Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

1

X.

1822.

mouth to

kind, and his administrative talents stood forth pre- CHAP. eminent. His industry was indefatigable, his energy untiring, his intrepidity, both moral and physical, such as nothing could quell. He steered the vessel of the state, during the anxious years which succeeded the close of the Lord Sidwar, through all the shoals with which it was beset, with Bishop exemplary vigour and undaunted courage; and it was not ford, Nov. a little owing to his resolution that the crisis was sur- Sidmouth's mounted in 1820, which proved fatal to the cause of 388, 390. liberty and order in so many other states.1

Hunting

11, 1821;

Life, iii.

lesley ap

Viceroy of

the govern

This parliamentary coalition was attended with still 115. more important changes in Ireland, for there it com- Lord Welmenced an entire alteration in the system of government, pointed which has continued, with little interruption, to the pre- Ireland, and sent day. As the Protestants, ever since the Revolution, change in had been the dominant party in that island, and the ment there. Catholics were known to be decidedly hostile both to the British government and alliance, the Viceroy, and all the officers of state who composed its government, had hitherto been invariably staunch Protestants; and Lord Talbot, the present Viceroy, and Mr Saurin, the Attorney-general, were of that persuasion. But as the Cabinet itself was now divided on the subject of concession of the Catholic claims, it was thought necessary to make a similar partition in the Irish administration. Accordingly, Marquis Wellesley, a decided supporter of the Catholics, was made Lord-lieutenant in room of Lord Talbot; Mr Saurin, the champion of the Orange party, made way for Mr Plunkett, the eloquent advocate of the Catholic claims in the House of Commons; and Mr Bushe, also a Catholic supporter, was made Solicitor-general ; while, on the principle of preserving a balance of parties, Mr Goulburn, a staunch Protestant, was appointed Secretary to the government. Great expectations were formed of the beneficial effects of this conciliatory policy, which, it was hoped, would continue the unanimity of loyal feeling which had animated the country during the visit

X.

1822.

1 Pearce's

CHAP. of the Sovereign. But these hopes were miserably disappointed party strife was increased instead of being diminished by the first step towards equality of governMemoirs of ment, and the next year added another to the innumeriii.316,317; able proofs which the annals of Ireland have afforded, that its evils are social, not political, and are increased rather than diminished by the extension to its inhabitants of the privileges of free citizens. 1

Wellesley,

Ann. Reg. 1822, 7; Hughes, vi. 480.

116.

wretched

land.

Entirely agricultural in their habits, pursuits, and deCause of the sires-solely dependent for their subsistence on the fruits ness of Ire- of the soil, and without manufactures, mines, fisheries, or means of livelihood of any sort, save in Ulster, except that derived from its cultivation-the possession of land, and the sale of its produce, was a matter of life or death to the Irish people. The natural improvidence of the Celtic race, joined to the entire absence of all those limitations on the principle of increase which arise from habits. of comfort, the desire of rising, or the dread of falling, in the world-and the interested views of the Catholic priesthood, who encouraged marriage, from the profits which bridals and christenings brought to themselves— had overspread the land with an immense and redundant population, which had no other means of livelihood but the possession and cultivation of little bits of land. There were few labourers living on paid wages in any of the provinces of Ireland; in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, where the Celtic race and Catholic creed predominated, scarcely any. Of farmers possessed of capital, and employing farm-servants, there were in the south and 2 Pearce's west none. Emigration had not as yet opened its boundWellesley, less resources, or spread out the garden of the Far West for the starving multitudes of the Emerald Isle. They 1822, 14; had no resources or means of livelihood, but in the posWellesley session of little pieces of land, for which they bid against tary Peel, each other with the utmost eagerness, and from which 1823. they excluded the stranger with the most jealous care.2 Six millions of men, without either capital or industry,

Life of

iii. 348; Ann. Reg.

Marquis

to Mr Secre

Jan. 29,

X.

1822.

shut up within the four corners of a narrow though fruit- CHAP. ful land, were contending with each other for the possession of their patches of the earth, like wolves enclosed within walls for pieces of carrion, whose hostility against each other was only interrupted by a common rush against any hapless stranger who might venture to approach their bounds, and threaten to share their scanty meal.

