division of the land was so minute that the tithecollectors seemed never to have done making their demands of shillings and half-pence. On the other hand, there was a Church including six millions and a half of members, without aid from government, without countenance from the law; with a multitudinous priesthood who lived with the poor and like the poor; and from these poor was the tithe extorted by perpetually recurring applications -applications backed by soldiery and armed police, who carried off the pig, or the sack of potatoes, or the money-fee which the peasant desired to offer to his own priest. It required no miraculous wisdom to see that the long-exasperated Irish must consider this management as religious persecution, and feel that Catholic emancipation was not yet complete. A very ordinary foresight would have shewn that it would soon be found impossible to collect tithe in Ireland; and further, that it must soon be acknowledged by the whole world at home, as it had long been declared by the whole world abroad, that the maintenance of the establishment in Ireland was an insult and injury which no nation could be expected to endure, and which must preclude all chance of peace till it should be abolished in its form of a dominant Church. The Whig ministers were not only without the miraculous wisdom, but they were without the ordinary foresight. They, Whigs as they were, were blinded by that same superstitious dread of changing the law which had, time after time, been the destruction of their opponents. They, Whigs as they were, seemed to have forgotten that no human law can be made for eternity-that no age or generation can bind down a future age or generation to its own arrangements, or legislate in a spirit of prophecy. They, whose ancestors had declared these truths in 1688, and as often since as any great reform had been needed-they, who had dissolved the laws which gave seats in parliament as a property to individuals, and the negro as a property to his white fellow-man, pleaded now, while Ireland was convulsed from end to end with the Church question, that the Church in Ireland could never be touched, because its establishment and revenues were guaranteed by law. If it was asked to whom were this establishment and these revenues guaranteed, it was necessary to dismiss the abstraction called the Church, and to reply, either the worshippers or their clergy; and the question then was, whether means of worship could not be provided for the one, and an honourable subsistence for the other, by some method less objectionable than taking by force the tenth potato and the tenth peat from the Catholic peasant, and parading the Church of the small minority before the eyes of the vast majority as the pensioned favourite of the state. If the Whig ministers had had sagacity to see the untenable nature of the Irish establishment, and courage to propose its reduction to the proper condition of a Protestant denomination, they would have gained honours even nobler than those which they won by parliamentary reform. It is highly probable that Ireland would have been by this time comparatively at ease; for the ministers might apparently have carried such

a measure at the outset of their legislation for Ireland, when their power was at its height, and the question of Church reform in England was discussed with a freedom and boldness which soon disappeared. If not, however-if they had failed and gone out upon this question-they would have entitled themselves to the eternal gratitude of the nation, and of so much of the world at large as is interested in the interior peace and prosperity of the British empire. But they did not see nor understand their opportunity. The phantom of the impersonal Church, and its shadowy train of legal guarantees, was before them, so as to shut out the realities of the case the substantial interests of the Protestant religion, and the weighty facts that many of the churches were empty, the numbers of Protestants stationary or decreasing, and the working clergy actually living upon alms. The administration tried this and that and the other small method of dealing with the difficulty; at what expense of delay, contention, and ultimate partial yielding, we shall hereafter see. 'Of this,' said their friends at the time, by the most calm and moderate of their organs, there can be no doubt-the only way to afford her [the Irish Church] the least chance of a permanent existence, is to abolish tithes entirely, and to cut down her other emoluments very low indeed; that is to say, to reduce them until they amount to no more than a fair equivalent for the services which she can render in return for them.'

In 1831, the state of Ireland seemed to be growing daily worse in regard to violence. There was a

