All the foregoing testimonies are damaging to the Provost’s memory; but it is only fair to remember that all of them are the utterances of men who were his envious and unscrupulous personal enemies. In some respects John Hely Hutchinson was bad enough, but the most abiding charge against him is that of greediness and place-traffic; and in this transgression it is probable that he only sinned more deeply than most of the public men around him. He certainly was audacious in his demands, but he was a king in jobbery. What Duigenan does not at all account for is, how Hutchinson was able to drive all these flourishing bargains, and to hold such high place under various administrations and in the teeth of combining rivalries—and still this is a circumstance that ought, biographically, to be accounted for. The etiology is supplied in other contemporary sources, written in a more discerning spirit—and it is this, that the Provost was a man of immense ability, and of rare personal ascendency. He possessed, moreover, in a signal degree, the undaunted personal couragewhich, as mentioned further on,[67]was inherited by his sons and grandson; although Duigenan, who was himself very much of the Bob Acre type, refuses him even this credit, and mocks his sham duels.[68]He knew how to make himself both dreaded and desired by the Government, for he could be either its greatest help or its most formidable opponent. He knew the men he had to deal with, and he dealt with them according to the knowledge.
We have descriptions of the Provost in many contemporary works, and these descriptions, while they make no secret of his rapacity, present a strong reverse side to the “Pranceriana” picture.[69]
Thus Hardy[70]says: “John Hely Hutchinson, father to the Earl of Donoughmore and Lord Hutchinson,introduced a classical idiom into the House of Commons. No member was ever more extolled than he was on his first appearance there. He opposed Government on almost every question, but his opposition was of no long continuance. As an orator his expression was fluent, easy, and lively; his wit fertile and abundant; his invective admirable, not so much from any particular energy of temperament or diction, as from being always unclogged with anything superfluous, or which could at all diminish the justness and brilliancy of its colouring. It ran along with the feelings of the House and never went beyond them.... The consequence of this assumed calmness was that he never was stopped.... The members for a long time remembered his satire, and the objects of it seldom forgave it.... In his personal contests with Mr. Flood (and in the more early part of their parliamentary careers they were engaged in many) he is supposed to have had the advantage.... To Flood’s anger, Hutchinson opposed the powers of ridicule; to his strength he opposed refinement; to the weight of his oratory an easy, flexible ingenuity, nice discrimination, and graceful appeal to the passions. As the debate ran high, Flood’s eloquence alternately displayed austere reasoning and tempestuous reproof; its colours were chaste but gloomy; Hutchinson’s, on the contrary, were of ‘those which April wears,’ bright, various, and transitory; but it was a vernal evening after a storm, and he was esteemed the most successful because he was the most pleasing.... Mr. Gerrard Hamilton (than whom a better judge of public speaking has seldom been seen) observed that in his support of Government Hutchinson had always something tosay which gratified the House. ‘He can go out in all weathers, and as a debater is therefore inestimable.’ He had attended much to the stage, and in his younger days he lived on great habits of intimacy with Quin, who admired his talents and improved his elocution.... He never recommended a bad measure, nor appeared a champion for British interest in preference to that of his own country. He was not awed into silence; he supported the Octennial Bill, the Free Trade Bill, and the Catholic Bill.... His acceptance of the Provostship of Trinity College was an unwise step.... After a long enjoyment of parliamentary fame it was then said that he was no speaker, and after the most lucrative practice at the Bar that he was no lawyer.... His country thought far otherwise, and his reputation as a man of genius, and an active, well-informed statesman, remained undiminished to the last. He left the opposition in 1760, and took the Prime Serjeancy.... In private life he was amiable, and in the several duties of father and husband most exemplary. In 1789, on the debate about the Prince of Wales’s regency, Grattan opposing the administration was supported with great ability by Hutchinson, then Secretary of State. In the Lords, Lord Donoughmore took the same side. In 1792, in the debate on Langrishe’s Bill for the restoration of the elective franchise to Irish Catholics, Hutchinson’s two sons (Francis [?], afterwards Lord Donoughmore, and the one afterwards Lord Hutchinson) voted in the minority with the patriots.”
TheGentleman’s Magazine(1794) says that he was a wondrously gifted man and one of the most remarkable persons that this country ever produced. At the sametime it calls him a rank courtier, and recites most of the “Pranceriana” and “Lachrymæ” tattle against him.
Grattan and Grattan’s son held a very high opinion both of his genius and of his fidelity to the interests of Ireland. Both of the Grattans, on the other hand, had a horror of Duigenan, as a truculent and coarse vulgarian. It is in Grattan’s “Life” that we are told about Duigenan’s threatening in the Law Courts to “bulge the Provost’s eye,” and it is there that Curran’s epigram on Duigenan’s oratory is preserved.[71]
Grattan says that Hutchinson supported every honest measure—all the main and essential ones, such as the Claim of Right, Free Trade, the Catholic Bills, Reform, and the Pension Bill. “He was the servant of many governments, but he was an Irishman notwithstanding.” He possessed greater power of satire than any man of his day, and Grattan quotes Horace Walpole’s anecdote about his habit of annoying Rigby and the Government when he wanted to make himself disagreeable to them. At other times he was immensely useful to the Government. Grattan considered that his chief fault was want of openness and directness of character, together with love of self-advancement. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Grattan, and took a prominent part in demanding for him the national presentation in 1782.
Taylor[72]says that Hutchinson was a very effective Provost, that he restored the discipline of the place, and that to him the University owes the improvement of the modern languages professorships. Taylor adds that hewas a man of an enlightened mind and extended views, and that it is now admitted his views were consonant with the best principles of education.
