Part 2

I have already said, that the people and the parliamentary supporters of administration separated from the moment when the Irish House of Commons extinguished the public hope on the important measure of parliamentary reform. The grand argument urged by the House of Commons against a reform at that time was, that it would be a surrender of the dignity and independence of the legislature to adopt a measure proposed to it on the point of a bayonet. The Convention proved the malice of the argument by the manner in which they bore the insulting rejection of their petition: having discharged the duty which they were created to perform, they dissolved, not only without a threat but without a murmur. The people, with a patience and moderation of which perhaps few more laudable instances are to be found in the history of any country, acquiesced, or submitted in silence to the decision of the legislation on this their most esteemed and favourite application. No doubt they hoped that a Parliament who refused to receive the petition of the people when presented as soldiers, would listen with a more patient ear to their claims when presented in another character. But this hope having been tried for five years without effect, was at last relinquished. The pertinacity with which all applications on the subject of reform were rejected, put it beyond doubt that reform was an object which by ordinary means could never be obtained. It was, however, a measure too big, when it had once gotten possession of the public mind, to be let go without a struggle. Accordingly, whatever of intelligence, of zeal, or of public spirit the country possessed, continued to be directed toward the acquisition of this great object. Among other modes which had been devised for giving greater efficacy to the public will on this subject, was that of forming societies which should have for their sole object to animate, to direct, to concentrate, the exertions of the people in the pursuit of this favourite and vital measure. Of these societies the first was formed in Dublin, of a few men whose talents, principles, and character, moral and political, gave such weight and popularity to their union, as soon swelled its numbers to a great magnitude, which, while it gave hope to the friends of the popular cause, excited in the administration very lively alarm. But it was yet more the principles of this body than its numbers which alarmed administration. The original members of the society, men of minds not only firmly attached to the political interests of this country, but superior to the influence of bigotry, which had been the most powerful instrument in the hands of the Court faction for dividing and weakening the people, made it a radical principle of their union to promote an abolition of all religious distinction, and to procure for _all_ the freemen of the state, whatever might be their religious sentiments, a participation in _all_ the privileges of the British constitution. A reform in Parliament, accompanied by such a principle as this, became a measure in which every man in the country was interested; and the catholics, who constitute the great majority of the people, more interested than others. The consequence was, that men of every description of religion, men of every rank in life, not immediately under the controul or influence of the Castle, adopted the principles of the society, or solicited admission into the ranks. The fear and the hatred of administration was soon manifested. Every art was used to blacken the principles of the society--its principal members were pointed out as the agitators of sedition--the enemies of social order--and men who aimed at nothing less than a subversion of the constitution and separation from Great Britain, under the pretext of reform and emancipation. The prints which were in the pay of the Castle vomited out daily the most gross, the most malignant, and irritating calumnies; and even the senate itself, now really forgetting its dignity, condescended to become the scurrilous aggressor not merely of the society at large, but of particular, and, in many instances, inconsiderable members of it.

It was this despicable conduct in the prevailing faction in Ireland that laid the ground work of all the mischiefs which have since affected our unhappy country. The Irish Minister who paid the money of the people to cover their name with infamy and their principles with dishonour, him I charge with having first implanted in the minds of the multitude that invincible detestation of the system by which they were governed, that has since ended in assassination and treason. His subordinate agents, who in the folly and venom of their hearts at one time charged the great body of the Catholics with disaffection, at another held up to ridicule and odium the names of individuals of the most respectable and unsullied characters--at one time sneering at the merchant, at another insulting the tradesman, them I charge with having irritated the people of Ireland wantonly and wickedly, by calling forth the personal feelings, the pride, and sensibility of individuals, into a personal and revengeful opposition to the British name and British connection. What would Englishmen have felt, how would Englishmen have acted, had two or three individuals, strangers to their country, despicable in point of birth or talents, and considerable only from fortuitous elevation to offices which they were unfit to fill, ventured to insult their national character--to accuse of treason every man who dared to complain of his sufferings or his privations, or assumed the courage to exercise the humble privilege of petitioning for redress? If the saucy hirelings of a foreign Cabinet should publicly avow contempt for the men who uphold the strength and consequence of the state by useful industry, and tell the merchant and manufacturer that it was not for such fellows to deal in politics, to seek for rights, or talk of constitution--would not the spirit of the nation rise against their insolence, and make them feel how much more valuable _he_ is who promotes the comfort and welfare of society by commerce or by labour, than _he_ who lives upon the spoil of the community in something _worse_ than idleness?

