pire at the time, and gave rise to the celebrated Parliamentary investigation of 1825. These disturbances were of the Agrarian class, and did not partake of a general system of revolt against the constituted authority of the government; and though we have placed this species of disturbance last in our classification, we take leave to consider it first, according to the approved method in Irish disquisition. The period which we are consider ing was one of extreme public depres sion. Even Great Britain had not yet recovered from the stagnation of her commerce, which followed upon the pacification of Europe; and in Ireland, the staple trade of which consisted in the supply of provisions to our armies, the reaction had been yet more distressing in its consequences. During the war, a class of persons called Middlemen had grown into existence in that country, who held an important position between the immediate occupiers of the soil, and the possessors of the landed property. The returns of agricultural produce had been so great as to afford, in addition to the reserved rent of the land, and the requisite remuneration to the farmer, a considerable revenue to such persons as were deemed eligible tenants for extensive farms, or tracts of land; and who, instead of farming themselves, subdivided and reset their holdings in small portions, and at an acreable rent much higher than that which they had themselves covenanted to pay. This difference of rent they found sufficient to compensate them, both for their trouble in managing, like agents, the immediate tenants of the soil, and also for the additional risk of loss by the insolvency of any of these tenants. When, with peace, prices fell, land would no longer pay these two outgoings, and, in many instauces, would yield no more from the occupying tenant than the rent paid by the middle man. The interest of the latter was therefore annihilated, and he, of course, endeavoured, whenever it was practicable, to extricate himself altogether. By these means, a large extent of land was thrown into the hands of the proprietors, who, naturally averse to crowding their estates with paupers, set it in the largest divisions they could, to bona fide farmers. Thus, a numerous host of cottiers, who had occupied very small holdings under middlemen, were turned adrift by the altered disposition of property, and many of them were rendered desperate by destitution. In the year 1820, an almost general failure of the Country Banks in the province of Munster took place; their small notes had constituted almost exclusively the circulating medium amongst the poor people, whose whole worldly stock seldom amounted to so large a sum as five pounds. Whatever little they had, was, however, entirely swept away by this misfortune, and even the pains-taking and saving man was instantly beggared. It may be easily supposed, that this calamity was the cause of many being obliged " to take to the hill-side, and become broken men." For several years previous to 1823 the crops had been scanty, particularly those of potatoes. In 1821 the potatoe crop was a complete failure; and in 1822 it is impossible to tell, and dreadful to think, of what might have been the consequence, had not the English people come forward, and by the most stupendous act of national generosity which the world ever saw, and which none but a country so rich as England could afford, arrested the "plague of hunger," which must otherwise have desolated the country. The sufferings, however, from absolute, unmitigated hunger, were very great, notwithstanding the assistance which was received, and no doubt contributed to the desperation of the people. One of the most savage and lawless districts of Ireland, was the Sea and River coast of Kerry. This rugged and dangerous coast, which is open to the full sweep of the Atlantic storms, was the frequent scene of shipwrecks, and was infested by gangs of smugglers and wreckers, who, seizing their plunder upon the shore, retreated with it to their inaccessible haunts in the gorges of the mountains. A powerful preventive water-guard was placed here, to put a stop to this nefarious traffic, and to check the extensive contraband trade of the smugglers. These desperadoes, thus driven from For the honour of the kingdom of Kerry be it spoken, this description does not apply generally to its territory. The Kerry men are rather a peaceable race, who talk Latin, and till their ground in considerable peace and quietness. their fastnesses, retreated inland to the hills of Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, where they found willing associates in the hordes of houseless wandering wretches, who had lost home and livelihood in the manner we have described. While things were in this state, a system of severe and inhuman rigour upon a very large estate in the county of Limerick drove the people to madness, and set the torch to all these inflammable elements of outrage. An English agent was sent over to Lord Courtenay's estate, who refused to be bound by the promises of abatement of rent made to the poor tenants by the former agent, but without mercy resorted to the last extremities of the law to enforce the uttermost farthing that was due, both of the current rent, and the arrears which the tenants supposed would never have been demanded of them. We have been assured, that the scenes of misery occasioned by this conduct were beyond all description shocking. Every day miserable creatures