Lord North knew Hutchinson’s peculiarity well, and he said that “if England and Ireland were given to him he would want the Isle of Man for a potato garden.” The Duke of Rutland, Lord Lieutenant here in 1784, formed a similar estimate, when he wrote that “the Provost had always some object in view, and that his objects were not generally marked with the character of moderation and humility.”[73]
Dr. Wills[74]gives Provost Hely Hutchinson a very high place amongst the eminent men of the country, and mentions his eloquence and college reforms as well as his greed.
Even Mr. Froude,[75]who vastly dislikes himself and his sons, is constrained to call him the “able and brilliant Hely Hutchinson,” and to tell of his “meridian splendour.” He quotes Lord Lieutenant Townshend’s statement that he was “the most popular man in parliament to conduct a debate.”
The famous Colonel Isaac Barrè,[76]who, as he got Scholarship in 1744, was a college class-fellow of Hutchinson, gives the following description of him in 1768:—“When the Army Augmentation Bill was introduced by Tom Connoly, it was opposed by Sexten Pery on constitutional grounds, and by the Attorney General (Tisdall) ongrounds that left him free to support the Bill afterwards if it were his interest to do so.[77]
“The Prime Serjeant (Hutchinson)” says Barrè “was not so prudent[78](as Tisdall), and opposed it in a long, languid speech, full of false calculations; among the rest this curious one, that adding £40,000 per annum to the national expense was, in fact, adding a million to its debt, and that the nation, in the next session, would be £1,800,000 in debt. If all this is true, how will he have the impudence to support this measure hereafter? But, indeed, he has contradicted himself three or four times in the course of this session upon this subject.[79]He talks now of being dismissed. His profit by his employment is trifling, not above three or four hundred a year.[80]
“He is personally disliked, a mean gambler—not one great point in him—and exceedingly unpopular in this country. I must tell you a short anecdote which put him very much out of temper. The day after the first divisionhe came to Council in a hackney chair, which happened, unluckily, to be No. 108 (the number of the majority). A young officer at the Castle wrote under the number of the chair, “COURT” in large characters, and at the top a coronet was drawn.[81]
“He denied positively in the beginning of his speech, any bargain or terms proposed by him at the Castle, but was not believed.... As far as I am able to judge,” continues Barrè, “this country is manageable easily enough. The prevailing faction exists only by your want of system in England. They have no abilities, and their present and only friend, Hutchinson (for Tisdall is quite broken), cannot be depended on for a moment.”
In the last volume (vol. viii.) of the “Historical Manuscripts Report” we find some very interesting mentions of Hutchinson in the letters that passed between “Single Speech” Hamilton and Edmund Sexten Pery. Both of these eminent men entertained a high opinion of, and a sincere personal regard for, the Provost. In 1771, Hamilton, who was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, and had been Chief Secretary to two Lord Lieutenants (Lords Halifax and Northumberland) wrote to Pery, the Speaker[82]of the House:—“As long as you and Andrews and Hutchinson are in being and business, Ireland will never want attractions sufficient to make me prefer it to a situation of ‘more splendour and greater influence.’”
Two years later, Hamilton wrote to Pery about the collapse of the negotiations for his resigning the Exchequer Chancellorship in Hutchinson’s favour, and begged that Hutchinson would not again require him to sacrifice his own solid and substantial interests. Another letter, dated 1779, says that Flood was eagerly canvassing for the post, and that Hutchinson was discontented. The Chancellorship was not given to either of the rivals—it was given to Foster, who was afterwards Speaker; and Hutchinson accordingly failed to score a second triumph over “the generous-minded, ornamental, sonorous-voiced Henry Flood, who was eclipsing his meridian splendour.”[83]
In 1777 the Corporation of Dublin petitioned the Provost and Board for a free education for the son of the deceased patriot, Dr. Lucas. The College authorities responded in a literal spirit, and generously granted to the lad not only a remission of fees, but free rooms and free commons as well.[84]
In 1779, were published the “Commercial Restraints,” which in its original shape was, a contribution to Lord Lieutenant Buckinghamshire as to the best method of extricating the country from its discontent and troubles. Froude says (vol. ii., p. 223), that it was the most important of all the opinions gathered by the Viceroy, and that it earned Hutchinson’s pardon from Irish patriotism for his subserviency to the Court and Lord Townshend. The work is an extremely able review of the whole history andcondition of our native Irish trade and industries, and it is as loyal in its nationality as it is able. It is the only specimen we have to show us the Provost as a writer and as an economist, and it certainly secures him a high place in these two estimates.
In this aspect the work possesses a great biographical value, inasmuch as it serves to complete the likeness of the Provost, and the complement which it supplies falls in line with the best features of the original. Although his sentences are often slovenly and sometimes ungrammatical, he could write forcibly and clearly, as well as speak persuasively and rhetorically; he could make facts and figures deliver their lesson; he could summon up the ghost of the past to illustrate and enforce the duties of the present; he could enwrap a message of peace in a mantle of warning; and when no selfish interest intervened he could fling his sword into the scale that was freighted with his country’s welfare.
