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COMMERCIAL RESTRAINTS OF IRELAND.
[Illustration: FROM A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.]
THE COMMERCIAL RESTRAINTS OF IRELAND
CONSIDERED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO A NOBLE LORD, CONTAINING
AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE AFFAIRS OF THAT KINGDOM. DUBLIN, 1779.
BY JOHN HELY HUTCHINSON,
PROVOST OF TRINITY COLLEGE, ETC.
"----the best exposition which exists of the poisonous forces which had
so long been working in the country."--_Froude._
"This valuable and rare book is, perhaps, the best ever written on the
subject of Irish trade, and the restrictions put upon it by
England."--_Mr. Blackburne._
Re-Edited,
WITH A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, INTRODUCTION,
NOTES, AND INDEX,
BY W. G. CARROLL, M.A.
S.S. BRIDE'S AND MICHAEL LE POLE'S, DUBLIN.
DUBLIN
M. H. GILL & SON, 50 UPPER SACKVILLE STREET
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., STATIONERS'-HALL COURT.
1882
"Good Heaven! for what peculiar crimes,
Beyond the guilt of former times,
Is Ireland ever doom'd by fate
To groan beneath Oppression's weight."--_Baratariana._
"If your vessel is frequently in danger of foundering in the midst of a
calm, if by the smallest addition of sail she is near oversetting, let the
gale be ever so steady, you would neither reproach the crew nor accuse the
pilot or the master; you would look to the construction of the vessel and
see how she had been originally framed and whether any new works had been
added to her that retard or endanger her course."--_Commercial
Restraints._
PRINTED BY M. H. GILL AND SON, 50 UPPER SACKVILLE-ST., DUBLIN.
The Publishers desire to express their best thanks to the Provost and
Senior Fellows of Trinity College for their kindness in lending the
Library copy of the "Commercial Restraints," and the portrait of Provost
Hely Hutchinson, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; also for the extracts from the
College Register, and for free access to the Matriculation and Judgment
Books.
The Publishers have, likewise, to acknowledge their obligation to Sir
Samuel Ferguson for the courteous favour of the fac-simile of Provost
Hutchinson's autograph which underlines the frontispiece.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Life ix
Notes:
(A) The Hutchinson Family lxxix
(B) Dr. Leland lxxxv
(C) Dr. Duigenan lxxxvii
(D) Grattan and Fitzgibbon's College Course lxxxix
(E) Lists of the Secretaries of State, Chancellors
of the Exchequer, Speakers of the Irish House
of Commons, and Chief Secretaries xciv
Introduction xcix
Commercial Restraints 1
Appendix 165
Index 169
LIFE OF PROVOST HELY HUTCHINSON.
THE RIGHT HON. JOHN HELY HUTCHINSON, author of the "Commercial
Restraints," was certainly one of the most remarkable men that this
country ever produced; and he took, amidst an unequalled combination of
brilliant rivals, a very prominent part in the most interesting and
splendid period of Ireland's internal history. He was, according to Dr.
Duigenan, a man of humble parents. He entered Trinity College as a
Pensioner, in the year 1740, under the name John Hely,[1] and after his
marriage he adopted the name Hutchinson, on succeeding to the estate of
his wife's uncle.
In 1744 he obtained his B.A., and Duigenan admits that in his
Undergraduate Course he won some premiums at the quarterly examinations.
In 1765 he was presented with the degree of LL.D. _Honoris Causa_. The
_College Calendar_, in the list of Provosts, has, "1774. The Rt. Hon. John
Hely Hutchinson, LL.D., educated in Trin. Coll., Dublin, but not a Fellow;
admitted Provost by Letters Patent of George III., July 15; Member of
Parliament for the City of Cork, and Secretary of State. Died Provost,
Sep. 4, 1794, at Buxton."[2]
This is all the mention which the published records of the College make
of, perhaps, its most celebrated Provost. The Calendar is inaccurate as to
the year of his matriculation, and it does not even tell that he was the
author of the "Commercial Restraints"--its memorial notices being
extremely scanty and brief; but in other contemporary writings we find
several notices of him, unfavourable and favourable. He was called to the
Bar in 1748; King's Counsel, 1758; Member for Lanesborough as John Hely
Hutchinson of Knocklofty, 1759;[3] in 1760 he received, in a silver case,
the freedom of Dublin for his patriotic services in parliament.[4] He was
Member for Cork City as John Hely Hutchinson of Palmerston, and afterwards
as Right Hon., 1761; Prime Serjeant, sometimes going Judge of Assize, and
Privy Councillor, 1761; Alnager,[5] 1763; Major in a Cavalry Regiment,
which, when threatened with a court-martial for non-attendance to duty, he
sold forthwith for L3,000; Provost and Searcher of Strangford,[6] 1774;
Principal Secretary of State, 1777;[7] M.P. for Taghmon, 1790; died 1794
(according to the _College Calendar_ at Buxton, and according to the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ in Dublin). He was also Treasurer of Erasmus
Smith's Board, and one of the Commissioners for inquiring into Education
Endowments, and he strove perseveringly but fruitlessly to obtain besides
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer.
The most important and most historic of all these appointments was the
Provostship, and it is in connection with the Provostship that we know
most about him. He won the high office, for which, in regard of any sort
of learning, he was totally disqualified, by a dexterous intrigue with the
Chief Secretary of the day, Sir John Blacquiere; and those who cared most
for Hutchinson considered that the manoeuvre was an unwise one for him.
