_Memoirs of Captain Rock_, _the celebrated Irish Chieftain_; _with some
Account of his Ancestors_. Written by Himself. Fourth Edition. 12mo.
London, 1824.
* * * * *
THIS agreeable and witty book is generally supposed to have been written
by Mr. Thomas Moore, a gentleman of small stature, but full of genius,
and a steady friend of all that is honourable and just. He has here
borrowed the name of a celebrated Irish leader, to typify that spirit of
violence and insurrection which is necessarily generated by systematic
oppression, and rudely avenges its crimes; and the picture he has drawn
of its prevalence in that unhappy country is at once piteous and
frightful. Its effect in exciting our horror and indignation is in the
long run increased, we think—though at first it may seem counteracted—by
the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to
veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. We smile at
first, and are amused, and wonder, as we proceed, that the humorous
narrative should produce conviction and pity—shame, abhorrence, and
despair.
England seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs.
Brownrigg treated her apprentice—for which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged in
the first volume of the Newgate Calendar. Upon the whole, we think the
apprentice is better off than the Irishman; as Mrs. Brownrigg merely
starves and beats her, without any attempt to prohibit her from going to
any shop, or praying at any church her apprentice might select: and once
or twice, if we remember rightly, Brownrigg appears to have felt some
compassion. Not so Old England, who indulges rather in a steady
baseness, uniform brutality, and unrelenting oppression.
Let us select from this entertaining little book a short history of dear
Ireland, such as even some profligate idle member of the House of
Commons, voting as his master bids him, may perchance throw his eye upon,
and reflect for a moment upon the iniquity to which he lends his support.
For some centuries after the reign of Henry II., the Irish were killed
like game, by persons qualified or unqualified. Whether dogs were used
does not appear quite certain, though it is probable they were, spaniels
as well as pointers; and that, after a regular point by Basto, well
backed by Ponto and Cæsar, Mr. O’Donnel or Mr. O’Leary bolted from the
thicket, and were bagged by the English sportsman. With Henry II. came
in tithes, to which, in all probability, about one million of lives may
have been sacrificed in Ireland. In the reign of Edward I. the Irish who
were settled near the English requested that the benefit of the English
laws might be extended to them; but the remonstrance of the barons with
the hesitating king was in substance this: “You have made us a present of
these wild gentlemen, and we particularly request that no measures may be
adopted to check us in that full range of tyranny and oppression in which
we consider the value of such a gift to consist. You might as well give
us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat.”
This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and
the barons preserved their dive stock.
“Read ‘Orange faction’ (says Captain Rock) here and you have the
wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near six centuries, _in statu
quo_. The grand periodic year of the stoics, at the close of which
everything was to begin again, and the same events to be all reacted
in the same order, is, on a miniature scale, represented in the
history of the English Government in Ireland, every succeeding
century being but a new revolution of the same follies, the same
crimes, and the same turbulence that disgraced the former. But ‘Vive
l’ennemi!’ say I: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock,
at least, will prosper.
“And such was the result at the period of which I am speaking. The
rejection of a petition, so humble and so reasonable, was followed,
as a matter of course, by one of those daring rebellions into which
the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth. The
M’Cartys, the O’Briens, and the other Macs and O’s, who have been
kept on the alert by similar causes ever since, flew to arms under
the command of a chieftain of my family; and, as the proffered
_handle_ of the sword had been rejected, made their inexorable
masters at least feel its _edge_.”—(_pp._ 23–25.)
Fifty years afterwards the same request was renewed and refused. Up
again rose Mac and O, a _just and necessary war_ ensued; and after the
usual murders, the usual chains were replaced upon the Irishry. All
Irishmen were excluded from every species of office. It was high treason
to marry with the Irish blood, and highly penal to receive the Irish into
religious houses. War was waged also against their Thomas Moores, Samuel
Rogerses, and Walter Scotts, who went about the country harping and
singing against English oppression. No such turbulent guests were to be
received. The plan of making them poets-laureate, or converting them to
loyalty by pensions of £100 per annum, had not then been thought of.