During Hutchinson’s Provostship His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Buckinghamshire, went in state to the University, and was received at the entrance of the Old Hall by the Provost and Fellows. At his entrance, Dr. Kearney made an eloquent oration; at the printing office, where H. E. was entertained with a view of the artists, another oration was delivered by Mr. Hutchinson, youngest (?) son of the Provost; at the Anatomy and Philosophical Rooms addresses were delivered by the Hon. Dr. Decourcy, son of Lord Kinsale, and the Hon. Mr. Jones, son of Lord Ranelagh. Thence he went to the Library, where an excellent oration was made by Dr. Leland, the Librarian, Orator, and Professor. H. E. afterwards dined in the New Hall with the Provost and Fellows, and numbers of the nobilityand gentry. The elegance of the entertainment cannot be described, and is imagined to stand the College in no less than £700.[85]
In 1791 a Visitation by Lord Chancellor Lord Clare as Vice-Chancellor, and Dr. Fowler, Archbishop of Dublin, was held in the New Theatre, at the instance of the Provost, in reference to the complaint of Mr. Allen of having been unjustly kept out of Fellowship in 1790. The Visitors ruled that the question was not open to discussion, in consequence of the length of time which had elapsed. The Provost then brought forward his claim to the negative power over the proceedings of the Board, and was replied to by Drs. Kearney and Brown. The Provost argued from the Statutes and especially from theUnâ cum Præpositoclauses, and spoke for three hours and a half with great ability. Mr. Miller spoke on behalf of the Junior Fellows, touching their right to retain the emoluments of their pupils when they went out on livings. Miller was rebuked by the Chancellor for accusing the Provost of wanting to turn the disposal of pupils into a matter of patronage. The Rev. Mr. Burrowes and Mr. Magee spoke on the same side. Magee was personal, and on the Provost’s protest the Chancellor stopped him. The Visitors declined to decide whether the Provost has an arbitrary election negative at the election of Fellows and Scholars; they ruled that the Provost has the power of disposing of pupils; and that he is bound by the majority of the Board. The Lord Chancellor bewailed the internal dissensions, alluded to his “own education in the College, and declared that there was not another University in Europe better calculatedfor the great purposes of promoting virtue and learning.” The Visitation lasted three days.
In 1792, Hutchinson saw the Gardiner-Hobart Catholic Relief Bill carried, and three days after, the 26th of February, he saw the House of Parliament burned. On the 1st of March following Sir John Blacquiere repaid the University for its honorary degree by moving the thanks of the house to the College students for their spirited exertions in extinguishing the fire; and by suggesting that in acknowledgment of the daring bravery of the youths their old privilege of right of admission to the gallery should be restored to them. Mr. Hutchinson, the Member for the University, acknowledged the compliment with becoming pride and dignity. The Provost’s last reported appearance in parliament was on the 6th of July, 1793, when he spoke in support of the Bill for the Charitable Musical Society. In the previous month, on one of the Militia Bills, he defended his son Francis from a rebuke of Mr. Secretary Hobart, though he voted against the son.
In that his last session, he saw carried—and along with Grattan, Forbes, Yelverton, Gardiner, and the other Liberals helped to carry—the Place, Pensions, Barren Land, and India Trade Acts. He introduced the bills for the Parliament grant of £1,300 to establish the College Botanical Gardens, and he earnestly supported Knox’s Bill for admitting Catholics to Parliament.
He presided at the Board of Trinity College for the last time on the 25th of August this same year. His health was giving way, and his old enemy, the gout, was prevailing against him.
In the political side of his career Hutchinson saw a wondrous change in the meaning and method of Irish parliamentary life. When he began (1759) to take part in public affairs, the Irish parliament was at about its lowest level of degradation. Having been abolished by Cromwell and re-created by Charles II., it had become from the time of the Restoration little else than an office for registering and levying the English orders for pensions and salaries, and for passing the Money Bills. Poyning’s Act and the 6th of George I. were in such active operation that the Government asserted the power of originating and altering the Money Bills, and that Anthony Malone was dismissed first from the Prime Serjeancy and later from the Exchequer Chancellorship for denying his right. A few years later, Lord Lieutenant Townshend, came over here for the express purpose of smashing the Irish Junto, and he smashed it by the simple process of taking the bribery into his own hands,[87]and making it, what Sir Arthur Wellesley[88]forty years after found it, an English state department.[89]He was so indignant with the Commons for rejecting an altered Money Bill that he entered a protest on the Lords’ Journal and prorogued the Parliament.[90]Down to Hutchinson’s time the Lord Lieutenants were absentees, and theLords Justices were the centre of the Junto of “Undertakers” who undertook to the English Government to manage business here—i.e. “their own business”—on their own conditions. In the National Senate there was no national or intellectual life, and scarcely a name has survived in history.
There are no Reports of debates until the year 1781; for over 50 years scarcely a single important measure was passed;[91]place holders in parliament were multiplied, and the pension and salary lists increased in proportion.[92]Tolessen the balance available for this bribery, the surplus revenue was expended in local and private jobs.[93]The Mutiny Act was perpetual; parliaments ran for the monarch’s life, judges held at pleasure, Catholics were debarred the franchise and education; Anglican State Protestantism was built up by cruelty and crime, complaints of grievances were met by commendations of theCharter Schools, and the trade and industries of the country were suffered, without remonstrance, to lie strangled under the jealous and grasping commercial restraints imposed by the English Parliament.