were left with their families of little children, without a stick, or a rag, or a potatoe in their wretched dwelling, and forth they were obliged to go, as wandering beggars along the road, praying with all the vehemence which despair lends to the most emphatic of languages,* that the heaviest of curses might fall on their oppressor. The people decreed a terrible vengeance. It was resolved among them, that the agent should be put to death; and nothing but the extremest caution on his part prevented them from accomplishing their purpose. There were many men sworn solemn ly to kill him whenever he came within their reach, no matter what might be the occasion, or where the place; but his extreme vigilance eluded them, and he continued to live, and to be execrated. Baffled in the main object of their pursuit, and choking with unquenched revenge, they came to the dreadful determination, that the punishment of the father should be accomplished by the murder of his son. He was a very young lad, of gentle unoffending manners; but this had no effect upon these men, whose terrible excitement thirsted for blood. If they thought of it at all, it was but to recollect that he was probably on that account dearer to his father, and that consequently the vengeance derived from his murder would be the greater. They met the lad in the broad day-light; and though he threw himself from his horse, and on his knees implored their mercy, he found none from these relentless savages. A shower of balls struck him in every part of the body, and he was left upon the road dead, and all disfigured with needless wounds. This was the commencement-the firing of the train, which rapidly spread along extensive districts of Limerick, Tipperary, Cork, and Kerry. The houseless people we have described, forming themselves into power ful bands, skulked in hiding-places among the hills by day, and stealing out by night to some appointed rendezvous, they swept the open country in bodies, carrying off such booty as was portable, and burning or destroying what they could not take away; often, too, inflicting savage vengeance on their successors in the tenancy of the farms of which they deemed themselves unjustly deprived. Not content with their own atrocities, they forced the miserable victims of their violence to swear compliance and assistance to their machinations; and in a short time the inhabitants of almost half the island were influenced by the terrors of a system of slaughter and devastation personified under the singu lar soubriquet of Captain Rock. This state of things, so anomalous and so terrific, was deemed to call not only for the special interposition of the legislature to put it down, but also for a national inquiry into its cause. But whilst this stupendous investigation into all the countless grievances of Ireland dragged its slow length along, necessarily tedious from the vastness of its extent, combined with the minuteness of its detail, the alarm in which it originated had been graduaally dissipated, the commercial and agricultural difficulties with which we were beset, had given way before the returning tide of industry and prospe rity, peace and order were restored by the strong arm of the law, and by the return of employment, and abundant crops; and the Irish Inquiry, to the remedial issue of which men had looked forward with an eagerness and anxiety proportioned to the magnitude of the evil to be corrected, and the • In this part of the country the common people all speak the native Irish. good to be obtained, sunk into neglect, and terminated, as the manner of Irish Inquiries is, in a conclusion, wherein nothing was concluded. We do not mean, however, to impute any censure to the committee for the manner in which they brought the result of their labours before the public, by a simple detail of the evidence elicited on the subject, without note or comment. On the contrary, we are persuaded they pursued the wisest plan they could adopt, in thus furnishing us with the largest induction of particulars they could procure, and leaving the public to judge for itself, unburdened by a mass of crude opinions, under the name of a report. As the committee sought for information from men of all parties, and various conditions in life, they, as was naturally to be expected, obtained much conflicting testimony, not only as to matters of opinion, but as to facts, which had been viewed differently, according to the means of information, or the pre-existing sentiments, of the witnesses; but however differing on other points, in this one thing they seemed unanimous,-that Ireland was improving.* It may seem strange that we should bring in this piece of evidence as a suitable commentary upon the details of outrage which we have just given; but when we consider that this evidence was taken in 1825, and look at the events which followed from the disturbances of 1823, it will not appear surprising that those best acquainted with Ireland should have witnessed to her improvement. The disturbances of 1823 acted like a violent fever, which, carrying off the collected bad humours of the body, leaves it in a healthier state than it was before. They turned the attention of a considerable number of exceedingly able men to a consideration of the evils which affected Ireland. A spirit of investigation was aroused, the magistracy was put more upon the alert, and institutions were adopted, of which the benefit is felt now, when a disposition