| ; |
It is deplorable to reflect that it
was the Members of Grattan's "independent Parliament" who thus
allowed themselves to be bought and sold. Had the Parliamentary reforms
that had been so urgently pressed for by the more enlightened among the
Members been carried, such abuses could not have occurred, but the representatives
showed a disposition to reform everything but themselves. The English
Government became ashamed of their part in the bargain and showed a disposition
to withdraw from their engagements. Sixteen new peerages looked badly,
even if by this means Lord Cornwallis had, in Castlereagh's words, been
able to "buy out and secure to the Crown for ever the fee-simple
of Irish corruption"; in their new-found contrition the main movers
were preparing to sacrifice their principal agent, Cornwallis. The cool,
cynical voice of Castlereagh is heard commenting on the business. He,
at least, has no illusions and makes no pretences. "It appears,"
he writes to Cooke, Under-Secretary, on June 21, 1800, "that the
Cabinet, after having carried the measure by force of influence, of which
they were apprised in every dispatch sent from hence for the last eighteen
months, wish to forget all this; they turn short round and say it would
be a pity to tarnish all that has been so well done, by giving any such
shock to the public sentiment...The only effect of such a proceeding will
be to add the weight of their testimony to that of the anti-Unionists,
in proclaiming the profligacy of the means by which the measure has been
accomplished."[1]
[1] Castlereagh Correspondence, iii, 330-339.
Of the two high officials chiefly responsible for the methods employed
in carrying the Union there is no doubt that Castlereagh was by far the
abler man. Clear-sighted, unbending, and imperturbable, he was hated in
Ireland as being "so very unlike an Irishman," and he allowed
no scruples of conscience to stand in the way when carrying out the policy
of his superiors, even while despising it and them. His political abilities
were to be shown on other fields of European diplomacy; but it is remarkable,
as a testimony to a certain rectitude of personal character, that old
political foes, like Grattan and Plunket, bore him no resentment in after
life. Grattan made it a last personal request to Plunket that he would
cultivate friendly relations with his former opponent. Cornwallis was
of a different temperament. Well-meaning but weak, he allowed measures
to be carried and put in force of which he heartly disapproved, though
he made little effort to check them. If the life of an Irish Viceroy was
to him "his ideal of perfect misery "[2] he yet did nothing
to make it respected. "Hating the whole dirty business," he
yet saw it through, just as, during the rebellion, he had permitted the
excesses of the military over which he groaned. His sentiments were excellent
and he sought no personal ends, but he had not the strength of character
to resist the stream of violent tendencies with which he found himself
surrounded; in the end it was Castlereagh who protested against the intention
of the Ministry to make him their scapegoat.[3]
[2] Cornwallis Correspondence, ii, 358.
[3] Castlereagh Correspondence, iii, 326-327; 330. The proposal to make
Castlereagh's father, Lord Londonderry, a British peer, was deferred with
his express consent, ibid., 345, 351-52.
The only true test of the Union was in its results. The first result universally
expected was the declaration of Catholic relief. That Pitt had intended
this to be the immediate outcome of his measure is clear. It is plain,
too, that the Viceroy and Castlereagh had been authorized unofficially
to hold out hopes of concessions to the Catholic bishops as an inducement
to them to support the Union—a support which they had loyally given.
This is shown by a remarkable letter addressed by Castlereagh to Pitt,
and by a paper giving Pitt's reasons for resigning rather than to be the
means of disappointing the hopes he had raised.[4]
[4] Castlereagh Correspondence, iv, 8-12, 34-38.
The obstacle that intervened was the violent opposition of the King. George
III. had been persuaded to believe that in signing a bill for Catholic
relief he would be breaking his coronation oath. This had been the position
long taken up by Lord Clare and pressed by him upon the Sovereign. "What
is it this young Lord (Castlereagh) has brought over and is going to throw
at my head?" exclaimed the King on January 28 to Dundas. "The
most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of." He ordered the coronation
oath to be read aloud to him. "Where," he burst out, "is
the power on earth to absolve me from the due observance of every sentence
of that oath?" Pitt was in a dilemma. The King was in an excitable
state of mind and on the borders of one of his recurrent fits of madness.
