Chapter IV: Part 4

Concerts were given in this room twice a week, for the benefit of the
Lying-in Hospital, to which it is an appendage. Previously to its
erection, these musical meetings were held for the same purpose in a
long room in Granby-row, where Castruci, the last pupil of Corelli,
performed.--See _Memoirs of Irish Bards_.

Footnote 59:

The refinement not to say dissipation, of this period was perhaps
precocious and disproportionate to the riches of the country; but this
circumstance, always perhaps inherent in a particular stage of
civilization, was in Ireland increased by peculiarities in the
distribution of national wealth, another fatal consequence of the
frequent forfeitures. Time, however, would have cured this evil, if
the tide of absenteeship had not again set in, and swept away all
improvement and prosperity from the land.

Footnote 60:

It has been said with great truth that “the politics of Molyneux long
continued to be no less revered by the Irish than the morality of
Confucius by the Chinese.” The burning of his excellent work, the
“Case of Ireland,” the prosecution of Swift’s “Drapier’s Letters,” and
the imprisonment of his spirited publisher, Faulkner, had the great
merit of bringing the doctrine of libel into public discussion, and of
first awakening the people of Ireland to the value of the liberty of
public speaking and writing, the most important of the many blessed
constitutional rights extorted from power at the Revolution. It is
pleasant to observe, that patriotism becomes an heir-loom, and to note
that the immediate descendant of William Molyneux, who inherits his
principles with his property and name, is a permanently resident Irish
gentleman!

Footnote 61:

John Ponsonby, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1756, under whom the
Irish patriots made a most successful stand on a constitutional
question of vital importance. The energy and firmness of the patriotic
Speaker, and of a majority of the members of the House of Commons, who
then (“Hear this, ye gods, and wonder how ye made them”) attended to
the business of their country, forms a brilliant feature in the
history of the times.

Footnote 62:

The friend of the celebrated Berkeley, a right good Irishman and
author of a “List of Absentees,” a class, to which he showed no
quarter.

Footnote 63:

Henry Boyle, the patriot of the Irish House of Commons in the early
part of the eighteenth century.

Footnote 64:

Connolly died Speaker of the House in 1730, lamented by all who loved
Ireland; Sir R. Walpole gave him the name of “King of the Irish
Commons,” from his astonishing influence over the Lower House.

Footnote 65:

Member for New Ross. On an important political question he rode post
to town sixty miles to be present at the debate, and arrived just in
time to give his vote.

Footnote 66:

Dolly Munroe, the reigning Irish beauty of Goldsmith’s day, to whom he
alludes in his Haunch of Venison:

“’Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Munroe’s.”

Footnote 67:

See some of Right Hon. John Philpot Curran’s Verses preserved in his
Life by his son William Henry Curran--a work full of interest with
respect to matter, and full of beauty with respect to style. The
account given in its pages, of the convivial and intellectual meetings
of “the Monks of the Screw” at the Priory (Mr. Curran’s villa) forms a
brilliant but painful contrast to other orgies now celebrated in
Dublin, which alas! are neither social nor intellectual!

Footnote 68:

Lord Clare.

Footnote 69:

Dr. Franklin.

Footnote 70:

The penal laws had been multiplied and rigorously executed under
George the First. On the accession of George the Second, for the first
time since the Revolution, the unfortunate Catholics, who by a feeble
and foolish fiction of the law of the land, were “not supposed to
exist,” ventured to approach the throne by a public act of their body;
and they presented an address of congratulation at once dignified and
loyal.

Footnote 71:

Forbidding Catholics to bear arms either by sea or land.

Footnote 72:

When Lord Chesterfield arrived in Ireland, all the Catholic places of
worship were closed. A Mr. Fitzgerald saying mass in the obscure
garret of a condemned house, an immense crowd had assembled, and the
floor giving way, the officiating priest with many of his flock were
buried in the ruins, and the greater number were maimed or wounded.
Lord Chesterfield, horror-struck at the event, ordered that all the
chapels in the capital should be opened on St. Patrick’s day, and they
have never since been closed.

A zealous Protestant thinking to pay his court to the Lord Lieutenant,
came to inform him that one of his coachmen was a Roman Catholic, and
went privately to mass. “Does he, indeed?” said his Lordship, “then I
shall take care that he never drives me there.”--_Chesterfield’s
Memoirs._

The Bishop of Waterford relates that the vice-treasurer, Mr. Gardiner,
a man of good character and considerable fortune, waited upon Lord
Chesterfield, one morning, and in a great fright told him that he was
assured upon good authority that the people in the province of
Connaught were actually rising; upon which the Viceroy looked at his
watch, and with great composure answered him, “It is nine o’clock, and
time for them to rise; I believe, therefore that your news is true.”
This system of alarm, be it observed, continues in all its vigour to
the present day; and the actual Viceroy has to withstand the falsehood
of the designing and the credulity of the nervous, full as much as any
of his predecessors.

Footnote 73:

In a contest for constitutional rights (1755), the Earl of Kildare
placed himself at the head of the liberal party, which was then
technically designated “the patriots:” and the agents of the Castle
and the Church faction having represented to the King that the Irish
House of Commons was bent on destroying the royal prerogative, for the
purpose of preparing his Majesty’s expulsion, the Earl, with “the
oulde bloode of the Geraldines” boiling in his veins, denied the
calumny, and composed and with his own hand presented a memorial to
the king, proving historically that the Irish were to a fault the
upholders of the royal prerogative, and lovers of kingly government.
For this spirited conduct, which recalls the opposition of the
Kildares of old to the ministers of Henry the Seventh and Eighth, he
received the glorious appellation of Father of his country.

