I. tion, especially in Dublin, so great, that in the beginning CHAP. of December Lord Castlereagh was sent over by Lord Cornwallis to London to give the English Government personal explanations on the subject.* 1798. The principal articles of the proposed Treaty of Union 69. transmitted by the Duke of Portland to Lord Cornwallis, Articles of and received on 16th November, were the same as those Union, and the proposed ultimately adopted, and will be found below. † They con-reagh's tained (Art. 4) a clause regarding the oath to be taken by views remembers entering the United Parliament, evidently intend their gallantry could only have been capable of giving to the inhabitants of Ireland."-DUKE OF PORTLAND to MARQUESS CORNWALLIS, November 21, 1798; Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 446. "I certainly should not recommend the immediate removal of any of the militia regiments, and I have no difficulty in declaring that, although the French appear for the present to have laid aside the intention of making any further attempts against Ireland, I think this country would be exposed to the most imminent danger of becoming again a scene of bloodshed and rebellion, and that all thoughts of uniting the two kingdoms must be given up if that force should now be withdrawn. Lord Castlereagh has informed your Grace of the spirit of opposition to the great measure now in agitation which has already manifested itself. I do not flatter myself with the hopes of obtaining any very disinterested opinion upon the subject on this side of the water, as I have not the smallest doubt that every man whom I might consult would advise such measures as he thought would best suit his private views, without having the smallest consideration for the public welfare."-LORD CORNWALLIS to DUKE OF PORTLAND, December 1, 1798; Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 454. The articles were as follow: 1. The kingdoms to be united, and the succession to remain as fixed by the existing laws. 2. The British Parliament to be unchanged. The Irish portion to be settled by an Irish Act. 3. Irish peers to enjoy the same privileges as Scotch peers. 4. All members of the United Houses to take the oaths now taken by British members; but such oaths to be subject to such alterations as may be enacted by the United Parliament. 5. The continuance of the present Irish Church Establishment to be a fundamental article of the Union. 6. The tariff in the French commercial treaty with England in 1786, to be adopted as between England and Ireland. Special provision to be made with reference to the export of salt provisions and linen to Great Britain and the colonies. 7. Revenue and debts.-The accounts to be kept separate. Ireland to pay 1 of the annual charges. Lord Castle 1 Afterwards with ths. 8. The Courts of Justice to be untouched. A final appeal to the House of filled up Lords. 9. The Great Seal of England to remain; as also the Privy Council in Ireland, or else a committee of Privy Council there. The Lord-Lieutenant to remain, but not to be mentioned in the Act.-Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 435. CHAP. ed, at some future period, to admit the Roman Catholics to both Houses of Parliament, though it was not deemed 1798. advisable to hazard the Union by making it an absolute condition at present. Lord Castlereagh's anxiety on this subject was extreme, and he lost no opportunity of enforcing these views in the strongest manner on the British Government. In a memoir dated November 12, they were stated with equal effect and justice :-"If the Catholic and Republican party can convince the Protestant landholders that it is for their interest to join with them in endeavouring to effect it [a separation from Great Britain], the thing is done. Great Britain, with all her naval superiority, could not long keep this country, almost half as large as her own, in the manner of garrison, by mere military force, and contrary to the will of the inhabitants, supported, as they would be, by every nation that envies her gigantic greatness; i. e., by all the maritime powers, led on and animated by France. The present astonishing wealth and power of England are, it must be remembered, in a good measure factitious, i. e., the effect of superior industry, enterprise, and art. They seem to be at their very acme of perfection. But advantages and acquirements of so very fluctuating and transitory a nature, if they cannot advance and increase, must recede and decline. Ireland, if united, would mightily tend to support, but if disunited and dissatisfied, would act as a dead weight about the neck of the sister country, to plunge her with more rapidity into the gulf of mediocrity, if not of utter ruin, and to give room for the alternate scale of France to emerge from under the vast pressure of its antagonist's commercial superiority. 70. "The new, dangerous, and dashing spirit (to use a Continued. vulgar phrase), that actuates the councils of that political phenomenon, the French Republic, will, in the long run, force her competitor to adopt a somewhat similar line of conduct, in order to make head against her; to venture upon what, in ordinary cases and in common times, would be regarded as very precipitous and hazardous measures. If the salvation of the two countries depends on their being further united, the matter must be finished in a session. We must not sit down with our arms across, and muse and talk on the subject for a century, as the Scotch and English did before they sanctioned a measure which has raised them to what they now are in the scale of nations. Long before a century shall pass away, democracy shall either have expired on the soil that gave it birth, or its Gallic apostles have carried their propaganda into every corner of Europe. There is no medium. The ambition of the ephemeral leaders in a small republic is circumscribed and kept within bounds by its very impotence. But as, in this case, the vast resources and active energies of the most numerous, stirring, and formidable people in Europe are wielded by men of the very first abilities and the most towering ambition, without which their situations were unattainable, it would be unreasonable to suppose that they should ever remain quiet for any length of time, that they should ever cease to foster rebellion in the neighbouring countries, or avail themselves of the strong party in their favour, which, if it does not always appear everywhere, is ready to start up on every prospect of assistance and success. 