He openly blamed Pitt and the Catholic cause for having been the cause
of this. A crisis now occurred; Pitt resigned, as he had threatened to
do, and Cornwallis also sent in his resignation. Lord Clare rejoiced that
the question was, as he believed, closed for ever, though Pitt considered
it only deferred. But for himself personally he determined never again
to embroil himself with the Sovereign by bringing forward the Catholic
question, and when in the spring of 1805 a Catholic deputation led by
Lord Fingall waited on Pitt, now again Prime Minister, the members were
bluntly told that they must apply elsewhere, for he intended to oppose
their petition. Pitt died in the following year.[5]
[5] On January 22, 1806.
The two pivots on which the Government of Ireland turned during the years
after the Union were described by Bright in 1849 as "force and alms."
The first Acts of the United Parliament were those for the suppression
of the rebellion in Ireland and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act,
and from that time till 1829, as Peel stated in the House in that year,
Ireland was governed scarcely one year by ordinary law. The Habeas Corpus
Act had been suspended in the country in 1800, from 1802 till 1805, from
1807 till 1810, in 1814, and from 1822 till 1824. Commissions and select
Committees sat upon Irish questions almost every year, distress was rampant
and disturbances frequent. The miseries of the country were to culminate
in the great famine of 1846-48. This was, however, only the climax to
successive seasons of famine, arising immediately out of the shortage
of potatoes, but ultimately out of the pressing poverty of large sections
of the population owing to bad social conditions. Doles and relief works
were applied with a generous hand, but they could not set right ailments
which arose out of a system of things that needed radical reform. The
great struggles during the coming years were to be for better land laws,
freedom from the burden of tithe, disestablishment of the Protestant Church
of Ireland, education, and repeal of the Union. The last was eventually
to transform itself into the demand for Home Rule. Behind all these lay
the as yet unsettled question of emancipation. It is to be remembered
that a legacy of unrest had been left for the new United Parliament to
face. The country was only slowly righting itself after the rebellion,
which had been put down not so much by trained or half-trained troops
as by the exertions of the country gentlemen, who had devoted their whole
time and properties to keeping their neighbourhoods in order, as Lord
de Clifford stated in a letter to Townshend in July, 1799. They were heartily
seconded in their efforts by the Catholic prelates, who denounced rebellion
from their altars, and in many districts which were preparing to rise
held back their flocks by their earnest persuasions and warnings. The
admonitions of leading members of the hierarchy, like Dr. Troy, Archbishop
of Dublin, Dr. Moylan, and others prevented a wider spread of the rebellion
of 1798, and quieted the people after the Union, imploring them to restrain
themselves from hasty action, and themselves accepting without complaint
the rather lame explanations made to them by the Government through Lord
Cornwallis.
Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, who cordially approved the Union, spoke of
the recent civil and religious disorder, as having "shamefully disgraced
the nation"; and Dr. Troy ordered a pastoral against treasonable
practices to be read from every altar in his diocese during the course
of the insurrection. Even the patriotic Bishop Doyle, in 1824, checked
the progress of disaffection in his diocese by a ringing condemnation
of the secret societies of the Defenders and Ribbonmen which were permeating
every part of his parishes. He spoke of them as "a vile and wicked
conspiracy," and of their members as "dupes"; and he admonished
his astonished and terrified hearers to desist from illegal associations
"which have always augmented the evils of our country, and tend to
bring disgrace upon our holy religion."[6] Lalor Sheil pointed out
as an unquestionable fact that it was the exertions of this Bishop, living
in one of the most disturbed parts of the country, which tamed many an
insurgent congregation into submission. The fact that the Ribbonmen aimed
at the restoration of the Catholic Church as one of their tenets did not
reconcile Dr. Doyle to the association of these aims with agrarian crime;
it rather stimulated the horror he felt at any such alliance between the
Church and brutal lawlessness. His address was printed in Irish and English
and 300,000 copies of it were circulated throughout the country; but the
persona visits of the Bishop to the various parishes and the stern admonitions
which fell from his lips had a still greater effect. The Marquis Wellesley,
late Governor General of India, on coming to Ireland as Viceroy in 1821,[7]
gave a just commendation of the support afforded to the Government during
a troublous time by the prelates; he accepted their congratulations "with
the cordiality and respect due to their character, conduct, and sacred
functions"; of "the propriety of their past behaviour"
he speaks with admiration.
