Gladstone on the Bulgarian Horrors
In the period at which we have arrived his moral greatness and literary fervor were both called into exercise in an international cause. The Bulgarian atrocities of 1876—spoken of in ChapterX—called the aged statesman from his retirement, and his pamphlet entitled “Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East,” rang through England like a trumpet-call. “Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner—by carrying off themselves,” he wrote. “Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.”
His Second Great Contest with Disraeli
He followed up this pamphlet by a series of speeches, delivered to great meetings and to the House of Commons, with which for four years he sought, as he expressed it, “night and day to counterwork the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield.” He succeeded; England was prevented by his eloquence from joining the Turks in the war; but he excited the fury of the war party to such an extent that at one time it was not safe for him to appear in the streets of London. Nor was he quite safe in the House of Commons, where the Conservatives hated him so bitterly as to jeer and interrupt him whenever he spoke, and a party of them went so far as to mob him in the House.
Yet the sentiment he had aroused saved the country from the greatest of the follies by which it was threatened; and, if it failed to stop the lesser adventures in which Lord Beaconsfield found an outlet for the passions he had unloosed,—an annexation of Cyprus, an interference in Egypt, an annexation of the Transvaal, a Zulu war which Mr. Gladstone denounced as “one of the most monstrous and indefensible in our history,” an Afghan war which he described as a national crime,—it nevertheless was so true an interpretation of the best, the deliberate, judgment of the nation, that it sufficed eventually to bring the Liberal party back to power.
Gladstone Again Made Premier
This took place in 1880. In the campaign for the Parliament elected in that year Gladstone took a most active part, and had much to do with the great Liberal victory that followed. In the face of the overwhelming majority that was returned Lord Beaconsfield resigned office, and Gladstone a second time was called to the head of the government.
Parnell Becomes the Leader of the Irish Party
As in the previous, so in the present, Gladstone administration the question of Ireland loomed up above all others. While Beaconsfield remained Premier Ireland was lost sight of, quite dwarfed by the Eastern question upon which the two life-long adversaries measured their strength.But as Turkey went down in public interest Ireland rose. The Irish people were gaining a vivid sense of their power under the Constitution. And another famine came to put the land laws and government of Ireland to a severe test. Still more, Ireland gained a leader, a man of remarkable ability, who was to play as great a part in its history as O’Connell had done half a century before. This was Charles Stewart Parnell, the founder of the Irish Land League—a powerful trade-union of tenant farmers—and for many years the leader of the Irish party in Parliament. In the Parliament of 1880 his followers numbered sixty-eight, enough to make him a power to be dealt with in legislation.
Gladstone, in assuming control of the new government, was quite unaware of the task before him. When he had completed his work with the Church and the Land Bills ten years before, he fondly fancied that the Irish question was definitely settled. The Home Rule movement, which was started in 1870, seemed to him a wild delusion which would die away of itself. In 1884 he said: “I frankly admit that I had had much upon my hands connected with the doings of the Beaconsfield Government in every quarter of the world, and I did not know—no one knew—the severity of the crisis that was already swelling upon the horizon, and that shortly after rushed upon us like a flood.”
The Famine and the Bill for Irish Relief
He was not long in discovering the gravity of the situation, of which the House had been warned by Mr. Parnell. The famine had brought its crop of misery, and, while the charitable were seeking to relieve the distress, many of the landlords were turning adrift their tenants for non-payment of rents. The Irish party brought in a Bill for the Suspension of Evictions, which the government replaced by a similar one for Compensation for Disturbance. This was passed with a large majority by the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords, and Ireland was left to face its misery without relief.
Mr. Forster’s Policy of Coercion
The state of Ireland at that moment was too critical to be dealt with in this manner. The rejection of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was, to the peasantry whom it had been intended to protect, a message of despair, and it was followed by the usual symptom of despair in Ireland, an outbreak of agrarian crime. On the one hand over 17,000 persons were evicted; on the other there was a dreadful crop of murders and outrages. The Land League sought to do what Parliament did not; but in doing so it came in contact with the law. Moreover, the revolution—for revolution it seemed to be—grew too formidable for its control; the utmost it succeeded in doing was in some sense to ride without directing the storm. The firstdecisive step of Mr. Forster, the chief secretary for Ireland, was to strike a blow at the Land League. In November he ordered the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Mr. Biggar, and several of the officials of the organization, and before the year was out he announced his intention of introducing a Coercion Bill. This step threw the Irish members under Mr. Parnell and the Liberal Government into relations of definitive antagonism.
