was no instance of undue influence, and he was followed by Mr. Boyd on the
part of the Provost. Then Mr. Plunkett spoke to evidence, against the
Provost and the sitting Member. The Recorder replied for the Provost in
very eulogistic terms, mentioning his seven Under-Graduate premiums, his
college reforms, improvements, &c. He disparaged the made-up arithmetical
evidence of Miller and Magee, and was followed by Mr. Chamberlaine for the
sitting Member. Mr. Burrowes closed the argument in a very eloquent
speech, which was as severe on the Provost as the "Lachrymae" or
"Pranceriana" was. It is noticeable, by the way, that Duigenan took no
part in the petitions, and that he was neither employed in the case nor
even named in the examination. Burrowes said that Miller's rejection of
the Provost's offer of his questions was "a moral miracle." It was
Miller's third attempt for fellowship.
Burrowes "lamented the necessity of the odious investigation which exposed
to public view the disgraceful and disastrous state of the
University--condoning the undue influence would make the college as
corrupt as any pot-walloping borough--the University would be shortly
depopulated, and its only remaining trace would be the octennial
convention of an unresisted Provost, and unresisting electors, to return
suitable representatives to Parliament, and celebrate the festival of
banished literature and vanquished public spirit. The decay of the
University in such an event, would be desirable; its honours ought to be a
brand of disgrace in society, and the contaminated Scholar ought to become
a despised and abandoned citizen." Burrowes was full of pride and loyalty
for the old place. He was himself an Ex-Scholar,[57] as were also amongst
the lawyers in the case Beresford Burston, Plunket, Smith, Fox, and Boyd;
and he was jealous for the honour of the Academic prize. "Some of the most
important officers in the state," he exclaimed, "are filled by men who
were Scholars of the University; in the learned professions the most
eminent men have in their youth been Scholars. The most respectable
divines, the most eminent lawyers, a considerable number of the Judges of
the land, have been Scholars. Every individual of the eight lawyers[58]
who appeared before this Committee have been Scholars of the
University."[59] Burrowes closed his speech:--"I sit down assured you
cannot pronounce the Honourable Francis Hely Hutchison to have been duly
elected." Forty-one witnesses were produced by the petitioners, of whom
ten were Fellows and thirteen Scholars. The Hutchisons produced six
witnesses--no Fellow, one Scholar, and a lady.
The Committee sat from the 14th February to the 24th March, when, by a
majority of one, including the double vote of the chairman, it resolved
(Wellington and Lord E. Fitzgerald voting in the minority) "That the Hon.
Francis Hely Hutchinson had made use of no undue influence; that he was
duly elected a burgess to represent the University in the present
Parliament; and that the Provost, as Returning Officer of the University,
acted legally and impartially at and before the election."
Perhaps the most significant fact evolved by the investigation was that
some of the Scholars were Catholics, the Statutes and the Anglican
Sacrament notwithstanding. There was no reserve in the statement, and no
remark on it was made by any member of Committee.[60] The point was not
brought forward in the petition, nor pressed by any of the Council, except
in the case of one Scholar, whose conformity was accepted by the
Committee. In fact the "Popery" seems to have been taken quite as an
understood thing,[61] and this coincides entirely with the famous
declaration of Fitzgibbon. In 1782, speaking on Gardiner's Bill, in the
Irish House of Commons, as Member for the University, he asserted that
"the University of Dublin was already open, by connivance, and that no
religious conformity was required." It is not easy to reconcile this with
the then existing regulations for students as well as for Scholars, and in
that debate the Provost did not speak exactly in this strain. On the
contrary, he lamented that the religious disabilities did exist, and he
was urgent for a King's Letter to give the Catholics equality in the
University, under a Theological Professor of their own.[62]
That debate, it may be noticed, is memorable for the cordial and
consenting speeches of the Provost and of the two Members for the
University, Hussey Burgh and Fitzgibbon. They all were in favour of
Catholic relief, especially in the matter of education, and they all would
have opened the College freely and liberally to Catholics. It was in this
debate that Hussey Burgh protested against the Irish Bishops' practice of
ordaining men on Scotch degrees. The Provost warmly thanked Burgh for
sustaining the right and the dignity of the University. He said that the
number of yearly degrees had risen from 95 to 109, and that Trinity
College Graduates could be supplied for as many curacies as had the legal
allowance of L50 a year.[63]
Plunket was very indignant at the miserable bribery and corruption that
were administered by the Provost, but he had not a word to say against the
deeper and wider corruption that was ingrained in the sectarian
exclusiveness of the constitution of the place. How could he say anything,
being himself in the same condemnation? He was the son of a Unitarian
minister;[64] and is said to have lived and died an Unitarian, and still
he was a Scholar of the House.