[6] W. J. Fitzpatrick, Life and Times of Bishop Doyle (1861), i, 108,
193; M. MacDonagh, Bishop Doyle, pp. 76-84. Dr. Doyle published a series
of trenchant letters on his times under the pseudonym of "J. K. L."
[7] Elder brother to the Duke of Wellington. He had been offered the post
in 1812 but declined.
The Act of Union brought a new personality into the field. In January,
1800, the voice of the man who was to exercise a power never before wielded
in Ireland by any Irishman was heard for the first time in public, speaking
in the Royal Exchange, Dublin, against the Union. In after life Daniel
O'Connell was wont to say that all his later political principles were
contained in this speech. To a Catholic audience he declared that they
had resolved to meet no more as Catholics for political discussion, but
as Irishmen. "If emancipation," he exclaimed, "be offered
for our consent to the measure (of the Union)—even if emancipation
after the Union were a gain—we would reject it with prompt indignation."
In 1810 he declared the same opinion in yet more explicit terms: "If
the Premier were to offer me to-morrow the repeal of the Union upon the
terms of re-enacting the entire Penal Code, I declare from my heart and
in the presence of my God that I would most cheerfully embrace his offer."[8]
Thus the Emancipator announced a programme which was to combine Catholics
with Protestants in one national effort, as Irishmen, in the task of regaining
for Ireland its national position. But for the attainment of the chief
object he had at heart, the repeal of the Union, O'Connell felt that the
liberation of the Catholics was a first step. The Protestant gentry had
allowed themselves to be bought over; he believed that only by a union
between the general body of the Catholics of the middle and lower classes
with their aristocracy could the position be retrieved. Later, when he
found his unaided efforts were not sufficient, he called in the assistance
of the priests and populace, and for the first time made them a power
in Irish politics. Hitherto the people had engaged in politics only as
electors bound to return their own Protestant landlords to Parliament;
they had neither will nor thought in the matter. But O'Connell saw in
the mass of the small tenants a potential source of power, and he set
about to draw upon it for the accomplishment of his aims. To unite them
under their natural leaders, the Catholic gentry, and later under the
Catholic bishops and clergy, and to inspire in them a sense of their own
dormant political force, was his first object. More than any man before
his time O'Connell saw his country as one nation, possessed of a national
life and aims.
[8] Correspondence, i, 17; John O'Connell, O'Connell's Life and Speeches,
(1854), i, 9, 24.
Though his ends were just, the project was a bold one. Daniel O'Connell
had been born in West Kerry in the year 1775, of a good Catholic family,
and was sent to be educated in Cork and afterward at St. Omer and Douay.
He was a devoted son of his Church, and in politics, like most of the
Catholic gentry, he was "almost a Tory." From his earliest days
he was averse to violent methods such as those of the United Irishmen,
for gaining political ends; he "learned from their example that in
order to succeed for Ireland it was strictly necessary to work within
the limits of the law and constitution." "I saw that a fraternity
banded illegally never could be safe; that invariably some person without
principle would be sure to gain admission and either for bribes or else...for
their own preservation would betray their associates. The United Irishmen
taught me that all work for Ireland must be done openly and above-board."[9]
"The man who violates the law strengthens the enemy" was his
favourite saying. This principle O'Connell adhered to throughout his life,
but it resulted in a confusion of mind among his followers if not in himself.
He was constantly stirring up vast multitudes of people by speeches of
the most inflammatory character, which became more unbridled as time went
on, yet when it came to action they found to their surprise that O'Connell
refused to lead them.
[9] William J. O'Neill Daunt, Personal Recollections of Daniel O'Connell
(1848), i, 205.
The day when the "Liberator" would "speak the word"
came not, and the gigantic Repeal meetings of his later life, composed
at times of nearly a million people, and held at places of exciting memories
such as Tara or Mullaghmast—memories which he used in his addresses
with their full effect—were forced to disperse quietly without any
attempt at a rising. It is a striking testimony to the personal influence
of O'Connell that with a large part of the adult Catholic population of
the three provinces of Ireland assembled at these demonstrations, and
roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by his orations, no scenes of
violence ever occurred. Largely through the efforts of Father Mathew,
the temperance reformer, neither drunkenness or disorder appeared in them.
