THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
REPEAL PRIZE ESSAYS.
ESSAYS
ON THE
REPEAL OF THE UNION,
TO WHICH THE ASSOCIATION PRIZES WERE
AWARDED :
SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAY,
RECOMMENDED BY THF JUDGES.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED FOR THK
LOYAL NATIONAL REPEAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND,
BY
JAMES DUFFY,
-25, ANGLESEA-STREET, DUBLIN.
1845.
IN publishing the following Essays, the Association disclaims
all responsibility for the opinions or statements contained in
any of them.
ADVERTISEMENT,
AGREED TO AT PUBLIC MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION, ON
MONDAY, 16TH SEPTEMBER, 1844.
LOYAL NATIONAL REPEAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND.
THE Committee of the Loyal National Eepeal Association propose
to award the following sums as prizes for the best Essays written
in support of the Repeal of the Act of Union ;
For the best Essay, J'lOO
the second best, . . . . . . . . "15
the third best . . . . . . . . 50
The Essays are to be sent to the Secretary of the Repeal Asso-
ciation on or before the 1st of January, 1845 ; the name of the
author not to be attached to his Essay, but to be sent in a sealed
envelope, bearing some fictitious signature, corresponding to a sim-
ilar signature attached to the Essay.
The Committee will not examine the letters of the unsuccessful
competitors.
The Committee will not hold themselves bound to award the
prizes, or any of them, unless the Essays sent in by the competitors,
shall be of such a character as to render their publication advisable,
with a view to the advancement of the cause of Repeal. The Com-
mittee reserve the right of publishing the Prize Essays at the
expense of the Association, without the interference of any claims
of copyright.
It is suggested that the authors should state and refute the argu-
ments which may be advanced against the establishment of a
Domestic Legislature for Ireland ; that they should state fully the
arguments for Repeal ; that they should develope a form of execu-
tive and legislative constitution, calculated to secure the happiness
of the Irish people, and to promote unity of feeling between the
constituent parts of the British empire. That they should illustrate
1318(305
IV REPORT.
the international relations which they propose shall hereafter subsist
between Great Britain and Ireland, by examples taken from the
history and existing institutions of other countries, and, in particular,
that they should examine how far the constitution of Norway, and
its connexion with Sweden, may serve as a model for the new
constitution of Ireland that they should describe the probable
consequences which may be expected to result from a Repeal of the
Union, pointing out the dangers to be apprehended, and the means
by which those dangers may be averted.
N.B. These suggestions are not obligatory, and are meant only
to intimate the sort of Essay which the Committee consider would
be most useful.
The Essays are not to exceed in length 200 pages of the ordinary
size and print used in the report of the Repeal Association.
The Committe, in awarding these Prizes, according to the
comparative excellence of the Essays, will not hold themselves
responsible for the sentiments they contain.
JUDGES APPOINTED:
MR. JOHN O'CONNELL, M.P.
MR. THOMAS DAVIS.
MR. WM. SMITH O'BRIEN, M.P.
By Order,
T. M. RAY, Secretary.
REPORT.
READ AT PUBLIC MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION ON MONDAY,
31 ST MARCH, 1845.
"REPORT ON REPEAL ESSAYS.
" The judges appointed to consider the Essays on the Repeal of
the Union, report as follows :
" Forty-eight Essays were sent in. Each of the judges read the
REPORT. v
48 Essays separately, and they compared their notes and opinions
afterwards. They have adjudged the first Prize for the Essay
signed ' Ith, 1 and entitled ' Ireland as she was, as she is, and as she
shall be, 1 written by Michael Joseph Barry, Esq., barrister-at-law.
" They have adjudged the second prize for the Essay signed
' B. S. M.' and entitled ' Reasons for a Repeal of Jthe Legislative
Union between Great Britain and Ireland/ written by Michael
Staunton, Esq., alderman.
" The third prize they have given for the Essay signed ' An Irish
Protestant,' entitled The Rights of the Irish Nation,' but the
judges regret that they are not now at liberty to mention the name
of the writer of this Essay.
" They much regret that it was an omission in the resolutions
under which they acted, that no candidate should receive a prize
in case he refused to allow his name to be known.
" The judges recommend that should the authors of the works so
desire, they shall be at liberty to sell the copyright of them, on
condition that they be printed in such size and type, and sold at
such a price as the Committee of the Association shall approve,
and published, if possible, within two months ; but that if any of
the authors prefer it, his Essay shall be printed by the Association,
in such way as to bind up and be issuable with the other Essays.
" The Judges also recommend that the Essay signed ' Anglo
Scoto Hibemicus,' be printed as an appendix to the three prize
Essays, on the specific ground that it contains a short and able
exposition of the principles of Federalism, which it is desirable
that the Repealers of Ireland should have an opportunity of con-
sidering, in connection with the anti-Federalist views contained in
the other Essays.
" The judges wish to bear testimony to the great ability and
learning displayed in very many of the Essays to which they have
not awarded prizes.
" Signed,
" JOHN O'CONNELL.
" W. S. O'ljRIEX.
" THOMAS DAVIS.''
CONTENTS.
FIRST PRIZE REPEAL ESSAY.
IRELAND,
AS SHE WAS, AS SHE IS, AND
AS SHE SHALL BE.
BY MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY, ESQ.
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
SECOND PRIZE REPEAL ESSAY.
REASONS FOR
A REPEAL OF THE LEGISLATIVE UNION
BETWEEN
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
BY ALDERMAN STAUNTON,
EDITOR OF
THE DUBLIN WEEKLY REGISTER.
THIRD PRIZE REPEAL ESSAY,
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
BY THE REV. J. GODKIN.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPEAL ESSAY.
PltlNTED BY ORDER OF THE REPEAL ASSOCIATION.
A PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION
OF
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
BY GEORGE RAMSAY, B. M.
FORMERLY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
FIRST PRIZE EEPEAL ESSAY.
FIRST PRIZE REPEAL ESSAY.
IRELAND,
AS SHE WAS, AS SHE IS,
AND
AS SHE SHALL BE.
BY
MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY, ESQ.
RARRISTER AT LAW.
All my life long
I have beheld, with most respect, the man
Who knew himself, and knew the ways before him ;
And from amongst them chose considerately,
With a clear foresight, not a blind-fold courage ;
And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind,
Pursued his purposes."
PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.
DUBLIN :
PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUFFY,
25, ANGLESEA-STREET.
18 IT).
DUBLIN: JAMES DUFFY, 26, ANGLF.SEA-STREET.
TO
THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND,
THIS DEFENCE OF THEIR RIGHTS
IS DEDICATED,
BY THEIR FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN,
THE AUTHOR.
IRELAND,
AS SHE WAS, AS SHE IS, AND AS SHE SHALL BE.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRACTICABILITY OF REPEAL.
" The foolish word impossible,
At once for aye disdain.
No power can bar a people's will,
A people's RIGHT to gain."
SPIRIT OF THE NATION.
IN considering the Repeal Question, as it is familiarly termed,
three distinct topics present themselves for our examination : first,
the practicability of procuring a Repeal of the Act of Union ; secondly,
the advantages or losses to Ireland which would follow from its
Repeal ; thirdly, the form of Constitution which would ensure to
her the greatest portion of those advantages, and protect her from
the greatest share of those losses.
These three topics, I shall discuss in the order in which I have
set them down, and shall at once proceed to t^eir investigation. I
begin therefore, by stating, that in my opinion, the Repeal of the
Act of Union is a perfectly practicable measure, and its practi-
cability fully capable of proof.
Those who deny the practicability of Repeal, state as the grounds
of their belief, that England will never voluntarily agree to it, and
that Ireland cannot compel her to do so.
The former of these positions I will at present pass over, and will
at once turn to the' consideration of the second and more important
assertion, that Ireland cannot compel England to grant a Repeal of
the Union.
The truth or falsehood of this assertion must be honestly and
carefully investigated, for on it, I conceive, the whole question of
B ,
2 PRACTICABILITY OF
Repeal as regards its practicability depends. I am satisfied that
Ireland must right herself or remain unrighted. The people, whose
liberty depends on their being able to reconcile the attainment of it
to the selfish views taken by another people of their own interests,
have little chance of growing into a nation. Perhaps they are
hardly fitted for the dignity.
England opposes the Repeal of the Union, because she believes
that it would prove mischievous to her. She believes, however, that
Separation would be still more mischievous. Whenever she finds
herself under the necessity of choosing between Separation and
Repeal, she will assent to the latter. Repeal must not be carried
by the exercise of physical force. That could only terminate in
Separation or re-conquest. But, though the exercise of physical
force cannot achieve Repeal, the possession of it may. Whenever
Ireland possesses such an amount of it as, if exercised) would effect,
a Separation from England, its presence will secure Repeal. Repeal
is not more difficult than Separation.
I shall in a subsequent place shew, that it is infinitely less difficult ;
that a vast variety of means may exist, sufficient to secure the former
object ; yet wholly inadequate to the latter ; but I will for the
present grapple with the greatest difficulty which the question pre-
sents, and assuming that no means can achieve the one, which
would not be sufficient for the achievement of the other, I will
proceed to shew that if Ireland considered complete Separation
necessary, she could enforce it.
It will be said that this is a dangerous topic to discuss. I think
it is far more dangerous to shun the discussion of it. War espe-
cially civil war, is an evil which it is the duty of every good man to
avert. The best mode by which he can do so, is by shewing its
necessary consequences to the parties that would engage in it. Eng-
land and Ireland are thus circumstanced. Ireland smarting from
inisgoverument and insult, and burning for Independence, believes
that the result of a conflict between them would be the certain resto-
ration of her nationality. England flushed with conquest, arrogant
from acknowledged sway, and proud of her wealth and territory,
thinks the struggle could have no other issue, than the chastisement
of a turbulent and aspiring province. This state of feeling in the
two countries is fraught with mischief. From it all real danger
springs. Let each retain this confidence in her own power, and the
result, ere long, must, of necessity, be open warfare between them.
On the other hand, prove to either country that her view is erroneous:
convince England, that the struggle must, in all probability, end in
the dismemberment of her empire: or Ireland, that it must terminate
THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 3
in her subjugation, and you secure their mutual peace.* No coun-
try will march to defeat with her eyes open.
I need hardly say that I mean to discuss, not rights, but resources.
I would spurn the idea of discussing Ireland's right to anything which
is essential to her prosperity and freedom. These blessings are the
right of every people, a right which is inalienable.
Let us proceed, then, to consider what means Ireland possesses of
effecting a Separation from England ; in other words, what is the
amount of her military strength ?
It is no very easy matter to form a correct estimate of this. Many
of the elements which constitute the military strength of Ireland, are
less perceptible to the soldier's than to the statesman's eye. She,
however, possesses a large share of what both must acknowledge
to be formidable ; and what neither, if" wise, would be very willing
to encounter.
The first great element of a nation's strength is, of course, popu-
lation. In this Ireland certainly is not deficient. According to the
census of 1841 she lias 8,173,966 inhabitants. Of these there are
engaged in agriculture 5,406,T43, or something over sixty-six per
<rent. of the whole. The habits of life of these latter, their expo-
sure to the weather at all seasons of the year, their early initiation
into hardship and privation of every sort, their ignorance of all
comfort and cheerful endurance of the poorest food and scantiest
clothing have, unhappily, combined to render them the finest race
of men in the world for military purposes.t Nor is it merely physi-
cal strength and activity which fit the Irish for military pursuits.
* That the idea of Ireland's power to attain Independence, is not confined to a
few enthusiasts of the Ultra-Irish party, will be seen from the following extract,
from Mr. Grey Porter's preface to his pamphlet " Ireland." Having stated that
a Federal is the only fair Union which can exist between the two countries, he says :
"If the English country gentlemen say, ' \Ve will have no change here. \Ve will
not put ourselves out of the way. You must continue to knock under to us, c. ;'
why then, (for the Irish people are determined to Repeal the Act of Union, of Ifc'OJ,
an abominable measure, bought and sold on both sides, and all against Ireland,) the
general disaffection in Ireland will, on the first occasion, shape itself into complete
National Independence." Prcf.p. ix.
t " Mr. Field, the eminent mechanical engineer of London, had occasion to
examine the relative powers of British and Irish Labourers, to raise weights by
means of a crane. He communicated his results to the Institute of Civil Engineers,
in London. He found that the utmost efforts of a man, lifting at the rate of one foot
per minute, ranged :
Englishmen, from Il,n05lb. to 24,255lb.
Irishmen, ,, 17,325lb. ,, 27,5(>2lb.
The utmost effort of a "Welshman was 15,1121b. Kane's Industrial Resources of
Ireland, p. 382.
Professor Quetelet, of Brussels, and Professor Forbes, of Edinburgh, have made
observations on the height, strength, &c., of the English, Scotch, Irish, and Belgian
Students, establishing the superiority of the Irish in both, to the other races. I do
not, however, consider the observations made on the class of persons they tested,
sufficient to warrant any very general conclusion.
4 PRACTICABILITY OF
Their buoyancy of temperament and indomitable spirits, which no
fatigue or difficulty can subdue, adapt them still more than their
other qualities for such pursuits. They have besides inherited a large
stock of chivalrous ardour, and it is the common observation of
military men that the Irish recruit is half a soldier by the time he
has got into his uniform jacket. On the whole I think it may be
safely stated that Ireland possesses, at the minimum, an effective
military population of one million six hundred thousand men.
The next thing after population which should be taken into
account, in looking at a country's military resources is, her com-
missariat. Let us consider that of Ireland.
Some countries are so circumstanced that their inhabitants could
not exist if their ports were blockaded, and the channels by which
they receive supplies of food, &c. from other nations, were shut up.
England, at present, is probably in this position. She is obliged
to import food to a very large extent. Ireland certainly is not. She
is a great exporter of it. The produce of her soil is infinitely beyond
the necessities of her inhabitants, and a blockade of her coast (if
possible,) though it may seriously incommode, could not subdue her.
She could exist, as it has been forcibly observed, " if a wall of brass
were built around her."
Her export of food, it is true, is much greater than it should be,
and results mainly from the fact that her people do not consume so
large a portion of the produce of the soil as they ought to do. They
are scantily and miserably fed. But it is not the quantity of food
that her population ought to consume, but the quantity that they do
habitually consume, that it becomes necessary to consider here all
beyond that is, in a military point of view, a surplus. If a people
habitually consumes cheese and bactm, it will not be satisfied to live
for any length of time without them: if, on the other hand, its
habitual food be potatoes, then it will not be very discontented
during an emergency to continue living on them, notwithstanding
it may be very just and proper, that it should be better fed. To
ascertain how much of the soil of Ireland is actually burthened
with the support of the overwhelming majority of her inhabitants,
it is only necessary to look at the potatoe fields. Nearly all the
rest is surplus.
The observations here made as to food are equally applicable to
the other necessaries of life. Fuel, both coal and turf,* exists in
abundance, and clothing would be readily manufactured. A nation
lighting for her freedom does not look for luxuries.
* Kane's Industrial Resources of Ireland, p. 7, ct seif.
THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 5
Another important matter for consideration in estimating a nation's
strength, is its topography ; the field which it presents for military
operations. Ireland would be an embarrassing country for an invading
army to occupy. Except in its bog districts, it is, perhaps, not very
formidable by nature, for, though many of its mountain passes are
of considerable strength ; yet, as its chains of hills sink gradually
into the level land at their extremities, and may, therefore, be out-
flanked by an attacking force, they are of no great value as a
defence. Art, however, has created obstacles which would seriously
check the movements of hostile troops through the country, in the
vast number of fences which traverse it in every direction. The
banks of earth which form the common boundaries to the fields
throughout the chief part of Munster, are of a thickness to be proof
against musketry, and often against ordinary field artillery, and would
set the movements of regular cavalry at defiance. The close hedges of
Leinster would prove equally impracticable to the latter force, and
a very active light infantry only, could be at all effective in con-
testing them. If Ireland were deficient in artillery, the possession
of it to an adverse army could be rendered nearly useless, by the
breaking up of the roads, as the close and fenced-in nature of the
country would render it impossible to transport guns across it, (as
might be done over the wide even plains of the Continent,) when the
ordinary routes were rendered impassible. This would, no doubt,
produce much inconvenience to the inhabitants of the country ; but
when a nation thinks a matter worth fighting for, she must think it
worth suffering inconveniences for too.
But it will be said that Ireland wants all the materiel of war, that
she possesses neither arms nor ammunition. This is not altogether
true. It is a fact pretty well known, to all who are really acquainted
with the country, that arms are very extensively dispersed throughout
Ireland ; and, though, in particular localities they may not be much
in the hands of the people, they are in quite sufficient abundance to
be formidable. One weapon, too, in which the lower classes of the
Irish place great confidence, and which they have already made
very destructive use of the pike, is so easily procured, that it may
be almost said to be within the reach of every man.*
But, if the country were never so deficient in the implements of
war, the facilities of procuring them in case of a National struggle,
are so great, as to make the want of them a matter of very small
importance. No man in his senses can imagine, that a country with
* See for further information on the suhjeet of the military resources of I reland, and
for confirmation of the opinions put forward on the matter, in the text, the Appendix
to the Essay, in which, for convenience, the authorities have been cited.
6 PRACTICABILITY OF
the extent of sea coast, which Ireland possesses ; a coast, moreover,
the access to which is through no narrow channel, like the entrance
to the Baltic, or the Mediterranean ; but open to the great highway
of nations, the Atlantic, with safe and navigable creeks and harbours
in almost every mile of its extent, could be prevented from receiving
supplies of arms or ammunition by any other vigilance, but that of
her own inhabitants. The statesman who would rest his expectations
of retaining Ireland an unwilling province of the British Empire,
upon such a hope, would not be long without cause to lament his
folly.
But, allowing that Ireland may possess, or be supplied with the
materiel of war, what can it avail her without a disciplined force ?
Possibly she may not be wholly deficient in such a force. Without
now referring to any elements of a disciplined body existing within
herself, and which, in the case of a general national quarrel, might
prove the most dangerous to England of any which could be found
is it so certain that from abroad she could expect nothing ? Is it not
within the range of probabilities, that in spite of any watchfulness,
on the part of England, she might obtain the assistance most
desirable for a people seeking Independence ; that is assistance enough
to aid and to organize, but not enough to assume the tyrant after it
had enacted the friend. This deserves to be well pondered on.
Her own population too, as I have before stated, are the most apt
of military scholars. I may remark, in passing, that their expert-
ness at spade labour, would render them invaluable for the throwing
up of field works a fact of no slight consequence.
Again, the advantages to regular troops, in fighting on a great
scale, with irregular bodies properly led, are very questionable,
where the great preponderance in numbers is on the side of the
latter. This guerilla warfare is terribly harrassing work, to a
disciplined army. The constant watchfulness, fatigue, and uncer-
tainty, wear them out with fearful quickness. There are few things
which an experienced officer would relish less. There is nothing
which it requires an officer of so much skill and experience to meet.
A young, impetuous, inexperienced man would make very sad work
of it. Bivouacking in an Irish bog, with a hostile population on
every side, a rainy climate, sick horses, and fagged men, would
prove one of the most unattractive forms of a military life.
All these matters may give food for thought. From their nature I
have touched but lightly on them ; my object being only to shew that
this " reconquest of Ireland," so flippantly talked about by some par-
ties at the other side of the channel, is not altogether so simple a
task as might, at a hasty view of it, appear. A war against a nation,
THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 7
in its literal sense, is always formidable work. A war by the
soldiery of one country against the soldiery of another, in which the
people of the latter are indifferent enough (it being commonly no
affair of theirs,) is a matter of quite another kind. Young military
men, it is true, talk very siieeringly of popular resistance. Considered
on a small scale, they are right enough ; but they hardly estimate
the difficulties of a campaign against the liberties of a whole country,
where every man they meet is an enemy, and every inch of ground
they hold must be held by the sword. Experienced soldiers think
otherwise, and the opinions of such men may perhaps be the best
commentary on this part of my subject.*
I have now concluded my investigation of the mere physical
advantages possesed by Ireland for military purposes. I have,
however, said already that many of the elements of her strength are
more perceptible by the stateman's than by the soldier's eye ; one
of these I will now advert to.
Mr. Grey Porter, in the Preface to his Pamphlet already referred
to, says,t " I think we (in Ireland), approach a time when peace
will be worse to us than war ; that the more quiet grows the country,
the stronger the government, the more easily will the landlords
draw away their rents to live elsewhere." Here, indeed, is matter
for deep consideration. If peace be worse to Ireland than war,
then, indeed, she possesses an element of strength for an armed struggle,
such as nations seldom have. Let it be remembered, too, that
the opinion cited is not that of a mob-courting demagogue ; but the
quietly propounded belief of a wealthy Conservative Irish Landlord.
It is worth a British stateman's notice.
Such are the arguments, as I conceive, in favor of Ireland's capa-
bility to attain her independence by force, if circumstances led her
people to suppose that it was their duty to have recourse to it. I do
not believe them to be without weight. Men may attach various
degrees of importance to them ; but those who slight them altogether,
I am certain act a rash part. England, it is true, is a great nation ;
has vast resources in money and immense territorial possessions.
These latter, however, are in fact, her weakness, not her strength.
She has not one colony from which she could draw men to recruit
her armies, most of them she holds only by military occupation.
In nearly all of them nay in her own bosom there exists what, in
the event of a war with Ireland would, in all likelihood, prove a
fatal cancer to her a numerous population ; Irish by birth or by
descent ; Irish in feelings and sympathies ; and having carried with
* See Appendix. t Ireland, p. vi.
PRACTICABILITY OF
them, in most instances, the traditions, the animosities, and not least
formidable the poverty of the land from which they have sprung.
What is the condition of her own people ? The mass of them are
poor, ignorant and discontented without comfort without hope
without religion without moral restraint, crushed to the earth
hy an aristocracy of enormous wealth, standing out in gorgeous
and dazzling relief from a background of misery and despair. These,
are not the men to preserve her empire in time of danger. If Eng-
land, to-morrow, were plunged into a war with Ireland how long
would she exist without the aid of foreign bayonets the subsidized
mercenaries of continental Europe? How many branches of the
human family believe to-day that their freedom must be erected on
the ruins of her gigantic empire ? Wise men will not dismiss these
questions without reflection.
Hitherto I have discussed Separation rather than Repeal, I
have assumed, for the sake of argument, that the same difficulties
stood in the way of one as of the other, and have sought to shew
that even were that the case, Repeal would still be attainable.
The assumption that the difficulties in the way of each are equal,
would however be very erroneous. Ireland may be unable to cope
in arms, even on her own soil, with England, and may yet have
power enough to achieve her legislative independence. She could
stop every wheel by which the machinery of government is worked,
and without one act of violence, so paralyze Great Britain as to
make her gladly come to any terms. Suppose, for instance, that
the Irish people unanimously resolved to pay no taxes, imposed
by the Imperial Parliament, until enforced by legal process, and
carried that resolution into effect with the same determination that
they evinced during the tithe war of 1832. Where would the Irish
revenue be in six months ? Suppose them along with this, to protest
against the consumption of all articles of English manufacture, and
of all goods imported in English vessels. How long would England
be without feeling the results in her manufacturing and shipping
interests ? Let a like determination on the part of the people, against
enlisting in the British army be taken into consideration, and its
consequences be weighed. None of these are novelties, thrown
out as hints for disaffected persons, to take up and act upon, but
on the contrary have been working long and deeply in the popular
mind of Ireland.* A word might bring them into action. To carry
* Many projects, indeed, have been suggested of a much more extreme kind, so
mischievous, and tending so strongly to break up all bonds of society, that 1 would
not even refer to them here. One thing 1 may, however, hint at, namely, that the
absentee drain from the land of Ireland, she could at any moment stop.
THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 9
them out to such an extent, and in such a manner as to affect seri-
ously the revenue and power of England, would of course entail
great and manifold inconveniences on the people ; but that they
possess the steadiness and resolution to endure those inconveniences
to the fullest extent, it is only necessary to refer to their astonishing
perseverance in the temperance system, one so strongly repugnant
to all their previous habits and opinions.
Upon this question of the practicability of Repeal, I shall dilate
no further, I think I have said enough to convince those who reflect
calmly on the subject, that Irishmen have it in their own power,
to secure the independence of Ireland : that they need be under no
obligations for it to the English people. The good will of the latter,
I should be sorry to throw away, but I would be more sorry to
place my country unnecessarily under obligations to them, or to any
other people upon earth. Our struggle is for Independence, and
it should be conducted in an Independent spirit. We seek Ireland
for the Irish I think it would be well to add through the exer-
tions of Irishmen. This might not hasten the time of our deliver-
ance : but it would make it a deliverance indeed. For myself, I
would readily see the great consummation of our hopes postponed
for twenty years, to see it gained by the Union of all Irishmen.
To share like brothers the blessings which it would bring, we should
have joined like brothers to obtain them.
10 CONSEQUENCES OF A
CHAPTER II.
CONSEQUENCES OF REPEAL.
" One argument from experience, in political reasoning, is worth a thousand
arguments in theory."
COOKE. Argument for the Union,
I NOW come to consider the second portion of the subject ; namely,
the advantages or losses to Ireland, which would result from the
Repeal of the Act of Union.
I shall first state the advantages. This I must do in a general
way. To set them forth in detail, would, I conceive, be to enume-
rate everything that aids in constituting the strength, the prosperity,
the civilization, and the freedom of a nation. It will develope her
internal resources, revive her manufactures, extend her commerce,
foster her agriculture, diminish her taxation, dissipate her poverty ;
above all, it will give self-reliance, and union to her people. Is
it fancy that foretells these bright results, or is it reason? I
think I can shew that it is the latter. I can shew it by the only
arguments which can ever be applied to the prospective condition of
nations or individuals ; arguments drawn from analogy analogy
to the affairs of private men to the history of other nations ; but
especially, and above all, to the history of Ireland herself.
The analogy between the affairs of a nation and those of an in-
dividual is, of course, of limited extent notwithstanding, it is still
considerable. Nations being nothing else than aggregations of in-
dividuals, it follows, that generally that which contributes most to
the prosperity of the individual, contributes most to the prosperity
of the nation likewise. If it be true, as it undoubtedly is, that a
man will manage his own business, if labouring under no personal
incapacity, better and cheaper, than another man will do it for
him, there is no reason whatever why the same principle should not
hold good iu respect to a nation. Men, whether individually or
collectively, have little desire to take upon themselves gratuitous
labour. If any person offered, out of pure regard, to take the
whole management of your affairs, and to save you all annoyance in
respect to them, would you not at once conclude that he intended
to plunder you ? Why not act on the same principle when nations
are concerned ? There never was a truer saying than that of
Porter, that " No nation ever yet governed another for nothing."
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 11
Whether the government of Ireland by England be good or bad, it
is certainly dearer than self-government would be. But may it not
be better than self-government ? Most certainly not, (unless Irish-
men be an inferior race,) for assuming it to be the interest of England
to govern Ireland in the best possible manner, it surely is the in-
terest of Irishmen to do the same. If, therefore, they are satisfied
to leave the control of their affairs in the hands of England, they
must be [satisfied to pay more for a government, which may be
worse, and cannot be better than self-government. But not only
may English government be worse for Ireland than self-government,
but it must be so. England, in the first place, will never be con-
vinced, that it is her interest to govern Ireland in the best manner,
until the discovery will be too late, for she gains great temporary be-
nefit by the misgovernment of her ;* and in the second place, English-
men can never understand the affairs of Ireland, equally well with
Irishmen, and therefore never can legislate equally well upon them.
A still stronger proof of the advantages to be derived by Ireland from
home legislation, is to be drawn from the history of other countries.
A very slight examination of this will shew us, that the prosperity
of every nation is in almost exact ratio to the amount of control
it possesses over its own affairs. Nor can it be contended, that
the coincidence of prosperity and self-government is accidental.
Countries which have languished and decayed under the manage-
ment of foreign states, we shall find to have grown rich and
healthful when legislating for themselves. Nations, powerful and
prosperous, beneath domestic institutions, have sunk by the same
gradations into provincialism and insignificance. The prosperity
of the seven united provinces after their revolt from Spain, of
Portugal since she threw off the yoke of the same country, of the
Swiss Cantons freed from the tyrrany of Austria, of the American
States emancipated from British domination, of Norway since her
noble assertion of independence, on the transfer of her sovereignty
from the Danish to the Swedish crown, shews under almost every
mode of government, and every variety of time and circumstances
* There is no better established truth in political economy, than that it is the
interest of all nations to carry on their intercouse with each other, in the manner
most beneficial to each. It is clearly and beautifully shewn by Adam Smith, and
is the grand principle on which free trade rests. One nation may gain great tem-
porary advantage in trading with another, so as to realise vast profit, but in the
end it destroys its customer. Its conduct resembles that of the Norwegians, who
rob che nests of the Eider goose for its beautiful and valuable down, with which it
lines them. When one nest is robbed, it builds a second and lays again, and if this
be stolen, a third ; but it generally dies from the exhaustion of laying, no young
birds being hatched; the cupidity of its plunderers thus yearly diminishing their
own gains.
CONSEQUENCES OF A
the blessings of self-control ; while the history of the same states in
their, provincial capacity, of ,Corsica, of Sicily, and of Loinbardy,
gives ample proof of the evils resulting from foreign rule, in every
possible form.*
But it is in the history of Ireland herself, that we find the un-
answerable arguments in favor of her legislative independence. It
is that which call for our strictest investigation. However close
may be the analogy between her and other countries, that analogy
can never be complete: differences of geographical situation, of
national character, of soil, of climate, must exist to render the
comparison unfair; an hundred other discrepancies, as forms of
government, religion, industrial pursuits may be superadded, so as
to destroy all resemblance. In spite of all these dissimilarities, the
political philosopher may, indeed, learn much from inquiring into
their relative progress ; but the task is difficult, and the deduction
arrived at, at best, uncertain. Fortunately, we are not under the
necessity of undergoing so tiresome an examination, and we have
data which must bring us to a far more certain result. We have,
within the space of half a century a space far too short to affect
the conclusions to be drawn from it the experience of Ireland
provincialised Ireland emancipated, and Ireland provincialised
again : let us make this our study, and abide by what it teaches.
The half-century of Irish history, which contains within it all that
is necessary for our investigation, lies between the year 1TT8 and
the year 1818 ; upon it Ireland may rest her claim for self-govern-
ment; but Great Britain shall have the benefit of all that has
occurred from the latter period to our own time ; and for the better
understanding of the subject, I shall commence the review of the
state of Ireland, and the connexion of the two countries, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century.
The political position of Ireland at this period, was that of com-
plete dependence on Great Britain. Her parliament was little
else than a nullity, or, at best, a convenient instrument for effecting
the designs of the English ministers. When a doubt existed, that it
would be found manageable sometimes even without this apology,
but merely through indifference it was superseded altogether.
" In so much diffidence and contempt," says Plowden,f " did the
* The reader must consult the history of these different countries, and judge for
himself of the truth of what is here asserted, with regard to them. Details of their
advancement or retrogression would, in a work like this, of course, be impossible.
Belgium and Scotland are not mentioned in the above list. Many circumstances
make it desirable to go into a careful examination of the history and position of both
these countries and this will be found fully in another place.
t Vol. i. p. 229, Quarto Edition. 1803. Plowden having written expressly,
and at Pitt's desire, to sustain the Union, is an unexceptionable authority.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 13
British Parliament hold that of Ireland during this Queen's reign,
(Anne's,) that in every matter which was considered to he of im-
portance to the British empire, they expressly legislated for Ireland,
as if Ireland had no parliament of her own. Thus did the British
legislature direct the sale of the estates of Irish rebels, and dis-
qualify Catholics from purchasing them ; thus did it avoid leases
made to Papists ; thus augment small vicarages, and confirm grants
made to the Archhishop of Dublin ; it permitted Ireland to export
linen to the Plantations ;* prohibited the importation of that com-
modity from Sotland, and appointed the town of New Ross, in
the county of Wexford, as the port for exporting wool from Ireland
to England. In the Schism Act which Sir William Wyndham
brought into the House of Commons in England, in the year IT 14,
the interference of the British legislature with Ireland was the
most remarkable. This bill, which was [aimed by the Tory party
at the total suppression of the Dissenters, was warmly opposed by
the Whigs in both houses. Into that bill the following clause was
introduced : that * where law is the same, the remedy and means
' for enforcing the execution of the law should be the same : be it
' therefore enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that all and every
' the remedies, provisions, and clauses, in and by this act given,
' made, and enacted, shall extend and be deemed, construed, and
' adjuged to extend to Ireland, in as full and effectual manner as
' if Ireland had been expressly named and mentioned in all and
' every the clauses of this act. 1 "
The opponents of the bill fought hard against the clause relating
to Ireland, contending that it would ruin the general Protestant in-
terest there, by converting the Dissenters into bitter enemies, but it
passed notwithstanding. " It must," continues Mr. Plowden,f
" be presumed, that the ministers of that day were as anxious that
the bill against the Dissenters should be extended to Ireland, as
they were certain that a similar bill would not have passed the
Irish Parliament.'^
The extracts here given, demonstrate, not only the complete and
servile dependence of the Irish Parliament upon that of Great
Britain ; but likewise, the vile uses to which the British Minister
converted that dependence.
The star of religious intolerance was, at this period, at its zenith
* The conduct of England with reference to the linen and woollen manufactures
of Ireland, has been well shewn by Mr. John O'Counell, in his ' Argument for
Ireland.'
t Vol. 1. p. 230.
I It would seem, that the House of Lords were ready enough to persecute the
Dissenters ; but that the Commons were not so complying.
14 CONSEQUENCES OF A
in Ireland. The act to prevent the further growth of Popery,
" through which," says Dr. Curry,* " there runs such a vein of
ingenious cruelty, that it seems to be dictated rather by some Preetor
of Dioclesian than by a British or Irish nobleman," was passed
early in the reign of Anne ; and throughout the whole of that reign
the Penal Laws were executed with unabating severity. Nor were
the Roman Catholics the only objects of persecution. By a clause
in the act, just alluded to, the sacramental test as it has been termed
or the receiving the Lord's Supper, according to the rites of the
Church of Ireland, was made a condition of executing any public
trust for her Majesty or the country. Under this clause the Pres-
byterian burgesses of Belfast were declared by the House of Commons
incapacitated from voting in elections for members of parlia-
ment, unless they should fulfil its provisions :f nor could all their
exertions obtain a repeal of the obnoxious condition. Nay. more, the
increasing influence of the Presybterians was viewed " with such
dread and jealousy, that on the 7th November, 1T11, the lords spiri-
tual and temporal presented an address to her Majesty, in which
they complained of the Earl of Wharton (the Lord Lieutenant),
having abused her Majesty's name in ordering nolle prosequis to
stop proceedings against one Fleming and othersybr disturbing the
peace of the town of Drogheda, by setting up a Meeting-house where
there had been none for the last twenty-eight years ;"J set forth
various acts of the Dissenters hostile to the Established
Church ; amongst others " sending Missionaries into several parts
of the kingdom, where they had no call, nor any congregations to
support them ;" and besought her Majesty to take away from them
the sum of <' 1,200 per annum given them by her for charitable
purposes. These facts, respecting which no controversy can exist,
convey a melancholy idea of the state of civil and religious liberty
in Ireland under her dependent Parliament. Let us consider her
now in her other relations.
In the reign of George I. (anno 1719), the House of Lords,
in Ireland, reversed a decision of the Irish Court of Exchequer
upon appeal. The defeated party appealed from the Irish to
the English House of Lords, which confirmed the decision of
the Exchequer ; and an injunction was issued out of that Court,
pursuant to the order of the English Peers. The Sheriff of
Kildare, to whom the writ issued refused to obey it, arid was
fined twelve hundred pounds by the Exchequer. Thereupon he
petitioned the House of Lords in Ireland, who resolved " that
Vol. 2, p. 234. t Common's Journ., vol. 2, p. 569.
I Plowden 1, p. 222. Sherlock v. Anuesley.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 15
Alexander Burrows, Esq., in not obeying the injunction issued from
his Majesty's Court of Exchequer, in the cause between Annesley
and Sherlock, had behaved himself with integrity and courage, and
with due respect to the orders and resolutions of the house ; that the
fines imposed upon him be taken off: that the barons of the Exche-
quer, viz. Jeffrey Gilbert, Esq. ; John Pocklington, Esq. ; and Sir
John St. Leger, had acted in violation of the orders of the house,
in ' diminution of the King's 1 Prerogative, as also of the rights and
privileges of the kingdom of Ireland and the Parliament thereof."
They further ordered that the barons of the Exchequer should be
taken into custody by the Usher of the black rod, which orders
were accordingly executed. The Lords having asserted their privilege
in this manner, next forwarded to the King a long and elaborate
representation of the rights which they claimed as a final court of
appeal in Irish causes, setting forth in full the arguments on which
they rested their claim, and concluding with the expression of a
hope that his Majesty would justify the steps they had taken, for
supporting his prerogative and the just rights and liberties of them-
selves and their fellow-subjects.
The representation and proceedings of the Irish House of Lords
having been laid before the English house, the latter, instead of
abandoning the appellate jurisdiction which they had assumed,
passed resolutions approving of the conduct of the Irish Court of
Exchequer in carrying their judgment into effect ; and agreed on
presenting an humble address to his Majesty to confer on the barons
of that court some mark of his royal favor, as a recompense for the
injuries they had received by being unjustly censured and illegally
imprisoned for doing their duty.* The celebrated act, (6 Geo. I.,
cap. 5,) for better securing the dependency of the kingdom of
Ireland upon the Croivn of Great Britain, was then brought in at
the desire of the British Peers and passed both houses by large
majorities. It declared that the kingdom of Ireland was wholly
subordinate to and dependent on the Crown of Great Britain ; that the
British Parliament had full power to enact laws to bind it ; that all
claim of appellate jurisdiction by the Irish House of Lords, was
unfounded, and all proceedings thereon null and void to all intents
and purposes whatsoever.
The miserable dependence to which the Irish Legislature (if
indeed the name can be applied to it) was reduced by this act, having
been submitted to for a period of sixty years, let us now turn to
* The address was probably successful in its object. Baron Gilbert was trans-
ferred to the English Exchequer iu 1722, and appointed Lord Chief Baron of that
Court, in 1726.
16 CONSEQUENCES OF A
the consideration of the social and financial condition of the country
during that space of time.
The first authority I shall cite is Dean Swift, who published his
'Short View of the State of Ireland/ in the year 1727-28. Having
enumerated the advantages possessed hy Ireland in fruitfulness of soil,
excellence of harbours, population, &c., he proceeds* "the con-
veniency of ports and havens, which nature bestowed us so liberally,
is of no more use to us, than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up
in a dungeon.
" As to shipping of its own, this kingdom is so utterly unprovided,
that of all the excellent timber cut down within these fifty or sixty
years, it can hardly be said that the nation hath received the benefit
of one ship to trade with.
" Ireland is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of in ancient
or modern story, which was denied the liberty of exporting their
native commodities wherever they pleased, except to countries at
war with their own prince or state. Yet this, by the superiority
of meer power, is refused to us in the most momentous parts of
commerce ; besides an act of navigation, to which we never consented,
pinned down upon us, and rigorously executed, and a thousand
other unexampled circumstances as grievous as they are invidious
to mention.
" No strangers from other countries make this a part of their
travels, n-here they can expect to see nothing but scenes of misery
and desolation.
" Those who have the misfortune to be born here, have the least
title to any considerable employment) to which they are seldom
preferred, but upon a political consideration.
" The third part of the rents of Ireland is spent in England,
which, with the profit of employments, pensions, appeals, journies
of pleasure or health, education at the Inns of Court and both Uni-
versities, remittances at pleasure, the pay of all superior officers in
the army and other incidents, will amount to a full half of the income
of the whole kingdom, all clear profit to England.
" We are denied the liberty of coining gold, silver, or even copper.
In the Isle of Man, they coin their own silver ; every petty prince,
vassal to the Emperor can coin what money he pleaseth, and in this,
as in most of the articles already mentioned, we are an exception to
all other states or monarchies that were evor known in the
world."
' Short View,&c.. 1st eil., p. 8.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. IT
Well, indeed, might he add, that to flourish in such a state of
tilings would be " against every law of nature and reason, like the
thorn of Glassenbury, which blossoms in the middle of winter."
After the extracts just given, we cannot doubt the fidelity of the
picture which follows :
" A stranger would be apt to think himself travelling in Lapland
or Iceland, rather than in a country so favored by nature as ours,
both in fruitfulness of soil and temperature of climate. The mise-
rable dress, and diet, and dwelling of the people : the general
desolation in most parts of the kingdom : the old seats of the
nobility and gentry all in ruins, and no new ones in their stead :
the families of farmers, who pay great rents, living in filth and
nastiness upon buttermilk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking
to their feet, or a house so convenient as an English hog-stye to
receive them : these indeed may be comfortable sights to an
English spectator, who comes for a short time only to learn the
language, and returns back to his own country, whither he finds all
our wealth transmitted
' nostra miseriil magnus es.'
" The rise of our rents is squeezed out of the very blood, and
vitals, and cloaths, and dwellings of the tenants who live worse than
English beggars. The lowness of interest, in all other countries a
sign of wealth, is in ours a proof of misery, there being no trade to
employ any borrower. Hence alone comes the dearness of land,
since the savers have no other way to lay out their money. Hence
the dearness of the necessaries of life, because the tenants cannot
afford to pay such extravagant rates for land (ivhich they must
take or go a-begging), without raising the price of cattle, and of
corn, although they should live upon chaff?*
The evidence of such a man as Swift can hardly require corrobo-
ration ; but as he was an Irishman writing on behalf of his country,
and at least obnoxious to the charge of patriotism, I will cite
additional testimony to the wretchedness which he has painted.
On the 7 tli March, 1727, Primate Boulter, an Englishman,
wrote thus to the Duke of Newcastle :
" Since I came here in the year 1725, there was almost a famine
amongst the poor ; last year the dearness of corn was such, that
thousands of families quitted their habitations to seek bread else-
where, and many hundreds perished. This year the poor had
consumed their potatoes, which are their winter subsistence, near two
months sooner than ordinary, and are already, through the dearness
D
18 CONSEQUENCES OF A
of corn, in that want, that in some places they begin to quit their
habitations. 11 *
" The misery thus described, went on increasing from year to year,
till," says Plowden,t " in the years 1728, and 1729, it nearly
amounted to a famine." In the six months ending the 29th of
September in the latter year, it appears from the report of the
House of Commons, that the import of corn amounted to ^247,000,
a sum truly exorbitant, when compared with the finances of the
country, at the time, the state of which I shall presently examine.
Nor is it merely in his representations of the state of the poor,
that Primate Boulter corroborates the testimony of Swift.
In another letter to the Duke of Newcastle, he says, " I must re-
quest of your Grace, as I have of his Lordship, (Carteret, Lord
Lieutenant,) that you would both use your interest to hare none but
Englishmen put into the great places here for the future. "% The
advice thus given was faithfully followed up, and everything else
long sacrificed to the preservation of an .English interest in
Ireland.
It may, however, be supposed that this English interest and Pro-
testant interest were, at the time, synonimous terms, and that the
Roman Catholics were the only real sufferers from the conduct of
the English authorities in Ireland. This idea was indeed, upon all
public occasions, sought to be impressed upon the Protestants, by
the party who derived all the benefit of the existing state of things ;
but what was the fact? I quote Primate Boulter again as my
authority. In another letter to the Duke of Newcastle, dated 23rd
November, 1728, in which he sets forth the distressed condition of
the country, and the emigration which it had given rise to, (3,100
persons having, in the preceding summer, been shipped to the West
Indies,) he continues " the whole north is in a ferment at present,
and people every day engaging one another to go next year to the
West Indies. The humour has spread like a contagious distemper,
and the people will hardly hear anybody, that tries to cure them of
their madness. The worst is, that it affects only Protestants, and
reigns chiefly in the North, which is the seat of bur linen manufac-
ture." Can it be necessary to adduce further authorities for the
universal distress of the country ? If it be, let us turn from the
statements of individuals to the financial accounts of the period.
" Nothing," says Plowden, "can convey a more adequate idea of
the financial state of the nation, than to consider the progress of the
national debt, and trace the effects which it gradually produced on
* Cor. Pri. Boulter, vol. 1. p. 22G. t Vol. 1. p. 2G7-
J Cor. Pri. Boulter, vol. 1. p. 23. Vol. 1. p. 27.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 19
the nation. The poverty of Ireland appeared in the year 1716, by
the unanimous address of the House of Commons to George I.
This address was to congratulate his Majesty on his success in ex-
tinguishing the rebellion ; an occasion most joyful to them, and in
which no disagreeable circumstance would have been stated, had
not truth and the necessities of their country extorted it from them.
A small debt of <^?16,106, 11s. 0>^d. due at Michaelmas 1715, was,
by their exertions to strengthen the hands of government, in that
year, increased at Midsummer, 1717, to a sum of ^91,537 17s. 1/^d.
which was considered such an augmentation of the national debt,
that the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton, thought it necessary
to take notice in his speech from the throne, that the debt was con-
siderably augmented, and to declare at the same time that his
Majesty had ordered reductions in the military, and had thought
proper to lessen the civil list. " There cannot be a stronger proof," 1
continues Mr. Plcwden, " of the want of resources in any country,
than that a debt of so small amount should alarm the persons en-
trusted ie it/i the government of it" an observation in the truth of
which every man must agree. In 1733, the debt had further
increased to c371,31<J 13s. 2/^d. and this without any war contri-
butions on the part of Ireland, but solely from her poverty and
absence of resources. After the peace of Aix la-chapelle, her
financial condition improved, and the linen trade became somewhat
flourishing, so that through great exertion, she succeeded in paying
off her debt altogether by the 1st March, 1754.
A few years previously to this, the descendants of the English
resident in Ireland, and possessed of influence there, began to per-
ceive that they were too far identified with her interests and
dependent on her prosperity, to continue any longer the old system
of governing for England, and a strong Irish party sprung up in
the parliament and the country. The efforts of this party produced
some good effects in the management of public affairs, and in the
year 1759, the country appears from the public accounts to have
been in credit ^65,774 4s. 1/^d. The symptoms of prosperity,
however, which appeared after the peace, unluckily proved
fallacious: its continuance was of short duration. In 1760, con-
siderable addition was made to the military force of the kingdom,
and parliament was compelled to raise a loan in that year of
^300,000, in addition to ^150,000 which it had borrowed at the
close of the previous year. The patriots, though by their exertions
they had forced many important measures upon the government,
which I shall notice in another place, were unable to introduce
any considerable financial reform, and the result was a steady and
20 CONSEQUENCES OF A
progressive increase of the public debt. At Lady Day, 1773, after a
ten years peace, it amounted to ^994,890 10s. lOd. and in December
1781, it was stated by Mr. Grattan to be ^2,667,600.
The increase in a nation's debt is not in itself a conclusive proof
of national distress. In time of war, a government will borrow
money to meet its immediate expenses, relying upon the surplus
revenue, which a succeeding peace is likely to leave in the treasury,
for payment of the debt so contracted, in preference to imposing
additional taxes on the country, to meet those expenses as they are
incurred. In such a case it resembles a private person, possessed
of an income, more than sufficient for his ordinary expenditure,
who requiring a large sum of money for a specific purpose, borrows
it with the intention of paying it oif by degrees out of the income
which he receives over and above his wants. Even in time of
peace, an increase of debt may not be a proof positive of financial
ruin. A country advancing in commerce and wealth may borrow,
upon the credit of its increasing revenues, to meet the exigencies of
government, as an individual may live beyond his income, if his
property be daily improving in value, and yet be prosperous and
flourishing in reality. This, however, was not the case of Ireland
during the long period we have been considering. The distress of
the community, if it did not keep pace with, at least did not remain
far behind that of the treasury. In a debate in the English House
of Commons on the 10th May, 1776, the Hon. Temple Luttrell,
speaking of the Irish, said, that " a people so wretched, so oppressed,
were scarcely to be found in any part of the civilized globe." In
the following year petitions were presented to the Irish parliament
from the merchants and traders of Cork, and from the manufac-
turers of Dublin, setting forth in the most painful manner the ruinous
condition of their respective districts. The latter class stated in
their petition, that, by their efforts, " aided by the liberal benefac-
tions of many others, they had daily supplied the craving necessities
of above 20,000 persons, numbers ofn-hom, must else have actually
perished for want of food j'* and in every quarter similar wretched-
ness was to be encountered.
Again, on the IGth December, 1778, Lord Nugent, in the British
House of Commons, described the people of Ireland, " as suffering
every species of misery and distress human nature was capable of
bearing ; a people, nine-tenths of whom laboured for four pence a
day ; whose food in summer was potatoes and buttermilk, and in
winter potatoes and water."-)- He was followed by Lord Beau-
* 1 PlowiU-n, p. 448, note. t U>id. 471.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 21
champ, who confirmed nearly all his statements on the subject.
On the 19th of January, 1779, he renewed the discussion of the
state of Ireland, (with the design of having some of the restrictions
on her trade removed,,) and stated, amongst other matters, that
" good estates in that country were offered to sale at sixteen and
fourteen years' purchase, yet no buyers appeared at that low price ; v
and referred to ," a letter he had received from Dr. Woodward,
Dean of Clogher, mentioning that all had been done, that could be
effected by contribution, to relieve the starving poor, but in vain."*
Finally, as substantiating all the representations which had been
made by individuals, on the 18th May, 1779, Lord North com-
municated the following message from the King to the British
House of Commons : " (George R.) His Majesty having received
information from the Earl of Buckinghamshire, his Lieutenant-
General and General Governor of his Kingdom of Ireland, that
the revenues of that kingdom have of late proved greatly deficient,
and inadequate to the purposes for which they were granted ; and
his Majesty, moved with concern and compassion for the distresses
of his loyal and faithful subjects of that kingdom, and being anxious
that some immediate and effectual relief should be afforded to them,
thinks it necessary to recommend to the consideration of this House,
whether it may not be proper, in the present circumstances of Ire-
land, that the whole charge of the regiments on the Irish establish-
ment, now serving out of that kingdom, should be paid by Great
Britain. G. R."f
Having now, as I conceive, adduced authorities sufficient in number
and value, to satisfy the most incredulous, that the state of Ireland,
down to the year 1780, under the rule of her dependent parliament,
was disastrous in the last degree, 1 shall ask the reader to retrace
his steps, for a more pleasing purpose than that of contemplating
scenes of bigotry and want. The sturdy and patriotic spirit which
was so soon about to change the whole aspect of the country, had
begun its attacks on the system of English misrule about forty years
before the time at which we have arrived. Indeed, so early as
1727, " there were some, who," says Plowden, " assuming the
title of patriots, solemnly protested against any foreign ascendancy
over the native rights and interests of their country/' The first
symptoms of the independent feeling thus manifested, were, as
usual, accompanied by a forgetfulness of religious animosities, and
" the Irish Catholics, though deprived of most of the civil rights,
which their Protestant brethren enjoyed, sympathised witli them in
1 PlowJcn, p. 47-'. t Ibid. 475.
22 CONSEQUENCES OF A
their efforts to preserve the rights of Ireland, and in defiance of
religious differences, began to make civil liberty a common cause
with them."* The guardians of the English interest were however
on the alert ; their power had been only threatened, not yet shaken,
and they struck a sudden, and, for the time, a decisive blow.
" This novel coalition^ between Protestants and Catholics" con-
tinues Plowden, " in support and defence of the interests of Ire-
land, became formidably alarming to that party, whose sole mission
mas to keep up an English interest in that kingdom. Government
foresaw the necessary progress of this native coalition against the
English interest, and at one blow put an end to the political ex-
istence of, at least, four-fifths of the nation, by depriving them of
the noblest birthright, and invaluable privilege of the subject." By
a single clause introduced into a bill, threatening no additional
restrictions on the Roman Catholics, they were suddenly robbed of
the elective franchise, and the patriotic party deprived at once
of their most valuable support. Notwithstanding this success on
the part of government, the patriots steadily persevered in their
exertions. During the administration of Lord Carteret, in 1T29,
" the Court party had moved in the Commons, that the fund which
had been provided for the payment of the principal and interest of
the National Debt, should be granted to his Majesty, his heirs, and
successors for ever, redeemable by parliament. The patriots insisted
successfully, that it was unconstitutional, and inconsistent with
the public safety, to grant it for a longer term than from session to
session. An attempt was afterwards made to vest it in the Crown,
by continuing the supplies for twenty-one years. A division took
place on this question, and the patriots succeeded by a majority
of one." In 1751, they were again triumphant, in asserting the
principle that the House of Commons had a right to pass an act
disposing of the surplus of the hereditary revenue without the pre-
vious consent of the Crown. In 1756, they were, it is true, in a
minority of 50 to 85, on a bill brought in for better securing the
freedom of parliament, by vacating the seats of such members of
the House of Commons, as should accept of any pension or civil
office of profit ; but even this, when we consider the extent of the
system of corruption then resorted to for the purpose of securing
ministerial majorities, is strongly indicative of the progress of public
honesty. In 1767, a far higher degree of success attended the
efforts of the patriots ; they obtained the passing of the Octennial
Bill, reducing the privilege of members of the House of Commons
Vol. 1, p. 265. t H'iJ. 2G8.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 23
to sit in parliament, to eight years, it having previously been for
life. The bill had originally been septennial, but it had been
altered in the British Cabinet, " it having been expected," says
Mr. Plowden, " that the violent tenaciousness of the Irish Com-
mons for the privilege of not having their heads of bills altered on
this (i. e. the English) side of the water, would have induced them
to reject any bill, into which such an alteration had been intro-
duced."* The trick was, however, seen through by the parliament,
and they passed the bill with the alteration, so anxious were they,
constitutionally, to limit the duration of their powers. In order,
however, to shew their resolve to maintain their privileges, they at
the same time rejected a bill for securing the independence of the
judges, on the express ground of an alteration having been similarly
made in it. The new house having met in 1769, at once took
issue on the right of originating measures in the privy council. A
money bill having been brought into the House of Commons, it
was moved, that it be rejected, because it had not its rise in that
house, and the motion was carried, and the bill thrown out by
a majority of 94 against 71. An article having appeared in the
London Public Advertiser of the 9th December, 1769, abusing, in
very insolent terms, the Irish House of Commons for this assertion
of its privileges, and calling on the British Parliament to vote the
Irish supplies, " as they had an undoubted right," it was moved on
the 18th of that month, in the Irish Commons, that it should be
read, which having been done, it was declared to be a false and
infamous libel on the proceedings of that house, and ordered to be
burned by the common hangman, which was accordingly done on
the following Wednesday in the presence of the sheriff's of Dublin.
In 1775, the House of Commons once more shewed its in-
dependence by negativing a proposal of government to introduce
foreign troops into the kingdom, by a majority of 106 against 68 ;
and also rejected a bill, imposing additional duties on ale, beer, &c.,
as well as a stamp act, the ground for the rejection of these latter
bills being, that they were altered in England.
The advances made by the patriots, were thus steadily increasing ;
but the Roman Catholics had, since the passing of the disfranchising
act, been politically powerless. The first step taken towards their
relief, was in the month of May 1778, when a motion was made
in the Irish House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill for the
purpose, which motion was carried in the affirmative. The bill in
question, permitted any Roman Catholic taking the Oath of Alle-
giance prescribed by the 13 & 11 Geo. III., to take and dispose of a
* Vol. 1, p. 3-iS.
24 CONSEQUENCES OF A
lease for 999 years, certain or determinable on the dropping of five
lives; and declared, that the lands held by Roman Catholics, should
be descendible, devisable, and alienable, in the same manner as if
held by any other person. It passed both houses, and received the
royal assent, the first act of justice to the vast majority of the Irish
people, which, for nearly a century, had been wrung from their
oppressors.
In 17T9, Ireland, from the accumulated distresses of her inhabi-
tants, the extent of which has been already shewn, and the exertions
of the patriotic party, began to assume an attitude still more
menacing to British domination. The country had been, two
years before this period, drained of its troops, which were required
for the foreign service of the empire, and being entirely defenceless,
volunteer bodies of armed men had associated themselves together
to supply the place of the soldiery which had been withdrawn.
These volunteers were men, for the most part sensible of the evils
which English ascendancy had inflicted on their country, and
largely inspired with the free sentiments of the patriots. The
example of America, which had so recently revolted from British
rule, animated them, while it, to an equal extent, depressed their
rulers ; and when the demands and necessities of the country were
brought before the British Parliament in this year, several of its
members spoke plainly of the dangers to be apprehended from the
continuance of that policy which had been theretofore habitually
adopted in her behalf. Ministers, however, did nothing, and the
affairs of Ireland were left unattended to during the session ; which
closed without any measure having been passed for her benefit.
When the Irish people found that their wants were thus neglected,
they resolved to try what they could, by their own efforts, effect.
They formed associations which pledged themselves against the
importation of British commodities, and resolved to encourage and
consume native manufactures only. These resolutions were first
entered into in Dublin, and were rapidly followed up in other parts of
the kingdom. The spirit of the people had been caught up by their
representatives. When the House of Commons met in November,
they had resolved to grant the supplies for only a limited period,
and accordingly passed a six-months money-bill, which they
transmitted to England where, to his great mortification, the
minister was obliged to assent to it. They had, moreover, unanimously
passed resolutions in favor of free-trade ; and on the 24th of
November, the question being put " that it be resolved, that at this
time, it would be inexpedient to grant new taxes ;" i( v. r as carried
in the affirmative by a majority of 170 to 4T.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 25
The determination of Ireland had, in all respects, begun to operate
favourably for her. " The firm measure of a six months 1 money-bill,
the non-importation agreement, and the armed associations, had
produced a wonderful change in the public mind throughout Great
Britain, with reference to her affairs ;"* and accordingly Lord North
having, in a committee of the British House of Commons, on the
13th of November, brought forward three propositions, relative to
allowing her a free export of her wool, woollens, and wool-flocks
of glass, and all kinds of glass manufactures, and a freedom of trade
with the British plantations on certain conditions, the basis of which
was to be an equality of taxes and customs upon an equal and
unrestrained trade : bills founded on the two first propositions were
brought in, passed both houses with the utmost facility and received
the royal assent before the recess. The third being more complex
in its nature, and requiring more time for consideration, was allowed
to lie over as an open proposition during the ensuing holidays.f
Meanwhile, the Volunteer associations were daily becoming
more formidable. At the close of 1TT9, they had been computed to
number 30,000 men, self-equipped and strictly disciplined. " In
the beginning of 1780, they entered upon the plan of general orga-
nization : they appointed reviews for the ensuing summer ; and
chose their exercising officers and reviewing generals : and thus"
says Plowden, " the foundation of Irish Union was laid." 1 The
resolutions of many of the corps, declaring that Ireland was an
independent kingdom, entitled to all the uncontrolled rights and
immunities attaching thereto, filled the newspapers. The sentiment
was responded to by the whole Irish people, and on the 19th of
April, in that year, Mr. Grattan, after a most animated speech,
moved in the House of Commons, that they should resolve, and
enter on their journals " that no power on earth, save the King
Lords and Commons of Ireland, had a right to make laws for
Ireland."' A debate arose on the motion which lasted until six in
the morning, in which every man, but one, " acknowledged its truth,
either expressly or by not opposing it ;" but at the instance of Mr.
Flood, who feared that the ministerial hacks were numerous enough
to defeat it, if a division took place, it was withdrawn by its mover.
Ministers themselves, indeed, seem to have, at this time, been
fully confident of the subserviency of their minions and so far
as it could avail them in their attacks on Irish liberty, they did not
miscalculate. A mutiny bill sent over, as usual, was returned by
the English Privy Council, altered by being made perpetual ; and
* Plowden, vol. 1., p. 512. t Ibid.
E
26 CONSEQUENCES OF A
the Irish House of Commons, in the month of August passed it in
its altered and unconstitutional form. A bill relating to sugar was
altered in England in a like manner. The people out of doors
became clamorous, the Volunteers menacing : but the session closed,
on the 2nd of September, without any further step having been
taken towards the atttainment of Irish independence.
The Volunteers the safeguard of Ireland with arms in their
hands, were, however, alike unassailable, by ministerial menace or
corruption ; and they now had no other object than the attainment
of a free and independent constitution. " Their reviews in 1 780,"
says Mr. Plowden, "had pointed out the utility of forming regiments :
it was clearly perceived that companies acting separately could
never attain military perfection. In the spring of 1781, reviews
were again "fixed on ; and in summer when they assembled, the
improved state of the Volunteers was obvious to every eye. The
reviews were everywhere more numerous, more military and more
splendid. That of Belfast, which in 1780 was the largest, had, in
1781, nearly doubled their number ; 5,383 men then appeared in
review, with a train of thirteen field pieces ; other reviews had
proportionably increased and improved ; the Volunteers engaged
the affection and commanded the admiration of all their country-
men."*
On the 9th of October, 1781, parliament assembled. On the 10th
Mr. Bradstreet, recorder of Dublin and a staunch patriot, moved
for and obtained leave to prepare and bring in a Habeas Corpus
bill, no act of the kind having previously existed in Ireland ! Sir
Lucius O'Brien, spoke of the neglect which had been exhibited by
England towards Ireland in reference to the trade of the latter
country with Portugal, and was followed by Mr. Yelverton, who
commented on the omission of all allusion in the speech from the
throne to this important subject : while in its stead were recommen-
dations respecting Protestant charter-schools, making of roads and
other matters, more fit for the consideration of a county grand jury
than for the great inquest of a nation. He further alluded to the
miserable state of Ireland, and said it must continue " so long as
a monster unknown to the constitution, a British Attorney- General
through the influence of a law of Poyning's, had power to alter
their bills." On the 29th of October, on the re-assembling of parlia-
ment after the recess, the Portugal trade question was a second
time brought before the house, in discussing a petition presented by
Mr. Recorder Bradstreet, from the merchants' guild of Dublin,
Vol. l.p.52!t.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 2T
and Sir Lucius O'Brien again spoke upon it. " He was sorry," he
said, " to see the business conducted in a timid manner, and in the
hands of persons not interested in their welfare, but with a secon-
dary view, who, at most, would only promote it when it did not
clash with the convenience of a neighbouring nation. He thought
that granting the supplies for six months only, would be the most
likely method of bringing the business to a happy issue." From
these remarks some idea may be formed of the tone of the inde-
pendent party in Parliament, which was in complete unison with
that of the whole population outside.
The independent party in the House of Commons, however, did
not at this time form a very numerous body. " The activity of the
Castle," says Mr. Plowdeu,* "to ensure a majority in parliament,
kept pace with the increase of patriotism out of it. But this
system in the new ferment of the public mind, became daily less
efficient, and was ill suited to the existing disposition of the country.
The people had arms, had power and a determination to be free ;
they knew the use of their arms, and had imbibed a uniform and
steady resolve not to quit them till they had attained the object of
their wishes, a free and independent constitution. It was obvious,
that a parliament marshalled as that was to resist the demands of
the people, might irritate, but could not control the wishes of their
constituents. Administration confiding in their number, set all the
patriotic attempts at defiance, and frustrated or negatived all their
demands and claims. They thus pitted this factitious majority
against the mass of their armed countrymen who now beheld them
with indignation, and considei-ed them, in fact, the only enemy
they had to encounter in Ireland."
On (he llth December, 1781, Mr. Flood in a most able speech
brought the subject of Poyniug's law, before parliament, and having
gone into an elaborate history of its origin, and of the amount of
usurpation of power, which it had given rise to, on the part of
Great Britain, in reference to Ireland, moved, " that a commitee
be appointed to examine the precedents and records that day-
produced, and such others as might be necessary to explain the
law of Poyning's." This motion, was, however negatived by the
house, the majority for ministers being 139 against 67.
On the 31st. of January, 1782, Mr. Luke Gardiner, afterwards
Lord Mountjoy, gave notice of his intention to bring in a bill for
the further relief of the Roman Catholics, and many of the best
and ablest members of the house, spoke in the highest terms of
Il.icl. p. 53.-..
28 CONSEQUENCES OF A
their conduct, referring especially to their zealous co-operation
with their protestant fellow-countrymen in the attempt to secure
Irish liberty, notwithstanding the wretched position in which they
themselves were, placed. In the debate on the bill, on the 5th
February, like sentiments were expressed by nearly all the
speakers. The Attorney-general, Mr. Scott, who supported it, men-
tioned facts which it is gratifying to record, as shewing the kindly
feeling that had grown up amongst all classes of religionists. " He
was particularly happy," he said "in hearing the sentiments of
toleration, which had been expressed by gentlemen, who repre-
sented the northern countries ; on that subject their opinions should
have the greatest weight, and as there were no men who valued
liberty higher, there were none who would be more forward to
bestow it on their countrymen. He had himself been a witness of
their wisdom, and the spirit of toleration that reigned amongst
them. He had seen in Monaghan, at the same moment, three
prodigious large congregations flowing out, from a meeting house, a
church, and a mass house, and as the individuals that composed
them, had joined in the street, they had blended, and united in one
body, with every mark of affection and good will ; that was true
religious toleration, and the most striking examples of it were to
be found in the north." With such a spirit of freedom, as we have
seen was abroad, and so happy an absence of sectarian bigotry,
as is evidenced by the matters here alluded to, it was impossible,
that Ireland could, much longer, be held in the trammels of provin-
cialism. Her era of independence was now rapidly approaching.
On the 28th of December, 1781, a meeting of the Southern batta-
lion of the first Ulster Regiment of Volunteers, (commanded by the
Earl of Charlemont,) was held at Armagh, who, having passed
resolutions, expressive of their concern, at the desertion of the con-
stitutional rights of the kingdom, by the Irish parliament, convened
a general meeting of delegates from all the Volunteer Corps of
Ulster, to take place at Dungannon, on the 15th of February
following, " then and there to deliberate on the alarming state of
public affairs, and to determine on, and publish to their country,
what may be the result of said meeting. 1 " That bold steps were
contemplated by the requisitionists, was pretty evident, from their
concluding resolution, which was in these words : " Resolved, that,
as it is highly probable the idea of forming brigades, will be agi-
tated and considered, the several corps of Volunteers who send
delegates to said meeting, are' requested to vest in them a power to
associate with some one of such brigades as may be there formed.
The resolutions wore published in all tin 1 newspapers of the
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 29
province, and in the Volunteer Journal of the City of Dublin. The
people looked forward to the result with anxiety and hope. The
government dared not to interpose. At length the eventful and
memorable 15th of February, 1T82, arrived. The representatives
of one hundred and forty-three corps of volunteers, met in the
church of Dunganuon, in the sacred names of liberty and father-
land. The destiny of their country was in their keeping, and
they acted in a spirit worthy of its guardians. Twenty-one re-
solutions were agreed to at their meeting, some of which, being of a
formal nature, or merely expressive of thanks to individuals, I
omit. The following are those which are of a public character,
of which there is not one that does not deserve to be lastingly
engraven on the hearts of their countrymen :
ULSTER VOLUNTEERS.
" At a meeting of the Representatives of one hundred and forty-
" three corps of volunteers of the province of Ulster, held at Dun-
" gannon, on Friday, the 15th day of February, 1782, Colonel Wm.
" Irvine, in the Chair.
" Whereas, it has been asserted, that volunteers, as such, cannot,
" with propriety, debate or publish their opinions on political sub-
jects, or on the conduct of parliament, or public men.
" 1. Resolved, unanimously, that a citizen, by learning the use
" of arms, does not abandon any of his civil rights.
" 2. Resolved, unanimously, that a claim of any body of men,
" other than the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make
" laws to bind this kingdom, is unconstitutional, illegal, and a
" grievance.
" 3. Resolved fwith one dissenting voice only,) that the powers
" exercised by the privy council of both kingdoms, under colour
" or pretence of the law of Poynings, are unconstitutional and a
" grievance.
4. Resolved, unanimously, that the ports of this country are,
" by right, open to all foreign countries, not at war with the King ;
" and that any burthen thereupon, or obstruction thereto, save
" only by the parliament of Ireland, is unconstitutional, illegal,
" and a grievance.
" 5. Resolved (with one dissenting voice only,) that a mutiny
" bill, not limited in point of duration, from session to session, is
" unconstitutional, and a grievance.
30 CONSEQUENCES OF A
" 6. Resolved, unanimously, that the independence of judges
" is equally essential to the impartial administration of justice in
" Ireland, as in England ; and that the refusal or delay of this
" right to Ireland makes a distinction, where there should be no
" distinction, may excite jealousy, where perfect union should
" prevail ; and is, in itself, unconstitutional, and a grievance.
" 7. Resolved, (with eleven dissenting voices only,) that it is
" our decided and unalterable determination, to seek a redress
" of these grievances ; and we pledge ourselves to each other, and
" to our country, as freeholders, fellow-citizens, and men of honor,
" that we will, at every ensuing election, support those only, who
" have supported, and will support us therein ; and that we will
" use all constitutional means to make such our pursuit of redress
" speedy and effectual.
" 8. Resolved, (with one dissenting voice onjy,) that the Right
" Honorable and Honorable the Minority in Parliament, who have
" supported these our constitutional rights, are entitled to our most
" grateful thanks ; and that the annexed address be signed by the
" Chairman, and published with these resolutions.
" 9. Resolved, unanimously, that four members from each
" county of the province of Ulster, (eleven to be a quorum,) be,
" and are hereby appointed a committee till next general meeting,
" to act for the volunteer corps here represented, and, as occasion
" shall require, to call general meetings of the province ; viz.
" Lord Viscount Enniskillen, " Capt. John Harvey,
" Colonel Mervyn Archdall, " Capt. Robert Campbell,
" Colonel William Irvine, " Captain Joseph Pollock,
" Colonel Robert M'Clintock, " Capt.Waddell Cunningham,
" Colonel John Ferguson, " Capt. Francis Evans,
" Colonel John Montgomery, " Captain John Cope,
" Colonel Charles Leslie, " Captain James Dawson,
" Colonel Francis Lucas, " Captain James Atcheson,
" Col. Thomas Morris Jones, " Captain Daniel Eccles,
" Colonel James Hamilton, " Capt. Thomas Dixon,
" Colonel Andrew Thompson, " Captain David Bell,
" Lieut.-Col. Alexander Stewart, " Captain John Coulston,
" Major James Patterson " Captain Robert Black,
" Major Francis Dobbs, ". Rev. Wm. Crawford,
" Major James M'Clintock, " Mr Robert Thompson,
" Major Charles Duffin.
" 13. Resolved, (with two dissenting voices only, to this and
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 31
" the following resolution,) that we hold the right of private judg-
" ment in matters of religion, to be equally sacred in others as
" in ourselves.
" 14. Resolved, therefore, that as men, and as Irishmen, as
" Christians, and as Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation of the
" penal laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects ; and
" that we conceive the measure to be fraught with the happiest
" consequences to the union and prosperity of the inhabitants of
" Ireland.
" ADDRESS,
" To the Right Honorable and Honorable the Minority in both
" Houses of Parliament.
" MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,
" WE thank you for your noble and spirited, though
" hitherto ineffectual efforts, in defence of the great and commercial
" rights of your country. Go on ! the almost unanimous voice of
" the people is with you ; and, in a free country, the voice of the
" people must prevail. We know our duty to our sovereign, and
" are loyal. We know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved
" to be free. We seek for our rights, and no more than our rights ;
" and in so just a pursuit, we should doubt the being of a Pro-
" videuce, if we doubted of success.
" Signed by order,
" WILLIAM IRVINE, Chairman."
Such were the glorious proceedings of Dungaunon. They are
above comment ; but not beyond imitation. On the 22nd of
February, one week after this took place, Mr. Grattan moved, in
the House of Commons, an address to his Majesty, embodying the
substance of the resolutions, above set forth, declaratory of the
Legislative Independence of Ireland, and repudiating the right of
Great Britain to bind her by any law whatsoever. The motion was
opposed by government, and some specious arguments, addressed
to the fears of the members, put forward against it. The Attorney-
General, especially, in a very artful speech, reminded the house of
the manner in which the declaration, that England had, at no time,
a right to make laws for Ireland, might operate on their tenures of
property. " He had looked," he said, " over the papers of the for-
feited estates, and found that there was scarcely a man in the house
who did not enjoy some portion of them, nor a county in Ireland,
32 CONSEQUENCES OF A
of which they did not make a considerable part. A worthy repre-
sentative of the county of Cavan, held a large property, formerly
forfeited, and afterwards granted by an English law. Would he
throw a doubt on the validity of his title ? Many gentlemen who
heard him were in the same situation. Some days ago, the obser-
vation of a learned friend of his (Mr. Fitzgibbon) electrified the
house, when he told them, that they were about to disturb all
property derived under the laws of forfeiture.* What then must be
their feelings, when desired to loose all the bands which unite Society,
and leave almost the whole property of the kingdom to be grappled
for, by the descendants of the ancient proprietors?'" Such arguments,
if, of no other value, probably soothed the consciences of the
government supporters, and a division having taken place, on an
amendment put by the Attorney-General, to adjourn the considera-
tion of the question to the first of August following : the numbers
were, for the amendment, 13T ; for the original motion, 68 majority
for government, 69.
It is to be observed that, although the address was opposed by
the ministerial party, they at the same time denied, that by that
opposition they meant to convey the idea of any present right in
Great Britain to bind Ireland by acts of the British parliament.
Their object, they said, was merely to avoid anything which might
bring into question the validity of past transactions. The inde-
pendent party, therefore, resolved to try another mode of getting a
declaration of the rights of their country ; and, accordingly, on
the 26th of February, Mr. Flood moved two resolutions.
1st " That the members of this house are the only representatives
of the people of Ireland.
2nd " That the consent of the commons is indispensably neces-
sary to render any statute binding."
These resolutions the government party also opposed, as being
unnecessary, and the Solicitor-General moved, as an amendment,
that the words " that it is not now necessary to declare," should be
inserted before the words in the original resolutions. The Attorney-
General supported the amendment on the above ground, stating at
the same time, " that, as an Irishman, and a friend of Great Britain,
he would say, that if Great Britain should attempt to make any new
laws, they would not be obeyed." Several of those who spoke in
favor of the independence of Ireland, took the same view of the
question, so, that when it came to a division, the numbers were,
for the original motion, 76 for the amendment, 13T ; the number
* By the terms of the Roman Catholic Relief Act.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 33
who voted on the government side being exactly the same as in the
former division.
Meanwhile the bills for the relief of the Roman Catholics, had
been progressing through parliament. Two of them passed both
houses, and subsequently became law; one, the 21 & 22 Geo. III.
c. 24, intituled " An Act for the further Relief of His Majesty's
Subjects of this kingdom professing the Roman Catholic Religion"
by which Catholics, having taken the oath of allegiance under
13th & 1 1th Geo. III. c. 32, were entitled to take, hold and dis-
pose of lands and hereditaments in the same manner as Protestants,
(except advowsons and manors, or boroughs returning members of
parliament). Several penalties were also removed by it from such
of the clergy as took the oath and were registered, (its operation
as regarded the regular clergy being, however, confined to those
then in the kingdom). It also repealed the most obnoxious parts
of the penal acts of Anne, George the First and George the Se-
cond ; but clergymen officiating in any church or chapel with a
steeple or bell were deprived of the benefit of the act. The second
act was intituled " An Act to allow persons professing the Popish
religion to teach school in this kingdom, and for the regulating
the education of Papists, and also to repeal parts of certain laws
relating to the guardianship of their children." 1 This act repealed
so much of the acts of William and Anne as imposed on Catholics
teaching school, or privately instructing youth in learning, the
same pains, penalties and forfeitures, as any Popish regular con-
vict was subject to : but excepting out of its benefit any person
who should not have taken the late oath of allegiance, who should
receive a Protestant scholar, or who should become an usher, to
a Protestant schoolmaster. It also enabled Catholics, (not being
ecclesiastics) to be guardians to their own, or any Popish child.
The third bill, for authorising intermarriages between Protestants
and Roman Catholics, did not become law. The house divided on
it, and it was negatived by a majority of eight.
I mention the progress of legislation, in favour of the Roman
Catholics, to shew that the principles of liberality in religion ad-
vanced steadily in the wake of political independence, as those of
bigotry and oppression had followed in the track of slavery. It is
right to state also, that to England is due none of the credit of
increased toleration. Of the plan for the relief of the Catholics,
Mr. Plowden says,* " certain it is that government gave no direct
countenance or support to it, though several supporters of goveru-
* Vol. 1. p. 581.
34 CONSEQUENCES OF A
ment cordially favoured the measure." The merit of it fairly
belongs to the Protestants of Ireland, and it should not be forgotten
that many of the latter, in the House of Commons, even at this
early period, openly and unequivocally declared, " that national
justice and national policy demanded the complete emancipation of
the Catholics, and a perfect civil amalgamation of the whole Irish
people."*
Lord North's administration was now tottering to its fall. On
the 14th of March, 1T82, the Irish Parliament was adjourned to
the 16th of April, before which time a general change took place
in the British Ministry, and Mr. Eden (Irish secretary) went over
with Lord Carlisle's resignation of the lord lieutenancy. This gen-
tleman, almost immediately on his arrival in England, viz. on the
8th of April, moved in the House of Commons there, a repeal of
the declaratory Act 6th Geo. I. so far as it asserted a right in the
King and Parliament of Great Britain to bind Ireland. "With
regard to the precipitancy, with which he urged this step to be
taken by the house, he assured them, that it was the absolute and
pressing necessity of the case, that must be his excuse. Delay
besides was useless, for " in the present state and disposition of
Ireland, he would assure the house, that they might as well strive
to make the Thames flow up Highgate Hill, as attempt to legislate
for Ireland, which would no longer submit to any legislature but
its own." The suddenness with which Mr. Eden's motion was
made, and his refusal of all official information to government,
respecting the state of Ireland, raised a violent clamour in the
house. He, however, pressed his motion said he was about to
return next day to that country, and feared (notwithstanding the
statement of Mr. Secretary Fox, that he hoped within the next
four and twenty hours to lay a preparatory measure before the
housej that " if the motion was not then carried into execution, it
would be too late." The resistance he met with, however, com-
pelled him to abandon it.
On the next day Mr. Fox communicated to the house, the
following message from the crown :
" George R., His Majesty, being concerned to find that discon-
" tent and jealousies are prevailing among his loyal subjects in
" Ireland, upon matters of great weight and importance, earnestly
" recommends to this house, to take the same into their most serious
" consideration, in order to such a final adjustment, as may give
" mutual satisfaction to both kingdoms. G. R."
Ibid, 582.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 35
The Duke of Portland arrived in Dublin, as new lord lieutenant,
on the 14th of April, and was received with demonstrations of
enraptured joy. When parliament met on the 16th, "the galleries
and bar of the House of Commons were crowded to excess, and
expectation was raised to enthusiasm." As soon as the speaker had
taken the chair, a message similar to that above given was com-
municated from the lord lieutenant, by Mr. John Hely Hutchinson,
his Majesty's principal secretary of state. He stated his own
uniform support of the right of Ireland to self-legislation, and
declared that in whatever form it should be proposed, in terms the
most unequivocal and explicit, whether by vote, address OP bill,
it should receive his most cordial support.
Mr. George Ponsoiiby moved, that a dutiful and loyal address
should be presented to his Majesty, thanking him for his most
gracious message, and assuring him, that his faithful Commons
would immediately proceed upon the just objects he had recom-
mended to their consideration. Mr. Grattan then rose, to mention
to the house his reasons for disagreeing in some respect on the form
of the motion. " He hoped to induce the house, rather to declare
that they had considered the causes of jealousy, and that they were
contained in his original motion for a declaration of rights which
he would then move as an amendment to the address." He said,
" he had nothing to add, but to admire by what steady virtue the
people had asserted their rights. He was not very old, and yet he
remembered Ireland a child. He had watched her growth : from
infancy she grew to arms : from arms to liberty. She was not now
afraid of the French ; she was not now afraid of the English ; she
was not now afraid of herself. Her sous were no longer an
arbitrary gentry ; a ruined commonalty ; Protestants oppressing
Catholics, Catholics groaning under oppression, but she was now
an united land." He then proceeded to review the progress of
Ireland to liberty, and concluded a noble speech by moving the
following address, which was carried, nem. com,
" To return his Majesty the thanks of this house, for his most
gracious message to this house, signified by his Grace, the Lord
Lieutenant.
" To assure his Majesty, of our unshaken attachment to his
Majesty's person and government, and of our lively sense of his
paternal care, in thus taking the lead to administer content to his
Majesty's subjects in Ireland.
" That thus encouraged by his royal interposition, we shall beg
leave, with all duty and affection, to lay before his Majesty the
cause of our discontents and jealousies ; to assure his Majesty that
36 CONSEQUENCES OF A
his subjects of Ireland, are a free people, that the Crown of Ireland
is an imperial one, inseparably annexed to the Crown of Great
Britain, on which connexion, the interests and happiness of both
nations essentially depend ; but that the kingdom of Ireland is a
distinct kingdom with a parliament of her own, the sole legislature
thereof, that there is no body of men, competent to make laws to
bind this nation, except the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland,
nor any other parliament which hath any authority, or power, of
any sort whatever, in this country, save only the parliament of
Ireland. To assure his Majesty that we humbly conceive, that in
this right, the very essence of our liberties consists, aright, which we
on the part of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birth-
right, and which we cannot yield, BUT WITH OUR LIVES.
" To assure his Majesty, that we have seen with concern, certain
claims advanced by the Parliament of Great Britain, in an act,
entitled ' An Act for the better securing the dependency of Ireland ;'
an act containing matters entirely irreconcilable to the fundamental
rights of this nation ; that we conceive this act, and the claims it
advances, to be the great and principal cause of the discontents and
jealousies of this kingdom.
" To assure his Majesty, that his Majesty's Commons of Ireland,
do most sincerely wish, that all bills which become law in Ireland
should receive the approbation of his Majesty, under the great seal
of Britain, but that yet, we do consider the practice of suppressing
our bills, in the councils, or altering the same anywhere, to be
another just cause of discontent and jealousy.
" To assure his Majesty, that an act, entitled, ' An Act, for the
better accommodation of his Majesty's forces, 1 being unlimited in
its duration, and defective in other instances, but passed in that
shape from the particular circumstances of the times, is another
just cause of discontent and jealousy, in this kingdom.
" That we have submitted these principal causes of discontent
and jealousy in Ireland, and remain in humble expectation of
redress.
" That we have the greatest reliance on his Majesty's wisdom,
the most sanguine expectations from his virtuous choice of a chief
governor, and great confidence in the wise, auspicious, and constitu-
tional councils which we see with satisfaction, his Majesty has
adopted.
" That we have moreover, a high sense and veneration for the
British character, and do therefore conceive that the proceedings in
this country, founded as they are in right, and tempered by duty,
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 37
must have excited the approbation and esteem, instead of wounding
the pride, of the British nation.
" And we beg leave to assure his Majesty, that we are the more
confirmed in this hope, inasmuch as the people of this kingdom,
have never expressed a desire, to share the freedom of England,
without declaring a determination to share her fate likewise,
standing and falling with the British nation."
On the 14th of May, the house adjourned for three weeks, in
order to give time to the British Parliament, to take into conside-
ration the claim made by Ireland for self-legislation, and on the
17th of that month, the Earl of Shelburne, (afterwards Marquis of
Lansdowne), in the Peers, and Mr. Fox in the Commons, brought
forward the subject of the Irish addresses. Mr. Fox went fully
into the nature of the claims in question. As to the 6 Geo. I. he
said, " that it could not be supported with any show of justice. He
had always been of opinion out of office, that it was downright
tyranny to make laws for the internal government of a people,
who were not represented among those by whom such laws were
made. As to the power of external legislation, Ireland had reason to
spurn at it, for it had been employed against Ireland as an in-
strument of oppression, to establish an impolitic monopoly in trade ;
to enrich one country at the expense of the other." In another
part of his speech he said, and the sentiment is worth recording,
that " for his part he would rather see Ireland totally separated
from the crown of England than kept in obedience only by force.
Unwilling subjects were little better than enemies ; it would be
better have no subjects at all than to have such as would be
continually on the watch to seize the opportunity of making
themselves free. If this country (England), should attempt to
coerce Ireland, and succeed in the attempt, the consequence would
be that, at the breaking out of every war with any foreign power,
the first step must be to send troops over to secure Ireland, instead
of calling upon her to give a willing support to the common cause."
He then proceeded to consider the demand for an alteration of the
law of Poynings, relative to the right claimed by the Privy Council
of England to alter Irish bills. " To this too," he said, " he was
ready to assent. If a proper use had been made of the power it,
perhaps, might have been retained, but to his knowledge it had
been grossly abused. In one instance in particular, a bill had
been sent over to England two years ago, granting, and very wisely,
and very justly granting, indulgences to the Roman Catholics ;
in the same bill there iras a clause in favor of Dissenters, for
repealing the sacramental test ; this clause iras struck out, contrary,
38 CONSEQUENCES OF A
in his opinion, to sound policy, as the alteration tended to make an
improper discrimination between two descriptions, of men which
did not tend to the union of the people." This shews how little the
tenderness of English Cabinets towards the Protestant Dissenters in
Ireland had increased since the reign of Queen Anne ; and how
much better they, as well as all other classes of Irishmen, were
treated by a native parliament. Mr. Fox concluded his speech by
moving " that it is the opinion of this committee (a committee of
the whole house) that the act of the 6 George, I., entitled, 'An Act
for better securing the dependence of Ireland on the crown of
Great Britain," 1 ought to be repealed." On the 27th May, the
Duke of Portland communicated the resolution to the Irish
Parliament in a speech from the throne ; and an address moved iu
the Commons by Mr. Grattan, expressive of entire satisfaction,
was carried by a majority of 209 ; the Recorder Bradstreet, and
Mr. "Walsh, being the only dissentients from it; both of whom
thought it injudicious to insert in the address, the words " that there
will no longer exist any constitutional question between the two
nations that can disturb their mutual tranquility^ which words
formed part of it.
Still, however, there were some who thought that the rights of
Ireland were not fully declared or secured by what had been done.
When the Commons were in committee on the bill for the modifi-
cation of Poynings' law on the 6th of June, Mr. Flood proposed, as
an amendment to the bill, then before the house, that " whereas,
doubts have arisen on the construction of the law, commonly called
Poynings 1 law, and of the 3 & 4 Philip and Mary, explanatory
thereof. Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by
and with the advice of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons
in the present parliament assembled ; and by the authority of the
same, that the said law of Poynings, and the said 3 & 4 Philip
and Mary, be and stand repealed, save only as follows : that is to
say, be it enacted.
" That no parliament shall be holden in this kingdom until a license
for that purpose be had and obtained from his Majesty, his heirs
and successors, under the great seal of Great Britain."
" And that all bills, considerations, causes, ordinances, tenors,
and provisions of either or both houses of parliament, shall be of
right certified to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, unaltered
under the great seal of Ireland, by the Lord Lieutenant, or the
chief governor or governors, and council of this kingdom for the
time being ; and that such bills, and no others, being returned
unaltered, under the seal of Great Britain shall be capable of
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 39
receiving the royal assent, or dissent in parliament, according to his
Majesty's disposition, either for giving his assent or dissent, to the
same respectively."
Mr. Yelverton moved, instead of the amendment proposed by
Mr. Flood, another in these words (the object being to prevent
delay in summoning parliaments, one of the evils which Mr. Flood
complained of as likely to arise under the bill) ; " be it further
enacted, that no bill shall be certified into Great Britain as a cause
or consideration for holding a parliament in this kingdom (Ireland),
but that parliaments may be holden in this kingdom, although no
such bill shall have been certified previous to the meeting thereof."
Mr. Yelverton's amendment was carried without a division.
On the llth June, 1782, on the further debate on the bill for
repealing the 6 George I., Mr. Flood endeavoured to get the
house to insist on a positive renunciation by Great Britain,
of all right to bind Ireland by British acts of parliament
and not to rest satisfied with the repeal of the declaratory law,
which, as he very justly contended, did not, in any way, alter the
right. He was, however, opposed by Mr. Grattan, on the ground
that it suggested an ungenerous doubt of English justice, and Mr.
Flood was defeated. However, on the 20th December following,
Mr. Secretary Townshend, alarmed by a communication from the
Lord Lieutenant, gave notice that he would bring in a bill for the
object sought for, which he did on the 22nd January, 1783.
The principal clause of this bill as passed into law, (23 Geo. III.
c. 28.) is as follows :
" Be it enacted, that the right claimed by the people of Ireland,
to be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty, and the parlia-
ment of that kingdom, in all cases whatever ; and to have all
actions, and suits at law, or in equity, which may be instituted in
that kingdom, decided in his Majesty's courts therein, finally and
without appeal from thence, shall be, and is hereby, declared to be
established and ascertained for ever, and shall at no time hereafter,
be questioned or questionable."
From the period of the passing of this act, to the Union, Ireland
was independent of all legislative and judicial control, on the part
of Great Britain. Certain, and as I conceive, very mischievous
forms still existed, with reference to the mode in which Irish bills
were submitted for the approval of the Crown ; but the consideration
of these, belongs more properly, to another part of my argument.
Here it is sufficient to have traced the progress of Irish indepen-
dence, during its long struggle with British usurpation, to the
position which it ultimately attained ; and this, I have now done.
40 CONSEQUENCES OF A
Our next business, is to ascertain, what the state of the country
was, during the continuance of her independent parliament, down
to the year 1801.
The details of her commercial affairs, during this period, I shall
not go into, in this place, but will content myself with general
evidence, of a character not to be doubted, of her amazing advance
in every thing which could prove the existence of national pros-
perity. The sole reason for my not stating in this place, the precise
amount of her trade and commerce, is, that we have no means of
comparing it, item by item, with that which existed before the
declaration of independence. We have the means of making this
comparison, for a very great-portion of the time which has elapsed,
since the Union ; and by placing the details of the period, from
1782, to the Union, side by side, with those of the period since, we
can more accurately judge of the comparative prosperity of the two
latter periods. The contrast between the eighteen years of inde-
pendence, and the previous part of the century, can only be
founded on general evidence, and to that I proceed. The wretch-
edness of Ireland, during the time last mentioned, must be fresh on
the reader's mind.
The evidences of Ireland's prosperity, from 1T82 to the Union,
are both negative and positive. The former is to be found, in the
absence of those perpetual complaints of poverty, on the part of the
people, whether in petitions to the legislature, writings of individuals,
or representations in parliament ; which, year after year, are to be
met with in the history of the country, under her dependent parlia-
ment. That some murmurs of distress were occasionally heard,
there can be no doubt. Eighteen years of the best government, in
a country too, which had previously been brought to the lowest state
of misery ; and which, in its peculiar social elements, contained so
much to perpetuate that misery, could not change that country into
an Utopia. Yet, the improvement must have been great, indeed,
and the distress strangely lessened, when a historian,* whose pages,
containing the history of the former period, are crowded with details
of poverty and want ; and who has, moreover, written expressly to
show, that Ireland was at all times so ill governed, that her only
hope lay in the Union with England, gives but ouef instance of a
public declaration of like distress, in that part of his work, which
treats of her history under her independent legislature. Had we
nothing beyond this, to make us conclude that her condition was
bettered by self-rule, it ought to go far towards convincing us.
Plowden. t After 1783.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 41
Let us, however, look to positive testimony. Of tin's we have abun-
dance, both from the friends of the Union, and its enemies. From
the opinions of the former, I shall extract but one. I prefer resting
my case, where possible, on the admissions of my opponents. In a
speech delivered by him in the House of Commons, in 1798, Lord (then
Mr.) Plunket said, speaking of Ireland, under her independent legisla-
ture, " Laws well arranged and administered, a constitution
fully recognised and established, her revenue, her trade, her manu-
facture, thriving beyond hope or example, of any other country of
her extent : within these few years, advancing with a rapidity,
astonishing even to herself ; not complaining of deficiency, in any
of those respects, but enjoying and acknowledging her prosperity,
she is called on to surrender them all, to the control of whom ? to
an island which has grown great, and prosperous, and happy, by
the very same advantages which Ireland enjoys, a free and inde-
pendent constitution, and the protection of a domestic superintendent
parliament." 1 This is surely high authority, but, perhaps, Lord
Plunket enhanced the prosperity of his country, in the hope of
preserving her freedom. Let us pass then to the evidence of others.
Lord Clare, the man to whom the task of carrying- the Act of
Union, through the House of Lords, was confided, in a pamphlet
published by him, in the same year, (1T98) thus writes : " There is
not a nation on the habitable globe which has advanced in culti-
vation and commerce, in agriculture and manufactures, with the.
same rapidity, in the same period," viz., from 1782.
One authority more I will quote, and when it is considered who
that authority is, I am sure it will not be thought necessary to cite
another. He was the man, to whom was specially entrusted the
defence of the Union measure, Mr. Secretary Cooke. In the
very pamphlet, written by him, for the express purpose of proving
to the people of Ireland, the advantages of, and necessity for, that
measure, he says ;* in combating a supposed objection to the Union,
on the ground, that it would be ruinous to Ireland, and that " all
that was required for her, was a firm and steady administration :''-
" here, we must ask, what is meant by a firm and steady admini-
stration ? Does it mean such an administration as tends to the
increase of the nation, in population, its advancement in agriculture,
in manufactures, in wealth, and prosperity ? If that is intended,
n-e have the experience of it thenc twenty years ; FO,R IT is UNI-
VERSALLY ADMITTED, THAT NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD EVER
MADE SUCH RAPID ADVANCES, AS IRELAND HAS DONE IN THESE
* 'Arguments for, and against the Union, consulm-il," \>..'y2. Dulilin, 171'!'.
rj
42 CONSEQUENCES OF A
RESPECTS." To go beyond this admission for proof of what an
Irish independent parliament had done for Irish prosperity, would
surely be wasting, needlessly, the readers time.
It is further to be remarked, that the improvement in trade,
manufacture, and tillage, which is thus admitted to have taken
place in Ireland, during the period of her legislative independence,
did not arise from any external circumstances. During great part of
it, Great Britain was engaged in foreign wars, to which Ireland
contributed large sums of money. We have seen, that in 1779,
she was so beggared, as to be unable to pay the troops charged on
her own establishment ; and this, at a time, when she had to pay
interest on a debt, not amounting to two millons. In 1800, so
largely had she contributed to the war expenditure of the empire,
that her debt then amounted to nearly twenty-two millions : yet, to
such an extent had her commerce been increased, and her internal
sources of wealth opened to her people, that neither was the
pressure of taxation to meet her liabilities complained of, as insup-
portable, nor were any fears entertained of her ability to pay oft"
the whole debt then due of her, in a few years of peace. Such,
indeed, was the improvement in her finances, that her customs and
excise revenue, in 1800, amounted to ^2,100,000 : *a sum greater
than the entire of her debt in 1779, under the pressure of which,
she had actually become bankrupt ; and that revenue would, of
course, have gone on increasing, with the increase of her population.
That her debt in 1800 could be rapidly cleared off in time of peace,
we can readily conceive, when we find, that nearly \ 4,000,000 of
it were incurred during the six years of war, from 1793. Her
expenses for 1799 having been J?4,347,000. Her charges during
the last year of the preceeding peace, had amounted to ^1,012,000
only, and taking her revenue, at the sum above stated, viz.,
J!2,100,000 ; there would remain jl, 100,000 to meet the charge
of the debt. The latter, however, amounted only to ^1,000,000, so,
that with the imposition of no new tax, and without supposing any
increase of the then revenue of Ireland, there would annually remain
in the treasury a sum of ^100,000 to go towards reducing the debt.
Having said so much, as to the prosperity of the country under
self-government, let us now consider her progress in other respects.
In the very first session of the independent parliament, Ireland
obtained the Hainan Corpus Act, the great safeguard of the subject's
liberties. In tho same session, the Perpetual Mutiny Bill was
repealed ; the srirrameutal <e>( which excluded Dissenters from
* According to the r<'p"r! rif i.oH Monu-rigle's committee, of 1^2
of the Irish Poor. App. f. _'.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 43
offices of trust, under the crown, was abolished ; and the indepen-
dence of the judges was secured, by the enactment, that their
commissions should last during good behaviour, and not as pre-
viously, during the pleasure of the crown: mighty boons to a
nation. We have, already, seen the extent of relief granted to the
Roman Catholics, in the first year of independence, by the passing
of Mr. Gardiner's "bills. It is worth our while to consider the
progress of legislation in their behalf, shewing, as it does, the
liberality which the bulk of the Protestants of Ireland, when free-
men themselves, exhibited towards them; notwithstanding, that, at
this period, to use the words of Mr. Plowdeu,* " the castle gates
were trebly barred against concession and indulgence." 1 " The most
friendly and liberal declarations in their favor," says this same
author, " had been made by the different bodies of volunteers." The
patriots, however, who almost to a man, were favorable to the claims
of the Catholics, declined bringing them before parliament ; because,
the circumstance of their being moved from the opposition bench,
would be a sure ground of rejection. The Catholics could not but
observe the indisposition of government to concession, daily increase ;
and the day of remonstrance and redress vanish behind the cloud
of rigor and coercion, now " assumed necessary, to be exercised upon
the Irish peole." " Tke Irish nation," however, continues Mr. Plow-
den, "had been, for some time, in the habit of reading and canvassing
all political topics ; and, there is no doubt, but that the public mind
was much opened, and the people out of parliament, generally disposed
to support the Catholic claims"^ Of this feeling, too many
instances cannot be adduced, and others will be found, as I proceed
with the subject.
On the 25th January, 1792, Sir Hercules Langrishe, a supporter
of government, brought in a very modified bill for the relief of the
Roman Catholics, removing some of the obstacles still interposed to
education amongst them, permitting intermarriages between them
and Protestants, and throwing open to them. the profession of the
law. The Roman Catholics themselves were discontented at the
extent of benefit proposed to be conferred on them ; and there is
good reason for believing, that the minister's object was, by offering
an amount of privilege to them, which some of the more slavish of
(heir body would thankfully receive, to get an opportunity of with-
holding the more extensive franchises, which would otherwise be
wrung from him by the liberality of the nation. A large portion
of the Protestant aristocracy it is true, was opposed <o any ex-
v.l. 2. p. :ns 321. t Vol. 2. p. :;-ji.
44 CONSEQUENCES OF A
tension of political rights to Roman Catholics, and several of the
grand juries protested vehemently against their admission to the
elective franchise, hut this conduct was for the most part attribut-
able to personal motives, and to fears for their own political
assendancy. " A great majority of the leading signatures affixed
to these resolutions," says Mr. Plowden, " were those of men,
either high in the government of the country, or enjoying lucrative
places under it, or possessing extensive borough interest." Nor did
the manifestations of hostility which appeared, spontaneously shew
themselves. " Agents," continues this writer, " had been em-
ployed to tamper with every grand jury, that met during the
summer assizes."* " But," he proceeds, " some of them rejected
indignantly the proposals made to them, of coming to any resolutions
injurious to their Catholic brethren.' 1 '' The Protestant Dissenters,
too, it must be observed, shewed every desire to assist the Roman
Catholics in their efforts for freedom.
On the 8th of February, Mr. John O'Neil presented a petition
from Belfast to the House of Commons, signed by upwards of six
hundred persons, many of whom, he said, he knew personally, to be
persons of great reputation. The prayer of the petition was, that
the legislature mould repeal all penal and restricting laws against
Roman Catholics, and put them on the same footing as their Pro-
testant fellon subjects. The treatment which this petition met
from the government party, shews the anxiety that existed on their
part to keep up an ascendancy in the state, for the preservation of
their old " divide et impera^ policy. On its being read, Sir
Hercules Langrishe, who had just brought in his bill, for the
qualified gifts to the Catholics, very strongly, and at large expressed
his astonishment at the novelty and singularity of this union of
Dissenters with Catholics. " He would not," he said, " object to
the reception of a petition from so respectable a member of the house,
but he had seen some treasonable productions from gentlemen of that
town."
This is not the only instance which could be adduced, of the
irritation produced in the minds of government, and their sup-
porters, by the spirit of friendship which had grown up among the
different sects in Ireland. The Roman Catholic delegates appointed
in 1792, framed a petition to the king, complaining of the re-
strictions under which they still laboured, and praying for admission
to serve in the army and navy, the elective franchise, and some
other privileges. In the month of December, when a deputation of
five delegates proceeded to present it, they were received at Belfast,
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 45
in the most encouraging manner. " Some of the most respectable
inhabitants," says Mr. Plowden, " waited upon them, at the Donegal
arms, where they remained two hours,* and upon their departure, the
populace took the horses from their carriages, and dragged them
through the town, amid the loudest shouts and wishes for their success.^-
On the 2nd January, 1793, they presented their address to the
king in person at St. James's, and were graciously received by his
Majesty. The speech from the throne, on opening the session of
the Irish parliament in 1793, recommended the situation of the
Roman Catholics to the consideration of the legislature. When
the very stinted nature of the bill brought in for their relief in the
previous year, is considered, and the indignation then manifested by
the ministerial party, at the demands for a more extended measure,
it is impossible to suppose, that this recommendation came volun-
tarily from ministers. It is much more likely to have been yielded
through necessity, to the sense entertained by the entire Irish
nation, of the injustice shewn to the Roman Catholics. That the
recommendation was universally approved of by the whole people,
there can at least be no doubt.
On the 4th February, Mr. Secretary Hobart brought the bill for
the further relief of the Catholics, before the House of Commons.
The famous Dr. Duigenan opposed it, in a furious and bitter phi-
lippic ; but he and Mr. Ogle, were the only members who resisted
the bringing of it in. On the 22nd of February, it was read a
second time, and so far were old prejudices laid aside, that when it
was in committee, Mr. George Knox, after a most able and liberal
speech, moved " that the committee might be empowered to receive
a clause to admit Roman Catholics to sit and vote in the House of
Commons." The motion was strongly supported, but ultimately
rejected by a majority of 163, against 09. The bill, as it passed in
the course of the session into law, by the title of 33 Geo. III. c. 21,
gave however, a great additional share of relief to the Catholics,
and the first instalment o$ political power, by the important gift of
the elective franchise, a gift which, considering their numerical
proportion., could not but ere long, have placed them on a level
with their Protestant fellow-citizens, if Ireland had retained hoi-
legislature. As it was, they obtained together with this boon,
admission into the legal and medical professions, and to partial
rank in the army and navy, the right to carry arms when possessed
of property to a certain amount, to act as grand jurors and justices
of the pence, and were relieved from certain penalties, for not at-
' Thf-y wont liy Poiir^harlee and Port Patrick,
'! VP|. 2. ii. 3HS
46 CONSEQUENCES OF A
tending Protestant service, to which they had remained liable,
notwithstanding the former acts in their behalf. We should not
forget, that in England, the Roman Catholics were excluded from
the army and navy, and the bar, till years after, another proof,
that it was to Irish not English feeling, that the concessions in
this country were made.
In January 1795, Lord Fitzwilliam assumed the Lord Lieu-
tenancy of Ireland, with the full understanding, that the complete
emancipation of the Roman Catholics, would be assented to by
government, and the knowledge of this fact, made his arrival a
subject of joy to the entire nation. The hopes excited by his
appointment, were however, soon dashed by his departure, an event
which caused an universal gloom among all classes of the people,
and altogether destroyed the expectations of the Catholics.
To shew the despondence created by the recal of his Lordship, I
may mention, that on the day he left Ireland, the 25th March,
1T95, all the shops of Dublin were shut ; no business of any kind was
transacted, and the whole city put on mourning * Addresses were
presented to him from all parts of the country, and every thing, in
fact shewed, that the indignation was not that of a sect or party,
but was in the fullest sense national.
Notwithstanding the hopelessness of concession which was now
entertained by the Catholics, Mr. Grattan brought in a bill for
their total emancipation, (a petition for which had been presented
a short time before, from all the freeholders of Tipperary). On the
second reading of it on the 4th of May, it was vehemently opposed
by the Solicitor General, on the part of government, who had
determined on using every effort to defeat it, and after a very long
and acrimonious debate, it was rejected by a majority of 155
against 84, a large number of the more independent supporters of
ministers, having voted against them, notwithstanding its being made a
government question.
On the ITth February, 1797, the Catholic claims were once
more, for the last time, brought before the Irish Parliament, by
Mr. Grattan, who, after a long and admirable speech, moved,
" that the admissibility of persons professing the Roman Catholic
religion, to seats in parliament, is consistent with the safety of the
Crown, and the connexion of Great Britain with Ireland." On
this occasion, however, many of those who were usually among
the wannest supporters of the Catholics, and agreed fully in
the principle of tho resolution, opposed it, on the ground that it was
- PIcw.l. Vol. 2. p. 511.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 4T
not a fit time for its consideration. It was accordingly lost by a
majority of 143 against 19, and the state into which the events of
the following year threw the country, prevented it from being ever
again discussed.
It may be thought, that I have given more space to the history
of legislation in favor of Roman Catholics, than in a limited essay
like this is allowable. I, for my part, think it most desirable, that
it should be placed before the Irish people more at length than has
hitherto been done: I wish them to be fully aware of the fact, which I
think they will learn from these pages, that the period of their country's
history, during which she was most independent and most Irish, was
also that, in which she was most free from intolerance and sectarian
enmities. I wish the Irish Roman Catholics to feel, that it was
not by the aid of British justice, but through the sympathies of their
Protestant fellow subjects, that their fathers were enabled to
construct that basis, on which they have since erected the temple of
their civil freedom. I wish the Protestants of Ireland to remember,
that when their fathers were freemen, they were tolerant and
enlightened, and that they believed the liberties which they possessed
could only be retained by sharing them with their fellow countrymen
of all persuasions. To both I have presented only history. Fi-om
it, I leave them to draw their own conclusions.
But it may be said, that whatever the state of Ireland may have
been during the interval from 1782 to 1801, every page which I
have written, bears evidence of the dishonesty and corruption of
her parliament, during the entire interval. Admitting this to be
true, it makes the argument in favor of Ireland's independence
stronger. It shews how much that independence, with a bad
parliament was able to effect, and leaves us to conclude that with
a good parliament, it would effect infinitely more. What a nation
wants, is, not an independent parliament, but an independent
people. The latter can work out its own destinies, and effect its
own objects, in defiance of any parliament, however corrupt or
debased. But an independent people, must be a nation. It can-
not be a province. A section of a large empire constituting
numerically a minority of its population, as it must yield to the
majority, on all occasions where a collision of interests takes place,
can have no independence ; but a whole people, whatever may be
its extent, if it possesses the forms of independence, can never, for
any length of time, be kept without its substance. Ireland, during
the portion of her history, which we have been last considering,
had the form of an independent government, but she had not a
wholly independent people. The result, was, the destruction of
48 CONSEQUENCES OF A
that constitution which she had so nobly battled for and won, and
the consequent anniliilation of her trade, manufactures, and pros-
perity of every sort.
I now come to the concluding portion of my historical review ;
that which relates to the condition of Ireland, since her union with
Great Britain. Into the history of the measure itself, I do not
mean to enter. It has, during the last two years, been so fully, so
ably, and so frequently discussed, that there can be no man inte-
rested in the politics of Ireland, ignorant of it now. All men,
however different may be their views, either of its motives, or results,
agree in denouncing the means by which it was carried. The
universal voice of Protestant Ireland was raised against it all
that was most bold and manly in Catholic Ireland joined earnestly
in the protest, though unfortunatel}-, specious promises and artfully
excited hopes, acting on the minds of men, on whose limbs still
hung their broken fetters, made too many of the Catholics dumb.
All the plans which a bad ingenuity could devise, and a bad daring
execute, were adopted to ensure its success, and it succeeded. Let
us calmly look upon its consequences.
I shall, as before, commence with the financial and commercial
state of the country and I will endeavour, as far as possible, to
put the items, so as to bring them in juxta position with those,
during the period of the parliamentary independence. Before going
into this comparison, however, I think it desirable, indeed neces-
sary, to disabuse the minds, of at least some of my readers,
respecting a matter which is often fallaciously taken, as a test of
prosperity namely, the gross amount of a country's imports and
exports, and the number and tonage of ships, belonging to it at
different periods. It will, doubtless, to many appear a strange
assertion, that of two countries, the one having a large import and
export trade, and shipping of considerable tonnage ; the other hav-
ing scarcely any imports or exports, and totally without ships, the
latter may be the more prosperous. Yet this is, beyond question true.
Let us suppose a tolerably populous state having great mineral
wealth a fertile soil, and good climate, in fact possessing within
its own limits the raw material of every thing, or of nearly every
thing, required to supply the wants of its people and that this
raw material is actually manufactured to the last degree of finish by
its own artizans. Now, if the agricultural population of such a
State, bear such a proportion to its manufacturing population, that
each produces just enough to supply the wants of the other, and no
more ; it is clear, that there will be nothing left for eit her to send
away to other countries, and that neither will require to bring in
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 49
from other countries, anything for its consumption. It will have
neither imports nor exports, and consequently cannot require, and
will not possess shipping. Now, it is quite plain, that the people of
such a state may be fully employed, and may be possessed of al]
the necessaries and comforts of life may in fact be in the highest
state of prosperity. Ou the other hand, let us suppose the very
same state, from misgovernment, non-residence of those to whom
its rents are paid, industrial ignorance on the part of its people, or
any other causes, to be without manufactures of any sort, its mines
unexplored and its whole population forced to look to agricultural
pursuits for the means of subsistance. In this case it must, of
course, import every manufactured article it requires, from other
countries, and the produce of its soil, being the only wealth it has,
it must export that produce to pay for the articles it imports. Its
imports and exports will therefore, both be very large and the
tonnage of shipping belonging to it in all likelihood great. If its
trade, too, be carried on, by means of regular packets plying
between it and any neighbouring country with which it exchanges
agricultural produce for manufactures, the tonnage of such packets
will be very great indeed, in proportion to the value of their car-
goes ; as the exports will consist of produce, such as live cattle,
corn, &c. which is of small value, compared to its weight and
bulk. Yet with this great export and import trade, and this large
quantity of shipping, the country would be in a condition little
short of ruin, the value of its products, in other words, the amount
of its wealth, being just one-half of what it would be in the other
case, in which we have supposed it to have neither imports,
exports, nor shipping. One word more, to make this quite clear.
We will suppose the country to raise annually in the first instance
^0,000,000 worth of agricultural produce, and the value of its ma-
nufactures to be ^20,000,000 more. Thus, there will be ^40,000,000
worth of produce created annually within it, which its inhabitants
exchange with each other, supplying their mutual wants, without
any external trade. Now, if it had no manufactures, and only
its agriculture to depend on, (which I have here supposed to be
fully developed,) its whole annual produce would amount to only
J20,000,000, of which ^10,000,000 worth would be consumed by
those who raised it, and the rest exported to exchange for those
manufactures which they required. Its imports and exports would,
in this case, each amount to ^010,000,000 annually, and we can
easily imagine the quantity of shipping that would be necessary for
so large a trade ; while we have seen, that notwithstanding that
trade, the country would, as I before stated, produce only one-half
H
50 CONSEQUENCES OF A
the value that it did without it, viz. : j20,000,000 worth, instead
of ^40,000,000.
This explanation, which I trust Is sufficiently clear, will shew
the fallacy of any deductions as to a country's prosperity, from
the mere state of its imports, exports, and shipping. Without
knowing the nature of the articles imported and exported, general
returns of their amount and value are absolutely worthless. I shall
therefore pay no attention to such returns, in the present investi-
gation, except where, hy ascertaining their precise nature, I can
fairly make them the subject of argument.*
The article of linen, is one, of which we have the returns of the
export at different periods; being taken on the average of seven
years. These returns (as cited in Mr. John O'ConnelTs Argument
for Ireland, p. 219,) give us the following results :
1780 19,556,379 yards.
1T98 41,670,972
Increase in 18 years 22,114,593
1825 47,588,707
Increase in 27 years 5,917,735
Official records not being in existence, of the trade between the
two countries, since 1825, we cannot arrive at the linen exports
after that date, with any accuracy. Mr. Staunton, however, in
page 33 of his reply to Mr. Martin, gives us fair ground for con-
cluding that they did not exceed the average given under that date.
His reasoning is this : " There is an authentic account of the
British transactions, in the exportation of linen, between 1825, and
1835, deducible from the annual finance accounts. The value of
this commodity, exported in the two years, was as follows :
1825 Official value ^3,280,000
Real value 2,440,000
1835 Official valufc 3,760,000
Real value 2,360,000
This shews a decline in real value, but an increase of 14 /^
per cent, in official value. This increase, was, however, likely to be a
Scotch increase. I need not state that there is a large importation
of Scotch, as well as Irish linens, from British ports. There is no
recent account of the transactions in Scotch linens, but we have
* I do not pretend to any originality in these views. They have been put for-
ward frequently hy others, hut I think with less clearness than may suit persons
not accustomed to consider such matters. Mr. Staunton however, has, in his reply
to Montgomery Martin, p. 26, given a very simple arid satisfactory proof of the
tonnage fallacy.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 51
one iu Mr. M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, from 1813, to
1822. The yards exported in these two years, were as follows :
1813 19,000,000 yards.
1822 36,000,000
Here we have an increase of nearly 90 per cent, and that the
effect was operative on the amount of British exports, between
1825 and 1835, is inferrable, from the great increase of the Scotch
revenue, and trade in general, in that interval. Hence, it is fair to
conclude, that of the comparatively small augmentation of British
transactions in linen, between 1825, and 1835, no part was con-
nected with Ireland, and if that were the case, it may be taken for
granted, that there was no augmentation whatever in the Irish
linen manufacture, between these years. In confirmation, too, of
this opinion, we have the fact stated by Mr. Staunton, that the
value of linens exported, during the ten years in question, to
foreign countries, declined from j^l80,000, to J?86,000.
The table above given, shews, it is true, an increase in the
export of Irish linens since the Union, but how small it is in
proportion to that which took place during the eighteen years of
domestic legislation. During those eighteen years, the linen ex-
port of Ireland nearly doubled ; during twenty-seven years which
followed the Union, its increase did not amount to one-seventh of
its whole value. Yet, during nine years of this latter period, the
linen exports of Scotland had increased, as we have seen, nearly
ninety per cent. Is it not reasonable to suppose, that the Irish
trade would have advanced in a like degree, if fostered by a native
parliament ?
" But," says Mr. John O'Counell, " it may be argued, that the
small proportion which the post- Union increase of linen export,
bears to that between 1780 and 1798, is mainly owing to the fact,
that there was not room for much further improvement ; the linen,
like every other trade, having its limits. This, however, is, in
fact, only another testimony to the beneficial influence of Irish
home legislation, since, under its short-lived auspices, the utmost
limit was so nearly attained. And it remains for the advocates of
the Union, to shew that had that measure never been carried, the six
millions increase up to 1825, would not have occurred, by the mere
force of the increase of demand in England, caused by the increase
of population in that country, to say nothing of the continuance of
that beneficial influence which, on such good ground of indisputable
figures, we ascribe to home legislation."
The linen manufacture, however, is that which shews most
52 CONSEQUENCES OF A
favorably for the sustainers of the Union. The ruin of all the other
manufactures of the country, since that event, will be shewn in a
subsequent place; meanwhile, let us confine ourselves to the
question of imports and exports.
In a speech delivered by the late Rev. Doctor Boyton, on the 23rd
February, 1833, and cited by Mr. O'Connell in the Corporation
Discussion of the Repeal Question, the following statement was
made with respect to this subject :
" The exports and imports, so far as they are a test of a decay
of profitable occupation, so far as the exports and imports are
supplied from the parliamentary returns, exhibit extraordinary
evidence of the condition of the labouring classes. The importation
of flax-seed, an evidence of the extent of a most important source
of employment, was in 1790, 339,745 barrels; 1800, 327,621
barrels; 1830, 168,451 barrels. The importation of silk, raw and
thrown, was in 1790, 92,091R>s. ; 1800, 79,060ft>s. ; 1830, 3,190fts. ;
of wrought iron in 1790, 2,971 tons ; in 1800, 10,241 tons ; in
1830, 871 tons. Formerly we spun all our own woollen and worsted
yarn. We imported in 1790, only 2,294fts. ; in 1800, l,180fts. ;
in 1826, 662,7501bs. an enormous increase. There were, I un-
derstand, upwards of thirty persons engaged in the woollen trade in
Dublin, who have become bankrupts since 1821."
Here is a list of articles, which being raw materials of manufac-
ture, are, to a great extent, tests of a country's prosperity ; shewing
a decline nay, a total decay of the various manufactures, in which
they are employed.* We shall, further on, find returns confirming
the notion given by it, of manufacturing ruin.
Having considered the exports of manufactured goods, and the
imports of raw materials, I come to another class of imports,
strongly marking the condition of a people, viz. of those articles
which shew a general diffusion of comfort, and which can be
had only from abroad. These are chiefly tea, sugar, tobacco,
coflee, and wine.
In the report on the state of the Irish poor in 1830, by a com-
mittee, of which Lord Monteagle (then Mr. Spring Rice,) was
chairman (Appendices, G. I., G. II. pp. 112 to 125. No. 667
of reports, 1830,) there are tables which it would occupy too
much space to insert here, but from which the following facts have
been deduced, relative to the consumption of the articles just
enumerated :
* Dr. Boyton mentions the cotton manufacture as one, in which a large increase
hud taken place to 1826. Assuming, that his statement was correct, we shall find
by the evidence of manufacturers and commissioners, that it now shares the general
nun. For regularity I pass it over here.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 53
" Period from 1785, to the Union.
TEA Increase of consumption in Ireland . . 84 per cent.
Do. Do. in England . . 45 ....
From 1786, to tJte Union.
TOBACCO Increase in Ireland 100 per cent.
Do. in England 64 ....
From 1787, to the Union.
WINE Increase in Ireland 74 per cent.
Do. in England 22
From 1785, to the Union.
SUGAR Increase in Ireland 57 per cent.
Do. in England 53 ....
From 1784, to the Union.
COFFEE Increase in Ireland 600 per cent.
Do. in England 75 ....
Period from the Union, to the year 1827.
TEA Increase in England 25 per cent.
Do. in Ireland 24 ....
COFFEE Increase in England 1800 per cent.
Do. in Ireland 40
SUGAR Increase in England 26 per cent.
Do. in Ireland 16 ....
TOBACCO Increase in England 27 per cent.
Decrease in Ireland 37 ....
WINE Increase in England 24 per cent.
Decrease in Ireland 45 ....
Tims, tlie average increase of consumption in Ireland, in the
period before tlie Union, of all these articles, was 183 per cent,
in England only 52 per cent., shewing the increase in comfort
in Ireland, during that time, to be three and one-half times as great
as it was in England.
Since the Union, the average increase on all has been, in Eng-
land 380 per cent. ; in Ireland, only 72 per cent. : in other words,
CONSEQUENCES OF A
the increase of comfort in the former country has, during that
interval, been more than five times as great, as in the latter.
Mr. Staunton has, in his reply to Mr. Martin, already referred
to, given another table (p. 7,) framed, as to Ireland, from Spring
Rice's Reports, compared with the increase of population ; and as
to England, adopting Mr. Martin's own figures, which, for the
further clearing up of the subject, I annex.
AVERAGE CONSUMPTION PEE HEAD OF SEVERAL ARTICLES IN
GREAT BRITAIN.
Year.
Sugar.
Wine.
Tobacco.
Tea.
Ibs. oz.
pts. oz.
oz. drs.
oz.
1801
28 4
4 6
16 12
24
1831
2J 2
3 4
14 8
26
Year.
Sugar
Wine.
Tobacco.
Tea.
1800
Ibs. oz.
9
pts. OZ.
1 3
oz. drs.
18
OZ.
10
1827
4 8
1 2
7
7
This table shews more plainly than the general calculation
before given, the effects of the Union, in diminishing the comforts
of the lower and middling classes. "We find the greatest falling off
is in the article of tobacco, which is, perhaps, the chief luxury of
the poor. Sugar and tea have declined next in proportion ; while
wine, the consumption of which is almost confined to the upper
ranks of society, has diminished very slightly less, in fact, than in
England.
It may seem strange to the reader, that there should be a
decrease in the consumption per head of the commodities here con-
sidered, while there is an increase of importation. This, however,
results from the fact, that the increase of population has gone on in
a greater ratio than the increase of importation, which, of course,
leaves the quantity imported less per head on the population, than
before, though absolutely greater in amount. The test of comfort,
however, is, of course, not the absolute quantity, but the quantity
consumed by each individual ; and judging by this test, all the
tables shew an increase of comfort under the independent parlia-
ment in Ireland, fur beyond that of England, in the same time,
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 55
and a decrease of comfort in Ireland since the Union, as compared
with England, proportionably greater.*
The export of cattle, sheep, and pigs, has, it is true, greatly
increased since the Union ; but this, so far from shewing the
prosperity of the country, goes to prove exactly the reverse. In-
deed, I am disposed to think, paradoxical as the position will
appear to some, that an export of food to any great extent, from a
long-peopled country, which is not a large exporter of manufactures,
is, in itself, primd facie evidence of the poverty of that country ;
that is, of the bulk of its inhabitants. In a newly colonized country,
in which the inhabitants are few, and land to be had for nothing,
an export of provisions may be a very profitable trade, as cattle
and other live produce, cost the exporters nearly nothing in the
rearing, being turned out into natural pastures to fatten ; and corn,
or other provisions of similar kind, are produced at a cost equivalent
only to the labour bestowed on their cultivation, rent having no
existence in such states of society. Provisions are, therefore, raised
in such countries, at the lowest possible cost to the growers, and
when sold in those in which rent and high-priced labour give them
artificial value, bring a very large profit to the sellers, while they,
on the other hand, are able to procure, in the old countries to
which they trade, all the manufactures which they want at a far
cheaper rate, than they could themselves make them. In an old
country, however, which is fully brought into cultivation, rent
and the other charges, added to the cost of the labour employed in
raising provisions, make it necessary for the persons engaged in
raising them, to be content with excessively small profits ; and
if those profits be further diminished, by the freight and charges,
of export, the intermediate profits of the export merchant, &c.,
the sum received by the farmer, is as little over the expense of
production, as can be conceived.
But, it will be said, by the political economist, that this -notion
of infinitesimally small profits to the farmers, is a fallacy ; that
* This explanation is the more necessary, as I find, in looking into the report of
Alderman Butt's speech, in the Corporation debate, the learned Alderman made
use of the very fallacy I here seek to guard against. The report goes thus : <( The
hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) had referred to returns, shewing the
increase in the consumption of articles of luxury and comfort in England and
Ireland, from the Union to 1827. That return was not so unfavorable as he, Mr.
Butt, had feared. It shewed a considerable increase in Ireland, although not so
great as in England but still an increase, (hear, hear.)" Whatever the learned
Alderman meant to convey by this, I suspect much from the "hear, hear," that
his friends understood his words to prove, that the increased import, shewed an in-
crease of comfort too. It does so in just the same way as if a man, with a wife and
one child, had 100 a year for their support ; and that when his family increased to
ten or a dozen children, he had an addition of 5 a year to his income, he would be
thereby proved to be better off.
56 CONSEQUENCES OF A
upon the principles of the science, his profits will be fully on a par
with those of the persons engaged in all other employments, artizans,
traders, &c. ; for that, all profits must tend to a common level. Now,
this, as a general proposition, is undoubtedly true : but, suppose,
that there are no artizans in the country, and the population, from
want of other employment, is forced to have recourse to agriculture,
at any profit, however trifling, which they can gain by it : of what
value is the proposition then ? In such a case it is clear, the people
must be content with anything they can get, or starve. "What I
want to shew, and what I believe to be true, is, that this is, in fact,
the condition of nearly all largely peopled countries exporting
provision. Before giving my reason for this opinion, I must first
observe that, the cost of all manufactured articles, consists almost
wholly of the price of labour ; the cost of produce raised from the
soil consists partly of labour, and partly of rent.* Now labour is
especially the poor man's property ; and, in fact, the only property
he has. His gains must, therefore, be in proportion to the amount
of labour required, for the production of the commodities which his
country furnishes ; and must, consequently, be greater in a manu-
facturing, than in an agricultural, country.
When agriculture and manufactures co-exist to any extent in a
country, they, of course, so act on their mutual profits, as to reduce
them, as already stated, to a common level, by those in the one
occupation abandoning it for the other, till the competition in the
labour market, by reducing the profits of the artizan to those of the
farmer, gives no further temptation to the latter, to desert his
pursuit for the other.
Now, this equalizing point, if I may so term it, can only be
reached, either when there is no export of manufactures, or of
agricultural produce, or when there is an equal export of both.
If we consider the operation of the one pursuit on the other, we
shall see this. Let us suppose the capitalist investing money in
manufactures, to be unable to produce them so cheaply, as to com-
mand foreign markets, (the freight and charges on exportation
absorbing too much of his profit, to leave him any remunerative
balance) and to be forced to confine himself to the home market for
his goods. Now, the limitation of his market, in two ways, affects
the manufacturer injuriously ; it lessens his spirit of enterprize,
and by checking his manufacturing operations, prevents minute
* I do not, of course, mean to say, that there are no other items, such as taxes,
&c., that enter into the cost of both classes of products ; but they are very small,
comparatively speaking. Rent, too, (in its common, not technical, sense) goes into
the cost of manufactures, as well as of crops ; but, in the former, it is a mere
fractional element of the cost : in the latter, sometimes nearly half of it.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 5T
subdivision of labour, and its conseqent facility of production, thereby
tending to increase the cost of that production to him. The demand
for manufacturing labour, too, of course, diminishes with the demand
for manufactures ; and those who would have found employment in
it, are thrown on the chance of occupation, which agricultural
pursuits may open to them. Now, the agriculturist, (whom I
have supposed all through, to have been able to raise produce cheaply
enough for profitable export) is by the increased competition for
employment in his branch of industry, able to procure labour at
lower rates, whereby his profits are, of course, larger; the manu-
facturing capitalist finding that land gives better returns than
manufactures, turns his attention to the former ; the ships employed
in the raw produce export, will gladly bring, in return, cargoes at
low freights, as, otherwise, they must arrive in ballast ; this
encourages the import of foreign manufactures, till, finally, the
whole manufacturing interest is ruined, and the people left no other
employment, but that afforded by agriculture. Rents are conse-
quently raised, as land must be taken at almost any terms ; the
price of labour sinks, from the vast competition for work, to the
lowest scale, that will support life, and the food of the country goes
to sustain the people of more prosperous states.
Now, if the opposite state of things happened to exist, then, of
course, the reverse of the operation just described, must have been
the result. Agriculture would have declined, and the chief industry
of the country would have been absorbed in manufactures. In
neither of these instances, therefore, would that equalizing point have
been reached, which has been referred to.
If, however, both manufacturers and agriculturists were able to
export their respective produce, at fairly remunerative rates, or if
both classes were shut out from foreign markets, (in consequence of
their inability to compete in them with other producers) and were
both thereby confined to the home market, their mutual influence
on each other would keep the price of labour, in each occupation, at
a common level.
For all these reasons, I think the reader will agree with me
in concluding, that (where it possesses no peculiar monopoly of
supply) a country exporting agricultural produce largely, without
any corresponding export of manufactured articles, must, if it be
fully peopled, be a poor country ; because this exclusive export of
food, shews that manufactures have no existence in it or that if
they have existence, they must, as has been already proved, be
rapidly tending to extinction. The country must therefore be in, or
be quickly advancing towards, a purely agricultural condition.
58 CONSEQUENCES OF A
But it has been already shewn that labour, (by which alone the
poor man gains anything,) is not the sole constituent of value in
anything produced from the soil in old countries, rent making up
perhaps one third of its cost, whereas, it is nearly the sole element
of value in manufactures : the tendency to agriculture, is conse-
quently a tendency towards that pursuit which gives least benefit
to the poor, and is nearly always indicative of a nation's poverty.*
Of the correctness of this general abstract principle, the reader
can judge for himself; perhaps I should not have given so much
space to it, as I have done, as without it, it is abundantly easy to
shew, that the Irish provision export, is profitless in the extreme to
the people. It consists mainly of live stock raised with the least
possible expenditure of labour. The system of green crops has,
as yet, made very little way in Ireland, and the cattle, &c. ex-
ported, are chiefly fed on natural pastures, so that the wages of
the herdsman who looks after them, and the price of whatever
labour is expended in mowing and stacking the hay, which forms
a portion of their food, are all the profit which the poor derive from
the rearing of them. The rest, directly or indirectly, finds its
way into the pockets of a landlord who lives abroad, and expends
it on the manufactures of other countries. It is a mockery of
common sense, to talk of such an export, as a sign of prosperity.
I have, in the tables given a few pages back, exhibited the decline
in the import of those articles which may be taken as proofs of a
country's prosperity ; but what an increase there is in that of
articles, which shew the opposite condition ! I have before me,
an official account of the trade between Great Britain and Ireland,
for the year ending the 21st. of February 1799 in which I find
that the manufactured articles imported into the latter country,
amounted altogether to
Official value ......... ^1,095,615.
Real value ...........
What their present amount is, cannot be ascertained with accuracy,
as no accounts of an official nature are kept of them. The Railway
* I say nearly always, because when natural or political circumstances give one
country the monopoly of supply, at its own terms, of some other country, such a
trade may be profitable.
t In this account tf manufactures imported, is one singular item, viz. :
" Cattle Horses, 12,365" Cotton Yarn forms anotheritem of 36, 000 but this
was an article in its first stage of manufacture, and was, of course, ro give further
employment to home labour. J may add, that the Irish exports to England, the
same year, are stated at 6,612,689, (though Mr. Butt spoke of them as three millions
and a'-half, perhaps looking only at the official value, which was then low,) of this
great export, the sum-total for live Stock, viz. : "Cows, Oxen, Horses and Swine,"
is only 168,242!
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 59
Report, however, estimates the consumption of woollen goods in
Ireland to amount alone, to <^1,400,000, of which not more than
about 100,000, worth are manufactured at home, the rest being
brought in from England ; this one item of import, it seems, has
thus risen to within ^300,000, of the total value of the manu
factures imported in 1T99. In addition to it, however, hats,
earthen-ware, refined sugars, hardware, plated goods, and an
hundred other articles, have ceased altogether to be manufactured
in Ireland and are imported to a vast extent ; affording additional
proof of the decay which, since the Union, has fallen on every
branch of our national industry. I think I have now fairly dealt
with the import and export question, so far as it is any test of
prosperity. Let us see how far its results are corroborated by
evidence, drawn from other sources.
There is first, the report of the " Hand-loom Weavers 1 Enquiry
Commissioners." Of the great staple manufacture of Ireland, her
linen, this report gives anything but a gratifying picture ; Mr.
Commissioner Muggeridge after investigating it as carefully as he
could, found such contradictory statements made by different
parties respecting it, (though the general tenor of their evidence,
as cited by him, is certainly indicative of decay ,) that he declared
his inability, " in common with all those who have attempted the
enquiry before him," to say whether it is flourishing or not. "With
reference to this Mr. John O'Connell fairly says, in his Argument
for Ireland, " the very controversy which exists, as to the state of
that trade, is an unfavourable sign. When a branch of industry
is really nourishing in any country, do we usually find, even among
those at a distance from the scene of action, doubts and disputes
existing on the subject ? Yet they are to be found rife among
persons intimately conversant with the linen trade in the north,
as will be seen by the following extracts." He then gives the opinions
of a number of persons, taken from the report, of which, as I
have already said, the greater number are to the effect, that it is
not prosperous.
