2

38 Geo. III. c. 55.

1

There is only a newspaper report of Plunket's speech (reproduced by Madden, iii. 75); but it is sufficient to show the falsehood of McNevin's statement, that Plunket advocated the summary execution of the signers of the advertisement. ( Pieces of Irish History , p. 162.)

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 390, 391, 399, 403; Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 329, 330, 336, 337; Madden's United Irishmen , iii. 56, 57, 74-76; McNevin's Pieces of Irish History , pp. 160-163; Plowden, ii. 805, 806.

3

38 Geo. III. c. 78.

4

See O'Connor's Letter to Lord Castlereagh .

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 425, 430; Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 394-396.

1

McNevin's Pieces of Irish History , p. 236. This letter was written to Henry Jackson, Aug. 23, 1799.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 426.

3

Compare the Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 350, with the accounts of the three leading United Irishmen, which are given in McNevin's Pieces of Irish History , and in Madden. The paper signed by the seventy-three State prisoners says nothing about the time of their release, but simply states their readiness ‘to emigrate to such country as shall be agreed on between them and the Government.’ See Arthur O'Connor's Letter to Lord Castlereagh , p. 10.

1

Dickson's Narrative , pp. 112, 116.

1

I have taken these facts from Mr. James Bonwick's very interesting little work, called First Twenty Years of Australia , pp. 53-66. Mr. Bonwick states, that three Catholic priests were among the Irish convicts, and that a Protestant clergyman, named Henry Fulton, who was transported on account of his participation in the rebellion of 1798, became one of the most prominent and useful clergymen in New South Wales, and a warm friend of the governor. Thomas Muir, the Scotch Jacobite, unlike most of his party, was a sincere Christian, and employed himself much in distributing Scripture extracts among the convicts.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 343. Some time before the insurrection had broken out, Portland begged that Irish seditious prisoners might not be brought to the English ports, ‘because we are wholly unprepared for their reception, and the army is in general full as little inclined as the navy, to admit persons of that description into any of their corps…. As to their being sent to the corps in Botany Bay, this mode of disposing of them, appears to me certainly not less exceptionable, than that of placing them in the 60th Regiment.’ (Portland to Camden, July 3, 1797, I.S.P.O.)

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 424-426.

1

A number of letters about this transaction will be found in the I.S.P.O. Miles Byrne declares that the deported Irish were compelled to work for years in the Prussian mines. (See Byrne's Memoirs , iii. 163, 164.)

2

Bishop Percy to his wife, July 30, 1798.

3

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 70, 71. The following curious extract from a private letter gives a vivid picture of the state of feeling. ‘His Excellency is held in very little respect. The length of time he took to beat Humbert, his subsequent alleged disregard to the rebels in Connaught, his thirty-days’ permission to them to cut the Protestants’ throats, his orders to the army to retire to the interior on the approach of an invading enemy; his putting the yeomanry off permanent duty in the county of Wicklow; his alleged neglect of the late outrages in Wexford and Kildare; his system of mercy to the rebels, contrasted with his severe sentence of censure on Wollaghan's courtmartial—are universally brought in charge against him in all companies, as indicating a determination on his part to render the kingdom, upon system, uncomfortable to the Protestants, and thereby to force them to become the solicitors for an union. The devil of this language is, that it is chiefly held by the most approved friends of Government.’ (Sir G. Hill to Cooke, November 15, 1798.)

1

Castlereagh to Wickham (private), March 6, 1799. (Record Office.)

2

Madden's United Irishmen , i. 353. He says, 20,000 of the King's troops and 50,000 of the people perished.

3

Newenham, On Irish Population , p. 131. Alexander Marsden, who held a very confidential post under the Irish Government, wrote: ‘There have not less than 20,000 persons fallen in this conflict, which for the time was carried on with great inveteracy. It was a desperate remedy, but the country will now be in a much more secure state than before,’ (A. Marsden to Messrs. Goldsmid, Aug. 4, 1798, I.S.P.O.)

1

Leadbeater Papers , i. 247.

2

Compare Gordon's History of the Rebellion , pp. 202, 203; Musgrave, p. 636; Newenham's State of Ireland , pp. 274, 275.

3

Vol. vi. p. 434.

4

See a letter of Beresford to Auckland. ( Beresford Correspondence , ii. 161.)

5

Ibid. pp. 167, 168.

1

Auckland Correspondence , iii. 442.

2

Ibid. iv. 37.

1

See his speech in January 1799 ( Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 229, 230). See, too, several allusions to it in the Auckland Correspondence

1

Vol. vii. p. 145.

1

Report of the Committee of the House of Lords , Appendix I.

2

Compare Neilson's evidence in the Report of the Committee of the House of Lords , Appendix V., and his own version of it which he sent to Grattan. (Grattan's Life , iv. 410, 411.) Neilson's evidence was exceedingly inaccurate. He is stated in the Report to have said: ‘I was twice with Mr. Grattan at Tinnehinch in April 1798. I either showed Mr. Grattan the last constitution of the Society of United Irishmen, or explained it to him, and pressed him to come forward. I was accompanied at these interviews by John Sweetman and Oliver Bond. But I do not believe Mr. Grattan was ever a United Irishman.’ In his examination he did not mention his interview in company with Hughes; but immediately after his examination, he wrote to the Chancellor to correct his evidence, by stating that he had had another interview with Grattan, in company with Hughes.

It appears, from the statements both of Grattan and Sweetman, that Neilson was only once at Tinnehinch in company with Sweetman; that this visit took place, not in April (when Sweetman was in prison), but in the beginning of March; that nothing whatever was said on that occasion about the United Irishmen; and that the conversation referred to took place at the second and last visit of Neilson, which was that with Hughes. In a letter to Grattan, Neilson complained that his evidence had been misrepresented in the report; and he gave what he considered an exact statement of it. He does not speak, in this version, of two interviews in company with Sweetman; and he mentions that he called on Grattan with Sweetman, because he happened to be living in the neighbourhood.

1

Grattan's Life , iv. 413, 414.

1

Grattan's Life , iv. 373, 374.

1

Cornwallis to Portland, Sept. 24, 1798.

2

There is a curious account in Dickson's Narrative (pp. 67, 68) of the eagerness with which Pollock sought evidence against Grattan, and his disappointment at finding that Dickson's correspondence had been with Curran (who was his lawyer), and not with Grattan.

3

Madden, iv. 40, 41. Sweetman's account of the perfectly innocent character of the visit at which he was present, is powerfully confirmed by the fact that Bond, who was present on the occasion, and who was examined by the Chancellor a few days after Neilson, was asked no question whatever about Grattan. (See his examination, in the Report of the Secret Committee .)

1

Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland , ed. 1691, pp. 28–33, 124, 125.

1

Molyneux, Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England (1698), pp. 97, 98.

1

See vol. ii. pp. 50–65.

2

Ibid. pp. 416, 417; Ball's Irish Legislative Systems , pp. 84, 85.

1

See vol. ii. p. 416; vol. iv. p. 444.

2

Wealth of Nations , book v. ch. iii.

1

See vol. iv. p. 504.

2

See Franklin's Third Letter to Governor Shirley (written in 1754). Franklin at a later period recurred to this notion.

3

Tour in Ireland , i. 65; ii. 344–348.

4

Franklin's Works , viii. 84, 85.

1

Address to the People of Ireland on the projected Union , by Thomas Goold, pp 13, 14. Goold says ‘This anecdote I have from a gentleman of much worth and respectability, who for many years had the honour of representing in the Parliament of Ireland an independent county.’ Another writer said ‘This masterpiece of politics [the Union], which was the darling project of the illustrious Lord Chatham, will be carried into execution by his still greater son and successor.’ (Cooper's Letters on the Irish Nation, written in 1799, p. 352.)

2

Young's Tour , ii. 347. The Speaker Foster, in his speech against the Union, Feb. 17, 1800, said: ‘When I talk of England, I cannot avoid mentioning the effect this Union may have there. The late Lord Chatham is said always to have objected to an Union, lest the additional number of members from Ireland might alter the constitution of the House and make it too unwieldy, or give too much weight to the democratic balance.’ (P. 41.)

1

Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain , ed. 1790, iii. Appendix, pp. 347, 348. See, too, the Cornrvallis Correspondence , iii. 129.

1

See Walpole's George III . iii. 397, 398.

1

Some considerable light has recently been thrown upon the opinions of Hillsborough and North on this subject in 1779, by the publication of the Diaries and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson (Governor of Massachusetts Bay), ii. 257, 295. See, too, Walpole's Memoirs of George III . iv. 200.

2

Vol. vi. pp. 307, 308.

3

Ibid. p. 321.

4

Vol. iv. pp. 550, 551; vol. vi. pp. 308, 309.

5

Vol. vi. p. 310.

1

Vol. vi. p. 404.

2

Ibid. p. 404.

3

Part. Hist . xxv. 848. Lord Camden's son (the Irish Lord Lieutenant), writes: ‘I inherit … my father's opinion that Ireland must be our province if she will not be persuaded to an Union.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 156.)

1

Parl. Hist. xxv. 633.

2

They were published by Dr. Clarke, in a tract called Union or Separation (1799).

3

Campbell's Chancellors , vii. 29.

4

Vol. ii. pp. 435, 436.

5

Tour in Ireland , i. 65.

1

Vol. iv. p. 504.

2

Vol. vi. p. 404.

3

Grattan's Speeches , i. 240–243.

1

Vol. vi. pp. 512, 513, 523, 524.

1

Vol. vii. pp. 72, 94, 95.

1

Answer to the Catholic Address, Feb. 27, 1795. (Grattan's Miscellaneous Works , p. 296.)

1

Wilberforce, in 1796, wrote the following memoranda, derived from conversations with Irishmen: ‘The Irish gentry (sensible cool men) entertain very serious apprehensions of the Roman Catholics—say they keep a register of the forfeited lands; that their priests have little influence over them; the menial servants commonly Roman Catholics; masters cannot depend on them; if the French were to land 10,000 men, they would infallibly rise. The hatred and bad opinion which the lower Roman Catholics entertain against the Protestants, and particularly the English, is very great. It seems impossible to end quietly unless an Union takes place. As wealth is diffused, the lower orders will learn the secret of their strength.’ ( Life of Wilberforce , ii. 163.)

2

Gordon's History of the Rebellion , pp. 295, 296.

1

Pieces of Irith History , pp. 143, 144, 148.

1

Newenham's State of Ireland , p. 269; see, too, p. 270. The language of Miss Edgeworth shows strongly the feeling prevailing on this subject among the Protestants. ‘Government,’ she says, ‘having at this time the Union between Great Britain and Ireland in contemplation, were desirous that the Irish aristocracy and country gentlemen should be convinced of the kingdom's insufficiency to her own defence against invasion or internal insurrection. With this view, it was politic to let the different parties struggle with each other, till they completely felt their weakness and their danger…. It is certain that the combinations of the disaffected at home, and the advance of foreign invaders, were not checked till the peril became imminent, and till the purpose of creating universal alarm had been fully effected.’ ( Life of R. L. Edgeworth , ii. 217, 218.)

1

Clare, in his speech on the Union, said: ‘I pressed it without effect, until British Ministers and the British nation were roused to a sense of their common danger by the late sanguinary and unprovoked rebellion.’

2

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 2, 8. The letter of Clare is undated, but it was written two or three days after the battle of New Ross.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 439. Auckland Correspondence , iv. 29. See, however, the remarks of Sir C. Lewis, Administrations of Great Britain , pp. 183, 184.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 376. This letter is unfortunately undated.