"My disposition," O'Connell said, "is from natural bias
averse to deeds of violence...Not for all the Universe contains would
I, in the struggle for what I conceive to be my country's cause, consent
to the effusion of a single drop of human blood except my own. Any other
man's blood I dare not spill."[10] He looked askance at the landing
of Wolfe Tone and the French fleet, and during Emmet's rising he assisted
the police to preserve quiet in Dublin. "The liberty that I look
for," he said when he heard of the former event, "is that which
would increase the happiness of mankind." "Agitate, agitate,
agitate," he cried on every occasion; but farther than this he would
not go. He believed that with time and perseverance all reforms could
be won by constitutional means.
[10] Corporation Address of 1843 ; and see M. MacDonagh, Daniel O'Connell
(1929), pp. 257, 296-297.
When the young O'Connell returned from France on the completion of his
education he was entered at Lincoln's Inn on January 30, 1794, as a law
student, and he was called to the Irish Bar on May 19, 1798, when the
rebellion was at its height, being one of the first Irish Catholics to
reap the benefit of the Catholic Relief Act. He rose in his profession
with astonishing rapidity and soon became known as an unrivalled cross-examiner
and a practising lawyer who was plainly destined for the highest positions
in his profession. His industry and capacity for work, his gifts of speaking
and conducting a case, his wit and subtlety, his dexterity in drawing
a witness into a confusion of mind which led to a confession of the truth,
his humour, and his intuitive understanding of Irish character, combined
to make him a formidable opponent and a most successful advocate. By 1812
he was making an income which he boasted to be as large, probably larger,
"than any man in a stuff gown ever had at the Irish Bar." Yet
under the existing laws he, as a Catholic, could never hope to attain
to the most conspicuous posts. Whatever his abilities, he must always
remain beneath the professional rank of his Protestant rivals, even if
they were his inferiors in ability. When O'Connell came on the political
scene Grattan had retired and Keogh, whose exertions had done much to
press forward the Catholic Relief Bill, was old and infirm. The Catholics
had been advised by the latter to maintain "a dignified silence,"
but the energy of O'Connell quickly infused new life into the struggle.
He joined the Catholic Committee and speedily rose to be its most commanding
figure. Full Catholic equality became the dominant object of his efforts.
The main question of emancipation was complicated by that of the payment
of priests by the Government and by the demand, as a set-off for this,
of a certain control, known as the "Veto," in the appointment
of Bishops. The Government also desired to exercise a power of inspection
over correspondence between the Irish bishops and the Roman See, in order
to stop any political intriguing which, as of old, was constantly suspected.
Any Bill brought in by Pitt would have included these features, which
later became known as "the wings," as part of his policy. Grattan
was ready to concede the veto and the bishops in his time were prepared
to accept it. They had formally consented to it in 1799, and it was approved
by the English Catholics, the Irish Catholic aristocracy, and leading
men among the mercantile classes. At Rome, Monsignor Quarantotti, acting
for the Pontiff, advised the Catholics "to accept and embrace with
satisfaction and gratitude" the Bill of 1813, which contained this
clause.[11] He did not even object to the restrictions put on correspondence
with Rome, as these related only to civil policy and not to ecclesiastical
and spiritual matters.
[11] Bernard Ward, The Eve of Catholic Emancipation (1911), i, chs. iv.,
v., ii, ch. xx.
But in Ireland, in spite of approval in high quarters, opinion was beginning
to harden against giving the power of the veto to the Government. The
arrest of Lord Fingall and others under an old Penal measure of Lord Clare's,
known as the Convention Act of 1793, and the dispersal of the Catholic
Association, brought O'Connell eagerly into the dispute. He incited the
bishops to refuse the veto and endeavoured to arouse the priests to opposition;
and resolutions were passed by the Irish hierarchy expressive of their
determination to resist such interference in their appointments "in
every canonical and constitutional way." The project was dropped
and was not revived when Sir Robert Peel passed his Act of Emancipation
in 1829. The division of opinion created by O'Connell's action was strongly
disapproved by Grattan, who condemned his action; and O'Connell's avowal
that he used this cry of dissatisfaction in order to push on his "ulterior
object," repeal of the Union, does not explain it. But the satisfaction
of the Catholics was shown by the presentation to him of a piece of plate,
and henceforth he became the recognized leader of the Catholic party.
