Rutland to Sydney, April 28, 1784
23 & 24 Geo. III. c. 28; Irish Parl. Deb. iii. 154.
‘I was satisfied that the old corps, who are very completely appointed and pique themselves as gentlemen upon their manners and appearance, and upon being men in substantial circumstances, would not submit to unite with the meanest and poorest rank; and I expected that the expense of clothing and arming the people, the encouragement the plan must give to idleness, and the dislike of other corps to the measure, would frustrate the attempt. The event hitherto has in a great degree justified my expectations.’ Rutland to Sydney, May 19, 24, 1784.
Irish. Parl. Deb. iv. 41, 42, See, too, pp. 237, 238.
Irish Parl Deb. iv. 225, 227, 279, 280, 294. See, too, the letters of Rutland and Orde daring the latter half of 1784.
Charlemont to Haliday, Feb. 26, 1793.
Iruk Parl. Deb. iv. 266–297. Orde to Nepean, Feb. 19, 1785.
See Rutland to Sydney, Oct. 25, 1784; English instructions to Rut-land, Jan. 11, 1785; Sydney to Rut-land, Jan. 7, 1786; Rutland to Sydney, Feb. 27, 1786.
Irish Parl Deb. iii 54, 65, 69.
See a pamphlet by Sir Lucius O'Brien, called A Gleam of Comfort to this distracted Empire (London, 1785).
Grattan's Life, iii. 228–230. Rutland, in relating this, says that Charlemont's answer ‘brought upon him the most virulent abuse in the public prints, but it is no more than the lot of every man, who differs in the smallest degree from whatever may be the popular cry of the moment.’ To Sydney, July 21, 1784.
Grattan's Life, iii. 221–226. I am quite incompetent to give any opinion on the subject. Pitt in a private letter to Orde (Jan. 12, 1785) writes, ‘I have had some conversation with your Attorney-General on the subject of the attachments, who defends his cause very ably and puts it in the best light it can admit of. Still, I think it a matter of great delicacy and caution, and enough has been done already.’—Privately printed Correspondence of Pitt and Rutland.
July 1784.
Plowden, ii. 107, 108.
England's Life of O'Leary, p. 105.
Grattan's Life, iii. 119–122.
Wyse's History of the Catholic Association, i. 103.
‘I have discovered a channel by which I hope to get to the bottom of all the plots and machinations which are contriving in this metropolis. As I always expected, the disturbances which have been agitated have all derived their source from French influence. There is a meeting in which two men named Napper Tandy and John Binney, together with others who style themselves free citizens, assemble. They drink the French King on their knees, and their declared purpose is a separation from England and the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion. At their meetings an avowed French agent constantly attends, who is no other than the person in whose favour the French ambassador desired Lord Carmarthen to write to me a formal introduction. … One of this meeting, alarmed at the dangerous extent of their schemes, has confessed, and has engaged to discover to me the whole intentions of this profligate and unprincipled combination.’ Rutland to Sydney (most secret), Aug. 26, 1784 ‘We are now very certain that most of the abominable letters and paragraphs in the public papers are written by popish priests. We shall, I really believe, be very soon able to get sufficent evidence which we may make use of, to apprehend and arrest them. We shall be assisted by the principal persons, especially by the utular prelates, who are earnest to express and manifest their reprobation of such excesses.’ Orde to Nepean (most private), April 30, 1784.
Sept. 4, 1784, Sydney writes to Rutland, ‘O'Leary has been talked to by Mr. Nepean, and he is willing to undeitake what is wished for 100 l a year which has been granted him.’ On Sept. 8 Orde writes to Nepean thanking him for sending over a spy or detective named Parker, and adds, ‘I am very glad also that you have settled matters with O'Leary, who can get at the bottom of all secrets in which the Cathohes are concerned, and they are certainly the chief promoters of our present disquietude. He must, however, be cautiously trusted, for he is a priest, and if not too much addicted to the general vice of his brethren here, he is at least well acquainted with the art of raising alarms for the purpose of claiming a merit in doing them away.’ On Sept 23 he writes, ‘We are about to make trial of O'Leary's sermons and of Parker's rhapsodies. They may be both in their different callings of very great use. The former, if we can depend upon him, has it in his power to discover to us the real designs of the Catholics, from which quarter, after all, the real mischief is to spring. The other can scrape an acquaintance with the great leaders of sedition, particularly Napper Tandy, and perhaps by that means may dive to the bottom of his secrets.’ On Oct. 17 he writes to Nepean, alluding to some rumour about O'Leary which is not stated, ‘Del Campo's connection with O'Leary, or rather O'Leary's with him, may have given rise to all the report, but after all I think it right to be very watchful over the priest and wish you to be so over the minister. They are all of them designing knaves’ The Christian name of this O'Leary is nowhere given, nor is anything said about his being a monk; and as the surname is a very common one, it is possible that the person referred to may not have been the wellknown writer. Considering, however, the important position and connections attributed to this O'Leary, the conjecture is, I fear, an improbable one.
Vol. iv pp. 491, 492.
Lord Carysfort to Charlemont, Sept. 10, 1784. Charlemont Papers.
Letters of Count d'Adhémar, April 23, May 7, June 18, Aug. 3, 1784, French Foreign Office.
Irish Parl. Deb. ii. 202–204.
Ibid vi. 73, vii. 137, 138.
Newenham's State of Ireland, p. 110.
Irish Parl. Deb. ii. 405, v. 115, viii. 365, ix. 258, 259.
Auckland Correspondence, i. 80.
See Irish Parl. Deb. ii. 203.
Ibid. iii. 87. The same debate brought out some curious illustrations of the manner in which the Court of Chancery was conducted in Ireland.
Sydney to Buckingham, June 10, 1788.
Irish Parl Deb. viii. 69.
Pitt to Rutland, Oct 7, 1784 (privately printed correspondence). The italics are in the original.
Pitt to Rutland, Oct. 7, Dec. 4, 1784; Jan. 11, 12, 1785.
In a remarkable letter to his constituents of the University of Dubhn, he said, in 1780, ‘I have always been of opinion that the claim of the British Parliament to make laws for this country is a daring usurpation of the rights of a free people, and have uniformly asserted the opinion in public and in private.’ He says that although he had opposed the Declaration of Rights when it was first moved, he would now yield his opinion to that of his constituents and support it, but that he could not support a total repeal of Poynings' Law. He adds, ‘There is not a doubt in my mind that a perpetual Mutiny Bill lays the foundation of a military despotism in this country; on this principle I will, while I live, make every effort in my power to procure a repeal of it.’ O'Flanagan's Lives of the Chancellors of ireland, ii. 166, 167.
See Grattan's Life, ii. 134, 200, 201.
‘From the first I have ever reprobated the idea of appealing to the volunteers, though I was confident Ireland was in no danger while they followed the counsel of the man whom I am proud to call my most worthy and honourable friend [Mr. Grattan]; the man to whom this country owes more than, perhaps, any State ever owed to an individual; the man whose wisdom and virtue directed the happy circumstances of the times and the spirit of Irishmen to make us a nation. While the volunteers continued under his influence I feared no evil from them.’ Irish Part Deb. iv. 286.
Phillips' Life of Curran; Darrington's Rise and Fall.
