CHAPTER XXXVI. The Corruptions of the English Minister-The Duke of Rutland's Administration-Debauchery of the Court-The Duke falls a victim-William Pitt resists Parliamentary Reform-His answer to the Citizens of Belfast-The Commercial Propositions-An insidious plan to re-capture Irish Independence-Reception of Pitt's Bill in the Irish House of Commons-Mr. Grattan's speech-The Bill given up-The Regency Bill-The Regency question-The Government defeated -The Lord Lieutenant censured-His threat-The Round Robin-The Delegation proceeds to London, and offers the Regency to the Prince of Wales-The Earl of Westmoreland appointed Viceroy-Rapid progress of Corruption in Parliament-Mr. Grattan vehemently denounces it-The Place Bill passed-Its important subsequent operation-Mr. Grattan again deceived-Re-appearance of the Irish Catholics-The Catholic Committee re-organized-The Aristocratic Leaders discarded-John Keogh-The Catholics petition for Emancipation-Their appeal-Organization of the Northern Dissenters-The United Irishmen -The Catholics and Dissenters fraternize-Deep Policy of the GovernmentThey endeavour to sow Dissensions between them-Catholic Relief Bill of 1793, an unsatisfactory measure-Acts of Coercion passed by the same ParliamentCommencement of the Reign of Terror-Hopes of the people re-awakened on the appointment of Lord Fitzwilliam to the Viceroyalty-Rejoicings among the People-His patriotic measures-Is resisted by the Beresford interest, and recalled by Pitt-Fresh exasperation of the Irish people-Lord Fitzwilliam's explanation-Arrival of Lord Camden-Public Riots in Dublin-The spirit of insurrection increases. FROM the moment that the Irish Parliament, backed by the armed Volunteers, succeeded in wresting from the English government the legislative independence of Ireland, the attention of the ministry was directed to the means of re-establishing their influence and mastering the new-born liberty both of parliament and people. The English ministers were now thrown upon a most extensive and demoralizing system of corruption: money was recklessly squandered in the purchase of parliamentary support: and a variety of disgraceful expedients were openly practised to preserve the British interests paramount in the senate. By such means, the revolution of 1782 was soon rendered a practical nullity, and the supremacy of the English minister was again complete. On the dismissal of the Coalition ministry and the accession of Mr. Pitt to office, the gay and dissipated young Duke of Rutland was sent over to Ireland to govern it, like Lord Townshend, by means of corruption and profligacy. The court became luxurious, extravagant, voluptuous, and dissipated, to an extent hitherto unprecedented. Moral purity and conjugal virtue, which have ever been the proud characteristics of the Irish nation, became grievously tainted during this period of ministerial gaiety and corruption. The beauty of the gay duchess of Rutland became the object of more than admiration among the Irish courtiers.* Even "patriots" knelt at her shrine, and forgot the claims of their country. The opposition was disarmed by beauty: they were enervated by luxury. Stern politicians now fluttered like gay butterflies about the purlieus of the court. Pensions† were at the same time lavished upon the toadies of the castle; and thus amid revelry, voluptuousness, and extravagance, were the toils prepared for the liberties of Ireland. The stoutest constitution could not long survive such a continued round of dissipation as prevailed at the castle, and the gay Duke of Rutland accordingly soon fell a victim. He was succeeded by Earl Temple, then made Marquis of Buckingham, whose first act, as viceroy, was to institute a severe scrutiny into the management of the fiscal departments at the castle. The frauds which he detected were so gross, and the peculation which he discovered was so enormous, that they could only be accounted for on the supposition that former viceroys had participated in the spoils or wilfully shut their eyes to the abuses amid which they lived. The Marquis, however, soon cooled in his zeal: he found that, like his predecessors, he could only maintain his ascendancy by means of systematic corruption, and the Augean stable of the castle was accordingly left unswept. It was fondly anticipated by Flood and others, that William Pitt, on his accession to power, would at once proceed to carry into effect the principles of parliamentary reform, which he had for many years so strenuously advocated. Those anticipations, however, were soon doomed to be disappointed. A public meeting was held in Dublin, presided over by the High Sheriff, at which a petition to the throne was adopted, praying for parliamentary reform, and that his Majesty would resist all attempts to subvert the laws for the protection of Irish commerce: to this a prayer was added, that his Majesty would immediately cause the Parliament to be dissolved. This petition was treated with marked contempt by the Lord Lieutenant: he informed the petitioners that, in transmitting it to his Majesty, he "would not fail to convey his entire disapprobation of it, as casting unjust reflections upon the laws and parliament of Ireland, and