Chapter 10

the Roman faith.

"No Catholic can be chief Governor or Governor of this Kingdom, Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord High Treasurer, Chief of any of the Courts of Justice, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Puisne Judge, Judge in the Admiralty, Master of the Rolls, Secretary of State, Keeper of the Privy Seal, Vice-Treasurer or his Deputy, Teller or Cashier of Exchequer, Auditor or General, Governor or Custos Rotulorum of Counties, Chief Governor's Secretary, Privy Councillor, King's Counsel, Serjeant, Attorney, Solicitor-General, Master in Chancery, Provost or Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, Postmaster-General, Master and Lieutenant-General of Ordnance, Commander-in-Chief, General on the Staff, Sheriff, Sub-Sheriff, Mayor, Bailiff, Recorder, Burgess, or any other officer in a City, or a Corporation. No Catholic can be guardian to a Protestant, and no priest guardian at all: no Catholic can be a gamekeeper, or have for sale, or otherwise, any arms or warlike stores; no Catholic can present to a living, unless he choose to turn Jew in order to obtain that privilege; and the pecuniary qualification of Catholic jurors is made higher than that of Protestants."

Out of that splendid list of unattainable posts, Peter Plymley chooses, to illustrate his theme, the offices of Sheriff and Deputy-Sheriff in Ireland. No one he says, who is unacquainted with that country, can conceive the obstacles to justice which exclusion from these offices entails. The lives, liberties, and properties of the Roman Catholic population are at the mercy of the Juries, and the Juries are nominated exclusively by Protestants--and this in a country where religious animosities are peculiarly inflamed.--

"A poor Catholic in Ireland may be tried by twelve Percevals, and destroyed, according to the manner of that gentleman, in the name of the law, and with all the insulting forms of justice. I will not go the length of saying that deliberate and wilful injustice is done. I have no doubt that the Orange Deputy-Sheriff thinks it would be a most unpardonable breach of his duty if he did not summon a Protestant panel. I can easily believe that the Protestant panel may conduct themselves very conscientiously in hanging the gentlemen of the Crucifix; but I blame the law which does not guard the Catholic against the probable tenour of those feelings which must unconsciously influence the judgments of mankind. I detest that state of society which extends unequal degrees of protection to different creeds and persuasions; and I cannot describe to you the contempt I feel for a man who, calling himself a statesman, defends a system which fills the heart of every Irishman with treason."

If then the Courts of Assize are, by the very nature of the case, instruments of injustice, it is the Grand Juries which are the great scene of Jobbery. They have the power of levying a county rate for roads, bridges, and other public accommodations. Milesian gentlemen, attendant on the Grand Inquest of Justice, arrange these little matters for their mutual convenience.--

"You suffer the road to be brought through my park, and I will have the bridge constructed in a situation where it will make a beautiful object to your house. You do my job, and I will do yours."

And so, as far as the Protestant gentry are concerned, all is well. But there is a religion even in jobs; "and it will be highly gratifying to Mr. Perceval to learn that no man in Ireland who believes in Seven Sacraments can carry a public road, or bridge, one yard out of its way, and that nobody can cheat the public who does not expound the Scriptures in the purest and most orthodox manner.... I ask if the human mind can experience a more dreadful sensation than to see its own jobs refused, and the jobs of another religion perpetually succeeding?"

And then again there is the grievance which consists in exclusion from the higher posts of the Professions.--

"Look at human nature. Your boy Joel is to be brought up to the Bar: has Mrs. Plymley the slightest doubt of his being Chancellor? Do not his two shrivelled aunts live in the certainty of seeing him in that situation, and of cutting-out with their own hands his equity habiliments? And I could name a certain Minister of the Gospel who does not, in the bottom of his heart, much differ from these opinions. Do you think that the fathers and mothers of the holy Catholic church are not as absurd as Protestant papas and mammas? The probability I admit to be, in each case, that the sweet little blockhead will in fact never get a brief. But I venture to say that there is not a parent from the Giant's Causeway to Bantry Bay, who does not conceive that his child is the unfortunate victim of the exclusion, and that nothing short of positive law could prevent his own dear, pre-eminent Paddy from rising to the highest honours of the State. So with the army, and Parliament. In fact, few are excluded; but, in imagination, all. You keep twenty or thirty Catholics out, and lose the affections of four millions."

And then Peter turns to the war-cry of No Popery, which had been so vigorously and successfully raised at the General Election of 1807, and derides the loyal indignation then directed against the Ministers who had the heart to worry George III. with plans of redress for Roman Catholics.--

"The general cry in the country was, that they would not see their beloved monarch used ill in his old age, and that they would stand by him to the last drop of their blood." This ebullition of ill-judging loyalty reminds Peter of an accident which once befell the Russian Ambassador in London. His Excellency fell down in a fit when paying a morning call. A doctor was summoned, who declared that the patient must be instantly bled; and he prepared to perform the operation. "But the barbarous servants of the Embassy, when they saw the gleaming lancet, drew their swords, threw themselves into an attitude of defiance, and swore they would kill the man who dared to hurt their beloved master."

Peter's own remedy for Irish disaffection was, first, to remove all civil penalties for religious faith, and then to subsidize the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy in Ireland, and pay for the maintenance of their schools and churches. He calculated that this would cost £250,000 a year. The clergy should all receive their salaries through the Bank of Ireland; the salaries were to be proportioned to the size of the congregations; and all patronage should be lodged in the hands of the Crown.--

"Now I appeal to any human being, what the disaffection of a clergy would amount to, gaping after this graduated bounty of the Crown; and whether Ignatius Loyola himself, if he were a living blockhead instead of a dead saint, could withstand the temptation of bouncing from £100 a year in Sligo, to £300 in Tipperary. This is the miserable sum of money for which the merchants, and landowners, and nobility of England, are exposing themselves to the tremendous peril of losing Ireland."

If all these schemes of conciliation were rejected as dangerous and impracticable, there remained of course the time-honoured remedy of Coercion. This had been demanded by Spencer Perceval, when attacking the conciliatory administration of "All the Talents," and it provoked Peter Plymley to a characteristic outburst:--

"I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at hearing Mr. Perceval call for measures of vigour in Ireland. If I lived at Hampstead[56] upon stewed meats and claret; if I walked to church every Sunday morning before eleven young gentlemen of my own begetting, with their faces washed, and their hair pleasingly combed; if the Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort--how awfully would I pause before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the cabins of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ireland! How easy it is to shed human blood! How easy it is to persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so, and that the decision has cost us a severe struggle! How much in all ages have wounds and shrieks and tears been the cheap and vulgar resources of the rulers of mankind! How difficult it is to govern in kindness, and to found an empire upon the everlasting basis of justice and affection!"