society was so sensible, superadded as many personal favours, as the fiscal stores could even promise to answer, which in a people of quick and warm sensibility creates a something very like momentary gratitude; and in order the more completely to seat himself in that effective power, which was requisite for his purpose, he judiciously fixed upon a favourite object of the wishes and attempts of the Patriots to sanction with his countenance and support. whether places, pensions, or preferments, should first be popular, and then powershould pass through their hands, in order ful, before he could be efficient and sucto keep their suite in an absolute state of cessful. His lordship, therefore, to those dependence upon themselves. All applica-convivial fascinations to which Irish tions were made by the leader, who claimed as a right the privilege of gratifying his friends in proportion to their numbers. Whenever such demands were not complied with, then were the measures of Government sure to be crossed and obstructed; and the session of Parliament became a constant struggle for power between the heads of parties, who used to force themselves into the office of lord justice according to the prevalence of their interest. This evil had been seen and lamented by Lord Chesterfield, and his resolution and preparatory steps for undermining it probably contributed not a little to his immediate recall, upon the cessation of the danger, which his wisdom was thought alone competent to avert. This was the system of which Lord Clare said, "The Government of England at length opened their eyes to the defects and dangers of: they shook the power of the aristocracy, but were unable to break it down." This was the long-wished-for Septennial Bill. Dr. Lucas had several times failed in his endeavours to procure a bill for limiting the duration of Parliament. Now, however, a Septennial Bill was transmitted, and was returned with an alteration in point of time, having been changed into an Octennial one. There appears to have been some unfair manoeuvring in the British cabinet, in order by a side wind to deprive the Irish of that, which they The primary object of Lord Towns- dared not openly refuse them. At the same hend's administration was to break up the time a transmission was made of another monopolizing system of this oligarchy. popular bill for the independence of the He in part succeeded, but by means judges, in which they had also inserted ruinous to the country. The subalterns some alteration. It was expected that were not to be detached from their chiefs, the violent tenaciousness of the Irish but by similar though more powerful Commons for the privilege of not having means than those by which they had en- their heads of bills altered by the English listed under their banner. The streams ministers, would have induced them to of favour became not only multiplied, reject any bill, into which such an alterabut enlarged. Every individual now tion had been introduced. In this the looked up directly to the fountain head, English cabinet was deceived: the Irish and claimed and received more copious Commons waived the objecton as to the draughts. Thus, under colour of destroy- limitation bill, in order to make sure at ing an overgrown aristocratic power, all last of what they had so long tried in parliamentary independence was com-vain to procure, but objected on this very pletely destroyed by Government. The innovation naturally provoked the deserted few to resentment. They took refuge under the shelter of patriotism, and they inveighed with less effect against the venality of the system, merely because it had taken a new direction, and was somewhat enlarged. The bulk of the nation, and some, though very few, of their representatives in Parliament, were earnest, firm, and implacable against it. The arduous task which Lord Townshend had assumed was not to be effected by a coup de main: forces so engaged, so marshalled, and so commanding rather than commanded, as he found the Irish Parliament, were not to be dislodged by a sudden charge: regular, gradual, and cautious approaches were to be made it was requisite that the chief governor G account to the judges bill, which was transmitted at the same time with alterations: for although this latter bill had been particularly recommended in the speech of the lord-lieutenant, it was on account of an alteration inserted in it in England, unanimously rejected. No sooner was the Octennial Bill returned, than the Commons voted a respectful and grateful address to the throne, beseeching his majesty to accept their unfeigned and grateful acknowledgments for the condescension so signally manifested to his subjects of that kingdom, in returning the bill for limiting the duration of Parliaments, which they considered not only as a gracious mark of paternal benevolence, but as a wise result of royal deliberation. And when the royal assent had been given, the action In short, no mere reforms in parliamentary elections or procedure could avail to create in this English colony either a national spirit or national proportions, or to stay the corruption and venality so carefully organized by English governors for the express purpose of keeping it down, so long as the colony did not associate with itself the multitu dinous masses of the Catholic peopleso long as half a million had to hold down and coerce over two millions of disarmed and disfranchised people, and at the same time to contend with the insolence and rapacity of Great Britain. Nationality in Ireland was necessarily fated to be delusive and evanescent. was so grateful to the people, that they pounded and the spirit displayed in took the horses from the viceroy's coach, the debates."