tending to weaken the authority of both." Not only did the Lord Lieutenant thus severely reprimand the petitioners, but he commenced criminal proceedings against the General Craddock, Dennis Daley, and Sir Hercules Langrishe, (the celebrated Wit of the time) stood high on the list of her votaries. +Godfrey Greene was often a guest of the Duke of Rutland, fond of the table, of conviviality, of joking, and of telling long stories; the latter he sometimes introduced in the House of Commons; and on one occasion he complained of the size of wine bottles, and lamented that no law was passed on the subject to make a pint bottle contain a quart. * * Some of the ministry asked for an office for Greene, and on conversing with the Lord Lieutenant, said, “But what shall I tell him you are giving it to him for? Shall I tell him it is because he voted against the Declaration of Rights ?"--"No" exclaimed the Duke, "no, don't say that."---"Well, shall I tell him it is because he voted against the repeal of Poyning's Law?"." No, damn it, don't say that."--" Well, shall I tell him it is because he voted for the Embargo" The Duke perceiving the satire, replied, "Oh, no, tell him it is because he is a damned honest fellow!"— GRATTAN'S Life, by his Son. High Sheriff of Dublin for presiding at the meeting, and had him sentenced to fine and imprisonment for his conduct! About the same time, the citizens of Belfast forwarded a similar petition to Mr. Pitt, for presentation to his Majesty. The answer of Mr. Pitt destroyed all hopes entertained of him on this question; for he stated that "what was proposed in the petition, he considered as tending to produce still greater evils than any of those which the friends of reform were desirous to remedy." It was not long before Pitt completely threw off the mask, and stood before the public in his character of a persecutor of those holding and boldly avowing the principles of parliamentary reform which he had himself so strenuously advocated. The policy which Pitt had resolved upon adopting in reference to Irish affairs, soon displayed itself. The unsettled state of the commercial relations between England and Ireland, rendered legislation necessary on the subject, and it was accordingly proposed that a commercial treaty should be contracted between the two countries, to provide against future collision, and secure to both nations the advantages of the federal compact. Commissioners were accordingly appointed in Ireland to arrange the basis of a treaty with the English Parliament, and eleven resolutions were agreed upon, which were proposed to the Irish House of Commons by Mr. Orde, the secretary of the viceroy. These resolutions were accepted and agreed upon, after considerable discussion; and on the faith that they would be acted upon, the Parliament granted to the minister additional taxation to the amount of £140,000 sterling. They were then transmitted to England; but Mr. Pitt, instead of presenting them in their original form to the English Parliament, artfully incorporated them in a bill containing twenty propositions, which struck at the very root of the independence of the Irish Parliament, rendering it merely a kind of register of English statutes relating to commerce. By one of the clauses introduced, England was entitled to appropriate the revenue of Ireland towards fitting out and manning her navy. It was evident to the House that the measure was merely a cunningly devised plan to reconquer the independence of the Irish Parliament. Mr. Sheridan said that "Ireland, newly escaped from harsh trammels and severe discipline, was treated like a high-mettled horse, hard to catch; and the Irish secretary was sent to the field to soothe and coax him, with a sieve of provender in the one hand and a bridle in the other." Mr. Fox accused Pitt of "playing a double game with England and a double game with Ireland, and sought to juggle both nations by a train of unparalleled subtlety;" he concluded by saying that "he would not barter English commerce for Irish slavery." The House of Lords at once saw through Pitt's invidious project, and treated it as a question not of commerce, but of future union. Lord Lansdowne treated the idea of a union as a thing that was impracticable. "High-minded and jealous as were the people of Ireland, we must first learn (said he), whether they will consent to give up their distinct empire, their parliament, and all the honours which belonged to them." The introduction of the bill by Mr. Orde, into the Irish Parliament, on the 12th of August, 1785, was the signal for one of the most stormy debates which had occurred for several years. The opposition again gathered together its strength to resist the insidious approaches of English ascendancy. The controversy was long and furious: it continued during the whole night, until nine o'clock on the following morning, when a division took place, and the government motion was carried by the very equivocal majority of nineteen. It was on this occasion that Mr. Grattan seems to have at length awaken from his delusion as to the "final" independence of the Irish Parliament. In 1782, he declared that the conduct of Great Britain was such as 66 must for ever remove