Phillips' Life of Curran, pp. 151, 152. Curran himself long afterwards wrote of this, ‘Though I was too strong to be beaten down by any judicial malignity, it was not so with my clients; and my consequent losses in professional income have never been estimated at less, as you must have often heard, than thirty thousand pounds.’ A passage from one of Fitzgibbon's speeches in Parliament against Curran may be given as a specimen of the kind of language he was accustomed to employ. ‘The politically insane gentleman [Curran] has asserted much, but he only emitted some effusions of the witticisms of fancy. His declamation, indeed, was better calculated for the stage of Sadler's Wells than the floor of a House of Commons. A mountebank with but one half the honourable gentleman's theatrical talent for rant would undoubtedly make his fortune. However, I am somewhat surprised he should entertain such a particular asperity against me, as I never did him any favour. But perhaps the honourable gentleman imagines he may talk himself into consequence. If so, I should be sorry to obstruct his promotion; he is heartily welcome to attack me. One thing, however, I will assure him—that I hold him in so small a degree of estimation either as a man or a lawyer that I shall never hereafter deign to make him any answer.’ Grattan's Life, iii. 268. The scene is alluded to, but not reported, as being purely personal, in the Irish Parl. Deb. v. 472. Woodfall, the famous parliamentary reporter, happened to be in the Irish House of Commons during this scene, and he has given a graphic description of it. Auckland Correspondence, i. 78, 79. No one, I think, who follows the reported speeches of Fitzgibbon, can fail to be struck with the extraordinary arrogance they display, and it is said to have been much aggravated by his manner. In Charlemont's MS. Autobiography there is an elaborate and exceedingly (I think unduly) unfavourable character of him.
P. 22.
‘My unalterable opinion is, that so long as human nature and the popish religion continue to be what I know they are, a conscientious popish ecclesiastic never will become a wellattached subject to a Protestant State, and that the popish clergy must always have a commanding influence on every member of that communion.’ Speech on the Union, p. 69
Lord Holland's Mems. of the Whig Party, i. 162. See Grattan's Life, iii. 402, 403.
Speech on the Union, pp. 45, 46.
Irish Parl. Deb. ix 181. Grattan more than once alluded to this speech.
Essay VIII. on Independency of Parliaments.
‘In the British colonies of North America the late Assemblies possessed much of the power and constitution of our House of Commons. The King and Government of Great Britain held no pationage in the country which could create attachment and influence sufficient to counteract that restless, arrogating spirit, which in popular assembles, when left to itself, will never brook an authority that checks and interferes with its own. To this cause, excited perhaps by some unseasonable provocations, we may attribute, as to their true and proper original, we will not say the misfortunes, but the changes which have taken place in the British Empire.’ Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, vi. ch vii.
June 16, 1784. Dr. Halliday, the founder of the Whig Club, in a letter to Charlemont, complains that ‘an English Whig is only a Whig for England, but a Tory with respect to her dependencies,’ and he adds, ‘I have been candidly told that since the acknowledgment of our independency, nothing can preserve the integrity and peace of the Empire but a government of corruption in Ireland … that a truly democratic House of Commons, one really the representative of the people here, would shiver all to pieces.’ April 10, 1785. Charlemont Papers. Lord Camden, who had pushed Whig principles during the American contest to their extreme consequences, was in Ulster in the summer of 1784, and he wrote a curious letter to the Duke of Grafton on the state of Ireland. ‘There is one question,’ he said, ‘that seems to have taken possession of the whole kingdom, and that is the reform of Parliament, about which they seem very much in earnest. For who ( sic ) does wish so much for that reformation at home cannot with much consistence refuse it to Ireland, and yet their corrupt Parliament is the only means we have left to preserve the union between the two countries. But that argument will not bear the light, and no means ought in my opinion to be adopted that is too scandalous to be avowed. I foresaw when we were compelled to grant independence to Ireland the mischief of the concession, and that sooner or later civil war would be the consequence.’ (Aug. 13, 1784) Grafton's MS. Autobiography.
Rutland to Sydney, Jan. 13, 1785.
On April 19, 1784, he writes a curious (most secret and confidential) letter to Sydney about the growing independence of the Irish House of Lords ‘A greater attention and a more expensive influence than heretofore will therefore be required, if we seek, as we must, to direct its progress in the right way. A share also of the lucrative favours of Government must be set aside for the purpose of gaining attachments in that House, as the invention of mere external allurements will no longer maintain the influence which they may for a moment acquire.’ He complains in consequence of ‘the scantiness of the provision which is in the disposal of Government for the support of an increased and increasing number of claimants,’ urges the ‘necessity of taking some measure as early as possible for the enlargement of our means,’ and says, ‘it will be absolutely incumbent upon me to endeavour to establish in that House the strongest and most immediate connection of administration with a certain number of powerful members, who may be at all times locked to for the declaration and explanation of the intentions and wishes of Government.’
May 18, 1782, Portland to Shelburne.
Grattan's Life, iii. 289.
Plowden, ii. 89. ‘Government has been necessarily under very great difficulties, and must feel much obligation to those persons who have assisted in bringing about the for tunate event [the passing of the Press Bill] It is really but justice to Mr. Grattan that I should put him at the head of such a list. The manly and decisive tone in which he pointed out the necessity of some regulations and restrictions, and of securing the liberty of the press (to use his own expression) against the attacks of the printers; the fair and explicit justice which he did to administration by stating the nature of their proposition and their declared readiness to conciliate unanimity by any concession which on fair discussion should be generally thought advisable, had altogether a striking effect upon the House, and contributed greatly to make the whole measure acceptable.’ Rutland to Sydney (secret and confidential), April 12, 1784.
Irish Parl. Deb. iii. 166.
Irish Parl. Deb. iv. 237, 238; Grattan's Life, iii. 214–216. Orde, describing the debates, syas, ‘Mr. Grattan, in a most able and ingenious speech, condemned in the strongest terms the meeting of the congress as not existing in the principles of the Constitution and destroying the very existence of Parliament. He pointed out the illegality of some of the addresses and resolutions, and several of the county meetings where, all the inhabitants being admitted. the rights of freeholders were overturned and wrested from them by the populace. He described the change that those violences had made in the volunteer institutions, that they had formerly consisted of responsible and respectable characters, whereas now Roman Catholics were admitted, and the lowest and most riotous of the people were armed.’ Orde to Nepean, Jan. 26, 1785.
Some very curious letters of the Bishop in 1795–6 to the Countess de Lichtenau (the mistress of the King of Prussia) will be found in the memoirs of that lady. The Bishop was a great patron of art in Italy. He appears to have openly professed materialist opinions. On the outbreak of war between England and France he was imprisoned by the French for eighteen months at Milan. Several particulars relating to his Italian life will be found in the Life of Lady Hamilton, and in Lord Cloncurry's Personal Recollections, 190, 191. See, too, the enthusiastic dedication to the Bishop, of Martin Sherlock's curious Letters of an English Traveller.
See the resolutions of Forbes, Feb. 11, 1790, and Grattan's speech, Feb. 20, 1790 (Grattan's Speeches, ii. 237, 238, 243).
Grattan's Speeches, ii. 210 (Feb. 1, 1790)
See The Proposed System of Trade with Ireland explained (1785), pp. 31, 32. This very able pamphlet was written by George Rose, who took a leading part in Pitt's commercial legislation It was commonly called ‘the Treasury pamphlet,’ and attracted much attention from being understood to represent most fully the views of the Government.
Pitt to the Duke of Rutland, Jan. 6, 1785. Fitzgibbon stated at this time that the imports from England did not exceed one million, and the exports to England exceeded two millions and a half.
Irish Parl. Deb. iv. 178, 188.
