labour is low, the demand for labour irregular. If a poor man be driven, by distress of rent, from his potato garden, he has no other resource–all is lost: he will do the impossible (as the French say) to retain it; subscribe any bond, and promise any rent. The middleman has no character to lose; and he knew, when he took up the occupation, that it was one with which pity had nothing to do. On he drives; and backward the poor peasant recedes, loses something at every step, till he comes to the very brink of despair; and then he recoils and murders his oppressor, and is a White Boy or a Right Boy;–the soldier shoots him, and the judge hangs him.
In the debate which took place in the Irish House of Commons, upon the Bill for preventing tumultuous risings and assemblies, on the 31st of January, 1787, the Attorney-General submitted to the House the following narrative of facts.
“The commencement,” said he, “was in one or two parishes in the county of Kerry; and they proceeded thus. The people assembled in a Catholic chapel, and there took an oath to obey the laws of Captain Right, and to starve the clergy. They then proceeded to the next parishes on the following Sunday, and there swore the people in the same manner; with this addition, that they (the people last sworn) should on the ensuing Sunday proceed to the chapels of their next neighbouring parishes and swear the inhabitants of those parishes in like manner. Proceeding in this manner, they very soon went through the province of Munster. The first object was the REFORMATION OF TITHES. They swore not to give more than a certain price per acre, not to assist or allow them to be assisted in drawing the tithe, and to permit NO PROCTOR. They next took upon them to prevent the collection of parish cesses, next to nominate parish clerks, and in some cases curates, to say what church should or should not be repaired, and in one case to threaten that they would burn a NEW church if the OLD one were not given for a mass-house. At last they proceeded to regulate the price of lands, to raise the price of labour, and to oppose the collection of the hearth-money and other taxes. Bodies of 5,000 of them have been seen to march through the country unarmed, and, if met by any magistrate, THEY NEVER OFFERED THE SMALLEST RUDENESS OR OFFENCE; on the contrary, they had allowed persons charged with crimes to be taken from amongst them by the magistrate ALONE, unaided by any force.
“The Attorney-General said he was well acquainted with the province of Munster, and that it was impossible for human wretchedness to EXCEED THAT OF THE PEASANTRY OF THAT PROVINCE. The unhappy tenantry were GROUND TO POWDER by relentless landlords; that, far from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they had not food or raiment for themselves–the landlord grasped the whole; and sorry was he to add that, not satisfied with the present extortion, some landlords had been so base as to instigate the insurgents to rob the clergy of their tithes, not in order to alleviate the distresses of the tenantry, but that they might add the clergy’s share to the cruel rack-rents they already paid. The poor people of Munster lived in a MORE ABJECT STATE OF POVERTY THAN HUMAN NATURE COULD BE SUPPOSED EQUAL TO BEAR.”–“Grattan’s Speeches,” vol. i., p. 292.
We are not, of course, in such a discussion to be governed by names. A middleman might be tied up by the strongest legal restriction, as to the price he was to exact from the under-tenants, and then he would be no more pernicious to the estate than a steward. A steward might be protected in exactions as severe as the most rapacious middleman; and then, of course, it would be the same thing under another name. The practice to which we object is the too common method in Ireland of extorting the last farthing which the tenant is willing to give for land rather than quit it: and the machinery by which such practice is carried into effect is that of the middleman. It is not only that it ruins the land; it ruins the people also. They are made so poor–brought so near the ground–that they can sink no lower; and burst out at last into all the acts of desperation and revenge for which Ireland is so notorious. Men who have money in their pockets, and find that they are improving in their circumstances, don’t do these things. Opulence, or the hope of opulence or comfort, is the parent of decency, order, and submission to the laws. A landlord in Ireland understands the luxury of carriages and horses, but has no relish for the greater luxury of surrounding himself with a moral and grateful tenantry. The absent proprietor looks only to revenue, and cares nothing for the disorder and degradation of a country which he never means to visit. There are very honourable exceptions to this charge: but there are too many living instances that it is just. The rapacity of the Irish landlord induces him to allow of the extreme division of his lands. When the daughter marries, a little portion of the little farm is broken off–another corner for Patrick, and another for Dermot–till the land is broken into sections, upon one of which an English cow could not stand. Twenty mansions of misery are thus reared instead of one. A louder cry of oppression is lifted up to heaven, and fresh enemies to the English name and power are multiplied on the earth. The Irish gentleman, too, extremely desirous of political influence, multiplying freeholds, and splitting votes; and this propensity tends of course to increase the miserable redundance of living beings, under which Ireland is groaning. Among the manifold wretchedness to which the poor Irish tenant is liable, we must not pass over the practice of driving for rent. A lets land to B, who lets it to C, who lets it again to D. D pays C his rent, and C pays B. But if B fails to pay A, the cattle of B, C, D are all driven to the pound, and after the interval of a few days sold by auction. A general driving of this kind very frequently leads to a bloody insurrection. It may be ranked among the classical grievances of Ireland.