to insurrection with a different object has been evinced. Even now, notwithstanding the frightfully excited state of political feeling which seems to portend a national storm, the minor details, which, in a state of peace, contribute to a nation's strength and prosperity, are in a state of improvement to which Ireland, until within a very few years, has been a stranger. There is at present more judicious farming, more rational commercial enterprise, more exactness in the administration of justice, and more careful attention to the duties of public and private life, than have been at any preceding time, notwithstanding the abundant epithets of a miserable, wretched, savage, degraded country, which are every day showered upon poor Ireland. CHAP. IV. We now proceed to say something of the alarming assemblages of the people which so very lately took place, and which, in the opinion of many, have only submitted to a very temporary dispersion. These assemblages were purely political in their object; and, unlike the insurgents of 1823, they seek not to disturb the regular proceedings of these potent and important legal phantoms, Messrs John Doe and Richard Roe. They trouble not their heads for the present about rents, tithes, and ejectments, but affect to have a higher game in view, -that of dictating to the legislature of the country, and terrifying it into an important alteration of the Constitu tion. These assemblages are, in short, but a part of the system of the Roman Catholic Association. They have, to be sure, gone a little farther than the Association wished, and struck some terror into the minds of the agitators themselves, who began to feel that their troops were getting unmanageable, and that they were very near the alternative of having to disband their forces at once, or, by heading, put their own heads in very serious jeopardy; but it is the Association which has See Evidence, D. O'Connell, Commons' Report on State of Ireland, 1825, p. 85. Evidence of J. L. Foster, Lords' Report, 23, fol. 1825. Mr A. R. Blake, Lords' Report, 2d March 1825, &c. &c. "organized" these bodies of men, and it is the Association which, in the eyes of the country and of Government, ought to be responsible for all the mischief which these assemblages have created, or may hereafter occasion. The Catholic Association is a society, whose avowed purpose was "pub lic exasperation."* In this it has been eminently successful; and for some time its manifest, but not yet avowed, purpose has been "Protestant intimi dation." There is no man of ordinary sanity, and who has the least notion of the rational liberty, and the protection, of the legitimate system under which men live in these kingdoms, that does not consider this Association as one of the greatest public nuisances that ever was permitted to exist under a regularly established government. It is chiefly composed of fierce and coarseminded men, excessively illiterate and extremely bigoted, who, having made some money in their respective trades, are thereby raised a little above the condition of the lowest of the people, and are vain of belonging to a political society, the proceedings of which are noticed in the newspapers. Along with these are a considerable number of rank young Papists, who have been lately called to the bar, and have put on the gown, when they should, with much more propriety, have put on the apron behind their fathers' counters. These young men, not having sufficient sense or discretion to be trusted with a guinea brief, in the most trifling legal dispute, yet consider themselves well qualified to discuss the affairs of the nation in a public assembly; and they form the light phalanx of the Association's oratorical force, and are permitted to make an unskilful noise, when the leaders are away. The leaders, Mr O'Connell, Mr Shiel, and two or three others, who do not appear so frequently, are able men in their pernicious vocation, who understand well the art of rousing the passions of an Irish mob, and who can wield at will the fierce democracy of their society. The Association is in regular correspondence with the Roman Catholic priests throughout the whole kingdom, who serve as conduits from the chief reservoir of political violence in Dublin, and carry its noxious streams from house to house, in every town, village, and hamlet throughout the country. For some time after its institution, this society struggled on in contemptible obscurity, holding its meetings in a dark room over a small bookseller's shop in Dublin. It used to meet at night; and we recollect, that upon one occasion we felt a curiosity to be present at the meeting of a society which even then occasionally occupied the attention of the newspapers, and we ventured into the assembly. It only wanted a few pewter pots upon the table to be the very counterpart of a club of discontented mechanics combining for a rise of wages. We only poked our head in, and then made a precipitate retreat, under the influence of a mixed sensation, which we believe was compounded of a dread of treason and of pickpockets. But as the proverb, that "ill weeds thrive apace," is nowhere so true as in Ireland, the Association soon rose into such notoriety, that, even from the Throne itself, it was deemed necessary to reprobate its existence. In the King's speech at the opening of the session of 1825, in speaking of Ireland, his Majesty informed his Parliament, that “industry and commercial enterprise were