2

W. Elliot to Pelham, July 28; S. Douglas to Pelham, Sept. 12, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. ) On Sept. 13 Pelham wrote to Castlereagh that he had been visiting Camden, who had just come from Pitt. ‘We discussed, as you may imagine, a subject which, I understand, you are more friendly to than I am. I confess that I have not considered it sufficiently to be satisfied of the advantages resulting from it, and must therefore be against it. for it is not a thing to attempt without the certainty of some great benefit arising from it. However, I have lately turned my thoughts more to the subject than I had ever done before, and think it more practicable in the detail than I at first imagined…. In times of speculation like the present, there is great danger in any change; and unless certain principles are laid down as landmarks to which we can always recur, I should much fear a complete wreck of both countries.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 345, 346.)

1

S. Douglas to Pelham, Sept. 12, 1798.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 337.

1

Conrwallis Correspondence , ii. 365.

2

Ibid. ii. 404, 405.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 414, 415.

1

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 42, 51, 62, 61. (These letters were written in August and October.)

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 416.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 418, 419.

2

Cornwallis to Pelham, Oct. 15, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. )

3

Auckland Correspondence , iv 60, 61. Auckland writes to Cooke. ‘Mr. Pitt went on Friday to Lord Grenville's to meet Lord Clare, who was to proceed yesterday towards Holyhead. Mr. Pitt had prepared the sketdt of an outline for a plan of Union, subject, of course, to discussion and almost certain alteration, and he meant, after correcting and improving it at Holwood, to have a copy sent to the Lord Lieutenant, as a basis for communications with leading people. For fuller particulars I must refer you to Lord Clare, who is allowed by all here to be equally pleasant and efficient as a co-operator in difficult businesses, going through the whole in a cordial and manly way, without any of those reserves, suspicions, implied pretensions and coldnesses, which too much affect the very able mind of another very able man. We have tried to make use of your suggestion as to the lot and ballot, so as to avoid the very embarrassing affair of compensations. How might it be something to the following effect?—The Counties, 32; Dublin, 2; University, 1; Cork, Waterford, Drogheda, Wexford, Kilkenny, Limerick, Derry, Belfast, Newry, 9; each of the remaining 107 places to return 1 member each, and from the 107 so returned, 50 to be chosen by lot and 6 by ballot—altogether 100 M.P.’ s.’ (Auckland to Cooke, Nov. 8, 1798, I.S.P.O.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 433, 431. See, too, on the opinions of Dundas, Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 431.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 427.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 439-441. Wilberforce about this time noticed that he found Pitt ‘extremely favourable to the idea of an Union with Ireland.’ ( Life of Wilber-force , ii. 318.)

2

He was made an English peer and a marquis when the Union was carried

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 441, 442, 448-451; Castlereagh to Wickham, Nov. 23, 1798. A part of this last letter (which is in the Record Office) is omitted in the printed Cornwallis Correspondence . Sir J. Blaquiere, Cornwallis says in another letter, will give great assistance to the Union. He wants a peerage for his help, which Cornwallis hopes will be given. (Cornwallis to Portland, Jan. 4, 1799.)

2

Sir G. Hill to Cooke, Nov. 12, 15, 1798. (I.S.P.O.)

1

Sir G. Shee to Pelham, Nov. 11, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. )

2

Colonel R. Crawford to Wickham, Nov. 19, 1798. (R.O.)

3

Cooke to Pelham, Nov. 9, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. )

1

Faulkner's Journal , Oct. 16, Nov. 17, 27, 1798.

1

Sir G. Shee to Pelham, Nov. 11, 1798. These are the arguments which Sir G Shee says he had been using in favour of the Union.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 416.

1

No one has shown this more clearly than Duigenan, who was a warm advocate of the Union. ‘The rebellion,’ he says, broke out ‘on the 23rd of May, 1798. The whole regular army, the militia and the yeomanry then in the kingdom, were the proper forces of Ireland, and paid by Ireland. Moat of the regular troops had, at different periods before, been sent out of the kingdom on foreign service, and their places supplied by fencible regiments, many of them Scotch; but as these troops were paid by the Irish treasury, and were sent in lieu of the Irish trained troops employed on foreign expeditions, I do not account them. British troops sent to our assistance.’ He proceeds to enumerate the battles which had been fought before English troops arrived, and concludes, ‘The dates of each memorable action in this short but bloody and wasteful rebellion are noted, to prove that the suppression of it was effected solely by the troops, militia and yeomanry of Ireland, without any assistance whatever from England.’ (Duigenan's Present Political State of Ireland , pp. 85, 92.) See, too, in this volume, pp. 141, 142 A most powerful statement of the case, in one of the speeches of Bushe against the Union, will be found in Plunket's Life , ii. 357, 358.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 434.

2

Ibid. pp. 443, 444.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 379, 380-393.

2

This belief (which had a great effect on Catholic opinion about the Union) was a very old one. In one of Langrishe's letters, written in 1768, Hely Hutchinson is accused of aiming at an Union. ‘By reducing us to become a province only of another kingdom, he hopes to recommend himself to a seat in that senate, where he vainly imagines that his parts, but not impossibly his arts, may soon render him considerable. And this would certainly much endear him to that city which he represents at present [Cork]. Should an Union between Barataria and La Mancha [Ireland and England] once prevail, that port would necessarily become soon the metropolis of this island, and reduce our present capital to a fishing village.’ ( Baratariana , p. 34.)

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 444.

4

Ibid. iii. 27. A few days later Castlereagh acknowledged the reply. ‘The contents of the messenger's despatches are very interesting. Arrangements with a view to further communications of the same nature will be highly advantageous, and the Duke of Portland may depend on their being carefully applied.’ (Ibid. p. 34.)

5

Ibid. ii. 444.

6

Killen's Continuation of Reid's History of Presbyterianism in Ireland , iii. 509-522. See, too, Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 384. A scheme for establishing a new university in Armagh, chiefly for the benefit of the Dissenters, was under consideration in 1799, but was ultimately abandoned. The grounds on which the Duke of Portland principally objected to it, are curious and significant. He thought that it was not desirable to stimulate Dublin University by the emulation of a second university, as the students in Trinity College were already too apt to injure their health by overwork; and he also thought it very desirable that, after the Union, the higher order of Irishmen should be educated as much as possible in England, or (if they were Presbyterians) in Scotland See Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 364, 365, 382-384.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 444.

2

E.g. The following passage occurs in An Address to the People of Ireland (1796), which was brought over by Hoche. ‘The alternative which is now submitted to your choice with regard to England is, in one word, Union or Separation. You must determine, and that instantly, between slavery and independence. There is no third way.’ (Tone's Memoirs , ii. 275.)

3

Rowan's Autobiography , p. 340. This was written in Jan. 1799, and Rowan says he had long held this opinion. Mrs. Rowan, who appears from her letters to have been a woman of very superior intellect and character, altogether differed from her husband's politics. She was completely opposed to his sedition, and she regarded the Union with extreme dislike. (Ibid. p. 338.) This is all the more remarkable, as Lord Clare appears to have had a great regard for her, and showed her much kindness.

1

See his letter to his wife, Madden's United Irishmen , iv. 105, 106. Dr. Madden, without, I think, any good reason, questions Neilson's sincerity.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 444.

3

Lord Buckingham, in a letter to Cooke congratulating him on his pamphlet, suggests an argument from the American Constitution which is employed in it, and adds, ‘I wish you (though you keep the sentiment) to leave out the name of Dr. Troy, for he is most eagerly and violently with you on this question, and would probably not be much flattered by being thus held out to exhibition.’ Troy's name does not appear in the published pamphlet. (Buckingham to Cooke, Nov. 22, 1798.)

4

Arguments for and against an Union between Great Britain and Ireland .

1

See the powerful statement of Lord Castlereagh (Coote's History of the Union , pp. 339, 340).

1

In the Castlereagh Correspondence there is a curious memorandum of Cooke on the arguments for the Union. In it he ascribes the present dangerous state of the country to six causes. 1. The local independent acting of the Legislature. 2. The general prosperity of the country, which has produced great activity and energy . 3. The emancipation of the Catholics. 4. The encouragement given to the reform principles of the Presbyterians. 5. The want of number in the Protestants. 6. The uncertainty of counsels as to this great division of the country. ( Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 55.)

1

It was replied to this with much force, that the Irish Dissenter was already politically in a better position than the English Dissenter, as the Test Act had been repealed in Ireland, but not in England.

2

Faulkner's Journal , Dec. 27, 1798.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 424-444; Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 439.

1

Auckland Correspondence , iv, 67, 70, 72, 74.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 448, 449.

3

Ibid. ii. 9.

1

Whitelaw, after a careful investigation, estimated the population of Dublin in 1798 at 172,091. See Warburton's Hist. of Dublin , Appendix No. 1.

1

Locke On Government , book ii. ch. xi., xix. Grattan, in one of his speeches on the Union, quoted passages to much the same effect from Puffendorf, Grotius, the managers of the Sacheverell prosecution, and Junius. (Grattan's Speeches , iii. 386-389.)

1

‘It is indeed difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere abstract competence of the supreme power, such as was exercised by Parliament at that time [the Revolution], but the limits of a moral competence subjecting, even in powers more indisputably sovereign, occasional will to permanent reason and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelligible and perfectly binding upon those who exercise any authority, under any name or under any title, in the State. The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons, no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the Legislature of the kingdom. Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy. By as strong or by a stronger reason, the House of Commons cannot renounce its share of authority The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.’ (Burke's ‘Reflections on the French Revolution,’ Works , v. 57.)

2

I am aware that this doctrine is strongly and even contemptuously rejected, both by Hallam and Lord Stanhope, but the reader should compare with their remarks, those of Mr. Dicey, On the Constitution , pp. 37-44.

1

Defoe's History of the Union between England and Scotland , pp. 230, 231. This question was naturally much discussed in the Irish Debates A member named Crookshank put the point with much clearness. ‘I deny that the Parliament of an independent State, for which the members of that Parliament are trustees, has any right whatever, without the permission of its constituents expressly orimpliedly given for the purpose, to surrender to another country the whole, or any part, of its legislative authority…. This power can never, upon principle or precedent, be contended to belong to the representatives of the people, but by express or implied delegation. And so strongly were the British Ministers, in the reign of Anne, impressed with this great constitutional principle, that in preparing for the Union of England and Scotland, they felt it necessary to declare, in the proclamation for convening the Scotch Parliament, that they were called together for the purpose of arranging and settling the treaty of Union then in contemplation, reasonably concluding that the election of representatives, after such an avowal of the intended project, must be considered as permission to discuss and finally decide upon that question.’ ( Report of the Debates on the Union , 1799, pp. 20, 21.) The rival doctrine was well stated by William Smith in the same debate. ‘Parliament is as competent to conclude an Union as it is to enact a turnpike Bill…. Public sentiment on a great and complicated measure is weighty evidence of the mischief or utility of that measure; as such it should be land before, and may, perhaps, conclusively sway the judgment of that body, which has the right of legislation. But public opinion is but evidence, not law. It is evidence which the people may lay before that Parliament,. whose right of finally and exclusively deciding the question, uncontrolled by popular whim, is a clear and undoubted principle of the Constitution.’ (P. 87.)

1

Jebb's Reply to a Pamphlet entitled, Arguments for and against an Union , pp. 19, 20. The author of this pamphlet was afterwards a judge. His arguments attracted much attention and some favour among the Ministers, See Ball's Irish Legislative Systems , pp. 245, 246.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 47, 48, 51.

