Page images
PDF
EPUB

corrected by Lord Normanby, and afterwards by Mr (now Chief Baron) Pigot, then law adviser to the Chief Secretary. It was finally settled between Drummond, Brady, and Pigot, and sent out.*

It will be seen, as might have been expected, that Lord Normanby (who expressed himself altogether too strongly if he intended it to be understood that the letter was written to his dictation, in the ordinary sense of the word,) did intervene in its preparation. The remarks made by Mr Drummond in the conversation referred to by the editor of the Dublin Evening Post must, as they easily might, have been misapprehended.

Mr Woulfe, then Attorney-General, had nothing whatever to do with the preparation of the letter. He was at the time attending to his parliamentary duties in London. The claim set up for him had probably for its foundation a confused report of the fact that he was one of the joint authors with Drummond of the letter addressed, in the preceding year, to Colonel Verner, and signed by Lord Morpeth.

The copy of the letter made from Drummond's draft, and on which were put the corrections of Lord Normanby and Messrs Pigot and Brady, cannot be found.

written in July 1838; letter from Mrs Drummond, dated January 5th 1867, and various letters from the Right Hon. Maziere Brady, dated in March and April, 1867, to the present writer.

* Various letters, dated in March, April, and May 1867, from the Right Hon. Maziere Brady to the present writer.

+ Chief Baron Pigot recollects that Woulfe was absent at the time in London. Letter from the Right Hon. M. Brady to present writer, April 19th, 1867. Woulfe's name appears in a division-list on 15th May 1838. Farther proof that he was in London at the precise time is afforded by two letters found by Mr Brady, and addressed to him by Woulfe from London; the one dated the 19th of May, and the other the 9th of June 1838. Letter to present writer, dated 1st May 1867. The Tipperary letter is dated May 22, 1838.

It probably, during the subsequent parliamentary discussions, passed into the hands of the Lord Lieutenant or Chief Secretary, and was never sent back to the office in Dublin.

*

It is time, however, to leave this discussion and return to the effects of the Tipperary letter on the fortunes of the Government. The excitement its publication caused was, we have seen, renewed and extended through the murder of Lord Norbury in January 1839. Out of this excitement, again, came renewed attacks in Parliament, in March 1839, on the principles and conduct of the Irish administration. By this time Lord Normanby had given up the Lord Lieutenancy, and succeeded Lord Glenelg as Minister for the Colonies; and Lord Ebrington had gone as Viceroy to Ireland.

In the Lower House the attack was renewed, on the motion of Mr Shaw, for a return of the Irish Criminal Statistics for the years 1835-39; a few days later it was renewed in the Upper, on the motion of Earl Roden, for a Committee of Inquiry into the state of Ireland since 1835 with respect to the commission of crime. In both Houses the Tories were loud in their denunciations of the Administration. Never had Ireland,

* The murderer of Lord Norbury was never discovered, nor were the causes of the murder. "A very large reward," says Mr Brady, "was offered by subscription, the only effect of which was to bring forward persons who swore false informations for sake of the reward, and two of whom were actually prosecuted, when I was AttorneyGeneral, convicted of perjury, and transported." Letter to present writer. It may here be stated that the murderers of Mr Cooper were brought to justice, owing to the measures taken by the Government, and referred to in the Tipperary letter, ante, p. 315. They were tried, in the course of the year 1838, at a Special Commission at Clonmel, found guilty, and executed.

according to them, been in such a fearful condition. There was security neither of person nor of property. Outrages most fearful in kind were of daily occurrence; a state of utter lawlessness and criminality was the established phase of Irish society. The House of Commons, after much debating, passed resolutions approving of the principles of the Executive in Ireland. On the other hand, the Committee of Inquiry, moved for in the House of Lords by Earl Roden, was granted. Before this Committee reported, Ministers, having been virtually beaten on their Jamaica Bill, had resigned, and had returned to office after the interlude of "the BedChamber Plot." On the Committee making their report-two huge volumes of evidence, unaccompanied by comment-Lord Brougham, heading the Tories and a small party of Liberal malcontents he never could forgive the Ministers who excluded him from officemade a successful assault on Government in the House of Lords on the 6th August 1839.* It was, of course, a painful duty" for his Lordship to discharge, but it was imperative! He knew his motives might be suspected. He was violating old associations, and exposing himself to cruel suspicions.-It was a case for a display of oratorical power, and he rose to the occasion, concluding his speech, than which nothing could be more unfair as a view of the evidence produced by the Roden Committee, with a burst of indignation against the Ministers in reference to the Bed-Chamber Plot.

[ocr errors]

*Lord Brougham, in attacking the Ministers, turned aside to eulogise Mr Drummond as an able man, by whom they had been ably defended. The reference to Drummond was cheered. Pigot, then Solicitor-General for Ireland, writing to Drummond in reference to this, says-"Nothing could be more gratifying to your warm friends than the manner in which Brougham's mention of you was received by the whole house."

CHAPTER XVII.

IRELAND, 1835-1839; DRUMMOND'S SCHEME FOR REDEEMING IRELAND; APPOINTMENT OF THE COMMISSION ON IRISH RAILROADS; DATA ON WHICH THE REPORT WAS FOUNDED; DRUMMOND'S SHARE IN THE REPORT; HIS VIEWS REGARDING THE POPULATION OF IRELAND, AND CIRCUMSTANCES PECULIAR TO IT; THE RECOMMENDATIONS MADE IN THE REPORT; SUBSEQUENT HISTORY AND FAILURE OF THE SCHEME; ITS MERITS.

ONE, and the leading, scheme which Drummond entertained for the redemption of Ireland, before and during his connection with its government, was founded on the absolute necessity of improving the condition of the common people. He saw, or believed he saw, that till that was done no real progress could be made; that order and tranquillity in Ireland were impossible. These might be temporarily established by conciliating the popular leaders, by a watchful and vigorous police, and a rigorous administration of criminal justice; but so long as the causes which gave influence to popular tribunes, and disposed the people to crime and disorder, remained in operation, relapses were certain to occur, and to be more serious in proportion to the duration of their repression by finesse and physical force.

A mere reform of the justiciary could do no good. "Where destitution is," says Drummond in one place, "there crime will be found as a matter of course; and,

with increased destitution, there will be an increase of crime." The observation is trite, but to him it was the foundation of a policy. The chief thing needful for the Irish was a permanent improvement in their condition in respect to the means of subsistence.

It was his belief, founded on general impressions, which careful inquiries afterwards confirmed, that the condition of the masses in Ireland, instead of improving, was deteriorating. The subdivision of land no longer proceeded; it was checked; farms, on the contrary, were being enlarged and consolidated. Meanwhile the population, which depended upon the land alone for support, was still increasing. The demand for land was consequently greater than before, while there was a decrease of the supply of it, arising from the consolidation of farms. This was an adequate cause for the deterioration which he believed was taking place in the condition of the labouring poor. The commerce of the country was increasing, its agriculture improving, the value of the land rising, but in this improvement the masses of the people were not participants.

How was this state of things to be altered? Emigration and a poor-law system would afford temporary relief; these, combined with better and more enlightened views of landed proprietors (which he did his best to inculcate), with respect to their own interests and those of their tenantry, might effect more lasting good; but something like a lift was necessary to be given to a · people sunk so low, to start them on an upward course. This he proposed should be given by a judicious system of public works, which, while it gave immediate relief to the people, new directions to their energies, and new habits to their lives, should be so designed as otherwise

« PreviousContinue »