Mr. Forster introduced his Coercion Bill on January 24, 1881. It was a formidable measure, which enabled the chief secretary, by signing a warrant, to arrest any man on suspicion of having committed a given offence, and to imprison him without trial at the pleasure of the government. It practically suspended the liberties of Ireland. The Irish members exhausted every resource of parliamentary action in resisting it, and their tactics resulted in several scenes unprecedented in parliamentary history. In order to pass the Bill it was necessary to suspend them in a body several times. Mr. Gladstone, with manifest pain, found himself, as leader of the House, the agent by whom this extreme resolve had to be executed.
Gladstone’s New Land Bill
The Coercion Bill passed, Mr. Gladstone introduced his Land Bill of 1881, which was the measure of conciliation intended to balance the measure of repression. This was really a great and sweeping reform, whose dominant feature was the introduction of the novel and far-reaching principle of the State stepping in between landlord and tenant and fixing the rents. The Bill had some defects, as a series of amending acts, which were subsequently passed by both Liberal and Tory Governments, proved; but, apart from these, it was on the whole the greatest measure of land reform ever passed for Ireland by the Imperial Parliament.
Stirring Events in Ireland
But Ireland was not yet satisfied. Parnell had no confidence in the good intentions of the government, and took steps to test its honesty, which so angered Mr. Forster that he arrested Mr. Parnell and several other leaders and pronounced the Land League an illegal body. Forster was well meaning but mistaken. He fancied that by locking up the ringleaders he could bring quiet to the country. On the contrary, affairs were soon far worse than ever, crime and outrage spreading widely. In despair, Mr. Forster released Parnell and resigned. All now seemed hopeful; coercion had proved a failure; peace and quiet were looked for; when, four days afterward, the whole country was horrified by a terrible crime. The new secretary for Ireland, Lord Cavendish, and the under-secretary, Mr. Burke, were attacked and hacked to death with knives in Phœnix Park.
Everywhere panic and indignation arose. A new Coercion Act was passed without delay. It was vigorously put into effect, and a state of virtual war between England and Ireland again came into existence. Great Britain, in her usual fashion of seeking to carry the world on her shoulders, had made the control of the Suez Canal an excuse for meddling with the government of Egypt.
The Bombardment of Alexandria and Death of Gordon
The result was a revolution that drove Ismail Pasha from his throne. As the British still held control, a revolt broke out among the people, headed by an ambitious leader named Arabi Pasha, and Alexandria was seized, the British being driven out and many of them killed. Much as Gladstone deprecated war, he felt himself forced into it. John Bright, to whom war was a crime that nothing could warrant, resigned from the cabinet, but the Government acted vigorously, the British fleet being ordered to bombard Alexandria. This was done effectively. The city, half reduced to ashes, was occupied by the British, Arabi and his army withdrawing in haste. Soon afterwards he was defeated by General Wolseley and the insurrection was at an end. Egypt remained a vassal of Great Britain. An unfortunate sequel to this may be briefly stated. A formidable insurrection broke out in the Soudan, under El Mahdi, a Mohammedan fanatic, who captured the city of Khartoum and murdered the famous General Gordon. For years Upper Egypt was lost to the state, it being recovered only at the close of the century by a military expedition.
In South Africa the British were less successful. Here a war had been entered into with the Boers, in which the British forces suffered a severe defeat at Majuba Hill. Gladstone did not adopt the usual fashion of seeking revenge by the aid of a stronger force, but made peace, the Boers gaining what they had been fighting for.
The Defeat of the Liberals
Disasters like this weakened the administration. Parnell and his followers joined hands with the Tories, and a vigorous assault was made upon the government. Slowly its majority fell away, and at length, in May, 1885, it was defeated.
The scene which followed was a curious one. The Irish raised cries of “No Coercion,” while the Tories delivered themselves up to a frenzy of jubilation, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and wildly cheering. Lord Randolph Churchill jumped on a bench, brandished his hat madly above his head, and altogether behaved as if he were beside himself. Mr. Gladstone calmly resumed the letter to the Queen which he had been writing on his knee, while the clerk at the table proceeded to run through the orders of the day, as if nothing particular had happened. When in a few momentsthe defeated Premier moved the adjournment, he did so still holding his letter in one hand and the pen in the other, and the Conservatives surged through the doorway, tumultuously cheering.
Gladstone’s great opponent was no longer on earth to profit by his defeat. Beaconsfield had died in 1881, and Lord Salisbury became head of the new Tory Government, one which owed its existence to Irish votes. It had a very short life. Parnell and his fellows soon tired of their unnatural alliance, turned against and defeated the Government, and Gladstone was sent for to form a new government. On February 1, 1886, he became Prime Minister of Great Britain for the third time.