2

Ibid. i. 449. Lord Auckland appears to have formed much the same estimate as Foster of the opinion of the country. On Dec. 22, 1798, he wrote to Bereaford, ‘Your countrymen seem to be completely absurd on the subject of the Union. I shall not, however, be sorry that the rejection of it should be their own act and deed. A day may come when they will wish for it without being able to obtain it.’ ( Beresford Correspondence , ii. 191.)

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 81. There are many other notices of the Dublin Opposition in the Castlereagh and Cornvallis Correspondence .

1

Cornvallis Correspondence , ii. 443; Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 17.

2

See the resolution of the Grand Lodge, Jan. 5, 1799; Cupples’ Principles of the Orange Association Findicated (1799); also Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 52, 53, 80.

3

See Cupples’ Principles of the Orange Association .

4

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 35, 80, 81; Cornvallis Correspondence , iii. 29. Dobbs, in his remarkable speech against the Union, in 1799, noticed the strong and notorious hostility of the loyal yeomanry of Ireland to the measure. ( Debate , Jan. 22, 23, 1799, p. 38.)

1

Cornvallis Correspondence , ii. 444.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 39, 40.

3

Ibid. ii. 78-80; Cornvallis Correspondence , iii. 18.

4

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 127.

1

Charlemont to Halliday, Feb. 2, 1799. ( Charlemont MSS. )

2

Bishop Percy to his wife, Jan. 13, 21, 1799. (British Museum.)

1

See an earnest letter of Lord Castlereagh when there was some question of the English militia returning home ‘The Lord Lieutenant's opinion decidedly is, that without the force in question, it would expose the King's interest in this kingdom, to hazard a measure which, however valuable in its future effects, cannot fail in the discussion very seriously to agitate the public mind.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 13.) Several letters from Cornwallis on the extreme danger of withdrawing the English militia, will be found in the second volume of the Cornwallis Correspondence . In one of them he says, ‘All thoughts of uniting the two kingdoms must be given up, if that force should now be withdrawn.’ (P. 454.)

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 81.

3

Ibid. i. 404. In the Pelham MSS. there is a curious, but unfortunately undated, ‘plan of an Union,’ which evidently was drawn up at an early stage of the consideration of the subject. It is divided into seven articles, and It is accompanied by a paper with comments on each article, endorsed ‘Notes by Mr. Pitt.’ The passage relating to the Catholics in the original plan is, ‘Catholics to be eligible to all offices, civil and military, taking the present oath. Such as shall take the oath of supremacy in the Bill of Rights, may sit in Parliament without subscribing the Abjuration. Corporation offices to be Protestant.’ Pitt's comment upon this is, ‘The first part seems unexceptionable, and is exactly what I wish (supposing the present oath, as settled by the Irish Act, 33 George III. c. 21, to be satisfactory to the better part of the Catholics, which should be ascertained), but if this oath is sufficient for office, why require a different one for Parliament? and why are Corporation offices to be exclusively Protestant, when those of the State may be Catholic?’

4

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 412.

5

Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets , ii. 411.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 431.

2

Ibid. ii. 29, 30. This was written from England. The resignation was not accepted. Lord Minto, in his very elaborate speech in favour of the Union (which was published separately), strongly urged that Catholic emancipation should, if possible, be made an article in the Act.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 35, 36.

2

Report of the Debate of the Irish Bar, Dec. 9, 1798, pp. 27, 28, 50, 51.

3

See Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 17, 19, 26, 79, 84, 85; Cronwallis Correspondence , ii. 443; iii. 8.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 84, 85.

2

Coote's History of the Union , p. 447; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 124, 125.

3

See Cottingham's Observations on the projected Union , pp. 31, 32; Barnes’ Rights of the Imperial Crown of Ireland , pp. 85, 86.

4

McKenna's Memoir on Questions respecting the projected Union , p. 23. McKenna said, ‘if the people of Scotland had been emancipated by abolishing the hereditable jurisdictions, the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 would, as to that country, have been most probably prevented.’ (P. 16.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 16.

2

Ibid. pp. 18, 19.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 43, 46, 47; Auckland Correspondence , iv. 76, 77.

4

Archbishop Troy wrote to Castlereagh: ‘The general opinion of the meeting was, that the Catholics as such ought not to deliberate on the Union as a question of empire, but only as it might affect their own peculiar interests as a body; and on this it was judged inexpedient to publish any resolution or declaration at present.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 61.)

5

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 22.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 28, 29.

2

Ibid. p. 4

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 62.

2

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 77.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 37.

4

Lord Sheffield to Judge Downes, Jan. 20, 1799. ( Pelham MSS. )

1

J. W., Jan. 2, 1799. (L.S P.O.)

2

Sir G. Shee to Pelham, Jan 1, 1799. ( Pelham MSS. )

1

Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 22, 23, 36.

2

Auckland Correspondence, iV. 77.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 20.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 39, 40.

2

‘I have taken the necessary steps for encouraging declarations from the towns of Limerick, Waterford, Derry, and Newry, as far as they can be obtained without too strong an appearance of Government interference, and am employed in counteracting, as far as possible, the county meetings, which are extending themselves’ Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 92 (Jan. 11, 1799).

1

The resolutions will be found in Butler's Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scotch Catholics , ii. 150-152. A manuscript copy was transmitted by Bishop Moylan to Pelham, and is among his papers. Butler quotes (p. 149) the speech in which Lord Castlereagh in 1810 described this negotiation, and gives other valuable papers relating to it.

1

See Butler, ii. 182, 183.

2

See a letter of Dr. Moylan (Bishop of Cork) to Pelham, March 9, 1799. ( Pelham MSS. )

3

Butler, ii. 161, 186, 187.

4

Ibid. ii. 156. See, too, the very warm letter of the Scotch bishops, expressing their thanks to their ‘generous benefactors, his Majesty's Ministers,’ and explaining the employment of the sum which had been allowed them. ( Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 332, 333.)

1

See some remarkable letters of Sir J. Hippisley, Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 80, 81, 86, 87.

2

Butler, ii. 168-170. A great deal of information about the rules prevailing on these matters throughout Europe, will be found in Sir J. Hippisley's tracts, and in his letters in the third volume of the Castlereagh Correspondence .

2

Butler, ii. 168, 179.

1

Portland to Pelham, March 26, 1799. ( Pelham MSS. )

2

Auckland Correspondence , iv 77, 78.

3

Wilberforce's Life , ii. 324, 325.

1

There is an interesting description of the effect of Plunket's speech, and of the debate in general, in a letter from R. Griffith to Pelham ( Pelham MSS ). Griffith says he never witnessed a debate in which so many votes were decided by the eloquence of the speakers.

1

Report of the Debate in the House of Commons of Ireland, Jan. 22, 23, 1799, pp. 16, 39, 48, 61, 89.

2

Compare the very graphic description in Barrington's Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation , ch. xxv., with the report of the speeches of Mr. Trench in the debate, pp. 79, 80. See, too, the extraordinary story about Luke Fox, in Barrington.

3

Debate , p. 82.

1

R. Griffith to Pelham, Jan. 24, 1799; Beresford Correspondence , ii. 194–196.

2

Lord Carleton to Pelham, Jan. 25; R. Griffith to Pelham, Jan. 24, 1799 ( Pelham MSS. ); see, too, Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 40, 41.

1

Coote's History of the Union , pp. 47–63; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 47–50; compare, too, the description in Barrington. Miss Edgeworth says that her father was convinced that the Union was at this time decidedly against the wishes of the great majority of men of sense and property in the nation. ( Life of R. L. Edgeworth , ii. 222.) Miss Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent —one of the best pictures ever drawn of one side of Irish life—was published in 1800, when the Union was pending. It concludes with the following curious passage: ‘It is a problem of difficult solution to determine, whether an Union will hasten or retard the melioration of this country. The few gentlemen of education who now reside in this country will resort to England. They are few, but they are in nothing inferior to men of the same rank in Great Britain. The best that can happen will be the introduction of British manufacturers in their places. Did the Warwickshire Militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish to drink beer? Or did they learn from the Irish to drink whisky?’

2

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 80.

3

Faulkner's Dublin Journal , Jan. 19, 22, 1799.

4

See many letters, written in a spirit of bitter hostility to Foster, in the Auckland and the Beresford Correspondence .

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 47–61; Beresford Correspondence , ii. 197–202; Barrington, Coote.

1

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 80–82; Beresford Correspondence , ii. 196.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 143.

3

Ibid. p. 133.

4

Beresford Correspondence , ii. 210.

1

Auckland Correspondence , iv. 67, 70, 71, 80, 82–85; see, too, the Beresford Correspondence , ii. 208–211; and also, the furious language of Duigenan about the Lord Lieutenant in Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 90.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 52.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 137.

1

Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. 172.

1

See his letter to Grattan, Feb. 4, 1799. He described it as ‘one of the most unequivocal attempts at establishing the principles, as well as the practice of despotism, that has been made in our times.’ ‘Even the French,’ he adds, ‘in their cursed fraternisations, pretend at least that they act in consequence of the desire of the people of the several countries…. The truth is, I never was a friend to the Union, as a speculative question, nor should like it even if it were the general wish of Ireland, much less at such a time and in such circumstances.’ (Grattan's Life , iv. 435, 436.)

1

Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 311. See, too, vol. vi. p. 512. Fox also, in a speech before the Whig Club, is said to have mentioned Burke's opinion of the impolicy of a legislative Union. See Coote's History of the Union , p. 292.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 316, 317. It was understood that Dr. Laurence was the special mouthpiece in the House of Commons of Lord Fitzwilliam. ( Auckland Correspondence , iv. 89.)

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 119. Compare Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 228–230.

2

See Foster's speech (April 11, 1799).

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 143, 144, 149–153.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 7; Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 20.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 149-153.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 53-55.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 59; Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 154-159. ‘You will not omit to take the earliest opportunity and the most effectual means of convincing the Roman Catholics, that it is needless for them to entertain any expectation of further indulgences, as long as the Parliament of Ireland remains in its present state.’ (Portland to Cornwallis, Jan. 30, 1799, R.O)

2

Castlereagh to Wickham, Feb. 4, 1799.

3

I have already quoted a letter of McNally about this. For other evidence see Castlereagh Correspondence , ii 169; iii. 87; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 58. There is a curious letter among the papers of Pelham, signed W. H. and undated, but evidently of this time. The writer said that the main danger was now that the Protestants would unite with the Catholics, promising them emancipation. ‘Some of the most violent Orangists have opposed the measure [the Union], and now talk of combining with their most deadly enemies the Catholics, in order to lay the question asleep for ever.’ Such a junction, the writer says, would prevent an Union for years. The Government must do all in their power to win the Catholics, and they must appeal to individual interests much more freely than they had done. ‘When they next make the attempt, let them ballast the vessel steadily with gold, and hang abundance of coronets, ribbons, and mitres to the shrouds. If the virtuous pride of the minister will not suffer him to stoop to this, he will never carry an Union with Hibernia. He must not only flatter her vanity, but fill her purse, for if ever there was a spot on the globe where interest is everything, it is this very country.’ ( Pelham MSS. )

1

Portland to Cornwallis (secret and confidential), Jan. 30, 1799.

2

Dr. Moylan to Pelham, March 9, 1799.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 168.

4

Ibid. ii. 188; iii. 89, 90.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii 172; iii. 84, 85.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 63, 64.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 171.

