CHAPTER VI.
THE EARLIER PART OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. THE ACQUISITION OF INDEPENDENCE BY THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
When we come to the reign of George III we have arrived at a specially interesting period of Irish history. For we are no longer dealing with a state of society that has wholly pa.s.sed away; the great events that occurred towards the close of the eighteenth century are continually referred to as bearing, at least by a.n.a.logy, on the questions of the present day. It is for the honest historian to examine how far that a.n.a.logy is real, and how far it is delusive.
For some time after the accession of George III, the state of Ireland was almost as miserable as before. Trade and manufactures being nearly crushed out, want of employment brought the people in the towns to the brink of starvation. In the country, although the middle cla.s.ses were on the whole becoming more prosperous, the condition of the labourers and cottiers was wretched in the extreme. It is not to be wondered at therefore that we now hear of the commencement of two movements which were destined later on to play so important a part in the history of Ireland--the agitation against the payment of t.i.thes and the rise of secret societies. Few men at the present day could be found who would attempt to justify the t.i.the system as it prevailed in the eighteenth century. It was not merely that the starving peasantry were forced to contribute towards the maintenance of a religion in which they did not believe, but the whole manner of levying and collecting the t.i.thes was bad; and what made them still more annoying was the fact that the clergy never thought of performing the duties for which t.i.thes were supposed to exist; the large majority of the rectors did not even reside in their parishes. The princ.i.p.al secret societies were the Oakboys and the Steelboys of the north, and the Whiteboys of the south. The northern societies soon came to an end; but the organization of the Whiteboys continued to spread, and for a time it a.s.sumed alarming proportions. Commencing as a war against t.i.the proctors, the enclosure of commons, and the subst.i.tution of grazing land for tillage, they went on to commit outrages of various sorts, and something like a reign of terror spread over a large tract of country. But it may safely be said that generally speaking their conduct was not nearly so violent as that of other secret societies of a later date; and the evidence of any foreign influence being at work, or of religious animosity being connected with the movement, is slight.
It is interesting to observe that, whenever there was a violent and abnormal outbreak of crime, the Irish Parliament did not hesitate to pa.s.s special laws to meet the case. Such measures as the Whiteboy Act of 1787, or the Insurrection Act and the Habeas Corpus Suppression Act of 1796, which were readily pa.s.sed whilst the Irish Parliament was completely independent, are frequently referred to by modern agitators as amongst the brutal Coercion Acts which the tyranny of England has forced on an innocent people.
The harshness of the Penal Laws was steadily being relaxed. All restrictions on worship, or the number of clergy allowed, had long since fallen into abeyance. Roman Catholic students were admitted into Trinity College, Dublin; and the authorities of the University expressed their readiness to appoint a Divinity Professor of their own faith for them if they wished it. The restrictions on property were becoming obsolete; and political restrictions were not felt so keenly since most of the Roman Catholics would have been ineligible for the franchise on the ground of their poverty even if the stumbling block of religion had been removed. And the loyal sentiments expressed by the Roman Catholics made the best of the Protestants all the more anxious to repeal the laws which they had never regarded with favour.
Then amongst educated people not only in Ireland but elsewhere, religion was ceasing to be the great line of cleavage; other matters--political, social, and commercial--were occupying men"s thoughts and forming new combinations.
The political state of the country was peculiar. The real government was carried on by the Lord Lieutenant and his officials; but as the hereditary revenue did not supply funds sufficient for that purpose, it was necessary to have recourse to Parliament. And the const.i.tution of that Parliament was as extraordinary as most things in Ireland.
A session was usually held every second year, but a Parliament might last for a whole reign. The House of Commons consisted of 300 members, of whom only 64 represented counties, and most of the rest nominally sat for small boroughs, but really were appointed by certain individuals. It was at one time computed that 124 members were nominated by 53 peers, whilst 91 others were chosen by 52 commoners.
