LAST SESSION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT—THE LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT
BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
When the Irish Parliament met for the last time, on the 15th of
January, 1800, the position of the Union question stood thus: 27 new
Peers had been added to the House of Lords, where the Castle might
therefore reckon with safety on a majority of three to one. Of the
Lords spiritual, only Dr. Marlay of Waterford, and Dr. Dixon of Down
and Conor, had the courage to side with their country against their
order. In the Commons there was an infusion of some 50 new borough
members, many of them general officers, such as Needham, and Pakenham,
all of them nominees of the Castle, except Mr. Saurin, returned for
Blessington, and Mr. Grattan, at the last moment, for Wicklow. The
great constitutional body of the bar had, at a general meeting, the
previous December, declared against the measure by 162 to 33. Another
powerful body, the bankers, had petitioned against it, in the interest
of the public credit. The Catholic bishops, in their annual meeting,
had taken up a position of neutrality as a body, but under the artful
management of Lord Castlereagh, the Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam,
with the Bishop of Cork, and some others, were actively employed in
counteracting anti-Union movements among the people. Although the vast
majority of that people had too much reason to be disgusted and
discontented with the legislation of the previous three years, above
700,000 of them petitioned against the measure, while all the
signatures which could be obtained in its favour, by the use of every
means at the command of the Castle, did not much exceed 7,000.
The Houses were opened on the 15th of January. The Viceroy not going
down, his message was read in the Lords, by the Chancellor, and in the
Commons, by the Chief Secretary. It did not directly refer to the basis
laid down in England, nor to the subject matter itself; but the leaders
of the Castle party in both Houses, took care to supply the deficiency.
In the Lords, proxies included, Lord Clare had 75 to 26 for his Union
address: in the Commons, Lord Castlereagh congratulated the country on
the improvement which had taken place in public opinion, since the
former session. He briefly sketched his plan of Union, which, while
embracing the main propositions of Mr. Pitt, secured the Church
establishment, bid high for the commercial interests, hinted darkly of
emancipation to the Catholics, and gave the proprietors of boroughs to
understand that their interest in those convenient constituencies would
be capitalized, and a good round sum given to buy out their perpetual
patronage. In amendment to the address, Sir Lawrence Parsons moved,
seconded by Mr. Savage of Down, that the House would maintain _intact_
the Constitution of '82, and the debate proceeded on this motion.
Ponsonby replied to Castlereagh; Plunkett and Bushe were answered by
the future judges, St. George Daly and Luke Fox; Toler contributed his
farce, and Dr. Duigenan his fanaticism. Through the long hours of the
winter's night the eloquent war was vigorously maintained. One who was
himself a distinguished actor in the struggle, (Sir Jonah Barrington,)
has thus described it: "Every mind," he says, "was at its stretch,
every talent was in its vigour: it was a momentous trial; and never was
so general and so deep a sensation felt in any country. Numerous
British noblemen and commoners were present at that and the succeeding
debate, and they expressed opinions of Irish eloquence which they had
never before conceived, nor ever after had an opportunity of
appreciating. Every man on that night seemed to be inspired by the
subject. Speeches more replete with talent and energy, on both sides,
never were heard in the Irish Senate; it was a vital subject. The
sublime, the eloquent, the figurative orator, the plain, the connected,
the metaphysical reasoner, the classical, the learned, and the solemn
declaimer, in a succession of speeches so full of energy and
enthusiasm, so interesting in their nature, so important in their
consequence, created a variety of sensations even in the bosom of a
stranger, and could scarcely fail of exciting some sympathy with a
nation which was doomed to close for ever that school of eloquence
which had so long given character and celebrity to Irish talent."
At the early dawn, a special messenger from Wicklow, just arrived in
town, roused Henry Grattan from his bed. He had been elected the
previous night for the borough of Wicklow, (which cost him 2,400 pounds
sterling), and this was the bearer of the returning officer's
certificate. His friends, weak and feeble as he was, wished him to go
down to the House, and his heroic wife seconded their appeals. It was
seven o'clock in the morning of the 16th when he reached College Green,
the scene of his first triumphs twenty years before. Mr. Egan, one of
the staunchest anti-Unionists, was at the moment, on some rumour,
probably, of his approach, apostrophising warmly the father of the
Constitution of '82, when that striking apparition appeared at the bar.
Worn and emaciated beyond description, he appeared leaning on two of
his friends, Arthur Moore and W. B. Ponsonby. He wore his volunteer
uniform, blue with red facings, and advanced to the table, where he
removed his cocked hat, bowed to the Speaker, and took the oaths. After
Mr. Egan had concluded, he begged permission from his seat beside
Plunkett, to address the House sitting, which was granted, and then in
a discourse of two hours' duration, full of his ancient fire and
vigour, he asserted once again, by the divine right of intellect, his
title to be considered the first Commoner of Ireland. Gifted men were
not rare in that assembly; but the inspiration of the heart, the
uncontrollable utterance of a supreme spirit, not less than the
extraordinary faculty of condensation, in which, perhaps, he has never
had a superior in our language, gave the Grattan of 1800 the same
pre-eminence among his cotemporaries, that was conceded to the Grattan
of 1782. After eighteen hours' discussion the division was taken, when
the result of the long recess was clearly seen; for the amendment there
appeared 96, for the address 138 members. The Union majority,
therefore, was 42. It was apparent from that moment that the
representation of the people in Parliament had been effectually
corrupted; that that assembly was no longer the safeguard of the
liberties of the people. Other ministerial majorities confirmed this
impression. A measure to enable 10,000 of the Irish militia to enter
the regular army, and to substitute English militia in their stead,
followed; an inquiry into outrages committed by the sheriff and
military in King's county, was voted down; a similar motion somewhat
later, in relation to officials in Tipperary met the same fate. On the
5th of February, a formal message proposing a basis of Union was
received from his Excellency, and debated for twenty consecutive
hours—from 4 o'clock of one day, till 12 of the next. Grattan,
Plunkett, Parnell, Ponsonby, Saurin, were, as always, eloquent and
able, but again the division told for the minister, 160 to 117—majority
43. On the 17th of February, the House went into Committee on the
proposed articles of Union, and the Speaker (John Foster) being now on
the floor, addressed the House with great ability in review of Mr.
Pitt's recent Union speech, which he designated "a paltry production."
But again, a majority mustered, at the nod of the minister, 161 to
140—a few not fully committed showing some last faint spark of
independence. It was on this occasion that Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, member for Newry, made for the third or fourth time that
session, an attack on Grattan, which brought out, on the instant, that
famous "philippic against Corry," unequalled in our language, for its
well-suppressed passion, and finely condensed denunciation. A duel
followed, as soon as there was sufficient light; the Chancellor was
wounded, after which the Castlereagh tactics of "fighting down the
opposition," received an immediate and lasting check.
Throughout the months of February and March, with an occasional
adjournment, the Constitutional battle was fought on every point
permitted by the forms of the House. On the 25th of March, the
Committee, after another powerful speech from the Speaker, finally
reported the resolutions which were passed by 154 to 107—a majority of
47. The Houses then adjourned for six weeks, to allow time for
corresponding action to be taken in England. There was little
difficulty in carrying the measure. In the Upper House, Lords Derby,
Holland, and King only opposed it; in the Lower, Sheridan, Tierney,
Grey, and Lawrence mustered on a division, 30 votes against Pitt's 206.
