Читать книгу The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed - Unknown - Страница 1

FELLOW SUBJECTS,

It is always a bold undertaking in a private individual to become the advocate of a suffering people. It is peculiarly difficult at the present moment to be the advocate of the people of Ireland, because there are among them men who have taken the power of redress into their own hands, and committed acts of outrage and rebellion which no sufferings could justify, and which can only tend to aggravate ten-fold the other calamities of their country. Deeply impressed, however, as I am with a conviction that these difficulties stand in my way, I shall yet venture to state to Englishmen the case of Ireland. In doing so, I rest not on a vain confidence in my own strength, but on the nature of the cause I plead; for I am convinced, that when the train of measures which have led that miserable country into its present situation shall be fully disclosed, it will be but little difficult to rouze the people of England not merely to commiserate a distressed country, but excite them to exert their constitutional endeavours, as head of the British empire, to avert the destruction of its principal member.

There is another circumstance which gives me hope. The people of England at this hour feel themselves much more interested in what concerns Irishmen, than they have ever done at any former period. Whatever mischiefs may have resulted to human society from that kind of philosophic illumination by which modern times are distinguished, one certain good at least has been produced by it—men have become better acquainted—the bond of a common nature has been strengthened—and each country begins to feel an interest in the concerns of every other. It is not to a more extensive personal intercourse, or to the creation of any new principles of political union, that this is to be attributed. It is owing solely to an increased communication of sentiment and feeling—to a knowledge which has diffused itself through the world that the human mind is every where made of the same materials, and that on all the great questions which concern man's interest in society, the men of every country think alike. Hence has arisen an increased sympathy between nations—if not between those who govern them, at least between those by whom they are constituted; and hence too has it followed, that those national antipathies which had so long debased and afflicted mankind, are now become less strong and rancorous; and, it may be reasonable to hope, will one day be known no more.

It is not, however, on the influence of this nascent principle of philanthropy among nations that I ground my principal hope, when I call on Englishmen to hear with an ear of kindness and concern the complaint of a sister-country. I resort to a still more powerful principle—I shall call on them as a people famed even in barbarous times for those feelings of generosity and compassion, which are inseparable from valour—I shall call on them as a FREE people, to watch with caution the progress of despotism toward their own shores, stalking in all its horrors of murder, pillage, and flames, through the territory of a neighbour—I shall call even on their INTEREST, to save from utter ruin, political, commercial, and constitutional, the most valuable member of the British empire! If Englishmen look with horror on the enormities of France, I will call on them to let crimes of as black a dye perpetrated in Ireland meet their share of detestation. If they who subvert the good order of society—who overleap the bounds fixed by the law of Nature itself to guard the liberty, life, and property of individuals against the spoiler, be fit objects of reprobation, I shall turn the eyes of all the good and wise in England toward that faction by whose counsels and whose deeds the fairest island in the British empire has been made a theatre on which lawless outrage has played its deadly freaks!

When I speak in terms thus strong of that system under which the people of Ireland have suffered for some years, and by which they have been goaded into acts of folly and madness which no good man is either able or inclined to defend, let me not too early be charged with declamation. There are some cases in which no language can be declamatory because no words can aggravate them. If I shall not shew before I conclude this address that the case of Ireland is one of them, let me then be branded with the epithet of empty talker!

It will not be necessary for me, in stating to the people of England the calamities under which Ireland smarts, and the causes which produced them, to go farther back than that period at which she became, nominally at least, an independent country. What remains of her history before that period the honour of both countries calls on us to forget—a mistaken but overbearing principle of domination and monopoly on one hand, fed and strengthened by a servile and base acquiescence on the other, constitute the outline of the sketch—an idle and beggared populace, a jobbing legislature, proscriptions, penal laws, &c. &c. are the disgusting materials with which it must be filled. That Time should quickly draw his veil over such a scene, and cover it with oblivion would be the natural wish of every British and Irish heart, were it not that scenes still more disgraceful to both countries and more calamitous to one of them have succeeded—scenes which force the mind to revert with regret to those days of poverty and peace, when, as there existed little wealth to excite avarice, and little spirit to aggravate the ambition of party, that little remained inviolate, and the miserable cabin, though filled with objects of disgusting wretchedness, was yet the secure covering and castle of its humble owner.—How different his present situation! when in laying down his head at night he fears lest before morning he shall be rouzed by the cries of his family in flames, or dragged from his bed by military ruffians, to be hanged at his own door!

