frequently as appalling as they have ever been, since. vanced (and this is the strangest fact of all) through the period of local famine and monetary difficulty; advanced, I mean, in every particular not directly affected by the famine and the state of the money-market." and a dangerous riot ensued.* Rigby's own " "But facts again show that, with the exception of the west end' world of Dublin, Ireland has continued to advance since the Union, in spite of the systematic discouragement to fair experiment which an unceasing agitation has afforded. The spread of statistical information has, happily, rendered this demonstrable, so I shall not now take the trouble to enter into details. It has advanced, though the termination of the Continental war reduced the prices of agricultural produce so largely as in many cases to throw the farmer helplessly into the power of the landlord-or the demagogue. It has ad-mored Union, was assailed. The mob pulled off his periwig, and put the oath to him. He had an impediment in his speech, and stuttered. They cried, "Dyou, do you hesitate ?" But hearing that his name was O'Bryen their rage was turned into acclamaThere are sufficiently obvious reasons why tions." Mr. Rowley, a Privy Councillor, the populace of a dissolute city should be was dragged the length of a street, and nareasily excited into strong feeling against a rowly escaped being thrown into the river. measure which would remove from it the con- Mr. Morres, a King's Counsel, was" stripped course of wealthy residents and strangers that of his very shirt, and beat and bruised." the seat of the Legislature must bring to- Warden Flood, the Attorney-General, was gether. The classes that live by directly wounded in his chariot, and made his escape ministering to their wants were in Dublin in- into the College. The excitement seems to juriously affected, and through such people it have continued some days, as Rigby says, "I was always easy to get up a row when the have heard that I have been a principal obalarm of an intended union was suggested to ject of their aversion; but I have never failed their imaginations. In Walpole's Memoirs of going to Parliament and from it in my own George II. a scene of this kind is described, chariot, and have never met with insult or that seems to have been serious enough. A blow from them, though I have observed ununion with England was a favorite object pleasant countenances." They killed the with Lord Hillsborough: he had hinted such horses of several obnoxious persons; they a wish a year or two before in the Parliament pulled the Bishop of Killala out of his coach, of England, and being now in Ireland, let and the Lord Chancellor. They proceeded to drop expressions of the same tendency. the House of Lords, where they committed This was no sooner divulged than Dublin was the grossest indecencies; placed an old woin a flame. The mob grew outrageous, and man on the throne, and sent pipes and toassembled at the door of the House of Com-bacco for her; they next went to the House mons. Mr. Rigby went forth and assured of Commons, and ordered the clerk to bring them there was no foundation for their jeal- them the journals to burn.§ ousy; but his word they would not take. Ponsonby, the Speaker, was at last obliged to go out and pacify them; and Mr. Rigby declared, in the House, that if a bill of union was brought in he would vote against it. The tumult then subsided; but Rigby soon after moving that the Lord-Lieutenant might on an emergency, such as an invasion, summon the Parliament to meet without an intervention of forty days, the former suspicions revived, The Game's Up, pp. 36-33. Chief secretary to the Duke of Bedford. We have been led away by Walpole's gossiping from our main subject. The object of a Legislative Union between the countries was the subject of speculation with many of the most sound-minded men in both countries. Their anxiety was that the Irish legislature should not be the mere machinery in the hands of England, to register laws dictated to it, often against the commercial interests of Ireland, and in all cases wounding to *Walpole, Memoirs of George II., vol. ii. p. 401. its pride. They felt, that even this was better than the subservience to the factious borough interest which dealt with the country as if it was the private estate of the individual undertakers by whom it was managed: The ambitious hope of participating with England in Imperial Legislation was faintly and feebly expressed. It was too good a thing almost to dare to wish for. In the early part of the last century, the matter was often suggested, always with the feeling that England would oppose it. The case of the Union with Scotland, while it was not unlikely to force the matter on public attention, was in some important circumstances so dissimilar, as rather to embarrass the question. The King of England is by the law and Constitution King of Ireland. It is one of his inseparable titles. In Scotland the case was, at the time of its Union with England, not only different, but directly the reverse. The Scottish Act of Settlement had not made any provision for the devolution of the Crown on the extinction of the issue of Anne. And, in 1704, an act was passed by the Scottish Parliament, providing that the same person should not be King of Scotland and England. To this the royal assent had been given with great reluctance. This rendered the introduction of the exiled branch of the Stuarts not only a legal thing in Scotland, but was almost to be regarded as a declaration of war between the kingdoms. The necessity of that Union to the peace, nay, to the existence of the empire, was likely to be felt by many, who, as no danger of the kind existed in Ireland, would refuse in the latter case to be swayed by a deceptive analogy. The first demi-official paper in these volumes which mentions the Union, is dated September 26, 1798, and communicates to Lord Castlereagh the substance of the leading articles, among which are, 66 Protestant establishment to be secured; Catholics to be