IRELAND: 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LEWIS SMYTH. 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 MDCCCXLVII. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 WILLIAM STEVENS, PRIXTEU, BELL YARD, 
 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
IRELAND, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CONNECTION 
 WITH ENGLAND— cow^mMerf. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF LORD STRAFFORD. — PERFIDIOUS DENIAL OF 
 THE GRACES. — NEW INVASIONS OF PROPERTY, AND A NEW ARIS- 
 TOCRACY. — REVIVED ASCENDANCY OF THE HOUSE OF ORMONDE. 
 — ROGER MOORE, AND THE REBELLION OF 1641. — THE WAR OF 
 THE CONFEDERATES. — CROMWELL LORD LIEUTENANT. — FURTHER 
 
 FORFEITURES. ACTS OF SETTLEMENT AND EXPLANATION. 
 
 ORMONDE A DUKE, AND AGAIN LORD LIEUTENANT. — HIS DEATH 
 AND CHARACTER. 
 
 Irish affairs appear in a new but still in a troubled phase, 
 under Charles I. and Charles II. The royal authority, over- 
 turned because overstrained, became, when restored again, 
 overpowering : the Reformation, irresistible in point of law, 
 was nevertheless scarcely established in point of fact ; while 
 the liberty of the subject remained unknown. Here, as else- 
 where, civil liberty was in no degree extended, though the 
 principle of freedom of conscience was proclaimed. 
 
 Ireland was never ruled by a man of more eminent talents, 
 a haughtier spirit, or a firmer mind, than Wentworth, earl of 
 Strafford. In his administration the policy was consummated 
 which, dictating the subjugation of the Anglo-Irish barons 
 and the native chieftains, had erected upon the fall of their 
 wild immunities and licentious pretensions, an absolute and 
 uncontrolled dominion upon the part of the crown. As they 
 are now seen, there was nothing doubtful or obscure in the 
 
 VOL. 11. B 
 
2 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 objects or manner of StrafFord's government ; — his personal 
 character, too, was strikingly displayed : it is shown in his 
 actions and in his letters, with an open reality and indomita- 
 ble earnestness, which often tempt us to admire him most 
 when we should least respect him. He was a man who never 
 hesitated in his course, or brooked concealment of his purpose. 
 Great in personal courage, he was greater still in intellectual 
 daring, and had cultivated his many talents with felicitous care ; 
 but he was proud, domineering, and insulting. He poured his 
 whole soul into his office, and was every inch the viceroy. 
 There was no department of government which his genius did 
 not pervade, and in which his influence was not directly felt. 
 A spirit of exalted tyranny was developed throughout his 
 career with a force which, like that of well tempered steel, 
 combined the highest degrees of strength and refinement. He 
 moulded into order the chaos of Irish misgovernment, and in 
 a manner forced the country, by the irresistible vigour of his 
 despotic will, into a condition of comparative prosperity. His 
 early recall to England, where he was carried off with com- 
 parative ease, was a fortunate event for the approaching com- 
 monwealth. Had he remained in Ireland, his destruction and 
 the prostration of the monarchy would have been a more 
 difficult — perhaps an impossible achievement. 
 
 One of the passages quoted from his letters in the last 
 chapter, contained a remark as to himself, which should have 
 made some impression upon the reader. " I spare no man 
 amongst them," he cried ; " let no man spare me." His cor- 
 respondence is full of similar avowals. " Now," he exclaims, 
 on one occasion, " the king is as absolute here as any prince 
 in the whole world can be." In another place he explains the 
 means by which he proposes to obtain a servile House of 
 Commons to execute his behests. " I shall labour to make as 
 many captains and officers burgesses in this parliament as I 
 possibly can, who, having immediate dependence upon the 
 crown, may almost sway the business between the two parties 
 as they please." In a third he relates his success in corrupt- 
 ing the judges, whom he describes with emphatic satisfaction, 
 as men who " now ministering wholly to uphold the sove- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 3 
 
 reignty, carried a direct aspect upon the prerogative of his 
 majesty, and squinted not aside upon the vulgar and vain 
 opinions of the populace." 
 
 Lord Digby shortly described Strafford's " rare abilities, of 
 which God gave him the use and the devil the application/"' 
 Severe as this censure is, it is easy to prove that it is not 
 unjust. When Charles I. became king. Lord Falkland was 
 chief governor. Under his auspices, a meeting was held at 
 Dublin, in the year 1628, composed of several Protestants of 
 rank, and the leading Roman Catholics, who then formed the 
 great majority, not of the population only, but of the landed 
 proprietors of the country. A set of measures, or, as they 
 were afterwards called, Graces, for tranquillizing the affairs of 
 Ireland, was proposed and agreed to in this assembly. They 
 gave general satisfaction, and are admitted on all hands to 
 have been moderate. The more important articles provided for 
 the security of property, by forbidding retrospective inquisi- 
 tions into defective titles — for the due administration of justice ; 
 the discontinuance of military depredations ; the extinction of 
 monopolies in the Irish trade with other countries ; a better 
 regulation of the powers of the ecclesiastical courts, and of the 
 Protestant clergy — who were no longer to be permitted to 
 keep private prisons for their own causes, but to commit 
 offenders to the king's gaols and officers ; and a mitigation of 
 the penal statutes upon the tender subject of religion, together 
 with a general amnesty for the past. As no favour or conces- 
 sion, however reasonable or fair, was ever to be expected from 
 royalty, unless when it was accompanied by a suitable offer of 
 money, the parties undertook to raise and pay a sum of 
 
 100, 000, as the price of these graces. 
 
 The friends of Charles I. say that he was himself impressed 
 with a conviction of the equity of the appeal thus made to him 
 by his Roman Catholic and Protestant subjects united. Cer- 
 tain it is, that he not only took their money, and promised to 
 grant their prayers, but intimidated them into an agreement 
 to add c£20,000 to the first contribution, after which he broke 
 his pledge. The fraud could not have been more deliberate or 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 complete. Charles sold a promise of justice to his oppressed 
 subjects, and after receiving the stipulated price, never miti- 
 gated a penal statute, reformed a single abuse, or lightened 
 one of the many burdens which bent them double, with poverty 
 and pain, to the earth. The writers who are shocked at the 
 outbreak of the insurrection in 1641, and the subsequent war 
 of the Confederates, are generally content to pass over this 
 piece of royal perfidy with a slight notice. 
 
 Wentworth was the minister who undertook to brave out 
 the cheat, of which the sovereign appears to have been some- 
 what ashamed. He came over with his part pre-arranged, 
 and by the duplicity with which he performed it, increased the 
 baseness of his private compact with the king. He was deter- 
 mined not to grant the graces, and at the same time intent 
 upon saving the reputation of his royal accomplice. In 
 executing this difficult task of deep infamy, he proceeded with 
 consummate art. The parliament, naturally suspicious of the 
 delays which had taken place, gave vent to some observations 
 expressive of a fear that the king might disregard his pledge. 
 For this they were publicly rebuked by the lord deputy, who, 
 at the very time that he held written instructions in his hands 
 to deny the promised concessions, had the hardihood to pro- 
 test that not a doubt of his master'^s sincerity was to be enter- 
 tained. The deceit was so monstrous, that if the evidence 
 upon which it rests were less positive than it happens to be, 
 we should hesitate to believe it. But the parties are proved 
 guilty by their own confessions. 
 
 The lord deputy^s words to the parliament were these : — 
 " Surely so great a meanness cannot enter into your hearts as 
 once to suspect his majesty's gracious regards of you, and 
 performance with you, where you affix yourselves upon his 
 grace." Charles's acknowledgment of the accomplished dis- 
 simulation with which his perfidy was masked in this address 
 solemnly delivered to parliament, is strong in corresponding 
 guilt. " Before I answer any of your particular letters to me, 
 I must tell you that your last public despatch has given me a 
 great deal of contentment ; especially for the keeping off the 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 5 
 
 envy of a necessary negative from me of those unreasonable 
 graces that people expected from me."* 
 
 Having deceived the parliament and gratified the king, 
 Strafford put an end to its sittings, and proceeded to arm his 
 office with the tremendous jurisdiction of a high commission 
 court, erected after the English model. Superadded to the 
 usual purposes, his letters inform us that he proposed to attain 
 another of no inconsiderable value, namely, the collection of a 
 large revenue. The leading object of his government was to 
 raise a military force, and to find money for supplying the 
 wants of Charles in England. He kept this end constantly in 
 view, and accomplished it with unbending severity in some 
 instances, but in others with meritorious ability. He was 
 almost the first chief governor who deserved the praise of pro- 
 tecting and extending commerce by enlarged and judicious 
 measures. We find him guarding the coasts from pirates, 
 introducing manufactures, and encouraging a spirit of well 
 directed industry. Even this good, however, was not effected 
 without the infliction of a corresponding evil. Ireland stands 
 indebted to Lord Strafford for its linen manufacture ; but if he 
 introduced that trade he took away another at the same time, 
 putting down the woollen manufacture of Ireland as a sacrifice 
 to English interests. On this occasion he acted with no 
 common spirit and liberality. In order to encourage others 
 by his example, he embarked in the linen trade, out of his pri- 
 vate fortune, as much as i?S 0,000 — a vast sum in those days. 
 
 Very different was the character of his administration in 
 other respects. Future ages could only derive advantage from 
 these industrial enterprises. Meantime the necessities of the 
 crown were urgent, and demanded immediate relief. The 
 lord deputy procured it by availing himself, with prompt and 
 strict severity, of every pretext to extort money which the 
 artifices of the crown lawyers, or the arbitrary powers of the 
 
 * This was not the only instance in which Charles called upon his 
 creature to damn himself, while saving the royal honour. Another letter 
 is extant, in which, referring to some grants which he had made upon the 
 establishment of Ireland, he selfishly bids the lord deputy, notwithstand- 
 ing what he had himself done, to ratify or refuse them as the service may 
 require — yet so, too, as I may have thanks, howsoever — that if there be any 
 thing to be denied, you may do it, and not I. 
 
6 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 high commission cornet could place within his reach. He 
 compelled Lord Wilmot, who had commanded the army in 
 Ireland for many years, to make compensation for lands 
 usurped from the crown, and improperly alienated. The pos- 
 sessions of the unfortunate Byrnes in Wicklow were again 
 attacked, and produced £1 5,000. The city of London was 
 sued for breaches of covenant in the plantations of Derry and 
 Coleraine ; and their grant, being forfeited, was redeemed by 
 a fine of .£^70,000. Hume, who dwells with emphasis upon 
 the " noble cares of James 1. for Ireland," who mildly de- 
 scribes the lawless exactions of the Star Chamber as only 
 " somewhat blameable," pronounces the administration of 
 Strafford " innocent and laudable." It was partiality, in 
 all likelihood, and respect for Hume's reputation, that 
 prompted Leland also to speak indulgently of the tyrannical 
 excesses of this epoch ; and to content himself with observing 
 that " individuals indeed were frequently aggrieved by an 
 administration which disdained to be restricted within the 
 boundary of the laws ; but that still Ireland in general expe- 
 rienced the good effects of the composure produced by the 
 terror of a severe, vigilant, and active government, while the 
 revenue was considerably increased by the augmentation of 
 rents, as well as by the sums raised in fines on the renewal by 
 patent of former grants of lands." 
 
 Notwithstanding the estabhshed reputation of these au- 
 thorities, there are, it is to be hoped, but few writers who will 
 now venture to palliate the enormities of Lord Strafford's 
 administration, or to contend that any increase of the casual 
 revenues of a country like Ireland, any violent suppression of 
 one manufacture coupled with the forced cultivation of an- 
 other in its stead, or any temporary diminution of agrarian 
 turbulence, produced by enlisting the idle population of the 
 country into despotic armies, could prove of real value to the 
 community, or compensate for the violation of all its laws. 
 Lord Strafford in Ireland, to use his own words, when arraign- 
 ing the conduct of ministers from the ranks of the opposition 
 in England, " ravished the spheres of all ancient government, 
 and the free constitution of the realm." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 There are other crimes to be recorded of Strafford, which 
 more than justify the appHcation of this language. He re- 
 vived the suspended scheme of a new plantation of Con- 
 naught ; and laboured strenuously to enforce its execution 
 by mocking the most solemn constitutional rights, as if it 
 gave him pleasure to produce unbounded outrage and ini- 
 quity out of the established forms of legal order and justice. 
 Bent upon invalidating the titles of every landed proprietor 
 in the whole province, he determined that his measures 
 should be sanctioned by verdicts from juries, upon which he 
 took care to place the principal inhabitants, as being better 
 able to pay a heavy fine in the castle star chamber, " in case 
 they should prevaricate.'' His manner of dealing with these 
 victims was inexpressibly contemptuous and insulting. He 
 warned them that it was perfectly indifferent to his majesty, 
 whether their verdict should acknowledge or deny his title. 
 If they were inclined to truth, and to their own interests, they 
 were to find a title for the king ; but if they preferred to do 
 that which was simply best for the crown, without regard to 
 their own good, he advised them not to find any title at all. 
 This daring and indecent interference produced its full effect. 
 The king's title was found, without scruple or reservation, 
 for the county of Longford, and all Connaught, with the ex- 
 ception of Gal way. The verdicts were accompanied with a 
 petition for the equitable treatment of the actual proprietors, 
 and a due provision for the church ; and Strafford readily issued 
 a proclamation, promising easy compositions and new and in- 
 defeasible grants. But in Galway the jury refused to find for 
 the crown, and the lord deputy gave instant proof of the 
 danger that was to be incurred by thwarting his proceedings. 
 — Laying a fine in the castle chamber, of <£'1,000 upon the 
 sheriff, and <£^4,000 upon the jurors, he further sentenced 
 them to be imprisoned until the money was paid, and they 
 had humbly acknowledged their offence upon their knees in 
 open court. It is impossible to examine the full accounts pre- 
 served of these proceedings without being impressed with a 
 feeling of indignation against the man who could execute them, 
 and the liveliest satisfaction to find that, notwithstanding all 
 
8 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 his genius, his daring, his pains, and his power, they were ulti- 
 mately defeated. There was an appeal from the verdicts re- 
 turned by the juries ; the great case of tenures was argued at 
 length before the judges, and decided in the king's favour ; yet 
 such wis the just clamour universally raised, and such the 
 growing Presentment manifested even in England against his 
 insolent mi'sgovernment, that the scheme was laid aside, and 
 at last wholly abandoned. 
 
 The instances of Wentworth's tyranny are too numerous 
 to be related in detail. He seems to have assumed, as a 
 general rule, that no man in Ireland w^as possessed of any 
 rights whatever, distinct from or independent of the crown, 
 or rather of the experiments which the government of the 
 day might deem it advisable to try, in the hope of advancing 
 those interests.* Persons accor(Jingly were seized, and pro- 
 perty was taken away, without hesitation or regret, when- 
 ever the slightest opportunity presented itself of promoting the 
 good of what was called his majesty's service. For the sake 
 of that very equivocal cause, Wentworth was always ready to 
 attack whole bodies or individuals with equal alacrity and ri- 
 gour ; and so impatient was he of restraint, delay or opposition, 
 and so peremptory and overbearing in the prosecution of his 
 measures, that even when his object was laudable, he injured 
 justice by the rudeness with which he carried it into effect. 
 This appears conspicuously in the case by which he properly 
 compelled the earl of Cork to give up .£^2,000 a year, taken 
 
 * Strafford, by his contemptuous disregard of the rights of all classes, 
 unquestionably sowed many of the seeds out of which grew the war of 
 the Confederates. When the lords of the Pale, pursuant to a custom of 
 long standing, desired to be simimoned and consulted before parliament 
 met, respecting the business to be transacted, he insolently announced to 
 them that it was their duty to consider, not what might please the people, 
 but what could please the king ; that his majesty expected confidence, and 
 would admit of no conditions, bargains, or stipulations, and no constraint 
 upon the free and cheerful will of the people : that he must have not a 
 momentary arid precarious supply, but a permanent provision for the 
 army. " As a faithful servant to my master," he concluded, " I shall coun- 
 sel his majesty to attempt this, first, by the ordinary means. Disap- 
 pointed there, I could not, in a cause so just and necessary, deny to 
 appear for him at the head of that army, and there persuade them fully 
 that his majesty had reason on his side, or die in the execution of his 
 commands so justly laid upon me." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 9 
 
 from the church. Amongst other proceedings of indecent se- 
 verity and unprincipled subterfuge, we have only room to refer 
 to those against Sir Piers Crosby, who was condemned and 
 executed under circumstances of peculiar atrocity ; against the 
 Lord Chancellor Loftus ; against the earl of Kildare, whom he 
 committed to prison for hesitating to submit his estates to the 
 judgment of the privy council ; and worst of all, against Lord 
 Mountmorris, upon whose trial, arising out of a personal quar- 
 rel, he shamelessly presided in person, and brought all the in- 
 fluence of his talents and his office to bear against the accused. 
 
 Notwithstanding the odious light in which these various 
 transactions place the administration of Wentworth, it is to 
 be borne in mind, that if we were to test its merits by the rules 
 on which he professed to act, and the designs he proposed to 
 accomplish, it was eminently effectual. He was the king's 
 devoted servant : to strengthen his prerogative, and to render 
 his tyranny more formidable by raising troops and money for 
 its support, constituted the summit of his ambition. A career 
 so grateful to the sovereign, met, as a matter of course, with 
 the warmest approbation at court ; and was crowned, it must be 
 admitted, with no mean success. Wentworth by his strong and 
 able management not only disencumbered the Irish revenue from 
 debt, but saved a large surplus to serve as a provision against 
 sudden emergencies. On the first alarm of the rising of the 
 Scots, he remitted c£^30,000 to the king from the Irish ex- 
 chequer, with a considerable donation from the private fortune 
 which, like all other governors, he did not fail to acquire in 
 Ireland. 
 
 As the king's difficulties increased, the Irish forces were 
 mustered, reviewed, and augmented, and detachments were 
 even drafted over into England, to strengthen the royal arm 
 in that country. A cringing parliament, instigated, no doubt, 
 by his dexterous and commanding spirit, voted four entire 
 subsidies, together with a loyal address, thanking the king in 
 terms of high-strained eulogy, for his paternal goodness in 
 giving them so exemplary a lord lieutenant. With more sin- 
 cerity but not more credit to themselves, they recalled the vote 
 when the object of it fell into disgrace and peril in England, and 
 
10 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 pursued him with accusations ; but these were so unskilfully 
 framed, that he escaped uninjured from them, notwithstanding 
 the barefaced illegality of the whole course of his government. 
 
 At length having issued the necessary orders for levying 
 the parliamentary grants, and for raising and regulating a new 
 army, Strafford obeyed the pressing invitation of the king, 
 and returned to England, where his subsequent fate, fully me- 
 rited and nobly borne, gave him the conspicuous place in 
 history, which he is not likely to lose. Wandesford, mas- 
 ter of the rolls, long a confidential colleague, and now his 
 deputy, received the charge of raising the subsidies, while the 
 command of the army was entrusted to another personal friend, 
 the earl of Ormonde, who afterwards became lord lieutenant, 
 and was for a series of troubled years the principal minister 
 of the crown in Irish affairs. 
 
 The re-appearance in public life of one of the old Anglo- 
 Irish nobility, suggests the propriety of a short statement ex- 
 planatory of the actual condition of a body always influential 
 in the government of the country. The peerage had under- 
 gone mighty changes: many of those families with whose 
 names and fortunes the past history of Ireland has made us 
 most familiar, had ceased to exist in the main line, or had 
 withdrawn from war and politics : new men occupied their 
 places, and were actively and successfully employed in raising 
 up over the powerless remains of prostrate factions and extin- 
 guished immunities another superstructure, which they con- 
 trived to render equally efficient for keeping the country still 
 a prey to the oppressions of aristocratic misgovernment. As 
 but too many occasions will present themselves for pointing 
 out the means by which this second system of using Ireland 
 for no purpose but that of supporting the ambition of a few 
 noble families ; and as the men by whom it was principally 
 turned to account, will often have to be mentioned ; it will be 
 enough to describe the race and their practices here in a brief 
 account of one of the first and most fortunate of the new 
 aristocracy — " the Great Earl of Cork," as he is styled by his 
 biographer, Mr. Budgell. 
 
 Richard Boyle, born in Canterbury, October 3, 1566^ 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 11 
 
 received his education at St. Bennett's College, Cambridge. 
 "After studying the law with great application for some 
 small time, he found that his fortune was vastly inferior to 
 his spirit, and that he was unable to support himself like a 
 gentleman in his own country ; " he therefore determined to 
 follow the example set by so many other Englishmen in dis- 
 tressed circumstances, and became an adventurer in the land 
 of spoliation and oppression. " When I first arrived at Dub- 
 lin," he tells us, in some " true remembrances" which he left 
 behind him, for the information of his posterity, " all my 
 wealth then was £27 ^s. in money, and two tokens, which my 
 mother had formerly given me, viz., a diamond ring, which I 
 ever have since and still do wear ; and a bracelet of gold, 
 worth about ^^10; a tafFety doublet, cut with and upon 
 taffety ; a pair of velvet breeches, laced ; a new Milan fustian 
 suit, laced, and cut upon taffety; two cloaks, competent 
 linen, and necessaries, with my rapier and dagger." 
 
 Provided and armed with this small stock, Mr. Richard 
 Boyle proceeded, according to his biographer, to make himself 
 quickly remarkable in Ireland. His first speculation was pro- 
 pitious. " One of the daughters and co-heiresses of Mr. An- 
 nesley, of Limerick, a young lady of great merit and fine 
 understanding, fell in love with him ; and though her fortune 
 was vastly superior to his pretensions, yet her indulgent father, 
 charmed with the young gentleman's conversation, suffered 
 his daughter to marry him." Mrs. Boyle died in her first 
 accouchement : the mother and child were buried together, 
 while the widower found himself master of ^£^500 a year in 
 land, and so much money acquired by his marriage, that he 
 started as a public character, and by his many purchases, and 
 conspicuous style of living, excited the envy of Sir H. Wallop 
 and of other men in office, who wrote over to England that 
 he was supported by the purse of some foreign enemy of the 
 crown, and was a Roman Catholic at heart. 
 
 Boyle was preparing to leave Ireland, and vindicate himself 
 from these charges before the queen, when the Munster wars 
 connected with the fall of Desmond broke out, and wasted his 
 estates in " such a manner," according to his own account, 
 
12 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 " that he had not one penny of certain revenue left/* In this 
 ruined condition he made his way back to London, and taking 
 his former chambers in tlie Temple, proposed to resume the 
 legal profession. But the earl of Essex being appointed to 
 the chief command in Ireland, Boyle " made a shift to get 
 himself recommended to that nobleman,"'"' and being received 
 with all the humanity which rendered him so justly popular, 
 accompanied him on his expedition. Being soon after arrested 
 by Wallop on the old charges, he was sent to London in 
 custody, and a day appointed for his appearance before the 
 council, when the queen presided in person. On this occasion 
 Boyle, after giving a relation of his conduct in Ireland, through- 
 out which he made it appear that he had been loyal in the ex- 
 treme, retorted accusations upon his enemy, and concluded with 
 " an explanation of the lord treasurer's method of passing his 
 accounts," which riveted the attention of the queen and her 
 advisers. He had no sooner done speaking, according to his 
 own version of the affair, than Elizabeth broke out lustily with 
 these words, " By God's death all these are but inventions 
 against the young man, and all his sufferings are for being 
 able to do us service, and those complaints are urged to fore- 
 stall him therein ; but we find him to be a man fit to be em- 
 ployed by ourselves, and will employ him in our service. 
 Wallop and his adherents shall know that it shall not be in 
 the power of any of them to wrong him — neither shall Wallop 
 be our treasurer any longer."" 
 
 Acting on her words at the moment, Elizabeth named Sir 
 George Carew treasurer, in Wallop's stead, and commanded 
 that Boyle should be discharged from confinement, and reim- 
 bursed for all fees and charges, incurred through the accusa- 
 tion. A few days after she gave him the office of clerk of the 
 council of Munster, under Sir George Carew as lord pre- 
 sident ; and this, to borrow his own words, " was the second 
 rise that God gave to his fortunes." 
 
 Attending upon the lord president through the Campaign 
 against the Spaniards, he was advised by that officer to pur- 
 chase the lands obtained by Sir Walter Raleigh out of the 
 palatinate of Desmond. This was a far-sighted and judicious 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 13 
 
 speculation. The management of his Irish property had given 
 Sir Walter much trouble, while the income it produced, in con- 
 sequence of the prevailing troubles, was inconsiderable. Both 
 Sir George Carew and Sir R. Cecil became Boyle's patrons 
 and mediators in the negociation which was now commenced, 
 and a bargain was soon struck between him and Raleigh. 
 The sum given for the purchase is not mentioned : it was pro- 
 bably small ; but the estates were extensive, and soon proved 
 valuable. They comprised the towns of Dungarvan, Lismore, 
 Youghal, Kinsale, and Bandon, with broad and fertile tracks 
 spreading round each ; and this, continues the fortunate ad- 
 venturer, "was the third addition and rise to my estate." 
 
 Boyle now rose steadily to the highest rank and most dis- 
 tinguished offices in the country. In 1606 he was sworn a 
 privy councillor by the Lord Deputy Chichester; in 1616 he 
 was created Baron Youghal ; in 1620, Viscount Dungarvan 
 and Earl of Cork ; and in 1629 he became lord justice, in con- 
 junction with his son-in-law. Lord Loftus. In 1681, he ob- 
 tained the place of lord high treasurer, from which, years 
 before, he had been the means of ejecting Sir H. Wallop. 
 The patent issued on this occasion made the office hereditary 
 in his family. By his second wife, Catherine, daughter of Sir 
 Jeffery Fenton, principal secretary of state in Ireland, he had 
 seven sons and eight daughters. Of his sons, three became 
 peers before his death — Richard as Viscount Dungarvan, 
 Lewis as Lord Bandon, and Roger as Lord Broghill ; a fourth, 
 Francis, was afterwards made earl of Shannon. The youngest, 
 Robert Boyle, was the philosopher, who acquired, by his scien- 
 tific discoveries and writings, a fame far higher and more last- 
 ing than titles can bestow. 
 
 Notwithstanding all his honours, estates and influence, 
 there is nothing in the life of the first earl of Cork to excite 
 interest, or call for praise. He was a man of moderate but 
 persevering talent, and rather a favourable specimen of the 
 new aristocracy who began to settle in Ireland at this period, 
 and to obtain the management of public affairs and the 
 patronage of the government, by the strength of family com- 
 pacts. To the weight possessed by his own and his sons' 
 
14 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 peerages, we must add the influence possessed by his brother's 
 family in the church, four of whom, as already stated, were 
 bishops within a short period. His success, which seems won- 
 derful at first, was of a kind neither rare in his own age, nor 
 in the present day. He was a good calculator ; prudent in his 
 expenditure, without being mean ; and made his way quietly 
 and through good management, by knowing when to bend and 
 when to lie by, and when to push his object home. Exact at all 
 times in his attention to the duties of his situation, and ever pre- 
 pared to improve his fortune by securing possession of the ad- 
 vantages which public life constantly offers to a quick observer, 
 with dexterous hands ; exemplary in his observance of religious 
 forms, and never failing in the responsibilities of office, — we 
 see that he belonged to that thriving class of men who will 
 do every thing that is not positively dishonest to serve them- 
 selves. Sagacious, self-interested, sly, and persevering, he 
 made it a point to attain whatever object he had in view by 
 private arrangement rather than by public exertions. Ex- 
 pressions of gratitude to God's providence appear to have 
 been incessantly on his lips, but it is easy to perceive that he 
 kept his head and hands always so busily employed, that if at 
 any moment the divine blessing happened not to carry him on 
 to his ends, he was able to make up for the deficiency by the 
 more humble agency of human perseverance. 
 
 Richard, the second earl of Cork, attached himself closely 
 to Charles I., and procuring two English peerages, with the 
 titles of Baron Clifford and Earl of Burlington, took no 
 part in Irish politics. The influence of the family was sus- 
 tained during his absence from Ireland, by his brother, Lord 
 Broghill, afterwards created earl of Orrery, who stood forward 
 as a prominent public character, much about the juncture at 
 which Strafford, retiring from the government, placed the 
 army, as already mentioned, under the command of the earl 
 of Ormonde. 
 
 Thomas, tenth earl of Ormonde, who by taking the leading 
 part described in a former chapter, in the destruction of the 
 Desmonds and O'Neils, accomplished the main object of the 
 government and the ruling policy of his own family for ages, 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 15 
 
 was obliged to retire from public life while at the height of his 
 ambition. Fifteen years before his death took place he became 
 blind, and thenceforward lived in his castle at Carrick on Siiir, 
 where he is described wearing a long beard and his order of 
 the Garter about his neck, " whether he sat up in his chair or 
 lay down in his bed." Leaving no son, he made his nephew, 
 Sir Thomas Butler, of Kilcash, who was heir to the title, heir 
 to the greater part of the estates also. This Sir Thomas had 
 a son, married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Pointz, of 
 Acton. The first child of that marriage was James Butler, 
 afterwards twelfth earl and first duke of Ormonde, and by far 
 the most celebrated of his name and family. 
 
 The early life of this nobleman held out no prospect of 
 the splendour by which it was ultimately surrounded. Sir 
 Thomas Butler had disapproved of his son's marriage, and 
 refused to receive his wife. Owing to this circumstance, 
 James Butler was born at Clerkenwell, in the year 1607, and 
 placed at nurse with a carpenter's wife at Hatfield, while his 
 parents went to live at the house of Mr. Anthony Southwell, 
 in Cork. In 1618, the boy paid his first visit to Ireland, and 
 spent some time at the castle of Carrick with his great grand- 
 uncle, the old blind earl, and with his grandfather, Thomas, 
 the eleventh earl, who succeeded to the family honours in 1614. 
 Losing his father, who was drowned off the Skerries in a 
 voyage from Dublin to Holyhead, in 1619, he was sent by 
 his mother to a Roman Catholic school at Finchley, near 
 London. This proceeding gave offence to James I., who 
 quickly enforced his own views respecting it, according to the 
 despotic fashion of the age. Making use of his creature, Sir 
 W. Parsons, master of the Court of Wards in Ireland, he 
 caused the boy to be declared a ward of the crown, although 
 the only condition out of which such a case could arise, 
 namely, the possession of land in Ireland, did not exist. The 
 boy's grandfather, Thomas, the eleventh earl, was still living, 
 and a claimant for the family inheritance. We shall presently 
 describe how shamefully he had been deprived of that by the 
 king, even while insisting upon the custody of, and removing 
 the heir from Finchley, in order that he might be educated by 
 
16 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate who paid no 
 attention to the charge — in all probability because he was ill 
 paid for it. 
 
 Amongst the numerous court favourites of this period was 
 Sir Richard Preston, groom of the chamber, who contrived to 
 obtain a patent for the earldom of Desmond. Preston's wife 
 was the only daughter of the blind earl of Ormonde. That peer, 
 while settling the principal family estates upon his heir at law, 
 reserved to his daughter certain manors and a sum of 6,000. 
 This fortune did not satisfy her husband, who, counting upon 
 the king's partiality, set up a claim in her right to all the Or- 
 monde property. A long and harassing lawsuit took place, in 
 which the king, supporting his favourite at every stage, sought 
 to overrule the judges and dictate a decision. But the case 
 was so plain, that even in that subservient age judgment was 
 pronounced for Ormonde. Another of those grievous abuses 
 of law and justice, so characteristic of the reign of the Stuarts, 
 was now committed. Finding no other way left to gratify his 
 minion, the king took it upon himself to reverse the law pro- 
 ceedings, and upon his own authority ordered judgment to 
 be entered for Preston. Nor did his tyranny stop here, for 
 Ormonde, having made some attempt to resist the wrong thus 
 inflicted upon him, was cast into the Fleet prison, where he 
 was left to endure the lowest extremes of want for a term of 
 eight years. 
 
 Such were the unpromising circumstances under which 
 James Butler, who enjoyed by courtesy the title of Lord 
 Thurles, made his appearance at the court of the monarch, 
 who had cut off from him the inheritance of the possessions so 
 long held by his family in Ireland. Adopting the army as a 
 profession, he solicited a commission from the duke of Buck- 
 ingham, and desired to be employed on foreign service. But 
 the duke — unwilhng perhaps to appear as the patron of a 
 youth to whom the king's favour did not incline, refused his 
 application, and Lord Thurles continuing in London, became an 
 occasional visitor at the court. There he met his cousin, the 
 Lady Elizabeth Preston, only child and heiress of the earl of 
 Desmond, who held the Ormonde estates. To her he paid 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 17 
 
 suit, and after a while a fortunate and judicious accommodation 
 of all differences was effected by the marriage of the cousins, 
 September 8, 1629. The king was a party to the contract, 
 issuing letters patent upon the occasion, in which he put on 
 record his approval of the marriage, and vested the wardship 
 of the bride^s lands in the late inmate of the Fleet prison, who, 
 dying in 1632, left his grandson fully reinstated in all the an- 
 cient honours and possessions of the family. The young lord 
 resided for a short time in England, and then took up his re- 
 sidence at the castle of Carrick on Suir, which continued to be 
 his choice seat for many years. 
 
 A close intimacy was soon formed between Wentworth and 
 Ormonde, and it arose out of an incident which seems worth 
 relating. The lord deputy, having reason to apprehend that 
 his first parliament would prove tumultuous, had issued a pro- 
 clamation to enforce an old order, forbidding peers or com- 
 moners to enter the house with swords. When Ormonde 
 came up, the usher of the black rod demanded his sword, and 
 was answered, that if he must have it, it should be in his guts : 
 so saying, Ormonde took his seat, and proved to be the only 
 peer that day who had dared to vindicate his rights and person 
 from insult. Strafford, struck by his intrepidity, sent for him 
 immediately, and demanded to know if he had not seen the 
 lord lieutenant's proclamation; to which Ormonde replied, 
 that he had disobeyed that order upon the higher authority of 
 the king's writ, which summoned him to parliament cum 
 gladio cinctus. Strafford felt that a spirit so determined must 
 either be crushed or conciliated, and finding that Ormonde 
 held the proxies of Lords Castlehaven, Somerset, Baltimore, 
 and Arundel, he adopted the latter alternative, upon the 
 advice of Sir George Radcliffe, and Wandesford, master of 
 the rolls. 
 
 Both parties seem to have turned the accommodation to 
 their separate interests. Strafford was now busy with a plan 
 for planting the extensive tracts called Upper and Lower Or- 
 monde, over which the earl had palatine and other rights, 
 and he found it difficult to proceed while the latter held back 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
18 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 his deeds and muniments. These, however, it was now agreed 
 should be produced, and the settlement of the lands was expe- 
 ditiously effected — Ormonde receiving one fourth part of all 
 the crown planted, and obtaining grants of 1,000 acres each for 
 his friends, John Pigot, Gerald Fennel, and David Routh, 
 esquires. 
 
 The progress of Irish events for several years after this pe- 
 riod exhibits four noblemen, intimately connected with the 
 country, filling conspicuous offices, and rendering important 
 services to the English monarch. Of the first and greatest of 
 these. Lord Ormonde, we have just given a sketch, and shall 
 have occasion to speak again. We have also made mention, 
 and shall have to recur to the next in point of consideration, 
 Lord Broghill, afterwards earl of Orrery. To the other two, 
 Murrogh, earl of Inchiquin, and Ulick, marquis of Clanrick- 
 arde, we shall here devote a few words. 
 
 Amongst the peerages conferred upon the Irish chieftains 
 by Henry VIIL, as rewards and honours, to recompense them 
 for the resignation of their ancient rights and privileges, 
 three* were allotted to the O'Briens of Thomond. Mur- 
 
 * The date of the patent is July, 1543. In the preceding month of June, 
 the articles were formally entered into before the king in person at Greenwich, 
 by which the descendant of Irish kings agreed to surrender the rank and 
 superiority so long enjoyed by his ancestors. The articles are given in Lodge's 
 Peerage, by Archdall: — (1st.) Utterly to forsake and refuse the name 
 O'Breene, and all claims which he might pretend to by the same ; and to 
 use such name as it should please the king to give unto him. (2nd.) That 
 he, his heirs, and the inhabitants of such lands as the king would please to 
 give him, should use the English habit and manners, and to their know- 
 ledge the Enghsh language ; and to their power bring up their children in 
 the same. (3rd.) He and his sons to manure and tiU such of the said 
 lands as should be meet for tillage, and cause houses to be built within a 
 convenient time for proper tenants to improve the same lands. (4th.) He 
 and his heirs to take no cess or other exaction, nor other yearly rent or 
 custom, nor keep any gallowglass or kerne, but such as should content 
 the deputy. (5th.) He and his heirs to be obedient to the king's laws; 
 to answer his writs, precepts, &c., and to their power cause all the inha- 
 bitants to do the semblable, or else bring them to justice. (6th.) He and 
 his heirs to answer and go with the chief governor, to all hostings and 
 journeys, whereunto they shall be warned and assigned, in such manner 
 and with such company as the marchers of the county of Dublin. (7th.) 
 He nor his heirs to maintain or succour any of the king's enemies, rebels, 
 or traitors. (8th.) To hold his lands by a whole knight's fee. — Lodge's 
 Peerage, by Archdall, vol. ii. p. 27. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 19 
 
 rogh, the head of the family, was made earl of Thomond 
 during his own life, and baron of Inchiquin, with remainder to 
 his heirs male ; while Sir Donogh O'Brien, his nephew, and 
 Tanist, was created Baron Ibrackan, with the right of succeed- 
 ing to the earldom upon the death of its first possessor. There 
 were, accordingly, for several generations successively, two 
 peers in the family — the earls of Thomond, descendants of 
 Sir Donogh, being the junior branch, though possessed of the 
 higher title ; and the barons, or, as they afterwards became, 
 earls of Inchiquin, the issue of Murrogh, forming the senior 
 branch. 
 
 It is a singular feature in the annals of this house, that un- 
 ruly and contentious as its various members had been before 
 their adoption of English usages and interests, they proved, 
 after that transition had taken place, remarkable for their 
 attachment to their new condition, as well as for the prudence 
 with which they consulted their political advancement under 
 it. Murrogh, the sixth baron, descending from his name- 
 sake the first earl of Thomond, and himself the first earl of 
 Inchiquin, is the person we shall have to treat of further in 
 this chapter. He was a minor when he succeeded to the title, 
 and going abroad to improve himself in arms, served both in 
 Italy and Spain ; whence returning to Ireland in 1689, he took 
 his seat in parliament, and was constituted vice-president of 
 Munster the year after.* 
 
 Ulick, marquis of Clanrickarde, the last of these eminent 
 
 cotemporaries, was descended from the original settler, 
 
 * At this period he evidently stood well at court. Lodge quotes a 
 letter from the king to Wentworth, written during the course of this year, 
 in which Charles I., referring to the plantations in O'Brien's district, says : 
 — " Amongst other of our well affected subjects to our service in our 
 kingdom of Ireland, we have understood by you the readiness which has 
 been shown by Murrogh, baron of Inchiquin, to advance and further the 
 plantation within our county of Clare, by submitting himself to our title 
 there, in which respect we are pleased to extend our grace and favour to 
 him, that he may not in course of plantation have the fourth part of his 
 lands in that county taken from him as from other the natives there, but 
 be suffered still to hold them upon such increase of rent as shall be set 
 upon these quarters of land in that county, which are left to the several 
 possessors, after our own fourth part shall be taken forth of them. West- 
 minster, March 15th." — Lodge's Peerage, by Archdall, vol. ii. p. 49. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Fitzadelm de Burgh, whose title and possessions, it will be 
 remembered, passed into the royal family after the murder of 
 Richard, third earl of Ulster, in the year 1333. Amongst 
 the consequences of that crime (it was instigated, according 
 to all accounts, by the cupidity of his own relatives), was the 
 assumption of Irish names and habits by the De Burgs of 
 Connaught, who ceased for a long time to be considered a 
 portion of the English interest. They were won back to their 
 primitive state by Henry VIII., who made Ulick, of Clan- 
 rickarde, the first earl of that title. He had a son distin- 
 guished as Ulick Negan, or the beheader, because he collected 
 together and made a mount of the heads of men slain in bat- 
 tle, which he covered over with earth ; but the second earl 
 appears to have been Richard, surnamed the Sassanach, or 
 Englishman, who served the office of lord lieutenant. Richard's 
 son and grandson took active parts in the trying events of 
 their age, and w^ere frequently selected by the crown for 
 honours and grants of lands, in return for their military 
 achievements against the Irish and Anglo-Irish. More emi- 
 nent than either of these was Ulick, the fifth earl, and first 
 marquis of Clanrickarde, and the friend of James, duke of 
 Ormonde. 
 
 The tyranny of the Stuarts in England produced the com- 
 monwealth, and the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell ; while in 
 Ireland it excited the rebellion of 1641 and the eleven years* 
 war of the Confederates. History is falsified when a contrary 
 statement is hazarded, and a different cause is assigned for the 
 convulsions which took place in the two countries ; for it was 
 not religion but oppression which drove the English, the Scotch, 
 and the Irish to rise in arms against the family, so wrongful 
 and yet so weak, by which they were then misgoverned. The 
 current of events in the two islands, steadily and dispassionately 
 surveyed, is plainly traceable to its source. We see in both the 
 same provocation given, and a corresponding action resulting 
 from it : we find no writer so unreasonable as to contend that 
 the people were inspired to fight for their liberty by the ge- 
 nius of Protestantism, or of Presbyterianisni, in the one 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 21 
 
 island — how monstrous, then, to pretend that they were made 
 rebels by Roman Catholicism in the other ! When the noto- 
 rious misrule of Ireland is undeniable, why should we refuse to 
 believe that, amongst the leaders of the revolt, there were 
 men animated by the spirit we reverence in a Hampden, a 
 Sydney, and a Russell ? That bitter religious animosities 
 should have been displayed during the heat of the encounter, 
 will surprise no calm observer of the relative positions and 
 predominant feelings of the belligerents at the period of the 
 outbreak. For what was the state of religion ? The bulk of 
 the population adhering to the faith of their ancestors — a faith 
 which it was highly penal to cultivate — groaned under accu- 
 mulated wrongs, and were a prey to all the exasperation which 
 intense sufferings, working upon the lowest state of ignorance 
 and poverty, could engender. On the other side, by far the 
 greater number of the Protestant prelates, according to the 
 admission of Protestant writers, were " worldly and time- 
 serving men" — "the Protestant clergy were generally very 
 inefficient, uneducated, and demoralized, and inferior to the 
 Roman Catholic priesthood in the zealous pursuit of their 
 objects, and had turned a sacred vocation into a profession of 
 aggrandizement." The Protestant laity " generally lived in 
 a state of ignorance of their own doctrines, or of utter in- 
 difference to them, and of bigoted intolerance of those of 
 others." They assumed " an offensive superiority over the 
 Papists, grounded on the mere circumstance of their being 
 the dominant party, but to which they were by no means en- 
 titled by any superior morality of conduct." * So far we see 
 the train laid, and religion supplying the fire by which the 
 explosion was kindled. 
 
 Let us next inquire the character of the governors under 
 whose administration this rebellion took place. Strafford, 
 abandoned by the king, for whom he had sacrificed himself, 
 had lost his head on the scaffold ; his friend and successor, 
 Wandesford, had died suddenly; and in 1640 the adminis- 
 
 * " Life of Bishop Bedell," by H. J. Mason, LL.D., M.R.I.A., Libra- 
 rian to the King's Inns, and Secretary to the Irish Society. 8vo. London: 
 Seeleyand Burnside. 1843. 
 
22 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 tration of Irish affairs was in the hands of two lords justices, 
 Sir W. Parsons and Sir J. Borlase, whom Leland writes of in 
 these terms : — " They who looked more closely into their 
 characters and principles, conceived, and not without reason, 
 that they by no means wished to crush the rebellion in its 
 beginnings, but were secretly desirous that the madness of the 
 Irish might take its free course, so as to gratify their hopes 
 of gain by new and extensive forfeitures. Nor did the deeper 
 politicians scruple to insinuate that these cold and reserved 
 governors acted by directions from the reigning faction in 
 England." 
 
 And now, who were the leaders of the revolt ? — who were 
 the men, who seeing the English determined to pull down the 
 king's government as an intolerable tyranny, and beholding the 
 Scotch triumphant in the blows they struck for the protection 
 of their own form of religion — who were the Irishmen who at 
 this inspiriting moment made a fresh appeal to arms for the 
 recovery of their personal rights, and the civil and religious 
 liberties of their fellow countrymen ? They were men — let us 
 call them whatever we may, victims, rebels, or heroes — who 
 were made what they were by oppression. 
 
 The first was Roger Moore, a descendant of the princely 
 and once powerful sept, proprietors of the territory of Leix. 
 TheO'Moore, who died in the Tower, a victim to the treacherous 
 policy of the government under Edward VI., and whose pos- 
 sessions, confiscated by Philip and Mary, had formed the 
 Queen's County, was his ancestor. The family had thus become 
 impoverished, and nearly extinct. But one of them, Roger, 
 for a short time head of the rebellion of 1641, survived. He 
 had been educated in Spain, where respect for his ancient 
 lineage, and compassion for the severities by which their ruin 
 had been effected, facilitated his introduction to the best so- 
 ciety. His natural talents, a lively and generous disposition, 
 and a courage worthy of the reputation of his country for 
 valour, had thus been improved and refined. Hatred of Eng- 
 land, and a swelling desire for the recovery of his rights, 
 descending to him as a natural inheritance, were quickened by 
 the pressure of pecuniary distress. In Spain he met with a 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 23 
 
 fellow-sufferer, who reciprocated all his regrets for the past, 
 and his hopes of the future. This was the son of Hugh, second 
 earl of Tyrone, who commanded a regiment, and was particu- 
 larly favoured at the Spanish court. Two young men of spirit 
 and ability, whose misfortunes, derived from a common origin, 
 had led to the same effects, could hardly come together without 
 soon agreeing upon some measures for the improvement of their 
 circumstances. The obvious remedy was a descent upon Ireland, 
 aided by arms and money from France, Spain, and Rome. 
 The plan met with the encouragement expected for it, from 
 the ministers of these courts ; but it had scarcely been entered 
 upon when assassination carried off Tyrone. At the time that 
 loss was sustained Moore was in Ireland ; but though deprived 
 of his companion, Roger determined to proceed with the en- 
 terprise. He had applied for co-operation to Owen O'Neil, a 
 near relative of his deceased friend, and a colonel in the ser- 
 vice of the Low Countries. From that officer's influence at 
 the court of France many advantages were anticipated, and 
 they were ultimately obtained. We shall presently have to 
 enlarge upon his exploits as a leader of the cause. 
 
 A conspiracy so long in preparation, and so extensive in its 
 ramifications, could not be kept a profound secret : rumours of 
 the intended movement spread amongst the numerous exiles 
 whom the tumults of former days, forfeitures, and religious 
 disabilities had driven upon the Continent. The love of 
 country, the hope of regaining property, and the passion of 
 revenge, led these men once again in numbers to the Irish 
 coast. Vane, the English secretary of state, wrote to the 
 lords justices that a host of Irish ecclesiastics had passed from 
 Spain and other parts to England and Ireland, amongst whom 
 were some good old soldiers, pretending to raise recruits for 
 the king of Spain, but whose real purpose, according to the 
 whispered opinions of the friars in that kingdom, was to levy 
 another rebellion. 
 
 The moment Roger Moore avowed his objects, he kindled 
 the natural enthusiasm of his countrymen into a flame. Ap- 
 pealing emphatically to their feehngs, he reminded them of 
 their past and present sufferings, and invited them to inflict 
 
24 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 punishment for the one, and take efficient security against the 
 continuance of the other. He promised that their country 
 should flourish independently of England ; that all the old 
 families should again be aggrandized ; and that fortune and 
 honour should be the rewards of the individuals who should 
 take part with him in the glorious undertaking. Promptly 
 and warmly was this bold invitation re-echoed throughout the 
 land, where every hand was held up, and every heart beat high 
 to carry it forward. It is generally admitted that Roger 
 Moore fully deserved the support of his fellow countrymen, 
 and was excellently well qualified in many respects to sustain 
 with effect the part which he had undertaken to perform. He 
 was perfectly sincere ; moreover, he was cautious and deli- 
 berate in his actions, penetrating and judicious in his views ; 
 graceful in person, and engaging in his manners and address. 
 He was not only unquestionably brave, but had a high and 
 gallant bearing, and was gifted with a fervid imagination, a 
 humane and honourable temper, and a warm and most winning 
 eloquence. Such a man agitating a cause so dear to the mul- 
 titude, roused their ardour to the highest pitch, and soon 
 became a universal favourite. His praises were on every 
 tongue, his gallantry the burden of every song ; while his 
 name was the battle cry — which fair hands inscribed on the 
 military standards of his followers — For God, our Lady, 
 and Roger Moore." 
 
 After he had spent some months on a personal canvass of the 
 principal sufferers from Strafford's misrule, the insurrection 
 was decided upon. His first associates were Maguire, Lord 
 Enniskillen, more commonly called Lord Maguire, and Mac- 
 mahon, who were the representatives of the old chieftains of 
 Fermanagh ; Sir Phelim O'Neil, who set up a claim to the 
 earldom of Tyrone ; Hugh, heir of the plundered Byrnes of 
 Wicklow ; Richard Plunket, the O'Reillys of Cavan, Sir Con 
 Magennis, Sir James Dillon, and many others. These gen- 
 tlemen began the rebellion of 1641; but before a year had 
 elapsed they were joined by another party, consisting of Anglo- 
 Irish peers, whose families were ancient, and whose properties 
 were extensive. Amongst the latter were the Lords Mount- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 25 
 
 garret, Mountnorris, Roche, Fingal, Gornianstown, Netter- 
 ville, Castlehaven, Taaffe, and others. 
 
 Thus the rebeUion of 1641 ran into the war of the Con- 
 federates, and both were but natural consequences of the in- 
 justice and impohcy of the local government. For at the 
 rumour of an insurrection. Lords Gormanstown, Netterville, 
 and a powerful party of peers, came forward and desired to be 
 armed in defence of the country. Their offer, coldly received, 
 was partially accepted in some instances, while in others it was 
 positively declined. The peers and principal landowners were 
 thus forced, ere long, where the great strength of the move- 
 ment lay — into the ranks of the people. 
 
 Moore's plans having been maturely weighed, it was agreed 
 that operations were to commence with the capture of the 
 castle of Dublin, and a simultaneous rising throughout the 
 country, by which all forts and strong places were to be sud- 
 denly seized together. Moore himself volunteered to lead the 
 first attack, from which Maguire and O'Neil Sought to absent 
 themselves. It was eventually arranged that Maguire only 
 should join him on that occasion, and that Sir Phelim should 
 at the same time surprise Londonderry. Ikit the intended 
 blow was never struck. Owen Conolly, a drunken servant, 
 who had been sent on some messages to Maguire, suspected 
 treason and betrayed the plot. The peer and ^lacmahon were 
 taken prisoners and sent to London, where they were tried for 
 offences committed out of the jurisdiction of the court before 
 which they were arraigned, and notwithstanding the indis- 
 putable illegality of the proceeding, were hung, drawn, and 
 quartered at Tyburn. Moore and O'Neil were more fortu- 
 nate : they effected their escape, and soon raised the country. 
 
 There is no portion of Irish history upon which more false- 
 hood has been uttered than upon the affairs of the period 
 we have now to glance at ; and it is melancholy to observe 
 that we can trace almost every misrepresentation by which 
 they have been blackened to a religious cause. When the 
 civil rights of the people and the enjoyment of property and 
 office were made to depend on the profession of a particular 
 faith, politics and religion went hand in hand, both in loyalty 
 
26 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 and rebellion — while bigotry added her bitterness to the ran- 
 cour of party prejudice. All the cotemporary writers were 
 deeply imbued with the perverted feelings which these two 
 dark passions necessarily engender, and there are but few 
 authors at the present day who are not more or less infected 
 by their influence ; yet an impartial observer cannot fail to 
 perceive, that if ever there was a justifiable rebellion, it took 
 place in Ireland during the year 1641, and that religion was not 
 its mainspring. The misgovernment of that country moreover 
 had been much more galling and extensive than any expe- 
 rienced in England or in Scotland. In neither of these had 
 the rights of persons and property been so shamelessly vio- 
 lated as they had been in Ireland ; and yet while the language 
 of respect always, and of admiration often, is fairly applied to 
 the successful leaders of the revolt against monarchy in the 
 sister country, abusive terms of contemptuous censure are too 
 often heaped upon the men in Ireland, who at the same time 
 strove to free themselves from oppression in one of its severest 
 forms. No one dares to ascribe the parliamentary war of the 
 commonwealth exclusively either to the Protestant or Presby- 
 terian religion ; but there are numerous revilers, who, lightly 
 touching or wholly suppressing the civil and political wrongs 
 out of which the war of the Confederates arose in Ireland, do 
 not hesitate to ascribe all the enormities committed during 
 the eleven years it lasted solely to the Roman Catholic religion. 
 This is not the place to speculate upon the extent to which 
 England and Scotland might have tamely submitted to the 
 tyranny of the Stuarts, but for the puritanical spirit by which 
 their age was animated. It may, however, be fairly observed, 
 that the victory would not have been so soon or so effectively 
 gained, had the men who fought for it been warmed by a less 
 ardent fire than is kindled by religious enthusiasm ; but freely 
 as this is to be admitted, it is also plain that the soldier citizens 
 of the commonwealth had other motives to resist the govern- 
 ment ; and it would be as unfair to put these out of view 
 when estimating the justificatory circumstances connected 
 with their proceedings, as it is manifestly a perversion of the 
 truth to assign to the corresponding Irish struggle no other 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 27 
 
 grounds than those furnished by the rehgious view of the 
 question. 
 
 A false colour is also given to the transactions of this 
 period, by representing that the conduct of the whole Roman 
 Catholic population, as well as of their officers and soldiers, 
 was uniformly cruel and savage ; and by not adding that 
 the offences, however monstrous, committed by them, were 
 equalled if not exceeded by the English and the Scotch, by 
 the Protestants and the Puritans. The facts display a re- 
 volting aggregate of indefensible atrocities perpetrated on 
 both sides without shame or remorse ; but the grateful in- 
 stances in which Protestant authors record acts of forbear- 
 ance and protection upon the part of the Roman Catholics 
 are so numerous and touching,* that no unbiassed reader can 
 read them, and resist the belief that the crimes of the period 
 were redeemed by the display of not a few glowing virtues 
 amongst the native population. 
 
 Moore and O'Neil were soon at the head of armed bodies 
 in the North : the former counted 2,500 men — while posted 
 between Dundalk and Atherdee ; the latter, it is said, gathered 
 as many as 30,000. But these were unarmed and undisci- 
 
 * Amongst these, particular notice is due to the preservation of Bishop 
 Bedell from violence, when the whole county of Cavan was in the hands 
 of the insurgents. He was known to be a strict Protestant, but being 
 a kindly and truly pious man, he was called by the common people " the 
 good Protestant." Such was their sense of the debt they owed to the 
 prelate who had not been an extortioner or a persecutor, that his residence 
 was respected, and, by common consent, allowed to be a sanctuary to the 
 English and Protestants of the district. He died while the disturbances 
 were still raging, and the insurgent force attended his funeral, and paid 
 military honours to his grave. This is not a solitary anecdote. In 1641, 
 Edmund Burke had undertaken to convey Dr. Maxwell, the Protestant 
 bishop of Kilmore, together with several clergymen of the establishment 
 and other settlers, from the village of Shrule, in Mayo, to Galway. But 
 the party had barely crossed the bridge of Shrule, when, according to the 
 depositions given in Lodge, a shot was fired from behind the bushes, and 
 Edmund Burke drew his sword, and the examinant riding back to the 
 bridge with the bishop's child, way was made for him by Walter Burke. 
 The bishop was wounded, and 30 persons according to one, or 65 accord- 
 ing to another account, were slain. The Roman CathoHc gentry of the 
 neighbourhood no sooner heard of this outrage than they hastened to 
 rescue and relieve the sufferers. At their head came Bryan Kilkenny, 
 guardian of the neighbouring abbey of Ross, an aged man, who brought the 
 bishop's wife and children, and many others, to his monastery, where they 
 were hospitably entertained to the best of his ability, for several nights. 
 
28 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 plined — a tumultuary mob, full of vain confidence in their num- 
 bers, but as a body wholly unimpressed with that stern deter- 
 mination to die rather than to submit, which alone could have 
 given victory to such a cause. Moore's manifesto w^as a mo- 
 derate and skilful production. He complained of oppression, 
 but acknowledged that there had been indulgence shown in 
 matters of religion ; he set forth the fears which they all had 
 reason to entertain of the Scotch " landing with sword and 
 Bible," for the extinction of the Roman Catholic religion ; he 
 insisted that designs were practised against the Papist and 
 Protestant bishops of the kingdom ; and he proposed that the 
 king should secure them both. * Still better than his own 
 compositions and proceedings was the effect produced in his 
 favour by the conduct of the lords justices. 
 
 These men, it is to be remembered, were devoted to the 
 party of the commonwealth in England. They were, therefore, 
 well disposed to thwart the measures of the Irish lords and 
 gentlemen, w^ho, if their particular grievances had been ac- 
 commodated, would have immediately ranged themselves on 
 the side of the government. After many importunities from 
 this party, a parliament was summoned ; but the justices no 
 sooner found that there were not a few members resolved to 
 suppress the rebellion, and also to inquire into and correct the 
 misgovernment out of which the rebellion had sprung, than 
 they called for votes, authorizing them to levy forces and raise 
 money for the defence of the country ; and having obtained 
 these in two days, they put an end to the session. 
 
 The principal peers and landlords, feeling that it would be 
 vain to seek in Ireland for the aid which the circumstances of 
 the country demanded, sent a memorial to the king, remon- 
 strating against the misconduct of the lords justices, urging 
 the appointment of the earl of Ormonde as lord lieutenant, 
 
 * This was not the only document put forward to justify the act of 
 appearing in arms against the government. Sir Phelim O'Neil exhibited 
 a commission to levy troops, which purported to bear the royal signature 
 and the great seal. The authenticity of this instrument is disputed to this 
 day. Whether forged or genuine, it proved highly serviceable to the cause 
 of the insurgents, by leading to a general belief that the war had been 
 undertaken with the king's knowledge and approbation. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 29 
 
 and the employment of military rigour to quell violence, toge- 
 ther with legislative remedies to quiet just discontents. But 
 the two lords, Dillon and Taaffe, who were the bearers of this 
 document, were seized at Ware, and after having been de- 
 prived of their papers, were kept in prison for some months. 
 While the envoys of the moderate party were thus intercepted, 
 the emissaries of Parsons and Borlase made their way to 
 London, and denouncing the representations of the peers as 
 malignant, self-interested, and unworthy of attention, pro- 
 tested that no force levied in Ireland, or commanded by Irish- 
 men, was to be trusted ; that an English army alone could 
 keep the country in order ; and that if sent over, as they de- 
 sired it might be, they would undertake to cover, by confisca- 
 tions, the charges and expenses it would occasion. This 
 counsel — for the correctness of which Carte is our authority — ■ 
 prevailed ; and the lords of the Pale, as they were called, soon 
 took their places in the ranks of Roger Moore. 
 
 A meeting was held at the Hill of Crofty, which was attended 
 by Lords Fingal, Gormanstown, Slane, Dunsany, Netterville, 
 Louth, and Trimbleston, with 1,000 of the gentry of the county 
 of Meath. Roger Moore, Colonel Macmahon, brother to the 
 chieftain executed in London, and other leaders of the insur- 
 gents attended on this occasion. The lords rode forward to 
 meet them, and asked why they had entered the Pale in arms ? 
 Moore replied that they were armed in defence of the king's 
 prerogative, which had been invaded, and to vindicate liberty 
 of conscience. Are these, inquired the lords, your genuine 
 designs ? — have you no private ends of your own ? Moore pro- 
 tested that they had none ; upon which the lords declared that 
 theirs were common interests, and that they would join to 
 maintain them. Thus began the war of the Confederates — 
 produced, it is clear, by an insulting denial of justice to the 
 principal men in the country. 
 
 Moore's cause was strengthened, but his personal influence 
 was diminished, by this accession of numbers, rank, and pro- 
 perty to his ranks. In the new distribution of commands 
 which the presence of so many eminent men rendered neces- 
 sary, he ceased to be recognised as the prime mover of the 
 
80 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 revolt. Perceiving his position no longer as high as his en- 
 thusiasm coveted ; mortified by the clashing interests and per- 
 sonal jealousies which abounded in so mixed a party; shocked 
 by the horrors which the cruelties on both sides seemed to 
 accumulate on his head ; and chagrined by the slow progress 
 of the cause ; his health and spirits drooped, and he retired 
 in discontent to Flanders. When the supreme council was 
 afterwards established at Kilkenny, he returned ; but men 
 of inferior minds filled all the principal offices ; his first 
 ardour never revived ; he fell ill, and soon after died of disap- 
 pointment and mortification. His qualities and conduct have 
 been commended by all impartial writers. He brought to the 
 struggle an enthusiasm and valour chivalrous and humane in the 
 highest degree, and so little hardness of character, as to be defi- 
 cient in fortitude and perseverance. His was that peculiarly 
 Irish temperament, equally sanguine and sensitive ; prompt to 
 venture upon great undertakings without making due provi- 
 sion for inevitable consequences ; and prone to sudden despair, 
 under the pressure of those reverses which so often embarrass 
 the progress of a cause, without being decisive obstacles to its 
 ultimate success. 
 
 There have been not a few angry disputes raised for the 
 sake of determining which of the two parties who were now 
 belligerents, set the example of ferocity, by which this cruel 
 struggle was so deeply stained. Some blame the Irish, and 
 some the English ; some Sir Phelim O'Neil, and some Sir 
 Charles Coote, as the first monsters who dealt in cold-blooded 
 massacre and lawless executions. But the point is not worth 
 discussion ; first, because there is room to doubt whether he 
 who begins a wrong, or he who by retaliating perpetuates it, 
 is the greater offender against humanity ; and secondly, be- 
 cause in the long run the guilt on both sides became extreme 
 and indefensible. The savage character of the war may be 
 said to have been decided by the proclamation of the lords 
 justices when Ormonde took the field. The orders then given 
 were " to kill and destroy the rebels, their adherents, and re- 
 lievers ; and to burn, waste, consume, and demolish all the 
 places, towns, and houses where they had been relieved and 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 31 
 
 harboured ; with all the corn and hay there ; and also to kill 
 and destroy all the men there inhabiting, capable of bearing 
 arms." When we know that these appalling directions were 
 acted upon, it is idle to talk of the slaughter committed by 
 O'Neil, or of assassinations committed by the peasantry. The 
 English government, as the body claiming superior strength 
 and civilization, should have shown the higher example. When 
 public massacre was sanctioned by that authority, private 
 murders became the expedient by which an outcast population, 
 made desperate by the fear of extermination, would hope to 
 deter their tyrants from carrying their decrees into full effect, 
 and seek to obtain a guilty satisfaction for the portion which 
 had been put into execution. 
 
 Painful as it is to dwell upon such scenes, it is necessary to 
 vindicate our description of them by particularizing a few, 
 which, for obvious reasons, have been selected from Protestant 
 writers. When O'Neil was repulsed from the castle of 
 Augher, he ordered all the British Protestants in the three 
 adjacent parishes to be put to the sword. After his defeat at 
 Lisburn his followers murdered Lord Caulfield. They ex- 
 ulted in goading gangs of prisoners into some large house, and 
 setting it on fire, indifferent to the cries and the agonies of 
 their victims. One hundred and ninety British are said to 
 have been thrown headlong, on one occasion, from the bridge 
 of Portadown. On the other side, Dr. Borlase, brother of the 
 lord justice, and the apologist of his administration, quotes 
 with evident satisfaction, from a letter of Sir W. Cole, this 
 brutal item : — " Starved and famished, of the vulgar sort, 
 whose goods w^ere seized by my regiment, 7,000/' The Scotch 
 garrison at Carrickfergus, animated by a deadly hatred of the 
 Irish, and their religion, issued forth, according to Leland, 
 under the cover of night, and marching into an adjoining dis- 
 trict, called Island Magee, and inhabited by a number of poor 
 and unoffending Irish, who had never taken any part in 
 the prevailing disturbances — shed the blood of SO families. 
 The same diligent author, describing the recapture of the 
 Wicklow forts by Sir C. Coote, says : — " This man was em- 
 ployed by the chief governors to drive some of the insurgents 
 
32 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of Leinster from the castle of Wicklow, which they had in- 
 vested. He executed his mission, repelled the Irish to their 
 mountains, and in revenge of their depredations, committed 
 such unprovoked, such ruthless and indiscriminate carnage in 
 the town, as rivalled the utmost extravagance of the northerns. 
 This wanton cruelty, instead of terrifying, served to exasperate 
 the rebels, and to provoke them to severe retaliation." 
 
 An endless variety of similar passages occur in the different 
 authors who have related or discussed the affairs of this un- 
 happy era. Their computations of the number of persons 
 killed during it, are to the full as exaggerated as any of the 
 conflicting statements respecting the excesses themselves by 
 which we are confused. Upon this subject, the authority of 
 Sir W. Petty, a writer by no means partial to the Irish, seems 
 to be the safest to rely upon. He says, that in 11 years, 
 from IG'tl to 1652, above 500,000 of the Irish perished 
 by the sword, plague, famine, and hardship, and that in the 
 same space of time 112,000 English were destroyed in the 
 same manner : according to this account, therefore, five times 
 as many Irish as English perished in the rebellion of 1641. 
 
 One point at least seems to be generally admitted. When the 
 lords of the Pale entered into the fight, the rules of honourable 
 war were restored to a great extent. Battles were fairly fought 
 afield ; and on their side, at least, towns were no longer plun- 
 dered, and butcheries ceased. Their first leader was Richard 
 Butler, third Viscount Mountgarret, a cadet of the house of 
 Ormonde, who had married the earl of Tyrone's daughter. 
 He sat in the parliaments of 1613, 1615, and 1634. Upon 
 surrendering to James I. the special livery of his estates, he 
 obtained a confirmation* of them in consideration of his 
 
 * The date was January, 1619, and the instrument provided for the 
 creation of the several manors of Bealaragged (Ballyragget), ahas Donagh- 
 more, Cowlechill, Kenhs, Ballin, otherwise Balleyen, Urhngford, and 
 Mountgarret, with power to hold courts ; to impark 2,000 acres, with free 
 warren, and chace ; liberty of tanning leather ; and to hold a Thursday 
 market and two fairs on the feasts of St. Barnabas and Bartholomew, and 
 the day after each at Ballyragget. Also, 9 January, 1621, he had a fur- 
 ther confirmation thereof by two patents ; and by virtue of the commis- 
 sion of grace, K. Charles I., for the fine of £270, February 9, 1638, re- 
 leased to him all his lands in the counties of Kilkenny and Wexford, con- 
 firming the aforesaid privileges. — Lodge'$Peerage,by Archdall, vol. iv. p. 52. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 33 
 
 faithful and acceptable services. At the outbreak of the re- 
 bellion he was associated, on account of his years and expe- 
 rience, as joint commissioner with Lord Ormonde for the 
 county of Kilkenny, and was so little disposed to take the 
 course which he afterwards adopted, that he offered to raise 
 and arm 1,000 men at his own expense, and march at their 
 head against the insurgents. When at last the mistrustful 
 policy of the government drove him into their ranks, he vin- 
 dicated himself to Lord Ormonde, desiring him to acquaint 
 the lords justices with his remonstrance, in order that, by a 
 fair redress of the grievances which had brought the country 
 into a state of general commotion, they might prevent the 
 fearful calamities otherwise sure to occur. " It is not my case 
 alone,*" he emphatically observes, " but the case of the whole 
 kingdom ; and it hath been a principal observation of the best 
 historians, that a whole nation, how contemptible soever, 
 should not be so incensed by any prince or state, how powerful 
 soever, as to be driven to take desperate courses." 
 
 Following up this letter with a public proclamation, justifi- 
 catory of the step he had taken, and commanding his followers 
 to respect life and property, he advanced upon Kilkenny with 
 a long train of connections and gentlemen, and made himself 
 master of the towns of Callan, Gowran, Waterford, Carrick 
 on Suir, Dungarvan, Clonmel, and Fethard. This was the 
 work of a week ; and so orderly was the manner in which it 
 was performed, that rebellion, in his hands, seemed to be de- 
 prived of its usual horrors. Only one act of impropriety is here 
 charged against the party : nine Englishmen were locked up 
 at Fethard, where their property also was seized, but restored 
 the next day by Lord Dunboyne, who set the prisoners at 
 liberty. Advancing into the county of Cork, Mountgarret 
 besieged the castle of Knockordane, which capitulated quickly. 
 The whole of Munster now seemed destined to fall into the 
 hands of the Confederates, when, fortunately for the English 
 interest, Roche, Lord Fermoy, a nobleman of considerable 
 possessions, became jealous of Mountgarret's power, and in- 
 sisted upon being recognised as commander-in-chief in his own 
 county. The dissensions thus created put a stop to active 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
34 
 
 OUTLIXES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 operations, and gave the lord president, Sir W. St. Leger, 
 time to concert measures with the Boyles and others, and to 
 put the province into a state of defence. 
 
 While the mihtary energies of the Confederates received 
 this check in the South, their alHes in the North had proved 
 unequal to the task of retaining their first advantages. Charle- 
 mont Castle, Dungannon Fort, Mountjoy Castle, Tanderagee, 
 Newry, and Lurgan, had been succcessfully occupied; but 
 O'Neil had been compelled to retreat from Drogheda, after a 
 long siege, in which he gave no proof of talent as an officer, 
 and his forces displayed no vigour worthy of their numbers, 
 or the service on which they were engaged. Ormonde by de- 
 grees came more effectively into the field. Though not the 
 last, he was still by far the greatest of the old settlers ; and by 
 his eminent position and personal character, drew around him 
 an influence which, in a manner, constituted him one of the 
 governing powers of the period in which he flourished. Thus, 
 again, we find the history of the whole country centering in 
 the biography of an Anglo-Irish peer. 
 
 Ormonde at first found it difficult to act as he desired. He 
 was at variance with the lords justices, who sought to im- 
 prove the interests of the English parliament, while his only 
 object was the king's service. His commission as commander- 
 in-chief, held directly from the king, rendered him independent 
 of their authority when in the field, but he could only un- 
 dertake expeditions pursuant to their instructions, and could 
 derive from them alone the men and the money necessary to 
 prosecute them with effect. The gallant army of 8,000 men 
 and 1,000 horse, which Strafford marched upon Carrickfergus 
 before he left Ireland, had ceased to exist. When the war 
 began, the government force was under 1,000 horse and 3,000 
 foot. There were arms, however, in the castle of Dublin for 
 10,000 men. But there was no money to pay that number, if 
 levied, nor were the lords justices willing that the levy should 
 be attempted. Ormonde's abilities as a general were not 
 considerable^ but it would be unfair to test them by the 
 dilatory and unsatisfactory achievements of this period. He 
 was not a free agent. He scattered two disorderly ma- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 35 
 
 rauding armies at Naas and Kilsalagan Castle, and then 
 proceeded to execute, " upon moderate terms," the procla- 
 mation of the lords justices against the villages which were 
 known to have been in concert with the insurgents. It was 
 while he was engaged on this ignoble service that O'Neil 
 raised the siege of Drogheda. Ormonde proposed to pursue 
 the retreating foe, but the lords justices forbad him to cross 
 the Boyne. He returned therefore to Dublin ; and the insur- 
 gents, also retracing their steps, resumed their positions at 
 Drogheda, Atherdee, and Dundalk. 
 
 While the lords justices were indulging their favourite policy 
 of sending out strong detachments under Ormonde, Coote, and 
 other officers, to waste and burn the lands and tenements of the 
 persons who were absent from their homes in arms, the Con- 
 federates advanced from Kilkenny under Lord Mountgarret. 
 They mustered 8,000 infantry, and several troops of horse. 
 Ormonde came in contact with this force at Kilrush, near 
 Athy. According to Carte, his army, consisting of the volun- 
 teers under Lord Brabazon, together with the divisions of Sir 
 C. Coote, Sir T. Lucas, Sir H. Willoughby, and Sir C. Gren- 
 ville, did not exceed 3,000 men. But notwithstanding this 
 remarkable disparity of strength, he won an easy victory. The 
 troops of the Confederates are described as giving way without 
 a blow, and rushing from the ground in such tumultuous con- 
 fusion, that 700 of them were slain, while Ormonde only lost 
 20 men. In the published account of the rout sent by the 
 lords justices to the English parliament, the earl is introduced 
 as " ordering the battle, and manner of fight in all parts of it, 
 and doing it with very great judgment, laying hold quickly and 
 seasonably on all opportunities of advantage that could be 
 gained, and sparing not resolutely to expose his own person to 
 hazard, equally with any other commander." 
 
 At Kilrush, Mountgarret was taught how feeble undisci- 
 plined numbers are sure to prove when opposed to regular 
 troops. Roger Moore, who led a body on the occasion, was 
 deeply mortified at the result, and read in it the doom of his 
 party. The affair illustrates, by a strong example, one main 
 cause of that remarkable want of success by which Irish 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 insurrections and revolts, however cruelly provoked or hope- 
 fully begun, have invariably been attended. The people of 
 a country may rise great in numbers, individually brave, and 
 powerfully excited ; but if they are unaccustomed to the use 
 of arms and military exercises, they cannot possibly defeat a 
 trained army, efficiently equipped, and commanded by officers 
 who understand the art of war. 
 
 It was at this moment that a new power made its appear- 
 ance in the midst of the Confederates, and inspired their 
 drooping ranks with new hope and reanimated courage. In 
 the month of May, 1642, the dignitaries of the Roman Ca- 
 tholic church held a synod at Kilkenny, in which, after de- 
 claring the war just and lawful,^' they called upon the clergy, 
 nobility, cities, and principal towns, to choose provincial coun- 
 cils ; and one supreme council, in order to give authority and 
 
 * The first of the acts ordained and concluded by this congregation 
 may be taken as the manifesto of the Irish people, civil and religious : it 
 was thus expressed : — " Whereas the war which now in Ireland the 
 Catholics do maintain against sectaries, and chiefly against Puritans ; 
 for the defence of rehgion, for the maintenance of the prerogative and 
 royal rights of our gracious King Charles ; for our gracious queen, so 
 unworthily abused by the Puritans ; for the honour, safety, and welfare of 
 their royal issue ; for to avert and refrain the injuries done unto them for 
 the conversion of the just, and lawful safeguard, liberties and rights of 
 Ireland ; and lastly, for the defence of their own lives, fortunes, lands, 
 and possessions ; whereas this war is by the Catholics undertaken for 
 the aforesaid causes against unlawful usurpers, oppressors, and their 
 enemies, chiefly Puritans, and that hereof we are informed, as well by 
 divers and true remonstrances of divers provinces, counties, and noble- 
 men, as also by the unanimous consent and agreement of almost the whole 
 kingdom in this war and union. We therefore declare that war, openly 
 Catholic, to be lawful and just ; in which war, if some of the Catholics be 
 found to proceed out of some particular and unjust title, covetousness, 
 cruelty, revenge, or hatred, or any such unlawful private intentions, we 
 declare them therein grievously to sin, and therefore worthy to be 
 punished and refrained with ecclesiastical censures, if, advised thereof, 
 they do not amend," &c. The council of Kilkenny echoed the decla- 
 ration of the bishops in all its principal points, adopting the common law 
 of England, so far as it was not repugnant to their religion, or to the 
 liberties of Ireland ; upholding the authority of Charles, but not that of 
 his Irish government ; repudiating all distinctions between new and old 
 Irish, and between British and Irish Catholics ; agreeing to maintain the 
 rights of the Roman Catholic Church — but rejecting a clause in which it 
 was proposed that every confederate should bind himself by an oath not 
 to consent to any peace until the church of Rome was restored to the ple- 
 nitude of its former powers. Instead of this extreme condition, they had 
 the good sense to stipulate simply for freedom of worship. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 37 
 
 effect to the proceedings already commenced, and a form of 
 government to their party in the country. This invitation 
 having been promptly answered, the council sat, and de- 
 clared Lord Mountgarret president.* In the month of 
 May, Colonel Owen O'Neil, a general experienced in courts 
 and skilled in war, reached the shores of Donegal with arms, 
 ammunition, and 100 officers ; two ships soon after landed a 
 quantity of mihtary stores at AVexford; a ship of war and 
 two frigates brought over Colonel Thomas Preston, a train of 
 artillery, a company of engineers, and 500 officers. Ere long, 
 Cardinal Richelieu sent over 12 other vessels, with further 
 stores and soldiers ; and at last it seemed as if the struggling 
 rebellion was destined to become a revolution. The supreme 
 council selected the respective commands of the generals in 
 chief : Owen O'Neil was appointed to Ulster ; Preston to 
 Leinster ; Garret Barry to Munster ; and J ohn Burke to 
 Connaught. The last province was intended for Lord Clan- 
 rickarde, but he refused to join the party. His place was, ere 
 long, well supplied by the earl of Castlehaven.-f* 
 
 Colonel O'Neil began his career with the spirit of an accom- 
 plished soldier. Upon placing himself at the head of the Ulster 
 gentry in arms, he declared his horror of the robberies and 
 
 * Cox gives the names of the supreme council as follows : — 
 
 Leinster : Archbishop of Dublin, Viscount Gormanstown, Viscount 
 Mountgarret, Nicholas Plunket, Richard Baling, James Cusack. 
 
 Connaught : Archbishop of Tuam, Viscount Mayo, bishop of Clonfert, 
 Sir Lucas Dillon, Patrick Darcy. Jeofry Brown. 
 
 Munster : Viscount Roch, Sir Daniel O'Brien, Edmond Fitzmorris, 
 Doctor Fennell, Robert Sambart, Geo. Comyn. 
 
 Ulster : Archbishop of Armagh, bishop of Down, Philip O'Reyley, Col, 
 Macmahon, Ever Magennes, Torlogh O'Neal. 
 
 t The case of this nobleman furnishes another striking example of the 
 manner in which royalists were made rebels by the ill treatment of the 
 lords justices. Castlehaven was an English as well as an Irish peer. At 
 the outbreak of the insurrection he tendered his services to the govern- 
 ment — which were refused. He then applied for a passport to England, 
 which was also refused. He next received an order to leave Dublin, 
 which he obeyed by retiring to his estates in the county of Kilkenny. 
 There the Anglo-Irish driven from their settlements found an asylum, 
 and Ormonde and his officers hospitable entertainment after the battle of 
 Kilrush. The lords in arms soon after applied to him to act as a media- 
 tor in their behalf with the government, and he transmitted their remon- 
 strances to the lords justices, who returned him by way of answer a sharp 
 rebuke upon the impropriety of corresponding with rebels. This led him 
 to renew his application for leave to return to England, which was again 
 
38 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 murders with which the war had been conducted in the North, 
 and burned the dweUings of a band of villains at Kenard, 
 who had made themselves infamous by their outrages. As a 
 minute description of the varying fortunes of the war does 
 not fall within the scope of these outhnes, we can only relate, 
 in a general way, that O'Neil was feebly opposed by Colonel 
 Munroe, an able officer, commanding a parliamentary force of 
 10,000 Scotchmen at Carrickfergus, but bent upon aiding the 
 policy of the lords justices, and therefore less disposed to put 
 down the insurrection than to defeat any movement by which 
 the king's cause could be benefited. 
 
 Ormonde fell ill in 1643, and feeling his life in danger, be- 
 thought him of seeking compensation from the king for the 
 sufferings and losses he had borne in the royal cause. Carte 
 prints his letter wTitten upon this occasion. In it he de- 
 scribes his pecuniary embarrassments, and goes so far as to 
 put in a direct claim for a share of the forfeitures which this re- 
 bellion, like all others, was expected to produce. This undigni- 
 fied act reminds us of the old characteristics of a family always 
 attentive to its worldly interests, and sure to provide for an 
 extension of its property by making out a good case at court. 
 The communication becomes peculiarly significant when the 
 juncture at which it was produced is considered. The lords 
 justices were now seeking to quiet the clamours of their 
 officers for money, and to console them under the severe pri- 
 vations they were enduring, by sending round a book and ob- 
 taining subscriptions to an agreement, by which it was stipu- 
 lated that, in lieu of pay and arrears, the army should take 
 portions of the rebels' lands when declared to be subdued. 
 The marquis condescended to enter into competition with these 
 
 denied. Legal proceedings were next brought against him : they began 
 with a charge of horse-steahng against one of his servants, and rose into 
 an impeachment of high treason against himself. As soon as he found 
 himself accused, he hastened to vindicate his innocence in Dublin, and was 
 thrown into prison. His brother. Colonel Touchett, who was in England, 
 demanded of the king that he should be tried by his peers ; the king re- 
 ferred the demand to the parhament, and the parliament refused to act 
 without the king's directions. After suffering an imprisonment of twenty 
 weeks, he effected his escape, and fled to Kilkenny, where he was received 
 with open arms by the Confederates. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 39 
 
 buccaneers, telling the king that his estate was rent and torn 
 from him by the fury of the rebellion, and nothing left to sup- 
 port him and his children ; that if his majesty did not in his 
 abundant goodness think of some course how his many and 
 great debts (a great part of which had been contracted in his 
 service) might be satisfied, his house and property must of 
 necessity sink under their weight and the interest growing 
 upon them, which would in a short time exceed the debts."" As 
 a help towards their payment, or at least, as a means to pre- 
 vent their increasing, he besought his majesty to grant him, 
 or if he died of that sickness, his son. Lord Thurles, so much 
 of the tenements and hereditaments in the city and suburbs of 
 Kilkenny, as should accrue by forfeiture and owed rent or 
 service to him or his wife. These, he adroitly adds, were con- 
 ceived to be in the king's free disposal, and not within the 
 intent of the late acts in England, which seemed to compre- 
 hend only lands to be admeasured, and not houses. 
 
 Renewed health restored Ormonde to a better tone of mind, 
 and prompted him to more creditable services. He was now 
 a marquis, and receiving a new commission as lieutenant- 
 general of the army, was authorized to treat with the Confe- 
 derates, and yield them such terms as he deemed advisable. 
 Unfortunately for the country, he was not liberal enough in 
 the matter of religion to meet the exigencies of the crisis, 
 while he was so far honest as not to make a positive promise 
 of conditions which he did not mean to observe. The king, 
 whose danger in England was becoming more and more critical, 
 importuned him in the months of April, May, and July, 1643, 
 to adjust his differences with the Confederates ; but he pur- 
 posely avoided a cessation of arms. The Catholic lords were 
 willing to accept his offers ; not so, however, the native Irish 
 headed by Colonel O'Neil, who, while the former body sus- 
 pended operations to treat, pushed on hostilities with un- 
 abated vigour. It was owing to these different causes that 
 Ormonde's first commission was not acted upon — another 
 commission being sent over, the Confederates met him 
 again, and terms being agreed upon and published, the party 
 undertook to raise 10,000 men for the king, and to pay him 
 
40 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 .^'SOjOOO by instalments during the course of the year. A 
 cessation of arms for the same period was then prochiim.ed. 
 
 After this arrangement had at last been come to, another 
 advantage was gained for the king's cause, from which much 
 was at first expected, though nothing was ultimately derived. 
 The earl of Leicester, who, residing in England, had been lord 
 lieutenant all this time, was induced to resign in 1644, and 
 the marquis of Ormonde was immediately sworn into his 
 office. Borlase and Tichbourne, the successor of Parsons, 
 now ceased to rule ; the friends of Charles had the govern- 
 ment wholly in their own hands ; and the horizon, for a 
 moment, seemed to grow bright before them, but it was soon 
 overclouded. 
 
 Amongst the more eminent royalist officers who had hi- 
 therto served in the South of Ireland, was O'Brien, Lord 
 Inchiquin, vice-president of Munster, who gained the battle 
 of Liscarrol in 1643. Availing himself of the cessation of 
 arms to visit England and seek promotion, this nobleman 
 paid his respects to the king in person, and claimed to be ap- 
 pointed lord president of his province. But the place, as usual, 
 had been promised to an Englishman, and was now given to 
 the earl of Portland. Inchiquin, though an Irishman, was a 
 Protestant. Irritated by this disappointment, he turned to 
 the parliamentarians, and, finding them willing to gratify his 
 ambition, resolved to espouse their interests. He had signed 
 the minute by which the privy council had called upon Or- 
 monde to enter upon a cessation of arms, but he now de- 
 nounced and broke the agreement. Boyle, Lord Broghill, 
 joined him in this step ; and it soon became manifest that 
 the royalists had sustained a severe loss. Raising 12,000 men, 
 they drove the Roman Catholic magistrates and inhabitants out 
 of Cork, Youghal and Kinsale. Inchiquin, during the course 
 of the ensuing year, reduced Rostellan, Castlemartyr, Barry- 
 more, Imokilly, Dromana, Cahir, Fethard, and Cashel. This 
 last place he carried by storm, and with a fury so savage as to 
 batter the venerable cathedral into a ruin, and slay twenty 
 priests on its altars. By far the most important of his 
 achievements was the subsequent defeat of Lord TaafFe, at 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 41 
 
 Knocknoness, near Mallow, where 3,000 Confederates were 
 killed. 
 
 The confusion of affairs was now extreme. The king, looking 
 upon Ireland as his last resource, and convinced that the leading 
 Confederates were sincerely attached to his cause, instructed 
 Ormonde to perfect the treaty contemplated by the cessation of 
 arms. But terms with the Papists were deemed wickedness by 
 the English parliament, and not desired by Ormonde; while the 
 Pope prepared to dispatch the nuncio Rinuccini to insist, in 
 the event of their being concluded, upon suitable provisions 
 for the church of which he was the head, Rinuccini was 
 furnished with a sum of .=^1 2,000, half of which was expended 
 in arms and stores, and half placed in the hands of General 
 O'Neil. Henceforward we are to consider the Confederates 
 as a divided body. O'Neil commanded the high church party 
 amongst them ^ and being well supplied with money, stores 
 and arms, kept the field with credit, ultimately gaining one of 
 the few battles fought during the course of the war, in which 
 large forces were fairly opposed, in which the courage displayed 
 on both sides was honourable, and military talents of a high 
 order were displayed by the commanding officers. This was 
 the battle of Benburb, which, however, was not fought until 
 the year 1645. The place is six miles from Armagh, and 
 memorable in Irish history as the scene of other bloody ac- 
 tions. On this occasion. Lord Montgomery, 21 officers, and 
 180 men, were made prisoners, while 8,248 of Munroe's 
 army were left dead on the field, besides many slain on their 
 retreat next day. 
 
 Thus there came eventually to be four distinct parties to the 
 contest, each animated by strong opinions supported by an 
 armed force. There was the king's party, represented by 
 the Lords Ormonde and Clanrickarde. There was the 
 party of the Anglo-Irish, represented by the Lords Mount- 
 garret, Castlehaven, and others whose names have already 
 been incidentally mentioned. There was the party of the 
 native Irish, led by Generals O'Neil and Preston, under 
 the immediate councils of the nuncio Rinuccini ; and 
 there was the party of the English parliament, represented 
 
4^2 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 by Generals Mimroe and Coote, under the direction of 
 the lords justices. This classification enables us to dis- 
 tinguish clearly the shades of opinion by which the four 
 bodies were respectively actuated. Religion evidently kept 
 three of them apart, who would otherwise have been united. 
 Ormonde was devoted to the king and the Protestant church ; 
 the Anglo-Irish were also attached to the king, but in arms to 
 secure their rights under Magna Charta, as well in the matter 
 of property as of religion ; the native Irish stood in the same 
 category, and therefore co-operated with the Anglo-Irish, 
 though they are at times found counteracting their proceed- 
 ings, because more directly under the influence of the see of 
 Rome, and thus less willing than their allies to confide in the 
 amicable professions of the English court. The lords justices 
 and the armies under ISIunroe and Coote sustained the prin- 
 ciples of the commonwealth in politics, and of .the Puritans in 
 religion. If Charles therefore could have accommodated mat- 
 ters between his Protestant and his Catholic subjects in Ire- 
 land, the whole country would have been banded on his side ; 
 for, with the exception of some Scotch settlers and official 
 intruders, the Puritans cannot be said to have possessed 
 indigenous strength or influence. 
 
 The year 1644 had been wasted in a variety of missions and 
 negociations, which, extending without effect from England 
 to Paris, Rome and Madrid, left Ormonde's government en- 
 vironed by difficulties much more formidable than he was 
 able to subdue or control. It was now clear that he was 
 unequal to his position — a man of respectable but not of 
 superior talent, who took a fair but not an enlightened 
 view of Irish politics. Had the Confederates been the only 
 discontented men in arms, he might have restored peace, 
 for their moderation was equal to his own. This, however, 
 was not the season of temperate remedies, temporary expe- 
 dients, or partial compromises. Opposite extremes were ex- 
 travagantly pursued by two parties in the rears of the Irish 
 loyalists and the confederated Catholics. These were the 
 puritan parliamentarians and the sustainers of the Pope's 
 supremacy; and nothing short of a genius of the highest 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 43 
 
 order — capacity to invent, and courage to execute original 
 measures of commanding force — could suffice to tranquillize the 
 raging elements of a storm which was as new as it was violent. 
 The marquis of Ormonde did not possess these eminent qua- 
 lities ; and ere long, worn out by a labour which he felt to be 
 impotent, he sought to rid himself of the power he had so 
 long been struggling to acquire, and was unable to maintain 
 with satisfaction to himself or with benefit to his country or 
 his sovereign. Imminent and daily increasing as were the 
 dangers by which he was threatened, he added not a little to 
 their perplexity and intenseness. He belonged to that fair 
 spoken but reserved class of politicians, who, although they 
 deem it wrong to mislead either their followers or their oppo- 
 nents, are not unwilling to derive a political advantage, by 
 allowing either of those parties to deceive themselves. Before 
 a suitable opportunity presented itself for taking any decided 
 steps, he found the discontent produced by his own reserve 
 immeasurably aggravated by the unscrupulous dissimulation 
 of his sovereign. Charles had commenced his reign by break- 
 ing faith with the Irish, and, as if determined to end it in 
 the same spirit, he now resorted to a flagitious piece of deceit. 
 When all his hopes of accommodating matters in England 
 had failed, he determined, as a last desperate resource, to 
 throw himself into the arms of the Irish Catholics. Had he 
 taken that resolution at an earlier period, he might have saved 
 his life and the monarchy. Even now the chances of success 
 to which it opened his longing eyes were destroyed by the 
 unsurpassable duplicity with which he acted, — a duplicity the 
 less excusable, because the conditions required of him were 
 both moderate and just. 
 
 The respective pretensions of the Protestants and the 
 Roman Catholics had been formally laid before him when the 
 cessation of arms was agreed to. Then, as now, there was no 
 room for a controversy respecting the real points at issue 
 between the contending parties. The Catholics demanded 
 that they should be free in the matter of religion, and, as a 
 necessary consequence, that the penal laws should be repealed ; 
 that the Irish parliament should be free ; and again, as a ne- 
 
44 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 cessary consequence, that Poyning's law should be suspended 
 during its sessions ; that there should be proper seminaries 
 established for the education of the Catholic clergy and law- 
 yers ; that there should be an act of general pardon and 
 oblivion, coupled with a reversion of all attainders issued 
 against those who had taken part in the war ; that no person 
 should sit in the parliament of Ireland, who had not an estate 
 and residence in Ireland ; that the parliament of Ireland 
 should be independent of the parliament of England ; that no 
 person should retain the office of chief governor for a longer 
 term than three years, and that no chief governor should be 
 permitted to acquire new lands during his term of office ; that 
 parliament should inquire into all breaches of contract and 
 all acts of inhumanity committed upon both sides during the 
 war; and that all persons guilty of either of these crimes 
 should be excluded from the proposed act of pardon and obli- 
 vion, and be punished in due course of law. 
 
 On the other side, the Protestants demanded that all penal 
 statutes should be enforced against recusants; that all Ca- 
 tholics should be immediately disarmed ; that all offences 
 committed by recusants should be strictly punished according 
 to the statutes ; that all estates forfeited during the adminis- 
 tration of Parsons should be vested in the crown ; and that 
 after the claimants upon them had been satisfied under the 
 recent acts of the English parliament, the residue should be 
 distributed amongst British planters.* 
 
 It is superfluous to remark of these two schemes for the 
 settlement of Ireland, that the one was dictated by the spirit 
 of liberty, and the other by the spirit of tyranny ; that upon 
 the side of the Catholics, who formed the majority of the popu- 
 lation, not in point of numbers only, but in point of property 
 also, a moderation was displayed proportioned to their strength ; 
 
 * Even in Cox we find a confession of the offensive height and the 
 unreasonableness" of the proposals made by the Protestant agents. They 
 were strongly condemned by Usher, then bishop of Dromore, and 
 by others, who told the commissioners that the propositions they had 
 presented did not express the sentiments of the Protestants of Ireland — 
 that if not withdrawn, they would prejudice the king and his ministers 
 to posterity ; and that it would be impossible to grant their desires and 
 obtain peace. But the fanatics were appealed to in vain. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 45 
 
 while the opposite party were immoderate in proportion to 
 their weakness. This was a critical hour in the progress of 
 the king's fate : a firm decision and prompt action might 
 have availed to turn the flowing tide of events in his favour ; 
 but he vacillated, and was lost. Accepting nothing, and re- 
 jecting nothing, he referred everything to negociation and 
 intrigue, in which he sought to blind all parties as to his real 
 intentions, and laboured with profound insincerity to reserve 
 eventually to himself the means of keeping or breaking his 
 faith with every one, as he might find it most convenient. 
 
 The full extent of Charles's guilt is to be detected in the 
 earl of Glamorgan's mission. Finding no improvement pro- 
 duced in the state of affairs by the increased powers conferred 
 upon Ormonde, he sent Glamorgan to Ireland, commissioned 
 to make two treaties with the armed Catholics — one private, 
 and the other public. This mission was fully executed ; and it 
 is enough to observe of it, that the private treaty made two 
 additions to the demands of the Confederates already enume- 
 rated : the one providing that Protestants and Catholics should 
 pay tithes to their respective clergy ; and the other that the 
 churches should remain in the hands of those who then held 
 possession of them. Accident led to the discovery of this pro- 
 ceeding : a copy of the treaty was found in the baggage of the 
 Roman Catholic archbishop of Tuam, who had joined in an un- 
 successful attack upon the town of Sligo. The document was 
 transmitted to the English parliament, and was no sooner pub- 
 lished by that body, than it was repudiated by the king, who 
 denied that he had given Lord Glamorgan any authority to con- 
 clude it. At the same time he ordered the Irish privy council 
 to make the earl a prisoner ; which was accordingly done. 
 
 Strong as this language and proceeding were, the evidence 
 is abundant and convincing, which proves that Charles, through- 
 out the whole transaction and long afterwards, played a foul 
 game with all parties, and was eager to go to any lengths 
 with the Catholics by which he could have served himself. 
 His own letters are the documents upon which he stands 
 clearly convicted in this respect. In the first place, while 
 publicly surrendering Glamorgan to be dealt with by the Irish 
 
46 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 privy council, he wrote privately to Ormonde, who, as lord 
 lieutenant, had the power of acting upon their decision of the 
 case, " to suspend the execution of any sentence until he 
 (the king) should be fully informed of all the proceedings. 
 As to the next and the most material point, namely, the in- 
 structions given, warranting Glamorgan to yield unreserved 
 terms to the Roman Catholic party, we may fairly judge of his 
 intention at this particular juncture by what we know to have 
 been his disposition at a subsequent period. We have a letter 
 from him to the earl, dated Newcastle, July 20, 1646, in which 
 he says : — " If you can raise a large sum of money by pawning 
 my kingdoms for that purpose, I am content you should do it ; 
 and if I recover them, I will fully repay that money ; and tell 
 the nuncio, that if once I come unto his and your hands, which 
 ought extremely to be wished for by you both, as well for the 
 sake of England as Ireland, since all the rest, as I see, despise 
 me, I will do it ; and if I do not say this from my heart, or if 
 in any future time I fail you in this, may God never restore 
 me to my kingdom in this world, nor give me eternal hapi- 
 piness in the next." Now this solemn attestation was pro- 
 nounced long after the charge had been made public, and when 
 a man who had ever felt that it involved guilt or impropriety 
 would naturally have accompanied it with some explanation or 
 qualification. It is here evidently uttered not as a new, but 
 as an old resolution, respecting the sincerity of which the 
 writer feels that some doubts may have been entertained. But 
 this is not the only proof we have under his own hand, of his 
 readiness to put himself at the disposal of the earl and Rinuc- 
 cini. This letter was preceded by two others, dated respectively 
 April 5 and April 6, 1646, the first of which says : — " I know 
 you cannot but be confident of my making good all instruc- 
 tions and promises to you and the nuncio;" while in the 
 second he adds, " as I doubt not but you have too much 
 courage to be dismayed or discouraged at the usage you have 
 had, so I assure you that my estimation of you is nothing 
 diminished, but rather begets in me a desire of revenge and 
 reparation to us both ; for in this I hold myself equally in- 
 terested with you. Wherefore, not doubting of your accus- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 47 
 
 tomed care and industry in my service, I assure you of the 
 continuance of my favour and protection to you, and that in 
 deeds more than words I shall shew myself to be your most 
 assured constant friend, Charles R." — Here there are three 
 other letters subsequent to the publication of the secret treaty, 
 and to a solemn denial of any authority to Glamorgan for its 
 conclusion ; yet all is adopted, and this usage " begets in him 
 a desire of revenge and reparation." 
 
 The case is to be pressed still further. The letters of the 
 month of April 5 and 6 followed two dated the preceding 
 February 3 and 28, in the one of which, meant to be seen 
 by Ormonde and others, he says, " I must clearly tell you, 
 both you and I have been abused in this business ; for you 
 have been drawn to consent to conditions beyond your instruc- 
 tions, and your treaty hath been divulged to the world. If 
 you had advised with my lord lieutenant, as you promised me, 
 all this had been helped ; but we must look fonvard,"' &c. In 
 the other, intended for his emissary's private consolation, he 
 writes, " I am confident that this honest trusty bearer will 
 give you good satisfaction why I have not, in every thing, done 
 as you desired ; the want of confidence in you being so far 
 from the cause thereof, that I am every day more and more 
 confirmed in the trust that I have of you."" 
 
 There may be moralists so lax as to attempt to excuse 
 these reiterated falsehoods, upon the plea that they were told 
 to impose upon enemies ; but his correspondence informs 
 us that Charles could deceive his friends with equal hardi- 
 hood. The passage in the letter of February 5, "If you had 
 advised with my lord lieutenant, as you promised me, all this 
 had been helped," was adroitly introduced to appease the re- 
 sentment which it was naturally assumed that Ormonde must 
 have felt upon discovering how a mission of this important kind 
 had been entrusted to another without his consent or know- 
 ledge. Charles went even further to disabuse the marquis of 
 that supposition, protesting " upon the word of a Christian, he 
 never intended Glamorgan should treat of any thing without 
 his (the marquis's) approbation, much less his knowledge." 
 In the teeth of this assurance, however, he admitted to the 
 
48 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Irish privy council, " that it is possible he might have thought 
 fit to have given the earl of Glamorgan such a credential as 
 might give him credit with the Roman Catholics, in case the 
 marquis should find occasion to make use of him, either as a 
 further assurance to them of what he should privately pro- 
 mise, or in case he should find it necessary to manage those 
 matters, for their greater confidence, apart by the earl, of 
 whom they might be less jealous." 
 
 A cause projected and conducted with so much treachery 
 could not possibly succeed. Everything depended upon the 
 treaty, and that was now attacked from all quarters. The first 
 direct attempt to destroy its efficacy was made by Glamorgan 
 himself, who affected to contend, when arrested, that his pro- 
 ceedings were not obligatory upon the king, because the day 
 after he had entered into the treaty he had signed an act of 
 defeazance with the same parties. Thus turpitude and fraud 
 accompanied the affair through its successive stages. Ormonde 
 completed the general embarrassment by positively refusing 
 to repeal the penal laws. The Irish clergy, naturally enough, 
 then insisted that no terms should be accepted short of those 
 already offered. It was in the midst of this confusion, while 
 the king's friends were pressing for the promised supply of 
 men which had been the consideration upon their side for the 
 cessation of arms, — and while the Irish were contending for 
 a public ratification of Glamorgan's private concessions, — that 
 Rinuccini arrived, and held to the full as peremptory language 
 as had as yet been spoken in the controversy. The sections 
 into which the Confederates were split thus became broadly 
 separated : the papal party, emboldened by the reputation 
 of their generals, and the aid of foreign courts, hoped 
 much from the king's necessities, and were reasonably 
 doubtful of Ormonde's willingness to place their claims 
 upon the ground they sought to rest them. They, there- 
 fore, felt no anxiety to conclude a peace. On the other hand, 
 the aristocratic division of the Confederates, alarmed at the 
 position in which they stood,— a position which made them at 
 once the enemies of the two great English factions, the king 
 and the parliament, — were sincere in their efforts to extricate 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 49 
 
 themselves from so dangerous a dilemma, and to bring about a 
 definite arrangement. In the end they carried their point ; but 
 under circumstances so void of pubhc sympathy or confidence, 
 that dissension continued to prevail, and the war to proceed 
 as of old. 
 
 The treaty between Ormonde and the Confederates, signed 
 March 28, 1646, would have been hailed with joy if it had been 
 concluded two years earlier. It would then have fallen within 
 the time prescribed for that purpose, by the cessation of arms 
 agreed to in 1643. The delay involved disastrous consequences, 
 amongst the chief of which were the repeated indications 
 afforded by the king, that the more straitened his position be- 
 came, the more liberal would be his concessions in Ireland ; and 
 the concurrent manifestation of Ormonde's repugnance to satisfy 
 the demands of the Roman Catholics. The latter was ready to 
 tolerate the old religion, but not to place it upon any terms 
 approaching to those of equality with the Protestant church. 
 Fairly as he spoke to the party, he proved in this latter point 
 so mischievously stubborn as to excite mistrust and even 
 odium.'*^ Accordingly, when after many vexatious negocia- 
 tions, many contradictory admissions and infinite procras- 
 tinations, he was at last driven to guarantee the free worship 
 of the Roman Catholic religion, every expression used in the 
 deed was sui^ to be scrutinised with a suspicious eye, and the 
 
 * As in the case of Charles, so in that of Ormonde, we are influenced 
 in our judgment of his real intentions in these treaties, by his subsequent 
 admissions. Cox prints a letter which is conclusive of his fixed principles 
 upon this question. It was written on Christmas day, 1646, while the 
 negociations were still pending for delivering up the government to the 
 parUamentary commissioners, and was to be taken to France by Lord 
 Digby. " Be careful," he says, " to take order that the commands 
 directed to me, touching this people, thwart not the grounds I have laid 
 to myself in point of religion ; for in that, and in that only, I shall resort 
 to the liberty left to a subject to obey by suffering ; and particularly that 
 there be no concession to the papists, to perpetuate churches or church 
 livings to them, or to take ecclesiastical jurisdiction from us : as for other 
 freedoms from penalties for the quiet exercise of their religion, I am not 
 only clear that it may, but ought to be given to them." After reading 
 these admissions, it is hard to blame the nuncio and the clergy for sus- 
 pecting the marquis's liberality, or the majority of the people for resist- 
 ing, while they had power, so hmited a toleration of the rights of 
 conscience. 
 
 VOL. 11. 
 
 K 
 
50 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 slightest omission or obscurity to be denounced as evidence of 
 preconcerted fraud and determined insincerity. 
 
 Rinuccini and the clergy were the first to assail the pro- 
 visions of this paper. They insisted that the measure fell 
 short of the terms admitted in Glamorgan's treaty, and also of 
 the powers given by Charles to Ormonde for the total repeal 
 of the penal laws and of Poynings' Act. The truth of these 
 averments is unimpeachable. An amended scheme of set- 
 tlement was produced on their side, of which it will be 
 enough to report that it erected the Roman Catholic church 
 as the ecclesiastical establishment of the country. This un- 
 compromising plan was laid before a new assembly of the 
 Confederates, and passed with a few alterations. An additional 
 proposal for the restoration of abbey lands was rejected, as 
 was a vote of censure against the commissioners who had 
 signed the peace ; but the peace itself was condemned by an 
 overwhelming majority, and the clergy took their own revenge 
 against the commissioners by pronouncing sentence of excom- 
 munication upon them. 
 
 So far, the high church party amongst the Roman Catholics 
 was triumphant, and bold as their pretensions were, they must 
 be admitted, all circumstances considered, to have been easily 
 defensible in point of principle and sound policy. For the pro- 
 portion of Roman Catholics to Protestants, according to Sir 
 W. Petty, stood as five to one. Rinuccini now gained an as- 
 cendancy in the deliberations of the Confederates which atfirst 
 promised signal results, and was sustained with a free hand. 
 Provided with money, and holding O'Neil and Preston in his 
 pay, he ordered them to march into Leinster and overawe the 
 opposition of the aristocracy, who were for maintaining the 
 peace. He seems, moreover, to have desired to make O'Neil 
 commander in chief, and to crush divisions by erecting a mili- 
 tary dictatorship. This, if carried, would have been a master- 
 stroke ; but a well-grounded fear lest Preston, a man of choleric 
 temper, and hitherto invested with an independent command, 
 might join the enemy if reduced to an inferior station, diverted 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 51 
 
 the attempt. From this moment the cause of the country was 
 hopeless ; day by day there was an increase of* the weakness 
 and confusion which are inevitable whenever a common interest 
 divides into different courses of action. Much more fatal 
 than this conflict was the arrogance of the hierarchy, who pro- 
 voked the contempt of all wise men, while they aggravated the 
 hatred of the other sectarians who were parties to the struggle, 
 hurling forth excommunications and anathemas. 
 
 Ormonde's mortification was soon complete : he had reluc- 
 tantly consented to a peace, which when made, did not put a 
 stop to the war. He was thus still beset both by the Catho- 
 lics and the Puritans. It was under these circumstances that 
 he plunged into another extreme, and resolved to give up the 
 government to the English parliamentarians, with some of 
 whom he had previously corresponded. In now publicly renew- 
 ing his negociations with that body, he pleaded instructions from 
 the king as his authority for the step he was about to take. " If 
 it were possible for him to keep Dublin," say Borlase and 
 Cox, " and the other garrisons, under the same entire obe- 
 dience they were then in, it would be acceptable to his ma- 
 jesty ; but if there were, or should be, a necessity of giving 
 them up to any other power, the marquis should rather put 
 them into the hands of the English than of the Irish," Act- 
 ing in the terms of this advice, Ormonde and the privy council 
 wrote to the king and the lord mayor of London, September 
 26, 1646, only six months after the abortive treaty of peace, 
 justifying their late proceedings, estimating the forfeitures 
 already decreed against the first contrivers of the rebellion as 
 sufficient to satisfy the adventurers who had come over to put 
 it down; and concluding with a declaration that their neces- 
 sities admitted of no delay, and that if succour were not 
 at hand they should be obliged to think of some other course. 
 These overtures led to the appointment of parliamentary com- 
 missioners, who reached Dublin in November, empowered to 
 negociate for a surrender of the sword of state, all the king's 
 garrisons, and the appointment of a new governor. 
 
 E 2 
 
62 OUTLINES OF THK HISTORY OF 
 
 The retiring lord lieutenant did not fail to indulge, at this 
 crisis of his power, in his usual tendency to procrastination. 
 The treaty, which when first proposed was to have been con- 
 cluded in four days, was barely brought to an end in four 
 months ; and then with so much precipitation, that advantage 
 was taken of the loose terms used in concluding it to deprive 
 Ormonde of the special benefits he had, in the first instance, 
 taken care to obtain for himself.* 
 
 Ormonde left the country, September 28, 1647, and after 
 placing in the king's hands, at Hampton Court, an elaborate 
 memorial, explanatory of his recent conduct, hurried pri- 
 vately to the coast, and joined the Queen Henrietta in Paris. 
 Meantime distraction and calamity, the products of a zeal 
 which was rarely tempered by discretion, continued to prevail 
 amongst all parties in Ireland, except the parliamentarians — 
 that body strengthened by the force under General Jones, which 
 had received Ormonde's resignation, daily acquired new ad- 
 vantages. It is impossible to pursue these intricate events 
 through all their ramifications. The cause of the Catholics, 
 as already intimated, was lost when it fell into the hands of 
 Rinuccini. Looking mainly to the religious side of the ques- 
 tion at issue, that impetuous dignitary would listen to no com- 
 promises, and enter into no half measures. In thus proceed- 
 ing he was not more obstinate, and he certainly was more 
 sincere, than Ormonde had been in his attempts to counteract 
 him. His conduct has been strongly condemned by all 
 writers, those on his own side of course excepted ; and yet if 
 calmly reviewed, it will appear as a whole but natural to a 
 
 * The original conditions, and those which he supposed to have been 
 granted, were liberal. They stipulated that in consideration of his sur- 
 rendering his office and powers of government, he should be secured in 
 the enjoyment of his estates ; that he should receive protection against all 
 debts for a twelvemonth, together with an indemnity against those con- 
 tracted on the public account; and a sum of £13,877 for the settlement 
 of certain accounts, which were to be audited by Sir James Ware ; £2,000 
 a year for five years and longer, if he should not receive so much out of 
 his own estate ; and that he should have leave to reside in England for a 
 twelvemonth without being pressed to take any oath, he engaging his 
 honour not to do anything disserviceable to the parliament during that time. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 58 
 
 man of his vocation in such circumstances ; for it is the pro- 
 vince of all churchmen to consult the interests of their own 
 order and the privileges of their respective churches, above 
 every other thing. Throughout history, whenever we meet 
 with the cause of a church exposed to peril, we are also sure 
 to find its hierarchy prepared to go to extreme lengths for 
 the purpose of establishing its security. With them, even in 
 times of peace, political rights are held secondary to religious 
 privileges. During periods of political convulsion, when the 
 state and the church are involved in common danger, prelates 
 and priests, if allowed the opportunity, will invariably provide 
 with stern decision for the full recovery of their own power, 
 and postpone all other considerations with indifference, if not 
 with contempt. We offer neither approval, then, nor apology, 
 but are only candid when we confess that the career of 
 Rinuccini forms no exception to the common practice of his 
 order on other occasions of a like description. His abuse of 
 the once formidable power of ecclesiastical excommunication 
 was indefensible ; but if in this and other respects a bad poli- 
 tician, he must, we apprehend, be pronounced a good church- 
 man. At the same time a pointed moral is to be deduced 
 from his conduct — in periods of political convulsion, eccle- 
 siastics are the last persons who can safely be placed at the 
 head of affairs. 
 
 The aristocratic section of the Confederates took alarm at 
 the growing strength of the parliamentarians. They had too 
 much reason to feel that no concession was to be expected in 
 that quarter. It was now generally admitted that even tolera- 
 tion from Ormonde was preferable to persecution from the 
 Puritans. While this politic spirit prevailed, the clerical party 
 was outvoted in the general assembly, and the nuncio, in- 
 censed at his defeat, withdrew to the camp of O'Neil. As the 
 means to decide their respective pretensions were not to be 
 obtained in Ireland, embassies on either side were despatched 
 to Paris and to Rome. Men and money were earnestly soli- 
 cited at both places, but at the former the prayer was that 
 Ormonde should be sent with them ; while at the latter the 
 assurance given was, that, if supplied, they should be vigo- 
 
54 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 rously appointed to defeat the measures that nobleman was ex- 
 pected to prosecute. 
 
 The relative strength of these ill-fated opponents was soon 
 materially altered by another change in the conduct of 
 O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin. That stern and selfish man, hated, 
 not without reason, by the majority of his fellow countrymen, 
 and often dreaded but never admired by any others, had 
 already become dissatisfied with his new masters. Interested 
 motives had prompted him to abandon the royal cause, and 
 the same influence now instigated him to renounce the parlia- 
 ment, and fall back upon the king's service. He had been 
 promised a large sum of money, as a reward for his decisive 
 victory at Knocknones, soon after Ormonde's departure ; and 
 finding not only that the amount was not likely to be paid, 
 but that his remonstrances upon the subject were resented, 
 he made no secret of his discontent, and entered into a corres- 
 pondence with Ormonde abroad and the Confederates at home. 
 His recent ally, Lord Broghill, aware of his feelings, and 
 anxious to obtain his post, denounced him to the English par- 
 liament, at first without effect ; but ere long his negociationa 
 becoming notorious, he was voted a renegade and a traitor. 
 His treaty with the Confederates at this juncture struck the 
 final blow to the sinking influence of Rinuccini over that body, 
 and led to the return of Ormonde, who landed on the coast of 
 Cork, under the auspices of Inchiquin, in September, 1648. 
 
 This second attempt to uphold the interests of Charles 
 proved as abortive as the first, and for the same reasons. The 
 great body of the people were Roman Catholics, many of 
 them seeking to recover the estates of their forefathers, and 
 all bent upon re-establishing their religion. Ormonde had 
 been compelled to leave Ireland only a year before, because he 
 would not satisfy the popular demands in either of those re- 
 spects; and he was driven away again, because returning 
 after so short an absence, with unaltered sentiments, he was 
 still vain enough to hope that the strength of the Anglo-Irish 
 landowners, who were willing to accept of toleration in reli- 
 gion for the sake of security in property, would avail at such a 
 crisis, to enable him to subdue both the native Irish and the 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 55 
 
 parliamentarians. An enterprise so desperate and false in 
 point of principle, could only have prospered by the force of 
 original talent and pre-eminent vigour ; but these were qua- 
 lities to which the lord lieutenant had few pretensions ; and 
 thus his re-appearance in the war, though marked on some 
 occasions by demonstrations of personal dignity and good sense, 
 was still as devoid of interest as it was barren of success. 
 
 It would be tedious to offer proofs of the correctness of 
 these observations, by describing how mistrust of his intentions 
 animated the citizens of Wexford and Waterford to close their 
 gates against him, even when they most needed succour. 
 Equally dull would be the task of relating, in detail, the va- 
 rious inconsistencies and violations of principle hy which the 
 other principal actors in these disastrous proceedings sullied 
 their reputations, and incurred disgrace — how Munroe, one of 
 the first to take the solemn league and covenant, became sus- 
 pected, and was sent prisoner to London ; how Preston, jealous 
 of O'Neil, plotted and acted with Clanrickarde, against his old 
 brother in arms ; and how O'Neil himself, finding his views 
 alike incompatible with the objects of the Confederates and of 
 Ormonde, was proclaimed a traitor by the Confederates, and 
 made a compact of mutual assistance with Monk, in the 
 North, which was faithfully observed, during a term of 
 three months, until it was dissolved by the puritanical fury of 
 the English House of Commons. These were minor incidents, 
 seldom reflecting credit upon the persons concerned in them, 
 and never diverting the main current of affairs from its impe- 
 tuous course. Upon that tide the master spirit of the storm 
 soon rode, and became the great avenger to every party but 
 his own, of all the blind and perverse folly, the mingled stub- 
 bornness and negligence, the corruption, bigotry, and crime 
 with which this long and inglorious war had been overloaded. 
 
 In January, 1649, Ormonde signed a new treaty with the 
 Confederates, embodying the principal concessions yielded by 
 Glamorgan ; and in the following month of March, the Eng- 
 lish parliament voted the lord lieutenancy to Oliver Cromwell, 
 who, looking around him for suitable companions and assistants 
 in so arduous a command, quickly fixed his eyes on Boyle, Lord 
 
56 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Broghill. According to his biographer, Mr, Budgell, that no- 
 bleman, shocked by the king's death, had quitted the parlia- 
 mentary army, and abandoning Ireland, and the estate he had 
 there, as utterly lost, had retired to Marston, a family seat in 
 Somersetshire. The complete character of this political ad- 
 venturer is revealed with peculiar simplicity and effect in Mr. 
 BudgelFs account of his conduct upon this occasion. He could 
 not, it seems, " forbear reflecting, in his retirement, upon the 
 miserable condition both of his country and the royal family, 
 till, at last, he conceived it beneath his spirit and quality to 
 see the public ruined, and his own private fortune enjoyed by 
 rebels. He resolved, therefore, to accept something, both for 
 the sake of his country and himself, and accordingly, under 
 pretence of going to the vSpa for his health, he determined to 
 cross the seas, and apply himself to Charles II. for a commis- 
 sion to raise what forces he could in Ireland, in order to 
 restore his majesty, and to recover his own estate. Having 
 taken this resolution, he applied to the earl of Warwick, who 
 had interest with the prevailing party, desiring him to procure 
 a Hcense for him to go to the Spa. He pretended to the earl 
 that he meant nothing more by this journey than the recovery 
 of his health ; but he let some of his friends of the royal party, 
 in whom he thought he could confide, into the secret of his 
 design ; and having raised a considerable sum of money, came 
 up to London to prosecute his voyage. 
 
 But the committee of state, who spared no money to get 
 proper intelligence, being soon made acquainted with the whole 
 design, determined to proceed against him with their utmost 
 severity. Cromwell, a member of the committee, and no 
 stranger to the character of BroghilFs cleverness, entreated 
 that he might have leave to talk with him, and endeavour to 
 gain him before extremities were resorted to. Having ob- 
 tained this permission, he immediately dispatched a gentleman 
 to Broghill, to let him know that he intended to wait upon 
 him. Broghill having had no acquaintance with Cromwell, 
 told the gentleman that he was not the person to whom the 
 general had sent him. The gentleman readily replied, that he 
 was sent to the Lord Broghill, and, therefore, if he was that 
 
THE CONNECTION W ITH ENGLAND. 
 
 57 
 
 lord, he was sent to hiai. His lordship finding there was no 
 mistake, confessed that he was Lord Broghill, and desiring 
 his humble duty to be presented to the general, he added 
 that he would not give him the trouble to come to him, but 
 that he himself would wait upon his excellency, if he knew at 
 what hour it would be most proper for him to do so : in the 
 mean time he would stay at home, to receive further com- 
 mands. The gentleman took his leave, promising to return 
 directly. 
 
 Musing in his chamber upon what had passed, Broghill soon 
 afterwards, to his great surprise, saw Cromwell himself enter 
 the room. When some mutual civilities had passed between 
 them, and they were left alone, Cromwell told him, in few 
 words, That the committee of state were apprised of his 
 design of going over and applying to Charles Stuart for a 
 commission to raise forces in Ireland, and that they were de- 
 termined to make an example of him, if he himself had not 
 diverted them from that resolution.'* Lord Broghill interrupted 
 him here, and assured him that the intelligence the committee 
 had received was false ; that he was neither in a capacity, nor 
 had any inclination to raise disturbances in Ireland, and 
 concluded with entreating his excellency to have a kinder 
 opinion of him. Cromwell, instead of making any reply, drew 
 out of his pocket copies of several letters sent by Broghill to 
 persons in whom he confided : these he put into his hands. 
 Lord Broghill, upon perusing them, found it was to no purpose 
 to dissemble any longer. He asked his excellency's pardon 
 for what he had said, returned him his humble thanks for his 
 protection against the committee, and entreated his directions 
 how he should behave in so delicate a conjuncture. Cromwell 
 told him that though till this time he had been a stranger to his 
 person, he was not so to his merit and character ; that he had 
 heard how gallantly his lordship had already behaved in the 
 Irish wars; and, therefore, since he was named lord lieutenant 
 of Ireland, and the reducing that kingdom was now become 
 his province, he had obtained leave of the committee to offer 
 his lordship the command of a general officer, if he would 
 
58 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 serve in that war ; that he should have no oaths or engage- 
 ments imposed upon him, nor be obliged to draw his sword 
 against any but the Irish rebels. 
 