The System of Trade with Ireland explained, p. 20.
Sydney to Rutland, Jan. 6, 1785 (most secret and confidential).
Ibid. Feb. 1, 1785.
The extreme Irish view of these advantages was thus stated by Flood. ‘What nation would not protect Ireland without tribute, to whom Ireland were to give what she gives to Britain? She gives her the nomination of her monarch, and therein of her whole administration through every department; a third estate in her Legislature; the creation of her peerage; the influence over placemen and pensioners in the House of Commons; she gives her a mighty army; the use of near a million and half of yearly revenue; five millions a year in imports and exports; above a million a year in absentee expenditure which, at the grievous issue of one million a year from Ireland, carries above two hundred thousand pounds a year in taxes into the British exchequer; she gives her the use of three millions of people in peace and war, and of seventeen millions of English acres in a happy climate and a happy soil, and so situated as to be the best friend or the worst enemy in the world to Britain.’ Irish Parl. Deb. v. 398, 399.
Rutland to Sydney, Jan. 13, 24, 25, 1785.
The correspondence between Pitt and Rutland was privately printed by Lord Stanhope (then Lord Mahon) in 1842. The correspondence of the Irish Government with Sydney is, of course, in the Record Office.
This had been stated by Lord North. See Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iii. 647. Pitt does not urge in his letters, a point on which the Ministry in Ireland dwelt largely—that the Act granting Ireland the plantation trade was revocable at pleasure, while the commercial treaty would secure it for ever.
Pitt to Rutland, Dec. 4, 1781; Jan. 6, March 1, 1785.
Sydney to Rutland (most secret), Feb. 1, 1785.
Ibid.
Irish Parl. Deb. iv. 116–125.
Grattan's Life, iii. 236–239. See, too, Irish Parl. Deb. vi. 121.
Rutland describes a conversation of Orde with Grattan. ‘No argument could move him [Grattan] to consent to the appropriation of the surplus for the purposes of the Empire until Ireland should be free from all burthen of debt. Your lordship is not unacquainted with Mr. G.'s character, and experience has shown to what effect he can exercise his abilities when a strong ground of popularity is given him to stand upon.’ After several conversations, ‘Mr. Grattan remained obstinate in his opinion unless the expenses of government should be made equal to the revenue. He said he knew this to be the opinion of every intelligent and knowing man with whom he had communicated upon the subject … that he should state his opinion in Parliament with such arguments as he was convinced would render it impossible for any honest man, who pretended to the slightest regard to his country, to support the measure. … He thought the present system of carrying on government by accumulated loans was highly ruinous. … He conjured Mr Orde to see the chief friends of Government, and know explicitly their opinion.’ Orde, knowing that several of the most zealous friends of the Government thought ill of the policy of the measure, determined not to call them together, but having a meeting of some of the chief law officers in his appartment, he ‘mentioned with a seeming carelessness that Mr. Grattan still continued his objection to the last resolution, when they one and all burst out with entreaties that the proposition might be revised, that some turn might be given to it to avoid the strong objection admitted by every one against bringing it in while the present income of the nation fell so much short of the expense.’ Upon this opinion the Government determined to introduce an additional resolution. Rutland to Sydney (most secret), Feb. 12, 1785.
Irish Parl Deb. iv. 201
Sydney to Rutland, Feb. 24, 1785.
Rutland to Sydney, Feb. 25 and March 4, 1785.
Irish Parl. Deb. iv. 198.
Ibid. 212, 218, 219.
Ibid. v. 34–43.
Resolutions 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 16. Grattan thus stated the effect of these provisions: ‘You give to the English, West as well as East, an eternal monopoly for their plantation produce, in the taxing and regulating of which you have no sort of deliberation or interference, and over which Great Britain has a complete supremacy. … There is scarcely an article of the British plantation that is not out of all proportion dearer than the same article is in any other part of the globe, nor any other article that is not produced elsewhere, for some of which articles you might establish a mart for your manufactures … What, then, is this covenant? To take these articles from the British plantations and from none other, at the present high rates and taxes, and to take them at all times to come, subject to whatever further rates and taxes the Parliament of Great Britain shall enact.’ Speeches, 1 235. Flood, in a very remarkable passage, argued that the trade which was likely to be most beneficial to Ireland in the future was that with the United States, and that the commercial arrangement would completely destroy it. It ‘subjects our imports from the independent States of America to such duties, regulations, and prohibitions as the British Parliament shall from time to time think fit to impose on Britain, as to all articles similiar to those that are produced in the British colonies or settlements. Now what articles can America send to us, to which similar articles are not, or may not be, produced in some of the colonies or settlements of Britain?’ Irish Parl. Deb. v. 402, 403.
See a curious private letter which he wrote to Sir John Tydd, Grattan's Life, iii. 250–252.
Parl. Hist. xxv. 647–651; Wraxall's Post Mems. i. 320.
See the animated account of it in Wraxall's Post. Mems. i. 310–320. Wraxall states that on one, if not more, occasion, in the Wilkes' discussions at the beginning of the reign, the House sat till 9 A.M. According to the Parliamentary History, however, the House adjourned at 6 A.M. in the great debate on the commercial propositions. The speech of Sheridan ( Parl. Hist. xxv. 743–757) is probably the strongest statement of the case against the propositions.
Rutland wrote of this speech to Pitt: ‘The speech of Mr. Grattan was, I understand, a display of the most beautiful eloquence perhaps ever heard, but it was seditious and inflammatory to a degree hardly credible.’ Aug. 13, 1785. Woodfall, the parliamentary reporter, heard this debate, and made the report which is in the Parl. Deb. It was also published separately. He wrote to Eden, ‘Grattan, whose conversion is in Dublin ascribed to Sheridan's speech (which I took such pains to procure for the public correctly), was admirable. His manner, as you well know, is most singular; but he said some of the finest things in the newest mode I ever heard. Auckland Correspondence, i. 79, 80. See, too, Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 148, and the speech in Grattan's Speeches, ii. 231–249
Irish Parl. Deb. v. 443.
Sydney to Rutland (secret and confidential), July 20, 1785.
‘Were I to indulge a distant speculation, I should say that without a union Ireland will not be connected with Great Britain in twenty years longer.’ Rutland to Pitt, June 16, 1784. In a speech delivered in 1799, Bishop Watson mentioned that in 1785 he had pressed the advantages of a union on Rutland, who had answered that ‘he wholly approved of the measure, but added, the man who should attempt to carry it into execution would be tarred and fea thered.’ Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 736.
‘The resolutions of the House of Commons [relating to the changes of duty] were severally agreed to with the almost unanimous concurrence of the House.’ ‘Mr. Grattan spoke shortly but strongly in favour of the treaty, and said that although Ireland should fail of the benefit she might expect from it, such a disappointment ought not to be imputed to any defect in the treaty, which in his opinion was fair and liberal, and opened a promising field upon which the country might exert her arts and industry.’ Orde to Nepean, March 6, 1787 (private). ‘The treaty of commerce between Great Britain and France is very popular in this country, and the attention paid therein to the interests of Ireland, is felt with a sensible gratitude by the whole nation.’ Rutland to Sydney (private), May 31, 1787.
27 Geo. III. c. 23. March 29, 1787, Orde to Nepean.
Westmorland to W. Grenville (private), Nov. 19, 1790.
26 Geo. III. c. 24.
Irish Parl. Deb. vi. 367, 368, 370.
Sydney to Rutland (most secret), Jan. 7, 1786.