They debarred the Irish even from the pleasure of running away, and fixed
them to the soil like negroes.
“I have thus selected,” says the historian of Rock, “cursorily and at
random, a few features of the reigns preceding the Reformation, in
order to show what good use was made of those three or four hundred
years in attaching the Irish people to their English governors; and
by what a gentle course of alternatives they were prepared for the
inoculation of a new religion, which was now about to be attempted
upon them by the same skilful and friendly hands.
“Henry VII. appears to have been the first monarch to whom it
occurred, that matters were not managed exactly as they ought in this
part of his dominions; and we find him—with a simplicity which is
still fresh and youthful among our rulers—expressing his _surprise_
that his subjects of this land should be so prone to faction and
rebellion, and that so little advantage had been hitherto derived
from the acquisitions of his predecessor, notwithstanding the
fruitfulness and natural advantages of Ireland. Surprising, indeed,
that a policy, such as we have been describing, should not have
converted the whole country into a perfect Atlantis of
happiness—should not have made it like the imaginary island of Sir
Thomas More, where ‘_tota insula velut una familia est_!’—most
stubborn, truly, and ungrateful, must that people be, upon whom, up
to the very hour in which I write, such a long and unvarying course
of penal laws, confiscations, and Insurrection Acts has been tried,
without making them in the least degree in love with their rulers.
“Heloise tells her tutor, Abelard, that the correction which he
inflicted upon her only served to increase the ardour of her
affection for him; but bayonets and hemp are no such ‘_amoris
stimuli_.’ One more characteristic anecdote of those times and I
have done. At the battle of Knocktow, in the reign of Henry VII.,
when that remarkable man, the Earl of Kildare, assisted by the great
O’Neal and other Irish chiefs, gained a victory over Clanricard of
Connaught, most important to the English Government, Lord
Gormanstown, after the battle, in the first insolence of success,
said, turning to the Earl of Kildare, ‘We have now slaughtered our
enemies, but, to complete the good deed, we must proceed yet further,
and—cut the throats of those Irish of our own party!’ Who can wonder
that the Rock family were active in those times?”—(pp. 33, 35.)
Henry VIII. persisted in all these outrages, and aggravated them by
insulting the prejudices of the people. England is almost the only
country in the world (even at present) where there is not some favourite
religious sport, where absurd lies, little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty
nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in
defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish
as one man. Such was the shrine of St. Kieran, the whole treasures of
which the satellites of that corpulent tyrant turned out into the street,
pillaged the sacred church of Clonmacnoise, scattered the holy nonsense
of the priests to the winds, and burnt the real and venerable crosier of
St. Patrick, fresh from the silversmith’s shop, and formed of the most
costly materials. Modern princes change the uniform of regiments; Henry
changed the religion of kingdoms, and was determined that the belief of
the Irish should undergo a radical and Protestant conversion. With what
success this attempt was made, the present state of Ireland is sufficient
evidence.
“Be not dismayed,” said Elizabeth, on hearing that O’Neal meditated some
designs against her government; “tell my friends, if he arise, it will
turn to their advantage—_there will be estates for those who want_.”
Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was destroyed by famine and the
sword, and near 600,000 acres forfeited to the crown, and distributed
among Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and good) butchered
the garrison of Limerick in cold blood, after Lord Deputy Gray had
selected 700 to be hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth,
three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced principally by the
absurd measures of this princess for the reformation of its religion.