It was this arrogance in the Castle servants, the result of their conscious strength in corruption, that scouted with contempt and insult, out of the Irish House of Commons in 1795, the petition of three millions of Catholics, fully and impartially represented. Was not this an aggression of administration against the people? And yet the partisans of that administration--nay, the first mover in it, has had the confidence to assert, that the discontents and tumults of the people _preceded_ the measures of which they complain. Englishmen will determine, whether the Irish nation, consisting principally of Catholics, had or had not reason to be disgusted with the administration of the government under which they lived, when by the influence of that administration not only their wishes were not consulted, not only their general sense disregarded, but even their supplications spurned without a hearing from that body which professed to be, and which ought to be, their representatives.

If it be granted that such conduct in the popular representation of a nation was calculated to excite discontent and destroy confidence, what followed that transaction must have had a much more powerful tendency to alienate the affection of the people, and produce those direful consequences which are now boldly said to have arisen unprovoked. When the Irish Catholics perceived, from the manner in which their petition for the elective franchise was treated, that in the Irish House of Commons they were not to look for friends, they resorted to the Throne. The supplications which had met only with contumely when addressed to the Irish Commons, was received with favour by a British King, acting with the advice of a British Cabinet. In the next session, the speech from the throne recommended to the Irish Parliament to take into their consideration the situation of the King's Catholic subjects. No sooner was this hint received from the British Cabinet, than those very men, who but last year pledged their lives and fortunes to perpetuate the exclusion of the Irish Catholics from the privileges of freemen, because to admit them to share those privileges would be a subversion of the constitution and establishment, surrendered that opinion with as much promptness and facility as they had shewn violence and rancour in taking it up. Without any petition from the Catholics, without any change of circumstances, except the declaration of the will of the British Cabinet, that privilege which was last year refused with so much harshness and disdain, was this year spontaneously conceded!

Will any man who knows any thing of men and of the feelings and motives which actuate them, assert that there was any thing in this concession which should attach more firmly the Irish Catholics to the Irish House of Commons? Will he say that this was one of those gracious measures which an enlightened legislature would adopt to soften the exasperation of national discontent? Probably he will rather say, it was fitted to evince more strongly than ever the necessity of reforming the constitution of that assembly, which, from the inconsistency of its measures, appeared evidently the instrument of a foreign will, not the authentic organ of the national sense.

Let him, or them whose hot folly, whose rank bigotry, or whose petulant and stolid zeal led the Irish Commons into this disgraceful and contemptible situation, feel the blush of shame and confusion burn their cheek, when they reflect on these scenes. Let them, while it is yet in their power, atone to their offended country for the fatal consequences of their advice, before those records which are to inform future ages impress on their names for ever the indelible character of--PUBLIC ENEMY.

In speaking of these transactions I have not attended to chronological accuracy. There were other measures to which the administration of Ireland had resorted to prop up their power, and form a substitute for that legitimate strength which is to be found only in the chearful support of a contented people--there were other measures which they adopted to beat down the public voice, and overbear the general sense of the nation. Among these were wanton prosecutions of innocent and respectable men, sometimes for libels, which all publications were construed to be that dared to talk of reform as a good measure, or of constitutional rights as things to be desired; others for crimes of a deeper die--for sedition and for treason. The evidence adduced in support of these charges were often the vilest of the rabble, whose testimony on the trials was discredited even by themselves, and the prisoners discharged, to the honour of themselves and the detestation of their accusers. Such was the case of the Drogheda merchants, on whose trial came out proofs of subornation and perjury which would shock credibility. These, however, were but venial errors, compared with those more mortal sins against the constitution and against common right, with which the Irish administration stands charged--sins, which including a violation of general and vital principles, may be fairly reckoned among those great and leading causes which have reduced Ireland to the dreadful state of discontent and disorder in which she now stands.