In 1790, a very able pamphlet, suggested by Provost Hutchison's despotic
_regime_, was published anonymously, entitled: "An Inquiry how far the
Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, is invested with a negative on the
proceedings of the Senior Fellows by the Charter and Statutes of the
College."
The pamphlet is traditionally ascribed to the Rev. G. Miller, F.T.C.D.,
who gave such important evidence before the parliamentary committee; and,
substantially, it is based upon the arbitrary acts of the Provost, which
were brought out before the committee, and which are more fully stated in
the "Lachrymae" and "Pranceriana."
The "Enquiry" asserts that the Provost claimed and exerted a negative upon
all Board proceedings; and that in the election of Fellows and Scholars he
had not only a negative but a final affirmative. The writer maintains that
this, although the traditional, was not the true sense of the Statutes;
and that by the Statutes the Provost had no greater power than the head of
any other Corporation. He argues very closely and clearly to this purpose
in regard of elections especially, from the grammatical meaning of "_una
cum_" and "_cum_;" and he shows that what the Statute requires is merely
the _presence_ of the Provost, and that then, like the rest, he is bound
by a majority decision. The writer is more subtle and less convincing in
his solution of the last clause of the statute beginning "_Quod si
primo_."[65]
Mr. Miller submitted a statement of the case for legal opinion, and
obtained opinions supporting his own view from Sir William Scott (Lord
Stowel), Sir Michael Smith, (Baron of the Exchequer and Master of the
Rolls), Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough), Arthur Wolfe (Lord Kilwarden, Lord
Chief Justice), and others.
The three questions were: (1) Had the Provost an absolute negative on
Board Proceedings? (2) Was he concluded by the concurring votes of five
Senior Fellows? (3) Could he nominate Fellows and Scholars to the
exclusion of a candidate by a majority of the electors?
The first and third were answered in the negative; and the second in the
affirmative by all the lawyers.[66]
While all these people were amusing themselves anatomising the Provost, he
was not by any means silent on his own side. Besides his speeches in
Parliament and his utterances at the Privy Council and at the Board, he
had recourse to the public press. He sent a vindication of himself to the
_Hibernian Journal_, which Duigenan says was the beginning of all the
writing. The Provost also published by Leathley, Bookseller to the
University, a pamphlet entitled, "Regulations made in Trinity College
since the appointment of the Provost," and "Pranceriana" says that the
unlucky pamphlet was withdrawn promptly after the attack made upon it in
the _Hibernian_. It was for this attack that the Provost had the editor of
the journal, Mr. James Mills, ducked under the College pump. This
smashing article is No. 27 in the "Pranceriana Collection," and it
certainly is a notable piece of criticism. It was attributed to the pen of
Malone, the editor of "Shakespeare." It is, perhaps, worth mentioning
here, that as the College Library was without a copy of the Provost's book
until the year 1853, so it was without a copy of "Pranceriana" until the
year 1880. _Trinitas incuriosa suorum!_ The copy of the "Pranceriana" in
the Library is the Second Edition, 1784, with the Appendix of 1776.