4

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 84.

5

Ibid. iii. 80.

6

Alexander to Pelham, Feb. 18, 1799.

7

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 87.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 81.

2

See Grattan's Life , v. 31. It appears from an estimate presented by Lord Castlereagh to the House of Commons (Feb. 11), of the charge of the regiments serving in Ireland and belonging to the British establishment, that those troops amounted to 23,210 men.’ (Plowden, ii. 921.)

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 60, 66, 67. This was also the opinion of the Prime Sergeant and the Attorney-General.

1

This last fact is mentioned in a letter from St. George Daly (Galway) to Castlereagh, Feb. 9, 1799, (I.S.P.O.)

1

See the very interesting debate on Feb. 26 in Faulkner's Dublin Journal , Feb. 28, 1799.

2

Ibid. March 5, 1799.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 60, 61, 76, 77.

4

Private information, Feb. 1799 (I.S.P.O.). See, too, Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 67.

1

Wickham to Castlereagh, April 14; Castlereagh to Wickham, May 1, 6; Castlereagh to King, August 21, 1799. (R O.)

2

A later letter of Pollock throws a little light on this subject. He says, ‘With regard to the rebel leaders in Ulster, I delivered to Mr. Marsden after the rebellion, an alphabetical book which I made out, and which contains the names of every field officer of the rebels in that province Fifteen out of every twenty of them are and have been (by a mistaken and misplaced lenity, in my judgment) at large. If an incasion were even probable , every man of them ought to be taken up; and as to the Dublin leaders, Mr. Cooke has had from me, from time to time, the names of every man of them. Those that are the most dangerous, are, I think, the last Exeoutive Directory , who had arranged a new rebellion in the end of 1799 and 1800. (J. Pollock to the Right Hon. C. Abbot, Aug. 16, 1801, Costlereagh MSS. )

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 446, 447.

2

39 Geo. III. c. 3.

1

39 Geo. III. c. 11. This Act is interesting in constitutional history for the emphasis with which it asserts ‘the undoubted prerogative of his Majesty, for the public safety, to resort to the exercise of martial law against open enemies or traitors.’ (See Stephen's History of Crimina Law , i. 211.)

2

Plowden, ii. 958, 959; Faulkner's Journal , Feb. 28, 1799. It was ultimately decided, that the Act should expire two months after the opening of the ensuing session of Parliament.

1

See, for the exact figures, p. 253. Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 62, 63, 67, 69, 70, 90. In a private letter from England, Wickham said, ‘At present there is a general, I may say an universal persuasion, that lenient measures have been carried much too far; and your Lordship may rely upon what I say, when I assure you that that which was matter of doubt when your Lordship was in England, is now settled into a fixed opinion, accompanied by a disposition to attribute the calamities with which Ireland seems now threatened, to a departure from the system adopted by Lord Camden.’ (Wickham to Castlereagh (private), March 4, 1799. R.O.)

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 184, 197, 198; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 74 76.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 79.

2

Faulkner's Journal , Feb. 28, March 12, 1799.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 60.

4

Faulkner's Journal , March 7, 1799 The story is told a little differently in Grattan's Life , v. 25. The resolutions are, I think, not mentioned in the Government correspondence, and there are scarcely any reports of the debates of this time.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 64-66; Coote's History of the Union , pp. 191-196; Grattan's Life , v. 26.

1

Howden, ii. 960-962, 967; Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 180, 181, 269, 270; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 87, 88.

1

The two speeches of Lord Castlereagh on the Regency Bill have been published separately.

1

See vol. vi. pp. 405, 604.

1

Alexander, in writing about this speech, says that Foster adopted Curran's saying, that Government wished to transport the Parliament almost in the same ship as the convicts. (Alexander to Pelham, April 11, 1799.) This argument was put very graphically in one of the speeches of Parsons. ‘Suppose any man of plain understanding should meet your peers and your hundred members on the road to London, and ask them, “What are you going there for?“ and you should answer, “To preserve the peace of Ireland,’ ’ would he not say, “Good people, go back to your own country; it is there you can best preserve its peace; England wants you not, but Ireland does”?’ (Coote's History of the Union , p. 302.)

1

See vol. vi. p. 438.

2

In an Irish debate in 1803, Castlereagh said, ‘No Power in Europe had made more rapid strides in wealth and general happiness in the last fifteen years, than that part of the British Empire [Ireland] had done.’ ( Parl. History , xxxvi. 1709.)

1

A remarkable paper on the effect of some of these embargoes on Irish prosperity, was drawn up by Foster's predecessor in the chair, Edmund Pery, and sent to England. See Grattan's Life , i. 334-338.

1

See Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 280-282.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 371, 372.

3

Ibid. iii. 91, 372.

4

Lord Castlereagh says, ‘When the grant to the Catholic College was made for the year 1799 in the Irish Parliament, it was much more intent on the question of the Union than on the internal economy of that seminary.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 374.)

1

Compare the statements of Cornwallis, Clare, and Castlereagh in the Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 90-92, 371-375; Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 277-279.

2

Sir Robert Peel, many years later, wrote to Croker, ‘As to your second point, the rejection of the Bill in 1799, I believe at this moment no human being but myself knows the real truth on that point. It was an act of sheer mischief and mutiny of Lord Clare, who, perhaps, then had a foresight of diminished influence on the passing of the Act of Union. He rejected the Bill without communication with the Irish Government Lord Castlereagh gave an assurance in the Commons, as you will perceive, that no prejudice to the College should arise from the proceedings in the Lords’ ( Croker Correspondence , 2nd ed. iii. 33.) In 1801, Clare, contrary to the wish of the other members of the Government, tried to procure the admission of lay students into Maynooth, and there was a somewhat angry dispute. Lord Hardwicke wrote: ‘Whether Lord Clare has taken the part he has from spleen or dislike to the Government, or from a conviction that it was right to do so, I cannot pretend to determine…. It would be very curious if, after all that has passed, Lord Clare should be attempting to acquire popularity with the Catholics at the expense of the Government. He seems to me. with a great share of cleverness and vivacity, to be very deficient in consistency and precision in his ideas.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 367, 368.)

1

See on this subject the Substance of the Speech of Sir J. Hippisley , May 18, 1810, pp. 50-52.

1

See a very remarkable letter from the Bishop of Meath to Lord Castlereagh, Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 282-291. The Bishop was strongly in favour of Maynooth, and does not appear to have approved of the act of the House of Lords in rejecting the vote.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 97-100; Grattan's Life , v. 40-46.

1

Parl. Hist . xxxiv. 688-690.

1

Seward's Collectanea Politica , iii. 488-490.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 250, 251; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 133.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 271, 272.

1
  • So, to effect his monarch's ends,
  • From Hell a Viceroy devil ascends,
  • His budget with corruptions cramm'd,
  • The contributions of the damned;
  • Which with unsparing hand he strows,
  • Through courts and senates as he goes;
  • And then at Beelzebub's black hall,
  • Complains his budget is too small.

A Libel on the Rev. Dr. Delany and his Excellency Lord Carteret .

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 100-102, 228.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 251-256.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 327, 328, 330, 331. Lord Cornwallis writes, ‘He [the King] will, I am persuaded, see the necessity of my having entered into embarrassing engagements, according to the various circumstances which occurred during the long, and arduous contest, and if any of them should appear so strongly to merit his disapprobation, as to induce him to withhold his consent to their being carried into effect, he will be pleased to allow me to retire from a station which I could no longer hold with honour to myself, or with any prospect of advantage to his service.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 265, 266.)

1

See the list in Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 318, 319. Very full details about the services of the new peers will be found in earlier letters (iii 251-266).

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 286, 287.

3

Lord Clare's English peerage was first suggested from England as early as June. Portland writes, ‘The sense we have of Lord Clare's services, and of the manly and decided part he has acted, as well with respect to the Union as upon all other occasions,’ induces the Ministers to recommend him for an English peerage, ‘without waiting, as was originally intended, until the measure of the Union was secured and completed.’ He believed, he said, that such a step might clearly evince H.M.’ s determination, and the rewards likely to be obtained by supporting the Union. (Portland to Cornwallis, June 28, 1799.)

1

‘Among the many engagements which I have been obliged to contract in the event of the success of the measure of a legislative Union, I have promised to use my utmost influence to obtain an earldom for Lord Kenmare.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 109.)

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 319. Bishop Percy notices that Lord Gosford's wife was very hostile to the Union, and that their son voted against it in the House of Commons. (Jan. 30, 1800.)

3

On Dec. 11, 1799, Castlereagh wrote to Portland, ‘Mr Pitt's letter, which your Grace was so obliging as to obtain for me, enabled me perfectly to satisfy Lord Ely, without making any positive promise as to the marquisate. His Lordship is satisfied to leave himself in the hands of the Government’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence . iii. 149.) The King was very anxious to restrict the number of marquisates and English peerages, and in 1800 the Duke of Portland wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, that he must do his best to confine the English peerages to the Earls of Ely and Londonderry, and to persuade the peers whom the Lord Lieutenant had recommended for marquisates, with the exception of Lord Clanricarde, to surrender their claims as a special favour to the King. If absolutely necessary, however, an exception might be made for Lord Ely, as his influence had proved so great. Cornwallis answered, ‘Lord Ely, who never willingly relinquished anything, has a promise of being made a marquis, which, I understood from Lord Castlereagh, was authorised from England in a letter written by Mr. Pitt, and transmitted by your Grace to him.’ (Ibid. pp. 258, 262, 264) Many other particulars about Lord Ely will be found in this correspondence. He was compensated for six seats, but he retained what was then the close borough of Wexford in the Imperial Parliament; he had considerable county influence, and he appears to have bought nominations from other borough owners. (Ibid. p. 324.) Cornwallis notices the importance of Lord Ely's influence, in procuring addresses for the Union from the counties where his property lay. (P. 113.)

1

Ball's Irish Legislative Systems , 2nd ed. p. 285; May's Const. Hist . i. 292, 293.

1

Twiss's Life of Eldon , ii. 173, 174.

2

Grattan's Miscellaneous Works , p. 57. Some statistics about the price of borough seats in Ireland at different periods, will be found in Ball's Irish Legislative Systems , p. 286.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 321–324; 40 Geo. III. c. 34. 1,400,000 l. was granted for the purposes of this statute, but this extended to some other forms of compensation beside that of the borough patrons.

2

40 Geo. III. c. 34, 50. See, too, Annual Register , 1800, pp. 145, 146.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 111.

4

Ibid. p. 150.

1

See Grattan's Speeches , iv. 37.