* and drew him from the parliament house with the most enthusiastic raptures of applause and exultation. But his lordship's popularity did not last long. By diverting the channel of favour, or rather by dividing it into a multitude of little streams, the gentlemen of the House of Commons were taught to look up to him, not only as the source, but as the dispenser of every gratification. Not even a commission in the revenue, worth above £40 a year, could be disposed of, without his approbation. Thus were the old undertakers given to understand, that there was another way of doing business than through them. It was not, however, without much violence on both sides, that he at length effected his purpose. The immediate sufferers did not fail to call this alteration in the system of governing, an innovation, which they artfully taught the people to resent as a national grievance. "So long es Ireland did pretend, Like sugar-loaf turned upside down, To stand upon its smaller end."t In the year 1767, the whole population of the island was estimated, or in part calculated, at 2,544,276, and of these less than half a million were Protestants of the two sects. It will be seen that although the Patriots had now gained their famous measure, not indeed as a Septennial, but It must, however, be acknowledged at least as an Octennial Bill, which was that in this oppressive minority there to have been a panacea for all the evils of began to be developed a very strong the State; its effects were far from political vitality, chiefly owing to the answering their expectations. Extrava- strong personal interest which every one gance and corruption still grew and had in public affairs, and to the spread of spread under Lord Townshend's adminis- political information, through newspapers tration. Proprietors of boroughs found and pamphlets, and the very able speechestheir property much enhanced in value, which now began to give the Irish Parliabecause there was a market for it every ment a just celebrity. Dr. Lucas coneight years. The reflections of Thomas ducted the Freeman's Journal, which was McNevin on this subject are very just established very soon after the accession -"Some doubts arose as to the benefits of George III. This journal was soon produced by this bill in the way designed followed by another called the Hibernian by its framers; but no one doubted that Journal. Flood, Hussey, Burgh, Yelverthe spirit discovered by the Patriot party ton, and above all, Grattan, contributed in the House produced effects at the time to these papers. In the administration of and somewhat later, which cannot be Lord Townshend appeared the Dublin overstated or overvalued. It may, indeed, Mercury, a satirical sheet avowedly patbe doubted whether any measure, how-ronized by Government. It was intended ever beneficial in itself, could in those to turn Patriots and Patriotism into days of venality and oppression, with a ridicule: but the Government had not constitution so full of blemishes, and a all the laughers on its side. spirit of intolerance influencing the best A witty warfare was carried on against and ablest men of the day, such as Lucas Lord Townshend in a collection of letters for example, could be productive of any on the affairs and history of Barataria, striking or permanent advantage. We by which was intended Ireland. must not be astonished, then, that the letters of Posthumus and Pericles, and Octennial Bill was found incommen- the dedication, were written by Henry surate with the expectations of the Grattan, at the time of the publication. Patriots, who might have looked for the a very young man. The principal papers, reasons of this and similar disappoint- and all the history of Barataria, ments in their own venality, intolerance. the latter being an account of Lord fickleness, and shortcomings, if they had chosen to reflect on themselves and their motives. The real advantages are to be found in the principles pro The Townshend's administration, his protest, and his prorogation, were the composition McNevin's History of the Volunteers. † Moore. Memoir of Captain Rock. of Sir Hercules Langrishe. Two of his witticisms are still remembered, as being, in fact, short essays on the politics of Ireland. Riding in the park with the lordlieutenant, his excellency complained of his predecessors having left it so damp and marshy; Sir Hercules observed, "they were too much engaged in draining the rest of the kingdom." Being asked where was the best and truest history of Ireland to be found? he answered: "In the continuation of Rapin." CHAPTER XV. 1762-1767. Reign of Terror in Munster.-Murder of Father The village of Clogheen lies in the valley between the Galtees and the range of Knockmaoldown, in Tipperary, near the borders of Waterford and of Cork counties. Its parish priest was the Reverend Nicholas Sheehy: he was of a good Irish family, and well educated, having, as usual at that period, gone to France-contrary to "law"-for the instruction denied him at home. On the Continent he had probably mingled much with the high-spirited Irish exiles, who made the name of Ireland famous in all the camps and courts of Europe, and on his perilous return (for that too was against the law), to engage in the labours of his still more perilous mission, his soul was stirred within him at the sight of the degradation and abject wretchedness of the once proud clans of the south. With a noble imprudence, which the moderate Dr. Curry terms "a quixotic cast of mind towards relieving all those within his district whom he fancied to be injured or oppressed," he spoke out against some of the enormities which he daily witnessed. In the neighbouring parish of Newcastle, where there were no Protestant parishioners, he had ventured to say that there should be no church-rates, and the people had refused to pay them. About the same time, the tithes of two Protestant clergymen in the vicinity of Ballyporeen, Messrs. Foulkes and Sutton, were farmed to a tithe-proctor of the name of Dobbyn. This proctor forthwith instituted a new claim upon the Catholic people of this district, of five shillings for every marriage celebrated by a priest.