subsequently as the " Kildare Street Society," was formed on the principles of combined moral and literary instruction, coupled with the reading of the Bible without note or comment. Between the date of its establishment and 1 8 14-15 the Society received no State aid whatever ; but the Commissioners of Education having reported in 1812 that the system was the only one that had the remotest chance of success amongst the Catholics, a Parliamentary grant of £6,g^o, finally raised to ;^30,ooo, was voted in support of it during the session of 1814-15. In 1817 the Society moved from their humble quarters in School Street in the Liberties of Dublin to the more fashionable locality of Kildare Street, and from this time the history of the Kildare Street Society may be said to commence. O'Connell soon afterwards became a member of the Society. It undertook the education of teachers, and provided cheap schools which were thrown open to children of all creeds with- out distinction. But the benefit of this latitude was neutralized by one of the rules which enjoined that the Bible should be read in the schools, and this very soon resulted in advantage being taken of the rule to proselytize from a Protestant stand- point. Father John MacHale.^ a young priest at Maynooth, now gave vent to his suspicions of the Kildare Society, on the ground of its being a proselytizing institution, and drew it by his ability into such disrepute that O'Connell and others resigned their membership. This last blow was fatal to its prosperity, and the Society finally collapsed in the great struggle for Catholic Emancipation. The charge of proselytism was not devoid of foundation. Out of the total of thirty-one members composing the Board prior to 1825, when the Royal Com- missioners began their inquiries, there were only two Catholics ; of the eight Vice-Presidents of the Society, six belonged to the Established Church, and only two were Roman Catholics ; and out of a total of 204 subordinate appointments made in 1830, 171 were allotted to Protestants and only 33 to Catholics. On the 9th of September, 1831, Stanley ,2 at that time Chief Secretary in the Grey Ministry, declared in the House of Com- mons, what indeed no one had any inclination to doubt, that the Kildare Society had failed in its object and that the system was utterly unfitted for the Irish people. He then brought forward his own plan of education, which was chiefly due to the con- structive ingenuity of Lords Anglesey and Cloncurry, Plunket, who had just been appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, > John MacHale, .nfterwards Archbishop of Tuam (1791-1881). On the 29th of January, 1820, he published the first of a series of letters, signed " Hierophilos, against the education together of Roman Catholics and Protestants. 2 Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, fourteenth Earl of Derby (1799-1869)1 afterwards Prime Minister. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 141 and Blake. It provided for the establishment of a Board of National Education in Dublin, to which was transferred the grant which had hitherto been enjoyed by the Kildare Society.^ The objects the Government had in view were three- fold — to provide at the charge of the State a good education for the children of the poorer classes of every form of religion ; to guard against the proselytism which had up till now been employed, whenever opportunity had offered, against the young of Catholic Ireland ; and lastly, to make education the medium for reconciliation between the warring races and faiths of Ireland. The new Board was to be composed of members of the Roman Catholic as well as of the Protestant Churches, and to be entrusted with the regulation of all the State-aided schools. Schools were to be established in every part of Ireland, and to afford to the children of every denomination the advantages of a combined moral, literary, and separate religious instruction, without subjecting the parents to any expense. Secular in- struction was to be afforded to the pupils sitting together by teachers appointed by the State ; whilst religious teaching was to be given to the pupils sitting apart according to their different modes of faith by the pastors of their respective communions. Selections only from the Bible were to be read in school-time on two days in the week, and the Bible itself was only to be read before and after school-hours on the remaining four. In this manner the Irish Catholic was placed in the new National schools on an equality with his Protestant fellow-subjects. O'Connell and Shell supported Stanley's scheme, and the grant for the schools was ultimately agreed to without a division. The next step was the creation of a central authority, and in accordance with Stanley's directions to the Duke of Leinster, a Board was formed composed of persons of " high personal char- acter" and of different religious persuasions. Stanley's system, in fact, did not differ fundamentally from that of the Kildare schools, the principal divergence from the latter consisting in the fact that in the Kildare scheme the reading of the Bible without note or comment was compulsory in respect of all pupils attend- ing the schools ; whilst in Stanley's scheme it was not — that is to say, Protestant opinion alone was considered under the one, whilst a conciliatory attitude was adopted in the other, and an attempt made to meet the views of the different sects, as far as It was practicable. The Boards of the new schools were com- posed of Protestants and Catholics in the proportion of five to two, but even with this advantage on the side of Protestantism Stanley's scheme experienced the bitterest opposition from nearly the whole body of Protestants in Ireland. The Synod No assistance was given from the rates. Had such a levy been attempted, it would have met with the fiercest opposition. 142 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of Ulster now commenced its series of attacks upon the National schools, which only terminated when almost every demand of the Synod had been conceded. It had been pro- vided that the schools were to be kept open for moral and literary instruction for four days in the week, and for separate religious instruction for one or two days. This pro- vision was at once seized upon by the Synod of Ulster, who maintained that the subject of religious teaching had not been sufficiently considered in the scheme, and proposed that the Bible should be read in the schools every day. The suggestion was agreed to, subject to the proviso that the reading in question should take place either on the first or last hour of the day, in order that the hours of secular instruction might not be broken in upon. But the discontent of the Synod of Ulster was still unallayed, and in 1832 it roundly declared against Stanley's opportunist scheme. On the 28th of February of that year Lord Roden, a well-known member of the Ascendency party in Ireland, presented a petition against it in the House of Lords, and more petitions of a like nature soon followed in its train. Lord Wicklow's motion against the National schools being rejected.^ In 1833 the grants of public money for the education of the poor, which had previously been enjoyed by the Kildare Society and other proselytizing institutions, were entrusted to the Lord-Lieutenant to be expended on the instruc- tion of children of all sects under the superintendence of Commissioners appointed by the Crown, who were called " Commissioners of National Education," and two years later these Commissioners were incorporated to hold lands. But the discontent of the irreconcilable Catholic-hater was not yet quenched, and in view of the reiterated outcry against the system, a select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1833 to inquire into its administration. The chief grievances of its opponents were found to be three — first, that the Bible was excluded from the schools ; secondly, that it was mutilated ; and thirdly, that the passages selected to be read were twisted in favour of the Church of Rome. The evidence brought before the Committee was most of it tiresome and intricate, and nearly all of it misleading. The Protestants of Ireland were determined to cavil at Stanley's scheme, and between 1831 and 1837 they resolutely opposed it on every occasion that offered. The Catholics, on the contrary, with the important exception of John MacHale, were in favour of it. In 1834 this man had been raised to the Archbishopric of Tuam, and in 1838 he denounced the National system as he had formerly denounced the Kildare Street Society, maintaining ^ Appendix XXX, quotation from Charles Greville. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 143 that the Catholics on the Managing Board should be to the Protestants in the proportion of five to one, since five-sixths of the entire population of the country adhered to the Catholic faith. As it was, there were only two Catholics on the Board out of a total of seven members, and the whole work was prac- tically done by two of the latter, Archbishop Whately^ and Dr. James Carlile, both of them Protestants and non-Irish. During the course of the same year a further concession was obtained by the Synod of Ulster. The rule had been that one " whole " day should be set apart for separate religious instruc- tion, and at the instance of the Synod a new regulation was framed in 1838 substituting part of a day for the whole, the hours for religious instruction being fixed by the clergymen of the different denominations. But the Synod of Ulster was still unsatisfied, and they not long afterwards proposed that the hours for religious instruction should be fixed by the parents of the children so as to avoid any priestly interference, and a new rule was accordingly framed to meet their demands. Upon this MacHale declared that the Synod were converting the schools into exclusively Presbyterian institutions, and his vehement letters on the subject produced a profound sensation in Ireland and turned a strong light upon the whole controversy. There was certainly ample cause for dissatisfaction. Of the subordin- ate officials appointed up to 1836 there were only three Catholics out of a total of fifteen heads of service and first-class clerks ; only four out of a total of nine second-class clerks; only nine out of a total of fifteen third-class clerks, and but twenty-one out of a total of fifty other functionaries in the schools. The chief inspector was a Presbyterian. Of the six head inspectors three were Catholic, and three Protestant ; of twelve first-class inspectors six were Catholic and six Protestant ; of thirty-eight second-class inspectors seventeen were Catholic ; and of ten sub-inspectors six were Catholic. Again, out of five professors appointed to the model schools not a single one was a Catholic, nor even an Irishman ; three were Scotch, one was an English- man, one a German, and all of them Presbyterians. In 1839 Connaught opposed the National system, and the whole dis- pute was referred the same year to Rome. At the beginning of 1 840 the Synod of Ulster obtained yet another concession for that province, the privilege possessed by the Catholic priests of giving religious instruction to Catholic children in the mixed schools of Ulster being taken from them. The effect of this reactionary legislation was to convert the Ulster schools into Presbyterian denominational institutions, and to cause the with- drawal of the Catholics from them. During the same year the * Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin (1787-1863). 144 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Catholics experienced a fresh rebuff, their demands for certain privileges in connection with the supervision of the instruction given to Catholic children being refused, which very naturally aggravated the opposition to the National system. At length, in January 1841, the Pope's decision arrived from Rome. He decided that the National system was entitled to a further trial, and commanded that all public controversy respecting it should be hushed. This decision, necessarily unpalatable to Dr. MacHale, was readily accepted by the whole Catholic hierarchy, and the turmoil of factious dispute soon sank to a whisper. In 1842 the ever-persevering, self-interest-seeking Synod of Ulster obtained a new concession. It had never relished the remnant of the rule which provided for the dedication of a por- tion of one day in the week to separate religious instruction, and in that year the fragmentary nuisance was removed. In this manner had the " fifty-two Popish holidays," as the Presbyterians were wont to call the days set apart for separate religious instruction, been gradually nibbled away, and the Synod of Ulster now lay back in conscientious ease. Dr. Cooke, their contented mouthpiece, seeing nothing but good in the National schools. In 184s the Board demanded that the property of all the schools should be vested in themselves, but they were confronted by a phalanx of Catholic opposition and were unable to carry out their design. They therefore abandoned their retrospective demand for the surrender of the existing schools or the forfeiture of their grants, but resolved that in future no grants should be allowed to any new schools except upon the desired condition. In this manner was the difficulty evaded. In 1847 the " Stop- ford " rule was passed, which abolished the old regulation pro- hibiting the children of one denomination from attending the religious instruction of another without the consent of their parents. The Catholics, of course, were greatly incensed and perturbed at this further inroad upon their rights, which they alleged would certainly lead, as was indeed the intention, by the directest road to proselytism. In 1850 the National system was formally condemned by the Synod of Thurles, which pronounced, as Burke had done many years before, in favour of a system of separate education. As a justification of this condemnation an attempt was made during the course of the same year to intro- duce Whately's books ^ into use among Catholics in the schools, and a renewed cry of warning was raised in consequence. This practice of attempting by underhand means to destroy the unde- nominational character of the National system was continued and increased for the next seven years, and in 1858 John Francis 1 Scripture Extracts and Introdtutory Lessons on Christian Evidence. As the majority of the Board finally decided not to retain them in the curriculum, Archbishop Whately resigned. THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 145 Maguire brought the matter to the notice of the House of Commons. Indeed the schools were rapidly becoming exclus- ively denominational upon the one side or the other. Out of a total of 394,725 pupils attending the schools in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught in 1856-7, 386,298 were Catholics, the remaining 8,427 consisting of Anglicans and Presbyterians. Stanley's scheme had therefore turned out a failure as a system of mixed education in the South and West of Ireland. It was therefore resolved to modify the composition of the peccant Board, and in i860 the Catholics were placed on a numerical equality with the Protestants upon it, the number of Commissioners being reduced to twenty, of whom the Catholics numbered half. It was, moreover, decided, in order to meet the wishes of the Catholics in this respect, that for the future no more model schools should be erected before Parliament had been consulted in the matter. But although this placed a restraint upon the arbitrary action of the Board, the Catholic party were not satisfied, and continued to press their demand either for denominational education pure and simple or a retro- gression to the system in its original form. But the Government was determined to yield neither, and as the question remained unsolved, the natural consequences followed. In 1880 the schools in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught were still practically, although not nominally, denominational, and almost exclusively attended by Catholic children, and principally conducted under the patronage of the clergy of the Roman faith. Thus in 1880 there were 669,595 Catholics out of a total of 699,199 pupils on the rolls of all the schools in the three provinces, 25,534 of the remainder being Anglicans, 2,601 Presbyterians, and 1,469 belonging to other denominations. In the same provinces the total number of schools under Catholic teachers, in which there was a mixed attendance of Catholic and Protestant pupils, was 1,867 ; the total number under Protestant teachers where there was a like attendance, 129; and the total number under the joint management of Catholic and Protestant teachers, similarly attended, 43. In these three provinces Stanley's scheme as a system of united education was therefore a palpable failure. In 1880 the number of schools had risen to 7.590, and the number of pupils on the rolls to 1,083,020, of whom 855,057 were Catholics, 115,269 Presbyterians, 102,218 Anglicans, and io,n6 who belonged to other Protestant Dis- senting denominations. Thus a summary of the history of the National schools for nity years of their existence is a history of Protestant effort to ^amp its opinions upon a country determined not to have them. or the first seven years of its foundation the system was strenu- ously opposed by every anti-Catholic section, whilst supported 10 146 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by the Catholics themselves. The generality of Protestant Episcopalians refused to recognize the system at all, but the Presbyterians seemed from the first to be willing to give the system a fair trial, although they required its emendation, and between 183 1 and 1840 they obtained a series of important con- cessions from the Board. The satisfaction of one side was necessarily the bane of the other, and Dr. MacHale in 1838 directed his battery upon the system. The attack, in the interests of the Catholics, came none too soon, for in the same year Whately began to purge the educational curriculum of those class-books which he believed not only assumed an atti- tude of tolerance towards the Roman Catholic faith, but taught the Irish pupil that love of his fatherland was one of the first virtues of a citizen. From 1840 to 1847 the National schools worked in an atmosphere of comparative calm as far as con- troversy was concerned, the Pope having in 1840 arrested the stream of MacHale's opposition with a temperance of spirit admirable in any man, admirable certainly in the representative of a religion that had suffered so much. In 1847 the " Stopford" rule was passed, and between that time and 1850 the agitation against the National schools was reopened. The death of Dr. Daniel Murray, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, occurred in 1852, and Dr. Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Armagh, succeeded him. The next year Dr. Whately retired from the Board, and between that date and i860 there was an almost uninterrupted agitation on the part of the Catholics and the Protestant Episcopalians, who joined them, for a genuine system of de- nominational education. This led in i860 to a reform of the schools on principles more congenial to Catholic susceptibilities, and between the years i860 and 1880 the system was conse- quently less open to criticism. A genuine welcome, however, was never extended to the National schools by the Irish Protestant clergy and many other laymen of the same faith ; but that this apparent indifference was not the result of religious and educational apathy is proved by the fact that a " Church Education Society " was formed, which, in spite of its exclusive dependence upon voluntary subscriptions, supported nearly 200 purely Protestant schools. As for the Presbyterians of Ireland, the National system happened, curiously enough, to quadrate with their religious idiosyncrasies, and their complaints, therefore, did not continue to tincture the stream of discontent that flowed from other sects. Stanley's system was in the first instance almost received with gratitude by the Irish Catholic priesthood, but gradually, as we have seen, there grew up opposition to it from that quarter. The Catholic element on the Commission was numerically much too weak, and the Protestant element consequently acted as an irritant. Moreover, THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 147 the secular instruction in the schools assumed a religious colour and began to be insidiously used as a medium for proselytizing. Thus a warning cry against Protestant perversion was naturally raised ; and the National system with its faults and its sound parts was solemnly condemned in 1850 at the Synod of Thurles. The real grievances of the Irish Catholics in this matter were, however, gradually nearly all removed. Secular instruction in the schools was made genuinely and strictly secular ; the Catholic Commissioners were made equal in number with the Presbyterian and Protestant ; attempts to proselytize were ren- dered impracticable, and the Catholic priesthood became the managers of a large majority of the schools. In 1901 there were nearly 9,000 National schools, drawing about ;^i, 300,000 from the State, teaching nearly 200,000 pupils, and supported by model and training schools. But the system, as it was originally framed by its founders, wholly changed, for the National schools became almost entirely sectarian, that is to say, composed exclusively either of Protestant or of Catholic children, the "mixed" schools being comparatively rare. Regard, however, was still paid to the main principle of the system, for a con- science clause secured that only secular instruction should be given to the pupils sitting together, whilst the Bible could not, even in a Protestant school, be read in school hours, and no Catholic school was permitted to display a Catholic emblem. But the clergy of the Disestablished Church and a large part of their flock remained hostile to the National system of educa- tion, and this antagonism is easily explained, for the system, if not actively irreligious, did not in any sense assimilate religion as an essential part of school life. It was not woven into the texture of the garment, and it the age when mankind receives those impressions which are never effaced, but which harden into the constitution and round which the prejudices of later growth rear their head, the fact was plainly manifested that religion could be one thing and education another, that they could be even opposite and contradictory, that the one could call a thing evil and the other good. Thus were the two little philosophies of man, the philosophy of knowledge and that of faith, stifled in their separation, when in their union they would have produced the third philosophy and the best. CHAPTER V THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR, 1830-8 " I wish, for the sake of humanity, and for the honour of the Irish character, that the gentlemen of that country would take this matter into their serious consideration. Let them only for a moment place themselves in the situation of the half-famished cotter, surrounded by a wretched family, clamorous for food ; and judge what his feelings must be, when he sees the tenth p.irt of the produce of his potato garden exposed at harvest time to public cant ; or, if he have given a promissory note for the p>ayment of a certain sum of money, to compensate for such tithe, when it becomes due, to hear the heart-rending cries of his offspring clinging round him, and lamenting for the milk of which they are deprived, by the cows being driven to the pound, to be sold to discharge the debt. Such accounts are not the creation of fancy ; the facts do exist, and are but too common in Ireland. Were one of them transferred to canvas by the hand of genius, and exhibited to English humanity, that heart must be callous indeed that could refuse its sympathy. I have seen the cow, the favourite cow, driven away, accompanied by the signs, the tears, and the imprecations of a whole family, who were paddling after, through wet and dirt, to take their last affectionate farewell of this their only friend and benefactor at the pound gate. I have heard wilh emotions that I can scarcely describe, deep curses repeated from village to village as the cavalcade proceeded. I have witnessed the group pass the domain walls of the opulent grazier, whose numerous herds were cropping the most luxuriant pastures, whilst he was secure from any demand for the tithe of their food, looking on with the most unfeeling indifference." — Edward Wakefield (An Account of Ireland). Before the English invasion, the Catholics of Ireland supported their Church by voluntary gifts, but after that event an innovation was made in the system, and decrees were passed at the Synods of Cashel and Dublin in 1175 and 1186 respect- ively, directing the payment of tithes to the clergy. Up to the time of the Reformation, however, these injunctions were only obeyed within the Pale, and in order to give belated effect to the dormant law an Act was passed in 1541 to provide for the extension of the tithe system throughout the country and to secure conformity to it. But this enactment remained likewise a dead letter until the reign of Elizabeth, when with the establishment of the Protestant religion in the island as a State institution, the payment of tithes was for the first time rigidly exacted. The privilege of receiving tithes was at first confined to the Protestant Episcopalians ; but on the colonization of Ulster by James I the Presbyterians were admitted to the same right. At the restoration there was a reversion to the original system : the Presbyterians were deprived of their tithes and livings, and the monopoly of tithes was left to the Episcopalians. 148 THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 149 Soon, however, the Episcopalians and Presbyterian graziers, not deeming the consolations of religion sufficient compensation for the inconvenience of the tax, refused to pay the tithes on pasturage, and the tithe agistment Acts which exempted pasture-lands from the tax were passed in consequence about 1735. This measure led very naturally to the increase of pasture and the accompanying decrease of tillage land, until Parliament wishing to counteract this tendency offered bounties in 1780 for the cultivation of land. In 1785 the Catholics, who like their fellow creatures of the other faith considered the mysteries of the Protestant religion somewhat dear at the price of starvation at home, began to rebel against the tithe system and the hard cunning of the tithe proctors. Their complaint was certainly well founded, more especially in the southern districts, for there the great tithable article was potatoes, a pro- duct not tithable in the north, and potatoes were the only food of the people. The injustice of the system was in the eyes of the Ascendency one of its chief recommendations. To gall a Catholic was to prove one's loyalty, and nothing seemed fairer to a churchman than that prayers should be offered up for a heretic's repentance and the Almighty dunned in his behalf at the cost of a Papist dog ; and the cost was heavy, for it was borne almost entirely by the ragged Catholic peasantry.^ But this was not heeded by the Irish Church. Her inclination and interest went hand in hand. Catholic Ireland was a sponge to squeeze, and as long as there was any moisture in it, it was her duty before God to have it out.^ The discontent among the Presbyterians of the north was also very bitter, and there is no doubt that one of the chief causes of their adhesion to the cause of the United Irishmen was their hatred of the oppressive and indefensible system of tithe ex- actions.^ The discontent in the latter case the Government in ' J. A. Froude says — " The wealthy Protestant grass farmers ought to have been the first to bear the expense of the Protestant Church. They paid nothing at all. The cost of the Establishment fell, in the south, exclusively on the poorest of the Catholic tenantry. Ine Munster cottier paid seven pounds a year for his cabin and an acre of potato ground. The landlord took his rent from him in labour, at fivepence or sixpence a "^>'.'.*e tithe farmer took twelve to twenty shillings from him besides, and took in addition from the very peat which he dug from the bog a tithe called in mockery smoke money.'" fa b / ^ The impartial and learned Wakefield wrote in 1812— ,, Instead of directing our views to Ireland, which might be rendered, not only me store-house, but the best bulwark of Great Britain, the whole policy of the country anH vl 'V^"^^"^ "s inhabitants inert, to damp their spirit as well as their industry ; the f • ^ objects which are calculated to raise them firom their torpor or reclaim pun^l!li^°/"^'^"^^^ ^^^ withheld they are ungenerously reproached for indolence, and L,'^ r ^^'"S unruly ; as if insubordination were not the natural consequence wising from such treatment." Q . ^^ ^'1 institutions," says William Paley, " adverse to cultivation, none so 'ous as tithe, not only a tax on industry, but the industry that feeds mankind." ISO IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY vain attempted to allay by an increase in the grant of the Regitan Donum to the Presbyterians in 1803 ; but the antidote was not administered from a sense of justice, but in order to cripple a damaging opposition ; for the Catholics, who stood in need of relief most of all, and whose creed varied far more widely from the Protestant religion than that of the Presbyterians, were sent hungry away. The tithe system in view of the state of the Protestant Church was indeed not only indefensible — no one presumed to defend it upon principle — but tyrannical in the extreme. There were six million Catholics, and only eight hundred thousand Protestant Episcopalians. In order that the very few should have the benefit of a particular and endowed religion, it was made a law of the land that the vast majority should famish. But though buffeted by fortune the Catholics of Ireland did not desert their faith. Evil times made them the stauncher ; hardships lent them courage ; and, with a constancy that was scarcely human, they clave to their independence and supported their priests when starvation stared them in the face.^ In the parish of Mansfield town in Armagh there were 1,067 inhabitants, of whom 1,063 were Catholics and only four were Anglicans, but the minister was paid two hundred and sixteen pounds a year to preach to these four persons. In the parish of Templebreedan in Emly the minister's income was ninety-three pounds, but there were only two Anglicans out of a population of 1,414, all the rest being Catholics. In the parish of Castletown in Cloyne the minister's income was four hundred and fourteen pounds, the inhabitants numbered 3,296, of whom 17 were Anglicans and all the rest Catholics. In the parish of Clonmult in Cloyne there were 1,196 inhabitants, of whom only one was an Anglican, all the rest being Catholics, but it cost one hundred and seventy-six pounds a year to coax this one sinner into Paradise. Besides the tithe exactions. Church cess also contri- buted largely to the revenues of the Establishment.^ At length, in 1823, Goulburn's voluntary Composition of Tithe Act was passed. The year before, a measure had been carried which permitted the tithe proprietor to let the tithes on lease to the owner of the land. Goulburn's Bill empowered the Lord- * Sidney Smith wrote — " On an Irish Sabbath morning, the bell of a neat parish church often summons to worship only the parson and an occasionally-conforming clerk, while, two hundred yards off, a thousand Catholics are huddled together in a miserable hovel, and pelted by all the storms of heaven." ^ Lord Althorp said of this impost — " Church cess was a tax imposed for maintaining churches and for meeting the expenses of religious service. In Ireland this rate, though paid by a Catholic population, was under the exclusive management of a Protestant vestry. It *^ (unlike tithes) an uncertiin tax which varied according to the purposes for which it was applied. It might be increased by abuses of management, or it might.''* diminished by frugality ; but in neither case had the Catholic the means of exercising any control over the money so levied upon his property." THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 151 Lieutenant, on the application either of the incumbent of a parish, or a certain number of the tithe-paying inhabitants, to summon a special vestry for the purpose of agreeing upon a composition for tithes, on the basis of an average price of corn for the preceding three years. The incumbent was to appoint one commissioner, and the inhabitants another ; and the two commissioners, in the event of disagreement, were to nominate an umpire, and the amount of compensation for tithe to be thus determined. The sum, so fixed, was to be apportioned by assessors among the various holdings in each parish which were not tithe-free. Lands which were tithe-free were to continue so ; but agistment or pasture land, that had till now been exempt from tithe, was in future to be made liable to the impost. Goulburn's Bill was a permissive one, the composition being purely voluntary. It was a slight step in the right direction, but conferred a benefit on the miserable cottier which was almost inappreciable after a little time. His lot was a dour one.^ He was oppressed by the weight of the tithes and soured by the method of their collection, and his daily struggle with hunger and ferocious desire to live, were a perpetual disgrace to the Established Church. In the summer of 1823 the rector of Castlehaven, in Cork, finding it impossible to obtain his tithes, procured a distress warrant, and ordered his proctor with the help of five special constables to execute it, whilst four mounted men and seven dismounted constables, under the command of a lieutenant, were deputed to assist. The rector had thus obtained the services of an armed force of eighteen men to collect what his Church assured him was his due. They proceeded to seize a few cattle, and commenced to drive them to the rector's premises. But upon this they were surrounded by the country-people, who, exasperated by the injustice of the exaction, attacked them with volleys of stones. The police then fired on their assailants, but as they were unable to break through with their spoil they were forced at length to leave the cattle and to beat a retreat. The skirmish resulted in the proctor and one of the constables being killed and several others of the party being wounded, whilst the peasantry suffered equal loss. Such was the state of affairs in Ireland. Religion, armed with a sword, went about like a destroying angel.^ The success of Goulburn's Bill, although a mere temporary alleviation, was decided. Before the middle of the following February 1,033 applications, — 507 from the clergy and 526 from lay impropriators — had been made from different parishes ; and The squalor of the peasantry, the filthy condition of the prisons, and other Tb^*^*? °L ^"^^ '''^ ^^ graphically described in Traveb in Ireland in the Year '822, by Thomas Reid. all rt^''^?'''"*'' Smith said—" There is no cruelty like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in a'l tne discovered parte of Africa, and in all we have ever heard of Timbuctoo." 