REIGN OF GEORGE II. (CONCLUDED)—MALONE'S LEADERSHIP.
The Earl of Harrington, afterwards Duke of Devonshire, succeeded Lord
Chesterfield in the government, in 1746. He was provided with a prime
minister in the person of the new Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. George
Stone, whose character, if he was not exceedingly calumniated by his
cotemporaries, might be compared to that of the worst politicians of
the worst ages of Europe. Originally, the son of the jailer of
Winchester, he had risen by dint of talents, and audacity, to receive
from the hands of his sovereign, the illustrious dignity of Primate of
Ireland. But even in this exalted office, the abominable vices of his
youth accompanied him. His house at Leixlip, was at once a tavern and a
brothel, and crimes, which are nameless, were said to be habitual under
his roof. "May the importation of Ganymedes into Ireland, be soon
discontinued," was the public toast, which disguised under the
transparent gauze of a mythological allusion, the infamies of which he
was believed to be the patron. The prurient page of Churchill was not
quite so scrupulous, and the readers of the satire entitled "The
Times," will need no further key to the horrible charges commonly
received on both sides of the channel, against Primate Stone.
The viceroyalty of Ireland, which had become an object of ambition to
the first men in the empire, was warmly contested by the Earl of
Harrington and the Duke of Dorset. The former, through his Stanhope
influence and connections, prevailed over his rival, and arrived in
Ireland, warmly recommended by the popular Chesterfield. During his
administration, Primate Stone, proceeding from one extreme to another,
first put forward the dangerous theory, that all surplus revenue
belonged of right to the crown, and might be paid over by the
Vice-Treasurers, to his majesty's order, without authority of
Parliament. At this period, notwithstanding the vicious system of her
land tenures, and her recent losses by emigration, Ireland found
herself in possession of a considerable surplus revenue.
Like wounds and bruises in a healthy body, the sufferings and
deprivations of the population rapidly disappeared under the appearance
even of improvement in the government. The observant Chesterfield, who
continued through life warmly attached to the country in which his name
was remembered with so much affection, expresses to his friend,
Chevenix, Bishop of Waterford, in 1751, his satisfaction at hearing
"that Ireland improves daily, and that a spirit of industry spreads
itself, to the great increase of trade and manufactures." This new-born
prosperity the Primate and politicians of his school would have met by
an annual depletion of the treasury, instead of assisting its march by
the reduction of taxes, and the promotion of necessary public works.
The surplus was naturally regarded, by the Patriot party, in the light
of so much national capital; they looked upon it as an improvement
fund, for the construction of canals, highways, and breakwaters, for
the encouragement of the linen and other manufactures, and for the
adornment of the capital with edifices worthy of the chief city of a
flourishing kingdom.
The leader of the Patriot party, Anthony Malone, was compared at this
period, by an excellent authority, to "a great sea in a calm." He was
considered, even by the fastidious Lord Shelburne, the equal, in
oratory, of Chatham and Mansfield. He seems to have at all times,
however, sunk the mere orator in the statesman, and to have used his
great powers of argument even more in Council than in the arena. His
position at the bar, as Prime Sergeant, by which he took precedence
even of the Attorney-General, gave great weight to his opinions on all
questions of constitutional law. The roystering country gentlemen, who
troubled their heads but little with anything besides dogs and horses,
pistols and claret, felt secure in their new-fledged patriotism, under
the broad aegis of the law extended over them by the most eminent
lawyer of his age. The Speaker of the Commons, Henry Boyle, aided and
assisted Malone, and when left free to combat on the floor, his high
spirit and great fortune gave additional force to his example and
confidence to his followers. Both were men too cautious to allow their
adversaries any parliamentary advantage over them, but not so their
intrepid coadjutor out of doors, Apothecary Lucas. He, like Swift,
rising from local and municipal grievances to questions affecting the
constitution of Parliament itself, was in 1749, against all the efforts
of his friends in the House of Commons, declared by the majority of
that House to be "an enemy to his country," and a reward was
accordingly issued for his apprehension. For a time he was compelled to
retire to England; but he returned, to celebrate in his Freeman's
Journal the humiliation of the primate, and the defeat of the policy
both of Lord Harrington, and his successor, the Duke of Dorset.