Of these, one was the Convention Bill--a measure proposed by administration, and adopted by the Parliament of that day, for the avowed purpose of preventing the Catholics from collecting the sense of their body on a petition to Parliament, or to the Throne, for the elective franchise. This bill, if it did not annihilate a popular right, certainly narrowed it to a degree which, in a great measure, under the then existing circumstances, destroyed its efficacy. It had been one of the special pleading tricks of the Irish Court, when the people expressed their sense on particular measures, if there happened to be any variations of mode or sentiment in the application of different bodies, to take occasion, from these variations, to reject the whole as inconsistent. This scheme had been practised with much plausibility on the question of reform. No reform, they contended, was practicable, which would content the nation; because of the many petitions which had been presented from the different counties, cities, and towns in the country, and of the many plans which had been proposed, no two were found perfectly to correspond--as if when the general sense of the people was fully expressed, no attention should be paid to it, because there was not to be found in the various expressions of that sense that perfect coincidence which on a general question of morals or politics it is absolutely impossible to attain. It had also been boldly and shamelessly asserted by administration, in opposition to the most general and public declaration of the Catholic body, that the claim of the elective franchise was only the suggestion of a few turbulent agitators, and that the great bulk of the Catholics had neither solicitude nor desire about the matter. To give the lie to this hardy and absurd assertion, the Catholics resolved upon a measure which would put the matter beyond doubt, and by collecting into a focus the sense of their body, and expressing that sense in a simple and explicit manner, would take from their enemies the two great arguments by which they had defeated the popular applications for reform. Administration, however, were too vigilant to suffer the Catholics to get hold of this powerful weapon. The Convention Bill, by which all representative assemblies were made illegal, and punishable with the severest penalties, proposed in haste, and passed with precipitation, deprived them of the only means of giving to the legislature that simple and indubitable declaration of the general sense, which, however, the legislature insisted on as a necessary preliminary to hearing their complaints.

Here certainly was another of those measures which without any crime in the people of Ireland was levelled at one of their most valuable privileges. Let the people of England judge, whether under the circumstances I have mentioned, it was not likely to wound deeply the feelings of three-fourths of his Majesty's Irish subjects--and, combined as it was with the insulting rejection of the Catholic petition, and the subsequent concession, at the instance of the British Cabinet, of that favour which was refused to Irish supplication--let Englishmen say, whether it may not fairly be reckoned among the wanton and unprovoked causes of the present discontents.

The Convention Bill, however mischievous it may have been by aggravating the discontent which had already spread through the mass of the people, was yet more mischievous by stopping up that channel through which popular discontent discharges itself with most safety--that of petition and remonstrance. So little effect had been found to result from the petitions of individuals in the legislature on any of the great questions which in any degree interfered with the system adopted by administration, and in which they seemed resolved to persevere, that it was thought futile and absurd to resort to that mode of stating complaint or soliciting redress. If a corporation petitioned, they were answered only by an observation on the manner in which the petition was obtained, by contrasting it with other petitions procured by Castle influence, or by some sarcastic remark on their profession or character. If a body of citizens petitioned, they were porter-house politicians or bankrupt traders. There remained, therefore, no way in which the people could lay their complaints before the legislature, with any hope of relief, but in that general way of a representative body, which, while it gave weight and consistency to their application, obviated those pitiful arts by which the Castle continued to elude and frustrate the wishes of the people. The Convention Bill, by rendering that mode impracticable, compressed the public discontents, and while it encreased the irritation, left no vent to its violence but in assassination and conspiracy.

That such would be the consequence of this measure, administration were solemnly warned. It was urged on them, but without effect, that in every country where the freedom of remonstrance and complaint was denied, secret conspiracy or open insurrection took the place of angry but harmless petition. Italy was mentioned; and it was said, rather with the spirit of a prophet than a politician, that if this bill passed, Ireland would become more infamous for private assassination than Italy itself. The Society of United Irishmen was not yet become a clandestine or an illegal body--but it was foretold, that this bill would create clandestine and seditious meetings: for it was easy to see, that when discontented people were prevented from uttering their complaints, they would substitute other modes of redress for angry publication. But with the administration of Ireland, or the Irish House of Commons of that day, advice and remonstrance were vain. They boldly ventured on a measure of which these consequences were foreseen, yet now profess to wonder why such consequences have happened. On the folly of their counsels, then, the people of Ireland are justified in charging the assassinations--the sedition--the conspiracy, which have disgraced their country: they are not the native growth of her soil! They have been begotten only by insolence and injury upon the stifled indignation of a volatile and feeling people!