conflict of forces between the lord-lieutenant and Mr O'Connell. The lord-lieutenant issued proclamations against a certain order of public meetings. O'Connell and his friends disobeyed the proclamation, and were brought to trial. Delays and difficulties were introduced into the legal process, as is usual in Ireland; but the matter ended in O'Connell and his comrades pleading guilty to the first fourteen counts in the indictment, which charged them with holding meetings in violation of various proclamations. The attorney-general was satisfied, and withdrew the remaining counts. Mr O'Connell denied in the newspapers that he had pleaded guilty; and declared that he had allowed judgment to go by default, in order to plead before the House of Lords, through the twelve judges-before which time, he hoped, the act under which he was prosecuted would expire. As it was asserted and proved in the House of Commons that he had actually pleaded guilty, and that nothing remained but for sentence to be pronounced against him, his followers, in their amazement at such a fall, resorted to the supposition that some kind of compromise had taken place between himself and the government, and that the liberator had humbled himself in order to obtain some boon for Ireland. The supposition grew to a rumour; and the rumour spread to the friends and opponents of the ministers in parliament; and, though it was promptly met, it was never again extinguished. Whether it was through indolence, carelessness, timidity, or temporary convenience, certain it was that the Whig government brought on itself, for a course of years, the charge of compromise with

CHAP. IX.

O'Connell, after repeated proofs of his utter unworthiness of all trust, and therefore of all countenance as the representative of his country. On the present occasion, Mr Stanley, secretary for Ireland, was questioned in the House about the transactions of government with Mr O'Connell; and his reply was express and clear. He would not say that Mr

O'Connell's friends had not endeavoured to make terms for him; but the reply of government had been that Mr O'Connell's conduct had not entitled him to any consideration, and 'the law must take its course-judgment should be pressed against him; the crown had procured a verdict against Mr O'Connell, and it would, undoubtedly, call him up to receive judgment upon it.' Within a fortnight after, a ridiculous scene took place in the House. Mr O'Connell asked the secretary for Ireland on what ground he had asserted that friends of his had endeavoured to make terms for him. There could be no delicacy in disclosing their names, because, if they were accredited agents, he-on the supposition the principal-asked for publicity; and if they were not his agents, it was but common justice to hold them up as impostors.' Again, Mr Stanley's answer was express and clear. A letter had been laid before him which proposed terms, to induce the Irish government to forego the prosecution; the letter being dictated by Mr O'Connell himself to his son-inlaw, and enclosed in one from his son. The House received this explanation with shouts of laughter; and the shouts were renewed when Mr O'Connell said that he could not but admit that his question had been answered most satisfactorily by the right honourable gentleman.' The terms proposed were, as Mr O'Connell now declared, that he should forego his agitation for the repeal of the union, which he regarded only as means to an end, if the government would, in the first place, drop the prosecution, and next propose good measures for Ireland. answer was, that no such compromise would be for a moment entertained by the Irish government, and that the law must take its course.' It is difficult to account for a self-exposure so audacious as this of O'Connell, on any other supposition than that he wished to advertise his readiness to be negotiated with, and to surrender his repeal agitation on sufficient inducement. He had long before so surrendered all pretensions to honour, and shewn himself so incapable of conceiving of honour, that he could go through a scene like this of the 28th of February 1831, with less embarrassment than any other man. The misfortune of the case to the government was, that it did not redeem the pledge given by Mr Stanley. The law did not take its course; Mr O'Connell was not brought up for judgment. Time passed on; the act under which he was convicted expired; and when it was defunct, the ministers considered that it would be ungracious to inflict the penalties it decreed.

"The

From week to week of this session, the outrages in Ireland grew worse. Tithe-collectors were murdered in some places; in others, they were dragged from their beds, and laid in a ditch to have their ears cut off. Five of the police were shot dead at once by a party in ambush. The peasantry declared