eligible to all offices, but query as to their sitting in Parliament ? Arrangements to get rid of tithes, not to be one of the Articles, but to be immediately settled. This should be accompanied with a suitable provision for a reasonable number of Catholic clergy." We do not, perhaps, appreciate all the difficulties with which this great measure was accompanied, and we are perhaps wrong in thinking that every privilege that has been since given to the Catholics might have been more conveniently given then. We disbelieve in the propriety of either then or now endowing their clergy. On the 16th of Octo | ber, 1798, we have a letter from Lord Clare to Lord Castlereagh, who had gone to England, and varied the measure injuriously; at least so the letter would seem to prove; but the strength of the borough interests is to be considered, and perhaps all that could be done under the existing circumstances was done. The letter is from London:—“ I have seen Mr. Pitt, the Chancellor, and the Duke of Portland, who seem to feel very sensibly the critical situation of our damnable country, and that the Union alone can save it. I should have hoped that what has passed would have opened the eyes of every man in England to the insanity of their past conduct, with respect to the Papists of Ireland; but I can very plainly perceive that they were as full of their Popish projects as ever. I trust, and I hope I am not deceived, that they are fairly inclined to give them up, and to bring the measure forward unencumbered with the doctrine of Emancipation. * * Mr. Pitt is fully sensible of the necessity of establishing some control over the Popish clergy, which he thinks will be best effected by allowing very moderate stipends to them, and allowing every priest to take a license from the Crown, for performing ecclesiastical functions, on pain of perpetual banishment if he shall officiate without it." * Of the State Papers printed by Lord Londonderry, one of the best-but it was printed long ago in America-is the Memoir of the state prisoners O'Connor, M'Nevin, and Thomas Addis Emmet. Verdicts for high treason had been obtained against two of the United Irishmen-Byrne and Bond. Efforts were made to save them, and negotiations were commenced between the state prisoners, confined on the same or similar charges, and the Government. The Government wished to have distinct acknowledgments of their guilt from themselves, and wished to have the opportunity of making public the whole conspiracy, without betraying the sources of their information. The prisoners felt they were communicating no more than the Government already knew, and they proposed, among the conditions, that they should not be asked to criminate individuals. O'Connor, Sampson, and some other of the principal persons involved in the conspiracy, refused signing these conditions. The law officers thought the information not worth the price of interfering with the execution of the law. They feared juries would refuse finding verdicts, if the Crown pardoned. The reasonings of lawyers are more apt to satisfy themselves than others; and arguments which they felt to be conclusive, did not altogether satisfy the Lord-Lieutenant. The opinion of the law-advisers was, however to use the language of the document before us-given "peremptorily and unanimously," and Byrne was executed. The next day was that named for the execution of Bond. The prisoners, who had before Byrne's execution refused their signatures, became alarmed, and new terms were proposed to the Government. In the first document, perpetual exile was proposed as the condition of life being spared. In the next, to guard against the danger of their passing immediately into an enemy's country, the time of their departure, and the place of their exile, was left to the discretion of Government. Bond was respited. The conditions were fulfilled; but as far as Bond's life was the object, that object could scarcely have been said to be gained, for he died soon after in prison. It would appear that Lord Londonderry is not aware of the Memoir having been before published. A copy printed at New York is before us as we write, and enables us to correct some strange blunders made by Lord Londonderry's printer, or more probably by whoever transcribed the manuscript for the press. Misprints that reduce a passage to mere nonsense do but little comparative harm. Here are errors that vary the sense of the passage into the direct opposite of what the writers said. In the second paragraph, we find these words:-" Denying the whole existence of the Society of United Irishmen of Dublin, we may safely aver," &c. Reading this in Lord Londonderry, we fairly confess we did not know what to make of it, when we fortunately remembered our old American book, and found that the word printed "denying" ought to be "during." It was startling enough to find these gentlemen denying the existence of the Society, the organization of which they were engaged in explaining. We know nothing at all like it, except the denial, every now and then, of the existence of ribondmen in Ireland, at the very time that every newspaper brought us accounts of convictions for the crime. The Memoir was felt by the Government to be a defence of the prisoners, and could not be used for the purpose for which it was intended. The prisoners then suggested that as a committee was sitting to inquire into the causes of the rebellion, they ought to be examined before it; and that in this form Government might obtain the information they wished in a way it could be unobjectionably used. This course was adopted. The account which the Memoir gives of the United Irishmen, or of the Union, as it was in that day called, is worth diligent study. Their communication to Government appears to have been entirely faithworthy, and wholly unreserved. The pleading is throughout an able and manly one; and not a little was lost to the country, when imperative necessity (and we think the necessity was imperative, and that the case admitted of no doubt) demanded the banishment of such men. The original institution of United Irishmen, formed towards the close of the year 1791, was not only ostensibly but really confined to the objects it professed-Reform in Parliament, and Catholic Emancipation. These in our day are harmless sounds, but in Ireland in that day, when three-fourths of the Commons House of Parliament were the direct nominees of the borough interest, and when the word Emancipation conjured up a thousand fears, it is impossible to describe the violence with which the first publication of the test of the United Irishmen was assailed. This violence was met by expressions of equal violence, and by endeavoring to promote the meeting of a convention to aid in effecting Reform. The difficulties in the way of Reform led to the discussion of Republicanism. While the minds of men were fermenting with these thoughts, the Society was forcibly dissolved in 1794. 