152 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY in 240 cases a basis of agreement had already been found, the parties themselves having arranged the terms of the composition. The year after Goulburn's Bill was passed, Select Committees of both Houses of Parliament were appointed to inquire into the nature of the Irish disturbances, and having collected a vast mass of evidence thought they had done their duty. Meanwhile anew proselytizing movement had been inaugurated under the name of the " New Reformarion," its object being the defamation of the Catholic creed and the conversion of Catholic peasants from the errors of Popery. It proved to be the imme- diate source from which the Tithe War shortly afterwards sprang. Tithe owners from a tardy sense of the injustice of the practice had latterly been accustomed to avoid exacting tithe from Catholic priests, but some of the Protestant clergy determined to exact the last penny that was due, and as they applied the proceeds to purposes of proselytizing, grave discon- tent arose in consequence among the Catholics. The collection of tithe became in some cases almost impossible, and the expense of collecting them greater than the tithes themselves. In 1830 the Catholic parishioners of Graigue refused to pay tithe to MacDonald, the locum tenens and a "new Reformer," and this opposition started the ball rolling afresh. Payment of tithe, where no composition had been arranged, was now frequently resisted, and outrages arising out of this state of affairs became general. On June 1 8th of the same year occurred the Newtown Barry incident. Some cattle seized for tithe by the Reverend Alexander McClintock were put up for sale under a guard of police; but the mob charged the guard, and 190 of the yeomanry had to be called out, and by the time the affray was at an end twelve of the peasants were shot dead and twenty fatally wounded, the yeomanry escaping with scarcely a scratch. In August the peasants determined to resist the objectionable visits of the process-server at Thurles. The police intervened to support him, and before they could effect their retreat to Thurles with ^€\x proteg^ 2l. number of the peasants had been killed and many wounded, the police themselves escaping scathless. A few weeks later a similar encounter took place at Castle Pollard, in the County Westmeath, where many of the peasants were shot down like partridges, the police as usual escaping unhurt These were a few instances out of many of the way in which the Protestant clergy collected their tithes, and the agitation was becoming every month more serious. It is difficult, perhaps, for you to understand, humane and courteous reader, the passions roused by this imposition. Reclin- ing, as we may suppose you, in an easy-chair in some com- fortable establishment, with every necessity of life and almost all its pleasures within your reach, it is hard for you, nay, it is THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 153 impossible, to place yourself even for a moment in the position of the Catholic tithe-payer, who was forced to squeeze from his own miserable subsistence these doles to an alien faith. He, this Papist, this irredeemable heretic, had a soul like you, maybe a mind as pure, a pride as sensitive, a courage as unshakable, feelings as tender, and a love as deep for the God of his religion as you may boast of, oh excellent, leisured, impartial reader. He had his scheme of life, his little scroll of destiny folded in his breast, his aspirations, his yearning after truth, his disappoint- ments like any other man. His eye was as keen, his anatomy as noble, his mind as active, his importance in the world's economy as great as that of any other man. What was it then that hung upon him like a ton weight, that dragged him down and crushed his efforts ; that, in spite of his divine origin and indestructible soul, set a seal of shame upon him, which he feared could perhaps only be wiped out by the blood of his oppressors ? Was it his sin ? No, that could not be, unless Protestant morality was a law unto itself. Was it his birth ? No, unless the more ancient the blood, the more disgraceful the origin. Was it his wealth ? No, unless the poverty of the poor was a bait for the rapacity of the rich. Was it his power? No, unless the weakness of slavery had nerved the sinews of the national arm. It was none of these. His religion was the only bar. His faith made him poor, and miserable, and oppressed. His divine origin counted for nothing with Catholicism in the way ; yet, as with bloodshot eyes he reeled and staggered on from day to day with just sufficient nourishment to stimulate his agony, with his children dying in his arms for want of food and proper shelter, and his wife in her labour sinking with exhaustion amid the filth of a reeking mud-hut, he blessed the marvellous virtue of that creed which gave him solace, and filled him with rapture, and bade him not despair, when God knows in this world there was nothing more to hope for. This was the religion that in the eyes of the Protestant world disgraced its followers and debarred them from the blessedness of justice. The process-server of Dr. Butler, a pluralist in Kilkenny, was murdered about this time, and pitched battles were continually taking place between the police and the people with serious loss of life ; while filibustering bands of Blackfeet and Whitefeet harried the countryside, threatening landlords and demanding reductions of rent. An anonymous authority in Queen's County ordered an abatement of five shillings in the rent of every acre of land in the county, and threatened the reluctant landlord with the disagreeable necessity of visiting you personally, and to terminate, not your lease, but your existence." In 1831 a considerable force of police, who were protecting a tithe-proctor at Higginstown, in Kilkenny, were suddenly attacked. The t54 Ireland in the nineteenth century process-server and eleven of the police were killed, and sixteen others wounded ; but the Government, as in this case, were rarely able to bring the offenders to justice, since Irish juries were reluctant to convict their countrymen of outrages against landlords, and, even if willing to do so, did not dare. In fact, the Irish Protestant clergy had in hundreds of instances to live without their tithes. In December 183 1 occurred the Knocktopher incident. The rector. Dr. Hamilton, had refused a reduction of five per cent, in the tithes, and the peasantry therefore were determined to take the matter into their own hands. They declined to pay, and resisted the process-serving, and in a savage encounter with the police, who were called in to coerce their contumacy, the latter were routed with a loss of eleven killed and seventeen wounded, the peasants also losing many men. This bloodshed at length aroused the sleeping energies of Parliament, and a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1832 to inquire into the whole structure of the tithe system, which led to a truce in the campaign of exaction and resistance. As a result of the advice tendered to Parliament by the members of this Committee, it was proposed in March 1832 that a sum not exceeding ;^6o,ooo should be paid to the clergy ; that the Government should be empowered to recover the amount so advanced from the tithe-payers, and that a measure amending the tithe laws should be introduced. These proposals were favourably received, and a Bill was brought in by Stanley, and passed on August 16, 1832, embodying part of the suggestions. By it the composition for tithe was made permanent and compulsory for a term of twenty-one years, and another Act was passed which provided for the advance of ;£^6o,ooo from the Consolidated Fund to the distressed incumbents, and authorized the Government to take the necessary steps to collect arrears, a provision which was vehemently opposed by Daniel O'Connell. Two other Bills, however, which were introduced by Stanley at the same time, the first to establish ecclesiastical corporations with power to hold land in Irish dioceses, and the second to enable the tithe-owner to sell, and the ecclesiastical corporation to buy the tithe, were rejected. The disturbances of 1831, which had experienced a lull during the Committee's inquiry into the tithe system and the passing of Stanley's measures, broke out again in April 1832, Whitefeet, Blackfeet, Terryalts,i Lady Clares,^ Molly Maguires,^ and Rockites producing a state of anarchy in which the good * In the counties of Limerick and Clare. '^ Who sprang from the Whiteboy Movement. * They were chiefly confined to Cavan, Leitrim, and Armagh, and grew out of the Ribbon Society. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 15S suflfered occasionally with the bad. Mr, Coote, rector of Doon, in the county of Limerick, seized a cow belonging to a Catholic priest in payment of tithe, and the sale of the animal led to a riot between the peasants and the troops, which ended in many of the former being wounded. Soon afterwards a large anti- tithe meeting was convened and presided over by Pierce Butler, J. P., D.L., a Protestant Episcopalian ; but this distasteful and significant incident was not allowed to pass unnoticed, and the Castle issued a circular suppressing the right of public meeting altogether. But the Castle was the last authority to stifle the feeling of exasperation, and in 1832 O'Connell began to agitate for a Repeal of the Union in view of the persistent refusal of the Government to abolish the tithe system. Soon afterwards, on the 5th of September of that year, the Wallstown incident again broke the religious calm. The Reverend Mr. Gavin, accompanied by a party of police, a detachment of the 92nd Highlanders, and a detachment of the 14th Foot, proceeded with a staff of valuers to value for tithes the lands in his parish, the whole force being under the command of one admiral, two generals, and three magistrates. The spiritual zeal of this worthy cleric may be gathered from the fact that the population of Wallstown con- sisted of 3,163 Catholics and one Protestant. In the affray which followed between the military and the peasants, many of the soldiers and police were bruised, but none killed, whilst of the peasants four were killed and many seriously injured. Thus Gavin obtained his tithe, and maybe the cure of the soul of his one Protestant sinner weighed favourably in the balance against the ninety and nine that he could not persuade to enter his fold. In October occurred the Rathkeeran massacre. Captain Burke, inspector of police, was posting up tithe-notices near Rath- keeran, County Waterford, when two hundred peasants quietly assembled to watch the operation. Becoming alarmed at the possibility of what they might do, he bade them retire, but they refused. He then gave his force the order to fire, and twelve of the peasants were instantly killed and many others wounded. Among them was a young girl, named Catherine Foley, who was shot full in the face, a musket-ball passing in at her mouth and out at the back of her head. These disturbances continued during the rest of the year and throughout 1833, extending over the whole of Leinster. Associations of men, known as "Pacificators," organized the disaffected elements in the country and defied the powers of the Irish Government. The people oared not resist the decrees of these bodies, so great was the terror of their reputation, for death was almost the invariable result of disobedience to their commands.^ That these disturbances were not countenanced by the Irish Catholic clergy is snown by Goldwin Smith in Irish History and Irish Character— IS6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The methods usually employed to resist the payment of tithe were to allow a defaulter's goods to be seized, and then to prevent a sale by every kind of intimidation. Boycotting in this manner became common and the hirelings of ruffianism were let loose over the land. Thus a Member of Parliament about this time leased some land to a Scotsman and was served with a notice from " Captain Whitefoot " that the Scot must go. A little later an old man of seventy refused to give up a small piece of land which he had hired in opposition to the views of the Regulators, and was dragged from his house and brutally shot. During twelve months in Kilkenny 32 murders, or attempted murders, were perpetrated, 34 houses burned, the cattle of 36 farmers houghed, and 519 burglaries and 178 serious assaults com- mitted. In the same period in Queen's County there were 60 murders, 626 burglaries, 115 malicious injuries to property, and 209 serious assaults on individuals, whilst peaceable people were afraid to give evidence against the malefactors. Lalor's son was supposed to have been an eye-witness of his father's murder, but, cowed by the terrors of revenge, he refused to disclose the names of the perpetrators of the deed. At a trial at Kilkenny the jury was dismissed, as the members of it were unable to agree upon a verdict, whilst the names of those who had desired a conviction were printed in scarlet letters on a placard headed " Blood ! Blood ! Blood ! " ; and they were forced by sheer terrorism to leave the country. A still more fearful statement of crime was made in the House of Lords by Earl Grey — "Between the ist of January and the end of December 1832, the number of homicides were 242 ; of robberies, 1,179; of burglaries, 401; of burnings, 568; of houghing cattle, 290; of serious assaults, 161; of riots, 203; of illegal reviews, 353; of illegal notices, 2,094; of illegal meetings, 427 ; of injuries to property, 796 ; of attacks on houses, 723; of firing with intent to kill, 328; of robbery of arms, 117; of administering unlawful oaths, 163; of resistance to legal process, 8; of turning up land, 20 ; of resistance to tithes, 50 ; taking forcible posses- sion, 2 ; " making altogether an immense total of crimes committed in one year. As Thomas Carlyle wrote, the rulers of Ireland were reaping " at last in full measure the fruit of fifteen generations of wrong- doing " ; and they have not yet gathered in the harvest of their rule. It will take some time to gather, and the sweating "The Roman Catholic clergy, as a body, were perfectly blameless ; not only so, but in spite of the terrible temptations to play the demagogue under which they were placed by the iniquity of the code, they arrayed themselves on the side of the law. Their own dues were, in fact, sometimes the object of attack, as well as the tithes of the Protestant parsons." THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 157 harvesters may be driven to their wits' end by the strange fecundity of the crop.^ A very severe measure of coercion, the severest perhaps ever applied to Ireland, was at length proposed and carried in 1833 in order to put a stop to these disorders. In 1832 a Committee had, as we have seen, been appointed for the purpose of directing its accumulated sagacity upon the ever- recurring question of tithes. That its wisdom might simmer undisturbed, that its energies might roam unrestricted by the fetters of distasteful considerations, Catholics were excluded from its counsels altogether. Out of eighteen witnesses only one Roman Catholic was called. Eight clergymen, four policemen, a secretary to an Ecclesiastical Commission, and a registrar to an Ecclesiastical Court were examined, and upon this evidence a report was drawn up and presented, recommending with well-bred fervour not remedial but coercive measures for the unhappy nation. The Bill, which had been introduced in the Upper House by Lord Grey on the 15 th of February, and piloted through without opposition, was very nearly lost in the Commons through the honest Althorp's feeble and half-hearted speech on the 27th in favour of coercion, when the more fiery Stanley, the " Rupert of debate," came to the rescue, and having retired alone into a committee-room for a couple of hours to fag the details up, vindicated the policy of the iron hand and pulled the measure through. The first reading was carried after a six nights' debate by 466 to 89. Upon the second reading, Charles Buller, Hawkins, and others opposed its further progress, but were beaten by 363 to 84. The original Bill was slightly modified in Committee by two amendments. One of them disqualified all officers below the rank of captain from sitting in a military court, and the other required five members of the court to be unanimous before a conviction could be secured. A further amendment was introduced by the Government restricting the jurisdiction of the courts-martial, so as to withhold from them the cognizance of all offences of a non-insurrectionary character and of words or speeches unaccompanied by violence or threats, as well as the decision of the question whether any matter was or was not a seditious libel. O'Connell, moreover, proposed a clause declaring it unlawful for the Lord- Lieutenant or any other authority to employ the powers conferred by the Bill in any county or district, merely because tithes were not paid in such district, and, although the amendment was not agreeable to the Government, it was thought advisable to accept it. In the Upper House, Lord Harrowby proposed an addition to this clause to the effect that Berthold-Georges Niebuhr wrote — "Should England not change her conduct Ireland may still for a long period belong to her ; but not always ; and the loss of that country is the death-day not only of her greatness but her very existence." IS8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY neither should any district be proclaimed merely on account of non-payment of rents or taxes, but his amendment was rejected by 85 to 45. The Bill, as it finally passed into law on the 2nd of April, was shorn of the clauses which authorized the Lord- Lieutenant to prevent public meetings, but empowered him to declare any county to be in a state of disturbance, and thus to make it penal to be out of doors between sunset and sunrise. The proclaimed districts were to be subject to martial law ; all ofTenders in disturbed districts were to be tried by court-martial, and all officers of justice and military on duty in such districts were to be able to enter houses at any hour and search for arms. in fact, martial law was to be set up at the will of the Executive Government. The writ of Habeas Corpus, moreover, was to be suspended for three months after the arrest of any person, as respected that person.^ On the 29th of March the Bill was read a third time by 345 to 86. The county of Kilkenny was first of all proclaimed under the new Coercion Act and the " Association of Irish Volunteers," of which O'Connell was the head, was suppressed on the nth of April. The measure, like the generality of Irish Coercion Acts, was soon 'successful in its immediate object, and crime and disorder rkpidly diminished, the number of offences dropping from 472 in the month of March to 162 in May. This was no doubt satisfactory. The " quick alternation of kicks and kind- ness " might prove an easy method of cracking the skull of Irish disorder, but it poisoned the blood and exasperated the patience of the Irish nation. Macaulay said during the debate on this Bill— " If, on a fair trial, it be found that Great Britain and Ireland cannot exist happily together as parts of one empire, in God's name let them separate." The truth of the matter was that the whole difficulty expe- rienced by the rulers of Ireland in governing their dependency was an incapability of understanding its inhabitants. But was it to be expected that the average member of the House of Commons of that day should understand Ireland ? What could a fox-hunter, with his coarse mind and gross instincts, know of character ? How could he, with his flaming face, and an intellect a little lower than his gamekeeper's, appreciate the grievances of the Irish people ? ^ In August another Act was passed, called the Change of Venue Act, which provided for the trial of all offences committed in Dublin or in any county in Ireland at the discretion of the ' Appendix XXXI, extract from speech by Sir E. L. Balwer. ^ Appendix XXXIa, quotation from Sir G. Comewall Lewis. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 159 Court. The same year Althorp's Irish Church Bill was carried. The position of the Established Church in Ireland at this time was a national disgrace. It is true that an Act enforcing residence had been passed in 1818, but nothing further had been done to purge the Church of its grossest anomalies. Out of a population of eight millions only eight hundred thousand of the Irish embraced the tenets of the Protestant religion ; and the advantages enjoyed by these few at the expense of the Catholics were also dispro- portionately great. Ireland was divided into 1,400 benefices amply endowed with about ;^6oo,ooo a year, 41 of which did not contain one single Protestant, 20 of which had under five, and 165 under 25. Moreover, in 157 benefices the in- cumbent was an absentee and no service was performed at all, the miserable savings that had been wrung from the destitute tithe-payers in Ireland being generously scattered in London. The incumbents were supervised by 22 bishops, who had incomes amounting to ;^ 1 50,000 a year, whilst the capitular establish- ments drew an additional ;^25,ooo, thus bringing up the whole annual income applicable to the support and maintenance of the Established Church to more than three-quarters of a million sterling, or £77^,000 a year. The bishops derived the greater part of their revenues from landed estates, which yielded a gross rental of ;^6oo,ooo a year. Let on leases, usually renewable annually, or on leases for lives, not more than a sixth part of the value of the land found its way into the bishops' pockets, whilst their tenure of it placed a great part of the soil of Ireland under a withering influence. In addition, moreover, to the revenues which the Church enjoyed, she had the power of imposing a rate or Church cess on the whole of Ireland, and this last imposition was estimated to yield from £60,000 to ;^7o,ooo a year. Thus in one way or another more than ;^8oo,ooo was ex- pended annually in providing for the spiritual necessities of the 800,000 members of the Irish Established Church, or about £1 a head. And this was not all. In 1833 the military force, which it was found necessary to keep in Ireland to preserve the peace, had cost over a million sterling ; and £26,000 had been spent to collect £"12,000 worth of tithes. This was the state of the Irish Established Church, Had Paul been alive, an epistle to them would have been worth reading, for never was there a more pungent critic.^ By Althorp's Irish Church Bill, which was introduced on February 12, Church cess, a time-honoured grievance, was abolished, and the loss of revenue consequent upon the abolition made up by the imposition of a tax on all benefices of upwards of £200 a year, ranging from 5 to 1 5 per cent according to the ' Appendix XXXIb, quotation from Charles Greville. i6o IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY incumbents' income, but not applying to existing incumbents. Lands of suppressed bishoprics were to be sold, and the proceeds estimated at;^6o,ooo, vested by an amendment^ of Stanley's of the 2 1st of June in Ecclesiastical Commissioners for the needs of the lesser clergy, instead of being employed, as at first proposed, for such charitable and educational purposes as might be thought proper. The twenty-two bishops were at the same time reduced to twelve and the four archbishops to two. The income of the primate's see was to be diminished after the death of the present one from ;^I4,500 to ;^io,ooo a year, and future bishops were also to be paid smaller stipends. Future benefice holders were to pay a graduated tax instead of the first-fruits they had up till now contributed. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were, more- over, empowered under the Bill to suspend any appointment to a benefice in which no religious duty had been performed for the three years preceding its introduction. But this .suspension was not to take place without the consent of the diocesan ; and by an amendment, the joint composition of Lord Wynford and the Archbishop of Canterbury, which passed against the Govern- ment on July 25 by 84 to 82, the revenues of the suspended benefice were to be allowed to accumulate for the purpose ot building a church or glebe-house within the parish. Moreover, by the same amendment, the powers of suspension were trans- ferred from commissioners to the archbishop of the province or the bishop of the see, subject to an appeal to the Lord- Lieutenant in Council. The Bill finally received the Royal assent on the 14th of August. This Church reform, which O'Connell described as a great relief to the Irish people, was most persistently denounced by the Tory party, and was the proximate cause of the celebrated Oxford Movement. It was certainly an alleviation, but a partial one, for the grievance of the tithe still remained, and that grievance in the eyes of Irish- men was a colossus. Soon after the passing of Althorp's measure a Coercion Bill was hurried through the House, as though the Government were terrified at the spectre of their own generosity and wished to show that their policy of " a quick alternation of kicks and kindness " had not been abandoned in the plan of reform. The same year an Act was passed amending Stanley's Com- pulsory Composition of Tithes Act of 1832. It was found that a sum of only ;£■ 12,000 had been collected, and even that at immense cost and considerable loss of life, whilst the amount of arrears due throughout Ireland had risen to almost a million ' Carried by 280 to 148. On the third reading in the Lower House the question of the manner in which the surplus was to be spent was again raised, Sheil proposing to insert words tantamount to the appropriation clause as a recital in the preamble ; but he was beaten by 177 to 86. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR i6i sterling. An Amending Act was therefore passed in 1833 at the instance of Edward Littleton, the new Chief Secretary, which empowered the Government to lend a million to the tithe owners of Ireland on the security of the tithe arrears, the repayment of the loan to be spread over a period of five years. The loan, however, was ultimately remitted. The year 1834 witnessed the collapse of Littleton's attempt to grapple with the tithe question. Stanley's Compulsory Tithe Composition Act of 1832, like Goulburn's permissive composition of 1823, had proved a failure, for the composition had to be squee;'.ed from the small Roman Catholic farmer for the support of an alien Church, and its collection was, of course, resisted. In 1833 the tithes in arrear amounted to nearly one and a quarter million sterling (;£^ 1,200,000), and, owing to the extreme subdivision of land, were individually very small in amount. Thus, in a parish in Carlow, the sum owing by 222 defaulters was a farthing each, and a return of the actual number of defaulters, whose debts were under a farthing and rose by farthings to a shilling, formed a large proportion of the gross number. In some instances the charge upon the land amounted to only seven parts of a farthing, and the highest aggregate charge (the sum payable by three or four persons) was against those who owed individually about twopence. In February 1834 Littleton had brought forward a resolution as a preliminary step to his Tithe Bill proposing that his scheme should not come into full operation for five years. But O'Connell had opposed it, contending that it would transfer the odium of collection from the clergy to the landlords, and he proposed instead that the temporalities of the Church should be generally reduced, and tithes diminished by two-thirds, one- third being left to the Established Church, one-third given to the Catholic Church, and the other third to the State. Littleton's resolution, however, was passed by 190 to 66, and early in May he introduced his Bill founded upon the resolution. It proposed that Parliament should grant one million to the tithe owners on the security of the arrears of tithe, which the Irish Government was to be empowered to collect, thus becoming tithe proctor for the whole of Ireland. Moreover, tithe was to be converted into a rent charge amounting to 80 per cent of the former, payable by the landlord and ultimately to be converted into land. After Littleton had introduced his measure. Shell, with a view of eliciting a clear statement of policy, asked the Ministers whether they were prepared to maintain or abandon the Church Establishment. Stanley replied on behalf of the Government, but Russell, fearing lest Stanley's answer should be interpreted as a declaration on the part of ministers that they would uphold the Church in its integrity and abstain from appropriating its II i62 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY revenues under any circumstances to purposes ot State, announced that, if it was found " that the revenue of the Church was not appropriated justly to the purposes of religious and moral instruction, it would then be the duty of Parliament to consider a different appropriation," and that he should maintain this opinion at the risk of schism from his colleagues. It was thus apparent, despite Littleton's feeble attempt to obscure the fact, that grave divergencies of opinion already existed in the Cabinet, and in fact Althorp, when pressed by Shell, avowed the fact. But like an old ship the Cabinet still held together in spite of its rotten timbers. On May 27 Ward, seconded by George Grote.the historian of Greece, moved for the appropriation of the surplus temporalities of the Irish Established Church to certain non-ecclesiastical purposes.^ He showed that only 600,000 persons, or not one-fourteenth of the population, adhered to the communion of that Church in Ireland ; that the division of revenues was ridiculously unequal, there being 176 benefices the value of which varied from ;^8oo to ;^2,8oo per annum, 407 from ;{J"40O to ;^8oo, and 386 from ;^400 to ;^200, and that non- residence prevailed to an enormous extent, as the clergy had practically nothing to do ; there being in 18 14, 664 residents and 543 non-residents; in 1817, 665 residents and 544 non-residents ; and in 1819, 758 residents and 531 non-residents. Moreover, some of the resident clergy did duty for the most trifling re- muneration, in some cases for ;^i8 a year; whilst the average living was about ;^70 a year. Littleton's Bill had at first con- tained such a clause as Ward proposed, but at Stanley's request it had been omitted. Russell, however, expressed his assent to the principle contained in Ward's motion, and Althorp, on behalf of the Government, announced that although they were unable to accept it, they would appoint a Commission to inquire into the state of the Church revenues and consider the whole position of the Irish Church. But, although Ward's motion was afterwards rejected by 396 to 120, Stanley, who did not feel him- self able to acquiesce in the position taken up by Russell and Althorp, resigned even before the debates upon it had com- menced, followed by three of his principal colleagues in the Grey Administration: Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty; the Duke of Richmond, Postmaster-General ; and Lord Ripon, Lord Privy Seal.^ > Ward's resolution ran as follows — "That the Protestant Episcopal Establish- ment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population, and that it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such manner as Parliament may determine, it is the opinion of this House that the tem- poral possessions of the Church of Ireland, as now established by law, ought to be reduced." 2 Their places were filled by Spring Rice, Lord Auckland, the Marquis of Conyngham, and Lord Carlisle. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 163 Littleton's Bill, however, was never passed on account of the intervention of a strange piece of political intrigue which led directly to the resignation of the Government. The time had arrived for the renewal of the Coercion Bill, and Littleton was of opinion that such a step, unpopular in the highest degree in Ireland, would impede, if not destroy, the progress of his own Tithe Bill. He therefore proceeded, on Wellesley's^ ad- vice, to consult Brougham, and Brougham agreed with him in his opinion in regard to Coercion. Hereupon the two men, without consulting their colleagues, wrote to Wellesley urging him to represent to Grey that he was prepared to dispense with the meeting clauses of the Coercion Bill, whenever the latter should be renewed. But unfortunately the Cabinet had mean- while decided to adhere to the clauses in question. Wellesley, however, had in the meantime written to Littleton, as had also Blackburne,^ the Irish Attorney-General, to the effect that he agreed with him in his opinion that the meeting clauses might safely be abandoned. Littleton now sought the advice of Melbourne and Althorp, who were naturally vexed at these secret negotiations. But Melbourne agreed with Littleton that, since Wellesley had maintained he could dispense with the meeting clauses, the Government was not justified in adhering to them. Littleton then consulted Althorp as to the advisability of negotiating with O'Connell, and Altliorp concurred in the suggestion. O'Connell was therefore sent for by Littleton, and promised that the meeting clauses should not be renewed, if O'Connell on his part would consent to withhold his opposition to the Tithe Bill. This O'Connell agreed to do, and im- mediately withdrew his support from the repeal candidate whom he had nominated for a seat vacant at Wexford, and also cancelled an address to the reformers of England in which Grey was roughly handled. But the egg of intrigue was now to burst beneath the hatcher. A day or two afterwards Grey laid before the Cabinet a communication from Wellesley expressing his readiness to dispense with the meeting clauses, upon which Russell remarked that the letter seemed to be written as though in answer to some inquiry. Part of the truth then necessarily leaked out ; Brougham confessed his negotiations, and Grey was exceedingly vexed at the secretion of so important a matter. But Littleton's part in the proceedings had not yet been dis- closed, and the Cabinet now determined, in view of the opinions formerly expressed by Wellesley on the subject and the urgent representations of Grey, to renew the obnoxious meeting clauses, and thus unwittingly to knock Littleton's promise to O'Connell ' Richard CoUey Wellesley, Marquis Wellesley (1760-1842), Governor-General of inma ; at this time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Francis Blackburne (1782-1867). Became Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1852. i64 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY on the head. The whole of the Brougham-Littleton- Wellesley- O'Connell intrigue was now revealed. On the 30th of June Littleton crossed the floor of House and communicated the intentions of the Government to O'Connell, who thereupon declared that he had been betrayed, and laid bare the whole of the secret negotiations before Parliament. Upon this Little- ton tendered his resignation in the hope of saving his face, but it was not accepted. Other resignations then followed. Althorp, who appreciated the difficulty of his own position and feared for the reputation of the Cabinet as a whole, sent in his resignation, and Grey, feeling that he had been ungenerously tricked, followed the example of his colleague and resigned also. The Grey administration had fallen, and in July 1834 Melbourne's^ first Ministry succeeded to power. The question of Coercion was now reconsidered. The tithe disturbances in Ireland had not abated a jot. In April 1834, to give one instance, the military and police seized ten pigs for tithes due to the Rev. Thomas Lock, of Feenboonagh, New- castle West, County Limerick. The enraged peasantry attacked the soldiers, who replied with fire, three of the peasants being killed and twenty wounded. The disorders in Ireland conse- quent upon the resistance to the payment of tithe led the Government to try the usual remedy, which afforded no real relief to the sick man, and which they would have been afraid to administer to any but a very weak one. The Coercion Bill introduced by Grey was abandoned, and a modified measure was passed instead to remain in force until August i, 1835, the more offensive features of the Act of 1833, that is to say, the clauses prohibiting public meetings and providing for trial by court- martial in proclaimed districts, being omitted in order to con- ciliate O'Connell. In proclaimed districts, meetings held with- out authority were to be deemed illegal ; persons found out of doors between sunset and sunrise were to be considered guilty of an offence, and those having arms in their possession of a misdemeanour. After the question of Coercion had been settled, the Tithe Bill was once more taken up on a motion of Althorp's on the 29th of July, 1834. Under the amended plan the landowner who consented to convert the tithe into a voluntary rent charge was entitled to a premium. The rent charge was to be a sum equal to the interest at 3I per cent, on the amount of the land tax, multiplied by four-fifths of the number of years' purchase which the land was worth, the loss to the Church being made good by the application of the Perpetual Purchase Fund. O'Connell, who was now loosed from the bargain in which he had been duped, * William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848). THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 165 determined to revenge himself for the deception. He first of all opposed the motion for going into Committee on the Bill, but was beaten by a majority of 140. He then moved an amend- ment reducing the charge on land by two-fifths, which was to be payable to the Crown, and securing to the clergy somewhat more than three-fourths of their usual incomes — the difference to be made up out of the Consolidated Fund. He also proposed that the arrears of tithe, which the Bill empowered the Govern- ment to collect, should be abandoned, so that the commutation clauses might be brought into operation at once, instead of after a delay of five years, the period originally proposed for the full operation of the measure ; and, though this amendment passed the Commons by 82 to 33, it was rejected in the Lords by a majority of tj. On the 14th of November, 1834, Mel- bourne's first ministry was driven out by William IV from sheer boredom, and on his return from Italy, Peel once more succeeded to power. On the 18th of December occurred the "Slaughter of Rath- cormac," when a force of horse, foot, and police proceeded to collect the tithes of Archdeacon Ryder in the parish of Gortroe, County Cork, One of the defaulters was the widow Ryan, who lived near the hamlet of Rathcormac, and whose indebtedness amounted to 40J, In the struggle round her farmyard, into which some peasants had barred themselves, twelve of the latter were killed and forty-two injured, whilst many of the soldiers were also wounded. At length the archdeacon managed to get round to the back of the house, and, unnoticed by the peasantry, to extract with as much dignity as he could command the value of the tithe due. Of the twelve killed eleven were fathers of families upon whom those families depended. The lesson was a severe one, not to be forgotten by the contumacious men and widows who refused to pay their debts, and the arch- deacon, we are lold, " proceeded to collect his tithes throughout the parish without further molestation." In the general election of December and January 1834-5 the Conservatives were returned by the country in a minority, and Peel put forward Sir Henry Hardinge, his Irish Secretary, to propose a Church Reform Bill with the purpose of anticipating any step by Russell in the same direction. Hardinge introduced his measure on the 20th of March. It was identical with Little- ton's former Bill, the only material difference being that the terms of the former were less favourable to the clergy and more favour- able to the landlord than those of the latter. Hardinge proposed to abandon the loan of a million advanced in 1833, and to convert the tithe into a rent charge, which was to be fixed at 75 per cent, of the former tithe, whilst its redemption by the landlord was to be facilitated, the purchase money being invested in land. The i66 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY arrears of tithe were also to be abandoned. Hardinge, in fact, like Littleton, was holding out a bribe to the landlords of Ireland to charge their estate for the benefit of the Church. O'Connell and the Whigs took the opportunity to attack the Tithe Bill on the plea that it did not contain an appropriation clause, and as the Government was defeated on this point, Hardinge's measure was necessarily dropped. On the 30th of March, 1835, Russell moved for a Committee of the whole House to consider the temporalities of the Irish Church, and proposed that the surplus revenues of the Establish- ment should be genuinely applied to the moral and religious improvement of the people of Ireland. He was supported by Ward, R. L. Shell, Lord Howick, C.Wood, Dr. Lushington, Spring Rice, and O'Connell, and opposed by Sir E. KnatchbuU, Sir James Graham, W. E. Gladstone, Sir R. Inglis, Sir W. FoUett, Praed, Sir H. Hardinge, Lord Stanley, and Sir Robert Peel. On the division upon this motion the majority against the Ministers was 33 (322 to 289). Encouraged by this success he again moved, on the 3rd of April, " that it is the opinion of this Committee that any surplus which may remain after fully providing for the spiritual instruction of the Established Church in Ireland, ought to be locally applied to the general education of all classes of Christians," and this motion, which was made in connection with Hardinge's Bill, was likewise carried against the Govern- ment by a majority of 38.^ Finally, on the 7th of April, 1835, Russell moved " That it is the opinion of this House that no measure upon the subject of tithes in Ireland can lead to a satisfactory and final adjustment, which does not embody the principle of appropriation." This motion was also carried against the Ministers by 285 to 258, and Peel, who regardless of the other two defeats had clung to power with the tenacity of a drowning man, was forced to resign, Melbourne succeed- ing to his second Premiership, which he held until 1841, dur- ing five years of perhaps the most interesting period of Irish history. The celebrated " Lichfield House Compact " was now formed between Melbourne's Ministry and O'Connell. The great demagogue, who ever since the Coercion Bill of 1833 had striven to overthrow Grey and effect the formation of a Whig Ministry from which Grey and Stanley should be excluded, consented to support the Administration on certain conditions. He agreed on his part not to press the policy of Disestablish- ment of the Irish Church ; to abandon the movement for a Repeal of the Union ; to suspend the demand for Parliamentary Reform, and to aid the Irish Executive in maintaining Appendix XXXII, extracts from speeches by Gladstone and O'Connell. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 167 authority in Ireland. He stipulated in return that Catholic Emancipation should be made a reality and not a farce; that the tithe should be commuted with an " appropriation " clause as part of the measure ; that municipal bodies in Ireland should be reformed on the principle of the late reform in England, and that men of popular sympathies should be appointed to official positions in Ireland. As a result of this Concordat the Govern- ment proceeded to place nearly the whole of the patronage of Ireland, especially of the Irish Bar, in O'Connell's hands. Lords Mulgrave ^ and Morpeth ^ were appointed with O'Connell's approval to the posts of Lord-Lieutenant and Chief Secretary respectively. It was said that O'Connell was offered the post of Attorney-General for Ireland, but Louis Perrin, a Protestant lawyer of popular sympathies, was given it, and Michael O'Loughlin, the leading Catholic advocate at the Irish Bar, was made Solicitor-General, both of them O'Connell's nominees ; whilst Thomas Drummond ^ became Under-Secretary at Dublin Castle in succession to Sir William Gosset, a post which was at that time political and vacated on a change of Government. The Irish constabulary force and the crowd of paid magistrates were now reorganized, and the former, through the instrumentality of Drummond, was thrown open to Catholics, largely increased, and posted in different stations throughout every county. It was indeed time to move a little in the direction of reform. The policy of coercion had failed; the rulers of Ireland had " sown their laws with dragon's teeth and they had sprung up armed men." * The total number of offences in 1833 affecting human life had been — committals 826 and convictions, 203. In 1835 the number was — committals 922, and convictions 409. The total number of outrages generally in the former year was — committals 17,819 ; convictions 11,444. In 1835 the number was — committals 21,205 > convictions 15,216. In face of this increase of crime, in acknowledgment that the ' Constantine Henry Phipps, Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards first Marquis of Normandy. ^ George Howard, Viscount Morpeth, afterwards sixth Earl of Carlisle (1773-1848). Thomas Drummond was born in Castle Street, Edinburgh, on the loth of October, 1797. In 1820 he took part in the Ordnance Survey in the Scottish High- lands. From 1825 'o 1828 he was occupied in the survey of Ireland. In 1831 he supermtended the Boundary Commission Inquiry. In 1833 he was appointed private secretary to Althorp, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer. In July 1835 he went to Ireland. On April 15, 1840, he died and was buried at the cemetery of Mount Jerome, in Harold's Cross. Integer vita, scekris que purus. Words used by Hussey Burgh in the Irish House of Commons in 1782. The estimation in which he was held may be gathered from the munificence of the pension Which the Irish Parliament granted him. His four children (three daughters and one son) were allowed £2,000 a year with benefit of survivorship. Hussey Burgh was a speaker of a sweet and captivating eloquence. He died of fever while on circuit in i68 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY policy of force had failed, a fresh attempt was now made to settle the tithe question. In 1823, as we have seen, Goulburn had obtained the voluntary composition of tithes. In 1832 Stanley had made the composition compulsory. In 1834 Little- ton had endeavoured to convert the composition, first into a land tax, and then into a rent charge ; and a little later Hardinpe had proposed the conversion of the tithe into a rent charge fixed at 75 per cent, of the former amount and redeem- able by the landlord. In Littleton's Bill, as originally framed, the land tax was to amount to 80 per cent, of the tithe, but in the shape in which it reached the Lords the rent charge amounted to only 60 per cent., the tithe owner being partly compensated for his loss out of the Perpetuity Purchase Fund. In 1835, Hardinge, adopting Littleton's principle, had also pro- posed to convert the tithe into a rent charge, and had offered £^S of rent charge for every ;^ioo of tithe. In principle, therefore, there was a general feeling among all parties that the burden of the tithe should be transferred from the shoulders of the occupier to those of the owner. On the 26th of June, 1835, Morpeth suggested a further alteration. He introduced a Bill, which proposed to commute every ;^icx) of tithe into £20 of rent charge ; to charge on the tithe owner the cost of collection — that is to say,6d. in the pound, and thus to reduce the amount paid by the landowner and received by the tithe owner to ^^68 5^. In order to partly compensate the incumbents for the diminished revenues, he also proposed to allow all existing clerical tithe owners an additional £^ per cent, out of the Perpetuity Purchase Fund, and decided, like Hardinge before him, to abandon the arrears of tithes, amounting to ;^637,ooo, the sum advanced to the distressed clergy out of the million granted by Parliament in 1833. As regards the sequestration of the Church revenues, he proposed to suspend the presenta- tion to any benefice which did not contain fifty members of the Church of England. The cure of souls in such benefice was either to be attended to by the clergyman of the neighbouring parish, who was' to receive an additional stipend of from iTio to £SO a year according to the extent of his extra duties, or by a curate with a salary of £2$ a year. The same Bill also em- powered the Lord-Lieutenant in any parish containing more than fifty people, and endowed with more than ;^300 a year, to deduct so much from the income of an incumbent as he might think proper, provided it were not diminished below the £soo- There was also a series of provisions for the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church, estimated at ;^58,ooo, to the promotion of the religious and moral education in Ireland. Thus the landowner under Littleton's scheme was saddled with 60 per cent, under Hardinge's with 75 per cent, and under THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 169 Morpeth's with 68 J per cent, of rent charge for every ;^ 100 of tithe; whilst the existing incumbents received, under the first scheme y7^ per cent, under the second '75 per cent, and under the last 73i per cent of their tithe. In fact, these successive schemes had gradually been whittling away the amount which it was proposed to allow to the tithe owners. In order to justify his measure, Morpeth demonstrated that out of the 2,045 parishes in the 26 dioceses of Ireland, there were 157 without a single member of the Established Church ; the number of those containing fewer than 10 Protestants were 194 ; containing between 10 and 20, 198; between 20 and 30, 133 ; between 30 and 40, 107; and between 40 and 50 Protestants, yy. Thus the total number of parishes that would come under the oper- ation of the Bill would be 860, and it was estimated that the surplus revenues of these parishes would amount to ^^58,000 a year. Sir Robert Peel moved the separation of the first and second portions of the measure, with a view to the adoption of the one and the rejection of the other dealing with appropriation, but his amendment was defeated by 319 to 282, and Morpeth's Bill having passed the Commons was then sent to the Lords. They accepted the first half of the measure, but on the 20th of August rejected the sequestration and non-ecclesiastical appropriation clauses by 138 to 41, and, in view of this mutilation of a part, the Ministers determined to abandon the whole Bill. It was always difficult to obtain legislation, when interest stood in the way of reform.^ One of the consequences of the loss of Morpeth's Bill was that the Government were now legally obliged to proceed against the clergy for the discharge of the sums due from them in settlement of the Government loan ; but the clergy were of course totally unable to pay, and the difficulty was at length evaded by an Act which authorized the Government to suspend the suits which they were otherwise bound to institute against these clerical defaulters. Meanwhile a most significant change had taken place in the Government of Ireland. Coercion was giving way to the just administration of the law, and the rank prejudice which for so many years had issued from Dublin Castle and settled like a blight on every native Irishman, had been driven from Its tabernacle to seek shelter elsewhere. Grey's Coercion Bill had become law on April 15, 1833. On July 30 of the following year a Mitigated Coercion Bill came into force, and continued in operation until the ist of August, 1835, when Melbourne, with the concurrence and support of O'Connell, introduced and carried a Public Peace Act, to remain in forCe Appendix XXXIII, quotation from Charles Greville. lyo IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY for five years. It empowered the Lord Lieutenant to order an extraordinary Court of general sessions with the power of any court of Oyer and Terminer to be held for any county in Ireland. Prosecutors, offenders, witnesses, and others were bound to attend on receiving a written notice ; and offenders were to be forthwith tried unless the Court should order other- wise. The carrying or concealing of firearms was to be deemed in certain cases a misdemeanour. The Lord-Lieutenant, on presentment of grand jury, could direct the Court to issue a notice enjoining the inhabitants of any place to remain within their doors at night ; any persons found abroad there in the night after such notice being guilty of a misdemeanour. After the day named in the notice, the court could authorize by warrant domiciliary visits in the locality specified, and summon and examine on oath persons certified to have been absent from their dwellings, and imprison and fine any of those on conviction who could not satisfactorily account for their absence. The consideration which was shown for the liberties of the Irish under this Act contrasted favourably with the Coercion Bills of former years. But there was a master at the wheel, a man who appreciated the work to be done and understood the way in which to do it ; and the measure not only did not gall the spirit of the Irish people, it was never even put into operation.^ Since the appointment of Thomas Drummond as Under- Secretary at Dublin Castle the Lord-Lieutenant had refused to allow troops and police to be present at tithe sales, or to interfere with them in any way except in the case of an actual breach of the peace. This novel impartiality was, as may be imagined, extremely unpalatable to the anti-reformers, who pro- ceeded to form a lay association presided over by Lords Roden, Enniskillen, and Bandon for the purpose of counteracting the new policy of justice. Instead of proceeding by distraint, the association applied to the Court of Exchequer for power to recover tithes, and in December 1835 more than six hundred Exchequer Bills for sums varying from ;^io to is. gd. had been filed, process being served on the peasants by placarding the original bills in places specified by the Court and sending copies of them through the post. But the peasants, unappalled by Orange ingenuity, merely disregarded the bills and orders of the Court ; and the association, in order to meet this difficulty, had recourse to an obsolete procedure which had been out of use for many years, and obtained writs of rebellion against the defaulters. Now a writ of rebellion empowered a commissioner of rebellion, appointed by the Court, to call upon the sheriff, police, and military to arrest the defaulter named in the writ, ' Appendix XXXIIIa, extract from speech by Lord John Russell. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 171 and detain him in custody until he had paid. But Drummond was equal to the emergency, and refrained from issuing instruc- tions to the local authorities, so that when the commissioner of rebellion applied to them for support, they roundly declined to act without authority from the Castle. Thus the writs, like rusty old arms, proved quite unfit for present purposes, and were only curious as a relic of the less liberal and more untutored past. In 1835 an important reform was carried out in the relations between landlord and tenant, which Drummond described in his evidence before the Roden Committee in 1839 — " Formerly each judgment creditor had the power of distraining for the amount of his debt. This power was most vexatious, and led to frequent breaches of the peace. Each creditor had, without reference to what had been previously paid by the tenant, the power to distrain for his debt ; so that it frequently happened that the unfortunate tenant had two or three times over to pay the amount of his rent. The natural consequence was, he resisted ; and that led to breaches of the peace. The improvement introduced was, that a Receiver was appointed by the Court, who received the amount and paid it among the creditors. There was another important change which tended to prevent breaches of the peace. This was the granting to the Civil Bill Court a power to substitute service of process, as it was called, that is to say, on the party making a representation that the service has been opposed, the barrister may direct the posting the notice on some conspicuous place, which shall be deemed good service. This prevented collisions between process servers and the parties — of old a fertile s6urce of disturbances." The merit of procuring this reform in the system of process serving belonged to a lay association established in Dublin in the end of 1835 for the purpose of helping the clerg^y. In 1836 the redoubtable Orange Lodges were dissolved. The Diamond — a little hamlet, about five miles from Armagh, the scene on September 21, 1795, of a conflict called the Battle of the Diamond between the Protestant " Peep of Day Boys " and the Catholic " Defenders " — is supposed to have been the birthplace of Orangeism. A few yeomen and farmers after the battle joined together at Fisnackell, in Armagh, for mutual defence and the assertion of British rights, and thus created the first Orange Lodge. Its successors gradually took the place of "Break of Day Men" and "Peep of Day Boys," and their opponents were the Catholic Ribandmen. Religious animosity was the breath of their nostrils and the connivance of Government and police court their chief armour. The Arms Act of 1807 was not enforced against them, and their arrogance increased accordingly.! Qj^^PP«ndix XXXIIIb, quotation from Judge Fletcher's charge to the V^^exford 172 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY When magistrates joined hands with a system of terrorism Ireland indeed was in a bad way. In 1827 the Duke of Cumber- land was elected Grand Master of all the Orange Lodges, his agent being the notorious Colonel Fairman, whose business it was to establish Orangeism wherever he could and by whatever means. Joseph Hume had already called attention to the dangerous machinations of these bodies and made various dis- closures in regard to them in Parliament. At length, on his motion, a Committee was appointed, and the matter inquired into in 1835, which led to their final dissolution the following year.^ It was found by Finn's Committee that there were 1,500 to 1,600 of these lodges in Ireland alone, containing probably between 150,000 and 160,000 Orangemen, who were accustomed to meet in armies of 10,000, 20,000, and even 30,000 at a time; whilst in Great Britain there were 140,000 members. Moreover thirty to forty regiments of the line had established lodges on the authority of warrants from the Grand Lodge. The Lodge rules were clearly defined. No Orangeman was admitted to a lodge under eighteen years of age ; every Orangeman was liable to active service at the call of the Grand Master ; and members who voted for Liberal candidates were expelled. It was also suggested at the time that some of the Orange Lodges had been intriguing to place the Duke of Cumberland on the throne, the idea being that William IV should be superseded on the plea of insanity, and the Princess Victoria robbed of her legal right and ousted from the succession. Whether the allegation were true or not, and no absolute proof of it was adduced, it served to cast grave suspicion upon the members of the Lodges and to strengthen yet further the reasons for their disbandment. On April 8 of the same year the statue of King William III, " of pious, glorious and immortal memory," was blown up. The perpetrators of the deed were never discovered, but it is not improbable that, maddened by the destruction of their beloved temples, the Orangemen had shivered their idol with their own hands, with the intent of fixing suspicion upon their enemies, and thus creating a last outcry against the detested Catholics. On the 26th of April, 1836, Morpeth again brought forward his Tithe Bill, which was accepted by the Commons, but once more fell a victim to the opposition of the Lords, who would have nothing to do with the non-ecclesiastical appropriation clauses, which it contained. Thus the Irish peasantry were again disappointed of a remedial measure through the illiberal attitude * An urgent appeal was made to the King, and William IV, in his reply. declared his determination " to take measures for the effectual discour^ement ot Orange Lodges, and of all political societies excluding persons of a different religious faith, using secret signs and symbols, and acting by means of associated branches- It was in consequence of this announcement that the Orange Society was publicly declared by the Duke of Cumberland to be dissolved. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 173 of a handful of men, and left to the tender mercies of the Lay Association, a body which had been formed for the protection of the downtrodden Church of the Irish Establishment, as well as for the purpose of bringing actions against starving men for the recovery of tithes. O'Connell and the other popular leaders in Ireland, now thoroughly dissatisfied with the result of the Irish legislation of the Melbourne Government, determined to organize themselves afresh for a renewed but constitutional agitation, and in the latter part of 1836 formed a general Petition Committee in Dublin with that view. The Committee soon developed into a " National Association," with O'Connell at its head. It was, in fact, the successor of the Catholic Association suppressed in 1829, and had its local branches and contributions under the name of " justice rent," as well as its rent-collectors and " Pacificators " ; the main objects of the society being the promotion of municipal and tithe reform, and the superintendence of elections in the popular interest. The anti-reformers instantly took the alarm. They loathed O'Connell and the memory of their own defeat. They hated the man who refused to wear a sheep's face when he felt like a tiger. They feared his energy, his eloquence, and his influence over the minds of his country- men. Their only weapon was abuse, coercion having been struck from their hands, and they were determined to make use of it. Towards the end of 1836 the Times newspaper took upon itself to defend Lyndhurst,^ against whom O'Connell had made a speech, in which he had thrown out some hints which that newspaper interpreted as a threat that O'Connell meant to assail his lordship's private character. Resolved therefore that the character of so stout an anti-Irishman should be washed before the world, it published the following lines of ablutionary matter in the taste prevailing at that period — "What an unredeemed and unredeemable scoundrel is this O'Connell to make such a threat, and at such a time too ! If he has not lied more foully than it could have entered into the imagination of the devil himself to lie, he makes the threat with his own wife dying under his very eyes ! Oh ! how long shall such a wretch as this be tolerated among civilized men ! But let him mark us well ; as surely as he dare to invade the privacy of the life of Lord Lyndhurst, or of any other man, woman, or child that may happen by themselves or their relations to be opposed to him in politics, so surely will we carry the war into his own domiciles at Darrynane and Dublin, and show up the whole brood of O'Connells, young and old." This composition was answered by O'Connell in a letter, which, if it did not rival the Times in Billingsgate, at least ■ John Singleton G>pley, Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863) ; became Lord Chancellor 01 England in 1827. 174 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY manifested to the world that the character of a private citizen could not be attacked with impunity even by the most powerful paper of the day. "I do not condescend," O'Connell wrote, "one remark on the turpitude of the party to which the Times is now attached, and whose patronage it earns by a political and personal meanness hitherto unknown in the history of British literature. You have made literary vileness a byword. It is really discreditable to Britain that it should be known that so much atrocity — so depraved, so unprincipled a vileness as the Times has exhibited — should have found any countenance or support. As to me, the only sentiments I entertain are those of contempt and utter defiance." Most persons will agree with O'Connell, that it was indeed discreditable that the principal periodical of Great Britain should vent its spleen in grossness, which not only betrayed its impotence to do real harm, but had not even the similitude of wit to recommend it. To show the spirit that still animated the members of the dissolved Orange Lodges and the impartiality with which Ireland was now being governed, it will not be amiss to recount an incident that occurred the same year, trifling in itself, but significant in connection with the history of this period. A certain Colonel Verner, a typical example of military bluster and Deputy-Lieutenant of the County of Tyrone, who represented the Orangemen of the Empire in the House of Commons during the investigation into the Fairman plot, was pleased to give at an election dinner, in 1837, 'The Battle of the Diamond' as a party toast. Hearing of this Drummond wrote him, on August 22, the following letter — " Sir, — It appearing in the Newry Telegraph of the loth instant that at an election dinner given by you on the 7 th, one of the toasts was ' The Battle of the Diamond,' I am desired by His Excellency, now that the elections are all terminated, to desire that you will inform him whether it can be possible that you were thus a party to the com- memoration of a lawless and most disgraceful conflict, in which much of the blood of your fellow-subjects was spilt, and the immediate con- sequence of which was, as testified at the time by all the leading men and magistrates of your county, to place that part of the country at the mercy of an ungovernable mob ? " I have the honour to be, your most obedient servant, "T. Drummond." The Orange swashbuckler was stricken with amazement. Had the Castle indeed so changed that justice finally was to be meted between man and man? Had the old snake cast its slough } Cut to the quick, the gallant fool ran among his friends, purple with rage, and panting with uncertainty. They consoled THE SEVEN YEARS* TITHE WAR 175 him told him it was a Government device, counselled him to show a little mettle, not to tuck his tail in, nor sheathe his sword bloodless, and having petted and stroked him into sufficient valour, put their tongue in their cheek and unkindly left him to his pen. Insolence should be his weapon and sarcasm his breastplate of defence— "I am disposed to think that when you put a question in a form like this, you can hardly expect, on cool reflection, that I should condescend to answer it — at least, I would imagine that you could expect no other answer than one which I hold superfluous, namely, that I am not capable of being a party to the commemoration of anything 'lawless and disgraceful ' ! I would request, if I am ever again to be favoured by a question which you are directed to propose, that it may be expressed in terms better calculated to invite an answer, and more likely also to be understood. I must say your letter does not appear to me very intelligible; ... "Upon the various misrepresentations, unintentional, I have no doubt, which your letter contains, I have no desire to comment. I feel it necessary only to assure you that, of all the conflicts which took place at any of the various places called by the name of ' Diamond ' in the county of Armagh, there is none to which your description is, in the least degree, applicable." Greatly pleased with the mingled wit and severity of this retort, he awaited the reply, and got it. On September 5, Morpeth inspired by Drummond wrote — "... You profess yourself unable to recognize the conflict alluded to under the above title (' The Battle of the l3iamond '), by reason of the many such conflicts which have unhappily occurred in the county of Armagh, at places called by the name of the Diamond. If His Excellency could have anticipated that you would have experienced, from this cause, any difficulty in replying to the question addressed to you, he would have referred you to your own evidence, published in the Report of the Committee on Orange Lodges in Ireland, and more especially to the following question and answer, No. 92 : — "Question — 'The Battle of Diamond Hill took place the 21st of September 1795 — did it not?' Answer— 'It did.' His Excellency need scarcely observe, that the number of such conflicts does not render the commemoration of one or more of them less objectionable, or make It less imperative on him to ascertain the fact of magistrates having joined in such a proceeding. " On account of the long-continued and bitter animosities springing from religious differences, which have disturbed the good order of society, and led to the most lamentable consequences, especially in the county of Armagh, the Legislature has declared certain acts to be penal "hi k"*^' ^^^^^> ^" other parts of the Empire, are not only not punish- 'e, but not blameable, because perfectly harmless. If an assemblage of persons, even less in number than those who were present at the election 176 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY dinner in question, should walk in procession through the streets bearing party emblems or playing party tunes, they should therefore subject themselves to the punishment of the law ; and it may be known to you, that many have suffered imprisonment, and many are at this moment amenable to the law, for no greater offence. "The peasant thus offending is, in His Excellency's opinion, less culpable than the man of station and education who, on an occasion to which publicity is given through the public press, celebrates a lawless action arising out of the civil discords of his country, in which the lives of many of his countrymen were lost, as an event the remembrance of which it is desirable tb perpetuate with honour. . . . "... His Excellency deems the public considerations dependent upon this transaction to be of such importance, that he is less inclined to remark upon the extraordinary tone in which your whole letter is written, considering that it is an answer to an official communication, addressed by direction of Her Majesty's Representative, to a gentleman holding a commission of the peace, and requiring an explanation of his conduct. " Upon a full consideration of the case. His Excellency will deem it expedient to recommend to the Lord Chancellor that you shall not be included in the new commission of the peace about to be issued, and will also direct your name to be omitted from the revised list of Deputy- Lieutenants for the County of Tyrone. — I have, &c., " Morpeth." The ridiculous Verner had been flung in the dust, and we will there leave him. On the 1st of May, 1837, Morpeth introduced his third Tithe Bill, and the fifth of the kind which, within a period of five years, had been submitted to the Legislature. Burdett had by this time become alienated from the Whigs on account of their policy of appropriation of the surplus of Irish tithe to non- ecclesiastical purposes. This new Bill, like its predecessor, fixed the amount of the rent charge at ^68 5j. od. per cent, of the tithe, but did not contain the controversial appropriation clauses. The old idea, however, was wrapped up in it in another shape, for it was proposed that all future bishops, dignitaries or other beneficed clergymen, should be required to pay a tax of 10 per cent, on their incomes, to be devoted to the purpose of general education in Ireland, and a statute of Henry VIII (the 15th of the 28th) was cited in justification of the requirement. This statute was declared to be still in force, and every rector or vicar on being inducted into his benefice was to take the following oath : — " / will teach or cause to be taught an English school within the said rectory or vicarage, as the law in that case requires!' The Bill was read a second time on the 9th of June, but eventually abandoned on account of the death of King William the Fourth on the 20th of that month, and the dissolu- THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 177 tion which followed that lamentable incident. In the General Election which took place soon afterwards a Government majority was returned. A short lull now intervened in the agitation against the tithes, O'Connell dissolving the General Committee contrary to the wish of Sharman Crawford.^ The former, who divined the direction in which the gust of English opinion blew, realized that the present moment was unfavourable for an agitation in favour of a total extinction of tithes, and determined to wait until he could muster sufficient support to carry the measure through.^ On the 27th of March, 1838, after a General Election had returned the Whigs with a greatly diminished majority, Russell announced that the Government intended to introduce a Bill for the conversion of tithes into a rent charge to be fixed at £68 Sj. od. per cent, of the tithe, the income so secured being guaranteed to existing incumbents by the State. The State was also to be authorized to purchase, on the termination of existing interests, each £68 ^s. od. of rent charge for ;^ 1,600, and to apply the purchased rent charges to educational and police purposes in Ireland. On Russell's motion for a Committee of the whole House to consider the project. Sir J. Ackland proposed an amendment rescinding the resolutions of 183 5, which had pledged the Government to the Appropriation clause, and his motion was only rejected on the 15th of May by a majority of 19. On the 1 8th of the same month Russell announced that the Government would content themselves with a Bill providing for the mere conversion of tithes into a rent chaise at the percentage already fixed, and O'Connell and Peel accepted this decision. Ward, however, protested against this desertion of principle and proposed the reinsertion of the secular Appropria- tion clause, but was defeated by 270 to 46. Frederick Shaw, member for the University of Dublin, then moved for the increase of the rent charge from £68 5^. od. to 75 per cent. ; but his motion was also lost, although by the narrower margin of a 21 minority. Nevertheless, the Government, to propitiate the Lords, finally consented to the raising of the rent charge in accordance with Shaw's motion. On the loth of July O'Connell proposed that the arrears of tithes then due should be remitted, * William Sharman Crawford. He was turned out of his seat at Dundalk through O'Connell's influence after the dissolution of 1837, as he declined to support the agitation for the repeal of the Union. He was afterwards member for Rochdale. ^ Commenting in September, 1837, upon O'Connell's speech in dissolving the General Committee, the Times newspaper said — " Never did an unprincipled demagogue act a more treacherous part towards his wretched dupes than O'Connell is acting towards the people of Ireland, whom he sells, as he slavers them with the slime of panegyric fulsome enough to turn the stomach of a Chinese sycophant ; never was a baser or meaner wretch gibbeted in the annals of political profligacy." 12 178 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and ministers concurred in his suggestion, an explanation of the h'nes to be followed in carrying it out being given by Russell six days later. One million had been voted as a loan for the clergy ; and out of that sum ;^640,ooo had been actually advanced. Russell now proposed that the ;^640,ooo should be considered as a free gift, and that ;£'26o,ooo of the original loan voted should be applied to the remission of the outstanding arrears. This arrangement was accepted by all parties, and Russell's Tithe Bill at length emerged from the workshop of Irish legislative failures and passed into law at the end of August 1838. On the passing of the Act O'Connell was vigorously attacked in various quarters for the compromise which he had effected between himself and the Government Father Davern, a Tipperary priest, published a series of letters condemning this surrender of religious principle. But the government of men is carried on by compromise, and to give a little on the one side is not only permissible, but politic, when you can take a little on the other. Thus the Tithe Act, as it took its place upon the Statute Book, contained no secular appropriation clause, the Government having decided to abandon the principle of non- ecclesiastical appropriation in return for a concession made by the Opposition in regard to the Municipal Franchise Bill, although the latter failed eventually to pass. It converted the existing tithe composition into a land tax or rent charge of 75 per cent, of the nominal value of the tithe, which was to be charged to the owner and not the occupier of land — that is, in the great mass of cases to the Protestant landlord, not to the Catholic peasant. This income was to be secured to the existing incumbents by a State guarantee. The claim of the nation to repayment of the advances, which had already been made to the tithe owners, namely ;^ 640,000, was abandoned, and the remain- ing ;^26o,000 was to be devoted to the extinction of arrears. The tithe proctor, having no more to do, was to disappear from Ireland.^ The Government had renounced their pledges in respect of the appropriation clause, and laid themselves open to a charge of bad faith, which Peel, no inexperienced judge in the matter of apostasy, lost no time in pressing home upon them. He recounted in Parliament how he had offered to carry a measure of reform like the present one and been taunted with having derived it from the preceding Government ; how he was com- pelled to resign because a measure of the kind ought not, so his opponents said, to be passed without an Appropriation clause ; how those opponents had staked their political existence on this principle, and how they were now proposing without a blush to * Appendix XXXIIIc, epitome of Parliamentary history of Tithe question. THE SEVEN YEARS' TITHE WAR 179 carry a Tithe Bill after all without the appropriation. Grote also said in regard to this transaction, that it afforded a melancholy proof of the way in which great principles were made subservient to party purposes, and that he believed history would note this as one of the most discreditable instances of tergiversation on record. The apostasy was indeed undeniable. The Ministry had certainly succeeded in introducing a Poor Law into Ireland and converting Irish tithes into a rent charge, but the first of these measures had been forced upon the Irish against their wish, and the second had only been carried by the abandonment of the principle by which they had climbed to power. It was Drummond, and not the Liberal Government, who deserved the gratitude of Ireland, Under his rule crime, the crime peculiar to that country, practically ceased. Order was re-established, where chaos had paralyzed all attempts to govern before, and a new spirit had begun to spread abroad in the land, the spirit of hope, which several hundred years of misrule had been unable to completely kill.^ * In 1839 it was stated in the House of Commons by David Richard Pigot (afterwards Chief Baron of Exchequer in Ireland) that "from 1834 to 1838 homicide had diminished 13 per cent. ; firing at the person 55 per cent. ; incendiary fires 17 per cent. ; stealing cattle 46 per cent. ; attacks upon houses 63 per cent. ; killing or maim- ing cattle 12 per cent. ; levelling houses 65 percent. ; ill^al meetings 70 per cent, ;" whilst during Drummond's tenure of office in Ireland the troops quartered there had been reduced from 32,035 in 1834 to 14,956 in 1840. CHAPTER VI POOR LAW OF 1838 " We English pay, even now, the bitter smart of long centuries of injustice to our neighbour Island. Injustice, doubt it not, abounds, or Ireland would not be miserable. The Earth is good, bountifully sends food and increase ; if man's unwisdom did not intervene and forbid. It was an evil day when Strigul first meddled with that people. He could not extirpate them ; could they but have agreed together, and extirpated him ! Violent men there have been and merciful ; unjust rulers and just ; conflicting in a great element of violence, these five wild centuries now ; and the violent and unjust have carried it, and we are come to this. England is guilty towards Ireland ; and reaps at last, in full measure, the fruit of fifteen generations of wrong-doing." — Thomas Carlyle ( Chartism). " I will at once declare that I see no chance of tranquillity and welfare for that impoverished and long distracted land, until the Irish jjeople enjoy the right to which the people of all countries are entitled — namely, to be maintained by the soil that they cultivate by their labour. I cannot find terms to express my sense of the injustice and the impolicy, the folly and the wickedness of any longer delaying to Ireland the consolation and the blessing of a well-regulated system of poor laws." — Benjamin Disraeli, in 1834, at High Wycombe. The first measure of poor relief was an Act passed in 1703 for the erection of a workhouse in Dublin. The guardians of the institution were empowered to apprehend and keep at work within it all adult vagrants and beggars in the city for any time not exceeding seven years, while juvenile paupers above the age of five years were to be detained until they reached the age of sixteen, when they were to be apprenticed to some Protestant until twenty-one years of age, if girls, and twenty-four, if boys, a rate of threepence in the pound being levied on all house- holders for the support of this establishment. In 1707 another measure, entitled " An Act for the more effectual suppression of Tories and Rapparees," was carried to meet the growing evils of pauperism, by which all vagrants and persons of loose character were, on the presentment of a grand jury, to be committed to the county jail until transported for seven years, unless they could give security for their good behaviour. In 171 5 a third Act was passed, the most important provision of which em- powered ministers and churchwardens, with the consent of a justice of the peace, to bind out any child found begging within their parish, or any other poor child with the consent of the parents, to " any honest and substantial Protestant housekeeper or tradesman " until the age of twenty-one in the case of girls, and twenty-four in that of boys. Twenty years later a further 180 POOR LAW OF 1838 181 step was taken, an Act being passed in 1735 for the establish- ment of a workhouse in Cork, similar to the one founded in Dublin in 1703. After this nothing of any significance was done for thirty years to remedy the state of poor relief in Ireland. In 1765, however, a measure was passed for the establishment of county infirmaries to be supported by grand jury presentment. In 177 1 the Dublin workhouse merged in the "Foundling Hospital," and provisions were made during the course of the next year for the foundation of " Houses of Industry " throughout Ireland. These establishments resembled in part hospitals, in . part houses of correction, and were supported by grand jury presentments. Their governors were empowered to grant badges or licences for begging to approved paupers, and to punish unlicensed beggars by imprisonment and flogging ; and they also had the power to hand over the children of licensed paupers to the directors of the Charter schools. In 1 78 1 the fever hospitals were established. These various attempts to cure the evil of Irish pauperism were like offering a blade of grass with a dewdrop on it to a man with a raging thirst. The poverty of some of the towns was inconceivable ; and the disease, the vice, and the misery that tossed upon the same pallet were a vast indictment of the whole system.