Potatoes enter for a great deal into the present condition of Ireland. They are much cheaper than wheat; and it is so easy to rear a family upon them, that there is no cheek to population from the difficulty of procuring food. The population therefore goes on with a rapidity approaching almost to that of new countries, and in a much greater ratio than the improving agriculture and manufacturers of the country can find employment for it. All degrees of all nations begin with living in pig-styes. The king or the priest first gets out of them; then the noble, then the pauper; in proportion as each class becomes more and more opulent. Better tastes arise from better circumstances; and the luxury of one period is the wretchedness and poverty of another. English peasants, in the time of Henry VII., were lodged as badly as Irish peasants now are; but the population was limited by the difficulty of procuring a corn subsistence. The improvements of this kingdom were more rapid; the price of labour rose; and with it the luxury and comfort of the peasant, who is now decently lodged and clothed, and who would think himself in the last stage of wretchedness if he had nothing but an iron pot in a turf house, and plenty of potatoes in it. The use of the potato was introduced into Ireland when the wretched accommodation of her own peasantry bore some proportion to the state of those accommodations all over Europe. But they have increased their population so fast, and, in conjunction with the oppressive government of Ireland retarding improvement, have kept the price of labour so low, that the Irish poor have never been able to emerge from their mud cabins, or to acquire any taste for cleanliness and decency of appearance. Mr. Curwen has the following description of Irish cottages:-
“These mansions of miserable existence, for so they may truly be described, conformably to our general estimation of those indispensable comforts requisite to constitute the happiness of rational beings, are most commonly composed of two rooms on the ground floor, a most appropriate term, for they are literally on the earth, the surface of which is not unfrequently reduced a foot or more to save the expense of so much outward walling. The one is a refectory, the other the dormitory. The furniture of the former, if the owner ranks in the upper part of the scale of scantiness, will consist of a kitchen dresser, well provided and highly decorated with crockery–not less apparently the pride of the husband than the result of female vanity in the wife: which, with a table, a chest, a few stools, and an iron pot, complete the catalogue of conveniences generally found as belonging to the cabin: while a spinning-wheel, furnished by the Linen Board, and a loom, ornament vacant spaces that otherwise would remain unfurnished. In fitting up the latter, which cannot on any occasion or by any display add a feather to the weight or importance expected to be excited by the appearance of the former, the inventory is limited to one, and sometimes two beds, serving for the repose of the whole family! However downy these may be to limbs impatient for rest, their coverings appear to be very slight, and the whole of the apartment created reflections of a very painful nature. Under such privations, with a wet mud floor and a roof in tatters, how idle the search for comforts!”–Curwen, i., pp. 112, 113.
To this extract we shall add one more on the same subject.
“The gigantic figure, bareheaded before me, had a beard that would not have disgraced an ancient Israelite–he was without shoes or stockings–and almost a sans-culotte–with a coat, or rather a jacket, that appeared as if the first blast of wind would tear it to tatters. Though his garb was thus tattered, he had a manly commanding countenance. I asked permission to see the inside of his cabin, to which I received his most courteous assent. On stooping to enter at the door I was stopped, and found that permission from another was necessary before I could be admitted. A pig, which was fastened to a stake driven into the floor, with length of rope sufficient to permit him the enjoyment of sun and air, demanded some courtesy, which I showed him, and was suffered to enter. The wife was engaged in boiling thread, and by her side, near the fire, a lovely infant was sleeping, without any covering, on a bare board. Whether the fire gave additional glow to the countenance of the babe, or that Nature impressed on its unconscious cheek a blush that the lot of man should be exposed to such privations, I will not decide; but if the cause be referable to the latter, it was in perfect unison with my own feelings. Two or three other children crowded round the mother: on their rosy countenances health seemed established in spite of filth and ragged garments. The dress of the poor woman was barely sufficient to satisfy decency. Her countenance bore the expression of a set melancholy, tinctured with an appearance of ill health. The hovel, which did not exceed twelve or fifteen feet in length and ten in breadth, was half obscured by smoke–chimney or window I saw none; the door served the various purposes of an inlet to light and the outlet to smoke. The furniture consisted of two stools, an iron pot, and a spinning- wheel, while a sack stuffed with straw, and a single blanket laid on planks, served as a bed for the repose of the whole family. Need I attempt to describe my sensations? The statement alone cannot fail of conveying to a mind like yours an adequate idea of them–I could not long remain a witness to this acme of human misery. As I left the deplorable habitation the mistress followed me to repeat her thanks for the trifle I had bestowed. This gave me an opportunity of observing her person more particularly. She was a tall figure, her countenance composed of interesting features, and with every appearance of having once been handsome.
“Unwilling to quit the village without first satisfying myself whether what I had seen was a solitary instance or a sample of its general state, or whether the extremity of poverty I had just beheld had arisen from peculiar improvidence and want of management in one wretched family, I went into an adjoining habitation, where I found a poor old woman of eighty, whose miserable existence was painfully continued by the maintenance of her granddaughter. Their condition, if possible, was more deplorable.”–Curwen, i., pp. 181-183.
This wretchedness, of which all strangers who visit Ireland are so sensible, proceeds certainly in great measure from their accidental use of a food so cheap, that it encourages population to an extraordinary degree, lowers the price of labour, and leaves the multitudes which it calls into existence almost destitute of everything but food. Many more live in consequence of the introduction of potatoes; but all live in greater wretchedness. In the progress of population, the potato must of course become at last as difficult to be procured as any other food; and then let the political economist calculate what the immensity and wretchedness of a people must be, where the further progress of population is checked by the difficulty of procuring potatoes.
