The value of a legal, popular, systematic, and continuous combination of "the people" acting within the law, by means of meetings, resolutions, correspondence, and pet.i.tions, was not made suddenly, nor by all the party interested, at one and the same time. On the minds of the more sagacious, however, an impression, favourable to such organized action, grew deeper year by year, and at last settled into a certainty which was justified by success.
In May, 1809, the Catholic Committee had been reconstructed, and its numbers enlarged. In a series of resolutions it was agreed that the Catholic lords, the surviving delegates of 1793, the committee which managed the pet.i.tions of 1805 and 1807, and such persons "as shall distinctly appear to them to possess the confidence of the Catholic body," do form henceforth the General Committee. It was proposed by O"Connell, to avoid "the Convention Act,"
"that the n.o.blemen and gentlemen aforesaid are not representatives of the Catholic body, or any portion thereof." The Committee were authorized to collect funds for defraying expenses; a Treasurer was chosen, and a permanent Secretary, Mr. Edward Hay, the historian of the Wexford rebellion--an active and intelligent officer.
The new Committee acted with great judgment in 1810, but in 1811 Lord Fingal and his friends projected a General a.s.sembly of the leading Catholics, contrary to the Convention Act, and to the resolution just cited. O"Connell was opposed to this proposition; yet the a.s.sembly met, and were dispersed by the authorities. The Chairman, Lord Fingal, and Drs. Sheridan and Kirwan, Secretaries, were arrested. Lord Fingal, however, was not prosecuted, but the Secretaries were, and one of them expiated by two years" imprisonment his violation of the act. To get rid of the very pretext of illegality, the Catholic Committee dissolved, but only to reappear under a less vulnerable form, as "the Catholic Board."
It is from the year 1810 that we must date the rise, among the Catholics themselves, of a distinctive line of policy, suited to the circ.u.mstances of the present century, and the first appearance of a group of public men, capable of maintaining and enforcing that policy. Not that the ancient leaders of that body were found deficient, in former times, either in foresight or determination; but new times called for new men; the Irish Catholics were now to seek their emanc.i.p.ation from the imperial government; new tactics and new combinations were necessary to success; and, in brief, instead of being liberated from their bonds at the good will and pleasure of benevolent Protestants, it was now to be tested whether they were capable of contributing to their own emanc.i.p.ation,--whether they were willing and able to a.s.sist their friends and to punish their enemies.
Though the Irish Catholics could not legally meet in convention any more than their Protestant fellow-countrymen, there was nothing to prevent them a.s.sembling voluntarily, from every part of the kingdom, without claim to delegation.
With whom the happy idea of "the aggregate meetings"
originated is not certainly known, but to O"Connell and the younger set of leading spirits this was a machinery capable of being worked with good effect. No longer confined to a select Committee, composed mainly of a few aged and cautious, though distinguished persons, the fearless "agitators," as they now began to be called, stood face to face with the body of the people themselves.
The disused theatre in Fishamble Street was their habitual place of meeting in Dublin, and there, in 1811 and 1812, the orators met to criticise the conduct of the Duke of Richmond--to denounce Mr. Wellesley Pole--to attack Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers--to return thanks to Lords Grey and Grenville for refusing to give the unconst.i.tutional anti-Catholic pledge required by the King, and to memorial the Prince Regent. From those meetings, especially in the year 1812, the leadership of O"Connell must be dated. After seven years of wearisome probation, after enduring seven years the envy and the calumny of many who, as they were his fellow-labourers, should have been his friends; after demonstrating for seven years that his judgment and his courage were equal to his eloquence, the successful Kerry barrister, then in his thirty-seventh year, was at length generally recognized as "the counsellor" of his co-religionists --as the veritable "Man of the People." Dangers, delays and difficulties lay thick and dark in the future, but from the year, when in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, the voice of the famous advocate was recognized as the voice of the Catholics of Ireland, their cause was taken out of the category of merely ministerial measures, and exhibited in its true light as a great national contest, entered into by the people themselves for complete civil and religious freedom.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had been succeeded in 1810 in the Secretaryship by his brother, Mr. Wellesley Pole, who chiefly signalized his administration by a circular against conventions, and the prosecution of Sheridan and Kirwan, in 1811. He was in turn succeeded by a much more able and memorable person--_Mr_., afterwards Sir Robert Peel. The names of Peel and Wellington come thus into juxtaposition in Irish politics in 1812, as they will be found hi juxtaposition on the same subject twenty and thirty years later.