A large number of the members--a third of the whole house, it is said--were in receipt of pensions, or held offices of profit under the Crown. Of course there was no such thing as party government--in fact, parties did not exist, though individuals might sometimes vote against the wish of the government. The Lord Lieutenant, however, managed to retain a majority by what would now be called flagrant and wholesale bribery. Peerages, sinecures and pensions were bestowed with a lavish hand; and every appointment, ecclesiastical or civil, was treated as a reward for political services. But history affords many instances of how a.s.semblies const.i.tuted in what seems to be the most unsatisfactory way possible, have been remarkable for the ability and patriotism they have shown; and certainly this was the case with that unrepresentative collection of Protestant landlords, Dublin barristers, and paid officials, who composed the Irish Parliament. A "National" party arose (I shall presently explain what was the meaning attached to that word at the time) who strove to win for Ireland the laws which in England had been enacted long before and which were regarded as the very foundations of British liberty. Statutes were pa.s.sed limiting the duration of Parliament to eight years; establishing the _Habeas Corpus_; and making judges irremoveable. Afterwards, most of the Penal Laws were repealed; and at the same time the disabilities of the Protestant Dissenters were abolished.
But meanwhile foreign affairs were tending to bring about changes yet more sweeping. When England went to war with both France and Spain, the condition of Ireland was well-nigh desperate. The country was almost denuded of regular troops; steps had indeed been taken for the establishment of a militia, and arms had actually been purchased; but in the hopelessly insolvent condition of the Irish Exchequer, it was impossible to do anything further. And a French invasion might arrive at any moment. At this crisis the country gentlemen came forward. They formed their tenants and dependants into regiments of volunteers, of which they took command themselves, and strained their resources to the utmost in order to bear the expense of the undertaking. And the rank and file--farmers and labourers--seemed fired by the same enthusiasm. The movement spread rapidly over the country, but it possessed more vitality in Ulster than elsewhere. It soon became evident that Ulster volunteers may form a body not to be disregarded.
The troubles of England, however, were not limited to the Continent.
The American War broke out. We, who view the question impartially through the long vista of years, can see that there was much to be said for the English claim. The mother country had been brought to the verge of bankruptcy by a long and exhausting war waged with France for the protection of the American colonies; surely it was only fair that those colonies, who had taken but a very small part in the war, should at least bear a fraction of the cost. But the cry of "No taxation without representation" was raised; the Americans rebelled; and England was placed in the humiliating position of being defeated by her own colonists. During that period Ireland remained thoroughly loyal; the efforts of Franklin and his party to enlist Ireland on their side were as complete a failure as those of the French emissaries had been shortly before. But it was inevitable that the success of the American revolution should have a strong effect on Irish affairs. Amongst the northern Presbyterians there had always been a feeling somewhat akin to Republicanism; and (as we have seen) many of their relations were fighting in Washington"s army. Then in Ireland there was something much worse than taxation without representation: the English Parliament, in which Ireland had no part, claimed to legislate for Ireland and was actually at that moment keeping the country in a state of semi-starvation by imposing severe restrictions on commerce. Irish politicians read the offers of conciliation made by the English Government to the revolted colonies, in which not only was the power of taxation given up and freedom of internal legislation established, but all power of the Parliament of Great Britain over America was renounced; and began to ask whether England could withhold from loyal Irishmen the boons which she offered to rebellious Americans. The claims were urged in Parliament and at meetings of the volunteers and other public bodies; the English Government for some time refused to grant any concession; but at length, fearing an Irish Revolution, gave way on every point. They granted, in fact, as an Irish statesman expressed it, "everything short of separation." First (in spite of the opposition of the English manufacturing cla.s.ses) all restrictions on trade were swept away; then, in 1782, the Declaratory Act of George I, by virtue of which the English Parliament had claimed the right to legislate for Ireland, was repealed, and with it went the right of the English House of Lords to act as a court of final appeal for Ireland; the restrictions imposed by Poyning"s Act on the legislative powers of the Irish Parliament were abolished; and the Irish Executive was made practically dependent on the Irish Parliament by the Mutiny Act, which had previously been perpetual, being limited to two years.