‘We have made a successful foundation, at least, to a scheme of effectual police in this capital, with some additions applicable to the country. We thought it right to begin with moderation, but we have established the principle, and obtained now, I trust, an influence in the magistracy of the city, which may be used to the most salutary purposes for the quiet and good order of the whole community. The opposition given to the Bill in the House of Commons has been chiefly confined to the extension of the influence of Government, and to the armed force with which they are to be entrusted.’ Rutland to Sydney, March 31, 1786.
See Irish Parl. Deb. viii. 248, 249, 340, 344. See, too, a very curious report by a parliamentary committee on the subject, in Plow-den, append. lxxxii. The committee found, among other things, that the police charge for stationery in two and a half years was 3,316 l. 6s. 6 1/2d. Of this more than 150 l. was said to have been paid for gilt paper, and 49 l. 8s. 8d. for sealing wax. The wretched character of the Dublin police was noticed by Sir Richard Hoare in his Tour in Ireland in 1806, p. 300.
‘The necessity of coercion was universally admitted, and Mr. Grattan, in particular, very strongly urged the principle as essential to the prosperity of the country. He and Mr. Brown-low were tellers for the majority, and the Bill was supported by great numbers of the independent country gentlemen, among whom was Mr. Conolly.’ Orde to Nepean, Feb. 19, 1787. See, too, Grattan's Speeches, ii. 7, 8.
Gratten's Life, iii. 283–287,
Irish Parl. Deb. vii. 180, 227.
Ibid. vii. 210.
27 Geo. III. c. 15.
Ibid. c. 40.
Pitt to Rutland, Nov. 7, 1786.
Rutland to Pitt, Sept. 13, 1786.
Grattan's Life, iii. 317–335.
Irish Parl. Deb. ix. 435, xi. 344.
Rutland to Sydney (secret and confidential), Feb. 27, 1786.
Orde to Nepean, Feb. 24, 1787.
Rutland to Sydney (private), May 31, 1787. A little later, after a journey in the North, he writes: ‘Your lordship will receive much satisfaction in being informed of the loyal and tranquil state, in which I have found the once factious and disturbed province of Ulster.’ Aug. 10, 1787.
See his letters in Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, vol. i.
Rutland to Pitt, Sept. 13, 1786.
They will be found in Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, i. 365–387.
Parsons, who in 1788 was in violent opposition to Grattan, attempted to defend this job in Parliament on the ingenious ground that William Grenville was the English statesman to whom Ireland owed most, as it was he who had introduced the Renunciation Bill and thus established the independence of the Irish Parliament, which Grattan had left precarious and unfinished. See Irish Parl Deb. ix. 256.
Fitzherbert to Nepean, Jan. 30, 1788.
Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, i. 422.
Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, i. 424–426.
I have already mentioned that in the Regency debates in England, as well as in Ireland, the King was uniformly spoken of as ‘the first estate of the realm,’ and I have, therefore, retained the language of the time, although it is not, strictly speaking, accurate.
See Grattan's Life, iii. 367, 372–375. After the conflict was over Lord Buckingham wrote, ‘Your lordship will be surprised to hear that the engagements with the English opposition tended to a system of mischief, which I hope was not completely foreseen by those who framed this measure; for I do not hesitate to say that such a combination as had existed in this kingdom for the last three months, supported from Great Britain, under the circumstances of the present times and urging on the popular frenzy, would have completely overthrown every appearance of government in Ireland’ Buckingham to Sydney, March 23, 1789.
Buckingham to Sydney, Nov. 23, 1788; Jan. 10, 1789.
Fitzherbert to Nepean, Jan. 29, 1789. ‘The union of most of the great connections in this kingdom has left me no hope of a majority on the Regency question, except those which are founded on the expectation that some of the independent and unconnected members in both Houses, who usually vote against Government, may in the present instance be induced to support it.’ Buckingham to Sydney, Jan. 29, 1789.
‘If you make the Prince of Wales your Regent and grant him the plenitude of power, in God's name let it be done by Bill; otherwise I see such danger that I deprecate the measure proposed that. … I abominate the idea of restrainning the Prince Regent in the power of making peers in this country, or in limiting him in the power of making grants on the narrow principles of suspicion and distrust. This is a question which rests upon very different ground in this country from that on which it has been taken up in England; and if gentlemen can reconcile to themselves a for adopting in this country a different form of executive government from that established in England, I have not the smallest apprehension that the powers which may be committed to the Prince of Wales by the Parliament of Ireland will be abused by him.’ Speech of Fitzgibbon, Irish Parl. Debates, ix. 53, 54.
See his answer to the Committees of the British Houses, Jan. 30, 1789.
21 & 22 Geo. III. c. 47. Another clause of the Act provided that no Parliament could be held in Ireland until a licence had been obtained from his Majesty under the Great Seal of Great Britain. It appears to me very doubtful whether the use of either seal in this transaction, meant more than a formal attestation of the genuineness of the documents that passed from country to country. See, however, on the importance of different seals in establishing ministeral responsibility, the remarks of Mr. Dicey. The Law of the Constitution, pp. 332–335.
Brougham's Statesmen of George III.: Lord Loughborough. Another great legal authority writes, ‘After the consideration I have repeatedly given to the subject I must ever think that the Irish Parliament proceeded more constitutionally, by considering that the heir apparent was entitled to exercise the royal authority during the King's incapacity as upon a demise of the Crown, and by presenting an address to him praying him to do so, instead of arrogating to themselves, in Polish fashion, the power of electing the supreme magistrate of the Republic, and resorting to the palpable lie, of the proceeding being sanctioned by the afflicted Sovereign.’ Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, ix. 185.
Sydney to Buckingham, Feb. 21, 1789.
Buckingham to Sydney, Feb. 26, 1789.
See the list in Grattan's Life, ii. 389, 390.
Grattan's Speeches, ii. 243.
Plowden, ii. 302.
See Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, i. 426.
Buckingham to Sydney, April 14, 1789. There are several letters on the subject in Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, vol. ii. A curious letter of Thurlow to Fitzgibbon on his appointment, will be found in O'Flanagan's Lives of the Irish Chancellors, ii. 201, 202.
See the letters of Luzerne, Feb. 12, 16, March 28, 31, April 1, and the reply from the French Minister, April 6, 1789. French Foreign Office.
Irish Parl. Deb. vi. 102. On the earlier history of the debt the reader may find some interesting facts in i. 39, 136–153.
See his speech in February 1800.
Irish Parl. Deb. vii. 373, 374. See also his speech at the end of the following session, viii 419.
Rutland to Sydney, March 4, 1785.
Feb. 13, 1787, Rutland to Sydney.
Feb. 2, 1788, Fitzherbert to Nepean.
28 Geo. III. c. 2. See, too, a speech of Fitzgibbon, Irish Parl. Deb. viii. 313.
Ibid. pp. 294, 295.
Ibid pp. 238.
Ibid. pp. 289, 290, 295, 321.
Annual Register, 1768, p. 85.
Luckombe's Tour in Ireland, 1780; Twiss, Tour un Ireland, 1785.
Twiss' Tour, pp. 117–119.
Woodfall writes from Dublin in 1785: ‘You who were here so lately would scarcely know this city, so much is it improved, so rapidly is it continuing to improve. After the talk of the misery of the people in our Parliament, and in the Parliament here, I cannot but feel daily astonishment at the nobleness of the new buildings and the spacious improvements hourly making in the streets. I am sometimes tempted to suspect appearances, and to think I am at table with a man who gives me Burgundy, but whose attendant is a bailiff disguised in livery. In a word there never was so splendid a metropolis for so poor a country.’ Auckland Correspondence, i. 84, 85.
