Chapter XXI: Part 21

On the Rhine and the Maine the two other divisions of the general plan had not met with the same success as had attended the arms of Bonaparte. Great and astonishing as his progress had been, it did not therefore seem as yet to have closed all hope of peace, for which in fact it had only rendered Pitt more anxious; and as the establishment of the Directory seemed to promise that permanence to the Government which Pitt had declared to be the indispensable condition of any hopeful negotiations, it was determined in the autumn of this year (1796) to make a fresh effort, this time direct, to negotiate with the Directory. For this purpose Lord Malmesbury was despatched to Paris. The English believed that they had something they could offer in exchange for any restorations France might make. The Cape of Good Hope had been captured in the preceding year, and in the spring of the present year Moore and Abercrombie had done good service in the West Indies. Many of the islands there had been taken, Guadaloupe almost alone remained in French hands. These conquests they offered to restore. But if the French had been unwilling to treat in the preceding year, their successes in Italy had not rendered them more moderate; they were at this very time arranging, at the instigation of the malcontents in Ireland, represented by Wolfe Tone, a plan for the conquest of Ireland under the command of General Hoche, and probably a still greater plan for the invasion of England itself. In fact, there was still the same irremediable objection--the English still felt bound in honour not to resign the Netherlands to France. "On this point," writes Grenville in his instructions to Malmesbury, "your Lordship must not give the smallest hope that his Majesty will be induced to relax." There was also another point in the French diplomacy which rendered the negotiations difficult. They could not understand the position of a plenipotentiary who had not absolutely full powers to act without reference to his own Court, and taking umbrage at the repeated couriers who went to and fro from Paris, declared their belief that the effort at peace was not honest on the part of England, and that Malmesbury had not full powers at all; and finally, De la Croix, a somewhat stiff man of the red tape school, who had from the first behaved with considerable rudeness, wrote suddenly to Malmesbury bidding him leave Paris within eighteen hours. Thus closed the second effort on the part of Pitt to make peace, chiefly important because it clears him from the charge of inveterate determination to continue the war, because it throws the blame of that continuance completely on the French, and because it shows the effect which the lengthened efforts of England, especially the pressure on the finances, were having upon the naturally peaceful and economical mind of the minister.

[Sidenote: Preparations to resist the threatened French invasion.]

The preparations for invasion from abroad could not be kept secret, and fresh and constant efforts had been made to meet them. Fresh levies were made both for the navy and for the army; supplementary bodies of militia were raised; plans suggested for the establishment of large bodies of irregular cavalry, and the enrolment as irregular infantry of all those who paid a gun license. More than this, in spite of the pressure on the finances, under which the funds had fallen as low as £53, a new loan of £18,000,000 was raised upon terms which, though we should now think very high, were not then considered remunerative. The loan, which bore a nominal interest of 5 per cent., was issued at £112, 10s.; that is, every £112, 10s. advanced was to represent £100, thus practically reducing the interest to less than 4½ per cent. Pitt found it necessary to make a distinct appeal to the loyalty of the people to raise the loan on these terms; but the temper of the wealthy classes and the amount of riches still existing in England were shown by the extraordinary rapidity with which the subscription list was filled. £1,000,000 was subscribed by the Bank in their corporate capacity, £400,000 by the directors individually; before the close of the first day £5,000,000 was subscribed by different merchants. At ten o'clock on the Monday the doors were opened, and by twenty minutes past eleven the subscription was declared to be full; hundreds were reluctantly obliged to go away. By the post innumerable orders came from the country, scarcely one of which could be accepted, and long after the subscription was closed persons continued coming, and were obliged to depart disappointed.[13] The Duke of Bridgewater sent a draft on sight of £100,000, a similar sum was even given by the Duke of Bedford, one of the staunchest opponents of the war. The Ministry subscribed £10,000 a piece.

[Sidenote: French expeditions to Bantry Bay and Bristol.]

Such an outburst of loyalty might have opened the eyes of the French as to the difference between the revolutionary temper of England and of their own country, but their ignorance of the temper both of England and Ireland was extreme; General Clark (subsequently Napoleon's War Minister) was at this very time asking Wolfe Tone whether he thought it probable that in case of a landing in Ireland the Irish Lord Chancellor would join the rebels. On the 15th of December the great expedition for Ireland set sail from Brest. Like so many invasions of England, it was thwarted by the uncertainties of the sea. After a stormy passage a few ships assembled in Bantry Bay; but the general had been driven in another direction; there were no signs of the eager Jacobin uprising which the French had expected, the commanders were afraid to proceed without orders from Hoche, and the expedition straggled back again to Brest, with the loss of four line of battle-ships and eight frigates. A similar untimely fate met a more desperate assault intended for the shores of England. Some 1500 men, two-thirds of whom were liberated galley-slaves, and from their character known as the "Légion noire," were sent under Colonel Tate with the intention of burning Bristol. They landed on the shores of Pembrokeshire, and it needed but the appearance of a few militia and yeomanry under Lord Cawdor (and it is frequently said of a few old Welsh women in their red cloaks and hats) to induce the crew of miscreants to take to flight. The expedition was probably only intended as a sort of forlorn hope to discover in what state of preparation England was, for the negotiations having entirely ceased, the French were thinking of a great attack on England itself.