Thus Ireland became a nation in a sense she had never been before. The only tie to any power beyond sea was that the King of England was also King of Ireland; Ireland could legislate for itself, and enter into commercial treaties with foreign powers; but, on the other hand, it had to pay its own debts and provide its own army and navy.
As Grattan was not merely the most prominent politician of the period, but also the leader of the now triumphant "National" party, we may fairly take the views expressed by him as representative of those of the party that followed him. A study of his speeches and letters will show how utterly different were the ideas and aims of the National party of 1782 from those of the Nationalists of to-day. In the first place, Grattan was intensely loyal; that is to say, it never occurred to him that Ireland could ever wish to be independent in the sense of not being subject to the King of England, or could seek to be united to any other power. Secondly, he was intensely aristocratic. His idea was that Government should and would always be in the hands of the propertied and educated cla.s.ses; that Parliament should consist of country gentlemen and professional men from the towns, elected on a narrow franchise. (It must be remembered that the country gentlemen had recently given evidence of their patriotic zeal by the inauguration of the Volunteer movement; and the ability and eloquence of the Irish Bar at that period is proverbial). Thirdly, he regarded Protestant ascendancy as a fundamental necessity. It is true that other politicians at the time saw that they were faced with a serious difficulty: the very principles to which they had appealed and by virtue of which they had obtained their legislative independence made it illogical that three-fourths of the community should be unrepresented; whereas if votes were given to the Roman Catholic majority it was inevitable that they would soon become eligible for seats in the Legislature; and if so, the Protestant minority must be swamped, and the country ruled by a very different cla.s.s and according to very different ideas from those which prevailed in the Parliament of which Grattan was a member. And would a Roman Catholic Parliament and nation care to remain subject to a King of England whose t.i.tle depended on his being a Protestant? Grattan, however, swept all such considerations aside with an easy carelessness. He believed that under the influences of perfect toleration large numbers of Roman Catholics would conform; and the remainder, quite satisfied with their position, would never dream of attacking the Church or any other existing inst.i.tution. We may smile at his strange delusions as to the future; but he was probably not more incorrect than many people are to-day in their conjectures as to what the world will be like a hundred years hence; and if we try to place ourselves in Grattan"s position, there is something to be said for his conjectures. At that time the influence of the Church of Rome was at its lowest; Spain had almost ceased to exist as a European power; and in France the state of religious thought was very different from what it had been in the days of Louis XIV. Irish Roman Catholic gentlemen who sent their sons to be educated in France found that they came back Voltaireans; even the young men who went to study for the priesthood in French seminaries became embued with liberalism to an extent that would make a modern Ultramontane shudder. Then in Ireland all local power was in the hands of the landlords; the Roman Catholic bishops possessed hardly any political influence. It would have required more keenness than a mere enthusiast like Grattan possessed to foresee that the time would come when all this would be absolutely reversed. What was there in the eighteenth century to lead him to surmise that in the twentieth the landlords would be ruined and gone, and that local government would have become vested in District Councils in which Protestants would have no power, but over which the authority of the bishops would be absolute?
So Grattan and his party entered on the new conditions of political life with airy optimism. But there were, both in England and France, shrewder and more far-seeing men than he, who realised from the first that the new state of affairs could not possibly be a lasting one, but must lead either to union or complete separation. Of course so long as all parties happened to be of the same mind, no difficulties would arise; but it was merely a question of time when some cause of friction would occur, and then the inherent weakness of the arrangement would be apparent. A moment"s thought will show that for Ireland to be subject to the English King but independent of the English Parliament was a physical impossibility. The king would act on the advice of his ministers who were responsible to the English Parliament; either the Irish Parliament must obey, or a deadlock would ensue. Then, suppose that England were to become engaged in a war of which the people of Ireland disapproved, Ireland might not only refuse to make any voluntary grant in aid, but even declare her ports neutral, withdraw her troops, and pa.s.s a vote of censure on the English Government. Again, with regard to trade; Ireland might adopt a policy of protection against England, and enter into a treaty for free trade with some foreign country which might be at the moment England"s deadliest rival. The confusion that might result would be endless.