All the foregoing testimonies are damaging to the Provost's memory; but it
is only fair to remember that all of them are the utterances of men who
were his envious and unscrupulous personal enemies. In some respects John
Hely Hutchinson was bad enough, but the most abiding charge against him is
that of greediness and place-traffic; and in this transgression it is
probable that he only sinned more deeply than most of the public men
around him. He certainly was audacious in his demands, but he was a king
in jobbery. What Duigenan does not at all account for is, how Hutchinson
was able to drive all these flourishing bargains, and to hold such high
place under various administrations and in the teeth of combining
rivalries--and still this is a circumstance that ought, biographically, to
be accounted for. The etiology is supplied in other contemporary sources,
written in a more discerning spirit--and it is this, that the Provost was
a man of immense ability, and of rare personal ascendency. He possessed,
moreover, in a signal degree, the undaunted personal courage which, as
mentioned further on,[67] was inherited by his sons and grandson; although
Duigenan, who was himself very much of the Bob Acre type, refuses him even
this credit, and mocks his sham duels.[68] He knew how to make himself
both dreaded and desired by the Government, for he could be either its
greatest help or its most formidable opponent. He knew the men he had to
deal with, and he dealt with them according to the knowledge.
We have descriptions of the Provost in many contemporary works, and these
descriptions, while they make no secret of his rapacity, present a strong
reverse side to the "Pranceriana" picture.[69]
Thus Hardy[70] says: "John Hely Hutchinson, father to the Earl of
Donoughmore and Lord Hutchinson, introduced a classical idiom into the
House of Commons. No member was ever more extolled than he was on his
first appearance there. He opposed Government on almost every question,
but his opposition was of no long continuance. As an orator his expression
was fluent, easy, and lively; his wit fertile and abundant; his invective
admirable, not so much from any particular energy of temperament or
diction, as from being always unclogged with anything superfluous, or
which could at all diminish the justness and brilliancy of its colouring.
It ran along with the feelings of the House and never went beyond them....
The consequence of this assumed calmness was that he never was stopped....
The members for a long time remembered his satire, and the objects of it
seldom forgave it.... In his personal contests with Mr. Flood (and in the
more early part of their parliamentary careers they were engaged in many)
he is supposed to have had the advantage.... To Flood's anger, Hutchinson
opposed the powers of ridicule; to his strength he opposed refinement; to
the weight of his oratory an easy, flexible ingenuity, nice
discrimination, and graceful appeal to the passions. As the debate ran
high, Flood's eloquence alternately displayed austere reasoning and
tempestuous reproof; its colours were chaste but gloomy; Hutchinson's, on
the contrary, were of 'those which April wears,' bright, various, and
transitory; but it was a vernal evening after a storm, and he was esteemed
the most successful because he was the most pleasing.... Mr. Gerrard
Hamilton (than whom a better judge of public speaking has seldom been
seen) observed that in his support of Government Hutchinson had always
something to say which gratified the House. 'He can go out in all
weathers, and as a debater is therefore inestimable.' He had attended much
to the stage, and in his younger days he lived on great habits of intimacy
with Quin, who admired his talents and improved his elocution.... He never
recommended a bad measure, nor appeared a champion for British interest in
preference to that of his own country. He was not awed into silence; he
supported the Octennial Bill, the Free Trade Bill, and the Catholic
Bill.... His acceptance of the Provostship of Trinity College was an
unwise step.... After a long enjoyment of parliamentary fame it was then
said that he was no speaker, and after the most lucrative practice at the
Bar that he was no lawyer.... His country thought far otherwise, and his
reputation as a man of genius, and an active, well-informed statesman,
remained undiminished to the last. He left the opposition in 1760, and
took the Prime Serjeancy.... In private life he was amiable, and in the
several duties of father and husband most exemplary. In 1789, on the
debate about the Prince of Wales's regency, Grattan opposing the
administration was supported with great ability by Hutchinson, then
Secretary of State. In the Lords, Lord Donoughmore took the same side. In
1792, in the debate on Langrishe's Bill for the restoration of the
elective franchise to Irish Catholics, Hutchinson's two sons (Francis
[?], afterwards Lord Donoughmore, and the one afterwards Lord Hutchinson)
voted in the minority with the patriots."