 Lord Broghill, continues his simple biographer, was in- 
 finitely surprised at so generous and unexpected an offer ; he 
 saw himself at liberty, by all the rules of honour, to serve 
 against the Irish, whose rebellion and barbarities were equally 
 detested by the royal party and the parliament. He desired, 
 however, the general to give him some time to consider of what 
 had been proposed to him. Cromwell briskly told him that he 
 inust come to some resolution that very instant ; that he him- 
 self was returning to the committee, who were still sitting ; 
 and had determined, if his lordship rejected their olfer, to send 
 him immediately to the Tower. Broghill, finding that his 
 liberty and life were in the utmost danger, and charmed 
 with the frankness and generosity of Cromwell's behaviour, 
 gave him his word and honour that he would faithfully serve 
 him against the Irish rebels. Upon which, Cromwell once 
 more assured him that the conditions he had made with him 
 should be punctually observed ; and then ordered him to repair 
 immediately to Bristol, to which place forces should be sent 
 him, with a sufficient number of ships to transport them into 
 Ireland. This being done, Broghill returned to Munster, and 
 there raising a troop of horse, and 1,500 foot, again took the 
 field to fight for the parliamentarians, whose guilt in beheading 
 the king had so lately filled him with horror and despair. 
 
 Cromwell landed at Dublin in 1649, with 9,000 foot and 
 4,000 horse, £200,000 in money, and a full supply of ordnance. 
 The troops he had selected for this expedition consisted of 
 the gloomiest fanatics and wildest enthusiasts in the Puritan 
 army — men who compared themselves to the people of Israel 
 marching to extirpate the idolatrous Canaanites, and who fan- 
 cied themselves the appointed instruments of heaven for the 
 overthrow of the empire of Babylon in Ireland, and the erection 
 of a new Jerusalem in its stead. Cromwell began his opera- 
 tions at the head of these bigoted desperadoes with characteris- 
 tic fury. Proceeding at once to attack Drogheda, he disdained 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 69 
 
 the forms of regular war, and took the town by storm. It was 
 garrisoned with 3,000 men, who fought bravely, and were pro- 
 mised quarter upon throwing down their arms. But Crom- 
 well, pre-determined to strike unexampled terror with his first 
 blow, let loose his armed zealots upon the unresisting Irish, 
 and, in defiance of the promised quarter, devoted two days to 
 a general carnage. Only 30 of the garrison were spared, and 
 they were sold as slaves, and transported to the colonies. 
 
 It was at this extreme point that Ormonde, ever too late 
 with his good measures, concluded a hasty agreement with 
 Owen O'Neil, the only officer whom valour, skill, and expe- 
 rience in war qualified to cope with so formidable an antago- 
 nist. But a fatal disease had seized upon the frame of that 
 popular commander : he was now so ill that he was obliged 
 to be moved about on a litter. Even in this condition, with 
 a spirit and determination unsubdued by bodily sufferings, he 
 ordered the army to march, and was carried at their head 
 towards the enemy. The motion, however, was more than he 
 could bear; he was obliged to stop at Lough Oughter Castle, 
 where he died, and took with him to his grave the lingering 
 hopes of Irish independence. 
 
 Although the winter was now setting in, Cromwell, unde- 
 terred by the approaching severities of the season, detached 
 a force under Venables to co-operate with Coote in the North, 
 while he proceeded himself to Wexford with 9,000 men. 
 Here he was joined by Broghill. Ormonde had contrived to 
 throw a reinforcement into the town; but StraffVjrd, the 
 governor of the castle, betrayed his post, and an easy capture 
 was brutally followed by a repetition of the scenes which had 
 flooded Drogheda with blood. 
 
 New Ross and Carrick-on-Suir were the places next taken 
 by Cromwell's troops, while Broghill, moving into the districts 
 over which the possessions of his family gave him most in- 
 fluence, marched through the open gates of Youghal, Kinsale, 
 Bandon, and even Cork, and reduced Dungarvan after a slight 
 resistance. Thus, before the winter set in, Cromwell's army 
 had won excellent quarters, and, with the exception of Water- 
 
60 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ford, Clonmel, and Limerick, all the large towns in the South 
 had yielded to his arms. At Waterford, Clonmel, and Lime- 
 rick, however, his sweeping career was bravely arrested. In 
 each of these places the citizens, after rejecting assistance from 
 Ormonde and his agents, in whom they put no confidence, were 
 able to gain the help of officers and men belonging to their 
 own party. The consequences were signal. Waterford, de- 
 fended by General Ferral, was never captured, though be- 
 sieged by Cromwell in person. The citizens still pride them- 
 selves on the motto to their city arms, so well earned on this 
 occasion — Urhs Intacta. Clonmel was commanded by Colo- 
 nel Hugh O'Neil, at the head of 1,500 Ulster men, an officer 
 who was in every respect a distinguished member of the family 
 to which he belonged, and who acquired the highest honour by 
 the gallantry and skill he displayed in the defence of this 
 town. 
 
 Cromwell, impatient of the resistance that detained him 
 before Waterford, had invested Clonmel, when news was 
 brought him that the Roman Catholic bishop of Ross was 
 scouring the province, and raising men to overwhelm him in 
 every direction. Broghill, who became acquainted with this 
 bold movement nearly at the same time, hastened with what 
 troops he could gather to Cromwell, and by his advice pursued 
 the insurgents into the county of Cork. There he fell unex- 
 pectedly upon them at Macroom, and completely routed a raw 
 levy of between 4,000 and 5,000 men. He took their leader, 
 the bishop, prisoner, and marching with him to the castle of 
 Carrigdrohid, offered him his life, if he would cause it to be 
 surrendered. The gallant prelate desired to be taken before 
 the walls, where he no sooner found himself, than he nobly 
 exhorted the garrison to fight to the last man, and was forth- 
 with handed over to the hangman. 
 
 The insurgents at Macroom had scarcely been put to flight, 
 when Broghill received a letter from Cromwell, telling him that 
 most of his men were dangerously sick of a prevalent epide- 
 mic ; that they had already been twice repulsed by Hugh 
 O'Neil ; and that he should be obliged to raise the siege of 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 61 
 
 Clonmel, if he was not immediately reinforced. He, there- 
 fore, conjured him by all the ties of duty and friendship to 
 think no longer of dispersing the rebels in the West, but to 
 come immediately and save his general from defeat. 
 
 Broghill replied by the same messenger, that he had 
 just defeated the enemy, and would not fail to be before 
 Clonmel in three days ; and he kept his word. At the promised 
 time he appeared, with all his force, while Cromwell, delighted 
 at the seasonable relief, turned out his whole army before the 
 walls, to the cry of " a Broghill !" "a Broghill ! " Running 
 forward at their head, he caught him in his arms, and publicly 
 applauding his courage and activity, returned him thanks, em- 
 phatically, for his recent success. Thus reinforced, he pushed 
 on the siege with renewed vigour, and made a breach in the 
 walls. But even then he could not force an entrance : O'Neil, 
 his troops, and the inhabitants fought manfully and invincibly, 
 until at the end of two months it was found that they had fired 
 off nearly their last charge of powder. AVhen that resource 
 failed, the still unexhausted talent of the general saved the 
 army and the town. He withdrew all his soldiers secretly, 
 and by night, across the river, and escaped to Limerick. In 
 the morning the inhabitants offered to surrender the town, and 
 Cromwell, ignorant of O'Neil's clever retreat, gave them good 
 conditions, and was thus enabled to obey, with honour, the 
 pressing orders to return to England, which had of late been 
 repeatedly addressed to him. 
 
 Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, and already president of 
 Munster, succeeded to the command of the army, and by the 
 capture of Killaloe and Limerick ere long reduced the whole 
 province. At the latter place, as at Waterford and Clonmel, 
 the popular resentment against Ormonde had been so strong, 
 that no co-operation with him, or with his friend. Lord Clan- 
 rickarde, could be effected. Hugh O'Neil fully sustained the 
 reputation he had gained by his defence of Clonmel ; but his 
 eminent talents, and noble spirit, though every way equal to 
 the task of coping with his enemies, could not prevail against 
 the rage of contending factions, against the ravages of the 
 
62 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 plague, which had broken out in the city, and more destructive 
 still, the cunning villany of a Colonel Fennel, who had twice 
 before betrayed his party at Youghal and at Killaloe ; and 
 who now, practising upon the fears of the besieged and dis- 
 tracted citizens, seized the keys of two gates, by which, after 
 beating off O^NeiFs guard, he admitted Ireton's soldiers. It is 
 satisfactory to know, that of the 24 persons excepted from 
 pardon, by way of example, upon this occasion, one of the first 
 led out to execution was this infamous traitor. Friar Walsh, 
 one of Ormonde's bitterest assailants, and the Koman Catholic 
 bishop of Emly, were hung with him. The gallant Hugh O'Neil 
 was with difficulty saved from the gallows. When they put him 
 upon his trial, he made a soldier-like defence, asserting that he 
 had maintained the character of an honourable enemy, and that 
 no unjust sentence, there to be pronounced or executed, could 
 tarnish his reputation. Ireton nevertheless pressed for his 
 condemnation, which was carried ; but his life was not taken. 
 Ludlow pointed out the odium with which such an act was 
 sure to be regarded on the continent, where O'Neil had served 
 with distinction — and the fear of disgrace arrested the arm 
 of unmanly revenge. 
 
 Ormonde did not remain long in Ireland after Cromwell's 
 departure. He had now been for some time back rather a 
 spectator, than an actor, of passing events. The last slender 
 thread by which he held a sinking party together, was cut 
 asunder by Charles II., who gratified the Scotch commis- 
 sioners, when he signed the treaty of Breda, by annulling his 
 lord lieutenant's concessions in Ireland. The wildest feelings 
 of indignation and resentment were provoked by this fresh in- 
 stance of royal faithlessness, and Ormonde once more made his 
 arrangements for escaping to the continent. Calling a general 
 assembly at Loughrea, in November 1650, he put on record 
 several vindicatory memorials of his second administration; and 
 after making some further attempts, equally tedious and vain, 
 to treat with the nuncio's prelates, he named Lord Clan- 
 rickarde as his deputy, and set sail for France from the bay of 
 Galway, in the following month of December. Inchiquin, whose 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 63 
 
 troops had mutinied and left him without followers, was the 
 companion of his flight. Preston had already escaped from 
 the same spot. So far the Roman Catholic party was re- 
 venged, if not righted. Ormonde would not yield them 
 religious freedom, and their prelates drove him out of the 
 country. 
 
 The authority which devolved upon the new lord deputy was 
 merely nominal. It was fancied that the Irish would rally 
 round him because he was a Roman Catholic ; but his well 
 known intimacy with Ormonde, and the universal distrust of all 
 royal professions of sympathy or regard for the Irish, disabled 
 him from undertaking operations upon an extended scale, or of 
 an important nature. He was joined, however, by Sir Phelim 
 O'Neil, one of the first authors of the war, who, reappearing 
 conspicuously at its close, became one of its last victims, and 
 gave a parting lustre to his career by the honourable manner 
 in which he met his death. Clanrickarde and Sir Phelim cap- 
 tured, but were unable to keep Ballyshannon and Donegal. 
 Close pressed by the enemy, the former escaped, while the 
 latter was taken prisoner, and condemned to die. A pardon 
 was repeatedly offered to him, provided he would declare, that 
 when first he took up arms he had acted under an authority 
 from Charles I. But he rejected the temptation, and suffered 
 with fortitude. One after another the remaining leaders were 
 subdued, or compelled to treat for their lives. A few of the 
 nuncio's section made a wild attempt to gain the duke of 
 Lorraine as a champion, by engaging to set him up as king ; * 
 
 • By way of apology for this act, it has been pleaded, that the party 
 were driven to it by the reiterated proofs which had been given, that 
 no dependence was to be placed upon any thing promised, or even 
 done by the king — for that Charles II. had already shown himself a true 
 son of his father, in violating his solemn pledges ; in undoing at one time 
 what he had properly done at another ; and in committing himself, for the 
 sake of a temporary advantage, to the most inconsistent and unprincipled 
 extremes. Assuming all this to be, as it really is, perfectly true, it will 
 not constitute a perfect defence for such an act as the repudiation of their 
 allegiance by Roman Catholic bishops — and still less will it vindicate their 
 reputations as good politicians, to suggest that either the independence or 
 the happiness of their country was to be secured by placing it in the hands 
 of a continental potentate. There never has been, and to all appearances 
 there never will be, room to make Ireland flourish, except in one or 
 other of two conditions — complete independence of, or complete iden- 
 
64 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 but the scheme, though tricked out in a new guise, and car- 
 ried to other courts, was too weak to gain supporters, and only 
 served, at a subsequent and more important juncture, to fur- 
 nish an excuse for a great national wrong. At length Clan- 
 rickarde, who had vainly endeavoured to keep a few followers 
 together, while fighting for their lives in the woods and moun- 
 tains of the west, received, as Ormonde had done before, per- 
 mission from Charles II. to provide for his safety. Thus jus- 
 tified, he applied to General Fleetwood for a passport, which 
 being readily granted, the royal authority ceased to have a re- 
 presentative in Ireland. 
 
 The affairs of Ireland during the protectorate of Cromwell 
 offer but little matter for comment, if we except the memo- 
 rable act of settlement. It will be more convenient, however, 
 to describe that rigorous measure in the sketch to be pre- 
 sently drawn of the various forfeitures, which, beginning 
 under Charles I., were confirmed by his worthless successor. 
 In other respects the government of Ireland, under the com- 
 monwealth, was of a kind that was sure to increase the popu- 
 lar hatred of the English name and institutions. At the same 
 time it is fair to observe, that the severities practised were 
 less a consequence of any fresh enactments introduced by 
 Cromwell, than the inevitable result of the recent mili- 
 tary usurpation of the country. Soldiers who had quartered 
 themselves upon noble properties by force of arms, kept the 
 people around them in a state of abject subjection, not by the 
 
 tification with, England. Reverting to this abortive negociation with 
 the duke of Lorraine, it is to be observed, that it was not an unnatural 
 consequence of some other proceedings, which would have been no- 
 ticed in the text, but that they were demonstrations of anger rather than 
 of power. Before Limerick fell, the prelates held a synod at Jamestown, 
 and crowned their labours to render Ormonde odious with the people, by 
 requiring " that he should speedily quit the kingdom, and leave his ma- 
 jesty's authority in the hands of some person faithful to the king, and 
 trusty to the nation, and such as the affections and confidence of the 
 people would follow." Prompt obedience not having been rendered to 
 this mandate, it was followed up by other missives of an equally hostile 
 temper. A formal declaration was signed against " the continuance of 
 his majesty's authority in the lord heutenant," and a fierce sentence of 
 excommunication was pronounced against " all who adhered to him by 
 giving him any subsidy, contribution or intelligence, or by obeying his 
 commands ! " 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 65 
 
 due course of law, but by applying the rudest means of pu- 
 nishment in every instance of apparent disobedience. The 
 cruelties of the Puritans during their uncontrolled occupation 
 of Ireland, are not to be outmatched in the long catalogue of 
 enormities by which the history of Christian Europe has been 
 blackened. Fanaticism never exhibited itself in a mood at 
 once so stern and wild. Vindictive interpreters of the 
 spirit of the Old Testament, they imbibed a blasphemous 
 conviction that God had punished an idolatrous people, by 
 subjecting their lives and properties to the despotic authority 
 of a " purer race elect." As Joshua used the Gideonites so 
 the Puritans scourged their Irish serfs with rods of iron. At 
 least 40,000 Irishmen were transported as slaves to the West 
 Indies. The peasantry were strictly forbidden to stir out of 
 their respective parishes without leave ; they were not allowed 
 to assemble for religious worship or any other purpose ; their 
 priests were commanded to fly the country under pain of 
 death ; and when it was discovered that some faithful pastors, 
 unmoved by these frightful denunciations, still administered 
 the consolations of religion in caverns, hid amidst the wild 
 fastnesses of uncultivated mountains, or in turf-covered huts, 
 pitched upon the cheerless centre of some deserted bog, blood- 
 hounds were employed to track the martyrs to their retreats, and 
 priest-hunting became one of the field sports of the country. 
 
 Of Ireland under the commonwealth it is only further to 
 be observed, that the Protector gave a proof of his political 
 sagacity, by suggesting the first idea of a legislative union 
 between the two countries. He proposed, in his instrument of 
 government, that Ireland should be represented in the imperial 
 parliament by thirty members. Unquestionably it was a 
 serious misfortune to both countries, that a plan, so full of 
 practical utility, was neither reduced to form by its original 
 author, nor adopted by any subsequent government, during so 
 long a period as a century and a half. The wrongs of Ireland, 
 always excessive, could not have proceeded to the monstrous 
 extent they afterwards reached, if the complaints of her 
 suffering population had reached the ears of the people of 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
66 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 England, through the voices of even a few representatives 
 in the Enghsh legislature. Cromwell's last choice of a lord 
 lieutenant, in the person of his second son, has been gene- 
 rally praised. Henry Cromwell appears to have been a good 
 and wise man, whose administration was temperate, and 
 whose views for the improvement of the country were judi- 
 cious ; but the interval of his power was too brief to admit of 
 corresponding actions. 
 
 Only one member of the Irish aristocracy retained his pos- 
 sessions, and at the same time such an influence with the 
 Protector as to render him a person of consequence in the go- 
 vernment of both countries, under the new order of things. 
 This was Boyle, Lord Broghill, a man of refined selfishness, 
 consummately skilful in political intrigue, and the manage- 
 ment of his worldly interests, who served all governments 
 with ability, and profited by each in its turn. Ireton alone 
 amongst the parliamentary leaders, appears to have pene- 
 trated his duplicity : he was more than once heard to pro- 
 nounce him a man to be got rid of. If that discriminating 
 officer had not been carried off" by the plague, Broghill, in all 
 probability, would not have gained the confidence of the Pro- 
 tector to the extent which we find him enjoying on more than 
 one interesting occasion. Residing in London, and constantly 
 attending Cromwell, he was able to render some opportune 
 services to the royalists. His representations at one time 
 saved the marchioness of Ormonde's pension of .£^2,000 from 
 being stopped ; at another, Cromwell, by a friendly hint, gave 
 him to understand that Ormonde was plotting in London, arid 
 was sure to be arrested if he remained. By this means the mar- 
 quis, warned of his danger, was enabled to escape back to the 
 continent. A third anecdote, of the same familiar kind, de- 
 scribes Broghill sounding the Protector on the subject of a 
 marriage between his daughter. Lady Frances Cromwell, and 
 Charles II. The proposition, we are told, was at first not ill 
 received by the Protector, and was only rejected from a con- 
 viction that whatever he might promise, Charles would never 
 forgive the death of his father. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 67 
 
 The restoration in Ireland, an event of secondary impor- 
 tance, was mainly brought about by Lord Broghill. He had 
 distinguished himself at the death of Cromwell by the astute- 
 ness, spirit, and eloquence, with which he supported the pre- 
 tensions of his son ; but having fairly proved the incompetence 
 of that unambitious gentleman to support the power and the 
 honours thrust upon him, he proceeded to Ireland, resolved to 
 secure his title and estates by taking the lead in promoting 
 an event which, as he foresaw, was inevitable. Upon reaching 
 Munster he began to gather his friends and retainers around 
 him. His proceedings were soon interrupted by a parlia- 
 mentary commission, which had followed him over from Lon- 
 don, and was charged, amongst other things, " to have a par- 
 ticular eye to Lord Broghill, and, if possible, to take some 
 means to confine him." A train of negotiations ensued, in 
 which the experienced peer far outwitted the commissioners, 
 crafty as they were in the art of deceiving. He defeated all 
 the snares laid to entrap him with a boldness of which one 
 sample will furnish sufficient proof. He was corresponding 
 for the king's return with Ormonde, and was prepared to nego- 
 tiate with the most unprincipled and by far the most blood- 
 thirsty of the repubhcan leaders, Sir C. Coote, yet he did not 
 scruple to protest to the commissioners that monarchy was 
 a " ruinous wickedness," and that he was prepared to " die 
 sooner than give the Lord's heritage to strangers." 
 
 A man so accomplished in hypocrisy was not to be stayed 
 in the execution of his plans. The commissioners were obliged 
 to dismiss him with compliments and smiles, which he reci- 
 procated with equal insincerity ; and returning to his province, 
 completed his previous arrangements. Securing the officers 
 of the Munster army and the garrison of Limerick, he en- 
 gaged the active co-operation of Coote, and despatched his 
 brother. Lord Shamion, to invite Charles to Ireland. Before 
 an answer could be received, Coote's impetuosity produced 
 extraordinary changes. Having seized Gal way and surprised 
 Athlone, this headlong commander marched to Dublin, where 
 he impeached Ludlow. The excitement raised by this spirited 
 
 p2 
 
68 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 example was contagious. The magistrates of Dublin sum- 
 moned a convention, which undertook to act in defiance of an 
 order from the Enghsh council of state. Youghal, Clonmel, 
 Carlow, Limerick, and Drogheda declared for the king, and 
 the whole country verified the correct view taken by Broghill, 
 when he assured Charles that he might enter into possession 
 of it with perfect safety. 
 
 But a corresponding ardour had accomplished the restora- 
 tion in England, and spared the Irish another occasion of ren- 
 dering a signal benefit to a family, no member of which had 
 ever appreciated their loyalty or rewarded their services. 
 Broghill at first was coldly received by Charles ; his merits 
 as the projector of the recent movements in Ireland had been 
 eclipsed by Coote's success in bringing them to bear ; and it 
 was not until he had convinced the king by documentary 
 evidence of the validity of his claims to be considered the 
 author of the plot that he received his expected reward — being 
 confirmed in the possession of all his estates, made lord presi- 
 dent of Munster, one of the lords justices, and advanced a 
 step in the peerage, with the title of earl of Orrery. Coote 
 was associated with him as lord justice, and created earl of 
 Mountrath. The higher post of lord steward of the household, 
 lord lieutenant of Ireland, a dukedom, his ancient right of 
 wine prisage, extended estates, and c£*30,000, constituted 
 Ormonde's recompence. Nor was Inchiquin forgotten. That 
 determined character, finding himself excepted from pardon in 
 the act passed for the settlement of Ireland, by CromwelFs 
 parliament, had entered the French army ; and after attain- 
 ing the rank of lieutenant general, was nominated viceroy of 
 Catalonia, upon the conquest of that province : he also served 
 in the Netherlands. He was now raised to the earldom of 
 Inchiquin, obtained the restoration of his estates, a sum of 
 ■^£^3,000 out of the treasury on account of losses and sufferings, 
 together with satisfaction for pay and arrears of pay while 
 captain-general and commander-in-chief of the army in Mun- 
 ster, at the rate of £10 a day, in treasury debentures. Clan- 
 rickarde, had he been alive, would doubtless have received 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 69 
 
 similar honours and rewards ; but he had died in the month 
 of July, 1657, at Somerhill, in Kent, the seat to which he re- 
 tired upon being excepted from pardon for life or estate by 
 Cromwell. 
 
 It was at first intended to make Monk, duke of Albemarle, 
 lord lieutenant of Ireland, but he declined the post, as too 
 difficult for an English peer. Ormonde thus resumed the 
 direction of affairs under circumstances every way flattering 
 to his pride and improving to his fortune.* The pomp with 
 which he made his entry into Dublin, and the acclamations 
 with which he was hailed as he passed in state through the 
 crowded streets, had never been exceeded in splendour and 
 
 * Ormonde's losses had been heavy, but they were now amply com- 
 pensated. The additions made to his property, though not considerable 
 in point of extent, were in point of value enormous. His tenure had 
 been of the usual kind — bearing crown rent, and all arrears under this 
 head were now forgiven. The next large gain accrued from the forfeiture 
 of the vested rights of his tenants or vassals, who held by military 
 tenure, and in point of fact possessed, in many instances, a more profit- 
 able interest than the head lord. All these tenants had been dispossessed 
 as participators in the rebellion, and he now took their interests. A 
 third acquisition was effected by the resignation of lands known to 
 have formed part of the old palatinate of Ormonde, but which ad- 
 venturers had settled upon or government had taken possession of 
 during the late disturbances. These were now cleared and restored 
 to the duke unincumbered. By these means his rental, which, before 
 the war broke out, did not amount to £10,000 a year, was, after the 
 war had terminated, raised to £80,000. There are writers, however, 
 who still adopt Carte's opinion, and represent Ormonde as a heavy 
 loser by his loyalty, and very generous in the sacrifices which he now vo- 
 luntarily rendered for the public weal. Carte prints a debtor and credi- 
 tor account of gains and losses, furnished by the agent of the Ormonde 
 property, at the foot of which appears a dead loss of £868,590; but in 
 this computation not a few items are altogether omitted, which were of the 
 highest value. It may be perfectly true, as Carte sets forth, that arrears 
 of pay and salary to a large amount were never satisfied ; and that a claim 
 to 400,000 acres of land was resigned for £50,000 : nevertheless, if, upon 
 a final settlement, we find the duke possessed of a better title to a more 
 productive estate than any of his predecessors had ever possessed — if we 
 compare his good fortune in securing so much, while many other noble, 
 inheritances were wholly destroyed, — and if we further take into con- 
 sideration the value of the offices to which he was now appointed in 
 England as well as in Ireland, which, with the patronage and influence 
 attached to them, he continued to enjoy for many years, — we shall not be 
 just if we treat the restoration as any other than a very profitable occur- 
 rence to the house of Ormonde. 
 
70 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 cordiality. Unhappily for the country, he carried back to his 
 old place his old principles. Some writers are surprised that 
 this should have been the case ; but if we call to mind the 
 general enthusiasm of the period, and note the excited haste 
 with which the nation rushed with open arms upon royalty 
 and the ancient style of government, it will be easy to con- 
 ceive how, to a man of Ormonde's temper and disposition, the 
 king, the parliament, the public, and the current of events 
 might seem to testify, with a grateful unanimity, that the dis- 
 asters of the past had, in no small degree, been produced by 
 opposition to his measures and neglect of his advice. Certain 
 it is, at least, that he re-appeared as chief governor, confirmed 
 at every point in his former policy. Trying as his misfortunes 
 had been, they had neither softened his prejudices, modified 
 his principles, nor enlarged his ideas. There is a certain 
 obstinacy of character which is proof against the force of all 
 experience ; and of this quality, more pernicious in politicians 
 than in other men, Ormonde partook largely. The loss of 
 rank, office and power — his poverty and exile, appear to have 
 taught him but one lesson, and that he made the invariable 
 rule of his life ever after — it was, that any disadvantage, how- 
 ever heavy, is to be overcome in this world, if we will endure 
 it without yielding to its pressure. Accordingly, whenever 
 an opportunity ofifered, he failed not to enforce his settled 
 opinions ; and when the opportunity was denied, he reserved 
 himself patiently for a more favourable time of action. This 
 policy would have been excellent, if the opinions themselves 
 had been suited to any condition of the circumstances with 
 which he had to deal — being every way unsuitable, it is unne- 
 cessary to show how his repeated attempts to apply them only 
 served to increase the difficulties of his position. 
 
 The great business of his administration, one which for years 
 engrossed the attention of both governments, and the minds of 
 all classes in Ireland, was the settlement of the forfeited lands, 
 and the claims of the different parties to the war for pay and 
 compensation, on account of their services, sufferings, and losses. 
 The subject had been extensively handled, both by Charles I. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 71 
 
 and Cromwell. There will be the less inconvenience felt, in 
 reverting now to those proceedings, inasmuch as but little has 
 hitherto been related of them — there seemed to be no course 
 open for adoption more satisfactory than that of not entering 
 upon transactions which form a distinct and important series 
 in themselves, until a point had been reached, at which they 
 could be treated as a connected whole, and disposed of to- 
 gether. 
 
 The 11 years' war originated in the general insecurity of pri- 
 vate property, and the vexatious penalties imposed upon the 
 religious worship of the majority of the people. For the first 
 time in the history of Ireland, the aristocracy and large pro- 
 prietors of land had been made to experience, at the hands of 
 the king and his ministers, all the hardships of that oppressive 
 interference with personal rights — that lawless disregard of 
 ancient titles and established possessions — those arbitrary 
 seizures and violent ejectments, of which their ancestors had 
 for ages given the native population so many galling and de- 
 structive proofs. This was the chief provocation to arms ; 
 the religious grievance was supplementary, and the longer 
 duration of this war, compared with preceding insurrections, 
 was occasioned by the superior character and greater means of 
 the class of persons embarked in it — a class which felt to a 
 man that their every worldly interest was staked on the issue 
 — a class, moreover, which in all ages and countries has been 
 more remarkable for attachment to the rights of property, than 
 for devotion to the rights of conscience. This body had bought 
 and paid for the justice, civil and religious, to which they were 
 indisputably entitled. Notwithstanding that bargain and sale, 
 the rapacity of the government was unsatisfied : their lands 
 were still invaded, and their franchises abrogated, with lawless 
 violence, in the guise of law. All former tyranny had been 
 gentle compared with the insulting severities of the imperious 
 Strafford. Even where the privilege of a practical accommo- 
 dation was allowed, and the landowner met the demands of the 
 crown half way, he was made to give up the fourth part of his 
 estate, as the price of the new title to hold the remainder. 
 
72 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 The grants issued against these fresh acquisitions of crown 
 lands, added extensively to the confusion produced by subse- 
 quent events. 
 
 The king and the parliament of England lost no time in 
 giving the sanction of their authority to stamp the war of 1 641 
 with the character of spoliation and plunder, which had ren- 
 dered the issue of all former outbreaks so barbarously penal. 
 It had scarcely broken out, when the lords and commons, 
 "taking into their consideration as well the necessity of 
 reducing the rebels of Ireland to their due obedience, as also 
 the great sums of money of late paid for the public and neces- 
 sary affairs, and desirous to embrace all good and honourable 
 ways tending to his majesty's greatness and profit, the settle- 
 ment of that realm, and the ease of his majesty's subjects of 
 England," voted that 2,500,000 acres of profitable lands, to 
 be equally taken out of the four provinces, should be " assigned 
 and divided amongst divers worthy and well affected persons," 
 who were ready to disburse sums of money in the following 
 proportions : — 
 
 .£'200 1,000 acres in Ulster. 
 
 To each <^300 1,000 do. in Connaught. 
 
 adventurer of £4i50 1,000 do. in Munster. 
 
 £600 1,000 do. in Leinster. 
 
 This was a legislative bounty upon buccaneering — an out- 
 rageous forestalling of escheats. For at the time the vote 
 passed no forfeitures had been declared — no lands confis- 
 cated. Nevertheless it was provided, that such only were 
 to be seized as were of the best description : — they were 
 to consist of meadow, arable, and profitable pasture; bogs, 
 woods, and barren mountains, wherever they intervened, were 
 to be cast in, over and above ; the tenure was to be common 
 socage, and the rent reserved to the crown of England was to 
 be Id. per acre in Ulster and Connaught, 2d. in Munster, and 
 8c?. in Leinster. 
 
 Charles coupled with his assent to the propositions, of which 
 . these were the principal articles, a salvo for his conscience, and 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 73 
 
 an apology to his friends, by declaring " that he had not taken 
 time to consider whether this course might not retard the re- 
 duction of the kingdom, by exasperating the rebels, and ren- 
 dering them desperate of being received into grace again, if 
 they should return to their obedience." 
 
 The English parliament following up this vote with several 
 acts of parliament, soon raised £400,000 for the Irish war. Nor 
 were the lords justices remiss in turning it to account in Ire- 
 land. We find them inviting further succour from England in 
 1643, upon the assurance that forfeitures to the amount of 
 c5^800,000 had already been effected.* Even the royalists did 
 not disdain to derive a title to property from this foul source — 
 as Ormonde, for instance, who wrote in the year 1643, as 
 already stated, from his castle at Carrick-on-Suir, and implored 
 the king to grant him, by virtue of the powers held to vest in 
 the crown by these acts, the escheated houses in Kilkenny of 
 his absent tenants in arms. 
 
 During a distracted term of 12 years, both the king and the 
 parliament had been declaring forfeitures and making grants, 
 and their respective followers had been seizing upon lands as 
 the varying fortunes of the war afforded them power and op- 
 portunity. At last, in the year 1653, Cromwell undertook the 
 difficult task of adjusting and giving a legal sanction to the 
 various claims which had been accumulating in the midst 
 of all this violence and rapine. By this time, however, the de- 
 mands had become so numerous and heavy, that it became a 
 matter of doubt whether the whole country would suffice to 
 satisfy them. It was therefore deemed prudent to begin the 
 proposed arrangement by declaring that it was " not intended 
 to extirpate the Irish nation. It was also found necessary 
 to cut down the portions of several of the larger troops of 
 wolves, who were ravenous to devour their prey. " In this 
 transaction," says Ludlow, " those of the army showed great 
 partiality by confining the satisfaction of arrears only to such 
 
 * The rapidity with which the scheme of general confiscation was car- 
 ried out, is commonly illustrated by the fact, that in two days all the Ca- 
 tholic nobihty and gentry of the counties of Meath, Wicklow, and Dubhn, 
 together with 300 gentlemen in Kildare, were indicted for high treason, 
 and true bills found against them. 
 
74 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 as were in arms in August, 1649, which was the time when 
 the English army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Crom- 
 well, arrived in Ireland ; and though the hardships endured by 
 those who were in arms before had been much greater, yet 
 nothing could be obtained but such a proportion of lands in 
 the county of Wicklow and elsewhere as was not sufficient to 
 clear the fourth part of what was due to them." Cromwell's 
 soldiers, therefore, may be said to have wrested the whole 
 country to themselves. 
 
 All the conquered papists in the kingdom possessing more 
 than £10, were divided into four classes, and each was sub- 
 jected to a different degree of forfeiture — first, all persons who 
 before November 10, 1642, had contrived, acted, or aided, 
 the rebellion, murders or massacres which began in October, 
 1641 ; and all Jesuits, priests, or other ecclesiastics, who 
 had in any way therein contrived, aided, or abetted ; and 
 all persons who since October 1, 1641, had slain any per- 
 son not bearing arms for the English, or who, not being 
 maintained in arms under the command and pay of the Irish 
 against the English, had slain any person maintained in arms 
 for the English ; and all persons who being in arms against 
 the parliament of England, should not lay them down in 28 
 days, and submit to their authority. 
 
 Secondly, all persons (not being comprehended in any of the 
 former qualifications) who had borne command in the war of 
 Ireland against the parliament of England, were to be banished 
 during the pleasure of the parliament, and to forfeit two-thirds 
 of their estates : their wives and children, however, were to 
 be assigned lands to the value of the other third, where parlia- 
 ment should appoint. 
 
 Thirdly, all persons of the popish religion (not being com- 
 prehended in any of the former qualifications) who had resided 
 in the kingdom at any time, from October 1, 1641, to March 
 1, 1650, and had not manifested their constant good affection 
 to the interest of the commonwealth of England, were to forfeit 
 one-third of their estates, and to be assigned lands to the value 
 of the other two- thirds, where the parliament should appoint. 
 
 Pourtlily, all otlier persons who resided in Irelaaid within 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 75 
 
 the time aforesaid, and had not been in arms for the parlia- 
 ment, or manifested their good affection to its interest, having 
 an opportunity to do so, were to forfeit one-fifth of their 
 estates. 
 
 After the ordinance, which provided in the foregoing terms 
 who should furnish the plunder, came another, which particu- 
 larly explained who should appropriate it. The soldiers claim- 
 ing arrears of pay were to take the forfeited lands in the coun- 
 ties of Tipperary, Waterford, or Limerick, in the King''s and 
 Queen's Counties, in ^Meath and W estmeath, Down, Antrim, 
 Armagh, and in Louth, if necessary, the barony of Atherdee 
 only excepted. The army still on service, but about to be 
 disbanded, was to take other forfeited lands, commencing at 
 Sligo, and running in a direction which would extend the line 
 from the Shannon, by which it was proposed to keep the 
 English and Irish separate and unmixed for ever after. 
 
 The various commissions appointed for putting these ordi- 
 nances into execution — the surveys made to define the for- 
 feited lands — the courts erected to determine military claims 
 and Catholic delinquencies — had scarcely brought their labours 
 to a conclusion, and the new proprietors had barely established 
 themselves in their possessions, when the restoration opened 
 up all rights and claims anew, and afforded another opportu- 
 nity for sweeping injustice. The proceedings now resorted to 
 proved to be far more unprincipled and unfeeling than could 
 have been expected even from the ingratitude of a Stuart. 
 Charles IL consulted in them his political interests only, and 
 threw aside all considerations of generosity, virtue and pro- 
 priety. The Cromwellians were in actual possession of the 
 country, and he agreed with Ormonde, and the other Anglo- 
 Irish landowners who offered the suggestion, that it would be 
 most safe not to attempt to eject them, save and except from 
 Ormonde's own estates and from the estates of a few equally 
 well-disposed peers. They held moreover the parliamentary 
 franchise and the corporations, and they had evinced no mean 
 dexterity on their side, by voting large sums to the king, to 
 the royal dukes his brothers, and to Ormonde. After much 
 hesitation and delay, a paper drawn up by Broghill, now earl 
 
76 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of Orrery; Sir J. Clot worthy, afterwards Lord Masserene; 
 
 and Sir Audley Mervyn, was eagerly caught at and acted upon 
 
 by the king. In this document it was computed that there 
 
 remained at present to be disposed of — 
 
 The estates of persons excepted by the act £ 
 
 of indemnity, valued at . . 14,000 per annum. 
 
 Gifts and gratuities of CromwelFs to per- 
 sons that had not served . . 9,000 
 
 English debentures and debts struck off 10,000 
 
 Lands in the county of Dublin not dis- 
 posed of . "... . 15,000 
 
 Lands in the county of Cork not dis- 
 posed of 25,000 
 
 Lands in the county of Kerry not dis- 
 posed of .... . 7,000 
 
 Per annum . ^£^80,000 
 
 Numerous estates in Connaught and Clare, to be discovered 
 on further inquiry, were expected to increase this amount 
 considerably, and thus it was asserted the king would be re- 
 lieved from all his difficulties. A declaration for the settle- 
 ment of Ireland was accordingly signed, November 30, 1660, 
 in which Charles confirmed the possession of any lands held, 
 May 7, 1659, under the acts of the English parliament, 
 commonly called the Adventurers^ Acts. Such deficiencies as 
 might be proved before May 1, next following, were to be 
 made good ; all allotments of lands to soldiers in lieu of pay 
 were confirmed, except church lands, estates obtained by 
 bribery, prejudice, false admeasurement, or belonging to any 
 of the regicides, or to persons who had endeavoured since the 
 restoration to disturb the public peace, or had openly displayed 
 their hostility to the king's restoration and government. 
 Officers having unsatisfied claims for service before 1 649, were 
 to be satisfied for their respective arrears. Officers of the 
 royal army were compounded with by receiving lands in satis- 
 faction of their arrears of pay, at the rate of 12*. 6d. in the 
 pound, and a rateable dividend of any surplus that might after- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 77 
 
 wards accrue. Protestants, with certain exceptions, whose 
 lands had been given to adventurers or soldiers, were to be 
 restored, and the present possessors were to receive com- 
 pensation, and were not to be made accountable for mesne 
 profits. The Roman Catholics were differently dealt with. 
 Innocent papists who had submitted to the Cromwellian set- 
 tlement, and taken lands in Connaught, were to be bound by 
 that act, unless they had subsequently served the king, in 
 which case they were to be admitted to the recovery of the 
 original estate, due compensation being first made for all re- 
 pairs and improvements effected, and all incumbrances dis- 
 charged by the actual possessor. Innocent papists in ge- 
 neral were also to be restored, and the persons in possession of 
 their lands reprised ; but no papist was to be restored to an 
 estate lying within any corporate town — it being held politic 
 to confine all corporations for the future exclusively to the Pro- 
 testants. Thirty- six of the nobility and gentry were specially 
 enumerated, who were to be restored at once, without being 
 put to any proof of innocence, or other trouble. 
 
 On the other hand, no person was to be restored who had 
 been concerned in the attempted surprise of Dublin Castle in 
 1641 ; who at or before the year 1643 had not belonged to the 
 royal party, or had lived within the quarters of the Confederate 
 Catholics — except the inhabitants of Cork and Youghal, who, 
 as already described, had been forcibly expelled from their ha- 
 bitations, and driven into the hostile lines by Inchiquin and 
 Broghill, who, strange to say, now received themselves even 
 more than they had before possessed. No man was to be 
 deemed innocent, who had been actively engaged in the con- 
 federacy before the peace of 1648, or who had adhered to 
 the nuncio, the clergy, or the papal power, in opposition to 
 the royal authority ; or who, having been excommunicated 
 for his adherence to that authority, had acknowledged him- 
 self an offender, and obtained absolution. Whoever derived 
 his title from persons guilty of these crimes — whoever claimed 
 his estates on the articles of peace, and had thus acknow- 
 ledged his concurrence in the rebellion — whoever in the Eng- 
 
78 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 lish quarters had held correspondence with the Confederates, 
 or sat in their councils, or acted under their commission — 
 whoever had employed agents to treat with any foreign power 
 for bringing forces into Ireland, or had acted in such negocia- 
 tions, or harassed the country as " Tories," (a name given to 
 the marauding parties of disbanded soldiers who carried on 
 a villanous system of war and plunder upon a petty but inde- 
 pendent scale,) — after the departure of the marquis of Clan- 
 rickarde, — were all pronounced desperate rebels, and incapable 
 of restitution. 
 
 This declaration, to borrow the language of the age, filled 
 the hearts of the king's enemies with joy, and the hearts of 
 his friends with despair. " The Irish," says Leland, " com- 
 plained that the qualifications necessary to ascertain their in- 
 nocence, were so severely stated, that scarcely any of their 
 nation could expect a sentence of acquittal." The proverbial 
 faithlessness of kings, and the particular insincerity of his 
 father, were indicated in this document with a directness 
 which gave the whole transaction the air of a practical satire. 
 Even now the declaration reads like a string of invidious sug- 
 gestions by Charles II. upon the life and reign of Charles I. 
 The Protestant royalist received a composition, the Puritan 
 republican full payment of his claims; the most suspicious 
 passages in the late war were carefully marked out, as if to 
 show that the high church party of the native Irish, who re- 
 fused to trust the professions of the king and his lord lieu- 
 tenant, had, with all their faults, an indisputable claim to the 
 merit of having rightly discerned the character of the men 
 they were dealing with, and proved not less sagacious than 
 bold when they resolved not to be duped by their overtures. 
 The two treaties of 1646 and 1649 were here referred to — ^all 
 the solemn promises of Charles I. to the nuncio, on the true 
 faith of a Christian, were significantly revived, and the host of 
 persons who had been parties to the former, or believers in the 
 latter, were specifically punished for their credulity, by being 
 formally debarred from the only chance that was left them of 
 recovering a remnant of their estates. If the most malignant 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 79 
 
 fanatic in the army of the Commonwealth had exhausted his 
 mind in feigning a case to illustrate the baseness of kings, and 
 the worthlessness of the Stuarts, he could not have produced 
 one more caustic or conclusive than the real facts now before 
 us establish. 
 
 Years were spent in negociations, appeals, and dissensions 
 upon this exciting question : the parliament of England as 
 well as the parliament of Ireland; and the privy council in 
 London,* participated in the various proceedings to which it 
 gave rise ; the act of settlement was followed by the act of ex- 
 planation ; but the main conditions of the original award were 
 preserved throughout, and remained unaltered at the end. 
 When all was over, Sir Audley Mervyn, one of the authors of 
 the paper on which the king had at first been induced to de- 
 clare himself, pronounced the act of settlement the Magna 
 Charta of the Protestants of Ireland. The justice of the 
 opinion given by so competent an authority is not to be called 
 
 * Of these suits, one offers a passage of memorable interest. Both parties 
 were heard, on a particular occasion, before the king in council ; the united 
 Protestant and Puritan interests, under the declaration, being supported 
 by the earl of Orrer)', and the Roman Catholic by Talbot, afterwards earl 
 of Tyrconnel. These advocates were unequally matched. Orrery was 
 distinguished, more, perhaps, than any man of his age, for his readiness 
 and power in debating critical questions. He had displayed singular judg- 
 ment and ability in the House of Commons, and came well prepared to 
 this important discussion. Talbot, though not devoid of talent, was san- 
 guine, impetuous, and indiscreet ; and more thoughtful of the strength of 
 his case than the strength of the interests by which that case was op- 
 posed. On both sides, as a matter of course, loyal services rendered, 
 losses sustained, and monstrous outrages inflicted by the adverse faction, 
 were dwelt upon at length. But at the end. Orrery confounded his op- 
 ponents by producing copies of the formal authority given at J amestown 
 for excommunicating Ormonde, and offering the kingdom of Ireland to a 
 foreign prince. Charles affected so much indignation at these proofs of 
 the disloyalty of the Irish, that he broke off the audience, and forbad any 
 petition or further address to be made by their commissioners. The papers 
 so effectively produced by Orrery on this occasion have often been re- 
 ferred to, as proofs that the Irish really deserved to fare ill at the king's 
 hands ; but it is monstrous to describe any thing done at Jamestown as 
 the act of the "Roman Catholics of Ireland. The opinions of that body, 
 as Charles should have remembered, had been pointedly expressed on this 
 subject, when the supreme council ordered the jesuits' treatise to be 
 burned by the common hangman, which . advised the nation to throw off 
 its allegiance to the English crown, and to choose as its sovereign a Ca- 
 tholic prince. 
 
80 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 in question. Ormonde proved his attachment to the Pro- 
 testant church by securing its re-establishment, and the re- 
 storation of its estates, before the debates upon the act of 
 settlement were opened. His proposals for that purpose were 
 cheerfully assented to, even by the Puritans, who felt indisposed 
 to offend the government, and endanger the advantageous po- 
 sition in which they found themselves placed, by evincing their 
 old horror of prelacy and the liturgy — abominations against 
 which they had so profitably waged war. They consoled them- 
 selves in their inconsistency by making several fierce attempts 
 to enforce the penal laws, and to eject the few Roman Catho- 
 lics who had obtained seats in the House of Commons. But 
 the two governments, English and Irish, sensible no doubt of 
 the injustice already inflicted on the suffering body to which 
 they belonged, refused to harass them further at such a crisis, 
 and for the moment no fresh persecutions were inflicted. 
 They w ere reserved for a future period. The present labours 
 were adroitly confined, first, to the attainment of such legal 
 provisions for the church as should secure to it all its pro- 
 perty and ecclesiastical power ; and secondly, to such a dis- 
 possession of the native Irish — who were almost to a man 
 Roman Catholics — from their lands, as should also deprive 
 them ©f political influence in the state. It was clearly fore- 
 seen that if these measures should be carried, the natives 
 must cease to prove formidable, either to the crown of England 
 or to the descendants of English settlers. And the measures 
 were carried. Thenceforward the Protestant church, as the 
 leading English institution in the country, became the rallying 
 point and index of the English interest : to be a Protestant 
 was to be an Englishman, and a member or a retainer of the 
 despotic oligarchy which monopolized the state and the soil ; — 
 to be a Roman Catholic was to be a mere Irishman, and a slave, 
 deprived of all political privileges and the rights of property. 
 
 The aim and end of this second settlement of Ireland, with 
 the motives and conduct of the king, of Ormonde, and the other 
 politicians, throughout the whole business, are demonstrated in 
 a number of plain facts, which admit of no controversy. The 
 
THE CONXECTIOX WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 81 
 
 forfeited lands were in the hands of the Puritans ; and only 36 
 persons having been specially restored, the great body of the 
 claimants was composed of Irish Roman Catholics. The ques- 
 tion really at issue, therefore, was whether the proprietors of 
 the soil were for the future to be Roman Catholics or Pro- 
 testants, Irishmen or Englishmen. The number of the claims 
 entered amounted to 4,000, and the time allowed for consi- 
 dering and adjudicating them would, upon a moderate com- 
 putation, have admitted of a decision upon about one out of 
 the 4,000. The first commissioners put upon the Court of 
 Claims were themselves deeply interested in the confiscations ; 
 but the universal outcry raised against an act of such open 
 partiality, led to the appointment of Sir Richard Rainsford 
 and six other Englishmen, principally lawyers, and all Pro- 
 testants — men at the same time of reputation and integrity, 
 who appear to have been neither ill-qualified nor disinclined to 
 discharge the duties imposed upon them in a becoming man- 
 ner. But the case was one which did not admit of being 
 honestly dealt with : the commission accordingly was soon got 
 rid of. 
 
 Rigorous as were the conditions imposed upon the unfor- 
 tunate Irish, we learn from Cox the following result of the 
 inquiries now made into their conduct : — " The commis- 
 sioners began to hear cases, February 13, 1663, and in that 
 month declared 38 innocent, and 7 nocent ; in March, 53 
 innocent and 7 nocent ; in April, 77 innocent and 5 nocent ; 
 and in the remaining months they decided 630 claims to 
 the great dissatisfaction of the Protestants." This was a 
 result for which all parties were alike unprepared. The 
 Protestants found vent for their anger in a resolution of the 
 Commons, declaring, " that they would apply their utmost 
 remedies to prevent and stop the great and manifold preju- 
 dices and inconveniences which daily did and were likely to 
 happen to the Protestants of Ireland by the proceedings of 
 the Commissioners for executing the Act of Settlement." The 
 Puritans, confounded by the apparent failure of the scheme for 
 enabling them to retain their usurped property by the aid of 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
82 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 this judicial contrivance, resolved to try and make the sword 
 defend what the sword had gained. They formed an extended 
 conspiracy, copied in its main features from Roger Moore's 
 plan of a simultaneous seizure of the principal towns ; but the 
 plot, being betrayed, like its original, was easily extinguished.'^ 
 It produced nevertheless a portion of the desired fruit — the 
 Court of Claims was adjourned, and Ormonde visited Eng- 
 land to arrange some better mode of preventing the Irish 
 from recovering their rights. He returned with the Act of 
 Explanation and final arrangement, which had the effect of 
 finally defeating justice to the Papists. -f* One provision of 
 this rare piece of legislation will explain its general tenor. 
 The first Court of Claims, as already explained, had decided, 
 out of 4,000 claims, 817 only. In the teeth of that crying 
 fact, it was definitively ordered — that every claim which had 
 not previously been adjudged innocent, was for ever barred ; 
 — 3,288 cases, wholly untried and unconsidered, were by this 
 summary process disposed of as criminal and untenable ! At 
 the same time Ormonde rendered an important service to 
 the political interests of his own religion by raising the first 
 Protestant militia, in whose hands he placed 20,000 stand of 
 arms. 
 
 Amongst the other misfortunes of the suffering Irish at this 
 juncture, one is not to be omitted which added no light share 
 of unpopularity to their cause. This was the accident of its 
 adoption in the play of party tactics by such unprincipled poli- 
 ticians as the duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, afterwards 
 
 * This plot, like all others, had its bloody characters. The party, as 
 we are told, was to rise in one night throughout the country, and to take 
 the lives of all persons who would not consent to put down king, lords, 
 and bishops, and set up "a sober and peaceful ministry in their stead. 
 Many Puritan ministers were imprisoned, seven members of the House 
 of Commons were expelled, and five persons hung as parties to this con- 
 spiracy. Amongst its heroes was the notorious Colonel Blood, who after- 
 wards attempted to hang the duke of Ormonde at Tyburn, and to steal 
 the crown jewels at the Tower. 
 
 t There were two subsequent commissions — one in 1671, and one in 
 1672 — granted to the energetic importunity of the Irish, and the unde- 
 niable hardship of their case ; but although on both occasions the powers 
 given to inspect the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, and the dis- 
 posal of forfeited lands, were large, nothing came of them. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 8S 
 
 earl of Shaftesbury, and other persons who were struggling for 
 the formation of the cabal ministry. These men, bent upon re- 
 moving Clarendon and Ormonde as principal obstacles to their 
 assumption of office, seized upon the Irish grievances as oppor- 
 tune matter to perplex the king and embarrass his ministry. 
 But they had no true sympathy with the cause they advocated : 
 while pleading against one description of Irish injustice, they 
 did not scruple to add another item to the heavy catalogue they 
 had to deal with. These were the statesmen who clamoured 
 during a period of two years for an act of parliament prohibit- 
 ing the importation of Irish cattle as *'a nuisance."" This 
 piece of ignorant legislation was unavailingly opposed by all 
 the duke of Ormonde's influence. When it passed, the king 
 marked his dissatisfaction of the mischievous spirit out of 
 which it had sprung, by issuing a proclamation, in which, to 
 compensate the Irish for the loss of their cattle trade, he gave 
 them permission " to hold commercial intercourse with every 
 other country, whether at peace or war with him." Ormonde, 
 too, distinguished himself by some highly patriotic exertions to 
 supply new occupations for the displaced capital and industry 
 of the country. One of his earliest cares upon recovering his 
 estates was the revival of the linen trade, first established by 
 the earl of Strafford. He dispatched persons into the Low 
 Countries to learn the methods practised, and the regulations 
 observed there, and invited over from Brabant and other places 
 a considerable number of experienced hands. One body of 
 these industrious emigrants amounted to 500. Some of them 
 were located at Chapel Izod under Colonel Richard Lawrence, 
 where houses were built for the weavers, and a considerable 
 trade in cordage, sail-cloth, and linen grew up. Lawrence 
 afterwards added, on his own account, the manufacture of 
 woollen cloth. When the Irish cattle trade was put down, 
 the duke, being advised that there was a favourable opening for 
 a foreign woollen trade from Ireland, obtained a report from 
 Sir Peter Pett on the manufacture of woollen cloth, and settled 
 large colonies of woollen weavers at Clonmel, Kilkenny, and 
 Carrick on Suir. In these towns, which were his own pro- 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 perty, the weavers who now introduced the woollen trade were 
 Protestant Walloons, 500 of whom Ormonde employed Cap- 
 tain Grant to bring from Canterbury. By this attention and 
 other encouragements, principally grants of long leases at low 
 rents, this trade flourished in process of time. Its greatest 
 prosperity belonged to a later period, and was occasioned by 
 parliamentary bounties : a mere relic of it still exists at Kil- 
 kenny and Carrick on Suir. 
 
 The triumph of Charles's favourites over the Irish trade in 
 cattle — it was far from being the last achieved by English 
 statesmen over the elementary principles of political economy 
 and common sense — was prosecuted to more important results. 
 Clarendon was ruined ; and Ormonde, after some awkward 
 shuffling upon the king's part, w^as removed from office. In 
 the intrigues by which this change was brought about, the earl 
 of Orrery made his last appearance in the troubled drama of 
 Irish affairs, sustaining upon the occasion his established cha- 
 racter as a profound deceiver. The letters are extant in which, 
 after Ormonde had detected his machinations, he protested 
 his integrity in a strain of refined hypocrisy conceived and ex- 
 pressed in terms of the most polished eloquence. He intended 
 obviously to make himself lord lieutenant; but though his party 
 won the stake they played for, he for once missed to carry off 
 the prize which had tempted him to take a hand in the game. 
 
 Ormonde was succeeded first by Lord Roberts, who was 
 quickly removed, as being every way unsuitable; next by 
 Lord Berkeley ; and thirdly by the earl of Essex. There is 
 little to be related of these administrations. Under the second, 
 some slight relaxations of the penal laws, such as the appear- 
 ance of Catholic bishops performing the common offices of 
 their religion ; and the nomination of a few country gentle- 
 men of that persuasion to be justices of the peace, excited a 
 furious clamour amongst the destructive faction which from 
 about this period made itself notorious in the annals of the 
 country, under the rallying cry of " Protestant Ascendancy in 
 Church and State." Their strongest energies were roused 
 into vigorous action by the production of some remarkable 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 85 
 
 charges of fraud in the proceedings under the Act of Settle- 
 ment, and by the appointment of a commission to inquire into 
 the manner in which that law was being carried into execu- 
 tion. Finding themselves unable to produce the desired effect 
 upon the local government, or the court in London, they called 
 upon the sectarian prejudices of the English parliament and 
 people for sympathy and relief ; and the appeal having been 
 loudly answered, the obnoxious commission was superseded, 
 and the lord lieutenant withdrawn. The earl of Essex, a man 
 much superior to Lord Berkeley in point of talents and honesty, 
 became disgusted with his situation at the end of five years, 
 and solicited leave to retire. He could not obtain sufficient 
 authority to administer the affairs of the country in the man- 
 ner best calculated to promote the public good ; and he would 
 not compromise his independence by further countenancing a 
 policy which his judgment condemned. 
 
 During the interval embraced by these two administra- 
 tions, Ormonde occupied an undignified position at the English 
 court. Much to the surprise of all men, and to the king's 
 annoyance, he did not resign his office of lord steward when 
 dismissed from the lord lieutenancy of Ireland. On no occa- 
 sion was his character so fully revealed as this. The slights, 
 the taunts, the affronts, which he now tamely brooked, are 
 strong proofs to show that his nature was deficient in the 
 qualities of true greatness. He convinced the world that his 
 virtue was without pride, and would not resent indignity ; that 
 his honour, however pure, was of the most submissive kind ; 
 and that, where his interest was at stake, he could exhibit the 
 resignation of a martyr. For the sake of his office and his 
 standing at court, he was now content to endure an extent of 
 disgrace little short of personal insult. The king, his courtiers, 
 and the ministry, put no restraints upon their ill treatment of 
 him. Charles, we are told by Carte, made it a rule to receive 
 him with the most mortifying coldness, and to demonstrate, in 
 the most public manner, that his presence was offensive and his 
 attention fulsome. He was never consulted and seldom spoken 
 to ; and yet he waited daily at the palace, and took his seat at 
 
86 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 every council, as if he was in the full enjo^Tnent of the king's 
 favour and possessed the confidence of his ministers. 
 
 Leland, and several writers after him, have paid the duke 
 of Ormonde some high compliments for his conduct under 
 these painful circumstances. In their estimation it was praise- 
 worthy upon his part to maintain his position without con- 
 cealing his sentiments on public afiairs ; without displaying 
 any resentment ; without deferring to the king's mistresses ; 
 without intriguing with the opposition, or making any exertion 
 to vindicate his own or the public wrongs. So well did he 
 manage to preserve an influence against the odds now brought 
 to bear upon him, that " in the dra^ving-room his virtues 
 and conciliating address," says Leland, "even in that pro- 
 fligate court, attracted a little circle around him, of those who 
 had not yet lost all shame, independence of condition, and 
 spirit." On such occasions the king, not daring to show him 
 any civility, was abashed and confounded. " Sir," said the 
 profligate wit Buckingham, " I wish to know whether it be 
 the duke of Ormonde that is out of favour with your majesty, 
 or your majesty with the duke of Ormonde ? For, of the two, 
 you seem to be most out of countenance here." 
 
 As the generality of persons will be more disposed to relish 
 Buckingham's wit than to commend Ormonde's patience, it is 
 but fair to give the view taken by the latter of himself in this 
 business. He compared himself to a good old clock cast into 
 a corner, but which always points right. How admirably he 
 could preserve his temper in the midst of his disgrace, is well 
 exhibited in a reply he one day made to Colonel Gary Dillon. 
 That officer had solicited his interest in some suit, declaring 
 that he had no friends but God and his grace. " Alas ! my 
 poor Cary," replied the duke, " thou could'st not have named 
 two friends in the world who have so little interest at court." 
 
 Some difficulty has evidently been felt by those who have 
 studied Ormonde's character, in endeavouring to supply a 
 rational explanation of his behaviour during this uninteresting 
 period of his life. To urge that he was actuated abstractedly 
 hy a sense of disinterested virtue, or religious devotion; or 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 87 
 
 more probable still, that a mixture of passiveness and ob- 
 stinacy, naturally inherent in his constitution, will sufficiently 
 account for his extreme subserviency ; are hypotheses equally 
 open to strong objections. Some more animating and power- 
 ful principle must have been at the bottom of a series of 
 actions maintained for so many years with such pertina- 
 cious consistency. To us, Ormonde has always appeared to 
 have been a man essentially stubborn, selfish, and crafty. 
 These were the governing traits of his character ; they are 
 plainly distinguishable throughout all his negotiations and 
 proceedings during the eleven years' war ; and they remove, 
 as soon as they are recognised, many of the doubts, which 
 otherwise obscure our perception of the motives by which this 
 strange passage of his life was regulated. We should re- 
 member, moreover, that he had Lord Clarendon's case before 
 his eyes. There were points connected with that nobleman's 
 fall, which could not fail to have operated as a warning to his 
 friend. While Clarendon could face his enemies and meet the 
 king, his person and property remained seciu-e : it was not 
 until he was driven away from court that his ruin was effected. 
 Upon the mind of Ormonde, which was observant, and to some 
 extent sagacious, a deep impression must have been produced 
 by this direct example. He applied it to his own case ; and 
 that he might not again suffer banishment and the loss of his 
 princely estates, he took the determined resolution upon w^hich 
 ^ve have seen him acting with a perseverance so extraordinary 
 and a fidelity so humiliating. 
 
 Such was the life of Ormonde, from the year 1668 to the 
 year 1677. At the court, we see in him much that fills us 
 with wonder wdthout exciting any admiration. In Ireland, 
 however, he supported his rank in a more becoming manner, 
 and may be said to have enjoyed a high popularity. Even the 
 Roman Catholics united in offering him manifestations of 
 respect and attachment. True, he had on more than one cri- 
 tical occasion not shown himself their friend, but he had never 
 proved their active enemy; and there was always something 
 to hope from the gratitude of a man who received honours 
 
88 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 while out of favour at court. His style of living, moreover, 
 vv'as upon a scale which always imposes upon the multitude. 
 The castle of Kilkenny, to which he had moved from the 
 castle at Carrick on Suir, was a court in itself, where two 
 hundred gentlemen every day sat down to table. 
 
 At length the period drew nigh at which he was to govern 
 in Ireland for the fourth time ; and it is singular to remark 
 that the influence which brought him back to power was the 
 last by which we should have supposed such an event to have 
 been produced. For several years Cliarles had not exchanged 
 a familiar or confidential word with him. For a whole year, 
 though daily in attendance, the king had not deigned to speak 
 to him at all. In the month of April, 1677, however, the 
 king suddenly invited himself to sup with Ormonde. The en- 
 tertainment, upon which the duke spent <£'2,000, was cheerful ; 
 there were no explanations, discussions, or references to the 
 past. On parting, the king signified his intention of again 
 employing him in Ireland ; but the splendour of his hospitality 
 seems only to have made Charles reflect, without pleasure or 
 commendation, upon the singularity of his general conduct. 
 The next morning he saw the duke at a distance, advancing 
 to pay his usual respects. " Yonder comes Ormonde," said 
 Charles ; " I have done all in my power to disoblige that man, 
 and to make him as discontented as others ; but he will be 
 loyal in spite of me." From this moment he was publicly re- 
 garded as the new lord lieutenant, — not for his constancy, how- 
 ever meritorious — not for his talents, however respectable — 
 not for his attachment to the Protestant interest, however 
 sincere — and still less by way of reparation for the neglect and 
 the ill-treatment, however undeserving, to which he had for 
 nine years been subjected ; — but solely because the duke of 
 York, whose influence was now in the ascendant at court, 
 could light upon no better expedient to prevent one man, the 
 duke of Monmouth — whom of all others he most feared and 
 hated, — from being appointed to this situation, and enjoying 
 in it a foretaste of the royal authority which he was correctly 
 supposed to be bent upon obtaining. The devoted patron of 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 89 
 
 the Roman Catholic religion thus became the instrument of 
 replacing at the head of Irish affairs the ablest and most per- 
 severing assert or of the Protestant interest in that country. 
 Such is the chance medley of politics — such are the inconsis- 
 tencies which designing statesmen are continually driven to 
 commit. 
 
 In forming a judgment of Ormonde's last administration, we 
 may fairly enough permit ourselves to be influenced by the 
 fact, that Cox finds nothing to relate of it but a series of mea- 
 sures adopted to harass the Roman Cathohcs. When the 
 Popish plot broke out in England, Ormonde countenanced the 
 wicked delusion in Ireland, by ordering all officers and soldiers 
 to repair to their garrisons ; and all bishops, priests, and other 
 dignitaries of the church of Rome, to depart out of the king- 
 dom. Further proclamations followed in the same strain. 
 November 2, 1678, all Papists were commanded to deliver up 
 their arms by a certain day. November 20, all Papists were 
 forbidden to enter the castle of Dublin or any other fort or 
 citadel ; and the markets of Drogheda, Wexford, Cork, 
 Limerick, Waterford, Youghall, and Gal way, were ordered to 
 be held outside those towns. Another proclamation of the 
 same date, says Cox, offered rewards for the discovery of mi- 
 litary men going to mass, — the scale was ^10 for every com- 
 missioned officer, £5 for every trooper, and 45. for every foot 
 soldier. In December there was a proclamation ordering a 
 strict search to be made after bishops and priests. In March, 
 1679, it was directed by proclamation that the Popish priest 
 of every parish in which a murder or robbery was committed, 
 should be seized and transported beyond the seas, unless 
 within fourteen days the offender was delivered up to justice. 
 A reward was next offered for the discovery of a Jesuit or a 
 titular bishop ; and then it was ordered that the Popish inha- 
 bitants should be removed from Galway, Limerick, Water- 
 ford, Clonmel, Kilkenny, and Drogheda. In consequence of 
 this proclamation, says Cox, " many were expelled, but by the 
 stupidity of the Protestants let in again."' 
 
 We are not to suppose that these edicts were innocuous 
 
90 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 demonstrations, and that Ormonde was not seriously bent 
 upon reducing his Roman Cathohc fellow-countrymen to an 
 abject condition of political inferiority. He repeatedly evinced, 
 in his conduct towards them, all the deliberation which can be 
 required to prove a fixed intention and determined purpose. 
 He did not, however, run into excesses, but reproduced the 
 half-measure course of action which he had observed on more 
 than one previous occasion. As he had executed only upon 
 " moderate terms " the vindictive mandate of the lords jus- 
 tices to pillage and plunder the country at the beginning of 
 the eleven years' Civil War, so he now put gently into force 
 the persecuting policy of the reign of Charles II. He seized 
 upon a vague charge of rebellion, and kept close prisoner, in 
 Dublin Castle, Talbot, the Roman Catholic archbishop of 
 Dublin, an aged ecclesiastic, lingering in the last stage of a 
 dangerous disease ; and he transported to England another 
 Roman Catholic prelate, Plunket, archbishop of Armagh, 
 whose subsequent trial and execution at Tyburn form one of 
 the blackest passages of the disgraceful plot which included 
 him amongst its numerous victims. 
 
 In the closing scenes of his long career, Ormonde's princi- 
 ples and conduct underwent no change. He participated as 
 little in the unprincipled fury of Shaftesbury and the Titus 
 Oates politicians who embroiled England under Charles II., 
 as he had sympathized with the malignity of the Parliamen- 
 tarians and Puritans who prostrated the monarchy under 
 Charles I. ; — ^yet he yielded to and acted with both of these 
 factions. He was led to put a constraint upon his natural dis- 
 like of both by his ambitious love of office and a wary conviction 
 that his vast property was only safe from spoliation while he 
 held the power to protect it in his own hands. Religion had 
 long swayed every other consideration, public and private, 
 with the great body of the people in the two countries ; and 
 we are not without distinct evidence of Ormonde's real senti- 
 ments upon this important question. Writing officially to 
 Lord Anglesey in 1680, he observes, that " to tell him of the 
 insolent deportment and signal perfidy of the Popish clergy of 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 91 
 
 Ireland, is to preach to him that there is pain in the gout 
 and he protests that he would rather be rid of them than of 
 that disease. Writing privately, during the period of this last 
 administration, to Sir R. Southwell, he says, " I know well that 
 I am born with some disadvantages, in relation to the present 
 conjuncture, besides my natural weakness and infirmities ; 
 and such as I can no more free myself from, than I can from 
 them. My father lived and died a Papist ; and only I, by 
 God's merciful providence, was educated in the true Protest- 
 ant religion, from which I never swerved towards either ex- 
 treme, — not when it was most dangerous to profess it, and 
 most advantageous to quit it. I reflect not upon any who 
 have held another course, but will charitably hope, that though 
 their changes happened to be always on the prosperous side, 
 yet they were made by the force of present conviction. My 
 brothers and sisters, though they were not very many, were 
 very fruitful, and very obstinate (they will call it constant) in 
 their way ; their fruitfulness hath spread into a large alliance, 
 and their obstinacy hath made it altogether Popish. It would 
 be no small comfort to me if it had pleased God it had been 
 otherwise, that I might have enlarged my industry to do them 
 good, and serve them, more efifectually to them, and more 
 safely to myself. But, as it is, I am taught by nature, and 
 also by instruction, that difference of opinion, concerning mat- 
 ters of religion, dissolves not the obligations of nature ; and 
 in conformity to this principle, I own not only that I have 
 done, but that I will do, my relations of that or any other per- 
 suasion all the good I can. But I profess, at the same time, 
 that if I find any of them who are nearest to me acting or con- 
 spiring rebellion, or plotting against the government and the 
 religion established amongst us, I will endeavour to bring 
 them to punishment sooner than the remotest stranger to my 
 blood." 
 
 The sincerity of these opinions was thoroughly understood 
 by the duke of York, who was roused by the loud complaints 
 of the Roman Catholics to make strong efforts for the sub- 
 version of an administration formed by his influence. By an 
 
92 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 odd coincidence, Shaftesbury, the great fabricator of plots and 
 promoter of cabals, laboured assiduously to accomplish the 
 same object from very different motives. For some time, 
 however, the king resisted with firmness every overture made 
 for this purpose. Instead of yielding to the pressure against 
 Ormonde, he for a while sustained him firmly. In 1682 he 
 sent for him to London, where, by w^ay of rewarding his ser- 
 vices in Ireland, he made him an English duke. Ormonde 
 now spent two years in England, cognizant if not participating 
 in an endless variety of intrigues and machinations. In the 
 year 1684 he returned to Ireland, and resumed his office ; 
 but though his old enemy Shaftesbury was now no more, the 
 power, to which he had so long tenaciously clung, was at last 
 about to be taken from him. Charles wrote him a letter, in 
 which he announced that it wrs absolutely necessary to effect 
 many and very general changes in Ireland, and on that account 
 to transfer the lord lieutenancy to the earl of Rochester. 
 Before this could be done, Charles died, but James II. lost no 
 time, upon ascending the throne, in completing the arrange- 
 ment. " Ormonde and his council had barely time to pro- 
 claim the new sovereign with great solemnity but dismal 
 countenances," says Cox, " w^hen the recal of the lord lieu- 
 tenant was publicly notified." In retiring from the govern- 
 ment of Ireland, Ormonde may be said to have taken leave 
 also of public life, for, with the exception of the resistance 
 which he offered in the House of Lords to the proposed repeal 
 of the penal laws and the Test Act, we find his name asso- 
 ciated with no further measures of importance. He died 
 August 4, 1688, aged 78, and was buried in Westminster 
 Abbey, where the bodies of his wife and two sons had been 
 previously consigned to a vault long known as the Ormonde 
 vault. 
 
 The character of the duke of Ormonde has been frequently 
 reviewed of late years, and the more it has been examined the 
 less it has been esteemed. Carte's biography, prolix, partial 
 and heavy, created, and for some time supported, an exag- 
 gerated idea of his merits and importance. No one thought 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 93 
 
 of reading two enormous folios, with a third volume of ap- 
 pendices ; but every one took it for granted that the man 
 must really have been great, concerning whom so much could 
 have been published in so expensive a form. Time, however, 
 never fails to rub off the lacquer of fictitious reputations. If, 
 in now seeking to form our estimate of the talents and pubhc 
 services of Ormonde, we turn not to the eulogy of his biogra- 
 grapher, but to his actions, we shall find, upon a close and 
 impartial examination of them, that no honest judge can 
 praise him highly. During the whole course of his long life 
 he enjoyed, except under the Commonwealth, an almost un- 
 broken tenure of office. The servant of a bad man is not 
 necessarily a bad man himself ; but in this case it may be 
 safely asserted that he was a very patient one : and in truth 
 patience was almost the only virtue which Ormonde pos- 
 sessed. Even that he carried to an extreme point, at which it 
 ceased to command admiration. We see, while tracing his 
 career, that he failed repeatedly to preserve his own dignity ; 
 and we lose, after making that discovery, our respect for 
 his character. He endured the insincerity of Charles I. 
 and the profligacy of Charles II. with equal resignation; 
 and though frequently condemning the policy and the actions 
 of both, he co-operated with them, and zealously promoted 
 their interests. This was generally done, however, with- 
 out partaking in their vices or being infected by the con- 
 tagion of their examples. He stands almost alone amongst 
 the public men of his age, eminent for the morality of his 
 private life and the consistency of his political principles. 
 While some of his compeers forfeited all public esteem by 
 practising shameless tergiversations, he continued to be 
 always popular with his party by the constancy with which 
 he laboured to strengthen their interest and to preserve their 
 superiority. While others of his order were wasting aw^ay 
 their estates in courtly excesses and extravagant debauch- 
 eries, he was steadily improving his fortune. And yet he 
 was neither mean nor avaricious. His retinue and esta- 
 blishment were maintained on a scale commensurate with his 
 
94 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 
 
 elevated rank and large income. When he opposed the ex- 
 clusion of Irish cattle from the English markets, he displayed 
 a commendable degree of information, spirit, and ability, — the 
 value of which it would be ungenerous to lessen, as some 
 writers have done, — by intimating that, being the largest 
 landed proprietor in Ireland, he was sure to be the heaviest 
 sufferer under the edict. Neither is it fair to speak lightly of 
 his efforts to compensate for the loss of this export trade, by 
 developing new sources of emolument in its stead. It is true 
 that the whole commercial and industrial system of the coun- 
 try was then a rude compound of error, partiality and abuse — it 
 is also true that established evils of this kind are strengthened 
 by attempts to palliate their consequences ; but it is not the 
 less a fact, that men in general will seldom set its true value 
 upon any right, or take pains to secure it from being abrogated 
 or abridged, before they have found by experience that it is 
 profitable. Upon this ground the introduction of manufac- 
 tures was a judicious and patriotic act. It promoted the em- 
 ployment of the people ; and by assisting the master and the 
 w orkman to acquire property, raised them both in the scale of 
 civilization, and gave them additional strength to contend 
 against their powerful rivals in England for that full share of 
 the privileges of the constitution which was then and long 
 after denied them. 
 
 Upon the whole, the duke of Ormonde may be fairly pro- 
 nounced a man of a careful mind and sedate constitution — 
 temperate and firm in his opinions and in his actions — who 
 shunned the excesses and mitigated many of the evils of an 
 era full of guilt and errors ; but who had neither the genius to 
 discover how these were to be substantially removed, nor the 
 energy to carry into full effect the imperfect measures sug- 
 gested by others for their correction. He was necessarily de- 
 feated, therefore, as a politician and a general by the Roman 
 Catholics and the Puritans ; and he claims our notice and re- 
 membrance solely on account of the one great fact accomplished 
 during his successive administrations. When first he under- 
 took the direction of affairs, five-sixths of the landed pro- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 95 
 
 prietors of the country, upon a moderate computation, were 
 Roman Catholics. While he governed, this large majority 
 was wholly dispossessed and forced to disappear ; so that when 
 at last he was displaced, we find the odds turned the other 
 way, and the fee simple of the soil almost wholly transferred 
 to Protestants or to Puritans, who, in order to retain the 
 lands he had been the chief means of securing to them, had 
 become members of the established church. The Irish fabric 
 of Protestant ascendancy in church, state, and property, was 
 thus mainly raised by James Butler, twelfth earl, and first 
 duke of Ormonde, — a fatal labour preceded by one civil war, 
 and followed by another. 
 
 By this prominent historical fact, different men, according to 
 their prejudices, will paint the complexion of his career either 
 bright or dark ; and the character of the individual will be 
 not unfairly judged of by the means to which he stooped in 
 producing the important result for which liis government is 
 memorable. His long resistance to the claims of the Con- 
 federates, notwithstanding the king's importunities in their 
 behalf ; the treaties by which he was nevertheless induced 
 twice over to grant those claims in the most formal manner, 
 and by which he solemnly bound himself to maintain the 
 rights conceded as portions of the law and constitution of the 
 country ; and lastly, the responsible part he took in violating 
 those treaties, and in conducting two administrations under 
 which every former concession w^as swept away, and the Roman 
 Catholics were deprived of their property, their civil franchises, 
 and religious privileges; — these, the leading and most influential 
 passages of his mature life, will teach us that Ormonde had 
 few pretensions to rank as an honourable or consistent poli- 
 tician, and none to the higher praise of having served his 
 country with good effect. His policy contemplated the utter 
 prostration of the native Irish, and his measures were speedily 
 followed by the complete realization of his policy. He was 
 about the last of the original race of adventurers who swayed 
 the destinies of the people ; and he pressed their fate severely 
 dow^n to the low^est depths of suffering and degradation. 
 
96 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CONNECTION 
 WITH ENGLAND— cowhnMe(/. 
 
 JAMES II. AND TALBOT, EARL OF TYRCONNEL. — THE REVOLUTION 
 OF 1688 DECIDED IN IRELAND. — THE ROMAN CATHOLICS IN 
 POWER. JAMES II. LANDS IN IRELAND, AND HOLDS A PARLIA- 
 MENT. — LEGISLATIVE MEASURES PASSED. INCIDENTS AND CHA- 
 RACTER OF THE WAR. — ADDITIONAL CONFISCATIONS. — TREATY OF 
 LIMERICK VIOLATED, AND PERSECUTION CONFIRMED. — UTTER 
 PROSTRATION OF THE NATIVE IRISH AND THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 
 FOR A LONG SERIES OF YEARS. 
 
 The short reign of James IL, ending in the Revolution of 
 1688, was in some of its more interesting points a passage of 
 Irish rather than of EngHsh history. In England, the rejec- 
 tion of one king and the substitution of another in his place, 
 was a bloodless change suggested by the intelligence, and car- 
 ried without violence by the determination, of the people. In 
 Ireland only, where obstinate misgovernment had deadened all 
 sympathy with the feelings of the sister country, the fugitive 
 monarch found officers and soldiers eminent for their skill 
 and valour, to fight with honour, though without success, for 
 his claims to a crown which he was every way unworthy to 
 hold. The revolution of 1688 was thus confirmed, if not de- 
 cided, by Irish battles. 
 
 The government of Ireland under James II., as under his 
 immediate predecessors, fell almost exclusively into the hands 
 of an individual. Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, a man 
 elevated to station and command by the commotions of the 
 age in which he lived, was born at the commencement of the 
 war of the Confederates. Very early in his career he was a 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 97 
 
 witness to scenes which produced an indehble impression upon 
 his mind. He was in Drogheda, and yet a boy, when the 
 town was sacked by Cromwell. The cruelties committed on 
 that and other dreadful occasions, engendered in him a spirit 
 of hostility against English tyranny, and an abhorrence of re- 
 ligious fanaticism, which ever after continued to exercise a 
 powerful influence upon the actions of his life. Always con- 
 spicuous for attachment to his sovereign, he had been the 
 companion of his exile, and first acquired the personal 
 friendship of James II. in the days of their common adver- 
 sity. Returning to Ireland at the restoration, he naturally 
 took a leading position in the ranks of those who relied with 
 confidence upon the fulfilment of the articles of peace esta- 
 blished by Ormonde in the year 1648, as the just reward of 
 their loyalty to the house of Stuart. But the professions 
 of the exiled prince were lost in the policy of the restored 
 monarch. Charles II. became the patron of the English Pro- 
 testant interest in Ireland; and the rights of the Roman 
 Catholics, however well founded and strongly guaranteed, were 
 utterly incompatible with that scheme of government. Talbot 
 was one of the original agents appointed by his suffering fellow- 
 countrymen to appeal against the king's declaration for the 
 settlement of Ireland ; and hopeless as upon the first trial that 
 cause was shown to be, we recognise the natural warmth and 
 vigour of his character in the repeated efforts he afterwards 
 made to mitigate its extreme rigours, and to expose the enor- 
 mous frauds committed in carrying it into execution. But 
 energy and courage were almost the only qualities by which 
 he was in any way adapted to discharge the duties of a nego- 
 tiator upon so trying an occasion. These qualities he soon 
 displayed in a striking manner. His party, perceiving their 
 suit ill-received and their presence unwelcome, adopted the 
 reasonable opinion that the duke of Ormonde was not their 
 friend. It was agreed that Talbot should remonstrate with 
 him upon the subject, and he did so, but with so little address, 
 that finding he could make no impression by his arguments, 
 he upbraided his opponent with duplicity, and challenged him 
 VOL. II. n 
 
98 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 to fight. This mode of arranging the points at issue having 
 been dechned, a complaint was lodged with the privy council, 
 and Talbot was immediately committed to the Tower, from 
 which he was only released upon making an humble submission. 
 
 In 1678, Talbot was one of the numerous persons arrested 
 as conspirators in the Popish plot, but so little could be ad- 
 duced against him that he was allowed to leave the kingdom. 
 Upon his return a natural feeling of resentment led him to 
 offer a determined opposition to the government of his old 
 antagonist, the duke of Ormonde. The removal of that no- 
 bleman having been unceremoniously effected by James II. as 
 soon as he became king, Talbot was created earl of Tyrconnel, 
 and made lieutenant-general of the Irish army, while the earl 
 of Clarendon was sent over to succeed, as lord lieutenant, 
 Primate Boyle, and Forbes, earl of Granard, who had been 
 lords justices for a short interval, and had given equal dissa- 
 tisfaction to Protestants and Puritans, — Boyle being reputed 
 to be half a Papist in his religious opinions, and Granard 
 a sincere patron of dissent. Ere long. Clarendon retired, and 
 for the first time since the introduction of the Protestant reli- 
 gion, a Roman Catholic, in the person of Tyrconnel, assumed 
 the office of chief governor. 
 
 Up to a very recent period, almost all English writers 
 of reputation or authority have treated of Irish affairs during 
 the reign of James II. without moderation or fairness. Re- 
 garding the Enghsh and the Irish policy of that un- 
 fortunate sovereign, as emanating from the same source and 
 directed to the same ends, they have overlooked essential dif- 
 ferences in the condition of the two countries, and have cha- 
 racterized the persons now entrusted with power in Ireland as 
 the determined abettors of despotism and bigotry. If they 
 are to be judged, however, either by the measures which they 
 advised, or by those which they carried into execution, they 
 will not be found to have deserved much either of odium or 
 dispraise. 
 
 The attempt to establish the Roman Catholic religion as the 
 religion of the state in England, was deservedly unsuccessful, 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 99 
 
 because it was opposed to the principles and feelings of the 
 people of the country. But the Englishman who vindicates 
 the spirit of his forefathers in resisting that unwarrantable in- 
 terference with the rights of conscience, is bound by the force 
 of the rule, which he properly applies in his own case, to ex- 
 tend a corresponding liberty to others. Upon no other terms 
 can civil or religious independence be held to exist ; upon no 
 others is it possible to conceive that any country can remain 
 internally at peace, in which different forms of religion happen 
 to be cultivated. The principle which justified the erection of 
 the Protestant church as the state establishment in England, 
 demanded a similar ascendancy for the Roman Catholic church 
 in Ireland. English statesmen, however, have invariably re- 
 fused, in religion as well as politics, to reduce their doctrines 
 of government into practice equally in the two countries. The 
 only opportunity ever possessed by the Irish people of dealing 
 freely in a legislative capacity with their own interests in these 
 respects, occurred during the short reign of James II. It 
 will be instructive to notice how far they took advantage of 
 the powers then placed in their hands, to rectify preceding 
 errors, or to prove to the world, as their enemies so con- 
 stantly asserted, that they were unfit to be entrusted with 
 the rights and franchises of freemen. The king alone ex- 
 cepted, it was not Englishman against Irishman, but Pro- 
 testant that was now fearfully arrayed against Catholic. For 
 although religious considerations weighed more with James II. 
 than any others, he never stood clear of national prejudices. * 
 
 * The Roman Catholics of Ireland suffered a heavy load of obloquy and 
 a long train of persecutions for their attachment to James II. The pun- 
 ishment due to his offences against the constitution were visited upon 
 their heads with a malignity which soon reduced the two rehgions to the 
 same level of intolerance. A more heartless persecutor does not appear in 
 history than the Enghsh Protestant of the eighteenth century in Ireland. 
 But James is to be considered less as a Roman Catholic than as a Stuart. 
 All the vices and defects of his grandfather and his father were condensed 
 in his character, and strongly developed in his actions. It was his nature, 
 and not his religion, that made him a tyrant when on the throne, and a 
 poltroon after he had abandoned it. In other respects, there is little to 
 be observed of him that is not also to be said of all bigots, who are ever 
 essentially the same, no matter what the form of religion may be under 
 which they are reared. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Protestant ascendancy he sought anxiously to destroy — the 
 English interest in Ireland he steadily laboured to preserve. 
 But with the Protestants of Ireland, every relaxation of the 
 penal laws, however slight, operated as a flaw in the title-deeds 
 of their estates. The confiscations sanctioned by the Act of 
 Settlement rested upon the presumption that Roman Catho- 
 licism and disloyalty were different denominations of the same 
 offence, and equally dangerous to the state and to its most 
 ardent supporters. To advance an Irishman, or to favour a 
 Papist, was to impugn the justice of the established order of 
 things, and open out an endless roll of smothered claims to a 
 re-distribution of almost all the landed property of the country. 
 So strong was this feeling, that as soon as Lord Clarendon 
 was recalled, and Lord Tyrconnel was made lord lieutenant, 
 Protestants, we are told, fled terror-struck from the country.* 
 If conscience-struck had been coupled with terror-struck, a 
 more correct explanation would perhaps have been given of 
 the panic. The dread of Irish cruelty could not have pre- 
 vailed to such an extent as that described, without a commen- 
 surate sense of the depth of Irish wrongs. 
 
 We are to bear in mind the state in which Ormonde had 
 left the country. When first that nobleman became lord 
 lieutenant, the Roman Catholics were freely admitted to serve 
 the crown and the public in a civil as well as military capa- 
 city, and they also formed a principal portion of the corporate 
 bodies through the island. But before Ormonde ceased to 
 govern, the Roman Catholics could neither hold a political 
 employment, nor even reside within a corporate town. Ac- 
 cordingly, when James II. ascended the throne, to give to the 
 
 * Fifteen hundred Protestant families took ship and abandoned their 
 homes, when Lord Clarendon sailed for England. The consternation, 
 particularly in the large towns, was terrific. Men, women, and children 
 rushed to the shore, and wildly embracing the sailors' knees, implored that 
 they might be taken on board. Property to a large amount was left behind; 
 they who fled were overwhelmed with grief ; they who could not obtain a 
 passage were wild with despair. What ideas of past oppression are sug- 
 gested by these accounts ! How tremendous must the persecution have 
 been, when the bare possibihty of a power to retaliate could excite alarm 
 so universal and excessive ! 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 101 
 
 Catholic was not merely to take from the Protestant, but to 
 invade the exchisive right to power, place, and property, held 
 to vest in the latter, who, moreover, feeling that one success- 
 ful innovation is often enough to sweep a whole system away, 
 now raised his loudest outcry against the measure, which was 
 in itself legitimate enough : for James had an undoubted 
 right to change his lord lieutenant, and to appoint a Roman 
 Catholic to the office. But all the measures of that king have 
 been equally blamed — a few that w^ere good, as well as the 
 many that were bad. The perverseness of his nature was 
 like a fate that ruled him — always unfortunate. The best 
 act of his reign was the most illegal. Finding it impossible to 
 procure an act of parliament for the repeal of the test and penal 
 laws, he published a Declaration of Indulgence to all religious 
 sects, which he ordered to be read in the churches. The 
 principle enounced was admirably just, but the form in which 
 it appeared assumed the right to declare laws without the 
 consent of parliament, and was properly resisted as an act of 
 despotism. 
 
 The Irish, inured to invasions of tlie constitution, were de- 
 lighted to find the royal prerogative strained to do them ser- 
 vice. Clarendon and Tyrconnel were applauded when they 
 changed the judges, placing a majority of Roman Catholics 
 upon the bench ; when they dismissed from the service a num- 
 ber of officers and soldiers, enlisting Roman Catholics in their 
 stead ; and when they forced the corporations to resign their 
 charters, and then arranged that, for the future, two-thirds of 
 those bodies should consist of Roman Catholics and one-third 
 of Protestants. These are the cardinal offences charged 
 against the Irish administration, before the abdication of 
 James ; and there is something ludicrous in the unreason- 
 ableness with which they have been assailed. Good taste and 
 wisdom in all things Vv ere far from constituting the qualities by 
 which TyrconneFs government was distinguished ; but the 
 virulence is monstrous which censures him for admitting a 
 number of Roman Catholics to the l^ench, the army, and the 
 corporations, but which passes over, without a comment, their 
 
102 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 total exclusion by Ormonde and so many subsequent lieute- 
 nants. The partiality of these censurers is too furious to 
 deserve serious reproof or exposure. 
 
 The principal measure of TyrconneFs first parliament has 
 been abused in the same spirit and with as little cause. Heads 
 of a bill were framed, to indemnify the Catholics who had been 
 declared innocent by the Court of Claims during the late 
 reign, and to provide a new^ commission for the adjudication 
 of the claims which had not been hitherto heard. The conse- 
 quences of such a law would no doubt have been inconvenient 
 in the extreme to a number of persons; but, on the other 
 hand, a much larger number had been suffering for years from 
 a total denial of justice. Under such circumstances, an 
 honest government must have regarded legislation upon the 
 subject as an imperative duty. If it be argued that restitu- 
 tion would have been impolitic certainly, and probably impos- 
 sible, it will still be evident that compensation was due to the 
 injured ; and as that w^as not to be determined without some 
 definite authority to settle the details, the proposed bill was 
 required on more grounds than one. The mob in England, 
 however, raised a clamour, and defeated the intention. The 
 fugitive Protestants, through the press and in society, had 
 made the usual appeal to national and religious antipathies. 
 When Chief Baron Rice, a man of profound learning and the 
 purest character, repaired to London, as one of the agents of 
 the Catholics, to argue the question before the privy council, 
 the rabble hooted him through the streets, and formed a mock 
 procession to the court, carrying long poles before him, with 
 potatoes stuck at the tops, and crying out, "Room for the 
 ambassadors from Ireland." The tumult grew so loud, and 
 the excitement so dangerous, that even James was afraid to 
 make an effort in favour of his friends, and the bill was 
 thrown out. 
 
 After William III. had landed and James II. had escaped 
 to France, Tyrconnel's conduct was not destitute of address. 
 He dissembled with the Protestants, and sought to quiet their 
 alarm by expressing his desire for an amicable arrangement. 
 
THE CONNECTIOX WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 103 
 
 while he kept up the courage of his own party by strengthen- 
 ing the army. Finding something more decisive called for 
 than diplomatic demonstrations, he opened negotiations with 
 the new and with the old king, and seems to have been at first 
 disposed to yield the government to William. The terms 
 offered to him were certainly inviting — full security of person 
 and property to the Catholics — equality of civil rights, and 
 possession of one-third of the churches in the kingdom : and 
 these would, to all appearances, have been accepted, but for 
 the agent chosen by William to make them the basis of an 
 agreement with Tyrconnel. That agent w^as Richard Hamil- 
 ton,* a brave officer and a man of ability, but in this instance 
 unfortunately misled by the dissensions openly raging between 
 the English Whigs and Tories, into a belief that the restora- 
 tion of James would be secure, if his party should hold out 
 in Ireland. He therefore dissuaded Tyrconnel from submit- 
 ting to William, and encouraged him to maintain the king- 
 dom for his lawful sovereign. Another destructive civil w^ar 
 was the consequence of this advice. 
 
 The series of nrilitary operations beginning with the siege 
 of Derry-|- and ending with the siege of Limerick, are too w^ell 
 known to be related here. The bravery wdth which both 
 these cities were held from a superior force w^as heroic. The 
 defence of Londonderry, crowned as it was with success, ap- 
 pears the more brilliant affair; but Limerick, though ulti- 
 mately reduced, claims the honour of having in the first siege 
 repelled the English commanded by William in person, after 
 
 * This gentleman's sense of honour was not of the quickest kind. He 
 was a prisoner in England, when William proposed that he should go to 
 Ireland, and gain Tyrconnel's assent to the terms mentioned. He was 
 set free upon undertaking the mission ; but he urged hostilities instead 
 of a surrender, and took up arms against the objects of his own embassy. 
 Curiously enough, he was the only prisoner of rank taken in the first 
 battle William fought in Ireland — the battle of the Boyne. 
 
 t True courage is always humane. The Derry men, who on this occa- 
 sion distinguished themselves by an endurance of privations never ex- 
 ceeded, treated their enemies with great forbearance. They allowed the 
 governor, Lundy, and the magistrates, who would have surrendered the 
 town, to depart uninjured ; and they contented themselves by depriving 
 the few Catholics who inhabited the town of their arms. 
 
104 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 he had reduced Wexford, Duncannon, Waterford, and Clon- 
 mel. The battle of the Boyne, in which both kings took the 
 field, may be said to have been in a manner lost before it was 
 fought — in consequence of the perverseness of James, who in- 
 sisted upon engaging the enemy contrary to the advice of his 
 generals, and who bespoke defeat by hiring a vessel to convey 
 him to France in the event of misfortune. Athlone, long 
 gallantly attacked and more gallantly defended, was mainly 
 captured through the blind confidence of General St. Ruth, a 
 perfect Frenchman of the old school, whose courage and skill 
 in war were considerable, but whose vanity was excessive. At 
 the battle of Aughrim, the ruin of the English army was all 
 but complete, when a cannon ball suddenly deprived the Irish 
 of their commander, and an overwhelming defeat ensued. 
 
 It is almost impossible to trace the events of this war, and 
 to resist one impression constantly presented to the mind. 
 The evil genius which seems always to have oppressed the 
 Irish, pursue them relentlessly throughout its whole course. 
 Ever and anon an ominous fate appears striking their assi- 
 duous labours with sterility, while destiny repeatedly turns 
 aside the tide of success at the moment it is about to flow full 
 upon their ranks. We see Schomberg in his first campaign, 
 notwithstanding the men and money voted by the English 
 parliament, penned up in his intrenchments near Dundalk, the 
 flux and a burning fever wasting his army, which, at last, 
 crawls into winter quarters through a lane formed by the 
 piled up bodies of the unburied dead. Yet James was in the 
 field all this time, and was warmly urged by Marshal Rosen 
 to destroy an enemy incapable of defending themselves. At the 
 close of another campaign, we behold William, notwithstand- 
 ing the battle of the Boyne, repulsed at the siege of Limerick, 
 with the loss of 2,000 men, whence leading his diminished 
 army away hopeless of success, he withdraws to England, 
 at once victor and vanquished. We are struck by these re- 
 markable occurrences, — by the high spirit with which, to the 
 last, the Irish maintained a sinking cause ; by the numbers 
 who rushed to arms, as death swept numbers from the field ; 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 105 
 
 by the length of time to which they protracted the war, and 
 by the force required to subdue them. That force amounted 
 to no less than six and thirty thousand men — veterans 
 gathered from various nations — the wild and morose Ennis- 
 killeners,"^ sprung from the Levellers and Covenanters of 
 the old civil war, hardened by their prejudices, and infu- 
 riated by their fanaticism — Danes, Germans, and Dutch, 
 who had spent their lives in arms — the black banditti of 
 the " Thirty years' war," practised in all crimes, and fami- 
 liar with abominations too horrid to describe — who literally 
 lived on murder and rapine — and the energetic English- 
 man seasoned to the fight. This formidable mass of chosen 
 veterans, led on and commanded by generals such as Schom- 
 berg, William III., Marlborough, and G inkle, was resisted 
 during four campaigns by the mere Irish. England had 
 pressed into her service the soldiers of many nations; her 
 humble opponents only received the support of some troops 
 from France.f Yet such was the heart and courage with 
 which the natives ralHed round their colours, that when they 
 mustered for their last review, J after the treaty of Limerick, 
 
 * The body of troops, of which frequent mention is made in all histo- 
 ries of this war under the name of Enniskilleners, were of Scotch descent, 
 and settled upon the plantation of Ulster. They formed themselves into 
 bands, and, originally, drew together in the county of Fermanagh more 
 from abhorrence of Popery than fear of danger. The first position they 
 took up was at the town of Enniskillen, which they fortified in a rude 
 manner. They chose Gustavus Hamilton, afterwards created Viscount 
 Boyne, as their colonel, and Thomas Loyd as their lieutenant-colonel. 
 Their actual force, in 1689, was 17 troops of light horse, 30 companies of 
 foot, and a few ill armed troops of heavy dragoons. They were distin- 
 guished by their want of discipline, their obdurate courage, and ferocious 
 cruelty. 
 
 t The reinforcements sent over by France on more than one occasion 
 were considerable — but at times an equivalent body of troops was re- 
 quired in exchange. In 1690, for instance, 5,000 Frenchmen arrived — 
 but 5,000 Irish, under the command of Macarty More, one of the best of 
 the native generals, went to France in return. The army of William was 
 not weakened by any substitutions of a similar kind. 
 
 X In the little volumes by Doctor Cooke Taylor, entitled The Civil 
 Wars of Ireland, there is a graphic sketch of this scene. On the 4th 
 of October, Tahnash, at the head of five British regiments, occupied the 
 English town of Limerick ; and on the following day the Irish army was 
 paraded on the King's Island, in order that they might choose between 
 the service of England and France. Ginkle and Sarsfield addressed them 
 
106 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 but one opinion prevailed — the opinion that the strength 
 which they still possessed, and the spirit by which they were 
 still animated, must, if the war continued, have transferred the 
 possession of Ireland to France. 
 
 It was, moreover, to this seal of fate stamped upon the exer- 
 tions of the native population — to this strong character of pre- 
 determined failure, developed in all their struggles, and bearing 
 down all their genius and valour, that we are to ascribe the 
 enormous cruelties by which they were racked and harrowed 
 during the continuance and long after the close of the war. 
 The mercenary foreigner, the prejudiced Englishman, and the 
 
 in different proclamations ; the former recommending William, the latter 
 Louis, as a master. It was then agreed, that on the ensuing morning the 
 army should be again paraded and marched past a flag which had been 
 fixed at a given point. Those who chose England were to file to the 
 left ; those who preferred France were to march on. 
 
 The sun, perhaps, scarcely ever rose on a more interesting spectacle 
 than was exhibited on the King's Island, v/hen the morning for the deci- 
 cision of the Irish soldiery arrived. The men paraded at an early hour ; 
 the chaplains said mass, and preached each a sermon at the head of their 
 regiments. The Catholic bishops then went through the lines. They 
 were received with military honours, rendered more imposing by the 
 affectionate devotion which the native Irish have ever shewn to their pre- 
 lates. After this ceremony, refreshments were distributed to the troops, 
 and a message sent to Ginkle and the lords justices that " all was ready." 
 The Irish army, 15,000 strong, received the British cortege with pre- 
 sented arms. The lords justices and the generals rode slowly through 
 their lines, and declared that they had never seen a finer body of men. 
 Adjutant-general Withers then addressed them in an excellent speech, 
 recommending the English service in very forcible terms ; after which the 
 army broke into columns, and the word * March' was given. 
 
 " The walls of the town were covered with citizens ; the neighbouring 
 hills were covered with the peasantry of Clare and Limerick ; the deputies 
 of three kings stood near the flag ; but, when the decisive word was 
 given, the deepest silence reigned through the vast and varied multitude, 
 and not a sound was heard but the heavy tread of the advancing bat- 
 talions. The column was headed by the Irish Guards, 1,400 strong — a 
 regiment that had excited Ginkle's warmest admiration. They marched 
 past the flag, and seven men only ranged themselves on the side of Eng- 
 land. The next two regiments were the Ulster Irish, and they all filed to 
 the left. Their example, however, was not generally followed, the greater 
 part of the remainder declared in favour of France. A similar scene 
 took place at the cavalry camp ; and out of the whole, Ginkle only ob- 
 tained about 1,000 horse and 1,500 foot. So little pleased was he with 
 this result, that he was inclined to pick a quarrel with the Irish leaders ; 
 and the treaty would have been broken almost as soon as signed, but for 
 the presence of the French fleet, which forced fhe English authorities to 
 suppress their resentment." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 107 
 
 fanatical Scotch settler appear to have one and all carried 
 about with them a common conviction, that however boldly 
 the Irishman might turn upon his foe, it was impossible that 
 he could triumph. There was a reckless indifference to conse- 
 quences, a ruthless and exterminating vengeance, a wanton 
 indulgence in barbarity displayed against the occupiers of the 
 soil, which can only be accounted for on the supposition that 
 punishment and retaliation were held by the oppressor to be 
 utterly beyond the reach of the oppressed. This fierce inhu- 
 manity, so much at variance with the higher qualities of the 
 English character, and the bitter cause of much of the hatred 
 with which the name is still visited in Ireland, was begun 
 by the troops under Schomberg, who, flagrantly violating the 
 terms upon which Carrickfergus capitulated, stripped and 
 plundered the inhabitants, and subjected the women to inde- 
 scribable indignities. The licentious brutality of the regular 
 army was surpassed by the sanguinary executions of the undis- 
 ciplined Enniskilleners. These bewildered desperadoes, wel- 
 coming death when it came, as martyrdom in the service 
 of the Lord, regarded the slaughter of a Papist or the burn- 
 ing of his cabin as an act of virtue. They gave no quarter in 
 the field, they cut down the retreating enemy with remorseless 
 severity, and hung the captive, as soon as taken, on the 
 nearest tree. Even William III. stained his high character 
 by holding out threats of atrocious vengeance. When he 
 summoned Drogheda to surrender, after the battle of the 
 Boyne, he declared that, if resisted, he would give no quarter. 
 When James's party withdrew from Dublin, a Protestant 
 mob, after plundering the houses of the wealthy Catholics, 
 set fire to the suburbs, and proposed to wrap the city in 
 flames. This violent spirit was kept rampant l^y another 
 commission of forfeitures, and a proclamation which, while it 
 offered pardon and protection to labourers, farmers, and arti- 
 sans living in peace, left " the desperate leaders of the rebel- 
 lion to the chances of war." The kind's languaffe and conduct 
 being of this immoderate description, the excesses of his sol- 
 diers, as a matter of course, were boundless. Wherever they 
 
108 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 halted — particularly at Atlilone and Limerick — they ravaged 
 the country around, and burned the houses ; brutal lust and 
 barbarous murder hung upon their march, and made their 
 presence every where so terrible, that in estimating the 
 amount of destruction effected during the war, we may safely 
 set down one half of the deaths and losses to the account of 
 the outrages committed off the field of battle by William's 
 force, and to the retaliations which the peasantry were thus 
 incited to inflict. 
 
 The administration of civil affairs in Ireland during this 
 period presents features of more than usual interest. Almost 
 for the first time in the history of the connection with Eng- 
 land, the natives appear every where in the possession of the 
 offices of government, and of the highest posts in the coun- 
 try. An Irishman and a Roman Catholic is lord lieutenant ; 
 and in both houses of parliament, in the corporations, and in 
 the army. Irishmen and Roman Catholics preponderate. The 
 spirit in which the people now used their power, the extent to 
 which they took vengeance for the past, and provided future 
 security for liberty and property, — their demeanour during a 
 brief interval of dominion, and the laws passed by them while 
 constituting a decided majority of the legislature, — are points 
 which excite the liveliest attention, and reflect a light upon 
 the whole surface of Irish history. 
 
 The reception given to James when he landed at Kinsale, 
 with a force of 1,200 Irish and 100 French, in the month of 
 March, 1689, displayed the highest degrees of public unani- 
 mity and enthusiasm. It seemed as if all parties, English and 
 Irish, Protestant and Catholic, had agreed to prove that he 
 had evinced as much judgment as patriotism, when he de- 
 clared that he would owe his restoration, not to the help of 
 foreign arms, but to the assistance of his own subjects. Meet- 
 ing Tyrconnel at Cork, whom he at once made a duke, he 
 proceeded to Dublin, where the higher orders of the Roman 
 Catholic clergy, attired in their proper robes, formed part of 
 his state retinue. The ceremonies observed upon his entrance 
 into the Irish capital were marked by the usual pomp and 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 109 
 
 solemnity, and by loyal demonstrations from all classes of the 
 people.* He began the business of governing by issuing five 
 proclamations. By the first, all Protestants who had left the 
 country were ordered to return, under pain of forfeiting their 
 estates ; by the second, all Catholics who did not belong to 
 the army were ordered to bring in and deposit their arms in 
 the royal stores ; by the third, the terms were regulated upon 
 which the army was to be supplied with provisions ; by the 
 fourth, the value of money was raised ; and by the fifth, the 
 parliament was summoned to meet in the ensuing month of 
 May. These measures appear as moderate and reasonable as 
 the circumstances of the country permitted, always excepting 
 the folly of supposing that the value of money was to be in- 
 creased by the declaration of a state paper. 
 
 The proclamation for the meeting of parliament was dated 
 March 25, 1689 ; and during the same year, minutes of the 
 proceedings were printed in London in a small 4to tract. 
 The Protestant bishops were summoned as usual, but there 
 
 * Dr. Lesley, in his " Answer to Archbishop King's State of the Pro- 
 testants in Ireland," gives a ludicrous account of the buoyant pliability 
 with which the clergy of the established church accommodated their con- 
 sciences to the shifting circumstances of the time. " Before the associa- 
 tion in the North of Ireland," says the Doctor, " September, 16S8, they 
 prayed for King James ; the beginning of March following, they pro- 
 claimed the prince of Orange king, and prayed for him ; the 1 5th day 
 King James's army broke their forces at Dromore, in the North of Ireland, 
 and reduced all but Derry and Enniskillen — then they prayed again for 
 King James, that ' God would strengthen Mm to vanquish and overcome 
 all his enemies.' In August following, Schomberg went over with an 
 English army, — then, as far as his quarters reached, they returned to 
 pray the same prayer for King William, the rest of the Protestants still 
 praying for victory to King J ames and for the people ; and yet now tell 
 us, that all that while they meant the same thing, — four times in one year 
 praying backwards and forwards — point blank contradictory to one 
 another." To some minds this will appear an amusing, to others a me- 
 lancholy, extract. One effect to be produced by it is certain — we are 
 bound to adopt, with extreme caution, the professions of a party acting 
 ^vith such violent inconsistency. They assure us that their loyalty was 
 unimpeachable, and that they stood true to James until he deserted Eng- 
 land, and until the outrages of his Irish adherents compelled them to arm 
 themselves with pikes and scythe-blades. But if there is one historical 
 fact more strongly established than another, it is the disloyalty of the 
 Protestants in the North of Ireland, long before the flight of James : 
 their agents were in communication with William before he landed in 
 England, and they were themselves in the field before James had 
 abdicated. 
 
110 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 was a majority of Roman Catholics in both houses.* James 
 opened the session on the 8th of May in person, with a 
 speech every way judicious and satisfactory. The loyalty 
 of the Irish was acknowledged with praise, — violations of 
 the rights of conscience and of property were repudiated 
 with abhorrence, — equal protection was promised to Pro- 
 testants and Catholics, together with a ready assent to any 
 laws beneficial to the nation ; — after which the distressed 
 condition of trade and manufactures, and the sufferings of 
 those who had unjustly lost their estates under the Act of 
 Settlement, were recommended as fit subjects for early and 
 attentive consideration. 
 
 The tone of this speech was well preserved in the character 
 of the parliamentary proceedings, with a particular exception. 
 An act of attainder was passed, by which all known or sus- 
 pected adherents of William w^ere required to come in and 
 surrender themselves before a certain day, or to suffer for- 
 feiture of their real and personal property. It was calculated 
 that two thousand persons would have been affected by this 
 law, which specially provided that if the obnoxious parties 
 did not establish their innocence within a limited period, the 
 king should not have the power of pardoning them. The 
 severe injustice of this measure admits of no observations in 
 its defence. It followed the bad precedents set by the parlia- 
 ments of Charles I. and Cromwell, and furnished an unneces- 
 sary incitement to the violence of William's party in exe- 
 cuting similar penalties. 
 
 In other respects, the Roman Catholic parliament distin- 
 guished itself by the wisdom and liberality of its evanescent 
 legislation. It sat for only two months, and entertained 
 thirty-five bills. Amongst these, two of the first brought for- 
 ward were most important. The one forbad writs of error 
 and appeal to England, and the other declared that Ireland 
 
 * This was effected in the Lords by reversing the attainders of several 
 Roman Cathohc peers, and by newly creating others. The persons 
 selected in both cases were of ancient family and estate. In the Com- 
 mons the usual interference wiih the elections took place, and the in- 
 fluence of government was every where exerted to the utmost in behalf of 
 its own candidates. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 Ill 
 
 could not be bound by the acts of the English parliament. 
 James was present in the Lords when both measures were dis- 
 cussed, and gave them his support. But another effort made 
 to secure the independence of the Irish legislature failed in 
 consequence of his opposition. A bill was introduced to repeal 
 Poynings' laws. When the report was brought up, the Com- 
 mons were informed " that the king would have a clause that 
 he and his heirs should have the bill first agreed to by him 
 and his council before it should pass the Commons." It was 
 ordered to be printed, " the house being inclined to be as free 
 as the parliament of England but it was not proceeded with. 
 Amongst the few unsuccessful measures of this short session, 
 was one which showed a wise liberality. Chief Justice Nu- 
 gent proposed a sweeping repeal of the Acts of Settlement and 
 Explanation, but his bill was thrown out on the second read-, 
 ing. A more moderate provision, of which Chief Baron Rice, 
 and the attorney-general, Sir K. Nagle, were the authors, suc- 
 ceeded. Six bishops and four temporal peers entered a protest 
 against this act. Another good bill abolished patents for life. 
 But the law of all others by which the Roman Catholic par- 
 liament did itself the highest honour, was the celebrated " Act 
 for Liberty of Conscience, and for repealing such Acts, or 
 Clauses in any Act, as are inconsistent with the same." As a 
 companion to this admirable piece of legislation, worthy of the 
 most enlightened age, was another which equitably settled the 
 difficult question of tithes, by providing that every person 
 should pay them to his own pastor. Such were the principal 
 labours of the parliament of Ireland under James II. It re- 
 flected lasting shame upon the members of the English legis- 
 lature, that they not only took the earliest opportunity of 
 repealing them all, but ordered them to be burned by the 
 common hangman in Old Palace Yard. 
 
 A stain of blacker dye attaches to the unprincipled for- 
 feitures enforced by William, and to the violation of the 
 treaty of Limerick. The latter was the price upon which 
 15,000 men had agreed to lay down their arms. There is no 
 principle of faith or honour by which kings, governments, or 
 
112 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 nations can be bound, which did not imperatively demand the 
 sacred fulfilment of that heavy obligation; and yet it had 
 scarcely received the stamp of the great seal of England, when 
 it was openly infringed. 
 
 The loss of Tyrconnel, who had died a short time before in 
 Limerick of vexation and a broken spirit, w-as a fatal event for 
 his party. Had he been alive, more efficient conditions would, 
 in all likelihood, have now been insisted upon and obtained. 
 The language used in this treaty, though framed by Sir T. 
 Butler, was certainly not as precise as was desirable. By a 
 strange omission, no mention was made of the lands already 
 confiscated. But although lawyers may affect to make out a 
 case against the Irish by raising technicalities, defects, and 
 objections, there are broad and specific grounds upon which a 
 breach of faith is unquestionably chargeable against William 
 and his ministers. The Irish had a right to include in the 
 general terms adopted at this juncture, the particular con- 
 cessions previously offered. It is besides well known that 
 more favourable particulars were embodied in a proclamation 
 which was on the eve of publication, when the news of the 
 treaty of Limerick reached Dublin. Sir R. Cox, finding the 
 war concluded, suppressed the document which would have 
 set the case of the vanquished beyond dispute. 
 
 Let us, however, review these documents by themselves, 
 and judge of their purport by the language in which they are 
 framed. There were two sets of articles — one civil and the 
 other military ; but the former were the more important. 
 The Roman Catholics of this kingdom, said the first of the 
 civil articles, shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of 
 their religion, as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as 
 they enjoyed in the reign of Charles II. ; and their majesties 
 will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such 
 further security in that particular as may preserve them from 
 any disturbance upon the account of their said religion. The 
 people of the kingdom having been thus far provided for, the 
 second of the civil articles dealt with all the inhabitants or 
 residents of the city of Limerick, and the counties of Lime- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 113 
 
 rick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Mayo, together with all officers 
 and soldiers in arms under any commission from King James, 
 — to these and their heirs the possession and enjoyment of 
 their estates were granted, and of all the rights, titles, and in- 
 terest, privileges, and immunities which they held, or were 
 rightfully and lawfully entitled to, in the reign of Charles II. 
 
 Comparing these pledges with the subsequent enactments of 
 the English and the Irish parliaments, we blush for the loss 
 of honour and humanity in both legislatures. We see in the 
 heading and preamble of the law subsequently passed upon the 
 subject, how clearly the law-makers held the articles to have 
 been unfairly dealt with. They call the measure not a bill for 
 the confirmation of " the articles" — but of " articles;" and 
 such they profess to confirm, or " so much of them as may 
 consist with safety and welfare," &c. After setting forth the 
 object of the act in this mutilated style, they omit altogether 
 the first article, which embraced the Catholics of the king- 
 dom ; and they exclude the guarantee given in the second 
 article for the free exercise of trades and professions. There 
 were other essential limitations, but it would be a waste of time 
 to specify them. To the credit of the Irish House of Lords, 
 it should be remembered that thirteen members were found 
 in that body — six of whom were Protestant bishops — ^just and 
 spirited enough to protest against this shameful breach of the 
 public faith. They recorded their dissent from it in five rea- 
 sons, expressed with a bitter truth that gives their language the 
 point of sarcasm. They protest — 1. Because the title of the 
 bill doth not agree with the body thereof, the title being "An 
 Act for the Confirmation of Articles made at the Surrender of 
 Limerick," whereas no one of the articles is therein fully con- 
 firmed. — 2. Because the articles were to be in favour of them 
 to whom they were granted, but the confirmation of them by 
 the bill is such that it puts them in a worse condition than 
 they were before. — 3. Because the bill omits these material 
 words, — " and such as are under their protection in the said 
 counties'' — part of the second article ; and several persons 
 have been adjudged within the second article accordingly, who 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
114 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 will, if this bill passeth, be entirely barred and excluded from 
 any benefit of the second article. — 4. Because several words 
 are inserted in the bill which are not in the articles, and others 
 omitted which alter the sense and meaning of some part of 
 the articles. — 5. Because many Protestants may and will 
 suffer by this bill in their just rights and pretensions, by rea- 
 son of their having purchased and lent money upon the credit 
 of the said articles. 
 
 The government to whom language so just and forcible was 
 addressed without effect, was soon beset with difficulties. 
 The lords justices wrote to England, that they received com- 
 plaints from all parts of the ill treatment of the Irish who had 
 submitted, who held their majesties 'protection, or were included 
 in the articles ; and that they were so extremely terrified with 
 apprehensions of the continuance of that usage, that some 
 thousands of them, who had quitted the Irish army and had 
 returned to their homes, came back to the government and 
 pressed earnestly for permission to go to France rather than 
 stay in Ireland, where, " contrary to the public faith, as well 
 as law and justice, they were robbed of their substance and 
 abused in their persons.''* * * * " Justices of the peace, 
 sheriffs, and other magistrates," according to Harris, (" Life 
 of William III."" p. 357,) " presuming on their power, illegally 
 dispossessed their majesties' subjects not only of their goods, 
 but of their lands and tenements, to the great disturbance of 
 the peace, the subversion of the law, and the reproach of go- 
 vernment." While this was the treatment of persons who 
 were admitted to be entitled to protection, the sufferings of 
 those who were held to be objects of punishment may be 
 easily conceived. 
 
 So strong was the desire of oppressing the Irish at this 
 time, that the parliament of England ran before the par- 
 liament of Ireland in producing measures of severity and 
 degradation. They passed an act, 3 William & Mary, c. 
 2, " for abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland, and ap- 
 pointing other Oaths."' By this statute the Catholics were 
 excluded from the Houses of Lords and Commons, and the 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 115 
 
 English legislature effectively assumed tlie right of binding 
 the people of Ireland by laws not made in their own parlia- 
 ment. Few as were the pretensions to independence which 
 that body could claim, so bold and unreasonable an invasion of 
 its powers w^as naturally resented. They made some efforts to 
 resist the attack upon their authority, but were overpowered 
 by a bolder spirit and more determined hand. Mr. Molyneux, 
 member for the University of Dublin, published a tract justly 
 celebrated, entitled " The Case of Ireland's being bound by 
 the Acts of Parliament in England." But the work was pro- 
 nounced dangerous by the English Commons, and ordered to 
 be burned by the hangman. They selected the strongest 
 passages, and went up with them to the king, calling upon 
 him " to exert his royal prudence, and to take all necessary 
 care that the laws which directed and restrained the parlia- 
 ment of Ireland in their actings should not be evaded." 
 William returned a tame answer, promising that " what was 
 complained of should be prevented and redressed,*" and ere 
 long a monstrous proof was given of the unwillingness of the 
 English parliament to suffer the right w'hich they had usurped 
 to lie idle or inoffensive. The importation of wool and woollen 
 manufactures from Ireland was prohibited under pain of con- 
 fiscation, imprisonment, and transportation ; and it was further 
 enacted, that persons tried and acquitted in Ireland for 
 offences under this statute should not be allowed to plead 
 such acquittal in bar of a new indictment for the same act in 
 England. Another foul blow was thus struck against the 
 struggling commerce of Ireland. Equal ignorance and in- 
 justice w^ere displayed in the interference of the English par- 
 liament with the cattle trade of Ireland under Charles II., 
 and with the woollen trade of that country under William III. 
 
 While the English parliament w^as engaged in asserting 
 this insulting dominion over Ireland, the Irish parliament was 
 intent upon fortifying the Protestant ascendancy by increased 
 severity against the Roman Catholics. There was an act 
 passed to prevent the education of their children abroad; 
 another to deprive them of the possession of arms ; a third to 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 banish out of the kingdom all the clergy of that religion ; 
 a fourth to prevent Protestants from marrying Papists ; 
 and a fifth to prevent Papists from practising as attornies. 
 
 These harrowing details form an indispensable portion of 
 every account of Irish affairs, past or present. For their in- 
 fluence is powerful to this hour. It is only by going patiently 
 through them, that we can fully understand the language in 
 w^hich such men as the Lord Chancellor Clare and Edmund 
 Burke have spoken of the conduct of England at this junc- 
 ture ; and it is only by considering how pregnant that conduct 
 was with every quality by which anger could be provoked, and 
 resentment perpetuated, that we can account for the animo- 
 sity which is still vividly displayed in all political matters by 
 the Irishman of the present day against his fellow subject in 
 England. 
 
 The following passage has been often quoted, and is gene- 
 rally known ; but it is too true and too pointed in its reference 
 to the subject immediately before us to be omitted here. 
 Lord Clare — he was the colleague of Lord Castlereagh and 
 Mr. Pitt — gave the following summary of the different Irish 
 forfeitures, ending with those of William III., in his cele- 
 brated speech on the Legislative Union between the two 
 countries : — 
 
 "After the expulsion of James from the throne of England, 
 the old inhabitants made a final effort for the recovery of 
 their antient power, in which they were once more defeated 
 by an English army ; and the slender relics of Irish possessions 
 became the subject of fresh confiscations. From the report 
 made by the commissioners appointed by the parliament of 
 England in 1698, it appears, that the Irish subjects outlawed 
 for the rebellion of 1 688 amounted to 8,978, and that their 
 possessions, as far as could be computed, were of the annual 
 value of <£'211,628, comprising 1,060,792 acres. This fund 
 was sold, under the authority of an English Act of Parlia- 
 ment, to defray the expences incurred by England in reducing 
 the rebels of 1688; and the sale introduced into Ireland a 
 new set of adventurers. It is a very curious and important 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 117 
 
 speculation to look back to the forfeitures of Ireland incurred 
 in the last century. The superficial contents of the island are 
 calculated at 11,042,682 acres. Let us now examine the 
 state of the forfeitures : — 
 
 In the reign of James I. the whole of Acres. 
 
 the province of Ulster was confiscated 2,836,837 
 Set out by the Court of Claims at the 
 
 Restoration 7,800,000 
 
 forfeitures of 1688 .... 1,060,792 
 
 11,697,629^^ 
 
 " So that the whole of your island has been confiscated, with 
 the exception of the estates of five or six families of English 
 blood, some of whom had been attainted in the reign of Henry 
 VIII., but recovered their possessions before Tyrone's rebel- 
 lion, and had the good fortune to escape the pillage of the 
 English republic inflicted by Cromwell ; and no inconsiderable 
 portion of the island has been confiscated twice, or perhaps 
 thrice, in the course of a century. The situation, therefore, of 
 the Irish nation at the Union stands unparalleled in the his- 
 tory of the inhabited world. If the wars of England carried 
 on here from the reign of Elizabeth had been waged against 
 a foreign enemy, the inhabitants would have retained their 
 possessions under the established law of civilized nations, and 
 their country have been annexed as a province to the British 
 Empire.""!* 
 
 * The forfeitures of the preceding century by Elizabeth and Mary ap- 
 pear in Vol. I. p. 302, as 2,838,972 acres. 
 
 f The impolicy of these forfeitures was strongly felt at the very time 
 they were declared, and their illegality was afterwards pointedly referred 
 to by more than one impartial historian. They were repeatedly denounced 
 by Ginkle, who found them heavy impediments to the conclusion of the war. 
 But there was a reckless faction who represented them as indispensable to 
 the maintenance of the Protestant interest, and they were persisted in. The 
 character of these patriots is forcibly drawn by Ginkle : — " I did very 
 much hope," he writes, " on one occasion, that some favourable declara- 
 tion might have been emitted to break the Irish army and save the cost of 
 a field of battle. But 1 see our civil officers regard more adding £50 
 a year to the English proprietary in this kingdom, than saving England 
 the expence of £500,000. I promise myself it is for the king's, the zillies'. 
 