The Catholic clergy, in consequence of these measures, abandoned their
cures, the churches fell to ruin, and the people were left without any
means of instruction. Add to these circumstances the murder of M’Mahon,
the imprisonment of O’Toole and O’Dogherty, and the kidnapping of
O’Donnel—all truly Anglo-Hibernian proceedings. The execution of the
laws was rendered detestable and intolerable by the queen’s officers of
justice. The spirit raised by these transactions, besides innumerable
smaller insurrections gave rise to the great wars of Desmond and Hugh
O’Neal; which, after they had worn out the ablest generals, discomfited
the choicest troops, exhausted the treasure, and embarrassed the
operations of Elizabeth, were terminated by the destruction of these two
ancient families, and by the confiscation of more than half the
territorial surface of the island. The last two years of O’Neal’s wars
cost Elizabeth £140,000 per annum, though the whole revenue of England at
that period fell considerably short of £500,000. Essex, after the
destruction of Norris, led into Ireland an army of above 20,000 men,
which was totally baffled and destroyed by Tyrone, within two years of
their landing. Such was the importance of Irish rebellions two centuries
before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew attempted to assassinate
the Lugan Earl—Mountjoy compelled the Irish rebels to massacre each
other. In the course of a few months 3,000 men were starved to death in
Tyrone. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Manson, and other commanders,
saw three children feeding on the flesh of their dead mother. Such were
the golden days of good Queen Bess!
By the rebellions of Dogherty, in the reign of James I., six northern
counties were confiscated, amounting to 500,000 acres. In the same
manner, 64,000 acres were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his
confiscations amount to nearly a million acres; and if Leland means
plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth of the whole kingdom
according to Newenham, and a tenth according to Sir W. Petty. The most
shocking and scandalous action in the reign of James, was his attack upon
the whole property of the province of Connaught, which he would have
effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to
gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confiscation. The Irish,
during the reign of James I., suffered under the _double_ evils of a
licentious soldiery and a religious persecution.
Charles I. took a bribe of £120,000 from his Irish subjects, to grant
them what in those days were called _Graces_, but in these days would be
denominated the Elements of Justice. The money was paid, but the graces
were never granted. One of these graces was curious enough: “That the
clergy were not to be permitted to keep henceforward any private prisons
of their own, but delinquents were to be committed to the public jails.”
The idea of a rector, with his own private jail full of Dissenters, is
the most ludicrous piece of tyranny we ever heard of. The troops in the
beginning of Charles’s reign were supported by the weekly fines levied
upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The
Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to
disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin—which object he effected after
a considerable skirmish with the priests. “The favourite object” (says
Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church)
“of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was _the utter
extermination_ of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.” The great
rebellion took place in this reign, and Ireland was one scene of blood
and cruelty and confiscation.
Cromwell began his career in Ireland by massacring for five days the
garrison of Drogheda, to whom quarter had been promised. Two millions
and a half of acres were confiscated. Whole towns were put up in lots,
and sold. The Catholics were banished from three-fourths of the kingdom,
and confined to Connaught. After a certain day, every Catholic found out
of Connaught was to be punished with death. Fleetwood complains
peevishly “that the people _do not transport readily_,” but adds, “_it is
doubtless a work in which the Lord will appear_.” Ten thousand Irish
were sent as recruits to the Spanish army.
“Such was _Cromwell’s_ way of settling the affairs of Ireland; and if
a nation _is_ to be ruined, this method is, perhaps, as good as any.
It is, at least, more humane than the slow, lingering process of
exclusion, disappointment, and degradation, by which their hearts are
worn out under more specious forms of tyranny; and that talent of
despatch which Molière attributes to one of his physicians is no
ordinary merit in a practitioner like Cromwell:—“C’est un homme
expéditif, qui aime à depêcher ses malades; et quand on à mourir,
cela se fait avec lui le plus vite du monde.” A certain military
Duke, who complains that Ireland is but half conquered, would, no
doubt, upon an emergency, try his hand in the same line of practice,
and, like that ‘stern hero’ Mirmillo, in the Dispensary,
“While others meanly take whole months to slay,
Despatch the grateful patient in a day!”
“Among other amiable enactments against the Catholics at this period,
the price of five pounds was set on the head of a Romish priest,
being exactly the same sum offered by the same legislators for the
head of a wolf. The Athenians, we are told, encouraged the
destruction of wolves by a similar reward (five drachms); but it does
not appear that these heathens bought up the heads of priests at the
same rate, such zeal in the cause of religion being reserved for
times of Christianity and Protestantism.”—(pp. 97–99.)