66 It attributed its being thus dissolved to its own fault, in the openness of its discussions and the publicity of its proceedings, and in 1795 a new Society for the same object-- but a secret Society—was formed. In their test or text, as Lord Londonderry generally prints it, a clause of secrecy was introduced. For the engagement which their predecessors required, they substituted an oath. In 1796 an Act passed punishing with death the administering of unlawful oaths. But death," says the Memoir, "had ceased to alarm men who began to think it was to be encountered in their country's cause. The statute remained an absolute dead letter, and the members of the body augmented beyond belief." The numbers of the Union were increased beyond their wishes by other causes. Wherever Orange lodges sprang up, the Catholics got alarmed, and joined the United system. This was opposed to the wishes of the leaders, for it introduced religious acrimony. In some cases the system reconciled and absorbed into itself conflicting parties, and the Government was deceived, not suspecting the cause of the dangerous tranquillity. In the Memoir, it is denied with indignation that they ever in any | Irish Rebellion. The plan was not his, for case encouraged assassination. They argue he did not join the confederacy till 1796,† this anxiously, as answering some evidence to when it had existed in full operation for at least the contrary. It was considered by them a year. It was not Tone's, for Tone, who may with horror on account of its criminality, and be called the founder of the society of 1791, did with personal dread, because it would render not join that of 1795 till on the eve of his deferocious the minds of men in whose hands parture for America, when he found it in full their lives were placed. Their numbers were operation. Describing the organization, Emnot less than five hundred thousand. The met says:authors of the Memoir had not been members of the earlier Association. The Society, at the time they became connected with it, was conducted on principles of the strictest secrecy. The organization of the system was admirably adapted for its purposes. No treachery could endanger the safety of many persons-no espionage could detect the entire or even large part of what was doing; and those in the actual direction of affairs were concealed from the knowledge of all but a very few. As we understand the constitution of the Association of 1795, it was this:-A Society is formed in some one district by ballot, a single black bean excluding. When any such Society amounts to thirty-six members, it splits into two; so that eighteen is the number constituting each integral. Each integral was represented by two of its members and its secretary in a baronial committee.* These representatives were chosen. by ballot every three months. No new integral could act till regularly constituted, and the secretary of an integral already constituted was the proper person to apply for, and the nearest baronial committee to give authority to form 'a new Society, to consist of not more than thirtyfive members. When the number of societies in a barony amounted to eight, a second baronial committee was formed; county committees were formed by each baronial committee sending two delegates. Provincial committees were formed by delegates from baronials sending three delegates each, and in all cases the choice was by ballot, and the appointment was but for three months. National committees were also contemplated in this extensive arrangement, and were to be formed by each provincial committee sending five delegates. The names of the committee men, in every case, were known only to those who elected them. We have done what we can to render intelligible the system of organization which united vast bodies of the Irish, of every rank but the highest, together. Our authority is that of Addis Emmet, writing in America long after the "Whoever reflects on this constitution for a moment, will perceive that it was prepared with most important views. It formed a gradually extending representative system.founded on universal suffrage and frequent elections. It was fitted to a barony, county, or province, while the organization was confined within these limits. But if the whole nation adopted the system, it furnished a national Government." Nothing can be conceived more simple-nothing more perfect than such an arrangement. Examine it, and the constitutions of the most carefully devised systems of society seem beside it clumsy, inartificial contrivances-while this, the work of a few humble men, brooding over their real or imagined grievances or both, seems almost like the machinery of one of those philosophical romance-epics, perfect, because having no other existence than in some solitary dreamer's fancy. Curiosity," says Emmet, "will ask what manner of men they were that dared harbor such comprehensive and nearly visionary ideas? They were almost invariably farmers, manufacturers, and shopkeepers, the representatives of men certainly not superior to themselves." The persons called the leaders would to a man have been contented with Parliamentary Reform, and