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4

THE VOLUNTEERS

In February 1778, as Drennan prepared for his graduation, he heard the news that France had recognised American independence and agreed to join the war against the British. Ireland and Britain were swept by fear of a French invasion. Drennan had mixed feelings about the unfolding events. He was delighted that Benjamin Franklin had been well received by the French and that, ‘Persecuted Liberty has sought for and found refuge in the French and Spanish courts.’1 Although he continued to support the Americans, ‘he detested the Bourbon regimes of France and Spain’.2 Determined to fight in the event of a French or Spanish invasion, he joined the militia. Along with six other Irish lads, he received training in musketry from the Sargent at Edinburgh castle.

He planned to return to Ireland after his graduation. When he heard that an Irish militia was forming there, he expressed a wish to have some rank in it. He was misinformed about the militia. The Irish administration could not afford to raise and equip a militia at this point.3 Many of the regular troops who garrisoned Ireland had been sent off to fight the war in America. In response to the threat of invasion in many places around the country, independent companies of Volunteers were established. Ulster and Belfast took to volunteering with enthusiasm. In Belfast, on Saint Patrick’s Day 1778, a corps was established which became known as the Blue Company because of the colour of their regimentals. The Blue Company publicly declared its refusal to accept commissions or pay under the Crown or to take any military oath.4

By April, 15,000 men had joined up nationally but as invasion fears heightened, the number of recruits rose exponentially and by mid-1780, some 60,000 had enrolled almost half of them in Ulster.5 Sam McTier, Martha’s husband, was elected as a commander in the Blue Company which Martha told her brother was ‘very inconvenient because an expensive honour’.6

In August, Drennan took his degree and returned to Belfast. He immediately joined the Blue Company and from there began his keen interest in Volunteer politics.7 Because his correspondence with his sister ceases at this point, we do not know much about his professional life in Belfast over the next four years. It appears that he found it difficult to establish a practice as the town was already well supplied with physicians. He had a significant involvement with a public health campaign in cooperation with the infirmary run by the Belfast Charitable Society.8 In March 1782, he read a paper to the board of the Society suggesting that the Poor House premises be used for a smallpox inoculation campaign. He must have used a direct arm-to-arm infection technique as Edward Jenner did not propose inoculation using cow pox until 1798. The board of the society passed a vote of thanks to Drennan for his efforts.9

We do know from his correspondence with Reverend William Bruce in Dublin that, politics and Volunteering aside, he was not particularly happy either in his native town or his chosen profession.

If I leave Belfast, I will never return to it. Do not mistake me I do not like this town. Why should I like what never has behaved as if it liked me? I have not a single friend except among my nearest relations. I have never received a smallest instance of real regard from the friends of my father. Who though they could have no reason to fear me as a rival or dislike me as a man have always been professional friends to me. I know that every profession has a certain portion of servility attached to it. But there is a parasitical species of servitude to men of eminence in our profession which I never will and never can conform to.10

Whatever about feelings of personal isolation and professional dissatisfaction, Drennan did find solace in his involvement with the Volunteers. He was not content with donning his blue uniform and attending marches, reviews and meetings. He was determined to establish himself as a leading writer in the Volunteer cause.

The year 1779 proved a very successful year for the Volunteers of Ireland. As the numbers in their ranks grew, they were thanked in the Irish House of Commons for their endeavours in defence of the country. Their crowning achievement that year was the concession by the British government of Free Trade for Ireland. Through their shows of military strength at rallies and marches, the Volunteers had pressured government into this concession. Edmund Burke (1730–1797), the Irish-born British parliamentarian, denounced Lord North for conceding Free Trade and this provided Drennan with the opportunity for his first foray into literary propaganda.

In April 1780, he published an open letter to Edmund Burke. He was embarking on what was to be a long literary career in which he would, time and again, use the device of writing to well-known public figures and publishing the letters as a way of propagating his radical ideas. In the years that followed, Drennan published letters to King George III, the Earl of Fitzwilliam, William Pitt and C.J. Fox. The purpose of these letters was not to communicate with the recipients but to influence reformist and radical opinion and to establish his literary reputation.

