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X.

1821.

1 Twiss's Life, ii.

CHAP. of a change in the system of government. The admission of even a single Whig into the Cabinet indicated the increasing weight of that party in the country, and as they were favourable to the Catholic claims, it was an 446; Life of important change. Lord Eldon, ultimus Romanorum, presaged no good from the alliance. "This coalition," 1821, 4, 5; he said, "will have consequences very different from those expected by the members of the administration who brought it about. I hate coalitions." 1

Sidmouth,

iii. 382;

Ann. Reg.

Hughes, vi.

482.

114.

of Lord Sid

is succeeded

as Home

Secretary.

A still more important change took place at the same Retirement time, in the retirement of Lord Sidmouth from the mouth, who onerous and responsible post of Home Secretary. A life by Mr Peel of thirty years in harness, oppressed with the cares of official life, had nearly exhausted the physical strength, though they had by no means dimmed the mental energy, of this conscientious and intrepid statesman; and though no decline in his faculties was perceptible to those around him, he felt that the time had arrived when he should withdraw from the cares and responsibility of office, and dedicate his remaining years to the enjoyment of his family, to which he was strongly attached, and his duties to his Maker. He deemed it a fitting opportunity to take such a step, when the internal situation of the country was so tranquil that the public service could sustain no detriment by his withdrawing from it; for had it been otherwise, he would, at any hazard to his own health or life, have remained at his post.* He was succeeded in his arduous duties by a much younger man, Mr, afterwards SIR ROBERT PEEL, one of greater talents, and whose mind was more in harmony with the spirit of the age, but not of greater energy and integrity, and by no means of equal moral courage. Lord Sidmouth's abilities,

calculated to shake their allegiance to their sovereign; and his chivalrous character, notwithstanding his party zeal, leads the author to believe that this was really the fact.

* "The truth is, it was because my official bed had become a bed of roses that I determined to withdraw from it. When strewn with thorns, I would not have left it."—Sidmouth's Life, iii. 390.

1

X.

1822.

though not of the highest order, were of the most useful CHAP. kind, and his administrative talents stood forth preeminent. His industry was indefatigable, his energy untiring, his intrepidity, both moral and physical, such as nothing could quell. He steered the vessel of the State during the anxious years which succeeded the close of the Lord Sid. war, through all the shoals with which it was beset, with Bishop exemplary vigour and undaunted courage; and it was not ford, Nov. a little owing to his resolution that the crisis was sur- Sidmouth's mounted in 1820, which proved fatal to the cause of 388, 390. liberty and order in so many other states.1

mouth to

Hunting

11, 1821;

Life, iii.

lesley ap

Viceroy of

This parliamentary coalition was attended with still 115. more important changes in Ireland, for there it com- Lord Welmenced an entire alteration in the system of government, pointed" which has continued, with little interruption, to the pre- Ireland, and sent day. As the Protestants, ever since the Revolution, change in had been the dominant party in that island, and the ment there. Catholics were known to be decidedly hostile both to the British government and alliance, the Viceroy, and all the officers of state who composed its government, had hitherto been invariably stanch Protestants; and Lord Talbot, the present Viceroy, and Mr Saurin, the Attorney-general, were of that persuasion. But as the Cabinet itself was now divided on the subject of concession of the Catholic claims, it was thought necessary to make a similar partition in the Irish administration. Accordingly, Marquess Wellesley, a decided supporter of the Catholics, was made Lord-lieutenant in room of Lord Talbot; Mr Saurin, the champion of the Orange party, made way for Mr Plunkett, the eloquent advocate of the Catholic claims in the House of Commons; and Mr Bushe, also a Catholic supporter, was made Solicitor-general ; while, on the principle of preserving a balance of parties, Mr Goulburn, a stanch Protestant, was appointed Secretary to the government. Great expectations were formed of the beneficial effects of this conciliatory policy, which, it was hoped, would continue the unanimity of loyal

CHAP. feeling which had

X.

1822.

Memoirs of

animated the country during the visit of the Sovereign. But these hopes were miserably disappointed party strife was increased instead of being 1 Pearce's diminished by the first step towards equality of governWellesley, ment, and the next year added another to the innumeriii.316,317; able proofs which the annals of Ireland have afforded, that its evils are social, not political, and are increased rather than diminished by the extension to its inhabitants of the privileges of free citizens.1

Ann. Reg.

1822, 7; Hughes, vi.

480.

116.

wretched

land.