The consequence of the long mismanagement and oppression of Ireland, and of the singular circumstances in which it is placed, is, that it is a semi-barbarous country–more shame to those who have thus ill- treated a fine country and a fine people; but it is part of the present case of Ireland. The barbarism of Ireland is evinced by the frequency and ferocity of duels–the hereditary clannish feuds of the common people and the fights to which they give birth–the atrocious cruelties practised in the insurrections of the common people–and their proneness to insurrection. The lower Irish live in a state of greater wretchedness than any other people in Europe inhabiting so fine a soil and climate. It is difficult, often impossible, to execute the processes of law. In cases where gentlemen are concerned, it is often not even attempted. The conduct of under-sheriffs is often very corrupt. We are afraid the magistracy of Ireland is very inferior to that of this country; the spirit of jobbing and bribery is very widely diffused, and upon occasions when the utmost purity prevails in the sister kingdom. Military force is necessary all over the country, and often for the most common and just operations of Government. The behaviour of the higher to the lower orders is much less gentle and decent than in England. Blows from superiors to inferiors are more frequent, and the punishment for such aggression more doubtful. The word GENTLEMAN seems, in Ireland, to put an end to most processes at law. Arrest a gentleman!!!–take out a warrant against a gentleman–are modes of operation not very common in the administration of Irish justice. If a man strike the meanest peasant in England, he is either knocked down in his turn, or immediately taken before a magistrate. It is impossible to live in Ireland without perceiving the various points in which it is inferior in civilisation. Want of unity in feeling and interest among the people–irritability, violence, and revenge–want of comfort and cleanliness in the lower orders–habitual disobedience to the law–want of confidence in magistrates–corruption, venality, the perpetual necessity of recurring to military force–all carry back the observer to that remote and early condition of mankind, which an Englishman can learn only in the pages of the antiquary or the historian. We do not draw this picture for censure but for truth. We admire the Irish–feel the most sincere pity for the state of Ireland–and think the conduct of the English to that country to have been a system of atrocious cruelty and contemptible meanness. With such a climate, such a soil, and such a people, the inferiority of Ireland to the rest of Europe is directly chargeable to the long wickedness of the English Government.
A direct consequence of the present uncivilised state of Ireland is, that very little English capital travels there. The man who deals in steam-engines, and warps and woofs, is naturally alarmed by Peep- of-Day Boys, and nocturnal Carders; his object is to buy and sell as quickly and quietly as he can, and he will naturally bear high taxes and rivalry in England, or emigrate to any part of the Continent, or to America, rather than plunge into the tumult of Irish politics and passions. There is nothing which Ireland wants more than large manufacturing towns to take off its superfluous population. But internal peace must come first, and then the arts of peace will follow. The foreign manufacturer will hardly think of embarking his capital where he cannot be sure that his existence is safe. Another check to the manufacturing greatness of Ireland is the scarcity, not of coal, but of good coal, cheaply raised–an article in which (in spite of papers in the Irish Transactions) they are lamentably inferior to the English.
Another consequence from some of the causes we have stated is the extreme idleness of the Irish labourer. There is nothing of the value of which the Irish seem to have so little notion as that of time. They scratch, pick, dawdle, stare, gape, and do anything but strive and wrestle with the task before them. The most ludicrous of all human objects is an Irishman ploughing. A gigantic figure–a seven-foot machine for turning potatoes in human nature–wrapt up in an immense great-coat, and urging on two starved ponies, with dreadful imprecations and uplifted shillala. The Irish crow discerns a coming perquisite, and is not inattentive to the proceedings of the steeds. The furrow which is to be the depository of the future crop is not unlike, either in depth or regularity, to those domestic furrows which the nails of the meek and much-injured wife plough, in some family quarrel, upon the cheeks of the deservedly punished husband. The weeds seem to fall contentedly, knowing that they have fulfilled their destiny, and left behind them, for the resurrection of the ensuing spring, an abundant and healthy progeny. The whole is a scene of idleness, laziness, and poverty, of which it is impossible, in this active and enterprising country, to form the most distant conception; but strongly indicative of habits, whether secondary or original, which will long present a powerful impediment to the improvement of Ireland.
The Irish character contributes something to retard the improvements of that country. The Irishman has many good qualities: he is brave, witty, generous, eloquent, hospitable, and open-hearted; but he is vain, ostentatious, extravagant, and fond of display, light in counsel, deficient in perseverance, without skill in private or public economy, an enjoyer, not an acquirer–one who despises the slow and patient virtues–who wants the superstructure without the foundation, the result without the previous operation, the oak without the acorn and the three hundred years of expectation. The Irish are irascible, prone to debt and to fight, and very impatient of the restraints of law. Such a people are not likely to keep their eyes steadily upon the main chance like the Scotch or the Dutch. England strove very hard at one period to compel the Scotch to pay a double Church, but Sawney took his pen and ink, and finding what a sum it amounted to became furious and drew his sword. God forbid the Irishman should do the same! The remedy now would be worse than the disease; but if the oppressions of England had been more steadily resisted a century ago, Ireland would not have been the scene of poverty, misery, and distress which it now is.
The Catholic religion, among other causes, contributes to the backwardness and barbarism of Ireland. Its debasing superstition, childish ceremonies, and the profound submission to the priesthood which it teaches, all tend to darken men’s minds, to impede the progress of knowledge and inquiry, and to prevent Ireland from becoming as free, as powerful, and as rich as the sister kingdom. Though sincere friends to Catholic emancipation, we are no advocates for the Catholic religion. We should be very glad to see a general conversion to Protestantism among the Irish, but we do not think that violence, privations, and incapacities, are the proper methods of making proselytes.