Considerations such as these presented themselves at once to the master-mind of Pitt. He pointed out that as England had relinquished her right to limit Irish trade for the benefit of English, she was in fairness relieved from the corresponding duty of protecting Ireland against foreign foes; the two countries should therefore both contribute to their joint defence in proportion to their means. He proposed that regular treaties should be drawn up between the two countries, by which Ireland should contribute a certain sum to the navy, free trade between Ireland and England should be established, and regulations made whereby the duties payable on foreign goods should be a.s.similated. By such measures as these he hoped to make things run smoothly for a time at least; but when his projects were rejected by the Irish Parliament, he saw more clearly than ever that sooner or later the Gordian knot would have to be cut, and that the only way of cutting it would be the Union.
CHAPTER VII.
THE INDEPENDENT PARLIAMENT. THE REGENCY QUESTION. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REBELLION.
That Ireland increased in prosperity rapidly towards the end of the eighteenth century, there is no doubt. Politicians will say that this prosperity came from the increased powers gained by the Parliament in 1782; economists will reply that that had little if anything to say to it; far more important causes being the abolition of trade restrictions and the relaxation of the Penal Laws, which encouraged people to employ their money in remunerative works at home instead of having to send it abroad. It may sound somewhat Hibernian to mention the rise in rents, as another cause of prosperity; yet anyone who knows Ireland will admit that it is not impossible; and it was certainly put forward gravely by writers of the period who were by no means bia.s.sed towards the landlord interest. Thus McKenna, writing in 1793, says:--
"In several parts of Ireland the rents have been tripled within 40 years. This was not so much the effect as the cause of national prosperity; ... before the above-mentioned period, when rent was very low and other taxes little known, half the year was lavished in carousing. But as soon as labour became compulsory, fortunes have been raised both by the tenantry and landlords, and civilization has advanced materially."
There was also another cause of prosperity, which modern economists cannot look on with much favour. It was the policy of the Irish Government to grant enormous bounties for the development of various industries, especially the growth of corn. This no doubt gave much employment, promoted the breaking up of gra.s.s lands, the subdivision of farms and the erection of mills; and so long as the price of corn was maintained, brought much prosperity to the country, and thus was indirectly one cause of the enormous increase of population, which rose from about 2,370,000 in 1750, to about 4,500,000 in 1797. But when, during the nineteenth century, prices fell, the whole structure, built on a fict.i.tious foundation, came down with a crash.
Not long after the Irish Parliament had acquired its independence, a controversy arose which, although it had no immediate result, yet was of vast importance on account of the principle involved. The king became insane. It was necessary that there should be a Regent, and it was obvious that the Prince of Wales was the man for the post. But the British const.i.tution contained no provision for making the appointment. After much deliberation, the English Parliament decided to pa.s.s an Act appointing the Prince Regent and defining his powers, the Royal a.s.sent being given by Commission. The two houses of the Irish Parliament, however, without waiting for the Prince to be invested with the Regency in England, voted an address to him asking him to undertake the duties of Regent, without naming any limitations.
As the king recovered almost immediately, the whole matter ended in nothing; but thoughtful men realized what was involved in the position which the Irish Parliament had taken up. Grattan"s resolution was to the effect that in addressing the Prince to take upon himself the government of the country the Lords and Commons of Ireland were exercising an undoubted right and discharging an indispensable duty to which in the emergency they alone were competent. By the Act of Henry VIII the King of England was _ipso facto_ King of Ireland. An Irish Act of William and Mary declared that the Crown of Ireland and all the powers and prerogatives belonging to it should be for ever annexed to and dependent on the Crown of England. And the Act of 1782 made the Great Seal of Great Britain necessary to the summoning of an Irish Parliament and the pa.s.sing of Irish Acts. Now did the words "King"
and "Crown" merely refer to the individual who had the right to wear a certain diadem, or did they include the chief executive magistrate, whoever that might be--King, Queen or Regent? It was ably contended by Lord Clare that the latter was the only possible view; for the Regent of Great Britain must hold the Great Seal; and so he alone could summon an Irish Parliament; therefore the Irish Parliament in choosing their Regent had endangered the only bond which existed between England and Ireland--the necessary and perpetual ident.i.ty of the executive. If the Irish Parliament appointed one person Regent and the English Parliament another, separation or war might be the result; and even as it was, the appointment of the Prince with limited powers in England and unlimited in Ireland, must lead to confusion. But more than that; suppose that the House of Brunswick were to die out, and another Act of Settlement were to become necessary, might not the Irish Parliament choose a different sovereign from the one chosen by England? Const.i.tutional lawyers recollected that such a difficulty nearly arose between Scotland and England, but was settled by the Act of Union; and that it was the recognition of Lambert Simnel by the Irish Parliament that was the immediate cause of the pa.s.sing of Poyning"s Act; and saw what the revived powers of the Irish Parliament might lead to.