All these things Hely Hutchinson saw when he first looked out on the field of Irish administration; and before he died he saw most of these reproaches swept away by the operation of the courage, and intellect, and vigour which, contemporaneously with himself, found their way into the Commons House. Sexten Pery was a few years before him, and “Sexten Pery,” says Grattan, “was the original fountain of all the good that befell Ireland.” Flood entered parliament the same year as Hutchinson, Hussey Burgh, and Gardiner a few years later, and then came Yelverton and Grattan, and by the power of these resolute anti-Englishers the face of the country was changed. They found Ireland a child, and they watched her growth from infancy to arms, and from arms to liberty. They led the Volunteers to victory, and wrung back a portion of the people’s rights from the frightened oppressor.[94]
To this change Hutchinson directly, and still moreindirectly, contributed. He quickened the parliamentary tone, and lifted its level. He was the father of the cultivated style of oratory which henceforward characterised the debates; he was the best debater in the house, and, after Grattan, the finest speaker. He could patriotise, and he could philippise; and whether he patriotised or philippised, he did it formidably and efficiently. He was venal, but he feared no man’s face; he was a ready-money voter, but he could go out in all weathers. He trafficked, without satiety, in patents and sinecures for himself and his sons, but he insisted on Free Trade for Ireland.[95]
Take him for all in all, and the first John Hely Hutchinson certainly presents a very rare combination of striking features. He was a representative man of a remarkable age, and he sprung out of the conditions of a period which he very much helped to mould. He wasendowed with leading abilities, and was disfigured by hideous blemishes. From an humble start in life he made his way to the high places of the field, and, without any surroundings, he raised himself to be a living power in the State. He was mighty in speech, in courage, in council, and in achievement; and he could be craven, vindictive, corrupting, and paltry. In invective he was unequalled; and he was more sorely scorched by ridicule and rebuke than any man of his day. He lived in perpetual discords and in endless schemes, and the success which, in the main, followed him was chequered by bitter defeats and mortifications. He enjoyed a splendid fortune, maintained a lordly style, and wielded vast influence, and not a single generous action is recorded of him. Negligent of learning, he became the head of the University in one of its periods of peculiar brilliancy, and, having for twenty years drawn its revenues and exploited its resources, he is not named in its list of benefactors. He reared a numerous, affectionate, gifted, and successful family, and he founded a peerage.[96]
However unprincipled Hutchinson was in his bargainings with the Castle, he was often sound and straight on national and Catholic questions. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Grattan, and, on essential matters touching the interests and dignity of the country, he gave Grattan a cordial and effective support. The proudest passage in his life wasthe day (16th April, 1782) when, as Principal Secretary of State, he read out to the Irish Parliament the king’s message, practically conceding independence.[97]There is not in Anglo-Irish history another event of equal grandeur; and Hely Hutchinson’s Provostship for ever and inseparably connects the College with the climax of a triumph over English arrogance and obstinacy which, in the main, was won by a phalanx of her own sons when the prince of all the land led them on.[98]
The Will of “John Hely Hutchinson, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State,” made in 1788—proved and probate granted in November, 1794, by the Right Worshipful Patrick Duigenan, Doctor of Laws, Commissary, and so forth, is in the Public Record Office.
There are seven codicils of various dates, down to the year of the Provost’s death. He says that no man ever had better or more dutiful and affectionate children—God bless them all—and amongst them he left £5,000 to each of his two eldest daughters, with 5 per cent. interest, and £4,000 to each of the two younger. He left £5,000 to his son Francis, as engaged at the time of his marriage, and to his sons John, Abraham, Christopher, and Lorenzo £4,000 each; £500 to Jane, eldest daughter of his worthyfriend, Dr. Wilson. If any children should die before 21, or marriage, their share was to go amongst the younger children, but so as no younger child was to have more than £5,000 on the whole. All his real and personal estate,[99]subject to the foregoing legacies, he left to his dearly-beloved son, Lord Donoughmore, his sole executor. He was to raise the portions of the two younger daughters to £5,000, if the estate could afford it. His office in the Port of Strangford he considered part of his personal estate, having purchased it with the knowledge and at the desire of the Irish Government;[100]and he included it in the bequest to Lord Donoughmore for the lives in being. In a codicil (1789) he bequeathed £200 each to John, and to Abraham and Christopher while they shall continue at the Temple. Later codicils mention that some of these sums had been paid in full, and the legacies were accordingly revoked. He left his books on Morality, Divinity, and Poetry to Abraham, the law books to Francis, and the rest of his books to John. In a codicil of 1794, he left to Abraham “whose health is delicate,” £100 a year till he shall obtain a net income of £200 yearly by some ecclesiastical preferment, this being in addition to the formerlegacy.[101]To his butler he left £20 a year, and to another servant £20. He desired his manuscript essay towards a history of the College[102]to be published, being first perused by his son, Lord Donoughmore.[103]He directed his body to be opened, and to be laid by his late dear wife.
The following Will which laid the foundation of the fortunes of the family is also in the Public Record Office:—
“The last Will and Testament of Richard Hutchinson of Knocklofty, in the county of Tipperary, Esq. Whereas I have this day executed a deed, whereby it appears that there are several sums now affecting my estate, and amounting in the whole to the sum of ten thousand nine hundred and fifty-two pounds four shillings and a farthing; and whereas Ann Mauzy, widow, and Lewis Mauzy, her son, have agreed to accept the sum of four thousand pounds in lieu of all their claims and demands. Now it is my will that such personal fortune as I now, or at the time of my death shall be possessed of shall be applied, in the first place, towards paying and discharging such sums of money as John Hely Hutchinson, Esq., shall thinkproper to pay the said Ann Mauzy, provided the same does not exceed the said sum of four thousand pounds; and the rest and residue of my personal estate and fortune if anything shall remain, I bequeath to my beloved niece, Christian Hely Hutchinson.
“Witness my hand and seal, this fourth day of August, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven.
“RICHARD HUTCHINSON.”
NoteA. Pagex.
THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY.
The Provost left six sons and four daughters. Five of the sons took degrees in the University, viz.:—
Richard Hely—on an Oxford Ad Eundem—B.A. 1775, M.A. 1780, LL.B. and LL.D. 1780.
Francis Hely—B.A. 1779, M.A. 1783.
Christopher Hely—B.A. 1788.
Abraham Hely—B.A. 1788, M.A. 1791; and Lorenzo Hely—B.A. 1790.
Richard Hely, the eldest son, and the first Lord Donoughmore, was a Commissioner of Accounts, Second Remembrancer, Chief Commissioner of Excise, Commissioner of Customs, Commissioner of Stamps, and Postmaster-General.
In 1776, he was elected simultaneously representative for Sligo and for the University (against the Attorney-General, Philip Tisdall), and chose the latter. He was unseated by parliamentary committee as not duly elected; and, in 1777, he was re-elected for Sligo without a new writ. In the University he was replaced by John Fitzgibbon (Earl of Clare). In 1783 he was M.P. for Taghmon. In 1788, he succeeded to the title, on the death of his mother, and served in the Upper House, while his father and his two brothers were in the Commons. In 1794, according to the custom of the times, he raised a regiment, and got the command of it for his celebrated brother John.