It forfeited his assured prospects at the Bar, and it fastened on him the
odious imputation of an insatiable avarice. The appointment, moreover, was
regarded as an affront and an injury by the body over which he was placed.
Fellows and Scholars in various ways resented the indignity, and
Hutchinson had to face a very surly temper inside the walls. He faced it
with a light heart, and triumphed over it; but it often turned on him, and
stung him. He considered that it was well worth the cost; for in the first
place it was an appointment for life; and then he had not to give up his
lucrative practice in the law courts, which Froude says was worth nearly
L5,000 a year; and in fact he never ceased to angle for the Mastership of
the Rolls. In the next place, he got in addition a splendid town
residence, on which eleven thousand pounds had just been expended; he got
an income of two thousand one hundred a year; he got a very wide
patronage, and he calculated on getting the control of the parliamentary
representation of the University, which at that time was in the hands of
the Fellows and Scholars. This last object would have been an immense
acquisition for him; but he failed to win the game, the playing of which
led him, according to Duigenan and others, into some of his most
reprehensible courses.
As has been said above, in the rivalries of public life Hutchinson was
pitted against a phalanx of as able men as ever appeared together in any
country; and most of these men he supplanted and surpassed. They avenged
themselves by lampooning him, and they were masters in the art. The
Provost was assailed in prose and in verse, in couplet and in cartoon, in
newspapers and pamphlets, in the "Lachrymae Academicae," "Baratariana," and
"Pranceriana;" and these two last _pasquinades_ are unique in English
literature. Their satire is as broad and as wounding as that of Junius,
while it is often far more finished and playful; and there is no other
instance of so many men of the same ability and station being combined in
such a mosaic of detraction.[8]
"BARATARIANA," so called from Sancho Panza's island-kingdom, was written
in verse and in prose, and it appeared originally as letters in the
_Freeman's Journal_, which at that time, previous to its removal to
"Macaenas' Head" in Bride-street, was published over St. Audeon's Arch.[9]
The principal writers of these letters were Sir Hercules Langrishe,[10]
Flood, Grattan, Yelverton, Gervase Bushe, and Philip Tisdall. The volume
is "a collection of pieces published during the administration of Lord
Townshend," and in it the Lord Lieutenant figures as "Sancho," Anthony
Malone as "Don Antonio," Provost Andrews as "Don Francesco Andrea del
Bumperoso," and Hely Hutchinson under the various titles of "Don John
Alnagero, Autochthon, Terrae Filius, Monopolist, Single Session, and
Serjeant Rufinus." It was in one of these papers that Grattan, with an
audacious drollery, drew his celebrated character of Lord Chatham, as a
privileged extract from a manuscript copy of Robertson's forthcoming
"History of America." The description given by Langrishe of Hutchinson,
who was not Provost at that time, is: "He talks plausibly and with full
confidence, and whatever Pro-consul is deputed here Rufin immediately
kidnaps him into a guardianship, and like another Trinculo erects himself
into a viceroy over him. His whole elocution is alike futile and
superficial. It has verdure without soil, like the fields imagined in a
Calenture. He has great fluency, but little or no argument. He has some
fancy, too, but it serves just to wrap him into the clouds and leave him
there, while he holds himself suspended, planing and warbling like a lark,
without one thought to interrupt the song. If he has any forte it is in
vituperation or abuse. In 1766 he defeated the first Militia Bill.[11] His
first stride in apostasy was supporting the Privy Council Money Bill in
1767 [for opposing which Anthony Malone[12] had previously lost the Prime
Serjeancy in 1754, and the Chancellorship of the Exchequer[13] in 1761;]
his next was in defending the motion for the additional regiments, whereby
we were treated like a ravaged country, where contributions are levied to
maintain the very force that oppresses it." For these ministerial services
Hutchinson got the Prime Serjeancy, with an extra salary of L500 a year.
In the next session he was useful to the Crown in regard of the Pensions
Enquiry Bill and the Embargo Corn Bill, and was rewarded with the
sinecure Alnager's place, worth L1,000 a year. He was made a Privy
Councillor, got the reversionary grant of the Principal Secretaryship of
State, and the commission of a half-pay majority, and was what Primate
Stone termed "a ready-money voter." "He got more," says Flood, "for
ruining one kingdom than Admiral Hawke got for saving three."[14] The
"List of the Pack," one of the rhymes in the volume, has:
"Yet Tisdal unfeeling and void of remorse,
Is still not the worst--Hely Hutchinson's worse;
Who feels every crime, yet his feeling denies,
And each day stabs his country, with tears in his eyes."