Early in the session of 1812, Mr. Perceval, the Premier, had been a.s.sa.s.sinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, by Bellingham, and a new political crisis was precipitated on the country. In the government which followed, Lord Liverpool became the chief, with Castlereagh and Canning as members of his administration. In the general election which followed, Mr. Grattan was again returned for Dublin, and Mr. Plunkett was elected for Trinity College, but Mr. Curran was defeated at Newry, and Mr. Christopher Hely Hutchinson, the liberal candidate, at Cork. Upon the whole, however, the result was favourable to the Catholic cause, and the question was certain to have several additional Irish supporters in the new House of Commons.
In the administrative changes that followed, Mr. Peel, though only in his twenty-fourth year, was appointed to the important post of Chief Secretary, The son of the first baronet of the name--this youthful statesman had first been elected for Cashel, almost as soon as he came of age, in 1809. He continued Chief Secretary for six years, from the twenty-fourth to the thirtieth year of his age. He distinguished himself in the House of Commons almost as soon as he entered it, and the predictions of his future premiership were not, even then, confined to members of his own family. No English statesman, since the death of William Pitt, has wielded so great a power in Irish affairs as Sir Robert Peel, and it is, therefore, important to consider, under what influence, and by what maxims he regulated his public conduct during the time he filled the most important administrative office in that country.
Sir Robert Peel brought to the Irish government, notwithstanding his Oxford education and the advantages of foreign travel which he had enjoyed, prejudices the most illiberal, on the subject of all others on which a statesman should be most free from prejudice--religion.
An anti-Catholic of the school of Mr. Perceval and Lord Eldon, he at once const.i.tuted himself the princ.i.p.al opponent of Grattan"s annual motion in favour of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. That older men, born in the evil time, should be bigots and defenders of the Penal Code, was hardly wonderful, but a young statesman, exhibiting at that late day, such studied and active hostility to so large a body of his fellow subjects, naturally drew upon his head the execrations of all those whose enfranchis.e.m.e.nt he so stubbornly resisted. Even his great abilities were most absurdly denied, under this pa.s.sionate feeling of wrong and injustice. His Constabulary and his Stipendiary Magistracy were resisted, ridiculed, and denounced, as outrages on the liberty of the subject, and a.s.saults on the independence of the bench. The term _Peeler_ became synonymous with spy, informer, and traitor, and the Chief Secretary was detested not only for the illiberal sentiments he had expressed, but for the machinery of order he had established. After half a century"s experience, we may safely say, that the Irish Constabulary have shown themselves to be a most valuable police, and as little deserving of popular ill-will as any such body can ever expect to be, but they were judged very differently during the Secretaryship of their founder; for, at that time, being new and intrusive, they may, no doubt, have deserved many of the hard and bitter things which were generally said of them.
The first session of the new Parliament in the year 1813-- the last of the Duke of Richmond"s Viceroyalty--was remarkable for the most important debate which had yet arisen on the Catholic question. In the previous year, a motion of Canning"s, in favour of "a final and conciliatory adjustment," which was carried by an unexpected majority of 235 to 106, encouraged Grattan to prepare a detailed Emanc.i.p.ation Bill, instead of making his usual annual motion of referring the Catholic pet.i.tions to the consideration of the Committee. This bill recited the establishment of the Protestant succession to the crown, and the establishment of the Protestant religion in the State. It then proceeded to provide that Roman Catholics might sit and vote in Parliament; might hold all offices, civil and military, except the offices of Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal in England, or Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, or Chancellor of Ireland; another section threw open to Roman Catholics all lay corporations, while a proviso excluded them either from holding or bestowing benefices in the Established Church. Such was the Emanc.i.p.ation Act of 1813, proposed by Grattan; an act far less comprehensive than that introduced by the same statesman in 1795, into the Parliament of Ireland, but still, in many of its provisions, a long stride in advance.