Francis Helywas returned for the University in the election of 1790. In the following year took place the celebrated petition againsthis return, which is related in pagexlii, &c. In 1799, he was member for Naas, and was re-elected in 1800, on having been appointed to the office of collector for the Port of Dublin. In 1792, on the debate on receiving the Catholic petition in connection with Langrishe’s Bill for giving, or giving back, the franchise, &c., to the Catholics, Mr. Froude says that: “Francis Hutchinson, the Provost’s second son, soared into nationalist rhetoric. ‘When the pride of Britain was humbled in the dust,’ he said, ‘her enemies led captive the brightest jewel of the imperial crown torn from her diadem, at the moment when the combined fleets of the two great Catholic powers of Europe threatened a descent upon our coasts, from whom did we derive our protection then?’... ‘We found it in the support of three millions of our fellow-citizens, in the spirit of our national character—in the virtue of our Catholic brethren.’ The motion for the petition was lost by 208 votes to 23, and Langrishe’s Bill was carried.”—[English in Ireland, vol. iii., p. 53.]
Sir Jonah Barrington, in his “Personal Sketches.” tells of the duel which Francis had at Donnybrook with Lord Mountmorris in 1798, in which his lordship was wounded.
Christopher Helywas called to the Bar, but never much relished the profession, being altogether of a military turn. In 1795 he was elected member for Taghmon, county Wexford, in the Irish parliament on his father’s death; and after the Union he represented Cork city in the Imperial parliament. He was Escheator of the Province of Munster. He was an earnest champion of the Catholic claims, as were also his father and brothers; he was a thorough supporter of the liberal policy of Lord Lieutenant Fitzwilliam; he mistrusted Lord Lieutenant Camden and Pitt, and he opposed the Union scheme. He is, however, far more celebrated as a soldier than as a lawyer or politician, and in 1796 he resigned his seat. He adored his brother John, rivalled his brilliant courage, and served under him and with him at home and abroad with great distinction. He joined him in Ireland as a volunteer on the breaking out of the disturbances in 1798; but both of the brothers speedily got disgusted with the odious work, as did Cornwallis, and Moore, and Abercrombie, and Lake, and every other high-minded soldier, including Colin Campbell, afterwards in the tithe war. John soon gotordered off to Flanders, under Abercrombie, to fight the French; and thither Christopher followed him, and was wounded at the battle of Alkmar. Christopher followed John also to Egypt, and afterwards on his mission to St. Petersburgh, and to Berlin. Christopher, on his own account, fought in the Russian ranks against the French, and was badly wounded by Benningsen’s side at the battle of Eylau, in 1807. He fought also at the battle of Friedland. He died at Hampsted in 1825—[Suppl. Biog. Univer.] It is worth noticing that this invaluable biographical dictionary makes a mistake in regard of the Castlebar battle in 1798, and a mistake of a kind that is not usual in French historians in affairs that concern the military glory of France. At Castlebar the French were victorious, and the Hutchinsons and the English troops were defeated disgracefully. TheBiog. Univer., however, under “Christophe Elie Hutchinson Cinquième fils de Jean Elie Hutchinson, Prevot de l’Universite de Dublin,” says: “Il eut part a l’affaire de Castlebar et fit prisonniers les deux Generaux Francais Lafontaine et Sorrazin au moment ou environnè par leur corps il se croyait et devoit se croire perdu, et s’acquit ainsi l’estime de General en Chef Lord Cornwallis.” The writer confounds Castlebar with Ballinamuck.
Abraham Helywas Commissioner of Customs, and Port duties, according to the Lib. Mun. and Sir Bernard Burke; and a clergyman, according to his father’s will.
Lorenzo Hely took Holy Orders.
Besides these five the Provost had a son—his second born—
John Hely Hutchinson, the most distinguished of all. He was born in 1757, and entered the army in 1774, the year in which his father was made Provost. In 1789 he became M.P. for Taghmon, county Wexford, on his brother Richard’s call to the upper house, and in 1790 he became member for Cork city (the father going to Taghmon), and continued so until the Union. In 1792, in the debate on receiving the Catholic Petition, “Prominent amongst their (Catholic) champions was Colonel Hutchinson, the Provost’s son, who inherited his father’s eloquence without his shrewdness. He talked the Liberal cant of the day, which may be compared instructively with the modern Papal syllabus.”—[Froude, vol. iii., p. 53.]
Mr. Froude cannot have read this speech. It is a fervid denunciation of the penal laws, and of their cruelties and mischief; and it does not “talk either Liberal cant or Papal syllabus.” Colonel Hutchinson’s two speeches on the Petition and on Langrishe’s Bill, even as summarised in the Irish Parliamentary Report, are enlightened, able, and eloquent oratory. He was for complete emancipation. His liberal address to the Cork constituency, in 1796, is given by Plowden.
Hutchinson was an enthusiastic admirer of Lafayette, and of his ardent principles of popular liberty. When in Paris he attached himself closely to the general, and served on his personal staff.
During the troubles of 1798 he was employed here at the head of his brother’s regiment, under Abercrombie. He sat in the Irish parliament in 1800, and voted for the Union!—[Webb, and Barrington’s “Black List.”]
He commanded against the French at Castlebar, and he shared in the humiliating defeat which Humbert’s handful of men, supported by a body of Irish peasantry, inflicted on the royal army. Hutchinson was unable to stay the panic. His troops, which had signalised and enervated themselves by their licentious brutalities on a defenceless population, broke and fled—as Abercrombie foretold they would do—before the enemy. Their rout was as complete as it was disgraceful, and the barbarities which they committed on their retreat were diabolical. Hutchinson afterwards had the satisfaction of taking part in the affair at Ballinamuck, county Longford, where the French, including Generals Humbert, Sorrazin, and La Fontaine, laid down their arms.—[Cornwallis’s Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 396;Knight’s History of England, vol. vii., p. 367;Haverty’s History of Ireland, p. 760;and Bishop Stock’s Narrative of Killala.]
