II. 1801. Clare. When the Irish question went up to the House of CHAP. Lords, the Earl of Clare drew in sombre colours a picture of the state of Ireland during the rebellion, even in those quarters where it did not actually break out. "The county woeful of Limerick," said he, "in which I reside, is almost the picture of Ireland by only one which remained quiet during the revolution, yet the Earl of a dangerous insurrection suddenly broke out there after it was over. It was begun by an atrocious murder committed under my own roof. One of my servants was put to death, under circumstances of unexampled inhumanity, merely because he was an Englishman; and, to show the extreme barbarity to which the Irish people had arrived, the murderer was a man who had been in the service of my father and myself for thirty years, and been uniformly treated by both with the utmost kindness. The wretch had stolen arms from my house and distributed them among the rebels. When he was led out to execution, he confessed to the priest who attended him, that a list of twenty persons whom it was resolved to murder had been made out, and that his master was among the number; yet I myself was the only individual who gave employment and bread to the poor of the neighbourhood, and without my aid they must have been reduced to extreme misery. The people are not actuated found necessary to resort to martial law, the contests were soon decided in the JI. 1801. CHAP. by anything resembling a rational motive, but a mere thirst for blood. If the noble earl (Fitzwilliam) will visit his estates in the county of Wicklow, he will find that these statements are not exaggerated; he will find nothing but traces of desolation and renewal of horrors. Happy, thrice happy, should I be if I could once more go out unarmed! At present my servant brings me my arms as regularly as my hat. To think of repressing this spirit by concession and indulgence is absurd. Acts of that kind, although well meant, have already had a mischievous tendency. The rebels have a system of laws the most severe and most promptly executed. It is far more efficient than the civil code, and can only be counteracted by martial law. If the bill for continuing martial law is not adopted, scenes rivalling in atrocity those which marked the year 1641 will be the consequence. Nothing would be seen over the country but pillage, murder, and conflagration. The conduct of Marquess Cornwallis has been merciful in the extreme. He released many rebels from prison, and granted others a free pardon on giving up their arms. He spent four hours every day in examining the minutes of courts-martial, and never permitted any individual to suffer but after the most minute investigation. Yet this lenity and merciful conduct produced much evil; it was ascribed to fear, and encouraged licentiousness. Such had been the complete organisation of treason and rebellion, that the municipal law, unsupported by the military, not only could not be exercised with effect, but the mere attempt to administer justice was defeated and perverted to the worst purposes. 1 Parl. Hist. All jurymen who give a conscientious verdict, or witnesses a true evidence, are marked, and their names sent to the provincial committees for proscription and murder." 1 XXXV. 1231 1234. The mind of Lord Castlereagh, eminently judicious and practical, and set on redressing real grievances or guarding against impending dangers, not following out visionary ideas, was no sooner released from the cares of office than CHAP. II. 1801. 6. Lord Castle memoir on claims. it set itself to prepare the way for the redress of the chief evils which afflicted his country at the moment. These were, the religious rancour consequent on the exclusion of the Catholics from Parliament, the vexation produced by the drawing of tithes in kind by the Pro- reagh's able testant clergy, and the constant danger impending over the Catholic the island, and excitement kept up in the minds of the people, by the chance, it might be said the probability, of a French invasion. Upon each of these points he drew up and submitted to Government a detailed memoir, containing all the arguments on the subject that have been since, or can possibly be, adduced, stated with remarkable clearness and force, and particularly remarkable from the calm statesmanlike views which they exhibit of the question, and the practical remedies which they propose, or dangers which they seek to obviate. They are all given at length in the Castlereagh Correspondence, and are highly valuable, not merely as characteristic of the author's mind, but as containing the best arguments that can be adduced on the subjects of which they treat. On the Catholic question Lord Castlereagh observes :"At the Revolution, the See of Rome was in full autho- His memoir rity, and the unceasing efforts of the Catholic powers on Catholic the Continent were steadily and systematically directed to the establishment of Popery within these realms. Instead of a family on the throne attached to the principles of the Reformation, and to the preservation of the church establishment, we had a succession of princes playing the game of our enemies, aiming at absolute power, and favouring Popery as the instrument best suited to their purpose. To remedy the danger from the throne, the succession was altered; to defend the constitution, at a moment of struggle, from its enemies, numerous at home, and powerfully supported from abroad, the principle of exclusion, taken up at the Reformation was at the Revolution fortified; and in Ireland, where the danger was most pressing, it was followed up in Queen Anne's reign by every penal measure 7. on the claims. II. 1801. 8. CHAP. Which could be devised to break down the property, and of course to reduce the authority, of the Catholic body. "Circumstances have since so far altered as to induce a Continued. marked change of policy in the government of that branch of the empire, where Catholic authority can alone afford any reasonable ground of jealousy to the State. Not only all restrictions on the industry of that sect and their means of acquiring property have been taken off, but important constitutional privileges have been extended to them, in which the British Catholics have not been included. They now, therefore, are become a powerful body in the empire-in number not less than three millions-growing fast into wealth, and of course into local influence, and already in possession of a considerable proportion of political consequence. The question then is : Circumstanced as the empire is in wealth and population -circumstanced as it is with relation to the Continent, and united as it now is into one kingdom-can you safely permit their numbers and their property to work their natural effects in the usual channels of the constitution? Can you continue them precisely in their present predicament? Or have you the means of throwing them back to the point of depression they stood in at the commencement of the century? 9. "The present state of things cannot be permanent in Continued. its nature; for so long as it is persevered in, that portion of the United Kingdom will be kept in a perpetual state of irritation and contest on a constitutional and religious question, whilst the party opposed to the State will every day be gaining authority in proportion as they acquire wealth, and, if we may judge from experience, rapidly gaining supporters amongst the Protestants themselves. If, then, the present arrangement is rather provisional than conclusive in itself, and if it is of all courses the worst, on a point so much calculated to excite the public feeling, to pursue a fluctuating and indefinite policy, what other system can be taken up? Can we, without a new struggle, and a necessity more distinct and pressing than what at present exists, either justify in principle, or reconcile the Protestant body to inflict anew upon the Catholics the penalties and forfeitures which the temper of the times has so lately removed? or can we think it possible, in cool blood, to reduce them to their former poverty and weakness? And yet nothing else will enable us to act upon the principle of exclusion with any prospect even of temporary repose. CHAP. II. 1801. 10. "The Union being now accomplished, and the establishments of the empire being placed upon the natural Continued. support of a correspondent population, it is worth considering, so long as the Continental game is not played against us upon a religious principle, whether, in suffering the sectarian authority to operate within rather than without the constitution, the danger is not diminished? Should it be thought that the Dissenting interests of the empire at large (the Catholics being so admitted) have not weight, through their lawful operation, to shake the Establishment, there can be no question that, in a state of exclusion, they are more naturally open to an alliance with Jacobinism, the enemy of the present day, than in a state of comprehension. The Union has afforded us the means of trying this experiment with less risk than seems to attach to an opposite line of conduct. If it succeeds, it will relieve us from great embarrassment; if it fails, the evil will in time, as the accomplishment of Irish independence has already done, work out its own cure. The safety of the State must always rest upon the attachment of the great mass of its proprietors, who are attached to its establishments; and as it did at the Revolution, when the necessity is felt it will not fail to accomplish its own preservation. There is little chance of any Roman Catholic being called to his Majesty's counsels; if there was, a personal disability for office on account of religion is precisely the present ground of complaint, and is calculated to keep alive the same species of contest which |