On the 21st of May, in the Irish Commons, Lord Castlereagh obtained
leave to bring in the Union Bill by 160 to 100; on the 7th of June the
final passage of the measure was effected. That closing scene has been
often described, but never so graphically, as by the diamond pen of
Jonah Barrington.
"The galleries were full, but the change was lamentable. They were no
longer crowded with those who had been accustomed to witness the
eloquence and to animate the debates of that devoted assembly. A
monotonous and melancholy murmur ran through the benches; scarcely a
word was exchanged amongst the members; nobody seemed at ease; no
cheerfulness was apparent; and the ordinary business, for a short time,
proceeded in the usual manner.
"At length, the expected moment arrived: the order of the day for the
third reading of the bill for a 'legislative union between Great
Britain and Ireland' was moved by Lord Castlereagh. Unvaried, tame,
cold-blooded, the words seemed frozen as they issued from his lips;
and, as if a simple citizen of the world, he seemed to have no
sensation on the subject.
"At that moment he had no country, no God, but his ambition. He made
his motion, and resumed his seat, with the utmost composure and
indifference.
"Confused murmurs again ran through the House. It was visibly affected.
Every character, in a moment, seemed involuntarily rushing to its
index—some pale, some flushed, some agitated—there were few
countenances to which the heart did not despatch some messenger.
Several members withdrew before the question could be repeated, and an
awful, momentary silence succeeded their departure. The Speaker rose
slowly from that chair which had been the proud source of his honours
and of his high character. For a moment he resumed his seat, but the
strength of his mind sustained him in his duty, though his struggle was
apparent. With that dignity which never failed to signalize his
official actions, he held up the bill for a moment in silence. He
looked steadily around him on the last agony of the expiring
Parliament. He at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are
of opinion that THIS BILL do pass, say _ay_! The affirmative was
languid, but indisputable. Another momentary pause ensued. Again his
lips seemed to decline their office. At length, with an eye averted
from the object he hated, he proclaimed, with a subdued voice, '_The,
AYES have it_.' The fatal sentence was now pronounced. For an instant
he stood statue-like; then indignantly, and with disgust, flung the
bill upon the table, and sank into his chair with an exhausted spirit.
An independent country was thus degraded into a province. Ireland, as a
nation, was extinguished."
The final division in the Commons was 153 to 88, nearly 60 members
absenting themselves, and in the Lords, 76 to 17. In England all the
stages were passed in July, and on the 2nd of August, the anniversary
of the King's accession, the royal assent was given to the twofold
legislation, which declared the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland
one and inseparable!
By the provisions of this statute, compact, or treaty, the Sovereignty
of the United Kingdom was to follow the order of the Act of Succession;
the Irish peerage was to be reduced by the filling of one vacancy for
every three deaths, to the number of one hundred; from among these,
twenty-eight representative Peers were to be elected for life, and four
spiritual Lords to sit in succession. The number of Irish
representatives in the Imperial Parliament was fixed at one hundred
(increased to one hundred and five); the churches of England and
Ireland were united like the kingdoms, and declared to be one in
doctrine and discipline. The debt of Ireland, which was less than
4,000,000 pounds in 1797, increased to 14,000,000 pounds in '99, and
had risen to nearly 17,000,000 pounds in 1801, was to be alone
chargeable to Ireland, whose proportionate share of general taxation
was then estimated at 2-17ths of that of the United Kingdom. The Courts
of Law, the Privy Council, and the Viceroyalty, were to remain at
Dublin, the cenotaph and the shadows of departed nationality.
On the 1st day of January, 1801, in accordance with this great
Constitutional change, a new imperial standard was run up on London
Tower, Edinburgh Castle, and Dublin Castle. It was formed of the three
crosses of St. Patrick, Saint Andrew, and Saint George, and is that
popularly known to us as "the Union Jack." The _fleur de lis_, and the
word "France," were struck from the royal title, which was settled, by
proclamation, to consist henceforth of the words _Dei Gratia,
Britanniarum Rex, Fidei Defensor_.
The foul means by which this counter revolution was accomplished, have,
perhaps, been already sufficiently indicated. It may be necessary,
however, in order to account for the continued hostility of the Irish
people to the measure, after more than sixty years' experience of its
results, to recapitulate them very briefly. Of all who voted for the
Union, in both Houses, it was said that only six or seven were known to
have done so on conviction. Great borough proprietors, like Lord Ely
and Lord Shannon, received as much as 45,000 pounds sterling in
"compensation" for their loss of patronage; while proprietors of single
seats received 15,000 pounds. That the majority was avowedly purchased,
in both Houses, is no longer matter of inference, nay, that some of
them were purchased twice over is now well known. Lord Carysfort, an
active partisan of the measure, writing in February, 1800, to his
friend the Marquis of Buckingham, frankly says: "The majority, which
has been bought at an enormous price, must be bought over again,
perhaps more than once, before all the details can be gone through."
His lordship himself, and the order to which he belonged, and those who
aspired to enter it, were, it must be added, among the most insatiable
of these purchased supporters. The Dublin _Gazette_ for July, 1800,
announced not less than sixteen new peerages, and the same publication
for the last week of the year, contained a fresh list of twenty-six
others. Forty-two creations in six months was a stretch of prerogative
far beyond the most arbitrary of the Stuarts or Tudors, and forms one,
not of the least unanswerable evidences, of the utterly corrupt
considerations which secured the support of the Irish majority in both
Houses.
It was impossible that a people like the Irish, disinterested and
unselfish to a fault, should ever come to respect a compact brought
about by such means and influences as these. Had, however, the Union,
vile as were the means by which it was accomplished, proved to the real
benefit of the country—had equal civil and religious rights been freely
and at once extended to the people of the lesser kingdom—there is no
reason to doubt that the measure would have become popular in time, and
the vices of the old system be better remembered than its benefits,
real or imaginary. But the Union was never utilized for Ireland; it
proved in reality what Samuel Johnson had predicted, when spoken of in
his day: "Do not unite with us, sir," said the gruff old moralist to an
Irish acquaintance; "it would be the union of the shark with his prey;
we should unite with you only to destroy you."
In glancing backward over the long political connexion of Ireland and
England, we mark four great epochs. The Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169;
the statute of Kilkenny decreeing eternal separation between the races,
"the English pale" and "the Irish enemy," 1367; the Union of the
Crowns, in 1541, and the Legislative Union, in 1801. One more cardinal
event remains to be recorded—the Emancipation of the Catholics, in
1829.
BOOK XII.
FROM THE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND TO THE EMANCIPATION OF THE
CATHOLICS.
CHAPTER I.
AFTER THE UNION—DEATH OF LORD CLARE—ROBERT EMMET'S EMEUTE.
The plan of this brief compendium of Irish history obliges us to sketch
for some years farther on, the political and religious annals of the
Irish people. Having described in what manner their distinctive
political nationality was at length lost, it only remains to show how
their religious liberties were finally recovered.
The first striking effect of the Union was to introduce Catholic
Emancipation into the category of imperial difficulties, and to assign
it the very first place on the list. By a singular retribution, the
Pitt administration with its 200 of a House of Commons majority, its
absolute control of the Lords, and its seventeen years' prescription in
its favour, fell upon this very question, after they had used it to
carry the Union, within a few weeks of the consummation of that Union.