between them and the oligarchy that ruled Ireland there was always room for a compromise. The evidence of the state prisoners establishes this. The despair of obtaining this object drove them into the consideration of republicanism, which the examples of America and France naturally suggested, and which was debated among them as one, and but as one, of † Emmett dates his admission into the society in 1796. Memoir and Examination before secret committee. A strange scene occurring before 1795, Defendmight lead us to give it an earlier date. ing a prisoner charged with administering the United Irishman's oath, then a capital offence, he read aloud the oath from his brief with great solemnity, and then addressed the court in the following terms: "My Lords, here in the presence of this crowded auditory-in the presence of the being that sees, and witnesses, and directs this judicial tribunal, here my Lords, I, myself, in the presence of God, declare I *The counties in Ireland are subdivided into take the oath."-Madden's United Irishmen, second baronies. series, vol. ii p. 22. the substitutes for the existing order of things. No mistake can be greater than that a few restless spirits, that a few men finding no sufficient employment in the ordinary occupations of professional life, were the creators of the fervid and pervading passions that at that period inflamed and frenzied the whole island. The passions were those of the people themselves; they did not require the fannings of idle rhetoric to force them into a blaze. It was not in the spirit of hopelessness and despair that these humble men acted; it was in the spirit of impatient and eager hope. It was not as in our day a miserable parody, in which vain men simulated feelings, and like the bulls in Borrowdale, were driven mad by the echo of their own bellowings. The Emmets and Sheereses found the system formed. They were admitted into it doubtfully and late. The system began with the lower classes. "As the united Irish system ascended into the upper ranks, it engulfed into it numbers who afterwards appeared as lead ers."* engrafted on the original constitution of the Society, each of the ordinary members knew little more than the names of the persons who composed his own integral, a number seldom more than eighteen, never more than thirty-five. We are weary of the miserable narrative of revolts, which, at whatever period you examine the history of Ireland, it presents. The Irish oligarchy, ruling in the name of England, sustained by England on the supposition of their being the sole security for the connection between the two countries, while their whole effort was to prevent any large measure of policy which must have the effect of taking the country out of their hands, had rendered the name of England odious. The United Irishmen, with all their machinery, could have little chance of doing more than upsetting a constitution. The evils under which the country was undeniably suffering, were many of them of a kind which any rational combination of their strength with that of either of the great While the organization consisted but of in- parties in the Legislature, might have vastly dividual societies, interconnected as we have alleviated. To take Ireland out of the hands described, and while there was no master of the borough proprietors was the one thing spirit "to wield that fierce democracy," they most to be desired-most to be struggled for. were yet bold enough to send a person to This was to be best and most effectually France to ascertain the possibility of obtain- done by the union with England. But the ing aid from the giant republic. This led to persons whose names were most prominent an important addition to their original consti- among the United Irishmen, were persons tution. A provincial committee for Ulster had who seem to have had no fixed plans whatbeen organized, and some inconvenience was ever for the future; and from their sheer felt from the arrangement, that the provincal inability to suggest, or to execute any plan committees were by the constitution of the of government, their country must, in the Society to meet but once a month. This led very moment of their success, have fallen to the formation of a body not originally into the hands of France, to be, no doubt, contemplated-THE EXECUTIVE. The Execu- rendered to England on any cessation of hostive in the intervals between the sittings of tilities between those nations. Thus an utter the Provincial Committee were to execute anarchy must have been its fate. The vision what had been ordered-to report its own of a bloodless revolution which was before the proceedings-it was to be a watch on the minds of some of the best of those enthusiasts, Government, and to call extra meetings of was also before the minds of the Dantons the Provincial Committee when necessary. and Robespierres. Tone expresses some such Its connection was but with the committee feeling in his journals; yet though he was that appointed it, and its members were the cleverest and the best of them, it is plain wholly unknown to the general body of the that he was, from the first, dazzled with the Society. Of the Executive it was the habit military dress, and was-in his heart of never to have more than one of them to do busi-hearts-a military coxcomb, returning in the ness with any one-and if possible their transactions were with but one person. While the secrecy that was observed by so many persons under such strong temptations to betray their associates is certainly a wonderful thing, yet in point of fact, the system was so skilfully contrived that till a military organization was * Emmet. character and garb of a French general to effect a bloodless revolution! Grattan's account of Addis Emmet is no doubt a picture of the individual; but the individual was the type of a number, whose name is Legion: rules; and his plan was founded, not on practice, "He set up his own crude notions as settled but on his own imagination. It was full of wildness. There were to be three hundred elections |