Such, then, is Ireland at this period–a land more barbarous than the rest of Europe, because it has been worse treated and more cruelly oppressed. Many of the incapacities and privations to which the Catholics were exposed have been removed by law, but in such instances they are still incapacitated and deprived by custom. Many cruel and oppressive laws are still enforced against them. A tenth part of the population engrosses all the honours of the country; the other nine pay a tenth of the product of the earth for the support of a religion in which they do not believe. There is little capital in the country. The great and rich men are called by business, or allured by pleasure, into England; their estates are given up to factors, and the utmost farthing of rent extorted from the poor, who, if they give up the land, cannot get employment in manufactures, or regular employment in husbandry. The common people use a sort of food so very cheap that they can rear families who cannot procure employment, and who have little more of the comforts of life than food. The Irish are light-minded–want of employment has made them idle; they are irritable and brave, have a keen remembrance of the past wrongs they have suffered, and the present wrongs they are suffering from England. The consequence of all this is, eternal riot and insurrection, a whole army of soldiers in time of profound peace, and general rebellion whenever England is busy with her other enemies or off her guard! And thus it will be, while the same causes continue to operate, for ages to come, and worse and worse as the rapidly increasing population of the Catholics becomes more and more numerous.
The remedies are time and justice, and that justice consists in repealing all laws which make any distinction between the two religions; in placing over the government of Ireland, not the stupid, amiable, and insignificant noblemen who have too often been sent there, but men who feel deeply the wrongs of Ireland, and who have an ardent wish to heal them; who will take care that Catholics, when eligible, shall be elected; who will share the patronage of Ireland proportionally among the two parties, and give to just and liberal laws the same vigour of execution which has hitherto been reserved only for decrees of tyranny, and the enactments of oppression. The injustice and hardship of supporting two Churches must be put out of sight, if it cannot or ought not to be cured. The political economist, the moralist, and the satirist, must combine to teach moderation and superintendence to the great Irish proprietors. Public talk and clamour may do something for the poor Irish, as it did for the slaves in the West Indies. Ireland will become more quiet under such treatment, and then more rich, more comfortable, and more civilised; and the horrid spectacle of folly and tyranny, which it at present exhibits, may in time be removed from the eyes of Europe.
There are two eminent Irishmen now in the House of Commons–Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning–who will subscribe to the justness of every syllable we have said upon this subject, and who have it in their power, by making it the condition of their remaining in office, to liberate their native country, and raise it to its just rank among the nations of the earth. Yet the Court buys them over, year after year, by the pomp and perquisites of office; and year after year they come into the House of Commons, feeling deeply, and describing powerfully, the injuries of five millions of their countrymen–and CONTINUE members of a government that inflicts those evils, under the pitiful delusion that it is not a Cabinet Question, as if the scratchings and quarrellings of Kings and Queens could alone cement politicians together in indissoluble unity, while the fate and torture of one-third of the empire might be complimented away from one minister to another, without the smallest breach in their Cabinet alliance. Politicians, at least honest politicians, should be very flexible and accommodating in little things, very rigid and inflexible in great things. And is this NOT a great thing? Who has painted it in finer and more commanding eloquence than Mr. Canning? Who has taken a more sensible and statesmanlike view of our miserable and cruel policy than Lord Castlereagh? You would think, to hear them, that the same planet could not contain them and the oppressors of their country–perhaps not the same solar system. Yet for money, claret, and patronage, they lend their countenance, assistance, and friendship to the Ministers who are the stern and inflexible enemies to the emancipation of Ireland!
Thank God that all is not profligacy and corruption in the history of that devoted people–and that the name of Irishman does not always carry with it the idea of the oppressor or the oppressed–the plunderer or the plundered–the tyrant or the slave! Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of GRATTAN? who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland? who did not remember him in the days of its burnings and wastings and murders? No Government ever dismayed him–the world could not bribe him–he thought only of Ireland–lived for no other object–dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence. He was so born and so gifted that poetry, forensic skill, elegant literature, and all the highest attainments of human genius were within his reach; but he thought the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free; and in that straight line he went on for fifty years, without one side-look, without one yielding thought, without one motive in his heart which he might not have laid open to the view of God and man. He is gone!–but there is not a single day of his honest life of which every good Irishman would not be more proud than of the whole political existence of his countrymen–the annual deserters and betrayers of their native land.
MOORE’S CAPTAIN ROCK.
Memoirs of Captain Rock, the celebrated Irish Chieftain; with some Account of his Ancestors. Written by Himself. Fourth Edition. 12mo. London, 1824.
This agreeable and witty book is generally supposed to have been written by Mr. Thomas Moore, a gentleman of small stature, but full of genius, and a steady friend of all that is honourable and just. He has here borrowed the name of a celebrated Irish leader, to typify that spirit of violence and insurrection which is necessarily generated by systematic oppression, and rudely avenges its crimes; and the picture he has drawn of its prevalence in that unhappy country is at once piteous and frightful. Its effect in exciting our horror and indignation is in the long run increased, we think– though at first it may seem counteracted–by the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. We smile at first, and are amused, and wonder, as we proceed, that the humorous narrative should produce conviction and pity–shame, abhorrence, and despair.
England seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs. Brownrigg treated her apprentice–for which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged in the first volume of the Newgate Calendar. Upon the whole, we think the apprentice is better off than the Irishman; as Mrs. Brownrigg merely starves and beats her, without any attempt to prohibit her from going to any shop, or praying at any church her apprentice might select: and once or twice, if we remember rightly, Brownrigg appears to have felt some compassion. Not so Old England, who indulges rather in a steady baseness, uniform brutality, and unrelenting oppression.