The cause of this crisis was the invincible obstinacy of the King, who
had taken into his head, at the time of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall from
Ireland, that his coronation oath bound him in conscience to resist the
Catholic claims. The suggestion of this obstacle was originally Lord
Clare's; and though Lord Kenyon and Lord Stowell had declared it
unfounded in law, Lord Loughborough and Lord Eldon were unfortunately
of a different opinion. With George III. the idea became a monomaniac
certainty, and there is no reason to doubt that he would have preferred
abdication to its abandonment.
The King was not for several months aware how far his Prime Minister
had gone on the Catholic question in Ireland. But those who were weary
of Pitt's ascendancy, were, of course, interested in giving him this
important information. The minister himself, wrapped in his austere
self-reliance, did not volunteer explanations even to his Sovereign,
and the King broke silence very unexpectedly, a few days after the
first meeting of the Imperial Parliament (January 22nd, 1801). Stepping
up to Mr. Dundas at the levee, he began in his usual manner, "What's
this? what's this? this, that this young Lord (Castlereagh) has brought
over from Ireland to throw at my head? The most Jacobinical thing I
ever heard of! Any man who proposes such a thing is my personal enemy."
Mr. Dundas replied respectfully but firmly, and immediately
communicated the conversation to Mr. Pitt. The King's remarks had been
overheard by the bystanders, so that either the minister or the
Sovereign had now to give way. Pitt, at first, was resolute; the King
then offered to impose silence on himself as regarded the whole
subject, provided Mr. Pitt would agree to do likewise, but the haughty
minister refused, and tendered his resignation. On the 5th of February,
within five weeks of the consummation of the Union, this tender was
most reluctantly and regretfully accepted. Lord Grenville, Mr. Dundas,
and others of his principal colleagues went out of office with him;
Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh following their example. Of the
new Cabinet, Addington, the Speaker, was Premier, with Lord Hardwicke
as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. By the enemies of Pitt this was looked
upon as a mere administration _ad interim_; as a concerted arrangement
to enable him to evade an unfavourable peace—that of Amiens—which he
saw coming; but it is only fair to say, that the private letters of the
period, since published, do not sanction any such imputation. It is,
however, to be observed, _per contra_, that three weeks after his
formal resignation, he had no hesitation in assuring the King, who had
just recovered from one of his attacks brought on by this crisis, that
he would never again urge the Catholic claims on his Majesty's notice.
On this understanding he returned to office in the spring of 1804; to
this compact he adhered till his death, in January, 1806.
In Ireland, the events immediately consequent upon the Union, were such
as might have been expected. Many of those who had been instrumental in
carrying it, were disappointed and discontented with their new
situation in the empire. Of these, the most conspicuous and the least
to be pitied, was Lord Clare. That haughty, domineering spirit,
accustomed to dictate with almost absolute power to the Privy
Counsellors and peerage of Ireland, experienced nothing but
mortification in the Imperial House of Lords. The part he hoped to play
on that wider stage he found impossible to assume; he confronted there
in the aged Thurlow and the astute Loughborough, law lords as absolute
as himself, who soon made him conscious that, though a main agent of
the Union, he was only a stranger in the united legislature. The Duke
of Bedford reminded him that "the Union had not transferred his
dictatorial powers to the Imperial Parliament;" other noble Lords were
hardly less severe. Pitt was cold, and Grenville ceremonious; and in
the arrangements of the Addington ministry he was not even consulted.
He returned to Ireland before the first year of the Union closed, in a
state of mind and temper which preyed upon his health. Before the
second session of the Imperial Parliament assembled, he had been borne
to the grave amid the revilings and hootings of the multitude. Dublin,
true to its ancient disposition, which led the townsfolk of the twelfth
century to bury the ancestor of Dermid McMurrogh with the carcass of a
dog, filled the grave of the once splendid Lord Chancellor with every
description of garbage.
On the other hand, Lord Castlereagh, younger, suppler, and more
accommodating to English prejudices, rose from one Cabinet office to
another, until at length, in fifteen years from the Union, he directed
the destinies of the Empire, as absolutely, as he had moulded the fate
of Ireland. To Castlereagh and the Wellesley family, the Union was in
truth, an era of honour and advancement. The sons of the spendthrift
amateur, Lord Mornington, were reserved to rule India, and lead the
armies of Europe; while the son of Flood's colleague in the Reform
convention of 1783, was destined to give law to Christendom, at the
Congress of Vienna.
A career very different in all respects from those just mentioned,
closed in the second year of Dublin's widowhood as a metropolis. It was
the career of a young man of four-and-twenty, who snatched at immortal
fame and obtained it, in the very agony of a public, but not for him, a
shameful death. This was Robert, youngest brother of Thomas Addis
Emmet, whose _emeute_ of 1803 would long since have sunk to the level
of other city riots, but for the matchless dying speech of which it was
the prelude and the occasion. This young gentleman was in his 20th year
when expelled with nineteen others from Trinity College, in 1798, by
order of the visitors, Lord Clare and Dr. Duigenan. His reputation as a
scholar and debater was already established within the college walls,
and the highest expectations were naturally entertained of him, by his
friends. One of his early college companions—Thomas Moore—who lived to
know all the leading men of his age, declares that of all he had ever
known, he would place among "the highest of the few" who combined in
"the greatest degree pure moral worth with intellectual power"—Robert
Emmet. After the expatriation of his brother, young Emmet visited him
at Fort-George, and proceeded from thence to the Continent. During the
year the Union was consummated he visited Spain, and travelled through
Holland, France, and Switzerland, till the peace of Amiens.
Subsequently he joined his brother's family in Paris, and was taken
into the full confidence of the exiles, then in direct communication
with Buonaparte and Talleyrand. It was not concealed from the Irish by
either the First Consul, or his minister, that the peace with England
was likely to have a speedy termination; and, accordingly, they were
not unprepared for the new declaration of war between the two
countries, which was officially made at London and Paris, in May,
1803—little more than twelve months after the proclamation of the peace
of Amiens.
It was in expectation of this rupture, and a consequent invasion of
Ireland, that Robert Emmet returned to Dublin, in October, 1802, to
endeavour to re-establish in some degree the old organization of the
United Irishmen. In the same expectation, McNevin, Corbet, and others
of the Irish in France, formed themselves, by permission of the First
Consul, into a legion, under command of Tone's trusty aid-de-camp,
McSheehey; while Thomas Addis Emmet and Arthur O'Conor remained at
Paris, the plenipotentiaries of their countrymen. On the rupture with
England Buonaparte took up the Irish negotiation with much earnestness;
he even suggested to the exiles the colours and the motto under which
they were to fight, when once landed on their own soil. The flag on a
tricolour ground, was to have a green centre, bearing the letters
_R.I.—Republique Irlandaise_. The legend at large was to be:
_L'independence de l'Irlande—Liberte de Conscience_; a motto which
certainly told the whole story. The First Consul also suggested the
formation of an Irish Committee at Paris, and the preparation of
statements of Irish grievances for the _Moniteur_, and the
semi-official papers.