Of the cotton trade, I said, in quoting from Dr. Boyton's speech,
that I would mention facts, showing that the symptoms of pros-
perity in it, spoken of by him, have, since the date of his speech,
wholly subsided. It is thus alluded to in the Railway Report :
" the only town in Ireland in which the cotton manufacture is
established, to any extent, is Belfast, and it is declining even there."
This statement is confirmed by Mr. Muggeridge, of the Hand-
loom Enquiry, one of whose principal witnesses, Mr. Moncreef, of
Belfast, stated, that " if all the capital of all the manufacturers in
60 CONSEQUENCES OF A
Belfast, was combined, it would not equal that employed by one
large establishment in England." The decline of this branch of
trade, will be found to be corroborated likewise, by the subjoined
list of the number of persons employed in various branches of man-
ufactures in Ireland, in the year 1800, and at subsequent dates.
Before giving it, however, I may as well state the conclusive evi-
dence of the ruin of the silk trade, given by Mr. Otway, in the
Hand-loom Enquiry Keport. This gentleman says, " the silk
trade is now confined to one fabric the tabinets. There can be
no doubt, the trade in weaving whole silk, is extinct, and that the
manufactures of velvets, handkerchiefs, and ribbons, are confined to
a few looms." More I need not add, on the subject of manufac-
turing decay, except to insert the table just alluded to. It
appears in a statement, made in the year 1841, by the tradesmen
of Dublin.
" WOOLLEN TRADE IN DUBLIN.
Master Manufacturers in 1800, . . . . . . . . 91
Do. in 1840, 12
Number of hands employed in 1800, . . . . . . . . 4938
Do. in 1840, 682
WOOL COMBING.
Master wool combers in 1800, . . . . . . . . 30
Do. in 1834, 5
Number of hands employed in 1800, . . . . . . . . 230
Do. in 1834, 66
CARPET MANUFACTURE IN DUBLIN.
Master Manufacturers in 1800 . . . . . . . . 13
Do. in 1841, 1
Number of hands employed in 1800, . . . . . . 120
Do. in 1841, only those employed by Mr. Sheridan.
BLANKETS.
Blanket Manufacturers in Kilkenny, in the year 1800, . . 56
Do. in 1822, 12
Operatives employed iii 1800, . . . . . . . . 3000
Do. in 1841, 925
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 61
RATTEENS AND FRIEZES.
Number of persons supported by the Woollen Manufac-
ture at Roscrea, in the year 1800, . . . . . . 900
In the year 1841, not one comber permanently employed.
Persons deriving employment and maintenance from the
cotton manufactures at Belfast, and within ten miles
round it, in the year 1800, 27,000
Do. in 1839, from 12,000 to 15,000
whose wages were miserably reduced, almost to the
standard of a day labourer.
Number of calico looms at full work at Balbriggan in 1799, 2000
Do. in 1841, 226
SILK MANUFACTURE IN DUBLIN.
Number of broad looms in 1800, . . . . . . . . 2500
Do. in 1840 . . . . 250
HOSIERY.
In Dublin the number of hosiery frames was, in 1800, . . 329
Do. in 1840, 80
In Cork the number of hosiery frames was, in 1800, . . 200
Do. in 1840, say 12
The hosiery trade has become almost extinct at Belfast,
Lisburn, Clonmel, Limerick, Waterford, Carrick, Kil-
kenny, Carlow, Portarlington, Maryborough, Newry,
Dundalk, Armagh, and Drogheda.
STUFF SERGE IN DUBLIN.
Master Manufacturers in 1800, . . . . . . . . 25
Do. in 1841, 1
Number of hands employed in 1800, . . . . . . 1491
Do. in 1834, 131
FLANNEL MANUFACTURE.
Looms at work in the County Wicklow in the year 1800,. . 1000
Do. in 1841, !
N. B. The County Wicklow was the principal seat of this trade/"
62 CONSEQUENCES OF A
The number of bushels of malt, which have annually paid duty
at various periods, is another test of the comforts of the people.
What the amount was, previously to the year 1810, I am not
aware, but since that period there has been a large decline in
Ireland. The number of bushels I take from a parliamentary paper
(Sess. No. 439,) given in full by Mr. Staunton, in his reply to Mr.
Montgomery Martin's pamphlet, I find them to be
1810, .. .. 3,033,302 bushels.
1840, .. .. 1,604,307 do.
As however the decline in the latter year, may be attributable to
the temperance system, which about that time had become exten-
sively spread through the country ; I will take the return for 1839
instead of it, and I find that to be 2,101,744 bushels shewing a
decrease of 900,000 bushels after a space of thirty years, during
which, be it remembered, the population of the country nearly
doubled. But if this fact, of itself speaks strongly, how much
more important does it seem, when we look at the English and
Scotch consumption for the same years, likewise contained in the
return. These are as follows :
England, 1810, .. .. 23,541,291
Ditto, 1839, .. .. 33,687,302
Scotland, 1810, .. .. 784,527
Ditto, 1839, .. .. 4,567,083
Unfortunately, however, I have not yet gone through all the evi-
dences of Irish misery ; the most appaling part of the picture is yet
to be exhibited.
The Railway Commissioners in whose report an attempt has been
made to shew, as far as possible, the existence of a post-union
prosperity in Ireland, founded on the usual fallacious general returns
of imports, exports, &c., (but without official documents to guide
them, the consequence of which, was an amount of error which Mr.
Staunton has very clearly exposed) speak thus, in a note, of what
came under their own observation, and can, therefore, be relied on:
" we regret that the state of the labouring population does not
warrant us in assuming that any considerable portion of this
increased consumption is shared by them. The demand seems to
proceed, almost exclusively from the superior class of landholders,
and the inhabitants of towns."
As to the general condition of the peasantry they state " among
the effects of the rapid increase of population, without a corres-
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 63
ponding increase of remunerative employment, the most alarming,
though the most obviously to be expected result, is a deterioration
of the food of the peasantry. Milk is become almost a luxury to
many of them, and the quality of their potato-diet is generally much in-
ferior to what it was at the commencement of the present century. A
species of potatoes, called the lumper, has been brought into general
cultivation, on account of its great productiveness and the facility with
which it can be raised from an inferior soil, and with a compara-
tively small portion of manure. This root, at its first introduction,
was scarcely considered food good enough for swine ; it neither possesses
the farinaceous qualities of the better varieties of the plant, nor is it
as palatable as any other, being wet and tasteless, and in point of
substantial nutriment little better, as an article of human food,
than a sweedish turnip. IN MANY COUNTIES OF LEINSTER AND
THROUGHOUT THE PROVINCES OF MUNSTER AND CONNAUGHT
THE LUMPER NOW CONSTITUTES THE PRINCIPAL FOOD OF THE
LABOURING PEASANTRY ; a fact which is the more striking when
we consider the great increase of produce, together with its manifest
improvement in quality which is annually raised in Ireland for expor-
tation and for consumption by the superior classes." Yet, even this
is not the worst : of this horrible diet this "food not good enough
for swine," the miserable peasantry have no constant or sure supply.
THE POOR-LAW COMMISSIONERS IN THEIR REPORT STATE THE
FEARFUL AND ASTOUNDING FACT, THAT THERE ARE, IN IRE-
LAND, 2,385,000 PEOPLE ABSOLUTELY DESTITUTE ! This, at
least, is damning proof of what Ireland has become since the Union.
It leaves but one question to be asked, can any thing make her
condition n'orse ?
There is one important matter which, though it refers to the era
of Ireland's independence, I have designedly postponed mentioning
until now, in order to contrast it with the state of things just described.
I stated that once after 1783 the distress of the people was brought
under the notice of parliament. This was in the month of January,
1788 (only six years after the declaration of independence, and of
course, before the beneficial effects of that independence on the
comforts of the people could be much felt). In that month, Mr.
Connolly moved for a repeal of the hearth-money tax on all houses
under the rent of thirty shillings a year as a relief to the poorer
classes. He stated that with their then earnings, they could not
afford to pay it, as an account of their necessary expenses would
prove. He then submitted to the house the following statement of
one man's necessary expenses for a year : *
* Plowden, vol. 2. p. 105.
CONSEQUENCES OF A
Per day. In the Year. Price. Sum.
Tib. Potatoes. T brls., 12 stone. 5s. per brl. ^l 18
1 oz. butter. 221bs. 13 oz. Bdperlb. 14 4^
1-12 st. oatmeal. 3 cwt. 3 st. I Pottle, lls. per cwt. 2 1 83
3 Pints buttermilk. 136 gals. 9 pints, Id. for 3 qrts., 15 4J
Salt, . . . . . . . . . . 10
1 Kish of turf per week for 40 weeks, omitting > son
summer, at 18d. per kish, . . . . 5
House rent, . . . . . . ..129
Clothing, . . . . . . . . . . 16
6 2i
This, we may fairly suppose, was considered the lowest scale of
living of a poor man when put forward on an appeal to the com-
passion of parliament. If so, how many millions of Irishmen in
1844, would pray to be restored to the poverty of 1T88 ?
The evils, of which I have already spoken, affect nearly the whole
body of Irishmen. The ruin of trade and manufactures is fatal to
the artizans and middle classes ; the rural population cannot be
more wretched than they are ; there remains one fact to show that
a total discouragement of Irish talent is met with by Irishmen, even
on their own soil. I give it on the authority of an opponent, the
Dublin Evening Mail which inserted the statement in reply to an
article that appeared in the Times Newspaper.
" The Archbishop of Dublin is an Englishman the Chief Admi-
nistrator of the Irish Poor-law is an Englishman the Paymaster of
Irish Civil Service is a Scotchman the Chief Commissioner of
Irish Public Works is an Englishman the Teller of the Exchequer
is an Englishman -the Chief Officer of the Irish Constabulary is
a Scotchman the Chief Officer of the Irish Post Office is an Eng-
lishman ; the Collector of Excise is a Scotchman ; the Head of the
Revenue Police is an Englishman ; the second in Command is a
Scotchman ; the persons employed in the collection of the Customs,
&c., are English and Scotch in the proportion of thirty-five to one.
But the Times may, perhaps, observe f true ; but all this is in
elucidation of our plan for unbarring the gates of preferment,
unsparingly, impartially and honestly. Scotchmen and Englishmen
are placed in office in Ireland, and Irishmen in return, in Scotland
and England, in order to draw closer the bonds of union between the
three united nations. 1 Again let us see how facts actually stand :
there are Cabinet Ministers, Englishmen, 10; Scotchmen, 3 ; Irish-
men, ; Lords of the Treasury, Englishmen, 4 ; Scotchman, 1 ;
Irishman, 1 ; Clerks of the Treasury, English or Scotchmen, 112.
REPEAL OF THE UNION. G5
Mr. Fitzgerald (query an Irishman) 1 ; Members of the Lord
Steward's and Lord Chamberlain's departments of the Royal House-
hold, Englishmen and Scotchmen, 225 ; Irishmen, 4 ; British
Ministers to foreign courts, Englishmen and Scotchmen, 131 ;
Irishmen, 4 ; Poor-law Commissioners, Englishmen, 3 ; Irishmen, 0.
" We presume," adds the Editor, " that these facts shew that the
natives of the three kingdoms are all placed upon an equal footing :
the chances of access to preferments to an Englishman or Scotch-
man in Ireland being, in the few instances which have occurred to
us, while writing, as 6 to 1 ; while the probability of an Irishman
obtaining place in England, appears from an analogous calculation,
to be in the proportion of 491 to 10, or as 1 to 50." " We could
easily swell," he adds, " this list were it necessary. Ireland has
always been used, by English ministers, as a means of providing for poor
relations, dependents and partizans : our highest as well as our lowest
offices, have been prostituted for this purpose. What would be thought
of an Irish Lawyer, being called over as Lord Chancellor of England ?
Yet, we are forced to take English Lawyers as our Lord Chancellors ; so
through all the departments of government, INJUSTICE TO IRELAND
EVERY WHERE MEETS US ; AND SO WILL THINGS CONTINUE
UNTIL WE LEARN TO THINK LESS ABOUT PARTY AND MORE
ABOUT OUR COUNTRY." To the list here given of Englishmen,
holding Irish offices, are to be added, the Lord Lieutenant, the
Chief Secretary and the Lord Chancellor : truly, the complaint
of Swift, that " those who have the misfortune to be born here have
the least title to any considerable (ive might add or inconsiderable)
employment," has passed in our days into a government maxim.
The legislation of the United Parliament for Ireland remains to
be considered. With respect to the Roman Catholics, it is quite
enough to state the simple fact, that they did not obtain their
emancipation 'till 1829, leaving it to all who have impartially con-
sidered the history of the legislation in their favor before the union ;
and the general feeling amongst all sects of Irishmen of the justice
of their claims, as already detailed, whether, if that event had not
taken place they would not have attained their entire liberties, at
least twenty years earlier.
But this is not the only ground of complaint with Irishmen.
During the forty-four years which have elapsed since the act of
union, the whole Irish people, Protestant as well as Catholic, have
been deprived of the constitutional rights of British subjects, either
wholly or in part, nearly the entii-e time. For that long period have
the Protestants of Ireland, with all their boasted love of Freedom
with all their religious attachment to the British constitution
K
66 CONSEQUENCES OF A
been living, not under that constitution, but in common with their
Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, left fettered, hand and foot, to the
mercy of an absolute despotism. The Habeas Corpus Act, the
glorious gain of '82, has been three times suspended during that
interval, insurrection acts have been in force at four different times,
and for long periods ; the atrocious Coercion Act in 1834 ; and
to crown all, they have received the Arms' Act of 1843. On all
this I shall not make one indignant comment ; I wish to appeal,
not to men's passions, but to their reason ; I will even go so far as
to assume, that all these acts were necessary were called for by
the circumstances of the times. But what conclusion can we draw
from such a fact surely this, that the Union has not, in any way,
improved the peace or the security of the country. Yet, this was
one of the chief blessings which it was promised would result from
it. Its advocates admitted that it was not necessary for Ire-
land's prosperity, though they asserted it would enhance that
prosperity ; their great argument was that the peace of Ireland
absolutely required it and that it would secure that peace for ever.
I ask any thinking man to answer has it done so. In looking too,
at the disturbances in Ireland, before and since the Union, we must
not forget that the former took place at a time when the giant
throes of the French Revolution shook to its centre every state in
Europe ; that they were heightened by the obstinate resistance of
the English minister to every beneficial change in the political
institutions of the country ; and at last fomented, with diabolical
ingenuity, in order to terrify the friends of peace into the sacrifice of
freedom. The disorders since the Union have sprung from no such
causes. They have been the unhappy fruits of misgovernment, and
the consequent decay and ruin of the nation's prosperity. To any
man who has considered the progress of that decay, the universality
of that ruin, it can only appear strange, that a people sinking under
them, should have hesitated to seek relief from their sufferings, at
the sacrifice of every social institution. Their endurance has,
indeed, been as unparalleled, as their calamities. But it is more
than strange : there is something terrible in the endurance of a suf-
fering people. Soon or late the wrongs inilicted on them must be
paid for, and if the time of payment be deferred, till they shall
think fit to become their own paymasters, they will take fearful
interest on their debt. Heaven will, I trust, avert such an event
from the Irish people, but none can say when it may be brought
about by the infatuity of man. There is still a voice that whispers
hope into their ears ; when it is silenced, none other may be found
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 6T
to speak a like lesson ; and the strong hearts it calms, the strong
arms it restrains, may turn for retribution and redress, from the
laws of the senate, to the equity of the constitution.
Of the commercial legislation since the Union, I shall say little.
That it has been mischievous to Ireland, may be sufficiently
gathered from the destruction which has come upon her commerce
and manufactures. That it has been of the worst kind, is ably
shewn by Mr. John O'Connell, in his "Argument for Ireland." He
has given to the details of it, along and carefully executed appendix,
which the reader may consult with profit. I pass the matter over,
for two reasons ; first that I could not, without transgressing the
space to which I am limited, discuss it fairly ; secondly because
it is not necessary for my argument. If the legislation of the im-
perial parliament for Ireland have been good, if the spirit of the
articles of Union have been honestly adhered to, it only strengthens
the case against that measure. Ireland has prospered under a
domestic parliament, has decayed under an imperial parliament.
If the latter have made bad laws, there may be some chance of
improvement, by a change in its mode of legislation ; if it have
made good laws, there can be none.
There are many things in independence, besides laws, that raise
a people many things in dependence, that lower them. Self-
control begets self-reliance, national pride begets personal dignity.
The rivalry of the state, with other states, in industry, frugality,
and euterprize, creates a like rivalry amongst the citizens. Liberty
is not only, herself a blessing ; but, like Charity, she has a breast
to nurse a thousand virtues. I care not, therefore, what has been
the legislation for Ireland, as a province : it is enough, that, as a
province, she is ruined that, .as a nation, she has been great and
happy. It must not, however, be forgotten, that one of the most
impoverishing circumstances under which Ireland labours, since
the Union absenteeism has been greatly increased by that event ;
(the money drained by this channel from Ireland before 1800, not
having amounted to ^2,000,000 a-year, while it is now much above
^'4,000,000) and this evil is remediless by an imperial parliament.
That such a parliament would impose a tax upon the property of
Irish absentees, is impossible. Such a tax is contrary to t\\c prin-
ciple of an Union ; what is, perhaps, of more consequence, it is
contrary to the interest and policy of England. It is contrary to
the principle of an Union, which is incorporation, to compel any
citizen of the united territory, to reside or expend his money in any
particular part of it. What would be thought, for instance, of a
law imposing a tax on every Yorkshiremun, who should spend his
68 CONSEQUENCES OF A
fortune in Lancashire or Middlesex, instead of his own county ?
Yet, the principle of an Union such as ours, is to place any Irish
county in the same relation to any English county, that the English
counties bear to each other. But let us look to the more material
questions of English interest and policy. Is it not absurd to suppose
that a country gaining all we lose by the absentee system, should
take any step to check it, especially when that system cannot be
charged to any specific wrongful act of the country in question,
but arises from the political relations between her and our country?
Nay, more, while such relations continue, an absentee tax would be
a positive wrong to the absentees themselves, whose absence from
the capital of the country, (for London is our capital, not Dublin,
while the Union lasts,} must, of necessity, deprive them of all chance
of posts of honor or profit, must prevent them from aiding the
representatives of Ireland, by their advice and information in matters
relating to her affairs, and must exclude them from what every
inhabitant of a country ought to have, the right of free and unre-
strained access to the seat of legislation and government. It is,
therefore, not only England's interest to permit the continuance of
absenteeism, but she is able to justify her permission of it, by the
most unanswerable reasoning. There are, however, far deeper
motives of policy, which will prevent any English statesman from
attempting to overturn the absentee system. Doing so would, of
itself, Repeal the Union. Can any man suppose, that if the Irish
proprietors became resident in Ireland, were daily and hourly
witnesses of the poverty and the endurance of the people, saw with
their own eyes the resources of their country, and the wealth they
would gain by a development of those resources, and felt them-
selves living in a ruined province, without honor, without dignity,
without power, they would not demand the restitution of their
country" 1 }! nationality ? Half of them continue willing slaves to-day,
because away from their own country, often ignorant of its miseries,
and living amidst the pleasures of a great metropolis, they have
forgotten the position which might be theirs, as the first citizens of
a free state. Bring them back to their country by any means, and
they will not rest contented long without bringing back her
liberties. English statesmen Inust feel this, and will give them no
temptation to return here.
I have now fairly, I hope honestly I am certain given the
details of three distinct eras of Ireland's history. I am one of those
who believe in the maxim, put forth by the great defender of the
Union, Mr. Secretary Cooke, that " an argument from experience in
political reasoning, is superior to asty argument in theory; " and to
11EPEAL OF THE UNION. 69
all men who hold the same doctrine, I would readily leave the
verdict on the Union measure, upon the evidence I have adduced.
An unhappy cant has, however, been got hold of by some people
the glib and easy phrase of post hoc propter hoc, with the aid of
which, and a shrug of superior intellect, they at once get rid of
such arguments. A concluding*nvord to these men, may, perhaps,
be useful, though in general they are of a class impenetrable to
reasoning. Perhaps, they attach some weight to fulfilled predic-
tion prediction, too, which has nothing in it of chance conjecture ;
but is of that character, which gives the highest proof of human
intellect prediction, which truly describes the future, from just
reasoning on the past. Ireland had many able men, for she had
many men who did this. They prophesied the evils which have
fallen upon their country, with the truth almost with the elo-
quence of inspiration. Listen to the words of some amongst them.
From a reply to Mr. Secretary Cooke's " Arguments for and
against the Union," by Mr. Charles Ball, I take the following
extracts : " As England will always be able to hold out to them
such substantial temptations to act as if they were Englishmen, I
confess, even with equal numbers in the cabinet and the parlia-
ment, I should utterly despair of my country. But when we know,
that the arrangement of the cabinet, cannot be subject to regula-
tion by act of parliament, without overturning the constitution,
that if there could be a law for such a purpose, no Irishman would
ever be introduced there, who had not first done away the original
sin of Irish birth, by a full and practical recantation of every
principle of attachment to Ireland, when we are told, that we
shall have a proportion of only one to five in the parliament of the
united kingdom ; when all these matters are considered, I will
ask you in your own words, whether it can be less than the height
of folly to part with the management of our own concerns for
ever ? To your position, that freedom in one part of the empire,
will secure the freedom of the rest, I offer as an answer and con-
tradiction, the situation of England and her dependencies, until
America separated, and Ireland threw off the yoke. During that
time England was as free as she is now, and yet Ireland and
America were in a state of slavery. You will say, neither Ireland
nor America had representatives in the British parliament; to which
I reply, that the small proportion of one representative to five,
cannot secure either the actual or theoretical liberty of Ireland ;
lor that our representatives will, at best, be no more than so many
agents uud advocates for our country, and not a true representation
70 CONSEQUENCES OF A
of the people, possessing an insurmountable veto, in all questions
affecting the interests of Ireland: but on the contrary, a measure
of the united parliament, directly acting upon Ireland, might be
carried by a majority of Jive to one with every Irish member's
voice against it. The liberties of Ireland after a Union may be
endangered nay, completely overthrown, whenever the represen-
tatives of the people of Great Britain shall think such a measure
would conduce to the general interests of the empire ; a sentiment not
new in England." " Instead of living together in terms of amity
and kindness, these two countries will be ever on the watch, each
to avail itself of the distress of the other; England with a view to
power Ireland, in pursuit of freedom ; and, of course, they will
contract a mutual desire to involve one another in eternal mis-
fortunes."
I could give other emphatic and able remarks from this very
singular pamphlet, but I have too many other prophets to refer to.
The two next I shall cite were members of the bar, and the
extracts are from the reported debate of that body upon the Union
measure.
Mr. Peter Burrowes said, " that every possible modification of
an Union, necessarily involved evils not to be compensated for :
the merging of our representatives in an assembly where they will be
more than quadrupled, and where, if unanimous, they can have
little influence ; the perpetual existence of the united legislature
in another country, to the influence of whose wishes and opinions
they will be subject the enormous increase of absenteeism of
taxes of our national debt."
Mr. Goold (now Master in Chancery,) whose speech was one of
rare eloquence and vigour, said, " the British minister must for
ever be subservient to the will and interest of the British merchant
the British merchant must for ever be subservient to his own
interest. I argue," he continues, "from the necessary operations
of the human passions on the human conduct, when I say, that the
British merchant will force the British minister to be British, even
on the subject of Irish affairs ; and, when self-interest once speaks,
it speaks in a voice of thunder ; the consideration of equity and
justice are too feeble to be heard. In such a situation, as well
might you expect from the oyster the sagacity of human intellect
as well might you expect from the famished tiger, the sympathy
of human feeling, as from the British minister and British merchant,
a due and impartial consideration, or a feeling and honest conduct
touching the affairs of this our country." " I will embark my
last shilling in the cause of England I would stand or fall with
REPEAL OP THE UNION. 71
her, but I will not be cajoled by her ; she shall not reduce me to
bankruptcy, and say she did so for my advantage, she shall
not reduce me to beggary, under the pretext of an advantageous
bargain. If I am to be a bankrupt and a beggar, I shall be eo
with the solitary and inestimable consolation, that with my eyes
open I have been bankrupt, and beggared myself for a friend in
distress. I will not submit to the degrading state of becoming
bankrupt and beggar, under the pretext and cover of a commercial
speculation."
A pamphlet by Mr. Spencer (likewise a barrister,) has the
following, among many just anticipations : " as to the effect of a
Union in bringing English capital into this country, I observe, that
Irish industry and enterprize, encouraged, have produced, and will
still continue to produce and augment capital ; and that English
capital, which is by no means indispensable, will be attracted only
by the assured tranquility of the country, to which an Union doth
in no wise conduce, but whose immediate consequence would be, to
increase the number of absentees, already the bane of their country,
and, in great part, the cause of its occasionally disturbed repose."
" For that an union would produce a great addition to the number
of our absentees, cannot be doubted, by the most sceptical, and it
is most remarkable that the argument is used by the celebrated
Dean Tucker, to induce England to an union, for, in his proposal
to incorporate the British isles into one kingdom, printed in 1750,
he observes that ' the inducement of being near the parliament,
the court, the public funds, would bring many more Irish families
to reside, and spend their fortunes here, (. e. in England,) than do
now. In short, whatever wealth Ireland would draw from other
countries by its produce, manufactures and happy situation, all
that, would continually centre in England." So that it seems there
were true prophets besides the Irish. Mr. Spencer further adds,
" by a perusal of the writers in the sister country, on the subject,
from Sir Mathew Decker to De Lolme, the curious reader will
easily satisfy himself, that all the arguments in favor of the mea-
sure, centre in the convenience and alleviation of public burthens
to England."
Mr. Pemberton Rudd, another barrister, who also wrote a
pamphlet in reply to Mr. Cooke, addressed him thus, " you lament
that the Irish parliament is now supposed under British influence,
and you allow, that (even now,) near one million of the routs of
the kingdom, are exported to absentees. Permit me to ask, would
your proposed Union lessen or ameliorate these causes of com-
plaint. If three hundred of the iirst men in this kingdom, sitting
72 CONSEQUENCES OF A
in College-green in Dublin, must be supposed under British in-
fluence, what must we conclude would be the case, with sixty of
these very persons transplanted to St. Stephen's chapel, London."
And again, referring to Mr. Cooke's views of the insecure position
of the Irish Protestants, only one-fourth of the population of
Ireland, and holding nearly the whole land of the country, he says :
" the industry, the abilities, the good fortune, and good sense of
numbers of the Roman Catholics, have enabled them to make large
fortunes. They have seen their interests, used their abilities, and
purchased land ; but taking the case on your own shewing, and
supposing the Protestant occupiers to hold nine-tenths of all the
land in the kingdom, would it mend the matter to send many, or
any of these landlords off of their own estates, to serve in a British
or united parliament, and to expend the rents and produce of those
very estates, in the necessaries, the manufactures, the arts, and the
luxuries, not of their own tenantry, or of their own country, but of
another people, in another kingdom. Would it serve to tranquillize
the mind ; would it conciliate the attachment of the Catholic
tenant, who now has his landlord on the spot, willing to relieve
him ; would it serve him, think you, to send a griping steward to
his farm, and have his last guinea eviscerated from him, to be
changed perhaps that hour into an English bill ; not here, to be
bestowed in the relief of want, encouragement of arts, or even the
consumption of luxuries, but there to be eaten at a feast, drunk
with a mistress, or lost on a die." " This believe me, is no highly
coloured picture of the effect to be expected from an Union, ONE
AND INDIVISIBLE."
The extracts which I have given are from Protestant writers.
One of the most able, though singular essays which appeared on
the subject of the Union, was, however, from the pen of a Roman
Catholic priest, a friar, I believe, of the Franciscan Order, the
Rev. Dennis Taaffe. He was a bitter opponent of the measure,
and attributing it too truly in a great degree, to the discord created
by the Protestant ascendancy faction, (not the whole Protestant popu-
lation,) he has been most savage in his attack on that faction. In
the concluding part of his pamphlet, he represents one of the leaders
of this party remonstrating with the British minister, on the Union
measure, and from this part of his work, I cannot forbear quoting
at some length. Having first given the remonstrance, he comes to
the minister's reply, thus ending : "As for the consequences likely to
result to Ireland from the measure, that you must acknowledge, is
a matter of very secondary consideration, since that conquered
country ought in all reason, exist solely for our benefit. Let her
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 73
enjoy her religious quarrels, the sanguinary rage of her factions.
What more would she have ; does she not possess Orangemen and
Defenders, Rebels and Loyalists, Protestants, Papists, Presbyterians,
Swaddlers ; are not all these indulged in the comfortable satisfaction
of cutting their own throats, for the love of God and the Virgin
Mary, or for church and king, as they like best. How un-
reasonable to grumble after such concessions." After some further
observations in this strain, he makes the ascendancy chief reply.
" And is it thus you reward your faithful servants the loyal ascen-
dancy men ? Is it for this we have risked our lives and fortunes,
and in fact, shed our blood, and squandered our properties ? Oh,
ungrateful John Bull ! have we not always acted as your faithful
garrison, retaining Ireland in your chains, for your profit, enabling
you to deprive it of trade, manufactures, and national government,
to turn it into a draw-farm for the supply of your navy and your
markets, to drain it of men and money at your good pleasure. Oh,
were that despised people, enlightened and united, not you, nor any
power on earth, could tread them down on their native soil, with
impunity. Without us and our forefathers, of glorious memory,
their commerce would vie with your own. I appeal to your own
writers on commerce, for the truth of this assertion. Her fleets
and armies would make her formidable ; witness her natural ad-
vantages of every kind. She would now, as formerly, be foremost in
science. Is Ireland now a prey to bigot fury, sanguinary politics
and religious faction ? It is ascendancy challenges the merit of
lighting up the torch of discord. Eeligious bigotry, the sure and
ready instrument of civil disunion, would, ere now, have been ex-
tinguished, but for the fostering care of intolerance, which plied it
constantly with its proper food ignorance, and hatred. Tims
placed in the hostile relation of tyrant and slave, of persecutor and
persecuted, one side claiming a monopoly of the good things of this
world, in favor of their state religion, the other arrogating to them-
selves the exclusive enjoyment of the kingdom to come, as the
reward of their present misery, a coalition between them, thus in-
flamed against one another, by the conflict of intolerance, and the
conflict of interests, is not to be apprehended. For these, and
nameless other services, you now propose to requite us, by robbing
us of our expected rewards, just as we were proceeding to entail on
ourselves and posterity, the offices, honors, and emoluments of
church and state, (to the exclusion of such oven of tbe
favored sect, as had opposed our measures at any time,) through
the monopoly of parliamentary representation. What becomes
of your honor and plighted faith, never to forsake us while
74 CONSEQUENCES OF A
we supported you?" But, mark the significant and admirably
verified reply which he puts in the mouth of the minister.
" You, and your friends, and whoever else cannot be safely treated with
neglect, shall be provided for ; as for the rabble of your party we may
safely leave, them to the management of their clergy who will work them
up to our purposes by plying their anti-popish zeal with caustic doses of
controversial invective. The bargain was struck, the cabinet broke
up, and poor Ireland is lost for ever." " It is then," he continues,
" the duped ascendancy bigots will have cause to lament their fatal
mistake, when they suffered themselves to be hallooed like blood-
hounds to worry their fellow-citizens, and crush their patriot spirit
for the gratification and benefit of their designing leaders, who now
dispose of them like so many head of cattle. In the articles of com-
pensation for bartering away irrecoverably the rights and prosperity
of the country, they are forgotten and left to share its ruin and
poverty, since they would not its greatness and independence."-
Let us now look at what follows ; who can think that it was written
inlT98:
" Orangemen take a prospective view of the blessings you have
prepared for yourselves and your children. The proprietary of the
kingdom gone to reside in England to attend the business in parlia-
ment, the court, &c., with all who aspire to the career of ambition
and honor, or the pleasures of elegant and rational society, or the
amusements of a great court and capital. Emigration will become
the tone ; and, it will be quite unfashionable, odious to reside
in Ireland, enough to give a fine bred lady the vapours. The vulgar
provincialism of Irish airs, accent, &c., &c., will be avoided, like
the plague ; to escape the slightest taint, or even the suspicion of it,
become an important concern. A permanent residence in London
or Bath, will be the indispensable with every squire and squiress
who can afford it." "On the other hand, a beggared, deserted
province, can have no inducements to retain the opulent ; and such as
cannot afford the expense of that fashionable country, will send their
children thither for education, or rather, send their wives thither to
be delivered that their offspring may avoid the disgrace of being
born here, and be educated quite free from any Irish impressions.
Untainted with the candour, affability and hospitality, that distin-
guished that degenerate people ; but trained up in the geuteelest
prejudice against every tiling Irish, he will be early taught to
treat the counti-y of his fathers with injustice and contempt. Thus,
almost the whole rental of the kingdom will be spent in foreign
parts to enrich pampered England : trade and Hie arts, deprived
of their customers must follow : the capital will fall into ruin :
REPEAL OF THE UNION. 75
agriculture will dwindle : population must resign the soil to bullocks
and sheep. The vast sums laid out in improving the capital and
its vicinity in the construction of canals, quays, bridges, roads ; the
melioration of harbours, rivers ; in the encouragement of agriculture,
arts, fisheries ; in the endowments of colleges, schools, hospitals,
&c., all is lost, expended in vain, all will become next to
useless."
"An expectation," he continues, "will ba raised that English
capital and manufactures will find their way hither, enticed by the
cheapness of provision and labour. Very improbable indeed.
There are far more powerful inducements to retain them at the
other side: the vicinity of the great emporium of the world, the
fountain of credit, trade, &c., &c. ; the mutual dependence and
subserviency of all the arts, and manufactures, each ministering to,
and borrowing from each, either necessary instruments, or useful hints,
or ready circulation."
" The manufacturer derives immense advantages from the co-
operation of all the parts that form the complex and stupendous
fabric of English trade. Capital and credit, which a man of known
probity and ability may command to almost any amount ; abundance
of expert hands and ingenious heads, the utensils, machinery,
processes, &c., employed in high perfection, expeditious, cheap,
and every day receiving new improvements ; the general spirit of
euterprize and commercial speculation that turns every thing to
account ; these advantages more than counterbalance the diiference
in the price of labour and provisions, and enable the London or
Birmingham manufacturer to undersell the German or Russian.
Any branch exiled into Ireland would suffer more by its separation
from the living body, and vital circulation, and harmonious co-
operation of all the co-members ; the co-efficient parts that con
stitute the integral frame of a flourishing British commerce, than
the trifling difference in the price of provision could possibly
compensate."
" Great, indeed, must be the local temptations that could prevail
on that calculating description of persons to renounce the vantage
ground of their position. What would provincialed Ireland have
to offer ? >an impoverished, ragged population, with manners and
habits not over propitious to the commercial pursuits ; obnoxious
to the worst prejudices of Englishmen ; a country, however fertile,
drained by the tributary rents of a host of absentees ; and crushed
by a full participation of English debts and taxes, increased n-itk
her increasing inability to pay them ; no home market, none of the
co-operating trades, &c. In the teeth of such discouragements will
76 CONSEQUENCES OF A REPEAL OF THE UNION.
English manufacturers come to reside among a people, whom they
have been taught to hate and despise from their infancy, and whom,
when they are very liberal they call semibarbarous, destitute of
industry, punctuality, and even honesty * Credat qui vetit, non
ego? You will, Irislimen, gain an inundation of taxes and tax-
gatherers No more !"
The predictions of this man have proved so strangely and sadly
true, that one shudders, lest the apathy of Irishmen may yet cause
the realization of that parallel, which he has foretold between the
future fate of Dublin and the ruin of Babylon, as foreshadowed in
the sublime language of Isaiah : " and Babylon, the glory of
kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee excellency, shall be as when
God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, it shall never be inhabited,
neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation ; but
wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be
full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall
dance there, and the wild beasts of the island shall cry in their
desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.' 1 May God
avert such a catastrophe by the union of Irishmen.
FOJRM OF CONSTITUTION. 77
CHAPTER III.
FOHM OF CONSTITUTION.
" Resolved that a claim of any body of men, other than the King, Lords,
and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind this kingdom, is un-
constitutional, illegal, and a grievance."
Dungannon Resolution, \5th Feb. 1782.
" WHERE rs THE NATIONAL FLAG OF IRELAND ? If the flag of
England be, as it is, dearer to every braye Englishman than his life, is
the wish for a similar badge of honor to Ireland, to be scouted as a
chimera ? Can the same sentiment be great and glorious on one side
the channel, and wild and absurd on the other?"
Theobald Wolfe Tone.
I HAVE now arrived at tlie last and most difficult part of my
subject ; namely, the consideration of the form, of constitution,
which would he best for Ireland, in case of a Repeal of the existing
Union between her and Great Britain. It is in the details, how-
ever, that I conceive the difficulty here to lie. The principles upon
which a constitution should be framed, I hold to be quite simple,
and reducible to these two propositions :
First that it should give her complete control over her own
affairs.
Second that it should give perfect security for the continuance
of that control.
I know of no constitution that can fulfil these two objects, save
one which shall render her independent, in every respect, of every
other nation in the world. I believe anything short of this ought
not to satisfy, and I trust will not satisfy, the Irish people. There
is nothing contrary to the just rights of England in such a
constitution, as I now suggest. England neither has, nor ought
to have, any authority over this country, save what, through the
instrumentality of the imperial parliament, she enjoys under the
act of Union. From the year 1783, to the passing of that act,
the right of Ireland to be governed only by the King, Lords, and
Commons of Ireland, was solemnly recognized by the British
legislature.
It is quite true, that she was, and continues to be, bound to obey
the British '/noHrt/Y-A,- that the king of England de facto, is de jure
king of Ireland ; but this is a mere limitation of succession. The
T8 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
law defined who should be king of Ireland, but the obedience of
the Irish people was due to him, as king of Ireland, not as king
of England. In the latter capacity he was, by the renunciation
act of 1T83, left without authority or control of any sort, within the
kingdom of Ireland.
Had this principle, established in theory, been carried out in
practice subsequently to 1T83, there would have been no Union ;
Ireland would have flourished England would have gained by her
prosperity ; the two countries would have remained in amity with
each other, and the empire would be strong and harmonious, instead
of being, as it now is, discordant and weak.
If this principle be once more established, and practically enforced,
the two nations will yet grow into a compact and prosperous empire ;
if not, many years will not elapse without a total separation.
Politicians may theorize as they please, ministers may get legislation
to suit their fancy, but Ireland will not remain a province.
This principle, of course, requires that the sovereign of Ireland,
should be advised upon Irish affairs, by a minister responsible to
the Irish parliament only. In the constitution of 1782, no such
provision was made. The royal assent to Irish Bills was given
under the great seal of England, not of Ireland, thereby leaving no
efficient control to the Irish parliament. I say no efficient control,
because it had a sort of control in the power of refusing supplies;
but this was of little importance, when a declaration of war on the
part of the British crown, involved Ireland in such war to the fullest
extent, gave rights of attack and reprisal on her shipping to the
hostile country, virtually closed her ports against its commerce, and
rendering her liable to invasion, placed her in a position which made
it necessary for her to vote supplies in self-defence.
The right of declaring war or peace is, of course, vested solely in
the crown ; but, it is, in fact, exercised by the minister, without
whose advice the sovereign never acts. The minister is, however,
responsible to the parliament, and takes no step in which he is not
sure of its sanction ; and while this is the ca.se, the parliament must
be considered as the real possessor of the prerogative, and the
crown as the mere depository of it, for purposes of convenience
and expedition: as it may frequently be necessary to exercise it
with a promptness, which would be inconsistent with the delay,
attendant on obtaining a previous consent of the legislature. Now,
an Irish minister responsible to the parliament of Ireland only,
would not advise the sovereign to declare war on the part of Ireland,
except when sure of the approbation of the Irish parliament ; and,
on the other hand, would advise such a step, when he was certain
FORM OF CONSTITUTION. 79
of its approval, notwithstanding, the British minister might oppose
such a declaration, on the part of England.
But it will be said, that, practically, such a course could not be
carried out, for that if the English monarch declared war against any
foreign state, he would be held to bind Ireland, as well as England,
by that declaration.
Now, in the first place, the " great argument in political rea-
soning," that from experience is against this, for, as has been
repeatedly stated, the king of England has been at war, as such,
with foreign nations, and, yet, has been at peace with the same
nations, as Elector of Hanover. The king of England, and the
king of Ireland, though one individual, would, in fact, be two, as
distinct political persons as are the emperor of Russia, and the
president of the United States to-day.
Now, the law of nations has concern with political persons, and
political rights only, and takes no notice whatever of individuals in
their private capacity, so that it would be as contrary to that law,
to acthostilely against Ireland, (in the case I have put) because the
king of England had, in that character, declared war, as it would
be to act hostilely against any other neutral state. The hostile act,
if committed, would be not a warlike aggression, but a simple
piracy ; and the parties guilty of it, if seized, would be treated, not
as prisoners of war, but as pirates, and summarily hanged. Such
a fate in perspective, might cause some unwillingness on the part
of those concerned, to confound the relative acts of the two
countries.
To shew the reader, how very simple is the principle of the dis-
tinction above taken, between the British aii'l Irish monarch, it is
only necessary to give an exactly analogous case, which every one
will comprehend. A king, or whatever other officer of state, is the
chief governor of a country, is a mere trustee of its rights for that
country. He is circumstanced just as the trustee of any ordinary
property. The latter may act as trustee for fifty properties, as well
as for one: he may have legal rights against another party, in
respect of all these properties ; and yet, he may seek to enforce
them only in respect of one, or five, or ten, and in any proceedings
he may take, he does not involve, in the least degree, any one of the
properties, in the costs or consequences attending his suit, in respect
of any other.
The principle of the municipal and international law, is precisely
the same in this respect; and, if in the case of the latter, the
principle bo transgressed, there remains for the wrongrd country,
the very effective remedy against further transgression above
mentioned.
80 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
A consequence of the severance of the two kingdoms to the extent
described, would of course be that each should maintain her own
army and navy, distinct from the other. This would not, it is true,
be required in ordinary circumstances, nor at all in tune of peace,
but as it would become necessary in the contingency alluded to, of
one country declaring war against a people, with whom the other
desired to remain at peace, it would, perhaps, be more convenient
to make it a permanent regulation, than to provide only for its
contingent adoption. That it would be necessary, in the contingency
referred to, is plain, because neither country could remain at peace
with a foreign state, and yet permit its troops to be employed by the
other, in hostility to that state.
This system of each country having its own distinct army and
navy would, in fact, be attended with no practical inconvenience,
as will be easily shewn. Its actual operation will be nearly the
same, as if they had but one common force for both. If the latter
were the case, each country would, of course, contribute rateably to
the support of that force. Now, common justice would require,
that the expenditure of the force in each country, should be propor-
tioned to the contribution of each towards its maintenance. The
only way, however, in which this could be done, would be, by
stationing in each country that proportion of the force military or
naval, charged on that country's establishment, which would, in
effect, be the same as permitting each to have a distinct force of
its own.
The only difficulty to which this could give rise, would be with
reference to foreign stations. Let us consider this. In doing so,
we must take each branch of the service separately, as in this
particular they hold very different positions. The ocean is the
common territory of every state. Any power possessed of shipping
has, therefore, a general right) (with certain restrictions, as to
number, for the prevention of intimidation, and others created by
treaty, with particular states, &c.) to station that shipping as it
pleases on the ocean. Now, those of them, which it keeps at a
distance from its own shores, (I speak, of course, of time of peace)
it so stations, either for the general protection of its commerce, or
for the special protection of its colonies. That portion occupied
with the latter duty, comes under the same head with the land forces,
and will be treated of with them. The other portion could be a
cause of no embarrassment, in the relations between England and
Ireland. The latter country would, of course, find it her interest to
join in protecting their joint commerce, and would send abroad her
fair proportion of shipping for that purpose, always, of courso,
FORBjf OF CONSTITUTION. 81
taking care that those branches of commerce which were peculiarly
hers, should get equal protection with those which peculiarly belonged
to England.
The land forces, (and the second branch of the navy,) could not,
perhaps, be so easily arranged. Their duties abroad, are confined
almost entirely to colonial protection. The extent to which Ireland
should furnish troops or ships for this purpose must, of course, be
regulated by her interest in the colonies. Great Britain may, as
she did before, assert that the colonies are hers exclusively, and
refuse Ireland the right to trade with them. In that case, of course,
she could not expect Ireland to contribute to their protection. This
would certainly be the better arrangement for the latter country.
Sugar, coffee, and rum, she could get far cheaper from other
countries, and scarcely, if it all, inferior in quality. Baltic timber,
the best in the world, she could procure at infinitely less cost, than
that of Canada and New Brunswick the worst which it is possible
to find. In return, she could secure a market for her goods in the
countries from which she procured these commodities : thus gaining
a profitable trade, obtaining cheap 'necessaries of life for her inhabi-
tants, and paying none of the charges for maintaining the colonies
possessions which cost Great Britain an immense outlay, and
contribute nothing to her strength or security.
If any other arrangement respecting the colonies were thought
better, it could, no doubt, be conveniently negotiated between the
two countries, who, though their forces were quite distinct from
each other, could make any proper regulations respecting them, for
mutual benefit, during time of peace, or of a war in which they
jointly engaged ; the only thing which it would be essential to
guard against, being the employment of the troops of either by the
other, in a war to which the former desired not to be a party.
England would, indeed, by this system, lose her power of dragging
Ireland into wars without her consent ; but is their any Irishman
who can think this an evil ? For my part, I would look on any
constitution, not securing her from being coerced by England, in this,
and every other respect, as a mere mockery of independence. Any
difficulties too, which may result from the plan proposed, would be
advantages to humanity. In a just war, Ireland would readily join
England ; in an unjust war, she ought not.
I have looked to the consequences as to declarations of war, &c.,
which would result from a completely independent system of govern-
ment, as those which might give rise to most cavil. I now come to
consider it in cases of ordinary administration.
Without a minister responsible to the Irish parliament, it is clear,
M
82 FORM OF .CONSTITUTION.
that where the interests of the two countries, clashed in any respect,
an act protective of those of Ireland could scarcely, hy possibility,
be passed. The English minister would not, it may easily be
supposed, advise his Sovereign to assent to it, contrary to the wishes
of that body to which alone he was responsible ; and, without that
advice the Sovereign would, of course, not assent to it.
Now, this brings me to the consideration of the strange anomaly
which existed, as I have already said, in the mode of getting the
royal assent to bills, after the constitution of 1782 was obtained
by Ireland. During the whole existence of that constitution, the
practice which prevailed in this particular was in direct contra-
diction to the terms of the constitution itself. The constitution, as
confirmed by the repeal of the 6 George I., and the subsequent act
of renunciation, vested the right to make laws for Ireland in the
King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland ; while in practice they were
made by the Lords and Commons of Ireland, and the King of
England. The proceeding was this : the bills having passed the
two branches of the Irish legislature, were transmitted to England,
where they received the royal assent under the great seal of
England, which was in the custody of the English Lord Chancellor ;
now, the great seal of England could evidence nothing but the
assent of the king of England, and was no valid evidence of an
act of the king of Ireland, whose assent was that alone (if the
spirit of the constitution were adhered to), which should make the
law binding on the Irish nation. If this reasoning be sound, it
shews that every act of parliament passed, during the period
referred to, was a direct and flagrant violation of the constitution of
Ireland.
This system of getting the royal assent was, it is true, (as the
reader will remember) that expressly demanded by the Irish
patriots themselves. There can be no doubt, however, of its incon-
sistency theoretically and practically with the constitution they
fancied they had obtained ; a constitution recognizing only the
King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland as the legislature of Ireland.
The next result of the divided sovereignty would be with respect
to diplomatic relations. To have a perfectly distinct diplomatic
body for each kingdom would, doubtless, be a considerable expense ;
yet, I confess, I would desire it. It would give great additional dignity
to Ireland ; and phe would be much more secure in having the
management of her foreign interests confided to the care of Irishmen
interested in her honour, than if it were chiefly, as with a joint
staff it must be, left to natives of England.
There is, however, no reason why the same representative may
FORM OF CONSTITUTION. S3
not manage the affairs of each country, even when one was at war
with that at whose court he resided, as he might formally withdraw
as representative of the country at war, and continue to act for the
other. A better arrangement would, perhaps, be in the case of the
recall of the ambassador of either country, in consequence of a
declaration of war on its part, to despatch, at the time of his recall,
a native of the other country, to take charge of its diplomatic affairs,
upon his retirement. I own I would, myself, prefer having a
different representative for each, at all foreign courts.
As I would permit no control in Irish affairs to the British
minister, I necessarily contemplate the formation of an Irish
cabinet. No special provisions occur to me, which it would be
requisite to enforce with regard to the cabinet, except one. I
think it would be highly desirable, if not indeed necessary, that no
person except a prince of the blood, should hold the office of Lord
Lieutenant, or any place in the cabinet, or act as a member of the
Irish Privy Council, who was not a native of Ireland, or if not a
native of Ireland, who had not resided in Ireland, for at least five
years previously to his so acting, and was not at the time of his
appointment possessed of, or heir to, a property in Ireland of such
annual value, as may be thought fit in each case, say ^5,000 a
year for Lord Lieutenant, jl,000 a year for a member of the
cabinet, and ^500 a year for a Privy Councillor.
I do not consider it necessary or advisable, to suggest any alte-
ration in the general powers of the House of Lords or Commons,
from what they respectively possessed under the constitution of
1 T82. It would no doubt be desirable in obtaining a new consti-
tution for Ireland, to render all the branches of the legislature as
perfect as practicable, and to leave as little as possible which
might demand subsequent reform ; but on the other hand, it
would embarrass too much the great general question of Irish
independence, to introduce into an essay upon it, any matter
of detail which an individual might think useful, and upon which
vast differences of opinion may arise, among the warmest ad-
vocates of the general principle.
I contemplate therefore the re-establishment of the House of
Lords, with the same legislative and judicial authority, as it before
had.
I also contemplate the re-establishment of the House of Com-
mons, with the same powers as it before possessed.
The places returning members to the latter, should not, of course,
be the same as had that power before the Union. The whole
system of rotten boroughs, &c. should be overturned. i<ud a fair
84 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
popular representation secured. I myself can see no objection to
the plan proposed by the Repeal Association, for the restoration of
the Irish House of Commons, so far as regards the number of
representatives, and the places which should return them; the
franchises and mode of voting, it is not so easy to decide on. I
confess I do not believe the present state of popular education in
either England or Ireland, is such as to make universal suffrage
desirable for either country. The principle of the latter I fully
approve of; but I do think the time has not arrived, when it could
usefully be adopted in practice. Where there exists a pretty equal
distribution of property and education in a country, the franchise of
the people may be easily regulated, but where, as in Ireland, this
is not the case, it becomes difficult to arrange it. The antagonism
between wealth and poverty, becomes so great, that much care is
required to prevent it from leading to a collision, which would
altogether overturn the system of society. The way to do this, can
only be discovered, by ascertaining in what the strength of each
consists, and how it operates. Now, the strength of wealth, consists
in an influence which seems to me to operate gradually, but
steadily and continuously : that of poverty on the other hand, is an
absolute force, which (except under very peculiar circumstances
and extraordinary guidance) can effect its object only by sudden,
violent, and dangerous action. By diminishing the power of
wealth, (its influence) you lessen the antagonism of poverty, and
by securing to the latter a degree of power which it can exercise
quietly and steadily, you check its tendency to violent and sudden
action. This must, however, be gradually conferred. If every
man who can use a musket or stick, has a vote conferred on him,
he will in all likelihood use the vote, in preference to the stick or
musket ; but this, though it may lessen the violence of the result,
will not lessen its suddenness. The suddenness of a great political
or social change is, however, generally more mischievous than its
violence, so that by the substitution of one power for another, little
is gained. The result to which this reasoning leads me is, that
situated as we are at present, with great inequalities in our social
system, the proper policy to adopt would be to diminish the political
power of the wealthy class, to increase as far as possible that of the
middle class, who with some prejudice in favor of the wealthy, have
strong sympathy with the poorer class, and to go on gradually
conferring it on the latter, as education and property grow more
equalized. I have no doubt that before long, the improved condition
of the people under their own laws, would make universal suffrage
a safe and beneficial measure.
FORM OF CONSTITUTION. 85
Vote by ballot may be necessary, but I would, if possible, avoid
it. If a certainty of tenure existed in the country, it may be done
without. By certainty of tenure, I do not mean fixity, what I mean
is, that there should be no such thing as a tenancy at will ; a mode
of holding which leaves every thing at the mercy of the landlord.
Beyond these few general observations, it is not my intention to
make any suggestions, as to the extent of the right of voting, or the
method of exercising it. I look upon it, though important, to be a
trifle compared to the general question of nationality, and would
readily sacrifice one half of the franchise of the elector, sooner
than abate by one jot, the independence of the parliament.
The next thing which it seems to me, the constitution should
provide, would be some plan to secure the perfect freedom and
equality of persons of all religious denominations in Ireland.
I would in the first place guarantee this freedom and equality,
by the terms of the act establishing the Irish constitution, and make
it a fixed and unalterable part of that constitution.
I would next make it necessary for every member of each branch
of the legislature, on taking his seat, to take an oath to maintain
that freedom and equality inviolate, and never to make use of any
power or privilege possessed by him, to interfere with it directly or
indirectly. I would have a like oath administered to all function-
aries, holding any offices of trust in the government. I need of
course say nothing of the protection to the Protestants of Ireland
from the fact of the sovereign, and the great majority of the
House of Peers being of their persuasion ; as it has so often been
put forward already, that it cannot be necessary to advert to it again.
In speaking of religious freedom and equality, as forming the
basis of the new constitution, I need not say that I contemplate
the existence of no state religion, or of no exclusive church esta-
blishment. All creeds must, as to state patronage and state
support, be on an equality, if indeed state support to any should be
considered advisable.
I would myself prefer some system of state support for the clergy
of all persuasions, if I could see any means by which it could be
given, without permitting any state interference with the freedom
of those receiving it, or (what I look upon as more difficult) without
making it a cause of endless jealousies amongst the different classes
of religionists. Tims, suppose such a maintenance were regulated
by allowing a clergyman with a certain stipend to every congrega-
tion of a certain number, (irrespective of creed) in the country,
every increase or diminution of these congregations, must cause an
alteration in the state provision, and as the proselytizing spirit
86 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
would be greatly increased by motives of gain, contentions and
recriminations would arise, which government could not easily
keep clear of. This proselytizing spirit may indeed exist to nearly
as great an extent, under the voluntary system, but it would not
involve the government in the contentions it may excite, a matter
which I look on as most desirable.
The voluntary system if adopted, would of course make it neces-
sary to take from the present established church, all revenues
derived from tithes, as falling on persons of other religions, and
moreover as. being a compulsory tax upon Protestants themselves.
I see no reason however, for taking away the lands belonging to the
establishment in such case, as it can make no difference to the
tenant whether his landlord is a clergyman or a layman, and it is
too late to enquire into the uses for which those lands were originally
granted. The same principle of course applies to lands held by dis-
senting congregations also, and I do not think that the state, if it
made a provision for the different clergy of the country, should in
apportioning it take into consideration such lands.
The equalizing of state patronage to the different religions,
would likewise make it necessary to take from the Protestant
bishops the right to sit in the House of Lords. Either this should
be done, or a like privilege granted to the dignitaries of the Roman
Catholic church, and certain representatives of the dissenting clergy ;
I however, consider the solemn and important nature of religious
ministration to be such that no other care should distract the atten-
tion of those engaged in it. As men, they must of necessity be
liable to the promptings of vanity and ambition, when placed in
situations to call them forth, and such situations should not there-
fore be opened to them. The principle on which I would exclude
clergymen from the House of Lords, applies of course as strongly to
the House of Commons, and I would allow no clergyman of any
persuasion to sit in it.
No other matter occurs to me, which I think necessary to be
made the subject of any specical proviso in the constitution; I
shall therefore now proceed to state the objections which I conceive
to exist against any plan which lias hitherto been suggested for an
alteration of the present relations between Great Britain and
Ireland.
These plans all come under one or other of the following heads :
1. Simple Repeal and a return to the constitution of 1782,
(with however the very material alteration to be effected by
adopting the Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform acts).
2. A dependent Irish legislature for local purposes, leaving the
FORM OF CONSTITUTION. 87
control of the general affairs of tlie empire to an imperial parlia-
ment constituted as at present.
3. A full, fair, and equal federal union between the countries,
with local parliaments for each, and a general federal parliament
for imperial concerns.
A fourth plan has also been put forward, that of rotatory parlia-
ments to sit every third year in Ireland. This I shall devote no
space to, as I can see no possible benefit which could result from it,
save a trifling expenditure of money in Dublin, wholy unworthy
of being made the subject of agitation, by an entire people.
The restoration of the constitution of 1782, (with the improvements
already mentioned,) would doubtless be a great blessing, but it
would still leave Ireland to be bound by the British minister in the
important matters of war and peace ; the regulation of the army
and navy ; diplomatic relations ; &c. and (if the former practice in
obtaining the royal assent were revived,) give him a veto on all acts,
which had passed the two branches of the Irish legislature. It
would moreover fail as a final arrangement, and expose the people
before long to the evils of renewed agitation. They would be
brought by it too near the point of complete freedom, to be hindered
from going the entire way.
The dependent Irish legislature, emanating from the present
imperial parliament, with a control over local affairs, all external
legislation to remain in the imperial legislature, is open to one fatal
objection : there would be no security for its permanence. It must
be the creature of the body constituting it, and liable to be destroyed
by it also, whenever thought desirable and safe. Admitting that
any security could be offered for its continuance, it would be open
in a greater degree, to all the objections that lie against the last
plan, viz. that of a fair, full, and equal federal union with local
parliaments for local affairs.
In making my objections to this last system, I will, to avoid all
cavil, assume such a scheme of federalism as the most sanguine
federalist in Ireland I am sure could have no hope of seeing
realized, and I think I shall succeed in shewing that in its best
supposable form it would not give Ireland anything approaching
to the benefits of an independent domestic parliament.
I will suppose the Irish local parliament to have entire and un-
qualified control over every thing within the shores of Ireland,
except in such matters as I shall immediately mention.
I will suppose population alone to be taken as the basis of re-
presentation in the imperial House of Commons, and each country
to return members to it, in proportion to its inhabitants.
I will suppose the three kingdoms, England, Ireland, and Scot-
88 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
land, to be represented in the imperial House of Lords in their
capacity of sovereign states, and in consequence to have each an
equal number of members in that house.
I will suppose the functions of the imperial parliament to be
limited to
1. Voting the supplies for the army and navy.
2. Making all laws relative to navigation.
3. Deciding on the system of tariffs for the empire.
4. Making all laws to affect the colonies and their trade.
5. Voting the supplies to meet all Imperial expenditure, beyond
the limits of England, Ireland, and Scotland.
The royal prerogative would, of course, as now, prevail throughout
all three countries ; and its exercise would, as to all imperial
matters, be as extensive. To it, therefore, would belong
1. The right of making war or peace.
2. The stationing of the army and navy.
3. The appointment of judges, officers of state, foreign ambas-
sadors, colonial functionaries, in fact, nineteen-twentieths of the
whole patronage of the empire.
Let us now see what must be the result of this :
With a House of Commons consisting of three hundred members,
returned on the basis of population, the number for each country
would be roughly ; England, 159 ; Ireland, 109 ; Scotland, 32.
England could, therefore, in this house, constructed on the basis
most favorable to Ireland, carry any proposition to her advantage,
against the united representatives of both Ireland and Scotland .
If now the reader look back to the imperial questions, which may
be thus invariably decided in England's favor, he will find that they
embrace almost every subject, navigation laws, import and export
duties, &c., &c., which, in past times, have been made the subjects
of injurious legislation to Ireland; and yet, there is not one of
them which could be taken from, the imperial parliament.
But this is not the worst view of the matter. The position of
Scotland, the nature of her manufactures and trade, and many other
circumstances, make her interests nearly identical with those of
England, while those of Ireland are of quite another kind. To give
one example of this, I will take the question of free trade between
the three kingdoms. So long as this lasts, it is impossible for Ireland
to become a manufacturing country to any extent. I am not so
absurd as to suppose, that permanent protective duties are a benefit
to any country ; on the contrary, I believe them to be highly mis-
chievous ; but no manufacturing system can be nursed in any state
so near a great manufacturing country, like Great Britain, as that
the goods of the latter come into its markets, at the lowest possible
FORM OF CONSTITUTION. 89
freights, &c., without the temporary adoption of a protective system.
Both England and Scotland have, however, a direct interest in
preventing the growth of Irish manufactures, and, of course, would
unite in opposing any measure which would tend to foster them.
On some of the most important questions, therefore, which could
arise regarding her interests, Ireland would, with this very favourably-
constituted House of Commons, be in a minority of about one to
two. The above, too, is only one of many questions which might
be referred to, in which the interests of England and Scotland would
cause them to coalesce against Ireland.
But it will be argued, the constitution of the House of Lords, in
which each of the three kingdoms has an equal number of members,
will guard against this I deny it altogether.
In the first place, where English and Scotch interests are both
opposed to those of Ireland, as in the case just put, Ireland will,
with complete union amongst her representatives, have a majority
of two to one against her in the upper, as well as in the lower house.
When Scotland, as a nation, is indifferent, and her representatives
in either house, consequently, at liberty to vote in accordance with
their personal inclinations, (the question being between England
and Ireland only) England, whose majority in the Commons is
secure, has only to influence some half dozen of the Scotch peers,
by any mode of persuasion she may find most convenient, to secure
an easy victory. I shall proceed to shew, that she mill have all the
powers of persuasion on her side.
The power of the crown is as we have already seen, the power
of the minister who advises the crown. That minister is respon-
sible to parliament, and can only retain office by retaining its
confidence. Let us see how these principles would operate in
imperial matters. The minister who was to advise the crown on
these, would say, "by acting on all questions of imperial policy,
in accordance with the views of England, I will secure a decisive
majority on every point in the House of Commons, backed, more-
over, by the numerical majority of the whole empire: my policy, of
course, is to keep this certain power in my hands, and to guard
against any difficulty in the upper house, I have only to ensure
the friendly votes of eight or ten Irish, and as many Scotch lords,
to strengthen the English interests there.' 11 *
* When I say the minister could, with the aid of eight or ten Irish, and as many
Scotch peers, secure a majority for England in the lords, I assume the house to
consist of a small number, say, from 30 to 35 for each country. If it were to consist
of a large number, say 300 members ; it would create a proportionate number of
absentees, and the difficulty of getting a majority for England be only ittcreused.
N
90 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
The Imperial minister thus, it is easy to perceive, will, in fact, be
an English minister. He will have the disposal of all that vast
patronage belonging to the crown, already set forth ; or, supposing,
for argument sake, that each of the local parliaments should get a
veto upon judicial and other local appointments, within their own
territory ; he will, at least, and of necessity, have the whole patro-
nage of the army and navy, the colonies and the diplomatic service.
Could he fail to exhibit eloquent reasons to a few generous and
confiding peers, raised by education and travel above local preju-
dice, and feeling a chivalrous desire to maintain the power and
dignity of the empire, regardless of any trifling loss or inconvenience
to one of the subordinate portions of it ; could he fail to exhibit
eloquent reasons to them, for flinging aside distinctions of country
for the moment, and joining with the majority in the other section
of the legislature, and the great majority of the people out of doors,
to preserve the greatness and prosperity of England ?
But this is, perhaps, not the whole danger of English ascendancy.
However the members to constitute the imperial house of peers
may be selected, I presume the nomination to the peerage of each
of the three countries, will be by the advice of the imperial minister.
He would seem to be the natural person to be consulted ; and if
this were the case, if the whole body from which were to be elected
the imperial representative peerage, should, in the first instance,
be of his choice, how easy would it be for him to ensure the latter,
to be such as he could manage? Let it be remembered, that he
could do this with great apparent fairness in their nomination : for
he would only have to secure a small majority in the elective body,
(i. e. the general peerage of each country) in favor of his views, to
obtain in -the elected body (i. e. the representative imperial peers,)
an unanimous approval of them.
The prerogative of the crown, as to war and peace, would, we
may easily suppose, be exercised by the minister, for the advantage
of that country which sustained him in office, viz. England, with-
out a reference to the interests of the other kingdoms.
The imperial offices under the crown the most lucrative and
important, by far would naturally, for the same reason, be filled
altogether by Englishmen, with the exception of the few which
might be necessary to shew the complaisant portion of the Scotch
and Irish peers that their services were duly appreciated.
So much for the advantages to Ireland from a Federal Union,
whether as to imperial legislation, or imperial appointments. Now,
as to its effects on her local legislation.
It is monstrous to suppose that this must not be vitally affected by
FOBM OF CONSTITUTION. 91
the other. If the powers of the imperial congress, as to navigation
acts, laws relating to the colonies, import and export duties, &c.
should be used adversely to Ireland if the right of making was
and peace, the stationing of the army and navy, &c., should be
similarly exercised, her local legislature could do next to nothing
for her benefit.
If one man were to propose a partnership with another, and
were to say, " Sir, you shall be permitted to take the entire care of
your own health and comfort, but you are not to purchase any food
or clothing to provide yourself with any sort of medicine to
strike any body that insults, or injures you, or do any external
act of any description, without the consent of a third person, who is
a particular friend of mine, and greatly under my influence, but
does not care one jot for you," what would be thought of the
advantages derivable from the contract by the latter? Yet, this
seems to me the precise position in which Ireland would be placed,
with full powers of internal legislation in her own hands, and full
powers of external legislation in those of England, as I think, I
have shewn they would be under the Federal system.
In order not to embarrass the argument unnecessarily, and
to give the Federalists every advantage in it, I have hitherto avoided
considering the effect of Federalism, as regards two very important
subjects, viz. the church question, and the absentee system.
If the church question were handed over to imperial legislation,
the Roman Catholics of Ireland would, after what has been shewn,
feel no security of fairness being dealt to them ; if it were left wholly
to the local parliament, the fears of a Catholic ascendancy on the
minds of the Protestants, would not be dissipated ; a great dif-
ficulty, therefore, would, it seems to me, exist respecting it.
The absentee system, however, presents a far more serious aspect.
I see no chance of its being got rid of, under the Federal plan.
One argument which I used in speaking of it in the present state
of the connexion, I think would apply almost as strongly to the
case of a Federal Union, viz. that free access of all the subjects of a
state to the seat of legislature, should, at all times, be permitted
and secured. Now, as the place of meeting of the imperial congress,
would, under the Federal system, be the seat of legislature for all
three kingdoms, as regarded many of their most important interests,
this principle, if just, would prevent any plan, whether an absentee
tax or otherwise, which would interfere with access to it. Again ;
the imperial minister, resident in London, being the person through
whom all the great offices under the crown should be disposed of,
to prevent the access of Irishmen to him, would be, in fact, to shut
92 FORM OF CONSTITUTION.
them out from all hope of lucrative and honorable employment in
such offices, and, therefore, be manifestly unfair and wrongful.
The Irish peer, moreover, would have a greater inducement to
reside in London, in the case contemplated, than now, for he would
then occupy a social and political rank there, equally high with
that of the British peer.
An absentee tax would, besides, be disrelished by the imperial
minister (as injurious to English interests,) and we are not to fancy,
that he would be without influence in the Irish local legislature,
with the vast amount of patronage before stated at his disposal ;
neither can it be thought, that the members of that legislature,
would impose such a tax, and thereby exclude their own friends
and relations from the vicinity of ministerial, and royal favor.
Any one considering all these matters, will, I think, discover
that there would be little chance of an improvement in the state of
I reland, as respects absenteeism, under a Federal Union.
A Federal Union, then, I am decidedly opposed to. I have
sketched what I sincerely believe to be a form of one, the most
favourable to Ireland that could be devised, and am satisfied that
it would secure to her neither happiness, dignity, nor freedom. For
many of the Federal party in Ireland, I have unfeigned respect.
There are, it is true, some among them who, knowing full well
that the Federal system will not, and cannot give independence and
power to Ireland, advocate it, notwithstanding, through a belief,
that she is unable by any means to secure these blessings, and only
seek by means of it to secure her a dignified-looking dependence.
I cannot help feeling some degree of contempt for such men. But
there are others who espouse Federal principles, with more manly
and honorable motives, who believe, that while they would give to
their country equal control over her internal concerns, with that
which she would have under an independent parliament, they
would, moreover, secure to her a fair share of the power and glory
of the British empire. If Federalism could really achieve the latter,
I believe the gain would be but slight. In what does the glory of
the British empire consist ? In the possession of a territory, great,
indeed, but gained chiefly by the ruthless and unprincipled spolia-
tion of unoffending strangers, or still oftener, of confiding friends.
What, again, is her power? Little more than the ability to hold
that great territory, under her control, at an exorbitant cost,
wholly disproportioned to its value, in either a commercial or a
military point of view. In a work very recently published, it is
estimated, that between the direct outlay for protection, and the
heavy loss incurred by the obligation to buy their dear produce,
FORM OF CONSTITUTION. 93
the colonies cost the mother-country, in ordinary times, between
five and six millions annually ; and to counterbalance this, the only
advantage suggested, as derived by the latter, is the possession of a
territory, to which her surplus population can emigrate. I can see
no great temptations in such glory, and such power, to sacrifice for
them the true prosperity and honor of my native land ; and I feel
certain, that those of the Federalist party, who have been withheld
from looking for a distinct nationality for Ireland, by the hope of
securing for her a share in them, will soon be amongst its warmest
advocates.
The other section of them may be very honest, but they are,
I fear, for the most part, among the weak men, who cannot guide,
and who can hardly aid in a great movement. Indeed, I am dis-
posed to think, that this latter section of Federalists is not very
numerous. There can be no greater mistake than to fancy, that it
includes any large section of the Protestants of Ireland. I would be
the last person to [charge that body with a slavish or cowardly
spirit ; every page of their history would give that charge the lie.
If, then, I find them behind others of their countrymen in advocat-
ing the freedom of Ireland, I can only attribute the fact to an
honest belief on their part, that they would not be allowed to share
that freedom. However mistaken this belief may be, none can
blame those who act according to its dictates. One thing, at least,
is certain, it neither can, nor ought to be sneered at nor bullied. It
must be met by reasoning, and shewn to be unfounded. When
it is, I am certain the Protestants of Ireland will be the foremost
in the struggle, for the full and unqualified independence of their
country.
91 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
CHAPTER IV.
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
" Error is, in its nature, flippant and compendious ; it hops with airy and
fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and perches upon assertion,
which it calls conclusion." Curran.
THE necessity for a Repeal of the Union with Great Britain, and
the advantages likely to accrue from it to Ireland, have, I think^
been sufficiently shewn in what has heen already said. Having
drawn from the history of Ireland herself, the arguments which go
to prove that necessity and those advantages, I might at once
reply to any one who sought to controvert them, by facts taken
from the history of other countries, by saying, " such facts may be
very true, but they prove little. If you can shew an exact simi-
larity of produce, of geographical position, of national character
in fact, a complete resemblance in every particular between the
country, whose example you cite, and Ireland, then, indeed, your
argument has weight : if not, all it goes to shew is, that the circum-
stances of the countries being different, like relations to other
countries, have produced different effects." This would be fair and
honest reasoning ; but I will not now have recourse to it. Instead
of doing so, I shall specially consider the cases of the two coun-
tries, whose condition is commonly relied upon by anti-repealers,
viz. Belgium, which has been triumphantly cited, as shewing the
evils of Repeal, (or rather of separation,) and Scotland, which has
been with equal self-approval, put forward as a proof of the vast
advantages of an Union.
As regards the former country, Mr. Emerson Teuneut has published
a work, for the express purpose of warning Irishmen against seeking
a Repeal of the Union with England, by shewing them the mis-
chiefs which Belgium brought on herself by a separation from
Holland. This being the case, it must be admitted, that I can
adopt no less partizan mode of treating the question, so far as that
country is concerned, than simply reviewing Mr. Tennent' l s state-
ment ; and, without additional testimony, shewing on (he facts he
has given, how far his work is from proving anything against
Repeal, either as it respects Ireland or Belgium herself. This,
then, and nothing beyond it I shall do. To begin, I will admit, for
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 95
the purpose of the argument, that subsequently to the revolution of
Belgium, in 1830, her manufactures exhibited " a great and con-
tinuous decline ;" and with this admission, I proceed to the ex-
amination of Mr. Tennent's work.
" The king of Holland's great ambition, 1 " says Mr. Tennent,
"was, to render his people a nation of shop-keepers, and develop as
thoroughly the manufacturing resources of Belgium, as industry
and care had matured the agricultural and commercial riches of
Holland. There was no labour, no expense, no care, no experiment,
left unemployed to give life and impulse to these grand objects."*
" Under these auspices Belgium attained a height of prosperity,
which no human being presumes to question : mines were opened,
coal, iron, and all other mineral wealth extensively explored, manu-
factures and machinery, were multiplied to an extent beyond belief,
and the trade of Antwerp outstripped even that of Holland in
exporting the produce of Belgium," &c.f " While Belgium thus
had advanced in manufacture, her attention to which had originally
been forced by the closing up of the Scheldt at the treaty of Munster,
which terminated the thirty years' war in 1648,^ Holland, on the
contrary, with her hands fully employed by her shipping and her
trade, and possessing no mines of coal or iron, had never the in-
ducement or the temptation to become a manufacturing country ;
so that nothing could apparently be more happy than the union
of one producing nation, all alive with machinery, with its neigh-
bour proportionably rich in shipping, and to open to both an ex-
tensive colonial territory, whose population the merchantmen of the
one, could supply with the produce of the other ." " In the midst,
however, of this apparently flourishing state of things, Belgium, all
whose notions of commercial policy were formed upon the false and
narrow basis of France," according to Mr. Tennent, " was per-
petually calling for protective duties bounties and prohibitions,
without which," let this be attentively marked " her artizans
n-ere sinking under the effects of foreign competition^
Now, fully agreeing with Mr. Tenuent, in his views of the narrow
policy of protective duties, bounties, &c., what does this last cited
paragraph serve to prove, but that this flourishing state of Belgian
manufactures was unnatural and temporary, sustained only by a
system, productive of direct loss to the Dutch, and to all those classes
of the Belgians themselves, not engaged in manufactures, or in
those employments directly dependent on them ? Sooner or later
' Vol. ]. p. 235. t Ibid 236-7. } Ibid 227.
5 Ibid 32*. !| Ibid 222.
96 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
this condition of things must have had an end ; and it is most
unfair and disingenuous to charge the decay of manufactures in
Belgium to the revolution. Mr. Tennent admits, that " to the Dutch
every restriction upon free trade, was an absolute interception of
gain,"* and cites " a well-informed author" to shew, that " even
supposing the desire for separation had not arisen in Bel-
gium, the Dutch, ere long, would have been forced to call for this
divorce, in order to save Amsterdam and Rotterdam from ruin."
Mr. Tennent, indeed, himself ventures to express an opinion, that
" it is more likely that the march of manufacturing prosperity in
Belgium, and the increased demand and consumption of her pro-
duce, would have ultimately compensated her commercial colleague
for all intermediate loss ;" but what this " manufacturing pros-
perity" means, it would be hard to say. The manufacturers might,
indeed, have been prosperous under this system of " bounties, and
protective duties," because the rest of the community paid them
far beyond their value, for such of their commodities, as they
consumed at home ; and, moreover, gave them large sums of money
to enable them to sell their goods at a loss to foreigners. But
Mr. Tennent cannot confound the prosperity, or rather, properly
speaking, wealth of the manufacturer, arising from such a state
of things with " manufacturing prosperity." It is quite clear,
that of the latter, there was, in fact, none, but a very delusive
semblance of it only.
The great ship-owners of Holland, might, it is true, have gained
such profits by the carrying trade, that the manufactures of Bel-
gium created for them, as to permit the continuance of the bounty
and protective policy, which upheld those manufactures ; but the
result would very soon be ruin to both countries, from the drain it
would require to feed it.
But Mr. Tennent, with much more plausibility, urges the loss
which Belgium must, of necessity, have suffered by the separation
from Holland, in having the markets of that country and her
colonies thenceforward closed to her manufactures. How was it,
that she kept possession of these markets, during the union of the
kingdoms ? By the protective duties in favour of her manufactures,
which excluded the competition of other countries. Under a free
trade system, she could not have held it. But this system of pro-
tective duties, while it may have enriched a class in each country
(the manufacturers in Belgium, and the ship-owners in Holland,)
was a positive tax on the rest of the community in both, by in-
* Vol. 1. p. 229.
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 9T
creasing the cost of all manufactured goods, and must have been
abandoned. The Dutch, we have seen, remonstrated strongly
against it, and ultimately the Belgians themselves would have
murmured at it too, in the same manner that the protecting duties
on corn are attacked in England. The revolution, it is true,
broke suddenly in on the old state of things, and, of necessity, must
have given a great and violent shock to the manufacturing interests ;
but the effect it produced must, before long, have, in any case,
been the same namely, the narrowing of manufacturing operations
in Belgium. If the revolution had not lost to her the Dutch markets,
the removal of her protection must have done so soon.
Having said so much on this branch of the subject, I proceed
with my examination of Mr. Tennent's " facts." I find the following,
at page 42 of his second volume speaking of Antwerp,
" For some years after the Repeal of the Union, her quays and
harbours were literally motionless and empty ;" and again, " in
the years immediately succeeding the revolution, the shipping trade
of Antwerp seemed to undergo an absolute paralysis/' Now, how
does Mr. Tennent bear out these assertions by the facts which he
himself cites. In page 43, he gives us the following table of the
number and tonnage of vessels, which entered the port in question,
for a period of ten years, viz. : from 1828 to 1839.
Year.
Vessels.
Tonnaare.
1829
955
136,456
1830
1,028
160,658
1831
398
53,303
1832
1,254
150,294
1833
1,104
129,60T
1834
1,0(54
141,465
1835
1,089
153,243
1836
1,245
1T6,OT9
183T
1,426
225,030
1838
1,538
25T,048*
" A superficial glance at these returns/ 1 observes Mr. Tennent,
" would lead to a belief, that trade had more than recovered itself,"
and, seeing that they shew the tonnage of vessels entering Antwerp,
to have been very nearly double in 1838, what it had been in 1829,
the year before the disastrous revolution, such would certainly be
the effect produced by them on any ordinary observer. " But,"'
* The table only gives nine years ; hut in the text he states the number of ships
and tonnage for 1831.
98
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
continues Mr. Tennent, " on coming to scrutinize this table, by the
test of the relative quantities in cargo and in ballast, the air of
prosperity grows fainter, and the real nature of the trade more
distinct. It appears by the following table, that of 5,694 which
arrived in all the ports of Belgium, in the years 1835, 1836, and
183T, the entire were freighted with cargoes, except 141 ; whilst of
5,TOT which cleared outwards in the same time, no less than 1,833
left Belgium in ballast, in other words, arrived with the produce of
other countries, but departed without carrying away any Belgian
manufactures in return."
He then inserts this table : " Statement of number and tonnage
of vessels, distinguishing Belgian from foreign ; and vessels with
cargoes, and those in Ballast, which arrived at, and departed from,
ports in Belgium, during each year, from 1835 to 183T :
BELGIUM.
Inwards.
WITH CARGOES.
IN BALLAST.
TOTAL.
No.
Tons.
No.
Tons.
No.
Tons.
1835
1836
1837
472
493
550
47,409
67,808
71,282
6
5
24
408
295
2,004
478
498
564
47,817
68,102
73,346
Outwards.
1835
1836
1837
402
422
438
41,522
56,665
57,355
72
99
116
6,529
13,436
16,303
474
521
554
48,551
70,101
73,650
FOREIGN.
Inwards.
WITH CARGOES.
WITH BALLAST.
TOTAL.
No.
Tons.
No.
Tons.
No.
Tons.
1835
1836
1837
1,316
1,289
1 ,443
160,104
160,378
214,739
48
40
18
4,877
4,073
586
1,364
1 ,329
1,461
164,981
164,451
215,585
Outwards.
1835
1836
1837
916
869
827
105,545
105,224
131,888
457
476
613
61,711
59,863
84,497
1,379
1,395
1,440
167,256
165,087
215,585
Now, in the first place, Mr. Temient's statement, that " for some
years after the Repeal of the Union, the shipping trade of Antwerp
seemed to undergo an absolute paralysis " and, that " her quavs
and harbours were literally motionless and empty,' 1 '' seems strangely
inconsistent with the table given by him, in the very next page to
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 99
that in which they are made ; and which, as we have seen, exhibits
in every year save 1831 , (when the change that had just taken
place, necessarily gave a shock to commerce, and in 1833, when
there was a falling short of about 6,000 tons,) an increase on the
tonnage and number of vessels entering that very port. With such
facts before us, whatever we may think as to the nature of the
trade possessed by it, we can hardly conceive the quays of Antwerp,
to have been literally " motionless and empty.''''
Again, the statement of Mr. Tennent, sustained by the second
table above cited, is not very pregnant with proof of " the real
nature of the trade" of Belgium, during the years to which it refers.
It is not the tonnage, but the value and description of a country's
exports and imports which we require to know, in order to judge
of its trading prosperity. A manufacturing nation, like Belgium,
may not export to one-half the quantity in tonnage that she imports,
and yet her exports may amount to a much greater value than her
imports. Thus, suppose her to receive a cargo of 500 tons of raw
cotton, and to work it up to the last state of manufacture ; would
Mr. Tennent contend that, because she did not re-export the entire
in its manufactured form, she must, therefore, be a loser by the
trade ? Surely, if he would not, as he never would dream of doing,
he must admit, that no conclusion can be drawn from the fact
exhibited by his table, that of the vessels arriving with freights, a
large proportion sailed in ballast. To shew the utter fallacy that
would follow, from, arguing, that if the exports of a country fall
short in tonnage of her imports, her trade must be a losing one, I
will put a case, that the most unreflecting reader must comprehend.
Let us suppose, a cargo of iron ore to be imported, for the purpose
of manufacture. Now, a ton of this ore, the value of which, as
imported, would be about five shillings, converted into bar iron,
would be worth one pound, and further manufactured into the
following articles, becomes, when formed into
Horse-shoes Worth 2 10
Knives, (table) 36
Needles Tl
Penknife blades 657 00
Polished buttons and buckles. . 897 00
Balance springs for watches . . 50,000 0*
From this, it appears, that a single pound weight of the last
mentioned article exported, would be an equivalent in vahie for
* Vide Kane's Iiul. lies, of Ireland, 1st ed. p. 112,
100 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
ninety tons of the raw ore, and, yet, Mr. Tennent's reasoning
would go to prove, that a ton of the one commodity imported, should
be balanced by an export of a ton of the other. It is, therefore,
quite clear, that the table quoted by Mr. Tennent proves nothing,
respecting the real nature of Belgian trade, during the years to
which it refers ; and, that the only results deducible from it, may
be quite consistent with a most prosperous and flourishing state of
commerce.
But, even if the table in question, had afforded proof, that the
trade of Belgium, since 1830, has been a profitless one to her, it
gives us no data whatever from which we can learn the relative
prosperity of that period, as compared with any period prior to the
revolution. Mr. Tennent is altogether silent, as to the proportion
of vessels which left the Belgian ports in ballast, at any time before
1830 a silence, not a little remarkable. The only means he has given
us of comparing the state of commerce before and since the above
year, are in the table of the number and tonnage of ships which
entered the Scheldt ; and, so far as this is of any value, it goes to
prove an immense progression during the latter period. Indeed,
in most instances, Mr. Teunent, though continually writing in such
a manner, as to suggest a comparison between provincial and
independent Belgium, unfavorable in all respects to the latter,
is suspiciously fond of concealing the facts necessary to enable
the reader to make the comparison himself. Thus, he tells us*
that in " 1838, all the ports of Belgium possessed but one
hundred and eighty-four sail of merchant vessels ; whilst, in
the same year, Holland had no less than 1400 sail,"' and this
statement he so dove-tails into his text, as to convey to the reader
the idea, that the Repeal was the cause of the disproportion. Now,
here again, he says nothing of the relative quantities of shipping
possessed by the two countries, before the Repeal of the Union,
between them: yet, why not do it, if he could prove, by doing so,
the case he desired to establish? It is pretty clear that he could
not. We have seen, that the possession of shipping, was absolutely
interdicted to Belgium, by the closing of the Scheldt, from the year
1648 to 1T94 ; that, during that long interval, nearly 150 years,
< not a single native sail 1 was admitted to the port of Antwerp ; that
Holland monopolized the entire shipping-trade of Belgium for the
whole period ; and that from 1815 to 1830, the two countries had
been united under the same crown, an Union, the very happiness
of which Mr. Tennent himself says, was to have arisen from the
* Vol. 2, ].. 11,
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 101
" fact, that while the one (Belgium) was all alive with machinery,
the other was proportionally rich in shipping ," and, that " the
colonies of the united kingdom could be supplied by the merchant-
men of the one, with the produce of the other.''* From all this, we
may easily conclude, that the disproportion between the shipping
of the two countries in 1838, had little connexion with the Repeal
of the Union.
In like manner ,t Mr. Tennent tells us, " Antwerp had once
a most extensile manufacture of silk ; in 1797 there were
twelve thousand workmen employed in that branch alone. The
number is now reduced to two hundred." We are of course left to
conjecture that the disastrous separation was the cause of this
decline, though uninformed of when it began. In the same page
we are told that " a most important branch of maritime trade,
that of the transit of goods for consumption in the interior of
Europe, has been almost entirely drawn from Antwerp by the
Dutch, but the government hope to recover it, by means of the
railroad from the sea to the Rhine." This hope, however, if we
believe Mr. Tennent, must prove illusory ; first, " because the
carriage of goods by railway in England, where it has been most
extensively tried, has not as yet answered the expectations of its
projectors ;" and secondly, because the Dutch, having " by their
recent treaty with Prussia, obtained the free navigation of the
Rhine, on the same footing as those vessels which bear the Prussian
flag, will be disposed to make sacrifices in their freights, in order to
underbid their rivals by land ; the loss in which will be a very
trifle compared with that which must ensue, if the Belgians are
disposed to play out the same " desperate game with cold iron."
Now, the unprofitableness of railway carriage for goods in
England, can hardly be thought very conclusive proof of a like
unprofitableness in Belgium, inasmuch, as when Mr. Tennent
wrote, the average cost of those railways already completed in the
latter country, scarcely exceeded ^8,500 a mile, including car-
riages, and buildings,:}: while in England the average of forty-
five lines, for which bills were passed in 1836, and 1837, was
upwards of Jfl7,500 a mile on the estimate, " which" says Mr.
Teimant, " may have fallen," (us in fact it in almost every instance
did fall) "much below the actual outlay subsequently ;" so that
the carriage of goods by rail in Belgium, would be greatly under
the cost of transporting them in the same manner in England.
The second cause of failure anticipated by Mr. Tennent in the
passage above quoted from him, I confess I do not very clearly
' Vol. 1. [.. 22S. t Vol. 2. p. 7u. t ll.id. }i. 121.
102 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
apprehend ; namely, that in a competition between the Dutch
shipping and the Belgian railway in which both are supposed to be
playing a losing game, the loss to the former must be a mere trifle
compared with that to be sustained by the latter. Surely, this
must depend wholly on circumstances. If the railway can compete
so successfully with the shipping, as to drive the latter to reduce
their freights to losing rates, a proportional reduction of the charge
for carriage by it, can place it in no worse position than its rivals ;
and the " losing game," must be equally losing, whether played with
sailcloth or with " cold iron." The advantage on the side of the
latter, Mr. Tennent admits " will be manifest as regards the item
of time, the journey to Cologne, by the railroad occupying but
twenty-four hours for what may require a number of days by the
Rhimaerder (the Dutch sailing vessel)."
In the same volume,* Mr. Tennent goes into a detail of the position
of the cotton trade, and shews a rapid decline in the export of cotton
goods since the year 1833, leaving us however, as usual, without any
information as to its previous extent. Having already given reasons
for the general decline of manufactures in Belgium since 1830, 1 shall
not here resume the subject. Two causes, however, assigned by Mr.
Tennent as aiding in the destruction of that now spoken of, namely,
an alteration in the cost of raw cotton, and the unusual preference
given to woollen fabrics, above those of cotton, in almost every
country of Europe,f have, I presume, had no immediate connexion
with the revolution.
I do not think that there is one fact of importance set forth by
Mr. Tennent, with respect to the decay which he alleges to have
resulted to Belgium from the events of 1830, which I have not now
fairly cited. How far I may have succeeded in shewing, that his
views of the causes of such decay, where it has taken place, are
mistaken, or in proving it to be attributable to circumstances inde-
pendent of the revolution, the reader can judge. One thing, how-
ever, which must have had a considerable share in depressing the
manufacturing interests in that country, and which Mr. Tennent
can hardly lay to the charge of the change in government ; but
which on the contrary, seems to have been the offspring of the false
and mistaken system of protection, to which the Dutch monarch
was so much attached, I cannot pass unnoticed ; I allude to the
vast extent of joint stock speculation, which arose in Belgium
between the years 1833, and 1838.J During the years mentioned,
* Vol. 2, p. 91. t Ibid, p. !)3.
\ Mr. Tennent admits " the m:iniu originated with some similar undertaking.*,
projected by the King of Holland.''
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 103
it appears that, " one hundred and fifty or sixty companies of this
kind actually invested 350,000,000 of francs, or about J15,000,000
in speculations of this kind, for insurances, mines, machine-making,
public works, export associations, glass manufactories, sugar re-
fineries, cotton and flax mills, printing, brewing in short every
imaginable undertaking that could be described in Scrip."*
Previously, even to 1830, Belgium had been labouring under a
plethora of production. The forced markets of the Dutch colonies,
into which her manufactures found entrance, without any fear of com-
petition, did not give sufficient outlet for the whole of her commo-
dities, and yet, this rage for manufacturing companies broke out,
at the very period, when those markets were no longer at her com-
mand. The new companies " burst at once into all the pathless
wilds of speculation and extravagance," " the results were not slow
in developing themselves, one by one they began to strain, break
and give way, distrust was every hour growing blacker, when the
bank of Belgium, which had been similarly formed in 1835, with a
a capital of twenty millions of francs, and encouraged the esta-
blishment of twenty or thirty other joint-stock speculations, with a
capital of fifty millions more, suddenly suspended payment in 1838,
and universal dismay and confusion followed." Assuredly the re-
volution was not the cause of this commercial madness ; and equally
certain is it, that to it, and not to political changes, are we to
attribute much of the industrial depression of Belgium.
I have now done with Mr. Tennent's work, so far as it relates to
the manufacturing and trading condition of Belgium, since the revo-
lution. I must however, observe that it is very singular, notwith-
standing his reiteration, in nearly every page, of the assertion, that
the event has ruined the Belgians, that he should not mention a
single circumstance as having come under his own observation, while
in the country indicative of the evils under which it suffers. He no
where tells us, that his eyes have been met by scenes of poverty ;
that beggars have intruded their wretchedness on his view. The
want and penury of the people must be carefully hidden from ob-
servation, when a traveller so eager to discover its existence, and
so ready to trace it to its source, has not found one instance of it to
record in his pages. The only parts of his volumes in which he
speaks of the peasantry, represent them as happy, comfortable,
and not only decently, but handsomely clad. They must, of a truth,
have a graceful mode of wearing their misfortunes ; ami Mr.
Tennent's gaze must be a prying one, to " reach the heart of their
mystery," when it wears a guise so deceitful.
* Vol. 2. p. 205.
104 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
Another matter seems also to have escaped Mr. Tennenfs notice ;
and it is unfortunate for the case he sought to establish, that it
should have done so. He has not adduced a single instance of re-
ligious intolerance, or of anything which he charges as such, as
having been committed by the Belgian priests or people, since the
revolution. He has, indeed, dwelt at considerable length, and with a
very warning tone on two documents, which he has given in full in
the appendix to his volumes, as affording sad proof of the risk
which Protestants run, in allowing any controlling power to those
of the Roman Catholic faith, and especially the clergy, over their
affairs. One of these documents is a memorial addressed to the
Congress of Vienna in the year 1814, when Belgium, a country
almost exclusively Roman Catholic, was about to be transferred to
a Protestant king, whose feelings were universally believed to be
very hostile to her religion, and purports to come from the Vicar
General of a single diocess only, that of Grhent. The other docu-
ment is a doctrinal decision, (jugement doctrinale) of the bishops of
G-hent, Namur and Tournais, on certain oaths prescribed by the
Dutch constitution, to be taken by persons in authority. Some of
the objections set forth in each document, are certainly sound and
reasonable, amongst others that to Art. 192, on the ground that it
would enable Protestants to fill offices, in which they would have a
direct control over matters specially relating to the ministration of
the Roman Catholic Church ; that to Art. 2, to maintain all laws
then in force, amongst which were some of a penal nature, re-
specting religion, and a law authorizing divorce, and marriages
within certain degrees of kindred, which laws were contrary to the
doctrine of the Roman Catholic church; and possibly that relating
to education. Others were narrow and bigoted, but they were at
the utmost the acts of only three or four individuals ; and it cannot
avail Mr. Teunent much to cite them, when some of the very sub-
jects therein made grounds of protest, are embodied in the present
Belgian constitution, emanating, as it does, from the disastrous re-
volution of 1830. By that constitution the almost universally
Catholic people of Belgium, have cheerfully submitted to the sway
of a Protestant sovereign, have established perfect religious equality,
have guaranteed the liberty of the press, and have declared educa-
tion free. Nor do these principles form the mere letter, the lex
scripta of the constitution, they have been faithfully and honorably-
acted on, Protestants are not only admissible, but admitted to the
offices of state, and the legislature, moreover, voted a sum of money
for the erection of a Protestant church in Brussels ; in the ma-
jority on the division on which vote, appeared the names of three
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 105
Roman Catholic- clergymen. Mr. Tennent takes care to make no
mention of this fact, yet with all his readiness to affix the stigma of
bigotry on the Roman Catholic clergy and people of Belgium, he
has not been able to record one act of religious oppression or into-
lerance chargeable upon them.
But assuming Belgium to have been in such a position, from the
mode in which she was governed, as to be likely to lose, and to
have, in fact, lost, in a pecuniary sense by the severance from Holland,
what possible analogy is there between her condition, and that of
Ireland? Does any one of the circumstances which existed in her
case, making it her interest to maintain her union, operate with us?
Have we a great manufacturing system upheld and encouraged by
every means which ingenuity can devise ; an extensive market
to supply with our productions, which the dissolution of an existing
Union can lose to us ? Is our mineral wealth explored, and made
the subject of careful and anxious consideration, as that of Belgium
is asserted to have been ? To pursue such an inquiry, would be a
mockery. In all the disadvantages sustained by Belgium from her
Union deprivation of state employments, honours, and emoluments,
arrogant foreign dictation, &c., we resemble her fully, and suffer,
moreover, a thousand ills, which she never knew ; but we do not
enjoy any of the benefits which were hers: on the contrary, every
interest which, in her case, was upheld and promoted, is, in ours,
trampled on and crushed.
I think, this analysis of Mr. Tennent's reasoning, taking his
facts for granted, will satisfy the reader, that he has made 110 case
against the Belgian revolution, even as regards Belgium herself;
while it will equally convince him, that the position of Belgium
was so different from that of Ireland, as to make it impossible to
apply arguments respecting the one, with any fairness to the other.
In one case, indeed, they may be so applied, namely, when they
go to shew, that Belgium has benefited anything by the revolution.
The Union between Great Britain and Ireland having all the evil,
unmixed with any of the good of that between Holland and Bel-
gium ; in every thing, in which a repeal of the latter served
Belgium, a repeal of the former must, a fortiori, serve Ireland;
but save for this purpose, all analogy between Belgium and Ireland
fails. Financially, too, it must be borne in mind, that the revo-
lution, by throwing on Belgium the whole expense of a separate
and distinct kingdom, burthened her to an extent which, a mere
Repeal of her Union, continuing in friendly relations with Holland
under the same crown, would not have done ; a fact which
106 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
further spoils the comparison, that Mr. Tennent so labours to
uphold.*
I shall say nothing further on the subject of Belgium, but pass at
once to the consideration of Scotland, the great rallying ground of
the Unionists.
That Scotland has prospered qince her Union with Great Britain,
there can be no doubt. Nearly 140 years have passed over since
that event, and her condition to-day, in all likelihood, forms a
marked and enviable contrast, with what it had been at the time
it took place. This one fact, that in a space of considerably more
than a century, she has made great progress, is all the basis which
we find in her history, on which to build up an argument favorable
to her Union. Compare it for a moment with the broad founda-
tions on which the arguments against an Union for Ireland rest,
and judge of their comparative solidity and strength. But suppose
that they are equally strong and solid in each case, what would be
the fair conclusion to arrive at ? Surely this, that the circumstances
of the two countries, have been such, that an Union was good for
the one (Scotland,) and mischievous to the other (Ireland.)
Now, that in many important circumstances the two countries
differ greatly, it is easy to shew. In the first place, the tendency
to absenteeism, which the Union of each country with England, has
increased (by the temptations given to attend the seat of legislature,
and the removal of like temptations, previously existing to remain
at home,) has always been less strong in Scotland than in Ireland,
and for very obvious reasons. In Scotland, the proprietors of the
soil were Scotchmen, the descendants of the old chieftains of the
country, and bound to it by the ties of birth, and the strong bonds of
clanship ; in Ireland, it was quite otherwise ; the proprietors, for
nearly two centuries, have, with hardly an exception, been of the
English race ; nay, many of the largest among them, men whose
chief possessions lay in England, to which they were attached by the
ties of birth and property, and who felt no interest in Ireland,
which, perhaps, they had never seen, except in the receipt of
their rental. A local parliament, which by the imposition of an-
absentee tax, would compel such men, either to live on their estates,
or to part with them to others who Avould ; or if they should do
neither, to contribute a large portion of the state expenses, was
therefore less necessary for Scotland, than for Ireland. The Unions,
Mr. Tennent continually used the worc's Reneal of Ihe Unicn, with reference
to the Belgian revolution ; his object is obvious. In commenting on him, I have
sometimes done the same, but the distinction is, of course, plain to every one.
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 10T
therefore, in this respect, have not operated, by any means, equally
on the two countries.
Scotland, too, was dealt with very differently in her Union from
Ireland in hers. The object of the former was, in truth, simply
what it professed to be, to strengthen the British dominions. Eng-
land did not seek to rob her, because, as Dr. Johnson has very
bluntly observed, " she had nothing to be robbed of." "With Ireland
it was otherwise ; the English political writers, for nearly half a
century before the Union with her, had been all calling attention
to the fact that she had something to be robbedj of, and that the
robbery could be effected by an Union, and for that very purpose
the Union was forced upon her.
Indeed, the conduct of England towards Scotland, in some in-
stances, seems to have been the result of a pretty deep policy.
Except on the question of the malt tax, England seems, on the
whole to have treated her fairly ; and wherever she treats any
country with fairness, it gives good ground for suspicion. She
has suffered Scotland to grow rich, and has not yet robbed her ;
she has allowed a pretty fair share of the imperial patronage
to fall to Scotchmen ; and she has shewn encouragement to, at
least, her linen manufacture.
All this is strange. It requires solution. Perhaps, some clue to
it may be found in the general system of her policy : may she not
have thought it desirable to keep Scotland contented, as a balance to
Irish discontent ? The hostility of both countries might have thrown
too much business on her hands ; and finding she could only plunder
and oppress one, she may have selected Ireland as the victim.
She had less to fear from the discontent of Ireland, than from that
of Scotland ; because internal division made Ireland weak, while
Scotland, having a compact and united people, would have risen,
as one man, against oppression. On the other hand, she had far
more to fear from the prosperity of Ireland, than from that of
Scotland, because prosperity would have given her internal union,
and consequent strength ; and in that case, with her fine geographical
position, noble habours, soil, climate, large population, and other
advantages, she might become a dangerous rival, competing with
England herself in resources, and in power ; while Scotland, with
her small and barren territory, ungenial climate, and inferior popu-
lation, could create no uneasiness to her in this respect. These
considerations may possibly suggest some notion of the causes,
which have made the same experiment (apparently) be followed by
such opposite results in the two countries.
1 have, all this time, been supposing the Union to have been, in
108 BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND.
some degree, the cause of the prosperity of Scotland, but of this
there is no proof whatever. No symptoms of that prosperity at all
shewed themselves, for nearly half a century after it was carried
into effect, which is, in itself, a very singular fact. Nor is there
any ground for believing, that had Scotland kep't her own parlia-
ment, she would not be better off under it, than she is now. Nearly
all her best writers have been of opinion, that she was injured by
the Union.
It must likewise be borne in mind, that the prosperity of Ireland,
under her independent parliament, was very far beyond that of
Scotland during the eighteen years of its continuance. That pros-
perity, too, followed at once, and, as if by magic, the constitution
of '82, the connexion between them, of cause and effect, being too
sudden and too plain for denial, and it ceased almost as suddenly
after the disastrous measure of 1801.
Having given as much space to the consideration of Scotland and
Belgium, as I think necessary, I shall only add one word as to the
effects of independence on another country, Norway. This country,
on the 17th May, 1819, obtained the ratification from Sweden of
her distinct legislative rights; but in 1821, an attempt was made,
on the part of Sweden, to induce her to accept an Union, thus taking
away her constitution. Let us see how the attempt was relished
by her inhabitants.
" The Norwegian people," says Mr. Laing, " did not at all
enter into the views of the Swedish ministry. They were be-
ginning to flourish under the wise administration of their storthings.
They were paying off their national debt, diminishing their taxes,
controlling the expenditure of their own revenue, and applying it
only to objects within their own country. Trade, agriculture,
fisheries, mines, and the national bank of Norway, were all pros-
pering, and the nation was happy and enthusiastically fond of its
constitution. This was not a period to talk of amalgamation with
a country, notoriously in a bankrupt state, its currency depreciated,
its legislation in the hands of a privileged order of needy and dis-
sipated nobility of tnne-serving clergy. Sweden is still under its
ancient regime, while Norway is practically in advance of the age
in the enjoyment of institutions favourable to political liberty."
Such a state of things offers, certainly, as strong evidence in
favour of nationality, as Scotland can exhibit on behalf of Union.
While speaking of Norway, I should mention, that " the Nor-
wegians use a distinct commercial flag; but daily regret that they
have no separate commercial relations, and diplomatic represen-
tatives abroad. The inferior place which their national devices, as
BELGIUM AND SCOTLAND. 109
the flag, the arms, and the style occupy in all situations, in which
the junction of the kingdom with Sweden bring them together, is a
subject of constant annoyance.' 1 *
These observations, I think, corroborate what I have said, as to
the necessity of giving Ireland, in all particulars, as distinct a
nationality as possible.
I have now drawn to a close my argument for Repeal, and, I
think, the time is at hand, when Irishmen, of all creeds and classes,
will join in demanding it. Ihe Union has, unfortunately, done much
to sever Protestants and Roman Catholics, and to array them, hos-
tilely to each other. The increasing power of the latter, and their
eligibility to fill offices, once belonging exclusively to the former, had
it been accompanied, as with an independent home legislation it
would have been, by increased wealth and prosperity, would have
raised no jealousies between them. But in a poor and uncommercial
country, state patronage and places of every kind, become objects of
value to all. Trade manufactures and other profitable employments
having ceased to exist, men eagerly sought for the emoluments of the
most petty offices. Hence, arose contentions, which soon embittered
the feelings of those professing the two creeds against each other. The
Protestants grew Anti-Catholic, not from religious zeal, but from
fear of losing those offices in state and church, which were almost
the only things left in the country to ensure a respectable means of
support, the Roman Catholics became equally greedy of obtaining
them ; and what was a mere contest for gain, was soon converted
into a religious warfare. Let us hope that this warfare is drawing
to a close ; that Irishmen have begun to perceive, that all their
country's degradation, and their own calamities have their origin in
foreign rule, and that they will quickly join to obtain the only
remedy for them self legislation. For my part, I shudder to con-
template the horrors which must ensue, if they do not. But satisfied
that they will, and convinced that if they do, no power can thwart
their efforts, I look forward with confidence and delight to a future,
which will behold Ireland united, peaceful, happy, and independent.
* Laing's Norway, p. 197-
APPENDIX.
MILITARY RESOURCES OF IRELAND.
As the observations in chapter T. on the Military Strength of Ireland, may not have
much weight, coming from a civilian, I think it right to give a few extracts from
Military "Writers, in corroboration of them. In doing this, I shall not go into any
minute detail ; but shall confine myself to the illustration, in a general way of the
correctness of the positions laid down. Dufour, in his " Cours de Tactique," (one
of the best books extant on any subject,) thus speaks of the defence of a country by
the inhabitants, when " animated by a spirit of independence:" " when they have
armed themselves, to make their territory respected and to preserve their liberty,
their most precious treasure, they wage a terrible war against the invader. It is
wholly devoid of method and defies science : daily skirmishes, actions of detail,
marches, countermarches, precipitous retreats ; never great battles. To-day they
resist in front, and forced to yield, they appear to-morrow on the rear of the enemy.
At one time they occupy the hills and summits of the mountains ; at another, they
descend to precipitate themselves on detatched corps, which they envelope or dis-
perse. In these actions of detail, he who knows the country best has an immense
advantage ; one may almost say that the defenders must sooner or later be victo-
rious. The successes of the enemy can have poor fruits in a country where the
defenders have so many means of escaping him ; of rallying to re-appear as strong
as before. On the other hand, if he be defeated, his position is dreadful; it is with
the greatest difficulty he can re-assemble his broken troops ; surrounded on all sides
he must cut a passage for himself through woods and defiles ; the soldiers that he
leaves behind or that stray from him, fall under the blows of the exasperated inha-
bitants, or perish of want in the sterile regions where niggard nature has displayed
rocks alone. It is in this kind of war that activity, resolution, boldness, a genius
for invention and ruse, are especially required. A chief who possesses these
qualities, and has by means of them acquired the confidence of his soldiers, can
with a handful of men, keep head against numerous armies, nay, even defeat them
or destroy them in detail.'"
The work from which this extract is taken, refers more especially to the defence
of Switzerland, a country full of ravines and mountains ; there is not a word of it,
however, which is not applicable to Ireland. The fact is, that small, but perpetually
recurring obstacles, embarrass the movements of a regular army, even more than
great, but less numerous difficulties.
The observation made in the text, (p. 5.) on the efficacy of the fences, hedges, &c.,
of Ireland, for defensive purposes, hardly requires a comment. I may just mention,
that one foot in thickness of compressed earth is (on the average,) musket-proof, or
six inches of timber. Eight feet of earth is proof against ordinary field artillery.
Of the obstacles presented by the fences, hedges, &c., to cavalry movements, no
man acquainted with hunting can have a doubt, when he learns that eighteen, and
twenty stone are about the average weights ridden by die light and heavy cavalry
troops in the British Service. Those who desire to satisfy themselves further on
these points, had better consult " Jebb on the Attack and Defence of Outposts," a
short, pleasant, and very useful manual ; and the Count Von Bismark on Cavalry
* " Dufour Cours de Tactique," p. 260, 261 . The work is written in French, as are nearly all the
best books on the science but 1 have translated the passage, that all readers may understand it.
Those who wish, can refer to the original.
APPENDIX. Ill
Tactics, whose work is translated, with excellent notes, by Major North Ludlowr
Beamish.
I have, in speaking of the facilities which the people possess for arming themselves,
(p. 6.) alluded to the pike, as easily procured ; but fire-arms have, for a long period,
been considered to possess such a superiority over any other sort of weapons, that
most readers will look on this fact as unimportant. Col. Mitchell, in his " Thoughts
on Tactics," has, however, done much to dispel the absurd dread of musketry, the
prevalence of which has nearly banished from military practice, those hand-to-hand
encounters, which must ever give victory to the men really superior in personal
prowess and courage, over their antagonists. He has shewn, in a masterly manner,
the advantage possessed by brave and active men, armed with the lance and
sword, over those who are forced to rely on the heavy musket, and its clumsy ally,
the fixed bayonet, in a really serious action. In fact, nothing can be plainer than
the position be seeks to establish, viz. : that the boasted value of the latter, consists
in nothing but the moral dread of the effects of the musketry fire, produced by gross
ignorance of what those effects really are. As an instance of its real inefficacy, he
gives the following amongst a number of illustrations : *
" The French, whose arming and training is pretty nearly upon a par with our
own, expended, by official returns, 3,000,000 of ball cartridges, during the opera-
tions before Algiers. They estimated the number of Moors, killed and wounded, at
10,000 ; so that, without making any allowance for those who fell by the fire of
artillery, it requires three hundred musket shots to put one enemy hors de combat,
(i. e. out of action.) But we now know that there were not even 5,000 Moors, killed
and wounded ; many of those who fell, must of course, have fallen by the fire of
artillery; so that it must have taken some six or eight hundred miisket shots to
bring down a single enemy."
In another place, he says :f " we know very well that, to the utter astonishment
of many officers present, entire volleys' were fired at Waterloo, and at Fuente-de-
Guinaldo, without apparently bringing down a man, however many might have been
hit."
The effective fire of musketry, we must remember, does not exceed three hundred
yards, beyond which, Col. Mitchell says, it is " little better than a waste of gun-
powder." Now, men charging on foot, will traverse this space in little more than
a minute, during which they can hardly be exposed to more than a single volley,
before coming to close quarters. "Tacticians," says the Colonel, J "talk, no doubt,
about firing four and five shots in a minute. Miserable puerilities, not worth dis-
cussing. With ball cartridges, three shots may perhaps lie fired, but the more there
is of such fire, the less will be the effect produced." That cavalry should ever
have failed to break infantry, armed in the modern fashion, he attributes solely to
the mistaken notion entertained by them, of their inability to do so, which has
deterred them from making the attempt, the fact, he says, being that they hardly
ever dashed boldly in upon the bayonets, while he shews that where they have done
so, they have swept all before them. " Once for all," he finely says, " in attacking
accessible infantry, the cavalry must throw doubts and hesitation aside, the moment
that spurs are dashed in charger's flanks; from that instant they must see only
victory and honour before them infamy and defeat behind : they must
' Come as the winds come, when
Forests are tended ;
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded.'
And coming thus, where are the means of resistance, that can enable modern in-
fantry to withstand the fury of the shock? Their fire and bayonets ? earth is not
"Thoughts on Tactics," p. 140. f Ibid, p. 103. J Ibid, p. 1(>5. ? Ibid, p. 109.
112 APPENDIX.
deep enough to hide from disgrace the soWier who snouiJ shrink from a single volley
of miserable musketry, or recoil from feeble and useless bayonets the bloodless
toys of childish tacticians." Besides his defence of the sword and lance, or pike,
and triumphant attack on the musket and bayonet, Col. Mitchell's book has some
valuable suggestions as to improvements in the administration of the army generally,
and much just condemnation of the absurd mode of drilling, costume, &c., still in
vogue. It is upwards of half a century since Guibert, in his " Essai Generale de
Tactique," attacked the latter, and suggested similar changes ; but the march of
improvement in the army is certainly not in double-quick time.
I believe I have now cited authorities enough to shew that the positions taken by
me in my text are tolerably well founded. More than this I wish scrupulously to
avoid; less I could not do, with justice to the subject on which I write. If ever
these countries shall have the misfortune to try practically the questions here the-
oretically discussed, it will not be owing to me, or those who hold my opinions.
CHAPTER II. p. 66.
"The Insurrection Act was in force from 1800 to 1802: again from 1807 to
1810 ; again from 1814 to 1818 : and again from 1822 to 1824.
"The Habeas Corpus Act suspended from 1800 to 1802; again from 1803 to
1806; and again in 1822.
" Martial Law in force from 1803 to 1S05.
11 The Arms Act, allowing domiciliary visits, and prohibiting the use of arms, in
force since 1807, revived in 1843, with several obnoxious clauses.
" The Peace preservation Act, establishing a regular gend armerie, in force since
1814.
" A suppression of Political Associations Act, passed in 1825; a still more strin-
gent one in 1829, authorising the Lord Lieutenant to prohibit any meeting by
proclamation.
" The Coercion Bill of the Whigs, 1834, which enabled the Lord Lieutenant to
place any part of Ireland under Martial Law, and to create Courts Martial for the
trial of offenders."
The Insurrection Acts subjected to trasportation for seven years, all persons con-
victed before the magistrates of the county at a Special Sessions of the Peace, of
being idle and disorderly, and all persons were declared idle and disorderly, who
were found out of their houses in proclaimed districts, between sunset and sunrise,
unless they could shew, to the satisfaction of the magistrates, that they were out
on lawful business ! From the magistrates' decision there was no Certiorari to the
Kings's Bench, nor an appeal of any kind.
(See, for instance, 3. Geo. IV. c. 1. sect. 7. 14, 15.)
The earlier acts, (during the war,) subjected the offenders to be sent to serve on
board the navy.
THE END.
SECOND EEPEAL PRIZE ESSAY,
REASONS
REPEAL OF THE LEGISLATIVE UNION
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
BY ALDERMAN STAUNTON,
EDITOR OP
THE DUBLIN WEEKLY REGISTEE.
DUBLIN:
PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUFFY.
23, ANGLESEA-STREET.
1845.
IMGLKSKA-STIIEKT, DUBLIN.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
English liberties guaranteed to the Irish by Henry II., p. 1. Transmission of
a Modus tenendi Parliamentum the fact disputed by Selden and Pryn ; but
asserted confidently by Lord Coke and others admitted antiquity of the
Irish parliament the queen of England's petition for aid in the 38th of
Henry III right of independent legislation claimed and exercised as early
as 1316, p. 2. Statute declaring the assent of the Irish parliament necessary
to the validity of English law. number of the ancient Irish acts of parliament
Poyning's law presumptive evidence of an early struggle for legislative
independence ancient Irish acts denying the superiority of the English
parliament exposition of Molyneux on this subject mischiefs of separate
legislation early felt and proclaimed, p. 3. Answer of the Irish parliament
to a summons of Edward, to meet him in England declaration of the Irish
parliament in 1719, P- 4. Case of Sherlock v. Annesley Statute of George
I. to bind Ireland, p. 6. Protest of the Duke of Leeds repeal of that statute
motion by Flood, to declare it an usurpation, p. 7.
CHAPTER II.
Importance of domestic legislation to Ireland in the earliest times, p. 8. Re-
markable case in 1315 struggle against the religious tyranny of Elizabeth
its efficacy, p. 9. Remonstrance against the domination of Strafford
struggle with English power immediately after the Revolution, p. 10. Rejec-
tion of a money bill retreat of the viceroy, Sydney, on the occasion the
Irish parliament uniformly successful on questions of taxation effectual
resistance to an attempt to procure a vote of supplies for twenty-one years,
p. 1 1 . Shortening of the duration of parliament contest relative to the
appropriation of the surplus revenue. triumph of the Commons. unanimous
adoption of resolutions regarding the pension list successful assertion of the
right of the Irish parliament to communicate freely with the sovereign, p. 12.
Allegation of Lord Clare, that the public revenue was applied to private uses
. Mr. Grattan's answer achievements of the free parliament of Ireland, p. 13.
Independence of the judges mutiny act habeas corpus act act to cherish
the principles of toleration Lord Clare's declaration as to the unparalleled
progress of Ireland since '82 his avowed detestation of an Union his asser-
tion a*, to the adequacy of the Irish parliament to all purposes of security and
connection his history of the demands of the Irish parliament since 79, and
the measures actually effected, p. 14. Free trade place bill pension bill
responsibility bill navigation bill bill for the relief of the Catholics, p. lj.
Shortness of the period within which all these objects were effected.
CHAPTER III.
Mr. Pitt's account of the commercial tyranny of England, p. Hi. It deprived
Ireland of the use of her own resources, and rendered her subservient to the
interest and opulence of England it shut Ireland out from every species of
7 CONTENTS.
commerce its rigours were somewhat relaxed in the reign of George the
Second, but it was only since the era of legislative independence that the
system was completely reversed Mr. Bushe's allusion to it, p. 17- Obser-
vation of Dr. Lucas as to the general conduct of England towards Ireland
effects of legislative independence on the condition of the country as stated
by Lord Clare, Mr. Plunket, Mr. (now Earl) Grey, Mr. (afterwards Judge)
Jebb, and Mr. Foster, p. 18. Revenue a sure test of progress, p. 19. The
test of imports, exports, and linen, p. 20. Consumption of such articles as tea,
tobacco, wine, &c., p. 21.
CHAPTER IV.
No provocation for the abolition of the legislative constitution of Ireland, p. 22.
The propositions of 1785 they were received favourably in Ireland in their
original shape admission in the English parliament that they originated in
England declaration of Mr. Fox that they were completely and fundamen-
tally altered, p. 23. Subsequent assent to the most of the objects contem-
plated by the English minister the navigation act East India Company's
monopoly registry of shipping, p. 24. Light-house duties all measures of
general or imperial concern, and even of colonial trade the regency question
. Mr. Pitt's object regarding it, p. 25. Mr. James Fitzgerald's bill to
remove all difficulties on the subject opinion of Mr. Foster that legislation
on the point was needless the practical consequences utterly insignificant if
the two parliaments persevered in their differences on the question noble
conduct of the parliament of Ireland after the declaration of independence,
p. 26. Acknowledgment of the English viceroy regarding it continued
devotedness and generosity of the Irish parliament, p. 27. Attestation of
Lord Camden the rebellion of '98 procession to the seat of the Irish
government on the occasion Mr. Foster's opinion of its effects, p. 28. Su-
perior conservative capabilities of a domestic legislature enormous pecuniary
sacrifices to the connection under the Irish parliament, p. 29. Striking
contrast with reference to the Scotch parliament antagonism of the English
and Scotch parliaments the Irish case in all respects dissimilar to the
Scotch, p. 31. Pretensions of Ireland to the right of separate legislation as
stated by Mr. Jebb illustrations of the utter wantonness of the project of a
legislative Union sketch of the general proceedings of the Irish parliament
in the last eighteen years of its existence case of a treaty with France
difference with Spain, p. 33. The French revolution ascendancy of British
influence Grattan's vain endeavours to oppose it his retirement from par-
liament in consequence.
CHAPTER V.
Means by which the Union was carried, p. 34
jiuj uuuiiuaiiuii ui iri.1. i^iiuw i^uni) i iiiuivci, \>. -ju. v act .~i LI_
Mr. O'Connell, p. .3". Conduct of Colonel Connor another illustration by
Bushe. a remarkable one by Saurin avowal in a protest of the Irish Lords,
p. 38. A comparatively recent declaration by Mr. Bagwell of Tipperary,
p. 39. Sir Robert Pool's fancy that the Union had, nevertheless, boon a
" voluntary compact," p. 40. Military arrangements adopted to carry the
measure, p. 41.
CONTENTS. V
CHAPTER VI.
Motive of Pitt for proposing a legislative Union, p. 42. Admission that it
would have been unnecessary if the '85 propositions had been agreed to all
the ends sought for in '85 have been attained, p. 43. Importance of this
change as removing the most fertile sources of the differences that existed
between the British and Irish parliaments remarkable letter of Pitt to the
Duke of Rutland, in 1784 its declaration that an Union is not indispensable
to a permanent and satisfactory arrangement between the two countries
Pitt contemplated not only the permanent existence of two legislatures, but a
reform of both his opinion that England and Ireland could be one country,
though, for local purposes, under distinct legislatures, p. 44. Unity only
necessary in commerce and finance terms on which Ireland was required to
assent to an Union promises of conciliation and kindness on the part of Great
Britain, p. 45. Engagement /that the burdens of Ireland should be strictly
proportioned to her ability pledge that she should have equal privileges with
Great Britain undertaking that the linen compact should be irrevocable,
p. 46. The terms of the Union were, nevertheless, unfavourable to Ireland
Mr. Newenham's illustrations the number of representatives assigned to
Ireland, p. 47. Fiscal contribution required from Ireland, p. 49. Fallacy
of the test of ability acted upon by Lord Castlereagh the fallacy obvious,
p. 50. Demonstration supplied by the inordinate increase of the Irish debt
no provision in the act to enable Ireland to escape from the consequences of
any error which had been committed, p. 51.
CHAPTER VII.
The terms of the Union, bad as they were, have been violated engagement as
to the past debt of Great Britain, p. 52. As to the future expenditure, p. 53.
The power to consolidate the Exchequers no answer to the charge that the
engagements had been violated the exercise of that power was conditional,
and the conditions were not satisfied absurdity of assuming, that a dispro-
portionate increase of the Irish debt could satisfy the conditions, p. 55.
Opinion of Mr. Foster on the subject boast of Mr. Rice that there was no
violation of the terms, p. 56. A "bad bargain" for Ireland necessarily
involved a breach of all the preliminary engagements the whole fiscal
scheme since the Union has been a departure from its conditions admission
of the finance committee of 1815, as to the disproportioned increase of Irish
taxation declaration of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, the Marquis of Lansdowne,
Sir John Newport, and Mr. Poulett Thompson, on the subject, p. 57. No equi-
valent granted to Ireland for her share of the responsibility of the general
debt, p. 58. Departure in this case from the precedent of the Scotch Union
Treasury management to increase the Irish debt injustice of charging
the borough bribery exclusively to Ireland extract from the articles of the
Scotch Union, p. 60. No pretence that Ireland could have got an equivalent
in grants or loans which have been common to all divisions of the empire.
CHAPTER VI U.
All the fiscal wrongs suffered by Ireland may justly be regarded as effects of
the Union, p. 62. Estimate of Mr. Jebb, as to the consequences to Dublin
increase of absenteeism authorities on the subject, p. (53. Absenteeism, a
peculiar calamity to Ireland, and the original cause, p. (>4. The Irish
forfeitures --distinction as to the Scotch forfeiture?, p. 65. Great impnr.v-
muit of Scoil:\nd, p. 6(5. The Scotch Union n.> cause of that improvement
Scotch progress greatest in the most recent times extraordinary increase of
the Scotch revenue since 1801 the revenue drain of Ireland, p. (57. The
total change of the fiscal condition of Ireland since the war indifference of
1 CONTENTS.
the English minister to that change annual remittances to the British
Treasury, after the payment of all expenditure in Ireland out of Irish taxa-
tion, p. 68. Such remittances were formerly unknown, and they greatly
augment the oppression of the absentee drain estimate of the uncredited
revenue disproportionate relief to Ireland since the peace, p. 70. Progress
of taxation, p. 71. Withdrawal or reduction of grants for Irish services,
p. 72. Lord dc Grey's attempt to break up the Dublin charities effects of
the cessation of encouragement on the linen trade consequences to Ireland
of the reduction of the war expenditure, p. 74. How they might be mitigated
the treatment endured by Ireland in parliamentary and municipal reform,
an effect of the Union, p. 75. The entire character of the legislation for
Ireland defective or pernicious since the Union acts since 1816 to strengthen
the power of the landlords, p. 76. Effects on the population evidence of
Mr. Leslie Foster on the subject indifference of the English minister to the
opinions or wishes of the representatives of Ireland, p. 77. Report of the
census commissioners on the state of the Irish population former comforts
of the Irish peasantry, p. 78. Evidence from various sources attesting the
general decay and misery of Ireland, pp. 79, 80, 81.
CHAFFER IX.
Speech of Mr. Spring Rice in 1834, p. 82. His proposition with regard to the
Irish quarrel with Portugal, p. 83. The regency question, p. 84. The
character of the Irish parliament, p. 8-5. Grattan's description of the Irish
parliament the opinions of Molyneux, Montesquieu, and Foster, p. 86.
O'Connell's declaration as to the Union in 1825, p. 87- The assertion, that
the rebellion was suffered to explode number of commissions or committees
on Irish affairs in thirty-four years, p. 88. Free trade in corn, p. 91. Assimi-
lation of the currencj", p. 92. Survey and valuation of Ireland grants for
charities and other objects, p. 93. Consolidation of the Exchequers the stamp
taxation, p. 95. Transference of the burden of the debt to England, p. 97.
Progress^ of Ireland, as shown by exports, imports, and tonnage the exports
to Liverpool "alone" distress in Ireland before the Union, p. 98. New
houses built in Dublin. votes for Dublin wide streets, p. 9D. Evidence as to
Irish progress by parliamentary witnesses separate taxation paid by Great
Britain calculations by O'Connell as to the relative consumption of tea,
wine, and other articles, p. 105. Stock transferences, p. 107. Alleged
payment of " English gold'' for Irish uses, p. 109.
CHAPTER X.
Representations in the Irish Railway Report as to the progress of trade between
1825 and 1835, p. 1 10. No certain data for them admission on this subject
by the railway commissioners themselves various grounds for the conclusion,
that these representations are entirely erroneous, pp. Ill, 112. Mr. Montgo-
mery Martin's publications, p. 113. Encouragement given to them by men
in power the work of 1833, and Lord Stanley's adoption of its reasoning
and statements ludicrous errors of Mr. Martin his contrivances to sustain
his conclusions by official documents, p. 114. Omission of the principal
articles in his tahle of exports his blunder as to the trade of Dublin his
falsification of a return of malt duties, p. 115. His delusive estimate of the
proportion of taxation affecting Ireland.
CHAPTER XI.
Utter failure of the Union in securing for Ireland tlic benefits of prompt, dili-
ffpnt, or satisfactory legislation, p. 1 17- Complaint, in 181!, of Mr. Secretary
CONTENTS. Ml
Peel, of the " listlessness" manifested in the imperial parliament on the
most important questions affecting Ireland proofs of a deliberate and in-
flexible resolution amongst all parties in England, that the Irish shall have
no effective control in the management of their own affairs, and that
Englishmen shall be the law-makers for Ireland, p. 118. No time to legislate
for Ireland chances of justice for Ireland diminished, as we have receded
from the time of the Union protest of Lord Castlereagh against an attempt
to increase the taxation of Ireland in the second year of the Union Mr.
Secretary Peel's resistance to an effort to abolish the wide-street grant, p. 119.
Facility "with which more important grants had been abolished or diminished
in recent times remarkable instance in the case of the linen trade, p. 119.
Utility of domestic legislation avowed by the Earl of Ripon, a member of the
present government, in the case of a foreign colony.
CHAPTER XII.
Objections usually urged, in England, against Repeal, p. 120. Duration
of the Union assumption that the system has worked well effects of
" agitation" dismemberment opinions amongst all classes of politicians in
1800, xinconnected with the government, that the Union would lead to
dismemberment, p. 123.
CHAPTER XIII.
Modifications under which a parliament ought to be assembled in Ireland,
p. 124. The wisdom taught during the existence of the former parliament,
the best instructor in a new state of affairs, p. 124. Commerce should be free
the financial arrangements should be those proposed at the Union nothing
to prevent a carrying out of the Union engagements in finance, even without
Repeal, p. 125. Importance of those engagements to Ireland if carried
out, they would leave a large surplus of taxation applicable to Irish
purposes, p. 126. England spared in separate taxation by the consolidation
of the Exchequers, p. 127. Her separate taxation many millions below the
liability of her former separate debt before the imposition of the temporary
income tax, p. 128. Its amount still 4,000,000 annually.
CHAPTER XIV.
Application of the term Federalism, p. 129. Operation of the Federal system
in the Swiss cantons the principle of Federalism not sufficiently examined
by political philosophers, according to Mr. Laing a more natural and just
system than forced centralization, p. 130. Junctions morally or physically
discordant, want the permanency founded on benefits to the governed no
receding from Federalism in the American States the tendency of social
economy in modern times is towards Federalism, p. 131. Account of the
Federal Union of Sweden and Norway constitution of the Norwegian
parliament. it secures to the Norwegians the uncontrolled power of making
their own laws its independence of the regal authority triumph in the case
of the abolition of hereditary nobility attempt to fetter its power in the
reign of the late king, p. 133. Successful resistance to the attempt, and con-
sequent abandonment of all further endeavours to invade its privileges
powers of the Norwegian parliament strictly local the concurrence of
Norway and Sweden only necessary in the election of a new dynasty foreign
regulations committed altogether to the Swedish executive power of the
Norwegian parliament to protect the public interests, through its control
over the national Exchequer no complication or diversity of external
relations to often require congressional conferences in the cast-i of Norway
Ill CONTENTS.
and Sweden or Switzerland, p. 134. The Federal system most useful in a
connection of states, such as exists in America less required where there
is a more complete identity of general interests, and where climate and
boundless space do not interrupt a unity of pursuit or speculation no
likelihood of difference in matters of peace or war, between Great Britain and
Ireland, in the existing state of their commercial relations power of the
executive to interfere effectively in special cases illustration supplied in
the instance of the Portuguese quarrel an Irish parliament having the
prerogative of levying and appropriating the taxes, could always command
the exercise of this power supposed efficacy of Federalism in facilitating a
Kepeal of the Union, p. 136. Viewed in reference to that end, it possesses
its chief importance expediency of abandoning it at once, and definitively,
if it be not found a facility in the struggle for Kepeal effects of the
exercise of powers of congressional conference in increasing absenteeism,
and withdrawing the public men of Ireland from the most important sphere
of their duties.
APPENDIX.
No. I. Extract from a speech of the Eight Hon. T. S. Rice, containing a list of
one hundred and seventy-two commissions or committees appointed to con-
sider Irish affairs, p. 137. No. II. Paper drawn up by the late Lord Oriel, to
show the origin of the linen manufacture of Ireland, and the international
compact made in its favour between the separate legislatures of Great Britain
and Ireland, p. 139. No. III. Return showing the relative consumption of tea
in Great Britain and Ireland, from 1784 to 1827, p. 145 also the tobacco con-
sumption, p. 146 also the consumption of foreign spirits, p. 147 also the
consumption of wine, p. 148 also of sugar, p. 149 also of coffee, p. 150.
No. IV. Paper showing the proportion between the gross receipts of revenue
in Great Britain andlreland, from 1801 to 1841, p. 151. No. V. Paper showing
the consumption of malt in Great Britain and Ireland, from 1810 to 1840,
with the years marked which were selected by Mr. Montgomery Martin, to
sustain his " prosperity case," p. 152. See page 1 15.
REASONS FOR A REPEAL OF THE LEGISLATIVE UNION BETWEEN
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRKLAND.
CHAPTER I.
ANTIQUITY OF THE RIGHT OF SEPARATE LEGISLATION IN IRELAND, AND
THE VALUE ALWAYS ATTACHED TO IT BY THE IRISH PEOPLE.
AT the Council of Lisrnore, in 1173, Henry the Second guaranteed
to his Irish subjects the liberties enjoyed by the people of England,
and, shortly after his departure, transmitted to Ireland a Modus
tenendi parliamentum. This fact has been disputed by Selden arid
Pryn, but asserted, confidently, by Lord Coke and others. Molyneux
states that Dr. Dopping, bishop of Meath, published the Irish Modus
with a vindication of its antiquity and authority, and that, while
writing " The case of Ireland," he had the " very record before him."
Selden and Pryn, themselves, admit that parliaments were held in
Ireland very soon after the arrival of Henry the Second.
It has bc'.en a matter of controversy, whether the House of Com-
mons was an essential part of the parliament of England before the
49th of Henry the Third, but it appears certain that there was a
parliament of citizens and burgesses in Ireland in the 38th of that
monarch's reign, and that his queen, during the absence of her hus-
band, petitioned that parliament for men and money to aid Henry in
protecting Gascony from an invasion threatened by the king of
Castile. Molyneux copies a record on the subject from a work of
" the learned Mr. Petyt, keeper of the records in the Tower," and
he says, " I have been more particular in transcribing this passage,
to show that we have as ancient and express an authority for our
present constitution of parliaments in Ireland, as can be shown iu
England."
