He held that every man should love his country, and that every
Irishman did; but he could not do violence to the most sacred
instincts of his nature, by any zeal to uphold a system of government
which dealt with Ireland as the legitimate prey of plunderers.
In other lands men were patriotic because they loved their country. He
loved his country too well to be a patriot. Love of country more than
any other passion had prompted to the purest patriotism; but who would
do heroic acts to maintain a swarm of harpies to pollute and lacerate
his country? Who would have his zeal aglow to maintain the desolators
of his native land?
Hugh Bronte gave out his views with a warmth that betrayed _animus_
arising from personal injury. He was therefore declared to be
disloyal, and that at a time when there was danger in disloyalty.
About the time Hugh Bronte was enunciating these sentiments the rising
of the United Irishmen took place, and the pitched battle of
Ballynahinch was fought, in 1798. It has always seemed to me strange
that he should have passed through those times in peace, for the
"Welsh horse" devastated the country far and wide after the battle,
and hundreds of innocent people were shot down like dogs. Besides,
William, his second son, was a United Irishman, and present at the
battle of Ballynahinch. After the battle he was pursued by cavalry,
who fired at him repeatedly, but he led them into a bog and escaped.
Hugh Bronte lived in a secluded glen; but the "Welsh horse" visited
his house, and after a short parley with his wife, in which neither
understood the other, one of the soldiers struck a light into the
thatch. Hugh suddenly appeared and spoke to the Welsh soldiers in
Irish, which it was supposed they understood, as being akin to their
own language, and they joined heartily with him in extinguishing the
flames. They joined still more heartily with Hugh in disposing of his
stock of whiskey. The inability of Hugh's neighbors to communicate
with the Welsh may account for the fact that a man well known for such
advanced and disloyal views passed safely through those troublous
times.
Having completed his negative assertions, or paradoxes, Hugh Bronte
proceeded to state his theories, or positive conclusions. He laid it
down as an axiom that justice must be at the root of all good
government, and he declared emphatically what O'Connell and Agent
Townsend have since maintained, that the Irish were the most
justice-loving people in the world. He also held that unjust laws were
the fruitful source of all the turbulence and crime in Ireland.
Justice, he said, was nothing very grand. It meant simply that every
man should have his own by legal right. This definition brought him to
his tenant-right theory. In illustration he returned to the story of
his ancestral home and the wrongs of his ancestors. He maintained that
when his forefathers drained the bog and improved the land they were
entitled to every ounce of improvement they had made. The landlord had
done nothing for the land. He never went near it, and had never spent
one farthing upon it, and he should not have been entitled to
confiscate to his own profit the additional value given to it by the
labor of another.
He further declared that a just and wise legislature should secure to
every man, high and low, the fruits of his own labor, and he
maintained that such simple, natural justice would produce confidence
in Ireland, and that confidence would beget content and industry, and
that a contented and industrious people would soon learn to love both
king and country, and make Ireland happy and England strong. Just laws
would silence the agitator and the blunderbuss, and range the people
on the side of the rulers.
Hugh Bronte preached his revolutionary doctrines of simple justice in
the cheerless east wind, but a little seed, carried I know not how,
took root in genial soil, and the revolutionary doctrine of "_Every
man his own_," at which the political parsons used to cry "Anathema,"
and the short-sighted politicians used to shout "confiscation," has
become one of the commonplaces of the modern reformation programme of
fair play. The doctrine of common honesty enunciated by Hugh Bronte
has lately received the approval of Liberal and Conservative
governments in what is known as "Tenant-Right," or "The Ulster
Custom."
And here it is interesting to note that Hugh Bronte was a tenant on
the estate of Sharman Crawford, a landlord who first took up the cause
of Irish tenant-right, and after spending a long life in its advocacy,
bequeathed its defence to his sons and daughters.
Whether Hugh Bronte's doctrines on the relation of landlord and tenant
ever came to the ears of the Crawford family, I know not. I think it
is exceedingly probable that they heard of the remarkable man on their
estate, and of his stories and theories. The Crawfords were never
absentee landlords, and, as men of high Christian character, they
always took a personal interest in their tenants, and would not, I
believe, have failed to note any special intellectual activity among
them. It is certain, however, that the Sharman Crawfords, father and
son in succession, spent their lives largely in the propagation of
Hugh Bronte's views, both in the House of Commons and throughout the
country, and it seems to me not only probable and possible, but almost
certain, that Bronte's eloquent and passionate arguments, dropped into
the justice-loving minds of the Crawfords,[5] _may_ have been the
primary seeds of the great agrarian harvest which, with the full
sanction of the legislature, is now being reaped by the farmers in
Ireland.
[5] In 1833 W. Sharman Crawford published a pamphlet embodying Hugh
Bronte's doctrines, and making suggestions for the good
government of Ireland. The pamphlet was republished by Doctor W.
H. Dodd, Q. C., in 1892. Councillor Dodd is an old pupil of the
Ballynaskeagh school. He received his early education from Mr.
McKee, the friend of the Brontes, and he was acquainted, as a
student, with Charlotte Bronte's uncles. The following is his
summary of the political portion of the pamphlet:
"Mr. Crawford anticipates, as the probable result of refusing
self government to Ireland, the growth of secret societies, the
influence of agitation, and the necessity of resorting to force
in the government of the country. He touches upon the question
of private bill legislation, of a reform of the grand jury
system, of county government. He points out that the creation of
county councils, without having a central body to control them,
is not desirable. And he suggests the creation of a local
legislature for Irish affairs, combined with representation in
the Imperial Parliament, as the true method of preserving the
Union, as the surest bond of the connection between the two
countries, and as essentially necessary to tranquillity in
Ireland.
"He refers, among other measures, to the disestablishment of the
Irish Church, and the reform of the relations between landlord
and tenant, as being pressing.
"The arguments against his views are met and answered. One would
think he had read some of the speeches lately delivered, so apt
is his reply.
"It is curious to note the length of time Ireland has had to
wait for the reforms he thought urgent, and it is sad to reflect
how much suffering has been endured and how much blood has been
shed because the men of his time would not listen to his
words."
Should my surmise be correct, and I have never doubted for forty years
that it is so, great results have flowed from the inhuman treatment of
a child. Had little Bronte been left in the luxury of his father's
home, it is not likely he would ever have been shaken up to original
and independent thought; but the iron of cruel wrong had entered into
his soul, and he felt that all was not well. He owed no gratitude to
the existing order of things, and had no compunction in denouncing it;
and having thought out and formulated a new theory, he proclaimed it
with the strong conviction of an apostle who sees salvation in his
gospel alone.
The daring character of Hugh Bronte's speculations in their
paradoxical form, combined with the fierce energy of his manner in
making them known, secured for him an audience and an amount of
consideration to which, as an uneducated working man, he could have
had no claim. Indeed, Hugh Bronte's revolutionary doctrines were known
far beyond his own immediate neighborhood, and while many said he was
mad, some declared that he only saw a little clearer than his
contemporaries.