to the arena of politics, Molyneux's chief claim to remembrance rests
upon a work published by him in favour of the rights of the Irish
Parliament in the last year but one of the seventeenth century, only
seven years therefore after the treaty of Limerick.
As one of the members of the Dublin University he had every opportunity
of judging how the grasp which the English Parliament maintained by
means of the obsolete machinery of Poynings' Act was steadily throttling
and benumbing all Irish enterprise. In 1698 his famous remonstrance,
known as "The Case of Ireland being bound by Act of Parliament made in
England," appeared, with a dedication to King William. It at once
created an immense sensation, was fiercely condemned as seditious and
libellous by the English Parliament, by whom, as a mark of its utter
abhorrence, it was condemned to be burned by the common hangman.
Few things will give a clearer idea of the extraordinarily exasperated
state of politics at the time than to read the remonstrance which
produced so tremendous a storm. Take, for example, the words with which
the earlier portion of it closes, and which are worth studying, if only
for the impressive dignity of their style, which not a little
foreshadows Burke's majestic prose:--
"To conclude, I think it highly inconvenient for England to assume this
authority over the kingdom of Ireland, I believe there will need no
great arguments to convince the wise assembly of English senators how
inconvenient it may be to England to do that which may make the lords
and the people of Ireland think that they are not well used, and may
drive them to discontent. The laws and liberties of England were granted
above five hundred years ago to the people of Ireland, upon their
submission to the Crown of England, with a design to keep them in the
allegiance of the king of England. How consistent it may be with true
policy to do that which the people of Ireland may think an invasion of
their rights and liberties, I do most humbly submit to the Parliament of
England to consider. They are men of great wisdom, honour, and justice,
and know how to prevent all future inconveniences. We have heard great
outcries, and deservedly, on breaking the edict of Nantes, and other
stipulations. How far the breaking our constitution, which has been of
five hundred years standing exceeded these, I leave the world to judge."
In another place Molyneux vindicates the dignity of a Parliament in
words of singular force and moderation:--
"The rights of Parliament should be preserved sacred and inviolable
wherever they are found. This kind of government, once so universal all
over Europe, is now almost vanished amongst the nations thereof. Our
king's dominions are the only supporters of this most noble Gothic
constitution, save only what little remains may be found thereof in
Poland. We should not therefore make so light of that sort of
legislature, and, as it were, abolish it in one kingdom of the three
wherein it appears, but rather cherish and encourage it wherever we
meet it[14]."
[14] "The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament made in
England." By William Molyneux, Esq., Dublin.
For a remonstrance so dignified, couched in language so respectful,
burning by the common hangman seems a hard lot. The disgrace, if such it
was, does not appear to have very deeply penetrated its author, who
pursued the even tenour of his way, and the same year paid a visit to
his friend John Locke, on the return journey from which visit he
unfortunately caught a chill, from the effects of which he died the
following October. After his death the momentary stir which his
eloquence had created died out, as the circles left by the falling of a
stone die out upon some stagnant pool, until nearly a quarter of a
century later a much more violent splash again aroused attention, and a
far less pacific exponent of Irish abuses than Molyneux sprang fiercely
into the turmoil.
Jonathan Swift had been eleven years Dean of St. Patrick's before he
produced those famous letters which have left their mark so indelibly
upon the course of Irish politics. Swift's part in this Stygian pool of
the eighteenth century is rather a difficult one to explain. He was not
in any sense an Irish champion, indeed, objected to being called an
Irishman at all, and regarded his life in Ireland as one of all but
unendurable banishment. He was a vehement High Churchman, and looked
upon the existing penal proscription under which the Catholics lay as
not merely desirable, but indispensable. At the same time it would be
quite untrue to suppose, as is sometimes done, that he merely made a
cat's-paw of Irish politics in order to bring himself back into public
notice. He was a man of intense and even passionate sense of justice,
and the state of affairs in the Ireland of his day, the tyranny and
political dishonesty which stalked in high places, the degradation and
steadily-increasing misery in which the mass of the people were sunk,
were enough to lash far less scathing powers of sarcasm than he
possessed to their highest possible pitch of expression.