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The

against pastures, and broke up grass-lands in broad day. Cattle were driven off, lest the owners should pay tithe upon them. A committee of Roman Catholic priests, assembled at Ennis for the promotion of order and peace, broke up with expressions of despair. O'Connell attended some of the trials in May, before a special commission issued for the purpose; and he took the opportunity of making matters worse by addressing the people in speeches, in which he told them that many of the convicted peasants would have been acquitted if fairly tried, but that the juries were afraid to acquit. He charged his hearers with-not crime, but-indiscretion, and advised them to deliver up their arms, not because the law required it, but because they might thus mollify the government, and purchase leniency for their comrades who had been caught. Towards the end of the month, there was a fight between the police and the peasants, at Castle Pollard, in Westmeath, on occasion of an attempted rescue. chief constable was knocked down; the police fired, and nine or ten persons were killed. The police were tried for manslaughter, on the prosecution of the government; and O'Connell found matter of complaint even in this, after the men were acquitted, alleging that the prosecutions would have been fairer, if left to be instituted by the families of the slaughtered men. If they had been so left, his complaints of the apathy of the government would have been more formidable still. In June, an affair happened at Newtownbarry, in Wexford, which shews what was the position of the Church in the Catholic districts of Ireland at that time. On the 18th of June, which was market-day, some cattle were to be sold which had been impounded for tithe-payment. The following placard was on the walls of the town: Inhabitants, &c., &c.-There will be an end of Church plunder; your pot, blanket, and pig will not hereafter be sold by auction, to support in luxury, idleness, and case, persons who endeavour to make it appear that it is essential to the peace and prosperity of the country, and your eternal salvation, while the most of you are starving. Attend to an auction of your neighbour's cattle, seized for tithe by the Rev. Alexander M'Clintock.' The yeomanry were on the alert to assist the police. As soon as the sale began, it merged into a fight; and twelve of the Catholic mob were killed. The consequent law proceedings were baffled and rendered fruitless by trick and timidity; but the affair was never forgotten. Before the year was out, the clergy had become afraid to ask, and their flocks to pay, their dues. As the year closed, soldiery assisted the police; but this only enlarged the area of the fights, and deepened their animosity. On one occasion, five of the Catholics were shot dead by the military; and a fortnight after, when a strong body of police were escorting a tithe-collector, they were summoned to surrender him to popular vengeance; and, on their refusal, twelve of them were slaughtered in a lane, and more left fearfully wounded. The captain of police and his son, ten years old, were among the slain; and the pony which the boy rode was stabbed dead. The arms of the assailants were. scythes, pitchforks, and bludgeons. A country lad, who

appeared about thirteen years old, went from one to another of the prostrate police, and finding that five of them still breathed, made an end of them with his scythe. Such were the things that were done in the name, and for the alleged rights, of the religion which brought 'peace on earth, and good-will to men.' As for the reviled clergy-the men who were declared to be living 'in luxury, idleness, and ease,' and whose claim to tithe the Irish secretary was advocating in the House as a matter of justice between man and man'-they were living, some in fear of a prison for debt, as they had received no money for many months; many more in fear of their neighbours; and not a few in fear of seeing their children starve before their eyes. Sometimes there would come in by night a pig, or a bag of meal, or a sack of potatoes, from some pitying friend; and by day, the clergyman might be seen digging 'for bare life' in his garden, with his shoeless children about him, while his wife was trying, within the house, whether the tattered clothes would bear another and another patch. Such was the system of 'justice between man and man' which Mr Stanley would not at this time touch, because it was legal. If this was justice, on every or any hand, what then was injustice?

Some clergymen, however, differed from Mr Stanley about perseverance in not touching the tithe system, on account of its justice. The Archbishop of Dublin declared that he spoke the opinion of many of his clerical brethren, as well as his own, when he said, in his evidence before the Lords' committee in this year: 'As for the continuance of the tithe system, it seems to me that it must be at the point of the bayonet that it must be through a sort of chronic civil war. The ill feelings that have so long existed against it have been embodied in so organised a combination, that I conceive there would be continually breakings out of resistance, which must be kept down by a continuance of very severe measures, such as the government might indeed resolve to have recourse to for once, if necessary, but would be very unwilling to resort to habitually, so as to keep the country under military government. And the most intelligent persons, and the most experienced I have conversed with, seem to think that nothing else will permanently secure the payment of tithes under the present system.' If this was true, tithes were condemned, in spite of their justice; for it could not be supposed that the preachers of a non-aggressive and non-resistant religion would desire to have their maintenance permanently collected at the point of the bayonet. There must, in that case, be more 'anxious thought' about meat and clothing than consisted with their profession. Already, indeed, the two faiths in Ireland seemed to have exchanged characters. It was the Protestant Church which displayed its protected, and endowed, and dominant hierarchy; and it was the Catholic faith which sent its priests from house to house, to preach glad tidings to the poor, accepting subsistence from the overflow of good-will, but demanding nothing in the name of human law.