The _Gentleman's Magazine_ (1794) says that he was a wondrously gifted man
and one of the most remarkable persons that this country ever produced. At
the same time it calls him a rank courtier, and recites most of the
"Pranceriana" and "Lachrymae" tattle against him.
Grattan and Grattan's son held a very high opinion both of his genius and
of his fidelity to the interests of Ireland. Both of the Grattans, on the
other hand, had a horror of Duigenan, as a truculent and coarse vulgarian.
It is in Grattan's "Life" that we are told about Duigenan's threatening in
the Law Courts to "bulge the Provost's eye," and it is there that Curran's
epigram on Duigenan's oratory is preserved.[71]
Grattan says that Hutchinson supported every honest measure--all the main
and essential ones, such as the Claim of Right, Free Trade, the Catholic
Bills, Reform, and the Pension Bill. "_He was the servant of many
governments, but he was an Irishman notwithstanding._" He possessed
greater power of satire than any man of his day, and Grattan quotes Horace
Walpole's anecdote about his habit of annoying Rigby and the Government
when he wanted to make himself disagreeable to them. At other times he was
immensely useful to the Government. Grattan considered that his chief
fault was want of openness and directness of character, together with love
of self-advancement. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Grattan, and took a
prominent part in demanding for him the national presentation in 1782.
Taylor[72] says that Hutchinson was a very effective Provost, that he
restored the discipline of the place, and that to him the University owes
the improvement of the modern languages professorships. Taylor adds that
he was a man of an enlightened mind and extended views, and that it is
now admitted his views were consonant with the best principles of
education.
Lord North knew Hutchinson's peculiarity well, and he said that "if
England and Ireland were given to him he would want the Isle of Man for a
potato garden." The Duke of Rutland, Lord Lieutenant here in 1784, formed
a similar estimate, when he wrote that "the Provost had always some object
in view, and that his objects were not generally marked with the character
of moderation and humility."[73]
Dr. Wills[74] gives Provost Hely Hutchinson a very high place amongst the
eminent men of the country, and mentions his eloquence and college reforms
as well as his greed.
Even Mr. Froude,[75] who vastly dislikes himself and his sons, is
constrained to call him the "able and brilliant Hely Hutchinson," and to
tell of his "meridian splendour." He quotes Lord Lieutenant Townshend's
statement that he was "the most popular man in parliament to conduct a
debate."
The famous Colonel Isaac Barre,[76] who, as he got Scholarship in 1744,
was a college class-fellow of Hutchinson, gives the following description
of him in 1768:--"When the Army Augmentation Bill was introduced by Tom
Connoly, it was opposed by Sexten Pery on constitutional grounds, and by
the Attorney General (Tisdall) on grounds that left him free to support
the Bill afterwards if it were his interest to do so.[77]
"The Prime Serjeant (Hutchinson)" says Barre "was not so prudent[78] (as
Tisdall), and opposed it in a long, languid speech, full of false
calculations; among the rest this curious one, that adding L40,000 per
annum to the national expense was, in fact, adding a million to its debt,
and that the nation, in the next session, would be L1,800,000 in debt. If
all this is true, how will he have the impudence to support this measure
hereafter? But, indeed, he has contradicted himself three or four times in
the course of this session upon this subject.[79] He talks now of being
dismissed. His profit by his employment is trifling, not above three or
four hundred a year.[80]
"He is personally disliked, a mean gambler--not one great point in
him--and exceedingly unpopular in this country. I must tell you a short
anecdote which put him very much out of temper. The day after the first
division he came to Council in a hackney chair, which happened,
unluckily, to be No. 108 (the number of the majority). A young officer at
the Castle wrote under the number of the chair, "COURT" in large
characters, and at the top a coronet was drawn.[81]
"He denied positively in the beginning of his speech, any bargain or terms
proposed by him at the Castle, but was not believed.... As far as I am
able to judge," continues Barre, "this country is manageable easily
enough. The prevailing faction exists only by your want of system in
England. They have no abilities, and their present and only friend,
Hutchinson (for Tisdall is quite broken), cannot be depended on for a
moment."