[Illustration: DEAN SWIFT. (_From an engraving by Fourdinier after
Jervis_.)]
The cause that drew forth the famous Drapier letters--why Swift chose to
spell the word _draper_ with an _i_ no one has ever explained--appears
at first sight hardly worthy of the occasion. Ireland wanted a copper
coinage, and Walpole, who was then the Prime Minister, had given a
patent for the purpose to a person called Wood, part of the profits of
which patent were to go to the Duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress.
There seems no reason to think that the pennies produced by Wood were in
any way inferior to the existing English ones, and Sir Isaac Newton--who
was at the time Master of the Mint--declared that, if anything, they
were rather better. The real wrong, the real insult, was that the patent
was granted by the Minister without reference to the Lord-Lieutenant, to
the Irish Parliament, or to any single human being in Ireland. It was a
proof the more of that total indifference with which the interests of
Ireland were regarded, and it was upon this score that Swift's wrath
exploded like a bomb.
The line he chose to take was to attack the patent, not as a monstrous
job--which undoubtedly it was--but from the point of view of the value
of the pennies. Assuming the character of a tradesman, he adjured all
classes of the community, down to the very beggars, not to be induced to
accept them. Assured them that for the benefit of Mr. Wood, "a mean man,
a hardware dealer," every human being in Ireland was about to be
deliberately robbed and ruined. His logic sounded unanswerable to the
ignorant. His diatribes produced the most extraordinary effect. A
terrific panic set in, and so overwhelming was the sensation that the
Ministers in the end found it necessary to cancel the patent, and
suspend the issue of Wood's halfpence. For the first time in Irish
history public opinion, unsupported by arms, had carried its point: an
epoch of vast importance in the history of every country.
That Swift knew perfectly well that the actual value of the copper
coinage was not a matter of profound importance may be taken for
granted, and so far his conduct is certainly not justifiable on any very
strict rule of ethics. If the pennies were of small importance, however,
there were other things that were of more. Little of a patriot as he
was, little as he was supposed, or supposed himself, to care for Ireland
or Irishmen, his wrath burnt fiercely at what he saw around him. He saw,
too, his own wrongs, as others have done before and since, "writ large"
in the wrongs of the country, and resented them as such. With his keen,
practical knowledge of men, he knew, moreover, how thick was that
medium, born of prejudice and ignorance, through which he had to
pierce--a medium through which nothing less pointed than the forked
lightnings of his own terrible wit could have found its way. Whatever
his motives were, his success at least is indisputable. High Churchman
as he was, vehement anti-papist as he was, he became from that moment,
and remained to the hour of his death, beyond all question the most
popular man in Ireland and his name was ever afterwards upon the lips of
all who aspired to promote the best interests and prosperity of
their country.
XLVIIL
HENRY FLOOD.
The forty years which follow maybe passed rapidly over. They were years
of absolute tranquillity in Ireland, but beyond that rather negative
praise little of good can be reported of them. Public opinion was to all
practical purposes dead, and the functions of Parliament were little
more than nominal. Unlike the English one, the Irish Parliament had by
the nature of its constitution, no natural termination, save by a
dissolution, or by the death of the sovereign. Thus George the Second's
Irish Parliament sat for no less than thirty-three years, from the
beginning to the end of his reign. The sessions, too, had gradually come
to be, not annual as in England, but biennial, the Lord-Lieutenant
spending as a rule only six months in every two years in Ireland. In his
absence all power was vested in the hands of the Lords Justices, of whom
the most conspicuous during this period were the three successive
archbishops of Armagh, namely, Swift's opponent Boulter, Hoadly, and
Stone, all three Englishmen, and devoted to what was known as the
"English interest," who governed the country by the aid of a certain
number of great
Delightful talk! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
_Thomson_
LORD LIEUTENANT FROM 1745 TO 1754.