Gladstone a Convert to Home Rule
During the brief interval his opinions had suffered a great revolution. He no longer thought that Ireland had all it could justly demand. He returned to power as an advocate of a most radical measure, that of Home Rule for Ireland, a restoration of that separate Parliament which it had lost in 1800. He also had a scheme to buy out the Irish landlords and establish a peasant proprietary by state aid. His new views were revolutionary in character, but he did not hesitate—he never hesitated to do what his conscience told him was right. On April 8, 1886, he introduced to Parliament his Home Rule Bill.
A Remarkable Scene in Parliament
The scene that afternoon was one of the most remarkable in Parliamentary history. Never before was such interest manifested in a debate by either the public or the members of the House. In order to secure their places, members arrived at St. Stephen’s at six o’clock in the morning, and spent the day on the premises; and, a thing quite unprecedented, members who could not find places on the benches filled up the floor of the House with rows of chairs. The strangers’, diplomats’, peers’, and ladies’ galleries were filled to overflowing. Men begged even to be admitted to the ventilating passages beneath the floor of the Chamber that they might in some sense be witnesses of the greatest feat in the lifetime of an illustrious old man of eighty. Around Palace Yard an enormous crowd surged, waiting to give the veteran a welcome as he drove up from Downing Street.
Mr. Gladstone arrived in the House, pale and still panting from the excitement of his reception in the streets. As he sat there the entire Liberal party—with the exception of Lord Hartington, Sir Henry James, Mr. Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan—and the Nationalist members, by a spontaneous impulse, sprang to their feet and cheered him again and again. The speech which he delivered was in every way worthy of the occasion. It expounded, with marvelous lucidity and a noble eloquence, a tremendous scheme of constructive legislation—the re-establishment of a legislature inIreland, but one subordinate to the Imperial Parliament, and hedged round with every safeguard which could protect the unity of the Empire. It took three hours in delivery, and was listened to throughout with the utmost attention on every side of the House. At its close all parties united in a tribute of admiration for the genius which had astonished them with such an exhibition of its powers.
Yet it is one thing to cheer an orator, another thing to vote for a revolution. The Bill was defeated—as it was almost sure to be. Mr. Gladstone at once dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country in a new election, with the result that he was decisively defeated. His bold declaration that the contest was one between the classes and the masses turned the aristocracy against him, while he had again roused the bitter hatred of his opponents.
But the “Grand Old Man” bided his time. The new Salisbury ministry was one of coercion carried to the extreme in Ireland, wholesale eviction, arrest of members of Parliament, suppression of public meetings by force of arms, and other measures of violence which in the end wearied the British public and doubled the support of Home Rule. In 1892 Mr. Gladstone returned to power with a majority of more than thirty Home Rulers in his support.
Gladstone’s Last and Greatest Triumph
It was one of the greatest efforts in the career of the old Parliamentary hero when he brought his new Home Rule Bill before the House. Never in his young days had he worked more earnestly and incessantly. He disarmed even his bitterest enemies, none of whom now dreamed of treating him with disrespect. Mr. Balfour spoke of the delight and fascination with which even his opponents watched his leading of the House and listened to his unsurpassed eloquence. Old age had come to clothe with its pathos, as well as with its majesty, the white-haired, heroic figure. The event proved one of the greatest triumphs of his life. The Bill passed with a majority of thirty-four. That it would pass in the House of Lords no one looked for. It was defeated there by a majority of 378 out of 460.
The Close of a Great Career
With this great event the public career of the Grand Old Man came to an end. The burden had grown too heavy for his reduced strength. In March, 1894, to the consternation of his party, he announced his intention of retiring from public life. The Queen offered, as she had done once before, to raise him to the peerage as an earl, but he declined the proffer. His own plain name was a title higher than that of any earldom in the kingdom.
On May 19, 1898 William Ewart Gladstone laid down the burden of his life as he had already done that of labor. The greatest and noblest figure in legislative life of the nineteenth century had passed away from earth.
NICHOLAS II. AND FAMILYCOUNT LYOF NIKOLAIEVITCH TOLSTOIRUSSIA’S ROYAL FAMILY AND HER LITERARY LEADER
NICHOLAS II. AND FAMILYCOUNT LYOF NIKOLAIEVITCH TOLSTOI
NICHOLAS II. AND FAMILY
NICHOLAS II. AND FAMILY
COUNT LYOF NIKOLAIEVITCH TOLSTOI
COUNT LYOF NIKOLAIEVITCH TOLSTOI
RUSSIA’S ROYAL FAMILY AND HER LITERARY LEADER
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.WILLIAM O’BRIEN.MICHAEL DAVITT.T. M. HEALY.FOUR CHAMPIONS OF IRELAND’S CAUSE
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.WILLIAM O’BRIEN.