Although the Parliament had now become independent, there was still nothing like a responsible ministry as we now understand it, and the government managed to maintain its control, partly by the peculiar composition of the Parliament (to which I have already referred), and partly by the disposal of favours. And it cannot be denied that the Parliament pa.s.sed much useful legislation. Two questions, however, were now coming forward on which the whole political condition of the country depended, and which were closely entwined with one another.
The first was the reform of the legislature, so as to make the House of Commons a really representative body; the second was the final abolition of the Penal Laws. As to reform, the Parliament was naturally slow (did any political a.s.sembly in the world ever divest itself of its own privileges without pressure from without?); but as to the abolition of the Penal Laws there was a cordiality which is remarkable, and which is seldom referred to by the Nationalist writers of the present day when they discourse about the Penal Laws. With regard to social matters--such as admission to Corporations, taking Degrees at the University, and holding medical professorships,--there was hardly any hesitation; the political question, however, was more difficult. In both England and Ireland at that time a forty-shilling freehold gave a vote. That was a matter of slight importance in England, as the number of small freeholders was limited, land being usually let for a term of years. In Ireland, however, the ordinary arrangement was for peasants to hold their sc.r.a.ps of land for life; and land having recently increased in value enormously, a large proportion of these were of the value of forty shillings. Hence, the whole const.i.tuency would be altered; thousands of new electors, all of them poor and illiterate, would be added in many const.i.tuencies; and the representation of the country would at once pa.s.s into Roman Catholic hands. To fix a higher qualification for Roman Catholics than for Protestants would be not to abolish but to perpetuate the Penal Laws; to deprive the existing voters of the franchise was out of the question; hence the franchise was granted but not without considerable hesitation on the part of the more thoughtful members. On the other hand it was urged with great force that to give these privileges to the uneducated ma.s.s but to continue the disabilities of the Roman Catholic gentry by not allowing them to sit in Parliament was absurd.
The proposal to abolish the religious test in the case of Members of Parliament was, however, defeated.
Looking back, with the light of later history to aid us, it is interesting to see how much more correct were Lord Clare"s predictions of the future than Grattan"s. Grattan (as I have already explained), taking his ideas from his lay friends among the cultured cla.s.ses, and seeing the decline of the Papal influence on the continent, considered that anyone who regarded Popery as a political influence of the future totally misunderstood the principles which then governed human action; for controverted points of religion (such as belief in the Real Presence) had ceased to be a principle of human action. He maintained that the cause of the Pope, as a political force, was as dead as that of the Stuarts; that priestcraft was a superannuated folly; and that in Ireland a new political religion had arisen, superseding all influence of priest and parson, and burying for ever theological discord in the love of civil and religious liberty. Clare, who was not only a shrewder observer but a much more deeply read man, realized that in order to find out what would guide the Roman Catholic Church in the future one must look not at the pa.s.sing opinions of laymen but at the const.i.tution of the Church; he foresaw that if the artificial supports which maintained the Protestant ascendancy were removed, the mere force of numbers would bring about a Roman Catholic ascendancy; and in enumerating the results of that he even said that the time would come when the Church would decide on all questions as to marriage.