Forgetting then the many causes of discontent with the people of England which existed in Ireland prior to the year 1782, I shall call the attention of this country to only those transactions which have taken place since that time—and indeed to many of those transactions it would not be necessary to advert at all, were it not for that minute and elaborate detail which has been made of them by a well known public character in a late publication,1 for the purpose of proving that Ireland deserved what she suffered—that she has been always sottishly discontented and basely ungrateful. But I call on Englishmen to judge impartially for themselves—nor let the confident assertion or bold recrimination of an accused man pre-occupy their decision on the merits and the sufferings of an unhappy people.

It will scarcely be denied at this day, that the people of Ireland did right in calling for the independence of their legislature in the year 1782, and in pressing that claim on the British minister, until he yielded to its force.—It is admitted that Ireland, on that occasion, while she armed herself to repel the foes of Britain, while her population poured to her shores to resist the insulting fleet of the enemy, and preserve her connexion with the empire, acted with the proper and true spirit of a brave and loyal people in calling on the British Parliament for a renunciation of that claim to rule her which was originally founded only on her weakness, and was supported by no other argument than power. While this then is admitted, let it be remembered, that they who opposed this just claim of Ireland to be free, must have been the advocates of a slavish system—and that the people of Ireland might fairly entertain doubts of the sincere attachment of such men to her cause.—Let it be remembered, that the men who said to a country struggling for the legitimate power of governing for itself, "You have no right to make your own laws—you are materials fit only to be governed by strangers," were not men in whom that country, when she succeeded in the struggle, could place much confidence. In fact, she did not confide in them. It was thought necessary to watch attentively the measures of men who had reluctantly assented to the manumission of their country, and who were believed to have such a deeply rooted attachment to the principles of the old court, that they would lose no opportunity of re-inducing upon the nation those bonds which she had broken only by a combination of fortunate circumstances, concurring with her own efforts.

In this consciousness of the danger with which they were surrounded from false friends, originated that doubt which is now charged on the people of Ireland as a first proof of wanton discontent—I mean a doubt about the validity of the simple repeal of the 6th Geo. III. as an act of renunciation. Discontent on this subject arose and became general in Ireland almost immediately on the repeal of that obnoxious statute; and from the zeal and warmth with which it was attempted to beat it down, did for a time put the kingdom in a ferment. The men who have since that time scourged Ireland with a rod of iron, charge this as the commencement of the crimes of the country—the first overt act of her intemperance and violent propensity to discontent. Whether it deserves that epithet Englishmen will judge, when they learn that this doubt was first suggested by some of the best lawyers—the warmest friends and the most enlightened and able men whom Ireland ever knew—by Walter Hussey Burgh—by Henry Flood, and by the brilliant phalanx of constitutional lawyers who at that time graced the popular cause—men "to whom compared" the most proud and petulant of her present persecutors "are but the insects of a summer's day." These gentlemen had been the long-tried friends of the country—they had been found pure in principle, and in intellect superior to their contemporaries. Where, therefore, was the wonder, that the people should adopt an opinion sanctioned and inculcated by such venerable names? What was there strange or criminal in believing, that a country which only retracted in silence a claim for more than half a century enforced and acted on, did but suspend for the present a right which she believed to exist, and which she would not fail to urge again in more favourable circumstances? The partisans of the Irish Chancellor act with as much confidence on his opinions in cases where common understandings have less to guide them: why then should the people of Ireland be branded as seditious and disaffected, for following, in a matter of law, the counsels of men whose integrity she had tried, and whose talents were acknowledged?