Philip Tisdall, in "Baratariana," gives the following humorous description
of Hutchinson: "He is jealous of me, and as peevish as an old maid. I love
to tease him. I endeavour to put him on as odious ground as I can in
parliament, and then I am the first to complain to him that Government
should expose their servants to so much obloquy without occasion. I
magnify to him the favours and confidence I receive from Government, and
my correspondence with Rigby, which nettles him to the heart. He is too
finical for Lord Townshend, who makes very good sport of him. One day he
dined at the Castle, and when the company broke up, Lord Townshend, who
pretended to be more in liquor than he was, threw his arms about his neck
and cried out, 'My dear Tisdall, my sheet anchor, my whole dependence!
don't let little Hutchinson come near me; keep him off, my dear friend;
keep him off--he's damned tiresome.' At other times His Excellency makes
formal appointments to dine at Palmerston[15] at a distant day. The Prime
Serjeant invites all the officers of State; Mrs. Hutchinson is in a
flurry; they send to me for my cook; and after a fortnight's bustle, when
dinner is half spoiled, His Excellency sends an excuse, and dines with any
common acquaintance that he happens to meet in strolling about the streets
that morning. This g'emman has a pretty method enough of expressing
himself, indeed, but in points of law there are better opinions. My
friend, the late Primate, who knew men, said, that the Prime Serjeant was
the only person he had ever met with who got ready money, in effect, for
every vote he gave in parliament. He has got among the rest the reversion
of my Secretary's office; but I think I shall outlive him."[16]
Another note in "Baratariana" records that Tisdall, whose Government
salaries exceeded L5,000 a year, had also a reversion of the Alnager's
place, with its L1,000 a year, on the death of Hutchinson; and this
mutuality of Reversions, no doubt, accounts for the warm affection that
subsisted between Hutchinson and Tisdall. Blacquiere got the Alnagership
as the price of the Provostship, as before mentioned. Besides the
Alnagership Hutchinson was obliged also to resign the Prime Serjeancy,
which was given to Dennis; but even in regard of emolument the Provostship
was well worth these two sacrifices, the united income of which was only
L1,300. He retained his sinecure of L1,800 a year, and the State
Secretaryship, and he was further compensated by the sinecure office of
Searcher of the Port of Strangford, with a patented salary of L1,000 a
year for his own life and the lives of his two elder sons. He had thus
altogether, besides his lucrative practice at the Bar and his own estate,
about L6,000 a year, together with the Provost's House, while his eldest
son was Commissioner of Accounts, with L500 a year, and with the reversion
of the Second Remembrancership of the Exchequer, worth L800 a year, and
his second son had a troop of dragoons.[17]
"PRANCERIANA" derives its title from "Prancer," or "Jack Prance," the
nickname which was given to the Provost,
"Restorer of the art of dancing,
And mighty prototype of prancing,"
from his effort to establish in the College a riding and dancing-school,
in imitation of the Oxford schools.
"Each college duty shall be done in dance,
And hopeful students shall not walk, but prance."
The articles were originally published in the _Hibernian Journal_ and
_Freeman's Journal_,[18] and the two volumes, which appeared in 1776, were
announced as "A collection of fugitive pieces published since the
appointment of the present Provost." The collection was dedicated to "J-n
H-y H-n, Doctor of Laws, P.T.C., late Major in the Fourth Regiment of
Horse, Representative in the late and present Parliament of the city of
Cork, one of his Majesty's Counsel at Law, Reversionary Remembrancer of
the Exchequer, Secretary of State, one of His Majesty's Most Honourable
Privy Council, and Searcher, Packer, and Gauger of the Port of
Strangford."[19]
It attacks the Provost all round with every asperity; it mocks his want of
learning by calling him "the Potosi of Erudition;" it makes fun of his
riding and dancing-schools; and it ridicules his boasted college reforms.
Alluding to his efforts to banish card-playing there is the rhyme--
"You bag and baggage made them pack
Old Whist, and Slam that Saucy jack,
Ombre, Quadrille, Pope Joan, Piquet,
And Brag and Cribbage--cursed set."
It is obliged to admit, however ungraciously, that the Provost effected
some improvements. He obtained from the Erasmus Smith board, of which he
was treasurer, the L200 a year for the oratory and composition
premiums,[20] as well as the L2,500 for building the theatre, which
Duigenan declares the College did not want. He established also the Modern
Languages Professorships, the latter-day English Parliament treatment of
which is such a curious passage in the history of the University.
"Pranceriana" admits, too, that by the Provost the park was walled in,[21]
and that common rooms inside the walls, supplied with coffee and papers,
were provided for the students; that "tardies" [i.e. returns of students
as passing into College between 9 and 12 P.M.] were lessened, that
"chapels" required to be attended by them were increased, and that the
calling of examination rolls was finished by eight o'clock in the morning,
the hours of the Quarterly Examination being at that time from 8 to 12,
A.M., and 2 to 4, P.M. Hutchinson was unquestionably very arbitrary and
offensive in some of his regulations, but whether he was right or wrong he
met the same cynical measure in "Pranceriana."[22]
The "LACHRYMAE," published in 1777, was the work of Dr. Duigenan alone (see
note B), and in it he gives full fling to his hatred of the Provost. It is
an able and envenomed indictment, and the author hits his victim with the
utmost roughness. He accuses the Provost of violating every clause of the
Provost's oath, and of being guilty of every possible abuse of his high
office; he, moreover, defames Dr. Leland (see note C), and the other
Fellows who were or became civil and courteous to the Provost. Duigenan
acknowledges that he set himself to be insolent to the Provost; he tells
what brave plans of defiance and revenge he formed, and how, after all,
the Provost punished him and put him down.