Hutchinson left the sickening Irish scenes, along with Abercrombie, for Flanders, in the Duke of York’s expedition. After that he accompanied Abercrombie to Egypt as second in command, and on his death at Aboukir he succeeded as chief. He was reinforced from home, and by Sir David Baird’s expeditionary contingent from India, took Alexandria and Cairo, and drove Menou and the French out of Egypt. For these distinguished achievements he was created Lord Hutchinson of Alexandria and Knocklofty; and, notwithstanding theseachievements, he was never again employed in war service by the English Government. He made no secret of his anti-Toryism, and this was enough to ensure his rejection by a Government that selected the Chathams and Burrards. Lord Hutchinson was afterwards employed on some high diplomatic commissions at St. Petersburg and Berlin, and in these his independence of judgment was not altogether palatable to the London authorities. In 1825, on the death of his eldest brother, he succeeded to the Donoughmore title and estates, which, on his death without issue, in 1832, passed to his nephew, the third peer, better known as “Lavalette Hutchinson.”
ThisJohn Hely Hutchinson, the third of the name, was born in Wexford, in 1788. Having served through the Waterloo campaign, he was, on the allied occupation of Paris, in 1815, quartered there as Captain of the First Regiment of Grenadiers of the Guards. While there, in 1816, he, together with Lieutenant Bruce of his own regiment, and the celebrated Sir R. Wilson, effected Lavalette’s escape from France, after his deliverance from the Conciergerie by the romantic devotion and bravery of his wife.
The three friends were prosecuted in Paris for this violation of the law. They declined to insist on their right of having half the jury English, and trusted themselves entirely to the honour of the Frenchmen. They admitted what was charged against them, and were condemned in the mild sentence of three months’ imprisonment, and the costs of the prosecution. Captain Hutchinson, on the trial, told how he had lodged Lavalette in his own chambers for one night, supplied him with an English officer’s costume from a Paris tailor, procured passes, and on horseback escorted to the frontier Lavalette, who was in a carriage with Wilson. He was willing to give a distinct answer to any fair question about himself, but he peremptorily refused to say anything that would compromise anyone else. He declared that there was not a particle of political animus in the adventure. The French historians tell how the chivalrous young Irishman’s exploit was applauded by the whole nation, and how, on the trial, his manly and gracious bearing captured the court, which had to find him guilty of the deed that he acknowledged and related. Sir R. Wilson had been aide-de-camp to Hutchinson’s uncle the general. [Biog. des Contemp. and TheAccusation, Examination, and Trial of Wilson, Hutchinson, and Bruce.]
Captain Hutchinson succeeded to the title in 1832. He lived and died at Palmerston, and in Chapelizod church a memorial tablet is erected to him, with the following inscription:—“Sacred to the memory of John Hely Hutchinson, third Earl of Donoughmore, Knight of St. Patrick, Lord Lieutenant of the county of Tipperary, and a Privy Councillor, having served his country in the Peninsular War and the Senate; and his country in troublous times. He died on the 12th of September, 1851, in the 64th year of his age, loved, respected, and regretted by all who knew him. This tablet has been erected in the church where he usually worshipped to record his many virtues by his widow.”
In Chapelizod churchyard there is a tombstone inscribed: “Beneath this stone rest the earthly remains of Mrs. Hely Hutchinson; departed this life 1st June, 1830, aged 72 years.
Between the Provost and his four sons they represented, for over 40 years, 11 constituencies, and besides this, one was in the Irish and English, and another in the English House of Lords.
The names of the Provost and of his son Richard are on the roll of the Irish M.P.’s (1783-90) which Dr. Ingram has had framed and hung up in the Fagel wing of the College Library.
The present Lord Donoughmore, who is sixth in descent from the Provost, was one of the European Commission for organising Eastern Roumelia under the Berlin Treaty, and he is also the originator of the Lords’ Committee of inquiry on the Irish Land Act. His lordship’s father, in 1854, moved the second reading of Lord Dufferin’s Liberal “Leasing Powers, and Landlord and Tenant Bills;” and in 1865 he made an able speech in the House of Lords on the grievances of the officers of the East India Company’s army. He had previously served as a soldier with distinction in the East, and was always listened to with deserved attention by the peers.—[Lord Dufferin’s Speeches and Addresses.]
NoteB. Pagexxi.
DR. LELAND.
Duigenan’sdisparaging mention of Dr. Leland is one of the most spiteful and unjust of his utterances. There does not seem to be any proof that Leland was guilty of any Academic disloyalty in being or becoming friendly to the Provost, and outside this indictment the celebrity of his varied intellectual distinctions added greatly to the lustre and dignity of the College. He was probably the best classical scholar of the country; he was an eloquent and popular preacher, constantly advocating the charities of the city, and although he did not contribute to eitherBaratarianaorPrancerianahe was the most learned Irish author of the period. Dr. Thomas Leland was born in Dublin in 1722, and was educated in Sheridan’s famous school in Capel-street. He entered College in 1737, got Scholarship in 1741, and Fellowship in 1746. In 1746 he was appointed Southwell lecturer in St. Werburgh’s Church. He was Erasmus Smith Professor of Oratory and Modern History in the University, Librarian, Chaplain to Lord Lieutenant Townshend, Prebendary of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Rector of Rathmichael, which living he exchanged for St. Anne’s, Dublin, with the Vicar, Dr. Benjamin Domville Barrington. In 1781 he resigned his Senior Fellowship and retired on Ardstraw, which he held by dispensation along with St. Anne’s until his death, in 1785. He was a vehement opposer of pluralists until he became himself a pluralist. He published a “Translation of Demosthenes,” “The History of Philip of Macedon,” and “The History of Ireland” in three volumes, quarto. This last-named history is really a work of very superior merit. Leland supported the English in the spirit of Primate Boulter; and like Delany, he may have hunted for a bishopric from the English Government; but as a historian, he gave an honest and able record. No one need set out more fairly and forcibly the rapacity of our Irish Reformationists, the frauds of Strafford, and the barbarities of Cromwell. His book was furthermore quite a novelty in regard of fresh material, and would be almost worth re-editing. After Leland’s death three volumes of his sermons were published, by subscription, by M’Kenzie of Dame-street, and the list of subscribers contains the names of Provost Hutchinson, the Vice-Provost, many of theFellows, the Library, bishops, judges, peers, members of parliament, and most of the celebrities of the day, but it does not contain the name of Patrick Duigenan.