Robert Emmet seems to have been confidently of opinion soon after his
return to Dublin, that nineteen out of the thirty-two counties would
rise; and, perhaps, if a sufficient French force had landed, his
opinion might have been justified by the fact. So did not think,
however, John Keogh, Valentine Lawless (Lord Cloncurry), and other
close observers of the state of the country. But Emmet was
enthusiastic, and he inspired his own spirit into many. Mr. Long, a
merchant, placed 1,400 pounds sterling at his disposal; he had himself,
in consequence of the recent death of his father, stock to the amount
of 1,500 pounds converted into cash, and with these funds he entered
actively on his preliminary preparations. His chief confidants and
assistants were Thomas Russell and Mathew Dowdall, formerly prisoners
at Fort-George, but now permitted to return; William Putnam McCabe, the
most adventurous of all the party, a perfect Proteus in disguise; Gray,
a Wexford attorney; Colonel Lumm of Kildare, an old friend of Lord
Edward Fitzgerald; Mr. Long, before mentioned; Hamilton, an Enniskillen
barrister, married to Russell's niece; James Hope of Templepatrick, and
Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow outlaw, who had remained since '98
uncaptured in the mountains.
In the month of March, when the renewal of hostilities with France was
decided on in England, the preparations of the conspirators were pushed
forward with redoubled energy. The still wilder conspiracy headed by
Colonel Despard in London, the previous winter, the secret and the fate
of which was well known to the Dublin leaders—Dowdall being Despard's
agent—did not in the least intimidate Emmet or his friends. Despard
suffered death in February, with nine of his followers, but his Irish
confederates only went on with their arrangements with a more reckless
resolution. Their plan was the plan of O'Moore and McGuire, to surprise
the Castle, seize the authorities and secure the capital; but the
Dublin of 1803 was in many respects very different from the Dublin of
1641. The discontent, however, arising from the recent loss of the
Parliament might have turned the city scale in Emmet's favour, had its
first stroke been successful. The emissaries at work in the Leinster
and Ulster counties gave besides sanguine reports of success, so that,
judging by the information in his possession, an older and cooler head
than Robert Emmet's might well have been misled into the expectation of
nineteen counties rising if the signal could only be given from Dublin
Castle. If the blow could be withheld till August, there was every
reason to expect a French invasion of England, which would drain away
all the regular army, and leave the people merely the militia and the
volunteers to contend against. But all the Dublin arrangements exploded
in the melancholy _emeute_ of the 23rd of July, 1803, in which the
Chief-Justice, Lord Kilwarden, passing through the disturbed quarter of
the city at the time, was cruelly murdered; for which, and for his
cause, Emmet suffered death on the same spot on the 20th of September
following. For the same cause, the equally pure-minded and chivalrous
Thomas Russell was executed at Downpatrick; Kearney, Roche, Redmond and
Howley also suffered death at Dublin; Allen, Putnam, McCabe, and
Dowdall escaped to France, where the former became an officer of rank
in the army of Napoleon; Michael Dwyer, who had surrendered on
condition of being allowed to emigrate to' North America, died in exile
in Australia, in 1825. Others of Emmet's known or suspected friends,
after undergoing two, three, and even four years' imprisonment, were
finally discharged without trial. Mr. Long, his generous banker, and
James Hope, his faithful emissary, were both permitted to end their
days in Ireland.
The trial of Robert Emmet, from the wonderful death-speech delivered at
it, is perfectly well known. But in justice to a man of genius equal if
not superior to his own—an Irishman, whose memory is national property,
as well as Emmet's, it must here be observed, that the latter never
delivered, and had no justification to deliver the vulgar diatribe
against Plunkett, his prosecutor, now constantly printed in the common
and incorrect versions of that speech. Plunkett, as Attorney-General,
in 1803, had no option but to prosecute for the crown; he was a
politician of a totally different school from that of Emmet; he shared
all Burke and Grattan's horror of French revolutionary principles. In
the fervour of his accusatory oration he may have gone too far; he may
have, and in reading it now, it is clear to us that he did press too
hard upon the prisoner in the dock. He might have performed his awful
office with more sorrow and less vehemence, for there was no doubt
about his jury. But withal, he gave no fair grounds for any such retort
as is falsely attributed to Emmet, the very style of which proves its
falsity. It is now well known that the apostrophe in the death-speech,
commencing "you viper," alleged to have been addressed to Plunkett, was
the interpolation many years afterwards of that literary
Ishmaelite—Walter Cox of the _Hibernian Magazine_,—who through such
base means endeavoured to aim a blow at Plunkett's reputation. The
personal reputation of the younger Emmet, the least known to his
countrymen of all the United Irish leaders, except by the crowning act
of his death, is safe beyond the reach of calumny, or party zeal, or
time's changes. It is embalmed in the verse of Moore and Southey, and
the precious prose of Washington Irvine. Men of genius in England and
America have done honour to his memory; in the annals of his own
country his name deserves to stand with those youthful chiefs, equally
renowned, and equally ready to seal their patriotism with their
blood—Sir Cahir O'Doherty and Hugh Roe O'Donnell.
CHAPTER II.
ADMINISTRATION OF LORD HARDWICKE (1801 TO 1806), AND OF THE DUKE OF
BEDFORD (1806 TO 1808).
During the five years in which Lord Hardwicke was Viceroy of Ireland,
the _habeas corpus_ remained suspended, and the Insurrection Act
continued in force. These were the years in which the power of Napoleon
made the most astonishing strides; the years in which he remodelled the
German Empire, placed on his head the iron crown of Lombardy, on his
sister's that of Etruria, and on his brother's that of Holland; when
the Consulate gave place to the Empire, and Dukedoms and Principalities
were freely distributed among the marshals of the Grand Army. During
all these years, Napoleon harassed England with menaces of invasion,
and excited Ireland with corresponding hopes of intervention. The more
far-seeing United Irishmen, however, had so little faith in these
demonstrations that Emmet and McNevin emigrated to the United States,
leaving behind them in the ranks of the French Army, those of their
compatriots who, either from habit or preference, had become attached
to a military life. It must however be borne in mind, for it is
essential to the understanding of England's policy towards Ireland, in
the first twelve or fourteen years after the Union, that the wild hope
of a French invasion never forsook the hearts of a large portion of the
Irish people, so long as Napoleon Buonaparte continued at the head of
the government of France. During the whole of that period the British
government were kept in constant apprehension for Ireland; under this
feeling they kept up and increased the local militia; strengthened
garrisons, and replenished magazines; constructed a chain of Martello
towers round the entire coast, and maintained in full rigour the
Insurrection Act. They refused, indeed, to the Munster magistrates in
1803, and subsequently, the power of summary convictions which they
possessed in '98; but they sent special Commissions of their own into
the suspected counties, who sentenced to death with as little remorse
as if they had been so many hydrophobic dogs. Ten, twelve, and even
twenty capital executions was no uncommon result of a single sitting of
one of those murderous commissions, over which Lord Norbury presided;
but it must be added that there were other judges, who observed not
only the decencies of everyday life, but who interpreted the law in
mercy as well as in justice. They were a minority, it is true, but
there were some such, nevertheless.
The session of the Imperial Parliament of 1803-'4, was chiefly
remarkable for its war speeches and war budget. In Ireland 50,000 men
of the regular militia were under arms and under pay; 70,000 volunteers
were enrolled, battalioned, and ready to be called out in case of
emergency, to which it was proposed to add 25,000 sea-fencibles.
General Fox, who it was alleged had neglected taking proper precaution
at the time of Robert Emmet's _emeute_, was replaced by Lord Cathcart,
as Commander-in-Chief. The _public_ reports at least of this officer,
were highly laudatory of the discipline and conduct of the Irish
militia.