[Sidenote: Critical condition of England.]

The idea of invasion was a well-timed one; at no time in the war, either before or after, was England in so critical a condition or its existence so precarious. It had become plain by this time that the strength of England, at all events under the present management, lay in two directions--in its enormous resources and capacity for paying money, and in its fleet. Though such troops as had been employed had exhibited their usual bravery, though when well led, as in India, their efforts had met with great success, it was evident that the present ministry, hampered by their political relations and by the incessant interference of the King himself in the army, was unable to make any real show in the European war. But already in the last four years nearly eighty millions had been added to the National Debt, every variety of taxation almost had been tried both to cover the interest of the accumulating debt and to supply the yearly million to the sinking fund, and men began to think that the sources of money must shortly begin to fail. And yet the subsidized armies abroad had met with nothing but disaster. The North of Germany, including even the King's electorate of Hanover, had been driven to enter into a neutrality. Prussia had in the last year signed two conventions of the most amicable and friendly description with France; and the well-known selfishness of the Austrian Court did not allow it to be questioned that, if it saw its way to permanent advantage, it also would close its disastrous campaign by deserting the coalition. Worse even than that remained behind; it seemed as if the country was really upon the verge of a national bankruptcy, for the amount of specie was found insufficient to carry on the business of the country. At the same time that the financial strength of England seemed to have been fruitlessly exhausted, her permanent power upon the sea seemed on the point of disappearing also; for not only had the French been lately turning their attention to their own navy, but the successes of their arms had given them the command both of the fleets of Holland and Spain. Holland, formed into the Batavian Republic, had early purchased peace by promising thirty ships: in the July of the last year Spain had entered into a similar convention, and the whole of her naval resources, as many as forty line of battle-ships, were at the disposal of the French. It was with these combined armaments that the intended descent upon England was to take place. And just as the internal ruin had gone hand in hand with the failure of external financial influence, so it appeared that the new-born naval power of our enemies would go hand in hand with the total dissolution of our maritime force: for disaffection was widely spread among our sailors, and the year was marked by the mutinies of St. Helen's and the Nore.

[Sidenote: Monetary crisis.]

[Sidenote: Suspension of cash payments.]

In point of time it was the financial difficulty which first arose. The difficulty was not what is called a commercial but a monetary crisis. There was no want of credit, there was no want of solid wealth, but there was every chance of there being such a dearth of the circulating medium that the ordinary transactions of business would not be able to be carried on, that it would be impossible to meet engagements as they fell due, and that consequently many houses would be forced to stop payment, and a general bankruptcy be the result, more especially as it seemed probable that at the head of the banks that stopped payment would be the Bank of England itself. The causes of this state of things are not very difficult to understand. The same forces which had been at work to produce the necessary issue of Exchequer bills in 1793 had continued; the balance of trade had been constantly against the country. The position of Spain, Italy, France and Holland in the ranks of our enemies had of necessity curtailed the number of our purchasers. The necessity of war supplies and several poor harvests had rendered necessary the purchase of much food and of much raw material, consequently to restore the balance large payments in gold and silver had to be made. The great subsidies granted to foreign powers had necessarily been chiefly paid in specie. Large compensation had been given for the freights and cargoes of neutral ships which had been seized; and the Government for their special purposes had had to borrow upwards of ten millions in specie from the Bank. Threats of invasion had induced people throughout the country to realize their property as far as possible; this had produced a run upon the country banks, which had in turn demanded their deposits from the Bank of England. All these accumulated causes had so lowered the reserve, that on Saturday the 20th of February there was only £1,272,000 in the Bank cellars, and it was known that the demands of the next forty-eight hours would entirely empty them. In this crisis the Bank applied to the Government; a Council was immediately held, although it was Sunday, and a proclamation was issued forbidding payments in cash. A meeting of merchants next day sanctioned this step, promising to accept bank notes as legal tender. On examination the Bank was found solvent, but a Bill was passed prohibiting it to pay in cash more than twenty shillings, or to advance to Government more than £600,000. Though only intended as a temporary expedient, this Act continued in operation for twenty-two years, and during the whole of that time the depreciation of the paper money was comparatively slight.

[Sidenote: The threatened invasion checked by the victory of St. Vincent.]