Restricted and conditioned as this measure was, it still did not meet the objections of the opponents of the question, in giving the crown a Veto in the appointment of the bishops. Sir John Hippesley"s pernicious suggestion--reviving a very old traditional policy--was embodied by Canning in one set of amendments, and by Castlereagh in another. Canning"s amendments, as summarised by the eminent Catholic jurist, Charles Butler, were to this effect:--
"He first appointed a certain number of Commissioners, who were to profess the Catholic religion, and to be lay peers of Great Britain or Scotland, possessing a freehold estate of one thousand pounds a year; to be filled up, from time to time, by his Majesty, his heirs, or successors.
The Commissioners were to take an oath for the faithful discharge of their office, and the observance of secrecy in all matters not thereby required to be disclosed, with power to appoint a Secretary with salary (proposed to be five hundred pounds a year), payable out of the consolidated fund. The Secretary was to take an oath similar to that of the Commissioners.
"It was then provided, that every person elected to the discharge of Roman Catholic episcopal functions in Great Britain or Scotland should, previously to the discharge of his office, notify his then election to the Secretary; that the Secretary should notify it to the Commissioners, and they to the Privy Council, with a certificate "that they did not know or believe anything of the person nominated, which tended to impeach his loyalty or peaceable conduct;" unless they had knowledge of the contrary, in which case they should refuse their certificate. Persons obtaining such a certificate were rendered capable of exercising episcopal functions within the United Kingdom; if they exercised them without a certificate, they were to be considered guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to be sent out of the kingdom.
"Similar provisions respecting Ireland were then introduced."
"The second set of clauses," says Mr. Butler, "was suggested by Lord Castlereagh, and provided that the Commissioners under the preceding clauses--with the addition, as to Great Britain, of the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or first Commissioner of the Great Seal for the time being, and of one of his Majesty"s princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State, being a Protestant, or such other Protestant member of his Privy Council as his Majesty should appoint--and with a similar addition in respect to Ireland--and with the further addition, as to Great Britain, of the person then exercising episcopal functions among the Catholics in London--and, in respect to Ireland, of the t.i.tular Roman Catholic Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin,--should be Commissioners for the purposes thereinafter mentioned.
"The Commissioners thus appointed were to take an oath for the discharge of their office, and observance of secrecy, similar to the former, and employ the same Secretary, and three of them were to form a quorum.
"The bill then provided, that subjects of his Majesty, receiving any bull, dispensation, or other instrument, from the See of Rome, or any person in foreign parts, acting under the authority of that See, should, within six weeks, send a copy of it, signed with his name, to the Secretary of the Commissioners, who should transmit the same to them.
"But with a proviso, that if the person receiving the same should deliver to the Secretary of the Commission, within the time before prescribed, a writing under his hand, certifying the fact of his having received such a bull, dispensation, or other instrument, and accompanying his certificate with an oath, declaring that "it related, wholly and exclusively, to spiritual concerns, and that it did not contain, or refer to, any matter or thing which did or could, directly or indirectly, affect or interfere with the duty and allegiance which he owed to his Majesty"s sacred person and government, or with the temporal, civil, or social rights, properties, or duties of any other of his Majesty"s subjects, then the Commissioners were, in their discretion, to receive such certificate and oath, in lieu of the copy of the bull, dispensation, or other instrument.
"Persons conforming to these provisions were to be exempted from all pains and penalties, to which they would be liable under the existing statutes; otherwise, they were to be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor; and in lieu of the pains and penalties, under the former statutes, be liable to be sent out of the kingdom.
"The third set of clauses provided that, within a time to be specified, the Commissioners were to meet and appoint their Secretary, and give notice of it to his Majesty"s princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State in Great Britain and Ireland; and the provisions of the act were to be in force from that time."