Concerning the “History of Ireland,” Leland’s greatest work, we see by the recently-issued Historical Manuscripts Commission Report, that it was Charles O’Connor of Belanagare, the then most capable recordist of Ireland, who moved him (1767) to undertake it “because he has abilities and philosophy equal to the task.” O’Connor writes again, that “we undoubtedly have [in Trinity College Library], by Dr. Leland’s care, the best collection of old annals now in these islands. That learned and worthy gentleman has made me free of the College Library.” In another letter O’Connor says: “Dr. Leland is now librarian, and promises me a warm room and all the liberty I can require relative to the College MSS., which are now a noble collection, indeed.” It was Charles O’Connor who made Lord Lyttleton and Dr. Leland acquainted with each other, and we do not find it recorded that the English peer was of any service to the Irish scholar, although Dr. Leland generously supplied his lordship with valuable historical information for his history of Henry II.; and that, when he himself was engaged in describing the same events in his own work.—[SeeLifeprefixed to Sermons, and vol. viii. ofHist. Man. Com. Reports, 1881, p. 486.]
Dr. Johnston had a high regard for Dr. Leland, and he wrote to him a letter of personal thanks for the Dublin University’s honorary LL.D. in 1765. Johnston complained to O’Connor that Leland “begins his history too late,” and that he should have been more exact in regard of “the times, for such there were, when Ireland was the school of the West, the quiet habitation of sanctity and literature.” It was the chance mention of Leland’s history that drew from Johnston the indignant exclamation “The Irish are in a most unnatural state, for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the ten persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics.”—[Boswell.]
In theAnthologia Hibernicafor March, 1793, vol. i., p. 165, there is a notice of Leland which sharply disparages his “History of Ireland.”The notice is otherwise friendly and appreciative, and it quotes Dr. Parr’s eulogy on Dr. Leland.
His “History of Ireland” closes with the surrender of Limerick in 1691, and Hutchinson was correct in stating (“Letter 3,” p. 23,ante) that Ireland had no professed historian of its own since that era, and that history furnished very imperfect and often partial views of her affairs.
NoteC. Pagexxi.
DR. DUIGENAN.
Dr. Patrick Duigenan, more familiarly termed “Paddy,” was one of the most remarkable men enumerated in the list of the Fellows of Trinity College. He was the son of the Master of St. Bride’s Parish School, and, doubtless, he received his early education in the school which, in his father’s days, was kept first in Golden-lane and afterwards in Little Ship-street. In allusion to this, Watty Coxe’s Journal twits him with the diploma of “St. Bride’s College.” From St. Bride’s Parish School the lad Patrick was sent to St. Patrick’s Cathedral School, then presided over by Mr. Sheills (or Shiel), and thence in the year 1753 he entered Trinity College, as a Sizar. Whether he obtained the Sizarship by competition or by nomination we do not find recorded; butquocunque modoa sizar he entered, and next to him on the form sat another sizar stripling, Barry Yelverton, afterwards an usher in Buck’s School in North King-street, and subsequently Lord Chief Baron and Lord Avonmore.[104]In 1756, Duigenan obtained Scholarship; in 1761, Fellowship; and in 1776, he retired on the Professorship of Laws, having been, in fact, turned out by Provost Hutchinson. He was M.P. for Armagh, King’s Advocate-General, PrivyCouncillor, Vicar-General, and Judge of the Prerogative Court. He was a blustering and honest man; a fanatical anti-Catholic and a fierce Unionist, and he is accordingly hero-worshipped by Mr. Froude. He was a hanger-on, first of Philip Tisdall, and then of Lord Clare.
Wills, in his “Distinguished Irishmen,” says that Duigenan was the son of the parish clerk of St. Werburgh’s; and Dr. Madden, in his “United Irishmen,” gives a letter saying the same, and that the father died a Catholic. There is no foundation for either of these assertions. Hugh Duigenan, the father, died St. Bride’s parish schoolmaster, and he, as well as his wife Priscilla, was buried in St. Bride’s churchyard. It is said in the “Life of Curran” that Duigenan once avowed in the House of Commons that he was the son of a parish clerk, and if so the father must have held that office in Derry before he came to Dublin. Dr. Maddens contributor says that Duigenan was appointed to St. Bride’s School through the influence of Fitzgibbon, the father of Lord Clare. This is quite probable, as the Fitzgibbons lived in the parish—in Stephen-street, and many of the family were baptised in the church and buried in the graveyard. There may be truth in the tradition that the father was originally a Catholic and conformed. Grattan says that Duigenan was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood; that he was a hanger-on of Tisdall: that his manner of speaking resembled that of a mob-man in the last stage of agony; and Curran said his “oratory was like the unrolling of a mummy, nothing but old bones and rotten rags,” and that he had a vicious way of “gnawing the names of papists.” He was employed by Castlereagh to administer the Union bribe of a million and a half, and in 1807 he was employed by Sir Arthur Wellesley, then Chief Secretary, to negotiate about the Charter Schools and the Irish Protestant bishops.[105]He was also one of the Public Record Commissioners.