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.
WILLIAM O’BRIEN.
WILLIAM O’BRIEN.
MICHAEL DAVITT.T. M. HEALY.
MICHAEL DAVITT.
MICHAEL DAVITT.
T. M. HEALY.
T. M. HEALY.
FOUR CHAMPIONS OF IRELAND’S CAUSE
Ireland in the Past Centuries
Time was when Ireland was free. But it was a barbarian freedom. The island had more kings than it had counties, each petty chief bearing the royal title, while their battles were as frequent as those of our Indian tribes of a past age. The island, despite the fact that it had an active literature reaching back to the early centuries of the Christian era, was in a condition of endless turmoil. This state of affairs was gradually put an end to after the English conquest; but the civilization which was introduced into the island was made bitter by an injustice and oppression which has filled the Irish heart with an undying hatred of the English nation and a ceaseless desire to break loose from its bonds.
For centuries, indeed, the rule of England was largely a nominal one, the English control being confined to a few coast districts in the east. In the interior the native tribes continued under the rule of their chiefs, were governed by their own laws, and remained practically independent.
The O’Neill Rebellion and the Confiscation of Ulster
It was not until the reign of James I. that England became master of all Ireland. In the last days of the reign of Elizabeth a great rising against the English had taken place in Ulster, under a chief named O’Neill. The Earl of Essex failed to put it down and was disgraced by the queen in consequence. The armies of James finally suppressed the rebellion, and the unruly island now, for the first time, came fully under the control of an English king. It had given the earlier monarchs nothing but trouble, and James determined to weaken its power for mischief. To do so he took possession of six counties of Ulster and filled them with Scotch and English colonists. As for the Irish, they were simply crowded out, and left to seek a living where they could. There was no place left for them but the marshes.
This act of ruthless violence filled the Irish with an implacable hatred of their oppressors which has not vanished in the years since it took place. They treasured up their wrongs for thirty years, but in 1641, when England was distracted by its civil war, they rose in their wrath, fell upon the colonists, and murdered all who could not save themselves by flight. Foreight years, while the English had their hands full at home, the Irish held their reconquered lands in triumph, but in 1649 Cromwell fell upon them with his invincible Ironsides, and took such a cruel revenge that he himself confessed that he had imbued his hands in blood like a common butcher. In truth, the Puritans looked upon the Papists as outside the pale of humanity, and no more to be considered than a herd of wild beasts, and they dealt with them as hunters might with noxious animals.
Cromwell’s Bloody Severity and the Fate of the Irish
The severity of Cromwell was threefold greater than that of James, for he drove the Irish out of three provinces, Ulster, Leinster and Munster, bidding them go and find bread or graves in the wilderness of Connaught. Again the Irish rose, when James II., the dethroned king, came to demand their aid; and again they were overthrown, this time in the memorable Battle of the Boyne. William III. now completed the work of confiscation. The greater part of the remaining province of Connaught was taken from its holders and given to English colonists. The natives of the island became a landless people in their own land.
The Cause of Irish Hatred of England
To complete their misery and degradation, William and the succeeding monarchs robbed them of all their commerce and manufactures, by forbidding them to trade with other countries. Their activity in this direction interfered with the profits of English producers and merchants. By these merciless and cruel methods the Irish were reduced to a nation of tenants, laborers and beggars, and such they still remain, downtrodden, oppressed, their most lively sentiment being their hatred of the English, to whom they justly impute their degradation.
The time came when England acknowledged with shame and sorrow the misery to which she had reduced a sister people—but it was then too late to retrieve the wrong. English landlords owned the land, manufacturing industry had been irretrievably crowded out, the evil done was past mending.
With these preliminary statements we come to the verge of the nineteenth century. America had rebelled against England and gained independence. This fact stirred up a new desire for liberty in the Irish. The island had always possessed a legislature of its own, but it was of no value to the natives. It represented only the great Protestant landowners, and could pass no act without the consent of the Privy Council of England.
Home Rule and the Act of Union
A demand for a national Parliament was made, and the English government, having its experience in America before its eyes, granted it, an act being passed in 1782 which made Ireland independent of England in legislation, a system such as is now called Home Rule. It was not enough. It did not pacify the island. The religious animosity between the Catholics and Protestants continued, and in 1798 violent disturbances broke out, with massacres on both sides.