On the second reading, in May, the Committee of Parliament, on motion of the Speaker, then on the floor, struck out the clause enabling Catholics "to sit and vote in either House of Parliament," by a majority of four votes: 251 against 247. Mr. Ponsonby immediately rose, and, observing that, as "the bill without the clause," was unworthy both of the Catholics and its authors, he moved the chairman do leave the chair. The committee rose, without a division, and the Emanc.i.p.ation Bill of 1813 was abandoned.
Unhappily, the contest in relation to the Veto, which had originated in the House of Commons, was extended to the Catholic body at large. Several of the n.o.blemen, members of the board, were not averse to granting some such power as was claimed to the crown; some of the professional cla.s.s, more anxious to be emanc.i.p.ated than particular as to the means, favoured the same view. The bishops at the time of the Union, were known to have entertained the idea, and Sir John Hippesley had published their letters, which certainly did not discourage his proposal. But the second order of the clergy, the immense majority of the laity, and all the new prelates, called to preside over vacant sees, in the first decade of the century, were strongly opposed to any such connexion with the head of the State. Of this party, Mr. O"Connell was the uncompromising organ, and, perhaps, it was his course on this very subject of the Veto, more than anything else, which established his pretensions to be considered the leader of the Catholic body. Under the prompting of the majority, the Catholic prelates met and pa.s.sed a resolution declaring that they could not accept the bill of 1813 as a satisfactory settlement. This resolution they formally communicated to the Catholic Board, who voted them, on O"Connell"s motion, enthusiastic thanks.
The minority of the Board were silent rather than satisfied, and their dissatisfaction was shown rather by their absence from the Board meetings than by open opposition.
Mr. O"Connell"s position, from this period forward, may be best understood from the tone in which he was spoken of in the debates of Parliament. At the beginning of the session of 1815, we find the Chief Secretary (Mr. Peel) stating that he "possesses more influence than any other person" with the Irish Catholics, and that no meeting of that body was considered complete unless a vote of thanks to Mr. O"Connell was among the resolutions.
CHAPTER IV.
O"CONNELL"S LEADERSHIP--1813 TO 1821.
While the Veto controversy was carried into the press and the Parliamentary debates, the extraordinary events of the last years of Napoleon"s reign became of such extreme interest as to cast into the shade all questions of domestic policy. The Parliamentary fortunes of the Catholic question varied with the fortunes of the war, and the remoteness of external danger. Thus, in 1815, Sir Henry Parnell"s motion for a committee was rejected by a majority of 228 to 147; in 1816, on Mr. Grattan"s similar motion, the vote was 172 to 141; in 1817, Mr.
Grattan was again defeated by 245 to 221; in this session an act exempting officers in the army and navy from forswearing Transubstantiation pa.s.sed and became law.
The internal condition of the Catholic body, both in England and Ireland, during all those years, was far from enviable. In England there were Cisalpine and Ultramontane factions; in Ireland, Vetoists and anti-Vetoists. The learned and amiable Charles Butler--among jurists, the ornament of his order, was fiercely opposed to the no less learned Dr. Milner, author of "The End of Controversy,"
and "Letters to a Prebendary." In Ireland, a very young barrister, who had hardly seen the second anniversary of his majority, electrified the aggregate meetings with a new Franco-Irish order of eloquence, naturally enough employed in the maintenance of Gallican ideas of church government. This was Richard Lalor Shiel, the author of two or three successful tragedies, and the man, next to O"Connell, who wielded the largest tribunitian power over the Irish populace during the whole of the subsequent agitation. Educated at Stoneyhurst, he imbibed from refugee professors French idioms and a French standard of taste, while, strangely enough, O"Connell, to whom he was at first opposed, and of whom he became afterwards the first lieutenant, educated in France by British refugees, acquired the c.u.mbrous English style of the Douay Bible and the Rheims Testament. The contrast between the two men was every way extreme; physically, mentally, and politically; but it is pleasant to know that their differences never degenerated into distrust, envy or malice; that, in fact, Daniel O"Connell had throughout all his after life no more steadfast personal friend than Richard Lalor Shiel.
In the progress of the Catholic agitation, the next memorable incident was O"Connell"s direct attack on the Prince Regent. That powerful personage, the _de facto_ Sovereign of the realm, had long amused the Irish Catholics with promises and pledges of being favourable to their cause. At an aggregate meeting, in June, 1812, Mr.