Nothing can show more strongly the light in which the Irish were held by
Cromwell than the correspondence with Henry Cromwell respecting the
peopling of Jamaica from Ireland. Secretary Thurloe sends to Henry, the
Lord Deputy in Ireland, to inform him that “a stock of Irish girls and
Irish young men are wanting for the peopling of Jamaica.” The answer of
Henry Cromwell is as follows:—“Concerning the supply of young men,
although we must use force in taking them up, _yet it being so much for
their own good_, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it
is not the least doubted but that you may have such a number of them as
you may think fit to make use of on this account.
“I shall not need repeat anything respecting the girls, not doubting to
answer your expectations to the full _in that_; and I think it might be
of like advantage to your affairs there and ours here if you should think
fit to send 1,500 or 2,000 boys to the place above mentioned. _We can
well spare them_; and who knows but that it may be the means of making
them Englishmen—I mean, rather, Christians? As for the girls, I suppose
you will make provisions of clothes, and other accommodations for them.”
Upon this, Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell that the council have voted
4,000 _girls_, _and as many boys_, to go to Jamaica.
Every Catholic priest found in Ireland was hanged, and five pounds paid
to the informer.
“About the years 1652 and 1653,” says Colonel Lawrence, in his _Interests
of Ireland_, “the plague and famine had so swept away whole counties,
that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living
creature, either man, or beast, or bird, they being all dead, or had
quitted those desolate places. Our soldiers would tell stories of the
places where they saw smoke—it was so rare to see either smoke by day or
fire or candle by night.” In this manner did the Irish live and die
under Cromwell, suffering by the sword, famine, pestilence, and
persecution, beholding the confiscation of a kingdom and the banishment
of a race. “So that there perished,” says Sir W. Petty, “in the year
1641, 650,000 human beings, whose bloods somebody must atone for to God
and the King!”
In the reign of Charles II., by the Act of Settlement, four millions and
a half of acres were for ever taken from the Irish. “This country,” says
the Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant in 1675, “has been perpetually rent
and torn since his Majesty’s restoration. I can compare it to nothing
better than the flinging the reward on the death of a deer among the pack
of hounds, where every one pulls and tears where he can for himself.”
All wool grown in Ireland was, by Act of Parliament, compelled to be sold
to England; and Irish cattle were excluded from England. The English,
however, were pleased to accept 30,000 head of cattle, sent as a gift
from Ireland to the sufferers in the great fire! and the first day of the
Sessions, after this act of munificence, the Parliament passed fresh acts
of exclusion against the productions of that country.
“Among the many anomalous situations in which the Irish have been placed,
by those ‘marriage vows, false as dicers’ oaths,’ which bind their
country to England, the dilemma in which they found themselves at the
Revolution was not the less perplexing or cruel. If they were loyal to
the King _de jure_, they were hanged by the King _de facto_; and if they
escaped with life from the King _de facto_, it was but to be plundered
and proscribed by the King _de jure_ afterwards.
“‘Hac _gener_ atque _socer_ coeant mercede suorum.’—VIRGIL.
“‘In a manner so summary, prompt, and high mettled,
Twixt father and son-in-law matters were settled.’
“In fact, most of the outlawries in Ireland were for treason committed
the very day on which the Prince and Princess of Orange accepted the
crown in the Banqueting-house; though the news of this event could not
possibly have reached the other side of the Channel on the same day, and
the Lord-Lieutenant of King James, with an army to enforce obedience, was
at that time in actual possession of the government, so little was common
sense consulted, or the mere decency of forms observed, by that rapacious
spirit, which nothing less than the confiscation of the whole island
could satisfy; and which having, in the reign of James I. and at the
Restoration, despoiled the natives of no less than ten millions six
hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven acres, now
added to its plunder one million sixty thousand seven hundred and
ninety-two acres more, being the amount altogether (according to Lord
Clare’s calculation) of the whole superficial contents of the island!
“Thus, not only had _all_ Ireland suffered confiscation in the course
of this century, but no inconsiderable portion of it had been twice
and even thrice confiscated. Well might Lord Clare say, ‘that the
situation of the Irish nation, at the Revolution, stands unparalleled
in the history of the inhabited world.’” (pp. 111–113.)