Burke had been a member of the British House of Commons since 1765. At this point, he was fifty years old and although not in ministerial office, he was one of Britain’s most prominent statesmen. The letter was published at a time when, as one of Burke’s recent biographers suggests, ‘the conflict in the colonies was reaching the apogee of crisis, discontent in Ireland was contributing to popular militancy and public protest was affecting confidence in the British system of government’.11

Drennan was encouraged by the progress the Volunteers and reform movement was then making in Ireland. However, in his open letter, he condemned Burke because of the latter’s hostile reaction to the positive developments in their native land. Burke had denounced recent British concessions on Irish trade as ‘an unqualified surrender on the part of Lord North’s government’.12 John Bardon succinctly summarised the developments which so encouraged Drennan and alarmed Burke:

By November of 1799 the Government was helpless before menacing demonstrations of Volunteers, a vigorous campaign against British goods, and a united patriot majority. At the end of the year a beleaguered Tory ministry at Westminster reeling from news of disastrous defeat in America responded … to appeals for immediate concessions. Laws imposed by England on Ireland forbidding the export of Irish wool, glass leather and other goods were removed.13

Drennan began his letter by accusing Burke of being ‘too patriotic, in other words too much of an Englishman to wish for equality of rights and privileges in every part of the British empire’. He told Burke that his ill-timed and inconsiderate expressions were highly injurious to his native country.14 He accused Burke of being a party man, ‘The party may aim at nothing more than local or partial liberty, a liberty which includes not only the desire for a free government at home but the power of arbitrary rule over every country that might have the misfortune of being connected to Britain.’15

Drennan declared that there was now ‘a revolution of opinion’ in Ireland which he predicted would force the legislature of Britain ‘ere long to perceive the necessity of getting clear of that wonderful paradox’ which ‘disenfranchises the descendants of Englishmen and robs them of their just interest in the legislative power’.16 It was the common people of Ireland who were leading this revolution in public opinion. ‘The lower ranks of the community [now has] an independence and republicanism of spirit which will have much influence on their future conduct; which will serve to remove that servile awe of estated tyrants which is incident in the lower orders of men; and will secure the free and unbiased election of the representative body.’17

Given what we know of Burke’s attitude to the lower ranks of the community, Drennan’s boast of the leading role of the lower orders in the agitation for reform would have horrified the honourable member for Bristol.18 It must also have horrified many of Drennan’s comrades in the Volunteer army who regarded themselves in Henry Grattan’s famous phrase as ‘the armed property of Ireland’. Drennan went on to suggest that Burke was among ‘the men in high places of trust who repeatedly and publicly declare that all interference of the people in matters of legislation is libellous and leads to rebellion’.19

The Irish people would now do one of three things depending on how the Dublin Parliament behaved in this ‘momentous season’. ‘For the people would either guide themselves, or choose new leaders, or repose full confidence in the representative body.’20 However, even if the Dublin Parliament ‘proved sensible to the opinions of the people of Ireland in this crisis they, the people, would not trust all to their senate’.21 No statement could have been more calculated to incense Burke. He never accepted that people had a right to choose new leaders or have any say in how they were governed. For Burke it was for King, Lords and Commons to rule and legislate and for people to obey and do as they were bid by their betters.

Perhaps Drennan was taunting Burke when he told him, ‘The people have been the prime or rather the sole agents of “the revolution of – 80”’22 which he declared was ‘founded on a broad popular base. Necessity had been the stern rugged nurse’ of Irish patriotism amongst the common people. ‘It grew up in the cottage and the hovel amid sickness and sorrow. Its cradle was tended by famine and it listened to the bitter and unremitting cries of human misery.’23

Burke always had a horror of the common people whom he infamously referred to in his Reflections on the Revolution in France as ‘the swinish multitudes’.24 However, Drennan expressed enthusiasm for the revolutionary potential of the lower orders and clearly expressed sympathy for their suffering. In this, he was unique even amongst his fellow radicals. Most radicals and reformers sought political rights for the middle classes and the self-made men of trade and religious freedom for oppressed religious sects or confessions. They rarely, if ever, mentioned the conditions of the common people nor suggested reforms that would extend political rights to the poor. Drennan was to make the need to improve the miserable conditions of the lower ranks of people, and their right to involvement in politics and universal education, a consistent theme of his polemics for the rest of his life.