In May, 1804, Mr. Pitt returned to power, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer and Prime Minister, when the whole Pitt policy towards
Ireland, France, and America, was of course resumed; a policy which
continued to be acted on during the short remainder of the life of its
celebrated author.
The year 1805 may be called the first year of the revival of public
spirit and public opinion after the Union. In that year Grattan had
allowed himself to be persuaded by Fox, into entering the Imperial
Parliament, and his old friend Lord Fitzwilliam found a constituency
for him, in his Yorkshire borough of Malton. About the same time, Pitt,
or his colleagues, induced Plunkett to enter the same great assembly,
providing him with a constituency at Midhurst, in Sussex. But they did
not succeed—if they ever attempted—to match Plunkett with Grattan.
Those great men were warm and close friends in the Imperial as they had
been in the Irish Parliament; very dissimilar in their genius, they
were both decided anti-Jacobins; both strenuous advocates of the
Catholic claims, and both proud and fond of their original country.
Grattan had more poetry, and Plunkett more science; but the heart of
the man of colder exterior opened and swelled out, in one of the
noblest tributes ever paid by one great orator to another, when
Plunkett introduced in 1821, in the Imperial Parliament, his allusion
to his illustrious friend, then recently deceased.
Preparatory to the meeting of Parliament in 1805, the members of the
old Catholic Committee, who had not met for any such purpose for
several years, assembled in Dublin, and prepared a petition which they
authorized their chairman, Lord Fingall, to place in such hands as he
might choose, for presentation in both Houses. His lordship on reaching
London waited on Mr. Pitt, and entreated him to take charge of the
petition; but he found that the Prime Minister had promised the King
one thing and the Catholics another, and, therefore, declined acceding
to his request. He then gave the petition into the charge of Lord
Grenville and Mr. Fox, and by them the subject was brought accordingly
before the Lords and Commons. This debate in the Commons was remarkable
in many respects, but most of all for Grattan's _debut_. A lively
curiosity to hear one of whom so much had been said in his own country,
pervaded the whole House, as Grattan rose. His grotesque little figure,
his eccentric action, and his strangely cadenced sentences rather
surprised than attracted attention, but as he warmed with the march of
ideas, men of both parties warmed to the genial and enlarged
philosophy, embodied in the interfused rhetoric and logic of the
orator; Pitt was seen to beat time with his hand to every curiously
proportioned period, and at length both sides of the House broke into
hearty acknowledgments of the genius of the new member for Malton. But
as yet their cheers were not followed by their votes; the division
against going into Committee was 336 to 124.
In sustaining Fox's motion, Sir John Cox Hippesley had suggested "the
Veto" as a safeguard against the encroachments of Rome, which the Irish
bishops would not be disposed to refuse. Archbishop Troy, and Dr.
Moylan, Bishop of Cork, gave considerable praise to this speech, and
partly at their request it was published in pamphlet form. This brought
up directly a discussion among the Catholics, which lasted until 1810,
was renewed in 1813, and not finally set at rest till the passage of
the bill of 1829, without any such safeguard. Sir John C. Hippesley had
modelled his proposal, he said, on the liberties of the Gallican
Church. "Her privileges," he added, "depended on two prominent maxims:
1st. That the Pope had no authority to order or interfere in anything
in which the civil rights of the kingdom were concerned. 2nd. That
notwithstanding the Pope's supremacy was acknowledged in cases purely
spiritual, yet, in other respects, his power was limited by the decrees
of the ancient councils of the realm." The Irish Church, therefore, was
to be similarly administered, to obviate the objections of the
opponents of complete civil emancipation.
In February, 1806, on the death of Pitt, Mr. Fox came into power, with
an uncertain majority and a powerful opposition. In April, the Duke of
Bedford arrived, as Viceroy, at Dublin, and the Catholics presented,
through Mr. Keogh, a mild address, expressive of their hopes that "the
glorious development" of their emancipation would be reserved for the
new government. The Duke returned an evasive answer in public, but
privately, both at Dublin and London, the Catholics were assured that,
as soon as the new Premier could convert the King—as soon as he was in
a position to act—he would make their cause his own. No doubt Fox, who
had great nobleness of soul, intended to do so; but on the 13th of
September of the same year, he followed his great rival, Pitt, to the
vaults of Westminster Abbey. A few months only had intervened between
the death of the rivals.
Lords Grey and Grenville, during the next recess, having formed a new
administration, instructed their Irish Secretary, Mr. Elliot, to put
himself in communication with the Catholics, in relation to a measure
making them eligible to naval and military offices. The Catholics
accepted this proposal with pleasure, but at the opening of the session
of 1807, in a deputation to the Irish government, again urged the
question of complete emancipation. The bill in relation to the army and
navy had, originally, the King's acquiescence; but early in March,
after it had passed the Commons, George III. changed his mind—if the
expression may be used of him—at that time. He declared he had not
considered it at first so important as he afterwards found it; he
intimated that it could not receive his sanction; he went farther—he
required a written pledge from Lords Grey and Grenville never again to
bring forward such a measure, "nor ever to propose anything connected
with the Catholic question." This unconstitutional pledge they refused
to give, hurried the bill into law, and resigned. Mr. Spencer Perceval
was then sent for, and what was called "the No-Popery Cabinet," in
which Mr. Canning and Lord Castlereagh were the principal Secretaries
of State, was formed. Thus, for the second time in six years, had the
Catholic question made and unmade cabinets.
The Catholics were a good deal dispirited in 1805, by the overwhelming
majority by which their petition of that year was refused to be
referred to a committee. In 1806, they contented themselves with simply
addressing the Duke of Bedford, on his arrival at Dublin. In 1807, the
"No-Popery Cabinet," by the result of the elections, was placed in
possession of an immense majority—a fact which excluded all prospects
of another change of government. But the Committee were too long
accustomed to disappointments to despair even under these reverses.
Early in the next session their petition was presented by Mr. Grattan
in the Commons, and Lord Donoughmore in the Lords. The majority against
going into committee was, in the Commons, 153; in the Lords, 87.
Similar motions in the session of 1808, made by the same parties, were
rejected by majorities somewhat reduced, and the question, on the
whole, might be said to have recovered some of its former vantage
ground, in despite of the bitter, pertinacious resistance of Mr.
Perceval, in the one House, and the Duke of Portland, in the other.
The short-lived administration of Mr. Fox, though it was said to
include "all the talents," had been full of nothing but disappointment
to his Irish supporters. The Duke of Bedford was, indeed, a great
improvement on Lord Hardwicke, and Mr. Ponsonby on Lord Redesdale, as
Chancellor, and the liberation of the political prisoners confined
since 1803 did honour to the new administration. But there the measures
of justice so credulously expected, both as to persons and interests,
ended. Curran, whose professional claims to advancement were far beyond
those of dozens of men who had been, during the past ten years, lifted
over his head, was neglected, and very naturally dissatisfied; Grattan,
never well adapted for a courtier, could not obtain even minor
appointments for his oldest and staunchest adherents; while the
Catholics found their Whig friends, now that they were in office, as
anxious to exact the hard conditions of the Veto as Castlereagh
himself.