Let us select from this entertaining little book a short history of dear Ireland, such as even some profligate idle member of the House of Commons, voting as his master bids him, may perchance throw his eye upon, and reflect for a moment upon the iniquity to which he lends his support.
For some centuries after the reign of Henry II., the Irish were killed like game, by persons qualified or unqualified. Whether dogs were used does not appear quite certain, though it is probable they were, spaniels as well as pointers; and that, after a regular point by Basto, well backed by Ponto and Caesar, Mr. O’Donnel or Mr. O’Leary bolted from the thicket, and were bagged by the English sportsman. With Henry II. came in tithes, to which, in all probability, about one million of lives may have been sacrificed in Ireland. In the reign of Edward I. the Irish who were settled near the English requested that the benefit of the English laws might be extended to them; but the remonstrance of the barons with the hesitating king was in substance this: “You have made us a present of these wild gentlemen, and we particularly request that no measures may be adopted to check us in that full range of tyranny and oppression in which we consider the value of such a gift to consist. You might as well give us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat.” This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and the barons preserved their dive stock.
“Read ‘Orange faction’ (says Captain Rock) here and you have the wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near six centuries, in statu quo. The grand periodic year of the stoics, at the close of which everything was to begin again, and the same events to be all reacted in the same order, is, on a miniature scale, represented in the history of the English Government in Ireland, every succeeding century being but a new revolution of the same follies, the same crimes, and the same turbulence that disgraced the former. But ‘Vive l’ennemi!’ say I: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock, at least, will prosper.
“And such was the result at the period of which I am speaking. The rejection of a petition, so humble and so reasonable, was followed, as a matter of course, by one of those daring rebellions into which the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth. The M’Cartys, the O’Briens, and the other Macs and O’s, who have been kept on the alert by similar causes ever since, flew to arms under the command of a chieftain of my family; and, as the proffered HANDLE of the sword had been rejected, made their inexorable masters at least feel its EDGE.”–(pp. 23-25.)
Fifty years afterwards the same request was renewed and refused. Up again rose Mac and O, a JUST AND NECESSARY WAR ensued; and after the usual murders, the usual chains were replaced upon the Irishry. All Irishmen were excluded from every species of office. It was high treason to marry with the Irish blood, and highly penal to receive the Irish into religious houses. War was waged also against their Thomas Moores, Samuel Rogerses, and Walter Scotts, who went about the country harping and singing against English oppression. No such turbulent guests were to be received. The plan of making them poets-laureate, or converting them to loyalty by pensions of 100 pounds per annum, had not then been thought of. They debarred the Irish even from the pleasure of running away, and fixed them to the soil like negroes.
“I have thus selected,” says the historian of Rock, “cursorily and at random, a few features of the reigns preceding the Reformation, in order to show what good use was made of those three or four hundred years in attaching the Irish people to their English governors; and by what a gentle course of alternatives they were prepared for the inoculation of a new religion, which was now about to be attempted upon them by the same skilful and friendly hands.
“Henry VII. appears to have been the first monarch to whom it occurred, that matters were not managed exactly as they ought in this part of his dominions; and we find him–with a simplicity which is still fresh and youthful among our rulers–expressing his SURPRISE that his subjects of this land should be so prone to faction and rebellion, and that so little advantage had been hitherto derived from the acquisitions of his predecessor, notwithstanding the fruitfulness and natural advantages of Ireland. Surprising, indeed, that a policy, such as we have been describing, should not have converted the whole country into a perfect Atlantis of happiness–should not have made it like the imaginary island of Sir Thomas More, where ‘tota insula velut una familia est!’–most stubborn, truly, and ungrateful, must that people be, upon whom, up to the very hour in which I write, such a long and unvarying course of penal laws, confiscations, and Insurrection Acts has been tried, without making them in the least degree in love with their rulers.
“Heloise tells her tutor, Abelard, that the correction which he inflicted upon her only served to increase the ardour of her affection for him; but bayonets and hemp are no such ‘amoris stimuli.’ One more characteristic anecdote of those times and I have done. At the battle of Knocktow, in the reign of Henry VII., when that remarkable man, the Earl of Kildare, assisted by the great O’Neal and other Irish chiefs, gained a victory over Clanricard of Connaught, most important to the English Government, Lord Gormanstown, after the battle, in the first insolence of success, said, turning to the Earl of Kildare, ‘We have now slaughtered our enemies, but, to complete the good deed, we must proceed yet further, and–cut the throats of those Irish of our own party!’ Who can wonder that the Rock family were active in those times?”–(pp. 33, 35.)
Henry VIII. persisted in all these outrages, and aggravated them by insulting the prejudices of the people. England is almost the only country in the world (even at present) where there is not some favourite religious sport, where absurd lies, little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish as one man. Such was the shrine of St. Kieran, the whole treasures of which the satellites of that corpulent tyrant turned out into the street, pillaged the sacred church of Clonmacnoise, scattered the holy nonsense of the priests to the winds, and burnt the real and venerable crosier of St. Patrick, fresh from the silversmith’s shop, and formed of the most costly materials. Modern princes change the uniform of regiments; Henry changed the religion of kingdoms, and was determined that the belief of the Irish should undergo a radical and Protestant conversion. With what success this attempt was made, the present state of Ireland is sufficient evidence.
