proud of." On the whole it is evident to the reader of the debates of that autumn that, by all parties, the peace was considered a precarious one; a breathing time secured for the benefit of the people of England, and the restoration of the finances. Depressing as was this conviction, it served at once to moderate the boastings of the makers of the peace, and to subdue the lamentations of those who were grieved and ashamed at the terms of the treaty.

By these terms, Great Britain gave up Egypt to the Porte, the Cape to Batavia, Malta to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and all the French colonies she had captured to France; and she acquired Ceylon in the East and Trinidad in the West. Even these humble terms were in peril many times before the Definitive Treaty was signed. În November, Lord Cornwallis was sent over to Paris, with great state, as Ambassador Plenipotentiary. On the other side were Talleyrand and Joseph Bonaparte, for whom together, and perhaps separately, Lord Cornwallis was no match, either in vigilance or experience. He found himself treated with suspicion, and sometimes with rudeness; and it was no easy matter to sit by placidly, and witness the assumptions of Napoleon-as of the Presidency of the Italian Republics-while concluding on a peace which took for granted his quietude and moderation. Nothing but the determination at home to avoid war could have justified the prosecution of the treaty under such circumstances: but, as it was, the business came to a conclusion at last, at Amiens, whither the negotiation had been transferred from Paris. There, the respective signatures concluded the Peace of Amiens on the 27th of March, 1802.

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On the preceding day, the Duke of York, meeting Lord Malmesbury in the street, asked for news. Peace, sir, in a week, and war in a month," was the reply: a reply which reached and pleased the King. At the next drawing-room, he told Lord Malmesbury that he believed the saying would prove a prophecy. Amidst the existence of such distrust, and its growing prevalence, the country could not enjoy much of the blessings of peace. The people to whom it was most essential, and who had most joyfully hailed it, felt nothing of the con

fidence and repose which it had promised; and few but the Minister remained smiling and complacent. In him, little change of mood was visible, for it took much to extinguish the smiles and complacency of Mr. Addington.

CHAPTER III.

The Irish Union-Discontents of various Parties-Opinions of the Government-French Tampering―The Emmetts-Plot-Outbreak -Lord Kilwarden-Results-Coercion-Catholics stirred up-Currency Troubles-Duke of Bedford Viceroy-[1801-6.]

NEXT to the settling of our affairs with foreign Powers, the greatest subject of anxiety to the government was the effect of the Union upon Ireland. When, on the first day of the century, the bells of the churches rang, and the Park and Tower guns were fired as the new Imperial flag was hoisted, there were other feelings than of joy in the minds of the men about the throne, though a great object appeared to have been accomplished. On that day, the King met the Chancellor to receive from him the great seal, and see it defaced, and the new Imperial seal substituted. The Privy Council were sworn in anew; and proclamation was made of the alteration in the style and title of the sovereign. The word Union was in every mouth; but that state of the Catholic question which has been already described impaired the confidence of all who knew the circumstances. No one doubted that the intimidation of the vice-regal government by the great dominant families was over; and with it, much jobbing at Dublin, and much tyranny on their own estates. No one doubted that vast internal improvements would take place, by which peace and prosperity among the people would be promoted. But the great religious quarrel was becoming more formidable than ever. By some means never explained, a paper was circulated among the Irish Catholics in the name of Mr. Pitt, in the issue of which he had no share whatever. It appears to have been made up of parts of that "Letter of Lord C- " which has

been referred to, and of statements drawn up by Mr. Dundas and others, never intended for publication. The "Lord C- was Castlereagh, but understood to be Cornwallis, the Viceroy; and the rest was attributed to Mr. Pitt. This paper set forth the views and wishes and probable conduct of the Catholics in that style of freedom which might be expected in written communications among public men of the same way of thinking; and it was wholly improper for general circulation at a time so critical. The Catholics believed their cause secure, thus advocated (as they thought) by the Prime Minister and the Viceroy; while at the same moment the Sovereign was stiffening himself immoveably against all concession whatever. The danger from the wrath of the deceived Catholics must be great: and the Union opened under the gloom of this misunderstanding.