The "Lachrymae" records all this in piquant and entertaining fashion; and,
besides being damaging to the Provost's character, it is interesting still
as a sort of College Calendar of the period, giving antiquarian
information of much value concerning the administration, economies, and
discipline of the College a hundred years ago. It begins with reciting the
naked and unprincipled manoeuvre with Sir John Blacquiere, the Chief
Secretary[23] to Lord Lieutenant Harcourt, by which Hutchinson, a layman,
was appointed Provost, by virtue of the Crown's dispensing with the
Statute which required the office to be filled by a Doctor or Bachelor in
Divinity. Blacquiere's origin, Duigenan says, was like the source of the
Nile, only to be guessed at, and Blacquiere himself was insolent,
illiterate, and avaricious. On the death of Provost Andrews, in 1774, he
recommended as his successor John Hely Hutchinson, who resigned in his
patron's favour the office of Alnager, which Blacquiere ere long farmed
out at L1,200 per annum.
Duigenan says that whilst the bargain was in agitation Blacquiere
represented the Provostship as much more valuable than it was. He adds
that Hutchinson "complained loudly that he had been bitten," and that to
make the best of a bad bargain he took in hands the College Estate.
Henry Flood was an eager candidate for the Provostship, and was put off
with a vice-treasurership, and a salary of L3,500 a year. Blacquiere would
have given him the Provostship if he could have paid a higher price than
Hutchinson; and "he would have sold it to a chimney-sweeper if he had been
the highest bidder." Duigenan says that all he knew of Flood was that he
had been bought by Blacquiere, but he had no doubt that he would have made
a better Provost than Hutchinson.[24] His disgust against Hutchinson is so
intense that it overrides his sour nationality and his jealousy for the
rights of the body to which he belonged; and he declares that he would
have preferred the appointment of an Oxford or Cambridge clergyman.
In the _Gazette_ announcement of Hutchinson's appointment his "LL.D." was
puffed, but Duigenan strips the degree of all merit by explaining that it
was only an "honorary" one--that it had no Academic significance--that
every member of the Irish Parliament had a customary right to it--that it
had just been conferred on an ignorant carpenter, one John Magill[25]--and
that, as the climax of the prostitution, he himself, Duigenan, in his
capacity of Regins Professor of Civil Law, had officially presented
Blacquiere for the honour![26]
Non-fellow, unlearned, and layman as he was, Hutchinson got the
Provostship, and he was not long in finding out that the constitution of
the college afforded a sphere for energy which precisely suited him. By
the "New Statutes," i.e., the Charter and Statutes drawn up by Archbishop
Laud, the Provost possessed, or was supposed traditionally to possess,[27]
almost absolutely, the management of the college estates, the disposal of
its revenues, the nomination of fellows and scholars, and the power of
rewarding and punishing fellows and scholars. The choice of parliamentary
representatives for the University rested--not as since the Reform Act,
with the registered Masters of Arts and Ex Scholars at large--with the
corporate body of the fellows and scholars for the time being, all of whom
were in a great degree subject to the statutable powers and underhand
influence of the Provost. The body consisted of twenty-two fellows and
seventy scholars. The College was the only asylum in the kingdom for
friendless merit, and Duigenan knew five contemporary bishops who had been
fellows.[28] All its usefulness and all its glories were swept away by the
appointment of "Mr."--for he would not call him Dr.--Hutchinson.
Duigenan explains that it took five years' hard study to get a fellowship;
that the juniors were subject to incessant toil and irksome bondage as
tutors, and that their single compensating prospect was co-option. The
income of the juniors was only L40 a year, but the seniors at that time
handed over to them the pupils to help their scanty maintenances.[29] The
"Natives' Places" were held by Scholars who were Irish born, and who
succeeded to the Places by seniority and diligent attendance on college
duties.
Sizarships were given by nomination, the Provost claiming eight
nominations to one of each of the senior fellows, the previous system of
election by examination having been superseded by Hutchinson. There was
not one of these departments in which, according to Duigenan, Provost Hely
Hutchinson did not traffic--and Duigenan's statements are borne out by the
evidence before the parliamentary committee.[30] It was the same with
"non-coing," i.e., allowing money in lieu of commons in the hall; the same
in the matter of chambers, the same in regard of leaves of absence, the
same in regard of fines, and the same in everything. In all these matters
benefits were given to those who would vote for the Provost's sons, and
rights were refused to those who would not so vote. The Fellows in those
days used to have to purchase their rooms from the college--they could be
compelled by the Provost to attend the lectures of the professors, and
Duigenan says that the Provost once ordered him to leave the law courts to
attend one of these lectures. Fellows had the right of visiting the
students' rooms--they used to chum together--they used to be allowed to
borrow money from the College, and under this arrangement Duigenan owed
L300, while Leland and others owed more.
From the time of the "Glorious Revolution" none but Fellows had ever been
made Provosts, although during that period five Provosts had been
appointed. Dr. Andrew's Fellowship was a sort of excuse for appointing
him, although he was a layman; and Duigenan, in calculating the pecuniary
losses which he sustained through Hutchinson, intimates that a similar
dispensation might have been exercised towards himself if in due course he
had succeeded to his Senior Fellowship. These losses he sets down at
L3,000 actual, and L6,000 on the calculation of contingencies. The
Provostship was worth L2,100 a year, besides a splendid residence. A
Senior-Fellowship, we are told, was worth L700 a year; a
Junior-Fellowship, including pupils, L200; Scholars had free commons, and
there were thirty Native Places, with L20 a year each additional; the
Beadle of the University had L20 a year; the Porters L5 a year, with
clothes and food in the hall. On an average two Fellowships became vacant
every three years. All these particulars Duigenan gives, and they all are
made to serve as counts in his indictment of the Provost.