“Be not dismayed,” said Elizabeth, on hearing that O’Neal meditated some designs against her government; “tell my friends, if he arise, it will turn to their advantage–THERE WILL BE ESTATES FOR THOSE WHO WANT.” Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was destroyed by famine and the sword, and near 600,000 acres forfeited to the crown, and distributed among Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and good) butchered the garrison of Limerick in cold blood, after Lord Deputy Gray had selected 700 to be hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth, three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced principally by the absurd measures of this princess for the reformation of its religion. The Catholic clergy, in consequence of these measures, abandoned their cures, the churches fell to ruin, and the people were left without any means of instruction. Add to these circumstances the murder of M’Mahon, the imprisonment of O’Toole and O’Dogherty, and the kidnapping of O’Donnel–all truly Anglo-Hibernian proceedings. The execution of the laws was rendered detestable and intolerable by the queen’s officers of justice. The spirit raised by these transactions, besides innumerable smaller insurrections gave rise to the great wars of Desmond and Hugh O’Neal; which, after they had worn out the ablest generals, discomfited the choicest troops, exhausted the treasure, and embarrassed the operations of Elizabeth, were terminated by the destruction of these two ancient families, and by the confiscation of more than half the territorial surface of the island. The last two years of O’Neal’s wars cost Elizabeth 140,000 pounds per annum, though the whole revenue of England at that period fell considerably short of 500,000 pounds. Essex, after the destruction of Norris, led into Ireland an army of above 20,000 men, which was totally baffled and destroyed by Tyrone, within two years of their landing. Such was the importance of Irish rebellions two centuries before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew attempted to assassinate the Lugan Earl–Mountjoy compelled the Irish rebels to massacre each other. In the course of a few months 3,000 men were starved to death in Tyrone. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Manson, and other commanders, saw three children feeding on the flesh of their dead mother. Such were the golden days of good Queen Bess!
By the rebellions of Dogherty, in the reign of James I., six northern counties were confiscated, amounting to 500,000 acres. In the same manner, 64,000 acres were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his confiscations amount to nearly a million acres; and if Leland means plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth of the whole kingdom according to Newenham, and a tenth according to Sir W. Petty. The most shocking and scandalous action in the reign of James, was his attack upon the whole property of the province of Connaught, which he would have effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confiscation. The Irish, during the reign of James I., suffered under the DOUBLE evils of a licentious soldiery and a religious persecution.
Charles I. took a bribe of 120,000 pounds from his Irish subjects, to grant them what in those days were called Graces, but in these days would be denominated the Elements of Justice. The money was paid, but the graces were never granted. One of these graces was curious enough: “That the clergy were not to be permitted to keep henceforward any private prisons of their own, but delinquents were to be committed to the public jails.” The idea of a rector, with his own private jail full of Dissenters, is the most ludicrous piece of tyranny we ever heard of. The troops in the beginning of Charles’s reign were supported by the weekly fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin–which object he effected after a considerable skirmish with the priests. “The favourite object” (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) “of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was THE UTTER EXTERMINATION of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.” The great rebellion took place in this reign, and Ireland was one scene of blood and cruelty and confiscation.
Cromwell began his career in Ireland by massacring for five days the garrison of Drogheda, to whom quarter had been promised. Two millions and a half of acres were confiscated. Whole towns were put up in lots, and sold. The Catholics were banished from three- fourths of the kingdom, and confined to Connaught. After a certain day, every Catholic found out of Connaught was to be punished with death. Fleetwood complains peevishly “that the people DO NOT TRANSPORT READILY,” but adds, “IT IS DOUBTLESS A WORK IN WHICH THE LORD WILL APPEAR.” Ten thousand Irish were sent as recruits to the Spanish army.
“Such was Cromwell’s way of settling the affairs of Ireland; and if a nation IS to be ruined, this method is, perhaps, as good as any. It is, at least, more humane than the slow, lingering process of exclusion, disappointment, and degradation, by which their hearts are worn out under more specious forms of tyranny; and that talent of despatch which Moliere attributes to one of his physicians is no ordinary merit in a practitioner like Cromwell: –“C’est un homme expeditif, qui aime a depecher ses malades; et quand on a mourir, cela se fait avec lui le plus vite du monde.” A certain military Duke, who complains that Ireland is but half conquered, would, no doubt, upon an emergency, try his hand in the same line of practice, and, like that ‘stern hero’ Mirmillo, in the Dispensary,
“While others meanly take whole months to slay, Despatch the grateful patient in a day!”
“Among other amiable enactments against the Catholics at this period, the price of five pounds was set on the head of a Romish priest, being exactly the same sum offered by the same legislators for the head of a wolf. The Athenians, we are told, encouraged the destruction of wolves by a similar reward (five drachms); but it does not appear that these heathens bought up the heads of priests at the same rate, such zeal in the cause of religion being reserved for times of Christianity and Protestantism.”–(pp. 97-99.)
Nothing can show more strongly the light in which the Irish were held by Cromwell than the correspondence with Henry Cromwell respecting the peopling of Jamaica from Ireland. Secretary Thurloe sends to Henry, the Lord Deputy in Ireland, to inform him that “a stock of Irish girls and Irish young men are wanting for the peopling of Jamaica.” The answer of Henry Cromwell is as follows:- “Concerning the supply of young men, although we must use force in taking them up, YET IT BEING SO MUCH FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it is not the least doubted but that you may have such a number of them as you may think fit to make use of on this account.