Tour in Ireland, ii. 332, 333.
Obsercations on the Trade of Ireland, pp. 6, 352.
There are some striking essays on the condition of Ireland as it appeared at this time to intelligent Englishmen, in an English periodical, published in 1785, called The Political Herald and Review.
Irish Parl. Deb. x. 155.
Crumpe's Essay, 189, 201. Compare a remarkable passage in Lord Clare's Speech, Feb. 19, 1798, describing the condition of the southern and midland parts of the kingdom at the time when Ulster was convulsed by the reform agitation. ‘During all the disturbances which prevailed in other parts of the kingdom we were in a state of profound tranquillity and contentment there; the farmers had already tasted the sweets of sober industry; agriculture was increasing most rapidly, and the country wore the face of wealth and comfort and happiness; nay, more, the condition of the lowest order of the peasantry was ameliorated in a degree that I never flattered myself I should have lived to witness.’ (P. 69.) See, too, on the growing prosperity, a pamphlet by one of the best English authorities on the condition of the poor—the Rev. J. Howlett, On Population in Ireland (1787).
Lord Clare's Speech, p. 5.
Arguments for and against the Union Considered (1798), pp. 28, 29. See, too, a very striking description of the progress of Ireland in the last years of the century, in a speech delivered by Grattan in 1810. Speeches, iv. 205–207.
See some remarkable statistics collected in Grattan's Life, iii. 275. The import of sugar from the West Indies in 1781 was only 7,000 cwt. In 1784 it rose to 33,000 cwt. In the debate on the reduction of interest in 1788 the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that in 1703 the tonnage of shipping employed by Ireland was only 70,000 tons. At the time he spoke, it was more than 500,000 tons. In 1703 the exports of Ireland were 572,000. In 1788 they exceeded three milhons. Irish Parl. Deb. viii. 278. If the reader desires to carry the comparison on, to a later date, he will find striking materials in Foster's speech on the Union delivered in April 1799, which is published separately (see especially pp. 104–109), and in Lord Clare's published speech in 1798.
Irish Parl. Deb. viii. 319.
Newenham, View of Ireland, pp. 205–207.
Irish Parl. Deb. viii. 319.
Ibid. iii. p. 156: Sheffield On the Trade of Ireland, pp. 193–196; Newenham, View of Ireland, pp. 119, 120.
Ibid. iv. 56, 57.
Newerham, pp. 205, 208; Sheffield, pp. 196–208; Mullalla's View of Irish Affairs, ii. 131, 132.
Sheffield, pp. 237–240; Newenham, p. 105.
Newenham, p. 208. See also a very interesting and detailed review of the different industries in Ireland, in a speech by Ogilvie on the commercial treaty with France. Irish Parl. Deb. vii. 272–282.
Newenham, pp. 224, 225. Many particulars about Irish breweries and spirit-drinking, will be found in the debates of 1791. Irish Parl. Deb. vol. xi.
George Ponsonby once said, ‘The expense of the monarchical part of our Constitution is less in Ireland than in any country in Europe. In England the civil list is one million annually; in Ireland the expense of the monarchical part of the Constitution is about forty thousand pounds.’ Irish Parl. Deb. vi. 287.
This was a favourite object of Doyle, Conolly, and Grattan. See Irish Parl. Deb. vii. 222, viii. 397–406.
In a letter which he wrote just after his change, the following characteristic passage occurs: ‘On Sunday next I am to preach at St. Peter's. and for the first time in a Protestant place of worship. But though I have changed the sphere of my exertions, they shall still, under God, be invariably directed to the same object—to improve the human heart; to enlarge and enlighten the understanding of men; banish religious prejudices, and diffuse through society the great blessings of peace, order, and mutual affection. … If I have passed to the Church Establishment, I have only passed into a situation in which I can better accomplish a desire which has ever been the next and dearest to my heart—that of rendering more service to the community, and inculcating the pure morality of the Gospel with greater fruit and extent. Upon the clearestreflection, I envisage Christianity in a great measure as a practical institution of religion, designed by Christ to regulate the dispositions and improve the character of men.’ See the Life of Kirwan in the Remains of Samuel O'Sullican, ii. 196, 197.
Two preachers named Lefanu and Harrison had begun this custom as early as 1780. Anthologia Hibernica, ii. 123.
See the sketch of the Life of Kirwan prefixed to his sermons; the admirable biography of him in the Ramains of the Rev. S. O'Sullican; Barrington's Personal Sketches; Anthologia Hibernica, i. 414–417. Croker fully corroborates the accounts of Kirwan's marvellous power, and he places him as an orator in the same rank with Pitt, Canning, and Curran. Croker Papers, iii. 216, 217.
Mant's History of the Church of Ireland, ii. 685.
‘The Papist with an Orange cockade fires in honour of King William's birthday. He goes to a Protestant church and hears a charity sermon. … To permit the use of arms to all Catholics would have been madness. To confine it to men of a certain property was a project full of difficulty and of offence. … We wished for some mode of judging, which applied not to property only, but to fitness and to character, by which a worthy Roman Cathohc might, and such a one only, be trusted with the use of arms and attached to his Protestant fellow-subjects. Volunteering has done what law could not do. The Catholic who wishes to carry arms proposes himself to a Protestant corps. His character is tried by his neighbours. He is admitted to an honour and a privilege; he receives a reward for his good conduct. … Thus are the best of the Catholic body happily selected, the whole of the Catholic body satisfied, and the two religions marvellously united.’ Thoughts on the Volunteers (1784), pp. 20, 21.
Sheffield's Observations on the Trade of Ireland, p. 365.
Plowden's Historical Register, ii. 200–202. Several letters on the subject, representing the blame as attaching chiefly to the Catholics, will be found in the Charlemont Correspondence ( MSS. ). Among them is a very honourable one from Fitzgibbon asking advice from Lord Charlemont about a report from Armagh that 500 Catholics were in arms, and that soldiets must be sent down. ‘Of all expedients,’ the Chancellor said, ‘that of military force is the last that ought to be resorted to.’ (Fitzgibbon to Charlemont, July 16, 1789.) In the Irish State Paper Office there is a curious letter from Newry (July 17, 1789), giving a detailed and very graphic picture of the terrorism wich ‘a mob of Presbyterians under the name of “Break-of-day-Boys” were exercising over the poorer Catholics of that district.’
See vol. iv. 530, 531. Also the statement of Wolfe Tone in his Life and Words (American edition), i. 355.
The strongest statement I know of the extent to which Catholic schools multiplied in the last years of the century will be found in Newenham, State of Ireland, pp. 13, 19.
Irish Purl. Deb. vii. 511. In a remarkable pamphlet, called The Choice of Evils, or, Which is best for the Kingdom of Ireland; the Commercial Propositions or a Legislative Union, published in Dublin in 1787, there is a powerful appeal in favour of the establishment of a second college attached to the University of Dublin, and admitting members of all religious denominations; and also for the admission of Catholics to degrees in Trinity College. The writer says: ‘How necessary it is that something effectual should be done is manifest from the efforts which both the North and South are at present making for the education of youth. Witness the Academies of Belfast, Strabane, and Carlow. These are pushed forward by private undertakers as the spontaneous vegetation of the soil. … Consistency requires that the Roman Catholics should not be denied seminaries for their education. We have so far relaxed the penal laws as to suffer them to acquire a permanence in their property. It would be absurd to refuse them the power of improving their minds as well as their fortunes.’ ‘We have not done enough so long as the clause in one of the Acts of 1782, disallowing the erection or endowment of any popish university or college, remains unrepealed … It would, however, be the greatest solecism that ever was thought of in politics, to give them [Catholics] either votes in Parliament or liberty to carry arms.’