In the royal speech, at the opening of the next session, some progress in ministerial opinion was

apparent. The king requested the parliament to consider whether some improvement could not be made in the law regarding tithes in Ireland. In afteryears, there was abundant cause for lamentation that the advance was so small. Committees of inquiry were appointed by both Houses; and the evidence adduced was so astounding as to induce, in a multitude of minds, views of the Protestant Church in Ireland which it is lamentable that the government did not take heed to, and act upon. Many friends of Ireland, as well as the Catholics themselves, desired, if tithes were not to be abolished, that they should be so appropriated as to yield benefit to the body who paid them, by means of a recurrence to the first principles of tithes. Originally, one-fourth of the tithe was devoted to the maintenance of the poor, and another to that of the places of worship; and it was now proposed, even in petitions to parliament, that this application should be made of the proceeds of tithe and of the lands of the Church in Ireland. Lord Grey took the earliest opportunity of intimating that he should strenuously oppose any proposition which went to deprive the Churchthat ever impersonal pleader!-'of her just rights.' Perhaps the best expression of the widely awakened feeling we have adverted to may be found in the speech of Lord Ebrington, who had himself been on the committee in the Commons, respecting the unfortunate anomaly which the Church of Ireland presented. He should not think any plan could lead to a final settlement of the question, which attempted to exclude the consideration of a thorough reform of the Church of Ireland. When he saw the clergy of that Church receiving salaries so disproportionate to the number of Protestants under their care, and when he saw that those salaries were paid chiefly by Roman Catholics, he looked upon the system as pregnant with injury to the cause of religion. He protested, therefore, against the number of the clergy being so disproportioned to their congregations; and he should be glad to see some more just distribution of the revenues of the Church, such as would afford a more adequate provision for the working clergy; and he should also be glad to see a state of things in which no part of the revenues of the Church should be diverted from the use of the Church. He could think no settlement of the existing complaints satisfactory which, with a due regard to all existing interests for God forbid that they should attempt to strip any man of that which of right belonged to him-did not contemplate the reduction of the Church of Ireland to a condition better proportioned to the wants of the Protestant inhabitants.' Such was the view brought out of committee by as thoroughgoing a friend of the Whig administration as sat in the House.

There was now no time to be lost. The Irish recusants knew, to a man, that the royal speech had recommended to parliament a consideration of the tithe system; and they took this for a royal condemnation of tithe-paying. They knew before February was out that the parliamentary committees had reported that nothing would avail short of 'a complete extinction of tithes' by commutation for a charge upon the land; and these things were

CHAP. IX.]

considered warrant enough for a refusal to pay tithe at all, and for persecution of those who did pay. An archdeacon in the neighbourhood of Cashel hoped to establish a commutation with his parishioners; but now they refused his terms, came up to him in a field in sight of his own house-a field where several persons were ploughing, who took no notice of the transaction-and stoned him till his head was beaten to pieces. If any resident, pressed by his pastor, or by conscience, or by fear of the law, paid the smallest amount of tithe in the most secret manner, his cattle were houghed in the night, or his house was burnt over his head, or his flock of sheep was hunted over a precipice, and lay a crushed heap in the morning. There was a sound of a horn, at that time, which made men's flesh creep, whether it was heard by night or day; for those who took upon them to extinguish tithes now boldly assembled their numbers by the sound of the horn; and all who heard it knew that murder or mutilation or arson was going to be perpetrated. Captures, special commissions, and trials were useless. Witnesses dared not give evidence; jurors dared not attend. Magistrates and police were multiplied; but the thing needed was a removal of the grievance, which was real enough, however atrociously avenged. On the very chapels, notices were now posted by the insurgents, and no Iman dared to take them down. There was indeed no time to lose.