The danger caused by the mutiny was still greater: it was the intention of the French Directory that the fleet of the Texel, composed entirely of the Dutch, the fleet at Brest which had been collected for the invasion of Ireland, and the great Spanish fleet, should combine. Thus, an armament of more than seventy ships of the line would sweep the English fleet from the Channel, and any operations against the island would be rendered safe. But the check sustained by the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent ruined the well-conceived plan. A few days before Tate landed in England, the great Spanish fleet set sail from Carthagena, intending to join the French fleet off Brest and the Dutch fleet off the Texel, and thus secure the mastery of the Channel. Sir John Jervis was Admiral in the Mediterranean, and with him was Commodore Nelson, and though the Spanish fleet had twelve more ships than he had, and 1200 more guns, he determined to fight. He contrived to separate nine Spanish ships from the main body, and took four of the remainder, and though the separated ships joined the line in the evening, and Jervis was still outnumbered, the Spanish fleet retired into Cadiz.

But though the combined invasion was thus thwarted, the whole danger for England, or rather for Ireland, was by no means at an end. Hoche had been removed from the army of the Ocean to the army of the Sambre and Meuse. His mind was constantly bent upon the invasion of Ireland, and, acting under his influence, the Dutch Government, wishing to do something to show that they were not entirely effaced from the list of nations, with great efforts strengthened and equipped their fleet at the Texel till it numbered fourteen sail of the line, and embarked in it their whole army, 15,000 men, for an attack upon Ireland. The Directory, taking umbrage at this independent action, insisted upon Hoche, with 5000 men, accompanying them, and on their refusal began again to get ready their Brest squadron for a similar expedition. To watch the Dutch became the duty of Admiral Duncan, the care of Brest was intrusted to Admiral Bridport with the fleet at Portsmouth. Fortunately for England, the sailing of the fleets was delayed; had they sailed in the summer, as intended, they would have found England without fleets.

[Sidenote: Mutiny at Spithead.]

Early in the year a conspiracy was discovered among the crews of the fleet at Spithead, with a view to demanding redress of certain grievances. These grievances were shared in by all the seamen in the navy and were very real. The pay and pensions had never been altered since the time of Charles II., though every necessary of life had risen from thirty to forty per cent.; this neglect was rendered particularly objectionable as the pay and pensions of the army had been increased to suit the times. Many officers were appointed by interest alone, and a system of barefaced peculation was carried on by those who had the duty of provisioning the fleet, for the ships were furnished in a great degree by contract through the purser; moreover, all the nautical arrangements were at this time remarkable for extreme roughness, almost brutality, for unjust severity of discipline, for arbitrary power vested in the hands of the captain, and frequent misuse of that power. When Lord Bridport, Lord Howe's second in command, signalled to put to sea, every ship in the fleet refused to obey; and the next day delegates from every ship met in the 'Queen Charlotte,' and the mutiny was organized. The men behaved with perfect decorum, and drew up a petition, asking that their wages should be raised to suit the rise of prices in every direction, and that some improvement should be made in their system of pensions. To the Admiralty they sent a petition, exposing the peculations of the pursers and the unwarrantable hardships to which the sailor was exposed. The Admiralty acknowledged at once the justice of the claim for advanced wages, but were silent upon the other abuses. This did not satisfy the men: three admirals were sent to treat with them; and when an outburst of anger on the part of one of them broke off the conference, the red flag of mutiny was hoisted and the guns loaded. However, when their demands were granted in full, and a free pardon was sent them from London, they at once returned to their duty. During the whole of the outbreak perfect order had reigned. But the folly of the Admiralty, who, wishing to save their credit, sent down a perverse order that the marines should be kept constantly ready to suppress mutiny, led the sailors to believe that they were being deceived, and a second outbreak was the result. An attempt to suppress it by force on board the 'London' ended in a real mutiny among all the ships then lying at St. Helen's, outside Spithead. Lord Howe, the most popular of the admirals, known among the sailors as "Black Dick," was intrusted with the difficult task of recalling the fleet to its allegiance. With great skill he contrived that while their requests were granted, they should seem to be receiving rather than demanding a favour. He persuaded them to write a letter of contrition to himself, and apparently as the fruit of his good offices, announced to them that an Act of Parliament had been passed securing to them the redress of grievances they had demanded, and that considerable changes were to be made among the officers.

[Sidenote: Mutiny at the Nore. May 15.]

This wholly unpolitical mutiny was followed by a more formidable movement among the ships at the Nore. It began on board the 'Sandwich,' the flagship of Admiral Buckner. As in the former case, delegates from the seamen met on board the 'Sandwich,' but the chief management of the mutiny fell absolutely into the hands of a seaman called Parker, a man of good education, and at one time an officer in the navy, but whose abilities as a leader were spoiled by his arrogant assumption of dictatorial power. Under his influence the demands of the mutineers assumed a political character; they required a revision of the Articles of War, an increase of prize-money, and the dismissal of officers not agreeable to the ships' companies. All efforts to bring the men to reason were unavailing. Lord Spencer himself, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had an interview with Parker, but was met with nothing but insult. After this the mutineers fired upon some frigates who would not join them, and blockaded the Thames. It became necessary to take vigorous measures. Bills were passed without opposition strengthening the hands of Government, and making it felony to hold intercourse with the mutinous ships. Ships were got ready, the navigation of the Thames was rendered difficult by the removal of marks, and batteries were erected along the river. Cut off from the shore, and finding no sympathy among the fleets at Portsmouth and Plymouth, nor among even the most advanced radicals on shore, although they were joined by the fleets of Admiral Duncan, the mutineers began to give way. Ship after ship slipped her cable and escaped from the mutinous fleet, and on the 15th of June the 'Sandwich' herself was brought within range of the batteries. Parker was at once apprehended, sentenced to death, and hanged. But though the firmness of the Government had secured them complete victory, they were too conscious of the real abuses in the navy to be severe. Only four or five executions followed.