In truth, the Catholic body at this period, and for a few years
subsequently, was deplorably disorganized. The young generation of
Catholic lawyers who had grown up since the Relief Act of '93 threw the
profession open to them, were men of another stamp from the old
generation of Catholic merchants, who had grown up under the Relief Act
of 1778. In the ten years before the Union, the Catholic middle class
was headed by men of business; in the period we have now reached, their
principal spokesmen came from "the Four Courts." John Keogh, the
ablest, wisest and firmest of the former generation, was now passing
into the decline of life, was frequently absent from the Committee, and
when present, frequently overruled by younger and more ardent men. In
1808, his absence, from illness, was regretted by Mr. O'Connell in an
eloquent speech addressed to the Committee on the necessity of united
action and incessant petitions. "Had he been present," said the young
barrister, "his powers of reasoning would have frightened away the
captious objections" to that course, "and the Catholics of Ireland
would again have to thank their old and useful servant for the
preservation of their honour and the support of their interests." It
was a strange anomaly, and one which continued for some years longer,
that the statesmen of the Catholic body should be all Protestants. A
more generous or tolerant spirit than Grattan's never existed; a
clearer or more fearless intellect than Plunkett's was not to be found;
nobler and more disinterested friends than Ponsonby, Curran, Burroughs
and Wallace, no people ever had; but still they were friends from
without; men of another religion, or of no particular religion,
advising and guiding an eminently religious people in their struggle
for religious liberty. This could not always last; it was not natural,
it was not desirable that it should last, though some years more were
to pass away before Catholic Emancipation was to be accomplished by the
union, the energy and the strategy of the Catholics themselves.
CHAPTER III.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUKE OF RICHMOND (1807 TO 1813).
Charles, fourth Duke of Richmond, succeeded the Duke of Bedford, as
Viceroy, in April, 1807, with Lord Manners as Lord Chancellor, John
Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer—for the separate exchequer of
Ireland continued to exist till 1820—and Sir Arthur Wellesley as Chief
Secretary. Of these names, the two last were already familiar to their
countrymen, in connection with the history of their own Parliament; but
the new Chief Secretary had lately returned home covered with Indian
laurels, and full of the promise of other honours and victories to
come.
The spirit of this administration was repressive, anti-Catholic and
high Tory. To maintain and strengthen British power, to keep the
Catholics quiet, to get possession of the Irish representation and
convert it into a means of support for the Tory party in England, these
were the leading objects of the seven years' administration of the Duke
of Richmond. Long afterwards, when the Chief Secretary of 1807 had
become "the most high, mighty and noble prince," whom all England and
nearly all Europe delighted to honour, he defended the Irish
administration of which he had formed a part, for its habitual use of
corrupt means and influence, in arguments which do more credit to his
frankness than his morality. He had "to turn the moral weakness of
individuals to good account," such was his argument. He stoutly denied
that "the whole nation is, or ever was corrupt;" but as "almost every
man of mark has his price," the Chief Secretary was obliged to use
corrupt influences "to command a majority in favour of order;" however
the particular kinds of influence employed might go against his grain,
he had, as he contended, no other alternative but to employ them.
With the exception of a two months' campaign in Denmark—July to
September, 1807—Sir Arthur Wellesley continued to fill the office of
Chief Secretary, until his departure for the Peninsula, in July, 1808.
Even then he was expressly requested to retain the nominal office, with
power to appoint a deputy, and receive meanwhile the very handsome
salary of 8,000 pounds sterling a year. In the wonderful military
events, in which during the next seven years Sir Arthur was to play a
leading part, the comparatively unimportant particulars of his Irish
Secretariate have been long since forgotten. We have already described
the general spirit of that administration: it is only just to add, that
the dispassionate and resolute secretary, though he never shrank from
his share of the jobbery done daily at the Castle, repressed with as
much firmness the over-zeal of those he calls "red-hot Protestants," as
he showed in resisting, at that period, what he considered the
unconstitutional pretensions of the Catholics. An instance of the
impartiality to which he was capable of rising, when influenced by
partisans or religious prejudices, is afforded by his letter dissuading
the Wexford yeomanry from celebrating the anniversary of the battle of
Vinegar Hill. He regarded such a celebration as certain "to exasperate
party spirit," and "to hurt the feelings of others;" he, therefore, in
the name of the Lord-Lieutenant, strongly discouraged it, and the
intention was accordingly abandoned. It is to be regretted that the
same judicious rule was not at the same time enforced by government as
to the celebration of the much more obsolete and much more invidious
anniversaries of Aughrim and the Boyne.
The general election which followed the death of Fox, in November,
1806, was the first great trial of political strength under the Union.
As was right and proper, Mr. Grattan, no longer indebted for a seat to
an English patron, however liberal, was returned at the head of the
poll for the city of Dublin. His associate, however, the banker, La
Touche, was defeated; the second member elect being Mr. Robert Shaw,
the Orange candidate. The Catholic electors to a man, under the
vigorous prompting of John Keogh and his friends, polled their votes
for their Protestant advocate; they did more, they subscribed the sum
of 4,000 pounds sterling to pay the expenses of the contest, but this
sum Mrs. Grattan induced the treasurer to return to the subscribers.
Ever watchful for her husband's honour, that admirable woman, as ardent
a patriot as himself, refused the generous tender of the Catholics of
Dublin. Although his several elections had cost Mr. Grattan above
54,000 pounds—more than the whole national grant of 1782—she would not,
in this case, that any one else should bear the cost of his last
triumph in the widowed capital of his own country.
The great issue tried in this election of 1807, in those of 1812, 1818,
and 1826, was still the Catholic question. All other Irish, and most
other imperial domestic questions were subordinate to this. In one
shape or another, it came up in every session of Parliament. It entered
into the calculations of every statesman of every party; it continued
to make and unmake cabinets; in the press and in every society, it was
the principal topic of discussion. While tracing, therefore, its
progress, from year to year, we do but follow the main stream of
national history; all other branches come back again to this centre, or
exhaust themselves in secondary and forgotten results.
The Catholics themselves, deprived in Ireland of a Parliament on which
they could act directly, were driven more and more into permanent
association, as the only means of operating a change in the Imperial
legislature. The value of a legal, popular, systematic, and continuous
combination of "the people" acting within the law, by means of
meetings, resolutions, correspondence, and petitions, was not made
suddenly, nor by all the party interested, at one and the same time. On
the minds of the more sagacious, however, an impression, favourable to
such organized action, grew deeper year by year, and at last settled
into a certainty which was justified by success.
In May, 1809, the Catholic Committee had been reconstructed, and its
numbers enlarged. In a series of resolutions it was agreed that the
Catholic lords, the surviving delegates of 1793, the committee which
managed the petitions of 1805 and 1807, and such persons "as shall
distinctly appear to them to possess the confidence of the Catholic
body," do form henceforth the General Committee. It was proposed by
O'Connell, to avoid "the Convention Act," "that the noblemen and
gentlemen aforesaid are not representatives of the Catholic body, or
any portion thereof." The Committee were authorized to collect funds
for defraying expenses; a Treasurer was chosen, and a permanent
Secretary, Mr. Edward Hay, the historian of the Wexford rebellion—an
active and intelligent officer. The new Committee acted with great
judgment in 1810, but in 1811 Lord Fingal and his friends projected a
General Assembly of the leading Catholics, contrary to the Convention
Act, and to the resolution just cited. O'Connell was opposed to this
proposition; yet the assembly met, and were dispersed by the
authorities. The Chairman, Lord Fingal, and Drs. Sheridan and Kirwan,
Secretaries, were arrested. Lord Fingal, however, was not prosecuted,
but the Secretaries were, and one of them expiated by two years'
imprisonment his violation of the act. To get rid of the very pretext
of illegality, the Catholic Committee dissolved, but only to reappear
under a less vulnerable form, as "the Catholic Board."
