By the operation of the measures which I have now described, the Irish people and the Irish administration were put at issue. The system to which the Castle had resorted to silence murmur, had produced outrage—themeasures which they took to punish outrage had created conspiracy, assassination, and, in many instances, treason. Throughout the whole process of discontent, I have shewed that administration were aggressors, and that the irregularities which have followed were but the reaction of an high and irritable spirit in the people, compressed by coercion, which left no vent to its feelings but in acts of private or public violence.
At this point the administration found it necessary to pause. The measures which they had already tried to smother the discontents of the people, and to repress those violent and illegal consequences of it, had not only proved ineffectual, but had aggravated, to a most alarming height, the mischiefs which they were sottishly expected to remedy. In almost every part of the country the most extreme disorder prevailed. It was not now a Volunteer Convention, consisting of men of known loyalty and great stake in the country, meeting to petition for reform—it was not now a Catholic Convention sitting in Dublin, pursuing open and constitutional measures to obtain elective franchise, or a full admission to the privileges of the constitution—it was not, I say, suchbodies as these that administration had to cope with. They had put down those. Other more numerous and more dangerous difficulties were now to be encountered. The populace of the country was now organized, and animperium in imperioformed, which, from its privacy and the numbers of which it consisted, was truly alarming. The professed objects of this society, the most singular which perhaps had ever been formed in any country, still continued what they originally were—Reform and Emancipation. But papers were found which were supposed to prove, that their designs were more dangerous and more extensive; and a letter from a Mr. Tone, which clearly expressed a treasonable opinion respecting a separation of the two countries was taken as full evidence that this was the sentiment of the society at large, consisting, as was believed, of not less than 600,000 men. Whatever might betheirreal designs, it was certain, that the conduct of the Orange-men of Armagh had been successfully imitated by the peasantry in many parts of Ireland. The plunder of arms was carried on systematically; the quantity taken was known to be considerable; and in the proclaimed districts several magistrates who had beenactive in transporting suspected persons, &c. &c. had been assassinated.
In this critical moment, the best and wisest men in Ireland, gentlemen possessed of the most extensive property in the country, and at the same time of character above the slightest imputation of disaffection or loyalty, urged on administration the necessity of changing that system which had been found to produce such horrible effects. They urged, that the great body of the nation was loyal—that even of the United Irishmen the greater part wished only for the admission of the Catholics and reform—and that to concede these would throw such a weight into the scale of government as would effectually tranquillize the country. Administration, however, took up the contrary opinion, and decided on a continuation of coercive measures. They pretended, that the people of Ireland were rebels, and that with rebels conciliation should not be tried. They assumed, in the first place, that all the United Irishmen were traitors—in the second, that that society comprehended the great body of the people, or that those who were not of that body approved heartily of all the measures which had beencarried on for some years back by the Irish Cabinet. No account was made of that great and respectable class of men who, while they looked with detestation on those acts of insubordination, of assassination, and treason, which had followed the adoption of the present system, contemplated with the most unqualified reprobation that system itself. Determined, therefore, to scourge the nation out of that ill temper into which the scourge had driven it, what step did administration fix on? They send a military force under General Lake to the province of Ulster, and enjoin him to act at his discretion for disarming the freemen of the North, and enforcing content and tranquillity at the point of the bayonet!
It is not necessary to waste much reasoning on this measure. The constitution prescribes the interposition of the sword only in cases of open insurrection or rebellion. If the province of Ulster was in that state, what indignation must not the two countries feel at the wicked pertinacity of the Irish Cabinet in a system which led to that issue? If it were not in rebellion, what punishment could be too great for those who resorted without necessity to that last and dreadful remedy—a military force vested withdiscretionary powers, for disorders properly within the cognizance of the civil magistrate? But the administration justify themselves by the plea, that the proceedings of these United Irishmen were too subtle and cautious to be met by the ordinary exertions of the civil power, though they were not yet in open rebellion. They must take the praise, therefore, of having created a new species of opposition to established government, hitherto unknown, by directing, without intermission, the force of the state not against open violence, but against political principle; by warring, not with men whose aim was anarchy and plunder, but men skilled in, and zealous for, the perfection of the representative system.
