Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

It is, however, perfectly certain, that this premature extension of mercy was hasty and ill-advised; abundant seed was left for another crop, in eradicating the tares of treason. We have the testimony of Holt, the rebel leader, who so long kept Dublin in alarm from his formidable position in the Wicklow mountains, that the emissaries of insurrection were never more active than at the very period when, to all outward seeming, they were completely subdued; and that preparations were going on, both abroad and at home, which, if suffered to ripen, until they came to maturity, would in all probability have ended in the overthrow of British authority, and the establishment of an independent republic in Ireland. The following is an extract from his voluntary confession, bearing date February 27, 1799, being one day earlier than the letter of the lord lieutenant, from which we have made the previous extract:

"He is certain that the country will experience great disorder next summer, and recommends again and strongly the strictest watch of the militia, who, he says, and is certain, are not to be trusted, and that the country is now preparing for rebellion more strongly than ever, and in greater numbers. The Dutch, and particularly the Spaniards, are expected to come to their assistance. With great anxiety he again entreats that government may exert itself in time, and take measures to prevent a rebellion, that is certainly determined on, and that of the most universal nature."

There are cases in which mercy to traitors may be wise. There are also cases in which it may be treason to the loyal and well-affected. We believe that, in the instances alluded to, the compassionate tenderness of govern.

ment was as well-intended as it was illadvised; and that the loyal subjects, who had suffered so severely, and whose lives and properties were placed in such imminent hazard, were not sufficiently cared for, or consulted, either as respected their feelings or interests, when it was resolved that the countenance of government should shine benignly on the rebels, as though their treasons were heartily renounced, or even as if they had never offended.

Respecting Maynooth we have some curious particulars, which will not fail, at the present day, to interest many of our readers. In 1799, Lord Clare, in the House of Lords, made some strong remarks which alarmed the friends of that institution, then but two years old, for its safety, and led to a suspension of the grant with a view to some modification of the rules and regulations of the system, such as, while it provided an education for Romish ecclesiastics, might guarantee, as far as possible, their loyalty to the British crown. Upon this, Lord Cornwallis (who was as remarkable for his liberal politics as for his capacity as a gallant soldier,) made some private remonstrance to the chancellor, which produced the following reply: :

"MY DEAR LORD,-I cannot be responsible for any mis-statement of what may fall from me in parliament; for, if any alarm for the institution at Maynooth has been sounded, most certainly it can have no foundation in anything which was stated by me, as I did distinctly and repeatedly say, that I considered it now to be a great national object, and essential to the public security, that there should be a wellregulated academy in Ireland for the education of Catholics. But it would have been an idle waste of time, and a mockery of the House of Lords, to have originated any regulation there, even if there had been time now to enter into so difficult a subject, in a Bill of Appropriation sent up by the Commons. If we had pretended to originate any such, it would have been rejected by the Commons for that reason alone, if no other objection was made to it. There can be nothing so easy as to dissipate any alarm which may have arisen, by introducing a new Bill of Appropriation of a moderate sum, if any is really wanted, to support the College of Maynooth for the current year, without any clause which may be construed into a legislative sanction of their present establish

ment, which I am quite clear, if it were to receive a permanent sanction, would enable the Popish prelates of this country to subvert the government of it in ten years. It seems to be a complete Irish idea, first to make an establishment, and then to take the chance for guarding against the maladministration of it.

"Your Excellency may be assured that, if the Catholics are given to understand they can have such an establishment, only on terms compatible with its due administration, they will submit to the terms. But, if we first sanction the establishment on their terms, and then desire to control them in the administration of it, they will raise a clamour with some plausible ground for it."

An opportunity was now presented to Lord Castlereagh of regulating this institute in such a way as would have prevented many of the evils which have since resulted from its endowment, and of which the Protestant community have so much reason to complain; and we make no scruple to present our readers with some lengthened extracts from a letter written by the then bishop of Meath, Dr. O'Beirne, to the noble secretary, of which, if he had been wise enough to have availed himself, he would have done good service to Ireland. Dr. O'Beirne, our readers know, was, in those days, regarded as a liberal bishop. He was indebted for his promotion to Lord Fitzwilliam, and was a great stickler for Emancipation. He had been originally a Roman Catholic, and had a brother who, we believe, at that very period, was a Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Meath. He thus gives the benefit of his learning and experience to Lord Castlereagh, whose thoughts, he supposed, simply enough, must be occupied in devising some plan for the better regulation of the new Roman Catholic institute :—