It is from the year 1810 that we must date the rise, among the
Catholics themselves, of a distinctive line of policy, suited to the
circumstances of the present century, and the first appearance of a
group of public men, capable of maintaining and enforcing that policy.
Not that the ancient leaders of that body were found deficient, in
former times, either in foresight or determination; but new times
called for new men; the Irish Catholics were now to seek their
emancipation from the imperial government; new tactics and new
combinations were necessary to success; and, in brief, instead of being
liberated from their bonds at the good will and pleasure of benevolent
Protestants, it was now to be tested whether they were capable of
contributing to their own emancipation,—whether they were willing and
able to assist their friends and to punish their enemies.
Though the Irish Catholics could not legally meet in convention any
more than their Protestant fellow-countrymen, there was nothing to
prevent them assembling voluntarily, from every part of the kingdom,
without claim to delegation. With whom the happy idea of "the aggregate
meetings" originated is not certainly known, but to O'Connell and the
younger set of leading spirits this was a machinery capable of being
worked with good effect. No longer confined to a select Committee,
composed mainly of a few aged and cautious, though distinguished
persons, the fearless "agitators," as they now began to be called,
stood face to face with the body of the people themselves. The disused
theatre in Fishamble Street was their habitual place of meeting in
Dublin, and there, in 1811 and 1812, the orators met to criticise the
conduct of the Duke of Richmond—to denounce Mr. Wellesley Pole—to
attack Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers—to return thanks to
Lords Grey and Grenville for refusing to give the unconstitutional
anti-Catholic pledge required by the King, and to memorial the Prince
Regent. From those meetings, especially in the year 1812, the
leadership of O'Connell must be dated. After seven years of wearisome
probation, after enduring seven years the envy and the calumny of many
who, as they were his fellow-labourers, should have been his friends;
after demonstrating for seven years that his judgment and his courage
were equal to his eloquence, the successful Kerry barrister, then in
his thirty-seventh year, was at length generally recognized as "the
counsellor" of his co-religionists—as the veritable "Man of the
People." Dangers, delays and difficulties lay thick and dark in the
future, but from the year, when in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, the voice
of the famous advocate was recognized as the voice of the Catholics of
Ireland, their cause was taken out of the category of merely
ministerial measures, and exhibited in its true light as a great
national contest, entered into by the people themselves for complete
civil and religious freedom.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had been succeeded in 1810 in the Secretaryship by
his brother, Mr. Wellesley Pole, who chiefly signalized his
administration by a circular against conventions, and the prosecution
of Sheridan and Kirwan, in 1811. He was in turn succeeded by a much
more able and memorable person—_Mr_., afterwards Sir Robert Peel. The
names of Peel and Wellington come thus into juxtaposition in Irish
politics in 1812, as they will be found in juxtaposition on the same
subject twenty and thirty years later.
Early in the session of 1812, Mr. Perceval, the Premier, had been
assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, by Bellingham, and a
new political crisis was precipitated on the country. In the government
which followed, Lord Liverpool became the chief, with Castlereagh and
Canning as members of his administration. In the general election which
followed, Mr. Grattan was again returned for Dublin, and Mr. Plunkett
was elected for Trinity College, but Mr. Curran was defeated at Newry,
and Mr. Christopher Hely Hutchinson, the liberal candidate, at Cork.
Upon the whole, however, the result was favourable to the Catholic
cause, and the question was certain to have several additional Irish
supporters in the new House of Commons.
In the administrative changes that followed, Mr. Peel, though only in
his twenty-fourth year, was appointed to the important post of Chief
Secretary. The son of the first baronet of the name—this youthful
statesman had first been elected for Cashel, almost as soon as he came
of age, in 1809. He continued Chief Secretary for six years, from the
twenty-fourth to the thirtieth year of his age. He distinguished
himself in the House of Commons almost as soon as he entered it, and
the predictions of his future premiership were not, even then, confined
to members of his own family. No English statesman, since the death of
William Pitt, has wielded so great a power in Irish affairs as Sir
Robert Peel, and it is, therefore, important to consider, under what
influence, and by what maxims he regulated his public conduct during
the time he filled the most important administrative office in that
country.
Sir Robert Peel brought to the Irish government, notwithstanding his
Oxford education and the advantages of foreign travel which he had
enjoyed, prejudices the most illiberal, on the subject of all others on
which a statesman should be most free from prejudice—religion. An
anti-Catholic of the school of Mr. Perceval and Lord Eldon, he at once
constituted himself the principal opponent of Grattan's annual motion
in favour of Catholic Emancipation. That older men, born in the evil
time, should be bigots and defenders of the Penal Code, was hardly
wonderful, but a young statesman, exhibiting at that late day, such
studied and active hostility to so large a body of his fellow subjects,
naturally drew upon his head the execrations of all those whose
enfranchisement he so stubbornly resisted. Even his great abilities
were most absurdly denied, under this passionate feeling of wrong and
injustice. His Constabulary and his Stipendiary Magistracy were
resisted, ridiculed, and denounced, as outrages on the liberty of the
subject, and assaults on the independence of the bench. The term
_Peeler_ became synonymous with spy, informer, and traitor, and the
Chief Secretary was detested not only for the illiberal sentiments he
had expressed, but for the machinery of order he had established. After
half a century's experience, we may safely say, that the Irish
Constabulary have shown themselves to be a most valuable police, and as
little deserving of popular ill-will as any such body can ever expect
to be, but they were judged very differently during the Secretaryship
of their founder; for, at that time, being new and intrusive, they may,
no doubt, have deserved many of the hard and bitter things which were
generally said of them.
The first session of the new Parliament in the year 1813—the last of
the Duke of Richmond's Viceroyalty—was remarkable for the most
important debate which had yet arisen on the Catholic question. In the
previous year, a motion of Canning's, in favour of "a final and
conciliatory adjustment," which was carried by an unexpected majority
of 235 to 106, encouraged Grattan to prepare a detailed Emancipation
Bill, instead of making his usual annual motion of referring the
Catholic petitions to the consideration of the Committee. This bill
recited the establishment of the Protestant succession to the crown,
and the establishment of the Protestant religion in the State. It then
proceeded to provide that Roman Catholics might sit and vote in
Parliament; might hold all offices, civil and military, except the
offices of Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal in England, or
Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, or Chancellor of Ireland; another section
threw open to Roman Catholics all lay corporations, while a proviso
excluded them either from holding or bestowing benefices in the
Established Church. Such was the Emancipation Act of 1813, proposed by
Grattan; an act far less comprehensive than that introduced by the same
statesman in 1795, into the Parliament of Ireland, but still, in many
of its provisions, a long stride in advance.
Restricted and conditioned as this measure was, it still did not meet
the objections of the opponents of the question, in giving the crown a
Veto in the appointment of the bishops. Sir John Hippesley's pernicious
suggestion—reviving a very old traditional policy—was embodied by
Canning in one set of amendments, and by Castlereagh in another.