[Sidenote: Real loyalty of the sailors.]

The great peculiarity of the mutiny was the ease with which it was ultimately suppressed and the proofs of underlying loyalty which are visible throughout it. In the Channel fleet all the offers of the Admiralty, and even of Parliament, were regarded as delusive till the King's own sign manual was exhibited, upon which all signs of mistrust at once vanished. When one of the ships threatened to leave the fleet and join the French, the guns of the rest of the mutinous fleet were at once turned upon it, and it was carefully blockaded by guard-boats; and again, so far from sympathizing with the mutineers of the Nore, the sailors of the Channel fleet, after their return to allegiance, wrote to the delegates declaring that their conduct was a scandal to the British navy. Even at the Nore, where the mutiny had taken a more political form, every ship but one struck the red flag and hoisted the royal ensign on the King's birthday, and within a few weeks of the suppression of the disaffection, the battle of Camperdown, one of the severest engagements of the time, was chiefly won for England by the crews of the lately insurgent fleet.

[Sidenote: Disorganization of the French Government.]

It was well for England that the Government of France was at this time so disorganized that no vigorous effort could be made to take advantage of her deplorable condition. The place of the assignats had been taken by another form of paper money called "mandats," but these too had been rejected by the people, who could no longer be brought to believe in paper money of any description. Forced to have recourse to the use of specie, the Directory had also found itself compelled to have recourse to the old means of raising money; compulsory loans were established, the receipts of future years anticipated, the national goods sold for whatever they would fetch, and money raised at the most ridiculous interest. These financial arrangements gave rise to much nefarious speculation and stock-jobbing; the business of the army to still more; and the newly enriched speculators, emancipated from the pressure of the terror and devoid of all the nobler sentiments of republicanism, were a mere set of selfish voluptuaries. In such a dissolution of morality and public spirit it was plain that the royalists had their chance, and in the year 1797 sufficient members of their party were elected to change the majority of the two councils. The representative body immediately entered into a struggle with the executive Directory; and in that Directory were Barras, a revolutionary at heart though the leader of all the dissoluteness of the time, Barthélemy, the negotiator of Basle, who appears to have been royalist in his tendencies, and Carnot, an upright republican, but yet under the influence of the dread of the old terror. It was plain that if the Revolution was to be saved it must be done by violent means, and Rewbell and Laréveilière, the remaining directors, with the assistance of Barras, determined to save it at the cost of a _coup d'état_ carried out by the army. On the night of the 18th Fructidor (Sept. 4, 1797), Carnot and Barthélemy, with fifty of the obnoxious majority, were arrested, and all chance of a royalist reaction was for the time over. Bonaparte was now convinced that the ultimate fate of France must be with the army, in other words, that it must lie with himself, but with great wisdom he determined to wait the turn of events.

[Sidenote: Negotiations at Lisle.]

While the parties were thus struggling in France, and there seemed a chance of an entire change of feeling, the English ministry, very seriously anxious for peace, again opened negotiations. The Preliminaries of Léoben had in fact removed what should have been the sole difficulty; it was ridiculous that England should continue to hold out on the subject of the Low Countries when Austria had herself entered into a private treaty to abandon them. A passport was therefore demanded, and, somewhat unfortunately, Lord Malmesbury was again fixed upon as the negotiator. He went to Lisle, presented his plan of a treaty, and had every reason to believe that all was going well. England consented to restore all her conquests with the exception of the Isle of Trinidad, the Cape of Good Hope, and Ceylon. But this was at the very moment when the quarrel was at its height in Paris; intent upon its own affairs, the Directory suffered the negotiations to drag on, and when at length the republican party won their victory on the 18th Fructidor, the negotiations were suddenly broken off on the old ground that Malmesbury had not got full authority. The real reason is obvious,--the party in power, who relied on the army, knew that the power of the army was immensely increased by a state of war.

[Sidenote: Battle of Camperdown. Oct. 11, 1797.]