"One of the great objects of the institution was to bring the education of the Roman Catholic clergy, on_whom the morals and conduct of the Roman Catholic body so exclusively depend, into contact with the government, and to subject them, as far as might be, without outraging their religious prejudices, underits control. For the accomplishment of this object, I thought, from the very first, that the board of trustees was improperly constituted. The great majority were Roman Catholics, and the

few Protestants who were joined to them, seemed to have been nominated rather as a compliment, than as forming an active and efficient part of their body. It is certain that in no instance (and one or two of very great importance, such as the expulsion of the United Irish Students, and the removal of Hussey, have occurred) did any of the Protestant trustees interfere, nor were they ever called in by the others; I very humbly submit to your lordship, whether occasion might not now be taken to correct what I account a great error. I submit whether, in addition to the present number of Protestant trustees, the Archbishop of Dublin, as metropolitan, the Bishop of Kildare, as diocesan, and some additional officers of the crown, should not be appointed, whether it should not be provided that, for all the great objects of the institution, in its management, its discipline, or the nomination of its members, no meeting of the board should be held without proper notice being given to the Protestant trustees, and a specified number of them being present, and whether, altogether and of the whole body appointed, there should not be a majority of Protestants,

"A circumstance has already occurred to prove how essential such a regula tion must be to the great objects of government in forming the institutionI mean, the removal of Hussey. Although the Roman Catholic trustees, and particularly the greater number of their bishops, were very willing to drive him from amongst them, through personal envy and hatred, yet they neither dared nor would avow the cause for which government called for his removal. It was not the inflammatory doctrines he advanced in his pastoral letter, nor the mischievous tendency of the spiritual tyranny he proposed to establish, that was given to him as the motive for not suffering him to be any longer at the head of an establishment designed to promote public tranquility. They had recourse to the subterfuge of his being absent from the kingdom, and thus every advantage to be derived from the example was effectually frus trated."

He then thus proceeds :—

"I perfectly agree with the chancellor, that a Protestant government and a Protestant legislature would act a most absurd and inconsistent part in continuing, at an immense national expense, an establishment, the conductors and teachers of which maintain, and consequently inculcate to their pupils, a

principle of inextinguishable opposition and enmity to the Established Church; but, if his speech has been properly reported in the newspapers, he has taken no notice of what is most dangerous and insufferable in the system on which the Roman Catholic bishops have agreed to act, and which is openly and daringly avowed in Hussey's letter-I mean the regulation of deterring, by menaces of excommunication, and immediate exclusion from all the benefits and blessings of the Church, such parents as shall send their children to be educated at Protestant schools. The worst enemies of Ireland could not devise a scheme more effectually calculated to keep this description of the king's subjects a distinct people for ever, and to maintain eternal enmity and hatred between them and the Protestant body. It was obviously a scheme to raise a spiritual wall of separation between them, in the place of that civil wall which the legislature had removed, and to counteract the effects of that liberal intercourse, which every friend of his country rejoiced to see so generally taking place, but from which the Roman Catholic priests, imprudently left to depend for their subsistence on the number of their respective congregations, naturally dreaded to be the sufferers.

"This was precisely the same tyranny of which they had themselves so long complained, as violating the first principles of nature, by denying the parent the right of educating his child as seemed best to himself. It differed only in the nature of the punishment, and it was the more oppressive, as they are more inexorable in inflicting their spiritual, than the legislature ever was its civil penalties."

Having observed upon the practice which then prevailed, and which was revived, if not originated, by Dr. Hussey, of denouncing Roman Catholic servants who, in Protestant houses, attended family prayers, he observes:—