But I deny that Ulster was in such a state as to justify the measure that was then taken—for it was not in open and avowed rebellion, nor was the system of the disorderly people in that province either too subtle or too strong for an active magistracy, constitutionally aided by the military. The disturbances amounted to nothing more than the assemblage now and then of parties of people on the original principle of the Orange-men (who to the disgrace of legislature, have, in a certain place, more thanonce, been called the friends of the constitution,) breaking houses and plundering arms; and I contend, that with a proper force left always at the disposal and under the direction of active magistrates, those individual acts of outrage might have been prevented. The pretext, that the magistrates were terrified from acting by frequent assassination, is empty—courage is not exclusively the boast of the military in Ireland; and every country in which the Insurrection Act has been carried into operation has produced numbers of magistrates who dared to meet all the odium and all the danger which the execution of that unpopular act imposed on them.
Under this Proclamation, Gen. Lake deprived of arms not only the traiterous and the disaffected, but the loyal and most zealous friends of the constitution. Where arms were expected and not found, a very new mode of trial was instituted. The suspected or accused person was suspended by the neck until the process of strangulation was nearly completed. He was then let down, and if he was still pertinacious, the touchstone was again tried, until he either confessed or accused others. In other cases, it was ascertained what quantity ofarms should be brought in by a certain village or district—if the full quantity could not be produced by the inhabitants, their habitations were reduced to ashes to detect the concealment. These seem to have been ordinary modes of proceeding under the military system; there were others more irregular and eccentric which the zeal of the soldiers frequently prompted them to indulge in.
Of the system thus steadily pursued by the Irish administration, the Irish legislature expressed their most hearty and zealous approbation.—Throughout the whole train of violent measures to which the Irish administration resorted, the Irish Parliament went with thempari passu. Without stopping to enquire whether this co-operation of the legislature tended rather to reconcile the people to the system than to encrease the discontents which it was naturally calculated to produce, it is certain that some very celebrated characters, whose opinions in this case deserve to be respected, had declared the most decided disapprobation of at least that part of it which related to the military. The conduct of my Lord Moira, in the Parliament of both countries, himself a soldier, an Irish nobleman, and one possessed of such a stake in thecountry as must make him anxious for its welfare and its peace, has already perhaps inclined the British public to doubt whether the enormities practised under that system were tolerable in any country. The manly and candid opinion of the brave old Abercrombie, "That the conduct of the army in Ireland was calculated to make them formidable only to their friends," must have also had its weight in ascertaining the merits of that system. That the feelings and the honour of that venerable officer did not suffer him longer to remain in the command of the Irish army, Ireland will long have reason to lament. The influence of evenonesuch mind on Irish politics would have produced the most important benefits.
For some time the administration boasted that they had at length found the way to quiet the country. In fact, the operations of the military in Ulster did reduce that province to a state of peace, and no disturbance existed but what the army itself created. Less violent and unconstitutional measures would have prevented acts of outrage—but neither this, nor any measure of coercion, could have eradicated discontent. As the infliction of the military system produced a gloomy quiet in one partof the island, the disturbances broke out with much encreased enormity in other parts of the country.—The South, hitherto tranquil, and which at the moment of danger, when the enemy appeared on the coast a few months before, exhibited the most enthusiastic spirit of zeal and loyalty, now became convulsed by partial risings to an alarming degree. The interior of the country, the King's and Queen's County, the County of Kildare, and even the vicinity of the metropolis, the Counties of Wicklow and of Dublin, were now in as bad a state as the pacified North had ever been. Every reasonable man, who believes that nothing can be produced without a producing cause, must attribute this change of temper in the South and other parts of the country to some circumstance which did not exist at the time of the invasion; and that circumstance could only be the introduction of the military system—of the efficacy of which administration had so much vaunted. But powerful as they supposed that system to be, they were not inclined to depend on its efficacy, such as they had tried it. They therefore now resorted to a measure which has hitherto been used only by irritated victors over perfidious and vanquish'd enemies—they sent them troops, not to disarmthe inhabitants of a district, or to act with discretionary powers for, what was now a general pretext for violence of every species, the preservation of the public peace; but permanently to live at free quarters on all the inhabitants of those counties which were in what was called a disturbed state. Under this measure, excesses were committed which Ireland, much as she had suffered, had not yet witnessed. It was not the burning of a peasant's house, or the strangulation of one or two individuals in a village, which struck the eye of a spectator—but the houses of the most respectable farmers in the country, nay, houses of gentlemen of large fortune, and, in many instances, of the most approved loyalty, converted into barracks by the soldiery—the females of the family flying from the insults of these new guests, who rioted on the provision, emptied the cellars of their unwilling hosts, and when they had exhausted the house which they occupied sent their mandate to the neighbourhood to bring in a fresh stock!