Hutchinson had the College estates surveyed, and Duigenan makes a grievous
complaint of this proceeding. He says the survey cost the College two
thousand pounds, and that it was an iniquitous device for raising the
College rents upon improvements that had been effected by the tenants.[31]
He declares that from the rent-raising there resulted beggary,
discontent, and emigration. The renewal fines were divided into nine
parts, of which two went to the Provost, and one to each of the seven
seniors. In the year 1850, the fines were transferred to the College
account, and the Senior Fellows were compensated out of the "Cista
communis."[32]
The "LACHRYMAE" tells how the Provost got the large old college plate
melted down, and turned into a modern service, destroying the engraved
coats-of-arms and names of the donors, at an expense to the college of
L400.[33] He soon after had it moved out to Palmerston House, and
Duigenan does not seem to feel at all sure about its honest return. Most
of the Fellows were in the Provost's power by being married, and Duigenan
says that he used the power tyrannically.[34] A Fellow going out on a
living was allowed only five months' benefit of salary.[35]
Duigenan seems to hold the Provost responsible for the "mean and decayed"
condition of the chapel, and he more than once rails at him for being of
mean parentage.[36] He finds that since the time of Charles I. no
Provost, except Hutchinson and his predecessor, had ever sat in the House
of Commons. He is obliged to admit that Dr. Andrews' conduct in private
life was somewhat too loose and unguarded for a Provost; but still he was
better than Hutchinson, though he was told that the latter was a good
husband and father. Mr. Hutchinson might be a good husband and father,
"but no one would think the better of a wolf because the beast was kind to
its mate and cubs." Hutchinson had destroyed the seclusion and retirement
of the college by infesting its walks and gardens with his wife, adult
daughters, infant children with nurses and go-carts, and military officers
on prancing horses. He had endeavoured to institute a riding-school and a
professorship of horsemanship after the example of Oxford, and he had
desecrated the Convocation or Senate Hall by making it a fencing-school.
Duelling had become the fashion among the students under the influence of
the Provost's evil example, and the college park was made the ground for
pistol practice.[37]
We are told further by Duigenan that the number of students then on the
college books was 598, of whom 228 were intern.[38] We see by the _Liber
Munerum Hiberniae_ that by 1792 the number of students had so much
increased, consequently on the liberal education spirit of Grattan's
parliament, that a King's Letter was obtained raising the quarterly
examination days from two to four. In the following year was the King's
Letter directing the admission of Catholics to degrees on taking the oath
of Abjuration and Allegiance, in accordance with the Act of the Irish
Parliament, and in 1794 appears the first "R. C." entry (Thomas
Fitzgerald, of Limerick) on the College Matriculation Books. From that
date onward the religious denomination of pupils has always been recorded.
"PRANCERIANA," i.e., probably Duigenan, asserts that the Provost, on the
eve of the second election in which his son was returned, offered to
supply to a voter amongst the candidates for Fellowship a copy of the
questions which he was to give in Moral Science for the ensuing
examinations;[39] and Duigenan openly says that the Provost was determined
that no one should be elected a Scholar who would not previously promise
to vote as he should direct him.
He kept an electioneering agent inside the walls, a spy and a
corrupter,--"in short, the Blacquiere of Mr. Hutchison." Duigenan gives a
long list of the Provost's insolences to himself and to other members of
the body. He resisted marriage dispensations to the Fellows who were his
opponents, while he procured them for his creatures--Leland and Dabzac.
On the death of Shewbridge the Fellow, which was attributed to Hutchison's
refusing him leave to go to the country for change of air, the students
defied the Provost's order for a private interment at 6 o'clock in the
morning. They had the bell rung, had a night burial and a torchlight
procession, attended the funeral in mourning, and afterwards broke into
the Provost's house.
In the first year of his office the Provost dispersed a meeting of the
Scholars and some of the Fellows that was held by advertisement at Ryan's
in Fownes-street, "the principal tavern in the city," for the purpose of
nominating candidates for the representation of the University against the
Provost's nominees.
Duigenan goes on to relate how Hutchinson discharged the various duties of
the high office which he had acquired by the traffic above stated. He made
an exhibition of his ignorance at a Fellowship Examination by suggesting
that Alexander the Great died in the time of the Peloponessian War; but
ridiculous a figure as he made in the Scholarship and Fellowship
Examinations, he would not withdraw from them, because unless he examined
he could not vote or nominate at the election of the Scholars and Fellows.
This nomination power was with him a darling object in the execution of
his electioneering projects of making the College a family borough, and he
abstained from no methods to effectuate his scheme.
We are told at length how the Provost, with the consent of a majority of
the Board, deprived Berwick of his Scholarship for absence, because
Berwick would not vote for his son, and how the Visitors, on appeal,
restored him.[40] How he deprived Mr. Gamble of the buttery clerkship, and
replaced him, on the threat of an appeal, suggested and drawn up by
Duigenan. How the Provost refused Mr. FitzGerald, a Fellow, leave to
accompany his sick wife to the country, and tried to provoke FitzGerald's
hot temper. The Provost's cruelties and injuries to Duigenan himself knew
no limits. He says, that for the purpose of keeping him from being
co-opted, the Provost had the Board Registry falsified, that he set the
porters to watch him, that he persecuted him, and mulcted him in the
buttery books, for sleeping out of college without leave. He relates that
he was attacked by the Provost's gang, and was obliged in consequence to
wear arms; and that, finally, Hutchinson compelled him to go out on the
Laws' Professorship on a salary which was raised to L460 a year.[41]
The "Lachrymae Academicae" shows how Duigenan spent the leisure hours of his
enforced retirement.