The independent outlook of the Catholics in this controversy is remarkable
and was voiced by O'Connell himself. "I am sincerely a Catholic,
but not a Papist," he said when there was an appearance of papal
influence used in the controversy; and a resolution was passed that "decrees,
mandates, or doctrines of any foreign power or authority, religious or
civil, cannot of right assume any dominion or control over the political
concerns of the Catholics of Ireland," a view which was endorsed
by the clergy and bishops in a synod held at Maynooth in 1815. "It
was not," said O'Connell, "for the slaves of Rome to instruct
the Irish Catholics as to the mode of their emancipation."[12] For
eight years the question was postponed in spite of "the desperate
fidelity" of the aged Grattan, who year after year brought forward
the cause in some shape or other in the English Parliament. In his bill
of 1813 he asked for rights which were to be fully granted sixteen years
afterwards, including admission to Parliament, to corporations, and to
civil and military offices, with the exception of the Viceroyalty of Ireland
and the Chancellorship of England.
[12] M. MacDonagh, Daniel O'Connell (1929), pp. 91, 93. The same independent
Spirit, in an even more marked degree was found in the discussions on
Catholic emancipation among the English Catholics of the period. See Bernard
Ward, The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England (1909), i. ch. v, pp.
87, seq.
The bill was supported by Castlereagh, Canning, and Palmerston, but opposed
by Peel, who became the lifelong antagonist of O'Connell and his aims.
Grattan died in 1820 at the age of seventy, having served for twenty years
in the Irish and fifteen in the United Parliament. "Keep knocking
at the Union" was one of his last admonitions when a deputation headed
by Lord Cloncurry waited upon him. Yet he held that the Union of the two
Parliaments having taken place, it was the duty of every politician to
render it as fruitful as possible.[13] He had intended to be buried in
Moyenna, but in accordance with a generally expressed desire, he consented
to be laid in Westminster Abbey. The Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Wellington
were his pall-bearers, and every honour that England could bestow was
accorded to his remains. When in feeble health, he had at the risk of
his life come over to London to bring the claims of the Catholics once
more before the House; when his daughter prayed him not to make the dangerous
effort to appear in Parliament he replied, "God gave me talents to
be of use to my country and if I lose my life in her service it is a good
death," repeating with emphasis, "it is a good death."
But nature failed, and he no longer had strength to carry out his intention.
He asked for a paper prepared by him on the question which lay so near
his heart. Holding it in his hand, he said: "Add to it these words—I
die with a love of liberty in my heart, and this declaration in favour
of my country in my hand." He expired on June 4, the anniversary
of the day on which, forty years before, the Irish Volunteers had presented
him with an address for asserting the liberties of Ireland.
[13] This was also the opinion of Grattan's friend, Lord Plunket, Life
and Letters, ii, 104-105.
The defeat of Grattan's Catholic Bill in 1813 had proved a total and calamitous
set back to the cause, and a complete apathy as regarded their claims
settled down on the English people. Nevertheless, the long effort had
borne fruit. The almost annual bills brought in by Grattan were defeated
by ever decreasing majorities, and the unanswerable arguments advanced
in their support, combined with the moderation of the hierarchy and the
Catholic upper classes and the lessening of the vague fears of their adverse
influence which followed the conclusion of the European peace, were not
without effect. Plunket, on Grattan's death, became the chief supporter
of the Catholic claims within the House. The weight of his authority,
the respect accorded to his rectitude and high character, and the solid
reasoning of his speeches caused all that he said to be received with
attention. But on the veto question, which both Grattan and Plunket were
willing to concede, O'Connell raised a violent opposition; and when Plunket
introduced his broadly conceived Relief Bill of 1821, O'Connell even went
the length of wishing "that the present rascally Catholic Bill might
be thrown out" because it contained the veto clause.
Plunket's Bill was supported by a petition signed by 8,000 English Catholics,
whose claims he united to those of Ireland. It was ushered in by an oration
which even his adversary, Sir Robert Peel, characterised as "nearly
the highest in point of ability of any ever heard in the House,"
and the motion was carried by a majority of six in a House of 448; but
in the Upper House it was thrown out by a majority of thirty-nine.[14]
This adverse result was largely owing to the position taken up by the
Duke of York, who made a declaration of unconquerable hostility to any
further relief of the Catholics and whose opposition had great weight
with the Lords; but the adverse attitude of O'Connell's party was also
to blame for the unsatisfactory vote. While Bishop Doyle hailed the bill
with delight, and Sheil, addressing a large meeting of Catholics in Dublin,
declared the passing of the Bill through its first reading was "an
epoch in the history of Ireland," and "the day of her political
regeneration," the "Anti-vetoists" under O'Connell's leadership
denounced it in the most violent language in meetings held all over Ireland
and presided over by the priests.
