XXXI. CHAP. the average price of grain in the preceding period, the provision for the clergy can be effectually guarded 1832. against the risk of being lessened by a change in the value of money, as has been experienced with some degree of hardship from the want of such a clause in the settlement of the tithe question in Scotland. But the expression in the report, and which was reiterated by Mr Stanley (now Lord Derby) in his speech in introducing the remedial measures of Government in the House of Commons, that "the extinction of tithes" was intended, had a very pernicious effect, as inducing among the inconsiderate persons likely to be affected by the measure the belief that the burden was to be entirely removed, not transferred, as Government intended, in a direct form to the landlord. 15. Valuable facts dence, and the debate. The debate on this subject is chiefly valuable from the important evidence which it brought out of the dreadful brought out state of the country, and the war to the knife which had in the evi been set on foot by the Catholic clergy to stop the payment of tithes to their Protestant brethren. The arrears of tithes due and irrecoverable in the four dioceses of Ossory, Leighlin, Cashel, and Ferns, were computed at £84,954; and the following was the description given by Mr Stanley of the state of the clergy thus deprived of their sole means of subsistence: "As to the reviled clergy, the men who are described as living in luxury, idleness, and ease,' they were living, some in fear of a prison for debt, as they had received no money for many months, many more in fear of their neighbours, and not a few in fear of seeing their children starve before their eyes. Sometimes there would come in by night a pig or a bag of meal from some pitying friend, and by day the clergyman might be seen digging for bare life in his garden with his shoeless children about him, while his wife was trying within the house whether the tattered clothes would bear another and another patch. "The mode of resistance adopted was such as rendered XXXI. 1832. 16. it extremely difficult to deal with the recusants. Every CHAP. plan was fallen upon by which the action of the law might be traversed. Tithe-proctors and process-servers were violently assailed, impediments interposed to pre- Continued. vent the seizure and sale of cattle-in short, everything done which could be displayed by a whole population acting as one man against the payment of a claim legally due. They had posts and signals to give warning of the approach of the police, on the appearance of whom the cattle were locked up; and when seized, poinded, and sold, they were bought up for the owners. Such was the general intimidation and the risk run in enforcing the law, that attorneys could not be got to act, nor sheriffofficers to make seizures in the disturbed districts, and the clergy were deprived of the last resource for the support of their families; for such was the risk to which they were exposed, that no offices would insure their lives. Many of the witnesses stated that they knew Established clergymen in want of the common. necessaries of life. Sir John Harvey said, 'A gentleman with whom I am well acquainted told me that he had just been sending a sheep, and a few potatoes, and a small note, to a gentleman who was formerly in comparative affluence, and that he had neither a shilling nor a pound of meat or bread in his house.' The Archbishop of Dublin said, in his evidence before the Lords' committee, As for the continuance of the tithe system, it must be at the point of the bayonet-it must be through 233. a sort of chronic civil war.'" 1 1 Parl. Deb. x. 1277; Ann. Reg. 1832, 223, 17. ment plan The remedy which Government proposed for this wretched state of things was to authorise the issue from Governthe consolidated fund of such sums as might be necessary on the subto relieve the immediate necessities of the clergy of t O'Connell's Ireland, to be at the disposal of the Lord-Lieutenant, opposition. and in return to be empowered to levy the arrears of tithes and of composition for the year 1831. Precedents for this existed in the years 1786, 1799, and 1800. 1832. CHAP. Another proposal was to establish generally a system of XXXI. commutation of tithes by compulsory authority over the whole island. These proposals were violently resisted by the Catholic members for Ireland, especially the last, as it threatened to establish in some form or another the burden of tithes for the benefit of the Protestant clergy. The bill was carried in the Commons, however, by a majority of 124 to 32, so strongly had the necessity of the case impressed itself on the minds of the House. Mr O'Connell loudly protested against the bill. "The people of Ireland," said he, "are determined to get rid of tithes, and get rid of them they will. They have triumphed over the Duke of Wellington, and they are not afraid of being conquered by the Irish Secretary. No power in England can put down the combination against tithes. They may perhaps change its shape, or make it disappear 1 Parl. Deb. for a day; but unless some measure of essential relief and 109; Ann. amelioration is granted, it will appear in another form, and reappear with redoubled force. Then will be felt the ill effects of delaying justice to Ireland." 