2

A private letter of Lord Castlereagh to his successor, Abbot, about the end of 1801, gives an example of this ‘When Mr. K…. vacated his seat for P… in favour of a supporter of Government, he received an assurance of the first chairman's place that should fall vacant. Very shortly after, and during the struggle, that for Tyrone became so, and, of course, under his engagement it belonged to Mr. K. We found that Government would be involved in extreme difficulty with one of its most important and indeed most disinterested friends, if that situation was not open to Lord Abercorn's recommendation. I was directed by Lord Cornwallis to see Mr. K. and to endeavour to prevail on him to waive his claim, assuring him that Government would not ultimately suffer him to be a loser.’ He did so, and thus had an indisputable claim on the Government. ( Colchester MSS. )

3

In Bishop Percy's letters we have an illustration of the working of this system. The Bishop writes, that two of Lord Downshire's members had lost their places for opposing the Union, but Mr. Magenis ‘has made his peace with Government, and now is strong for an Union, as his son Willy tells me, and that his father is to have a better place (and by the bye is also promised some good Church preferment for his son). I asked him how Lord Downshire would like this. He told me that his father had paid Lord D. for his seat in Parliament this time, so was at liberty to dispose of his vote (a curious traffic), but Mrs. Brush thinks it must have been bought cheap, as the rebellion expected, and the fear of an invasion, made a seat in Parliament so cheap it might be purchased for 600 l. or 700 l. I hope this shocking trade is drawing to an end, and all the abominable borough sales will cease in this country if the Union should take place.’ ‘Old Richard Magenis and some others who stood aloof, have now joined the Ministry. His price is some good preferment promised to Willy. Of this they make no secret’ ‘I believe I mentioned that Mr. Magenis had given 1,000 l. for his seat in the present Parliament, which his Lordship [Lord Downshire] had sent to return him, but he refused to take it, as he hopes to make a better market for his vote.’ (Bishop Percy to his wife, Aug. 1, Dec. 10, 18, 1799. British Museum.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 179, 188, 192, 197.

2

See vol. vi. pp. 599–602.

3

In the course of the struggle, Mr. O'Donnell moved that the address to the Lord Lieutenant in favour of the Union should be presented by ‘all the general and staff officers, the placemen and pensioners,’ who were members of the House of Commons, and the names of these members were then drawn up, with the offices they held. The list (which contains seventy-two names) will be found in Grattan's Speeches , iv. 5–7, and in Grattan's Life , v. 173. In the protest drawn up by the leaders of the Opposition, in the form of an address to the King, they say, ‘Of those who voted for the Union, we beg leave to inform your Majesty that seventy-six had places or pensions under the Crown, and others were under the immediate influence of constituents who held great offices under the Crown.’ (Grattan's Speeches , iv. 32.) Lord Cornwallis, on the other hand, sent over to England a return of the members of the Irish House of Commons who held civil offices of any kind whatever. The editor of the Cornwallis Correspondence says, ‘There were fifty-six members holding offices at pleasure, of whom four held also offices for life, six had offices for life only, and mne were King's Counsel, or had patents of precedence. Over these fifteen, Government had, of course, no influence.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 243) In this list the military posts and the pensions are not included; on the other hand, the position of King's Counsel and patents of precedence are not counted in the Opposition list.

1

I have collected in another book some curious facts about Archbishop Agar's conduct on this occasion. ( Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland , pp 157, 158.) The Primacy fell vacant when the Union debates were going on, and Cornwallis tried (though without success) to have an Irishman appointed. ‘It would have a very bad effect, he wrote, ‘at this time, to send a stranger to supersede the whole bench of bishops, and I should likewise be much embarrassed by the stop that would be put to the succession amongst the Irish clergy at this critical period; when I am beyond measure pressed for ecclesiastical preferment.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 210.) ‘Lord Clifden, to whom we stand indebted for seven Union votes; Lord Callan, who has two friends in the House of Commons, and Mr. Preston, member for Navan, all nearly related to the Archbishop of Cashel, came to me this day to request that I would agree to submit his name to his Majesty's consideration for the succession to the Primacy.’ (Ibid. pp. 217, 218)

1

See the names and the appointments in Barnes's Rights of the Imperial Crown of Ireland (1803), pp. 335–337.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 18.

3

Grattan's Life , v. 114, 115. The following curious letter gives a vivid picture of the kind of negotiation that was going on. A Government agent writes to Marsden, that he had been visiting the seat of Colonel Almuty at Brianstown, near Longford. The Union was mentioned. ‘I suffered him to spend himself in a philippic against it. I made a few observations, and added that the county of Longford had addressed. This he denied; he said it was only the Catholics, and there was scarcely a Protestant in the county for it. He is a man of much influence, and stands well with the Catholics. His affairs are much embarrassed. He has two sons in the line, one a lieutenant in the 6th…. He is now in great distress, as the lieutenancy is not paid for, and his lands are under custm…. I hinted that this would be a good time for him to take a lead with the Freeholders, as no man of any consequence had stirred, and that the first mover would be likely to attract the notice of Government. I said that he was foolishly letting slip the only opportunity that might offer of showing his zeal for Administration, who certainly were very much alive upon the subject. He seemed to think the measure would be carried…. I have not yet had any opportunity here of feeling the people, but I incline to think that the Catholics are its best friends, and the Protestants seem sullen.’ (E. Purden to Marsden, Oct. 14, 1799, I.S.P.O.)

4

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 339, 340. This letter is dated Feb. 19, 1801. It will be observed, that these promises were quite independent of the regular compensations which had been granted by Act of Parliament in the preceding year. See, too, on the ‘heavy mortgage’ upon the patronage of Ireland in 1801, Lord Colchester's Diary and Correspondence , i. 325.

1

Thus, near the end of 1801, Castlereagh writes to his successor, Abbot: ‘Mr. Grady's case is one of those with respect to which I took the liberty of referring you for more precise information to Mr. Cooke, for reasons which will naturally suggest themselves, through whom the engagement was made with the approbation of the Lord Lieutenant. It was one of those arrangements pressed upon us by the necessity of the case, at a moment when we were not altogether in a situation, consistent with the safety of the measure entrusted to us, to decide merely upon the personal merits of those who had the means to forward or impede it. The number of applications to which you have been exposed as the result of that measure, have enabled you to judge of the embarrassments under which we acted.’ (Castlereagh to Abbot (secret), Oct. 17.) ‘The consequence [of some arrangements that have been described] would be, that the Lord Lieutenant would be able to fulfil the expectations of promotion held out by the last Government to Mr. Grady, which would discharge a claim in many respects of a pressing nature, by his succeeding to the office of Counsel of the Revenue.’ (Abbot to Addington, Jan. 19, 1802. Colchester MSS. )

2

In November 1803, the Government was severely blamed in Parliament for not having foreseen Emmet's insurrection, and some special attack appears to have been contemplated on Marsden. A copy is preserved of the following very significant letter, which Wickham then wrote (Nov. 18, 1803) to the Lord Lieutenant: ‘In writing to Mr. Yorke on the subject of the personal attack that is intended to be made upon Marsden, your Excellency will perhaps do well to call his attention to these points. 1. Marsden was the person who conducted the secret part of the Union. Ergo , the price of each Unionist, as well as the respective conduct and character of each, is well known to him. Those who figure away and vapour in so great a style in London, are well known to him. They live in hourly dread of being unmasked, and they all consider him as the person who opposes their interested views and jobs by his representation of the whole truth. 2. Marsden, as a lawyer, is supposed to be the person who gives to the Government the opinion that is acted upon as to legal promotions. He is, therefore, supposed to be the man who has stood in the way of our filling the Bench and the confidential law situations under the Crown with improper persons, by giving a fair and right interpretation to the Union engagements. 3. Many of the persons who make a great figure at the levee, and on the benches of either House, in London, really dare not look Marsden in the face. I have often witnessed this, and have been diverted by it. With your Excellency and with me they have an air of uncomfortable greatness, but with him they quite shrink away.’ (I.S.P.O.)

1

Speech on Nov. 2, 1830. ( Parl. Debates. ) See, too, in the same debate, the emphatic statement of Lord Farnham, an old opponent of the Union, but at the same time a strong anti-repealer.

2

Grattan's Life , v. 113.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 184. This letter, however, was written on Feb. 8, 1800, and a great deal appears to have happened after that date.

4

See on the absence, before 1793, of any secret service fund like that of England, vol. iv. p. 519. The Act of 1793 was 33 Geo. III. c. 34. On the pensions to informers, see Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 319–321.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 82.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 151, 156.

3

Ibid pp 202, 226, 308. ‘Mr. Pitt,’ wrote Cooke to Castlereagh in April, ‘approves of your taking advantage of these vacancies in the civil list. Quere: Will the law allow you to increase the number of the Commissioners of Boards?’ (P. 226) In July 1800, Castlereagh wrote, ‘I hope you will settle with King our further ways and means; from the best calculation I can make, we shall absolutely require the remainder of what I asked for, namely, fifteen, to wind up matters, exclusive of the annual arrangement; and an immediate supply is much wanted. If it cannot be sent speedily, I hope we may discount it here.’ (Ibid. p 278.) In Lord Colchester's Diary (May 1801) there is an entry, ‘The money for engagements of the Union, as authorised to be taken out of the privy purse, to be settled between Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh’ (i. 266).

4

See the letter, countersigned by the Attorney-General, in Barrington's Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation , c. xxvii.

5

May's Constitutional History , i. 291.

1

Life of Edgeworth , ii. 231.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 101. (R.O.) The last two passages are omitted in the published letter.

3

Ibid. pp. 105, 131, 153. In November, the Speaker is said to have still asserted that the Opposition had 140 votes. ( Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. I.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii.

2

Ibid. pp. 110, 111.

3

Ibid. p. 118.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 121, 122.

2

Ibid. pp. 138–140.

3

Ibid. p. 143.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 105; Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 26, 27, 353. In a memorial sent to the Chief Secretary, Abbot (Oct. 13, 1801), McKenna said, ‘The four Administrations which successively ruled Ireland, from 1793 to 1800, have each, unsolicited by me, called for that little aid to the cause of civil society and good government which I was able to contribute…. But the affair of the Union constitutes that ground on which my claim, at least to a certain extent, is beyond all question irresistible. You know that, in consequence of application made to me, I gave up my time and trouble to the cultivation of that question. If contributing nearly as much as any other person to render that transaction palatable to the public, and to extend the credit of it. be a service to Government, that service I must say I rendered. A positive engagement was made me’ ( Colchester MSS. )

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 105, 129.

1

Cernwallis Correspondence , iii. 124, 125, 138, 139.

1

Lord Carleton to Pelham, March 1, 1799. ( Pelham MSS. )

2

Alexander to Pelham, April 12, 1799. (Ibid.)

3

Lord Altamount, May 26, 1799. (I.S.P.O.)

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 327–329. (June 5, 1799.)

2

Ibid. p. 345. (July 6.)

3

Ibid. p. 394.

4

Ibid. p. 354; iii. 228.

5

See Lord Donoughmore's reply in the debate in the House of Lords, June 6, 1810. Cornwallis confirms ( Correspondence , iii 125) the great services of Lord Donoughmore on this question. Like his father, Lord Donoughmore was a warm friend of the Catholics, and he appears to have had considerable influence among them.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 180, 182.

2

Ibid. p. 125. VOL. VIII.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 352.

4

Ibid. iii. 280.

5

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 164.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 355-358.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 408-414.

1

John Foster to Pelham, Dec. 8, 1799. ( Pelham MSS .)

1

Mant's History of the Church of Ireland , ii. 762.

2

Bishop Percy to his wife, Oct. 10, 1799.

3

This is stated in a letter of Bishop Percy, in the I.S.P.O., Oct. 9, 1799.

4

Bishop Percy says: ‘Lord Bristol has put his signature, yet the poor Primate, though that county [Tyrone] is chiefly in his diocese, and though he voted in Parliament for the Union, was not allowed—by Madam, I suppose—to add his name [to an address in favour of it].’ (Dec. 10, 1799.) In Cox's Irish Magazine (Nov. 1807, p. 60) there is a letter which is said to have been written, in 1779, by the Bishop of Derry to Boswell, inquiring what effect the Scotch Union had exercised on the prosperity of Edinburgh. If this letter is genuine, it shows that Lord Bristol at that early date looked with some favour on the idea of an Union, and believed that, although Dublin would be against it, the rest of Ireland would probably welcome it.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. pp. 229, 230. In the beginning of 1799, the electors of Trinity College (who consisted of the Fellows and scholars) addressed their members, calling on them to oppose the Union. ( Faulkner's Journal , Jan. 19, 1799.)