It was dedicated to King George III. Duigenan had "dragged this Cacus (the
Provost) from his den," and he appealed to the Duke of Gloucester as
Chancellor, and to the archbishops of Armagh and Dublin as Visitors, to
rescue the college out of the hands of this worse than Vandalic destroyer,
this molten calf, and pasteboard Goliath. As this remedy might fail, from
the uncertainty of all events in this world, Duigenan pointed out two
other remedies, the application of which lay with the King. One was to
have the Provost's patent voided by a _scire facias_, and the other was to
deprive him of all power, authority, or revenue in the college, during his
life. His authority was to be transferred to the Board, and his revenue to
be appropriated to pay for the new building. These suggestions were not
adopted, but the _Lachrymae_ did not by any means fall still-born from the
press. It produced a powerful sensation within the walls and in outer
circles.
On the 19th of July it was censured by the Board in the following
resolution:--
"Whereas, a pamphlet hath lately been published in the city of Dublin,
with the title of "Lachrymae Academicae," to which the name of Patrick
Duigenan, LL.D., is prefixed as author, traducing the character of the
Right Honourable the Provost and some respectable Fellows of this society,
and misrepresenting and vilifying the conduct of the said Provost and
Fellows, and the government of the said college, without regard to truth
or decency.
"Resolved by the Provost and Senior Fellows that the author and publishers
of the said pamphlet shall be prosecuted in the course of law, and that
orders to that purpose be given to the law agent of the college.
"Ordered that the said resolution be published in the English and Irish
newspapers."--[_Extract from College Register, July 19, 1777._]
The censure was officially published in the _Dublin Journal_, and in
_Saunders' News Letter_; whereupon Duigenan inserted in the _Freeman_ the
following advertisement:--
"Whereas, a false and malicious advertisement has been inserted in the
_Dublin Journal_, and in _Saunders' News Letter_, containing a resolution
of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, relative to a book written and
published by me, entitled, 'Lachrymae Academicae; or, the present deplorable
state of the College of the Holy and undivided Trinity, of Queen
Elizabeth, near Dublin.' It is necessary to inform the public that the
said resolution was carried at the Board by the votes of Drs. Leland,
Dabzac, Wilson, and Forsayeth (the very same persons who voted for the
unstatutable deprivation of Mr. Berwick), against the opinions of Mr.
Clement, the Vice-Provost, of Dr. Murray, and Dr. Kearney. It is also
necessary to observe that three of these gentlemen who voted for the
above resolution are persons whom I have declared my intention, in my
book, of accusing, before the Visitors, of having committed unstatutable
crimes; which intention I shall most certainly execute.[42] And I do
hereby pledge myself to the public that I will effectually prosecute at
law every one of the junto for the said scurrilous advertisement, and the
resolution therein contained.
"PAT. DUIGENAN,
"Chancery Lane, July 21st, 1777."
"N.B.--Dr. Murray signed the said advertisement officially as Registrar of
the College, who is obliged to sign resolutions of the majority of the
Board. He strenuously opposed the resolution therein contained, and the
insertion of it in the Public Prints."
Besides these Board proceedings, the "Lachrymae" led to a plentiful crop of
litigation in the Courts. In Michaelmas Term, 1777, in the King's Bench,
Serjeant Wood moved for an information against Duigenan at the suit of the
Provost on account of the defamation in the "Lachrymae," and the
application was granted. The same time Barry Yelverton, on the part of Dr.
Arthur Browne, Fellow, and Member for the University, moved for an
information against the _Hibernian Journal_, and Fitzgibbon moved for
informations against two persons for challenging Duigenan. Applications
granted.
In 1778 Counsellors Smith, Burgh, &c., showed cause on behalf of Dr.
Duigenan against making absolute the Rule for information against the
"Lachrymae," when Judge Robinson dismissed the case, saying that it had
already taken up fifteen days of the public time, and that he "left the
School to its own correctors."[43]
In 1776, Duigenan insulted the Provost in the Four Courts, and the
Provost, disdaining Duigenan, called upon Tisdall to make him responsible
for his follower's conduct. He told Tisdall to consider that he had
insulted him with a view to provoke a challenge. This was the occasion on
which Duigenan threatened to bulge the Provost's eye. Tisdall at once
applied for an information against him in the King's Bench. Seventeen
counsel were engaged in the cause.
Hutchinson argued his own case before the Court with consummate ability.
He delivered a most masterly speech, and offered an apology for calling
Tisdall an old scoundrel and an old rascal. He did not recollect having
used these expressions, but if he did use them, it was out of Court. He
referred pathetically to all the annoyance and ridicule that he was
undergoing by pamphlets and in the public press; and he excused his
appearing in his own defence by the circumstance that his lawyers were
harassed in attendance on the six different suits promoted against him on
very unaccountable motives.
The Court of King's Bench made the rule against him absolute, but the
proceedings collapsed in consequence of Tisdall's death.[44]
Duigenan says that Hutchinson was once publicly chastised by a gentleman
whom he had affronted, but we have no other account of the circumstance.