O"Connell maintained that there were four distinct pledges of this description in existence: 1. One given in 1806, through the Duke of Bedford, then Lord-Lieutenant, to induce the Catholics to withhold their pet.i.tions for a time. 2. Another given the same year in the Prince"s name by Mr. Ponsonby, then Chancellor. 3. A pledge given to Lord Kenmare, _in writing_, when at Cheltenham. 4. A verbal pledge given to Lord Fingal, in the presence of Lords Clifford and Petre, and reduced to writing and signed by these three n.o.blemen, soon after quitting the Prince"s presence. Over the meeting at which this indictment was preferred, Lord Fingal presided, and the celebrated "witchery" resolutions, referring to the influence then exercised on the Prince by Lady Hertford, were proposed by his lordship"s son, Lord Killeen. It may, therefore, be fairly a.s.sumed, that the existence of the fourth pledge was proved, the first and second were never denied, and as to the third--that given to Lord Kenmare--the only correction ever made was, that the Prince"s message was delivered verbally, by his Private Secretary, Colonel McMahon, and not in writing. Lord Kenmare, who died in the autumn of 1812, could not be induced, from a motive of delicacy, to reduce his recollection of this message to writing, but he never denied that he had received it, and O"Connell, therefore, during the following years, always held the Prince accountable for this, as for his other promises. Much difference of opinion arose as to the wisdom of attacking a person in the position of the Prince; but O"Connell, fully persuaded of the utter worthlessness of the declarations made in that quarter, decided for himself that the bold course was the wise course. The effect already was various. The English Whigs, the Prince"s early and constant friends, who had followed him to lengths that honour could hardly sanction, and who had experienced his hollow-heartedness when lately called to govern during his father"s illness; they, of course, were not sorry to see him held up to odium in Ireland, as a dishonoured gentleman and a false friend.
The Irish Whigs, of whom Lord Moira and Mr. Ponsonby were the leaders, and to whom Mr. Grattan might be said to be attached rather than to belong, saw the rupture with regret, but considered it inevitable. Among "the Prince"s friends" the attacks upon him in the Dublin meetings were regarded as little short of treason; while by himself, it is well known the "witchery" resolutions of 1812 were neither forgotten nor forgiven.
The political position of the Holy See, at this period, was such as to induce and enable an indirect English influence to be exercised, through that channel, upon the Irish Catholic movement. Pope Pius VII., a prisoner in France, had delegated to several persons at Rome certain vicarious powers, to be exercised in his name, in case of necessity; of these, more than one had followed him into exile, so that the position of his representative devolved at length upon Monsignor Quarrantotti, who, early in 1814, addressed a rescript to Dr. Poynter, vicar-apostolic of the London district, commendatory of the Bill of 1813, including the Veto, and the Ecclesiastical Commission proposed by Canning and Castlereagh. Against these dangerous concessions, as they considered them, the Irish Catholics despatched their remonstrances to Rome, through the agency of the celebrated Wexford Franciscan, Father Richard Hayes; but this clergyman, having spoken with too great freedom, was arrested, and suffered several months" confinement in the Eternal City.
A subsequent emba.s.sy of Dr. Murray, coadjutor to the Archbishop of Dublin, on behalf of his brother prelates, was attended with no greater advantage, though the envoy himself was more properly treated. On his return to Ireland, at a meeting held to hear his report, several strong resolutions were unanimously adopted, of which the spirit may be judged from the following--the concluding one of the series--"Though we sincerely venerate the supreme Pontiff as visible head of the Church, we do not conceive that our apprehensions for the safety of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland can or ought to be removed by any determination of His Holiness, adopted or intended to be adopted, not only without our concurrence, but in direct opposition to our repeated resolutions and the very energetic memorial presented on our behalf, and so ably supported by our Deputy, the Most Reverend Dr.
Murray; who, in that quality, was more competent to inform His Holiness of the real state and interests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland than any other with whom he is said to have consulted."