Entirely agricultural in their habits, pursuits, and deCause of the sires-solely dependent for their subsistence on the fruits ness of Ire of the soil, and without manufactures, mines, fisheries, or means of livelihood of any sort, save in Ulster, except that derived from its cultivation-the possession of land, and the sale of its produce, was a matter of life or death to the Irish people. The natural improvidence of the Celtic race, joined to the entire absence of all those limitations on the principle of increase which arise from habits of comfort, the desire of rising, or the dread of falling, in the world-and the interested views of the Catholic priesthood, who encouraged marriage, from the profits which bridals and christenings brought to themselveshad overspread the land with an immense and redundant population, which had no other means of livelihood but the possession and cultivation of little bits of land. were few labourers living on paid wages in any of the provinces of Ireland; in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, where the Celtic race and Catholic creed predominated, scarcely any. Of farmers possessed of capital, 2 Pearce's and employing farm-servants, there were in the south and Wellesley, west none. Emigration had not as yet opened its boundless fields, or spread out the garden of the Far West 1822, 14; for the starving multitudes of the Emerald Isle. They Wellesley had no resources or means of livelihood, but in the postary Peel, session of little pieces of land, for which they bid against 1823. each other with the utmost eagerness, and from which they excluded the stranger with the most jealous care.2

Life of

iii. 348;

Ann. Reg.

Marquess

to Mr Secre

Jan. 29,

There

X.

1822.

Six millions of men, without either capital or industry, CHAP. shut up within the four corners of a narrow though fruitful land, were contending with each other for the possession of their patches of the earth, like wolves enclosed within walls for pieces of carrion, whose hostility against each other was only interrupted by a common rush against any hapless stranger who might venture to approach their bounds, and threaten to share their scanty meal.

have re

country,

Experience has abundantly proved, since that time, 117. what reason, not blinded by party, had already discovered What would -what were the real remedies for such an alarming and lieved the disastrous state of things, and what alone could have and its negiven any lasting relief. These were, to furnish the glect. means of emigration, at the public expense, to the most destitute of the peasants of the country, and form roads, canals, and harbours, to facilitate the sale of the produce of such as remained at home. Having in this way got quit of the worst and most dangerous part of the population, and lessened the competition for small farms among such as were still there, an opening would have been afforded for farmers, possessed of capital and skill, from England and Scotland, to occupy the land of those who had been removed to a happier hemisphere; and with them the religion, industrial habits, and education of the inhabitants of Great Britain, might gradually, and in the course of generations, have been introduced. But, unfortunately, party ambition and political delusion blinded men to all these rational views, which went only to bless the country, not to elevate a new party to its direction. Faction fastened upon Ireland as the arena where the Ministry might be assailed with effect; Catholic emancipation was cherished and incessantly brought forward, as the wedge the point of which, already inserted, might be made, by a few hard strokes, to split the Cabinet in pieces; and while motions on this subject, involving the entry of sixty gentlemen into Parliament, enforced by the eloquence of Canning and Plunkett, and resisted by the

X.

1822.

CHAP. argument of Peel, never failed to attract a full attendance of members on both sides of the House, Mr Wilmot Horton's proposals regarding emigration, the only real remedy for the evils of the unhappy country, and involving the fate of six millions, were coldly listened to, and generally got quit of by the House being counted

118. Ruinous

effect of

tion of the

currency upon Ireland.

out.

But it was not merely by sins of omission that the Legislature, at this period, left unhealed the wounds, the contrac- and unrelieved the miseries, of Ireland. Their deeds of commission were still more disastrous in their effects. The contraction of the currency, and consequent fall of the prices of agricultural produce fifty per cent, fell with crushing effect upon a country wholly agricultural, and a people who had no other mode of existence but the sale of that produce. This had gone on now for nearly three years; and its effect had been, not only to suck the little capital which they possessed out of the farmers, but in many instances to produce a deep-rooted feeling of animosity between them and their landlords, which was leading to the most frightful disorders.* All the agrarian outrages which have in every age disgraced Ireland have 1 Pearce's arisen from one cause the contest for pieces of land, the Memoirs of dread of being ejected from them, and jealousy of any stranger's interference. It is no wonder it is so; for 1822, 14,15; to them it is a question, not of change of possession, Wellesley but of life or death.1 The ruinous fall in the price of of State, agricultural produce of all sorts had rendered the pay1822. ment of rents, at least in full, wholly impossible, and had led, in consequence, to measures of severity having been

Wellesley,

iii. 337;

Ann. Reg.

Marquess

to Secretary

Jan. 14,

* "I request your attention to the suggestions which I have submitted for the more effectual restraint of this system of mysterious engagements, formed under the solemnity of secret oaths, binding his Majesty's liege subjects to act under authorities not known to the law, nor derived from the State, for purposes undefined, not disclosed in the first process of initiation, nor until the infatuated novice has been sworn to the vow of unlimited and lawless obedience."-Marquess WELLESLEY to Mr Secretary PEEL, Jan. 29, 1823; Life of Wellesley, iii. 360.

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