The Irish Parliament was a Protestant body, and at first was elected solely by Protestant votes. Grattan, the eminent Irish statesman, through whose efforts this body had been made an independent legislature,—“The King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make laws for the people of Ireland,”—carried an act to permit Catholics to vote for its members. He then strove for a measure to permit Catholics to sit as members in the Irish Parliament. This was too much for George III. He recalled Lord Fitzwilliam, the viceroy of Ireland, who had encouraged and assisted Grattan and blighted the hopes of the Irish Catholics.
The United Irishmen and Act of Union
The revolt that followed was the work of a society called the United Irishmen, organized by Protestants, but devoted to the interests of Ireland. Wolfe Tone, one of its leading members, went to France and induced Napoleon to send an expedition to Ireland. A fleet was dispatched, but this, like the Spanish Armada, was dispersed by a storm, and the few Frenchmen who landed were soon captured. The rebellion was as quickly crushed, and was followed by deeds of remorseless cruelty, so shameful that they were denounced by the commander-in-chief himself. With this revolt the independence of Ireland ended. An act of union was offered and carried through the Irish Parliament by a very free use of money among the members, and the Irish Legislature was incorporated with the British one. Since January 1, 1801, all laws for Ireland have been made in London.
Among the most prominent members of the United Irishmen Society were two brothers named Emmet, the fate of one of whom has ever since been remembered with sympathy. Thomas A. Emmet, one of these brothers, was arrested in 1798 as a member of this society, and was imprisoned until 1802, when he was released on condition that he should spend the remainder of his life on foreign soil. He eventually reached New York, at whose bar he attained eminence. The fate of his more famous brother, Robert Emmet, was tragical. This young man, a school-fellow of Thomas Moore, the poet, was expelled from Trinity College in 1798, when twenty years of age, as a member of the United Irishmen. He went to the continent, interviewed Napoleon on behalf of the Irish cause, and returned in 1802 with a wild idea of freeing Ireland by his own efforts from English rule.
The Fate of Robert Emmet
Organizing a plan for a revolution, and expending his small fortune in the purchase of muskets and pikes, he formed a plot to seize Dublin Castle, capture the viceroy, and dominate the capital. At the head of a small body of followers he set out on this hopeless errand, which ended at the first volley of the guards, before which his confederates hastily dispersed. Emmet, who had dressed himself for the occasion in a green coat, white breeches and cocked hat, was deeply mortified at the complete failure of his scheme. He fled to the Wicklow mountains, whence, perceiving that success in his plans was impossible, he resolved to escape to the continent. But love led him to death. He was deeply attached to the daughter of Curran, the celebrated orator, and, in despite of the advice of his friends, would not consent to leave Ireland until he had seen her. The attempt was a fatal one. On his return from the interview with his lady-love he was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of high treason. He was condemned to death September 19, 1803, and was hanged the next day.
Before receiving sentence he made an address to the court of such noble and pathetic eloquence that it still thrills the reader with sympathetic emotion. It is frequently reprinted among examples of soul-stirring oratory. The disconsolate woman, Sarah Curran, perished of a broken heart after his untimely death. This event is the theme of one of Moore’s finest poems: “She is far from the land where her young hero lies.”
Landlords, Tenants and Clergy
The death of Emmet and the dispersal of the United Irishmen by no means ended the troubles in Ireland, but rather added to their force. Ireland and England, unlike in the character and religion of their people and in their institutions, continued in a state of hostility, masked or active, the old feuds being kept alive on the one side by the landlords, on the other by the peasantry and the clergy. The country was divided into a great number of small farms, thousands of them being less than five acres each in size. For these the landlords—many of whom the tenants never saw and some of whom had never seen Ireland—often exacted extravagant rents. Again, while the great majority of the people was Catholic, the Catholic clergy had to be supported by the voluntary contributions of the poverty-stricken people, while tithes, or church taxes, were exacted by law for the payment of clergymen of the English Church, who remained almost without congregations. Finally, the Catholics were disfranchised. After the abolishment of the IrishParliament they were without representation in the government under which they lived. No Catholic could be a member of Parliament. It is not surprising that their protest was vigorous, and that the British government had many rebellious outbreaks to put down.