118 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 Mr. Burke's letter to Sir H. Langrish describes the feeling 
 of the people of England towards Ireland during the reign of 
 William III., and for years after, in this expressive strain : — 
 "By the reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the 
 ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure, too, of the 
 first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The 
 new interest w^as settled with as solid a stability as anything 
 in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that un- 
 paralleled code of oppression which were made after that last 
 event, w^ere manifestly the effects of natural hatred and scorn 
 towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to 
 trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke. They 
 were not the effects of their fears, but of their security. They 
 who carried on this system looked to the irresistible force of 
 Great Britain for their support in their acts of power. They 
 were quite certain that no complaints of the natives would be 
 heard on this side of the water with any other sentiments 
 than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries served 
 only to augment their torture. Machines which could answer 
 their purpose so well, must be of an excellent contrivance. 
 Indeed, at that time in England the double name of the com- 
 
 and England's interests to remit most, or all the forfeitures, so that we 
 could immediately bring the kingdom under their majesties' obedience." 
 Ginkle made many representations to this effect, but always without suc- 
 cess. Before Athlone fell and the battle of Aughrim was gained, he soli- 
 cited, and was refused, a proclamation promising protection and security 
 of person and property to all who would submit. The utmost he could 
 obtain from the lords justices was permission to offer reasonable terms in 
 his own name to all who were then in arms. So much for the impolicy 
 of the forfeitures — as for their illegality, Macpherson puts the whole ques- 
 tion impartially in his " History of Great Britain." — " The peculiar 
 situation of the country," he says, " seems to have been overlooked in the 
 contest. The desertion upon which the deprivation of James had been 
 founded in England, had not existed in Ireland. The lord lieutenant had 
 retained his allegiance. The government was uniformly continued under 
 the name of the prince from whom the servants of the crown had derived 
 their commissions. James himself had for more than seventeen months 
 exercised the royal function in Ireland. He was certainly de facto, if not 
 dejure, king. The rebellion of the Irish must, therefore, be founded on 
 the supposition that their allegiance is transferable by the parliament of 
 England. A speculative opinion can scarcely justify the punishment of 
 the great majority of a people. The Irish ought to have been considered 
 as enemies rather than rebels." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 119 
 
 plainants, Irish and Papists, (it would be difficult to say which, 
 singly, was most odious,) shut up the hearts of every one 
 against them. Whilst that temper prevailed in all its force 
 to a time within our memory, every measure was pleasing and 
 popular, just in proportion as it tended to harass and ruin a 
 set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God and 
 man — and, indeed, as a race of bigoted savages who were 
 a disgrace to human nature itself." 
 
 There are no witnesses of higher authority to be called, and 
 no writings more eloquent or convincing to be quoted, than 
 those here produced. With such testimony before us to 
 regulate our opinions, this imperfect account of the reign of 
 William III. may well close. The condition of Ireland, and 
 the disposition of Englishmen towards the people of that 
 country, could not have been more forcibly exhibited. It is 
 clear, beyond the possibility of dispute, that the old evils were 
 all preserved and continued — and that, however firmly the 
 principles of political freedom may have been established, and 
 the rights of conscience secured in England by the revolution 
 of 1 688 — in Ireland that great event effected no improvement 
 whatever in the government, and tended to aggravate, rather 
 than to lessen, the grievances of the inhabitants. 
 
120 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CONNECTION 
 WITH E^GLA^D— continued. 
 
 THE CENTURY DURING WHICH IRELAND HAS NO HISTORY. — QUEEN 
 ANNE. — GEO. I. — GEO. II. — GEO. III. — EXTENT OF THE PENAL 
 LAWS. — THE ENGLISH PROTESTANT SYSTEM TRIUMPHANT. PRI- 
 MATE BOULTER AND PRIMATE STONE. — GENERAL RUIN. — THE 
 GOVERNMENT BANKRUPT. — HENRY GRATTAN. — THE VOLUNTEERS. 
 — FREE TRADE. — INDEPENDENCE OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The century of abject prostration, during which it has been 
 observed that Ireland has no history, — during which a bishop* 
 of the established church, preaching from the pulpit to the 
 lords justices, maintained that Protestants were not bound to 
 keep faith with Papists, — during which there is little to re- 
 late but details of the " ferocious legislation of Queen Anne"-I- 
 — the last, and, to Ireland, the worst of the Stuarts, — during 
 which the Protestantism of the Irish ascendancy consisted of 
 * ' hatred of Popery, ignorance of Christianity, and a total ab- 
 sence of moral principle," — may be summarily dismissed. A 
 bare recapitulation of the principal persons and events, a 
 general description of the state of the country, and an ab- 
 stract of the penal laws, will be enough to preserve of an age 
 painful to contemplate and disheartening to describe. A new 
 era will then open upon us : the genius and patriotism of an 
 individual, pure in the midst of general corruption, will be 
 found snatching for a while independence for his country, — a 
 glorious but untenable possession, which shone forth brightly - 
 for a short interval, and then fell away — reminding us of one 
 
 * Dopping, bishop of Meath. 
 
 t Burke, *' Letter to a Peer," &c. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 121 
 
 of those flashes of extraordinary intelligence which are some- 
 times seen, for a brief interval immediately preceding disso- 
 lution, to gladden and expand the mind of a man dying of 
 long disease, suffering and prostration, and which, after daz- 
 zling for a few moments, and raising hopes as deceitful as 
 unexpected, vanish into darkness, and with the individual for 
 ever cease to exist in this world. 
 
 The first lords justices appointed by William III. were 
 Viscount Sydney, Sir C. Porter, and Mr. Coningsby, Their 
 administration was soon broken up by internal dissensions. 
 Sydney was intent upon violating, while Porter, who was 
 lord chancellor, vainly strove to maintain, the treaty of Lime- 
 rick. Sydney called a parliament, but interfering with the 
 right of the Commons to originate money bills, he was obliged 
 to prorogue the session, with an emphatic complaint against 
 the ingratitude of the members to their great deliverer. Upon 
 his recall. Lord Capel, Sir Cycil Wyche, and Mr. Duncombe 
 took office. They appear to have agreed as little as their pre- 
 decessors had done respecting the degree of faith which it be- 
 hoved them to keep with the Irish. At length, Capel being- 
 found the man most likely to fix the Protestant ascendancy upon 
 the desired elevation, his colleagues were removed, and a parlia- 
 ment was summoned in 1695, which made considerable pro- 
 gress in the odious work demanded at its hands. The duke 
 of Ormonde* and Earl Wharton, successively lords lieutenants 
 in the years 1702 and 1709, so completely exhausted the sub- 
 ject, that from the former year to 1782 we find, amongst a 
 
 * This was the second and last duke, son of the gallant earl of Ossory. 
 He was named James, and played a sorry game in the politics of his day. 
 He was amongst the first of the nobility who abandoned James II. and 
 hailed the arrival of William III. By the latter king he was employed in 
 a military as well as a civil capacity on several occasions. His adminis- 
 trations — for he was twice appointed lord lieutenant — first in 1702, and 
 again in 1710 — of the government of Ireland, were marked by a display 
 of splendour never before equalled. He was one of the lords of the 
 English privy council who proclaimed George I., but was dismissed by 
 that sovereign from all his oflfices. Being soon afterwards impeached of 
 high treason, he fled to France, and was attainted. His estates were for- 
 feited, his honours extinguished, and a reward of £10,000 was oflTered for 
 his apprehension in the event of his attempting to land in Ireland. 
 
122 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 long list of amended and improved penal laws, the record 
 of only one new penal enactment. 
 
 There is amongst the manuscripts, belonging to the king's 
 library in the British Museum, a work, bound up in two 
 small 4to volumes, and entitled "An Account of Ireland, 
 1778." There is no author's name on the title, and nothing 
 to distinguish the contents but this motto — 
 
 " Vitam impendere vero 
 
 and the internal evidence they offer of being the production 
 of an accomplished writer, thoroughly acquainted with his 
 subject. The following account of the penal laws from this 
 manuscript is valuable, not solely because it is well written 
 and accurate, but still more so, because it presents the opi- 
 nions entertained of that terrific code by intelligent men at 
 the time it was in full force. 
 
 " But the most remarkable transaction in Ireland during 
 the reign of Queen Anne was the passing of what are called 
 the Popery Laws, which, though equally repugnant to good 
 policy and humanity, have yet remained unrepealed and unmi- 
 tigated since their first institution. If they have in any case 
 undergone alterations or amendments, those alterations and 
 amendments have been only to sharpen their acrimony and 
 invigorate their blows. As these laws have been represented 
 by many as the true basis of civil liberty and the Protestant 
 religion in Ireland, I shall here endeavour to trace their origin, 
 and describe their progress and operation. 
 
 " In the reign of King James I. a number of new settlers 
 from England and Scotland arrived in Ireland, which was then 
 mostly Popish, and, with a new religion, brought over a new 
 schism or source of contention with the old inhabitants, many 
 of whom were of English descent, and equally tenacious of the 
 ancient opinions and possessions. The jealousy of the natives 
 impeached the title of the stranger — the stranger encroached 
 on the rights of the native ; the first complained of legal injus- 
 tice — the latter of fraud and violence ; contest begot contest, 
 and often litigation sprung from decision. The Protestant 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 123 
 
 abhorred the idolatrous Papist, and the Papist damned the 
 reprobated Protestant. The mode of faith now became the 
 motive of enmity, whilst the original ground was forgotten, 
 and the most sacred institution was converted into an instru- 
 ment of mutual injury and hatred. 
 
 " The severe government of Strafford contained these ani- 
 mosities within bounds ; but no sooner was he removed, than 
 the old inhabitants broke out into open hostility and rebellion. 
 After a fierce but ineffectual struggle they were totally sub- 
 dued, and became obnoxious to almost every calamity which 
 can befall the vanquished. 
 
 " An army of new settlers, and mostly of a newer reli- 
 gion, whether Independents, Anabaptists, Socinians, Muggle- 
 tonians, Brownists, or Millenarians, now obtained large grants 
 of forfeited lands in Ireland, and from these adventurers are 
 descended some of the princijial persons of the kingdom in 
 opulence and power. Most of these settlers were men of an 
 untoward republican spirit, and of the sourest leaven, who 
 eagerly adopted the most harsh and oppressive measures 
 against those upon whose ruin they rose. 
 
 " The Restoration had secured to them their property, and 
 the Revolution armed them with power ; this power, instead 
 of using it with justice and moderation, they stretched to the 
 utmost rigor, and determined ultimately to crush, if they 
 could not immediately destroy : they did not, however, all at 
 once unmask their designs ; they proceeded by cautious steps ; 
 and in the reign of King William, most of their provisions 
 against Popery may be justified on the principles of sound 
 policy ; but in the reign of Queen Anne they threw off all re- 
 serve, they avowed their intentions, and executed them to the 
 full : for this purpose they passed those acts which have now, 
 for these seventy years past, been the established law of the 
 land, and which form the most complete code of persecution 
 that ingenious bigotry ever compiled. 
 
 "It is but justice to the administration of England to 
 mention, that they did not willingly give their consent to 
 
124 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 these severe statutes ; but not choosing, or not venturing to 
 avow their disapprobation, they cunningly clogged the bills 
 with a clause which they imagined would infallibly occasion 
 them to be rejected : this clause, which introduced the sacra- 
 mental test as a necessary qualification of office and employ- 
 ment, could not be very palatable to an assembly where some 
 of the principal leaders were Covenanters and Presbyterians : 
 but these leaders, on this occasion, in their severity to the 
 scruples of others, forgot their own, and conscience was 
 suffered to sleep while persecution walked abroad. The bills 
 were passed ; and the edict against Popery, like the laws of 
 the Medes and Persians, was never to be changed ; but the 
 test clause relative to the Dissenters, it was hoped, might at 
 a favourable opportunity either be repealed or evaded. 
 
 " There is no doubt that both justice and prudence autho- 
 rize penal laws against Papists in a Protestant country. The 
 wisdom of every state must secure itself from every danger 
 on every side. During these two centuries past, religion has 
 been considered as an adventitious part in the policy of almost 
 all the governments in Europe, and in some is so interwoven 
 with the constitution, that the ruin of the one involves the 
 destruction of the other. This has long been an established 
 opinion in England, and thence England early and conti- 
 nually guarded against the perils of Popery. But she has done 
 it with dignity, with judgment and moderation : she looked 
 on Popery as on her other foes, whose secret machinations 
 she might apprehend, but whose open assault she defied. 
 To the lot of Ireland it has fallen to ingraft absurdity on 
 the wisdom of England, and tyranny on the religion that pro- 
 fesses humanity ; by her laws against Popery, the bonds of 
 society, the ties of nature, and all the charities of kindred 
 and friendship are torn to pieces. Those are allured who 
 could not be compelled, traps are laid for youth and inexpe- 
 rience, and it becomes a maxim of state to encourage the 
 profligate and reward the ungrateful ; the concord of brothers 
 is dissolved, the son is armed against his father, and the hus- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 125 
 
 band and wife are taught to break through the most sacred 
 and tender attachment, when invited by interest, inconstancy 
 or hbertinism. 
 
 " It is no longer the Protestant that is to be on his guard 
 against the Papist ; but the Papist must be armed at all 
 points, and watch day and night against the legal assaults of 
 his wife, his children, and his kindred ; if all their affections 
 are secure, yet his neighbour has an interest to become an in- 
 former against him, his sword of defence may wound liimself, 
 and the hospitality of his roof may leave him without a roof 
 to shelter him ; a bill of discovery may strip him in a moment 
 of all his possessions. 
 
 " Precluded from offices of public trust or emolument, the 
 Papist * is even deprived of the comforts of private life in the 
 
 * In order to perfect this sketch, and to verify the striking averments 
 with which it abounds beyond dispute, it will be desirable to give the 
 heads of the different acts of parliament by which so heavy a load of in- 
 justice and cruelty was declared legal. The following list is taken partly 
 from the second edition of the " History of the Penal Laws," by Sir H. 
 Parnell, afterwards Lord Congleton, and partly from the Index to the 
 Irish Statutes. There were in force against the Catholics at the time of 
 the Treaty — 
 
 1. An Act against the authority of the See of Rome. It enacts that no 
 person shall attribute any jurisdiction to the See of Rome ; that the per- 
 son offending shall be subject to a premunire ; and that all who have any 
 office from the king, every person entering into orders, and taking a de- 
 gree in the university, shall take the oath of supremacy. 
 
 2. An Act restoring to the crown the ancient jurisdiction over the state, 
 ecclesiastical and spiritual. It likewise enacts that every ecclesiastical 
 person, and every person taking office, shall take the oath of supremacy, 
 
 3. An Act for the uniformity of common prayer. It enacts that every 
 person, having no lawful excuse to be absent, shall, every Sunday, resort to 
 some place of worship of the established church, or forfeit 12c?. 
 
 4. An Act by which the chancellor may appoint a guardian to the child 
 of a Cathohc. 
 
 5. An Act by which no Catholic schoolmaster can teach in a private 
 house without a license from the ordinary of the diocese, and taking the 
 oath of supremacy. 
 
 6. The new rules by which no person can be admitted into any corpo- 
 ration without taking the oath of supremacy. 
 
 The acts subsequent to the Treaty were — 
 
 1. The 7 Will. III. c. 4, which deprived the Catholics of the means of 
 educating their children either at home or abroad, or of being guardians 
 of their own or of any other person's children. It was of this act that 
 Burke remarked, — Whilst this restraint upon foreign and domestic 
 education was part of a horrible and impious system of servitude, the 
 members were well fitted to the body. To render men patient under a 
 
126 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOHY OF 
 
 bosom of his family ; his children may be taken from him, and 
 educated at his expence in a profession he dislikes. If he 
 
 deprivation of all the rights of human nature, everything which could 
 give them a knowledge or feeling of those rights was rationally forbidden. 
 To render humanity fit to be insulted, it was fit that it should be de- 
 graded." — Letter to a Peer, 8fc. 
 
 2. An Act to disarm the Catholics, and to limit the binding of Roman 
 Catholics as apprentices. 7 Will. III. c. 5. 
 
 3. An Act to banish Roman Catholic priests. 9 Will. III. c. 1. 
 
 4. An Act to prevent Protestants from intermarrying with Papists. 9 
 WiU. III. c. 3. 
 
 5. By 10 Will. III. c. 8, an Act for the preservation of game, it was de- 
 clared unlawful to employ a Papist as a gamekeeper. 
 
 6. An Act to prevent Papists from being solicitors. 10 Will. III. c. 13. 
 
 7. 2 Anne, c. 3. An Act to prevent Popish priests from coming into 
 the kingdom. 
 
 8. 2 Anne, c. 6. An Act to prevent the further growth of Popery. 
 
 9. 2 Anne, c. 7. An Act for regulating the Popish clergy. 
 
 10. 4 Anne, c. 2. An Act to amend the Act for registering Popish 
 clergy. 
 
 11. 6 Anne, c. 6. An Act to amend the Act for preventing Papists from 
 being solicitors. 
 
 12. 8 Anne, c. 3. An Act to explain the Act for preventing the further 
 growth of Poper}\ 
 
 13. 12 Geo. I. c. 3. An Act making it felony for a Popish priest to cele- 
 brate marriages between Protestants and Papists. 
 
 14. 1 Geo, II. c. 22. An Act for regulating the admission of barristers 
 at law, six clerks, and attornies, and for better strengthening the Pro- 
 testant interest : forbids the admission of any person to these professions, 
 who shall not prove that he has been a Protestant for two years. 
 
 15. 7 Geo. II. c. 5. An Act for the amendment of the law relating to 
 Popish solicitors. 
 
 16. 7 Geo. II. c. 6. An Act to prevent converts from Poper}% or per- 
 sons married to Popish wives, or educating their children in the Popish 
 religion, from being justices of the peace. 
 
 17. 13 Geo. II. c. 6. An Act to amend and render more effectual the 
 Act of Wilham III. for disarming Papists. 
 
 18. 19 Geo. II. c. 7. An Act for more effectually preventing his Ma- 
 jesty's subjects from entering foreign senace, and for publishing the Act 
 of Wilham III. to prevent foreign education. 
 
 19. 19 Geo. II. c. XI. An Act for better regulating the election of mem- 
 bers to serve in parliament. 
 
 20. 19 Geo. II. c. XII. An Act for the better regulating of corporations. 
 
 21. 21 Geo. II. c. 10. An Act to amend and make more effectual the 
 two preceding Acts. 
 
 22. 23 Geo. II. c. 10. An Act for rendering more effectual the Act to 
 prevent marriages by Popish priests. 
 
 23. 23 Geo. II. c. 14. An Act in relation to the appointing high and 
 petty constables. 
 
 24. 29 Geo. II. c. 5. An Act to prevent the return of such persons as 
 now are, or hereafter may be in the service of the French king. 
 
 These were the infamous laws by which the rigors of preceding perse- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 127 
 
 entertains a Popish bishop or regular priest in his house for 
 their instruction, he is punished for the first and second 
 
 cutions were reviewed, re-arranged, and reinforced. It is of these that 
 Sir H. Parnell, afterwards Lord Congleton, wrote as follows : — " The 
 Catholics, in place of being the free subjects of a prince from whom they 
 were taught to expect only justice and mercy, were made the slaves of 
 every one — even of the very meanest of their Protestant countrjTnen. 
 They saw the English government, on whom they had claims for protec- 
 tion against their own parhament, directing its fanatic counsels and con- 
 firming its crimes. By the treaty of Limerick they were left at liberty to 
 educate and act as guardians to their own children : by the penal laws 
 they neither can send them to be educated abroad, or have them educated 
 at home, or be guardians to their own, or the children of any other 
 persons. 
 
 " By the treaty of Limerick the free exercise of their religion was 
 guaranteed to them. By the penal laws their chapels are shut up, their 
 priests are banished,* and hanged if they return home. 
 
 " By the treaty of Limerick their noblemen and gentlemen were spe- 
 cially allowed the privilege of wearing arms ; and the whole body were 
 equally entitled to the same privilege, because, when it was executed, no 
 law existed to the contrary. By the penal laws no Cathohc is permitted 
 to have the use of arms, except a very few of those who were specially 
 comprised in the treaty, 
 
 " By the treaty of Limerick Catholics might intermarry -with Pro- 
 testants. By the penal laws this privilege is removed. 
 
 " By the treaty of Limerick the profession of the law was open to them : 
 by these laws it is taken from then. 
 
 By the treaty of Limerick the Catholics could purchase, sell, bequeath 
 and inherit landed property. By the penal laws they can neither pur- 
 chase, sell, bequeath or inherit landed property, take annuities for lives 
 secured in lands, or any longer lease of land than for 31 years; nor 
 could they lend money on mortgage or vest it in public securities. 
 
 " By the treaty of Limerick the Catholics were left in full enjoyment 
 of every political franchise, except those of holding offices under govern- 
 ment, and of becoming members of corporations. By the penal laws 
 they cannot vote at vestries, sen-e on grand juries, act as constables, or 
 as sheriffs or under-sheriffs, be magistrates, vote at elections, or sit in 
 parliament. 
 
 " By the treaty of Limerick they were protected from being called upon 
 to take any other oaths beside the oath of allegiance, 1 Will, & Mary. 
 By the penal laws they are required to take the oaths of abjuration and 
 supremacy, and to subscribe declarations against the principal tenets of 
 their faith. 
 
 '* By the treaty of Limerick they were acknowledged as the free subjects 
 of a British king. By the penal laws they are placed in the double capa- 
 city of slaves and enemies of their Protestant countrjinen. Had they 
 become mere slaves, they might have experienced some degree of humane 
 treatment ; but, as the policy which made them slaves held them out at 
 the same time as the natural and interested enemies of their masters, they 
 
 * The Irish parliament passed a bill, by which it was provided that 
 every Roman Cathohc priest caught in Ireland should be castrated ! 
 
128 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 offence by pecuniary penalties, and for the third he forfeits all 
 his goods and chattels, and all his estate of freehold and in- 
 heritance during his life. 
 
 " Popish schools are prohibited in Ireland, and a Papist 
 bred abroad incurs the strongest disabilities. 
 
 " If the son of a Papist professes himself a Protestant, — 
 which he may do at fourteen years of age, — the father s pro- 
 perty is instantly altered ; his estate in fee simple is converted 
 into a tenure for life ; and a third of his whole fortune, real 
 and personal, is taken from him for the immediate use of the 
 Conformist. The heir at law of a Papist, if he either is or 
 becomes a Protestant, defeats every grant or settlement made 
 to his prejudice, and enters into possession as a matter of 
 course : if the heir at law continues a Papist, the estate 
 gavels among the sons ; if there are no sons, among the 
 daughters, and in failure of daughters, among the collaterals. 
 A Papist is not only incapable of purchasing lands of inhe- 
 ritance, but he is incapable of taking a lease for more than 
 thirty-one years, and even under this short tenure, two-thirds 
 of the value must be reserved to the lessor. 
 
 " A Popish mechanic can't take more than two apprentices, 
 and there are certain towns in which the law forbids him to 
 inhabit. 
 
 " No Papist, nor trustee for a Papist, can take or receive 
 an annuity for life or term of years, determinable upon lives, 
 or for any estate chargeable on, or that may affect lands. 
 
 " Any Papist of sixteen years old may be summoned b}' 
 two justices of the peace, and examined upon oath when and 
 where he heard mass, who celebrated the same, and who were 
 present at the celebration ; and on refusal to inform, may be 
 sent to the common gaol for twelve months, or pay a penalty 
 of £20 to the poor of the parish. 
 
 " Any Papist of sixteen years old may be summoned to take 
 the oath of abjuration, and on the third refusal incurs the 
 penalties of a premunire. 
 
 were doomed to experience all the oppression of tyranny, without any of 
 the chances, that other slaves enjoy, of their tyrants being merciful, from 
 feeling their tyranny secure." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 129 
 
 " There is a multitude of other clauses in these Popery laws 
 not less harsh and oppressive ; but there is one, and of a very 
 recent date, which will be scarcely credited. It is actually a 
 fact, that, in Ireland, a marriage between a Protestant and a 
 Papist is null and void, to all intents and purposes, without 
 any process, judgment, or sentence of law whatsoever ; nay, a 
 marriage between two Protestants, if celebrated by a Popish 
 priest, is equally ineffectual.* Such is the wisdom and virtue 
 of the Irish legislature, that a husband may abandon his wife, 
 or the wife her husband, after twenty years cohabitation, and 
 their whole race be legally bastardized. Instances, indeed, of 
 such perjury and dishonour are very rare — for, happily, the 
 honest affections of mankind are too strong for the tyranny of 
 such unreasonable statutes. 
 
 " A remission of many and an amendment of all these laws 
 is now become necessary; for, the dangers of Popery being- 
 removed, or sufficiently guarded against, the first great prin- 
 ciple of government ought to be to make every subject of the 
 state as useful to it as possible : where this great principle 
 does not prevail, there is a defect of sound policy. Now, it is 
 impossible for Papists to become such subjects under their 
 present circumstances, whilst we are perpetually awakening 
 their regret for what they have lost, invalidating their security 
 for what they still preserve, and withholding from them a 
 moderate degree of permanency in what their labour might 
 obtain ; it is hardly too much to say, that an Irish Papist can 
 neither inherit, acquire, nor bequeath — for in all these cases he 
 is liable to be defeated or disquieted. 
 
 The laws of Ireland against Papists are the harsh dictates 
 of persecution, not the calm suggestions of reason and policy : 
 they threaten the Papists with penalties in case of foreign 
 education, and yet allow them no education at home ; they 
 shut the doors of their own university against them, and forbid 
 them to enter those of any other. No man shall go to lecture 
 
 * Singularly enough, although we have got rid of almost all the penal 
 laws, this, which struck the author we quote from as most unreasonable, 
 remains still in full operation. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 K 
 
ISO 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 who will not go to church. A Papist shall not be a divine, a 
 physician, a lawyer, or a soldier ; he shall be nothing but a 
 Papist. He can't be a lawyer, for the law is not his friend ; 
 he can't be a soldier and draw his sword for his country, for he 
 is forced to draw it against it. We will not admit him into 
 our service, and yet denounce vengeance against him if he 
 engages in another. If he becomes a trader or mechanic, he 
 shall scarcely enjoy the rights of a citizen ; if a farmer, he 
 shall not cultivate or improve his possession, being discouraged 
 by the short limitation of his tenure ; and yet we complain of 
 the dullness and lazyness of a people, whose spirit is restrained 
 from exertion, and whose industry has no reward to excite it. 
 This is one great cause why the Irish do not make a more 
 rapid progress in tillage and manufactures. There are others, 
 but if we remove these, the rest will be less sensibly felt ; 
 humanity and policy equally demand it ; the exiled soldier who 
 now seeks bread in foreign service will return a loyal subject, 
 the slothful tradesman will be changed into a diligent artizan, 
 the idle peasant will become a laborious husbandman, and 
 two millions of people will be rendered useful, florishing, and 
 happy.'"" 
 
 Excesses of whatever kind always carry with them a certain 
 degree of self-punishing and corrective power. This dispensa- 
 tion, so wise and merciful in the order and succession of 
 created things, is to be recognised both in the moral and in the 
 physical world. It was never seen more fully developed than in 
 the progress of the system now applied to the government of 
 Ireland. At all points the country was completely subdued, 
 the English government ruled supreme, and everywhere the 
 native population lay prostrate and helpless. The consequences 
 w^re public waste and private impoverishment, general cor- 
 ruption, political turpitude of the foulest kind, and national 
 bankruptcy. The Anglo-Irish party, who had outraged hu- 
 manity and religion in reducing the natives to a condition of 
 unparalleled thraldom, fell victims to the extremes of their own 
 severity. .They had striven to ruin the people, and they had 
 succeeded in the labour ; but they had ruined the country also, 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 181 
 
 and with it their own interests. They invested the English 
 minister with uncontrolled dominion ; and he no sooner felt 
 himself securely possessed of the gratifying rights it conferred, 
 than he exercised them solely in favour of his fellow country- 
 men. The Irish Protestants, who had begun by preventing 
 the employment of Catholics, were denounced in their turn 
 as incapable and unfit, and were only admitted to the lower 
 and less profitable range of offices and duties. All the higher 
 and largely lucrative posts were reserved exclusively for Eng- 
 lishmen. To them, during a series of years, fell every con- 
 siderable preferment in church and state. As one lord chan- 
 cellor, archbishop, or chief justice died off, a successor was 
 quickly chosen from Westminster Hall, from Oxford, or Gam- 
 bridge; and he, as a matter of course, re-echoed the cuckoo- 
 cry to which he owed his appointment, — that cry which had 
 but one burden — If you desire to govern Ireland well, put 
 none but Englishmen into places in that country. Evidence 
 to support the truth of this statement abounds. There is, 
 for instance, little that is worthy of note or comment in 
 the published letters of Primate Boulter, if we except his 
 reiterated appeals to the cabinet in London on behalf of the 
 English interest in Ireland. So strongly was Boulter infected 
 with the vice of this policy, that his system of government 
 seems reducible to the one simple rule of never employing an 
 Irishman. We shall presently have to give a summary of its 
 chief results. 
 
 Primate Boulter was the mainspring of the English system 
 from the year 1724 to the year 1742. During this period he 
 served the office of lord justice no less than thirteen times. Born 
 in London, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and at 
 Christ Church College, Oxford, he became chaplain successively 
 to Sir C. Hedges, secretary of state ; to Archbishop Tenison; 
 and to George L; who appointed him to teach the Prince of 
 Wales the English language. He was consecrated bishop of 
 Bristol in 1719, and archbishop of Armagh in 1724. As an 
 ecclesiastic, he deserves the praise rarely to be awarded to 
 Protestant bishops in Ireland during the eighteenth century — 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 of not having wholly neglected the church and the education 
 of the people. He meant well in many things, and was of a 
 generous turn of mind ; but ignorance of the country and na- 
 tional prejudices rendered his best efforts to do good abortive. 
 A recent Protestant writer,^ who has already been quoted in 
 these pages, speaks of him in the following terms: — "This 
 prelate was entirely a politician, appointed solely with the 
 view of promoting the English interest in Ireland, and ex- 
 tremely jealous of every thing Hibernian. * * He 
 laboured to bring both the state and the church to the adop- 
 tion of that plan which had already caused all efforts at intro- 
 ducing a reformation into Ireland so entirely to fail. Under 
 his advice the prejudices of the people were despised ; their 
 requirements quite neglected ; the will — the caprice even — of 
 the English dominancy solely consulted. He was either a 
 shallow observer of history, or one of those reckless persons 
 that put aside its important lessons as mere ephemeral annals." 
 
 The year in which Primate Boulter reached Ireland was 
 one of considerable excitement and importance. The wrongs 
 of the country had found a champion, and the people an idol 
 worthy of their devotion. Dean Swift, one of the heartiest, 
 the purest, the most highly gifted and enlightened of Irish 
 patriots — was already tasting the cordial popularity which 
 the celebrated " Drapier's Letters -j-" so deservedly produced. 
 A year or two afterwards, and while Boulter was the chief in- 
 strument of the English minister in managing the government, 
 Swift published a caustic account of the state of the country. 
 After enumerating and describing the chief causes, fourteen 
 in number, of a kingdom's thriving, he proceeds : — " It is 
 not my intention to complain, but barely to relate facts, and 
 the matter is not of small importance. 
 
 " As to the first cause of a nation's riches, being the ferti- 
 
 * H. J. Monck Mason, LL.D. ^- Life of Bishop Bedell." 
 
 t The " Drapier's Letters" were written to expose the worthlessness of 
 a copper coinage for which a patent had been corruptly granted to a Bir- 
 mingham iron-master and manufacturer, of the name of Wood. Accord- 
 ing to the dean, the patentee attempted to put into circulation £108,000 
 of coin, intrinsically worth £8,000 or £9,000 sterling. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 133 
 
 lity of the soil, as well as temperature of the climate, we have 
 no reason to complain ; for, although the quantity of un- 
 profitable land in this kingdom, reckoning bog and rock and 
 barren mountain, be double in proportion to what it is in 
 England, yet the native productions, which both kingdoms 
 deal in, are very near an equality in point of goodness, and 
 might, with the same encouragement, be as well manufac- 
 tured. I except mines and minerals, in some of which, how- 
 ever, we are only defective in point of skill and industry. 
 
 " In the second, which is the industry of the people, our 
 misfortune is not altogether owing to our own fault, but to a 
 million of discouragements. 
 
 " The conveniency of ports and havens, which nature has 
 bestowed so liberally on this kingdom, is of no more use to us 
 than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon. 
 
 " As to shipping of its own, Ireland is so utterly unpro- 
 vided, that, of all the excellent timber cut down within these 
 50 or 6*0 years, it can hardly be said that the nation has re- 
 ceived the benefit of one valuable house to dwell in, or one 
 ship to trade with. 
 
 " Ireland is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of, 
 either in ancient or modern story, which was denied the 
 liberty of exporting their native commodities and manufac- 
 tures wherever they pleased, except to countries at war with 
 their own prince or state ; yet this privilege, by the supe- 
 riority of mere power, is refused us in the most momentous 
 parts of commerce," — besides an act of navigation, to which 
 we never consented, pinned down upon us, and rigorously exe- 
 cuted ; and a thousand other unexampled circumstances, as 
 grievous as they are invidious to mention. To go on to the 
 rest. 
 
 " It is too well known that we are forced to obey some laws 
 we never consented to, which is a condition I must not call by 
 its true uncontroverted name, for fear of lord chief justice 
 Whitshed's ghost, with his Lihertas et natale solum written 
 for a motto on his coach, as it stood at the door of the court, 
 while he was perjuring himself to betray both. Thus we are 
 
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 in the condition of patients, who have physic sent them by 
 doctors at a distance, strangers to their constitution and the 
 nature of their disease, and thus we are forced to pay 500 per 
 cent, to decide our properties;^ in all which we have like- 
 wise the honour to be distinguished from the whole race of 
 mankind. 
 
 "As to the improvement of land, those few who attempt 
 that or planting, through covetousness, or want of skill, 
 generally leave things worse than they were ; neither suc- 
 ceeding in trees nor hedges ; and, by running into the fancy 
 of grazing, after the manner of the Scythians, are every day 
 depopulating the country. 
 
 " We are so far from having a king to reside among us, 
 that even the viceroy is generally absent four-fifths of his 
 time in the government. 
 
 " No strangers from other countries make this a part of 
 their travels, where they can expect to see nothing but scenes 
 of misery and desolation. 
 
 " Those who have the misfortune to be born here have the 
 least title to any considerable employment, to which they are 
 seldom preferred but upon a political consideration. 
 
 " One third part of the rents of Ireland is spent in Eng- 
 land, which, with the profit of employments, pensions, appeals, 
 journeys of pleasure or health, education at the inns of court 
 and both universities, remittances at pleasure, the pay of all 
 superior officers in the army, and other incidents, will amount 
 to a full half of the income of the whole kingdom, all clear 
 profit to England. 
 
 " We are denied the liberty of coining gold, silver, or even 
 copper. In the Isle of Man they coin their own silver ; every 
 petty prince, vassal to the emperor, can coin what money he 
 pleases. And in this, as in most of the articles already men- 
 tioned, we are an exception to all other states or monarchies 
 that were ever known in the world. 
 
 " As to the last, or fourteenth article, we take special care 
 to act diametrically contrary to it in the whole course of our 
 
 * The Appeal to the House of Peers. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 135 
 
 lives. Both sexes, but especially the women, despise and 
 abhor to wear any of their own manufactures, even those 
 which are better made than in other countries, particularly a 
 sort of silk plaid, through which the workmen are forced to 
 run a kind of gold thread, that it may pass for Indian. Even 
 ale and potatoes are imported from England, as well as corn ; 
 and our foreign trade is little more than importation of French 
 wine, for which I am told we pay ready money. 
 
 " Now, if all this be true (upon which I could easily en- 
 large), I should be glad to know by what secret method it is 
 that we grow a rich and flourishing people, without liberty, 
 trade, manufactures, inhabitants, money, or the privilege of 
 coining, without industry, labour, or improvement of land, and 
 with more than half the rent and profits of the whole king- 
 dom annually exported, for which we receive not a single 
 farthing ; and to make up all this, nothing worth mentioning, 
 except the linen of the north, a trade casual, corrupted, and 
 at mercy, and some butter from Cork. If we do flourish, it 
 must be against every law of nature and reason, like the 
 thorn at Glastonbury that blossoms in the midst of winter."* 
 
 ♦ Swift's poetry upon the ^\Ton^s of Ireland was to the full as exciting 
 as his prose. In his Verses on the Sudden Drying up of St. Patrick's 
 Well, near Trinity College, Dubhn, in 1726, 'he personifies St. Patrick, 
 and makes him exclaim : — 
 
 " Thee, happy island, Pallas called her own, 
 
 When haughty Britain was a land unkno\vn : 
 
 From thee with pride the Caledonians trace 
 
 The glorious founder of their kingly race. 
 
 Thy martial sons, whom now they dare despise. 
 
 Did once their land subdue and ci\nlize ; 
 
 Their dress, their language, and the Scottish name. 
 
 Confess the soil from whence the victors came. 
 
 Well may they boast that antient blood which runs 
 
 Within their veins who are thy younger sons. 
 
 A conquest and a colony from thee. 
 
 The mother country left her children free ; 
 
 From thee no mark of slaver}-- they felt : 
 
 Not so with thee the base invaders dealt : 
 
 Invited here to vengeful Morrough's aid. 
 
 Those whom they could not conquer they betrayed. 
 
 Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful isle ! 
 
 Not by thy valour, but superior guile : 
 
 Britain, with shame confess this land of mine 
 
 First taught thee human knowledge and divine ; 
 
186 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 The next ecclesiastical head of the Irish government was 
 Primate Stone, a man of unbounded profligacy, moral as well 
 as political. His grandfather, according to Plowden, was the 
 keeper of Winchester gaol, and saved so much money out of 
 the perquisites of his office as to set up his son, the primate's 
 father, in the business of a banker. Dr. Stone owed his for- 
 tune to the friendship entertained for his brother by the duke 
 of Newcastle. Like all favourites, he was rapidly promoted. 
 In 1731, when only twenty-eight years of age, he was made 
 bishop of Ferns ; in 1783 he was translated to the see of 
 Kildare; in 1743 to Derry ; and in 1747 to the primacy of 
 Armagh. Swift's writings had already created a public opinion 
 in Ireland, and a party of landowners was soon formed, which, 
 taking advantage of the spirit excited by his genius, and 
 assuming the captivating name of patriots, sought to esta- 
 
 My prelates and my students sent from hence. 
 Made your sons converts both to God and sense — 
 Not hke the pastors of thy ravenous breed. 
 Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed. 
 * * * « » 
 
 Oh ! had I been apostle to the Swiss, 
 Or hardy Scot, or any land but this ; 
 Combined in arms they had their foes defied. 
 And kept their liberty, or bravely died. 
 Thou still with tyrants in succession cursed. 
 The last invaders trampling on the first ; 
 Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate — 
 Virtue herself would now return too late. 
 Not half thy course of misery is run ; 
 Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun. 
 Soon shall thy sons (the time is just at hand) 
 Be all made captives in their native land ; 
 When for the use of no Hibernian born. 
 Shall rise one blade of grass, one ear of corn ; 
 When shells and leather shall for money pass. 
 Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass ; * 
 But all turn leasers to the mongrel breed, t 
 Who from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed ; 
 Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear. 
 And waste in luxury thy harvest there ; 
 For pride and ignorance a proverb grown. 
 The jest of wits, and to the court unknown. 
 
 I scorn the spurious and degenerate line. 
 And from this hour my patronage resign." 
 
 * Alluding to Wood's halfpence. 
 
 t The absentees. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 187 
 
 blish a tyrannical oligarchy, and sway the destinies of the 
 country by the weight of their property and the violence of 
 their cabals. It was against this party that Dr. Stone had 
 principally to contend, and there was no art, no corruption, 
 and no vice, as we are assured, to which the unprincipled 
 churchman, did not resort to thin the ranks of the opposite 
 faction and increase the nuiiiber of his own followers. He 
 bribed the avaricious, feasted the sensual, and is even said to 
 have kept a harem for the lascivious ! 
 
 The manuscript account of Ireland in the British Museum, 
 from which the sketch of the penal laws, given a few pages 
 back, was borrowed, contains a few striking passages explana- 
 tory of the manoeuvres and tergiversations of Primate Stone 
 and his cotemporaries : — " As the modern part of the history 
 of Irish government becomes every day more interesting, it is 
 necessary that the narrative should be more full and particular. 
 In former times the administration was confided by the lord 
 lieutenant during his absence to such persons as, from his con- 
 viction of their talents and integrity, he esteemed worthy of so 
 great a trust ; he did not think himself obliged to confine his 
 choice to certain great officers of state, merely because they 
 were such, but considered other circumstances than accidental 
 station as necessary for this employment, such as knowledge 
 of business and knowledge of the country, its laws and reve- 
 nues, integrity and disinterestedness, loyalty, zeal, and acti- 
 vity ; but in later times it seems to have been a kind of estab- 
 lished rule that the lord lieutenant, regarding rank alone, 
 should, at his departure, leave the government in the hands of 
 the principal persons of the church and the law, together 
 with the speaker of the House of Commons. These gentle- 
 men were usually appointed lords justices, and in this manner 
 the conduct of Irish affairs continued for the greatest part of 
 the late reign without any considerable variation. 
 
 " The lord lieutenant came over once in two years, staid 
 a few months, lived in kingly state, provided for his chaplain 
 and secretary,* received freedoms, gold boxes, and complimen- 
 
 * The rich nature of this provision may be judged of from a memo- 
 
1S8 
 
 OUTLINES OF TH^ HISTORY OF 
 
 tary addresses, and then hurried back to England with the 
 utmost precipitation. 
 
 " The lords justices, by their connections and influence in the 
 House of Commons, did what was usually termed the king's 
 business in parliament, but which in truth was rather their 
 own, as it enabled them to establish their power, and to domi- 
 neer without control in the interior government of the coun- 
 try ; thus from their rank in their several departments, from 
 the powers of their deputation, and their own diligence, they 
 became important, the administration in England considered 
 them as such, considered them as necessary, and that nothing 
 could be done in Ireland without them. 
 
 " The lord lieutenant, who had solicited the government as 
 a dignity to swell his titles, not to increase his trouble, to add 
 to his dependants, not to his business, who from inattention 
 was ignorant, and from indolence unwilling to undergo the 
 
 randum given at the end of the manuscript, entitled " List of Irish Secre- 
 taries for these 25 Years past." 
 
 Mr. Weston, secretary to Lord Harrington, was appointed alnager of 
 Ireland, a place worth £1,000 per annum, which he resigned after having 
 held it 12 years, and in lieu of it obtained a pension of £500 per annum 
 for 31 years, he being at that time near 70 years old. 
 
 " Lord George Sackville, secretary to the duke of Dorset, was appointed 
 clerk of the council for life, a place worth £1,100. 
 
 " General Conway, secretary to the duke of Devonshire, was appointed 
 clerk of the crown and hanaper for life, a place worth £1,500 per annum. 
 
 " Mr. Rigby, secretary to the duke of Bedford, was appointed master 
 of the rolls /or life, a place worth £2,500 per annum ; also comptroller of 
 the customs at Dublin, a place which he sold for £ . 
 
 " Mr. Hamilton, secretary to Lord Halifax, was appointed chancellor of 
 the exchequer /or life, a place worth £1,800 per annum; and to make 
 room for him, a pension of £1,200 per annum for life was given to Sir W. 
 Yorke. 
 
 '* Lord Beauchamp, secretary to Lord Hertford, would accept no office 
 or himself ; but his brother, Mr. Henry Conway, was appointed constable 
 of Dubhn Castle /or life, a place worth £425 per annum ; and he and his 
 brother, Mr. Robert Conway, have the reversion of the clerkship of the 
 crown in the King's Bench, worth upwards of £2,000 per annum. 
 
 " Mr. Theophilus Jones, secretary to Lord Bristol during six weeks, 
 was appointed collector of Dublin, a place worth £1,200 per annum. 
 
 " Sir George Macartney, secretary to Lord Townshend during four 
 years, in which space three sessions of parliament were held, has a pension 
 of £1,500 per annum during pleasure, which incapacitates him from sitting 
 in parliament, and besides, being ill paid, produces in London little more 
 than £1,000 per annum.'* 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 139 
 
 laborious duties of his station, committed all public affairs to 
 their entire management ; his chief object was to leave matters 
 as he found them, and he esteemed himself happy, if, after six 
 or seven months bustle and parade, he met with no insult on 
 quitting Ireland, nor censure on arriving in England. 
 
 "Things remained on this footing till the year 1751, the 
 grand epocha of those party feuds which have disturbed and 
 disgraced the parliamentary proceedings of Ireland ever 
 since ; at this period Doctor Stone was at the head of the 
 church, and Mr. Boyle had sat near twenty years in the 
 chair of the House of Commons ; the latter was a man of 
 a sound understanding, of affable manner joined to a resolute 
 mind, — the former was ingenious, supple and insinuating, of 
 boundless presumption and insatiable ambition. Mr. Boyle 
 from his station, his prudence and his unshaken attachment 
 to his friends, derived his power, and maintained it mth 
 steadiness and dignity. Doctor Stone aspired to this power, 
 and was eager instantly to seize what his colleague had ob- 
 tained by perseverance and time : the speaker was jealous of 
 the enterprise and address of his young rival; the primate 
 dreaded the arts of the old statesman. The one could not brook 
 the ecclesiastical politician, the other determined to overturn 
 the lay dictator ; both employed the usual arms of courtiers, 
 and both busily prepared for the parliamentary campaign. 
 
 " The duke of Dorset, now appointed lord lieutenant, had 
 been the primate's first patron, and was naturally inclined to 
 support the work of his own hands : the subtle churchman 
 cultivated this disposition, and improved to the utmost the 
 advantage of his ground. Affairs began now to wear a differ- 
 ent face. The chief governor did not, for he could not, depend 
 on the old system, as the leaders were divided. He was 
 obliged to form a new party ; but instead of commanding it 
 himself, as he ought to have done, he put the primate at the 
 head of it. Thus, what was intended for the support of 
 government, became injurious to it, and served but as an 
 engine to promote the views and to gratify the ambition of 
 Stone. The dignity and independence of administration was 
 
140 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the avowed motive, but the personal contest between the 
 speaker and the primate was the real source of national divi- 
 sion. Under their banners the whole kingdom seemed to 
 range, and to wait with impatience for the day of decision. 
 
 " An occasion for essaying their strength was not long 
 wanting. The late surveyor-general was made the instrument 
 of trial, and the ruin of an honest and an innocent individual 
 was to be the test of superiority before any important national 
 question was ventured on. Mr. Boyle was victorious, and the 
 unfortunate Neville was expelled. Not satisfied with this 
 advantage, the speaker resolved to hazard a contest on the 
 more momentous subject of the king's prerogative. This 
 question, as being weighty in itself and serious in its con- 
 sequences, I shall endeavour briefly to explain. 
 
 " After the conclusion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, an 
 increase of the trade of Ireland brought so great augmentation 
 to his majesty's revenue, that in two years a very considerable 
 redundance appeared in the treasury. There can be no ques- 
 tion that this redundance was the property of the crown, for 
 it arose from the exceedings of the hereditary revenue, and 
 additional duties which are granted to the king without any 
 appropriation. There being now much more than sufficient 
 to answer all the charges of the establishment and other ex- 
 pences of government, it follows, that the surplus, as it is 
 vested in the king, so it must be at his disposal. 
 
 The public had contracted a large debt in the late war ; 
 but for the payment of the interest and discharge of the prin- 
 cipal of that debt, certain duties had been granted by parlia- 
 ment, and specially appropriated to that purpose alone. The 
 crown, however, was willing to employ a share of its treasure 
 towards exonerating the nation and lessening its incumbrance. 
 Accordingly, in 1749, there being then a balance of c£'220,000 
 and upwards in the vice-treasurer's hands, it was moved in the 
 House of Conmions by the king's attorney-general, that this 
 balance should be applied to discharge a certain portion of the 
 public debt. As the occasion was new, gentlemen were at a 
 loss to know in what manner the king's consent ought to 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 141 
 
 appear ; however, they brought in heads of a bill for the pay- 
 ment of the several principal sums of c£*70,000 and <i£^58,000, in 
 which, after several recitals relative to the debt, there was this 
 recital, ' Whereas there is a considerable balance in the vice- 
 treasurer's hands unapplied, and it will be for your majesty's 
 service and the ease of your faithful subjects of Ireland, that 
 so much thereof as can be conveniently spared, should be paid, 
 agreeably to your majesty's most gracious intentions, in dis- 
 charge of the said debt.' The bill was passed in this form, 
 which contained an acknowledgment of the king's right to 
 determine how much could be spared, and that his gracious 
 intentions on that subject had been communicated to them 
 previous to the drawing up the heads of the bill. 
 
 " In 1751, the duke of Dorset, in his speech from the throne 
 at the opening of the session, declared that his majesty would 
 graciously consent, and recommend to them that such part 
 of the money then remaining in the treasury as should be 
 thought consistent with the public service be applied towards 
 the further reduction of the national debt. This shewed that 
 his majesty considered his previous consent as necessary to 
 that application ; the Commons, in their answer, thanked the 
 king for his recommendation, and took no notice of his con- 
 sent. A bill thus framed was sent in the usual manner to 
 Great Britain, which was returned with the insertion of the 
 word ' Consent,' — an insertion plainly in affirmance of what his 
 majesty insisted on in right of his prerogative. The bill thus 
 altered passed both houses without an objection or a single 
 negative, and received the royal assent. If the constant exer- 
 tion of the royal power over the money in the actual hands of 
 the king's treasurers wanted a formal recognition of right 
 from parliament, that recognition was now given in express 
 terms by a unanimous decision. Here, then, are two undis- 
 puted precedents — the one of 1749, and the other of 1751 — 
 for the establishment of the king's prerogative in this instance. 
 
 " The session of 1753 was opened by the duke of Dorset, 
 who, in his speech from the throne, repeated exactly the same 
 words of his majesty's consent and recommendation as in the 
 
142 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 former session. It was answered in just the same manner ; 
 the House of Commons omitted echoing back the word ' Con- 
 sent/ but expressed their sense of the king's recommendation. 
 In the heads of the bill prepared by them, they were silent on 
 both points, and neither mentioned the king's consent nor his 
 recommendation. These omissions were supplied in England, 
 and the bill was returned with the proper insertions, accord- 
 ing to the form of the preceding session. 
 
 " It was on this occasion that Mr. Boyle exerted his whole 
 weight and influence in the House of Commons against the 
 crown, in defiance of all decency, consistency, and gratitude. 
 The bill was rejected by 122 to 117. Though the crown was 
 defeated in this question, yet its opponents might say, like 
 Pyrrhus, that such another victory would undo them. A 
 majority of five is but unsteady footing against government, 
 and must soon be mastered, if properly contended with ; and, 
 indeed, one cannot look back without astonishment on the im- 
 prudence, I had almost said presumption, of the Irish parlia- 
 ment in this proceeding ; for there is no doubt that at this 
 time, such was the opulence of the crown, and the state of its 
 finances so flourishing, that it could have stood on the heredi- 
 tary revenue alone, without being under any necessity of 
 applying to parliament for additional duties or supplies. But 
 notwithstanding the rejection of the bill above mentioned, the 
 king was resolved that neither his subjects of Ireland should 
 be deprived of the benefit he intended them, nor his own pre- 
 rogative be defeated; he therefore sent over his letter for 
 the payment of the remainder of the debt out of the balance 
 then in the treasury, and thus solely and in his own right 
 exercised that prerogative, in which he graciously intended to 
 have permitted the Irish parliament to participate.* Before I 
 
 * Mr. Grattan, in the life of his father, states the actual sum now re- 
 maining in the Treasury as £77,500. Five of the Gores, who voted on the 
 occasion in the minority, claimed the honour of the victory for their own 
 family. The lists of the division were printed in black and red ; the ma- 
 jority described as Vindices libertatis, and the minority thus — Hie niger 
 est, hunc tu Romane caveto. Horace Walpole, who always wrote to the 
 purpose, and whose numerous letters are full of aU sorts of entertainment 
 and information, has the following passage respecting these events : — 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 143 
 
 close the scene, I must take notice of a little piece of craft 
 practised by Mr. Boyle on occasion of the rejected bill. In 
 all other divisions of the house, the numbers appear on the 
 Journals, but the speaker expunged them in this instance, and 
 the entry is simply thus : ' Ordered that the bill be rejected/ 
 — that the world might imagine the rejection of the bill was a 
 matter of course merely from the odiousness of its nature ; such 
 was the subject, and such the result, of the question in 1753. 
 
 " In consequence of these extraordinary proceedings, Mr. 
 Boyle was dismissed from his employment of chancellor of the 
 exchequer, and all his adherents who had offices were de- 
 prived of them. This spirited conduct on the part of the 
 crown, if it had been persevered in, would undoubtedly have 
 rendered the subsequent government of Ireland both easy 
 and honourable. Why the duke of Dorset did not return 
 to Ireland, and why the system then laid down was not 
 effectually pursued, I know not; but I know that the not 
 pursuing it has been the true cause of all the distractions and 
 disturbances in Ireland since that time. 
 
 " The marquess of Hartington, afterwards duke of Devon- 
 shire, was now sent over lord lieutenant. He negociated with 
 all parties, he flattered the opponents of government with 
 hopes of restitution, and to the friends of government he 
 promised every security ; hence the session was tolerably 
 quiet; but how far his administration was just and advanta- 
 geous to the crown, must be decided by the consequences re- 
 sulting from it. 
 
 " He could not dismiss those from their offices, who had 
 obtained them by their support of government, but he gave 
 
 " The flames in Ireland are stifled — I cannot say extinguished — by ad- 
 journing the parliament, which is prorogued. A catalogue of dimensions 
 was sent over thither, but the lord lieutenant durst not put them in exe- 
 cution. The style towards that island is extremely lofty, and after some 
 faint proposals of giving them some agreeable governor, violent measures 
 have been resumed. The speaker (Henry Boyle) is removed from being 
 chancellor of the exchequer, more of his friends are displaced, and the 
 primate, with the chancellor and Lord Besborough, again nominated 
 lords justices. These measures must oppress the Irish spirit, or, what is 
 more natural, inflame it to despair." — Letters to Sir H. Mann. 
 
144 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 better employments to those who had lost theirs by opposing 
 it. Mr. Boyle was not only reinstated in the chancellorship 
 of the exchequer, but was created an earl, and rewarded with 
 a pension of ^2,000 per annum for thirty-one years; Mr. 
 Carter was made secretary of state, with an additional salary; 
 Sir Richard Cox obtained a large pension ; and the inferior 
 partizans were all provided for. Nemo non donatus abibat. 
 Thus was purchased this fatal and ignominious peace, which 
 swelled the charge of the establishment to an enormous size. 
 Opposition was lavishly recompensed, and government shewed 
 that it considered the constant attachment of its friends as 
 less meritorious than the suspicious conversion of its enemies."" 
 
 This extract is interesting as the account of a writer evi- 
 dently well informed of the circumstances which he narrates. 
 We are able to see plainly in it the secret springs of a politi- 
 cal contest, suggestive of extensive improvements, and result- 
 ing in important changes ; but it is of little value as a correct 
 exposition of the constitutional points at issue at this juncture 
 between the crown and the parliament of Ireland. Those 
 points were two, — the first touched the right of the Commons 
 to originate all money bills, and the second involved the preten- 
 sions of the crown to dispose of the public money without the 
 authority of parliament. Upon neither the one nor the other 
 is this writer a safe guide. As we are rapidly approaching 
 the short season of Irish parliamentary independence, — a sea- 
 son which, like an arctic summer, exhibits its brief interval of 
 light and warmth breaking through a long period of darkness 
 and cold, — it will perhaps be most convenient to reserve our 
 review of the facts and arguments bearing upon these disputed 
 questions, and to proceed with the manuscript version of the 
 political diversions of Primate Stone, Mr. Speaker Boyle, 
 now Earl of Shannon, the undertakers, and the patriots who 
 contribute between them, in their schemes, their squabbles, 
 and their jobs, the little that constitutes the history of 
 Ireland for a series of years. 
 
 " During this administration the primate lay under a sort 
 of disgrace, and was left out of the government on the lord 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 145 
 
 lieutenant's departure. His real views had been confined to 
 the increase of his own power, and never pointed to support 
 the authority of the crown farther than as it answered that 
 end. Vanquished by his enemies and rejected by his friends, 
 he for some time suffered all the pangs of baffled ambition ; 
 but though disappointed, he did not despair, and resolved, 
 since the times seemed unfavourable to his measures, to adapt 
 his measures to the times ; he saw the difficulty of ruling 
 alone, and thought an equal share of government was prefer- 
 able to a total exclusion ; he therefore made overtures of 
 friendship to his old rival, and by his usual address accom- 
 plished an entire reconciliation. 
 
 " The primate and Lord Shannon knew each other per- 
 fectly : they both knew their respective interests, and that a 
 mutual co-operation was the most effectual method to promote 
 them ; their united judgments would lay their designs with 
 greater security, their united address would more easily re- 
 move difficulties, and their united power w^ould undoubtedly 
 be too strong for a government which had so lately exposed 
 its inexperience and timidity. 
 
 " The duke of Bedford was appointed lord lieutenant in 
 1757, and continued in that high office till 1761. From his 
 character and temper it was imagined that he would maintain 
 the dignity and independence of the king's representative; 
 but I know not how it happened, whether from want of proper 
 support in England, or from want of proper management in 
 Ireland, his Grace was after a short struggle obliged to follo^^' 
 the example of his predecessors, to return to the old system, 
 and put himself into the hands of the parliamentary under- 
 takers. But this was not the only mortification he suffered ; 
 a still greater was preparing for him, and in a short time he 
 found himself under the necessity of complying with the de- 
 mands of a set of gentlemen who modestly called themselves 
 the Patriots. 
 
 " The patriots were men of moderate fortunes, of a middle 
 rank in life, but of great ambition and considerable abilities. 
 They could not brook the superiority affected by the under- 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 takers, and were therefore determined either to bring them 
 * down to their own level, or to raise themselves to the same 
 degree of consequence. Whenever government quarrelled 
 with the undertakers, the patriots were ready to support it ; 
 but as government, after making use of them, had constantly 
 left them in the lurch, and recurred to the undertakers, the 
 patriots became irreconcileable enemies to both ; they soon 
 found an occasion of taking an ample revenge, and extorted a 
 concession from the duke of Bedford, which, if not recovered, 
 must at last destroy the great engine of kingly government in 
 Ireland. 
 
 " I have before observed that the hereditary revenue was 
 granted to the crown for ever, and that if properly conducted 
 it might alone be rendered sufficient to answer all the neces- 
 sary charges of the state. This was well understood both by 
 the patriots and the undertakers. The former, therefore, 
 took every opportunity of diminishing this revenue ; and the 
 latter had the treachery, if not to assist, to acquiesce in their 
 doing so. Of this a very strong instance was now given, and 
 a bill passed for granting a bounty on all corn and flour 
 brought to Dublin by land carriage. This bill has been 
 altered and amended by subsequent statutes, the effect of all 
 which has been to increase the charge. 
 
 " The duke of Bedford offered at first to grant this bounty 
 for a term of years, but nothing would satisfy the patriots but 
 a perpetuity, and thus the act passed without any limitation. 
 They promised, indeed, to create a fund for the payment of this 
 bounty ; but though often reminded, never kept their word. 
 The consequence of this law has been that the money paid out 
 of the revenue on account of land carriage of corn and flour 
 now amounts to near 5 0,000 per annum ; and there is no 
 doubt but that it will amount to double that sum in a good 
 wheat season. 
 
 " Thus a prodigious charge is for ever entailed upon the 
 revenue, which charge must be answered at all events and in 
 preference to most others ; for by the act, this bounty is made 
 payable not out of the revenue in the treasury, but out of 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 147 
 
 the revenue in transitu, in the hands of the collector of Dublin 
 port as he receives it before he accounts with the treasury, so 
 that if any state emergency was to happen, if an enemy was at 
 the gates, the corn bounty must be first paid, though there 
 may perhaps not be money in the treasury sufficient to set a 
 battalion in motion. And here I must observe, that besides 
 this bounty on corn and flour, there have been several others 
 given at different times by act of parliament in the same ex- 
 ceptionable manner, a particular account of which shall be 
 given in the chapter of revenue. 
 
 " It may not be improper in this place to take notice of an 
 innovation introduced in favour of Mr. Ponsonby, who was 
 now speaker of the House of Commons, and was beginning to 
 aspire to popularity and power. In the money bill of 1759, 
 ^500 was for the first time granted to the speaker to enable 
 him to maintain the state and dignity of his office, as is ex- 
 pressed in the bill. To shew how dangerous it is to yield to 
 any thing, however trifling, out of the ordinary channel, it must 
 be remarked that afterwards, in 1761, the allowance of ^500 
 was augmented to =£^2,000, and in the session of 1765 this 
 «£'2,000 was doubled ; so that at present the speaker has 
 .£'4,000 constantly given him in the money bill as a matter of 
 course, besides the old allowance from the crown of =£500 
 each session and the emoluments of the office, which £500 
 and those emoluments were all that his predecessors had, and 
 were esteemed fully sufficient. 
 
 " Soon after the accession of his present majesty, a money 
 bill certified in the usual manner was transmitted to England 
 as a cause and consideration, among others, for the calling a 
 new parliament. There had been a strong debate in the 
 privy council on the propriety of this measure. It was urged 
 by some, that since the Revolution, no parliament had ever 
 been called in Ireland without the previous certification and 
 transmission of a money bill to England, — that it was looked 
 upon by the British administration as a necessary form, and 
 that it could not be departed from ; on the other hand, the 
 primate, Lord Shannon, and Mr. Ponsonby, now lords jus- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 tices, at first refused to certify a money bill, alleging that 
 other bills of a different nature were sufficient causes for as- 
 sembling a parliament. As the House of Commons had 
 always looked with jealousy on this origination of a money 
 bill in the privy council, the lords justices imagined that their 
 refusal to certify one on this occasion, would increase their 
 own consequence and popularity. They thought, if they suc- 
 ceeded, it would prove that by their influence, and advice, the 
 English ministry had been prevailed on to recede from this 
 important point, and at the same time it would show their own 
 tenderness for the privileges of the people, by not interfering 
 with them in the right of granting money. 
 
 Mr. Malone, the chancellor of the exchequer, adopted 
 their ideas, but the earl of Kildare loudly declared for a money 
 bill ; several letters passed on the subject between England 
 and Ireland, the consequence of which was that the lords 
 justices thought it prudent to submit and certify a money bill 
 in the usual manner, which on its return passed both houses 
 by a prodigious majority. Lord Kildare was rewarded with a 
 marquisate for his support, and Mr. Malone was dismissed 
 for his opposition. 
 
 " The earl of Halifax was now appointed lord lieutenant, 
 whose government, being strongly supported in England, was 
 easy to himself and honourable to his sovereign. The under- 
 takers having experienced the firmness of the crown in the 
 instance of the money bill, and well knowing that firmness in 
 the crown must baffle them in every other, were afraid to take 
 any steps vvhich might occasion complaint. They therefore 
 lived on good terms with Lord Halifax, assisted him in car- 
 rying on the public business, and were left in the government 
 at his departure. 
 
 " He was succeeded by the duke of Northumberland, 
 during whose splendid and princely administration affairs were 
 conducted with dignity and regularity, and without any con- 
 siderable opposition ; Lord Shannon was grown old and fond 
 of repose, the primate was desirous of entering into the 
 strictest union with the duke of Northumberland, and Mr. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 149 
 
 Ponsonby still remained in some degree under the influence of 
 the primate ; I must, however, remark that a bounty for en- 
 couraging the fishery was now granted, and made payable, 
 like the corn premiums, out of the revenue iii transitu. It 
 was not, indeed, like the corn premiums, made perpetual ; it 
 was limited to six years, but was extended to fourteen in the 
 ensuing session ; the amount of it at present is upwards of 
 dg^ll,000 per annum, and is likely to increase. 
 
 " In the latter end of the year 1764, the primate and Lord 
 Shannon, who had from the time of their reconciliation 
 wisely drawn together in the government, died within a few 
 days of one another ; the fortune and following of Lord Shan- 
 non descended to his son, who had married Mr. Ponsonby 's 
 eldest daughter. This young nobleman and his father-in-law 
 aimed at the power and importance of their predecessors, and 
 flattered themselves that their united weight would not only 
 overpower every other party in the kingdom, but be too 
 strong for government itself. In the administration of Lord 
 Hertford, they on more than one occasion betrayed their in- 
 tentions, but the lord lieutenant's firmness and address kept 
 things from coming to a rupture during his residence. The 
 most material occurrence of the session was an attempt of Mr. 
 Pery, in the House of Commons, which I can't avoid taking 
 particular notice of, as it occasioned much discourse, and was 
 in itself of an extraordinary nature. 
 
 " In the reign of King James the First, in my Lord Chi- 
 chester's government, the speaker of the House of Commons, 
 on the last day of the session, November 29th, 1614, de- 
 livered a note or remembrance to the lord deputy, containing, 
 among others, the following paragraph : — 
 
 " ' The House of Commons, acknowledging that the sole 
 power and authority to transmit such bills as are to be pro- 
 pounded in parliament, doth rest in the lord deputy and 
 council, do only desire to be as remembrancers unto his lord- 
 ship and the rest, touching the acts following, which they 
 humbly offer as meet to be transmitted, with such other acts 
 as his lordship, &c. shall think fit to be propounded in the 
 next session.' 
 
150 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 " This paragraph, which contains a very short and plain 
 acknowledgment of the law and practice, as settled by Poyn- 
 ing's Act, Mr. Pery moved to have expunged out of the Jour- 
 nals. The motion was made so suddenly and so artfully, that 
 the speaker, Mr. Ponsonby, had not presence of mind sufficient 
 to defeat or restrain it, so Mr. Pery's resolution passed for 
 the expunging, and appeared the next day in the printed 
 votes ; but soon after, the speaker, having been in consultation 
 at the castle, and being informed of the dangerous tendency 
 of Mr. Pery's motion, with great difficulty got the whole pro- 
 ceeding annulled, and the entry on the votes to be declared an 
 error of the clerk. 
 
 " The ordnance of Ireland was now vacant, by the resigna- 
 tion of the marquis of Kildare, and the world expected that it 
 would be given to Lord Drogheda, a nobleman of good cha- 
 racter, who had served upwards of twenty years in the army, 
 and had lately married the lord lieutenant's daughter ; how- 
 ever, on this occasion, his excellency preferred the interests 
 of the crown to those of his own family, and hoping to attach 
 Lord Shannon to the service of his administration, recom- 
 mended him to his majesty for this great employment, and 
 obtained it for him. Lord Hertford, at his departure, left the 
 chancellor and speaker in the government together with the 
 earl of Drogheda, who was thus compensated for the loss of 
 the ordnance. 
 
 On the great change of the English ministry in 1766, the 
 earl of Bristol was appointed chief governor ; a new system of 
 government was said to be now adopted. Ireland was no 
 more to be left to the discretion of the undertakers ; the lord 
 lieutenant was for the future constantly to reside and hold the 
 reins of government in his own hands. 
 
 The people, ever fond of novelty, were rejoiced beyond 
 measure at the happy tidings. Individuals were no less de- 
 lighted. Those who had been long in leading-strings, but had 
 never been led to what they looked for, felt new hopes rise in 
 their bosoms, and flattered themselves that the day of enfran- 
 chisement was come ; golden visions of profit and of honour 
 opened on the eyes of every patriot. He who had disdained 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 151 
 
 the thraldom of an undertaker, was ready to wear the livery 
 of a resident viceroy, and the most inveterate Republican 
 became a convert to the new theory of government ; all was 
 rapture and reformation ; the return of Astrsea was hourly 
 expected, and the kingdom of Saturn was supposed to be at 
 hand. 
 
 " The undertakers, against whose usurpation this scheme 
 of residence was levelled, immediately took the alarm, and 
 most diligently used all their endeavours to defeat it ; they 
 knew indeed that opposition, if steadily resisted, must soon 
 moulder into insignificance, but they flattered themselves that 
 no lord lieutenant would long persevere in the new plan. If 
 he should, they were resolved to omit nothing on their part to 
 make his situation as uneasy and as unpleasant to him as 
 possible. 
 
 " The season now approached for the usual assembling of 
 the Irish parliament, and the earl of Bristol having resigned 
 the government, Lord Townshend was appointed to succeed 
 him ; the principal events of this administration I shall endea- 
 vour to comprehend in as small a compass as I can. 
 
 " The bill for granting a bounty on corn and flour brought 
 to Dublin by land carriage, as mentioned in the duke of Bed- 
 ford's administration, was a concession so important and so 
 unexpected, that the patriots were from thence encouraged 
 to make still greater demands. They imagined that govern- 
 ment, having once yielded in a point so prejudicial to its own 
 interests, would as easily be persuaded to pass any other laws 
 which they might choose to propose : their principal aim was 
 to load the hereditary revenue either by perpetual charges, or 
 by charges for long terms of years ; by this means their own 
 consequence would be enhanced, and the authority and revenue 
 of the crown greatly weakened and impaired. 
 
 " To accomplish these views they laid their designs with 
 uncommon art and address, and the measures most destructive 
 to government they often contrived to make appeaiJ-'as the 
 measures of government itself, — not as measures adopted in 
 compliance with popular importunity, but as measures flowing 
 
152 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 spontaneously either from the king's goodness or the viceroy's 
 representation and influence. Immediately on the appoint- 
 ment of a new lord lieutenant, they employed some emissary, 
 who, under the mask of friendship and good wishes, insinuated 
 that the best method to secure an easy and honourable 
 government in Ireland would be to open the session with 
 some popular act or declaration ; the real meaning of which 
 was either some innovation in the established constitution or 
 some encroachment on the revenue. 
 
 " For this purpose various schemes were offered, and the 
 utility and necessity of pursuing them were painted in the 
 most seducing colours : one day a bounty on fish, fishing 
 busses, and whale catching, was desired ; the establishment of 
 county hospitals and public coal-yards was another day men- 
 tioned ; a septennial bill, a judges bill, a habeas corpus bill, 
 premiums for corn preserved upon stands and for corn brought 
 to Dublin coastways, were all asked in their turns ; nay, what 
 will scarcely be believed, a proposal was seriously made that 
 the land- carriage bounty should be paid for all corn and flour 
 brought to Dublin by the new canal ; and such was the suc- 
 cess of these representations, that many of the demands above- 
 mentioned were in a great measure complied with : the im- 
 mense charge incurred by them may be seen in the public 
 accounts, where they stand as incontrovertible evidence of 
 their own exorbitance and impropriety. A lord lieutenant 
 new in his government, perhaps new in business of any kind, 
 unacquainted with the people and constitution of Ireland, and 
 desirous of carrying on his administration with popularity and 
 good humour, probably at first did not apprehend any danger 
 or inconvenience from adopting these schemes; he perhaps 
 seemed to approve them, — and his seeming approbation was 
 immediately sworn into a positive promise, the performance 
 of which he was afterwards either soothed or frightened into, 
 according to the features of his character, and the circum- 
 stances of the times. 
 
 "In Lord Hertford's government, heads of bills were brought 
 into the House of Commons to make the judges' commissions 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 153 
 
 to continue quamdiu se bene gesserint. The administration in 
 England, apprehending that such a law would tend to create a 
 kind of imperium in imperio, refused at that time to consent 
 to it in any shape ; they were, however, afterwards of opinion 
 that it might be granted under certain restrictions ; accord- 
 ingly Lord Townshend, at the opening of the next session, re- 
 commended it in his speech from the throne. The bill was 
 transmitted to England, and returned to Ireland with several 
 alterations ; but as these alterations seemed to defeat the in- 
 sidious intentions of the gentlemen who had framed the bill, it 
 was rejected without a division. 
 
 *' The same spirit of innovation which had clamoured for 
 the judges bill still prevailed, and was equally loud and eager 
 for a law to limit the duration of parliaments. How far it 
 was politic to consent to it, is not now material ; the bill was 
 passed, and during four and twenty hours the lord lieutenant 
 was the most popular man in the kingdom. 
 
 " The undertakers, who never imagined that the crown 
 would have consented to lessen its prerogative in this point 
 without some equivalent, and who had formed their schemes 
 and connections according to the then subsisting parliament, 
 were highly enraged to find themselves so mistaken. As 
 the bill was popular, they had never ventured to oppose it 
 whilst in agitation ; and now that it was passed, they pre- 
 tended to approve of it ; but they never forgave the mea- 
 sure, and from that moment acted in open hostility to go- 
 vernment. 
 
 " This was not however the only cause of their ill humour. 
 Not contented with the power and employments w^hich they 
 enjoyed, they had early in the session made some very un- 
 reasonable demands upon government. One gentleman was 
 only to be satisfied with half a dozen peerages for his friends ; 
 another preferred some great reversion for himself. Those 
 who had not pensions, wished to have them ; those who had 
 pensions, desired an addition ; and almost all who were already 
 in good employment agreed in asking for better ones. Lord 
 Townshend's hesitation to comply with these extraordinary 
 
154 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 requisitions was highly resented. Thus these gentlemen, in- 
 stead of being grateful for past favours, were enraged at the 
 refusal of new ones, turned the power of the crown entrusted 
 to their hands against the crown itself, and endeavoured to 
 extort by faction and opposition what was meant to be the 
 reward of loyalty and service." 
 
 This extract is in some parts even more obnoxious to cri- 
 ticism than was the one last taken from the same pages. It 
 reveals the character of a decided partisan, the official cour- 
 tier, and expresses not a few extreme opinions. As a whole, 
 however, it presents an instructive insight into the condition 
 of the country, and the impurities practised both by the go- 
 vernment and its opponents. Instead of seeing the English 
 minister corrupting the Irish parliament through the instru- 
 mentality of the undertakers, we now detect the bribe passing 
 directly from the hand of the lord lieutenant into the purse 
 of the public man. But, as has been already remarked, the 
 writer seems to misapprehend the real point at issue between 
 the contending authorities ; the right, namely, of the crown 
 to appropriate at its own will and pleasure the stated accu- 
 mulations in the treasury. Unquestionably, the exaggerated 
 extent of royal prerogative to which a claim is here laid 
 would be incompatible with all constitutional government. It 
 is moreover to be regretted that no notice is taken of the po- 
 pularity enjoyed by the patriots. There were reasons for the 
 respect paid to those men which deserved consideration. Had 
 their leaders been pure, they w^ould have merited an immortal 
 fame. Inconsistent and even mercenary as they w^ere, and un- 
 doubted as are our proofs of the selfish objects of the landed 
 oligarchy to which they belonged, — an oligarchy that equally 
 abused on every occasion the crown and their country, — it 
 would still have been but fair to recognise the arguments of 
 those amongst them who contended that there were advan- 
 tages to be gained by supporting even such an aristocracy 
 against the English minister, who preferred the pernicious in- 
 fluence even of that order to the absolute tyranny of a distant 
 sovereign ; and who feared, that if the nobility was destroyed, 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 155 
 
 it would be for ever impossible to make head against the 
 crown of England.* 
 
 It was in this state of things that a small advantage was 
 gained for the cause of improved government. The first 
 Irishman, " who, after Swift, dared to write freedom^' was Dr. 
 Lucas. Mr. Grattan, who makes the remark, tells us in his life 
 of his father, " that Lucas established the Freeman s Journal^ 
 — a paper that upheld liberal principles, that raised a public 
 spirit where there had been none, and kept up a public feeling 
 when it was sinking, and to which, in a great degree, Ireland 
 was indebted for her liberties. Lucas's name stands con- 
 nected with those two great measures — the freedom of the 
 press, and the shortening the duration of parliament. His 
 history presents the singular spectacle of a man of humble 
 origin, — an apothecary by profession, and that profession his 
 only means of subsistence, — moreover w^ithout education, with 
 little acquired knowledge, and little force of talents, — issuing 
 from his shop, and at once attacking abuses wherever he finds 
 them. He does this, too, with great boldness and admirable 
 spirit. He not only attacked abuses, but individuals, and de- 
 clared a general war against the wrongs of his country, her go- 
 vernors, her laws, and her representatives. He bade defiance 
 to the pow er and tyranny of the parliament of Ireland, and was 
 fearless of the vengeance of Great Britain. He w^as another 
 Swift, but without the vast talents of that writer. In Lucas 
 it seemed a sort of inspiration, for nothing was too high or too 
 low for his resentment or his ambition. He assailed every- 
 thing and everybody, from the monarch who swayed the 
 sceptre, down to the mayor who held the city mace. He 
 flung them all into his political crucible, and poured upon them 
 indiscriminately the vials of his unsparing vituperation. He 
 deemed their offences great, and his language was strong in 
 
 * These were the opinions of Mr. Flood and others, who used to main- 
 tain that the only way in which an Irishman could really serve his coun- 
 try, was by taking office. These, however, were not the opinions of Mr. 
 Grattan, who, with Lord Charlemont, was almost the only pure public 
 character of his time. Office, in his estimation, was a " masked pension;" 
 the man who took it sold himself to government, and it was impossible 
 that in Ireland it should confer the power of doing good. 
 
156 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 proportion. He made political abuse a sort of trade, and got 
 business by it, and popularity. 
 
 " In 1748, Lucas addressed a number of letters to his 
 fellow-citizens, that were devoid of style and taste, but full 
 of ardor, spirit, and the love of freedom ; their sentiments 
 strong, their principles sound, and their boldness undaunted. 
 His writings were all in favour of liberty, and they embraced 
 all the leading points of Irish grievances. He denied the 
 supremacy of the British parliament ; he asserted the abso- 
 lute independence of Ireland, and her right to self-government; 
 he attacked Poyning's law and the final judicature assumed by 
 the Bi'itish House of Lords ; he also published, with appro- 
 priate strictures, the protest in the English house in 1719, 
 against the then assumption of that authority. 
 
 " All this very naturally attracted attention, and drew 
 down upon Lucas the hostility of the government. To add 
 to the number of his foes, he alluded in his writings, in the 
 severest terms, to the Lord Lieutenant Harrington, and in- 
 veighed against the abuses of the city authorities, the lord 
 mayor and the aldermen. Thus he contrived to unite all 
 parties against him, and they were quick and decided in their 
 proceedings. The grand juries of the county and of the city 
 of Dublin presented his addresses as libels on the lord lieu- 
 tenant, as ' tending to promote insurrection, and as justifying 
 the bloody rebellion raised in Ireland ; ' and they ordered his 
 writings to be burned by the hands of the common hangman. 
 The attorney-general also filed an information against him for 
 the same supposed offences for which he had been presented 
 by the several grand juries, upon the charge of the chief jus- 
 tice. The House of Commons resolved that his writings were 
 seditious, and he was an enemy to his country ; that he be 
 arrested by the speaker's warrant, and committed to gaol ; 
 and not being able to discover him, they requested the lord 
 lieutenant to issue his proclamation for his apprehension. 
 Finally, the corporation disfranchised him, in gross violation of 
 their own rules and institutions. Several of the citizens, how- 
 ever, more spirited than the rest, opposed this violence, and 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 157 
 
 proceeded to call their ancient court of Darrien Hundred ; 
 but they were dispersed by the lord mayor, who threatened to 
 call out the military. 
 
 " Yet all these efforts, numerous as they were, failed either 
 to subdue or silence the object of their unjust vengeance. 
 
 " Lucas took refuge in England ; and, compelled to fly from 
 the country whose rights and liberties he had asserted, he ap- 
 pealed to the people of both islands against such unexampled 
 oppression, and dated his address from Westminster, 'the 
 present place of my pilgrimage, 1750." 
 
 " The active mind of Lucas did not suffer him to remain 
 quiet. He now applied himself to his profession, and prac- 
 tised as physician ; and being well skilled in that profession, 
 he quickly obtained reputation. His treatise on the Bath 
 waters was much esteemed : he also obtained much business 
 by his popularity : he was the medical adviser as well as the 
 personal friend of the earl of Charlemont. 
 
 " Lucas remained an exile from 1749 to 1760, when he re- 
 turned to his native country, in consequence of a ' noli prose- 
 quV from the crown ; and a dissolution of parliament having 
 taken place on the death of George II., he was chosen one of 
 the members to represent the city of Dublin in 1761. This 
 latter event was Lucas's final triumph over his enemies ; but it 
 was also his 'journey's end,' — ' the seamark of his utmost sail.' 
 
 " He brought forward the Septennial Bill in the first ses- 
 sion of the reign of George III. It was approved of by the 
 lord lieutenant and council, and was transmitted to England, 
 but never returned. The popular party, thus defeated, but not 
 discouraged, brought forward the measure a second time in 
 the ensuing session, with the same zeal and the same result. 
 In the third session the measure was again introduced, and 
 the chief governor, Lord Hertford, gave every assurance of 
 his support ; his son was secretary in Ireland, and voted for 
 the bill, but it was nevertheless a third time rejected, and the 
 people were disappointed. A fourth time it was attempted in 
 the winter of the session of ] 767-8, in Lord Townshend's ad- 
 ministration, and was returned from England, along with the 
 
158 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 bills of supply, altered from septennial to octennial, and was at 
 length (Feb. 9, 1768) passed into a law.'' 
 
 During this year the government recruited its wasted 
 strength by creating a variety of new places. The Boards of 
 Custom and Excise, hitherto united, were now divided, and 
 the number of commissioners increased from seven to twelve. 
 A sum of 5 00, 000 is said to have been expended in bribery 
 at this period. The manner in which additional servants were 
 procured to do " the king's business," was as indecent as the 
 use was vile to which they were put when obtained. The laws 
 of England, enforcing the spirit of the constitution, then as 
 now excluded commissioners of revenue from parliament ; but 
 Lord Townshend gave them seats in the Irish Commons. On 
 two occasions the house resolved, by decided majorities, that 
 the increase in the number of commissioners was unnecessary; 
 but the lord lieutenant set the votes at defiance : he ap- 
 pointed the additional men, and propped up his own majority 
 by wantonly increasing the public burthens. By practices 
 such as these, — by a lavish profusion, by feasting, pleasures, 
 and by indulging in unbounded expense, — Lord Townshend 
 was enabled to make head against the undertakers; but his 
 unprincipled proceedings, far from imparting strength to the 
 government, only added to its embarrassments and increased 
 its weakness. Upon his retirement, the offices under his con- 
 trol were found to owe .^£^25 0,000 ; and although the salary of 
 the lord lieutenant had been augmented during his time to 
 
 16,000 a year, he had so encumbered his private property 
 with debts, as to be obliged to sell some of his estates, after 
 his return to England, in order to satisfy the demands of his 
 personal creditors. 
 
 Lord Harcourt, whose lieutenancy commenced in 1772, 
 added largely to the extravagance, corruption, and discontent 
 of the period. In order to fill the treasury bench before the 
 meeting of parliament, he made five earls, seven viscounts, 
 and eighteen barons, in one day. Small as was the public 
 income, there were three vice-treasurers, each with an aug- 
 mented salary of £S,500 a year. Amongst them was Flood, 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 159 
 
 one of the most eloquent of the patriots, and on many occa- 
 sions distinguished for the breadth and vigour of his hberality. 
 Unquestionably the situation of Ireland at this moment was of 
 that gloomy and disturbing character, which was well calcu- 
 lated to rouse the strongest feelings of irritation, and to in- 
 spire at the same time the boldest hopes of patriotism. Lord 
 Harcourt was succeeded by the earl of Buckinghamshire in 
 1777, when America was fighting against English injustice. It 
 now became evident that the trodden Irish had begun to own 
 to themselves that the elements of nationality still lingered upon 
 their soil. The distress of the government made them sensible 
 of their strength. The ministerial rescripts are our authority 
 for representing that the trade of the country had, by this time, 
 every where declined, — that her fisheries were not followed — 
 that the manufacture of linen, the only one left, could not find 
 a market ; — that the chief sources of revenue from which the 
 civil and military offices of the country were supported, had 
 not only decayed, but were in danger of being utterly lost ; — 
 that the people were starving in thousands, — and that their 
 discontent was so general and so strong, that the lord lieu- 
 tenant was obhged to reckon up the number of troops he 
 could send into the field in the event of an insurrection. So 
 extreme was the want of money at the treasury, that the go- 
 vernment was obliged to borrow the small sum of ^20,000 
 from Messrs. Latouche's bank, in order to pay its current ex- 
 penses. This loan having been soon exhausted, another was 
 solicited and refused, — the bankers assuring the lord lieutenant 
 that "it was not in their power, though very much in their 
 inclination," to lend a second sum of <£^20,000. In conse- 
 quence of this humiliating refusal, the government became 
 positively bankrupt ; the lord lieutenant was obliged to sus- 
 pend payment of the civil and military salaries and pensions, 
 all parliamentary grants, clothing — arrears, and other dis- 
 bursements. 
 
 It was while Lord Harcourt was chief governor, while the 
 treasury was thus beggared, and the administration disgraced, 
 that England committed a further act of ignorant injustice 
 
160 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 against Ireland, by laying an embargo on the export of Irish 
 provisions. Denied the right of exporting their cattle, the 
 Irish had acquired a valuable trade in salted meat, particularly 
 beef and pork. That commerce was now interdicted by Eng- 
 land ; and it was also during the term of this lieutenancy that, 
 for the first time, a seat was taken in the Irish House of Com- 
 mons by Henry Grattan, the greatest of Irishmen, — a states- 
 man whose genius, eloquence, and public virtue, would have 
 done honour to any age or country ; but who stands pre- 
 eminently admirable as an example of unstained integrity and 
 unbending fortitude, during a period of unparalleled degene- 
 racy, when every patriot was a placeman, — when the senator 
 who served his country looked for a gratuity, or the payment 
 of a salary, as a matter of course, — when vacillation and 
 apostacy were the every day failings of public characters, and 
 consistency was a virtue which but rarely found a second 
 follower. 
 
 Henry Grattan was born in Dublin during the year 1746. 
 His father filled the office of recorder, and represented the 
 city in parliament for many years. Henry was educated at 
 the university of Dublin ; and being intended for the profes- 
 sion of the law, entered himself as a student of the Middle 
 Temple in London, during the year 1767. Before this event 
 took place he had lost his father, who left him a small estate, 
 which was sufficient to render him independent, but not to make 
 him rich. He was called to the Irish bar in the year 1772, 
 but never obtained much practice. His son tells us, that having 
 lost the first cause entrusted to his advocacy, he sought to 
 console his client by returning half his fee. In the year 1775, 
 he took his seat for the first time in the Irish House of Com- 
 mons, as member for the borough of Charlemont : and in seven 
 years after he effected the independence of the Irish legisla- 
 ture. When the greatness of this achievement, the short 
 period within which it was accomplished, and the monstrous 
 power and unbridled corruption by which it was resisted, are 
 all considered, no praise that can be bestowed will be found 
 too high for the merits of the private gentleman who, with a 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 161 
 
 very moderate fortune, and few aids but those derived from 
 the force of his own genius and eloquence, freed his country 
 from as abject a condition of slavery, legal and commercial, as 
 is to be found in the history of the world. 
 
 Henry Grattan's patriotism will be thoroughly appreciated 
 by those only who are correctly informed of the nature of the 
 restrictions imposed upon the Irish legislature, and the extent 
 of the corruption by which the ministers of England were 
 enabled to keep the country under foot, at the time he en- 
 tered the House of Commons. From the year 1585 to the year 
 1 692, the meetings of the parliament of Ireland, the repudiated 
 session under James II. excepted, had been frequently intermit- 
 ted. For instance, from the year 1585 to the year 1612, a 
 period of twenty-seven years, there was no parliament ; from 
 1615 to 1634, nineteen years, there was no parliament ; from 
 1648 to 1661, thirteen years, there was no parliament; and 
 from 1666 to 1692, twenty-six years, there was no parliament. 
 The king's revenues throughout this long period sufficed to 
 cover the ordinary expences of government, and as no money 
 was wanted, no parliament was called. The particular ground 
 upon which the king's revenue had been placed beyond the 
 reach and control of the legislature deserves to be remem- 
 bered. The Irish quit rents had been voted in return for the 
 forfeited lands ; the hearth-money tax had been granted by way 
 of compensation for the abolition of the Court of Wards ; and 
 the customs and excise, as an acknowledgment for the Act of 
 Explanation and Settlement. In the year 1692 under Lord 
 Sydney, in 1753 under the duke of Dorset, in 1760 under Lord 
 Halifax, and in 1769 under Lord Townshend, the Commons 
 made unavailing attempts to throw off this yoke. They 
 claimed the constitutional right of originating all money bills, 
 while the crown insisted upon its legal right, derived from exist- 
 ing acts of parliament, to apply, of its own accord, for money 
 whenever the public service demanded a supply, and to appro- 
 priate, on its own authority, any sums remaining in the treasury. 
 The Irish process of legislation for a series of years is thus ex- 
 plained in the manuscript account of Ireland already quoted. 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
162 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 
 
 " As the course of passing an Irish law is and must be 
 different from the course of passing an English one, I shall 
 here state the manner of it. Heads or sketches of a bill or 
 bills, when agreed to by either house of parliament, are sent up 
 to the lord lieutenant, with a desire that his Excellency will 
 transmit them to Great Britain in due form. This form is 
 given to them by the lord heutenant and council by whom 
 they are taken into consideration, and if not rejected, are 
 altered and amended in such manner as appears to be neces- 
 sary. They are then engrossed and become a bill, which is 
 certified by the lord lieutenant and council as proper to be 
 passed into a law, and so certified is transmitted to England 
 under the great seal of Ireland. It is there referred by the 
 king and council to the attorney-general and solicitor-general, 
 and revised and reported upon by them ; it is then examined 
 by the king and council, who either reject or alter and amend 
 it, and so altered and amended return it to Ireland under the 
 great seal of England. It is then carried to that house of 
 parliament from which it was sent up, and is either rejected 
 or agreed to in toto. If the latter, it is ordered to the other 
 house for its concurrence — and that being given, it receives 
 the royal assent from the lord lieutenant upon the throne, 
 and becomes a law.*" 
 
 The public revenue, under such a form of legislation and 
 government, was necessarily uncertain, small, and ill-managed. 
 At the same time it is curious to observe, that notwithstand- 
 ing all these oppressive laws and its contracted commerce, 
 the crippled industry of the country more than sufficed to 
 provide for the expences of the administration, whenever 
 prudence or order prevailed in the conduct of affairs. The 
 clearest testimony has been borne to this singular fact by 
 the manuscript author from whose well written pages so much 
 has been already taken. It appears that in the year 1707, 
 there was so large a deficiency of the revenue as to prevent 
 the payment of the army and the ordinary charges of the 
 government, but in 1710 there was a surplus of income over 
 expenditure of .£'11, 544. In the year 1715 the national debt 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 163 
 
 of Ireland was only ^^16,106; but in the following year the 
 borrowing system was introduced, and thenceforward the 
 amount of the public obligations rose with rapidity. It was 
 £66,106 in 1716 ; <£'94,594 in 1717 .£'119,215 in 1725 ; 
 .£'220,730 in 1729; and .£371,312 in 1733. But in 1753 
 we find the resources of the country so productive, that the 
 whole of this debt was discharged by the accumulations in the 
 treasury within the space of two years. This was done 
 contrary to the voice of the Irish parliament.-f- In the 
 year 1752, oPl 20,000 was paid off, and the balance in 1753. 
 This fortunate event has been generally regarded as a con- 
 sequence of the extension of the linen trade, which was now 
 and for some preceding years had been in a flourishing con- 
 dition. But this creditable state of things was not long 
 preserved. On the 1st of March, 1754, there was no na- 
 tional debt in Ireland ; during a term of five years no money 
 was borrowed ; but in 1759 a loan was opened at the in- 
 
 * On Lady-day, 1/19, according to the Report of £ s. d. 
 the Committee of Account, the net produce 
 of the hereditary revenue, additional duties, 
 &c., for one year and nine months, was . 805,015 4 3f 
 And the charges upon the establishment and 
 other expences of government for the same 
 period amounted to ... 793,658 4 2i 
 
 Surplus of income .... 
 
 11,357 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 In 1729, according to the same Report, the net 
 
 
 
 
 revenue for two years was 
 
 889,351 
 
 4 
 
 Hi 
 
 Charges, &c. ..... 
 
 982,710 
 
 4 
 
 91 
 
 Deficiency .... 
 
 £93,358 
 
 19 
 
 10^ 
 
 . t In making use of this expression, it is proper to add, that although 
 in point of form the Commons appeared to vote against the liquidation, 
 their resistance was principally directed to the particular authority by 
 which that hquidation was directed and carried into effect. They denied 
 the right of the crown to pay away money in the treasury of its own 
 accord, and, constitutionally speaking, they were unquestionably correct 
 in taking that view of the case. Had they continued to act upon it with 
 consistency and vigour, they would have commanded the gratitude of 
 their country, and, in all likelihood, a certain victory. But it is impos- 
 sible to feel respect for the Irish Commons of this age, who, to a man, 
 combined to defeat the exercise of a questionable authority of the crown, 
 by squandering upon themselves the public money, which, if permitted 
 to accumulate, would have furnished grounds for another quarrel, 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 stance of the duke of Bedford, and in 1761 the funded 
 debt was c£350,000. In the year 1763 it amounted to 
 <£'521,161 165. 6^d.; in 1771 it had increased to <£'782,320 ; 
 and by Lady-day, 1773, to ^994,890 lOs. lO^d. These large 
 additions were occasioned by the growing insufficiency of the 
 revenue to bear the various charges put upon it by the House 
 of Commons for illegitimate purposes, such as corn bounties, 
 public companies, &c. &c. The profligate increase of the 
 pension list is to be set down as another cause of these pecu- 
 niary embarrassments. The amount of the annual payments 
 upon that list in the year 1756 was ^£^44,393 ; which in 1767 
 was raised to £83,54:1 ; and is found a few years later as high 
 as i:'158,685. 
 
 Mr. Grattan, in the Life of his Father, draws from the 
 most authentic sources — the very letters of the lord lieute- 
 nant himself — overwhelming demonstrations of the system of 
 corruption out of which these enormous additions to the na- 
 tional burthens arose. That system had been in full play for 
 many years, and had reached its height at the time Grattan 
 was inspired with the resolution to grapple with its enormous 
 abuses. As evidences of the grossest misgovernment, and 
 proofs of the desperate powers with which the genius of the 
 reformer had to contend, the following communications are 
 more than commonly striking : — 
 
 THE LORD LIEUTENANT TO LORD NORTH. 
 
 Dublin Castle, Sept. 8, 1780. 
 
 My Lord, — Nothing could be more against my inclinations than the 
 yielding to solicitations of gentlemen upon the line of peerage ; but with- 
 out engagements strongly to recommend several to that mark of his 
 majesty's favour at the close of the session, it would have been impossible 
 for me in any sort to have surmounted the various difficulties which have 
 lately attended government. 
 
 I must therefore request, that your lordship will submit the following 
 names to his majesty : — 
 
 Sir Robert Deane has uniformly, with four friends, supported his ma- 
 jesty's measures, and has never suggested a difficulty upon any occasion : 
 his property is very considerable. 
 
 Lord Chief Baron Dennis is recommended by Lord Shannon ; but ex- 
 
THE COXXECTION WITH EXGLAND. 
 
 165 
 
 elusive of that consideration, his abilities may be of great use in the 
 House of Lords, especially as Lord Annaly has an asthmatic complaint, 
 which renders his attendance precarious. He has no family, nor is there 
 any probability of his having any ; and, upon the whole, I should think 
 his appointment full as desirable to government as it may be agreeable to 
 himself. 
 
 My private wish would certainly influence in favour of Mr. Armar 
 Lowry Corry ; but his extensive property — his having supported govern- 
 ment, though elected for the county of Tyrone by popular interest — his 
 having also induced another gentleman to follow his example— may give 
 him some claim to his majesty's favour. 
 
 Mr. Mathew is of a very ancient respectable family, and has upon every 
 occasion supported his majesty's government. His brother-in-law, 
 through his means, was induced to act the same part. 
 
 Mr. Pomeroy was originally recommended by the duke of Leinster ; 
 but at a time his grace was undecided, he engaged at all events, with his 
 brother and his son, to support government. The duke of Leinster lately 
 renewed the application in his favour. 
 
 Mr. Clements, the son of an old meritorious servant of the crown, has 
 a very considerable fortune ; and has, with three friends, supported go- 
 vernment, exclusive of his brother, the deputy vice-treasurer. 
 
 Mr. Knox, of Dungannon, is a gentleman of respectable family, with a 
 large property ; and has, with two sons, supported government. He was 
 strongly recommended also by Colonel Burton. 
 
 There are some few promotions of peerage which I would make the 
 subject of another letter, but must remind your lordship of Lord Farn- 
 ham's earnest request that his majesty would consent to his being ho- 
 noured with his late brother's earldom. 
 
 I hope that these several recommendations will meet with his rnajesty's 
 approbation, and receive your lordship's support, &c. &c. 
 
 Buckingham. 
 
 September 22, 1780. 
 
 My Lord, — Amongst the gentlemen whom, in my letter of the 8th 
 instant, I submitted to his majesty for the dignity of peerage, I should 
 have included William Tonson, Esq., but that some matters which had 
 been misconceived, required first to be explained : that has since been 
 done entirely to my satisfaction ; and I request your lordship will lay 
 before his majesty my humble recommendation, that Mr. Tonson may 
 obtain this mark of his royal favour. 
 
 Mr. Tonson is a gentleman of very considerable estate in this country, 
 is zealously attached to his majesty's person and government, and has 
 uniformly and steadily supported administration. He will bring a friend 
 of government into the House of Commons, upon his being called up to 
 
166 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the House of Peers. He engages to bring into parliament, at the next 
 general election, any person nominated by government ; and he has 
 signified to me his determination in future to give administration the 
 nomination of members for his borough of Rathcormack, until his sons 
 shall be of age. 
 
 Buckingham. 
 
 October 18, 1780. 
 
 * * * — I am further to desire your lordship will lay before his 
 majesty my humble request that his majesty will be pleased to approve 
 that Edward Tighe, Esq., be appointed one of the commissioners of the 
 revenue here in the room of Lord Naas. Mr. Tighe is a gentleman of 
 family and extensive connections, member of parliament for the borough 
 of Athboy, and loyally attached to his majesty's person and government. 
 Of his abilities I will myself be an assurance, having had intimate knoAv- 
 ledge of them in the services which he has rendered me as my private 
 secretary, during the greater part of my residence in this kingdom. 
 
 Mr. Tighe is at present one of the commissioners of imprest accounts, 
 and comptroller of the pipe in his majesty's Court of Exchequer in this 
 kingdom, which oflftces will enable me to gratify other gentlemen, whose 
 parliamentary services demand the attention of government. 
 
 Buckingham. 
 
 P.S. — I beg leave. to mention, that I shall in some sort take the liberty 
 of recommending other promotions in the peerage ; and that I do not 
 intend that this letter should estabhsh Lord Naas' station in the rank of 
 Viscount. 
 
 October 24, 1780. 
 
 My Lord, — The following noblemen having distinguished them- 
 selves as the zealous friends of his majesty's government, I think it my 
 duty to prefer their applications, that his majesty will be graciously 
 pleased to confer on them the advancement of their rank in the peerage of 
 this kingdom j and I do earnestly request accordingly, that his majesty 
 will permit me to recommend the Viscounts Mountcashel, Enniskillen, 
 and Carlow, and Lord Farnham, to be created earls ; and the Barons De- 
 sart. Lisle, LifFord, Erne, Bangor, CUfden, Naas, Doneraile, and Temple- 
 town, to be created viscounts. 
 
 Lord Mountcashel is particularly recommended by Lord Ely, and has 
 constantly supported government, as have Lord Enniskillen and Lord 
 Carlow. Lord Farnham's pretensions have already been stated. Lord 
 Desart is an"active supporter of government in the House of Lords ; Lord 
 Lisle]_is^strongly recommended by Lord Shannon ; Lord Lifford's merits 
 need Jnot be repeated ; Lord Erne engages to bring a member of parlia- 
 ment, to be recommended by government, on the next general election, 
 and vnll be jesponsible for the conduct of his brother, who will then come 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 167 
 
 into parliament under his influence ; Lord Bangor's two sons came into 
 the support of administration on condition of this recommendation ; Lord 
 Clifden has long and faithfully served the crown ; Lord Naas has been 
 already recommended ; Lord Doneraile's two sons have given their sup- 
 port in the House of Commons ; and Lord Templetown is zealously 
 attached, as are all those other noblemen, to his majesty's person and 
 government. 
 
 And I also request his majesty's permission to recommend that the 
 earl of Inchiquin, Lieutenant- General Robert Cunninghame, John 
 O'NeUl, Luke Gardiner, and Richard Townshend, Esquires, be appointed 
 of his majesty's privy council in this kingdom. 
 
 I desire your lordship will lay these my humble recommendations, as 
 being for his majesty's service, &c. &c. 
 
 Buckingham. 
 Nov. 19, 1780. 
 
 My Lord, — I must say that no man can see the inconvenience of in- 
 creasing the number of peers more forcibly than myself ; but the recom- 
 mendations of many of those persons submitted to his majesty for that 
 honour, arose from engagements taken at the press of the moment to 
 secure questions upon which the EngUsh government were very particu- 
 larly anxious. My sentiments cannot but be the same with respect to 
 the privy council and pensions, and I had not contracted any absolute 
 engagements of recommendation either to peerage or pension, till diffi- 
 culties arose which necessarily occasioned so much, and so forcibly com- 
 municated, anxiety in his majesty's cabinet, that I must have been 
 culpable in neglecting any possible means of securing a majority in the 
 House of Commons, &c. &c. 
 
 Buckingham. 
 
 Nov. 19, 1780. 
 
 James Carigue Ponsonby, Esq. — ^This gentleman bought his seat in 
 parliament, and in the contest for the speaker's chair, offered his vote to 
 Lord Harcourt, in favour of Mr. Pery, on condition he should represent 
 his conduct to his majesty, hoping it might be kept in account when he 
 should on some future day be thought deserving of his majesty's favour. 
 This request was complied with by Lord Harcourt, as will appear by his 
 lordship's letter to Lord Weymouth, of Sept. 11, 1776 ; and as this gen- 
 tleman's conduct in support of government has been very uniform and 
 honourable during my administration, and I have not been able to provide 
 for him in the line of office agreeably to the expectations which had been 
 given him, I am induced to hope his majesty will consider him as a 
 worthy object of his royal bounty. 
 
 Charles Henry Coote, Esq., son to Deane Coote. — This gentleman is 
 
168 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 member for the Queen's County, and has generally, during the present 
 parliament, supported his majesty's measures ; but in the last session, 
 when it became difficult for members of counties to give an uniform sup- 
 port, I promised Mr. Coote to recommend him to his majesty for this 
 favour, in the manner specified in my official letter, if there should not be 
 an opportunity for my gratifying him with some civil employment, upon 
 the terms of his giving a consistent support to government, which he has 
 very honourably performed. 
 
 Francis Bernard Beamish, Esq., was brought into parliament for the 
 borough of Rathcormack by Mr. Tonson, in conjunction with whom he 
 has uniformly supported his majesty's measures. In the session 1777, 
 Mr. Tonson having resigned the office of lieutenant-governor of Cork, I 
 gave Mr. Beamish assurance of a civil employment; and not having 
 found it in my power to provide for him in that mode, I promised to re- 
 commend him to his majesty for this mark of the royal favour. 
 
 Ponsonby Tottenham, Esq., nephew to the earl of Ely. — His father and 
 two brothers are in parliament, and, with him, have been constant sup- 
 porters of his majesty's government. 
 
 James Sommerville, Esq., member of parliament for the borough of 
 New Town, which seat he purchased. Before the opening of the last 
 session, Mr. Sommerville oflfered his support, which he has most uniformly 
 given, upon the assurance of some provision. He was formerly in business 
 as a merchant, but unsuccessful ; and being in distressed circumstances, 
 and no opportunities offering of providing him with office, I am induced 
 to recommend him for his majesty's bounty. 
 
 William Caulfield, Esq., member for the borough of Tulsk, who has 
 the collection of Donaghadee, and keeping house at the Capeland Isle, 
 worth about £300 per annum, which he will resign to accommodate go- 
 vernment. He was formerly an officer in the army, in which service and 
 in the revenue he has been upwards of forty years. Mr. Caulfield has 
 been a constant and uniform supporter of government, and is most zeal- 
 ously attached to his majesty's service. 
 
 Thomas Nesbitt, Esq., member of the borough of Cavan. This gen- 
 tleman was early recommended me for some mark of favour by the late 
 attorney- general, and he has been a constant supporter of government ; 
 and as I have not been able to provide for him in office, and he has repre- 
 sented to me that the expense of living in Dubhn during the session is 
 distressing to him, I have recommended him to his majesty for this small 
 pension, his father having already a pension of £600 a year. 
 
 James Shell, Esq., one of the commissioners of appeals, is an old ser- 
 vant of the crown, and when in parliament constantly supported govern- 
 ment. His distresses at present prevent him from executing his office, 
 which I have given to Mr. Tydd, member for Marj'borough, who sup- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 169 
 
 ported government during the present session, upon a promise of being 
 promoted on the first vacancy of this board. Mr. Sheil has been recom- 
 mended to me, in his unfortunate situation, as a proper object of his 
 majesty's bounty. 
 
 Robert Sibthorpe, Esq., one of his majesty's counsel in this kingdom, 
 and the president at the general quarter sessions of the county of Dublin, 
 with a salary of £200 a year. As the present distressed state of this gen- 
 tleman's circumstances do not allow of his executing this office in person, 
 and the service of the county requires it to be performed by a gentleman 
 of practice and ability in the law, I am induced to recommend Mr. Sib- 
 thorpe for his majesty's bounty, and intend appointing as his successor, 
 with an additional salary of £300 a year, Mr. Toler, the member for 
 Tralee, who^ supported his majesty's measures during the last session with 
 great zeal and firmness, and will, I have no doubt, from his abilities and 
 knowledge, give very great satisfaction to the county of Dublin : an 
 official application for the additional salary accompanies this letter. 
 
 Sir Boyle Roche, member of parliament for the borough of Gowran, 
 which seat he purchased, with a view to support government, to which he 
 is most zealously attached. 
 
 Edward Bulkeley, Esq., was formerly joined with his uncle, the late 
 Michael Clarke, Esq., in the office of agent for the half-pay officers, 
 worth about £600 per annum ; which office, upon Mr. Clarke's demise, he 
 enjoyed for some time solely, but in Lord Harcourt's administration it 
 was given to Sir William Montgomery, for the accommodation of govern- 
 ment, and a pension granted to Mr. Bulkeley of £250 a year, which not 
 being equal to the income of his office, the present sum is recommended 
 to make up the deficiency. 
 
 The Honorable John Evans is brother to Lord Carbery, and was former 
 collector of Loughrea, but his extreme ill state of health disabling him 
 from executing his office, he resigned it in hopes of receiving some pro- 
 vision from government. 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Jebb, wife of Dr. Frederick Jebb, a physician of this 
 town, and author of the letters which appeared in the beginning of the 
 last session, under the signature of " Guatimozin," and other political 
 productions. As the press was exceedingly violent at that time, and had 
 great effect in inflaming the minds of the people, it was recommended to 
 me as a measure of absolute necessity, by some means, if possible, to 
 check its spirit. On this a negotiation was opened with Dr. Jebb, who 
 was then the chief of the political writers, and he agreed, upon the terms 
 of my recommending him for a pension of £300 a year, to give his assist- 
 ance to government. Since that time he has been very useful, as well by 
 suppressing inflammatory publications, as by writing and other services, 
 which he promises to continue to the extent of his power. 
 
170 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 Dame Jane Heron. — I some time since appointed Sir Richard Heron, 
 my chief secretary, to the office of searcher, packer and ganger at Cork, 
 the value of which, upon an average of the last seven years, is about 
 £700, although the years since the war have been higher than that 
 average ; and in order to make it equal to what his majesty has been gra- 
 ciously pleased to consider as a proper recompence to the chief secretary 
 of the lord lieutenant of Ireland for his discharge of that very laborious 
 and arduous station, I have, at Sir Richard's desire, requested that his 
 majesty would be graciously pleased to grant this pension to Lady Heron. 
 I have, by the same messenger, transmitted to their lordships a recom- 
 mendation that the pensions upon the civil establishment of Guy Moore 
 Coote be transferred to his wife, Mrs. Mary Coote. This gentleman 
 always voted with government ; and as this was the only request he made, 
 I was induced to comply with it. 
 
 Their lordships will receive a third letter, recommending Joseph Sirr, 
 Esq., for a military pension. Mr. Sirr served many years in the army ; 
 and some time ago, in the office of sheriff of this county, was of singular 
 serv'ice to government : he has long executed the office of deputy judge 
 advocate, the emoluments of which amounted to the sum of £150 per 
 annum but, having lately lost his sight, is incapable of any longer dis- 
 charging that duty : his great age, added to his long and faithful ser\'ices, 
 render him a very worthy object of the royal favour. 
 
 The messenger carries with him another letter, recommending pensions 
 to Henry Meredyth, Esq., in trust for his nieces Letitia Meredyth and 
 Judith Woodward ; and a further separate apphcation for pensions for 
 Robert George Gamble and Mr. Edward Stirhng. The reasons which 
 have induced me to make these requests are fully set forth in the letters 
 severally recommending them. 
 
 I have also made my humble request to his majesty, through their 
 lordships, that the salary of £150 a year, placed on the civil estabUsh- 
 ment for the Honourable John Butler, as clerk of the pipe, may be con- 
 tinued to him and his son Humphrey Butler, during his majesty's plea- 
 sure, on their being joined in that office. Mr. Butler is great uncle to 
 the present Lord Lanesborough, has been a very old sen'ant to govern- 
 ment, and is most zealously attached to his majesty's person and govern- 
 ment. 
 
 I cannot sufficiently express to your lordships with how much reluc- 
 tance I state the several requests ; but I am driven to this necessity, not 
 having any other means of gratifpng the expectations of gentlemen who 
 engaged in the service of government through this long and arduous 
 session. The civil patronage never was so slender as during my admi- 
 nistration ; and the only two capital offices which fell since my coming to 
 this kingdom, (the secretar}'ship of state and that of deputy vice-trea- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 171 
 
 surer,) were both engaged by my predecessors. I do not mention the 
 late Sir Henry Cavendish's office, as, though he died after my administra- 
 tion. Lord Harcourt was still in the possession of the government. 
 
 If my recommendation respecting Lord Shannon and Mr. Forster is 
 accepted of, it %vill enable me to make an advancement for a gentleman 
 whom Lord Shannon particularly protects; and in succession for Mr. 
 Howard, brother to Lord Clonmore, who, with another brother of his 
 lordship's, have uniformly supported government upon every occasion. 
 The office also of the provost's son, — whom I did not choose to remove, 
 though his office is within my department, tiU I knew your lordship's 
 sentiments with respect to his father, — would enable me to fulfil another 
 engagement, and in succession to take off some of the pensions — a species 
 of provision which of all others gives the greatest dissatisfaction here. 
 
 I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 Buckingham. 
 
 If we now extract from the Museum account of Ireland, a 
 few tables explanatory of the income and expenditure of the 
 country ; and if, with the view of completing the range of co- 
 temporary authorities, we prefix to these tables the picture 
 drawn by Mr. Pitt, upon a later occasion, of the manner in 
 which England was accustomed to govern Ireland ; a full de- 
 scription will have been given in this chapter of the condition 
 of the country immediately before the period at which Grattaa 
 began to devote himself to the high labour of its regeneration. 
 
 In 1781, Mr. Pitt called upon the English House of Com- 
 mons " to recollect, that, from the Revolution to a period 
 within the memory of every man who heard him, until these 
 very few years, the system had been that of debarring Ireland 
 from the enjoyment and use of her own resources, — to make 
 that kingdom subservient to the interests and opulence of this 
 country, without suffering her to share in the bounties of na- 
 ture, in the industry of her citizens, or making them contri- 
 bute to the general interests and strength of the empire. 
 This system of cruel and abominable restraint had, however, 
 been exploded. It was at once harsh and unjust, and it was 
 as impolitic as it was oppressive ; for, however necessary it 
 might be to the partial benefit of districts in Britain, it pro- 
 
172 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 moted not the real prosperity and strength of the empire. 
 That which had been the system counteracted the kindness of 
 Providence, and suspended the industry and enterprize of man. 
 Ireland was put under such restraint that she was shut out 
 from every species of commerce. She was restrained from 
 sending the produce of her own soil to foreign markets, and 
 all correspondence with the colonies of Great Britain was pro- 
 hibited to her ; so that she could not derive their commodities 
 but through the medium of Britain. This was the system 
 that prevailed, and this was the state of thraldom in which 
 that country had been kept ever since the Revolution." 
 
 The following are the tables already referred to. The de- 
 tails will be found worth examination. We shall only point 
 to one significant fact. In the year 1772, the total income 
 appears to have amounted to <^839,756 lis. 7id.; and the 
 expence of collection, deducting bounties and drawbacks, to 
 
 12 6, 89 8 5s. 8d. In the following year, 1773, the income was 
 <£'887,935 155. Id. ; and the expence of collection, deducting 
 bounties and drawbacks, c£^140,120 ISs. 5d. 
 
 An Abstract of the Hereditary Revenue and Additional 
 Duties, for two Years, ending the 25th of March, 1773. 
 
 
 In the Year ending 
 Lady-day, 1772. 
 
 In the Year ending 
 Lady- day, 1773. 
 
 Hereditary Revenue : 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Light House Duties .... 
 
 451 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 
 495 
 
 8 
 
 21 
 
 Casual Revenue { ^^'^^^ ^^f^ ; 
 
 1,142 
 3,729 
 
 5 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 H 
 
 1,060 
 5,179 
 
 8 
 
 19 
 
 9 
 
 8f 
 
 Crown Rents, Composition Rents, "1 
 and Quit Rents . . . . J 
 
 64,084 
 
 5 
 
 8i 
 
 64,076 
 
 6 
 
 6f 
 
 Customs, Inwards . , . • 
 
 199.368 
 
 12 
 
 7i 
 
 232,767 
 
 15 
 
 91 
 
 Customs, Outwards .... 
 
 38,850 
 
 16 
 
 H 
 
 37,397 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 Imported Excise .... 
 
 146,461 
 
 11 
 
 2h 
 
 151,661 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 Inland Excise 
 
 70,319 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 74,991 
 
 5 
 
 4i 
 
 Ale Licences 
 
 7,898 
 
 9 
 
 sh 
 
 7,887 
 
 6 
 
 Oh 
 
 Wine and Strong Water Licences 
 
 21,012 
 
 
 
 
 
 21,309 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 Hearth Money .... 
 
 58,439 
 
 18 
 
 6 
 
 59,938 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 Residue of the Duties on Teas . 
 
 4,799 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 6,638 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 
 3,797 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 4,335 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 620,355 14 11 
 
 667,738 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 173 
 
 Abstract of the Hereditary Revenue, &c. — continued. 
 
 
 In the Year ending 
 Lady-day, 1772. 
 
 In the Year ending 
 Lady-day, 1773. 
 
 Additional Duties : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Tobacco 
 
 66,241 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 68,971 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 T^ine •••••• 
 
 16,429 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 19,454 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 Spirits 
 
 Muslin 
 
 83,080 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 71,305 
 
 11 
 
 
 4,056 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 6,414 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 Foreign Paper 
 
 596 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 739 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 Molasses 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 East India Silks and Stuffs 
 
 42 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 36 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 Ale, Beer, and Strong Waters . 
 
 .48,971 
 
 3 
 
 lOi 
 
 53,274 
 
 14 
 
 n 
 
 £ 
 
 219,419 
 
 16 
 
 8^ 
 
 220,196 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 An Abstract of the Expence of Management, of Bounties, Draw- 
 backs, &c., for two Years ending 25th March, 1773, paid out of the 
 Revenue, in transitu. 
 
 In the Year ending 
 
 In the Year ending 
 
 25th March, 1772. 
 
 25th March, 1773. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 30,720 
 
 12 
 
 2i 
 
 88,847 
 
 
 
 5i 
 
 26,052 
 
 13 
 
 8^ 
 
 31,529 
 
 6 
 
 71 
 
 255 
 
 13 
 
 111 
 
 
 
 
 1,944 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 2,145 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 7,917 
 
 15 
 
 10 
 
 5,398 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 916 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 923 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1,446 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 1,270 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 6,308 
 
 
 
 
 
 6,367 
 
 18 
 
 H 
 
 957 
 
 
 lU 
 
 940 
 
 17 
 
 31 
 
 351 
 
 11 
 
 
 1,769 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 21 
 
 5 
 
 8| 
 
 928 
 
 6 
 
 91 
 
 126,893 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 140,120 
 
 13 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 
 
 6,874 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 9,405 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 
 
 
 
 39,560 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 44,503 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 46,435 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 54,000 
 
 13 
 
 11 
 
 Salaries to Officers on the Revenue \ 
 
 Establishment . . . . / 
 Incident Charges .... 
 Officers' Rewards for Tobacco and "I 
 
 Tea seized and sold . . . J 
 Portage Bills .... 
 Repayments to Merchants 
 Wine W^arrants to Privy Councillors 
 Light House Expenses 
 Salaries to Hearth-money Officers 
 Hearth-money Incidents and Con- 1 
 
 stables j 
 
 Allowance claimed on Hearth-money "I 
 
 Collectors and Gangers' Balances j 
 Arrears of Inland Excise . 
 
 Bounties : 
 For Convicting Burglary, perpetual . 
 Flax Seed Imported r 31 Years, 1 ' 
 
 Flax Seed Exported! ^"^"^ ^^^^ J . 
 Land Carriage of Corn, &c. to Dub- "l 
 lin, perpetual . . . . j 
 
 Carried forward . £ 
 
174 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Abstract of the Expence of Management, &c. — continued. 
 
 Bounties — continued. 
 
 Brought forward . 
 Irish Coal brought to / 21 Years, "I 
 
 Dublin by Sea . \ from 1772 J 
 Fishing Busses 
 Irish Cured Fish"| , 
 
 Exported . I 14 Years, 
 Irish Fish Oil and [ from 1766 
 
 Whalebone .J . 
 
 Drawbacks 
 on the Additional Duties 
 
 Tobacco , 
 Wine 
 Spirits 
 Muslin 
 
 Foreign Paper 
 
 
 In the Year ending 
 
 In the Year ending 
 
 
 25th March, 1772. 
 
