I am going to publish what you saw without my name for the public rumination. Pray do not betray me.1 We shall have a keen contest here between Bulteel and Buller.2 It is evident from this letter, that Lord John, in 1832, embraced the views on Irish policy which have been ordinarily held by English statesmen. It has been their constant misfortune that they have been unable to appreciate the causes which have made the Irish perpetually dissatisfied and disloyal. During the Administration of Lord Grey, Whig statesmen were specially unable to probe the true causes of Irish discontent. For thirty years they had been educated in the belief that religious disabilities formed the chief Irish grievance. The disqualification had been removed; and the Irish were justifying by their conduct the Tory prediction that the redress of one grievance would only lead to an agitation for the removal of another. In the twenties, Ireland had been organised to secure the Emancipation of the Roman Catholics; in the thirties, the Irish Government was confronted with a tithe war. Unhappily, moreover, the Whig Ministers were themselves partly to blame for the difficulties which they encountered. In forming his Administration, Lord Grey chose as Irish Viceroy the distinguished General, Lord Anglesey, who had already filled that position under the Duke of Wellington. He gave him as his Chief Secretary Mr. Stanley, a man whose abilities qualified him to shine in almost any capacity, but whose temperament made it certain that he would fail to 1 Lord John published the Essay on the Causes of the French Revolution in 1833. The publication was anonymous, but the veil was very thin: on p. 29 Lord John wrote, 'We have seen at the beginning of this work the manners and morals of the Court in the days of Lewis the Fourteenth;' and the beginning of this work is, of course, the opening chapter of the Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe. 2 Mr John Croker Bulteel, who was the son-in-law of Lord Grey, stood with Lord John for the southern of the two divisions into which Devonshire had been divided by the Reform Act. He was successful. conciliate the Irish. And the initial blunder was followed by sins of omission and commission. The Whig Ministers not only refused to offer office to Mr. O'Connell, but they deliberately conferred the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas on Mr. Doherty, who had been the Duke of Wellington's legal adviser; they offered the post of Attorney-General to Mr. Pennefather, a Tory: and on his refusal of it they appointed a Conservative to that office and a Protestant to the Solicitor-Generalship. The Irish, therefore, in the earliest days of the new Ministry, received the plainest evidence that no change was to be introduced into the principles of Irish government, and that Irish patriots had nothing to expect from a Whig Administration. Every one acquainted with Irish history could have predicted the results of such a policy. Lord Anglesey was soon actively engaged in prohibiting meetings and proclaiming associations; and Mr. O'Connell was employed in devising methods of evading the Viceroy's proclamations. The Viceroy, after some difficulty, succeeded in procuring the conviction of the agitator, and the English Government, requiring his vote on the Reform Bill, allowed judgment to be postponed. Unhappily, too, a new and unprecedented difficulty was forcing itself on the Irish Government. The indiscreet conduct of one or two Protestant clergymen led to an organised resistance to the payment of tithes. Whatever opinion it might entertain of the justice of a system which compelled the Irish Roman Catholics to pay tithe and cess in support of a Protestant Church, the Irish Government could not avoid attempting to enforce the law. But, as 1831 wore on, it became evident that, though it had constabulary and troops at its back, it could not collect the tithes. In consequence, the Ministry, at the commencement of 1832, acting nominally on the advice of select committees, but in reality carrying out a scheme of Mr. Stanley's, passed two Acts: (1) enabling the Irish Government to relieve the distressed incumbent, and to repay itself by collecting the tithes which the incumbent had failed to obtain; (2) providing for the compulsory com position of tithes; and throwing the payment, as tenancies fell in, on the sub-lessee, lessee, and landlord. These measures, good in themselves, failed, because they did not go far enough. Though, under one of them, the tenant at will was relieved from the payment of tithes, the small farmers, who held leases either for terms of years or on lives, obtained no relief. The Irish Roman Catholics naturally disliked the provisions of the other measure, which authorised the Government itself to collect the tithes. The Viceroy, in Mr. O'Connell's language, had been turned into Tithe ProctorGeneral for Ireland. Thus the legislation of 1832 proved useless. The