Irish borough-owners, or Undertakers, who "undertook" to carry on the
king's business in consideration of receiving the lion's share of the
patronage, which they distributed amongst their own adherents. Of these
borough-owners Lord Shannon was the happy possessor of no less than
sixteen seats, while others had eight, ten, twelve, or more, which were
regularly and openly let out to hire to the Government. Efforts were
from time to time made by the more independent members to curtail these
abuses, and to recover some degree of independence for the Parliament,
but for a long time their efforts were without avail, and owing to the
nature of its constitution, it was all but impossible to bring public
opinion to bear upon its proceedings, so that the only vestige of
independence shown was when a collision occurred between the selfish
interests of those in whose hands all power was thus concentrated.
[Illustration: PHILIP Earl of CHESTERFIELD.]
About 1743 some stir began to be aroused by a succession of statements
published by Charles Lucas, a Dublin apothecary, in the _Freeman's
Journal_, a newspaper started by him, and in which he vehemently
denounced the venality of Parliament, and loudly asserted the inherent
right of Ireland to govern itself, a right of which it had only been
formally deprived by the Declaratory Act of George I[15]. So unequivocal
was his language that the grand jury of Dublin at last gave orders for
his addresses to be burnt, and in 1749 a warrant was issued for his
apprehension, whereupon he fled to England, and did not return until
many years later, when he was at once elected member for Dublin. His
speeches in the House of Commons seem never to have produced an effect
at all comparable with that of his writings, but he gave a constant and
important support to the patriotic party, which had now formed itself
into a small but influential opposition under the leadership of
Henry Flood.
[15] English Statutes, 6 Geo. c. 5.
Flood and Grattan are by far the two greatest of those orators and
statesmen whose eloquence lit up the debates of the Irish House of
Commons during its brief period of brilliancy, and as such will require,
even in so hasty a sketch as this, to be dwelt upon at some length.
Since a good deal of the same ground will have to be gone over in
succeeding chapters, it seems best to explain here those points which
affected them personally, and to show as far as possible in what
relationship they stood one to the other.
Henry Flood was born near Kilkenny in 1732, and was the son of the Chief
Justice of the King's Bench. At sixteen he went to Trinity College,
Dublin, and afterwards to Oxford. In 1759 he entered the Irish
Parliament as member for Kilkenny, and at once threw himself vehemently
upon the popular side, his first speech being an attack upon the Primate
Stone. As an orator his style appears to have been laboured, and his
speeches brim over in all directions with forced illustrations and
metaphors, but his powers of argument and debate were remarkably strong.
For about ten years he waged a continual struggle against the
Government, urging especially a limitation to the duration of Parliament
and losing no opportunity of asserting its claims to independence, or of
attacking the pension list, which under the system then prevailing grew
steadily from year to year. Upon reform he also early fixed his
attention, although, unlike Grattan, he was from the beginning to the
end of his life steadily hostile to all proposals for giving the
franchise to the Catholics.
[Illustration: RIGHT HON. HENRY FLOOD. (_After a drawing by
Comerford_.)]
During the viceroyalty of Lord Townshend, who became Lord-Lieutenant in
1767, an Octennial Bill was passed limiting the duration of Parliament
to eight years, but this momentary gleam of better things was not
sustained; on the contrary, corruption was, under his rule, carried even
further than it had been before. Under the plea of breaking the power of
the borough-owners, he set himself deliberately to make the whole
Parliament subservient to Government, thus practically depriving it of
what little vestige of independence it still possessed. A succession of
struggles took place, chiefly over Money Bills, the more independent
members, under Flood's leadership, claiming for the Irish House of
Commons the complete control of the national purse, a claim as uniformly
resisted by the Government. Though almost invariably defeated on a
division in the end the opposition were to a great degree successful,
and in 1773 the hated viceroy was recalled.