 26th March, 1773. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 46,435 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 54,000 
 
 18 
 
 11 
 
 
 113 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 209 
 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 
 9,424 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 11,012 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 
 511 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 663 
 
 15 
 
 2i 
 
 • 
 
 100 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 56,584 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 65,886 
 
 18 
 
 H 
 
 
 1,862 
 
 11 
 
 oi 
 
 911 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 
 193 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 199 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 4,222 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 1,476 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 
 11 
 
 15 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 15 
 
 5 
 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 6,305 
 
 6 
 
 iH 
 
 2,589 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 An Abstract of the Civil Establishment. 
 
 
 As it stood at 
 
 As it stood a 
 
 t 
 
 
 Michaelmas, 1767. 
 
 Michaelmas, 1772. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Exchequer 
 
 King's Bench ..... 
 
 6,207 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 6,547 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 2,749 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 2,749 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 Chancery ...... 
 
 3,617 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 3,617 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 Common Pleas 
 
 2,607 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 2,607 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 State Officers 
 
 7,503 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 7,503 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 Incidents 
 
 13,819 
 
 18 
 
 10^ 
 
 15,643 
 
 17 
 
 Of 
 
 Custom Officers .... 
 
 2,288 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 2,688 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 Perpetuities 
 
 1,156 
 
 16 
 
 7 
 
 1,456 
 
 16 
 
 7 
 
 Commissioners of Appeals 
 
 600 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nonconforming Ministers 
 
 1,200 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,200 
 
 
 
 
 
 Concordatums ..... 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Commissioners of Barracks, &c. 
 
 3,150 
 
 
 
 
 
 3,150 
 
 
 
 
 
 Court of Admiralty .... 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 
 
 Commissioners of Accounts 
 
 
 
 
 2,800 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pensions . . . 
 
 83,541 
 
 7 
 
 *6 
 
 80,249 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 French Pensions .... 
 
 811 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 701 
 
 13 
 
 9 
 
 £ 
 
 134,553 
 
 10 
 
 9^ 
 
 137,716 
 
 5 
 
 21 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 175 
 
 An Abstract of the Military Establishment. 
 
 
 As it stood at 
 
 As it stood at 
 
 
 Michaelmas, 1767. 
 
 Michaelmas, 1772. 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 General Officers .... 
 
 28,611 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 25,874 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 Military Contingencies 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Military Incidents .... 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 Regiments of Horse 
 
 41,074 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 41,074 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 8 Ditto of Dragoons .... 
 
 71,044 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 71,044 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 30 Battalions of Foot, 1767 
 
 236,145 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 275,602 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 27 Battalions of Foot only, 1772 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 Regiments of Horse 
 
 3,212 
 
 
 
 
 
 3,212 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 Ditto of Dragoons 
 
 4,964 
 
 
 
 
 
 4,964 
 
 
 
 
 
 30 iJitto 01 I'oot .... 
 
 9,855 
 
 
 
 
 
 9,855 
 
 
 
 
 
 Battle Axe Guards .... 
 
 1,891 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 1,891 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 Additional Pay in Dublin . * 
 
 3,672 
 
 1 
 
 Oi 
 
 3,672 
 
 1 
 
 
 Governors of Garrisons 
 
 3,503 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 3,503 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Fire and Candle for Guards, &c. 
 
 166 
 
 
 
 
 
 166 
 
 
 
 
 
 Military Pensions .... 
 
 3,686 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 5,509 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 Half Pay 
 
 35,068 
 
 2 
 
 H 
 
 27,474 
 
 12 
 
 3^ 
 
 Barracks 
 
 13,336 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 13,336 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 Widows of Officers .... 
 
 5,569 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 5,569 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 464,861 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 495,809 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 N.B. — To this must be added the Establishment of the Ordnance, which, 
 with the Contingencies, amounts to about £17,000 per annum. 
 
 During the exciting struggle which now took place, circum- 
 stances of peculiar interest and power favoured Mr. Grattan's 
 efforts, and the advancement of the national cause. The very- 
 year after that in which he commenced his parliamentary 
 career, was made memorable by the enrolment of the Irish 
 Volunteers. These celebrated corps, whose influence over 
 the public affairs of their country was for a length of time as 
 mighty as it was beneficial, took their rise in the town of 
 Belfast. Corruption had drained the country of money, — the 
 reverses of the American war had drawn off all the troops, — 
 the privateers of the young republic were sweeping our ships 
 from the sea, — the navy of France was sailing triumphantly 
 along our undefended shores, when the rumour was spread that 
 Ireland was to be invaded. As every man in that country felt 
 convinced that its defence, if invaded, would be impracticable, 
 
176 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 the alarm became general. It was at this crisis that the 
 inhabitants of Belfast petitioned the government for a garrison, 
 and received for answer that half a troop of dismounted ca- 
 valry, and half a company of armed invalids had been ordered 
 to occupy their town. As soon ^ the minister had thus 
 shown his inability to protect the people, the people undertook 
 to protect themselves ; and in discharging this natural duty, 
 they proceeded with equal judgment and spirit. The inha- 
 bitants able and willing to bear arms at their own expence 
 for the defence of the country, enrolled themselves into volun- 
 teer corps, and obtained fit persons to put them in a state of 
 effective discipline. Other towns followed this example, and 
 ere long, the growing numbers of the force proved so useful, 
 that the government was induced to distribute amongst them 
 16,000 stand of arms. The English cabinet foresaw from the 
 beginning, and repeatedly remonstrated against, the danger of 
 allowing armed associations of this kind to become general 
 throughout the country ; but the exhausted authorities of 
 Dublin Castle were too feeble to control a movement superin- 
 duced by their own incapacity, and evidently national. They 
 had misapplied the hereditary revenue which the people paid 
 to the king as the price of protection, and had left the country 
 without defence. Possessing no force of their own, they could 
 not prevent the formation of a popular one. It was upon their 
 side a case of utter impotence, in consequence of which the 
 volunteers, during three years, continued to increase in num- 
 bers and to rise in public estimation, until at length they 
 amounted to 40,000 and even to 90,000 men ; and ultimately 
 dictated to the government the particular measures which they 
 deemed necessary for the purpose of redeeming the constitu- 
 tion and restoring the commerce and the liberties of their 
 country. 
 
 The principles and objects of these armed patriots were 
 clearly and broadly stated. They insisted upon the enjoyment 
 of equal liberty, and similar institutions in Great Britain and 
 Ireland; they proclaimed it to be the duty of every good 
 citizen to maintain the connection between the two countries 
 
THE COXXECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 177 
 
 inseparable, and also the freedom and independence of Ireland ; 
 they affirmed that the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland 
 only were competent to make laws binding the subjects of the 
 realm of Ireland ; and they publicly avowed their determination 
 not to obey, nor give operation to any laws save those enacted 
 by the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, whose rights and 
 privileges jointly and severally they declared themselves re- 
 solved to support with their lives and fortunes.* When lan- 
 guage of this kind was held by noblemen and gentlemen in 
 arms, headed and instructed by such leaders as the duke of 
 Leinster, the earl of Charlemont, by Grattan, Flood, and by 
 not a few-f- of the members of both houses of parliament who 
 were most distinguished for rank, property, and talents, the 
 experiment was no longer doubtful. It was feebly met by a 
 temporising line of action upon the part of the government, 
 which only served to render the final issue more certain and 
 abrupt. 
 
 The Irish parliament was called together in the month oi 
 October, ] 779, but so disturbed was the public mind, and so 
 strong the apprehension of violence entertained by the execu- 
 tive, that it was resolved at a full meeting of the privy council 
 and confidential servants of the government, to limit the usual 
 two years'* vote of the supplies to six months. The embarrass- 
 ing state of the revenue added to the force of the popular 
 re-action. A sum of =£^200,000 was demanded to clear off 
 the arrears upon the public establishments to Lady-day, 1779, 
 and it was estimated that a further sum of d£^SOO,000 w^ould 
 be required to make good the accruing deficiency up to J une 
 24, 1780. It was therefore proposed to raise half a million 
 sterling by loans and lotteries, and to put on new taxes for the 
 
 * Resolutions at the quarterly meeting of the Dublin Volunteers, the 
 duke of Leinster in the chair, June 9, 1780. 
 
 t In the month of July, 1780, the different volunteer corps were re- 
 viewed throughout the kingdom ; those in Westmeath, by the earl of 
 Belvidere ; those in Sligo and Galway, by the earl of Clanricarde ; those 
 in Londonderry, by Lord Erne ; those in Cork, by the earl of Shannon ; 
 those in Clare and Limerick, by the earls of Kingsborough and Inchiquin ; 
 and those in Wicklow, by the earl of Ravenscourt. 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
178 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 purpose of providing a fund to pay off the money borrowed. 
 But the scheme was successfully resisted, and at last the two 
 governments, — the English as well as the Irish, — were com- 
 pelled by their distresses to relax the severe code by which 
 Ireland had been so long afflicted. On the motion of Mr. 
 Foster, two resolutions were carried unanimously — the first, 
 that the exportation of its woollen and other manufactures 
 would tend to relieve Ireland ; the second, that liberty to trade 
 with the colonies in America and the West Indies, and the 
 settlements in Africa, would be productive of great commercial 
 benefits. An act passed early in the next year by the parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain adopted these resolutions, and so far the 
 colonial trade was thrown equally open to Ireland as to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Grattan now determined to assert the independence of the 
 Irish legislature. For this purpose he prepared a declaration 
 of rights, and announced his intention of moving for a repeal 
 of Poynings' law. Of this noble labour he has himself given 
 an interesting account. It roused, as soon as it became 
 known, a host of passions. Hope, terror, anger, and re- 
 sentment agitated the public mind in every direction. Tor- 
 tured and oppressed by the doubts of the timid, the fore- 
 bodings of the grave and prudent, and the menaces of the 
 factious and the^ corrupt, Grattan withdrew for awhile to 
 Celbridge Abbey,— retreat sacred to the memory of Irish 
 genius, — and took counsel of his old friend and relative, 
 Colonel Marlay, who sustained and encouraged him to ad- 
 vance. " Along the banks of that river," he writes, " amid 
 the groves and bowers of Swift and Vanessa, I grew con- 
 vinced that I was right; arguments unanswerable came to 
 my mind, and what I then prepared, confirmed me in my de- 
 termination to persevere ; a great spirit arose among the 
 people, and the speech which I delivered afterwards in the 
 house, communicated its fire and impelled them on : the coun- 
 try caught the flame, and it rapidly extended. I was sup- 
 ported by eighteen counties, by the grand jury addresses, and 
 the resolutions of the volunteers. I stood upon that ground, 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 179 
 
 and was determined never to yield. I brought on the ques- 
 tion, April 19, 1780. That was a great day for Ireland — it 
 gave her liberty." 
 
 The question was submitted in the form of three resolu- 
 tions, which were moved by Mr. Grattan, and seconded by 
 Mr. Stewart, afterwards marquis of Londonderry. 
 
 " Resolved, — 1 . That his most excellent majesty, by and 
 with the consent of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are 
 the only power competent to enact laws to bind Ireland. 
 
 2. That the crown of Ireland is, and ought to be, inse- 
 parably annexed to the crown of Great Britain. 
 
 " S. That Great Britain and Ireland are inseparably united 
 under one sovereign, under the common and indissoluble ties 
 of interest, loyalty, and freedom." 
 
 Grattan spoke for two hours in support of these resolutions, 
 and in the following strain : — 
 
 " If I had lived when the 9th of William took away the woollen ma- 
 nufacture, or when the 6th of George I. declared this country to be 
 dependent, and subject to laws to be enacted by the parliament of Eng- 
 land, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience to seize the 
 first moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy of such acts of 
 power ; or, if I had a son, I should have administered to him an oath, 
 that he would consider himself as a person separate and set apart for the 
 discharge of so important a duty. Upon the same principle am I now 
 come to move a declaration of right, the first moment occurring since my 
 time, in which such a declaration could be made with any chance of suc- 
 cess, or without aggravation of oppression." 
 
 " Let corruption tremble ; let the enemy, foreign and domestic, trem- 
 ble; but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these means of safety, and 
 this hour of redemption. Yes ; there does exist an enlightened sense of 
 rights, a young appetite for freedom, a solid strength, and a rapid fire, 
 which not only put a declaration of right within your power, but put it 
 out of your power to decline one. Eighteen counties are at your bar ; 
 they stand there with the compact of Henry, with the charter of John, 
 and with all the passions of the people. ' Our lives are at your service, 
 but ouy hberties, we received them from God ; we wiU not resign them to 
 man.' Speaking to you thus, if you repulse these petitioners, you abdi- 
 cate the privileges of parliament, forfeit the rights of the kingdom, repu- 
 diate the instructions of your constituents, bilge the sense of your country, 
 palsy the enthusiasm of the people, and reject that good, which — not a 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Lord North, not a Lord Buckinghamshire, not a Lord Hillsborough, but 
 a certain providential conjuncture, or, rather, the hand of God seems to 
 extend to you. Nor are we only prompted to this when we consider our 
 strength; we are challenged to it when we look to Great Britain. The 
 people of that country are now waiting to hear the parliament of Ireland 
 speak on the subject of their liberty. It begins to be made a question in 
 England, whether the principal persons wish to be free. It was the deh- 
 cacy of former parliaments to be silent on the subject of commercial re- 
 strictions, and to show a knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of the 
 violation. You have spoken out ; you have shown a knowledge of the 
 fact, but not a sense of the violation. On the contrary, you have returned 
 thanks for a partial repeal made on a principle of power : you have re- 
 turned thanks as for a favour; and your exultation has brought your 
 charters as well as your spirit into question, and tends to shake to her foun- 
 dation your title to liberty. Thus you do not leave your rights even where 
 you found them. You have done too much not to do more ; you have 
 gone too far not to go on ; you have brought yourselves into that situa- 
 tion in which you must silently abdicate the rights of your country, or 
 publicly restore them. It is very true, you may feed your manufacturers, 
 and landlords may get their rents ; or you may export woollens, and load 
 a vessel with baize, serges, and kerseys ; and you may bring back again, 
 directly from the plantations, sugar, indigo, speckle-wood, beetle-root, 
 and panellas. But liberty, the foundation of trade, the charters of the 
 land, the independency of parliament, the securing, crowning, consum- 
 mation of every thing, are yet to come. Without them, the work is im- 
 perfect, the foundation is wanting, the capital is wanting, trade is not 
 free, Ireland is a colony \vithout the benefit of a charter, and you are a 
 synod without the privileges of a parliament." 
 
 Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illuminations, and we may sicken 
 with addresses ; but the public imagination \vill never rest, nor will her 
 heart be at ease — never ! so long as the parliament of England exercises 
 or claims a legislation over this country : so long as this shall be the case, 
 that very free trade, otherwise a perpetual attachment, will be a cause of 
 new discontent. It will create a pride to feel the indignity of bondage ; 
 it will furnish a strength to bite your chain ; and the liberty withheld will 
 poison the good communicated. 
 
 " The British minister mistakes the Irish character. Had he intended 
 to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar. There is no 
 middle policy : win her heart by the restoration of her right, or cut oflF 
 the nation's right hand ; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. 
 We may talk plausibly to England; but so long as she exercises a power 
 to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state of war. The 
 claims of the one are against the liberty of the other, and the sentiments 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 181 
 
 of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last drop of her blood. The 
 English opposition are therefore right ; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland. 
 They judge of us by other great nations, by the nation whose political life 
 has been a struggle for liberty : they judge of us with a true knowledge 
 and just deference for our character — that a country, enlightened as 
 Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, 
 will be satisfied with nothing less than liberty." 
 
 Other strains of equally fervid eloquence were poured forth, 
 and the house divided, after a debate of fifteen hours — ayes, 
 97 ; noes, 136. But this repulse neither cooled the ardour, nor 
 shook the determination of the popular leaders. Poynings* 
 law was attacked by Mr. Yelverton, afterwards Lord Avon- 
 more, who proposed to regulate the transmission of bills to 
 England, and lost his motion by no more than 25 votes, the 
 ayes being 105, and the noes 180. The government continued 
 to preserve their majority in the Commons, but out of doors 
 their authority was in more than one respect powerless. The 
 English Mutiny Act, which asserted the right of punishing 
 deserters and mihtary offences in Ireland, was now resisted. 
 Upon a motion maele by Mr. Bushe, for leave to bring in the 
 heads of a bill to regulate the punishment of deserters in Ire- 
 land, the votes were 148 to 75 against the measure; but the 
 victorious lord lieutenant was at the same time compelled to 
 tell the minister in London that the English law was a dead 
 letter, as no Irish magistrate would put it into execution. 
 Nevertheless an absolute authority, maintained for ages, was 
 not to be easily wrested away. Instead of yielding the point 
 in dispute to the Irish parliament, the English minister de- 
 clared the Mutiny Act perpetual ! 
 
 It was for the sake of maintaining himself in this position 
 that Lord Buckinghamshire was forced to carry bribery to 
 the extent described in the official correspondence already 
 quoted. Having exhausted " the means of gratifying the 
 expectations of gentlemen \vho engaged in the service of 
 government through this long and arduous contest," he was 
 succeeded by the earl of Carlisle. Under this administration 
 the usual abuse in the patronage of government, the old 
 arts of seducing the leaders of the opposition, and the esta- 
 
182 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Wished waste of the public revenue, were continued with so 
 much skill and assiduity, that at one time there were only 30 
 members to be found voting against the government in the 
 House of Commons. Yet it was during the session of 1781, 
 that two important concessions were made to the liberty of 
 the subject. The penal laws against the Roman Catholics 
 were relaxed in some degree, and Ireland obtained for the first 
 time an Habeas Corpus Act. It was also during the admi- 
 nistration of Lord Carlisle, that the Bank of Ireland was 
 established. 
 
 But compactly as corruption had bound the creatures of 
 government together in parliament, the volunteers and the 
 friends of freedom gathered numbers, strength, and power 
 throughout the country. At every step they assumed a bolder 
 attitude, and in the year 1782, enjoyed the triumph of com- 
 plete success. This great achievement was expedited by two 
 important proceedings — first, the convention of 242 delegates 
 from the volunteers of all Ireland, held at Dungannon, 
 Feb. 15, 1782, at which the celebrated resolutions dra^^^l up 
 by Grattan and Flood were passed ; and second, the dissolu- 
 tion of Lord North's ministry in the course of the following 
 month. The earl of Rockingham becoming prime minister ; 
 Mr. Fox, secretary of state ; and the duke of Portland, lord 
 lieutenant of Ireland ; assiduous efforts were quickly made to 
 induce the popular leaders in Ireland to delay the measures 
 which they had been urging forward, and to allow time for a 
 mature consideration of the proposed improvements in the 
 constitution. The reply returned to these importunities w^as 
 excellent. " We are pledged to the people,'' said Grattan, 
 " our measures are public property, and cannot be postponed." 
 He and Lord Charlemont were then solicited to take office, but 
 they declined the overture. Of this conduct Mr. Grattan well 
 observed upon a subsequent occasion, — " I was young and poor ; 
 I had scarcely ^500 a year. Lord Charlemont was as poor as 
 any peer, and I as any commoner. We were, however, deter- 
 mined to refuse office : our opinion, and a just one too, was, 
 that office in Ireland was different from office in England ; it 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 183 
 
 was not a situation held for Ireland, but for an English go- 
 vernment, often in collision with, and frequently hostile to, 
 Ireland. We stated that we should be consulted, but not 
 considered."" 
 
 It was by this dignified independence, a firm and noble 
 virtue, which constantly accompanied his public conduct, that 
 Grattan rose immeasurably superior in point of personal spirit 
 and political merit to all his contemporaries. And richly did 
 he now reap his ripe reward. The English ministry applied to 
 him for an enumeration of the grievances of his country, and 
 for instructions as to the manner in which they should be re- 
 dressed. Being thus honoured, he specified four grievances — 
 foreign legislation, a foreign judicature, a legislative privy 
 council, and a perpetual army ; and to remove these he de- 
 manded — 
 
 " The relinquishment of legislative and appellant judicature 
 by the British parliament, or the repeal of 6 Geo. I. 
 
 The practice of the privy council to alter and suppress 
 bills passed by the Irish parliament, to be removed by law. 
 
 " The perpetual Mutiny Bill to be repealed, and a new 
 Mutiny Bill with the declaration of rights, the number of men, 
 and articles of war set forth ; and the whole to be for two 
 years. 
 
 " Laws necessary to legalize judgments by the House of 
 Lords and King's Bench in England ; to explain Poynings' 
 law. 
 
 " The regulation of his majesty's forces to be limited. 
 
 " The modification of Poynings' law to be radical and by 
 act of parliament, without leaving the shadow of a grievance 
 to alter. 
 
 " These," he adds, are the only terms I made with go- 
 vernment. Whether they are honourable to me or serviceable 
 to the country, the calm sense of posterity will judge.'' A fair 
 understanding, but no explicit arrangement, appears to have 
 been come to upon these important questions when the session 
 of 1782 was opened by the duke of Portland. Grattan's con- 
 fidence in the result, however, may be judged of by the style 
 
184 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 of his speech when moving the memorable amendment to the 
 address, which being carried unanimously, anticipated and 
 assured the victory. 
 
 " I am now," he began, " to address a free people ! Ages 
 have passed away, and this is the first moment in which you 
 could be distinguished by that appellation. 
 
 " 1 have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, that 
 I have nothing to add, and have only to admire by what 
 heaven-directed steps you have proceeded, until the whole 
 faculty of the nation is braced up to the act of her own de- 
 liverance. 
 
 " I found Ireland on her knees ; I watched over her with 
 an eternal solicitude ; I have traced her progress from injuries 
 to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift ! Spirit 
 of Molyneux ! your genius has prevailed ! Ireland is now a 
 nation. In that new character I hail her, and bowing to her 
 august presence, I say Esto perpetual'' 
 
 No detail can be here^desired of the particular acts of par- 
 liament which were now prepared and passed for the purpose 
 of effecting the changes demanded by G rattan and the volun- 
 teers. It is enough to state that they proved at the moment 
 satisfactory and agreeable in every respect to the nation, that 
 the public joy was unbounded, and that the gratitude of par- 
 liament and the people overflowed with generous deeds. 
 ,£^100,000 were unanimously voted for the service of the navy, 
 and c£^50,000 to Mr. Grattan. Unfortunately, however, the 
 liberal measures of the year 1782 proved insufficient to ensure 
 freedom to the subject, or purity to the legislature and the 
 government. But an examination of the circumstances by 
 which this striking failure was occasioned, and the union of 
 the two countries was, ere long, brought about, will be most 
 conveniently entered upon as the subject of a separate chapter. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 185 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CONNECTION 
 WITH ENGLAND— cowc/MrfeJ. 
 
 THE LEGISLATURE INDEPENDENT AND THE PARLIAMENT UNRE- 
 FORMED. — SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE VOLUNTEERS, THEIR 
 DISSENSIONS AND DECLINE. — THE COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS 
 
 AND THE REGENCY QUESTION RENDER THE UNION INEVITABLE. 
 
 CONTINUED CORRUPTION, IMPERFECT REFORMS, AND INCREASED 
 DISCONTENT. — MR. GRATTAN WITHDRAWS FROM THE PUBLIC 
 SERVICE. — THE REBELLION OF 1798. — THE UNION COMPLETED 
 
 IN 1800. 
 
 The frequent recurrence of political revolutions during the 
 course of the last sixty or seventy years has enabled us to 
 ^form opinions, at the present day, to some extent well defined 
 and positive, respecting the general laws by which popular 
 movements of this kind are governed. Almost in every in- 
 stance it appears to have been necessary to generate and 
 bring to bear upon the proposed object a much greater 
 degree of power than has ultimately sufficed for its attain- 
 ment, and thus the goal has seldom been reached without 
 having been overshot. As the heated race-horse, when his 
 mettle is put forth to the utmost, will defy restraint and bound 
 far beyond the winning post ; so a popular body effecting 
 either a revolution or extensive reforms, is sure to be carried 
 by the mere force of the action which has set it into mo- 
 tion, upon a much more extended course than was originally 
 contemplated. Skill, judgment, firmness, and influence of 
 the highest order have upon a few signal occasions availed to 
 hold a whole people within timely bounds, even when flushed 
 with the excitement of complete success. But this result has 
 been rarely — very rarely produced. On the other hand, when- 
 ever the public ardour has not been opportunely cooled, and 
 
186 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the public energy has not been gradually diverted to pursuits 
 of ordinary use, violent imprudence — wild folly — and at last 
 some gross excesses have been committed. Regeneration has 
 thus been repeatedly expanded into an enormity nearly as 
 hideous and intolerable as the original evil it was intended to 
 destroy ! 
 
 On the other hand, no mistake can be more fatal than that 
 which supposes that it is wise to stop short and stand still 
 after making a powerfid national exertion. Repose, no doubt, 
 and composure are then most desirable, and should be carefully 
 sought for. But the address of the successful statesman is prin- 
 cipally displayed by continuing the new action while he abates 
 its intensity. If he arrests it suddenly he is plunged into a state 
 of imminent danger. No sooner therefore has any great con- 
 stitutional reform been accomplished, than immediate provi- 
 sion is required for the introduction of a machinery suitable 
 to its intended operations. Omit that provision and the 
 recent change will often be found rather to have aggravated, 
 than to have remedied the old evil. For nothing has been 
 more strongly proved by experience than this decided fact, 
 that every comprehensive reform requires to be accompanied 
 by a number of smaller ones. These, though insignificant 
 when detached and considered by themselves, are often found, 
 when taken in the aggregate, so obstinate as to clog, if 
 they are neglected, and to neutralize the progress of the 
 greater action with which they are connected.^ A machinery 
 
 * The truth of these observations has been attested by two striking 
 examples in our own time. The Duke of WeUington and Sir Robert 
 Peel passed the Catholic Relief BiU in 1829, and then stopped suddenly- 
 short. From that day to this, Ireland has continued in a most convulsed 
 and dangerous state, with the exception of the interval during which 
 Lord Melbourne's ministry was sensibly occupied with the task of acting 
 in the spirit of that ReHef BiU. While the lesser reforms were in a course 
 of introduction, which were imperatively required in order to enable the 
 greater ones to work efficiently, there was quiet and content. The stop- 
 short policy broke down the Wellington ministry ; and, with that exam- 
 ple before their eyes. Lord Grey's administration passed the Reform Bill, 
 and propounded the doctrine of finahty. Their fate then became inevita- 
 ble : they followed the fall of the Wellington and Peel ministry, which 
 has revived, and now holds office by practising the principle of progres- 
 sive reform, which they so long and so vehemently condemned and re- 
 sisted when the Whigs sought to move upon it. 
 
THE CONNECTIOX WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 187 
 
 is thus demanded, of which the larger wheel will not work 
 well, unless the movement of the lesser wheels be concun-ently 
 harmonious and well regulated. 
 
 If the Irish revolution of 1782 be tested by the application 
 of these general rules, it will be found but a lame and imper- 
 fect experiment. When the independence of the legislature 
 was declared, a principle entered into the body of the consti- 
 tution pregnant with the right to originate and effect every 
 measure by which public virtue, constitutional liberty, and 
 the prosperity of the country could be strengthened and ad- 
 vanced. But when the parliament itself was not touched — 
 when the greater reform was unaccompanied by the smaller 
 reforms necessary to give it a smootli and effective action — 
 the proper means of turning the recently acquired power to 
 good account were not supplied ; the seeds of the old corrup- 
 tion were allowed to lie in their usual hot beds at the heart of 
 the new system, and there to germinate and throw off without 
 restraint all their natural excrescences and abuses. The landed 
 oligarchy were left undisturbed in their ancient haunts where 
 the English minister found them as willing, as he was anxious, 
 to renew the practices by which the government of the coun- 
 try had been hitherto rendered profitable to them, and dis- 
 astrous to the people. A partial relaxation of the penal laws 
 against the Catholics ; * and, more efficacious still, the exten- 
 
 * These tardy labours of humanity and "svisdom began in the year 
 1778, when Mr. Gardiner procured an act (17 & 18 Geo. III., c. 49) for 
 the relief of his majesty's subjects in this kingdom professing the popish 
 religion. By that law any CathoHc subscribing the oath of allegiance and 
 declaration prescribed by the 13 & 14 Geo. III., c. 35, was allowed to 
 hold and dispose of a lease of land for 999 years certain, or determinable 
 upon the dropping of five hves ; Cathohcs, then possessed of lands, were 
 empowered to retain, de\dse, and ahenate them as freely as any other of 
 his majesty's subjects. The power thus conferred of holding leasehold 
 property was extended to freehold by the act 21 & 22 Geo. III., c. 24., for 
 the further relief of his majesty's subjects of this kingdom professing the, 
 Roman Cathohc rehgion. This law, besides repealing several of the penal- 
 ties and the most offensive parts of the acts of Ann, Geo. I. and Geo. II., 
 such as fines and imprisonment for hearing mass, for having a horse 
 worth more than £5., and purchasing a house in the towns or suburbs of 
 Limerick or Galway, &c., enabled Catholics to hold and dispose of lands, 
 except advowsons, manors, and boroughs returning members to parlia- 
 ment. 21 & 22 Geo. III., c. 62. An act to allow persons professing the 
 
188 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 sion of the national commerce under the free trade laws of the 
 period, quickly enlarged the sphere and enhanced the value of 
 industrial enterprise and the productive labour of all classes of 
 the community. But there was no commensurate improve- 
 ment made in the political institutions, or in the aristrocratic 
 system of government. Mr. Fox and the Whigs who were the 
 patrons of the change enjoyed but a short tenure of office, less 
 friendly ministers took charge of the state, and thus there 
 occurred an interval, during which a rapid increase in the 
 quantity and value of the national exports and imports ex- 
 cited the envy of other nations, while it gratified in the high- 
 est degree the national pride of the Irish. That passed, and 
 the corrupt profusion of the government, and the venality of 
 public men, soon brought back the former abuses, until at last 
 bribery became universal, and the debauched and shattered 
 constitution was sold to the English minister under accu- 
 mulated circumstances of degeneracy and shame. 
 
 The question, then, of how far Ireland may be well governed 
 under a separate and independent legislature, if not altogether 
 an unsolved problem, is yet one which hitherto, at least, has 
 not been fairly demonstrated in the negative. It may be 
 argued, partly by facts and partly by analogy, that the trial 
 could not produce a different result under any circumstances ; 
 but- it is impossible to pretend that the application of the 
 principle was admitted, even for the shortest period, either 
 legitimately or impartially by the current of events em- 
 braced between the years 1782 and 1800. The history of all 
 nations shows that many years must elapse between the recog- 
 nition of a principle and its adoption into general practice. 
 A law of nature seems to have imposed it as an obligation 
 upon mankind, that they should love to contemplate the great 
 moral truths which are the guerdons of liberty, and to worship 
 them long at a distance, before they will take them into their 
 arms and make them the familiar objects of household devo- 
 
 Popish religion to teach schools in this kingdom, and for regulating the 
 education of Papists, and also to repeal parts of certain laws relative to 
 the guardianship of their children. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 189 
 
 tion and the daily companions of their common avocations. 
 Although the elements of British liberty were discovered, 
 defined, and proclaimed at an early period of our history, we 
 have added little to the principles of ^Magna Charta since the 
 year 1215 ; and it is only within a recent period that we can 
 honestly boast of the application of those principles to the 
 every-day use of every member of our vast community. If 
 ages were consumed before the essential properties of the 
 British constitution penetrated to the various members of the 
 body politic, and was equally interchanged and shared by them 
 all, how little will it appear strange that a brief span of 
 eighteen years proved insufficient to allow the Irish nation fit 
 opportunities of bringing their constitution fairly to the test, 
 and evolving its various capabilities through all the details of 
 legitimate action. 
 
 It is now an easy task to criticise the poor experiment 
 made in 1782 ; — it is easy to point out its defects and to enu- 
 merate the disadvantages which its patrons had to contend 
 with, as well as the mistakes, too numerous and mischievous, 
 which they committed ; — it is easy to show where the mea- 
 sure particularly failed, and who were the men most at fault 
 upon the occasion. From first to last, the whole proceeding 
 is plainly explicable. We behold all the men and all the 
 classes best fitted to give advice and assistance at such a junc- 
 ture, unanimous in the assertion of one principle, but dis- 
 agreeing unfortunately in their modes of giving it effect. Every 
 section of the liberal party concurred in holding the immediate 
 reform of the House of Commons indispensable to the com- 
 mon weal ; but, while the volunteers assembled in numbers, 
 and peremptorily demanded that essential improvement, with 
 arms in their hands, the friends of the new constitution felt 
 that this was neither a becoming nor a safe attitude to as- 
 sume, and that the continuance of violent proceedings must 
 prove equally subversive of public order and legislative de- 
 liberation. The latter resisted the attempt to control the 
 parliament and to dictate to the minister by demonstrations 
 of physical force. This division of the popular party caused 
 
190 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the loss of the measure itself — a measure which all desired to 
 obtain, and which alone could have given an important bearing 
 to the empty triumph of legislative independence. 
 
 Two men of very different characters seem to have been 
 principally blameable upon this fatal occasion — the earl of 
 Charlemont and the Right Honourable Frederick Flood. These 
 eminent persons continued to lead the volunteers, to preside 
 at their stormy meetings, and to render homage to their in- 
 dignant enthusiasm, when Mr. Grattan withdrew from the 
 agitation, and desired to prosecute the remaining work of 
 reform without bringing to bear, against the legislature and 
 the government, the violence of a public force which presented 
 not a few of the characteristics of a general insurrection. 
 Lord Charlemont was a nobleman possessing many claims to 
 the confidence and regard of his fellow-countrymen. An 
 accomplished scholar, and distinguished by his knowledge and 
 his taste in the fine arts, — humane, affectionate, and liberal in 
 his disposition and principles, — honourable to the purest ex- 
 tent, and perfectly disinterested, — he was sincerely attached 
 to liberty, and deeply impressed with a sense of the evils with 
 which a long period of misgovernment had oppressed his native 
 land. To show him that a grievance existed, and that his 
 fellow-countrymen were suffering under its pressure, sufficed 
 at all times to excite his sympathy, and insure his co-operation 
 in obtaining its redress. But though unquestionably a good 
 and an amiable man. Lord Charlemont was far from being 
 either a great or a very useful one. He had no genius, no 
 originality, no boldness or force of character. It would be 
 difficult to instance a second individual who took for many 
 years so conspicuous a place in politics, and displayed during 
 the whole course of his career so little political talent. He 
 had the honour of introducing Mr. Grattan into public life, 
 but, finding himself outstripped by the superior energy and 
 the uncompromising decision of the younger patriot, he seems 
 to have taken umbrage at his progress, to have become es- 
 tranged from him, and to have employed his feebler powers 
 in attempting to counteract the influence and neutralize the 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 191 
 
 labours of the only Irish statesman who was endowed with 
 abilities of the highest order, and never once devoted them to 
 any service but the good of Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Flood, at this crisis, seems to have acted a far more 
 censurable part than Lord Charlemont. The line of con- 
 duct which in the peer was in no small degree the result ^of 
 weakness and simplicity of character, presents in the com- 
 moner all the marks of conscious error and deliberate mis- 
 chievousness. The Right Honourable Henry Flood, though 
 still pronounced a patriot by many Irish writers, really pos- 
 sessed few of the genuine properties of that high character. 
 He was unquestionably a man of considerable powers, — the 
 stamp of eminent merit was deeply impressed upon every 
 thing he produced, — strength and superiority distinguished his 
 life ; in eloquence he was consummate, and only surpassed by 
 Grattan ; his ambition, like his eloquence, was bold and ardent ; 
 but his personal vanity was of the most jealous and susceptible 
 kind, and his temper was most irascible and unforgiving. He 
 was proud of office, and attached to it as much for the sake of 
 the distinction it conferred as the emolument it contributed to 
 his private fortune, which was large.* He had great and use- 
 ful qualities, but they were marred by his vices, which gave 
 the government the benefit of services that belonged to his 
 
 * The rental of Mr. Flood's estates, in the county of Kilkenny, is said 
 to have been nearly £7,000 a, year; but although thus richly provided 
 for, he sought and obtained one of the best appointments which the go- 
 vernment could bestow — the office of vice-treasurer, with a salary of 
 £3,500 a year; there being at the same time two other \dce-treasurers, 
 each with as large a salary. In 1/80 he resigned, in a fit of displeasure, 
 because the earl of Buckinghamshire refused to entertain some measures 
 which he desired to carry. For that act he would have deserved the 
 thanks of his country and the admiration of the historian, had he not 
 forfeited all claim to respect by clamouring against the Whigs in 1 782, 
 because they would neither turn out his successor, and replace him in the 
 sinecure, nor consent to make him the subject of such a parliamentary 
 vote as Grattan had been honoured with. This was the true cause of the 
 factious virulence with which he opposed every subsequent government. 
 An odd compound of eloquence, vanity, cleverness, inconsistency, and 
 discomfiture, he stands unmatched in the history of his country, and de- 
 serves special censure, as the ablest mischief-maker of his time, who 
 seldom did any thing well, and was generally on the watch to mar the 
 good done by others. 
 
192 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 country. They rendered him not only a bad politician, but 
 even a bad party man ; and they deprived him of every claim 
 to the rank of a sound, consistent, or a successful statesman. 
 His career may be not insignificantly described by an Irish 
 contradiction — it was a clever failure. He had acquired dis- 
 tinction before Grattan became known. He led the Irish 
 Commons when its greatest ornament first entered the house ; 
 and he might have continued equally great with him had he 
 been equally pure and unselfish. But there was a single-heart- 
 edness, a serenity, a disinterestedness, and moral dignity in 
 Grattan's nature of which Flood was wholly destitute. G rat- 
 tan's soul was always in his cause, and by its greatness he 
 grew great himself. Flood was always placing himself before 
 his cause, and studying to make it appear that it was he gave 
 greatness to the cause, and not the cause that conferred 
 greatness on him. From the time at which Grattan dis- 
 played the fulness of his powers, Flood spent the remainder 
 of his life in a vain endeavour to outshine the dazzling splen- 
 dour of the greater luminary. Devoured by this envy, and 
 a restless passion for popularity — which, though sometimes 
 snatched for an interval, was never retained for any length of 
 time — he rushed blindly into error, and deluded the multitude 
 with false lights. To him, more than any other contemporary, 
 is the loss of parliamentary reform ascribable. Mortified vanity ' 
 led him to resist the popular triumph, and to besjDatter it with 
 imputed defects. Failing in this unworthy effort he aroused 
 all the power of his talent, and all the force, of his passions, 
 which were violent, to mislead the people for a series of years. 
 The punishment which he afterwards suffered for his miscon- 
 duct was heavy but not too severe. He was driven into re- 
 tirement by the general sense of his un worthiness. Rejected 
 by all parties, and severed from his former political friends, no 
 patron or constituency was found to adopt him at the general 
 election which took place in the year 1790 : but though 
 abandoned in every other respect, his vanity, proof against all 
 the lessons of experience, survived to the last — adding to the 
 painful solitude of his retreat by instigating him to try and 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 193 
 
 persuade his few remaining associates that his country had 
 been ungrateful, and that he was an injured patriot ! 
 
 The form in which Mr. Flood interrupted the general satis- 
 faction and diverted the progress of reform, was more plau- 
 sible than ingenious. Mr. Grattan and his friends had been 
 content to secure the independence of the Irish parliament by- 
 repealing Poynings' law and the subsequent act, 6 Geo. I. c. 
 5, increasing the stringency of its enactments. Mr. Flood 
 insisted not only that the acts which had so long controlled the 
 Irish legislature should be repealed, but that England should 
 also make an express renunciation of the existence of any 
 right upon her part to bind Ireland by laws not made in the 
 Irish parliament.* Defeated in the House of Commons, Flood 
 carried his proposition to the meetings of the volunteers, where 
 his eloquent appeals to the national pride were hailed with cor- 
 dial enthusiasm. The public mind was quickly driven into wild 
 extremes under the lash of so potent a leader. The volunteers 
 proposed to establish a national convention, and Grattan, so late 
 the idol of popular admiration, suddenly became the object of 
 popular abuse. The subsequent decline of the celebrated 
 volunteers, and the history of the events to which their dis- 
 sensions and excited proceedings gave rise, contain several 
 passages of deep personal interest, and suggest not a few grave 
 lessons of political instruction. But a particular account of 
 them is not exactly suited to this outline. Mr. Flood's plan 
 of parliamentary reform is the only incident of the period 
 
 * The question in dispute between Mr. Flood and Mr. Grattan, must 
 always retain no common interest, in consequence of the extraordinary 
 talent displayed by both orators in the several debates which now took 
 place in the Irish Commons. But how little there was to fight for will 
 appear by referring to the repealed statute of Geo. I. That law enacted, 
 — first, that the kingdom of Ireland was of right subordinate to and de- 
 pendant upon the imperial crown of Great Britain, as being inseparably 
 united and annexed to it ; secondly, that the British parhament had of 
 right full power to make laws to bind the people and kingdom of 
 Ireland ; and thirdly, that the Irish House of Lords possessed no appel- 
 late jurisdiction. This act, as well as Poynings', having been repealed 
 bodily and unreservedly, it seems the height of intemperance to assert 
 that Ireland was left where she was, inasmuch as no declaratory act had 
 passed, renouncing in words the right which had already been resigned 
 in point of fact. 
 
 VOL. II. O 
 
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 which it will be possible to advert to, and even of that it will 
 be almost enough to mention that it was proposed and re- 
 jected. Its merits and its adaptation to the circumstances of 
 the country may be judged of by the fact that it neither ad- 
 mitted the Roman Catholics to vote as electors, nor to sit as 
 members of parliament. Asa mark of the spirit in which it 
 was brought forward, it will be enough to repeat the ex- 
 hortation of its author to his supporters : " Let 50,000 armed 
 men, followed by 50,000 more, follow up this principle ! 
 
 * The earl of Clare, a hostile witness, gave this minute description of 
 the proceedings in the Volunteer Convention, upon the subject of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform : — "Accordingly, in the year 1783, a military convention 
 did meet in this city, decked in all the forms of a parhament. They had 
 their speaker, their committees ; a biU for the reform of the House of 
 Commons was brought in, read, debated, read a second time, committed, 
 reported, and ordered to be engrossed, read a third time, passed, and sent 
 by two of their number, who happened to have seats in the other house, 
 to be registered by parliament. It was declared at this time by the 
 minister of that day, now a leader of the opposition, (Mr. Fox,) as his opi- 
 nion, to my Lord Northington, that the existence of Ireland as a member 
 of the British empire depended upon his dispersing that armed conven- 
 tion. Parliament, however, vindicated its honour ; the bill thus brought 
 in upon the point of the bayonet was, indeed, offered to the House of 
 Commons, but that house treated the act of contumacious folly with the 
 contempt it deserved. It was driven from their house, and its authors, 
 ashamed of the act of folly they had committed, quietly slunk back to 
 their different counties." — Speech in the Irish House of Lords, February 
 19, 1798. 
 
 Two other writers, both friends of liberty, and well acquainted with 
 the circumstances, have given narratives of these proceedings : — 
 
 " The Belfast review," says Plowden, (vol. ii. p. 233,) " was approach- 
 ing, and those who were dissatisfied, determined then to make their stand. 
 The 31st of July exhibited a volunteer encampment of nearly 3,000 men, 
 and a volunteer garrison of upwards of 1,000, all completely clothed, 
 armed, and accoutred. Anonymous papers were dispersed in thousands 
 through the camp and garrison. Every private was taught that he was 
 competent to legislate, and consequently to express his sentiments on the 
 most speculative points. Declaration, renunciation, simple repeal, legal 
 security, better security, a bill of rights, were all before them, and they 
 were to instruct their delegates on these important points." 
 
 Lord Charlemont, it wiU be remembered, was the head, though not the 
 hero, of this agitation. According to Mr. Hardy, in his life of that nobleman, 
 — " A singular scene was soon displayed, and yet such a scene as any one 
 who considered the almost unvarying disposition of an assembly of that 
 nature, and the particular object for which it was convened, might justly 
 have expected. From every quarter, and from every speculatist, great 
 clerks, or no clerks at all, was poured in such a multiplicity of plans of 
 reform, some of them ingenious, some which bespoke an exercised and 
 rational mind; but, in general, as I have been well assured, so utterly 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 195 
 
 Disagreements amongst the reformers having thus arrested 
 the progress of reform, the union of the legislatures of the 
 two countries became an inevitable consummation ; and the 
 course of events, by developing the anomalies of the existing 
 system with inconvenient force, brought on the change with 
 unexpected rapidity. The more prominent causes of this result 
 were three in number — the commercial propositions mooted in 
 1784, the question of the regency in 1789, and the rebellion 
 of 1798. 
 
 The unfortunate coalition ministry of Mr. Fox and Lord 
 North having been dissolved, Mr. Pitt made the duke of Rut- 
 land Lord Northington's successor in the office of lord lieu- 
 tenant, Feb. 27, 1784. This nobleman was of all others the 
 person most fit to resume the work of debauching the gentry, 
 and scattering the few relics of patriotism that lingered 
 amongst the leaders of the people. Frank and generous in 
 his manners and disposition ; wealthy, extravagant, and de- 
 voted to pleasure ; he pleased the Irish by his open gaiety 
 and careless conviviality, and carried the upper classes along 
 with him in a torrent of courtly dissipation. There are no 
 
 impracticable, * so nigged and so ^vild in their attire/ they looked not hke, 
 *the offspring of inhabitants of the earth, and yet were on it,' that lan- 
 guage would sink in portraying this motley band of incongruous fan- 
 cies, valuable only if inefficient, or execrable if efficacious. All this 
 daily issued from presumptuous empirics, or the vainly busy minds of 
 some political philanthropists, whom the good breeding alone of their 
 countrymen permitted to be regarded as not totally out of their senses.. 
 The committee showed a perseverance almost marvellous, but the murky 
 conceits and solemn vanities of such pretenders, would have put even the 
 patience of the man of Uz to flight. At last, after being for several days 
 bewildered in this palpable obscure of politics, and more; and more 
 theories ffitting round the heads of the unfortunate committee, that which 
 must for ever take place on such occasions, took place here. A dictator 
 was appointed, not indeed in name but in substance. The bishop of 
 Derry moved that Mr. Henry Flood, who had not been one of the com- 
 mittee, should be nominated as an assessor or joint member. And here 
 was displayed the potency of oratorical talents on such a body of men, 
 and the justice of Lord Bolingbroke's remark, that the House of Com- 
 mons, or in short any assembly partaking of the nature of the House of 
 Commons, is like a pack of hounds. They ^vill always follow the man 
 who shows them the most game. So rapid and decisive was the supe- 
 riority that Flood obtained, that without his concurrence nothing was ap- 
 proved of. The bishop now, as has often been experienced, found him- 
 self undone by his auxihary." 
 
 2 
 
196 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 scenes described in the annals of licentiousness which surpass 
 the recorded profligacy of the Rutland viceroyalty in Ireland. 
 By a natural parity of debasement there are no instances of 
 official peculation more infamous than those which were com- 
 mitted under the cover of his misplaced authority. The 
 enormous extent to which official plunder was carried under 
 the duke of Rutland's administration, was fully revealed when 
 his successor, the marquis of Buckingham, was compelled to 
 scrutinise the accounts of the numerous defaulters. Plowden 
 describes the scenes which now took place in striking terms. 
 " A panic spread through the offices — some fled the country , 
 one cut his throat, and many were disgraced. The pro- 
 fligacy of official profusion was incredible : peculation reigned 
 in every department where public money was handled, or 
 public property disposable : the public accounts were wound 
 up yearly with formidable balances in the hands of collectors, 
 treasurers, and paymasters, or arrears due by former great 
 officers who had received their employments without security, 
 or had been discarded for misconduct, or were dead, or had 
 fled, or had become bankrupt. In the ordnance and the trea- 
 sury the grossest frauds pervaded almost every department. 
 The public stores were plundered with impunity in open day. 
 Arms, ammunition, and military accoutrements condemned as 
 useless, were stolen out at one gate and bought in at the 
 other, and charged anew to the public account. Journeymen 
 armourers who worked in the arsenal seldom went to dinner 
 without conveying away a musket, a sword, or a brace of 
 pistols as lawful perquisites, sanctioned by the connivance of 
 their superiors. Clerks with salaries of ^100 a year, kept 
 handsome houses in town and country, with splendid establish- 
 ments ; some of them became purchasers of loans and lot- 
 teries ; all exhibited signs of redundant opulence.*" — Such was 
 the government of the duke of Rutland, — such the abuses 
 which the marquis of Buckingham attempted to extirpate ; but 
 ere long, finding the system necessary to the English govern- 
 ment, he fell into its worst practices, and ultimately left the 
 country even more corrupt than he found it. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 197 
 
 While the government and the oligarchy, equally demo- 
 ralised and arbitrary, were goading an oppressed tenantry to 
 discontent, conspiracies, and insurrection, the few materials 
 for improving the circumstances of the country which had 
 lately been offered by the prospect of commercial freedom, 
 were unfortunately destroyed by the jealousy of the English 
 people, and the want of firmness and sincerity upon the part 
 of the English prime minister. Mr. Orde, afterwards Lord 
 Bolton, was now the Irish secretary. Mr. Flood's defective 
 propositions for parliamentary reform had been rejected ; the 
 popular dissatisfaction was loud and vehement ; the volun- 
 teers though disunited and bereft of their original fame and 
 strength, were still a numerous body and in arms ; the public 
 press teemed with articles of indignant abuse and menacing 
 violence ; and everywhere throughout the country, the lower 
 orders and the military were exasperated against each other. 
 
 A description of one amongst the various aggregate meet- 
 ings which were now held, will answer for all. A petition or 
 remonstrance to the king against the parliament and the whole 
 government of Ireland, was prepared on the part of the free- 
 men, freeholders, and inhabitants of the city of Dublin. This 
 document was voted by acclamation as an example and in- 
 centive to all other constituencies, and the different counties 
 of the kingdom. At this meeting the sheriff presided, and 
 different corps of volunteers attended in arms. The flame 
 thus kindled extended rapidly ; dreams of a separate state of 
 freedom, and independence of England were warmly cherished. 
 The public excitement in the latter country, unsettled and 
 distracted by the recent establishment of the United States 
 of America; and in Ireland the conviction spreading every 
 day that the people possessed all the elements and but few of 
 the enjoyments of a great nation — these various causes 
 poured their combined influence upon a troubled sea of po- 
 litics, and raised a storm that shook the state to its centre. 
 But the political party now in the ascendant, were furnished 
 with all the resources derived from considerable experience in 
 the arts of misgovernment, and were equally skilled in the 
 
198 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 use of corruption and severity. Both of these were put into 
 requisition with an active and determined spirit which to- 
 lerated no scruples, resistance, evasion, or delays. While 
 the court seduced the wavering and the infirm, and places 
 and pensions bribed the venal and the insincere, the public 
 prosecutor dealt summarily with the rough remainder. The 
 high sheriff of Dublin was sentenced to a fine and imprison- 
 ment ; but upon acknowledging his error and making a public 
 apology in the Court of King's Bench, his fine was reduced, 
 and his person soon after liberated. The divided opinions of 
 the volunteers upon the Roman Catholic question, were at this 
 critical moment made an apt instrument of further confusion. 
 Lord Charlemont declared his immoveable dissent from any 
 such concession ; and warned his followers that its success 
 would be fatal to all their particular objects. A considerable 
 section of the volunteers ranged themselves on his side, and 
 the corporation of Dublin, then a leading organ of liberal 
 politics, voted an address of thanks to his lordship on the 
 occasion. Meantime criminal prosecutions were carried on 
 against other sheriffs and magistrates, and against the printers 
 and publishers of several newspapers. The volunteers power- 
 ful though divided, renewed their efforts to overawe the go- 
 vernment. But they had demonstrated their hostility to the 
 religion professed by the bulk of the people. Upon their 
 roll of national wrongs to be redressed, those so unjustly in- 
 flicted upon the Catholics were omitted. Professing to rival 
 the famous convention of Dungannon, they convened a na- 
 tional congress at Dublin ; and soon found that the present 
 movement wanted that peculiar sanction and cementing 
 strength which can only be supplied by the common consent 
 and sympathy of the masses. Delegates representing twenty- 
 seven counties, were sent to this assembly. Although the 
 sheriffs did not dare to convene it, it was held ; and there 
 were kindred gatherings, all more or less turbulent, in many 
 other places. It w^as suspected at the time, and is not at 
 present doubted, that many of these bold demonstrations 
 were suggested, if not provided by persons who were enemies 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 199 
 
 to the cause itself. The disappointed placeman and the con- 
 firmed corruptionist combined heart and hand to push on pro- 
 ceedings fatal to the proposed issue, and formidable to the 
 prudent, to the enlightened, and to all those who were anxious 
 to serve their country by firm but moderate, and above all, 
 by honest courses, and with uncontaminated associates. These 
 were unequivocal symptoms of the fast-approaching dissolution 
 of the once irresistible and still celebrated volunteers. Unani- 
 mity, concentration, and the agreement of a whole people 
 were no longer represented in their ranks. They ceased to 
 be dreaded by their foes ; they passed vain resolutions, voted 
 a tame address to the king, adjourned, and disappearing by 
 degrees, died away so imperceptibly, that it is difficult to 
 state the precise period at which they positively expired. 
 
 The career of the volunteers is thus conspicuously marked 
 in its several stages and consequences. Enlightened and 
 directed by the genius of Grattan, this body carried the inde- 
 pendence of the Irish parliament. Throwing off" the reins of his 
 wisdom they lost the opportunity of reforming the parliament 
 itself, and giving a wholesome and efficient direction to its 
 proceedings. Repudiating the crying claims of their suffering 
 fellow-countrymen, the Roman Catholics, they ranked no 
 longer as the representatives of an oppressed nation, but dege- 
 nerated to be the partisans of sectarian persecution. In this 
 manner they had ceased to retain the influence of a great body 
 when the last question consequent upon the revolution of 1782 
 came on for adjustment — the question, namely, of the commer- 
 cial intercourse between the two countries. This was em- 
 braced in a series of resolutions, originally eleven in number, 
 which were introduced by the secretary, Mr. Orde, into the 
 Irish House of Commons. They passed the parhament of Ire- 
 land, opposed by Flood, but ably and warmly supported by 
 Grattan, who said of them, " They have a threefold principle; 
 the first is, after defraying the charge of the nation, to contri- 
 bute to the general expenditure of the empire. The second is, 
 that by making the surplus not applicable to the general ex- 
 pense, until all charges are paid, it interests both the British 
 
200 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 and the Irish ministers in Irish economy. The third is to sub- 
 ject that surplus to the controul of the Irish parliament . This 
 puts an end to debt, and decides the great question of 1753 
 respecting the appropriation of the surplus revenue. It makes 
 the British ministry a guarantee for the integrity of the House, 
 and the economy of Irish administrations. 
 
 Particular details of these propositions are no longer inte- 
 resting ; but as they were intricate and perplexing, as they 
 excited long discussions and angry feelings in both countries, 
 and as they engrossed for a period the serious attention of 
 the English and Irish legislatures, some general account of 
 them is required. An unfavourable harvest in the year 1 783, 
 had been followed by severe sufferings amongst the agricul- 
 tural classes in Ireland. To their complaints the cry of com- 
 mercial distress was soon added. Every description of ma- 
 nufacture was declared to be in a state of extreme poverty 
 and depression ; the interference of parliament alone it was 
 insisted could remove or alleviate these evils, and no form of 
 relief, it was further concluded, could be lasting or enriching 
 which did not proceed upon the basis of favouring native pro- 
 duce by heavy protecting duties. 
 
 While doctrines of this kind were generally promulgated, 
 and were daily acquiring a firmer hold of the public mind, the 
 subject was taken up by Mr. Foster, who afterwards became 
 speaker of the House of Commons. That gentleman having 
 first placed himself in communication with several considerable 
 merchants, and with Mr. Secretary Orde, arranged a plan 
 which was deemed by them consistent with sound principles, 
 and well suited to the interests of both countries. With this 
 he repaired to London and obtained for it the approval of Mr. 
 Pitt. It was agreed that the eleven propositions should be 
 introduced and carried through the parliaments of both coun- 
 tries by the authority of the government. Two of these pro- 
 positions were of much liigher value than the others. The 
 one gave Ireland power to import goods into England from 
 the colonies and other countries at her own rates of duty. 
 The other, by way of returning this advantage, assigned the 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 201 
 
 surplus of the hereditary revenue of Ireland — which was an 
 increasing income derived from customs, excise, and hearth 
 duty — as a grant for ever towards the maintenance of the navy 
 of the empire at large. A proper understanding having been 
 come to, and the principle and details having been adopted by *^ 
 the government, and voted by the Irish parliament, new 
 taxes to the amount of dfi'l 40,000 were imposed in order that 
 there might be a clear surplus of Irish revenue when the pro- 
 posed arrangement came to take effect. 
 
 The spirit in which Mr. Pitt laid these propositions before 
 the English House of Commons was excellent. A quotation 
 has already been taken from the speech in which he opened 
 the subject ; other addresses made by him in the earlier 
 stages of the discussion were equally distinguished by the 
 force of truthful statements and enlightened views. But he 
 was soon driven to alter his tone and to modify his measures. 
 There had been a strong resistance offered to the propositions 
 in Ireland, where it was maintained that the freedom of par- 
 liament and the right of independent legislation would be 
 trenched upon by a compact, which handed over the revenue 
 of Ireland to England and deprived the representatives of 
 the people of all right to deal with or controul it for the 
 future. But the opposition of the Irish, complaining of a 
 theoretical or constructive injury to be done to their constitu- 
 tion, was feeble and uninfluential when compared with the 
 fierceness with which the English rushed forward in large 
 numbers to prevent a practical and direct invasion of their 
 commercial and manufacturing privileges. The mercantile 
 body every where took the alarm ; they declared that the 
 whole commerce of the empire would be diverted to Ireland if 
 these propositions should be passed into a law. From every 
 port and emporium of trade; from Liverpool, Bristol, Bir- 
 mingham, Glasgow, and sixty provincial towns, deputations 
 were despatched to remonstrate against the Irish commercial 
 propositions, and to compel the minister to abandon them. 
 Most unfortunately for Ireland, Mr. Fox, the patron] of its 
 independence, identified himself with the cause of the discon- 
 tented merchants, and was induced to declare that he would 
 
202 
 
 OUTONES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 debate every resolution, and divide the house upon each, as the 
 measure went completely to the destruction of the commerce, 
 manufacture, revenue, and maritime strength of England. The 
 propositions, according to his view of them, went to appoint 
 Ireland sole guardian of the laws of navigation, and arbitress 
 of all the commercial interests of the realm. 
 
 Aroused by these threats, and by the acclamations with 
 which they were hailed out of doors, Mr. Pitt recast the 
 whole scheme, and, by introducing various amendments, ex- 
 panded Mr. Orders eleven propositions into twenty,* which 
 ultimately passed the English parliament, and were referred in 
 due course to the legislature of the sister country. There 
 they were no sooner produced than the whole island rose to 
 denounce them. The outcry poured forth against them was 
 universal, and it included the most stirring incentives to re- 
 sistance. The legislative authority of Ireland was directly 
 attacked ; national faith was broken, and the country cheated 
 out of 66^140,000 a year in new taxes, which had been imposed 
 
 * These in their main effects were : — 1. That whatever navigation laws 
 the British parliament should thereafter enact for preservation of her 
 marine, the same should be passed by the legislature of Ireland. 2. That 
 the importation into Ireland, and from thence into Great Britain of West 
 India produce, should be confined to the produce of our own West India 
 colonies, 3. That Ireland should not interfere with the chartered rights 
 of the East India Company, by trading with any countries beyond the 
 Cape of Good Hope. .. The earl of Clare's version of the history of this 
 question was marked by all that uncompromising plainness and strong con- 
 tempt so characteristic of the man. " It was discovered," he said — {speech 
 in answer to the earl of Moira, Feb. 19,1798) — " that British manufactures, 
 by their superior quality and cheapness, obtained a preference in our mar- 
 kets; and instead of setting about to rival them in quality or cheapness, 
 or at all considering that the balance of trade between this country and 
 Great Britain was infinitely in our favour, it was immediately resolved to 
 commence a war of prohibitory duties against England, although it was 
 proved decisively that we had not wool enough in this kingdom to clothe 
 one-half of its inhabitants. To conciliate and quiet these clamours, Great 
 Britain, in 1785, offered a fair and liberal commercial treaty to this coun- 
 try, by which she admitted us to her markets ; and shared her immense 
 capital with us, and opened her colonies to our trade, on condition that we 
 should follow England in the laws which she had made for the regulation 
 of those colonies and that trade of which we were to participate. This, 
 however, was represented as a new attack upon Irish independence ; and 
 so great was the outcry raised against it, that the parliament of Ireland, 
 in their wisdom, thought fit to reject the treaty, and, duped by the silliest 
 deception that ever was put upon any set of men, omitted an opportunity 
 of consolidating the interests of the empire." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 203 
 
 in a spirit of credulous confidence in the honour of England 
 and the consistency of her prime minister ! The agitation of 
 these topics produced an effect so powerful as to give the 
 minister, when he put the question for a final settlement of the 
 dispute, a majority of only nineteen votes in a house of 239 
 members. So small an advantage was quickly pronounced 
 tantamount to a national victory. And such ere long was 
 shown to be the opinion of the government ; for although the 
 bill was ordered to be printed as it had been proposed — by way 
 of ministerial justification, notice was given, in the course of a 
 few days, that no further motion would be made respecting it 
 during the session. The public delight was unbounded at this 
 defeat of the English commercial interest ; Dublin was illu- 
 minated to celebrate the event ; and resolutions against the 
 use of English manufactures were passed with acclamation at 
 numerous public meetings held throughout the country. 
 
 For all this exultation there was but little substantial 
 foundation. The merchants of England had acted unreason- 
 ably, and her ministers unfairly; still the wide sources of 
 Irish misery and discontent were left open and unchecked. 
 Ireland greatly wanted, and had now lost, the advantages of 
 a commercial arrangement with the sister country ; she had 
 saddled herself with additional taxes to the amount of 
 <£'140,000, in [the vain hope of extending her trade, and no 
 other available result appeared to arise from the dissensions 
 which had been so generally provoked, than the growing con- 
 viction expressed by the English manufacturers, and echoed 
 by Mr. Fox and Mr. Wilberforce in the English Commons, 
 that there was no way of removing the difficulties by which the 
 question was surrounded, but by a union of the legislatures 
 of the two countries. 
 
 Another incident of more touching interest, though of less 
 importance, soon occurred to confirm the impression thus 
 created. The profligate vice-royalty of the duke of Rutland 
 had terminated, and his successor, the Earl Temple, soon after 
 created marquis of Buckingham, had grown weary of the 
 praiseworthy but unavailing attempt already described, to 
 cleanse the Augean stable of official peculation in Ireland, 
 
204 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 when mental disease first attacked George III., and the ques- 
 tion of appointing a Regent became matter of parHamentary 
 discussion in England and in Ireland. Upon this occasion 
 the decisions of the two legislatures were repugnant. While 
 the English parliament, at the instance of Mr. Pitt, conferred 
 the regency upon the Prince of W ales, restrained by nume- 
 rous limitations and abridgments of power, the more generous 
 Irish defeated the ministry by a large majority, and voted the 
 prince, regent of the kingdom without restriction. The incon- 
 veniences threatened by these opposite proceedings were op- 
 portunely obviated by the recovery of the king, but the de- 
 monstration produced a deep impression upon the statesmen 
 of England. Legislative contests, and not improbably a con- 
 sequent separation of the two countries were now evidently 
 i^iiatters which the daily current of events might evolve. The 
 ^ boroughmongers and placemen of Ireland, whom the ministers' 
 bribe sufficed to hold in their seats upon occasions of ordinary 
 baseness, were no longer, it was clear, to be depended upon, 
 when the prospect of a new sovereign, or a more tempting 
 patron, was offered to the impatient avidity of their insatiable 
 corruption. Thus every thing that happened seemed to point 
 to the union as an event not more necessary than inevitable. 
 
 As soon as the king recovered his health the regent's party 
 was made to feel that they had incurred the vengeance of an 
 implacable government. It was determined to make every man 
 the victim of his vote." There was a general ejection of 
 the ministerial recusants from office, while new situations 
 were devised and old ones split into parts, in order to in- 
 crease the number of dependents upon the castle, and to 
 satisfy the inordinate appetites of the new levy for infamous 
 emolument. Under the old system the government had 
 been farmed out in gross, and the head of it never troubled 
 himself with details ; but now corruption proceeded piece- 
 meal ; there was an open market, and established prices for 
 boroughs, votes, peerages, and titles. Thirty-two members 
 of parliament were purchased in this manner by the mar- 
 quis of Buckingham, and the ministerial gain was made a 
 subject of public ovation. Eight new peerages were created at 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 205 
 
 the same time ; 13, 000 a year was added to the pension list ; 
 and the nation further burdened with a perpetuity of £28,000 
 per annum. Amongst the new means resorted to for the pur- 
 pose of supplying funds to meet the extended demands upon 
 the pecuniary resources of the administration, particular 
 notice is challenged by the sale of peerages. Three titles* 
 at least, and in all probability a greater number, appear to 
 have been disposed of for =£^3,000 each, which was put into a 
 stock purse for buying seats in the House of Commons.f 
 
 * The Baronies of Kilmaine, Cloncurrj'', and Glentworth. 
 
 t Rather a full exposition of these disgraceful acts is furnished by Mr. 
 H. Grattan, in the Life of his Father : acts which drew from that father 
 the observation, — that in a free country the path of public treachery leads 
 to the block, — but in a nation governed like a province, to the helm. 
 The dismissals were : — 
 
 The Earl of Shannon, Vice-treasurer. 
 
 The Duke of Leinster, Master of the Rolls. 
 
 W. Ponsonby, Postmaster-general. 
 
 G. Ponsonby, Counsel to the Commissioners. 
 Lodge Morris, Treasurer to the Post-office. 
 Charles Francis Sheridan, Secretary-at-war. 
 Wilham Burton, Paymaster of Foreign Regiments. 
 
 John Staples, a pension and reversion of Examinator of Customs. 
 John Townsend, Barrack-master, 
 James Uniacke, Comptroller of Stamps. 
 
 H. Hatton, Comptroller of Youghal. 
 Colonel Pigott, Governor of Cork. 
 Dennis Bowes Daly, Ranger of the Curragh. 
 Edward King, Comptroller of the port of Dublin. 
 Sir Skeffington Smith, a pension. 
 
 The value of these offices amounted to nearly £20,000 a year. 
 The promotions were as follows : — 
 
 Fitzgibbon, appointed Lord Chancellor. 
 
 Wolfe, Attorney-general. 
 
 Toler, Solicitor- general. 
 
 Boyd, First Counsel to the Commissioners. 
 
 Edward Cooke, Secretary-at-war. 
 
 Corry, Commissioner of Revenue, 
 
 Pakenham, Surveyor of Ordnance. 
 
 S. Moore, Treasurer to the Post-office. 
 
 Molyneux, Comptroller of Stamp Duties. 
 
 Beresford, Pursebearer to the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 D. Trant, Advocate to the Admiralty. 
 
 C. H. Coote, John Reilly, and Richard Neville, Commissioners of Im- 
 prest Accounts. 
 
 S. Hayes, R. Holmes, R. T. Herbert, and Edward Fitzgerald, Commis- 
 sioners of Stamps. 
 Lord Bellamont, and Lord Loftus, Joint Postmasters-general. 
 R. Johnston, Third Serjeant-at-law. 
 
206 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 It was in the midst of these practices — when the very ideas 
 of probity, independence, and the example of pubHc virtue 
 seemed to have been swept away, that Grattan uncontaminated 
 and undismayed by the torrent "of abominations everywhere 
 inundating the institutions of his country, raUied his great 
 energies, and renewed his splendid exertions to uphold the 
 tottering fabric of the constitution, and reanimate the ex- 
 piring vitality of Irish patriotism. It is impossible to con- 
 template without feelings of the highest admiration, the genius 
 that devoted itself anew to such an undertaking, or to feel 
 surprise that the effort was but partially successful. The re- 
 sentment of the ejected placemen gave him a temporary 
 strength, which promised while it lasted, some decisive re- 
 sults. But the thunder of indignant eloquence destroys only 
 the open foe ; while the secret electricity of ministerial cor- 
 ruption undermines and subverts the strongest foundations of 
 the social system. The nature of the opposition offered to 
 Mr. Grattan and his friends, may be gathered from a single 
 anecdote. " I recollect," said the attorney-general, Mr. Fitz- 
 gibbon, in one of the debates of this period, " Lord Towns- 
 hend proroguing the parliament, and the house voting an 
 address of thanks to him. It cost the nation half a million of 
 money to procure the majority. I shall, therefore, oppose 
 these amendments, which might lead to an address which 
 Would cost half a million more." History loses all interest as 
 
 The following were the promotions that took place in the peerage : — 
 The Earl of Antrim, created Marquis of Antrim. 
 The Earl of Tyrone, created Marquis of Waterford, 
 The Earl of Hillsborough, created Marquis of Downshire. 
 The Viscount Glerawley, created Earl of Annesley. 
 The Viscount Enniskillen, created Earl of Enniskillen. 
 The Viscount Erne, created Earl of Erne. 
 The Viscount Carysfort, created Earl of Carysfort. 
 Lord Earlsfort, created Viscount Clonmel. 
 Lord Loftus, created Viscount Loftus. 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon, created Baron Fitzgibbon. 
 Mr. Stewart, created Baron Londonderry. 
 Sir John Browne, created Baron Kilmaine. 
 Sir Nicholas Lawless, created Baron Cloncurry. 
 Mr. L. Gardiner, created Baron Mountjoy. 
 William Cecil Pery, created Baron Glentworth, 
 Mr. Alexander, created Baron Caledon. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 207 
 
 well as dignity, when ministers of state make such unblushing 
 avowals of pollution as this. Grattan gave vent to the feel- 
 ing of astonishment and indignation excited by it, in strains 
 characteristic of his oratory, but as unavailing as were all his 
 other efforts in the midst of the general debasement. 
 
 These were the words, matchless for their force, truthful- 
 ness, and fire, in which he described and denounced the mar- 
 quis of Buckingham's administration : — 
 
 " Such has been the conduct of your reformer. This was the man ! 
 you remember his entry into the capital, trampling upon the hearse of 
 the duke of Rutland, and seated on a triumphal car, drawn by public 
 creduhty ; — on one side fallacious hope — on the other many-mouthed 
 profession, — a figure with two faces, one turned to the treasury, and the 
 other presented to the people, and with a double tongue speaking contra- 
 dictory language. The minister alights : justice looks up to him with 
 empty hopes, and peculation faints with idle alarms. He finds the city a 
 prey to an unconstitutional police — he contemns it ; he finds the country 
 overburthened with a shameful pension list — he increases it ; he finds the 
 House of Commons swarming with placemen — he multiplies them ; he 
 finds the salary of the secretary increased to prevent a pension — he grants 
 him a pension ; he finds the kingdom drained by absentee employments, 
 and by compensations to bring them home — he gives the best reversion 
 in the country to an absentee, his brother! He finds that the govern- 
 ment had, at different times, disgraced itself by creating sinecures, to 
 gratify corrupt affection — he makes two commissioners of the rolls, and 
 gives one of them to another brother ; he finds the second counsel to the 
 commissioners put down as useless — he revives it ; he finds the boards of 
 accounts and stamps annexed by pubhc compact — he divides them ; he 
 finds three resolutions, declaring that seven commissioners are sufficient 
 — he makes nine ; he finds the country has sufifered by peculations in the 
 ordnance — he increases the salaries of the officers, and gives the places to 
 members — to members of parliament." 
 
 The attorney-general's threat of spending half a million in 
 the purchase of a new majority, was thus exposed : — 
 
 " It is in vain to equivocate ; the words were uttered : the minister | 
 
 may have forgotten, but the people remember them, and several of us | 
 were witnesses to them ; nor was it merely the minister's expression, — it 
 
 was his sentiment, — it was his measure. The threat was put into the j 
 
 fullest execution ; the canvass of the ministry was everywhere, — in the 'i 
 
 House of Commons, in the lobby, in the street,, at the daor of the'parlia- / 
 
> 208 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ^ mentary undertakers, rapped at and worn by the little caitiffs of govem- 
 ( ment, who offered amnesty to some, honours to others, and corruption to 
 , all; and where the word of the viceroy was doubted they offered their 
 ( own. Accordingly we find a number of parliamentary provisions were 
 created, and divers peerages sold, with such effect, that the same parlia- 
 ment who had voted the chief governor a criminal, did immediately after 
 give that very governor implicit support ; and the subsequent parliament 
 did, under the same influence — on the Catholic question — on the pension 
 * question — on the place question — vote and unvote, and turn, and change, 
 according to the orders of government, Avith a versatility that made an 
 indignant public cry shame upon them ! This policy was an attack on 
 the moral as well as on the constitutional system, and guaranteed pohtical 
 slavery by moral prostitution ; proposing that the gentlemen of parlia- 
 ment should be systematically robbers, in order that the people should be 
 systematically slaves : it was a condition on which no freedom, no go- 
 vernment, no religion, no connection, no throne, could long rest." 
 
 Upon the sale of peerages he spoke with powers still more 
 splendid : — 
 
 " If gentlemen are unwiUing to risk their reputation, by instituting an 
 inquiry upon the ground of common fame, I will state to them what 
 they will consider sufficient ground for this inquiry — a member of this 
 house standing up and asserting that peerages have been sold. This, 
 Mr. Speaker, the gentlemen opposite will acknowledge to be ground 
 for inquiry. Sir, I am that man. I say I have good reason to beheve 
 that peerages have been sold for money ; — nay, more — I have proof. Go 
 into a committee ; and if I do not estabhsh my charge, degrade me, — let 
 me no longer enjoy the character of an honest man: I dare the adminis- 
 tration to it. I risk my reputation on estabhshing the fact. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " We charge them publicly, in the face of the country, with making 
 corrupt agreements for the sale of peerages ; for doing which, we say, 
 that they are impeachable. We charge them with corrupt agreements for 
 the disposal of the money arising from the sale, to purchase, for the ser- 
 vants of the castle, seats in the assembly of the people ; for doing which, 
 we say that they are impeachable. We charge them with committing 
 these offences, not in one, nor in two, but in many instances : for which 
 complication of offences we say that they are impeachable — guilty of a 
 systematic endeavour to undermine the constitution, in violation of the 
 laws of the land. We pledge ourselves to convict them ; we dare them 
 to go into an inquiry ; we do not affect to treat them as other than public 
 malefactors; we speak to them in a style of most mortifying and humi- 
 liating defiance. We pronounce them to be pubUc criminals. Will they 
 dare deny the charge ? I call upon, and dare the ostensible member to 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 209 
 
 rise in his place, and say, on his honour, that he does not beheve that 
 such corrupt agreements have taken place. I wait for a specific answer. 
 ****** 
 
 " You may cast a veil over families : but honour that sacred gem you 
 have cast to the dust. I ask you, is there any man you would disgrace 
 by attempting to give him title, except such a man as would exalt you by 
 the acceptance ? The Irish ministry have attempted to strike off honour 
 and authority. Such a minister goes before the leveller like sin preceding 
 the shadow of death, shedding her poison, and distilling her influence, 
 and preparing the nectar she touches for mortality. I do not say that 
 such a minister with his own hand strips the fohage of the tree of nobi- 
 lity ; no, — he is the early bHght, that comes to the island to mther your 
 honour in the first blast of popular breath, and so to scatter it, that at 
 last the whole leafage of nobihty may descend. He does not purpose to 
 blow up the houses of parhament ; he only endeavours to corrupt the in- 
 stitutions, and he only undermines the moral props of opinion and autho- 
 rity ; he only endeavours to taint the nobility, — he sells the Lords, and 
 buys the Commons. The tree of nobility ! — that it may flourish for ever, 
 and withstand the blight of ministers and the blast of popular fury ; — 
 that it may remain on its own hill, rejoicing and laughing to scorn that 
 enemy, which, in the person of the minister of the crown, has gone 
 against the nobles of the land ! This is my earnest prayer ! That these 
 nobles may sur\'ive; — survive to give counsel to these very ministers, 
 and perhaps to pronounce judgment upon them ! But if ever the axe 
 should go into the forest, — if on the track of the merchantman in the 
 shape of the minister, the political woodman, in the shape of the leveller, 
 should follow, — if the sale of peerages, as exercised by the present minis- 
 try, becoming the ordinary resource of government, should provoke a 
 kindred spirit, and give birth to a race of men as unprincipled and des- 
 perate in one extreme as they are in the other : we shall then feel it our 
 duty to resist such an eflfort ; and as we now resist the minister's at- 
 tempts to dishonour, so shall we then resist the consequences of his 
 crimes — projects to extinguish the nobihty." 
 
 Such was Grattan's oratory — let us glance at his measures. 
 Those for the year 1789, which he either originated himself, 
 or advocated when mooted by others, were a short money bill, 
 carried against the government by 105 to 85 ; a bill to reform 
 the police, long a convenient medium of gross and defiling 
 patronage ; a bill to limit the amount of pensions and to dis- 
 able pensioners, during pleasure, from sitting in parliament, 
 and with them the holders of profitable places under the crown, 
 created within a certain time ; and a bill to disable revenue 
 
 VOL. II. p 
 
210 
 
 0UTLIN3ES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 officers from voting at elections. To these was added a reso- 
 lution condemnatory of the practice of granting to absen- 
 tees all the high and profitable offices and reversions to office 
 in the kingdom.* The promptitude, the energy, and the 
 skill with which Grattan acted at this period were conspi- 
 cuous. It is true that the measures proposed by him and his 
 friends were in themselves of secondary importance. They in- 
 dicated the direction of his spirit, not the extent of his con- 
 victions, and were palliatives, not remedies, for the distresses 
 of his country. It is also true that his success was slight, but 
 it was not the less wonderful under all the circumstances of 
 the times. In every instance, the principles for which he 
 contended were afterwards affirmed by different enactments, 
 and within a short period. The Absentee Bill, the Place Bill, 
 and the Pension Bill were rejected in 1792, and carried in 
 1793. That interval, and the alterations introduced into them, 
 sufficed to impair their efficacy, and diminish the small re- 
 mains of public confidence in the progress of useful reform 
 that lingered in the country. Upon another, and with him a 
 favourite subject of motion, tithes, Grattan displayed, at this 
 juncture, all the vigour of his ardent powers, an enlarged 
 philosophy, and the fullness of accomplished charity. In these 
 he anticipated the wisdom and the humanity of the age, ren- 
 dering the speeches in which he propounded them imperishable 
 monuments of his genius, and the worthlessness of the cotem- 
 poraries by whom they were so little regarded. 
 
 The situation of Ireland was now more critical than ever. 
 There had grown up a wealthy and enlightened class. Limited 
 as had been the field laid open to industry and enterprise, 
 much had been acquired, and a feeling prevailed that the 
 country possessed resources and the power for acquiring still 
 more. Unfortunately for both divisions of the empire, the 
 
 * The number and value of the absentee sinecures, and the manner in 
 which they were made the property of particular families, may be roughly 
 estimated by an example or two. The offices of Prothonotaries, Clerk of 
 the Crown, Keeper and Filacer of the King's Bench, were held by Lord 
 Henry and Lord Robert Seymour Conway, while the Chief Remem- 
 brancership of the Court of Exchequer was held by the Wellesley family 
 — the whole producing about £50,000 a year. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 211 
 
 local heads of the government in Dublin had determined to 
 disgust the Irish with their independent parliament. While 
 difficulties and dangers were daily augmenting in number and 
 sharpness, but one object seemed to be kept steadily in view 
 by them — the old degrading object of prostrating every thing 
 Irish to the arbitrary rule of the ill-qualified strangers who 
 executed the pleasure of the English ministry. The volun- 
 teers had dwindled into insignificance, but the government 
 continued so pregnant with abuses, and so deaf to the public 
 clamour, that a common impulse towards some new and more 
 effective association for the redress of grievances became 
 general. 
 
 The newly formed republic across the Atlantic — torn by 
 principle and valour from the dominion of England — was com- 
 posing her institutions amidst the admiration of the civilized 
 world ; the French Revolution was proceeding with rapid 
 strides, and apparently opening to the sanguine hopes and 
 warm hearts of all liberal-minded men the dawn of a free and 
 happy era, soon lost amidst the horrors of universal destruc- 
 tion ; and Irishmen from every school of reform, and all the 
 varying shades of political discontent, were anxiously pressing 
 forward to mark their sense of Irish grievances, and to apply 
 each his panacea to the national disease. The Whigs led the 
 way in this series of popular movements. Following the ex- 
 ample of their party in England, they had instituted, in the year 
 1789, and at the instance of Lord Charlemont, the Whig 
 Club, composed of the most distinguished men in the country. 
 This was essentially an aristocratic and exclusive body, repre- 
 senting, in an eminent and imposing degree, the rank, pro- 
 perty, and talent of the liberal politicians in their own class of 
 society. The members addressed themselves with an accom- 
 plished power, worthy of their station and their fame, to pre- 
 pare their fellow-countrymen for the arduous contest now fast 
 approaching.^ But they sought to lead, while the spirit of 
 
 * The public declaration of the Whig Club furnished an eloquent ex- 
 position of the opinions of its own members on the political condition and 
 requirements of the country : — 
 
 " Resolved, that the great object of this society is the constitution of 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the era demanded cordial unanimity and equal co-operation be- 
 tween all orders of the oppressed, and from every advocate of 
 
 the realm, as settled by the Revolution in Great Britain and Ireland in 
 1688, and re-established in Ireland 1782. 
 
 " That. we will support and maintain, as a principal object and funda- 
 mental part of the constitution, the * sacred rights of the people ; ' and 
 above all, that great indispensable right of the subjects of this realm to 
 be free from, and independent on, the authority of any parliament or legis- 
 lature whatsoever, save only the parliament of Ireland ; that is to say, the 
 king of Ireland and the lords and commons of this realm. 
 
 " We therefore protest against and abjure, as illegal and criminal, a 
 doctrine, which, on a late occasion, has been advanced, ' that the parlia- 
 ment of another country had, in the appointment of a regent over this 
 realm, a legislative authority.' 
 
 " We declare that the parliament of Ireland, that is to say, ' the king 
 of Ireland, and the lords and commons thereof,' are the only legislature 
 of this realm. 
 
 " And we further declare, that as far as in us lies, we will endeavour to 
 preserve to this country, in all times to come, a parliament of her own, 
 residing within this realm, and exclusively invested with all parliamentary 
 privileges and powers. 
 
 " That we will for ever support and maintain the constitutional rights 
 and dignity of the imperial crown of Ireland ; and we do abjure, as illegal 
 and criminal, a doctrine lately advanced, * that his majesty legislates in 
 Ireland as king of Great Britain;' inasmuch as said doctrine is not 
 founded on our laws, militates against our constitution, affects to depose 
 the king of Ireland, and tends to dissolve the principles of our allegiance 
 and our liberty. 
 
 " The best and surest method of preserving the constitutional rights 
 of the crown, is to preserve and transmit the same in succession in the 
 house of Brunswick. 
 
 " That we shall ever adhere to the principles which directed the lords 
 and commons of Ireland, when, on a late melancholy occasion, they ad- 
 dressed his royal highness the Prince of Wales to take on himself, during 
 his royal father's indisposition, the administration of affairs, free from 
 occasional and unconstitutional restrictions ; such restrictions being more 
 calculated to answer the views of ambition than to preserve liberty, or to 
 promote the solid interests of the empire. 
 
 *' That we shall ever maintain and vindicate the principle and justice 
 which actuated our parliament, when, on behalf of the people of this 
 realm, they did impose a public and merited censure on his excellency 
 the marquis of Buckingham, for his ill-advised, unwarranted, and uncon- 
 stitutional conduct. 
 
 " That we will ever maintain, as sacred and indissoluble, our connec- 
 tion with Great Britain, being in our opinion indispensably necessary for 
 the freedom of this kingdom in particular, and for the freedom, strength 
 and prosperity of the empire in general. 
 
 " We have set forth the principles and objects of the Whig Club ; and 
 we have formed this society, because we apprehend some of those objects 
 are in danger. 
 
 " The rights of the people of Ireland have been pubhcly and minis- 
 terially questioned by the present chief governor. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 213 
 
 reform. The different sections omitted in the composition of 
 the Whig Club proceeded, ere long, to resolve themselves into 
 separate communities. In the summer of the year 1791, the 
 
 " A right in the parliament of another kingdom to make laws for this 
 kingdom, in the case of a regency, has been by the ministers of the 
 crown in Ireland advanced and defended. 
 
 " The competency of the two houses of the Irish parliament, on a late 
 occasion, has been denied. 
 
 " The legislative capacity of the king of Ireland has been denied, and 
 the great seal of another country held up as a substitute for the imperial 
 crown of this realm. 
 
 *' The undue influence of the crown over both houses of parliament 
 has been of late beyond all example increased. 
 
 " A pension bill has been rejected by the influence of the present mi- 
 nisters of Ireland. 
 
 " A place bill has been rejected by the same influence. 
 
 ** A bill for the better securing the freedom of election, by disqualify- 
 ing revenue officers from voting for members to serve in parliament, has 
 been rejected by the same influence. 
 
 " The present extravagant, ineff*ectual, and unconstitutional police of 
 the city of Dubhn, has been continued and patronized by the same in- 
 fluence. All proceedings in parliament to remove the grievance or cen- 
 sure the abuse, have been defeated by the same influence. 
 
 " The expediency of combating by corruption a constitutional majority 
 in parliament, has been publicly avowed, and the principle so avowed, ha 
 been in part carried into execution. 
 
 " Honours, as we apprehend, have been sold, and the money deposited 
 for the purpose of purchasing seats in the Commons, for the dependants 
 of administration, in order to procure for the minister a majority in par- 
 liament. For the same corrupt purpose, useless offices have been created 
 or revived. 
 
 " Boards for the same unconstitutional and venal purpose have been 
 divided ; sinecure offices split to multiply the number of commissioners, 
 for no other purpose than to increase the influence of the minister, and 
 gratify the individual. 
 
 " For the same venal purpose, and with as little colour or pretence, 
 salaries have been augmented, to increase the parliamentary influence of 
 the minister at the expence of the nation. 
 
 " A plan of intimidation has aided and abetted the views of corrup- 
 tion] and members of parliament have, by the minister, been expressly 
 threatened with being made " the victims of their votes," or have been 
 displaced, for no reason or pretence whatever, except their constitutional 
 conduct in parliament. 
 
 " That we apprehend these proceedings and principles avow a design 
 to govern this country unconstitutionally, and must, if successful, render 
 the minister absolute in the parliament of Ireland, by corruption. 
 
 " That this danger is the more to be apprehended, because there is no 
 fixed or adequate responsibility in the situations of the persons who 
 direct the aflfairs of this country ; and the minister of Ireland, however 
 culpable, is but too likely to elude pubhc justice. 
 
 " That to redress, as far as in us lies, these grievances, we have formed 
 this society." 
 
214 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 plan of the first Society of United Irishmen was pubhshed in 
 Belfast. Within the same month, the Roman Catholics issued 
 a declaration of the their tenets and claims. The United 
 Irishmen of Dublin were formed in the following month of 
 November. In 1792, the Catholic petition having been re- 
 jected in the House of Commons by an overwhelming majority 
 of 208 votes to 23, the Catholics chose delegates from each 
 district throughout the kingdom, who congregated in Dublin 
 before the close of the year, and began to deliberate upon 
 measures of relief with all the solemnity of parliamentary 
 forms.^ At this moment, a new military force, the Irish 
 National Guard, was arrayed and disciplined in a green uni- 
 form, with the badge of an uncrowned harp ; while the duke 
 of Leinster and many moderate members of the opposition 
 enrolled themselves into a new society, called the Friends 
 of the Constitution, Liberty, and Peace ; pledged to promote, 
 by all lawful means, a radical and effectual reform in the 
 representation of the people in parliament, including persons 
 of all religious persuasions. 
 
 The different bodies thus formed, were animated and conso- 
 lidated by the obstinate adherence of the government to 
 established abuses, and the exhibition of new arts to increase 
 the amount of the public burdens, and the extent of the 
 public corruption. Notice has already been taken of the 
 still expanding profligacy of ministers in 1790. The terms 
 have been quoted, in which their conduct was denounced 
 by Mr. Grattan. They had appointed two additional com- 
 missioners of revenue, and given additional salaries to four 
 officers of the ordnance ; they had created fourteen new par- 
 liamentary places, and granted eight or nine parliamentary 
 pensions — all unnecessarily, and in the course of twelve months. 
 These were acts, as the orator well observed, importing their 
 own criminality, and bespeaking a ministry who had not only 
 attempted to undermine the constitution, but who had actually 
 broken the laws. The public odium so naturally excited by 
 
 * They held their meetings at Taylors' Hall, in Back-lane, Dublin, 
 whence the nickname of the Back-lane Parliament. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 215 
 
 these shameless practices, was still further extended by a con- 
 temptuous rejection, session after session, of the liberal pro- 
 posals already referred to, — by an affront offered to Lord 
 Charlemont, which he resented by resigning the honorary post 
 of governor of the county of Armagh, — and by such paltry 
 acts as that of dividing the office of weighmaster of Cork into 
 three parts, for the purpose of still further adding to the in- 
 fluence»of government in the House of Commons, by giving 
 them to members. The climax may be said to have been 
 reached in 1793, when the state of the parliamentary represen- 
 tation was Tully exposed. The history of the Irish House of 
 Commons — as profligate, impotent, and unenviable a public 
 body as ever existed, saving always a very few splendid ex- 
 ceptions — and the enormous amount of public malversation and 
 private impurity produced by its constitution, are well described 
 in the speeches delivered upon this occasion, particularly by 
 Grattan, and William, afterwards Lord, Ponsonby. During 
 eighty-five years out of the preceding century, no parliament 
 whatever had sat. The house contained 300 members, of 
 whom 64i were credited to 32 counties ; 14 to 7 cities ; and 
 220 to 110 boroughs ; but the actual choice of 219 members 
 was held to be in the hands of patrons, while only 81 were 
 within the reach of the people. Two hundred, moreover, of 
 the 219 patron-members were sent into the house according 
 to the pleasure of 100 individuals, each of whom, therefore, 
 might be said to have had two representatives of his personal 
 interests in the councils of the nation. It was further cal- 
 culated that 50 out of the 200 were the nominees of 10 
 persons — each of whom would have had five representatives. 
 The rental of Ireland, at this time, was estimated at six mil- 
 lions sterling a year ; and the rental of the 200 persons who 
 contributed these 200 members to the House of Commons, 
 averaged .£'4,000 a year. All this it was proposed to correct 
 and purify ; but the effort was unavailing. 
 
 The temper of the age as much as the desperate position of 
 the country no longer permitted either Mr. Grattan or the 
 Whig Club to lead the people. The English minister was fast 
 
216 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 outstripping the bounds within which a constitutional resist- 
 ance to misgovernment is to be maintained. The French 
 revolution, as already observed, had lit up in the minds of 
 men a wild and consuming ardor for liberty, which had no 
 sooner touched the inflammable sense of degradation long 
 smothered in the bosoms of the Irish, than it spread with un- 
 controllable rapidity. Their apprehension of this fast growing 
 mischief threw the English ministry suddenly into a new mood 
 of conciliation, involving an unexpected series of inconsistent, 
 imperfect, and unsatisfactory measures — which just granted 
 enough to vindicate past disaffection, and withheld more than 
 enough to provoke it for the future. 
 
 1793 was thus a year of singular events. The parliamentaiy 
 session began in the month of January with a speech from 
 the earl of Westmoreland, in which, after lamenting the 
 prevailing discontent of the people, he invited both houses to 
 take into consideration such measures as would cement and 
 strengthen all parties in supporting the constitution . Every 
 bill brought forward for this purpose was a triumph to the 
 opposition — a signal tribute to the force of public opinion, 
 and a direct and unequivocal confession that the claims so 
 often and so energetically put forward, had been reasonable, 
 just, and such as ought to have been granted long before. 
 With the single exception of parliamentary reform, the differ- 
 ent questions mooted by the opposition in the last session, 
 were now revived with the consent of the crown, and made 
 subjects of positive legislation. A place bill passed, and the 
 pension list, that oldest and most fruitful source of corruption, 
 was limited to ^£^80,000 a year. It was also agreed that no 
 future pension should be granted to any person (members of 
 the royal family excepted) for more than 0^,200 a year. 
 The king surrendered his hereditary revenue, and received in 
 exchange a fixed civil list, which was not to exceed c£^225,000 
 a year. But though something was yielded on each account, full 
 relief was not given in one. By thus paltering with all great 
 interests, and rescuing none from the impending danger, the 
 government and the parliament afforded the last remaining 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 217 
 
 proof which it was in their power to offer of extreme vacil- 
 lation, and their utter incompetence to deal efficiently with 
 the affairs of the nation. The most mistaken and injurious of 
 these penurious experiments upon the excited temper of the 
 age, was the narrowminded attempt to conciliate the attach- 
 ment of the Roman CathoHcs by the act, 33 Geo. III. c. 21, 
 better known as the Forty Shilling Freeholders' Act.* Mr. 
 Grattan had wisely called upon the ministers to give liberally, 
 if they gave at all, and to place the whole body of Roman 
 Catholics upon an equal footing with all other dissenters from 
 the established church ; but instead of admitting to political 
 power the nobility and gentry of that persuasion, the men of 
 wealth, independence, and information, the government con- 
 ferred the elective franchise upon the poor and ignorant pea- 
 sant, making his wretched dependance upon the landed oli- 
 garchy still more slavish, and adding new instruments of 
 oppression and corruption to that inveterate, and overbearing 
 influence in the state which had always been a principal cause 
 of agrarian insubordination and national distress.^ 
 
 * This instalment of relief had been preceded by the 32 Geo. III. c. 21, 
 which admitted Roman Catholics to the bar, permitted them to practise 
 as attornies, allowed them to teach schools, and suffered Protestant barris- 
 ters to marry Roman Catholic wives, &c. 
 
 f A subsequent part of this work will be the proper place to expose 
 the disastrous effects produced by this law upon the social condition of 
 the Irish peasant. As an instrument of party power and class legislation, 
 it pleased its authors, having proved, for some years, an apt invention, 
 and realized the ends which it was designed to bring about. In point of 
 fact, so long as the great landlords succeeded in keeping their tenants to 
 themselves, they held in their own hands the election of members of parlia- 
 ment. When, however, in process of time, the religious feelings of the voter 
 came to be worked upon, this unprincipled franchise was turned against 
 its patrons, and became the means of breaking down their tyranny. All 
 this appears to have been clearly foreseen when the law was first made. Sir 
 Laurence Parsons, afterwards earl of Rosse, then said : — "There never was 
 a more important moment. Public expectation is wound to the highest ; 
 we must give what will gratify, but will not destroy ; an error now may 
 bring on years of calamity. * * * Some, I know, think that these inferior 
 Catholics would be so dependent upon their landlords, who are mostly 
 Protestants, that they might be admitted to the franchise without any 
 danger. To this I say, that, though they might vote with their landlords, 
 they might also vote against them ; interest might lead them one way, but 
 bigotry might lead them another. * * * By giving franchise to the inferior 
 Catholics what do you do ? You give the franchise to a body of men in 
 
218 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 Having rendered homage to the patriotism of the opposition, 
 by thus resorting to a lame adoption of their principal recom- 
 mendations, the government turned quickly, and obtained with 
 ease, additional powers to repress the still active spirit of dis- 
 content amongst the public. They prepared and carried bills 
 for preventing the sale and use of arms and gunpowder, — for 
 increasing the regular army from 12,000 to 17,000 men, — 
 for levying a militia of 16,000 men, — and for prohibiting the 
 election or appointment of conventions or other assemblies 
 under the pretence of petitioning the crown or parliament. 
 
 The complete failure of the ill-digested measures of half satis- 
 faction passed in 1793, became apparent as soon as they were 
 enrolled amongst the statutes of the realm. They neither gra- 
 tified the Catholics nor the reformers, and they strengthened 
 the ministry in no respect. The little that was granted only 
 served to whet the desire to gain the much that was still 
 withheld. Party dissensions and popular collisions continued 
 
 great poverty and in great ignorance — bigotted to their sect and their 
 altars — repelled by ancient prejudices from you, and at least four times 
 the number of you. You propose to give them the elective franchise, by 
 which they will almost, in every county in the three provinces out of the 
 four, be the majority of electors, controlling you, resisting and irresisti- 
 ble. But still, some men think that the inferior Catholics would not 
 abuse this power. I do not say it is certain that they would ; neither can 
 you say it is certain that they would not ; and this is a case in which 
 nothing should be left to uncertainty. Suppose you gave the inferior 
 Catholics the franchise, and that they should meet in all their parishes to 
 determine the exercise of it, and that they should nominate in their chapels 
 their representatives to parhament, what would there be to stop them ? 
 The power of their landlord might do much, but the power of rehgion 
 might do much more. How much might these people be wrought upon by 
 their priests at their altars, working upon their superstition and poverty ? 
 How easily might they be persuaded that their temporal as well as their 
 eternal felicity depended upon their uniting together in the exercise of their 
 franchise ! * * * In short, there never was a measure pretending to be a 
 great one, more narrowly conceived than the present bill. It courts the 
 Catholic rabble, and insults the Catholic gentry. It gives power to those 
 who are ignorant, and therefore dangerous, and withholds it from those 
 who are enlightened, and therefore safe. It gives equal powers with the 
 Protestants to the lower class of Cathohcs, who are the most numerous, 
 and thereby gives them a superiority, and it does not give equal powers 
 to the upper class, who are less numerous than you, and who could, 
 therefore, have had no superiority — ^that is, it does the very reverse of 
 what it ought to do." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 219 
 
 to prevail. The united Irishmen invited the volunteers to re- 
 sume effective service ; an attempt was made to act upon the 
 invitation, but the government dispersed the few who ventured 
 to meet, by a decisive proclamation and the demonstration of 
 military force. In the midst of these proceedings the year 
 1794 witnessed the conviction of Mr. Hamilton Rowan for a 
 seditious libel, and his subsequent escape from prison to France 
 under the suspicion of a much graver offence. About the same 
 time, the Rev. Mr. Jackson,^' an English Protestant clergy- 
 man, who had recently arrived in Dublin from Paris, was com- 
 mitted to gaol upon a charge of high treason. Agrarian tur- 
 bulence and sectarian contentions continued to increase ; the 
 country, though ruled by a coercive policy, offered no signs 
 of returning order or growing improvement ; and the earl 
 of Westmoreland having failed to inspire confidence in the 
 middle, or to restore tranquillity amongst the lower classes, 
 rendered his removal from ofl&ce unavoidable. 
 
 The following year, 1795, was one of the highest expectation 
 and profound disappointment. An important change in the 
 English cabinet led to a brief interval of buoyant rejoicing 
 amongst all men of liberal politics in Ireland. Mr. Pitt 
 having brought over to his ministry the duke of Portland, 
 Earl Fitzwilliam, and the other members of the Rockingham 
 section of the English Whigs, seems to have felt that the 
 season had at length arrived for substantially improving the 
 condition of Ireland. The plans of his new colleagues for the 
 welfare of that country had often been detailed, and were 
 universally known. When the earl of Fitzwilliam 's appoint- 
 ment to the lord lieutenantcy was announced, confidence took 
 possession of the public mind, and the conviction became ge- 
 
 * This unfortunate emissary saved himself from an ignominious death 
 upon the scaffold by taking poison : he actually expired in the dock. Before 
 he proceeded to Ireland he divulged his intentions to a London attorney, 
 named Cockayne : this man betrayed the plot to Mr. Pitt, who despatched 
 him to Dublin, as an accomplice. As soon as Jackson had fully commit- 
 ted himself, Cockayne gave the necessary information to the Irish govern- 
 ment, and the officers of justice cut short his career. 
 
220 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 neral that a full and complete measure of parliamentary reform 
 would be quickly acquiesced in, and that a total emancipation 
 of the Roman Catholics from civil and political disabilities 
 would no longer be denied. 
 
 But these visions of a bright and prosperous future were 
 soon dispelled. Mr. Pitt gave a second proof of his want of 
 firmness and consistency in his government of Ireland, while 
 he raised another large sum of money from that country 
 upon the credit of a boon which he never conferred. As 
 in the year 1785, he had approved and then abandoned the 
 commercial propositions of Mr. Foster and Mr. Orde, gaining 
 additional taxes to the amount of 140, 000, pending the con- 
 sideration of his specious overtures ; so in 1795 he procured 
 
 1,700, 000 by first encouraging and then disappointing a 
 general expectation that power should be entrusted to the 
 hands of those who would use it freely for the public good. 
 After calling over to England, and repeatedly consulting, the 
 leaders of the opposition, Mr. Grattan and Mr. Ponsonby, the 
 new arrangements appeared to have been definitively settled, 
 upon mature consideration, and to the satisfaction of all par- 
 ties engaged in them. Accordingly Earl Fitzwilliam took pos- 
 session of his government, Jan. 4, 1795, announcing that it 
 would be his duty to call to his council men distinguished by 
 their wisdom, their integrity, and their talents, and possessing 
 the confidence of the people. Assisted by their advice, he 
 proposed to effect a full and cordial union of all his majesty's 
 subjects, as the surest means of securing their happiness and 
 placing the strength and prosperity of the nation upon a sohd 
 basis. 
 
 The governing oligarchy at this juncture was led by the 
 Beresfords. Earl Fitzwilliam found this family rioting in 
 emoluments greater than had ever before been accumulated by 
 one branch of the nobility ; and Mr. Beresford, their political 
 head, possessed of an extent of power exceeding that of the 
 lord lieutenant. This gentleman had swayed every preceding 
 lord lieutenant, from Lord Townshend to the earl of West- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 221 
 
 moreland. Earl Fitzwilliam signalised the commencement of 
 his viceroy alty by dismissing Mr. Beresford, and in less than 
 three months was himself recalled. 
 
 This summary transaction was followed by violent demon- 
 strations of grief and indignation, and it must be admitted 
 that circumstances justified all the resentment displayed. 
 The popular party denounced with vehemence the duplicity 
 practised against them. The malversations in office had long 
 been so gross and notorious, — the progress of corruption so 
 monstrous, — the unpopularity of the Beresfords and their 
 colleagues, as the authors and abettors of every species of 
 abuse, peculation, and oppression, had been so general, — that 
 the prospect of a total change in the management of affairs, 
 and the introduction of new men and a purer system, seem 
 to have acted like so many charms — to have instantaneously 
 refreshed the public mind, and restored it to a healthy tone 
 of confidence and strength. The country, it was believed, was 
 no longer to be enthralled ; the new ministers were empowered 
 to reduce their well known professions into practice ; the par- 
 liament was to be reformed ; the Catholics were to be eman- 
 cipated ; and the interests of Ireland were to be forwarded by 
 a united ministry and legislature, secure alike of popular 
 support and the approbation of the crown. Full of this idea of 
 overflowing good fortune, the Irish were invited to aid the 
 English minister in carrying on the war in which he was en- 
 gaged, and the Commons echoing the public voice in his 
 favour, voted him extraordinary supplies to the amount of 
 6^^1,700,000. 
 
 At this point, however, the mellow sunshine of the political 
 atmosphere became suddenly overclouded. Mr. Pitt was 
 known to have expostulated with the new viceroy, and to 
 have remonstrated against his proceedings. In the end, as 
 Sir Laurence Parsons observed, the country was deprived at 
 a most critical juncture, " of the auspices of a nobleman who 
 came the harbinger and the hostage of her political salva- 
 tion, and to whom the people looked up with confidence — 
 after voting the enormous supply of c£'l,700,000 to save, if 
 
222 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 possible, the empire from destruction. The great and sahi- 
 tary measures of reform, retrenchment, and responsibility- 
 vanished, — the Catholics instead of the accomplishment of 
 their hopes had the gates of the castle slapped in their faces, 
 and were refused the blessings of the constitution, — Mr. Pitt, 
 not satisfied with having involved the empire in a disastrous 
 war, intended to complete the mischief by risking the internal 
 peace of Ireland, making the friends of that country the dupes 
 of his fraud and artifice, and swindling the nation out of 
 
 1,700, 000 to support the war, on the faith of measures which 
 he intended should be refused." * 
 
 From the period of Earl Fitzwalliam's recal in the year 
 1795, to the Union in 1800, no form of constitutional go- 
 vernment can be said to have existed in Ireland. The stoutest 
 hearts trembled for the peace of the country when the old task- 
 masters returned in triumph to the castle of Dublin. They 
 soon showed that to whatever lengths the popular disaffection 
 might extend, their faction was prepared to go farther still. 
 Violence upon the side of the people was to be encountered 
 
 * All the writers of this period dwell more or less emphatically upon 
 the charge of duphcity brought against Mr. Pitt for allowing Earl Fitz- 
 william to believe that he was supported by the cabinet in his views of 
 Catholic emancipation. Looking at all the circumstances, it is almost im- 
 possible to say that the conduct of the prinie minister was not highly cen- 
 surable. Putting the best construction upon it which the ascertained 
 facts will admit of, he must be censured either as having intended to 
 deceive his lord heutenant, or to have been content that a very dangerous 
 and unbecoming experiment should be tried. Unfortunately on most 
 occasions of this kind, the witnesses who could best settle the points in 
 dispute are those who either do not come forward, or only communicate 
 information indirectly. Here Mr. Pitt does not speak himself, but the 
 earl of Westmorland asserts for him in the House of Lords, that Earl 
 FitzwiUiam had no authority whatever from ministers in England for 
 taking the steps he did on the Catholic question — they were taken not 
 only without their authority, but with their positive disapprobation. On 
 the other hand, we find the earl writing to Lord Carlisle, that he never 
 would have undertaken the government, if the duke of Portland and Mr. 
 Pitt had not concurred with him in the policy of relieving the Catholics 
 from every remaining disqualification. On the same side, we have Mr. 
 Grattan positively affirming, that being informed that the ministers sent 
 for him and his friends to adopt their measures, he distinctly informed 
 them that Catholic emancipation was one of them. It was upon this faith 
 that Mr. Grattan moved the address in answer to the lord lieutenant's 
 speech at the opening of the session. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 223 
 
 and mastered by more excessive violence upon the part of the 
 government. We have thus to trace under the administra- 
 tion of the earl of Camden, the repeal, in quick succession, 
 of the several laws which protected liberty, and guaranteed 
 the safety of individuals and the augmentation of property. 
 In their stead we behold the severest measures enacted by 
 which despotism could be fortified, and a government of mili- 
 tary violence enforced. The Habeas Corpus Act is suspended ; 
 civil oppression and agrarian outrage proceed at rival paces ; 
 insurrection and indemnity bills are hurried through parlia- 
 ment ; increased discontent seeks a vent in partial insurrec- 
 tion ; and continued insurrection expands into wide-spread and 
 desperate rebellion. Foreign invasions take place, and late in 
 the struggle, the British army, realising the description of Sir 
 R. Abercromby, having proved formidable to every one but the 
 enemy, flies before a forlorn hope of Frenchmen. In vain had 
 Grattan invoked freedom and conciliation ; — in vain proclaimed 
 every other policy contemptible as well as cruel ; — in vain pro- 
 pounded the generous truth that all the people should instantly 
 embrace, and the ministers should greatly emancipate. In 1797, 
 the expedition under General Hoche, after having been defeated 
 by the hostile elements, hung over Bantry Bay and returned 
 to Brest ; several persons were charged with treason ; lenient 
 measures were earnestly recommended in the parliaments of 
 England as well as of Ireland, and rejected in both ; the con- 
 spiracy of the united Irishmen was published by authority ; 
 Mr. Grattan, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. Curran and others, — now 
 a small but firm band, — made a last effort to defend the 
 rights of their country by moving the standard questions of 
 parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. They failed 
 in them, and withdrew from parliament.^ Ireland was now 
 
 * The address in which Mr. Grattan now took leave of his constituents, 
 and the Whig-club petition, which he drew up, to the king, describing 
 the recent events and the consequent state of the country, are documents 
 too long to be inserted here, but every way entitled to the attention of 
 those who would understand the true nature of the contest carried on 
 between the ministers of this period, and the Irish liberal politicians. 
 For power of statement, for vigorous and affecting eloquence, for beau- 
 tiful noble composition, these two pieces are and beyond all measure 
 admirable. 
 
224 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 surrendered to military violence, executed by 80,000 furious 
 soldiers. 
 
 Although much has been written of the rebellion of 1798, 
 our information is confused and indistinct of the sources from 
 which it emanated, and the objects to which it was directed. 
 It remains to this day nearly as profound a mystery as it 
 appeared at the moment of its first explosion. The orga- 
 nization has been fully detailed, and the opinions of some of 
 its leaders have been explicitly recorded ; but the real aim of 
 the multitude who took the field on this occasion in scattered 
 masses has never been clearly explained. Looking at the 
 number, extent, and gallantry of the popular operations, we 
 are tempted to recognise a general attempt to revolutionize 
 the country ; but upon examining separately the persons who 
 were engaged, and the events which took place, we fail to 
 detect the certain characteristics of a national conspiracy. 
 That identity of purpose, — that common interest and under- 
 standing, — that universal sympathy and agreement upon cer- 
 tain rallying points, which constitute the firm bonds of union, 
 and knit together all great rebellions, are wanting here. 
 There is no hero — no battle-cry — not even a watchword. We 
 have before us a dark and irregular outline, — outbreaks of 
 violence, crime, and bloodshed ; but no settled ulterior plan, 
 no fixed goal, no fully developed movement. Nearly a million 
 of men may have taken the oath, and risked their lives at the 
 impulse of the society, but they neither appear to have known 
 the principal leaders, — to have adopted their particular princi- 
 ples, — nor to have agreed amongst themselves what grievances 
 they would redress, or what franchises they would secure. Both 
 the persons who took part in the encounter and the opinions en- 
 tertained by them, present a heap of contradictions and incon- 
 gruities. The confederation originated with the Protestants 
 and Presbyterians in the North ; the battles were fought by 
 the Homan Catholic peasants in the South. Wolfe Tone, 
 Napper Tandy, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald were republicans; 
 but there is nothing to show that a republican form of govern- 
 ment was desired by the courageous hordes who turned out, 
 pike in hand, and maintained a series of running fights for 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 225 
 
 nearly a year with the king's troops. By them the ex- 
 ample of France, the great cotemporary incentive to popular 
 commotion and political change, was hardly known, and cer- 
 tainly not understood. What, then, it may be asked, was the 
 rebellion of 1798? — what produced it? — what sustained it? — 
 what was sought by it ? 
 
 The true answer to these questions will be readily given by 
 those who have studied the history of the country attentively, 
 and made themselves correctly acquainted with the condition of 
 the inhabitants. This rebellion was the general result of intoler- 
 able misgovernment. Ireland, always the land of oppression, 
 had always been the congenial soil of conspiracy. Where wrongs 
 had been continually borne, and transmitted for ages from 
 father to son, like so many heir-looms of vengeance, private 
 hostile combinations became habitual in the suffering class. 
 There are, moreover, natural qualities in the constitution of 
 his character, which particularly dispose the Irishman to in- 
 dulge in associations of this kind. Loving enterprise and mys- 
 tery, he fed his courage and his imagination with these indul- 
 gences, while he gratified his desire of throwing off, and taking 
 satisfaction for, the degradation by which his pride had so long 
 been wounded. His position was surrounded by other circum- 
 stances decidedly favourable to these predispositions. For a 
 long term of years — in truth, for preceding centuries — society 
 in Ireland had never been found without a class of persons 
 who possessed and deserved, not alone the commiseration, but 
 the respect of the community upon the skirts of which they 
 hung and barely subsisted. These were persons who had been 
 wronged in due course of law, or pauperized by the political 
 misdeeds of their forefathers. There was always, therefore, a 
 period at which the unsightly object of unmerited suffering, 
 on an extended scale, was present to humane and right- 
 minded men. There followed, of course, sympathy for the 
 sufferer, and often pity for the violator of the law, who was 
 believed to have been goaded into violence by his sufferings. 
 These feelings lit up a strong flame in many bosoms which 
 served to point the way to those retired haunts in which the 
 
 VOL. u. 
 
226 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 oath of the secret society was administered at midnight, and 
 the vain hope of better days for Ireland was made the spell that 
 led to deeper sufferings than had been endured before. 
 
 Innumerable provocations and temptations had thus poured 
 their influence together, in order to accustom the Irishman to 
 habits of conspiring. He could scarcely stir or speak without 
 receiving a hint to consult for the redress of his wrongs, or the 
 relief of his misfortunes. Secret combination and midnight 
 conference thus became ordinary avocations, and were prized 
 as the only form in which consolation or enjoyment were ad- 
 mitted to his destitution. In this way of life the rebellion 
 of 1798 was fostered, and attained shape and strength. It 
 was presented to old customs, and wearing a familiar guise was 
 adopted inconsiderately and followed blindly. There was in 
 the masses the sense of oppression — the loud outcry constantly 
 raised, and never answered meetly — the passion for revenge, 
 wildness and despair. These were its elements; but they 
 were not combined with any clear or positive design amongst 
 any considerable portion of conspirators to pull the Irish crown 
 from the head of King Geo. III., or to substitute another form 
 of government in the place of that which his ministers and peers 
 had imposed upon them. We behold a general outburst for 
 the purpose of throwing off a galling yoke, but no unanimity 
 of opinion, and scarcely any concert as to the nature of the 
 institutions which it would be proper to frame in the event of 
 success. 
 
 One of our shortest accounts of the composition and designs 
 of the Society of United Irishmen, is furnished by the Commit- 
 tee of the House of Lords in 1797. We are thus informed that — 
 
 '* The system was first represented to be for purely civil or political 
 purposes. The inferior societies, at their original institution, consisted 
 each of thirty-six members, afterwards reduced to twelve ; these twelve 
 chose a secretary and treasurer ; and the secretaries of five of these so- 
 cieties formed what was called a lower baronial committee, which had the 
 immediate direction and superintendence of the five societies who thus con- 
 tributed to its constitution. From each lower baronial committee, thus 
 constituted, one member was delegated to an upper baronial committee, 
 which in like manner assumed and exercised the superintendence and 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 227 
 
 direction of all the lower baronial committees in the several counties. 
 The next superior committees were, in populous towns, distinguished by 
 the name of district committees, and in counties by the name of county 
 committees, and were composed of members delegated by the upper 
 baronials. Each upper baronial committee delegated one of its members 
 to the district or county committee, and these district or county commit- 
 tees had the superintendence and direction of all the upper baronials, 
 who contributed to their institution. Having thus organised the several 
 counties and populous towns, a subordinate directory was erected in each 
 of the four provinces, composed of two members, or three, according to 
 the extent and population of the districts which they represented, and 
 were delegated to a provincial committee, which had the immediate direc- 
 tion and superintendence of the several county and district committees in 
 each of the four provinces ; and a general executive directory, composed 
 of five persons, was elected by the provincial directories ; but the election 
 was so managed that none but the secretaries of the provincials knew on 
 whom the election fell. It was made by ballot, but not reported to the 
 electors ; the appointment was notified only to those on whom the elec- 
 tion devolved, and the executive directory, thus composed, assumed and 
 exercised the supreme and uncontrolled command of the whole body of 
 the union. 
 
 The manner of communicating the orders issued by the executive 
 directory was peculiarly calculated to baffle detection. One member of 
 the executive alone communicated with one member of each provincial 
 committee or directory ; the order was transmitted by him to the secre- 
 tary of each county or district committee in his province ; the secretaries 
 of the county and district committees communicated with the secretaries 
 of the upper baronials in each county ; they communicated with the secre- 
 taries of the lower baronial committees, who gave the orders to the 
 secretaries of each subordinate committee, by whom it was given to the 
 several inferior members of the union. 
 
 " The leaders having completed their system in the province of Ulster, 
 so early as the 10th of May, 1795, and having made considerable pro- 
 gress in establishing it in the autumn and winter of 1796, in the province 
 of Leinster, proceeded at that period to convert it into a mihtary shape 
 and form, for the undisguised project of rebellion ; this was distinctly 
 acknowledged by Arthur O'Connor, William James M'Nevin, Thomas 
 Addis Emmet, and Oliver Bond, who confessed themselves to have been 
 leading and active members of this conspiracy, as will appear more dis- 
 tinctly from the appendix to this report. From the confessions of these 
 persons, it appears that the military organization, as they termed it was 
 grafted on the civil. The secretary of each subordinate society com- 
 posed of twelve, was appointed their petty or non-commissioned officer ; 
 the delegate of five societies to a lower baronial committee, was com- 
 
 q2 
 
228 oriTLTNEs or the hkstory of 
 
 monly appointed captain of a company composed of the five societies 
 who had so delegated him, and who made up the number of sixty pri- 
 vates ; and the delegate of ten lower baronials to the upper or district 
 committee, was commonly appointed colonel of a battalion, which was 
 thus composed of six hundred men. The colonels of battalions in each 
 county sent the names of three persons to the executive directory of the 
 union, one of whom was appointed by them adjutant general of the 
 county, whose duty it was to receive and communicate military orders 
 from the executive to the colonels of battalions, and in general to act as 
 officers of the revolutionary staff. In addition to this establishment, it 
 appears that a military committee was appointed by the executive direc- 
 tory to prepare a regular plan for assisting a French army, if any such 
 should make a landing, by directing the national military force, as it was 
 called, to co-operate with them ; or to form a regular plan of insurrection, 
 in case it should be ordered, without waiting for French assistance : and 
 it appears to your committee, that a regular and digested plan of insur- 
 rection was actually formed and reduced to writing in April 1797, which 
 was given up, for that time only, from the representations of the executive 
 directory of the union, that speedy and effectual assistance was promised 
 from France. For the purpose of arming this body, orders were given 
 to the Irish directory that every member of the union who had the means, 
 should provide himself with fire arms and ammunition; and that such 
 persons whose means would not afford any other weapons should provide 
 themselves with pikes ; which order appeared to your committee to have 
 been executed in a very great extent throughout the provinces of Ulster, 
 Leinster, and Munster. In the province of Connaught the emissaries of 
 the union seem not to have been enabled to proceed farther in their sys- 
 tem of treason than by administering oaths to the people : their farther 
 progress seems to have been obstructed by the vigourous exertions of the 
 executive government, when rebellion broke forth in acts of open hosti- 
 lity. It appears to your committee, that the directory of the union, 
 having thus established a revolutionary government in themselves over a 
 great body of the people, issued an order forbidding the use of any arti- 
 cle of consumption liable to the excise duties ; which order was stated to 
 your committee by the aforesaid persons, who had been members of the 
 republican directoiy, to have been generally and implicitly obeyed ; and 
 it further appeared to your committee, from the testimony of the same 
 persons, or some of them, that an oi:der had also been issued by the same 
 directory to stop the currency of bank notes, and to forbid the purchase 
 of quit rents payable to the crown, which, by an act of this session, have 
 been vested in the lords commissioners of the treasury, to be sold for the 
 service of the current year ; with a threat on the part of the directory, 
 that such a sale would be disallowed at the approaching revolution, as an 
 anticipation of its resources." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 229 
 
 This, it must be confessed, was a scheme contrived with 
 skill and effect. It displayed an intimate knowledge of the 
 Irish character, and organized a tremendous power. The 
 forms adopted were exactly suited to the dispositions of the 
 people. The frequent meetings, the reserve of the principals, 
 and the concealment of the head, harmonized at once with the 
 popular love of action and mystery, and allowed each member 
 to feed his imagination with the hope that the real object of the 
 combination was the redress of the particular grievance upon 
 which his own heart was set. But, notwithstanding all the 
 facilities and attractions which were offered by it for binding 
 the people together, the design was only calculated to realize 
 that species of abortive rebellion to which it actually gave 
 birth. The arrangements were infinite, and as plastic as 
 could be desired ; the connecting links were subtly framed and 
 easily commanded ; the channels were ingeniously provided 
 for pouring the blood of active existence through the whole 
 great framework ; — but the vivifying spirit, the electricity of , 
 some directing genius to animate the whole, to act upon every 
 part, and excite a reciprocating action in each, was altogether 
 wanting. It was a monster of infinite animal powers — all legs 
 and arms — but without the intelligence, or the soul to move 
 the vast machine to greatness or to good. 
 