O’Connell and Catholic Emancipation
It was the disfranchisement of the Catholics that first roused opposition. Grattan brought up a bill for “Catholic Emancipation”—that is, the admission of Catholics to the British Parliament and the repeal of certain ancient, and oppressive edicts—in 1813. The bill was lost, but a new and greater advocate of Irish rights now arose, Daniel O’Connell, the “Liberator,” the greatest of Irish orators and patriots, who for many years was to champion the cause of downtrodden Ireland.
The “Counsellor” and His Oratory
The “counsellor”—a favorite title of O’Connell among his Irish admirers—was a man of remarkable powers, noted for his boisterous Irish wit and good humor, his fearlessness and skill as a counsel, his constant tact and readiness in reply, his unrivalled skill in the cross-examination of Irish witnesses, and the violent language which he often employed in court. This man, of burly figure, giant strength, inexhaustible energy and power of work, a voice mighty enough to drown the noise of a crowd, a fine command of telling language, coarse but effective humor, ready and telling retort, and master of all the artillery of vituperation, was just the man to control the Irish people, passing with the ease of a master from bursts of passion and outbreaks of buffoonery to passages of the tenderest pathos. Thoroughly Irish, he seemed made by nature to sustain the cause of Ireland.
O’Connell was shrewd enough to deter revolt, and, while awakening in the Irish the spirit of nationality, he taught them to keep political agitation within constitutional limits, and seek by legislative means what they had no hope of gaining by force of arms. His legal practice was enormous, yet amid it he found time for convivial relaxation and for a deep plunge into the whirlpool of politics.
The Irish Association
The vigorous advocate was not long in rising to the chiefship of the Irish party, but his effective work in favor of Catholic emancipation began in 1823, when he founded the “Irish Association,” a gigantic system of organization which Ireland had nothing similar to before. The clergy were disinclined to take part in this movement, but O’Connell’s eloquence brought them in before the end of the year, and under their influence it became national, spreading irresistibly throughout the land and rousing everywhere the greatest enthusiasm. To obtain funds for its support the “Catholic Rent” was established—one penny a month—which yielded as much as £500 per week.
In alarm at the growth of this association, the government brought in a bill for its suppression, but O’Connell, too shrewd to come into conflict with the authorities, forstalled them by dissolving it in 1825. He had set the ball rolling. The Irish forty-shilling freeholders gained courage to oppose their landlords in the elections. In 1826 they carried Waterford. In 1828 O’Connell himself stood as member of parliament for Clare, and was elected amid the intense enthusiasm of the people.
This triumph set the whole country in a flame. The lord-lieutenant looked for an insurrection, and even Lord Wellington, prime minister of England, was alarmed at the threatening outlook. But O’Connell, knowing that an outbreak would be ruinous to the Catholic cause, used his marvelous powers to still the agitation and to induce the people to wait for parliamentary relief.
O’Connell in Parliament
This relief came the following year. A bill was passed which admitted Catholics to parliament, and under it O’Connell made his appearance in the House of Commons May 15, 1829. He declined to take the old oaths, which had been repealed by the bill. The House refused to admit him on these conditions, and he went down to Clare again, which sent him back like a conqueror. At the beginning of 1830 he took his seat unopposed.
O’Connell’s career in parliament was one of persistent labor for the repeal of the “Act of Union” with Great Britain, and Home Rule for Ireland, in the advocacy of which he kept the country stirred up for years. The abolition of tithes for the support of the Anglican clergy was another of his great subjects of agitation, and this one member had the strength of a host as an advocate of justice and freedom for his country.
The Tithe Troubles
The agitation on the Catholic question had quickened the sense of the wrongs of Ireland, and the Catholics were soon engaged in a crusade against tithes and the established Church, which formed the most offensive symbols of their inferior position in the state. In 1830 the potato crop in Ireland was very poor, and wide-spread misery and destitution prevailed. O’Connell advised the people to pay no tithes, but in this matter they passed beyond his control, and for months crime ran rampant. The farmers refused to pay tithes or rents, armed bands marched through the island, and murder and incendiarism visited the homes of the rich. A stringent coercion bill was enacted and the troubles were put down by the strong hand of the law. Subsequently the Whig party, then in power, practically abolished tithes, cutting down the revenue of the Established Church, and using the remainder for secular purposes, and the agitation subsided.
In 1832 O’Connell became member for Dublin, and nominated most of the Irish candidates, with such effect that he had in the next Parliament a following of forty-five members, known sarcastically as his “tail.” He gradually attained a position of great eminence in the House of Commons, standing in the first rank of parliamentary orators as a debater.