Irish Government failed to collect the tithes; and the Irish people, organised in bands of Blackfeet and Whitefeet, arrayed themselves against the authorities. Force was met by force, outrage by repression; and the condition of Ireland became worse and more lawless than it had been at any previous period since the Union. If the Whig Administration had secured the services of Mr. O'Connell in some suitable office, the influence of the first Irishman alive might have been exerted in this dilemma on the side of authority; it was now thrown into the scale of disorder. Mr. O'Connell declared that he had no patience with the base, brutal, and bloody' Whigs; and that the true remedy for Irish grievances was to be found in the institution of an Irish Legislature. Forgetting all that the Whigs had done for Ireland in the past; forgetting their constant advocacy of the claims of the Roman Catholics; forgetting even that his seat in Parliament was due to their effortsMr. O'Connell was denouncing Whig measures, and waving the banner of Home Rule. It is evident from the letter which has already been quoted that Lord John shared the feelings with which his friends regarded the conduct of Mr. O'Connell. And he seems almost to have despaired of any solution of the Irish difficulty. For, writing to the same correspondent only a month later, he said— We are very busy with Church, slavery, and other matters. VOL. I. N In England I hope it may be true that there is no wrong without a remedy; in Ireland, all is wrong, and nothing a remedy. One remedy, however, was always available. Imitating the conduct of all its predecessors, and of almost all its successors, the Ministers considered that, if they were unable to redress grievances, they might, at least, preserve order; and consequently determined on asking Parliament for 'such additional powers as may be found necessary for controlling and punishing the disturbers of the public peace.' There is every reason for believing that Lord John was personally in favour of the policy which was thus pursued. When Mr. O'Connell denounced it as 'brutal' and 'bloody,' Lord John himself called the Irish agitator to order; and in the subsequent debate he avowed his undoubted conviction that the dreadful scenes which were occurring in Ireland day after day, that the general insecurity of property, and the peril of life experienced from hour to hour in that country, required such an alteration in the state of the law as might support the supreme authority of the State. And years afterwards he wrote in his old age— A measure of coercion containing very strong provisions was sent over by the Government of Ireland. Lord Grey accepted it, because, in his opinion, the protection of life and property was a duty incumbent upon every Government. Lord Althorp accepted it also, because, in his opinion, the stronger the measure the more likely was it to be temporary, and to give way after a short time to the restoration of the ordinary law. Lord John's friend and correspondent, Mr. Moore, had differed from Lord John on the subject of Reform; he differed from him still more widely on the subject of coercion; and he despatched to the Times the well-known lines, 'Paddy's Metamorphosis.' In the poem, Paddy, following other Paddies. to the new world, hears himself on his arrival addressed by a negro in his own language, and in horror yells outGood Lord! only think,-black and curly already! And the poet adds the moral 'Tis thus, but, alas! by a marvel more true Than is told in this rival of Ovid's best stories,- Good Lord! only think,-black and curly already. The verses appeared anonymously in the Times of March 1. That evening Lord John made a 'black and curly' speech in defence of his colleagues' policy; and the following morning he despatched the following letter to Mr. Moore at Sloperton :DEAR MOORE,-Here is, for your 'black and woolly already,' if it be yours, more sense, though less poetry.-Yours truly, March 2. THE IRISH In Genoa 'tis said that a jewel of yore Clear, large, and resplendent, ennobled a shrine, J. R. And the emerald was pure, and the saint was divine. And the faithful who worshipp'd besotted and blind; And the multitude still in mute rev'ience inclined. So Ireland had once a fair gem of pure water When Grattan and Charlemont wept at her sorrow, But a token of glass her new patriots have brought her 'Tis a jewel to-day, 'twill be shiver'd to-morrow. '1 Coercion, however, was not the only remedy which Mr. Stanley and his colleagues were applying to Ireland. They had the wisdom to acknowledge that the condition of the Irish Church formed the main grievance, or one of the main grievances, of the Irish people; and they had the courage to introduce a really comprehensive measure of Church Reform. Ireland, in 1832, was divided into twenty-two 1 Lord John, apparently writing from memory, thought that Mr. Moore had written black and woolly,' and not 'black and curly.' |