 The tame reception uniformly given to the French evinces in 
 the strongest manner the total absence of any common under- 
 standing between the originators and heads of the society, and 
 the masses who composed its body. There were two French 
 invasions, or rather attempts at invasion ; the first under 
 Hoche, the second under Humbert — the small squadron, with 
 the high-spirited but unfortunate Wolfe Tone on board, was 
 an aid to Humbert, and not a separate expedition. In each of 
 these instances, the people proved that they were neither 
 anxious nor prepared for a republic, or a French alliance : 
 their support of their foreign friends was desultory and feeble. 
 As little was it Parliamentary Reform or Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion that stirred them. These were questions warmly desired 
 in the middle class, but not cared for in the lower : an idea of 
 carrying one or the other by force was never bruited. Whence, 
 
230 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 then, was elicited the concealed fire that lit up this vast confla- 
 gration? From agrarian oppression, — from the wanton tyranny 
 of landlords, — from the daily injuries inflicted upon the pea- 
 santry. There lay the strong and active aliments that fed the 
 rebellion and communicated to its ravages the most daring spirit. 
 The peasantry of Kildare and Wexford understood nothing 
 of the political innovations for which Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 
 Mr. Wolfe Tone, the brothers Sheares, and so many others 
 lost their lives. The knowledge of the peasantry was of a very 
 different kind — it moved from a far deeper seat, and possessed 
 more invigorating qualities. Each man of them carried in his 
 breast the profound and embittering conviction that he had 
 been reared as one of an inferior race of men, — that he had 
 always been goaded by the contumelies and exactions which 
 are never launched but against a degraded caste, — that he had 
 lived uniformly a life of incessant toil, linked with the most 
 miserable poverty. This was the knowledge that made him 
 bound forward with joy to avail himself of an opportunity of 
 striking a manly blow to elevate his abject condition, and vin- 
 dicate in his person the rights of suffering humanity. If it 
 had not been for all this, the rebellion would have expired 
 when its leaders were thrown into prison and led to the gallows. 
 Subsequently to those events, however, came the period of 
 its fiercest outbreak : the body did not move until the head 
 had been cut off*. A more conclusive proof could not have 
 been affbrded to show how ill-informed were the people as to 
 w ho their leaders were, or what were the particular principles 
 for which they had been instigated to fight. 
 
 The government, however, appear to have been well in- 
 structed in all these respects. The cabinet in London, as well 
 as the privy council in Dublin, had long been informed of the 
 existence and the nature of the conspiracy. When they per- 
 mitted it to proceed, did they not desire that it should ripen ? 
 Jackson's mission from the French republicans to the disaffected 
 in Dublin, was executed with the privity of the home office in 
 Whitehall; and Lord Clare affected to complain, in 1798, that 
 the conspirators had been left undisturbed for three years, in 
 despite of his remonstrances. The admissions made upon both 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 2S1 
 
 sides of the House of Commons, when the treason was formally 
 proclaimed, tended still further to explain the general under- 
 standing that prevailed as to the true origin of the evil. By 
 one party it was avowed that disaffection pervaded the whole 
 kingdom, and could not be suppressed by ordinary means of 
 coercion. The house was told that disorganization had been 
 produced by general misgovernment, and that the retributive 
 justice of mere punishment for actual excesses could neither 
 check the disorder, nor stop up the sources from which it 
 flowed. Mr. Secretary Pelham echoed this view of the case, 
 apologizing not only for the mass of the people generally, but 
 for several United Irishmen whom he represented as being 
 much less criminal than the rest. Many amongst them, he 
 said, had been misled by specious pretexts. Parliamentary 
 reform, he observed, especially during the French Revolution, 
 must prove a very questionable topic for agitation, both in 
 its motive and tendency. Assemblies of men, which would be 
 innocent, and therefore lawful in times of tranquillity, might, 
 in the present crisis, assume a far different character ; and in 
 this way he did not hesitate to confess that many well-disposed 
 persons had continued to be members of the confederacy. 
 
 Had the mischief been dealt with in the spirit of these 
 observations, the history of the kingdom would have escaped 
 the lasting disgrace with which a series of flagitious enormi- 
 ties has blackened its pages. Mr. Pelham was succeeded in 
 his office by the Right Honourable Robert Stewart, Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh,* afterwards marquis of Londonderry, and leader of 
 the British House of Commons under the administration of 
 Lord Liverpool. The vigour beyond the law which this no- 
 bleman supported, together with the means which he counte- 
 nanced " to make the rebellion explode," have attached an 
 indelible stain to his memory. But he was not the author of 
 the terrible system with which his name is so darkly asso- 
 ciated. He found it in full operation, and pushed to its most 
 
 * The Right Hon. Robert Stewart was a member of the convention of 
 delegates, elected by the volunteers in the year 1783, to present Mr. 
 Flood's plan of reform to the House of Commons. At the general elec- 
 tion in 1790 he stood for the county of Down, and was returned because 
 he professed the principles of an uncompromising reformer. 
 
232 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 unmerciful and brutal extremes. Luttrel, earl of Carhamp- 
 ton, well known in the parliamentary history of England as 
 the ministerial opponent of Mr. Wilkes at the celebrated 
 Middlesex elections, was the Irish commander-in-chief, when 
 the earl of Camden became viceroy, and soon rendered himself 
 odiously conspicuous by his conduct. While he served as 
 general, military licentiousness reached a daring pitch of 
 cruelty. The soldiers living at free quarters in districts re- 
 ported to be disturbed, and having been authorized Ho act 
 without the presence of a civil magistrate, made it sport 
 to seize the devoted peasantry, and subject them to the 
 most capricious punishments. Earl Moira asserted in parlia- 
 ment, that a company of soldiers, searching for arms, would 
 burn thirty houses in one night. Imprisonment upon suspi- 
 cion, torture to extort confession, and transportation without 
 trial, were excesses of daily occurrence. Lord Carhampton 
 patronised a tribunal worthy of the darkest era of the Spanish 
 inquisition. We are assured that he and other magistrates 
 used to make a practice of meeting and examining together 
 the private reports sent in against persons who had been 
 arrested without any evidence of guilt : these examinations 
 proceeded in the absence of the accused, who, whenever the 
 suspicion appeared strong, were sent on board a transporta- 
 tion tender, as " being otherwise likely to elude justice." * For 
 this display of " wholesome severity,'' the earl of Carhampton 
 was repeatedly honoured with the warm thanks of county grand 
 juries and Orange corporations, while an approving parliament 
 shielded him from all liability to the lawful consequences of 
 guilt, by passing an act of indemnity. 
 
 General Lake, commanding the province of Ulster, emu- 
 lated the example of Lord Carhampton. A proclamation 
 under this officer's hand to the disturbed districts in the 
 north, — the manner in which he enforced martial law, at the 
 
 * "Lord Carhampton, impatient or dissatisfied at the law's delay, under- 
 took to exert a rigor beyond it. He emptied all the prisons of their 
 tenants, and, without form of trial, sent them, and every one he chose to 
 suspect of dissatisfaction, on his own authority, to ser\^e on board the 
 lleet : above 1,300 were thus transported from their homes during 1796," 
 — Plowdcn's History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 372. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 233 
 
 instigation of spies and informers, and the reckless acts of 
 wanton outrage committed by the officers and men under his 
 command, excited a general feeling of horror and indigna- 
 tion. Amongst these a mid-day attack upon the office of the 
 " Northern Star" newspaper at Belfast, and the destruction of 
 the types and the house, by a party of his soldiers, deserved, 
 the severest punishment, but was allowed to pass without even 
 reprobation. Another monstrous case was that of the unfor- 
 tunate Mr. Lucas, who was sabred to death with his hands 
 tied behind his back, because some countrymen flocking round, 
 suggested to the colonel who was marching him to prison the 
 fear of an intended rescue. The body falling into the hands 
 of relatives, was waked according to the custom of the coun- 
 try ; but Sparrow, the officer, followed to recover it, broke 
 into the house where it lay, and severely cut and mangled 
 several of the mourners who had assembled around it. Having 
 been tried and found guilty of this murder. Sparrow drew from 
 his pocket a royal pardon, which had been previously forwarded 
 to him by the government, and thus escaped all punishment. 
 
 The character of the period and the spirit of the govern- 
 ment during the year 1797, are but too emphatically explained 
 by such occurrences as these. The tampering of the French 
 republicans with the United Irishmen had been distinctly re- 
 vealed in 1796, upon the dispersion of the expedition from 
 Brest. From that moment the great object of the govern- 
 ment seemed to be a measureless chastisement of the nation 
 at large, because a portion of it had been tempted to entertain 
 treasonable propositions. The state policy in Ireland remained 
 unmodified, the admitted grounds of discontent, and many an 
 injustice, afterwards redressed, were left untouched, and re- 
 bellion proceeded with Lords Clare and Castlereagh as its 
 ministers. Two disheartening lessons were taught to the United 
 Irishmen early in the progress of their fate : the first, that 
 upon this as on all former occasions, all those who relied for 
 success upon French co-operation,* were doomed to disappoint- 
 
 * A fatal propensity has always led the Irish to look upon the French 
 as necessary allies in their struggles against EngUsh oppression. The 
 
234 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 ment ; and the second, that notwithstanding the rigid care 
 paid to secrecy in the construction of their plan, the whole 
 had been divulged to government long before the time fixed 
 upon for its development. The memoir drawn up for the 
 purpose of making the Directory in France acquainted with 
 the strength of the society, the turbulence of the people, 
 and the most vulnerable parts of the kingdom, found its way 
 into the hands of the English minister. When Mr. O'Con- 
 nor, Dr. M^Nevin, and their fellow prisoners, were brought 
 before the privy council, they were surprised to find a copy of 
 this document lying before them. In April, 1797, the Ulster 
 committee was betrayed at Belfast; in March, 1798, the 
 Leinster committee was betrayed in Dublin ; on the 19 th of 
 May following Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and on the 22nd, the 
 brothers Sheares were betrayed. The principal informers were 
 one Reynolds,^ a united Irishman, and a captain Armstrong, 
 
 indisputable fact, that the character of the French as conquerors and 
 colonizers is much worse than that of the Enghsh, has been either wholly 
 overlooked, or hut slightly considered by the majority of Irish combatants 
 against the dominion of England. In the years 1688 and 1798 we see 
 the feehng for France impelling the same course of action and producing 
 precisely similar results. Regarding France as the natural enemy of 
 England and confiding in the Roman Catholic religion as a common hond 
 of sympathy and connexion, the hostile Irish trusted on both occasions to 
 a French force as their surest instrument of victory. That aid never once 
 arrived either opportunely or according to promise ; and when it did ap- 
 pear, too often excited by its numbers and composition the fear of having 
 been designed more for conquest than co-operation. If the Irish leaders of 
 that age could have brooked the demonstrations given by the French 
 generals of a design to rule the Irish, and to treat them in every respect 
 as inferiors, the treaty of Limerick, in all probability, would not have been 
 signed on the 3d of October, 1693. Some community of sentiment and 
 interest derivable from the profession of the same religion seems to have 
 been dreamed of by many of the Irish and to have been despised by the 
 French. National and not rehgious enthusiasm has animated that gay and 
 gallant people in all their wars and adventures for years past. 'ITieir 
 design, equally in 1688 and in 1798, was to make Ireland a French depen- 
 dency. The idea of raising that country to a state of freedom and then 
 leaving it independent of France or England has as little entered at any 
 period of time into the policy of the statesmen of one country as of the 
 other. To what mutations the kingdoms of the world may be destined 
 no man can tell ; but if a negative prophecy may be tolerated, it may be 
 confidently predicted that the separation of Ireland from England will 
 never be effected by the co-operation of France, whether rehgious or 
 political. 
 
 * This informer fared well with the English government. He had been 
 a silk manufacturer, struggling for years on the brink of ruin, but con- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 235 
 
 who had wormed himself into the confidence of the members, 
 whom he delivered up to justice, and who encouraged their 
 plot while revealing its objects to Lord Castlereagh. These 
 men received large rewards for their infamous services. The 
 force enrolled was 99,411 men, who were thus distributed 
 through ten counties : — Antrim, 22,039 ; Down, 23,769 ; 
 Derry, 10,000; Tyrone, 12,169; Armagh, 12,273; Mona- 
 ghan, 3,075; Donegal, 9,648; Cavan, 1000; Fermanagh, 
 2,000 ; and Louth, 3,438. The arms of this body amounted 
 to 6,346 guns, 2,536 bayonets, 3,816 pikes, 465 pistols, 18 
 blunderbusses, and 8 cannon : — of money they had only 
 ,^'144 25. \d. In Leinster, the total number of members was 
 67,295, who were thus enrolled in the following counties : — 
 Wicklow, 12,895 ; Carlow, 9,414; Kildare, 10,863 ; Meath, 
 14,000 ; Kilkenny, 604 ; and the Queen s County, 11,689 :— 
 their funds amounted to £1,485 4a'. dd. 
 
 The principals were all in gaol or had fled from certain 
 arrest, when the insurrection broke out in the counties of 
 Kildare and Carlow on the appointed 23d of May. The de- 
 luded peasants were everywhere destroyed. The government 
 met their opening violence with a spirit of savage defiance, and 
 exhausted in its suppression every horror which it seems pos- 
 sible for the most unrelenting inhumanity to perpetrate. 
 
 While Mr. Pelham continued in office, the authorities, civil 
 and military, shocked at the growing excesses of the military 
 and the magistrates, appear to have made an effort to restrain 
 them within the bounds of discipline. Some strong observa- 
 tions, in a well-known general order issued by Sir Ralph 
 Abercromby, justify this opinion : — " The very disgraceful 
 
 triving to keep up his credit by making a dashing appearance. As a part 
 of this plan, he took a lease of Kilkea Castle and some adjoining ground, 
 from the duke of Leinster, and lived somewhat in the style of a gentleman. 
 The first sum he received for betraying the conspiracy was £500 ; he after- 
 wards received a place in the post-office at Lisbon, a pension of £1,000 a 
 year, and, by way of getting him out of the way, and furnishing an 
 excuse for paying him more money, was made consul at Iceland. He 
 continued to importune the government for money and preferment, until 
 Lord Londonderry's death opened the foreign office to Mr. Canning's 
 talents, when an end was quickly put to the unworthy connection so long 
 subsisting between the king's government and such a person. 
 
236 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 frequency of courts-martial," said that eminent commander, 
 " and the many complaints of the conduct of the troops in 
 Ireland, having too unfortunately proved the army to be in a 
 state of licentiousness, which must render it formidable to 
 every one but the enemy, the commander-in-chief thinks it 
 necessary to require from all generals commanding districts 
 or brigades, as well as commanding officers of regiments, 
 that they exert themselves, and compel from every officer 
 under their command, the strictest and most unremitting 
 attention to the discipline, good order, and conduct of his 
 men ; such as may restore the high and distinguished repu- 
 tation the British troops have been accustomed to enjoy in 
 every part of the world." 
 
 But ordinary severities could not appease the fury of the 
 Irishy privy council. Lord Camden issued a proclamation, 
 giving notice, that " his majesty's general officers had orders 
 to punish, according to martial law, by death or otherwise, as 
 their judgment should approve, all persons acting, or in any 
 manner assisting in the rebellion." Even Sir Ralph Aber- 
 cromby found himself constrained to echo this virulent lan- 
 guage, and to declare, that unless the people gave up their 
 arms in ten days, troops should be sent amongst them to live 
 at free quarters, — to act without the presence of a magistrate, 
 and to enforce obedience by other severities. It has been 
 forcibly remarked, that the revolutionary army of France in 
 all its invasions, never published such orders as these. That 
 a truly gallant soldier who afterwards died in the arms of 
 victory while defeating Napoleon, should have signed them, 
 suggests painful reflections. It is due to his memory to add, 
 that he appears to have regretted the act as soon as it was 
 performed. He wrote to England immediately afterwards, 
 praying for leave to retire, — and was removed from Ireland 
 during the course of the same month. 
 
 From Kildare and Carlow the insurrection spread into 
 Wexford and Wicklow ; it also broke out in Antrim and in 
 Down ; but it only proved formidable in Wexford. There, 
 the towns of Wexford and Enniscorthy were captured and held 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 237 
 
 for three weeks, and several movements and engagements took 
 place, in which the peasantry distinguished themselves by a 
 wild spirit of bravery and some hardy fighting. Their efforts, 
 when the disparity of the contending forces is examined, seem 
 wonderful. They rose in the face of a numerous army, well 
 trained,^ well appointed, commanded by experienced generals, 
 and abundantly supplied with ammunition, food, and money. 
 They were a raw, ill-armed, and irregular body, struggling to 
 make head, — without officers or discipline, provisions, concert, 
 or any plan of systematic operations ; and yet they were able 
 to gain victories, and to occupy the field for a considerable time. 
 The treatment to which they were subjected after their forces 
 had been scattered, when the danger had ceased to be im- 
 minent, and, even at times and in places where no outbreak 
 whatever had occurred, was marked by a wanton cruelty and 
 unrelenting malice, which were disgraceful in the last degree, 
 not only to the officers, magistrates, and men who committed, 
 but to the government which tolerated them. The more the 
 military proclamations of the period are examined, the more 
 indignation will be excited, and censure justified. General 
 Nugent commanding the northern troops, in June, 1798, con- 
 cluded an address, in which he had called upon the insurgents 
 to lay down their arms, with these sanguinary intimations : — 
 " Should the above injunctions not be complied with, Major- 
 General Nugent will proceed to set fire to, and totally destroy 
 the towns of Killeleah, Ballynahinch, Saintfield, Killinchy, 
 and every cottage and farm-house in the vicinity of these 
 places, and put every one to the sword who may be found in 
 arms : it behoves all well-affected persons to exert themselves 
 to have these terms complied with, as it is the only oppor- 
 tunity there will be of rescuing themselves and properties from 
 the indiscriminate vengeance of an army necessarily let loose 
 upon them." 
 
 This being the tone in which the insurgent districts were 
 addressed, let us take a specimen of the language held in 
 places where no rebels appeared. The following document 
 was issued from the adjutant-general's office in Cork, during 
 
238 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 the month of May, 1798 : — " Whereas it has been reported 
 to Lieutenant-General James Stuart, that in some parts of 
 the county where it has been necessary to place troops at free 
 quarters for the restoration of pubhc tranquiUity, that general 
 subscriptions of money have been entered into by the inhabit- 
 ants to purchase provisions for the troops, by which means, 
 the end proposed, of making the burthen fall as much as pos- 
 sible upon the guilty is entirely defeated, by making it fall in 
 a light proportion upon the whole, and thereby easing and 
 protecting the guilty : it has been thought proper to direct, 
 that wherever the practice has been adopted, or shall be 
 attempted, the general officers commanding divisions of the 
 southern district, shall immediately double, triple, and quad- 
 ruple the number of soldiers so stationed, and shall send out 
 regular foraging parties to provide provisions for the troops, 
 in the quantities mentioned in the former notice, bearing date 
 the 27th day of April, 1798 ; and that they shall move them 
 from station to station, through the district or barony, until 
 all arms are surrendered and tranquillity be perfectly restored, 
 and until it is reported to the general officers, by the gentle- 
 men holding landed property, and those who are employed in 
 collecting the public revenue and tithes, that all rents, taxes, 
 and tithes are completely paid up."" 
 
 Innumerable tales of horror, and endless cases of outrage 
 and crime are our evidences of the effects produced by the 
 various proclamations from which these quotations have been 
 made. The presence of a troop of soldiers appears to have 
 been every where the signal for proceedings to which the his- 
 tory of Europe furnishes no parallel. These usually began 
 with searches for arms, the employment of spies, the receipt 
 of secret accusations, and arrests upon suspicion. Magis- 
 trates and military officers were instructed and authorized to 
 take informations in private, to keep the names of the infor- 
 mers profoundly secret, and to proceed against the accused 
 according to their discretion. Ignorant zeal, blundering loy- 
 alty, and religious bigotry, innocent fear, and mercenary vigi- 
 lance, dissimulation in its worst forms, frauds of every kind. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 239 
 
 wanton malice, private vengeance, and the whole host of 
 bad passions were cast wildly over the face of the country, and 
 allowed to riot in blood. Wherever an individual became ob- 
 noxious, soldiers were quartered upon him, and their numbers 
 were proportioned to the extent of his imputed guilt or his 
 means of supporting the imposition. When arms were found 
 in a house, it was set on fire and reduced to ashes. Men were 
 daily seized in numbers, and scourged, picketed, or otherwise 
 tortured, to extort confessions of local combination or arms 
 concealed. Persons imprisoned on private information were 
 sometimes half hanged, or strangled almost to death, as tests 
 of their guilt or innocence, when no trial or court martial 
 could be held.* The disaffected were supposed to wear the 
 hair cut short. From this fashion arose the nick-name of 
 croppy, and a most barbarous practice. A peasant or trades- 
 man caught near a barrack wearing short hair, was crowned 
 with a cap of coarse linen or strong brown paper, besmeared 
 with melting pitch on the inside. As soon as this adhered, it 
 was pulled of, and the hair torn from the roots, and the skin 
 barbarously lacerated. A sergeant was rewarded for a pecu- 
 liar invention in the art of tormenting, with the sobriquet of 
 Tom the Devil. This fellow used to cut the hair close to the 
 roots, in the form of a cross, and filling the furrow with mois- 
 tened gunpowder, set fire to the train, which, burning slowly, 
 prolonged the torture to madness. There was also a parti- 
 cular company of fencible cavalry, who were familiarly deno- 
 minated Lord Jocelyn's Foxhunters, from the rapidity and 
 expertness with which they used to run down and sabre the 
 flying peasantry. 
 
 The number and the notoriety of these outrages, and the 
 absence of all effort upon the part of the government to re- 
 strain or discourage, would justify us in holding the ministers 
 of this period responsible for their guilt. But we are not 
 driven to charges of constructive participation in lawless 
 
 * One Hepenstall, a tall lieutenant of militia, was called the " Walking 
 gallows," having repeatedly swung men from his shoulders as a substi- 
 tute for the gallows. 
 
240 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 cruelty and excessive oppression. There are cases of direct 
 connection, and of positive approval of reward, and even of 
 honours conferred, which bring the whole system, with its 
 long train of sanguinary brutalities, home to the very door of 
 the cabinet, and close to the touch of the officers who acted 
 immediately under their orders. 
 
 Lord Clare admitted in the House of Lords a distinct 
 charge of picketing, and thought it better that the victim, a 
 blacksmith, should be thus tortured than that pikes should be 
 manufactured for the peasantry. As if the law had not pro- 
 vided condign punishment for the offence, supposing it to have 
 been really committed. Late in the month of May, and before 
 any proclamation of the district had been made, Mr. Francis 
 Arthur of Limerick, says Plowden, was apprehended in his own 
 house by the recorder, under an order from General Morrison. 
 All this gentleman''s keys, papers, and property having been 
 seized, and his wife and family expelled from his house, which 
 was immediately filled with soldiers, he was himself led away by 
 the sheriff, General Morrison, and a large party of horse and 
 foot, and confined in a small garret. The weather was sultry, 
 but he was refused permission to break a pane of the win- 
 dow for the admission of air. If he attempted to look out of 
 it, the sentinel on guard had orders to fire upon him. He 
 requested that Mr. Thwaytes, a medical gentleman on the 
 staff, might be allowed to visit him, but this was refused. His 
 wife sent her servant with some drink to him, the servant was 
 recognized and severely beaten. While thus detained, with- 
 out a warrant, and cruelly abused, a Colonel Cockell conde- 
 scended to inform him that he was charged by a person who 
 had never seen him ; that it was uncertain whether he would 
 be tried at Limerick or Dublin, but that certainly no counsel 
 would be permitted to defend him. After languishing in his 
 garret, attacked by illness, deprived of the use of pen, ink and 
 paper, and all human intercourse but the periodical visits of 
 his turnkey, for above three weeks, he received notice, on the 
 22nd of June, at nine o'clock at night, that he was to be tried 
 for his life on the next morning. At that hour, for the first 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 241 
 
 time, the president informed Mr. Arthur, that he stood charged 
 with having aided and assisted the rebellion — 1st. By offering 
 money for the use of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, after notice had 
 been published of that nobleman's rebellious pursuits — 2nd. 
 employing one Higgins to raise men in the west — 8rd. having 
 firelocks and pikes concealed in hogsheads. The only witness 
 brought to substantiate the first charge was William Maume, 
 a convict, then under sentence of transportation for life for 
 treasonable practices. The case for the prosecution having 
 closed on a Saturday, the prisoner was ordered to prepare 
 his defence by Monday, without being allowed in the inter- 
 mediate time to speak or communicate with any human 
 being, not even with the turnkey. On Sunday Colonel Cockell 
 visited the garret, and rejected the prisoner's pressing entrea- 
 ties for an extension of time, some facilities for procuring 
 witnesses, and the aid of counsel. When the court reas- 
 sembled, the convict Maume was called in, and the president, 
 without any suggestion from the witness, announced that 
 Maume was now cooler than he had before been, and would 
 correct his previous evidence. But he prevaricated still more 
 deeply respecting his knowledge of the prisoner. A letter 
 written by himself having been produced, in which he acknow- 
 ledged that he had never seen the gentleman in his life, he 
 turned full of confusion to the president, and said, "You know, 
 sir, that it was but lately that I gave information against Mr. 
 Arthur, and that I did not wish to do it."' 
 
 Notwithstanding the rigorous secrecy of the proceedings, 
 Mrs. Arthur and her friends had obtained some material wit- 
 nesses from Charleville and other places. These persons, in 
 order to be ready to answer the call of the court, had engaged 
 a room in the hotel, adjoining to the court-house. While thus 
 awaiting the progress of the trial, a Protestant clergyman 
 handed in a paper to the president, and the court declared 
 that there was a revolutionary committee sitting in the adjoin- 
 ing tavern, and that the judge advocate should instantly take 
 the parties into custody. Sentinels were accordingly placed in 
 the front and rear of the house, with orders to let no one es- 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTOKY OF 
 
 cape. All the papers and written documents procured for the 
 prisoner's defence, were seized and kept by the president. 
 When the trial was over, the witnesses who had assembled at 
 the tavern, and had not been examined, were called in and 
 sharply rebuked by the president as a revolutionary committee. 
 At nine o'clock that night. Colonel Cockell brought Mr. Arthur 
 the following sentence of the court martial : " You are to be 
 transported to Botany Bay for life, to be sent off to-morrow 
 morning at six o'^clock, and to pay a fine of ^5,000 to the king 
 forthwith, or your entire property will be confiscated." 
 
 After a thousand pounds, found in his house, had been 
 seized, and his family had been compelled to make up the re- 
 mainder of the fine, the lord lieutenant sent a peremptory order 
 that the money should be repaid, and the prisoner allowed to go 
 to Great Britain, or any other part gf his majesty's dominions. 
 The terms in which this news was communicated by Colonel 
 Cockell, preserved the arbitrary character of the proceeding to 
 its last stage: "You must go," said the colonel, "to your 
 house in a hand-chair, with the curtain dra^vn about you. 
 You are not to stir out of your house, and in twenty-four 
 hours you are to quit Limerick." The only reparation ob- 
 tained by this unfortunate gentleman for all this insult and 
 suffering appears to have been the following short note, \\Titten 
 by the under secretary of state : — 
 
 " Sir, « Castle, Oct. 10, 1798. 
 
 " I examined William Maume, whose evidence I am clear is false; he 
 will be sent oiF and transported, and there cannot be any objection to 
 your going whither you think most eligible. As far as I can give testi- 
 mony to your character, I shall ever do it by saying that I think it by no 
 means impHcated by any thing asserted by Maume; and I certainly 
 never heard any aspersion upon you from any one else. 
 
 " I am, &c., 
 
 " To Francis Arthur, Esq. « E. Cooke." 
 
 During the autumn of the same year a court martial, of 
 which the earl of Enniskillen was president, sat to try Hugh 
 WoUaghan, a yeoman, for the murder of Thomas Dogherty. 
 The charge was proved with every aggravating circumstance. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 243 
 
 No attempt was made to contradict any part of the evidence, 
 but a justification was set up, — that the murder had been 
 committed by an order from the commanding officer, to the 
 effect, that if the yeomen should meet, while patroling the 
 country, with any whom they knew or suspected to be rebels, 
 they were to shoot them on the spot ; and that it was almost 
 the daily practice of the corps to go out upon scouring parties, 
 and to act upon this order. The fact was confirmed by one 
 pri\''ate, one serjeant, and two lieutenants of yeomanry, and 
 the prisoner was acquitted. 
 
 The following letter shows that in this instance the Mar- 
 quis Cornwallis, who succeeded Earl Camden as viceroy in 
 June 1798, behaved in a manner worthy of his position. 
 
 " Sir, " Dublin Castle, 18th Oct. 1798. 
 
 " Having laid before the lord lieutenant the proceedings of a general 
 court martial held by your orders, in Dublin Barracks, on Saturday, the 
 13th instant, of which colonel the earl of Enniskillen is president, I am 
 directed to acquaint you, that his excellency entirely disapproves of the 
 sentence of the above court martial, acquitting Hugh Wollaghan of a 
 cruel and deliberate murder, of which, by the clearest evidence, he ap- 
 pears to have been guilty. 
 
 " Lord Cornwallis orders the court martial to be immediately dis- 
 solved, and directs that Hugh Wollaghan shall be dismissed from the 
 corps of yeomanry in which he served, and that he shall not be received 
 into any other corps of yeomanry in this kingdom. 
 
 " His excellency fiurther desires, that the above may be read to the pre- 
 sident and members of the court martial in open court. 
 
 " I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 " H. Taylor, Sec." 
 
 " To Lieut.-Gen. Craig, &c. &c." 
 
 " P. S. — I am also directed, that a new court martial may be imme- 
 diately convened, for the trial of such prisoners as may be brought before 
 them ; and that none of the officers who sat upon Hugh Wollaghan be 
 admitted as members." 
 
 There were, however, numerous cases in which the govern- 
 ment- marked the lawless tyranny of its officers with their 
 special approbation. Amongst the monsters of this period 
 was John Judkin Fitzgerald, sheriff of the county of Tip- 
 
 r2 
 
244 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 
 
 perary. It appeared, on a trial for damages, at Clonmel 
 assizes, that a respectable woollen manufacturer, of the name 
 of Doyle, had been seized by this Fitzgerald in the street, at 
 Carrick-on-Suir, in the same county, and flogged. In vain did 
 the victim urge his innocence, — in vain did some of the most 
 respectable inhabitants of the place bear their testimony to the 
 excellent character he had always borne, — in vain was the most 
 searching inquiry into his conduct invited, and bail offered to - 
 any amount for his appearance. "No," said the sheriff*; "I 
 know by his face that he is a traitor, a Carmelite scoundrel 
 and accordingly the unfortunate man was tied to the whipping- 
 post : he received one hundred lashes, till his ribs appeared ; 
 his breeches were then let down, and fifty more lashes given 
 on his posteriors. This man's innocence was afterwards esta- 
 blished : he applied to a court of law for redress : the action 
 was tried, the facts were fully proved, and the defendant was 
 acquitted. 
 
 Another revolting act of barbarity is related of Fitzgerald 
 by Plowden, from whose faithful pages the preceding cases 
 have been condensed. 
 
 A Mr. Wright was employed as a teacher of the French lan- 
 guage by several boarding-schools and families of respectabi- 
 lity in the neighbourhood of Clonmel. Having heard that 
 some charges of a seditious tendency had been made against 
 him, he went to the house of Fitzgerald for the purpose of 
 satisfying his mind. When he was shown in, Fitzgerald 
 drawing his sword, said, " Down on your knees, you rebellious 
 scoundrel, and receive your sentence," which was first to be 
 flogged, and then shot. The unfortunate man gave up his 
 keys that his papers might be searched, and expressed his 
 readiness to suffer any punishment which the proof of guilt 
 could justify. " What, you Carmelite rascal," exclaimed 
 Fitzgerald, do you dare speak after sentence As he said 
 this, he struck his victim, and ordered him to prison. The 
 next day, Wright being brought forth to undergo his sen- 
 tence, and conceiving his life in danger, knelt down to pray, 
 and, while thus engaged, held his hat before his face. Fitz- 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 245 
 
 gerald snatched his hat from him, and trampHng on it, seized 
 him by the hair, dragged him to the earth, kicked him, and 
 cut him across the forehead with his sword. He then ordered 
 him to be stripped naked, to be tied up to a ladder, and to 
 receive fifty lashes. Major Rial, an officer in the town, came 
 up as the fifty lashes were completed, and asked the cause 
 of the punishment. Fitzgerald handed him a note, written 
 in French, saying that he did not himself understand the 
 language, but that the major w^ould find enough to justify any 
 man in flogging the scoundrel to death. Major Rial read the 
 note, which was directed to Wright, and which he thus trans- 
 lated for Fitzgerald : — 
 
 " Sir, — I am extremely sorry I cannot wait on you at the hour ap- 
 pointed, being imavoidably obliged to attend Sir Laurence Parsons. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " Baron de Clues.'* 
 
 Notwithstanding this, and as if to show that the severity of 
 his punishments was apportioned to the groundlessness of his 
 suspicions, Fitzgerald ordered fifty more lashes, which were 
 inflicted with so much violence that the bowels could be per- 
 ceived working through the wounds. As the application of 
 his cat-o'-nine-tails could not be continued on that part with- 
 out cutting into the body, the waist-band of the breeches was 
 opened, and fifty more lashes were laid on lower down. This 
 done, the unfortunate man was left bleeding and suspended 
 from the ladder, while Fitzgerald, hurrying to the barrack, 
 demanded a file of soldiers to come and shoot him. The com- 
 manding officer refused the application, upon which Fitzgerald 
 returned and sought for a rope to hang him, but he could not 
 procure one. Finding it impossible to carry the torture fur- 
 ther, he ordered Wright, at length, to be cut down and sent 
 back to prison, where he was confined in a small dark un- 
 furnished room, and lay on a wretched pallet of straw, without 
 covering, and without medical assistance, six or seven days. 
 
 These scenes should be painted in every account of the 
 period in their true colours ; not alone because they furnish 
 the proper illustrations of the " reign of terror" which was 
 
246 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 now maintained ; but also because, when fully examined, they 
 will be found to involve irresistible evidence of the complicity 
 of the government in the full measure of these frightful enor- 
 mities. For instance — this Fitzgerald, for his services as 
 sheriff of the county of Tipperary, was created a baronet, 
 and rewarded with a pension. 
 
 The circumstances connected with the close of the insurrec- 
 tion in Wexford, were marked in the strongest manner by 
 want of faith, by dishonour, and cruelty upon the part of the 
 government. Amongst the few persons of rank taken by the 
 insurgents was Lord Kingsborough. When the approach of 
 the royal army to Vinegar Hill had weakened the force of 
 their opponents in the town of Wexford, the inhabitants re- 
 paired to Lord Kingsborough, and offered to give him posses- 
 sion of the place, and to procure the submission of the armed 
 peasantry in the neighbourhood, provided security for life and 
 property was promised to all but murderers. Lord Kings- 
 borough accepted these conditions, and received possession of 
 the town ; while the insurgents, apprised of the convention, 
 and, relying upon its fulfilment, withdrew to their camp and 
 prepared to disperse. But no sooner did the troops of the 
 implacable Lake find the insurgent army beaten and the town 
 of Wexford recovered, than they rushed over the country, 
 committing every crime to which lust, rapine, revenge, and 
 the thirst for blood could impel human nature. In the towns, 
 the insurgent leaders and all connected with them, or impli- 
 cated in the late events, were seized upon, notwithstanding 
 the Kingsborough convention, and after having been exposed 
 to revolting indignities, were summarily punished by courts- 
 martial. Lord Kingsborough himself sat on these tribunals, 
 and the government adopted, and the parliament sanctioned 
 their proceedings by passing acts of attainder and forfeiture 
 against the men who were executed under their sentence. 
 
 Extreme cruelty and cowardice are generally found together. 
 A memorable instance of this close alliance was given at the 
 end of the rebellion. The disturbances had all been put down 
 when General Humbert landed in Killala Bay, with a forlorn 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 247 
 
 hope of 1,100 Frenchmen and one curricle gun. Lake, the 
 general who has been already mentioned, had an army of 4,000 
 men and 14 pieces of cannon, to oppose this force ; yet he 
 fled before it almost without firing a shot. It required a 
 month's preparation and manoeuvring, the presence of the 
 conqueror of Tippoo Saib, and an army of nearly 30,000, to 
 compel General Humbert and his handful of Frenchmen to 
 surrender. 
 
 It will now be proper to review the conduct of the other 
 party. The insurgents dealt back upon the military, magis- 
 trates, and yeomanry engaged against them, a dreadful measure 
 of revenge. They were neither so refined nor so hardened in 
 their cruelties as their opponents ; they never imitated the 
 base example set them by the foreign mercenaries who dark- 
 ened the land, of rape, robbery, and plunder ; but their courage 
 in the field was ferocious, and they displayed on all occasions a 
 wild excitement and appalling exultation in the shedding of 
 blood. They killed fiercely but they did not torture. It was 
 their custom when they met with cases such as they knew 
 would have been visited with the triangle and the pitch cap, 
 on the other side, to crop the obnoxious person's hair, and so 
 to mark him as one who deserved the pains which they scorned 
 to inflict. If it had not been for this natural repugnance to 
 deliberate cruelty in the Irish character, — for an instinctive 
 susceptibility in it of tender and generous emotions, — and 
 also for the highminded repudiation of persecution, upon the 
 part of the first leaders of the United Irishmen, the war of the 
 peasantry must have been equally demorahsed by predatory 
 licentiousness and unbounded malice. With regard to those 
 leaders, it is particularly observable that they offered in the 
 exceUence of their private characters, the strongest evidence 
 of being actuated on this occasion by principle : in point 
 of personal virtue as well as ability, they are entitled to high 
 praise. Perhaps if they had prepared their revolution with 
 less moderation and more indifference to the object which 
 they had in view, the result would have been more formidable 
 than it actually proved. Southey— he was not then poet 
 
248 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 laureate — made an observation upon the execution of the 
 brothers, Shear es, which suggests strange reflections : — " The 
 Irish business has been a counterpart to the death of the 
 Girondists ; yet who would not be content so to die, in order 
 so to have lived 
 
 Amongst the evidences adduced to show that the men who 
 headed the peasantry when they first rose in the county of 
 Kildare, were not prepared to act upon the rules of honour- 
 able vvar, is the confession of the prisoners taken at Naas — a 
 confession confirmed by written papers found in the pockets of 
 the killed and wounded — that the orders of the day were to 
 put to death every officer, and to disarm every common sol- 
 dier who Vv'ould not instantly join in the insurrection. These 
 indefensible instructions, providentially, failed of their effect at 
 Naas ; but they succeeded too fatally at Prosperous, and other 
 places, where the government, though forewarned of the at- 
 tack, neglected to prepare their men for it. 
 
 Much stress had been laid upon a proclamation found in 
 the house of John Sheares, and intended to be used when the 
 movement took its course. But the same attention has not 
 been paid by all writers to the well ascertained rules by which 
 Dr. M'Nevin, Mr. Emmet, and the members of the first di- 
 rectory had determined to govern their conduct. It was a 
 settled point with that party to discourage bloodshed by all 
 the means in their power. They held, that for every prisoner 
 who should lose his life they would lose an hostage. Any one 
 who would not submit to their government, and who was 
 considered valueless as an hostage, was to be sent out of the 
 country unhurt ; wives, and such children as were under the 
 age of discretion, were to be maintained out of the estates 
 of their husbands and fathers. These two claims being al- 
 lowed in every case, the remaining property was to be con- 
 fiscated to national uses. The first directory evidently sought 
 to rely not on the Irish alone, but upon the succour and the 
 strength which an invasion, sooner or later to take place, 
 would bring. Thus animated, they laboured to repress, as 
 far as they could, the forward spirit of insurrection, trusting 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 249 
 
 to augmented resources and a riper case. But when the 
 members of the first directory were arrested, March 12, 1798, 
 other men were introduced, who, being irritated at the danger 
 in which their predecessors stood, or more sanguine of suc- 
 cess, agreed to bring the conspiracy to a summary issue, and 
 begin the long threatened struggle with a notice that " many 
 tyrants had bled, and more must bleed." 
 
 All the massacres at Wexford were terrific. Some of the 
 worst of them were the work of a fiend named Dixon, who 
 was the captain of a trading vessel then lying in the harbour. 
 When the peasantry first poured into the town, numbers fled 
 to sea. Dixon was the first to re-land the fugitives he had 
 received, and on these (particularly ladies) he vented a brutal 
 ferocity. Returning himself ashore at the same time, he was 
 made a captain in the rebel army. His influence being thus 
 increased, and his means of exciting the rabble extended, he 
 was joined by his wife, a monster as inhuman as himself. She 
 had purloined, says Plowden, two fire-screens with emblema- 
 tical figures, from the drawing-room of Mr. Le Hunte, four 
 miles from W exford. Dixon informed the mob that this room 
 had been a meeting place for Orangemen, and that the 
 figures denoted the manner in which the Roman Catholics 
 were to be put to death : — they were to be first deprived of 
 sight, and then burnt alive : not even children were excepted. 
 Wexford being a sea-port, appropriate horrors were reserved 
 for Roman Catholic seamen — they were to be roasted to death 
 on red hot anchors. Upon the publication of this wanton 
 fabrication, Mr. Le Hunte, who had hitherto been permitted 
 to remain quietly in a private house in the town, was dragged 
 into the street by the rabble, who would soon have torn him 
 to pieces, had he not been saved by the exertions of two 
 Catholic gentlemen, who prudently insisting that he should be 
 immediately brought to trial, hurried him to prison, and par- 
 ried, on the way, the thrusts of the pikes which were aimed 
 at his life, two of which, in spite of their endeavours, wounded 
 him slightly in the back. 
 
 It appears from the same authority, that when Wexford 
 
250 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 fell into the hands of the rebels, the number of resident 
 Protestants did not consist merely of the inhabitants of that 
 town and its environs, but of many refugees and prisoners 
 from more distant parts of the country. About two hundred 
 and sixty of these were secured in the gaol and other places 
 of confinement, while some were kept in their own houses ; 
 but the dread of massacre fell indiscriminately upon them 
 all. On the 6th of June, ten prisoners at Wexford were 
 selected for execution, under an order from Enniscorthy, 
 and suffered accordingly. The limitation of the victims to 
 half a score, under this order, was made upon the principle 
 of retaliation ; the insurgents who gave it, having received in- 
 formation that a similar number of their people had suffered 
 in like manner on the preceding day. A general slaughter of 
 the prisoners was twice attempted by the sanguinary Dixon, 
 at the head of bands of peasants; but he was bravely re- 
 sisted, first by one Hore, a butcher, and next by one Scallion, 
 a nautical trader — the former Avith a sword, the latter with a 
 pistol, defying him to single combat, and insisting that he 
 must approve his own courage, before he could be allowed to 
 put defenceless men to death. 
 
 This Dixon sometimes displayed art in his barbarity. He 
 had a relative, a Koman Catholic priest, who, having been 
 ordered for transportation, was sent to Dungannon Fort the 
 day preceding the insurrection : he had been found guilty, 
 on the testimony of one Francis Murphy, whose evidence had 
 been positively contradicted by three other witnesses. Under 
 these circumstances, Dixon took a summary mode of avenging 
 the fate of his kinsman, who was generally beloved. He 
 brought Murphy out of gaol, upon his own sole authority, 
 conducted him down to a spot called the Bull-ring, in Wex- 
 ford, and compelled three revenue officers, who were then 
 prisoners, and whom be brought out at the same time, to shoot 
 him, and afterwards to bear his body to the quay and throw 
 it into the water. This execution took place with all its 
 glaring circumstances, during the hours of public prayer, 
 and was utterly unknown to the principal inhabitants. The 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 251 
 
 most diabolical feat performed by this wretch was the immo- 
 lation, in one day, of thirty-five persons, on the bridge of 
 Wexford, whom he deliberately killed in batches of fifteen, 
 one after the other. He commenced the butchery at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, and continued it without interrup- 
 tion until seven in the evening, when a Roman Catholic 
 clergyman humanely interfered. By calling, in an authori- 
 tative tone, upon the firing party to pray before they pro- 
 ceeded further, that gentleman brought them to their knees, 
 and then dictating the natural prayer that God might show 
 to them such mercy in their extremity as they should now 
 show to the remaining prisoners, stopped the further effusion 
 of blood. 
 
 It seems impossible to exhaust the store of enormous 
 crimes accumulated on both sides. Thus we find the yeomen 
 at Carnew marching twenty-eight prisoners out of their place 
 of confinement, and shooting them without trial in a ball-alley. 
 The same process is repeated at Dunlavin, where a fusillade 
 of thirty-four men took place, including the informer, upon 
 whose evidence they had been arrested. Some runaways from 
 the battle of Ross, pretending to retaliate these horrors, sur- 
 rounded the house and barn of Mr. King, at Scullabogue, in 
 which a number of loyalists and respectable Roman Catholics 
 were detained as hostages. Thirty-seven persons in the house 
 were shot, and one hundred in the barn were burned to ashes ! 
 Soon after this a house, used as an hospital by the insurgents, 
 was entered by a party of troops, who, beginning to fire upon 
 tha sick and wounded in their beds, set their clothes on fire 
 with the wadding, and wrapped the building in flames, which 
 consumed every patient within its walls.* 
 
 * A remarkable estimate of the general effects produced by the rebel- 
 hon appears in O'DriscoFs "Views of Ireland," vol. II. p. 220: — 
 
 " The rebellion was of use (for the worst things have their use) to ex- 
 hibit and certainly to raise very high the character of the lower Irish. It 
 threw back the cloud which a barbarous system of policy had spread 
 over the moral powers and qualities of the people, and showed them un- 
 doubtedly in all their wildness, but also in all their original brightness. 
 The high mindedness of the peasantry, their heroism in the field, their 
 fidelity, which no species of torture (and all were tried) could shake. 
 
252 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 It has been computed that the rebelHon of 1798 occasioned 
 the loss of 20,000 lives upon the side of the royahsts; of 
 50,000 hves amongst the insurgents ; and the destruction of 
 property worth three milHons sterHng. Not a few writers 
 
 which no blandishments could seduce; the terrors of solitary confine- 
 ment, whipping even to lay bare the bones of the breathing skeleton, 
 strangling, mutilation, the pitch- cap, picketing ; death, direct and awful, 
 with or without torture, suffered in the reflected agony of crowds, or so- 
 litary and without sympathy, or meeting, in the last convulsions of the 
 departing spirit, scorn and brutal derision ; — all this, and more than all 
 this, was endured, was submitted to voluntarily by thousands, with a 
 calm and composed resolution, when a word might have changed the 
 scene, and presented to these poor victims, not death and scorn, and un- 
 utterable sufferings, but life and safety, and patronage, and rich reward. 
 Never were we prouder of our native land, than in considering this ama- 
 zing faithfulness, in a countless multitude of poor deluded people, in the 
 cause which they believed to be that of their country. To betray only the 
 name of one of their associates was life, and all that could make life de- 
 sirable — to be silent was death, accompanied with whatever makes death 
 most terrible : and the untutored peasant resolutely died. In the en- 
 during fortitude that scorned complaint, — in the tranquil magnanimity of 
 his death, — he would have shed a lustre upon the cause for which he 
 suffered, more bright than the splendour of a thousand victories, if that 
 cause had been without objection. 
 
 " It is some consolation, that all this prodigality of fine feeling and 
 steadfast principle, and firm unflinching purpose, — all this lamentable 
 waste of life and shedding of human blood, was not wholly in vain. Since 
 the day of the treaty of Limerick, and the infraction of that treaty, the 
 people had been so trampled upon, and abused with such impunity, that 
 they began to consider themselves as something below human nature ; 
 and their oppressors became convinced of it : but when at length the 
 wild and mighty power of the people broke from its chain, in all its 
 savageness and grandeur ; displaying itself in the field in feats of courage 
 almost sublime, and assuming on the scaffold a still loftier dignity ; their 
 enemies were astonished, and could not refuse their admiration : neither 
 could they avoid feeling that such a people were not to be abused with 
 impunity. The peasantry conquered at length the respect which was their 
 due ; and in putting forth those high moral and physical powers, AVhich 
 had surprised their adversaries by their unexpected splendour, they 
 had learned also to feel and to understand somewhat of their own im- 
 portance. They discerned in their sufferings what they were able to en- 
 dure, and in their very defeats they acquired a consciousness of strength, 
 from which they derived a portion of self-esteem they had never yet en- 
 joyed since days long past. Upon these circumstances, upon this feel- 
 ing, they founded claims to a new consideration, — claims which have 
 been tacitly though reluctantly admitted and established for ever. These 
 are no inconsiderable advantages ; and those who can recollect the con- 
 tempt with which the peasantry of Ireland were regarded by the gentry 
 previous to the year 1798, and the mischiefs which flowed from this un- 
 natural scorn, will readily admit the change which has taken place, and 
 know how to estimate its importance." 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 253 
 
 would hold the government directly responsible for this great 
 waste of human blood and capital, and by tracing the hands of 
 the minister busily employed throughout the different stages 
 of the work, do not hesitate to charge him with a guilty par- 
 ticipation in all the crimes which it covers and embraces. 
 They go farther, and state that the whole was the result of 
 design, and a means to an end : such an insurrection as that 
 of 1798, they tell us, was necessary to produce the legislative 
 union in 1800. 
 
 There is no period of Irish history more prolific of suspi- 
 cious incidents and matter for grave accusations. It is cer- 
 tainly not a matter of charge against the government that 
 vigorous measures were taken to insure the public safety, 
 when it was threatened with danger, and that the arm of the 
 executive was strengthened in the hour of peril ; nor is it a 
 charge that property and life received the protection of the 
 extraordinary safe-guards which it was thought prudent to 
 throw around them ; and still less is it a charge that offences 
 were severely punished when they were detected. But it is 
 matter of grave charge that a popular ferment was for a series 
 of years neither allayed nor overpowered ; — that although 
 forewarned of the existence of a formidable conspiracy, the 
 ministers, English and Irish, suffered the preconcerted scheme 
 to proceed in secret, — to bring its humours to a head, to ripen, 
 and break out into extremities, with scarcely an act of preven- 
 tion, denunciation, or hiterference upon their parts. It is 
 also a grave charge that the lord chancellor of Ireland should 
 bave remonstrated ineffectually with his colleagues for the 
 term of three years against the notorious treason of these 
 practices, and that the secretary should have allowed Lord 
 Edward Fitzgerald to be at large for three months after his 
 objects had been divulged by the spy who was hired to betray 
 him. Still more is it a charge against them, that when having 
 bided their time, having seen the whole kingdom become con- 
 vulsed, and the lower orders every where unlawfully banded 
 together and sworn to violence — and having, at last, resolved to 
 defy the monster whose birth and growth they had carefully 
 
254 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 watched, they abandoned all the forms and principles of civil 
 law — never tempered justice with mercy, or punishment with 
 pohcy ; but let slip a vindictive array of ill-disciplined soldiers 
 and armed civilians, who disgraced the honour of war, and 
 produced almost in every rank and file a public executioner 
 and a slaughterer in cold blood. 
 
 The difficult office of mitigating by degrees the Irish " reign 
 of terror," was entrusted, in the month of June, 1798, to the 
 Marquis Cornwallis, a nobleman who obtained general praise 
 for the manner in which he fulfilled his instructions. Quiet 
 had scarcely been restored, and the different ranks of the peo- 
 ple had barely laid aside their arms, and returned to the homely 
 cares of industry, when the legislative union was proposed and 
 pressed forward with determined spirit. The moment was 
 certainly, in some respects, not an inauspicious one for the 
 purpose, and the manner in which various facts and arguments 
 were applied in its favour displayed ability of a high order, and 
 the most unscrupulous dexterity. For years the Irish parlia- 
 ment had been the submissive instrument of corruption and 
 misgovernment. Waiting at the English minister's table, 
 like an overfed menial, and proud of the hand that pam- 
 pered, it had ever been ready to act the part of a pimp or 
 bully, as the pleasure of its master directed. The minister 
 now turned upon his creature, and tearing aside the last flimsy 
 rag by which it vainly attempted to conceal its debasement ; 
 he enlarged upon its cupidity and foulness; painted in the 
 blackest colours its notorious character ; summed up its nu- 
 merous misdeeds and its continual crimes ; described the in- 
 veterate depravity of its constitution, and pronouncing such 
 a complication of disorders beyond the reach of art, he ap- 
 pealed to the country to preserve no longer the existence of a 
 guilty and wretched thing, impossible to reclaim, and sure to 
 circulate contagion and reproduce ruin, the longer it was al- 
 lowed to live. 
 
 There was great ingratitude, but also great truth in all this. 
 The Irish parliament answered, in too many respects, the pic- 
 ture drawn by a master hand ; the prostitution had been so 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 255 
 
 continual and indecent; the falling into the arms of the 
 seducer had been so often repeated, and upon the slightest 
 invitation, that the case was felt to be desperate almost as 
 soon as it was opened. 
 
 The parliament certainly had no party in the country when 
 its destruction was proposed. The friends of Irish independ- 
 ence and all those who desired to correct the manifold abuses 
 included under the various heads of parliamentary reform, 
 the penal laws, tithes, and agrarian distresses, found in the 
 Irish parliament an insuperable bar to the attainment of 
 their wishes and the progress of improvement. In their eyes, 
 that body still remained what it always had been — the engine 
 of a faction — of the landed oligarchy — the parent and sus- 
 tainer of all the monopolies and abuses by which the country 
 had become depressed and weakened. The struggle between 
 the ministry and the parliament might be mortal, but the 
 people were unconcerned in the issue, and disinclined to inter- 
 fere. They owed nothing to the latter, and hoped nothing 
 from it ; they reflected that if ever it had moved in accordance 
 with their wishes, or had promoted in any degree their in- 
 terests, the permission from England had always been an in- 
 dispensable preliminary to concession ; and knowing that the 
 measure of every good depended upon the extent of the sup- 
 port that could be found for it in a small circle in London, 
 they seemed to feel no decided objection to a change w^hich 
 could hardly add to their misfortunes, and which presented, at 
 least, one certain advantage — the merit of simplifying the 
 complicated machinery of a mode of government which had 
 effected little or no good. 
 
 But if there were men who took this view of the union, 
 there were others who looked upon it in a very different light, 
 and were inspired to pursue a course upon the occasion 
 marked by strength, dignity, and eminent natural powers 
 with which they were individually and collectively endowed. 
 From the very ranks which had produced the most en- 
 ergetic denouncers of the profligacy of the Irish parlia- 
 ment, and the most resolute detectors of its guilt, there 
 
256 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 now stood forward the ablest maintainers of its rights, and 
 the most courageous assertors of its inherent capabiUty to 
 meet, if fairly dealt with, all the public wants, and to satisfy all 
 the demands and expectations of sincere patriotism. It was 
 the opinion of this section of the anti-unionists not only that 
 a reform of the House of Commons would answer all the con- 
 stitutional exigencies of the case, but that the Irish possessed 
 an inalienable right to legislate for themselves, which they 
 could neither surrender voluntarily, nor allow another nation 
 to take away. Love of country, the pride of independence, 
 the distinction and profits of self-government and separate 
 establishments, — these and other kindred sentiments and feel- 
 ings were eloquently descanted upon, and soon rallied a for- 
 midable opposition to the proposed measure. The party 
 of the patriots — they at last deserved the name — for there 
 were amongst them high-minded and disinterested leaders, 
 who were straining all their might to preserve the last ves- 
 tige of nationality, — rejoiced to find the multitude flocking 
 round their standard with loud acclamations. They met with 
 not a few potent allies and cordial supporters in the ranks of 
 those who had hitherto been their strenuous antagonists. 
 For amongst the maintainers of the old system, — amongst 
 the families who had acquired place and property, rank, titles, 
 command and influence, as patrons, managers, and undertakers 
 of the local government, — there were some who foresaw, in 
 the loss of the parliament, the loss of their own greatness, 
 — the removal for ever of all occasions and opportunities for 
 those convenient and profitable services by which their for- 
 tunes had been raised and their ambition had been gratified. 
 These men hastened to make common cause with the patriots 
 and anti-unionists ; they possessed talent, address, and station ; 
 and they brought their united weight to bear upon the public 
 mind, with all the art, energy, and effect which the dictates 
 of invaded self-interest could marshal for the struggle. Mr. 
 Foster, speaker of the House of Commons, particularly dis- 
 tinguished himself in this section of the anti-unionists. His 
 knowledge of Irish affairs, and his experience as a public 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 257 
 
 man, were set off and enhanced by natural abilities and many 
 personal accomplishments. To these advantages was super- 
 added the consideration, not improperly due to a certain de- 
 gree of politic moderation by which his career had been 
 tempered, and some display of dignity in his seat of office. 
 His intimate connection with the privy council had identified 
 him with the horrors of the rebelHon, and heaped a load of 
 obloquy and hatred upon his name ; but when he descended 
 from the chair of the House of Commons, and delivered a 
 speech, eloquent, argumentative, and stored with facts, against 
 the Union, he rose to the highest pitch of popular regard, and 
 divided for a while the public admiration and gratitude with 
 even the great genius of the epoch, — Henry Grattan himself. 
 By these united forces, — by the popular enthusiasm, — the 
 energy of the old opposition and the resentment of the aris- 
 tocracy, who could not refuse to feel for the country, when 
 their own privileges were put in peril, — the first proposals 
 made for a legislative Union were defeated. There were two 
 debates and two divisions upon the subject at the very begin- 
 ning of the session in 1799 ; and the minister was in a majority 
 of one upon the first occasion, and in a minority of five upon 
 the second. 
 
 One of those hearty and astounding out-pourings of general 
 joy was now indulged, for which the vivacity of Irish feeling is 
 famous. But the transports of the people were short-lived. 
 While the Irish pai*liament buoyed up by the cheers of all 
 classes of their fellow-countrymen, had been indignantly repu- 
 diating the Union propositions, the English parliament had 
 adopted them by an overwhelming majority. Undoubtedly his 
 repulse in Ireland took the minister by surprise, but it did not 
 long embarrass him nor retard his proceedings. The character 
 of the body with which he had to deal was too notorious to 
 render the task of making it completely subservient to his pur- 
 poses either doubtful or arduous. He well knew that the 
 only point to be settled was the extent of the corruption re- 
 quisite to ensure success, and it would seem as if he cleared 
 that difficulty at a bound by issuing an unlimited order to satisfy 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
258 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 all demands and expectations however exorbitant and extra- 
 vagant. Bribes were lavished with profusion in all directions 
 and under every possible form. There was no art by which 
 converts could be brought round and hostility appeased, that 
 was not put into active requisition and diligently exercised. 
 The hopes held out and the promises made, included all that 
 could give the nation wealth and content ; no man who would 
 listen to the minister, was allowed to believe that the interest 
 to which he was most attached, or the cause which he es- 
 teemed most highly, could receive from the change anything but 
 increased strength and security. The Protestant Church, 
 with its property and pre-eminence, was to be placed on a 
 stronger and more enduring foundation than it had ever before 
 occupied ; and the Roman Catholics were to receive from the 
 parliament of the United Kingdom, the rights which had 
 hitherto been refused by the separate legislature of their own 
 country.^ The apparent inconsistency of these different un- 
 dertakings may have struck a few thoughtful minds, but it 
 passed without comment or reclamation. Some bowed to the 
 coming event as to the doom of fate ; others recognised the 
 heavy retribution of justice overdue, but the majority hailed in 
 it the magic of an irresistible enchanter, who captivated his 
 victims with a shower of gold, and a pageant of starry honours. 
 
 The Irish parliament was assembled for the last time, Ja- 
 nuary 15, 1800, and upon the same day a majority of 42 in 
 favour of the Union, bore decisive testimony to the approach- 
 ing triumph of the minister and his measure. It was a mo- 
 ment of deep excitement — a scene of melancholy interest. In 
 the midst of the debate, Grattan, who had retired from the 
 public service, re-entered the house resolved to lift once more 
 
 * Mr. Pitt's subsequent resignation of his office, because he found 
 " insurmountable obstacles to the bringing forward of measures of con- 
 cession to the Cathohc body," proved that an unequivocal arrangement 
 had been privately entered into at this crisis. His resumption of office 
 again \vithout redeeming his pledge, only confirmed the impression pro- 
 duced by his conduct on more occasions than one ; and established the 
 conviction that the policy of his government in Ireland was regulated not 
 by the unerring rule of principle, but by a convenient sense of expediency. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 259 
 
 in the hall, already sacred to his genius, that voice which had 
 raised the oratory of Ireland to the immortal standard of an- 
 tient Greece and Rome. He was admirably supported. Sen- 
 timents more noble, — a passion more pure and patriotic, — 
 principles more enlightened and profound, — more consummate 
 art, and a power of expression more accomplished, affecting, 
 and sublime, were never delivered in a deliberative assembly ; 
 but all was vain. The citadel was undermined, and the bril- 
 liancy of this display only served to make the crumbling ruin 
 more painfully distinct. It showed the impossibility of pre- 
 serving an institution which support and succour so strong and 
 splendid could not avail to maintain. With the Irish parlia- 
 ment Irish independence ceased to exist, and it only remained 
 for Grattan by whose genius it had been occasionally vivified 
 to lament its extinction in words of mournful beauty : "I 
 watched at its cradle and followed its hearse." 
 
 It will suffice to enumerate here some of the principal means 
 employed to accomplish this great end. Twenty-six new peers 
 were created on the occasion, and twenty old peers advanced 
 to higher titles. Besides nearly one quarter of a million voted 
 by way of damages to persons who had suffered losses in the 
 rebellion, but which, as the payment was left to depend on the 
 good will of commissioners appointed by government, was re- 
 garded as a largess to their party, half a million was dedicated 
 to the improvement of inland communication by the means of 
 canals ; and nearly one million and a half sterling was given 
 as compensation to the patrons of disfranchised towns and 
 boroughs, as well as to certain holders of public offices whose 
 duties were now dispensed with, and whose profits, as they 
 affirmed themselves, were likely to be diminished by the sup- 
 pression of the local parliament. Amongst these, was Mr. 
 Foster, the speaker, who was pacified after a strenuous opposi- 
 tion. He consented to surrender quietly upon an annual pension 
 of upwards of c£^5,000, and a title. Lord Clare who had sup- 
 ported the measure consistently throughout, received a pension 
 of d^4,000, which was to be made .^£'5,000 whenever he should 
 resign the great seal. He was also created an earl of the 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF 
 
 United Kingdom. That Mr. Foster's pension was a bribe, and 
 Lord Clare's an illegitimate recompense, will be felt by those 
 who bear in mind that the retiring allowances of the English 
 lord high chancellor and the speaker amount to no more 
 than dP4,000 a year. 
 
 The presence of many radical imperfections appears to be 
 an inalienable property of all Irish measures of improvement. 
 The legislative Union was not exempt from the common fate. 
 An organic change of the greatest magnitude was introduced, 
 unaccompanied by the lesser modifications which were indis- 
 pensable to its fair and successful action. The design was full 
 of merit, and the execution full of defects. These were quickly 
 detected and strongly exposed. The several articles profes- 
 sing equal terms and principles of government for both coun- 
 tries were denounced, and not without reason, as a specific 
 enumeration of the distinct interests which were to be pre- 
 served in each of them for the future. Amongst the more 
 prominent inequalities, stress was laid with much bitterness 
 upon the fact that Great Britain w^as to retain her Houses of 
 Parliament undiminished, while two-fifteenths of the Irish peers 
 and two-thirds of the Irish House of Commons were for ever 
 extinguished.* The complete and entire union left separate 
 treasuries, exchequers, and different interests in each — sepa- 
 rate proportions of expence, separate modes and laws of 
 taxation, separate national debts, and separate sinking funds. 
 Not only in taxes and in revenue, but in trade and manufac- 
 tures, distinct interests w^ere continued. In corn, the great 
 necessary of life, the project that was to identify and consoli- 
 date, retained prohibitions and bounties. The Irish peerage, 
 instead of being placed on a level with the English, was kept a 
 distinct body, and degraded like the Scotch into an inferior 
 order of nobility. In law and in the administration of justice 
 further distinctions were preserved. The Catholics were 
 
 * See "Lords' Protest against the Union," signed Leinster, Arran, Mount- 
 cashel, Farnham, Belmore, Massey, Strangford, Granard, Ludlow, Moira, 
 R. Waterford and Lismore, Powerscourt, De Vesci, Charlemont, Kingston, 
 Riversdale, Meath, Lismore, Sunderlin. See, also, " Commons Motion 
 for an Address to the Crown," June 6th, 1800. 
 
THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 261 
 
 secretly promised their rights — a promise not kept for nine 
 and twenty years. To sum up the anomalies by naming the 
 most noxious of all : this portion of the United Empire was 
 not only to retain monetary, fiscal and commercial regulations 
 of its own — and these and its w^eights and measures were to be 
 less convenient than those used in Great Britain — but it was 
 to be governed like a province, by a viceroy and a distinct set of 
 ministers ; by which means the old arts of corruption were pre- 
 served and the landed oligarchy w^ere still enabled to practise 
 the abuses in which they so fearfully excelled. If w^e would 
 account for the dissatisfaction and complaints of the Irish, we 
 should couple the length of time that has elapsed since the 
 Union was carried, as the sure means of perfectly consolidating 
 the affairs of the two islands, with the detailed manner in 
 which that measure has been put into operation, — and we 
 should inquire carefully after the official establishments which 
 still remain, either as the memorials of a past independent 
 condition or as the supports of existing divisions. For until 
 the whole plan has been fully accomplished, and the test of 
 experience has been brought to bear upon its perfect action, 
 we are but trying an experiment, and are inflicting an injury 
 upon the one country as well as the other. 
 
 Having brought these " Outlines of the History of the Con- 
 nection between England and Ireland" to a close, it may not be 
 amiss to copy from " Newenham's View of Ireland," the public 
 income, expenditure, and debt of the country from the year 
 1783, which immediately followed the date of the shortlived 
 independence of the Irish parliament, to the year 1800, when 
 it ceased to exist. The figures tell a clear story. In the 
 progressive increase of all the branches of revenue, we see the 
 plain evidence of developed resources and augmented wealth ; 
 but in the heavy additions made to the expenditure in the 
 ever growing amount of the pension list, in the vast military 
 establishment, and the enormous accumulation of the national 
 debt, we behold the sad proofs of obstinate misgoverninent, 
 and the total failure of the system that produced such re- 
 sults. 
 
262 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF, &C. 
 
 Ordinary Revenue of Ireland. 
 
 
 GROSS 
 
 RECEIPT. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hearth- 
 
 
 
 
 Customs, 
 
 
 money in- 
 
 
 
 Two Years. 
 
 Excise, Loan 
 
 Carriage 
 Duty. 
 
 cluded in 
 the 
 
 Stamps. 
 
 Post Office. 
 
 
 &c. ' 
 
 foregoing 
 Columns. 
 
 
 
 i xears, endiDg JMarcn. co : 
 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 
 1 / oi 
 
 1 ,ODO,U0 / 
 
 4,629 
 
 123,301 
 
 Oo,ODU 
 
 
 1 lOO 
 
 
 7,664 
 
 125,824 
 
 nn AKC 
 oy,40B 
 
 
 1 Year, ending March 25 : 
 
 
 
 1 ooT 0(\r 
 
 4,917 
 
 61,309 
 
 o4,ooU 
 
 
 l/oO , 
 
 ^ o 1 Q on 1 
 i,zlo,oUl 
 
 5,084 
 
 61,380 
 
 00,0 
 
 J.I ,01^ 
 
 1/80 . . 
 
 1 A A(\ in A 
 i,44U,oz4 
 
 6,412 
 
 64,106 
 
 04,.1ol 
 
 49 AA(\ 
 4Z,44U 
 
 1 TOT 
 
 
 9,996 
 
 63,425 
 
 49,983 
 
 44,OOD 
 
 l/oo ... 
 
 1,4dU, oUU 
 
 11,020 
 
 66,750 
 
 K. 7 1 70 
 
 A A OAS 
 
 44, ZOO 
 
 l/oy ... 
 
 i,4D4,/0/ 
 
 12,654 
 
 70,625 
 
 Oo,dUd 
 
 40,OO0 
 
 1/yu 
 
 1 ACtT Qizn 
 
 i,4y/,oOi^ 
 
 16,752 
 
 71,909 
 
 62,377 
 
 ACATn 
 
 4o,4iy 
 
 1 7Q1 
 
 i,ODU, 1 lb 
 
 17,957 
 
 76,983 
 
 61 ,644 
 
 onn 
 
 1792 
 
 1,590,54;^ 
 
 17,987 
 
 77,358 
 
 63,341 
 
 52,245 
 
 1793 . 
 
 1,502,542 
 
 17,784 
 
 78,996 
 
 66,120 
 
 55,666 
 
 1794 . 
 
 1,435,261 
 
 17,553 
 
 70,274 
 
 67,027 
 
 59,122 
 
 1795 . 
 
 l,749,6fiO 
 
 18,414 
 
 69,725 
 
 93,664 
 
 60,799 
 
 1796 . 
 
 2,099,442 
 
 23,603 
 
 44,386 
 
 89,190 
 
 67,763 
 
 1797 . 
 
 1,947,690 
 
 22,998 
 
 38,104 
 
 109,035 
 
 68,256 
 
 1798 . 
 
 2,057,215 
 
 24, 62;^ 
 
 40,249 
 
 101,265 
 
 78,755 
 
 1799 . 
 
 2,528,527 
 
 43,760 
 
 45,078 
 
 102,134 
 
 79,471 
 
 1800 . 
 
 3,192,123 
 
 51.622 
 
 61,777 
 
 169,555 
 
 84,040 
 
 EXPENDITURE. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total Ex- 
 
 
 
 Civil 
 
 
 
 penditure, 
 
 
 Two Years. 
 
 Establish- 
 ment, 
 
 Pensions. 
 
 Military 
 Establish- 
 
 including 
 Extraordi- 
 
 National 
 Debt. 
 
 
 including 
 
 
 ment. 
 
 naries, Par- 
 
 
 Pensions. 
 
 
 
 liamentary 
 Graiits, &c. 
 
 
 2 Years, ending March 25 : 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 1781 . 
 
 328,502 
 
 85,456 
 
 920,224 
 
 1,883,178 
 
 1,554,125 
 
 1783 . 
 
 343,635 
 
 91,375 
 
 898,620 
 
 2,239,783 
 
 2,034,953 
 
 1 Year, ending March 25 : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1784 . 
 
 174,918 
 
 93,252 
 
 429,686 
 
 1,233,061 
 
 1,997,417 
 
 1785 . 
 
 187,145 
 
 97,366 
 
 480,727 
 
 1,068,729 
 
 2,157,031 
 
 1786 . 
 
 193,27'2 
 
 96,881 
 
 504,320 
 
 1,236,328 
 
 2,300,671 
 
 1787 . 
 
 197,727 
 
 104,844 
 
 501,289 
 
 1,384,933 
 
 2,296,706 
 
 1788 . 
 
 197,515 
 
 101,565 
 
 506,047 
 
 1,383,022 
 
 2,362,847 
 
 1789 . 
 
 206,174 
 
 99,870 
 
 535,093 
 
 1,406,270 
 
 2,477,425 
 
 1790 . 
 
 207,808 
 
 102,129 
 
 535,086 
 
 1,436,164 
 
 2,244,652 
 
 1791 . 
 
 20(;,389 
 
 101,936 
 
 536,331 
 
 1,490.624 
 
 2,271,280 
 
 1792 . 
 
 208,430 
 
 104,495 
 
 541,351 
 
 1,448,734 
 
 2.240,637 
 
 1793 . 
 
 213,753 
 
 122,760 
 
 586,078 
 
 1,592,767 
 
 2,219,694 
 
 1794 . 
 
 214,66fi 
 
 120,172 
 
 978, 81812,028, 055 
 
 3,760,508 
 
 1795 . 
 
 267,760 
 
 119.075 
 
 1,362,385 2,635,302 
 
 4,206,313 
 
 1796 . 
 
 265,172 
 
 116,683 
 
 1,804,37613,455,671 
 
 5,958,591 
 
 1797 . 
 
 264,075 
 
 114,444 
 
 1,891,967 3,689,484 
 
 9,413,501 
 
 1798 . 
 
 261,683 
 
 113,819 
 
 3,612,424 5,476,637 
 
 11,732,299 
 
 1799 . 
 
 259,44^ 
 
 168,403 
 
 3,430.596 7,086,635 
 
 13,427,026 
 
 1800 . 
 
 258,8 
 
 172,405 
 
 4 965, 122 7.023.166 
 
 25,293,679 
 
 END OF HISTORICAL OUTLINES. 
 
263 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. THE GOVERNMENT SYS- 
 TEM, AND THE ARGUMENTS UPON WHICH IT IS BASED. NATURE 
 
 OF THE EVILS IT HAS PRODUCED. NUMBER, HISTORY, AND STA- 
 TISTICS OF THE JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES MAINTAINING PUBLIC 
 WORKS. — GRANTS AND LOANS OF MONEY TO AID THEM. — OFFICIAL 
 BOARDS APPOINTED TO DIRECT AND CONTROL THEM. — DIRECTORS 
 GENERAL OF INLAND NAVIGATION. — COMMISSIONERS OF PUBLIC 
 WORKS. — PROGRESS OF TRAVELLING. — RAILWAYS. — GENERAL 
 PROSPECTS. 
 
 "The Statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what 
 manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself 
 with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could 
 be safely trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or 
 senate whatever, and which would no where be so dangerous as in the 
 hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself 
 fit to exercise it." — Wealth of Nations, Book IV., Chap. ii. 
 
 The progress of modern civilization has been mainly expe-. 
 dited by three great moving powers — the sword, the gospel, 
 and municipal corporations. Each of these has had its criti- 
 cal stage, and all three are at this moment less effective than 
 they have hitherto been in directing the course, and influ- 
 encing the good or evil of passing events. The sword esta- 
 bhshed fiefs and feudal dominion ; — the barbarous excesses of 
 this form of arbitrary power were tempered first, and gra- 
 dually subdued by the gospel. But from the gospel sprung 
 the church, which, becoming despotic and martial in its turn, 
 exacted from its vassals military service, as well as ecclesias- 
 tical duty and pecuniary tribute. Against the rapid advance- 
 ment of these two interests, — against the lord of the soil and 
 the ruler of the conscience ; — against the harsh prince, who 
 sometimes made but oftener marred the happiness of mankind 
 
264 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 in this world, and the unctions prelate who dispensed happiness 
 in the world to come, — the merchant, tradesman and me- 
 chanic erected, with indescribable perseverance and indomita- 
 ble spirit, a sufficient barrier, and saved their common labour 
 and its profits from being despoiled by the feudal chief, and 
 the bishop possessed of feudal rights. Rallying energetically 
 together, and assigning to each other their respective ranks 
 and rights, the early municipal corporations raised a bulwark 
 which resisted the combined assaults of every form of tyranny 
 — royal, noble, ecclesiastical and military, — and which sur- 
 vived the desperate shocks and the incessant wear and tear of 
 centuries of oppression and change. The success with which 
 this effort was crowned, rendered these institutions not merely 
 the centres and supports of political liberty, but the main- 
 springs of local improvement, the examples and incentives of 
 adventurous enterprise and prosperous confederation. They 
 proved the cradles of industry, the homes of the arts, the 
 strongholds of wealth ; and they taught mankind almost in 
 every instance, that the true levers and steadiest producers of 
 independence and fortune are the resolute and untiring reli- 
 ance of every man upon his own exertions, or, where separate 
 action is inadequate, the junction of all to effect for the 
 general good what the hands of an individual are too weak to 
 accomplish. The force of this truth led to the discovery of 
 another, — that the progress of improvement, to be legitimate 
 and enduring, should invariably be the work of the people, 
 and never be solicited as a boon, or accepted as a reward 
 from the government. 
 
 In Ireland modern civilization advanced at a pace and in a 
 manner different from those which marked or shaped its course 
 in the other countries of Europe. The modification of the 
 feudal system imposed upon Ireland rose to a greater height, 
 and endured to a later date, than any other known to western 
 Europe. Monarchy was firmly established, and the forms of 
 civil government were broadly defined in England, France, 
 Spain, the Netherlands and Italy, when the house of Des- 
 mond waged the feudal war with Elizabeth, in which the head 
 of that potent race was ignominiously slain by a common 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 265 
 
 soldier. A principal cause, perhaps, of the longer duration, 
 as well as the more barbaric splendour of the dominion under 
 which that palatine and a few other feudal lords so rudely 
 prospered, is to be ascribed to the partial resistance offered to 
 their sway by the church. That circumstance undoubtedly 
 contributed much to the strength and continuance of the 
 feudal principle in Ireland, and much also to the weakness of 
 the English crown. 
 
 The want of municipal corporations also favoured it; for 
 although these institutions were called into existence at an 
 early period of the connection with England, they were ill- 
 formed, inefficient, and scarcely in a single instance the pa- 
 trons of freedom, industry, the arts, manufactures, commerce, 
 or local improvement. Until within the last three years, they 
 have been upon a scale so very limited, and a form so imper- 
 fect, as to have neither proved the exponents nor the agents 
 of the public sense of what was either desirable or necessary 
 in the way of useful measures. To those who examine their 
 history, they will appear to have retarded rather than to have 
 promoted the improvement of their respective localities, or 
 the development of the resources, whether general or parti- 
 cular, of the country at large. Instituted originally by the 
 English invaders, the Irish of former days were excluded from 
 them : more recently the Roman Catholics, though legally 
 admissible, were practically denied their right to belong to 
 them ; in our own day only have men of all political opinions, 
 and every form of religious worship, been fairly introduced to 
 participate in the distinctions they confer, and contribute to 
 the good they are calculated to create. The great bulk of the 
 population has thus had no share of municipal power, from 
 the original date of the first English charter down to the close 
 of the year 1841. To this depressing circumstance, unques- 
 tionably, is to be attributed no small portion of the backward 
 state of the country at large, and the awkwardness of not a 
 few efforts made from time to time by individuals to turn their 
 own energies and the capabilities of the soil to a good account, 
 by means of public works and the promotion of undertakings 
 
266 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 for developing the national resources and increasing the em- 
 ployment of the people. 
 
 For men who have had no experience in the habit of self- 
 government— who have not enjoyed an opportunity of better- 
 ing the condition of their own immediate locality, by con- 
 sulting and co-operating with their equals — who have never 
 been roused to enlarge their views by conducting enterprises 
 of this useful description with economy and effect, — must be 
 admitted to be ill-adapted, or rather wholly unprepared for the 
 noble avocations by which the accomplished spirit and disci- 
 plined industry of long- established mercantile and municipal in- 
 stitutions have elsewhere, by a combination of superior advan- 
 tages, so extensively added to the means of human happiness 
 and fortune. The citizen accustomed to take part in measures 
 of internal improvement, acquires a sound habit of consulting 
 the interests of the community to which he belongs while pro- 
 moting his own advantage : from this the moral as well as the 
 pecuniary gain is large. He learns that men better their 
 fortunes as they improve the place in which they seek to 
 make them. He is thus taught to feel that the public pros- 
 perity is the true standard of his private fortune ; and that if 
 the one is not secured, the other cannot be safely retained, 
 even when it has been meritoriously acquired. 
 
 In Ireland, however, this knowledge is even now in a state 
 of infancy. In no other country of the world, claiming the 
 privilege of free government, have the people been systema- 
 tically shut out from the opportunity, and debarred of the 
 occasion, of indulging in salutary exercises and improving 
 avocations of this kind. For a long period of her history, the 
 chief misfortune of the country was to be detected in the posi- 
 tive inability of the government to do any thing. A reaction 
 at last took place ; and, for more than a century, it has been 
 the just complaint of all reasonable minds, that the govern- 
 ment has insisted upon doing every thing. Between these 
 two extremes the people have always been heavy sufferers. 
 From time to time they have aspired to do much for them- 
 selves, but they have always been prevented; or, if ever 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 267 
 
 allowed to occupy themselves in measures of local improve- 
 ment, they have been held in leading-strings like children, and 
 forced to move puppetways, as the fastidious notions of the 
 few Englishmen happened to prescribe, who have time out of 
 mind been the only persons entrusted with the administration 
 of Irish affairs. How much has been lost, and how little 
 gained by this course of senseless dictation and impertinent 
 meddling, will, to some extent, appear in the sketch now 
 about to be given — a sketch in which it will be seen, that the 
 vicissitudes naturally incidental to the progress of all public 
 works have been enormously aggravated in Ireland by the 
 policy adopted with regard to them by successive ministers 
 — a policy doubly injurious, inasmuch as while it steadily up- 
 held the system of government interference, it frequently 
 changed the mode of that interference. That government 
 would interfere, appeared always certain ; but how the govern- 
 ment would interfere, was always uncertain. To such a length 
 has inconsistency gone in this respect, that each man, as he 
 has succeeded to office, seems not only to have felt himself 
 bound to differ with his predecessor, but with himself also. 
 There is scarcely a single undertaking of the class now under 
 consideration, in the history of which repeated instances have 
 not occurred of the most contradictory proceedings upon the 
 part of the government — and in which the most decisive evi- 
 dence has not been afforded, that no one principle of political 
 economy, and not the slightest observance of a sound and 
 steady system, are to be expected to result from the way in 
 which these things have hitherto been conducted. 
 
 The case is so extreme and hopeless, that to reform the 
 system — if, indeed, system it can be called — altogether, will 
 hardly suffice. The cause must be uprooted — and that cause 
 is the vain and pernicious establishment of a separate form of 
 government for an integral portion of the United Empire. It 
 is a strong reason in favour of the absolute necessity of abo- 
 lishing it, that its chief organs are obliged to descend from 
 their sphere, in order to find something to do. This is a con- 
 clusive proof that such a form of government is unnecessary. 
 There is, in reality, not enough of proper or legitimate admi- 
 
268 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 nistrative business to occupy the time of the retained func- 
 tionaries, and to satisfy the appetites of their craving depen- 
 dents. The consequence is, that work, patronage, and places 
 are sought and found in directions where, strictly speaking, 
 the hands of power ought not to be extended. Thus is the 
 wholesome action of an energetic community prevented from 
 developing itself. In its stead, the slow and deadening pro- 
 cess of an impure ministerial agency is set in motion ; under 
 which no one person or project is suffered to stand upon 
 its own merits. One and all are driven to rely for success 
 upon the grace of the government of the day. That partial 
 support, if the suppliant be artful and abject enough, is often 
 to be obtained, but it is seldom to be retained for any length 
 of time. Plausibly as the favourite may have argued in pri- 
 vate, the public eye quickly detects, and the public discontent 
 loudly denounces the unseemly exercise of party power. In 
 order to avoid the opposition of the just, or the hostility of 
 rival claimants, the job is made to struggle into life, curtailed 
 of half the powers and privileges upon which its deluded pro- 
 moters had founded their chimerical hopes. Confusion follows 
 quickly upon the heels of disappointment ; men of character 
 and real property, with the exception of a few enthusiasts, 
 withdraw from the venture — distress ensues — and a long series 
 of misfortunes is painfully evolved. 
 
 Such, in a few words, is an abstract of the history and pre- 
 sent state of public works and private enterprises in Ireland. 
 The leading characters of the country, warned by repeated 
 failures, have, for a length of time, laid it down as a rule, to 
 avoid, as a certain source of loss, the slightest connection 
 with projects for the improvement of the country. Joint-stock 
 companies are no where held in lower estimation by the only 
 persons qualified to conduct them with good effect — expe- 
 rienced men of independent minds and unincumbered capital. 
 But the government, though constantly at fault, is continually 
 importuned to interfere, and being generally unpopular, it is 
 often unable to resist the temptation to curry popular favour 
 by illegitimate avocations. Establishments, alike ill-conceived 
 and ill-conducted, have thus been fostered, by some in simple 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 269 
 
 folly, by others in sheer knavery, under the specious pretence 
 of directing and assisting private enterprise in developing the 
 resources of the country, and bettering the condition of the 
 p(feople. As it is impossible to go right in a wrong direction, 
 these have necessarily furnished innumerable grounds of serious 
 complaint, and produced effects of the most depressing and 
 injurious character. 
 
 And so it must always be — so must the people continue to 
 be poor and discontented while kept every way dependent — 
 while debarred the wholesome liberty and strengthening dis- 
 cipline of applying the accruing profits of business, and the 
 accumulations of industry, to create new avocations, and open 
 out fresh sources of emolument, as their own self-improving 
 spirit and the energy of successful experience may suggest. 
 So must it always be, on the other hand, while the chief occu- 
 pation of the local government that restrains and impoverishes 
 them, consists in fashioning out, in filling with abject depen- 
 dents, and feeding with the public money, pompous institutions 
 for taking all measures out of the hands of those who, in a free 
 country, are the fittest to perform them. 
 
 In Ireland the government monopoly of every thing of this 
 kind has been penetrating and rigid beyond all example. If it 
 is to be matched any where, it can only be in China. There 
 is not a single department or office of private enterprise for 
 which a government board has not been set up, with a liberal 
 staff of officers and clerks, with good salaries, and the royal 
 arms on all the seals. As stated in Chap. I., you cannot offer 
 to make a road, improve a navigation, drain a marsh, cut a 
 canal, construct a railway, pave a street, or light a town with 
 gas, but you are stopped by a government board already esta- 
 blished to point out to all men how in such cases they shall 
 proceed ; — or by a government commission appointed to fur- 
 nish the necessary excuse for putting you down upon autho- 
 rity as a presumptuous adventurer, ignorant of the matter 
 with which you are meddling, and every way unqualified to 
 compete with the intelligence and acquirements of men selected 
 by government as the only competent persons to be entrusted 
 with the task of informing the country that no undertaking of 
 
270 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 the kind can be so well understood, or so efficiently accom- 
 plished as by a government officer, with a cabinet minister as 
 his patron, and the treasury as his paymaster. , Thus, at every 
 turn, and upon all occasions, the powers that be fail not t6 
 extend their guardian care, and overpower with officious 
 assistance. Either by a commission to inquire, or a board to 
 execute, her majesty's loyal subjects in Ireland are sure to be 
 spared the trouble of thinking and acting for themselves wher- 
 ever it happens to be the peculiar province of the community 
 to provide as it seems best for the attainment of objects which 
 are exclusively and pre-eminently its own. Hence it is that 
 in Ireland a man with some money and time at his disposal, 
 and a turn for useful exertion, is driven to be a place-hunter 
 by the force of circumstances. For unless he can prevail upon 
 the government to employ him, he is doomed to perpetual in- 
 activity. No matter what his talents, or what his resources ; 
 — no matter what pursuits, an apt ability, or adequate powers 
 may incite him to engage in, he finds the ground pre-occupied 
 by a government board : he finds this board attempting every 
 thing, and improving nothing, of which all the patronage and 
 profit are not wholly its own ; and thus, ere long, he abandons 
 the vain idea of bettering his country or himself, disgusted as 
 often by the indifference as by the conceit of the heads of 
 office, or thwarted by the manoeuvres of their jealous depen- 
 dents who dread in the progress of independent talent the 
 subversion of the wretched system upon which they have con- 
 trived to raise themselves to good salaries and some rank in 
 the tinsel suite of the second-hand royalty of Ireland. 
 
 And, wretched, indeed, is that system, — spreading every- 
 where like an epidemic, and corrupting everything with which 
 it connects itself. To its paralyzing consequences, much of the 
 evil under which Ireland deeply suffers, is to be traced. The 
 prominent place assigned in these pages to the subject-matter 
 of this chapter, proceeds from a deliberate conviction, that, 
 however grave the causes and heavy the influence of other 
 distresses, the mischief produced by the manner in which the 
 public works of Ireland have long been mismanaged, consti- 
 tutes an^evil so gross, as to be perilous to the well-being of the 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 271 
 
 country, and subversive of the wisest plans for its improve- 
 ment. The danger, moreover, is made greater, by the seduc- 
 tive appearance given to the successive schemes and the com- 
 manding position of the principal supporters of the system 
 under which they are produced. 
 
 A liberal application of capital to develope the resources of 
 Ireland, is one of the oldest and most captivating panaceas for 
 the cure of the manifold disorders of the country : the minis- 
 ter, therefore, who advances the public money largely for such 
 an object is sure to be popular, — and with none more so than 
 with members of the House of Lords and members of the 
 House of Commons possessing extensive properties in Ireland; 
 and the various sets of professional men deriving emolument 
 from the liberal sums expended under this sounding title. But 
 if there were no other reason for questioning the policy of 
 voting grants or loans, as they have hitherto been voted, to 
 encourage public works, than is afforded by an attentive obser- 
 vation of the conduct of these very parties, and the address 
 with which they constantly turn the public aid to their private 
 succour, enough would be discovered to startle the most 
 sceptical, and confound the confidence of those who rely so 
 strongly on the hope of deriving good from such a source. 
 
 True, it is, that the slightest allusion to any department is 
 quickly met in either House by some well-turned compliments 
 to the gentleman at the head of it. The distinction with 
 which he served his country before he was appointed to his 
 present situation, and the anxiety he invariably displays to 
 render his post efficient, and to promote the interests of the 
 country are extolled with equal cordiality, by peers of the realm, 
 by titled placemen, and members of counties and boroughs. 
 Praise from persons of their rank and property imposes upon 
 the public ear — it is supposed to be disinterested. No man wil- 
 lingly suspects the patriot whose name is always identified with 
 measures of amelioration, — who, if a public work is proposed, 
 and a preliminary survey is desired, proves one of the first to 
 subscribe towards the expense of it; and who, when the 
 undertaking has been fiated by authority, and one half of the 
 required capital is to be borne by the country, will put down 
 
272 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 his name for 1,000, and perhaps more, in order to expedite 
 the project through its remaining stages. And yet, mortifying 
 confession ! these improvers, in nine cases out of ten, are only 
 actuated by selfish motives ; their eulogy is one of the many 
 forms of political gratitude — a lively sense of benefits to come, 
 inspired by the memory of benefits that have been received. 
 One has had money for a road, — another for a bridge or a 
 pier, — a third for a reclamation of waste land ; and each has 
 his desirable improvement still to carry out. How can they, 
 then, abstain from praising the policy by which they hope to 
 profit ? They are patriots animated by that strong love of 
 country which invariably takes a lucrative turn. It has too often 
 been remarked, that he who begins by subscribing £100 for 
 the survey of a public work, generally ends by carrying it into 
 the heart of his own estate ; and if he happens to follow up 
 his first contribution by adding, as has occasionally happened. 
 .£^1,000 towards its completion, <£^lO,OOOat least of the public 
 money comes to be eventually expended upon his property. 
 
 If this general statement be not enough, and particular 
 evidence is still desired of the improper influence required 
 to procure good measures under the existing administra- 
 tion of public works, it will perhaps be enough to mention 
 that when the Whigs held office, two leading members of 
 the party, locally interested, succeeded in obtaining nearly 
 i?700,000 for the improvement of the river Shannon ; and 
 that now that the Tories are in power, a leading Tory, also 
 locally interested, has obtained a survey of the Blackwater at 
 the public expense. A number of cases, even more specific, 
 are to be met with in the annual reports of the commissioners, 
 where peers and private gentlemen may be distinctly traced 
 in the receipt of large sums of public money for personal 
 objects. Year after year the items have run plainly enough, — 
 to such a one, " for improving his estate," so many thousand 
 pounds; — to such a one, "for draining his land," so many 
 thousand pounds ; — to such a one, " for working a mine," so 
 many thousand pounds; — to such a one, "for making a road" 
 through his estate, so many thousand pounds ; — to such a one, 
 " for building a pier on his estate, so many thousand pounds, 
 
JOIXT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 273 
 
 &c. &c. How neat a machinery of political corruption may 
 thus be set to work, — how aptly the wasting strength of party 
 warfare may thus be recruited, — how reluctant votes may thus 
 be won over, and the public service may be shamefully abused, 
 while large personal fortunes are unblushingly realized, can re- 
 quire no explanation here. As little can it be necessary to 
 point out that this is neither a just nor a substantial develop- 
 ment of the resources of the country, but a foul and scandalous 
 sustainment of private advantages subversive of all public vir- 
 tue and national improvement. The value of such resources in 
 the hands of an adroit and sedulous manoeuverer may be esti- 
 mated by the assertion of close observers, who do not hesitate 
 to declare, that there are not a few estates in Ireland the 
 rentals of which have been doubled by a cunningly contrived 
 application of the public money to their improvement in the 
 manner here adverted to. 
 
 These mercenary practices have not been of recent origin. 
 The writer of the MS.* "Account of Ireland,'' in the British 
 Museum, repeatedly quoted from in Chapter XII., observes, 
 under the date of 1753, "as a redundancy in the treasury 
 had occasioned so much discussion and dispute, it seemed 
 now determined that the same cause of contest should never 
 occur again. For this purpose the House of Commons now 
 began to appropriate a considerable part of the additional 
 duties to their own use. This was done under the pretence 
 of encouraging public works, such as inland navigation, col- 
 lieries, and manufactories of different kinds. But the truth 
 is that most of the public works were private jobs carried on 
 under the direction and for the advantage of some consi- 
 derable gentlemen of the House of Commons. By this means 
 the parliamentary leaders perfectly answered their own views 
 — they gratified their friends, impoverished the treasury, and 
 
 * When this manuscript was first quoted in this work, the author's 
 name was not given in the catalogues of the King's Library; it has since 
 been added. The writer was Sir George, afterwards Earl Macartney, who 
 was Irish secretary at the commencement of Lord Townshend's lieu- 
 tenancy, and is better known as the author of the " Journal of an Em- 
 bassy to China." 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 kept government under a constant necessity of asking supplies. 
 By repeated jobbing the purpose was effected, and what is 
 most unaccountable, government seemed to acquiesce in it 
 without complaining." The statements made in this chapter, 
 and the further details still to be given, will abundantly prove 
 that the example set by the Irish parliament in this respect 
 has been keenly followed up and excelled by an unbroken suc- 
 cession of Irish members in the British legislature. 
 
 Precisely the same ideas were expressed upon the subject by 
 Lord Clare in his celebrated Union speech. " But the Com- 
 mons took effectual care that the question should not occur a 
 second time, by appropriating every future surplus to their 
 private use under the specious pretence of local public im- 
 provements. Windmills and watermills, and canals and 
 bridges, and spinning-jennies were provided at the public ex- 
 pense ; and the parliamentary patrons of these great national 
 objects were entrusted with full discretionary powers over the 
 money granted to complete them. From this system of im- 
 provement a double advantage arose to the Irish aristocracy : 
 it kept their followers steady in the ranks, and, by reducing 
 the crown to the necessity of calling for supplies, made the 
 political services of the leaders necessary for the support of 
 of government. But the precedent was fatal, and a system 
 has gradually been built upon it which would beat down the 
 most powerful nation of the earth." 
 
 This system served Lord Clare with an argument for the 
 Union, but its abuses were continued in full play long after the 
 Union w^as carried . Parliamentary loans and grants, in aid of 
 public works and for the employment of the poor, up to our 
 own time, have either been treated as bounties to the landed 
 interest, or have been distributed, with a very few moderate 
 exceptions, as favours and rewards amongst the political par- 
 tisans of the government of the day, or applied to the improve- 
 ment of districts in which persons of that description have held 
 large possessions. 
 
 Parliamentary jobbers, and improvers of their own proper- 
 ties out of the national funds have not constituted the only 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 275 
 
 noxious body thus engendered. An impudent race of unprin- 
 cipled pretenders sprung up as soon as it became understood 
 that the gleanings of this political harvest yielded large profits 
 to those who were hired to reap it. As political influence 
 decided the merits of almost every project, the profits of 
 working each in its turn were dropped as prizes into the 
 laps of adroit political agents. Whole families have thus 
 made fortunes -by nothing but trading in government grants 
 and public works. While such plotters flourished, no measure, 
 however beneficial, had the least chance of success, without 
 official patronage in the first instance. The jackalls of the 
 jobs thus fastened upon the treasury, were not slow in teach- 
 ing the dependants and instruments of the Castle of Dublin 
 how much it would be to their interest also if all under- 
 takings of this class were to become, in one shape or other, 
 government concerns. Mercenary combinations quickly fol- 
 lowed ; every thing was meddled with, but nothing flourished. 
 These men — and their race is not yet extinct — have eaten 
 like locusts into the heart of the public good in Ireland. 
 Insidious, plausible, insatiable, and ever sedulously alive to 
 gain, they have equally been remarkable for their advocacy 
 of the cause of national improvement, and for the large sums 
 which they have obtained under the pretence of advancing 
 it. Destitute of honour, and incapable of party attachment, 
 they have marked every new administration upon its acces- 
 sion to office as their prey, and made it their especial policy 
 to render themselves agreeable or serviceable to it early in 
 its career. Once their talons are fixed, they take a firm 
 grasp, which they never relax while there is a boon to be 
 granted, or a shilling to be expended. They have been the 
 creatures of all governments, and have used each in its turn 
 to their selfish purposes. Successive administrations have 
 decayed and broken down, while these, the parasites of their 
 power, have clung, Hke ivy, to the ruin, the only green and 
 flourishing spots upon the extending waste. They have touched 
 everything, and nothing has prospered in their hands, or been 
 profitable to any persons but themselves ; and yet such has 
 
 t2 
 
276 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 been their address, or the infatuation of almost every minister 
 in Ireland, that they continue to enjoy constant regard, and 
 are pluralists of the most lucrative offices and employments in 
 the country. With them government mines, government 
 canals, government navigations, government roads, and go- 
 vernment railways, have always been favorite objects of praise 
 and attachment. In this way the country has been made to 
 bear the loss of millions ; enormous prizes have been won in the 
 great lottery of jobs, and proportionate gains have accrued to 
 the flatterers and retainers of those through whose weak and 
 partial hands these profuse applications of the national re- 
 sources have passed. Nothing has been too high for their 
 ambition, or too low for their avarice ; they have taken £500 
 for working a quarry, and half a million for improving a navi- 
 gation. Carefully and minutely should their professions and 
 conduct be studied by all persons who, to borrow the words of 
 one of the oldest and most painstaking of Irish statistical 
 writers, " would represent the most natural causes of the 
 poverty of the country, by discovering, not only the grand 
 robbers of its treasure, but the lesser thieves that creep in at 
 every window, and pilfer every house, and pick every pocket, 
 whereby, not only the noble and wealthy, but the mean and 
 poor are daily made poorer.*" * 
 
 Passing from these illustrations of the manner in which the 
 integrity of public men has been sullied, and the national 
 energies have been abused, and ascending to the higher 
 considerations by which the general question is governed in 
 other countries, we shall not find ourselves in want of evidence 
 to confirm the reasonableness of the opinions already forced 
 upon us. The superior efficacy of private enterprise over a 
 government administration, as the proper medium for con- 
 ducting the public works of a free people to a successful issue, 
 is strongly sustained by almost every argument and example 
 applicable to the subject.-|- It seems as if it were part of the 
 genius of a constitution like ours, that gi-eat public works 
 
 * " The Interest of Ireland," by Richard La%vrence. 
 
 t This, and some other passages in the present chapter, appeared in a 
 pamphlet published by the author in 1839, on Railways and Public Works 
 in Ireland. 
 
 I 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES, 
 
 277 
 
 should belong, not to the government, but to private parties. 
 We may even go farther, and, extending the proposition 
 generally, maintain, that exactly as a government is, in its 
 form and administration, absolute and tyrannical, it is well 
 fitted for the execution of public works on a large scale ; but 
 on the other hand, exactly as the institutions of a country are 
 liberal and representative, the people are sure to surpass the 
 government in all the labours of original speculation, and the 
 prosperous conduct of undertakings which demand for their 
 accomplishment the spirit of bold adventure, an ardent energy, 
 and the excitement produced by calculations of considerable 
 profit. Looking not only at the progress of public works, but 
 also at the development of all those useful inventions by which 
 society has been most benefitted and enriched in England and 
 in America, we perceive that private enterprise has invariably 
 taken the lead and obtained by far the most splendid results. 
 The joint-stock canals, docks, and railways of England and the 
 United States, far exceed in number and value any correspond- 
 ing works projected or completed by the executive authorities in 
 either country, while they exhibit the continental governments 
 in a state of comparative depression and insignificance. So 
 irresistible has been the pressure of this truth, that even in 
 France, where the fear of democratic innovation imposes 
 severe restrictions upon the liberty of the subject, extensive 
 powers in the projection, support, and management of public 
 works, are conceded to the people. Although a political crisis 
 enforced the construction of railways upon the state in Bel- 
 gium, efficient provision is made to secure to the community 
 full permission to make and maintain at their own risk all 
 other public works, as they may deem them to be for their 
 advantage.* But in Ireland the exercise of similar privileges 
 has not been tolerated. There the people, however free in 
 other respects, have never been free in this one. The govern- 
 ment has uniformly interfered, and its interference has always 
 embarrassed. 
 
 In manufactures, again — in gas, in steam — the world owes 
 
 * There is an interesting account of the Belgian system of public works, 
 in " Measures for Ireland," by A. H. Lynch, Esq., M.P. Lond. 1839. 
 
278 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 almost every thing to private enterprise, and little or nothing 
 to its governments. England devoted for a series of years her 
 ample resources in men and money to resolve the problem of 
 a north-west passage. Successive expeditions tried the expe- 
 riment without effect, when the humble servants of a private 
 company stepped in and made the discovery at a single but 
 most wonderful effort. 
 
 Should it not then be received as a settled doctrine, that 
 the government of this country is, by its very nature, inca- 
 pable of managing extensive undertakings, which, to be com- 
 pleted with skill, economy, and the desired effect, demand 
 years of the most exact superintendence, and the sensitive 
 cares of a penetrating and tenacious self-interest ? Are not 
 these views fully warranted by the history, so peculiarly dis- 
 couraging, of all our government undertakings of this kind 1 
 Where has the executive stepped in for the purpose of taking 
 the place of private enterprise, and attempted to accomplish 
 objects which our habits have made the peculiar province of 
 the people, without encountering utter failure ? The more we 
 examine the multitudinous avocations, and the ever-fluctuating 
 interests of the government of such a state as ours, the more 
 convinced we must feel that the minister of the day is wholly 
 incapable of that persevering labour and close attention to 
 details, of that warm sympathy and hearty identification with 
 the object pursued — ^joint offsprings of the hope of fame and 
 emolument — which these proceedings imperatively require. 
 As little is it possible to establish a firm and constant subor- 
 dinate agency, unshaken and uninjured by the frequent shocks 
 and interruptions to which it is sure to be exposed, and really 
 independent of the varying influences which the lapse of a few 
 years will be sure to bring to bear upon it. We change the 
 mind of the deputy when displacing the principal, upon whom 
 he depends for support, and by whom he must at all times be 
 directed ; we substitute for the man who has always thought 
 highly of a particular measure, an opponent who has always 
 been of opinion that it was a mistake from the beginning, 
 and can only involve in discredit the department to which it 
 bplongs. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 If sceptics are still to be found upon the subject they should 
 be referred to Ireland, where cases are to be met with so 
 numerous and strong as to to be overwhelming. Out of Ire- 
 land, amongst others to be specially noticed, is the Caledonian 
 canal, projected some forty years ago, by Telford, prosecuted 
 by the government, and unfinished to this hour. Upwards of 
 a million sterling had been apphed to this work, and in 1837 
 its patrons were reduced to an unprecedented dilemma. They 
 were called upon to answer a question no less difficult than 
 this : — Can we do better than to discontinue the navigation 
 and destroy the works altogether ? The walls, long in a state 
 of imminent insecurity, were falling in in some places, and 
 threatening a general inundation. Mr. Walker, President of 
 the Society of Engineers, reported to the treasury that, if the 
 canal was to be kept open at all, there could be no doubt as 
 to the propriety of executing extensive repairs, which would 
 cost a further sum of ^£^129,817. After that expenditure, 
 vessels would take from three to four or five weeks to pass 
 through the canal, which is only 60 miles long ! To ex- 
 pedite so slow a transit, it was proposed that five steam tugs 
 should be procured, which would make the additional sum re- 
 quired, dG'l 50,000. The average annual tonnage navigating 
 this canal was then about 25,000 tons, which is about 2 J per 
 cent, of the whole trade of the Pentland Forth. The canal 
 was intended for frigates, but vessels of the smallest class 
 only attempt the use of it, as it is confessedly inadequate to 
 large ones. The gross annual receipts have never exceeded 
 £2,500, while the expense of maintenance and repairs amounts 
 to <^3,000. If all the c£^150,000 were expended, it would still 
 take days to navigate the 60 miles. To finish the picture, 
 Mr. Walker stated that it would cost just as much to destroy 
 the canal as to repair it ; and to complete the string of per- 
 plexities, if it was neither destroyed nor repaired, the country 
 would be inundated, and whole districts full of property would 
 be ruined ! After two years of deliberation, it was determined, 
 in 1842, to adopt Mr. Walker s plan of repairs and spend 
 ^300,000 more. 
 The Rideaux canal, in Canada, teaches just the same 
 
280 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 lesson. The original estimate for that work was only 
 .£'150,000, but it has actually cost ^£^900,000, and is, even 
 now, unavailable for the uses it was intended to serve. But 
 without travelling to the colonies, let us look at the Holyhead 
 roads and harbour. These were constructed by government, 
 at an enormous expense, aided by some of our most eminent 
 engineers, with the viev/ of making that line the main stream 
 of communication between London and Dublin. But it never 
 once has been able to compete with Liverpool. There the 
 superior energy of private wealth has overcome the natural 
 difficulties of a bad port and long sea voyage, and drawn all 
 the Irish trade to the inconvenient JNIersey. 
 
 The rapid extension of railways during the last ten or twelve 
 years, has suggested some formidable ideas of a very contra- 
 dictory nature to many persons. Negligence and usurpation, 
 mismanagement and extortion, are charges often brought 
 against the system under which they have been produced. It 
 must be confessed that we have no reason to ascribe per- 
 fection to that system — on the contrary, it is impossible to 
 resist the force of the evidence which goes to show that the 
 public convenience has not been as fully or as satisfactorily 
 consulted in many of these undertakings as their respective 
 circumstances admitted. But although this may have been 
 the case in several instances, he would be a very precipitate 
 reformer of abuses who would leap to the conclusion that the 
 only proper way of correcting existing or prospective evils is 
 to take all such works out of the hands of private companies 
 and transfer them absolutely to government. For, unques- 
 tionably, the pressure of pubhc opinion against any grievances 
 that may be inflicted while they are conducted by individuals, 
 must in almost every instance prove invincible. As they are 
 now circumstanced, the community at large unites itself in 
 one compact and overwhelming body to resist any wrong, and 
 put down any usurpation that may be threatened by the 
 partial monopolies it has called into existence for its own ad- 
 vantage. The government, too, in the present state of things, 
 enjoys a counteracting influence, which it will be generally 
 found disposed to bring to the public relief the moment a pro- 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 281 
 
 per case for interference is made out. This has been pointedly 
 evinced by the prompt enactment of the successive laws which 
 have already consulted the public accommodation and safety by 
 placing all railways under the supervision and controul of a 
 particular department of the board of trade. But if we 
 change the system that prevails, and hand over all the rail- 
 ways in the empire to be made and managed by government, 
 we may happen to realize the fable of the frogs who desired a 
 king. Instead of the public, arrayed against a small body of 
 individuals, we shall have the public divided against itself, and 
 ultimately crushed by a power of predominant weight. Our 
 railways, like our post-office, as a government enterprise, 
 would be made a source of revenue to the exchequer, and of 
 considerable patronage to the minister. Every complaint 
 against the government system of railways would be construed 
 into a censure of the administration of the day, and every at- 
 tempt to procure a reduction of the government charges for 
 travelling w'ould be opposed, as the general effort lately was 
 opposed to cheapen the high rates of postage under which 
 every branch of the national industry had so long been 
 suffering.* 
 
 * Amongst those who contend for a government board to make and 
 maintain railways, no point has been more strongly urged in the attempt 
 to establish a case, than the expediency of settling by a competent au- 
 thority the breadth of way and various other scientific details, so as to 
 render them fixed and uniform, and to enforce the adoption of the best 
 upon every line under commensurate penalties. But the policy of such an 
 interference with the progress of improvement seems to be very question- 
 able. If every new line we may have to make is to be, necessarily, a 
 counterpart of the hnes already in existence, we are not likely to advance 
 beyond the point of excellence at which we may be considered to have 
 already arrived. If we leave companies free to effect improvements as 
 skill and experience may suggest, we may rest assured that ingenious ex- 
 periments ^vill be frequently made, and that they will be frequently suc- 
 cessful. If you lay down one rule and form, from which there shall be 
 no digression, you forbid experiment — you forbid improvement — you 
 degenerate, in short. A good conveyance, at convenient times, the pub- 
 lic has a right to demand ; but the introduction of a power to determine, 
 ex cathedra, whether that conveyance shall be on rails of this or that form, 
 or at this or that breadth of way, could not fail to prove as injurious as it 
 would certainly be vexatious and puerile. If such an authority had been 
 in existence when the Great Western line was in a course of construction, 
 Mr. Brunei's inventions and particularly the wide gauge, would in all pro- 
 bability have been interdicted. In the only instances, moreover, where 
 official intelligence has been brought to bear upon this very detail, contra- 
 
282 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 When the turnpike-road system was coming into general 
 use, it was assailed, as every successful improvement is inva- 
 riably assailed, by much of the same sort of clamour and ob- 
 jection as we now find levelled against our incipient railway 
 system. Adam Smith notices, in his Wealth of Nations,*" 
 how, then, as now, the government was called on to inter- 
 fere, and how the people were told that government, if it 
 took the turnpike-roads into its own hands, could not only 
 make them better and more cheaply than private parties, but 
 also how it would derive a certain revenue for the state from 
 them. The passages in which Adam Smith disposes of these 
 suggestions, bear pertinently upon the present discussion, and 
 will be found full of instruction. 
 
 " In Great Britain, the abuses whicli the trustees have committed in the 
 management of those tolls, have, in many cases, been very justly com- 
 plained of. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the money levied is more 
 than double of what is necessary for executing, in the completest manner, 
 the work which is often executed in a very slovenly manner, and some- 
 times not executed at all. The system of repairing the high roads by toUs 
 of this kind, it must be obsen^ed, is not of very long standing. We 
 should not wonder, therefore, if it has not yet been brought to that degree 
 of perfection of which it seems capable. If mean and improper persons 
 are frequently appointed trustees ; and if proper courts of inspection and 
 account have not yet been estabhshed for controlling their conduct, and 
 for reducing the tolls to what is barely sufficient for executing the work to 
 be done by them; the recency of the institution both accounts and 
 apologizes for those defects, of which, by the wisdom of parliament, the 
 greater part may, in due time, be gradually remedied. 
 
 " The money levied at the different turnpikes in Great Britain is sup- 
 posed to exceed so much what is necessary for repairing the roads, that 
 the savings, which, with proper economy, might be made from it, have 
 
 dictory decisions have been pronounced. There are only three railways 
 in Ireland, and a government board has been more or less consulted upon 
 the subject of the breadth of way for each of them, and yet they all differ. 
 Sir J. Burgoyne and the board of works approved the plans of the Dub- 
 lin and Kingstown railway; in 1837 the same officer and the Irish rail- 
 way commissioners recommended another gauge for general adoption, 
 and upon that the Belfast and Portadown railway was constructed. In 
 1843, however. Sir John Burgoyne and his brother commissioners decided 
 in the case of the Dublin and Drogheda railway in favour of a third 
 gauge, so that in Ireland the gauge of every railway made has been fixed 
 upon after deliberate inquiry by official authority, and the consequent 
 benefit enjoyed by the country is a different gauge upon each ! 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 283 
 
 been considered, even by some ministers, as a very great resource which 
 might, at some time or another, be applied to the exigencies of the state. 
 Government, it has been said, by taking the management of the turnpikes 
 into its own hands, and by employing the soldiers, who would work for a 
 very small addition to their pay, could keep the roads in good order at a 
 much less expense than it can be done by trustees, who have no other 
 workmen to employ, but such as derive their whole subsistence from their 
 wages. A great revenue, half a million, perhaps, it has been pretended, 
 might in this manner be gained without laying any new burden upon the 
 people ; and the turnpike roads might be made to contribute to the general 
 expense of the state, in the same manner as the post-office does at present. 
 
 " That a considerable revenue might be gained in this manner, I have 
 no doubt, though, probably, not near so much as the projectors of this 
 plan have supposed. The plan itself, however, seems hable to several 
 very important objections. 
 
 " First, if the tolls which are levied at the turnpikes should ever be con- 
 sidered as one of the resources for supplying the exigencies of the state, 
 they would certainly be augmented as those exigencies were supposed to 
 require. According to the policy of Great Britain, therefore, they would 
 probably be augmented very fast. The facility ^vith which a great revenue 
 could be drawn from them, would probably encourage the administration 
 to recur very frequently to this resource. Though it may, perhaps, be 
 more than doubtful whether half a million could, by any economy, be 
 saved out of the present toUs, it can scarce be doubted but that a million 
 might be saved out of them, if they were doubled ; and, perhaps, two 
 millions, if they were tripled. This great revenue, too, might be levied 
 without the appointment of a single new officer to collect and receive it. 
 But the turnpike toUs being continually augmented in this manner, instead 
 of facilitating the inland commerce of the country, as at present, would 
 soon become a very great encumbrance upon it. The expense of trans- 
 porting all heavy goods from one part of the country to another, would 
 soon be so much increased, the market for all such goods, consequently, 
 would soon be so much narrowed, that their production would be, in a 
 great measure, discouraged, and the most important branches of the 
 domestic industry of the country annihilated altogether. 
 
 " Secondly, a tax upon carriages in proportion to their weight, though 
 a very equal tax when apphed to the sole purpose of repairing the roads, 
 is a very unequal one when applied to any other purpose, or to supply the 
 common exigencies of the state. When it is applied to the sole purpose 
 above mentioned, each carriage is supposed to pay exactly for the wear 
 and tear which that carriage occasions of the roads. But when it is ap- 
 plied to any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay for more than 
 that wear and tear, and contributes to the supply of some other exigency 
 of the state. But as the turnpike toll raises the price of goods in pro- 
 
284 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 portion to their weight, and not to their value, it is chiefly paid by the con- 
 sumers of coarse and bulky, not by those of precious and light, commodi- 
 ties. Whatever exigency of the state, therefore, this tax might be intended 
 to supply, that exigency would be chiefly supplied at the expense of the 
 poor, not of the rich ; at the expense of those who are least able to supply 
 it, not of those who are most able. 
 
 " Thirdly, if government should at any time neglect the reparation of the 
 high roads, it would be still more difficult than it is at present to compel 
 the proper application of any part of the turnpike tolls. A large revenue 
 might thus be levied upon the people, without any part of it being ap- 
 plied to the only purpose to which a revenue levied in this manner ought 
 ever to be applied. If the meanness and poverty of the trustees of turn- 
 pike-roads render it sometimes difficult at present to oblige them to repair 
 their wrong, their wealth and greatness would render it ten times more so 
 in the case which is here supposed." — Wealth of Nations , Book v. c. i. 
 
 The provisions introduced into the recent acts for the con- 
 trol and regulation of railways, have put an end to an objection 
 not unfrequently urged against those modes of communication. 
 It used to be said that as railways must soon put down all other 
 public conveyances, the travelling of the country will neces- 
 sarily fall into the hands of the companies, who will then have 
 the power of imposing such charges as they may please. This 
 apprehension can no longer exist, but even when it was most 
 reasonably expressed the essential distinction between a high 
 road and a railway was seldom borne in view. A high road is 
 public property — not solely by reason of its public utility, but 
 because the land through or near which it passes and the 
 public are rated to its support. A railway, on the contrary, 
 is constructed by private capital only, and the proprietors rely 
 for their profit upon the receipts to be obtained from travellers 
 who find it their interest to avail themselves of the superior 
 accommodation it affords. Above all, it should not be for- 
 gotten, that, if the railway is introduced, the high road is 
 also maintained as of old, for the convenience of all those 
 whose means or inclination may dispose them to prefer it. 
 The public, therefore, has a double option, and gains one 
 great advantage without losing another. Had the railway 
 companies demanded the suppression, or could they altogether 
 supersede the common roads, the people would then be entitled 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 285 
 
 to such rights on the railways as they now possess on the high 
 roads of the kingdom, but not otherwise. 
 
 In short, what the pubHc really wants, and properly calls 
 for, is, not a government board to make roads, canals, or 
 railways, nor a board to determine where, or when, or how 
 such works shall be made; but some general provisions, 
 of easy enforcement, to the effect that, when they have been 
 made, the covenant created between the trader and the 
 traveller upon them, shall be fairly executed by the parties 
 who, by the very condition of things, have the power of ful- 
 filling it well or ill, to a great extent, in their own hands. 
 That a government board to make public works is not called 
 for, must be now regarded as a plain truth, requiring no 
 further argument and illustration. But we go farther, and 
 maintain, that a board to determine where, or when, or how 
 roads, canals, or railways shall be made, is not desirable. If 
 such a power was once given, it could not but grow, by slow 
 and sure degrees, into a stronghold of injustice and corruption. 
 Its very extent and vastness would render it too dangerous to 
 be trusted, and too unwieldy to be useful. Jobbing would be 
 one of its least evils. Political interests would insinuate 
 themselves, and obtain the pernicious influence common to 
 their nature ; party ties would usurp their undue share of 
 places and emoluments ; and the public good, in process of 
 time, would be attended to only as a secondary consideration 
 by those who filled and by those who appointed to the princi- 
 pal situations in such a department. But the people require, 
 and it has already been found expedient to provide, a general 
 law for the public protection, to which all undertakings of this 
 class, in the terms of their respective acts, shall be subject. 
 There is now a specific authority to enforce that law readily 
 and cheaply, — its leading principles, moreover, and conditions 
 direct that a just proportion shall be, at all times, maintained 
 between the profit accruing to the company, and the accommo- 
 dation gained by the public ; — that neither caprice, ignorance, 
 nor great powers, shall be allowed to produce irregularity, 
 disappointment, or exaction ; — that safety, expedition, com- 
 
286 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 fort, economy, and civility shall be secured. Beyond these 
 guarantees no reasonable man would desire to proceed. The 
 chief aim of every one who understands the structure and 
 movement of the system by which the wealth and great- 
 ness of the empire have been produced, will henceforward be 
 directed to preserve capital and enterprise free from and un- 
 prejudiced by further restraints or the deadening pressure of 
 an extended goverment controul.* 
 
 When the Irish, incited by the example of England, began 
 to turn their attention to the improvement of their navigable 
 rivers, and the construction of canals, as desirable means of 
 increasing their commerce, and elevating their country to its 
 proper rank in the scale of nations, the form of companies, and 
 the investment of the capital of individuals, were proposed to 
 carry the different plans into execution. Persons, however, 
 were not wanting to oppose such efforts, much after the same 
 fashion, and nearly upon the same grounds, as have been urged 
 of late years against the introduction of railways by private 
 enterprise. No sooner was the first of these projects started, 
 than a clique was formed, which, at the Castle of Dublin, 
 affected exclusive zeal for the administration of the day, and, 
 out of the castle, professed to enjoy its confidence, to express 
 its sentiments, and to move upon its impulse. By that clique 
 companies in Ireland were deprecated and denounced with 
 hardened perseverance. They paid court in the outer offices 
 of the castle, they flattered the under functionaries, they in- 
 
 * We frequently hear instances cited to prove the incompetency of par- 
 liament to determine matters of private interest and utility ; and, doubt- 
 less, many such are to be shewn. Nor can we, much as the mode of con- 
 ducting private business has been improved of late years, still assert, with 
 truth, that parhament is yet a perfectly adequate tribunal in this respect. 
 Parhament, however, has one advantage which we cannot hope to find 
 elsewhere. Any one member in either house, by rising in his place and 
 exposing a job, is almost sure to defeat it. It is impossible to constitute 
 any board, tribunal, or department, to which we could attach that one in- 
 valuable good. Many jobs, no doubt, have been carried in both houses ; 
 but that has seldom happened when they have been denounced. The care 
 now taken to give pubhcity to all the proceedings on private bills, renders 
 the quiet progress of a deliberate job, all but impossible. There are few 
 government boards, on a large scale, of which it would be safe to make 
 the same boast. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 287 
 
 voked the interference of ministers with a constant voice; 
 they asserted that Ireland did not possess sufficient capital 
 for such undertakings, nor sufficient trade to support them, 
 if completed. As nothing of the kind, it was argued, could 
 remunerate private undertakers, government alone should em- 
 bark in them upon public grounds, and by so doing protect 
 the community at large from imposition, and truly develop the 
 resources of the country. Nor did they contend in vain. 
 Assistance was craved on the one hand, controul demanded on 
 the other. At the beginning private enterprise struggled to 
 make way, but so obstinate was the resistance offered to its 
 progress, that it was forced to yield. Government did inter- 
 fere, and, obtaining new means of patronage, distributed 
 amongst its partizans the good things placed at its disposal. 
 