In order to show how far Lord Clare"s expectations have been verified, I will quote, not the words of an Orange speaker or writer, but of an eminent Roman Catholic, the Rev. J.T. McNicholas, O.P., in his recently published book on "The New Marriage Legislation" which, being issued with an _Imprimatur_, will be received by all parties as a work of authority. He says:--
"Many Protestants may think the Church presumptuous in decreeing their marriages valid or invalid according as they have or have not complied with certain conditions. As the Church cannot err, neither can she be presumptuous. She alone is judge of the extent of her power. Anyone validly baptised, either in the Church or among heretics, becomes thereby a subject of the Roman Catholic Church."
But whilst politicians were amusing themselves with fervid but useless oratory in Parliament, stirring events were taking place elsewhere.
To trace in these pages even a bare outline of the main incidents of those terrible years is impossible; and yet without doing so it is not easy to obtain a correct view of the tangled skein of Irish politics at the time. In studying any history of the period, we cannot but be struck by observing on the one hand how completely in some respects circ.u.mstances and ideas have changed since then; it is hard to realize that Ulster was for a time the scene of wild disorder--a.s.sa.s.sination, arson, burglary and every form of outrage--brought about mainly by a society which claimed to be, and to a certain extent was, formed by a union of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic parties--whilst the south and west remained fairly orderly and loyal. And yet on the other hand we find many of the phenomena which have been characteristic of later periods of Irish political agitation, already flourishing. Boycotting existed in fact, though the name was not yet invented; also nocturnal raids for arms, the sacking of lonely farmhouses, the intimidation of witnesses and the mutilation of cattle. Again, we see all through the history of Irish secret societies that their organization has been so splendid that the ordinary law has been powerless against them; for witnesses will not give evidence and juries will not convict if they know that to do so will mean certain ruin and probable death; and yet those same societies have always possessed one element of weakness: however terrible their oaths of secrecy have been, the Government have never had the slightest difficulty in finding out, through their confidential agents, everything that has taken place at their meetings, and what their projects are.
As early as 1785 there had been two societies carrying on something like civil war on a small scale in the north. How they originated, is a matter of dispute; but at any rate before they had long been in existence, the religious element became supreme--as it does sooner or later in every Irish movement; whatever temporary alliances may be formed for other reasons, religion always ultimately becomes the line of cleavage. In this case, the "Peep of Day Boys" were Protestants, the "Defenders" Roman Catholic. Some of the outrages committed by the Defenders were too horrible to put in print; many Roman Catholic families fled the country on account of the treatment which they received from the Peep of Day Boys, and took refuge among their co-religionists in the south.
But now a greater crisis was at hand. The terrible upheaval of the French Revolution was shaking European society to its foundation. The teaching of Paine and Voltaire had borne fruit; the wildest socialism was being preached in every land. Ulster had shown sympathy with Republican ideas at the time of the American War of Independence; and now a large number of the Presbyterians of Belfast eagerly accepted the doctrines of Jacobinism. Nothing can sound more charmingly innocent than the objects of the United Irish Society as put forward publicly in 1791; the members solemnly and religiously pledged themselves to use all their influence to obtain an impartial and adequate representation of the Irish nation in Parliament; and as a means to this end to endeavour to secure the co-operation of Irishmen of all religious persuasions. Some writers have tried to make out that if the Relief Act of 1793 had been extended in 1795 by another Act enabling Roman Catholics to become Members of Parliament; and if a Reform Bill had been pa.s.sed making the House of Commons really representative, the society would never have been anything but a perfectly legal and harmless a.s.sociation. Of course it is always possible to suggest what might have been; but in this case it is far more probable that if Parliament had been so reformed as to be a fair reflex of the opinion of the country, it would immediately have pa.s.sed a resolution declaring Ireland a Republic and forming an alliance with France; for whatever objects were stated in public, the real guiding spirits of the United Irish Society from the beginning (as of other societies of a later date with equally innocent names) were ardent republicans, who joined the society in order to further those views; it is absurd to suggest that men who were actually in correspondence with the leaders of the Directory and were trying to bring about an invasion from France in order to aid them in establishing a Republic on Jacobin lines would have been deterred by the pa.s.sing of a Bill making it lawful for Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament. Nor again is it reasonable to contend that earnest-minded Roman Catholics would, in consequence of the failure of such a Bill to become law, have rebelled against a Government under which they were able to exercise their religion in peace and which was at that moment founding and endowing a College for the training of candidates for the priesthood, in favour of one which had confiscated the seminaries and was sending the priests to the guillotine. The fact seems to have been that the society was formed by Presbyterians, for political reasons; they tried to get the Roman Catholics to join them, but the lower cla.s.s Roman Catholics cared very little about seats in Parliament; so the founders of the society cleverly added abolition of t.i.thes and taxes, and reduction of rents, to their original programme; this drew in numbers of Roman Catholics, whose principles were really the very ant.i.thesis of Jacobinism.