The resolutions were transmitted to Rome, signed by the two Archbishops present, by Dr. Everard, the coadjutor of the Archbishop of Cashel, by Dr. Murray, the coadjutor of the Archbishop of Dublin, by the Bishops of Meath, Cloyne, Clonfert, Kerry, Waterford, Derry, Achonry, Killala, Killaloe, Kilmore, Ferns, Limerick, Elphin, Cork, Down and Conor, Ossory, Raphoe, Clogher, Dromore, Kildare and Leighlin, Ardagh, and the Warden of Galway.
Dr. Murray, and Dr. Murphy, Bishop of Cork, were commissioned to carry this new remonstrance to Rome, and the greatest anxiety was felt for the result of their mission.
A strange result of this new _embroglio_ in the Catholic cause was, that it put the people on the defensive for their religious liberties, not so much against England as against Home. The unlucky Italian Monsignor who had volunteered his sanction of the Veto, fared scarcely better at the popular gatherings than Lord Castlereagh, or Mr. Peel. "Monsieur Forty-eight," as he was nicknamed, in reference to some strange story of his ancestor taking his name from a lucky lottery ticket of that number, was declared to be no better than a common Orangeman, and if the bitter denunciations uttered against him, on the Liffey and the Shannon, had only been translated into Italian, the courtly Prelate must have been exceedingly amazed at the democratic fury of a Catholic population, as orthodox as himself, but much more jealous of State interference with things spiritual. The second order of the clergy were hardly behind the laity, in the fervour of their opposition to the rescript of 1814. Then--entire body, secular and regular, residing in and about Dublin, published a very strong protest against it, headed by Dr. Blake, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, in which it was denounced as "pregnant with mischief" and entirely "non-obligatory upon the Catholic Church in Ireland."
The several ecclesiastical provinces followed up these declarations with a surprising unanimity, and although a Vetoistical address to His Holiness was despatched by the Cisalpine club in England, the Irish ideas of Church government triumphed at Rome. Drs. Murray and Milner were received with his habitual kindness by Pius VII.; the ill.u.s.trious Cardinal Gonsalvi was appointed by the Pope to draw up an explanatory rescript, and Monsignor Quarrantotti was removed from his official position. The firmness manifested at that critical period by the Irish church has since been acknowledged with many encomiums by all the successors of Pope Pius VII.
The Irish government under the new Viceroy, Lord Whitworth (the former amba.s.sador to Napoleon), conceiving that the time had come, in the summer of 1814, to suppress the Catholic Board, a proclamation forbidding his Majesty"s subjects to attend future meetings of that body issued from Dublin Castle, on the 3rd of June. The leaders of the body, after consultation at Mr. O"Connell"s residence, decided to bow to this proclamation and to meet no more as a Board; but this did not prevent them, in the following winter, from holding a new series of Aggregate meetings, far more formidable, in some respects, than the deliberative meetings which had been suppressed. In the vigorous and somewhat aggressive tone taken at these meetings, Lord Fingal, the chief of the Catholic peerage, did not concur, and he accordingly withdrew for some years from the agitation, Mr. Shiel, the Bellews, Mr. Ball, Mr. Wyse of Waterford, and a few others, following his example. With O"Connell remained the O"Conor Don, Messrs. Finlay and Lidwell (Protestants), Purcell O"Gorman, and other popular persons. But the cause sustained a heavy blow in the temporary retirement of Lord Fingal and his friends, and an attempt to form a "Catholic a.s.sociation," in 1815, without their co-operation, signally failed.
During the next five years, the fortunes of the great Irish question fluctuated with the exigencies of Imperial parties. The second American war had closed, if not gloriously, at least without considerable loss to England; Napoleon had exchanged Elba for St. Helena: Wellington was the Achilles of the Empire, and Castlereagh its Ulysses. Yet it was not in the nature of those free Islanders, the danger and pressure of foreign war removed, to remain always indifferent to the two great questions of domestic policy--Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation and Parliamentary Reform. In the session of 1816, a motion of Sir John Newport"s to inquire into the state of Ireland, was successfully resisted by Sir Robert Peel, but the condition and state of public feeling in England could not be as well ignored by a Parliament sitting in London. In returning from the opening of the Houses in January, 1817, the Regent was hooted in the street, and his carriage riddled with stones. A reward of 1,000 pounds, issued for the apprehension of the ringleaders, only gave additional _eclat_ to the fact, without leading to the apprehension of the a.s.sailants.