The clergy naturally ceased to demand their dues; but even those of them who had anything to live upon, found that they were not to be left in peace. It seemed to be intended to drive them from the country. If they had cows, nobody could be found to milk them. Tradesmen who supplied articles to clergymen, found that nobody would buy of them, or even sell to them. Throughout the Catholic rural districts of Ireland, the clergy were dependent now upon the government, or upon private charity, for mere sustenance; while large county meetings in Carlow, Cork, and elsewhere, were passing resolutions and issuing addresses which were almost alike in matter and form, and of which the following is a fair specimen: 'Resolved, that it is a glaring wrong to compel an impoverished Catholic people to support in pampered luxury the richest clergy in the world -a clergy from whom the Catholics do not experience even the return of common gratitude-a clergy who in times past opposed to the last the political freedom of the Irish people, and at the present day are opposed to reform and a liberal scheme of education for their countrymen. That ministers of the God of charity should not, by misapplication of all the tithes to their own private uses, thus deprive the poor of their patrimony-nor should ministers of peace adhere with such desperate tenacity to a system fraught with dissension, hatred, and ill-will.' The grievance was real enough-obvious to all who were not blinded by a superstitious worship of manmade law, so as to be insensible to those ulterior laws which it is impious to disregard. There was indeed no time to lose; but, unhappily, there was no man in power free and bold enough broadly to assert the higher laws: and thus the lower was not withdrawn, but only feebly mended; so that the change

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was found ineffectual. The work had to be done over again; and the chief part of it-the reduction of the Protestant Church to the needs of the Protestant population-has to be done yet, while Ireland appears as far from being tranquillised as ever.

The act, which bears date June 1, 1832, authorises the lord-lieutenant of Ireland to advance £60,000 to the Irish clergy who could prove themselves unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. Their claims for that year thus became a debt from the Irish people to the government, recoverable by the powers of government. The claim of the clergy to any former arrears was not to be prejudiced by this act, which was designed for temporary relief, and to interpose the government between the irritated people and the clergy. The government was to levy the arrears. Many in the House asked at once whether the government would be able to levy the arrears-defeated as it had been in endeavouring to aid the clergy to do so. The bill was proffered under a pledge from government that a tithe commutation should be instituted, which alone could justify the temporary measure of an advance to the clergy. The act passed rapidly through both Houses, and became law on the 1st of June. It was July before the further and permanent measures of government regarding tithes were brought forward; and, as the minister declared, the session was too far advanced to admit of the passage of them all. They were three. The first rendered the existing Tithe Composition Act permanent and compulsory, instead of voluntary, and for a term of twenty-one years. The second constituted the bishop and beneficed clergy of every diocese a corporation for the management of tithe business, whereby individual clergymen would be relieved from the difficulties and dissensions attendant on a prosecution of their own claims. The corporation would levy and distribute the tithe for the diocese. The third provided for the redemption of the tithe by all who might wish to buy up their freedom from the charge. Sixteen years' purchase was the amount proposed; and permission was to be given to possessors of mortgaged and entailed estates to mortgage them further, in the first case, to the extent necessary for this object— such mortgage to have precedence of all that existed before; and, in the other case, to sell as much of the entailed estates as should be necessary for the redemption of the tithe.

This last and most important of the three bills was left over to the next session. It was the wish of ministers to carry the other two; but they succeeded only with the first-the act by which the tithes composition in Ireland was made compulsory and permanent.

The Relief Act would not work. The clergy were as much hated as ever for giving in to the government an account of the arrears of 1831. A clergyman in Tipperary was shot dead on his own lawn. The son of another and his driver were left on the highway— the one dead, the other supposed to be so. The people would not permit the posting of notices of arrears; and in the affrays caused in this process, several lives were lost at different points; and this furnished occasion to O'Connell for cries for