"This is obviously in the same view of securing their adherents from all risk of deserting them as the former regulation; but with what evident evil consequences is it pregnant! and can we be surprised at what so many Protestant families witnessed among their servants during the rebellion? This spiritual horror, which their priests took such pains to infuse into them against their masters, proved but a step to arm them against their lives. Persons of that level cannot so nicely distinguish between their duties. They cannot weigh so much social good-will against

so much religious abhorrence, nor understand why they are to show any fidelity or attachment to him as a man whom they are taught to hold in abomination, and to exclude from all communion and intercourse, as a Christian. Religion is allowed to be the great bond of society: where that is not only broken, but converted into an instrument of endless disunion, by what other restraints will a common Roman Catholic hold himself bound to submit to any of the relations in which he stands connected with a Protestant! Nothing remains to restrain or coerce him, but the dread of punishment and the rigour of the laws; and, let but the circumstances of the times give him a hope of escaping or eluding these, and he will plunder, he will open his master's door to the midnight assassin, and join in his murder. These are words that convey no idea of criminality to him, and, instead of incurring guilt, he thinks he serves his religion."

The bishop then goes on to show how these evils and mischiefs might, for the future, be prevented:

"That such a system as this deserves to be reprobated by the legislature, no man can deny. It is equally undeniable that an establishment, conducted by persons engaged in reducing this system into practice, and in which is provided a regular succession of persons trained and instructed to perpetuate it, should not even be tolerated, much less supported at the public expense. But there is a wide difference between abolishing the establishment, and revising it after a proper trial; between violating, in a moment, and from passion and prejudice, the faith of government, and the implied pledge of parliament, and endeavouring to correct the abuses that frustrate the intentions of government and parlia ment, in providing for an institution which, if properly conducted, must be productive of the greatest public good. I would indisputably enter into a thorough explanation with the Roman Catholic bishops on these points which I have detailed. I should insist on their formally and practically renouncing this dangerous system in all its parts, and on their giving a pledge that no such doctrines should be taught in their divinity schools, nor enforced by their parochial clergy; but, unless they perversely refused compliance, and SO made it manifest, that, instead of contributing to the public peace and tranquillity, and reconciling the two descriptions of his Majesty's subjects to each

other, its tendency must be to perpetuate religious divisions and animosities; and, in place of contributing to give effect to the laws, and to secure obedience

to the civil power, to build up a power acting independent of the laws, and assuming

an authority superior to them, as it is found in Hussey's pamphlet, I should think it a most unwise measure to suffer the education of the Roman Catholic clergy to return to its old course, from which so much mischief has flowed to the empire."

Undoubtedly, had his advice been followed, Maynooth might have been then rendered a very different thing from what it since has been. We could, on no account and at no time, have been reconciled to such an establishment. We think that it has not only contributed to sustain and to invigorate a decaying superstition, but to compromise the supremacy of the law over all descriptions of her Majesty's subjects. Freedom of conscience and perfect toleration we would have extended as widely as they could be diffused with safety to the established institutions of the country. It is only when such freedom degenerates into licentiousness, and such toleration partakes of the nature of intolerance, that we should desire to see any restrictions imposed upon them. In the case of Maynooth, an establishment was provided for Roman Catholics with a view to preclude the infection of the revolutionary principles which prevailed in those continental seminaries where they before received their education. Now, supposing that by such means such an object could be attained, we do not think that they are the natural means that should be employed for such a purpose. Government are threatened with a formidable danger; and, instead of making a provision against such danger, the authorities spend their time in experimenting upon those from whom it is apprehended, to see if, haply, by some new contrivance, they might be converted into good subjects. This was, we think, going far out of their way. Toleration was for those, and those alone, who were contented to enjoy it without giving any just grounds for alarm by the profession of their principles. As soon as any just ground was given, that moment their privileges should cease, and restrictions should be imposed upon

them to an extent which would prevent any abuses which might reasonably be feared. The onus was not upon gothey were fit subjects for a wise and vernment, but upon them, to show that enlightened toleration; and if, from

any causes, such a case could not be made out, it would be the first duty of government to protect itself against a danger which, if not properly guarded against, might menace its existence.

But, in reality, what was the fact? The Popery of the Continent was safe or harmless: Popery, as it was nursed at home, under the fostering protection of the government, became Jacobinical and dangerous. Abroad, the poor affrighted ecclesiastics saw and experienced the horrors of revolution; and, accordingly, such Irish priests as received their education upon the Continent, returned with feelings and principles very averse to the dangerous doctrines by which so many of their countrymen were deluded. At home,

no such anti-septic existed by which their envenomed virulence could be counteracted; and, accordingly, we have seen the results. As soon as the teaching at Maynooth began "to be felt," to use Mr. Wyse's phrase, a race of clerical agitators were disseminated throughout the country, who became the aptest instruments of O'Connell and his fellow-labourers in sedition, in carrying out all their political objects.