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 344, 345.

3

Ibid. p. 352.

4

Ibid. pp. 370, 371.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence, ii. 399-402.

2

Ibid. pp. 347, 348, 386, 387.

3

Plowden, ii. Appendix, pp. 320-322.

4

Ibid. p. 323.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 143, 146.

2

O'Leary's ‘Address to the Parliament of Great Britain.’ ( Collected Works (Boston, 1868), p. 541.)

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 437, 438. Some later letters from General Barnett describe the services of this bishop. ‘The Admiral having expressed, to me on Thursday last, a particular wish that Dr. Plunkett should come forward, I last night received authority from the Doctor to assure your Lordship, that the measure of Union shall receive his decided support…. Your Lordship has full power to make use of Dr. Plunkett's name in any way that you may consider is most conducive to the furtherance of the measure. The Doctor particularly requests that all his clergy should sign, and, with prudence, exert their utmost influence to forward the measure.’ … ‘He will write to the clergy of Westmeath to give support to the measure…. He believes the whole of the clergy in this county to be in favour of the measure.’ (General Barnett to the Earl of Longford, Jan. 6, 1800; to Admiral Pakenham, Dec. 22, 1799. (I.S.P.O)

1

Plowden. ii. 980-983 Plowden says. ‘Some difficulties arose in the way of the meeting from the military, but were removed the moment his Excellency Marquis Cornwallis became acquainted with the attempt made to prevent an expression of the popular opinion on a question big with the fate of the popular interests.’

2

They will be found in Barnes On the Union .

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 145

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 85.

1

Plowden, ii. 979, 980. In quoting Plowden in favour of the Union, I refer to his Historical Review , published in 1803. In his History of Ireland, from the Union to 1810, which was published in 1811, his point of view was wholly changed, and he wrote as the most furious of partisans. A single passage will serve as a specimen: ‘The public can be now no longer duped by the insidious practices of Mr. Pitt's systematic management of Ireland. Every page of her post-Union history teems with evidence of his having forced a rebellion, in order to drown her independence in the blood, and bury her felicity under the ashes, of the country, in the wicked (perhaps fruitless) hope of preventing her resurrection by the immovable tombstone of legislative Union…. With a view to raise an eternal bar to Catholic concession, he introduced an apparent system of justice and conciliation, to furnish an argument that the Catholics might be happy and prosperous, as he foresaw they would be tranquil and loyal, without emancipation. At the same time, he secretly laboured to establish, strengthen, and perpetuate the Orange societies, which he well knew to be incompatible with, and essentially destructive of the peace, concord, and prosperity of the country. In that work of deception, Mr. Pitt's prime and most efficient instrument was Marquis Cornwallis’ (i. 94).

1

Barrington's Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation , chapters xxvi. and xxvii.

2

Dialogue between Orange and Croppy . by Counsellor Sampson. This poem was found in manuscript among the papers of one of the United Irishmen, and sent to the Government. It is printed in Madden's Literary Remains of the United Irishmen of 1798, pp. 122, 123. A few lines will indicate its character:

  • ‘Says Orange to Crop: ‘Let us quarrel no more,
  • But unite and shake hands. Let discord be o'er.
  • Let the Orange and Blue intermixed with the Green,
  • In our hats and our bosoms henceforward be seen.
  • An Union with Croppies for me!”
  • “I care not,” says Croppy, “not I, by my soul,
  • Whether English or Orangemen Ireland control.
  • If tyrants oppress this unfortunate land,
  • “Tis all but the work of the Orangeman's hand
  • No Orange alliance for me!
  • “’ You remember the time when each village and town
  • Most gaily resounded with ‘Croppies, lie down!’
  • Billy Pitt changed the note, and cries, ‘Down with them all—
  • Down Croppy, down Orange, down great and down small.’
  • Ah, that was the way to be free!’ “
3

Lord Clifden. ( Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester , 1. 186.

1

‘I am frightened about the popery business. It ought to be touched only by a master hand. It is a chord of such wondrous potency, that I dread the sound of it, and believe with you that the harmony would be better, if, like that of the spheres, it were, at least for a time, inaudible.’ (Flood to Charlemont, Jan. 7, 1782.)

2

Hardy's Life of Charlemont , ii. 414, 416, 429, 430.

1

Memoir of Thompson , 26 primaire, an viii. (F.F.O.)

2

Reports in the I.S.P.O., July 24, Dec. 5, 1799.

3

Castlereagh to Wickham, May 6, 1799. (R.O.)

1

Castlereagh to Portland, June 29, 1799.

2

Castlereagh to King, Aug. 21, 1799. ‘It is too provoking,’ Lord Clare wrote very characteristically at this time, ‘that the old bitch, Lord Keith, should have let the French and Spanish, fleets slip him as they have done. Most probably he will be advanced to the English peerage for the exploit.’ (Clare to Cooke, Aug. 13, 1799. I.S.P.O.)

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 130, 132.

4

Ibid. iii. 93. ‘As to the present tendency to rebellion … I cannot bring myself to believe that it has anything to do with the question of Union, as the anti-Unionists in the country would fain make us believe No one who knows anything of the country, or of the nature and principle of the insurrection, could ever bring himself to believe in November or December last that the whole was at an end. The question of Union may, perhaps, have hastened the new organisation of the counties of Down and Antrim of which you speak, but I am far from thinking myself that this is an evil, being persuaded that the seeds of insurrection are lurking in every county, and that the sooner they bear fruit … the better.’ (Wickham to Cooke, March 4, 1799, I.S.P.O.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 144. There are some good letters, on the distress and frands of the time, by Higgins in the I.S.P.O. The distillery laws were 40 Geo. III. c. 6, 58.

2

The reader will remember the great influence which this statement, in Leland, had exercised over Arthur O'Connor's politics.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 26-54.

1

Castleragh Correspondence , iii, 333.

1

See Castlereagh's remarkable letter in Alexander Knox's Remains , iv. 539-541. In this letter Castlereagh says: ‘I feel confident that the intentions of Government for the public good, at that time, will bear the strictest scrutiny…. I believe their measures, when fairly explained, will stand equally the test of criticism, and that they may be shown to have combined humanity with vigour of administration, when they had to watch over the preservation of the State; whilst in the conduct of the Union, they pursued honestly the interests of Ireland, yielding not more to private interests than was requisite to disarm so mighty a change of any convulsive character.’ Knox said Castlereagh was ‘the honestest and perhaps the ablest statesman that has been in Ireland for a century. I know of him what the world does not and cannot know, and what if it did know, it would probably not believe.’ (Ibid. p. 31.)

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 118, 137, 138, 145.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 164

2

The best report of Lord Castlereagh's speech is, I believe, that in Seward's Collectanea Politica . See, too, the reports in Coote's History of the Union . A fuller report of this debate was published separately in Dublin, but it is now extremely rare. Long extracts from some of the Opposition speeches will, however, be found in Grattan's Life .

1

This is the statement of Plunket, and the figures he gave do not appear to have been disputed in the debate. Grattan's biographer, who reports the speech, says that the signatures to the addresses in favour of the Union did not exceed 7,000, (Grattan's Life , v. 79.) On the other hand, Plowden says the Wexford address was signed by more than 3,000, and the Leitrim address by 1,836 persons, (ii. Appendix, 322, 323.) An address from Roscommon is said to have been signed by ‘1,500 Catholics exclusive of Protestants.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 222.) The number of signatures in favour of the Union is not, I think, anywhere mentioned in the Government letters, but Castlereagh wrote: ‘The petitions presented to Parliament [against the Union] have been more numerously signed than the addresses and declarations in favour of the measure, which were, in general, studiously confined to a superior description of persons; but the preponderance of property is undoubtedly on the side of the latter.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 224.) Everything that can be said by a skilful advocate to enhance the importance of the addresses in favour of the Union, and to diminish the importance of the petitions against it, will be found in Mr. Ingram's History of the Irish Union —a book which is intended to show that ‘the Irish Union is free from any taint of corruption;’ ‘that it was carried by fair and constitutional means, and that its final accomplishment was accompanied with the hearty assent and concurrence of the vast majority of the two peoples that dwell in Ireland.’ (Preface.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 165.

2

Cooke to Grenville, Jan. 16, 1800.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 170, 171. The circular was dated Jan. 20.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 174,182.184. Compare Grattan's Life , v. 71, 72. The Opposition paid the 4,000l. he had paid of election expenses at Enniscorthy, on condition of his voting in 1800 against the Union, which he had supported in 1799. Grattan's son says that Cooke tried to win the member back by a large bribe, but that he refused to break his promise with the Opposition.

2

Grattan's Life , v. 71.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 167,168; compare Grattan's Life , v. 66-68.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 165.

3

See the text of many of these resolutions in Barnes On the Union , Appendix, pp. 133,136,142; Grattan's Life , v. 54-56.

1

Cooke to King, March 5, 1800. (R.O.) See, too, Cornwallis Correspondence , iii 203 Barnes has printed a list of the counties and other places that petitioned the House of Commons for or against the Union, extracted from the journals of the House by James Corry, clerk of the journals. According to this list, the petitions against the Union were signed by 112,888 persons. Of these signatures 106,347 were attached to the petitions of the twenty-six counties. and the remainder came from the towns. Six counties sent no petition. Down and Monaghan were the only counties which sent petitions to the House of Commons in favour of the Union, and those petitions were signed by 3,070 persons. The petitions from these two counties against the Union had 28,435 signatures. (Barnes On the Union , pp. 133-141.) This list, of course, does not include the addresses for the Union (mentioned on p. 439), which had been presented to the Lord Lieutenant in 1799. Grey is reported to have said in one of his speeches. ‘Though there were 707,000 who had signed petitions against the measure, the total number of those who declared themselves in favour of it did not exceed 3,000.’ ( Parl Hist xxxv.60.) These figures have been repeated by many writers, and, I am sorry to say, by myself in my Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland . It is evident from the above-mentioned authorities that 707,000 is a misprint for 107,000, and Mr. Ingram has kindly sent me the result of his own researches, showing that out of seventeen contemporary newspapers or periodicals, fourteen give the latter figures.

2

See Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 223.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 176.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 165-175.

2

Ibid. iii. 176-180.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 172, 176, 198.

2

See a most powerful passage on the binding force of the Union guarantee, in Sir Robert Peel's great speech on the Church Establishment in Ireland, April 2, 1835. See, too, a very remarkable speech of Plunket in 1829, Plunket's Life . ii. 293-302; and Canning's Speech (corrected and published by himself), Feb. 15, 1825.

1

In arguing this point Castlereagh said: ‘The population of Ireland is, in general, estimated from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000.’ It is almost certain that this was an understatement. There is, as I have already shown (p.234), strong reason to believe, that the population of Ireland in 1800 somewhat exceeded 4,500,000.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 181. Barrington says the division took place at 11 A.M. For Castlereagh's speech I have followed the separately published report, and for the others the more imperfect reports in Coote's History of the Union.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 181.