There is evidence that the right of i-npnrate and independent
legislation was appreciated in the earliest times by the Irish. In
B
2 ANTIQUITY OF THE RIGHT OF
the 10th of Edward the Second (1316) several English statutes were
adopted by the Irish parliament, and " all other statutes which were
of force in England were referred to be examined in the next par-
liament, and so many as were then allowed and published to stand
likewise for laws in this kingdom." And in the 1 8th of Heniy the
Fourth (1409) "it was enacted in this kingdom of Ireland, that the
statutes made in England should not be of force in Ireland, unless
they were allowed and published in this kingdom by parliament."
And the like statute " was made again in the 29th of Henry the
Sixth" (1451) *
Poyning's law, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, affords pre-
sumptive evidence of an early struggle for legislative independence.
It ordained that there should be no parliament held in Ireland until
the acts which should be propounded, were first certified in England
and approved by the king and his council. It is to be presumed
that a similar cause led to the extension of the provisions of that
law in the reign of Philip and Mary, when it was enacted that no
parliament should be held in Ireland until the chief governor and
council had certified to the king and council of England, not only
the measures which were in contemplation at the time when the
parliament was called, but those also which might become the sub-
ject of future deliberation. Whatever means were used to control
or influence the Irish, no claim of an absolute right to make laws for
Ireland was advanced in ancient times by the parliament of England,
and we have, according to Molyneux, " Irish acts of parliament
denying this superiority." " It is not to be found in any records of
Ireland that any act of parliament, introductive of a new law made
in England, since the time of King John, was by the judgment of
any court received for law, or put into execution in the realm of
Ireland, before the same was confirmed and assented to by the par-
liament of Ireland." It may, then, be concluded, that the Irish
people exercised and valued the right of separate legislation in the
most remote times. Molyneux, indeed, assumed that he had been
quite triumphant in showing "the several steps by which the English
* The printed statutes of Ireland contain only about 347 acts, but it appears
from the "Transactions of the Archaeological Society, of 1843," that there are
on the rolls 1263 statutes which are in no collection now accessible to the public.
Until apprized of the fact, we could have had no adequate notion of the activity
of ancient legislation in Ireland. It appears that the printed acts do not contain
the celebrated statute of Kilkenny, passed in 1295, and that until its publica-
tion, by the Archaeological Society last year, from a manuscript in the Lambeth
Library, it was not amongst the printed records of ancient Ireland.
SEPARATE LEGISLATION IN IRELAND.
form of government, and the English statute laws were received in
Ireland, and that this was wholly by the people's consent in par-
liament, to which (he adds) we have had a very ancient right, and
as full a right as our next neighbours can pretend to challenge."*
The mischiefs of joint, or united legislation were also very soon,
felt and recorded. Members of the Irish parliament were summoned
to serve in the parliament of England in the time of Edward the
First and Edward the Third, and at a later time during the usurpa-
tion of Cromwell. In the fiftieth year of the reign of Edward the
Third, John Draper, a burgess of Cork, complained that some of the
citizens refused to pay the expense of his serving in England, and
he was reimbursed. " This sending of representatives out of Ireland
to the parliament of England, on some occasions, was found, in process
of time, to be very troublesome and inconvenient ; and this we may
presume was the reason that, afterwards, when times were more
settled, we fell again into our old track and regular course of par-
liaments in our own country; and hereupon it was enacted, that no
law made in the parliament of England should be of force in Ireland
till it was allowed and published in the parliament of Ireland."!
The answer of the Irish parliament to Edward, when summoned
by him to meet in England, affords a remarkable proof of the
strong sense of prerogative, and spirit of independence, by which
they were, even at that remote period, actuated. " The nobles and
commons unanimously, and with one voice declared, that, according
to the rights, privileges, liberties, laws, and customs of the land
of Ireland, enjoyed from the time of the conquest of said land, they
are not bound to send any persons from the land of Ireland to the
parliament, or council, of our lord the king, in England, as the writ
requires. Notwithstanding, on account of their reverence, and the
necessity and present distress of the said land, they have elected
*The English "Act of Faculties," passed in the 25th Henry the Eighth,
declared that the realm of England " hath been, and is yet, free from any sub-
jection to any man's law, but such only as have been devised within this realm
for the wealth of the same," &c. An Irish "Act of Faculties" was passed in
the 28th of the same reign, and it declares that " the said English act, and
every thing and things therein contained, shall be established, affirmed, taken,
obeyed, and accepted within this land of Ireland as a good and perfect law,
and shall be, within the said land, of the same force, effect, quality, condition,
strength, and virtue, to all purposes and intents, as it is within the realm of
England ; and that all subjects within the said land of Ireland, shall enjoy the
profit and commodity thereof in like manner as the king's subjects of the realm
of England."
f Molyneux.
ANTIQUITY OF THE RIGHT OF
representatives to repair to the king, and to treat and consult with
him and his council, reserving to themselves the power of yielding
and agreeing to any subsidies, at the same time protesting that their
compliance is not hereafter to be taken in prejudice to the rights,
privileges, laws, and customs, which the Lords and Commons, from the
time of the conquest of the land of Ireland, have enjoyed."
An incident which occurred in 1719? drew from the Irish parlia-
ment a very spirited declaration of what was felt to be its ancient and
inalienable privileges. A litigation existed between Hester Sher-
lock and Maurice Annesley, relative to lands in Kildare. The Irish
court of Exchequer pronounced a judgment in favour of the latter,
and it was reversed on an appeal to the Irish House of Lords.
Annesley submitted his case to the English House of Lords, and
obtained a favourable judgment. The sheriff of Kildare, Alexander
Burrowes, was required to put Annesley in possession of the disputed
lands, and on his refusal was heavily fined by the Irish court of
Exchequer. The matter was brought under the notice of the Irish
House of Lords, by a petition from the sheriff, and they resolved, that
" Alexander Burrowes, Esq., in not obeying the injunction issued
from his majesty's court of Exchequer, in the cause between Annesley
and Sherlock, had behaved himself with integrity and courage, and
with due respect to the orders and resolutions of the house. That
the fines imposed upon him be taken off, and that the barons of the
Exchequer, viz., Jeffrey Gilbert, Esq., John Pocklington, Esq., and Sir
John St. Leger, had acted in violation of the orders of that house, in
diminution of the king's prerogative, as also of the rights and privileges
of the kingdom of Ireland, and the parliament thereof." Orders then
passed the house, that the barons of the Exchequer should be taken
into the custody of the Black Rod, which were accordingly executed.
" In vindication of these measures, and the rights of the nation, they
afterwards drew up a representation to be presented to his majesty,
in which they set forth, that by many ancient records and sundry
acts of parliament, it appeared that the kings and principal men
of Ireland did, Avithout compulsion, submit to Henry II., as their
liege lord, who, at the desire of the Irish, ordained that the laws
.of England should be of force, and observed, in that kingdom. That
by this agreement the Irish obtained the benefit of English law, and
many other privileges, particularly that of having a distinct parlia-
ment, in which weighty and important matters relating to the kingdom,
wore to be treated, discussed, and determined That by this
SEPARATE LEGISLATION IN IRELAND. 5
constitution, and these privileges, his majesty's subjects had been
enabled to discharge their duty faithfully to the crown ; that,
therefore, they insisted upon them, and hoped to have them preserved
inviolable. That though the imperial crown of that realm were
annexed to that of Great Britain, yet, being a distinct dominion, and
no part of the kingdom of England, none could determine with
respect to the affairs of it, but such as were .authorized by its known
laws and customs, or the express consent of the king ; that it was an
invasion of his majesty's prerogative, and a grievance to his Irish
subjects, for any court of judicature to take upon them to declare
that he could not, by his authority in parliament, determine all con-
troversies betwixt his subjects in that kingdom ; or that when they
appealed to his majesty in parliament in Ireland, they did not bring
their cause before a competent judicature That it was the
right and happiness of his subjects in that kingdom, as well as
of those in Britain, that by their respective constitutions, justice was
administered to them without much trouble or expense in the king-
dom to which they belong ; but if his majesty were deprived of the
power of finally determining causes in his court of parliament in
Ireland, those who were unable to follow them to Britain, must
submit to whatever wrongs they might suffer from the more rich and
powerful. That if all judgments made in his majesty's highest
court within that kingdom, were subject to be reversed by the Lords
in Great Britain, the liberty and property of all his subjects in
Ireland must become thereby finally dependant on the British peers,
to the great diminution of that dependance, which, by law, they ought
always to have on the British crown. That if the interference of the
English Lords, in receiving appeals from Ireland, should be recognised
and supported, it would take away the power from his majesty of
determining causes in his parliament of that country, and confine it
entirely to the parliament of Britain. That the writs of summoning
the Lords and Commons in both countries being the same, they must,
in each kingdom, be possessed of equal powers, or else the peerage of
their nation would be little more than an empty title, and the
Commons stand for ever deprived of the privilege of impeaching in
parliament, which could not possibly be maintained if there were not
within the realm a parliamentary judicature. That if the power ot
judicature could, by a vote of the British Lords, be taken away from
the parliament of Ireland, no reason could be given why the same
Lords might nol, in the same manner, deprive them of the benefit
6 ANTIQUITY OF THE RIGHT OF
of their whole constitution. That the Lords of Great Britain had
not in themselves any way, either by law or custom, of executing
their decrees in Ireland. That this could only be accomplished by an
extraordinary exertion of royal power, which would be highly preju-
dicial to the liberties of the Irish nation. And, in conclusion, they
informed his majesty, that to prevent the appellant, Hester Sherlock,
from making further application to the Irish parliament, his deputy-
receiver had paid her the sum of above eighteen hundred pounds,
which, to the prejudice of his majesty's subjects, he expected would
be refunded by government. That these proceedings of the English
Lords had greatly embarrassed his parliament of Ireland, disgusted the
generality of his loyal subjects, and must, of necessity, expose all
sheriffs and officers of justice to the greatest hardships by interference
of different jurisdictions. They hoped that, all these things being
duly considered, his majesty would justify the steps they had taken,
for supporting his prerogative, and the just rights and liberties of
themselves and their fellow-subjects."
This representation was communicated to the English Lords, but
it only produced a declaration, that the barons of the Irish Exchequer
had done their duty in the case of Annesley and Sherlock, and were
deserving of some mark of the royal favour. An order was speedily
made for the introduction of a bill " for the better securing the
dependancy of Ireland upon the crown of Britain." It declared
that " the House of Lords of Ireland have not, nor of right ought to
have, any jurisdiction to judge of, affirm, or reverse any judgment,
sentence, or decree given or made in any court within the said
kingdom ; and that all proceedings before said House of Lords upon
any such judgment, sentence, or decree, are, and are hereby declared
to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever."*
It is to be supposed that all the barons received the wished-for mark
of royal favour, for Jeffrey Gilbert was promoted in 1722 to the
English bench, and was elevated to the English chief baronship in
two years after.
A protest against these proceedings of the British parliament,
signed by one English nobleman, the Duke of Leeds, is a remarkable
document. The following are the most striking passages :
" IV. Because King Edward the Third, in the 29th year of his
reign, ordained, for the quiet and good government of the people of
* The celebrated 6th of George I.
SEPARATE LEGISLATION IN IRELAND. 7
Ireland, that all cases whatsoever, errors in judgments, records, and
process in the courts of Ireland, shall be corrected and amended in
the parliament of Ireland.
" VI. Because, pursuant to many concessions made by King Henry
the Second, King John, King Edward the Third, and other kings of
England, the lords of parliament of Ireland have proceeded to
correct and amend errors in judgment and decrees in the courts of
Ireland, as appears by several precedents certified over to your
lordships, and their judgments never before called in question.
" XL Because it is the glory of the English laws, and the blessing
attending Englishmen, that they have justice administered at their
doors, and not to be drawn, as formerly, to Rome by appeals which
greatly impoverished the nation.
" XII. The danger of altering, changing, or lessening a constitution
(for above five hundred years unshaken, or so much as called in
question) in any one thing, the custom and usage of courts being
the law of courts, may occasion the destruction of the whole. And
since the kings of England, in all matters relating to the revenue,
made their grants by letters patent, and not only empowered the
parliament of Ireland to hear, correct, reform, and amend them, but
also acquiesced in their judgments, it ought not now to be questioned."
After a lapse of sixty-five years the abrogation of the 6th of
George I. was effected by the Irish parliament; and it is somewhat
curious that it was regarded a concession, that the British parliament
were not called upon to pronounce that act an usurpation. " I have
not the least idea," said Grattan, " that, in repealing the 6th of George
I., Great Britain should be bounden to make any declaration that
she had formerly usurped a power. No, this would be a foolish
caution, a dishonourable condition. The nation that insists upon the
humiliation of another, is a foolish nation. Ireland is not a foolish
nation." How entirely the free parliament of Ireland participated in
the noble sentiments which animated Grattan, may be inferred from
the fact, that Flood's motion for a bill designed to impose the
" humiliation," was supported by a minority of only six votes.
DOMESTIC LEGISLATION
CHAPTER II.
DOMESTIC LEGISLATION WAS EVER USEFUL AND IMPORTANT TO IRELAND.
IT is to be assumed, that if the Irish always valued their parliament,
it was because they experienced its practical advantages. A remark-
able case, in which its importance to the safety and well-being of
Ireland was admitted by the English government, occurred upwards
of five hundred years ago, and is noticed by Sir John Davis.
Parliaments in their modern form were commenced in 1315, when
Bruce invaded Ireland. " Assuredly," says Davis, " this common
council was then instituted, when Ireland stood most in need of
council; for the Scottish nation had overrun the whole realm.
England had the same enemy at her back, and the barons' rebellion
in her bowels, and so, being distracted in herself, could give neither
consilium nor auxilium to the distressed subjects here ; so as they,
being left to their own strength and council, did then obtain authority
from the state of England to hold this common council of the realm
among themselves, for the quenching of that common fire that had
almost consumed the whole kingdom."
The religious tyranny of Elizabeth encountered a most vigorous
opposition from the Irish parliament; and Sussex, in his consternation,
had to resort to a dissolution. It was deemed necessary that he should
repair to England, to give the queen, in person, a minute account of
the difficulties with which he had to contend. A new parliament
was called in the eleventh year of Elizabeth, and continued by several
prorogations to the thirteenth. At the elections extraordinary means
had been used to procure the return of the known partizans of the
government ; and there was a violent contest for the speakership,
between Stanihurst, recorder of Dublin, the candidate in the interest
of the court, and Sir Christopher Barmvull, the favourite of the
popular party. " Barnwall, who was esteemed for his political
knowledge, insisted that the present House of Commons was illegally
constituted. On this ground he opposed the admission of any bill,
and was supported by Sir Edmund Butler, and the whole of the
landed interest of the kingdom. In proof of the assertion it was
alleged, that several were returned members lor towns not incorpo-
rated ; that several flierifts and magistrates of corporations had
ALWAYS IMPORTANT TO IRELAND. 9
returned themselves ; but, above all, that numbers of Englishmen had
been elected and returned as burgesses for towns which they had
never seen or known, and consequently could not be considered as
residents, as the laws directed. Four days were spent in clamorous
altercation ; the discontented members declaring with great violence
against receiving any bill, or proceeding with any business. The
speaker attended the lord deputy and council, to explain the objections
to the constitution of the house. The judges were consulted, and
they declared that those returned for towns not incorporated, and the
magistrates Avho had returned themselves, were incapable of sitting in
parliament ; but as to the members not resident in the towns for
which they were returned, that they were entitled to retain their
seats, and that the penalty of returning them should alight on the
respective sheriffs ; a decision which still left the government that
majority of friends which so much pains had been taken to procure,
and which, consequently, increased the violence of the opposite party.
Nor did the clamour cease until the judges came to the House of
Commons, and there avowed their opinion, when Barnwall and his
party reluctantly acquiesced, and reserved themselves for a vigorous
contest against the measures of those whom they regarded as an
English faction"*
The writer from whom this narrative is taken, and who was a
declared enemy of separate legislation, admits, that though this
parliament did things which operated to the prejudice of both
kingdoms, it passed, nevertheless, "some plausible and beneficial acts."
He also admits, that "had there not been so formidable an opposition,
more acts would have been passed to forward the Reformation,"
words which may be taken to imply, that more enormities would
have been perpetrated against liberty, property, and life itself in
Ireland.
During the worst times of Sti'afford's domination, the " knights,
citizens, and burgesses in parliament assembled," ventured upon a
strong remonstrance to the king, setting forth in detail all the wrongs
the country suffered under the viceroy's government.
Shortly after the Revolution, a new parliament was assembled in
Ireland. There had been no parliament before for twenty-six years,
except that which sat under James the Second. The object of this
prolonged suspension of the legislative functions was clearly to
* rio\vdcii, vol. i. p "'">.
10 DOMESTIC LEGISLATION
obviate embarrassments incidental to the division of the national
booty connected with the " forfeitures."* At length the necessity of
raising supplies to discharge debts contracted during the late war,
compelled the executive to assemble the representatives of the people.
Money was granted with great reluctance, and so sparingly, that it
did not exceed 70,000. The government, in order to exact more
ample supplies, originated two money bills in the English parliament,
and transmitted them to the Irish House of Commons, hoping to
force them through their stages by the influence of the crown. The
Irish Commons, however, absolutely rejected one, and, " from the
extreme urgency of the case alone, consented to pass the other ; not,
however, without having entered very pointed resolutions upon their
journals in support of their rights." The mortification and disap-
pointment of the viceroy (Sydney) were extreme ; and he suddenly
prorogued the parliament, after delivering a speech couched in very
arrogant terms ; but he was shortly forced to retire from the govern-
ment, and the Irish Commons were left in the undisturbed enjoyment
of a victory, which would, in itself, attest the practical advantages of a
separate parliament to the people of Ireland.
It was, of course, the intention of Poyning's law, and every similar
eifort of British legislation previous to 1782, to enslave the parlia-
ment of Ireland; but still there were many other instances in which
its usefulness to the country was demonstrated. " Notwithstanding,"
says "VVakefield, " the servile state in which the Irish legislature was
held, it seems to have preserved its independence in taxation. No
British parliament, it appears, ever assumed, or even claimed, the
right of imposing taxes on that country; and several instances are
recorded in which it manifested its jealousy on this point with a
spirit worthy of the national character. In 1690 the Commons of
Ireland rejected a money bill because it had not originated in their
house. In 1709 a money bill was returned from England witli
alterations, and on this account it was rejected by the Commons. A
similar circumstance took place in 1768; but notwithstanding these
exertions of the Irish nation in favour of liberty and independence,
their efforts were counteracted, and for the most part frustrated, by
the indiscreet influence of the crown ; and nothing contributed more
to render it effectual, than the duration of their parliament. According
* It was noticed in one of the speeches of the late Chief- Justice Bushe on the
Union, that when the British government resolved to crush the Irish woollen
trade, it did not suffer a parliament to assemble in Ireland for five vears.
ALWAYS IMPORTANT TO IRELAND. 1 !
to the early constitution of parliament, both in England and Ireland,
these assemblies could be dissolved at the pleasure of the crown ; but
when this prerogative was not exercised, they remained until the
death of the king. In England, however, in the reign of William
the Third, the nation becoming jealous of the power which the crown
had acquired over the parliaments, their duration was limited to
three years. This period, in the reign of George the First, was ex-
tended to seven ; but no change of the same kind had been introduced
into Ireland. The parliament then continued to exist, according to
the old plan, with the life of the king, till the year 1768, when, in
consequence of a bill brought in by Dr. Lucas, the member for
Dublin, its duration was restricted to eight years."
In 1729 the Irish parliament effectually resisted an attempt to
procure a vote of supplies for twenty-one years. In 1753 a remark-
able struggle Avith the power of the British government took place
in the Irish House of Commons. The question was the constitutional
one, whether the representatives of the people had the power of
voting the application of any part of the unappropriated revenue,
without the previous assent of the crown. This was a point mooted
since 1749; and at length a great parliamentary contest arose, when
a bill proposed by the minister was rejected by a majority of five
voices. " Those who were most zealously attached to the liberties of
their country, were," says Plowden, " resolved to exert themselvs in
opposing what they conceived to be a violation of their liberties."
When they succeeded, the victory " Avas celebrated with the most
extravagant rejoicings, as a triumph of patriotism OA'er the arts of
ministerial corruption ; and, on the other hand, all the servants of the
crown Avho had joined the popular cry on this occasion, Avere in a
little time dismissed from their employments." Again, in 1755, there
was a manifestation of an independent spirit on a question of great
importance namely, whether the representative body of the nation
should be deprived of access to the throne by any ministerial influence,
through which channel the petitions and grieA'ances of the people are
made knoAvn to the sovereign. Strong resolutions on the increase of
the pension list, especially in cases in Avhich persons not resident in
the kingdom were concerned, passed the House of Commons unani-
mously. When the house waited upon the lord lieutenant on the
subject, they Avere informed that " the matter contained in those reso-
lutions was of so high a nature, that he could not suddenly determine
Avhether it Avould be proper to transmit them to his majesty." The
12 DOMESTIC LEGISLATION
house re-assembled, and came to the resolution of adjourning all
orders not in progress, until the lord lieutenant gave his answer
relative to the transmission of the resolutions regarding pensioners.
The motion on the subject was carried against the influence of the
court by a majority of twenty-one voices, and it produced an imme-
diate intimation, through the chief secretary, that the resolutions
should be " forthwith transmitted to his majesty." On the subject of
the unappropriated revenue, the following statement was made by
Lord Clare, in the debate on the Irish Union, on the 10th of
February, 1800:
" Heads of a bill for the appropriation passed the Commons, with-
out taking notice of the king's previous assent to it. They were
rejected by the crown, and the surplus was applied by the royal
authority, without the intervention of the parliament. But the
Commons took effectual care that the question should not occur a
second time, by appropriating every future surplus to their private
uses under the specious pretence of local public improvements.
Windmills, and watermills, and canals, and bridges, and spinning-
jennies, were provided at the public expense ; and the parliamentary
patrons of these national objects were entrusted with full discretionary
power over the moneys granted to complete them."
This is the representation of a man whose object, according to Mr.
Grattan, was, " to make the history of Irishmen a calumny on their
ancestors, in order to disfranchise their posterity."
" The statement is not history, nor comment, nor fact it is a
garbling of history to establish a conclusion. . . . The question
of '53 was the beginning in this country of the constitutional spirit
which asserted afterwards the privilege of the Commons, and guarded
and husbanded the essential rights of a free constitution. The
question was of its very essence, but the effect spread beyond the
question, and the ability of the debate instructed the nation, and
made her not only tenacious of her rights, but instructed her under-
standing. There might have been party, there might have been
faction, mixing with a great public principle : so it was in the time
of the ship money ; so it was in the Revolution. In these instances
the private motive mixed with the public cause of liberty.*
* The lavishness of the expenditure of public money by the Irish parliament
had its origin, at any rate, in a good and constitutional motive, and the encroach-
ing and usurping spirit of the government is far more deserving of blame.
Mr. John O'Cojincll'* Argument for Ireland, p. 80.
ALWAYS IMPORTANT TO IRELAND. 13
In the time described as a period of plunder, there was a spirit of
private jobbing mixed with the spirit of public improvement ; but
that spirit of public improvement and birth of public ease was there
also. ... In the history of parliament, I observe the learned
historian omits her laws the corn-law, the octennial bill, the tenantry
bill. He has not only forgotten our history, but his own ; and most
impartially contradicts what is written by himself and others."*
It would be difficult to conceive how legislation could more wisely
or practically be employed, than in that parliament which had the
virtue to seek, and the energy to achieve, its long-sought indepen-
dence. On the 27th of July, 1*782, it was prorogued by the Duke of
Portland, who, in his speech from the throne, summed up its per-
formances in the following words :
" In contemplating the services which your unremitting assiduity
has rendered to the public, I must indulge myself in the satisfaction
of specifying some very important acts, which will most materially
strengthen the great constitutional reform you have completed, and
which will for ever distinguish the period of this memorable session.
You have provided for the impartial and unbiassed administration of
justice, by the act for securing the independence of judges. You
have adopted one of the most effectual securities of British freedom,
by limiting the mutiny act in point of duration. You have secured
that most invaluable of all human blessings, the personal liberty of
the subject, by passing the habeas corpus act. You have cherished
and enlarged the wise principles of toleration, and made considerable
advances in abolishing those distinctions which have too long impeded
the progress of industry, and divided the nation. The diligence and
* Lord Clare published a pamphlet, in 1~98, in which he stated of Ireland, in
reference to the interval since 1782, that "no nation of the habitable globe
advanced in cultivation, in commerce, in agriculture, in manufactures, with
the same rapidity in the same period." While noticing what this imhappy
nobleman had ' ' forgotten, " it may not be irrelevant to mention, that in debating
the regency question, in 1789, he exclaimed, in reference to an union " God
forbid he should ever see that day !" In the following passage from the pamphlet
(quoted in Grattan's answer, p. 29), he declares the adequacy of the Irish
parliament to all purposes of security and connection :
" A parliament perfectly distinct from, and independent of the other parlia-
ment, forms a system the most critical and complicated ; but experience has
proved, that in the midst of turbulence, and in the convulsions of rancorous
and violent party contests, the Irish parliament, as it is now constituted, is
fully competent to all political and beneficial purposes of government ; that it
is fully competent to protect this, which is the weaker country, against encroach-
ment, and to save the empire from dissolution, by maintaining the consti-
tutional connection of Ireland with the British crown."
14 DOMESTIC LEGISLATION
ardour with which you have persevered in the accomplishment of
these great objects, must ever bear the most honourable testimony of
your zeal and industry in the service of your country, and manifest
your knowledge of its true interests."
The opponents of Repeal naturally seek occasions to disparage the
Irish parliament ; but this character it continued to maintain to the
latest times. Its achievements within the space of a very few years
were sketched by Lord Clare in terms not intended to be flattering ;
but which, nevertheless, disclose much of the truth. On the 19th of
February, 1798, the Earl of Moira submitted a motion on the state
of Ireland, prefaced by a speech in which he recommended " such
conciliatory measures as may allay apprehensions and discontent."
In the reply of Lord Clare we read the following passages:
" In 1779 they demanded a free trade, and it was granted to them.
In 1782 they were called upon to state the measure of their griev-
ances, and the redress which they demanded ; and redress was
granted to the full extent of their demands. In 1783 they were
dissatisfied with the redress which they had pointed out, and acknow-
ledged to be complete and satisfactory ; and it was extended to the
terms of their new demand. In 1785 they demanded a commercial
treaty with Great Britain, and she made them a fair and liberal oifer,
which they were pleased to reject with childish folly. In 1789 they
demanded a place bill, a pension bill, and a responsibility bill, as
necessary to secure the constitution as established in Great Britain
and Ireland in 1688, and renewed in Ireland in 1782, which they
pledged themselves to support to the last drop of their blood. They
had their place bill, and pension bill, and their responsibility bill, and
much more than they had ever demanded upon that score ; for his
majesty was pleased to surrender his hereditary revenue, and to
accept a civil establishment for his life, by which parliament was
enabled to make a general appropriation of the revenues, and to limit
the crown in granting pensions ; and his majesty was also pleased to
put the office of Lord Treasurer into commission, and by these
regulations they obtained the same security for the constitution as
established at the Revolution, in 1688, which the people of Great
Britain enjoy ; and at the time when this security was given to them,
the parliament of Great Britain repealed and explained the British
navigation laws, by which we were prohibited from exporting the
produce of the British colonies and plantations from this country to
Great Britain a boon of all others the most essential to our foreign
ALWAYS IMPORTANT TO IRELAND. 15
trade, for by it we have the certain issue of the British market for
any surplus of plantation goods imported into Ireland above our own
consumption. About the same period every disability which had
affected Irish papists was removed, save a restriction in the use of
fire-arms, which extends only to the lowest order of the people ; and
sober and thinking men might reasonably have hoped that the stock
of grievances was exhausted, and that they might have been allowed
some short respite from popular ferment. In this expectation, how-
ever, we have been deceived."
The review thus taken of what had been effected by the Irish par-
liament does not extend beyond the period of fourteen years. Is
there any parallel for the work performed within a similar interval
in the entire annals of the British parliament?
16 THE PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY
CHAPTER III.
UNDER DOMESTIC LEGISLATION THE PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY WAS
WITHOUT EXAMPLE.
No one disputed, during the two years' debates on the Union, that
Ireland made extraordinary progress under the fostering encourage-
ment of her independent parliament. For ages she suffered from a
legislative tyranny, for which it would be difficult to find a parallel.
This was declared in memorable words during the discussion on the
commercial propositions in 1785.
" They would recollect, that from the Revolution to a period within
the memory of every man who heard him indeed, until these
very few years the system had been that of debarring Ireland from
the enjoyment and use of her own resources, to make the kingdom
completely subservient to the interest and opulence of this country,
without suffering her to share in the bounties of nature, in the indus-
try of her citizens, or making them contribute to the general interests
and strength of the. empire. This system of cruel and abominable
restraint had, however, been exploded. It was at once harsh and
unjust, and it was impolitic as it was oppressive; for, however ne-
cessary it might be to the partial benefit of districts in Britain,
it promoted not the real prosperity and strength of the empire. That
which had been the system counteracted the kindness of Providence,
and suspended the industry and enterprise of man. Ireland was put
under such restraint, that she was shut out from every species of
commerce. She was restrained from sending the produce of her own
soil to foreign markets, and all correspondence with the colonies
of Britain was prohibited to her, so that she could not derive their com-
modities but through the medium of Britain. This was the system
which had prevailed ; and this was the state of thraldom in which that
country had been kept ever since the Revolution. Some relaxation,
indeed, of the system took place at an early period of the present
century. Somewhat more of the restrictive laws were abated in the
reign of George the Second; but it was not until a time nearer to
our own day, and, indeed, within tli' last seven years, that the system
had been completely reversed.*
* Plowrlcn, vol. ii. p. ll(i.
UNDER DOMESTIC LEGISLATION. 17
The greatest relief from this unexampled oppression was reserved
for the era of independence ; but there were relaxations before : and
it may safely be affirmed, that there was not one which did not give
way to the growing energies of the native parliament. " You are
called upon," said Mr. Bushe, "to give up your independence; and to
whom are you called upon to give it up? To a nation which, for
six hundred years, has treated you with uniform oppression and
injustice. The Treasury Bench startles at the assertion. Non meus
hie sermo est. If the Treasury Bench scold me, Mr. Pitt will scold
them. It is his assertion in so many words in his speech : ' Ireland,'
sa"ys he, 'has been always treated with injustice and illiberality.'
' Ireland,' says Junius, ' has been uniformly plundered and oppressed.'
This is not the slander of Junius, nor the candour of Pitt ; it is
history. For centuries the British parliament and nation kept you
down, shackled your commerce, and paralyzed your exertions, despised
your character, and ridiculed your pretensions to any privileges com-
mercial or constitutional. She has never conceded a point to you
which she could avoid, or granted a favour which was not reluctantly
distilled.* They have been all wrung from her like drops of her
blood ; and you are not in possession of a single blessing, except
those which you derive from God, that has not been either purchased
or extorted by the virtue of your own parliament from the illiberality
of England."
This cruel and tyrannical system " was completely reversed,"
according to Mr. Pitt, in the seven years preceding 1785. Of
the effects he himself Avas the historian fourteen years afterwards.
Addressing the British House of Commons on the Union, 31st
January, 1799, he alluded to a statement made by Mr. Foster, in
1785, illustrative of the prosperous condition of Irish commerce.
" But how stands the case now ?" asked Mr. Pitt. " The trade at
this time is infinitely more advantageous to Ireland. It will be
proved from the documents I hold in my hand, as far as relates to the
mere interchange of manufactures, that the manufactures exported
from Ireland to Great Britain in 1797, very little exceeded one
million sterling (the articles of produce amounted to nearly the same
sum), whilst Great Britain, on the other hand, imported from Ireland
to the amount of more than three millions in the manufacture of linen,
* An observation of Lucas was, that "whenever a favour is done by Eng-
land to Ireland, it is thrown to us as vou would throw a bone to a dot,'."
18 THE PEOGEESS OF THE COUNTEY.
and linen yarn, and beween two and three millions in provisions and
cattle, besides corn and other articles of produce."
The attestation of Lord Clare as to the progress of Ireland, is
already before the reader in a preceding page.*
Mr. (now Lord) Plunket spoke of Ireland before the Union as
a country enjoying unprecedented prosperity: "Her revenues, her
trade, her manufactures thriving beyond the hope or the example
of any other country of her extent within these few years advanc-
ing with a rapidity astonishing even to herself not complaining
of deficiency in these respects, but enjoying and acknowledging her
prosperity."
In the British parliament Mr. (now Earl) Grey said, that "since the
abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, the prosperity of Scotland
had been considerable ; but certainly not so great as that of Ireland
has been within the same period."
Mr. Jebb (afterwards a judge in the court of Queen's Bench)
said, in a pamphlet which he published in 1798, that "in the course
of fifteen years our agriculture, our commerce, and our manufactures,
have swelled to an amount that the most sanguine friends of Ireland
would not have dared to prognosticate."
Mr. Foster, in his memorable speech on the llth of April, 1799-
asked, "Has Scotland advanced in prosperity, since the Union, as
much as Ireland? Mr. Dundas, her great advocate, states the pro-
gress of her linen manufacture, to show her increase in prosperity.
It was one million of yards in 1706, and in 1796, twenty-three
millions. How does the linen manufacture of Ireland stand the
comparison ?
Yards. Value.
Its export was in 1706, ... 530,838 ... 22,750
1783, ... 16,039,705 ... 1,069,313
1796, ... 46,705,319 ... 3,113,687
That is, eighty-eight times greater as to quantity, and one hundred
and thirty-seven times greater as to value, in 1 796, than in 1 700 ;
and thus that manufacture, which is the staple of both kingdoms,
and which Mr. Dundas very properly brought forwai'd to rest his
arguments on, rose from 1 to 88 in Ireland in separate and ununited
Ireland, under the nurture and protection of Ireland's parliament;
while, during the same period, it rose in united Scotland, without a
resident parliament, from 1 to 23 only."
UNDER DOMESTIC LEGISLATION. 19
Revenue is a sure test in a case of this description. The following
table will show its progress in Ireland for forty years before the
Union :
Year. Gross receipt. i Year. Gross receipt.
1760
667,311
1796 ..
. 2,172,467
171X)
1,633,292
1797 ..
1,988,818
1792
... 1,781,698
1798 ..
2,092,352
1793
1,660,530
1799 ..
2,592,573
1794
... 1,609,127
1800 ..
3,445,718
1795
... 1,973,181
It appears from this table, which is partly taken from the Sessional
Paper, 452, of the year 1828, and partly from the Sessional Report,
214, of the year 1815, that in ten years before the Union the Irish
revenue more than doubled, and that in forty years the increase was
more than five-fold. In forty years after the Union there was no
considerable augmentation no augmentation at all, if the ratio of
the increase of taxation be considered. In 1800 and 1810, the tea
consumption, and the taxation affecting it, were as follow :
Year. Consumption. Taxation.
1800 ... 2,926,166 Ibs. ... 69,824
1810 ... 2,922,568 ,, ... 435,307
In tobacco the consumption and taxation were as follow :
Year. Consumption. Taxation.
1805 ... 4,158,794 Ibs. ... 302,316
1825 ... 4,160,049 ... 728,288
In sugar the following were the results :
Year. Consumption. Taxation.
1802 ... 329,150 Ibs. ... 394,261
1820 ... 320,733 ,, ... 447,617
These amounts are taken from the " Summary Report on the State
of the Irish Poor, 1 830."* The years selected are those in which the
consumption has been most equal, and the reader at a glance sees the
ratio of the increase of taxation under every head. It is not intended
to be implied, that in all other instances the increase has been as
great ; but that it has been large and general cannot be disputed.
The ratio of the increase of taxation, then, taken into account, the
reader will see by the following that there was, in reality, no increase
of revenue in forty years subsequent to the Union. The amounts are
taken from the Annual Finance Accounts :
Year. Taxation. Year. Taxation.
1837 ... 4,807,402
1838 ... 4,531,540
1839 ... 4,677,057
1840 ... 4,144,139
* See Appendix, No. III.
20
THE PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY
The average of the four years is 4,289,784. If the progress
of the ten years preceding the Union had been maintained, it
would have been above 8,000,000; considering the amount of
the war taxation left unrepealed, it should have been more than
11,000,000.
The exports and imports are another test, but not of equal value,
for one description of exports, that of provisions, may indicate
merely the low state of a people as consumers. The following
amounts are taken from Mr. Wakefield's tables.
Year. Exports. Imports.
1782 3,375,692 2,994,265
1783 2,907,922 3,007,236
1784 3,326,211 3,056,394
1785 3,737,068 3,430,628
1786 3,957,843 4,071,794
1787 4,2-38,333 4,338,012
1788 4,361,664 4,085,149
1789 4,103,339 3,216,405
1790 4,826,360 4,143,296
1791 4,863,423 4,656,608
Year. Exports. Imports.
1792 5,321,290 4,436,943
1798 4,995,406 3,216,405
1794 4,639,301 4,143,296
1795 4,704,732 4,656,608
1796 5,013,283 4,436,943
1797 4,533,693 3,396,880
1798 4,316,592 4,393,015
1799 4,455,339 6,183,457
1800 3,903,841 4,202,126
The average of the first four years, under the head of exports, was
3,336,000, and of the last, 4,302,000. The average of the
imports in the first period was 3,124,000, and in the second,
4,543,000. The increase under both heads was large, though the
amount of exports must have been considerably affected by the
disturbed state of the country in the four last years. Carrying down
the transactions from the year of free trade to 1796, and taking
the chief manufacture as a criterion, the results were the fol-
lowing :
Year.
Yards. Year.
Yards.
1779 ..
. 18,836,042
1788 ..
. 35,487,691
1780 ..
. 18,746,902
1789 ..
. 29,344,633
1781 ..
. 14,947,265
1790 ..
. 37,322,125
1782 ..
. 24,970,303
1791 ..
. 39,718,706
1783 ..
. 16,039,705
1792 ..
. 45,581,667
1784 ..
. 24,961,898
1793 ..
. 43,312,057
1785 ..
. 26,677,647
1794 ..
. 43,257,764
1786 ..
. 28,168,666 1795 ..
. 42.780,840
1787 ..
. 30,728,728 i796 ..
. 46,705,319
This is more than a two-fold increase ; and if we compare it with
the state of things after the Union, we will find that in twenty-five
years the linen trade was not much beyond its condition in 1796.
We are now about to take our figures from the Report of the Com-
UNDER DOMESTIC LEGISLATION. 21
mittee of 1 830, on the State of the Irish Poor, of which Mr. Spring
Rice (now Lord Monteagle) was chairman.
Year.
Yards.
Year.
Yards.
1801 ...
1805 ...
1809 ...
1813 ...
37,911,602
43,683,533
37,066,399
39,023,087
1817 ..
1821 ..
1825 ..
56,230,575
49,321,139
55,114,515
There are no authentic returns later than 1825, as records were
discontinued in that year on the occasion of the trade with England
having been put on the footing of a coasting traffic. Contrasting the
two periods under review, the progress was the following :
1st period, before the Union ... ... 148 per cent.
2nd period, after the Union ... ... 45 ,,
In the same compilation the quantities of tea, tobacco, wine, sugar,
and coffee, consumed in Ireland from 1784 to 1827, are stated.* We
will divide the years into two periods, and take averages of three
years in each.
asc before the Union. Increase after
24 per cent.
liicreaKU uu
Tea,
ore IIIK union.
.. 84 per cent.
increase t
Tea,
uier uie
.. 24
Tobacco, .
.. 100
Tobacco, .
..
Wine,
- 74
Wine,
Sugar,
.. 57
Sugar,
.. 15
Coffee,
.. 600
Coffee,
.. 359
In the second column there are two blanks ; for, instead of an increase
in tobacco or wine, we are to note a decrease of fifty-seven per cent,
in one, and a still larger decrease in the other. Our business, however,
in the present branch of the inquiry, is with the state of things
before the Union. We have shown that the most remarkable men of
the time described it as one of unexampled prosperity; and the
statistics we have adduced, taking the sum of the evidence they
supply, can leave no rational doubt that the representations on the
subject were perfectly correct.
* Appendix, No. III.
22 NO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF
CHAPTER IV.
THERE WAS NO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE
LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND.
IT is often alleged, that the Irish parliament was complying and
servile. In this it will readily be admitted that England had no
provocation to seek its annihilation. A period was at length put to
the servility and compliance. Free trade was effected, but to what
state of things did it succeed ? A system, which, according to the
words of Pitt, already quoted, so counteracted the kindness of
Providence, and suspended the industry and enterprise of man, as to
shut out Ireland from every species of commerce. Did the deliverance
of the country from this injustice excite an arrogant or capricious
spirit in the Irish parliament ? That it had such an effect was the
insinuation of Lord Clare in his allusion to the "propositions" of
1785, but the charge Avas utterly groundless. These "propositions"
originated with the British government, though the contrary had been
most unwarrantably asserted by Lord Clare.* They consisted of two
sets : the first much more favourable to Ireland than the second, but
both intended to concede fewer advantages, than might have been
anticipated from the high-sounding professions of the minister.
They were met, however, in the most cordial and encouraging spirit
by Mr. Grattan. " The plan," said he, " is open, fair, and just, and
such as the British minister can justify to both nations. He gave to
England what she had a right to expect, and perhaps they could not
give her more." These words were spoken in reference to the first
" propositions," consisting of eleven articles, and professedly intended
to open to Ireland large commercial advantages, on the condition, that
the Ivisli revenue should be applicable, when the produce exceeded
* In a debate in the English House of Commons, in 1787, ^ r - Flood, who had
then a seat in that house said, in answer to JNIr. Grenville: "The right
honourable gentleman had told them that in 1 78-5, Great Britain made a liberal
offer to Ireland. This was the h'rst time that it had been owned that the treaty
of 1785 was the offer of Great Britain. The right honourable gentleman (he
believed) had ealled the measure the Irish Propositions, and stated them as
coming from Ireland. He had now eonfessed the faet, and acknowledged (more,
perhaps, than he meant to admit) that the propositions were English propositions,
sent originally from hence to Ireland, then sent back, and ultimately returned
from England in a shape widely different from their original appearance."
THE LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND. 23
the sum of 656,000, " to the support of the naval force of the
empire, in such manner as the parliament of Ireland should
direct."
These " propositions" were considered, amongst mercantile men in
England, far too favourable to Ireland. A petition against them was
sent from Lancashire, bearing no less than eighty thousand signatures.
There were various examinations, petitions, and reports ; and at length
a new set of "propositions" issued, extending to twenty articles every
change being regarded unfavourable to Ireland. By one alteration,
the Irish believed they were required to give up their legislative in-
dependence in matters concerning navigation ; by another, intended
benefits connected with the West India trade were to be restricted ;
and by a third, Ireland was to be excluded from all trade with the
countries " beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of
Magellan." According to Mr. Fox, the original " propositions," after
two months' discussion, were " completely and fundamentally altered."
It can excite no surprise that they encountered such opposition in the
Irish parliament that the minister was compelled to abandon them.
" An English gentleman, the secretary of an English lord lieu-
tenant, was the person," as Mr. Fox observed, " who introduced these
' propositions' to the Irish parliament." Mr. Grattan's pithy com-
mentary on the change was " He (Mr. Orde) was pledged to his
eleven propositions. His offer was the propositions; ours, the taxes.
He took the latter, but forgets the former"
If any error had been committed by the Irish parliament in this
case, subsequent events proved their readiness to correct it.
" The construction of the navigation act, which prevented Britain
from receiving colonial or foreign goods through Ireland, had been,"
said Mr. Foster, in his speech of the llth of April, 1799, "done
away, in 1793, by a law introduced by Lord Hobart, to permit the
import into Great Britain, from Ireland, of all goods of the growth,
produce, or manufacture of the British colonies, or of Asia, Africa,
or America. The former construction was the great and constant
object of Irish jealousy ; and it was a leading measure in the ' pro-
positions' of 1785. In the same year, in order to remove a great and
pressing object of British jealousy, which was likewise a great and
fundamental article in those propositions, we restrained, by an Irish
net, Ireland's acknowledged right to trade within the limits of the
English East India Company's charter, and confirmed to the company
their monopoly of the whole trade to all the world beyond the Cnpe
24 NO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF
of Good Hope and Straits of Magellan ; although, when Mr. Eden,
in 1785, talked of the period of the expiration of the company's
charter not being very distant, and that there remained no power in
Britain to renew it, or any exclusive privilege, he said that the dis-
position which was already manifested in Ireland to avail themselves
of the advantages of the oriental trade, would show that on such an
event they would not be induced to resign their pretensions.
" We adopted the navigation act which Great Britain justly boasts
to be a main prop of the commercial system on which the naval
strength of the empire rests, by making it Irish law, not by reciting
its provisions, but taking it in toto by its title. We enacted the same
laws for registry of shipping, for increase of shipping, for manifests
all great and imperial objects to the trade of the empire. We esta-
blished the necessary regulation for Greenwich hospital and light-
house duties. In short, there is no one measure of general or imperial
concern, or even of colonial trade, unattended to by us, or left for
Irish law to enact a similarity of rule in. I do not call the arrange-
ment of duties on the interchange of native productions or manufac-
tures between the two kingdoms an object of imperial concern ; but
if I did, I would assert, on the authority of Mr. Pitt, of the parlia-
ment of both countries, and of experience, that separate legislatures
are perfectly competent to it ; and the more so, as more likely to give
that stability which mutual content and satisfaction can alone secure.
And I would further assert, that every practicable benefit in that
respect which those propositions might have arranged, is actually and
practically enjoyed ever since, and will continue to be so as long
as mutual interest and good will shall direct each country. Our
object was, to secure the continuance of the intercourse in a sort of
statu quo, and so it remains. I will not hesitate, then, to say, name
to me any matter of general or imperial concern which those pro-
positions would have arranged, and which is not arranged. If you
can, I would not fear to say, the same attention will instantly adopt
it, and that he is not a good Irishman who knows of any such, and
refuses to suggest it. Let the noble lord propose them, and not
keep the country in agitation by suspending this ruinous measure
over it."
The regency question, of 1789, is often referred to, as showing a
necessity for a legislative Union. Mr. Pitt held the doctrine, in the
English parliament, that the representatives of the people had a right
to appoint any person they chose, regent. If this were allowable,
THE LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND. 25
the Irish parliament might surely be permitted to vote, that the person
to be chosen should be the next in succession to the throne.* This
view was taken by the first constitutional authorities in England at
the period, and Pitt's object was one notoriously of party advantage
and personal ambition. There was really no prerogative which the
Irish parliament were more willing to surrender, or which was in
itself more unimportant, than that debated on this occasion. Shortly
after the Union was formally proposed in the Irish House of Commons,
Mr. James Fitzgerald introduced a bill to remove all difficulties on
the matter, proposing to enact, that the person who should happen to
be regent de facto in England, should be regent de jure in Ireland.
" If," said Mr. G-eorge Ponsonby, in the debate of the 5th of February,
1 800, " the noble lord (Castlereagh) seriously apprehends any danger
on that ground, it is very singular that when a right honourable gen-
tleman brought in a bill for the purpose of enacting that a regent
chosen by England should be regent in Ireland, it did not meet with
that noble lord's approbation ; and the reason is obvious, because it
would deprive him of one of his arguments in favour of an Union ;
but if there really exists such a danger as the noble lord seems to
apprehend, it is singular that it has never before occurred to the
minister of Ireland, that it has never occurred to the minister of
England, in the space of ten years, from the year 1789 to the present
period."
Mr. Foster was of opinion, that legislation on the question was
needless : " I say that no real difficulty does exist, for it is clear,
notwithstanding what passed in 1789, that the act annexing the crown
in Henry the Eighth, extends to the person authorized by Britain to
administer regal power, whether king, queen, or regent. At the
Revolution the British parliament altered the succession to the crown;
and when the event took place, the succession became our sovereign,
through their act, under ours, of Henry the Eighth ; and so would a
regent invested by Britain with regal authority, become ours, without
any act on our part. Our law of 1782, concerning the great seal,
* The controversy in the end was not on the point, whether the heir apparent
should be the regent, but what should be his powers. Even Mr. Pitt conceded,
that the Prince of Wales should be the regent under certain restrictions, and if
events had rendered it necessary, that he should actually take upon himself the
duties of the office ; and that the two parliaments had continued to disagree on the
question of powers; the most important practical difference would have been,
that the regent could exercise an authority in the creation of peerages in Ireland,
from which be would have been interdicted by the capricious restrictions of Mr.
Pitt and his English parliament !
26 NO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF
puts it out of doubt. Whoever is regent of Britain has that great
seal. The functions of the Irish legislature must cease without its
use, and therefore the regent of Britain alone can represent the third
estate of the Irish legislature. The identity of the person, that the
same person shall necessarily be the regent in both kingdoms, is the
essential point. The acts of annexation, and 1782, secure this; and
if local circumstances require any difference of power, either enabling
or disabling, the Irish parliament will be equally competent to esta-
blish it under the regent, as it is now to establish any difference, if
necessaiy, under the sovereign : but suppose doubts still continue ;
nay, go farther and suppose, contrary to all reason, that the present bill
cannot remove them ; we should be idiots, if we were for a casualty
which may never happen and for a disagreement which may not at-
tend that casualty, and for the very slight, and trifling, and temporary,
and theoretic inconveniences which may be the consequences of such
disagreement to sacrifice our free constitution, degrade the country
into the state almost of a colony, and surrender that legislative inde-
pendence which, in the very act of surrendering, we should show
ourselves unworthy of enjoying."
"When the patriots of '82 succeeded in their great work, one of their
first acts was, a voluntary grant of twenty thousand seamen to the British
fleet. They closed the labours of an ever memorable session by passing
a bill for sparing to his majesty, to be drawn out of this kingdom
whenever he should think fit, a force not exceeding five thousand men
(part of the troops appointed to be kept therein for its defence).
The Duke of Portland, in his speech on proroguing the parliament,
alluded to these measures in emphatic terms. Addressing himself to
the Commons, he said : " When I consider the very active and liberal
part you have taken in contributing to these great and glorious
events, I must as distinctly express to you his majesty's sense of the
last effusion of your generosity for the defence of the empire, as
I must return you his most gracious thanks for the supplies which
you so cheerfully voted at the beginning of this session." His Grace
further observed, that " a grateful zeal, and generous ardour, have
united this whole kingdom in the most cordial and vigorous exertions
which promise, effectually, to frustrate the designs of our common
enemy, and to re-establish and secure the glory of the whole empire."
Such acknowledgments had the representatives of the British crown
to place on the records of the Irish parliament to the latest times. It
lias been :i rhnrgo against the executive government, that it failed in
THE LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND. 27
energy and precaution, if not in a sincere desire, to prevent the fatal
outbreak of '98 ; but that no colour of blame could be attached to
the conduct of the Irish parliament, is proved by the terms in which
the chief governor referred to their measures at the close of the sessions
in the year preceding that unhappy event. On the 3rd of July, 1Y97,
Lord Camden spoke as follows :
" I am to thank you, in his majesty's name, for your unanimity in
voting the extraordinary supplies which the public exigencies
demanded. However unprecedented these supplies have been in extent,
and however difficult they may have been rendered from the state of
public credit, you have wisely attended to the superior consideration
of national safety. Such an exertion is the surest proof that you are
truly sensible of the invaluable blessings which we are contending to
preserve; and that the best means of effecting an honourable peace,
and of restoring all the comforts of tranquillity, are, by displaying at
once your determination and your power, and by convincing your
enemies of the extent of your resources, as Avell as of the extent
of your courage.
" The powers with which you entrusted me by the suspension of
the Habeas Corpus act, have enabled me to bring to light, and
to disconcert, the formidable and secret conspiracy which had been
formed for the total overthrow of your establishment, the destruction
of property, and the dissolution of government. This conspiracy
has been so fully unfolded by your wisdom, that it can no longer
spread itself under the insidious pretence, which it had artfully
assumed, of improving the constitution. In the measures, whether
of vigilance or coercion, which you have recommended for its
extinction, I shall not relax.
" Your judicious augmentation of pay to his majesty's regular and
militia forces, which must render their situation so highly comfortable,
is at once a seasonable and honourable acknowledgment of their
steadiness and loyalty."
In the hour of real trial the conduct of the Irish parliament
was most energetic. Mr. Foster's account of it is the following :
" If we advert to the treasons and rebellions which have so
degraded this country, there we can apply to fact. Could any parlia-
ment, sitting in Great Britain, have developed the secret system of
conspiracy, animated the loyal, and supported the executive, with the
privet this very parliament did? What would the ridiculous exhibi-
tion have been at that time, of a united parliament walking through
28 NO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF
St. James's Park with their address ? and yet, what vigour and
energy did the instant procession of near two hundred members, with
the mace, to the castle, give to the loyal ardour of the country ? It
animated the loyal spirit which crushed the rebellion before a single
soldier could arrive from England, notwithstanding the uncommon
exertions made there to expedite their sailing. The extraordinary,
but wise and necessary measure of proclaiming martial law,
required the concurrence of parliament to support the executive.
The time would have passed by before that concurrence could have
been asked for, and received from London ; and it would have given a
faint support, coming from strangers, compared with the impression
of its springing from Irishmen, all liable to every danger and incon-
venience from its operation, and yielding themselves and their
properties to its control. Recollect the Volunteers the saviours of
their country, and the terror of its enemies. When their great work
was effected, and by the indiscreetness of a few leaders their zeal was
misled, and they began to exercise the functions of parliament, we
spoke out firmly, they heard our voice with effect, and took our
advice in instantly returning to cultivate the blessings of peace.
I ask you, would equal firmness in a parliament composed five parts
in six of strangers sitting in another country, have had the same
effect ? You know it would not. Personal character, respect to in-
dividuals, opinion of their attachment to our common country
all impressed an awe which was irresistible. But how has tranquillity
been preserved in Britain? Don't the secret reports show that France
has a sanguine hope of separating Scotland as well as Ireland, though
she carries the charm of Union to protect her ; that even in England
there are conspiracies ; and, I will put the question to any man who
considers the reports of their parliament and ours, have they probed
the conspiracy to the bottom as we have done ? Is it a vain supposi-
tion, that if Scotland had had its parliament sitting in Edinburgh,
the conspiracy which spread so widely, would have been sooner deve-
loped, and not shown itself again there, after it had been put down
here. Need I go to more instances to show you how tranquillity
has been secured, and disturbances prevented, by the interposition of
the Irish parliament, which you are called upon, for the sake of
preserving tranquillity, to transport out of your kingdom to treat
like the traitors and rebels who plotted to have destroyed your
country ? I feel it would be waste of time. No, no. Cherish the
parliament that was able and willing to save you. All natives of one
THE LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND. 29
country, their stake is in it. Their hearts, as well as their interests,
are engaged in its preservation, its prosperity, and its glory."
The Irish parliament imposed upon Ireland the whole expenditure
connected in reality, or pretended to have been connected, with the
rebellion. This expenditure, considering it with reference to the
increase of debt alone, was not less than 17,000,000 or 18,000,000.
Ireland, in the sacrifices she made, exceeded even the rate of
contribution fixed by Lord Castlereagh; and of this we have an
acknowledgment in his speech of February, 1 800.
The expense of Great Britain for the year 1799, was ... 32,700,000
That of Ireland, 5,429,000
If this expense had been borne in the proportion of
7j to 1, Great Britain would have expended ... 33,695,101
Ireland would have expended ... ... ... ... 4,492,680
And Ireland would have, consequently, saved ... ... 947,311
Or, 1,020,181 in Irish currency.
Well, then, might Mr. Foster have asked " Has the Irish par-
liament, in peace, or Avar, or in treaties, since we have any records of
its proceedings, clogged the progress of the empire by holding a
different opinion from the British ; more especially, since the resto-
ration of its independence roused in it the pride, the spirit, and the
sense of honour which always attends true liberty? Has it, through
peace or war, ever differed from the British, or been less zealous in
improving the one, and prosecuting the other ? From that period to
this day the times have been marked with great and trying events,
and will afford us numerous examples of concurrence ; none of dif-
ference, except you call the regency such. In every one, then, in
which Ireland could show its opinion, that opinion has been to sup-
port and strengthen Britain, to adopt the same regulations, to confer
the same powers. Look to the many regulations in the commercial
system navigation act, manifest act, intercourse with the United
States, treaty with France, expiration of the East India charter, and
the arrangement of trade there."
How different was the relative position of England and Scotland
before the Scotch Union. The two countries were all but at open
war. A demise of the crown was expected, which would legally
disconnect them in reference to the sovereignty. The Scotch par-
liament passed a law for the exportation of wool to France, then at
war with England. The English parliament, on the other hand,
passed a law declaring the Scotcli aliens ; forbidding arms and ammu-
nition to be exported to Scotland, and prohibiting the import of
30 XO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF
Scotch cattle (five-sixths of the entire exports of Scotland), and also
the import of its linen and coals, until the Scotch should agree with
the English as to the settlement of the succession to the crown.
Nay, more, the English admiralty ordered cruizers to seize Scotch
ships engaged in the trade with France and Holland, and troops were
ordered to be despatched to the Scotch frontiers.
What was Scotland likely to lose by the Union ? " Scotland,"
said Mr. Foster, " had no constitution like England. Her two houses
sat together, and the representatives of the people did not hold the
purse of the nation. Her king, by his power of creating peers, could
at any day overpower the voices of the Commons by numbers, just as
the five hundred and fifty-eight British members could overpower our
pitiful hundred delegates. Her parliament, even with this imperfect
constitution, had not a deliberative power. It could discuss no subject
but what was previously prepared by the lords of the articles, some-
what as ours was limited, by Poyning's act, to whatever the Privy
Council should think proper to point out The Scotch had
every disadvantage of an unequal and very imperfect connection with a
powerful and jealous rival. They had much to gain, and little to lose.
Their situation at the time also rendered them susceptible of peculiar
benefits ; low in manufactures, cramped in trade, they must see hap-
piness in an oifer of being incorporated with a nation rich in trade
and manufactures. Scotland could not long hesitate to accept a share in
all the benefits of a great and increasing commerce, not one atom of
which she could otherwise enjoy. Nature, too, seemed to point out
to the inhabitants of the same island to cease their mutual jars, and
become one people ; and if Munster was a distinct kingdom in this
island, situated as Scotland was, I should be a strong advocate for
Munster's uniting with the rest of the island. But look at our situa-
tion a constituent part of the empire, we enjoy all its various
branches of trade, and have a right to, and receive, its protection.
Separated, by nature, by the Irish Channel, the two kingdoms have
not been subject to the incursions, and deadly hates, and animosities
which distracted Scotland and England ; we are not only united to
the crown, but to the empire, inseparably; our friends and our
enemies always the same ; and our interests, as well as our laAvs, bind-
ing us in that Union. We have long enjoyed a free constitution.
We have it as free and as much calculated for happiness, for security,
and for every blessing of society, as any nation upon earth equally
50 as England. With this, with every power of trade, with every
THE LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND. 31
port in the universe that is open to England, open likewise to us ; we
have nothing to gain, and much to lose. We have to lose that
constitution under which we have thriven since its final adjustment
in 1782, and which has raised us into manufactures, trade, affluence,
and station, amongst the nations of the earth."
There could be no greater disparity than existed between Scotland
and England in commerce and wealth. According to Chalmers, the
foreign trade of England was to that of Scotland as 36 to 1, the
consumption as 28 to 1, the communication as 100 to 1, and the in-
ternal trade as 20 to 1. The mean of these proportions is 46 to 1,
though the ability of Great Britain to that of Ireland was estimated
by Lord Castlereagh as not exceeding 7^ to 1. Mr. Jebb used these
facts in answer to a statement by the under secretary, Cooke. He
showed that the exports of Ireland to Great Britain alone, at the un-
favourable period of the close of the American war, were three times
greater than those of Scotland to the whole world, though Scotland
had the advantage of an eighty years' effort to improve her condition,
while Ireland, on the contrary, had laboured during all that time
under the most harsh and injurious restrictions. Such was the case
of Scotland, so often referred to in discussions on this question. It
was dissimilar in every respect to that of Ireland. These were all
the imperative motives described for a Scotch Union, and it could not
possibly have rendered the weaker country more miserable. There
was not a ground on which it could be alleged, that there was one
reason or inducement of a similar character for an Irish Union.
We cannot have a perfect view of the utter wantonness of the fatal
measure under consideration, without another glance at the general
character of the proceedings of the Irish parliament in the eighteen years
succeeding the declaration of its independence. So far was it from
exhibiting factious or revolutionary tendencies, in the court sense of
the words, that Grattan had to accuse it, in 1790, of its tardiness in
carrying out objects which should be anticipated from a " renewed
constitution." It debated absenteeism and an India bill,* and came
to a decision which the court itself would have desired, by rejecting
the propositions submitted on both, though Grattan was the person
who moved on the India bill. It debated reform of parliament as
temperately, and, certainly, as innoxiously to borough-mongering
interests, as it was discussed in the British parliament. It debated a
* The question was, what were the rights of Ireland under the existing law?
not whether a new law should be introduced.
32 NO COLOURABLE PRETEXT FOR THE ABOLITION OF
pension bill and a place bill not as promptly as Grattan would have
desired, but it rendered the practical good to the country of reducing
the pension list to one-third of its former amount.* It employed
much time in considering the "propositions," but gave Mr. Pitt's
original policy greater countenance than it received in the British
parliament. It debated a Dublin police bill the freedom of the press
riotous assemblies tithes freedom of elections fiats of judges
a responsibility billf a place bill barren lands Catholic disabilities
in none of which, as must be confessed, were interests involved to
excite particular jealousy in the British mind. There was a treaty
of commerce with France, and so little was it made an occasion of
dispute with the British parliament, that an address was voted to the
king, of which we have the following record in the twenty-fourth
volume of the Journals of the Irish House of Commons, p. 177:
" A motion was made, and the question being put, that an humble
address be presented to his majesty, expressing our unfeigned thanks
to his majesty for his majesty's gracious communication of the treaty
of navigation and commerce, concluded between his majesty and the
most Christian king. That, ever solicitous to increase the sources of
mutual prosperity in Great Britain and Ireland, we humbly entreat
his majesty to accept our grateful acknowledgments for the present
signal instance of royal attention to our common interest in treaties
with foreign states, and we retain the firmest confidence of an equal
care in his royal breast, on all similar occasions. That we humbly
thank his majesty for the provisions made by this treaty, to secure
and extend our manufactures upon such a liberal foundation of reci-
procity as gives assurance that the treaty will be permanent ; and that
we trust an habitual intercourse of commercial interests, and good
offices, with the kingdom of France, will excite in us a friendly emu-
lation in the industrious arts of peace. That we shall immediately
enter upon the consideration of the proper means to give effect to the
conditions of the treaty, and to enable his majesty to carry into
execution engagements which appear to us to be founded in wisdom
and equity, and to afford a beneficial encouragement to the increasing
efforts of the nation in manufactures and commerce.
" It was carried in the affirmative."
* It was 120,000 a year, which was reduced to 80,000.
f By the responsibility bill no money could be disposed of by the sole order
of the king, as was before the case ; Irish officers having been appointed to sign
every warrant, and all warrants and officers having been rendered liable to the
animadversions of parliament.
TIIK LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND. 33
We could heartily wish that any body of Irishmen had occasion to
address the throne, with reference to the last commercial arrangement
with France, in similar iernis !
There was a point of difference with Spain ; but it engaged no
attention in Ireland; and, in short, foreign relations, which are
supposed to be so prolific in causes of disagreement, interrupted not
for one hour the good understanding which it was so desirable to
maintain between the two parliaments. Even the French revolution
had connected with it no accidents which were capable of provoking
a single discussion, or a solitary enunciation of opinion, in which a
serious want of concord could be indicated.
During the first excitements of that revolution a new parliament
was elected in Ireland, but the old members were generally returned.
When this parliament assembled, it voted an address which received
an answer from the king " strongly expressive of his satisfaction at
their determination to support the honour of his crown, and the
common interests of the empire at that important crisis." The
Catholic adjustment of 1793, such as it was, had not only the sanction
but encouragement of Britain. Every parliamentary act subsequently
was as she could desire. Repeated endeavours to effect a reform of
parliament had failed ; and such was at length the ascendancy of the
British minister, that Grattan closed a speech in these words: "We
have offered you our measure ; you will reject it. We deprecate
yours ; you will persevere. Having no hopes left to dissuade or
persuade, and having discharged our duty, we, shall trouble you no
more ; and after this day shall not attend the House of Commons."
Grattan retired, and the fact may be cited to show, that the Irish
parliament had lost much of its importance ; but it can establish
nothing to that end which does not demonstrate, that the British
minister was moved by no necessity or just provocation to annihilate
the legislative institutions of Ireland, which had existed so long in
the veneration of the people, and under which it was, on all hands,
admitted, they were in the enjoyment of an unexampled prosperity.
34 MEANS BY WHICH THE
CHAPTER V.
MEANS BY WHICH THE UNION WAS EFFECTED.
shall take up the authorities on this head as they come to hand.
Mr. Bushe said that
" The basest corruption and artifice were excited to promote the
Union. All the worst passions of the human heart were entered in
the service, and all the most depraved ingenuity of the human intel-
lect tortured to devise new contrivances of fraud."
Lord Castlereagh himself avowed the practice of corruption. He
said, " Half a million and more was spent some time since to break
on opposition the same, or a greater sum, may be necessary now."
Mr. Grattan, in referring to this acknowledgment, said
" The threat was proceeded on ; the peerage, sold ; the caitiffs of
corruption were everywhere in the lobby, in the streets, on the
steps, and at the door of every parliamentary leader, offering titles to
some, office to others, corruption to all."
Mr. (now Lord) Grey said, in the English House of Commons
" Twenty-seven counties have petitioned against the measure. The
petition from the county of Down is signed by upwards of seventeen
thousand respectable, independent men ; and all the others are in a simi-
lar proportion. Dublin petitioned under the great seal of the city, and
each of the corporations in it followed the example. Drogheda peti-
tioned against the Union ; and almost every other town in the
kingdom in like manner testified its disapprobation. Those in favour
of the measure, possessing great influence in the country, obtained a
few counter petitions ; yet, though the petition from the county of
Down was signed by seventeen thousand, the counter petition was
signed only by four hundred and fifteen. Though there were seven
hundred and seven thoiisand who had signed petitions against the mea-
sure, the total number of those who declared themselves in favour of
it, did not exceed three thousand, and many of these only prayed
that the measure might be discussed. If the facts I state are true,
and I challenge any man to falsify them, could a nation in more
direct terms express its disapprobation of a political measure, than
Ireland has done of a legislative Union witli Great Britain. In fact,
the nation is nearly unanimous; and this great majority is composed
UNION WAS EFFECTED. 35
not of bigots, fanatics, or Jacobins, but of the most respectable of
every class in the community."
Mr. Fox said, he "considered the Union was the most disgraceful
transaction in which any country ever was involved."
On Wednesday, the fifth of February, 1800, Sir Laurence Parsons
(afterwards Earl of Ross) called the attention of the Irish House of
Commons to a subject which, he said, " involved the dignity of par-
liament, and the safety of the country. The noble lord on the
Treasury Bench had, in the last session, declared that this question
should never again be revived, unless the people of the country
should appear favourable to its introduction. How was the sense of
the people to be taken ? Was it by legal and constitutional meetings,
called expressly for the purpose of considering the measure, and left
to their own unbiassed judgment to determine its utility or disad-
vantage ? Was this the means really resorted to ? Was this the plan
adopted by the noble lord to investigate the public sentiment ? No,
every artifice that could be suggested was resorted to ; influence,
threats, and military power were made use of, to procure what the
noble lord is pleased to term the unbiassed sense of the country."
The honourable baronet then related the facts connected with the
dispersion of a meeting assembled at Birr, after due notice, to petition
against a legislative Union. The freeholders, and a number of gen-
tlemen of landed property in the country, were proceeding to deli-
berate on the measure, when the high sheriff, who had declined to
convene the meeting, came into the court-house and told them that if
they did not withdraw the military should be employed to disperse
them. The meeting continued to take it into consideration, when a
gentleman came into the court-house, and informed them that the
garrison was turned out, and coming towards the court-house. The
rneeting had but just come to the resolution to leave the court-house,
when, as they went out, they saw the army advancing, with four pieces
of cannon, the matches lighted, and Major Rogers at their head.
The whole garrison was in motion, and advancing towards the session-
house. Major Rogers having been expostulated with for bringing
the army down upon the people, and advancing against them with
cannon, replied, " That if he had got but one word from the sheriff,
he would have knocked the court-house about their ears."
Mr. Grey, on another occasion, said :
" There are three hundred members in all ; and one hundred and
twenty-six of these strenuously opposed the measure, among
>O MKANS BY WHICH Til 1C
whom were two-thirds of the county members, the representatives
of the city of Dublin, and of almost all the towns which it is
proposed shall send members to the imperial parliament; one hun-
dred and sixty-two voted in favour of the Union. Of those, one
hundred and sixteen were placemen some of them were English
generals on the staff, without one foot of ground in Ireland, and
completely dependent upon government. Let us reflect upon the
arts Avhich have been used, since the last session of the Irish
parliament, to pack a majority in the House of Commons. All
holding offices under government, even the most intimate friends
of the minister, who had formerly supported his administration
until the present occasion, if they hesitated to vote as directed,
were dismissed from office, and stript of all their employments.
Even this step was found ineffectual, and other arts were had
recourse to, which, though I cannot name in this place, all will easily
conjecture. A bill for preserving the purity of parliament was like-
wise abused, and no less than sixty-three seats were vacated by their
holders, having received nominal offices. I will not press this subject
further upon the attention of the committee. I defy any man to lay his
hand upon his heart and to say, that he believes the parliament of
Ireland was sincerely in favour of the measure."
Mr. Plunket said :
" I will be bold to say, that licentious and impious France, in all
the unrestrained excesses to which anarchy and atheism have given
birth, has not committed a more insidious act against her enemy,
than is now attempted by the professed champion of the cause of
civilized Europe, against a friend and ally in the hour of her calamity
and distress ; at a moment, when our country is filled with British
troops ; when the loyal men of Ireland are fatigued and exhausted by
their efforts to subdue the rebellion- efforts in which they had suc-
ceeded before those troops had arrived ; whilst the Habeas Corpus act
is suspended ; whilst trials by court-martial are carrying on in many
parts of the kingdom ; whilst the people are taught to think they
have no right to meet or deliberate ; and whilst the great body of
them are so palsied by their fears, and worn down by their
exertions, that even the vital question is scarcely able to rouse
them from their lethargy ; at a moment when we are distracted
by domestic dissensions dissensions artfully kept alive as the
pretext of our present subjugation, and the instrument of our
future thraldom."
UNION WAS EFFECTED.
37
Mr. O'Connell, in tlie Dublin corporation discussion on the Repeal
of the Union, in February, 1833, said:
" I, myself, remember a gentleman from Kerry, a barrister, Mr.
St. John Mason, who was hunted out of the country because he dared
to put an address into a newspaper, calling on the people of Kerry to
petition against the Union ; who was pursued to Roscrea, and after-
wards committed to Kilmainham gaol, where he lay for months, for
no offence, but attempting to petition against the Union.
" When the high sheriff of the Queen's County called a meeting
of his bailiwick, in the town of Maryborough, to petition against the
Union, he was met by Colonel Connor, with two regiments of infantry,
and detachments of cavalry and artillery, by whom the meeting was
instantly dispersed as the sheriff was about to take the chair. Again,
the high sheriff of Tipperary convened a meeting of the nobility,
gentry, and freeholders of his county. He took the chair, but he had
been hardly ten minutes in the court-house, when it was filled with
armed soldiery, who dispersed the meeting at the point of the
bayonet. That was the conduct pursued at this eventful period.
Corruption, bribery, force, fraud, and terror Avere used."
That efforts were employed to deter men from the performance of
their duty within the walls of parliament itself, may be inferred from a
speech delivered by Mr. Bushe, while the measure was still under dis-
cussion in the Irish House of Commons. He said, May 29, 1800 :
" A doubt had been officially declared, whether it were loyal or
constitutional to utter a sentiment upon the question of Union after
the decision already had in parliament. In spite of this doubt, he-
wished to offer himself to the house, though, in doing so, he must
say, in the words of a great character, nurtured in that assembly, that
' my friends have left me nothing to add, my adversaries have given
me nothing to answer.' He would only repeat his detestation of this
Union ; his execration of the means employed to carry it forward, and
his dread of the consequences by which it would be followed."
At an earlier period of the struggle, Mr. Saurin had to defend him-
self against a charge of Jacobinism founded upon his honest, energetic,
but most constitutional opposition to the measure. On the 19th of
March, 1800, he said, that
" To the charge of Jacobinism he knew not what it meant, a.-
applied to him, except it was an opposition to the will of the British
minister. Tie remembered when lie was armed, and was sworn to
defend the constitution niraiii.--t .Jacobins; and lie, and all the Irish
38 MEANS BY AVHICH THE
gentry, co-operating in the same cause, were called loyal men ; but
now, that they remain faithful to their principles and to their oaths,
and defended the constitution against the minister, they were branded
with the appellation of Jacobins. The agitations in this country, and
the discussions that took place in the Irish parliament, were made the
pretexts for an Union ; but if these arguments were to be admitted,
the British parliament could not long survive that of Ireland. If the
British minister wished to get rid of the British parliament, he would
not fail to draw arguments from the Middlesex election, the riots of
1780, and the late conspiracy which spread over every corner of the
island." Unaffected by all attempts to intimidate him and others, he
would still contend, that " the measure of the Union, from the means
used in, and the season and manner of its passing, to say nothing of
its unconstitutional nature, never could stand the test of future
experience and time."
In a protest signed by several lords of Ireland, we read as follows :
" 10th. Because, when we consider the weakness of this kingdom,
at the time the measure was brought forward, and her inability to
withstand the destructive designs of the minister, and couple with
the act itself the means that have been employed to accomplish it
such as the abuse of the place bill, for the purpose of corrupting the
parliament, the appointment of sheriffs to prevent county meet-
ings, the dismissal of the old, steadfast friends of constitutional
government for their adherence to the constitution, and the return of
persons into parliament who had neither connection nor stake in this
country, and were, therefore, selected to decide upon her fate ; when
we consider the armed force of the minister, added to his power and
practices of corruption when we couple these things together,
we are warranted to say, that the basest means have been used to
accomplish this great innovation, and that the measure of Union
tends to dishonour the ancient peerage for ever ; to disqualify both
houses of parliament, and subjugate the people of Ireland for ever.
Such circumstances, we apprehend, will be recollected with abhor-
rence, and will create jealousy between the two nations, in place of
that harmony which for ?o many centuries has been the cement of
their Union."
We are tempted again, by this concluding passage, to make one
short quotation more from Mr. Grey.
"Though you should be able," said he, "to carry the measure,
ypf the peoplp of Ireland will wait for an opportunity of recovering
UNION WAS EFFECTED. 39
their rights, which they will say were taken from them by
force."
A very remarkable speech on the effects of the Union, as well as
the means taken to carry the measure, was delivered on the hustings
of Tipperary, by Mr. Bagwell, in the beginning of the year 1819,
when he was elected, without opposition, member of parliament for
that county:
" Another subject of high importance remains to be noticed the
legislative Union with Great Britain. When we complain, gentle-
men, of the pressure of taxation, we should visit the greater share of
the blame on the supporters of the Union. The amount of the
debt of Ireland in the year 1 800, was from ten to eleven millions ;
and it is now, I believe, upwards of two hundred millions ;* and
Ireland at this time presents a picture of distress unparalleled in the
annals of any other country in the world. Though the taxes have
been actually quintupled, yet the revenue falls infinitely short of
paying even the interest of the debt; and this is the consequence of
the improvident bargain made at the time of the Union. This
country, in fact, may be truly said to be in a state of positive bank-
ruptcy, and must continue in that deplorable state, should the
resources of England not be applied to its assistance. Such are the
melancholy consequences of the Union. I have the consolation,
however, of reflecting, that I stand acquitted of any participation in
that baneful measure, as I opposed it with the utmost force, as did my
father and my brother. At that period, gentlemen, some strange
things occurred in this county. I have in my possession a written
document, signed by the then high sheriff, Francis Hely Hutchinson,
importing to declare, that the unanimous feeling of the country was
in favour of the Union. [Here a voice in the crowd vociferated,
'No !'] Wait a moment, my honest fellow, you mistake my meaning ;
but if you listen a little, I shall convince you. Another document
has also reached me, for the genuineness of which I can appeal to the
worthy gentleman (Arthur Eiall, Esq.) who stands near me, and
whose signature I believe it bears. [Here Mr. Riall intimated that
it was his brother, General Riall, governor of Granada.] This
document, gentlemen, is a requisition to which the names of many of
the most respectable inhabitants of this town were attached, request-
* This is an exaggerated estimate, but little was known by public men on the
subject when this speech was delivered.
40 MEANS BY WHICH Tin:
ing the mayor to call a town meeting in order to afford an opportunity
to the inhabitants to express their opposition to the measure. "Who
the then mayor was I do not know; but this I know, that the present
mayor would not act as he did, or refuse to convene a meeting
of his townsmen. However, in his answer (and such as it is, I believe
it was extorted from him) he declined to accede to the wishes of the
inhabitants; and the commanding-general on this station-, Sir Charles
Asgill, availing himself of the extraordinary powers which were then
entrusted to him for the suppression of illegal and tumultuary
assemblages, actually threatened, in case the inhabitants attempted to
assemble, to disperse the meeting by force. Such was the unanimity
of public opinion in favour of the Union! At this juncture,
my Lord Lismore, much to his credit, evinced a determined opposi-
tion to the measure. He called upon my father, and produced a list
of the names of gentlemen in this county, who were also decidedly
hostile to it, and amongst whom were many of those the most prominent
and respectable in rank, property, and character. The present Lord
Llandaff, my father, my brother, and myself, accordingly gave the
measure our most strenuous opposition."
It may be mentioned as a curious illustration of the way in which
history is spoken, as well as written, that on the presentation of
a petition, from Drogheda, against the Union, on the 22nd of March,
1830, Mr. (now Sir Robert) Feel stated, that "the sentiments of the
people of both countries had been freely and fairly expressed in the
formation of the Union between both countries." He was of the
same opinion in the great discussion of 1834, for he spoke of the
" voluntary compact between two nations which had then lasted four
and thirty years."*
We shall close this chapter with a statement of the army payments
in Ireland for five years, ended January, 1801. It will be seen that
they increased even after the rebellion was completely suppressed to
the last sitting of the Irish parliament. All these payments were, as
we have already observed, charged to inland exclusively; and
they were the principal cause of the accumulation of the debt com-
* Mr. 'I 'low den, a \vann advocate for the Union, observes. a.s follows, with
reference to the " powers of patronage" employed : " Many, it is to be feared,
in both houses sacrificed their convictions. Twenty-seven new titles were
ndded to the peerage; promotions, "rants, concessions, arrangements, promises,
were lavished with a profusion never before known in that country. Pity for
both sides, that so great and important a political measure should owe any part
<>f its success to other, than the means of temperate reason and persuasion.''
UNION WAS EFFECTED.
paratively small as it was due by Ireland at the period of the
Union.
Year. Army expenditure.
1797 2,221,50.5
1798 2,548,331
1799 3,697,314
1800 3,879,569
1801 4,285,362
The military force was never after so large in Ireland as in
the year ended the 5th of January, 1801, which was the time the
act of Union became operative. In the year after the expenditure
fell to 3,505,338, and in the succeeding year to 2,876,621.
It advanced a little in 1804, and considerably in 1805, but it never
was so high as in the year ended 5th of January, 1801.*
* Report of Session, 1830, No. 667.
42 THE TERMS OF THE UNION WERE
CHAPTER VI.
THE TERMS OF THE UNION WERE UNFAVOURABLE TO IRELAND.
IT is believed that the failure of the "propositions" of 1785, first
suggested a legislative Union to Mr. Pitt. Indeed, it has been dis-
tinctly alleged by himself, that the introduction of one project was the
unavoidable consequence of the rejection of the other. In his speech
on the llth of January, 1799, his words were :
" I am not now arguing that a legislative Union is the only mea-
sure which can possibly be adopted." As to the danger of jealousies,
he asked, " How can the evil be remedied ?" He answered, " By two
means only : either by some compact entered into by the legislatures
of the two countries, respecting the mode of forming their commer-
cial regulations, or else by blending the two legislatures together.
These," said he, " are the only two means. I defy the wit of
man to point out a third." " We have, then," he continued, " the
licence and authority of that right honourable gentleman (the allusion
was to a speech spoken by Mr. Foster in 1785), stating the advan-
tages that would result from the adoption of those propositions, and
that the rejection of them would, in his opinion, lead to a separation
between the two countries. The result is, then, that you must remain
in the state he has described, with the seeds of separation between
the two countries sown, and with the connection upon which their
mutual prosperity depends, in danger of being dissolved ; or you
must make a compact between the two legislatures, a measure which
has been tried and found impracticable, or you must have a legislative
Union."
In this passage it is assumed, that the measure of 1785 had been
found " impracticable." It was so found in that year, but it does not
follow that it could not have been carried in 1799. It was beyond
question practicable in 1800; and it is of some importance that there
is a clear admission in these passages, that it would have rendered a
legislative Union unnecessary, in the mind even of William Pitt-
Some measures suggested by the propositions were, as has been seen
in the statement of Mr. Foster, voluntarily adopted by the Irish
parliament, long before the agitation for an Union had commenced;
UNFAVOURABLE TO IRELAND. 43
and the legislation of subsequent times had attested the impolicy of
the interdict, as to the intercourse with India, which, in 1785, was so
strenuously insisted upon by the mercantile interests of England.
The fact is, that if there were two legislatures now in existence, they
would readily agree to every really equitable principle contained in
those famous propositions. All the objects they were intended to
effect for England, have been achieved ; and that they have thus suc-
ceeded, is no part of the complaint of Ireland at the present moment.
Ireland does not complain that there is free trade. Ireland does not
complain that she contributes to the general expenditure of the
empire. Mr. Pitt's " mode of forming commercial regulations," is in
operation. There is, then, no real or substantial ground for those
"jealousies" he spoke of ; and all his apprehensions regarding them
have been proved groundless. Ireland makes not, we repeat, any
objection to the appropriation of a portion of her taxes to the support
of the navy. The considerations of commerce and taxation having
been settled in a way far transcending any expectations entertained
either in 1785, or at the Union, it would require some ingenuity to
point out what subject there could be a serious difference upon, if
there were now two legislatures.*
* In the Quarterly Review for September, 1842, extracts are taken from a corres-
pondence between Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Rutland, lord lieutenant of Ireland
from 1781 to 1787- This correspondence, it appears, was published for the first
time in 1842, having been discovered accidentally by the present Duke of
Rutland, in examining some family papers. We learn from it, that in 1784,
Mr. Pitt thought that the basis of a " permanent connection" between the two
countries, was to be found in an arrangement entirely independent of a legis-
lative Union. lie not only contemplated the permanent existence of two
legislatures, but a reform to be extended to both. The following extracts are
remarkable :
" Parliamentary reform, I am still sure, after considering all you have stated,
must sooner or later be carried in both countries. If it is well done, the sooner,
the better. I will write to you, by as early an opportunity as I can, the full
result of all my reflections on the subject. For God's sake, do not persuade
yourself, in the meantime, that the measure, if properly managed, and sepa-
rated from every ingredient of faction (which I believe it maybe), is inconsistent
with either the dignity or the tranquillity and facility of government. On the
contrary, I believe they ultimately depend upon it. And if such a settlement
is practicable, it is the only system worth the hazard and trouble which belongs
to every system that can be thought of."
The above is from a letter from Mr. Pitt, dated December 4, 1784. The
following passages are from a long and elaborate letter, dated January 6, 1785,
in which he unfolds his plan of a " final compact," which was to make England
and Ireland one country in effect, though, for local concerns, under distinct
legislatures :
' ' The general tenor of our propositions not only gives a full equality to
Ireland, but extends that principle to many points where it would be easy to
have urged just exception? ; and in many other points possibly turns the scale
44 THE TERMS OF THE UNION WERE
The Union having been the measure resolved upon, terms were to
be proposed. The professions of liberal and even generous inten-
tions, on the part of the English minister, were very specious. The
Union was to be founded, according to the speech now alluded to, on
"fair, just, and equitable principles, calculated to produce mutual
advantages to the two kingdoms." The connection was to be upheld
" with a regard to the local interests of Ireland ; with a regard to
every thing that can give to Ireland its due weight and importance,
as a great member of the empire ; with a view of giving to that
country the means of improving all its great natural resources, and
in her favour, at a risk, perhaps a remote one, of considerable local disadvan-
tages to many great interests of this country. I do not say that in practice I
apprehend the effect on our trade and manufactures will be such as it will
perhaps be industriously represented ; but I am persuaded (whatever may be
the event) that, by the additions now proposed to former concessions, we open
to Ireland the chance of a competition with ourselves on terms of more than
equality, and we give her advantages which make it impossible she should ever
have anything to fear from the jealousy or restrictive policy of this country in
future. Such an arrangement is defensible only on the idea of relinquishing
local prejudices and partial advantages, in order to consult uniformly and
without distinction the general benefit of the empire. This cannot be done but
by making England and Ireland one country in effect, though, for local concerns,
under distinct legislatures ; one in the communication of advantages, and, of
course, in the participation of burdens. If their unity is broken, or rendered
absolutely precarious, in either of these points, the system is defective, and
there is an end of the whole. ..........
" If a permanent system is to be settled by the authority of two distinct
legislatures, I do not know what there is more odious in a bargain between
them, than in a treaty between two separate crowns. If the bargain is unfair,
if the terms of it are not for mutual benefit, it is not calculated for the situation
of two countries connected as Great Britain and Ireland ought to be. But it
is of the essence of such a settlement (whatever name is to be given to it) that
both the advantage and the obligation should be reciprocal ; one cannot be so
without the other. This reciprocity, whether it is or is not to be called a
bargain, is an inherent and necessary part of the new system to be established
between the two countries. In the relations of Great Britain with Ireland there
can subsist but two possible principles of connection : the one, 'that which is
exploded, of total subordination in Ireland, and of restrictions on her com-
merce for the benefit of this country, which was by this means enabled to bear
the whole burden of the empire ; the other is, what is now proposed to be con-
firmed and completed, that of an equal participation of all commercial advan-
tages, and some proportion of the charge of protecting the general interest.
If Ireland is at all connected with this country, and to remain a member of the
empire, she must make her option between these two principles, and she has
wisely and justly made it for the latter. But if she does think this system for
her advantage as well as ours, and if 'she sets an}' value either on the confirma-
tion and security of what has been given her, or on the possession of what i>
now within her reach, she can attain neither without performing, on her part,
what both reason and justice entitle us to expect.
" The only remaining consideration is. for what service this contribution shall
be granted, and in what manner it shall be applied. This seems a question of
little difficulty. The great advantage that Ireland will derive is, from the equal
participation of our trade, and of the benefits derived from our colonies.
Nothing, therefore, is so natural, as that she should contribute 1<> the support of
UNFAVOURABLE To IRKLAM). 45
of giving it a full participation of all those blessing* which "England
enjoyed."* " If ever a time should come, at which a separation of
the interests of the two countries should, unhappily, arrive, it will
not take place in consequence of any want of conciliation or kindness
on the part of Great Britain." Ireland was to be taxed with the,
strict observance of the " due proportion of her ability," and, more-
over, the " due proportion of her own limited expenses ;"f and, in
fine, she was to be entitled to " the same privileges," the Union being
designed to be founded on " equal and liberal principles ; on the simi-
larity of laws, constitution, and government ; and on a sense of
mutual interests and affections, by promoting the security, wealth,
and commerce of the respective kingdoms, and by allaying the
distractions which have unhappily prevailed in Ireland."^;
It is really curious to observe in what a variety of ways ^profes-
sions were made, and allurements held out, to Ireland. In the same
speech, which was, according to Mr. Foster, circulated all over Ireland
with the imprint of the publisher of the government official Gazette,
we have the following passage :
" The advantages of the linen trade have been stated in Ireland by
a respectable authority as an argument against the Union ; but I
the navy, on which the protection of both depends. For the rest, it seems
only necessary to provide some proper mode of ascertaining to the parliament
of Ireland, that the surplus is annually paid over, to be applied together with
other moneys voted here for naval services, and to be accounted for, together
with them, to the parliament of this country. There can be but one navy for
the empire at large, and it must be administered by the executive power in this
country. The particulars of the administration of it cannot be under the
control of anything but the parliament of this country. This principle, on the
fullest consideration, seems one which must be held sacred. Nothing else can
also prevent the supreme executive power, and witli it the force of the empire,
being distracted into different channels, and its energy and effect being conse-
quently lost. As the sum to be received in this manner from Ireland can never
be more than a part (I fear a small one) of the whole naval expense, as its
amount from time to time will be notorious, and as it will go in diminution of
the supplies to be granted here, the parliament of this country will have both
the means and the inducement to watch its expenditure as narrowly as if it was
granted by themselves. Ireland, therefore, will have the same security that we
have against any misapplication, and she will have the less reason to be jealous
on the subject, because we have a common interest with her, and to a still
greater extent, in the service which it is intended to support ; and if any defi-
ciency arises from mismanagement, it will (according to this arrangement) fall,
not upon them, but upon us, to make it good."
[The foregoing note has been introduced since this essay was sent to the
printer's. The work lias been left, in all other respects (with the exception of
a few alterations merely verbal, and, a note in a subsequent page referring to
the Keport of the Land Commissioner?), as it was when submitted to the judges
at the close of December.]
* Speech of Mr. Pitt, January 31, 1790.
f Ibid. J Ibid.
46 THE TERMS OF THE UNION WERE
must observe that this trade at present rests on the independent
discretion and liberality of the parliament of Great Britain ; whereas,
were an Union to take place, the trade would, in the first instance,
be secured by formal and irrevocable compact, and would, besides,
from the identity of interest between the two countries, have a
security for its continuance worth a thousand compacts."*
Nevertheless, the terms of the Union were highly unfavourable to
Ireland; and we would desire, in the first place, to show this by the
illustrations of a writer who was an advocate of legislative incorpo-
ration, Mr. Newenham, author of " A View of the Natural, Political,
and Commercial Circumstances of Ireland."
" First, consistently with the principles of equity, Britain ought to
have given some appropriate advantages to Ireland, in compensation
for those which the latter unquestionably derived from the locality of
her legislature. Secondly, the commercial arrangements between the
two countries ought to have been regulated by the consideration, that
much of the wealth acquired in Ireland would necessarily flow into
Britain, and remain there, while none of that acquired by the latter
would finally be fixed in the former. Thirdly, some indemnification
ought to have been prepared for Ireland, for the increased pressure
of taxes which she was about to experience, in consequence of an
addition to the number of her absentees : for it was evident that her
public revenue would suffer a diminution proportionate to the private
revenue withdrawn; and, consequently, that the burden of taxes would
be augmented on that which remained, and industry be in proportion
cramped ; while in Britain, to which this private revenue was destined
to flow, the contrary effects were to be expected. Fourthly, two
countries, to which equal commercial advantages were intended, but
in one of which manufacturing skill, capital, and industry, were
raised to an unequalled height, and in the other almost totally
wanting, ought certainly not to have been placed on a level in any
particular ; but due allowances made to the latter, until it had attained
* The advantages of the linen trade before the Union were thus described
by Mr. Pitt: "By the bounty we give to Ireland we afford her a double
market for this article, and thus ensure to her advantages in competition with
other countries in linens of thirty per cent By this practice we indeed
appear either to forego the advantages of the duty arising from the importation
of other linens, constituting a revenue of 700,000, or by admitting their linens
only to sacrifice in the price of the article collected from the people a million
sterling."
There are now no bounties ; there is not even a linen board ; and the advan-
tage which the Irish traders have, is one common to the traders of the empire
at large an import duty affecting foreign linens of fifteen per cent.
UNFAVOURABLE TO IRELAND. 47
to an equality, or nearly to an equality with the former
Lastly, the number of representatives allotted to Ireland was by no
means proportionably and equitably adjusted to those circumstances
which ought to have been resorted to, or which were resorted to, on
the subject of representation, by the framers of the act ; an omission
on which it seems necessary to enlarge, as in the event of its being
remedied, the people of Ireland may entertain a much more sanguine
expectation than they do now of such an equitable general modifica-
tion of the act of Union, as may render it a political blessing of superior
magnitude. The number of representatives for Ireland ought to
have been adjusted to the population and wealth of the country,
conjunctively, or rather more to the former than to the latter;
inasmuch as national wealth is more likely to be increased under a
good government, in proportion to the number of people, than the
number of people in proportion to the augmentation of wealth ; but
to ascertain either the population or wealth of Ireland, or to attain a
competent knowledge of them, required a much more minute and
comprehensive investigation than appears to have taken place ....
The number of representatives to which Ireland appeared entitled
by all those returns, [imports, exports, revenue, &c.,] taken on an
average, was 108. In allowing her therefore one hundred represen-
tatives principles of equity appear to be sufficiently adhered to, but in
reality it was far otherwise. For, first, the returns of the hearth-money
collectors had always been known to be considerably under the truth.
The inspector-general of hearth money gave it as his decided opinion
to the writer of these pages, that not more than one-half of the houses
exempt from the hearth tax was returned ; consequently, the population
contained in one hundred and twelve thousand five hundred and fifty-
six houses, amounting certainly to upwards of half a million, was over-
looked. Besides, no allowance was made for the increase of people
from the year 1791 to 1800, which was evidently great. The direct
loss occasioned by the rebellion certainly did not exceed twenty thou-
sand souls, even if the number of those who voluntarily quitted their
country be added to that of those who were exiled or slain. More-
over, the population of Britain appears to have been taken at eleven
millions, though it was not known to amount to that number till after
the Union, and was generally supposed to be much less before it.
Had the people of Ireland been carefully enumerated, they positively
would have been found to exceed four million and a half at least ;
and consequently Ireland might have claimed, with reference to her
48 THE TERMS OF THE UXION WERE
population, at least tvfo hundred and twenty-eight representatives
instead of two hundred and two. Secondly, it was unfair to take the
exports of a country, among whose exports pro\ 7 isions of different
sorts held so conspicuous a place, as in the case of Ireland during a
period of three years, when she had to support an army unprece-
dently great. Had the value of the exports of the native produce
and manufacture of Ireland, on an average of three years ended
in 1792, and which amounted, according to the official value, to
5,061,913, been taken and compared with those of Britain during
the same period, which amounted to 15,173,202, Ireland might, with
reference to exports, have claimed a hundred and seventy nine represen-
tatives, Thirdly, it was unfair to make the imports of Ireland during
three years, whereof one was distinguished by rebellion, and the other
two by unequalled alarm, as, under such circumstances, people will
certainly not purchase so largely, as during the prevalence of internal
peace, and exemption from apprehension. Had the imports of Ireland,
during the period ended in 1792, and which amounted to 4,079,906,
been compared with those of Britain during the same period, and which
amounted to 13,530,532, deducting therefrom the foreign articles
afterwards exported, Ireland would have appeared to have a claim on
this ground to a hundred and sixty-eight representatives. Fourthly,
it was perfectly unjustifiable to resort to the net instead of the gross
revenues of both countries ; the charges on the revenue of Ireland
having been much greater than those on the revenue of Great
Britain, and the expenses of collection infinitely more so. The,
balances, likewise, in the hands of the collectors of the Irish revenue
have always been, beyond all comparison, greater in proportion than
those in the hands of the collectors of the British revenue. This
even at present, is the case But to the revenue of
Ireland, whether gross or net, it was most unfair to resort;
the collection of that revenue having been singularly defective,
as was well known, and the national debt demanding an increase of
revenue, having been trivial in the year ended 25th of March, 1799,
in comparison to what it was likely to be, and really was, even in the
following year But the rentals of the respective countries
ought to have been resorted to, as cri tenons of (heir wealth, equally
with, or rather in preference to, their public revenues, or any other
criterion. Had this been the case, the number of representatives,
claimable by Ireland, with reference to rental, would have been about
one hundred and eighty-six, her rental then having been certainly as
UNFAVOURABLE TO IRELAND. 49
near fifteen millions, as that of Britain was near forty-five. The
number of representatives for Ireland then, if fairly proportioned to
population and wealth, ought to have been one hundred and fifty at
least, instead of one hundred : the number claimable with reference
to population being two hundred and twenty-eight ; with reference to
exports, one hundred and seventy-nine ; with reference to imports, one
hundred and sixty-eight; with reference to revenue, eighty-five; and
with reference to rental, one hundred and eighty-six ; the average of
all of which is one hundred and sixty-nine."
Next we are to consider the contribution to the general expenditure
fixed upon for Ireland. Elements of calculation were taken to sustain
an inference as to the relative capabilities of the two countries : they
were, exports, imports, and the consumption of beer, spirits, sugar,
wine, tea, tobacco, and malt. All were liable to such temporary in-
fluences as made them a most uncertain and inapplicable test. The
consumption of tobacco may be general, and the revenue derivable
from it large, though in other articles the case may be entirely dif-
ferent; and the question was not what Ireland could pay, with refe-
rence to the use she made of tobacco, wine, or any such commodity,
but what her taxation on the ivhole produced. If we compare the
revenue receipts of the two countries, in three years prior to the
Union, we shall find that the Irish were about a tenth. But in this
interval receipts under certain heads, may, for very obvious reasons,
be said to be excessive. They could not fairly be taken at the Union
as a tenth ; and a great number of years had not passed after the
measure was carried, when they proved to be only a twelfth or thir-
teenth. Lord Castlereagh, however, found little difficulty, with a
bribed House of Commons at his back, in deciding that the real pro-
portion was not as one to twelve or thirteen, but one to seven and a
half. The following were his observations on the subject :
"In order to find the sum which Ireland should contribute to the
imperial expenses, it would be necessary to seek for a criterion by
which to judge of her relative ability. The best criterion, as embrac-
ing all kinds of possession and expense, was an income tax. This
was not a criterion to be found in Ireland, nor was it likely that for
some time our local circumstances could permit its operation, so that
some other must be sought. The next best test of ability would
be found in examining the relative commercial wealth of both
countries, and the relative expenses of both in articles of luxury ; and
if il should bf found that these two proportions very nearly coincided
50 THK TERMS OF THK I'MOX WERE
with each other, it ought to be fairly pronounced that the best
means of judging of the relative ability of the two countries had
been discovered.
" Taking, then, the exports and imports for the last three
years, those of Ireland would be found to be ... 10,925,000
Great Britain 73,961,000
" In the proportion of seven to one.
" The next part of the proportion was to be found in excised
articles of consumption, such as malt, beer, spirits, tea, tobacco, Sic.
The average of these for the last three years has been
"Ireland 5,954,000
Great Britain 46,891,000
"Being in the proportion of seven seven-eighths to one.
"As the result of these two proportions came so very close to
each other, he would assume them as just, and take seveu one-half
to one, as the just ratio of the ability of Great Britain to that of
Ireland."
The fallacy of this reasoning needs scarcely further illustration.
Ireland's power of contribution arose, not from some branches of her
revenue, but all. She could have no power of contribution in cases
in which she had no revenue. Her tea, wine, sugar, and tobacco
receipts might have been as one to seven seven-eighths, though her
customs, stamp, post-office, and assessed taxes might have been far
more disproportioned. But under certain heads she had no revenue
whatever. She had no income tax, no land tax, no taxes arising
from bricks and tiles, candles, printed calicoes, starch, or soap. What
was the ratio of her ability in reference to these ? It could not have
been regarded as even one to ten thousand; yet Lord Castlereagh did
not scruple to assume, that, on the whole, the ability of Ireland was as
one to seven one-half. If Ireland, however, had derived no revenue
from such sources at the time the proportion was fixed, they might
have been after rendered available. But who could tell to what extent
they might be available ; and has there not been more than forty years'
experience to show, that new taxes may be imposed without producing
revenue ? In short, the theory of Lord Castlereagh, and the practice
founded upon it, were utterly preposterous. The effect was soon
apparent on the Irish debt, which swelled with u rapidity that made
UNFAVOURABLE TO IRELAND. 51
the augmentation in sixteen years three hundred per cent., while that
of the British debt was only sixty-four per cent.*
According to the admission of Lord Castlereagh himself, there was
no certain criterion of ability to be referred to ; yet, Ireland was
bound, by the terms of the act, to continue to pay for a period of
twenty years, in the proportion of two parts to fifteen. It was pro-
vided that there should be periods for the revision of the proportions
after the expiration of the first twenty years, and that they should
not be " more distant than twenty years, and not less than seven
years from each other." The short period would have been much
more important to Ireland in the first interval than the second ; and
not to have given her, by an express clause in the act, an opportunity
of escaping from the effects of any error that might have been com-
mitted in seven, or five, or even in three years, was a manifest
injustice.
* British debt, ... In 1801, 446,000,000 In 1817, 733,000,000
Irish debt, ... 28,009,000 ,, 112,000,000
These amounts include the funded and unfunded debt Paper 256, of Session
1824.
52 VIOLATION OF THE
CHAPTER VII.
VIOLATION OF THE UNION ENGAGEMENTS.
WE have seen the plausibilities of Mr. Pitt in his description of the
anticipated effects of the Union. Lord Castlereagh, in his speech of
the 5th of February, 1 800, asserted, that " if Ireland continued sepa-
rate, she must get into debt much faster than Great Britain." In
this there was evidently an implied engagement, that Ireland would
not, when united, get into debt " much faster" than Great Britain.
To what extent the pledge had been violated, the reader has just seen
in the enormously-disproportioned increase of the Irish debt. " Much
faster" was the phrase of Lord Castlereagh; what he must have
meant was, that if the British debt increased sixty-four per cent., the
Irish would increase one hundred or one hundred and twenty per
cent. That would certainly be an increase " much faster" than the
British; but instead of one hundred or one hundred and twenty per
cent., the Irish increase was actually three hundred per cent., while
the British was only sixty-four.
In the same speech Lord Castlereagh asserted, that, " in respect to
past expenses, Ireland was to have no concern whatever with the
debt of Great Britain ; but the two countries were to unite, as to
future expenses, on a strict measure of relative ability." These were
Lord Castlereagh's words, according to a report of his speech,
published by James Moore, College-green. In another report, by
J. Rea, 57, Exchequer-street and apparently by authority there
is some elaboration, but the meaning is exactly the same.
" The first principle which had been laid down by the liberality
of the British parliament is, that there should be no retrospect in
regard to past expenses; Ireland is to have no concern whatever with
the past debt of Great Britain. All the wealth, all the territories, all
the commercial power and advantages of Great Britain, are to be fully
laid open and communicated to Ireland, without demanding from her
any contribution whatever to the support of that immense debt which
she has contracted in acquiring and securing. Such is the liberality
of Great Britain; but as to the future, it is expected that the two
countries should move forward together, and unite, with regard to
their expenses, in the measure of their relative abilities."
UNION ENGAGEMENTS. 53
The taxation of Ireland is now applicable to the payment of that
very debt with which she was to have " no concern whatever ;" and
instead of the contribution to future expenses having been " in the
measure of relative abilities," it was more than her resources enabled
her to meet, how much more is indicated by the three hundred
per cent, augmentation of her debt, as compared with the sixty-four
per cent, augmentation of the British debt. It is no answer to the
charge, that a clause in the act of Union left the united parliament
the power of " consolidating the Exchequers" under certain circum-
stances. The clause referred to is the following:
" That if at any future day the separate debt of each country,
respectively, shall have been liquidated, or if the value of their
respective debts (estimated according to the amount of the interest
and annuities attending the same, and of the sinking fund applicable
to the reduction thereof, and to the period within which the whole
capital of such debt shall appear to be redeemable by such sinking
fund) shall be to each other in the same proportion with the respec-
tive contributions of each country, respectively ; or if the amount by
which the value of the larger of such debts shall vary from such pro-
portion, shall not exceed one-hundredth part of the said value; and
if it shall appear to the parliament of the United Kingdom that the
respective circumstances of the two countries will thenceforth admit
of their contributing, indiscriminately, by equal taxes imposed on
the same articles in each, to the future expenditure of the United
Kingdom; it shall be competent to the parliament of the United
Kingdom to declare that all future expense thenceforth to be in-
curred, together with the interest and charges of all joint debts con-
tracted previous to such declaration, shall be so defrayed indiscrimi-
nately by equal taxes imposed on the same articles in each country;
and thenceforth from time to time, as circumstances may require, to
impose and apply such taxes accordingly, subject only to such
particular exemptions or abatements in Ireland, and in that part of
Great Britain called Scotland, as circumstances may appear from
time to time demand."
Three states of " circumstances" are here assumed to be probable,
and to afford a warranty for a new fiscal arrangement. The first is
the liquidation of the separate debts; the second, such an action on
the amount or value of the respective debts as would bring them
within the proportion of one to seven one-half; and, the third,
54 VIOLATION OF THE
such a change in the affairs of Ireland as would render her ability-
equal, in proportion to her population, to that of Great Britain.
In the first case, Ireland could not have any thing to do with
"past debt," for no such thing would be in existence, and the engage-
ment of the minister would be fulfilled. In the second, Ireland
would have no concern in the whole of the " past" of Great Britain,
but such part only as would be proportioned to her assumed ability
of payment. If Great Britain reduced, by liquidation, her debt
of 446,000,000 to 228,000,000, the two past debts would be to
each other as one to seven one-half ; and would, therefore, be " in
the same proportion with the respective contributions of each
country respectively ;" but 228,000,000 are not much more than
one-half the debt for which Ireland has actually been rendered
responsible ; and even 228,000,000 would be far above the
amount of " past" debt, for which any liability could equitably
be imposed on Ireland, if her assumed ability of payment were,
as it has been proved, far above her real ability.* In the last
case, Ireland could raise a third of the whole revenue instead of a
twelfth or thirteenth ; but, if she had so far advanced in prosperity,
she could not, with any regard to the terms of the act, or the profes-
sions of its authors, be made responsible for the whole of the " past"
debt of Great Britain, or any part out of proportion to the " respec-
tive contributions," or which would exceed her own " past" debt, by
such an amount as would make that debt the one-third part of
the total to be united, or consolidated. There would, however, be no
" past" debt in Ireland to be provided for after a lapse of five or six
years, if her power of contribution had so increased ; for the act
provided that a surplus, even of 5,000,000 annually, accruing from
* On the 17th of February, 1800, Lord Castlereagh spoke as follows: "I
shall obviate the impression which may be made, that common taxes with
Great Britain, will impose upon this kingdom heavier burdens than she would
otherwise be called upon to support. Let the house, then, first consider that
the charges of the debt of Great Britain amount to 20,000,000 a year (evi-
dently including the sinking fund), and the charges of the debt of Ireland to
j 1,300, 000 British a year ; that common taxes are not to take place till either
the past and separate debt of both countries shall be liquidated, or until they
shall become to each other in the ratio of fifteen to two. Before this can take
place, the taxes of Great Britain must be reduced by the amount of 10,000,000
a year ; in which case the scale of her remaining taxation would be lowered to
the scale of taxation in England, and the adoption of British taxation would
become a benefit ; a similar result, and to a greater degree, would take place,
were the past debt of the two countries to be entirely liquidated."
UNION KNGAGEMENTS. 55
the Irish revenues after payment of the charges imposed, could
be applied to the liquidation of Irish debt.
These are the three cases supposed the three states of " circum-
stances" which would have justified a demand upon Ireland to take
any portion of the liability of " past" debt. No such " circum-
stances" no such condition of public affairs, ever occurred. The
past debt of Britain is not wholly, or, to the extent of one frac-
tion, liquidated. Ireland had become bankrupt under her rate
of contribution. Improved circumstances gave her, unhappily, no
legitimate means of meeting new responsibilities ; yet, she has now
as much concern as Great Britain herself with the " past" debt of
Great Britain!! ! If her revenue amounted to 20,000,000 a year, it
would all be applicable to the liquidation of the "past" debt of
Britain.
It may be said that a fourth state of " circumstances" would satisfy
the conditions of the Union as fully as any of the three supposed
namely, a disproportionate augmentation of the debt of Ireland.
There is no such conjuncture contemplated in the clause before us.
A disproportionate augmentation of the debt, is not liquidation, either
in the whole or in part; and it assuredly is not an indication of
prosperity.* In the same report of the speech of Lord Castlereagh,
from which we have just made a quotation, we read as follows :
" The enemies of the measure of Union have founded much of
their clamour upon the groundless supposition, that it is a mere
financial project of the British minister to put his hands into
the pockets of the Irish people. But, sir, I believe it will be found
upon examination of the terms, that if any sacrifice be made, it will
not be on the part of Ireland, but on the part of Great Britain. The
settlement which is offered is that of advantage to Ireland ; but it is
offered, not as a bribe, not upon the mercenary principle, that Ireland
would sacrifice what is essential to her happiness, to any pecuniary
consideration, but it is offered on the fair and liberal ground of equal
contribution."
To make Ireland liable to the payment of any part of the " past"
debt of Great Britain, by disproportionate borrowing, would be to
falsify this statement, that the Union was not " a mere financial
There is, said Mr. Foster, an absurdity in arguing on a debt as if it were
wealth ; and that when we attain the given proportion by becoming poor, or
doubling our debt from twenty-fire to fifty millions, and England attain the same
proportion by lessening hers, we grow wealthy thereby, and are able to pay share
for share, instead of paying only one share for every seven and a-half.
56 VIOLATION OF THE
project." It would not only be an intrusion of the minister's hands
into the pockets of the Irish people, but an abstraction of their entire
contents. It would be to make a " sacrifice" of Ireland, while
the engagement was, that Britain should be sacrificed. It would be
to prove that the Union had not been offered or founded, as has
in countless ways been alleged, on the " fair and liberal ground
of equal contribution," but upon open plunder.
Mr. Rice, in his speech in 1 834, made a boast, that Great Britain
could not be charged at least with a violation of the terms of the
Union.
" A complaint," he said, " was made that the Union had been
violated by the imposition of increased taxation in Scotland. This
was a stronger case, the house will observe, than any advanced on the
part of Ireland ; for I have not heard it as yet stated, that the enact-
ments of the Union have been violated by parliament. We hear
it suggested, it is true, that the Union was in its terms unjust to
Ireland, and that the Irish parliament made a bad bargain ; but what
was said by the Scotch Peers in 1713? Not only that the terms
were unjust, but that those terms had been violated."
A "bad bargain" was a violation of the Irish Union; for the
engagement was, that it should not be bad, but fair, and even
" liberal." If the terms were unjust, it was a fraud. If the terms
can, with the least colour of reason or plausibility, be held to bear any
construction than that now put upon them, the fraud was the greater
and more flagrant.
The whole scheme of fiscal policy pursued towards Ireland, since
the Union, has been a violation of its engagements. There are some
authorities on this subject which are entitled to attention.
In the report of the finance committee, of 1815, we find the
following avowal :
" For several years Ireland has advanced in permanent taxation
more rapidly than Great Britain itself, notwithstanding the immense
exertions of the latter country, including the extraordinary and war
taxes the permanent revenue of Great Britain having increased
from the year 1801 in the proportion of sixteen one-half to ten;
the whole revenue of Great Britain, including war taxes, as twenty-
one one-fourth to ton ; and the revenues of Ireland in the proportion
of twenty-three to ten. But in the twenty-four years referred to
your committee, the increase of Irish revenue lias been in the
proportion of forty-.si.x three-fourths to ton."
UNION ENGAGEMENTS. 57
In the debate on the consolidation of the Exchequers, in 1816,
Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, referred
to this declaration :
" You contracted with Ireland," said he, " for an expenditure she
could not meet your own share of which you could not meet, but
by sacrifices unexampled, by exertions, the tension of which only
England could have borne. Ireland had been led to hope her expen-
diture would have been less than before she was united to you.
In the fifteen years preceding the Union it amounted to 4 1,000,000;
but in the fifteen years of Union, it swelled to the enormous amount
of 148,000,000. The increase of her revenue would have more
than discharged, without the aid of loans, an expenditure greater
than that of the fifteen years which preceded 1801. Your own
committee have shown you what an advance in permanent taxation
Ireland had made."
The Marquess of Lansdowne, in a speech on the state of Ireland,
in 1822, complained that the increase of the Irish taxation, since the
Union, was so excessive as to destroy revenue. He said that, in 1807,
the revenue amounted to 4,378,241 ; that between that year and
1815, new taxes were imposed, from which an additional income of
3,376,000 was anticipated, but that the result was an absolute
diminution of income, the revenue, in 1821, having been 533,000,
under its amount in 1807.*
In a discussion on a motion of Lord Althorpe, in 1824, in which
a reduction of taxes in Ireland was recommended, as a measure
mainly tending to "revive the manufactures of that country, and
bring it into a prosperous condition," Sir John Newport said :
" Ever since the Union, the imperial parliament laboured to raise
the scale of taxation in Ii'eland as high as it was in England, and
had only to relinquish it, when it found that the attempt was wholly
unproductive. For twelve years he had remonstrated against this
scheme, and had foreseen the evils resulting from it of a beggared
gentry and ruined peasantry."
Mr. Poulett Thompson, on the 20th of March, 1830, moved for a
select committee to inquire into the expediency of making a revision
of the taxes, and took occasion to refer to Ireland as furnishing the
most remarkable instance in history of the eifects upon revenue
produced by excessive taxation :
* Hansard, vol. vii. p. 1050.
58 VIOLATION OF THE
" A case," he said, " is established in the instance of Ireland, which
is written in characters too legible not to serve as a guide to future
financiers one which ought to bring shame on the memory of its
authors." [He then stated the facts as to the decrease of the
revenue between 1817 and 1821, mentioned by the Marquess of
Lansdowne.] " Here is an example to prove that an increase
of taxation does not tend to produce a corresponding increase of
revenue, but, on the contrary, an actual diminution."
There was not a single burden imposed on Ireland in this interval
which was not unjust, because disproportionate ; and which was not
a clear violation of the engagements of the Union ?*
An " equivalent" was granted to Scotland for the liability imposed
upon her connected with English debt. The following is the account
given of the proceeding by Lord Castlereagh :
" I should have considered it, sir, as a most valuable circumstance
in this arrangement, if the countries could at once have been so
completely incorporated, as not to be under the necessity of having
distinct revenues. This principle made a part of the Scotch Union ;
and it was naturally felt to be of such importance, that a great effort
was made to equalize the circumstances of the two countries for that
purpose, England had, at that period, a considerable debt ; Scotland
* A very curious illustration of the fiscal management of Ireland is to be
found in a speech delivered by the Right Honourable James Fitzgerald, in the
British House of Commons, on the 15th of March, 1805. He opposed the
bringing up of the Report on the Irish Budget. lie contended that the loan
was made to a larger amount than was necessary, and the interest might have
been defrayed without having recourse to any new taxes. The revenue of
Ireland was only taken at 4,000,000, though every body knew it would be
considerably more. The right honourable gentleman (Mr. Foster) imposed,
last year, taxes of 1,150,000, by way of regulation, and 76,000 to defray
the expenses of a direct loan ; and he now stated that there was, out of last
year's revenue, a surplus of 843,000, but that it must remain locked up in
the Irish Treasury, until the proportion of Ireland, to the joint expenditure,
should be paid. Upon this practice of retaining the surplus of the consolidate,!
fund since the Union, it would follow that there must now be a total surplus of
about four millions applicable to the expenses of the year. This was a mode of
proceeding very disadvantageous to Ireland. The sums returned of duties
due, but not immediately payable, were to the amount of 036,346, which
either were, or ought now to be, in the Treasury of Ireland. This, as well as
the balances in the hands of the collectors, ought to be a productive fund, and
if it was not, he must call upon those who promised so much benefit from the
Union, to put an end to this system of patronage and influence.
The payments made to the patrons, or owners, of certain Irish boroughs for
the losses they would sustain by the Union, were bribes for votes to carry what
was regarded an imperial object. Yet, a finance committee of the united par-
liament decided, that they should be charged exclusively to the account of
Ireland. - -Report, -26-2, of Sessions, 1811. These bribes exceeded 1,200,000.
UNION ENGAGEMENTS. 59
had none. An accurate calculation was therefore made of the sum
Scotland ought to receive as an indemnity for subjecting herself to
the charges of the debt of England, and the sum being ascertained,
was paid by England as an equivalent. ... I lament that,
the circumstances of Great Britain and Ireland do not at present
enable us to pursue the measure of identity with equal strictness.
It were to be wished that there was not an insurmountable bar to a
common system and a common treasury, and that we could become,
like counties of the same kingdom, subject to the same system of
finances. Were our entire expenditures common (which would hap-
pen if neither kingdom had separate debts, or if their debts were in
the proportion of their ability), by no system whatever could they be
made to contribute so strictly according to their means, as by being
subject to the same taxes, equally bearing upon the great objects of
taxation in both countries. Such, however, is the disproportion of
the debts of the two kingdoms to each other at present, that a
common system for the present is impossible ; nor could any system
of equivalent be applied for equalizing their contributions. It is,
therefore, necessary that the debts of the two countries should be
kept distinct, and that, of course, their taxation should be separate
and proportionate."
The "equivalent" given to Scotland was 398,085 a sum, we
need not observe, far more considerable in 1707 than it would be in
our times. It was equal to one-fifth of the entire English debt, and
was more than six times the amount of the Scotch revenue for a
single year. If a proportionate " equivalent" had been given to Ire-
land, what would have been its amount? Six times the Irish revenue
of 1800 would exceed 20,000,000. Lord Castlereagh assumed that
"no system of equivalent" was practicable, whether he meant that the
money necessary for the purpose could riot be realized, or that the
taxation of the two countries was too unequal to admit of assimila-
tion on any terms however favourable to Ireland. It is certain, at
all events, that no equivalent was attempted in 1800, and the debts
and taxation were left separate; but it is equally certain that no
equivalent was attempted, or even made a subject of observation, in
1816, though the debts were completely united, and the taxation
equalized in those instances most affecting the comforts of the people.
After 1816 several new inflictions of assimilated taxes took place
without the utterance of one syllable concerning an equivalent; and.
indeed, all the essential object? which Lord Casllereairh said it was
60 VIOLATION OF THE
so desirable to attain, but which could not be attained, in 1800, from
the impracticability of securing an adequate equivalent for Ireland,
have since been achieved with as little apparent thought of an equi-
valent, as if such a thing had never been heard of, or made the
subject of one passing allusion in the Irish parliament.* There
have been grants for Irish " Miscellaneous Services," but there have
been similar grants for Great Britain; and such grants could not
have been intended as an equivalent, for they were guaranteed to
Ireland for twenty years at the same time that Lord Castlereagh was
lamenting that the " Scotch principle" could not be carried out in the
case of Ireland. An equivalent might have been rendered to Ireland,
at least for the debt responsibility, by mitigated taxation ; but the
policy has been to increase the Irish taxation, and its increase has,
in point of fact, as the reader has already seen, exceeded the increase
even of the British taxation. It may be said that all the taxes are
not yet equalized, and that the whiskey duty and gin duty are not
* The following is an extract from the fifteenth article of the Scotch Union :
"That before the Union of the said kingdoms, the sum of 398,085 10s. be
granted to her majesty by the parliament of England for the uses after
mentioned, being the equivalent to be answered to Scotland for such parts of
the said customs and excises upon all excisable liquors with which that king-
dom is to be charged upon the Union, as will be applicable to the payment of
the said debts of England, according to the proportions which the present
customs in Scotland, being 30,000 per annum, do bear to the customs in
England, computed at 1,341,559 per annum; and which the present excises
on excisable liquors in Scotland, being 33,500 per annum, do bear to the
excises on excisable liquors in England, computed at 947,602 per annum:
which sum of 398,085 10s. shall be due and payable from the time of the
Union ; and in regard that, after the Union of Scotland becoming liable to the
same customs and duties payable on import and export, and to the same excises
on all excisable liquors as in England, as well upon that account, as upon the
account of the increase of trade and people (which will be the happy conse-
quence of the Union), the said revenues will much improve beyond the before-
mentioned annual values thereof, of which no present estimate can be made :
yet, nevertheless, for the reasons aforesaid, there ought to be a proportionable
equivalent answered to Scotland. It is agreed, that after the Union there
shall be an account kept of the said duties arising in Scotland, to the end it
may appear what ought to be answered to Scotland as an equivalent for sucli
proportion of the said increase as shall be applicable to the payment of the
debts of England, &c. And for the further and more effectual answering the
several ends hereafter mentioned, it is agreed, that from and after the Union
the whole increase of the revenues of customs, and duties on import and
export, and excise upon excisable liquors in Scotland, over and above the
annual produce of the said respective duties, as above stated, shall go, and be
applied for the term of seven years to the uses hereafter mentioned ; and that
upon the said account there shall be answered to Scotland annually, from the
end of seven years after the Union, an equivalent in proportion to such part of
the said increase as shall be applicable to the debts of England."
There are other stipulations of a similar character, and all show the pains
taken to ensure contingent as well as certain benefits to Scotland, as her
equivalent.
UNION ENGAGEMENTS. 61
the same. This is true of Ireland, but it is also true of Scotland,
and yet Scotland got her equivalent, and her people enjoy a portion
of its benefits to this day, after a lapse of one hundred and thirty-
seven years. There are, however, taxes in Great Britain which do
not at all exist in Ireland. Yes, but such had been the case in 1 800 ;
and Ireland, at the same time, had her advantage of a lower scale
of duty than the British in every instance in which the Exchequer
made a demand upon the pockets of the people. Ireland has lost
that most important benefit, and where is her equivalent? She has
her full share of the responsibility of the debt, and where is her
equivalent? Will it be said that it is to be found in the loan fund
of half a million, from which the Treasury makes a profit raising
the money at three per cent., and lending it out at five per cent. In
short, there has been no equivalent for Ireland in any shape or form,
and this is one of the most obvious and shameless violations of the
engagements of the Union.
6'2 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
CHAPTER VIII.
EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
THE Union, according to Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, " subjected Ireland
to an expenditure which she could not meet," and under which she
suffered bankruptcy. According to the report of the finance com-
mittee just referred to, Ireland advanced in taxation since 1801,
more than Britain herself. According to Lord Lansdowne and Mr.
Poulett Thompson, increase of taxation was so excessive as to
destroy revenue. According to Sir John Newport, the minister per-
severed for twelve years in a policy, the effects of which were to
be seen in a " beggared gentry and ruined peasantry." All these
evils must be regarded as, direct consequences of the Union,
as they were unexampled in the worst times of the Irish
parliament.
The increase of absenteeism was never denied to be a certain
effect of the Union. Mr. Pitt admitted that a loss to Ireland would
be erected by the removal of the legislative body ; but amusingly
observed, that "some compensation would be made by an increased
predilection for English habits." He contended, at the same time,
that the loss would not be great, and that much was to be antici-
pated from an augmentation of the " aggregate stock of wealth and
commerce."
Mr. Jebb calculated that the loss to Dublin would be 610,000
a year. " Should this calculation," he observed, " be esteemed too
high, the overplus may be set against the large sums to be expended
in appeals, soliciting acts of parliament, and various other matters of
business, which must then be transacted in London."
This 600,000 is an annual capital which constantly puts into motion
other capitals, the sum total of which it is impossible to calculate :
the coachmaker, for instance, employed by the nobleman, himself
employs the baker, the brewer, the grocer, the tailor, and they in
return employ each other, and thousands of others ; so that the
expenditure of a single income constitutes a part of the capital of
thousands of individuals. Here, then, merely in this single view of
the commercial part of the subject, shall we surrender an annual
productive capital of 600,000, equal to 12,000,000 sterling.
EFFECTS OF THE UNION. bj
which sets in motion other capitals without end, for distant, obscure,
theoretical, and probably illusive gain."
The exchange committee of 1804, assumed in their report, on
the authority of Mr. Puget, that the absentee remittances were
then 2,000,000. They are believed by most intelligent persons
to have since increased to 4,000,000 ; Mr. M'Culloch's estimate
is 3,500,000 ; Mr. Ensor's, 4,000,000 ;* Lord Cloncurry's,
4,000,000, Mr. N. P. Leader's, 4,000,000, and according to
Alderman Hayes, of Cork, the estimate of a later authority is
4,650,000. The whole rental of Ireland is supposed at present
to be above 12,000,000. More than a third is believed to
belong to absentees; and it is to be observed, that we have a new
class of absentees (if they may so be called) English money-
lenders, who have, for many years, been making advances to
Irish proprietors to relieve their estates, and have their return in
half-yearly remittances of Irish rent. Mr. Puget stated, that the
remittances in 1 804 were " considerably greater than before the
rebellion ;" and it is supposed that at the period of the Union
they amounted to about 1,500,000. If this estimate be correct, and
if these remittances now amount to 4,000,000, there is an
additional absentee drain of 2,500,000 produced by the Union,
besides a revenue drain of a magnitude and constancy entirely
unknown when Ireland had a parliament.
Absenteeism is a calamity peculiarly Irish, and it is a direct
emanation of the policy at all times adopted towards this country by
the English government. No authority can bi 1 more impressive or
trustworthy on the point than that of Lord Clare.
" It is a subject," said he, on the 10th February, 1800, " of curious
and important speculation, to look back to the forfeitures of Ireland
incurred in the last century. The superficial contents of the island
* Mr. Ensor gave evidence before the parliamentary committee of 1830, on
the state of the Irish poor, and the following was the examination on this
subject :
" Can you tell the committee what portion of the rental of Ireland is
supposed to be spent in other countries ? I have made a calculation of that
particularly, and I should suppose about 4,000,000. What proportion do you
suppose that to be to the whole? Probably, a third, or more. On what grounds
do you form your calculation of the amount of the Irish income spent out
of Ireland? By putting down the names of absentees and their rental, not
throughout the whole country, but in some counties. I took two counties on
the credit of the bishop of Limerick, and in two counties, he said there was
nearly half a million. These were Kerrv and Limerick : 300.<'>00in Limerick,
and 1,500,000 in Kerry. -.-Third Report, p. 4*1.
64 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
are calculated at 11,042,682 acres. Let us now examine the state of
forfeitures :
Acres.
Confiscated in the reign of James the First, the whole of
the province of Ulster, containing 2,836,837
Set out by the Court of Claims at the Kestoration 7,800,000
Forfeitures of 1688 1,060,792
Total, 11,697,629
So that the whole of your island has been confiscated, with the
exception of the estates of five or six old families of English blood,
some of whom had been attainted in the reign of Henry the Eighth,
but recovered their possessions before Tyrone's rebellion, and had
the good fortune to escape the pillage of the English republic,
inflicted by Cromwell ; and no inconsiderable portion of the island
has been confiscated twice, or perhaps thrice, in the course of a
century. The situation, therefore, of the Irish nation at the Revolu-
tion, stands unparalleled in the history of the inhabited world. If
the wars of England, carried on here from the reign of Elizabeth,
had been waged against a foreign enemy, the inhabitants would have
retained their possessions under the established law of civilized
nations, and their country have been annexed, as a province, to the
British empire. But the continued and persevering resistance of
Ireland to the British crown, during the whole of the last century,
was mere rebellion, and the municipal law of England attached upon
the crime. What, then, was the situation of Ireland at the Revolu-
tion ? and what is it at this day ? The whole property and power of
the country has been conferred, by successive monarchs of England,
upon an English colony, composed of three sets of adventurers, who
poured into this country at the termination of three successive rebel-
lions. Confiscation is their common title ; and from their first settle-
ment they have been hemmed in on every side by the old inhabitants
of the island, brooding over their discontents in sullen indignation."
The resistance of Ireland was not to the British crown, but to
the plunder and tyranny of the agents of British power in the
country. More than three-fourths of the whole forfeitures were
sacrifices arising from the loyalty of the Irish people to the British
crown. The other forfeitures were the consequence of some out-
rageous acts of injustice, in which English adventurers were the
interested and unscrupulous actors. But the origin of the forfeitures
is not the question at present. That they were of the character and
magnitude described, is beyond all disputation. That they have
EFFECTS OF THE UNION. 65
created a state of things absolutely without a parallel, no one can
have the temerity to deny. The individual, however, from whom
we have taken the history of these fatal transactions, affected to
believe that they rendered an Union unavoidable. " What," he
asked, "was the security of the English settlers at the Revolution?
and what is the security of their descendants at this day? The
powerful, commanding protection of Great Britain." No real or
lasting security can emanate from such a source ; and it would be a
far more philosophical and statesmanlike application of the facts
contained in this melancholy recital, if they were used to show that
they should have been regarded as a conclusive reason why Ireland
should not have been forcibly deprived of a resident legislature, if
there were no other to be adduced against a measure so sweeping,
violent, and revolutionary.
Not according to the Irish system were other subjects of the
British crown treated. The Scotch heritable jurisdictions were
abolished for the relief and improvement of the condition of the
population of Scotland, and the compensations were paid by the
English Treasury. Nay, more, we are informed by Anderson's
History of Commerce, under the date of 1752, that the lately for-
feited estates of Scotland " are, by parliament, appropriated for
civilizing and improving the Highlands and Isles, and for the en-
couragement of the linen manufacture already greatly improved
and its mines and fisheries." Such was the mode adopted of applying
the Scotch forfeitures, and laying a foundation for social advance-
ment in North Britain. The Scottish people had a natural repug-
nance to an union, but their parliament was, in reality, of little use
to their country. It was not a source of wealth, for their country
was miserably poor. Nothing could be lower than their revenue,
commerce, and agriculture ; and Scotland was in every respect in a
condition which could not be damaged by an union. The absence of
its handful of needy representatives, must have been wholly imper-
ceptible to the people at home. If they had considerable fortunes
to spend, they did not remove their wealth from a country labouring
for centuries under a wasting absenteeism. But Scotland has lost
her parliament, and she has improved. These are the two facts
which are associated in all references to the country in latter times.
They arc spoken of as cause and ellect, but they stand in no tut-h
relation. For many years after her Union, Scotland made no pro-
gress a! all; and this could not have happened if the Tnion were
i
66 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
any source whatever of her prosperity. Until an advanced period
of the last century, general manufactures were not known in Scot-
land ; and Mr. Foster has shown, that though its linens increased,
the improvement was not at all comparable to that of the Irish.
Scotland is at this moment before Ireland in commerce and revenue ;
but Mr. Jebb, as the reader has seen, referred to the remarkable
fact, that at the close of the American war the exports of Ireland
to Great Britain alone, were nearly three times as great as those of
Scotland to all the world. Even at the commencement of the present
century the Scotch revenue was much lower than the Irish, though
it is now much higher ; and this fact alone is worth volumes with
reference to the present inquiry. From 1801 to 1814 the following
was the progress of the Scotch revenue:
1801 .
. 1,985,794
1808 .
. 3,544,111
1802 .
. 2,230,993
1809 .
3,632,832
1803 .
2,246,028
'1810 .
. 4,188,814
1804 .
2,171,973
1811 .
4,001,347
1805 .
. 2,692,624
1812 .
4,326,797
1806 .
3,182,677
1813 .
4,383,751
1807
3,558,784
1814 .
