the question. The applause redoubled. A moment of tumultuous exultation followed: and after centuries of oppression, Ireland at length declared herself an independent nation. Word of the event no sooner reached the impatient crowd outside the building, than a cry of joy and triumph burst forth all over the city. "The news soon spread through the nation, and the rejoicings of the people were beyond all description; every city, town, and village in Ireland blazed with the emblems of exultation, and resounded with the shouts of triumph." "Never was a new nation more nobly heralded into exist ence! Never was an old nation more reverently and tenderly lifted up and restored! The houses adjourned to give England time to consider Ireland's ultimatum. Within a month it was accepted by the new British administration." The" visionary" and "impracticable" idea had become an accomplished fact. The "splendid phantom" had become a glorious reality. The heptarchy had not been restored; yet Ireland had won complete legislative independence! LXXVIII.--WHAT NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE ACCOMPLISHED FOR IRELAND. F mankind needed at so late a period of the world's age as the close of the eighteenth century, any experiment to prove the substantial benefits of national freedom, the progress of Ireland during this brief but bright and glorious era of independence would suffice to establish the fact for ever. Happily, when referring to the events of that time, we treat of no remote period of history. Living men remember it. Irishmen of this generation have listened at their parent's knee to reminiscences and relations, facts and particulars, that mark it as the day of Ireland's true, real, and visible prosperity. Statistics-invulnerable-irrefragable -full of eloquence-momentous in their meaning-attest the same truth. Manufacture, trade, and commerce developed to a greater extent in ten years of native rule than they had done in the previous hundred under English mastery, . and in a much greater proportion than they had developed in the sixty-seven years of subsequent "union "legislation. Ireland's freedom and prosperity did not mean England's injury, nor England's pause in the like onward march. The history of the period we are now treating of disposes of more than one fallacy used by the advocates of Irish national extinction. It proves that Ireland's right does not involve England's wrong. Never before were the two countries more free from jealousy, rivalry, or hostility. Never before was discontent banished from Ireland-as never since has disaffection been absent. Lust of dominion-sheer covetousness of mastery-has in all ages been the source and origin of the most wanton invasions and most wicked subjugations. Not even amongst Englishmen themselves does any writer now hesitate to characterize as nefarious, treacherous, and abominable, the scheme by which England invaded and overthrew in 1800 the happily established freedom of Ireland. * Scarcely had the rusty chain of "Poynings' Act" been wrenched off, than the English minister began to consider how a stronger one might be forged and bound on the liberated Irish nation! The king's voice characterized the happy and amicable settlement just concluded as "final." The British minister and the British parliament in the most solemn manner declared the same; and surely nothing but morbid suspiciousness could discover fair ground for crediting that England would play Ireland false upon that promise that she would seize the earliest opportunity of not merely breaking that “final adjustment," and shackling the Irish parliament anew, but of destroying it utterly and forever! Yet there were men amongst the Irish patriots who did not hesitate to express such suspicions at the moment, and foremost amongst these was Flood. He pressed for further and more specific and formal renunciation. Grattan, on the other hand, violently resisted this, as an ungenerous effort to put England "on her knees to humiliate her-to plainly treat her as a suspected blackleg. On this issue the two patriot leaders violently, acrimoniously, and irreconcilably quarreled; Flood and his following contending that England would surely betray Ireland on the "final adjustment," and Grattan, with the bulk of the national party, vehemently refusing to put such ungenerous insult and indignity on England as to suppose her capable of such conduct. Alas! At that very moment—as the now published corres English readers as yet uninformed on the subject, and disposed to receive with hesitation the statements of Irish writers as to the infamous means resorted to by the English government to overthrow the Irish constitution in 1800, may be referred to the Castlereagh Papers and the Cornwallis Correspondence--the private letters of the chief agents in the scheme. Mr. Massey, chairman of committies in the English House of Commons, published, a few years ago, a volume which exposes and characterizes that nefarious transaction in language which might by deemed too strong if used by an Irishman feeling the wrong and suffering from it. pondence of the English statesmen engaged in the transaction discloses the British ministers were discussing, devising, and directing preparations for accomplishing, by the most iniquitous means, that crime against Ireland of which Grattan considered it ungenerous and wicked to express even a suspicion! It was with good reason the national party, soon after the accomplishment of legislative independence, directed their energies to the question of parliamentary reform. The legislative body, which in a moment of great public excitement and enthusiasm, had been made for a moment to reflect correctly the national will, was after all returned by an antique electoral system, which was a gross farce on representation. Boroughs and seats were at the time openly and literally owned by particular persons or families, the voting" constituency" sometimes being not more than a dozen in number. As a matter of fact, less than a hundred persons owned seats or boroughs capable of making a majority in the commons. The patriot party naturally and wisely judged that with such a parliament the retention of freedom would be precarious, and the representation of the national will uncertain; so the question of parliamentary reform came to be agitated with a vehemence second only to that of parliamentary independence in the then recent campaign. By this time, however, the British minister had equally detected, that while with such a parliament he might accomplish his treacherous designs, with a parliament really amenable to the people, he never could. Concealing the real motive and the remote object, the government, through its myriad devious channels of influence, as well as openly and avowedly, resisted the demand for reform. Apart from the government, the "vested interests" of the existing system were able to make a protracted fight. Ere long both these sections were leagued together, and they hopelessly outnumbered the popular party. The government now began to feel itself strong, and it accordingly commenced the work of deliberately destroying the parliament of Ireland. Those whom it could influence, purchase, or corrupt, were one by one removed or bought in market overt. Those who were true to honor and duty, it insolently threatened, insulted, and assailed. The popular demands were treated with defiance and contumely by the minister and his co-conspirators. Soon a malign opportunity presented itself for putting Ireland utterly, hopelessly, help. lessly into their hands-the sheep committed to the grasp of the wolf for security and protection! LXXIX. HOW THE ENGLISH MINISTER SAW HIS ADVANTAGE IN PROVOKING IRELAND INTO AN ARMED STRUGGLE; AND HOW HEARTLESSLY HE LABORED TO THAT END. W er. HILE these events were transpiring in Ireland the French revolution had burst forth, shaking the whole fabric of European society, rending old systems with the terrible force of a newly-appeared explosive powEverywhere its effects were felt. Everywhere men were struck with wonder. Everywhere the subtle intoxication of the revolutionary doctrines, symbolized by the terrible drapeau rouge, fired the blood of political enthusi asts. Some hailed the birth of the French republic as the avatar of freedom; * others saw in it the incarnation of an The sentiments evoked in the breasts of most Irish patriots by the first outburst and subsequent proceedings of the French revolution-enthusiasms, joy, and hope, followed by grief, horror, and despair—have been truthfully expressed by Moore in the following matchless verses : 'Tis gone and for ever-the light we saw breaking Like heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead; How high was thy hope when those glories were darting At once like a sunburst her banner unfurled! |