Canning's amendments, as summarised by the eminent Catholic jurist,
Charles Butler, were to this effect:—
"He first appointed a certain number of Commissioners, who were to
profess the Catholic religion, and to be lay peers of Great Britain or
Scotland, possessing a freehold estate of one thousand pounds a year;
to be filled up, from time to time, by his Majesty, his heirs, or
successors. The Commissioners were to take an oath for the faithful
discharge of their office, and the observance of secrecy in all matters
not thereby required to be disclosed, with power to appoint a Secretary
with salary (proposed to be five hundred pounds a year), payable out of
the consolidated fund. The Secretary was to take an oath similar to
that of the Commissioners.
"It was then provided, that every person elected to the discharge of
Roman Catholic episcopal functions in Great Britain or Scotland should,
previously to the discharge of his office, notify his then election to
the Secretary; that the Secretary should notify it to the
Commissioners, and they to the Privy Council, with a certificate 'that
they did not know or believe anything of the person nominated, which
tended to impeach his loyalty or peaceable conduct;' unless they had
knowledge of the contrary, in which case they should refuse their
certificate. Persons obtaining such a certificate were rendered capable
of exercising episcopal functions within the United Kingdom; if they
exercised them without a certificate, they were to be considered guilty
of a misdemeanor, and liable to be sent out of the kingdom.
"Similar provisions respecting Ireland were then introduced."
"The second set of clauses," says Mr. Butler, "was suggested by Lord
Castlereagh, and provided that the Commissioners under the preceding
clauses—with the addition, as to Great Britain, of the Lord Chancellor,
or Lord Keeper, or first Commissioner of the Great Seal for the time
being, and of one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State,
being a Protestant, or such other Protestant member of his Privy
Council as his Majesty should appoint—and with a similar addition in
respect to Ireland—and with the further addition, as to Great Britain,
of the person then exercising episcopal functions among the Catholics
in London—and, in respect to Ireland, of the titular Roman Catholic
Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin,—should be Commissioners for the
purposes thereinafter mentioned.
"The Commissioners thus appointed were to take an oath for the
discharge of their office, and observance of secrecy, similar to the
former, and employ the same Secretary, and three of them were to form a
quorum.
"The bill then provided, that subjects of his Majesty, receiving any
bull, dispensation, or other instrument, from the See of Rome, or any
person in foreign parts, acting under the authority of that See,
should, within six weeks, send a copy of it, signed with his name, to
the Secretary of the Commissioners, who should transmit the same to
them.
"But with a proviso, that if the person receiving the same should
deliver to the Secretary of the Commission, within the time before
prescribed, a writing under his hand, certifying the fact of his having
received such a bull, dispensation, or other instrument, and
accompanying his certificate with an oath, declaring that 'it related,
wholly and exclusively, to spiritual concerns, and that it did not
contain, or refer to, any matter or thing which did or could, directly
or indirectly, affect or interfere with the duty and allegiance which
he owed to his Majesty's sacred person and government, or with the
temporal, civil, or social rights, properties, or duties of any other
of his Majesty's subjects, then the Commissioners were, in their
discretion, to receive such certificate and oath, in lieu of the copy
of the bull, dispensation, or other instrument.
"Persons conforming to these provisions were to be exempted from all
pains and penalties, to which they would be liable under the existing
statutes; otherwise, they were to be deemed guilty of a high
misdemeanor; and in lieu of the pains and penalties, under the former
statutes, be liable to be sent out of the kingdom.
"The third set of clauses provided that, within a time to be specified,
the Commissioners were to meet and appoint their Secretary, and give
notice of it to his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State in Great
Britain and Ireland; and the provisions of the act were to be in force
from that time."
On the second reading, in May, the Committee of Parliament, on motion
of the Speaker, then on the floor, struck out the clause enabling
Catholics "to sit and vote in either House of Parliament," by a
majority of four votes: 251 against 247. Mr. Ponsonby immediately rose,
and, observing that, as "the bill without the clause," was unworthy
both of the Catholics and its authors, he moved the chairman do leave
the chair. The committee rose, without a division, and the Emancipation
Bill of 1813 was abandoned.
Unhappily, the contest in relation to the Veto, which had originated in
the House of Commons, was extended to the Catholic body at large.
Several of the noblemen, members of the board, were not averse to
granting some such power as was claimed to the crown; some of the
professional class, more anxious to be emancipated than particular as
to the means, favoured the same view. The bishops at the time of the
Union, were known to have entertained the idea, and Sir John Hippesley
had published their letters, which certainly did not discourage his
proposal. But the second order of the clergy, the immense majority of
the laity, and all the new prelates, called to preside over vacant
sees, in the first decade of the century, were strongly opposed to any
such connexion with the head of the State. Of this party, Mr. O'Connell
was the uncompromising organ, and, perhaps, it was his course on this
very subject of the Veto, more than anything else, which established
his pretensions to be considered the leader of the Catholic body. Under
the prompting of the majority, the Catholic prelates met and passed a
resolution declaring that they could not accept the bill of 1813 as a
satisfactory settlement. This resolution they formally communicated to
the Catholic Board, who voted them, on O'Connell's motion, enthusiastic
thanks. The minority of the Board were silent rather than satisfied,
and their dissatisfaction was shown rather by their absence from the
Board meetings than by open opposition.
Mr. O'Connell's position, from this period forward, may be best
understood from the tone in which he was spoken of in the debates of
Parliament. At the beginning of the session of 1815, we find the Chief
Secretary (Mr. Peel) stating that he "possesses more influence than any
other person" with the Irish Catholics, and that no meeting of that
body was considered complete unless a vote of thanks to Mr. O'Connell
was among the resolutions.
CHAPTER IV.
O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP—1813 TO 1821.
While the Veto controversy was carried into the press and the
Parliamentary debates, the extraordinary events of the last years of
Napoleon's reign became of such extreme interest as to cast into the
shade all questions of domestic policy. The Parliamentary fortunes of
the Catholic question varied with the fortunes of the war, and the
remoteness of external danger. Thus, in 1815, Sir Henry Parnell's
motion for a committee was rejected by a majority of 228 to 147; in
1816, on Mr. Grattan's similar motion, the vote was 172 to 141; in
1817, Mr. Grattan was again defeated by 245 to 221; in this session an
act exempting officers in the army and navy from forswearing
Transubstantiation passed and became law. The internal condition of the
Catholic body, both in England and Ireland, during all those years, was
far from enviable. In England there were Cisalpine and Ultramontane
factions; in Ireland, Vetoists and anti-Vetoists. The learned and
amiable Charles Butler—among jurists, the ornament of his order, was
fiercely opposed to the no less learned Dr. Milner, author of "The End
of Controversy," and "Letters to a Prebendary." In Ireland, a very
young barrister, who had hardly seen the second anniversary of his
majority, electrified the aggregate meetings with a new Franco-Irish
order of eloquence, naturally enough employed in the maintenance of
Gallican ideas of church government. This was Richard Lalor Shiel, the
author of two or three successful tragedies, and the man, next to
O'Connell, who wielded the largest tribunitian power over the Irish
populace during the whole of the subsequent agitation. Educated at
Stoneyhurst, he imbibed from refugee professors French idioms and a
French standard of taste, while, strangely enough, O'Connell, to whom
he was at first opposed, and of whom he became afterwards the first
lieutenant, educated in France by British refugees, acquired the
cumbrous English style of the Douay Bible and the Rheims Testament. The
contrast between the two men was every way extreme; physically,
mentally, and politically; but it is pleasant to know that their
differences never degenerated into distrust, envy or malice; that, in
fact, Daniel O'Connell had throughout all his after life no more
steadfast personal friend than Richard Lalor Shiel.