1 xiv. 100, Reg. 1832, 232, 249. 18. Increased agitation and vio country. Pending the discussion of this bill in Parliament, the most violent agitation was kept up in the country, in order to produce that intimidation which had succeeded so lence in the well with Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bill. O'Connell's first measure was to propose to the Irish members, by circulars from the Irish Association, that they should assemble at Dublin in a national council to concert measures in common. The authority of the great agitator, however, was not as yet so thoroughly established as to make all Ireland submit to his dictation, and this project failed. Recourse was immediately had to rural agitation; and to give it force and unity the Association intrusted to Mr O'Connell a petition to Parliament, which called on them to take measures for the "instant and total abolition of tithes and church-rates in Ireland, as the only way of stopping the effusion of blood." To prove the reality of the danger if their demands were not XXXI. 1832. instantly complied with, the agitators, not content with CHAP individual intimidation, proceeded to public denunciations affixed to the chapel doors. To a chapel in the county of Meath was affixed, in April, the following notice: "Keep up your courage, and persevere. There are forty thousand men well prepared, and firmly resolved to join you in the counties of Wexford and Carlow. Send notice to New Ross and Graigue, and they will be with you in a few hours. Any man that pays tithes, or does not join you to defeat the supporters of that damnable imposition, is a traitor and an enemy to the country, and you ought to pour the vials of your wrath immediately upon him. N.B.-Any person that takes down this bill will incur the displeasure of the supreme decree." Similar notices were generally posted over the country, and resolutions were openly voted at public meetings, that if the 1 Ante, c. police should interfere to aid in the collection of tithes, xxii. $100; they should share the fate of the police at Knocktopher, 1832, 282, where, in the preceding year, twelve of them had been . . slain.1 283; Mart. 19. murders country. The scene of predial violence and bloodshed which followed those savage denunciations had never been parallel- Frightful ed in Europe, save in the Jacquerie of France, and the worst and burnexcesses of the insurrection of the boors in Germany. The ingin the unhappy expression in the report of the Lords' committee, that nothing short of a "complete extinction of tithes" would pacify Ireland, was considered as a sufficient warrant not only for resisting payment of them, but for committing every crime in the course of the resistance. "An archdeacon in the neighbourhood of Cashel," says the Liberal historian, "had hoped to establish a commutation with his parishioners, but now they refused his terms-came up to him in a field in sight of his own house, where several persons were ploughing, and beat his head to pieces. If any resident, pressed by conscience, by fear of the law, or by regard for his pastor, paid the smallest amount of tithe, in the most secret manner, his cattle were houghed XXXI. 1832. CHAP. in the night, or his house burned over his head, or his flock of sheep hunted over a precipice, and lay a crushed heap in the morning. There was a sound of a horn at that time which made men's flesh creep, whether it was heard by day or by night; for those who took upon them to extinguish tithes, now boldly assembled their numbers by the sound of the horn, and all those who heard it knew that murder, or arson, or mutilation was going on. Capture, special commissions, and trials were useless; witnesses dared not to give evidence, jurors dared not attend. On the very chapels, notices were now posted by the insurgents, and no one dared to take them down." 1 1 Mart. ii. 110, 111; Ann. Reg. 1832, 281, 283. 20. efforts of the Government. In the beginning of February, the Irish government, Ineffectual in terms of the Peace Preservation Act, proclaimed various baronies in Tipperary-that is, declared the stringent provisions of that Act for the preservation of the peace in force; and at the same time the most vigorous measures were adopted to increase the police and the military in the disturbed districts. But they were of such extent, and so large a proportion of the peasantry were engaged in the conspiracy, that their efforts had very little effect. To enforce the law, the assistance of one part of the people is indispensable to compel the obedience of the other part; but where they are all interested in violating it, there is nothing so difficult as to cause authority to be respected. La Vendée and Spain proved that even the greatest military force, without such support, can scarcely effect that object. The proclamations of Government had no other effect but to cause the insurrection to assume a more threatening form, and run into still more dangerous excesses. In Westmeath, a body of two hundred armed men assembled, and in open day assaulted a police station. In Donegal, huge bodies of armed men marched in military array, compelling landlords to sign obligations not to exact tithe, and to lower rents. In Kilkenny, the people rose en masse, and dividing them |