[14] The speech is given in full in his Life and Letters, ii, 20-67.
Lord Dudley said of it: "I have not for many years heard such an
astonishing display of talent. His style is quite peculiar for its gravity
and severity."
The political position of O'Connell was peculiar. He was a loyalist of
the most pronounced description and when George IV visited Dublin in 1821,
and was received with extraordinary signs of popular devotion by all classes,
O'Connell outstripped all others in his professions of homage to the King.
He expressed equally strong loyalist sentiments toward the youthful Queen
Victoria; and his belief in the advantages to Ireland of the connexion
with the Crown never wavered. "There lived not a man," as he
delighted to repeat, "less desirous of separation or more desirous
of independence."[15] The marked courtesy with which the Irish prelates
and laity were treated during the King's visit raised hopes that were
destined to be disappointed, even though it was followed in the same year
by the appointment as Viceroy of Lord Wellesley, an Irishman who was known
to be favourable to the Catholic claims. Saurin, the obstinate opponent
of all measures of relief, was removed and Plunket replaced him as Attorney-General;
but Henry Goulburn, who came over as Chief Secretary, was known to be
averse to emancipation. Goulburn was besieged by Orangemen from the North,
demanding the suppression of the "Papists," and Plunket, on
the other hand, became the butt of O'Connell's followers, who were determined
to make an attack on Parliament in the session of 1822. Vigorous and virulent
as he was in speech, O'Connell was generally ready to enter into a compromise
when he thought it advantageous, and he now attempted a modified form
of settlement which, however, was rejected by the Government.
[15] Speech of January 29, 1813.
The new Viceroy wisely determined to put down exhibitions of Orange sentiment
which, in the heated condition of public opinion, had become dangerous,
and he prohibited the dressing of the statue of William III. on College
Green on July 12, then regarded as an annual demonstration. This was followed
by a riot, afterwards known as "the bottle riot," when an organized
body of Orangemen packed the pit and gallery of the Dublin theatre when
the Marquess was present and with cries of, "Down with the Popish
Lord-Lieutenent" they flung missiles, one of which was a large whiskey-bottle,
at the royal box. At the trial, the jury refused to find a verdict and
great excitement prevailed in the city. The Viceroy wrote that he was
frustrated, baffled, and betrayed even by his own agents, "the whole
machinery of my own Government working for my destruction, and no sign
of a disposition on the part of England to give me support or credit."
From the year 1829 onward, Repeal of the Union came more prominently
to the front, but the Orangemen of Ulster were solid against repeal, and
their determined hostility to the South dates from their opposition to
the repeal agitation. Anglesey, who came a second time to Ireland as Viceroy
in 1830, at the opening of O'Connell's campaign, though he had supported
him in his projects for emancipation, was firmly against him now. O'Connell's
fight seemed likely to be waged with only the Catholic democracy and clergy
on his side. It was believed that O'Connell was aiming at autocracy and
even men like Sheil and Moore, his old comrades, shrank from fresh agitation.
They feared that repeal would lead to separation and that it might end
in rebellion, though O'Connell held the people back from violent acts
and consistently denounced separation throughout his career.[16] The rapid
spread of the agitation and the formidable organization formed by O'Connell
in 1840 to support it, gave him hopes of fulfilment, but the restraint
that he exacted from his followers ended in a loosened hold upon them.
[16] See his letter to Bishop MacHale of October, 1838, in W. J. Fitzpatrick,
Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, ii, pp. 149-150.