The termination of the negotiations was at once followed by a vigorous continuation of the war. Lord Malmesbury had been but a few weeks in England when the Dutch fleet found itself ready at length to sail from the Texel. But the delay--caused by the weather, the absence of Hoche, and the factions of Paris--had almost deprived it of its terrors. Even when the greater part of his fleet had been in mutiny in the Thames, Duncan had maintained the appearance of a blockade; keeping his two faithful ships within sight of the land, he had kept up so regular a succession of signals, as though sending his orders to a fleet outside, that the Dutch never found out that there were only two ships watching them. When at length they sailed Duncan's fleet outnumbered theirs by one ship. He had withdrawn for an instant to Yarmouth roads to refit, but apprised in time, he was enabled to fall upon the Dutch fleet before it had left the coast of Holland. He contrived, although the enemy was in close order, to come between them and the shore, and after a close combat, which recalled the old days of the rivalry between England and Holland, by four o'clock on the 11th of October he had succeeded in capturing the flagship of Admiral Winter, together with seven other ships of the line, two 56-gun ships, and two frigates. The bold manœuvre of passing between the enemy and the shore was a source of some danger, as the fleets drifted close inland during the action, but Duncan skilfully saved both his own fleet and his prizes. The action was watched by crowds from the Dutch shore. This battle put an end to the danger of immediate invasion, though it seems to have inspired the French with a determination to carry on that invasion on a larger scale in the following year, when great preparations were made under the personal superintendence of Bonaparte.

[Sidenote: Peace of Campo Formio. Oct. 17.]

The breach of negotiations at Lisle was followed on the 17th of October by the completion of the Peace of Campo Formio, which had been begun by the Preliminaries of Léoben. This peace secured to France the possession of Belgium, the left bank of the Rhine, and the Ionian Isles, and acknowledged the establishment of the Cisalpine Republic, consisting of the provinces conquered in Italy from the Austrians, the Pope, and Venice; while Austria received in exchange Venice itself and its eastern provinces, Friuli, Istria, and Dalmatia. France thus lay not only triumphant in Europe, but with the Rhine for its frontier, and for outposts four republics pledged to uphold its revolutionary ideas. But in acquiring this position the rights of peoples had been trampled upon, Switzerland had been appended to France, the occupation of Rome had seemed to give colour to the assertion that the Revolution was atheistical, and the whole turn of events was such as to justify, even to necessitate, subsequent European interference.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Complications attending Irish difficulties.]

The peculiar manner in which Ireland has been conquered, peopled, and managed, renders questions regarding this country most intricate and difficult. There is seldom a single interest to be traced which is not crossed by numerous side winds, which render the development of political questions crooked and complicated. The Roman Catholic interest, the Protestant interest, the old Irish interest, the Anglo-Irish interest, the interest of the English ascendancy, the claims of the Presbyterians as contrasted with the National Church, are constantly crossing and recrossing. At no time was this complication so great or this difficulty so insoluble as in the years which followed the breaking out of the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: Necessity for the Union.]

There is one thing, however, which tends to throw a certain light upon the conduct of the Government of England during these years of difficulty. Pitt and his more intimate friends had already firmly decided in their own minds that one cure only was possible for Irish evils--a close and complete legislative union with England. The action of the Whig Government in 1782 had been ostensibly in exactly the opposite direction; the triumph of Grattan and the volunteers had been won when legislative disunion was granted, and what we should now speak of as Home Rule established. The party which triumphed on that occasion was not the Irish party, or the Catholic party, but the Protestant aristocracy. The anti-national character and exclusive nature of the party in power was shown by the rejection of all Pitt's efforts at parliamentary reform. The independent Irish Parliament was indeed full of able speakers; men who carried the art of rhetoric and of clothing little thought in magnificent language to the highest pitch. But it is not unfair to take as a sample of the practical excellence of the management of what we may speak of as the Home Rulers, the condition of the Foundling Hospital in Dublin. It was a noble institution; about £16,000 a year was spent on it; 120 noblemen and wealthy gentry were on its committee; yet after just ten years of Irish management, a committee of inquiry reported that out of upwards of 2000 infants yearly consigned to its care, the average that survived was 130. They were sent up in scores, in open baskets, from distant parts of Ireland, and arrived crushed and half lifeless, to be tossed aside, without care or inquiry, into the kennel. Twenty-one committee-men formed a quorum, yet never once, except when places were to be given away, had that quorum met, and for years the treasurer, to whom the management had been confided, had been absolutely bedridden. All that can be alleged in excuse for the bad management, of which this is a sample, is that the Constitution of 1782 had not been thoroughly tried. Deprived by law of its power in the Irish Parliament, yet conscious of the impossibility of allowing the country to act as if completely independent, the Government had had recourse to indirect influence for establishing its power. While the franchise and the representation, all official places and all professions, except the medical profession, were exclusively confined to the Protestants, who were also the possessors of nineteen-twentieths of the soil, Government had found it possible by bribery, direct or indirect, to command a constant majority in Parliament of those who were eager to uphold the English connection and the Protestant ascendancy. But the very fact of its thus acting had placed a considerable portion of the Protestant population in opposition to Government.

[Sidenote: Irish opposition to Government.]