It is a fair instance of the confusion which has always reigned throughout Irish politics, that after the Relief Act of 1793 had been pa.s.sed, the Catholic Committee expressed their jubilation by voting 2,000 for a statue to the King, and presenting a gold medal to their Secretary, Wolfe Tone, who was at that moment scheming to set up a Jacobin Republic.
This celebrated man, Wolfe Tone, was not unlike many others who have posed as Irish patriots. Hating the very name of England, he schemed to get one appointment after another from the English Government--at one time seeking to be put in command of a filibustering expedition to raid the towns of South America, at another time trying for a post in India; hating the Pope and the priests, he acted as Secretary to the Catholic Committee; then hating Grattan and the Irish Parliament and everything to say to it, he showed his patriotism by devoting his energies to trying to persuade the French Republican Government to invade Ireland.
On the 21st of September, 1795, an incident occurred which, though apparently trivial at the time, was destined to be of great historical importance. Ulster had now for some time been in a state bordering on anarchy; not only were the secret societies constantly at war, but marauding bands, pretending to belong to one or other of the societies, were ravishing the country. Something like a pitched battle was fought between the Protestants and the Defenders, in which the Defenders, although they were the stronger party and made the attack, were utterly routed. In the evening, the victors agreed to form themselves into a society which should bear the name of William of Orange. There had previously been some societies called by that name; but this was the foundation of the Orange Society of the present day.
The oath which at first was taken by every member of the society was to defend the king and his heirs so long as he or they support the Protestant ascendancy. (This conditional form of oath of allegiance has long since been abolished.) It was industriously circulated by the United Irishmen that the actual words of the oath were: "I will be true to the King and Government and I will exterminate as far as I am able the Catholics of Ireland." There is no evidence, however, that any words of the kind ever formed part of an oath prescribed by the Orange Society; and those who make the statement now must be aware that they are repeating a calumny.
After this time, the quarrel gradually tended more and more to become a religious one; the Peep of Day Boys becoming merged in the Orange Society, and the Protestants slowly withdrawing from the United Irish Society; on the other hand, the Defenders ultimately coalesced with the United Irishmen and thus, by an illogical combination of inconsistent forces, formed the party which brought about the terrible rebellion.
The close of the year 1796 was one of the most critical moments in the history of England. On the continent the power of republican France under the genius of Napoleon and his generals was sweeping all before it. England was in a state of bankruptcy, and almost as completely isolated as she had been in the time of Elizabeth. Wolfe Tone and his Irish plotters saw their opportunity as clearly as their predecessors had in the times of Edward Bruce and Philip II. They laid a statement of the condition of Ireland before the French Government which, though as full of exaggerations as most things in Irish history, was sufficiently based on fact to lead the French Government to believe that if a French force were landed in Ireland, the Irishmen in the British Army and Navy would mutiny, the Yeomen would join the French, and the whole of the North of Ireland would rise in rebellion.