suspicion;" and with unsuspicious faith, he sought no sufficient guarantee, but left the independence of Ireland at the mercy of an administration which would never rest satisfied but with its total extinction. We can imagine how the noble mind of Grattan must have suffered on this occasion, when he found that notwithstanding all his struggles, the independence of the Irish Parliament was yet to be achieved. How humiliating it must have been for Grattan to have confessed, as he did in his eloquent speech :-"The Irish parliament is now called on to determine, that it is most expedient for Ireland to have no trade at all in these parts. This (said he) is not a surrender of the political rights of the constitution, but of the natural rights of man; not of the privileges of parliament, but of the rights of nations. Not to sail beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan ; an extensive interdict! Not only neutral countries excluded, and God's providence shut out in the most opulent boundaries of creation! Other interdicts go to a determinate period of time, but here is an eternity of restraint. This resembles rather an act of God than an act of the legislature, whether you measure it by immensity of space or infinity of duration, and has nothing human about it but its presumption. To proposals, therefore, so little warranted by the great body of the people of England, so little expected by the people of Ireland, so heedlessly suggested by the minister, and so dangerous to whatever is dear to your interest, honour, and freedom, I answer, No!-I plead past settlements, and I insist on the faith of nations. If, three years after the recovery of your freedom, you bend, your children, corrupted by your example, will surrender; but if you stand firm and inexorable, you make a seasonable impression on the people of England, you give a wholesome example to your children, you afford instruction to his Majesty's ministers, and make (as the old English did, in the case of their charter) the attempt on Irish liberty its confirmation and establishment. This bill goes to the extinction of the most invaluable part of your parliamentary capacity: it is an union, an incipient and a creeping union; a virtual union, establishing one will in the general concerns of commerce and navigation, and reposing that will in the parliament of Great Britain; an union, where our parliament preserves its existence after it has lost its authority, and our people are to pay for a parliamentary establishment, without any proportion of parliamentary representation. If any body of men can still think that the Irish constitution is incompatible with the British empire -a doctrine which I abjure, as sedition against the connexionbut, if any body of men are justified in thinking that the Irish constitution is incompatible with the British empire, perish the Empire! live the Constitution. If I am asked how we shall use the powers of the constitution?-I say, for Ireland, with due regard to the British nation: let us be governed by the spirit of concord, and with fidelity to the connexion. But when the mover of this bill asks me to surrender those powers, I am astonished at him; I have neither ears, nor eyes, nor functions to make such a sacrifice. What! that free trade for which we strained every nerve in 1779! that free constitution for which we pledged life and fortune in 1782! Our lives at the service of the empire; but our liberties! No we received them from our "Father which is in Heaven," and we will hand them down to our children. In the mean time, we will guard our free trade and free constitution as our only real resources; they were the struggles of great virtue, the result of much perseverance, and our broad base of public action."* : Such was still the abject state of the Irish Parliament, such was the influence of the Duke of Rutland's corruption over it,that 127 voted with the English ministers, and 108 against them. Mr. Flood then moved for a declaration of rights, when another division took place still less favourable to ministers. Unable to depend upon the continuance of their slender support, the bill was finally given up, and Parliament was immediately prorogued. The defeat of the English minister was celebrated by a general illumination. Resolutions against the use of English manufactures were passed at several large public meetings, and Dean Swift's advice to "burn every thing which came from England, except coals," was again generally recommended. As for Pitt, he is said to have been excessively mortified at the defeat of his bill, and to have determined, as he could not rule the Irish Parliament, that he would eventually annihilate it. This determination was shortly afterwards confirmed by the conduct of the Irish Parliament on the question of the regency bill. The insanity of George III., as reported to Parliament in December 1789, rendered it necessary that a Regent should be appointed to govern in his stead. The Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.,) stood the nearest to the throne, and it was generally expected that he would be appointed Regent. But the Prince was at this time closely allied with the Whig party, and Mr. Pitt fore |