Among the Protestants themselves there were formed two great parties, who may be called roughly Whigs and Tories; on the one side those placemen and pensioners who supported the English Government, and on the other those aristocratic families and connections (probably by no means purer or higher-minded than their opponents) who wished, as the Whig aristocracy had wished in England, to be masters of the Government, and to rule Ireland almost as a separate nation. Of these great connections the typical men were, of the Tories, the family of the Beresfords, led by the ability of Fitzgibbon the Chancellor, and of the Whigs, the family of the Ponsonbys, led by the genius of Grattan. Around the Opposition party there naturally collected those men who were really reformers at heart, and the Opposition was thus enabled to use cries and watchwords which were not only specious and plausible, but which really touched the great evils of the country. The first of these evils was the preposterous amount of Government influence; and the obvious way in which that influence might be reached was by a reform of Parliament, for nothing could be more abominable than the arrangement by which members were elected. It was worse even than in England; by far the larger number of seats were either private or Government property, and nominees were appointed under distinct conditions, and their votes secured by distinct and well-understood bargains; every man's price and every man's expectation were actually entered like a list of merchandise in the Government books. A second point was the fact, that not only all political power, but till the year 1793 almost all social position was denied to the Roman Catholics. On the first of these points the opponents of Government were agreed; they were perfectly willing, for the sake of injuring Government, to press constantly for a large reform bill. On the second point there was a far greater difference of opinion. Grattan, though himself a Protestant and a friend to the Protestant ascendancy, was great enough to urge constantly the relief of his Catholic fellow-countrymen; but the great majority of his friends, however much they might from time to time for political purposes uphold the Catholic claims, were in fact thoroughly opposed to anything which would injure their own Protestant ascendancy. There was thus a sort of show of union between the Protestant nationalists and the Catholics, but at heart disunion and dislike.

[Sidenote: Grievances of the peasantry.]

Meanwhile, whatever effect upon the Protestant population Home Rule may have had, it had not in the slightest degree alleviated the position of the Irish peasants. Their landlords were still Englishmen, Protestants, conquerors, and harsh landlords. The Church of England still demanded its tithes. The aristocracy and gentry had neglected their duties till, as has been well said, they forgot they had duties to perform; they were hopelessly corrupt, both morally and politically. The independence which the peasantry were taught by the inflated language used in Parliament to believe they had already acquired seemed to them a bitter deception; and their belief in the villany of the rulers who had tricked them, and in the complete slavery and hardship of their own position as Roman Catholics, was envenomed by the expressions which the Opposition allowed itself to use in its assaults on Government. They were thus ripe for rebellion. Indeed, for many years they had been filling Ireland with outrages. All sorts of combinations had been made against rent-collectors and tithe-proctors. In Munster arose the Society of the White Boys and the followers of Captain Right. Combinations were also directed against the farmers of taxes, who most shamelessly abused their position. Absenteeism was the curse of Ireland. While the middleman of the absentee landlord racked the wretched cotter for his rent, the middleman of the absentee parson racked him for his tithes. They were in the habit of taking their payments in interest-bearing bonds, and when the wretched peasant was unable to meet those bonds, he became practically the slave of the tithe farmer, who compelled him to do his farm work for him as the price of his forbearance to put the law in execution.

[Sidenote: Weakness of the executive.]

The executive machinery of the Government in Ireland was not strong enough to keep order. The outrages of the Catholics had frequently to be met by the voluntary efforts of their enemies, which soon degenerated into counter-outrages. Thus there arose in Munster a constant cruel war between the two religions. In the north of Ireland it was worse, for the hatred between the religions was there more pronounced. In dread of outrages similar to those of the south, the Protestants began, in the roughest and most illegal manner, to deprive the Catholics of arms, which indeed they had no right to carry; and the Catholics were driven to form themselves into lawless societies under the name of Defenders, in opposition to which there arose, about the year 1790, the organization of the Orange Lodges; and there, too, a cruel civil war began to be waged.

[Sidenote: Effect of the French Revolution in Ireland.]

While Ireland was in this miserable condition, while the liberty which the wretched peasantry had been promised had entirely disappeared, while the upper classes of all parties seemed in the last degree degraded, and the ascendancy of the useless and tyrannical Church fixed for ever, the great news of the French Revolution came. Even in more sober England men's hearts were stirred within them at the promise of the emancipation of the human race; among the suffering passionate Irish, with their impulsive and sanguine dispositions, the effect was far greater. But the class who were at first chiefly influenced by it were not the Roman Catholics--although, no doubt, for them too it seemed to promise at least a share in the franchise,--but the Northern Presbyterians and Dissenters, republican from their origin, and, from the very nature of their religious creed, equally oppressed with the Catholics by a proud and dominant Church, and more keenly alive to that abominable system of government which touched the Protestant more nearly than the Catholic, because he alone had any share in it. Ulster, and especially the town of Belfast, were the great centres of the republican and Jacobin feelings, together with Dublin, where, as was natural, the more lively, ambitious, and freethinking elements of society were chiefly to be found.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of the Government.]