In the last volume (vol. viii.) of the "Historical Manuscripts Report" we
find some very interesting mentions of Hutchinson in the letters that
passed between "Single Speech" Hamilton and Edmund Sexten Pery. Both of
these eminent men entertained a high opinion of, and a sincere personal
regard for, the Provost. In 1771, Hamilton, who was Chancellor of the
Irish Exchequer, and had been Chief Secretary to two Lord Lieutenants
(Lords Halifax and Northumberland) wrote to Pery, the Speaker[82] of the
House:--"As long as you and Andrews and Hutchinson are in being and
business, Ireland will never want attractions sufficient to make me prefer
it to a situation of 'more splendour and greater influence.'"
Two years later, Hamilton wrote to Pery about the collapse of the
negotiations for his resigning the Exchequer Chancellorship in
Hutchinson's favour, and begged that Hutchinson would not again require
him to sacrifice his own solid and substantial interests. Another letter,
dated 1779, says that Flood was eagerly canvassing for the post, and that
Hutchinson was discontented. The Chancellorship was not given to either of
the rivals--it was given to Foster, who was afterwards Speaker; and
Hutchinson accordingly failed to score a second triumph over "the
generous-minded, ornamental, sonorous-voiced Henry Flood, who was
eclipsing his meridian splendour."[83]
In 1777 the Corporation of Dublin petitioned the Provost and Board for a
free education for the son of the deceased patriot, Dr. Lucas. The College
authorities responded in a literal spirit, and generously granted to the
lad not only a remission of fees, but free rooms and free commons as
well.[84]
In 1779, were published the "Commercial Restraints," which in its original
shape was, a contribution to Lord Lieutenant Buckinghamshire as to the
best method of extricating the country from its discontent and troubles.
Froude says (vol. ii., p. 223), that it was the most important of all the
opinions gathered by the Viceroy, and that it earned Hutchinson's pardon
from Irish patriotism for his subserviency to the Court and Lord
Townshend. The work is an extremely able review of the whole history and
condition of our native Irish trade and industries, and it is as loyal in
its nationality as it is able. It is the only specimen we have to show us
the Provost as a writer and as an economist, and it certainly secures him
a high place in these two estimates.
In this aspect the work possesses a great biographical value, inasmuch as
it serves to complete the likeness of the Provost, and the complement
which it supplies falls in line with the best features of the original.
Although his sentences are often slovenly and sometimes ungrammatical, he
could write forcibly and clearly, as well as speak persuasively and
rhetorically; he could make facts and figures deliver their lesson; he
could summon up the ghost of the past to illustrate and enforce the duties
of the present; he could enwrap a message of peace in a mantle of warning;
and when no selfish interest intervened he could fling his sword into the
scale that was freighted with his country's welfare.
During Hutchinson's Provostship His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, Lord
Buckinghamshire, went in state to the University, and was received at the
entrance of the Old Hall by the Provost and Fellows. At his entrance, Dr.
Kearney made an eloquent oration; at the printing office, where H. E. was
entertained with a view of the artists, another oration was delivered by
Mr. Hutchinson, youngest (?) son of the Provost; at the Anatomy and
Philosophical Rooms addresses were delivered by the Hon. Dr. Decourcy, son
of Lord Kinsale, and the Hon. Mr. Jones, son of Lord Ranelagh. Thence he
went to the Library, where an excellent oration was made by Dr. Leland,
the Librarian, Orator, and Professor. H. E. afterwards dined in the New
Hall with the Provost and Fellows, and numbers of the nobility and
gentry. The elegance of the entertainment cannot be described, and is
imagined to stand the College in no less than L700.[85]