The very interesting debates on this subject will be found in vol. vii. of the Irish Parl. Deb. The Presbyterians at this time petitioned for the endowment of a Presbyterian college; but Hely Hutchinson, who took a leading part in these discussions, expressed a decided opinion against separate places of education for different religious persuasions, and urged the great importance of admitting members of all creeds to the full privileges of the University. He mentioned that many Dissenters were at Trinity College. Hutchinson was still Provost of Trinity College as well as Secretary of State.
Irish Parl. Deb. x. 408–412.
‘See Hardy's Life of Charlement, ii. 219, 220. The original list of the members will be found in Grattan's Life, iii. 432–433.
Parl. Deb. x. 240–246, 344–348. It is worthy of notice that Wolfe Tone states in his autobiography, that it was about this time that he arrived at the conclusion which directed his whole subsequent policy—that ‘the influence of England was the radical vice’ of Irish government, and that Ireland would never be independent while the connection with England subsisted. ‘In forming this theory,’ he says, ‘I was exceedingly assisted by an old friend of mine, Sir Lawrence Parsons, whom I look upon as one of the very few honest men in the Irish House of Commons. It was he who first turned my attention on this great question, but I very soon ran far ahead of my master.’ Tone's Life (American edition), i. 32. Parsons' line of argument appears, indeed, to have been very generally adopted by the United Irishmen.
McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, pp. 12, 13.
Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 225.
Westmorland to Grenville, Oct. 5, 17, 1790.
McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, pp. 14, 15.
Tone's Life, i. 42, 43.
Westmorland to Dundas (private), July 26, 1791.
Tone had already written a pamphlet under the signature of Hibernicus, to show that Ireland should take no part in an English war with Spain about Nootka Sound. Grattan, as we have seen, had fully supported the vote of credit for that war.
This remarkable pamphlet, as well as the other works of Wolfe Tone, will be found appended to the American edition of his life.
Life of Wolfe Tone, i. 55. In another place he writes: ‘To subvert the tyranny of our execrable Government, to break the conneetion with England (the never-failing source of all our politcal evils), and to assert the independence of my country, these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland … to substitute the common name of Irishmen in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter, these were my means.’ Ibid. p. 51.
Secret Committee, pp. 38, 39, 50–56. This letter was intercepted and sent to England early in July (Westmorland to Sydney, July 11, 1791). It was accompanied by a sketch of a proposed secret society modelled after the Freemasons, intended to after the Freemasons, in-tended to advocate in Ireland the rights of men, and to correspond with the Jacobin Club in Paris and with different reform societies in England.
Seoret Committee, pp. 38, 39.
Irish Parl. Deb. xi. 132.
Ibid. xiii. 14.
Irish Parl. Deb. xiv. 74–87.
Ibid. xiii. 8.
Ibid. xiv. 76.
Ibid.
Irish Parl. Deb. xiv. 89.
Ibid. p. 102.
Grattan, however, while sup-porting strongly this reform, confessed that it did not go as far as he wished. Parl. Deb. xiv. 75.
Madden's United Irishman, i. 239, 240.
McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, pp. 18–20.
On this secession compare McNevin, p. 20; Plowden, ii. 334; Tone's Life, i. 48–50. The materials for forming an opinion about it are miserably inadequate.
Plowden, ii. appendix pp. 173–175.
McNevin, p. 21.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 152, 153.
25 Geo. III. c. 42.
McKenna's Essays on the Affairs of Ireland in 1791–1793, p. 26.
Letter to Sir Hercules Lang. rishe.
Burke's Correspondence, iv. 81.
Grattan's Life, iv. 39.
Correspondence, iii. 529.
Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 435.
Letter to Langrishe.
Burke's Correspondence, iv. 12.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 438, 439.
Ibid. iii. 525, iv. 28, 29.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 154, 490; Macknight's Life of Burke, iii. 422, 423.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 490.
Ibid. iii. 366.
Grenville to Westmorland, Oct. 20, 1791. Westmorland Papers. Many of the letters of 1791 and 1792, cited in the following pages, are not in the Record Office. They come from a very valuable and interesting collection of papers of Lord Westmorland, which was kindly lent me by the owner, Sir S. Ponsonby Fane. They have since been given by him to the State Paper Office in Dublin, where they now are.
Dundas to Westmorland, Dec. 26, 1791.
Ibid.
Jan. 11, 1792, Westmorland to Dundas. In a letter of private instructions to Hobart, suggesting the arguments to be used in England, Westmorland writes, ‘It appears to me by no means impossible we shall be seriously asked by formidable bodies of our Parliament, If we concede at your desire, will England pledge herself to support the Protestant power? If we can answer Yes, they will obey: if a negative or evasive answer is given, they will say, Then let the Protestant interest maintain itself in the way it best can. England has no right to ask us to weaken ourselves by concession, if she intends to abandon us afterwards.’ Westmorland to Hobart, Dec. 19, 1791.
Jan. 6, 1792, Pitt to Westmorland.
Westmorland to Pitt, Jan. 18, 1792.
Hobart to Dundas, Jan. 17, 1792.
Cooke to Barnard, Jan. 21, 1792. I may add a few sentences from the confidential letter which Westmorland wrote to Hobart, when the latter was in England for the purpose of enforcing the views of the Irish Government. ‘What has so much discredited the Irish Parliament in England? Examine the history: have they not without exception been the most convenient engines of British management since the days of King William? … The object of England must be to govern Ireland. She has in the present Constitution a Parliament formed of such materials that she always has, and probably always will be able to manage it, and she has a sect, deficient in numbers but possessing the property, magistracy, and influence in the country, pledged to maintain that establishment. Can it be for her advantage to alter the system of Government by bringing forward the Catholics, to throw the weight into the scale of the people and render the Parliament unmanageable? … No argument should be left to impress Pitt with the impossiblity of depending on the Catholics as a body that could be managed for a length of time, and therefore, though every method should be used to attach them, yet we ought not to risk the decisive management at present possessed by England.’ Westmorland to Hobart, Dec. 17, 1791.
Hobart to Westmorland, Jan. 25, 1792.
Dundas to Westmorland, Jan. 16, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, Jan. 21, 1792. Three days later Westmorland wrote: ‘The Protestant flame in this country grows hotter and hotter, and our difficulties increase. I am very much afraid we shall not be able to carry the smallest concession.’ (To Dundas, Jan. 24.) On Feb. 12 he wrote to the same correspondent ‘Though the Parliament and public may be reconciled to our Bill, the determination not to grant anything further, and to publish a declaration at no time to grant the franchise, is so violent and so absurd, that I fear it will not be possible to prevent a declaration of this nature in some shape or other.’
Pitt to Westmorland, Jan. 29, 1792.
Dundas to Westmorland, Jan. 29, 1792.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 378.
Ibid. 463. ‘Whatever difficulties,’ Richard Burke added, ‘there may be in carrying a measure of effectual relief for the Catholics on account of the supposed reluctance of the Protestants (which, however, is infinitely exaggerated), those difficulties were, in a great measure, if not altogether, created by the Irish Government … by becoming, as it were, the champions of a Protestant interest, and by entering into and inflaming the passions and prejudices of that party. This is the real cause of the opposition the Catholics have had to encounter.’ Burke's Correspondence, iii. 462.