There were thus to be somehow handled and managed by Government a strong, vicious, reckless, constitutional opposition, in connection with a few men honestly desiring the legislative independence of Ireland, and, as a necessary step, thorough parliamentary reform;--secondly, a great body of Catholics, of which the higher and more respectable part desired the gradual alleviation of their position, and joined with the Opposition, not from dislike to the English connection, but because the supporters of Government influence seemed inclined to refuse every demand; and of which the lower part, in wild misery and excitement, was waging a lawless war both in the north and south;--and thirdly, a very considerable body of men, dissenters of the North, and freethinkers of Dublin, who, touched by the influence of the French Revolution, desired an entire overthrow of the Government, and were willing to throw themselves into the arms of France for the destruction of the English connection.

[Sidenote: Formation of the Society of United Irishmen.]

It is plain that of these sections two were chiefly dangerous--the Roman Catholic peasant, who hated the Protestant, and the republican Protestant, who hated the Government and hated the Catholic also. While these were separate it might be possible to play off one against the other. In this the few reckless men who desired a complete change of Government saw the cause of their weakness. The most prominent of these was Wolfe Tone, a young barrister, the son of a Dublin coachmaker, who for personal reasons as he openly confessed--because certain suggestions of his had not been well received in England--was the determined enemy of everything English. Nominally a Protestant, really a freethinker, to him, and to several others like him, religious disputes appeared merely ridiculous; and the brilliant idea seized him of uniting those two sections of people which were really dangerous to England--the Northern Republican and the National Roman Catholic--and of thus forming the great Society of the United Irishmen. It was plain that great difficulties must arise in realizing such a scheme. Much as the Protestants of Ulster hated England, they undoubtedly hated Catholics more; much as the Catholics hated England, undoubtedly they hated Protestants more. Still, it might be the policy of both parties to bury for a time their great hatred, and to make common cause on that point which they had in common. Wolfe Tone and his republican friends, entirely careless of religion, formed an excellent connecting link. It was with this view that he betook himself to Belfast, to take advantage of a great celebration to be held there in honour of the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille, and there established his Society, as he seems already to have done in part in Dublin. Its ostensible views as put forward in the programme were, that the weight of English influence was so great as to require the cordial union of the people of Ireland to maintain liberty, that the only constitutional way of opposing that influence was reform of Parliament, and that no reform was practicable which did not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion. Tone hoped, by thus setting prominently forward the advantages which each party was desirous of gaining, to win the adhesion of both.

[Sidenote: Disunion among the Catholics.]

But the Catholics themselves were not a wholly united body. Unable to find any more legitimate means of making themselves heard, they had, since 1782, intrusted their interests to a central committee at Dublin, consisting of some of the most important nobility and gentry of their party, as well as of others of a more violent stamp. The temper of the English Government was such, that fairly friendly relations subsisted between it and the Bishops and more educated part of the Catholics. Pitt was himself a friend to the Catholic claims in England. Many of the restrictions had been already removed from the Catholics in England and in Scotland, and neither Pitt nor the chief members of his Cabinet thought it impossible that the emancipation of the Irish should proceed by the same steps as in England. This feeling was rendered much stronger by the French Revolution. It seemed impossible that the dogmatic and highly organized Roman Church should become the champion of disorder and atheism, and Pitt hoped by attaching them to himself to find in them a support against the spread of the revolutionary principles which were his great dread. The Catholics thus became an object of contention to the extreme parties; on the one side the Nationalists and United Irishmen sought to win them by holding out hopes of regaining their supremacy by reform of Parliament, and of a consequent alienation from English policy which might well involve a complete change in the Act of Settlement, and the restoration of much property to its old Roman Catholic owners; and on the other side the English Government attempted to outbid its rivals, and to attach the Catholics more closely to the English interests, by granting them immediately a large measure of relief. As was natural, this auction terminated in a split among the Catholics themselves. In 1791 a portion of the Committee sent up very reasonable demands in a petition, signed by upwards of sixty names. These petitioners represented the moderate and better part of the Catholics, who would have been willing to accept the legitimate offers of the English Government; but the majority, inspired by the revolutionary feelings of the time, and eagerly desirous for the complete restoration of their position, refused to acknowledge the petition as their own, and drove the sixty signatories from the Committee. They then proceeded to play directly into the hands of Wolfe Tone, entering into close connection with the revolutionary society at Belfast, which they no doubt intended to use as a cat's-paw only, until they should attain that complete Catholic ascendancy, which could scarcely fail to result from a thorough Reform Bill if connected with the removal of religious disabilities.

[Sidenote: Mismanagement of the Government.]