By the Articles of Limerick, the Irish were promised the free exercise of
their religion; but from that period to the year 1788, every year
produced some fresh penalty against that religion, some liberty was
abridged, some right impaired, or some suffering increased. By acts in
King William’s reign, they were prevented from being solicitors. No
Catholic was allowed to marry a Protestant; and any Catholic who sent a
son to Catholic countries for education was to forfeit all his lands. In
the reign of Queen Anne, any son of a Catholic who chose to turn
Protestant got possession of the father’s estate. No Papist was allowed
to purchase freehold property, or to take a lease for more than thirty
years. If a Protestant dies intestate, the estate is to go to the next
_Protestant_ heir, though all to the tenth generation should be Catholic.
In the same manner, if a Catholic dies intestate, his estate is to go to
the next Protestant. No Papist is to dwell in Limerick or Galway. No
Papist is to take an annuity for life. The widow of a Papist turning
Protestant to have a portion of the chattels of deceased in spite of any
will. Every Papist teaching schools to be presented as a regular Popish
convict. Prices of catching Catholic priests, from 50s. to £10,
according to rank. Papists are to answer all questions respecting other
Papists, or to be committed to jail for twelve months. No trust to be
undertaken for Papists. No Papist to be on Grand Juries. Some notion
may be formed of the spirit of those times, from an order of the House of
Commons, “that the Sergeant-at-Arms should take into custody all Papists
that should presume to come into _the gallery_!” (_Commons’ Journal_,
vol. iii., fol. 976.) During this reign the English Parliament
legislated as absolutely for Ireland as they do now for Rutlandshire, an
evil not to be complained of, if they had done it as justly. In the
reign of George I., the horses of Papists were seized for the militia,
and rode by Protestants; towards which the Catholics paid double, and
were compelled to find Protestant substitutes. They were prohibited from
voting at vestries, or being high or petty constables. An act of the
English Parliament in this reign opens as follows:—“Whereas attempts have
been lately made to shake off the subjection of Ireland to the Imperial
Crown of these realms, be it enacted,” etc. etc. In the reign of George
II. four-sixths of the population were cut off from the right of voting
at elections by the necessity under which they were placed of taking the
oath of supremacy. Barristers and solicitors marrying Catholics are
exposed to all the penalties of Catholics. Persons robbed by privateers
during a war with a Catholic State are to be indemnified by a levy on the
Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood. All marriages between
Catholics and Protestants are annulled. All Popish priests celebrating
them are to be hanged. “This system” (says Arthur Young) “has no other
tendency than that of driving out of the kingdom all the personal wealth
of the Catholics, and extinguishing their industry within it; and the
face of the country, every object which presents itself to travellers,
tells him how effectually this has been done.”—_Young’s Tour in Ireland_,
vol. ii., p. 48.
* * * * *
Such is the history of Ireland—for we are now at our own times; and the
only remaining question is, whether the system of improvement and
conciliation begun in the reign of George III. shall be pursued, and the
remaining incapacities of the Catholics removed, or all these concessions
be made insignificant by an adherence to that spirit of proscription
which they professed to abolish? Looking to the sense and reason of the
thing, and to the ordinary working of humanity and justice, when
assisted, as they are here, by self-interest and worldly policy, it might
seem absurd to doubt of the result. But looking to the facts and the
persons by which we are now surrounded, we are constrained to say that we
greatly fear that these incapacities never will be removed till they are
removed by fear. What else, indeed, can we expect when we see them
opposed by such enlightened men as Mr. Peel—faintly assisted by men of
such admirable genius as Mr. Canning—when Royal Dukes consider it as a
compliment to the memory of their father to continue this miserable
system of bigotry and exclusion, when men act ignominiously and
contemptibly on this question, who do so on no other question, when
almost the only persons zealously opposed to this general baseness and
fatuity are a few Whigs and Reviewers, or here and there a virtuous poet
like Mr. Moore? We repeat again, that the measure never will be effected
but by fear. In the midst of one of our just and necessary wars, the
Irish Catholics will compel this country to grant them a great deal more
than they at present require or even contemplate. We regret most
severely the protraction of the disease, and the danger of the remedy;
but in this way it is that human affairs are carried on!