The Home Rule Crusade
When a Tory ministry came into power, in 1841, O’Connell began a vigorous agitation in favor of repeal of the Act of Union and of Home Rule for Ireland, advocating the measure with all his wonderful power of oratory. In 1843 he travelled 5,000 miles through Ireland, speaking to immense meetings, attended by hundreds of thousands of people, and extending to every corner of the island. But thanks to his great controlling power, and the influence of Father Mathew, the famous temperance advocate, these audiences were never unruly mobs, but remained free from crime and drunkenness. The greatest was that held on the Hill of Tara, at which, according to theNation, three-quarters of a million persons were present.
O’Connell wisely deprecated rebellion and bloodshed. “He who commits a crime adds strength to the enemy,” was his favorite motto. Through a whole generation, with wonderful skill, he kept the public mind at the highest pitch of political excitement, yet restrained it from violence. But with all his power the old chief began to lose control of the enthusiastic Young Ireland party and, confident that the government must soon yield to the impassioned appeal from a whole nation, he allowed himself in his speeches to outrun his sober judgment.
O’Connell Imprisoned
Fearful of an outbreak of violence, the government determined to put an end to these enormous meetings, and a force of 35,000 men was sent to Ireland. A great meeting had been called for Clantarf on October 5, 1843, but it was forbidden the day before by the authorities, and O’Connell, fearing bloodshed, abandoned it. He was arrested, however, tried for a conspiracy to arouse sedition, and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and a fine of £2,000. This sentence was set aside by the House of Lords some months afterward as erroneous, and at once bonfires blazed across Ireland from sea to sea. But the three months he passed in prison proved fatal to the old chief, then nearly seventy years old. He contracted a disease which carried him to the grave three years afterwards.
The Young Ireland Rebellion
During his withdrawal the Young Ireland party began to advocate resistance to the government. In 1846 and 1847 came the potato famine, the most severe visitation Ireland had known during the century, and in 1848 the revolutionary movement in Europe made itself felt on Irish soil.In the latter year the ardent Young Ireland party carried the country into rebellion; but the outbreak was easily put down, hardly a drop of blood being shed in its suppression. The popular leader, Smith O’Brien, was banished to Australia, but was eventually pardoned. John Mitchell, editor of theNationand theUnited Irishman, was also banished, but subsequently escaped from Australia to the United States.
The wrongs of Ireland remained unredeemed, and as long as this was the case quiet could not be looked for in the island. In 1858 a Phœnix conspiracy was discovered and suppressed. Meanwhile John O’Mahony, one of the insurgents of 1848, organized a formidable secret society among the Irish in the United States, which he named the Fenian Brotherhood, after Finn, the hero of Irish legend. This organization was opposed by the Catholic clergy, but grew despite their opposition, its members becoming numerous and its funds large.
The Fenian Brotherhood
Its leader in Ireland was James Stephens, and its organ theIrish Peoplenewspaper. But there were traitors in the camp and in 1865 the paper was suppressed and the leaders were arrested. Stephens escaped from prison ten days after his arrest and made his way to America. The revolutionary activity of this association was small. There were some minor outbreaks and an abortive attempt to seize Chester Castle, and in September, 1867, an attack was made on a police van in Manchester, and the prisoners, who were Fenians, were rescued. Soon after an attempt was made to blow down Clerkenwell Prison wall, with the same purpose in view.
The Fenians in the United States organized a plot in 1866 for a raid upon Canada, which utterly failed, and in 1871 the government of this country put a summary end to a similar expedition. With this the active existence of the Fenian organization ended, unless we may ascribe to it the subsequent attempts to blow down important structures in London with dynamite.
Land Holding Reform in Ireland
These movements, while ineffective as attempts at insurrection, had their influence in arousing the more thoughtful statesmen of England to the causes for discontent and need of reform in Ireland, and since that period the Irish question has been the most prominent one in Parliament. Such men as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright took the matter in hand, Gladstone presenting a bill for the final abolition of Irish tithes and the disestablishment of the English Church in Ireland. This was adopted in 1868, and the question of the reform of land holding was next taken up, a series of measures being passed to improve thecondition of the Irish tenant farmer. If ejected, he was to be compensated for improvements he had made, and a Land Commission was formed with the power to reduce rents where this seemed necessary, and also to fix the rent for a term of years. At a later date a Land Purchase Commission was organized, to aid tenants in buying their farms from the landlords, by an advance of a large portion of the purchase money, with provision for gradual repayment.