. 4,483,014
In 1844 the Scotch revenue had advanced to 5,145,563, though
the Irish, which was considerably beyond it forty-three years ago, is
generally set down at only 4,000,000. The Scotch Union cannot
account for this state of things, though the Irish Union may help to
a solution of the problem. Scotch prosperity, when it had a com-
mencement, was evidently out of the range of any possible influence
from the Scotch Union. But, then, it will still be urged, that
Scotland has prospered after her Union. To this the direct answer
is, as far as the fact is sought to be applied to the case of Ireland,
that Ireland has not prospered. It is plain that the " Union" argu-
ment cannot hold good in totally opposite cases one, in which there
has been prosperity ; and the other, in which there has been most
calamitous adversity. There is, indeed, something very peculiar not
in the ancient but very recent state of Scotland. England has
made no advance comparable to hers since the commencement of the
present century. What could the incident of 1707 have had to do
with such a result ? Why was Scotland so much beneath even
Ireland at the close of the American war? The answer is not, we
repeat, to be found in any thing connected with the " Union"-
unless, indeed, with Irish Union, which appears incontestably to have
EFFECTS OF THE UNION. 67
handed over to Scotland a great portion of the trade conducted with
profit by Ireland herself when she had a parliament.
We have adverted to a " revenue drain," as well as one arising
from absenteeism. This drain was almost wholly unknown before
the Irish Union. In the fervour of its gratitude the Irish parlia-
ment voted twenty thousand seamen after the acquisition of legisla-
tive independence, and there was a small allowance for troops in the
West Indies. But there was no regular appropriation of Irish taxes
to imperial purposes, and hence the "propositions" of 1785. The
Union imposed upon Ireland a contribution of this character, but it
was not felt until after the conclusion of the war; for the army
expenditure alone reached, in many years, to a sum running very
close upon the total amount of the Irish revenue. Every year,
however, after the wai', brought on a reduction of government expen-
diture ; and the revenue, at length, which, for so long a period, did
not equal that expenditure, began to exceed it. This has brought
about a new state of Irish affairs one anticipated by the sagacity
of Newenham, but of which the British government appear to have
been wholly unconscious or unmindful.
; The future demands," said Mr. Newenham, writing in 1807, "of
Britain on Ireland, when these demands shall cease to be covered,
as they are at present, by a vast annual influx of money into the
latter, in the shape of loans, will appear to be a subject eminently
worthy of early and serious consideration on the part of those who
exercise the powers of government."
There is no evidence that the British minister ever thought of, or
regarded, this change; for his constant efforts, even to the latest
times, have been to reduce expenditure, and "assimilate," or raise
taxation, of the powers of enduring which expenditure, itself, is a
most prolific source.
There are official records to decide the point as to the revenue drain.
Many persons believe that the Irish revenue is below the expenditure
for public purposes in Ireland. The charges for civil government, army,
pensions, police, and even debt, are great. There are payments for
"miscellaneous services," charities, education, and other objects. All,
however, are provided for by the Irish revenue. No money comes
now from England to meet any charge; and, after all demands, under
all heads, are satisfied, a surplus remains of the receipts of revenue,
which is remitted to England with the absentee rents.
One of the official records is included in a series of paper?, moved
G8 EFFECTS OF THE ITXIOX.
for by Mr. John O'Connell, M. P. for the city of Kilkenny, in 1842.
It was a continuation of a paper moved for by Mr. W. F. Finn,
former member for the county of Kilkenny, nine years before ; and
the items are the following::
1
From the
From the
British Exchequer to
Irish Exchequer
to
Remitted up to the 5th January, 1833, as
the Irish.
the British.
per parliamentary paper referred to, '
8,251,274 8 4
19,640,435
8
3
In the year 5th January, 1834,
400,000
(i
1835,
550,000
1830,
1,200,000
it
1837,
1,300,000
1838,
1,000,000
1839
375.000
1840,
730,000
1841,
380,000
(1
1842,
80,000
420,000
8,331,274 8 44 J25.995,435 8 3
Deduct Britisli remittance, 8,331,274 8 4'
Balance of remittance, 17,664,1GO 19 10
This total may be increased by some considerable items. It does
not include the tea duties which were paid from 1829 to 1834 (inclu-
sive) in London. For the aggregate of these duties in that interval,
a sum may be set down of 3,100,000, supposing them to be as high
in each year as they were in 1835. It does not include any portion
of the uncredited revenue, which is very moderately estimated at
400,000 annually.* Under this head 8,000,000 may be added,
without going farther back than a period of twenty years, making
the total, down to 1842, 28,760,000.
* The woods and forests' revenue drawn from Ireland, has been for many
years credited to tiie British Exchequer. It is now about 02,000 a year, but
sales have been effected, the produce of which may justify us in adding to the
amount 10,000 more. It was 72,000 in 182(3, when it was included in the
Irish accounts. There is 110 duty on hops paid in Ireland; for that article
20,(X)0 a year might have been set down in former years, but it is now 5,000
less. There is no duty on refined sugar collected in Ireland; all the old bakeries
having for many years been closed. The quantity of that article imported in
1825 was 66,393 cwts., upon which a duty must have been paid, in British
ports, of 92,030. The uncredited taxation on refined sugar is, at present, at
least, 100,000 a year. A great portion of the revenue arising from the con-
sumption of paper and glass in Ireland, is paid in Great Britain. The con-
sumption of tea in Ireland is about the one-seventh of the Britisli, and of sugar
the one-eighth, and of Mine the one-tenth. The consumption of tobacco is
more than a fourth; but taking the consumption of paper and glass to be
not greater than a twelfth, the uncredited taxation on these articles cannot be
less than 100,000 a year. The value of the entire imports into Ireland, fro;n
Great Britain, in 1825, was 7,0t>0,000; of those the value of the produce and
manufactures of Great Britain itself, was 3,(>NS,000. If these articles were
affected only to the extent of two per cent., by taxation, Ireland may reckon
mi their account an uncredited revenue of 73,7(>0. We have in these five
EFFECTS OF THE UNION. 69
In the two years ended January 5, 1843 and 1844, it appears, from
the annual finance accounts, that thei-e were the following sums unap-
propriated in the Irish Treasury, and therefore remitted to England.
1843 ... 668,011
1844 ... 530,170
1,198,781
Before these amounts of surplus taxes could have been remitted to
England (and be it again observed, that they were only a portion of the
revenue drain), every payment on account of Ireland must, of course,
have been previously made from Irish taxes. It is by no means
unnecessary to press this point upon the attention of the reader; for
it is frequently asserted, and universally believed, in England, that
the government of Ireland could not be sustained for an hour with-
out large remittances from London. According to the Quarterly
Review, "tithes and rackrents" have been collected in Ireland by a
soldiery paid from English taxes. According to the Times news-
paper, the whole revenue of Ireland is not sufficient to pay the
interest on the Irish debt, due at the Union. According to Mr.
Spring Rice's speech on the Repeal question, in 1833, "English gold"
is necessary even to the "loans made to Ireland."
Adding the surplus revenue to the uncredited taxation we have
a total of about 1,100,000 a year. This, with the absentee remit-
tances, makes a drain of 5,100,000 annually. The loss to capital
and industry is to that extent beyond all disputation. If Great
Britain sustained a proportionate loss, it could not be less than
60,000,000 a year. Could Great Britain bear this, and prosper ?
could she bear it for any considerable succession of years, and avoid
ruin ? It is often mentioned that the Scotch, in latter years, endure a
great drain of their capital. They do, and, of course, solely from their
advance in wealth. They have no absentee sufferings at all com-
parable to the Irish; and they remitted, at the commencement of this
century, probably 1,000,000, in the year of the produce of taxation
to London. This drain upon Scotland has since enormously increased.
items a total of ,300,000, and we have set down nothing for fruits, spices, drugs,
foreign manufactures (such as gloves and silk fabrics), small parcels of foreign
spirits, tea, vine, and sugar, imported into Ireland by country dealers from
Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bristol, and which never go into "bond" the duty
being paid in the places where they are purchased. Fur these small parcels of
tea, sugar, wine, and foreign spirits, if they only form the one-twentieth part
of our consumption, under their heads, we may set down 60,000, and for the
>th>>r articles referred to. probably half that amount. To take, then, the whole
of the uneredited revenue at 400,000 ;< yenr, i.-, to underrate its actual amount.
70 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
but the means of sustaining it have been produced by the undoubted
increase of Scotch wealth, or what is regarded as wealth. A large
portion of the fund holders are residents of Scotland ; and if they be
entitled to receive from London 4,000,000 of dividends, it is more
easily to be imagined how Scotland can remit 4,000,000 of taxes.
But the Scotch drain, whatever it may be, is not, we fancy, accounted
amongst the blessings of that country, and it is very clear that it can
be no source of its prosperity. The Scotch are an extremely frugal
people in their general expenditure, and their transactions are im-
mensely stimulated by credit. It is a great doubt what the result
would be, if a settlement of general accounts were forced in Scotland
by a " Peel's Bill ;" and hence the great horror which is so observable
at any glimmering of interference with its monetary system. But
putting these matters out of consideration, and taking the present
state of the revenue of Scotland as a criterion, it is three times better
able to bear a drain, than Ireland; though, at the close of the
American war, according to Mr. Jebb, the resources of Ireland
arising from exports to Great Britain alone, were " nearly three
times as great as those of Scotland with all the world !"
Other fiscal grievances, of a most oppressive character, may be
included in the consequences of the Union. They are
1st A greatly disproportionate increase of taxation during the war,
already referred to, and,
2dly A still more disproportionate relief since the peace.
The first process necessarily involved the withdrawal of those advan-
tages of moderate rates under all heads of impost which the Irish
enjoyed when they had a parliament. Of what importance these
advantages were has been shown, incautiously for his argument, by
one of Mr. Spring Rice's returns, made up for the debate of 1834.
We allude to a series of tables of which the following is an abstract,
and which show the amount of gain that accrued to Ireland by a
lower standard of taxation than that of Great Britain in the years
named. The following are given as the "principal articles upon which
a difference existed between the British and Irish rates of duty:"
Barilla and ashes
Iron, bar
Salt, foreign
Spirits, foreign
Sugar,
Tea,
Tobacco,
Wine,
Wood,
Salt, British
Coals,
Other articles
The following exhibits, in each year, " the excess of revenue !>-
EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
71
yond the amount actually collected, which would have accrued if the
British rates had been paid upon the quantities consumed in Ireland:"
J801
1802
1803
1804
180.5
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1,350,924
1818
1,443,286
1819
1,658,930
1820
1,785,801 1821
1,806,343
1822
1,811,614
1823
2,318,051
1824
2,147,614 1825
2,336,010 1826
2,168,873 1827
2,176,029 1828
2,156,585 1829
2,010,989 1830
1,536,760 1831
1,336,101 1832
1,097,766
1833
1,406,792
1,309,812
1,326,313
1,385,039
1,505,426
1,646,125
224,490
303,076
265,959
254,927
240,264
324,839
227,981
215,207
82,234
26,340
30,141
It is clearly seen in the above, that, as the Union receded, the
special advantages of Ireland diminished. Wood was the only article
in which there was a difference of rates in 1833, and the amount was
so insignificant as 30,141 !
The grievance under the head of Withheld Relief, has been really
enormous. It is thus exhibited in the Appendix, No. 11, p. 318 of
Mr. John O'Connell's " Argument for Ireland," the amounts being
taken from Sessional Paper 573, of 1843:
Relief of Taxation from 1815 to 1843.
Great Britain,
Ireland,
Taxes imposed from 181o to 1843.
Great Britain,
Ireland,
Taxes from 1800 to 1815.
Great Britain,
Ireland,
45,550,000
2,400,000
10,620,000
1,060,000'
30,000,000
4,450,000
Total taxes imposed from the Union to 18-13.
Great Britain, 37,000,000
Ireland, 5,560,000
" Thus the relief given to Ireland was to that of (ireat Britain,
as one to eighteen, while her share of the taxes imposed has been
higher than as one to seven !"
The abandoned spirit duty is, of course, deducted from the 1815-43
ani'Mint "f Irish taxes imposed."
72 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
To these great fiscal wrongs may be added a diminution of expen-
diture Avhere it might injuriously affect Ireland, without a perceptible
benefit to Great Britain. Examples are to be found in the abolition
of the grants for linen and fisheries.* To show with what per-
severance and rigour this policy has been pursued to the most recent
times, it may be mentioned that Earl de Grey commenced his
government by an attempt to AvithdraAv the customary payments from
the principal charities of Dublin. He appointed a commission to
report upon them, consisting of Mr. George Alexander Hamilton,
Mr. David Charles Latouche, and Mr. John Barlow. In his letter
of instructions he stated that those charities afforded him " matter of
serious consideration." He said he understood no state support is
given " to similar institutions in other parts of the empire." He
admitted, that 'Svlien these grants were originally made, peculiar
circumstances may have operated, and no doubt did, to justify them
here, which circumstances did not apply elsewhere." But if it were
not the opinion of this chief governor, that the state of the country
Avas such as not to warrant those charities, he would not have avowed
that they afforded him "matter for serious consideration," or appointed
his commission of inquiry. The following were the institutions
referred to :
Female Orphan House, 1,000
Westmoreland Lock Hospital, ... ... ... ... 2,500
Lying-in Hospital, 1,000
Dr. Stevens's Hospital, 1,500
Cork-street Fever Hospital, 3,800
Hospital for Incurables, ... ... ... ... ... 500
Aleath Hospital, about 800
Cow-Pock Institution 200
Shelter for Females Discharged from Prison, ... ... 50
Water for public fountains, Meath Liberty, ... ... 110
Water for poor of Liberty, ... ... ... ... 2-3
It thus appears that the institutions which gave the new Irish
government so much concern, imposed a burden on the imperial
Exchequer, not quite amounting to 11,500 a year!! !
* Some years ago the linen, yarn, and flaxseed merchants of Dcrry presented
a petition to parliament, stating, that "the petitioners, instead of exporters,
have been compelled to be importers of their commodities. Many causes have
partially contributed to this, but the petitioners attribute it principally to the
law of the Oth of (icorge IV. c. !22, which abo!':-hc-< the inspection of flaxseed
on importation after 1st Juh', lN'Ji>. " it is s'.aU-l that in Holland, Jiussia, and
America there are inspectors, and that they are deemed indispensable to the
well-being of trade in these countries.
EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
73
Lord de Grey's commissioners were of course Tories, but they did
not sympathize much in his feelings on this matter. They reported
that the grants rested on the grounds of " expediency and necessity."
They observed, that,
" Immediately after the Union, Dublin ceased to be a metropolis
as regards the wealthy, while it continued a metropolis as regards the
poor ; and in no inconsiderable degree it has remained so since. The
causes, therefore, which induced those who framed the articles of
Union, to introduce stipulations into that measure as regards Dublin,
appear to us to be still in extensive operation. Other causes likewise
(not, however, having operation on Dublin alone) the increase of
population without a corresponding increase in wealth; the want of
capital ; the decay of manufactures in Ireland, operating to increase
the proportion of poor have operated likewise, to increase rather than
diminish the cogency of those reasons which led to the stipulations
in the articles of Union."
Earl de Grey appearing to have been of opinion, that voluntary
and compulsory contributions to charities were limited in Dublin,
the commission took occasion to undeceive him by the following
table :
Assessments and
Subscriptions.
1839.
1840.
1841.
Totals.
Compulsory
.Voluntary
155,320
45,743
179,550
33,533
169,880
32,101
504,750
111,377
Total
201,003
213,083
201,981
616,127
All the " voluntary" subscriptions were not, it appears, ascertained,
for there were returns from only ninety-two out of two hundred
institutions; yet the commissioners were able to make out a total of
G16, 127 in a city in which Lord de Grey's government imagined
that nothing was done for charities, except by grants from the
imperial Exchequer. A more remarkable sample of the intelligence
which is usually exhibited in the direction of Irish affairs, need not
be cited!
The result of the representations of the commissioners was. that
the charities were suffered to remain a-; they were ; but to what
period the respite is to extend, it would be hazardous to say, judging
from the past !
Amongst crants for "miscellaneous services in Ireland," which
74 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
have been withdrawn since the Union, were the following, setting
them down at the maximum amount :
Linen manufacturers, ... ... ... 19,938
Farming Society, 4,615
Cork Institution, 2,308
Board of Inland Navigation, ... ... ... ... 6,100
Paving Board, 9,231
Board of First Fruits 55,385
Wide-street Board, 18,733
House of Industry, 48,346
Hibernian Society for soldiers' children, 13,787
Hibernian Marine Society, ... ... ... ... 3,252
Society for Discountenancing Vice, ... ... ... 9,000
Protestant Charter Schools, 38,344
Foundling Hospital, 35,851*
Whatever may be thought of the policy of some of those grants,
there is no doubt that the local effect of their abolition is considerably
prejudicial, while the advantage to the empire at large must be
entirely unfelt. A judicious and unexceptionable application of
similar amounts of the general revenue, would go a veiy short way
towards realizing the promises of imperial bounty, held out at the
Union.
The Dublin Society still receives a pittance, but it is greatly
reduced. The lord lieutenant's establishment, which, in certain
departments, was, a few years ago, 68,000 a year, is now brought
down to 16,000. Many boards have been altogether abolished.
The result is, that the expenditure on the collection of the existing
revenue is reduced ; but it is a dear-bought advantage to Great
Britain, considering the dissatisfaction hourly created by these
changes, and the undoubted embarrassment occasioned to public
business in Ireland.
A large reduction of the war expenditure on the army stationed in
Ireland, was unavoidable ; but the effects must have been greatly
injurious to a country in which there is so little profitable employment
for its enormous population. The payment for army and ordnance
in the ten years succeeding the Union, amounted to upwards of
36,000,000, being an annual average of 3,600,000. In the last
ten years the average has, probably, been 1,000,000, making a total
difference under these heads of 26,000,000, in the short period of
* In the succeeding chapter may be seen the progress of "assimilated"
taxation in Ireland. It forms a striking contrast with the ceaseless reductions
in the "miscellaneous services."
EFFECTS OF THE UNION. 75
ten year:?. A great reduction of the army was, we say, unavoidable,
but the effects upon Ireland might have been considerably mitigated,
by making this country, as far as was practicable, a station for troops,
and giving it a large participation in the naval expenditure.
From all we have stated on this subject, one conclusion is
inevitable : that there is a great revolution in the fiscal condition of
Ireland. It is momentous ; and it should, as Mr. Newenham so
justly observed, have been a subject "of early and serious conside-
ration on the part of those who use the powers of government."
It received no attention in that quarter. This would have been
impossible if a parliament had been sitting in Ireland.
In the category of " effects of the Union" must be placed the fatal
tardiness with which emancipation was carried, and the wrongs
done to Ireland in parliamentary and municipal reform.* If the
Irish people had the control in the management of their own affairs,
which domestic legislation would necessarily confer, they would have
no grievances of this character to complain of. Mr. Newenham thus
sketched the condition of Ireland, before it obtained its short-lived
independence :
" In eight years, there passed in England no less than eleven
hundred and twenty-four acts, for bridges, roads, canals, draining,
enclosing, &c., which was ten times more than all the acts for internal
improvement, encouragement of industry, advancement of trade, or
support of manufactures that passed in Ireland from the Revolution
to the establishment of Irish national independence, being a period of
near one hundred years ; and of these a great many were illusive,
nugatory, and ineffectual ; some were merely explanatory of fore-
going ones, and several were requisite supplements to others. Ireland
was unimproved and uncultivated; its aspect was wild and dreary;
its labouring poor was slothful, miserable, and totally destitute of all
those comforts which the same class in England rank among the
necessaries of life ; its trade, with the exception of the linen manu-
facture, was almost limited to the export of its redundant beef, butter,
pork, tallow, hides, and cattle ; and the import of that corn which it
was not encouraged to grow, of those manufactures which it was
* As to parliamentary re-form, it may be sufficient to say, that Ireland
received an addition only of five members over her hundred, though Lord
Castlereagh himself admitted she might have had eight at the Union. Wales
reeeived an addition of six members, though, in the average of population,
revenue, and rental, she does not come up to the standard of Cork.
76 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
discouraged or restrained from engaging in, and of those other con-
sumable, articles of luxury which the higher classes alone enjoyed the
means of purchasing."
This state of things would appear to have returned since the
Union. There is little legislation ; and it is, for the most part, of a
pernicious character. An English traveller (Bicheno) remarked, in
1829, that, between that year and 1816, eight acts, or modifications
of acts, of parliament were passed, relative to land, and that they had
the eifect only of strengthening the hands of the landlord against the
tenant a power too long arid too generally abused in Ireland.
Melancholy traces of this newly-acquired authority have been
observable, for more than twenty years, in what is called the "de-
populating system" which means, in too many instances, the
protrusion of tenantry to perish of cold and hunger on the roadside.*
Legislation has yet found no remedy for this frightful evil ; and it is
left even without restraint, as far as regards the responsibilities which
should properly attach to its authors. The new Poor Law is neces-
sarily ineffective, for there is no out-door relief; and the workhouses
provide a most expensive accommodation, for probably not one-
twentieth of our destitute population supplying, in itself, an
illustration of the want of provident and really useful legislation in
Ireland! It would appear, that time has been found for the passing
of only fifteen " local or personal " acts for Ireland, since the com-
mencement of the present reign, though there have been nearly thirty
times that number of such acts, or four hundred and forty-five, passed
for Great Britain.f There are representatives of Ireland, Avho have
been for years endeavouring to press Irish grievances, under these
* In 182.5, Mr. John Leslie Foster, many years a baron of the Exchequer,
gave the following evidence, before the Lords' Committee, on the state of
Ireland :
" Within the last two years, a perfect panic, on the subject of population, has
prevailed amongst all persons interested in land in Ireland ; and they are, at
this moment, applying a corrective check, of the most violent description, to
that increase of population, which there has been too much reason to deplore.
The principle of dispeopling estates, is going on in every part of Ireland where
it can be effected. If your lordships ask me what becomes of the surplus stock
of population, it is a matter on which I have, in very late journeys throughout
Ireland, endeavoured to form some opinion; and I conceive, that in many
instances they wander about the country as mere mendicants, but that more
frequently they betake themselves to the nearest large towns, and there occupy,
as lodgers, the mo>t wretched hovels, in the most miserable outlets, in the vain
hope of getting occasionally a day's work. Though this expectation too often
proves unfounded, it is the only course possible lor them to take. Their resort
to these towns produce:- such misery as it is impossible to describe."
t Mr. Grey Porter's " Calm Observations on Irish affairs."
EFFECTS OF THE UNIOX. 77
various heads, on the British government ; but, according to a public
allegation of the O'Connor Don, quoted in the Dublin Corporation
debate, " any five British merchants waiting upon the minister to urge
on his attention any public subject, would have more weight than the
whole body of Irish representatives."
The effects of the Union are most visibly as well as painfully
witnessed in the actual condition of the population. At the publi~
cation of the late census, the startling fact came out, that " whilst
the addition to the population from 1821 to 1831 was about fourteen
one-fourth per cent., the corresponding addition, from 1831 to 1841,
was but five one-fourth per cent." The commissioners under whose
direction the census was taken, appear to have persuaded themselves
that this deficit was much more apparent than real. They suggest
reasons for doubting the accuracy of the census of 1831, connected
with the mode ia which it was taken ; and they observe, with respect
to the preceding census, that " as it was the first successful occasion
of enumerating the people of\ Ireland^ it was, probably, effected with
less perfect machinery." ^ Tljfe-^census of 1831, however it was
executed, presented no increase diS^ring from that of other parts of
the empire, or which was beiieyedVto -have been usual in Ireland.
The commissioners enter into speculations as to emigration, the
army, and disease ; but there was recruiting for the army previous
to 1831, much emigration, -and great pestilence; for, before that year,
there was a visitation, in its effects far above the ravages of cholera.
We would inter, the general accuracy of the census of 1831 from
its probability, and to account for the falling off of the increase to
the extent of nine per cent., or nearly seven hundred thousand
human beings, on the supposed population of that year, will require
something more than is to be found in the hypotheses of the com-
missioners. There' has been a decrease of inhabited houses, but it
is ouly three per cent., not nine ; and it is but too plain, that
houses, in the existing state of things, need not increase in the
ratio of the increase of population in Ireland. The solution of the
problem appears to us to be, very plainly, in the statement of the
commissioners, that " nearly one-half of the families in the rural
population, and somewhat more than one-third of the families of the
civic population, arc living in the lowest state, being pos.-esscd of
accommodation equivalent to the cabin consisting but <>f a single
room." That which is called the '-lowest stale," is the ' fourth clas.->
of accommodation," according to vhe division of misery made out by
78 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
the commissioners. There is a " third class," and the persons
included are, confessedly, " but little removed in comfort, and nearly
in the same proportion." The two classes embrace eighty-three
per cent, in the rural districts, and in the civic districts seventy per
cent.
It may be said that there was no better accommodation in the
former decennial period ; but in such a condition of a people, matters
must have been growing worse, unless some new sources of employ-
ment of a very operative kind had been discovered. There is no
evidence of any such relief ; but indeed it signifies little what had
formerly prevailed, if we find that in the latter period, to which what
is considered an improved official investigation had been extended,
eighty-three per cent, of the whole rural population, and seventy
of the civic, were " in the lowest class of accommodation."
What effect " accommodation" has upon human life, the commis-
sioners, in another place, inform us. " The remarkable difference in
the duration of life in Leinster and Ulster, over Connaught and
Munster, is," they say, " too striking to be overlooked. The latter are
the most exclusively agricultural, and, from the analogy of Great
Britain, should, on that account, seem likely to present the longest,
rather than the shortest, average duration of existence. We fear,
however, that the very low state, as to food and accommodation, of
the rural population of those provinces, would be found, by a more
searching inquiry and comparison to place them in a sanitary point
of view, more nearly equal with the crowded inhabitants of the
western parts of England and Scotland, rather than the healthy
rustics of the English and Scotch agricultural counties."*
The railroad commissioners have recorded their opinion, that the
condition of the labouring population has deteriorated, a description
of food being used amongst them which was not known at the com-
mencement of the present century. Lord de Grey's commissioners
* In Sir William Petty 's time the people lived upon vegetables, milk, poultry,
fish, and butter (though "rancid"). In Arthur Young's time, there was an
abundance of potatoes, milk, and poultry. Sir William Petty said that every
Irish peasant had a " garron," or small horse. According to the late census,
there is in Leinster, to every second head of :i family, (or to more than ten
persons,) ahorse or a mule ; there is in Ulster and Minister, one such animal to
about every third head of a family ; and there is in Counaught, not one to
every fourth head of a family. The total number of horned cattle would give
about one to every head of a family ; but of these what are the milch cows, and
what is the use to the unfortunate peasantry after their superiors are served, and
after the preparation of those masses of butter which are amongst the boasted
exports ?
EFFECTS OF THE UNION. 79
on charities have certified, that there has been <' an increase of popu-
lation, without a corresponding increase of employment ;" and that
there is " a want of capital," and a " decay of manufactures."
Still there are persons who think they observe an improvement in
the dress, and certain habitations along the high roads, of the Irish
population. Dress has been cheapened, and landlords, who do nothing
else, whitewash those habitations which afford fourth-class accommo-
dation ; but there is too much melancholy ground for the belief, that
these effects are but " lights on graves." A no inconsiderable branch
of the trade of England, and it is a modern one, is the exportation
of old clothes for Ireland !*
The Irish commissioners of inquiry into poor laws, calculated that
2,385,000 of the population are destitute for a great part of the year.
The railway commissioners noted the decline of cotton manufacture
in the only part of Ireland (Belfast) in which they had been esta-
blished to any exent. They also noted the decline in the woollen
manufacture in Dublin, and its decay also in Cork, Kilkenny, Moate,
and Carrick-on-Suir ; and they recorded that the flannel trade of
"NVicklow and "NVexford " may be said to be extinct." Mr. Otway, in
his report, in the hand-loom inquiry, has stated that the silk trade is
now confined to one fabric tabinets. " There can," he says, " be no
doubt that the trade in weaving whole silk is extinct, and that the
manufactures of velvets, handkerchief's, and ribbons, are reduced to a
few looms." On the linen trade there are conflicting statements ; but
its decay may justifiably be inferred from the general decay of the
country, the withdrawal of the most effective encouragement of
former times, and the rapid increase of the Scotch linen trade.j"
* A fact has turned up in the inquiries which so many Irishmen are now happily
disposed to prosecute, as to the actual condition of Ireland. It has been ascer-
tained by returns, that the sheep exhibited at the great October fair of Eallina-
sloe, are less numerous now than they were forty-five years ago. It lias, how-
ever, been found that the exportation of sheep has been immensely increased.
"The question," says the author of the Argument for Ireland, "naturally
arises, what became of the surplus [not exported in 17'JD ?] They were eaten at
home."
With regard to the assumed improvement in dress, it may be stated, that Mr.
Willans, the well-known manufacturer, calculates that the consumption of
woollens in Ireland, does not exceed, in annual value, 1,400,000, being about
;}s. -'Id. per head, on the population ; whereas the total consumption of Kngland
cannot he less than from 18,000,000 to '20,000,000, which would amount to
'JOs. a head.
f The Scotch exports of linen during the year ended 31st of May, 18:15,
amounted in all to between sixty and seventy millions of yards, worth about
from l,.x>0,OUO to 1, (500,000, being considerably greater than tr.e entire
exports from Ireland. M'('u!lor/i's Statistical Account of thr Brit it-It Knijiirc.
p. <>7-X
80 EFFECTS OF THE UNION.
In 1830, a committee, of which Mr. Spring Rice was chairman,
took some pains to show that there were symptoms of general improve-
ment in Ireland. How vain the labour was, later authorities have
attested ; but while this committee was at its task, the venerated
Dr. Doyle recorded, in the following words, his opinion of the actual
state of a large portion of the population :
"After their little capital is expended, they become dependant upon
charity. They next give up their houses, and are obliged to take,
not a room, but a corner. Four of these wretched families are some-
times accommodated in one small apartment of a cabin, and three in
another. I have not, myself, seen so many as seven families in one
of these cabins, but I have been assured, by one of the officiating
clergymen, that there are many instances of it. Their beds are
merely a little straw, spread at night on the floor ; and by day wrapt
up, or covered with a quilt or blanket. In these abodes of misery,
disease is often produced by extreme want. Disease wastes the people,
for they have no food or comforts to restore them. They die in a
little time."
Dr. Doyle specially alluded to the misery produced by the process
of " clearing" lands. It remains unabated to the present hour ; and
there is not a fact to show that the sufferings of the poor, whether
arising from this, or other causes, have, in the slightest degree, been
mitigated.*
We are assured by persons intimately acquainted with the state of
the rural population, that the decay of Ireland is in no instance more
perceptible, than the condition of that important class, once called
" snug," or "comfortable" farmers. Where there were a couple of
horses, there is only a mule or an ass ; where there were four or five
cows, there is only a single cow ; where there was animal food, three
or four times a week, it is not enjoyed twice in a whole year. The
* Since these pajres were written, the Kcport of the Land Commission lias been
published. Jt supplies a most emphatic confirmation of all previous representa-
tions on this melancholy subject. It slates, that the cottiers and labourers, in
most parts of the country, are in want of certain employment. "It would be
impossible," say tiie commissioners, "to describe, adequately, the privations
which they and their families habitually and patiently endure. In many
districts, their only food is the potato, their only beverage, water. Their cabins
are seldom a protection against the weather. A bed, or a blanket, is a rare
lii.xury ; and nearly in all, their pi.u r and manure-heap, constitute their only
property. The patient endurance which they exhibit, is de.-erving of hi^h
commendation, and entitles them to the best attention of government and
parliament."
EFFECTS OF THE UMON. 81
stores of bacon, the butter, and even the feather-beds, are gone ;
and, still more deplorable, as indicating the effects on the labour-
ing poor, there is not, we are assured, a back yard of a pawn-
office, which does not, latterly, exhibit implements that ought to be
employed in tilling the land ! The pawn-office is the poor mail's
last resource ; and, when it has his plough, his harrow, or his spade,
it may well be said to have his only remaining deposit !
UEPRKSE>TATIOXS Of THbi
CHAPTER IX.
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. SPRINO
RICE IX 1834.
MR. THOMAS SPRING RICE was joint secretary of the Treasury in
1834. To him was assigned the task of replying i.o the statement of
Mr. O' Council, in the April of that year, on the Repeal of the Union.
As he was manifestly a chosen advocate, his speech may justly be
supposed to have included every argument on his side, which could
be advanced by an opponent of Repeal.
It would be impossible, in the limits prescribed to the present work,
to deal with every topic introduced by Mr. Rice. The achievement
would be needless, if it were practicable, for many points urged were
irrelevant, or merely introduced ad captandum. We shall take the
leading propositions, assuring the reader, that one shall not be
omitted, which any intelligent person could believe, that Mr. Rice
himself had deemed really important :
1st proposition There was a difference between Ireland and Por-
tugal, and it placed England and Ireland in this strange and extraor-
dinary position, that war might have been declared against Portugal,
by the king of Ireland, while peace might have been maintained
between Portugal and the king of England. 2nd The regency
question was one on which the weakness of the constitution of 1782
was demonstrated. 3rd The Irish parliament was corrupt and sub-
servient. 4',!i Grattan denounced it in 1790. 5th The terms of
the Uulun might have been bad for Ireland, but they never were
violated. 6th No one can doubt the benefits which Scotland derived
from her Union. 7th Molyneux would have been satisfied if Ireland
had representatives in the British parliament, and Montesquieu
thought that a proportional share in the legislation of the superior
country ought to be deemed sufficient. 8th Mr. Foster anticipated
separation. 9th Mr. O'Connell, in 1825, wished to make the
Union cordial and complete. 10th The rebellion was not fomented
for the purpose of carrying the Union. llth There were one
hundred and seventy-four commissions, or committees of inquiry,
since the Union, dedicated to Irish affairs. 12th Ireland has
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 83
obtained a free trade in corn, and a free scope has been given to
commercial intercourse by a cross channel trade. 13th The
currency has been assimilated, and acts were passed for the encourage-
ment of fisheries. 14th A survey and valuation of Ireland are in
progress, under the authority of the imperial parliament. 15th
Grants have been made for charities and other objects. 16th The
consolidation of the Exchequers was practically a relief to Ireland.
17th All the land of Ireland is not mortgaged for the English debt.
18th Ireland has been spared in stamp duties. 19th The protect-
ing duties have been repealed. 20th The Irish debt was transferred
to England. 21st Exports, imports, shipping, and tonnage, prove
the advancement of Ireland. 22d Liverpool alone received an
enormous amount of imports from Ireland in 1832. 23d Prior to
the Union, there was occasionally great distress in Ireland ; Dr.
Bindon complained of it in 1729, and another writer in 1757.
24th New houses, to the number of three thousand two hundred
and thirteen, have been built in Dublin since the Union. 25th
Moneys have been voted for wide streets in Dublin by the imperial
parliament. 26th Several parliamentary witnesses have deposed to
the progress of Ireland since the Union. 27th England has borne
a large proportion of exclusive taxation. 28th Mr. O'Connell was
sophistical in the use he made of certain per-centage differences in
the consumption of tea and other articles in the two countries,
respectively. 29th There have been transferences of stock, which
attest the great progress of Ireland.
FIRST PROPOSITION. The difference with Portugal arose from the
refusal of the Portuguese government to receive the manufactures of
Ireland, quantities of which were actually detained in the Custom-
house at Lisbon. The merchants of Dublin petitioned the Irish
parliament for redress, and the Irish parliament remonstrated with
the English executive without effect. A tax on Portuguese wine was
spoken of in the Irish House of Commons ; and Sir Lucius O'Brien
thought, that " granting the supplies for six months only would be the
most likely method of bringing the business to a happy issue. He
was sorry to see the business conducted in a timid manner, and in the
hands of persons not interested in their welfare, who, at most, would
only promote it, when it did not clash with the convenience of a
neighbouring nation. He thought the parliament should enter into
an immediate investigation of the subject."
These sentiments were expressed on the presentation of an address
84 KF.PRKSENTATIOXS OF THE
from the Guild of Merchants of Dublin. On a subsequent occasion
there was an animated debate on a motion, for going into the consi-
deration of the Portuguese trade. Mr. Flood advised the house not
to trust the minister. Mr. George Ponsonby, on the other hand,
declared, that he saw the minister acting obviously for the honour
and interest of Ireland ; that he thought it his duty to support him,
and that he would ever assist him while he acted on the same principle.
The motion was negatived by a majority of one hundred and seventeen
to forty-four. At length the parliament urged the interference of the
crown, by an address to the king ; and in his majesty's answer, which
was communicated on the 5th of March, 1782, he applauded "the
temper and moderation of his Commons on this occasion." "Such
conduct," the answer said, " is always becoming of their prudence and
wisdom, but particularly so in the present instance, as it affords time
for further exertions towards bringing this business to a happy con-
clusion ; and the House of Commons might rest assured that his
majesty would persevere, in every possible effort, for the attainment
of that desirable end."
The object was at last effected through the intervention of the
crown ; and it is somewhat difficult to imagine, how it could, at any
time, have produced the state of things imagined by Mr. Rice. The
Irish parliament might have laid an additional tax upon Portuguese
wine, and the Irish people, generally, might have entered into a
resolution, as the Volunteers did, not to drink Portuguese wine ; but
as to war, it was alone within the power of the sovereign, who
was so far from suspecting his Irish parliament of having any dispo-
sition to interfere with his prerogative, that after admitting the just
ground they had of complaint, he applauded them for their "temper
and moderation." Even if it could be supposed possible that a war
could grow out of an occasion of this kind, there would be nothing in
it so unheard of, as Mr. Rice seemed to imagine ; for it is well known
that the elector of Hanover had been at peace, while the same person-
age as king of England had been at war. But the fancy is altogether
extravagant. Peace or war is at the sole determination of the crown.
A parliament cannot go to war, even in its enactments, without the
assent of the sovereign ; and the idea, that actual warfare could have
emanated from a dispute of this sort, becomes ridiculous when it
is considered that one of the parties belligerent had no command
either of Troops or ships !
2d The ans\\ er to the argument attempted to be founded on the
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 85
regency question, is already stated. The Irish parliament wanted to
remove all chances of difference on that point; but the minister for
purposes which could not be misunderstood would not suffer it to do
so. Ten lines of a statute, which would have the support of every
voice in Ireland, would render it as little a matter of question who
should be regent, as who should be sovereign.
3d. The Ii-ish parliament was a long time enslaved, but it
achieved its independence. It was, at periods, corrupted; and so,
frequently, was the British parliament. It was, however, an unre-
formed parliament. For a long period it did not represent four-fifths
of the whole population. In its best days it displayed energy and
virtue, which have never been surpassed : in its worst there were
not wanted the elements of great usefulness, with reference either to
the present or the future.
4th It is somewhat singular to adduce Henry Grattan as a
witness against the general character of the Irish parliament ! He
spoke as follows, it appears, on the 20th of February, 1 790 : " What
has our renewed constitution yet produced? A place bill? No. A
pension bill ? No. Any great or good measure ? No. But a city
police bill, a press bill, a riot act, great increase of pensions,
fourteen new places for members of parliament, and a most notorious
and corrupt sale of peerages. Where will all this end ?"
This was Mr. G rattan's language in 1790, up to which time there
was a failure of measures which had afterwards been accomplished.
What, however, did he say on the 16th of January, 1800, which is a
far more important date for our inquiry, than a period ten years
preceding ? " I do not," said he, "mean to approve all the parliaments
that have sat in Ireland. I left the former, because I condemned its
proceedings. But I argue not, like the minister, from the misconduct
of one parliament against the being of parliament itself. I value the
parliamentary constitution by the average of its benefits ; and I affirm,
that the blessings procured by the Irish parliament in the last twenty
years, are greater than all the blessings afforded by British parlia-
ments to Ireland for the last century ; greater even than the mischiefs
inflicted upon Ireland by British parliaments ; greater than all the
blessings procured by those parliaments for their own country
within that period. Within that time the legislature of England lost
an empire, arid the legislature of Ireland recovered a constitution."
5th and 6th A reply to both is to be found in the preceding
chapter.
86 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
7th. The opinion advanced by Molyneux was merely this, that
Ireland should have representatives in the British parliament, if it
were decided that the parliament of England ought to bind Ireland.
His argument was, that the parliament of England ought not to bind
Ireland, which was a separate and distinct kingdom, entitled to a
parliament of its own ; and it would seem to follow, that Ireland ought
not to have representatives in the English parliament. Montesquieu
spoke of proportional representation ; and it is to be presumed that he
would have thought it unjust that Ireland should have one hundred
and five representatives, if grounds could be shown that she should
have one hundred and sixty-nine. If our advance in wealth had been
to the extent insisted upon by Mr. Rice, we should have two hundred
representatives.
8th. The use made of certain observations of Mr. Foster, in 1805,
is of a piece with that made of Mr. G rat tan's opinions, in 1790.
"-Should some score Catholics," said Mr. Foster, "by the vote of
that night, find their way into the imperial parliament, and after-
wards feel their inferiority in an assembly of six hundred and fifty-
eight members, they would rapidly augment their strength by new
political recruits, and endeavour, by a Repeal of the Union, to
re-establish the Irish parliament. He felt the full force of the con-
sequences to be apprehended from such a measure ; and he trembled
for the separation of his native country from that connection with
England, deprived of which, he was convinced, she could be neither
prosperous nor happy."
Mr. Foster was of that class of men, who, not knowing Catholics,
or, yielding to early prejudices, misunderstood and feared them, and
accordingly desired their exclusion from parliament. It does not follow
that he approved of the Union. That measure was opposed by some
few wrong-heads, on the ground of its supposed tendency to promote
Catholic emancipation. Strenuously opposed as Mr. Foster was to
the Union, if he had been allowed to select between that project and
Catholic emancipation, it is not improbable that he would have taken
the Union in preference. He thought that if Catholics had legislative
power, they would seek for separation; and he would, as may be sup-
posed, have avoided that evil, at all hazards. It could not have been
the Repeal of the Union he was apprehensive in 1805, but the admis-
sion of Catholics to parliament ; indeed, in his view, the Repeal would
be a barrier to that admission, and a safeguard to the connection, under
any circumstances. Hut suppose he was, in 1805, an entirely changed
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICK. 87
man as to the abstract question of .Repeal, what is he, as an authority,
to Grattan, of whom we have the consolatory record, by his son, that
he lived from the period of the Union, and died, a Repealer. Mr.
Foster accepted the favours of place and the peerage from the authors
of the Union.
9th. Mr. O'Connell would always have embraced what he regarded
a fair opportunity of making the Union cordial and complete. His
demand was "justice for Ireland" in 1825 ; and he would have been
satisfied with it then and later. If he now ask for a larger measure
of "justice," it is after a nineteen years' experience, in which lie
had daily opportunities of judging of the probabilities or possibili-
ties of a complete and cordial Union.
10th To suppose that the English government did not foment a
rebellion, or had not (as some have expressed it) " suffered the rebel-
lion to explode," in order to carry the Union, is only to suppose that
they had not gone to the very extreme of political criminality on the
occasion. Mr. O'Conneii draws his conclusions on the subject from
the following facts, elicited, in 1798, before the secret committee of
the House of Commons: "An armed organization was first com-
menced in Ulster, and was there alone successful to any extent. A
meeting of nine colonels of the United Irishmen took place once
a fortnight in the town of Ballinahinch, in the county Down a
place where a battle was fought afterwards. One of these colonels
was found to be a double traitor his name was Maguan. He
had not only the rank of colonel, but was also a member of the
county Down Directory, and besides of the Ulster chief Directory,
He was a double-dyed traitor in not only holding these Military
and civil offices in the treasonable Union, but also by being a spy
for the government, receiving bribes for the purpose of communi-
cating intelligence to the Rev. Dr. Clelland, a Protestant divine,
who was a magistrate in that district. This clergyman also acted as
land-agent to Lord Londonderry, father to Lord Castlereagh. That
traitor, Maguan, began his communications on the 14th of April,
1797 ; and at every meeting the colonels held he forwarded an account
of the proceedings, and a lisi of the persons in attendance, to the Rev.
Dr. Clelland, who forwarded them to the Castle. He also sent a full
account of all the proceedings, as well of the meetings of colonels,
as of the county and provincial committees, to the reverend gentleman,
who regularly forwarded them to the Castle. He continued to give
his information down to the latter end of May, 1798. The govern-
REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
ment could, in the meantime, have laid hold of all the colonels, and
also the members of committees if they chose to do so ; they could
have apprehended his eight military companions, captains, committee
men, and others of the parties ; and they could have put an end to
the conspiracy. Why did they not do it ? It was their solemn duty
to have clone it. In ordinary times they would have apprehended
them all at once, and executed every man of them ; and had it been
done in that case much human blood would have been spared, which
afterwards, unhappily, deluged the land."
Mr. Rice meets the case by stating, that " the Habeas Corpus act
was suspended in 1796; the Insurrection act was passed; the White-
boy acts were in force ; and some of the founders and abettors of the
Society of United Irishmen Mr. Wolf Tone, Mr. Hamilton Rowan,
Oliver Bond, and Colonel Butler were proceeded against for high
treason. Now what," he asks, "becomes of the charge of inertness
made by the learned gentlemen against the government of that day ?
What greater vigour could he require ?" The answer is the arrest
of one of the eight colonels one of the numerous provincial and
county committee men ; any act, in short, which would testify that
they availed themselves of the services of spy Maguan, which conti-
nued from April, '97 to May, '98. The public men of the time who
had the best opportunities of observing and judging, were measureless
in their accusations against the government. Mr. Plunket openly
charged Lord Castlereagh with "fomenting the embers of a lingering
rebellion; of hallooing the Protestant against the Catholic, and the
Catholic against the Protestant; and of artfully keeping alive dissen-
sion for the sake of subjugation." This is Mr. O'Connell's impeach-
ment with more circumlocution. The charge was advanced in .all
forms of guarded but perfectly intelligible phrase, by Bushe, Grattan,
and many others. It was credited so universally out of this country,
that it drew a formal vindication of his friends from Mr. Cannin^ in
O
the British parliament.
llth During the debate, Mr. Rice's speech was more than once,
and with the utmost gravity, called " wonderful." It derived not a
little of its attractions from a catalogue of one hundred and seventy-
four committees, or commissions of inquiry, on Irish affairs, appointed
since the Union.* Some of those committees or commissions were
useless, some mischievous; and many, which appear distinct, were
' Appendix, No. I.
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. EICE. 89
identical, the men who acted in one 'year being the same who
acted in several years afterwards. The committees or commissioners
on bogs may be cited as an instance. We find one or other intro-
duced six times in the list ; and yet we believe the true history of the
bogs is, that there was one committee and one commission, and that
though there were surveys and reports which cost 21,556, the whole
work has been almost useless to the present hour, through the neglect
of the parliament or the executive government. One, at least, of the
numerous committees made it a part of its duty to reproach the men
in authority with this cruel negligence. Of this committee Mr. Rice
himself was chairman; and it remarked, in 1830, as follows:
" When the immense importance of bringing into a productive state
five millions of acres, now lying waste, is considered, it cannot but be
a subject of regret and surprise, that no greater progress in this
undertaking has yet been made. If this work could be accomplished,
not only would it afford a transitory but permanent demand for pro-
ductive labour, accompanied by a corresponding rise of wages and
improvement in the condition of the poor The
severe pressure of the clearing of farms, and ejecting sub-tenants,
may thus be mitigated, and the general state of the peasantry
improved."
Of these words Mr, Spring Rice himself was the pensman. They
are very emphatic, and ought to have done good ; but that they failed
to produce any available impression on the parliament or the govern-
ment, is a fact, attested by the representation of another committee
that which reported on public works, in 1835. Referring to the
original reports of tin' bog commissioners, this committee remarked,
that "these reports point out the advantages derivable to the state,
the community, Ihe labouring classes, and to England, from reclaim-
ing the waste lands of Ireland, and are founded on the most
convincing evidence of the facility with which such wastes may be
reclaimed. l>nt it appears, from the evidence obtained by your
eommitiee, that no efforts have been made to realize the advantages
pointed out, except in a i'ew instances. In these, however, the success
has been most complete; and, therefore, present undeniable proofs
of the practicability and importance of the operations proposed in
the reports Unhappily for Ireland, and for the whole
kingdom, it has not been heretofore considered sound policy to adopt
any public measure towards the development of these extraordinary
-oiuve> of wealth, or praeiieallv improving ihe Iri-li peasantry; and
90 REPRESENTATIONS OF THX
hence that fine and fertile country presents such misery, discontent,
and crime."
The " few cases " mentioned, are, with, perhaps, the single excep-
tion of King William's town, those of private individuals, with which
the state had nothing whatever to do.
" Fisheries " are eight times set down in the catalogue ; but there
is nothing better now to be told of these sources of employment, than
that the bounties are withdrawn, and they languish, while the Scotch
fisheries are still carried on with vigour under a pecuniary encourage-
ment, existing, in part, ever since the remote period of the Scotch
Union.
The linen manufacture is twice mentioned. The last committee
upon it was in 1825; and its members did all in their power to
impress on the parliament and the executive government the expe-
diency and justice of supporting this, which had been for more than
a century pronounced in all public declarations, the " staple trade" of
Ireland. They assumed, that the legislature was pledged ever since
the time of William the Third, to continue the pecuniary grant to
that trade; and they resolved, that "a fund being provided for the
encouragement and advancement of the linen manufacture of Ireland,
and legislative enactments for the regulation of that manufacture
being necessary, together with officers appointed responsible for the
execution thereof; some superintending authority is required to
make due application of such fund, to control the conduct of such
officers, to receive and decide upon the claims of those taking interest
in promoting the manufacture, and in hearing and redressing the
complaints of parties concerned or connected with the trade." They
said, that "the trade having acquired a degree of advancement in the
north, a most zealous attention ought to be exerted for the purpose of
extending it to the other parts of Ireland." They recognised the
" undoubtedly strong claims" of Ireland for every aid and encourage-
ment to the manufacture, "at least to the extent of the annual
parliamentary grant made and confirmed under circumstances detailed
in a document in the Appendix."* This document is a paper drawn
up by the late Lord Oriel. It describes all the circumstances connected
with the suppression of the Irish woollen trade, and shows that the
assent of the Irish parliament was asked for, and procured, on the
express condition, that the linen trade should perpetually be encou-
* Appendix, No. II.
OPPONENTS OF RKPEAI SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 91
raged. This paper was published in the public, journals of Dublin
in 1815; and it is therefore to be supposed, that even then some
measure of an injurious character, regarding the trade, was appre-
hended. The effect it produced, in 1825, on the minister, though it
had the full sanction of what might have been regarded his own
committee, for Sir George Hill appears to have been chairman, was
of very short duration. The committee made their report in June
of that year. The financial arrangements for 1825 were of course
determined upon before that period, and there was no alteration in
the usual grant, which, in Irish currency, was 21,000, and in
British 19,938. It was voted again in 1826, and for the last time,
to the old amount, in 1827. Then it was reduced to 10,000, and
next year withdrawn altogether. It is a circumstance worth notice,
that Lord Oriel took occasion to call attention to the fact, that the
Irish linen trade was annually recommended from the throne to the
attention of the Irish parliament. The speech, he observed, addressed
to the last meeting of that parliament contained these words: " I re-
commend to your usual attention the agriculture, the manufactures,
and particularly the linen trade of Ireland" The italics are Lord
Oriel's. He proceeds to observe, that " although since the Union the
linen manufacture has not been noticed in any speech from the
throne, the same annual grant has been made for its support that
was given by the parliament of Ireland." He could have had little
anticipation that this grant would have been so speedily withdrawn,
even in opposition to the earnest recommendation of one of those
one hundred and seventy-four committees or commissions, on the
strength of whose good works Mr. Rice demanded a verdict against
the Repeal agitation of Ireland in 1834 !
Education is introduced into the catalogue nineteen times, and
grand juries six times. Yet how little was there of practical or real
benefit rendered in the one case down to 1834; how little in the
other to the present time ? In short, if there had been four honest
and efficient committees or commissions appointed since the Union,
and if regard were paid to their recommendations, the one hundred
nnd seventy additional ones might well have been dispensed with
However, the list, as we have it before us, is a good illustration of
the materials of which the u wonderful speech" was composed.
1 '2th The freo trade in corn was an undoubted acquisition to
Ireland. The country, we believe, was chiefly indebted for it to
tlip persevering exertion- of Sir John Newport. It must b: admitted.
92 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
hoAvever, that it was just such a measure as was most incumbent
on the united parliament to pass, whether viewed in reference to the
prices of food in England, or the growing deficiency of employment
in Ireland, arising, in a great measure, from the act of Union itself.
Besides, it opened no source of advantage to Ireland at all comparable
to the new opportunities acquired by Gi'eat Britain of making a
monopoly for her manufactures. But the corn trade is not now in
the condition in which it was in 1 834 ; and we know not how soon a
" monopoly of the English market" (as it his been called), which has
already been considerably impaired, may vanish altogether. No
revulsion, however, has overtaken, or appears to threaten, the British
advantages arising from free commercial intercourse with Ireland.
There is no doubt that the preponderance of the benefits connected
with the " cross channel" trade, has always been at the side of
Britain.*
13th. The assimilation of the currency rendered much benefit
to England ; on Ireland it conferred no proportionate advantage ;
and many mourn over it to the present day, as a great grievance.
The fishery question is already disposed of.
14th There has been a survey and valuation of Ireland ; but with-
out such services how could it be shown to the people, that there was
any good whatever in legislation or government? When this
undertaking was followed up to the consideration of an ordnance
memoir, what occurred? There was a junction of parties connected
with Ireland, and as respectable a deputation as could approach
a minister, waited on Sir Robert Peel, but he refused his assent
to the expenditure of a few thousands, though the result would,
at so small a sacrifice, have been highly gratifying to all classes
of the Irish people. No transaction more confirmatory of the obser-
vation of the O'Connor Don, could possibly occur.f
* The creation of a corn trade for Ireland was the work of the Irish parlia-
ment. Under the fostering encouragement of domestic legislation, the Irish
became exporters instead of importers of corn, and made rapid progress even
before the period of legislative independence, notwithstanding difficulties thrown
in their way by the "commercial avarice" (to borrow a phrase from Newenham)
"of England." The number of 7nills from which flour was brought to Dublin
was thirty-three in 17o'8; but they were two hundred and nineteen in 179b'.
The great prosperity of this branch of commerce commenced with the bounties
of 1784. " Contrary to what had ever before been thecase, Ireland," says Newen-
ham, " gained, by her corn trade, in ten years, (ended 17^5,) a balance of
.4,042,81 1, or about 404. "281 ;i year ; and contrary, also, to what had been the
case before, plenty uniformly prevailed in the countrv."
f Page 77-
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 93
15th Grants were undoubtedly made for charities and other
objects, but there was a provision to that end in the act of Union.
The stipulated amount had, in some cases, been exceeded ; but
was this more than should be expected in the case of a country
which had been taxed so much beyond its means? England has
had grants for similar objects; and they have amounted to nearly
double the sum of the Irish, without a tenth of the necessity.
Besides, the heaviest items of the " grants " have rendered no
real service to the country, but have carried out, as far as
they could, merely a pernicious purpose of the fanaticism of former
times. For several years the Protestant Charter Schools have
received 41,540 a year; the Foundling Hospital, upwards of
32,000 a year ; and the Society for Discountenancing Vice, 9,000
a year.* What good did this render to Ireland ? what good was it
intended to render ? The " Education Society" expended from
30,000 to 37,000 a year, in pursuits which have caused divisions
and discontents, creating more evil in one year, than could be coun-
terbalanced by all the good they were capable of effecting in twenty.
The Board of First Fruits received out of these boasted "grants," for
seven years, 55,385, making a total, in these seven years alone,
of 650,766; the purposes being, in many instances, to provide for
the repairs of glebes, where there were no resident clergymen,
and churches, where there were no congregations. Of the whole
"grants," amounting to 8,638,331, nearly one-half were for objects
of this description.
There were, besides, loans amounting to 6,953,545, of which
2,804,083 had been repaid. Of the re-payment of every shilling
of these advances, no doubt ever was, or could be, entertained ; but
of Avhat did they principally consist ? Some were for the same
"first fruits" just mentioned, others for tithe objects, but the principal
were for gaols, and " police purposes," rendered needful principally
by bad government. Of the whole amount no less a sum than
4,174,000 was for gaols and police purposes.
16th This is a very large question; but all that we would desire
* It is worthy of remark, that the bounty of the Imperial parliament to these
institutions, exceeded that of the Irish parliament :
Voted by the Irish Parliament. Voted by the Imperial Parliament.
For Protestant Charter Schools, .. ..1.3.000 .. .. 11,5-10
Foundling Hospital, .. .. .. .. !),:<()0 .. .. 32.000
Society for Discountenancing Vice. .. .. .. .. !f,000
First Fruits ,5,000 T,:,.3n:*
94 REPRESENTATIONS OF THB
in this place to advance regarding it, has already been stated. To
show how utterly unfounded the assertion is, that the consolidation of
the Exchequer was " practically a relief to Ireland," it need only be
mentioned, that the utmost shilling was exacted from Ireland before
that arrangement, and that the utmost shilling has been exacted
since a state of things from which it is impossible that relief could
flow. Ireland was promised an abatement of taxation, a restriction
on the accumulation of debt, increased encouragement to her manu-
factures, and, above all, an application (contingently) of a surplus of
her own revenue, even to the extent of 5,000,000, to Irish purposes,
exclusively. She has been grievously disappointed as to the taxation,
as to debt, as to manufactures, and as to the surplus revenue applica-
ble to her own uses. A measure which should be an emanation of
her increase of wealth, and the fostering care of the governing power,
has had no better foundation than her poverty, and yet the result is
said, by Mr. Rice, to be " practically a relief to Ireland." Whatever
else has happened, Ireland could not, under such circumstances, have
been relieved.
17th "All the land of Ireland is not mortgaged for the English
debt." Such was the assertion of Mr. Rice ; and he proceeded to
say (page 60 of an authorized report),
" As we are at issue on this important fact, I desire that you (the
House of Commons), the jury appointed to judge between us, should
understand the issue you are about to try, and respecting which I put
myself upon the country, and claim your verdict. The question is,
whether the imperial parliament passed an act, in 1816, which re-
pealed any protection which Ireland had derived from the articles of
Union, and encumbered Ireland with an additional weight of debt.
You are to decide whether that statement be true or false whether
the imperial parliament is guilty whether all the land and industry of
Ireland is now mortgaged for the payment of the national debt."
The only question which we propose to deal with here is, "whether
all the land and industry of Ireland is now mortgaged for the pay-
ment of the national debt." From the words quoted it is to be sup-
posed that Mr. Hire will be able to show in his usual " triumphant"
manner, that there has been no such mortgage as that suggested. Let
us then see what he admits, in page 62 of this authorized publication.
" It is perfectly true," he observes, " that by this arrangement all
the revenue and all the expenditure (of both countries) become one
joint amount."
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICK. 95
And again, in page 64 :
" It is quite true that the taxation and revenue of Ireland are sub-
ject to the payment of the interest of the debt; but let it be remem-
bered, that so are the land and the national resources of Great
Britain likewise."
So much for the point on which the "jury" were so confidently
called upon to pronounce. The case put to the "jury" was, that
there was no " mortgage," and it was sustained by the admission that
there teas a " mortgage !"
18th Mr. Rice made special use of the inequality of the stamp
taxation, which he was able to refer to in 1834: "The argument
against me is, that in matters of taxation parliament has acted
most unjustly towards Ireland. I refer, as a triumphant reply, to
the rates of stamp duties levied in that part of the empire, and
I beg honourable gentlemen to attend to my statement. I do not
know on what principle it can be argued that the estate of a
man who dies worth 1,000, in the one portion of the empire,
is not as fair a subject of taxation, as if he resided in the other.
Now, let us see how great has been the difference of taxation
levied in Great Britain and Ireland, in this respect. It will be seen
that this unjust, pai'tial, and iniquitous British parliament, in making
its fiscal arrangements, has imposed a duty of one hundred per cent.
less on legacies in Ireland than in England. The stamp duty on
deeds in Ireland is eighty per cent, less than in England; on pro-
bates, fifty per cent.; on administrations, one hundred and twenty
per cent. ; on receipts, sixty-five per cent. ; on newspapers, one hun-
dred per cent.; on almanacs, sixty per cent.; on fire insurance,
twenty per cent.; and on advertisements, fifty per cent, less than in
England. Why, sir, I say that with these simple facts before us, it
is as preposterous and absurd as it is untrue to imagine or assert,
that the interests of Ireland have been neglected. I admit that I
cannot justify many of these preferences. Suppose that a man
were to die in Ireland, leaving an immense mass of property; sup-
pose that the great capitalist who had died lately in this country
I mean Mr. Adair had been a resident in Ireland, and had died
in that country, what an enormous inequality would this one
hundred per cent, have been in such a case; and why it should
have been allowed to exist I know not, except for the advance-
ment of the interest of Ireland, and from a wish to benefit that
country; no other motive could have induced the legislature to
96 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
impose a duty upon legacies in Ireland, less by one hundred per
cent, than that which is levied in England."
All this was put to the jury in 1834, and what is its value when
we examine it in 1844? A desire for the "advancement of Ireland"
caused the wondrous differences stated of the legacy duty. Well,
they are now removed, and what are we to say as to the cause
what are the "jury" to say as to the cause? Are they to find that
the "prosperity of Ireland" was the sole object in view; and are
they, by thus finding, to exonerate "this unjust, partial, and iniqui-
tous British parliament" from all blame ? How evanescent is human
glory! If Mr. Rice had been destined by the Fates to speak the
"wonderful speech" in 1844, one of its finest points Avould be lost
through the untimely interference of Mr. Goulburn with the testa-
mentary regulations of persons of the Adair class one of whom has
not yet been found in Ireland, but whose utmost payments after all,
whether the duty be one hundred per cent, over, or one hundred per
cent, less, can amount to not a great many thousands of pounds.
Never, surely, was the authority of statistics so utterly prostituted as
in the whole of this passage, in the great oration of Mr. Rice; he
even condescended to drag in the newspapers. He is not correct in
his statement of the difference of the taxation under this head,
existing in 1834, for it was not one hundred per cent.; there having
been a large discount on payments in England which was unknown
in Ireland: but suppose the per-centage was four hundred, instead of
one hundred, what would Ireland have gained, or England lost? not
10,000 in a whole year. If the case, however, were totally different
in 1834, what, we would ask, is now to be done with a "jury" em-
pannelled on these questions? The stamp duties have since been
assimilated, with the insignificant exception of the newspapers.
There are no Adairs, now, to rejoice in the advantages of making a
will in Ireland. The farthing bounty to the newspapers may be
estimated by this fact, that it is doubtful whether the whole revenue
of Ireland, arising from newspapers, is as much as 20,000 a year
over the expenses of the collection.
19th. As to the protecting duties, their repeal was chiefly impor-
tant to the wealthier country; that repeal was most popular amongst
all the trading interests of Great Britain ; it was opposed by the
principal manufacturers of Ireland, but to no purpose. It has, un-
questionably, been attended with the ruin of a great number of our
once prosperous establishments.
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL. 97
20th With regard to the "transference of the debt," we have a
self contradiction, only equalled by that in the case of the land
" mortgage." When a debt is " transferred," it is ordinarily supposed
to be shifted from one party to another ; but Mr. Rice, himself, states
that "the taxation and revenue of Ireland are subject to the inte-
rest of the debt ;" and this is what he calls " a transference of the
burden!" Calmly viewing it, such an attempt at reasoning is
amazing, but it only elicited exclamations of " wonderful speech"
in the imperial House of Commons.
21st. The export, import, and tonnage-tests require a little
examination. There is great fallacy connected with all of them.
Exports may be in provisions, which (as in the case of Ireland) the
people are too poor to consume themselves. England once exported
provisions, and her corn was received, in considerable quantities,
into Ireland. She could not now be an exporting country, in the
same way, without a great decline in the comfort and wealth of her
inhabitants. Even increase of imports might arise from adverse
circumstances, and the case of Ireland is one, again, in point. We
import now a great amount of articles which we manufactured
formerly. This is a proof, not of the improvement, but of the
deterioration ef the condition of the country. Tonnage, also, is a
most uncertain test. It means, only, the capacity of ships to trans-
port commodities. The tonnage of vessels coming to Ireland with
coals, and intending to take back the value in money, is recorded.
The tonnage of the same vessels taking back the money and the
mud, which is the usual returned cargo, at least from the Liffey,
is recorded. The tonnage of the steam vessels sailing with half
cargoes, and quarter cargoes, and sometimes no cargoes at all, as
far as merchandize is concerned, is recorded. Tonnage, therefore,
is no test to be relied upon. Newcastle, by means of its collieries,
makes a greater figure in the tables of tonnage, than places three
times surpassing it in real mercantile importance.
2'2d In the suggestion, that Liverpool "alone" accomplished
what is described, there is one of the most prominent examples of
the sophistry which pervades the whole speech. The phrase,
" alone," suggests that ail other ports receive a great, it' not equal,
amount of the Irish exports; but the fact is, that Liverpool, from
her position, and the nature of the principal exports, receives into
her harbour at least nine-tenths of the entire.
98 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
23d. Before the Union there was (wonderful to relate) distress
in Ireland, and more especially in the city of Dublin ! It could not
have been otherwise, if Mr. Pitt was correct in stating, in the debates
on the '85 propositions, that " Ii*eland had been deprived of the use
of her own resources, and rendered subservient to the interest and
opulence of Great Britain." There was, it is true, an interval of
parliamentary independence, but it could be no security against those
visitations from which even opulent England suffers occasionally. But
has nothing happened in Dublin, since the Union, to cause some disap-
pointment? Let the question be answered by the following extract
from a report of one of those numerous parliamentary committees
arrayed against the Repealers :
" In closing their labours, continued during the three last sessions,
and rendered necessary by a greater number of petitions than were
addressed by the city of Dublin to parliament, on any former occasion,
your committee feel an earnest hope that the peculiar situation in
which Dublin has been placed by the Union, will not be lost sight of
by the house. Prior to that event ninety-eight peers, and a propor-
tionate number of wealthy commoners, inhabited the city. At
present, the number of the resident peers does not exceed twelve. The
effect of the Union has been thus to withdraw from Dublin many of
those who were likely to contribute most effectually to its opulence
and importance. The increase of the industrious, and of the middle
classes, so desirable under these circumstances, is checked by the
aggravated pressure of the local taxation. A house, which, in 1797,
paid in local taxes 6 4s. Od., is now subject to 30, while the
value of the property has been reduced 20 per cent. One-fourth of
the number of houses in the city is returned as insolvent, and while
the population has augmented, between the years 1813 and 1821,
from 176,610 to 185, 821, the number of the inhabited houses dimi-
nished from 15,104 to 14,949."
The report from which this is an extract is dated the 18th of
May, 1825 ; and the author is Mr. Thomas Spring llice, now Lord
Monteagle !
24th There have, unquestionably, been many houses built in
Dublin since the Union, but a far greater number have fallen into
decay. All the buildings indicating unquestionable opulence were,
for the most part, erected before the Union ; but the point as to the
real effects upon Dublin is decided by the quotations just made from
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 99
Mr. Rice himself. " One-fourth of the houses Avere insolvent ; and
though the population had increased, the number of inhabited
houses had diminished from 15,104 to 14,949."*
25th. Moneys were, certainly, voted for wide streets ; and these
grants were at one time defended by Sir Robert Peel, when he was
chief secretary of Ireland, on the ground of the local injury to
Dublin, which was unquestionably caused by the Union. All pay-
ments for wide streets have ceased for many years, and yet remit-
tances have constantly been made of the funds administered by
the Board of Woods and Forests, amounting to 62,000 a year,
and they have principally been applied to the improvement of
London.
26th. That parliamentary witnesses have made no case, has
already been proved in several ways. There are, certainly, more
exports and imports than there were in 1 800 ; but the population has
been doubled, and we have shown what sort of test is to be found in
exports and imports. It is undeniable that there has been some
advance under most heads ; but the case of the Repealers is, that there
has been no advance at all proportionate to the increase of popu-
lation, to the improvement of Ireland before the Union, tfr to the
improvement of the other parts of the empire since the Union. The
conclusive fact is, that the average of the gross revenue in three
years ended 1804, was only 4,420,438; and that in three years ended
1844, it was 4, 160,934, notwithstanding the enormous advance in
the ratio of the taxation.f
27th. There was no topic introduced by Mr. Rice that appeared
to make so strong an impression as the amount of separate taxation
paid by Great Britain since the Union. He dealt with it before in a
speech delivered on the llth of February, 1833, and of which an
* The Mr. Ellis, M.P. for Dublin, gave the following statement to a par-
liamentary committee in 1822, to exhibit the "progressive insolvencies" of
Dublin :
Insolvent Houses in 1815 . 880
ism . 1,072
1817 . 1,;>88
1818 . 2,397
1819 . 3,206
1820 . 3,989
1821 . 4,719
f The revenue, in 1804, was increased by an amount of assessed taxes reach-
ing to 208,815, not at present payable in Ireland ; but, on the other hand, the
produce of the revenue from tea, tobacco, and sugar, was {>,57,000 greater in
the year ended ,5th January, 1844, than it was in the former year, the difference
being chiefly caused by the increase of the rates.
100 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
authorized report was extensively circulated. From that speech the
following is an extract :
" The members who attack England for her conduct towards Ireland, do not
recollect the separate taxation which England has paid, and still pays. From all
the taxes which hare pressed, and still press, most severely upon England,
Ireland not only claims, but enjoys an exemption. I will state to the house
some facts which will show the extent to which this separate taxation of Great
Britain has proceeded. England paid for the
" Tax on property and income from 1801 .. .. 152,258,710
Produce of land and assessed taxes from 1823, when
those taxes were repealed in Ireland, .. .. 50,120,425
Beer, 82,483,583
Soap, 24,934,544
Candles, 10,294,980
Printed cottons, 13,549,609
Making a total of separate taxation on Great Britain of 333,641,851
"In referring to these facts, I am not arguing against my country, for I believe
that I am not a worse Irishman in endeavouring to do justice to the conduct of
the people of England. It would, I admit, have been unwise and unjust in
the imperial parliament to have imposed heavier taxes upon Ireland ; but, at the
same time, I will contend, that the fact of not having done so, must be taken as
a proof of regard for Irish interests."
In returning to the topic in 1834, he took higher ground. Instead
of a total of 333,000,000, he claimed under the head of taxes
levied in Great Britain, exclusively, " 478,000,000, and he added
618,000,000 more as "excess of taxation levied in Great Britain
by reason of the difference of taxes." The following are the items
under both heads:
Excess of Taxation.
Customs, 130,065,000
Excise, 321,346,642
Stamps, 86,638.000
Taxes, 80,237,406
618,287,048
Taxes levied exclusively.
Excise, 211,936,477
Stamps, 20,000,000
Taxes, 246,239,947
478,176,424
Grand total, 109(5,463,472
Such was the progress Mr. Rice made in computation in a single
year! lie produced in one a total of 763,000,000 above the other!!!
There were "papers relating to the income, expenditure, and
trade of Ireland," laid before parliament in 1834, on the motion of
Mr. Rice.* From these he professed to take his figures. There does
* Sessional number 194.
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPTVKCH OF MR. RICE. 10 1
not appear to have been very great accuracy employed in the com-
pilation of these papers. Mr. Rice, himself, noticed that the duties
on salt were " twice" charged ; but he did not remark that salt and
hops were set down as articles taxed exclusively in Great Britain,
though a clause in the act of Union specially exempts them from a
greater amount of duty than that to which they were then liable.
These two articles made a difference of 40,320,110 in Mr. Rice's
calculation of exclusive taxation.
The next thing observable is, that there are no data in these
papers, from which such a result can be deduced as that exhibited by
Mr. Rice ; there are no minor amounts from which he can make out
his grand total of 1096,000,000.
The following are items of exclusive taxation recapitulated in
page twenty-eight, salt and hops being omitted :
Beer, 91,252,592
Bricks and tiles, 10,854,967
Candles, 11,891,684
Cider and perry, ... ... ... ... ... 821,212
Glass (exclusive of bottles), 14,623,952
Printed calicoes, 40,358,465
Soap, 32,441,797
Starch, 2,210,779
Stone bottles, 67,132
Wire, 267,419
204,789,999
In page 32 we have the following recapitulation :
Land tax, 43,497,297
Income tax, 9,613,991
Aid and contribution, ... ... ... ... 67,892
Property tax, 145,833,019
Is. 6d. and 4s. duties 2,094,204
201,106,403
There is no other item of exclusive taxation, except one of
45,133,000 for assessed taxes, and another of 20,000,000 for
stamps. The following, then, are the amounts of exclusive taxation
under each head :
1st 204,789,999
2nd 201,106,403
3rd 45,133,544
4th 20,000,000
471,029,946
This does not differ very materially from Mr. Rice's total, though
we have excluded salt and hops ; but we cannot see our way at all
102 REPRESENTATION'S OF THE
. through the maze in which we are involved by items for " difference of
rates." Of the first of these we find an abstract in page twenty-five,
where it is said that certain articles produced a revenue of 24, 179,000
in Ireland; but would have yielded a sum of 64,115,000, "if
the rates of duty had been the same as in great Britain." The
balance is 39,936,000, which, we suppose, we are to charge against
Ireland.
The next class of articles, on which an estimate is founded, presents
itself in page twenty-nine. On auctions, glass, hides and skins, malt,
paper, spirits, and vinegar, it is assumed that there has been an
"excess of taxes" amounting to 81,367,000.
In page thirty-two we have an excess of assessed taxes, amounting,
" at a rough estimate," to 80,237,000, and an annual amount of
assessed taxes raised in England, since the repeal of the ass'essed taxes
in Ireland, reaching to 45,133,000. In the same page there is set
down, "upon the best estimate that can be formed," 81,697,000 for
difference of stamp rates. We have now the entire of the amounts,
and let us see their total:
1st item, ... ... 39,936,641
2nd do., ... ... ... ... 81,367,047
3rd do ... ... ... 80,237,406
4th do., ... ... ... ... 45,133,544
5th do., ... ... ... 81,697,000
328,371,638
Add the entire amount of the hops and salt taxes, and the total wilt
be 368,000,000. Add that again to the preceding total of
471,000,000, and there will be a grand total of 839,000,000; but
this will not be Mr. Rice's sum of 1,096,000. Where shall we find
the difference ? There are assuredly no items for it in these papers.
We observe that customs are mentioned in the speech, though they
are -not included in these tables. But the credit taken on their
account still leaves us to guess how Mr. Rico's grand total has
been made out. We have, we think, a clue to the enigma in page
twenty-nine, where amounts are united which on f/ fit to be kept
separate. In page twenty-eight a credit of 245,110,108 is claimed
for taxes on articles in Great Britain not subject to duty in Ireland.
This amount is, of course, comprehended in the statement of the
taxes levied in Great Britain exclusively. But on the opposite
page we have an amount of "excess of taxes" arising from a
difference of rates, and there is added the preceding total of
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OP MR. RICE. 103
245,110,108. It is plain that this sum is "twice" set down in the
account, as well as the salt duty.
There is no evidence that it entered into the head of Mr. Rice, in
1 833, to claim any thing for these " estimated excesses of taxation ;'
and it must be confessed that the scheme is one of unequalled
extravagance. It is founded on the absurd hypothesis, that results
in taxation are proportioned to the magnitude of the rates charged.
Here is the article of malt: it paid a higher duty in England
than Ireland up to 1815. We will suppose that it produced, in
fifteen years, altogether 60,000,000 ; but if the rates had been
as low as the Irish, the supposition of Mr. Rice is, that it would
have produced only 30,000,000. If the rates, however, had been
low, the greater likelihood is, that the produce would still be
60,000,000, or even more, contributing both to the indulgence
of the people, and the profit of the Exchequer. It is, then, perfectly
idle to " estimate," or at all events, to set down in absolute figures,
what the effect would be if the rates had been of higher or smaller
magnitude than they were. A computation in such a case is pecu-
liarly preposterous in the instance of Ireland. We have mentioned
the duties on certain articles imported. It was 24,179,000. The
rates were lower than the English ; but if they had been as high,
64,115,000 would have been realized according to Mr. Rice. On
this ground he claims a credit for England of 39,936,000, being the
balance between what was received, and what might have been
received, as he supposes, through means of high rating. Experience,
however, has shown in Ireland that the 24,179,000 might have been
reduced to 20,000,000, instead of being augmented to 64,115,000,
by such a process, leaving England to claim nothing for her
o-enerosity to the weaker country, and diminishing her own income
into the bargain. The rates are now nearly all assimilated ; and
if they had been so from the beginning, it is most certain that
the produce of the revenue would, on the whole, have been less.
England, in point of fact, served her own interests by the moderation
of the Irish rates ; and Mr. Rice has no right to make it an item of
charge against Ireland, or of credit for England, to the extent of
618,000,000, or of 1,000,000.
However, there can be no disputation, it will be said, about the
exclusive taxation. AVhatever may be urged against the hypothesis
as to malt, no sophistry can fritter away the importance of thft
amount of revem;e i*aised by the property tax, the beer, candle, and
104 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
other exclusive taxes of England; this is very true, but there was a
sufficient reason why these taxes should be exclusive. At the time
of the Union the interest on the debt of Great Britain (funded and
unfunded) was 16,566,000; this the act of Union bound England
to provide for by separate taxation. Up to 1834 the liabilities of her
separate debt would have required, from England, a separate tax-
ation, amounting, in the aggregate, to 563,244,000, which exceeds
Mr. Rice's estimate of exclusive taxation by 85,000,000! To this
extent had England fallen short of her equitable engagements, on
the score of separate taxation up to 1834. The deficit has greatly
increased since that time, and even making a large allowance for
"excess of rates," England has not come up to the obligations imposed
upon her by debt alone. Every year in which separate taxation is
under 16,566,000, is a year of under payment with reference merely
to the equitable responsibilities of the English debt.
Mr. Rice's arguments on this subject, cut two ways. He has
adduced his millions to show that a great regard has been paid to
Irish interests. His illustrations relate, principally, to the time past;
and if they be good for that purpose, they exhibit a great indiffe-
rence to the future. All exemptions and modifications were benefits
derived directly from the Irish parliament; and in proportion to
their former magnitude must be the grievance, that they had so soon
been lessened or discontinued under the new system. How long it was
since England had been burdened with the principal items of separate
taxation, will be seen by the following statement:
Tea tax, ... ... ... Assimilated in 1814
Sugar tax, ... ... Assimilated in 1814
Wine tax, ... ... ... Assimilated in 1814
Tobacco tax, ... ... Assimilated in 1814
Coffee tax, ... ... Assimilated in 1814
Foreign spirits' tax, ... Assimilated in 1814
Malt tax, ... ... ... Assimilated in 1815
Property tax, ... ... Repealed in 1816
Customs' duties, ... ... Assimilated in 1822
Spirit tax, as to Scotland ... Assimilated in 1823
Hides and skins' tax, ... Assimilated in 1825
Paper tax, ... ... Assimilated in 1825
Salt tax, ... ... ... Repealed in 1825
Vinegar tax, ... ... Assimilated in 1826
Cider and perry tax, ... Assimilated in 1826
Bottle tax, ... ... Assimilated in 1828
Glass tax, ... ... ... Assimilated in 1828
Beer tax, ... ... ... Repealed in 1830
Printed cotton tax, ... ... Repealed in 1831
Candle tax, ... ... Repealed in 1832
It appears from the above, that for twenty years Ireland had not
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 105
known some of the most important exemptions she enjoyed under
her own parliament. Could any reason be shown why Ireland was
better able to dispense with an exemption when Mr. Rice made his
speech, than she was in 1814, or at any other time since the
Union ?
It is right to direct attention to the annexed table, as furnishing a
proof of the looseness with which Mr. Rice's figures were put
together. It contrasts amounts set down by Mr. Rice, himself, in
1833, with amounts recorded by the same authority in 1834:
Speech of 1833. Speech of 1834.
Property and income tax, ... 152,258,710 ... 155,546,010
Beer, ... ... ... 82,483,583 ... 91,252,592
Candles, ... ... ... 10,294,980 ... 11,891,684
Soap, ... ... ... 24,934,544 ... 32,441,797
Printed cottons, ... ... 13,549,609 ... 40,358,465
How are we to account for these discrepancies, or is there any
faith at all to be placed in Treasury statistics? All the taxes enume-
rated, but one, were repealed before 1833; that single tax (soap) did
not average more than a million and a half a year; and, there-
fore, the receipt of one year could not have caused the total rate to
swell from about 25,000,000 to 32,000,000. Every thing con-
sidered, it would be difficult to imagine a weaker case than was made
with reference to this great point of relative taxation; and, neverthe-
less, it manifestly appeared to the mass of Mr. Rice's hearers, as the
most conclusive and irresistible effort of his six hours' reasoning.
28th. When Mr. O'Connell indulges in his calculations, he is met
by a cavil of rather a singular character. The learned gentleman
undertook to compare the state of Ireland before the Union with her
state after, and for this purpose he used tables which are to be found
in the " Summary Report" on the state of the Irish, issued in 1830.
The results shown by these tables Mr. O'Connell stated in detail, and
Mr. Rice thus dealt with them :
" I must here advert to a fallacy in a part of the learned member's
statement which I am bound to confute, because it seemed to be well
calculated to produce a delusive impression on the public mind.
[After stating the points put by Mr. O'Connell.] Now, this is a
most sophistical mode of reasoning the case, and I undertake to prove
that it contains within itself the grossest of all fallacies. It may, to a
certain extent, be just to compare the consumption of Ireland at one
period with its consumption at another ; but to make a per-centage
106 REPRESENTATIONS OF THE
average of the consumption of one country as compared with that of
another, can lead to no useful result whatever. It practically proves
nothing. Allow me to put a simple case to illustrate my principle.
Let me suppose that one community consumes in a given year ten
quarters of wheat, and another consumes one thousand quarters
within the same period; and that in the following year the con-
sumption of the first community increases to twenty quarters, and
that of the second community, to fifteen hundred quarters what is
the result of these proportions ? In one community the consumption
has increased to one hundred per cent, and in the other only to fifty
per cent., though in the latter case no less than five hundred quarters
of wheat had been added to the consumption, while, in the first, an
addition of only ten quarters had taken place. Is it not plain, then,
that the relative proportions, as ascertained by per-centage, proves
but little in reference to the state of these countries. But dismissing
this example, a more agreeable illustration is suggested by the hour,
to which the present discussion has, unfortunately, been protracted.
I take, as an example, the consumption of wine. Suppose that one
community consumes a single hogshead of wine, and that another
community consumes ten thousand hogsheads ; and that in the
following year the first community has increased its consumption
from one to two hogsheads, and the second community has increased
its consumption to fifteen thousand hogsheads. In the former case,
the consumption is augmented in the ratio of one hundred per cent.,
while, in the latter, it is augmented in the ratio of fifty per cent.
Yet it cannot be seriously doubted, but that the addition of five
thousand hogsheads to the consumption of a community, is a greater
indication of wealth and prosperity than the addition of a single
hogshead. If I have been enabled to make myself intelligible on this
subject, the learned member is put out of court as far as relates to
his doctrines of ratio of consumption. The house will observe, that
in such an argument every thing depends on the point of departure,
upon which the applicability of this reasoning depends."
One would scarcely think that Mr. Rice has been all this while
speaking of calculations founded on his OAvn tables. He was the
author of the " Summary Report" alluded to. We insert the tables
in the Appendix, that they may more easily be referred to.* They
show the quantities of the articles to which they relate consumed in
* Appendix, No. III.
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL SPEECH OF MR. RICE. 107
Great Britain and Ireland, in each year, within the long range
from 1784 to 1827 a period not far from half a century. For what
could these tables have been originally compiled? To prove what
Mr. O'Connell wanted to establish, or the reverse? Mr. O'Connell
wanted to show that there was great progress before the Union,
as compared with the state of things after. He compared, not only
Ireland with Ireland, but Ireland with Great Britain. There was
progress, with two exceptions, after, as well as before, the Union.
But there are rates of progress, and this was a case in which it was
essential to take them into account. It was necessary to Mr.
O'Connell's argument, not only to show that the increase of the con-
sumption was more rapid in the first period than the second, but
to what extent it was more rapid. This could be done in no possible
way, but by the " per-centages" he employed. The case was not the
fanciful one of one community, that got a single hogshead of wine in
one year, and another, that got ten thousand; the first hogshead
being followed in the next year by a second, and the ten thousand
being succeeded by five thousand more, both communities being
unheard of afterwards, and necessarily out of the reach of compa-
rison, whether the hogsheads were many or few ; but it was the case
of two countries, using quantities not only of one commodity, but
several, and using them year after year, for three and forty years. If
ever " per-centages" could fairly be introduced, it is in an instance of
this kind ; yet see what sort of exception Mr. Rice took to them after
he had done with his imaginary tables of taxation bringing out
results of hundreds of millions : totals exceeding, as he himself said,
" the whole amount of the national debt."
29th Mr. Rice relies upon stock transferences as proving the
rapid increase of Ireland in the accumulation of capital. Dividends
are paid in Dublin on such portion of the government stock as
belongs to Irish residents. A power of transferring stock to and
from London, was created by act of parliament several years ago, to
open an obviously convenient mode of remittance to both countries.
In every year, as the public amounts show, transferences more or less
considerable take place. In the last year the transference from
London to Dublin was so large as 1,540,373; the transference from
Dublin to London was 516,578; and there is now a sum of
30,595,000, funded property belonging to Irish residents, on which
dividends are payable in Dublin. When the power of transference
was created, the sum upon which dividends were payable in Dublin,
108 KEPRKSENTATIONS OF THE
was about 20,000,000 ; and, as this sum has been augmented to the
amount just stated, it follows that the funded capital of Ireland has
been increased, in the interval, to an extent exceeding 16,000,000.
It is impossible to say how much of the balance was property
created since the power of transference was obtained. It is to be
supposed that persons resident in Ireland were owners to some extent
of English funded property, before they could receive their dividends
in Dublin ; and this appears to be the more likely, from the circum-
stance, that the largest transferences were in the earliest years. But
there is no doubt that, on the whole, a large addition has been made
to the funded property of persons /receiving dividends in Dublin.
Mr. Rice, and others, use the fact to show that Ireland is making
great progress in wealth ; but there are considerations which make it
a very equivocal test of real prosperity. Persons who wish to save
the remnant of their property from the ruin of a falling trade,
are very likely to sell off, and vest all they can save in the funds.
Many such persons are well known to have taken this course in
Ireland, within the last twenty-five years, and to have made no
inconsiderable addition to the Irish funded capital. It has also
received an augmentation in a Avay that would not generally be
supposed, and we shall mention an instance. A gentleman, residing
in Ireland, received a legacy as large as 400,000 from a relative
who died in England. The money was in the English funds, and
having been transferred to the Irish, made an addition to its amount
to the mass of funded capital. The instances are very common,
of additions, in this way, to Irish funded property. They certainly
attest the improved condition of the parties directly interested ; but
prove nothing with respect to the general condition of the people. It
is more than likely that the funded capital of Ireland would be much
smaller, if there were more opportunities for the profitable employ-
ment of capital, and if the country were, generally, more prosperous.
Had the transferences augmented the funded capital to 40,000,000,
instead of 16,000,000, the fact could not be taken as evidence
of any material improvement in the condition of the people, whil6
the revenue remains so unproductive. There is no " capital" of such
little value, as far as the mass of the people are concerned, as that
which is so properly said to be " locked up" in the funds.
Only one other topic remains, of Mr. Rice's speech, on which
we will offer an observation. It adduces grants for wide streets
in Dublin, as a proof of the bounty of the imperial parliament. A
OPPONENTS OF REPEAL, SPEECH OF MR. RICK. 109
sum of 261,624 had been dedicated to this object in about twenty-
tour years. The amount was considerable ; but we utterly deny the
assertion to be found in the speech of 1833, that it was money
advanced " out of the actual taxation of England, for the benefit of
Ireland." We deny that it was " gold" which England had given
for our uses. Every payment in Ireland is in Irish " gold," and
issues from Irish taxation exclusively. This is proved by the
document given in a preceding page (68), which shows that up
to 1842 England had a balance of remittance in her favour, not
including revenue collected in England on articles consumed in
Ireland, of 17,664,178.
All grants and loans for Ireland are, we repeat, advanced in
Irish money ; they have been considerable ; but there has been no
" capital lent by England to Ireland," as is asserted in this speech.
It is true that 6,432,000 have been advanced out of the consolidated
fund for Irish purposes, but it was the consolidated fund of Ireland ;
and the entire of this mass of capital (principally dedicated to gaols
and police uses) has been repaid, or, is in process of repayment.
All this is true ; but it was a gross mistake of Mr. Rice to suppose,
that the grants for Ireland have been "unaccompanied by any similar
grants, to the same extent, for other parts of the empire. A sum of
261,000 has been paid for Dublin wide streets; but the improve-
ments in Regent-street, London, and Westminster, have cost
1,294,000; the port of London has cost 1,523,000; the Caledonian
canal, 955,000 ; the Leith docks, 265,000 ; the Highland roads,
401,000 ; London bridge, 623,000 ; and the college of Edin-
burgh, 132,000. All the grants of this character, for England and
Scotland, have amounted to 15,661,000. This has been shown by
a paper which was not in existence in 1833;* but the principal pay-
ments were made before that year, and they were as accessible to Mr.
Rice, as the amounts of Irish expenditure, if he had thought proper
to seek for them.
* Paper 305, of Sessions 1842.
110 REPRESENTATIONS IN T11E
CHAPTER X.
REPRESENTATIONS IN THE RAILWAY REPORT PAMPHLET OF MR. MONT-
GOMERY MARTIN.
COMMISSIONERS appointed to consider and recommend a general sys-
tem of railways for Ireland, published a voluminous report in 1838.
In it there is a table to show what the commissioners were led to
believe to have been the progress of commerce in Ireland between
1 825 and 1 835. We shall take its totals of the exports and imports
in 1835, and contrast them with the exports and imports of 1825,
as given in "the Summary Report" on the state of the Irish poor,
in 1830:
1825. 1835.
Exports, ... ... ... 9,243,000 ... 17,394,000
Imports, ... ... ... 8,596,000 ... 15,337,000
United exports and imports, 17,839,000 ... 32,731,000
The representation of the commissioners appears to have been
implicitly adopted by almost every person who has written or spoken
on the condition of Ireland since 1838. There are the most satis-
factory grounds for believing it altogether fallacious.
In the first place, the commissioners had no authentic data for
their conclusions; they admit this in the following passage:
" It is greatly to be regretted, that on a matter so important, and
capable of affording so useful an indication of the condition of the
country, documents having official authority cannot be referred to.
To supply this deficiency we applied to the commissioners of cus-
toms, who directed their collectors at the several ports to prepare the
returns given in the Appendix B., No. IX."
The collectors had no records, and the totals they set down
must have been conjectural, or taken from the representations
of parties who were under a natural temptation to exaggerate
their transactions. Correctness could not be possible under such
circumstances.
According to the tables of the commissioners, commerce had nearly
RAILWAY REPORT. Ill
doubled in ten years succeeding 1825. No such progress can be
inferred from the transactions of the ten years preceding.
Year.
Imports.
Exports.
Real values of
exports.
1815
... 7,245,043 ...
7,139,635 ,
,. 13,562,090
1816
... 6,100,877 ...
7,076,122 .
.. 12,164,503
1817
... 5,084,890 ...
6,703,790 .
9,111,756
1818
... 5,644,175 ...
6,563,454 .
10,526,325
1819
... 6,098,720 ...
6,521,029 .
.. 11,776,860
1820
... 6,395,972
5,770,465 .
9,747,206
1821
... 5,197,192 ...
7,179,222 .
10,308,713
1822
... 6,548,515 ...
7,781,652 .
9,808,057
1823
... 6,607,487 ...
6,825,909 .
7,871,237
1824
... 6,020,975 ...
8,152,749 .
9,695,871
1825
... 6,324,708 ...
6,293,678 .
7,322,582
This exhibits a decrease of transactions, instead of an augmenta-
tion ; and there was nothing in the latter ten years which could lead
us to believe that there was a different result in that interval.
In the commissioners' taWes it is represented that the linen exports
had increased twenty-seven per cent. There is an authentic account
of the British transactions in the exportation of linen between 1825
and 1835, deducible from the annual finance accounts. The value
of this commodity exported in the two years just mentioned, was as
follows:
Year. Official value. Real value.
1825 ... 3,280,000 ... 2,440,000
1835 ... 3,760,000 ... 2,360,000
This shows a decline in real value, but an increase of above four-
teen per cent, in official value. If there was, however, a far greater
increase in both values, there would be ground to suppose it was
a Scotch and not an Irish increase; for, according to "M'Culloch's
Commercial Dictionary," the Scotch linen trade has been making,
since 1813, a progress almost as great as the Irish did before the
Union. In that year the exportation of Scotch linen was nineteen
millions of yards, but in 1 822 it had risen to thirty-six millions.
We have official records of the foreign trade of Ireland between
1825 and 1835; but it negatives the supposition, that there was any
advance of the general trade. The imports, it appears, were about
stationary, but there was a great decline in the exports :
Year. Imports. Exports.
1825 ... 1,400,000 ... 735,000
1835 ... 1,450,000 ... 336,000
There was no increase 06 the Irish revenue in the interval.
Aggregate amount of Irish revenue in five
years, ending 1825 ... ... ... 22,538,000
J)itto, ditto, 1835 ... ... 22,096,000
112 REPRESENTATIONS OK
It may be said that taxes were repealed between these years which
affected the revenue ; but the answer is, that taxes were imposed, and
that the increase in the consumption of spirits would, in itself, more
than counterbalance all that could be lost by repealed taxes. In 1 825
the Exchequer derived from Irish whiskey 770,000 ; but its receipts
from the same commodity in 1835 were, 1,490,000.
According to the commissioners' report, tea consumption advanced
twenty-two per cent. The duty upon it was paid in London during
a portion of the time, and our statistics are so far defective in its
regard; but we can show what the consumption was after 1835,
and until Mathewism began to make progress, and it does not bear out
the hypothesis of the commissioners :
Tea duty, 1836 476,000
1837 472,000
1838 409,000
1839 405,000
If we compare 1825 to 1835, with reference to the consumption of
materials for manufactures, there was the reverse of progress :
1825. 1835.
Ashes, 13,000 ... 2
Barilla, 31,000 ... 9,000
Bark, 3,600 ... 4,900
Brimstone 14,000 ... 519
Hemp, 6,900 ... 134
Iron, 3,300 ... 765
Silk, 4,900 ... 19
Valonia, ... , 3,300 ... 2,600
Cotton wool, 4,000 ... 316
Timber 149,000 ... 83,00
Coupling these facts with the admitted want of authentic data,
there can be no doubt that the totals exhibited in the railway report
are exaggerated to an extent for which it would be difficult to find
a parallel ; and, yet, there is scarcely a recent work upon Ireland,
in which they are not regarded as authentic. The commissioners
themselves state, that if even the progress was as great as might be
inferred from their tables of exports and imports, it was not visible
in the condition of the, mass of the people : "We regret," they say,
" that the state of the labouring population does not warrant us
in assuming, that any considerable portion of this increased consump-
tion is shared by them.'' In another placr they assert, that " the diet
of the people is much interior to what it was at the commencement
of the present century."
MR. MONTGOMERY MARTIN. 113
MR. MONTGOMERY MARTIN.
This gentleman is entitled to some attention in the present inquiry,
for he has written a pamphlet on the Repeal question, which is under-
stood to have procured for him the treasurership of Hong Kong ; and
he was the author of a work on the same subject, in 1 833, which,
according to a statement of Mr. John Augustus O'Neill at the
Repeal Association, Mr. (now Lord) Stanley referred that gentleman
to, that he might be confirmed in his former hostility to the resto-
ration of the Irish parliament. Fortunately, however, it is only
necessary to state a few of the propositions of this writer, and to
give three or four specimens (one would be sufficient) of the
means by which he tries to entrap the assent of the British public.
He asserts that Ireland was decaying before the Union, and that
her prosperity, which is now immense,* is only to be dated from that
event. He states that the absentee rental does not exceed 2,000,000,
which was the amount it was proved to have reached forty years ago.
He says that the Union was strongly supported by the property and
intelligence of Ireland ; and that, according to the advice of Mr. Pitt,
it was " temperately, dispassionately, and deliberately considered and
discussed." He says that the same parliamentary franchise exists in
England and Ireland ; and that Ireland has been spared, and dealt
leniently with, in taxation. He makes many assertions regarding
that " anomalous community called the Irish parliament ;" and
amongst the rest, that they "conceded to the crown the claim relative
to the appropriation of the surplus revenue in 1753." So much for
the propositions, and now for the process of demonstration.
Proceeding to consider the state of things before the Union, Mr.
* A pleasant anecdote, as to those "immense" advantages which have not
the convenience of being perceptible, was told by Mr. O'Connell in the Dublin
Corporation disciission. " There was a learned Doctor (Andrews, the Provost
of Trinity College), who made a speech in 1776, in which he attempted to show
that the country was prosperous ; and an old counsellor, named liarwood, who
pulled his cloak from right to left while speaking, made the following reply :
' ' He congratulated the house upon such a senator, the university upon
stich a president, and the kingdom upon such an advocate, which had proved
all at once to be so very rich, from of late being so very poor. As to myself,"
said lie, "it would be the utmost ingratitude if I did not return the gentleman
my particular thanks for the pleasure he made me feel during his very long,
yet very short, oration, for he persuaded me that every halfpenny in my pocket
was turned into a guinea ! Nor am I convinced that the thing may not be so
still; wherefore, let me examine." Then pulling some out of his pocket, he
turned to the house, and concluded with these words: "Oh, no, my dear
friends! I find I was deceived; for the halfpence are but halfpence still!"
114 KEPRESENTATIONS OF
Martin undertakes to show, that in exports " there was a decrease on
every item" between 1782 and the Union. He adduces figures for
the purpose, and gives them in fifteen columns. Do they show
" decrease on every item ?" They certainly do ; and if such were
not the case, they would not have been permitted to appear in the
pages of Mr. Montgomery Martin. But fifteen columns are not half
the columns of the Irish exports, and the fifteen selected contained
the most insignificant articles. There are nineteen additional
columns including the following :
Hams
Bacon and Flitches
Beef
Butter
Hogs
Linen and
Pork
What has Mr. Montgomery Martin done with these nineteen
columns, comprising even the "staple" commodity, linen? He omitted
them altogether, that he might be able to exhibit " decrease on every
item." We need not say that the conclusion to which he would lead
his official patrons and the British public, was diametrically opposite
to the fact. There was a fluctuation and decrease in some compara-
tively insignificant instances ; but there was, on the ivhole, a large
increase in exports, though the opposite fact was alleged by Mr.
Montgomery Martin.
Mr. Martin referred to " tonnage" before and after the Union, with
the view of showing that there was an increase in the latter period.
He took, first, the interval from 1790 to 1799; next, that from 1821
to 1830. He then came to the interval between 1831 and 1841. The
former periods he was able to manage as he desired, for they worked
to an end, very unimportant in itself, but to which he nevertheless
attached much value. The last exhibited results adverse to his argu-
ment. What was his resource ? He informed his reader that there
were " no returns" though returns were accessible to every reader of
the annual finance accounts.
Comparing the customs receipts of Dublin at two periods, Mr.
Martin shows a large increase, expecting, of course, his official
patrons and the British public to conclude, that there was a propor-
tionate increase all over Ireland. Nearly the entire difference in the
case of Dublin arose from the fact, that the payment of the tea
duties was shifted from London to Dublin after a lapse of somo
years, but no intimation of this circumstance is to be found in the
work of Mr. Martin !
MR. MONTGOMERY MARTIN. 115
It suited this worthy gentleman's purposes to make it appear, that
the consumption of malt in Ireland was greater in late years than
formerly. A parliamentary paper supplied him with amounts, be-
ginning in 1810, and reaching down to 1840. If the whole table were
copied, the top and bottom of a long column of figures would be the
following:
In 1810 ... 3,033,202 Bushels.
,, 1840 ... 1,604,307 ,,
This shows a decline of nearly one-half, but Mr. Martin wished to
exhibit an increase, or, at least, to avoid a confession of decrease in
this article of malt; and accordingly he took a period of ten years
from that portion of the column of forty which best answered his
purpose, and his top and bottom amounts are the following:
In 1830 ... 2,079,468 Bushels.
,, 1839 ... 2,101,744 ,,
His ten years were taken, with a single exception, from the bottom
of the column of forty years. Why the single exception? Why
end at 1839 instead of 1840? Just for this reason, that Mr. Martin
wanted to show increase, or steadiness in the consumption ; and that
1-839 exhibited an amount of 2,100,000, while 1840 presented an
amount of only 1,600,000!!!*
We think the reader has enough of the elucidations of Mr. Mont-
gomery Martin ; but one or two remarks may not be unnecessary upon
a point he has dwelt upon, because it is taken up by others.
He assumes that Ireland, witli a population (let us say) of
8,000,000, raises only one-halt' that amount of revenue. He assumes
that Great Britain, with only double the population, raises nearly
twelve times the amount of revenue. On this he enters into a
computation, and says, that the Irish revenue is not equal to more
than ten shillings a head, while the British is fifty shillings a head ;
and his conclusion, of course, is, that Britain endures a propor-
tionably excessive rate of taxation. A practical illustration is most
convincing in a case of this description. Let the population of
Wales be taken and compared with its declared revenue, and the
head-tax will be found, in its instance, even less than the Irish. It
will be eight shillings instead of ten shillings, though every person
is aware that there is no difference in the rate of taxation between
* In the Appendix (No. V) we insert the oriyin.il Parliamentary Paper, and
mark bv asterisks the figures selectee! bv Mr. Monttromerv Martin.
116 REPRESENTATIONS OF MR. MARTIN.
England and Wales. The too certain fact with regard to Ireland
is, that every individual who consumes an article subject to cus-
toms duties, or stamp duties, or excise duties, with the exception
of two or three, which are the least oppressive, pays the full
amount of taxation to whicli it is liable in Great Britain.*
* There is an excise duty in England on bricks and post horses, which only
affects the rich. Both little exceed half a million in a year. There is a duty
on soap, with such a drawback as secures for the manufacturers nearly a
monopoly of the Irish market. The duty is 970,000, while the drawback
and allowances exceed 220,000.
EXPEDIENCY OF BErEALING THE UNION. 117
CHAPTER XL
EXPEDIENCY OF REPEALING THE UNioN.
THAT the legislative Union should be repealed, is a plain corollary
from the conclusions, on the various heads of inquiry, at which
we have now arrived. That measure was so uncalled for, and unjust,
in all its bearings, and it has been followed by a system of
government, legislative and executive, so unwise, so manifestedly
unsuitable to the circumstances in which the country was placed,
and so utterly regardless of the opinions and feelings of the Irish
people, that the mind, in spite of itself, is forced to the conviction,
that there is no radical or permanent remedy, but in the restoration of
the Irish parliament. Every day's experience, for four and forty
years, has proved the delusiveness of the expectation, that the Union
would work well, or satisfactorily, for Ireland. It forced the Catholic
population as we have already had occasion to observe to a twenty-
nine years' harassing, and most injurious agitation, to assert their
religious rights ; and success, at length, was avowedly a concession
not to justice, but necessity. It has deprived the Irish nation of the
chances of prompt, diligent, or salutary legislation. In nineteen
years after it passed, Mr. Peel, notwithstanding the position he held,
as a twice-chosen chief-manager of the affairs of Ireland, was unable
to fix the attention of the imperial House of Commons on an
Irish subject of unquestionable importance, brought forward under
the sanction of the crown ; and lie had to complain of the "impa-
tience" and "listlessness" with which Irish questions were treated
in the house.* "When legislation has been found practicable, its
* In the Times newspaper of the 10th of February, 1819, we read as fol-
lows: "Mr. R. Peel observed, with regret, the inattention and listlessness with
which the house were looking on a question (a grand jury bill) so important to
the interests and prosperity of Ireland. For his own part he conceived that the
affairs of Ireland relatively situated as Ireland was towards us, and with the
comparative minority of the members the sister country sent to the British
parliament, they deserved to engage the serious consideration of the house
whenever they came before it." In another London paper the following is the
version: Mr. Peel said "lie regretted to find any impatience manifested by thc^
house on the, present occasion. . . . When he considered the importance of
Ireland, the small number of representatives which she sends from her own
shores to sit in the British senate, and the little time which the concerns of
that country occupy, he, would be forgiven for saying, that he thought Mime
small attention should be given to her affairs; he thought in a full house,
Ireland might have justly expected a little more consideration to her interests,
and to her situation."
118 EXPEDIENCY OF REPEALING THE UNION.
enactments were partial, stinted, and invidious. The parliamentary
and municipal reform acts are memorable examples. The deliberate
and inflexible resolution to limit the Irish representatives to one
hundred and five, must, from the quarter whence the changes in the
representative system emanated, be regarded as conclusive evidence
that all parties in England tacitly agree that the English people,
however ill-informed or ill-disposed, should be the law makers
for Ireland ; and, that it is quite vain to hope that the Irish will ever
obtain an influence in the imperial parliament, proportioned to what
they know to be their numbers, and what Whigs and Tories represent
to be their increased and increasing wealth. Many opposed the
introduction of poor laws into Ireland, and many advocated that
measure, but no one in Ireland approved the law which has been
passed ; yet it has received the countenance of the two great parties
who alternately form both the legislative and the executive powers in
England ; and to the present moment there appears no prospect of any
modification of its provisions. There is, indeed, no time to legislate
for Ireland, even in instances in Avhich there could be no party
jealousies to be offended or alarmed. As we recede from the era of
the Union, our chances of being governed by men who know
or understand Ireland, and who will have leisure to make themselves
acquainted with our wants or our wishes, are lessened. Lord
Castlereagh had to shield us from the inflictions of Englishmen,
impatient to tax us, in the second year of the Union, by reminding
them that our responsibilities, connected with debt, did not demand a
rate of taxation equal to the British.* Mr. Secretary Peel had not
Lord Castlereagh's experience of Ireland under her own parliament,
and was not bound by Lord Castlereagli's obligations, either as a
native of Ireland, or a participator in the work of legislative destruc-
tion; yet he was near enough in his ministry to the time of the Union
to have his mind filled with the natural expectations of Irishmen, and
the retributive justice due for injury notoriously inflicted; and
accordingly he cried shame at the "listlessness" of 1S19: and he
would have upheld the bounty of the Irish parliament, at least
in those cases in which the capital of the country, where it held
its sittings, and effected the mighty achievements of its latter days, was
On the 27th of April, 180 - 2, in a debate on the imports and exports duties'
bill, Lord Castlereagh, in answer to !Sir Robert Peel (the elder), said: "If the
burdens of Ireland were not co-existent with those of Great Britain, it was not
just to call upon Ireland to adopt the same system of taxation."
EXPEDIENCY OF BEPEA.L1NG THE UNIOIf. 1 19
concerned. Mr. Goulburn was ten years junior to Mr. Feel, in his
personal knowledge of Irish affairs ten years more distant from the
Union ; and it is most probable that he was not aware that his
predecessor ever uttered a word in favour of the wide-street fund, or
thought fit to make any public acknowledgment of a claim arising
from the loss of the Irish parliament. But it is certain, at all events,
that Mr. Goulburn abolished the wide-street grant, and other grants
more necessary to the well-being of the country, without any apparent
consciousness that he was inflicting a wrong, or creating even a
disappointment. Since his time we have had men to whom, on
entering office, the fact appeared to be very indistinctly known, that
we ever had a parliament in Ireland, or at least, that there were
obligations connected with it, which it was a grave and very
important duty of a British minister to remember and respect. It
follows, as far as experience has hitherto gone, that it is necessary to
the prosperity of Ireland, and the contentment of its people, that they
should possess, again, a domestic legislature.*
* Above twelve years ago, a British minister (now Earl of Ripon) found the
following reasons for the introduction of a legislative assembly into the colony
of Newfoundland. He said that such institutions "have invariably secured the
attachment of the people, by giving them a large share in the management of
their own affairs ; by affording an open field for the free exercise of talents
and public spirit ; by providing honourable ambition with a legitimate object,
and reward; by insuring immediate and careful attention to the various
exigencies of society ; and by promoting a judicious and frugal administration
of public affairs. "Paper 704, of Sessions 1832.
120 OBJECTIONS GENERALLY URGED IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER XII.
OBJECTIONS GENERALLY URGED IN ENGLAND TO THE RESTORATION
OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
ENGLAND urges, 1st That a Repeal of the Union would be a dis-
turbance of a system, now established forty-four years. 2d That
it is not needful to Ireland, as the defects of the past government, if
any exist, are not of a nature that may not be remedied by the
imperial parliament. 3d That Ireland has, in reality, greatly
advanced. 4th That the Scotch have prospered Avithout a parlia-
ment. 5th That the desire for the Repeal of the Union is the effect
of "agitation." 6th That a restoration of the Irish parliament
would be a restoration of jobbing and religious discord. And lastly
That the ultimate, and not remote, consequence of a Repeal of the
Union would be, " the dismemberment of the empire."
On the first objection it may be observed, that bad laws borrow
no alleviation from antiquity. The Union was only thirty-four years
old when the last parliamentary struggle was made against it ; and it
was not four years old when all Ireland, that was not bought, or
blindfolded by religious fanaticism, was ready to vote that it was a
proved calamity. There is no extent of time connected with the
Union, that can bear any comparison to the duration of the Irish
parliament,
'2 Experience is the best guide in an estimate of the probable
effects of the existing system of legislation (if it should contimie) in
time to come. The business of the imperial parliament is becoming
every year more unmanageable; but, if even there were nothing to be
complained of on this ground, the Irish people could not possess,
through its means, the real and practical advantages of self govern-
ment. Though the Irish representatives were doubled, they would
still be only two hundred and ten in six hundred and iifty-
eight.
3. This objection lias, as \vc persuade ourselves, been abundantly
answered in the preceding pages. If Ireland has not advanced in
the ratio of the British advance, she has a right to complain of the
Union, as a source of deep and grievous injury, for she advanced
TO THE RESTORATION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 121
more rapidly than Britain, under her emancipated parliament'; and
her population, since the Union, has increased more than the British.
The revenue test is, we repeat, the only one that can be relied upon
with any confidence. We shall by its means see what was the relative
position of the two countries, in the years ending, January, 1800
and 1844.
British receipt. Irish receipt.
1800 ... 34,803,659 ... 3,880,640
1844 ... 51,321,566 ... 4,099,061*
The British increase, within the period, was forty-seven per cent.,
while the Irish increase was scarcely six per cent. In ten years
before the Union, the Irish increase was one hundred per cent.
When the ratio in which the taxation of the two countries was
reduced, is taken into account, the comparison is still more unfavour-
able ; and when to this consideration is added the great increase of
the Irish population, the conclusion cannot be resisted, that the con-
dition of Ireland has, comparatively, been a retrograde one since the
Union.
4. If Scotland has prospered, we have already shown the grounds
for the conclusion, that it is an effect wholly independent of her
Union. The Scotch revenue has more than doubled since the
commencement of the present century. This extraordinary result
could have had nothing to do with the Scotch Union; but the case of
Ireland is in all respects different. The Scotch did not prosper
under their parliament; the Irish, on the contrary, greatly prospered.
It may be argued that the Scotch have not suffered by the Scotch
Union, but it is proved that the Irish have suffered by the Irish.
The population of the two countries are not alike, either in numbers
or condition. Property is not similarly situated in Ireland and Scot-
land. Eleven-twelfths of the territory of Scotland have not been
confiscated and made the possession of strangers. When there were
forfeitures in Scotland the proceeds were applied to the improve-
ment of the general condition of the people. Considering the mag-
nitude of the population of Ireland, and its manifold and most
puzzling anomalies, there is not one-fiftieth part of the work for a
domestic parliament in Scotland that exists in Ireland.
5 To suppose that agitation is necessary to the excitement of a
* The amounts for 1800 arc taken from Taper i3(! of Sessions 1SJ4. The
amounts of 1844 are taking fron. the '' Finance Aeeonnts," excluding, however,
from the British receipts an incidental sum received from China.
122 OBJECTIONS GENERALLY URGED IN ENGLAND
desire for a native parliament in Ireland, is to suppose that a pre-
ference for self-government is not a natural sentiment in the human
mind; that there was nothing in the way in which the Union was
carried to warrant complaint ; that it is agreeable to a people to be
forced into an arrangement affecting those interests which they most
value ; that the circumstances of Ireland have been improved ; that
she possesses every advantage she had under her own parliament, as
to the fiscal exactions affecting every comfort or necessary of life ;
that she is indifferent to the absence of her proprietary; that rags and
wretchedness are no just cause of sorrow or disappointment to her
people; and, in fine, that she has wanted none of those blessings
within the power of legislation or government, which ought to make
a people happy and contented. All the Protestants were united in
resisting the Union; all the Catholics are united in seeking its
repeal. Both parties, to some extent, are now combined; but they
all would be confederated if there were not considerations to influ-
ence one of them unconnected with the measure itself. If the whole
population of Ireland were Catholic or Protestant, it is not disputed
that all would be for Repeal. There must, therefore, be something
in the Union which it requires no agitation to render hateful to the
Irish people.
6 A restored parliament in Ireland could be no parliament of
jobbers in the present state of opinion; and it would be greatly in-
strumental in extending that intercourse between persons of different
religious persuasions from which concord has always been known to
proceed. Religious animosity was never so prevalent or rancorous
in Ireland as since the Union. It was excited to carry that measure,
and it is still plainly encouraged for Union purposes. The Union
was a conquest, and such always must it be regai'ded. In this light
was it considered by Lord Grey, when he said that the Irish would
watch their opportunity of recovering that which was taken from
them by force. There must be a system (however it may be dis-
guised) partaking of a domination under such circumstances; and
the more effectually to dominate, the English minister must ever be
anxious to divide. The Union, then, must always be, as far as we
have been able as yet to judge, a fertile source of that discord which
it is said to modify and restrain.
" We hear of " the dismemberment of the empire," because it is
believed that mere sound influences the ignorant and unthinking.
All who opposed the Union contended that it was calculated to pro-
TO THE RESTORATION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 123
duce dismemberment.* There was some sense in this doctrine, for
they anticipated that extreme of popular discontent, which produces a
desire for dismemberment. The assertion that the Irish would separate
from English connection, if they succeeded in their present efforts,
involves the absurdity of imputing to them a wish without a motive.
No people ever desired a revolution without a cause ; and when there
is a passion for change, it does not, assuredly, acquire strength in
proportion to the magnitude of the risks, or the insignificance of the
probable advantages.
* In the debate of the 5th of February, 1800, when Lord Castlereagh pro-
posed the measure, every member who spoke against it avowed himself actuated
by his wish to maintain the connection.
Mr. Waller said the Union will weaken, if not dissolve the connection.
Colonel Barry. It will dissolve the connection.
Lord Maxwell. It will be ruinous to both countries.
Air. Saunderson.. It will endanger, perhaps dissolve, the connection.
Mr. Saurin. It will endanger the present happy constitution and connection
with Great Britain.
Lord Matthew. The Union will tend more to weaken than fortify the
connection.
Lord Cole The strongest abhorrence of the Union is compatible with the
most unshaken attachment to the connection.
Mr. John Claudius Beresford. It will undermine the welfare, and ^subvert
the liberties of Ireland, and endanger the connection.
The Right Honourable "W. B. Ponsonby. I oppose the Union from an
anxious desire to maintain the connection.
The Right Honourable George Ogle. A rejection of the Union is the only
mode by which the connection can be preserved.
Mr. R. French The preservation of the Irish parliament will encourage
and maintain the connection.
Mr. Gorges. The happy communion with Great Britain is best maintained
by the constitution of 1782.
Mr. George Ponsonby The parliament which so recently protected the
Irish crown is the firm and saving bond of British connection.
Colonel Vereker.. The Union will effect the downfall of Ireland, the anni-
hilation of her independence, and the separation from British connection.
Mr. Lee was opposed to the Union because the people delighted in British
connection.
Mr. Bushe Union is alienation from British connection.
Mr. Peter Burrowes. This Union not only menaces the connection, but the
Constitution itself.
124 UNDER WHAT MODIFICATIONS SHOULD A PARLIAMENT
CHAPTER XIII.
UNDER WHAT MODIFICATIONS SHOULD A PARLIAMENT BE RE-ASSE3IBLED
IN IRELAND ?
THE wisdom taught during the existence of the former parliament,
should, of course, be the great instructor in a new state of affairs.
One of the most obvious precautions would be, an agreement to put
the regency question out of dispute, in the way already indicated.
Commerce should be left free. It was a never-ceasing cause
of solicitude and contention under the old system. The Irish
demanded, in the days of their strength, the facilities of profitable
trade before any other right of a free constitution. British jealousy,
on the other hand, threw more obstacles in the way of the settlement
proposed in 1785, than it had encountered in Ireland. The commerce
between the two countries has now been for nearly twenty years "on
the footing of a coasting trade," Dublin being to Liverpool, in
this respect, in the relation in which Liverpool is to Bristol or
Glasgow. It should be a fundamental law of the new adjustment,
that this state of things should remain unaltered. It would be
of more importance to Britain than Ireland, in the existing condition
of the two countries ; but Ireland would have great reason to
rely upon the resources to be derived from a better management
of her internal affairs, and the removal of all grounds of difference,
on the great source of past disputes, is worth a large sacrifice.
The financial arrangements should be those proposed at the Union ;
and how desirable it is that nothing needlessly should be done
to contravene the declared policy of that measure, requires not to be
enforced by argument. At the Union the people of Ireland Avere
assured
First, that they should be exposed to no liability as to past expen-
diture ; and,
Secondly, that their contribution to future expenditure should be
proportioned to their ability.
To realize these assurances in all ways, was an object to which it
was worth while that England should make all possible sacrifices. No
Repealer should now be able to assert that one promise or engagement
was unl'uljilled. The result, however, has been a total disappointment
BE RE-ASSEMBLED IN IRELAND. 125
of the expectations held out in both instances. In causing this
result, the chief agency (as we have shown) has been the fixing
of a rate of expenditure for Ireland above her ability. That a
rate of this character had been fixed, is questioned in no quarter.
One of the persons who pronounced on the subject most authori-
tatively, is Mr. Goulburn, who, in a debate, in 1822, on a motion of
Sir John Newport, said, that " the contribution imposed on Ireland,
of two-seventeenths, is admitted on all hands to have been more than
she could bear."
There can be no doubt, now, as to the ability of Ireland. Nearly
all the taxes are assimilated, and if the whole were assimilated,
experience has shown that the result might be very far from advan-
tageous to the revenue. Our assessed taxes were a failing source of
income, when they were repealed. The new stamp duties have done
little for the Exchequer. Of the tcmporaiy income tax, Irish property
pays its quota, to the extent, perhaps, of a third of its whole amount ;
and if such a tax affected all the property of Ireland, it might cause
a diminution in other branches of revenue. In short, it may fairly
be assumed, that we have the ability of Ireland indicated in the
existing receipts ; and that if proportions were now fixed, there would
be no room for error regarding them.
There is nothing to prevent a carrying out of the financial engage-
ments of the Union to the fullest extent that ever was contemplated,
even without Repeal. An act of parliament, passed in 1816, con-
solidated the separate debts, and abolished proportionate expenditure,
rendering all the taxes of Ireland indiscriminately applicable to all
the purposes of the imperial Exchequer. Lord Castlereagh did not
contend that it was the only measure which could be adopted at
that time, saying merely, it was that which the government thought
most expedient. The obvious course, if not to do justice to Ireland,
at least to satisfy her people, that no financial fraud was intended
at the Union, was, to rectify any error that was committed in fixing
a rate of contribution. That course could be adopted to-morrow
without involving the necessity of creating one new office, or even
an additional set of Treasury books.
Suppose two expenditures were now declared one " separate,"
relating to transactions before the Union; and the other "joint,'"
relating to subsequent transactions ; and that a contribution were
deiuandable from Ireland proportioned to her ability, the engagements-
of the Union would be fully realized ; but what would be the practical
126 UNDER WHAT MODIFICATIONS SHOULD A PARLIAMENT
difference to this country ? The question is of the greatest impor-
tance, and we shall endeavour to answer it by showing what would
be the effect in any of the recent years.
We shall take the average expenditure to be 52,000,000; and
suppose, for the sake of round numbers, that 17,000,000 are
required for the payment of the interest of the debts due at the
Union, 16,000,000 for Great Britain and 1,000,000 for Ireland.
These amounts deducted from the total, leave a balance of 35,000,000
for joint expenditure. Ireland's portion of the whole revenue is only
4,000,000, or one-thirteenth. Her payment to joint expenditure
should be in a similar ratio, which would make her quota 2,690,000.
To this should be added 1,000,000, the interest of separate debt;
and both deducted from her assumed revenue would leave a balance
of 310,000, which would be applicable, according to the terms of the
act of Union, to the liquidation of debt, or the reduction of taxes,
or the internal improvement of the country. If the revenue of
Ireland were taken at an amount lower than 4,000,000, the result
would be less important, but there would be an opposite effect if it
were 7,000,000 or 8,000,000. Supposing the Irish revenue the
one-sixth instead of the one-thirteenth of the whole, there would be
a greatly increased contribution from Ireland to joint expenditure, but
a far larger surplus than that stated, would remain for the three Irish
purposes mentioned in the act of Union. The contribution would be
5,630,000, but there would be a revenue of 8,660,000, which, after
paying the interest of the separate debt, would leave a surplus of more
than 2,000,000 for Irish purposes. The necessary effect of the ex-
isting arrangement is, that it deprives Ireland of all the promised
benefit that should fairly arise from the improvement of her revenue.
It ought to be now, at least, 9,000,000 or 1 0,000,000 a year ; and under
a better management of the Irish affairs, there is no doubt that it would
reach to that sum before a very great lapse of time. In so prosperous
a state of the Irish revenue, the surplus would be of great comparative
magnitude and importance, and would be an acquisition, under the
terms of the act of Union, in place of that loss which, unhappily, is
so generally to be associated with it. By the act of consolidation,
however, all contingent advantages are taken away, and the. Irish
revenue, even to the utmost extent, is applicable to imperial expendi-
ture, without the deduction of a shilling for any purpose especially
Irish. Under the act of Union, Ireland would gain bv the increase
of her revenue ; under the act of consolidation, she would lose.
BE RE-ASSEMBLED IN IRELAND. 127
Without supposing at all any very great increase of the Irish
revenue, we have shown the practical loss which in any ordinary
year must result from the consolidation of the Exchequers, while the
whole receipt, whether collected in Great Britain or Ireland, may be
estimated even so low as 4,000,000. It may be said that there are
grants for Irish purposes every year. It is true, but they are annually
diminishing, and they do not now amount to anything like the sum
which would accrue, as a matter of right, to Ireland under the act
of Union, if it had not already been repealed in its principal financial
arrangements.
But there is another great consideration connected with the
operation of an act by which the treaty of Union has unquestionably
been repealed in those instances in which it was of greatest impor-
tance to Ireland. It bound Great Britain to the payment of the
interest of its own debt by separate taxation. That it was its inten-
tion so to bind Great Britain, was declared by every person who
supported the measure, from Mr. Pitt to Dr. Duigenan ; and we are
to suppose that the act itself would have carried the design fully into
effect, if the imperial parliament had not interfered by the measure
of 1816. The amount of interest for debt to which Great Britain
was liable when the act took effect, was, for funded and unfunded debt,
16,566,000.* If no consolidation of the Exchequers had taken place,
England should have raised this amount of revenue, by exclusive
taxes, since 1816. The exclusive taxation of Great Britain has, for
years, been many millions under this amount ; and every reduction
of exclusive British taxation is attended with the necessary conse-
quence of exposing Ireland to new fiscal exactions. If the exclusive
taxation of Great Britain were to-morrow raised to the Union
amount, a reduction of Irish taxation would be the inevitable con-
sequence. All our low rates of taxation in the times gone, by were
the effect of the peculiar liabilities of Great Britain ; when there
was no special liability, there remained nothing even to remind the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, that there should be OIK; rate of burden
for the countiy which had for ages been ' deprived of the use of its
own resources," and another for that nation which profited by the
proscription, or at all events had gathered enormous wealth while the
proscription continued. The temporary income tax has considerably
raised the exclusive taxation of Gre:it Britain within these two or
* Paper '250. of Session? 18:24.
128 UNDER WHAT MODIFICATIONS SHOULD A PARLIAMENT, ETC.
three years, but all the exclusive taxation produces only the following
amount :
Land tax, assessed taxes, and property tax, ... 9,800,000
Excess of spirit duty (taking it to be half of the
entire revenue,) 1,300,000
Soap tax, 808,000
Bricks 348,000
Tost-horse duty 145,000
12,401,000
Even this amount is more than 4,000,000 below the liability of
Great Britain connected with what the authors of the Union regarded
her separate debt. But 5,387,000 of the whole amount is from a
declaredly temporary tax. Before it was imposed, the separate taxation
of Great Britain could not, even by exaggeration, be said to have
amounted to 8,000,000 a year. This was 8,000,000 less than her
liability connected with her separate debt ; and if we suppose the
same deficiency of payment to have continued for twenty-eight years,
we shall have some approach to these hundreds of millions, of which
Mr. Rice delighted to speak in the six hours' speech of 1834. We
have not the least doubt that Great Britain has escaped, since 1816,
an exclusive taxation of at least 200,000,000.
All these illustrations exhibit the interest Ireland has in the carry-
ing out of the Union engagements, but they are a guarantee, likewise,
to Great Britain, that there is nothing now proposed incompatible
with what a jealous British minister regarded the unquestionable
rights of Ireland.
"We have now dealt with commerce and finance, the two great
causes of all former dissension between the two countries. Under
one head, we propose nothing inconsistent with the existing state of
things ; under the other, we suggest nothing incompatible with the
letter or spirit of the act of Union itself, if it be admitted that that
act was just, or in accordance with the professions of all its advocates.
As to the constitution of the revived parliament of Ireland, there
is less ground of difference, than on any other subject. It should, for
all Irish purposes, be a parliament similar to that dissolved, improved
of course by such beneficial changes as have taken place in the repre-
sentative body since 1SOO. It should have its Lords and Commons,
and Appellate jurisdiction. The number of members need not be
increased ; but they should be returned to parliament by a constitu-
ency exercising the most extended rights enjoyed by the electors of
Great Britain.
FEDERALISM. 1 29
CHAPTER XIV.
FEDERALISM.
THIS term is commonly applied to a connection of states, such as
exists in America and Switzerland, where there are local interests
under local management, and the general interests are committed to
the charge of a congress or diet, to which all divisions of the country
send representatives. The Swiss cantons present a great diversity
of local government, of popular habits, and religion ; but there is
seldom found a want of co-operation or uniformity in those instances
in which they are required for the common advantage or protection.
Each canton possesses the inherent right of managing its own affairs;
and the general concerns of the republic, such as the conclusion of
foreign alliances, and the defence of the country, are under the
management of an assembly composed of deputies from each of the
cantons, which holds its meetings successively at Berne, Zurich, and
Lucerne. A plurality of votes decides all questions of ordinary
moment in this diet ; but where the matter is a declaration of war,
or the conclusion of a treaty of peace, there must be a concurrence
of three-fourths of the deputies.
In the United States of America there is complete local indepen-
dence; but there is, at the same time, great vigour and efficiency in
the general government. It is held latterly in Ireland by persons of
much consideration, that an imitation of this system of federation
would be desirable in Ireland.
" The principle of federalism has not,'' says Mr. Laing, in his
Notes of a Traveller, " been sufficiently examined by political
philosophers. Theoretically, it is better adapted to the wants of man
in society, than the principle of great monarchical dominions under a
sole central government, wheresoever the physical or moral interests
of the governed are discordant, wheresoever the rights or advantages
of one mass of population, their prosperity, industry, and well being,
property, natural benefits of soil, situation and climate, their manners,
language, nationality in spirit or prejudice, are set aside and sacrificed
to those of another mass. In almost all extensive monarchies this
must be the case, from the centralization inseparable from that species
K
130 FEDERALISM.
of government. Federalism seems a more natural and just principle
of general government, theoretically considered, than this forced cen-
tralization. "No rights or advantages of any of the parts are sacrificed
in federalism, for nothing is centralized but what is necessary for the
external defence, safety, and welfare of all the parts
Junctions morally or physically discordant, as that of Belgium and
Holland, Austria and Lombardy, districts and populations on the
Vistula and Niemen, with districts and populations on the Rhine and
Moselle, are political arrangements which lack any principle of
permanency founded upon their benefits to the governed. Nature
forbids by the unalterable differences of soil, climate, situation, and
natural advantages of country, or by the equally unalterable moral
differences between people and people, that one government can
equally serve all be equally suited to promote the utmost good of
all. Federalism involves a principle more akin to natural, free, and
beneficial legislation, and to the improvement of the social condition
of man, than governments in single extensive states, holding legis-
lative and executive powers over distant and distinct countries and
populations, whether such governments be constitutional or despotic.
It is much more likely to be the future progress of society, that
Europe in the course of time, civilization, and the increasing influence
of public opinion on all public affairs, will resolve itself into one
great federal union of many states, of extent suitable to their moral
and physical peculiarities, like the union of the American States, than
that those American States will, in the course of time and civilization,
fall back into separate, unconnected, and hostile monarchies and
aristocracies, which some modern travellers in America, assure us is
their inevitable doom."
It cannot be doubted that the Swiss cantons and the United States
of America, attest the excellence of the federal principle.* Mr.
Laing regrets that the jealousy of republican institutions prevented
the restoration of the federal constitution of Holland, in 1815. Under
it, there was, he thinks, a display of national energy and moral
strength of character which never was imitated in the small neigh-
bouring monarchies ; and he anticipates that Holland and Belgium
will yet see that a federal union is indispensable to their security and
independence. He points to the German custom-house union, or com-
* A cloud has come over tlic cantons since these lines were written, but we
trust it is not too much to hope that it will pass away.
FEDERALISM. 131
mercial league, as an indication of the tendency of social economy in
modern times towards the principle of federalism.
Sweden and Norway have been federally united since 1814, but the
object chiefly aimed at was, Norwegian domestic independence ; and
the connection between the two countries may be said, in all essential
instances, to be that which subsisted between Great Britain and
Ireland from 1782 to 1801. The Storthing, or Norwegian parlia-
ment, exercises a very unlimited power in all state affairs. It meets,
without summons or permission on the part of the sovereign, on a
prescribed day, and if it passes, what amongst us is called a " bill," in
three successive Storthings, the bill becomes law without the assent
of the crown. Hereditary nobility is abolished in Norway ; and the
general representatives of the people supply their own upper house,
by selecting from amongst themselves one-fourth of the entire body,
which constitute the "Lagthing," and exercise functions similar to
those of the House of Lords in England. It is a principle of
the legislative constitution of Norway, that the towns should send
one-third, and the country parts two-thirds, of the members to
Storthing. The entire body is numerically inconsiderable ; it can-
not be less than seventy-five, but it does not exceed one hundred.
The elective franchise is exercised by every native Norwegian
of twenty-five who has been for five years owner or life-renter of
land paying scat, or tax, or who is a burgess of any town, or
possesses there a house, or land, to a value equal in English money
to 30. The person elected must be thirty years of age, a resident
of the country for ten years, and he must not be connected with any
department of the state, or court, nor on the pension list, nor in the
counting-house, or bureau, of any officer of state, or of the court.