^ In 1805 an Act was passed for setting up dispensaries in connection with the county infirmaries, and the grand juries obtained during the next year increased powers of present- ment for maintaining fever hospitals and infirmaries. In 1809 Commissioners were appointed to consider the practicability of reclaiming the Irish bogs and thus adding to the resources of the country and providing labour for the poorer classes. In 1814-18 the grand juries obtained further powers of present- ment for the support of fever hospitals. In 18 17 lunatic asylums were established, and two years later sanitary officers were appointed to attend to the health and comforts of the inhabitants. In 1822 a terrible famine occurred in Ireland, which mowed down the inhabitants like hay. There had already been a famine in 1817, and an accompanying period of typhus fever after the calamity had spent its strength. The Committee appointed to inquire into the condition of the people reported on June 7, 18 19, that the state of the country was appalling, and that the Government should provide work — "seeing that landlords in Ireland threw expenses of buildings and repairs on the tenant, and bearing in mind the lamentable circumstance, almost peculiar to that country, of the non- residence of a great proportion of proprietors, they think that Ireland has a claim to the generous consideration of Parliament." * Appendix XXXIV, quotation from the Rev. James Whitelaw. i82 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The famine of 1822 was worse than its predecessor, and the landlords were largely to blame, as was demonstrated by the Committee of the London Tavern, a committee of English gentlemen which was formed to relieve the distress, and whose agents visited the famine-stricken districts.^ A stone of potatoes, which had usually been sold for \d. or \\d., could not be bought now for less than 6\d,, and, whilst Cabinet Ministers were speculating as to the expediency of one more Coercion Act, gaunt hunger stalked through the land. Thirteen thousand people in the barony of Clonderalaw in Clare County were reported to be without seed for the next crop. The parish of Finloe contained 817 persons, and 696 of these were in absolute want of food. In a parish in Clare the population, after mass, inquired what crimes were punishable by imprisonment, for they were willing, they declared, to be sent to jail for the sake of obtaining bread. At Tralee the poor were actually dying of starvation, whilst in Cork it was no uncommon sight to see persons fainting away in the streets for mere want of food. Fever was soon added to famine, and they struggled together in the emaciated frame. Thousands of the Irish died. Outrage and riot succumbed at last to exhaustion, and the voice of despair was hushed in the grave. Meanwhile the fashionable world, appreciating the propriety of fulfilling the formalities of sudden charity, gave a great ball in London for the purpose of raising subscriptions, and danced away for the Irish famine. On April 22 a debate took place on the renewal of Sir John Newport's motion for inquiry into the state of Ireland. Grant,^ the late Chief Secretary, who had succeeded Peel in August 18 19, declared that not merely was the landlord an absentee, but frequently the agent also, and that the agent and his deputy used to exact from the tenants the miserable pittance which had been left to them after the payment of their rack- rent. Newport's motion was eventually withdrawn, but Goul- burn, who had succeeded Grant in the Chief Secretaryship in 1822, introduced a Bill appropriating half-a-million to facilitate the employment of the poor in road-making and other public works. They were to be carefully supervised by Government officers, and the amount of money granted was not to exceed the sum for which grand juries had made presentments. Many of these works, however, were absolutely profitless, such as the obelisk on Killiney Hill, which has remained a memorial not only of the famine but of the mental vacuity of the Government of the day. In 1825 an Act was passed for facilitating the transmission of " distressed children " to the Foundling Hospital, * Appendix XXXIVa, extracts from report of the Committee and Annual Roister. 2 Charles Grant, Lord Glenelg (1778-1866). POOR LAW OF 1838 183 which, in view of the reputation of that notorious establishment, could hardly be considered a momentous achievement in the history of Irish poor-law reform. The need for some earnest, practical thinker, a little taller, and broader, and more en- lightened than the average rulers of Ireland, was never more crying than at that moment.^ Sir Walter Scott wrote in his diary under November 20, 1825 — " I was in Ireland last summer, and had a most delightful tour. There is much less exaggeration about the Irish than might have been suspected. Their poverty is not exaggerated; it is on the extreme verge of human misery ; their cottages would scarce serve for pig-sties, even in Scotland — and their rags seem the very refuse of a rag-shop, and are disposed on their bodies with such ingenious variety of wretchedness, that you would think nothing but some sort of perverted taste could have assembled so many shreds together. You are constantly fearful that some knot or loop will give, and place the individual before you in all the primitive simplicity of Paradise." In addition to the other evils which thus pressed upon the land, it must also be remembered that ever since the Union the manufacturing industry of Ireland had been diminishing. This circumstance told severely upon the poorer classes, for less hands were employed in the towns than formerly, and those persons who had made their living out of manufactures were either thrown upon the soil for their subsistence, or forced to seek shelter in other countries.^ According to statistics collected by Isaac Butt, there were, in 1800, in the city of Dublin, 91 master manufacturers engaged in the woollen manufacture, in 1840 there were only 12, and in 1864 but 8. In 1800 there were 4,038 hands employed in the same industry, and in 1841 only 682. In 1800 there were in the town of Roscrea, in Tipperary, 900 persons supported by the woollen manufacture, but in 1867 there was not one. Again, in 1800, the manufacture of flannel employed 1,000 looms in the county of Wicklow, and in 1867 there was not one. In 1800 there were 30 master wool-combers in Dublin, and in 1834 there were only 5. In 1800 a blanket manufactory existed in Kilkenny affording constant employment to 3,000 operatives ; in 1841 the number had been reduced to 925. In 1800 there were 1,491 per- sons employed in the city of Dublin in stuff serge manufacture ; in 1834 there were only 131. In 1800, 720 operatives were ' Appendix XXXV, quotation from J. G. Lockhart. ^ In a speech delivered by Mr. Boylon, at the Irish Conservative Society, on the 3rd of February, he said — "Formerly we spun all our woollen and worsted yam. We imported, in 1790, only 2,294 lbs. ; in 1800, 1,180 lbs. ; in 1826, 662,750 lbs.— an enormous increase, t here virere, I understand, upwards of thirty persons engaged in the woollen trade in Dublin, who have become bankrupts since 1821." i84 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY employed in the carpet manufacture under 13 masters, and in 1 84 1 there was only one carpet-maker. In 1800 there were in Dublin 2,500 broad looms in the silk manufacture ; and in 1840 there were only 250. In Ulster the manufacturing industry did not experience the same decay, and that this was owing to the greater security of the tenant in his holding and the greater prosperity which accrued to him in consequence, no one who has studied the history of Ireland will be inclined to deny. In 1832 Michael Sadler ^ made certain proposals in Parliament to amend the Irish Poor Laws and give vitality to the system of poor relief; but his endeavours were abortive, his failure to effect a reform being largely owing to O'Connell's opposition, an opposition which was very inconsistent with the whole tenor of the latter's previous declarations. O'Connell's irresolution, how- ever, was probably sincere. He had promised the Irish poor that he would never rest until he had obtained a poor law for them ; and this change of front may have been due to the conviction, which he frequently afterwards expressed, that compulsory charity was contrary to the spirit of religion, and tended to sap that free almsgiving which he regarded as one of the duties of a Christian directly enjoined in Scripture. In 1833 Grey appointed a Commission to inquire into the condition of the Irish poor, as well as the whole state of the pauper system in Ireland, and they continued their labours until 1836. Pending the final report of the Poor Law Commissioners, a resolution was moved by William Smith O'Brien on the 19th of March, 1835, to the effect that it was expedient to make some provision for the aged, infirm, and helpless poor in Ireland by assessment upon property in that country. He therefore proposed that every parish in Ireland should assess itself for the relief of the helpless and impotent poor; the maximum of assessment to be fij^ed at a shilling in the pound, two-thirds being contributed by the landlords, and the remainder by the tenants ; and he also suggested that an absentee-tax should be imposed on the land- lords, and a committee appointed annually to administer the law. Ultimately, however, he withdrew the resolution, satisfied that the question had been stirred and discussed upon its merits. On the 8th of July, 1835, Sir Richard Musgrave moved the second reading of a Bill for the employment of the able-bodied and the relief of the infirm poor of Ireland. He proposed that public works should be undertaken by the State with a view to the former object, and that for the latter committees should be formed in every city and parish in the country to make accurate lists of the aged and infirm poor and fix a rate for their relief, three-fourths of which should be borne by the landlords, and the ' Michael Thomas Sadler (1780- 1835). The last few pages of his Ireland; its Evils, and their Remedies, might have been written yesterday. POOR LAW OF 1838 i8s rest by the occupying tenants. The Bill, however, was eventually dropped. Another attempt was made on the 13th of February, 1836, by Poulett Scrope,^ who introduced a Bill for the establish- ment of a Central Board in Dublin to regulate the union of parishes and of particular districts, the poor being relieved by a rate on each union. He also proposed that schemes of public works and emigration should be devised and carried out under the Board for the benefit of the able-bodied poor, and his Bill was read a first time without opposition. On the 3rd of March of the same year Smith O'Brien likewise brought forward certain proposals of a similar texture, but they never got beyond the first reading. The Grey Commission appointed in 1833 now issued their report. The social state of Ireland was discovered to be worse than had even been suspected by the most ardent of her sym- pathizers. Until 1835 the law had not recognized a marriage celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest, and as the Irish poor were always married by their own pastors, all their children born before 1835 were technically illegitimate ; and the parish, up to the date of the new Poor Law in 1834, was liable for the support of illegitimate children. The Commission found that the pro- portion of paupers to the rest of society was twice as large in Ireland as in England. England, they said, contained thirty-four and a quarter million acres of cultivated soil, tilled by 1,055,982 labourers, who on an average received 8s. to 10s. a week in wages, and who produced food of the estimated value of one hundred and fifty millions. Ireland contained 14,600,000 cultivated acres, tilled by 1,131,715 labourers, who received 2s. to 2s. 6d. a week in wages and who only produced food worth thirty-six millions. But the majority of the Irish could not command even these miserable wages. Nearly one-third of the entire population, or 2,385,000 souls, were dependent on the produce of the little plots of land which surrounded their wretched hovels. The potatoes which they wrung from the exhausted soil rarely lasted through- out the year, and for thirty weeks in every twelve months the hunger-bitten cottiers and their families could not even obtain an adequate supply of diseased potatoes for their subsistence.^ The Irish poor consequently crowded into England, and in order to keep body and soul together were glad to take any wage offered to them by any kind of employer, so that the English labourer was often ousted by this unnatural competition from earning his own bread. The rent of Irish land according to the computation of the Commissioners amounted to ten millions sterling a year, four millions of which was absorbed by encum- brances on property, which thus left the Irish landlords a net income of only six millions. But the support of 2,385,000 ' George Julius Poulett Scrope ( 1 797-1876). ' Appendix XXXVI, Commissioners' third Report. 186 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY paupers for thirty weeks would require a rate of at least five millions, and thus swallow five-sixths of the income of the Irish landlords. The Commissioners therefore deprecated a Poor Law for Ireland on the ground that its tendency would be to.pauperize the landlords without affording adequate relief to the tenants. The majority of the Irish paupers, so they said, were able-bodied peasants, eager to work honestly for their livelihood, but from no fault of their own destitute of employment. Such men, they declared, would endure any hardship and the pangs of any suffering rather than stagnate in a workhouse, and they urged that the proper mode of dealing with them was to afford them the means of earning their daily bread by honourable means. They therefore proposed that relief should be afforded only to the mentally and physically infirm, to those who were either too old to work or too young or in cases of casual destitu- tion. For the relief of the sick and impotent poor they advocated the establishment of voluntary associations controlled by State Commissioners, and they suggested that the revenues of these bodies might be supplemented by a parochial rate. As for the able-bodied poor, they recommended employment and emigration. For the former purpose, therefore, they proposed that a •' Board of Improvement " should be established in Dublin under whose direction public works might be undertaken, Irish bog districts reclaimed, the waste stretches drained and fenced, land in occu- pation better cultivated, the sordid dwellings of the peasants improved, model agricultural schools opened, and the general welfare of the country attended to. Fiscal Boards were also, as part of the new system, to be established in all the counties, to make presentments for public works instead of the grand juries, and the landlords were to contribute a rate for the improvements made with the sanction of this Board on their estates. These improvements would, the Commissioners imagined, absorb the great majority of the Irish poor, whilst whatever residue might be left could emigrate to other climes. For this latter purpose depots were to be formed in various parts of the country, and requisite facilities afforded to those peasants whom misery drove from their native soil. This plan, which was a valuable contribution to Irish history in spite of the impracticable nature of some of the Commissioners' remedial suggestions, and by no means the tissue of idiotic dreams such as have inflated the weak imaginations of many would-be reformers since their day, did not commend itself to Ministers, and George Cornewall Lewis, who was at that time quite a young man, was asked by Spring Rice ^ to draw up a paper upon it. This he did so completely as to demolish in the * Thomas Spring Rice, first Baron Monteagle of Brandon in Kerry (1790-1866). At this time Chancellor of the Exchequer in Melbourne's Second Administration. POOR LAW OF 1838 .187 eyes of the Government the suggestions of the laborious Com- missioners. He attempted to show that their scheme was a proposal for the management of private property by the State, which would lead directly to an extravagant waste of public money, if, indeed, the project was practicable at all. Lewis' paper frightened the Ministers into disregarding the report of the Commissioners, and they sent Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Nicholls, one of the three English Commissioners, to Ireland to report afresh upon the whole subject. Nicholls remained six weeks in Ireland, and scoured the country like an American tourist. But so confident of his statesmanship was this sweating land-trotter and would-be physician of Irish ills, that in six weeks' time he had solved the Irish Poor Law problem. He first rejected the estimates of the Commissioners as mere moonshine, and then proceeded to draw up a report of his own recommending the erection of 80 to icx) workhouses to hold 1,000 persons each, an undertaking which he calculated would cost about ;^7OO,O0O ; and the Government, feeling themselves obliged to support their own dependent, approved of his plan, and founded upon it their Poor Law of 1838.1 The Government measure, which was first introduced on the 13th of February, 1837, and suspended by the dissolution of Parliament which followed upon the death of the King, was brought forward once more in 1838. It provided for the estab- lishment of a hundred workhouses, where relief and employment were to be afforded exclusively to the destitute poor, infirm, and able-bodied, no relief outside the workhouses being permissible. The whole country was to be divided for this purpose into about 120 unions, the landlords and tenants of each union being rated in equal shares for the support of the poor within the union. The system was to be administered by local boards of guardians, consisting of elected and ex officio members, the former to be exclusively lay and not to exceed one-third of all the guardians chosen ; and the local boards were to be placed under the con- trol of a central authority in Dublin, to consist of Commissioners chosen from the English Board of Poor Law Commissioners. There was to be no law of settlement under the new system. The Bill was read a second time on the 5th of February, 1838, and, on the motion for its committal, O'Connell moved its rejection, but was beaten by a majority of 252. In the shape in which the Bill left the Commons it contained a clause proposing that the whole country should be divided into unions, each union to be rated at large for the maintenance of the poor relieved in the workhouse attached to it. The Duke of Wellington now suggested as an alternative that each union should be subdivided Appendix XXXVII, quotations from Gustave de Beaumont and the report by fnomas Drummond. 188 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY into electoral districts, and each district made chargeable with the support of its poor, in order that every parish should bear its own burdens. This amendment, the only one of any importance, having been accepted, the Bill was passed and received the Royal assent on July 31, 1838. By the 2Sth of March, 1839, twenty-two unions were declared, and in eighteen of these guardians were appointed ; whilst in the course of the following year, 127 unions were declared, three only remaining to be formed, whilst fourteen workhouses were already opened for the reception of paupers. In 1843, it being found that whatever resistance was offered to the new system proceeded principally from occupiers rented at or under £4, an Amended Poor Relief Act was passed, which provided for the exemption of such occupiers from the payment of poor rates. The Act also contained a settlement clause, by which it was necessary that a pauper should have occupied some tenement in a given electoral division for twelve out of eighteen calendar months previous to his application for relief, in order that such electoral district might be rated for his support. In 1847 another Amended Poor Relief Bill, described more fully under the section which treats of the Great Famine, was carried through by Russell. It authorized the granting of out-door relief to permanently infirm poor, and increased the number of ex officio guardians from one-third to one-half of the whole body of guardians in each union. The " quarter-acre clause " was also made part of the measure, and caused more trouble than the evil it was meant to cure. In the same year that witnessed this legislative experiment, Morgan John O'Connell moved a resolution in the House of Commons to remedy the state of affairs which had arisen as a result of the acceptance of Wellington's amendment to the Poor Law Bill of 1838. The Duke, as we have seen, had proposed the substitution of electoral for union rating, with the view of decentralizing the areas of responsibility and inducing the land- lords in self-defence to interest themselves in the welfare of their tenants. But the landlords had ingeniously proceeded tp clear the tenants off the rates in the rural electoral divisions by evict- ing them when they became destitute. The outcasts thereupon flocked to the towns, where, stripped of the ordinary means of subsistence, they soon were thrown upon the rates. Thus the landlords escaped from the responsibility which would have lain upon them, shaking off not only the burden of their poor but the detestable fardel of the country poor rates. Morgan John O'Connell's remedial motion for the substitution of electoral for union rating was rejected by a majority of ninety-nine ; but the question was not allowed to drop, and between 1861 and 1871 it POOR LAW OF 1838 189 was on several occasions brought before the notice of the House of Commons. In 1850 the Government consented to issue an additional ;^300,ooo to the most embarrassed Irish unions, thus raising the whole nominal debt due from Ireland to ;^4,78 3,000, and at the same time to extend the period of repayment of the advance to forty years. In 1862 a further Poor Law Act was passed in accordance with the recommendations of a committee, appointed in 1 861 to inquire into the Poor Law system. The most important alteration made in the existing law consisted in a modification of the " quarter-acre clause." The Bill, as originally framed, provided for the simple repeal of the clause, but the House of Lords decided that the clause should be maintained as far as out-door relief was concerned. In 1871 a committee of the Lower House was appointed to inquire into the matter of rating, and it declared in favour of union rating by a majority of one. In 1873 Lord Hartington, who had presided over this committee, gave it as his opinion in the House of Commons, that the system of union rating ought to be adopted, since that of electoral rating had " placed undue pressure on the urban divisions, encouraging the destruction of labourers' houses, and discouraging their erection." This suggestion was embodied in a Bill introduced by O'Shaughnessy the year after, but the pro- posal did not commend itself to the House, and on the motion of Mr. Kavanagh,^ member for Carlow, it was rejected.^ * Arthur Macmorrough Kavanagh (1831-1889). Bom with only the rudiments • of arms and legs. ^ Appendix XXXVIIa, further history of the unions. CHAPTER VII MUNICIPAL REFORM ACT, 1840 The history of the reform of municipal procedure in Ireland is one more proof, were any other required, of the unequal treatment meted out as between Protestants and Catholics in that country at the beginning of last century, and the spirit of intolerance that was abroad in the land. In 1 172 Henry II granted two charters to the citizens of Bristol. By the first they became possessed of the City of Dublin, " with all the liberties and free customs which the men of Bristol had at Bristol and throughout the King's territory," and by the second they were freed from " all imposts throughout England, Normandy, Wales, France, and Ireland." In the reign of John two more charters were obtained. By the first, in 1 192, the boundaries of Dublin were defined, and the citizens given the right to distrain their debtors by their chattels in Dublin, and to hold pleas, according to the custom of the city, of debts lent in the city and pledges given there. They were also to have all their reasonable guilds as the burgesses of Bristol had, and to possess and dispose at their pleasure of all the tenures within and without the walls up to the boundaries. By the second charter, in 121 5, which confirmed all the former ones granted by Henry and John, the payment of an annual rent was substituted for the irregular contribution previously levied on the citizens under that name. In 1229 Dublin obtained the privilege of a mayor. In 1327 the profits and management of the markets, which had been established in the reign of John, were vested in the mayor and citizens. In 1538, the King, in consideration of their services in defending the city against the rebellion of Thomas Fitzgerald,^ granted to the mayor, bailiffs, citizens, and commons the site and estates of the dissolved priory of All Saints, in the counties of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Louth, Tipperary, and Kilkenny, and elsewhere in Ireland at the nominal yearly rent of £4 4s. o^d. Finally, in the reign of Charles I the principal officer of the city of Dublin was permitted to assume the title of " lord mayor." ' Thomas Fitzgerald, Lord Offaly, tenth Earl of Kildare, born 1513; executed at Tyburn 3rd February, 1537. 190 MUNICIPAL REFORM ACT 191 •N From the reign of Elizabeth to 1793, Catholics were excluded from the Corporation of Dublin by law, and from 1793 to 1840 they were excluded from it by custom. In the latter year the corporation consisted of a lord mayor, two sheriffs, twenty-four aldermen, and 144 common councilmen ; and such was the state of municipal government in that city that none of the respectable traders or merchants of the city were members of the common council. In addition to Dublin, thirty-nine municipalities were created in Ireland previous to the reign of James I. When James I came to the throne, he created forty-six Irish boroughs with a stroke of the pen, and gave them parliamentary repre- sentation and municipal rights. His successor created one such, and Charles II fifteen ; that is to say, altogether sixty-two munici- palities were begot by the Stuarts. The whole object of the creation of these mushroom bodies was that they might support " the English interest " in the Irish House of Commons, and municipal officers who conscientiously shrank from compelling Protestant modes of worship in their respective towns were unceremoniously bundled out, and more subservient creatures of the Government set in their place.^ Meanwhile the new parasitic holders of 6flfice surrendered the rights and privileges of their townsmen into the royal hands, and accepted fresh charters from the Sovereign, which allowed scarcely any powers to the local residents, and invested the nomination of all important offices in the Government, In 1672 some relaxation of the Protestant monopoly took place in virtue of the " new rules " issued by the Irish Government ; but the Revolution of 1688 deprived the rules of all their virtue, and the whole of the social and other advantages derivable from municipal institutions were once more monopolized by the ravenous disciples of the Protestant faith. Besides Dublin and the larger towns of Ireland, there were in the eighteenth century about a hundred of these petty municipalities and Parliamentary boroughs, but they were mere appanages of the neighbouring leading families without any municipal feeling whatsoever, and, as stated above, were exclusively exploited in the interest of the members of the Established Church.^ Between the reign of Charles II and the consummation of the Union there were 1 12 municipalities in Ireland. A large majority of these boroughs were deprived of their Parliamentary representation at the Union ; but they retained their nominal municipal rights, and continued, under the control of the chief ' Henry Hallam wrote— ' These grants of the elective franchise were made, not indeed improvidently, but with very sinister intents towards the freedom of Parliament ; two-thirds of an Irish House of Commons, as it stood in the eighteenth century, being returned with the mere farce of election by wretched tenants of the aristocracy." Appendix XXXVIII, quotations from Edward Wakefield, etc. 192 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY landed gentry, to swarm with the grossest excesses of undisguised corruption, secret peculation, and scandalous maladministration. Between the Union and 1835, thirty of these disreputable bodies became extinct. Their exclusive character prior to 1840 was what might have been expected. Maryborough had a population of 5,000, but only possessed nine corporators ; Thomastown one of 2,871, and only nine corporators ; Londonderry one of 19,620, and only thirty-eight corporators ; Pelturbet one of 2,026, and only nine corporators ; Cavan one of 2,931, and only six corporators ; Belfast one of 53,287, and only twenty-one corporators; and Newtownards one of 4,442, and only eight corporators. Thus the reform of the Irish municipal system was clearly imperative. The corporations embraced a population of 900,000, of whom only 13,000 were corporators. Since 1792 the corporations had, in law, been open to Catholics, but up to 1835 only 200 Catholics had been admitted to them in all Ireland. Tuam was the only town in Ireland in which there was a majority of Roman Catholics on the governing council. Limerick had a population of 66,000, but only possess 271 corporators. The people of Cashel were suffering from a want of water. There was not the smallest difficulty in {)roviding the town with an adequate supply at a cost of ;^2,ooo or ;^ 3,000, and the Corporation owned property in the neighbourhood which was worth at least ;^ 2,000 a year. But it was unwilling to waste its substance for so trivial and unremunerative a cause, and the town had consequently to go without one of the requisites of life. At length, on the 31st of July, 1835, Louis Perrin, at that time Irish Attorney-General, introduced a Bill on behalf of the Whig Government for the reform of Irish municipal corporations. It aimed at restoring to the citizens of Irish corporate towns the privileges originally granted to them, and proposed with this end in view to convert the governing bodies of every municipality into councils elected by popular suffrage. In seven of the largest towns the electors were to consist of ;^io householders, and of ;^5 householders in the smaller ones, the qualification of a councilman in the larger towns being the possession of ;^ 1,000, and in the smaller ones of ;^ 500. The councillors who received the greatest number of votes were to be aldermen, one-half of the aldermen withdrawing triennially, and one-third of the councillors retiring from office once a year. The measure was carried successfully through the Commons, but on account of the advanced state of the session, and the difficulties which it was anticipated would be met with in the Lords, was abandoned by the Government before entering the Upper House. In the speech from the Throne on the 14th of February, 1836, a hope was expressed that a remedy might be applied to the defects and evils in Irish municipal institutions, founded on the same prin- MUNICIPAL REFORM ACT 193 ciples as those contained in the Acts already passed for England and Scotland. The same month, therefore, Sir Michael O'Loghlen, the Attorney-General for Ireland, brought forward on behalf of the Government another Irish Municipal Reform Bill, a royal commission having meanwhile investigated the state of Irish corporations and diagnosed their disease. The object of the new Bill was to give the inhabitants of towns, subject to a qualifica- tion according to rating, the power to elect town councillors, and thus infuse a popular element into the little close municipal boroughs. On the introduction of the measure, Peel proceeded to oppose the Government and to project a counter plan of his own. Arguing that Ireland was not ripe for a system of municipal institutions such as existed in England, and thus unconsciously condemning from the outset the whole policy pursued in regard to Ireland for a century, he moved an amend- ment that the old corporations should be abolished and a body of commissioners appointed by the Crown established in their place. On the 7th of March Lord Francis Egerton moved an " instruction " embodying Peel's amendment, but his motjon was rejected by 307 to 243, and O'Loghlen's Bill finally passed the lower House by a majority of 61. In the Lords, however. Lord Fitzgerald appropriated and moved Peel's and Egerton's amend- ments on the 26th of April, and through Lyndhurst's influence the Bill was transformed in accordance with them. It was on this occasion that the latter delivered his celebrated " alien " speech. Speaking against the Bill, Lyndhurst urged the Govern- ment to beware lest they allowed the administration of Irish affairs to fall into the hands of " aliens in blood, in language, and religion." He feared this new reform, this belated bugbear of redress, this insignificant particle of justice, this snub to monopoly and Castle power. He would reform Ireland on totally different principles. " My Lords, where is this to stop ? Concession leads to concession. When will the noble Viscount stop in his downward career? The Ministerialists themselves say, ' We will receive all you offer, but we will only take it as an instalment, and we will never cease agitating till the Protestant Church is laid prostrate.' And this, the noble Viscount tells us, is the only mode of governing Ireland. It seems, my lords, that we Protestant Englishmen are to be governed by those who are aliens in blood, in language, in religion." He soon met with a reply. The tirade, that unanswered would have perished a natural death a few hours after its de- livery, was dragged into the glare of day and pitilessly made to live in one of the finest specimens of oratory that hcis ever adorned the deliberations of the Legislature. Lyndhurst's amendment in the Lords reduced the original Bill to a mere 13 194 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY stump, and in view of the obstacles thus thrown in his path Russell in June proposed a compromise. The twelve largest towns were to retain their municipal corporations, but the latter were to be reformed, and the franchise in those towns was to be confined to ;^io householders. All the other towns were to lose their corporations, and commissioners were to take their place, who were not to be appointed, however, by the Lord- Lieutenant, as proposed by Peel, but elected by the inhabitants. In the case of these towns the franchise was to be conferred on ;^5 householders. Sharman Crawford at once condemned the restricted nature of the compromise, and moved an amendment to include sixteen additional towns in the category of those that were to have municipal corporations ; but his motion was re- jected by a majority of 140. On the 27th of June, 1836, Russell's compromise was brought under the consideration of the Lords, but it was rejected through Lyndhurst's influence by 220 to 123, and in view of this opposition the Bill was postponed. On the 7th of February, 1 837, Russell again brought forward the Corporation Bill that Lyndhurst had obstructed the year before.^ Like its predecessors, it emerged safely from the Com- mons, but like them was suffocated in the uncongenial atmo- sphere of the Lords. Peel, attempting to exculpate himself for having unwillingly been forced into a measure of reform, declared during the debate — "In the year 1829 we passed the Act for the relief of the Roman Catholics. I never took any praise to myself for the part I had in pass- ing that measure, because I own it was forced upon me. I leave to others the sole credit of having passed it, but to charge me with having passed it for the purpose of retaining office is altogether unjust and groundless." He was yet to discover that the spirit of reform was not quite extinct, that the opposition of an apostate was not irresistible, and that various other measures considered indispensable for the country's welfare were destined, as in 1829, to be most disagree- ably forced upon him. On the 22nd and 23rd of February, 1837, during the debate on the motion for going into committee, Lyndhurst, little suspect- ing the pillory in which he was to stand, entered the gallery of the House of Commons accompanied by Wellington. The opportunity was favourable, the nation was the audience, and Shell, summoning all his forces, poured forth a lava stream of invective such as rarely before or since has so withered the pride and confounded the argument of a hidebound Government official. In this twentieth century the very name of Lyndhurst • Appendix XXXVIIIa, extract from speech by Lord John Russell. MUNICIPAL REFORM ACT 195 is probably only known to the schoolboy through the oratory of Sheil. In that display the Lord Chancellor is gibbeted for as long as the English language lasts, a painful but salutary warn- ing to other bigots of his kind. Having referred to the general misgovernment of Ireland, the promises lavishly held out and their niggardly fulfilment, Sheil continued — ;. " From the day on which Strongbow set his foot upon the shore of Ireland, Englishmen were never wanting in protestations of their deep anxiety to do us justice; even Strafford, the deserter of the people's cause — the renegade Wentworth, who gave evidence in Ireland of the spirit of instinctive tyranny which predominated in his character — even Strafford, while he trampled upon our rights, and trod upon the heart of the country, protested his solicitude to do justice to Ireland. What marvel is it, then, that gentlemen opposite should deal in such vehe- ment protestations ? There is, however, one man of great abilities, not a member of the House, but whose talents and whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party, who, disdaining all impos- ture and thinking it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national antipathies of the people of this country — abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his political associates affect to cover, although they cannot hide, their motives — distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen, and pronounces them in any particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circumstances by ^hich fellow- citizenship is created in race, identity, and religion — to be aliens — to be aliens in race — to be aliens in country — to be aliens in religion. Aliens ! [raising his voice to its highest pitch, and looking straight to where Wellington and Lyndhurst were sitting]. Good God ! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, ' Hold ! I have seen the aliens do their duty ' ? The Duke of Wellington is not a man of excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved ; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic country- men — for we are his countrymen — designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply — I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. The battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievements in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to the last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable — from Assaye to Waterloo — the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. *yhose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before ? What desperate valour climbed the steeps and filled the moats of Badajos? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory —Vimiera, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and last of all, the 196 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY greatest. — Tell me, for you were there — I appeal to the gallant soldier before me [Sir Henry Hardinge], from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast — tell me, for you must needs remember, on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fell in showers ; when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science, . . . tell me, if for an instant, when, to hesitate for an instant was to be lost — ' the aliens ' blenched ? And when at length the moment for the last and decisive movement had arrived, and the valour which had so long been wisely checked, was at last let loose — when, with words familiar but immortal, the great captain commanded the grand assault — tell me, if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valour than the natives of this your own glorious country, precipitated herself upon the foe. The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together; in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited ; the green com of spring is now breaking from their com- mingled dust ; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril — in the glory shall we not be permitted to partici- pate ? And shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life blood was poured out ? " ' This was more than fine rhetoric. It was the pent-up feeling of a life-time — pain at the intolerance, the injustice, the ignorance, the want of common manliness that the rulers of Erin had exhibited in their government of her. Lyndhurst, in Impotent fury, sprang to his feet to answer Sheil, forgetting the place in which he was, but he was ludicrously pulled back on to his seat by his coat-tails by some friend who was with him, and there collapsed, convulsed with rage, and burning with shame, as fair an example of the biter bit as had ever been seen at West- minster. Richard Lalor Sheil died on May 25, 1 85 1. Although his eloquence was typically Hibernian and suffered from many of the faults characteristic of Irish speaking, some of his orations will be handed down to a distant posterity for the sake of their barbed wit and wealth of picturesque and glowing language. He possessed an endless vocabulary of synonyms, and revelled in them unrestrainedly, but the rhythm and consonance of his sentences almost redeemed this too profuse display of words and enchanted his hearers before ever they had time to criticize. His delivery was the weakest point in his forensic armour. A shrill, meagre voice, accompanied by abrupt and disorderly ges- tures, conspired to neutralize the effect of his most splendid passages, and provoked many of his early audiences to laughter, and it was only by dint of Demosthenic patience and application, that he was able to curb these idiosyncrasies and train the natural awkwardness of his manner. He was an excitable and hypersensitive little man, with a dark crop of hair, sparkling * "Speeches" of Sheil, edited by Thomas Macnevin. MUNICIPAL REFORM ACT 197 eyes, a pale complexion, and a pointed chin. Every word, although rehearsed carefully beforehand, seemed to be on fire with earnestness and passion. He had written several dramas, that had been successfully performed, and few speakers had studied the art of theatrical situations more deeply. Envy, atrabilious and spiteful, dubbed him a play-actor in consequence, who practised his histrionic tricks to any tune that might be playing at the moment. The truth probably hung midway between the two extremes, the adoration of his friends and the enmity of his detractors. His ambition may in a measure have been that of the professional player, but though he acted well, be felt his part.^ Russell's Bill at length passed the Commons, but its progress was once more obstructed in the Lords, and in consequence of this opposition it was finally dropped. At the beginning of 1838 he reintroduced it, and a compromise was arranged between himself and Peel with a view to settle both the tithe and corpora- tion questions. The plan proposed by Peel, who had executed a complete volte-face, was as follows. He was willing to grant corporations to the eleven largest towns in Ireland at once, and to allow the majority of electors of the smaller towns to apply for a charter of incorporation to the Lord-Lieutenant, provided that in the case both of the large and smaller towns the muni- cipal franchise were fixed at ;^io with the test of rating. Peel's suggestions were accepted by Russell with one reservation, namely, that the franchise in the smaller towns should be fixed at a ;^5 instead of a ;^io rateable value. But Peel would not agree to this arrangement, and so the compromise broke down, Peel's motion in favour of his own plan being defeated by a Ministerial majority of 20. Russell's Bill with its £\o franchise for the larger and £^ franchise for the smaller towns then passed the Commons and entered the Upper House, where Lyndhurst, still smarting from his recent castigation, persuaded the Peers to mutilate it by striking out the £^ qualification for the smaller towns, by the possession of which they were to be allowed elected Government bodies, and to substitute for it one of ;^io clear annual value. The amended Bill was then returned to the Commons, who substituted for Lynd- hurst's ;^io qualification one of an ;^8 rateable value. But the Lords would not agree to the further amendment, and in View of this determined resistance the measure was finally aban- doned. In 1839 Morpeth made a similar attempt to carry a jneasure of municipal reform, the franchise in the smaller towns being fixed by his Bill at £%. But his proposals had to be Sheil was born on the 17th of August, 1791. He wrote successively Adelaide, "L'tne Emigrants ; The Apostate ; Bellamira, or, the Fall of Tunis ; Evadne ; The ^"iwnot : Montoni. ■ 198 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY abandoned for the same reason that Russell's had proved abortive the year before. They passed the Commons, but were obstructed and recast in the Lords, the £8 being changed to ;^io. So arduous was each step in the ladder of Irish Reform. In 1840 Morpeth again introduced a Municipal Reform Bill, which this time had the advantage of Peel's influential support. By the new arrangement the eleven largest towns were continued as corporations under the provisions of the Act, to be composed of mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, the franchise in them being fixed at a ;^io rating. Thirty-seven smaller corporations were dissolved, nineteen of which possessed corporate property to the amount of ;^ioo a year and upwards, and eighteen corporate funds to a smaller amount. Any of these thirty-seven boroughs, which had a population exceeding 3,000, could apply for a charter on the petition of the majority of the inhabitants rated at ;^8 to the Queen in Council, the affairs of these towns, pending the application, being managed by Commissioners appointed under the Act of George IV. As for the remainder of the thirty-seven, the corporate funds of those of the first class were to be vested in Commissioners in the proportion of one Commissioner to every 500 inhabitants, and those of the second class to the Poor Law guardians and applied to public objects. Lyndhurst as usual mutilated the Bill, when it entered the Lords, by insisting upon the municipal franchise being raised in the smaller towns to £ 10, thus permitting only the largest towns to obtain the advantage of self-government, and with this alteration the feeble measure was eventually passed. Another provision in the Bill, which robbed it of much of its grace in the eyes of the Irish, was that the Sheriff was not to be elected by the town councils, as was the custom in England, but appointed by the Lord-Lieutenant. The town councils, indeed, were to be allowed to submit certain names to the Viceroy for selection, but if all of them were re- pugnant to him, he was to be able to nominate a man of his own choice. Thus, after long waiting, the Irish had at last succeeded in obtaining the advantage of elective governing bodies for their largest towns. One of the results of the Act was the election of O'Connell as Lord Mayor, the first Roman Catholic to occupy the position since the Revolution of 1681. The election took place on November i, 1 841, in the Assembly Rooms, William Street. Later on he made an arrangement by which the mayors were to be Protestant and Catholic in alternate years, and this agreement was maintained until the rise of the Land League in 1880. Thiscrippled measure was a great disappointment to O'Connell. He had determined to support the Melbourne Government as long as he conscientiously could, and had continued to maintain MUNICIPAL REFORM ACT 199 the alliance even after the passing of the Tithe Act, although he had formed the Precursor's Society to agitate for Municipal Reform. The belated, strengthless reform had now come, but was worth absolutely nothing. As Sir Erskine May has said — " The tedious controversy of six years was at length closed, but the measure virtually amounted to a scheme of municipal dis- franchisement." O'Connell was therefore determined to have done with this solemn trifling and once more to raise the cry of repeal. CHAPTER VIII O'CONNELL'S TWO CONSTITUTIONAL AGITATIONS FOR A REPEAL OF THE UNION, 1830 AND 1842-4 "there are some others who say that the great misfortune of Ireland is in the existence of the noxious race of political agitators. Well, as to that, I may state that the most distinguished political agitators that have appeared during the last hundred years in Ireland are Grattan and O'Connell, and I should say that he must either be a very stupid or a very base Irishman who would wish to erase the achievements of Grattan and O'Connell from the annals of his country." — ^JOHN Bright, Dublin, October 30, 1866. " All the sympathies of all continental politicians are with the Irish. We are regarded as the oppressors, and the Irish as the oppressed. An insurrection in Ireland would have the good wishes of a great majority of the people of Europe. And, sir, it is natural that it should be so." — Thomas Babington Macaulay, February 13, 1844. Already, in 18 10, had a cry arisen for the repeal of the Union. Ten years of married life had sufficed to nauseate the weaker partner. For within such a period what vice there is in a man is generally disclosed, what virtue there may be is mani- fested. Within such a period of ten years the faithless spouse has time to prove his inconstancy, the faithful one his fidelity : the former his harshness and indifference, the other his kindli- ness and affection. A man cannot hedge about his character with mere profession : the truth will out. You know him by his deeds, by his manner of living, and his associates. The rest is all dress : a coat and trousers into which he thrusts himself, to last till they are worn out and rejected for a newer or more fashionable suit. For ten long years Ireland had tried to lie with her partner in the same bed, but without success, for the larger and stronger bedfellow filled the whole of it, and turned out his feebler mate on to the floor. Was it re- markable that she should weep and tear her hair, and demand a separation from this unnatural husband .-' The wonder was she did not smother him in the night, or, seeking an illicit amour, call in the aid of some stalwart foreign lover to help her in her distress. For the Union was a farce, the distrust mutual, the dislike reciprocal. The rulers of Ireland despised her because of her want of guineas, and disliked her because of their inability to govern her ; and Ireland looked askance at her rulers like a man once cheated eyes his deceiver, fearful lest he should once 200 AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 201 more fall a victim, and remembering also that the guardians of the law had actually been accomplices in the fraud. In fact, by 18 10, the relations between the two countries had become well-nigh insufferable. A meeting had been held that year on September 18 at the Royal Exchange in Dublin in which Catholics and Protestants took part, and where O'Connell delivered an impassioned speech urging his countrymen to toil without ceasing for their charter of national independence. For there was — none could doubt it — grave discontent in Ireland, weeping and gnashing of teeth in many a hovel, all the burdens of great poverty without its dignity, all the oppressiveness of masterful supervision without the guarantee of fair play.^ In 1830, O'Connell, having abandoned his seat in Clare and won a brilliant victory over the Beresford interest at Waterford, proceeded, in view of the suppression of the old Catholic Asso- ciation, to form a new one for the agitation of Repeal, called " The Society of the Friends of Ireland of all Religious Persuasions." The meeting of this Association was soon prohibited, whereupon in October 1830 he summoned his immediate followers in Dublin to draw up the constitution of " The Anti-Union Association," and their advertisement was published in the evening papers. Sir Henry Hardinge, the Chief Secretary, proclaimed the proposed Association, and O'Connell retorted in a speech, the result of which was that Hardinge sent his friend, George d'Aguilar, to O'Connell with a challenge to a duel. But O'Connell refused the challenge. Meanwhile he had established weekly " Repeal Breakfasts " at Holmes' Hotel, at which violent anti-Union speeches were made. The Tory Government were now defeated on a motion by Sir Henry Parnell for the revision of the Civil List, and a Whig Government under Lord Grey was formed. Anglesey, who had left Ireland in 1828, was again appointed Lord-Lieutenant, and Edward Stanley, who afterwards became the celebrated Lord Derby, was made Chief Secretary. O'Connell seems now to have been asked whether he would accept a judgeship and to have rejected the offer. In 1829 "The O'Connell Tribute" was inaugurated by Patrick Vincent FitzPatrick, the son of the Catholic bookseller. The tribute, as in the case of the " rent " of the Catholic Asso- ciation, was mainly collected at the chapel doors after mass on Sundays. In the first year after emancipation ;^5o,ooo were contributed, and in five years, from 1829 to 1834, no less than ^91,000 were subscribed. On the average it amounted to ^13,000 a year. O'Connell was often attacked by his enemies ' Appendix XXXIX, quotations from J. P. Curran, Edward Wakefield, Mr. Justice Day, etc. 202 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY on the score of the tribute, but, as Charles Greville, in his Memoirs, says — " His dependence on his country's bounty in the rent that was levied for so many years was alike honourable to the con- tributors and the recipient." In the first week of January 183 1 a " Breakfast Meeting " — ostensibly for the benefit of the Dublin Orphan Asylum — was held at Holmes' Hotel to consider a circular issued by Stanley, and addressed to the Irish magis- trates, directing them, while they respected the constitutional principle of the right of petition, to discountenance and put down as illegal all meetings whose object, in their opinion, was to accomplish changes in the law by force and intimidation. O'Connell presided, and on his motion it was resolved to establish "a general Association for Ireland to prevent illegal meetings, and protect the exercise of the sacred right of petitioning." This Association was proclaimed next day. O'Connell then proposed that he himself should be constituted "The Repeal Association," as an individual could not be dis- persed by proclamation. To assist him, he appointed a Council of Thirty-one which he styled " a body of persons in the habit of meeting weekly at breakfast at a place called Holmes' Hotel." But this body was also proclaimed. " The Irish Society for Legal and Legislative Relief" followed. This too was sup- pressed. It immediately reappeared as "The Anti- Union Asso- ciation," and again the same result followed. Next day O'Connell and his followers styled themselves " An Association of Irish Volunteers for the Repeal of the Union." This was likewise suppressed, and the following day it reappeared as " An Asso- ciation of Subscribers to the Parliamentary Intelligence Office." But the new Association experienced the same fate ; so O'Connell called it " A party meeting for dinner at Hayes' Tavern." Then a comprehensive proclamation was issued on January 13, 1831, prohibiting the meeting of any association, body, society, or party calling itself any name whatsoever ; but over 300 friends met O'Connell at Hayes' that night at dinner, and next morning he and his Council of Thirty-one assembled at the same tavern to breakfast, where they were dispersed by two police magistrates. On January 19, 1831, O'Connell was arrested for sedition at his residence in Merrion Square at ten o'clock in the morning, and proceedings were commenced against him for inciting to riot. The Cabinet, however, unknown to the Executive, wished the prosecution to drop, as they wanted O'Connell's aid in the Reform Bill. On March 9 he made a speech in its favour. On April 20 he was to have appeared for judgment, but he could not be spared, and the Attorney-General agreed to a further postponement of the sentence to May 9. In April, Parliament was dissolved owing to the defeat of the Reform Bill in Committee, and the statute under which the AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 203 proclamation was instituted expired with the Parliament. So O'Connell escaped. Overtures were now made to him by some members of the Government through various channels to accept office. But Grey refused the proposals to treat with O'Connell which came from the Radical section of the Cabinet. In December 1832 Parliament was dissolved, and a general election took place on the extended franchise. While in England the electorate was increased from 200,000 to 350,000, Ireland, whose 200,000 voters iti 1829 had been reduced to 26,000, had now an electorate of only 30,000. O'Connell had said that Ireland ought to have 173 members on her population basis of eight millions, but had offered to be satisfied with 25 additional ones. However, he only got five more. In the new elections he secured the return of 45 members, out of 105 pledged to Repeal, by the great counties and boroughs in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught. His Parliamentary following included his " House- hold Brigade," as it was called, that is to say, his three sons, Maurice (Tralee), Morgan (Meath), and John (Youghal), two of his sons-in-law, Christopher FitzSimon (County Dublin) and Charles O'Connell (Kerry) ; and his brother-in-law, W. F. Finn (Kilkenny). He himself was returned for the city of Dublin with Edward Southwell Ruthven, and with this accession of strength he prepared to make a fresh attack upon the " more shameful parts " of the Constitution. Meanwhile the distress in Ireland was grievous. In 1830 one-fifth of the entire population was said to be out of employ- ment, and in the towns seven families might be sometimes seen crowded into one apartment. This destitution led to the customary Irish outrages, distress inducing crime, and crime aggravating the sufferings of poverty. Tithe-collectors were murdered in some places. In others, they were dragged from their beds and laid in a ditch whilst their ears were cut off. Five of the police were shot dead in a group by a party in ambush. In 1 83 1 there was a fight between the police and the peasants at Castle Pollard, in Westmeath, on the occasion of an attempted rescue of prisoners. On the chief constable being knocked down, the police fired, with the result that nine or ten persons were killed. In June of the same year some cattle which had been impounded for tithe payment were announced for sale at New- townbarry, in Wexford, and the yeomanry were present on the day to assist the police in case of riot. The expected riot occurred, and the sale soon became a bloody struggle between police, yeomanry, and peasants, and twelve of the Catholic mob were killed. On another occasion about the same time five Catholics were shot dead by the military ; and a fortnight later, when a strong body ofpolice, who were escorting a tithe-collector, 204 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY were summoned to surrender him to the popular vengeance, and refused to do so, a dozen of the force were slaughtered in a lane, and more left desperately wounded. The captain of police and his little son of ten were among the slain, and the pony which the boy rode was also butchered. The arms of these implacable foes were on this occasion scythes, pitchforks, and bludgeons ; and a country lad, who appeared to be about thirteen years of age, went from one to another of the prostrate police, and, finding that five of them still breathed, coolly made an end of them with his scythe. An archdeacon in the neighbourhood of Cashel had hoped to arrange a commutation of tithe with his parishioners ; but they refused his terms, and coming up to him in a field in sight of his own house, stoned him then and there until his head was beaten to pieces. If any resident paid the smallest atom of tithe in the most secret manner, his cattle were houghed in the night, his house burnt over his head, and his flock of sheep perhaps driven over a precipice. Witnesses dared not give evidence, nor jurors attend ; and all this outrage, • misery, and concentrated hate, because the rulers of Ireland persisted in feeding with the substance of the Irish poor a religious establishment which three-quarters of the Irish people regarded as the enemy of their faith. The scythe and torch of the agitators were supplemented by the hand of God. In 1832 an outbreak of cholera occurred in Cork, and ravaging the population with fearful malignity, gave them a foretaste of the horrors of the next decade. The Crime Bill was read a third time on March 29, 1833, by 345 to 86, and on April 2 it became law. Not long after- wards O'Connell attacked the Government with a motion for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the conduct of Mr. Baron Smith, who had given offence to himself and his followers by his denunciation of their political attitude in a charge to the grand jury of Dublin. The Government had originally intended to oppose the motion, but O'Connell altered it slightly at the last moment, and having decided to accept it in its amended form, they allowed it to be carried by a majority of 93. Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, who had opposed it, tendered his resignation, but it was not accepted. A few days later O'Connell's motion was rescinded at the instance of Sir Edward Knatchbull,^ but as the original motion had been carried, the stigma put upon the Government by O'Connell was not removed. On Tuesday, April 22, 1834, O'Connell moved, as an amendment to the Address, for a Select Committee to inquire and report on the means by which the Union had been carried, on the effects of that measure upon Ireland, and the probable consequences of con- * Appointed Paymaster of the Forces by Peel. in 1834. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 205 tinuing the existing state of affairs, and in a speech of five hours made his Repeal d^but in the House of Commons. Spring Rice thereupon moved an amendment for an address to the Crown affirming the resolve of Parliament to preserve the Union inviolate, and it was carried against O'Connell on the 29th by 523 to 38, or a majority of 485, only one English member, Kennedy, member for Tiverton, voting with him. For thirty-three years, ever since the Union, Parliament had been perpetually investigating every possible branch of the Irish question. Sixty Select Committees and 1 14 Commissions had been appointed on matters relating to Ireland, and what had they all led to ? On the occasion of O'Connell's motion Peel made a remarkable speech in favour of the maintenance of the Union, but there is little doubt that had the laws of expediency ever dictated a third apostasy, a third apostasy would have been seen and Peel placarded by history as a Home Ruler. The Address of the Commons was concurred in by the Lords on Grey's motion, seconded by Brougham, and was presented by both Houses to the King. Repeal had received a knock- down blow. At this time feeling ran very strongly against O'Connell's agitation, and on November 26, 1835, the Times newspaper published some lines on the great Irishman which for vileness of abuse and coarseness of expression can rarely have been equalled even in the pages of the gutter press.^ About the year 1840 a new movement made its appearance, and joined hands with O'Connell in his agitation for Repeal. In 1829 Ireland had spent ;^6,ooo,ooo on proof spirits, and there was not a town in the island where men were not to be seen staggering about the streets or huddled, stupefied with whisky, in a gutter near the public-house ; whilst there was not a hamlet in the countryside without its hovel of the sot, bare of comfort and crowded with disease. The Surgeon-General for Ireland stated that nearly one-fourth of the deaths of adults in Dublin were caused by spirit-drinking ; and a county magis- trate of Antrim furnished a list of forty-eight persons who had perished from the same cause within two miles of his house and within his own recollection. There was abundant proof that in certain extensive neighbourhoods not one single dwelling was free from the vice. But in 1840 a great change began to take place in this respect, brought about by the herculean and un- selfish efforts of one man. Father Mathew,^ a young Capuchin friar, believing in the efficacy of pure water, pledged thousands of his countrymen to y/ Appendix XXXIXa, poem on O'Connell published in the Times. Appendix ^L, the O'Connell-Disraeli incident. Appendix XLa, short biographical notice. 2o6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY abstinence. Long before he had had himself any idea of conducting such a crusade, WiUiam Martin, who was afterwards his coadjutor, had made up his mind that the former was the only possible instrument to carry the movement to a successful issue. Among those who were the early and most prominent temperance reformers, before Mathew's crusade began, were the Rev. Nicholas Buncombe, Richard Dowden, and William Martin. The first was a Protestant clergyman, the second a distinguished member of a local Unitarian body, and the third the Quaker who became afterwards known as the " Grandfather of the Temperance cause." But these lacked the genius for the work. On April lo, 1838, a meeting was held in Cove Street, Cork, at Mathew's house, at which a Temperance Society was formed of sixty members. Father Mathew was the first to enrol himself, having been persuaded to adopt the cause by his friends, and approached the table to sign his name with, " Here goes in the name of God ! " It was in the confessional that he had laid the foundation of the wonderful confidence reposed in him by the Irish people, and so he began his campaign with an invaluable reputation. In three months from the day that he signed his name the number of abstainers on the roll was 25,000 ; in five months it was 131,000 ; and in less than nine months, from April to December of the year 1838, it was 156,000. In January 1839 there were 200,000 enrolled. In four days in Limerick, in 1839, he obtained 1 50,000 additional disciples. Very soon he had pledged two millions of persons to temperance. So great was the rush of the country people into Limerick to take the pledge, that iron railings were broken down in many places by the multitude, and deaths were caused by trampling and pressure. In fact. Father Mathew was soon obliged to travel himself among his hundreds of thousands of disciples, because their thronging to him in one spot was found dangerous to life and limb. In Waterford in three days 80,000 persons received the pledge at his hands. At Maynooth 35,000 of the people took it, eight professors of the college, and 250 students. In a little while, within a year or two of his appear- ance on the stage, it was noticed that the Irish character had sensibly changed. The countryside wore a different aspect. The sot's den had blossomed into the snug cottage, and the drunken ferocity or hideous merriment of the reeling villager had become as rare as before they had been common. In 1829 Ireland had spent six millions sterling in proof spirit ; now a two-years' consumption for all purposes amounted to little more than one-half of that amount. The Temperance movement and the great Repeal agitation went hand in hand and mutu- ally aided one another. The huge audiences of O'Connell, drilled into sobriety by Mathew, returned to O'Connell to AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 207 listen to his exhortations fired by an unquenchable enthu- siasm for the national cause. To the Irish peasant the causes of temperance and nationality were equally noble, and in his eyes the welfare of his beloved country was dependent on both. There was no lack of material for the reformer to work upon, when we consider the state of Ireland in the years 1841-5. The house accommodation of that country was divided by the Census Commissioners of 1841 into four classes, the lowest comprising all mud cabins with only one room. This fourth class consisted of buildings absolutely unfit for the habitation of civilized man ; yet it appeared from the report of these gentlemen that in Down, the most favoured county in this respect, 24 per cent, of the population lived in houses of this class, whilst in Kerry the proportion was 66 per cent. According to the calculation of the Commissioners, an average of the whole population being taken, above 43 per cent, of the families in the rural districts, and in the urban districts above 36 per cent., inhabited houses of the fourth class, that is to say, the houses of the labourer and cottier. The Poor Law Commissioners of 1836 gave it as their opinion that the produce per acre of land in Ireland, as compared with that in England, scarcely amounted to one-half in value, and that more than double the number of labourers were employed per acre in the latter country than in the former. The total number of cultivated acres in England was declared by the same Com- missioners of that year at 34,254,000, and those of Ireland at 14,603,000; whilst the net produce per acre in England was £4 "js. 6d., as against £2 gs. ^d. in Ireland, although there were 100,000 more men employed in raising the latter than the former. The census of 1841 showed similar results. In 1845 the destitute poor of Ireland amounted to one-third of the whole population. In 1731 there were two million, in 1 84 1 over eight million inhabitants, and this increase of population with no concomitant addition to Ireland's manu- factures or trade entailed fearful destitution among the lower classes. The growth of the Irish people had been stimulated by free trade with England in 1779, and by independence in 1782. In 1793 came the Roman Catholic Relief Act, and on its heels an innumerable multitude of forty-shilling freeholders, who dwelt upon little plots of ground and^'multiplied like vermin, scarcely keeping body and soul together by precarious crops of potatoes, and unconsciously and slowly maturing the great land questions of the next century. These freeholders were created by the landlords purely for the sake of their votes, and, in the event of any friction between themselves and their masters, were evicted without mercy and almost without warn- 2o8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ing. In 1829 they were disfranchised and their utility to the landlords destroyed. What indeed could they expect after that ? In 1846 it was stated that 150,000 of them had been subjected to eviction processes from 1839 to 1843. One hundred and fifty thousand in four years — what a catalogue of misery this spells ! What a multitude of heart-aches and ruined hopes ! As a historian has said of this Relief Act of 1793, it was "the ultimate cause of every succeeding calamity in Ireland." Indirectly this may be true ; but the misgovernment of Ireland has not been shown so much in the application of relief, as in its misdirection and delay. For it has usually been given to Ireland, not as the timely and soothing medicine of a benevolent and alert physician, but as the broken rod of an ignorant and cornered foe.^ The census of 1 841 showed that of the whole rural population of Ireland 46 per cent, lived by families in single rooms, and the same Commission reported that seven-tenths- of the Irish, and two- thirds of the Irish in Connaught, lived in rooms totally unfit for human habitation. Absenteeism was another great evil, not so much on account of the talent or virtue of which it robbed Ire- land, but because of the bad principle which was thereby coun- tenanced, and the wealth which was lost to that country. Smith O'Brien calculated in 1847 that the rents of absentee landlords amounted to four millions, or nearly one-third of the whole rent of Ireland, and another authority placed them as high as six millions. That is to say, probably one-third or more of the rent of Ireland was spent in another country. The state of the Church also was as bad as it could be. There was no attempt even to put a respectable face upon the system. The evil was displayed to the light of day, and stank in the nostrils of every passer-by. Lord R. Tottenham, when he was made Bishop of Killaloe at the time of the Union, had never read prayers, had never preached, and had never baptized, — in short, had never performed^ any of the offices of his holy calling. But his father. Lord Ely, had six votes, and his nomi- nees had given them for the Union, and the price of the six votes was a bishopric for the son worth ;^9,ooo a year. Stewart, Archbishop of Armagh, left ^^300,000 behind him, and Porter, another Irish bishop, ^200,000 ; and we can imagine in what good stead this hoarded wealth stood them when these portly divines clamoured at the gates of Paradise. A characteristic anecdote of this time has been handed down for the edifica- tion and delectation of posterity. Mrs. Porter had a great passion for gold, and the Bishop, paying more attention to conjugal importunity than the chances of everlasting life, refused • Appendix XLI, quotation from report of Devon Commission, etc. ; extract from speech by Richard Cobden. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 209 on that account to receive his rents in paper. On rent-days, therefore, there was always a gentleman in another room ready to accommodate the tenants with gold for a consideration, so that a single bag of gold, travelling in at one door and out at the other, brought a handsome return to the devout prelate. These were a few of the grievances of Ireland that O'Connell had desired to redress. His Repeal agitation had slept more or less since 1831, but in 1840 it showed signs of awakening to a renewed period of energy. In 1838 O'Connell's friends in the Ministry tried to induce him to accept a post. He was offered and declined the post of Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. It was then intimated to him by the Viceroy, Lord Mulgrave (afterwards Marquis of Normanby), that Sir Michael O'Loghlen was willing to become Chief Baron, if O'Connell would agree to succeed him as Master of the Rolls. But O'Connell refused, having, so he said, too many other affairs to attend to. O'Con- nell's career in the House of Commons soon afterwards ter- minated for all practical purposes with the break up of his alliance with the Whigs in 1839. Even before the fall of the Melbourne Ministry in 1841 he had set an association on foot, and called it the " Precursor Society," which, he said, was to be the Precursor of Repeal, should the Whigs fail in " their fair trial." And they had failed. Their Municipal Reform Bill, thanks to the opposition of the House of Lords, was a farce, and being now released from his bargain, the Precursor Society melted into the Repeal Association. Peel, a past-master in palinode, had also changed his policy. It had been miraculously revealed by a gust of Irish wind to this weather-cock of politics that it was now impossible to maintain the Protestant ascendency in Irish affairs, and that the system was an anachronism and effete. Oh, wise Peel ! a very Daniel ! Who would have thought that so plain a man could have unriddled such a pretty piece of politic ? The discovery was none too early, for there was energy abroad, and the great Irish agitator had begun to move. The inauguration of the new Repeal movement had taken place on April 15, 1840, at the Corn Exchange, Burgh Quay, Dublin. The chair was occupied by John O'Neill, of Fitz William Square, a Protestant merchant. Only fifteen of those present gave in their names as members of the new association, which was called the " National Association of Ireland for full and prompt Justice and Repeal." Thomas Matthew Ray, a young clerk, was appointed secretary. At the opening of 1841 It changed its name to " The Loyal National Repeal Association." It held weekly meetings at the Corn Exchange, and its members were divided into three classes — those paying a life subscription of £^10, members paying ;^i a year, and associates paying lar. a year. William Smith O'Brien, the brother of Lord Inchiquin, 14 210 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY was O'Connell's coadjutor, and the " Young Ireland " party now cast in their lot with the latter. Their leader was Thomas Osborne Davis,^ a young Protestant lawyer of Cork County, and his two principal coadjutors were John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy. Their organ was the Nation, with Duffy for its editor, and its motto was suggested by an incident which had occurred during the debate upon Municipal Reform in the Parlia- ment at Westminster. Peel had asked what good corporations would do to such a pauper as Ireland, and this question was answered by Stephen Woulfe,^ afterwards Chief Baron — "I will tell the right honourable gentleman. They will go far to create and foster public opinion and make it racy of the soil." The reply took root in the memory of Irishmen, and the motto of the Nation was to "create and foster public opinion, and to make it racy of the soil," the first number of the paper appear- ing on October 15, 1842. The Nation was a remarkable pro- duction. Its object, like that of the United Irishmen, was revolution. It was eloquent, it was tender, it appealed to the reason and the passions of its readers as the occasion required, and the contributors to its columns were men of no ordinary ability. Besides the three above-mentioned individuals, the most conspicuous writers in it were Denis Florence MacCarthy,^ Mac- Nevin, and Clarence Mangan,* the poet ; and other contributors to the paper were John Cornelius O'Callaghan, O'Neil Daunt, formerly member for Mallow, and John O'Connell, third son of the Irish tribune. Another enthusiast, who became a member of the party a short while afterwards, was Thomas Francis Meagher,^ a young man whose occasional bursts of fiery elo- quence were the wonder of his friends and placed him in the select company of the two celebrated contemporary orators, Richard Lalor Shell and William Plunket. Meanwhile huge meetings, organized by such men as Seward and Horace Greely, were being held in America to advance the cause of the Repealers. A conference in' support of the Repeal movement was held in New York. It lasted for a week, and was attended by representative senators, judges, clergymen, journalists, and merchants. A declaration was adopted at it threatening England with the loss of Canada by American arms, if any attempt were made to repress the agitation in Ireland by force. John Tyler, the President of the United States, also ' Thomas Davis died on September i6, 1845. ^ Stephen Woulfe (1787- 1840), appointed Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1838 in succession to Henry Joy. " Two poems by him, "Darrynane," and "Waiting for the May," included in The Book of Irish Ballads which he edited, have a certain merit. * James Mangan, commonly called James Clarence Mangan (1803- 1 849). ° Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867), drowned near Fort Benton, Montana, U.S.A., while Governor of that territory. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 211 declared himself the decided friend of Repeal, and added, " on this great question I am no half-way man." At the same time Sir Charles Metcalfe, the Governor of Canada, privately warned the Cabinet that any aggression against Ireland would be fatal to the tranquillity, if not the security, of the Dominion. On Tuesday, February 28, 1843, O'Connell moved in the Dublin corporation that a petition be presented to Parliament for Re- peal. The opposition to his proposal was led by Isaac Butt, then a rising junior barrister, a Protestant and a Tory, and a professor in Dublin University. O'Connell's motion was finally^ carried by 41 to 15. --vXi^ConrieUiJiade no appeariince^in Parlia- ment ini8^3jandin fact never brought Repeal forwatrd in the Houselifter Its deieat in 1834, but relied upon agitation in Ire- land, ta October 1 84.^ ." JConciliation H all " was opened. I n June t84 j t Lord EHot introduced in the Lower House a new Arm& JBill for Ireland, which the mover pronounced to be sub- stantially the same as what had been in force in that country for the last half-century, to be in fact even milder than the old regulations. By Eliot's mild Bill, which was passed by a large majority, no man was permitted to keep arms of any description whatever without first obtaining a certificate from two house- holders, rated to the poor at above ;^20, and producing it before the justices at sessions. If the latter allowed the claim, the arms of the applicants were to be registered and branded by the police. From that moment they could not be removed, sold, or inherited without being registered afresh. Moreover, any con- versation respecting those arms as to which a man should not answer truly whatever he might be asked by any policeman sub- jected the delinquent to penalties. The possession of a pike or spear, or any instrument serving for a pike or spear, was an offence punishable by transportation for seven years. Any magistrate on suspicion could order domiciliary visits by the police ; whereupon any man's house might be broken into by day or night, and a search made for concealed arms. Black- smiths were required to take out licences similar to those for keeping arms, and under the same penalties. Finally, if any weapon should be found in any house, outhouse, or stack- yard, the occupier was to be convicted, unless he could prove that it was there without his knowledge. On July 4, 184s, Smith O'Brien moved for a Committee to take into consideration the cause of Irish discontent, but his motion was rejected by a large majority. The Irish nation were clearly in a dilemma. When they agitated for the correction of abuses, the rod of coercion was applied to their backs. When they had been forced into the dumb stupor of despair, when they were silent about their grievances, when their chagrin was too deep for words, the country was declared to be at rest. 212 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY rocked at last into a sense of its prosperity, and Ministers held their charitable hands. In both cases reform was refused. The sword of the Volunteers, the fear of civil war, had alone wrung reform from her rulers, and was it unnatural that Ireland should be persuaded that to scare them into an act of kindness was the only method of redress ? O'Connell now laboured with the untiring strength of a demiurge to kindle and blow into a blaze the national spirit of independence in Ireland. All important business was considered in the general committee before being submitted to the Association, and an organized system of agi- tation was vigorously carried out under the direction of the master. His principal lieutenants were his son John, O'Neil Daunt, John Gray who conducted the Freeman's Journal, Tom Steele, Thomas Matthew Ray, and Richard Barrett, the editor of the Pilot. The Repeal Society was, as we have stated, at the same time formed into three divisions — the Volunteers who subscribed or collected .^lo a year, the members who contributed £i, and the associates who subscribed a shilling, whilst Repeal Wardens, acting under O'Connell's direction, presided over assigned districts. The Repeal Rent averaged in January 1843 about ;^iSo per week, in February ;^340 weekly, in March ;^36o, in April £600, in May £2,200, in June ;^3,ooo, and for the whole year amounted to ;^48,ooo. The " O'Connell Tribute " was also continued, and exceeded ;£'20,ooo in 1843. Thus the whole was organized under the eye of the master. The influence which he exercised over the Irish masses was amazing,^ and his eloquence produced a remarkable effect even upon the most fastidious of judges.2 Charles Dickens narrates how on one occasion, when he was reporting a speech by O'Connell on the Tithe question, the emotions roused within him by those trumpet tones were so overpowering that he laid down his pen, unable to write, and listened spell-bound to the great orator as he hurled his denun- ciations, or melted into the tenderness of entreaty, sweeping with the hand of a magician the most secret chords of the human passions. Could any greater tribute be paid to any orator ? Could any man evoke such feeling and speak not from his heart and inmost conviction } Is it in human nature for a man to be able to set on fire the passions of millions of his * A rustic once commenced a letter to O'Connell — "Awful Sir" ! " Bulwer Lytton, who was no mean judge, and who listened to him with rapture, wrote — " Then did I know what spells of infinite choice To rouse or lull, has the sweet human voice : Then did I seem to seize the sudden clue To the grand troublous life antique — to view Under the rock -stand of Demosthenes, Mutable Athens heave her noisy seas. " AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 213 fellow-citizens and keep them in a blaze year after year, when* his only fuel is a stack of clever falsehood ? No. Human nature is not moulded after that fashion. O'Connell was no humbug; but a man with a soul that burned with so white a heat that it sometimes scorched his reason. Truth shone in his eye, and the glowing warmth of patriotism lighted up his countenance, and he fills to-day an ampler space in British history, and is a greater figure on the receding platform of time than many a man who seemed then to tower above him in genius and in virtue. Stanley may some day be forgotten, Lynd- hurst is already fast slipping into oblivion, but O'Connell is still with us, not only a name, but a personality that stands out against our little horizon as large as ever. In Ireland his sway was absolute during his last Repeal agita- tion. The Irish peasants felt that he was one of them. His rollick- ing humour and burly frame, the drollery of his illustrations, and the unblushing way in which he blarneyed them to their faces, all contributed to make him the popular hero. But though his power was great, he discountenanced rioting or the semblance even of disaffection, and the whole movement was of the most orderly description.^ At a Repeal meeting at Mallow, where he used language which afterwards became known as the " Mallow Defiance," half-a-million of people were said to have been present, but the order preserved was exemplary. He urged upon the Irish the necessity of preparation for a crisis, and said to his followers, " 1843 is and shall be the Repeal year " ; but he promised them more than he could fulfil. At Tara, on the spot where the old kings of Ireland had been elected, he told a huge meeting in a burst of enthusiasm that within a year a Parliament should be sitting in College Green at Dublin. At Roscommon he said — " If I have to go to battle, I shall have the strong and steady teetotalers with me : the teetotal bands will play before them, and animate them in the time of peril ; their wives and daughters, thanking God for their sobriety, will be praying for their safety ; and there is not an army in the world that I would not fight with you. Yes, teetotalism is the first sure ground on which rests your hope of sweeping away Saxon domination, and\ giving Ireland to the Irish." As Smith O'Brien said—" The cry V for Repeal is not the voice of treason, but the language of despair." Another great meeting of about 400,000 persons took place at the Rath of Mullaghmast, in Kildare County, the scene in 1577 ^ Lecky writes of the great concourses of men who flocked to hear him — In no instance did these meetings degenerate into mobs. They were assembled, and they were dispersed, without disorder or tumult ; they were disgraced by no Qrunkenness, by no crime, by no excess. When the Government, in the State trials, applied the most searching scrutiny, they could discover nothing worse than that on one occasion the retiring crowd trampled down the stall of an old woman who sold gingerbread."— 7%e Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland. n -"— " 214 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of a massacre of a large party of Leinster chiefs by the English of the Pale, who had hospitably invited the former to a banquet, and, having quietly surrounded the place with troops, cut the throat of every single guest. In the presence of this vast assem- blage of Irishmen O'Connell, dressed in crimson robes as an alder- man of Dublin, was crowned with a green velvet cap with gold edging modelled after the ancient Milesian Crown,^ and once more assured his fellow countrymen that the hated Union would almost immediately be repealed. But he knew that although he might overcome the opposition of the Protestants of Ireland, he could not conquer those of England. So he determined to wait for a more favourable opportunity, and throwing away the chance of his life of forcing Repeal by a great constitutional rising of the whole nation, lost the game. A huge concourse announced to take place on October 8, 1843, at Clontarf^was prohibited by the Government, and O'Connell, having wavered for a moment, then gave way. He cancelled the meeting, and so great was his authority, that in spite of the acute disappoint- ment of the Irish, who had founded their hopes upon the occasion, he was instantly obeyed. Thomas Reynolds, one of his followers, said — " Ireland, that eight centuries ago was won at Clontarf, has now been irretrievably lost there." O'Connell had submitted, but he was dangerous ; so on Satur- day, October 11, 1843, the Government struck its premeditated blow. O'Connell, his son John (the member for Kilkenny), Thomas Matthew Ray, who was Secretary of the Repeal Associa- tion, Tom Steele (the Head Pacificator), Father Tyrell of Lusk, County Dublin, Father Tierney of Clontibret, County Monaghan, and the three editors of the three Repeal journals — Charles Gavan Duffy of the Nation, Dr. John Gray of the Freeman's Journal, and Richard Barrett of the Pilot, were arrested on a charge of conspiracy to obtain by unlawful methods a change in the Constitution and Government of the country, and to excite disaffection in the army. Smith O'Brien was intrusted with the leadership of the Repeal Association during O'Connell's confine- ment, and was supported by the followers of the latter and by various members of the Young Ireland party — Davis, Dillon, M'Nevin, Barry, Richard O'Gorman, and Michael Doheny. On the Crown side were the Attorney-General, T. B. C. Smith (afterwards Master of the Rolls) ; the Solicitor-General, Richard Wilson Greene, subsequently a Baron of the Exchequer; Abraham Brewster and Joseph Napier, both of whom became Lord Chancellors of Ireland, and several others. One counsel and an attorney were assigned to each of the traversers, who were * Roderick was the last monarch of Celtic Ireland. 2 On the north side of the Bay of Dublin, where the national hero, Brian Boroimhe, beat the Danish invaders, Sitric and Sigurd, dying himself in the moment of victory. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 215 popularly known as the " Repeal Martyrs." Among the counsel were Richard Lalor Shell ; David Richard Pigot, who became subsequently Chief Baron ; James Henry Monahan, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; James Whiteside, afterwards Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ireland ; Thomas O'Hagan, subsequently the first Catholic Lord Chancellor of Ireland since the Revolution ; and Sir Colman O'Loghlen, subsequently Judge Advocate-General, The judges were Chief Justice Pennefather, a violent Tory ; Mr. Justice Perrin, a Whig ; Mr. Justice Crampton, a Tory ; and Mr. Justice Burton, a moderate Tory. The State trials commenced on November 2, 1843, and after the usual specious pretensions of equity preliminary to a deliberate per- verson of justice, O'Connell was convicted by a partial and unscrupulous Court. The sentence upon him was imprison- ment for twelve months, a fine of ;£'2,CX)0, and security in A 10,000 — his own and another's — for his good behaviour for seven years. The other traversers — except Father Tierney, in whose case a nolle prosequi had been entered — were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, ;^50 fines, and securities of £,2,000. Richmond Penitentiary was selected as their prison, and they were so well looked after by their friends there, that their sojourn in it became known as " The Richmond Picnic." The Recorder of Dublin, an honourable judge, had made up the Juror's Book in the ordinary way ; but no less than sixty names were left out of the list afterwards, and over twenty of these, as it was proved, were Roman Catholics.^ This single fact made the trial grossly unjust, and afforded an example of the methods employed in dealing with an Irish foe.* The rulers of Ireland knew they could not get Justice to declare in their favour, and so they perverted her ; not subtly, nor plausibly, nor under the rose, nor in such a manner that an ordinary untrained intelligence would be caught in the meshes of its own ignorance were it to attempt to unravel the truth, but noisily and roughly, like some unpractised violator caught in the act of clumsily wrenching open the lid of a church box. Such gross and naked imposture could not be reckoned under the head of ordinary swindling. No one could be for an instant deceived by this self-evident trick. The only result would be, not social ostracism, which even the judges might have shrunk from, but merely astonishment and choler at the insolent hardihood of such dishonesty.3 ^ Appendix XLIa, quotation from John Rnskin. . p 1' *"^ in reference to this piece of sharp practice that R. L. Sheil said in an address , j*°^^- "°' 5'°"'^ "^^ ^^^"^t inform you that history, in whose tribunal juries are not packed, history, the recorder whose lists are not lost — stem, inflexible, impartial nistory, upon this series of calamitous proceedings, will pronounce her condemnation ? " Appendix XLIb, extract from speech by T. B. Macaulay. 2i6 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY On the pronouncement of the verdict O'Connell appealed, and during the period of preparation between the appeal and its hearing issued exhortations and addresses from prison con- juring the infuriated people of Ireland to hold their hands, to keep the peace, to show what stuff they were made of, and to patiently await the final judgment. As usual he was implicitly obeyed, and the country was never more tranquil.^ The Repeal rent, however, which in the fourteen weeks before the trial had amounted to £6,6yg, almost quadrupled in the fourteen weeks that followed it, and leapt to ;^25,7I2. The appeal was finally heard in the House of Lords in September 1844. Sir Thomas Wilde led for the appellants, and Sir William Follett, the Attorney-General, for the Crown. The writ of error assigned error in the proceedings before the Court of Queen's Bench on no less than thirty-four grounds. The offence was not legally charged, some of the counts in the indictment being so framed as to disclose no offence ; the jury were unlawfully chosen from a spurious list ; the verdict was not legal, as there were findings upon more offences than were charged in the indictment or pleaded to by the defendants ; and the judgment was unlawful, as it ordered the detention in prison of each defendant until all had paid their fines and provided their securities. The peers were persuaded by Lord Wharncliffe to leave the trial of appeal in accordance with precedent to the law lords. Lord Denman, alluding to the challenge of the array, declared that if such practices as had prevailed in the present instance should con- tinue, trial by jury in Ireland would become "a mockery, a delusion and a snare." After much learned argument the previous judgment was reversed, not, however, from a desire to preserve in their natural purity the silver fountains of justice, but from exclusively personal motives, and the irresistible impulse to gain a party advantage. Lyndhurst and Brougham declared against O'Connell ; whilst Cottenham 2 (ex- Whig Chancellor), CampbelP (ex- Whig Chancellor of Ireland), and Thomas Denman, the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, declared in his favour. It was stated afterwards that the defence of the prisoners had cost the Repeal treasury ;^50,ooo, which is not difficult to believe, for justice was sometimes very expensive in Ireland. The reversal of the sentence was followed, on September 7, 1844. by O'Connell's release. ' During his imprisonment O'Connell is said to have unsuccessfully wooed Miss Rose McDonnell, the daughter of a rich Belfast merchant and a Protestant. She survived her rejected lover fifty-five years, and died a spinster in Dublin in November 1902. . 2 Charles Christopher Pepys, first Earl of Cottenham {1781-1851). Appointed Lord Chancellor in 1836. ^ John Campbell, first Baron Campbell (1779-1861). Appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in Lord Palmerston's Ministry in 1859. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 217 Not long afterwards the Eighty-two Club was founded, with O'Connell as president. Its idea was to include Nationalists of every rank in life, and especially those who held aloof from the Repeal Association ; but it purposed more than it could fulfil, for the very fact of its embracing all sorts and conditions of men scared away those who might have been prepared to adopt its principles. On the 13th of February, 1844, Russell had moved for a Committee of the whole House to take into consideration the state of Ireland. If asked what remedies he would propose, he said he had no hesitation in naming them. He would give the people of the sister kingdom the full benefit of an impartial and unsectarian administration of the laws, equal eligibility to office and distinction, and the same or equal Parliamentary and corporate rights. He would place the Established Church, the Catholic and the Presbyterian, on the same footing ; and if this could not be immediately accomplished, he would at once begin to make advances towards that object. After a discussion of several nights, the motion was rejected by 324 to 225. During the debate upon it Macaulay alluded to the trickery practised at O'Connell's trial, and touched upon various aspects of the unhappy Irish people.^ Disraeli laid bare the kernel of the whole matter in the House of Commons on February 16 of the same year. " I want to see a public man come forward and say what the Irish question is. One says it is a physical question ; another a spiritual. Now it is the absence of the aristocracy ; now the absence of railways. It is the Pope one day and potatoes the next. ... A dense population in extreme distress inhabit an island where there is an Established Church which is not their Church ; and a territorial aristocracy, the richest of whom live in a distaijt capital. Thus they have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien Church, and in addition the weakest Executive in the world. Well, what then would honourable gentlemen say if they read of a country in that position ? They w^ould say at once " the remedy is revolution." But the Irish could not have a revolution, and why? Because Ireland is connected with another and a more powerful country. Then what is the consequence ? The connection with England became the cause of the present state of Ireland. If the connection with England prevented a revolution, and a revolution was the only remedy, England logically is m the odious position of being the cause of all the misery of Ireland. ^ hat, then, is the duty of an English Minister ? To effect by his policy all those changes which a revolution would do by force. That is the Insh question in its integrity." The acquittal of O'Connell marked the beginning of the decrease of the power of Irish agitation, and consequently of ' Appendix XLII, extract from speech by T. B. Macaulay. 2t8 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY his own influence. He seems to have been inclining towards Federalism. In a letter to the Repeal Association he said — " For my part I will own that since I came to contemplate the specific differences, such as they are between simple Repeal and Federation, I do not at present feel a preference for the Federation plan, as tending more to the utility of Ireland and the maintenance of the connection _with England than the proposal of simple Repeal. But I must either deliberately propose or deliberately adopt from some other person a plan of Federation Union before I bind myself to the opinion I now entertain." On account of perhaps this and other reasons a breach was gradually widening between O'Connell and the" Young Ireland" party. The latter were aiming at the creation of a really united Ireland, and were incensed with O'Connell for having put his trust only in Catholic Ireland in the Repeal movement, thus making more manifest to all the world the divergences of Irish opinion. They were also in favour of revolution, separation, and civil war in fact, and were impatient with O'Connell for his constitutional methods and his avoidance of any incitement to disorder. The most prominent advocate of this new policy was John Mitchell.! Thus there were now three separate Repeal parties : the original Repealers, headed by O'Connell, who were opposed to any form of revolutionary agitation or physical force ; the moderate section of the Young Irelanders, among whom Smith O'Brien -was prominent, who desired to carry Repeal by con- stitutional methods if possible, but who were prepared, if necessary, to obtain it by force, if all other efforts failed ; and the new extremists, who believed that the only way to reform lay through revolution and civil war. Smith O'Brien was strongly opposed to Mitchell's insurrectionary doctrines, and the latter withdrew from his connection with the Nation and started a newspaper of his own, called the United Irishman ; whilst O'Brien finally severed himself from O'Connell and the Repeal Associa- tion in 1846. The Coercion Bill of 1846 authorized the Viceroy to proclaim any district in Ireland, and to grant any compensation bethought proper to a person criminally injured, or to the relations of a person murdered, the amount to be levied by distress on the residents of the district in which the crime was committed, and every man found out of doors between sunset and sunrise in any proclaimed district was Uable to fourteen years' transportation or * Appendix XLIIa, extract from speech by T. F. Meagher. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 219 three years' imprisonment. The division on the second reading in the House of Commons took place on June 25, 1846, and the Ministry was defeated by seventy-three— the first time Parliament had ever rejected a Coercion Bill for Ireland. Smith O'Brien, as a protest against the Bill, refused to act on a Select Committee on which he had been appointed in the session of 1846, and wcis committed to a room in the lower storeys of the Houses of Parliament, where he was confined for three weeks. O'Connell had refrained from supporting O'Brien for fear of bringing the Repeal Association into conflict with the House, and O'Brien, taking umbrage at what he looked upon as shabby conduct, and disliking O'Connell's timid tactics, took sides for the first time and was regarded as the leader of the Nation party. With his withdrawal, the Association for all practical purposes came to an end. As has been already observed, O'Connell's acquittal in 1844 was practically coterminous with the death of his political influence. He had raised Ireland to the highest pitch of en- thusiasm, and had then quietly given up the game. He felt the weight of responsibility that hung upon his great power, and, uncertain of the result, was unwilling to prejudice the cause of his country. On February 8, 1847, ^^^ made his last ap- pearance in the House of Commons, and his last speech was on the subject of the famine. He lived till the 15th of May, 1847. On that date he died in Genoa, and the heart that had hoped much, that had swelled with victory, and had then been broken with disappointment, was carried not to Ireland, but to Rome.^ This was the veritable end of Daniel O'Connell, Irish agitator : a valiant, resolute, earnest fighter, and during the latter years, we believe, a sad, resigned, philosophical man. A man who held an ideal like a lamp before him to light the way ; who carried the fire of an unquenchable enthusiasm in his breast ; and who was able to persuade three millions of fellow-souls that he bore the cross of obloquy and disgrace for their infinite good, and toiled unceasingly, unweariedly, for their ultimate liberty, and because of their infirmity. A man with a multitude of faults, more remarkable even than his virtues to the little men who could not see above his shoes ; but at bottom a The heart was separated from the body and placed in a silver urn for conveyance '° ^on^e- The body was embalmed, placed in a coffin, and removed to the Church Delia Vigtie, where the obsequies were celebrated, and where it remained while Father Miley, Daniel O'Connell, and Duggan were bearing the heart to Rome. The um con- taining the heart was deposited on May 31 in the Church of St. Agatha, Irish Collie. Uver u has been placed a mural monument representing O'Connell at the Bar of the House of Commons refusing the old anti-Catholic oath. An English inscription on it states « was " erected by Charles Bianconi, the faithful fnend of the immortal Liberator and of Ireland, the land of his adoption." The funeral took place on Thursday, August 5, 1846, in Glasnevin, Dublin. T-T-. 220 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY genuine embodiment of human energy, fashioned in no ordinary mould, and indifferent to the world's regard, as long as there was work to be done and a nation to be liberated. Like impetuous, erring, large-hearted Mirabeau, a tribune of the people and beloved by them ; who at a different season and in other circumstances might have changed the course of history. What a piece of irony, therefore, my masters, to have been scoffed at, reviled, hated, shunned, almost spat upon by men who were not worthy to tie his boot-strings ; whose delight it was to insult him whose ideals they were too mean to appreciate and whose aspirations their own creeping intelligence was coAsti- tutionally unable to understand. They, and such as they, were the scum of a civilization highly polished upon the outside ; a class of men upon whom an undigested education, an ample wardrobe, fine feeding, and inoffensive parlour manners had superinduced a plaster of pseudo-respectability : who were, by reason of their moral servitude and a certain sartorial con- sideration, not only tolerated at a distance, but marvellously permitted to join in the councils of the nation and ignorantly to prescribe the medicine of the State ; but who, notwithstand- ing, were incurably useless, and for the purpose of any stern, honourable work radically rotten and unsound, and an offence in the eyes of God and man. This was the type of men whom O'Connell was doomed to combat and endure. He carried Catholic Emancipation in their teeth, and they hated him for it. He wiped from the Constitution one of the blotches of its distemper, and they never forgave him, ridiculously betraying their ungovernable spleen ; and then the old lion died, and it was long before the jackals ceased howling round the body. O'Connell is, indeed, the most striking figure by far in Irish history. He stands like a giant elm tree outlined upon the horizon. Had his life's work been performed in an age anterior to Shakespeare's he might have been immortalized in " eternal lines." As it is his name will only perish with the annals of his countrymen. Like all great men he was made up of conflicting passions and was a strange admixture of the noble and ignoble. He was deeply religious. The following " Rules of Life " were found after his death among his other papers^ — " I . To avoid any wilful occasion of temptation. 2. To appeal to God, and to invoke the Blessed Virgin and the Saints in all real temptation. 3. To recite the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity every day. 4. To repeat, as often as may be, a shorter form. ' See Michael Macdonagh's Life of Daniel O'Connell. AGITATIONS FOR REPEAL OF THE UNION 221 5. To recite daily at least, and as often as may be, a fervent Act of Contrition. 6. To begin every day with an unlimited offering of myself to my crucified Redeemer, and to conjure Him, by all His infinite merits and divine charity, to take me under His direction and control in all things. 7. To meditate for at least half-an-hour every day if possible — longer if God pleases. 8. 'We fly to Thy patronage,' and St Bernard's prayer to the Virgin, as often as may be convenient — daily. 9. To pray daily to God and the Saints for a happy death. 10. To avoid carefully small faults and venial sins even in the smallest. 11. To aim at pleasing God in all my daily actions, and to be in- fluenced by the love of God in all, rather than by hope or fear." He was also a faithful and devoted husband, and his letters to his wife, unelaborated, and composed as they were during the intervals of excessive and continuous labour, are among the most tender ever written by a man to a woman.^ He had a frame that was herculean, a constitution that was impervious to fatigue, an energy that seemed inexhaustible, a courage that welcomed obstacles, and a perseverance that was never wearied by disappointment. His voice, as far as we can judge by the reports of those who heard him, has never been equalled by any orator for its power of penetration to the furthest limits of a vast assemblage of people in the open air. He could play upon the emotions of his Irish audiences as a master of his art might touch the strings of a guitar. He could move them to tears, excite them to laughter, or rouse them to fury with equal facility and almost in the same breath. Lawyer as he was, he was anxious that his agitation for Ireland's freedom should be constitutional ; but as Irish public opinion, constitutionally expressed, was stifled as soon as it grew too importunate for the taste of those in power, the only instrument for gaining what the people of Ireland demanded was the instrument of force, which lay at his feet, but outside the armoury of the Constitution, and he refused to pick it up. Thus he failed in his last endeavour for Irish independence through having lost his opportunity. Although a mighty man, he was not therefore one of the world's greatest. He was not of the Cromwellian type. He flinched from the last extremity, and lacked that faith in his own destiny which is the characteristic of your ^ Appendix XLIIb, letter to his wife. '<"~'n^ 222 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Caesars, and which, when called upon, risks everything upon one cast of the die. There are few indeed, who, having risen to be leaders of a people, dare to do so. Caesar would have dared, and Cromwell, Napoleon also; but although O'Connell stands lower than this race of giants he must be estimated at his full value. He was one of the greatest demagogues the world has ever seen.^ ^ On February I, 1843, O'Connell published his only book, entitled Memoir of Ireland, Native and Saxon. The Times denounced it as the product of " drivelling, intellectual imbecility with the most diabolical wickedness." CHAPTER IX THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT, 1849 " It is an axiom in politics that the great majority of people never rise into in- surrection, or become rebels, without sufficient reason ; the disaffected few possess not the power to increase political hatred to such a degree as to cause a general move- ment in opposition to the government ; this effect can only be produced by a govern- ment itself, and this circumstance is the best apolt^ for the people, if not their justification. We natives of England ought to be very circumspect in our condemna- tion of the principle of resistance to oppression, for of all nations upon earth we have most benefited by the exercise of such right. " The reader will discover, throughout the preceding pages (on Ireland) such various gradations of misery as he could not have supposed possible to exist, even amongst the most barbarous nations. Man is exhibited to his view as oppressed and insulted ; he will perceive the hand of tyranny pressing upon him heavily and unsparingly, and find an accumulation of human beings, without any other use than for the accumulation of human wretchedness. He will find him hunted from the vale to the mountain top, to shelter in the rude caverns and rocks, from his brother Christian, the politically orthodox believer in the humble Author of their common faith. Yet amongst all the evils he will still recognize the genius of the jieople, like a bright star in a tempestuous and gloomy horizon. A nation never commits felo de se. A whole people cannot causelessly be compelled to brave the mouth of the cannon, or rush upon the bayonet against their rulers ; and when such events do take place, and when the voice of complaint does arise from a whole people, let their governors attend to the awful warning, and remember that it will not be necessary to seek a heavenly-gifted inter- preter to expound this Handwriting upon the Wall." — Edward Wakefield in 1814. Prologue to Chapter IX An ungenerous tone has, even in the recollection of many persons still living, been from time to time adopted towards John Bull in respect of his methods of governing the Irish people. No man can, and perhaps few wise men, if they could, would wish to be absolutely perfect. No man can do better than his best, or use other talents than those with which it has pleased his Creator to endow him, and it must not be forgotten amid all the scathing commentaries heaped on John Bull in regard to his,treatment of Ireland, that whatever his deficiencies in other ways may be, and God knows there are some, he is a real good fellow at bottom, one of the very best, and immensely fond of cricket and football. We take it that the first con- sideration of a humane ruler should be to display a healthful, cheery aspect before those whom he may have to govern, so that they may derive some substantial comfort in their own less fortunate position by the appearance of enormous contentment elsewhere. This is only human nature, for a beggar 's reckoned to feel a pleasant tickling sensation when a smart 223 224 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY carriage and pair rolls by. It is also said that starving sailors adrift upon an alien sea have gloated over the names of dishes on a choice bill of fare, and that the perusal of so much exquisite luxury deadens their pain and almost tempts them to believe that the feast is spread before them and that they are the guests who are bidden to the banquet. Other examples might be given to illustrate this law of nature, which is very gratifying to reflect upon seeing what loathsome poverty and misery there are abroad at the present day, and how the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Now it cannot be denied except by an unusually contumacious reasoner that the rulers of Ireland have carried out this system of consolation towards their ragged dependency as consistently as lay in their power. Vicarious indulgence has been the kernel of their policy. John Bull, with his fine round belly and ruddy countenance, has been a godsend to the Irish people, for what greater solace can there be for a poor, hungry, Irish peasant than this beaming beacon of success ? It freshens him, it makes his mouth water, it is like the dew of heaven to him ; it increases his faith in the milk of human kindness to see his dear rulers delight them- selves in fatness when starvation stares him in the face. He is almost inclined to forget his misery when the hearty voice of honest John Bull shouts in his ear. Will any one, who has a little prudence, deny that this is very considerate on the part of the rulers of Ireland ? There are many men, well-fed and foul livers, who think only of their own appetites. There are many fewer, equally round and foul, who commiserate their less fortunate brethren but have not the leisure to help them in distress ; but what shall we say of John Bull, with his broad, shining face, who lives like these, not for his own enjoyment, however, not for his own gross pleasure, but out of the goodness of his heart for the sake of others ? John Bull is incomparable ; there is no one in the least like him. His virtues are quite different from other men's, and this is what makes him the envy and despair of foreigners of taste and learning. John Bull is not destined to oblivion for lack of description. His portrait will be handed down for the admiration of future ages, and he will be recorded in the history of nations as a beautiful example of a Christian gentleman, and it will surely be a sad day for Ireland when he relinquishes that delicate sense of the fitness of things, which is all his own, and no longer holds that the mere aspect of his own prosperity is the best cure for Irish ills. The history of Ireland during the nineteenth century is a record of the struggle between landlord and tenant ; and since the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849 was the foremost legislative THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 225 effort to solve the Irish land question during the first fifty years of the period, it forms, from its prominent position at the end of that half- century, a noticeable landmark in the calendar of Irish misrule.