66 CHAP. I. 1798. 71. Already have they developed the scheme by which they mean to subjugate Europe, and climb to universal Concluded. (I can't call it monarchy, but) democracy, though, were I to give it its true name, I should rather call it despotism, for no countries are more severely used than those subject to a republic. In the short period of a few years, no fewer than five newly-created republics have started up, in order to defend, together with the Rhine, the most vulnerable parts of the frontier from the Mediterranean to the ocean. Nor is it by way of defence merely that these new states appear formidable though in this light they are truly so, as the continental powers must CHAP. I. march either across them or the Rhine to attack France— they are, besides, so many craters, which the grand volcano 1798. (a better name than the great nation) has thrown up on its sides, to deluge with its doctrines and reduce under its 1 Memoir dominion (or protection, as it is called) every neighbouring Castlereagh state that weakness may render an easy conquest, or that 442, 443. superior spirit and power may encourage to arrest its ambitious progress, or circumscribe its overgrown power."1 on Union; Corresp., i. 72. of this memoir. This memoir is very remarkable, as containing a proof Importance how early Lord Castlereagh had discerned the real danger of the French Revolution as a standing menace to the independence of every neighbouring state, and the necessity of the Irish Union as a means of enabling Great Britain to aid in checking its ambitious designs. It affords the key to his whole future career when called to the helm during the most perilous period of the contest with that power; and those who charge Lord Castlereagh with being an esprit borné, behind the light of the age, are recommended to search for a memoir at this period, or for long after, evincing so clear and prophetic an insight into futurity as this presents. 73. Trial and death of Nov. 12. A mournful tragedy occurred at this period, which happily closed the long catalogue of Irish military trials conWolfe Tone, sequent on the rebellion. Mr Wolfe Tone was a person of a very different stamp from most of the leaders of the Irish rebellion. He was more akin to Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and the other chiefs of the French Revolution. He had all their audacity and recklessness of consequences, all their sanguinary projects for exterminating their enemies, but at the same time all their delusive philanthropic views as to the ultimate regeneration of their country. He was one of the ablest and most determined leaders of the Irish rebellion, and one to whom, in justice to others, no mercy could be extended. Arrested and brought to trial before a court-martial in Dublin, he made an eloquent defence, in which he endeavoured to prove that, having accepted a commission in the French service, he was no CHAP. Nov. 10. longer answerable to the English treason law. This defence was justly overruled by the court; but their conduct in not allowing him to read part of the written defence he 1798. had prepared was not equally justifiable, and therefore it is given below.* He was convicted, and sentenced to death; and his Memoirs, published by his son, prove that if death should ever be inflicted for purely political offences, it was rightly adjudged in his case. On the morning of his execution, however, having obtained a razor, he cut his Nov. 12. throat in prison, and, in spite of every effort to prolong his life, he died soon after. This melancholy event caused a great sensation, and, like many a similar catastrophe, produced in the end a beneficial result. It brought the civil and military powers fairly into collision; and had a material effect in terminating the sittings of the latter, which, in truth, from the suppression of the rebellion, were no longer necessary. It tended also, in some degree, to reconcile many hitherto averse to it to the Union, by demonstrating at once the accumulated social and political evils which had brought men of such stamp into a league Cornwallis Corresp. ii. for the overthrow of the Government, and the narrow 433; Castleescape which the nation had made from general massacre resp. i. 445. and miseries unutterable in the attempt to bring it about.1 † The suppressed passage was as follows:-"I have laboured, in consequence, to create a people in Ireland, by raising three millions of my countrymen to the rank of citizens. I have laboured to abolish the infernal spirit of religious persecution by uniting the Catholics and Dissenters. To the former I owe more than can ever be repaid; the services I was so fortunate as to render them they rewarded munificently; but they did more: when the public cry was raised against me, when the friends of my youth swarmed off and left me alone, the Catholics did not desert me- they had the virtue even to sacrifice their own interests to a rigid principle of honour; they refused, though strongly urged, to disgrace a man who, whatever his conduct towards the Government might have been, had faithfully and conscientiously discharged his duty towards them; and in so doing, though it was in my own case, I will say they showed an instance of public virtue and honour of which I know not whether there exists another example."- Wolfe Tone's Defence, Nov. 10, 1798; Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 433. +"Tone is to be tried to-morrow. I am afraid these perpetual court-martials while the courts are sitting will become a subject for debate-they are of conversation."-E. COOKE, ESQ. to LORD CASTLEREAGH, Nov. 9, 1798; Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 432. "Whilst the rebels were in the field in force, the necessity of punishment by 1 reagh Cor |