extending themselves in that part of the United Kingdom; it was therefore the more to be regretted that Associations should exist in Ireland which had adopted proceedings irreconcilable with the spirit of the Constitution, and calculated, by exciting alarm, and by exasperating animosities, to endanger the peace of society, and to retard the course of national improvement." Never were truer words put into the mouth of a sovereign; and yet, strange to say, the Government which used these words never took the trouble of seeing that the evil which they perceived so clearly, and described so accurately, was abolished. An act of Parliament was passed in pursuance of the recommendation in the King's speech; but either from ignorance in the construction of the bill, or because the executive officer of the Crown in Ireland did not participate in the sentiments of the Throne, the act has remained a dead letter; and this Association, so truly described as endangering the peace of society, and retarding the course of national improvement, continued to exist, increasing every day in the virulence • We quote the words of Mr Shiel. and the extent of its mischief, until it now appears a portentous thing, pregnant with rebellion, which we know not the hour it may bring forth. This body has been all along at once despicable and dangerous. When we first looked at the throng of which it was composed, we felt disposed to treat it with contempt; but when we contemplated it as a body incessantly employed in stirring up the ignorant population to mutiny, levying a heavy tax on the people for political purposes, and preaching to them the efficacy of exerting their combined numerical strength, we felt inclined to exclaim with Didius, when he looked upon the superstitious ceremonies of the Druids, "I scorn them, yet they awe me." It is in vain to mince the matter, or try to disguise the fact. The Government are much to blame in this business of the Roman Catholic Association. They should have crushed it in 1825, when they saw the mischief it was doing; and it is but a poor excuse to say, that, they were misled by an Irish Attorney-general. They were warned over and over again of the mischief which was brewing. They were told, that this Association was proceeding fast upon the road to irremediable mischief that the Agitators should be curbed in time, read such audacious language, said, that it would not be borne by the Government except through fear; and that if Government did not put a stop to it, it was because they dared not. The fruit of these opinions, and the continued forbearance of the Government, has been the immense assemblages in the south, appearing in military array, and in all but open rebellion. At the time at which we write, a temporary tranquillity has been restored in Ireland; but every one feels that it is only a smothering of the flame which must soon burst out anew, with increased violence, unless the Catholic Association, which supplies the material of the fire, be crushed utterly, and at once. It will not do to delay. The awakened spirit of the Protestants-the front of determined resistance shewn by the Brunswick clubsthe co-operation of the Government by its proclamation, and the instantaneous movement of the British troops towards the scene of agitation, have warned the Association, that the time is not yet come for the successful exertion of the physical strength of the rabble; and therefore it exerts its influence to keep them quiet. But it is manifest that the Association only waits its time, and therefore it is the duty of the Government to destroy it before that time arrives. England may not "Injurioso ne pede proruant Stantem columnam: neu populus fre- always have troops to spare for the quens, Ad arma cessantes, ad arma Concitet, Imperiumque frangat." But they did not listen, or, if they did, they did not attend; and now the As sociation itself can hardly control the whirlwind of wild and disaffected spirit which it has raised. Mr Shiel now comes down to the Association, and with all the appear ance of alarm, affects to deplore the excited state of the peasantry. Hypocrite! Who was it that excited them? Who was it that said, in the Associa tion, "We will not let the people be quiet?" Who was it that said," the Catholic Question was nearly forgot ten until the Association began its "work of excitement?" Who was it that called the peaceable behaviour of the people "a degrading and unwholesome tranquillity?" The common people in Ireland, (we speak not from conjecture, but from knowledge of the fact,) when they Irish service; or even if not engaged in foreign war, she may not always have a Prime Minister, who, by an exertion of military skill, which is not the less admirable, because it has remained unnoticed, has been able on the present occasion, within two days, and without any noise, or "note of preparation," to cover the shore most convenient for transport to Ireland, with soldiers and artillery. We, however, willingly quit this subject, with the hope that, the vigilance of the Protestants and of the Government having been aroused to the political state of Ireland, something may speedily be done to avert the danger which seems to threaten that portion of the empire. The absurdity of attempting to steer a middle or "conciliatory" course, is now sufficiently evident-it only makes matters worse; and Government must decide either to abandon Ireland to the wild tyranny of the Roman Catholic. |