This nobleman, resolved to cast his predecessor into the shade by the
brilliancy of his success, proceeded to take vigorous measures against
the patriots. In his first speech to Parliament in 1751, he informed
them his Majesty "consented" to the appropriation of the surplus
revenue, by the House of Commons, and a clause was added to the annual
supply bill in the English Council, containing the same obnoxious word,
"consent." On this occasion, not feeling themselves strong enough to
throw out the bill, and there being no alternative but rejection or
acceptance, the Patriots permitted it to pass under protest. But the
next session, when a similar addition was made, the Commons rejected
the supply bill altogether, by a majority of 122 to 117. This was a
measure of almost revolutionary consequence, since it left every branch
of the public service unprovided for, for the ensuing twelve months.
Both the advisers of the King in England, and the Viceroy in Ireland,
seemed by their insane conduct as if they desired to provoke such a
collision. Malone's patent of precedence as Prime Sergeant was
cancelled; the speaker was dismissed from the Privy Council, and the
surplus revenue was withdrawn from the Vice-Treasurer, by a King's
letter. The indignation of the Dubliners at these outrages rose to the
utmost pitch. Stone, Healy, Hutchinson, and others of the Castle party,
were waylaid and menaced in the streets, and the Viceroy himself hooted
wherever he appeared. Had the popular leaders been men less cautious,
or less influential, the year 1753 might have witnessed a violent
revolutionary movement. But they planted themselves on the authority of
the constitution, they united boldness with prudence, and they
triumphed. The Primate and his creatures raised against them in vain
the cuckoo cry of disloyalty, both in Dublin and London. The English
Whigs, long engaged themselves in a similar struggle with the overgrown
power of the crown, sympathized with the Irish opposition, and defended
their motives both in society and in Parliament. The enemies of the
Dorset family as naturally took their part, and the duke himself was
obliged to go over to protect his interest at court, leaving the odious
Primate as one of the Lords-Justices. At his departure his guards were
hardly able to protect him from the fury of the populace, to that
waterside to which Chesterfield had walked on foot, seven years before,
amid the benedictions of the same people.
The Patriots had at this crisis a great addition to their strength, in
the accession of James, the twentieth Earl of Kildare, successively
Marquis and Duke of Leinster. This nobleman, in the prime of life,
married to the beautiful Emily Lennox, daughter of the Duke of
Richmond, followed Dorset to England, and presented to the King, with
his own hand, one of the boldest memorials ever addressed to a
sovereign by a subject. After reciting the past services of his family
in maintaining the imperial connection, he declared himself the organ
of several thousands of his Majesty's liege subjects, "as well the
nobles as the clergy, the gentry, and the commonalty of the kingdom."
He dwells on the peculation and extravagance of the administration,
under "the Duumvirate" of the Viceroy and the Primate, which he
compares with the league of Strafford and Laud. He denounces more
especially Lord George Sackville, son to Dorset, for his intermeddling
in every branch of administration. He speaks of Dr. Stone as "a greedy
churchman, who affects to be a second Wolsey in the senate." This
high-toned memorial struck with astonishment the English ministers, who
did not hesitate to hint, that, in a reign less merciful, it would not
have passed with impunity. In Ireland it raised the hardy earl to the
pinnacle of popular favour. A medal was struck in his honour,
representing him guarding a heap of treasure with a drawn sword, and
the motto—"Touch not, says Kildare." At the opening of the next
Parliament, he was a full hour making his way among the enthusiastic
crowd, from his house in Kildare street to College Green. In little
more than a year, the Duke of Dorset, whom English ministers had in
vain endeavoured to sustain, was removed, and the Primate, by his
Majesty's orders, was struck from the list of privy counsellors.
Lord Harrington, now Duke of Devonshire, replaced the disgraced and
defeated Dorset, and at once surrounded himself with advisers from the
ranks of the opposition. The Earl of Kildare was his personal and
political friend, and his first visit, on arriving, was paid at Carton.
The Speaker, Mr. Boyle, the Earl of Bessborough, head of the popular
family of the Ponsonbys, and Mr. Malone, were called to the Privy
Council. Lucas, exalted rather than injured by years of exile, was
elected one of the members for the city of Dublin, and the whole face
of affairs promised a complete and salutary change of administration.