It is true, indeed, there was on the other side of this question a name to which Ireland owed much, and to whose subsequent exertions in her cause, though fruitless, she owes perhaps still more—Mr. Grattan. He thought the simple repeal of itself a valid and full renunciation. But it may be said for the people of Ireland, that Mr. Grattan, when this question was agitated, stood in circumstances which deducted much from his high authority. He had but just come from the Treasury, after receiving 50,000l. for his past services—and it was too generally known in Ireland, that there was some quality in Treasury gold, however acquired, which attracted the possessor powerfully towards the Castle. The private judgement of Mr. Grattan might also be reasonably supposed to have a bias on the question, from the circumstance of being himself the adviser of the simple repeal—the idea of an explicit renunciation not having been started when Mr. Grattan's principal exertions, seconded by the voice of the people, triumphed over the old system. There was another reason—Mr. Grattan's influence was weakened, if not lost, by the fallen character of those with whom he then acted. The people of Ireland were naturally jealous of those men who had uniformly supported the dominating principles of the British party in Ireland, and who had as violently opposed (though by more legitimate means) the exertions of the popular party to obtain an independent legislature, as they now do to prevent the reform of the legislative body. And finally, the opinion and authority of Mr. Grattan, however respectable were not thought an adequate counterpoize to the weight of those very numerous and most respectable opinions which were on this question in opposition to his. Under these circumstances, the charge of sottish discontent, which has been so confidently made against the Irish nation, will appear to be one of those foul calumnies by which a desperate and enraged faction strive to cover their own enormities. Englishmen, and the world, will see, that had Ireland at that critical moment adopted the advice of those who had always acted as enemies to her best interests, and rejected the counsels and opinions of those to whom she owed the most important obligations, she would then indeed have been incorrigibly sottish.

The next crime with which the Irish nation stands charged, is their early and zealous efforts for parliamentary reform.—It has been enumerated as one of the causes which have produced the present horrible system of administration in Ireland, that shortly after the establishment of their legislative independence, a convention met in Dublin, consisting of representatives from the different Volunteer Associations, by whom the country had been saved from the common enemy, and who were supposed to have contributed much to the establishment of her independence. This convention had been constituted on the same principle (but with more circumspection and order) as that which was so well known by the name of the Dungannon meeting—an assembly, which though perfectly military, so far as its being constituted by armed citizens could make it so, did more towards asserting the independence of Ireland and procuring for her the most important advantages of constitution and commerce than any other which ever sat in Ireland. To the Dungannon meeting, however, no exceptions were taken—they were suffered to meet—to resolve—and to point out in the most decisive tone the grievances under which they supposed the country laboured. Their remonstrances were carried even to the foot of the throne, and the father of his people, uninfluenced by that romantic sense of dignity, which has since produced such lamentable effects in Irish Parliaments—graciously received, and wisely attended to their remonstrances.—The jesuitical or Machiavelian distinction between citizens in red clothes and in coloured ones, had not yet been thought of—it was considered sufficient to entitle an address or petition to a respectful hearing, if it was substantially the sense of a great body of the property and population of the state, no matter whether they spoke in the character of volunteers associated to defend the constitution, or as freeholders assembled only to exercise its privileges.

It is not for me now to defend the convention of that day from the imputation of false policy and imprudence, in preferring the character of soldiers to that of citizens in their deliberative capacity, but I cannot help observing—First, that the Irish administration have never manifested any dislike of military bodies—real, mercenary, foreign soldiers,—expressing publicly their sentiments on great public questions, when those sentiments coincided with the politics of the Castle—witness the manifestoes with which the Irish newspapers have for the last year or two been crouded, from Scotch and English mercenary troops, in which these zealous advocates for religion and liberty declare themselves friends to this or that measure, publish their determination to support them—and sometimes conclude by letting the Irish public know—they had not come thither to be trifled with.—Secondly, I must remark, that tho' the great objection to the volunteer convention was its being armed, and consisting of the representatives of an armed body, yet opposition equally violent has been since made to other representative bodies not military—instance the calumny with which the servants of the Irish administration have blackened the Catholic committee—and, above all, instance the Athlone convention, the meeting of which administration were so solicitous to prevent, that they ventured on a law to prevent for ever the meeting of any representative body—the House of Commons excepted.