The Home Rule Agitation
These measures did not put an end to the agitation. Numerous ejections from farms for non-payment of rent had been going on, and a fierce struggle was raging between the peasants and the agents of the absentee landlords. The disturbance was great, and successive Coercion Acts were passed. The peasants were supported by the powerful Land League, while the old question of Home Rule was revived again, under the active leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, who headed a small but very determined body in Parliament. The succeeding legislation for Ireland, engineered by Mr. Gladstone, to the passage in the House of Commons of the Home Rule Bill of 1893, has been sufficiently described in the preceding chapter, and need not be repeated here. It will suffice to say in conclusion, that the demand for Home Rule still exists, and that, in spite of all efforts at reform, the position of the Irish peasant is far from being satisfactory, the most prolific crop in that long-oppressed land seemingly being one of beggary and semi-starvation.
The Black Hole of Calcutta
In 1756, in the town of Calcutta, the headquarters of the British in India, there occurred a terrible disaster. A Bengalese army marched upon and captured the town, taking prisoner all the English who had not escaped to their ships. The whole of these unfortunates, 146 in number, were thrust into the “black hole,” a small room about eighteen feet square, with two small windows. It was a night of tropical heat. The air of the crowded and unventilated room soon became unfit to breathe. The victims fought each other fiercely to reach the windows. The next morning, when the door was opened, only twenty-three of them remained alive. Such is the famous story of the “black hole of Calcutta.”
Clive and the Battle of Plassey
In the following year (1757) this barbarism was avenged. On the battlefield of Plassey stood an army of about 1,000 British and 2,100 Sepoys, with nine pieces of artillery. Opposed to them were 50,000 native infantry and 18,000 cavalry, with fifty cannon. The disproportion was enormous, but at the head of the British army was a great leader, Robert Clive, who had come out to India as a humble clerk, but was now commander of an army. A brief conflict ended the affair. The unwieldy native army fled. Clive’s handful of men stood victorious on the most famous field of Indian warfare.
This battle is taken as the beginning of the British Empire in India. It is of interest to remember that just one hundred years later, in 1857, that empire reached the most perilous point in its career, in the outbreak of the great Indian mutiny. Plassey settled one question. It gave India to the English in preference to the French, in whose interest the natives were fighting. The empire which Clive founded was organized by Warren Hastings, the ablest but the most unscrupulous of the governors of India. At the opening of the nineteenth century the British power in India was firmly established.
Wellesley’s Career in India
In 1798 the Marquis of Wellesley—afterwards known as Lord Wellington—was made governor. Even there he had his future great antagonist to guard against, for Napoleon was at that time in Egypt, and was thought to have the design of driving theBritish from India and restoring that great dominion to France. Wellesley’s career in India was a brilliant one. He overthrew the powerful Marhatta Confederacy, gained victory after victory over the native chiefs and kings, captured the great Mogul cities of Delhi and Agra, and spread the power of the British arms far and wide through the peninsula.
In the succeeding years war after war took place. The warlike Marhattas rebelled and were again put down, other tribes were conquered, and in 1824 the city of Bhartpur in Central India, believed by the natives to be impregnable, was taken by storm, and the reputation of the British as indomitable fighters was greatly enhanced. Rapidly the British power extended until nearly the whole peninsula was subdued. In 1837 the conquerors of India began to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan, and a British garrison was placed in Cabul, the capital of that country, in 1839.
The Terrible Retreat from Cabul
Two years they stayed there, and then came to them one of the greatest catastrophes in the history of the British army. Surrounded by hostile and daring Afghans, the situation of the garrison grew so perilous that it seemed suicidal to remain in Cabul, and it was determined to evacuate the city and retreat to India through the difficult passes of the Himalayas. In January, 1842, they set out, 4,000 fighting men and 12,000 camp followers. Deep snows covered the hills and all around them swarmed the Afghans, savage and implacable, bent on their utter destruction, attacking them from every point of vantage, cutting down women and children with the same ruthless cruelty as they displayed in the case of men. One terrible week passed, then, on the afternoon of January 13th, the sentinels at the Cabul gate of Jelalabad saw approaching a miserable, haggard man, barely able to sit upon his horse. Utterly exhausted, covered with cuts and contusions, he rode through the gate, and announced himself as Dr. Brydan, the sole survivor of the army which had left Cabul one week before. The remainder, men, women, and children,—except a few who had been taken prisoners,—lay slaughtered along that dreadful road, their mangled bodies covering almost every foot of its bloodstained length.
The British exacted revenge for this terrible massacre. A powerful force fought its way back to Cabul, defeated the Afghans wherever met, and rescued the few prisoners in the Afghan hands. Then the soldiers turned their backs on Cabul, which no British army was to see again for nearly forty years.