“I shall not need repeat anything respecting the girls, not doubting to answer your expectations to the full IN THAT; and I think it might be of like advantage to your affairs there and ours here if you should think fit to send 1,500 or 2,000 boys to the place above mentioned. WE CAN WELL SPARE THEM; and who knows but that it may be the means of making them Englishmen–I mean, rather, Christians? As for the girls, I suppose you will make provisions of clothes, and other accommodations for them.” Upon this, Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell that the council have voted 4,000 GIRLS, AND AS MANY BOYS, to go to Jamaica.
Every Catholic priest found in Ireland was hanged, and five pounds paid to the informer.
“About the years 1652 and 1653,” says Colonel Lawrence, in his Interests of Ireland, “the plague and famine had so swept away whole counties, that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living creature, either man, or beast, or bird, they being all dead, or had quitted those desolate places. Our soldiers would tell stories of the places where they saw smoke–it was so rare to see either smoke by day or fire or candle by night.” In this manner did the Irish live and die under Cromwell, suffering by the sword, famine, pestilence, and persecution, beholding the confiscation of a kingdom and the banishment of a race. “So that there perished,” says Sir W. Petty, “in the year 1641, 650,000 human beings, whose bloods somebody must atone for to God and the King!”
In the reign of Charles II., by the Act of Settlement, four millions and a half of acres were for ever taken from the Irish. “This country,” says the Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant in 1675, “has been perpetually rent and torn since his Majesty’s restoration. I can compare it to nothing better than the flinging the reward on the death of a deer among the pack of hounds, where every one pulls and tears where he can for himself.” All wool grown in Ireland was, by Act of Parliament, compelled to be sold to England; and Irish cattle were excluded from England. The English, however, were pleased to accept 30,000 head of cattle, sent as a gift from Ireland to the sufferers in the great fire! and the first day of the Sessions, after this act of munificence, the Parliament passed fresh acts of exclusion against the productions of that country.
“Among the many anomalous situations in which the Irish have been placed, by those ‘marriage vows, false as dicers’ oaths,’ which bind their country to England, the dilemma in which they found themselves at the Revolution was not the less perplexing or cruel. If they were loyal to the King de jure, they were hanged by the King de facto; and if they escaped with life from the King de facto, it was but to be plundered and proscribed by the King de jure afterwards.
“‘Hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum.’–VIRGIL.
“‘In a manner so summary, prompt, and high mettled, Twixt father and son-in-law matters were settled.’
“In fact, most of the outlawries in Ireland were for treason committed the very day on which the Prince and Princess of Orange accepted the crown in the Banqueting-house; though the news of this event could not possibly have reached the other side of the Channel on the same day, and the Lord-Lieutenant of King James, with an army to enforce obedience, was at that time in actual possession of the government, so little was common sense consulted, or the mere decency of forms observed, by that rapacious spirit, which nothing less than the confiscation of the whole island could satisfy; and which having, in the reign of James I. and at the Restoration, despoiled the natives of no less than ten millions six hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven acres, now added to its plunder one million sixty thousand seven hundred and ninety- two acres more, being the amount altogether (according to Lord Clare’s calculation) of the whole superficial contents of the island!
“Thus, not only had ALL Ireland suffered confiscation in the course of this century, but no inconsiderable portion of it had been twice and even thrice confiscated. Well might Lord Clare say, ‘that the situation of the Irish nation, at the Revolution, stands unparalleled in the history of the inhabited world.'” (pp. 111- 113.)
By the Articles of Limerick, the Irish were promised the free exercise of their religion; but from that period to the year 1788, every year produced some fresh penalty against that religion, some liberty was abridged, some right impaired, or some suffering increased. By acts in King William’s reign, they were prevented from being solicitors. No Catholic was allowed to marry a Protestant; and any Catholic who sent a son to Catholic countries for education was to forfeit all his lands. In the reign of Queen Anne, any son of a Catholic who chose to turn Protestant got possession of the father’s estate. No Papist was allowed to purchase freehold property, or to take a lease for more than thirty years. If a Protestant dies intestate, the estate is to go to the next PROTESTANT heir, though all to the tenth generation should be Catholic. In the same manner, if a Catholic dies intestate, his estate is to go to the next Protestant. No Papist is to dwell in Limerick or Galway. No Papist is to take an annuity for life. The widow of a Papist turning Protestant to have a portion of the chattels of deceased in spite of any will. Every Papist teaching schools to be presented as a regular Popish convict. Prices of catching Catholic priests, from 50s. to 10 pounds, according to rank. Papists are to answer all questions respecting other Papists, or to be committed to jail for twelve months. No trust to be undertaken for Papists. No Papist to be on Grand Juries. Some notion may be formed of the spirit of those times, from an order of the House of Commons, “that the Sergeant-at-Arms should take into custody all Papists that should presume to come into THE GALLERY!” (Commons’ Journal, vol. iii., fol. 976.) During this reign the English Parliament legislated as absolutely for Ireland as they do now for Rutlandshire, an evil not to be complained of, if they had done it as justly. In the reign of George I., the horses of Papists were seized for the militia, and rode by Protestants; towards which the Catholics paid double, and were compelled to find Protestant substitutes. They were prohibited from voting at vestries, or being high or petty constables. An act of the English Parliament in this reign opens as follows: –“Whereas attempts have been lately made to shake off the subjection of Ireland to the Imperial Crown of these realms, be it enacted,” etc. etc. In the reign of George II. four- sixths of the population were cut off from the right of voting at elections by the necessity under which they were placed of taking the oath of supremacy. Barristers and solicitors marrying Catholics are exposed to all the penalties of Catholics. Persons robbed by privateers during a war with a Catholic State are to be indemnified by a levy on the Catholic inhabitants of the neighbourhood. All marriages between Catholics and Protestants are annulled. All Popish priests celebrating them are to be hanged. “This system” (says Arthur Young) “has no other tendency than that of driving out of the kingdom all the personal wealth of the Catholics, and extinguishing their industry within it; and the face of the country, every object which presents itself to travellers, tells him how effectually this has been done.”–Young’s Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., p. 48.