By these circumstances it seems sufficiently clear, that the inconceivable aversion entertained against this body, and the memory of it, was founded not in its being military, but in its being representative and popular—not in its constitution, but in its object.—With respect to its being a representative body, I profess, for my own part, I cannot conceive why for that reason the Irish government and the Irish Chancellor have held it so much in abomination. You, Englishmen, who understand that constitution of which you are properly so proud, will be surprized to hear that representative bodies are unconstitutional.—If you heard this asserted with much confidence by a lawyer, you would say he had studied special pleading rather than the British constitution.—If you heard this doctrine swallowed implicitly by an assembly of legislators, you would say they were still unfit to govern themselves. What is it, you would ask, that forms the general and pervading principle of the British constitution, if not the representative one? Every petty corporation, you would observe, elects representatives to act for them in their Common Council—the council elect Aldermen, and these again their Mayor—all on the same principle—that of having the sense of the multitude concentrated, and their business dispatched at once with ease and order. Nay, every Freeman is himself but a representative, not indeed of other men—but of his own property.

But it is impossible that this should have been the real ground of objection to the Convention, however it might have been urged as the ostensible one—for it is obvious, that if the principle of representation be a fair and useful principle to adopt in collecting the sense of the people with respect to laws or taxes, it must also be a useful and fair principle to resort to, in every other instance, where great bodies of men are permitted to express their common sense as they are unquestionably in petitioning for redress of grievances, &c. No, Englishmen! it was not because the Convention was unconstitutional as being representative, but because it was chosen to recommend, as the sense of the Irish people (for the Volunteers of that day were people of Ireland,)—a parliamentary reform, and to consider of a specific plan. It was this that the corrupt part of the Irish Government dreaded. They had been stunned by the unexpected blow struck by the people in asserting the independence of the legislature: for whatever credit the Parliament of that day may assume for the part which they acted in that business, it requires no argument to prove to a discerning man, that they were passive instruments in the people's hand—they only re-echoed the voice of an armed nation which they conceived too loud to be smothered, and were hurried on irresistibly by that enthusiastic sentiment for national independence, which the ability of one great mind, aided by a fortunate concurrence of existing circumstances, had excited. But at the period I now speak of, the party of the British Minister had recovered from the astonishment into which the successful and prompt energy of the nation had thrown him. He now began to reflect on the extensive consequence which must follow from the restoration to Ireland of the right of legislating for herself. It was soon felt, that there now remained in the hands of the court faction in Ireland, only one instrument by which the effect of the recent revolution could be checked or frustrated; and that was, the borough system. It was seen, that whatever nominal independence the Irish legislature might have attained, yet while a majority of the Commons' House was constituted of members returned immediately by the crown influence, the will of the crown or the will of the British Cabinet must still be the law which would bind Ireland. To preserve the borough system then, at all hazards, became from that moment the great object of the dominating faction. The Convention was an engine which seemed to threaten its immediate and complete overthrow; it was therefore resolved, by all means, to effect its ruins. The staunch hounds which had fattened for years on the vitals of the country, but had been for some time kept at bay by the universal energy of the public mind, were again hallooed into action. In addition to these were introduced new forces from every quarter, but principally from the old aristocratic families, who had monopolized for a century the power and wealth of the country. On the memorable night when Mr. Flood presented to the House the petition of the Convention, was made the grand effort which was to decide whether the will of the nation or that of the old faction should govern. The latter was victorious. The people, with the characteristic levity of their nation, repulsed in this great effort, for the present, at least, shrunk back from the contest. The victorious party, possessing means of the most extensive and corrupting influence, strained them to the utmost; and gaining ground from that moment on the sense of the nation on that main point, have continued triumphantly and insolently to prostrate the people of Ireland. Every thinking and steady Irishman, however, retained his opinion as to the necessity of reform, and continued by the few means in his power, to promote it. At this point, then, commenced the separation between the Irish administration with their partisans in Parliament and the Irish people, and from that time they have gone in directly opposite directions.