3

Ibid. iii. 182-184. The reader may compare with this the remarks of the contemporary and very impartial historian of the Union. ‘If we consider the number of placemen and other influenced members who voted at the last division, the Cabinet had little cause for real or honourable triumph, as the majority could not be deemed sufficient to give full sanction to the scheme in a moral or conscientious point of view. Though we are friendly to the measure itself, we cannot applaud the perseverance of those who resolved to carry it into effect against the sense of the independent part of the House of Commons; for of the opposition of a real majority of uninfluenced senators, no doubts could be entertained by any man of sense or reflection who knew the predicament and constitution of that assembly.’ (Coote's History of the Union , p. 381.)

1

I have quoted a few sentences from this speech, in another connection, in a former volume, but the reader will, I trust, excuse a repetition which is essential to bring out the full force of Lord Clare's argument.

1

The reader who desires to compare this prediction with the actual progress of the Irish debt after the Union, will find full materials in the Parliamentary Reports on the Taxation of Ireland, 1864 and 1865.

1

‘Our damnable country,’ as he desscribed it in a letter to Auckland. Even in his will he spoke of ‘this giddy and distracted country.’

1

Compare Coote's History of the Union , pp. 411-414; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 185, 186.

2

Many interesting particulars about Yelverton will be found in Barrington, Grattan's Life , and Philips’ Recollections of Curran . He at once pressed for promotion in the peerage ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 258); he was made Viscount Avonmoreimmediately after the Union, and some places taken from the Downshire family were given to his relations. When Lord Clare died, Lord Hard-wicke wished his successor to be an Irishman, and the claims of the chief judges were considered. Abbot than wrote: ‘Lord Avonmore, whose learning and talents are unquestionably great, is nevertheless so totally negligent of propriety of manners, and so extremely embarrassed in his private concerns, that it is hardly creditable for the King's service, for him to remain Chief Baron of the Exchequer. His very salary of office is assigned to pay his creditors, by deed enrolled in his own court.’ (Abbot to Addington, Jan. 19, 1802. Lord Colchester's MSS. )

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 25; iii. 373; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 41, 220. There is a sketch of Yelverton's speech on March 22, in Coote, and it was printed fully as a pamphlet both in Dublin and London. It is rather too lawyer-like a performance. Cooke wrote of it: ‘Lord Yelverton made a fine speech, but praised Grattan too much for our purpose.’ (Cooke to King, March 24, 1800. R.O.) In a private letter to Lord Grenville, Cooke says: ‘Lord Yelverton made a most able speech on the general question, but he rather interlarded too much exculpation and praise of Grattan. He also denied that any propositions were ever made to him by the Duke of Portland in 1782, of any measures which had the tendency to an Union, or were to be a substitute for it. I understand, however, that the proposal on this subject was at his house, but that both his Lordship and Fitzpatrick were so drunk that they might well have forgotten what passed. This, at least, is the Bishop of Meath's account of what passed’ Cooke to Grenville, March 24, 1800. ( Grenville MSS )

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 208, 219. The Duke of Portland, in conceding this point, took occasion to express his admiration of the Irish aristocracy, ‘whose exemplary conduct, in the course of this great business, entitles them to every possible mark of consideration, and must secure to them the gratitude of their latest posterity.’ (Ibid. p. 226.) This curious passage appears to have been written with pertect seriousness.

3

Seward's Collectanea Politiea , iii. 516-520. One of the peers, however, subscribed to only a portion of the protest.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 180, 181.

2

Ibid.

1

Compare Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 199, 200; Coote, pp 444, 445. The best report I have seen of Castlereagh's reply to Foster is given in a pamphlet called, A Reply to the Speech of the Speaker , Feb. 17, 1800. Castlereagh's chief objection to the Speaker's calculation appears to have been, that Ireland contributed little to the war before 1797.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 200-202.

3

Ibid. p. 200.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 202-204; Coote, pp. 445, 446.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 212, 213; Grattan's Speeches , iii. 411-413.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 205, 206.

2

Ibid. iii. 216, 217; Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 251-253.

1

This speech is published as a pamphlet.

1

Life of Edgeworth, ii. 230, 231. Writing on the subject in 1817, Edgeworth said: ‘It is but justice to Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh to give it as my opinion, that they began this measure with sanguine hopes that they could convince the reasonable part of the community that a cordial Union between the two countries would essentially advance the interests of both. When, however, the Ministry found themselves in a minority, and that a spirit of general opposition was rising in the country, a member of the House, who had been long practised in parliamentary intrigues, had the audacity to tell Lord Castlereagh from his place that,’ if he did not employ the usual means of persuasion on the members of the House, he would fail in his attempt, and that the sooner he set about it the better.’ This advice was followed, and it is well known what benches were filled with the proselytes that had been made by the convincing arguments which obtained a majority.’ (Ibid. p. 232.)

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 212.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 216, 220, 221; 40 Geo. III. c. 23.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 228-231.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxv. 47, 48, 98-101, 116.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxv. 43, 114.

2

The Parl. Hist. says 707,000, but I have already given my reasons for believing this to be a misprint.

1

Parl. Hist xxxv. 59-61.

2

Ibid. 119. For fuller statistics of the number of placemen, see pp. 404, 405. The number 116 appears to have been mentioned by a speaker in the Irish Parliament; but it was either a mere random statement, or was arrived at by counting Queen's Counsel and others, over whom the Government had no real control.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence, iii, 224. This is exclusive of the absentee peers, whose properties were said to be divided on the question in the proportion of 102,500 l . to 29,000 l . The Bishops’ properties were counted 80,000 l . for, and 6,000 l . against the Union.

2

Ibid. iii, 231.

1

Parl. Hist . xxxv. 193-195.

2

Ibid. xxxv. 170, 171. Lord Moira joined, however, by proxy in the second and final protest of Irish peers against the measure, though he confined his assent to three out of eleven reasons. (Annual Register , 1800, p. 202.)

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii 233-235.

1

40 Geo. III. c. 29.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 238, 239.

1

Grattan's Speeches , iv. 1-23.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 239-243.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 235, 237, 239, 247. The dates of these letters are May 18, 21, 22, June 4, 1800.

2

Cooke to Grenville, May 22, 1800. ( Grenville MSS .)

3

Mr. Goold ‘lamented that the public feeling was not sufficiently alive to the question of Union. He lamented that the citizens of Dublin did not exhibit in their countenances the despondency of defeated liberty, and though it was evident that the public sentiment did not keep pace with or sympathise with the opposition within that House, and though that opposition should gradually diminish, he would never acknowledge the triumph of the Minister, and to the last moment of its discussion would glory in his efforts to repel a measure which he conceived fatal to the liberties of his country.’ ( Dublin Evening Post , May 17, 1800.)

1

This very remarkable protest will be found in Grattan's Speeches , iv 24-36, in the Appendix to Grattan's Life , vol. v., and in Plowden.

2

There is a curious broadside in the British Museum, purporting to be a report of Dobbs’ speech on June 7. See, too, Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 249; Coote, pp. 498, 499. In the debate on February 6. Dobbs had concluded his speech in a similar strain, though the earlier part of it was perfectly sane and even powerful. I have given (vol. iv. p. 508), an outline of Dobbs’ prophetical views.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 250.

2

A long and able letter from Lord Farnham to Lord Grenville on this point, will be found in the Grenville MSS . (June 20, 1800). Lord Farnham stated, that for the year ending Jan. 5, 1799, the permanent taxes of Great Britain were upwards of twenty-six millions, those of Ireland but two millions.

1

Among the Colchester Papers there is a draft of a despatch to Lord Pelham, on the proposal of the Bank of Ireland to buy the Parliament House. At the end there is added, ‘Private.’ ‘I am given to understand confidentially that the Bank of Ireland would in such case subdivide what was the former House of Commons into several rooms for the check offices, and would apply what was the House of Lords to some other use which would leave nothing of its former appearance.’ In the same collection there is a letter from Abbot to Lord Hardwicke, sanctioning the purchase. ‘It should, however, be again privately stipulated,’ he says, ‘that the two chambers of Parliament shall be effectually converted to such uses as shall preclude their being again used upon any contingency as public debating rooms. It would be desirable also, to bargain that they should render the outside uniform, and in the change of appropriation reconcile the citizens to it, in some degree, by making the edifice more ornamental.’ (Feb. 1, 1802.)

1

‘I am no friend to the Irish aristocracy, and though I think what Grattan said of them (that they are only fit to carry claret to a chamberpot), is true, I think better of them than of any Irish democracy that could be formed.’ (R. Griffith to Pelham, Oct. 8, 1798.)

2

See vol. vi. pp. 384-386, 469, 470. In a letter to an Italian gentleman about the Government of the Cisalpine Republic, Grattan said: ‘She should have a representative chosen by the people who have some property, for I don't like personal representation. It is anarchy, and must become slavery.’ (Grattan's Life , v. 215.)

1

There is a striking letter on this subject from John Pollock, in the Colchester MSS . Pollock, after describing the general connivance at these unlicensed distilleries, and the enormous evils they produced, adds. ‘The greatest object that could be accomplished for Ireland, and the one that would render the minister who may accomplish it, almost the saviour of his country, would be to adopt a system that should produce good, wholesome, and comparatively cheap malt liquor, and put spirits beyond the reach of the common people.’ (J Pollock to Charles Abbot, Aug. 16. 1801.) See, too, a striking letter of Cooke, Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 14 On the great part the whisky shop always bears in the manufacture of Irish agrarian and seditious crime, see some striking evidence of Drummond, in Smyth's Ireland, Historical and Statistical , iii. 67.

1

See Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets , iii. 129, and a letter, written apparently on the authority of Lord Grenville, about the intentions of Pitt, quoted by Sir J. Hippisley, Substance of a Speech , May 18, 1810, p. 15.

2

48 Geo. III. cap. 66.

1

The Prosperity of Ireland displayed in the State of Charity Schools in Dublin , by John Ferrar (Dublin, 1796).

2

See Newenham's State of Ireland , p. xix, Appendix, pp 34-37.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , iii. 91, 92, 449, 450.

1

By the census of 1831, the Irish population was 7,707,401.

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 302, 303.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 85.

1

This was stated by Canning himself in the House of Commons (March 6, 1827): ‘I remember, Sir, as well as if it happened yesterday, Mr. Pitt's showing me a letter from Lord Cornwallis, in which that noble lord said he had sounded the ground, and could carry the Union, but not the Catholic question; and I also recollect my saying.’ ’ If I were you, I would reject the one measure if distinct from the other.’ ’ Mr. Pitt rebuked me, as perhaps my rashness deserved.’ ( Parl. Deb. Second Series, xvi. 1005, 1006.)

1

Arguments for and against an Union , pp. 29-34.

2

Speech of the Right Hon. H. Dundas, Feb. 7, 1799, p. 59.

2

Speech of the Right Hon. H. Dundas, Feb. 7, 1799, p. 59.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 415. On the negotiations of Cornwallis with the Catholics in the beginning of 1799, see Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 78, 79.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 272. There are some slight verbal variations in the different reports of Pitt's speech.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 52; Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 132.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 276.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 8-12. This letter was written to Pitt. to remind him of what had taken place. It is dated Jan. 1, 1801.

1

Cooke to Grenville, Jan. 16, Feb. 14, 22, March 5, 10, 1800. ( Grenville MSS. )

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 307.

1

Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. Appendix, p. xvi.

2

Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors , viii. 172, 173 Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. 263, 261.

1

Wilberforce's Life , iii. 7.

2

Pellew's Life of Sidmouth , i. 285, 286.

1

Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. Appendix, xxiii-xxviii.

2

See his letter to Pitt (Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. Appendix, pp. xxviii, xxx), and his letter to Dundas ( Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 333).