vengeance for the Irish blood that was shed-cries which told with prodigious effect. It had been clear to many from the first that this was a game at which government could not play. Defeat, and victory by force of soldiery, were equally fatal. The issue was defeat. Towards the end of the next session, the avowal of ministers in parliament was that out of a sum of £104,285 of arrears due for 1831, government had been able to levy only £12,000; and that amount 'had been collected with great difficulty, and some loss of life.' Government had decided to abandon all processes under the existing law, and to seek reimbursement in some other form, after having paid to the clergy the arrears of 1832, and the amounts due in the present year; which, together with those of 1831, now reached the sum of about a million. This amount of a million was to be provided by an issue of exchequer bills. This sum supposed a deduction from the claims of the clergy, for the advantage of secure and immediate payment. The reimbursement was to be by means of a general landtax for a term of years; exemption being granted to those who could prove that they had paid their tithes. These propositions were warmly debated. The Conservatives condemned all concession, and claimed for the Church and clergy the uttermost farthing of their dues. The Irish members condemned the levy of tithe in any form, declared that the government was now regarded as a great tithe-proctor, and hated accordingly; and foretold a repetition, with aggravation, of the outrages of preceding years, on every attempt to levy the landtax. Many of the liberal party, who yet would not desert the government, complained of the issue of the million under the name of a loan, when everybody knew that it would not prove recoverable, and would be in fact a gift to the Irish Church which they had no inclination to make. The Conservatives yielded, from pity and respect for the suffering clergy; the Liberals, from a dislike to embarrass the government; and the Irish members could make no head against so many adversaries. The bill for collecting the arrears of tithes therefore passed the Lords on the 28th of August 1833.

The next year, the subject had to be brought up again. There was infinite mischief in this annual debating on a topic so charged with irritation to all parties; and now, at this late day, came out some facts, which, if they had been understood earlier, as they ought to have been, would have convinced so large a majority of the insufferable irksomeness of the imposition of tithe in Ireland, as to have insured its being got rid of long ago. Mr Littleton was now secretary for Ireland; and he made his disclosures, and rendered his account, on the 20th of February.

On the 4th of that month, the king's speech had recommended a consideration of 'a final adjustment of tithes' in Ireland; and in his remarks on the motion for the address, the Duke of Wellington had said, that the Irish clergy were in precisely the same miserable situation at present that they had been in before the passage of measures for their relief; and he considered that 'that most deserving race of men' was in danger of utter destruction-a statement which was not contradicted by Lord Grey in his

In a

reply to the duke's speech. After two years of experiment and debate, the Irish secretary was now compelled to call the attention of parliament to a new measure; but it was to be four years yet before this single point was settled. At the outset of his speech, Mr Littleton made an avowal which might prudently have been taken to heart before, so as to save years of chronic civil war,' much misery of mind, and the loss of many lives. Mr Littleton begged the House 'to bear in mind, that the statutebook had been loaded with enactments by the legislatures of both countries, for the purpose of giving the proprietors of tithes effectual means to enforce the law. The whole of those enactments had proved ineffectual. Many of them of the most severe description, extending even to capital punishment, had proved utterly useless.' No one could wonder at this who heard the statement that followed of the vexatious incidence of the Irish tithe. Owing to the extreme subdivision of land, the amounts were small -sometimes literally beyond expression; and in such cases, the debtor was one who had no money, or ready means of payment, and to whom it was exasperating to be called on, from time to time, for a religious tax, so paltry, and yet so inconvenient and so hurting to his conscience. parish in Carlow, the sum owing by 222 defaulters was a farthing each. 'A return of the actual number of defaulters whose debts were under a farthing, and rise by farthings up to a shilling, would exhibit a very large proportion of the gross number. In some instances, the charge upon the land amounted to only seven parts of a farthing. When he informed the committee that many of the smaller sums were payable by three or four persons, some idea might be formed of the difficulty of collecting tithes in Ireland. The highest aggregate charge was against those who owed individually about 2d.; and he would then beg to remind the committee, that it was not so much the sum as the situation of the individual, that rendered these charges oppressive. Twopence to one might be as great an impost as £2 to another. There was another great severity connected with the question of tithes. They were not simple. One proprietor alone did not come to the poor man to demand his tithes; but many, whose interests were irreconcilable and adverse, fastened upon him. There were different kinds of tithes-the vicarial, rectorial, and impropriate all often fastening on the same individual, who was bound to meet the separate demands of each tithe-owner. The opposition to tithes, then, though it might receive an impulse from agitation, was not to be wholly traced to that source. There was a deeper source in the severity of the impost itself.' This was all very true; the disaster was, that it had not been known sooner. Such had been the state of the case during preceding years of legislation; during years when the Irish were called purely ungrateful, because the Emancipation Act did not tranquillise them. A quieter procedure on their part would have been wiser and more virtuous; but there was also little wisdom in the expectation that quietness would rise up and spread among an excitable and long-injured people, while a