The "Young Ireland" movement arose to take the place of an agitation
that seemed destined to prove abortive and the methods of which the populace
failed to understand. The open talk in the columns of the Nation newspaper
of armed intervention was more comprehensible among a multitude who had
for years waited in vain for their great leader to "give the word"
for a rising. O'Connell, though himself no separatist, had created a nation
ripe for separation, and though he was personally averse to force, he
had trained the youth of Ireland to expect rebellion. A collision could
not be long averted. "O'Connell and the priests," wrote the
Chancellor, "have arrayed the lower orders against the intelligence
and property of the country. You can hardly overrate the gravity of the
present moment...I think a short time will decide...Repeal now means separation
and hatred of the British connexion."[17] O'Connell had turned the
priests into agitators and the people into separatists; it was with this
inflammable material prepared to their hand that the Young Irelanders
came into the field to complete the work that O'Connell had begun.
[17] Peel's Correspondence, iii, 48-49.
In 1823 O'Connell, with Sheil's help, had founded a new Catholic Association.
Its aim was to bring the priests into politics and to use them as a force
to urge on emancipation. Up to this time, under the influence of their
bishops, the parish clergy had taken little part in politics and the instances
in which curates acted in rebellious risings, as in the fighting at New
Ross and Wexford, had received the express and energetic condemnation
of the hierarchy. But the "Liberator," as O'Connell was beginning
to be called, saw in the clergy of his own Church an immense unused source
of political influence, and from the moment that this idea occurred to
him he was carried forward on an ever-rising tide of popularity, and fought
with practically the whole Catholic population at his back. He had already
made use of clerical influence in elections. In 1807, Sir Arthur Wellesley,
describing an election in Tipperary, declared that there never was anything
equal to the violence of the priests and of the whole of their followers
in that county in preventing the freeholders from going to the poll to
vote for their Protestant landlords. The re-establishment of the Catholic
Association gave a new impetus to their action. By February, 1825, the
Association numbered three thousand members; and O'Connell's "Catholic
rent" began to be collected in every parish for its support. In 1824
it brought in from £600 to £1,000 a week, besides large investments
in the funds. Gentry, priests and peasants alike contributed regularly
to it. Catholic relief, education, the question of the "forty-shilling
freeholders" and the "veto," were some of the matters taken
up by the members.
Catholics and Protestants again drew together and by addresses all over
the country the hitherto inert body of electors were made to feel their
strength. The Government looked with dread on the growing power of O'Connell.
"He is complete master of the Roman Catholic clergy; the clergy are
complete masters of the people; and upon him and them it depends whether
the country shall or shall not be quiet during the winter," was the
general feeling. The country was quiet; no rioting occurred, and the twenty
thousand soldiers stationed in Ireland were not called upon. But the result
of his teaching was seen in the Waterford election of 1826, where, for
the first time, a Beresford was rejected by his own tenants. On the day
before the nomination a vast procession, miles in length, streamed into
the town. Total abstinence was vowed by the people themselves as long
as the election lasted, and was rigorously kept. The soldiers stood by
unneeded and were cheered by the populace, while for two hours O'Connell
harangued the crowd. Louth, Monaghan, and other counties followed suit.
The battle of emancipation was practically won; but the doom of the now
independent "forty-shilling" freeholders was sealed.[18]
[18] Two Centuries of Irish History, 1691-1870 (1888), pp. 302-303.
In January, 1828, the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, with Peel
as Leader of the House. The Marquess of Anglesey, who had fought with
Moore at Corunna and commanded the cavalry at Waterloo, was sent to Ireland.
"God bless you, Anglesey," had been the King's last words; "I
know you are a true Protestant." "Sir," was Anglesey's
reply, "I will not be considered either Protestant or Catholic; I
go to Ireland determined to act impartially between them."[19] He
refused to suppress the Catholic Association or to interfere with meetings
and processions, but he thought the moment unpropitious for conciliation.
With the change of Ministry came the decisive Clare election, where Vesey
Fitzgerald, a popular Member and old supporter of emancipation, who had
been appointed President of the Board of Trade, had to stand for re-election.
Within a week of the election O'Connell announced his intention to stand
in opposition. The Liberator's election addresses, couched in telling
phrases and promising innumerable benefits if he were elected, carried
all before him; at the close of the contest O'Connell was borne in triumph
through the streets of Ennis as the first Catholic returned to the Imperial
Parliament by the free suffrages of the electors. He had polled 2,057
votes to 982 given to Fitzgerald. A vast cavalcade accompanied the new
Member into Limerick, and "the cheer of fifty-thousand voices rang
through the air" as they passed round the "stone of the violated
treaty."
[19] Greville Memoirs (1888), i, 157.