1

In his letter to Pitt, he said he was under ‘a religious obligation’ ‘to maintain the fundamental maxims on which our Constitution is placed, namely, the Church of England being the established one, and that those who hold employments in the State must be members of it, and consequently obliged, not only to take oaths against popery, but to receive the Holy Communion agreeably to the rites of the Church of England.’ (Stanhope's Life of Pitt , in. Appendix, p xxix.) But the King every year assented to a Bill of Indemnity in favour of Protestant Dissenters who took office without the qualification, and no disqualification excluded these Dissenters from Parliament.

2

See a letter of Lord Grenville in Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets , iii. 129.

3

Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. Appendix, p. xxx.

4

Ibid, p 286.

5

Compare Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets , iii. 131, 134, 143; Malmesbury's Diaries and Correspondence , iv. 4.

6

Pellew's Life of Sidmouth , i. 286.

1

See Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 35, 39; Malmesbury Correspondence , iv. 4; and the detailed account in Pellew's Life of Sidmouth . Canning wrote: ‘Mr. Pitt has resigned on finding himself not allowed to carry into effect his own wishes and opinions, and the views of the Irish Government respecting the Catholic question. The King has accepted his resignation, and a new Government is forming, in which Mr. Pitt earnestly presses all those of his own friends who are now in office to take part, and to which he intends personally to give the most decided and active support in Parliament.’ ( Life of Sidmouth , i. 299.)

2

Wilberforce's Life , iii. 2.

3

Pellew's Life of Sidmouth , i. 334, 335, 339.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 60; Malmesbury Correspondence , iv. 4.

2

Sir Cornewall Lewis has examined this episode with great care in his Administrations of Great Britain , and he entirely acquits Pitt of being governed in his resignation by any other consideration than the Catholic question (pp. 151-153). The reader, however, should compare on the other side a powerful and interesting letter by Dean Milman in the same work (pp. 268-280). Dundas, according to Lord Malmesbury, said, ‘If these new ministers stay in and make peace, it will only smooth matters the more for us afterwards,’ and Canning ascribed Pitt's refusal to resume power at once, to a desire to see a peace negotiated by Addington. Lord Malmetsbury's own opinion was, ‘that Pitt advises Addington to make peace, will assist him in it, and that. peace once made, he will then no longer object to take office.’ ( Malmesbury Correspondence , iv. 39, 47, 50.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 270; see, too, pp. 282, 283, 313.

2

Ibid. p. 291.

3

Ibid. pp. 237, 250.

4

Ibid. pp. 238; see, too, p. 316.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 291-296, 313. In a remarkable paper drawn up about this time by Lord Castlereagh, in favour of admitting the Catholics to Parhament, the following observations occur: ‘Our error perhaps has hitherto been, yielding piecemeal rather than upon system. In leaving an obvious ground of struggle behind, we have always encouraged demand, rather than attained the only end with a view to which the concession had been made… If the same internal struggle continues, Great Britain will derive little beyond an increase of expense from the Union. If she is to govern Ireland upon a garrison principle, perhaps, in abolishing the separate Parliament, the has. parted as well with her most effectual means as with her most perfect justification…. The Union will do little in itself, unless it be followed up. In addition to the steady application of authority in support of the laws, I look to the measure which is the subject of the above observations [Catholic emancipation], to an arrangement of tithes, and to a provision for the Catholic and Dissenting clergy, calculated in its regulations to bring them under the influence of the State, as essentially necessary to mitigate if it cannot extinguish faction.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 392-400.)

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 316, 317.

2

Ibid. pp. 331-333.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 26, 27.

4

Ibid. pp. 13, 25.

5

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 313.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 45, 46, 51, 60.

2

Malmesbury Correspondence , iv. 40.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 335, 336.

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 49, 50; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 337, 341.

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 60, 70. Alexander Knox, who was secretary to Castlereagh, fully concurred in the necessity of emancipation, and he wrote at this time the following remarkable words. ‘I am well aware how much the distinct Parliament contributed to keep up disaffection; but I am strongly persuaded that if disaffection be still kept up by other sufficient means, the want of a local Parliament may become not an advantage, but a real grievance to the Empire. I take it that one reason among others why an Irish Parliament was first thought of, was because the disturbed state of that country required the presence of prompt and plenary power … When the rebellion actually commenced, the presence of an Irish Parliament was not without its efficacy. If rebellion be kept alive (and alive it will be kept until every degrading circumstance be removed from the Catholics), even the Union, calculated as it is for both local and imperial benefit, may become the source of irreparable mischief both to Ireland and the Empire; because disturbance will, as much as ever, require summary means of suppression, but those means can no longer have the same sanction as was given them by a resident Parliament.’ (Ibid, pp. 32, 33.)

2

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 347, 348; Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 76.

1

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 348

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 71.

3

Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 349.

4

Ibid. p. 350. The letter of Dundas has never been found.

1

Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. 303-306; Malmesbury Correspondence , iv, 31.

2

Lord Colchester's Diary , i. 245; Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. 302-304; Malmesbury Correspondence , iv. 32

1

Compare Pellew's Life of Sidmouth , i.334-337; Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii.302-313; Lewis's Administrations of Great Britain , pp. 210-214.

1

See Lewis's Administrations of Great Britain , pp. 213, 214

2

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 47, 51. ‘Lord Hobart … assured me, that both he and Lord Clare had been deceived by Mr Pitt, and that he would have voted against the Union, had he suspected at the time that it was connected with any project of extending the concessions already made to the Irish Catholics. The present Lord Clare's report of his father's views of the whole matter, tallies with this account of the transaction,’ (Lord Holland's Memoirs of the Whig Party , i. 162.)

1

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 41-46. This very interesting letter contains another of those false forecasts of the religious future, of which we have had so many: ‘I consider that neither the Presbyterian nor Catholic seet are new and rising. but ancient and decaying sects; that their enthusiasm (at least among all the higher and educated orders) is worn out, and that civil equality would produce in them a greater indifference to their respective creeds, and make them safer subjects. I think the democratic madness has greatly spent itself, and that the two sects are attached to the principles and forms of our Constitution, and merely oppose from the circumstance of being excluded.’ (P.45.)

1

Parl. Hist. xxxv. 1231-1237; O'Flanagan's Lives of the Irish Chancellors , in 273, 274; Castlereagh Correspondence , iv.61

2

Lord Colchester's Diary , i.278,279, 321. In a paper drawn up by the Irish Government for Addington in Jan. 1802, Clare is said to be ‘hostile to any government by Lord Lieutenant. Desirous himself to be Lord Deputy, or at the head of Lords Justices, and for Mr. Cooke to be Secretary of State under him.’ (Ibid. p. 287)

3

‘The riot and disorder at Lord Clare's funeral was occasioned by a gang of about fourteen persons under orders of a leader, so that it does not tell so ill for the character of the Dublin populace (whom I am not, however, going to defend), as I had at first imagined.’ (Lord Hardwicke to Abbot, Feb. 2, 1802. Colchester MSS )

1

See his very curious letters in Lord Colchester's Diary , i. 407-410, 436, 466, 467, 476, 510, 511.

1

See a letter of Lady Hardwicke. ( Lord Colchester's Diary , i. 441.)

2

Ibid. pp.407, 408.

3

Ibid p. 313.

1

‘The general election was scarcely sufficient to ruffle the calm into which, after the Union, the commotions of Ireland had subsided…. Not a single member of the Irish Parliament who supported the Union, was displaced in consequence of the displeasure of his constituents; in no instance was this support upbraided to any candidate; some of the most extensive and independent counties returned gentlemen who had shown great zeal in accomplishing this momentous arrangement, and only in one instance (the county of Dublin), did any candidate deem his opposition to the Union a sufficient claim for popular favour, to allude to it in addressing the constituent body’ ( Annual Register , 1802, p. 194) According to this authority, twentyfive new Irish members were elected. (P. 436.)

2

Dr. Troy to Marsden, Sept. 27, 1800, I.S.P.O.; Colchester's Diary , i 291; Ireland, Historical and Statistical , by G.L. Smyth, iii. 403.

3

This is stated by Grattan in a letter to Fox (Grattan's Life, v. 242), and it is corroborated by Alexander Knox. ( Remains , iv. 135.)

1

Grattan's Life, v. 242, 243.

2

Magan, as early as Feb. 8, 1801, describes the beginning of this movement. ‘Every art is now used to influence the Catholic mind. It is said, nothing is to be done for them. it is said to the inferior clergy, they have been deceived by their bishops, particularly since a late party of that description dined with his Excellency, which has received the utmost publicity. It has reached the most remote village in the country. Be assured, if any arrangement is ever likely to take place, it would be prudent to let it be known through some channel or other.’ (I.S.P.O.) On the dinner referred to, see Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 24.

3

See Grattan's remarkable speech, on the Catholic question in 1810, and also Fagan's Life of O'Connell, i. 71. Many particulars on this subject will be found in Sir J. Hippisley's Tracts .

1

See his letter to Pitt, Jan. 24, 1799, (Stanhope's Life of Pitt , iii. Appendix, p. xviii.) Lord Monteagle, in a speech in the House of Lords in 1848, said(I know not on what authority), that George III.,’ opposed as he was to the concession of the Catholic claims, was favourable to the endowment of the Catholic clergy.’ ( Parl. Debates , 3rd series, p. 1131.) It does not appear that the King had objected either to the endowment of Maynooth, or to the payment of the Scotch priests.

3

Castlereagh Correspondence , iv.

1

According to this report, the average income of Irish parish priests was then about 65 l. a year, exclusive of the expense of keeping a curate. The curates in most places lived with the parish priests, who gave them their dietand lodging, support for one horse, and an allowance of 10l. in money. ( Castlereagh Correspondence , iv. 99.)

2

Ibid. iv. 227-229. There is a similar letter of Castlereagh to Marsden (July 5, 1802) in the I.S.P.O.

1

Cornwallis to Marsden, July 19, 1802. (I.S.P.O.) It appears from Lord Colchester's diary that the Irish Government, or at least the Chief Secretary, Abbot, opposed the plan. One of the reasons given has a melancholy significance.’ It would form a lasting and irrevocable bar to the longestablished policy of gradually Protestantising the country, and wearing out the attachment to the Catholic religion.’ (P.356.) The question, however, was for some time under deliberation. In September. Cornwallis wrote: ‘The Government here will, no doubt, have firmness enough to insist, in a certain quarter , on a provision for the Catholic clergy, Addington seemed determined to go through with the measure when I last saw him, and I hope he will not flinch.’ (Cornwallis to Marsden, Sept. 2, 1802, I.S.P.O.) A little later he wrote: ‘It would have been better if a provision for the Catholic clergy could have been obtained when we were threatened with no immediate danger, but if we are again forced to enter the lists against the great power of France, without any ally to assist us, I trust we shall see the necessity of making ourselves as strong as possible at home.’ (Ibid. Nov. 16,1802.)

1

Colchester's Diary ,

1

See Canning's speech, March 6, 1827, Parl. Deb. 2nd series, xvi. 1006. Lord Fingall had an interview with Pitt about the Catholic petition in 1805. Pitt, he says, ‘though extremely polite, gave us not the most distant hope.’ He could fix no time,’ though he candidly expressed his own opinion as to the good policy of the measure.’ (Lord Fingall to Marsden, March 19, 1805, I.S.P.O.)

1

The most important facts relating to them will be found in the Parliamentary Reports, On the Taxation of Ireland , in 1864 and 1865.