 But the assistance was much greater than the controul : the 
 purse-strings of the Irish treasury were unloosed, and grasping 
 hands were always to be found within. The efforts of indivi- 
 duals, through the press, and in parliament, to arrest a course 
 of scandalous jobbing, were unavailing. The most glaring 
 exposures of ignorant extravagance and gross corruption took 
 place ; but the favourite system, though suppressed at inter- 
 vals by the force of public indignation, has always been revived, 
 after an interval of disuse, and has invariably produced the 
 same consequences. When the amount of one vote was 
 wasted, another was carried. When one form of administra- 
 tion exploded in depravity, another was artfully set up to repeat 
 some modification of the experiment, with the same fatal effect. 
 The false principle of government controul and government aid 
 has been attempted in banking and railways, and has been con- 
 stantly applied to navigation and canal companies. Millions 
 have been lavished to work it out, and they have been lavished 
 in vain. May we not then ask, what security there is against 
 the recurrence of the same results, if, in defiance of all ex- 
 perience, we should still farther extend or tolerate it ? Is it 
 not the unchangeable nature of things, that what was badly 
 done before, by such means, will be badly done again I Is it 
 to be credited that the estimates will not be exceeded ? — that 
 
288 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 there will be no improvident advances of public money ? — that 
 no poor relatives and inconvenient dependants will be provided 
 for in unnecessary places, and no party interest or political 
 prejudices fostered and encouraged in filling up the places 
 that are necessary ? Can any man venture to limit the unfair 
 premium to which, at a period of excited speculation, the 
 shares of the government works may not be raised, or the dis- 
 count to which a momentary panic may not precipitate them ? 
 These are consequences which every person of ordinary in- 
 formation, and the most limited sagacity cannot fail to regard 
 as inevitable, and which no integrity or ingenuity can either 
 prevent or subdue. 
 
 But why resort to arguments when we may decide the ques- 
 tion by referring to facts ? We have the experience of more 
 than a century and a quarter to guide our judgment. We 
 have paid away millions of money to buy that experience. The 
 vain attempt to work out with success the principle of a state 
 direction of private enterprise has been made time after time, 
 and in every shape ; successive parliaments in Ireland, and in 
 the United Kingdom, have aided the repeated efforts with no 
 no mean or contracted hands ; as one modification of the sys- 
 tem has broken down, we have had another quickly raised upon 
 its ruins ; and what remains ? For a period of 128 years, only 
 fifteen public works for all Ireland, — the Shannon, Barrow, 
 Lagan, Boyne, Tyrone, Tralee, Suir, and Moy navigations ; — 
 the Grand, Royal, Newry, and Ulster canals ; — and the Dub- 
 lin and Kingstown, the Belfast and Portadown, and the Dub- 
 lin and Drogheda railways. And what, respectively, are their 
 circumstances ? With exception of the three last, — large 
 debts — scarcely any dividends — and overwhelming difficulties. 
 
 To begin with the Limerick navigation, which is a part and 
 was the commencement of the Shannon navigation — we find 
 the project of improving the Shannon, started in 1715, under 
 the act 2 Geo. I. c. 13, at the instance of private enterprise, 
 but quickly taken up by a government board. Its cost, in 
 1828, had been c^'l 23,000, for six and a half miles of canal, 
 and five and a half miles of river navigation, and its produce 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 289 
 
 ^1,514 2s. a-year.* In 1826, the pressure of so dead a failure 
 became intolerable, and the inland navigation directors en- 
 couraged the formation of a company, with a joint-stock 
 capital of <£'S,000, to be expended in further improvements. 
 The company was formed — the property, which had cost 
 dS^l 23,000, was vested in them — and, in 1833, they began to 
 borrow again from the state. The present board of works 
 has paid c£^ldt,000 to maintain the Limerick Navigation Com- 
 pany of 1826-|-. But the " government system'' did not stop 
 there. The Shannon improvements were projected, and to 
 complete them, it was held desirable that the public should 
 not only buy back from the company the rights transferred in 
 1826— giving <£'6,000 for a capital stock of .£^3,000, and 
 £6,000 to pay off miscellaneous debts incurred in the interval, 
 but also that the particular debt of dfi'l 4,000 to the public 
 should stand over as a lien on the tolls which are expected to 
 accrue — ad Grcecas Calendas — from additional improvements ! 
 This is the government system in Ireland down to the present 
 moment. An expenditure of =£'146,000 has been required to 
 
 * Irish Railway Report, Appendix A, 74, and B, 54. 
 t Reports of commissioners of public works in Ireland, 1834-36. 
 Lirnerick, it must be confessed, has been extremely fortunate in its con- 
 nexion with this board. The following sums of the public money have 
 been awarded to that city and its approaches \vithin a recent period : — 
 Road from Woodford to new line to Limerick . £959 14 
 
 Road from Glenquin to Goulburn Bridge, County 
 
 Limerick ...... 600 
 
 Limerick Navigation Company to improve Works . 8,910 
 Road leading to Ennis .... 205 
 
 Ditto Waterford . . . .560 
 
 Wellesley Bridge and Docks .... 25,000 
 
 Ditto ditto ..... 37,550 
 
 Ditto ditto ..... 29,000 
 
 Road leading to Waterford .... 296 
 
 Road leading to Ennis . . . .117 
 
 Road leading from Abbeyfeale to Glinn . . 1,181 
 
 Rebuilding Thomond Bridge . . . 9,000 
 
 Barrington's Hospital .... 2,500 
 
 Limerick Navigation Company to improve Quays, &c. 6,500 
 Road from Mitchelstown to Kilfinnane . . 1,150 
 
 Building Athlunkard Bridge . . . 9,850 
 
 Road from Butte vant to Kilfinnane . . . 400 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 6 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £133,779 19 5 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
290 
 
 PUBLIC WOBKS AND 
 
 produce an income of only £l,ol4i 2s., and parliament sus- 
 tained Lord Monteagle, then Mr. Spring Rice, in compelling 
 the country to pay for that paltry income, in addition to the 
 large grants previous to 1826, no less than ^6,000 + .^6,000 
 
 + i:'i4,ooo = i:^26,ooo. 
 
 The Grand Canal grew out of the first plans for improving 
 the Shannon and efiecting an uninterrupted stream of naviga- 
 tion from the Irish Sea at Dublin to the Atlantic Ocean below 
 Limerick. Like the work just noticed it soon became a go- 
 vernment undertaking ; it was then thrown into a private en- 
 terprise, aided and directed by the state, and has in both con- 
 ditions borne a heavy share of the misfortunes inseparable 
 from all such auspices and authorities. The works were com- 
 menced in 1756, but their progress, far from corresponding 
 with the patronage under w^hich they had been projected, was 
 so tardy and fruitless that the government was obliged to fall 
 back upon the only legitimate ground, and invite private indi- 
 viduals to come in and take a share in the speculation. 
 Under this new encouragement a subscription in aid of the 
 work was set on foot, and in 1772, after large sums of public 
 money had been expended, an act of parliament was passed, 
 incorporating the subscribers of a sum of 60,000 which was 
 to be made c£^150,000, as the Company of Undertakers of 
 the Grand Canal ; and vesting in them all the property and 
 powders with respect to that navigation, previously possessed by 
 the directors of inland navigation. By this body which sur- 
 mounted not a few difficulties and impositions, involving the 
 necessity of an augmentation of capital, the line was completed 
 from Dubhn to Monastereven in 1786. Subsequently the line 
 was extended westward to TuUamore, and from Tullamore to 
 the Shannon ; it was opened, October 25th, 1803. The branch 
 canal to Ballinasloe was completed 29th September, 1828; 
 that to Mountmellick, 1st March, 1831 ; and that to Kilbeg- 
 gan, 1st Januar}% 1835. 
 
 This navigation, including the main line from the Liffey to 
 the Shannon, and the branches to Ballinasloe, Mountmellick, 
 Kilbeggan, Naas, Corbally, Miltown, Blackwood, and Eden- 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 291 
 
 derry, extends in various directions about 160 miles. The 
 rise from its mouth at the Liffey, near Ringsend, to the sum- 
 mit at Robertstown is 278 feet ; the fall thence to the Barrow 
 at Athy is 97, and to the Shannon at Banagher 162 feet, 
 making a total rise and fall upon the whole navigation of 537 
 feet, which divided by the length, 160 miles, gives 3 feet per 
 mile for lockage. The cost in Irish currency stands thus : — 
 Stock debentures issued by the company 670,0 00 
 Parliamentary grants, exclusive of the sums 
 
 received from the directors-general of 
 
 inland navigation, for the improvement 
 
 of the Middle Shannon. . . . 93,258 
 Grant from government for the reduction of 
 
 the debt 150,000 
 
 Debt created . ^1,167,750 
 Less amount of grant 150,000 
 
 1,017,750 
 
 Loan for making the branch canals . . 97,670 
 
 .£^2,028,678 
 
 or about c£^l 2,000 a mile.'^ We have no very exact relation of 
 the progress of travelling or traffic upon these various streams 
 of intercommunication. Accounts however of the annual amount 
 of tolls received by the company have been regularly published. 
 From these we learn that at the close of the war in 1814, 
 when agricultural prices w ere high, the tolls derived from the 
 traffic reached to about ^50,000. This income gradually fell 
 off during the subsequent depression of the agricultural interest, 
 until in 1823 it was reduced to .^25,000. In 1835 and 1836 
 it again rose to about .^40,000, and in 1839, 1840, and 1841, 
 fell back, in consequence of the deficient harvests of those 
 years, to about ^30,000. It has since rallied, and may be 
 now fairly estimated at ^£"35,000 a-year. 
 
 * As this summary will be found to differ materially from that relied 
 on in the Report of the Irish railway commissioners, where the total cost 
 is set forth at £18,000 a mile, it may be proper to intimate that a careful 
 computation of the cost and mileage was made, to ensure a correct state- 
 ment of the fact upon the present occasion. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 It was during this latter period of declining revenue, that 
 the proprietors suffered one of those acts of violent interference 
 with their settled property, which can only be committed with 
 impunity under an arbitrary system like that practised by the 
 government in Ireland. They were possessed of the naviga- 
 tion of the Middle Shannon, between Lough Derg and Lough 
 Kee ; upon the improvement of which they had, — in addition 
 to .£'54,534 85. 7d. granted for that purpose by the commis- 
 sioners of inland navigation in 1806, — expended of their own 
 money <£*30,000, borrowed from the public, and for which they 
 are still paying interest to the amount of d^?l 2,000 a year. 
 The deed of contract between the government and the com- 
 pany contained no clause of forfeiture or resumption ; yet 
 this property was valued by the Shannon commissioners, in 
 1837, at £d ; and for that sum, they were authorized by the 
 Shannon Navigation Act of 1839, to take the Middle Shannon 
 from the company. These were the commissioners, \vho at 
 the same time awarded c£^26,000 for the Limerick navigation. 
 The injury inflicted upon the proprietors of the Grand Canal 
 is shown in the reports since laid before parliament, where it 
 appears that the commissioners took as tolls upon this £6 pro- 
 perty, .£^700 los. 5d. in 1840, ^654 6s. 4^d. in 1841, and 
 ^526 Is. 4^d. in 1842, besides =£'40 a year, the rent of adjacent 
 premises included in the award. 
 
 Against this deprivation of their rights and property in the 
 Middle Shannon the Grand Canal Company remonstrated, and 
 claimed the consideration of government — as yet without avail. 
 They proposed, according to the second Report of the Shannon 
 commissioners, that the branch canals to Ballinasloe, Mount- 
 mellick, and Kilbeggan, which were constructed by means of 
 advances from the exchequer loan commissioners, of monies 
 directed by parliament to be lent for the employment of the 
 poor in Ireland, and which as far as they were unredeemed 
 were the property of the government, should be made over to 
 them. After six years of tedious solicitation this proposal 
 was at last adopted, but not upon the grounds assigned by the 
 company. The principle of making compensation for errors 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 293 
 
 committed or an injury inflicted by the Shannon commis- 
 sioners, seems to have been repudiated. The marketable 
 value of the branch canals appears to have been estimated, and 
 the company were allowed to purchase them at that price. 
 
 The tolls levied upon the Grand Canal are generally low : for 
 agricultural produce from the distant parts of the Shannon and 
 the Barrow, the maximum rate does not exceed three farthings 
 per ton per mile ; and when brought to Dublin for exportation it 
 is one halfpenny only. Its supply of water is abundant ; from 
 40 to 50 boats pass its summit level daily, and for several years 
 past there has not been experienced the slightest want of 
 water throughout the whole line of navigation. It is thus im- 
 possible to regard the condition and prospects of an undertak- 
 ing so long established, and so well calculated to develop the 
 resources of an agricultural country without a feeling of strong 
 interest. It is true that when we refer to its earlier affairs we 
 discern that which appears to deserve neither praise nor imita- 
 tion. Great attempts there meet the eye, and small results — 
 an extravagant outlay — dilatory and inefficient proceedings — a 
 concern now basking hopefully under the bountiful patronage of 
 government, now sinking under the pressure of indefensible in- 
 terference ; and an impoverished deprivation of its rights and 
 property, — a state of things in short full of change and vicissi- 
 tude, involving a heavy loss of money, public and private, and 
 severe injustice to the majority of the persons who have spe- 
 culated in its fortunes. But if we dwell upon the economy with 
 which it is now conducted, if we contrast with the excessive 
 expenditure of the original works the reasonable prices at which 
 the late branches have been constructed — ^12,000 against 
 ^3,600 a mile;* and above all, if we note the rates of toll 
 which are unprecedentedly low, we shall not find it difficult or 
 unpleasant to believe that the wellbeing of the Grand Canal, 
 and of the various districts it pervades, are intimately con- 
 nected together. 
 
 Two acts of parliament, recently passed, appear likely to pro- 
 
 * The Kilbeggan Branch, upwards of eight miles in length, was made 
 for £18,000. 
 
294 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 duce considerable effects upon this long established company : 
 the first is the act for making the Dublin and Cashel Railway ; 
 the second, the act, already referred to, authorizing the com- 
 missioners of public works to sell to the Grand Canal Com- 
 pany the mortgages held by government upon the Kilbeg- 
 gan, Mountmellick, and Ballinasloe branches for the sum of 
 0,000. Of the former measure a candid view has been 
 taken by the company, in a statement publicly distributed : — 
 
 " The entire cost of completing the Grand Canal, with its oflf-branches, 
 docks, harbours, &c., was, as is well known, little short of two millions 
 sterling. Of this sum £670,000 was subscribed by the shareholders, and 
 forms the present capital stock of the company ; the remainder having 
 been taken up by loans under the authority of parliament. Of the amount 
 so borrowed, there remains stiU undischarged, a sum of £720,000, for 
 which interest is paid at different rates, averaging about 4 per cent, per 
 annum ; and which, with a small sinking fund, which the company are en- 
 joined by statute to keep up, for the ultimate redemption of the debt, re- 
 quires a provision amounting to £30,000 annually. This sum the directors 
 of the company have in some years found difficulty in realizing, so much 
 so, that for the last 30 years and upwards, four years only have occurred, 
 during which it was found possible to pay so small a di\ddend as one per 
 cent, annually, upon the capital stock of the company ; it is quite clear, 
 therefore, that when their passenger traffic, which at present yields a clear 
 revenue exceeding £4,000 a year, and a large portion of their more valua- 
 ble traffic in merchandize and produce, shall have been, (as it ine\atably 
 will be,) ^^^thdrawn by the railway, the payment of the present rate of 
 interest to their creditors, and the maintenance of the sinking fund, which 
 by the statute they are bound to uphold, under severe penalties, will be 
 attended with difficulties, which they cannot contemplate without the 
 greatest apprehension." 
 
 Against this saddening prospect is to be set off the advan- 
 tage gained by the extinction of the government debt due upon 
 the branches — a measure so fair in point of principle, and so be- 
 neficial in its tendency, as to suggest a hope that it will not 
 long be allowed to stand by itself a solitary example of the 
 policy which ought to be applied to several other cases. The 
 branches in question were begun at a period of general starva- 
 tion, with money humanely voted by parliament for the em- 
 ployment of the poor. They never paid the interest of the 
 sums borrowed to make them. In the 12th annual Report of 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 296 
 
 the board of public works, there was returned an accumulation 
 for an-ears of interest of — 
 
 £27,938 155. 9d, on £46,254 35. \d. lent to the Ballinasloe extension. 
 £17,765 Zs. 5d. on £33,416 6s. Id. — Mountmellick ditto. 
 £8,449 6s, 7d. on £18,000 05. Od. — Kilbeggan ditto. 
 
 In this state of things, the lords of the treasury very pro- 
 perly determined to rid the company of the pressure of grow- 
 ing difficulties, which it was impossible to reduce by ordinary 
 means. It was found that an annuity, equal to the average 
 income of the three canals for ten years, might be purchased, 
 according to the government tables, for £10,000; and that 
 sum accordingly the board of works was authorized to take 
 from the company, for the unincumbered possession of the 
 property. It is most desirable that this should prove the com- 
 mencement of an equitable adjustment, between the govern- 
 ment and the parties interested, of the pecuniary difficulties by 
 which not a few other works are heavily oppressed. 
 
 "A history of public works in Ireland," said Mr. A. Young, 
 in his "Tour," Vol. II. p. 66, "would be a history of jobs." 
 We are presented with rather strong evidence of the truth of 
 this remark in the rise, progress, and present state of the Royal 
 Canal. There is a significant description of the origin of this 
 undertaking in the Report of the Irish railway commissioners. 
 In 1789, a director of the Grand Canal, having some trifling 
 difference with his colleagues, left them, and resolved to form 
 a rival company. Being a person of considerable plausibility 
 and energy he succeeded. Had his object only been to injure 
 the property he had ceased to take an interest in, he could 
 not have devised a better plan for the attainment of such an 
 end ; but he seems to have overlooked the material fact, that 
 the ruin of the second venture was an inevitable consequence 
 of his proceeding. Mr. Wakefield has made a striking abridge- 
 ment from parliamentary documents of the stages of this de- 
 structive folly. Commencing with an act of parliament and that 
 common accompaniment, the patronage of the government board 
 for the time being, and a large grant of public money, which 
 was continued to the last point, it consumed in its construe- 
 
296 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 tion ,£'1,873,635 ; of this money, ^^172,964 8^. lOd. had been 
 contributed by the shareholders, and no less than ^£^842,550 
 borrowed. It was opened for traffic in 1796, and produced 
 for that year a revenue of 6£*108; which in 1800 rose to 
 6^1,583, and in 1810 to ^15,024. At this date the debt 
 contracted by the directors was .£'1,142,550, charged with an 
 annual interest of ^£^49,624 10^., towards the payment of 
 which there was only a sum of i^4,131 4^. 6d. Thus des- 
 perately embarrassed the proprietors petitioned parliament 
 for relief ; and after two years of inquiry and exposure, the 
 company was declared bankrupt, and the property vested in 
 the creditors, who were stated to be " for the most part per- 
 sons of a poor description, orphans and widows, no less than 
 2,000 in number." At this juncture the works had not been 
 carried farther than Coolnahay, a little beyond Mullingar. 
 Ultimately <£'200,000 were granted by parliament to complete 
 the original plan by carrying the navigation to Tarmonbarry 
 on the Shannon, a distance of 25 miles — and the present 
 company, composed of the creditors of the old company, was 
 incorporated by an act of parliament passed in 1818. The 
 summary of the statistics of this rash undertaking, furnished 
 by Messrs. Henry, Mullins, and Macmahon in 1823, runs 
 thus :— length, 72 miles — rate of lockage, 7^ — cost of execu- 
 tion, =£^19,749 75. 5(f.— Total cost, ^1,421,954 13^. Id. The 
 new company have paid a dividend of 2 per cent., but that par- 
 tial prosperity has not been regularly sustained. In the year 
 1836 the total receipts were .£'25,148 195. 7d,, and the total 
 expenditure ^£'11,912 2^. 10c?. At the half-yearly meeting, 
 held October 1st, 1843, the total receipts for that term were 
 .£'11,756 6s. lOd., of which £^5,729 19s. 9d. had been ex- 
 pended for maintenance, leaving .£'6,026 7^. Id. as profit. 
 This yielded a dividend of 17s. 6c?., making, with 17s. declared 
 at the preceding meeting, £1 5s. 6d. for the year. 
 
 The Shannon navigation, which is connected with the port 
 of Dublin by the Grand and Royal canals, is to be considered 
 under two separate heads : — the first comprises the extensive 
 works now in a course of construction at the public expence, 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 297 
 
 under the management of a government board. These it 
 will be most convenient to describe in the review we shall 
 presently have to take of the history and composition of the 
 institutions set up and sustained in Ireland for encouraging 
 and controlling public works. The other head of the subject 
 embraces the operations of the Inland Navigation Company of 
 Ireland, — a body acting in conjunction with the City of 
 Dublin Steam Packet Company, and the Dublin and Liverpool 
 Steam Ship Building Company. These three companies 
 appear to have been conducted with judgment, energy, and 
 effect. The Inland Navigation Company was projected in 
 1826, by Mr. Grantham, an engineer employed by govern- 
 ment, who was the first to introduce steam-boats on the Shan- 
 non. He failed in his laudable attempt ; but a joint-stock 
 company followed, which had nine steamers plying in 183 6, ac- 
 cording to the returns furnished to the railway commissioners. 
 If the statistics of tolls, traffic, &c., then made public could be 
 brought down to the present time, they would be instructive. 
 The company, however, refuse to divulge them. Thus the 
 only detail respecting their operations to be particularly ad- 
 verted to, is the amount of their tolls, which is high, 40^. a 
 ton from Dublin to Limerick ; and which being enforced 
 against towing-boats, cuts away the advantages of the Shan- 
 non and its improvements from the many small agricultu- 
 ralists living along its extensive banks, who cannot afford to 
 ship their produce on board the steamers of this company. It 
 is here worthy of remark, that the only profitable undertaking 
 connected with the navigation of the Shannon is afforded in 
 the case of this company ; one which has all through been an 
 independent private enterprise, and in noway indebted to go- 
 vernment for pecuniary aid, advice, or any assistance. 
 
 The Barrow navigation was begun in the year 1759, but 
 the company was not incorporated until the year 1788. We 
 are told, in the Report of the Irish railway commissioners, that 
 " The river Barrow becomes navigable at Athy, in the county 
 of Kildare, 42 miles from Dublin, where, joining the Grand 
 Canal, it affords an uninterrupted line of inland communication 
 
298 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 from Dublin to the sea below Waterford, a distance of upwards 
 of 120 miles. The rivers Nore and Suir fall into it, the former 
 one mile above the town of Ross, the latter a short distance 
 below Waterford . The depth of water from Athy to Carlow is 
 nearly three and a half feet during the summer, and five feet 
 during the winter months, which proves enough for boats 
 carrying 50 tons. A considerable interruption prevails in the 
 navigation between Carlow and St. Mullins, but it is available 
 for boats of from 30 to 40 tons during six months in the year. 
 Between Athy and St. Mullins' Scars, a distance of 43 miles, 
 there are 12 stages and 23 locks. There is a trackway for 
 horses, 40 miles in length, from Athy to below St. Mullins ; 
 there are five considerable towns upon or adjacent to its 
 banks, and several very extensive flour-mills. The usual rates 
 of freights charged range from IO5. to 155. per ton. The fol- 
 lowing account will show the progressive increase of tonnage 
 and tolls for the undermentioned periods, and the receipts and 
 disbursements of the Barrow Navigation Company for five 
 years : — 
 
 Tonnage and Tolls. 
 
 Years. 
 1790 
 1800 
 1810 
 1820 
 1830 
 1835 
 
 Tons. 
 16,000 
 19,828 
 36,262 
 41,262 
 58,100 
 66,084 
 
 Tolls. 
 £ 12n 
 
 1,405 
 
 3,965 
 
 3,827J 
 
 ^^290 I British ditto. 
 
 I- Irish Currency. 
 
 Receipts and Disbursements. 
 
 Years. 
 
 1832 
 1833 
 1834 
 1835 
 1836 
 
 Receipts. 
 £5,003 17 
 4,815 17 4 
 5,905 11 lOi 
 5,100 11 11 
 4,975 6 
 
 Disbursements. 
 £2,363 17 10 
 
 2,691 
 5,845 
 4,311 
 2,449 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 2i 
 
 " The expenditure on the works of the Barrow navigation, 
 exclusive of estabhshnients, amounting, in 1836, to £S12 a 
 year, was, from 1790 to 1802, .£'62,215 ISs. Id. ; from 1802 to 
 1811, <£'62,807 95. 2c?.; and froml811 to 1836, ^52,829 95.; 
 making a total of .£'177,852 I65. 3c?. The company have 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 299 
 
 not received any loans, but they have received two grants 
 made to them from the pubUc ; namely, in 1790, the sum of 
 .£'17,600, and in 1802, a further sum of ^£^20, 625, —making 
 a total of £SS,225." These however do not tally with the 
 amounts given in the parliamentary proceedings as those voted 
 in aid of this undertaking. The following sums appear in the 
 Irish statutes to have been given to the Barrow navigation : — 
 
 £2,000 33 Geo. II. c. 1. 
 
 2,000 1 Geo. III. 
 
 1,800 3 Geo. III. 
 
 3,000 . . . • . . 5 Geo. III. 
 
 2,000 7 Geo. III. 
 
 1,000 11 Geo. III. 
 
 20,000 29 Geo. III. c. 33. 
 
 £31,800 
 
 The printed Reports of the directors of inland navigation 
 further state, that in 1811, a sum of ^27,500 was given; 
 which would make a total of <£'59,300. Correct information 
 respecting the affairs of this undertaking is difficult to obtain. 
 It is in the hands of a few individuals, who have not been in 
 the habit of publishing any reports or accounts for a series of 
 years. 
 
 The progressive improvements of the navigation may be 
 thus stated. In 1790, when the company first became in- 
 corporated, the river was navigated by boats, which in the 
 summer months carried a loading of from three to five tons, 
 and in the winter from eight to ten tons. The boats were 
 hauled by men, at the rate of one man per ton in summer, and 
 two in winter, there being no horse trackway. The sub- 
 sequent improvements consist of the formation of a trackway 
 for horses from Athy to below St. Mullins, a distance of 43 
 miles; and the construction of 17 additional locks, with their 
 respective weirs and embankments. 
 
 The Boyne navigation, which dates its origin from the year 
 1759, is twofold; Upper and Lower. The Upper Boyne navi- 
 gation (which is part still water, according to the Report of 
 the Irish railway commissioners, and part a canal,) extends 
 from the borough of Drogheda, in the county of Louth, to the 
 
300 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS A^iD 
 
 town of Navan, in the coimty of Meath, and is 19 statute 
 miles long. The Lower Boyne, which is in the hands of the 
 commissioners of works, runs from Drogheda to Carrick 
 Dexter, passing by the town of Slane ; it is 12| miles long. 
 
 The rate of freight charged by boatowners is 35. per ton 
 from Drogheda to Slane, and 45. 6d. per ton from Drogheda 
 to Navan; out of which they pay a toll of IJc/. per ton per 
 mile on the Lower navigation, and 2d. per ton per mile on the 
 Upper. The draught of boats in winter is 4 feet 8 inches, in 
 summer 3 feet 6 inches ; and the time consumed between 
 Drogheda and Slane is, in summer 7 hours, and in winter 
 6 hours ; and from Slane to Navan, 4 hours in summer, and 
 9 hours in winter. The whole of the traffic, with the exception 
 of what is delivered at Slane, and to a few individuals above 
 that place, goes on to Navan. Neither the amount of public 
 money laid out upon the Boyne navigations, nor the total 
 income derived from the traffic upon them are positively 
 known; according to one statement, they have cost <£*120,000; 
 and produced in the year 1837, ^£^775 155. The accounts of 
 the Lower Boyne are laid before the House of Commons, in the 
 annual Report of the commissioners of public works. The 
 receipts for the year ended April, 1844, were <£^734 125. 4c?., 
 and the expenditure ^£^460 6s. 9d. 
 
 The river Lagan, which connects the town of Belfast with 
 Lough Neagh, was not navigable up to the middle of the last 
 century. In the year 1753, an act of the Irish parliament 
 imposed a local duty on beer and spirits, for the purpose of 
 raising a fund for opening a navigable channel between these 
 points. The duties were imposed in the first instance for a 
 period of ten years, but they were continued by subsequent acts 
 until the year 1814. The amount of money received in this 
 way by the managers of the navigation appears by the parlia- 
 mentary votes to have been about ^£^50,000. To this is to be 
 added a sum of c^62,000 advanced by the marquis of Donegal, 
 to complete the canal. The latter advance was secured by de- 
 bentures, which were sold, and transferred from hand to hand, 
 from time to time. In the year 1843, the holders of these 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 301 
 
 debentures, after a resolute contest with the commissioners of 
 pubhc works, were incorporated into a company, for the 
 future management and improvement of the navigation. 
 
 The length of this navigation, from the bridge at Belfast to 
 the lock at Lough Neagh, called Ellis' Gut, is 28| statute 
 miles, and it is partly river and partly still water. The whole 
 is thus described by the railway commissioners : — " From 
 Belfast to the western end of the summit level, where there 
 is a treble lock, a small basin, and a single lock in connection 
 with the summit ; these are called the Union Locks. Be- 
 tween Belfast and the first lock is a tidal navigation, the 
 distance 2| miles ; the next two levels are seven-eighths of a 
 mile long each ; the fourth 2^ miles; the fifth, half a mile ; 
 the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, three quarters of a mile 
 each ; the tenth and eleventh, half a mile each ; the twelfth, 
 thirteenth, and fourteenth, three quarters of a mile each ; 
 ending at the Union Locks ; — the number of locks being 17, 
 and the distance thirteen miles. The summit level is 11 J 
 miles in length, and from it to the Lough are 10 locks of equal 
 falls, seven feet each, except the lowest one, which varies with 
 the level of Lough Neagh. The average tonnage of trading 
 boats is 50 tons : in summer they usually draw 4 feet water, 
 and in winter 4 feet 9 inches. The usual time consumed 
 in navigating from Belfast to Lisburn in summer is one 
 day, in winter one-and-a-half day ; from Belfast to the 
 Summit, one-and-a-half or two days in summer, and two or 
 three days in winter ; and from Belfast to Lough Neagh, one, 
 two, or three days in summer, and three or four days in 
 winter. In 1836, the tolls for boats of 50 tons from Belfast 
 to Lough Neagh were £3 per boat ; and the rates per ton 
 from Belfast to Newry 7s., and from Belfast to Lough Neagh 
 6s. The total amount of tonnage conveyed on the navigation 
 during the years 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836, and 
 1837, was 265,750 tons, and the rate of toll on each ton 9|c/. ; 
 amounting in the whole to the sum of i? 10,738 7s. Hd. The 
 landing-places in the interior, with which this navigation 
 affords means of communication, are these : — on its own line. 
 
302 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 the bleach greens, mills, and factories, between Belfast and 
 Lisburn ; the town of Lisburn, and the limekilns and brick- 
 fields in its neighbourhood ; the towns of Hillsborough and 
 Moira, and the distilleries, breweries, and limekilns adjacent 
 to Magheralin and Soldierstown ; the villages of Aghalie, and 
 Kilmore, where grain is purchased and sent on the canal; 
 and the town of Lurgan, with its distillery and breweries. 
 The Lagan navigation also affords a means of communication 
 to the country adjoining the shores of Lough Neagh and the 
 Lower and Upper Bann rivers, and the river Blackwater. 
 The tolls charged being alike for every article, no register 
 was kept in 1837, when the railway commissioners made their 
 Report of the cargoes of the different lighters passing on the 
 canal. The principal lading from Belfast is coals. Foreign 
 timber, to the amount of about 15,000 tons, was taken in 
 rafts, during the period mentioned in the last return, besides 
 a considerable quantity of planks of various scantlings, in 
 lighters : herrings, salt, groceries, iron, bleaching stuffs, spi- 
 rits, barm, bark, &c., &c., are also conveyed on the canal ; 
 but neither the precise quantity, or any correct approach to 
 it, could be stated to the commissioners. They were in- 
 formed, however, that during the preceding seven years, above 
 35,000 tons of grain and flour, potatoes, sand- stone, fire- 
 brick, tile, &c., have been brought to Belfast, from the interior. 
 This quantity is included in the statement already given." 
 
 There are not any passage boats on the Lagan naviga- 
 tion, nor was it conceived that any could be beneficially esta- 
 blished on it. The managers were of opinion, that the Ulster 
 railway would not materially, if at all, interfere with the 
 conveyance of goods on the Lagan navigation ; but their an- 
 ticipations in this respect have proved erroneous. 
 
 Both Arthur Young and Wakefield, in their works on Ireland, 
 describe the Newry navigation as the only undertaking of the 
 kind in the country presenting a flourishing appearance. It is 
 to be regretted that the compliment no longer applies. The 
 capital of the company is set down at £80,000, but upwards of 
 £100,000 have been expended. The income has not yielded 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 303 
 
 a dividend to the shareholders for the last 13 or 14 years; 
 there is no annual report or statement of accounts made 
 public. 
 
 The length of the canal from its entrance at Fathom, (two 
 miles nearer the sea than the borough of Newry,) to its ter- 
 mination at Whitecoal, where it joins the river Bann, is 16 J 
 Irish miles. The communication between Newry and the sea 
 is by canal to Fathom, a distance of 2 miles. From thence 
 by the river to the deep water at Warrenpoint, a distance of 
 
 miles, a further canal is in a course of construction, at an 
 estimated cost of £30,000, lent by the board of public works. 
 The goods conveyed on this navigation in the year 1831, was 
 70,479 tons; and the amount of toll paid thereon ^2,414 3^. lOd. 
 In 1837 the goods conveyed weighed 102,332 tons, and the 
 amount of toll wasc£'3,005 lis. 5d. This was the sum of the tolls 
 for boats fully laden ; but if the boats should be only partly 
 laden, the toll is proportioned. The sea tolls chargeable on ves- 
 sels coming to and leaving Newry, are, if laden. Is. Id. per ton 
 for both cargoes ; if light. Id. per ton on the registered tonnage. 
 
 The Tyrone navigation runs into the Newry canal. Thence to 
 Coal Island, where the Tyrone navigation joins the river Black- 
 water, and to Lough Neagh the distance is 11| English miles. 
 The tonnage of the boats trading on this canal is from 30 to 
 50 tons. In summer the draft of water is 4 feet 6 inches, 
 and in winter 5 feet ; the rates of freights are from 45. 6d. to 
 6s. 6d., and the rates of toll from 2^. 6d. to 18^.: the amount 
 of tolls collected in the year 1842 was £202, and the expendi- 
 ture .^537 35. It is now and has for some years been in the 
 hands of the commissioners of public works. There is an 
 uninterrupted line of navigation from Coal Island to Belfast, a 
 distance of 61 miles, and the distance is performed in 3 days ; 
 also from Coal Island to Newry, a distance of 39 J miles, which 
 is performed in two days. 
 
 " The Ulster canal, extending from the river Erne, near 
 Belturbet, in the county of Cavan, to the navigable water of 
 the river Blackwater, in the county of Tyrone, and connecting 
 Lough Erne and Lough Neagh, has been principally con- 
 
304 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 structed by the aid of public money. It was opened through- 
 out for the passage of boats during the year 1842; and two 
 steamers have been established on Lough Neagh, for the pur- 
 pose of towing boats between the Ulster canal and the Lagan 
 and Newry navigations, leading to the seaports of Belfast and 
 Newry. A steam-vessel has also been placed on Lough Erne, 
 so that a quick and regular communication will be maintained 
 throughout the line." Such was the description of the com- 
 missioners of public works in 1843, who added, "that a large 
 increase of traffic was expected to be the result, as well as the 
 opening of new sources of trade in the districts embraced by 
 the Ulster canal and the extensive lakes with which it is con- 
 nected." Unquestionably very considerable increase of traffic 
 will be required to justify the use of this language, and to enable 
 the proprietors to repay the money lent to their undertaking, 
 and to derive a profit from it. But it would be hazardous to 
 express a positive opinion upon the subject, as the affairs of the 
 company are conducted with a degree of reserve amounting 
 almost to profound secrecy. It appears however that the 
 capital amounts to 6^^300,000, one-half of which has been paid 
 up ; that i^l 20,000 have been lent on mortgage of the under- 
 taking and the accruing tolls, by the exchequer loan bills com- 
 missioners, and that d£^l 0,000 have been lent by the board of 
 works. In the Report of the directors for the year ending May 
 1843, the quantity of goods carried on the canal during the 
 year then concluded, amounted to 13,454 tons, showing an 
 increase in the year of about 3,000 tons ; the amount of cash 
 received for tolls was c£^l,188 10s. lid., and the amount paid 
 for directors' fees of attendance, office expences, and manage- 
 ment in Ireland were, £1,252 12s. lid. There were more- 
 over about ^£^1,000 more charged for the salary and disburse- 
 ments of the resident engineer, law expences, &c. 
 
 The Suir Navigation Company was incorporated by act of 
 parliament in the year 1836, for the purpose of improving the 
 tidal waters of the river between the city of Waterford and the 
 town of Carrick-on-Suir. Some of the principal obstacles to 
 the navigation have been removed by an expenditure of about 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 305 
 
 £8,000, a bed of rocks has been blasted, several sand-banks 
 have been removed, and a new channel has been cut for ships 
 within a short distance of the town of Carrick. In conse- 
 quence of these works, vessels of 180 tons are now enabled to 
 take in and discharge their cargoes at the quays of Carrick. 
 But though much has been effected by the judicious applica- 
 tion of a small sum of money, there is still room for consider- 
 able improvement ; and it is particularly to be regretted that 
 the greatest expenditure incurred by the company has been 
 applied to a cut so much narrower than the one originally pro- 
 posed as to be but partially adapted to the wants of a fruitful, 
 and, it is pleasant to add, a very thriving locality. 
 
 The Moy Navigation Act was passed in 1888, when a fev/ 
 spirited landowners, merchants of the town and neighbourhood 
 of Ballina, in the county of Mayo, were appointed commis- 
 sioners to straighten and deepen the course of the river, and 
 to enable sea-borne vessels to reach the town of Ballina. The 
 Moy, however, is valuable as a salmon fishery ; and some 
 difference of opinion between the proprietor of the fishery 
 and the commissioners for the improvement of the river, as to 
 the effects likely to be produced by the proposed works, have 
 hitherto rendered the act inoperative. 
 
 The Tralee harbour and canal, originally in the hands of 
 local commissioners appointed by the act 9 Geo. 4, c. 118, is 
 now under the management of the Board of Works. The 
 ground assigned for this change was the stale one — that 
 the public money had been borrowed and spent, and the pro- 
 posed improvement had not been executed. The Board there- 
 fore, on behalf of the public, entered upon the undertaking, 
 after a grant had been made from its own funds of c£'4,220, 
 and tvv'o loans amounting to i^l 0,500 had been obtained 
 from the Exchequer Bill Commissioners ; but the former do 
 not appear to have done much better than the private parties 
 whom they have displaced. They have applied to parliament 
 twice to renew the authority originally given for the con- 
 struction of the works, and for these acts the country has 
 VOL. ir. X 
 
306 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 paid : — but no report or accounts respecting the Tralee harbour 
 and canal are included in the papers annually presented to 
 parliament. The public only knows that the undertaking 
 remains in the hands of Government and is unfinished. 
 
 The total tonnage carried by all the canals * and navigable 
 rivers in Ireland was computed by the Railway Commissioners, 
 in 1837, at about 600,000 tons, and the amount of tolls at 
 .£'71,242 a year, — assuming the charge for tonnage to be on 
 the average Id. per ton per mile. The total cost of the several 
 navigations and canals, and of the improvements effected in 
 navigable rivers was not estimated by the commissioners. 
 Those noticed in this sketch cannot have cost less than 
 dfi'o, 000,000 : the income produced from their traffic in the 
 year 1843 was about £^80,000. 
 
 More modern works are now to be examined. The Dublin 
 and Kingstown railway deserves the especial notice of those 
 who would insist upon the superior advantages to be derived 
 from government railways — for this work has been a govern- 
 ment aid and control railway, in as fair and binding a sense of 
 the expression as can be used. It is a short line of six miles, 
 connecting the harbour of Kingstown with the city of Dublin. 
 The railway was begun in the year 1831, after having been 
 approved in its various details by the Government Board ; 
 and it was not completed without a liberal supply of the 
 public money. The capital of the company is 200, 000, in 
 2,000 shares of £100 each, — the full amount of which was 
 well paid up during the progress of the undertaking. Besides 
 this money, the Board of Works contributed two loans to the 
 Company,— the one of .£'75,000, and the other of .£'40,000. 
 This assistance, by the terms of the act of parliament under 
 which it was given, conferred on that body the rights of 
 mortgagees, with full powers of superintendence, direction 
 
 ' * Two or three other small canals and navigations have not been 
 described, by reason of their insignificance; such as the Lismore canal, 
 which is the private property of the Duke of Devonshire ; the Maig navi- 
 gation, — a short cut with a turning bridge, connecting the town of Adare 
 with the river Shannon, &c. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 807 
 
 and control : and what was the consequence ? Unfortunately 
 this — the Dublin and Kingstown railway was, in point of con- 
 struction, one of the dearest and — while controlled by the 
 Board of Works — one of the least profitable that has been 
 made in the three kingdoms ; — its cost per mile amounted to 
 £60,000, while that of the Manchester and Liverpool, a first 
 experiment, was only £50,000. Its receipts, which for a 
 length of time had barely justified a dividend of 5 per cent., 
 bore one of 6 per cent, in the month of August, 1844. About 
 the same period a new spirit appeared amongst the directors. 
 They determined to pay off the debt due to Government and 
 to make the company independent. The character of the 
 enterprise changed as soon as this intention became known. 
 The stock, long at a discount, rose quickly in price and stood 
 at a high premium before the details of the plan were pub- 
 lished by which the incubus of Government assistance was 
 finally thrown off*. At the half-yearly meeting held in the 
 spring of 1845, the dividend declared was 9 per cent., and 
 the total amount of debt provided for after paying off* the 
 Government was 6^?1 50,000. 
 
 In looking back to the origin and earlier progress of this 
 the first railway constructed in Ireland, it is not to the di- 
 rectors and still less to the subscribers, that blame is to be 
 imputed for the state of things occasionally presented to our 
 notice. The great wonder is, that even so good a result should 
 have been produced under all the circumstances of the case. 
 Considerable talent and perseverance must have been re- 
 quired to ensure the completion of the line ; and it would be 
 ungenerous to deny its promoters credit for those qualities, 
 or to conceal the honours they may justly claim for having 
 carried out the undertaking upon the government system in 
 Ireland to a finished state and having made it pay so respect- 
 able a dividend to the proprietors, while so largely indebted 
 to the state and to private persons. 
 
 Attached to the Dublin and Kingstown railway is a small 
 branch to Dalkey, one mile and three quarters long, worked 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 upon the atmospheric principle. For this experiment the Board 
 of \yorks lent the company .£'25,000, at 5 per cent. Whether 
 the whole of this sum was expended, or more, does not pre- 
 cisely appear by the report of the directors, dated August 1844. 
 It was there recommended, and afterwards agreed by the 
 company, that =£^80,000 should be raised, at 4 per cent., to pay 
 off cg'S-ioOO, borrowed from the Board of Works. A few 
 months afterwards appeared the prospectus of the Kingstown 
 and Bray railway, in which the cost price of the Dalkey 
 branch was declared to be .£'35,000. For the period of the 
 year during which the branch had been opened, the receipts 
 were £^1,574 135. 8c?., and the expenses =£758 Os. Id., upon 
 which the report claimed a surplus of .£^83 6 13s. 7d. But if 
 interest on the loan of .£25,000 had been taken into the 
 account, a deficiency of more than £400 would have been 
 shown; and if .£^35,000 had been the real cost of the un- 
 dertaking, the deficiency would have been still greater. Should 
 the Company, however, proceed with the published plan of an 
 extended line to Bray, means will soon be in their hands to 
 balance this account. For the proposed railway must prove a 
 lucrative one, and add enormously to the value of the land 
 through v^'hich it passes.* 
 
 The Ulster railway was the first enterprise of the kind 
 undertaken and completed in Ireland by a joint-stock company, 
 who relying from the outset upon their own resources and 
 rectitude, were animated by a spirit of manly indifference to 
 the patronage or disfavour of government. The work, both in 
 point of design and execution, affords another striking proof 
 of the intelligence and the energy by which Belfast has been 
 rendered the principal seat of Irish commerce, manufactures, 
 and wealth. As originally projected, the line was intended 
 to run to Armagh ; but it has not up to the present date 
 
 * The Dublin and Kingstown Railway has extended the Metropolis of 
 Ireland a distance of seven miles. The Railway has literally drawn the 
 town along with it. The Longford and De Vesci estates at Kingstown, 
 which were valued before the Railway was made at £6,000 a year, are now 
 rated to the poor at the annual value of £100,000 and upwards. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 S09 
 
 been carried farther than Portadown. Its length is 25 miles ; 
 the capital of the company is =£'500,000 ; and the total cost 
 of the undertaking has hhen .£'348,646. Of this expendi- 
 ture, the only portion derived from government was a small 
 loan of o(?20,000. According to the two reports of the direc- 
 tors, dated March and September, 1844, the gross income 
 for the former period was 13,453 45. ; and for the latter, 
 ^£^13,856 17^. lOd. ; and the expense of working the line 
 having stood for each half-year respectively at the sums of 
 ^4,698 19s. Sd., and c£*5,401 5s. Id. : the total net income 
 for the year amounted to .£'17,235 5s. ; and the rate of divi- 
 dend was c£'5 l5. 8d. per cent, upon the paid-up capital. It 
 appeared by the same documents, that the actual debt of the 
 company then consisted only of a balance due to the Board of 
 Works of the small loan already mentioned. 
 
 Contrasting the Dublin and Kingstown and the Ulster rail- 
 ways, — seeing that the one which is only 6 miles long has cost 
 more money than the other, which is 25, and observing that 
 the latter is incumbered with no heavier debt than =£' 17,000, 
 while the former owes ^^155, 048, it is impossible not to feel 
 that in point of spirit, economy and effect, the hardy measures 
 of private enterprise are always likely to prove far superior to 
 the aid and control system with which the English govern- 
 ment has so long harassed Ireland. 
 
 But there is still a stronger case to be brought forvvardx. 
 The Dublin and Drogheda railway was projected in the year 
 1835, and legalised by an act passed in the following session 
 of parliament. An amended act, in 1837, reduced the original 
 estimate from ^^600,000 to ^£'450,000 : but the whole was 
 disparaged in pointed terms, during the course of the same 
 year, by the report of the Railway Commissioners. That 
 injudicious stigma paralysed the undertaking for several 
 years. Fortunately for the country, a considerable portion of 
 the capital had been subscribed at Manchester; and the- 
 English shareholders, unused to the Irish practice oT crushing; 
 independent exertions for the promotion of local improvements- 
 
310 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 by the pressure of government authority, and the apphcation 
 of the pubHc money to a competing enterprise, resolved to 
 proceed as they had begun. Success crowned their per- 
 severance : they brought their labours to an honourable 
 conclusion, and have conferred an invaluable benefit upon 
 the country. The whole line of this railway, 3 1| miles long, 
 was opened for traffic in May 1844, at a cost of c£'377,165 
 exclusive of plant, — by which the directors of the company 
 and their accomplished engineer. Sir J. Macneill, enjoyed the 
 satisfaction of claiming credit from the proprietary and the pub- 
 lic for two very uncommon and praiseworthy acts of merit — 
 making the line within the estimated cost of c£*14,000 a mile;^ 
 and opening it for public traffic within the appointed time. 
 
 The strength of the only cases in which private enterprise 
 had been able up to this date to throw off in Ireland the 
 restraints imposed by government upon it has proved so 
 imposing, and the impulse given by its action to the eman- 
 cipated energies of the country, has been so considerable, 
 that the question at issue between the two systems might 
 almost be regarded as at last finally decided and disposed of. 
 But no full history of the administration of Irish public 
 works has been written, — no detailed accounts have been 
 collected of the amount, or the application of the various 
 large sums of money intrusted by the legislature to this 
 mode of management ; the government system, moreover, has 
 not been abandoned ; arguments and appeals in its favour 
 are frequently presented to the public eye ; senators still are, 
 and for a length of time will surely be found anxious to retain a 
 set of establishments propitious in so many respects to personal 
 and party interests ; — it may therefore be useful, though per- 
 haps tedious, to revert once more to the past; and having 
 
 * By the printed accounts produced with the Report, dated August 29, 
 1844, it appears that the total receipts for the construction of the works, 
 &c., had been £504,777 \9s., and the total expenditure £500,971 18s. 5d. ; 
 and further, -that an existing debt of £96,608 would require to be increased 
 by a further outlay for stations and stock to the amount of £80,000. — 
 Total additional cost £176,608. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 Sll 
 
 shown the actual condition of the several joint-stock enter- 
 prises in Ireland, to sketch the gradual progress of mis- 
 management and abuse in the proceedings of the successive 
 boards and commissions under which, waste, delinquency, 
 corruption, insolvency and failure have more or less prevailed 
 in every undertaking with which they have interfered, — boards 
 and commissions, which have authorized and encouraged the 
 expenditure of about five millions sterling upon a few naviga- 
 tions and canals, the total receipts from which cannot be 
 estimated at more than <£'80,000 a year. 
 
 It should be constantly borne in mind that this outlay, large 
 and unproductive as it unfortunately is, does not constitute 
 the gravest of the evils we have to deprecate. The system 
 not only deteriorated the Irish character, but operated as 
 a positive bar to improvement. The practice of making the 
 progress of every undertaking depend upon the support given 
 to it by government, contracted the views, and humbled the 
 spirit of all classes, mercantile as well as agricultural. It 
 deprived them, too, of no small portion of that independence, or, 
 rather, self-dependence, which is essential to greatness. Men, 
 reared in the habit of looking for the helping hand of the 
 minister of the day to lead them through every difficulty, and 
 reach for them every attainable advantage, will rarely be 
 found to rely for success upon their own exertions. They may 
 stand in no actual need of the requisite funds or talent, 
 but they will be sure to lack the skill and energy to use them 
 well. It is in vain to indicate to such persons the valuable 
 consequences that must ensue, if they will only exercise the 
 powers they possess, and bring the resources at their com- 
 mand into proper action. They are unaccustomed to pursuits 
 of the kind in the only form in which they can be truly 
 honourable or securely prosperous. As far back as their 
 memories serve, these have always been government concerns; 
 by far the greater portion of the money they have seen 
 applied to them, has been public money ; — they further know 
 that it has been wasted, — they cannot find a single venture 
 
312 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 thus set up which has repaid the promoters; and having 
 been so warned and repeatedly instructed, they have not 
 unfrequently been disposed to treat a proposal to embark in 
 a new project as a deliberate attempt at imposition. 
 
 The Irish Parliament had existed for a length of time before 
 it began to pay attention to those measures of internal im- 
 provement, without which it is impossible to promote the 
 export and import trade and navigation of a maritime country. 
 We may also observe, that the first efforts made in this direc- 
 tion were crude in the extreme, and deeply impregnated 
 with the vicious character of the general government. A c- 
 cording to Newenham, the only legislative provisions of this 
 class passed between the years 1665 and 1786 inclusive, w^ere 
 *' An Act for enclosing the Strand on the north side of the 
 River Liffey," 1 Geo. II., c. 26: — "An Act for cleansing 
 the Ports, Harbours, and rivers of Cork, Galway, Belfast, 
 Shgo, and Drogheda, and directing Ballast-offices therein," 
 3 Geo. II., c. 21 : — "An Act for promoting the Trade of Dub- 
 lin, by rendering its Harbour and Port more commodious,'' 
 26 Geo. III., c. 19. 
 
 The grants of the Irish Parliament during the same period 
 for harbours, piers, &c., were as follow : — 
 
 1756 
 
 £2,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Skerries Pier. 
 
 1757 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bangor Pier 
 
 1765 
 
 1,200 
 
 
 
 
 
 Killeleagh Pier. 
 
 
 1,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dingle Bay. 
 
 
 • 1,300 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sligo Harbour. 
 
 1771 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gahvay Quay. 
 
 1775 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Portrane Pier. 
 
 1783 
 
 600 
 
 
 
 
 
 Liscanner. 
 
 17611 
 
 , 1,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Galway Harbour. 
 
 to 
 
 L 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carrickfergus Quay. 
 
 1783J 
 
 1 21,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cork Harbour. 
 
 1,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 Dublin Harbour. 
 
 I76i1 
 1763 ' 
 
 i. 6,752 
 
 
 
 
 
 Balbriggan Pier. 
 
 1765^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £38,352 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JOINT- STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 313 
 
 Brought forward £38,352 
 1756'] 
 
 to J. 18,500 Dunleary Pier. 
 
 1765 J 
 
 and I 1,870 Enver Pier. 
 
 1767J 
 
 1771] 
 
 and [> 1,500 Youghal Harbour. 
 
 1777 J 
 
 1781 500 Dungarvan Quay. 
 
 1765 2,500 Limerick Quay. 
 
 1767] 
 
 1771 \- 2,800 
 1777 J 
 
 2,000 1 
 
 J Carlingford Bay, Wet- 
 L dock and Piers. 
 
 ^'^^^l a"yetr,°^-"^> '^ '>^f^ o n I Dundalk Harbour, 
 [_ 8 years. 
 
 j a year, for J 3,200 r 
 
 1765] 
 
 1767 > 4,590 15 Londonderry Quay. 
 
 1771J 
 1745-1 
 1763/ 
 
 1759] 
 to [- 
 1767 J 
 
 ^^^^l 2,705 Donaghadee Harbour. 
 
 1777 J 
 
 13,290 19 6^ Ballycastle Harbour. 
 
 9,264 9 8 Wicklow Harbour. 
 
 £101,073 4 2i 
 
 According to the same author it would be difficult to con- 
 jecture, how much of this sum was faithfully expended on the 
 different works for which it was destined. We may suspect, 
 however, that little more than one-half, if so much, was pro- 
 perly applied ; for it is well known, that among those in the 
 Irish community who enjoyed the patronage of government, 
 there has almost uniformly been, with a few individual ex- 
 ceptions, not only a shameful want of public spirit, but an 
 inveterate propensity to outrageous jobbing. 
 
PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 For an account of the illusive and ineffectual acts passed 
 to encourage internal navigation, we must still have recourse 
 to Newenham. The Commons first adopted a right principle, 
 but unfortunately they applied it in a wrong direction. By 
 the act 2 Geo. I. c. 12,* four gentlemen, George Frizell, 
 Henry Crossdal, Samuel Eyre, and John Ringrose, were em- 
 powered to make the river Shannon navigable, at their own 
 expense, from Limerick to Carrick-drum-rusk, a distance of 100 
 miles, and to demand a toll of 4c?. per ton per mile on all goods, 
 wares, and merchandise conveyed on the improved navigation. 
 Everything counteracted the success of this bold under- 
 taking. In the first place, the Shannon, though the largest 
 river in Ireland, is the least favourable to the current of 
 trade. There was, besides, no adequate traffic along its course, 
 
 * The scale of operations embraced by this act was amazingly com- 
 prehensive : its authors had the twofold object in view of prosecuting 
 internal navigation and draining and improving the bogs and waste lands, 
 which were much more extensive in Ireland at the beginning of the last cen- 
 tury, than they now are. The intended works were to render navigable part 
 of the LifFey and the Rye, part of the Boyne, the Mungah and Brosna, and 
 to make canals between them, bearing south-west from Dublin, and falling 
 into the Shannon at Banagher ; to make the Barrow navigable from Ross 
 to the Grand Canal leading from Dublin to Limerick ; to make the Upper 
 and Lower Bann navigable from Newry to Coleraine ; to make the Nore 
 navigable, or extend the navigation thereof from Waterford and Ross to 
 the Grand Canal at Eyre-court ; to make the Liffey navigable from Dublin 
 to Kilcullen, and thence into the Barrow at Carlow ; to make the Black- 
 water navigable from Youghal to Newmarket ; to make the Foyle and 
 part of the Finnderg navigable from Londonderry to Omagh; to make 
 the Erne navigable from Ballyshannon to Killishandra ; to make navi- 
 gable, or employ in navigations, the Martin, the Cloydagh, part of the 
 Blackwater, the Ownbeg and Maig, between Cork and Limerick; to 
 make the Uncion, the Arrow, and part of the Boyle navigable from Sligo 
 into the Shannon at Carrick ; to perfect a navigation by the Corb, Mask, 
 and Moy, from Galway to Killala ; to make the Slaney navigable from 
 Wexford to Baltinglass; to make the Suir navigable to Roscrea; to make 
 the Colgan na^dgable, or extend its navigation, from Galway into the 
 Shannon ; to make the Suck navigable from Castlereagh into the Shan- 
 non : to make the Inny navigable from Lough Shelan into the Shannon; 
 to make the Lee navigable from Cork to Macroom ; to make the Bandon 
 navigable from Kinsale to Dunmanway ; and to make the Lane navigable 
 from Castlemaine harbour to Ross Castle — in all thirty-two rivers, which, 
 with the projected canals in connexion with them, were to give upwards 
 of one thousand miles of inland navigation, and to place 10,000 square 
 miles, or 6,400,000 acres within five miles of navigable river or canal. — 
 Newenham's View of Ireland, p. 27. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 815 
 
 to render the improvement remmierative. The tolls, more- 
 over, were so high as to discourage trade, and the heavy rate of 
 interest, eight per cent., charged upon the money, which the 
 improvers had to borrow in order to carry on their works, ren- 
 dered the stated rate of toll indispensable. Thus, the first 
 effort made to improve the Shannon was abortive. 
 
 The act, 3 Geo. 11. c. 3, was passed to supply a remedy 
 for this failure. The principle originally applied to the under- 
 taking was wholly changed by this second enactment, which 
 recited that the expense was discouraging to individuals, and 
 that it was expedient that works of public benefit and advan- 
 tage should be carried on by means of a public fund to be set 
 apart for the purpose. In order to form this fund, taxes were 
 imposed, for a term of twenty-one years, of 205. on four- 
 wheeled, and 5s. on two-wheeled carriages ; 6d. the pack on 
 imported playing-cards ; 5s. the pair on dice ; and 6d. the 
 ounce on gold and silver plate. The produce of these taxes, 
 at the end of the twenty-one years for which they were im- 
 posed, was £63,128 9s. 7 id., or on the average £3,006. 2^. 
 4}^d. a year. 
 
 With this small revenue, with the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord 
 Chancellor, the four Protestant archbishops, and eighty peers 
 and members of parliament, twenty for each province, as 
 commissioners, and with a power in the act to apply the fund 
 created to the improvement of tillage as well as navigation, — it 
 will be readily supposed that but little was done for any wwks 
 of the one kind or the other. 
 
 Twenty-two years afterwards the act, 25 Geo. II. c. 10, 
 transformed these commissioners into the Corporation for pro- 
 moting and carrying on Inland Navigation. This body was 
 authorized to hold courts in Dublin four times a year, to 
 elect from amongst its members twenty-four assistants vested 
 with extensive powers, to appoint suitable officers, to increase 
 their salaries and fees, and to cause the country to be surveyed ; 
 to lay out new roads from mines to navigations, to make 
 any river navigable, to demolish weirs, &c. But, according 
 
316 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 to Newenham, it must have been evident to every reflecting 
 man that the business of inland navigation could not have 
 been more expeditiously or skilfully conducted under this than 
 under the former acts ; — on the contrary, jobbing and pecula- 
 tion were rather facilitated than precluded by it. It proved 
 therefore as illusive in effect as the others. 
 
 Every step taken in legislation testified the inefficacy of 
 the state system. The act 29 Geo. II. c. 10, after com- 
 plaining of the difficulty experienced in procuring three out of 
 the eighty-six members of the corporation to meet and adjust 
 disputes with landowners, and also the general incompetency 
 of the body to deal satisfactorily with questions of that nature, 
 directed that persons, not members of the corporation, should 
 be employed to transact this business. The act 3 Geo. III. 
 allowed so much of the duties already specified as should be 
 found necessary, to be applied to build and furnish a house for 
 the meeting and accommodation of the corporation. Thus, 
 again, says Newenham, was a wide field opened for jobbing 
 and peculation, while the business of inland navigation was 
 left in its former state. 
 
 It would be curious, but very tedious, to trace the pro- 
 ceedings of this ill-chosen Board, step by step, and to examine 
 closely the many great schemes projected and the few small 
 improvements actually accomplished under its auspices. In- 
 cessant legislation became indispensable to sustain the esta- 
 blishment ; but at last a reaction set in. About the year 1766, 
 the faith of parliament and the public evidently began to be 
 shaken ; doubts arose as to the soundness of the policy which 
 maintained such a body in existence ; and it became a question, 
 whether any real benefits had been conferred by it. Several 
 parties, interested in works proceeding under the authority of 
 the board, availed themselves of this state of public opinion 
 to revive the salutary action of private enterprise. The act 
 7 Geo. III. c. 26, incorporated a company for making the 
 Shannon navigable to Killaloe, and directed the inland board 
 to deliver up all money and materials belonging to the under- 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 317 
 
 taking. A power of control, however, was specifically re- 
 served to the Board, and the right of interference thus given 
 had the usual depressing influence, and proved an insuperable 
 obstacle in the way of prosperity. 
 
 Further evidence of the bad working of the state system 
 was afforded by the Act 11 and 12 Geo. III. c. 4, which 
 provided, that in case a navigation appeared to be too expen- 
 sive. Sec. for the public alone, the Inland Corporation, upon a 
 scheme approved for the purpose, might transfer it from their 
 sole charge to any private company, undertaking to pay the esti- 
 mated sum required for its completion. The Board, however, 
 was still to retain the power to aid and control the works so 
 transferred, but the aid was to be limited to one-sixtli of the 
 estimate, and that w^as only to be given upon proof being made 
 that the subscribers had paid in and expended five times the 
 amount of the sum demanded, together with all former aids. 
 With a view, evidently, of still further encouraging private 
 enterprise, it was enacted, that any number of persons might 
 enter into a contract of partnership for w^orks of inland na- 
 vigation, with such stock or capital as they should deem 
 sufficient. The Grand Canal Company was incorporated 
 during the same year, and became invested, as far as the 
 portions of that undertaking then executed, or in progress, 
 were concerned, with all the powers and property of the 
 Inland Board. By this act another blow was struck at the 
 dominion of that now rotten corporation. Having issued 
 warrants for the payment of money far beyond its means, it 
 had fallen heavily into debt, and it was at last forbidden to issue 
 new warrants for raising or paying money until all outstanding 
 warrants and debts should be discharged ; and afterwards, 
 unless funds should be in hand to pay all warrants as issued. 
 For these purposes the dice duties formerly imposed were 
 continued, but salaries, rents, and the repair of breaches 
 were to be satisfied as usual ; and thus the staff* being kept 
 up, the machinery of abuse and corruption remained in full 
 play. As if to show, that in restraining the corporation it was 
 
318 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 not intended to restrict the progress of public works by with- 
 drawing government aid from them, the act granted £1 0,000 
 for the improvement of Lough S willy. 
 
 The longer this board continued to exist, the more corrupt 
 and noxious it became. The total amount of the duties for 
 fifty-six years ended in 1786, when its dissolution — one of the 
 modified improvements that succeeded the establishment of 
 parliamentary independence — took place, was £382,292, and 
 the amount of the parliamentary grants made to it during the 
 same period, was <^227,629, — together, d£'609,961, or, on the 
 average, .£'10,892 a year. Had the whole of this sum, accord- 
 ing to Newenham, been faithfully or skilfully expended on navi- 
 gations only, it might perhaps have produced some effect ; but 
 it was convertible, as already stated, to other purposes also, 
 and subjected to deductions for salaries, fees, rents, and build- 
 ings. Hence the residue left was small ; and even that was not 
 only most injudiciously applied, but in part, as there is strong- 
 reason to suspect, converted by individuals to private pur- 
 poses. In a report made to parliament, it was declared that 
 the persons to whom the money warrants were issued were 
 accountable to the corporation, but that several of them never 
 passed accounts. Nevertheless no dissolution took place until 
 the year 1786; and, perhaps, more instructive , means of in- 
 dicating its true character cannot be offered, than are supplied 
 by the act 27 Geo. IH. which put an end to it altogether, and 
 made null and void all the powers exercised by it or its agents. 
 The several canals, navigations, lands, &;c., &c., belonging to it, 
 were vested temporarily in the local parties connected with 
 them. All books, plans, estimates, and accounts, were ordered 
 to be delivered up to the auditor of impress accounts at the 
 Treasury, in twenty-one days, and the salaries of the secre- 
 tary and treasurer for ten years were forfeited to the King. 
 Separate companies were incorporated for the Newry, Boyne, 
 Barrow, Shannon, and Tyrone navigations, and to them were 
 given all the rights, privileges, tolls, &c., held by the board. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no one reason which ought to inspire us 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 319 
 
 with more anxiety to nip abuses in the bud, or, rather, to make 
 us more determined in resisting the introduction of any mea- 
 sures out of which abuses are Hkely to shoot, than the painful 
 reflection that we can seldom rid ourselves of an abuse, 
 even when most gross, without inflicting a positive amount of 
 damage where it is frequently undeserved. It happens in 
 this case, as in that of a field or garden, which, through the 
 neglect or ignorance of those to whom its cultivation has been 
 intrusted, becomes overrun with weeds or vermin. In clearing 
 away what is rank and noxious, we tear up the roots of gene- 
 rous plants, and brush the bloom and sap from many a 
 leaf and stem, w^hich, suddenly deprived of their customary 
 support, too frequently wither away and die. The sup- 
 pression of the Board of Inland Navigation, by breaking up 
 all existing arrangements for the maintenance of the different 
 works in progress, and throwing each one upon its own 
 resources for support, naturally caused general confusion 
 and greatly distressed undertakings which had hitherto drawn 
 their main sustenance from extraneous quarters. The invariable 
 accompaniment of sudden or violent changes of system was 
 now presented. Much money had been lost under the old 
 mode of proceeding, and still more money was expended, as 
 compensation to those whom the new arrangement deprived 
 of their usual resources. The number of instances in which 
 this improvident practice has since been repeated, furnishes 
 perhaps the most extraordinary feature in the whole case. 
 Petitions for relief were addressed to the Irish parliament ; 
 and it was suggested in them, that it would be equitable to 
 provide that the government should issue debentures against 
 the revenue accruing from the duties which had been imposed 
 for the promotion of these improvements, and that the proceeds 
 should be fairly distributed, by law, amongst the new com- 
 panies. This led to the act 29 Geo. III. c. 83, which pro- 
 vided that debentures should be issued for .£^20,000 to the 
 Barrow navigation ; £8^S00 to the Shannon navigation from 
 Limerick to Killaloe ; .£'57,100 to the Grand Canal Com- 
 pany, for an extension to the Shannon near Banagher; 
 
820 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 <i£'l 0,000 to the same company, for an extension to the 
 Liffey; c£'66,000 to the Royal Canal Company, for a canal 
 from Dublin to Tarmonbarry on the Shannon; i?l 2,500 
 for a canal from Droghecla to Trim ; 4,000 to the Newry 
 canal ; .£'2,400 for a canal from Osberstown to Naas ; o^3,800 
 for a canal from Osberstown to Kilcullen ; and ^£^5,100 for a 
 canal from Belturbet to Lough Erne. 
 
 Other measures of the Irish parliament, connected with 
 enterprises of this class, were the act 29 Geo. III. c. S, 
 which amended and new-modelled the Grand Canal Act, and 
 the act 80 Geo. III. c. 20, for the better enabling the Royal 
 Canal Company to carry on its works ; as to which it may 
 with safety be incidentally added, that no such body could 
 have come into existence under any other condition of things 
 than that produced by a state system of directing the pro- 
 gress of public works. There was also, an act creating the 
 Lough Erne and Ballyshannon Navigation Company, from 
 Belturbet to Lough Erne, in the terms of the act 29 Geo. III. 
 c. 38 ; and the Hibernian Mining Company was incorporated 
 by the act, 82 Geo. III. c. 24, with powers for opening Arklow 
 harbour, and making a canal from Meetings Bridge, and thence 
 to the Kilkenny collieries. This last undertaking never pro- 
 ceeded beyond the purchase of some land required for the work, 
 which lapsed to the proprietors after having been paid for 
 with the public money. 
 
 From these data, and other particulars lying in their track, 
 we are able to estimate the amount of money applied to public 
 works, before the legislative union. Up to the year 1777, 
 there had been voted, — as already mentioned, upon the 
 authority of Newenham, .... <^101,073 
 
 Twenty-one years'* produce of the taxes mentioned 
 at page 815 gave ..... 63,128 
 
 Fifty-six years' produce of the duties received by 
 the Inland Navigation Board, realised, as stated at 
 page 317 . . .... 609,961 
 
 £774,162 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 S21 
 
 Brought fonvard 
 The following sums are taken from Irish Statutes : 
 Inland Navigations. 
 
 3 Geo. XL c. 3 
 29 Geo. II. c. 10 
 
 £774,162 
 
 33 Geo. II. c. 1 
 1 Geo. III. 
 3 Geo. III. 
 5 Geo. III. 
 7 Geo. III. 
 
 11 Geo. III. 
 
 12 Geo. III. 
 23 Geo. III. 
 
 Barrow 
 33 Geo. II. c. 1 
 
 1 Geo. III. 
 
 3 Geo. III. 
 
 5 Geo. III. 
 
 7 Geo. III. 
 1 1 Geo. III. 
 29 Geo. III. c. 33 
 
 Navigation. 
 
 Grand Canal. 
 
 29 Geo. II. 
 31 Geo. II. 
 33 Geo. II. 
 
 I Geo. III. 
 3 Geo. III. 
 
 II and 12 Geo. 
 16 and 17 Geo. 
 
 Ill 
 III 
 
 £63,128 
 34,800 
 28,500 
 36,000 
 17,500 
 28,403 
 21,506 
 6,714 
 3,500 
 2,000 
 
 £2,000 
 2,000 
 1,800 
 3,000 
 2,000 
 1,000 
 
 20,000 
 
 242,051 
 
 — 31.800 
 
 1,048,013 
 
 27 Geo. III. c. 30 
 29 Geo. III. c. 33 (extension to Banagher) 
 
 Brought fonvard 
 ditto to Circular Road 
 ditto to Junction between Athy 
 
 and Barrow 
 ditto to Kilkenny Collieries 
 ditto to Bally rider . 
 ditto to finish Docks 
 c. 79 . 
 
 31 Geo. III. c. 42 ( 
 
 .38 Geo. Ill, 
 
 £20,000 
 17,000 
 10,000 
 10,000 
 6,000 
 2,000 
 1,000 
 12,000 
 57,100 
 
 £135,100 
 10,000 
 
 2,120 
 4,370 
 1,204 
 22,000 
 30,000 
 
 135,100 
 
 Vol. II. 
 
 Carried forward 
 
 Y 
 
 — 204,794 
 £1.387,907 
 
322 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 Tyrone and Newry Navigation. 
 
 £1,387,907 
 
 27 Geo. II. c. 1 
 29 Geo. II. c. 1 
 
 1 Geo. III. c. 1 . 
 
 3 Geo. III. c. 3 . 
 
 5 Geo. III. . • 
 
 7 Geo. Ill 
 1 1 Geo. Ill, c. 4 . 
 11 and 12 Geo. III. c. 1 
 23 and 24 Geo. III. c. 1 
 29 Geo. III. c. 1 . 
 
 BoYNE Navigation. 
 33 Geo. II. c. 1 . ; 
 
 1 Geo. III. 
 21 and 22 Geo. III. 
 23 and 24 Geo. III. 
 29 Geo. III. c. 33 
 
 Royal Canal. 
 
 1789 
 1792 
 1798 
 
 ri,i. 
 
 £4,000 
 4,000 
 3,000 
 4,000 
 54 
 ,000 
 5,000 
 3,000 
 1,500 
 2,000 
 2,000 
 
 £2,000 
 2,000 
 1,000 
 1,000 
 
 12,500 
 
 £66,000 
 7,500 
 25,000 
 
 34,654 
 
 18,500 
 
 98,500 
 
 £1,539,56] 
 
 Amongst the numerous palliatives administered by the 
 government, for tlie purpose of reconciling the Irish to the 
 legislative union, was a grant of half-a-million sterling, to 
 promote public works. The expenditure of this sum was 
 intrusted, as of old, to a set of Directors-general of Inland 
 Navigation, who are clearly shown, in more than one parlia- 
 mentary return, to have proceeded in their office as if this 
 money had been .given Jess for the public use than for their 
 personal gratification and benefit. They do not appear to 
 have done anything but pay salaries up to the year 1810 ; when 
 they proposed a 'series of general surveys in various parts of 
 the interior of the country, to ascertain by w^hat lines canals, 
 with ample supplies of water, might be carried, with a view 
 
joiisr'r-STOCK enterprises. 
 
 323 
 
 of assisting noblemen and gentlemen in their objects for the 
 improvement of the country." This wild scheme was enter- 
 tained by the Irish government ; but the result differed in no 
 respect from the many other devices of the same kind which 
 had been so repeatedly devoted to the satisfaction of the same 
 interests. A good deal'of expense was incurred, and a good 
 deal of information acquired. Extensive lines of canal to the , 
 north and south were suggested ; and their courses were to 
 have been much in the direction subsequently recommended for 
 the government railways. The proposal was grand, but nothing 
 came of it. The improving noblemen and gentlemen of that 
 period, like their heirs and successors of a later day, looked 
 to government for the money to make the canals ; and as the 
 government did not happen to give it, the noblemen and gen- 
 tlemen went without their canals. The idea of improving the 
 country at the smallest risk to their own purses had not then 
 found its way into the category of duties which the patriotism 
 of Irish landlords had prescribed to the numerous members of 
 their body. 
 
 In the year 1811, the bankruptcy of the Royal Canal Com- 
 pany under circumstances of scandalous delinquency recalled 
 the particular attention of parliament to the utter inefficiency 
 of the prevailing system, and exposed a variety of details which 
 laid completely bare the worthlessness of the government board, 
 either as a means of giving a proper direction to the spirit 
 of private enterprise, or of controlling the abuses of the joint- 
 stock companies, unwisely brought into existence by its 
 countenance and authority. Upon this occasion the directors 
 of the Royal Canal Company confessed that the holders of their 
 debentures for the most part were poor people, orphans and 
 widows, — estimated in round numbers at not less than 2,000. — 
 The majority of this large body of sufferers had bought some at 
 a premium, from the directors themselves, who were the original 
 loan-holders, and were sellers also with a perfect knowledge of 
 the insolvency of the undertaking. The Government Board of 
 Inland Navigation appears to have been intimately acquainted 
 with the particulars of this flagrant imposition — they had seen 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 this company expend <£'1,878,685 ; they knew its revenue 
 barely exceeded 6^15,000 a year — and yet they permitted 
 dividends of 2 per cent, to be declared out of the monies bor- 
 rowed from poor orphans and widows. How far the forbear- 
 ance shown to the guilty directors of the Royal Canal may 
 have emanated from a tender conviction of the unsoundness 
 of their own administration, is a problem now difficult of precise 
 solution. We know, however, that their disbursements of the 
 half-million sterling granted at the time of the Union had 
 proceeded, up to the period now under consideration, March 
 1811, as follows : — 
 
 For the salaries and expenses of their own esta- 
 
 blishment, and the four navigations in their 
 
 charge .... 
 
 £172,238 
 
 17 
 
 Hi 
 
 To the Royal Canal 
 
 98,831 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 The Grand Canal Company, to improve the 
 
 
 
 
 Middle Shannon 
 
 53,231 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 The Barrow Navigation 
 
 41,881 
 
 8 
 
 9-^ 
 
 The Corporation of Dublin, to improve the Port 
 
 
 
 
 of Dublin .... 
 
 15,463 
 
 18 
 
 3i 
 
 Sums appropriated, but not paid 
 
 9,875 
 
 
 
 
 
 In the Bank of Ireland . . 
 
 9,147 
 
 10 
 
 Qi 
 
 Poundage and bills at the Treasury . 
 
 5,587 
 
 10 
 
 2i 
 
 Balance not received or appropiated . 
 
 93,742 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 £500,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 The third great experiment of government interference 
 with private enterprise began to be tried in the year 1831. 
 Mr. Spring Rice, now Lord Monteagle, having presided over 
 the inquiries of a Committee of the House of Commons, — 
 which embraced an infinite variety of topics, and amassed an 
 unexampled fund of information, — produced the act 1 & 2 
 Will. 4, c. 38, by which the Directors-general of Inland 
 Navigation were at last got rid of, and three Commissioners of 
 Public Works were appointed in their stead, with enlarged 
 salaries* and powers, a more extended range of duties, ad- 
 
 * The old directors were paid £500 a year : the present commissioners 
 receive — chief, £1,200; and two juniors £600 each. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 325 
 
 ditional patronage, and a sum of ^£^500,000, to be expended 
 in a re-invigorated career of mingled encouragement and 
 control. 
 
 The office of Commissioner of Public Works embraces nu- 
 merous services of very different kinds. The whole, however, 
 may be reduced into two classes, — positive, and incidental. 
 Under the several acts of parliament by which the post has 
 been created and continued, certain definite functions are 
 assigned to the commissioners ; and the manner in which these 
 are performed is communicated to both Houses in an annual 
 report. But from time to time inquiries and investigations, 
 akin to their ordinary pursuits, have been demanded ; and for 
 them, upon the grounds of convenience and familiarity with 
 the subject-matter, one or more of the commissioners has 
 usually been nominated. In this way Commissioners of Public 
 Works have become Shannon Navigation and Railway Com- 
 missioners ; and they have, until very recently, been so mixed 
 up and identified with every project for the improvement of 
 the country as to have been in no inconsiderable degree the 
 arbiters of its destiny. 
 
 The establishment (according to the evidence given by Sir J. 
 Burgoyne to the Commons Committee on Public Works, Ire- 
 land, in the year 1835) consisted originally of a chairman and 
 two commissioners ; a secretary, with three clerks; an account- 
 ant, with two clerks; and an engineer, who is also architect to 
 the board. The total cost of these functionaries, according to the 
 same authority, is about =£^5,500 a year.* The various services 
 for which this money is paid, include the making of loans and 
 grants for public works in the terms of the acts of parliament 
 
 * The expense doubtless was as here stated by the chairman, but the 
 sources from which that amount was obtained are obscure. There is a vote , 
 taken always in the annual estimates, under the head of public works,, 
 Ireland, — and the sum is generally about £2,700. The accounts of the- 
 commissioners appended to their parliamentary reports, show expenses, 
 under the heads of salaries, for incidents, travelling, &c., to the extent, one 
 year with another, of about £4,500. How the difference is made up between 
 the parliamentary vote and the actual expense does not appear, nor where 
 the odd thousands are obtained, which the chairman declares, and the 
 annual reports prove, to be the actual cost over and above the parlia- 
 mentary vote. It is probably a charge upon the Consolidated Fund. 
 
826 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 passed for those purposes ; obtaining repayments of old loans, 
 and superintending fisheries, certain inland navigations, roads, 
 bridges, harbours, the government buildings in Dublin, lunatic 
 asylums, &c. It further appears by the Twelfth Report of the 
 Commissioners, that the following is the sum-total received 
 and applied under the chief head of their operations — making 
 loans and grants for public works : — 
 
 Loans. 
 
 1st. Original appropriation by the act 1 & 2 
 
 Will. IV., c. 33 . . . £500,000 
 
 2nd. Additional sum by the act 6 & 7 WiU. IV., 
 
 c. 108, but not considered re-issuable . 100,000 
 
 3rd. A portion of the monies received in repay- 
 ment of principal re-issued under the act 1 & 2 
 
 Will. IV., c. 33, s. 60 . . . 244,650 
 
 4th. Out of the sum of £50,000, made applicable 
 
 to public works in Ireland, under the act of 
 
 1 & 2 Vict. c. 88, s. 14, there was appropriated 
 
 the further sum of . . . 46,000 
 
 5th. By the act of 6 & 7 Vict. c. 44, which put a 
 
 stop to aU issues of Exchequer bills, and conse- 
 quently of re-issues under the act 1 & 2 Will. IV., 
 
 c. 33, a new appropriation of a sum of £15,000 
 
 per quarter was charged upon the consolidated 
 
 fund, for issues on account of public works in 
 
 Ireland, and to continue for the space of four 
 
 years, commencing on 10th October, 1843 
 Under this act the occurrence of two quarters has 
 
 added to the fund, 10th October, and 5th January 30,000 
 
 920,650 
 
 The issues out of these funds 
 have been. Exchequer bills to 
 
 10th October, 1843 . 890,650 
 
 By the Commissioners for Re- 
 duction of the National Debt, 
 
 to 5th January . . 4,050 
 
 894,700 
 
 Leaving a balance, not yet issued, of 
 
 £25,950 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 S27 
 
 The net amount of loans sanctioned, acted on, or 
 in operation (including £850, advanced pur 
 suant to 1 Vict.) to 5th January is 
 
 Deduct issues 
 
 Balance due on loans 
 Deduct balance of fund 
 
 The difference or excess 
 
 will not be required until long after a fund shal 
 
 have arisen sufficient to meet it. 
 The whole amount transferred to her Majesty's 
 
 Exchequer, to 5th January, has been, viz. 
 Principal repayment of . £398,657 
 
 Interest, payment of . 135,555 18 3 
 
 From net amount of loans . 
 
 Deduct amount issued under 
 6 & 7 Will. IV., the repayment 
 of which has been directed 
 through another channel 
 
 Deduct also principal repaid, 
 as above 
 
 100,000 
 
 398,657 
 
 Leaving a balance of loans yet outstanding 
 Thus it will be perceived that the balances of loans 
 outstanding have, by means of repayment of 
 principal, been far reduced below the amount . 
 
 Which before the passing of the late act would 
 have been re-issuable 
 
 £932,601 17 
 894,700 
 
 37,901 17 
 
 25.950 
 
 11.951 17 
 
 534,212 18 3 
 932,601 17 
 
 498,657 
 433,944 17 
 
 546,000 
 
 112,055 3 
 
 Grants. 
 
 Sums made appHcable to grants by sujidry enactments : 
 1st. The fund originally appropriated by the act 
 
 1 & 2 Will. IV., c. 33 . 
 2nd. A further sum provided by the act 1 Vict. 
 
 c. 21 . 
 
 3rd. A portion of the sum of £50,000, provided 
 
 by the act 1 & 2 Vict. c. 88 
 4th. A sum provided by the I7th section of the 
 
 6 & 7 Vict. c. 44 
 
 £50,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 4,000 
 
 21,000 
 
 £125,000 
 
32a 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 This statement of accounts enables us to see how the system 
 has worked in some essential particulars. For twelve years the 
 total amount of loans and grants stands thus, — ^920,650 + 
 .£'125,000 =£1,045,650. The money actually issued, more- 
 over, on loan has been .£'894,400 ;^ of which £^398,657 are set 
 forth as havingbeen repaid, and £^433, 944 as outstanding, while 
 interest has been received to the amount of 135,5 55 1 85. 3c?.; 
 a small sum, when the rate charged, 5 percent, per annum, is 
 borne in mind. 
 
 The expenses of the establishment must be added to these 
 
 amounts, if the full sum contributed by the country for pubHc 
 
 works in Ireland is to be calculated with accuracy. These 
 
 expenses, t including not solely the amounts of the votes taken 
 
 every year in the Irish Estimates, but the sums entered as 
 
 * The sums liere given— £920,650; £894,700; £398,657; and £433,944, 
 are taken from the twelfth report (page 2) : but at the foot of another account 
 in the same document (page 15) the amount of loans sanctioned is returned 
 at £963,515 Os. lOd. ; of loans issued, £886,950; and of repayments, 
 £434,955 135. lOd. 
 
 t Expenditure of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ire- 
 
 
 LAND, extracted from their Annual Report. 
 
 
 
 1832. 
 
 Salaries and incidents 
 
 £3,930 10 
 
 2 
 
 1833. 
 
 Salaries and incidents 
 
 5,067 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 547 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 1834. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 2,751 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 214 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 
 Law expenses for deposits paid to engineers. 
 
 &c. 
 
 
 
 
 on appUcations for loans and grants 
 
 108 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 1835. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,008 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 265 
 
 16 
 
 5 
 
 1836. 
 
 Salaries and incidents 
 
 3,264 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 
 Travelling expenses 
 
 139 
 
 16 
 
 2 
 
 1837. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,652 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 218 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 1838. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,652 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 181 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 1839. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,796 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 574 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 1840. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,918 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 465 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 1841. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,806 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 882 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 1842. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 3,678 15 
 
 7 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 1,900 
 
 17 
 
 1 
 
 1843. 
 
 Salaries and incidents . 
 
 6,519 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 
 Law expenses 
 
 264 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 £52,808 
 
 19 
 
 5 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 329 
 
 having been actually expended in the annual Reports of the 
 Commissioners, show a total of d^o2,808 195. bd. paid since 
 the act 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 33 was passed ; which, added to 
 .£'1,045,650, makes the total contribution <£^1,095,458 19^. 6d. 
 
 By examining the details furnished in the appendix to each 
 report, we perceive that the sums returned under the head of 
 repayments and interest, have mainly proceeded from loans 
 advanced for making roads at the instance of grand juries 
 on the security of county rates. So far this principle of 
 lending money for the public use may be considered safe ; and 
 the object being decidedly beneficial, the whole principle and 
 practice will deserve commendation. There are persons, it is 
 true, to be found from time to time who complain that indi- 
 vidual and political considerations have led to not a few undue 
 preferences even in this branch of the service, and there may 
 be tenable grounds for reproaches of the kind. Where open 
 and unblushing corruption has long been the order of the day 
 in government offices, it is but natural to suspect that the 
 taint of its influence should linger in many a public department. 
 Nevertheless the principle being sound, and its operation in 
 the main efficient, our future care should be directed against 
 the recurrence of the old abuses. Upon the whole we appear 
 to be justified in affirming, that wherever a district is found 
 susceptible of an improvement of this kind, and the inhabitants 
 are content to pay for it out of their own rates, the power to 
 borrow the necessary capital for the work should be placed 
 within their reach. Nor perhaps are roads the only public 
 works to which the people should be restricted. Of them at 
 least it is not too much to record, that, in many instances 
 where they have been constructed wholly at the public ex- 
 pense, the country has not lost money. The encreased con- 
 sumption of exciseable articles, in districts thus opened for the 
 first time to the progress of civilization and commerce, has 
 been known to produce to the revenue in a few years a sum 
 greater than that expended upon the roads themselves.* 
 
 * The evidence of Mr. Nimmo, Mr. Wye Williams, Mr. Weale, of the 
 Woods and Forests, and other unquestionable authorities, repeated be- 
 fore different parliamentary committees, is conclusive upon this point. 
 
330 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 This fact involves another important conclusion : where a 
 district is too poor to tax itself in this respect, the state is 
 bound to provide the improvement. In this view of the case, 
 some remarks in the twelfth report of the Commissioners claim 
 at once the most serious and favourable consideration : — 
 
 The principal object to which this (grant) fund has been apphed is the 
 opening up of wild uncultivated districts, capable of improvement, but 
 from which they are shut out by the want of the means of communication 
 for the most ordinary vehicles. By the formation of roads, facihty is 
 given for the introduction of manures best adapted to the amelioration of 
 the soil of the districts with which they communicate, and for the convey- 
 ance of the produce to fair and market. Much has been done, mth the aid 
 of this fund, towards the improvement of the condition of the people in 
 several parts of the country, — but much more remains to be done : and it 
 is to be apprehended that the districts standing most in need of this des- 
 cription of assistance are, from local circumstances, the least likely to be 
 brought under the consideration or the power of grand juries to relieve them. 
 
 " The execution of such works leads to the adoption of improved modes 
 of cultivation, and the abandonment of the rude and primitive implements 
 in common use; and opens to the officers of justice and local authorities, 
 places which had been the secure haunt and impenetrable refuge of the 
 outlaw and the robber. We conceive that the advantages of affording aid 
 to the promotion of such works in a statistical, moral, or political point of 
 view, are too obvious to make it necessary to dwell on the subject at 
 greater length. 
 
 '* We are also under a conviction, that without the aid of a Grant Fund 
 of this nature, very many measures of improvement that are to be effected 
 by it will remain unaccomphshed for many years."* 
 
 * Another page in an earlier (the second) report, expressed the same 
 good opinions : — 
 
 In Ireland, where agriculture affords the principal means of natural 
 wealth, the opening of new districts, by the construction of new roads upon 
 well-considered plans, gives to an accumulative source of productive 
 industry an immense power, and at little cost. 
 
 " Such are the effects, while the means are equally encouraging. 
 
 " There are few countries where good roads can be made so readily ; and 
 at so little expense. The levels are usually easy; large bridges or embank- 
 ments seldom requisite ; materials of good quality very abundant : and 
 the land of so little value in its present state, that it is in most instances 
 cheerfully given in return for the great benefit to be derived from the 
 work. £300 or £400 a mile will frequently cover any expense attendant 
 upon the construction of a good road. £500 or £600 may be esteemed a 
 reasonable average rate ; and those under circumstances of comparative 
 difficulty seldom exceed £1,000 or £1,200 a mile. 
 
 " The repairs will be in proportion to the expense, varying from £10 to 
 £60 per annum." 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 331 
 
 Sound judgment, humane sense, and a correct appreciation 
 of some of the most trying wants of the country, characterize 
 these observations. Equal praise is not due to the opinions 
 entertained, nor to the line of conduct pursued, by the Com- 
 missioners in other material respects. Their aim from the 
 first, and their unceasing study throughout their whole career, 
 has been to bring the construction, support, and management 
 of all the public works of the country under their own care 
 and patronage. They would have nothing planned but as they 
 advise, — nothing executed, but as they may direct. In their 
 second report, they address the Lords of the Treasury in this 
 significant language. 
 
 " Having thus added our humble testimony in favour of the policy of 
 making gratuitous advances and loans on an extensive scale ; we would 
 suggest, that in all cases where grants are made, either of the whole or 
 part of the cost, or where loans are advanced on the security of the 
 revenue to be derived from the work, — the public providing the entire of 
 the fund, the sole charge and control of the works and expenditure 
 should be vested in some responsible government department, and that 
 no corporate body or local commissioners should be authorized by distinct 
 acts of parliament or otherwise to have the management, except in cases 
 •where they themselves subscribe for, or deposit a fair proportion of the 
 required funds." * 
 
 * As Dame Partlet, the hen, says to Chanticleer, in the Fable, — 
 " The dominating humour makes the dream." 
 
 This extract presents us, reflected as it were, with just those thoughts, 
 feelings, and dispositions which seem to arise naturally in the minds of 
 men employed as these gentlemen had for some time been. We 
 know that persons, placed in a given position, as commonly receive a 
 particular bias from it, as the tree bends according to the direction of the 
 prevailing wind to which it is exposed. Throughout all their labours, these 
 and other commissioners have constantly borne with them the sentiments 
 and predilections exclusively appropriate to men in office. They view 
 the question before them, be it what it may, in all its bearings, with eyes 
 partial, by habit, to the principle of a pressure from above ; and to that 
 systematized authority, which it is their daily province to exercise in one 
 shape or other. Having held, for a considerable period, different situations 
 of no small power and emolument; being trained and subdued to the 
 formality and order of office ; having imbued the second nature, so often 
 stronger than the original, which use and custom give, — it is not strange 
 that the working of the system under which they prosper and enjoy a 
 
332 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 The drift of this language is not to be mistaken ; nor is it 
 possible to overrate the injury that would be inflicted if the 
 policy it recommends came to be enforced upon a people so 
 little in the habit as the Irish hitherto have been of relying 
 upon their own exertions for the improvement of their country. 
 Yet the writers of this report never missed an opportunity of 
 impressing it upon the mind of the government from which they 
 obtained their office. Abetted by a subtle party, they succeeded 
 in carrying it into effect upon their own ^' extensive scale " — in 
 the case of the Shannon commission. The same ambitious ex- 
 periment was tried again; but, fortunately for the country, was 
 defeated, in the subsequent case of the Railway commission. 
 From that failure we may date the commencement of a new 
 era in the history of public works and joint-stock enterprises 
 in Ireland ; one which, if it be not injudiciously broken in 
 upon, must soon give a new fortune to the island, and a new 
 temper to its inhabitants. 
 
 However cursorily the proceedings of these commissioners 
 may be reviewed, we shall be sure to note the poor effects 
 produced by their office, and be convinced of its extreme 
 inutility. If it was in the nature of things that good could 
 come of such an institution, they must have brought it forth. 
 Every thing favored their cause : — the treasury supplied 
 abundant funds, the parliament conferred ample powers ; the 
 ministers were all confidence and encouragement ; the people 
 
 certain extent of patronage and command, should seem to them beyond 
 all doubt excellent in the extreme. Thus prepossessed in favour of 
 routine duties, prescribed discipline, and the wedge-like influence of a 
 government board, they will maintain that an administration for canals, 
 and railways and roads may be admirably devised, which shall supersede 
 every other in point of convenience and efficacy by conforming in all its 
 forms and departments to the condition of things immediately around and 
 under them. Thus, in Ireland, they were led to suggest a railway board ; 
 which was little more than an extension of one already extant, and in their 
 own possession. With such gentlemen the greatest of all wants, and the 
 source of all evils, is the want of sufficient power in their own department ; 
 — only give them power, and they will undertake any thing. They, there- 
 fore, propose to surmount the defects and misfortunes of all preceding 
 boards and commissions, by imparting to the new one they desire to 
 fashion an extent of absolute authority, perfectly Rhadamanthan. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 333 
 
 all hope and gratitude ; and yet now that thirteen years have 
 passed, and nearly two millions sterling have been expended in 
 one way or another under their direction, it is painful to mark 
 how little the labours of the new functionaries differ in their 
 result from those of the old ; and how backward still the 
 country remains with respect to useful and profitable under- 
 takings of the class under consideration. 
 
 The more conspicuous enormities of the system, under its 
 former administration, were three, — an extravagant waste of 
 money in the works constructed ; inadequate returns ; and a 
 notorious partiality. This last fault was carried to an 
 indecent extent. Particular persons and places were fa- 
 voured in the distribution of the parliamentary funds, while 
 others were always excluded from a share of them. The same 
 evils are manifest, in nearly the same degrees, under the 
 administration of the present commissioners. A few examples 
 will suffice to prove the truth of this observation, and to show 
 not only that these gentlemen have not improved the state of 
 the concerns which they took out of the hands of their prede- 
 cessors ; but that they have not imparted a much better 
 character to those which have been undertaken, under the 
 exclusive protection of their own authority. 
 
 Limerick, as already observed, has enjoyed a large portion 
 of the money voted by parliament in aid of public works. 
 Wellesley Bridge and Docks, in that city, were projected 
 before the present commissioners came into office. The old 
 commissioners had sanctioned an advance of =£^54,346, for 
 this purpose ; but the money was not issued until the 
 year 1832, after the plan had been considered and approved 
 by their successors. The money having been spent ; we 
 find the latter confessing, in the year 1834, that very great 
 and unforeseen difficulties had occurred, principally from the 
 imperfect manner in which the earlier works had been ex- 
 ecuted ; and that the completion of the dock, as originally 
 projected, was impracticable. — (Third report, page 17.) Ac- 
 cordingly, the advance of more money was called for, and 
 obtained, — namely, a sum of .£'25,000 in 1832; and two sums 
 
884 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 of <£'40,000, and <£^5,000, in 1833. The pecuniary result of 
 this liberality is exhibited in the twelfth report, as follows : — 
 
 
 Loan. 
 
 
 Repayments. 
 
 Interest Due. 
 
 Wellesley Bridge 
 
 
 
 
 -Po'7 Ann Q 
 
 and Docks. f 
 
 
 
 Do. 
 
 25,000 
 
 
 
 2,500 
 
 658 3 8 
 
 Do. 
 
 40,000 
 
 
 
 
 1,638 9 10 
 
 Do. 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 676 3 9 
 
 
 125,384 12 
 
 4 
 
 
 £30,672 5 9 
 
 Less one repayment 
 
 2,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 122,884 12 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Add Interest due 
 
 30,672 5 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Present Debt 
 
 153,556 18 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Principal. 
 
 
 Interest Accrued. 
 
 Athlunkard Bridge 
 
 £6,000 
 
 9 
 
 
 3,846 13 7 
 
 Do. 
 
 9,889 19 
 
 2 
 
 
 1,962 1 6 
 
 Total Loans 
 
 15,889 19 
 
 11 
 
 
 £5,808 15 1 
 
 Total Interest 
 
 5,808 15 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Loans & Interest due £21,698 15 
 
 If we look at the population and trade of Limerick, we 
 shall see nothing in them to justify such a state of embarrass- 
 ment as these figures present : both are considerable, and 
 they have been steadily on the increase for several years past. 
 But if, as common report represents, the origin of these works 
 and the aid afforded them lay in the influence of political 
 interest, which took their plan and management out of the 
 hands of the mercantile classes, to whom they properly be- 
 longed, there will be nothing in the result to excite surprise, — 
 unless, indeed, it be the patience with which abuses so obsti- 
 nate have hitherto been endured. 
 
 Some ludicrous anecdotes are related, to prove the want of 
 skill and judgment manifested in the plan and structure of 
 these bridges : — On one occasion a ship, breaking from her 
 moorings in foul weather, was driven against Wellesley 
 Bridge. In such a collision it was to be expected that stone 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 335 
 
 would have proved stronger than wood : but the reverse was 
 shown ; and we are assured that the ship, being better built, 
 broke the bridge ! — Again, there is a toll on W ellesley Bridge ; 
 and none on Athlunkard, so the traffic of the free bridge acts 
 against that of the toll-bridge ; and the commissioners, as if 
 to make the competition inevitably ruinous to the more expen- 
 sive work, advanced a sum of money to construct a new road 
 running sti-aight from the foot of the one to the foot of the 
 other!* 
 
 The works of a high class with which the present Commis- 
 sioners have exclusively identified themselves, and by which 
 the character of their administration is to be tested, are com- 
 paratively few ; and, taken as a whole, they are far from being 
 in a creditable or prosperous condition. 
 
 The Limerick Navigation has already been spoken of. A n 
 account was given, at page 288, of the improvident manner in 
 which the public was compelled to buy back their own loans 
 to this undertaking, paying for them nearly twice the amount 
 originally lent. The Ulster Canal has also been described. 
 The approving terms in which the Commissioners repeatedly 
 advocated the merits of this work, led to a loan of 100,000 
 from the Exchequer bill commissioners in England ; but the 
 receipts, as already mentioned at page 304, do not cover one- 
 half of the expenses of management. 
 
 Another favourite object of praise and assistance is the 
 Dublin and Kingstown Railway .f Of this the commissioners 
 
 * Anecdotes of this kind abound. In their report for the year 1837, the 
 Commissioners account for the expenditure of £300 given to them for the 
 rehef of the poor. The account is a curiosity in its way. The starving poor 
 got £100, and for distributing that sum the Officers of the Board of Works 
 got £200. The Commissioners built Portumna Bridge, a wooden 
 structure, which cost £26,000, and is so narrow that two carts cannot 
 pass it at the same time. It is asserted that when the Commissioners 
 entered into the contract for this work, they had before them a tender for 
 building a stone bridge for the same money, the width of which would 
 have given room for a double transit of passengers and conveyances. 
 
 t The large sums lent to this railway, and to the Ulster Canal, are re- 
 presented in certain circles in Dublin to have been matters of personal 
 obligation. A capitalist, holding a considerable interest in both under- 
 takings, is familiarly described as always carrying a commissioner in his 
 breeches-pocket. 
 
SS6 
 
 ' PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 remark, in their first report (page 5), that although they did 
 not consider the work in the very first class of public utility, 
 they recommended a loan of c£^50,000 ; to which they were 
 induced to add d£^25,000, in consideration of the offer of very 
 prompt payment, namely, in the first five years — to be secured 
 by a bond, binding the company, should the tolls fail in produc- 
 ing the promised amount, to make up the instalments by calls 
 on their several shares. So far the first report. The second 
 assures us, (page 18), that as a work of art the undertaking 
 promises to be as perfect of the kind as any ever executed ; 
 and that the whole of the apparatus does great credit to the 
 directing management, the engineer, resident engineer, and 
 the contractors. In the fourth report it was announced, 
 (page 19), under the head of Repayments, that several of the 
 larger balances had been liquidated ; and amongst them, that to 
 the Kingstown Railway. Turning to the fifth report for par- 
 ticulars, we find this *' liquidation to consist ; first of the 
 repayment of ^^5,000 off the principal sum lent, with some 
 arrears of interest ; and, secondly, of a new loan of i?40,000 ! 
 These curious facts prepare us for the subsequent state of 
 the account. The cost of the line, estimated at ^fi^ 15 0,000, 
 reached 350,000 ; and by the commissioners' report for the 
 year 1844, it appears that the concern then owed the state 
 .£'111,333,— being only ^£^38,667 less than the original 
 estimate of the line. By the company's report for the same 
 year, it further appeared that the total amount of debt then 
 due by the railway amounted to ^^155,048. 
 
 These features of the case demand special notice. There 
 is no argument urged with more pertinacity or persuasiveness, 
 by those who contend for a government administration of all 
 enterprises of this kind, than the healthful and economical 
 condition assumed to be the certain effect of vesting large 
 powers in such hands. Government commissioners, in their 
 language, are the men of all others to check the extravagance 
 of headlong speculators, to hold reckless engineers within pro- 
 per bounds, and to ensure order and economy in all things; yet 
 here is a railway over which the state, through its officers, has 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 337 
 
 had full authority, which from first to last the state has aided, 
 controlled, directed, patronized, and praised; and yet the 
 estimate here was ^150,000, and the cost c£'3 5 0,000 ; and 
 while the undertaking owed the state dfi'll 1,333, it owed 
 other parties <£50,000 more; yielding, at the same time, 
 a dividend of nine per cent, to the shareholders, out of the 
 current receipts. 
 
 The following extracts, from the Commissioners' twelfth 
 report, will exhibit a clear view of the general character of 
 some operations in this department of their office. 
 
 Date of 
 Loan. 
 
 Repayments. 
 
 No. of 
 Loan. 
 
 5 
 
 70 
 
 20 
 126 
 157 
 
 28 
 255 
 
 32 
 116 
 
 31 
 101 
 256 
 
 57 
 113 
 
 Name of Work. 
 
 Total 
 
 Amount 
 Lent, 
 
 £8,910 
 6,500 
 
 17,000 
 4,000 
 3,000 
 
 12,000 
 * 10,000 
 
 10,000 
 3,000 
 
 75,000 
 t37,200 
 
 25,000 
 1,750 
 1,000 
 
 214,360 
 
 1832 
 1835 
 1832 
 1837 
 1838 
 1832 
 1841 
 1832 
 1837 
 1832 
 1836 
 1842 
 1834 
 1837 
 
 £1,500 
 
 812 
 
 4,217 18 10 
 
 80 
 
 4,652 11 9 
 
 2,135 3 2 
 
 27,151 17 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 41,429 10 10 
 
 Principal and In- 
 terest due in 1843. 
 
 177,009 10 5 
 
 Limerick Navigation 
 
 Ditto 
 Galway Docks 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 Newry Navigation 
 
 Ditto 
 Drogheda Harbour 
 
 Ditto 
 Kingstown Railway- 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 Boyne Navigation 
 
 Ditto 
 
 £7,400 
 
 5,487 10 
 
 14,098 2 5 
 
 4,410 5 5 
 
 3,389 11 9 
 
 7,433 19 2 
 
 10,281 8 1 
 
 8,150 19 ^ 
 
 3,143 8 6 
 
 47,848 
 
 37,800 
 
 25,685 4 5 
 
 1,070 
 
 811 1 3 
 
 4,652 11 
 2,135 3 
 
 680 
 200 
 
 The aggressive spirit of these gentlemen, their dis- 
 couragement of private enterprise, and their anxiety to prevent 
 the introduction of joint-stock companies have been displayed 
 with equal vigour in the discharge of their ordinary and their 
 incidental duties. Their opinions upon this subject were pro- 
 mulgated, as has already been observed, at an early period, and 
 it must be admitted that the firmness and address with which 
 
 * The amount of loan sanctioned is £30,000, but only the sum stated 
 had been advanced up to December 31, 1843. The whole is understood 
 to have been advanced during the course of the subsequent year. 
 
 t The amount of loan sanctioned was £40,700, as stated in another 
 page ; but the actual advance was no more than is given here. 
 Vol. ii. z 
 
338 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 tliey adhered to their professions, soon effected considerable 
 changes, and at one time promised unmeasured success. 
 
 In their second year of office they availed themselves of a 
 summary process to take the Lower Boyne Navigation from a 
 private company. The right of the parties holding possession 
 of that navigation to levy tolls becoming matter of dispute, the 
 points were referred to the law officers of the Crown, who 
 decided in favour of the Crown ; and upon the strength of 
 that opinion the Commissioners entered into the receipt of 
 the tolls and the management of the Navigation. Judging 
 by the furnished accounts, no benefit has accrued from this 
 change. When the Navigation was seized by the Commis- 
 sioners it was not in debt. The amount of tolls in the year 
 1834 was ^707 2^. 5d., and the charge for salaries and allow- 
 ances £21S 6s. 4id. But at the end of the year 1843, the 
 undertaking stood indebted to the state for money borrowed, 
 £1892 175. 11c/., while the amount of tolls received was 
 £734 125. 11c/., and the charges for salaries, allowances, and 
 incidents was £291 7^. 11c/., exhibiting after a term of nine 
 years an increase of tolls to the amount of £27 IO5. 6c/. an 
 increase in the charges of management to the amount of 
 .£'78 Is. 7c/., and of debt to the amount of £1881 Is. 3c/.* 
 
 But the great triumph of the Board was the commission 
 for improving the navigation of the river Shannon. In this 
 novelty long and studiously prepared and completely fashioned 
 to the taste and ambition of its authors, every principle has 
 been carried into active practice, for which the state-system 
 party in Ireland have ever been the advocates. Nothing 
 desired was omitted or withheld — money was unsparingly 
 
 * The other concerns of this class in the hands of the Commissioners 
 are still smaller, and the evidence of improvement in their management 
 is even more scant. In Report 1, the receipts from the Tyrone and 
 Maghery Navigation are returned at £166 45. Id. ; and the expenditure at 
 £268 165. Ad. ; deficiency £102 125. Sd. for the year. In Report 12, the 
 receipts are £144 9^. 8d, and the expenditure £172 lis. 5(f. ; deficiency 
 £28 \s. 9c?. The state of the Maig Navigation, in Report 1, is, receipts 
 £41 l6s. Id.', expenditure £139 12s. 3(/. ; deficiency £97 12s. Zd. In 
 Report 12, receipts £51 9s. Id.; expenditure £253 15s. 3c?.; deficiency 
 for the year £202 10s. 2d. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 granted, power conferred without restraint, and all the assist^ 
 ance and facilities held to promise success to the undertak- 
 ing were liberally contributed. The theory of the proceed- 
 ing was monstrous, and the authority created by it arbitrary 
 beyond all precedent*' — but address, perseverance and the 
 influence of an approving ministry soon availed to render them 
 part and parcel of the law of the empire. 
 
 The business of the Shannon Commission, or rather the soli- 
 citations of its importunate patrons, may be said to have begun 
 when Col. Burgoyne, Captain Mudge, and Mr. Rhodes were 
 called upon to survey the river below Limerick, and to point 
 out the works required for its improvement. Reports and 
 plans from Captain Mudge and Mr. Rhodes were produced to 
 both Houses of Parliament in the session of 1832. A dis- 
 creet beginning having thus been effected, the scheme was 
 quietly cherished and advanced to maturity by slow degrees. 
 A Committee of the House of Commons, with the late Earl 
 of Kerry in the chair, made a strong report in favour of the 
 measure during the year 1834 ; and during the next session 
 of Parliament the Marquis of Lansdowne and Mr. Spring 
 Rice carried the Act 5 & 6 W. IV. c. 67, which vested the 
 control, conservation, and improvement of the river Shannon 
 
 * The Commissioners under this and the subsequent Act were officers 
 during pleasure; and their powers were undefined in many respects and 
 in none interfered with. The general improvements to be effected, the en- 
 gineers and other persons to be employed — the particular works to be 
 executed and maintained — the bridges, piers, embankments, and exca- 
 vations — the localities and means to be made use of in each case — the 
 counties, baronies, and lands to be taxed for their construction and sup- 
 port, and the specific rates and proportions for each — the lands and 
 houses to be seized to those uses, and their respective valuations were all 
 left to the three Commissioners. The nature and extent of the undertakings 
 were in many respects open questions, but the funds to proceed with them 
 were supplied by a preliminary vote. Before this extraordinary tribunal all 
 rights and interests, public and private, were made to give way. The fiat 
 of the Commissioners was armed with a rigour previously unknown to the 
 law of the land ; once made it became final, and tolerated neither correction 
 nor evasion. No reference was allowed to a jury for the assessment of 
 damages, nor was there an appeal permitted to the Superior Courts from 
 the decisions of the Commissioners. One process only was prescribed, and 
 the result of that was irrevocably conclusive. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 from the sea to Lough Derg, embracing a continuous naviga- 
 tion, 232 miles long, in the chairman of the Board of Public 
 Works and other Commissioners, who were directed to hold 
 Courts of Inquiry, and to make surveys, plans, estimates, and 
 reports, by way of preliminaries to such final measures as 
 might be deemed fit for execution at the public expense. 
 
 A term of more than four years, and a sum of c£*3 2,000 
 were devoted to this first or preliminary commission. Five 
 elaborate reports with numerous maps explanatory of the 
 various works to be performed and estimates of the outlay 
 demanded were presented to Parliament ; and the Act 2 & 3 
 Victoria, c. 61, was passed during the year 1839, at the in- 
 stance of Mr. Spring Rice and the Marquis of Lansdowne. 
 The more the subject had been investigated, the greater 
 proved the estimate of the probable cost. Moderate sums of 
 £50,000 and £75,000 were mentioned to the Committee of 
 the year 1834 ; but the second Report from the Commission 
 under the Act 5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 67, called for a sum of 
 £266,777, the third Report for £64,351, the fourth £243,974, 
 making a total amount of all the proposed works of £584,805 
 175. 9Jt/, to be defrayed in the following way : — 
 
 Proportion to be paid by the public . . . £290,716 1 4 
 By the adjoining counties and districts 266,334 6 2i 
 By proprietors and districts . . 27,755 10 3^ 
 
 £584,805 17 9i 
 
 Some feeble opposition was offered in the House of Com- 
 mons to the whole scheme, and more particularly to the 
 application of so large an amount of the public money to 
 a new administrative body ; but the measure was adroitly 
 carried and a fresh establishment was set up to give im- 
 mediate effect to its provisions. The cost of maintaining 
 this office is to be added to the total expenses of the im- 
 provement. Up to December 31, 1844, the amount was 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 341 
 
 £14,326 85. which will make the money ah-eady voted 
 
 by Parliament towards this last scheme for improving the 
 Shannon, .£'631,135 5s. Ud.f A mm of £18,447 9s. Od.^ 
 has also come into the hands of the Commissioners, as their 
 receipts from rents and tolls during a term of five years ; the 
 whole of which being expended from time to time upon 
 the river and works, raises the full outlay of the undertaking to 
 ^^649,582 145. lie?. 
 
 No definite opinion can as yet be properly formed of this 
 bold and expensive measure. Before the works have been 
 thoroughly completed, and a fair interval has been allowed to 
 test their efficacy, it would be rash to affirm how far the ex- 
 periment has failed or succeeded, or whether the public 
 money has been applied with economy or whether it has been 
 wasted either wholly or in part. There are at the same time 
 not a few features of the case quite marked in their character, 
 and being unchangeable in their nature, we are already justi- 
 
 * The sum from year to year appears by the Commissioners' reports: — 
 
 Dec. 31, 1839 . . . £630 4 3 
 Ditto 1840 . . . 2,362 5 9h 
 Ditto 1841 . . . 2,940 5 84 
 
 Ditto 1842 . . . 2,451 10 6^ 
 Ditto 1843 . . . 2,819 13 3 
 Ditto 1844 . . . 3,122 8 7 
 
 £14,326 8 li 
 
 f Expenses of the Commission under the Act 
 5 & 6 Will. IV., including the vote of July 
 
 27, 1840, for £11,300 law expenses . £32,003 
 
 Grants and advances authorised by theAct 2 & 3 
 
 Vict. c. 61 ... . . 584,805 17 9f 
 
 Subsequent grants for office expenditure . 14,326 8 Ij 
 
 £631,135 5 11 
 
 tRents and Tolls, 1 840 . . . £3,960 6 4 
 
 Ditto 1841 . . . 4,411 1 3 
 
 Ditto 1842 . . . 3,025 16 10 
 
 Ditto 1843 . . . 3,279 18 9' 
 
 Ditto 1844 . . . 3,870 5 10- 
 
 £18,447 9 
 
PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 fied in treating them as positive events, and adding the moral 
 they convey to the many similar lessons we have been taught 
 in this history of public works. 
 
 The Irish are so proud, and writers upon Ireland are 
 so fond of lavishing praise upon the Shannon, that it seems 
 almost unpatriotic to speak of such a river in any other than 
 glowing language, or to question the policy of expending 
 upon its improvement the large sums contributed by Par- 
 liament for that purpose. Washing, from, its rise in Lough 
 Allen, to its mouth in the Atlantic, the lands of ten counties 
 — some of them the most fertile in the island ; — connecting 
 together a chain of lakes so long and broad ; receiving in its 
 course the tributary waters of so many navigable rivers ; 
 traversed in different parts by full-sized steam-boats ; it 
 appears to offer extensive facilities to commerce, and to be 
 the open and ever flowing spring of unbounded wealth and 
 profit. But the Shannon, notwithstanding its many noble 
 properties, has great defects and some of them are irreme- 
 diable. It abounds with shoals, it is in various places too 
 shallow for the purposes of navigation, and it runs against the 
 prevailing course of trade. All the main and most valuable 
 lines of Irish traffic wend from west to east, while the 
 Shannon flows from north to south with a curve to the west 
 before it joins the sea. The most considerable marts 
 and ports of the country are those nearest to England on 
 the eastern coast — the Shannon pours the long volume of 
 its waters to the west, and deep and broad as they are at 
 many points far from its mouth and high up towards its 
 source, it becomes contracted above Limerick for a space of 
 fifteen miles into a stream so shallow, so narrow, and so 
 precipitous in its fall as not to be navigable in its natural 
 state. The canals and lateral cuts of the Limerick navigation 
 correct this evil so far as to give a passage to barges between 
 Killaloe and the town of Limerick. But the use of the 
 steam-boat and the splendid scheme of rendering the river 
 navigable throughout its whole course, is only fulfilled in so 
 restricted and literal a form as to become in every enlarged 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 343 
 
 sense of the expression a chimera and deceit. To talk of an 
 uninterrupted navigation in such a state of things is more 
 than an abuse of terms — it is a positive misrepresentation of 
 important facts. Worse still, an uninterrupted navigation is 
 all but impracticable. The fall of the Shannon waters in the 
 fifteen miles between Killaloe and Limerick is ninety-seven 
 feet, and its contracted bed for that distance is for the most 
 part a solid rock, which no engineer has as yet been bold 
 enough to propose to cut through and enlarge.* 
 
 If then the Shannon should eventually be improved accord- 
 ing to the plans produced and within the promised time, 
 and the estimated expense, the praise really due to the work 
 will be small, because the benefit derivable from it will be 
 limited. The author, who writes for the sake of effect, and 
 travellers led by his descriptions to follow in the track of 
 pleasant scenes, may dwell with emphasis upon the charms of 
 an inland voyage one hundred miles in length, made upon the 
 deck of a trim steam-boat ; they may extol the splendour of 
 that long river when its clear waters and green banks are lit 
 up by the summer sum ; but they will find the splendour 
 solitary ; they will feel that the activity of commerce and 
 the energy of profitable speculation — the crowded dock and 
 loaded pier are wanting ; they will see that no conspicuous 
 trade flourishes ; and they will close their journey in dis- 
 appointment, considering how so much of the public money 
 has been laid out upon a district and a work furnishing so 
 few elements to justify the expenditure. Surprise will not 
 end here. The traveller will be struck with astonishment 
 when leaving that great river without commerce, he comes to 
 others flowing eastward, upon which the whole traffic of the 
 
 * '* The Thames," says Inglis, "Trent, Mersey, and Severn, v/hen they 
 lose the character of streams and become rivers, hold a noiseless course ; 
 but the Shannon, larger than all the four, here pours that immense body 
 of water, which above the rapids is 40 feet deep and 300 yards wide, 
 through and above a congregation of huge stones and rocks which extend 
 nearly half-a-mile, and offers not only an unusual scene, but a spectacle 
 approaching much nearer to the sublime than any moderately-sized 
 stream can offer even in its highest cascade." — Inglis' s Ireland, p. 181, 5th 
 edition. 
 
344 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 country export and import is conveyed. Upon every one of the 
 easterly rivers — upon the upper and lower Bann, the Boyne, 
 the Barrow, the Nore, the Slaney and the Suir, obvious 
 improvements strike the eye, all easy of execution — all calcu- 
 lated to be immediately remunerative, and yet all left un- 
 attempted. 
 
 Amongst the positive advantages* — few when compared 
 with the outlay — derived from the works on the Shannon, are 
 a few substantial bridges, (particularly those built at Athlone 
 and Banagher) some piers erected in the lower river, and the 
 drainage of 32,500 acres of land. The Commissioners 
 estimated the pecuniary benefit of this last improvement at 
 from 40 to 100 per cent, upon the previous value of the 
 reclaimed land ; and of this the Government made the 
 owners a present. So much liberality appears as yet to have 
 been indifferently requited, for a decided majority of the land- 
 owners affected have neglected to observe one of the few 
 obligations imposed upon them by the Commissioners. The 
 cost of the piers constructed upon private estates was to be 
 provided partly by the public and partly by the proprietors of 
 the sites adopted : and the proportion of expense so borne by 
 the latter was £18,593 9^. 2c?. The public half appears to 
 have been always forthcoming, but of the landlords^ proportion, 
 according to the reports of 1843, 4, and 5, only £3,423 have 
 been paid.-f* 
 
 A fact or two of considerable importance remains to be 
 
 * An unwillingness to run into minute details has led to the suppres- 
 sion of several faulty practices to which the Commissioners have fre- 
 quently leaned. For instance, in their 5th Report repeated cases are set 
 forth in which the contractors failed to complete their engagements, but 
 in no one of them does a penalty appear to have been recovered from the 
 sureties. The Commissioners submit to these misfortunes with exemplary 
 patience, placing the suspended works in the hands of an engineer of their 
 own choosing ; and allowing the defaulter and his sureties to go their 
 ways absolved of consequences. 
 
 f More than one return has been made specifying the amount advanced 
 and repaid by counties, and showing the particular balances outstanding 
 in each case at the period of the return ; but no such information has 
 been vouchsafed either by the Commissioners or Parliament with respect 
 to landlords who have not observed their engagements. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 845 
 
 I noticed. TvvO great objects were proposed to be attained by 
 this work. First, an equalisation in the level of the waters 
 of the river, so that destructive land-floods should no longer 
 be of frequent occurrence ; and secondly, increased facilities 
 for internal traffic. But it is asserted, that the waters of the 
 Shannon have risen more irregularly, and that land-floods have 
 been more extensive since the works of the Commissioners 
 have been erected here, than they were ever before known to 
 be. The plans have not included the construction of a single 
 towing-path or track-way along the banks of the river, to 
 enable farmers and merchants to expedite the conveyance of 
 produce or commodities from place to place ; and it further 
 appears, that although towards the close of the year 1844, the 
 greater part of the money voted by Parliament had been 
 expended, the trade of the river, notwithstanding the im- 
 provements eflected, had decreased to a marked extent in 
 different branches."^' 
 
 The total receipts on account of tolls and wharfage at the 
 stations along the river produced in the year 1840, £1,849 
 95. 2Jc?. ; and in 1844, c^l,564 17i'. 7c?.— decrease, £284^ 
 Us. 5id. 
 