After a year in office, Devonshire returned to England in ill-health,
leaving Lord Kildare as one of the Justices, an office which he
continued to fill, till the arrival in September, 1756, of John, fourth
Duke of Bedford, as Lord-Lieutenant, with Mr. Rigby, "a good four
bottle man," as chief secretary.
The instructions of the Duke of Bedford, dictated by the genius and
wisdom of Chatham, were, to employ "all softening and healing arts of
government." His own desire, as a Whig, at the head of the Whig
families of England, was to unite and consolidate the same party in
Ireland, so as to make them a powerful auxiliary force to the English
Whigs. Consistently with this design, he wished well to the country he
was sent to rule, and was sincerely desirous of promoting measures of
toleration. But he found the Patriots distracted by success, and
disorganized by the possession of power. The Speaker, who had struggled
so successfully against his predecessors, was in the Upper House as
Earl of Shannon, and the chair of the Commons was filled by John
Ponsonby, of the Bessborough family. The Ponsonby following, and the
Earl of Kildare's friends were at this period almost as much divided
from each other in their views of public policy, as either were from
the party of the Primate. The Ponsonby party, still directed by Malone,
wished to follow up the recent victory on the money bills, by a measure
of Catholic relief, a tax upon absentees, and a reduction of the
pension list, shamelessly burthened beyond all former proportion. Lord
Kildare and his friends were not then prepared to go such lengths,
though that high spirited nobleman afterwards came into most of these
measures. After endeavouring in vain to unite, these two interests, the
Duke of Bedford found, or fancied himself compelled, in order to secure
a parliamentary majority, to listen to the overtures of the, obsequious
Primate, to restore him to the Council, and to leave him, together with
his old enemy, Lord Shannon, in the situation of joint administrators,
during his journey to England, in 1758. The Earl of Kildare, it should
be remarked, firmly refused to be associated with Stone, on any terms,
or for any time, long or short.
The closing of this important reign is notable for the first Catholic
meeting held since the reign of Queen Anne. In the spring of 1757, four
hundred respectable gentlemen attended by mutual agreement, at Dublin,
among whom were Lords Devlin, Taafe, and Fingal, the antiquary, Charles
O'Conor, of Balanagar, the historian of the _Civil Wars_, Dr. Curry,
and Mr. Wyse, a merchant of Waterford, the ancestor of a still better
known labourer in the same cause. The then recent persecution of Mr.
Saul, a Dublin merchant, of their faith, for having harboured a young
lady whose friends wished to coerce her into a change of religion, gave
particular significance to this assembly. It is true the proceedings
were characterized by caution amounting almost to timidity, but the
unanimous declaration of their loyal attachment to the throne, at a
moment when French invasion was imminent, produced the best effect, and
greatly strengthened the hands of the Clanbrassils, Ponsonbys, Malones,
Dalys, and other advocates of an enlarged toleration in both Houses. It
is true no immediate legislation followed, but the way was prepared for
future ameliorations by the discretion and tact of the Catholic
delegates of 1757. They were thenceforth allowed at least the right of
meeting and petitioning, of which they had long been deprived, and the
restoration of which marks the first step in their gradual recovery of
their civil liberties.
In 1759 a rumour broke out in Dublin that a legislative union was in
contemplation by the Primate and his faction. On the 3rd of December,
the citizens rose _en masse_, and surrounded the Houses of Parliament.
They stopped the carriages of members, and obliged them to swear
opposition to such a measure. Some of the Protestant bishops, and the
Lord Chancellor were roughly handled; a privy counsellor was thrown
into the river; the Attorney General was wounded and obliged to take
refuge in the college; Lord Inchiquin was abused till he said his name
was O'Brien, when the rage of the people "was turned into
acclamations." The Speaker, Mr. Ponsonby, and the Chief Secretary, Mr.
Rigby, had to appear in the porch of the House of Commons, solemnly to
assure the citizens that no union was dreamed of, and if it was
proposed, that they would be the first to resist it. Public spirit had
evidently grown bold and confident, and we can well believe Secretary
Rigby when he writes to the elder Pitt, that "the mob" declared, "since
they have no chance of numbers in the House, they must have recourse to
numbers out of doors."