The personal unpopularity of the Regent seems to have increased, in proportion as death removed from him all those who stood nearest to the throne. In November, 1817, his oldest child, the Princess Charlotte, married to Leopold, since King of Belgium, died in childbed; in 1818, the aged Queen Charlotte died; in January, 1820, the old King, in the eighty-second year of his age, departed this life. Immediately afterwards the former Princess of Wales, long separated from her profligate husband, returned from the Continent to claim her rightful position as Queen Consort. The disgraceful accusations brought against her, the trial before the House of Lords which followed, the courage and eloquence of her counsel, Brougham and Denman, the eagerness with which the people made her cause their own, are all well remembered events, and all beside the purpose of this history. The unfortunate lady died after a short illness, on the 7th of August, 1821; the same month in which Ms Majesty--George IV.
--departed on that Irish journey, so satirized in the undying verse of Moore and Byron.
Two other deaths, far more affecting than any among the mortalities of royalty, marked the period at which we have arrived. These were the death of Curran in 1817, and the death of Grattan, in 1820.
Curran, after his failure to be returned for Newry, in 1812, had never again attempted public life. He remained in his office of Master of the Rolls, but his health began to fail sensibly. During the summers of 1816 and "17, he sought for recreation in Scotland, England and France, but the charm which travel could not give--the charm of a cheerful spirit--was wanting. In October, 1817, his friend, Charles Phillips, was suddenly called to his bed-side at Brompton, near London, and found him with one side of his face and body paralyzed cold. "And this was all," says his friend, "that remained of Curran--the light of society--the glory of the forum-- the Fabricius of the senate--the idol of his country."
Yes! even to less than this, was he soon to sink. On the evening of the 14th of October, he expired, in the 68th year of his age, leaving a public reputation as free from blemish as ever did any man who had acted a leading part, in times like those through which he had pa.s.sed.
He was interred in London, but twenty years afterwards, the committee of the Glasnevin Cemetery, near Dublin, obtained permission of his representatives to remove his ashes to their grounds, where they now finally repose.
A tomb modelled from the tomb of Scipio covers the grave, bearing the simple but sufficient inscription--CURRAN.
Thus was fulfilled the words he had uttered long before--"The last duties will be paid by that country on which they are devolved; nor will it be for charity that a little earth will be given to my bones. Tenderly will those duties be paid, as the debt of well-earned affection, and of grat.i.tude not ashamed of her tears."
Grattan"s last days were characteristic of his whole life. As the session of 1820 progressed, though suffering from his last struggle with disease, he was stirred by an irresistible desire to make his way to London, and present once more the pet.i.tion of the Catholics. Since the defeat of his Relief Bill of 1813, there had been some estrangement between him and the more advanced section of the agitators, headed by O"Connell. This he was anxious, perhaps, to heal or to overcome. He thought, moreover, that even if he should die in the effort, it would be, as he said himself, "a good end." Amid--
"The trees which a nation had given, and which bowed As if each brought a new civic crown to his head,"
he consulted with the Catholic delegates early in May.
O"Connell was the spokesman, and the scene may yet be rendered immortal by some great national artist. All present felt that the aged patriot was dying, but still he would go once more to London, to fall, as he said, "at his post." In leaving Ireland he gave to his oldest friends directions for his funeral--that he might be buried in the little churchyard of Moyanna, on the estate the people gave him in 1782! He reached London, by slow stages, at the end of May, and proposed to be in his place in the House on the 4th of June. But this gratification was not permitted him: on the morning of the 4th, at six o"clock, he called his son to his bed-side, and ordered him to bring him a paper containing his last political opinions. "Add to it," he said, with all his old love of ant.i.thesis, "that I die with a love of liberty in my heart, and this declaration in favour of my country, in my hand."