 The quantity of goods conveyed to and from the Grand and 
 Royal Canals and the Shannon in the year 1840, was 
 
 From the Shannon to the Canals . 16,721 tons. 
 From the Canals to the Shannon . 14,266^ 
 
 Total . S0,987i 
 
 * The expenditure on works, according to Reports 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, 
 stood for each year as follows : — 
 
 1839 . . . £586 17 7i 
 
 1840 .... 87,627 13 3f 
 
 1841 . . . 54,642 8 6^ 
 
 1842 .... 78,964 1 3i 
 
 1843 . . . 73,606 14 2i 
 
 1844 . . . 64,486 14 lU 
 
 Total £359,914 9 11 
 
346 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 In the year 1844, the corresponding amounts stood thus : — 
 From the Canals to the Shannon . . 10,9 24 J 
 
 From the Shannon to the Canals . . 14,838 J 
 
 Total . 25,752i 
 
 Decrease . 5,234J 
 
 The total number of steam-boat passengers on the river in 
 the year 1840, was . . . 18,544^ 
 
 1844 . 16,113 
 
 Decrease . 2,431 1 
 
 So large a measure as the commission for improving the 
 navigation of the river Shannon having been fully secured, not 
 a few persons inclined to the opinion that the fate of private 
 enterprise in Ireland had been decided by the occurrence, and 
 that the course which all works of the class to which it 
 belonged were to take for the future, had at length been 
 definitely settled upon the state system. Animated by the 
 hopes to which this view of the case gave birth, a far more 
 extended field of patronage and power was quickly occupied 
 by the expanding genius of its authors. A number of Irish 
 railways had been projected, Acts of Parhament had been passed 
 for making several lines, and the construction of some of them 
 having commenced, the opportunity seemed favourable for a 
 bold and comprehensive effort to bring the whole under the 
 control of commissioners appointed by Government. If this 
 ambitious movement had succeeded, it would have crowned 
 with success the untired labours of many years; and thus 
 would have been perfected to the fullest extent the artful 
 scheme of forcing the country to depend for every improve- 
 ment upon the will and authority of the set of persons who 
 might happen to execute in Ireland the functions of her 
 Majesty's ministers for the time being. 
 
 Amongst the numerous evidences of misgovernment exhi- 
 bited in the social condition of Ireland, no two are more con- 
 spicuous than the lateness of the period at which all the great 
 improvements distinctive of the progress of modern civilization 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 S47 
 
 have been introduced, and the slowness of the rate at which, 
 when they have found their way into the country, they have 
 struggled into a state of feeble and insecure existence. This 
 remark applies with equal force to the construction of common 
 roads, as well as canals and railways. 
 
 Irish roads were principally made by compulsory labour so 
 late as the reign of Charles I. The act ]0 C. I. sess. 2, c. 26, 
 compelled the occupiers of land in every parish to furnish, 
 when required for this purpose, horses and cars on six days in 
 each week, and it obliged the peasantry to contribute their 
 labour at the same time. When these authoritative means 
 failed to produce the desired result, grand juries were em- 
 powered to levy whatever money might be found necessary to 
 complete the work. But compulsory labour proved ineffec- 
 tual, and the money raised by grand juries was misapplied, 
 says Newenham, " by the practice of jobbing, which has ever 
 prevailed in a peculiar degree in Ireland, and from which no 
 assembly, authorised to raise money on the subject, from the 
 House of Commons to the vestry, has been exempt." 
 
 Several Acts of Parliament were passed to rectify the 
 latter abuse. Amongst those most frequently cited are 
 the acts 4 Anne, c. 6. ; 6 Geo. I. c. 10. ; 1 Geo. II. 
 c. 13. They availed but for little good. No road Act passed 
 the legislature during the reign of Wm. III. and in 
 the reign of Anne there were but two. After this state- 
 ment, one reads with surprise the remark of Arthur Young in 
 his tour — " For a country so far behind us as Ireland to have 
 got suddenly so much the start of us in the article of roads 
 cannot fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly." 
 
 The turnpike plan perhaps maybe credited with some portion 
 of this improvement. It appears to have been first resorted to 
 about the year 1729, when the Acts 8 Geo. II. cc. 18 & 19, 
 were passed together, for making roads from Dubhn to Kil- 
 cuUen, and from Dublin to Navan. This example kindled a 
 lively spirit of emulation. When the Parliament next met, 
 in the year 1731, separate Acts were passed for making roads 
 from Dublin to Dunleer, from Dublin to Kinegad ; from the 
 
348 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 Black Bull in Meath, to Athboy, from Kilcullen to Kilkenny, 
 from Kilkenny to Clonmel, from Cork to the foot of the Kil- 
 worth mountains, from Naas to ^laryborough, from Newcastle 
 to Limerick, and from Limerick to Cork. 
 
 The turnpike plan, however, proved unsuccessful when pushed 
 to an extensive scale. The trusts were mismanaged and fell hea- 
 vily into debt. Ere long the system now general came into use ; 
 that, namely, which authorizes the Postmaster-General to direct 
 the construction and repair of such mail-coach roads as he 
 may deem necessary for the public service, but leaves all other 
 roads to be made upon the concurrent agreement of the proper 
 grand jury, and the rate-payers of the district requiring the 
 accommodation. In the former case the county at large is 
 rated for the work — in the latter the rate-payers of the ba- 
 ronies through which the road cuts. 
 
 The small number of turnpike roads in Ireland would 
 excite surprise, but for the known difficulties so long experi- 
 enced by the people of that country in prosecuting works of 
 internal improvement. The facts connected with the turnpike- 
 road system are few, and they deserve to be commemorated. 
 
 The first persons who afforded Ireland the benefits of 
 good turnpike roads, and the use of mail-coaches upon an ex- 
 tended and respectable scale were Scotchmen. Their names 
 were William Bourne, John Anderson and Alexander Taylor, 
 and their operations commenced about the year 1793. Mr. 
 Taylor,* a Major of Engineers, was employed by Govern- 
 ment in the survey and repair of some of the principal roads 
 of the country. Finding these everywhere in a bad condition, 
 and the trusts so overloaded with debt as to render the duty 
 of executing the necessary repairs onerous in the extreme, he 
 suggested to Messrs. Anderson and Bourne (who were natives 
 of the part of Scotland from which he sprung) the idea of 
 undertaking to keep certain main lines of road in good repair, 
 and to pay off by degrees the debts due upon them, in consi- 
 deration of a grant from the Government of the right of taking 
 
 * He was the author of a set of Irish Road Maps, which were pub- 
 lished with his name. 
 
JOINT- STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 849 
 
 tolls upon them for a definite term of years. Agreements 
 having been entered into upon these conditions, and ratified 
 by Act of Parliament,* Mr. Bourne and Mr. Anderson 
 obtained the road from Naas to Limerick, and Major Taylor 
 the road from Dublin to Kilcullen for a term of fifty years. 
 The Major's principal engagements thenceforward were those 
 of a road-contractor, which he carried on upon a scale far more 
 extensive than had been previously attempted in Ireland, an 
 observation which applies with equal force to the proceedings 
 of his associates, who maintained as road lessees and coach 
 proprietors very large and flourishing establishments. Mr. 
 Bourne settled in Dublin, and Mr. Anderson in Fermoy, where 
 he became a banker, and was created a baronet. But though 
 he outshone his early associates for a length of time by the su- 
 perior brilliancy of his career, his end was unfortunate. He ac- 
 quired a large estate in lands and houses, many of which he built, 
 at Fermoy, when the Government, at his recommendation, made 
 that town the principal military depot of the south of Ireland, 
 but he subsequently failed as a banker, and died impoverished. 
 
 While the Messrs. Taylor, Bourne and Anderson were in 
 the zenith of their prosperity they engrossed in their re- 
 spective districts the best and largest portion of the business 
 of the country. The right possessed by them of imposing a 
 heavy toll upon all coaches and carriages travelling along the 
 roads of which they were lessees, while their own conveyances 
 passed free, gave them advantages which forbad compe- 
 tition and practically invested them with a monopoly of the 
 principal routes of communication between Dublin and the 
 southern counties. It is affirmed, however, that they executed 
 their contract with the government and the public ener- 
 getically and faithfully. Their coaches were commodious and 
 well appointed, the debts due upon the different roads of 
 which they became lessees were gradually discharged, the 
 accruing interest was paid with regularity, and the condition 
 in which the roads had been kept was sensibly improved. 
 
 * The Acts 33 Geo. III. c. 32 ; 38 Geo. III. c. 33; and 59 Geo. III. 
 c. 108, are those which chiefly regulate the terms of these contracts. 
 
350 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 But however well the public convenience was then consulted 
 in particular directions, and however suitable were the facilities 
 provided for travelling and correspondence on four main lines of 
 road, namely, one from Dublin to Limerick, a second from 
 Dublin to Cork by Cashel, a third from Dublin to Cork by 
 Clonmel, and a fourth from Dublin to \Vaterford, other parts 
 of the country were left for a much longer period to what may 
 be literally defined as their natural resources. 
 
 One rather curious instance of this state of things will 
 bear to be described, because it also furnishes striking evidence 
 of the rapid pace at which improvements will proceed and 
 fructify in Ireland whenever they happen to be wisely accom- 
 modated to the public wants. So late as the year 1807 the 
 mail bags between Waterford and Clonmel were carried in a 
 common cart, and there was no public mode of conveyance 
 between Carrick-on-Suir and Waterford but passage boats, the 
 chief of which is well remembered as Tom Morrissey's boat. 
 These dropped from one town to the other as the tide served, 
 fare fourpence a head — distance twelve miles — time occupied 
 seven hours. Such was the state of travelling between Water- 
 ford and Carrick-on-Suir in the year 1807, and in the year 
 1836 there passed between those towns and on to Clonmel 
 daily a four-horsed mail coach and eight public cars, each car- 
 rying from eight to twenty passengers, and all together making 
 eighteen journeys backwards and forwards. 
 
 Almost the \vhole of this large increase was the unaided 
 work of a private individual, Mr. Charles Bianconi of Clonmel. 
 This gentleman so eminent for intelligence, ability and success, 
 is a native of Piedmont, and came over to Dublin at an early 
 age as an apprentice to a carver and gilder. But his master, who 
 was also an Itahan, seems to have had but little capital beyond 
 the sums he had received as fees with his apprentices, of 
 whom there were two besides young Bianconi. The occu- 
 pation of these boys was that of selling religious prints in the 
 streets of Dublin. Bearing this hard lot with patience Bianconi 
 acquired in process of time sufficient knowledge of his master's 
 art to start on his own account. His early career was a very 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 351 
 
 humble one. He walked from town to town with his pack on 
 his back, vending picture frames and small looking-glasses 
 and soliciting orders. He opened his first shop in Waterford, 
 but ultimately fixed himself in Clonmel, where by indomitable 
 industry and economy he established a good trade. Some 
 profitable dealings in the purchase and sale of guineas during 
 the war with Napoleon augmented his means and enabled him 
 to set up that particular mode of conveyance which has since 
 been carried so extensively into use, and proved useful beyond 
 description. 
 
 It has generally been thought that the idea of enlarging the 
 common jaunting car of the country and turning it into a 
 public conveyance originated with Mr. Bianconi. But such 
 is not the case. The first car that is known to have been 
 run in this manner was one set up between Waterford and 
 Carrick-on-Suir about the year 1812. The projector broke 
 down under the experiment. JNIr. Bianconi boasts that he 
 has often been a passenger in Tom Morrissey's boat ; it is 
 therefore reasonable to believe that he often travelled by 
 Withers"* car, and that he adopted from that failure the plan of 
 his own extensive and successful establishment, as to the 
 growth and character of which the following paper, read by 
 him at the meeting of the British Association held at Cork 
 in the year 1843, furnishes an interesting account : — 
 
 "Up to the year 1815, the public accommodation for the convenience 
 of passengers in Ireland was confined to a few mail and day coaches 
 on the great lines of road. 
 
 " From my peculiar position in the country, I had ample opportunities 
 of reflecting on many things, and nothing struck me more forcibly than 
 the great vacuum that existed in travelling accommodation between the 
 different orders of society. 
 
 **The inconvenience felt for the want of more extended means of 
 intercourse, particularly from the interior of the country to the different 
 market towns, gave great advantage to the few, at the expense of the 
 many, and above all great loss of time. For instance, a farmer living 
 twenty or thirty miles from his market town spent the day in riding to it, 
 a second day doing his business, and a third day returning. 
 
 "In July, 1815, I started a car for the convenience of passengers from 
 Clonmel to Caher, which I subsequently extended to Tipperary and 
 
352 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 Limerick ; at the end of the same year I started similar 'cars from 
 Clonmel to Cashel and Thurles, and from Clonmel to Carrick and 
 Waterfoi d ; and I have since extended this estabhshment, including the 
 most insulated localities, namely, from Longford to Ballina and Bel- 
 mullet, which is 201 miles north-west of Dubhn ; from Athlone to Galway 
 and Clifden, 183 miles due west of Dublin ; from Limerick to Tralee and 
 Cahirciveen, 233 miles south-west of Dublin ; and numbering 110 
 vehicles, including mail-coaches and different-sized cars, capable of 
 carrying from four to twenty passengers each, and travelling eight 
 or nine miles an hour, at an average fare of one penny farthing per 
 mile for each passenger, and performing daily 3,800 miles, passing 
 through over 140 stations for the change of horses ; consuming 
 3 to 4,000 tons of hay, and from 30 to 40,000 barrels of oats annually, 
 all of which are purchased in the respective localities. 
 
 *• This establishment does not travel on Sundays, unless such portions 
 of it as are in connexion with the Post-Office or Canals, for the following 
 reasons : — First, the Irish, being a religious people, will not travel on 
 business on Sundays ; and secondly, experience teaches me that I can 
 work a horse eight miles per day, six days in the week, much better than 
 I can six miles for seven days. 
 
 ^' The advantages derived by the country from this establishment are 
 almost incalculable ; for instance — the farmer who formerly rode, and 
 spent three days in making his market, can now do so in one for a few 
 shillings, thereby saving two clear days and the expense and use of 
 his horse. 
 
 "The example of this institution has been generally followed, and cars 
 innumerable leave the interior for the principal towns in the south of 
 Ireland, which bring parties to and from markets at an enormous saving 
 of time, and in many instances cheaper than they could walk it. 
 
 " This establishment has now been in existence twenty-eight years, tra- 
 velling with its mails at all hours of the day and night, and has never met 
 any interruption in the performance of its arduous duties.* Much surprise 
 has often been expressed at the high order of men connected with it, and 
 at its popularity; but parties thus expressing themselves forget to look 
 at Irish society with sufficient grasp of mind. For my part I cannot 
 better compare it than to a man merging to convalescense from a serious 
 attack of malignant fever, and requiring generous and nutritive, in place 
 of medical treatment. Thus I act with my drivers, who are taken from 
 the lowest grade of the establishment, and who are progressively 
 advanced according to their respective merits, as opportunity offers, and 
 who know that nothing can deprive them of this reward, and a super- 
 
 * It is to be regretted that this language can no longer be held. Mr. 
 Bianconi's cars have been attacked and robbed since this account of his 
 establishment was made pubhc. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 353 
 
 annuated allowance of their full wages, in old age, and under accident, 
 unless their wilful and improper conduct : and, as to its popularity, 
 I never yet attempted to do an act of generosity or common justice, 
 publicly or privately, that I was not met by manifold reciprocity. 
 
 " I regret ray friend Doctor Taylor should have so suddenly called 
 upon me to take part in this association, in place of giving me an 
 opportunity of preparing a document worthy of their acceptance, but 
 such as this is, it is perfectly at their service, with the best wishes of 
 
 "Charles Bianconi." 
 
 While Mr. Bianconi was thus laudably occupied in pro- 
 viding an economical mode of travelling for the agricultural and 
 trading classes, an Irishman particularly distinguished him- 
 self in the higher branch of the same business. Peter Purcell 
 of Halverstown in the county of Kildare, coach proprietor and 
 mail contractor in Ireland was the son of an eminent physician 
 who realized a good property by his practice in Dublin. 
 Peter it is said was originally intended for the profession of 
 the law, and articled to an attorney. Mr. Bianconi relates 
 that he was forced to become a car proprietor by the weight 
 of the pack he used to carry on his back, and the time he 
 lost in toiling from one place to another. But we are 
 not told what was Mr. PurcelFs prompter when he exchanged 
 the dull confinement of a lawyer's office for the open avocations 
 involved in the care of a coach and four. Perhaps it was 
 that lively taste for horse flesh by which almost every young 
 fellow in Ireland is animated. Be that as it may, his career 
 proved highly useful and full of merit. He started under 
 formidable circumstances. The best and principal lines of 
 road were pre-occupied in every direction by Scotchmen and 
 Englishmen, fortified by the favour of government, and 
 supported by parliamentary grants and exclusive privileges. 
 The Irishman entered the field of competition alone and 
 unaided under peculiar disadvantages, and he succeeded in 
 beating off all his rivals but one. With the exception of the 
 Messrs. Bourne, who still retain by virtue of their unexpired 
 right of toll the Naas and Limerick road, and maintain upon 
 it mail and stage coaches, Peter Purcell had almost the 
 whole of the business of the south of Ireland, and no small 
 Vol. II. A A 
 
354 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 portion of that of the north, in his own hands during the 
 year 1836. In theyear 1840 another Scotchman, Mr. Croal, 
 underbid him in the government contract for mail coaches, 
 but Mr. Purcell continued to horse them. His other coaching 
 business continued undiminished until the opening of the 
 DubHn and Drogheda Railway in the year 1844, when 
 becoming chairman of the Great Southern and Western or 
 Dublin and Cashel Railway Company, he wisely began to 
 transfer into the new style of locomotion the large and 
 valuable interest he had so well established in the old one. 
 The majority of those persons who visit Ireland or write 
 of the country are sure to extol Mr. Bianconi, who certainly 
 is deserving of every praise, and constitutes a real notability, 
 but few seem to notice, or at least to commend in appropriate 
 terms, all that Mr. Purcell has done. And yet, perhaps, his 
 achievements have been more difficult than those of the enter- 
 prising Italian. The one, though a foreigner, had the field 
 of operations to himself, the other laboured constantly with 
 great odds against him, and his undertakings have been 
 of a higher kind. It is not too much to add of him that a 
 man more usefully employed, one evincing sounder judgment, 
 steadier talent, or acquitting himself of the various duties of 
 his station with more diligence, probity, temper, and success 
 has not appeared in Ireland during the last forty years.* 
 
 The sketch given in the last few pages will enable the 
 reader to form an opinion of the condition and extent of 
 travelling accommodation in Ireland about the year 1836, when 
 railways upon an extensive plan were first projected by com- 
 petent engineers for the further improvement of the country. 
 Only two Irish acts had been obtained from the legislature 
 up to that date, namely, the Waterford and Limerick Rail- 
 way Act, passed in the year 1826, but never put in force,t 
 
 * Mr. Purcell had one partner, Mr. Jamieson, a Scotchman, who died 
 in theyear 1844. Mr. Purcell himself died the year after. Mr. Jamieson 
 left Mr. Purcell all the fortune he had realised with him, amounting to 
 £30,000. 
 
 t The shareholders quarrelled amongst themselves, but worse still, it 
 was discovered after the act had passed that it would not be safe to 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 and the Dublin and Kingstown Railway Act, passed in the 
 year 1832. Four years afterwards capital abounded, and 
 speculation in Ireland as well as in England ran into extreme 
 measures; prospectuses were issued for more than twenty 
 lines of Irish railway, and acts of parliament were passed for 
 constructing the Ulster Railway from Belfast to Armagh, 
 the Dublin and Drogheda Railway, the Dundalk Western, 
 and the Cork and Passage Railways. The bill for incor- 
 porating the Great Leinster and Munster Railway Company 
 from Dublin to Kilkenny was rejected upon a point of form by 
 the House of Commons during the same session, but a better 
 compliance with the standing orders insured the royal assent 
 without much difficulty in the following year. 
 
 The old faction, however, was by no means inactive on that 
 occasion. There was no public display of opposition, but its 
 secret exertions were admirably managed. Its patrons and 
 allies were advancing rapidly in office and in power, and ere 
 long a display of strength was made, in which capital advan- 
 tage was taken of all the favourable circumstances of the 
 period, and appeals were addressed to the public mind and to 
 the legislature, of which it is not too much to record that they 
 were distinguished by consummate art and by talents in many 
 respects most commendable and imposing. 
 
 The Great Leinster and Munster Railway Bill had reached 
 its last stage unopposed in the House of Lords when the 
 Marquis of Lansdowne interfered and insisted upon the inser- 
 tion of two clauses in behalf of the Irish Railway Commis- 
 sioners. By one of these the construction of the line was 
 suspended beyond Sallins, a distance of eighteen miles from 
 Dublin, in order to give those Commissioners time to produce 
 the report upon which they had now been engaged more than 
 a year, and by the other it was provided, that if the Commis- 
 sioners should report in favour of any line in another direction 
 the Company now incorporated should not be permitted to 
 
 adopt curves so sharp as those resorted to by the engineer, and that the 
 capital subscribed would barely cover a third of the cost of constructing 
 the line. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 oppose the construction of the new work, or to claim compen- 
 sation for any injury inflicted upon their interests by its 
 construction. Clogged with these restrictions the act became 
 no longer a working measure, and a sum of £20,000 was 
 vainly expended on a well-digested plan for introducing into 
 the South of Ireland the greatest improvement of the age we 
 live in. 
 
 We are thus led to consider the Irish Railway Commission, 
 appointed in the year 1836, under the most promising aus- 
 pices, but followed by most disastrous consequences. The 
 history and moral of that clever piece of mischief may be 
 comprised in one significant sentence. The object contem- 
 plated, was to facilitate the progress of railways ; the result 
 produced a positive arrest of those undertakings for the full 
 period of eight years. The proceedings of a body at once so 
 fatal and so skilful deserve to be carefully examined and 
 faithfully recorded. The Commission originated in a meeting 
 of Irish noblemen and gentlemen of high rank and considerable 
 property held in London, who presented a requisition upon 
 the subject to the government. The Marquis of Lansdowne 
 submitted a motion in the House of Lords affirmatory of the 
 course thus recommended, and the Crown soon after issued 
 the Commission. In looking back to this early stage of the 
 business, it is impossible not to be struck with the moderation 
 and propriety of the opinions put forward by the different 
 parties who took part in the proceedings. When the 
 Marquis of Lansdowne opened the question in the House 
 of Lords, August 2, 1836, he spoke in terms worthy of his 
 official station. 
 
 There are parties," he said, " in Ireland, and parties in England, who 
 I am perfectly confident will be ready to come forward hereafter to aid 
 projects of this description, if supported and guided by such investigation 
 and such a report as this motion contemplated. It would not however 
 be proper that such individuals should be directed to look up to the 
 Commissioners or to their report for an estimate of the remuneration 
 they were likely to gain by becoming undertakers in works of this 
 description. That must depend on the prudence of individuals them- 
 selves — a quality too seldom exercised. It is for those who are on the 
 
JOINT- STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 357 
 
 spot to estimate the supply and the demand, as well as the degree in 
 which that supply and demand may be increased. It is for persons thus 
 situated, to form a judgment of the utility of an undertaking ; and 
 to decide whether they ought to purchase shares in it. ... I make 
 these observations the more pointedly, knomng as I do that high 
 expectations are easily created in the minds of individuals, but more 
 especially in that country to which I particularly allude, that public 
 assistance will be afforded when any plan seems to receive the sanction 
 of government. In such, public assistance is usually looked for. Now 
 I will distinctly state that whatever information can be given by the 
 Commissioners with reference to the practicability of particular lines of 
 railroad will be afforded, but that all public assistance will stop there. 
 Those who embark in such projects should have, at the public expense, 
 information as to the practicability of particular lines of railroad, but 
 beyond that they are not to look for public assistance.'' 
 
 With this suitable introduction, His Lordship moved and 
 carried the following resolution : — 
 
 "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he 
 will be pleased to appoint persons of competent authority to consider and 
 report upon the best lines for forming railroad communications through 
 Ireland, pointing out the comparative advantages and facilities afforded 
 for such communications with the principal places in that country, for- 
 the information of individuals wilUng to embark in joint-stock com*- 
 panies for the purpose of carrying such projects into effect ; and that 
 such assistance with respect to the lines to be adopted shall be given by- 
 the Board of Works as his Majesty may deem expedient." 
 
 Letters patent constituting the Commission issued October 
 20, 1836, and the gentlemen appointed to carry into effect , 
 the resolutions of the House of Lords, and the views of the^> 
 government in general, were General, now Sir John Burgoyne^ 
 Chief of the Board of Works ; Lieutenant Thomas Drummond, 
 Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant ; Peter Barlow, Pro- 
 fessor of Mathematics at W oolwich Academy ; and Richard 
 Griffith, head of the Irish Boundary Survey, an engineer 
 of considerable experience, and high reputation in Ireland. 
 Captain Harry David Jones was made Secretary. 
 
 The letters patent, after reciting the terms of the address — 
 praying for the appointment of competent persons to ascertain 
 the best lines between any of the principal places in Ireland, 
 
358 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 might be willing thereafter to apply to parliament — proceeded 
 to direct, 
 
 First, a general survey of railways to guide the legislature 
 in the consideration of the projects that might be brought 
 forward. 
 
 Secondly, The best mode of directing the development of 
 this new and important means of intercourse in the channels, 
 whereby the greatest advantages must be obtained at the 
 smallest outlay. 
 
 Thirdly, To inquire into the port or ports from whence the 
 navigation to America might best be carried on, and 
 
 Fourthly, To inquire generally into all essential matters. 
 
 In order that these duties might be satisfactorily performed, 
 the Commissioners were authorized to examine persons the 
 most competent by reason of their situation, knowledge, or 
 experience, and to call for all documents, papers, or returns, 
 calculated to assist their researches. 
 
 They were further instructed in a Treasury Minute ad- 
 mirably expressed respecting the particular course to be pursued 
 on the occasion and the nature of the benefits expected to 
 result from their labours. 
 
 " My Lords," ran the Minute, " will watch with the greatest interest 
 the progress of the inquiry thus instituted ; they feel it however to be 
 the duty of government to guard against any inference that it is their 
 intention to interfere with private enterprise in its legitimate application 
 to purposes either of local or general improvement ; they also feel it 
 necessary that it should be distinctly understood that by obtaining this 
 information, no intention or pledge is either expressed or implied that 
 works of this description should be undertaken at the public expense. 
 
 *' The main benefits to^ be obtained, appear to my Lords to be the 
 impartial and authoritative information which may thus be laid before 
 parliament, and which will aid the legislature in deciding between rival 
 and conflicting interests, the tendency it will have of preventing ruinous 
 competitions, and the losses and expenses of litigations before Com- 
 mittees, and the facilities which may be afforded to capitalists and to 
 companies to judge of the most advantageous mode in which invest- 
 ments in railroads can be made." 
 
 The state of railway enterprise in Ireland stood at this 
 juncture as follows : 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 359 
 
 1. The Dublin and Kingstown Railway was at work, 
 having been constructed by Mr. Vignoles. 
 
 2. The Ulster or Belfast and Armagh Line was in progress ; 
 two calls had been made : capital £600,000 ; length of line 
 thirty-six miles ; Engineers Messrs. Stephenson and Bald ; 
 estimated profit 12 per cent. 
 
 3. The Dublin and Drogheda Line, work begun, capital 
 £600.000 ; two calls made ; length of line SH miles ; Engineers 
 Messrs. Cubitt and Macneill ; estimated profit 10 per cent. 
 
 4. The Great Leinster and Munster Railways ; First Exten- 
 sion from Dublin to Kilkenny ; act obtained, capital £800,000 ; 
 two calls made ; length of line 73 i miles ; Engineers, 
 Messrs. Macneill and A her ; estimated profit 13 per cent. 
 
 5. Great Leinster and Munster; Second Extension Dublin 
 to Limerick; length of line 111 miles; Engineer, Mr. 
 Bald; survey lodged; proposed capital £1,000,000; esti- 
 mated profit 10 per cent. 
 
 6. Waterford and Limerick; length of line 75 miles; 
 Engineers, Messrs. Brunei and Bald; survey lodged ; pro- 
 posed capital £1,000,000 ; estimated profit 10 per cent. 
 
 7. Dublin and Gal way ; length of line 1 20 miles ; survey 
 lodged ; Engineers, Messrs. Bald and Henry ; proposed 
 capital 1,000,000 ; estimated profit 10 per cent. 
 
 8. Dublin and Armagh (Inland) ; length of line eighty- 
 four miles ; survey lodged ; proposed capital £1,000,000 — 
 estimated profit 10 per cent. 
 
 These works and projects having all been laid before the 
 Commissioners, pursuant to a requisition issued for the 
 purpose by their own secretary, may be fairly held to have 
 constituted the business of the Commission. Private Enter- 
 prise had at its own impulse projected 532 miles of railway, 
 and proposed to invest in their construction a capital of 
 £6,200,000. Some portions of this work had already been 
 undertaken by joint-stock companies — for others companies 
 were making the usual parliamentary preparations. It was 
 therefore the marked duty of the Commission — a duty marked 
 out not less definitively and strongly by the nature and circum- 
 
360 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 stances of the case, than by the express terms of the documents 
 constituting their authority and conveying instructions re- 
 specting the proper course of their inquiries — to have con- 
 sidered these projects separately and to have reported upon 
 each — to have examined and brought to bear upon their 
 details the knowledge of persons most competent to speak 
 of their applicability to purposes of local and general improve- 
 ment — to afford information to capitalists and companies — by 
 no means to interfere with private enterprise, and above all 
 neither to express nor imply that works of this description 
 should be undertaken at the public expense. 
 
 Most unfortunately for Ireland the duty so clearly and 
 wisely prescribed was not performed. The issue of this ex- 
 quisite labour took all men by surprise, except the small and 
 anxious band of those who, panting for office, are fain to applaud 
 everything that bears the stamp of official authority. The 
 new recommendations startled the warmest friends of the go- 
 vernment, but it was found upon examination that they did 
 not possess even the poor recommendation of novelty. When 
 extremes are rushed upon, and attempts are made to carry 
 arbitrary measures, the apology usually tendered is that every 
 other effort having been tried without avail, the one pro- 
 posed is thrown out as a last resource. There was, however, 
 no pretext for such an excuse in this case. The plan of the 
 Commissioners was as old and hackneyed as the history of 
 Public Works in Ireland. The practice of all such function- 
 aries resolves itself into a very simple proceeding. They 
 inquire in order that they may be appointed to execute. 
 These last Commissioners it is true had been more ex- 
 pensively educated, and upon a broader scale than any of 
 their predecessors; they evinced moreover a higher style 
 in the treatment of their subject; they displayed con- 
 siderable information, a polished art, keen sagacity and con- 
 summate dissimulation. But superior as they proved them- 
 selves in almost every respect to those who had gone over the 
 same ground before them, they only proposed to repeat in a 
 more arbitrary manner and upon a wider range an experiment 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 361 
 
 resorted to over and over again, and in every instance found 
 to fail. It cannot be too often repeated that the progress of 
 Irish public works had been, up to this period, nothing but 
 a history of government interference with private enterprise 
 and complete consequent failure. Before the Union and after 
 the Union, Irish enterprise had never been allowed to proceed 
 without government commissions and government boards, 
 v/hich, under the pretext of directing their public works and 
 encouraging their execution by loans and grants of public 
 money, had only impeded their advance and rendered them 
 the most expensive and unproductive of modern speculations. 
 
 But it is not upon these grounds of general policy alone 
 that fault is to be found with the recommendations of the 
 Irish Railway Commissioners. Actual facts opposed their 
 conclusions, and the statistics of their own report supplied 
 the evidence to prove the errors of the position in which they 
 sought to establish themselves. If we set the points at issue 
 fairly in juxta-position, they will clearly establish their 
 respective values. 
 
 Private enterprise had taken the field in the first instance, 
 and looking at the established traffic had placed four principal 
 lines in advanced positions : 
 
 1. One north of Dublin, by Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry 
 and Armagh, to Belfast. 
 
 2. One south of Dublin, by Naas, Carlow, Kilkenny, Clon- 
 mel, Mitchelstown and Mallow, to Cork, with a western ex- 
 tension, by Kildare, Roscrea and Nenagh, to Limerick. 
 
 3. One to the west, by Mullingar, Athlone and Loughrea, 
 to Gal way. 
 
 4. One from Waterford to Limerick, through Carrick, 
 Clonmel, Cahir and Tipperary. 
 
 The chief merit claimed for these projects was equally 
 legitimate and strong. They connected the most populous 
 towns with the metropolis in the most direct lines and accord- 
 ing to the prevailing streams of traffic. Upon that double 
 ground the case of private enterprise was presumed to rest 
 securely. 
 
362 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 Let US now trace the course of the commissioners and 
 explain the system they sought to establish. One of their 
 first acts escaped public attention at the time, but it was so 
 disingenuous as to render every proceeding taken by them 
 an object of suspicion. A demise of the crown having oc- 
 curred while they were still prosecuting their inquiries, new 
 letters patent for the purpose of continuing their powers 
 were deemed necessary. Those originally issued recited, as 
 was truly the case, that the Commission had been called for to 
 ascertain the best lines between any of the principal places in 
 Ireland which it may be advisable to connect by railways, and 
 for which joint-stock companies may be willing to apply to 
 parliament. But this important passage was secretly struck 
 out of the new Commission issued as a matter of form upon 
 the accession of her present Majesty ! From that moment 
 the business of the Commission became a foregone conclusion. 
 Unable in all probability to resist the temptation presented to 
 them of establishing the Shannon Commission as a precedent 
 for railways, and erecting themselves into a permanent body 
 armed with extraordinary power, and gratified with abundant 
 patronage, the Commissioners appear to have resolved to 
 depart from their instructions and to disappoint the public 
 expectation. But apprehending the resentment of the large 
 and influential class whose vested rights and interests they 
 would thus commit to destruction, and aware that their plan 
 was directly contradicted by the letter as well as the spirit of 
 their instructions, they contrived at least one excuse for their 
 premeditated misconduct. Taking advantage of the Unex- 
 pected incident that had occurred those words were picked 
 out of the new letters patent which defined their office. This 
 being done they were bold enough to pursue the very course 
 which those words had interdicted, and at the same time to 
 affect that they had fulfilled their functions in their integrity. 
 It was not without reason that many public writers exclaimed 
 against the pretensions of a cause and the trustworthiness 
 of men whose justification of the most critical act of their 
 career was made to depend upon the success of so mean a 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 363 
 
 trick as the liberty taken on this occasion with the public 
 and the House of Lords. 
 
 We have next to enter upon an examination of the published 
 acts of this Commission. A short report containing an 
 ominous remark or two having been sent out by way of pilot 
 balloon in the year 1837, their complete work was presented 
 to both Houses during the following session of parliament. 
 It would be uncandid to refer to that document without 
 commending the care and ability with which its various con- 
 tents were collected, the judgment with which they were 
 displayed, the unprecedented body of highly instructive and 
 important information which was thus conveyed to the public 
 respecting the actual condition of the people and the nature 
 and extent of their trade and commerce, as well as the general 
 resources of the country and the progress of improvement in 
 every direction. As far as subsidiary matters could be made 
 to illustrate the subject proposed the report fulfilled most 
 creditably every condition imposed upon its authors; but it 
 dealt with the main subject itself in a manner so much at 
 variance with established precedents and every rule of autho- 
 rity* laid down for observance, not only in that particular 
 
 * It is to be observed that these Commissioners had even more infor- 
 mtition before them respecting the main object of their inquiry than has 
 been as yet noticed in these pages. The opinion of the Irish landowners 
 who first brought this question before the government, the resolution of 
 the House of Lords upon it, the Marquis of Lansdowne's speech when 
 moving that resolution, the Treasury minute explanatory of the light 
 in which it was properly regarded by the government, and the letters 
 patent issued by William 4, were not the only exponents, accessible upon 
 the occasion, of the true principles for governing proceedings of this 
 description. Committees of the House of Commons and the highest 
 authorities in parliament, had repeatedly considered the question and 
 reported their opinions upon it. These should have been respected by 
 the Commissioners, or at least refuted before they were overruled. They 
 emanated from no common men, and spoke a language not in the least 
 degree hesitating or equivocal. For instance, the Railway Committee 
 of the House of Commons which sat in 1836, and which, with Mr. 
 Poulett Thompson, as President of the Board of Trade, in the chair, 
 consisted of the most eminent men from both sides of the house. 
 Amongst them were Sir R. Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir J. Graham, Mr, 
 Hume, Lord Granville Somerset, Sir J. (afterwards Lord) Wrottesley, Mr, 
 Loch, and others. That Committee inquired "into the expediency of 
 attempting, by some general survey, undertaken by a commission, or 
 
S64 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 instance, but in all similar ones ; and it hazarded conclusions 
 so directly contradicted not by experience alone but by the 
 
 through the Ordnance department, to afford assistance to persons 
 willing to engage in making lines of railway through the country, and 
 likewise for the purpose of guiding the judgment of committees on the 
 merits of competing lines." And the report stated that "a close 
 examination of this proposal convinced them that such an attempt would 
 be productive, in Great Britain at least, of no practical good. The 
 various local interests of intermediate places, which must form an im- 
 portant element in deciding upon the particular line which any proposed 
 railway is to traverse, could not be sufficiently considered by such a 
 commission, if its attention were directed, as it must be, to ascertaining 
 the best engineering line between two given termini ; and if this con- 
 sideration were to be taken into account, the advantage that might be 
 expected to result from having ascertained the line which afforded the 
 least engineering difficulties could no longer be expected. Upon the 
 whole, therefore, it appears decidedly best to leave railways in Great 
 Britain, like all other undertakings, to be decided upon according to the 
 judgment and interest of those who are willing to embark their capital in 
 them, subject only to the scrutiny and control of parliament, and to the 
 increased observation and attention by the public, which your Committee 
 consider will be exercised in consequence of the opportunity afforded by 
 the proposed prolongation of time 
 
 '* With regard to Ireland, where no great lines have hitherto been 
 commenced, it is possible that some assistance may be afforded by the 
 Board of Works, and your Committee have received from his Majesty's 
 government a memorial presented to Viscount Melbourne by a great 
 and influential body of Irish proprietors, desiring a general survey with 
 a view of making out the best lines in that country. But although it 
 may not be inexpedient to direct that some aid should be given by the 
 above-mentioned Board, in assisting in surveys of hues, at the request of 
 the parties interested and at their expense ; your Committee cannot 
 recommend that government should undertake the responsibility of 
 deciding upon the points between which railway communications should 
 be undertaken, or entering upon the extended survey which seems to be 
 desired." 
 
 A motion was made, in the session of 1837, calHng upon government 
 to direct a survey to fix upon the best line for connecting the North 
 of England railways with Scotland. The numbers, on a division, were 
 equal, and the Speaker, Mr. Abercrombie, gave the casting-vote against 
 the motion. Aware that this act might be displeasing to his con- 
 stituents, the citizens of Edinburgh, who were much interested in the 
 question, he addressed a letter to them, containing this passage : — " The 
 Select Committee on Railroads, one of the best comniittees that ever sat, 
 and who have done very great service to the public, sifted and con- 
 sidered this question, and decided against the interference of govern- 
 ment. I know too much, from experience, of the benefits conferred by 
 the report of that Committee, to do anything, in my situation as Speaker, 
 to shake or weaken their authority. I was bound also to look at the 
 interests of the pubhc ; and I saw already enough to convince me, that 
 if a precedent were once established of getting government to inter- 
 fere, there would have been other similar applications, supported by 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 365 
 
 evidence adduced in the document itself ; that severe cen- 
 sures were now justly levelled at the Commissioners, and that 
 most difficult of all imputations to substantiate or refute, and 
 yet one at all times most convincing to the public at large, 
 was cast upon them — of having been biassed in their judg- 
 ment by the hope of producing, as the result of their labours, 
 a state of things which, however questionable on the ground 
 of national policy, w^ould certainly be advantageous to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Having already described the plans* offered by private 
 enterprise it will be proper to produce the counter project of 
 the Commissioners and the mode they suggested for carrying 
 it into execution. These are to be found expressed in the 
 following passages. 
 
 " First then we are of opinion that the main line to the south-west 
 should pass near Maryborough ; there or a little beyond it throw off a 
 branch to Kilkenny ; thence continue its south-western course through a 
 
 canvass and jobbing." Again, while the Commissioners were in the 
 midst of their labours, there appeared an official return bearing in 
 pointed terms upon one branch of their inquiry. It is dated February 21, 
 1837, and entitled, A Report and Survey of Liverpool, Holyhead, and 
 Port Dynllaen Harbours. With that paper the Commissioners were 
 unquestionably well acquainted, for they not only quoted it, but did 
 something more. Lord Melbourne, and the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, state in it — "that whilst they consider the importance of a 
 safe and expeditious line of communication between London and Dublin 
 to be such as to justify the interference of the public, they are by no 
 means prepared to recommend any survey of a line of railroad. Several 
 private bills," they add, " have passed, and works are either in con- 
 templation, or are actually undertaken, upon the successful completion 
 of which a direct line of railroad from Dublin to London must depend. 
 They, therefore, consider, that any interposition on the part of the 
 state, even if it were limited to the single object of a survey, would 
 have a tendency of interfering with private enterprise, and discouraging 
 the application of capital where it may be required for the general im- 
 provement of the country." 
 
 * Singularly enough, plans, sections and estimates of the several lines 
 referred to were called for by the Commissioners and laid before them as 
 early as the year 1 836. But though the report did not appear until the 
 year 1838, the case made out by the Companies formed no portion of its 
 contents. Even a list of their lines was not given. Sums of from 
 £5,000 to £20,000 had been expended in preparing documents to be 
 reported upon — as was imagined — but the whole was treated as so much 
 waste paper. 
 
366 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 very easily traversed country by Thurles to Holycross ; there throw off a 
 second branch to the right, which sweeping close round the Keeper 
 mountains should run through the rich district of the Golden Vale to 
 Limerick ; while the main branch continuing its course through Cashel 
 and winding round the base of the Galtee mountains close by Cahir, 
 should pass through Mallow to Cork. 
 
 ** As part of the same combination. Limerick should be connected 
 with Waterford by a branch crossing a little to the south of the Golden 
 Vale, and passing through Clonmel and Carrick to Waterford ; and thus 
 a railway communication would be completed between the towns of 
 Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Tipperary, 
 Cahir, Thurles, Mallow, Maryborough, &c. 
 
 " Second, with respect to the Northern districts, we are of opinion 
 that the main line should run to Navan, whence a branch might easily 
 be carried by Kells and Virginia to Cavan and Enniskillen. From 
 Navan the main line continuing its course to the north should pass by 
 Castle-blaney to Armagh, and thence to Belfast. 
 
 "We therefore earnestly recommend that every effort be made to 
 combine into one interest, and under one management and control, the 
 whole of the southern system of intercommunication between Dublin 
 and Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Kilkenny ; and that the northern 
 line by Navan — to Armagh at least — be treated according to the same 
 principle, and considered as one concern. 
 
 " We proceed therefore to suggest : — 
 
 " First, That government should advance, by way of loan, a consider- 
 able proportion of the amount of the estimates at the lowest rate of 
 interest, and on the easiest terms of repayment, to be secured by a 
 mortgage of the works. We think that many landholders may also be 
 found to subscribe towards carrying into effect an object which, in 
 addition to its importance as a national concern, cannot fail to benefit 
 and improve their own properties. 
 
 " As a further assistance in filling the subscriptions, perhaps powers 
 might be given to the counties interested, as well as to corporate towns, 
 to become shareholders to certain amounts ; the government in such 
 case advancing the money on the security of presentments, in the usual 
 manner, and the return on such shares being available for the reduction 
 of the county or other rates. 
 
 " A provision however will be necessary in this case, to insure the co- 
 operation of the whole of the districts interested ; the approval of a 
 certain majority having been obtained.* 
 
 * " We should have wished the general arrangement to have included in 
 the line the distance between Armagh and Belfast ; but as that is already 
 occupied by a company in full operation with the works, it is to be hoped 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 367 
 
 "Secondly, If these means be rejected, or fail to produce sufficient 
 subscriptions to insure, in the first instance, the execution of the entire 
 system, we would suggest that the work might still be allowed to go 
 forward; beginning at Dublin, or other fixed terminus, to any other 
 determinate point ; such portion, however, not to be considered as an 
 integral line, but only as a part of the general system, and to be con- 
 sidered from that point towards the ultimate intended termini of the 
 several lines and branches, as new subscriptions are received. The sub- 
 scribers to these continuations should be entitled to all the privileges and 
 advantages arising from the whole portion of the line already executed, 
 from the date of the payment of their respective subscriptions, equitably 
 estimated according to the time when each subscription shall be 
 made. 
 
 " Thirdly, We would venture to suggest, that the government should 
 undertake either or both of the proposed combined lines on the applica- 
 tion of the counties interested ; the outlay to be repaid by small instal- 
 ments at the lowest admissible rate of interest, and under the provision 
 that in the event of the returns not paying the stipulated amount of 
 interest the counties shall supply the deficit by presentments. 
 
 " In offering this proposition we may be allowed to state, that, relying 
 on the result of our estimates, our impression is that the local districts, 
 under such an arrangement, would, to insure a certain great benefit, 
 incur but a very inconsiderable risk, freeing themselves at the same time 
 from many inconvenient arrangements. 
 
 " This proposition is somewhat on the principle adopted for the 
 improvement of the Shannon Navigation. It is of course susceptible of 
 various forms and modifications ; but we purposely avoid entering into 
 details, which, however, we see no difficulty in filling up to suit all the 
 circumstances of the case. 
 
 " Should either of the two latter suggestions be adopted, the govern- 
 ment will possess an immediate interest in the due execution of the work, 
 and must of course have a great share in its direction. But even were 
 the work undertaken without public aid, we are still of opinion, that it 
 should in a certain degree be subject to the control of the state." 
 
 Such being the case of the Commissioners, numerous and 
 weighty objections soon began to pour in against it. The 
 discontent of one set of complainants was forcibly expressed 
 by a correspondent of the Times newspaper, under the signa- 
 ture of A British Engineer." 
 
 that a readiness to unite in the same system for fares, &c., as shall be 
 adopted for the rest, may render the ruinous expedient of a distinct line 
 unto Belfast unnecessary." 
 
368 
 
 PUJ3LIC WORKS AND 
 
 " The Commission," said this writer, " has performed the duties as- 
 signed to it in a peculiarly Irish way. The gentlemen were instructed 
 to do certain things, and they have done just the contrary. They were 
 told not to interfere with private enterprise, and to give facilities to 
 joint-stock companies offering to execute their lines between the 
 principal places in Ireland ; and they have smothered or strangled all 
 such bodies by reporting that none of them should be allowed to proceed. 
 They were told that no works of this description should be undertaken 
 at the public expense; and they recommended a gross government 
 monopoly by which the minister of the day is to undertake either or 
 both of the only two great lines they recommended. They were further 
 told that no assistance beyond information was to be given for the 
 purpose of executing their recommendations ; and they wound up their 
 report by calling upon government to advance the outlay required 
 to complete their scheme, at the lowest admissible rate of interest, 
 and with the proviso that the whole is to be repaid by small in- 
 stalments !" 
 
 Other parts of the case received a full, though not perhaps 
 so pointed an answer. In truth, the Commissioners erred 
 most egregiously in the matter of their own manifesto. The 
 statistics contained in the volume pubhshed by them demanded 
 deductions the very reverse of those which they had drawn. 
 
 A glance at the map of Ireland will satisfy the most careless 
 observer, that the principal towns in the island lie on the 
 eastern coast, or only a little removed from it, at the heads of 
 the navigable rivers emptying themselves into the Irish Channel. 
 The preponderating settlements of trade and population ob- 
 servable from the earliest times in this direction, was occa- 
 sioned without a doubt by the proximity of England, and the 
 ready markets offered by her for the purchase of Irish produce. 
 Wakefield alludes to the fact, in his Statistical Survey, and 
 it is repeated by Lieutenant Harness in the Report, Ap- 
 pendix III., p. 42. Talking of the amount of actual tonnage, 
 which he ascertained to be moved into and out of the ports of 
 Ireland, that officer says, " Such estimates must necessarily be 
 vague in their results, but they are not likely to be incorrect 
 to the same extent, when applied to Ireland, as they would 
 be for other countries. Her inland traffic is almost exclusively 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 369 
 
 confined to the conveyance of articles to and from the ports. 
 She has no great manufacturing inland towns receiving a 
 variety of materials from different parts, and returning their 
 commodities in complicated streams for exportation, or con- 
 sumption. With the exception of the trade occasioned by four 
 collieries, as yet of small importance, the linen, and some 
 cotton manufacture in the northern counties, there does not 
 appear to be any transit worthy of notice, of other than agri- 
 cultural produce. The inland towns are only important in 
 proportion as they offer good markets for such produce ; and 
 it is, in almost every case, to the facilities afforded by a navi- 
 gation, that those of note owe their superiority. It may 
 safely be said, then, that the only towns of real importance, 
 in a trading point of view, are the ports ; that the traffic of 
 the country is confined, almost entirely, to forwarding agri- 
 cultural produce to them, and receiving small supplies of 
 imported articles in return."''' 
 
 Thus pursuing the north-east coast from Dublin, we trace 
 successively Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, Belfast, Carrick- 
 fergus, Coleraine, and Londonderry ; and from Dublin, again, 
 to the south-east, we find, within the limits described, Carlow, 
 Kilkenny, New Ross, Wexford, Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir, 
 Clonmel, Youghall, and Cork. In the following table, filled 
 up from the Railway Report, will be found the population, 
 tonnage, and value of the exports and imports of these eastern 
 coast towns at the period referred to. By these details, it 
 will be seen that the total population of the towns on the 
 eastern coast was more than half a million ; and that the total 
 value of their exports was ^^'IS, 111, 159; and of their imports, 
 <i^l4, 51 1,795 per annum. Now, in the Appendix to the 
 Report, B 90, there is a summary of the value of all the 
 exports and imports of Ireland, which makes the exports 
 .£'17,894,813, and the imports .£'15,387,026. It is, there- 
 fore, manifest upon the showing of the Commissioners them- 
 selves, that nearly all the trade of Ireland, out and in, is confined 
 to the side of the country nearest to England. The following 
 is the table : — 
 
 Vol. II. B B 
 
370 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 
 Population 
 in 
 1831. 
 
 1835. 
 Value of 
 
 Exports. ■ Imports. 
 
 Dublin 
 
 204,155 
 
 £2,528,543 
 
 £4,430,321 
 
 Drogheda 
 
 17,365 
 
 766,027 
 
 259,854 
 
 Dundalk 
 
 10,078 
 
 452,813 
 
 107,953 
 
 Newry . . 
 
 13,065 
 
 616,836 
 
 568,711 
 
 Belfast 
 
 53,287 
 
 4,341,794 3 7 
 
 3,695,437 11 10 
 
 Carrickfergus 
 
 8,706 
 
 
 
 Coleraine & Portruch 
 
 5,752 
 
 ■IQK fiflK 
 
 65 900 
 
 Londonderry . 
 
 19,620 
 
 1,040,918 
 
 708^054 
 
 Carlow 
 
 9,114-1 
 
 
 
 Kilkenny 
 
 23,741 J 
 
 
 
 Ross . 
 
 5,01 1 
 
 
 
 Wexford 
 
 10,673 
 
 312,136 
 
 621,417 
 
 Waterford 
 
 28,821 
 
 1,821,245 
 
 1,274,154 
 
 Carrick-on-Suir 
 
 9,226 \ 
 
 
 
 Clonmel 
 
 15,134 J 
 
 
 
 Youghall 
 
 9,608 
 
 215,316 
 
 28,310 
 
 Cork . 
 
 107,016 
 
 2,909,846 
 
 2,751,684 
 
 
 550,372 
 
 15,111,159 3 7 
 
 14,511,795 11 10 
 
 On the opposite coast, there were only three places with 
 populations exceeding 10,000, namely. Limerick, Galway, and 
 Sligo ; as to which, again, it is further observable, that the 
 disproportion between their exports and populations, as com- 
 pared with those just set forth, was very marked. For Lime- 
 rick, with a population of 66,554, exported only 56,818 tons, 
 value <£'726,480 ; Galway, with 88,120, only 61,987 tons, 
 value <^25 1,864 ; and Sligo, with 18,159, only 28,082 tons, 
 value i?369,490. 
 
 So far, the Report furnished decisive evidence to prove that 
 Railways in Ireland, if they are to suit the trade and popula- 
 tion of the country, as at present distributed, should mainly 
 follow the eastern coast. This view of the subject was 
 pointedly confirmed by the report in an analysis made of the 
 map, compiled by Lieutenant Larcom, to indicate " the 
 direction and relative amount of travelling throughout the 
 country : " — " It will be seen, observes that officer, that the 
 largest stream of traffic is from Dublin towards Naas, where 
 it divides into three branches — the one by Carlow, Kilkenny, 
 and Clonmel, to Cork; the other by Mountrath, Roscrea, 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 371 
 
 and Nenagh, to Limerick ; while the third, passing along the 
 Grand Canal, is chiefly dissipated among the small towns on 
 its banks, a small portion reaching Ballinasloe. Next in im- 
 portance are the streams through Balbriggan and Ashbourne, 
 uniting at Drogheda, and thence continuing to Newry ; at 
 which town a branch separates towards Armagh, where it is 
 again subdivided into smaller branches ; the principal of which 
 pass by Caledon, to Omagh and Strabane, on the left, and to 
 Moy, Dungannon, and Cookstown, on the right. The main 
 line from Newry continues through Lisburn to Belfast. Next 
 in magnitude to these two great lines is the stream direct to 
 the west through Lucan, Maynooth, Enfield, Clonard, and 
 Kinnegad, where a branch separates to Athlone by Kilbeg- 
 gan ; the main line continuing to Mullingar, and thence to 
 Longford ; from which a small stream passes through Carrick- 
 on-Shannon and Boyle to Sligo. The Athlone branch con- 
 tinues to Ballinasloe, where another small division takes place, 
 a portion diverging to Tuam and Castlebar, while the larger 
 passes on by Loughrea to Galway." 
 
 These passages bear decisively upon the main question 
 at issue. Lieutenants Harness and Larcom had no ulterior 
 objects to realise. They accordingly described the condition of 
 things as it really existed, and pointed clearly to the proper 
 deductions. They proved the case against the Commissioners, 
 unless, indeed, we are not to act in Ireland upon the received 
 opinion which upholds the expediency of making railways 
 where trade, travelling, and population are greatest ; and 
 also, unless of two competing lines, with equal engineering 
 facilities, that is not to be esteemed the better which affords 
 the most direct communication to the principal places. Upon 
 the map which accompanies these observations, the main 
 trunks projected by private enterprise are delineated. It 
 will be seen that they pass, in the most direct manner pos- 
 sible, through the chief towns in every direction — that they 
 pursue the existing streams of traffic and travelling ; and, con- 
 sequently, that, though laid down before the Commission was 
 appointed, the information and judgment upon which they 
 were founded were borne out and confirmed in the most 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 complete manner by the evidence of the very document which, 
 by a most extraordinary process of reasoning, it was now 
 pretended to erect as an authority for putting them down. 
 
 First came the line from Dublin to Drogheda, to be ex- 
 tended, by Newry, to Armagh and Belfast. Let us compare 
 its statistics with the one by which the Commissioners would 
 supersede it. Omitting Armagh, as alike incidental to both, 
 we have the following data to guide us : — 
 
 Company's 
 Route. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Post-office 
 Revenue. 
 
 Commissioners' 
 Route. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Post-office 
 Revenue. 
 
 Rush . . 
 Skerries . 
 Balbriggan 
 Drogheda 
 Dundalk . 
 Newry . . 
 
 2,144 
 2,556 
 3,016 
 17,365 
 10,078 
 13,065 
 
 £ s. d. 
 No Return. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 2,244 7 1 
 1,895 12 
 2,378 10 10 
 
 Navan . . 
 Castleblaney 
 
 4,416 
 1,826 
 
 £ 5. d. 
 
 663 11 3 
 378 2 9 
 
 
 48,214 
 
 6,518 9 11 
 
 
 6,242 
 
 1,041 14 
 
 The characteristic gradients of the two lines differed to the 
 full as remarkably as their statistics, — that of the Company 
 being 1 in 808 ; that of the Commissioners, 1 in 180. 
 
 The travelling, according to Lieutenant Larcom, averaged 
 per week as follows : — 
 
 Dublin to Drogheda, two roads, 903 ; Drogheda to Dun- 
 dalk, 378 ; Dundalk to Newry, 517 ; Newry to Armagh, 210 
 = 2,008. 
 
 Now the travelling, according to the same authority, on the 
 Commissioners' line, was only to near Clones, eight miles, 452; 
 thence to Navan, 258 ; to Drumconda, 24 ; to Castleblaney, 
 52 ; and thence to Armagh, 122 = 908, or less than one-half 
 of the amount of the other. 
 
 The case of the Leinster and Munster Company was even 
 stronger. The Leinster and Munster Railway admitted with 
 facility extensions to Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Wex- 
 ford, and it comprehended within its branches an immense 
 portion of the agricultural and commercial interests of the 
 South of Ireland. Mr. Vignoles, the Commissioners'* engineer, 
 confessed that it had been laid out with great judgment, and 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 873 
 
 that its gradients were very favourable.'"' The characteristic 
 gradient of the main trunk of this Company to Cork was 
 1 in 380, while that of the Commissioners was 1 in 180. 
 They reported that — " The largest stream of traffic is from 
 Dublin towards Naas, where it divides into three branches ; 
 the one by Carlow, Kilkenny, and Clonmel to Cork ; the 
 other by Mountrath, Roscrea, and Nenagh, to Limerick."* 
 To comprehend the application of that passage with all the 
 force properly belonging to it, the map must be referred to, 
 and it will then be seen that, town by town, this is the precise 
 course assigned by the forbidden lines of the Leinster and 
 Munster Company between Dublin, Cork, and Limerick. It 
 seems impossible to produce, or to imagine, a closer or more 
 cogent testimony in favour of any case than the one here 
 brought forward by the Commissioners themselves, to confirm 
 the exact fitness of this project for the purposes it was intended 
 to suit. Nevertheless, the whole was emphatically denounced. 
 
 The subjoined lists of the population, and Post-office reve- 
 nues of the towns served by the two systems, omitting, however, 
 those common to both, supplies rather a striking contrast. 
 
 Company's 
 
 Popula- 
 
 Post-office 
 
 Income, 
 
 Commissioners' 
 
 Popula- 
 
 Post- 
 office 
 
 Line. 
 
 tion, 
 1831. 
 
 me. 
 
 
 Line. 
 
 tion, 
 1831. 
 
 Income, 
 1836. 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 3 808 
 
 647 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 Rathangan 
 
 1,163 
 
 206 
 
 Newbridge . 
 
 577 
 
 252 
 
 
 
 
 
 Monasterevan 
 
 1,441 
 
 256 
 
 KilcuUen . 
 
 699 
 
 402 
 
 
 
 
 
 Portarlington 
 
 3,001 
 
 428 
 
 Athy . . . 
 
 4,494 
 
 519 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 Mountmellick 
 
 4,577 
 
 586 
 
 Carlow . . 
 
 9,114 
 
 1,441 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 Maryborough 
 
 3,223 
 
 436 
 
 Leighlin 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mountrath . 
 
 2,593 
 
 444 
 
 Bridge 
 
 2,035 
 
 341 
 
 
 
 
 
 Borris-in- 
 
 
 
 Bagnalstown 
 
 1,315 
 
 388 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 Ossory . . 
 
 650 
 
 160 
 
 Goresbridge 
 
 634 
 
 366 
 
 
 
 
 
 Rathdowney . 
 
 1,214 
 
 246 
 
 Kilkenny 
 
 23,741 
 
 2,112 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 Templemore . 
 
 2,956 
 
 778 
 
 Callan . . 
 
 6,111 
 
 317 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Thurles . . 
 
 7,084 
 
 559 
 
 Clonmel . . 
 
 15,134 
 
 2,930 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 Cashel . . . 
 
 6,971 
 
 842 
 
 Clogheen 
 
 1,928 
 
 277 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 Mitchelstown 
 
 3,545 
 
 394 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 73,135 
 
 £10,389 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 34,873 
 
 £4,941 
 
 * Report, page 20. 
 
S74 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 Upon the first appearance of the Report, the monopoly 
 contemplated by its authors was quickly perceived and 
 strongly condemned.* The government, nevertheless, ac- 
 cepted the recommendations of the Commissioners with un- 
 hesitating favour, and submitted them for adoption to par- 
 
 * Having been one of many who joined in an earnest eflfort to prevent the 
 mischievous recommendations of the Irish Railway Commissioners from 
 being carried into effect, I may perhaps be allowed to explain that this 
 chapter is little more than an extension of a pamphlet addressed on that 
 occasion to the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and already referred 
 to, page 267. Looking back at the year 1838, and contrasting the 
 promising appearance of private enterprise in Ireland at this moment — 
 January 1845 — with the dead blank produced during the intervening six 
 years by the support which Lord Melbourne's administration gave to the 
 scheme of this Commission, I see no reason to regret the part I then 
 acted, or that I ventured to conclude my address in these words : — 
 
 *'To a statesman of your experience, my Lord, it were an extreme 
 platitude to obserA^e, that Ireland, for many ages, has been a prey to 
 almost every form of misgovernment : but it may not, perhaps, be 
 altogether irrelevant to point out, that it never has been oppressed by a 
 more baneful evil than the one upon which I have already dwelt in these 
 observations ; the evil which, far from encouraging, has never allowed 
 the Irish to enter, of their own free accord, upon any of those great 
 industrial undertakings, by which the genius of an enlightened nation is 
 exercised, invigorated, and advanced to the highest state of prosperity. 
 The only standard of true excellence, in a commercial people, that of labour- 
 ing for themselves and by themselves, has never been fairly admitted in Ire- 
 land. Unfortunately for that country, a corrupt set of canting hypocrites 
 and interested knaves have always prevailed in it, who have found their 
 account in persuading the people that they are wholly unequal to the 
 arduous task of bettering their own condition, or the condition of the 
 country, if left to themselves. The Irish have thus been systematically 
 broken in, and trained to the impression, that government is to do 
 everything for them, that is or can be done, and the consequence has 
 been that nothing ever is, or can be, well done in Ireland. The time, 
 however, has at last arrived when this most vicious and depressing state 
 of things may be safely corrected. Ministers have now an opportunity 
 of introducing that best of all reforms, which, if promptly and prudently 
 taken advantage of, will redound to their highest honour and be of the 
 most substantial and enduring service to the people. Let the progress 
 of public improvement in Ireland be no longer loaded, under the 
 captivating promise of government assistance, with the heaA^ drawback 
 of party patronage; — let it not, under the plausible appearance of state 
 control, be subject to the rude checks and dogmatical experiments of 
 mere placemen ; — let the Irish people, by careful steps and moderate 
 degrees, be led, won, taught, nay, if necessary, constrained to originate 
 themselves and perfect the improvement of their country, — instead of 
 being the task-led instruments of an ever-changing and seldom useful 
 pohcy in the hands of those upon whom, though unconnected with the 
 country, every high post under government is almost invariably 
 bestowed; — let this, the truly liberal and only honest system, be fairly at- 
 tempted for a short period, and^ assuredly, it will prove successful. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 S75 
 
 liament with an apparent unconsciousness of the violence 
 they were offering to established principles. This conduct 
 presented not the least strange of the many extraordinary 
 features of a most singular case. The ministerial proposal 
 was brought forward by the Irish Secretary, Lord Morpeth, 
 in the House of Commons, March, 1, 1839. According to 
 this scheme, railways in the North of Ireland were to be left 
 to private enterprise, while in the South they were to be con- 
 structed at the public expense. The most opposite systems 
 were thus to be established simultaneously. For the latter 
 scheme a sum of £2,500,000 was called for in the first instance, 
 intimation being at the same time given that ten millions 
 sterling in the whole would be required to complete the main 
 trunk from Dublin to Cork with the proposed branches. The 
 profit calculated upon this expenditure was 4 per cent, but if 
 the hopes of the projectors should meet with disappointment 
 in this respect, and a loss result, the deficiency, whether great 
 or small, was to be met, and covered by an assessment to be 
 levied upon the counties traversed by the line. 
 
 A long debate ensued, but with the exception of a speech 
 
 Then, indeed, we may reasonably indulge the expectation of seeing 
 Ireland honourably emulous of England, and her generous equal in 
 all those pursuits so distinctive of the excellence of the English charac- 
 ter, which dignify, while they enrich society, and prove that to be 
 the happiest condition of a people which is sustained, as it has been pro- 
 duced, by their own independent exertions. This, as regards Ireland, 
 has hitherto been only a vision of poetry. Beautifully painted and 
 warmly described in flowing numbers and ingenious verse, the vivid 
 aspiration flashes occasionally upon the mind, and vanishes hke a dream. 
 How noble the task to embody the poet's imagination in the forms 
 of living truth — to turn into reality his buoyant fancies — to crown the 
 faithful hopes and fulfil the long desires of a race, animated for ages 
 throughout the rudest shocks of danger and the most trying distresses, 
 with a noble confidence in tardy justice and a better fortune — to evolve in 
 fruitful order, and give their full measure of practical utihty to the still 
 soimd and vigorous capabilities of a country which have proved stronger 
 than the most galling tyranny and the most insinuating corruption — to 
 gather, in short, for a great and generous people the rich harvest of 
 peaceful prosperity, the seeds of which, so constantly sown by God, have 
 never yet been reaped by man. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 My Lord, 
 
 Your very faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 George Lewis Smyth. 
 
376 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 against the motion by Sir R. Peel, the eloquence displayed 
 upon the occasion was neither animated nor instructive. Sir 
 Robert examined the question with his usual judgment and 
 practical ability. He deprecated the attempt to depart from 
 the principle hitherto considered the only one which ought to 
 guide the application of capital to works of this description. 
 He denied that it would be for the benefit of Ireland to teach 
 it to rely on the intervention and support of the government, 
 and urged that competition should be left free, and that the 
 sister country should be allowed to follow the example of 
 England, " trusting for the same improvement, the same pros- 
 perity, and the same facilities for communication, to precisely 
 the same means as had insured them in England." 
 
 On a division there appeared for Lord Morpeth's resolution, 
 144 ; against it, 100 ; majority, 44. This was moderate 
 success, but it was more apparent than real. Many of the 
 most decided supporters of government left the House 
 without expressing their opinions, and not a few of those who 
 constituted the majority took care to intimate that their 
 future votes in favour of so monstrous an experiment were 
 not to be expected. Out of the House, the scheme was not un- 
 frequently denounced in terms of indignant reprobation. 
 Pressed by this force, Lord Morpeth was soon constrained to 
 retire from the contest, and announce that the government 
 would abandon the field altogether to private enterprise. But 
 he was weak enough to neutralize any good effects that might 
 have resulted from this declaration, by making another before 
 the session closed, which again involved the whole case at 
 issue in doubt and uncertainty. In the month of July, and 
 in a House of thirty-six members, his Lordship announced 'Hhat 
 if, next session, it should be found that private enterprise was 
 insufficient and incompetent to complete these works, the 
 duty would devolve upon government to propose that which 
 they thought would be most conducive to the interests of 
 Ireland !" In this language every one who took an interest 
 in the question read the old fable of the Dog in the Manger, 
 and the result was, that while the cabinet of which his Lord- 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 377 
 
 ship was a member remained in office, no progress was made 
 in the construction of Irish railways. 
 
 The last attack, and that too was unsuccessful, made by the 
 Board of Public Works upon private enterprise, was the one 
 directed against the Lagan Navigation. In the session of 
 1840, a bill for vesting that undertaking in the Commissioners 
 was presented to the House of Commons by Viscount Mor- 
 peth. By that measure all the powers of the undertakers, 
 and their lands, tenements, and property of every description 
 were to be taken away and vested in the Commissioners, 
 together with all the claims and rights of their predecessors, 
 the long defunct Commissioners of Inland Navigation. 
 
 A short account of the Lagan Navigation, and of the taxes 
 granted to support it, has already been given. Private 
 persons had contributed money towards the work as well as 
 the state. But the taxes had been granted for limited 
 periods, and as they expired, the undertaking became consi- 
 derably embarrassed, and disputes arose between the Treasury 
 on the one side, and the Company and its creditors upon the 
 other. These appear to have been adjusted to a certain 
 extent in the year 1825, when an award was made for the 
 payment to the debenture holders of a perpetual annuity of 
 c£^2,900, redeemable upon the payment of .£'62,000. The 
 award also vested the navigation in the debenture holders on 
 certain stipulations for a period of twenty years. 
 
 In the year 1834, disputes again came to a head between the 
 Treasury and these parties, which led to a suit in the Irish 
 Court of Exchequer. The cause was instituted by the Crown, 
 was argued for five days, and then dismissed by the Barons in 
 terms decidedly affirmatory of the rights insisted upon by the 
 undertakers and their debenture holders. But the navigation 
 was not sufficiently productive, and five years were spent in 
 vainly soliciting the Treasury to adjust the outstanding claims 
 of these parties. At length a Minute was made, by which it 
 was agreed that an act of parliament should be applied for 
 and the moneys in dispute should be settled by arbitration. 
 
 It was in consequence of this arrangement that Lord 
 
378 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 Morpeth, as Secretary for Ireland, introduced the bill already 
 spoken of. The Commissioners on this as on other occasions 
 evinced considerable diplomatic talent. In point of fact they 
 proposed to get rid of the claims of their opponents by a 
 summary process. The bill contained an arbitration clause, 
 as had been agreed upon, but it recited that the claimants 
 affected by it had repaid themselves by dividends made out of 
 the annual profits of the navigation the sums they had paid 
 for their debentures, and that no money was due to them ! 
 The arbitration thus became a plausible nullity, for it is 
 obvious that if the bill had passed into a law with the recital 
 referred to in the preamble, there would really have been 
 nothing to arbitrate upon. The parties claimed a debt due 
 for money paid on debentures in their possession, and they 
 agreed that all particulars should be decided by arbitration. 
 The bill declared that nothing was due, and then gave the 
 parties leave to arbitrate ! 
 
 This disingenuous proceeding was followed by three years 
 of parliamentary litigation. At the end of that period the 
 Commissioners were wholly defeated, and an act was very 
 properly passed, 6 & 7 Vict. c. — , incorporating the 
 claimants upon the Lagan Navigation as a joint-stock com- 
 pany, and providing for the future maintenance and improve- 
 ment of the undertaking under their management. In this 
 result there appears no ground for the expression of dis- 
 satisfaction save this one — the expenses of the discomfited 
 Commissioners were paid with the public money. 
 
 W e owe to the controversies and discussions elicited by the 
 government scheme of railways for Ireland a number of 
 parliamentary returns respecting Irish public works, and 
 the amount of money expended upon them. Having already 
 particularised the sums voted by the Irish parliament for 
 these purposes, and having also specified the outlay of the 
 Board of Public Works and the Commission for improving 
 the Shannon, it will now be proper, in order to complete the 
 subject of this chapter, to fill in some other items of expense, 
 and thus exhibit in one view the contributions made by the 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 879 
 
 parliament of the United Kingdom to the improvement of 
 Ireland by endeavouring to aid and promote public works 
 in that country. 
 
 A return, dated 17 August 1839, was ordered to be printed 
 by the House of Commons, which furnishes in detail " all the 
 sums of money voted or applied either by way of grant or loan 
 in aid of Public Works in Ireland, including all sums ad- 
 vanced for making roads, and the employment of the poor 
 in fisheries or otherwise. The total advances, according to 
 this authority, from the year 1800 to June 1, 1839, was 
 ^£^8,828,141 145. Id. An explanatory analysis prefixed to the 
 return furnishes the general heads of account, by which it 
 clearly appears that a considerable portion of the money was 
 voted and applied to objects altogether different from those 
 referred to in this chapter. The Royal Dublin Society re- 
 ceived ^285,438, the Dublin Farming Society i^87,132, and 
 the Dublin Linen Board =£^537, 65 6. The account further 
 includes ^749,541 for churches, <£^486,995 for gaols, ^^435, 167 
 for hospitals, .^80,414 for law courts, and ^693,399 for the 
 relief of the poor, besides other items. 
 
 Had even a few conspicuous good works come of these nu- 
 merous Commissions we might be induced to reconcile our- 
 selves to their frequency, and the expense they have occa- 
 sioned. When we find them equally at variance with sound 
 principles, and unproductive of improvement, we are bound to 
 stigmatise and condemn them whenever the opportunity offers. 
 
 Amongst other items explanatory of the manner in which 
 these millions were applied, are the following : 
 
 Howth Harbour, already choked up with sand . £420,472 3 5^ 
 Kingstown Harbour, a good and convenient work 576,521 19 Of 
 
 £996, 994 2 6i 
 
 The Port and Harbour of Dublin (improved certainly, but 
 by no means to the full extent) obtained the following sums : 
 
380 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 1 ort 1 
 loUl 
 
 Survey of Bay, &c. 
 
 £595 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 1806 
 
 Quay walls to the river Liffey 
 
 8,546 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 1808 
 
 Improving Harboiu* 
 
 951 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 1811 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Fort . 
 
 10,992 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 1 fil 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 ft f, on 
 
 ly 
 
 7 
 
 »j 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 6,890 
 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 18,228 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 1 Q 1 Q 
 
 lolo 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 0,9/0 
 
 19 
 
 5 
 
 >) 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 5,258 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 1 at o 
 lolo 
 
 Improving Port . 
 
 4,434 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 » 
 
 U\\XO 
 
 QlllO . . . 
 
 D,5o8 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 
 lol/ 
 
 XJlZlO 
 
 UlllO . . • 
 
 5,0/1 
 
 19 
 
 5 
 
 lOlo 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 ^,977 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 9i 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 3,794 
 
 c 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 39 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 
 
 }> 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 4, loo 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 1 ft 1 Q 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 D,0Uo 
 
 i 
 
 7 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 4,563 
 
 13 
 
 3 
 
 » 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 0,7 10 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 1 fiO 1 
 lOZL 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 lU,0Uo 
 
 
 U 
 
 »> 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 7,uoU 
 
 D 
 
 lU 
 
 39 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 4,4/b 
 
 1 Q 
 
 lo 
 
 7 
 
 1823 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 
 A 
 t 
 
 U 
 
 1825 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 8,361 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 1826 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 8,787 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 1831 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 11,090 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 1836 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto 
 
 10,411 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 1837 
 
 Ditto 
 
 ditto . 
 
 5,851 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 £199,615 13 11 
 
 Personal interests are seldom neglected when pecuniary 
 favours are in a course of distribution under the patronage of 
 government. By these returns Lord Annesley appears to 
 have received for a pier on his estate at Dundrum in the 
 year 1807, .^7173 195. M. 
 
 The Marquis of Sligo appears to have received in 1805 for 
 improving the town of Westport, his own estate, ^^^3, 45 2 65. 2c?., 
 in 1806 for a lighthouse on his estate at Clare Island, 
 <£^1,361 155. 8(i., and in 1808 for improving the Harbour of 
 Westport, also his estate, c£738 95. 3c?. 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 381 
 
 The Bishop of Down and Connor obtained for building a 
 suitable residence, between the years 1826 and 1837, 10,000. 
 
 For Courtown Harbour, the estate of the Earl of Cour- 
 town, there was advanced between the years 1824 and 1838 
 a sum of .£'20,458, which has all been expended. The har- 
 bour is now so shallow that a fishing smack can seldom navi- 
 gate it with safety. 
 
 Mr. P. Leader, to work a colliery in the county of Cork, 
 received between the years 1818 and 1833 ^19,230 155. 
 
 Other instances of this class are to be found, and it is with 
 them and the whole outlay before our eyes that we have 
 now to put the serious question — what is to be done for the 
 future ? Is there any other than but one alternative, either to 
 persist in the old system — if such indeed it may be called — 
 hoping to moderate its excesses occasionally, or by a vigorous 
 exertion to renounce it for ever as wholly unimprovable? 
 Superficial observers may indulge in fanciful theories, inter- 
 ested persons will be always biassed by their peculiar stake in 
 the issue, but the more attentively the case is examined by 
 impartial judges, the more powerfully will the conviction 
 impress itself upon the mind that experience supplies no fact 
 of any importance, and political economy suggests no argu- 
 ment of any weight, in favour of the old course of proceeding. 
 That is evidently worn out, and every way unsuited to the 
 present circumstances of the country. Where are the benefits 
 at all commensurate with the outlay that has taken place? 
 Where are the great works achieved by these Government 
 Boards, where the marked improvements in the condition of 
 the people or the country traceable to their exertions, and 
 justly due to the many millions intrusted to their hands? 
 They are not to be found — they have never existed. Nor 
 could it have been otherwise, for these functionaries never 
 possessed the confidence of the community and have seldom 
 been held even in respect. Is it necessary to add that they 
 have never stimulated the energy of the people — that they have 
 in no degree elevated the national character, nor directed the 
 national industry, to any result worth commemorating. They 
 
382 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 have been endured under one denomination or another for 
 upwards of a century, and during it, it is no exaggeration to 
 assert, that they have mitigated no evil, but created many, 
 and have invariably proved the ready instrument of manifold 
 corruption. 
 
 Let the Board of Works then be abolished, and let all 
 moneys lent for Irish purposes be advanced by the Exchequer 
 Bill Commissioners, but at the same time let the Irish depart- 
 ment of the Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, who have 
 always exercised authority in Ireland, be enlarged. Let 
 there be a suitable office maintained in Dublin for the trans- 
 action of the business properly belonging to the Irish branch 
 of that office, and let it be the duty of the Crown Commis- 
 sioner for Ireland to spend a fair portion of his official life 
 in that country, and personally superintend the local interests 
 more immediately committed to his charge. By the adoption 
 of this change there will soon be a considerable gain in point 
 of economy and practical efficiency. England, Scotland and 
 Ireland will then be brought under the action of the same 
 principles and system, legitimately applied to their common 
 service by one governing body. Then we shall no longer 
 have the Board of Works doing one thing in Ireland and 
 the Woods and Forests another. An equal administration of 
 affairs will prevail throughout the empire at large, and all the 
 conveniences of centralisation will be united with the advan- 
 tages of a local or departmental administration. The Com- 
 missioner sitting occasionally at the Board in London, and 
 occasionally superintending the progress of his own particular 
 business in Ireland, will carry with him in council an extent 
 of information not commonly brought to bear upon the trans- 
 actions of business, and he will be sure to season and regu- 
 late his official acts in Ireland with a spirit and a system at 
 all times much wanted in that country. 
 
 We repeat, therefore, let the Board of Works be abolished, 
 and let the great field of improvement offered by the country 
 be thrown open for the future to the energies of private 
 enterprise upon honest conditions. For this purpose, and to 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISES. 
 
 383 
 
 ensure a fair trial of the system recommended, the different 
 undertakings, so long overloaded with public debts, ought to be 
 relieved of their incumbrances. It is but equitable that they 
 should enjoy the opportunity of starting in a fresh career of 
 usefulness, clear of all restrictions and embarrassments arising 
 from past misfortune or mismanagement. By this process 
 the old debts due by the Wellesley Bridge and Docks, by the 
 Galway Docks, by the Ulster Canal, and other undertakings 
 similarly circumstanced, would one and all be compounded. 
 And wise would it be to make such compositions, for those 
 debts are bad in every sense of the expression. They 
 should therefore be treated without further delay accord- 
 ing to the precedent furnished by the Treasury in the 
 case of the Branches of the Grand Canal. In that case, as 
 in those now under consideration, a sufficient income had 
 never been raised from the works to pay the interest of the 
 money advanced by Government to make them, which, accu- 
 mulating year after year, periodically augmented the amount 
 to be repaid. At last the Lords of the Treasury disposed 
 of the whole debt, principal and interest, upon the common 
 terms adopted in mercantile and other matters of business. 
 The actual net value of the property was ascertained irre- 
 spective of the mortgage upon it, and a sum equal to the 
 purchase of that income, considered as an annuity according 
 to the government tables, was accepted as a full satisfaction 
 of all that was due. The same relief ought to be afforded 
 in the remaining cases. The money due amounts to a large 
 sum, but it has long since been virtually lost. The produce 
 of the works does not suffice to pay the interest upon their 
 respective debts — where then is the policy of maintaining 
 a set of claims that are really of no value ? 
 
 Another desirable measure to accompany the proposed 
 change would be the consolidation of several small works, 
 kindred in their nature and objects, and not far removed 
 from each other in point of situation, into one large and 
 respectable undertaking. In this way several enterprises 
 taken by the Board of Works from joint-stock companies 
 
384 
 
 PUBLIC WORKS AND 
 
 would be restored to the management of their legitimate 
 promoters ; and they might, at the same time, be considerably 
 benefited in several instances by appropriate amalgamations. 
 For instance, the Upper and Lower Boyne Navigation and 
 Drogheda Harbour ought obviously to be in the hands of one 
 company. All three under separate managements will be 
 petty speculations, and scarcely equal to the discharge of 
 their respective expenses. If united together and managed 
 under one staff and one direction, they would constitute a 
 respectable and a profitable undertaking. The same remark 
 applies with equal force to other cases, but it is unnecessary 
 to particularize them. 
 
 Clear, however, as must be the conviction upon the mind of 
 every calm and disinterested observer respecting the advan- 
 tages that would quickly arise from an abandonment of the 
 institutions hitherto so fruitlessly, yet so expensively, main- 
 tained in Ireland for the promotion and extension of Public 
 Works, there is too much reason to fear that no reform in 
 them will be immediately attempted. 
 
 There is unfortunately in every government, and in the 
 government of Ireland more than any other, an irresistible 
 tendency to regulate and restrain the popular action, and this 
 passion grows stronger the longer it is indulged. The 
 Ministry of Lord Melbourne was deeply imbued with its 
 spirit, and owed the unpopularity under which it ultimately 
 dropped from office more to that fault than any other in its 
 composition. 
 
 There was displayed by that cabinet an irrepressible par- 
 tiality for men who played the part of general busy-bodies. 
 With them the best recommendation for office too frequently 
 seemed to be a restless fancy for meddling with all things 
 public and private — an indomitable determination that what- 
 ever was to be done in the country should somehow or other 
 be done through the instrumentality of government. Where 
 the nature of things rendered it impossible for such a body 
 to act directly, it was to superintend and control. Poor Law 
 Boards, Education Boards, Railway Boards, Drainage Boards, 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISE. 
 
 385 
 
 and Navigation Boards and Commissioners too numerous to 
 be described or remembered, were tben the order of the day. 
 When a ministry falls into an extravagance of this kind, we 
 detect the error of its ways by a simple reference to the 
 proper functions of government, which are confined to de- 
 fending the people from foreign injury, and preserving peace, 
 order, and comfort at home. Beyond this duty there are 
 few acts which can be undertaken by a government without 
 trespassing upon the constitutional liberty of the subject, and 
 almost every obligation incurred by a government which has 
 a further tendency is a mistake most likely to eventuate in 
 a mischief, or a wrong. 
 
 As to Ireland it is impossible to track the current of events 
 in that country, without perceiving that among the various 
 causes to which the distress and disturbance so constantly 
 prevailing in it are to be assigned, not the least powerful is 
 the total want of those intermediate interests so naturally and 
 efficaciously promoted by private enterprise in the successful 
 prosecution of public works. These produce a new estate in 
 a country, and they are most desirable in one where the 
 existing sources of employment and profit are almost wholly 
 agricultural — where no fruitful body whatever intervenes 
 between an ill-devised, poorly appointed, and inefficient 
 local government, and a mass of peasantry utterly helpless, 
 though distinguished for great bodily strength, patient labour, 
 and a lively intellect. 
 
 To such a people the prevailing system in Ireland cannot 
 but prove injurious. While the Government is found willing 
 to undertake every great work that is required to improve the 
 country, the people are effectually discouraged from studying 
 how to promote national improvements themselves. They are 
 kept in a state of impotent pupillage, and degrading inactivity. 
 The more a minister does, the more he is expected to do. 
 No bounds are put to the demands made upon the state for 
 the employment of the poor and the development of the 
 national resources, and so often have these been pressed with 
 plausible eloquence and importunate assiduity, that it has 
 Vol. II. c c 
 
386 
 
 PUBLIC W0EK3 AND 
 
 repeatedly been deemed a matter of course to give them a 
 colourable encouragement. While such a habit prevails, 
 how vain to hope that the vital principles of social and com- 
 mercial progress, self exertion, and competition, will ever be 
 cherished! Low indeed must the condition of that country 
 always remain, and limited the skill and enjoyment of its 
 inhabitants where the Government is the main promoter of 
 improvement, the only patron of merit, and the principal 
 rewarder of industry. 
 
 Well then may it be asserted that the state of Ireland will 
 never be sound, nor its prosperity be based upon a sure 
 foundation, while the practices here condemned are continued 
 by the Government. Nor let it be said that the subject has 
 been dwelt upon at too much length in this chapter. Its 
 importance cannot be overrated. They only can estimate 
 correctly the sum of the injury thus vexatiously inflicted upon 
 the country, who have been witnesses of the extent and 
 intensity of its effects. Take one of the latest instances. 
 About the year 1843, the contract held by a London Company 
 for lighting Dublin with Gas being about to expire, some 
 members of the Town Council of the latter city and other 
 gentlemen proposed to form a company for supplying the 
 article themselves. One would have supposed that the 
 citizens of Dublin would have been permitted to undertake 
 amongst themselves and of their own accord, an office so 
 simple and so natural, as that of lighting their own city with 
 gas. But it was not so. Even here the Government inter- 
 fered. The Under Secretary at the Castle, and the Lord 
 Mayor, entered into a formal correspondence upon the subject, 
 different opinions were broached, as a matter of course where 
 different interests were felt to exist, and ultimately a commis- 
 sion was appointed to inquire and report. And a report was 
 made but never printed. 
 
 Its authors — or possibly the Government — grew ashamed, 
 and the document was suppressed. The citizens were thus 
 able to carry their object at last, but their success cost them 
 a struggle of two years' duration, with the pressure of the 
 
JOINT-STOCK ENTERPRISE. 
 
 387 
 
 Government — no light odds bearing against them all the while. 
 To some persons this matter may perhaps appear too insig- 
 nificant for serious notice ; but as an example of the 
 obstacles habitually thrown in the way of improvement in 
 Ireland, by persons who intercept the influence of Government, 
 it is by no means an unimportant incident. Its very insig- 
 nificance, moreover, bears a particular value, if rightly con- 
 strued. For if so small an affair was impeded by so much 
 delay, what, we may fairly ask, would be the difficulty and 
 discouragement produced if the venture proposed had been 
 one of considerable extent or real consequence? 
 
 It may perhaps be pleaded that the act of the Government on 
 this occasion was well meant, and should therefore be favour- 
 ably considered. But taking the Commission in its very best 
 sense, what more can be said for it than that it was an 
 attempt to point out to the citizens of Dublin how far it 
 might, or might not, be advantageous to them to provide 
 their own gas ? That, however, is not one of the functions of 
 Government. "The statesman," says Adam Smith, "who 
 should attempt to direct private people in what manner they 
 ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself 
 with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority 
 which could be safely trusted, not only to no single person, 
 but to no council or senate whatever, and which would no- 
 where be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly 
 and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it." — 
 Wealth of Nations, book iv. c. 11. 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. ANTAGONISM OF THE TWO GREAT 
 
 CLASSES. LANDLORDS AND TENANTS. ANCIENT TENURES OF THE 
 
 COUNTRY. PROGRESS AND EFFECTS OF CONFISCATIONS. FORFEI- 
 TURES AND LAWS AFFECTING LAND. CONDUCT OF LANDLORDS, AND 
 
 CONDITION OF PEASANTRY. TENURES THENCE ARISING. STATIS- 
 TICAL RESULTS. REVIEW OF REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
 
 The subject-matter of the present chapter is beset on every 
 side with infinite perplexities. All of these are formidable, 
 and not a few peculiarly grave and distressing. There is not 
 a form into which the general question can be thrown for the 
 purpose of discussion, that will not be sure to excite some 
 prejudice so rooted, or some animosity so violent as to render 
 dispassionate and impartial investigation almost impossible. 
 Above all, it is most difficult to meet with honest witnesses 
 and correct information. The litigatory interests are mar- 
 shalled into extreme parties, animated by a fierce spirit of im- 
 placable antagonism. On both sides the great object (and often 
 unconsciously) is, to dissemble and mislead. Whether the ad- 
 verse forces appear in the arena bodily, or allow their different 
 causes to be agitated by advocates and apologists, the attention 
 of the most intent observer is almost irresistibly drawn off in the 
 majority of instances, from the real points at issue by a display 
 of collateral or incidental matter, which is often managed with 
 considerable art, and almost invariably with a superabundance 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 889 
 
 of zeal, injurious to the discovery of truth, and the progress of 
 improvement. On both sides, moreover, there is a conscience- 
 stricken sense of so much that is radically bad — of so much 
 that will not bear the ordeal of strict investigation — of so 
 much that common justice and humanity can in no shape 
 tolerate or excuse ; that neither the parties themselves, nor 
 their witnesses will dare to make a frank avowal of their pre- 
 tensions, or venture to act boldly in the open face of society 
 upon the impulses and feelings they really cherish. A strong 
 and decided spirit of freemasonry pervades the country ; land- 
 lords and tenants are bound by it, each to his own class, and 
 it is only in the innermost circle of those classes that the due 
 measure of protection is afforded, which inspires the respective 
 members to reveal, in all their natural force, principles and 
 passions subversive to the last degree of anything like happi- 
 ness in society, and strength in government. 
 
 He, then, who would judge fairly and rightly between the 
 two factions, must know them both intimately well in the 
 confidential relations of private life. There only can he hope 
 to find the key that opens the lock of sincere opinions. 
 There only will he be able to discern, in the full extent of its 
 naked enormity, the positive and disheartening truth, that 
 the most fatal symptom of the diseased condition of society in 
 Ireland is a perverse bias, deeply seated in the minds of the 
 two great classes — landlords and tenants. He will feel that 
 these ought to be one and the same in point of sympathy,* 
 
 * " Whoever," said the late Chief Justice Bush, charging a Special Com- 
 mission at Maryborough, " confines his estimate of the consequences of 
 such a confederacy to the mere outrages and crimes it produces, has I 
 fear but superficially examined the subject. Such consequences may be 
 occasional and transient, but the moral influence upon society of such a 
 diseased state of human character must be deep and permanent. The 
 bad passions let loose, the charities of life extinct, those relations dis- 
 severed, which between the higher and lower classes are the offspring of 
 reciprocal protection and dependence — confidence displaced by suspicion, 
 and fear, and hatred, in all classes vitiating and corroding the heart of 
 man ; these are productive seeds which threaten a fearful growth, and if 
 the mischief be not put down, every reflecting man will look forward to 
 the necessary influence of such a state of things upon the future destiny 
 of Ireland, as operating far beyond the local disturbances of a provincial 
 district." 
 
390 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, 
 
 because they have essentially a common interest, and he will 
 find that they are not merely opposed to, but heart-hardened 
 against each other. He will mark the tenantry, when a land- 
 lord is murdered, struck by no sorrow. He will hear them 
 vindicate the crime, and may catch them shielding the per- 
 petrator from justice. On the other hand, he will meet some 
 ten or twenty families evicted from their miserable cabins, and 
 after listening in vain for some expressions of compassion for 
 the outcasts, he will hear landlords commend the legal hard 
 ship by wliich perhaps a hundred human beings are turned 
 out helplessly upon society, without employment, food, or the 
 shelter of the meanest roof to protect exhausted nature from 
 the pinching inclemency of the weather. 
 
 Nothing has been more common, and nothing more just 
 than the censures passed upon the rapacity and heartlessness 
 of Irish landlords. To the full as common, and to the full as 
 just are the denunciations hurled against the habitual lawless- 
 ness of the Irish peasant, against the frequency of agrarian 
 murders — murders of which the commonest features are those 
 most degrading to the character of man — extreme cruelty and 
 extreme cowardice. The unnatural antagonism of these two 
 classes forms by far the worst of the manifold disorders to 
 which Ireland is a prey. 
 
 In the broad statements of grievances, as they are generally 
 put forward by the two classes, truth is seldom violated. But 
 the whole truth is not always told. There are unquestionably 
 very bad landlords and very bad tenants ; but there are also 
 good of both classes, and it is both unjust and pernicious to lay 
 a particular stress either upon the harshness or the criminality 
 of the one set of men or the other without relieving the 
 weight of the imputation by introducing a becoming account of 
 the virtues, neither few in number nor poor in quality, which 
 belong to each of them. 
 
 A slight examination of the main points at issue will suffice 
 to show how cautiously they are to be dealt with. Take the 
 common case of a landlord in the South of Ireland. A lease 
 drops, and he finds twenty families starving upon twenty acres 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 391 
 
 of his estate, which had originally been set to an individual as 
 one farm. Naturally enough he desires to clear his farm of 
 these poor creatures, and to place in their stead a few sub- 
 stantial tenants. But the twenty families — men, women, and 
 children — possess no earthly means of subsistence save the 
 potato crop grown upon the patches of land attached to the 
 miserable cabins they have constructed there with mud. Those 
 patches of ground they will not surrender : for if they do, they 
 will give up with them their only food. That miserable cabin 
 they will not stir from, because if they do, they will have to sleep 
 in the open air. They will beg, borrow, and promise to pay 
 any amount of rent ; they will undertake to do anything — but 
 depart. No land, however, can bear such an infliction, and 
 the landlord has no alternative but passive subjection to an in- 
 crease of that evil or ejectment. . After a struggle more or less 
 protracted and distressing, the law is aroused to vindicate his 
 rights, and it sustains them in arms. The civil and military force, 
 cavalry, infantry, police, subsheriffs and stipendiary magistrates, 
 march upon the farm — the cabin doors are broken in ; the roofs 
 are torn off, and the withered straw is scattered to the winds ; 
 the old walls are razed to the ground, and twenty families are 
 driven forth at the point of the bayonet. The ejectment has 
 been served, and the landlord and the land being satisfied, 
 the soldiers march back to their barracks, the police to their 
 station, while the forty families — men, women, and children 
 — huddle together in a ditch by the road-side to brood over 
 . their misery. There is no reason to expect help, but there is 
 room for revenge, and murder is committed : the landlord or 
 his agent, or the incoming tenant is shot, and the wreck of 
 the ejectment smokes with human blood. 
 
 Now in this case — and it is not an extreme one ; on the 
 contrary, it is one that occurs in six out of the twelve months 
 of every year that now passes or has passed for upwards of a 
 century — the position of the landlord claims the most serious 
 attention. It is not with him merely a question of improving 
 his property, but of arresting the progress of an evil which, if 
 permitted to continue, must inevitably make him a pauper as 
 
392 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 much as any tenant upon his estate. For no property can by 
 possibility bear the incubus of a population increasing in 
 numbers and in poverty, as these settlements invariably do 
 increase in Ireland. Where the people go on subdividing 
 the land into smaller and smaller strips, and the smaller the 
 subdivision, the greater the number of the persons demand- 
 ing subsistence from it, it is absurd to attach any idea of value 
 to the property. The process resorted to is a subversion 
 of the first condition of value, the first laws of property, and 
 every essential element of private and public prosperity. 
 
 On the other hand no language can be too affecting to 
 describe the distress of the evicted wretches. The one 
 amongst them who desperately avenges the sufferings of the 
 whole body by committing murder, places himself beyond the 
 pale of the social system and is not to be pardoned. But for 
 all the others, can pity be too tender, or charity too generous ? 
 Even when they dwelt in their cabins, and lived only upon 
 potatoes, they were amongst the poorest, the least informed, and 
 most simple of human beings. But now that he stands at the 
 road side — with his old mother on one side, his wife on 
 another, and three or four children dragging at his heels — 
 houseless — hungry and helpless — without a single prospect or 
 hope of succour, subsistence, or help before him — can the 
 imagination picture to itself an extreme of existence, every way 
 so full of hardship, as that of the evicted Irish peasant? If 
 there be on earth a state of natural despair, it is his. 
 
 Difficult, however, as the subject undoubtedly is in its 
 different bearings, there still appears no reason to suppose 
 that it is invincibly obdurate and intractable. If the proper 
 order of events be steadily followed — if the relative positions 
 and rights of all parties affected be carefully traced and fairly 
 defined, and if those positive facts be plainly set forth out of 
 which the present unhappy condition of things has been so 
 painfully evolved, we shall not find ourselves unable to discover 
 the necessary correctives, as well as the proper mode of apply- 
 ing them. Long as the disorder has prevailed, and far as 
 its ravages have extended, even a cursory survey of the 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 393 
 
 country and its history will clearly indicate that we Jiave 
 three principal producing causes to deal with — first, the laws, 
 and as well those that have been, as those that remain in 
 force ; secondly, the manner in which the landlords have from 
 time to time put those laws into execution, and cultivated 
 the property given by them, and thirdly, the conduct of the 
 peasantry, suffering as they have continuously done the double 
 pains imposed upon them by the enactments of the law, and 
 the mixed severity and indifference of the landlords and law 
 makers. 
 
 In order to understand the present condition of the landed 
 interests in Ireland, it is primarily necessary to ascertain the 
 various tenures into which those interests are subdivided ; and 
 if we are to account with any degree of distinctness or satis- 
 faction for the intricacy of those interests, and the wretchedness 
 attending upon them, we shall require a thorough knowledge 
 of the numerous and violent changes which were imposed from 
 age to age upon the owners and occupiers of the soil by the 
 force of arms, and, often more violent still, by the force of law. 
 These have been already spoken of under the head of His- 
 torical Outlines ; but a connected review of them here, even 
 at the risk of repetition, is indispensable, if we would not 
 plunge into the labyrinth they have formed, without a direct 
 light, and immediate guide to clear away the surrounding 
 obscurity, and point out a track that may be safely followed. 
 
 It is a curious fact, that about the last of the great reforms 
 introduced into Ireland by the policy of the English Govern- 
 ment, and of all others, perhaps, that which has been most 
 completely executed, was one that radically affected and 
 recast the tenure of land throughout the island. The old 
 Irish principle of tenure in common prevailed at the period of 
 the invasion, and was maintained with inflexible attachment for 
 ages afterwards. The chieftain and the tribe held together 
 the lands within their district, each, in his degree and accord- 
 ing to his age possessing an inherent right to his share of the 
 whole, exclusive of all strangers. The reign of James I. had 
 been reached before this impoverishing law was abolished. 
 
394 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 At present very few vestiges of it remain : it may be said to 
 linger feebly in the rundale system of one or two of the 
 northern counties — but though a large number of acres 
 appear by the Land Commission Report to be held in joint 
 tenancy, the people are universally found to cling wherever 
 they possibly can to a separate holding. Leases of joint 
 tenancy were common fifty years ago, but a lease to more 
 than one person is now rarely applied for. 
 
 Sir John Davies differs in no material respect from the 
 native writers in his account of this ancient tenure, nor does he 
 fail to notice emphatically the evils consequent upon its adop- 
 tion by the new settlers. 
 
 In England," he says, ** and all well-ordered countries, men have 
 certain estates in their lands and possessions, and their inheritances 
 descend from father to son, which doth give them encouragement to 
 build and to plant, and to improve their lands, and to make them better 
 for their posterities. But by the Irish custom of Tanistry the chieftains 
 of every country, and the chief of every sept, had no longer estate than 
 for life in their chieferies, the inheritance whereof did rest in no man. 
 And these chieferies, though they had some portions of land allotted unto 
 them, did consist chiefly in cuttings and cosherings * and other Irish 
 exactions, whereby they did spoil and impoverish the people at their plea- 
 sure. And when their chieftains were dead, their sons or next heirs did 
 not succeed them, but their Tanists, who were elective, and purchase 
 their elections by strong hand; and by the Irish custom of Gavelkind 
 the inferior tenancies were partible amongst all the males of the sept, both 
 bastards and legitimate ; and after partition made, if any one of the sept 
 
 * Cosherings, as this distinct and strong-minded author afterwards 
 explains, when describing the extortion of coigne and livery, were 
 an extension of the Irish custom of Bonaght, " a most heavy oppression 
 and crying sin, that did draw down as great or greater plagues upon 
 Ireland than the oppression of the Israehtes did draw upon the land of 
 Egypt " — cosherings '* were -v-isitations and progresses made by the Lord 
 and his followers among his tenants, wherein he did eat them, as the 
 English proverb is, out of house and home. Sessings of the kerne and 
 his family called kemety, of his horses and horse boys, of his dogs and 
 dog boys, and the like, and lastly, cuttings, tallages or spendings high 
 and low at his pleasure ; all which made the lord an absolute tyrant and 
 the tenant a very slave and villain, and in one respect more miserable 
 than bond slaves, /or commonly the bond slave is fed by Ms lord, but here 
 the lord was fed by his bond slave *^ 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 395 
 
 had died, his portion was not divided amongst his sons, but the chief of 
 the sept made a new partition of all the lands belonging to that sept, and 
 gave every one his part according to his antiquity." 
 
 Mr. Eugene Curry, an Irish scholar of considerable re- 
 search, has given a similar account from the extant Irish 
 manuscripts. 
 
 " The tenure of land among the ancient Irish was of various kinds. 
 
 " 1. The land of the free tribe under a chief of their own family. — In 
 this case the occupiers were obhged to maintain the chief's household in 
 food, clothing, &c., and to maintain him in his offensive and defensive 
 warfare, each contributing according to his holding. The lands were 
 liable to sub or new division in every fourth generation, and it was com- 
 petent in any of the occupiers to give ' his place ' in the land {i. e. to 
 sell his interest) to any person of the tribe, or to pledge but not sub-let 
 it without consulting the chief or the tribe at large ; but he could not sell 
 ' his place ' in the lands to a stranger without the consent of these parties. 
 In this case tlie immediate chief was not absolute in the disposal of the 
 lives or property of his dependents, as the chief prince immediately 
 above him had always the power to compel him to the fair and faithful 
 performance of the conditions mutually agreed on by the original con- 
 stituent parties of the chieftancy. An occupier of this class could not 
 be dispossessed except on his commission of some heinous crime, when 
 he was deprived of his patrimony and cut off from the-tribe. An instance 
 of the interference of a superior chief occurs in an old Irish covenant, 
 made between Conor O'Brien, Earl of Thomond, who died in 1540, and 
 Teige M'Namara, chief of his own name at that period. O'Brien took 
 M'Namara prisoner, and one of the conditions of his liberation was, 
 that he (M'Namara) should not oppress the Clan Cuilan (his own tribe), 
 nor exact any tributes from them beyond what they paid to his father and 
 grandfather, as should be testified by the steward and bailiffs of the 
 territory. 
 
 " 2. A man holding his proportion of his tribe land, and also holding 
 land, at rent, from the chief or any other land above him, or from the 
 church, was allowed to dispose of his tribe land (under certain circum- 
 stances), by gift or sale, but not of the lands of the chief or of the church. 
 These he should either keep to himself or restore to their fundamental 
 owners. 
 
 " 3. A stranger, who took lands from the chief, at rent and service, 
 during pleasure, or * at-will,* might, at any time, go away, taking with 
 him one-third of the property on the lands, and leaving the other two- 
 
396 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 thirds to the lord, in lieu of the use of the lands and the protection 
 afforded him. But should this man remain on the lands during the suc- 
 cession of three lords he became naturalised, and entitled to all the 
 privileges of a tribe man. 
 
 "4. If a man took land for a fixed term of years, and he enjoys it 
 during that term, he must, if he goes away, leave all the buildings 
 and other improvements to the landlords ; and if he should go away of 
 his own will before the expiration of the term, he must leave the improve- 
 ments with the lands to the lord ; but if he be forcibly turned out before 
 the time expires, he takes all the improvements with him. The tenant 
 at will had the same liabihties and privileges as regards building, &c. 
 
 " These are the leading features of the tenant laws in ancient Ireland 
 as prescribed in the ancient manuscripts, law tracts, which have come 
 down to us; and there is reason to believe — indeed it is the fact — that 
 they came down almost in full force to the reign of William and Mary." 
 — Letter to Pierce Mahony, Esq., 1845. 
 
 Such was the law observed by the Irish and tolerated by the 
 English for a term of 400 years. It would be a superfluous 
 task to show how necessarily it deprived the temporary 
 holders of land of all the natural inducements to build upon 
 the property, or otherwise improve it, and how necessarily 
 also it kept the country waste and desolate. Where the 
 extent and value of every man's interest in the soil was pre- 
 carious and ephemeral, the occupier as a matter of course 
 grew careless of its cultivation, and was always impoverished. 
 Continual wars and the ever contending interests of the two 
 races, English and Irish, increased in number and quality 
 the disastrous effects produced by the transient character 
 of this original tenure. There is no precedent or parallel for 
 so monstrous a state of things in the whole course of histoiy. 
 Here were two races fighting for the soil, and the aggressors, 
 though the more powerful, were so near-sighted for centuries 
 together as to neglect reiterated and the most favourable 
 opportunities for ingrafting amongst the people the vigorous 
 and enduring customs which were the essential foundations of 
 their own ascendancy. This anomaly will not appear the less 
 remarkable if we bear in mind that the descent upon Ireland 
 was the extension and completement of the Norman invasion 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 397 
 
 of England, and that in England, as Sir John Davies acutely 
 notes, William did not give away whole shires and counties to 
 his followers, nor deny to any Englishman who submitted the 
 benefit of the laws by which he himself obtained a peaceable 
 possession of the kingdom in a few years. 
 
 The land question, then, from the very first entrance of the 
 English into Ireland constituted a grievance second to no 
 other in point of exasperating severity. It was intimately 
 mixed up and purposely confounded with that fatal policy of 
 misgovernment, the division of the people into two nations, 
 each ruled by a code of law that differed in its leading 
 principles and practices from the other. For however osten- 
 tatiously the laws of England may have been promulgated 
 in Ireland by Henry II. and his successors, the enjoyment 
 of those laws was strictly limited to Englishmen. There were 
 it is true some few exceptions to this general rule, as in the 
 cases already referred to of the five families, the Macmur- 
 roughs of Leinster, the O'Briens of Thomond, the O'Connors 
 of Connaught, the Macloughlins of Meath, and the O'Neills 
 of Ulster, as also in the cases of such other Irishmen as sued 
 out separate acts of denization. But the Irish people at large 
 were held to have no rights whatever in the courts of English 
 law. Within those precincts they were not permitted to 
 claim security for life, lands, or goods, and were treated not 
 as aliens only but as enemies. All this is conclusively estab- 
 lished by extant records without number, and the concurrent 
 evidence of all writers of authority. And this was the state 
 of the law, as Sir John Davies proves, from the reign of 
 Henry II. to the reign of James I. 
 
 It is easy to perceive while reading the abstracts of the 
 cases^' quoted in the Discovery, how impossible it was age 
 
 *The case at page 123, vol. i. though not from Davies, belongs to a 
 class from which he quotes several, and shows that the Enghsh Courts 
 neither protected the hfe, nor revenged the death of an Irishman — and 
 the case of Thomas de Botteler against Robert de Almain is adduced by 
 Davies as a proof that it was a good answer to an action for goods had 
 and held, to plead that the plaintiflf was an Irishman. 
 
S98 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 after age that order or security or content could have pre- 
 vailed in the country, notwithstanding all the treaties, com- 
 pacts and submissions made by successive kings, chieftains, 
 and subjects. For whatever may appear to have been the 
 spirit and intention of the treaties entered into, and whatever 
 the understanding of the parties submitting themselves to the 
 Crown, the practical consequences for all the essential 
 business of life remained unchanged. The English judges, 
 putting their own interpretation upon the law, maintained that 
 no Irishman could recover in an action for goods sold and de- 
 livered to an Englishman, and that even when an Englishman 
 killed an Irishman, felony was not committed. In such a 
 barbarous state of things the idea of referring any question of 
 disputed possession to legal decision would have been absurd. 
 The Englishman would derive a title from his own court which 
 would put a suitable construction upon the grants made to the 
 invaders by the invading sovereigns, while the dispossessed na- 
 tive would fly for different satisfaction to the judgments of the 
 Brehon law, which still vested the soil in the kings, Tanists, 
 and subjects of the country. While this double jurisdiction 
 existed the actual possession of the land as a matter of course 
 remained in those who could exhibit superior cunning or supe- 
 rior force. This era embraced a term of 400 years, of which 
 it is almost unnecessary to observe that if we reflect, however 
 briefly, upon the infamous doctrines that were solemnly pro- 
 pounded during all that interval of time as the inflexible rule 
 of English laws, by the appointed judges of the land, we shall 
 be at no loss to account for the incessant disruptions of the 
 community, and cease to wonder that despair of justice should 
 have so often driven the Irishman to demonstrate the enor- 
 mities of the constitution by really making himself the rebel 
 it uniformly proclaimed him. 
 
 The barbarity of the English law had somewhat begun to 
 soften, and a few of the broader and more revolting lines of 
 demarcation between the two races had become partially 
 obliterated when a new arm of legal oppression was advanced 
 
LAND HISTOTIICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 399 
 
 under the name of forfeitures or confiscations. The statute 
 book from an early period of Irish history is overloaded with 
 these monstrous enactments. There are instances in which 
 the whole business of a session appears to have consisted in 
 passing a single attainder, and a single statute frequently ex- 
 tinguished every title to property throughout a whole prin- 
 cipality. When the number and quick succession of these 
 terrible enactments are looked to, when the sweeping nature 
 of the provisions contained in them, and the extent of terri- 
 tory and the host of persons affected by them are considered ; 
 when also the late period down to which they continued to 
 pass, is borne in mind, the total and continual insecurity of 
 property and the concomitant neglect and mismanagement of 
 land in Ireland as direct and unavoidable consequences of the 
 laws made in the country, will appear to have constituted 
 a plain but imperious necessity. 
 
 In the year 1537 we find the Act 28 Henry VIII. c. 1, 
 which prays the Commons that forasmuch as Gerald 
 Fitzgerald, late Earl of Kildare, amongst manifold enor- 
 mities and abuses confederated with one James, late Earl 
 of Desmond, an openly proclaimed and published traitor, 
 for sending to the French King, then His Grace's enemy, 
 and at open war with him, to send into the land of Ireland 
 an army for the taking of the same out of our said so- 
 vereign lord's possession, and notwithstanding that his 
 said traitorous intent would not take effect by reason 
 of a peace; — and being of this and divers other offences 
 remitted and pardoned, afterwards sojourning at Newington 
 in the county of Middlesex, willed and commanded his 
 daughter Elice Fitzgerald to will all his brethren, O'Neyel, 
 CConner and all other friends and servants to stir and 
 rear war against our said sovereign's deputy, until they were 
 by force repressed; — and notwithstanding his grace of pity 
 and mercy remitted the said Earl these traitorous conspiracies, 
 the same Earl the 23rd year of our said Sovereign Lord 
 not only permitted CNeyle, the King's Irish enemy, to invade 
 
400 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 and destroy the County of Uriel without any resistance made 
 by himself, being the King's deputy, having the governance 
 and charge of the same, but having his brother Sir John in 
 company with the said O'Neyle — and so forth, relating the 
 course of insurrections and anarchy by which this pattern of 
 the genuine Independent, Lord Lieutenant of the ancient 
 regime, made his government terrible — the Act proceeds to 
 establish and ordain that the said Gerald Earl of Kildare late 
 deceased, his son and heir Thomas Fitzgerald, Sir John Fitz- 
 gerald, and Oliver Fitzgerald uncles to the said Thomas, James 
 Delahyde son and heir of Sir Walter Delahyde of Moyclare, 
 Knight, John Delahyde, Edward Delahyde Parson of Kil- 
 berry, sons of the said Sir Walter, John Burnel of Bal- 
 griffen, Esq., Sir Richard Walsh Parson of Loughsewdie, 
 Chale Mac Grauyll, otherwise Charles Reynold, clerk, late 
 Archdeacon of Kells, James Gernon son and heir of Patrick 
 Gernon of Gernonstown, Christopher Parese son and heir to 
 William Parese of Agher, Piers Walsh son to Walter Walsh, 
 Robert Walsh and Maurice Walsh son to William Walsh, 
 late of Tiecroghan, and Edward Rowks yeoman, be adjudged 
 and attainted traitors, and forfeit for ever all honours, castles, 
 land, &c. 
 
 In the same year passed the Act headed " Delahyde'*s 
 Lands in Carbrie,""* — which sets forth that after the death of 
 Sir Walter Delahyde, the king is rightfully entitled to all the 
 lands of the said Sir Walter, by reason of that wilful and 
 disloyal traitor, James Delahyde, son and heir of Sir Walter, 
 was one, and the chief counsellor of Thomas Fitzgerald," and 
 it is thought" that the said Thomas Fitzgerald and James were 
 partly ruled and counselled by the said Sir Walter and Janet 
 Eustace his wife, &c., — therefore enacts that all the said 
 lands and tenements in Carbrie shall vest in the king, &c. 
 
 The session of 1556 is memorable for the Act, 2 &e 3 
 Philip and Mary, " for the disposition of Leix and Offalie," and 
 the Act " whereby the king and queen''s majesties, and the 
 heirs and successors of the queen be entitled to the countries 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 401 
 
 of Leix, Slewmarge, Irvy, Glenmaliry, and OfFalie, and for 
 making the same countries Shire grounds." 
 
 By the first of these statutes it is proclaimed, *' that the 
 countries of Leix, Slewmarge, Offalie, Irrie, and Glynmalire, 
 were of late wholly possessed by the Moores, the Connors, 
 the Dempsyes, and other rebels ; and now by the industrious 
 travaile of the Earl of Sussex be brought again to be in the 
 possession of their majesties, and so remain ; and forasmuch 
 as the well disposing of the aforesaid countries, and planting 
 of good men there, shall not only be a great strength to those 
 quarters, but also a wonderful assurance of quiet to all the 
 rest of the English countries and a great terror to all the 
 Irish countries bordering on the same : it is enacted, that the 
 aforesaid Earl of Sussex shall have full power during the time 
 he shall be Lord deputy, to give and grant to all her Majesty^s 
 subjects, English or Irish, at his election and pleasure, such 
 estates in fee simple, per tail, and such leases for years or 
 lives of the whole as shall to his wisdom and discretion seem 
 meet and convenient.''' 
 
 It was thus that the Queen's County and the King''s County 
 were " settled." 
 
 In the session of 1569, 11 Elizabeth, sess. 3, c. 1, came the 
 Act for the attainder of Shane Oneile, and the extinguishment 
 of the name of Oneile and the entitling of the queen's majestic 
 her heirs and successors, to the country of Tyrone, and to 
 other countries and territories in Ulster. This as a specimen of 
 legislative grandiloquence is a curiosity. The exordium 
 is a master-piece in its way. The strain of plausible satisfac- 
 tion and praise by which we are led on smoothly and piously 
 to the confiscation of " the fifth part of this realm of Ireland," 
 furnishes in point of conception and execution a piece of 
 crafty legislative composition, which it may be possible to 
 equal but hardly to surpass. " When we consider," says this 
 singular law, " our most entirely beloved and no less dread 
 sovereign ladye and princess, the loving mind and daily charges, 
 which you incessantly spare not to employ both for the ad- 
 vancement of this your realm of Ireland, and the surety and 
 Vol. II. D D 
 
402 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 profit of us your faithful and obedient subjects, we cannot nor 
 ought, except we would be noted to the world for ingrate and 
 unnatural people to your royal person, being our supreme 
 head and defender, but study, devise, and invent all the best 
 ways and means we can possibly, both to increase your kingly 
 estate over us, and also help to maintain the same with the 
 rampier of our bodies and consumption of our goods,'" — and so 
 recounting how the glory of kings does not only consist in high 
 blood or haute progeny, and abundance of private riches and 
 substance, with which her majesty is in every way plentifully 
 adorned ; but in populous, rich, and well governed regions, 
 wealthy subjects and beautiful cities and towns, with which 
 the imperial crown of England had before this time been 
 conveniently furnished within this realm of Ireland, until 
 through the iniquity of times past, such as yet remain were 
 impaired, and the rest utterly lost ; but now thanks be to 
 Almighty God the one well amended, and the seals, signs, and 
 places of the other recontinued to the quiet possession of your 
 majesty, as well by the death and final destruction of that 
 caitiff and miserable rebel Shane O'Neile, as also by the godly 
 and careful trade of government used by Sir Henry Sidney ; 
 the said rebel to the perpetual damage and infamy of his name 
 and lineage refusing the name of subject, and by high and 
 perilous practices, enterprised great stirrs, insurrections, and 
 horrible treasons, &c. &c. The traitorous attempt of Shane 
 O'Neile is next set forth, and the subsequent intricate history 
 of the proceedings relating to Con O'Neil and Mathew Baron 
 of Dungannon, whose murder and the subsequent risings in the 
 North are related. We are then turned backwards up to the re- 
 motest fountains of bardic antiquity, whence the statute writer 
 deduces for her majesty three titles to the realm, anterior to 
 those of O'Neile, the first of which deals with Biscan and Bayon, 
 and kings Gurmonde and Belan, whence descending slowly 
 through Henry II. and the Burghs we are reconducted to cotem- 
 porary events, and find the name of O'Neile and the ceremonies 
 of his creation extinguished, and the rule and authority of 
 O'Neile and the lords and captains of Ulster severed, exempted 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 403 
 
 and cut off, and all the lands, &c. : and the sept which 
 possesseth the country of Claneboy O'Cahan, Mac Gioglin, 
 the inhabitants of the Glynnes, sometimes the Baron Missets- 
 lands, and of late usurped by the Scots, whereof James Mac 
 Conyll did call himself lord and conqueror, Mac Oynnes, 
 O'Hanlon, Hugh Mac Neillmore, the four septs of the Mac 
 Mahouns, Mac Kyvan and Mac Can, and all the honours, 
 castles, lands and tenements to them or t^ their kindred and 
 adherents belonging invested with the real and actual presence 
 of her Majesty. 
 
 1569. The Act 11 Elisabeth, sess. 8, intitled The Queen's 
 Majesty to Thomas, Knight of the Valley's Lands in Munster. 
 — The preamble recites that Thomas Fitzgerald, Knight of 
 Valey, otherwise Knight of Glaune in the county of Limerick, 
 and Thomas his son and heir had committed sundry wilful 
 murders, burnings, waste, and warlike destructions upon 
 divers the Queen's people, for which offences Thomas the son 
 was executed, and Thomas the father found guilty, but his 
 execution stayed "in respect of a certain scruple or doubt 
 conceived of the statute which maketh burning to be treason 
 in this realm" : nevertheless forasmuch as it is manifestly known 
 in how willful and unlawful sort the said Thomas, Knight of 
 the Valley, hath led his life from his youth to this his de- 
 crepid age, and how necessary it is that some ensample 
 by his punishing be shewn to the great men of forces 
 in that country ; all the lands, castles, hereditaments, &:c. of 
 Thomas the father and Thomas the son are vested in the 
 Queen. 
 
 In the same year a short session was held, and an Act passed 
 reciting the Act of Attainder, 28 Henry VIII. c. 1, and restoring 
 to their blood the sons and daughters of the Earl thereby 
 attainted, but not making void or frustrating gifts, or grants, 
 or leases of lands made by the crown consequent upon the 
 attainder. 
 