Such is the history of Ireland–for we are now at our own times; and the only remaining question is, whether the system of improvement and conciliation begun in the reign of George III. shall be pursued, and the remaining incapacities of the Catholics removed, or all these concessions be made insignificant by an adherence to that spirit of proscription which they professed to abolish? Looking to the sense and reason of the thing, and to the ordinary working of humanity and justice, when assisted, as they are here, by self- interest and worldly policy, it might seem absurd to doubt of the result. But looking to the facts and the persons by which we are now surrounded, we are constrained to say that we greatly fear that these incapacities never will be removed till they are removed by fear. What else, indeed, can we expect when we see them opposed by such enlightened men as Mr. Peel–faintly assisted by men of such admirable genius as Mr. Canning–when Royal Dukes consider it as a compliment to the memory of their father to continue this miserable system of bigotry and exclusion, when men act ignominiously and contemptibly on this question, who do so on no other question, when almost the only persons zealously opposed to this general baseness and fatuity are a few Whigs and Reviewers, or here and there a virtuous poet like Mr. Moore? We repeat again, that the measure never will be effected but by fear. In the midst of one of our just and necessary wars, the Irish Catholics will compel this country to grant them a great deal more than they at present require or even contemplate. We regret most severely the protraction of the disease, and the danger of the remedy; but in this way it is that human affairs are carried on!
We are sorry we have nothing for which to praise Administration on the subject of the Catholic question, but it is but justice to say, that they have been very zealous and active in detecting fiscal abuses in Ireland, in improving mercantile regulations, and in detecting Irish jobs. The commission on which Mr. Wallace presided has been of the greatest possible utility, and does infinite credit to the Government. The name of Mr. Wallace in any commission has now become a pledge to the public that there is a real intention to investigate and correct abuse. He stands in the singular predicament of being equally trusted by the rulers and the ruled. It is a new era in Government when such men are called into action; and if there were not proclaimed and fatal limits to that ministerial liberality, which, so far as it goes, we welcome without a grudge and praise without a sneer, we might yet hope that, for the sake of mere consistency, they might be led to falsify our forebodings. But alas! there are motives more immediate, and therefore irresistible; and the time is not yet come when it will be believed easier to govern Ireland by the love of the many than by the power of the few, when the paltry and dangerous machinery of bigoted faction and prostituted patronage may be dispensed with, and the vessel of the State be propelled by the natural current of popular interests and the breath of popular applause. In the meantime, we cannot resist the temptation of gracing our conclusion with the following beautiful passage, in which the author alludes to the hopes that were raised at another great era of partial concession and liberality, that of the revolution of 1782, when, also, benefits were conferred which proved abortive because they were incomplete, and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was yet left to rankle.
“And here,” says the gallant Captain Rock, “as the free confession of weakness constitutes the chief charm and use of biography, I will candidly own that the dawn of prosperity and concord which I now saw breaking over the fortunes of my country, so dazzled and deceived my youthful eyes, and so unsettled every hereditary notion of what I owed to my name and family, that–shall I confess it–I even hailed with pleasure the prospects of peace and freedom that seemed opening around me; nay, was ready, in the boyish enthusiasm of the moment, to sacrifice all my own personal interest in all future riots and rebellions to the one bright, seducing object of my country’s liberty and repose.
“When I contemplated such a man as the venerable Charlemont, whose nobility was to the people like a fort over a valley, elevated above them solely for their defence; who introduced the polish of the courtier into the camp of the freeman, and served his country with all that pure Platonic devotion which a true knight in the time of chivalry proffered to his mistress; when I listened to the eloquence of Grattan, the very music of freedom, her first fresh matin song, after a long night of slavery, degradation, and sorrow; when I saw the bright offerings which he brought to the shrine of his country– wisdom, genius, courage, and patience, invigorated and embellished by all those social and domestic virtues, without which the loftiest talents stand isolated in the moral waste around them, like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wilderness!–when I reflected on all this, it not only disheartened me for the mission of discord which I had undertaken, but made me secretly hope that it might be rendered unnecessary; and that a country which could produce such men and achieve such a revolution, might yet–in spite of the joint efforts of the Government and my family–take her rank in the scale of nations, and be happy!
“My father, however, who saw the momentary dazzle by which I was affected, soon drew me out of this false light of hope in which I lay basking, and set the truth before me in a way but too convincing and ominous. ‘Be not deceived, boy,’ he would say, ‘by the fallacious appearances before you. Eminently great and good as is the man to whom Ireland owes this short era of glory, OUR work, believe me, will last longer than his. We have a power on our side that “will not willingly let us die;” and, long after Grattan shall have disappeared from earth like that arrow shot into the clouds by Alcestes, effecting nothing, but leaving a long train of light behind him, the family of the ROCKS will continue to flourish in all their native glory, upheld by the ever-watchful care of the Legislature, and fostered by that “nursing-mother of Liberty,” the Church.'”