We are sorry we have nothing for which to praise Administration on the
subject of the Catholic question, but it is but justice to say, that they
have been very zealous and active in detecting fiscal abuses in Ireland,
in improving mercantile regulations, and in detecting Irish jobs. The
commission on which Mr. Wallace presided has been of the greatest
possible utility, and does infinite credit to the Government. The name
of Mr. Wallace in any commission has now become a pledge to the public
that there is a real intention to investigate and correct abuse. He
stands in the singular predicament of being equally trusted by the rulers
and the ruled. It is a new era in Government when such men are called
into action; and if there were not proclaimed and fatal limits to that
ministerial liberality, which, so far as it goes, we welcome without a
grudge and praise without a sneer, we might yet hope that, for the sake
of mere consistency, they might be led to falsify our forebodings. But
alas! there are motives more immediate, and therefore irresistible; and
the time is not yet come when it will be believed easier to govern
Ireland by the love of the many than by the power of the few, when the
paltry and dangerous machinery of bigoted faction and prostituted
patronage may be dispensed with, and the vessel of the State be propelled
by the natural current of popular interests and the breath of popular
applause. In the meantime, we cannot resist the temptation of gracing
our conclusion with the following beautiful passage, in which the author
alludes to the hopes that were raised at another great era of partial
concession and liberality, that of the revolution of 1782, when, also,
benefits were conferred which proved abortive because they were
incomplete, and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was
yet left to rankle.
“And here,” says the gallant Captain Rock, “as the free confession of
weakness constitutes the chief charm and use of biography, I will
candidly own that the dawn of prosperity and concord which I now saw
breaking over the fortunes of my country, so dazzled and deceived my
youthful eyes, and so unsettled every hereditary notion of what I
owed to my name and family, that—shall I confess it—I even hailed
with pleasure the prospects of peace and freedom that seemed opening
around me; nay, was ready, in the boyish enthusiasm of the moment, to
sacrifice all my own personal interest in all future riots and
rebellions to the one bright, seducing object of my country’s liberty
and repose.
“When I contemplated such a man as the venerable Charlemont, whose
nobility was to the people like a fort over a valley, elevated above
them solely for their defence; who introduced the polish of the
courtier into the camp of the freeman, and served his country with
all that pure Platonic devotion which a true knight in the time of
chivalry proffered to his mistress; when I listened to the eloquence
of Grattan, the very music of freedom, her first fresh matin song,
after a long night of slavery, degradation, and sorrow; when I saw
the bright offerings which he brought to the shrine of his
country—wisdom, genius, courage, and patience, invigorated and
embellished by all those social and domestic virtues, without which
the loftiest talents stand isolated in the moral waste around them,
like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness!—when I
reflected on all this, it not only disheartened me for the mission of
discord which I had undertaken, but made me secretly hope that it
might be rendered unnecessary; and that a country which could produce
such men and achieve such a revolution, might yet—in spite of the
joint efforts of the Government and my family—take her rank in the
scale of nations, and be happy!
“My father, however, who saw the momentary dazzle by which I was
affected, soon drew me out of this false light of hope in which I lay
basking, and set the truth before me in a way but too convincing and
ominous. ‘Be not deceived, boy,’ he would say, ‘by the fallacious
appearances before you. Eminently great and good as is the man to
whom Ireland owes this short era of glory, _our_ work, believe me,
will last longer than his. We have a power on our side that “will
not willingly let us die;” and, long after Grattan shall have
disappeared from earth like that arrow shot into the clouds by
Alcestes, effecting nothing, but leaving a long train of light behind
him, the family of the ROCKS will continue to flourish in all their
native glory, upheld by the ever-watchful care of the Legislature,
and fostered by that “nursing-mother of Liberty,” the Church.’”