^ The system of land tenure in Ireland was up to comparatively recent times wholly indefensible. The governing idea in the landlord's mind was to make his starving dependents sow, while he reaped ; and when at length the truth was dis- agreeably brought home to him that the just rights of property were one thing and tyranny another, the shock was so great that he felt, not that justice was finally to be set upon her pedestal, but that robbery and confiscation were being made to usurp the place of law. No greater indictment can be brought against the policy of the rulers of Ireland than in regard to the Irish land question, and the author has loaded the Appendices to his present argument with quotations from many authoritative sources, so that he may be thought not to drag in by the head and shoulders, but to usher in with all the formality of which it is worthy, the disastrous policy pursued by the Ascendency, and the consequent misery entailed upon the Irish peasantry, the memory of which has not yet died out. In 1806 Whiteboyism, which had slumbered during the six years following the Union, once more broke out, and continued without intermission until 1824 to damp the courage and perplex the counsels of Irish landlords. The Threshers, who resembled the Whiteboys, rose in open insurrection in 1807 in the \vestern counties and committed the vilest outrages upon person and property. To silence this expostulation of serfdom against tyranny, an Insurrection Act was introduced in the House of Commons on July 9, 1807, by Sir Arthur Wellesley, with a special view to the disturbances in Limerick. It was a renewal, with certain slight modifications, of the Act of 1796, one of the differences being that the power to transport was transferred from the magistrates to quarter sessions, and it authorized the Lord- Lieutenant to suspend trial by jury, should the necessity for such procedure appear to him to be necessary, and rendered persons out of doors between sunset and sunrise liable to trans- portation. It was repealed in 1 8 10, but re-enacted in 18 14, and continued in force for the three following years. An Arms Bill for Ireland, which, unlike the Insurrection Act, was to come into operation universally and at once, and not merely to be con- tingent upon the proclamation of the Lord-Lieutenant, was also introduced by Wellesley, and passed in 1807, the duration of the Act being limited to two years. It required the registration of arms, and authorized any person on the authority of a magistrate ' The author is indebted to B. Barry O'Brien's Fifty Ytars of Concessions to ireland, and to William O'Connor Morris' Present Irish Questions and Ireland from gS to 'g8, for various details leading up to this and later land legislation for 15 226 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY to search a house for such weapons at any hour of the day or ni'ght.^ In 1810 the Shanavests and Caravats appeared in Kilkenny and Tipperary, and for the next few years these two counties, and those of Waterford, Limerick, Westmeath, and Roscommon, as well as King's County, were almost every week the scene of sanguinary tumults. In 18 14 the Carders appeared in various districts, who tore the flesh from the bones of those who refused to obey their orders. The authorities at Dublin found it necessary therefore to apply for a further lease of extraordinary powers, and Peel introduced for the purpose two Coercion Bills into Parliament the same year. The first enabled the Lord- Lieutenant to declare a district disturbed, to appoint a super- intending magistrate with a salary of £700 a year and a staff of special constables, and to charge the cost upon Ireland. The second, which he brought forward on July 8, three days after the first Bill had been read a third time, revived the Insurrection Act of 1807, which had been allowed to expire in 1810, and was passed without difficulty, in spite of an unsuccessful attempt to limit it to one year. But crime was not one whit abated. Peasant societies under the names of Whitefeet, Blackfeet, Shavanats, Rockites, Terryalts, and Ribbonmen rendered the life of every man insecure who had done anything to offend them; and in 181 5 it was found necessary to place Limerick and parts of three other counties under the Insurrection Act To mention two incidents out of many during the years 181 5 and 1816 — In 1815 a dispensary in the County Tipperary was taken by the Government for use as a police barrack. Now the police had not always exhibited that regard for justice which is so indispensable in the guardians of the law, and one night a huge mob of peasants attacked the house, drove the constables out, and burned the hated building to the ground. For this outrage thirteen men were hanged ; it being thought that the rope and drop might succeed where so much legislation had proved abortive. Again, in 18 16, a tenant had taken a farm at a higher rent than the previous occupier could pay, and the buildings were therefore set on fire and destroyed. Mr. Baker, an energetic magistrate, thereupon set to work to hunt down the incendiaries, and succeeded in arresting six of them, but his magisterial vigour, unappreciated by a starving neighbourhood, soon paid the penalty of death, and he was shot. In view of these disturbances of Whiteboys and others of their kidney, Sir John Newport,^ in the spring of 18 16, moved ' Appendix XLIII, quotations from R. B. Sheridan, Thomas Newenham, Edward Wakefield, John Gough, and the author of An Inquiry itito the Causes of Popular Discontent in Ireland, published in 1804. * Sir John Newport {1756-1843). Appointed Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1806 in the Ministry of All the Talents ; resigned in 1807. Appointed Comptroller general of the Exchequer, 1834. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 227 an address to the Prince Regent to the effect that " the need of keeping a force of 25,000 men in Ireland in time of peace obliges us to consider its state as distressing and dangerous. We have granted repressive powers ; we wish deliberate ex- amination of the evils, and of the source whence they originate." Peel very naturally opposed an inquiry so detrimental to his own reputation, and moved an amendment that the Government should lay before the House a statement merely of the disturb- ances in Ireland and the measures adopted for their suppression, and it was carried by 187 to 104. The next year, in 18 17, the Insurrection Act of 18 14 was renewed, for it would in the ordinary course have expired in 18 17. The Seditious Meetings Act, however, which was passed this year, was expressly made inapplicable to Ireland, and for a very good reason. Political associations of all descriptions came under the Act, and it would therefore have affected the Orange Lodges, where secret oaths were administered. When Sir John Newport moved for its extension to Ireland, Castlereagh assured him that the tranquillity of that country rendered such a step unnecessary, an excuse which was extremely farcical in view of the In- surrection Act, and characteristic of the man, who was borne to his grave amid the savage and exulting shouts of a long- persecuted and at length liberated people. But crime was not diminished a particle. Every corner of the island was a hot-bed for it. The state of the country, of prices, of popula- tion, and of rents, was a veritable nursery for the young plant of sedition. The Act of 1793 which had transformed thousands of unfranchised Catholics into voters, and tempted landlords to sub-divide their leased lands, in order to increase their political influence by multiplying the voters on their estates, namely the forty-shilling freeholders, combined with the increased agricultural prosperity consequent upon the high prices created by the great war, had stimulated the growth of the popula- tion, which, from being between four and five millions before the Union, had increased to about six and a half millions by 181 5. Rents rose in consequence, a fierce competition taking place for the possession of a limited soil, whilst wages, which in accordance with the "cottar system" were generally paid in kind, that is to say in potatoes, simultaneously fell. Then came the peace of 1815. Rents now suddenly subsided. With the decline of prices, wages sank even lower, and as the distracted tenants were unable to pay their way, hundreds of evictions followed as a natural consequence. This treatment was the harsher as tenants had, in many cases, effected improvements on their holdings at their own expense, thus creating a sort of dual ownership or concurrent right in their farms. Agrarian disorder rapidly followed in the train of these grievances. Societies of " Threshers " had been formed to resist the payment 228 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY of tithes which were a heavy and growing burden on the farmers since the increase of tillage, and, savagery feeding upon dis- content, crime soon trod in the track of eviction, Whiteboyism and Ribbonism also joined hands, and fearful atrocities were committed to vindicate the rights of man. Absentee landlords aggravated the prevailing distress. Callous to the cries of their unhappy tenants, lavishing the rent squeezed from the starving labour of poverty in superfluous luxuries and useless pleasures, they gave the rein to their natures, and their energy spent itself in London and exhausted the patience of the suffering Irish people. The uncouth and voracious^ Judge Fletcher said of them in his address to the Wexford Grand Jury in 1814 — " Never during the entire period of my judicial experience (com- prising sixteen circuits) have I discovered or observed any serious purpose or settled scheme of assailing His Majesty's Government, or any conspiracy connected with internal rebels or foreign foes. But various deep-rooted and neglected causes, producing similar results throughout this country, have conspired to create the evils which really and truly do exist. . . . Gentlemen, the moderate pittance which the high rents leave to the poor peasantry the large county assessments nearly take from them. Roads are frequently planned and made, not for the general advantage of the country, but to suit the particular views of a neighbouring landowner, at the public expense. Superadded to these mischiefs are the permanent and occasional absentee landlords residing in another country, not known to their tenantry but by their agents, who extract the uttermost penny of the value of the lands. If a lease happens to fall in they sell the farm by public auction to the highest bidder. No gratitude for past services, no preference of the fair offer, no predilection for the ancient tenantry (be they ever so deserving) ; but if the highest price be not acceded to, the depopulation of an entire tract of country ensues. What, then, is the wretched peasant to do ? Chased from the spot where he had first drawn his breath, where he had first seen the light of heaven, incapable of procur- ing any other means of existence, vexed with those exactions which I have enumerated, and harassed by tithes, can we be surprised that a peasant of unenlightened mind, of uneducated habits, should rush upon the perpetration of crimes, followed by the punishment of the rope and the gibbet ? Nothing (as the peasantry imagine) remains for them, thus harassed and thus destitute, but with a strong hand to deter the stranger from intruding upon their farms, and to extort from the weak ness and the terrors of their landlords (from whose gratitude or good feelings they have failed to win it) a kind of preference for their ancient ' At a certain hour every day he used to become suddenly seized with a ravenous desire for food, as though he had a wolf in his stomach. This sometimes took place m Court, which made it very inconvenient for all parties concerned. He was a rugg'"' but humane man. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 229 tenantry. . . . But, gentlemen, is there no method of allaying those discontents of the people and preventing them flying in the face of the law ? Is there no remedy but Act of Parliament after Act of Parliament in quick succession, framed for coercing and punishing ? Is there no corrective but the rope and the gibbet ? Yes, gentlemen, the removal of those causes of disturbance which I have mentioned to you will operate as the remedy. I should imagine that the permanent absentees ought to see the policy (if no better motive can influence them) of appropriating liberally some part of those splendid revenues which they draw from this country, which pays no land-tax or poor's-rates, and of which not a shilling is expended in this country. Is it not high time for those permanent absentees to offer some assistance, originating from themselves and out of their own private purses, towards improving and ameliorating the condition of the lower orders of the peasantry upon their great domains, and rendering their lives more comfortable ? . . . the permanent absentees ought to know that it is their interest to con- tribute everything in their power and within the sphere of their extensive interest, towards the improvement of the country, from whence they derive such ample revenue and solid benefits. Instead of doing so, how do many of them act ? They often depute their managers upon the Grand Jury of the county. This manager gets jobs done without question or interruption ; his roads, and his bridges, and his park walls, all are conceded. " For my part I am totally at a loss to conclude how these permanent absentees can reconcile it to their interests or feelings to remain silent spectators of such a state of things, and how they can forbear to raise their voices in behalf of their unhappy country, and attempt to open the eyes of our English neighbours, who, generally speaking, know about as much of the Irish as they do of the Hindoos ? . . . Does a visitor come to Ireland to compile a book of travels, what is his course ? He is handed about from one country gentleman to another, all interested in concealing from him the true state of the country ; he passes from squire to squire, each rivalling the other in entertaining their guest, all busy in pouring falsehoods into his ears, touching the disturbed state of the country and the vicious habits of the people. Such is the crusade of information upon which the English traveller sets forward ; and he returns to his own country with all his unfortunate prejudices doubled and confirmed, in a kind of moral despair of the welfare of such a wicked race, having made up his mind that nothing ought to be done for this lawless and degraded country." There was a load of sound sense in Judge FletcKer's address, if only the Wexford Grand Jury understood it. That the Ascendency should comprehend it would have been too much to expect. The human mind very soon shapes itself to a particular groove. Tell a man that his best friend is a scamp every day for a year, and against his will he will believe you. ^ell him that his enemy is a scoundrel, and he will love you . i>o it was with Ireland. The enemies of the Irish Catholics Welcomed the scurrility that flowed in upon the Papists from 230 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY every side, and hugged to their breasts the warehousemen of calumny and the vile fabricators of falsehood. Those of more honourable character would fain have believed that there was a little good in Ireland outside the Castle precincts, but they were carried away on the rank stream of lies and forced over to the other side, and convinced as they were against their natural inclinations were bitterer even than the others. Thus it seemed there was no hope for the Irish Catholic. His enemies were implacable ; his friends were one by one converted into foes ; every man's hand was against him, and like a stag at bay he determined to die hard. But what did it matter to the absentee landlords ? They were safe from the gun of the Whiteboy, and, although outrages continued, their own peace of mind remained undisturbed. A few out of the many of the crimes that took place about this time may be mentioned to show the state of the social atmosphere in Ireland under the Whiteboy and Rockite regime. The population of Ireland exceeded seven millions, and it was stated four years later, in 1825, that a million persons obtained a living by mendicancy and plunder. The agent of a great property declared that it was the custom in Ireland to keep a person on each estate to distrain for rent, who, as a rule, was so constantly and regularly occupied in driving cattle to pound, that he was usually known as a " driver." The average rate of wages in Ireland was estimated at only 4 Appendix XLVIII, quotations from Miss Martineau and Thomas Moore. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 245 patience under the storm of Irish criticism that beat upon them daily was proof of this. It would have been better if they had been a little more flagitious, for it requires a high intelligence to keep depravity in power, and once discovered to be positively wicked they would have fallen. This was the state of Irishmen then. They were governed by a handful of men whose official safety was measured by their inability to move, and from whom the Irishman's only apparent chance of delivery was that they might be bold enough to be rascals, for that would have been their undoing. They bore gibe, but could not have stood detection. The whole elaborate framework of their impotence would have collapsed under a well-directed blow. These men were the product of civilization. Its high-watermark of intel- lect, its Secretaries of State, and heads of great Departments served as a jest to philosophers and gave employment to carica- ture. This was the result of noble blood, religiosity, sporting instincts, and insular pride. Was it that they required another Scotsman, like Thomas Drummond, to teach them how to rule ? On the nth of July, 1838, the Irish Railway Commission issued their second and final report, the labour of which killed Drummond and was never acted upon. In 1835 the only railway in Ireland was between Dublin and Kingstown, six miles long. In the course of the session of 1835-6 Lord Lansdowne had proposed in the Upper House a resolution in favour of an address to the King begging him " to appoint persons of competent authority to consider and report upon the principal lines of com- munication in Ireland, with reference to the comparative advan- tages and facilities they afford for the construction of railways, and that with a view to ascertain the best lines between any of the principal places in Ireland which it may be advisable to connect by railways, and for which works Joint Stock Companies may be willing hereafter to apply to Parliament" As a result of this resolution, a Commission had been appointed on the 20th of October, composed of Drummond and three others. They were required to report by the loth of April, 1837, and they made a first report on March 1 1 of that year. The Commission was dis- solved on the death of William IV, but a new one was issued, and a second and final report presented on the i ith of July, 1838. In it the Commissioners recommended the construction of two great lines, as being most advantageous for the country as a whole, and yielding the greatest return on the capital laid out, namely, a railway from Dublin to Cork by Maryborough (near which a branch should be thrown off nearly south to Kilkenny) and through Holy Cross, where a west branch should be thrown to Limerick and an east branch to Waterford ; and a second railway from Dublin to Navan, at which point the railway should separate in two directions — the one through Castleblaney and 246 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Armagh to Belfast ; the other through Kells, Virginia, and Cavan to Enniskillen.^ On March i, 1839, Morpeth,^ the Chief Secretary, moved in the Commons for a Committee of the whole House on the Railways Commission, and explained the Report which had just been presented. The main feature of the recommendations was that the railway between Dublin and Cork, with a branch to Limerick, should be executed as public works, the management being vested in the Board of Works, and the Treasury -having power to render such assistance as might be requisite. He con- cluded by moving — " That Her Majesty be enabled to authorize Exchequer Bills, to an amount not exceeding two and a half millions, to be made out by direction of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and to be by them advanced for the construction of a railway or railways in Ireland, the sum so advanced being secured, and the interest and sinking fund to be secured on the profits of the works, the deficiency, if any, being provided for by an assessment on the several districts through which such rail- ways may be carried or which may be benefited thereby." Peel attacked the measure, but, in spite of his and other opposition, Morpeth's motion passed the Commons by a majority of 44. When it got to the Lords it encountered fresh opposition, Brougham opposing it from mere hatred of the Government. After this the question came up again in the Lower House, but on three different occasions the House was counted out, and the scheme was eventually dropped from sheer lack of enthusiasm. The tendencies of the Bill were too progressive, the practical vigour with which it grappled with difficulties too incomprehen- sible for little minds and small men living from day to day ; and its opponents, who intensely disliked the principle, wei'e gratified to find economic and other obstacles in the way of unpopular reform. The result of the defeat of the Government railway scheme, which might have solved much of the Irish agrarian difficulty, had it been carried out in the spirit of the Commissioners' Report, was described by Dr. Hancock in the Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland in November i866 — " There are at present in Ireland three railways bankrupt or winding up ; two at a standstill ; six paying no dividend on the preference stock ; ten paying no dividend on the ordinary shares ; seven, the dividends of which were less than those paid on the Government bonds ; six paying * Appendix XLIX, extract from Report. * George William Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of Carlisle (1802-64). He held the post of Chief Secretary during the Lord-Lieutenancies of the Marquis of Normanby and Earl Fortescue. In 1855 he was appointed by Lord Palmerston Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 247 dividends at a rate less than that of commercial interest ; and but one (the Dublin and Kingstown) the shares of which were above par." In the entire system of i,88i miles of railway at that time, 566 miles were wholly unremunerative, while 1,215 miles yielded an average dividend of 3'8 per cent. ; the average divi- dend of the whole system together being 2"S per cent. In 1864 the percentage of the net receipts on the whole capital expended on the Irish railways was on a favourable estimate 3-28 per cent, and a few years later it was considerably less. This was the result of not listening to Drummond. Meanwhile, although outrages did not absolutely cease, their number diminished to an extraordinary extent during the period in which Thomas Drummond was Under-Secretary at Dublin, that is to say, from 1835 to 1840. This was greatly due to the police reforms which were carried out at his suggestion. In 1836 his Irish Constabulary Bill had been passed. Now the Dublin Police Bill, introduced by Sir Arthur Wellesley, had been carried in 1808, creating eighteen new places for police magistrates. Peel, who was Chief Secretary from 1812 to 181 8, established in 1814 in the interests of order a central police force in disturbed districts under a new class of stipendiary or police magistrates, called the " Peace Preservation Force," thus replacing an incom- petent and ineffective local police and the bodies of troops, which up till then had often been engaged in that service. This inno- vation was the origin of the Irish Constabulary and the later police system. By an Act passed in 1823, this force had assumed a regular form under four provincial inspectors. In 1825 another Act had been carried making an alteration in the mode of appointing constables. The Act of 1823 had placed their appointment in the hands of the magistrates at Quarter Sessions. The new measure gave a power of appointment to the inspectors- general, by directing the magistrates to furnish them with lists of fit persons to supply vacancies, as they occurred, and empowering the inspectors-general to appoint from such lists ; but this addi- tional power was, as regards patronage, almost entirely nominal. The " Peace Preservation Force " was, in spite of this tinker- '"g. highly unpopular in the country, and for the good reason that all the men were Protestants. In 1835, therefore, an Irish Constabulary Bill was introduced into Parliament, prepared on the lines of one that had been drawn up under the chief secre- taryship of Littleton. It proposed to substitute for the old police, who were inefficient and under the control of a corrupt and in- competent corporation, a new force constituted on the principle of Peel's London police. It was, however, after passing the Commons, rejected by the Peers without any discussion either of its merits or necessity. The next year it was again introduced. 248 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY and this time passed into law with some alterations. Under this measure the police force was placed under an Inspector-General, who, with an office in Dublin Castle, was in immediate touch with the Government. The selection of the men was nominally vested in the Lord-Lieutenant, but practically in the Inspector- General, instead of being, as previously, in the hands of the local magistrates whose personal predilections had been sometimes known to overcome their ardent sense of duty. Constabulary courts were established for the enforcement of discipline, and the discipline itself was rendered stricter. Moreover, a number of stipendiary magistrates were appointed, whose functions were to be similar to those discharged by the Sheriff-substitutes in the counties in Scotland. Under the Inspector-General there were to be four provincial inspectors ; under these thirty-five sub- inspectors, with salaries varying from ;£^230 to ;6^25o ; next to them the chief constables ; then the head constables in two classes, and after them the constables and sub-constables, each of them likewise divided into two classes. The same Act also provided for the appointment of stipendiary magistrates who were not to be appointed magistrates of police, but merely justices of the peace. They were to act in aid of the local magistrates, and supply their place when necessary ; but were in no way connected with the police establishment. In this way the magistracy was purged of many of its unpaid Castle crea- tures, who were replaced by impartial and salaried guardians of the law. In 1839 the whole force numbered 8,416, which was 1,300 more than in 1835 ; whilst a large number of Catholics had been admitted at Drummond's instance, in order to increase its popularity with the Irish people. In 1846 an Act was passed by which the police force was increased, and taken more immediately into the service of the Crown. Part of the burden of their pay was taken from the shoulders of the Irish counties, and they became practically a portion of the regular army, amounting to 12,000 chosen men, well armed and drilled. The Dublin Police Bill had also been passed in 1836, having been likewise rejected by the Lords the year before. Difficulties, however, arose in providing sufficient funds for the maintenance of the force, and before this obstacle was overcome, a considerable time elapsed, and an amendment to the Act became necessary, so that the Dublin police did not begin to operate until January i, 1838. By this change Dublin and a certain district round it obtained the services of 1,000 efficient men, the former force having only amounted to between 400 and 500 men, who had been underpaid, miserably clothed, in many cases senile, and all of them grossly inefficient. The effect of the reform soon made itself felt. In 1836 there had been forty-four combination assaults, and in 1837 ninety-seven ; whilst in 1839, when the Dublin Police Act had THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 249 been given sufficient time to make itself effective, there were only nine. In 1839 a Select Committee of the House of Lords, known as the Roden Committee from the circumstance of its appoint- ment on the motion of Lord Roden,^ took evidence as to the state of agrarian and other crime in Ireland between the years- 1835 and 1839, and as to the whole policy of the administration in that country in regard to its suppression. The administration, represented by Thomas Drummond, who during those years was the life and soul of the Irish Government, emerged from the scrutiny with increased reputation. Drummond proved in his evidence before the Committee that, taking the mean of crime for the years 1826-8, and comparing it with that for the years 1836-8, and allowing for the increase of the population, there had been a decrease as follows — Murder and manslaughter ... ... ... decrease 10% Shooting and stabbing „ 46% 29% 56% 26% 86% 34% 54% Conspiracy to murder Burglary Assembling armed and appearing armed by night Housebreaking, etc Stealing cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and calves Assaults with intent to rob There was an increase of common assaults, riots, breaches of the peace, misdemeanours, and larceny ; but Drummond showed that the apparent increase of these latter offences was the direct result of the greater activity and efficiency of the police.^ What greater testimony could have been afforded to the wisdom of Drummond's rule in Ireland ? He proved that co- ercion was not the only instrument of Government, nor punish- ment the only way to make a people law-abiding. That there was nothing so alien in the constitution of the Irish people to distinguish them from the other races of Europe : that they had much the same feelings, a similar capacity for good and evil ; and that, if anything, they were more susceptible to kindness, and eager to display their sense of gratitude than even those who tried to govern them. On the fall of Melbourne's adminis- tration and Peel's accession to power, crime and outrage recom- menced with much of their old vigour, a fact which even the Government found difficult to explain away. To cite two in- stances out of many — In 1842, a man named Laffan, who had rendered himself peculiarly offensive to the Ribbon confederacy, was deliberately murdered in broad daylight in the county of Tipperary, a few hours, too, after a meeting of priests and laymen had been held close by the scene of the outrage to condemn the ' Robert Jocelyn, third Earl of Roden (1788-1870). '^ Appendix XLIXa, Drummond's evidence before the Committee. 2SO IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY system of terrorism that prevailed. In the same year Mr. James Scully, a Catholic landlord, was also murdered in Tipperary.^ In 1843 what is known as the "battle of Magheracloon " was fought. The tenants on an estate belonging to Mr. Shirley at Carrickmacross, in the barony of Farney, had refused to pay their rents, and Shirley, determined to exact his due, had sent a driver to distrain the cattle of the recalcitrant tenantry. But the driver was outwitted in his attempts to carry out his master's orders, and so Shirley's bailiff proceeded to placard the chapel of Magheracloon with notices of eviction. Thereupon a riot took place, and the police intervened to preserve order, with the result that one tenant was shot dead and seven others wounded ; but the peasantry refused to submit, and so stubbornly did they fight that the police were eventually forced to take to their heels. In the same year, while Mr. Waller, a landed proprietor residing near Nenagh, was sitting at dinner with the members of his family, a band of peasants suddenly burst into the room and savagely attacked him. With the aid of his sons and the servants of the house he offered a stout resistance, but, although the peasants were at last driven off after a sanguinary struggle. Waller himself was beaten to death. It was during this reign of terror that another Arms Act was passed for Ireland. For nearly fifty years a series of such Acts had been continuously in force in that country, but to little purpose. The present measure was passed at the request of a large number of orderly inhabitants in Ireland, who were compelled by the state of the times to keep arms enough for their own defence, and who dreaded a seizure of them. The Government, however, instead of continuing the last Act passed for the purpose, amended it, and thus roused the Irish to fury. This action was all the more unjust, as England and Wales, which were torn by disorder and discontent, were exempted from the measure. By the Bill of 1843, introduced into the House of Commons by Lord Eliot on May 29, no one in Ireland was to be allowed to carry arms, to sell arms or gun- powder, or to ply the trade of a smith without a licence ; and no licence to carry arms was to be granted except on the recom- mendation of two householders. A smith's licence was forfeitable on his conviction of any misdemeanour. Licensed arms were to be distinguished by a brand, and the constabulary were authorized to search night and day for unbranded arms. Sharman Crawford opposed the Bill, as did various other prominent members. The Rebecca Riots were raging in Wales at that very time, and why, it was urged, had not an Arms Act been passed for that country ? The answer was plain, because the Irish were governed on different principles from any other people.^ ' Appendix XLIXb, quotation from the Times, Dec. 6, 1842. 2 Appendix L, extract from speech by Lord Palmerston, and quotation from the German historian, Von Raumer. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 251 It was during the discussion upon the Arms Act that Charles Buller prophesied a great coming danger on account of the deterioration in the quality of the potato, but his words fell upon heedless ears in the confused clamour of debate. For the next three years Ireland was a perfect pandemonium of unrest. Growling discontent, seditious gatherings, arson, and murder took infinite pains to demonstrate to statesmen the rottenness of their system and the determination of the Irish to have done with it. In 1 844, to mention one out of 1,000 agrarian crimes that year, Mr. Gloster, who had served notices to quit on his tenants in the County Clare, was shot dead without any warning, while driving from an adjoining farm to his own house. The next year Mr, Clarke, another landowner, was shot dead in broad daylight while walking on his own estate in the County Tipperary. Crime was increasing in ten out of the thirty-two Irish counties, and in five out of the ten the increase had assumed dangerous proportions. In these five counties alone in 1845 the cases of Homicides were 47 Firing at person ... 85 Aggravated assaults 190 Dangerous to life assaults no Incendiarism 139 Killing and maiming cattle ... 108 Robbery of arms 420 Appearing armed ... 64 Administering unlawful oaths... 190 Threatening letters ... 1,043 Attacking houses ... 309 Malicious injury to property ... 