He is the representative of "election-men," who are, themselves
(according to the system adopted in the United States of America)
chosen out of the body of the constituency to select members for
Storthing. The country is divided into electoral districts, and sub-
districts. A town in which there are one hundred and fifty voters is
a sub-district ; but when the voters are less, it is joined to the,
nearest town. December, in every third year, is the usual period for
the nomination of " election men." The voters assemble in the
parish church, and in towns every fifty select an " election man," and
in country parts every body of fifty to one hundred the power
extending to two and three ''election men," when the voters are
proportionately numerous. The nomination of members of Storthing
132 FEDERALISM.
follows soon after that of election men. In towns from three to sir
election men nominate one member from seven to ten, two from
eleven to fourteen, three and from fifteen to eighteen, four which
is the utmost that can be returned for one town. The persons chosen
may be either election men, or other qualified voters of each district.
The first business day in February, is the period for the assembling
of Storthing; and the sittings are continued to the close of April, or
until the business in hand is despatched. An extraordinary session
may be convened by the king, but it can only pass interim acts until
the next regular Storthing, by which they must be ratified. The
election, as well as assembling of Storthing, is triennial, with the
power of intermediate sittings, if they be found needful. Each
Storthing settles the taxes for the ensuing three years ; enacts,
repeals, or alters laws ; opens loans on the credit of the state ; fixes
the appropriation and administration of the revenue ; grants fixed
sums to be applied to the different branches of expenditure, the
establishments of the king, the viceroy, or members of the royal
family ; revises all pay and pension lists, and all civil and clerical
promotions, and makes such alterations as it deems proper in any
interim grants made since the former Storthing. It also regulates
the currency, and appoints revisors to examine public accounts, and
prepare abstracts of them for public information. Copies of all
treatises are laid before Storthing; in its upper house it exercises the
power of trying, and adjudicating, upon charges against ministers of
state, judges, and its own members. In case of a failure of the
royal line, it proceeds, in conjunction with Sweden, to elect a
new dynasty.
Under all these circumstances it may readily be admitted, that the
people of Norway have the framing and administration of their own
laws more entirely in their own hands than any European nation of
the present time. To their constitution (and it is no wonder) they
are enthusiastically attached, and, under its auspices, it is stated
the country is making great progress. Their independence, even of
the regal authority, witli reference to laws sanctioned by three suc-
cessive votes of their parliament, lias been asserted in the remarkable
case of the abolition of hereditary nobility. From 1815 to 1821
this question was In-fore Storthing, which experienced all through
a steady resistance from the influence of the crown. The late kin-
at one time meditated a forcible interference witli the will of the
people, and for that purpose marched a body of six thousand troops
FEDERALISM. 133
to Christiana. Foreign interposition is believed to have been prin-
cipally concerned in preventing any attempt to carry the design into
effect ; for, at the most critical moment, the Russian minister and the
American Charge d' Affaires, made their appearance unexpectedly at
Christiana, and the event was quickly followed by the withdrawing
of the troops, and no more was heard of the opposition of the late
king to this remarkable law. Subsequent times, however, produced
various attempts to alter the Norwegian constitution by increasing
the power of the crown over the acts of Storthing. The king sought
for himself an absolute veto in all acts of Storthing. He claimed the
initiative in all new laws and alterations of the law, and a limitation
of business to such acts as he should prescribe, besides a nomination
of the presidents and secretaries of the two chambers. The year
1824 was the period of this attempted revolution. Storthing held
resolutely to its privileges. It appointed a committee to draw up a
report embodying its opinions on every innovation proposed. The
paper is described as having been one of great dignity and power.
It was adopted unanimously by the representatives of the people; and
it appears to have put an end to all further attempts to interfere
with the free working of this excellent constitution, which is said by
Mr. Laing, from whose work we take all these facts, to have gathered
" strength by repose."
Federalism, in the case of Norway and Sweden, so far differs from
the principle in operation in the United States of America, and the
Swiss cantons, that there is no representative body to do acts con-
nected with external relations. Norway and Sweden are to concur
in the election of a new dynasty, when the occasion may arise, but
no concurrence seems prescribed in any other matter. The nature of
the power exercised by Storthing, is, perhaps, supposed to render
such a precaution needless. It can pass laws independently of the
crown, and it exercises the prerogative, not only of raising, but
appropriating the public revenue, and holding the state functionaries
amenable for all their acts. Authority over revenue is, probably,
the most official safeguard for special interests amongst federated
states. If Sweden aggrieved Norway in any case in which Nor-
wegian interest was sacrificed to Swedish, retribution would be at
hand in the appropriation of the taxes, and the various ways in
which Storthing has the direct power of embarrassing the executive
Government.
134 FEDERALISM.
There is no complication or diversity in the external relations of
Sweden and Norway, or Switzerland, to often require congressional
deliberation. It is not so in the case of the United States of America,
where boundless territory, and its incidents, present in themselves
new questions for consideration every year. The United States of
America are, certainly, the quarter of the globe where the federal
system, in the form in which it exist? in that vast republic, is most
indispensable to the local and general interests of the people.
Though federalism is now discussed in Ireland, as if it were a
principle altogether unknown to our institutions, it was, in reality, in
operation from the commencement of the British connection to the
close of the last century. Ireland first had a parliamentary compact
with Henry the Second ; and it was, therefore, strictly a "federal"
arrangement. It had, secondly, an improved state of legislative
affairs by a far more solemn and important compact in 1782. There
can be no question that the parliament of 1782 was a federal par-
liament, and one sufficient for the power and happiness of Ireland,
though its functions were strictly of a local character. If the Union
were repealed by an agreement between both countries recognising
perfect freedom of commerce, and establishing the fiscal relations on
the basis suggested, there would be a third compact, and certainly the
best of the three. " Simple Repeal" would then, with the aid of the
reforms of the last fifteen years, give Ireland the benefit of fede-
ralism, though not to the extent usually contemplated ; and it would
be a still further improvement of a constitutional system which had
been already found to work well for the country.
There is a greater identity of general interests amongst the inha-
bitants of these islands, than can exist in a country so vast as the
American Union. Climate is, in itself, an interruption to unity of
pursuit or speculation in that boundless region. We are all con-
cerned, here, in the same seasons and enterprises. One country may
be more commercial, and another more agricultural, than its neigh-
bour ; but all are more or less commercial and agricultural, and the
existing differences are much influenced by accident. A time will,
assuredly, come, when there will be a general similarity in all those
matters upon which external circumstances can produce any influence.
Hence, there is little likelihood of any variance of interest or feeling
in matters of peace or war, or colonial government or regulation, or
trade or intercourse with other nations; and the less the likelihood of
FEDERALISM. 135
such variance, the less the necessity for the powers or opportunities
of congressional conference.*
External relations are properly under the cognizance and regula-
tion of the sovereign authority. The crown makes peace or war,
appoints to colonial offices, and fiats colonial laws, and British laws
to affect the colonies. That it would be disposed to exercise its pre-
rogatives in all its dependencies, in a way satisfactory to the Irish
people, sustained as they would be by the firm voice of an indepen-
dent parliament, may be inferred from the instance of George the
Third's prompt and effective interference, in the case of the Irish
mercantile quarrel with Portugal. A restored parliament, worth
having, should appropriate as well as levy the taxes. This pre-
rogative was freely admitted by Pitt in his " propositions ;" for the
sum that was claimed for the naval service, or general expenditure,
was to be applied " as the parliament in Ireland shall direct." There
can be little doubt that the expressed wishes of such a parliament
would always have due weight with the authorities at the other side of
the Channel ; and indeed all the ancient causes of antagonism between
the countries being removed, the certainty is, that there would be
a mutual disposition to concord and co-operation in all matters of
regulation or government at home or abroad.
To the question, frequently asked, of " what would be done without
opportunities of congressional remonstrance in case of a proposed
war, or the terms of a treaty of peace ?" the answer is, that if such
powers could not be exercised in congress, they could very effectively
be exorcised elsewhere. It lies with the sovereign to make treaties
and to declare war; but while the Irish parliament could command the
public purse, there would be little ground of apprehension, that the
interests or wishes of the people of Ireland would be forgotten or dis-
re^arded ; and there would be a safeguard in this circumstance alone,
that there is no peace or war which would not equally affect Great
Britain and Ireland. The sovereign of this empire could do nothing
in peace or war for Bristol, Liverpool, or Glasgow, that would not
be done for Dublin, Cork, or Limerick.
* In the letter of Mr. Pitt to the Duke of Rutland, from which an extract is
o-ivcn in a note to page 43, it is properly assumed, that in cases in which the
interests of Great Britain and Ireland are identical, no differences need be
apprehended between two legislatures. A navy is equally necessary to the
protection of both countries ; and, therefore, if the parliament of Ireland con-
tributed an annual sum towards its support, "the parliament of England would
have the means and the inducement to watch the expenditure as narrowly as if
it was granted by themselves."
1 36 FEDERALISM.
On the whole, then, the ardent federalists would appear to attach
too much importance to their principle, as far as it would be applica-
ble to the peculiar case of Ireland. It would seem to be regarded by
some as supplying a new link to the connection with Britain (though
it does not very clearly appear in what way it could do so) ; and it is
said that a great body of the gentry may be expected to join in a
demand of domestic legislation, with congressional powers attached,
who could not otherwise be induced to co-operate in the great struggle
for the regeneration of Ireland. Federalism, viewed in reference to
such effects, would appear to possess its chief importance. If the fact
be however, that its probable influence in these respects is exaggerated,
and that it would be an obstacle instead of a facility, in the effort in
which the people are now engaged, it would be desirable that the
idea of pressing it on public attention, should at once, and definitively,
be abandoned. One thing is most certain, that powers of congres-
sional conference could not be rendered effective by numbers, without
increasing the great evil of absenteeism, and withdrawing a large
portion of the most influential of the public men of Ireland from, by
far, the most important sphere of their duties.
APPENDIX.
No. I.
From the speech of the Right Hon. T. S. Rice, on the Repeal of the Union,
delivered in the House of Commons, April 23, 1834.
BEFORE I proceed to show what the imperial parliament lias done by legislative
enactments, I beg leave first to take notice of what it has done in the way of
inquiring into the condition of Ireland, into the nature of her alleged wants
and grievances, and the remedies which those wants and grievances might
demand. I allude to the various reports from commissioners and from select
committees appointed to consider Irish affairs since the Union. Of these
reports the following is a list :
Com- Com-
mittees, missioners.
1801 Committees On orders respecting the Union on offices
in Ireland, disqualifying persons from parliament ... 2
1802 Committee. Linen manufacture ... ... ... 1
Commissioners. Accounts ... ... ... ... 1
1803 Committees State of the poor Irish exchanges ... 2
Commissioners. Port of Dublin ... ... ... 1
1805 Committee Grand canal ... ... ... ... 1
1806 Commissioners. Fees and gratuities public offices public
pavement accounts ... ... ... ... 4
1809 Commissioners Board of Education. paving (Dublin)
prisons accounts ... ... ... ... 4
1810 Committees Bogs ... ... ... ... ... 1
Commissioners Bogs accounts ... ... ... 2
1811 Committees Bogs public offices Board of Education ... 3
Commissioners. Brewers (Dublin) Wexford petition
public income and expenditure ... ... ... 3
1812 Committees. Cork Green-coat Hospital Grand Jury pre-
sentment Grand Canal Company ... ... ... 3
Commissioners. Public income public offices accounts
. education ... ... ... ... ... 4
1813 Committees. Bogs Irish currency madhouses ... 3
Commissioners Education public offices inland navi-
gationaccounts Board of Education ... ... 5
1814 Committees Bogs Grand Jury presentments... ... 2
Commissioners Royal Canal Company. bogs public
offices accounts ... ... ... ... ... 4
1815 Committees. Public income and expenditure Grand
Jury presentments poor ... ... ... ... 3
Commissioners Education. Royal Canal Company ac-
counts ... ... ... ... ... ... 3
1810 Committees. Public income Grand Jury presentments
illicit distillation ... ... ... ... 3
Commissioners Education public accounts inland na-
vigation ... ... ... ... ... ... ;5
1817 Committees Lunatic ... ... ... ... 1
Commissioners. Education courts of justice ... ... ~2
1818 Committees -Fever hospitals Grand Jury presentments '2
Commissioners Education auditing accounts courts of
justice ... .. ... ... ... ... 3
27 !)
L
138 APPENDIX.
Com- Com-
mittees, mtssloneri.
Brought forward, ... 27 39
1819 Commissioners. Prisons education courts of justice
public accounts ... ... ... ... ... 4
1820 Commissioners Courts of justice education House of
Industry (Dublin) accounts ... ... ... 4
1821 Committees To consider report of commissioners on
courts of justice ... ... ... ... ... 1
Commissioners Dunmore harbour fisheries courts of
justice Exchequer education . . ... ... 5
1822 Committees Dublin local taxation Grand Jury present-
ments Limerick local taxation ... ... ... 3
Commissioners Courts of justice education fisheries... 3
1823 Committees Dublin local taxation to consider reports
of courts of justice labouring poor ... ... 3
Commissioners Public accounts education prisons
fisheries employment of poor ... ... ... 5
1824 Committees Dublin local taxation Insurrection Act
valuation of land ... ... ... ... ... 3
Commissioners Revenue courts of justice public ac-
counts fisheries public records ... ... ... 5
1825 Committees Dublin local taxation linen trade state of
Ireland petition of Ballinasloe relative to Roman
Catholic Association ... ... ... ... 4
Commissioners Courts of justice fisheries education
revenue ... ... ... ... ... ... 4
1826 Committees. Butter trade market tolls promissory notes 3
Commissioners Revenue Dunleary harbour public ac-
counts fisheries roads and bridges justice (2) ... 7
1827 Committees Grand Jury presentments ... ... 1
Commissioners Accounts courts of justice roads and
bridges prisons Paving Board. Richmond Peniten-
tiary fisheries schools an i Middlcton education ... 9
1828 Committees Education vagrants ... ... ... 2
Commissioners Public accounts roads and bridges
courts of justice prisons fisheries education records 7
1829 Committees. To consider eighteenth report of judicial in-
quiry Kilrea petition (forged signatures) miscel-
laneous estimates ... ... ... ... ... S
Commissioners Post-office revenue public accounts
courts of justice roads and bridges prisons fisheries
1830 Committees On nineteenth report of judicial inquiry
poor ... ... ... ... ... ... 2
Commissioners Roads and bridges. courts of justice
education records .. ... ... ... 4
1830-31 Commissioners. Courts of justice prisons roads and
bridges ... ... ... ... ... ... .1
1831-32 Committees. Boundary commission Post-office com-
munication tithes turnpike roads state of Ireland... 5
Commissioners Ecclesiastical inquiry courts of justice
education public accounts prisons ... ... 3
1833 Committees. Derry bridge Dublin and Kingston ship
canal corporations ... ... ... ... 3
Commissioners Accounts prisons public works eccle-
siastical inquiry ... ... ... ... 4
Total ... 60 112
Total number of Reports of Select Committees ... 00
,, of Commissioners ... ... 112
Total 172
APPENDIX. 139
No. II.
An account of the origin and particulars of the Annual Parliamentary Grant for
the maintenance of the Linen and Hempen Manufactures of Ireland.
(Drawn up by the late Lord Oriel.)
The public establishments of Ireland, accustomed to receive aid from parlia-
ment, are in the habit of annually presenting to the government of the country,
at the close of every year, an account of the particulars of their intended
expenditure for the year to come, with a view to found upon the expediency
of them, their claim to a suitable grant ; but the trustees of the linen manu-
facture ask and receive one fixed sum, upon an estimate which they annually
furnish, in the following form :
"Estimate of the expense of the trustees of the linen and hempen manufac-
tures of Ireland, for the year to end the 5th of January
Irish. British.
21,000 that is, 19,938 9s. 2*d."
This is the sum, and with the exception of the British money, introduced since
the union of the legislatures, the form, too, of the annual estimate.
Before the particulars of this sum shall become the subject of inquiry, it were
well to give, by way of preface, the following extract from a paper, prepared and
presented to the trustees* by the Right Hon. JohnFoster, now Lord Oriel, because
it will show the origin of our linen manufacture, and the kind of international
compact that was formerly made in its favour, between the separate legislatures
of Great Britain and Ireland : .
" It was first planted here by Lord Strafforde,f in the reign of Charles the
First, whose endeavours to establish it were afterwards well supported by the
Duke of Ormonde; but it had not gained much ground at the time of the
Revolution, the woollen being the true and natural staple of the Irish, their
climate and extensive sheep-grounds ensuring to them a steady and cheap supply
of the raw material, much beyond their home consumption ; and it appears
from the preamble to the English statute of 10 and 11 Wm. III. chap. 1U, that
they were at the time possessed of a profitable export of it.J
"This export was supposed to interfere, and very probably did, with the
export from Britain ; and a plan was in consequence undertaken there, to anni-
hilate the woollen trade of Ireland, and to confine us to the linen manufacture
in its "place.
" Accordingly, an act was passed in England, 1696, (7 & 8 of Win. cap. 39,)
for inviting foreign Protestants to settle in Ireland, as the preamble recites, and,
with that view, enacting that the import of all sorts of hemp and flax, and all
the productions thereof, should from thenceforth be admitted duty-free from
Ireland into England ; giving a preference, by that exemption from duty, to the
linen manufacture of Ireland, over the foreign, estimated at the time, as a
report of the Irish House of Commons, on the llth of February, 1774, states,
to be equal to twenty-five per cent.
" This happened in 1(59(5, and in pursuance of the foregoing plan, both
houses of the English parliament addressed King William, on the 9th of June,
1098.
" The Lords stated in their address, ' that the growing manufacture of cloth
in Ireland, both by the cheapness of all sorts of necessaries of life, and the
* I'ide their primed proceedings, 1814, p. I!M.
t Vide his Letters and Despatches as the Lord Deputy of Ireland- HJ33 to l3fi.
j Brit. Statutes, vol. ii. p. <>.
Brit. Statutes, vol. iii. p. fi37.
140 APPENDIX.
goodness of materials for making all manner of cloth, doth invite your subjects
of England, with their families and servants, to leave their habitations to settle
there, to the increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, which makes your
loyal subjects in this kingdom very apprehensive, that the further growth of it
may greatly prejudice the said manufacture here; by which the trade of this
nation, and the value of lands will greatly decrease, and the number of your
people be much lessened here ; wherefore, we humbly beseech your most sacred
Majesty, that your Majesty would be pleased, in the most public and effectual
way that may be, to declare to all your subjt'-ts of Ireland, that the growth and
increase of the woollen manufacture there hath long, and will be ever looked
upon with great jealousy by all your subjects of this kingdom, and if not timely
remedied, may occasion very strict laws totally to prohibit and suppress the
same ; and, on the other hand, if they turn their industry and skill to the
settling and improving the linen manufacture, for which, generally, the lands are
very proper, they shall receive all the countenance, favour, and protection from
your royal influence, for the encouragement and promotion of the linen manufac-
ture, to all the advantage and profit they can be capable of.'
" The Commons stated their sentiments, at the same time, in the following
terms : ' We,* your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons in
parliament assembled, being very sensible that the wealth and power of this
kingdom do, in a great measure, depend on the preservation of the woollen
manufacture, as much as possible, entire to this realm, think it becomes us, like
our ancestors, to be jealous of the increase and establishment of it elsewhere,
and to use our utmost endeavours to prevent it. And, therefore, we cannot
without trouble observe, that Ireland, which is dependant on, and protected by
England, in the enjoyment of all they have, and which is so proper for the
linen manufacture, the establishment and growth of which there, would be so
enriching to themselves, and so profitable to England, should of late apply itself
to the woollen manufacture, to the great prejudice of the trade of this kingdom,
and so unwillingly promote the linen trade, which would benefit both themselves
and us : the consequence whereof will necessitate your parliament of England
to interpose to prevent the mischief that threatens us, unless your Majesty, by
your authority and great wisdom, shall find means to secure the trade of
England, by making your subjects of Ireland to pursue the joint interests of
both kingdoms. And we do most humbly implore your Majesty's protection
and favour in this matter, that you will make it your royal care, and enjoin all
those you employ in Ireland, to make it their care, and use their utmost dili-
gence to hinder the exportation of wool from Ireland, except to be imported
hither, and for discouraging the woollen manufacture, and encouraging the
linen manufacture of Ireland, to which we shall always be read;/ to yitc our utmost
assistance.'
" His Majesty thus replied to the Commons :f ' I shall do all that in me lies
to discourage the woollen manufacture in Ireland, and enuouruye the linen
Hi.iH'ifti'-inrf tin-re, and to promote the trade of England.'
" Stronger declarations could not well be made than in those addresses and
answers, ihat it' the Irish would come into the compact of giving up their then
great staple of woollens in England, and cultivating the linens in lieu thereof,
thev should receive ' all the countenance, favour, and protect ion, for the encouragc-
incnl and promotion of their linen manufacture to nil the advantages their kingdom
irii < in'.ichlc a/:' that the Commons would always be ready to give their utmost
assistance, and hi> Majesty would do all that in him lay, 'to curonrui/e the linen
manufacture there;' and they had the effect of inducing the parliament of Ireland
to accede, as will appear from what follows:
" The Lord .Indices of Ireland say, in their speech to the Irish parliament,
the '27th of September, li'i^,* ' Amongst those bills, there is one for the encou-
ragement of the linen and hempen manufactures. At our fir.-t meeting we
recommended t<) von that matter, and wo have HOW endeavoured to render that
A. xii. p. 3W.
APPENDIX. 141
bill practicable and useful for that effect, and as such we now recommend it to
you. The settlement of this manufacture will contribute much to people the
country, and will be found much more advantageous to this kingdom than the
woollen manufacture ; which, being the settled staple trade of England, can
never be encouraged here for that purpose ; whereas the linen anil hempen manu-
factures will not only be encouraged a.s consistent ivith the trade of England, but will
render the trade of thin kingdom both useful a-id necessary to England.'
" The Commons replied,* ' We pray leave to assure your excellencies, that we
shall heartily endeavour to establish a linen and hempen manufacture here, and
to render the same useful to England, as well as advantageous to this kingdom;
and we hope to find such a temperament in respect to the woollen trade here,
that the same may not be injurious to England.'
" In pursuance of this answer, they evinced that temperament most effectu-
ally, by passing an actf for laying prohibitory duties on the export of their own
woollen manufacture thus accepting the national compact, and fully performing
their part of the agreement, and by that performance giving an incontrovertible
claim to Ireland upon England, and consequently upon Great Britain, for a per-
petual encouragement of the linen manufacture ''to all the advantage and profit
that Ireland should at any time be capable of.'
" It is to be observed, that so anxious was England for confirming and en-
forcing this ratification given by Ireland, that their parliament soon .after passed
a law affecting to enact what subsequent times have shown it was incompetent
to, which we therefore here mention, merely to point out the stress which
England laid on the sacrifice made by Ireland, of its great and natural staple
trade, in exchange for a new staple, resting on a material, not the natural
growth of the country, and the establishment of which was but in its infancy,
though nurtured for near sixty years by the government of the kingdom. The
act we refer to is the the l()th and 11th William III. cap. 10, which recites,
' that wool, and the woollen manufacture of cloth, serge, bays, kerseys, and
other stuffs, made or mixed with wool, are the greatest and most profitable
commodities of the kingdom, on which the value of lands and the trade of the
nation do chiefly depend ; that great qiiantities of the like manufactures have,
of late, been made, and are daily increasing in the kingdom <>f Ireland, and in
the English plantations in America, and are exported from thence to foreign
markets, heretofore supplied from England: all which inevitably tends to injure
the value of lands, and to ruin the trade and the woollen manufacture of the
realm; and that, for the prevention thereof, the export of wool, and the woollen
manufacture, from Ireland, be prohibited, under the forfeiture of goods and
ship, and a penalty of .500 for every such offence.'
" It is to be further observed, that the Irish were at the time of, and for two
years previous to, this compact, in full possession, as already stated, of a pre-
ference for their linens over foreign in the British markets, to the amount of 25
per cent. ; and we may add further, of a preference ottered to British merchants
and capitalists to export the Irish linens, rather than foreign, by part of those
duties being retained on the export of the foreign, and not drawn back ; and as
far as we understand the acts upon the subject, we think we may confidently
assert, that though this preference, from time to time, has varied both in quan-
tity and in the mode, yet its principle has never ceased to exist; and from the
time this nation exchanged its staple trade of woollen, for the as.-uranee of
' every favour and protection ich/cii its linen manufacture should In: capable of
rt'(-cii-iiu/,' the linens of foreign countries have never been exportable from
Great Britain, without a charge of duty upon them."
Without further adverting to the parliamentary arrangements that were made
between Great Britain and Ireland, for the support of our linen manufacture,
about whieh abundant details will be found in the history of both countries, it
is enough to say, that in observance of them, the Lord Lieutenant of this
country was always accustomed, at the opening of every session "t the parlia-
* Irish Com. Jour., vol. ii. p. 21.'!.
t Irbh Stanili-s, liHh William 111. cap. 3. vol. iii. p. I7'J.
i Fni/lWi Jour. Lords mid Corn. IC'JG to IGIIS. vols. :i. xii. . and Irish s. urn. Jo,;r. 177-1, vol. ix.
clxxx\ ii.
142 APPENDIX.
meiit of Ireland, to recommend it to the attention of both houses in the speech*
from the throne.
' ' All these circumstances necessarily led to the linen manufacture of Ireland
being an object of parliamentary support. The grant that was made for its uses
consisted, for many years, of four sums, which were annually voted in the
following words :
1 . A sum of 7,250 for one year, ' to encourage the growth of flax in this kingdom 7,250
2. A further sum of 10,350 for one year, 'to be applied by the trustees in such
manner as shall appear to them to be most conducive to promote and encourage
the linen and hempen manufactures, the said sum to be in the place and stead
of a like sum, paid to them out of the produce of '</. duties on tea and coffee 10,350
3. A further sum of "2,000 for one year, ' to encourage the raising sufficient quan-
tities of hemp and flax in this kingdom' .. .. .. .. .. 2,000
4. A further sum of 2,000 for one year, 'for the encouragement of the hempen and
flaxen manufactures in the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught' 2,000
21,600
" That these four grants are of long standing, will appear from the following
history! of them :
" 1 . In the year 1709, before the establishment of the Linen Board of Ireland, J
an act was passed, 8th of Queen Anne, cap. 12, by which it was thus declared
and enacted : ' Forasmuch as several acts of parliament made in this kingdom,
especially an act made in the sixth year of her present Majesty's reign, entituled
"an act for the encouragement and improvement of the hempen and flaxen
manufactures," have been found, by experience, not to have fully and effectu-
ally answered the purposes for Avhich they were intended, and that particularly
because no mention is made, nor encouragement given, forflaxseed t.o be imported,
which if granted, would greatly conduce to the improvement of the linen ma-
nufacture of this kingdom, be it therefore enacted, &c., that whosoever shall
import, or cause to be imported, into this kingdom, any good and sound flax-
seed, of the growth of Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, or East Country,
shall receive tor every hogshead of such flaxseed, a premium of five shillings.'
In the year 1779-17^0, a further act was passed, 19th and 20th George III. cap.
33,|| by which it is thus further declared and enacted: 'Whereas flaxseed
raised in this kingdom is found to be of as good quality as any imported, and
sufficient quantities could be raised therein, if the cultivation thtreof were pro-
moted and not discouraged by bounties on the importation of foreiyn flaxsecd ; .and
whereas the annual average amount of those bounties, for eiyht years past, appears
to have been the sum of 7,250, be it enacted, &c., that no bounty shall hence-
forth be paid on account of any flaxseed or linseed imported into this kingdom,
and that a sum after the rate of 7,250 shall be applied to encoiiraye the growth
of flaxseed and hempseed in lliis kingdom.' The trustees were required by this
act to offer premiums, to the extent of 7,250, determining the portion thereof
for each county.
"2. In the year 17'9, an act was passed (6th Geo. I., cap. 4, sec. 7^[) 7
which an additional duty of one i-liilliny was laid upon every pound ireiyht of
tea, and three pence upon every pound weiyht of coffee, chocolate, anil cocoa nuts,
imported into Ireland; and, by the eighth section of said act, it was enacted, that
these 'additional duties, and all money arising therefrom, should be paid to the
trustees appointed for the management of the hempen and flaxen manufactures
of this kingdom, to lie by them applied to encourage and support the said
manufactures, and the trade thereof, in this kingdom.' Again, in the year
1780 (by the 19th and 20th Geo. II 1., cap. .'3.'3, sue. 7), it was enacted, 'that
there should be levied, and paid, a duty of SIT pence a gallon, for and upon
every gallon of linseed oil imported into Ireland, and ' that all money arising
* The speech addressed from the throne to the (fix! meeting of that parliament, contained these
words : " I recommend to your usual attention the agriculture, the manufactures, and particularly
tin- linen manufacture of Jrrlrind." \Mtl, vol. xix. p. 13. Although, since the Union, the linen
manufacture has not been noticed in any speech from the throne, the >ame annual grant has teen
made for its support, that was given by the parliament of Ireland.
t I'irl. Printed Proceedings of the Linen Board, vol. lK'2.'i. App. p. li.
t The Linen Board was established on the 10th of October, 1711, in the government of Janus,
Duke of Ormond.
{ lri-.li Stat., vol. iv. p. 240. II Ibid., vol. ix. p. 036.
i; Irish Slat., vol. iv. p. 505.
APPENDIX. 143
thereby should be paid to the trustees, to be by them expended in further
encouraging the raising of fiaxseed or hempseed in this kingdom.' The produce
of these duties has continued to be appropriated to the uses of the trustees, with
the exception of the duties upon tea and coffee, which were commuted by the
following acts, for the sums here stated. In the year 1767, an act was passed
(7th Geo. HI., cap. 2, sec 21*j), by which it was enacted, that 'so much of the
yearly produce of the said duties arising upon teas, as shall amount to the sum
of 10,000 yearly, shall, in the first place, be paid to the trustees of the hempen
and linen manufactures in this kingdom, and so much of the residue of the
produce of said duty as shall amount to the sum of 7,300 yearly, shall be
placed to the account of the king's hereditary revenue.' The remainder of the
produce was by said act directed to go towards discharging the interest of the
then public debt of Ireland. The tea duties were afterwards discharged of this
sum, and a like sum was created a charge by the 21, 22 Geo. III., cap. 1, sec.
26, f upon the general revenues of the country, for the use of the trustees ' to
promote the said manufactures.' In the year 1788, under the 28th Geo. HI.,
cap. 7, sec. 20, J it was enacted, that ' out of the duties charged by this act upon
the importation of coffee, the sum of 350 shall be paid to the trustees, to be
by them applied to encourage and support the said manufacture, and the trade
thereof in this kingdom.' These two sums make together the sum of 10,350
already stated ; and here it is to be remembered, that the general revenues of
the country always gained, what the trustees lost by these commutations.
* Irish Stat., vol. ix. p. 501. t Ibid., vol. xii. p. 11. t Ibid., vol. xiv. p. 543.
The following statements, which have been taken from parliamentary returns, will afford some
idea of the revenue which these duties did produce to the linen manufacture, and do now produce
to the crown ; and although, on the one hand, it is by no means contended, that the crown could
have permitted these duties to remain to the uses of the linen trade, after they had become so
productive as to form no unimportant portion of the general revenues of the country, yet, on the
other hand, it is not altogether uninteresting to consider the value of such of them as the Linen
Board have at different times been called upon to surrender, and of those that yet remain for the
service of the linen manufacture.
TEA. Take the three years, preceding the period of commuting the duty on this article, for a
grant of 10,000 a-year.
Years ended Weight of tea Produce of duty, at
25th March. imported. Is. per pound weight.
1764 - - 204,891 Ibs. - - 10,244 11
1765 - - 236,908 - 11,845 8
1766 - - 297,988 - 14,8.09 8
The progressive increase in the produce of this duty may be collected, by looking to the amount
of it for the last three years.
Years ended Weight of tea Produce of duty, at
5th January. imported. Is. per pound weight.
1820 - - 3,238,498 Ibs. - 161,924 18
1821 - - 3,150,158 - - 157,507 18
1822 - - 3,493,960 - - 174,698
COFFEE. Take, in like manner, the three years preceding the period of commuting the duty on
this article, for a grant of 350 a-year.
Years ended c ff jmnorted Produce of duty at
25th March. 3d. per pound weight.
(a) cwt. qrs. Ibs. s. d.
1785 - - 64 14 89 15 6
1786 - - 288 14 403 7 C
1787 102 2 10 143 2 6
The progressive increase of the produce of this duty, may, in like manner, be collected from
looking to the amount of it for the last throe years.
Years ended Weight of coffee Produce of coffee at
5th January imported. 3d. per pound weight.
1H20 - 441,999 Ibs. - - 5,524 19 9
1M21 - - 234,265 ,. 2,928 6 3
1822 243,125 - 3,042 Hi 3
CHOCOLATE, COCOA NVTS, A>r> LISSKEI>-OM. :
The only duties (6) that remain to the uses of the trade, from the acts above stated, or any
other acts, are those upon Chocolate, Cocoa Xuts, and Linseed Oil, after deducting thereout the
(a) These were the denominations of the quantity of Coffee in those years. It is not;- mtcird
t pounds ireight.
(A) Other duties were appropriated at different time-; to the linen manufacture, viz.. tixptncf
3. hide upon raw find untanneti hides exported from IreUind, fcr., but thry have cither expired
without commutation, or have so long ceased to be productive, as to be no Linger noticed in any
revenue return.
144 APPENDIX.
"3. In the year 1723, an act was passed (10 Geo. I., cap. 1, sec. 13*),
whereby the sum of 2,000 was granted to the trustees, ' to encourage the
raising of sufficient quantities of hemp and flax in this kingdom.'
"4. And, lastly, in the year 1733, an act was passed (7 Geo. II., cap. 1,
sec. 9f), whereby a further sum of 2,000 was granted to the trustees, ' for the
further encouragement of the flaxen and hempen manufactures in the provinces
of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught.'
" Thus it appears, that this sum of 21,600 is partly composed of a sum
granted in lieu of bounties formerly paid out of the general revenues of the
country of two sums given in exchange for duties, appropriated to the uses of
the trade, the produce of which has since reverted to the crown and of two
grants made for the extension of the trade, particularly in the provinces of
Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, all of which took place in the successive
reigns of Queen Anne and of their majesties Geo. I. and Geo. II. ; and it further
appears, that neither throughout the whole of the reign of his majesty Geo. III.,
the longest in the annals of the British monarchy, nor since the accession of his
majesty Geo. IV., has any addition been made to this annual grant, for the
maintenance of the STAPLE MANUFACTURE OF IRELAND.
" The parliament of the United Kingdom continued this grant of 21,600
appropriated in manner and terms above stated, down to the year 1807, in
which year they granted the same sum generally, that is, without the usual
appropriations, as will appear by reference to the 47th Geo. III., cap. 76, sec.
23, whereby it is enacted, ' that out of all or any the aids or supplies aforesaid,
there shall and may be issued, and applied, any sum or sums of money, not
exceeding twenty-one thousand and six hundred pounds, Irish currency, to be paid
to the trustees of the linen and hempen manufactures in Ireland, for one year
ending the 5th day of January, one thousand eight hundred and seven, to be
by the said trustees applied in such manner as shall appear to them to be most
conducive to promote, and encourage the said manufactures.' This sum has been
annually granted since, in the same general terms."
hereditary duty See 54 Geo. III., cap. 129, sec. 18. The hereditary duties are, viz. : Linseed
Oil, 3 the tun; Chocolate, 3d the Ib. ; and Cocoa Nuts, ld. the Ib. Hautemville's Digest of
Customs, 1821, p. 53. Of these duties, the Cocoa Xutx alone were productive in the last three
years ; their net produce was as follows:
s. d.
Years ended 5th January, 1820, - 209 10 4
1821, - 33G 15 7
1822, - 477 G 9
1,083 12 8
Average, } - 3G1 42
[From the Proceedings of the Linen Board of Ireland.}
JAMES CoBur.
Irish SUt., rol. v p 80. f Ibid., vol. vi. p. 4.
APPENDIX. 1 45
No. III.
An account of the Net Revenue received from the Customs and Excise duties on
the following articles in Great Britain and Ireland respectively, in each year
from the year 1783 ; showing the rate of duty payable in each year, and showing
the quantity of each article imported.
TEA GREAT BRITAIN.
TEA IRELAND.
Years.
Quantities re-
tained for home
consumption.
Total
Net Revenue.
Years.
Quantities en-
tered for home
consumption.
Net revenue.
Customs.
Ibs.
S. D.
Ibs.
8. D.
1784
1785
1786
1787
i Cannot be )
ascertained f
for these f
years. )
1784
1785
1786
1787
1,551,228
1,635,216
1,866,240
1, .'^0,325
30,433 17 8
31,795 16 3
37,170 16 7
32,504 14 1
1788
13,218,665
547,176 2 6 : 1788
1,545,900
29,708 17 8
1789
14,534,601
555,374 3 7 i 1789
1,970,898
38,038 14 3
1790
14,093,299
562,038 14 5 1790
1,736,796
33,132 12 2
1791
15,096,840
547,230 4 8 1791
1,994,787
43,295 12 4
1792
15,822,045
607,430 8 4 1792
1,844,598
35,110 8
H
1793
15,244,931
616,775 6 9 1793
2,148,755
39,274 9 6
3-
CD
1794
16,647,963
609,846 5 6 ' 1794
2,041,290
43,892 6 2
o.
c
1795
18,394,232
628,081 6 5
1795
2,970,701
64,093 16 10
5
1796 I 18,009,992
695,108 5 9
1796
2,326,306
48,633 14 9
3
1797 16,3(58,041
877,042 13 1797
2,492,254
60,817 6 5
n
(D
1798
19,566,934
1,028,060 9 7 1798
2,953,240
103,016 5 5
5'
1799 19,906,510 1,111,898 9 1 1799
2,873,717
101,727 11
~
1800 20,358,702 1 1,176,861 9 9 1800
2,926,166
69,824 17 7
5
1801 20,237,753 ! 1,152,262 1801
3,499,801
135,852 3 4
3
O.
1802
21,848,245
1,287,808 2 6 1802
3,576,775
182,214 17 7
D.
C
1803
21,647,922
1,450,252 7 9
1803
3,239,937
172,355 15 6
3'
1804
18,501,904
1,757,2,57 18 4
1804
3,337,122
251,734 8 9
TO
1805
21,025,380
2,348,004 4 8
1805
3,267,712
411,225 1 4
3*
1806
20,355,038 2,925,298 17 9
1806
2,611,458
348,242 7 2
*
1807 19,239,312 3,098,428 13 2
1807
3,555,129
476,949 4 3
1808 20,859,929 3,043,524 11 3
1808
3,706,771
534.685 1 7
1809 19,869,134 ! 3,370,610 010
1809
3,391,663
462,088 12 3 |
1810 19,093,244 3,130,616 14 9
1810
2,922,568
435,307 10 2
1811
20,702,809 3,212,430 1 1 1811
3,517,384
502,816 16 11 I y
1812
20,018,251 3,249,294 9 1812
3,758,499
567,186 11 6 |
1813
20,443,236 3,258,793 2 9
1813
3,522,942
521,299 12 3 a
1814
19,224,154 3,428,236 8 4 1814
3,387,012
529,818 7 11 *
1815 22,378,345 3,526,590 18 3 1815
3.402,776
531,500 15 2 |
1816 20,246,144 2,956,619 5 1816
2,990,580
405,777 16 3 2
1817 20,822,926 3,003,650 18 7 1817
3,141,035
427,713 7 3 |
1818 : 22,6(50,177 3,362,588 10 1 1818
2,562,431
510,105 (5 (5 |
1819 22,631,467 3,25(5,433 12 10 1819
3,238,498
433,371 11 6 !
1820,22,452,050 3,128,44917 1820
3,150,344
398,742 5 4 '
18-21 '22,892,913 3,275,C42 16 6 1821
3,493,960
462,819 16 3
1822 '23,911,884 i 3,434,292 19 10 1822
3,816,!K>6
511,299 5 2,
1823 23,762,470 3,407,983 1 8 1823
3,367,710
440,139 4 11
1824 23,784,838 3,420,205 11 11 1824
3.387,5H>
445,271 15 11
1825 ! 24,830,014 3,527,944 4 11 ! 1825
'3,889,658
503,074 13 4
182(5 25,238,067 3,291,813 19 5 182(5
3,807.785
446,229 5 1
1827 26,043.223 3,263,206 19 3 1827
3,887,955
442,382 14 1(1
The English duty on lea in 1800 was .13 per cent, o.i the artic
per pound, and !."> per cent, on inferior qualities.
The Irish duty on tea in ixoo was SJd. ( Irish) on black, and 7d.
'ii sold at or above 2i. (id.
146
APPENDIX.
TOBACCO-GREAT BRITAIN.
TOBACCO IRELAND.
Years.
Quantities
retained for
home
consumption.
Total
Net revenue.
Years.
Quantities
entered for
home
consumption.
Total
Net revenue.
Ibs.
8. U.
Ibs.
8. D.
1784
1785
{Cannot be "j
ascertained /
for these j
years. )
3784
1785
3.477,649
3,328,025
160,587 4 10
149,460 9 2
1786
6,846,606
1786
2,666,165
120,369 12 11
1787
6,669,103
380,793 5 3
1787 1,877,579
95,654 11 2
1788
6,858,668
441,429 19 7
1788 3,120,048
128,896 12 6
1789
8,152,185
408,037 4 1
1789 2,765,441
128,704 8 4
1790
8,960,224
512,383 7 1
1790
2,900,437
133,195 18 10
1791
9,340,875
585,966 9 1
1791
2.519,043
117,420 2
1792
8,979,221
582,096 7 7
1792
1 ,767,581
80,693 4 5
1793
8,617,967
547,217 14 4
1793
5,568,857
125,844 17 1
1794
9,723,536
606.262 12 10
1794
9,426,211
193,158 10 7
1795
10,972,368
659,989 3 4
1795
7,874,409
215,719 9
1796
10,047,843
755,451 15 1
1796
6,045,790
186,759 19
1797
9,822,439
813,027 16 2
1797
8,445,555
267,721 16 4
1798
10,286,741
867,302 14
1798
4,894,121
215,317 12 7
1799
10,993,113
799,369 14 2
1799
5,876,172
288,028 4 9
1800
11,796,415
987,110 8 8
1800
6,737,275
327,916 9
1801
10,514,998
923,855 3 5
1801
6,389,754
285,482 6 4
1802
12,121,278
928,678 9 1
1802
6,327,542
309,738 9 2
1803
12,587,570
1,028,563 16 1
1803
5,278,511
263,944 3 4
1804
12,254,494
1,060,319 18
1804 5,783,487 ! 314,007 5 8
1805
12,656,471
1,088,821 4 5
1806 4,158,794 302,316 8 1
180(5
12,435,035
1,185,830 14 1
1805 5,082,186 359,867 6 4
1807
12,432,994
1,336,542 17 9
1807 4,531,049 315,417 4 3
1808
12,876,119
1,448,296 3 7
1808 5,847,416 403,973 3 8
1809
13,054,870
1,325,154 5 7
1809 6,497,662 451,278 19 11
1810
14,108.193
1,599,376 18 9
1810 6,221,646 444,198 5
1811
14,923,243
1,701,848 8 2
1811 6,453,024 552,082 9 9
1812
15,043,533
1,679,912 2 2
1812
5,896,702 697,897 9 11
1813
13,648,245
1813
5,944,817 746,006 5 2
1814
10503,917
1,581,684 12 9
1814
4,869,304 (553,708 12 7
1815
13,207,192
1.7(54,487 7 10
1815 4,748,205 740,279 13 1
181
12,815,808
2,035,109 2 8
1816 ! 4,732.085 750,510 7 6
1817
13,593,089
2,158,500 3 10
1817 ' 4,778,4(59 757.316 8 3
1818
13, (188,437
2,173,8(56 19 2
1818 4,194.041 664,183 9 1
1819
12.911,285
2,285,045 2 10
1819 3,4(56,852 614,98!) 5 7
1820
13,016,562
2,610,972 7 9
1820 2,582,498 \ 516,446 2 (5
: 1821
12,983,198
2,600,415 7 8
1821 2,614,954 522,168 6 9
1822
12,970,56(5
2,599,155 15 1
18-22 3,309,072 ! 6(54,01(5 7 4
1823
13,418554
: 2,695,('09 15
, 1823 3,546,126 730,507 12 8
1824
13,083,094
2,627,955 12 (i
1824 3,749,732 750,589 5 4
i 1825
14,510,555
2,530,617 6 3
1825 4,160,049 i 728,288 13 11
I82*i
13,784.370
, 2,077.875 14 7
1826 3,898,1547 580,893 11
1827
14,711,891
i
2,223340 18 4
: 1827 > 4041,172 603,037 18 9
Tobacco wiis liable to an Knjrlish duly, in 1800, of Is. (Jd. per pound.
'1 he Irish duty on tobacco was, at the same period, "d. ( Irish.)
APPENDIX.
147
FOREIGN SPIRITS GREAT BRITAIN. FOREIGN SPIRITS IRELAND.
Years.
Quantities retained for
home consumption.
Total Years _
Net revenue.
Quantities retained for
home consumption.
Net revenue.
Customs.
Brandy and j R
Geneva.
Brandy and
Geneva.
Rum.
Wine gallons. Wine gallons.
s. i).
Wine galls.
Wine galls.
S. D.
1784
644,000 , 927,309
11784
461,802
883,858
228,153 10 10
1785
878,404 1,387,170
1785
434,093
952,767
928,236 6 2
1786
929,422 1,551,956
1786
377,695
797,704
193,954 3 1
1787
1,296,067 1,647,190
M6,868 11 10 1787
380,696
905,862
210,394 3 1
1788
2,203,199 1,846,952
924,888 19 91788
373,420
992,103
221,849 10 9
1789
2,002.626 '2,160,183
952,392 13 5 1789
304,532
1,077,829
219,774 9 3j
1790
2,225,405 2,274,533
1,001,415 17 41790
293,208
836,190
182,165 6 5
1791
1,949,418 2,505,472
999,481 3 11 1791
152,234
589,948
144,915 19 5
1792
1,984,822 i 1,812,108
1,008,098 3 5 : 1792
132,851
501.984
117,91019 5
1793
1,557,876 ; 2,202, 133
1,002,976 16 11 1793
117,524
301,150
82,784 6 10
1794
1,667,721 2,590365
1,100,504 1 51794
104,022
463,804
108,529 7 71
1795
949,606 2,468,818
957,512 7 6il795
32,374
257,874
54,815 12
1796
1,237,188 1,885,706
1.049,610 18 2 1796
13,716
111,475
23,665 13 8
1797
1,669,787 2,142,047
1,317,520 8 61797
744
72, 120
12,844 3 7
1798
1,521,179 1,712,512
1,305,937 2 91798
8,426
113,313
25,327 17 11
a
1799
1,618,855 2,076,586
1,423,961 4 111799
14,765
348,880
83,766 1
H
1800
2,172,618 2,622,837
1,895,276 14 3 1800
204,494
1 ,036,467
331,833 3
|
1801
2,631,055 2,445,032
2,202,123 2 31801
368,334
1,239,696
483,227 4
L
1802
2,806,736 J 3,208,378
2,534,152 11 101802
111,156
741,528
254,249 5 8
.?
1803
2,763,575 ' 3,543,997
2,668.884 5 8 1803
43,552
292,444
107,876 19 4
1804
1,606,635 1,9(50,620
2,163,105 19 101804
22,137
203,837
83,213 19 8
1805
1,991,002 : 2, 220,566
2,613,885 8 01805
24.408
146,430
71,225 17 9
3
1806
2,439,793 '2,455,952
3,094,477 12 01806
18,721
188,322
80,240 17 9
~
1807
2,200,728 2,671,935
3,119,777 8 11 1807
16,680
251,449
107,024 11 11
i 1 !.
1808
2,758,676 2,897,513
3,882,304 6 8^808
1 27,089
410,721
183,306 17 11
c
1809
1,172,211 3,060,664
2,790,378 14 M809
82,986
1,273,250
595,692 14 6
1810
2,146,055 3,641,998
3,850,938 2 11 1810
26,499
401 ,870
187,742 62-
1811
1,329,467 3,615,570
3,121,766 15 71811
5,108
180,348
, 80,262 14 4
--
1812
224,896 4,191,467
2,601,445 8 10,1812
9.936
339,762
154,575 8 10 1
1813
287,050 3.944,613
: 1813
13,777
555, 609
259,920 35=-
1814
373,009 4,336.284
2,92(5,113 11 1814
15,885
109,385
70,260 17 3
~
1815
1,01(5,462 3,962,108
3,193,077 13 61815
11,527
77,800
50,027 10 "
1816
913,242 2,889,600
2,495,658 14 9 181(5
7,896
22,843
17,656 1
1817
887, 400 2,853,847
2,454,997 16 9 1817
7,258
36,823
24,684 66^
1818
773,805 3,133.0:51
2.502,804 11 5 1818
11,117
25,639
21,647 8 8g
1819
1,0(57,934 3.047,877
2,735,315 8 1819
12,245
30.882
25,175 15 1
?
1820
1,137,517 2,963,221
2,755.604 19 7 1820
11,290
24,468
21,144 11 7
1821
1,204,888 2.76(5,250
2,711,670 14 1 1821
11,190
23.622
20,652 8
1822
1,308,332 2,678,838
3,112,506 18 101822
12,270
18,042
18,495 2 9
1823
1,392.065 2,798.494
2,909.590 18 1 1823
30,338
21,806
32,885 2 6
1824
1.579,484 3,051,362
3,089,121 1 51824
1,675
11,343
7,777 4 8
1825
1. (586,043 -2,502,671
2,86(5,244 8 3 1825
5,460
12,038
11.637 1
f
Imp. gallons. Imp. sails. ~v
/
Imp. galls.
Imp. tails.
1826-j
* 1.540,322 4.277,558 f
Wine gallons. Wine sralls. J
*1,848,386 5,133,070J
3,529,160 14 8 1 82(5-1
*9,449
Wine galls.
*1 1,342
27,751 |
Wine galls. /
33,3 10 J
22,505 12 8
/
Imp. gallons. Imp. galls. ^.
f
Imp. galls
Imp. galls.
1 S*>7 '
* 1.364.0(55 3.263. 507 (
^ 01 "i 4*V> ^ A Ijwj
*9J79
23,240 j
20,230 5 4
i c* t <.
Wine gallons. Wine calN. t
*-,<.' i iJi'-t'' ,j -f ii" t \
Wine galls.
WhieualN. ,
(
1,636,878 3,916,308)
! (.
*11,015
27,888 J
148
APPENDIX.
WINE GREAT BRITAIN.
WINE IRELAND.
Quantities
retained for
home
consumption.
Total
Net revenue
Years.
Quantities
retained for
home
consumption.
Net revenue.
Customs.
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1810
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
Wine gallons.
3,958,750
(5,761,403
5,814,6(55
6,492,317
7,658,276
8,082,249
6,890,910
6,799,220
6,927,121
5,732,383
3,970,901
4,760,657
4,777,631
7,728,871
7,006,310
6,355,749
6,181.466
4,840,719
4.5(55,551
5,936,235
5,922.337
6,408,534
5,808,087
6.805,276
5,860,874
5,136,490
4,718,568
4.941,663
5,968,435
4,420,807
5,614,622
6,139,490
4,978,000
5,019,960
5,016,569
4,975,15!)
5,291,410
5,47!), 732
8,070,000
Imperial nulls.
5,389,005
Wine callous.
0,407,559
Imperial (jails.
(1,094,178
Wine t;all<>ns.
7,312,955
701,545 12
666,134 11
721,518 19
820,562 7
916,769
1,019,645 3
690,686 5
795,023 19
1,430,722 15
1,159,523 19
1,383,665 12
1,372,661 6
1,692,826 12
1,967,213 8
1,992,997 9
1,931,872 19
2,141,356 12
1,814,323 5
2,003,866 8
2,320,428 11
2,334,197 18
2,353,736 19
2,361,113 IS
2,513,615 16
2,1(59,871
1,911,352 19
2,032,840 19
2,095,299 18
1,610,299 5
2,023,720 8
2,241,380 2
1,802,027 1
1,818,396 2
0,797,4!)! 7
0,794,013 11
0,007,460 13
0,007,953 13
0,015,053 8
1,270,118 1
1,420,550 11
1827
Wine gallons.
1,069,232
777,678
921,023
1 ,467,579
1,219,370
1,330,253
1,428,929
1,430,272
1,339.800
1,041,932
1.374,429
2,959,004
1,199,129
312,212
1,558,205
2,588,106
1,024,832
1,245,742
2,180,350
1,690,291
1,708,510
981,090
1,053,979
1,003,278
1,189,710
1,204,920
1,020,275
894,792
892,94(5
700,004
630,137
730,351
439,602
571,59(5
024,200
589,854
508,501
024,701
5(59,038
547,218
504,529
952,977
Imperial wills.
(585,361
Wine gallons.
822,433
Imperial (,'alls.
782,274
Wine gallons.
929,029
105,211
81,762
96,076
147,363
121,914
130,187
138,589
138,010
129,110
94.506
117,839
264,165
128,728
41,308
184,489
343,194
157,494
192,663
348,199
282,572
327,130
251.927
254,102
395,089
294,730
3*4,889
272,971
203,136
287,065
253,7(55
234,736
293,091
107,158
200.891
225.935
203,2(51
109,421
209,000
188.808
180,704
185,158
140,055
S. D.
7 3
8 2
4
17 6
4 5
8 4
12 7
7 9
5 6
18 8
2 3
5
9 6
3 1
12 6
13 1
13
18 4
14 9
2
13 10
19 3
7 8
2 4
14 9
10 5
12 7
8 5
7 4
1 6
7 3
11 3
2
11 11
10 10
19 7
5 5
11
6
16 11
11 4
7 1
155,101 12
174,030 1(5 7
The duty on Portuguese, Madeira, and Spanish wh.es, in !>,()(), was 'Js. Gd. per wine gallon in
-.ii"laml. '
The IrMi duty on Portuguese, Madeira, and Spanish winev at the same period, was 11 10s. lid.
ier lun, IrMi measure.
APPENDIX.
149
SUGAR GREAT BRITAIN.
SUGAR IRELAND.
j
Years.
Quantities
retained for
h)me
consumption.
Net revenue.
Customs.
Years.
Quantities
entered for
home
consumption.
Revenue.
Customs.
cwts.
s. n.
cwts.
S. D.
1784
f Records "J
I destroyed >
(. by fire. )
( Records destroyed 1
\ by fire. f
1784
190,483
120,312 6"
1785
1,752,00(5
Do.
1785
233,494
147,988 5 8
1786
1,373,050
Do.
1786
162,104
102,744 7 6
1787
1,59(5,755
965,353 13 1
1787
259,939
169.929 12 9
1788
1,775,681
1,033,436 19 3
1788
196,633
125,383 9 11
1789
1,547,109
862,632 11 11
1789
191,748
125,431 6 1
o
1790
1 1,536,232
908,954 1" 4
1790
211,977
136,125 1 3
o
1791
1,403,211
1,074,903 16 5
1791
214,168
139,443 5 5
"i
1792
1,3(51,592
1,012,538 12 1
1792
161,302
120,616 1
> re
179:3
1,677.097
1,316.502 14 3
1793
196,371
148,790 6 4
3
c
1794
1,489,392
1,031,492 4 2
1794
209,642
159,359 13 5
n
1795
' 1,336,230
949,961 16 1
1795
227,978
171,666 12 10
1796
i 1,554,0(52
1,225,213 7 5
1796
182,668
137,179 18 3
1797
I 1,273,722
1,299,744 7
1797
231,233
204,464 19 8
1798
i 1,476,552
1,794,990 15 9
1798
228,838
180,008 16 9
1799
1 2J72,438
2,321,935 16 5
1799
263,603
233,203 5 6
1800
1,506.921
1,835,112 11 1
I860
355,662
327,028 13 7
1801
i '2,773,795
2,782,232 18 1
1801
298,0(59
283,930 07"
1802
2,250,311
2,210,801 6 11
1802
329,150
394,261 15 5
1803
i 1,492,565
1,551,457 17 11
1803
286,907
'295,842 18 11
1804
i 2,144,369*
2,458,124 18 3
1804
313,710
381,753 10 7
1805
2.076,103
2.439,795 1 10
1805
295,724
397,617 9 4
1806
i '2,801,747
3,097,590 3 (5
1806
267,805
373,039 11 4
1807
! 2,277,665
3,150,753 6 3
1807
3(59,598
525,583 1 5
1808
i 2,842,813
4,177,916 3 4
1808
437,867
582,404 19 3
1809
i 2,504,507
3,273,995 2 3
1809
408,525
550,641 1 2
1810
3,489,312
3,117,330 12 9
1810
292.512
394,185 4 5
1811
1 3,226,757
3,339,218 4 3
1811
420.679
578,915 12 6
1812
2,604,019
3.939,931) 17 2
1812
450.713
629,1(57 5 2
y.
1813
2,209,063
3,446,560 4 5
1813
389,654
570,420 5 7
1814
1,997,999
3,276,513 6 5
1814
327,102
491,010 16 6 i- 2
1815
1,888.965
2.957,403 2 4
1815
324,478
49(5,930 17 4
s
181(5
-',228,156
3,166,841 18
1816
302,387
445,341 9 10
a
1817
2.960,794
3,9(57,154 5
1817
338,415
466.771 19 5
1818
1,457,707
2,331,472 3 5
1818
269,477
419.634 19 6
1819
2.474.738
3.507,844 11 4
1819
346,292
-188,699 6 4
1820
2,581,256
3,477.770 11 4
1820
320,733
447,617 5 1
1821
2,67(5,274
3.660,5(57 7
1821
380,690
528,391 12 4
1822
2.618.490
3.579,412 12 i
1822
370,822
481,031 11 4
i823
2.842,676
4,022.782 4 1
1823
38(5,315
384,628 2 2
1824
2,957.261
4,223,240 18 5
1824
410,1(53
411,704 4
1825
2,655.959
3,756,654 1
1825
423,889
420,001 2 9
182(5
3.255.075
4,518,690 15 9
1826
318.915
432,307 11 1
1827
3,021,191
4,218,623 6 7
1827
319,73(5
431.568 19 5 \
150
APPENDIX.
COFFEE-GREAT BRITAIN.
COFFEE IRELAND.
Years.
Quantities
retained for
home
consumption.
Total
Net revenue.
Years.
Quantities
entered for
home
consumption.
Net revenue.
Customs.
Ibs.
8. D.
Ibs.
a. D.
1784
595,672 )
1784
7,182
314 4 9
1785
75,264 [
Records destroyed
1785
32,270
631 9 4
1786
3
y
1786
11,490
538 14 8
From 10th Mav,
1787.
1787
108,677
18,233 4
1787
12,530
662 4 2
1788
758,403
41,330 9 6
1788
38,458
887 11 6
1789
930,141
46,286 17 11
1789
82,121
1,897 8 5
1790
973,110
50,799 7 4
1790
59,372
1,370 2 6
1791
1,047,276
57,659 5 11
1791
84,882
1,958 16 4
1792
946,666
48,825 6 2
1792
40,313
930 6
1793
1,070,438
67,357 11 9
1793
52,164
1,203 16 5
1794
969,512
74,430 4 6
1794
100,172
2,450 2 9
1795
1,054,588
65,788 3 7
1795
91,803
2,118 10 9
1796
396,953
30,048 6 11
1796
61,571
1,420 17 3
1797
637,001
92,469 3 11
1797
132,755
3,063 11 8
1798
697,487
78,966 6 9
1798
37.463
864 10 4
1799
682,432
74,001 2 2
1799
49,569
1,144 16 10
1800
822,590
142,867 11 5
1800
120,985
2,791 19 5
1801
750,861
106,076 2 7
1801
127,842
2,961 6 6
1802
829,435
72,183 2 3
1802
87,492
2,262 U 6
1803
905,532
72,093 15 8
1803
49,432 ,
1,387 14 2
1804
1,061,327
151,388 11
1804
243,494
9,969 17 10
1805
1,201,736
120,172 18 7
1805
61,251
3J30 7 5
1806
1,157,014
152,759 6 9
180(5
55,490
3,760 10 4
1807
1,170,164
161,245 11 4
1807
72,274
4,866 13 5
1808
1,069,691
229,738 16 8
1808
136,713
6,897 4 2
1809
9,251,837
245,886 8 4
1809
310,833
9,0(55 19 2
1810
5,308,096
175,567 1 4
1810
228,357
6,660 7 11
1811
6,390,122
212,820 12 10
1811
529,993
15,458 2 9
1812
8,118,734
255,184 7 I
1812
505,497
14,759 14 1
1813
8,788,601
1813
446,787
14,159 7
1814
6,324,267
213,513 18 4
1814
283,724
9,382 9 9
1815
6,117,311
258,762 18 3
1815
325,098
10,497 17 7
1816
7,557,471
290.834 11
1816
253,712
8,192 15 5
1817
8,688,72(5
298,540 5 1
1817
513,248
16,075 12 3
1818
7,967,857
250,106 4 10
1818
340,880
10.9(50 6 4
1819
7,429,352
292,154 8 10
1819
361,431
13,842 17 1
1820
6,89(5,286
340,223 6 7
1820
207,123
10,276 8 3
! 1821
7,327,283
371,252 5 6
1821
265,718
13,322 18 11
1822
7,404,204
374,596 19 7
1822
265,147
12,8(52 1 6
182:5
8,209,245
416,324 3 9
1823
245,655
12,298 11 6
1824
7,993,040
407,544 4 3
1824
269,883
13,443 19 8
1825
10,766,112
307,204 14 2
1825
316,858
8,604 16 1
1826
12,728,227
324,667 11 1
1826
475,096
11,903 5 4
1827
14,980,637
384,994 13 2
1827
585,739
14,695 13 3
The Kndish plantation coffee duly, in 1KOO, was Is. 5d. per pound.
The Irish rofl'pe duty was i His. per cwt. at the same period.
The duties on all the foregoing articles have been the same in both countries since 1814.
APPENDIX.
151
No. IV.
BRITISH AND IRISH REVENUE, FROM 1801 TO 1841.
An account of the yross receipts of revenue within the year, after deduct inij repay-
ments, allowances, discounts, drawbacks, and bounties in the nature of drawbacks,
for Great Britain and Ireland, for each year from 1801 to 1841 ; and a statement
of the proportions that Irish payments bore to English, calculated in periods of
jive years each.
In the
years
Uross payments of ordinary revenues
into the Exchequer, as stated in
the returns laid before the select
committee on the public income;
and expenditure in 1828, and in;
the annual finance accounts.
In Great Britain. In Ireland.
Proportion of Irish payments to British, cal-
culated in periods of five years each.
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1 1813
1814
1815
j
1816
1817
1818
1819
| 1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
182(1
1827
1828
1829
1830
: 1831
1832
1 833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
36,924,627
38,231,619
45,867,417
50,500,144
3,545,631
3,158,237
3,822,960
3,624,781
Total in the four years, from 1802 to 1805,
185,675,416, of which the proportion of Irish
revenue was about one-thirteenth.
Total in the five years, from 1806 to 1810,
329, 761,042, of which theproportion of Irish
revenue was about one-fourteenth.
Total in the five years, from 1811 to 1815, !
366,803,151, of which the proportion of Irish
revenue was about one-thirteenth.
Total in the five years, from 1816 to 1820, ;
297,800.244, of which theproportion of Irish ,
revenue was about one-twelfth.
1
Total in the five years, from 1821 to 1825,
292,575,901, of which the proportion of Irish
revenue was about one-thirteenth.
171,523,807
14,151,609
54.167,615
58,720,880
62,697,886
63,831,453
67,417,777
4,087,561
4,862,960
4,907,828
4,804,803
4,262,279
306,835,6J1
22,925,431
65,300,063
63,705,323
67,600,314
70,320,017
70,953,122
4,893,150
5,531,533
5,775,640
6,219,169
6,504,820
337,878,839
28,924,312
01,973,894
51,614,484
52,964,336
51,829,694
54,553,672
4,529,150
5,285,654
5,392,774
5,064,730
4,591,826
272,936,110
24,864,134
56,607,179
54.374,638
52.957,690
53.270,027
52,829,274
5,039,719
4,6*2,933
4,114,00'i
4,265,738
4,455,697
270,038,808
22,538,093
50,526,152
53,928,220
56,406,443
54,902,200
54,844,096
4,313,534
4,489.509
4,734,292
4,462,831
4,298,155
270,607,111
22,298,321
Total in the five years, from 1826 to 1830,
292,905,432, of which the proportion of Irish
revenue was about one-thirteenth.
Total in the five years, from 1831 to 1*35,
266,171,354, of which the proportion of Irish
revenue was about oiir-thirtrenlh.
[ Total in the five years from 1*36 to 1R41.
265,090,658, of which the proportion of Irish
; revenue was about one-twe.'t'th.
49.83(5,355
49,571,460
48,410,467
48,307,792
47,948,282
4,114,085
4.435,098
4,160,649
4, -445,455
4,641,71)
244,074,356
! 22,096.998
50,174,896
46,768.044
48,308,547
48.768,850
47,402.223
4.798.781
1,519.693
4.670.690
4,576,640
4.102,285
242,422,560
22,668,098
\Yhiu-hii
152
APPENBIX.
No. V.
A return of the number of bushels of malt on which the duty has been charged, in
each year, from 1810 to 1840, both years inclusive, up to the 10M day of April
in each year, in Enyland, Ireland, and Scotland, separately and together.
Years
ended
April 5.
Number of bushels of malt.
England.
Ireland.
Scotland.
Total.
1810
23,541,291
3,033,302
784,527
27,359,120
1811
25,979,328
2,437,859
968,100
29,385,287
1812
22,066,782
2,637,341
893,707
25,597,830
1813
18,945,766
2,159,326
658,657
21,763,749
1814
23,656,035
3,342,512
1,140,042
281,28,589
1815
26,349,263
3,025,066
,319472
30,693,801
1816
26,856,102
2,232,406
,258,061
30,346,569
1817
17,820,324
1,680,219
,142,539
20,643,082
1818
24,217,175
1,403,336
,167,619
26,788,130
1819
22,325,607
1,879,082
,442,613
25,647,302
1820
24,739,371
1,734,647
,400,309
27,874,327
1821
26,084,730
1,869,758
,225,883
29,180,371
1822
24,848,630
1,822,125
1,077,536
27,748,291
182.3
27,312,755
1,811,490
1,429,188
30,553,433
1824 26,0(54,802
1,840,196
2,014,035
29,919,833
1825
27,887,092
2,279,188
2,784,477
32,950,757
1826
29,181,241
2,701,358
3,724,919
35,607,518
1827
25,342,913
2,142,530
2,490,067
29.975,510
1828
28,738,524
2,046,642
3,194,336
33,982,502
1829
28,217,125
2,266,226
3,713,490
34,196,841
1830
22,821,035
2,079,468*
3,944,406
28,844,909
1831
29,079,758
1,892,082*
4,089,127
35,060,967
1832 1 34,115,332
2,115,435*
4,105,377
40,336,144
ia'33 32,249,892
1,970,058*
3,767,242
37,987,192
1834
34,061,2(53
2,049,407*
4,406,913
40,517,583
1835 34,072,605
2,152,138*
4,437,220
40,662,023
1836 38,261,833
2,511,231*
4,736,449
45,509,513
1837 35,657,887 2,268,475* 4,751,594
42,677,956
1838 ! 33,620,593 , 2,279,069* 4,480,792
40,380,454
1839 1 33,(>87,302 | 2,101,744* 4,567,083
40.356,129
! 1840
34,086,055 1,604,307
4,309,656 ; 40,000,018
Excise Office, London, June 27, 1840.
G. A. COTTRELL, First General Acct.
TI1K KM).
THE
RIGHTS OF IRELAND
THE
EIGHTS OF IKELAED;
BY THE REV. J. GO I) KIN.
.Woe lo llir lain! on \\liosr judgment-scat! tlir stranger sits at whose gales ilie Granger
rlies! Woo to the land divided against itst-ll', and rt'lying on foifi;;ni'rs !" /SI-HOKKK.
DUBLIN :
PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUFFY,
23 , AXGLESE A- STK K K T .
1845.
JAMl-'.S L>t'VTY. 'J.'5. AVGI.tStA-STKKKT.
ADVERTISEMENT.
As it is not unlikely that some persons will condemn this
Essay without reading it, I wish to guard against misrepresen-
tation, by stating here, that I advocate an Irish Parliament only
on the following conditions :
First, that it can be obtained by peaceful and constitutional
means ; secondly, that the Irish Protestants, generally, shall
concur in demanding it; thirdly, that inviolable security be
given that neither the Church of Rome nor any other church
shall ever be established or endowed in this country, but that
the voluntary principle shall be embodied in the Irish constitu-
tion as it is in that of the United States of America.
These conditions have been expressly proposed again and
again by the Repeal Association, which is emphatically and so-
lemnly pledged to provide every possible safeguard for the
freedom of Protestants.
Perfect religious liberty and equality being thus guarantied,
I believe a Native Parliament would confer blessings on this
O
nation, which it is vain to expect from Imperial Legislation. But
on this point the Essay will speak for itself. It is a hearty defence
of my beloved country, and I am willing to bear whatever it may
cost me.
THE Au'inoi:.
Dublin. May, 184,5.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. p AGK
J THE ANCIENT IRISH NATION 1
II THE ANGLO-NORMAN CONQUEST 9
III THE ENGLISH PALE 21
IV. THE REFORMATION 33
V. CONFISCATION AND COLONIZATION 45
VI THE PENAL CODE 53
VII. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT 59
VIII REASONS FOR ABOLISHING THK IRISH PARLIAMENT . 7fi
IX MEANS BY WHICH THE UNION WAS CARRIED . . . 89
X THE UNION NOT A CONSTITUTIONAL COMPACT . . . 103
XI EVILS INFLICTED BY THE U.MON ION
Xll. ALLEGED POST-UNION PROSPERITY ll>(>
XIII OBJECTIONS AGAINST REPEAL 132
XIV OBJECTIONS AGAINST REPEAL, CONTINUED . . . .144
XV RESTORATION OF THE IRISH CONSTITUTION .... 1,'>1
CONCLUSION APPEAL TO PROTESTANTS . 171
ERRATA.
The reader is requested to correct the following :
Page 4 and 6, Note to "Lord Lyttleton's Henry II.," add vol. iii. pp. 17, 26,
27, Dublin edition of 1772.
91, line 3, for " thence formed" read "thenceforward."
123, line 3 from bottom, for "constitution" read "contribution."
137, line 15, for "also" read "always."
139, line 10, for "it" read " she."
141, 2nd paragraph, strike out " his educational measure-?."
148, 1st line, 2nd paragraph, supply " if" before " Ireland."
THE
CHAPTER I.
THE ANCIENT IRISH NATION.
' ' The Irish nation possesses genuine history several centuries more ancient than
any other European nation possesses in its present spoken language."
SIR JAMES MAC INTOSH.
IT becomes nations as well as individuals " not to think of themselves
more highly than they ought, but to think soberly." Self-exaggeration
detracts from their character without adding to their power. But a
far greater and more dangerous fault is an habitual depreciation of
their real resources, and a consequent want of self-reliance. This teas
the failing of the Irish a degrading conviction written on the nation's
heart with the iron pen of persecution ; but thanks, under Providence,
to O'CoNNELL, and the struggles of the last 40 years, this internal
record of slavery this fatal lesson of conscious imbecility, has been
obliterated for ever !
An independent people, reposing calmly in their own strength, may
smile in quiet scorn at attempts made to defame them. But it is other-
wise when calumny is the standing plea of oppression, when libel is
called in to justify robbery, and loss of character is loss of liberty.
England has acted towards Ireland the part of an unjust and rapacious
guardian, suborning witnesses to swear away the sanity of her ward,
that she might, with impunity, denude her of her rights and property,
and then make her the butt of ridicule. This has lasted so long that,
2 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
perhaps, there is no feeling more deeply seated in the British mind,
than contempt of the Irish ! We grant that of late years this feeling
has been considerably mitigated by the bolder tone and attitude of its
object, and the increasing intelligence and liberality of the English
people. But that it is far enough from being eradicated, is quite evident
from the manner in which English journals are prone to treat the
gravest Irish questions. Arguments which they cannot refute, and
will not grapple with honestly, are met only with the sneers of pride,
the threats of power, and a perpetual effort at the argumentum ad
absurdum.
By arts like these, pursued by the ruling nation for a series of ages,
many Irishmen have been made ashamed of their country, regarding
every thing English as respectable basely worshipping the power that
crushed their kindred, and joining most heartily in the unnatural work
of vilification " of slandering 'their own mother's sons." They have
kept alive the accursed fire of domestic animosity, but for which, Ire-
land would have been long since free. There was, indeed, a time when
that baleful fire was almost extinguished when Protestant and
Catholic, Whig and Tory, joined hands together in one great national
brotherhood. But, says an enlightened and impartial historian, " this
spirit of mutual toleration was considered by the English government
as extremely formidable ; and it employed all its policy to destroy it,
and to revive the old religious and national animosities"* How
fatally has this wicked policy worked since 1782! There are indi-
cations abroad, however, that it will not avail much longer. " It is
well that internecine bigotry should sleep the sleep of death it is well
that long worshipped and monstrous prejudices, the hideous idols of
civil feuds, should crumble and vanish ; it is well that men should
prefer to enlarge upon the interests and hopes of their common country \
to dwelling contentiously upon their own present distinctions and
ancient civil quarrels."f
Among the anomalies which so strangely mark the condition of
Ireland, there is none more striking than the general ignorance of her
history ; although by an intimate knowledge of this alone, can these
anomalies be accounted for. No man can understand the "difficulties"
of Ireland, or solve the vexed questions of her social state, without
deeply pondering the whole course of her past misgovernment. There-
fore it is that I feel bound to invite the reader's serious attention to
the following rapid historical sketch : whether he be English or Irish,
* Thierry's History of the Norm<on Conquest. Conclusion, sect. 4.
t Dublin Warder, October 19, 1844.
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 3
Protestant or Catholic, it will, I trust, contribute to raise this unhappy
countiy in his estimation, and, lead him to abhor the misrule, of which
it has been for so many ages the bound and bleeding victim.
That the imagination of a people so long afflicted as the Irish, should
dwell much in the past, and clothe their ancient state in too bright a
glory, is but natural. It is an extreme to which they would be driven
by the systematic efforts made ta vilify and degrade their forefathers,
to destroy their ancient monuments, to proscribe their primitive and
noble language, and to abolish their national institutions, laws, and
customs. Yet, when candid criticism, or even supercilious scepticism,
has done its utmost in the work of disparagement, enough of authentic
history will still remain to testify that for many ages Ireland stood at
the head of the nations of Europe, as the dispenser of learning and
civilization, and the zealous propagator of the purest Christianity of
the times. It is necessary to investigate this matter, that we may see
what our country lost and gained by the English conquest. I shall
not quote from enthusiastic and credulous Irish authors ; but from
Protestants, for the most part English men belonging to the highest
rank in literature, and, assuredly, labouring under no bias in favour of
Ireland.
Edmund Spenser, the celebrated poet, who was chief secretary of
Ireland, and gave his sanction to the most diabolical plans for the ex-
tirpation of her people, wrote as follows in his ' View of the State of
Ireland' : " All the customs of the Irish, which I have often noted,
and compared with what I have read, would minister occasion of a
most ample discourse of the original of them, and the antiquity of that
people, which, in the truth, I think to be more ancient than most that J
know in this end of the world." Elsewhere in the same work, he de-
clares that Ireland is " a nation so antique as that no monument re-
mains of her beginning and first inhabiting." " It is certain that
Ireland hath had the use of letters very anciently, and LONG BEFORE
ENGLAND."*
This is a glorious fact for Ireland ; and it is sustained by other
authorities not less eminent. Camden states that " from thence (Ire-
land) our old Sfixon ancestors seem to have had the form of their
letters, as they plainly used the same characters which are at present.
in use among the Irish." But is it not more likely that the Irish
should have borrowed from the Saxons ? No ; for Dr Johnson, the
best of judges, observes " What was the form of the Saxon lan-
guage, when, about the year 450, they first entered Britain, cannot
* Tages 2G, 29.
4 THE RIGHTS OF IRELANP.
now be well known. They seem to have been a people without learn-
ing, and, very probably, without an alphabet"* As the Venerable
Bede, Alcuin, and others describe the ancient Irish as " an inoffensive
nation, and always most friendly to the English," it is natural to infer
that such zealous propagandists as the former imparted the knowledge
of letters the alphabet to the Saxons. The fact, however, is dis*
tinctly stated by the learned Lord Lyttleton in his Life of Henry II. :
" A school was formed at Armagh, which soon became very famous.
Many Irish went from thence to convert and teach other nations.
Many Saxons out of England resorted thither for instruction, AND
BROUGHT FROM THENCE THE USE OF LETTERS TO THEIR IGNORANT
COUNTRYMEN."
He also adds " We learn from Bede, an Anglo-Saxon, that about
the seventh century, numbers, both of the noble and second rank of
English, left their country, and retired out of England into Ireland,
for the sake of studying theology, or. leading there a stricter life ; and
all these, he affirms, the Irish (whom he calls Scots) most willingly
received and maintained at their oivn charge ; supplying them with
books, and being their teachers without fee or reward ; which is a
most honourable testimony, not only to the learning, but also to the
hospitality and bounty of that nation. Great praise is likewise due
to the piety of those Irish ecclesiastics, who (as we know from the
clear and unquestionable testimony of many foreign writers) made
themselves the apostles of barbarous heathen nations, without any
apparent inducement to such hazardous undertakings, except the
merit of the work. By the preaching of these men the Northum-
brians, the East Angles, and the Northern Picts, were converted.
Convents were also founded by them in Burgundy, Germany, and
other foreign countries, where they distinguished themselves by the
rigid integrity and purity of their lives ; so that Ireland, from the
opinion conceived of their sanctity, was called the Country of Saints."
Camden says " No men came up to the Irish monks in Ireland
and in Britain, for sanctity and learning ; and they sent forth
swarms of holy men all over Europe : to whom the monasteries of
Luxueil in Burgundy, Pavia in Italy, Wurtzburgh in Franconia, St.
Gall in Switzerland, &c., &c., owe their origin. * * * Why
should I mention almost all Ireland with its crowd of philosophers,
despising the dangers of the sea, and flocking to our shores ? * * *
The Saxons also at that time flocked to Ireland from all quarters, as
to a mart of literature. Whence we frequently meet in our writers
* Preface to Dictionary.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. O
of the lives of the saints ' such an one was sent over to Ireland for
education ;' and in the Life of Fulgenus
' Exemplo patrum commotus, amore legendi,
Ivit ad Hibernos, sopliia mirabile claros.' "*
By his ancestors' bright example moved,
He sought abroad the learning which he loved,
And in Hibernia skilful masters found,
Whose wisdom is thro' all the world renowned.
Sir James Ware, in his Treatise on Irish Writers, remarks (Address
to the Reader, 1636), that " Ireland for ages after the coming of St.
Patrick abounded ivith most learned persons * * * and was justly
called the Island of Saints."
The following most important testimony is from Mosheim, the Pro-
testant ecclesiastical historian : " That the Irish were lovers of
learning, and distinguished themselves, in those times of ignorance,
JJEYOND ALL OTHER EUROPEAN NATIONS, travelling through the most
distant lands with a view to improve and communicate their know-
ledge, is a fact with which I have been long acquainted ; as we see
them in the most authentic records of antiquity, discharging with the
highest reputation and applause the functions of doctors in France,
Germany, and Italy ."f
Moreri, in his Dictionary, under the word Ireland, sums up the
labours of her sons thus : " Ireland has given the most distinguished
professors to the most famous universities of Europe, as Claudius Cle-
ments to Paris, Albuinus to Pavia in Italy, Johannes Scotus Erigenu
to Oxford in England. The P^nglish Saxons received from the Irish
tkc.ir characters or letters, and with them the arts and sciences that
have flourished since among these people, as Sir James Ware proves
in his Treatise on the Irish Writers, book 1, chap. 13, where may be
seen an account of the celebrated academies and public schools which
were maintained in Ireland in the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth
ages, which were resorted to, particularly by the Anglo-Saxons, the
French, and Ancient Britons, who were all received there with greater
hospitality than in any other country of the Christian world."
No wonder the great prince of English literature, Dr. Johnson,
called Ireland in those ap'es " THE SCHOOL OF THE WEST, the quiet
habitation of sanctity and literature." But, alas ! this light of the
nations was doomed to suffer a disastrous eclipse. Moreri adds rThe
Irish " were inundated by the irruption of a frightful number of
* Collectanea do Rob us llibornicis. B. I. p. 1 12.
t Ecd. Hist. Cent. 8, chap. '>. Note.,
O THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Danes, and other people in the North, who, like the Normans in
France, and about the same time, destroyed their cities, ruined their
colleges and monasteries, put to death an infinite number of monks
and priests, and reduced that country (which was then, as the histo-
rians of that time declare, the most civilized of Europe, the nursery
of all sciences and virtues) to the last state of barbarism."*
But the elastic energy which has ever distinguished this interesting
people, soon repaired the desolation, as far as it was possible, when so
many learned works were destroyed and so many living lights extin-
guished. Sir James Ware testifies that, " although the Norwegian
plunderers, who, in the ninth age, under Turgesius, occupied this
island for thirty years, destroyed almost all the churches and books by
fire, nevertheless, the study of literature revived; and even in the
eleventh age Ireland was esteemed the repertory of the most holy and
learned men"
I shall quote another passage from Lord Lyttleton. Speaking of the
Danish devastations, he says : " The fierce spirit of their religion in-
creasing the natural barbarity of their minds, they turned their rage
more particularly against the clergy, whom they massacred without
mercy ; and in their hatred to them, burned their books, their schools
and their convents. Among the many learned men who were driven
by the terror of this persecution to take refuge abroad, none distin-
guished themselves more than Albin and Clement, whom the Emperor
Charles the First received in his court, and honoured with his favour.
Of the last of these it is said by a contemporary German writer, that,
through his instructions the French might vie with the Romans and
Athenians. John Erigena, whose sirname denoted his country (Ere or
Erin, being the proper name of Ireland,) became, soon afterwards,
famous for his learning and good parts both in England and France.
Thus did most of the lights which, in those times of thick darkness,
cast their beams over Europe, proceed out of Ireland. The loss of
the Manuscripts, which the ravages of the Pagans destroyed, is much
bewailed by the Irish, who treat of the history and antiquities of their
country, and which may well be deemed a misfortune not only to
them, but the whole learned world."f
I might fill many pages with testimonies of this kind, placing the
eminence of ancient Ireland in such a light, that only contemptible
ignorance or detestable bigotry can presume to deny it. But I shall
content myself with one more from a master in the " new school of
history," remarkable for his piercing investigation of original autho-
* Lc Grand Dictionaire Historique Paris, 1759, Irclandc.
t Lord Lyttleton's Henry II.
THE BiaHTS OF IRELAND. 7
Titles, his skill in developing the inner life of society, and his bold-
ness in announcing the results of his inquiries, no matter how widely
they may be at variance with the commonly received opinions of other
historians.
" The major part of the Irish were men with dark hair, with strong
passions, loving and hating with vehemence, irascible, yet of a social
temper. In many things, especially in religion, they were enthusi-
asts, . and willingly intermingled the Christian worship with their
poetry and literature, which was perhaps the most cultivated in all
western Europe. Their island possessed a multitude of saints and
learned men, venerated alike in England and in Gaul ; for no country
had furnished a greater number of Christian missionaries, animated
by no other motive than pure zeal, and an ardent desire of commu-
nicating to foreign nations the opinions and the faith of their native
country. The Irish were great travellers, and always gained the
hearts of those whom they visited, by the extreme ease with which
they conformed to their customs and way of life."*
Such was the nature of Irish immigration, and emigration then,
when, in her own unrivalled colleges at home, she gave a free educa-
tion to the youth of Saxon England, and the West of Europe ; and
when her missionary sons were the founders and the glory of foreign
monasteries and universities.
Now, also, as in ancient times, " the Irish are great travellers ;''
but under what different circumstances! How changed is our re-
lation to the civilized world, by six centuries of English rule ! How
refined and fiendish the persecution that doomed to compulsory igno-
rance a people so enthusiastic in the pursuit of knowledge, and so
generous in its diffusion ! This was worse than all the massacres and
confiscations by which this fair country was laid waste ; for it aimed
too fatally to " KILL THE SOUL." Our people travel now, not as lights of
the world, but as menial drudges, to make the roads and reap the har-
vests of a people to whose rude forefathers, the Irish once communi-
cated the use of letters, and to whose greatest men they were " guides,
philosophers, and friends," educating and boarding multitudes of them
without fee or reward. In return for all this, their country was in-
vaded, their patrimonies plundered, their nobles reduced to beggary,
their ancestral homes, their churches and colleges desolated, and
their whole nation ultimately reduced to slavery! To justify this,
their very history has been falsified, where it could not be obliterated,
and everything that the bribed and bigoted literature of an ascendant
* Thierry. Norman Couiucot. B, It), p. lij.j. bi_t aUo Mkhclct'? History of
France, B. I, cap 1.
THE RIGHTS OF 1RKLAMU.
nation could accomplish, has been done to calumniate and degrade the
people, while a cunning and heartless government worked hard at its
every day oppression, to verify the villanous misrepresentation.
" With the vulgar herd of mankind, whether toiling in the drud-
geries of life, or revelling in its luxuries whether sitting in the seat
of power or musing in the philosophic chair calamity is a sure pass-
port to contempt. But we visit those with the full weight of our
hatred and scorn, whom we have most injured and wronged. Hence,
upon the Continent, Ireland was merely despised in England de-
tested. But this, likewise, has passed, or is passing ; and we may
now again advert to the ancient history of Ireland, and be heard, per-
haps, with patience.
" In every age Ireland had borne the banner of civil and religious
freedom. She sent her auxiliaries to combat by the side of Britain, in
the days of the Caesars, for the independence of the sister island ; and
she succeeded, in conjunction with the Northern tribes, in staying the
tide of Roman dominion. The imperial eagles folded their wings,
and maintained, with difficulty, a defensive contest behind their triple
wall. She, too, carried the sacred standard of religious liberty on
the Continent, and in England ; and wherever the battle raged
fiercest, upon which depended the deepest interests of mankind, the
right to be free in thought, and to worship God with an unconstrained
volition.
" It was in reference to this period that Ireland, by the unanimous
consent of the European nations, was placed in the rank of a third
Empire ; the Roman, the Constantinopolitan, and the Irish. Is this
any evidence of her worth and her renown ? It was not surely her
extent, or her conquests in the world, that gave her this high place.
Hers was not an empire purchased by the tears and sufferings of other
nations ; but by benefits conferred upon them. Her triumphs were
peaceful triumphs ; and such as in comparison witli which Cressy,
Agincourt, and Waterloo, fade into nothing. It is a vulgar tiling to
subdue a nation. Have not the Goths, and the Huns, and the Turks,
and the Tartars, done this ? But, to give refuge to many people, to
instruct many nations ; these are triumphs worthy of Empire. The
claim of Ireland to a third empire was established at the Council of
Constance ;* and it was more glorious than the other two, for it was
the empire of intellect and benevolence."!
* A. D. 1417, when the legates of Henry V. got precedence over those of
France, solely on the ground of Ireland's ancient pre-eminence as a kingdom,
f O'Driscoll, Views of Ireland, vol. '2, p. 104.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER II.
THE ANGLO-NORMAN CONQUEST.
" When Robert Fitzstephen and the brave knights of Britain invaded Ireland,
they did not find cowards, but valiant men, brave both as horse and foot."
HANMER.
CAMDEN informs us, that " The whole nation of the Irish were strong
in their persons, peculiarly active, possessing a brave and elevated
mind, sharp in their intellects and warlike." " They were, be-
sides," says Stanihurst, " extremely hospitable, good natured, and be-
neficent of all men the most patient in suffering, and rarely over-
come with difficulties." Champion, and other Englishmen admit
that they were " religious, sincere, compassionate, full of energy in
misfortune ; good horsemen, passionately fond of war, charitable and
hospitable beyond expression."
Such were the people whom the Anglo-Normans undertook to con-
quer in the twelfth century ; and, as many have regarded even their
partial success as a proof that the Irish must have been a cowardly
and contemptible race, born to serve, it will be desirable to glance at
the career of these Normans in other countries. The love of a pre-
datory life seems to have attracted adventurers of different nations to
the Scandinavian seas, from whence they invested, not only by ma-
ritime piracy, but continual invasions, the Northern coasts both of
France and Germany.
" The causes of their sudden appearance are inexplicable, or at least
could only be sought in the ancient traditions of Scandinavia. In
787, the Danes, as these Northern plunderers were then called, be-
gan to infest England, which lay most immediately open to their in-
cursions. They adopted a uniform plan of warfare, sailing up navi-
gable rivers, in their vessels of small burden, and fortifying the
islands which they occasionally found ; they made these intrenchments
at once an asylum for their women and children, a repository for their
plunder, and a place of retreat from superior force. After pillaging
a town they retired to these strongholds, or to their ships. Towards
the close of the ninth century they laid siege to Paris, and committed
10 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the most ruinous devastations in the neighbouring country. As these
Normans were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries,
which had stood harmless amidst the havoc of Christian war, were
overwhelmed in the storm. St. Denis redeemed its abbot from cap-
tivity with 685 pounds of gold. So impoverished was the kingdom,
that in 860, Charles the Bald had great difficulty in collecting 3000
pounds of silver to subsidise a body of Normans against their country-
men. The kings of France, too feeble to prevent or repel these in-
vaders, had recourse to the palliative of buying peace at their hands,
or rather precarious amnesties, to which reviving thirst of plunder
soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded a
great province which they had already partly occupied, partly ren-
dered desolate, and which has derived from them the name of Nor-
mandy. Ignominious as this appears, it proved no impolitic step.
Rollo, the Norman chief, with (and) all his subjects, became Chris-
tians and Frenchmen ; and the kingdom was at once relieved from a
terrible enemy, and strengthened by a race of hardy colonists."*
Ireland acted a nobler part than this : she fought the Danes, and
vanquished them gloriously on the plains of Clontarf.
We shall now follow the course of these robbers in England, taking
lor our guide the learned Thierry. For more than a century and a half
nearly the whole of Britain had borne the appellation of England, and
the name of Briton or Gael, had, in the estimation of the German
rulers of the island, the meaning only of serf or tributary, when some
strangers, arriving in three vessels, landed at one of the ports on the
eastern coast. They seized the Saxon magistrate, who approached
them in a friendly manner, slew him, and plundered the neighbouring
habitations. This was the first visit to England of the Danes or North-
men. They were descended from the same Teutonic race as the Saxons,
and spoke a kindred language. They were Pagans. They sited the
blood of priests with pleasure, were particularly gratified in pillaging
churches, and littered their horses in the chapels belonging to palaces,
deeming all this most acceptable to their god Odin. Their " sea-king"
was faithfully obeyed, for he was always renowned as the bravest of
the brave, as he " who had never slept beneath a raftered roof, nor
ever drained the bowl by a sheltered hearth. He could govern a ves-
sel as a good horseman manages a horse ; when on a voyage, he could
run across the oars while they were in motion ; he could throw three
javelins to the mast-head, and catch them alternately in his hand, and
would repeat this trial of skill without once missing." About 870, an
' IlaLlam's Europe durmg the Middle Ages, itli cd. vol I, pp. 17, 19.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 1 1
expedition under eight of these sea-kings invaded the north of Eng-
land, took possession of York, the capital of Northumbria, slaughtered
the monks of Croyland at the altar, and proceeded to Peterborough,
where they plundered and murdered in like manner, setting fire to the
monastery, which continued burning for fifteen days. They went on,
invading and conquering, till the Saxon King Alfred was obliged to
seek refuge in concealment in woods and deserts. Many of the Saxon
people fled to Gaul and Ireland, and the rest submitted to pay tribute
and to labour for the Danes. They were subsequently resisted, and
some of them massacred. But returning with larger reinforcements,
they conquered the great Saxon nation, and three Danish kings
reigned on the throne of England, having embraced the Christian re-
ligion. But their professed change of faith made little or no change
in their spirit. They still played the part of Norman conquerors.
Behold the condition to which they reduced Saxon society : " The
Dane who bore title of King of England was not the only one that op-
pressed the natives. * * * The Saxon's dwelling was the Dane's
household, in which the foreigner had food, fire, and bed gratuitously ;
he occupied the place of honour as master. The head of the family
could not drink without the permission of his guest, nor remain seated
in his presence. The guest insulted his wife, his daughter, or his ser-
vant at pleasure ; and if any man of courage undertook to defend or
avenge them, that brave man had no longer an asylum. He was
tracked and pursued like a wild beast ; a price was set on his head as
on that of wolves ; he became^ according to the Anglo-Saxon expres-
sion, a wolf-head; and nothing was left for him but to fly to the
abode of wolves, and turn robber in the forests against the foreign
conquerors, and the natives who shamefully slumbered under a
foreign yoke"*
The Danish dynasty was indeed terminated ; and the Saxons did
not retaliate. But Edward, their new king, was brought up among
the Normans, spoke their language, and adopted their customs. They
crowded his court, filled the great offices of church and state, and
gave the tone to fashion. The Saxon lords began to stammer in bro-
ken French, substituted the short cloaks of the Normans for their own
long mantles, and even in writing imitated the lengthened form of the
* " Norman Conquest, B. 2, p. 46. No people were so much addicted to rob-
bery, to riotous frays, and feuds arising out of family revenge, as the Anglo-
Saxons." Ilallam, vol. 2, p. 79. And M'Intosh, speaking of the "horrid
cruelties" practised by both Danes and Saxons in their civil wars, says: "Let
those who consider any tribes of men as irreclaimable, call to mind of what
people these were the progenitors." History of England, vol. 1, p. <!().
12 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Norman letters. These strangers were, however, banished in obe-
dience to the popular indignation ; but the Saxon power was not des-
tined to continue long. William the Conqueror landed in England
at the head of an army composed of " all the adventurers by profes-
sion all the outcasts of Western Europe. Some were cavaliers or
warlike chiefs, others were simply foot soldiers and sergeants-at-arms,
as they were then called. Some asked for pay in money ; others only
for their passage and all the booty they could make : many wished for
land among the English, a demesne, a castle, or a town ; while others
would be content with a rich Saxon woman in marriage."
The decisive battle of Hastings was fought. The Normans marched
in triumph through the land ; and the gates of the metropolis were
thrown open to them without striking a blow. William was crowned
king of England. The whole country was confiscated and divided
among his followers. The Saxon nobles were degraded and disinhe-
rited ; the bishops' sees were all soon seized by Norman adventurers,
and the great Saxon nation was reduced to a state of serfdom under
foreign masters. In the incredibly short space of four years the con-
quest of the kingdom was completed, the land divided among strangers,
and the Norman sovereignty settled on a permanent foundation !
This was the work of four years ; but the conquest of Ireland was
scarcely accomplished in four hundred years ! Why was this subju-
gation of the English nation so easy ? Because the brave Saxon peo-
ple had not leaders worthy of them. Their miserable divisions and
jealousies, and tht-.ir sordid ambition, made them traitors to their coun-
try in the hour of trial ; and so the national independence was lost.
Is it fair for modern English writers, with these facts before them, to
sneer at the Irish as pusillanimous, because, owing to a complication
of unfavourable circumstances, they suffered these same Normans to
gain a lodgment in their soil ? The reader, I trust, will see, that this
brief account of the invasions, robberies, and conquests of this
Northern race in France and England, is no useless digression, since
it shows that these powerful nations suffered the infliction of this
scourge with greater tameness and subserviency than ever the Irish
were guilty of.
The Norman vilification of their Irish victims was no new thing 1
O
with them. The dispossessed and outlawed Saxons began to make
reprisals, and committed many robberies and murders, having recourse
to the "wild justice of revenge," and doing, in isolated cases, what
their new masters had done on a large scale. This was ascribed to
the " natural rillany" of the people ! The said people were spoken
of with sovereign contempt as "the Enylishry" and each foreign
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 13
master regarded himself as " a demigod among brutes !" In reading
the history of the Normans we are struck with the singular fact, that,
almost uniformly, the antipathy of race predominates over religion, and
utterly extinguishes brotherly love and Christian charity. This me-
lancholy fact must never be forgotten in contemplating the progress of
their power in Ireland.
" The hatred which the clergy of the conquest bore to the natives
of England, extended even to the saints of English birth, and in dif-
ferent places their tombs were broken open and their bones scattered !
All that had been anciently venerated in England was looked upon by
the new-comers as vile and contemptible. But the violent aversion of
the Normans for the English saints, had a political reason, distinct
from their common disdain for every thing that appertained to the
vanquished, * * as the people's veneration for them fostered
the spirit of revolt, and consecrated all the old recollections of bravery
and liberty. The foreign priests, therefore, with Lanfranc at their
head, lost no time in proclaiming that the Saxon saints were not true
saints, nor the Saxon martyrs true martyrs."*
One hundred years after the conquest of England a party of the
bold and adventurous Norman race, who had been engaged in the
subjugation of Wales, accepted the invitation of Dermot M'Murrough,
king of Leinster, and came over to try their fortune in Ireland. They
consisted of Robert Fitzstephen, Maurice Fitzgerald, Harve de Monte
Marisco, and David Barry, witli 400 knights, esquires, and archers.
Two years afterwards they were followed by Earl Strongbow with
large reinforcements. These Normans were soldiers by profession.
They were clothed in complete armour ; their horses also were covered
and barbed with steel, perfectly trained a heavy and invulnerable ca-
valry, whose shock overturned the small, defenceless, and undisciplined
horses of the Irish. The latter laboured likewise under an immense dis-
advantage from the nature of their arms, which consisted of small steel
axes, long slender javelins, and short and very sharp arrows. These
availed little in a close engagement against broad swords and heavy
lances, wielded by men dexterous from long practice and confident in
the security of their armour, whose very novelty and formidable ap-
pearance struck terror into the people, and on some occasions pro-
duced a panic, and thereby gave an easy victory. The Danes of AVex-
ford were thus terrified when they first beheld the invaders approach-
ing them across the plains of Barguy, on whose coast they had landed.
After resisting two assaults within their walls, they took the advice
* Norman Conquest, B. 5.
14 THE RIGHTS OF rRKLAND.
of their bishop, were reconciled to their king, Dermot, and opened
their gates to the Normans. Dermot, of course, had a numerous force
of his native partizans to assist his foreign allies, and therefore he
found it easy to bring back his subjects to their allegiance. A pres-
tige of terror accompanied the name of the strangers rumour magni-
fied their power ; and, as a consequence, the southern kings were
not able to bring sufficient force into the field ; and therefore were
obliged to do homage to Henry, which, in that age, was a mere matter
of form in the case of sovereign princes. But notwithstanding all the
advantages of the English in the points adverted to, increased as
they were by the erection of strong castles, they must have been de-
feated and extirpated by overwhelming numbers and valour, but for
causes to which we will now advert, and which must be noticed in
order to vindicate the character of our brave people, and to show
them that if their forefathers had got fair play their beloved country
would be an independent and glorious nation still !
I. The first of these causes is internal division the hereditary curse
of Ireland. Five kings, all virtually sovereign and equal, reigned
over the country. Their rival claims and mutual animosities kept the
people in perpetual strife, which was inflamed by an unfortunate law
of succession, called Tanistry, which allowed of election to the throne
within the royal family, giving rise to intrigue, jealousy, mortifica-
tion and revenge. And, what made matters worse, the heir presump-
tive to the throne was chosen immediately after the coronation of his
predecessor, which sometimes led to the murder of the king. One of
the kings, it is true, was lord paramount, or supreme monarch of the
whole island, but this was a mere nominal rank, for he had little or
no corresponding authority. There was, therefore, no central power
strong enough to bring the national forces to bear against a common
enemy no rallying cry that could gather the various principalities,
tribes, and clans under one national banner. Isolated and mutually
hostile, each became an easy prey to the invader, who had, indeed,
been basely brought into the country by one of its own unworthy
kings.
But let it not be supposed, as has been represented, that this na-
tional dissension is peculiar to Ireland a vice inherent in the people.
We have seen that similar disunion among the Saxon chiefs proved
equally fatal in England. At a critical moment during the invasion,
a powerful prince, influenced by some personal pique, marched oflf his
forces when the conqueror was approaching the gates of London,
which surrendered to him without striking a blow. To compare Ire-
land in the twelfth century with England in the nineteenth is absurd.
THE EIGHTS OF IRELAND. 15
Read the history of Europe in the middle ages, and you will find
oppression, division, revolt, truce-breaking, and insecurity of royal
life as prevalent in every nation as in Ireland. Not to speak of the
tumults of ancient Greece and Rome, the factions of Italy, the assassi-
nations of Spain, or the dreadful civil wars between rival houses
under the monarchy of England, it is enough to mention that " du-
ring the heptarchy in England twenty-eight Saxon kings were mur-
dered, the most of them one by the other. In the kingdom of Nor-
thumberland alone four kings were assassinated and three deposed
within the space of forty-one years ; so that this people remained
without a king thirty years, no one daring to assume the title or the
reins of government."*
Italy was the most civilized portion of the continent in the middle
ages, and yet Mr. Hallam describes the state of society in the follow-
ing manner : " The private history of many families, such for instance
as the Scala and Gonzaga, is but a series of assassinations. The
ordinary vices of mankind assumed a tint of portentous guilt in the
palaces of Italian princes. Their revenge was fratricide, and their
lust was incest."f
How tolerant are English rulers and writers of continental iniqui-
ties, while the least speck on the Irish character is magnified into a
monstrous eye-sore ! If Ireland has been longer afflicted than other
countries with " internecine bigotry," the causes of this disastrous
distinction will be found to attach not so much to her as to her
accusers.
II. Another reason for the facility with which the Anglo-Normans
effected a settlement in this country, among a people so devoted to
liberty, is that they had not only been exhausted with their own civil
wars, but had maintained with the Danes a struggle, rarely remitted,
for nearly three hundred years. Our unfortunate peasantry were
then as well accustomed to invasion and robbery as they arc now to
semi-starvation. It was not a strange, unheard-of visitation, startling
a whole nation into oblivion of everything but self-defence, as would
be the landing of an invading army on our shores now. We are per-
petually in danger of fallacy from not adverting to the terribly dis-
ordered, lawless and unsettled character of the times of which we are
treating. Society throughout Europe was then dissolved into its ele-
ments ; things human and divine were mixed up in wild confusion,
* Mac Geoghegan's History of Ireland, ch. <>.
f Middle Ages, vol. 1, p. 300.
16
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the chaotic masses fermenting and exploding, and rushing now in one
direction and now in another as they found vent.
The hardy Northmen, demoralized by a life of robbery, made reck-
less by sea-faring adventures, proud and pampered from the spoils
so rapidly acquired, inflamed by the fanaticism of a cruel idolatry, and
multiplying fast in their cold climate, poured into Ireland in such
quick succession, and marked their progress with so " wide a latitude
of ruin," that the approach of the English was regarded at first but as
a mild form of a periodic calamity. Large numbers of Danes had
colonised the Eastern coast, and having founded trading establishments,
were the chief people in the maritime towns. Dublin, Wexford, and
Waterford, were, in fact, Danish cities. They could not be expected
to make common cause with their old enemies, the natives ; nor could
the mutual confidence necessary to unity of action subsist between
them. Between men of different race, bearing the relation of con-
querors and conquered, bad faith and treachery are almost matters of
course. The Dano-Irish had no country to fight for, no venerable
ancestry to appeal to them from their violated graves, no inspiring na-
tionality to defend. Self-interest alone led them to protect their homes
and their property, but this very principle would induce them to enter
as soon as possible into a compromise with invaders of their own race.
Couple this influence with that of Mac Murrough, over his Leinster
subjects, and you have a combination of circumstances most favourable
to the Normans, landing as they did, in that part of the country. It
would have been very different, had they made their descent on the
Western or Northern coast, with no traitor king to harbour them, and
no resident strangers to be friendly or neutral.
III. There is another more important point of view still, in which
this foreign colony exerted a most fatal influence on the destinies of
Ireland. The Danes were converted to Christianity ; but retaining
their national antipathy, they aspired to have bishops of their own race
placed over them in the towns where they dwelt. These kept up a
correspondence with the Norman prelates of England ; and as there
were then differences in discipline between the Anglican and the Irish
churches, they were induced to decline the jurisdiction of the Primate
of Ireland, and to place themselves under the See of Canterbury.
This will partly account for the fact that the bishop at Wexford, and
other Danish prelates, pleaded for peace with the foreigners. Subse-
quently, Archbishop O'Toole, like Thomas & Becket, vindicated his
native blood by contending nobly for the liberties of his countrymen.
IV. A fourth reason, more powerful than any, must be assigned for
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 1J
the subjugation of the Irish nation. The Pope then claimed and pos-
sessed temporal jurisdiction, or rather sovereignty, over the nations ;
and to the great detriment of the Catholic religion, as all its wisest advo-
cates are now ready to admit, several of the greatest monarchs of Europe
held their kingdoms as fiefs of the Apostolic See. Among these was
Henry the Second, a man of stern tyranny and unbounded licentious-
ness. By his intrigues at the court of Rome, and the false represen-
tations of his creatures in Ireland, he managed to persuade his Holiness,
that it would be for the interest of religion that he (Henry) should
become lord of Ireland, paying tribute to the chair of Peter, as a
feudatory, for he had long set his heart on the conquest of this kingdom.
He the more readily succeeded in this nefarious purpose, as Adrian
IV., the reigning Pope, was an Englishman. Besides this, one or two
Danish bishops, those of Limerick and Lismore, had become legates of
the Apostolic See in Ireland. Malachi, Archbishop of Armagh, whose
investiture had been resisted at home, went to Rome to solicit the
Pallium. This was declined at first, but in 1152, Cardinal Paparo
came over, and formally bestowed that mark of Papal jurisdiction on
the four Archbishops at the Synod of Kells, three of them, Dublin,
Cashel, and Tuam, having been then raised to the dignity of metro-
politans.
Thus were most of the higher clergy secured to the English interest.
On them, foreign connexion soon produced its usual effects. A cor-
rupt ambition was fostered by the intrigues of the Norman court. The
aspirations of these prelates were attracted from their own country and
its liber-ties, to the quarter whence the most worthless might look for
preferment. Hence, twenty years after the reception of the Palls,
namely, in 1 172, " Christian, bishop of Lismore, and legate of the holy
See; Donat, Archbishop of Cashel; Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin;
and Catholicus, Archbishop of Tuam ; with their suffragans, and a
great number of abbots, archdeacons, priors, deans, and other prelates
of the church of Ireland, held a council in the city of Cashel, by order
of King Henry; in which, after a strict investigation into the degene-
racy of morals in that country, an address was prepared, sealed with
the seal of the legate, to be sent to the court of Rome, in compliance
with which, Alexander, who was then pope, granted the sovereignty
of Ireland to Hemy, on condition that he would propagate there, the
faith and ecclesiastical discipline, according to the rules of the English
church."*
* Giraldus (..'luubrcnsis, lliber. Expug, Lib. I, c .'11. Sec Mac (..cojjK'jran'*
Irish History. Duffy's edition, p. 241.
c
18 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Henry had many years previously obtained a bull from Adrian ;
but he had been so busy quelling insurrections among his subjects in
France, that he could not attend to Ireland, till the visit of Dermot
brought the question urgently before him. Having made peace with
the Pope as well as with his own subjects, he obtained another slan-
derous bull from Alexander, founded on the misrepresentations of the
Synod of Cashel, which was, in fact, a commission of inquiry (some-
what like Lord Roden's a few years ago), appointed by Henry himself,
expressly to make out a case against Ireland, that he, forsooth, might
have the glory of reforming that naughty people ! " The transaction
presents, in all respects," says Moore, in his History of Ireland,
" a perfect instance of that sort of hypocritical prelude to wrong
that holy league for purposes of rapine,- between the Papal and the
Regal powers, in which most of the usurpations, frauds, and violences
of these dark and demoralised times, originated."
The venerable Abbe Mac Geoghegan cannot but regard these bulls
as forgeries, and he thus honourably pours forth his patriotic feelings
on the occasion :
" The above (the bull of Adrian) was an edict pronounced against
Ireland, by which the rights of men and the most sacred laws are
violated, under the specious pretext of religion and the reformation of
morals. The Irish were no longer to possess a country. That people,
who had never bent under a foreign yoke, were condemned to lose
their liberty without even being heard. But can the Vicar of Jesus
Christ be accused of so glaring an act of injustice ? Can he be thought
capable of having issued a bull which overthrew an entire nation
which dispossessed so many ancient proprietors of their patrimonies
caused so much blood to be shed, and, at length, tended to the destruc-
tion of religion in the island ? It is a tiling not to be conceived !"*
In addition to all this preparation, Henry's church friends had
written highly flattering letters to the native princes to prepare them
for the yoke. Now, with the weight of such influence on the side of
the invaders, is it not wonderful that they were resisted at all ? In
an age so ignorant, it might have seemed the will of Heaven that they
should receive the Pope's nominee as their lord. Besides, he came
professedly as a peace-maker, offering the nation a Protectorate, un-
der whose benign influence, dissensions would be healed, lawless
chiefs curbed, morals reformed, and property rendered inviolate !
Being thus acknowledged by the ecclesiastical authorities, and some
* History of Ireland, p. 238.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 19
of the Irish princes, as their lord, this pious king commenced the
work of reformation ! Under his blessed auspices, it was ordained
that marriages should be celebrated within the prohibited degrees of
affinity that children should be catechised at the church doors and
christened in a font and, above all, that tithes should be paid. Surely
the former of these improvements, if such they were, might have
been effected by the church herself without the secular authority of
a foreign king ! and as to the tithes an impost till then repudiated
in this country they will now be regarded by all parties as a very
doubtful blessing ! The new law regarding them, was explained a
few years after by a Dublin Synod, as including the tenth of all pro-
visions, of hay, flax, wool, the young of animals, and the produce of
gardens and orchards. Besides other advantages, the domains of the
church were freed from all taxes and public burdens.
Such were the powerful inducements held out by the Anglo-
Normans to the guides of public opinion in Ireland. But these gained
in power still more than in p^bperty. O'Connor and Lanigan have
shown, that under the ancient system the clergy owed their chieftain
the customary duties of clansmen, and were amenable to the ordinary
Brehon jurisdiction. It was not till the beginning of the eighth cen-
tury, they were exempted from military service. It was, no doubt,
humiliating for them to contrast this subordinate status with the
baronial power and splendour that encircled the Episcopal office
in England and on the Continent. This feeling would naturally
leave them open to the intrigues of their country's enemies. They
had, however, a more legitimate cause of complaint in the insecurity
of church property and the depredations that were committed on it in
time of war.*
How sudden and how vast the change that took place in their
social position under the English government I The writ of Henry
II. appointing Fitzadehn to the lieutenancy of Ireland, is addressed to
his " archbishops, bishops, KINGS, earls, barons, &c." Henry 111. in
commencing a writ places the name of the Archbishop of Dublin
before that of the Lord Deputy. Wherever the laws or the arms ot'
England prevailed, this new order of things was respected, but be-
yond the Pale, the clergy and the people clung to their old usages,
maintaining a virtuous independence. This melancholy chapter in
Irish history is full of instruction and learning for our oirti times '
The English government were never more eager to retnin the advo-
* O'Connor. Sen. Pis*-. '216. Lanigan, vol. 4, p. -'Of*.
20 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
cacy of the Catholic clergy, at any price, than they are at this mo-
ment. Their design is obvious to stifle the spirit of nationality,
and restore " the stillness and moral degradation of servitude." This
painful record of facts was necessary, not only to guard against pre-
sent danger, arising from Castle diplomacy, but to demonstrate that
our ancestors in the twelfth century were deceived by the Anglo-
Normans NOT CONQUERED.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 21
CHAPTER III.
THE ENGLISH PALE.
" Her sceptre, alasl passed away to the stranger,
And treason surrendered what valour had held,
But true hearts remained amid darkness and danger,
Which spite of her tyrants would not be quelled."
M. J. BARRY.
IT was no strange thing with the Normans in England to bequeath to
their children, or give as a marriage portion, towns and districts be-
longing to the Saxons or the Welsh, to be conquered, that is, seized
on by force at some future time, without the least regard to the rights
of the possessors. In the same spirit Henry II. disposed of Ireland.
" All Ireland," says Sir John Davies, Attorney- General to James I.,
" was by Henry II. cantonised among ten of the English nation :
(viz. the Earl of Strongbow, Robert Fitzstephens, Miles de Cogan,
Philip Bruce, Sir Hugh de Lacy, Sir John Courcy, William Burke
Fitz-Andelm, Sir Thomas de Clare, Otho de Grandison, and Robert
Le Poer,) and though they had not gained possession of one third
part of the kingdom, yet in title they were owners and lords of all,
so as nothing was left to be granted to the natives. And, therefore,
we do not find in any record or history for the space of 300 years
after these adventurers first arrived in Ireland, that any Irish lord
obtained a grant of his country from the crown." * He excepts the
King of Thomond, and Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, the
latter of whom retained his kingdom on condition that he kept it "in
the good and peaceable state in which he kept it before the invasion
of Ireland."
Here was a good beginning in the work of reform ! With such an
example before them, how could the " wild Irish" avoid being smitten
with the love of English justice ?
When Henry died, about a third of the island acknowledged his
sway. It was called the Pale, and lay along the eastern coast. The
* Historical Relations.
22 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Pale was extended from time to time by private adventurers, who
were rewarded and honoured for the success of these plundering ex-
cursions. The natives were all regarded as enemies, and savage out-
laws. As " mere Irish" they might be killed with impunity. If in
any case they resisted aggression, and sought to protect their firesides
and their properties, they were branded as rebels.
The Irish might easily have been brought under the dominion of
English law, if their rulers wished ; but the new military aristocracy
and their Norman prelates would not consent to this. The wider
they could blow the flame of rebellion over the land, the broader
would be their domains. " It was certainly a great defect," says Sir
John Davies, " in the civil policy of Ireland, that for the space of 350
years at least after the conquest, the English laws were not commu-
nicated to its people, nor the benefit and protection thereof allowed
them, though they earnestly desired and sought the same ; for as long
as they were out of the protection of the laws, so as every Englishman
might oppress, spoil, and kill them without control, how was it possi-
ble they could be other than outlaws and enemies to the crown of
England." Historical Tracts, p. 90.
King John granted to his Irish subjects a charter of the laws and
usages of England, to the observance of which he bound the nobles
by an oath. His son and successor, Henry III., confirmed this
charter the first year of his reign ; eleven years after he enforced it in
a mandate directed to his " archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls,
barons, knights, &c. After a second interval of eighteen years the
monarch again addressed the same personages, but in the humble
tone of supplication, " that for the sake of peace and quietness they
would permit the English laws and customs to be observed in his land
of Ireland !" " But," says Dean Murray, in his well-written, Outlines
of Irish Church History, " neither commands nor entreaties were
found availing : the lay lords of both races preferred serfs to yeo-
manry, and resolved to continue the horrors of the aboriginal system.
" In the reign of Edward I. a few broken clans and many smaller
groups of the miserable natives, the refuse of the sword and its atten-
dant horrors, were still lingering within the precincts of the English
colonies ; they were pent in those corners of the old possessions,
which had not yet attracted the cupidity of the settlers, contemptu-
ously tolerated in their ancient usages, but excluded from all the
benefits of English law and government. * * * They were not ac-
knowledged as the king's subjects, the king's courts were not open to
them ; and if the blood of a father or a brother were shed, his assassin
had only to plead that the deceased was an Irishman, and he was
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 23
secure from all vengeance but that of the Almighty. In the truce
that had naturally arisen out of their weakness, and the sated thirst
for conquest in their invaders, they received every day some new and
mortifying proof of their own destitution, and of the manifold advan-
tages enjoyed by Englishmen. * * * They made up a purse of eight
thousand marks, which they tendered to the king through his Irish
governor, with a request that he would receive them as his faithful
liege men and take them under the protection of the laws of England.
Nothing can so well illustrate their broken-hearted wretchedness as
this mode of preferring the petition ! a measure so just in itself, so
fair in its prospects, so full of glory to the prince who might conde-
scend to adopt it, was not even to be thought of by the suppliants,
unless, like too many of their unhappy posterity, they should approach
the seat of justice with a bribe" *
It is with no small pleasure I quote such passages from a dignitary
of the Irish establishment ; it shows that all who inherit the Norman
power in Ireland, do not breathe their anti-national animus, and that
on all sides party spirit is yielding to the force of trutli and justice.
On this point there is little or no difference between the Dean of
Ardagh and the author of the " Memoirs of Captain Rock." " But,"
says Mr. Moore, " the proud barons to whom he had entrusted the
government of Ireland, or in other words the Orange ascendency of
the day, could not so easily surrender their privilege of oppression,
but, preferring victims to subjects, resolved to keep the Irish as they
were." And Mr. Moore himself must admit, that never was English
oppression more dreadful to the Irish than when its instruments were
their fellow-Catholics.
Five royal families, however, were admitted to the privileges of the
Pale, the O'Neills, O'Connors, O'Briens, O'Lochlans, and Mac Mur-
roughs. No Irish but these five " bloods" could sue or be sued in an
English court of law. All not included in these tribes, were " mere
Irish," and might be shot like dogs, whenever they crossed an English-
man's path. The most atrocious crimes committed against them were
innocent : robbery was meritoi'ious ; murder, pastime ; treachery, ho-
nourable ; and the violation of female virtue, laudable. The natives
were treated not as responsible beings having rights conferred on them
by the Creator, but as wild beasts, " made to be taken and destroyed !"
How can we wonder if they, in their turn, were ferocious, vindictive,
and false to their oppressors; if they retaliated with inhuman ven-
geance, and cherished an instinctive hereditary hatred to the whole
* History of the Catholic Church in Ireland, p. 9-'5.
24 THE RIGHTS OP IRELAND.
English nation, whose power sustained such barbarous tyranny ?
Have we not in this state of things thefons malorum the fountain-
head of those perennial streams of poisoned waters which have flowed
over the Irish soil ever since, and converted what might have been a
garden of the Lord, into a moral desert ?
During the early part of the fourteenth century a kind of inter-
course had gradually sprung up between the English and the Irish,
for it is hard to force out nature by human laws. Intermarriages
sometimes took place ; some powerful Norman families adopted the
Irish language, dress, and customs. These were called " degenerated
English," and were esteemed " more Irish than the Irish themselves."
Such a process of amalgamation was deemed fatal to the " English inter-
est." A proclamation was therefore issued in the reign of Edward III.
confining all public offices to those of English birth. This excited
too much indignation within the Pale to be acted on ; but the dis-
tinction thus drawn had its effect, and nearly all the prominent places
of power were actually in the possession of Englishmen thenceforward.
In the fortieth year of this king, the lords of the Pale held a par-
liament in Kilkenny, in which they ordained that intermarriages with
the natives, or any connexion with them in the way of fostering or
gossipred, should be punished as high treason! that any Englishman
using the Irish language, dress or customs, should forfeit all his
lands and tenements that to adopt or submit to the ancient law of
Ireland was treason that the presentation of mere Irishmen to any
ecclesiastical benefice, or the admission of them into religious houses
was penal ; as well as to entertain any bard, minstrel, or story-
teller ! !
In an old state paper, quoted by Mr. O'Connell, the writer quaintly
says : " That if this lande were put once in order as aforesayd, it
would be none other but a very paradise, delicious of all plesaunce, to
respect and regard of any other lande in this worlde : inasmuch as
there never was a stranger, nor alien person, great or small, that would
avoyde therefro by his will." There certainly must have been a pecu-
liar fascination in Irish society a singular power of winning confor-
mity to its own customs, when even the proud Norman barons
required to be held to their English habits by the revolting enact-
ments just referred to. Yet such is the fact. These monstrous laws
were necessary to prevent the amalgamation of races which every
good man would have prayed for : " This interfusion would have
been rapid, and have presented a phenomenon which has not elsewhere
been met with ; for, owing to the mildness of character, and the social
atl'ubility of the natives, the conquerors felt a sort of irresistible incli-
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 25
nation to assimilate themselves to the conquered, by assuming their
manners, their language, and even their dress. The Anglo-Normans
made themselves Irish they liked to exchange their feudal titles of
earl and baron for patronymic surnames ; the Dubourgs called them-
selves M'William Bourg ; the De Veres, Mac Swyne ; the De^Langles,
Mac Costilagh ; the Fitz-Urses, Mac Mahon ; and the Geraldines,
Mac Gheroit. They grew fond of the Irish singing and poetry, in-
vited the bards to their tables, and took nurses and teachers for their
children from among the women of the country. The Normans of
England, who were so 'Jiaughty in their behaviour to the Saxons,
called this degenerating"*
Yet a people so singularly amiable and interesting were held in a
state of outlawry for hundreds of years, in order to keep up the
" English interest." An act was passed forbidding the English " to
take merchandise or things to be sold to fair, or market, or other place
among the Irish enemies" viz. the whole Irish nation ! Another
prohibited all conversation with the natives even in time of peace.
These acts (10th Henry VI.) were passed two hundred and sixty
years after the invasion of Ireland under Henry the Second, so im-
mitigable was their national animosity that time could not mollify
it ; the experience of centuries but added to its intensity. Even so
late as the 28th Henry VIII. in 1537, an act was passed "against
marrying, or fostering with or to Irishmen." On this Mr. O'Connell
pleasantly remarks : " The legislature was not so ungallant as to
prohibit marriages with Irishwomen. That would have been in-
flicting the severest possible punishment iipon themselves ; and consi-
dering the natural antipathy that the English in those days enter-
tained against everything Irish, it furnishes the strongest proof that
the Irishwomen at that time afforded the same models of beauty and
goodness for which they are celebrated at this time."f If a naturalised
Irishman happened to kill or rob, he might be treated as an " Irish
enemy" that is, slain on the spot. Worse than this if a man were
imagined to be going to rob, he might be murdered with impunity.
Again, if an Englishman were robbed or injured by a native, he
might " reprise himself on the whole sept and nation !" This was
enacted in 1475 ; and ten years after the Parliament of Dublin passed
a law, authorising the men of Ross to " reprise themselves against
robbers." " In other words," says Sir William Betliam, " they might
rob the innocent to compensate themselves for being plundered."
* Norman Conquest, Conclusion, sect. 4.
Mreland and the Irish, Duffy's edition, \~o\. 1. p. >!
26 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
In the legislation of the Parliament of the Pale, a body without
constituents, self-elected and irresponsible except to the English court,
the sublime of cruelty and terror is sometimes relieved by touches of
the ridiculous but all having the same object, to destroy every ves-
tige of nationality, so that the people could not eat, sleep, or dress
without feeling the iron pressure of foreign tyranny. Thus in 1446
it was enacted at Trim, that " any man who does not keep the upper
lip shaved may be treated as an Irish enemy." Were this law now
in force it would press hard on Colonel Sibthorpe and Lord Cardigan,
and a whole tribe of military and would-be military dandies. And
thus change the fashions of the world ! The very exquisites of ton
now glory in imitating the hairy barbarism of the " wild Irish !"
Now let it be remembered, by those who insist that the question at
issue between the Repealers of Ireland and our English rulers, is a
religious question that these savage laws were passed by a Catholic
assembly against Catholics ; by an assembly, too, in which the influ-
ence of the spiritual peers was paramount, and at a time when the
distinctions between Norman and Saxon were fast fading away in
England, where the amalgamation of the two races was carefully fos-
tered by government, and where even the language of the conquerors
was forbidden to be used any longer in the courts of law. So bitter
and enduring was the antipathy of race in Ireland ! According to a
custom called coin and livery, the English soldiers were quartered on
the people, their demands for provisions and money being regulated
by their own arbitrary will ; for they had no other pay, and possessed
unquestioned power to extort what they pleased. " This oppression
was not temporary, nor limited either to place or time ; but because
there was everywhere a continual war, either offensive or defensive,
* * * it became universal and perpetual, and indeed was the
most heavy oppression that was ever used in any Christian or heathen
kingdom. * * * The plagues of Egypt, though they were griev-
ous, were but of short continuance ; but the plagues of Ireland lasted
four hundred years together." This extortion made the land waste
and the people idle ; for who would till or manure the ground, when
the soldiers in one night consumed the fruits of all his labours ?
Hence came depopulation, the banishment, and extirpation of the
better sort of subjects, while the hopeless peasantry looked on vacantly
in idleness, or abandoned their homes for a life of beggary in foreign
countries.*
There is too much reason to believe that the following frightful
* Sir John navies' Hist. Tract, pp. 131, 132, 13.'}.
-THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 27
picture by the Rev. Dr. Leland, the Protestant historian, is not over-
drawn : " The oppression exercised with impunity in every particu-
lar ; the depredations everywhere committed among the inferior orders
of the people, not by open enemies alone, but by those who called
themselves friends and protectors ; and who justified their outrages on
the plea of lawful authority ; their avarice and cruelty ; their plun-
dering and massacres, were still more ruinous than the defeat of an
army or the loss of a city. The wretched sufferers had neither power
to repel nor law to restrain or vindicate their injuries. In times of
general commotion, laws the most wisely framed and equitably admi-
nistered, are but of little moment. But now the very source of pub-
lic justice was corrupted and poisoned."*
Martial law was common in these dreadful times. Sheriffs and
others dressed in a little brief authority, arrested and hanged the in-
nocent in great numbers, converting their confiscated property to their
own uses. During the reign of Elizabeth the natives, formerly de-
nominated the Irish enemy, came to be called Rebels. Many a time
did the Queen's forces go forth " burning the country," or cutting down
the crops with their swords, and slaughtering every man, woman and
child they met. But, as wasting fire and the remorseless sword were
insufficient to exterminate the nation, the horrible purpose was con-
ceived of creating a famine, and thereby consuming them away from
the land! We may judge of the shockingly demoralised state of public
feeling in regard.to the Irish, and the estimation in which their lives
were held, when the poet Spenser could stifle all the noble sympathies
of genius, and the very instincts of humanity, and deliberately re-
commend this awful method to rid the land of God's immortal crea-
tures ! " Being kept," said he, "from manurance, and their cattle from
running abroad, by this hard restraint, they would quietly consume,
themselves, and devour one another /"f
Just think of the rulers of a country sending their soldiers to pre-
vent the inhabitants from manuring or tilling the ground ; from pas-
turing their cattle, or gathering in the harvest ! Yet the inhuman
advice of Spenser was acted on. Through centuries of suffering the
people maintained their independence, and struggled for their national
existence ; and when they were suffered to repose, diligently culti-
vated their lands, even in Leinster, on the borders of the pale, and
established, says Leland, " an unusual regularity and plenty in their dis-
tricts." But the crops were cut down, or burned ; the country was
* Leland, book 2, c. 3.
t Spenser's State of Ireland, pp. 7'2, \Ki.
28 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
traversed by the royal troops, who drove all the horses, cattle, sheep,
goats, &c. before them, killing every human being they met, and leav-
ing nothing but ruin in their track !*
Famine and pestilence came quickly after, to devour those who had
fled from the sword of the spoiler. Let Englishmen themselves tell
the story of this calamity : " The land itself, which, before those wars,
was populous, well inhabited, and rich in all the good blessings of God,
being plenteous of corn, full of cattle, well stored with fish and sun-
dry other good commodities, is now become waste and barren, yield-
ing no fruits, the pastures no cattle, the air no birds ; the seas, though
full of fish, yet to them yielding nothing. Finally, every way the
curse of God was so great, and the land so barren, both of man and
beast, that whosoever did travel from the one end to the other of all
Munster, he would not meet any man, woman or child, saving in
towns and cities ; nor yet see any beasts, but the very wolves, the
foxes, and other like ravening beasts, many of them lay dead, being
famished, and the residue gone elsewhere."!
Hear Spenser himself describing the dreadful reality which his
poetic fancy had pictured. It seems too dreadful, even for "a stoney
heart." " Notwithstanding, the same was a most rich and plentiful
country, full of corn and cattle ; yet, ere one year and a half, they
were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stoney heart would rue
the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens, they came
creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them ;
they looked like anatomies of death ; they spoke like ghosts crying
out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they
could find them ; yea, and one another soon after ! insomuch as the
very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves, and if they
found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a
feast for a time ; yet, not able to continue there withal, that in short
space, there was none almost left, AND A MOST POPULOUS AND PLEN-
TIFUL COUNTRY, suddenly left void of man and beast.":}; Well may
we exclaim with Cowper
" There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart
He does not feel for MAN."
But we turn away willingly from these sickening horrors. Those
who wish to see the hideous details of English tyranny brought fully
* Cox's History of Ireland, p. 428 ; Carew's Ilihernia Paccata, pp. 645, 659
f Holinshed, vi. 459
f Spenser's State of Ireland, p. 165.
THE EIGHTS OF IRELAND. 29
out, with proofs and illustrations in accumulating and overwhelming
force, must read Mr. O'Connell's Memoir of Ireland.
But the fatal hour of Ireland's destiny came at last. She sold her
life dear to the enemy after a gallant struggle during the sad vicissi-
tudes ff four hundred years.
The result of English policy is expressed in the words of Sir John
Davies : " Thus had the Queen's army, under Lord Mountjoy, broken
and absolutely subdued all the lords and chieftains of the Irishry
Whereupon, the multitude, being brayed, as it were in a mortar,
with sword, famine, and pestilence together, submitted themselves to
the English government, received the Laws and magistrates, and most
gladly embraced the king's pardon, and peace in all parts of the realm,
with demonstrations of joy and comfort."
What was the relative condition of the nation, and the Pale pre-
vious to these desolating wars, in the time of Henry VIII. ? We are
enabled to answer this question most satisfactorily from a volume of
state papers lately published by authority, and from which large ex-
tracts may be seen in "Ireland and the Irish," vol. 1, 85, &c. I shall
quote a few of the most striking facts. First, then, there were more
than sixty countries called " Regions," in Ireland, inhabited by " the
king's Irish enemies, some as big as a shire, some more, some less,
unto a little ; where reigneth more than sixty captains, whereof some
calleth themselves kings, some king's peers, in their language,
some princes, some dukes, some arch-dukes, that liveth only by the
sworde, and obeyeth to no other temporal person, but only to himself
that is strong ; and every of the said captains maketh peace or
war by himself, and holdeth by sworde, and hath imperial jurisdic-
tion within his rene," &c.
In the same condition exactly were thirty " great captains of the
English noble folk," living as princes with sovereign power and inde-
pendent jurisdiction within their respective territories. The counties
that had either repelled or thrown off the English yoke are the follow-
ing : " Waterford, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, Kerry, Connaught,
Ulster, Carlow, Monughan, Westmeath, half of Dublin, half of Kil-
dare, half of Wexford." All the English of the said counties were
" of Irish habit, of Irish language, and Irish conditions, except the
cities and the walled towns." The half of Jive counties only belonged
to the English king; but " all the common people of the said hall
counties that obeyed the king's laws were, for the mo.M part, of Irish
birth, of Irish habit, and of Irish language."