At this point I stop—for here the fate of Ireland comes to its crisis. This measure was in operation not three weeks, when the rebels, the traitors, or the people of Ireland, to the sorrow of every friend to peace, to the Irishname, and to the British connection, stood forth in opposition to the King's troops. The scene of blood is now opened. Ireland is wasting her vital strength in convulsion; and whether victory or defeat await them, humanity, loyalty, and patriotism must weep over the event!
When I solicit the people of England attentively to consider that long train of harsh and hideous measures which I have now enumerated, and which have brought Ireland into this lamentable condition—when I call on them to examine with anxious care the motives in which they originated, and the end to which they lead—I call on them to attend to that in which they are deeply interested. In my mind they have been adopted but for one purpose—to raise on the broad basis ofCORRUPT INFLUENCEa system of government, which, under the form of the British constitution, should stand independent of, and in opposition to, the sense of the nation. I rest this opinion on two grounds—The one is, because each successive measure taken up by administration to counteract the wishes of the people, carried in it features of despotism, which in a free country the necessity of the case could not call for. Every bill of pains and penalties to which they resortedinvolved and asserted a general and permanent principle, or gave the Executive a general and extraordinary power, inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, though the occasions which gave rise to those measures were but partial or transient. I refer for instances to the Convention Act, the Insurrection Act, the Gunpowder Act, and the Press Bill, a measure which, in my enumeration of the violent steps taken by the Irish government, escaped me, though perhaps it is, of all the dreadful groupe, the most prominent and most fatal to liberty and the constitution.—The other reason on which my opinion rests is, because administration have persevered in that system without making any one effort to allay discontent or satisfy the moderate and loyal part of the community by the concession of any of those measures on which the heart of the nation was fixed—because they have gone on in opposition to the sense of the best men in the empire to force the people of Ireland, or the discontented part of it, into open and avowed rebellion, rather than try any means to prevent that catastrophe by conciliating measures—because this intention was avowed and gloried in[2]—and, finally, because fromthe outset of their career they have resorted to military coercion in every case where they could find, or create, the slightest pretence for the use of that dreadful engine.
The flame which by these means has been kindled in Ireland can be extinguished but in one of two ways—either the rebels aided by the power of France will succeed in wresting Ireland from the British connection, or the military force with which the Irish government is entrusted will stifle in blood the discontents of the country. Of the first there is happily no danger. The numbers of the insurgents is much too small to endanger the connection, and that moderate and loyal party, which administration have hitherto treated with contempt, is too strong and too much attached to the present form of government, notwithstanding what they had suffered, either to be overcome by the force, or seduced by the artifice of disaffection, to forego their allegiance. There remains then only the other alternative—and of that what will be the effect? Rebellion will be quelled by power, but the existing causes of discontent—those causes which through a long series of petty conflicts have at length terminated in the present dreadful issue, will remain rankling in thebosom of the country. Conscious of its force, administration will, with an high hand, bear still more hard on the constitutional rights of the people—at least against those rights which are calculated to guard them against the tyranny of an ambitious faction. Knowing the hatred which the Irish nation bear to the set who have heaped on her head those calamities under which she now groans, and of which centuries will not remove the effects, will the Irish administration, think you, resign that extraordinary unconstitutional force which in course of the struggle they have acquired? Impossible! If we can reason at all on the event, it is most reasonable to believe, that the military system which shall have subdued the discontents of Ireland, will continue to govern it. Will it be for the safety, or for the honour of England that her sister country should be a military despotism?