His first wife was a Miss Cusack, a Catholic, and to her, in regard of religious matters he was most indulgent. This was the only instance of toleration that Duigenan was ever known to show. In 1799 he supported Toler’s (Lord Norbury) Indemnity Bill, freeing all who in 1798 had committed illegal acts against the people. It must have cost him some trouble of mind when, as Vicar-General in 1783, he hadto license Dr. Betagh’s Catholic School in Fishamble-street, as well as some other Catholic Schools, in obedience to Gardiner’s Catholic Relief Act of the previous year. His second wife was the widow of Hepenstal, the “Walking Gallows.” Duigenan died at Sandymount in 1816, and bequeathed his fortune to his first wife’s nephew, Baron Smith. It was a brave thing of Duigenan when he had become a prominent man to go and reside in Chancery-lane amongst the lawyers, within a stone’s throw of the lane in which he was reared as a poor boy; and it was not less brave of him to be a liberal subscriber to St. Bride’s parish school. He was not ashamed to look back at the rock whence he was hewn. Very few parvenus have this sort of nobility.
NoteD. Pagelxxiv.
The life-long competition between Fitzgibbon and Grattan was so individual and so keen, and commenced so early, that the following quotations from the College books, now for the first time given, will probably be interesting. Can any other University produce a corresponding record?
The two splendid rivals, it will be remembered, carried far into public life their early friendship. Fitzgibbon was as earnest as Grattan for Irish parliamentary independence. He was one of Grattan’s most fervid eulogists, and it was Grattan that got him made Attorney-General in 1785. Their first serious difference was on the Navigation Act in 1786; three years later they fell out finally on the Regency Bill.
These entries show that Fitzgibbon and Grattanentered college the same year, under the same college tutor, and that they were in the same class. They graduated in the same Commencements. They were, moreover, in the same division, sitting within two of each other, Fitzgibbon, from his earlier entrance, sitting above Grattan in the hall. This proximity gives even a quicker interest to their neck and neck race, as detailed in the following record of their examination judgments:—
This table of judgments bears out Archbishop Magee’s statement in his funeral sermon on Lord Clare, that Grattan was best in the first and Fitzgibbon in the closing years of their college course; while Grattan came to the front again at the Degree Examination. The table exhibits also the old system of awarding examination premiums in T.C.D.; and it shows the then curriculum in the Sophister year. It shows also that Fellow-Commoners obtained their B.A. degree on a shortened Academic course. Grattan entered in November, 1763, he answered for his degree in October, 1766, i.e., at the close of his Junior Sophister year—and he took his B.A. in Spring, 1767.
The Matriculation Book shows that Fitzgibbon was educated at Ball’s famous school, under the old Round Tower, in Great Ship-street.[106]Grattan was educated in the same school along with Fitzgibbon, and was removed from it shortly before entrance, as his “Life”tells, and as the Matriculation Book also shows. Fitzgibbon was born in 1749, and, therefore, was only fourteen or fifteen years of age when he was collaring Grattan, who was three years his senior. Fitzgibbon was reared in his father’s house,[107]in Stephen-street, and Grattan was reared within a few yards of him, in his father’s house in Chancery-lane. In the same school, at the same time, were educated Macaulay Boyd, one of the reputed authors of Junius’ Letters (son of Alexander Macaulay, who lived in Great Ship-street); Sir Samuel Bradstreet, the steady patriot, who procured “Habeas Corpus” for Ireland, and who lived in the same street; and John Forbes, who lived in the same street with the Fitzgibbons, was a thorough supporter of Grattan, a forward champion of Catholic claims, and the resolute and successful assailant of the Pension List.
The University conferred its LL.D.Honoris Causâon Fitzgibbon—notwithstanding his anti-Hutchinson performances. It had no honorary degree for Grattan, and the loss is to its own muster-roll of fame. The name would have honoured and ennobled the Register.
NoteE.
PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE—CALLED ALSO PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF THE COUNCIL, AND KEEPERS OF THE PRIVY SIGNET OR PRIVY SEAL—FROM THE RESTORATION.
1661, Sir Paul Davys; 1678, Sir John Davys; 1690, Sir R. Southwell; 1702, Sir E. Southwell and his son, 1775, Thomas Carter (Master of the Rolls); 1760, Philip Tisdall (Attorney-General); 1777, John Hely Hutchinson (Provost, &c.); 1795, Lord Glentworth; 1796, Hon. Thomas Pelham; 1797, Robert Stewart (Castlereagh); 1801, Charles Abbott (afterwards Speaker of English House of Commons, and Lord Colchester.)
IRISH CHANCELLORS OF THE EXCHEQUER.
1761, William Yorke—viceAnthony Malone; 1763, William Gerard Hamilton (“Single Speech”); 1784, John Foster (Speaker, &c.); 1785, Sir John Parnell; 1799, Isaac Corry; 1804, John Foster; 1806, Sir John Newport; 1807, John Foster; 1811, Wellesley Pole; 1812, William Fitzgerald; 1817, Nicholas Vansittart.
SPEAKERS OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS SINCE THE RESTORATION.
1661, Sir Audley Mervin; 1692, Sir R. Levinge, H.M.’s Solicitor-General; 1695, Rt. Hon. Robert Rochfort, Attorney-General; 1703, Broderick Allen; 1710, Hon. John Forster; 1715, Rt. Hon. Wm. Connolly; 1729, Sir Ralph Gore; 1733, Hon. Henry Boyle (Lord Shannon); 1756, Rt. Hon. John Ponsonby; 1771, Rt. Hon. Edmund Sexton Pery (Lord Pery); 1785, Rt. Hon. John Foster.
CHIEF SECRETARIES TO LORD LIEUTENANTS.