Accordingly a French fleet of forty-three sail, carrying about 15,000 troops, sailed from Brest for Bantry Bay. No human power could have prevented their landing; and had they done so, they could have marched to Cork and seized the town without any difficulty; the United Irishmen would have risen, and the whole country might have been theirs. But the same power which saved England from the Armada of Catholic Spain 200 years before now shielded her from the invasion of republican France. Storms and fogs wrought havoc throughout the French fleet. In less than a month from the time of their starting, Wolfe Tone and the shattered remains of the invading force were back at Brest, without having succeeded in landing a single man on the Irish sh.o.r.e.
Had this projected invasion taken place fifty years before, amongst the French troops would have been the Irish brigade, who were always yearning for the opportunity of making an attack on their native land.
But half a century had caused strange changes; the Irish brigade had fallen with the collapse of the French monarchy; and some of the few survivors were now actually serving under King George III.
It was a remarkable fact that no one in the neighbourhood of Bantry showed the slightest sympathy with the Frenchmen. The few resident gentry, the moment the danger was evident, called together the yeomanry and organized their tenantry to oppose the foe--though the utmost they could have done would have been to delay the progress of the invaders for a little at the cost of their own lives; and the peasantry did all in their power to support their efforts.
If it is possible to a.n.a.lyse the state of political feeling at this time, we may say that first there was a very limited number of thoughtful men who saw that after the Acts of 1782 and 1793 either separation or union was inevitable, and who consequently opposed all idea of parliamentary reform, because they thought it would tend to separation and make union more difficult. A second party (a leading member of which was Charlemont) approved of the existing state of things, and believed that it could be continued; a third (of which Grattan was one) fondly imagined that all would go smoothly if only a Catholic Relief Bill and a Reform Bill were carried, and so directed all their efforts towards those objects; and a fourth believed that no reform would be granted without pressure, and so were ready even to work up a rebellion in order to obtain it; but that was a very small party at best, and was soon carried away by the whirlwind of those revolutionists who cared nothing about the Parliament then sitting in Dublin, or about any other possible Parliament which might own allegiance to the King of England, for their real aim was to sever Ireland from England altogether and establish a separate republic. As Wolfe Tone wrote: "To break the connection with England and to a.s.sert the independence of my country were my objects."
It is this party that is represented by the Nationalists of to-day, except that when they look for foreign aid, their hopes lie in the direction of Germany rather than France. I know that this remark may call forth a storm of denials from those who judge by the speeches which Nationalist leaders have made in England when trying to win the Radical vote, or in the Colonies when aiming at getting money from people who had not studied the question. But I judge not by speeches such as those, but by statements continually put forward by political writers and orators when they have cast off the mask and are addressing their sympathizers in Ireland and America:--
"The Nationalists of Ireland stand for the complete independence of Ireland, and they stand for nothing else. In the English Empire they have no part or lot, and they wish to have no part or lot. We stand for the Irish nation, free and independent and outside the English Empire."--(_Irish Freedom_.)
"Our aim is the establishment of an Irish Republic, for the simple and sole reason that no other ending of our quarrel with England could be either adequate or final. This is the one central and vital point of agreement among all who are worthy of the name of Irish Nationalists--that Ireland is a separate nation--separate in thought, mind, in ideals and outlooks. Come what may, we work for Ireland as separate from England as Germany is separate."--(Ib.)
"Year by year the pilgrimage to the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone grows more significant of the rising tide of militant and uncompromising Nationalism, more significant of the fact that Young Ireland has turned away from the false thing that has pa.s.sed for patriotism, and has begun to reverence only the men and the things and the memories that stand for Ireland an independent nation. Paying tribute to the memory of men like Tone, lifting up the language of Ireland from the mire, linking up the present with the old days of true patriotic endeavour--these are the doings that will eventually bring our land from the mazes of humbug into the clear dawn that heralds Nationhood."--(_The Leinster Leader_.)
"The object aimed at by the advanced National party is the recovery of Ireland"s national independence and the severance of all political connection with England."--(_J. Devoy_.)
"In the better days that are approaching, the soil of Ireland will be populated by a race of Irishmen free and happy and thriving, owning no master under the Almighty, and owning no flag but the green flag of an independent Irish nation."--(_W.
O"Brien, M.P._)