104 Firing into dwelling-houses . . . ••• 93 Total 2,902 and in the rest of Ireland these several crimes amounted during that year to 2,736, making a grand total of 5,638. In 1846 Mr. Carrick was deliberately shot dead while driving from the town of Ennis in the county of Clare to his own house close by. In the single month of November in the latter year the following agrarian outrages were committed. Mr. Lucas, a landed pro- prietor in the King's County, was shot dead, while walking with a policeman, who had been engaged to protect him, from his herd's house to his own. William Roe, of Rockwell, in the County Tipperary, evicted a tenant named Lonergan, but the tenant brooded over his wrongs, and having awaited a favourable opportunity for revenge shot the evictor through the heart. Major Mahon, of the County Clare, turned a number of tenants out of their holdings and shipped them off to America On the 252 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY voyage there they endured frightful sufferings, and subsequently sent home harrowing accounts of their condition. On the arrival of these accounts in Ireland, the friends of the wretched outcasts at once determined to inflict upon Mahon a retributory doom. One day, while riding in a closed carriage near his own residence, he was shot dead, and not long afterwards a policeman, who was making inquiries on the spot where Mahon was murdered, suffered a similar fate. Flynn, a Catholic peasant, who had offended against the unwritten law of Ribbonism, was stabbed to death while returning home from the fair of Newtown Hamilton, in the County Armagh. Mr. Hassard, treasurer to the grand jury of the County Fermanagh, was shot dead on his own estate. Mr. Baylcy, a landowner and magistrate of the County Tipperary, was fired at while driving near the town of Nenagh, and his jaw- bone shot away. Walsh, a Catholic caretaker to a Catholic landlord of the County Clare, was shot dead in broad daylight, while walking along the high-road near the town of Scariff. A peasant named Ryan was assaulted in his own house in the County Tipperary by a band of Ribbonmen, and his wife, who heroically flung herself between him and his assailants, was shot dead. Mr. O'Donnell, the agent of the Marquess of Ormonde, was also murdered in the same manner. On the 28th of this terrible month, while the Reverend John Lloyd, vicar of Aughrim, was returning on horseback from service at his parish church to his residence at Smithstown, near Elphin, he was con- fronted by an armed peasant, who said to him — "Say your prayers, for you're going to be shot." " What have I done," answered Lloyd, " that I should be murdered ? " " You put out a tenant two years ago on your estate at Leitrim," replied the peasant, " and I tell you say your prayers, for your hour has come." He then deliberately and without another word levelled his gun, took aim, and fired, and the unfortunate Lloyd fell lifeless from his horse. The Irish were thus being driven into outrage by famine and despair, but the only remedy for it was not cheap bread and better landlords, but a Coercion Bill. Well might the heart of the legislator sink. Disraeli had declared two years before, during the discussions in Parliament in connection with the proceedings at the trial of O'Connell, that " A starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien Church, and the weakest executive in the world — this is the Irish question." But this patent truth was not recognized by the majority of his countrymen, and on January 22, 1846, Peel introduced his Crimes Bill into Parliament, not indeed with the hope of ameliorating the lot of the Irish people, but of rendering their misery inarticulate. The Arms Act already in force was about to expire, and he determined to renew and extend it. The Bill provided that additional police and magistrates were to be appointed in a pro- THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 253 claimed district at the expense of the localities ; that pecuniary compensation was to be awarded out of local rates to the victims of outrage ; that persons discovered out of doors between sunset and sunrise were to be subject to penalties, and that offenders against the new regulations should be liable to transportation. But Peel was already discredited in the eyes of his party by his Corn Law apostasy, and had ranged against him a coalition of the regular Whig opposition and the Protectionists led by Lord George Bentinck.^ Grey opened the attack upon the measure in the House of Lords, and on the same day that the Corn Law Bill received the royal assent, it was rejected. This gave Peel a welcome opportunity of resigning. In July he was succeeded by Russell at the head of a Whig administration, and the change of Government indefinitely postponed a possible settlement of the Irish land question. The rulers of Ireland were like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears, for no ears are so deaf as those that are stuffed with prejudice and self-interest. The lamentable tale of Irish woe told to the House of Commons by Poulett Scrope during the debate on the Crimes Bill, and which, even now, can scarce be read without a heartache, was listened to by the hardy Par- liamentarians of 1846 without the ruffling of a sentiment. It was so difficult for them to perceive that a starving Irish- man was composed of the self-same ingredients as one of themselves ; that the prosperity of the one was as deeply important as that of the other ; that both were hewn from the same block ; and that the Almighty would never distinguish between them, unless indeed He took Lazarus to his bosom and left Dives to burn. It was so hard a matter to make the pimpled, beef-eating, ignorant, self-satisfied country squire comprehend these eternal truths. Hunting four days a week, blowing his pheasants to pieces the other two, sleeping like a wart- hog on the seventh, it was as impossible to make him aware that, in spite of his possible good fellowship and coarse good nature, he was a profitless lump of clay, that his life was radically unsound and worthless for all purposes of social progress, that his sporting instincts were as vulgar as his conversation, and that he was living in obstinate sin so long as one Irishman starved while he revelled, as to persuade him that to shoot a fox was no sin at all, that to warn hounds off his park was not a social misdemeanour, that the Lord-Lieutenant of his county need not necessarily be a gentleman, or that the Tory ministry of the day was not all that could be desired. What did he care about the principles of Irish justice } Had he * William George Frederick Cavendish Bentinck (i 802-1 848). Immortalized in Disraeli's incomparable biography. ^ Appendix LI, extract from speech by Poulett Scrope. 254 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY not inherited his money and landed estate, as he had his name ? Was it not his indisputable, inalienable right to spend the one, and idle out his days upon the other ? Was it not his pleasure, and was not that alone sufficient reason, to eat and drink more than enough ; to beget children ; to marry ofif his daughters to his neighbours' sons ; to swear a good deal and think not at all ; to place implicit confidence in the best tone of county society ; to shun a self-made man and court a noble one ; ^ to think that a love of sport is the ground of all the other virtues ; to pass the evening of his days in educating his sons in the same honest principles ; and finally to render up the ghost, firmly believing that, like his father before him, he had done his duty by the world and had no cause for contrition? Was not this the round of life and the daily tenor ; were not these the aspirations of the majority of country squires half-a-century ago? No wonder the Irish starved; that Parliament listened in indefatigable calm to that story of misery which would have torn any heart not made of leather, and that honourable members should have shambled off day after day to dinner, to fuel themselves into fresh insensibility to argument on the morrow. In 1849, amid other and similar outrages, occurred the Keyes incident. A tenant farmer of the name of Keyes had determined to remove his crops and cattle in order to avoid a seizure for non-payment of rent, and with this intent had collected a strong force of peasants to assist him. But the police, ascertaining their designs, made preparation to defeat them, and on the attempt of Keyes to carry out his plan a furious struggle ensued between the two parties, the sub-constable being killed, and the chief constable and several of his men wounded, while many of the peasants were also killed and wounded. Keyes, however, was completely victorious, and succeeded in carrying off his crops and his cattle. At length, in 1849, the celebrated and mischievous Encum- bered Estates Act was passed. The attempts since the Union at agrarian legislation had up till this time been abortive or insufficient. In 181 5 the first of a series of cheap Ejectment Acts was passed ; it being provided that, in all cases of holdings the rent of which was under ;^20, the assistant barrister at Sessions could make a decree, at the cost of a few shillings, to eject a man from house and farm. The following year an Arrears of Rent Bill was carried, which further increased the landlords' power of effecting evictions, and was a Tory counter- Not "noble" in the sense of nobility of character, but in that of titular appendage — a very different matter, generally bought outright, in accordance with a regular and recognized tariff, and not so often earned. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 255 move to Sir John Newport's motion earlier in the year for an inquiry into the state of Ireland. The Act provided that, if the tenant was in arrears for half-a-year, or deserted, or left his land uncultivated, or carried off stock, two justices were first to survey the premises and see that they were in the state described. As to the rent that might be due, they were to take the landlord's affidavit. They were then to sign a certificate, which the landlord was to serve with the process, and if the tenant failed to appear or to prove his case, the landlord was to be put in possession. The Act also gave the landlord the right of seizing growing crops in distress for arrears of rent, a right already possessed by English landlords. A clause had also been inserted in the Bill to remedy the gross abuse of calling on the occupying tenant to pay his rent twice over, in the event of the middleman failing to pay his own rent to his superior landlord. In such cases the occupier might recover by civil bill process to the extent of fifty pounds, and set off costs against rent which was subsequently due. But this clause, through the ignorance of the poorer classes, remained inoperative, whilst the rest of the Act was greedily taken advantage of by landowners and pushed to its extreme legal interpretation. In 18 17 process of ejectment was still further facilitated by an Act which made the sole evidence of a landlord or his agent sufficient testimony for ascertaining the amount of rent due. In fact, the " ejectment code " of Ireland was peculiar to that country. Chief- Justice Pennefather ^ exactly described it when he said that it wsis a code of law made solely for the benefit of tlje'lahdlord and against the interest of the tenant, and that it was upon this principle that judges must administer and interpret it. In England, the landlord who wished to eject his tenant upon non-payment of rent, could only do so according to the forms and principles of the common law ; but, in Ireland, as we have seen, special facilities were afforded to the landlord in such cases. Even under the Irish " ejectment code," however, eviction for non-payment of rent had not extended to tenancies not created by writing, so that yearly tenants in Ireland were secure from the peculiar animosities of the law. They might, indeed, be dispossessed at any time by a notice to quit, but the notice had to expire with the termination of the year of their tenancy, and be given six months before. That is to say, the "ejectment code" had been constructed with a view of meeting the case of tenants holding under leases, and as Irish landlords had largely ceased to give leases, the old eject- ment law was found insufficient, and a new one had to be ^ Edward Pennefather (1774?-! 847), appointed Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in 1841 by Peel. 256 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY framed. Henceforward, therefore, ejectment for non-payment of rent was extended to tenancies from year to year. In 1819 a Select Committee, presided over by Sir John Newton, sat to investigate the question of land tenure in Ireland. In the report which it drew up it called attention to the great distress of the indigent farmer, and urged the crying necessity of a reform of the whole land law system, suggesting among other things the reclamation of land not under cultivation. But the committee expended its tutorial energy in vain, and made no more impression upon the pre- dominant partner than an ass does in rubbing its sides against a stone wall. In 1823 another committee reported in the same sense, and insisted at great length upon the wretchedness of the labouring class, urging like its predecessor imperative amelior- ation of their condition, but similarly without result. The following year the survey of Ireland was resolved upon, and a Select Committee of the Lower House was appointed in 1824 "to consider the best mode of apportioning more equally the local burdens collected in Ireland." The object of the survey was to enable the valuators, acting under the superin- tendence of a separate department of the Government, to follow the surveyors and to apportion correctly the amount of the local burdens, which had up till now been apportioned by Grand Jury assessments. These assessments had often been grossly unfair, as they had, in some districts, been made by the civil division of plough-lands ; in others by that of town-lands ; the divisions, in either case, being assessed in proportion to their assumed areas, which bore no defined proportion to their actual contents. This flaw in the system of assessment the survey was now intended to remedy ; but it was not until an interval of six years had elapsed that the valuation was eventually undertaken. In 1825 another committee, with a persistence hardly credible in the face of so much failure, advocated, like its predecessors, some small contribution of agricultural reform, but like the latter entirely without avail. In 1829 a Bill was brought forward by Brownlow with the object of facilitating the reclamation of waste lands in Ireland. The Commons passed the Bill, and it was read a second time in the Lords, but the Select Committee to which it was referred proved the discrimination with which they had been selected, and strangled it. The following year Henry Grattan, the son of the great paraclete of Irish enfranchisement, in concert with Thomas Spring Rice,^ forced upon the unwilling attention of the Government the oft-repeated hardships of the Irish peasant, and, like the various committees that had sat upon the question, strongly counselled them to bring in a Bill for the reclamation * Appointed in 1830 Secretary to the Treasury in Lord Grey's administration. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 257 of waste lands. But the only result of his endeavours to clear the dim vision of these Government officials was the appointment of another Select Committee, which reported in the same sense as the other Committees, and with the same success. In the year that Grattan had raised his voice against the wrongs of the Irish peasantry, the valuation of Ireland was, after indescribable delay, undertaken on the recommendation of the Select Committee that had sat six years before. In 1831 Lord Althorpe proposed a vote for ;^5 0,000 to be advanced to the Commissioners for expenditure on public works in Ireland. His proposal was carried, the peculium was administered to the gaping needs of Ireland, and there was a general self-congratu- lation on the largess which had thus been generously distributed to an exasperated peasantry. In 1834 Poulett Scrope brought forward the question of the Irish tenant in Parhament, laid bare the nature of the disease, and entreated a remedy for the patient. But the malady was too loathsome for the pure, soft-featured, fastidious nurses of the British Constitution, and the doors of the hospital were shut in his face. The following year Sharman Crawford, a landed proprietor in Ulster, introduced a Bill in the Lower House to carry out proposals similar to those sanctioned by the Devon Commission ten years later, but it frightened landowners in and outside Parliament, and was consequently defeated. In March 1836 he reintroduced his measure, but the bristles of these duty-shirkers still confronted him, and the Bill had to be abandoned. The same year a further Act was passed to secure the uniform valuation of land in Ireland. It enacted that the basis of all valuations was to be a fixed scale of agricul- tural produce contained in the Act ; but the instructions given to the valuators to act in the same manner as if employed by a principal landlord dealing with a solvent tenant showed a strong inclination in favour of the former, and the consequence was that the average valuation proved to be about 25 per cent, under the gross rental of the country. In 1837 Lynch moved for permission to introduce a Bill dealing with waste lands, but, like Sharman Crawford, he found his efforts to battle with the self- interest of monopolists mere swimming in glue. At length, in 1842, a measure of a certain remedial value known as the Artificial Drainage Act was brought in and passed. It con- tributed to the much-needed reclamation of waste land, but, until reinforced by the Summary Proceedings Act, proved of slender advantage. In 1845 the Devon Commission, the most important of its kind in Irish history, reported in four huge Blue Books. It had been appointed by Peel in 1843 to investigate the system of Irish land tenure, and was presided over by Lord Devon ; the other Commissioners being Sir Robert Ferguson, M.P., George 17 258 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Alexander Hamilton, member for the University of Dublin, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Nicholas Redington, member for Dundalk, and Mr. Wynne, with Captain John Pitt Kennedy as secretary. For some time past the rate of rent had been unduly rising in Ireland, and tenants had increasingly of late made additions to the value of their farms, in the shape of fencing, draining, building, and other improvements ; whilst in thousands of instances, more especially in the North, and largely also in the Southern provinces, outgoing tenants had in consideration of these improvements been paid considerable sums by their successors on the transfer of holdings. In. addition to this com- pensation money for improvements, which was paid by an incoming to an outgoing tenant, another sum for the " goodwill," as it was called, was also paid by the former. The " goodwill " and the compensation for improvements had during a long course of years become gradually indistinguishable as separate items, being thrown together into one amount, and payable by the incoming tenant, who was as a rule totally ignorant of the origin of the payment. The incoming tenant had generally to borrow this sum of money and pay interest upon it, and it there- fore became a sort of second rent which he was obliged to hand over every year to the usurer. The tenant frequently paid this interest by giving up to the lender the best field on his farm for several years, and when it had become exhausted, another one, and so on, until in this manner all his land gradually became impoverished. This custom of tenant-right was elucidated by Lord Dufferin ^ in his evidence before the Devon Commission. In answer to question 966 he said — " The custom may be, I think, thus defined : Tenant-right is a custom under which the tenant farmers of the North of Ireland, or, at all events, in those districts where that custom prevails, except when they have occasion to give up possession of their farms, that their land- lords will allow them to obtain from the incoming tenant such a sum as shall remunerate them for their improvements upon those farms. But at the same time, though I think that that is a perfectly legitimate definition of the custom of tenant-right as now understood, there is undoubtedly another element which exists, and which influences the operation which I have described. But the element is a very impalpable one, because, although of late, since the question has been agitated and the real elements of tenant-right have been analysed by public discussion, even the farmers themselves will describe their claim as a claim on account of improvements, there can be no doubt that the sums which were paid by the incoming tenant very often had no relation whatever to the real value of those improvements, and the thing sold, instead of being called the tenant-right of a farm which is now the term generally applied to it, used more commonly to be called the goodwill of the "' See Lord Dufferin's Irish Emigration and the Tenure of Land in Ireland. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 259 farm, and under that designation I think a different thing would be understood than a payment made for the value of the improvements into the enjoyment of which the incoming tenant was about to enter. I think under the term 'goodwill' would be recognized something approaching to what I may call 'black-mail,' paid by the incoming tenant to the outgoing tenant, in order to induce the outgoing tenant not to interfere with his quiet possession of the farm ... (in answer to question 969) ... so far as tenant-right represents the custom under which the landlords of the North of Ireland have been in the habit of allowing the outgoing tenant to receive from the incoming tenant a fair compensation for the permament improvements which he shall have placed on the farm during the time of his tenancy, and for which he shall not have had time to recoup himself, the custom has been an excellent one ; but so far as tenant-right is a custom under which, without any reference whatever to the improvements into the possession of which the new tenant is about to enter, he has been in the habit of paying over to the outgoing tenant an enormous sum of money, amounting sometimes to 10, 15, or, I believe, even 20 years' purchase of the rent, the custom is a most unfortunate one." ^ As a consequence of this custom which, whatever may have been Lord Dufferin's opinion as to its merits, had grown to be an integral part of the Irish land system, incoming tenants had become in a sense owners of their farms by purchase. The con- current rights, therefore, of the Irish tenant class had gradually developed until they amounted, morally at least, to a real joint ownership of the land between landlord and occupier. This huge mass, however, of practically proprietary rights remained, if we except the Ulster Custom, outside the cognizance or protec- tion of the law, and depended for its recognition upon the whim of the owners of the soil. In this manner there had arisen a distinct tenant-right which ought to have been brought within the pale of the law and shielded from invasion like any other property .^ The suggestions of the Devon Commission in view of this state of affairs were certainly interesting, but most of them value- less as a real remedy, for the Commissioners were all Irish landlords themselves, and lacked that breadth of view and sound statesmanship without which Ireland will never be reformed. As O'Connell wittily said of them, " you might as well consult butchers about keeping Lent, as consult these men about the rights of farmers." They described for instance Irish tenant- right as an encroachment upon the just rights of property ; and, instead of advocating the principle of joint ownership by ' In the townland of Carthage the tenant-right of a holding on R. G. Young's ^tate, paying a first term judicial rent of £^ 15s. 6d. and subject to an annuity of ^3i was sold in 1906 for ;f 200. That is to say, at 66 years' purchase. See Apjiendix to Second Report of the Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland, 1907. ^ Appendix LII, Lord Devon's opinion. 26o IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY proposing to make it law-worthy, practically ignored concurrent rights altogether, and would not even allow that a tenant had a direct title to his own improvements. They kept their attention too closely fixed upon English land-tenure, the error so prominent in Gladstone's later legislation, and desired to as- similate two systems, which not even had not parted from one another after springing together from a common ancestor, but had been congenitally and from the first dawn of Irish history totally distinct. They considered that the tenant should be compensated for any future improvements he might make, but that past improvements should be left outside the law's ken, to be confiscated in fact at the pleasure of the landlord. To carry out their scheme of tenant relief, they suggested the passing of a law which should give tenants in the future compensation for permanent and productive improvements ; and they proposed that such a measure should be framed upon the following lines. Any agreements which might be arrived at between landlord and tenant in regard to improvements of this description were to be duly registered, and, in those cases where agreement was found impossible, a tenant was to serve a notice on the landlord of his . intention to make suitable improvements. Thereupon arbitrators, selected by each of the parties, were to report upon the sug- gested improvements, and the assistant-barrister, on the presenta- tion of their report and after due examination of the state of the case, was to certify the maximum cost, which was not to exceed three years' rent. If the tenant was afterwards ejected, or if his rent was raised by the landlord within thirty years, the latter was to pay in compensation to the tenant such a sum as the improvements finished or unfinished should be valued at, provided always that this sum did not exceed the maximum originally fixed. The improvements, moreover, in order to entitle the tenant to compensation in the event of these con- tingencies, were to be completed within a limited time, and the landlord was to have the option of making them himself, in which case he was to be allowed to charge 5 per cent, on his outlay upon them. This was the celebrated Devon Commission's opinion ; an opinion matured after two years' constant study of the unhappy land, which only proves that much study, without that sense which is erroneously termed common, is a vast and profit- less weariness of the flesh. Indeed the value of the Commission lay not in its remedial suggestions, but in the enormous mass of evidence which it collected in regard to the state of Ireland, and which proved ad nauseam that the existing relations between tenant and landlord were incompatible with social order, and that for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the occupier it was not enough to make it possible for the owner to do his duty by the latter, but he must be made to see that to do his THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 261 duty was the only alternative to forfeiting those privileges which were rightfully his.^ In June 1845 an Irish Land Bill, which was founded upon the report of the Devon Commission, was brought forward by Stanley in the House of Commons. It provided for the appoint- ment of a Commissioner of improvements, to whom a tenant desirous of improving his property was to apply, and who was to have the power of determining the desirability of the contem- plated undertakings. If the Commissioner approved them, the tenant on ejection within a certain period was to be entitled to compensation for them. The only improvements which the Bill recognized were classed under the three heads of building, fenc- ing, and draining. The tenant who built on his farm was entitled to compensation for thirty years after the building was erected, one-thirtieth of the cost of the improvement being deducted from his compensation for every year during which he had enjoyed it. The tenant who fenced his farm was entitled, on a similar principle, to compensation for twenty years and the tenant who drained his farm for fourteen years. The value of the improvements, however, was in no case to exceed;^ 5 for each acre of the holding, and no compensation was to be granted for improvements other than those specified. On the introduction of the measure thirty-six peers, holding property in Ireland, signed a declaration that the Bill was destructive of the rights of property, and earnestly requested the Government to withdraw it. Stanley, thereupon, with considerable difficulty, persuaded the House to allow it to be referred to a Select Committee ; but the latter manifested so strong a feeling against it, that its author determined to modify its proposals, and, as the summer was already far advanced, withdrew his Bill in order to re- introduce it in another shape at a more convenient season. Sharman Crawford also introduced a measure of his own for a similar purpose the same year. He had refrained from bring- ing in a Bill in 1 843, and had waited for the appearance of the Devon report to arm himself to the teeth with evidence of the evil state of land tenure in Ireland. But he had to fight against the selfishness and traditional rapacity of monopolists, and his Bill fell a victim to them as others had done before. In 1846 an Act was passed, founded on the recommendations of a Select Committee of the House of Commons which had been appointed in 1844 to reconsider the question, changing the principle of valuation of town lands based on a fixed scale of agricultural produce to a tenement valuation for poor-law rating, to be made upon an estimate of the net annual value of the rent for which, one year with another, the same might in its actual state be reasonably expected to let from year to year. The results, ' Appendix LIIa, extract from speech by Lord John Russell. if 262 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY however, obtained from the two systems of valuation were substantially the same. The same year Lord Lincoln,^ the Chief Secretary in Peel's administration, proposed a Bill at the instance of Sharman Crawford, providing that a landowner on resuming possession in certain cases should pay compensation for future unexhausted improvements made by the tenant. This measure, which, like Stanley's of the year before, was based upon the report of the Devon Commission, passed safely through the second reading, but was then lost sight of in the resignation of Peel's Govern- ment. In 1847 Sharman Crawford once more introduced his measure of 1845, which provided for the extension of the Ulster custom to the rest of Ireland, but it was summarily rejected by a majority of 87. In 1848 Crawford again attempted to carry his measure, but in vain, although he reduced the majority against him to 23. The same year another Bill was introduced in the Lower House, this time by Sir William Somerville,^ the Chief Secretary, proposing to grant compensation in future for tenants' improvements and the increased value that might thereby accrue to their holdings. But it was finally dropped, the landlords regarding it with unconcealed suspicion, and the tenants, who had expected more, with disappointment It was also in the same year that a Land Improvement Act was passed for the establishment of a Commission with funds at its disposal, which were to be advanced to the landlords for the improvement of land and repaid within limited periods. An Irish Tenants' League was also formed in 1 848 for the purpose of extending the Ulster Custom of tenant-right to the rest of Ireland ; and the same year, in order to put a check upon the multitude of clearances that had taken place during the famine, and were still in progress, an Eviction Act was passed, compelling landlords to give forty-eight hours' notice to the poor-law guardians of their intention to carry out an eviction, so that provision might be made in time for the admission of the outcasts into the workhouse. In 1849 the Encumbered Estates Act was, as has been said, carried through Parliament. This measure was a truly remark- able piece of legislation for the benefit of Ireland ; and the pity of it was that Burke was not alive to expose it, nor Swift to ironically praise it. In fact, a landlord Parliament had uncon- sciously passed a measure which was nothing less than an edict of confiscation of the Irish land and which not only hit theoccu- * Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham, fifth Duke of Newcastle (1811-1864); had the management of the War Office from June 12, 1854, to February I, 1855. ^ Sir William Meredyth Somerville, Baron Athlumney in the peerage of Ireland, and Baron Meredyth in that of the United Kingdom {1802-1873); Chief Secretary from 1847 (July) till February 1852, when Lord John Russell's Ministry fell. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 263 piers, but the owners themselves. Landlords, gradually becom- ing more and more impoverished during a course of years, had, in a multitude of instances, heavily charged their estates. In many cases their own excesses of expenditure were to blame, but in some this course of action was dictated by a natural solicitude for the maintenance of their families; and, as the value of their land had been increasing for a long time, these encumbrances could not always be deemed an evidence of ex- travagance. The great famine, however, which had just deso- lated the land, had ruined these men in hundreds, their rentals having diminished one-half, whilst their debts were often swollen in proportion. Moreover, the process of selling encumbered estates in Ireland had always been tedious and costly in the extreme; indeed, this was one of the reasons why so many encumbered estates existed, and this difficulty at such a time rendered their condition all the more embarrassed. Before a final settlement could be arrived at between landlord and creditor by means of a sale, the various encumbrances and other in- terests had to be dealt with. Mortgagees indeed might obtain a decree for sale in the Court of Chancery, but the laborious and ruinous process of working it out often rendered it worse than useless. Thus a large part of the Irish land was practically un- saleable. In view of this sufflamination of procedure the Govern- ment, at Peel's instigation, proposed to throw these burdened lands in a mass upon the market, and thus to transfer them bodily to a new race of owners, more fitted, in their opinion, to discharge the responsible duties of property. With this intent an Act was passed on July 28, 1849, which was described by Sugden,^ the great equity lawyer, as a measure " removing from property the wise safeguards which the Habeas Corpus Act had secured for persons." By the time it had come into play hundreds of encumbered estates had passed into the power of the Court of Chancery, which was the only tribunal through which they could be sold, although the process was insufferably slow and costly. The new measure created a Court for the special purpose of selling out embarrassed landlords. Under the terms of the Act every creditor, except the petitioner who was forcing the sale, and even the latter if he obtained the leave of the Court, was at liberty to bid for and become the possessor of a property, with an absolutely indefeasible title. The purchaser bought from the Government, and at the invita- tion of the Government, the complete and absolute ownership of ' Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, Baron St. Leonards (1781-1875). Lord Chancel- lor of Ireland in Peel's first administration, and again in Peel's second administration. In 1852 he was appointed Lord Chancellor of England on Lord Derby's accession to power. He was the author of the celebrated remark on Brougham's appointment to the Woolsack. & fy 264 IRELAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY the estate, discharged from all claims except those recorded in the deed of conveyance, and subject only to the existing con- tracts under which the tenants had rented it. Any permanent or other improvements on the land were specifically mentioned in the printed advertisements that were issued by the Land Court, and sold out and out to the purchaser under the direct sanction of Parliament by a judge appointed for the purpose. In fact, the improvements upon which tenants had expended their labour, exhausted their savings, and founded their expecta- tions of future remuneration were confiscated in order to soothe the itching palms of a pack of usurers, who took as much in- terest in the welfare of the Irish people as a man feels in that of the maggots that run upon his cheese. The purchaser, more- over, was given the full legal right of determining the existing yearly tenancies, and as the tenants were as a rule unprotected by lease, and the law under which the estates were sold con- tained no recognition of their right to their own improvements, the rents were raised on some of those estates which actually derived the greater part of their value from recent tenants' improvements. The result of the Act proceeded as surely as a law of Nature. Lands with rentals in the aggregate of hundreds of thousands a year were suddenly thrown upon the market ; and estates, valued a few years before at more than twenty years' purchase, sold for half or even a third of that amount. Thousands of creditors, who in a sudden panic had called in their demands, lost debts at one time perfectly secure, and time-honoured families, whose estates were not encumbered to much more than half their value, were sold out and reduced to beggary ; whilst the grasping incumbrancers escaped all participation in the effects of the great famine, and forgot their duty to humanity in ministering to the relief of greed.^ The malignancy of the Act was aggravated by the fact that the occupying tenants on the majority of these estates had im- proved their farms, and in this way had become morally entitled to concurrent rights in them ; for these rights, sometimes amount- ing to joint ownership, were ruthlessly destroyed by the above- mentioned provision which released purchasers from all such and similar claims. In fact, estates upon which the custom of tenant- right prevailed were sold to purchasers who actually bought them with the intention of robbing the tenants of that right, and who were thus enabled, in view of a future increased rent, to outbid competitors who would have refrained from violating it. After a certain period of depression had elapsed, the price of land recovered itself, but the Encumbered Estates Act was renewed, and between the years 1850 and 1901 about one-sixth 1 Appendix LIIb, quotations from Gerald Fitzgibbon and John Stuart MilL THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT 265 part of the soil of Ireland was transferred under the provisions of the law. Between October 1849 and August 1857 the num- ber of purchasers or new landlords amounted to 7489, of which 7,180 were natives of Ireland, and 309 Englishmen, Scotchmen, or foreigners. The total sum realized by these sales amounted to ;^2047S,956, of which £\7fil9,yi\ was Irish capital. Thus nine-tenths of the estates that were sold fell, contrary to the hopes and expectations of the Government, into the hands of impecunious Irishmen, some of whom bought cheap in order to sell again at a profit, and thus became jobbers in land of the worst type ; but most of the vendees retained their possessions, and, having usually borrowed half the purchase money, raised the rents in order to meet the accruing interest. In this way was brought about, through the injudicious nurs- ing of the rulers of Ireland, a palingenesis of the almost extinct race of middlemen, the curse of eighteenth century Ireland. In fact, the majority of the cases of harsh eviction, rack-renting, and other unjustifiable conduct in the treatment of the Irish cottier during the next forty years may be traced to this brood, — the creation of the Encumbered Estates Act. In such manner did the boasted measure, which was hailed at the time by its advocates as the panacea of every Irish distemper, pave the way for a new land question. The rulers of Ireland had tried to solve the Irish land difficulty by a policy of evasion, which was not inconsistent with the obliquity of their previous Iwsh rule, and was most dama