It might be inferred that because the vast majority of tli<- Irish
people at that time disowned English authority, they were living
30 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
without law, and that in this wild anarchy neither person nor property
was safe. But what, in fact, was the internal condition of the country
then, and what the moral character of its people ? Mr. O'Connell
may well glory in the hereditary virtues of the race, of whose right to
self-government he has been so long the triumphant champion, while
quoting the following decisive testimonies from Englishmen and Pro-
testants :
Borlase, a bitter antagonist, admits that **the Irish themselves
were a people peaceable, harmless, and affable to strangers, and to all
pious and good, whilst they retained the religion of their forefathers."
How cruel then to make war by physical force and corruption against
the religion of a people whatever that religion may be to subjugate
conscience, and destroy in the soul the sacred principle of responsibi-
lity to GOD ! With an uneducated people especially, piety is not only
the best, but the only sure guardian of morality, and religion the most
powerful restraint against crime.
Baron Finglass, who was Chief Baron of the Exchequer, under
Henry VIIL, says : " It is a great abuse and reproach that the laws
and statutes made in this land are not observed nor kept, after the
making of them, eight days : which matter is one of the destructions
of the Englishmen of this land : and divers Irishmen do observe and
keep such laws and statutes, which they make upon hills in their own
country, firm and stable, without breaking them for any fee or re-
ward."*
Lord Coke declares that there is no nation of the Christian world
that are greater lovers of justice than the Irish are, which virtue must,
of course, be accompanied by many others."! Nor are they prone to be
insubordinate or disaffected if they get anything like fair play ; for,
says the celebrated Sir John Davies, " there is no nation of people
under the sun that doth love equal and indifferent justice better than
the Irish ; nor will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof,
although it be against themselves."^
This is not the declamation of an Irish patriot, but the sober deci-
sion of an English Attorney-General in Ireland, whose office fur-
nished the best opportunities of knowing the truth, while his position
and his prejudices would naturally render him reluctant to acknow-
ledge it.
On this part of my subject I cannot do better than avail myself of
the accurate researches of the honourable and learned author of ' Ire-
* Baron Finglass's llibernican, p. .51. f Cox's Inst. b. 4, p. -S40.
J Davits' Hist. Tract?, p. 213.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 31
land and the Irish :' " There has been lately published," says he,
" by the Irish Archasological Society, in the first volume of their
tracts relating to Ireland, a small work entitled, ' A brief Description
of Ireland, made in the year 1589, by Robert Payne,' from which I se-
lect two extracts that confirm strongly the praises bestowed upon the
Irish love of justice : ' Nothing is more pleasing unto them than to
hear of good justices placed amongst them. They have a common
saying which, I am persuaded, they speak unfeignedly, which is
Defend me and spend me : meaning from the oppression of the worser
sort of our countrymen. They are obedient to the laws, so that you
may travel through all the land, without any danger or injury offered
of the very worst Irish, and greatly relieved of the best.' p. 4.
" My next quotation is peculiarly interesting at the present mo-
ment. It shows what the corporations of Ireland were in Catholic
times, before Protestantism and exclusion were the ruling impulses :
' But as touching their government in their corporations where they
bear rule, is done with such wisdom, equity and justice as demerits
worthy commendations. For I myself, divers times, have seen in se-
veral places within their jurisdictions well near twenty cases decided
at one sitting, with such indifferency that for the most part both plain-
tiff and defendant have departed contented. Yet many that make
show of peace, and desire to live by blood, do utterly mislike this or
any good thing that the poor Irishman doth.' "
Sir John Perrot was a just governor, and of the results of his ad-
ministration Hooker thus speaks : " Every man with a white stick
only in his hand, and with great treasures, might and did travel with-
out fear or danger where he would, as the writer hereof by trial,
knew to be true." In fine, Sir John Davies, speaking of the result
of his own experience, declares his conviction that one circuit in
England furnished more malefactors worthy of death than the whole
thirty-two counties of Ireland. " For," said he, " the truth is, that in
time of peace, the Irish are more fearful to offend the law than the
English, or any other nation whatsoever." *
We have seen that the Irish were an independent and self-governed
people in the reign of Henry VIII., that they reconquered nearly the
whole of the country and hemmed in the English settlers to the nar-
rowest limits. Moreover their kings and chiefs were warlike, and we
are assured by the high authority so often quoted. Sir John Davies,
that the people were endowed with extraordinary abilities of body
and mind. Edmund Spenser himself bears this remarkable testimony
* Ireland and the Irish, vol 1. p. 110. Davies' Di*<-m-enj. &r.. p. '270.
32 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
concerning them : " I have heard some great warriors say, that in
all the services which they had seen abroad in foreign countries,
they never saw a more comely man than the Irishman, nor that
cometh on more bravely to his charge." Why then, it may be asked,
did not this gallant nation rise as with the heart of one man, and
utterly expel or extirpate the petty English colony that occupied a few
towns and castles along the coast in the reign of Henry VIII. ? And
how is it that they suffered themselves to be utterly subdued and
almost destroyed in the time of Elizabeth ? True, the fearful work of
destruction cost that haughty and unrelenting queen three millions
sterling, an enormous sum in those days and also an immense effusion
of English blood. Still, such a people ought to have defied all the
armies that Britain could bring against them, especially during a time
when her enemies on the continent were powerful.
Ireland would have defied them had she been UNITED but she was
divided and ruined ; still her fall was rather the work of famine than
the sword. Mr. O'Connell has written so well upon this point, and
conveyed a lesson of warning so apropos to the present times, that I
shall be excused for quoting it at length :
" When the English party was strong, it endeavoured by force to
put down such confederacy. But the forcible attempts were, in ge-
neral successfully resisted by the Irish ; who gained the futile glory
of many a victory over some of the most accomplished commanders of
the English forces ; but these defeats taught the English officers that
cunning which is called political wisdom. They assailed the avarice,
or fomented the resentments of particular chieftains ; and succeeded
in detaching them from the general cause. These chieftains betrayed
their companions in arms; joined their forces Avith those of. the
English ; and participated in the councils and united with the force,
which by degrees broke down the power of the other chieftains. But
the traitors obtained no permanent profit ; and no length of fidelity to
the English commanders secured them the confidence or the kindness
of their unprincipled seducers."*
* Memoirs of Ireland, p. 91, Duffy's Edition.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 33
CHAPTER IV.
THE REFORMATION.
"Wars to impose religion by force are the most execrable violation of the
rights of mankind : wars to defend it, are the most sacred exercise of these
rights." SIR JAMES MAC INTOSH.
WE have hitherto traced the deadly antagonism of races between the
English and the Irish ; we have now arrived at a period when na-
tional antipathies were inflamed by a new element religious into-
lerance. It is a great mistake to suppose that this superseded the
former. By no means ; it was superinduced upon the old hereditary
hatred, which remained in all its force, intensified by the passions of
persecution thenceforward wearing the mask of religion, and, on the
Anglican side, bearing the name of PROTESTANTISM. " The English
interest," therefore, was now called " the Protestant interest ;" and
the Irish wars were all religious. Every movement for civil liberty
or nationality was regarded as an attempt to establish "Popish ascen-
dancy ;" and all the bloody atrocities of political oppression, were to
maintain the principles of the Reformation ! The Protestants waged
war against "Popery" as the mother of Rebellion ; the Catholics could
see no distinction between " Protestantism" and Tyranny. Each party
attributed to the creed of the other every crime that might be com-
mitted or could be imagined. In this respect both laboured under a
delusion. Religion was but the decent robe that covered an old abo-
mination. Satan had not departed he was only transformed into an
angel of light, and leagued with another devil worse than himself.
" From Dermot's crime to Tudor's time
Our chins were our perdition ;
Religion's name, since then, became
The pretext for division."- T. DAVIS.
In past ages of ignorance and strife, men could not see this distinc-
tion between things sacred and things secular ; at the present day,
there are many interested parties who will not see it. The Protestant
side of this question is fairly represented by Mr. .Montgomery Martin,
34 THE UIGHTS OF IRELAND.
who has devoted a portion of his work on Ireland before and after
the Union, to a history of " the Irish Church." It may be instructive
to see his account of the matter, and while we admire his feelings
towards Catholics and his notions of religious liberty, let us not forget
that he was earnestly recommended by the Marquis Wellesley to
Lord John Russell, as admirably fitted to assist him in the government
of Ireland !
Mark the profound knowledge of history displayed in the following
sentences : " Henry (II.) was in no hurry to accept a sovereignty
which he must have been conscious ought not to be assumed by thei
Bishop of Rome ; and therefore ! for nearly 20 years the Bull of
Adrian was unheeded." p. 309.
What were the motives of Henry VIII., in casting off the supremacy
of the pope? Were they not passionate resentment and imperious -
lust ? So says history ; but listen to Mr. Montgomery Martin c^-i-,
" Henry, conscious of the absurdity of the pretensions of the Bishop of
Rome, perceiving how the people of England and Ireland were plun-
dered by various impositions, and naturally indignant at the despotic
power exercised in his own kingdom, through Papal agents, resolved
in the years 1532, and 1533, on the abolition of ' Peter's pence,' 'first
fruits,' ' tenths,' and various other taxes levied by the church of Rome,
under false and fraudulent pretences." p. 315. Not a hint does this
cautious oracle give about Henry's ivives ! He leaves out the part of
Hamlet by special desire.
According to him nothing could be more facile or complete than
the work of Reformation in Ireland. " The laity every where fre-
quented the churches. Multitudes of the priests adopted the prescribed
changes, and continued to officiate in their former cures ; and the
majority of the prelates, leading or following the POPULAR OPINION,
retained their sees, and exercised their functions according to the re-
formed ritual." p. 319. Yet, notwithstanding this current of popular
opinion in favour of the Reformation, we are told (p. 335.) that as
soon as a good opportunity occurred, " all the Irish, and several of the
English race cast off the mask of submission ; and the cry of ' Ireland
for the Irish' was raised by Tyrone, in 1603, as it is now under the
pretended garb of 'peace' arid 'loyalty,' in 1843." And no wonder,
for our oracle tells us that the prelates, who in the reign of Henry
followed or led popular opinion, were " still at heart Romanists."
He moreover assures us that the penal laws were enacted " for the
mere preservation of human life, without any reference whatever to
religion !" p. 322. Yet, on the next page but one we find this cham-
pion of the Union, whose work was to blow up the " Repeal impos-
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 35
ture," recording the fact that, in 1559, the Irish parliament, under
Elizabeth, passed " an act agaynste suche persons, as shall unreve-
rentlye spedke agaynste the Sacraments of the bodye and blode of
Christe * * and for the receivynge thereof, under bothe kyndes"
But what signify enactments to suppress public opinion and silence
free discussion ? Nothing can be more legitimate in the estimation of
Lord Wellesley's pet-reformer for Ireland, provided always that their
victims are Papists.
Victims, did I say ? What calumny ! There were no victims
Under the benignant reign of Elizabeth ! Her treatment of Ireland
was most tolerant and pacific. " There is in no one instance a harsh
or an intolerant expression ; no life was taken, or even threatened for
religious opinions, but every effort was made to instruct the people
and settle the country." In 1560, two bishops, Meath and Kildare,
refused to take the oath of supremacy ; and oh, admirable clemency !
" For this," saith Mr. Montgomery Martin, " they were not beheaded."
(p. 325.) Previous to the Rebellion of 1641, "the Romanists
laboured under no disadvantages (but such as are ?) inseparable from
a state religion. They were simply required by law, under a penalty of
one shilling, to go to the national church, and hear the Scriptures read and
taught, conformable to the usage of primitive ChriMians. Even this
enactment was not enforced." p. 339.
Query, could it be enforced ? Now, certainly, to be obliged to
attend the services of an abhorred religion, under the penalty of five
or ten shillings of our money, for every time of absence, and the still
greater penalty of being obnoxious to the fatal suspicion of treason,
may seem a very rational requirement a very great proof of
"clemency and justice," to persons with little money and no con-
science ; but I fancy very few at the present day would agree with
Mr. M. Martin, in regarding them with complacency as " inseparable
from a state religion !"
According to this most admirable instructor, every attempt of the
Irish to defend their rights, or to recover their liberties, was inspired
by the fiendish spirit of Popish persecution, delighting in Protestant
blood ; while not the least tincture of religious bigotry ever stained
the benevolent policy of England. AVe had thought that Cromwell's
atrocities, and his profane thanksgiving to the God of mercy, over
heaps of reeking carnage, were to be regarded as instances of moral
perversion, belonging to an age of social convulsion and religious fana-
ticism, which had passed away for ever, and that in these enlightened
and peaceful times, they could excite nothing but horror in any Chris-
tian mind. We were mistaken. Mr. Montgomery Martin proclaims
36 THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Oliver Cromwell as the saviour of Ireland : by Him " Ireland was
saved from final ruin! . The short-sighted moralist may condemn
the fearful slaughter at Drogheda ; but, in reality, it was AN ACT OF
MERCY to all Ireland !" p. 35 1 .
This truthful and philanthropic defender of the Union, is so inti-
mately acquainted with our affairs, past and present, that he calls
Dr.Leland, "the Roman Catholic historian." p. 352. His geography
is on a par with his history and charity ; for he tells us, that " the
objects sought by the court of Rome, were the same as those now
professed namely, 'Ireland for the Irish.' This pithy but compre-
hensive expression, meant that Ireland was no longer to be a part of
England ! ! and that the Romish and not the English church was to be
supreme." p. 340.
I should not have dwelt so long on the inexplicable ignorance, the
daring quackery, the base and brutal bigotry of this writer, if influen-
tial parties had not disgraced themselves by thrusting him forward
into a factitious importance, as the slanderer of the Irish nation, and
the wilful falsifier of its history and statistics. Besides, he appropri-
ately represents the lowest portion of the daily diminishing remnant of
a party once powerful in this country, whose memory is stored with
the traditionary horrors of '98, and whose watch-word is " no Popery."
With a cautious suppression of truth, and a bold assertion of false-
hood, he has appealed to those portions of Irish history that are fitted,
with the aid of his distortions, to excite the passions of the Protestant
people. But with the learned and eloquent Alderman Butt, we most
heartily say " Let the memory of past wrongs be forgotten ; away
with the evil spirit that would wander among the tombs, to hold com-
munion only with evil things of other days, and by an infernal necro-
mancy call from the grave the hideous spectres of forgotten crimes
to disturb the present generation with the guilt and the passions of
the past."*
The natural consequence of such violent extremes on one side, is
to produce similar extremes on the other. Never was history so per-
verted by party spirit as the Irish. The oppressor has told the story
in his own way ; and his party read nothing but what he has found it
his interest to record. This has forced the oppressed to become an
advocate in* self-defence, and to state only the side of the question
most favourable to himself. In the meantime truth has suffered, and
animosity has been kept alive. The time is come, however, when
this subject must be faithfully dealt with by Catholics and Protestants
* Discussion in the Dublin Corporation on the Repeal of the Union, p. 99.
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 37
alike. We have been misunderstanding and misrepresenting one
another too long. Religion must be kept apart in its own place, and
be left to stand on its own heavenly basis. The national unity of all
sects is an essential preliminary to self-government. But this cannot
exist without perfect and cordial toleration on both sides. If a man's
religion is to be assailed either openly or by implication, as the hand-
maid of tyranny or treason, by men with whom he is associated to
gain a common political object, l*bw can he endure this without a base
surrender of conscience ? If Catholicism be denounced as vile
idolatry, will not every honest Catholic take fire at the insult ? Shall
the Protestant sit tame and silent when the Reformation is described
on a common political platform, as the diabolical fountain of all immo-
rality ? He will ask If it were so, how could so many men equally
illustrious for their learning and virtue have been its devoted pro-
fessors ? How could so many nations in which Protestantism has
flourished for three centuries, have been distinguished as they have
been for social morality, and for innumerable monuments of benevo-
lence and piety ?
That Irish Catholics are intensely devoted to their creed, ages of
persecution have amply demonstrated. But if they think that Irish
Protestants are not in earnest in their religion, too, and ready to suffer
and die for it, they will not only sin against Christian charity, but
commit a great political error, fatal to the hope of nationality.
Protestants believe that their creed has been substantially held in
the Christian world throughout all ages ; and has no more dependant-i-
on Henry VIII. or real connexion with his character and crimes,
than it has with those of Dermot Mac Miirrough. Catholics may smile
at this. Nevertheless it is what Irish Protestants honestly believe
a fact which it is important to bear in mind in coming to an under-
standing with them as fellow-workers in the great cause of Ireland.
Hence I humbly submit that Irish Catholics should carefully distin-
guish the reformed faith from that secular, sensual, intolerant and
cruel power which in Ireland, for purposes of policy, usurped and
desecrated its name.
Dr. Smiles has clearly shown in his History, that the English church
in Ireland was as exclusive, us oppressive, as anti-Irish, when it was
Catholic as ever it has been or could be since. We have seen that,
under a Roman Catholic government, the natives of this country were
refused the rights of subjects, even when to obtain them they offered
a large sum of money to the king. It was enacted in 1417 that if a
' mere Irish priest'' were presented to a living, he should forfeit the
emoluments. So far did these proud Anglo-Norman churchmen carry
38 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
their hatred to the people, that they would not allow one of them to
enter their monasteries, nunneries, or cathedrals. It is important to
advert to these facts ; because they show that religion is only the pre-
text of English oppression. So violent was their antipathy to Ireland
in Catholic times, that the kindly charities of a common faith, the
sacred associations and sympathies that draw all men as brethren
round the same altar, could scarcely mitigate their intense, undying
hatred, fed as ij; was by plunder, and, fostered by foreign power.
Nor did this intolerance of race arise from anything repulsive in
the Irish character. We have seen that it was, on the contrary, most
attractive ; and history records that the same treatment, or worse,
was received by the conquered Saxons and Britons in England till
the vanquished and conquering races blended into one people, in obe-
dience to influences which were, unhappily, never allowed to reach
Ireland. In confirmation of this let me quote one more passage from
Thierry : Edmer, a contemporary writer, speaking of the appoint-
ment of a great number of abbots, " in the forty-first year of the
Frenchman's rule in England," says : " Of these new pastors the
greater part were wolves rather than shepherds. That such was not
the intention of the king who appointed them we must believe ; but it
would have been still easier to believe it, had he taken even a few of
them from among the natives of this country. But the difference of
nation opposed an insurmountable barrier: if you were English no
degree of virtue or merit could raise you, not even to the meanest
office, while the man of foreign birth was deemed worthy of every-
thing. We live in evil days."*
Englishmen ! Such was once the condition of your Saxon ances-
tors ; and such has been the condition of the native Irish for six
centuries. Suppose Divine Providence were to suffer some great
revolution to sweep over your soil again, like the Norman conquest,
filling all your offices in church and state with insolent, and rapacious,
and upstart Frenchmen. How would you bear it ? You would not
be the slaves to pine in these " chains unholy !" We appeal then to
your sense of justice to assist us in this peaceful struggle to burst ours.
Dr. Smiles has well described the position of the English church in
Ireland the church of the Pale and its relation to the rest of the
country from the conquest to the Reformation, during which time the
Anglo-Normans here would at any moment have said amen to the
celebrated 'sentence of Lord Lyndhurst " The Irish are aliens in
blood, language, and religion !" This old enmity reigns even still
* Norman Conquest, p. 142, English Edition.
THK RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 39
among the Catholic lords of English descent, and is, perhaps, the true
secret of their coldness towards Mr. O'Connell in the whole course of
his agitation.
Speaking of the two Catholic Churches then in the country, Dr.
Smiles, says : " The former was the Church of the invaders a badge
of conquest ; the latter was the native institution based on the affec-
tions of the people, and at all times found ranged on their side in op-
position to despotic power and authority. From the first, then, the
two Churches, though both Catholic, were greatly at variance with
each other, and were separated by differences in race, language,
political feelings, and even in ecclesiastical discipline. All attempts
to assimilate them to each other completely failed."*
There was little done in the work of Reformation in Ireland during
Henry's reign. The agents of Edward VI., or rather of Somerset,
his guardian, were more intent on this object ; but the early death of
that prince, and the accession of Mary, cut short their operations.
While this queen was burning heretics in England, the great body of
the clergy there having suddenly wheeled round at her bidding, the
Reformation was quietly abolished in Ireland, but with so little per-
secution, that many English Protestants took refuge in this country
from the cruel fanaticism that hunted, tortured, and burned their coun-
trymen at home. To the unfortunate natives of Ireland, however,
it mattered little what religion was uppermost. The English interest
was maintained with the same pertinacity and the same cruelty. The
work of extirpation and confiscation went steadily on, whether the
bloody hands that held the sword of power were Protestant or Ca-
tholic.
Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, and lo, as if by magic,
the whole priesthood of that nation, having received another touch
from the hand of royalty, found themselves Protestant once more !
This was the third turn, and it had a charm in it, for they have re-
tained the same position ever since.
" In Ireland, also," says Leland, " the far greater part of the
prelates were such as quietly enjoyed their sees by conforming occa-
sionally to different modes of religion." The great body of the priests
and people, however, were not so docile, but they suffered for their
contumacy.
During this reign there were many rebellions partial, abortive,
and driftless, provoked by intolerable local oppression outbursts of
* History of Irdaiid. p. 60.,
40 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
passion and desperation, resulting only in direful Vengeance, and in
heavy bondage to those that unhappily escaped the slaughter. The atro-
cities already adverted to, issuing in the reduction of Ireland to a de-
sert, a thousand times more dreary than if it had never been the
scene of happy homesteads, may, no doubt, be ascribed in some mea-
sure to the tyrant's plea, necessity. When England threw off the
Pope's authority, she forfeited her right to Ireland, for she took it as
a fief of the Apostolic See, and held it as its vassal. According to
the custom of the times the sovereign pontiff prepared to vindicate his
claims with spiritual weapons. The queen had been excommunicated
four times. Plenary indulgences were offered to all who should en-
gage in war against her authority ; and Gregory XIII. had himself
equipped a fleet to invade this country ; while Spain, then the greatest
naval power in Europe, terrified England with her famous Armada.
Besides all this, Ireland then abounded with foreign ecclesiastics, who
exerted all their eloquence to rouse the Catholics to rise in defence of
their religion, stimulating their courage by hopes of aid from abroad,
which hopes, by a singular fatality, have always proved delusive to
this people, and terminated in far worse than disappointment.
These proceedings naturally exasperated and alarmed the govern-
ment. They felt that not only the " Protestant interest," but the lives
and properties of the settlers were at stake. It was fear, therefore,
the most cruel of the passions, that gave the command to spare no
life and made the soldiers so eager " upon the vile rebels" that they
did not allow even the women to escape, and sometimes not the
children. It was this that blew up against the astonished heavens, the
lurid flames that issued from the nation's funeral pile. Read, then, in
the ashes and burned carcases, over which a Christian queen now
reigned, the horrors of civil war inflamed by religion !
Learn thence how needful and sacred is the task of conciliation
of popular education of legislative amelioration and the solemn
duty of executive justice and impartiality. How studiously should
the amalgamation of hostile races be promoted ! How earnestly should
intolerance be repressed ! How diligently should all men seek to mul-
tiply within the bosom of society, the moral guarantees of perpetual
peace !
The miserable remnant of the population, " the refuse of the sword,
and its attendant horrors," now quietly attended church to evade the
penalties inflicted on the absent. After such a terrific prelude to the
Reformation, they would have danced to any tune their masters might
please to pipe. They cared little in what unknown tongue English
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 41
or Latin prayers were read, since their nation had been smitten
down, and their venerable language proscribed, as the remembrancer
of their long vanished glory.
Those Protestants who have a heart to exult in this passive con-
formity, the effect not of conviction for, of a creed couched in a
strange language, they could know nothing but of overwhelming
coercion and terror should remember that the means by which it was
accomplished have entailed upon Protestantism centuries of execrating
hatred.
By a strange infatuation, in which an extravagant wish has been
father to a still more extravagant thought, Dean Murray and other
writers would teach us that the existing Protestant establishment, re-
presents the ancient Catholic Church of Ireland, the popular institution
which, as we have already seen, maintained a perpetual antagonism
to the anti-national Church of the Pale.
It is hard to imagine how any intelligent mind can come to this con-
clusion, when it is recollected that the Reformation has never yet
taken effect among the native Irish ! Within the ancient Pale
chiefly, in the maritime towns, and among the English settlers alone,
was Protestantism embraced at first, and to these limits, (with the ex-
ception of Ulster, more recently colonised,) it has been almost con-
fined to the present day. The Church of England is not a native
Church in Ireland ; nor is its creed " racy of the soil." Indeed, Sir
James Parsons, after making some fruitless efforts to propagate
Protestantism in Connaught, declared that it was impossible, as " the
very soil was Popish." Now, it was in that Province, above all
places, that foreign influence was ever most -steadily resisted, and
nativeism was most powerful. Protestant episcopalianism has never
been more than the religion of a colony in this country, and such, to a
great extent, it remains at the present moment. Not, therefore, to
the original church, planted by St. Patrick, and cherished by the
people ; not to that church which so often blessed the banner of re-
volt, and sanctified the struggles of patriotism, whose priests were
hunted like wolves, whose people were slaughtered like sheep not to
this truly, intensely IRISH Church, has the Protestant establishment
succeeded.
No that establishment is the church of the Anglo-Norman colony
a temple built from Irish ruins, in which are hung up the trophies
of foreign conquest, the detested sanctuary of the " Knglish interest,"
on whose blood-stained altar Irish nationality has been scornfully
immolated ! In assuming this position, she became the scape-goat of
both English and Papal guilt the inheritor of centuries of national
42 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
hatred ; she said, in effect, " On my head be the blood of the Irish
NATION !" In former days, the prelates of the Anglo-Irish Church
were, at their consecration, sworn on the Host, to excommunicate and
curse all persons, whatsoever, who should offend the King of England.
And, now, the strongest argument that can be used in her defence in
parliament, is that she is the guardian of English power, the guarantee
of Irish provincialism, the bond of connexion between the two king-
doms. The name and the creed are changed but, the Anti-Irish
spirit and denationalizing mission are the same. Never did church
sustain a position so unfortunate ; nor clergy labour under such fearful
moral disabilities ! They are now aware of this, but instead of
repenting and redeeming themselves from their English bonds, by be-
coming liberal and truly national ; they put history on the rack to
force a testimony in favour of a childish theory, by which they vainly
hope to escape from their obligation to Rome, for their boasted and
pride-inspiring apostolic succession, and to make out a superior claim
to the confidence of the Irish people !
Let us now see how the Reformed Church proved herself to be the
ancient and native institution. In the twenty-eighth year of Henry
VIII., cap. xv., an act was passed to abolish the Irish habit and
apparel, and requiring the people to keep their hair cropped. It
provided further that spiritual promotions should be given to those
only who spoke the English language, and who would keep or cause
to be kept " a school to learn English." Again, in the second of
Elizabeth, cap. xiii., A.D. 1559 60, it was enacted that, inasmuch
as ministers speaking the English language could not be procured in
divers places, and it was desirable that the people might have the
common prayers " in such language as they might best understand,"
provided also (and always) that the same may NOT BE IN THEIR
NATIVE LANGUAGE ;" therefore, it should be " lawful to say or use
all their common and open prayer in the LATIN TONGUE ! ! "
That is, it was desirable that the people should have public worship
performed in such language as they could best understand, provided
always that it was not in the only language which they did under-
stand ! Either the Irish peasantry must have been then a most
learned people, having a respectable acquaintance with the Latin
language, or they must have been utterly ignorant of English. Such
was the Irishism of Elizabeth's church ! And yet, Mr. Montgomery
Martin assures us, that in her reign " every effort was made to
instruct the people! and settle the country;"* and he actually asserts
* Ireland Before and After the Union, p. 325.
THE 1UGHTS OF IRELAND. 43
that the church of Ireland was, in fact, restored by Henry VIII.,
among other things to what does the reader suppose ? " Freedom
from foreign language ! ! "*
If we can imagine anything more monstrous than the conduct of
the English government, in regard to the Irish language at that tune,
it is the ignorance or audacity of its advocate in 1843.
Let us listen, however, to an author of common sense and integrity,
who, though a dignitary of the Established Church and a strong Con-
servative, who bitterly laments the passing of Catholic Emancipation
yet takes a rational and Christian view of these truly barbarous
enactments :
" Had the great enemy of truth," he says, " been the concoctor
and passer of these parliamentary and royal enactments, no surer
method could have been devised to arrest at once the progress of the
Reformation in a country whose prejudices, feelings, and best interests
were thus alike insulted. The interfering with non-essential customs,
which long habit had made a second nature, would of itself have
unsheathed the sword of resistance in the hands of a half-civilized and
enthusiastic people. But as if this were not enough, every avenue
of light and knowledge, under the withering statute-book of England,
was at once closed up by their being deprived of instruction in their
native language ; and either the hateful English, or the equally unin-
telligible Latin being substituted in its place.
" Can we," he continues, " can we suppose anything less than
judicial blindness to have prompted measures calculated at once to
exasperate prejudice, and involve in midnight darkness a people
wedded to their own customs and fond to excess of their own language?
One generation of professing (but alas, uninstructed) Protestants
passed away and another succeeded, brought up in a state of greater
ignorance and spiritual destitution than their Romish forefathers
deprived of all means of grace, and stung to the quick by the dis-
honour cast upon their national dress and language. Can we wonder
at the effects produced effects which England too justly feels the
bitterness of, even at the present day ?"f
"Well what was the state of religion in the Protestant colony
itself? What was that famous Protestant interest, for the sake of
which all national interests have been systematically sacrificed from
the Reformation until now ? In answering this question we must not
* Ireland Before and After the Union, p. .319.
t Outlines of the History of the Catholic Church in Ireland, by the Kev. R.
Murray, D. D., Dean of Ardagh, p. 12o.
44 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
forget that many of the English and German settlers were adven-
turers soldiers of fortune, accustomed to the licentiousness of camps
and free-quarters, and infected with the usual vices of men, whom
conquest had suddenly lifted from poverty to wealth and power. To
purify and mingle in one Christian brotherhood such seething masses
of population, in those unquiet times, required uncommon wisdom,
zeal, firmness, and piety in the ministers of religion. But, alas ! no
such qualities were then possessed by the Reformed clergy.
Spenser describes them in his day as being all " in a manner mere
laymen," addicted to secular pursuits, neglecting their religious duties,
and " generally lewd, licentious, and disordered." He says, the bene-
fices were so small, that those who would come over, were " mostly
unlearned men of bad note, for which they forsook England," and he
pertinently asks : " What good could any minister do among them,
who either cannot understand him, or will not hear him ?" He dis-
suades from the use of " terror and sharp penalties," which were then
" the manner," and recommends mildness and gentleness a lesson
which their successors have scarcely learned yet.
Carte, a Protestant writer friendly to the church, in his Life of
Ormond, represents the clergy of the next reign, as " generally igno-
rant and unlearned, loose and irregular in their lives and conversa-
tions, negligent of their cures, and veiy careless of observing uniformity
and decency in divine worship." Lord Strafford drew the same me-
lancholy picture of the Irish clergy : " An unlearned clergy, which
have not so much as the outward form of churchmen ; the churches un-
built ; the parsonage and vicarage houses utterly ruined ; the people
untaught through the nonresidency of the clergy, occasioned by the
unlimited and shameful number of spiritual promotions with cure of
souls ; the bishops alienating their very principal houses
and demesnes to their children and strangers."* Wentworth also
mentions the singular fact, that the wives and children of several
of the clergy were Roman Catholics ; " and there," said he, " the
church goes most lamentably to wreck." Such then was the Protes-
tant interest, that was to be preserved at all hazards by massacres,
confiscations, plantations, and Penal Laws.
* State Letters, vol. I. p. 187, apud Dean Murray.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 45
CHAPTER V.
CONFISCATION AND COLONIZATION.
" Hurra, for reoellion ! the conquerors said
The prelude to sweet confiscation !
The more of the national blood we can shed,
The better for colonization."
JAMF.S I. commenced his reign with a general jail delivery for all
"except murderers and papists." He also pronounced an anathema
on his successors if they should ever be guilty of toleration ; and
hastened to contradict a false report, that he intended to grant liberty
of conscience in Ireland ; assuring his " beloved subjects," that he
would grant no such thing.
A rebellion in the North, provoked by officials, who hungered and
thirsted after forfeitures, led to the confiscation of six counties in
that province, which was planted chiefly by Presbyterians from Scot-
land. James found some difficulty in getting the Irish Parliament to
sanction this measure ; but a stroke of his royal pen settled all. He
created fourteen new peers, and erected forty wretched hamlets and
villages into boroughs, sending members to parliament. These were
the boroughs which carried the Union, represented then, as they were
at first, by placemen and creatures of the English government. The
prosperity of the Ulster colony may be ascribed to several causes in
addition to the free and sturdy spirit of the Presbyterians ; the land-
lords were of the same race and religion with the people, who not
only enjoyed sympathy, but a tenant's right, guaranteed by custom,
and almost as valuable in the market as a perpetuity; the original
settlement provided for a middle class of proprietors ; and this was
reinforced by the Linen Trade, which gave employment, circulated
money, and ministered to personal independence and domestic com-
fort. Besides, the province is generally divided into very small farms,
and thereby brought under profitable cultivation. These various ele-
ments of prosperity should be taken into consideration by those who
contrast the North with the South, and throw the blame of all Ir. -land's
miseries on the Catholic religion.
46 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
James, " the wisest fool in Europe," was greatly pleased with his
work of plantation, which he was very anxious to extend. But there
was a slight difficulty in the way there was no more land to give
away to strangers. Not that he had any scruples about clearing off
the Irish proprietors, but he wished an excuse for doing it ; and he
thought of a plan more plausible and less hazardous than kindling a
rebellion. After ages of civil war and anarchy there necessarily
existed great confusion and irregularity in the titles to estates. Happy
thought ! He at once instituted " a commission for the discovery of
defective titles." " In consequence a crowd of lawyers, interested in '
the plunder, by the hope of sharing the booty, pounced upon Ireland
like a flock' of harpies ;" and by their chicanery and ingenuity suc-
ceeded so well, that a vast number of estates, amounting to a million
of acres of the best land in Ireland, was forfeited to the crown. At the
head of this commission was Sir William Parsons, " an unprincipled
adventurer on whom craft and crime have conferred an unenviable
notoriety."* He thereby secured his large estates in the King's
County, &c.
Wentworth came over to Ireland as Lord Deputy, with the avowed
intention of making his master " the most absolute monarch in Chris-
tendom." He carried the work of confiscation forward with the
unscrupulous vigour peculiar to his character. Parsons had got
the million acres divided among Protestants, and his successor in
this good work was resolved to adopt the same mode of rooting out
"Popery" from Connaught. But it was a very difficult work ; for
though he sought out " fit men for jurors," and gave the judges four
shillings in the pound out of the first year's rent on all the forfeitures,
and also had near the court five hundred horsemen " as good lookers
on," yet he could not in all cases obtain verdicts. But he was not to
be baffled by constitutional forms the refractory jurors and sheriffs
were fined enormously, and imprisoned in dungeons. Some were put
in the pillory, and subjected to other infamous punishments such as
cutting off their ears, boring their tongues and branding their fore-
heads with a hot iron. It was thus the soil of Connaught became the
King of England's possession, and such was the regard paid to the
sacred rights of property by the English authorities in these days.
"This just severity," says Strafford, "was expected to make all the
succeeding plantations pass with the greatest quietness that could be
imagined."
Thus, by one fell swoop, the whole Catholic population, from the lords
* Dr. Cookc Taylor. Beaumont's Ireland, vol. I. p. 01.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 47
of vast domains to the poorest tenant, were turned out of their homes
and patrimonies, reduced by an act of wholesale robbery in a single
day to pauperism, and of course rendered desperate by a burning
sense of wrong. Some left the country, some drove their cattle into
the woods and mountains, and sought a miserable existence where
English cupidity and crime could not reach them, while others became
robbers by profession and made reprisals from the settlers that now
inhabited their former homes and fertile fields. This iniquity of
Charles will appear the greater, when it is recollected that the Catholic
proprietors had actually paid him 100,000 for certain "graces," of
which the security of property was one. The king took the money,
but Stratford would not allow him to fulfil the promise. The latter
had imprisoned one of the sheriffs, concerning whom he writes, " I
hope I shall not be refused the life of sheriff Darcy ; my arrows are
cruel that wound so mortally ; but it is necessary that the King
should keep his right." This sheriff, who died of bad treatment in
prison, had been fined 1000. The Galway jury had been all arrested,
brought prisoners to Dublin, fined each 4000, and required to con-
fess themselves guilty of perjury on their knees.
Consider the state of a whole people, brooding (exiled and home-
less) over wrongs like these, and can you imagine anything more na-
tural than that they should seek sympathy and aid in foreign nations,
and that they should not hesitate a single moment when the oppor-
tunity offered to recover their rights by force, since the government
of the country was nothing better than on oligarchy of robbers !
Hated, no doubt they were, as English and as Protestants. For a
cry had been raised in England and echoed in Dublin that the Irish
Catholics must be extirpated ; the alarm excited by this, precipitated
the Rebellion of 1641, when O'Neill found himself suddenly at the head
of 30,000 soldiers, with the avowed object of recovering Catholic
property. Hence the insurgents at first contented themselves with
dispossessing and plundering the Protestants ; but as the work of
violence went on, and encountered resistance and reverses, it became
more sanguinary and cruel. It is not fair, therefore, to represent
this outbreak, deplorable and dreadful as it was, as a Protestant mas-
sacre, like that of St. Bartholomew's in France. It was Protestant in
one sense, inasmuch as it was then, unhappily, impossible to .separate
Protestanism from plunder; but it was essentially a struggle to recover
the forfeited property, which would have been equally ferocious if the
settlers had been Catholics.*
Cromwell left the country, and the conduct of the war fell to inferior
* Cromwell's commissioners represent the number of Protestants who pc-
48 THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
men, who could not so well restrain the fury of the soldiers. The
English forces were at length triumphant. But ten years civil war
brought on famine and pestilence, which devoured what the sword had
left. Irishmen were now killed in cold blood wherever they were
encountered. Extermination was the order of the day. The devoted
people were even hunted to their hiding-places, and smoked out of the
dens and caves, where they lay concealed. Some threw themselves
from rocks into the lakes and rivers, and thus terminated their exist-
ence. You might travel 20 miles through the country and not see a
living creature. Soldiers would tell stories of places where they saw
smoke, so rare were the signs of life in the land !
The country was AGAIN CONFISCATED, and the land, measured and
divided, was granted to those who had advanced money, on speculation,
to support the war. A thousand acres were obtained in Ulster for
200, in Connaught for 300, in Munster for 450, and in Leinster
for 600. The natives were all banished to Connaught, or rather
to the most barren parts of it, for the conquerors retained a breadth
of four miles along the shore of the Atlantic, and of two miles along
the rich banks of the Shannon. Thus penned in on every side, the
Irish had neither houses to shelter them, nor cattle to stock the land,
nor food to eat, nor seed to sow. If any four men assembled together,
they were guilty of a capital offence. If a poor Roman Catholic met
his beloved pastor, or any other priest on the high way, and did not in-
form against him, he was punished by whipping. When a robbery was
committed in a neighbourhood, the peasantry were obliged to restore
the value three-fold. Those who passed over the border were shot.
Two men did so on one occasion : one of them was slain by the guard,
the other was brought before Ludlow. " Have you a mind to be
hanged ?" asked Cromwell's general. " If you please, sir," was the
reply. So intolerable was then the life of an Irishman !
The hanging of priests was a matter of almost daily occurrence ;
and long after, priest-hunting was a favourite sport in Ireland, and
the prey of these mighty hunters were tracked to their retreats by
blood-hounds a word which half a century ago thrilled the heart of
the Irish peasant with nameless horror. What a fiendish passion is
bigotry ! What a dreadful scourge is military rule and irresponsible
power ! How fearful are the natural and necessary results of uncon-
trolled ascendancy !
The good Lord Deputy, Henry Cromwell, carne over, and was
rishod (not in fair fight) throughout Ireland, during the war, at 9000 ; and
Dr. Lingard has proved that in not one of the public despatches of the time, is
the outbreak called a "Protestant massacre" a fact which seems decisive of the
question.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 49
amazed at the desolations wrought by his countrymen. He found that
they had scarcely left a house standing on the island out of the walled
towns. He at once abated the plague of persecution, established just
laws, and shielded the people from oppression. He traversed the
whole country, examining its resources and planning improvements.
He fostered learning, and munificently purchased the library of Arch-
bishop Ussher, out of his own pocket, for the public good. Thus did
he win the affections of all the people, with the exception of the
soldiers, whose bigotry he repressed. The father's cruelties were for-
gotten in the humanity, justice, urbanity, and beneficence of the son.
Such was his integrity, that after four years spent in the country, he
had not money enough to take him to England. He acquired no estates
by robbery, shared no portion of the national plunder, and made no
fortune by corruption. Under his peaceful government, the country,
literally a desert, was soon clothed again with golden harvests.
Buildings and regular plantations sprang up, and a grateful and loyal
people, sat at their firesides in safety. Take the Irish in the right
way, and there is nowhere a people more easily governed, or more
forgetful of injuries !
Charles II. was restored to the throne of England. In his cause the
the Irish had sacrificed all. For his sake vast multitudes of the people
perished. The nobles had been banished, their estates were confis-
cated, and what property they could bring with them, they freely
imparted to the exiled monarch. He was liberal in promises, that
when he returned to power he would reward them richly, or at least
give them back their own. But he confirmed the Irish Cromwellians
in their newly-acquired property, though they won it in rebelling
against his throne ! He denounced the friends that fought under his
O O
own royal banner as rebels, and laughed to scorn their claims upon the
forfeited lands !
The church of England was again fully re-established in Ireland,
as most favourable to absolute monarchy. Twelve bishops were con-
secrated with ostentatious pomp, in order to indicate the king's inten-
tions, which were zealously seconded by the Duke of Ormond, who
hated the Puritans as much as the Catholics. The religious ardour
of the former soon languished in the sunshine of power. Their ill-
gotten property was fatal to their piety. Grateful to the king for
securing them in the possession of their estates, they quietly conformed
to prelacy, as the most suitable religion for a gentleman. Still they
were but indifferent episcopalians. The essence of their Protestantism
consisted in hatred to Popery, which they regarded a> identical with
rebellion, and they dreaded that, as involving the loss of the forfeited
E
50 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
lands. The seeds of Irish Protestantism then and thus sown, have
borne ample fruits to the present day.
The question of the forfeited estates having been referred to the
government in London, deputations went from both sides ; but the
Protestants prudently took with them 30,000 for judicious distri-
bution, and having sent a similar bribe to Onnond, the decision was
given in their favour. However, the Catholics gained something
whereupon a cry of " No Popery" was vehemently raised, and a Pro-
testant conspiracy was got up. It was discovered, and the leaders
partially punished. An act was then passed, for ever barring all fur-
ther investigation into forfeited estates, which the Roman Catholics
called the Black Act, and the Cromwellians, the Magna Charta of
Irish Protestants. The parliament was then dissolved, not to be called
again for 27 years. The king increased his own revenue from Ireland,
by 80,000 a year, which he squandered on his courtezans and other
vile creatures that ministered to his detestable passions. Thus were
the Irish rewarded for their stupid attachment to the house of Stuart,
which the Catholic writer, O'Connor, could account for only by their
firm belief in the Divine right of kings an attachment, says he,
"which made Popery and slavery be regarded as synonymous terms."
The imbecile tyrant, James II., ascended the throne, and too closely
imitated the intolerant exclusiveness of his predecessors. He super-
seded Protestant officers, both civil and military, and replaced them
by Catholics. He seized on the seats of learning, and dismissed their
Protestant governors and professors in like manner. He had, more-
over, the arrogance to use the following words in a proclamation :
" We, by our Sovereign authority, royal prerogative, and absolute
power, do hereby give and grant our royal toleration * * * * to
moderate Presbyterians, to worship in their private houses !" &c.
But the " moderate Presbyterians," fearing that the same grace would
be extended to the " Papists," rejected the boon " as a snare !"
James's legislation in Ireland, however, was better than the times.
His measures were favourable to liberty, and he ordained that all
should pay tithes to their own pastors. But nothing could now avert
" the glorious Revolution" glorious for England and for Orangeism,
but to Ireland a fresh fountain of calamities !
Ireland, as if destined to be a perpetual battle-field, became now the
arena on which two monarchs contended in person for the imperial
crown. Previous to their meeting on the banks of the Boyne, Lon-
donderry had won for itself immortal honour by its noble defence
against the forces of James. The story of this siege, no matter how
simply and artlessly told, is one of the most thrilling in all history.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 51
No lover of liberty can read it without confessing in tears his sym-
pathy with the heroic men who, when maimed by the enemy's cannon,
and reduced to skeletons by famine and disease, still tittered with
their dying breath the magical watchword " No SURRENDER !"
The Protestants had not all the glory of these wars. Athlone was
defended by the Irish with valour, obstinacy, and success, equal to
what Derry evinced, till the ungrateful king for whom they fought
superseded the noble Sarsfield, and placed over his head the French
coxcomb, St. Ruth. He withdrew the veteran and triumphant gar-
rison, replaced them with inferior soldiers, and then spent the time
in feasting and revelry, while William's forces were storming the
town. At Aughrim, the Irish had decidedly the advantage, accounted
for by their numbers and position, as well as by their bravery, till the
fall of St. Ruth.
It was in vain that breaches were made in the walls of Limerick,
and that the most daring of the besiegers rushed forward against the
foe. Body after body of volunteers in this desperate assault were
cut down to a man ; the women, seizing the swords of the fallen,
and fighting with fury in defence of their husbands and their children.
The English general was about to raise the siege in despair when one
Clifford, for a splendid bribe, " sold the pass," and thus the assailants
gained by treachery what they could not accomplish by force. Yet
the city held out still, and did not capitulate except according to the
terms of a most honourable treaty, signed only two days before a
French fleet appeared for its relief in the Shannon.
This treaty, we are sorry to say, was nine years after nominally
ratified, but virtually and shamefully violated by the English Parlia-
ment, as it had been all along practically disregarded by the Irish
Protestants.
Thus ended the war. Confiscation followed again, of course ! On
this occasion were forfeited 1,060,000 acres, belonging to 3,921 per-
sons, then worth 3,319,943! The following is from Lord Chan-
cellor Clare's celebrated speech on the Union :
ACRF.S.
" The superficial contents of the island, .... 1 1, 042,682*
" Let us now examine the case of the forfeitures :
Confiscated, in the reign of James I., the whole pro-
vince of Ulster, 2.8;?6,837
Let out by the Court of Claims at the Restoration, . 7.800,00(1
Forfeitures of 1688, l.()6o.62!
* That is, the arable part. The island contains altogether about twenty mil
lions of acres.
52 THE RIGHTS OP IRELAND.
" So that the whole of your island has been confiscated, with the
exception of the estates of five or six old families of English blood.
And no inconsiderable portion of the island has been confis-
cated twice, perhaps thrice. The situation therefore of the Irish nation
at the Revolution stands unparalleled in the history of the habitable
world. * * * The whole power and property of the country have
been conferred by successive monarchs of England upon an English
colony, composed of three sets of English adventurers, who poured
into this country at the termination of three successive rebellions.
Confiscation is their common title ; and from their first settlement
they have been hemmed in on every side by the old inhabitants of
the island brooding over their discontent in sullen indignation."
How wretched must have been the condition of this outcast, out-
lawed, and beggared population ! Many emigrated ; many died of a
broken heart and of hunger ; many perished by violence or by law.
Others laboured as serfs for their daily bread on the lands of their
forefathers. But a great number, too proud to stoop to this, formed
themselves into banditti ; and under the names of Rapparees and
Tories, infested the country, living by robbery, and taking shelter in
the woods and mountains, where some remnants of them were found
lingering for a long time after. This line of life was regarded by the
peasantry as the last refuge of patriotism, and those who followed it
were concealed and protected by them to the utmost of their power.
It was so in England also after the Conquest. Hence the approving
sympathy with which they once read such books as The Irish Rogues
and Rapparees ; Freny, the Robber ; Redmond O'Hanlon, &c.
In the terrible disorganization of those times when, amidst the
ashes of ruined homesteads and burned title-deeds, FORCE, with bloody
hoofs trampled down every notion of right and justice we may dis-
cover the source of that popular sympathy with the victims of the law
which operates so mischievously at the present day. This would have
been the case for a long time even if the administration of justice had
not been confined to the hands of the conquerors, or if it had been
dealt out equally to the Protestant and the Catholic, the rich and
the poor.*
* Sir William Petty calculates that more than half a million Irish perished by
the sword, pestilence, famine, &c., between 1641 and 1652.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 53
CHAPTER VI.
THE PENAL CODE.
" By a certain class of statesmen and by all men of harsh and violent dispo-
sition, measures of conciliation, adherence to the spirit of treaties, regard to
ancient privileges, or to those rules of moral justice which are paramount to all
positive right, are always treated with derision. Terror is their only specific,
and the physical inability to rebel, their only security for allegiance. " HALLAM.
THE seventeenth century was one of rebellion and confiscation, with
the usual train of horrors famine, plague, and desolation. The
eighteenth century was the era of persecution, in which law did the
work of the sword more effectually and safely. Then was established
a code, framed with almost diabolical ingenuity, to extinguish natural
affection, to foster perfidy and hypocrisy, to petrify conscience, to
perpetuate brutal ignorance, to facilitate the work of tyranny by ren-
dering the vices of slavery inherent and natural in the Irish character,
and to make Protestantism almost irredeemably odious as the mon-
strous incarnation of all moral perversions. Too well did it accomplish
its deadly work of debasement on the intellects, morals, and physical
condition of a people, sinking in degeneracy from age to age, till all
manly spirit all virtuous sense of personal independence and respon-
sibility was nearly extinct ; and the very features, vacant, timid,
cunning, and unreflective, betrayed the crouching slave within.
Having no rights or franchises, no legal protection of life or pro-
perty, disqualified to handle a gun even as a common soldier or a
game-keeper, forbidden to acquire the elements of knowledge at home
or abroad, forbidden even to render to GOD what conscience dictated
as His due what could the Irish be but abject serfs? What nation
in their circumstances could have been otherwise ? Is it not amaxing
that any social virtue could have survived such an ordeal ? that any
seeds of good, any roots of national greatness could have outlived such
a long, tempestuous winter ?
To keep up this state of things, the Protestants lived in perpetual
terror. And, in return for English military protection, the Irish Par-
liament gave up their trade, the purblind monopoly of that day do-
54 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
manding the sacrifice, by which 42,000 families, chiefly Protestant,
were suddenly thrown out of employment.
The Roman Catholics were recognized only as the enemies of the
state. The tone of their rulers encouraged the cruel, and avaricious,
and unprincipled among Protestants, to indulge in every excess.
" The whole people," says Dr. Smiles, " were like plants whose roots
are in the air. They had no hold on the soil. They were landless,
and lay naked and exposed on the surface of the earth, a nation of
beggars." The state of Irish society towards the close of the last
century may be inferred from a single case. Lord Doneraile horse-
whipped a venerable old priest at his own cottage door. The aged
pastor ventured to take an action against the noble lord ; but no man
at the Munster bar would take his brief against so powerful a per-
sonage, till Curran volunteered his services.* When another priest
ventured, for the first time after the relaxation of the penal code, to
walk out on the public street, he held down his head like a conscious
felon, as if he were still stealing a little liberty.
The penal code during one hundred years produced only about
4,000 converts ; and so little satisfied was the government with their
.sincerity, and so distrustful of its own " carnal weapons," that a law
was enacted to the effect that no convert should hold any office till he
was seven years a Protestant, producing a certificate that he received
the sacrament regularly all that time. Many of them died professing
the faith of Rome, which gave rise to the Orange proverb " Once a
Papist, a Papist for ever," as if there never had been any converts
except those of their own making ; and as if Luther, Calvin, and
Knox had died in the arms of the Pope ! Burke, in his letter to Lord
Kenmare, speaks of a race of Irish bigots, not quite extinct even in
our own day, " who never saw a man (by converting) escape out of
their power but with grudging and regret ;" and " who would have
become Papists in order to oppress Protestants, if, being Protestants,
it were not in their power to oppress Papists."
That great man, who lias had so few equals, and, perhaps, no su-
perior, among orators and statesmen, has stated that when he was
in Ireland, he had sufficient means of information regarding the
ordinary proceedings of those who executed the penal laws " in-
human proceedings," he calls them, " among which were many
cruel murders, besides an infinity of outrages and oppressions,
unknown before in a civilixed age," all in consequence of " a pre-
tended conspiracy among Roman Catholics.'' The denial of educa-
* Life uf Curran, by a Barrister, Duffy's Irish Library, >'o. II. p. xxi.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 55
tion be calls "part of a horrible and impious system of servitude."
And he adds : to render men patient under the deprivation of
all the rights of human nature, everything that could give them a
knowledge or feeling of those rights was rationally forbidden. " To
render humanity fit to be insulted, it was fit that it should be de-
graded." Therefore he calls the penal code " a truly barbarous
system, where almost all the parts were outrages on the rights of hu-
manity, and the laws of nature ;" by which the Irish people were
" under an irreversible outlawry from our constitution, as perpetual
and unalliable aliens ;" obliged to wear at the same time a " stigma of
reproach and a hideous mask." He describes it as " a complete sys-
tem a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance ; and as well fitted
for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and
the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from
the perverted ingenuity of man ;" " the declared object" of which
was " to reduce the Catholics of Ireland to a miserable populace,
without property, without estimation, without education."
He declares that the Protestants of Ireland, after the Revolution,
considered themselves as nothing but " a sort of colonial garrison to
keep the natives in subjection to the other state of Great Britain. * *
What was done was not in the spirit of a contest between two reli-
gious factions, but between two adverse nations. Unheard of confis-
cations were made in the northern parts upon grounds of plots and
conspiracies, never proved upon their supposed authors. The war of
chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile statutes,
until this species of subtle ravage, being carried to the last excess
of oppression and insolence under Lord Stratford, it kindled the flames
of that rebellion which broke out in 1641. * * All the penal laws
of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the
last event, were manifestly the effect of national hatred and scorn
towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon
and were not at all afraid to provoke." Why not afraid ? Because
they " looked to the irresistible force of Great Britain for their sup-
port in these acts of power. They were quite certain that no com-
plaints of the natives would be heard on this side of the water with
any other sentiments than those of contempt and indignation. Their
cries served only to augment their torture. Every men-
sure was pleasing and popular, just in proportion a.- it tended to ha-
rass and ruin a set of people who were looked upon a.- enemies to
God and man. and indeed as a race oi' bigoted savages who \veiv a.
disgrace to luiman nature itself.''*
J.urke's letter to Sir HiT'/uk- Lan.un-li
56 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
It needs but a little reflection to convince us that the principal faults
of the Irish character, and all the anomalies of their social condition
have arisen naturally out of the equally absurd and cruel policy of
England. For instance, the Irish peasantry have been charged with
a propensity to falsehood. But has not this propensity been the vice
of all oppressed people in every land, from the children of Israel in
Egypt down to the slavish population of India, or the poor Negroes
in America ? Does it not often furnish the only means of evading the
sudden fury of passionate tyranny, and saving the innocent from ruin ?
"What is more natural to the weak than to try to baffle violent physical
force by ingenious fraud ; or to suspect an enemy in every one whose
garb bespeaks his connexion with the ruling class, especially in a
country like Ireland, where everything deemed patriotic, virtuous or
sacred, could exist for centuries only by concealment from the ven-
geance of the law ?
The same remark applies to the courts of justice, where, in many
cases, the witness sets himself determinately against letting out the
truth. There is scarcely any criminal so friendless in Ireland as not
to be able to get some compassionate neighbour to prove an alibi, let
his guilt be ever so palpable. This is a great evil ; but so long as the
law is regarded in the light of an engine of oppression by which a
hostile race and an alien church have worked their dominant will
against the masses of the people, what else can you expect but the
perversion of moral feeling quoad their enemies above mentioned ?
For to one another the Irish are candid, confiding and truthful !
These laws were aimed not at the religion of the Catholic only, but
still more at his liberty and his property. He was not eligible to sit
in parliament ; he could not vote at elections ; he could hold no com-
mission in the army or navy, nor any office under the crown ; and
every liberal profession was closed against him but that of medicine ;.
he could enjoy no freehold property, nor was he allowed to have a
lease for a longer term than thirty-one years : but as even this term
was long enough to encourage an industrious man to reclaim waste
lands and improve his worldly circumstances, it was enacted that if a
Papist should have a farm producing a profit greater than one-third
of the rent, his right to such should immediately cease, and pass over
to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. It was
thus that the fostering government in England encouraged agricul-
tural improvement in those days ! And yet ignorant Englishmen
have presumed to talk flippantly of the slovenly farming of the Irish,
and the absence among them of domestic comfort and a provident
regard to the iuture. Why, if a man were seen with a decent coat
TRE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 57
on his back, or a good dinner on his table, or if he built a neat house,
the Protestant discoverer, who lurked about watching for his prey,
would be furnished with the coveted proof that his neighbour was
getting too well off for a Papist, and therefore should resign his pro-
perty to one whose religion entitled him to be respectable.* In like
manner if he were detected with a horse worth more than five pounds
he should at once give him up to the discoverer for that sum, except
he were merely breeding good animals for his betters. If he were
guilty of concealing a sprightly horse he was subject to a penalty. It
was by such means the law taught the Irish Catholic civilization, and
taught the Protestant to love his neighbour as himself !
This same paternal law this gift of " the glorious Revolution"-
shut out all Catholics from the corporations, and subjected them to
heavy tolls from which Protestants were free. They were mere com-
mon labourers or journeymen ; and to make them feel the iron of this
tyranny enter the soul, they were compelled under severe penalties to
work on holidays. If the country was disturbed, or if the " state of
the country" alarmists of those days, got up an apprehension of danger,
popish horses were seized for the Protestant militia then called out,
which militia was supported solely by " the Papists of the county."
" Thus Catholic property was incessantly charged with the most ini-
quitous and arbitrary taxes. It was taxed for the necessity of the
state by a Protestant parliament ; for the necessities of the county
by a Protestant grand-jury; for the necessities of the parish by a
Protestant vestry; for the necessities of the town by a Protestant
corporation. What security could Catholic property have when thus
exposed and thus menaced ?"f
All these iniquities were sustained by a most vicious popular opi-
nion, both in England and Ireland. "When the aged and venerable
Plunket, the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, one of the victims uf
the pretended Popish plot, was condemned to death, Essex, who had
been viceroy of Ireland, solicited his pardon from Charles II., declar-
ing that the charges were, to his own knowledge, utterly unfounded.
" Well, my lord," said the king, " his blood be upon your conscience ;
you could have saved him if you pleased ; I cannot pardon him, be-
cause I dare not." In like manner, in 1771, the Lord Lieutenant
was on the point of pardoning a Catholic unjustly condemned ; but
* The penal code was relaxat by giving a long lease for a eertain quantity of
bog with OH/I/ half an acre of arable ground for a house : the lease to be forfeited
if the bog was not reclaimed in twenty years. - L. (.'. KKTOKT.
t Beaumont's Ireland, vol. 1, p. l'2i>.
58 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
seeing to what unpopularity this act of justice would expose him, he
said, " I see that his death is resolved ; let him die." Accordingly
the warrant for his execution was issued.*
Can it be supposed that a proud, pampered minority, monopolizing
all power and honour in the state, inflamed at once by bigotry and
intemperance, could have a hated nation and an execrated church,
thus in the dust under their feet, and not carry their excesses even
beyond the limits of the law, although it allowed such a latitude for
tyranny and spoliation ?
Such was the condition of Irishmen when O'Connell was born ! In
a social point of view it had been but little ameliorated when he
founded the Catholic Association. How vast the change wrought by
thirty years of agitation ! Slow and difficult is the work of mental
emancipation. How hard to bring back the soul of freedom to a nation
to reanimate a people " brayed as it were in a mortar !" Yet such
is the achievement of the Irish Liberator, one of the most glorious in
the histoiy of the world ! He has converted a slave population into a
nation of freemen intelligent, temperate, organized, determined,
self-reliant, peaceful and valiant. This great revolution he has ac-
complished, without sacrificing a single human life, his sole weapons
being an eloquent tongue, a ready pen, and an indomitable will.
Therefore his work will stand, and posterity will bless his name. The
Napoleons and Wellingtons of the world the destroyers of nations
may require monuments of stone to perpetuate their memories.
O'Connell's monument is a NATION ; whose life of freedom was the
breath of his mouth taught to wage a war in which defeat is impos-
sible, while its forces are justice and truth. Surely it must be to
fulfil some noble destiny to make for herself a distinct and glorious
history to play some great independent part, and to exert some
mighty influence among the nations, that Ireland has been raised by
Divine Providence to her present altitude of moral power contrasting
so wonderfully with her vile condition, her unutterable degradation
for a hundred years of slavery, succeeding six hundred years of civil
war ! What has she now to fear ? Is there any evil demon that can
paralyze her power, confound her policy, infatuate and destroy ? Alas !
there is ; unless by great vigilance and self-denial she guard against
its influence : it is her old enemy, religious intolerance,
' I'lowden, vol. 1, p. 414.
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER VII.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
" It was not English ARMS, but the English CONSTITUTION that conquered
Ireland." EDMUND BURKE.
How melancholy was the condition into which Europe was thrown
by the successive invasions and constant tyranny of the northern bar-
barians ! Though society began to emerge from the chaos in the
twelfth century, and to unfold the germs of future civilization, the
portion of the same lawless race who then invaded Ireland had par-
taken very little of the insipient refinement, as they had continued to
lead in England and Wales a piratic and tumultuous life, unfriendly to
all improvement except in the arts of war. It is true that Ireland her-
self could never boast of anything like our modern civilization. Her's
was of an oriental stamp, unlike the material and artificial type
which now prevails. 'Tis true that repeated inundations of Danish
barbarism had caused the national manners to suffer a marked dete-
rioration, and that the country was afflicted with its share of the
anarchy of the times ; but certainly not nearly to the extent in which
some other nations suffered.
And yet nothing is more common than to harp on the disorganized
state of Irish society as justifying the invasion and wholesale murders
and spoliation of the Anglo-Normans ! We admit that dissensions,
and party spirit, and resistance to law have cursed Ireland for a much
longer time than other lands ; and no wonder, since England has made
it her business to keep stirring up the coals of internal strife, and
blowing the bellows of faction.
The laws made by the chiefs and people on consecrated hills, or in
the great national congress at Tara, were observed with a fidelity of
which there is no other example in Europe. What if her institutions
did not display a knowledge of the science of government, or the max-
ims of political economy? These things were as little thought of then
as the stearn engine. Her government, bring a national fabric, ii
withstood many a shock before the English conquest ; and evrn this
could not, by the military operation- of four hundred year-, ea-t ii
60 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
down from its broad foundations, till those foundations themselves
were gradually sapped away by famine and pestilence, designedly pro-
duced by a mode of warfare as savage as any recorded in history.
To eradicate Irish customs it was found necessary to extirpate the
Irish people.
But had Ireland been left to manage her own affairs, there is little
room for doubt that she would at least have kept pace with other
nations, when the era of renovation and civilization arrived, though
her isolation from the great thoroughfares of the world was against
her. She, too, would have borrowed or invented a constitution, and
organized a parliament to represent the people and check the power of
her chiefs. Nay, she would have taken the boon from the English
colony if they had been willing to grant it even for money.
They were a military people, the free proprietors of the soil they
had won by their swords ; and as they were led generally by chiefs of
noble blood, their government was, at first, of necessity, feudal, but it
gradually became constitutional, for whatever rights were conceded
to the people of England were enjoyed by them also. Among these
were a free and independent parliament,* and Magna Charta.
In 1217 she received Magna Charta in the fulness of its privileges,
which were afterwards twice confirmed. In 1253 the Queen Regent
appealed to the Irish Parliament, including " freemen, citizens, and
burgesses," for a grant of money to sustain a war on the continent.
" In the reign of Edward II.," says Mr. John O'Connell, M. P.,
" several of the most important of the acts at that time passed in the
British Parliament were confirmed and adopted by acts of the Irish
Parliament, and others referred for examination and consideration.
It was then declared that only such of them as should be allowed and
published were to stand as laws in Ireland; and an Irish act of 10th
Henry IV., followed by one in the 29th year of Henry VI., expressly
provided that no English law should have force unless adopted, allow-
ed, and published by the Irish Parliament."
During the Commonwealth Ireland was represented in the British
Parliament by thirty members. But as this revolutionary interreg-
num is counted as a blank in the constitutional history of England,
this precedent cannot be fairly pleaded against Irish nationality. Be-
sides, " this sending of representatives out of Ireland was found in
* According to Hallam, the first indisputable instance of rcyular county repre-
sentation in England occurred in 1205, the 49th year of Henry III. Vol. 2, p.
168, 8th edit. The great charter had heen granted February 7, 1217, by the
Regent Kyin. 1. 100.
THE HIGHTS OF IRELAND. 61
process of time to be very troublesome and inconvenient ; and this,
we presume, was the reason that afterwards, when times were more
settled, we fell again into our old track and regular course of parlia-
ments in our own country."*
While perusing our parliamentary history it must be borne in mind
that for centuries there were two nations in this island : the native
Irish with their ancient independence, maintained through every storm
with desperate tenacity ; and the Anglo-Irish, with institutions ex-
clusive as regarded the natives, but otherwise free and progressive.
It is singular enough that the Reformation, followed as it was by
complete conquest, was made instrumental in levelling this wall of
separation, and making all the inhabitants of Ireland, theoretically, at
least, one nation. Native blood was no longer a ground of exclusion
from constitutional rights. It was not the Irish race but the Catholic
conscience that was now assailed by English power. Even the penal
code proceeded, for the most part, on the supposition that the constitu
tion belonged to all Irishmen. Certain oaths were imposed on all who
should enjoy its privileges, which oaths it was well known Catholics
would not take. Why ? " Because," said the Protestants, " they
yield allegiance to a foreign power, and are therefore disaffected and
rebellious : it is right to keep them down." " No," said the Catholics,
" but because these oaths are contrary to our religion and our con-
science ; and if AVC took them we should be traitors to our God and
base in the eyes of men."
This plea was not allowed ; and accordingly they were regarded as
non-existent in the body politic, " under the state," but not of it a
nation of helots. But the moment the Irish people became Protestant
they could, every man, enter the portals of the constitution. There
were, indeed " lucid intervals," between the wild, protracted par-
oxysms of furious bigotry, during which the Catholic people did enjoy
their rights, voting at elections and sitting in parliament. But when
the penal laws settled down into a deadly system an iron frame-
work of " vicious perfection" like the prison in the romance, so
constituted by an ingenious tyrant as to close in upon its victim slowly
and steadily, threatening to crush him infallibly at last, and making
him die a thousand deaths in anticipation of his dreadful doom then
* Molyncux p. 00, ed. 177:3. Sec ' An Argument for Ireland by John
O'Ooimell, Esq., M. P." a most valuable work, displaying extraordinary in-
dustry, and a sound judgment ; as an argument its conclusions are as logical
and just as its premises are unquestionable.
62 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
indeed the people were deprived of all political rights, but not as
Irishmen.
Meantime the minority, privileged, favoured, armed and unres-
trained as they were, exercised a dangerous power. They trampled on
the body of a giant, exhausted but not dead. They had put out his eyes,
and shorn off his " invincible locks," yet those locks were growing
unobserved, and at intervals he stirred his chained limbs, and put
forth his slumbering power in spasmodic efforts, destructive and ter-
rific. Roused at length, he rose and carried off the gates of his prison,
and was with difficulty disabled and manacled once more, when he
had his arms round the very pillars of the constitution. He was then
blind, and bound, partly because he had yielded to the fascination of
his Delilah, intemperance ; but now how changed ! Now he has
taken the vow of the Nazarite.
The chief plea for this treatment of the Irish nation was what
Edmund Burke called " a commodious bugbear" dread of the pope,
whose very name frightened England from her propriety, and drove
Protestants into courses which too often brought the interests of reli-
gion into collision with those of humanity. It is a consolation, how-
ever, to know that slavery cannot long exist by the side of liberty,
especially when the rights of men are vindicated in presence of the
public press ; nor can tyranny rest secure where any portion of the
people are entrusted with a constitution.
Accordingly we find England, for a series of ages, bending all her
resources to corrupt the Irish parliament, and neutralize its power
the best possible proof of its value as the Sanctuary of Irish freedom !
We must, therefore, sorrowfully confess that it was often used, or
abused by our rulers to give the forms of law to wrong and oppression,
and that its power was invoked by the Sovereign as seldom as possible,
except to do mischief. "For what end," asks Sir John Davies, "was
the parliament holden by Lord Leonard Gray, in the 28th Henry
III., but to attaint the Geraldines, and to abolish the usurped authority
of the pope? To what purpose did Thomas Earl of Sussex hold his
first parliament in the 3rd and 4th of King William and Queen Mary,
but to settle Leix and O'Falley on the Crown ? What was the prin-
cipal cause that Sir Henry Sydney held a parliament in the llth year
of Queen Elizabeth, but to extinguish the name of O'Neill, and to
entitle the Crown to the greatest part of Ulster ? And, lastly, what
was the chief motive of the last parliament holden by Sir John Perrot,
but the attainders of two great peers of this realm, the Viscount
Baltinglass, and the Earl of Desmond, and for vesting their lands and
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 63
the lands of their adherents in the actual possession of the
Crown ?"*
When the altered spirit of the times forbade violence and force, and
demanded that some regard should be paid to form, the subserviency
of the Irish parliament was sought to be effected by an enormous
system of bribery. The agent by whom the English government
practised this disgraceful immorality, was the Viceroy, who resided
in London, and negotiated with the Irish " undertakers" certain
influential lords, who, by means of two hundred rotten boroughs,
and still more rotten corporations, could manage the parliament,
and always command a majority on an emergency for a stipulated
consideration. This consideration consisted of peerages, pensions,
and patronage. It was thus, as Grattan happily expressed it, " The
ministers sold the prerogatives of the Crown to buy the privileges
of the people."
When the aristocrats of England divided the spoils of office among
themselves, they generally gave the government of Ireland to some
imbecile brother, whose parliamentary influence forbid that he should
be slighted ; or to some peer impoverished by his vices, that he might
be enabled by its emoluments, to get out of his difficulties. It was a
profitable concern. In two years, Lord .Wharton is said to have rea-
lised 45,000. "Infamous pensions to infamous men" as Grattan
called them became an enormous tax on the people. In 175(1, they
amounted to 44,000; but, in 1793, from the strenuous efforts then
made to undo the work of independence, and divide the national party,
they amounted to 120,000. When the regular pension fund was
exhausted, they drew on the Treasury. Hence, few Viceroys threw
up the reins of government, without leaving an arrear of from
200,000 to 300,000.
While this vile work was carried on by the Lords Justices, and other
undertakers, the Lord Lieutenant was occupied with his pleasures in
London, merely hurrying over to open parliament, and returning back
as soon as possible. Of twenty Viceroys that succeeded one another
during a century, Lord Townshend was the only one who resided in
this country. He came with the honourable intention of getting rid
of the undertakers, and the tribe of intriguers that infested the castle.
But the agents and beneficiaries of corruption were too able for him,
owing to their local knowledge, their combination, and their ready
tact in the arts of temptation. Hence, his unsuspecting honesty cost
* Davies', p. .100.
M THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the country more than their practised roguery, and he left the Treasury
265,000 in debt.
But there is a limit beyond which corruption cannot be carried ;
and there are occasions when its subjects will try to compensate in one
direction for their purchased dereliction of duty in another ; or con-
sulting a galled conscience, or a corroding sense of honour within,
they will resent their iniquitous bonds, and, it may be, act the patriot
with impassioned zeal. Such conduct an unprincipled government
would not dare to punish openly, lest it should provoke greater
defection, or draw out more damning disclosures. Besides a reform
in parliament would have dried up the fountains of this evil an event
which would have come in due course of time, as the result of an ex-
tension of the suffrage, if the French Revolution, and the Irish Rebel-
lion, with their bloody horrors, had not given government the wished-
for opportunity of utterly destroying a body, which, depraved as they
had made it, earned the wages of prostitution so reluctantly. It was
a system of monstrous wickedness ! a foul conspiracy against the
liberties of a people, whose poverty was taxed to pay the very wretches
who betrayed and sold them ! But who was the insidious tempter the
unscrupulous corruptor the reckless agent of this moral and political
perdition ? Alas ! it was the responsible government of a great,
mighty, and religious nation.
With such designs against Ireland, it was certainly politic in Britain,
to destroy her parliament. Bad as it was greatly as it needed
reform yet, was it of incalculable advantage to the nation, as the
constitutional engine of its power the platform of liberty, whence its
voice might be heard throughout the world proclaiming her wrongs,
asserting her rights, and conducting the lightning of popular opinion,
Avith scathing vengeance, to the broAV of conscious and trembling
tyranny !
Thus the rights of the Irish Parliament were acknowledged by the
English government, at the very time when truth and integrity were
sacrificed in perverting its power to Avicked purposes ; if not, why did
they not proceed directly to their object, by acts of their own legis-
lation? They did this on some occasions, but such conduct was
resented as a palpable outrage on the Irish constitution. English
power, in such cases, bore down on the nation tyrannically ; but, her
spirit, though bent, was not broken. " Whatever may be the pressure
upon a conquered people, there will come a moment of their recoil.
Providence reserves to itself various means by which the bonds of the
oppressor may be broken ; and it is not for human sagacity to antici-
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 65
pate, whether the army of a conquerer shall moulder in the un-
wholesome marshes of Rome, or stiffen with frost in a Russian
winter."*
In the Irish Parliament, under James II., in 1689, which represented
the bulk of the nation, including all such Protestants and even spiritual
peers as chose to retain their allegiance, it was declared that Ireland
was " a distinct kingdom, always governed by his Majesty and his
predecessors, according to the ancient customs, laws, and statutes
thereof, and that the parliament of Ireland alone could make laws
to bind this kingdom." The same principle of nationality was
emphatically asserted in 1641, by a parliament composed almost
equally of Protestants and Catholics. On the 26th of July, in that
year, they resolved as follows : " It is voted upon the question nullo
contradicente, that the subjects of his majesty's kingdom are a free
people, and to be governed only according to the common law of
England, and the statutes made and established by parliament, in this
kingdom of Ireland, and according to the lawful customs used in the
same.f
The common law of England was always admitted as a part of the
constitution extended to Ireland, and English acts declarative of that
law were in force here without re-enactment ; but no statute was
allowed till adopted and published by the Irish legislature. James's
parliament, in the act already referred to, asserting Irish independence,
repealed Poyning's law, so celebrated in the struggles of this country
for her constitutional rights. This law, which was passed in the reign
of Henry VII., provided that all bills should be submitted to the king
in his English council, before they could be introduced into the
parliament of this kingdom.
Subsequent acts occasionally suspended or enforced Poyning's law,
until the 3rd and 4th of Philip and Mary, which " explained" by
rendering more stringent its provisions. Thus the right of the king
in his English council to alter acts transmitted from Ireland, was
established not to be again questioned-! The bills so altered came
back unalterable, and there was nothing for it but to accept them or
reject them just as they were.
Although thus " cabbined, cribbed, confined," the Irish Parliament
had in it a principle of vitality, and on certain occasions it struggled
gallantly for freedom. In 1690, the commons rejected a money bill,
because it had not originated in their house. In 1703, the Irish lord?
' TInllnm. f Commons' Journal*, July, 1641.
J An Argument for Ireland.
66 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
had so much self-respect as to resist with spirit and success, an arrogant
attempt of the English upper house to interfere with their judicial
authority. An altered money bill sent over from England, was
thrown out by the commons in 1709. In 1719, the Irish lords had
again to withstand the grasping ambition of the English legislature,
which presumed to overrule their jurisdiction. Their remonstrance
on that occasion was treated with the utmost contempt. England,
annoyed and irritated by these repeated efforts to hold fast their
liberties, was determined to give legislative effect to her spirit of
domination, and to make her chains as palpable as they were painfuL
Accordingly, in a law for " the better securing the dependency of
Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain" it was enacted that " the
king's majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords
spiritual and temporal, and the commons of Great Britain in parlia-
ment assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and
authority, to make laws and statutes of sufficient force to bind the
kingdom and people of Ireland." 6 Geo. I.
This act of unmasked tyranny would have been sufficient to justify
a revolution ; and had Ireland then the spirit which America subse-
quently displayed in resisting a similar claim, to make laws and impose
taxes without the consent of the people, she would have cut the cable
that bound her to England, and thrown off the yoke for ever. As,
according to the very elements of constitutional laws, the name of com-
mons implied a right to withhold the supplies, if a redress of grievances
were refused, and as the time had not yet come for robbing the nation
of its parliament, the notable expedient was adopted to persuade the
commons to grant the supplies for 21 years! This, of course, was
resisted; and in 1751, they asserted their right to dispose of the surplus
revenue then in the Irish Exchequer. It is a rare thing for a corporate
body to relinquish any of its immunities so long as it is possible to
retain them ; and yet the Irish Parliament had the magnanimity in
1767, to limit its own duration to seven years, though before that the
members had a right to sit for life, unless when the death of the Sove-
reign culled for a new election. The English government was so vexed
at this deference to the wishes of the people, tending, as it did, to render
the task of corruption more difficult, that they altered the term from
seven to eight years, hoping that the affront studiously conveyed in this
capricious exercise of an unjust prerogative, might lead to the indignant
rejection of the bill. But the parliament had the good sense and
firmness to accept the reform and pass by the insult.
What a pity that England has not acted a more generous part to-
wards the "sister-island!" Why has she been exacting in proportion
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 67
as her partner was needy, ever ready to extort the most humiliating
concessions in the hour of her weakness ? Because, as Flood once
said, " it is the principle of power, which no nation ever relinquished
while she could maintain it." A master-nation will inevitably
oppress. The law of self-interest, which leads to this, is as infallible
in its operation as the law of gravitation. Any other kingdom in
Europe would, if placed in England's circumstances, be equally
tyrannical ; some, perhaps, more so. A hereditary enemy, hardly
conquered and cruelly wronged, with tastes, and habits, and a tem-
perament so different, Ireland never can be one with England. Nor,
indeed, will England ever suffer any nation to be thoroughly incorpo-
rated with herself, except by perfect assimilation. She is too proud,
too unsympathising, too self-willed, egotistic and intolerant ; too in-
tensely national and insular, for amalgamation with any foreign people.
She, even through her present Prime Minister, pleads a law of nature
in favour of her subjugating or extirpating dominion, and presumes
to say that, destiny is the hand-maid of British power. She reads the
coming perdition of every race, but the Saxon, in the lineaments of
their face, the colour of their skin, or the outlines of their skull ; and
fondly deems that the Almighty has selected her as his destroying
angel, to pour out the vials of his wrath on the nations of the earth.
And, yet, she carries round the globe, the Gospel, which is to be
preached to every creature which declares that God hath made all
men of "one blood," which produces among them peace and good
will, and which is designed to gather all the kindreds and tribes of
mankind into one holy and happy brotherhood ! Strange contra-
diction.
The whole history of the English policy in Ireland proves not
only the absence of affection, but the existence of a deep repugnance,
amounting almost to antipathy to the Irish character. She can be
just anywhere but here. Hence, the rage witli which she has
precipitated herself on this country, whenever she got an excuse for
coercion acts, and martial law ; and hence, all the invidious and mor-
tifying distinctions and exceptions in her legislation all the distrust
and partiality in her executive. Nor, is it among her rulers and the
ignorant masses alone, that this unhappy disposition is manifest. Her
historians and public writers the most enlightened and elevated
spirits in the land, labour under the same infirmity.* Something like
respect they can show to other nations, but none to Ireland. If we
* I know a most respectable historian and divine, otherwise one of the most
liberal men in England, who has declared, that he experiences an indescribable
sensation, whenever a letter comes to him with the Irish post mark.
68 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
are submissive, we are despised ; if discontented, united and agitated,
we are feared and hated. By loyalty and tranquillity we never gained
anything. It is only when agitation is too skilful for coercion, and
anticipated rebellion is likely to issue in revolution, that, in a panic,
justice is done, and rights are conceded ; but, to be counterworked by
a cunning policy, when the storm has blown over this is the
dangerous lesson too well taught us by British rule. There is no
maxim better founded in truth, or more deeply engraven on the Irish
heart, than, that " England's extremity is Ireland's opportunity."
The contest with the American colonies was what Wellington
would call a little war. Lafayette said, it was " a war of patrols," and
yet, it decided the destinies of the world. If you inquire, says an
eloquent French writer, " why small events are really so great, why
this war of skirmishes should decide the fate of nations, you can find
no other reason than the principle on which the war was grounded.
That principle was just and legal resistance against tyranny and
oppression. It was the idea, not the fact, that troubled the world.
Attila, passed over the nations like a hurricane over the ocean. The
tempest passed by it was cursed and forgotten. But a petty people
revolted ; scarcely had blood flowed, though at the distance of 2000
leagues from us, when, though we had nothing to fear from the agita-
tion, we were profoundly troubled by it. The fact was the smallest
possible ; but the principle was immense."*
God forbid that blood should ever flow in the war of Irish nation-
ality ! But, if it do, it will not be a small but " a great fact." We
know what sensations it would awaken in Europe, and how profoundly
it would trouble the repose of the world ! However, the American
cause was just ; it was clearly stated, and triumphantly vindicated in
the noblest eloquence, which thrilled along the electric wires of the
press, through every land. It sounded like the resurrection trumpet in
the ears of dead nations. The doctrine of passive obedience, and the
divine right of kings, was cast off from the popular mind like " the
slough of a slavish superstition." The social contract was examined,
and monarchs were found to have duties as well as rights, and that,
failing the duties, the rights lost all their sanctity. England, relying
on her armies, broke faith with her colonies, superseded their parlia-
ments, and dared to tax them without their consent. In one sense,
they were a petty people; but, in another, they were truly great,
inheriting a noble spirit from their persecuted ancestors. It was meet
that in the land of " the pilgrim fathers" the land in whose wilder-
* Mr. Beaumont.
THE KIGHTS OF IRELAND. 69
nesses " they found freedom to worship God," denied them on the
Christian soil of Britain ; it was meet that the worthy descendants of
these illustrious confessors of freedom, should be the first to teach
Britain and the world, that there is a remedy against the mightiest
tyranny; that stout hearts and strong hands, firmly banded in UNION
and guided by wisdom, can, under a smiling Providence, glorify lawful
rebellion by success, clouded by no infamous disaster, and shedding
an inspiring light down on the remotest posterity !
The effect of the American Revolution on Ireland was electrical.
" A voice from America," exclaimed Flood, '' shouted liberty !" and
every hill and valley of this rejoicing Island, echoed "liberty!" Why
should this people not a colony, but a nation, not enfranchised yester-
day, but "free-born" why should they submit to laws and taxes
made and imposed by a British parliament? "England," said an
English Master of the Rolls, in 1774, has as good a right to tax
Ireland as the colonies." "Yes," replied an opposition member, "and
the colonies are in revolt, precisely because you have taxed them."
Freedom then found, as she has ever done, in the British senate
some of her most illustrious prophets. Burke, Fox, and Sheridan,
there expounded and proclaimed her mighty principles, adding the
fervour of her inspiration to the authority of truth. A galaxy no less
glorious, dispelled the gloom and thrilled the apathy of Ireland. The
parliament in College-Green, responded to the appeals of her orators ;
and hearing outside of their own doors, the clanking of political chains
on their Catholic fellow-subjects, they became ashamed of the
monstrous anomaly, and struck off a few of the most galling links.
The American Revolution involved England in war with France,
Spain, and Holland. All her soldiers were drafted away from
Ireland, the Treasury was exhausted, and the country was threatened
with invasion. The people of Belfast appealed to the government for
protection, and received for reply, that they must protect themselves
as well as they could, as government had at its disposal, only half a
troop of dismounted cavalry.
Animated by patriotism and nationality, a volunteer militia started
up all over the land, self-armed, self-organized, self-sustained, choosing
its own commanders, and maintaining a perfect independence of
government in all its proceedings. At the outset they were furnished
with 16,000 swords and muskets from the Castle; and they applied them-
selves with zeal to military discipline, that they might be able to repel
invasion whenever it came. Their Cemmander-in-Chief was Lord
Charlemont ; their generals were chosen from the noblest in the land
70 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
without distinction of party. This great army, democratically con-
stituted and supported on the voluntary principle, consisted chiefly of
Protestants, and one of its most ardent leaders was the famous Earl of
Bristol, Bishop of Deny, who lavished his vast wealth in getting up
splendid demonstrations and giving eclat to the patriotic cause. Had
his counsels prevailed instead of those of the prudent Lord Charlemont,
who thought more of feudal privilege than philosophic equality, it is
probable that Ireland would have followed the example of America.
The numbers of armed volunteers stood as follows :
Ulster, 34,152
Munster, 18,056
Connaught, 14,336
Leinster, 22,283
Total, . . . 88,827
Twenty-two corps also acceded, but made no return, estimated at
12,000, making in all, nearly a grand total of 100,000 fighting men,
armed and ready for the field, having at their disposal 130 pieces of
artillery. The moral effect on the country was amazing. Never did
Ireland experience such harmony, such prosperity, such peace, nor
could her most sanguine children have believed them possible. Trade
nourished in all directions, feuds were forgotten, and the laws were re-
ligiously obeyed. Crime and outrage ceased as if by miracle. Though
the people " had the constitution in their arms," they were determined
to obtain their rights, if possible, without force. Hence they ap-
plied themselves to political discussions. Free trade and parliamentary
INDEPENDENCE was their emphatic demand. Never were liberty and
loyalty more happily combined.
The position of the Irish nation during this brief era of its glory,
reminds us of the famous Sigillum Unionis Aragonum. The en-
graving " represents the king sitting on his throne, with the confede-
rates kneeling in a suppliant attitude around, to denote their loyalty
and unwillingness to offend. But in the back ground, tents and lines
of spears are discovered, as a hint of their ability and resolution to
defend themselves. This respectful demeanour towards a sovereign,
against whom they were waging war, reminds us of the language held
out by our long parliament before the Presbyterian party was over-
thrown. And, although it has been lightly censured as inconsistent
and hypocritical, this tone is the safest that men can adopt, who,
deeming themselves under a necessity of withstanding the reigning
THE RIGHTS OF IKE.LAN1>. 71
monarch, are anxious to avoid a change of dynasty ur subversion of
their constitution."*
The same philosophical historian speaks of the " degradation of a
national character which proceeds from entrusting the public defence
to foreigners." Of course there must be something ennobling in the
citizens taking that task upon themselves. Accordingly we may ap-
ply to the volunteers his remark on another occasion, for never was
it more appropriate : They " preserved that delightful consciousness
of freedom under the standard of their fellow-citizens and chosen
leaders, which no mere soldier can enjoy." Truly, freedom is a
blessed thing. How it exalts our nature, and how its purifying flame
burns up all sordid interests and petty passions, consecrating anew
not only the halls of legislation, but the temples of religion ! When
the delegates from 143 volunteer companies met in the church of
Dungannon on the 15th of February, 1782, to demand in the name
of their armed constituents, free trade, and an independent parliament,
they passed the following resolution, with only two dissentient voices,
viz. : " That we hold the right of private judgment in matters of re-
ligion to be equally sacred in others as ourselves ; Resolved, therefore,
that as men, and as Irishmen, as Christians, and as Protestants, we
rejoice in the relaxation of the penal laws against our Roman Catholic
fellow-subjects, and that we conceive the measure to be fraught with
the happiest consequences to the union and prosperity of the inhabi-
tants of Ireland."
It must be admitted, however, that the most liberal Protestants in
Ireland were then but very partially enlightened on the question of
religious liberty. When this resolution was adopted the most oppres-
sive penal laws were still in force, and about the repeal of them, it
was not thought prudent to say anything. But as soon as the parlia-
ment had acquired independence, it freed the statute-book from much
of this evil ; and ten years after, when the English government was
terrified by the French Revolution,! they abolished all the worst parts
of that diabolical code, and conceded to the Catholic people the infal-
lible earnest of that great and final Emancipation, of which more than
thirty years after O'Counell was the agent namely, the ELECTIVE
FRANCHISE.
The unanimity which pervaded all classes in Ireland in \1$'2, on
the question of parliamentary independence, is a imt extraordinary
phenomenon. Party animosity seemed buried for ever. Not only the
* Hallam's Middle Ayes, 8th edition, vol. 1, p. 414. Il>id. pp. ;'2 and 375.
f In 1702, the Catholic petition was rejected 'ith the preatest contumely ; in
1793, more favours than that petition iouglit were granted. Dr. C. Taylor.
72 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
volunteer corps assembled and resolved ; but the counties, the towns,
the corporations, the university, and even the orange lodges held
their enthusiastic meetings, and passed determined resolutions. These
patriotic assemblies were managed by the nobility, the clergy, the
gentry, sheriffs, mayors, &c. merging all distinctions of Whig and
Tory, Catholic and Protestant.
It seemed as if all Ireland were then baptised in the regenerating
spirit of nationality, and came forth with " a freer life and a fresher
nature." The unanimous resolve of every meeting was, that "the
King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent
to make laws to bind this, kingdom."
The parliament was animated by the same spirit. The Commons
voted nem. con. an address to the king from the pen of Grattan, in
which are the following sentiments : " To assure his majesty that his
subjects of Ireland are a free people ; that the crown of Ireland is an
imperial one, inseparably annexed to the crown of Great Britain, on
which connexion the interests and happiness of both nations essentially
depend ; but that the kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom, with
a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof ; that there is no
body of men competent to make laws to bind this nation, except the
King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland ; nor any other parliament
which hath any authority or power of any sort whatever in this country,
save only the parliament of Ireland. To assure his majesty that in
this right, the very essence of our liberties exists a right which we, on
the part of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birth-right,
and which we cannot yield BUT WITH OUR LIVES."
" I am for honourable tranquillity," said Mr. Grattan, in a pre-
vious debate, (February 22, 1782,) " but when I see an administra-
tion, unable to make a blow against an enemy, tyrannize over Ireland,
I am bound to exert every power to oppose it. * * * Ireland is
in strength ; she has acquired her strength by the weaknesses of Eng-
land ; for Ireland was saved when America was lost ! When Eng-
land conquered Ireland was coerced ; when she was defeated, Ireland
was relieved ! How necessary, therefore, to assert the rights of
Ireland !"
On the 4th of May, the Attorney-General, Mr. Scott, declared in
the most unqualified terms, that if the tenure of his office required
him to admit the right of England to legislate for Ireland, " he held
it to be an infamous tenure." On the 27th of the same month, the
Duke of Portland, then Lord Lieutenant, came down to the house,
and made a speech from the throne, containing the following senti-
ments : " The British legislature have concurred in a resolution to
THE RIGHTS OP IRELAND. 73
remove the causes of your discontents and jealousies, and are united
in a desire to gratify every wish expressed in your late addresses to the
throne. These benevolent intentions of his majesty, and
the willingness of his parliament of Great Britain, to second his
gracious purposes, are unaccompanied by any stipulation or condition
whatever." This delighted Mr. Grattan, and the house, who, in their
overflowing gratitude at once voted the sum of 100,000 for the de-
fence of the Empire, declaring their renewed determination " to stand
and fall with the British nation."
Mr. Flood, however, more sagacious or less confiding than Grattan,
saw that there was no security for independence, unless the principle
of 6th George I. were expressly repudiated. " What, then," he asked,
" has Britain done ?" " By seeming to yield unconditionally to you,
she seized on the generous credulity of your nature, and took full ad-
vantage of a change in her own administration. Her first step was
bold in order to strike your imaginations with something that seemed
decisive." " Will you now," he demanded, " when you have your
constitution in your hands, when you have your constitution in
your ARMS, will you now accept of such a humiliating condi-
tion, and disgrace the cause of your country by such a pitiful
expedient ?" Again, " Some men, it is true, may do anything, while
others are circumscribed in very narrow limits. But, will you not
restore your constitution to what it was before Poyning's law ? Your
BILLS were transmitted to the king, engrossed on parchment, under
the great seal of Ireland, and the royal assent, or dissent, was given
to them in open parliament." Flood was right, but he failed.
" However," says Mr. John O'Connell, " that very year was not
over, when what the Irish Parliament in their moderation would not
ask, the English Parliament in their fear, set about conceding." Mr.
Secretary Townshend then said, he hoped that Ireland would rest
satisfied that " in no change of affairs, would England ever retract
that faith, which in his opinion she had pledged when she repealed
6th George I., fully to surrender all legislative and judicial authority
over Ireland." Accordingly it was enacted (23 George III. c. 28,)
" that the right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by
laws enacted by his Majesty and the parliament of that kingdom, in
all cases whatever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in
equity, which may be instituted in that kingdom, decided in his Ma-
jesty's courts therein finally, and without appeal from thence, .shall be
and is hereby declared to be established and ascertained FOR EVEH,
and shall at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable."
We are told, that in agitating for a Repeal of the Union, Irishmen
74 THK RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
are seeking to set aside a " solemn compact" between two nations,
which should not be lightly infringed. We do not believe there was
anything solemn about the Act of Union, though the complicated
and enormous wickedness by which it was accomplished was suffi-
ciently awful. But we have just quoted the terms of a compact as
sacred as ever received royal signature. Why was it broken ? Did
not Great Britain pledge her faith in the sight of the world, that
Ireland should retain her Legislative Independence " FOR EVER"
declaring solemnly, that "in no change of circumstances would she
ever retract that faith ?" Yet, ere twenty years had elapsed, that
plighted faith of a great nation was forgotten ; in the hour of Ireland's
weakness and consternation, arising from the savage-like suppression
of a rabble insurrection, which might have been prevented, she was
robbed of her constitution ! How absurd to talk of national compacts
and "finality" after this ! The framers of the Union, and those who
sold their country, thankful that " they had a country to sell" may
have vowed and enacted that it should last "for ever," and the
Imperial Parliament, in London, may shout " Amen."
Short-sighted legislators ! Did they not remember that the same
thing had been vowed and enacted in 1782 regarding the Irish Par-
liament, which with perfidious tyranny they took the very first foul
opportunity of crushing ? That parliament they were bound by every
tie in the sight of God and man to preserve. But Ireland is re-
strained by no obligation moral or political from restoring it if she
can ; she has as good a right to do so, as a man prostrated by a
robber, has to rise from the earth and resume his property.
However, the Irish Parliament fell. Speaking of Irish indepen-
dence, Grattan with that sublime brevity and weighty antithesis for
which his glorious eloquence was so remarkable, mournfully said, " I
sat by its cradle I followed its hearse." Who so fit as he to write
its epitaph and vindicate its memory ? It was thus he replied to
Lord Clare's pamphlet on the Union :
" That parliament, whose conduct the pamphlet reprobates, had
seen the country, by restrictions on commerce, and by an illegal
embargo on her provision trade, brought, in 1779, to a state of bank-
ruptcy ; that parliament had reposed in the liberality of the British
Parliament an inexorable confidence ; that parliament waited and
waited, till she found, after the English session of 1778, nothing
could be expected ; and then that parliament (and here behold the
imperative principles of our constitution, and contemplate parliament
as the true source of legitimate hope, though sometimes the just
object of public disapprobation) that parliament at length preferred
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 75
a demand I say a demand for a free trade, and expressed in a
sentence the grievance of a country. They shorten the Money Bill,
assert the spirit of the country, and hreak in one hour that chain
which had blocked up your harbours for ages. They follow this by a
support of government and of empire as ample as was their support
of their country and of her commerce, bold and irresistible ; and do
more to intimidate and deter the common enemy, than all your pre-
sent loans and all your establishments.
" I come to the second period, and here they fall back ; here they
act reluctantly ; but here you see again the rallying principle of our
constitution : that very parliament, whom the pamphlet vilifies, whom
the minister thought he had at his feet those very gentlemen whom
the pamphlet disparages, whom the then secretary relied on as a rank
majority, made common cause with the people (made a common cause
with liberties), and, assisted and backed by the voice of that people,
preserved, carried, and established the claim, inheritance, and liber-
ties of the realm, and sent the secretary post to England to recant his
political errors in his own country, and to register that recantation in
the rolls of his own parliament. These achievements we are to esti-
mate, not by the difficulties of the day, but by the difficulties result-
ing from the depression and degradation of ages. If we consider
that the people and parliament, who had thus associated for the de-
fence of the realm, and had added to the objects of their association
the cause of trade and liberty, without which that realm did not de-
serve to be defended had been in a great measure excluded from all
the rest of the world, had been depressed for one hundred years (by
commercial and political oppression, torn by religious divisions) that
their ministers had not seldom applied themselves to taint the integrity
of the higher order, and very seldom (except so far as they concurred
in the bounties of the legislature) applied themselves to relieve the
condition of the lower order that such a people and such a parlia-
ment should spontaneously associate, unite, arm, array, defend, illus-
trate, and free their country ; overawe bigotry, suppress riot, prevent
invasion, and produce, as the offspring of their own head, armed
cap-a-pee, like the Goddess of Wisdom, issuing from the Thunderer,
commerce and constitution. What shall we say of such a poople and
such a parliament ? Let the author of the pamphlet retire to his
closet, and ask pardon of his God for what he has written against his
country !"
76 THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER VIII.
REASONS FOR ABOLISHING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
" It is the denial of the rights of nature to a great nation, from an intole-
rance of its prosperity." CHIEF JUSTICE BUSHE.
MANY plausible reasons were addressed to the Irish Parliament to
betray it into a surrender of its existence ; but it can be proved satis-
factorily that the following were the main causes of the determination
to carry that measure at all hazards, viz. " Intolerance of Irish pros-
perity," and Pitt's vexation about the Regency question.
I. That England has ever striven to depress and impoverish this
country, and that the false and narrow maxims of monopoly led her,
in times past, to cripple our trade and limit our commerce, under
the ignorant notion that our gain was her loss, is placed beyond doubt
by her own best authorities, throughout a series of ages.
In 1360 a law was passed " giving leave for all kinds of merchan-
dise to be exported from and into Ireland, as well by aliens as
denizens ; and also * * * that all persons who have lands and
possessions in Ireland might freely import thither, and also export
from that kingdom their own commodities ; which liberty in our days
(A. D. 1763, says Anderson) would be deemed unsafe and dangerous."*
Nearly a century earlier than this, Sir William Temple advised the
Irish Lord Lieutenant thus : " Regard must be had to those points,
wherein the trade of Ireland comes to interfere with that of England
in which case the Irish trade ought to be declined, so as to give way
to the trade of England."
An English writer on Trade, in 1727, after apologising for his
" very bold proposition," so opposite to the universally received
opinion, " that it were better for England if Ireland were no more !"
proceeds to argue that the trade of Ireland might be made very pro-
fitable to England. He says the situation of the former for an ex-
tended trade is " more advantageous than that of any other nation in
* Anderson's History of Commerce, v. 1. p. 321.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 77
Europe. Its harbours are many and commodious, its inhabitants
numerous and hardy, inured to want and labour, and able on poor
fare to run through a great deal of work." Mark the inducements
which he holds out to the legislature of his country to tolerate Irish
trade ! " The politeness, the gaiety, the power of our court, allure
all those who are studious either of improvement, of pleasure, or of
preferment. This drains from them the rents of most of the great
estates of that kingdom, and every increase of their wealth will (by
enlarging the rent-rolls of those already settled there, and by en-
abling others to taste the delights of a court, who, by the narrowness
of their present fortunes, are confined at home) greatly enlarge this
inlet of their money, and increase our drafts upon them, which, toge-
ther with the restrictions on the exportation of their wool, and other
advantages which we have of them in trade, will cause to centre in
England all, or the most part, of their acquisitions on the general
balance." This is English policy.
How well Ireland could avail herself of her natural facilities for
trade and commerce when left at liberty to develop her resources, we
may see from the following passage : " From the establishment of
the Act of Settlement and Explanation Ireland had rapidly increased
in wealth and improvement, to the admiration and envy of her neigh-
bours, till it was again laid waste under the revolutionary wars of
"William III. ; and even from this calamity it was recovering with
such quickness, that in 1698 the balance of trade in its favour
amounted to between four and five hundred thousand pounds."*
Thus it would appear that, even civil war, with all its wasting
horrors, was less injurious to Irish prosperity than the Union! The
nation had then a latent energy, a recuperative power, by which she
quickly extricated herself from the greatest calamities ; but now she
has no life of her own, and all her interests languish. However, she
was not long allowed liberty to repair by industry the desolations of
ambition : " The effects were permanent of restricting laws, insur-
mountable by the fertility of the soil, the ingenuity of the inhabi-
tants, navigable rivers, and a multitude of harbours."
To the inexorable pertinacity with which this crushing policy was
pursued towards our unhappy country, the following impartial wit-
nesses will sufficiently testify. It cannot be alleged that theirs are the
complaints of Irish grievance-mongers :
" British legislation on all occasions controlled Irish commerce with
a very high hand universally on the principle of monopoly as if the
* Barlow's History of Ireland, v. 1. p. 290.
78 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
poverty of Ireland were her wealth." So wrote Arthur Young, in
his Tour (1776-7). Again, in 1785, Pitt declared that "from the
Revolution till within these few years, the system had been that of
debarring Ireland from the use of her own resources, and making her
subservient to the interests and opulence of the English people."
Mr. Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville) said, " if England were
heavily taxed, she had now, and had had for a whole century past,
the benefits of a widely-extended trade, from which she had excluded
Ireland and the latter had already given to England all that she
could have made, if by a barbarous and equally absurd policy, she
had not been debarred from those advantages, that God and nature
had given her." Even Pitt, in 1799, was obliged to admit that
" Ireland had long felt the narrow policy of Great Britain, who, in-
fluenced by views of trade and commercial advantage, and stained and
perverted with selfish motives, had treated her with partiality and
neglect, and never looked on her prosperity as that of the empire at
large."
" Is it not well known," asked Mr. Huskisson, (March 21, 1825,)
"that, till 1780, the agriculture, internal industry, manufactures, com-
merce, and navigation of Ireland, were held in the most rigid subser-
viency to the supposed interests of Great Britain? In 1778 there
was a proposal to allow her to import sugar direct, and to export
every thing but woollens to pay for it ; and this proposal was almost
made a question of allegiance by the great towns of Great Britain,
and so it was lost! In 177 9 "a more limited concession to her
was also lost ! But towards the close of that year, the disasters in
North America and the state of things in Ireland, produced a different
feeling in the British Parliament STATE necessities, acting under a
sense of political danger, yielded without grace that which good sense
and good feeling had before recommended in vain; and in 1782,
under the like pressure, those concessions were rendered irrevocable."
"But," said Mr. Labouchere in 1841, "every liberal relaxation
encountered violent opposition by strong petitions from Manchester,
Glasgow, and Liverpool ; the merchants of the latter place said that
if Ireland were placed on the same footing with England, the port
and town of Liverpool would fall back to its former state."
This disgraceful spirit seems to have been evoked by Lord StralFord,
who said, he "discouraged all he could the little beginnings of a
clothing trade he found among the Irish, lest they should undersell
the English, which they were able to do." He said he endeavoured to
turn the attention of the Irish to the manufacture of linen. But wool
was their natural staple, which they had in excellence and abundance,
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 79
and if they had found it their interest to add the cultivation of flax and
the manufacture of linen, they had a right to do so ; and it was imper-
tinent in Strafford to meddle with such affairs. But he was true to
the fancied interest of his own country, and cared nothing about
Ireland, except so far as it could be made subservient to that. By
several enactments in the reign of Charles II., a prohibitory duty was
laid on the import of Irish woollen goods into England ; the exporta-
tion thither of Irish cattle was also forbidden as " a nuisance" as well
as all exports of value from this country to the colonies, and the im-
port of sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, steel, Jamaica wood, &c., unless
first unloaded in an English port.* These jealous restrictions were
designed to guard more against a possible than an actual danger to
English interests ; for Irish manufactures and commerce, though
making some progress, were not then in a condition to give much
annoyance.
After the Revolution, the Protestant party in Ireland, feeling that
they could not permanently maintain their ascendancy without the con-
stant aid of England, were obliged to purchase it by sacrificing their
woollen trade a price which England was not slow to demand. The
English lords and commons addressed the King, telling him plainly
that they wished him to declare to his Irish subjects, that "the
growth and increase of the woollen manufacture there hath long been,
and will ever be looked upon with great jealousy ;" threatening that
they might otherwise have to enact " very strict laws totally to pro-
hibit and suppress the same."f
William's answer was brief and to the point. He said, " I shall do
all that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture in Ireland,
and to encourage the linen manufacture there."
Now this woollen trade had been thoroughly naturalised in Ireland;
we have parliamentary authority for the fact, that our woollen goods
were in demand and high repute in foreign countries so early as 1357.
The raw materials were every where at hand, and the people were
accustomed to the business, while flax seed had to be imported ; it
was a precarious and troublesome crop, and yet did not give employ-
ment to nearly as many hands nor yield so much profit as the other.J
According to William's promise he wrote to the Lords Justices,
.stating, that it was never so necessary to have " a good session of
parliament." A bill was brought in agreeably to the royal wish,
* Charles II., c. 12, 15, 22, and 23.
( English Lords' Journals, 1698, pp. 314, 315.
J Report of the Commissioners on hand-loom weavers, 1840: Anderson's
Historv of Commerce, vol. 3. p. 104.
80 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
and being urgently pressed through the Irish legislature, it received
the royal assent January 29, 1698; other acts, still more stringent,
were subsequently passed in England, which amounted to a total
prohibition. These unwise laws naturally defeated the purpose of
English monopoly. Our woollen manufactures were forced away into
France, Germany, and Spain, and they were enabled thus to vie with
England in the foreign market. Meantime, multitudes in Ireland
were thrown out of employment, and, what was felt more keenly in
England, the severest penalties could not prevent a contraband trade
in this country. At length the wiser heads over the water began
to consider the restrictions hurtful (to themselves) and to wish for
their removal.
As to the promise to encourage our linen trade it proved illusory
like most similar promises from the same quarter. " So little was
England really disposed to keep her promise, that our linens, painted,
striped, chequered, printed, stained, or dyed, were practically excluded
by her so early as 1711, by the act of 10th Anne, c. 19, which was
directed against all such linens made in foreign parts, and was by a
strained construction made to apply to Ireland. * * * By an act
of the year 1750, she heavily taxed the import of sail cloth made of
Irish hemp," thereby throwing the trade into the hands of the Russians,
Germans, and Dutch. Penalties on the export of Irish wool, which
had been appropriated " to the encouragement of the linen manufac-
ture of Ireland," she handed over to the crown. And again, " lest by
any possibility Ireland should reap much benefit from the act of 1742,
(delusive as it was to a great extent,) which gave bounties on the
export of Irish as well as English, linens exported from England ; an
act of the year 1756, the 29th George II. c. 15, provided that no
Irish linen so exported, should be entitled to the bounty, if it were
the property of a resident in Ireland ! " *
If this was England's encouragement to Irish trade, what must her
hostility have been ! Then see how this same spirit was made to
foster the bigotry of creed and race in Ireland. Mr. Assistant Com-
missioner Otway, in his Report (Part III.) on the condition of the
hand-loom weavers, above referred to, says : " One great and fatal
error in the system of colonization to which I have adverted was,
that it became a fixed principle of policy to exclude the native Irish
from the benefits of all the improved arts introduced by the new
settlers. * * * But for the unhappy difference of religion be-
tween the settlers and the natives, this exclusive system would not
* Mr. J. O'Connell's Argument for Ireland. Appendix Xo. iv.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 81
have been long maintained; the Irish and the English would gra-
dually have amalgamated, like the Normans and the Saxons ; but the
distinction of religion gave strength and permanence to the distinc-
tion of race, and rendered the line of demarcation scarcely less broad
than if it had been perpetuated by difference of colour and physical
organization.
" The hand-loom weavers, the wool-combers, the clothiers, the
dyers, the whitesmiths, and even the mariners in the south of Ire-
land were so exclusively Protestant that they would not allow a
Roman Catholic apprentice to be received into any of their trades !
The only branch of manufacture permitted to the ' mere Irish' was
that of brogues or common shoes ; and even this trade was not permit-
ted to be carried on within the precincts of the walled towns. Hence
these manufactures were and continued to be exotics ; they struck no
root in the soil. * * James II. in his letters ascribes his failures
in Ireland to the fact that the Protestants alone understood the art of
making and mending gun-locks."
This able and highly respectable Protestant writer goes on to show
that the Huguenots, who fled from the atrocious bigotry of Louis
XIV., and settled here, establishing different branches of trade in
various parts of the country, adopted the Game hateful system of exclu-
sion. " The Duke of Ormond, following the example of the Earl of
Cork, also prohibited the instruction of Roman Catholic apprentices,
as did the principal landholders who encouraged foreigners to settle on
their estates."
Mr. Otway continues : " Now, this exclusive system at once de-
stroyed the basis of all manufacturing prosperity the home market.
The fabrics introduced by the English and French settlers were of a
superior quality, for which the native Irish could only gradually ac-
quire a want, as they were raised in the scale of civilization. But
instead of thus raising them, the foreign manufacturers, aided by the
legislature, employed every possible means to depress them, and thus
blindly drove from their own market a whole nation of customers,
and confined them to the use of the rude and cheap fabrics which were
woven among themselves. The manufacturers were thus forced to rely
on their foreign trade ; but here they came into competition with the
English merchants, and aroused the spirit of commercial jealousy.
The act of William, prohibiting the export of Irish wool and woollens,
destroyed the Irish woollen manufactures, simply because they de-
pended almost solely on foreign sale for their support. There was no
independent peasantry or respectable and wraith)' middle class for
them to supply."
82 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
" To the enumeration in detail of English inj uries to our trade,"
says Mr. John O'Connell, " we have unfortunately to add one striking
instance, general in its effect. From 1740 to 1759 there were no less
than twenty-four embargoes in Ireland ! * * * Thus by all pos-
sible means namely, by direct and actively oppressive legislation
by false interpretation and forced construction of laws supposed to
have no such object ; by real breach, under a seeming observance of
international engagements, and even by an unconstitutional exercise of
the prerogative, Irish industry and enterprise were cruelly restrained
and repressed to the verge of rnin."*
In turning away from the distressing history of national cupidity
and extortion, which empoverished one country without enriching
the other, what reader will not heartily respond to the sentiment of
the honourable gentleman just quoted, when he says, that this
wretched history " ought to make an impression upon every honest
Irishman, and warn him from that execrable religious discord which
so divided the nation against itself as to render it incapable of resisting
these monstrous outrages ?" I was going to add, that I am ashamed
of my country for having so long and so tamely endured them ; but
I should be much more ashamed if she had been guilty of inflicting
the wrongs which she has so patiently borne.
This animus against Ireland still survives in the English mind ;
this sordid propensity still conquers its better nature, and sends evil
deeds with quick and stealthy step, in the track of fair professions.
She " sees and approves the best, but still the worst pursues." She
talks of the constitution, and practices coercion. How can it well be
otherwise? She but follows the natural propensity of power, and
her victim cannot effectually resist.
" Great nations," said Grattan, " when cursed with unnatural sway,
follow but their nature when they invade ; and human wisdom has not
better provided for human safety than by limiting the principles of
human power." But what limits can Ireland now put to the power
of Great Britain ? Her position is accurately described by Mr.
Mason, a member of the Irish Parliament and a supporter of govern-
ment, when speaking of Mr. Secretary Orde's commercial proposi-
tions :
" The house," said he, " should recollect they were not going to
form an indissoluble contract, like the treaty of Union between Eng-
land and Scotland ; for the moment the act of Union passed, the
Parliament of Scotland was annihilated, or rather merged in that
* An Argument, &c., p. 164.
TITE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 83
of Great Britain ; and if the articles of Union had proved highly
oppressive to the people of Scotland they were left without resource,
except they should find it in the moderation of the British Parliament,
or the hazards of a civil war !"
But, happily, at the period which we are now to notice, Ireland' had
a parliament. This was her resource her palladium ! She put forth
its power nobly in defence of her trade. She demanded perfect free-
dom for her commerce, and she won it. But it was a fatal victory
one that provoked unquenchable hostility to her legislature, and en-
tailed utter ruin. In 1779, when an attempt to open the colonial
trade to Ireland failed, "the citizens of Dublin, the grand juries in
many parts of Ireland, and the people throughout the country met,
and passed strong resolutions in their different assemblies, con-
demnatory of the ' avarice and ingratitude' of Great Britain, her
illiberal and contracted policy, &c., and pledging themselves to Irish
manufacture." This mode of appeal seemed effectually to reach the
heart of England, and caused the complaints of Ireland to be listened
to with unwonted attention. Other circumstances, too, made her de-
meanour towards this country much more respectful than before.
America had revolted. The combined fleets of France and Spain
" rode triumphant in the channel." The volunteers repelled the in-
vader from their coasts, and were determined not to lay down their
arms till they obtained free trade and independence. These things
opened the eyes of Britain wonderfully ; and she all at once discovered
a vast deal of reason in the old complaints about Irish grievances !
The Irish Commons (October 12, 1779) declared in an address to
the King, that it was " not by temporary expedients, but by free trade
alone, that this nation is now to be saved from impending ruin." Con-
cessions were made by the English minister, but accompanied by
aggressions on the legislative rights of Ireland, which roused the
national spirit to the utmost, and raised the loud cry for parliamentary
independence. In 1785 came " Orde's commercial propositions," so
called from the name of the secretary who introduced them in the
Irish House of Commons. To these Pitt had added a number of his
own framing, in which he insidiously introduced principles subver-
sive of Irish independence, and slyly designed to pave the way for
the Union, which he was now bent on effecting in due time. His re-
presentative in Ireland, however, disclaimed any such intention, de-
precating the idea that England would do anything " so wild, so ab-
surd, so ungenerous," as to attack Irish independence. "He wanted
words to express his abhorrence of the idea."
Yet was the purpose palpable, and Grattan described thr measure
84 THE RIGHTS OF IRF.LASD.
as " an union an incipient and a creeping union a virtual union
establishing one will in the general concerns of commerce and navi-
gation, and reposing that will in the Parliament of Great Britain."
It was then that this great man exclaimed " If any body of men are
justified in thinking that the IRISH CONSTITUTION is incompatible with
the British empire perish the empire ! live the constitution !"
In the English Parliament these propositions were avowedly treated
as a step towards the Union. The real mind of the British govern-
ment and people is expressed in the following passage from the Annual
Register for 1 790, p. 33 : " To whatever independence Ireland may
advance her claim, she is nothing more than the province and servant
of England. * * * The daily routine of her affairs, and the ordi-
nary course of her administration, will be modelled in conformity to the
interests, the prejudices, and the jealousies of the country that is the
seat of empire." It was therefore determined to make her formally
what she had been rendered virtually by undue and unconstitutional
influence. That the greatest statesmen regarded a union with Eng-
land as a legal subjection to a condition of the lowest degradation, is
evident from the words of the illustrious Charles Fox, in the debate
on the Commercial Propositions : " I will not barter English com-
merce for Irish slavery."
The concessions, such as they were and Mr. Orde represented
them as a great boon, freely bestowed by English generosity alarmed
the British monopolists, insomuch that Pitt found it necessary to send
circular letters to the manufacturing towns, telling them " that nothing
effectual had been granted to Ireland." This legerdemain played off
by the two ministers was happily exposed in parliament by Mr. Fox :
" It had struck him as a singular instance of ingenuity, that in
opening the outlines of the plan, Mr. Pitt had done away with a good
deal of what had been said upon the subject in another speech to
another assembly. Indeed, his (Mr. Pitt's) speech had been little else
than an answer to Mr. Secretary Orde in the Irish House of Com-
mons. * * In Ireland they had been stated as highly advan-
tageous to that- country, putting it on the footing of Great Britain,
and rendering it an emporium of trade, and the source and supply of
the British market. In England and in that house they were told
that the propositions were such as this country (England) might gladly
accede to. Why ? Because it gives Ireland nothing but Avhat it had
before because Ireland cannot rival you because Ireland is poor
and feeble ; and because Ireland must remain so, if not for ever, at
least for a considerable length of time."
In order to pacify the commercial jealousy of England, to which
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 85
the least cloud in the horizon, promising at some future time to rain
prosperity on Ireland, seemed fraught with ruin to that country, Pitt
assured the parliament that the great advantage to Scotland predicted
as the consequence of her union had not been realised, that England
had been more benefited by it ; and that the result of the Union had
been such as not to make her " averse to the repetition of the ex-
periment." The design the minister here hinted at, and the ten-
dency of the propositions to effect it, were so evident, that Mr. Fox
declared in the same debate, that by this plan " Ireland would lose
her legislature, and again become a dependant, a subordinate king-
dom."
The plan, however, met such decided and influential opposition in
the Irish parliament, that it was abandoned. Pitt resolved to humble
the sturdy guardian of Irish prosperity in another form and to hasten
the Union. The prosperity enjoyed in Ireland during the brief era
of independence has been questioned ; but if the express and em-
phatic testimony of men of all parties, from their positions most com-
petent to judge, and having no interest to deceive, may be taken as
evidence, no fact can be clearer than that, under the all-pervading
and healthful stimulus of freedom, imperfect as it was, the improve-
ment of Ireland was unparalleled. The authorities quoted by Mr.
O'Connell in the Corporation Debate on the Union, and often else-
where, place the matter beyond doubt.
Pitt himself admitted the great prosperity of Ireland under her own
independent legislature ; but instead of letting well enough alone, he
argued that " as Ireland was so prosperous under her own parliament,
we can calculate that the amount of that prosperity will be trebled
under a British legislature." Lord Clare, whose office as chancellor
gives his authority the greatest weight, in a speech delivered in 1798,
and subsequently published by himself, declared that " There is not
a nation on the face of the habitable globe which lias advanced in cul-
tivation, in agriculture, in manufactures, with the same rapidity, in
the same period, as Ireland" (viz., from 1782 to 1798.)
Lord Grey (then Mr. Charles Grey) stated in 179!), that since 1781
" the prosperity of Scotland had been considerable, but certainly not
so great as that of Ireland has been within the same period." Lord
Plunket, speaking in parliament in 1799, used the following I'loquent
and patriotic language, in which he describe? Ireland as " a little
island, with a population of 4 or 5,000,000 of people, hardy, gallant,
and enthusiastic possessed of all the means of civili/ation, agricul-
ture, and commerce, well pursued and understood ; a constitution fully
86 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
recognised and established ; her revenues, her trade, her manufactures
thriving beyond the hope or the example of any other country of her
extent ; within these few years advancing with a rapidity astonishing
even to herself ; not complaining of deficiency even in these respects,
but enjoying and acknowledging her prosperity. She is called upon
to surrender them all to the control of whom ? Is it to a great
and powerful continent, to whom nature intended her as an appen-
dage to a mighty people totally exceeding her in all calculation of
territory or population ? No ! but to another happy little isldhd,
placed beside her in the bosom of the Atlantic, of little more than
double her territory and population, and possessing resources, not
nearly so superior to her wants."
The bankers of Dublin, who, of all people, ought to be the best
judges of Irish prosperity, held a meeting in December, 1798, at
which they " Resolved That since the renunciation of the power of
Great Britain in 1782, to legislate for Ireland, the commerce and
prosperity of this kingdom have eminently increased. Resolved That
we attribute these blessings, under divine Providence, to the wisdom
of the Irish Parliament." The guild of merchants met the month
following, and passed a similar resolution, declaring, " That the
commerce of Ireland has increased, and her manufactures improved
beyond example, since the independence of this kingdom was restored
by the exertions of our countrymen in 1782."
The unanimity with which all ascribe this wonderful prosperity to
parliamentary independence is remarkable. How can any candid
mind resist the conclusion that they were united as cause and effect,
or deny that a similar cause would produce similar effects now?
" Some of us," said Mr. Hutton, in 1810, "some of us remember this
country as she was before we recovered and brought back our con-
stitution in the year 1782. We are reminded of it by the present
period. Then, as now, our merchants were without trade, our shop-
keepers without customers, our workmen without employment ; then,
as now, it became the universal feeling, that nothing but the recovery
of our rights could save us. Our rights were recovered ; and now,
soon afterwards, indeed, as if by magic, plenty smiled on us, and we
soon became prosperous and happy."
No wonder the names of the men who felled this fair and fruitful
tree of national life, are held in everlasting infamy in Ireland. Only
the serpent in paradise could furnish a fit comparison for the envious
and wily policy of the diabolical agents, who beheld all this good with
vexation, and blasted so bright a prospect ! I conclude this part of
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 87
my subject in the words of the late Lord Chief Justice Bushe.
Speaking of the Union, that fine orator said " I forget for a moment
the unprincipled means by which it has been promoted I pass by for
a moment the unseasonable time at which it has been introduced, and
the contempt of parliament on which it is bottomed, and I look upon
it simply as England reclaiming in a moment of your weakness that
dominion which you extorted from her in a moment of your virtue
a dominion which she uniformly abused, which invariably oppressed
and impoverished you, and from the cessation of which you date all
your prosperity. It is a measure which goes to degrade the country,
by saying it is unfit to govern itself, and to stultify the parliament by
saying it is incapable of governing the country. It is the revival of
the odious and absurd title of conquest ; it is the renewal of the
abominable distinction between mother country and colony which
lost America ; it is the denial of the rights of nature to a great nation
FROM AN INTOLERANCE OF ITS PROSPERITY."
II. Another cause which led Mr. Pitt to determine on the anni-
hilation of the Irish legislature, was the mortification it gave him in
thwarting his plans regarding the regency, during the King's temporary
alienation of mind. On the 16th of December, 1788, Mr. Pitt moved
and carried three resolutions in the English Commons " the first afnr-
matory of the fact that the King's condition rendered him incapable of
exercising the royal authority ; the second declaratory of the right of
the parliament of Great Britain to supply the proper remedy in such
a contingency ; and the third, that they should consider that remedy.
Upon the 30th of January following both houses of parliament pre-
sented to the Prince of Wales a series of resolutions, appointing him
Regent, but with the limitations of restricting him from creating peers,
from granting offices, saving during his Majesty's pleasure, and from
making any grants of the King's real or personal estate. 1 '
Opposed to these resolutions were fifty-five peers, on the ground that
parliament exceeded its constitutional powers in imposing the restric-
tions on the Regent, who, however, consented to (ill the oilier, being
moved thereto by the urgency of the case.
On the 5th of February, 178!), the Lord Lieutenant, the .Marquis of
Buckingham, in opening the Irish Parliament, announced the fact re-
garding the King. An attempt was made to procure an adjournment
for a week, till the English resolutions should arrive. This was de-
feated as derogatory to the dignity of parliament ; and a motion was
carried, after much opposition from the trea.-ury bench, to present an
address to the Prince of Wales, requesting him t<> take the duties of
88 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the Regency upon him, without any limitations. A similar resolution
was passed in the Lords, with twenty-three dissentient voices. The
Lord Lieutenant refused to forward the address, whereupon a depu-
tation from each house was appointed for the purpose, and were very
graciously received by the Prince. But the King's recovery soon
after put an end to the unpleasant proceedings. This conduct of our
parliament was exceedingly offensive to the English minister, and he
never forgave it. His revenge was the Union !
THE MIGHTS OF IRELAND. 89
CHAPTER IX.
THE MEANS BY WHICH THE UNION WAS CARRIED.
" They resorted to a system of coercion to support a system of corruption,
which they closed by a system of torture, attendant on a conspiracy of which
their crimes were the cause." GRATTAN.
SECTION I THE REBELLION.
THERE is good reason to believe that Pitt regarded the independence
of the Irish parliament as a measure yielded to intimidation, therefore,
uneonstitutionally obtained, and to be "recaptured" as soon as possi-
ble, by fair means or foul. To do him justice, we must admit that
he tried the fair means first. He sent Lord Fitzwilliam as viceroy,
with the understanding that the Catholics should be emancipated, and
that the ascendancy of the Beresford family, who, then, with their
relative, Lord Clare, ruled Ireland for their own profit, should be
completely broken up.
But the interest of this family proved too strong for the honest Earl
Fitzwilliam. Their intrigues at court prevailed and when the alter-
native was decisively put by the Lord Lieutenant to the prime minis-
ter " Beresford or Fitzwilliam" the fatal choice was soon made ; the
former was retained, the latter recalled. This measure alone was
sufficient to ignite the combustible materials that now lay so thick all
over the surface of the country. The selection of such a viceroy was
an omen for good, which excited the liveliest hopes among the Catholic
population, and the friends of freedom in general. But no sooner was
the cup of joy raised to the lips of Ireland, than the minister of Eng-
land, like a mocking demon, dashed it to the ground, exposing the
nation to the most perilous risk of insurrection.
On this occasion, the mind of Pitt, certainly his policy, underwent
a sudden change. He earnestly urged Lord Fitzwilliam to postpone
the question of Emancipation, assigning a reason, of which time has
too clearly developed the mystery. He intended, in tact, to make
Emancipation the price of the union ; and. therefore, wished to have
90 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
that subject kept in abeyance, till circumstances should be ripe for the
accomplishment of his darling scheme. Had the king's conscience
yielded on the Catholic question, I believe we should have had no re-
bellion in Ireland ; but as the royal bigotry was inflexible, it became
necessary to have a certain quantity of Irish blood to cement the im-
perial policy. Let no reader be startled at the apparent uncharitable-
ness of this language. It is not as strong as much that I shall soon
quote from the highest Protestant authorities, and it is yet far too
feeble to reprobate justly the execrable facts, which it is my painful
duty to record.
To return to Pitt. In urging Lord Fitzwilliam to keep back the
question of Emancipation, he said it would be "the means of doing
a greater service to the British Empire than it has been capable of
receiving since the Revolution, or at least since the union" (with
Scotland.) But that noble lord disdained to be the instrument of a
sinister policy and so he left the stage clear for the tragedies in which
Castlereagh and Clare were to be the chief actors.
The great error of the volunteers was their religious bigotiy. It is
astonishing to find even a Charlemont shuddering at the thought of
Catholic Emancipation. Indeed this great body of armed citizens used
their power to very little purpose. 'Tis true they rendered invasion
hopeless to England's enemies ; and they also won a measure of par-
liamentary independence, which a strange oversight in Grattan and
others almost rendered futile, and prepared the way for the aggres-
sions that issued in the sanguinary insurrection of '98. But their talk
about parliamentary reform, while three-fourths of the population were
shut out of the constitution, and taxed without their consent, was
preposterous in the extreme. Their illiberality and dissension on this
subject rendered their dissolution a matter of less regret than it would
otherwise have been.
As Ulster was at that time completely electrified with French en-
thusiasm for liberty and the rights of man ; as the Revolution, so glo-
rious in its first stages a dazzling sun emerging from the chaos of
despotism, and destined soon to set in a deluge of blood had taught
all men, that Catholics as well as Protestants, could know their rights,
and knowing, dare maintain them, the society of United Irishmen
was formed at Belfast, and quickly spread all over the kingdom, till
the ill-fated Lord Edward Fitzgerald could count on about 400,000
men, armed and ready to take the field, at a signal from the leaders,
who waited only for a French fleet, to seize the Castle authorities,
and convert Ireland into a republic.
The proceedings of this body were at first open, and under the
THE RIGHTS OP IREI.ANO. 91
check of public opinion. But, being proclaimed down by government,
they met in secret, their organization, most skilfully ramified through-
out the kingdom, became military, and the society thence formed was
the netted prey of internal, but unsuspected treachery.
The report of the secret parliamentary committee which sat in 1798,
made strange, ever memorable, and most instructive disclosures.
Lord Clare acknowledged in the Imperial Parliament, in 1801,
that the government learned nothing from the state prisoners in '98
which they had not been fully acquainted with before. The United
Irishmen employed an agent, named Jackson, to negotiate with
France for military aid ; and so early as 1794, this treasonable cor-
respondence was revealed to Pitt by one Cockayne, and yet Jackson
was suffered to return to Ireland, and to aid in spreading the con-
spiracy through the country !
Indeed we are met at every turn by triple treason in this melan-
choly chapter of our history. From 1795 a regular system of espionage
was established by the government, sustained by a profuse expendi-
ture of the secret service money. Colonel Maguane, or Magin, of
Saintfield, a member of the provincial and county committees, and
also a colonel of the United Irishmen, enjoying their full confidence,
and attending their secret meetings regularly during the whole of '97
and on to June '98, as regularly reported the proceedings to the Rev.
John Cleland. the agent and chaplain of Lord Londonderry, through
whom the intelligence was conveyed to Lord Castlereagh. The
leaders, therefore, could have been arrested at any time, and a rising
of the people effectually prevented, had it suited the policy of the
men whom God in his anger entrusted with power over this country.
Some of them, it is true, were from time to time arrested and
thrown into prison. Counsellor M'Nally was their advocate, en-
trusted not only with their secrets, but with the sacred responsibility
of defending their lives and liberties before the legal tribunals ; but
even he was in the pay of government, and enjoyed during life a
pension of 300 a year a fact that was never known or suspected
till after his death. M'Gucken, also, of Belfast, their solicitor, was
secretly bribed by government, and received at different times for his
services no less than 1450, besides other sums not set down to his
name. But the villany becomes deeper still ! There was a person
named Hughes, a bookseller in Belfast, who so thoroughly enjoyed
the confidence of the rebellious society, that they gave him a com-
mission to go through the different towns in the North, to arrange
for the defence of the prisoners at the ensuing trial?, and received a
large sum a hundred pounds, I think for every town he visited.
92 THE EIGHTS OF IRELAND.
This man, too, was ,the well-paid spy of the Castle ! He was ar-
rested two or three times, to lull suspicion ; and in Dublin he was
sent in among the prisoners, as if doomed to the heaviest vengeance
of the law, where, by exciting the pity of the other prisoners and
feigning madness, he was enabled to hear their conversations, and
report them daily to his immaculate employers !*
Just think of the condition of these unhappy patriots, many of
them with hearts as noble as ever throbbed for a country's freedom,
whose characters were pure, amiable, excellent, free from every stain
except the damning one of treason, which it pleased not Providence
here (as in America) to transform into the honourable remembrancer
of a glorious Revolution ! Think of these generous enthusiasts trust-
ing their lives and families to the integrity of miscreants, who under-
took to be their advocates and defenders, their shields against the
poisoned darts of a vindictive government, and were paid by that
very government to betray them !
The infamous Reynolds, who informed on the United leaders as-
sembled at the house of Bond in Dublin, received the following
sums :
Pension for 37 years, at 920 per annum, 34,040
Gratuities at different times, . . . 5,500
Consulship at Lisbon, . . . 5,600
Consulship in Iceland, .... 600
45,740
This is a pretty round sum of public money of the people's money
for one informer; but, better still the pension of 1000 Irish re-
verted to his family at his death, who are actually in the enjoyment
of it now, nearly fifty years after the " wages of iniquity" were
earned ! !
The poor Sheares ! Shall we hesitate to call them martyrs, mis-
taken and misled as they were ? Oh ! how much less worthy of a
felon's doom than the rninions of power, who vindictively thirsted for
their blood! In an address, dated Patrick's-day, 1798, John wrote
" If Ireland shall be forced to throw away the scabbard, let it be at
her own time, not theirs."
Alas ! it was " at theirs." " It has been said," remarked Mr.