‘I do not believe there was ever an instance in any country, of such a sacrifice of private judgment to the wishes of his Majesty, as by the Irish Ministers in the present concession.’ Westmorland to Dundas (private), Feb. 13, 1792.
Grattan, in 1793, reviewing this period, said: ‘The most unfortunate error of our Ministry was their interference with grand juries against the Catholics. … They took the lead in fomenting a religious war; they began it; they acted in the mongrel capacity of country gentlemen and Ministers. They acted against the Catholics as country gentlemen, and encouraged the Protestants as Ministers. They had, I understand, informed the British Ministry that the influence of the Crown could not induce a majority to vote against the Catholic pretensions, and then they themselves took a leading part to make the difficulty in the country, which they complained of in their despatches.’ Irish Parl, Deb. xiii. 10.
See vol. v. 185, 186; Plowden, ii. (appendix) 179–181.
See Grattan's Life, iv. 54, 55.
Plowden, ii. (appendix) 209, 210, 218
Macnevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 27; Tone's Memoirs, i. 65.
Macnevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 29.
Thus Burke, writing in Sept. 1792, mentions that Grattan and Hutchinson had both been visiting him. ‘They say that the ascendants are as hot as fire, and that they who think like them are in a manner obliged to decline all society.’ Burke's Correspondence, iii. 530. Westmorland wrote to Pitt, Feb. 24, 1792: ‘Grattan has completely ruined himself for some time, in the opinion of the House of Commons as well as all the Protestants of the country. We reap the benefit of his indiscretion, and if Mr. Grattan continues this theme, I almost flatter myself the support of English Government will become popular in the country.’ See, too, Giatian's Life, iv. 62.
Burke's Correspondence, iv. 100–105.
Irish Parl. Deb. xiii. 256, 257.
Forbes.
Irish Parl. Deb. xiii. 213. The discussion on extending the franchise to the Catholics, extended over the sessions of 1792 and 1793. Some of the arguments I have quoted were used in the latter session.
This fact surprised Westmorland, but did not alter his opinion of the real sentiments of the House He wrote confidentially to Pitt (Feb. 24, 1792): ‘I was much surprised that several in their speeches thought the time might come when the franchise might be granted. With exception to Grattan, Egan and Curran, Hutchinson, and some few, perhaps a dozen, who are either Cataolics lately conformed or connected with them, there is not one but would postpone that ad Græcas Calendas, for no letter I have written has sufficaently described the obstinacy, bigotry, and jealousy of almost every man upon that subject, and that we should have gone so far without quarrelling with our friends is an instance of luck and, I hope, management, to me quite miraculous.’
Parl. Deb. xii. 150, 156, 220, 243; Hobart to Dundas, Feb. 20, 1792.
See Burke's Correspondence, iv. 65; Letter to Langrishe; Works, vi. 364, 365. See, too, a memorial drawn up by Richard Burke, Nov. 4, 1792.
Parl. Deb. xii. 168. There is a remarkable passage in Grattan's great speech against the commercial propositions in 1785, showing that he already dreaded such a measure. Speechs, i. 240.
Parl. Deb. xii. 177, 178.
Pitt to Westmorland, Nov. 18, 1792 ( Westmorland Papers ).
See Plowden, ii. 362–364.
Westmorland to Pitt, Feb. 24, 1792. See, too, March 3.
Westmorland to Dundas, April 4, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, March 3.
Westmorland to Dundas, April 4, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Feb. 24, April 4, 1792.
Hobart to Dundas, Feb. 9, 1792.
Hobart to Barnard, March 10, 1792.
Irish Parl. Deb. xi. 68, 84.
Parl. Deb. xii. 272, 277, 278, 280; xiii. 7, 159–163.
Ibid. xiv. 84.
3 Geo. III. c. 13; 15 & 16 Geo. III. c. 16.
11 Geo. III. c. 12.
11 & 12 Geo. III. c. 12.
Parl. Deb. xii. 20. See, too, on the great admitted prosperity of the country, pp. 22, 39, 90, 143, 280.
Charlemont to Halliday, Dec. 13, 1791. Charlemont Papers.
Westmorland to Pitt, April 4, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, June 7, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Oct. 16, 1792.
Wolfe Tone's Memoirs, i. 67.
Ibid. i. 86, 87.
Westmorland to Pitt, Oct. 20, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Oct. 20, 1792.
Westmorlad to Dundas, Nov. 18; Westmorland to Pitt, Oct. 20, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Oct. 20, 1792.
Hobart to Barnard; Westmorland to Pitt, Oct. 20, Nov. 3, 19, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 24, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, Nov. 18, 1792.
Hobart to Nepean, Nov. 15.
Westmorland to Dundas, Nov. 18, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 19, 1792.
Ibid. Oct. 20, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, Sept. 19.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 3, 1792.
Ibid.
Ibid. Nov. 24, 1792.
Ibid. Oct. 20, 1792.
Ibid. Oct. 24, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 24, 1792.
Ibid. Nov. 28.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 24, 1792.
Ibid. Nov. 19.
Westmorland to Dundas, Nov. 18, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 28, 179.
Pitt to Westmcrland, Oct. 14, Nov. 18, 1792.
Hobart to Nepean, Nov. 19, 1792.
Wolfe Tone's Memoirs i. 68, 69.
Hobart to Nepean, Nov. 30; Westmorland to Dundas, Dec. 5, 1792; McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 35. The buttons on the buff and blue uniform of the Whig Club, bore the harp surmounted by the crown. Grattan's Life, iv. 71.
Hobart to Nepean, Sept. 7, 1792.
Ibid. Oct. 20.
See an unsigned memorial from Dublin, Oct. 29, 1790, ‘On the Affairs of Ireland,’ and also a letter of Luzerne, July 27, 1790, French Foreign Office.
See an unsigned memorial from London, Dec. 1, 1792, and two letters from the Minister at Paris, Dec. 9, 18, 1792, French Foreign Office.
See a memorial written by him, Dec. 18, 1792. It appears from one of the supplemental volumes in the French Foreign Office (1773–1791) that Coquebert was in Dublin and occupied with Irish politics as early as Feb. 1791.
Charlemont to Halliday, Feb. 26, 1793. Charlemont Papers.
McNevin, p. 35.
Westmorland to Dundas, Dec. 11, 1792.
Grattan's Life, iv. 73, 74.
Ibid. 126, 127.
Tone's Memoirs, i. 52.
Plowden, ii. 387, 388.
Westmorland to Pitt, Nov. 28, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, Nov. 29, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Dec. 1 1792.
Ibid. Dec. 4, 1792.
Hobart to Nepean, Dec. 5, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Dec. 7, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Dec. 9, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Dec. 10, 1792.
Ibid.
Westmorland to Dundas, Dec. 11, 1792.
Westmorland to Pitt, Dec. 14, 1792.
Ibid.
Wyse's History of the Catholic Association, ii. append. p. 13; Grattan's Life, iv. 78–80; Wolfe Tone's Memoirs, i. 86. 87.
Westmorland to Pitt, Dec. 18; to Dundas, Dec. 19, 22, 26, 29, 30, 1792.
Plowden, ii. 387, 388.
Ibid. 380.
See a powerful statement of the case in A Letter to the United Irishmen on the proposed Restoration of Catholic Rights, by Todd Jones (Dublin, 1792).