117.

have re

and its

Experience has abundantly proved, since that time, what reason, not blinded by party, had already discovered Whatwould -what were the real remedies for such an alarming and lieved the disastrous state of things, and what alone could have onegiven any lasting relief. These were, to furnish the glect. means of emigration, at the public expense, to the most destitute of the peasants of the country, and form roads, canals, and harbours, to facilitate the sale of the produce of such as remained at home. Having in this way got quit of the worst and most dangerous part of the population, and lessened the competition for small farms among such as were still there, an opening would have been afforded for farmers, possessed of capital and skill, from England and Scotland, to occupy the land of those who had been removed to a happier hemisphere; and with them the religion, industrial habits, and education of the inhabitants of Great Britain, might gradually, and in the course of generations, have been introduced. But, unfortunately, party ambition and political delusion blinded men to all these rational views, which went only to bless the country, not to elevate a new party to its direction. Faction fastened upon Ireland as the arena where the Ministry might be assailed with effect; Catholic emancipation was cherished and incessantly brought forward, as the wedge the point of which, already inserted, might be made, by a few hard strokes, to split the Cabinet in pieces; and while motions on this subject, involving the entry of sixty gentlemen into Parliament, enforced by the eloquence of Canning and Plunkett, and resisted by the

X.

1822.

CHAP. argument of Peel, never failed to attract a full attendance of members on both sides of the House, Mr Wilmot Horton's proposals regarding emigration, the only real remedy for the evils of the unhappy country, and involving the fate of six millions, were coldly listened to, and generally got quit of by the House being counted

118. Ruinous

effect of

tion of the

currency upon Ireland.

out.

But it was not merely by sins of omission that the legislature, at this period, left unhealed the wounds, the contrac- and unrelieved the miseries, of Ireland. Their deeds of commission were still more disastrous in their effects. The contraction of the currency, and consequent fall of the prices of agricultural produce fifty per cent, fell with crushing effect upon a country wholly agricultural, and a people who had no other mode of existence but the sale of that produce. This had gone on now for nearly three years; and its effect had been, not only to suck the little capital which they possessed out of the farmers, but in many instances to produce a deep-rooted feeling of animosity between them and their landlords, which was leading to the most frightful disorders.* All the agrarian outrages which have in every age disgraced Ireland have 1 Pearce's arisen from one cause—the contest for pieces of land, the Wellesley, dread of being ejected from them, and jealousy of any Ann. Reg. stranger's interference. It is no wonder it is so; for to them it is a question, not of change of possession, Wellesley but of life or death. The ruinous fall in the price of agricultural produce of all sorts had rendered the payment of rents, at least in full, wholly impossible, and had led, in consequence, to measures of severity having been

Memoirs of

iii. 337;

1822, 14,
15; Marquis

to Secretary of State, Jan. 14, 1822.

* "I request your attention to the suggestions which I have submitted for the more effectual restraint of this system of mysterious engagements, formed under the solemnity of secret oaths, binding his Majesty's liege subjects to act under authorities not known to the law, nor derived from the State, for purposes undefined, not disclosed in the first process of initiation, nor until the infatuated novice has been sworn to the vow of unlimited and lawless obedience."-Marquis WELLESLEY to Mr Secretary PEEL, Jan. 29, 1823; Life of Wellesley, iii. 360.

X.

1822.

in many instances resorted to. Distrainings had become CHAP. frequent; ejections were beginning to be resorted to, and the landlords were fain to introduce a set of Scotch or English farmers, who might succeed in realising those rents which they had enjoyed in former days, but saw no longer a chance of extracting from their Celtic tenantry.

119.

the agra

turbances

This was immediately met by the usual system of resistance on the part of the existing occupants of the soil; Progress of and on this occasion it assumed a more organised and rian disformidable appearance than it had ever previously done. in Ireland. Over the whole extent of the three disturbed provinces a regular system of nocturnal outrage and violence was commenced, and carried on for a long time with almost entire impunity. Houses were entered in the night by bands of ruffians with their faces blackened, who carried off arms and ammunition, and committed outrages of every description; the roads were beset by armed and mounted bodies of insurgents, who robbed every person they met, and broke into every house which lay on their way; and to such a length did their audacity reach, that they engaged, in bodies of five hundred and a thousand, with the yeomanry and military forces, and not unfrequently came off victorious. Even when, by concentrating the troops, an advantage was obtained in one quarter, it was only at the expense of losses in another; for the

[ocr errors]

Life of Wel

334, 335,

Lord Wel

Rockites," as they were called, dispersed into small bodies, and, taking advantage of the absence of the mili- 1 Pearce's tary, pursued their depredations at a distance. No less lesley, iii. than two thousand men assembled in the mountains to the 349, 361; north of Bandon, and their detachments committed several murders and outrages; and five thousand mustered toge- Secret ther, many of them armed with muskets, near Macroom, 29, 1823; and openly bid defiance to the civil and military forces of 1822, 10. the country.1

These frightful and alarming outrages commanded the early and vigilant attention of the Lord-lieutenant. Not

lesley to Mr

Ann. Reg.

« ForrigeFortsett »