But the Convention act was not the only measure to which the party abusing the powers of government in Ireland resorted, to tame or to irritate the Irish people. The Gunpowder Bill, prior in order and time, which deprived the Irish subject in a great measure of the constitutional power of self-defence, prepared the minds of the people for receiving the full impression of the Convention act, which narrowed another of his rights. The attempt to annihilate the independence of the country, by insisting on the right of Britain to choose a regent for Ireland, and the subsequent attempt of the same kind in 1785 to substitute a commercial boon for the right of self-government, had already gone far toward producing a tendency to irritation in the people, which these more vital attacks completed.

Nor did even these measures, insidious, violent, and unconstitutional as they were, produce so much discontent as the tone and the spirit in which they were tarried into execution. The most insulting imputations on the loyalty, and even on the intellect of the nation, were daily made by the needy adventurers, whom chance, or perhaps infamous services, had raised to a place in the administration. The public prints were polluted by the foulest calumny against every man who had the virtue and the courage to oppose a system which he foresaw must eventually terminate in the ruin of the country. Some of the basest of mankind, distinguished, however, by more than usual talents for perversion and invective, were appointed to conduct those publications which were paid by the public money for abusing the national character. The Whig Club, consisting of noblemen and gentlemen who, by possessing large property and extensive connections in the country, felt themselves bound to oppose the mad measures of men who, as they were mostly foreigners, had no interest but to turn the present moment to most advantage, were held up to the public, both in and out of Parliament, as enemies to the tranquillity of the state, and anxious only, at all events, to raise themselves to power.

The conduct of administration to the Whig Club, indeed, deserves peculiar confederation, as it evinces, in the fullest manner, that it was not the irregular or unconstitutional proceedings of this or that body of men--of the Volunteer Convention, or of the United Irish Society--but the measures which these bodies recommended, against which the influence and force of government was turned. The Whig Club had formed themselves on the most constitutional and moderate principles. Their object was to obtain for the people of Ireland, by a concentration of their parliamentary influence and exertions, those laws by which the British constitution was guarded, against the encroachments of the executive power; and by the want of which in Ireland, her constitution seemed to have but a precarious existence at the pleasure of the Court. Such were a Pension Bill, for limiting the influence resulting to the Crown by an indefinite power of granting pensions--a Place Bill, to secure the independence of the House of Commons, by making the acceptance of office by a member a vacation of his seat--a Responsibility Bill, by which the men intrusted with the management of the public treasure, or enjoying high official situations in the government of the country, should be responsible to Parliament for their conduct and advice. These were the measures which the Club undertook at their formation to press upon minister. They subsequently adopted others on which the sense of the people became too generally known to be at all doubtful. The question of reform and Catholic emancipation they did not take up, until the nation called for them in a manner which proved the concession of them to be essential to the peace of the country.

Of the constitutionality of those measures which the Whig Club originally espoused, no man could entertain a doubt. They were the law of England. The manner in which these measures were urged by the Whig Club was equally constitutional. They brought them before Parliament by bill and by motion, supported by arguments which were answered only by majorities consisting of those placemen and pensioners, those borough members and irresponsible officers, against whose parliamentary existence they were levelled. This constitutional pursuit of constitutional measures--how did the Irish administration treat it? By imputing the worst motives to those by whom they were proposed--by impeaching their loyalty to their Sovereign--by the most open and bold avowal of the existence, and the necessity of corruption in the government--by the most contumelious indifference for the public voice, and, finally, by affixing the most disgraceful and irritating marks of suspicion on every nobleman and man of property in either house of Parliament, who dared to support those pretensions of the people to the benefits of the British constitution. The removal of that good and estimable character, the Earl of Charlemont, from the office of Governor of the County of Armagh--an office which might be considered as hereditary in his family, and to which his estate in that county gave him a kind of indefeasible right, is one instance of a number. It will ever be remembered as a damning proof of the foolish and wicked malignity of the Irish administration against the friends of the Irish people.