Burke would have agreed with Drennan’s view of the short-sightedness of England’s traditional approach to Irish trade. ‘It is indeed full time that this great people should relinquish the mean and unenlightened jealousy of a petty shopkeeper and begin to display the amplitude of thought and mercantile sagacity, which can make not only the welfare of friends but even the prosperity of enemies, instruments for promoting its own opulence and grandeur.’25

They both would have accepted the thrust of David Hume’s famous argument ‘the increase of riches and commerce in any one nation, instead of hurting, commonly promotes the riches and commerce of all its neighbours’.26 Burke had followed this contention in a speech he made on Irish trade two years earlier.27

There is some validity in Drennan’s claim that Burke was behaving as a party man. Burke had criticised Lord North for conceding what he knew to be a laudable measure in Ireland. Yet he had consistently attacked North for relying on force and refusing concessions in America. There was, however, a far more deeply held concern behind Burke’s negative reaction to North’s concessions in Ireland.

The trade concessions had been made in the context of thousands of Volunteers in arms, some parading with cannons festooned with the slogan ‘Free Trade or This’. To Burke, the Volunteers constituted an illegal military force.28 He was dismayed by the potential for the Volunteers to provoke a popular insurgency, noting darkly that the troops were electing their own officers.29 Burke believed that the principle of free trade should have been accepted by the British Parliament but that for the Irish to extract national benefits by the threat of military force was illiberal and potentially subversive to the constitution.30

The purpose of Drennan’s letter was not to change Burke’s mind but rather to urge his fellow Volunteers to greater efforts to build on their achievements. He reminded them that they had joined the Volunteers ‘with ardent zeal’ in 1778 when ‘the common danger united all ranks whom the feeling of a common country could not unite before’.31 He hailed what he called ‘that ever memorable institution’ and claimed the Volunteers had ‘Saved the island from invasions, secured domestic tranquillity, advanced civil liberty, laid the foundations of national independence ... taught the administration a lesson ... [and achieved] everything great and good, everything auspicious to the hopes, most connected to the best interests of the country.’32

Drennan next informed Burke that the rise of the Volunteers had led to a change of opinion in Ireland and that political independence was now the aim of the kingdom. There were four different means according to Drennan which the country relied upon for obtaining this great end. These were the benevolence of the sovereign, the policy of the British legislature, the wisdom of parliament and the spirit of the people. Burke was utterly opposed to any extension of independence to Ireland. However, he could have no argument that the first three means for achieving political change were unconstitutional. Drennan’s suggestion that the spirit of the people could be relied upon was an entirely different matter.

What Ireland was demanding was nothing less than ‘the repeal of that odious statute the Sixth of George I relative to Ireland’.33 This was the Declaratory Act of 1720 which established the legislative subordination of Ireland.34 Drennan finished his letter with a flourish, suggesting that ‘Ireland will no longer sit at the gate in wretched apparel but will take her place amongst the mighty of the earth.’35

Burke was appalled when, less than two years later in 1782, Drennan’s prediction came to pass and the Declaratory Act was repealed. Burke believed that the measure threatened to ‘tear asunder the connection between England and Ireland’.36 He had no desire to see the Irish legislative process separated from British parliamentary proceedings.37

An Address to the Volunteers of Ireland

It is not clear what effect the Letter to Burke had on Drennan’s literary reputation. It was printed in Dublin and, presumably, circulated to Volunteer corps around the country. He did not sign his name to the first edition but he had clearly enjoyed seeing his work in print. In early 1781, his next epistle appeared. This was entitled An Address to the Volunteers of Ireland by the Author of the Letter to Edmund Burke Esquire containing Reflections on Patriotism, Party Spirit and the Union of Free Nations. It would appear from this choice of title that his Letter to Burke might have had some impact on the reading public.