* This new impost was resisted by the people, and as it fell heavily on the parishioners of Mr. Sheehy, he denounced The bitter distresses of the people of it publicly; in fact he did not even conMunster, occasioned by rack-rents, by the ceal that he questioned altogether the merciless exactions of the established divine right of a clergy to the tenth part clergy and their tithe-proctors, and by of the produce of a half-starved people, of the inclosure of commons, had gone on whose souls they had no cure. How these increasing and growing more intense from doctrines were relished by the Cromthe year 1760, until despair and misery wellian magistrates and Anglican rectors drove the people into secret associations, in his neighbourhood, may well be conand in 1762, as we have seen, the White-ceived. It was not to be tolerated that boys had in some places broken out into unconnected riots to pull down the fences that inclosed their commons, or to resist the collection of church-rates. These disturbances were greatly exaggerated in the reports made to Government by the neighbouring Protestant proprietors, squires of the Cromwellian brood, who represented that wretched Jacquerie as nothing less than a Popish rebellion, instigated by France, supported by French money, and designed to bring in the Pretender. CONTEMPORANEOUSLY with the Parliamentary struggles for the Octennial Act, and for arresting, if possible, the public extravagance and corruption, there was going on in an obscure parish of Tipperary, one of those dark transactions which were so common in Ireland during all this century as to excite no attention, and leave scarcely a record-the judicial murder of Father Nicholas Sheehy. His story is a true and striking epitome of the history of the Catholic nation in those days, and the notoriety of the facts at the time, and the character of the principal victim, have caused the full details to be handed down to us, minutely and with the clearest evidence. the Catholic people should begin to suppose that they had any rights. The legislation of the Ascendency had strictly provided that there should be no Catholic lawyers; it had also carefully prohibited education; nothing had been omitted to stifle within the hearts of the peasantry every sentiment of human dignity, and when they found that here was a man *These details and a great mass of others bearing on the case of Mr. Sheehy, are given by Dr. Madden in his First Series (United Irishmen). He has carefully sifted the whole of the proceedings, and thrown much light upon them. amongst the peasantry who could both William Bagnell, and John Bagnell, Esquires; many arrests were made as well as murders committed, and active preparation was made for what in Ireland is called "trial" of those offenders-that is indictment before juries of their mortal enemies. Diligent in the arrangement of the panels for these trials, we find. Daniel Toler, high sheriff of the county, who was either father or uncle of that other Toler, the bloody judge, afterwards known under the execrated title of Norbury. When in 1762, the troubles in the south were first supposed to call for military coercion, it was precisely in this village of Clogheen that the Marquis of Drogheda, commanding a considerable military force, fixed his headquarters. On that Amidst all this we are not to suppose same night an assemblage of Whiteboys that Father Sheehy was forgotten. In took place in the neighbourhood, with the the course of the disturbances he was intention, as was believed, of attacking several times arrested, indicted, and even the town, but a clergyman named Doyle, tried as a Popish priest," not being parish priest of Ardfinnan, on learning of duly registered, or not having taken the their intention (as one of the informers abjuration oath: but so privately did the states in his depositions), went amongst priests celebrate mass in those days that them and succeeded in preventing any it was found impossible to procure any offensive movement. His purpose, how- evidence against him. We find also that ever, in so doing was as usual represented to be insidious. sent he was indicted at Clonmel assizes, in 1763, as having been present at a WhiteFrom this time the Earl of Drogheda boy assemblage, and as having forced one made several incursions into the adjacent Ross to swear that he never would testify country, "and great numbers of the in- against Whiteboys. At this same assizes, surgents," as we are informed by Sir a true bill was found against Michael Richard Musgrave, "were killed by his Quinlan, a Popish priest, for having at lordship's regiment, and French money Aughnacarty and other places, exercised was found in the pockets of some of the office and functions of a Popish them." We are not informed what the priest, against the peace of our lord the "insurgents" were doing when they king and the statute, &c. To make were killed, nor in what this insurrection conviction doubly sure, as in Sheehy's consisted, but we may here present the case, a second information was judgment of Edmund Burke upon those up on the same occasion, charging Father transactions:-"I was three times in Ire- Quinlan with a riotous assemblage at land, from the year 1760 to the year 1767, Aughnacarty, so that if it was not a riot where I had sufficient means of informa- it was a mass, and if it was not a mass it tion concerning the inhuman pro-was a riot-criminal in either case. ceedings (among which were many cruel murders, besides an infinity of outrages and oppressions unknown before in