It may excite surprise that the Government did not, in the presence of the very obvious danger which had arisen, and when the country was full of disturbance, act vigorously in support of the Protestant ascendancy, or at least confine itself to giving such measures of relief as would have satisfied the seceders of the Catholic committee. The Lord Lieutenant, and those who had charge of the government in Ireland, perpetually urged upon the English Cabinet the necessity of supporting the English, declaring that the real contest would ultimately be between the Irish nationalists and the English settlers. But Pitt could not give up his idea that relief to the Catholics was necessary. He suffered Richard Burke, a foolish young man, to act apparently in his name, and to hold out hopes to the more advanced Catholic party. The Cabinet, indeed, subsequently denied having given him any authority, but as undoubtedly Pitt had given him a letter of introduction to the Secretary, it was very hard to prove this disclaimer. Consequently, in the session of 1792, both the Belfast republicans and the Catholic committee sent up petitions to Parliament of a very strong description. They were both rejected, and in their place a measure was introduced by Sir Hercules Langrishe, apparently with the consent of Government, admitting Catholics to the profession of the law, removing restrictions on their education, and repealing the Inter-marriage Act. It was only with considerable difficulty, and by Government influence, that this Bill was passed through the House, for the Protestant feeling in Parliament was very strong. Langrishe's measure was no doubt a righteous one; but it is a question whether at the moment concession to the Catholics was wise, especially when it was purchased by unpopularity among the Protestants. It seems probable, however, that both now and in his subsequent action, Pitt was influenced by a detestation of the iniquitous means by which Ireland was governed. He did not care much about shocking his majority of pensioners, or weakening English ascendancy, being fully determined that before long that ascendancy should give place to a wider and less provincial scheme of Government, produced by a complete union.

[Sidenote: Increased demands of the Catholics.]

[Sidenote: Catholic Relief Bill passed. 1793.]

The effect of the measure at first was, however, certainly not salutary. Signs of concession on the part of the Government, and the foolish conduct of Richard Burke, excited the Catholics of the United Irish party to raise still higher claims, and to attempt to insist upon them by overawing the Government. Determined that there should be no mistake as to the real wishes of their party, the committee contrived to summon a general convention of Catholics in Dublin, each parish sending up its representatives. This Parliament met in what was called the Back Lane, under the presidency of Edward Burne, a well-known Catholic merchant of extreme views. The members drew up a petition, demanding the franchise for the Catholics, and sent it direct to England, attempting thus to overrule their own Irish Government. At the same time, Tone and Napper Tandy, the leader of the Dublin malcontents, attempted to arm their threatening counter-parliament with military power, by raising, in imitation of the old volunteers, a body whom they called the National Guards. The vigour of Fitzgibbon nipped this plan in the bud. He issued a proclamation against the assembling of men in arms, and as though to prove how much a little vigour would effect, and how easily the movement might at that time have been suppressed, the muster which should have taken place the following day was attended by three men only, of whom Napper Tandy was one. But the petition of the Convention had been well received in England; the Government there persisted in overriding the wishes of the Lord Lieutenant, and with every appearance of having yielded to pressure, in 1793, Major Hobart, the Chief Secretary, in accordance with instructions from London, introduced, and by Government influence forced down the throat of an unwilling House of Commons, a second Catholic Relief Bill, admitting Catholics to the grand juries, magistracy, and, finally, to the franchise, at the same time repealing the Act which prohibited the bearing of arms. The Government had now gone as far as it intended to go. It had apparently made its concessions with a bad grace, and to the wrong people. As Lawrence Parsons, a singularly sensible member of the Irish Parliament, pointed out, the Bill gave the franchise, but still refused to the Catholics the right of sitting in Parliament. As the franchise was very low, it virtually threw the power into the hands of the lower Catholics, while excluding the Catholic gentry from their legitimate influence. It was, however, in vain that he urged the admission of the Catholics to Parliament, and the raising of the franchise. The United Irishmen were able to say, that as long as they could vote for Protestants alone the franchise was of little use; and further, that even had they been able to elect Catholics, the Government influence was too strong to make the change of any avail.

[Sidenote: Renewed agitation for reform of Parliament.]

It was then nominally with the cry of reform of Parliament that they continued their agitation. And as the late concessions had been apparently granted under a system of threats, the same system of intimidation was pursued. Riots and outrages again broke out in all parts of Ireland. The Defenders again became active. House after house of the Protestants was robbed. Murders of all sorts were committed. In this year alone there were 180 houses attacked in Munster; while the success of the Convention had been such that the experiment was to be repeated at Athlone. Fitzgibbon indeed postponed the immediate danger by securing the passage of the Convention Bill, which forbade the assembling of such illegal meetings; and in other respects the hands of the executive were for the time so much strengthened, that although much outrage continued, and discontent was smouldering throughout the country, and the emissaries of the United Irishmen scarcely veiled their revolutionary intentions, their hopes sunk low, and Tone was himself thinking of joining the Government side. He even had an interview with the Chief Secretary, and there was some thought of giving him employment abroad. But just about this time, in 1794, the United Irishmen, losing hope of carrying out their revolution singlehanded, began to think of summoning the assistance of France. It was in this year that one Jackson went as an emissary to France with undoubtedly traitorous designs. One of his comrades, as so often happens in Irish treasons, turned informer; Jackson was apprehended, and took poison, and died in the dock as the sentence was being pronounced on him.

[Sidenote: Failure of Fitzwilliam's efforts at reform.]