G-rattan, in his speech on the subject of General Lake's proclama-
tion, " that it were better the people should proceed to violence ; nay,
it has been said in so many words, ' it were to be wished they would
* For the deeply interesting details see Madden's History of the United Irish-
men, and Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 93
rebel.' Good God! wished they would rebel !* Here is the system
and the principle of the system. From corruption to coercion, and
so on to military execution, accompanied by a declaration that it
were to be wished the people would go into rebellion !" Lord Castle-
reagh, in his examination of Dr. M'Nevin before the secret commit-
tee, avowed that " means were taken to make the United Irish system
explode"
Excitable and combustible as the Irish people are, this was re-
markably difficult. I venture to assert that there is not a people on
the face of the earth at once so spirited and so hard to be driven into
rebellion.
I have no space for a detail of the horrors that preceded the ex-
plosion of '98, and were evidently intended to precipitate an event so
devoutly wished for by our benevolent government ! Let us glance
at a few of them.
It appears from the report of the parliamentary committee on
Orangeism, in 1836, that the first Orange lodge was formed in the
village of Lough gall, county Armagh, in the house of a person named
Sloan, in the year 1795. In 1796, says Plowden, (vol. ii., p. 377) no
less than 7,000 Catholics had been forced or burned out of that
country, by the Orangemen, encouraged, connived at, and protected
by government. Mr. Christie, a Quaker, living in that neighbourhood,
heard sometimes of twelve or fourteen Catholic houses wrecked in
a night. This " lawless banditti," as they were called by Lord Gosford,
in a meeting of magistrates, in executing their " wide and tremendous
proscription," had expelled half the inhabitants of a populous district,
and " driven them in the midst of an inclement winter to seek shelter
for their hapless families, where chance might guide them." " Those
horrors," said he, " are now acting with impunity"*
Not only were these things winked at ; they were encouraged by
government, who passed a bill of indemnity to secure the leaders and
magisterial accomplices from legal proceedings. Judging from more
recent occurrences in that part of the world, they might safely have
let the law take its course. Sheriffs, sub-sheriffs, and juries, grand
and petty, were then as " loyal" as they have often proved themselves
since. Thank God, these dreadful times are passed for ever ; and
Orangemen, in general, cherish a very different spirit now. May
Christian charity and brotherly conciliation grow daily, till Irishmen
of every party are united, not by secret oaths, but in the bonds of a
* Edinburgh Review, January, 18.'UJ.
94 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
generous patriotism, Often, manly, peaceful, acting always above board,
'* in the world's approving eyes."
This impunity, however, called forth the " defenders ;" and they
met a different treatment ; for Lord Carhampton transported thirteen
hundred of them without trial. Meantime, the insurrection act,
martial law, free quarters, house-burnings, tortures, and military
executions, were the portion of the poor Catholics who remained at
home. The state of things in 1797, is thus described by Lord Moira,
in the English house of peers, in a speech delivered on the 22nd
of November, of that year. He said that these horrors were part of
" a system, deliberately determined upon, and regularly persevered in.
The most absurd, as well as the most disgusting
tyranny that ever a nation groaned under" which must result in
" hatred to the English name." He declared that during that year
the curfew, the badge of slavery, was so rigidly enforced, that in one
place a woman would not be allowed to light a candle to give
medicine to her daughter who was dying in convulsions ! Persons
were thrown into prison in equal ignorance of their crimes and their
accusers. Innocent people were tortured to extort confessions. He
knew a man on mere suspicion picketed till he fainted ; again, when
he recovered, till he fainted once more, and then picketed the third
time ! These torturings wei'e " notorious." In other respects, too,
the greatest cruelties were practised by the military and yeomanry.
Triangles, half-hangings, and pitched caps were the order of the day.
All which, Lord Moira declared himself ready to prove at their lord-
ships' bar.*
In August, 1798, the Lord Chancellor Clare put the following
question in the secret committee : " Pray, Mr. Emmett, what caused
the late insurrection ?
Ans. " The free quarters, house-burnings, tortures, and the military
executions in the counties Kildare, Carlow, and Wicklow !" This
was not denied. On the contrary, the report of that committee, states
that ' it appears from a variety of evidence laid before your committee,
that the rebellion would not have broken out as soon as it did, had it
not been for the well-timed measures adopted by government, subse-
quent to the proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant and council, bearing
date, 30th of March, 1798."
Among the chief of these measures, adopted by the functionaries of
the most civilized government in the world, at the close of the
* Madden's United Irishmen, v;>l. 1., p. ,'558.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 95
eighteenth century, were treachery and torture. We have already
noticed the fact. Hughes was instructed to act a part in order to worm
himself into the confidence of the state prisoners. Many of the other
informers maintained their intimacy with the United Irishmen, to the
last moment; and some had the fiendish hardihood to visit their
bereaved and wretched families, as if to condole with them in their
distress, but, really, it would seem, to revel in the agony and ruin
which their own perfidy had wrought. It was thus that Reynolds
acted with the wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the infamous
Captain Armstrong with the Sheares.
This base man, whom his own relatives swore to be utterly unprin-
cipled, sought an introduction to the two brothers, professed to be a
convert to their principles, and to be most anxious to exert all his
abilities, and to use all his opportunities, as an officer, in aiding them
to accomplish the contemplated revolution. He was, therefore, ad-
mitted to their counsels, and received as an intimate friend into their
family, where he fondled the children, whom he was then labouring
effectually and fatally to reduce to orphanage, poverty, and infamy, by
bringing their father to the gallows ! As soon as these two eminent
barristers, universally esteemed in all the relations of life, were caught
in his toils, he visited them in prison, professing the greatest possible
grief at their condition, and proposing, as a friend, that if they had
any papers, which they thought might criminate them, they had better
give him their keys, and he would remove the dangerous documents !
Such were the chosen, honoured, and well-rewarded agents of the
government in these days ; and by such means they compassed the
destruction of their political opponents.
Lord Castlereagh did not hesitate to assert in Parliament in 1801,
that " torture never was inflicted in Ireland with the knowledge, au-
thority or approbation of government ;" an assertion very hard to
believe when it is known that they had their spies in every hamlet,
and almpst in every family, so that nothing could transpire unknown
to them, in the remotest part of the kingdom. But J. C. Beresford,
who selected a riding-school for the philanthropic purpose, said, " It
was unmanly to deny torture, as it was notoriously practised." It was
constantly inflicted in the Royal Exchange, adjoining the Castle, when
the shrieks of the agonised victims could be heard in the Council
Chamber ! Lord Clare, more candid than Lord Castlereagh, defended
the barbarous practice, on the ground of necessity; and Sir Richard
Musgrave, who could speak from experience on the subject, having
once inflicted it in "NVaterford with his own hand, because he could
find no person base enough to do it, has devoted a portion of his
96 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
History of the Rebellion to the vindication of this foul blot on British
civilization. The government did not, indeed, give direct orders to
obtain evidence in this manner. They were too politic for that ; but
Beresford, Musgrave, Judkin Fitzgerald, Hunter Gowan, Hawtrey
White, Hamilton Boyd, Sandys, with Hempenstal, and Love (the
famous walking gallows), who distinguished themselves in this line,
were amply rewarded. Fitzgerald was made a baronet, Musgrave got
an office of 1,200 a year, Gowan was put on the pension list, and
the rest were recompensed in proportion to their " zeal beyond the
law."
The tormentors of Ireland did not confine themselves to scourging,
picketing, and pitch-capping. As the oi'dinary tribunals were super-
seded by martial law, military murders followed one another with
awful rapidity, and were perpetrated amid circumstances of unheard
of barbarity. Now was their time to force on the rebellion ; the
leaders of the people were imprisoned or dead. Crowds of victims
were suffocating in the gaols. The country was in a state of conster-
nation, paralyzed and hopeless. At last the unorganized county of
Wexford was driven to desperation. Maddened by torture, they rose
in self-defence, and then commenced the rebellion, an insurrection of
a poor trodden-down peasantry in a single county, without officers,
discipline, or fire-arms ; and yet they won several victories over the
king's forces ; it took eight generals, and an immense army to subdue
them ; and had only a fourth of the 32 counties, followed the example
of Wexford, the power of England would have been utterly destroyed
in this country, without the aid of a single French soldier, notwith-
standing the ignorance and intemperance, the want of moral discipline
and self-control which then prevailed !
In truth, in thus tampering with rebellion, the government were
playing a most perilous game. They put the institutions of the country
to a fearful hazard. It was head or harp for the crown of Ireland.
Besides, were it not for adverse winds, " the only unsubsidized allies
of England," 15,000 Frenchmen, with 40,000 stand of arms, would have
been landed on our shores. Mr. Moore has justly remarked that had
steam boats been then in use, the French would have been masters of
Ireland. They would have been followed by an immense native i ,rce to
the metropolis, where, according to Lord Edward Fitzgerald's hint,
the very women would have fought with the paving stones of the
streets, from the roofs of the houses.
In allusion to another expedition in 1 798, under General Humbert,
Plowden makes the following remarks : " It must ever remain a
humiliating stain upon the lustre and power of the British arms, that
TUE HKJHTS OF IRELAND. 97
so pitiful a detachment as 1,100 French infantry, should, in a kingdom
in which there was an armed force of 150,000 men, have not only put
to rout a select army of 6,000, prepared to resist the invaders, but
have also provided themselves with ordnance and ammunition from our
stores, taken several of our towns, marched 122 Irish miles through
the country, and kept arms in their victorious hands for 17 days, in
the heart of an armed kingdom."
We do not palliate we execrate the atrocities perpetrated by the
Wexford insurgents, especially at Wexford-bridge, and Scullabogue.
But, in condemning them, we should recollect that they were an igno-
rant and ungoverned peasantry, infuriated by torture, and by cruelty
in every form, of which their worst deeds were but a bad imitation.
Several clergymen escaped from the hands of the rebels, but not one
priest from those of the loyalists. Many Catholics exerted themselves to
save Protestant life so much the worse for themselves, for their trea-
son was measured by their humanity. If a man prevailed with the
rebels to spare their prisoners it was a proof that he had influence,
perhaps authority as a commander. Therefore he ought to die ! So
reasoned the men of '98. According to this rule one man is related
by the Rev. James Gordon to have said " I thank God no one can
accuse me of having saved any man's life !" The same truly impartial
historian, (himself a clergyman of the established church) declares that
of the 30,000 natives slain during this war, more were killed in cold
blood than fell in battle. " No quarter" says he, " was given to per-
sons taken prisoners as rebels, with or without arms."*
Sir John Moore, who relinquished his command here in disgust,
said the country would " certainly be quiet if tho gentry and yeo-
manry would behave with tolerable decency, and not seek to gratify
their ill-humour and revenge on the people." The venerable Aber-
crombie " that soul of honour, that star of England's glory." declared
that the army which then scourged Ireland, with their savage licen-
tiousness, "were formidable to every one but the enemy."
It may be asked why the use of torture in Ireland did not rouse the
indignation of England, and cause the barbarians, who by its employ-
ment disgraced the British, and the Protestant name, to be hurled
from power? Surely the voice of thunder awakened in England
against such practices, when the distant AW/ro and the Jew were the
victims, could not be silent when the bloody work was executed on
the neighbouring people of Ireland, under a government for wlioso
conduct their fellow-subjects in Great Britain were rrxpnnsible .' Ala> !
* Gordon's History of tin- Ki-Vn'i!<on. n. JOV
u
98 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
it could ; for there lives not in any clime a people of any creed or colour,
more thoroughly alienated from British sympathies than the Irish 1
However that may be, the bloody experiment was now to be turned
to its political uses. " The deprivation of all legal protection to
liberty or life the familiar use of torture the trials by courts-mar-
tial the forcible suppression of public meetings the total stifling of
public opinion and the use of armed violence," prepared the way
for the Union.
In the debate in 1800, Grattan said : " I think now as I thought
then, (1798,) that the treason of the minister against the liberties of
the people, was infinitely worse than the treason of the people against
the minister." The Lord Chancellor Plunket, one of the first of
orators and greatest of constitutional lawyers, on that occasion boldly
accused the government, " of fomenting the embers of a lingering re-
bellion of hallooing the Protestant against the Catholic, and the
Catholic against the Protestant of artfully keeping alive domestic
dissensions for the purpose of subjugation."
" I will be bold to say," he added, " that licentious and impious
France, in all the unrestrained excesses that anarchy and atheism have
given birth to, has not committed a more insidious act against her
enemy than is now attempted by the professed champions of civilized
Europe, against Ireland a friend and ally even in the hour of her
calamity and distress. At a moment when our country is filled with
British troops whilst the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended whilst
trials by courts-martial are carrying on in many parts of the kingdom
whilst the people are made to believe that they have no right to
meet and to deliberate and whilst the people are palsied by their
fears at the moment when we are distracted by internal dissensions
dissensions kept alive as the pretext of our subjugation, and the in-
strument of our future thraldom. Such is the time in which the
Union is proposed !"
My object in referring to the Rebellion is not to awaken party
feeling, but rather a salutary horror of civil war ; and to show that it
was "got up" by a wicked government to enable them to carry the
Union. This, I trust, has been suificiently proved. So far the object
was gained. But there was another difficulty to be overcome. The
people were prostrated but the parliament was still to be purchased.
This achievement we shall notice in the next section.
THE RIGHTS OF IHKLAND. () ( J
SECTION II. BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION.
MUCH has been said of the alleged corruption of the Irish Parlia-
liament but in ignorance of the facts of the case. Those who know
them will admit the truth of the following statement, by Sir Jonah
Barrington : " It was the very summit of British egotism and injus-
tice to pretend that the corrupt state of the Irish Parliament formed
a leading and just ground for altogether extinguishing its existence,
though it appears in full proof, that in proportion to their respective
numbers, the British commons, at the period of the Irish Union,
contained one-fourth more corrupt, corruptible and influenced mem-
bers than that of Ireland at any period, and that the British minister,
on the Regency question, intimidated, influenced, or corrupted the
British House of Commons, when that of Ireland was found pure
enough to resist all his efforts and support the heir apparent."* In-
deed, it may be asserted truly, that the Irish commons, when the
English government began to ply its arts of seduction, was incompara-
bly purer and more independent than the present British Parliament,
whose subserviency to Sir Robert Peel was so scandalous during the
last session.
With a third of the money paid for Irish rotten boroughs alone,
that right honourable gentleman can, if he pleases, purchase an over-
whelming majority next session in favour of a Repeal of the Union !
But surely if it be infamous to receive a bribe, it must be equally
infamous to give it ; and the tempter cannot be less guilty than his
victim ! We have Mr. Grattan's authority for the fact, that Lord
Castlereagh openly declared in the House of Commons, that " half
a million or more were expended some years ago to break an opposi-
tion the same or a greater sum may be necessary now." Mr.
Grattan added : " He said so in the most extensive sense of bribery
and corruption. The threat was proceeded on ; the peerage sold ; the
caitiffs of corruption were every where in the lobby in the street
on the steps and at the doors of every parliamentary leader, offering
title to sonic, offices to others, corruption to all."
The late Lord Chief Justice Bushe denounced this wholesale cor-
ruption no less vehemently. He stated that "the basest corruption
arid artifice were exerted to promote it (the Union); that all the worst
passions of the human heart were entered into the service and all
* Rise and Fall of the Irbh Nation, p. .VW Duffy's edition.
100 THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the most depraved ingenuity of the human intellect was tortured to
devise new contrivances of fraud."
" The minister," says Mr. O'Connell, " set about purchasing votes.
He opened his office with full hands. The peerage was part of his
stock in trade, and he made some two scores of peers in exchange for
Union votes ! The episcopal bench was brought into the market,
and ten or twelve bishoprics were trucked for Union votes ! The
bench of justice became a commodity, and a Chief Justice and eight
puisne judges and barons ascended the bench, as the price of votes for
the Union ! It would extend beyond our calculation to make out a
list of the generals, and admirals, and colonels, and navy captains,
and other naval and military promotions which rewarded personal or
kindred votes for the Union. The revenue departments have long, too,
been the notorious merchandize of corruption. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the board of excise and customs, either conjointly or
separately, and the multifarious other fiscal offices, especially the legal
offices, were filled to suffocation, as the rewards of Union votes. The
price of a single vote was familiarly known it was 8000, or a civil
or military appointment to the value of 2000 per annum. They
were simpletons who only took one of the three, the dexterous
always managed to get at least two out of the three ; and it would
not be difficult, perhaps, to mention the names of twelve, or even a
score of members, who contrived to obtain the entire three the
8000, the civil appointment, and the military appointment."*
Considering the frailty of human nature, can we wonder that these
splendid baits took, especially in a country so poor as Ireland ? Yet
the English people, " from a recurrence to unequivocal facts, and from
a sad experience of the infinite ease with which any minister cor-
rupted and controlled, at pleasure, their own parliament, will scarcely
believe that all the arts, the money, the titles, the offices, the bribes,
their minister could bestow all the influence he possessed all
the patronage he could grant all the promises he could make
all the threats he could use all the terrors he could excite
all the deprivations he could inflict, could seduce or warp scarcely
more than a half of the members of the Irish Commons from
their duty to their country; and that on the question of annexa-
tion by union, his utmost efforts could not influence more than eight
above a moiety of their number ; yet with only 158 out of 300, which
in England would be considered a defeat, he persevered and effected
* Repeal Reports, 1840.
THK RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 101
the extinguishment of the legislature a majority, which on any im-
portant question would have cashiered a British minister. Yet such
was the fact in Ireland ; and the division of the 5th and 6th of Fe-
bruary, 1800, on the Union, will remain an eternal record of the un-
rivalled incorruptible purity of 115 members of that parliament."*
Let it also be recollected that this parliament had been packed by
means of the Place Bill ; that consequently the majority consisted not
of bona fide Irish representatives, but of officers and others thrust in
merely to do this work, instead of persons who could not be induced
to vote against their country, but accepted rewards on consideration of
vacating their seats ; and let it be also recollected, that this was an
unreformed parliament, many of whose members were the nominees of
peers. How vital then to the nation must have seemed the existence
of parliament ; and how faithful and devoted to the interests of this
kingdom would be a House of Commons constitutionally returned, and
fairly representing the people !
When Lord Castlereagh had, by means of his Place Bill, intro-
duced into the house a sufficient number of dependants to balance all
opposition, then he " boldly announced his intention to turn the scale
by bribes to all who would accept them, under the name of compen-
sation for loss of patronage and interest. He publicly declared,
first, that every nobleman, who returned members to parliament,
should be paid in cash 15,000 for every member so returned ; se-
condly, that every member who had purchased a seat in parliament,
should have his purchase-money repaid him by the treasury of Ire-
land ; thirdly, that all members of parliament or others, who were
losers by a union should be fully compensated for their losses ; and
that 1,500,000 should be devoted to this service: in other terms,
all who supported his measure were under some pretence or other to
share in this bank of corruption ! " A declaration so flagitious and
treasonable was never publicly made in any country ; but it had a
powerful effect in his favour ; and, before the meeting of parliament,
he had secured a small majority of eiglit.f
Lord Shannon received for his patronage in the
Commons - -15.000
The Marquis of Ely -15.000
Lord Clanmorris, besides a peerage '2,'5.000
Lord Belvidere, besides his douceur 15.000
Sir Hercules Langrishe 15,000
* Sir Jonah Harrington's Rise and Fall of the Iri-li Nation, p. .Vtfv
r Sir Jonah I5arrijiL r ton.
102
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
The total cost of the UNION has been estimated at the lowest rate
as follows :
Expenses of the large military force required on
account of the preliminary Rebellion, at four
millions per annum, from 1797 to 1802 - - '16,000,000
Purchase of the Irish Parliament
Payment to suffering Loyalists
Secret Service Money from 1797 to 1804 -
Pensions paid on account of the Rebellion and the
Union, probably
Additional expenses in the public establishments,
removing departments to London, and compen-
sation to retiring officers -
1,500,000
1,500,000
553,547
1,000,000
500,000
21,053,547
Add the destruction of property by the military, 50,000 human
lives lost, and half a century of national degradation and poverty en-
tailed on the country !
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. Hl.'J
CHAPTER X.
THE ACT OF LMON WAS NOT A CONSTITUTIONAL COMPACT HUT A
LEGAL STOLIATION.
" You may make the Union binding as a law, but you cannot make it obli-
gatory on conscience. It will be obeyed as long as England is strong; but re-
sistance to it will be in the abstract a duty : and the exhibition of that resistance
will be a mere question of prudence." SAURIN.
WE are told over and over again by the English journals that the
Union was a solemn compact between two great nations, a mutual
agreement voluntarily made, publicly ratified, and rendered sacredly
binding throughout all ages. Is this the fact ? Can any one who has
the slightest acquaintance with the history of the transaction believe it
for a moment ? From the language generally held by British writers
upon this subject, a person would be led to suppose that the Irish peo-
ple had the same opinion of their parliament as the fjiglish Commons
once had of Irish cattle, when they voted their importation " a com-
mon nuisance ;" that being regularly convened in their parishes,
towns, and counties, they all but unanimously declared that the Irish
constitution ought to be abolished, and that the ancient kingdom of
Ireland should sink into a province of Great Britain !
If the country had been in a state of profound peace if the minds
of the people were undistracted with wars and rumours of wars if the
course of law ran smooth and tranquil if life and liberty were safe
under the regular constitutional guarantees if the people could assem-
ble freely to express their opinions, none daring to make them afraid
if the public press laboured under no intimidation if the national
mind had thoroughly recovered from the reign of terror if concilia-
tion had quenched the coals of party strife and if, then, the question
being fully discussed on the merits, the parliament had been dissolved,
that the suffrages of the nation might be taken on the question of a
union, so that a majority should be returned, pledged to their consti-
tuents to abolish the I.EGISLAITRF. why in that ea-e there would h<-
some truth in the statement, that the union was a .ompact binding on.
104 THE KIUUTS OF
the conscience as well as in law. We might lament the infatuation of
our forefathers, in parting with their birthright, but still submit in
patience to their bad bargain. But even, then, if a failure were
shown if the measure were proved to produce much more evil than
good, there is no sound reason why it should not be reconsidered, and,
if need be, rescinded.
But it is notorious that the very reverse of all this was the fact, and
that in the circumstances of the case, a fair compact was as unlikely
as between a wolf and a lamb, with none but other wolves to witness
it. First the nation was disarmed, disabled and terror-stricken ; and
next its representatives were bribed, bullied and overcome by a system
of combined seduction and coercion, whose enormity has never been
paralleled in the history of the world.
An Irishman may be suspected of colouring the facts connected with
this awful transaction. He may regard the murder of a consti-
tution as not less culpable than the murder of a king, and as he gazes
on the tomb of that constitution, associated with a thousand recollec-
tions of departed glory and prosperity, he may give vent to his emo-
tions in language, not so moderate or measured as may seem fitting
to those by whose hands his country's liberty was cloven down.
Let us listen then to one of England's own most illustrious legislators,
a man whose sterling principle was equal to his commanding intellect.
No one can suspect him of so stating a question of this kind, as to do
injustice to his own country, or his own order. The following are
extracts from speeches made by Lord Grey, in the British Parliament,
in the year 1800:
" If the Parliament of Ireland was left to itself, untempted, unawed,
unintimidated, it would, without hesitation, have rejected the resolu-
tions. There are 300 members in all, and 120 of these strenuously op-
posed the measure, amongst whom were two-thirds of the county mem-
bers, the representatives of the city of Dublin, and almost all the towns
which it is proposed shall send members to the Imperial Parliament ;
162 voted in favour of the union, of these 116 were placemen ! some
of whom were English generals on the staff, without a foot of ground
in Ireland, and completely dependant upon government.
Let us reflect upon the arts which have been used since the last ses-
sions of the Irish Parliament to pack a majority in the House of Com-
mons. All persons holding offices under government, even the most
intimate friends of the minister, if they hesitated to vote as directed,
were stript of all their employments. Even this step was found in-
effectual, and other arts were had recourse to, which, though I cannot
M;UIK> in this place, all will easily conjecture. A bill framed for pre-
THE IUGHTS OF IUKhANl>. 105
ser\ ing the purity of parliament was likewise^ abused, and no less than
sixty-three seats were vacated, by their holders having received
nominal offices.
" Twenty-seven counties have petitioned against the measure (the
Union). The petition from the county of Down, is signed by upwards
of 17,000 respectable, independent men, and all the others are in a
similar proportion, Dublin petitioned under the great seal of the city,
and each of the corporations in it followed the example. Drogheda
petitioned against the Union, and almost every other town in the
kingdom, in like manner, testified its disapprobation. Those in favour
of the measure, possessing great influence in the country, obtained a
Jew counter petitions ; yet though the petition from the county Down
was signed by 17,000, the counter petition was signed only by 415.
Though there were 707,000 who had signed petitions against the
measure, the total number of those who declared themselves in favour
of it, did not exceed 3,000, and many even of these only prayed that
the measure might be discussed! If the facts I state are true and
I challenge any man to falsify them could a nation in more direct
terms express its disapprobation of a political measure, than Ireland
has of a legislative Union with Great Britain ? In fact the nation is
nearly unanimous, and this great majority is composed not of fanatics,
bigots, or jacobins, but of the most respectable of every class in the
community."
Surely the Morning Chronicle will respect this authority ! If the
editor were aware of these unquestionable facts, how could he reiterate
the fiction that the Union was a fair compact, freely entered into, and
solemnly ratified by two great nations, and which it is, therefore,
criminal on the part of Ireland to attempt, however peacefully, to in-
fringe ? A large majority of the bona fide, representives stood firmly
by their country against all the arts of the government and the mea-
sure was ultimately carried by the meml>ers for rotten boroughs, by
placemen, soldiers and strangers. And such was the feeling of the
country against the suicidal act, that all the Londonderry influence in
the county Down could not induce more than one out of every thirty-
four of the petitioners, to pray that it might be inflicted on their country !
Is it not hard then to keep one's patience, when men who ought
to know better, represent the Union as a fair bargain to be held for
ever sacred? There must be some strange obliquity in the con-
science that can regard it as imposing a particle of moral obligation
on Ireland.
But we will suppose a case far more favourable to our op]>ouenLs :
we will grant, for argument sake, that the whole proceedings were
106 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
reversed that no foul arts were used to intimidate or corrupt and
that a majority of parliament, acting freely and honestly according to
their best judgment, gave their votes for the Union. Would it be
constitutionally binding then ? Not a jot more than it is now ! It
would not, it is true, be so execrable, so flagrant a violation of every
political right and moral principle so deep a stain on England's po-
licy so memorable an instance of doing the direst evil, on the widest
scale, with a giant's energy and a demon's hardihood, for the sake of
some problematical good flooding the island with corruption in the
idle hope of reaping therefrom a crop of social virtue and national
prosperity ! But still it would be a nullity as really in this supposed
case as it was and is in the other.
The Irish constitution, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons,
was as old as that of England. What right had any or all of the
functionaries of this constitution to destroy it ? Kings may die, dy-
nasties may change ; but the crown remains, and the throne waits to
be filled again by the immortal virtue of the constitution. What right
had the representatives of the people at any particular time to take
away the crown of Ireland to denationalize a country of whose
rights they were the sworn guardians ? Who authorised the Com-
mons to allow one-third of their number to be absorbed in an alien
and unfriendly legislature, while the remaining two-thirds not only
abdicated, but assisted in abolishing their proper functions ? Was it
competent for the peers of Parliament to denude themselves and their
posterity of their legislative rights ? And should the king have lent
his hand to level the Corinthian pillars of the Irish state ?
Parliament may make laws, alter, repeal, or renew them at pleasure ;
it can reform itself, change the executive, and alter the succession of
the crown ; but it cannot abolish the kingly office ; it cannot disband
the peers it cannot destroy itself. Or if in its assumed omnipotence
it do so, then society is dissolved into its elements, and the PEOPLE,
the source, under God, of all legitimate power, must frame for them-
selves another constitution.
I am writing, I feel, what would be regarded in England as mere
truisms. If the British Parliament at its next meeting were recom-
mended by Sir Robert Peel to consider the expediency of a union of
that kingdom with France ; and if, by undue influence of e' T ery kind,
he whipped his spaniel-majority into acquiescence ; if the lords and
bishops, too, were bought over ; and if the queen were traitorously
persuaded to give her royal assent to the act of union, what would
the people of England do ? Would they endure to be told by their
journals that this was a solemn compact between two great nations,
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 107
effected by the wisdom of their respective parliament.*, and that its
terms were, therefore, morally and legally binding on Englishmen
throughout all generations, during which they must quietly and duti-
fully submit to French ascendancy, being the smaller nation, and
withal only a few leagues from the land which is the seat of supre-
macy and centralization, a space all but annihilated by steam-boats
and rail-roads ?
But I need not dwell longer on a principle which has been enforced
with such splendour of eloquence and irresistible logic by the very
highest authority that could be quoted on such a subject, namely, the
Lord Chancellor PLUNKET, who spoke in the Irish Commons as
follows :
" I, in the most express terms, deny the competency of parliament
to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the
constitution. I tell you, if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this
act, it will be a NULLITY, and that no man in Ireland will be bound
to obey it. I make this assertion deliberately. I repeat it ; and call
on any man who hears me to take down my words. You have not
been elected for this purpose. You have been appointed to make
laics, not legislatures. You are appointed to act under the constitu-
tion, not to destroy it. You are appointed to exercise the func-
tions of legislators, and not to transfer them ; and if you do, your act
is a dissolution of the government ; you resolve society into its origi-
nal elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you. * *
Yourselves you may extinguish ; but parliament you cannot extin-
guish ! It is enshrined in the hearts of the people it is enshrined in
the sanctuary of the constitution it is immortal &s the island it pro-
tects. As well might the fanatic maniac hope that the act which
destroys his miserable body, should extinguish his eternal soul.
Again, therefore, I warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the
constitution ; it is above your power."
108 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER XI.
EVILS INFLICTED BY THE UNION.
" The loss of national independence is, no doubt, the worst of all calamities."
EDINBURGH REVIEW.
I. HAD the promises of the Union been honestly made and faithfully
redeemed, no doubt much less evil would have resulted from it. Had
the Catholics been emancipated, the franchise extended, the people
educated, and the industrial resources of the country developed, much
discontent, misery, and coercion would have been spared. Imperial
legislation might have opened up many a profitable channel for Eng-
lish capital in Ireland. And if a disarmed and subjugated people
mourned in the presence of frowning British gai'risons, that they
" knew the use of steel no longer ;" degraded because distrusted,
conscious of loyalty and guarded like convicted rebels ; still they
might console themselves, while busy " gathering gold," and enriching
their families, for the loss of independence. The livery of the slave
might have been embroidered ; he might have received from an indul-
gent master at least an abundant supply of pudding, and, brought to
a state of fat content, might have fallen into a happy oblivion of his
lost rights.
A wise despotism would seek to mitigate its bondage to increase
material civilization and mere animal comfort, thereby blunting the
feeling of national degradation. But in Ireland the slave is hungry,
and naked, and unprotected ; his galled wounds are bare, and excite
only the derision of his driver ; he labours without motive or hope,
for his industry knows no fostering care of government. Capital can
never be his, for as soon as the least drippling is pressed out of the soil
it is drained off to enrich another people. Instead, therefore, of trying
to compensate for the loss of political rights with all their ennobling
influences, everything seems to have been studiously done to add bit-
terness to bondage to make the chains galling and the yoke crushing.
Whether it proceed from the imperious blood of a dominant race,
inflamed by the inveterate animosity of conquest, and poisoned by the
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 109
virus of religious bigotry, on the one hand, or the innate servility and
tameness of hereditary bondsmen on the other ; or from repeated tri-
umphs over partial, feeble, and irritating efforts at freedom ; certain it
is, that no people in Europe, however devoid of constitutional privi-
leges, have experienced less of kindly feeling from their government
than the Irish.
Nothing but the grossest ignorance or neglect of the lessons of
history could have rendered the men who advocated the Union blind
to this result, if, indeed, any of them were blind to it. One of the
first of British historians, speaking of the nations subjugated by Rome,
has the following remarks how applicable to Ireland ! No doubt
the Romans brought with their arms the boasted blessings of civiliza-
tion, said to follow in the train of conquest, and to counterbalance its
calamities a monstrous falsehood invented by lying and flattering
historians :
" Europe began to breathe and to recover strength," says Dr.
Robertson, " after the calamities it had undergone ; agriculture was
encouraged ; population increased ; the ruined cities were rebuilt ;
new towns were founded ; an appearance of prosperity succeeded, and
repaired in some degree the havoc of war.
" This state, however, was far from being happy or favourable to
the improvement of the human mind. The vanquished natives were
disarmed by their conquerors, and overawed by soldiers kept in pay
to restrain them. They were given up as a prey to rapacious governors,
who plundered them with impunity ; and were drained of their wealth
by exorbitant taxes, levied with so little attention to the situation of
the provinces, that the impositions were often increased in proportion
to their inability to pay them. They were deprived of their most en-
terprising citizens, who resorted to a distant capital in quest of pre-
ferment, or of riches ; and were accustomed in all their actions to look
up to a superior, and tamely receive his commands. Under so many
depressing circumstances, it was hardly possible that they could retain
vigour or generosity of mind. The martial and independent spirit,
which distinguished their ancestors, became, in a great measure, ex-
tinct among all the people subject to the Roman yoke, and they lost
not only the habit, but even the capacity of deciding for themselves,
or of acting from the impulse of their own minds ; and the dominion
of the Romans, like that of all great empires, degraded and debased
the human species !"
To the Barbarians of the North, the Roman name was synonymous
with whatever was base, avaricious, luxurious, false, and vicious.
" The consternation of the Britons, when invaded by the Picts and
110 THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Caledonians after the Roman legions were called out of the island,
may give some idea of the degree of debasement to which the human
mind was reduced by long servitude under the Romans. In their sup-
plicatory letter to .ZEtius, which they call the Groans of Britain,
1 We know not,' say they, ' which way to turn us. The barbarians
drive us to the sea, and the sea forces us back on the barbarians ; be-
tween which we have only the choice of two deaths, either to be
swallowed up by the waves, or to be slain by the sword !' One can
hardly believe, (adds Robertson,) this dastardly race to be the de-
scendants of that gallant people, who repulsed Caesar and defended
their liberty so long against the Roman army."*
Is this the kind of civilization for which we are to be grateful to Bri-
tain ? Is this the imperial glory in which we are invited to partake in
exchange for our virtuous and noble nationality ? Can men who read
history wonder that the Ii'ish, after seven centuries of subjugation to
a : ' great Empire," are not as self-relying and independent in mind as
those to whom they have been accustomed " to look up and tamely re-
ceive their commands," at the peril of plunder, imprisonment, torture,
or death ? But it may be replied that this fact this ingrained ser-
vility is a reason why the Irish should not be intrusted with self-go-
vernment. To this I answer : this fatal brand is almost worn out by
the gradual acquisition and exercise of civil and political rights and
if it were not so, we should still insist on freedom as the only and all-
sufficient remedy. On this subject listen to an eloquent Whig writer,
Macauley :
" Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as
a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they
are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the
old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned
to swim ! If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and
good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever."
It has been the fashion, too, to magnify the evils of popular com-
motion, and to hold up the ringleaders of revolt to everlasting in-
famy, which would certainly be merited, if any other mode of redress
were possible. But while the excesses of nations struggling for exis-
tence are thus execrated, the dying groans of the victims of despotism,
perishing in secret dungeons, or on the scaffold, find neither echo nor
record, and the cold-blooded victimize!" of innocent men enjoys his
crown in peace and honour. Even Nicholas of Russia was feted in
P'ngland, and flattered by the liberal press. The judgment of the
* Works, vol. iii., p. 10.
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 1 1 1
Splendid writer just quoted is however different. In his review of
Milton's public conduct he says :
" If it were possible that a people brought up under an intolerant
nnd arbitrary system could subvert that system without acts of cruelty
and folly, half the objections to despotic power would be removed.
We should, in that case, be compelled to acknowledge, that it at least
produces no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character
of a people. We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions.
But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a re-
volution was necessary. The violence of those outrages will always
be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the people : and the
ferocity and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppres-
sion and degradation in which they have been accustomed to live.
Thus it was in our civil war (in England). The rulers in the church
and state reaped only that which they had sown. They had pro-
hibited free discussion : they had done their best to keep the people
unacquainted with their duties and their rights. The retribution was
just and natural. If they suffered from popular ignorance, it was be-
cause they had themselves taken away the key of knowledge. If they
were assailed with blind fury, it was because they had exacted an
equally blind submission. * * * Many evils, no doubt, were pro-
duced by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. Has
the acquisition been worth the sacrifice ? It is the nature of the devil
of tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves. Are the mise-
ries of continual possession less horrible than the struggles of the
tremendous exorcism ?"
Thank God, we arc spared the struggles of such tremendous exor-
cism ! The leader of the Irish people has found a holy and a bloodless
spell, by which the demons of Irish tyranny go out quietly one by one,
emancipating the serf without the slightest injury to his lord. Ireland
has now learned to prize freedom so well, that, in a few years more,
she would purchase it at any cost ! The people are beginning to feel
that the consciousness of independence is itself happiness. The noble
occupations it affords, and the importance it confers, at once excite
the intellect and elevate the spirit. It stimulates and sustains indus-
try, promotes prosperity, and secures wealth. It nurtures mental and
moral, as well as physical bravery opens up a boundless field for ge-
nerous emulation and crowns genius with the gai'lands of national
honour, which are its most coveted and most inspiring rewards. It
makes men patient, persevering, and public-spirited. " No slaves
could have undergone the toils to which the Spartans or the Romans
taxed themselves for the good or the glory of their country ; and no
112 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
tyrant could ever have extorted the suira in which the Commons of
England voluntarily assessed themselves for the exigencies of th
state."
Surely there is an energy in independence in the self-taxed power
of freedom, unknown to the coerced subjects of another state. Of
this fact history abounds with illustrations. Not to refer to the ancient
republics of Greece and Rome, let us tarn to modern Europe. Cast
your eyes on the glorious Italian republics their stern independence,,
their vigorous self-government, their wise confederation, their unri-
valled civilization, their magnificent architecture, their brilliant lite-
rature, their enterprize and prosperity. What made the vast difference
between Venice and Dublin or Cork ? Was it not their institutions ?
Was it not the force of " that proud and singular democracy, which
with progressive modifications, and through sanguinary vicissitudes
subsisted in the republic for nearly a thousand years," from the fourth
century to its subversion by the aristocracy in the beginning of the
fourteenth ?
In Switzerland, " a petty population," says Miiller, " without a!Ke? r
munitions, or money without state-craft without military skill, save
that which nature taught, could maintain itself in possession of its pri-
mitive rights and usages through all the European revolutions of five
centuries." Yes, this petty population of some million of people,
composed of little republics, each of which fought out its own inde-
pendence, joined together in a defensive confederation, through tho
indomitable heroism, which only freedom can inspire, defied the enor-
mous armies and haughty chivalry of the German empire, and drove
them again and again from their glorious mountains, vanquished, dis-
honoured, and despoiled ! "A century after the Austrian pride and
arrogance had commenced the war against the freedom of Switzerland,
when the latter had come triumphantly out of the conflict, Duke Fre-
derick was glad to conclude a peace on any terms."
And while history records these things of such a people, shall she
add, that IRELAND, with a population five times more numerous, and
resources so vastly superior, not only suffered her constitution to be
extinguished by a neighbouring kingdom a " sister," sworn to main-
tain it ; but for ever after tamely endured the privation ? No ! By
all that is heart-stirring in the struggles of patriotism, she shall not
always have to drop a tear on so disgraceful a record !
Look, again, at the Netherlands, where an industrious, enterprizing.
and patient people, reclaimed a territory from the ocean, which they
dyked out, cultivating their land to the highest pitch of productive-
ness, rising to wenlth and power by commerce, and at length covering
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 113
the seas with their triumphant and richly-fraught navies, and taking
their place exultingly among the mightiest nations of Europe. What
would they have been as a mere province under the haughty sway of
despotic Spain, whose cunning and vindictive tyrant, Philip II., la-
boured with diabolical ingenuity to extinguish their liberties ? But
they magnanimously resisted and conquered. Such was their hatred of
oppression, that, at one time, when the cause was so low that all seemed
lost, their noble leader, William, Prince of Orange, had actually deter-
mined to break up the dykes, and give back the country (with all its
populous cities and its wealth) to the dominion of the ocean, rather
than it should be cursed with Spanish tyranny.
These countries, unfavourably as they were circumstanced, satisfied
the ambition of their people. They sought no glory that did not be-
long to their respective lands. The highest theatres they aspired to
were their own free and sovereign councils, and their most precious
rewards were the honours conferred by their fellow-citizens. The
great men of Switzerland did not go fawning for preferment at the
imperial court, where they might easily have got it for betraying the
liberties of their native land. Nor did those of Holland think of
travelling to Madrid, to pay sycophantic homage to a tyrant, that
they might be permitted to play some profitable part against national
independence. If they had, the tears of sympathy would not flow
as they now do over the pages of their thrilling history ! No,
unlike many unworthy Irishmen, they regarded such conduct as in-
famous.
But, unfortunate Poland, with an enthusiasm for liberty, if possible,
nobler and more romantic, and a courage no less perfect, was doomed
to a harder destiny. Yet what prodigies of valour their intense love
of country enabled her people to achieve ! " History will record for
the consolation of freemen in future ages, that the invincible ardour
of troops, half-armed and newly raised, and scarcely at all disciplined,
beat the veteran forces of Catherine and Frederick, never less than
thrice their numbers, in many fierce engagements." Thank God for
such victories ! If they have not availed for those that won them,
they will at least deter and restrain the projectors of massacres in
other lands, and fan the flame of liberty wherever their story is told.
History, we are told, is philosophy teaching by examples. We
shall now, therefore, refer to the example of a nation rapidly re-
generated by the efforts of a single patriot, and if his noble work was
afterwards crushed, it serves at least to show the darkness of despotism
deeper and more diabolical.
" Prussia was now placed in a situation, doubtless the most desperate
i
114 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
to which a state can be reduced. To dependence and oppression from
without, were superadded internal infirmity which seemed incurable,
and the vigilance of a rapacious enemy (Napoleon) armed with over-
whelming power. In this situation of affairs, the minister, Von Stein,
seized the helm of the state. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest
ministers of modern times. * * * Disdaining the aristocracy,
which had ruined the state, be applied to the nation for its relief.
The two grand and intimately connected objects of his administration,
were to deliver his country from foreign oppression, and to create a
liberal constitution. Pie formed a plan for rousing it to a ^ense of its
dignity, by freeing it from the degrading domination of the aristo-
cracy for inspiring it with national feelings and patriotism, by admit-
ting it to a share in the public councils, leaving to each community
the management of its own concerns ; and for creating by those means
a mental power in the whole body of the people, which, on a proper
occasion, whenever fate should afford it, might be able to break her
fetters, and vanquish the oppressor.
" The Prussian minister also directed his views to the military de-
partment to create a national militia. The system of Von Stein
tended to develop the moral force of the nation, by the energy inhe-
rent in all liberal institutions. The execution of the plan, therefore,
required everywhere men of talent, and elevated minds, and Stein
himself took pains to seek them. * Convinced of the power-
ful influence which mental culture must have on the promotion of such
designs, he paid great attention to that object. By him, and by his
party, the universities of Berlin and Breslau, and, at a later period,
that of Bonn, were established ; and the whole scheme of education,
and of public instruction, was directed to the development of national
feelings. By the combination of all these means, the kingdom was
soon animated witli a spirit unexampled, perhaps, in any modern com-
munity. Instead of a corrupt aristocracy, THE NATION itself rose up
in the full energy of every faculty that can render the sense of op-
pression bitter, and the purpose of redress irresistible !
" In the year 1813, the astonishing results prepared by the activity
of Stein, announced a regenerated people. The vast scheme of uni-
versal armament (Landwehr) the spontaneous contributions supplied
to the impoverished state by all clashes the enthusiasm with which
every order and condition answered the call to arms the unequalled
courage of the soldiery in general, but especially of the regiments of
the Landwehr, charging hostile batteries with the bayonet the hero-
ism of the volunteer corps, ^composed mostly of highly educated
youths, who, like Spartans, regarded their country as everything, and
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 115
danger and death as nothing, and whose exploits are immortalised
among the Germans by the songs of Theodore Komer : these are phe-
nomena almost unexampled in modern history."*
Imagine for a moment how different would have been the destiny of
Ireland if Lord Castlereagh had been a Von Stein ! Shame upon the
government that labours with jealous and mistrustful policy to keep
down the people ! to seal up the fountain of nationality the well-
spring of manly virtue, giving health and power to the highest intel-
lectual faculties, imparting energy and purity to the best affections,
filling the nation with an atmosphere of loyalty, and surrounding the
throne with a halo of genuine glory. Were monarchs wise, how
greatly would they prefer this to the mocking phantom that lifts its
lurid form above smoke and carnage on the field of conquest, or
to the phosphor-loyalty that gleams on the stagnant surface of political
.corruption !
How much more strength would the throne of these realms gain
how much more weight in the balance of European power having
Ireland free and happy, than, as she is, garrisoned with English and
Scotch soldiers ! Had England not treated the Irish as an inferior
race had she not denied them the privilege of bearing arms " the
proudest badge of freedom and its only security," had the Irish
Volunteers been established as a permanent national militia, the Ca-
tholics being emancipated and embraced as brothers in the military
organization had Reform and Free Trade been granted at their
request, leaving Parliament unfettered to develop the resources of
the country, to educate its people, concentrate its energies, and foster
its industry then England need never, have faltered in her diplomacy
at the mention of the word "Ireland" which now excites so lively
an interest in every court of Europe, as well as in the new world.
Then the horrid Rebellion would have been spared, and O'CONNELL
would I ave been presiding for the last twenty years over the Irish
peers, as Lord High Chancellor of one of the most peaceful, united,
loyal, and prosperous kingdoms on the face of the earth.
Then our most enterprizing citizens, our men of talent and genius
would not have to seek their fortune in another kingdom, where they
learn to despise the land of their fathers, and insensibly imbibe
sentiments by which they are denationalised. They go away in
despondency or disgust from an impoverished and divided province,
in which nothing flourishes so much as the bigotry that weakens
and degrades it. Unable in any way to act as a nation ruled by
* Edinburgh Review, August, 182.3.
116 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
strangers, from the viceroy to the tax-gatherer every man in office
alienated in heart from the people without a parliament or a native
court without popular institutions or a national literature obliged
to export every thing that labour can produce, to pay for the bare
liberty to live miserably on the soil ; how can Ireland expect to
retain talent, and genius, and learning at home, to render her name
illustrious? But England, who enjoys nearly all Ireland's money, can
easily confer offices and honours, and send missions and armies to
distant nations ; and if an Irishman, by getting rid of his Irishism,
should now and then rise to her confidence and favour, then of course,
if he be distinguished r on the field or in the council, (as in the late
Chinese war,) his mistress reaps all the glory as well as the gain, and
his country is never mentioned.
Ireland cannot stir without orders from her keepers ; she can
originate nothing with public authority for her own good or her own
honour. Let her leading men of all parties unite for such an object,
and for this very reason it will be resisted by the English minister.
The publication of the Ordnance Survey is a case in point. Nay,
if it be possible to prevent it by the technical twisting of an act of
parliament, an Irish Board will not be suffered to appoint or dismiss
its own clerk ! Our nobility, our gentry, and our merchants must
look with folded arms on the decay and misery, the wasting resources
and unprofitable labour that everywhere surround them ; or, more
provoking still, on the blundering experiments of ignorant and con-
ceited strangers, who, while loading the nation with taxes, treat the
wishes and suggestions of the most respectable natives with contemp-
tuous neglect. It matters not who or what these natives are, whether
Protestants or Catholics, lords or people, clergy or laity, all come in
for the same measure of impartial insolence. It is the same in par-
liament. As if to demonstrate that our representation there is a
mockery, it is on Irish questions, where Irish members are nearly
unanimous, that they are most pointedly made to feel their utter in-
significance.
Surely this is a condition calculated most effectually to degrade the
human mind ! Is it possible it can be borne much longer ? Will
two millions of Irish Protestants, equal to the whole population of
Switzerland and its dependencies, and kindred in their free and in-
dependent spirit to the brave compatriots of William of Orange,
in Holland ; will they not yield to the patriotic indignation now
struggling for utterance, and say " We will not endure this degra-
dation any longer!" May the blessings of posterity rest upon the
men, who shall manfully and constitutionally undo the work the
THE RIGHTS OK 1HEJLAND. 117
bloody, treasonable, infamous work of Clare and Castlereagh ! It
would be impossible for human imagination to conceive the enormity
of their wickedness, if they had known what they were doing ! If
they had known that in destroying the Irish Parliament, they were
burying in its ruins the liberty and prosperity of their country, and
inflicting on it the worst of all calamities the loss of NATIONAL
INDEPENDENCE. When the Americans began to fight for this glo-
rious inheritance, their population was under three millions, without
artillery, arsenals, or magazines. But, with a good cause, popular
enthusiasm, able and virtuous leaders, they fought for their hearths
and homes, with wives, children, and friends cheering them on they
fought and conquered and see what they are now ! Let England
reflect that she spent one hundred millions sterling, and some 50,000
lives in this mad crusade against liberty all in vain, and beware how
she drives Ireland to extremities.
II. Seeing that Ireland lost by the Union what no imperial advan-
tages could ever possibly repay, it were not to be wondered at if an
eflbrt had been made to console her wounded spirit for the irreparable
injury by giving her a larger amount of representation in parliament,
and a more extended franchise than Britain enjoys. As far as Eng-
land is concerned this would be but reasonable. One member dwelling
in the ruling kingdom has naturally more influence with government
than five from the dependant province. Ought not the weaker coun-
try to have some countervailing power to check the undue preponde-
rance of national interest and prejudice ever accumulating at the seat
of authority ? This would seem to be only a fair arrangement, if the
province had never been a kingdom had never been robbed of its
own parliament, or enjoyed a parliament to be robbed of. At all
events the least that, in such a case, could in decency be offered,
would be a full equality in representation and franchise, in proportion
to the population and other elements on which they are founded. But
how stand the facts ?
According to a report drawn up by Daniel O'Counell, Esq., M. P.,
in April 1840, we find that Ireland has been denied at least one-third
of her due number of representatives. If the arrangements of the
Union had been made on equitable principles, we should have had
16() members instead of 100. The injustice thus inflicted was the
more readily acquiesced in, because, as we have seen, members were
not only paid for giving their votes and vacating their seats, but the
patrons of boroughs received each 15,000.
Indeed, our representation, as compared with that of Britain, is
shamefully inadequate. Wales, for instance, has twenty-eight member.-,
118 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
while Cork has only eight, whereas if numbers, property, and re-
venue, the main elements of representation, be fairly estimated, Cork
would have twenty members and Wales only sixteen.
The disproportion in the number of electors is still greater, and the
landlords seem determined to diminish them to a very manageable
quantity. The statistics, however, connected with this subject I wil-
lingly leave in better hands. The subject has been most ably treated
in the speech of Mr. Smith O'Brien in parliament, and by Mr.
O'Connell repeatedly.
III. By the act of Union Ireland was protected from any liability
for the national debt of England pi'eviously contracted, until the debts
of both nations should be cleared off ; or, (as this was not to be ex-
pected for many an age) till they should bear to each other the relation
of 15 to 2 ; or, till the circumstances of both countries should admit
of uniform taxation.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ADJUSTMENT was expounded by Lord Castle-
reagh, February 5th, 1800, as follows :
" In respect to past expenses, Ireland was to have no concern
whatever with the debt of Great Britain ; but the two countries were
to unite in future expenses, on a strict measure of relative ability.
* Such was the disproportion of the debt of the two kingdoms
that a common system was then impossible ; nor could any system of
equivalent, as in the case of Scotland, be applied for equalizing their
contributions. It was, therefore, necessary that the debts of the two
kingdoms should be kept distinct, and that, of course, their taxation
should be separate and proportionate. * * The charges of the
debt of Great Britain amount to 20,000,000, and the charges of the
debt of Ireland to 1,300,000 British, a-year."
Scotland had no debt at the time of the Union, in 1706 ; and for
taking on her the liability of the English debt, then amounting to
something more than 20,500.000, she got the sum of 398,085, as
an " equivalent." This was more than six times the amount of her
whole customs and excise revenue at that period, and bore the pro-
portion of one to fiftv to the above stated English debt. According
o
to these proportions, Ireland's equivalent, had such been given her at
the Union, would have amounted to the sum of 10,497,976.*
Nevertheless, the minister lauded the generosity and liberality of
the terms granted to Ireland. " Great Britain," said he, " holds out
a fair participation in all the advantages of the empire, without re-
quiring the smallest participation in the burdens incurred to procure
* Mr. J. O'ConneH's Argument for Ireland.
THE KIGUTS OF IRKLAND. 119
them ; and Ireland will acquire 58,000 in ease of her own burdens,
out of the money paid by the East India Company."
Alas ! for the " fair participation in all the advantages of the em-
pire," and the " perfect, incorporating, and equalizing Union !" We
have now waited for them upwards of forty years in vain. " If,"
said Lord Castlereagh, " we wisely unite with Great Britain, the
future charge of our war expenses will be diminished a million a-year,
and we shall be able to support our peace expenditure with a very
slight addition to our present taxes."
However, his estimate of the comparative fiscal ability of Ireland
was condemned at the time as most unjust. Mr. Speaker Foster and
others complained that there had been no commission of inquiry ap-
pointed to ascertain the real facts and bearings of a case so intricate,
and involving permanent consequences so momentous. An excellent
protest entered on the Journal's of the House of Lords (vol. viii. p. 386)
furnishes the following data for a more correct estimate :
Balance of trade in favour of Great Britain on her
trade with the Avhole world, 14,800,000
Ditto, Ireland on her whole trade, 599,312
which give a proportion of 29 to 1.
Current cash in Great Britain, 43,000,950
Ditto, in Ireland, 3,500,000
which give a proportion of 12 to 1.
In another protest the following additional item is given :
Permanent taxes of Great Britain, on the oth January, 1799, were
26,000,000; for Ireland 2,000,000, or as 13 to 1.
The scale then was : Balance of trade, 29 to 1
Current cash, 12 to 1
Permanent taxes, 13 to 1
Mean proportion that ought to have fixed the rale, . . 18 to 1
The lords who signed this protest adverted toother immense advan-
tages enjoyed by England, which should have been taken into the ac-
count, such as the influx of wealth from the East and West Indies, and
the absentee remittances from Ireland, draining away her capital and
destroying her credit. Mr. Foster likewise showed that Lord Castle-
reagh omitted several most important items, without including which
a just estimate of relative ability could not be formed. These were
internal commerce, much greater than the external the tonnage of the
shipping belonging to each kingdom ; salt, an article of general use,
the gross duties on it the previous year amounting to 800,000 in
(Jreat Britain, while in Ireland they produced only '(0.000 ; the
120 THE UIGHTS OF IRELAND.
stamp duties also, a pretty fair criterion of fiscal ability, which
amounted in the sister island to 2,000,000, and in Ireland to no
more than 137,000, or as 15 to 1 ; and, strangely enough, the post-
office also was overlooked, though its produce at that time in Great
Britain, was 874,300, and in Ireland only 80,000, about 10 to 1.
The charge of unfairness to Ireland, in these fiscal arrangements,
must not be set down as the angry exaggeration of disappointed pa-
triotism, coming out in the warmth of debate. Lord Fitzgerald
and Vesci was chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in 1816, and
being then the mouthpiece of government in proposing the con-
solidation of the exchequers, he thus denounced the injustice of the
rate of contribution, (2-17ths,) imposed upon Ireland by the Union;
he remarked : " I hope it will not be said that Ireland throws a
great burden on the empire to save herself. Oh, no ! The necessity
of reviewing the act of Union has been caused by the sacrifices she
has made, doing her best to keep pace with you. You contracted
with her for an expenditure she could not meet. She had been led
to hope that her expenditure would be less when united to you than
before. She has absolutely paid more in taxes since the Union than
seventy-eight millions, being forty-seven more than her revenue in
the fifteen years on which her contribution was calculated."
The Right Honourable Mr. G-oulburn, the present Chancellor of
the Exchequer, declared in 1822, that " the Union contribution of
2- 17th, was then allowed on all hands to have been more than she
was able to bear."
Mr. Speaker Foster thus indignantly exposed the inconsistency or
hypocrisy of Lord Castlereagh :
" It is curious to observe the noble lord's arguments last year and
now. Our growing wealth was then held out by him as tending to
render us too difficult to be governed by our present constitution, and
there was the greater hurry for taking away our parliament. Now
our poverty is made the pretence we must take the Union to save
us from bankruptcy ! We have not the means to go on. We have
over-paid our due proportion of the war expense, by a million a-year;
and of the peace expense by 500,000 ! We have almost ruined the
kingdom by this profusion ; and Britain, in proposing the measure,
means to give us that million and half million, and hereafter tax her-
self to pay it !
" I own we have granted largely we have not measured our grants
by our means so much as by our zeal to uphold Great Britain ; but
arc we for this to be punished, and our parliament transported, like a
felon, for its extravagant efforts to maintain British connexion, by
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
121
maintaining the cause of Britain ? Did the noble lord sit by during
the two last sessions the most expensive we ever saw, and not only
see, but urge us to give the supplies we gave, meaning at a future
day to make our liberality, and these cordial effusions of our loyalty,
so many arguments for taking away our parliament, and annihilating
our constitution? Is there any child so weak as to
believe he is in earnest, or that he means to load England to save
Ireland ? And how is this ' million' to be paid us ? In money ?
Are our past advances to be repaid ? No ! Taxes to be taken off ?
No ! He gives us calculation, nothing but calculation ! I will go
into his detail and show you the imposition."
The Consolidation of the Exchequer occurred in 1816; and we
shall see whether the munificent promises of the Union were then, or
subsequently, justly and generously redeemed. It is needless to say
that at this time neither kingdom had paid off its debt, nor had the
" incorporating Union," the enriching partnership with prosperous
England, nor yet the streams of gold flowing from the East, enabled
Ireland to sustain a uniform system of taxation. Well, then, of
course, England had reduced her own debt, greatly, and thus realised
the condition that was to be acted upon, when the other two failed ?
By no means. She doubled her own debt ; but she took care, at the
same time, to increase Ireland's fourfold, and thus, unjustly and cru-
elly, effected the contemplated object. The following table exhibits
the debt of each country, respectively, together with the annual
charge in 1801 and 1817, including unfunded as well as funded debt,
and the annual charge on both kinds :
GREAT BRITAIN.
IRELAND.
Debt.
An. Charge.
Debt.
An. Charge.
5th Jan.
1801.
450,504,984
17,718,851
28,545,134
1,244,463
5th Jan.
1817.
734,522,104
28,238,416
112,704,773
4,104,514
Par. Paper, 35 of 1819.
The ruinous system of loans had been resorted to, because Ireland
hud been overpowered by taxation. The finance committee, in 1815,
thus bore testimony to this fact : " Your committee cannot but re-
mark that for several years Ireland has, in permanent taxation, ad-
vanced more rapidly than Great Britain herself, notwithstanding the
immense exertions of that country, and including the extraordinary
122 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
war taxes. The late Baron Foster, then Mr. Leslie Foster, stated on
the same occasion, that the taxation of Ireland, at the Union, was
2,440,000; in 1810 it had risen to 4,280,000; in 1816 it was
5,760,000. In fact, taxation in that country had been carried
almost to its ne plus ultra ! "
In a parliamentary committee, for revision of taxation, March 26,
1830, Lord Sydenham declared that the state of Ireland ought to
bring shame on the memory of most British financiers, and be a
warning and a guide to all future ones, as proving that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer may lay so heavy a load on a country as to produce
diminution of revenue instead of an increase.
From papers moved for by the present Lord Monteagle, and pre-
pared under his personal superintendence, at a time when he was
moved by all the zeal of an advocate, and the anxiety of an English
chancellor, to make out a case for the prosperity of Ireland since the
Union, we learn that
The Excise receipts for Ireland, in 1817, were . . 1,770,550
Do. Do. in 1841, . . . . 1,279,484
Showing a decrease of 491,066
and this, notwithstanding the vast increase of population
during that time !
From the same authority we leai'n that the total ex-
clusive payments of Great Britain, in the sixteen years
from the Union to the consolidation, amounted to . 533,220,000
But from unquestionable data, it is proved that her
exclusive liabilities during that time, amounted to . 935,201,381
Deduct payments, 533,220,000
Therefore, she failed to provide by annual taxation, for 401,981,381
And having created debt in the interval, to no higher
amount than, 280,000,000
She still left as an unfair "common" charge, . . 121,981,381
Ireland, therefore, was unfairly made liable for 2-1 7t-hs
of that amount, or 14,350,774
Again, the total exclusive liabilities of Great Britain
during forty-two years, since the Union, amounted to 2,033,067,484
Her total exclusive payments in that time, are . 1,460,774,648
Which fell s hort of her liabilities in the sum of . 572,292,836
The committee of 1815, spoke of "relieving Ireland from a burden
which experience had proved too great ;" of " rendering her resources
more productive," &c. But how lias this been done ? Why, within a
year from the time of their report, " no less than seventeen millions
THE KIGHTS OF IRELAND. 123
were struck off from the taxation of Great Britain, whereas ten years
elapsed ere the relief of Ireland exceeded half a million !" And be it
recollected, that while the annual charge on the British debt from
1801 to 1817, increased only 59 per cent., the same charge on the
Irish debt advanced in the same time to 228 per cent. !
As I am doing little more than presenting the most striking results
of the elaborate calculations of Mr. J. O'Connell, feeling that it would
be unwise, considering the taste of general readers, to load these pages
with masses of figures, or perplex them with intricate details, I cannot
do better than state the effect of all this financial management of
Great Britain, in the honourable and learned gentleman's own words.
"This sum, (572,292,836) has therefore fallen upon the common
contributions ; and the result to Ireland has been that she has had to
pay to a standard of taxation aggravated by the above amount. Had
the Union terms bad as they were been faithfully observed, no part
of the above would have been defrayed out of taxes bearing equally
on Ireland, as on Great Britain ; and, therefore, the common taxation
would have been reduced so much. Ireland's share of this relief
would have been 2-17ths or 67,328,564. and to this extent (aggra-
vated, of course, by the sums that must be due as interest and com-
pound interest,) she has been defrauded by Great Britain 1"
UNACCREDITED TAXATION.
IRELAND has for many years received a large proportion of her
foreign articles through English ports, and not directly through her
own. The consequence has been, that the duty being paid in England is
accredited to the British revenue, though, in fact, an Irish contribution
to the state taxes. The late Lord Congleton admitted its amount to be
at least 300,000 a year. Mr. William Stanley, in his "Facts for Ire-
land," makes it 340,000. But by referring to the details of receipts
on customs in Great Britain and Ireland, we are fully warranted in
setting down the sum at an average of 400,000. If allowance were
made for this and why not ? the average income of Ireland for
twenty-six years, up to 1843, would be 4,916,019, instead of
4,516,019; and the British income during the same period, would
be reduced from 49,942,791 to 49,542,791.
As Ireland was justly bound by the Union only in an annual charge
of 1,240,000, this subtracted from the average income, will leave a
surplus of the latter, amounting to 3,776,000, which had gone to
England as the Irish contribution to the common expenditure.
Hence, the Irish constitution bears not merely the proportion of
2-17ths, but, the far more grievous proportion of 2-12ths.
Take another illustration of "Justice to Ireland" :
124 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Total relief from taxation from 1815 to 1843 :
Great Britain, 45,550,000
Ireland, 2,400,000
Excess of British relief, 43,150,000
Taxes imposed from 1815 to 1843 :
Great Britain, 10,620,000
Ireland, 1,060,000
Taxes from 1800 to 1815 :
Great Britain, 30,000,000
Ireland, 4,450,000
Total taxes imposed from the Union to 1 843 :
Great Britain, 37,000,000
Ireland, 5,560,000
Thus the relief given to Ireland, was to that of Great Britain as
1 to 18, while the share of taxes imposed has been higher than as
1 to 7.
We hear much of the exemption of Ireland from assessed taxes.
But why is she exempt ? Is it from the kindness of her rulers ? No,
they have abandoned the idea of taxing everything they tax in Bri-
tain, only because the poverty of this country rendered the attempt a
signal failure. Carriages and horses were relinquished, servants were
dismissed, hearths extinguished, windows built up, beloved lap-dogs
hanged, and packs of hounds disbanded or shot. Hundreds and thou-
sands of notices to this effect, were pouring in on the government, till
at last these unprofitable taxes were given up. It was dislike of such
a precedent, and not love of Ireland, that restrained Sir Robert Peel
from visiting us with the Income Tax. But in fact, while these ob-
noxious taxes were remitted to Ireland only in thousands, they were
remitted to Britain in millions.
The absentee drain is variously estimated. Lord Cloncurry and
Mr. N. P. Leader reckoned it 4,000,000, other authorities set it down
at 4,650,000 annually. Mr. J. O'Connell considers that at least
5-6ths of this sum are spent in Great Britain ; and taking the per
centage of benefit to the latter country on that expenditure, so low as
4 per cent, we have 130,000 to add to Lord Congleton's estimate of
unaccredited taxation. To which add the Tea duties, and an average
sum of about 65,000, (see parliamentary paper No. 222 of 1842,)
and you have 915,000 annually, for which Ireland has got no credit.
The " revenue drain" varies from year to year, according to the
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 125
greater or less consumption of foreign goods imported through Eng-
land. Taking the lowest estimate of both credited and uncredited
taxation, " Ireland," says Mr. J. O'Connell, " must have lost in the last
three years more than 1,200,000 out of her revenue, and England got
the benefit of it, in addition to the other Irish out-goings, that are to her
advantage. The only remaining item of ' drain' is the money Ireland
pays for such manufactures imported, as her poverty has caused her
to cease supplying herself with. This cannot but be more than two
millions of money at the very least, and therefore the total annual
drain from Ireland, can in no case be less than seven millions !"
No wonder, then, England's capital accumulates her manufactures
flourish her commerce reigns and her wealth abounds to the world's
admiration ! A pretty good price we pay SEVEN MILLIONS a year,
for a few reflected rays of her imperial glory, which may chance to
gleam upon us through the dense atmosphere of her prejudice. But
why should Ireland shine in a borrowed light, and not in her own
native splendour ? Why should a nation with a population of nine
millions, endowed with a physique the finest in the world having in
abundance within their own broad and fertile island, all the great
elements of Independence why should she be the satellite of any na-
tion on earth ? Was she made to be a mere adjective an appendage
never able to stand alone and maintain a substantial dignity ? We
boast of the emerald ; but what avails it when it is a mere ornament in
England's crown ? Had not Ireland a crown of her own, venerable
for its antiquity, when Britain was first the crouching slave of the
Roman, then of the Saxon, and then of the Norman ?
126 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ALLEGED POST-UNION PROSPERITY OF IRELAND.
WHEN Irish independence was swamped by English power, availing
itself of Poyning's Law, and not only shutting the ports of the world
against us, but also wickedly crushing our internal trade, then the
nation groaned in poverty and discontent. On the other hand, when
our parliament was free, all our social interests flourished with amazing
rapidity. Again, when we lost our legislature when the making of
our laws and the regulation of our national affairs were transferred
to another country, where hostile interest were predominant and vigi-
lant when " Ichabod" was written with a bloody hand on the temple
of our constitution, and freedom shrieked as the glory departed then
was the magnificent temple of our commerce also deserted, and the
grass began to grow about its doors.
The Union has proved a perennial fountain of misery, whose stream
is swelling every year into a more turbid and angry flood, and i?
destined to flow on for ever while its cause remains. Vainly do politi-
cal parties moralize on its margin or try to bind it with chains, or turn
back its course with bayonets. Yet if, during so many years of peace,
when the arts of industry have so greatly flourished, especially in
Great Britain, and commerce has sped so rapidly on the wings of
science, Ireland had improved in nothing, it were strange indeed !
How could Great Britain, in the exuberance of her prosperity, hinder
some streamlets from reaching the soil of her sister and partner? The
gain however, was marvellously little, but if it had been ten-fold more,
if this country had kept pace with other nations, instead of lagging so
wofully behind, it would still remain to be pn,ved, that this progress
was in consequence of Britisli legislation and not in spite of it.
In the last century Ireland was very near following the glorious
example of America : had she done so, she might have been now one
of the most prosperous allies of that great empire, whose ambassadors,
with those of all nations, would be 1 mingling with the brilliant society
of our busy and wealthy metropolis ; meantime she would thus confer
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 127
in her freedom far greater advantages on Great Britain than can ever
be wrung out of her in her bondage. But as in the story of Ariosto's
fairy so beautifully accommodated by Macauley Irish liberty was
condemned for a long season to wear the form of a foul and poisonous
snake, grovelling, hissing, stinging. Woe to those who, in disgust and
hate, attempt to crush her ; for though her period of degradation has
been long protracted, she shall yet be transformed into her own celes-
tial shape, and shine out in her native beauty and glory !
From 1780 the rate of exchange was steadily in favour of Ireland
in her dealings with England. For this fact, we have the authority
of a parliamentary committee on currency, &c., in 1804, who stated
that trade, manufactures, and agriculture, had rapidly advanced after
1782, ascribing this ^advance, however, to a most inadequate cause,
namely, the establishment of the Bank of Ireland. There are ample
statistics, which show the poverty of Ireland since the Union, as com-
pared with the years of independence that preceded it, indicating the
increasing inability of the Irish people to consume those articles which
were regarded in the light of luxuries, far more before the Union than
now, when they have become almost necessaries ; yet, through extreme
poverty, the consumption has declined, notwithstanding the great in-
crease in population.
It is true there has been an increased export of cattle, sheep, and
provisions since the Union. But what does this prove ? Simply
that the Irish have been gradually reduced to a potato diet, and are
obliged to ship off' everything else to pay the charges on the land. It
is well known, that even extensive fanners can seldom afford to eat
meat, while, if the labouring classes can get the taste of it at Christ-
mas and Easter, they art; thankful.*
Mr. Montgomery Martin, to whose curious revelations in Irish his-
tory I have already deferred, has undertaken to demonstrate the
greater prosperity of Ireland since the Union than before. This gen-
tleman's structure, based on fabricated data, has been completely
demolished by Alderman Staunton, in the Conciliation Hall, Decem-
ber 11, 1843. The object of Mr. Martin was to show a decline in
Irish prosperity during the eighteen years of parliamentary indepen-
dence ! How does he accomplish this ? Just as he proved the tole-
rant nature of Queen Elizabeth's government. He picks out of a
table of exports every item showing a decline, and omits every item
showing an increase, though the omitted articles are the true index of
* See Report of the Land Commissioner;;.
128 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the country's prosperity. Among these omissions, he actually includes
LINEN ! ! The accurate and conscientious statist the pink of poli-
tical economists, also forgot, or rather purposely overlooked, candles,
oats ! bacon ! beef! butter ! ! And while he exultingly declared that
he had found a " decrease on all the items" the Unionists were in
ecstacies. He also arbitrarily fixed on the years most favourable to
his purpose, for the sake of a petty advantage. He should have begun
at 1782, and ended at 1800. Instead of this, he commenced with
1785, and ended with 1798. But on the whole transactions, even
within this limited period, there appears an increase instead of a de-
ficit of 3,536,000. But if you take the entire period of eighteen
years, from 1782 to the Union, there is an increase of not less than
7,000,000. Such was the vivifying influence of a free parliament.
And be it remembered, that this increase was effected notwithstanding
the disturbing and desolating influence of the Rebellion.
Mr. Martin curiously scanned the columns of exports and imports,
and wherever he saw an article at a low figure during any year, (as
fluctuations must always be expected,) he most philosophically fixed
upon that, to prove a decline in all the items. Sugar, wine, and
tobacco, were the articles that seemed to suit him best. But Mr.
Staunton has shown, that if he had taken four years after 1782, and
four years before 1800, as he should have done, even in these articles
there would have been found an increase of the following magni-
tude :
Sugar 361,000 cwts.
Wine - 1,207,000 gallons.
Tobacco - - 12,800,000 Ibs.
Such is the oracle of the anti-Irish press, whose editors so flip-
pantly complain that the opponents of the Union do not deal in argu-
ment, or in any figures but those of rhetoric. Alas ! what avails de-
monstration to men whose interest and prejudice prevent them from
seeing it ? Mr. Martin relies very much on the fact, that 3,213 houses
have been built in Dublin since the Union. This is partly accounted
for by the increase of population in forty years, and the wise dispo-
sition of people in business to enjoy good air in the suburbs. Surely
this is no great increase after all in that long period, when compared
with the rapid enlargement of other towns in the sister kingdom.
But our oracle said nothing about the still greater number of houses
that are insolvent and falling into ruins. In 1822, it was stated in a
parliamentary committee, that from 1815 to 1821, insolvent houses
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 129
were fast increasing in Dublin, and in the latter year, the number of
them amounted to 4,719. Is not this a fine proof of prosperity ?
Mr. Martin, following the Railway Commissioners, insists that the
exports and imports of Ireland doubled Jn the ten years from 1825 to
1835. But Alderman Staunton proves, beyond a doubt, that this
could not be the case.
Without trade a populous country (and Ireland is one of the most
populous for its territory in the world,) must always be involved in
great misery. But trade without capital is impossible, especially in
an age of machinery ; and therefore Ireland must remain wretched
while the Union lasts ! Nearly nine millions of money are drained
from her annually. If this sum, or the half of it, were spent in
Ireland, what a brisk circulation of money would result what a de-
mand for labour, and for the produce of the country creating an ex-
cellent home market, saving the cost and risk of export to the farmer,
and enabling him and his workmen to eat something better than lum-
pers, and wear something better than rags. Under such circum-
stances thriving manufactures would gradually grow up from the sav-
ing of agricultural labour, now rendered impossible by absenteeism,
and uncertainty of tenure. Then, Englishmen, seeing us helping our-
selves, would adventure their capital among us, which now flows into
South America, whose agitation, compared with ours, is that of the
hurricane and the earthquake. There is no reason to doubt that if we
had a parliament, we should get all the credit we required, till we
should be able, in some measure, to compete with Great Britain, with-
out infringing the principles of free trade, which I hope the mo-
nopoly and combination of British merchants will never render neces-
sary.
The effect of the Union in increasing absenteeism can be denied
by no one who has the least knowledge or candour. It has also led
to foreign tastes and preferences and to alienation of feeling to
ruinous ambition and prodigality in aristocratic families, vainly striv-
ing to rival the English nobility, to an almost total neglect of Ireland.
The moral and social injury is nearly equal to the pecuniary loss
which it inflicts. Hence, the execrations of a starving people that
sometimes follow our heartless absentees to their graves. How singu-
larly has the prophecy of Adam Smith, concerning the effects of a
Union with England, been falsified !
" By a Union with Great Britain," said he, " Ireland would gain,
besides the freedom of trade, other advantages much more important,
and which would much more than compensate any increase of taxes
K.
130 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
that might accompany that Union. By the Union with England the
middling and inferior ranks of people in Scotland gained a complete
deliverance from the power of an aristocracy which had always before
oppressed them. By a Union with Great Britain, the greater part of
the people of all ranks in Ireland, would gain an equally complete de-
liverance from a much more oppressive aristocracy ; un aristocracy
not founded like that of Scotland, in the natural and respectable dis-
tinctions of birth and fortune, but in the most odious of all distinc-
tions, those of religious and political prejudices ; distinctions which,
more than any other, animate both the insolence of the oppressors,
and the hatred and indignation of the oppressed, and which commonly
render the inhabitants of the same country more hostile to one another,
than those of different countries ever are. Without a Union with Great
Britain, the inhabitants of Ireland are not likely, for many ages, to
consider themselves one people." To this Mr. M'Cullagh adds, in a
note : "The incorporating (?) Union with Ireland effected in 1801,
has hitherto only partially delivered the people of that country from
the domination of the oppressive and intolerant aristocracy alluded
to by Dr. Smith ; but it has paved the way for the complete consum-
mation of that desirable consequence."*
This may be, but I really cannot see how. Certainly, forty-four
years of trial have not effected much in this way. Oppressive and
intolerant as the lords of our soil may be, their presence would miti-
gate their power. Their exacting agents, and their bribed under-
lings, are far more intolerable than themselves. In the present im-
proved state of public opinion as to the " duties of property" under
the surveillance of the press and, especially, under the moral re-
straints and patriotic tendencies of a parliament elected by a large,
enlightened, and sober population a happy adjustment would soon be
effected of the relations between landlords and tenants. Then our
nobility would be anxious about their character and moral standing in
Ireland ; whereas, now it is a matter of perfect indifference to them
so long as they stand well with the English aristocracy.
Mr. Otway in his valuable and well-written Report already quoted,
observes, that " in the present day the principal impediments to the
growth of manufacturing industry arise from the want of a comfort-
able middle class, and the condition of the agricultural population."
But how are these to be created ? what has been done towards the
production of such a class by imperial legislation during the last forty-
* Smith's Wealth of Nations, by M'Cullagh, p. 430.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 131
four years ? Let the Reports of the Poor Law, Railway, and Land
Commissioners, and the testimony of all foreign travellers in Ireland,
answer ! If this state of things, then, is ever to be altered, there
must be a total change of system. The seat of power must be re-
moved to Ireland. The moral lever by which her people are to be
raised from poverty and degradation, must have its fulcrum, not in
St. Stephen's, but in College-green.
132 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER XIII.
OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE REPEAL OF THE UNION.
" None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a great
house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial
importance of a great Empire too clear, to pay for it all the essential rights and
all the intrinsic dignity of human nature." EDMUND BURKE.
I. IT is objected against the agitation for Repeal, that " the measure
is quite unnecessary, inasmuch as the Imperial Parliament is both able
and willing to redress all our grievances."
Its ability to redress many of them we admit, but we very much
doubt its willingness. Yet, if its justice were equal to its power, it
could no more make Ireland contented and happy without a parliament,
than an intelligent and high-spirited Englishman could be made so
without liberty. Lacking this, all other gifts pall upon the national sense.
The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmities, " but a wounded
spirit, who can bear?" The Union inflicted on Ireland's spirit,
wounds deep and rankling, which British policy has done little to
heal, and much to inflame.
The very concession? of England have been always so made as to
" offend the pride of a gallant nation." Her favours are alms. The
most stinted measures of justice have not been granted as rights, but
as " graces" not as a debt long due with interest upon interest but
as a gift for which we are required to wear the bonds of everlasting
gratitude. Thus, Britain's self-complacent kindness adds to Ireland's
heartfelt degradation. We would do and suffer much to advance the
temporal condition of our people. But, even for prosperity we cannot
barter liberty. England may clothe her naked subjects in Ireland,
but it is with her own livery, which she can strip off at a moment's
warning, as Queen Elizabeth threatened to "unfrock" the disobedient
bishops. She may also spread a table for our starving millions, but
the breath of her pride would taint the richest banquet. Ireland may
exclaim
" She chills me while she aids
My benefactor, not ray sister !"
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 133
What quantity of roast-beef and plum-pudding in a work-house
will compensate the honest peasant for the homely Christmas dinner
which he earned by the sweat of his brow, and enjoyed in the bosom
of a smiling family by his own cottage fireside ? We want not fa-
vour but freedom !
" The proud man's sympathies are all
Like silvery clouds, whose faithless showers
Come frozen to hailstones in their fall."
What rational hope is there that Great Britain will ever do justice
to Ireland supposing it could be done to a nation while denuded .of
political rights, and deprived of the life-spring of its own independence ?
Why did she persist in violating the pledges about Emancipation for
twenty-nine years after the Union, despite the most humble and
urgent petitioning the most powerful pleading the most incessant
agitation ? And why, after all, did she yield it ungraciously, re-
luctantly, to the force of intimidation, and the dread of civil war ?
If Ireland, as we are told, is as completely incorporated with Eng-
land as Yorkshire, and is, therefore, to be treated as an " English
county," why were not the principles of the Reform Bill extended
equally to the whole United Kingdom ? Why were not Ireland's cor-
porations cleansed at the same time with those of England, and in-
vested with the same rights ? If the United Kingdom be one body,
surely all the members ought to enjoy the same regimen. Why is it
ever a special object with the state physician to apply a coercive li-
gature to prevent the circulation of liberty into so large a limb as
Ireland ? Do not legislative enactments perpetually give the lie to
ministerial professions, humbling this country by exceptions, limita-
tions, and restrictions, as mortifying as they are gratuitous and impo-
litic ? But England forgets this diversity of legislation, and forces
her uniformity upon us, just wherever and whenever it happens to be
injurious and hateful, as in the case of the poor law a most provok-
ing instance of conceited ignorance and " arrogant despotism."
With such an animus against Ireland, growing with her growth,
and strengthening with her strength, since the conquest, what can we
reasonably expect from the Imperial Parliament ? They will yield
something indeed to extreme pressure, and thus hold out a bonus to
agitation.
But will they ever frankly, confidingly, and justly put Ireland on
an equality with Britain ?
Will they extend the franchise to all payers of direct taxes ?
Will they free the electors from the tyranny of the landlords ?
134 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
Will they give Ireland 170, or even 150 members?
Will they agree to withdraw Irish measures, protested against by a
majority of Irish members ?
Will they open the University to the nation ?
Will they abandon the debasing system of centralization, and re-
store us the public departments, which would hold out rewards, how-
ever inferior, to the talents and virtues of our countrymen, giving as
large a proportion of government offices to Irishmen, in Ireland, as
are enjoyed, in England, by Englishmen, and, in Scotland, by Scotch-
men ? Or if not, will they give us our proportional number of ap-
pointments in Britain equal in honour, influence, and emolument,
instead of meeting the demand with an insulting sneer, telling us we
are disqualified and unworthy to hold them ?
Will they impose on absentees a tax of twenty-five per cent., or a
million annually, to be devoted to public works and improvements in
this plundered country ?
Will they release us from unjust liabilities for Great Britain's na-
tional debt, and the enormous expenses of her wanton and iniquitous
wars against the independence of distant nations ?
Above all, will they relieve this nation from the incubus of a costly,
crushing, and irritating Establishment, maintained by the whole king-
dom, for the benefit of less than one-tenth of its people, and these the
wealthiest of the community ?
If nearly all these questions must be answered in the negative, it
follows irresistibly that A NATIVE PARLIAMENT is NECESSARY.
II. " An Irish Parliament would be intolerably corrupt."
A strange objection to come from Irishmen ! But on what is it
founded ? Is it on the conduct of our parliament at the time of the
Union and before? On this subject, I need only refer the reader to
a previous chapter, in which I have shown, that, filled as the House
of Commons was, fraudulently, with placemen and dependants ; and
tempted as the genuine representatives were by the most enormous
bribes, they exhibited an instance of public virtue rarely equalled. If
some were, unhappily, corrupted, who corrupted them ? Is the cool,
calculating tempter less guilty or less infamous than his needy victim ?
Did not Walpole find by his experience of the English Parliament,
that " every man had his price ?" And did not Sir Robert Peel
make his servile majority turn round last session, as if they were so
many noble and honourable puppets ?
But how unjust, inconsiderate, and preposterous to argue from the
condition of a parliament consisting, for the most part, of aristocratic
and government nominees to that of one fairly representing the wishes
TILE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 135
of the people, and responsible to a constituency, broad, intelligent, and
free, who should, according to the ancient practice of the constitu-
tion, have an opportunity of calling their members to account once in
three or four years ! There is every reason to believe, that there
would not be a more faithful or a better informed legislature in the
world than a parliament in Dublin would be now. Therefore, this
exceedingly offensive objection falls to the ground.
III. " An Irish Parliament would be an arena of constant party
strife."
If it should surpass the British in this respect, it would be bad
enough. But there is no reason to think so. The state of society has
much altered in Ireland as well as in England during the last fifty years.
Duelling is nearly banished from among us. Nowhere is physical
force and violence more strongly condemned. Individual rights are
generally acknowledged, while mutual respect and courtesy increasingly
distinguish the people of all ranks. Nowhere is politeness more
frank and cordial in the upper classes, and religious bigotry is fast
dying away. After a long and irritating struggle between an ascen-
dant minority and a suffering nation, it must take some time, of course,
for unpleasant feelings to subside. But it is surprising and delightful
to see how readily the opposing parties come to a good understanding
in those public institutions where they are now working together.
I need not remark, that in the Railway Boards and Agricultural
Societies, not only creeds, but politics are quite forgotten ; all is con-
cord and cheerful co-operation for the good of the country. The
habit of acting together for such a noble object smoothes off asperities,
and brings out to view on both sides many amiable and excellent qua-
lities, which mutual unacquaintance or prejudice had concealed. This
temper wants nothing but a little of the enthusiasm of nationality
among Protestants, counteracting and overcoming English influence
and intrigue, to render the claim of Ireland to a native parliament
irresistible, and the institution itself an unmixed blessing.
Adam Smith imagined that the American Republics would have
rushed asunder by their natural centripetal force, but for the binding
influence and sweet compression of Great Britain ! He fancied also
that a Union with England would be a prelude to the most perfect
harmony between Protestant and Catholic, Whig and Tory in Ireland !
His philosophy did not enable him to foresee, that it would be the in-
terest and policy of England to find out the " fittest temptations," (as
one of her ministers confidentially expressed it to his employers,) to
foment and perpetuate division and strife ; nor that a local parliament
136 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
would be the only effectual means of rallying a national spirit, to re-
sist such unhallowed endeavours. That the doctrine of amalgamation
has even yet found no favour in Downing-street, or in Dublin Castle,
is evident enough from the management of the late State Trials, when
every man of true Irish feeling, whether Protestant or Catholic, was
excluded as a black or tainted sheep. Indeed, the act of 1800 may
be called the act of Dis- Union, with much more propriety, than the
act of Union. There may be a better disposition now at head-
quarters than prevailed last year. But why should Ireland be depen-
dant for justice and peace on the political barometer of England ?
However, she must not be beguiled by appearances it would be
weakness itself to trust such a self-transforming Proteus as Sir R.
Peel. After a desperate effort to crush the Irish cause by military
demonstrations, and state prosecutions, followed by the unjust and
illegal imprisonment of its leaders, it is hard to think that subtle
politician sincere in his sudden overtures of conciliation. Foiled at
his chosen weapons he seems only to have changed his tactics and
substituted secret stratagem for open assault he will give in a little,
that he may gain a permanent advantage and a better position.
Lordly smiles and patronizing promises, may tell more fatally against
Irish liberty, than monster indictments or fortified barracks. Nothing
but well established popular institutions, having their key-stone in a
native parliament, can withstand the sources of division and strife
that are ever flowing in upon us from England.
IV " An Irish Parliament Avould disturb the rights of property,
by dispossessing the inheritors of the forfeited estates."
If so, they should disinherit nine-tenths of the proprietors of Ireland,
and forthwith plunge the country in all the horrors of a sanguinary
revolution ! Is it not absurd to talk of such a thing with a hereditary
House of Lords ; a House of Commons for the most part aristocratic ;
two millions of Protestants to back the proprietors, and all the power
of Britain to sustain them ? Persons who thus talk of the forfeited
estates, forget how often they have changed hands, of how many con-
veyances, settlements, and mortgages, they have been the subjects ;
how vastly many of them have improved in value, by the sinking of
capital in them through a series of ages, and how many of them have
passed, and are daily passing, by purchase, into the hands of Roman
Catholics; and how completely the disannulling of their titles would up-
root all the rights of property, and convert the social fabric itself into
a chaos ! No sane man could think of any spoliation so monstrous
so like the proceedings of Strafford or Parsons. But should the
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 137
apprehension be entertained by any weak-minded persons, it might
be easily quieted, by making it an act of treason against the state to
bring the question into parliament.
Nor let it be supposed that in this body a democratic influence
would dangerously predominate. The very reverse is to be feared.
Feudal feelings and habits are still strong among our people ; accus-
tomed to look up to a superior, they are easily led, especially when
the leader has the prestige of rank and the influence of property. So
innate and ardent, indeed, is the homage which our peasantry render
to these, that the conduct of a "real gentleman" must be shockingly
repulsive or oppressive to alienate the affections of his tenants and de-
pendants. Let landlords be what it is a sin and a shame for them not
to be Irishmen in heart, drawing their people " with the cords of a
man," and not driving them like beasts and ccteris paribus the
man of highest rank and largest property may also calculate on being
triumphantly returned to parliament, even if Ireland enjoyed universal
suffrage.
V. Another and a very powerful objection to Repeal, in the
minds of many excellent persons, is that" An Irish Parliament
would soon abolish the Established Church."
Let us guard here against misunderstanding. The object of Re-
pealers and of all other voluntaries, is not to injure the Church of
England, but merely to separate it from the state, which they contend
would be a benefit instead of an injury. To its orders, ministry, doc-
trines, or liturgy, they have nothing to say. They quarrel with it
not as a religious institution, but a political burden ; its present invi-
dious position being not only unfavourable to its right influence as a
church, but an intolerable wrong to the rest of the community. If
Ireland is to have an established church at all which we deprecate
on every principle of equity, it should be the church of the majority
the church of the 6,500,000 and not of the 850,000. It is so in
England and Scotland, and if, as we are so often told, Ireland is
treated with equal justice, wherefore this extraordinary difference ?
Why are all the ecclesiastical revenues of the nation enjoyed by the
clergy of a tenth of the people, who are, therefore, ten times more
richly endowed than the national clergy were before the Reformation ?
Whence, then, this monstrous violation of the alleged uniformity of
imperial legislation ?
This is not merely a financial wrong ; it is not the legal violation
of justice in thus misapplying public property, that constitutes the
sorest part of the grievance. It is, as we have shown in our remarks
on the Reformation, an odious monument of the conquest and degra-
130 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
dation of the country in a word, the garrison of the English interest.
Its religious mission, so far as the Catholics and Presbyterians are
concerned, is " a mockery, a delusion, and a snare !"
According to Mr. Ward, M. P., whose estimate seems not far from
the truth, the actual amount of Irish Church revenue is 552,753 per
annum ; nearly a pound a head for all the Episcopalians, if you ex-
clude the Wesleyans, who provide for themselves on the voluntary
principle, though they gave the church the advantage of their numbers
in the census. It is said, that to apply this property to national pur-
poses, is spoliation. If so, the Church of England has been enjoying
the fruits of robbery for 300 years. If parliament may not justly
dispose of this property, by what title does the establishment hold it ?
" We are astonished," says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, " at
the confidence with which this ridiculously absurd dogma has been
maintained. It might as well be said, that taxes levied for the sup-
port of the army are the property of the soldiers, and that any attempt
to reduce them, would be a ^violation of the rights of property !
Tithes are not the property of the clergy ; they are the property of
the public. * * * Every one must see that tithes are nothing
more than an arbitrary, oppressive, and ruinous tax on the gross pro-
duce of the land, exclusively laid out in paying the wages of a parti-
cular class of public servants."
It is true that the Composition Act has reduced the nominal income
of. the rectors one-fourth. But, in return for this reduction made, be it
remembered, when the collection of this impost was impossible, they
are sure of regular payment, and have escaped from the odium, strife,
and danger of the old system, the landlord standing between them and
an indignant people, and pocketing 25 per cent, for his trouble. But
are the people, now deprived of the power of direct resistance, released
from aught of the burden ? By no means ! If they do not bring the
full amount of tithe to the agent, he will, in all probability, fling back
the rent in the defaulter's face.
True the perpetual existence of this grievance is guaranteed in the
Act of Union. A very good reason why it should be speedily repealed.
Hitherto, however, this guarantee has been somewhat neglected.
The church has no longer the power of taxing the whole population
in vestry ; the landlords have got possession of one-fourth of her
tithe property, and the government has seized on ten of her palaces,
with the rich domains thereunto belonging, while the same number of
her " apostolic sees" have perished, as if " the gates of hell" had pre-
vailed against them. This does not look like preserving her rights,
privileges, and property in their integrity !
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 139
But although the repealers insist that church revenue is public pro-
perty, and ought to be devoted to public purposes, they solemnly dis-
claim the wish to deprive the present incumbents of a single shilling.
Let them enjoy what they have while they live, and in the meantime
there will be ample opportunity to make provision for the future,
by calling forth the energies of the voluntary principle, with every
possible advantage, unlike the people of Scotland, who had to provide
for 500 parishes in one day.
In addition to the fixed revenue of the Establishment and the large
sums granted by parliament for building churches, it has got for edu-
cational purposes from 1800 to 1824 no less a sum than 1,482,877,
all under her special control, and made subservient directly or indi-
rectly to the inculcation of her doctrines !* What a number of pro-
vincial colleges this sum would have endowed, and what a blessing it
might thus have conferred on the nation for all time to come ! But
with all these vast treasures, the church could not make progress. One
institution after another designed to propagate her principles has
perished in her feeble hands ; and still she would fain preside with
exclusive power over the public instruction of the nation ! Some of
her truest friends, therefore, begin to think that to a religious institu-
tion state support is no support at all, and that she would thrive far
better spiritually on the voluntary system.
Why should she not do so as well as other churches ? Can any
reason be given which her clergy would not resent as a libel ? Is it
that there is not sufficient truth or zeal in her body to stand without
state crutches, or swim without state bladders ? Look at the church
of Rome in Ireland : what a body of clergy she maintains in respecta-
bility, and what numerous and costly temples she is everywhere
erecting by the free contributions of her people ! Mr. O'Connell has
shown, that " in the city of Dublin alone, there has been expended,
upon the VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE, in buildings, for the spiritual pro-
vision and education of Catholics, a sum exceeding 170,000."
Will it be said that the church of Rome is better able than Protes-
tant churches to raise money for religious objects ? Then see the
case of the United States of America. There all creeds are equal in
the eye of the law, all churches voluntary. And though there is an
immense influx of irreligious population every year, pouring over a
vastly extended territory, and set free from every old national habit
that would restrain their evil propensities, the voluntary principle
copes with all these enormous difficulties bears the blessings of sal-
* Lord's Sessional Papers. 1824, No. 47.
140 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
vation into the wilderness, and furnishes a supply of clergy equal to
the most favoured parts of Great Britain.
It appears from the latest returns, that (not counting Catholics,
Unitarians, and Universalists) there were, in 1843, no less than
17,000 Protestant and Evangelical ministers labouring in the United
States, thus giving one such minister to every 1100 of the whole po-
pulation of 19,000,000. Besides this vast voluntary expenditure for
home objects, very large sums are raised for foreign missions in va-
rious countries.*
In England there are 11,000 Dissenting congregations, whose
ministers are thus supported, while hundreds of thousands are raised
annually for extraneous and missionary objects. But if Irish Protes-
tants are afraid to trust their church to the voluntary principle, let
them reflect on the glorious position of the Free Church of Scotland.
Finding, as many Episcopalians also find and feel, that state pay and
Christian liberty are incompatible and being cajoled by the govern-
ment till they were weary and disgusted, they at last, to the number
of 470, most nobly relinquished their manses, glebes, and churches,
and cast themselves at once on the Christian liberality of the people.
Since then 113 additional ministers have been ordained, making the
number 583. They did not miscalculate in trusting the people. They
are now erecting 700 places of worship at an expense of 350,000,
of which they have already raised 241,050. They are also building
500 schools, for which upwards of 52,000 has been received. This
vast architectural scheme is to be crowned by a splendid theological
college at Edinburgh, to cost 20,000, contributed by twenty persons.
But what is to become of the ministers ? They are, of course,
partly supported by their congregations ; but, independent of this
support, there is a central Sustentation Fund, which amounted last
May to 68,704. This secures 100 a-year to every minister of the
body, in addition to local supplies. They have also various mission
organizations, for which they raised 31,790 last year. These im-
mense contributions are not the results of mere fitful zeal. They are
raised on a regular system, Avisely framed for permanent efficiency by
the genius of Dr. Chalmers, who, though a beginner, has taught the
voluntaries the power of their own principle.
Oh, what a blessed thing is freedom ! Protestants of Ireland, go
and do likewise ! Let not the imaginary interests of your church
stand in the way of the salvation of your country ! Imitate the self-
sacrifice of the Free Church of Scotland the noblest in modern
'North British Kuview, No. III. p. 1 J8 ; see alsoBaird's Keligion in America.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 141
history. Have confidence in truth ! Have confidence in the people !
Have confidence in GOD !
Now, a word to the Catholics and Presbyterians. I do believe that
there is not a government so tyrannically deaf to the voice of reason
and justice as to say that such an Establishment shall be preserved for
ever, except our own ; nor is there another nation in Christendom so
well trained in constitutional agitation, that would have borne the stu-
pendous anomaly so long an anomaly not more disgraceful to those
who impose, than to those who endure it ! An Establishment so devoid
of rationality and equity so opposed to sound policy so incompa-
tible with good government, and even with its own professed object
so palpably based on despotic power, proves demonstrably that the
land it overshadows and awes to silence, has lost both its freedom and
its manhood ! And the fact that the British legislature either will
not, or dare not, abolish this grievance, shows clearly that they are
utterly unfit to govern this country. To talk of the blessings of the
constitution in the face of such a flagrant outrage on every constitu-
tional maxim, is indeed a cruel mockery !
VI. " But would not Repeal lead at once to CATHOLIC ASCEN-
DANCY ?"
No ; but if Great Britain persist in her present course, there will
be some danger of it. If the principle of ecclesiastical establish-
ments be maintained, the government may be forced, after one or two
general elections, to put Ireland on an equality in this respect with
England and Scotland, by establishing, or at least amply endowing,
the Catholic Church. For this Sir R. Peel seems to be paving the
way by his educational measures, and his Charitable Bequests and
Maynooth Bills. By his policy, the " No Popery" cry will soon be sti-
fled. The Orange body, from whose mouth it issues will be starved to a
skeleton, or else tempted to adopt another tune, and wear another colour.
If, then, the Church of Rome be endowed (as she will be inevitably, if
the Union lasts), her ascendancy will follow naturally from her num-
bers, zeal, activity and, above all, from her political power. The
party that can turn the scales at elections, will be always courted by the
minister, if they consent to receive his gifts.
How, then, is this evil (for an evil I must honestly consider the
ascendancy of any church) to be averted ? Solely it would seem by a
Repeal of the Union ! This has for some time been my deliberate
conviction. The new Irish constitution, connected as it would be with
the national recognition of the voluntary principle, as fundamental and
inviolable, would render a Roman Catholic Establishment for ever im-
possible. The opposition given to the Charitable Bequests Bill, shows
142 THE RIGHTS OF IRELATO>.
that the people, in general, regard any connexion of their church with
the state as a calamity. They are fully aware of the intrinsic evil of
such a connexion, and I trust they will strenuously resist it.
Think you that, when the Catholics get the parliament in College-
green, they will return only men of their own faith, with evil designs
against Protestant liberty ? They have not acted on such a principle
hitherto, either at the hustings or in the corporations. They seem
rather to prefer a Protestant candidate, if he be a respectable man and
a liberal. Besides there are very decided Protestants, who feel
perfectly convinced that Catholic gentlemen generally would not,
under any circumstances, make themselves the tools of religious in-
tolerance. Wherever any of this class have obtained office under
government, they have fulfilled their duties in an impartial and cre-
ditable manner, without any exception of which I am aware. If they
lean at all, it is to the side of power, like poor Mr. O'Driscoll.
Let us, however, for the sake of argument, suppose that the Catho-
lics of Ireland, filled to fury with the odium theologicum, and smitten
with a disastrous sectarian ambition, should at some future day for-
swear their solemn covenant with their Protestant fellow-countrymen,
forget the precepts, and maxims, and example of their liberator
trample under foot the new Irish constitution on the grave of
O'CONNELL, ! Suppose they thus basely betrayed their trust, and
sacrificed their honour, would the Irish Protestants have no remedy ?
Could two millions of people so intelligent, spirited, and independent,
with all the Lords, and most of the Commons on their side with arms
in their hands, and all the force of Great Britain to support their
righteous cause, while that of their perfidious and persecuting antago-
nists, would attract the execrations of the civilized world ! could they
have anything to fear ?
I have supposed the worst case that could possibly happen. But
how unlikely ! I should as soon expect to see England invaded and
conquered by the Emperor of China, or France by Queen Pomare.
If I do not greatly mistake the signs of the times, the whole current
of Irish society runs quite in another direction. Religious liberty,
embracing the rights of each man's conscience, is gaining ground
among us rapidly. An illustrious husbandman lias been sowing the
seed broad-cast over the country for many a year. Doubt not that
the full harvest will come in due time. Strange it is, if the Catho-
lics of Ireland have not learned one great lesson of history, which is
written in blood, and read by the lurid light of blazing faggots, that
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION has been the ruin of every nation which it
cursed with its presence j and on no soil in the world have its demon
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 143
footprints left a more visible or a more indelible warning than in Ire-
land. Yet it must be admitted, and it should be admitted cheerfully,
that, in an age when blood-thirsty intolerance on one side or other
raged all over Europe, the Irish Catholics, when in power, were sin-
gularly tolerant and forbearing in this country. Perhaps it may be
truly said, that no people ever suffered so much persecution, and in-
flicted less.
I cannot dismiss this objection, without again earnestly urging my
Protestant fellow-countrymen to reflect seriously on the expediency,
if not the necessity, of speedily establishing the voluntary system in
Ireland, for the sake of religion itself as well as of civil liberty. " The
age of bribeiy is come ! Retaining some one sect in special alliance,
states have begun to extend side-looks of love to others, and to em-
ploy their gold to purchase their favour. They now pension those
whom of old they persecuted, and whom of late they could only tole-
rate ; and, as if they had become indiscriminate in this new affection
as if characters the most opposite were alike acceptable to them as
if all differences were either fabulous or imperceptible, to pension
nearly every sect that will consent to be pensioned."
H4 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER XIV.
OBJECTIONS TO A REPEAL OF THE UNION, CONTINUED.
' ' There is in the progress of civilization a term at which exclusive privileges
must be relaxed, or the possessors must perish along with them." HALLAM.
VII. THE next objection that conies under our notice is, that " an
Irish Parliament would be involved in perpetual collision with Eng-
land."
But why should it, if its rights and privileges were accurately de-
fined, and no attempts were made to violate them ?
About a regency, should such a thing be unhappily required, there
could never again be any dispute, as Ireland would be quite willing
to have it a settled point, that the regent de facto in England should
be the regent de jure here. The revenue question could also be satis-
factorily adjusted at the outset. Trade and commerce would give no
annoyance, if they were what they ought to be, and soon will be, per-
fectly free.
The only other ground of difference would be, the question of war.
Glad should we be, if any political arrangements could check the ten-
dency to war among our English neighbours. True, they greatly dis-
like hostilities near home. But it is much to be feared, that even the
mercantile community object to it more from interest than principle.
Many would not unwillingly see it raging in India or in China, tram-
pling down the rights of nations under its bloody hoofs, and com-
mencing its desolations by the most shameful violation of treaties,
provided British commerce is thereby promoted, and the younger
branches of the aristocracy find " honourable" employment in human
butchery, with military titles, pay, and pension. Most desirable is it,
therefore, that this accursed thirst of conquest, which is now doubling
its iniquity, by stimulating to similar atrocities the rival ambition of
France, should meet with an additional counteraction in the free Par-
liament of Ireland.
VIII There are some who go so far as to say that the nobility
would not degrade themselves by attending an Irish Parliament !
Should they be so ridiculously conceited as to do this the business of
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 145
the nation could go on without them. There is no aristocracy in
Norway, and yet there is not on earth a country better governed.
Let no one, however, believe that any aristocracy would willingly
leave the work of legislation and government to other hands. It too
intimately affects their privileges and properties, and they are too fond
of power to do any such thing, through chagrin or sullen discontent.
There have been instances where unprofitable titles were cast away,
in order to qualify men for official service in the republic. It was
thus with Florence. " But the people," says Hallam, " now sure of
their triumph, relaxed a little upon this occasion the ordinances of
justice ; and to make some distinction in favour of merit or innocence,
effaced certain families from the list of nobility ! Five hundred and
thirty persons were thus elevated, as we may call it, to the rank of
commoners. As it was beyond the competence of the Republic of
Florence to change a man's ancestors, this nominal alteration left all
the real advantages of birth as they were, and was undoubtedly an
enhancement of dignity, though, in appearance, a very singular one.
Conversely, several unpopular commoners were ennobled, in order to
disfranchise them. Nothing was more usual in subsequent times than
such an arbitrary change of rank, as a penalty or a benefit. Those
nobles who were rendered plebeian by favour, were obliged to change
their name and arms."*
See what the love of political power and office can do ! Against
dissensions between the aristocracy and the commons, wisdom and
patriotism could easily guard by a just distribution of these desirable
advantages. All minds should be honestly set to effect the necessary
adjustment as soon as possible. For there are few whose judgment or
foreboding does not tell them that the time of exclusive privilege is
gone for ever. Concessions must be made to the people, largely,
liberally, and in good faith, or the fabric of society is not safe.
IX. " If Ireland is entitled to a separate parliament, on the same
principle parliaments should be granted to Yorkshire, Wales, Ulster,
Connaught, &c."
This is the argumcntum ad absurdum, so often urged in the news-
papers in a tone that indicates the opinion of the writers to be, that
nothing more need or can be said on the subject. But, in my opinion,
it betrays a very considerable want of candour, or else an extraor-
dinary amount of ignorance or prejudice, regarding the claims of
Ireland. Is not Yorkshire a part of England so vitally incorporated,
that if it were to set up as a separate kingdom, there would be a
' Middle Ages, vol. 1. p. -291.
146 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
violent schism in the body ? "Would not the hand be then revolting
against the head ? Besides what privations or grievances does York-
shire suffer under, more than any other county in England ? Has it
been singled out for oppression and degradation inadequately repre-
sented, and cruelly coerced and almost excommunicated from the
constitution ? Nothing of all this has happened. What then does it
want with a parliament of its own ? Did it ever possess anything of
the kind ? What pretensions can it have to be aught but a great and
influential member of the English kingdom ?
Is it not folly in the extreme, as well as a gross insult to every Irish-
man to compare the pretensions of an English county to a nation, of
which Edmund Burke speaks in the following terms : " You changed
the people you altei-ed the religion but you never touched the form
or the vital substance of free government in that kingdom. You
deposed kings you restored them you altered the succession to their*
as well as to your own crown ; but you never altered their constitu-
tion ; the principle of which was respected by usurpation ; restored
with the restoration of the monarchy, and established, I trust, for ever,
by the glorious Revolution. THIS has made Ireland that GREAT ANI>
FLOURISHING KINGDOM that it is ; and from a disgrace and a burden
intolerable to this nation, has rendered her a principal part of our
strength and ornament. This country cannot be said to have ever
formally taxed her."*
The Lord Chief Justice, indeed, in the late state trials, rebuked
Mr. O'Connell somewhat sharply, for calling Ireland a ' kingdom"-
declaring that there is no such thing ! If his lordship goes to church,,
and does not sleep there, the prayer for the Lord Lieutenant must grate
painfully upon his loyal ear. How can he say Amen to the following?
" Bless, we beseech thee, the whole council, direct their consultations
to the advancement of thy glory, the good of thy church, the honour
of her sacred majesty, and the safety and welfare of THIS KINGDOM."
Not only are the prayers of the church by law established at variance
with the judge's dictum, but, what is not a little unkind that solemn
dictum is forgotten in a few short months by the Queen's repre-
sentative. In replying to the deputation from the Presbyterian
church, Lord Heytesbury is pleased to call Ireland a "beautiful
kingdom !"
Yes; she is not a would-be nor an upstart nation. She was an ancient
kingdom when England was a miserable Roman province; a kingdom
to whose learning and munificence, the Saxon people were indebted
* Speech on Conciliation with America.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 147
for the use of letters ; a kingdom unconquerable by force of arms,
where England's " standard could never be advanced an inch before
her privileges," a kingdom with its own independent crown its
magistracy, laws, and learned institutions ; with a large and fertile ter-
ritory, great resources, a brave, numerous, and highly-gifted popu-
lation : a kingdom encircled by the ocean, and fortified by nature, as
if the very billows that break around its coasts, and the tempests that
beat impotently against its " munition of rocks," were designed by the
all-bountiful Creator, to proclaim to the people the doctrine and the
duty of self-government.
This great kingdom great in comparison with most of the inde-
pendent states of Europe her population exceeding those of Denmark,
Sweden, and Norway, put together, by nearly three millions lost her
legislature by fraud and corruption, only forty-five years ago a term
not worth counting in the age of a nation. But, her throne her
royal palaces her magnificent senate house her central law courts,
are still with us. The forms of NATIONALITY remain, and the awful
spirit that filled them with life and power cast out by profane vio-
lence walks forth in mysterious majesty through the land ; the earth
shakes beneath her feet ; at her approach the hearts of the millions
thrill with exulting hope ; the mountains and the valleys joyously re-
echo her once familiar voice ! Never shall the land have rest till she
is re-admitted and re-enthroned in her constitutional sanctuary !
It is said that Wales, too, may put in her claim to self-government,
if those of Ireland be granted. Cambria is certainly a glorious
country. She fought 800 years to maintain, inviolate, her mountain
homes. Even after she had been subdued, she revolted again, and
again. " On the news of the resumption of hostilities, the hostages
imprisoned in England, in the royal fortresses, were usually put to
death ; and sometimes the king had them put to death before his eyes,
John, son of Henry II., on one occasion, had twenty-eight of them,
all of tender age, hanged before he sat down to dinner !"* As in
Ireland, the Welsh bards kept up the memory of past glory among the
heart-broken slaves of England. But this was a consolation which
their English Sovereign would not allow them. Hume tells us coolly,
that Edward I., " sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military
valour and of ancient glory, so much as the traditional poetry of the
people, which, assisted by the power of music and the jollity of festi-
vals, made deep impressions on the minds of the youth, gathered nil
* Thierrv.
148 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
the Welsh bards, and from a barbarous, though not absurd ' policy,
ordered them to be put to death !"*
In the same gothic spirit she destroyed all the records and monu-
ments that could be found in the country. She even carried her
antipathy to the language so far as to oppose the printing of the Bible
in it at the Reformation ! The English sceptre has been to the
Cambrians, too, a rod of iron. Doubtless, they would have been, and
would even now be, much happier with a government of their own
federally united with England, as Norway is with Sweden. But
Wales is geographically one with England ; she was conquered many
centuries before Ireland, and as to the elements of nationhood, they
cannot be compared for a moment. In population, wealth, revenue,
and in resources generally, the whole principality is surpassed by a
a single Irish county, Cork.
Again, we are told, forsooth, that Ireland may justly claim to be an
independent kingdom ; any one of her arms or feet Ulster, Con-
naught, or Cork, may set up in the same manner ! Was ever any
thing so preposterous ? What, though each may have some customs
and interests peculiar to itself? 3^.re they not parts of one whole,
distinct, compact, formed above all nations for unity; whose boundaries
are defined by the hand that built its rocky coasts, and poured the
ocean around them ? True, it is a nation embracing several races
and creeds, but these are so mingled together, geographically and
socially, and would, for all political purposes, be so completely identi-
fied by a native legislature, and its patriotic, ameliorating, conciliating,
elevating, and uniting action on the population, that to erect distinct
governments for each race and creed, would be as uncalled-for and
impracticable as it is absurd. Some of our Ulster friends, indeed,
remind us that they have more intercourse with Glasgow than with
Dublin. But this is an intercourse neither of politics nor jurisdiction,
but commercial, and would be rather increased than diminished by an
Irish Parliament.
I would, however, ask the fine Presbyterian population of the
North "Are you not Irishmen ? Were not your fathers in 1782
Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores ? Why should the descendants of
such a noble race of freemen, glorying in the land of their birth,
speak now the language of newly-imported Scotchmen ? Besides,
are not half the population of Ulster Roman Catholics ? Is not a
considerable portion of the Protestants connected with the Established
* Thank GoJ they cannot do this with the bards of The Nation.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 149
Church, without any Scottish sympathies, and looking to Dublin as
their metropolis ? Why, then, should Ulster wish to sink itself into
a Scottish colony ?
The late Rev. Caesar Otway, a Tory, but a true and generous Irish-
man, who loved as intensely as he sketched beautifully the glorious
scenery of his native land, observed of DUBLIN, that it is just the
site which the eye of a king would select for the capital of this Island.
It is a splendid metropolis, " beautiful for situation the joy of the
whole land." Thither, for many a century, when Belfast was only
a village, the counties and towns of Ireland sent up their represen-
tatives to make laws for the whole kingdom. There was the foun-
tain head of legislation and jurisdiction ; and thence went forth the
ermined judges, itinerating east, west, north, and south. There was
the throne of the national executive, and the seats of all the great
national institutions. From all parts of the Island, our population of
all classes are perpetually streaming into Dublin. Its' present impor-
tance, in this respect, is sufficiently indicated by the number of rail-
roads that are to find their centre in it, branching all over the king-
dom. In fact, all our laws, usages, and customs, tend to make Ire-
land one compact, undivided KINGDOM, and Dublin its capital the
centre of unity the heart, whose pulsations throb to the remotest
extremities. Let the lungs, then, have free play let the oxygen of
liberty purify the blood of the body politic let prosperity enrich it
let an independent will, ruling through the legislature, control it, and
let Ireland's presiding genius and her guiding wisdom be equal to her
physical force.
X. " But, Great Britain will never grant it, but, on the contrary,
will resist it even to civil war."
If this objection were admitted to be unanswerable, it would super-
sede all others. Wherefore should we adduce our strong arguments
to show the benefit of the measure to both countries, if England will
not listen to them, but routs them all with the ultima ratio of tyrants,
the decisive logic of the bayonet ? While we are mustering argu-
ments, she is mustering soldiers. We appeal to the law of justice,
she to the law of conquest. We point to our captured rights, " which
enrich not her, and make us poor, indeed ;" but she, the boasted
champion of civil and religious liberty, the model of constitutional
government, lays her hand upon her sword, and, reddening with in-
dignation, exclaims " By this sword I won them, and with this
sword I will defend them."
She speaks thus, conscious of her overwhelming advantages. She
knows that Ireland is at her feet in bonds ! She has her police, her
150 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
standing armies, and her armed steamers, panting ror active service :
her innumerable public functionaries, and bigoted partizans, with all
power in their hands, among us and about us. Hence her bravery,
her mingled threats and ridicule. Exulting in her giant's strength,
she seems determined " to use it like a giant."
A calm thinker and close observer has said, that the most powerful
argument with Britain, is the argumentum ad ventrem ; and, accord-
ingly, the North British Review has said, that her Foreign Secretary
turned informer to the petty tyrant of Naples, and consented to open
letters and forge seals, in order to gain a few thousands a-year by a
favourable tariff. She seems to think that the argumentum ad ser-
vum is the one for Ireland. It is said that an insurgent army of
slaves, though they would face the sword and the cannon, will disband
and fly, if their former drivers only shake their whips at them.
England seems to think Irishmen made of such metal ! Therefore,
she shakes her gory whip in their faces ! She says, in effect what
you demand is right : I cannot deny that it is constitutional ; yet, I
am determined to slaughter you in hundreds of thousands rather than
do it !
Yet, this is a species of argument that may be carried too far.
The wrath of an insulted nation is terrific ! What is discipline
against the rush of the avalanche, or the burning flood of the vol-
cano ? To meet a sober and a reasoning people so strong in num-
bers and so stung with wrong standing on the constitution, and re-
spectfully demanding rights, without ivhich, allegiance is slavery,
and taxation, tyranny to meet such a people with nothing more
rational or Christian than the point of the sword, or the mouth of the
cannon, is to teach them a most dangerous lesson to set them a bad,
and, it may be, a fatal example. This is what makes them calcu-
late the chances of an European war. This wakes up dark and ter-
rible passions, which, hovering like birds of prey, snuff the battle-field
in the distance. It makes them listen attentively and patiently, while
the unseen hand of Providence turns over the rustling leaves of des-
tiny, till it opens a chapter in British history, written in blood ! It
is a fearful object on which, wantonly and mockingly, to turn the
hopes of a hungry nation !
It is easy for men, gloating in carnal ease, " pride and fulness of
bread," confident in the exuberance of their wealth and the prestige
of their power, to ridicule the aspirations of the Irish people as mere
puling sentimentality as if there could be no stern purpose or fierce
energy no real heroic manhood, nourished by national enthusiasm
or as if the good humour of the Irish character, playing incongruously
THE BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 151
on the very face of agony like the setting sun smiling on a thunder-
cloud argued nothing but a despairing imbecility, that might be for
ever safely scorned. God grant that this mistake may be cleared up,
ere any further measures be taken to make that thunder-cloud " ex-
plode!"
What is tKe pretext for these insane and atrociously wicked threats
of civil war and conquest ? Why, it is alleged that if Ireland had
her own parliament she would revolt from the British crown, and
dismember the empire. What an idle fear is this ! Would two mil-
lions of Protestants and seven millions of Catholics agree to forswear
their allegiance, and prefer another Sovereign to VICTORIA ? Would
the barren honour of having a native King or President, pay for the
revolution it must cost, the expense it would entail, and the perpetual
peril to which it would expose the nation ? Were the loyalty of
Ireland as cold and feeble as it is earnest and strong, could she be so
infatuated as to make her green plains again the battle-field between
England and some pretender to the Irish throne ? Is it already for-
gotten, that this country never was so loyal, as when her parliament
was independent and her citizens were armed ? Have our rulers yet
to learn from history, that an enfranchised, trusted, and protected
people have never yet been traitors in the council, dastardly in the
field, or seditious in the street ? Popular treason springs up only in
the soil which tyranny has ploughed if it " sows the wind," it must
expect to " reap the whirlwind."
Is it not humiliating in the extreme to this country, and a deep
disgrace to England, that we are watched in time of peace by a vast
military force, and that our country is studded with " puny fortifica-
tions ?" Is not this the very way to make the people separate in
heart ? Lord Stanley, according to his own harsh and violent nature,
says that " the government must be feared in order to be loved." He
is but a poor philosopher, or he would know that this passion which
all tyrants delight to inspire, is much more likely to be the parent of
hatred than of love. The sure way to prevent the very thought of
separation, is to grant us our Parliament. Contentment, prosperity,
grateful and generous contributions to the necessities of the empire,
would be the speedy result, the happy and lasting fruit of justice to
Ireland. Then her ardent loyalty would be embalmed in disinterested
love to the Sovereign, the intercourse with whom would be gratifying
and honourable, because maintained through the medium of our own
government ; and the constitution would not be outraged by the
breathing of ministerial animosity into speeches from the throne.
In a wise and manly speech delivered by W. Smith O'Brieii. K.-M.,
152 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
M. P., in the Repeal Association, on the 23rd December, I find the
following sentences : " "We are told, indeed, by the press and by the
statesmen of England, that although every man in Ireland should
unite in demanding Repeal, the Union should still be maintained.
They threaten to go to war with us rather than consent to Repeal.
Now, I do not know any argument, so likely to convert the anti-Re-
pealers to our cause as this arrogant menace. * * * No man can
contemplate the present position of European affairs, without feeling
that the destinies of the British empire are in our hands ! If Louis
Philippe were dead a fleet of steamers on the French coast, ready to
transport 50,000 men to the shores of England do you suppose that
the Irish arm will not then be wanted. We shall then have it in our
power to dictate our own terms. Those terms, in peace or war, are
the restoration of our legislature. I trust that will be obtained with-
out any collision between the two countries. I believe it will I
know it may ; I know it ought ; but this I will say, that if collision
does take place, it will be the fault of England, and not of Ireland."
Perhaps, an English reader may be disposed to make a large de-
duction from the force of this language, because it proceeds from an
Irish patriot, and one too, who has hereditary reasons for feeling
keenly the degradation of his country. If so, I shall refer him to a
certain prophet of his own, Henry Brougham. Long ere his too suscep-
tible nature imbibed Toryism from the Woolsack, and his head was
turned by the weight of the Chancellor's wig, when discussing in
parliament " the misrule and oppression exercised by England over
the Irish people, * * * which, imposed the fetters of a foreign
jurisdiction over the administration of justice itself," he spoke in the
following terms, with which I conclude this chapter :
" Ireland with a territory of immense extent, with a soil of almost
unrivalled fertility, with a climate more genial than our own, with an
immense population of strong-built hardy labourers men suited alike
to fill up the ranks of our armies in war, or for employment at home
in the works of agriculture or manufactures Ireland with all these
blessings, which Providence has so profusely showered into her lap,
has been under our stewardship for the last 120 years ; but our solici-
tude for her has appeared only in those hours of danger, when we
apprehended the possibility of her joining our enemies, or when,
1 mving no enemy abroad to contend with, she raised her standard,
perhaps, in despair, and we trembled for our oivn existence ! It
cannot be denied, that the sole object of England has been to render
Ireland a safe neighbour. We have been stewards over her for this
long period of time. I repeal, that we shall one day have to give an
TUK RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 153
account of our stewardship a black account it will be, but it must
be forthcoming. What have we done for the country, which we are
bound to aid, to protect, and to cherish ? In our hands, her popula-
tion seems a curse to her rather than a blessing. They are a wretched,
suffering, and degraded race without a motive for exertion starving
in. the midst of plenty. * * * In England justice is delayed, but,
thank heaven, it can never be sold. In Ireland it is sold to the rich,
refused to the poor, and delayed to all. It is in vain to disguise the
fact it is in vain to shun the disclosure of the truth. We stand, as
regards Ireland, on the brink of a precipice ! * * * I am backed
in what I say by the spirit of the wisest laws by the opinions of
the most famous men in former ages. If I err, I err in com-
pany with the best judgments of our own time, I err with the com-
mon sense of the whole world, with the very decrees of Providence
to support me. We are driving six millions of people to despair,
to madness ! The greatest mockery of all the most
intolerable insult the course of peculiar exasperation against which
I chiefly caution the house, is the undertaking to cure the distress
under which she labours, by anything in the shape of new penal
enactments. IT is IN THESE ENACTMENTS ALONE THAT WE HAVE
EVER SHOWN OUR LIBERALITY TO IRELAND ! She has received
penal laws from the hands of England, almost as plentifully as she has
received blessings from the hands of Providence ! What have these
laws done ? Checked her turbulence, but not stifled it. The griev-
ance remaining perpetual, the complaint can only be postponed. We
may load her with chains, but in doing so, we shall not better her
condition. By coercion we may goad her on to fury ; but by coercion
we shall never break her spirit. She will rise up and break the
fetters we impose, and arm herself for deadly violence with the frag-
ments." *
* Lord Brougham's Speeches, vol. 4, p. 45.
154 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
CHAPTER XV.
RESTORATION OF THE IRISH CONSTITUTION.
" Norway received a new and liberal CONSTITUTION, and has started with the
freshness of youth, a new nation, as it were, called suddenly into life, from
among the slumbering feudal populations of the North. Sweden received a new
dynasty, and slumbers on amidst ancient institutions and social arrangements of
darker ages." LAING.
THE British constitution is, perhaps, above all others, " a bundle of
usages /" The extraordinary people who have grown up under it to
unprecedented power and greatness, ever aiming instinctively at uti-
lity and practical results, calculated to meet the present emergency,
are peculiarly intolerant of theories. In politics especially they have
a kind of antipathy to abstract principles.
Indeed, custom is in every nation, to a very great extent, the guide
of life and the standard of morals. In religion, multitudes without
faith, do, habitually and mechanically, the very things that others do,
intelligently, through faith. It is so in civil government. The masses
never will be led away from the old beaten path, by the light of the
most brilliant speculation, although obvious and pressing interest may
induce them to deviate gradually into a better way. Therefore, if we
are to make our appeal to England successfully, we should take with
us the words of one who knew its people well : " I am not," said
Edmund Burke, " obliged to go to the rich treasury of the fertile
framers of imaginary commonwealths not to the Republic of Plato
not to the Utopia of More not to the Oceana of Harrington. It is
before me. It is at my feet, and the rude swain treads daily on it
with his clouted-shoon. I only wish you to seize, for the theory, the
ancient constitutional policy of this kingdom in regard to represen-
tation, as that policy has been declared in Acts of Parliament ; and as
to the practice, to return to that mode which experience has marked
out to you as best."*
* On Conciliation witli America.
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 155
In our constitutional controversy with England, it is very important
to have a definite object ; and that it should commend itself not only
to the good sense, but even to the habits and prejudices of the Eng-
lish people, among whom we have many true friends. With this ob-
ject in view, there is something even in a name. Federalism has a
republican sound. True, the thing itself is good ; and in speaking of
it, we may well adopt the language of Sismondi, and exclaim :
" Honneur aux nations libres qui cherchent dans le lien federetif
non seulement une defense contre les aggressions etrangeres, mais
aussi une garantie contre leurs propres passions, contre 1'egarment de
['ambition, contre 1'ivresse du succes !"
The history of such nations is, of all others, the most interesting
and illustrious. But an immense superiority in one power, adding to
its ascendancy the right of conquest, seems fatal to federal justice.
It is true, also, that the principles of federalism are bound up in
the usages of the British constitution. The ancient English parish
was a little republic in itself. The county was a confederation of
parishes for more general purposes ; while the representatives of the
counties and corporations together made the great congress of the na-
tion. The empire, too, is a vast confederation of conquered kingdoms
and provinces, of which England is the head. Still " federalism" and
" congress" are not English words, nor are they pleasing to English
ears. Surrounded by anti-monarchical and even anti-British associa-
tions, they would encounter antipathy among the English, and win
very little sympathy among the Irish. Talk to these of the " KING,
LORDS, AND COMMONS OF IRELAND," and you will thrill their souls ;
but you cannot conjure with Federalism!
Fully to carry out the federal system, great changes should be made
in the British Parliament. The national legislation should be sepa-
rated from the imperial ; and England and Scotland should have their
separate pai'liaments as well as Ireland. Now, it is quite certain that
England will not be " put about" in this manner. Antiquity has
given an awful prestige to parliament as it is ; and though over-
whelmed by an enormous mass of business, accumulating every year
from all parts of an unwieldly empire, yet would the English aristo-
cracy endure anything rather than make the change required. The
formation of two new imperial houses, whether called a congress or
not, is an undertaking AVC need never expect. If originated in Eng-
land, the question might, perhaps, be entertained, though not carried ;
but coming from Ireland, and for Ireland's sake, it would be scouted
with indignation, as an impertinence worthy of stripes ! Besides, from
the complexity and delicacy of the arrangements, it is a change which
156 Tilt RIGHTS Of IRELAND.
could not be made in a panic. But the Repeal of the Union is one
that could, and would !
The resistance of England to an imperial congress would not arise
from national pride and prejudice merely, but from the strongest self-
interest. She has in parliament a large majority over Ireland and
Scotland put together. All measures of colonial and foreign policy
are, therefore, framed according to her sovereign will. She rules the
empire. Ireland, particularly, has no influence at all in her councils.
But if this country and Scotland were fairly represented in an impe-
rial senate, they would break up this ascendancy, or, at all events,
disturb it unpleasantly, and exercise a control which she will never
suffer, and acquire a power which she will never surrender.
This being the case, nothing would remain, on the federative plan,
to Ireland, but the anomaly of being represented in Dublin and also in
London. She would presume to make laws in the British Parliament
for Great Britain, when she would not allow it to make laws for her.
This is an invidious position which she does not desire, to which she
could not attain, and if attained, it would bring with it more incon-
venience than advantage. For simplicity, we should then have com-
plexity, if not confusion, in our political arrangements. We must
elect two sets of representatives, the more honourable sent to London
to be dazzled by the wealth and splendour of that huge and gorgeous
capital ; to be flattered, intrigued with, and corrupted at the imperial
court ; permanently entangled, perhaps, with British connexions,
and completely alienated from their native land. Or if they returned,
it would be to look down on Dublin and its parliament as little, paltry,
and contemptible. In this way, the worst evils of absenteeism would
be perpetuated, though somewhat limited in their range. This divi-
sion of our legislature, and diversion of the national mind, would not
work welL It would certainly lower the influence and respect of the
domestic branch of the parliament. There would then be a far higher
prize for ambition in another land, possessing already too many attrac-
tions to our countrymen. To this the Irish nation should not be a
party.
Why should she ? What could she gain by it ? To be sure, there
are several departments of government in which she would have some
voice such as the colonies, our foreign relations, the tariff, the army
and navy, &c. As to the first, we want no power over the colonies.
All of them that are large enough should have free legislatures of their
own. Some of them would confer greater benefit on these kingdoms
as independent nations, in friendly alliance, and with free trade, than
they do now. Lord Brougham says, " the government and defence
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 157
of Canada alone cost us more than half a million a-year, independent of
the million and a half which we have expended on the Rideau canal,
and between two and three millions on fortifications, uselessly spent !
I speak," says he, " on the authority of a minister of the crown (Sir
H. Parnell) who has recorded his opinion of the burden we sustain in
holding such possessions. Besides all this, we have to pay 55*. duty
on the excellent timber of the Baltic, in order that we may be com-
pelled to use the bad timber of Canada, at a higher price, on a 10*.
duty."*
All that we require is liberty to trade with the colonies on the same
terms as England, which she could not think of refusing now in the
nineteenth century as she did in the eighteenth.
The foreign relations need give us no trouble except so far as tariffs
are concerned. And with these our own parliament could deal, if
Britian in her negotiations, should neglect our interests. We would,
of course, have our own police, and national militia, and so much of a
standing army as would be requisite. In such a case we need fear
nothing from invasion. Mr. Laing has satisfactorily accounted for the
facility with which a few northmen conquered a nation in the middle
ages, on the principle, that THE PEOPLE were mostly serfs, and cared
little if their tyrannical masters were defeated and degraded. What
had they to fight for ? Give the Irish their rights let all the citizens
of good character be formed, as Mr. Grey Porter recommended, into
a militia and occasionally drilled ; and while their patriotic uniform
of orange and green will soon cover and extinguish all sectarian and
party distinctions, inspiring self-respect, mutual confidence, and bro-
therly feeling, you may laugh at invasion. And if England should ever
need our assistance, 50,000 swords would instantly fly out of their
scabbards in her defence. With such a constituency the Irish Parlia-
ment would be treated with profound respect ! It would not be a
bad plan to confine the militia to the electors.
As to the currency, revenue, &c^ every chance of collision on these
points could be obviated by arrangements mutually made at first, so as
to produce harmony and good feeling between both nations. At all
events, I am quite persuaded that our interests in all such matters
could be far more effectually guarded by our PARLIAMENT in Dublin
than by our representatives in London. An Irish House of Commons
would command complete attention, where mere Irish members, strag-
gling over to England would be treated with neglect and contempt.
England will expect us to contribute our share to the imperial
* Lord Brougham's Speeches.
158 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
expenditure, reserving, of course, the constitutional right of stopping
the supplies, as an ultimate remedy against injustice. There is no
fear that any British government will ever do, in Ireland, what a Whig
government did a few years ago in Canada i. e., first grant the
power of withholding the supplies in order thereby to obtain a redress
of grievances, and then, when they were stopped accordingly, send a
military force to break open the chest, and seize on the public trea-
sure. This rash act was followed by rebellion, and rebellion was
followed by the elevation of its ringleaders to the highest offices in
the state. This is certainly not a very tempting precedent. On the
whole I think the nation has acted wisely in having nothing to do
with the federal system, if system it may be called, when no feasible
plan has been submitted to the public. For in this chapter I have
been considering the highest scheme of federalism, not that which has
been advocated by Mr. Sharman Crawford, whose talents, integrity,
and great respectability would have won for it the approbation of
many, if it did not fall far below what the nation has a right to de-
mand, and must sooner or later obtain. Certainly a subordinate,
retail, or huxtering parliament could never make Ireland " great,
glorious and free," a consummation which both he and Mr. Grey
Porter desire as ardently as any of us.