In one event only, then, does there appear to be a gleam of hope that Ireland may yet become a free, happy, and contented member of the British empire—and that is, in a suppression of the present insurrection—in a change of the men by whom the affairs of Ireland have been for some years so abominably administered—andin a change of that system which has hitherto been pursued by them. If Englishmen value their own liberty, which the contiguity of despotism must always hazard, or feel sympathy for the sufferings of an unfortunate people, whose attachment to Britain has been proved during the course of an anxious and changeful century, to these objects will they direct their efforts.
Already thousands of the people of Ireland have fallen in the contest—and yet the standard of rebellion is erect. More of the blood of Ireland must be shed, before Ireland, under the present system, is restored to peace. A military chief governor has been sent over, not to appease but to subdue. Hemaysubdue—but is it the pride of a British King to rule a depopulated, a desolated, and a discontented country? Will fire and sword restore content and confidence to the land? Will the slaughter of a hundred thousand of the people of Ireland reconcile the survivors to that system of mal-government which they have risen to oppose? Will the faction which has provoked this scene of slaughter, become more popular by the carnage they have occasioned?
Englishmen!—your fellow subjects of Ireland now call on you to consider the case of a distracted country, as that of brethren united by the tie of a common nature, and by the still closer tie of a common Sovereign; both entitled to the advantages of the same constitution, each depending, in some measure, on the others strength. For one hundred years you have found in the people of Ireland a faithful and firm friend—though for much of that period we laboured under the most distressing disadvantages, destitute of the means of wealth, and aliens from the most important benefits of the British constitution, we have yet borne our sufferings with patient and uncomplaining attachment to a British Sovereign, and to the British cause. In our poverty we still contributed to the exigencies of the empire. When an extension of our means enabled us to give more largely towards the common stock, we poured forth our blood and treasure in the cause of Britain with more than the zeal of brothers. In our fallen state, with an island reeking with blood, and the sword at our throat, directed by an administration in the best and in the worst of times hostile to Ireland, we call upon you to assist in rescuing our country from utter and irretrievable ruin—we implore you to interferefor us with our common Sovereign—to solicit at his paternal hand the removal of those wicked men, who by abusing the confidence of their Sovereign, and sacrificing their duty to his people, to the gratification of ambitious views or native malevolence, have belied the Irish nation; and by their obstinate and relentless cruelty have driven it to madness. We conjure you to think of us as of men enamoured of liberty and animated by that zealous attachment to monarchy, limited by law, which has given immortality to the name of Englishmen—though at the same time, as of men, among whom many have been hurried into unpardonable indiscretions while the great body remain a loyal, though a suffering people.—In a word, we solicit your sympathy as brethren, and your influence as fellow subjects, with the common Father of both kingdoms, to save four millions of people from the insulting tyranny of Ministers who have abused their powers, and, instead of the mild genius of the British constitution, have governed by the galling despotism of a military mob!
FOOTNOTES:[1]Vide Irish Chancellor's speech on Lord Moira's motion.[2]See Mr. J. Claud Beresford's Speeches in the House of Commons during the session of 1797.
[1]Vide Irish Chancellor's speech on Lord Moira's motion.
[1]Vide Irish Chancellor's speech on Lord Moira's motion.
[2]See Mr. J. Claud Beresford's Speeches in the House of Commons during the session of 1797.
[2]See Mr. J. Claud Beresford's Speeches in the House of Commons during the session of 1797.