This was the moment at which Flood stood higher in his countrymen's
estimation than was ever again the case. He was identified with all that
was best in their aspirations, and no shadow of self-seeking had as yet
dimmed the brightness of his fame. It was very different with his next
step. Lord Townshend was succeeded by Lord Harcourt, whose
administration at first promised to be a shade more liberal and less
corrupt than that of his predecessors. Of this administration Flood, to
his own misfortune, became a member. What his motives were it is rather
difficult to say. He was a rich man, and therefore had no temptation to
sell or stifle his opinions for place. Whatever they were, it is clear,
from letters still extant, that he not only accepted but solicited
office. He was made Vice-Treasurer, a post hitherto reserved for
Englishmen, at a salary of £3,500 a year.
Although, as Mr. Lecky has pointed out, no actual stain of dishonour
attaches to Flood in consequence of this step, there can be no doubt
that it was a grave error, and that he lived to repent it bitterly. For
the next seven years not only was he forced to keep silence as regards
all those points he had previously advocated so warmly, but, as a member
of the Government, he actually helped to uphold some of the most
damaging of the restraints laid upon Irish trade and prosperity. Upon
the outbreak of the America war a two years' embargo was laid upon
Ireland, and a force of 4,000 men raised and despatched to America at
its expense. The state of defencelessness in which this left the country
led, as will be seen in a succeeding chapter, to a great volunteer
movement, in which all classes and creeds joined enthusiastically. Flood
was unable to resist the contagion. His voice was once again heard upon
the liberal side. He flung away the trammels of office, surrendered his
large salary, and returned to his old friends. He never, however,
regained his old place. A greater man had in the meanwhile risen to the
front, and in Henry Grattan Irish aspiration had found its clearest and
strongest voice.
This was a source of profound mortification to Flood, and led eventually
to a bitter quarrel between these two men--patriots in the best sense
both of them. Flood tried to outbid Grattan by pushing the concessions
won from England in the moment of her difficulty yet further, and by
making use of the volunteers as a lever to enforce his demands. This
Grattan honourably, whether wisely or not, resisted, and the Parliament
supported his resistance. After an unsuccessful attempt to carry a
Reform Bill, Flood retired, to a great degree, from Irish public life,
and not long afterwards succeeded in getting a seat in the English
Parliament. His oratory there proved a failure. He was "an oak of the
forest too great and old," as Grattan said, "to be transplanted at
fifty." This failure was a fresh and a yet more mortifying
disappointment, and his end was a gloomy and somewhat obscure one, but
he will always be remembered with gratitude as one of the first who in
the Irish Parliament lifted his voice against those restrictions under
which the prosperity of the country lay shackled and all but dead.
XLIX.
HENRY GRATTAN.
"Great men," wrote Sydney Smith, sixty years ago in an article in _The
Edinburgh Review_, "hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in
their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he lived in the days
of Grattan? Who has not turned to him for comfort from the false friends
and open enemies of Ireland? Who did not remember him in the days of its
burnings, wastings, and murders?"
Grattan is, indeed, pre-eminently the Irish politician to whom other
Irish politicians--however diverse their views or convictions--turn
unanimously with the common sense of admiration and homage. Two
characteristics--usually supposed in Ireland to be inherently
antagonistic--met harmoniously in him. He was consistently loyal and he
was consistently patriotic. From the beginning to the end of his career
his patriotism never hindered him either from risking his popularity
whenever he considered duty or the necessities of the case required him
to do so; a resolution which more than once brought him into sharp
collision with his countrymen, on one occasion even at some little risk
to himself.
[Illustration: RIGHT HON. HENRY GRATTAN, M.P. _(From an engraving by
Godby after Pope_.)]