 1570. In the Act 12 Elisabeth c. 5, for the Attainder of 
 such as be or shall be indicted of High Treason or Petty 
 Treason, committed or to be committed from April 1, 1569, 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 to April 80, 1571, if they shall not yield their bodies, &c, 
 we have another of those curious pieces of high-flown composi- 
 tion which the law makers of that period appear to have taken 
 especial delight in framing. The Act sets out with a stately 
 description of " her Highness' right godly intendment to trans- 
 form this monstrously disordered state to the perfite shape of a 
 happy common weale, and for that in these her happy days a re- 
 formation many ways before this time attempted, and never 
 achieved, hath by her Highness and her godly minister by law 
 and justice, the way warranted by the mouth of God, devised, 
 and to the comfort of all faithful hearts established, but the 
 wicked, better acquainted with darkness than light, have chosen 
 to wallow in their own filth and puddle of tyranny, oppression, 
 rape, ravin, and spoil, for as it is manifest and well known 
 the vile and ingrate traitors Mac Cartiemore, lately created 
 Earl of Clancartie ; Sir Edward Butler, Knight ; Edward 
 Butler and Piers Butler, his brethren; Piers and James 
 Butler, sons to the Viscount Mountgarret ; James and John 
 Butler, sons to Piers Butler of the Grallagh ; Walter Butler, 
 Tebbot Butler, Piers Butler, John Butler, sons to Edmond 
 Butler, of Pollestone ; James Fitz Gerald, son to Sir 
 Morishe Fitz Desmond, the Seneschal of Mokilly ; the White 
 Knight, with divers other wicked traitors, against whose 
 wicked and tyrannous course of life the lamentable cry of 
 many widows, innocent orphans and poor oppressed people 
 resound before the throne of God for vengeance, have con- 
 spired together most wretchedly to levy sharp and cruel 
 war against your Majesty, your true and faithful servants 
 and the English pale, and for the better accomplishment 
 of their devilish and wicked purpose practised with the 
 king of Spain and the Scots our antient enemies, and com- 
 bined with the traitor Tyrelaughe Leynaghe and all the 
 Ireshry of Ulster, except Sir Hugh O'Donnell ; and after 
 a long recital of several predatory acts declared to have 
 been committed by several of the persons named, it is 
 enacted, that every person who shall be indicted of high or 
 petty treason within the terms previously named, shall upon 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 405 
 
 proclamation being made of the indictment, appear at the 
 Castle of Dubhn within forty days, and there yield his body 
 to the constable, and shall not be discharged but by order of 
 law, otherwise he shall be attainted of the treason of which he 
 has been indicted, as effectually and sufficiently as if he had 
 been found guilty of the same by the verdict of twelve men ; 
 and all honours, lands, goods, &c. of such persons are seized 
 and united to the imperial crown. 
 
 1570. There was a second session of Parliament held in 
 this year for the sole purpose of passing an Act for the 
 Attainder of Thomas Queverford, late of Ballymaka. 
 
 1571. The act 13 Elizabeth, c. 3, for the attainder of John 
 Fitzgerald, called in his life-time the White Knight, otherwise 
 called John Oge Fitzjohn, Knight Fitzgibbons, recites that 
 whereas the just judgment of God hath cut off from the body 
 of this her Majesty's commonwealth, that unnatural, unkind, 
 and corrupt member, John, &c., and enacts that he shall be 
 attainted and forfeit and lose to her Majesty all his lands, 
 goods, &c., &c., and that the same shall be vested in the 
 queen, without any office or inquisition. 
 
 1585. The act 27 Elizabeth, c. 1, is for the attainder of 
 James Eustace, late Viscount Ballinglas, and recites that he, 
 Edmund Eustace, Thomas Eustace, Walter Eustace, and 
 Richard Eustace, his brothers, have done many detestable 
 and abominable treasons, and some of them have been out- 
 lawed, and others have been duly convicted and suffered the 
 pains of death, according to their demerits ; — it is enacted, 
 that their lands, honours, castles, &c., shall be vested in the 
 queen without inquisition. Power is then given to her 
 Majesty to grant leases thereof, and also of the lands and 
 rents of all other persons who have committed the like treason 
 or been slain in rebellion, or executed by martial law. 
 
 A general clause follows, vesting the lands of all future 
 traitors in the Crown. 
 
 1586 produced the memorable act 28 Elizabeth, c. 7, for 
 the attainder of the late Earl of Desmond, and others men- 
 tioned in the act. It set out by declaring that Gerrot Fitz- 
 Gerrold, late Earl of Desmond, Sir John Fitz Gerrold, 
 
406 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Knight, alias Sir John of Desmond, Knight, Sir James Fitz 
 Gerrold, Knight, alias James ne Dynnoll, alias Sir James of 
 Desmond, Knight ; James Fitz Morice, of Desmond, alias 
 James Fitz Morice, gent. ; James Fitz John Fitz John, 
 of Desmond, of the Currens, in the county of Kerry ; Thomas 
 Fitz John Fitz J ohn, of Desmond, of the Currens aforesaid ; 
 Teige Mac Dermot, Mac Corrnack, Mac Cartie, of Mollaeffe, 
 same county, gent. ; Rory O'Donogh, alias O'Donogh More, 
 of Kossedonogho, in Desmond ; Nicholas Mac Shane Peers, 
 alias Mac Shane, of Clanary, gent. ; Thomas Browne, of the 
 new town of Clanmonulbe, gent. ; Finin Mac Cormock, of the 
 sept of Clandermot, in Desmond ; Thomas Fitzdavid Gerrold, 
 of Ardengrale, gent. ; Richard Fitz Thomas, gent., ahas Mac 
 Thomas, of the Palace, in the County of Limerick, David 
 Fitz Gerrold, of the Great Wood, gent., alias David Encorige, 
 same county, gent. ; Murrogh O'Brien, of Aherlogh, same 
 county, gent. ; Hugh Wale, gent., ahas Faltagh O'Don 
 Moylen, same county, gent. ; Nicholas Fitz Williams, of 
 Courtmatraskie, same county, gent. ; Thomas Cam, gent., alias 
 Thomas Mac Shane, of Balletabred, alias Gortenetibord, same 
 county, gent., and Lord of Clevlish ; Thomas Mac Gybbon, of 
 Mahawnagh, same county, gent. ; John Supple, of Kilmako, 
 same county ; Cormock Downe Mac Cartie, of Glanerime, in 
 the county of Cork, gent. ; Conocor O'Mahoyne, of Kivelmeake, 
 same county, gent. ; Morrice Fitz Garrot, of the Shean, same 
 county, gent. ; James Fitz Maurice, of the Shean aforesaid, 
 same county, gent. ; Donnel Mac Connor O'Mahowne, of Rose- 
 byne, same county, gent. ; James Mac Shane Mac Gerrot, 
 gent., alias James Fitz John Fitz Gerrot, of Strenecally, in 
 the county of Waterford, gent ; Morrice Mac Gerrot Mac An 
 Earle, of Shian, same county, gent. ; Richard Fitz John Fitz 
 Maurice, of Knockmean, same county, gent. ; Morice Fitz John, 
 of Knockmean, aforesaid, gent. ; Gerrot Brack, of Melcosse, 
 same county, gent. ; Brian O'Brian ne Carrege, of Kilcomerie, 
 alias Comeragh, same county, gent. ; Morrogh CBrian, of Don- 
 grotte, county of Tipperary, gent. ; Walter Fitz J ohn Bourke, 
 of Knockneden, alias of the Cappagh, in Muskery Curke, same 
 county, gent. ; John Fitz Walter Bourke, of Ballingurtin, same 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 407 
 
 county, gent. ; Geffry Burke, of Killenkaskie, same county ; 
 Thomas Fitz John Bourk, of Cowley, same county, gent. ; John 
 Mac William Mac Tibbot Bourk, of Clanwilliam, Cosh way, 
 in the same county, gent., have since, by open rebellion, and 
 others by sundry confederacies, and other overt acts, have com- 
 mitted many abominable treasons — and then proceeds to enact 
 that they shall by the authority of this act be convicted and 
 attainted of high treason, and that as many of them as be yet 
 in life and not pardoned, shall at the queen's will and pleasure 
 suffer the pains of death, as in cases of high treason. 
 
 The usual clause follows, vesting the lands of these persons in 
 the queen without inquisition — and all attainders previously de- 
 clared against them, whether by outlawry or the verdict of a 
 jury, are by this act approved and confirmed, and every gift, 
 grant, or lease already made by the queen, of any portions of 
 their lands, castles, or honours, are declared as good and 
 effectual as if they had been made after the passing of the act. 
 
 The Act 28 Eliz. c. 8, was simultaneously passed attainting 
 John Browne of Knockmonhie county Limerick, gent. ; J ohn 
 Bradagh Casy of Kilderry, same county, gent. ; Morogh 
 O'Brian of Aherlo, same county, gent. ; Mahon Mac Moragh 
 CBrian of Kiluehume, same county, gent. ; Thomas Browne 
 of Kilkellan, same county, gent. ; David Mac Gibbon, gent., 
 alias David Mac Shane, alias David Engroig, late of Kilmore, 
 same county, gent. ; J ames Wall and Stephen Wall, of Cloin- 
 strotchan, same county, gent, ; Pierce Wall, alias Peter 
 Wall of Balleigny, same county, gent. ; Redmond Wall of 
 Adare, same county, gent. ; Robert Oge, Cusshane of Lis- 
 necorie, same county, gent. ; Gerald Fitz Thomas of Kilfinny, 
 same county, gent. ; Walter Leo, alias Leogh of Donkeyre, 
 same county, gent.; Owen Mac Edmond Mac Sheby of 
 Ballynoe in the same county, gent. ; John Loudon of Kilcos- 
 graw in the same county, gent. ; Donogh Moyle Mac William 
 of Dromlare, same county, gent. ; Edmond Oge Lacy of 
 Ballyneglochye, same county, gent. ; Gerald DufFe of Rath- 
 phrille, same county, gent.; James Fitz David Oge Crone of 
 Rathprile aforesaid, same county, gent. ; Patrick Wolfe of 
 
408 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Balliwilliam, same county, gent. ; Gerald Fitz Edinond of 
 Glanehagilsly in Clangibbon, same county, gent. ; Brian Roe 
 of Cahirduffe, same county, gent. ; Cormocke Oge Hallyman 
 of Bolierouce, same county, gent. ; James Reogh Lacy of 
 Lismakerry, same county, gent. ; Gerrard Balliffe of Ballin- 
 friorie, same county, gent.; Thomas Wall of Boherbradagh, 
 same county, gent. ; Morierto Meriagh of Kilduffe in the 
 same county, gent. ; Moryegh Mac Brian of the Grange, same 
 county, gent. ; Thomas Hurly of Ballynathie, same county, 
 gent. ; WilHam Mac Phillipe of Ballyany, same county, gent. ; 
 UUiacke Backagh Mac Thomas of Clashonye, same county, 
 gent. ; Ullicke Fitz Thomas Burk of Lymoland, same county, 
 gent. ; Owen Mac Brien Mac Rory of Karwhydore, alias 
 Garryduffe, same county, gent. ; J ohn Ocahysy of Kilderry, 
 same county, gent. ; Morogh Mac Teige O'Brien of Killury, 
 same county, gent. ; Morice Fitz John Gerrold of Kilnenagh, 
 county of Kerry, gent. ; Conohor Odaly of Kilterchan, same 
 county, gent. ; J ohn Oge Fitz John Fitz Morice of Kille- 
 noragh, same county, gent. ; Morice Mac Shane Heysey, 
 alias Heysey of Glangartenkarrene, same county, gent. ; 
 John Mac Edmond Mac Ullicke of Ballenata, same county, 
 gent. ; James Hussy of Dinglecushe, same county, gent. ; 
 James Russell, same county, merchant ; Domenick Roe Fitz 
 Morice, same county, merchant ; Thomas Fitzwilliain Boy, 
 same county, gent. ; David Duffe of Kilkusney, same county, 
 gent. ; Teige 0''Loigh Dermod Beare, same county, gent. ; 
 John Fitz James Fitz Edmond of Tymackmaw, same county, 
 gent. ; John Fitz Redmond of Ballycoynan, county of Cork, 
 gent. ; Piers Coudon of Manoge in Condon's Country, same 
 county, gent. ; Morice Mac Edmond of RathegorfFe, county 
 Corke, gent. ; James Fitz John of Polloghkyry, same county, 
 gent.; John Macgarret Mac Shane of the Great Woods, 
 same county, gent. ; Richard Fitz Piers Coudon ny Caliareagh 
 of Cahirdrourny, same county, gent. ; Richard Riogle Barret 
 of Burdenstown, same county, gent. ; Mahown Mac Morragh 
 of Kildeheny, same county, gent. ; John Omollownow, alias 
 Shane Omolan of Temple Jogan, same county, gent. ; John 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 409 
 
 Piggot of Dyrrenyvvrange, alias Dyrrewylane, same county, 
 gent. ; Phillipe Roche Fitz Edmond, alias Mac Vildon, alias 
 Villon of Carrichymlere, same county, gent. ; Thomas Oge 
 Mac Thomas Fitz Gerald of Kilmocke, same county, gent. ; 
 William Encorrigge of Kerrylarry, same county, gent. ; 
 Thomas Niskartie of Killane, same county, gent. ; John 
 Moyle of Ballygoran, same county, gent. ; David Fitz Edmond 
 Roche of Killoughtermoy. same county, gent. ; Morice Fitz 
 John of Knockmore, same county, gent. ; Morice Fitz Wil- 
 liam Fitz David of Ballynatra, same county, gent. ; Garrat 
 Fitz James son to James Fitz John of Stroncally, county 
 AVaterford, gent.; John Fitz James, gent., brother to the 
 same Garret; Morice Fitz John of Knockmohan, same 
 county, gent.; Thomas Fitz John Fitz Morice of Knocke- 
 mohan aforesaid, gent. ; Henry Fitz Garret, same county, 
 gent., brother to Viscount Decies; Edmond Roche Poer of 
 Kilnecarrigge, same county, gent. ; Edmond Fitz Theobald, 
 alias Rabbin of Ballebegge, same county, gent. ; John Fitz 
 Tybald of Ballibegge aforesaid, gent., brother to said Edmond 
 Fitz Theobald ; WiUiam Duff Fitz James Roche of Bally- 
 modagh, same county, gent. ; Edmond Fitz John of Croshe, 
 same county, gent. ; Rorie Fitz Thomas, same county, gent., 
 brother to Thomas Oge; James Leigh Roch of Fortene- 
 lentehy, same county, gent. ; Mauritius Fitz J ohn of Kil- 
 mallow, same county, gent. ; John Oge Mac Thomas of Clony, 
 same county, gent.; John Fitz Maurice of Tynnekelly, same 
 county, gent. ; James Fitz Morice Fitz Garret of Bally- 
 mowtie, same county, gent. ; John Roe Fitz Edmond of 
 Casclereogh, same county, gent. ; Morice Fitz John Bourke 
 of Balligwiry, same county, gent. ; James Fitzmaurice of 
 Sheban, same county, gent. ; William O'Maugher Mac Der- 
 mot, same county, gent. ; Peter Grace of Bally necurre, 
 county Tipperary, gent., alias Pierce Grace of Ballynecurre 
 aforesaid, gent. ; Mellaghlen Roe O'Carran of Ballynolan, 
 same county, gent. ; Edmond Hedan of Ballymore, same 
 county, gent. ; John Bourk, alias Rich Mac J ohn Bourke of 
 Ballymore aforesaid, gent. ; William Fitz Edmond Bourke 
 
410 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 of Killualagher, same county, gent. ; John Fitz Walter 
 Bourke of Drourgan, same county, gent. ; Conogher Yckoem 
 Mac Brien Ogonagh, gent. ; Morertogh Mac Brien of 
 Tireboy, gent. ; Morogh Mac Brian of Tireboy aforesaid, 
 gent. ; Teige O'Nubrian of Bealrughim in Onhy, gent. ; 
 Kenedy Mac Brien of the country of Ogonagh, gent. ; 
 Conochor Mac Conghor Mac Brien of the same country 
 of Ogonagh, gent. ; Teige Roe of the sept of Clandonell Roe 
 of Bantry, gent. ; Teige Roe Mac Tyning Mac Dermond, 
 same sept, gent. ; Conogher Mac Douell Mac Rory of the 
 same sept, gent. 
 
 All these persons — all who had assisted them and died in re- 
 beUion or had been executed by martial law were by this act 
 convicted and attainted of treason — and their lands forfeited. 
 The confirmation contained in the preceding act of previous 
 attainders, and also of preceding grants or leases of the for- 
 feited lands is here repeated, and so end the confiscations of 
 the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 1612 was the year of the confiscation of Ulster by the Act 
 11, 12, and ]3 James I. c. 4, for the Attainder of Hugh late 
 Earl of Tyrone, Rory, late Earl of Tyrconnell, Sir Cahir 
 O'Dogherty, and others. The persons whose property was 
 now seized, were in addition to the two Earls and the Baronet 
 mentioned in the title of this Act, Hugh O'Neyle, late 
 Baron of Dungannon, eldest son of the Earl of Tyrone ; 
 Henry O'Neyle his second son. Sir Hugh Maguyre, knight, 
 and Connaught Maguyre, late of Inniskilling, county of Fer- 
 managh ; Sir John O'Reilly, of Cavan, Knight ; Phillip and 
 Edmund O'Reilly, late of the same, esquires ; Oghy Oge, 
 O'Hanlon, eldest son of Sir Oghy O'Hanlon, late of Tovegoy 
 in the county of Armagh ; Casser O'Donnell, brother to the 
 Earl of Tyrconnell, late of Casserscovee in the county of 
 Donegal ; Gaffer Oge O'Donnell, late of Starfolis, same 
 county, esq. ; Donnel Oge O'Donnell, late of Donegal, esq. ; 
 Brian Oge Mac Mahown, alias Brian ne Sarvagh Mac 
 Mahown, late of Clonleege, in the Uppertrough, county of 
 Monaghan, gent. ; Art Oge Mac Cormack O'Neyle, late of 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Clogher, in Tyrone, esq. ; Henry Hovendon, late of Dun- 
 gannon, Tyrone, gent. ; Mortogh O'Quyn, late of the same, 
 gent. ; Richard Weston, late of Dundalk, merchant ; John 
 Bath, late of Dunalong, merchant ; Christopher Plunket, late 
 of Dungannon, gent. ; John O'Pauty O'Hagan, late of the 
 same, gent. ; John Rath, late of Drogheda, merchant ; Hugh 
 Mac Donnell, O'Galloebor, late of Donegal, gent. ; Terrelagh 
 Garragh O'Galloebor, late of the same, gent. ; Phelim Reagh 
 MacDavid, late of Eloagh, Donegal, gent. ; John Crone Mac 
 David, late of the same, gent. ; Edmund Grome MacDavid, 
 late of the same, gent. ; Matthew Oge O'Maltully, late of 
 Donegal, same county, gent. ; Donogh Mac Mabourne 
 O'Brian, late of Rathmulin, Donegal, gent. ; Teige 
 O'Kennan, late of the same, gent. ; Henry O'Hagan, late of 
 Dungannon, gent. ; Teige O'Hagan, late of the same, gent. ; 
 and Tiege Modder O'Quin, late of the same, gent. 
 
 In 1634, the extent to which the confiscation of land had 
 been carried in the reign of Mary, Elizabeth, and James I., 
 was distinctly marked by the Act 10 Charles I. sess. S, c. 3, 
 which passed for securing the estates of undertakers, servitors, 
 and natives in the Plantations made in the several counties of 
 Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary, Wexford, 
 Wicklow^, King's County, Queen's County, Westmeath, 
 Leitrim, Longford, Tyrone, Armagh, Donegal, Fermanagh, 
 Cavan, and Londonderry. The details have already been 
 sufficiently dwelt upon. 
 
 But, however this statute may have been designed to settle 
 the existing tenures and compose the troubles of the country, 
 fresh events sprung rapidly up, and the course of a few years 
 again transferred all the possessions of the country. During 
 the interval referred to the English Parliament legislated 
 largely upon the subject, and greatly increased the prevailing 
 confusion. 
 
 In the year 1652 there passed an Act subjecting the Irish 
 upon religious grounds to a graduated scale of forfeitures 
 of the whole, or two- thirds or one-third of their lands. Par- 
 liamentary Commissioners were appointed to carry this Act 
 
412 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 into execution, and the severity of their powers may be judged 
 of by the fact that those were regarded as favoured persons 
 who had their lands taken away and a portion to the same 
 extent assigned in some other part of the country. 
 
 In 1653 the English Parliament passed another act for the 
 distribution of lands in Ireland, by which ten counties, 
 namely, Limerick, Tipperary, Waterford, King's County, 
 Queen's County, West Meath, East Meath, Down, Antrim, 
 and Armagh, were appropriated, [so much of each as was for- 
 feited] one half for the satisfaction of the adventurers who 
 had advanced money for the conquest of Ireland, and the 
 other half for discharging the arrears of the army, which had 
 accrued since the 5th of June, 1649. The forfeited lands in 
 the counties of Dublin, Cork, Kildare, and Carlow, were 
 reserved for the disposal of Parliament. What remained in 
 the provinces of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster, were appro- 
 priated, first to cover any deficiency that might occur in the 
 disposal of the ten first named countries; secondly, to 
 discharge the arrears to the army ; and thirdly, for the satis- 
 faction of debts of whatever kind, that should appear to be 
 due from the public. This was the Act that appointed the 
 province of Connaught, and the lands west of the Shannon, as 
 the future residence of Roman Cathohcs. 
 
 The general results of the Cromw^ellian confiscations and 
 displacements have been summed by Mr. Bichenoup, w^ho 
 takes as his authority the accounts published by the Crom- 
 wellian proprietors themselves, of which there is no reason 
 to doubt the accuracy. In them the surface of Ireland 
 was estimated at 10,400,000 Irish acres, of which 3,000,000 
 were counted unprofitable land, consisting of wood, moun- 
 tain, bog, &c. Of the remaining 7,400,000, 2,400,000 were 
 computed to be in the hands of Protestant proprietors pre- 
 vious to the war of the confederation in 1641. At this period 
 the Catholic property in land was estimated to be 5,000,000 
 of acres. 
 
 In 165o, when the Cromwellian war, according to the pro- 
 clamation issued on this occasion, had ceased, they state that 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 418 
 
 these 5,000,000 of acres had l^een disposed of by the Crom- 
 wellian government as follows : — Restored to Catholic pro- 
 prietors, 100,000 acres; to Catholic proprietors who proved 
 innocency before CromwelPs Commissioners of Loughrea, and 
 at Athlone, and were decreed restitution or compensation in 
 the province of Connaught, and the county of Clare, about 
 700,000 acres. 
 
 To the officers and soldiers who served in Ireland before 
 the arrival of Cromwell in 1649, in Wicklow, Longford, 
 Leitrim, Donegal, and between the sea and the Shannon, 
 400,000 acres. 
 
 To the adventurers who advanced money under the Acts 
 l7th and 18th of Charles the First, to carry on the war in 
 Ireland, about 800,000 acres. 
 
 To several individuals, favourites of Cromw^ell, &c., about 
 100,000 acres. 
 
 Retained in the hands of government for its own use, but 
 let to British Protestants upon profitable leases, in the 
 counties of Dublin, Louth, Cavan, and Kildare, about 800,000 
 acres, besides a considerable number of houses in the cities 
 and walled towns. 
 
 It would appear from this account, that 800,000 acres only 
 were left in the hands of the old Irish. The residue, 
 9,600,000 acres, was divided among the new proprietors, of 
 which 2,500,000 w^ere seized from former settlers. This was 
 little less4han a virtual resumption of the whole country. 
 
 The three Acts passed after the restoration of Charles II. 
 for the execution of the declaration of Breda, for enlarging the 
 period of time first appointed for that purpose, for explaining 
 doubts that had arisen in carrying the measure into execution, 
 are so many records of a series of corrupt and vexatious pro- 
 ceedings which continued to convulse the kingdom during the 
 interval referred to. 
 
 The confiscations begun by Cromwell, and adopted by 
 Charles II., received fresh additions in the reign of William 
 III. These are briefly noticed in Wakefield's Ireland, Vol. I. 
 p. 340. 
 
414 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 " In the reign of King William, forfeitures were made of 
 the lands belonging to the adherents of James, amounting in 
 several counties to 1,060,792 acres, which being worth 
 rft?21 1,623 a year, at six years' purchase for a life, and at 
 thirteen years for an inheritance, amounted to <£'2,685,130. 
 Out of these lands the estates restored to the old proprietors 
 by the articles of Limerick and Gal way were valued at 
 ^724,923, and those restored by royal favour at ^£^260,863. 
 After these deductions and several other allowances, the gross 
 value of the estates forfeited from 13th February, 1688, 
 amounted to 1,699,343.^ 
 
 With the reign of William and Mary ended the direct 
 violence of the confiscations which were so cruelly begun in 
 the reign of Henry VIII. But the indirect disturbing 
 influence of those laws continued to be felt for many years 
 afterwards, principally in consequence of the barbarous penal 
 code of Queen Anne, which bore with immense force upon the 
 possession of land, aaid the relations of landlord and tenant, 
 down to the very period in which we live — certainly to 1829. 
 If it had not been for that cruel persecution, and the continual 
 efforts made to enforce its conditions sharply, the titles to the 
 possession of an estate would have remained fixed and un- 
 disturbed, and peace and fortune might have entered and 
 established themselves permanently under the wings of legal 
 security. But when the profession of the Protestant faith 
 was made an absolute condition in the possession of an estate, 
 and a change from it operated as a forfeiture of the estate, 
 the courts of law and equity became constant theatres of con- 
 fiscations in detail which had ceased to be practised in the 
 
 * On this occasion seventy-six grants passed the Great Seal ; the prin- 
 cipal of which were, Lord Romney three grants, 49,517 acres ; Earl of 
 Albemarle two grants, 108,603 acres ; William Bentinck Lord Woodstock, 
 135,820 acres; Earl of Athlone 26,480 acres; Earl of Galway 36,148 
 acres; Earl of Rochfort two grants, 30,512 acres; Lord Coningsby 
 59,667 acres ; Colonel Gustavus Hamilton, for his services in wading 
 through the Shannon and storming Athlone at the head of the English 
 Grenadiers, 5,966 acres ; and Sir Thomas Pendergast for the most valuable 
 consideration of the discovery of the Assassination Plot, 7082 acres." 
 —Ibid. 
 
LAND HrSTORlCALLY CONSIDERED, 
 
 415 
 
 Houses of Parliament on the large scale already described. 
 During all this time the political system of the Government 
 was built upon the principle of these dispossessions. Every 
 minister who took office made it the rule of his public actions 
 and the test of his political pretensions. And as the pos- 
 sessors of property acted upon the same considerations, we 
 have to point to that false principle as the parent and producer 
 of the peculiar grievances of the country, and all the compli- 
 cated vexations that have ever since harassed the relations 
 between landlord and tenant.'^" 
 
 To the landlords of Ireland, all men naturally attribute the 
 condition of that country. For the landlords have not only 
 possessed the land, but also the power to make the laws which 
 r^ulate its use and occupation. According to every period or 
 authority to which we can refer, the general body has evinced 
 one consistent, and that the least commendable, mode of 
 acting towards their dependents. Authors and politicians of 
 all classes and parties give the same account of the conduct of 
 the landlords and the condition of their tenants. Swift, 
 
 * Roman Catholics it will be remembered were not allowed to take land 
 on lease before the year 1778. But the practical tendency of the law for 
 many years afterwards to create injury and discontent, and to embarrass 
 by additional intricacies the relations of landlord and tenant, is exposed 
 by Wakefield, Vol. I. 253. 
 
 Happening to dine with Dr. Moylan the Catholic Bishop (of Cork), he 
 related to me the following circumstance in regard to some townlands 
 belonging to the Duke of Devonshire : — These lands were occupied by 
 200 families, and on the expiration of their leases, the Duke's agents, 
 wishing to substitute Protestants in the room of Catholics, refused to 
 renew them. The occupiers finding that they were likely to be deprived 
 of their possessions, drew up a memorial of the case which Dr. Moylan 
 presented to the Right Honourable Henry Elliot, who transmitted it to 
 General Walpole. But what was the result ? It was returned to the 
 very agent whose conduct was censured; and this gentleman, a zealous 
 friend no doubt to the established church, disregarding the claims of the 
 Catholics, introduced Protestants in their stead. But interest, which 
 often assumes the appearances of liberality, and in many cases impels 
 men to do what they otherwise would not, induced the new tenants to 
 enter into a treaty with the old ones, and the latter obtained leases of 
 their former lands at a small rack rent ; but with this difference in their 
 situation, that they were now sub-tenants under persons who were 
 middlemen. 
 
 Howard's Reports, Dublin 1775, is evidence of the number of these 
 anti-catholic lawsuits, and the importance attached to them. 
 
416 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Arthur Young, Hardy in his Life of Lord Charlemont, Wake- 
 field, and many others, told years ago the miserable story 
 which Kohl and Von Raumer have so touchingly repeated in 
 our time. Extracts from these writers have been too fre- 
 quently quoted to be reproduced here ; but the following from 
 one of Horace ^Valpole's letters to Sir H. Mann is not 
 hackneyed. 
 
 " If you want any more nevv^s you must have it from Ireland, where 
 there is a pretty substantial insurrection of 4000 men calling themselves 
 Hearts of Steel. Whatever their hearts are, their heads are of gunpowder. 
 Poor souls, they have had thorough provocation ; reduced to starve, to 
 be shot, or to be hanged. They are tenants of Lord Donegal, driven off 
 their lands because they could not pay hard fines for renewing their 
 leases ; 1600 horse and infantry are marched against them. We had 
 better have wasted an hundred hours in redressing these misfortunes than 
 in framing acts against marriage." 
 
 In the year 1764 Mr. Serjeant Fitzgibbon described the 
 humiliating desolation of his country to the House of Commons 
 in these affecting terms : 
 
 " It is always with regret that I discover the nakedness of my country, 
 but on this occasion I ought not to hide it. Upon this occasion, I must 
 remind you that Ireland is not more than one third peopled ; our trade 
 lies under such disadvantages, that two thirds of the population are un- 
 employed, and are consequently condemned to the most deplorable 
 indigence, a state that cannot fail to render them wretched in proportion 
 as the luxury of a few has multiplied artificial wants, but of which they 
 have no further knowledge than just serves to excite envy and discontent. 
 We have neither foreign trade nor home consumption sufficient to dis- 
 tribute the conveniences of life among us with a reasonable equahty, nor 
 sufficient to pay any tax proportioned to our number. 
 
 " This island is supposed to contain 3,000,000 : of these, two live like the 
 beast of the field upon a root picked out of the earth, almost without hovels 
 for shelter, or clothes for covering. What must become of a nation in 
 this situation, which at the same time is contracting a debt which must 
 every year increase by a very considerable excess of its expenses, above 
 its income ? What method can be found to prevent the ruin of a state in 
 which these evils not only continue but increase. 
 
 " What mode of taxation can be devised ? Shall we tax leather where 
 no shoes are worn, or tallow where no candles are burned ? What tax 
 can be devised on the necessaries of life where they consist wholly of roots 
 and water 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 417 
 
 Years afterwards the son of this gentleman became 
 Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. While 
 holding the former office he said to the House of Commons — 
 
 *' I am well acquainted with the province of Munster, and it is impos- 
 sible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable tenantry of 
 that province. I know that the unhappy tenantry are ground to powder 
 by the relentless landlord. I know that far from being able to give the 
 clergy their tithes, they have not food or raiment for themselves. The 
 landlord grasped the whole, and sorry I am to add, that, not satisfied with 
 the present extortion, some landlords have been so base as to instigate 
 the insurgents to rob the clergy of their tithes, not in order to alleviate 
 the distresses of the tenantry, but that they might add the clergy's share 
 to the cruel rack rents they already paid. The poor people of Munster 
 lived in a more abject state of poverty than human beings could be sup- 
 posed able to bear, — their miseries were intolerable." 
 
 The Irish judges have never ceased to hold as emphatic 
 language or to draw attention to the same thrilling facts. 
 
 " What, (exclaimed Judge Fletcher,) what is the wretched peasant to 
 do ? Hunted from the spot where he had first drawn his breath — where 
 he had first seen the hght of heaven, — incapable of procuring any other 
 means of subsistence — can we be surprised that, being of unenlightened 
 and uneducated habits, he should rush on the perpetration of crimes fol- 
 lowed by the punishment of the rope and the gibbet ? Nothing remains 
 for them thus harassed, thus destitute, but with a strong hand to deter 
 the stranger from intruding upon their farms, and to extort from the 
 weakness of the landlords — from whose gratitude and good feelings they 
 have failed to win it — a sort of preference for the ancient tenantry." 
 
 Later still Baron Foster told the House of Lords : — 
 
 I think that the proximate cause of all the disturbances which have 
 existed in Ireland of late years has been the extreme physical misery of 
 the peasantry, coupled with their being called upon for the payment 
 of different charges (the first and principal of which is rent), which it is 
 often perfectly impossible for them to meet ; the immediate cause of dis- 
 turbance I conceive to be the attempt to enforce these demands by the 
 various processes of law ; we are also to take into consideration that they 
 are living under institutions for which they have neither much affection 
 nor respect. I have assigned what I conceive to be the proximate causes 
 of the disturbances: I think the remote one is a radically vicious structure 
 of society which prevails in many parts of Ireland, and which has ori- 
 ginated in the events of Irish history, and which may be in a great mea- 
 VoL. ir. E E 
 
418 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 sure palliated, but which it would, I fear, be extremely difficult now 
 wholly to change.^* 
 
 The present Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ire- 
 land, Mr. Blackburne, was a witness in the same session 
 before both Houses, and his evidence is remarkable. 
 
 "Land," said the learned gentleman, "is a necessary of life (in Ire- 
 land) ; the alternative of not getting it is starvation ; and this circum- 
 stance, combined with the extravagant price of all species of agricultural 
 produce, had raised land in the years before the termination of the war 
 to a price beyond anything which could be called its intrinsic value. The 
 subdivision of it was also produced by speculations of a political kind, 
 and the consequence was that land stood at a rent which it was impossible 
 for the tenant to pay at any time, reserving the means of decent sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 "The most remarkable recent instance within my own knowledge of 
 great numbers of persons having been ejected from particular properties, 
 has been the eviction of the occupants of a property of Lord Stradbrooke. 
 A lease had been made by Lord Stradbrooke, or his ancestor, for thirty- 
 one years; the lease expired in 1823 ; the land had been divided to such 
 a degree that I believe there were between forty or fifty families resident 
 upon it — it was between four and five hundred acres, I think. Lord 
 Stradbrooke's agent* upon the expiration of the lease took possession, 
 which the people gave him in point of form, and he let them back upon 
 an understanding that when tenants were provided and a new disposition 
 made of the property, they should give up possession, the object being, 
 upon the part of Lord Stradbrooke, to retain a great number of the old 
 tenants and to enlarge their tenements. I believe contracts were made 
 by his lordship's agents for new lettings, but when possession was 
 demanded upon the part of Lord Stradbrooke it was refused, and Lord 
 Stradbrooke was obliged to bring an ejectment. Lord Stradbrooke's 
 agent — there was no defence to the ejectment — attended by the sheriff 
 and several men to assist him, went upon the lands and dispossessed this 
 numerous body of occupants ; they prostrated the houses, leaving the 
 people to carry away the timber. The number of persons thus deprived 
 of their homes on that occasion was very large — I am sure there were 
 above forty families, but I cannot tell the number of individuals. They 
 were persons of all ages and sexes, and in particular a woman almost in 
 the extremity of death." The learned gentleman being asked what 
 became of these persons, answered, " I should think they have been re- 
 ceived from charity up and down the country." 
 
 * His name was Blood, and he was afterwards murdered. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 419 
 
 Pursuing the thread of the evidence given by official per- 
 sons we are struck by the opinions of Mr. Singleton, Chief 
 Magistrate of Police in the Queen's county, before a com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons in the session of 1832. 
 
 "Are the Committee to understand that you consider that the spirit of 
 outrage has not been got under ? It has not. 
 
 " Can you give any hint to the Committee as to what you consider 
 likely to accomplish that desirable object? I think if the laws were 
 amended in one^ two, or three instances, which I will suggest, it would tend 
 to the security of the public peace. There is scarcely an outrage com- 
 mitted relative to lands, but what the people assign a cause for — if I 
 may use that expression : in some instances the unfortunate people do 
 show one. 
 
 ** What are the Committee to understand by showing a cause ? Op- 
 pression, high rents, low wages, and contracts being broken. I had two 
 prisoners before me, one of whom was a boy, a few days before I came 
 here. They were apprehended on a warrant to give bail and keep the 
 peace, and they told me a case which, if true, I think is very severe. They 
 told me that their forefathers (that was the expression they made use of) 
 were in possession of a certain plot of land; that they had a lease not ex- 
 pired; that they went up with half a year's rent to the landlord ; it would 
 not be taken ; when they returned it was spent ; by that time the second 
 gale came round and they were not able to pay the rent; and then 
 they were permitted to give up the lands on condition not to pay the 
 rent due. 
 
 " That is to say they were not called upon to pay the arrear ? They 
 were not called upon to pay the rent due on the proviso of surrendering 
 the lands. 
 
 "Do you give credence to all the oppressions stated? In many cases 
 I do give credence. I have seen and I know land to be set one- third 
 above its value ; and I have seen, at least I have heard and believe, that 
 small cottagers who had land without a lease before the assimilation of 
 the currency, are now called upon to pay the same rent in British cur- 
 rency." 
 
 In Ireland then, to condense the emphatic language of Chief 
 Justice Blackburne, ''land is life," and we may truly add, 
 following up the simile, that the lord of the land has hitherto 
 been able to dictate to the occupier the conditions upon which 
 it has been held as pereniptorily as the knight of old, with his 
 foot upon the throat of a vanquished foe, pronounced the 
 terms upon which his life was spared. This leading fact, 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 illustrated by the opinions of such men as the Lord Chancellor 
 Clare, Judge Fletcher, Baron Foster, and Chief Justice 
 Blackburne, makes us almost fancy that we can see the insur- 
 rections, agrarian outrages, and murders with which the his- 
 tory of the country teems, springing like corporal realities 
 from the land, and spreading death and horror as they stride 
 over its devoted surface. 
 
 The first great agrarian insurrection took place in the 
 year 1761, when Mr. Serjeant Fitzgibbon spoke of the 
 peasantry in the terms already quoted.^ From that year 
 to the year 18S3, a series of unbroken conspiracies, seeking 
 vent every now and then in tumultuous and sanguinary 
 outbreaks, are painfully recorded by a variety of writers. 
 We have histories of the Levellers and Whiteboys of , 
 1761, of Right Boys and Oak Boys in 1764, of Steel Boys 
 in 1772, of Right Boys, Peep o^Day Boys, and Defenders in 
 1785, of Orangemen and United Irishmen in 1798, of 
 Thrashers and Carders in 1806, and in each of the years 
 1807, 1811, 1817, 1818, 1820, 1821, 1826, 1832, and 1833 
 we have had White Feet, Black Feet, Shanavats, Caravats, 
 Rockites, Terry Alts, and Ribbon Men, down to the present 
 time. It is almost superfluous to add that Insurrection Acts, 
 Arms Acts, and Coercion Acts, have never ceased to swell the 
 statute-book during the whole of this melancholy period. 
 
 With the exception of Grattan's Bill in the year 1 780 to 
 
 remove doubts in the construction of leases, with covenants 
 
 for perpetual renewal — a bill opposed by the government and 
 
 the aristocracy, and only carried by a majority of three in the 
 
 Commons, and of one in the Lords — the proceedings of the 
 
 parliament of Ireland embraced no measure for the relief of 
 
 the prevailing distresses of the country. The tenor of the 
 
 laws passed since the Union has not mitigated this general 
 
 * " Exorbitant rents, low wages, farms of enormous extent let by their 
 rapacious and indolent proprietors to monopolising land jobbers, to be re- 
 let by intermediate oppressors for five times their value among the 
 wretched starvers upon potatoes and water; — these were undoubtedly the 
 first and original causes of the disturbances, obvious to the slightest in- 
 spection, though resolutely denied, and every public investigation into 
 them impudently frustrated by those whose sordid interest opposed their 
 removal." — Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 421 
 
 character. One of the latest authorities brought to bear 
 upon this question was the highest and most positive that 
 could be applied to it. Chief Justice Pennefather delivering 
 judgment in the year 1843, in the case of Delapp v. Leonard^ 
 made use of the following language : — " The whole code 
 relating to landlord and tenant in this country^ was framed 
 with a view to the interests of the landlord, and to enforce the 
 payment of rent hy the tenant. The interest of the tenant 
 never entered into the contemplation of the legislature f 
 
 In the year following, Mr. Serjeant Howley, after detailing 
 to the Land Commissioners the several statutes relating to 
 the occupation of land, from the act 11 Anne to the Civil Bill 
 Ejectment Acts, said: — These are all beneficial to the land- 
 lord, enlarging the remedy he has at common law, and giving 
 him additional powers either to obtain his rent, or in default, 
 to obtain possession of the land. The Civil Bill Ejectment 
 system I consider more advantageous to the landlord than 
 to the tenant. It gives greater facilities and more power to 
 the former." 
 
 It would be here proper, in order to present the general sub- 
 ject in its full aspect, to set forth the laws passed, and still in 
 force, relating to landlord and tenant in Ireland, and those also 
 passed for the repression and punishment of offences arising 
 out of the possession of land. But the number of the statutes 
 in both classes forbids the task : a separate volume would be 
 required for each. It must, therefore, suffice to state, that in 
 Ireland the recovery of rent, and wherever that is not paid, re- 
 possession of the land, is facilitated by a cheap and rapid process, 
 unknown to the law of England. In the course of a few days, 
 and by the expenditure of a few shillings, the Irish landlord 
 obtains results which in England can only be arrived at after 
 the lapse of many months and the outlay of many pounds. The 
 key to this remarkable difference is to be found in the judg- 
 ment of Chief Justice Pennefather already cited, and it 
 consists plainly enough in this — that in England the law sees 
 that there are two contracting parties in the letting of land, 
 and it respects them both equally : in Ireland it has hitherto 
 respected only one of them. 
 
422 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 There are several works of repute upon the subject of the 
 law of landlord and tenant in Ireland. One of them extends 
 to 700 pages. The writer, therefore, who declines to enter 
 into particulars upon the subject cannot complain of want of 
 materials ; but the following evidence relating to this code, 
 given by Mr. Serjeant Howley before the recent Land Com- 
 mission, suffices amply for general purposes : 
 
 "The statute law, as it prevails in Ireland, relative to the occupation of 
 land, I think may be divided under three heads; first, the acts which 
 regard ejectments for non-payment of rent; secondly, the statutes which 
 are conversant of distress ; and thirdly, where the tenant's interest has 
 expired, or is determined. The first statute in Ireland, which was passed 
 for the purpose of enabling landlords to recover the land, where the rent 
 was in arrear, and where there was a condition for re-entry, was the 11th 
 of Anne, c. 2. Previous to that the remedy for the landlord was given 
 by common law, and there were a number of nice and previous requisites 
 to be complied with, to enable landlords to take advantage of a breach of 
 the condition ; and that, if I recollect right, was the first statute that dis- 
 pensed with those niceties, upon which landlords were frequently turned 
 round, and gave them a more simple mode of procedure. This statute 
 (11 Anne) enabled landlords to recover possession where above half a 
 year's rent was due, and no sufficient distress was upon the land, and a 
 clause of re-entry was contained in the agreement, lease, or contract. 
 The next statute which occurs is, I think, the 4th of George I., c. 5 ; 
 and by that statute, where more than one year's rent should be due, 
 though there be a distress suflScient on the land to answer the rent in 
 arrear, a power was given to the landlord to maintain an ejectment. The 
 former act was, where half a year's rent was due, and no sufficient 
 distress upon the land ; but here it is, where there is more than one 
 year's rent due, and it dispenses with the ingredient of a sufficient 
 distress. Then comes the 8th George I, c. 2, which provided, that 
 where one whole year's rent, or more, should be due, the landlord might 
 bring his ejectment, and it simplified and facilitated the proof of title by 
 making the counterpart of the lease, reserving the rent and possession of 
 the land for three years by the lessor, or those under whom he derives 
 title, before service of the ejectment. The next statute I think it necessary 
 to advert to, is the 5th of George II., c. 4, and this is a statute upon 
 which an ejectment may be brought, where one whole year's rent or more 
 is due, although there be no clause of re-entry in the lease, or agreement. 
 It gave a power to the landlord to recover the arrears of rent, as if no 
 ejectment had been brought, or judgment had, or execution executed. 
 Then came the 25th of Geo. II., c. 13: where one year's rent is unpaid 
 an ejectment may be brought, as if the article or contract contained an 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 423 
 
 actual demise, and a clause of re-entry, the former statutes including only 
 cases were there was an actual demise. Then came the 15th and I6th of 
 Geo. III. c. 27, which was more in the nature of an explaining act. 
 Doubts had arisen upon the former acts, whether it had not been neces- 
 sary to make a demand of the rent, before an ejectment was properly 
 brought. A number of ejectments had been brought without that pre- 
 vious demand, and after the landlord had got into possession leases had 
 been made of the lands so ejected. Then there was a question, whether 
 the ejectment was a good one ? or whether those leases were good ? a 
 previous demand of rent not having been made," because these words 
 occur in the previous statute ; and in order to quiet titles, and explain 
 and amend the law in that respect, the statute of the 15th and l6th of 
 Geo. III. was passed. There appears to have been a pause in legislation 
 upon this subject, until the 1st Geo. IV. c. 87. That was a statute 
 which provided, that where the term or interest was determined by 
 notice, or the interest expired, and the tenant refused to give up posses- 
 sion after demand made, the landlord bringing an ejectment might give 
 notice at foot of the declaration for the tenant to appear on the first day 
 of term, and give bail ; and then upon the appearance, or in case of 
 default, and upon affidavit of service by the landlord, and upon the pro- 
 duction of the lease of agreement, and the affidavit containing an aver- 
 ment that the premises had been enjoyed under such lease, there was a 
 power given to the landlord to move for a rule that the tenant should 
 give an undertaking, in case of a verdict for the plaintiff, or of default, 
 for judgment of the preceding term, with sufficient sureties for costs 
 and damages. I might here, perhaps, observe, that the first statute as I 
 recollect — though not pretending to be very conversant with the English 
 statutes upon the subject — the first statute which is equivalent to the 
 statute of Anne, dispensing with the former niceties of the common law 
 in England, was the 4th of Geo. II. c. 28, so that we were so far behind 
 hand with England in legislation upon this subject. The next class pf 
 statutes, giving landlords a remedy by ejectment, are those giving juris-" 
 diction by civil bill. The first act to enable landlords to recover posses- 
 sion of the premises by procedure in the Assistant Barrister's Court by 
 civil bill, is the 58th of Geo. III. c. 39. 
 
 The first remedy which that statute gave the landlord was in cases of 
 premises being abandoned or deserted, or left uncultivated by the tenant, 
 without sufficient distress to answer for half a year's rent, which must be 
 due to enable him to get possession of the land. There is, I think, an 
 earlier analogous statute in the Enghsh statutes. The next case was, 
 where the rent was less than 50Z., or did not exceed 50/. per annum, and 
 the tenant's interest is determined— that is, determined by notice to quit, 
 or where it has expired by efflux of time. The third case, where a 
 remedy is given to a landlord, is, where the rent does not exceed 50/. per 
 
424 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 year, and a year's rent is due — a power is given to bring a civil bill, but 
 there the contract must be in writing. The truth is, that in a great 
 multitude of cases the second remedy which I have stated as given to a 
 landlord by this act — namely, the power to eject a tenant, where the 
 tenant's interest is determined by notice to quit — is used for the purpose 
 of recovering the premises where rent is in arrear, being cases of tenants 
 from year to year, because you cannot proceed under the clause giving 
 the power to eject for non-payment of rent unless there is a contract in 
 writing ; and where it is a mere tenancy from year to year, and an arrear 
 is due, the landlords proceed by giving a notice to quit, and in that way 
 it is frequently done more for the purpose of compelling payment of the 
 rent, or ejecting the tenant, in consequence of being in arrear, than for 
 the mere purpose of getting possession of the land. These statutes I have 
 referred to are all, as the Commissioners will observe, statutes beneficial to 
 the landlord, enlarging the remedy he had at common law, and giving him 
 additional powers, either to obtain his rent, or, in default, to obtain pos- 
 session of the land. I come next to the 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 70, which is a 
 statute enlarging, in other causes of action, the jurisdiction of the assistant 
 barristerin the civilbill court, and there are in it some very useful provisions 
 regarding replevins, to enable the tenant, giving him a cheap remedy to 
 try the question of rent or no rent, or how much rent is due between him 
 and his landlord ; so that I consider that act, though it may be very 
 beneficial, of course, for the landlord, as one most beneficial also for the 
 poorer class of tenants, as it enables them to contest the matter cheaply, 
 and almost, I may say, summarily, with the landlord. Now I do not 
 know whether there be any value in the remark, but I beg to refer the 
 Commissioners to the circumstance, and they will perhaps derive some in- 
 formation from it, as to therelation of landlord and tenant in Ireland, whether 
 it has been in former times, or at all times, amicable or not, whether it pro- 
 ceeded smoothly and satisfactorily between the landlord and tenant for 
 many years, the titles and preambles of the various statutes, at least the 
 greater portion of them, recite frauds and evasions on the part of the 
 tenants and other charges against them. Without at all meaning to give 
 any opinion or to deduce any inference of my own upon the subject, 
 I merely refer the Commissioners to those portions of the statutes, as 
 furnishing a kind of legislative history on the subject. It may also be 
 desirable to have the attention of the Commissioners called to the 26th of 
 Geo. III. c. 24, s. 64, that is an act regarding forcible possessions and 
 declaring persons taking or keeping forcible possession or resisting pro- 
 cess for giving possession guilty of felony, and subjecting them to trans- 
 portation for seven years. There are statutes enlarging the common law 
 against forcible entries and detainers which are common both to England 
 and Ireland, and where the oflfence is but a misdemeanour, but the 26th 
 of Geo. III. is peculiar to Ireland. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 425 
 
 With reference to ejectments I may mention another act, the 1st and 2nd 
 of Will. IV. c. 31, which contains a provision to enable landlords, to 
 whom a right of entry accrues during or immediately after Hilary and 
 Trinity Terms, to prosecute ejectments against their tenants, so as to have 
 a trial at the ensuing assizes. Before that act the tenant might postpone 
 the landlord for nearly a year. It provided that when the tenantcy 
 expires in or after Trinity or Hilary Term, facilities should be given to 
 the landlord to proceed by ejectment and have a trial, and power is also 
 given to the Court to issue an immediate writ of possession, according 
 to its discretion. As the commissioners wish to know the exact state of 
 the law as between landlord and tenant, the next subject to which I would 
 refer would be the subject of subletting, and the first act against sub- 
 letting was the 7th of Geo. IV. c. 29, and it was there provided by that 
 statute, which was in operation till April 1832, if I remember correctly, 
 that although there was no clause against subletting contained in the 
 lease or agreement, subletting was forbidden, unless there was a consent 
 in writing by the landlord and it took away all constructive waivers, 
 where there was a clause against subletting. Whether that law was con- 
 sidered too stringent, or whether it did not work usefully, at all events it 
 appeared wise to the legislature to modify and alter it, and it was so 
 modified and altered by the 2nd of Will. IV. c. 17, which required that 
 there should be a covenant against subletting in the lease, and provided 
 that no act of the landlord should be deemed a waiver of the covenant, 
 unless he was a party to the instrument of subletting, or his consent was 
 given in writing, and that it should in such case be only a waiver for the 
 particular instance. Nice questions of law were often raised upon those 
 covenants which were regarded as conditions, and acts of express or con- 
 structive waiver were considered as destroying the covenant altogether. 
 It further provided that where there is a subletting without the consent 
 of the landlord, the mesne landlord should not have any remedy for the 
 rent or the occupation of the land. It confers also this benefit on the 
 tenant, that where there is a subletting with the consent of the landlord, 
 in cases where he has paid his rent to his immediate lessor, he is relieved 
 from all liability to distress to the head landlord for rent due by the 
 mesne landlord to such head landlord. It also gives a power to the head 
 landlord, in all such cases where his immediate tenant is in arrear, to 
 serve notices on the occupying tenants, to lien their rents in discharge of 
 it, and after such notice to recover the rent from the occupying tenants. 
 Perhaps I should now refer the Commissioners to what is called, in com- 
 mon parlance, the Tenantry Act, that is, the 19th and 20th of Geo. III. c. 
 30. There is no corresponding enactment to this statute in England ; the 
 recital of that act declares the object of it; it was for the purpose of re- 
 lieving tenants holding under leases for lives, containing covenants for a 
 perpetual renewal, and it enabled courts of equity, upon an adequate com- 
 
426 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 pensation being made, to relieve the tenants and their assigns against 
 lapse of time, where they had passed the time, and had not renewed or 
 paid up the renewal fines, where fines were reserved ; it enabled or paid 
 up the renewal fines, where fines were reserved ; it enabled courts of 
 equity to relieve tenants against such lapse of time if no circumstance of 
 fraud was proved against such tenants or their assigns ; but it took 
 away the equity, where landlords, or lessors, or persons entitled to re- 
 ceive such fines, had demanded those fines from the tenants or their as- 
 signs at the time, and they had been refused, or neglected to be paid 
 within a reasonable time after such demand. I believe I have stated as 
 much as occurs to me upon the subject of the law regarding ejectments. 
 I come now to the subject of distress for rent in arrear. There are 
 various statutes regulating distresses. The first statute to which it may 
 be necessary to call the attention of the commissioners is the 7th of 
 Will. III. c. 33, and that enabled the landlord where the first distress 
 was insufficient to repeat the distress, and it enabled the landlord to dis- 
 train upon sheaves of corn and hay, and such like, which, though 
 secured, were not distrainable at common law. ^ Such things were not 
 distrainable at common law, because it was supposed that a distress at 
 common law was a mere pledge for the rent ; and those being articles 
 which could not be re-delivered to the tenants in the same plight in 
 which they were when they were taken, they were by the common law 
 not liable to distress ; for instance, the corn might be shed, and hay in 
 cocks scattered ; so that statute gave a power to the landlord which he 
 had not at common law. It was not until long subsequent that a similar 
 power was given in England; it was given, but by a latter statute. 
 
 Then comes the 9th of Anne, c. 8, which enables landlords to seize 
 goods fraudulently carried away for the purpose of avoiding a distress ; 
 it enabled them to seize goods within jive days ; it also gave the power to 
 the landlord to distrain for rent due at any time within six months after 
 the lease was determined, that is, if the tenant, or those under him, re- 
 mained in possession, and that the landlord's title continued. The 4th of 
 Geo. I. c. 5, gave a power to the landlord, in case he made a distress, and 
 the distress was rescued, to evict as if no distress had been made. 
 The 8th of Geo. I. c. 2, enabled constables to assist and watch in cases 
 of rescue, and provided a certain payment for them. I have not the 
 exact words in my recollection. The next statute is the 15th of Geo. II. 
 c. 15, which enables landlords to seize goods fraudulently carried ofi^ the 
 premises to prevent distress, within twenty days — the former statute 
 limited landlords to five days. This gave them twenty days, and it 
 enabled them to sell them as if taken upon the premises ; and it con- 
 tained a further penalty making their tenants and their aiders — persons 
 aiding them in so fraudulently removing — forfeit double the value to the 
 landlord. It also enabled landlords to distrain tenant's stock upon a 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 427 
 
 common, as if actually upon the premises, and it further gave them an 
 advantage also for the tenants, enabling the distress to be impounded 
 upon the premises and not to be carried away. Then the next statute, 
 the 25th of Geo. II. c. 13, is a statute giving a general avowry. Before 
 that statute it was necessary, in some cases, to deduce title, which was 
 sometimes attended with very great difficulty. In replevins it gave a 
 general avowry, facilitating the pleading of the landlord, and double 
 costs also, although there was no demise contained in the agreement. 
 
 The next statute to which it is necessary to call the attention of the 
 Commissioners is the 56th of Geo. III. c. 88 : that is the statute which 
 gave the civil bill jurisdiction in cases of ejectment, but it contained a 
 general provision enabling landlords to distrain growing crops ; this 
 power had been long given in England : nothing else occurs to me on the 
 subject of distress. Upon the subject of rent there is another point : that 
 statute to which I have referred contains what I may call a protecting 
 clause for the occupying tenant, where he held under a middle man, or a 
 mesne landlord : he was formerly liable to a double distress without an 
 adequate or, rather, an easy remedy. Cases have occurred where a 
 tenant paid his rent to an immediate landlord ; the middle man and his 
 mesne landlord not having paid his rent to the head landlord, the head 
 landlord came upon the occupying tenant, and distrained him for the 
 rent, although his rent had been paid to his immediate landlord. There 
 are certain provisions enabling the tenant to recover by civil bill the 
 amount of the sum which he shall actually have paid, with costs and 
 damages : and also there is a provision giving a scale of compensation — 
 I think £10 in the 100 — but not precluding him proceeding for special 
 damage, if damage should have occurred, and he prefers that mode of 
 getting compensation. I do not know whether it strictly comes within 
 the law of landlord and tenant ; but in reference to joint leases, it just 
 occurs to me, that there is a statute, in the case of the registration of 
 freeholders, which leads so far to discourage joint leases, disabling joint 
 tenants holding under any deed, lease, or instrument subsequent to July 
 1823, from registering or gaining the franchise." 
 
 Legal prescriptions are always more or less modified by cir- 
 cumstances. The possession of property in Ireland was 
 powerfully affected in this way. The process of legislative ' 
 confiscation persisted in for centuries was full of change and 
 violence, and it naturally led to a corresponding variety of 
 insecure and disadvantageous tenures. 
 
 The first remarkable consequence resulting from so many 
 confiscations, was the enduring character of the quit and 
 crown rents. In 'England similar charges were established at 
 the Norman Conquest, but they gave way by degrees to the 
 
428 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 progress of order and improvement, and at last disappeared, 
 each great proprietor becoming lord of his own soil free from 
 every species of feudal tribute or pecuniary obligation to the 
 crown. In Ireland quit rents continue to be paid to the 
 crown at the present day. As each unsuccessful rebellion in 
 its turn placed the lands of its victims at the disposal of the 
 sovereign, re-grants were made as a matter of course, subject 
 to an acreable quit rent after the old feudal fashion. Owing 
 to the frequent re-creation of tliese rents, coupled with the 
 general instability of Irish affairs, comparatively few estates 
 in the country down to a recent period were held in abso- 
 lute and independent fee. Even at the present day, when all 
 who are charged with them may, if they please, liquidate the 
 incumbrance upon easy terms, they exist to some amount. 
 .Much curious information respecting them, and the rebellions of 
 the years 1641 and 1688, to which they are more directly refer- 
 able, is to be found in Howard's History of the Irish Exche- 
 quer, and in the Fourth Report of the Irish Revenue Commis- 
 sioners, 1812. According to Howard they produced for the 
 year ending Lady Day, 1773, ^64,152 19^. 5id. In the year 
 ending March 31, 1801, they amounted according to a return 
 of the House of Commons [266, Sess. 1834,] to ^^60,613 17^. 
 In the year 1826, they rose to <£*93,938 5^. Shd. In 1835 
 they realised (Return 222, Sess. 1842) ,£'88,350 145. 8d., 
 and stood on the 5th of January, 1846 (Return 696, Sess. 
 1846), at ,£'66,955 os. Id. 
 
 The mere continuance of these payments would not perhaps 
 have produced by itself any unfavourable effects upon the 
 tenure of property. But they furnished a precedent to the 
 larger proprietors which having been extensively followed 
 has proved extremely pernicious. After each convulsion came 
 fresh proprietors. These were generally men ill acquainted 
 with the requirements of tlie country, and the habits of the 
 people, and also ill prepared, in most instances, to fulfil the 
 only obligations that could have consolidated and advanced 
 . the interests inseparable from their new position. No 
 common abilities, and no ordinary resources w^ere demanded 
 from those who became undertakers or settlers for the first 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 429 
 
 time in Ireland, and unfortunately for the country they were 
 rarely supplied. The majority soon tired of a property which 
 in a strange country and amidst a refractory population 
 afforded neither peace, enjoyment, nor distinction. In this 
 state of perplexity and discontent they seized upon the crown 
 practice of a quit rent to which they were themselves sub- 
 jected, as an example stamped with the prestige of the 
 highest authority, and furnishing the readiest and most con- 
 venient means of relief.* They granted at small rents such 
 long leases of their lands as lives renewable for ever, and 
 terms of 500 and 999 years. They were content in short to 
 entitle themselves to a limited but certain income from vast 
 possessions which were not to be occupied personally without 
 the risk of incessant danger and incalculable losses. 
 
 The quantity of land held in Ireland on leases of lives 
 renewable for ever, and for terms of 500 and 999 years is 
 enormous, and so numerous have been the intermediate leases 
 granted at small profit rents that as many as six and seven 
 landlords, each deriving sums of sixpence, a shilling, and 
 half-a-crown an acre, have frequently been known to inter- 
 vene between the crown and the virtual possessor of the pro- 
 perty, that is to say, the actual holder of one of the leases 
 referred to, and deriving under it the predominant interest in 
 the soil. 
 
 The labyrinth of tenures with their concomitant settle- 
 ments which occurs in a case of this kind, renders the 
 transfer of property difficult and expensive, and proves a 
 heavy bar to improvement. In the case for instance of 1000 
 acres of land held for 500 years and chargeable to anterior 
 lessees with a rent of 5s. an acre, while to the last lessee it is 
 worth £1 an acre, how can improvement be expected to take 
 
 * "From the unsettled state of Ireland, the various confiscations and 
 forfeitures, landed property had formerly been considered of little value ; 
 and in order to form a good tenantry and give encouragement to improve 
 the land, this species of tenure — leases with covenants of perpetual renewal 
 — was devised. It was said to have been introduced by the Ormonde 
 family, and a great proportion of the property of the country was held 
 under it. On the fall of each hfe in the line (lease ?) a fine was paid, and 
 if the life was not substituted within a stated period (three or six months) 
 the interest became forfeited to the landlord." — Grnttan's Life by his 
 Son, vol. ii. p. 82. 
 
430 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 place ? The persons who receive the smaller sum will expend 
 nothing, because they cannot add anything to their present 
 interest. The last man will also be found unwilling to 
 invest money under such a lease, because, improbable as the 
 result may be, it is still possible, if he should become embar- 
 rassed, that one or other of the prior lessees may step 
 suddenly in and oust him of the estate, and with it all the 
 fruits of his outlay. 
 
 The consequence is, that in numberless instances property 
 held under these tenures is grievously mismanaged. It may 
 not be quite reasonable that this should be the case, but while 
 the fact stands prominently before us, it is vain to declaim 
 against any prejudice or inconsistency that may be supposed 
 to have produced it. One thing, moreover, is certain — the 
 well-known uncertainty of the law in general, and the severity 
 of the law of ejectment in particular, are enough to justify the 
 reluctance of a prudent man to spend much capital upon a 
 title of this precarious description. It is further to be noted 
 that from time to time some imprudent or unfortunate man 
 is sure to be seen suffering ejectment from one of these long 
 tenures, to the manifest discouragement of all similar lessees.* 
 
 No plan for the improvement of the relative conditions of 
 landlord and tenant will be perfect that leaves this cardinal 
 evil without a remedy. Having been the growth of ages, it 
 will offer a stubborn resistance to correction or removal ; but 
 a change there must be if the landed interests of the country 
 are to be placed upon a strong and permanent foundation. 
 One step in the right direction might perhaps be taken quickly 
 and with ease. We know that for agricultural purposes a 
 
 * "Every day's experience," says Sir M. O'Loghlen when giving a 
 judgment as Master of the Rolls/' shows how very uncertain the duration 
 of an interest under such a tenure is. Forfeitures of the right to enforce 
 a renewal daily occur through the neglect of tenants, or the dexterous 
 management of landlords. Covenants treated in some cases for more 
 than a century as entitling tenants to renewal for ever, have been con- 
 strued by courts of justice as not conferring that right. Any person who 
 is much engaged in the investigation of titles under leases of lives re- 
 newable for ever will find in almost every abstract of such titles a state- 
 ment of the result of one or more suits in equity for enforcing the right. 
 The usual statement is — the right to a renewal having been questioned, 
 it became necessary to file a bill in equity." — Lynch' s Measures for Ire- 
 land. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 431 
 
 lease of 31 years, and for building a lease of 99 years, suffices. 
 Might not the beginning at least of a new era be attempted 
 by the passing of a law to forbid for the future all grants of 
 leases for longer terms than those just named ? By such a 
 law, the further extension of an overwhelming evil would be 
 arrested, and by that a certain gain would accrue ; for such is 
 the force of custom, that fresh leases of this kind are made even 
 in our time,"* and purchasers of these quit or head rents, as they 
 are called, are always in the market, who prefer them as modes 
 of investment on account of the superior security they offer 
 for the payment of the interest created. 
 
 How far it may be wise and practicable to afford facilities 
 to persons possessed of the predominant beneficial interest in 
 such leases to buy up the small quit rents to which they are 
 now subject, and whether it may not be necessary to grant 
 compulsory powers for that purpose notwithstanding existing 
 settlements, are questions of detail, at once too important and 
 intricate to be entered upon in a general sketch of this de- 
 scription. They demand, however, the most prompt and atten- 
 tive consideration ; for the tenor of all experience proves that 
 prosperity is impracticable in Ireland while such tenures 
 continue to prevail. 
 
 * A recent instance of the kind may be worth mentioning. A Dublin 
 merchant after realising a sum of £60,000 resolved, a few years ago, to 
 retire from business. Soon afterwards an estate in one of the Midland 
 Counties was put up to auction, and he became the purchaser of it for 
 about the sura stated. Upon obtaining possession of the property he 
 called the tenants together and asked them to name rents they would be 
 content to pay if he continued them in their farms. The answer gene- 
 rally was a pound an acre. But if I give you a lease of thirty-one years 
 said the landlord, what will you give then ? Oh, twenty-five shillings 
 for a lease, was quickly responded. And what for a lease for ever ? A lease 
 for ever ! Sure your honour's joking with us, cried the astonished tenants. 
 Not at all, replied the landlord. Here are the leases ready drawn, and he 
 produced a little library of parchment ; and I am willing to give leases for 
 thirty-one years or for ever, as may be agreed upon, to every one of you. 
 The upshot was that the whole estate was relet on leases for ever at thirty 
 shillings an acre. Now this, as between the parties contracting then and 
 there, may have been a very legitimate and satisfactory transaction ; but 
 the soundness of its policy as regards the heirs of those parties, and the 
 state, which was also concerned, though not represented on the occasion, 
 may be seriously debated. Every acre of that estate may in the course of 
 fifty or a hundred years become worth more than double the present rent, 
 and though now flourishing it may then sink into one of the most ill- 
 conditioned and poverty-struck properties in the kingdom. 
 
432 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Passing over leases for 21 and 31 years, and one or more lives 
 in reversion, which were general when a forty shilling freehold* 
 conferred the parliamentary franchise, but which have fallen 
 rapidly into disuse since that privilege was taken away, we come 
 to notice the other prevailing modes of tenancy. Mr. Eugene 
 Curry tells us, in the letter already quoted, that — 
 
 The mode of taking land to farm in the reign of James the First, 
 and down to the middle nearly of the last century, was by parcels of 
 ballys (townlands), or half ballys, plough lands, or half plough lands, 
 &c., at high rents. The farm was taken by a man and his sons, brothers, 
 cousins, or neighbours, and divided among themselves, on the principles 
 of fellowship, but they never had the power given them of transferring 
 the possession of the farm, in whole, to any other party; with their minor 
 divisions, and occasional transfer of a minor division, the lord did not 
 concern himself, the land being at all times responsible to him for his 
 rents, without any regard to the particular occupier. This system led to 
 confusion and irregularity, where the landlord and tenants were not of 
 the same race or tribe, or even nation. 
 
 " On the accession of James the First, and the confiscation and planta- 
 tion of the six northern counties, a new race of owners and tenants 
 sprang up in these counties. Between those parties there was scarcely 
 any of the sympathy which might be expected to subsist between land- 
 lord and tenant, as the former got his lands in an abrupt and summary 
 manner, and was constrained to accept as his tenants such persons as the 
 state assigned to him, and to such terms as the same state deemed proper 
 to prescribe. This system continued for a long time to be one of con- 
 siderable dissatisfaction to both landlords and tenants, the former making 
 various attempts to limit and cramp the privileges of the latter, and the 
 latter constantly, and successfully too, calling on the state to sustain him 
 in his original position. Within the last seventy years this state of 
 things was found to correct itself ; for, when the native Irish began to 
 breathe a little more freely, and multiply in numbers and in hostile 
 feelings to the new aristocracy, the latter deemed it their interest to 
 encourage and indulge, even to spoiling, the men of their own creed and 
 kind, who had now, under government support, grown up into a powerful 
 armed confederacy, so that a little encouraging and soothing favours, 
 which were from time to time conceded directly or through neglect, 
 
 * Tlie Irish forty-shilling freehold was first granted in the reign of 
 Henry VIII., and was abolished in the reign of Geo. II. when, as Primate 
 Boulter stated, the Roman Catholics being five to one were found to be 
 grov/ing too strong for the English interest. The elective franchise from 
 this freehold was conceded in the year 1793 as an instalment of Catholic 
 Emancipation, and again extinguished when that measure was conceded 
 in 1829. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 437 
 
 in times of danger. In later times he has reclaimed moun- 
 tain wastes — making a property of that which before was 
 unproductive ; or he has thorough drained and fenced, thus 
 adding increased value to the estate. A sense of equity, 
 under these circumstances, has led the one contracting party 
 to claim, and the other to admit, the price of a positive benefit 
 conferred. It is now time that so material a right should no 
 longer be left dependent upon the force of a variable custom, 
 or confined to one only of the four provinces of the island. 
 
 Tenancy at will remains to be noticed. In Ireland, like 
 most other things, it differs essentially from the corresponding 
 occupation in England and Scotland. In these countries the 
 landlord invariably does something more than merely let the 
 bare land. He contributes buildings, gates, fences, and puts 
 the ground in a tenantable condition. In Ireland the prac- 
 tice, with a few bright exceptions, is to do nothing but take the 
 highest rent that can be obtained, and to make no allowance 
 for improvements — not even for the erection of substantial 
 buildings.* Upon this subject nothing more can be required 
 in the way of illustration than a reference to the opinion of 
 Adam Smith, who speaking of the contrary practice in 
 England maintained that the laws and customs, which 
 
 * Wakefield's description of Irish landlords and tenants in the year 
 1812 gives the present condition of both. " In Ireland, landlords never 
 erect buildings on their property or expend anything in repairs, nor do 
 leases in that country contain so many clauses as in England. The office 
 of an agent is thus rendered very easy, for he has nothing to do but to 
 receive his employer's rents twice a year, and to set out the turf bog in 
 lots in the spring. Six months' credit is generally given on the rents, 
 which is called the "hanging gale." This is one of the great levers of 
 oppression by which the lower classes are kept in a kind of perpetual 
 bondage, for as every family almost holds some portion of land and owes 
 half a year's rent, which a landlord can exact at any moment, this debt 
 hangs over their heads like a load, and keeps them in a continual state of 
 anxiety and terror. If the rent is not paid the cattle are driven to the 
 pound, and if suffered to remain there a certain number of days they are 
 sold. This I have frequently seen done after the occupying tenant had 
 paid his rent to the middle man, who had failed to pay it to the head 
 landlord. The numerous instances of distress occasioned by this se- 
 verity, which every one who has resided any time in Ireland must have 
 witnessed, are truly deplorable, and I believe them to be one of the chief 
 causes of those frequent risings of the people under various denominations 
 which at different times have disturbed the internal tranquillity of the 
 country, and been attended with atrocities shocking to humanity and 
 disgraceful to the empire." Wakefield further reported the common price 
 
438 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 secured to the yeoman a beneficial interest in the improve- 
 ments he effected, had contributed more to the grandeur 
 of the country than all her boasted regulations relating to 
 commerce taken together. 
 
 The quantities in which land is chiefly held to cultivate in Ire- 
 land, are farms of less than one and not more than thirty acres. 
 These are classed in the Census Report of 1841.* It thus ap- 
 pears that the number of holdings under one acre is 685,309 ; 
 above one to five, 306,915; above five to fifteen, 251,128 ; 
 above fifteen to thirty, 78,954 ; and above thirty acres, 48,312. 
 
 If we assume, and the computation is a moderate one, that 
 there are four persons in every family located on each of these 
 holdings, we shall first have so many as 2,741,236 persons 
 in Ireland committed to the impossible labour of sustaining 
 existence out of patches of land each less than an acre in 
 extent for every four persons. We shall next have 1,227,660 
 persons barely able to live upon farms of from one to five acres 
 in extent. It is only when we come to the 1,004^,512 persons 
 occupying farms of from five to fifteen acres, that we find the 
 means of the most frugal comfort placed within the reach of 
 one eighth of the population, very nearly one half of the whole 
 being at the same time either in a state of pauperism, or re- 
 moved but a single stage from that extremity. 
 
 These statistics prepare us for the admissions — sad 
 
 of labour to be 8c?. a day and in some cases 6c?., just as it is now, and the 
 rents of different kinds : 
 
 First, the rent to the Crown, small. 
 
 Secondly, the rent to the holder of the grant from the Crown, also small. 
 Thirdly, the rent to the middlemen, often five or six deep. 
 Fourthly, the occupying tenant whose toil discharged the whole. 
 * The distribution into provinces is worthy of notice. 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 Under one 
 Acre. 
 
 Above one to 
 five Acres. 
 
 Above five to 
 fifteen Acres. 
 
 Above fifteen 
 to thirty 
 Acres. 
 
 Above thirty 
 Acres. 
 
 Leinster . . . 
 
 133,220 
 
 49,152 
 
 45,595 
 
 20,584 
 
 17,889 
 
 Munster . . . 
 
 162,386 
 
 57,028 
 
 61,320 
 
 27,481 
 
 16,557 
 
 Ulster . . . 
 
 234,499 
 
 100,817 
 
 98,992 
 
 25,099 
 
 9,591 
 
 Connaught . . 
 
 155,204 
 
 99,918 
 
 45,221 
 
 5,790 
 
 4,275 
 
 
 685,309 
 
 306,915 
 
 251,128 
 
 78,954 
 
 48,312 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 4a9 
 
 echoes of the harrowing pictures drawn by all preceding 
 authorities — made by the Commissioners of Land Inquiry in 
 1845. Every member of that Commission was an Irish land- 
 lord, and they reported una voce to Parliament — that " the 
 agricultural labourers of Ireland suffer the greatest privations 
 and hardships — they depend upon precarious and casual em- 
 ployment for subsistence — they are badly housed, badly fed, 
 badly clothed and badly paid for their labours — it would be 
 impossible to describe adequately the sufferings and. privations 
 which the cottiers and labourers and their families in most 
 parts of the country endure — in many districts their only food 
 is the potato, their only beverage water — their cabins ore 
 seldom a protection against the weather — a bed or a blanket is 
 a rare luxury — nearly in all, their pig and their manure heap 
 constitute their only property — a large proportion of the entire 
 population comes within the designation of agricultural la- 
 bourers, and endure sufferings greater than the people of any 
 other country in Europe have to sustain. * * * It would be im- 
 possible for language to convey an idea of the state of distress to 
 which the ejected tenantry have been reduced, or of the disease, 
 misery J and even vice which they have propagated in the towns 
 wherein they have settled ; so that not only they who have been 
 ejected have been rendered miserable, but they have carried with 
 them and propagated their misery wherever they have dwelty 
 
 This power of ejectment is characterized by a sweeping 
 severity that makes the Irish landlord resemble some Eastern 
 despot, inflicting general punishment. At every blow he smites 
 a multitude. Particular information has been laid before 
 parliament on several late occasion.^ respecting the frightful 
 •extent to which the power is carried. Amongst the latest 
 documents published upon this subject is a return ordered to 
 be printed by the House of Commons, 12 June 1846, from 
 the clerks of the peace and the proper officers of the Courts 
 of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer in Ireland. 
 By this paper* it appears that in the year 1844 there were 
 
 * The returns give various and not always similar details, which are too 
 minute for insertion here. The extent of land affected is mentioned in 
 the civd bill cases, but not in the proceedings of the superior courts 
 
440 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 6522 ejectments brought, in which 23,822 persons were con- 
 cerned, and in 1845, 4900 ejectments, in which 18,070 persons 
 were concerned : total in two years — ejectments, 11,411 ; 
 persons affected, 42,900. 
 
 It was remarked in the first chapter of this work, v. i, p. 7, 
 " that the improvement of Ireland must, if it is to be per- 
 manent, spring from the very lowest foundations of the social 
 system. We must begin at the bottom and work upwards." 
 If this be not a false notion, the first care of the statesman 
 who aspires to render his name immortal by regenerating 
 Ireland, must be the removal of the huge dead weight created 
 by 3,968,896 persons who overlay the industrial energy of the 
 whole community in the desperate attempt to derive subsist- 
 ence from 992,224 farms, each under five acres in extent. 
 These are paupers, and they must be dispauperised. They 
 must be enabled to find some better means of subsistence 
 
 The acres, moreover, in the former cases are specified in different mea- 
 surements — Plantation, Cunninghame, Irish, Statute and Imperial. 
 In the following summary to avoid excess every acre has been computed 
 as English measure, which is the smallest of all. 
 
 1844. 
 
 
 Number of 
 Ejectments. 
 
 Number of 
 Acres. 
 
 Number of 
 Persons af- 
 fected. 
 
 Quarter Sessions . . 
 
 4683 
 
 22,681 
 
 13,085 
 
 Queen's Bench . . 
 
 963 
 
 not stated 
 
 7,908 
 
 Common Pleas . . 
 
 76 
 
 ditto 
 
 1,153 
 
 Exchequer .... 
 
 790 
 
 ditto 
 
 2,686 
 
 
 6512 
 
 22,681 
 
 24,832 
 
 1845. 
 
 
 Number of 
 Ejectments. 
 
 Number of 
 Acres. 
 
 Number of 
 Persons af- 
 fected. 
 
 Quarter Sessions . . 
 
 3501 
 
 13,602 
 
 9054 
 
 Queen's Bench . . 
 
 726 
 
 not stated 
 
 5870 
 
 Common Pleas . . 
 
 62 
 
 ditto 
 
 904 
 
 Exchequer .... 
 
 610 
 
 ditto 
 
 2242 
 
 
 4899 
 
 13,602 
 
 18,070 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, 
 
 433 
 
 became fixed rights and privileges engrossed on the far-famed roll of 
 
 * No Surrender/ " 
 
 The opinion expressed in the last sentence is not altogether 
 well founded, but there appears no reason to doubt that it is 
 from the old practice of letting land to farm in townlands, and 
 to whole families, and also from the confiscation system, that we 
 have derived the two modes or customs of tenures now re- 
 maining to be described. These are the rundale and tenant 
 rights which are peculiar to the north of Ireland, and have 
 for some time past been subjects of considerable interest. 
 
 The Rundale " system,'"* as it has been called, is a lingering 
 remnant of the old cases in which bodies of men took large 
 tracts or divisions of land to cultivate amongst them. They 
 took the land in common, and each claimed a common right 
 to the whole. This rude custom and worst form of tenantry 
 still prevails in Donegal, and the wilder ranges of the north, 
 where each tenant considers himself entitled to a portion of 
 each various quality of land in his division. The man who 
 had a bit of good land at one extremity is sure to have a 
 bit of bad at the other, and bits of other quality in odd 
 corners, each bounded by his neighbour's farms, without any 
 ditch or fence between them ; trespasses and fights, and the 
 total impossibility of any improvement are the natural con- 
 sequences.* 
 
 Tenant right-|- is the difference between the rent actually 
 charged by the landlord, according to the custom of the 
 country, and the utmost competition value of the land. So that 
 if the rent on an extensive estate be low, and confidence 
 in the landlord be great, the amount of tenant right will be 
 large. It exists equally in the cases of tenancy at will and 
 leases. It prevails generally throughout the whole province 
 of Ulster, but varying in amount in different counties — being 
 highest in Armagh and Down, and lowest in Monaghan and 
 Cavan. Out of Ulster it is only met with in the counties 
 
 * Facts from Gvveedore, by Lord George Hill. 
 
 t This account of Tenant Right, its value and origin, is taken from the 
 evidence given before the Committee on the Town Land Valuation of 
 Ireland, 1840, and the Land Commission, 1845, by Messrs. Senior, 
 Griffiths, Sinclair, Hancock, &c. 
 
 Vol. II. F F 
 
434 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Sligo and Leitrim, and in them to no considerable extent. 
 Throughout the rest of Ireland it is unknown. 
 
 The custom is an old one, and its origin is ascribed to the 
 manner in which the settlement of Ulster was effected. That 
 settlement, says Mr. Sinclair, was quite a feudal settlement. 
 The tenants in capite got a certain portion of land, on con- 
 dition of subletting to under tenants a portion for three 
 lives and twenty-one years, upon strictly feudal terms, as 
 to be ready with arms to defend the place ; and it appears 
 that we can trace the present indefeasible tenant right up to 
 that, for those who were settled by the original patentees 
 were in some sort fosterers or kindred, and were then engaged 
 in the defence of the country, and became rather a kind of 
 friendly tenant than a tenant for money ; and I think from 
 that time to this, the tenant right has been continued, and in 
 no way altered by law but by custom. It arose from the 
 persons so brought in having in the first instance built the 
 dw^ellings and houses themselves, and their being connected in 
 a closer way with the original patentees than the mere 
 connection of a tenant with a landlord. — Land Commission 
 Report, Par. 11 — 185. 
 
 Mr. Senior takes nearly the same view of the origin of this 
 right, saying, the early settlers were stationed in a hostile 
 country, and could only tempt their retainers to come over, or 
 remain, by granting permanent advantages in return for the 
 protection they afforded. It may in fact have been a species 
 of feudal tenure. — Townland Survey Report. 
 
 Tenant right can only exist where land is let on low terms. 
 On steadily managed estates it has risen as high as from 201. 
 to SOL an acre, and it falls as low as SI. an acre. It is found 
 in point of fact that as the rent rises, the tenant right falls 
 in amount. If land worth 21 an acre be let for 1/. an acre, 
 the value of the difference will be given by the incoming tenant 
 as a premium for his admission to the farm. And that will be 
 done, whether the difference of IZ. an acre arises from the 
 original state of the soil, or has been produced by drainage or 
 other agricultural improvements. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 485 
 
 The marketable value of the tenant right greatly depends 
 upon the character of the landlord. Some proprietors regard 
 it as a point of honour not to raise the established rent ; by 
 others it is treated simply as a matter of good policy, or a 
 compulsory obligation. For the disallowance of the right is 
 attended with serious consequences. When the landlord refuses 
 to admit the right, the incoming tenant's house is burned, his 
 cattle are houghed, or his crops trodden down by night. 
 
 Of late years, a strong disposition to abate the right has 
 been manifested, but hitherto it has been strictly respected — 
 so much so, that a landlord, who is obliged to evict a tenant 
 by process of law, will not consider himself at liberty to let 
 the land at a higher rent than the former tenant has paid for 
 it. He will allow the outgoing tenant the full value of his 
 tenant right, and will return him any sum it may produce 
 over and above the amount of the arrears which caused the 
 eviction. The incoming tenant, under such circumstances, is 
 charged precisely the rent undertaken by his predecessor. 
 The consent of the landlord is commonly, though not inva- 
 riably, looked for in transactions of this kind. In the majority 
 of them no sale, can take place, if the landlord will not accept 
 the incoming tenant. At the same time instances are re- 
 corded in which he has not been consulted. 
 
 It is admitted on all sides that tenant right has its advan- 
 tages ; but these, by some authorities, are held to be out- 
 weighed by its disadvantages. Unquestionably, the landlord's 
 rent is secured by it in the firmest manner. The tenant in 
 possession may break down and not pay, but another is sure 
 to be found under the protection of this custom, who will 
 come in and discharge the arrears out of the purchase-money 
 given for the right. A man, moreover, is encouraged to make 
 improvements, to keep his house, farm buildings, and fences 
 in good repair, when he knows that in the event of his giving 
 up his holding, no matter from what cause, he will be repaid 
 the fair value of any permanent improvement he may have 
 effected. Practically, however, the right is accompanied by 
 serious inconveniences. As the landlord is forbidden to look 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 for an increase of his rent, the burthen of effecting improve- 
 ment necessarily falls exclusively upon the tenant ; and when 
 he happens to give a large sum of money to obtain possession 
 of his farm, he is often found to have exhausted, in that 
 investment, the capital required for profitable husbandry. 
 AVhere, moreover, as often occurs, he has borrowed the 
 purchase-money, he begins his tenancy in a state of distress, 
 from which he is seldom able to rise. Such a person will be 
 compelled to apply to the discharge of that debt, and the 
 interest accruing upon it, the means required to keep the land 
 in a state of good cultivation. 
 
 If such a right should come to be faithfully admitted for 
 any length of time, two results seem inevitable : the landlord's 
 interest will become an unimproveable one, and the rent will 
 resolve itself in effect into a species of quit rent. The power 
 of interfering in matters of detail, of altering the size of farms, 
 and of introducing a higher class of tenantry, will be taken 
 from the landlord. For if he should wish to consolidate half- 
 a-dozen farms into one large one, he will only be able to ac- 
 complish his object by buying up the tenant's right, which 
 would be tantamount to a re-purchase of his estate. 
 
 There is this additional peculiarity in the tenant right, that 
 although extensively observed, it does not appear to have 
 received any legal sanction. This being the case, the range 
 of the estimated value being so considerable — from SI. to 30/. 
 an acre — and the tendency to control and abate the right 
 being so marked, it is reasonable to believe that even if left 
 to the action of existing causes, it will gradually decline. If, 
 however, a law shall be made to secure to every outgoing 
 tenant the re-payment of all money invested in substantial and 
 permanent improvement, it must quickly disappear. This, it is 
 to be hoped, will soon be the case. For it is impossible to read 
 the voluminous evidence that has been collected upon the sub- 
 ject, without perceiving that the custom is a clumsy mode of 
 enforcing equitable compensation for work and labour of sub- 
 stantial value. In the earlier instances referred to, the tenant 
 built the house, and the farm buildings, and he preserved them 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, 
 
 445 
 
 resisted. They should be reduced, and more authority to direct 
 the action of the law should be vested in those whose property 
 is most affected by the results. The inspection of poor houses, 
 the auditing and publication of accounts, suggestive and 
 critical reports to parliament and the government, and the 
 enforcement as public prosecutors of due punishment for any 
 offences committed against the law, these are the proper 
 functions of commissioners. The powers created by the acts 
 in force in both countries are unconstitutionally absolute, and 
 alike unproductive of public benefit, and offensive to good 
 feeling. 
 
 When it was first proposed to extend the poor law to 
 Ireland, the extent of destitution shown to exist deterred 
 men from grappling energetically with an evil of so much 
 magnitude. The rental of the country, it was said, being not 
 more than thirteen millions, and there being upwards of two 
 millions of paupers, if you make them a charge upon the land 
 they will eat up its produce and absorb its value. The locust 
 plague was to be practically illustrated. The attention paid to 
 this remonstrance led to the enactment of a poor law, which 
 has been no relief to the great body of the poor. Poor 
 houses have been built, which have sometimes been occupied 
 and sometimes not ; for two o^^tions are allowed : it is 
 optional on the part of the poor to claim relief or not, as they 
 choose ; and it is optional on the part of the guardians to 
 give relief when claimed, or not, just as they choose. The 
 most distressing consequences have been the result of this 
 perfect freedom of contradiction in both parties concerned. 
 
 The argument of those who resist the application to Ireland 
 of such a law as is here demanded, proceeds in the main upon 
 an erroneous supposition. It is assumed that if the property 
 of the country was compelled to support its poverty, the 
 latter would not be diminished ; in other words, that the 
 number of paupers would continue to be upwards of two 
 millions if a rate were levied for their relief. But that would 
 be impossible. For obviously as soon as the property became 
 really chargeable with the support of this mass, serious and 
 
446 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 successful efforts would be made to employ a considerable 
 portion of them, and the employment so given would dis- 
 pauperise that portion, and at the same time increase the 
 rental of the country by the produce of the additional labour 
 thus applied to its cultivation. 
 
 A plan has been produced of extending the power of the 
 poor law generally, but leaving the enforcement of the power 
 discretionary with government. The idea is not a happy one. 
 A matter of this kind is the last that should be left in 
 uncertainty. It will tend to confirm the poor in those habits 
 of improvidence to which they are too much addicted. They 
 will not care to anticipate the day of want while confident that 
 clamour and intimidation, when that day comes with its attend- 
 ant horrors, will wrest relief from the lord lieutenant, and the 
 varied comforts of extended charity from the empire at large. 
 In periods or places of limited distress the position of the lord 
 lieutenant and privy council will be one of peculiar difficulty. 
 While publicly importuned by the people to order a prompt 
 and efficient enforcement of the law, they will be privately 
 solicited by the aristocracy not to burden the land with 
 an additional tax for which they will declare themselves 
 unprepared and unequal. In a word, the obligation not being 
 customary and established, will always when demanded be 
 resisted as an innovation and an injury. And so the deadly 
 struggle will be continued as of old, and neither party will be 
 fairly treated while it lasts. 
 
 There are then but the two courses already recommended to be 
 pursued, and these, if they are to be allowed a fair trial, must be 
 pursued concurrently. Give the tenant a property in the labour 
 and capital he invests in the enrichment of the land, and he will 
 not fail to realize that property. Give him a right to food 
 when he cannot earn it by labour, and he will abandon the 
 attempt he is now obliged to make of trying to support human 
 nature by cultivating a patch of land which cannot one year 
 with another yield him the sustenance he requires. Assure 
 him in other words that if he will trench, fence, and improve 
 his farm, he will receive the fair value of the improvement ; 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 4*7 
 
 and his industry, animated by its natural impulse, will grow 
 active and doubly fructify the land. The small and the large 
 farmer will both rise quickly in the scale of existence by 
 the force of these laws ; while the lowest of all, when as- 
 sured of food by other means, will no longer cling to his 
 miserable patch with the tenacity of a drowning man, but 
 will be content to see it enlarge some neighbouring farm, 
 which will then aiford him better fare as a labourer than it 
 ever gave him as its occupier.* 
 
 * Some of the principles here advocated have been forcibly sustained by 
 Mr. M'Culloch in the last edition of his Statistical Account of Great Britain. 
 " In saying that the landlords should be made responsible for the subsist- 
 ence of every individual upon their estates, we mean by landlords those who 
 have the real property of the land, whether they possess it under inter- 
 minable or long leases, or who can determine the mode of its manage- 
 ment, and not those who only receive a great rent from it. Make the 
 real owners directly responsible to the poor, and give them at the same 
 time, and at whatever cost, easy means of ejecting, without danger to 
 themselves or their agents, those tenants who may divide their holdings, 
 and you will have done all that is necessary. The sagacity of the land- 
 lords will do the rest, and they will do it a thousand times better than it 
 can ever be done by any one else. The obligation to support all the 
 individuals settled on their lands will make even the most inconsiderate 
 proprietors adopt every precaution to prevent the undue increase of cot- 
 tages and cottiers, and to lessen their numbers, if they be excessive; at 
 the same time that it will prevent them from attempting to effect these 
 objects, as they have too frequently done, by turning out poor wretches 
 with no alternative except that of starving in ditches or on the road side, 
 or of banding themselves in nocturnal predatory associations. Being 
 bound to provide adequate means of support for the cottiers dismissed 
 from their holdings until the latter could provide for themselves, the 
 landlords would have to proceed, even in enforcing schemes of improve- 
 ment, with due deliberation. We should under such a system hear no 
 more of wholesale '^clearings,' and provision might be made for the cot- 
 tiers it was necessary to dismiss, as well as for the other classes of pau- 
 pers, in a variety of ways and at but little cost, till they had been 
 absorbed by the increasing demand for labour, or had emigrated to 
 Britain or elsevvhere. Let it be proclaimed that the poor are to be sup- 
 ported, coute qui coute, by rates levied on the land and assessed in all 
 cases directly on the landlords ; and let it further be proclaimed that the 
 landlords need not look for pecuniary assistance to parliament or to any 
 other source, and there cannot be so much as the shadow of a doubt that 
 they will soon learn to assist and protect themselves and to organise 
 machinery for that purpose. All that is required on the part of the state 
 is to protect them in the fair exercise of their rights, and to compel them 
 to do their duty, by giving an easy appeal to paupers dissatisfied with the 
 decisions of the authorities — i. e. of the people of property — in the parish, 
 townland, or other division to v/hich they belong." 
 
448 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 Thirdly a law for the better regnlation of leases, and 
 for the improvement of property held on lease, is greatly 
 needed. 
 
 Two powers are desirable in such a law : the first to 
 regulate future leases, the second to amend those already 
 granted. 
 
 With respect to future leases it may perhaps be conceived 
 too much to demand that none shall be lawful which for 
 building purposes shall exceed a term of ninety-nine, and for 
 agricultural purposes a term of twenty-one years. If this 
 should be considered too bold an innovation to make at 
 the present juncture upon the rights of private property, the 
 principle might at least be applied to all church and corpora- 
 tion property, and to property held by trustees for charitable 
 uses. A provision of this description could not fail to keep 
 the profits of estates devoted to public trusts at all times 
 commensurate with the increasing value of money, and thus 
 enable the trustees to maintain the efficiency of the trust in a 
 state of undiminished utility. Under any circumstances, the 
 power to grant for the future such terms of lease as 500 and 
 999 years might be safely dispensed with. No advantages 
 appear to accrue from the privilege, but many disadvantages, 
 amongst which embarrassments of title, and depreciation in 
 value, are not the lightest that are experienced. 
 
 The powers of retrospective action demanded are of the 
 highest importance, and will require the most considerate 
 treatment. It will not suffice to convert long leaseholds into 
 freeholds, and renewal fines into increased rents. The power 
 to extinguish both the one interest and the other is needed, 
 and with the precedent furnished for the extinction of the 
 Crown and quit rents, assuredly it would be wise to afford, 
 without delay, facilities for purchasing up the many small 
 rentals which are possessed by the representatives of ancient 
 lessors, whose interests are in themselves insignificant when 
 compared with the rental itself, how^ever positive the value to 
 the respective proprietors, and however considerable may be the 
 total amount of such rentals now extant. If the principle here 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 441 
 
 than the roots they have hitherto reared out of tlieir scanty 
 patches of ground. They must not be dragged at the rate of 
 20,000 in a year before the courts of justice, and subjected 
 to a summary eviction from their little all. For they con- 
 stitute the vitals of the social system, and while they remain 
 unsound, how can the system itself be wholesome ? 
 
 When the proposed task comes to be undertaken, and the 
 proper time for it is already overdue, the state at large will 
 have to do much — the landlords more, for ultimately they will 
 be the largest gainers by the results. In applying their resources 
 to raise their unfortunate country from ruin by retrieving their 
 own shattered fortunes, it will behove them to seize upon 
 a high principle of action, and be themselves the first to put 
 a social ban upon the landlord who, for the future, may be so 
 wicked as to let land in a manner, or upon terms manifestly 
 injurious to the public welfare. When, for instance, a tenant 
 is known to have no means of subsistence but the produce of 
 a farm, how is it possible for the landlord to stand justified, 
 either to his own conscience or his country, who lets that 
 land at a rent or in a quantity which, as he well knows, will 
 not yield the tenant what Chief Justice Blackburne has so 
 truly called the means of decent subsistence ? This test would 
 be infallible if it were generally applied — the good would soon 
 be separated by its virtue from the bad. When landlords write 
 to the newspapers or rise from their seats in parliament pro- 
 testing that they do their duty and are greviously wronged by 
 the aspersions cast upon the class to which they belong — one 
 explanation should be demanded from them — they should be 
 called upon to show how the farms upon their estates are dis- 
 tributed, and how far the size and rent of each are sufficient 
 to enable the tenant to derive from it the means of decent 
 subsistence. The severity of such a test would be more 
 apparent than real; for it is due to the body to state that 
 there are in every province in Ireland estates so well managed 
 as to demonstrate that the system desired is not only prac- 
 ticable but highly advantageous. Its extension is mainly 
 prevented by those who will neither consent to allow the poor 
 man to have a property in the produce of his labour or 
 
442 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, 
 
 subsistence from a poor rate when no labour is to be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 In order to enforce generally the salutary action of such 
 a rule, the state, as already observed, will have to contribute 
 its part, and the requirements needed in this respect may be 
 briefly reviewed. They are 
 
 First, A law to secure compensation for substantial improve- 
 ments effected by tenants for their landlords. 
 
 Two bills have been tendered within the last few years for 
 this purpose — the first in the session of 1843 by Mr. Sharman 
 Crawford to the House of Commons, and the second to the 
 House of Lords by Lord Stanley in the session of 1845. 
 
 The former dealt with the subject in a straightforward 
 manner, and might by a few amendments have easily been 
 rendered an appropriate measure. It proposed to give 
 equally to tenants holding from year to year and on lease, 
 compensation for the erection of new buildings and the repair 
 of old ones, and for planting and raising fences ; and " for 
 effecting permanent improvements by draining, quarrying, 
 reclaiming, inclosing, spade-trenching, or any other means by 
 which the value of such lands shall have been increased." 
 The compensation having been assessed in the first instance 
 by the county surveyor, w^as, in the event of disagreement 
 between the parties, to be determined, when the amount 
 exceeded £100, in the Court of Exchequer, and, when under 
 that sum, by process before the assistant barrister at the 
 quarter sessions. 
 
 Assuming the word ''buildings" here to mean what was 
 probably intended, though not expressed, buildings suitable to 
 the agricultural purposes of each particular farm, there was 
 much to commend in this plan and in the mode suggested for 
 carrying it into effect. 
 
 Lord Stanley*'s measure was as cumbrous as Mr. Sharman 
 Crawford's was simple. A monstrous board, and enormous 
 machinery was projected by his Lordship, comprising at the 
 head a chief commissioner of improvements, with an unlimited 
 train of assistant commissioners, secretary, clerks, &c., &:c. 
 All improvements relating to building and draining were to 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 4-43 
 
 be registered by the tenant, and were then to be tested by no 
 less than six trials of various kinds before the amount of com- 
 pensation claimed could be finally settled. 
 
 This short exposition of the machinery proposed by Lord 
 Stanley supersedes the necessity of particularising the cir- 
 cumstances, under which the bill would have admitted claims 
 for compensation, or of describing the arbitrary powers it pro- 
 posed to confer upon the commissioner and his assistants in 
 order to enable them to decide upon claims when registered. 
 The scheme was soon abandoned as one utterly unworthy of 
 consideration. But it may still be important to observe that no 
 new tribunal is wanted for the ^owaj^t/e purposes contemplated 
 by the bill. The established courts of justice in Ireland are 
 those to which all men should be made to resort. Their 
 adaptation for the trial of questions of this kind is indisputable. 
 If compensation is to be given at all for agricultural improve- 
 ments it should be easy of attainment, and quick as well as 
 economical in its process, and it should be in its authority above 
 all suspicion of influences from the prejudices or the corruption 
 of class and party. The law courts of the country possess in 
 those respects a reputation which no government commission 
 would easily attain. Its complicated, dilatory, and expensive 
 machinery could not fail to feed the suspicions of the discon- 
 tented, and augment the distress and disturbance of the country. 
 A simple form of arbitration, or a cheap trial before a jury, 
 is the only mode by which disputes of this kind could be 
 fairly investigated, and justly determined. 
 
 Mr. Sharman Crawford's bill, and Lord Stanley''s, appear 
 to have been attentively considered in Ireland. Many voices 
 have been raised in favour of the former, none for the latter. 
 The principle and mode of operation desired in such a law 
 may, therefore, be treated as having been to a certain extent 
 defined and approved by public opinion. Noting the extreme 
 wants of the country, and the rapidity with which it would 
 become extensively applicable, it seems difficult to suppose 
 that another year will be allowed to elapse before it finds its 
 place in the statute book. It will be vain to propose other 
 measures of improvement, and omit that which is the great 
 
444 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 root of the national enormities. The statesman will be sus- 
 pected of want of judgment, if not of want of sincerity, who 
 shall dream of ameliorating the condition of Ireland, while he 
 leaves the mass of the population without the protection of 
 any law whatever for the security of the poor man's only 
 capital — the produce of his daily toil invested in the soil, 
 by which the landlord and the state are both supported. 
 
 Secondly, a substantial and comprehensive poor law is indis- 
 pensable. It will not be enough to provide the tenant com- 
 pensation for labour and capital invested in work. When he is 
 destitute and cannot find employment, the right to obtain sup- 
 port from the property of the country should be his, and being 
 thus entitled, mendicancy upon his part should be made a 
 punishable offence. The administration of such a law should 
 be placed chiefly in the hands of those whose interest it is to 
 abate its excesses. If a different provision be made the Irish 
 landlords will obstruct the action of the law. They know 
 their power and will not tamely submit to a transfer of it to 
 other hands. Scotland has been admitted to the privilege of 
 a separate Commission. If the principle or application of the 
 poor law in Ireland is to differ from the English rule and 
 practice, there ought to be a separate Commission for Ireland, 
 and the Commissioners ought to be Irishmen. These are 
 three essential principles of a good poor law for Ireland. 
 
 The present law is perhaps the greatest failure of modern 
 legislation. It has cost an enormous sum of money, and has 
 in no sensible degree lightened the pressure of distress, or the 
 claims of cliarity. On all sides infinite dissatisfaction has 
 heen expressed against its operation and effects. That the pro- 
 perty of the country shall be charged with the maintenance of 
 the poor, so that if it should not find them employment it 
 must provide them food, is the only principle that can render 
 such a measure efficient, and it is one that is not in any degree 
 acted upon in the Irish Act : on that ground alone the experi- 
 ment was sure to fail ; but the plan contains other faults. The 
 arbitrary powers given to the commissioners are particularly 
 unsuited to the temper and habits of Irishmen. They are 
 felt to be unnecessary as well as offensive, and are proudly 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 449 
 
 contended for be admitted, the course to be pursued is direct 
 and easy. These small rents should be treated as annuities, 
 and they should be made purchasable, according to the rates 
 established under the government tables, by the person hold- 
 ing more than a moiety of the whole of the income at present 
 derived from the estate out of which they arise. 
 
 But as many of the estates thus circumstanced are strictly 
 entailed, it would be necessary to give the Court of Chan- 
 cery power to direct such sales as are here contemplated, and 
 the investment of the produce in the purchase of other es- 
 tates : it would also be found beneficial, once such a power 
 was created, that it should be extended to other purposes, 
 two of which invite particular attention. The one is a power 
 to effect, by order of the Court, the sale of any estates under 
 settlement, for the purpose of re-investing the produce in 
 other lands more conveniently situate, with reference to the 
 objects of the settlement. Much of the landed property that 
 has been acquired of late years has been bought by mercan- 
 tile and professional men in detached portions, as their means 
 of purchase, or the quantity offered for sale, favoured the 
 operation. These, in due course, have fallen under settle- 
 ment, and the consequence is that many men possess rentals 
 of 2,000/. and 8,000/. in detached freeholds, often situate 
 in different counties, and extending to not more than from 
 100 to 200 acres each. By the consolidation of such estates, 
 farming operations on a liberal scale would be extended, 
 and the benefits of residence and personal superintendence 
 on the part of the landlord would be materially promoted. 
 The other power, and it is imperatively called for, is the 
 power of selling settled estates when overburthened with debt. 
 Whenever the Courts find an estate, notwithstanding the 
 settlements to which it has been devoted, so incumbered 
 with obligations and charges pronounced good and legal by 
 the Courts themselves, as to be no longer equal to the main- 
 tenance of the trusts declared in those settlements, the 
 satisfaction of the judgment creditor and the support of the 
 tenant for life ; they should possess the power to see their 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 G G 
 
450 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 own decrees carried into execution and to cause the lands to 
 be sold. Abundant reasons are to be assigned in favour of 
 such a law. Apart from the soundness of the principle which 
 subjects land to the payment of its debts, in common with 
 every other species of property, the state must feel that pauper 
 landlords necessarily beget pauper tenants. So that justice 
 between man and man, and the safety of the common weal 
 must be held to unite in insisting upon the equitable power 
 here demanded. 
 
 But if care is to be taken — and assuredly care ought to be 
 taken — for the purpose of enabling the landlords of Ireland to 
 place their estates upon such a footing as shall prove alike 
 advantageous to themselves and the community, a concur- 
 rent effort should be made to afford the lower classes and the 
 thrifty farmers throughout the country an opportunity of 
 becoming landed proprietors also, by vesting the savings of 
 their labours in the purchase of farms in fee. Small estates 
 of this tenure are almost unknown in Ireland, and the country 
 suffers no heavier misfortune than that deficiency. There is 
 not a district, however notorious for unlawful proceedings, 
 that would not have been peaceful, if some fair portion of the 
 cultivators of the soil had been proprietors of it also, and had 
 their proper interest in the discouragement of crime, and the 
 maintenance of the established order of things. The more 
 the statistics of disturbance are traced to their obvious causes, 
 the more acutely will it be felt that incalculable benefits are 
 to be realized by the introduction of farms held in fee simple, 
 by the persons cultivating them, to the extent of from 20 to 
 100 acres each. There is no yeomanry in the country ; there 
 are no small landowners, such as abound in the continental 
 states, that are making enviable progress in the arts of peace 
 and prosperity ; and peace or prosperity of an enduring cha- 
 racter will not find a home in Ireland, until small landed pro- 
 prietors become established in it. They are the surest protectors 
 of the law, the strongest maintainors of peace, and the most 
 indefatigable promoters of improvement, because law, peace, and 
 improvement are their best allies, and the indissoluble partners 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 451 
 
 of every interest they possess. Agrarian disturbances, insur- 
 rections, fever and famine, could not have so long and so 
 severely made a prey of the country if such a class had been in 
 existence ; and if the periodical recurrence of so many plagues 
 is to be prevented for the future this class must be created. 
 
 The direct means possessed by government or the legislature 
 of raising such a class are but few. If the Crown lands in 
 Ireland were judiciously parcelled out into small lots and sold 
 to the occupying tenants, some good would be effected. If 
 the London companies were called upon to dispose in the same 
 way of the vast estates they possess, an immense benefit 
 would be conferred. When the municipal corporations were 
 reformed those bodies were compelled to sell within a limited 
 period all the church livings of which they were proprietors. 
 Analogous reasoning dictates the abandonment of the un- 
 seemly possessions held by the London companies in Ireland, 
 and such a measure may be the more confidently advocated 
 because a liberal price would in every instance be paid for 
 the property, and thus the sellers would rather be gainers 
 than losers by the transaction. 
 
 Private enterprise, however, will in all likelihood prove the 
 most effective agent in bringing about this as well as most other 
 improvements in Ireland. One or two attempts have been 
 made to form joint-stock companies in that country for the pur- 
 chase of estates as they are publicly offered for sale, and then re- 
 selling them in suitable portions to small capitalists and practical 
 farmers. The present juncture is so favourable for operations of 
 this kind, the empire at large must continue to suffer so in- 
 tensely while the class referred to remains uncreated, and so 
 much land is sure to change hands in Ireland within a few 
 years, that if a few competent persons were to take the lead 
 in such an enterprise it could not fail to be eminently useful 
 to the state, and profitable to all parties concerned. 
 
 It would be easy to add considerably to the list of remedial 
 measures already reviewed. There are, for instance, the 
 laws which regulate the elective franchise, those which deny 
 the tenant for life of an entailed estate the right to charge the 
 
452 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 inheritance with the cost of important improvements, and 
 those which empower grand juries to levy county rates and 
 cesses : — all these, are more or less vexatious and impolitic. 
 But it is unnecessary to insist upon a particular consideration 
 of any of them, because if the more essential improvements 
 were conceded, all minor ones would naturally follow in their 
 turn. If the waters of regeneration could be made to flow 
 even for a short interval in the right channels, it would 
 be impossible to arrest their current or to set a limit to the 
 blessings they will surely diffuse as they pour along. 
 
 A few projects — but more or less of doubtful policy— for 
 the improvement of Ireland and the employment of her 
 people have been pushed forward from time to time with 
 varying degrees of zeal and confidence, and it will now be 
 proper to advert briefly to them for the sake of completeness 
 and impartiality. The projects referred to are a state re- 
 clamation of waste lands, a tax upon absentees, and a com- 
 pulsory obligation on landlords to grant leases. 
 
 The Irish waste lands being of considerable extent have 
 long attracted the notice of speculators and improvers. They 
 are about to receive the attention of her Majesty's govern- 
 ment, and a sum of one million is promised to the Irish land- 
 lords as an aid towards their reclamation. But there is much 
 room to doubt the policy of such a proceeding at any time, and 
 especially at the present time. 
 
 There was a Cvjmmission to survey the bogs of Ireland, 
 which cost c£^32,000 in the year 1809. Four able reports 
 and several good maps were published by the Commissioners, 
 but no steps have since been taken by the government to 
 found any measure upon their labours. The Committee 
 relating to the poor of Ireland in the year 1830 refer in their 
 report to no less than twelve preceding sessions during which 
 the importance of reclaiming the Irish wastes was, amongst 
 other advantageous works, strongly recommended. In the 
 session of 1835 the Commons Committee on Public Works 
 went again into the subject at considerable length, and 
 reported that " no experiment was necessary to persuade any 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 458 
 
 scientific man of the possibility of carrying into effect the re- 
 clamation of bogs." 
 
 The evidence justifying this language was principally that 
 given by Mr. Griffith, the civil engineer, and Mr. Feather- 
 stone, a successful practical farmer. 
 
 Mr. Griffith deposed that, 
 
 *' The mountain bog of the south of Ireland — the moory bog, varies 
 in depth from nine inches to three feet, below which there is a clayey or 
 sandy sub-soil. On the average, about £4 per statute acre is required to 
 bring it from a state of nature to one of cultivation, and then it will fetch 
 a rent of from 5*. to 105. per English acre." 
 
 Again, 
 
 "£1 4s. an acre is the highest estimate for the draining of this land in 
 covered drains ; the remainder of the expense consists in the trenching 
 up the surface, turning up the sub-soil, and mixing it with the bog ; no 
 manure is wanted, a portion of the bog being burnt for that purpose." 
 
 Further, 
 
 "The expense of reclaiming deep bogs per acre, maybe estimated 
 thus : — drainage of an English acre, in the most perfect way, about £1 45., 
 which is about 405. the Irish acre; that includes the underdrain : the 
 levelling and digging comes to about £1 105. ; and afterwards, the 
 claying comes to about £6 125. per statute acre." 
 
 Lastly, 
 
 "The reclamation of mountain land is very profitable, and easily 
 eflfected ; but the reclamation of deep bog land is attended with a much 
 greater expense, and requires both care and judgment. But both are 
 certainly reclaimable, and would give a successful return when judiciously 
 treated." 
 
 Mr. Featherstone assured this Committee that he had re- 
 claimed the worst sort of bog land for £1S an acre, and some 
 cush bog land for £6 an acre : the former, when reclaimed, 
 was worth £1 an acre, and the latter £2 an acre. " It took 
 me," he adds, " £13 an acre to reclaim the first red bog 
 I tried my hand on : and it would take to reclaim, on the 
 average, the red bog of Ireland, c£^10 an acre." 
 
454 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 The Commission of 1809 returned as improvable, 
 1,576,000 acres of flat bog ; 
 1,254,000 acres of mountain top bog; 
 2,070,000 acres of convertible mountain bog. 
 
 In the year 1845, Mr. Griffith made an estimate for the 
 Land Commission of the unimproved pasture and bogs of the 
 country, which he set down as 6,290,000 acres in the whole, 
 of which 2,535,000 are not to be improved. 
 
 Three reclamation experiments upon a large scale have 
 been undertaken of late years, but the results are not 
 esteemed satisfactory. The Commissioners of Woods and 
 Forests placed a wide tract of waste land belonging to the 
 Crown, called Pobble CKeefe, or King William's town, 
 under the management of Mr. Griffith, and expended some 
 amount of money in trying to render the property productive 
 — but without much effect. Here there appears to have been 
 no want of knowledge, judgment, caution, or of capital — but 
 the profit has not encouraged an extension of the experiment. 
 The Crown holds still larger tracts of the same kind of land 
 on tlie same spot, but the Commissioners have not ventured 
 to enlarge their operations. 
 
 The Irish Waste Land Society, incorporated by the Act 
 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 97, has been in existence upwards of ten 
 years, and has taken on lease several tracts of waste land in 
 different counties. If reliance may be placed upon the re- 
 ports published by the Directors, the operations of this society 
 have been productive of many benefits, but as no dividend has 
 ever been produced to the shareholders, and a price is not to 
 be obtained for their shares in the market, it is impossible to 
 regard this investment, however well intended, or judiciously 
 conducted, in any other light than that of a complete failure. 
 
 The monks of the order of La Trappe, located at Mount 
 Melleray, in the county of Waterford, have produced green 
 crops from the very worst description of bog land, but their 
 attempts to raise grain have not succeeded. The capital 
 spent by that penitential fraternity in labour has never been 
 computed. No other men could subsist and toil upon the 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 455 
 
 frugal diet with which they are content. If the stubborn 
 barrenness of the mountain bog could be subdued by mortal 
 hands, it would have yielded to theirs. But the example of 
 their labour and its results has inspired no imitators worth 
 speaking of. 
 
 There are then two sides to the question : on the one are 
 the statements of private persons who depose in positive terms 
 to the profitable character of the trials they have made ; and 
 on the other are the larger but less successful operations of 
 the government and public bodies. Perhaps the difference 
 between the two results is to some extent a natural con- 
 sequence of certain essential differences between the position 
 of the two parties. The best of all workmen is he who works for 
 himself only. Thus the enterprise of an individual when well 
 directed and ably sustained, will generally be found to exceed 
 that of the state, or of incorporated communities. The 
 economy of the man who is to reap the whole profit of a 
 venture, his keenness, vigour, and spirit are unconquerable. 
 His daring is commensurate with his gain ; and he stands un- 
 equalled, because others have divided interests and he but one. 
 
 But there is still another aspect in which the reclamation of 
 Irish wastes deserves to be viewed. The Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners have sanctioned some reclamations on Trafford Moss, 
 by the paupers of the union in which it lies, and the 
 work is said to proceed satisfactorily. The principle upon 
 which employment is found for workliouse poor supposes 
 quite another rule of profit from that applied to ordinary 
 labour. It is not necessarily reproductive, and may be 
 highly useful although attended with pecuniary loss. In 
 this point of view the employment of the Irish poor upon 
 the waste lands of that country suggests new considerations. 
 If the state should be called upon to advance any large 
 amount of money for the relief of Irish destitution, it may be 
 wise to insist that some labour shall be given in return for 
 this succour, and in that event why not devote the labour to 
 these waste lands ? The work, though a present loss, might 
 ultimately prove advantageous. It is possible that a waste 
 
456 
 
 LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 cultivated upon the plan adopted at Trafford Moss by a poor- 
 law union, or taken to reclaim by the different unions of one 
 county, might, after the first expense of draining and fencing 
 had been treated as sunken capital, be let out beneficially both 
 for the public and the tenantry in small divisions of twenty 
 acres each, and a rent of five shillings an acre for twenty-one 
 years. If such an experiment obtained moderate success, 
 and a law securing compensation for improvements were on 
 the statute book, the rapid growth of a yeoman class might 
 be regarded as certain. 
 
 Absentees have been the cause of fearful evils in Ireland, 
 and a tax having been more than once imposed upon their 
 estates in former times, it is common to see them registered 
 in the popular lists of Irish grievances, and to find the renewal 
 of the old tax advanced as one of the standard panaceas of 
 Irish distress. But amongst the very best of the Irish pro- 
 prietors are to be found men who do not set a foot in the 
 country once in seven years. There is not a province in 
 Ireland in which, if it be desired to point out the best method 
 of managing land, and the best manner of treating a tenantry, 
 the example will not be found on the estate of an absentee. 
 To levy a tax upon such a man would be monstrous injustice, 
 and a national wrong. 
 
 The plain truth is, that although a resident landlord may, 
 if he be a well-disposed and prudent man, accomplish infinite 
 good, yet a tenantry may enjoy fortune and happiness in a 
 high degree without being blessed with his presence. No 
 doubt it is a beautiful sight to behold the lord of the soil 
 residing in the hall of his ancestors, and spending within his 
 own domain the rents produced by the industry of his sur- 
 rounding tenants; but the content of their position follows 
 not as a consequence of the residence of the landlord, but of 
 the terms upon which he lets his land. The whole question, 
 with its dread alternative of prosperity or ruin, turns upon that 
 one condition — the amount of rent paid. If that be fairly 
 apportioned to the circumstances of the locality, all goes well 
 and merrily; if not, penury and discontent overspread the scene. 
 
LAND HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 457 
 
 The true inquiry to make, therefore, is not where the land- 
 lord lives, but what are the terms upon which those over 
 whom he has power are enabled to obtain the means of 
 living. Whether we take the farm labourer, the man who 
 sows the seed, or the farmer who sells the grain when grown, 
 or the merchant who buys it in the market for retail or 
 exportation, we shall in each case find that it is the profit 
 gained by the individual in his own division of the general labour 
 that gives wealth and independence. Throughout the whole 
 process, therefore, and without any drawback or limit, the 
 presence or absence of the landlord whose property is the 
 foundation and origin of the common activity and general 
 gain, does not, at any period or under any circumstance, 
 form an element in their respective calculations or trans- 
 actions. 
 
 But a tax upon absentees would not only be unreasonable 
 upon general principles — it would in its application to par- 
 ticular cases involve gross inconsistencies. Passing ov6r, 
 without comment, the restraints that would thus be im- 
 posed upon the liberty of the subject, and the tendency 
 which such a law would have to make a man's castle his jail, 
 it is to be observed that estates in Ireland are often much 
 divided. A man for instance has 1000 acres in the south — 
 1000 in the centre of the island, and a mansion and demesne 
 near Dublin. How is he to be dealt with? As to his 
 largest estates he is non-resident, and virtually an absentee. 
 Is he to pay the tax on one or on both, or, though he 
 lives on neither and yet in the country, is he to pay no 
 tax at all ? The latter would probably be the opinion of those 
 who dream of raising Ireland in the scale of nations by 
 resorting to such expedients as a tax upon absentees, who are 
 often found the best proprietors of the country. 
 
 It is from this class of political economists that the idea 
 has sprung, of compelling landlords to give leases to their 
 tenants. If the latter had been entitled to compensation 
 for substantial improvements, so unreasonable a law could 
 not have been proposed. But even though it were now 
 
 Vol. II. H n 
 
458 
 
 LAND HISTOKICALLY CONSIDERED. 
 
 in foi ce, it would not tend to fuse into closer union the 
 relations of the owner and the occupier of the soil. These 
 ought to be one and the same, though they are too often 
 treated as if they were inherently constituted and quahfied by 
 different and generally conflicting interests. The landlord 
 demands the value of his land — the tenant the value of the 
 time, labour, and capital invested in its cultivation. The 
 former decHnes a lease because he will be debarred by its pro- 
 visions of all participation in the increased profits, which 
 industry, money, and the progress of science may produce 
 during the term granted ; while the latter will covet a lease for 
 the purpose of securing those very consequences. A legislative 
 enactment for the purpose of accommodating such an adverse 
 state of things as this would be a mischievous absurdity. 
 The difference springs from matters of detail, which will 
 vary in almost every case, and can never be foreseen or 
 regulated by an act of parliament. In this, as in many other 
 difficulties, it is the friction of daily events, and not the force 
 of law that must smooth the asperities of contending interests 
 and make the separate parts of a common system move in the 
 harmonious action of mutual concession for the general good. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
 WILLIAM STEVENS, FRINTER, BKLL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. 
 
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