We have seen how Burke spoke of the IRISH CONSTITUTION. The
forms and vital spirit survived the convulsions of civil war. It was
respected even by usurpation, was restored with the Restoration, and
established by the Revolution in 1688, as all good men hoped "for
ever." It was subsequently destined to demonstrate its power to re-
generate the nation, though but for a brief period, and when com-
pletely paralysed at one side, by the torpedo of religious intolerance.
This constitution was immolated at the Union by means the most
atrocious. We demand its restoration. We ask for no visionary changes
we want to submit no wild theories of government to perilous ex-
periment. We petition not for favour we insist on our own our
right.
It has been said, however, that Repeal " simple Repeal" would
restore all the imperfections of the old parliament its rotten boroughs
and corruption. This consequence by no means follows. The repeal
of the act of 1800, would be but the preamble to a new enactment,
restoring and re-establishing our legislature, according to the princi-
ples of the reformed British constitution, its sister and its model. The
abuses of the Irish Parliament were not the Irish Parliament ! They
were mere accidents, excrescences, pernicious appendages. We grant
that its robes were greatly soiled by contact with 'English corruption.
THE RIGHTS OP IRELAND. 159
But an institution and its costume are as different things as a man
and his dress. Doubtless filthy garments will have a considerable
moral influence on the spirit and bearing of him who is obliged to
wear them. But even if they should convey into his system conta-
gion and death, it does not follow that, if Providence raised him again
from the dead, he must retain the same infected clothes. The resur-
rection of Lazarus would have been a very imperfect blessing if he
had been doomed to carry about with him ever after not only his
grave-clothes, but the disease of which he died ! But the Lord said
" Loose him and let him go !"
We ask the Imperial Parliament to roll away the stone from the
mouth of the sepulchre, i. e. repeal the Act of Union. For the Par-
liament of Ireland is not dead but sleepeth. Let the awful sleeper
come forth ! Fresh air, fresh blood, freedom and exercise will do the
rest. It can soon be dressed anew according to the fashion of reform.
All this is simple, natural, and intelligible. The constitution of Eng-
land in the days of Gatton and old Sarum, was essentially the same
that it is now in the days of Manchester and Leeds. It has gone
through a hydropathic process : wrapt in the wet sheets of Reform, by
Lord Grey, the political Priesnitz it has sweat off its radical impuri-
ties washed its face, got better diet and more room for the develop-
ment of its energies.
How preposterous, then, is it to argue that Repeal would carry us
back to the state of things when Bannow, Clonmines, and Carysfort
returned their members to parliament ! Such nonsense is as rank as
the corruption which it says must needs be resuscitated.
Three hundred members are not too many to represent a population
of nine millions. The Parliament of Norway, with little more than
one million inhabitants, is composed of about one hundred, for the
number varies according to the population of the places represented.
These three hundred can easily be distributed over the kingdom ; ac-
cording to the claims of the counties and towns respectively, which
may be adjusted on the principles of the Reform Bill ; to facilitate
which a schedule has been proposed and published by the Repeal As-
sociation. In his letter of October 2nd, 1844, Mr. O'Connell says
" Taking up this English basis, (i. e. population,) the simple Repealers
submit that there ought to be in Ireland 173 county members. Of
these Antrim would hare 6, Armagh 5, Fermanagh 5, Londonderry
5, Tyrone 6, Down 7, Monaghan 5, Cavan 5, Donegal 6 ; total for
Ulster, 50. I mention these particulars regarding Ulster to show
that in our proposal complete justice is done to the Protestant pro-
160- THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
vince, upon the same scale precisely with the other provinces. There
being thus 1 73 members allotted to the counties, there remain for the
towns and cities 127, of which, for example, four are allocated to
Belfast, four to Limerick, and two to the Dublin University."
So much for the Commons. The House of Lords is to be restored
in all its integrity. When Norway declared itself independent in
1814, it had not only to frame a constitution, to erect a parliament,
and define its powers without any previous model in their own, or,
indeed, in any country, but also to construct an executive suited to
their wants and circumstances. Happily for us the forms and offices
of administration, still in a great measure remain ; and we should
need but a few more functionaries to carry on the government effi-
ciently. For example, we have : 1. The Viceroy ; 2. The Privy
Council ; 3. The Lord High Chancellor ; 4. The Secretary of State ;
5. The Attorney-General ; 6. The Solicitor-General, &c.
We should want a Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Board of
Trade. We have a Board of National Education. Indeed, with
some few supplemental appointments, we have the frame-work of go-
vernment ready at hand, to execute the will of the legislature, for the
benefit of the Nation ; and it is much better to adhere to the accus-
tomed forms.
In issuing the proposal for Prize Essays, the Committee of the As-
sociation judiciously directed attention to
THE UNION BETWEEN SWEDEN AND NORWAY.
The candid consideration of this subject is calculated to convey the
most important and interesting instruction, not only to those who,
like the Irish, are struggling for their constitutional rights, and vindi-
cating the claims and capability of the people for self-government, but
also to the friends of civil liberty in all lands. It will furnish mate-
rial aid to us in suggesting the means of preventing dangerous colli-
sions between the two houses of parliament, as well as between the
two kingdoms.
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were united under one crown in
1 397. This Union was not cordial ; Sweden was reluctant and dis-
affected, and, finally, separated in 1520. Denmark and Norway,
however, remained united till 1814. Though the government of the
former country was despotic, yet so mild was it, and so respectful to
the free customs and independent spirit of the people of Norway, that
the habits of local self-government, which belonged to the Scandina-
vian people in the remotest ages, continued in considerable force
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 161
down to the violent disruption effected by the tyranny of the Holy Al-
liance, contrary to the wishes and feelings of both nations.
It became a great object with England and the other powers allied
with her against France, to get the King of Sweden to join in the
league. To induce him to do this, they offered him a million sterling,
which England paid ! But this was not enough. He got also the
island of Gaudaloupe ; but he was not satisfied without the kingdom
of Norway into the bargain ! But how could this be given ? Nor-
way belonged to the King of Denmark, and was no more England's
to give, than Rome or Pekin. But, perhaps, the people of Norway
themselves were anxious to get free from Denmark, and to be united
to Sweden ? Exactly the reverse. They were quite happy in their
existing connexions, and for good reasons, they regarded the Swedes
as their bitter and hereditary enemies a Union with whom was most
abhorrent to their national feelings. No matter ! Though England
was then fighting, and spending Irish blood, and treasure too, in de-
fence of legitimacy she scrupled not to rend the kingdom of Norway
from the Danish throne, and to hand it over to him of Sweden !
Such was her sense of justice, consistency, and national honour ! The
writer of the article Norway, in the Encyclopedia Britannica, justly
calls this "one of the foulest stains on the escutcheon of Great Britain."
The King of Sweden, in consideration of getting Gaudaloupe, Nor-
way, and one million sterling of British money, (part of that national
debt for which Ireland is mortgaged by the Union,) entered into the
holy alliance, by treaty, on March 3, 1813.
The Norwegians, however, had no notion of being handed over like
slaves or sheep to an owner they hated ; and, accordingly, they at once
declared themselves an independent nation, and elected the son of their
former monarch as their king. The Swedish sovereign then entered
their territory at the head of an army to take possession and England
blocked the Norwegian ports to starve that brave people into subjec-
tion to usurping tyranny. The fighting commenced, and much blood
was shed. But the state of Europe required that the contest should
be speedily terminated. The result was that a free constitution was
conceded to the Norwegians, provided they accepted the Swedish
monarch for their king.
They did so. Their representatives met. A committee was ap-
pointed to prepare a constitution, and after four days' deliberation (on
materials, no doubt, which had previously been the subject of much
thought with some of their patriots) they produced the plan of a con-
stitution and a system of government developed in all its details, the
most perfect which has ever been reduced to practice in any nation.
162 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
This constitution was guaranteed to them by Great Britain and the
other allied powers. And indeed to do England j ustice it should have
been mentioned, that when she was generously giving away what did
not belong to her, she kindly put in a word for the poor Norwegians,
expressing a wish that their new king would have a due regard to
their " happiness and liberty !" This reminds one of the advice given
by good old Isaac Walton to his angler, as to the most humane manner
of impaling a worm " handle it tenderly," said he, " as if you had a
kindness unto it !"
However, as the Norwegians were a people likely to fight it out with
their oppressors, they got, on March 17, 1814, "a constitution of
their own framing a legislature of their own electing, without being
interfered with by any foreign authority, and laws of their own making
and administering. In short, Norway remained a pure democracy in
all but the name."* The purity of the democracy arose from a sin-
gular circumstance in their history. They never had a law of Primo-
geniture. Property there is all udal or allodial. The feudal system
never cursed their soil with its slavish principles ; the Norwegians
were never serfs ; their landed proprietors were never vassals. Each
man holds his property (as they proudly express it) by the same right as
the king his crown. Their rights were never granted. They were always
their own, natural, unalienated, and underived. In Ireland, with
nine millions of population, there are only about 10,000 proprietors.
In Norway, with about one million, there are 41,656. How vast must
be the moral effect of such a distribution of the landed property.
"Property is power" But such is its tendency to accumulate in the
same hands, such is the self-respect and the decent family pride it
inspires, that holdings have not been subdivided to the extent that
might have been anticipated, nor to any extent injurious to the wealth
of the country.
They had, however, an hereditary nobility till 1821, when they
abolished it as a sort of anomaly in their system. This they Avere
enabled to do through a peculiarity in their constitution, (to which
I shall advert just now ;) though the king came in person with 6,000
soldiers to overawe them producing thereby a most alarming excite-
ment, which was terminated by the interference of the Russian and
American ministers.
Mr. Luing, who resided in Norway, whither he went for the pur-
pose of studying the institutions of a nation, which in the middle ages
was the store-bouse of conquerors, and now enjoys more political
THE RIGHTS OV IIIELANI). 163
liberty, than any other in Europe, gives us full and interesting infor-
mation on this subject, particularly in the closing chapters of his two
works, A Residence in Norway, and Travels in Sweden. I shall notice
several points in order :
1. The suffrage in Norway is almost universal, for which they were
prepared by the extensive diffusion of property, and the habits of inde-
pendence which it produces. Almost every man there has a stake in
the country.
2. There is no property qualification for members of parliament,
and yet the most respectable, intelligent and upright men are almost
invariably elected.
3. All the members are paid for their attendance in the national
assembly. As a consequence the public business is diligently and
faithfully attended to. The payment, however, is little more than ade-
quate to meet their necessary expenses while residing at Christiana.
They are not, therefore, obliged to compensate themselves, as with us,
by jobbing and patronage.
4. There is a general election every three years, when the storthing
or parliament meets, suo jure, in virtue of the constitution, and sits
three months for the transaction of business, but no longer, unless with
the king's permission.
5. The king may call an extraordinary meeting of the storthing for
a special purpose, but in that case they can meddle with no other
business.
6. The first thing the storthing does when it meets, is to elect its
own president, or speaker, and a secretary ; and this is repeated every
week, so jealous are they, lest there should be the least bias in the chair-
man, leading him to put matters before the meeting unfairly ; or in
the secretary, leading him to give a wrong turn to any thing in enter-
ing it on the journals of the house.
7. The storthing then elects the Lagthing, which answers to our
House of Lords. It consists of one fourth of the whole number of repre-
sentatives, and includes of course men of the greatest wisdom and expe-
rience. These sit in an adjoining chamber, which opens into the
lower house by folding doors. The portion that remains in this lnv,-<-r
house in called the Odelsthing, and answers to our House of Commons.
S. In this lower house all measures must originate. When con-
sidered there, they are sent to the upper elumiber, whore they are.
approved, altered, or rejected.
(}. The king has not an absolute rrfn, hut or!'-' ;; suxpoisirc tirr/afirc,
upon the acts of the legislature.
10. Should a bill, which lie objects to ;vad negatives, '>
164 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
three successive parliaments, it becomes law at once, without the royal
assent. It was by virtue of this principle of their constitution, they
abolished the aristocracy, contrary to all the efforts of Sweden to
uphold it.
11. All public officers, from the highest to the lowest, hold their
situations for life, and are responsible to the storthing alone. The
crown cannot dismiss them unless they are convicted of crime, nor can
they be removed from place to place without their own consent ; nor
haye their salaries reduced, or their labours increased, without com-
pensation. Every office is open to public competition. The man best
qualified must get the appointment ; and to secure this object, and
guard against favouritism, or nepotism, an account must be kept
in a book of every candidate's testimonials, claims, and qualifications,
so that parliament and the public may be satisfied that there is no
foul play.
12. What is more remarkable, the judges are responsible for their
decisions. If any one has been injured by a wrong judgment, pro-
ceeding from rashness, haste, or ignorance, the judge is bound to make
good his loss out of his own pocket. He has the right, however, to
appear in person, and state the grounds on which he has proceeded.
According to this law, the Lord Chief Justice Pennefather, and his
brethren should have appeared before the House of Lords, to answer
for their sentence against O'Connell and his fellow-prisoners ; and
should have paid these patriots the damages due for an illegal im-
prisonment of three months. If corruption, or any dishonest bias is
proved against the judge, he is degraded from his office. With such
regulations, it is needless to say that justice is administered in Nor-
way with the most perfect purity. The incompetent creatures that
creep up upon the bench here, or the violent partizans that are thrust
upon it, by ministerial patronage, would not dare to incur the hazard
of such a position in Norway. Happy people that live under such
just laws. No wonder the country is so free from crime ; while
Sweden, with its swarming aristocracy, is the most criminal, the most
shamefully criminal country in Europe !
13. No change can be made in the Nonvegian constitution, in the
same parliament in which it is introduced. Before any such question
can be decided, there must be a general election, by which the will of
the nation can be fully ascertained. But, so justly proud are the
people of their incomparable constitution, that they will not suffer it
to be touched even to remove slight defects.
14. No member of the executive has a seat in parliament.
Never was any system better framed to secure popular rights, and
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 165
justice, and order at the same time. Never were the capabilities of
the people for self-government so admirably illustrated. Here is a
proof that they can be trusted with power with perfect safety. But,
the greatest wisdom of all is shown in the insuperable barrier raised
against the effects of court intrigue, patronage, and corruption in every
form. A coup d'etat in Paris, will revolutionise France in a single
day, and wholly extinguish its constitution, such as it is ; because all
power is centralized in the capital ; the liberty of the nation is within
the king's grasp, and he can strangle it in a moment. Just in pro-
portion as this system of centralization prevails in any country, are
the people unsafe. But, in Norway, freedom is rooted in every part
of the soil, and cannot possibly be extirpated, except by the sword.
This fact was illustrated in a most striking manner in 1824, when,
in violation of the faith of treaties, the king was induced by his aris-
tocratic advisers, to attempt to carry out his long cherished scheme of
completely amalgamating the two kingdoms, by assimilating Norway
to Sweden, and reducing it to the condition of Poland or Ireland.
Accordingly, the storthing was violently and arbitrarily dissolved by
the king, without any reason assigned, in the midst of their delibera-
tions in the hope of an emeute that might furnish an excuse for
employing the military, and so destroying the constitution something
like the Clontarf proclamation. But the people were quiet the
functionaries were all faithful to their country ; the king took nothing
by his motion, and soon seeing the folly of his conduct, he called the
parliament together again. They calmly began at their unfinished
business, where they had been interrupted, and went on as if nothing
had happened, save only that they found their agent in Copenhagen
had neglected to enter a protest in the council against this outrage on
their rights, for which he was impeached. Are not these Norwegians
a noble people ? Are not thejr history and government an admirable
study for the people of Ireland at the present moment ? They are
true men, steady, sincere, honest, determined, persevering ! Would
that we had their firmness, their unity, their stern devotion to prin-
ciple ; their calm, unvapouring independence of spirit ! Then our
government would not hope to subdue a nation by crushing a leader,
or by intriguing at the court of Rome. But, even as it is, and as we
are, their hopes are vain. Our people have not all the virtues which
self-government alone can nourish to maturity ; but they are fast
acquiring them and hence the profound anxiety of our rulers.
How far can we derive aid from the Norwegian model in recon-
structing our own parliament, so as to keep as near as possible to the
recogni/ed principles and usages of the British constitution ?
166 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
1. T Ve learn the necessity of localizing political power. The cen-
tralizing tendencies of our government must be met and counteracted
in every possible way, consistent with the constitution. This must be
done in the Poor-Law Boards, which have recently been contending
with the commissioners for a great principle, though the matter at
issue was only the appointment or dismissal of a clerk. The boards
should secure for themselves as much power as possible ; and in order
to make this power the less invidious, and give the less excuse for the
central authorities to interfere with it, majorities on these boards
should most scrupulously guard against anything sectarian or partial.
Reconcilement and unity among themselves should be anxiously
aimed at, in order that Protestants and Catholics may get the habit of
acting together as IRISHMEN, for Irish objects. The same should take
place in the Corporations. Restricted as are their privileges, they
are, in fact, little parliaments ; and the effort of all their members
should be to make them the nurseries of patriotism, the normal schools
of self-government. They should not rest till they are placed on a
perfect level with the English Corporation?, especially as to the ap-
pointment of magistrates. Grand Juries should be elected by the
payers of county-cess. This is a vital point. The present system is
monstrous ! We are taxed to an enormous extent, without represen-
tation ! AVe have no voice in the disposal of our own money in what
most intimately concerns us. It is astonishing that this glaring ano-
maly has been borne so long. Do what you will to check the aristo-
cracy, they will still have an undue and injurious influence in this
country. But to allow them, without any responsibility to the people,
to impose taxes, and appropriate the public money, to any extent, and
in any manner they please, is to show ourselves unfit for the British
constitution. Let us then have county reform ! Grand Juries must
be elected by the ratepayers ; the sheriffs by the grand juries ; and
the judges should, by all means, relinquish this power. Let the
elected grand jury choose the high-sheriff, returning three names, as
the judges do now, and leaving to the Queen, through her deputy, to
select one of them.
2. It is folly to expect well-regulated liberty in this country, so long
MS the landlords retain their present power over the people. I believe
the feudal system of land-tenure is one of our greatest curses. The
landlords, however, have rights of property most oppressive and de-
grading, and we must only make the most of a system which we can-
nut abolish. All efforts to raise the condition of the Irish people, to
produce real pi'ace and prosperity, and to harmonize the various
classes of society, will be comparatively ineffectual, till the law of
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 167
primogeniture is repealed. But while it lasts, we must guard as well
as we can against its blighting effects on our political rights. The
elective franchise, at all events, must be freed from the landlord's
power. How is this to be effected ? By some alteration in the law,
that will either render the giving of leases compulsory, or give the
franchise, without a lease. Registration, too, must be rendered sim-
ple and inexpensive ; and electioneering oaths should be utterly
abolished. Why should not a receipt for some single tax be sufficient
to qualify a man to vote ? If it be a principle of the constitution that
taxation and representation should go together, what more should be
required of a man who is entitled to vote at an election, than a certi-
ficate that he has paid his tax ?
With regard to the extension of the suffrage, I think it would not
be wise to make it a necessary preliminary to a Repeal of the Union.
We should not rest a single day, however, in our agitation for this
extension, till it is equal to that of England, according to our fair pro-
portion. Circumstanced as our people are in regard to the aristo-
cracy ; poor, dependant, and often liable to utter ruin, for acting
according to conscience, the ballot seems absolutely necessary. Were
this measure conceded, Ireland would soon send a majority of Re-
pealers to the Imperial Parliament an object which is now of para-
mount importance. The people have " pronounced," the corporations
have " pronounced," but Ireland shall not have regularly and con-
stitutionally, unequivocally and incontrovertibly done so, till a majo-
rity of her representatives in parliament demand a local legislature.
This is ail that now remains to make the appeal of this nation irre-
sistible. " The battle of the Irish constitution must be fought at the
hustings."*
3. The Norwegian Parliament meets only once in three years, and
for every session there is a new election. Ours, of course, would re-
quire to meet annually ; but it should exist only three years, being
subject to no dissolution, except, at the accession of a sovereign ; at
all events, four years should be the utmost limit, as in Canada. The
people ought not to be left in the dark as to the time of a general
election. We have too much depending on the caprice and policy of
government. They wish always to have some political sliding-scale,
some power in terror em, to work on the passions of party. They
ought not to be able to dissolve parliament for any such purpose. Let
elections regularly take place every third or fourth year, and the elec-
tors can be prepared can have their votes duly registered, and fit
* There are only twenty-two pledged l^-pealers in parliament.
168 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
candidates selected. Then the members will hardly have time to
wholly forget their professions and pledges ; and they will not feel so
independent of their constituents, as to go on voting for six or seven
years in opposition to their principles, in disregard of their interests,
and in contempt of their wishes and feelings.
4. The property qualification of members should be either wholly
set aside in the Irish Parliament, or essentially altered. We have
seen that in Norway the most respectable men are selected, though
any elector is eligible ; and we may see in Scotland, that the property
qualification is not at all necessary. In Ireland it would operate most
seriously against the liberal interest, on account of the kind of title
required. If a man have large property, why is it necessary that it
should be in land ? If it be in manufactures, or any kind of exten-
sive business, does it not give its owner as good a claim on the suf-
frages of his countrymen ? Has he no stake in the country ? And
is it not of the most beneficial kind, as giving employment to the
people ?
Some years ago an excellent man was elected to represent one of
our towns ; his rental was far more than sufficient to qualify him,
but he was unseated on petition, because his title was not sufficiently
aristocratic and feudal ; and his opponent, whose property was worth
nothing if his debts were paid, was declared to be the member. All
that should be required is, that a candidate is to be bonafide possessed
of property, to enable him to pursue an independent course in pai'lia-
ment, and to save him from the necessity of being a miserable place-
hunter. But if any sort of property qualification be required in the
Irish Parliament, it should certainly be demanded in the sons of peers.
Since we must have hereditary legislators, and a law of primogeni-
ture, throwing multitudes of their connexions on the taxes for support,
we should, at least, curtail their most extravagant and pernicious
privileges as much as possible.
5. It will always be very difficult for the Irish Parliament to main-
tain its independence, against the enormous influence of Great
Britain. This will be exerted principally through our House of
Lords. It is useless for us to contend, like the Canadians, for an
elective legislative council or upper house our upper house is here-
ditary. Unhappily, many of its members are far removed from
sympathy with the people of this country. As the Lord Primate
Berestbrd said of the church, their " tastes are eminently English ;"
in many cases they are positively and bitterly anti- Irish. They dread
every democratic tendency in society have a morbid fear of the break-
ing r,p of their caste and they would be likely to have their fear*,
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 169
their pride, and their prejudices continually wrought upon by English
management. On these accounts, their policy in parliament would, in
all likelihood, be inveterately obstructive. This might irritate the
nation and lead to disastrous results. What is the remedy ?
I think we must here borrow a leaf from the Swedish constitution,
and enact that, if a bill pass the House of Commons three years in
succession, it shall become the law of the land, though rejected by the
Lords, and shall receive the royal assent as a matter of course. This
would be an extreme case, for which the occasion might seldom or
never arrive. But there might be emergencies in which it would be
a very desirable safety-valve. There might be questions which the
nation would carry at all hazards to which the lords might entertain
conscientious scruples quite insuperable. Would it not then be
better for themselves to have their consent unnecessary ? Had such
a principle been embodied in the British constitution, Catholic Eman-
cipation would have been carried many a year before it was, and a
world of mischief would have been thus prevented. Without some
such provision, I fear the measures of the Irish Commons would be
continually swamped.
6. The House of Commons should have a veto on every appoint-
ment connected with the executive, from the Lord Lieutenant down ;
expressed, if necessary, by a vote of want of confidence. This will be
found as unavoidable as it is constitutional- Irish administrations
have almost invariably laboured not for Ireland, but for England
they will always do so, while it is their interest, and this will be as
long as appointment and promotion depend on the unchecked will of
the English cabinet. We would not unduly limit the prerogative ;
if we hud to do with our Queen directly, such vigilance would not be
needed. But, we have to do with her English ministry, to whom we
owe nothing, and who, we know very well, would be continually
striving to overreach us, and to nullify our rights. If the Queen were
left to her own goodness and wise disci'etion, she would select officers
honestly devoted to the good of this country. A Swede holding an
important office in Norway, would be regarded as a monstrosity, and
might cost the monarch his crown. There is one office, that of stadt-
holder, which used to be filled by a Swede, but in order to conciliate
the nation after the coup iFctat, a native was appointed. Of course
this nation would be much gratified to have the viceregal palace occu-
pied by a popular and patriotic Irishman. But the power of thus
pleasing the subjects of this kingdom, might well be placed at the dis-
cretion of our gracious Sovereign, and it' she were not very ill-advised,
she might turn it to excellent account in vastlv increasing the devo-
170 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
tion of the people to her throne. Oh ! how that loyalty, like the sun
in his strength, would dissipate every surmise of separation, if her
Majesty would come over every two or three years, to open her par-
liament in person ! Separation ! If VICTORIA were allowed to be
indeed a Queen to Ireland, the man who dared to whisper the word,
would be scouted as an enemy to his country from one end of the
island to the other !
7. Besides the real and effective responsibility of our government
officers to parliament, it would be necessary to have an Irish minister
constantly resident in London, to see that nothing should be either
openly or insidiously attempted, against the rights, liberties, or inte-
rests of this countiy. He should be a man of first-rate ability, wisdom,
and integrity, and of patriotism absolutely incoi-ruptible.
Thus, without diverging from the constitution, whose principles we
would rather carry out to their just consequences ; or obtruding on
the English legislature any new-fangled system of government, which,
however wise and admirable, would be sure to be covered with odium
and ridicule, and would share the fate of the English " Charter" it
appears to me that we could secure the perfect independency of our
parliament, an efficient home government acting in harmony with it,
and all combining to attach this great kingdom to the imperial throne
by an indissoluble tie by cords spun out of every Irish heart, and
twisted into one mighty bond by the hand of parliament.
THE EIGHTS OF IRELAND. 171
CONCLUSION.
AN APPEAL TO PROTESTANTS.
" It cannot be denied that the policy under which this country has for ages
been governed, may be set fortli in three words divide et impera. The craft of
English politicians has divided the people of Ireland into two armies of hostile
factionaries ; and, under the conventional names of Whig and Tory, we have
been hallooed to battle to our own great loss ; but to the party gain, sometimes
of a Sir liobert Peel, sometimes of a Lord John llussell." DR. MAUNSELL.
PROTESTANTS of Ireland, ponder well this most important fact. Dr.
Maunsell, the highly-respectable Conservative town councillor, has
given utterance to many patriotic and Christian sentiments in his ex-
cellent speech on Rotary Parliaments. He has also stated some in-
teresting facts, which may be received from him much sooner than
from a Liberal or a Repealer.
One of these is, that there never was a time within our recollection
when party bitterness was so generally supplanted by good humour ;
though there may be some among us to whom unfortunately this
intelligence is far from being agreeable. No matter ; if this vex them
may they never have peace till they get ashamed of their evil hearts !
Another fact admitted on both sides is, that the substitution of cen-
tralization and bureaucracy and commissionerships for local govern-
ment is a great evil. A third is that Ireland is not represented in
Westminster. " It is true," says Dr. M., " that 105 gentlemen,
calling themselves somewhat indiscriminately Whigs and Tories, un-
dertake to attend there on behalf of certain Irish counties and bo-
roughs. Some of these are lawyers ; and they generally do attend
with praiseworthy diligence, to entitle themselves, by party services,
to seats on the bench of justice ! Others are sportsmen and gamblers ;
and they attend because London is near Epsom and Ascot, and fur-
nishes other conveniences for the use of their proper occupations. A
few are gentlemen of fortune and rank in this country ; and they un-
dertake parliamentary duties nay, often diligently vote because it
is their ambition to dine with a minister, or an opposition leader, or
172 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
that of their ladies to be admitted within some third-rate circle of
London society. The dignity, the rank, and the self-con-
fidence of provincial representatives are and must be overwhelmed in
that great vortex : and when dignity, rank, and self-confidence are
gone, where is the power to represent the interests of others ?" Alas !
such representation is about the most degrading thing Ireland could
be afflicted with. But the member who in London would be " an un-
noticed, perhaps, a suspected stranger," would in Dublin be " in the
position of a gentleman in his own house." Thank God, the din of
party is subsiding and common sense is beginning to be heard at last!
Fellow-Protestants, you have submitted long to the humiliation of
your country, from the persuasion that English power was the faithful
protector of Irish Protestants and Protestantism, Has it been so in
reality ?
What has been done for Irish Protestants ? Have they been pre-
ferred, in their own countiy, to Englishmen and Scotchmen in the
distribution of offices ? See what your zealous and talented champion
The Evening Mail says upon the subject :
" The Queen's cabinet contains not a single Irishman.
" The subordinate offices of the government, with the exception of
the petty places assigned to Mr. Emerson Tennent, and two or three
more of ' such small deer,' are exclusively held by English and Scotch.
" From all the public departments in Great Britain, Irishmen are
excluded, whilst English and Scotch officials shoulder them out of the
direction of affairs in their own country.
" Towards the liberal professions the same partial course is pursued ;
and never was it pursued with a more unvarying monopoly than within
the last four years.
" There are legal appointments, however, to which the English Bar
puts forward, openly at least, no exclusive claim, yet of which it enjoys
the exclusive possession we mean the high judicial offices in India
and the 'Colonies, not one of which is held by an Irishman of Sir
Robert Peel's or Sir James Graham's appointment. The Whigs were
better paymasters than the Tories.
"Next (we ought, indeed, to have placed it first) next comes the
church, towards which the Westminster rule is rigidly enforced
namely, that Englishmen are worthy to be set in the highest offices in
Ireland, but no Irish clergyman entitled to aspire to the meanest pre-
ferment across the Channel such preferment being in the gift of
government. Did any one ever hear of an Irish clergyman being
made an English Bishop, or an English Dean ? Yet we have had
shining light? in our church, whose learning, candour, and eloquence
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 173
in the great cause of truth might have been transfused, with much
advantage, into the somewhat torpid system of the sister establishment.
But had the Ministers who in times past (and not very long past)
gave us a Steward, a Law, a Robinson, a Butson, a Bissett, a Cleaver,
a Whately, a Laurence, a Mant, and a Lindesay, proposed to take in
exchange a few Doctors from Trinity College, we suspect the non
placets from Oxford would have been infinitely more deafening than
a proposition to transplant a Professor or two from Maynooth would
be at this present writing.
" There is a class of appointments, however, to which our clergy have
an undoubted right to aspire, but of which the Universities of Oxford
and of Cambridge have hitherto divided the patronage between them.
We allude to the numerous Colonial Bishoprics and their dependent
dignities. There is not a single instance of an Irish clergyman having
been offered one of those appointments, although, as members and
ministers of the United Church of England and Ireland, they have a
just and equitable right to be considered in the distribution of such
preferments. Amongst the Queen's chaplains, also, there is not one
member of the University of Dublin.
" The difficulty experienced by Irish gentlemen in procuring the
promotion of their sons in the Royal Navy, is almost as great as if the
gun-room were a cathedral, and every midshipman a golden preben-
dary.
" Even the Army, which is indebted, in a great degree, for its high
renown and pre-eminence to the valour and conduct of Irish gentle-
men, is now assuming very much the character of an exclusively
British institution. Numerous complaints have reached us from quar-
ters of the highest rank and respectability, of the influence of national
partiality at the Horse Guards. Irish gentlemen in vain solicit per-
mission to purchase commissions for their sons. The ansAver they
receive is invariably the same full of smooth hope and delusive pro-
mise, ending in nothing. Month after month, and year after year,
pass on, whilst each successive Gazette teems with appointments of
the favoured candidates from other parts of the United Kingdom.
English and Scotch members of parliament have influence to promote
their proteges but if so, it is to the almost entire exclusion of can-
didates from our side of the water, whose friends belong to the now
despised band which mainly contributed to place ministers where
they are."*
But, perhaps, though thus unkind to the concrete, they are devotedly
* Dublin Er filing Mail, December 9, 1844.
174 THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.
attached to the abstract; perhaps the English government has laboured
anxiously to sustain Irish Protestantism, from pure love of the truth.
Not so. Dr. Maunsell has fully borne out what I have already said
upon this subject indeed, nearly all the organs of Irish Protestantism
do the same, so far as the present ministry are concerned. " Surely,
if the history of the last fifteen years be remembered, no one not the
most sanguine truster in statesmen, can, in his sober moments, fail to
see that this establishment is already doomed ! The consummation
may, perhaps, be delayed ; but it will no less certainly arrive at last ;
and when it does come, it will find the Irish Protestants, a betrayed,
weakened, DENATIONALIZED GARRISON OF ENGLAND, not even possessed
of a spoil to mollify their conquerors. To my Protestant brethren, I
would then say, MAKE YOUR TERMS BEFORE THE BREACH IN YOUR
BULWARKS BECOMES INDEFENSIBLE !"*
You have sworn your members that the Roman Catholic creed is
" superstitious and idolatrous." By a most determined, protracted, and
expensive agitation, you put Wellington and Peel into office for the
express purpose of protecting Irish Protestantism, and keeping down
Popery ; and what has been the result ? Why, that the " Conserva-
tives" have encouraged " Popery" in a way that the Whigs would
never have dared to do ! They have given rank to the Roman
Catholic prelates above the peers of the realm, and brought them into
close connexion with the state, as a preliminary to their endowment.
This is not all ; though they have sworn that the Pope hath not, and
ought not to have any power or authority in these realms, they have
been secretly negotiating at Rome for an official connexion with his
Holiness, to bring the forsworn power to bear against Irish nationality.
To keep down Ireland, they courted Protestants, while Protestants
could serve their purpose ; and to keep down Ireland, they have not
the least hesitation in sacrificing Protestantism to the Pope !
You see that they have been playing a foul game with you ! Will
you not, then, rally round the standard of your country ? Listen again
to the stanchest and sternest, as well as the most talented organ of
Irish Protestantism. The Dublin Warder of October 5th speaks as
follows :
" There is no attempt to conceal the disgust witli which Irish Pro-
testants I'cgard Peel : no warning neither the bitter derision and
execration of courted Popery nor yet the widening estrangement and
indignant expostulations of betrayed Protestantism have availed to
stop, or even to retard, that policy of concession which has now well
* Dr. Maunsell's speech. DuLIin, S. .1. Mnclien,
THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 175
nigli run the length of its tether, there remaining nothing more to
give.
" The church we account as gone it has but some half dozen years
more to exist. The church condemned, what has the Irish Protestant
to dread from Repeal ? This is a question more easily put than
answered. The Roman Catholics have gotten the corporations
the state education of the country an enlarged grant has increased
the effectiveness of Maynooth Peel has passed a bill recognising the
rank and titles of the titular dignitaries the Popish prelates bid to
hope for seats among the imperial peers the priests are to be paid
out of the purse of the commonwealth and the praamunire being
abolished, an ambassador at the court of Rome shall acknowledge the
jurisdiction of his Holiness the Pope. It is idle, then, to affect to
believe that the maintenance of the Union is the maintenance of
Protestantism,
"But spite of its Popish tendencies there never yet was a policy
for the government of Ireland so peculiarly i<-Irish as that of Peel.
There never was a time when Irish feelings, and wishes, and interests
too. were treated with such supercilious contempt, with such haughty
and systematic disregard never was treatment so galling to a people
of spirit and feeling, as that which Peel has bestowed upon Ireland.
The insulting contempt of Irish advice and opinion, upon Irish mat-
ters, as of course upon all others, extends to all classes of Irishmen
equally. Irish law appointments have been made in total ignorance
of the Irish bar, and without one word of consultation with the Irish
Chief Judges, who have been further and more markedly insulted by
the late Irish Courts Bill, which has peremptorily refused them the
privilege in the English bench never disputed of appointing the
officers of their own courts. Irish judges, it seems, cannot be safely
trusted with even this much patronage, and the virtuous English
minister must guide its distribution."
It is admitted that old Irish parties are now fast dissolving into
their elements. New and better combinations Avill arise. Nationality
will attract the scattered nebulae, and form once more, in this western
region, a glorious luminary to enlighten and guide the nations of the
earth. Reflection, I think, will convince you that to resist or put
down the Repeal movement is now impossible. It is not a movement
with which physical power can grapple. Resistance but increases its
momentum. AVhat, then, is your wisdom ? To make the best terms
possible, without loss of time, for the security of Protestant liberty in
the new constitution, and to join in the demand for an Irish Parlia-
ment. You will thus most benettciallv hasten forward, an event
176 THE RIGHTS OF IBELAND.
which perhaps you cannot ultimately prevent, and which it is by
all means desirable should be obtained with your friendly co-
operation, which, indeed, is regarded as a sine qua non. In this
fact I rejoice, and in taking my leave of the reader, I beg he will
forgive me if, in the course of this work, I have unintentionally let
fall an expression oifensive to the conscience of either Roman Catho-
lic or Protestant. I write under a deep sense of responsibility ;
I would not have my fellow-countrymen blind to the signs of the
times. For the " distress of nations" is sending its many-voiced cries
over every sea, and is borne to our ears by every post. It is, doubt-
less, a very extraordinary state of things. " Its distinctive feature is
a grand popular movement, slowly propagating itself through all civi-
lized nations a revolution of ideas, which is elevating the mass of
mankind to importance and power, and, in fact, to the eventual go-
vernment of the world. It is a revolution which goes alike beyond all
former examples in history, and principles in philosophy. None was
ever so universal, so profound, or so powerful : all former revolutions
have been local, occasional, and sanguinary. In former days, when
poAver has been wrested from its despotic possessor, it has been done
only by violent and bloody hands. But now an influence, silent and
irresistible, is rising up from the mass of the people, and is stealing
from thrones, and princedoms, and hierarchies, their unjust preroga-
tives ; and at the same time, as if by some wonder-working magic, is
making their incumbents helpless to resist, and even willing to obey.
Potentates are learning a new lesson, and so are the people too
Before, revolutions have been violent and bloody, from the very
weakness of those who have carried them on, from the very uncer-
tainty whether they should succeed. Now, the people are reposing in
calm security upon their undoubted strength. What is now presented
to the world, is not, as formerly, kingdoms convulsed, or navies
wrecked upon the shore, but that tide in the affairs of men, that
slow rising and gradual swelling of the whole ocean of society, which
is to bear everthing upon its bosom. It is, indeed, an extraordinary
fact reversing, in a striking manner, the usual course of things
that while opinion ordinarily propagates itself from the more educated
to the more ignorant classes, the popular cause is now rising and
swelling, against the loudest remonstrances of so many superior minds,
as if it were indeed an ocean tide against which nothing is destined to
prevail."
THF, ENO.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPEAL ESSAY.
PR1.V1KD BY ORDER OF
THE REPEAL ASSOCIATION.
A PROPOSAL
THE RESTORATION
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
BY GEORGE RAMSAY, B.M.
FORMERLY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
Authnr of " An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth," " Political Discourse*," " An Enquiry
into ths Principles of Human Happiness and Human Duty," Sec.
DUBLIN :
PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUEEY,
1M, ANGLESEA-STKEET.
18-15.
TATTISOR JOU.T, PrinUr and Stereotype-Founder, 12, Anglesea-streot, Dublin
A PEOPOSAL
RESTORATION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.
The Monarch's madness is the People's curse.
THE political and moral world presents to the eye of the philosopher a
vast scene, where opposite principles and forces are constantly at war
with each other. That the war is perpetual, is a proof, that though the
forces on one side may be kept under for a while, yet they are never
permanently subdued. The seed scattered by the winds may long lie
dormant among rocks or sands, but life is not extinct, for when removed
to a suitable soil, it springs up in strength and beauty. So it is with
those moral or political principles, which for a time seem to be utterly
destroyed. Unseen and forgotten they still live, and on the first oppor-
tunity, arise with renewed youth to re-commence the conflict with their
ancient rivals. The temporary peace is now followed by the din of
war, and the vanquished of yesterday becomes the victor of to-morrow
That the harmony of the moral as well as of the political world is
maintained by this constant struggle, is evident from the dreadful cala-
mities which attend the undisputed victory of one or the other principle.
In the mind of the individual, the victory is signalized by the dominion
of a single passion, such as love, ambition, or avarice, leading to crime
or madness ; in the political world, it is marked by the slow wasting
of despotism, or the fearful ravings of anarchy ; by the awful op-
pression of inequality, or the disorder and weakness of equality ; by
the benumbing influence of centralization, or the ruinous dissensions
of the locul system. The contests between Aristocracy and Democracy,
between Inequality and Equality, between the Central and the Local
forces, have been going on in every age, and probably will never end ;
but were they indeed to end, the condition of mankind would be
hopeless.
B
'2 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
The contest between the Central and the Local forces, though hitherto
less observed than that between aristocracy and democracy, has never-
theless been equally real ; and it may be traced in every age, and might
be in every country. The characteristics of the two systems may be
summed up in a few words.
First, as respects foreign relations, the local system is decidedly op-
posed to conquest, but favourable to a protracted defence ; while cen-
tralization has exactly the opposite tendency. Here, then, it is clear
that the former has the advantage ; for defence is better than conquest.
Centralization no doubt can make an immense effort for defence as well
as for conquest ; but if that effort be unsuccessful, it cannot maintain
the struggle against an invader ; whereas the local spirit and local ex-
ertions never fail.
Secondly, as respects internal affairs ; centralization promotes order,
regularity, uniformity, and peace ; but at the same time it destroys
activity and independence among the people, and keeps them in perpe-
tual leading-strings ; while the local system is liable to dissensions, but
it creates energy and freedom in thought and deed. The one, in short,
is favourable to despotism, the other to liberty ; and if liberty with all
its excesses be greatly superior to despotism, then ought we to uphold
the local, rather than the central system.
This conclusion is of vast importance, and ought never to be for-
gotten. To unite the two systems in one harmonious whole, ought, no
doubt, to be our grand object, for either alone leads to ruin, to despot-
ism, or to anarchy ; but as in practice \ve must incline to one rather
than the other, it is well to know on which side it is safer to err. Let
us then always remember that for national defence, as well as for inter-
nal prosperity, the local system is preferable to the central.*
If we keep this conclusion in mind, we shall be able to form a cor-
rect opinion as to the merits of many separate measures, as they are
proposed in or out of Parliament. Many measures are brought forward
which appear very specious, which seem to promote order, regularity,
and peace ; and were we to look no farther, they might command our
unqualified support. But the man who dives deeper will consider
what may be the hidden principle of any measure, whether it tend to aris-
tocracy or to democracy, to central or to local ascendancy ; he will view
it not alone, but along with other measures of the same kind, each
apparently as harmless as this; he will see what the general tendency
* For a full account of tlio characteristic qualities of the Central and Local
svstem, see the Author's Political Discourses; Discourse V.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 3
is, and thus he will form his decision. If, as in the present day, he
find a strong bias towards centralization, he will strive against it with
all his might, well knowing that centralization leads slowly, perhaps,
but surely, to despotism.
These observations naturally suggest themselves in connection with
that grand question which now agitates Ireland, the question of Repeal
of the Union, and Restoration of the Irish Parliament. It is unneces-
sary to dwell upon the importance of this question, as that must be evi-
dent to all. As in the agitation which preceded Roman Catholic
Emancipation, the contest was between the spirit of equality and that
of inequality, and in the Reform struggle, between aristocracy and
democracy ; so here battle is joined between the central and the local
powers. It is the third great struggle of the century ; and may it, like
the former, terminate happily !
The observations already made in favour of local government, in
general, sufficiently show what part we feel disposed to take, previous
to an inquiry into the merits of the particular change proposed. A
measure so favourable to the local system, and so adverse to the pre-
vailing tendency to centralize, as the Restoration of a domestic legis-
lature in Ireland, cannot fail to recommend itself, a priori, to all friends
of liberty and local institutions. It remains to be seen whether a de-
tailed inquiry shall confirm or remove this prepossession.*
II. 1. That England has, upon the whole been a highly prosperous,
comparatively well governed country, and that Ireland has been just
the reverse, are facts generally acknowledged. When we consider the
close contiguity of the two, the similarity of climate and productions,
and the apparent identity of their Government, this cannot but at first
appear a very singular phenomenon. But, on a closer view, surprise
will vanish. The identity of Government turns out to be only apparent ;
for while England really governed herself, much more, at least, than
any other country, Ireland was always treated as a conquered province.
This fact alone explains the whole mystery, the wealth, order, freedom,
and general prosperity of the one, tlie turbulence, poverty, and slavery
of the other. The very causes which maintained the grandeur of Eng-
land, contributed to the degradation of Ireland ; for if the former had
been governed despotically, the latter would have been much better
* The following remark is taken from <i paper of undoubted talent, hut by no
means favourable to Ireland. ' It may be laid down as an axiom in economical
as veil as in political government, that there are more ample resource?, and more
real strength in an assemblage of states united, with certain diil'erences, under
a common head, than in the precise uniiormity of such an administration as that
of modern France." TIME?, October 11, 1844.
PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
off. Despotism is equal at least ; not so liberty ; for though a man or a
state may like liberty for himself, it by no means follows that he favours
it in others. Who are fonder of liberty than the planters of Carolina ?
but who are more bent on maintaining slavery ? On the other hand,
who is the friend of the Russian serf? is it not the Emperor himself?
When the tyrant Nabis took the city of Sparta, he set the slaves at
liberty ; but when the free Achseans retook the town, they drove them
all out. The provinces of the Roman world were better governed
under the emperors than under the republic ; and in the last century,
the Corsicans preferred the rule of despotic Prussia to that of the free
Genoese.
It is easy to trace, in particular measures, the influence of those
classes who swayed the government of England. Thus, while, on the
one hand, to gratify the agricultural interest, Ireland was prevented from
exporting bullocks to Great Britain, at the instigation of the manufac-
turers, her wrought goods were prohibited on the other : and while she
was forbidden to sell her raw wool to any but England, she was de-
barred from sending her woollens to any country whatsoever. So, the
English Puritans, and the modern self-called Evangelicals; excited the
government against the Roman Catholics. A despotic government
would have neglected the clamours of the agriculturists, manufacturers,
and fanatics, and would have treated Ireland as well at least as Great
Britain.
The excellence then of the British government for its own people,
told nothing in favour of Ireland, so long as the latter was excluded
from the pale of the constitution, no more than the free institutions of
America tell in favour of the blacks. Nothing, indeed, can be conceived
more lamentable than the fate of Ireland, attacked by a neighbour more
powerful than herself, which could not quite subdue, nor yet would
leave her alone, nor treat her with justice and equality.* Doomed for
ever to be dragged, as it were, at the tail of another nation, even through
mire and blood, and to follow the revolutions of the latter, whether she
would or not, Ireland was obliged, first by the bayonets of Cromwell,
and afterwards by those of William, to forswear her allegiance to
sovereigns whom she thought herself bound to obey. The very Revo-
lution which confirmed the liberties of England, only rivetted the chains
of the sister island ; and the attachment of the groat mass of the people
to the religion of their forefathers, was made the excuse for depriving
* " In i word," said Sir John*Davies, " if the English would neither in peace
govern them by the law, nor could in war root them out by the 'sword, must
they n*t be pricks in their eyes, and thorns in their sides, till the world's end ?"
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 5
them not only of every political, but almost every social benefit. The
nation was ruled by England through the medium of a small minority,
who monopolized all the advantages of government, and nearly all the
land in the country.
Towards the end of Charles the Second's reign, Roman Catholics
were excluded from both Houses of Parliament, and were prohibited
from serving either in the civil or military service. After the Revolu-
tion, they were forbidden to vote for members of Parliament, to prac-
tise the profession of the law, and even to inherit landed property
and the Protestant heir of a Roman Catholic holder of land might
take it at once. Thus, a direct inducement was held out to domestic
treachery and interested conversions ; for a son, nephew, or cousin, by
professing himself a Protestant, might dispossess his Roman Catholic
father, uncle, or relative.
The following were a few more of the Penal Acts against Roman
Catholics. By the 7th William III., "no Protestant in Ireland was
allowed to instruct any Papist." By 8th of Anne, " no Papist was
allowed to instruct any other Papist." By 7th William III., "no
Papist was permitted to be sent out of Ireland to receive instruction."
Thus the instruction of Roman Catholics either at home or abroad, was
carefully guarded against. So late as the 12th George I., any Catholic
clergyman marrying a Protestant and Catholic was to be hanged. By
7th George II., "any barrister or attorney marrying a Catholic, to be
disbarred" By 2nd Anne, " Papist clergymen coming into Ireland and
performing religious exercise to be hanged" By 8th Anne, fifty pounds
reward for all informers against Catholic archbishops and vicars-general.
Again, by 7th William III., no Papist was to ride any horse worth
more than Five Pounds ! And by the 9th George II., Papists residing
in Ireland were to make good to Protestants all losses sustained by the
privateers of any Catholic king ravaging the coasts of Ireland. But
the climax probably of all was the 2[jth George II., by which barristers
and attorneys were obliged lo waive their privilege, and betray their
clients, if Papists. Can any Englishman now read of these acts, without
feeling ashamed of his country ?
What then is the remedy for the numerous ills of Ireland ? Fortu-
nately, the first grand step has been taken in the way of amelioration,
the admission of all classes, without distinction of sect, to a participa-
tion in all social and political rights. Tin's was an indispensable
preliminary to the final pacification of the country; for it was vain to
suppose, that a body so numerous and now so wealthy as the Roman
Catholics, would submit quietly to a state of political degradation.
6 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
Till Emancipation was granted, there was no hope for Ireland,
and no means of governing it but by a small minority ; that mea-
sure was important, not only because it did away with an odious
inequality, and a perpetual source of internal dissension, as well as of
disaffection to England, not only because it abolished laws most dis-
graceful to the British name ; but also because for the first time Ireland
might hope to be self-governed. So long as Roman Catholics, z. e. the
great majority of the nation, were excluded from political rights, self-
government was evidently impossible, whatever in other respects
might be the form of the constitution, whether Ireland possessed a
domestic legislature, or whether it did not. Catholic Emancipation, then,
was a suitable preliminary to Repeal ; and but for the former, the latter
would have been comparatively unimportant.
But it is thought by many, probably by most Englishmen, that Ire-
land has at last got her due, and that she ought to demand nothing
more. True it is that by the act of Union modified by the Reform
Bill, Ireland sends 28 Peers and 105 Commoners' to the Imperial Par-
liament, while by the Catholic Relief Bill persons of all religious per-
suasions are admitted into either house. These no doubt are im-
portant privileges, but can we say conscientiously that they are
enough ? Let us remember that the population of Ireland is now fully
equal to half that of England and Wales, the one being above 8 millions
the other below 16 ; while the number of British Peers, exclusive of
Scotch, amounts to about 400, and the number of representatives for
England and Wales to 500. Were representation in proportion to
numbers, it is clear that Ireland ought to have 250 representatives in-
stead of 105, and though we should allow that in this case population
is not the only element to be taken into account, yet, whatever other
elements we may admit, it is evidently impossible that 105 members
merged in 553 returned for Great Britain, can be an adequate repre-
sentation for the sister island. Were these 105 to sit and deliberate
alone, the case would be very different, but as it is, their influence and
votes are neutralized by the overwhelming majority of British members.
We must also remember that these 105 members have not only to fight
the great battle of the constitution, to deliberate on affairs common to
the whole empire as well as those affecting Ireland in particular, but
they have also to attend to the interests of their several localities ; an
amount of business for which their number is miserably inadequate, and
altogether out of proportion to the full representation of England.
There are but two ways in which this glaring inequality can be re-
medied. We may increase the number of Irish members in the Impe-
THE IKISH PARLIAMENT. 7
rial Parliament ; or we may restore to Ireland her long lost Legislature,
reformed and purified, and modified to suit the present circumstances,
according to the lessons of a dearly bought experience. To the first of
these expedients, considered as alone sufficient, there are weighty objec-
tions. First : The present House of Commons is certainly quite nu-
merous enough, and the addition of as many members as Ireland might
fairly demand would make it very unmanageable. Secondly : The
Imperial Parliament is already oppressed with the weight of Irish
affairs, and the additional members, if they attended to the interests of
their constituents, could not fail still more to occupy the house, both in
general discussions, and with local concerns. Thirdly : it seems unne-
cessary and unreasonable to withdraw so many men from their own
country and from their local duties, to spend half the year in London,
at a great expense, provided the desired object can be obtained by a
domestic legislature. Fourthly, this scheme would not in the least
obviate one of the crying evils of the present system, the enormous ex-
pense and delay attendant on the passing of private bills, when counsel
and witnesses must be sent from Dublin to London, and kept there for
a length of time. Lastly, this plan would not satisfy the Irish nation,
which above all things pants for a separate existence, and some local
independence. Nothing then remains but the expedient of a Domestic
Legislature ; and to this accordingly we look as the only effectual remedy
for the ills of Ireland.
The advantages to be expected from such an institution are numerous
and important.
First, " The Imperial Parliament would thus at once be freed from
a weary burthen, a perfect mill-stone, which cripples every movement, and
enfeebles every step. Why does Parliament now sit for half the year
at least, and often to little purpose ? Why are days and nights fre-
quently spent in unprofitable discussion, till members fall asleep on their
benches, and the public become tired and indifferent ? Why is night
turned into day, summer into winter ? The answer is still the same
Ireland, Ireland, Ireland ! By undertaking to legislate for all the affairs
of Ireland, local and general, as well as those of Great Britain, the
Imperial Parliament has involved itself in a maze without an issue ;
and though it sweat and toil, yet it cannot get through its duty. Thus,
experience has shown that it has undertaken a task which it cannot
perform ; and therefore the sooner it get rid of a part of the burthen,
the better for itself, for Ireland, and for Britain. Let any one look
back upon the parliamentary history of this country since the L'nion,
and observe how large a share of the time of both houses has been given
PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
to the affairs of Ireland, and then let him say whether these affairs are
not quite enough to employ a separate legislature. The Imperial Par-
liament is now like an urchin, -with too heavy a weight on his back,
who, proud of his strength, will still not be assisted ; so he totters along,
and after many trips, and a long delay, he arrives worn out at his
journey's end.
" Secondly, not only would the Parliament in London be freed from a
heavy burden, but the affairs peculiar to Ireland would be much better un-
derstood, and probably much better managed, by a local than by a central
government, composed for the most part of persons who know little
more of Ireland than they do of Transylvania. How can it be supposed
that men who are sufficiently taken up with their own affairs, and whose
minds are moulded on what they see around them, should have either
time, inclination, or patience enough, to judge of the interests, and consult
the feelings of a people, whom perhaps they have never visited, not even
for a few short weeks? How many members of both Houses have travelled
over half the continent, but have never paid one fleeting visit to an
island in their immediate vicinity, of more importance to Britain than
the empire of all the Indies ! And a man may know England well,
and be very ignorant of Ireland : for the English and Irish differ as
widely in their character, as the condition of the one country differs from
that of the other. The difference of religion alone is an insuperable
obstacle to a perfect fusion of the two countries. So long as Ireland
continues Roman Catholic, there can never be a complete union between
it and Great Britain ; and of this England seems to have been well
aware ; for during a long period, all political, nay, almost any social
existence, was denied to Roman Catholics, and a small minority, being
Protestant, were said to constitute Church and State."*
That the English members of the Imperial Parliament generally grow
impatient when Irish affairs come on, is so notorious as to require but
a passing notice. What hope can there be of a fair hearing from per-
sons too indifferent to the subject to pay it a due attention ? Every
where Englishmen are noted for their supercilious contempt of other
countries, and they seldom take the pains of inquiring into laws and insti-
tutions which they judge beforehand immeasurably inferior j:o their own.
" That the Parliament in London is inadequate to legislate for all
the local interests of a country so different in many respects as Ireland
is from England, is proved by the many bungling attempts at legislation
which have of late years disgraced the Statute-book, wherever Ireland
* See the Author's Pamphlet, " Repeal without Disunion," 1843.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 9
was concerned. Look for instance at the Irish Poor Law. Poor Laws,
it was said, are good, nay necessary in England, particularly the New
Poor Law. Let us then apply the same to Ireland : and what has
been the consequence ? a signal failure, as we all see ; a failure arising
from the lamentable ignorance of English legislators on matters relative
to the sister island: a failure which was one cause of the Repeal agita-
tion of 1843. It was generally seen that a Parliament which could
pass such a law was unfit to legislate for the local affairs of Ireland."*
" We have thus shown that a domestic legislature in Ireland would
both be a great relief to the over-burdened Imperial Parliament, and
also in general a great boon to Ireland itself. But there are two cir-
cumstances in particular which deeply concern that island, and on
which a local legislature would have an immense influence namely,
Absenteeism, and the Tenure of Land.
The prevalence of absenteeism is of very ancient date in Ireland.
King Edward the First laid the first Income Tax upon Irish absentees ;
and by a statute of King Richard the Second, two-thirds of the rents
of all absentee landlords were forfeited, and applied to the defence of
their lands. This statute was repeatedly acted upon in this and several
following reigns ; and King Henry the Eighth, by an absentee Act passed
in the middle of his reign, actually resumed for the Crown, the Irish
possessions of several great absentee English noblemen.
All, I believe, who have since written on the state of Ireland, with
one remarkable exception, have agreed in ranking absenteeism among
its principal evils. It surely required no great acuteness to perceive
that the perpetual absence of a great part of the land proprietors,
must, on many accounts, be a very serious inconvenience. First, there
is the evil of the rents being spent abroad, and not at home, in London
or Paris, rather than in Dublin or the provinces ; whereby the country
is deprived of a rich home-market, one of the greatest scources of pros-
perity. Secondly, by the absence of the landlords, the country has
been deprived of all those benefits which may be supposed, or which
at least ought, to flow from a resident gentry ; benefits in the way of
agricultural improvements, employment of domestic servants, and of
out-door labourers in gardens, pleasure grounds, and works of embellish-
ment ; as well as of all that moral improvement, countenance, and pro-
tection, which the country people may expect from a proprietor who
lives always among them. Instead of this, the peasantry have been
handed over to the tender mercies of the agent or the middleman, per-
* " Repeal without Disunion."
10 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
sons who have no permanent interest in the soil, who are neither pro-
prietors, nor have the feelings of such, and whose only object is to
squeeze the last drop out of the orange. These evils, which depend
upon absenteeism, are so great and so palpable, that except a single
individual, no one seems to deny them. One author indeed, and of no
mean reputation, nay, a first-rate political economist, a member of the
French Institute, has written to prove that these evils are imaginary,
that far from being a draw-back, absenteeism is rather an advantage.
Ask the tradesmen of the West-end. Ask Messrs. Howell and James,
Swan and Edgar, Hoby, Gunter, whether they derive no benefit from
the residence of the aristocracy ; whether, in particular, the meeting of
Parliament in London or in Dublin be indifferent to them. Ask the
farmers and market-gardeners around the metropolis, whether the
great and near market of London be of no advantage to them ; and
if they answer none, then may we believe that a rich home-market
in Ireland would be of no benefit to that country.
" This, though a real evil, is small as compared with the other evils con-
nected with absenteeism, and in particular the system of land-letting, the
crying enormity of Ireland. Of all the causes which affect the condition
of the agricultural population, that is, the great majority of most
nations, none can be compared in importance with the tenure of
Land. Even under a despotic government which respects property, and
is free from glaring oppression (such as Austria), a country may be
tolerably happy and prosperous, provided the tenure of land be favour-
able to the peasantry ; while under a constitutional monarchy, the
people may be poor and miserable, if land be possessed or held in a
different manner.
" It may now be considered as established by a wide experience, that
nothing is more favourable to the peasantry of any country, than a
facility of acquiring landed property. It has been found that wherever
the peasantry in general possess land, there foresight, prudence, and
economy prevail ; and so far from promoting a too rapid rate of in-
crease, it is seen that the possession of land acts as one of the strongest
checks to over-population. No doubt, the facility of obtaining a settle-
ment so far tends to encourage early and imprudent marriages, but on
the other hand, the habits produced by property, the foresight, the pru-
dence, the fear of falling in the world, which arise from possessing
something, the desire of more, which only requires a beginning to be-
come a passion, these do more than counterbalance the opposite causes.
And tliis I conceive to be proved by a wide experience. First, observe
the great Kingdom of France, where a vast body of the peasantry is
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 11
possessed of land, whose condition has certainly much improved since
the Revolution, and where population increases very slowly as com-
pared with Great Britain and many other countries. Next look to
Belgium, and in particular to Flanders, where the peasantry have long
been possessors of land, and where the high state of cultivation, and the
comfortable condition of the labourers, are alike remarkable. Go on
then to Norway, of which we have a minute account in the interesting
work of Mr. Laing, who spent a considerable time in that country, and
who bears ample testimony to the happy state of the agricultural popu-
lation as connected with the general diffusion of lauded property. From
Norway we way turn south to those parts of Germany, such as Baden and
Wirtemburg, where the peasantry possess land, and enjoy a degree of
comfort which is quite striking ; and to Switzerland, the country
(par excellence) of peasant proprietors, no less noted for the neatness
of their dwellings and general prosperity, than for their independence
of mind and national spirit. Lastly, we may cross the Alps, and com-
pare the peasantry of Tuscany who possess land, with the rural popu-
lation in other parts of Italy, such as Lombardy and the Papal States,
where they do not, and every one must alloAv the difference to be greatly
in favour of the former. These facts, and very many more, go to prove
our assertion, that the greatest of all blessings to a country, is the
general possession of land by the peasantry."*
But it may be thought by some, and indeed it has often been said,
that the very country we are now considering tends to refute all this.
Is not land very much divided in Ireland ; and is not that subdivision
universally considered as one main cause of the poverty and misery of
the people ? Is then land so divided in Ireland ? are the peasantry in
general possessors of a portion of the soil ? Very far from it. There
is no country in Europe where landed property is so concentrated.
Farms, no doubt, holdings, are amazingly subdivided ; but holdings
are not property. Can we compare the existence of a cottier-tenant
holding his ground on a rack-rent, and liable to be turned out of house
and home on non-payment, with an independent proprietor labouring
on liU own account, and having nothing to pay to any one ? I low can
we expect in the former, that foresight, prudence, and economy, which
distinguish the latter ? The one is certain of something which therefore
he fears to lose, and hopes to improve, because all he gains is his own ;
* The readerwhomay wish to sec an ample body of facts bearinjr upon this point,
will do well to consult the first volume of Alison's Principles of Population. See
also the Author's " Essay on the Distribution of Wraith," chap, viii., and his
"Repeal without Disunion," from which the above passage is taken.
12 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
the other has nothing to rely on, and has no hopes of bettering his
condition, for a heavy rent bows him down ; so he becomes reckless as
those who have little to fear and nothing to hope. Therefore the argu-
ment against the possession of land by the peasantry, derived from the
supposed example of Ireland, is utterly and entirely fallacious."
Next to the possession of land, the best tenure undoubtedly is that
of farms held on leases of considerable duration, and let by the pro-
prietor directly, and not by some middleman, himself but a tenant
occupying a precarious position, and interested in extracting the utmost
penny from his unfortunate sub-tenant.
" It is impossible to conceive a plan more ingeniously contrived for
the oppression of the miserable tenantry, than that of sub-letting
through many degrees. When land is let as in England and elsewhere,
by the proprietor directly, to those who occupy and cultivate it, what-
ever is paid as rent becomes the possession of one individual, who has
therefore a sole and great interest in the soil ; which is truly and pro-
perly his own. Now, as most men are inclined to look with compla-
cency on what belongs exclusively to themselves, a part of the agree-
able feeling with which he regards his woods and fields becomes reflected
upon the farmers and labourers employed upon them. Hence in the
natural course of things, an amicable intercourse springs up between
landlord and tenant, and in times of difficulty from the failure of crops,
or an unusually low price of agricultural produce, some remission of
rent is very frequently accorded. Instances of this are in England of
constant occurrence ; but under the sub-letting system of Ireland,
nothing similar can take place. So many persons have an interest in the
soil as receivers of rent, that no one in fact has a right to consider him-
self in particular as the proprietor, and therefore no one can have the
feeling of exclusive possession which attaches a man not only to the
land, but also to those who till and occupy it; nor does any person con-
sider himself alone responsible for the condition of the peasantry and
tenantry who dwell upon the ground. Besides, it by no means follows
that a proprietor lias it in his power to relieve the cultivators by a
diminution of rent in times of difficulty. The individual who most
properly is the owner of the soil, that is, the head landlord who lets the
estate in the first instance, does not, as the case supposes, receive his
revenue from them, but from some middle-man, who sub-lets to another,
and he perhaps to a third, and so on, till at last the land comes into the
hands of those who really turn it to account. However desirous then
the original landlord mav be to alleviate the condition of the resident
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 13
tenantry, lie has it not in his power, for he has no transactions with
them, he has nothing to do with them."*
To return to the .point in hand. What we maintain is, that this
wretched system of sub-letting has arisen in great part from absenteeism,
and that the institution of a domestic legislature in Ireland would
greatly tend to do away with this as well as the other evils of ab-
senteeism ; for, in that case, land proprietors would find themselves
obliged to reside more in Ireland, in order to keep up their political
influence. They would be inclined to do so, from the wish for that
political distinction which is the natural object of the ambition of a
landed aristocracy, and which many might look for in Ireland, who
could not expect to be remarked on the wide arena of Great Britain.
A local legislature which would raise the importance of Ireland, give
her an independent existence, and open up a new sphere for the natural
and praiseworthy ambition of her sons, is then the only effectual
remedy for those great evils, absenteeism, and an execrable tenure of
land.
That such would be the result, we have also reason to conclude from
the experience of times past, during that short but brilliant period
when Ireland possessed an independent parliament. An historian of
that period observes, " The Irish nation was rapidly advancing to emi-
nence and prosperity, her commerce improving, her debt light, the taxes
inconsiderable, emigration had ceased, and population was augmenting:
nearly two hundred nobles, and nearly all the commoners, resided on
their demesnes, and expended their rents amidst chose who paid them."
" The constant residence of the land proprietors was an incalculable
benefit ; and their influence in mitigating the avarice of the clergy and
the unrelenting tyranny of the tithing system, was most grateful to the
people."!
2. If we have now reason to conclude that a domestic legislature
would be an inestimable boon to Ireland, and would ultimately raise
the condition of the great mass of the people, then it could not fail to
benefit indirectly the people of Great Britain. Of all the ills that afflict
* "The Marquis of Lansdovrne, the Duke of Devonshire, and other great English
Lords who have vast estates iu Ireland, are in this condition. Nominally they
are proprietors of the soil, though in reality but a small part of what is paid as
rent, comes into their pockets The troubled state of Ireland after the great con-
fiscations, rendered the English who obtained lands in that country, glad to let
them on very long leases and at a very low rent, to any one who would take
the trouble of managing the property. These again have sublet them, and
so on." See Ramsay's " Essay on the Distribution of Wealth," chup. viii.
f See Sir Jonah Barrington's "Historic Records, and secret Memoirs of the
Legislative Union," chup. xx.
14 PROPOSAL, FOR THE RESTORATION OF
the latter, none is more apparent than the injury which they suffer from
the immense influx of Irish labourers. It is calculated that in the
twenty years succeeding the Union, no less than one million of Irish
emigrated to England and Scotland.* This number of men, accustomed
to low wages and an inferior mode of living, could not fail materially
to interfere with the labouring population of Great Britain.
This is the scourge, the punishment inflicted on the latter country
for her long misgovernment of Ireland. Quicquid delirant Reges,
plectuntur Achivi. And so it has proved in this case. Sooner or later
injustice will be punished, even in this life, particularly the injustice of
nations, who live long enough to pay the penalty of their crimes. Out
of the very misery of Ireland has sprung a numerous population, who
can only be supported by snatching the bread from the English
labourer or artizan. This punishment was necessary to make Eng-
land feel her injustice ; but now that she has felt it, will she not try
and amend, if not out of regard to Ireland, at least for her own sake ?
Nothing can stop this stream of hungry men but an improvement at
home ; and we have seen that this can best be effected by a domestic
Parliament.
III. 1. Having seen reason to conclude that the institution of a do-
mestic legislature in Ireland would be agreeable to sound general prin-
ciples of government, and a great relief to the over-burthened Imperial
Parliament, that it would be conducive to the best interests of Ireland,
and also promote indirectly the welfare of the population of Great
Britain, it remains to be seen whether any practical plan can be devised
to carry out this idea, and yet maintain the integrity of the empire.
The plans that can be proposed on this subject may be reduced ulti-
mately to two. The first is in its nature one and absolute ; the second
admits of modifications to be afterwards explained.
According to the first and extreme plan, Great Britain and Ireland
should constitute two distinct kingdoms, each having its own Parlia-
ment, Independent and Supreme, possessing the exclusive right to make
laws for its own people in all concerns, external as well as internal ; but
each acknowledging one and the same King. This system is not the
mere creature of fancy, but was actually adopted in 1782. The whole
history of that eventful period is a proof of this, and in particular
the famous Declaration of Independence moved by Grattan, on the
1 Gth of April, 1 782, and carried unanimously. His proposed address to
the King ran thus, " We shall beg leave with all duty and submission to
lay before his Majesty the cause of all our discontents and jealousies ;
* Roc Alison's "Principle? of Population,' vol. ii. chnp. 12.
THE HUSH PARLIAMENT. 15
to assure his Majesty that his subjects of Ireland are a free people ;
that the Crown of Ireland is an Imperial Crown, inseparably con-
nected with the Crown of Great Britain, on whicli connexion the inte-
rests and happiness of both nations essentially depend ; but that the
kingdom of Ireland is & distinct kingdom, with a Parliament of her own,
the sole legislature thereof; that there is no body of men competent to
make laws to bind the nation, but the King, Lords, and Commons of
Ireland ; nor any Parliament which hath any authority, or power of
any sort whatever in this country, save only the Parliament of Ireland ;
to assure his Majesty that we humbly conceive that in this right, the
very essence of one likely exists ; a right whicli we on the part of all
the people of Ireland do claim as their birth-right, and which we can-
not yield but with our lives."
This address, as we have said, was carried unanimously, and was
followed up on the twenty-ninth of July, by a motion of Mr. Flood, for
leave to bring in a Bill " to affirm the sole exclusive right of the Irish
Parliament to make laws affecting this country, in all concerns external
and internal whatsoever." This motion indeed was not carried, but
simply because Grattan moved as an amendment, "that leave be refused
to bring in the (Mr. Flood's) Bill, because the sole and exclusive right
to legislate for Ireland in all cases whatsoever, internally and externally,
had been asserted by the Parliament of Ireland, and had been fully,
finally, and irrevocably acknowledged by the British Parliament ;"
which motion was agreed to by the House.
In the next Session of the British Parliament, the famous Renun-
ciation Act was passed (23d George III.), whereby it is declared
" that the said right claimed by the people of Ireland, to be bound
onlv by laws enacted bv his Majesty and the Parliament of that king-
V / ft J / O
dom, in all cases whatever, and to have all actions and suits at law or
in equity which may be instituted in that kingdom, decided in his Ma-
jesty's courts therein, finally and without appeal from thence, shall be,
and it is hereby declared to be, established and ascertained for ever,
and shall at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable." When
we know what the system adopted in 17S2 really was, we can be at no
loss to account for the ultimate failure of a revolution, certainly one of
the most glorious in the history of the world. Had that revolution like
?o many others been disgraced by crime, we should not so much deplore
its termination ; but when we consider its pure, bloodless, and truly
patriotic character, we cannot but deeply fk-1 its disgraceful and
lamentable end. How we do deplore that such talents and such virtue
should all have been thrown away ! that the dazzling eloquence and the
1C PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
patriotism of Grattan, the wisdom of Flood, the nobility of Charlemont,
and the fire of Curran, should at last have yielded to the violence of
Fitzgibbon, and the unprincipled wiles of Castlereagh ! But while we
weep over this shameful catastrophe, let us profit at least by sad expe-
rience let us not again attempt a system self-condemned and im-
practicable from the beginning, which not even the greatest talents nor
the greatest virtue could have rendered possible. No doubt, these were
secondary causes of the ultimate failure of the Revolution of 1782, such
as the exclusion of the Roman Catholics from the Irish Parliament,
the unhappy Rebellion, the corrupt state of the Irish House of Com-
mons, three-fourths of which it was calculated were returned by undue
influence, and above all, the unscrupulous arts, and all the wealth of
England employed in cajoling or purchasing both Peers and Commons;
but the fundamental cause was the adoption from the beginning of a
false system a system which never could work, for it was founded on
an absurd principle.
To assert the perfect independence and supremacy of two Parlia-
ments in one empire, is a contradiction in terms, and can mean nothing;
for supremacy excludes equality ; and if the two be equal, neither is
supreme. The supremacy of both may be stated in words, and even
inserted in a law, but it cannot exist in fact.
The difficulties which flow from this one absurd principle, are num-
berless and insoluble.
Surely it cannot be supposed that those two powers w r ho both pre-
tend to supremacy, shall agree on every occasion ; and if they differ,
who is to decide between them ? We repeat the question, who is to
decide between them ? No power clearly has a right so to do, for in
that case there would be a third power superior to both, and both would
be its subordinates, and consequently neither would be supreme. In
this dilemma one or other must yield ; and whichever yields, not from
conviction but from weakness, abdicates its supremacy. If neither will
yield peaceably, then war is inevitable ; and whichever is conquered, of
course ceases to be sovereign. Thus in one way or the other, the
weaker must go to the wall, and its nominal as well as its real su-
premacy must cease.
When two powers nominally of equal authority are placed side by
side, and in such circumstances that, one must hamper the other, it is
contrary to the fundamental principles of human nature to suppose
that the stronger will ever cease to encroach upon the weaker, until it
have absorbed or subdued it. Were the experiment of 1782 to be
repeated we may rest assured that sooner or later the result would be
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 17
the same. Great Britain might grant the trial in a moment of weak-
ness, as on the former occasion ; but it would only be to gain time ; and
on the first favourable opportunity she would revoke what she had un-
willingly conceded. So long as human nature continues unchanged,
this would infallibly happen.
Consider now the position of the King in the case of a collision
between the two Parliaments. He is monarch of both kingdoms, and
consequently is bound to protect both equally ; but as he cannot have
two wills, he must side with one or the other. Suppose the dispute
comes to blows, how dreadful must be his position ! If he take part
with Great Britain, as is most probable, he must declare war against the
Irish, and cease in fact to be their king ; while they, in order to defend
themselves and carry on the government, must choose another head,
and so throw off their allegiance to the Sovereign. In truth, under
such a system, nothing but a total separation could prevent Ireland
from being absorbed by Great Britain ; and even a total separation
could be but temporary ; and Ireland would become, as it was for many
centuries, a scene of perpetual struggle and indecisive conflict. Let
me entreat all Irishmen, and especially all Repealers, to read, mark,
learn, and inwardly digest the history of 1782, and the years down to
the Union. Let me implore them to gain wisdom by experience, and
not again to repeat a blunder which no talents and no virtue could
remedy. True it is, that we are now in some respects placed in more
favourable circumstances than in 1782, for the Roman Catholics are
now emancipated, and a grand source of dissension is thus dried up ;
but, on the other hand, England is now strong, and then she was weak,
and never without a bloody struggle would she agree to unqualified
Repeal. And even if she did at last give in, she would act, as before,
deceitfully ; she might promise, as then, that the independence of Ire-
land should be " established and ascertained for ever, and should at no
time hereafter be questioned or questionable ;"* but her promises would
be as pie-crusts, made only to be broken.
In politics, as in chess, one false move may be fatal. A strong, bold,
but ill-taught fencer or boxer, may ward off for a time the thrusts or
blows of his more scientific adversary ; but he cannot ultimately make
up for the want of correct principle. A false principle contains within
it, the seeds of inevitable ruin.
That the system of 1782 was impracticable, is shown evidently from
the history. Five years after, an attempt was made to settle the com-
* Renunciation Act, before quoted.
18 PROPOSAL FOB THE RESTORATION OP
mercial relations between Great Britain and Ireland by treaty ; but not
all the talents of Pitt could bring it to a conclusion. Again in 17S9,
came on the Regency question ; and here a direct collision took place
between the two Parliaments. The British Parliament, under the di-
rection of Pitt, gave the Regency to the Prince of Wales, but with a
restricted prerogative, while the Irish Parliament endowed him with all
the kingly powers. Fortunately no embarrassment resulted from this
collision, because the King happened to recover immediately, otherwise
the difficulty would have been serious.
This affair, however, could not fail to open people's eyes ; for if both
Parliaments could choose their Regent, they might choose different
persons ; and thus the two kingdoms would be totally separated. This
reflection occurred to the English Ministry, and it urged them the
more to use every art to upset the existing system, to spare no means,
whether fair or foul, to employ alternately, force, fraud, and corruption;
to squander titles, and spend millions of money ; but, at all events, to
bring about an Union.
2 We come now to consider the other grand general plan, that of
a Parliament in one country, in this case in Ireland, for local affairs
only, limited to a certain sphere, but enjoying considerable freedom of
action within that sphere ; and yet subordinate to the central and Im-
perial Legislature.
This system, it is evident, is not liable to the same fundamental ob-
jection as the other ; for it does not pretend to set up side by side two
sovereign and independent Parliaments, with equal duties and powers ;
but it supposes that one alone is supreme, the other subordinate.
Therefore there is no primd facie absurdity in this scheme, no palpable
contradiction, no evident source of disturbance. It is only one appli-
cation of a principle adopted under every government, the principle of
local powers, in the country, or in towns, subordinate to the central
government, but acting with more or less freedom and independence
within their own sphere. The system, moreover, of a subordinate Par-
liament, has been tried in many instances, and with success ; whereas
the other, as far as we know, never was adopted anywhere but in Ire-
land, where it failed.
This system admits of two modifications.
The first is that in which the country possessing the local Parlia-
ment is not also represented in the Imperial Legislature : the second,
where it is.
The first modification has been adopted by Great Britain in the
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 19
government of such of her colonies as possess representative assemblies
for managing their own affairs. Before the American States separated
from the mother country, they were thus governed ; and so are Jamaica,
Canada, and many other British colonies, at the present day. The
colony, on the one hand, takes no part in the. Imperial government, but
is satisfied with its domestic legislature ; while the mother country, on
the other, in general interferes little with the local assembly. But it
retains the right of interfering, and occasionally exercises that right ;
as in two remarkable instances within these few years the suspension
of the constitution of Jamaica, and the re-modelling of that of Canada.
The American colonies, so long as they remained such, did not object
to this sovereign power in the mother country, nor even to the impo-
sition of taxes at the out-ports by the British Parliament ; but what
they did repudiate, was internal taxation by any but their own repre-
sentatives.
Similar to this, is the relation subsisting between Sweden and
Norway. Norway enjoys its own Parliament, or Storthing, which con-
sists of a single Chamber democratically constituted, that meets every
third year only, for affairs exclusively Norwegian ; nor does Norway
send any representatives to the Swedish Diet or States-general (Stoen-
derne) : and consequently it has no part in the general Government of
the United Kingdom.
This system is well adapted for the mutual relations of a mother
country and her colonies, where the one party is far stronger than the
other ; where the former takes upon herself the charge and sole expense
of the common defence, and therefore may well claim the right of
sovereign legislation, and also where the colony is so remote as to
render the sending of representatives to the parent state, extremely
inconvenient. These reasons do not exist for the maintenance of the
present system in the united kingdom of Sweden and Norway ; and
therefore we can hardly look upon it as a permanent arrangement.
Indeed, from its nature it is but a temporary expedient, admirably
adapted to certain circumstances, but quite unfit for others. A new
colony, distant and defenceless, may well submit to this dependent con-
dition for the sake of the protection and the trade of the old country ;
but when that colony shall grow in years, and come to feel its strength,
it will hardly consent to be for ever subordinate. The attempt at inter-
nal taxation by Great Britain was the exciting cause of the American
Revolution ; but the predisposing and principal cause was the yearning
for political independence of a country no longer in infancy.
That such a system should now be applied to Ireland, scarcely any
20 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
one, I think, would maintain. If it ever were adapted to that country,
the period is now long past. Ireland now comprises fully eight millions
of people, more than half the population of England ; she is close at
hand ; and she contributes along with Great Britain to the common
defence of the empire, by men and by money.
The past glories of Britain and her present pre-eminence among
the nations are certainly in great measure owing to the Irish, who
man her fleets and fill the ranks of her army. Compared with Ireland,
all the peninsula of India is as nothing in the estimate of British
power. It is therefore absurd to suppose that a country such as this,
either could or should be content to act merely a subordinate part ;
to manage her own local affairs, and leave Imperial legislation to Great
Britain. This in fact would be to retrograde sixty years, to go
back to the period before 1762, during which England assumed the
right to legislate for Ireland. By Poyning's Law, passed under Henry
VII., every vestige of independence in the Irish Parliament was de-
stroyed; for by this statute, before any bill could be discussed, it
was first to be submitted to the Lord Lieutenant and his Privy
Council for their consideration, who might at their pleasure refer or
transmit it to England; and if transmitted to England, the British
Attorney- General and Privy Council might either suppress altogether,
or model it at their own will, and then return it to Ireland, with per-
mission to the Irish Parliament to pass it into a law, but without alter-
ation. This was followed up long after by an Act (6th George I.)
whereby Great Britain assumed a positive right to legislate for Ireland
without the co-operation of the Irish Parliament. By the first Act,
England provided that Ireland should make no law without her previous
consent ; by the second, she declared that the Acts of the British Par-
liament should be binding on Ireland, whether the latter would or not.
Is it to times like these, and to acts like these, that we should now re-
turn ? But give Ireland a domestic Parliament, and at the same time
deprive her of imperial representation, and the good old times are
come again.
The only modification which now remains to be considered, is that
which is commonly known by the name of the FEDERAL, SYSTEM a
system which has been adopted by many nations, both in ancient and
modern times, with very great success. In this arrangement, two or
more distinct states choose one common government for the manage-
ment of general interests, while in local affairs each state remains in-
dependent. This independence, however, can never be quite absolute,
for whenever there be a doubt as to the proper sphere of the central
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 21
and the local authority, or whenever there be a dispute between the
different states of the Union, the central power must decide, and is
therefore really sovereign. " Thus each of the confederates gives up a
portion of its independence for the more secure enjoyment of the rest,
just as those who first formed and continue to live in society, abandon
some of their natural liberty the better to preserve the remainder."*
The first circumstance that must strike us with respect to this sys-
tem is, that it appears to unite in an admirable manner the central
with the local power ; upon which Union, as we have already observed,
good government very much depends. It combines the advantages of
a great with those of a small nation ; the power, security and foreign
influence of the one, with the local spirit, the home inspection, the
paternal care of the other ; the importance of an empire with the hap-
piness of a canton. It is equally suited to a large and to a little coun-
try, to the great American Union, and to the confined districts of Hol-
land and Switzerland ; and therefore we cannot but think that this
system will spread, and form an important feature in the political history
of future times.
The experience of past times is decidedly in favour of the system.
Not to dwell on the Federal unions of antiquity, such as the old Etru-
rian Confederacy, which once extended from the Alps to the Tiber, the
^Etolian and Achaean leagues, the republic of the Boeotians, and that of
the Lycians, so much praised by Montesquieu ;f the modern examples of
the republics of Holland, Switzerland, and North America, are striking
and satisfactory.
' " The first requisite for the success of such a scheme, evidently is, that
the political institutions of the States forming an union, be on the whole
similar, for republics and monarchies could hardly live together in
peace. In all the above instances the confederates were republics."
" In the ancient constitution of Germany, however, an amalgamation
was attempted, for the confederate powers were some of them free
towns, others principalities, but much cannot be said for the success of
the experiment. That country was never so united as really to form but
one nation, like its neighbours the Dutch and Swiss ; and previous to
the sixteenth century, when the House of Austria became very power-
ful, it was subject to all the disorders of the feudal governments. Even
during each of the last three centuries, Germany has had intestine wars,
a'nd on a great scale ; as that of Charles V. against the Protestants, the
thirty years' w;ir, and the campaigns of Fmlurick the Grcat."J
* Ramsay's " Political Discourses;" Dis. V. \>. ''<'>'>.
t Esprit des Lois, 1, ix. cli. :>. i lianitay't I'ulilkal Diteourtcs;' 1 l>i=.V.
22 PROPOSAL FOB THE RESTORATION OF
At present, Germany is a confederation of States, each with its own
King or Royal Duke, and this promises better than the former arrange-
ment, as is proved in particular by the Zollverein or Customs League,
which is a symptom as well as cause of union.
Wherever there is a number of kingly heads, however, there must be a
danger of disunion, such as does not exist where the kingly power is one
and indivisible. Even among united republics, jealousies are apt to arise,
and there is danger of separation from want of a permanent and strong
executive. These evils are not to be feared where the confederate States
acknowledge a king and but one king ; and therefore, of all political con-
ditions, none seems so favourable to the Federal system. If this system has
succeeded well among separate republics, we have therefore every reason
to conclude that it would answer even far better in an united kingdom
such as Great Britain and Ireland, where there would be neither the jea-
lousies of rival republics or rival kings, nor the danger arising from the
want of a permanent and strong executive. Here every thing seems
to favour the application of the system ; and to it accordingly we look
not only as the grand remedy for the present deep-seated ills, and as a
security for the future good government of Ireland, but also as an
immense improvement in the general administration of the empire.
Agreeably to this plan, Ireland would possess a Parliament for its own
internal affairs, and at the same time continue to send representatives
to the Imperial Parliament in London.
The chief difficulty attendant on the Federal system, consists in ac-
curately denning the limits of the subordinate or local, and the Imperial
or Central Legislation. This Essay would be very deficient if it did not
trace the outline of these limits ; and this accordingly we shall now
endeavour to do, with all due deference to the collective wisdom of the
Parliament which may be called on to decide the matter.
QUESTIONS APPERTAINING TO THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT, WHETHER
TO THE CROWN ALONE, OR TO THE KING, LORDS, AND COMMONS IS
IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
1. All questions relative to the succession to the Crown, Regency,
Civil List, and Royal Family.
2. The question of Peace or War, and consequently the raising of
troops by sea and land, and the paying of them ; in short, all things
necessary for war.
3. The making of Treaties with Foreign Powers.
4. All Laws relative to the management of the Colonies.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 23
5. All Laws relative to Customs and Duties levied at sea-ports.
This power is essential to the unity and harmony of the empire ; for
there could be neither, if an Irish Parliament imposed duties on goods
imported from Great Britain, or vice versa.
6. The Post Office and Postage.
? The Mint and the Standard of the Currency : but paper money
and the banking system may be left to the Local government ; for
these last may vary in different parts of the empire without incon-
venience, as they actually do in Great Britain, where the Scotch system
differs from the English.
8. The power of raising loans for any of the above purposes.
9- The power of raising a general Income Tax in case of war. This
is a necessary consequence of the power of declaring war, raising
troops, &c.
QUESTIONS APPERTAINING TO THE LOCAL OR IRISH PARLIAMENT.
1. The Church. As the Church Establishment and Church regula-
tions in Scotland differ from those of England, so might they in Ireland.
2. Education.
3. The Poor and Poor Laws.
4. The regulation of Prisons, Asylums, Factories, &c., and in short
all great establishments where the public welfare is concerned.
5. Internal Taxation, such as Excise, and Assessed Taxes, commonly
so called ; in short, all Taxes except Customs, Postage, and a general
war Income Tax. Of course the Irish Parliament would be competent
to vote a Local Income Tax if it thought fit.
6. Paper Money and the Banking system.
7. The Judicial Establisment, and Civil and Criminal Law in
general, which might vary in Ireland as they do in Scotland, if the
Irish thought proper.
8. All private Bills.
With respect to the Judicial power, no change is proposed. The
Irish House of Lords should be only a Legislative body, and the Im-
perial House of Lords should continue to be the one supreme and final
Court of Appeal for the United Kingdom. Even in America, where
the separate States have so much independence, there is one Federal
Court of Justice for the whole union, and this has been found by ex-
perience to be an admirable institution.
We come now to a very important, and probably the most ditiicult
part of the scheme, the Composition and Powers of the Executive Go-
24 PROPOSAL FOB THE RESTORATION OF
vernment. It is not a little singular, that while Ireland was raising
the standard of Repeal, and calling loudly for local independence, a
measure should have been proposed in the Imperial Parliament, of a
directly opposite nature, tending to increase, instead of diminishing, the
prevailing Centralization. To bring forward a motion for the abolition
of the Lord Lieutenancy, the only remaining vestige of independence
and separate existence now left to the Irish nation, was surely a strange
answer to the popular cry. Very different is the plan which we propose.
Instead of diminishing the powers and the dignity of the Lord Lieu-
tenant, we would greatly increase both : we would make him really what
he is now but nominally, a Viceroy. He should continue to be named
by the Crown and be revocable at pleasure ; but so long as he re-
mained Viceroy, he should enjoy the kingly prerogative. He would
still be a delegate with a precarious authority ; but while it lasted, that
authority should be great. His position would be exactly similar to
that of the Governor of Canada, who is responsible to the Imperial
Government, but not to the Canadians. As regards the Crown, he
would be a subject and delegate ; but as respects the Irish, a King.
From this it necessarily follows that the Lord Lieutenant should
name his own ministry, as does the Governor of Canada. The Irish
Secretary would be the Prime Minister of the Lord Lieutenant and
of Ireland.
By this arrangement one principal difficulty would be removed or
lessened, viz. : the difficulty arising from the case in which the same
ministry might not be acceptable to the Imperial and to the Irish Par-
liament, and might not command majorities in both. The difficulty
would be reduced to one point, the choice of a Lord Lieutenant ; and
surely it is not too much to say, that an Imperial Ministry, whether Whig
or Tory, could always find a person for that high office, acceptable to
the Irish people, without being hostile to themselves. That choice once
made, the Lord Lieutenant would be left to name his own administra-
tion, and would occupy a position in which he would not be called upon
at all times to consult and act along with the Imperial Ministry, as the
Irish Secretary is at present. His sphere of action would be different
from that of the Central Government, and to a certain degree indepen-
dent of it ; and therefore no Whig or Tory should object to fill the
office, though named by a ministry of different political principles.
Even under the old system, that good Whig, Earl Fitzwilliam, did not
refuse the Lieutenancy from the hands of the Tory Pitt. As well
might it be said that a Whig or Tory Ministry in London might find
it impossible to choose a Governor acceptable to the Canadians, as that
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 25
a Whig or Tory Ministry could not select a Lord Lieutenant accept-
able to the Irish.
The Irish Ministry, being named by the Lord Lieutenant, would
of course be answerable to him, and to the Irish Parliament, and
revocable by him at pleasure. Both Houses would be opened and
closed, as formerly > by a speech from the Lord Lieutenant, as Viceroy,
and he would have the privilege of giving or refusing assent to Acts of
the Irish Parliament in the name of the Queen. No doubt, on any
emergency, he might consult the Imperial Ministry, but he would not be
bound to do so : he would be left to his own discretion, like the Gover-
nor of Canada, who may divest himself of responsibility on any ques-
tion, by reserving it for the consideration of the Crown. Should the
Imperial Ministry desire him to give or refuse assent to a bill, he must of
course obey, or resign.
By the present Constitution of Canada, a Bill which has passed
both Houses, and received the Governor's assent, may be disallowed
any time within two years by the Queen, by Order in Council-
Though a case might never occur for the exercise of such a prerogative,
yet it ought to be respected ; and therefore we propose, that during
one month after the Viceroy's assent to a Bill which has passed through
both Houses shall have been signified to the Imperial Ministry, it shall
be lawful for Her Majesty to declare her disallowance of the same.
With respect to Bills passed by both Houses, and reserved for the
Royal consideration, the Constitution of Canada declares that no Bill
so reserved " shall have any power or authority, unless Her Majesty's
assent thereto shall have been signified within the space of two years
from the day on which such Bill shall have been presented for Her
Majesty's assent to the Governor."* A similar article might be inserted
into the Irish Constitution, with this difference, that the period should
be reduced to three months.
We have already said that the unity, permanence, and strength of the
Crown of the United Kingdom are highly favourable to the Federal system.
For the Central Government is apt to be its weak point. " As the family
had an existence before the state, so the state before the union ; and as
the love of family is stronger than that of state, so is this than love of
the confederacy. Some palpable advantage, no doubt, first led to the
association, but all the old habits and affections of the people were con-
nected with the different localities. Reason may approve of the union,
* See " An Act to re- unite the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and
for the Government of Canada." An. 3. and 4. Vic., cap. x.xxv.
26 PROPOSAL FOB THE RESTORATION OF
but passion will always be in favour of the state. Hence, the local
power will generally tend to encroach upon the central."* In Switzer-
land, the grand defects are the weakness of the Diet, and the want of
a Federal Executive. In the Swiss Diet, votes are given not by head,
but by Cantons ; and on all important questions, the members do not
consider themselves competent to decide, without consulting those Can-
tons a practice which leads to interminable delays. This was pre-
cisely the form of government which prevailed in North America
during the War of Independence, and for six years afterwards, till at
last it fell to pieces, and died of absolute weakness. Then was formed
the present Constitution, which greatly increased the power of the
Central Government, chiefly by allowing members of Congress to vote
individually, and without consulting their States, and to decide by a
simple majority .f
Again, in Switzerland there is scarcely any permanent Federal Exe-
cutive. The Diet during its sittings is Legislative and Executive in
one, but during the recess there is nothing to represent the latter but
a Committee of the Diet called the Vorort, which has scarcely any
power, for there is no Federal administration, and the decrees of the
Diet are left to be enforced by the local authorities. " In this respect
the American Union must be considered as an immense improvement,
for there the Federal government has its own administration, its own
court of justice, and its own army."
It is not necessary here to enter into much detail as to the composi-
tion, duration, and mode of electing the Parliament, whose powers we
have endeavoured to define ; but a few words on these points seem to
be indispensable.
In the first place, then, the Irish House of Lords should be restored
in all its integrity as a Legislative body, but it should have no Judi-
cial power.
Secondly, the Irish House of Commons should consist, as formerly,
of three hundred members.
Thirdly, the Irish House of Commons cannot be restored exactly as
it was before, but must be reconstructed ; for, to use the words of Mr.
O'Connell, "the mere Repeal of the Union would revive the Irish
Parliament, without the benefit of the Reform schedules. It would give
* Ttamsay's "Political Discourses ;" Dis. V.
f In one case, the House of Representatives still votes by States, which is,
when it has to choose the President, a case of rare occurrence ; for it happens
only when there is not a sufficient majority among the delegates appointed for the
express purpose.
THE IKISH PARLIAMENT. 27
two members to the ruined abbey of Tulsk, two members to the round
tower of Kilcullen, two members to the sands of Bannon, and two
members to the church-yard wall of Clonmines. This would never do."*
Into the particulars of this Reform we do not think it necessary to
enter, nor do we pretend to be so well acquainted with the different
localities of Ireland, as to determine the exact number of members to
be returned by each. And it is the less necessary to do so here, as
Mr. O'Connell's plan on this subject is already before the public, and
few so well know Ireland as that gentleman. Sufficient to observe that
he proposes to give 173 members to the counties, and to the cities and
towns 127, of which four to Belfast, and four to Limerick, and two to
the Dublin University. Out of the 173 county members he allows 50
to the province of Ulster, a number which shows that he is inclined to
do full justice to his Protestant fellow-countrymen.
Fourthly, with respect to the Franchise, we need say only that we
think it might safely be more extended than that required for choosing
Imperial Representatives.
Fifthly, as regards the duration of the House of Commons, we think
that the limits ought to be three and five years ; that the period should
not be shorter than the one nor longer than the other.
Lastly, the Parliament may be called together, opened, and prorogued
by the Lord Lieutenant ; but it should be dissolved only by a message
from the Crown, communicated through the Viceroy.
Thus far with respect to the Local Government. As to Imperial
connexion, little remains to be said. Though 28 Peers and 105 Com-
moners are certainly a very inadequate representation for Ireland at
present, when local as well as general affairs are discussed in the Impe-
rial Parliament, yet, in consideration of its domestic Legislature, we
think that Ireland should be content with the actual number. Were
there even a doubt upon the subject, for the sake of conciliation we
would not press the matter. We would not innovate rashly ; on the
contrary, we would change no more than is absolutely necessary to carry
out our principle. We therefore propose no increase to the number of
Irish members in the Imperial Parliament.
A question here occurs, if Ireland obtain a Parliament for its own
affairs, ought Irish members of the Imperial Parliament to vote on
affairs exclusively British ? Certainly not. What British affairs may
be, has been already defined in treating of affairs peculiar to Ireland,
* See'Mr. O'Connell's Letter to the Loyal and National Repeal Association,
dated Dairy nane Abbey, Oct. 2, 1844.
28 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
for the same definition applies to both. Whenever, then, local interests,
as thus ascertained, shall be discussed, the Irish members will leave
the House, and the Imperial will instantly become a British Parliament.
IV. We shall conclude this Essay, by a notice of some objections that
may be made either to Repeal in general, or to the plan here proposed
in particular.
It may be asked, " Did not Ireland once possess a Parliament ?
And from the experience of its proceedings are we authorized in
supposing that the revival of such an institution would be advantageous
to the empire at large, or even to Ireland itself ? or has it been found
that Scotland has fared the worse since she gave]up her local Parliament ;
and if Scotland thrive without her own legislature, why may not Ire-
land ? The Scotch are a shrewd people, and sufficiently attentive to
their interests j and have we ever heard them demand a Repeal of the
Union ?"
" True it is that Ireland did possess a Parliament ; but what sort of
a body was it ? Was it a fair representation of the whole people, with-
out distinction of sect or party ? Far, very far otherwise. From the
time of Charles II., it was composed exclusively of Protestants ; that is,
it represented a small minority only of the nation, a minority at variance
with the great majority, and which held and wished to maintain the
ascendancy. Having itself to depend on a small minority only, and
fearing the power of the mass, composed of Roman Catholics, it natu-
rally courted a support without, the support of Great Britain. Thus
the Irish Parliament became the mere tool of the English Ministry, a
ready instrument for keeping Roman Catholics in subjection."*
Besides, even of the Protestants, the Irish Parliament represented but
a small portion. In 1782-3, an enquiry was made into the state of the
representation, with a view to a Reform of the Commons' House of Parlia-
ment. The result of the enquiry was as follows : " The Earl of Ely
nominated nine members of the House of Commons ; the Earl of Shan-
non nominated seven ; and above twenty other members of the House
of Lords nominated and elected members for the House of Commons.
Many individuals openly sold their patronage for money to the best
bidder ; others returned members at the nomination of the Viceroy or
his Secretary ; and it appeared that the number of representatives
elected freely by the people, upon constitutional principles, did not
compose one-fourth of the Irish Coinmons."f Between such a body as
* " Repeal without Disunion."
f Sir Jonah Harrington's Historic Records of the Legislative Union, chap, xvii.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 29
this, and one composed of the representatives of the whole community,
without distinction of sect, and fairly elected, there is no analogy ; nor
can any argument be drawn from the conduct of such an assembly,
against the institution of another, founded on opposite principles.
But bad as was the composition of the old Irish House of Commons, it
still had bright moments, even previous to 1782, when, roused by the
Volunteers, and by the voice of Grattan, it asserted its independence,
tore asunder the fetters of party and the trammels of sect, and showed
itself a dignified and truly national assembly.
Moreover, before 1782, the Irish Parliament, by the two laws above
mentioned, was slavishly dependent on the British Privy Council and
Parliament; and yet Ireland was not represented in the latter; an
arrangement essentially different from that here proposed. Subse-
quently to 1782, indeed, the Irish Parliament was nominally indepen-
dent ; and though we have endeavoured to show that a system of two
Supreme Independent Parliaments in one empire is absurd, and im-
possible for any length of time, as it soon proved in Ireland, yet it
cannot be denied that so long as the Irish Parliament acted with spirit,
urged on by the patriotic Volunteers, so long the country enjoyed a
prosperity previously unknown. The emancipation of trade, which was
the first grand act of 1782, would alone account for much of this. Let us
listen to a contemporary historian of that period. " From that day (the day
of Irish independence) Ireland rose in wealth, in trade, and in manu-
factures, agriculture, and every branch of industry that could enhance
her value, or render a people rich and prosperous. She had acquired
her seat among the nations of the world she had asserted her in-
dependence against the insolence of Portugal she had suggested an
Irish navy to protect her shores she had declared a perpetual league
of mutual amity and aid with Great Britain. The court of her
Viceroy appeared as splendid as her Monarch's. Her nobles resided and
expended their great fortunes amongst the Irish people the Commons
all resided on their demesnes, supported and fostered a laborious and
tranquil tenantry. The peace of the country was perfect no standing
army no militia no police were wanting for its preservation ; the
activity of the Volunteers had suppressed crime in every district ;
religious prejudices were gradually diminishing; every means of ame-
lioration were in contemplation or in progress."*
2. With regard to the case of Scotland, which it is attempted to
assimilate with fcfe* of Ireland, we must remember that there is some
Historic Records of the Legislative Union, chap. xxi.
30 PROPOSAL FOB THE RESTORATION OF
difference between a country which at the time of union contained but
one million of people, and even now contains but two and a half, and
another which comprises upwards of eight millions of souls. It must
also be borne in mind that the characters of the Scotch and English
are much more similar than those of the Irish and English, and hence
their wants and feelings more alike ; and what is very important, that
the Scotch and English agree, or nearly agree in religion, while the Eng-
lish and Irish differ. This circumstance alone renders the perfect fusion
of the two former possible, that of the latter impossible.
But even between Scotland and England the fusion is far from com-
plete. Though Scotland consented to give up her national Legislature,
yet she retained all her other local institutions ; her body of civil and cri-
minal law, her courts, her jury, and the whole system of the adminis-
tration of justice, different from those of England, her own ecclesiastical
establishment, and her mode of paying the clergy, utterly different from that
prevalent in England ; her own system of relieving the poor, and her
plan of parochial education. All these did Scotland retain ; and there-
fore, when she parted with her legislature, she did not merge her existence
in that of England, but maintained an independent position. Not to
mention that the representation of Scotland in the Imperial Parliament
is more ample than that of Ireland ; 45 members before the Reform
Bill, and 53 after, bearing a larger proportion to the population of
Scotland than 100 or 105 to that of Ireland.
But is it true that Scotland derived such benefit as many suppose
from the Legislative Union with England in other words, from the
loss of her domestic Legislature ? Very erroneous opinions, we con-
ceive, are maintained upon this point. That Scotland as well as England
derived great benefit from the union of the Crowns there can be no
doubt ; but that the former gained by being deprived of her local
Parliament, may well be questioned. Certain it is, that seven years
after the Legislative Union, a petition to theBritish Parliament was
presented against it ; and a resolution to that effect was nearly passed,
a small majority only voting in favour of the Union. The great start
in prosperity made by Scotland did not begin till 70 or 80 years after
the Union, and therefore cannot reasonably be attributed to that event.
During the first 50 years, two rebellions broke out, which might
have been prevented by a domestic Parliament. Nay more, we affirm
that the national character of the Scotch was decidedly injured during
the last century, from the want of a native field for ambition. Very
many, of an aspiring nature, finding no career open at home, resorted
to the English Metropolis, and there became notorious as place-hunters,
THE IKISH PARLIAMENT. 3l
and hangers-on of the Ministry ; till Scotsman and jobber became al-
most synonimous. Was ever free country more destitute of public
spirit than Scotland during the last century ? The only national
movements were the two rebellions ; for constitutional struggles there
were none.
Even down to our own days, Scotland was an inert body, with scarcely
a breath of life except in the way of trade ; a vast and rotten borough
where all power and patronage were vested in a single family, because
that family was leagued with the Tories who swayed the English realm.
Never, perhaps, was a country, pretending to be free, reduced to greater
degradation. The list of Peers to be elected was regularly sent down by
the British ministry, and as regularly adopted without any alteration ;
the Commons were chosen by a handful of landed proprietors ; and
Town Councils were self-elected. There was not the shadow of popu-
lar suffrage in the whole kingdom. The consequence was, that in 1826
Scotland was nearly deprived of her long cherished Banking system, for
the sake of uniformity with England forsooth, and but for the powerful
pen of Walter Scott, under the name of Malachi Malagrowther, she pro-
bably would have been so. The dreadful and wide spread destitution
in the great cities and highlands of Scotland, as laid bare by the Scotch
Poor- Law Commission, a destitution unexampled in England, and as
is stated, even on the continent of Europe, proves surely a sad neglect,
a want of local superintendence. But the strongest case of all to
prove the evil which Scotland has experienced from the absence of
a domestic legislature, is before our eyes. Can any one believe
that the unfortunate schism which has rent the Church of Scotland
in twain, separated friends, and severed even the ties of blood, could
have taken place had Scotland possessed a Local Parliament, a Parlia-
ment interested in the matter and understanding the case ; one which
would have legislated in time, and not as the Imperial Parliament,
after the event ? In vain was petition after petition sent up from Scot-
land to beg, to implore, that government would interfere to avert the
impending danger. At last indeed, Parliament, or rather the Ministry,
did interfere ; but it was too late. As it is, the real legislators for Scot-
land are the Home Secretary and the Lord Advocate ; for the mass of
English members are too indifferent, and too ignorant of Scottish affairs,
to care much which way they vote. A people disunited, a church torn
asunder, tardy and therefore useless legislation ; such are the results
of the central system. On the whole, then, the example of Scotland,
so far from proving that Ireland should be content to be considered as
a part, a mere appendage of England, proves exactly the contrary.
32 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
Here some may ask do you then recommend a Local Parliament for
Scotland ? We answer, that our business now is not with Scotland but
with Ireland. When a general wish for such an institution shall have
declared itself in Scotland, it will be time enough to consider whether
that wish should be complied with. Meanwhile it is sufficient to show
that the system which we recommend for Ireland is quite applicable to
Scotland. Scotland might have her local parliament as well as Ireland,
and yet continue to send her 53 representatives to the Imperial Parlia-
ment in London. And as in the former case, the Imperial Parliament
without the Irish members would constitute the British Parliament ; so
now, the same assembly, without the Irish and Scotch members, would
constitute the English Parliament. The Federal system is of admirable
pliancy, and easily accommodates itself to a great variety of circum-
stances.
3. But the argument, which, we believe, weighs most with Irish Pro-
testants against the restoration of a domestic Parliament, is what may
be called the argumentum ad terrorem. Conscious of their past in-
justice, and believing, like most wrong-doers, that the injured never
forget, the Protestants fear that an Irish legislature would oppress and
pillage them, and establish Catholic ascendancy. This is the true rea-
son which still keeps Protestants aloof, while the cry for Repeal is
echoed by the Roman Catholics from one end of the island to the other ;
and if this dread be once removed, we doubt not that they will cordially
join the national movement.
We frankly confess, that when our attention was first turned to the
question of Repeal, we did participate in this dread ; but the more we
have reflected upon the subject, the more we are convinced that the
fear is utterly groundless.
There are two grand reasons for this opinion ; the past conduct of
the Roman Catholics, and the probable composition of the Irish Par-
liament.
When we revert to the period subsequent to the reign of Elizabeth,
but previous to that of Charles II., when restrictive laws were passed
and enforced ; we find that, in spite of the penal Acts of Elizabeth,
Roman Catholics and Protestants really lived together on pretty
equal terms. What a system of justice and equality could do, may
be learned from the reign of James the First, the best monarch that
Ireland ever had. In the ninth year of his reign, the first general
Irish Parliament was held, (former parliaments having been only par-
tial,) and it contained both Catholics and Protestants, the latter being
the more numerous only by one-fifth. Afterwards the spirit of fana-
THE IRISH PAHI-IAMENT. 33
ticism among the English Puritans, and the spirit of liberty among the
English Whigs, alike contributed to the disunion and oppression of
Ireland. But even under a system of the most revolting inequality,
even under the Penal laws, we are told that " the Catholic and the
Protestant lived in habits of great harmony : they harboured no ani-
mosity or indisposition towards each other; the one governed without op-
position, the other submitted without resistance ; and the Catholic clergy
had every inclination to retain their flock within proper limits, and found
no difficulty in effecting that object."* Again, " the Catholic clergy
had then an unlimited influence over the people of their own persuasion.
Though the cruel impolicy of the Penal statutes had not been altogether
set aside, they remained dutiful and obedient to the sovereign power,
cheerfully submissive to the existing laws, and friendly and affectionate
to their Protestant fellow-subjects."f
During the grand movement of 1782, nothing could exceed the mo-
deration and patriotism of the Catholics. Though prohibited by statute
from bearing arms in Ireland, and consequently inadmissible into the
ranks of the Volunteers, yet they " neither took offence nor showed
any jealousy at the want of confidence : on the contrary, with their
money and their exhortations, they zealously assisted in forwarding those
very associations into which they themselves had not admission. Their
calmness and their patriotism gained them many friends."{ Afterwards
" the Catholics became also practically active in the same cause ; con-
siderable numbers of that body now took up arms, formed regiments in
several districts, and placed themselves entirely under the command and
control of their Protestant officers and fellow-subjects. All was una-
nimity in the armed bodies." Again, after the declaration of Indepen-
dence, we read that " the people were united ; Catholic and Pro-
testant were on the most cordial terms ; the voice of patriotism had
exorcised the spirit of discord the Catholic for the moment forgot his
chains, and the Protestant no longer recollected his ascendancy peace,
order and security extended over the whole island."|
This bright period, this period of unanimity, was no doubt ere long
followed by the darkest and most lamentable event in Irish history, the
Rebellion; but that did not originate with the Catholics. Another
Protestant historian says, " in justice to the Catholics it must be ob-
served, that the conspirators were not exclusively or even originally of
* "Historic Records of the Legislative Union," ch. ii.
t Id. I Id. Id. ch. xvi.
|| Id. ch. xviii. Let it be borne in mind that Sir Jonah Barrington was a
Protestant.
34 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
that community, the society of United Irishmen having been instituted
chiefly among Protestants."* Such were Theobald Wolfe Tone, Ha-
milton Rowan, Arthur O'Connor, late member of the Irish Parliament,
Oliver Bond, Councillor Emmet, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, early
and leading conspirators. The Irish Rebellion was a wild and demo-
cratic movement, one of the many movements which sprang from the
contagion of French revolutionary principles, and had nothing to do
with Catholicism. " Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Eddis Emmet, Dr.
M'Nevin, Samuel Neilson, and other principals of the conspiracy, gave
details on oath in their examinations before the secret committees of
the two Houses of Parliament, from which it appeared that the Re-
bellion originated in a system formed, not with a view of obtaining
either Catholic emancipation, or any reform compatible with the exist-
ence of the constitution, but for the purpose of subverting the govern-
ment, separating Ireland from Great Britain, and forming a democratic
republic."!
In our own days, during the great struggle for Emancipation, nothing
could be more exemplary than the conduct of the Roman Catholics ;
and they have maintained the same line of conduct during the Repeal
agitation. The promise of Emancipation, understood to be made to
them at the Union, being shamefully violated, year after year did they
persevere, strenuously but always peaceably, to demand equality of
rights ; and in spite of their indignation at being duped, and the im-
patience of hope long deferred, they maintained that conduct to the end.
Nor when the battle was won, did they show any undue exultation, nor
insult their Protestant fellow-subjects. They did not even exclude them
from Parliament or the Municipalities, but along with some Catholics,
they have continued to choose many Protestants. Surely such men are
entitled to some credit, when they affirm in the most solemn manner,
that they seek not ascendancy, but equality. Indeed, from the above
facts, we are strongly inclined to believe that the religious and political
rancour which has been the bane and disgrace of Ireland, has prevailed
chiefly among the Protestants, who hated the Catholics because they
had injured them.
The last mentioned fact naturally brings us to the second reason,
why the fears of the Protestants are groundless ; viz the probable
composition of the future Irish Parliament.
With respect to the House of Lords, there can be no question. The
* See Miller's History of the Reign of George III., ch. xxix.
I See Miller's History, ch. xxix.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 35
immense majority of that body is Protestant; for according to Mr.
O'Connell, the Roman Catholic peers are only about five per cent, of the
whole ; and according to Mr. Hely Hutchinson, they amount at most
to twenty. Here, then, at all events, the Protestants have nothing to
fear.
But it may be thought the House of Commons will be composed
very differently. No doubt there will be a considerable difference, but
after all, we think it probable that here also the majority will be Pro-
testant. Our reasons for this opinion are as follows : Though the great
majority of the Irish people is Roman Catholic, yet we must bear in
mind that the mass of the landed property is in the hands of Protestants.
Now, there is perhaps no people on the face of the earth who have a
greater respect for wealth, rank, and station, than the Irish. It is an
immense mistake to suppose, as some do, that the present movement is
democratic, or that the Irish are at all prone to democracy ; on the
contrary, no where is aristocracy more deeply seated. Nowhere can
a land proprietor more easily make himself both respected and loved
than in Ireland. He must be almost a savage if he be hated among
such a people. If he conduct himself with bare decency, if he refrain
from letting his lands on a rack-rent, from harsh exaction of his dues,
above all from ejectment and clearances, he may live and die in the
midst of a devoted tenantry. Nor does it signify what his religion may
be, if he be but a good landlord, or even not a very bad one.
Besides, Ireland does not, like England, contain many large manu-
facturing towns, the native seats of democracy, but is in the main agri-
cultural. Thus, while in the United Kingdom there are 309 cities and
boroughs returning 405 members to the Imperial Parliament, and 114
counties which return 253 members ; in Ireland, according to the above
plan, there would be 173 county and only 127 city or borough members.
Moreover, Protestant Ulster, the most manufacturing and the most
democratic part of Ireland, would send 50 county members, and more
than a fourth of the borough members ; and though in the other
boroughs the Roman Catholics should prevail, yet it is highly probable
that the majority of all would be Protestant. For where the mass is
Roman Catholic, it is also agricultural, and submissive to the landed
and Protestant aristocracy ; and where the many are democratically
inclined, and free from the landlord's influence, there they are Pro-
testant.
These probable reasons are confirmed by the experience of the last
fifteen years. We have already remarked that since Emancipation,
n 2
36 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
Catholics and Protestants have been elected indiscriminately. Mr.
O'Connell goes farther, and says, " In no instance at any Parliamentary
election was a Catholic preferred to a Liberal Protestant. In every
instance of Parliamentary elections, a Liberal Protestant has been pre-
ferred to a Catholic. The same principle and practice have prevailed
in our Municipal elections. In every instance, the Liberal Protestants
have been preferred to Catholics."* And what has been the propor-
tion of Irish Roman Catholic members in the Imperial Parliament since
Emancipation ? The answer to this question is a triumphant refutation
of the alarmists. Will it be believed by them that on an average not
more than ten per cent, of Irish Roman Catholic gentlemen have been
returned to Parliament since 1829 ?f To attempt to add any thing to
this fact, would indeed be useless.
This result may to some appear strange, but it is not unexampled.
The Roman plebeians fought hard to be admissible to the Consulship .
but after they had gained their point, during a long time few were
chosen. The people were satisfied with the right, and continued in
general to give their votes to those whom they used to elect.
Upon the whole, we conceive that we are fully justified in concluding
that the fear of Catholic ascendancy and Catholic oppression is a panic
fear, without any solid foundation, except the consciousness of injury
inflicted, and the disbelief in forgetfulness and forgiveness ; that while
the past conduct of the Roman Catholics should greatly lessen that
dread, the probable composition of an Irish Parliament should dispel
it altogether.
We shall notice but one more objection applicable to the Restoration
of the Irish Parliament in any shape, an objection common enough in
England, and often used to dismiss the subject at once. It is said that
the Irish are, as a people, too excitable, too changeable, too devoid of
perseverance, and too divided, to govern themselves ; that the best that
* Mr. O'Connell's letter before quoted.
f " In the year 1829 the Roman Catholic gentry were made eligible to sit in
Parliament. They had fought bravely the battle of their party, and they came
out of the contest free and respected ; therefore in soliciting the suffrages of
their fellow-countrymen, they were aided not only by political success, but by
religious enthusiasm. What was the result of that great movement which stirred
to its inmost depths the mind of Catholic-Ireland? Why this, as far as my ar-
gument is concerned, that an average often per cent., at the. utmost, of lioman
Catholic gentlemen were returned to the Imperial Parliament from 18-20 to 1844 ;
a period of fifteen years, full of political agitation, in the course of which it is
almost needless to recall to your mind the unceasing contumely which was poured
on the lioman Catholic religion and its priesthood." See Mr. Hely Hutchinson's
admirable " letter" (himself a Protestant) " to the Protestants of Ireland," pub-
lished in the Nation, November, 1844.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 37
can befall them is to be tolerably governed by another. In answer to
this objection we shall merely refer to two remarkable periods of Irish
history periods uncommonly trying which may afford a fit test of the
national character. These periods are the' glorious era of 1782, and the
present ; particularly the last year, the year of monster meetings and
Repeal agitation. Consider for a moment the position taken up by
Ireland in 1782. Certainly in no age or country was ever any thing
seen more admirable. Almost all great revolutions have been sullied
by crime and bloodshed ; but the Irish was without a stain. The very
opening of the French Revolution was disgraced by barbarous scenes.
On the twenty-first October, 17S9> during the first and best period of
the movement, an innocent man, the unfortunate Francois, was seized
upon in a court of justice by a ferocious mob, who, after dragging
him to the street, and hanging him from a lamp, paraded his head on a
pike, and gave it to be kissed by his brother bakers, and even by his
fainting wife. Did Ireland present any such horrors ? No. Instead
of blood-thirsty mobs, the Volunteers arose with all the order of regular
soldiers. The country was armed, but the country was peaceful ; for
the Volunteers kept their hand upon the hilt of the sword, but they
drew it not. They met in arms, they met even in council ; they deli-
berated with all the vigour of youth and the wisdom of age ; they urged
the Parliament, but they forced it not ; and when the House resisted,
they respected the sanctuary of law. Such was the conduct of a people
smarting under the wrongs of centuries, smitten in its commerce, in-
sulted in its religion, and degraded into a conquered province. Never
was greater forbearance united with resistless power; for 150,000
volunteers were spread over the face of Ireland, while England was
worn out by the American war.
The conduct of the people during the Repeal agitation, and during
the whole continuance of the State Trials, is scarcely less to be admired.
" Every one must see, that this is u movement of no ordinary character ;
for here we have numbers, overwhelming numbers, without brawl or
confusion ; zeal without violence ; the highest political excitement with-
out outbreak or revolution. Every age has seen its popular distur-
bances, its tumults, wars, or revolutions ; but what age but our own has
witnessed such a movement as this ? Had any one predicted such an
event, he would probably have been sot down as a fool ; for his predic-
tions would have been at variance with past experience in every other
country. This order, this peace, in the midst of the greatest excite-
ment, has no doubt been prepared and assisted by another event, itself
fully as wonderful as the former : namely, the sudden reformation in
38 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
the habits of the mass of the people. This reformation appears, really
a miracle, if we consider on the one hand the previous habits of the
Irish peasantry, their known addiction to whiskey ; and on the other,
the feebleness of the means whereby so great a change has been effected.
An humble priest urged by his own energy, and aided only by the good-
ness of his cause, has suddenly converted five millions of men. If ever
there was an event that looked like a departure from the usual course
of nature, if ever there was a case where Providence seemed to inter-
fere in the affairs of men, surely this is one."
In the face of such facts, of such long-suffering, forbearance, tempe-
rance, and yet energy, exemplified under the most trying circumstances,
how can it be said that the Irish are unfit to govern themselves ?
That the unhappy disunion hitherto so prevalent in Ireland is an
obstacle to self-government, all must admit. But there is reason to be-
lieve that nothing would contribute more to heal that disunion than the
establishment of a domestic legislature.
It is found universally that the best way to make people friends who
have previously thought ill of each other, is to bring them together.
The strongest prejudices and antipathies give way before the amiable
intercourse of social life, as snow before the mid-day sun. Let then
Catholics and Protestants meet in a domestic Parliament, let them con-
stantly see and hear each other, let them transact business together,
whether in the whole House or in Committees, and they will become
acquaintances, perhaps friends ; and on returning to their homes they
will spread it abroad that both may be very good people. Unless then
the dissensions of Ireland be such as to render self-government impos-
sible or dangerous, they are rather an argument in its favour. And,
after all, there is the Imperial Government at hand, in case of any dan-
ger to the Protestants, which, from what we have said, appears to be
chimerical.
The following objections apply, in particular, to Federalism.
First, it is said that the Federal connexion by means of Imperial re-
presentation is all for the advantage of England, that to Ireland it
would be no benefit.* How any measure calculated to secure the good
government of the United Kingdom should be of no advantage to Ire-
land, a large integral part of that kingdom, it is not easy to conceive.
Let us take for the sake of illustration a possible case. Suppose Total
Repeal to be carried, and Great Britain and Ireland to have two Par-
* See Mr. Charles Gavan Duffy's letter to Mr. O'Connell, dated Rathmines,
October 18, 1844, published in the Nation newspaper of the following day.
THE 1KISH PARLIAMENT. 39
liaments quite independent of each other. This being supposed, might
not the British Parliament impose duties upon Irish commodities, as it
did formerly ? Might it not treat Ireland as a foreign country, or at
best as a colony, and lay the same duties on Irish as on foreign or colo-
nial produce ? And if it chose to do so, who could hinder it ? The
Irish Parliament indeed might retaliate by taxing British exports ; but
if this measure failed, it could only do harm to both countries ; and
the shocking spectacle would be seen of two nations nominally united,
waging a war of tariffs against each other. The possibility of such an
event is effectually prevented by means of the Federal connexion, for
were a measure of that kind proposed, the 105 Irish members would
rise up as one man to oppose it, and they would be joined by all the
Liberal British members. In the face of such an opposition, no such
measure could be carried or even proposed. And this is only one case
out of many in which England might seek to harass her sister, as she
was wont, when Ireland possessed her own Parliament, but was not
represented in that of Britain. How then can it be said that the Fe-
deral connexion would be of no advantage to Ireland ?
Secondly, it is objected that Federalism requires a complete re-
modelling of the British Constitution, the overthrow of the old, and the
construction of a new one. This is quite a mistake. There would be
nothing new but the local Irish Parliament, and that is a restoration
rather than a novelty. As we have proposed, the present Imperial Par-
liament, without the Irish members, would constitute the British Par-
liament ; and if at any time Scotland should seriously demand a local
legislature, that same assembly, without the Irish and Scotch members,
might be the English Parliament. But Federalists do not insist on
applying the principle to Scotland at present. Let it first be tried in
Ireland, and we shall then see whether it should be applied to Scot-
land.
Total Repeal is a far greater change than Federalism, and the state
to which it would bring us never existed in Ireland but for eighteen
years. The Union also was a far greater change than Federalism ; for
no one could anticipate the consequences of the admission of 100 Irish
members into the House of Commons ; yet it was the work of a Tory
ministry. Federalism merely unites two elements, already known to
the Constitution, Imperial and Irish legislation, which have been tried
separately, but never together. It is a new combination of old ele-
ments. The Union, with all its injustice, contained one good principle,
which wo ought not to throw away, but improve by blending it with
another.
40 PROPOSAL FOR THE RESTORATION OF
Thirdly, it has been asserted that " some of the Federalists do not
contemplate a House of Lords for Ireland."* Whether there be any
such, I know not, but that objection does not apply to the scheme here
proposed.
Fourthly, we are asked " how will an Irish minority be able to influ-
ence a house where it is powerless now ? A strong substantial claim
for domestic legislation arises out of the indifference with which
our interests are treated by the English majority what guarantee is
there, or can there be, that it will be different hereafter ?"f The ready
answer to this is, that Irish interests would be discussed in the Irish
not in the Imperial Parliament.
Lastly, we are told that Federalism will not be so powerful a remedy
for Absenteeism as Total Repeal. In this we agree. Though the in-
stitution of a domestic legislature will assuredly check and greatly check
Absenteeism, yet Imperial connexion will always draw some to Great
Britain ; but this evil we cannot avoid, without breaking off that con-
nexion altogether.
The question has been put to me whether the same persons should be
eligible to both Parliaments ; and in either case a difficulty has been
started. If they be eligible to both, they will be distracted between
their two duties, and will feel little inclined to begin a second session,
after having sat through a first : and if they be not so eligible, the Irish
Parliament may be deprived of the most distinguished men, and there-
fore may command less respecti If this be the alternative, we cannot
doubt which side to choose ; for the former is only an inconvenience,
the latter a decided evil. And this inconvenience might be greatly
lessened. The Irish Parliament might meet before the Imperial, say
early in December, like the French Chambers ; and the Imperial Par-
liament, after the vote on the address, might become a British House,
and attend exclusively to British interests, leaving the general business
of the Empire to a later period of the session. Thus an interval would
elapse between the close of the Irish Parliament and the necessary at-
tendance of Irish members in London.^ In any case, the latter need
scarcely be more occupied than at present, only they would have to at-
tend to Irish affairs in Dublin instead of London, and they would have
* See Mr. Gavan Duffy's letter above cited. | W.
J If the Session of the Irish Parliament were not closed before the opening of
the Imperial, the former might have a short recess, during which, Irish mem-
bers of both might repair to London, to be present during the debate on the
Address, and then return to their own country. The facilities for travelling in
our days would greatlv diminish the inconvenience of these journey-Jugs to and
fro.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 41
nothing to do with interests exclusively British. Another advantage
also would attend this arrangement, viz. that the necessary residence of
Irish members in London would be rendered as short as possible, and
Absenteeism checked as much as could be.
V. That the Union, as carried in 1800, was an unconstitutional
measure, was proclaimed from the first by the highest legal authority.
Many of the ablest lawyers entirely denied the competence of the Irish
Commons to pass or even receive any Act of Union extinguishing their
own existence, and betraying the trusts they were delegated to protect.
Such were Saurin, Plunkett, Ponsonby, Ball, Bushe, Curran, Burrowes,
Fitzgerald, A. Moore, &c. The words of Saurin are very remarkable ;
" If, '* said he " a legislative Union should be so forced upon this coun-
try against the will of its inhabitants, it would be a NULLITY, and re-
sistance to it would be a struggle against USURPATION, and not a resist-
ance against Law." " Sir," said Plunkett, in addressing the Speaker of
the House of Commons, " I, in the most express terms, deny the com-
petency of Parliament to do this act ; I warn you, do not dare to lay
your hands on the Constitution. I tell you that if, circumstanced as you
are, you pass this Act, it will be a mere NULLITY, and NO MAN IN IRE-
LAND WILL BE BOUND To OBEY IT : I make the assertion deliberately;
I repeat it ; I call on any man who hears me to take down my words.
You have not been elected for this purpose" " Yourselves you
may extinguish, but Parliament you cannot extinguish. It is enthroned
in the hearts of the people it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the Con-
stitution it is as immortal as the island which it protects."
Let us now attend to Chief Justice Bushe : " I forget for a moment
the unprincipled means by which the Union has been promoted, and
look on it simply as England reclaiming in a moment of our weakness
that dominion which we extorted from her in a moment of our virtue
a dominion which she unfairly abused which invariably oppressed and
impoverished us, and from the extortion of which we date all our pro-
sperity."
But it is not necessary to bring in authority to prove so plain a point,
as that an assembly, elected for a few years, and before the question of
an Union had been agitated, was incompetent to pass a measure de-
structive not only of the present, but of all future assemblies, binding
its countrymen for ever, and depriving them of all legal means of re-
dressing any grievances, or repealing that very measure. What is such
a pretension but an attempt to adapt one of the finest inventions to the
basest purposes, to turn the Representative system into an instrument
of slavery ? Had an appeal been made to the nation, to those who
42 PROPOSAL, FOR THE RESTORATION OF
chose the Parliament, the case would no doubt have been different ;
but this was not done ; and therefore the Union, as carried in 1800,
was an act unconstitutional and revolutionary.
This being so, heavy indeed was the responsibility of the Minister
who carried through that measure. If it be a fundamental axiom of
our Constitution that violence on one side justifies resistance on the
other, an axiom acted upon in our own Revolution of 1688, as well as
in the French Revolution of 1830, then the Minister who carried the
Union, by that act compromised the Crown, and rendered obedience
a matter not of duty, but of prudence. He might therefore have been
justly arraigned for high treason.
Even had Constitutional forms been observed, the Union, as passed
in 1800, must ever have been hateful to Irishmen. It must ever be
associated with the deepest degradation that can befall a people the
sale of its Independence, by those appointed to guard the national wel-
fare and national honour. A sale it was, and nothing but a sale ; the
Independence of Ireland being bartered for titles and hard money.
By the Act of Union, twenty-six Peers were created, and twenty
more advanced to a higher rank in the Peerage ; and (oh climax of
shamelessness and degradation !) the Irish House of Commons actually
voted one million and a half of money to compensate, that is, to bribe,
themselves.
But corruption was not the only engine worked by a ministry, sup-
plied with funds not only from Ireland itself, but also from the wealthy
realm of Great Britain. Terror, overpowering terror, was likewise
used to suit their purpose. They seized with eagerness a moment
of fear and depression, consequent on an unfortunate Rebellion ; no
time would they allow for reflection ; they terrified the Protestants,
cajoled the Catholics, bullied some, bribed others, and even threatened
to fight all who opposed them :* but after all, they could never get an
absolute majority of more than eight, or a relative of more than forty-
three, in the House of Commons ; and with this majority, thus acquired,
they extinguished an ancient legislature, a nation's independence !
There is one class of men to whom, in conclusion, we would address
a few words, namely, the Irish Peerage. How they could have been
brought to consent to an Union, baffles all comprehension. That a
House of Commons, such as the Irish was, returned in great part
* See in Sir Jonah Barriugton's " Historic Records," an account of a fighting
scheme adopted at a dinner given by Lord Castlereagh to twenty of his most
staunch supporters ; and communicated to Sir Jonah by one of the party, the
following morning. Chap. xxvi.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 43
by private influence, many probably in debt and needy, many desirous
of place, pension, money, or title, should have been won over by the
lavish expenditure of enormous wealth and patronage, was no doubt
most disgraceful, but it is conceivable.
But what had the Peers to gain by an Union ? Wealth they pos-
sessed already, many possessed great wealth, and rank with the highest
political privileges belonged to all. How, then, could they consent to
a measure which would deprive them, as a body, of all political impor-
tance, and reduce them to the rank of gentry with an emptj' title ? We
do not wonder at their want of patriotism, we do not wonder at their
want of public spirit, we do not wonder at their neglect of their high
duties ; we do not even wonder that they sacrificed their country ; but
we do w r onder that they sacrificed themselves. To descend at once,
and by their own act, from the dignity and importance of hereditary
legislators, to become merely a titled Aristocracy, without constitutional
privilege, must astonish any one who believes that men consult their
own interest. Had such an act been committed for the sake of coun-
try, it would have been a noble sacrifice ; but as it was for the sake of
some imaginary private advantage, it was not only an act of baseness,
but of egregious folly. To suppose that the right of electing 28 Peers
to sit for life in the Imperial Parliament could be any compensation
for the loss of a great hereditary privilege in their own country, and
common to the whole body, argues a singular short-sightedness in the
Irish Peerage. For what is an Irish Peer in London, or what is he
in the Imperial House of Lords ? Nobody, absolutely nobody, as com-
pared with the same person in Dublin, and in a domestic Legislature.
We would therefore implore the Irish Peers to rally round the
standard of Repeal, and demand their long-lost Parliament, if not for
their country's good, at least for their own sake. We do not ask them
to remember their time-honoured ancestry, we do not call upon them
to be patriotic nobles, we do not adjure them by the manes of Leinster
and of Charlemont ; but we ask them to look to themselves. Let them
consider that now they are but a titled gentry, something between
nobleman and squire ; and that only an Irish Parliament can restore
them to the dignity of Peers.
Signed,
ScOTO-ANGLO-HlBERMCUS
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