Duigenan makes out that he was a coward as well as a tyrant and impostor,
and he compares him to "Cacofogo," the usurer in Beaumont and Fletcher's
play.
In 1789, the Provost supported Grattan in the Regency Bill, and in the
motions connected with it. For this he was liable to be dismissed from the
lucrative offices which he held under the Crown, and to save himself from
this penalty he signed the "Round Robin" of the twenty peers and
thirty-seven commoners who were in a similar predicament. This famous
instrument which was drawn up in the Provost's house, pledged the
co-signers to stand or fall together, and bound them as a body "to make
Government impossible" if the Viceroy, Lord Buckingham, were to venture to
punish any of them. Fitzgibbon, then Attorney-General, mercilessly crushed
and humbled the "Parliamentary Whiteboys;" he made the synagogue of Satan
come and worship before his feet,[45] and the most abject of the recreants
was the Provost.[46]
To secure the control of the parliamentary representation of the
University was, as has been said, one of Hutchinson's dearest plans. The
pursuit of it led him, according to all accounts, into some of his most
dishonourable and vindictive actions, and after all he won but temporary
and chequered success in the ambitious experiment. In the prosecution of
these election aims, the Provost stuck at nothing. He had agents and
emissaries everywhere; and through them as well as by his own direct
efforts he instituted an all-pervading system of corruption. He knew how
to make subtle but palpable advances to the voters that were under his
eye, and to tamper at the same time with their friends and parents at a
distance. He ransacked every department of Academic life so as to be
expert at turning the whole system of collegiate rewards and punishments
into an organised instrumentality for bribery. All the emoluments,
rewards, and conveniences of the college were reserved for those who
promised their vote to the Provost, and all the obsolete and vexatious
disciplines were enforced against those who were disposed to assert their
independence in exercising the franchise. By an unscrupulous use of both
his patronage, and his powers as Returning Officer, he was enabled to get
two of his sons returned for the University, but he saw powerful and
damaging petitions against both of them. In 1776, he returned his eldest
son Richard against Tisdall, the Attorney-General. Tisdall lodged a
petition in June, which the House ordered to be considered in July, but
before that day the Parliament was prorogued, and did not meet again till
October in the following year. Meanwhile, Tisdall died; the petition was
moved by Madden and King, and ultimately, in March, 1778, the Select
Committee unseated Hutchinson. John Fitzgibbon conducted the petition,
and thereby established his position as a lawyer. He was elected for the
University in Hutchinson's room, and the foundation of his coming
greatness was laid.[47]
Richard Hutchinson, it maybe observed, fell back on Sligo, to which he had
been elected at the same time that he was elected for the University, and
where he seems to have escaped another petition by choosing the University
constituency. In the debate as to whether a new writ should be issued for
Sligo, in 1778, the Provost took a forward part, and bewailed that he "was
forced to go there out of his sick bed to defend his son." The Gravamina
of the College petition of 1778 were almost identical with those of the
petition of 1790, and while Parliament was unseating the Provost's son,
the Court of Common Pleas was dealing with the Provost himself. The Rev.
Edward Berwick, whose case is related in the "Lachrymae," took an action
against the Returning Officer for refusing his vote. The Court, overruling
the Provost's objection, made an order that the Plaintiff should have
liberty to inspect all the College books that could be of use to him in
his suit. The verdict was against the defendant, without costs.[48]
After the disastrous parliamentary petition of 1778, the Provost took no
family part in the College elections until the year 1790, when his second
son Francis was returned. His return led to a parliamentary inquiry; and
the case, which is fully reported, is a very interesting passage in the
history of the College and of Hutchinson.[49]
The committee, consisting of fourteen members, besides the chairman, W.
Burston, Esq., was chosen on the 14th day of Feb., 1791, and on it sat,
amongst the others, the Hon. Arthur Wesley (Duke of Wellington), Right
Hon. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Right Hon. Denis Daly.
There were two petitions, one by Laurence Parsons, Esq., the defeated
candidate, and the other by some scholars and other electors of the
borough. The sitting member was the Hon. Francis Hely Hutchinson, and the
returning officer was his father the Provost. There was a powerful bar.
Beresford Burston, Michael Smith (afterwards Master of the Rolls), Peter
Burrowes, and William Conyngham Plunket, were for the petitioners;
Tankerville Chamberlain (afterwards Judge of the Queen's Bench), and Luke
Fox (afterwards judge), were for the sitting member; and Robert Boyd
(afterwards Judge of King's Bench), and Denis George, Recorder of Dublin
(and afterwards Baron of the Exchequer), were for the Provost. The total
constituency was 92, and out of these "84 and no more" tendered their
votes. Arthur Browne was returned at the head of the poll by 62 votes,
Parsons had 43, and Hutchinson 39. The Provost, on the scrutiny, reduced
Browne's votes to 51, Parsons' to 34, and his son's to 36, thus returning
his son by a majority of two over Parsons. Against this return the
petitioners set forth that the Provost received for his son the votes of
several persons who had no right to vote; that he refused for Parsons the
votes of several who were legally entitled to vote; that on the scrutiny,
he received illegal evidence; that he acted as agent for his son, and by
undue means procured votes for him; that he exerted his prerogative
antecedently to the election for the purpose of illegally influencing the
electors; and that by illegal and partial scrutiny he reduced the number
of the votes for Parsons below the number of the votes for his son.