A profound impression was created in England by the Clare election. The
King desired that Anglesey should be recalled, but Wellington represented
that the moment for action had arrived, and that emancipation must be
conceded. In Ireland the excitement was intense, and in a single day two
thousand meetings were computed to have been held. Everywhere the power
of the gentry seemed to be giving way before the new democratic flood.
The recall of Anglesey, amid the loudly expressed grief of the people,
and an attempt by Wellington to delay the introduction of the Bill, increased
the popular agitation, and, two days after the departure of the Viceroy,
at a mass meeting in the Rotunda, a society was formed in which Protestants
and Catholics were associated on equal terms. On February 6 a Relief Bill
was announced from the throne, the determined resistance of the Sovereign,
which was the real obstacle in the way, having been broken down by Wellington's
representations. The oath required from Members of Parliament was to be
so altered that Catholics could take it, but the "forty-shilling"
freeholders were to be punished for their momentary independence by disfranchisement.
The third reading of the Bill, embodying Peel's resolution, was taken
for the first time on March 10, and passed in less than a month in the
Commons and on April 10 in the Lords. On May 15 O'Connell presented himself
in the House, but, having refused to take the original oath, under which
he was elected, he had to submit to the irritating delay of re-election.
The difficulties had been very many. "The King was hostile, the Church
was hostile, a majority, probably, of the people of Great Britain was
hostile to concession." It was only on the tendering of their resignations
to the King by his Ministers that he at last gave way. As it was, the
Catholic Association was suppressed.
"Had O'Connell ceased agitating when emancipation was carried, he
would have been as great a man in his way as Washington," Lord Clarendon
once wrote. There is no doubt that much in his later life detracted from
the dignity of his earlier days. At this time he was at the head of his
profession, an admirable lawyer, and a man of property. He was one of
the hardest of workers, rising at 3 A.M. and going to bed at 8 P.M. This
is Lecky's estimate of him at this date. He showed his generosity both
in giving professional aid to the poor gratuitously and in large gifts
of money in the famine times. He disliked Government relief for poverty,
which he believed to be ruinous and demoralizing to the country, and he
withstood the Poor Laws and the proposed workhouse system, preferring
State-aided emigration as a cure for the poverty of the people. He was
accused of too great a love of money, and certainly the immense sums poured
into his lap and for which no account was rendered might have been a temptation
even to a stronger man.
At one time "the tribute" rendered amounted to over £15,000
a year, and the subscription raised for O'Connell after emancipation was
won reached no less a sum than £50,000. But it is to be remembered
that he sacrificed the emoluments of a lucrative profession, in which
he had reached the highest place. He fell in later years into the tricks
of the mob orator, and swayed vast multitudes by all the arts of the demagogue.[20]
He abused men scandalously, and often mendaciously, as he was abused by
others. What was of more permanent importance was that, in the English
House of Commons, he inaugurated the system of obstruction which "by
debating every word and sentence of a Bill and dividing upon every debate"
could delay the passage of any Bill through a whole session. It was the
system which was later adopted and perfected by the followers of Parnell
and Redmond. The public time was consumed in listening to speeches of
two or three hours each, made solely for the purposes of delay. Peel looked
upon the plan as one designed intentionally to disgust the Members into
giving a repeal of the Union, because it would relieve the House of the
burden of their presence in it.[21]
[20] Gladstone considered O'Connell the greatest popular leader whom
the world has ever seen.
[21] Peel, Memoirs, ii, 290-291.
The larger part of O'Connell's after life was given to the question of
repeal. On the night when emancipation was carried one of his friends
had clapped him on the shoulder, exclaiming, "Othello's occupation's
gone!" "Gone!" cried the Liberator; "isn't there a
repeal of the Union?" He announced this as his intention even before
emancipation was won, and hoped to unite all classes and sects in Ireland
in its favour. But as a matter of fact the attitude of the gentry who
had fought most vigorously for Irish independence had undergone a change,
and they were now foremost in their opposition to repeal. It would perhaps
be truer to say that circumstances had changed, and that the men who resisted
a union which defrauded them of ascendancy and power, were little disposed
to welcome a repeal which would now leave them in the minority, while
the enfranchised Catholic electors sent a Catholic democracy into Parliament
and put a large Catholic majority into power.
END OF CHAPTER XVII
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