This was not, however, the greatest danger, threatening as it was. The worst discontent of Ireland at this time was not immediately connected with religious feuds. The insufferable oppressions which had caused and followed the rebellion of 1798 were resented as vehemently as ever; and those who had desired a republic before and an alliance with France, did not desire these things the less, but the more, for what had happened. The government was blind to this danger, for nearly two years after the Union; and the reason of this blindness was that the priests, who were always supposed to be all-powerful with the people, were as fiercely opposed to France under Napoleon as the Protestant clergy could have been. Napoleon had humbled the pride and restricted the power of Rome, and the Irish priesthood resented this in a style which misled the government into taking for granted the loyalty of the Irish people. Because no Catholic rebellion was brewing, statesmen supposed that all was well. It is curious now to read the correspondence which passed between the governments in London and Dublin in 1801 and 1802, and compare it with the state of the country and the needs of the people.

The fertile parts of Limerick, Cork, and Kerry, and elsewhere, were separated by vast wildernesses, where

no roads existed, and scarcely here and there a path. Swarms of people lived in these wilds, like rabbits in a warren. Not a plough or a cart was to be seen for many miles together; and the weed-grown mud hovels of the inhabitants could scarcely have been discerned by the stranger, though a hundred might be within reach of his eye. But few strangers ventured there. The soldiery and police could make no way; and they knew that every man's mind and hand were against them. Such districts were always the hiding-places of smugglers, thieves, and men in danger from society; and now, those who had outlawed themselves by their share in the rebellion of 1798 were harboured among the wilds. There was little commerce between the towns and the rural districts, to bind them together, and create mutual interests. The only produce of county Kerry was butter; and that was carried to Cork on horseback. The proportion of inhabitants employed upon the land was more than double that so employed in England; while the isolation of the class from the rest of the world was much greater: so that wrong ideas, once introduced among the rural multitude, were irremoveable; and the temptation to rule them as slaves or banditti was as strong to the landowners and the government, as it was to hotblooded and sanguine patriots to make them tools. Nothing had been done to remove from the minds of this portion of the population the discontents which had exploded in rebellion two years before; and they did not know that they had anything to do with England but to hate her. The Shannon was flowing through the midst of the island, ready to open, with a little pains, to the custom of the world 2,000,000 of acres of fertile land; and nobody stirred to do it. The local authorities had decided and represented, in 1794, that the thing ought to be done; but nobody was stirring to do it. All that the rural inhabitants knew about England, or about society, was that it hunted down smugglers and the friends of the peasantry, and hanged or shot patriots, and set up churches here and there which the people had to pay for, but could not enter. The small manufacturing and commercial classes of that day were troubled in

their own way. They had their political and religious grievances and prejudices, and their Irish temperament and rearing all unfavourable to England.-And correspondence with the Irish exiles in France, and solicitations from the tempters sent (as seems really to have been the case) by Napoleon to stir up rebellion, in order to occupy England with a civil war, kept up a constant restlessness, excitement, and inability to acquiesce in any kind of settlement, which were, unfortunately, little understood or apprehended by the government.

Lord Hardwicke was the first Viceroy after the Union; and Mr. Abbott, afterwards Lord Colchester, was Chief Secretary. Lord Hardwicke arrived in Dublin in May; and for a considerable time was certainly well satisfied with the results of his government. He endeavoured to moderate violence, and keep down tyranny wherever he saw it, and to do justice impartially; and as he found the Protestants highly political, and the Catholics, for the most part, a quiet, money-getting sort of people-like the Jews or any other class under permanent political disqualification-he was naturally popular among the Catholics, and less liked by the noisy Protestants, who found themselves no longer what they were. He and the Secretary thought that while this was the case, all was well; and they were always writing home that it was so. It is surprising to read their letters now; and to observe how they endeavour to vary the expression of their assurance that all was quiet-the people satisfied and happy in the new settlement, and everything sure to come right in the shortest possible time, while insurrection was preparing in the towns, and the rural population was too barbaric to enter into the question at all. The government believed itself at leisure to occupy itself with military finances, and a system of checks upon military expenditure, and a discrimination between the offices of Lord-Lieutenant and Commander of the Forces; and a distribution of forces, in case of a possible invasion byand-by: and again, with a plan for enabling the University of Dublin to print Bibles and Prayer Books; and again, with plans of greater weight-for working the mines of Ireland, and improving its inland navigation.