In 1775 he entered Parliament--sixteen years, therefore, later than
Flood--being brought in by his friend Lord Charlemont. The struggle with
America was then beginning, and all Grattan's sympathies went with those
colonists who were battling for their own independence. His eloquence
from the moment it was first heard produced an extraordinary effect, and
when the volunteer movement broke out he threw himself heartily into it,
and availed himself of it to press in the Irish Parliament for those
measures of free trade and self-government upon which his heart was set
When the first of these measures was carried, he brought forward the
famous Declaration of Rights, embodying the demand for independence, a
demand which, in the first instance, he had to defend almost
single-handed. Many of his best friends hung back, believing the time to
be not yet ripe for such a proposal. Even Edmund Burke--the life-long
and passionate friend of Ireland--cried out in alarm "Will no one speak
to that madman? Will no one stop that madman Grattan?" The madman,
however, went on undismayed. His words flew like wild-fire over the
country. He was supported in his motion by eighteen counties, by
addresses from the grand juries, and by resolutions from the volunteers.
By 1782, the impulse had grown so strong that it could no longer be
resisted. An address in favour of Grattan's Declaration of Rights was
carried enthusiastically in April by the Irish Parliament, and so
impressed was the Government by the determined attitude of the country
that, by the 27th of May the Viceroy was empowered to announce the
concurrence of the English legislature. The Declaratory Act of George I.
was then repealed by the English Parliament. Bills were immediately
afterwards passed by the Irish one embodying the Declaration of Rights,
also a biennial Mutiny Act, and an Act validating the marriage of
Dissenters, while, above all, Poynings' Act, which had so long fettered
its free action, was once for all repealed.
This was the happiest moment of Grattan's life. The country, with a
burst of spontaneous gratitude, voted him a grant of £100,000. This sum
he declined, but in the end was persuaded, with some reluctance, to take
half. A period of brief, but while it lasted unquestionable prosperity
spread over the country. In Dublin, public buildings sprang up in all
directions; a bright little society flourished and enjoyed itself; trade
too prospered to a degree never hitherto known. Between England and
Ireland, however, the commercial restrictions were still in force. The
condition of the Irish Catholics, though latterly to some degree
alleviated, was still one of all but unendurable oppression. Reform,
too, was as far off as ever, and corruption had increased rather than
diminished, owing to the greatly increased importance of the Parliament.
In 1789 an unfortunate quarrel sprang up between the two legislatures
over the appointment of a Regent, rendered necessary by the temporary
insanity of George III., and this difference was afterwards used as an
argument in favour of a legislative Union. In 1793 a measure of
half-emancipation was granted, Roman Catholics being admitted to vote,
though not to sit in Parliament, an anomalous distinction giving power
to the ignorant, yet still keeping the fittest men out of public life.
Upon the arrival of Lord Fitzwilliam as Viceroy in 1795, it was
fervently believed that full emancipation was at last about to be
granted, and Grattan brought in a Bill to that effect. These hopes, as
will presently be seen, were destined to be bitterly disappointed. Lord
Fitzwilliam was recalled, and from that moment Grattan was doomed to
stand helplessly by and watch the destruction of that edifice which he
had spent his whole life to erect and strengthen. The country grew more
and more restless, and it was plain to all who could read the signs of
the times that, unless discontent was in some way allayed, a rebellion
was sure to break out. In 1798 this long foreseen calamity occurred, but
before it did so, Grattan had retired heart-broken and despairing into
private life.
He re-emerged to plead, vehemently but fruitlessly, against the Union
which was passed the following spring. As will be seen, when we reach
that period the fashion in which that act was carried made it difficult
for an honourable man, however loyal--and no man, it must be repeated,
was more steadily loyal than Henry Grattan--to give it his support. He
believed too firmly that Ireland could work out its own destiny best by
the aid of a separate Parliament, and to this opinion he throughout his
life clung. In his own words, "The two countries from their size must
stand together--united _quoad_ nature--distinct _quoad_ legislation."