Burston stated the case, and referred to the election of 1776, when the
Provost's eldest son was unseated for undue influence. He gave numerous
instances of the Provost's abuse of his powers in the matters of
"non-coing" and leaves of absence. He complained of his rejecting votes on
the ground of minority on the evidence chiefly of the Matriculation-book.
Amongst the witnesses examined were the Very Rev. Wensley Bond, Sch.,
1761, Dean of Ross; G. Miller, Fellow (and afterwards Master of Armagh
Royal School); William Magee, Fellow and Junior Dean (and afterwards
Archbishop of Dublin); Toomy, a scholar (and afterwards Professor of
Medicine); Dr. Marsh, Fellow, and Registrar of the college; Whitly Stokes,
Fellow (and afterwards Professor of Physic), &c. &c.
The examination of the witnesses brought out a great many curious and
interesting facts relative to college men and college administration a
hundred years ago. For instance, Mr. Fox, in arguing against the right of
Scholars, being minors, to vote, referred to the election of 1739, when
Alexander MacAulay, Dean Swift's nominee,[50] was elected against Philip
Tisdall; and when the election was set aside by the House of Commons on
account of the vote of Mr. Sullivan[51] (afterwards Professor of Laws),
who, being elected a Fellow at nineteen years of age in 1738, was a minor
when he voted.
Plunket and Smith argued on the other side that Scholars, being minors,
were entitled to their votes, and that these votes were allowed in the
contested election of 1761, when Lord Clonmel ran French against the
Attorney General, Tisdall, on account of the latter's hesitancy about the
Octennial Bill. It was argued further that the Matriculation-book was not
legal evidence as to age, inasmuch as "boys without any sanction gave in
their ages older than they really were, from a desire to be thought men."
Finally, the committee resolved unanimously that Fellows and Scholars,
though minors, have a right to vote for members to represent the
University.
Mr. Miller[52] deposed that he was applied to by the Provost for his vote,
and that he was offered a copy of the Provost's fellowship examination
questions in Morality,[53] "an advantage," said Burrowes, "which would
have made a docile parrot appear superior to Sir Isaac Newton." Three of
the senior fellows voted for Hutchinson at the election. Toomey, a
Scholar, was a Catholic, and refused to vote because the Junior Fellows
could prove that he was a Catholic, and would take his pupils from him. He
would not conform, although the Provost's eldest son pressed him, and told
him that his own ancestors were Catholics and had conformed, and that he
himself would be a Catholic if he lived in a Catholic country. Toomey knew
that Casey, a Scholar, was a Catholic, and that he was chapel roll-keeper,
attended college chapel twenty times a week, and partook of the
Sacrament. Toomey "did not vote at the election because his vote would be
of no use as he was a Roman Catholic."[54] James Hely, a Scholar, was a
Catholic in Limerick, and had conformed in St. Werburgh's Church, in
Dublin, to the Rev. Mr. L'Estrange, curate. The petitioners strove to
disqualify Hely "for Popery," but his conformity was admitted by the
committee.
Mr. Graves, Fellow (afterwards Professor of Divinity and Dean of Ardagh),
had voted for Hutchinson, and he believed that the Provost did declare to
the Senior Fellows that he would nominate him to the Fellowship even
against the majority of the Board. Dr. Hales' pupils were worth L500 or
L600 a year to him;[55] and on his resignation the Provost claimed the
power of distributing his pupils amongst the other Fellows. Hales had
sixty or seventy pupils. Fellow-commoners paid L12, pensioners L6, per
annum. It was deposed by another witness that the Provost nominated Mr.
Ussher to a Fellowship in 1790--and it is so stated in the
Calendar--although he had but two votes amongst the Senior Fellows, and
those two were Drs. Kearney and Barrett.
Mr. Magee, Junior Dean, stated, that after his election to Fellowship he
was desirous to go to the bar, and that the dispensation was prevented by
the Provost. Shortly before the election, however, the Provost offered to
obtain the dispensation for him, with commons money and the usual
allowance, if he would either vote for Hutchinson or go out of the way.
Magee declined both proposals, and lost the dispensation; but probably he
got on as well in the Church as he would have succeeded at the Bar. In the
course of Mr. Magee's examination the following passage occurred:
"Counsel--Is not Dr. Fitzgerald a warm man? Magee--There are other warm
men in college besides Dr. Fitzgerald. Counsel--I perceive there are." Mr.
Toomy, a Scholar of the house, acknowledged that he was a Catholic. He
told about "Regulators' Places" for Sizars, worth about L16 a year, and
about "Natives' Places" for Scholars worth the same, and the
electioneering use which the Provost made of these appointments. Mr.
Stordy, the college clerk, told a great deal about the system of
"non-coing." A Scholar's non-co was worth L16 a year, and a Fellow's was
worth, for one half year, 7s. 7d. a week, and for the other half, 8s. 6d.
a week, or about L21 a year. Dr. Marsh, Senior Fellow, was twice refused
leave of absence by the Provost. The Provost gave the Vice-Chancellor's
rooms to his own supporters. A Scholar could have leave for thirty-two
days, and a fellow for sixty-three.[56] By Yelverton's Act, Trinity
College students could be called to the bar three years before
non-graduates.
Mr. Whitley Stokes, Fellow, gave instances of the Provost's partiality at
the election.