The aim of the Address was to focus the Volunteers on the next phase of the struggle. He began by telling them that they ‘deserved well of their country’ but went on to say that ‘the virtue that has done much brings on itself [the obligation] to do more and much more is there to do. The liberty of Ireland is as yet eventual’.38 He continued by asserting that ‘liberty depends on power and that it is union that gives that power’.39 Drennan was aware that there were different attitudes to the American war amongst the Volunteers. While he and many in Belfast and Ulster were strong supporters of the Americans, other Volunteers had joined up to defend Ireland against America’s European allies. He therefore suggested, in the interest of unity, that the Volunteers drop all discussion about America.40

He stressed the importance of perseverance and proclaimed that ‘if Ireland has not the perseverance sufficient to wrestle for a few years for a free constitution she does not deserve a free constitution’. Once more Drennan tried to finish on a high note, by declaring. ‘Forward armed countrymen – Forward – Be cool and confident, silent and determined, patient and persevering. Blend the prudence and foresight of a citizen with the spirit and sinew of a soldier. Watch your enemies and your friends. Trust only to yourselves.’41

The most significant aspect of Drennan’s second venture into print, was that he suggested that the Volunteers should adopt a test. He took it upon himself to draft what he regarded as a suitable text:

I, A. B. Citizen and Volunteer in the presence of my fellow countrymen, declare my loyalty to the King, my love to my country my obedience to its laws. I am ready to defend my country from foreign and domestic enemies. I declare, and will when called upon with my life and fortune that the right of the Kingdom of Ireland is to be free. I maintain that to be free is to have the power of making our own laws. I maintain that the power of making laws for Ireland assumed by Great Britain is not a rightful power and ought to be renounced by every Irishman. I will also be obedient to all lawful commands of my officers.42

He suggested that this test should be taken annually at a public ceremony. It is not clear if any attention was paid to this test or whether he or anyone else in the Blue Company took it. Even at this relatively early stage of his political involvement, he believed that committing oneself in ceremonial fashion to a set of objectives was an effective way to foster unity of purpose and fellowship amongst comrades. Later, Drennan would compose the United Irish test and vigorously defend it when it was attacked by his friend William Bruce. Drennan took immense pride in his authorship of the United Irish test and took many opportunities to quote it verbatim in his later written work. He was still publicly claiming credit for it years after the organisation for which it had been drafted had been destroyed by torture, suppression, massacre and executions.

Drennan’s correspondence with William Bruce gives us insights into the many controversies which arose within the Volunteer movement in those early years. One controversy which caused Drennan some personal disquiet arose from the government decision to raise Fencible regiments to defend the country against invasion. It was hoped that these regiments would be used to fill the place of the regulars serving in America. They would not be required to serve overseas. Lord Portland’s plan was to use the fencibles as a way of weakening the Volunteers or at least bringing some of them under military discipline.43 Most volunteers saw through the plan and one newspaper suggested the scheme was one of ‘the deepest strokes against the power and consequence of the Volunteer army of Ireland’.44 For his part, Drennan ‘beheld the scheme of fencibles with detestation’ and was greatly concerned that it might succeed.45

The problem for Drennan was that his brother-in-law, Sam, had been reduced to penury after a fire at his tan-yard premises in Belfast. He announced his intention to accept a commission in the fencibles. Several Volunteer corps, including the Blue Company, passed resolutions rejecting the government’s fencible plans. One resolution declared that ‘we consider any volunteer who shall accept a commission in any regiment of Fencibles to be raised in Ireland justly entitled to our severest censure’.46 This led to an acrimonious debate in which Sam found himself isolated within the Company. He resigned his position in the Volunteers and as the government soon dropped its fencible plan, he ended up with the worst of both worlds.

Drennan was fortunate that he was absent from Belfast when this dispute arose. He had taken Martha to Scotland to consult with his former teacher, Professor Cullen, regarding Martha’s poor health. In fact, her condition had improved on the journey over and the professor diagnosed a nervous complaint which would respond well to exercise and a change of air.47 Martha was hurt when she heard from Sam that he was no longer a Volunteer. Yet her support for her beloved husband appeared to be somewhat qualified when she told him:

I am perfectly assured that in such a case you would consider and act right, but be cautious of throwing blame on the company, though you are right it does not prove them wrong. If they are in error, it is an excusable one and what I am inclined more to admire than condemn – perhaps their country may yet thank them for it. I cannot blame them in regard to the Fencibles – although I would never blush for you being one.48

Drennan’s sojourn in Scotland made it possible for him to avoid having either to support or oppose Sam, though he was secretly in sympathy with the majority. He believed that Sam should have resigned from the Volunteers once he had decided to seek the commission in the fencibles.