Never was there a case in which the "laissez faire" principle was more justly applicable. The Roman Catholic community should have been left to provide for the education and maintenance of their own priesthood. Government should have simply taken care "ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet. But the very evil which we aimed at preventing, by cutting off education abroad, we provided for perpe tuating by education at home; and, moreover, by making the system eleemosynary, attracted, by a sort of bounty, into the ranks of the clerical order, vast numbers who merely look to the priesthood as a provision for life, and who, if left to their own resources, would naturally seek some other mode of procuring a decent subsistence.

Every day the Romish religion was ceasing, more and more, to be what Mr. Gladstone calls "a substantive reality" in Ireland. Its gentry were

gradually becoming alienated from it. Formerly, the priesthood, who were educated abroad, were all of the race of gentlemen. There was not a respectable family of that persuasion in the country which had not its scions in their church. Now that is not the

case.

The priests are, almost without exception, the children of peasants and small farmers, or shopkeepers in country towns; and, accordingly, all their sympathies are with the class to which they belong, while their antipathies are provoked against the class with which they affect to be identified, but in whose society they feel ill at ease, and to whom they never can be reconciled, because these latter can never be brought to acknowledge the preposterous extravagance of their pretensions.

Maynooth, therefore, not only failed to accomplish what its projectors aimed at, but it is chargeable with perpetuating Popery in its most offensive form in this country, and converting a superstition which had almost ceased to be dangerous, and which was every day falling more and more into disuetude, into a source of envenomed religious rancour and political agitation, which has all but overthrown British authority in Ireland.

Had Lord Castlereagh been as wise for the future, as he was sagacious and active for the present, he would have profited by the hints which he received he would have insisted upon a quid pro quo, and taken care that the new seminary should be so regulated, that all the good which it could do should be done, and all the evil that it might do should be prevented.

But

the truth is, his mind, although it had much comprehension, had little depth, and he was, moreover, at that time, altogether absorbed by the project of a legislative union.

How any one could possibly fail to see the absolute necessity for such a measure, if Ireland was to continue under the British crown, passes our comprehension. But at that time an epidemic madness seems to have prevailed; and that any one should advocate such a measure, could only be popularly accounted for by the greatest infatuation, or the grossest corrup tion. Accordingly, the ministers had an Herculean task in overcoming the prejudices, and counteracting the antipathies, to a measure that may be

truly said to have been, at that critical period, absolutely indispensable to the salvation of the empire.

In the management of this difficult and delicate business, no one could have acquitted himself with more ability and more dexterity than Lord Castlereagh. He saw, with an instinctive sagacity, the precise difficulties with which he had to grapple, and does not seem in a single instance, to have madea false estimate of the characters with whom he had to deal; while his demeanour was uniformly bland and conciliatory; and his wellknown spirit and readiness, at all times, for the dernier ressort," kept his more fiery antagonists in check, and did much to diminish the unpopularity with which he was regarded.

Into the history of that measure we cannot at present afford to enter. Upon two points only shall we permit ourselves to touch, as now, for the first time, a full light has been thrown upon them. The one, that

Mr. Pitt entertained the project, in the first instance, without any reference to combining with it Catholic emancipation; the other, that it received the unqualified approbation of the Roman Catholic prelates and priesthood of Ireland. Upon both these points the evidence is quite decisive.

Mr. Elliot thus writes to Lord Castlereagh, in a letter bearing date 23rd of November, 1798 :—

"In consequence of the numerous difficulties in which the arrangement is involved, I shall not be surprised if the project of a Union is in the end abandoned: and, as Mr. Pitt has chosen to make the attempt upon the narrow basis, my regret at the dereliction of it will be much diminished."

Again, on the 28th of the same month, he writes as follows:

"I cannot be easily persuaded that, if more firmness had been displayed here at first, a Union might not have been accomplished, including the admission of the Catholic claims; but Mr. Pitt has, with a lamentable facility, yielded this point to prejudice, without, I suspect, acquiring a support in any degree equivalent to the sacrifice. Thus a question, tending to generate dissension, remains open, when it might have been closed for ever.

« PreviousContinue »