a civilized age) which prevailed during that period, in consequence of a pretended conspiracy among Roman Catholics against the king's government." In short, there was no such conspiracy, and if the statement of Sir Richard Musgrave be true, which is highly improbable, that any coins of French money were found in the pockets of the slain, "that may be accounted for," says Mr Matthew O'Connor, "as the natural result of a smuggling intercourse with France, and in particular of the clandestine export of wool to that country." : It is needless to state the details of all these multifarious legal proceedings extending through several years. To pursue the story of Father Sheehy he was acquitted on the charge of being a Popish priest, "to his own great misfortune," says poor Dr. Curry, "for had he been convicted, his punishment, which would be only transportation, might have prevented his ignominious death, which soon after followed." Can there be conceived a more touching illustration of the abject situation of the Catholics, than that such should be the reflection which suggested itself on such an occasion to the worthy Dr. Curry? It also deserves to be noted in passing, While the troops were established at that no public man in Ireland was more Clogheen they were constantly employed ferocious in denouncing the unhappy in this well-known method of pacifying Whiteboys and calling for their blood, the country, and they were seconded with than the celebrated Patriot, Henry Flood. sanguinary zeal by several neighbouring On the 13th of October, 1763, in moving gentlemen, especially Sir Thomas Maude, for an instruction to the committee to in* M. O'Connor. "History of the Irish Catholics."quire into the causes of the "insurrec * tions" (which he would have to be a in revenge (although his body could never Popish rebellion and nothing less), he ex-be found), and a considerable reward pressed his amazement that the indict-was offered for discovering and convicting ments in the south were only laid for a the murderer. Sheehy, immediately after riot and breach of the peace, and animadverted severely on the lenient conduct of the judges. The solicitor-general had actually to modify the wrath of the bloodthirsty Patriot, and to assure him "that whenever lenity had been shown, it was only where reason and humanity required it,”* which we may be very sure was true. his acquittal in Dublin for rebellion, was indicted by his pursuers for this murder, and notwithstanding the promise given him by those in office on surrendering himself, he was transmitted to Clonmel. to be tried there for this new crime, and, upon the sole evidence of the same infamous witnesses, whose testimony had been so justly reprobated in Dublin, was there condemned to be hanged and quartered for the murder of a man who was never murdered at all. menacing the prisoner's friends, and encouraging his enemies. Even after sentence of death was pronounced against him (which one would But whosoever might be allowed to escape, that lot was not reserved for Father Sheehy. For two whole years, while the gibbets were groaning and the What barefaced injustice and inhumanjails bursting with his poor parishioners, ity were shown to this unfortunate man he was enabled to baffle all prosecution; on that occasion,† is known and testified sometimes escaping out of the very toils by many thousands of credible persons, of the attorney-general by default of who were present and eye-witnesses on evidence, sometimes concealing himself in the day of his trial. A party of horse the glens of the mountains, until in the surrounded the court, admitting and ex year 1765 the Government was prevailed cluding whomsoever they thought proper upon by his powerful enemies to issue while others of them, with Sir Thomas a proclamation against him, as a person Maude at their head, scampered the guilty of high treason, offering a reward streets in a formidable manner, breaking of three hundred pounds for taking him, into inns and private lodgings in the which Sheehy in his retreat happening to town, challenging and questioning all hear of, immediately wrote up to Secre-new-comers, tary Waite "that as he was not conscious of any such crime, as he was charged with in the proclamation, he was ready to save to the Government themoney offered for taking him, by surrendering himself out of hand, to be tried for that or any other crime he might be accused cf; not at Clonmel, where he feared that the power and malice of his enemies were too prevalent for justice (as they soon after indeed proved to be), but at the court of King's Bench in Dublin." His proposal having been accepted, he was accordingly brought up to Dublin, and tried there for rebellion, of which, however, after a severe scrutiny of fourteen hours, he was again acquitted; no evidence having appeared against him but a blackguard boy, a common prostitute, and an impeached thief, all brought out of Clonmel jail, and bribed for the purpose of witnessing against him. But his inveterate enemies, who, like so many bloodhounds, had pursued him to Dublin, finding themselves disappointed there, resolved upon his destruction at all events. One Bridge, an infamous informer against some of those who had been executed for these riots, was said to have been murdered by their associates, "Irish Debates." Year 1763. *It was positively sworn, by two unexceptionable short time before he was said to have been murwitnesses, that he privately left the kingdom some dered. See notes of the trial taken by one of the jury, in "Exshaw's Magazine" for June, 1766. During his trial, Mr. Keating, a person of known The remainder of the story of Father Sheehy is afterwards rejected at Kilkenny, as prevaricating substantially the narrative of Curry. and contradictory with respect to Mr. Keating. |