Nov. 4, 1792 (Record Office).
Pitt to Westmorland, Nov. 10, 1792.
Dundas to Westmorland, Dec. 17, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, Dec. 29.
Hobart to Nepean, Dundas, Dec. 29.
Ibid. Jan. 1, 1793.
Ibid. Jan. 9, 1793.
Ibid. Dec. 20, 1792.
Westmorland to Dundas, Dec. 29, 1792.
Ibid. Jan. 9, 1793.
Westmorland to Dundas, Jan. 11, 1793.
Dundas to Westmorland, Jan. (the day not given) 1793. The petition had been presented to the King on the 2nd. See Tone's Memoirs, i. 89, 90.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 3.
See Mant's History of the Church of Ireland, ii. 721–725. In the closing speech of the session the Lord-Lieutenant reverted to the term ‘Roman Catholic.’
Hobart to Nepean, Jan. 11, 1793.
Hobart to Nepean, Jan. 11.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 30.
Hobart to Nepean, Jan. 16, 1793. Grattan's Life, iv. 85, 86.
Hobart to Nepean, Jan. 11, 1793.
Ibid. Jan. 15, 1793.
Hobart to Nepean, Jan. 19, 1793.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 271.
Ibid. 317.
Ibid. 321.
Ibid. 310.
Parl, Deb. xiii. 120, 127.
Ibid. 138.
Park. Deb. xiii. 273–275, 327, 328.
Hobart to Nepean, Feb. 5, 1795.
Cooke to Nepean, Feb. 26.
Parl. Deb. xiii, 308.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 314, 315.
Cooke to Nepean, Feb. 26; Hobart to Nepean, Feb. 26, 1793.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 278. See, too, Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 145.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 313.
It is worthy of notice that Parsons—who was himself a man of very distinguished ability—evidently considered Flood by far the greatest man who had appeared in Irish politics in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In a little work published in 1795, he says of him: ‘He was certainly one of the greatest men that ever adorned this country. His mind was the most capacious, his reason the most athletic, his judgment the most balanced, his erudition the most profound. His nature was too dignitied to deceive others, his intellect too piercing to be deceived himself. … The impartial judgment of subsequent ages will consider him as unrivalled in his own country, and had it been his fortune to have moved upon a theatre as capacious as his own mind, his celebrity would not have been exceeded by any man's in any other.’ Parsons' Observations on the Bequest of Henry Flood, pp. 65, 75. This agrees with the judgment of another very able man, Peter Burrowes, who was an intimate friend both of Flood and of Grattan. Burrowes described the former as ‘perhaps the ablest man Ireland ever produced, indisputably the ablest man of his own times.’ Memoir and Speeches of Peter Burrowes, p. 11.
See Peel's Memoirs, i. 4.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 203–219.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 258–268.
Ibid. xiii. 299, 300.
Ibid. xiii. 342.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 363.
Ibid. 318.
33 Geo. III. c. 21.
Burke's Correspondence, iii. 436.
Grattan's Life, iv. 114.
Burke's Correspondence, iv. 73
Ibid. 126.
‘I cannot do full justice to his conduct during the present session. Thinking what was proposed in-jurious to the English connection in the first instance, he acquiesced in the wishes of the Government, discountenanced the innumerable cabals that were at work, encouraged the timorous, and to his spirit and de-cision may in great degree be attributed the successful stand we have made.’ Westmorland to Nepean, March 21, 1793.
Hobart to Nepean, March 13, 1793.
George III. 0, 1, 2, 16, 22.
Westmorland to Dundas, March 29, 1793.
Hobart to Nepean, March 19, 1793.
Compare a memorandum sent from Ireland by the Government, April 25, 1793; McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 59; Wolfe Tone, i. 252–267.
June 7, 1783.
Thus the United Irishmen, in advocating their Reform Bill in 1793, wrote: ‘We believe it will be said that our plan, however just, is im-practicable in the present state of the country. If any part of that impracticability should be supposed to result from the interested resistance of borough proprietors, although we never will consent to compromise the public right, yet we for our parts might not hesitate to purchase the public peace by an adequate compensation.’ Madden's United Irish-man, 1. 238.
See Plowden, ii. 431–433; Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 308–310.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 164.
Ibid. 84, 418–420, 424, 433,
Parl. Deb. xiii. 449.
33 Geo. III. c. 52.
Westmorland to Dundas, Jan. 16; Hobart to Nepean, Jan. 16, 1793. See, too, a powerful letter written by Conolly to his connection, the Duke of Richmond, and intended for the perusal of the English Cabinet, March 23, 1793.
33 Geo. III. c. 34; Parl. Deb. xiii. 431, 447, 448.
The Secretary of State (H. Hutchinson) said: ‘The nett hereditary revenue for the last year ending March 25, 1792, was 275,102l., and the gross amount 764,627l., which was reduoced to so small a sum by charging the whole expense of the collection and management of the whole revenue on this part of it; but when this came to be considered no man could justify it. It arose at first from laying the additional duties on those subjects of taxation from which the hereditary revenue arose. It afterwards became a pious fraud to lay every possible charge on this fumd, and with that view bounties and premiums to a very great annual amount were charged on it, which had reduced its amount.’ Parl. Deb. xiii. 473. Some very valuable speeches on the history of the Irish Revenue were delivered in this discussion.
33 Geo, III. e. 41. According to the Anthologia Hibernica (ii,237) eleven pensioners and five placemen in the existing House of Commons, were for the future excluded by the Act.
He writes: ‘A principle is established by this Bill entirely novel in the Statute-book, though often attempted by different Governments: I mean the principle of vacating, by pension or otherwise, the seats of members of the House of Commons. I need not explain to your lordship the manifest advantage of such a power to be lodged in the Crown. It is well known that his Majesty's service has often suffered materially from the want of it, and the Opposition have always been particularly jealous on this subject; and I am inclined to believe that they would not have passed this clause had they clearly seen the operation of it.’ ‘The King's Government will be essentially strengthened by it.’ Even the portion of the Bill limiting the civil pension list to 80,000l. a year (exclusive of pensions granted to the royal family or on parliamentary address) did not appear to Buckingham altogether objectionable, as it gave for the first time a full parliamentary recognition to the right of the Crown to grant, without any parliamentary control, pensions to that amount. Buckingham to Sydney (secret), Mar. 20, 1789.
Ibid. (most secret) March 20, 1789.
See the very just remarks of Barrington, Rise and Full of the Irish Nation, c. xxii.
McKenna's Political Essays relative the Affairs of Ireland, 1791–1793, pp. xiii, 200–203 [1794].
33 Geo. III. c. 25.
Ibid. c. 43.
Westmorland to Dundas, Jan. 16,1793.
33 Geo. III. c. 14.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 451, 452, 488–514; 33 Geo. III. c. 31.
Parl. Deb. xiv. 50.
Hobart to Nepean, July 17, 1793.
33 Geo. III. c. 29; Parl. Deb. xiii. 540–556; Hobart to Nepean, July 21, 26, 1793.
Parl. Deb. xiii. 82, 83; Moore's Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald.
See vol. iii. 378.
Bomilly's Life, i. 427.
McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 45.
Grattan's Life, iv. 138; McNevin, pp. 54, 58.
McNevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 60.
Hobart to Hamilton, June 17; to Nepean, July 21, 1793.
Westmorland to Dundas, May 24, 1793.
Hobart to Nepean, Aug. 17, 1793.