There was another controversy which shook the unity of the Volunteers and did much damage at this crucial time. A very successful convention of the Ulster Volunteers held in Dungannon in February 1782 passed a number of pro-reform resolutions, including one strongly condemning ‘the legislation for Ireland by any body but the King Lords and Commons thereof’.49 Over the next couple of months, many Volunteer corps throughout the country threw their weight behind the Dungannon resolutions. The American war was going badly for the British and Lord North’s administration fell in March. Henry Grattan, a leader of the opposition in the Irish House of Commons, who had secretly helped to draft the Dungannon resolutions, was hailed as the hero of the hour when the British were compelled to concede repeal of the Declaratory Act in May 1782.

Henry Flood, Grattan’s opposition rival, very quickly declared that Grattan’s triumph was illusory and what was required was for Britain to renounce forever the power to legislate for Ireland. This was to be the cause of division that side-tracked the Volunteers in a crucial year. Most of the Belfast Volunteers supported Flood but Drennan did not trust his motives. He told Bruce: ‘Mr. Flood has certainly gained many converts in this county-amongst the rest Dr Haliday is rather on his side. Bryson the only man in the Company against him except W. Cunningham – I humbly conceive Flood uses his great abilities at present for the worst of all purposes, yet his argument is a strong one.’50

Drennan could see that even if Flood’s ‘strong argument’ was accepted, he would hardly be successful when demanding Great Britain concede something ‘we forgot to ask for at our last meeting together and before we sign and seal you must give us something more’.51 Drennan felt that the dispute about repeal or renunciation was pointless and purely verbal. He could not vote for either Grattan or Flood without reproach to his heart.52 Much more fundamentally, he was concerned that this dispute was diverting attention away from what, for Drennan, was the most important task for the Volunteers. In his view, that task was now to secure a more equal representation of the people in parliament. In June, Sir Edward Newenham gave notice in Parliament of his intention to move a bill to increase the weight of city and county representation in parliament.53 Drennan believed that the repeal renunciation dispute was sapping the energies that should have been supporting Newenham. ‘Let them all talk but I believe Newenham’s Bill for adequate representation of the people is of more importance than the question that is agitating the mind of the public – yet it is scarce heard of and without the backing of the people it can never prevail.’54

One of the driving forces behind the Dungannon Convention and, by extension, the key figure behind Grattan’s success with the Declaratory Act was Francis Dobbs (1750–1811). Dobbs was a barrister possessed of great organising skills. He now attempted to combat Flood by organising a second Dungannon Convention on 21 June, at which he succeeded in getting the Volunteers approval for Grattan’s settlement.55 He had himself represented the Belfast Volunteers at the convention and some of them demanded an explanation about why he had cast their vote without referring to them for a mandate.

Dobbs was summoned to Belfast to answer for his conduct. The Blue Company met in the Market House and Dobbs was asked to account for himself. His long-winded attempt to vindicate his action did not impress the meeting. Drennan described his rambling defence as: ‘A most verbose oration that lasted nearly an hour, touched upon every point that lay in the whole compass of Irish politics, contained his conferences with every minister in the Cabinet, their opinions, his opinions, plentiful abuse of Flood, plentiful praise of Grattan and Charlemont, and plentiful paucity of argument.’56

Dobbs’ performance succeeded only in further infuriating the angry Volunteers. He withdrew to the New Inn while the Company considered a motion of censure. Drennan moved the motion and it was carried unanimously. However, he was ‘astonished at the unjustifiable and excessive punishment aimed’ at Dobbs and believed some of it was ‘motivated by personal pique and animosity’. He therefore proposed, as Dobbs had admitted his error, that while the censure should stand, it should not be published in the press. When this was carried by a margin of forty-three to thirty-three, the minority withdrew ‘in paroxysms of rage’. They left the meeting and went to join a crowd who were already besieging the New Inn. Some of the crowd cried out ‘Let us see him, the villain has sold his country.’ Drennan and his friends rushed to the New Inn to protect Dobbs. He told William Bruce: ‘I saw and I know this man is singled out as an object for vengeance. He is weak, vain [but] honest ... I would never wish to countenance private pique in its extremity of wrath against a sinking man. It is ungenerous. It is cruel.’57