Footnote 74:

The terrorism of former times having now yielded to a more salutary
system, the expression of public feeling took a variety of forms. It
was at this period that political toasts came into fashion, introduced
into social meetings through the convivial talents of a Mr. Carter,
son to the Master of the Rolls. His toast of “May all secretary
bashaws and lordly high-priests be kept to their proper tackle, the
sword and the bible,” became a charter sentiment at all public and
private dinners. The lordly high-priest was Archbishop Stone, and the
bashaw was Lord G. Sackville, who brought all the pedantry of the
schools to his official diplomacy, and added the superciliousness of
fashion to the hauteur of conscious supremacy.

Footnote 75:

The numbers of those who voted were 102 for, and 122 against the
measure. The tax proposed was two shillings in the pound upon rents
and profits of landed property in the hands of those who did not
reside in Ireland for six months in each year, from 1773 to 1775.

Footnote 76:

It is stated in the public prints that 350,000_l._ are, at this day,
taken annually from the county of Kilkenny alone.

Footnote 77:

Cead mille faltha.

Footnote 78:

It is worth citing, that Sir Cecil Wray, one of the most violent
opponents of the extension of Irish trade, observed at this time to
the House, “that the true grievances of Ireland were the Irish Pension
List, the Sinecure Offices, the Roman Catholic Disabilities, and the
Absentees.”

Footnote 79:

It was to the loyalty of the people of Ireland at this period, that
the Lord Lieutenant of the day alluded, when, in his speech from the
throne, he observed, “That the united and great military preparations
of the House of Bourbon seemed only to have roused the courage and
called forth the exertions of his Majesty’s brave and loyal subjects
of this kingdom of Ireland; and I have only to lament that the
exhausted state of the treasury has hitherto put it out of my power to
give those exertions the most extensive and constitutional operation,
by carrying the militia law into effect.

Footnote 80:

These half measures are, however, in the present state of affairs
almost inevitable.--A divided cabinet founded upon a divided state of
public opinion, opposes an insuperable barrier to a frank and honest
reform: and oscillations of principle and of practice must attend the
effort to manage factions so nicely balanced.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PROSPECTUS
OF
SIR JONAH BARRINGTON’s
HISTORIC ANECDOTES OF IRELAND
DURING HIS OWN TIMES,
WITH SECRET MEMOIRS OF THE UNION;

Illustrated by Delineations of the principal Characters connected with those Transactions, curious Letters and Papers in fac simile; and numerous Original Portraits, engraved by the elder HEATH.

To be completed in Ten Numbers, in Royal 4to.
Price 12s. 6d. each.

PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

Unforeseen circumstances, over which the Author had no influence or controul, had altogether checked the progress of this Work, suspended the publication of its latter parts, and left them on the Publisher’s shelves unadvertised and uncirculated.

This temporary relinquishment had given rise to unfounded and injurious reports of its suppression; an object which never was for one moment in the contemplation of the Author, nor sought for, or even suggested, by the Government of England.

On the contrary--the lamentable and unimproving march of Ireland from the period of the Union having fully proved the deceptious prospective given to that fatal measure by its mistaken or corrupt supporters, and exciting a novel interest and grave reflections of vital importance to the British Empire, the Author had determined to seize upon the first available opportunity of fulfilling his engagement to the friends and patrons of the Work, by its completion.

Those friends were not confined to one party. They were mingled in all--they comprised several of the highest orders of society--many who held, and some who still hold important stations in the Government of both countries;--and the commencing parts of the Work having been honoured by the approbation and encouragement of His present Majesty and other Members of His Royal House, it was with deep regret the Author found himself, from a succession of causes, for several years unable to fulfil his intentions, and gratify his own laudable ambition, by compiling into a compact Memoir, the most important Historic events of Ireland. In many of those he was himself a not unimportant actor. He possessed also the advantage of individual intimacy or acquaintance with the most celebrated personages of all parties; without which, and the fidelity of a contemporary and independent pen, the delineation of their characters and the record of their conduct, if not lost for ever, would have descended to posterity with imperfect details and an ambiguous authenticity;--or have left a wide chasm in a highly interesting epocha of British History.

The fallacious measure of a Legislative Union,--the progress of which from commencement to consummation the Author energetically resisted--has proved by its inoperative or mischievous results, the justness of that resistance. And he now, in common with many of the most distinguished of its original supporters, deeply deplores its accomplishment. But established by lapse of time--confirmed by passive assent--and complicated with some beneficial, and many political and financial arrangements, its tranquil reversal seems to have passed feasibility. Yet--as an hereditary friend to British connexion--the Author hopes, by the revival and completion of this History, to open wide the eyes of Great Britain to the present dangers of Ireland--to draw aside the curtain of ignorance and prejudice by which her history has been so long obscured--to compare her once rising prosperity with her existing miseries--to discover the occult causes of their continuance and the false principles of her misrule--to display her sacrifices for England--and to unmask her libellers in both countries.

Developments such as these may rouse the Legislature to probe her wounds to their depth--to employ her labour--to succour--to foster--and to rule her on the broad principles of a steady and philanthropic policy--and to relinquish for ever that system of coercive Government, which an experience of many centuries has proved to be destructive of almost every thing--except her crimes and her population.

The British people should also learn that the absence of the ancient Nobles and protecting Aristocracy of Ireland,--drawn away by the Union from their demesnes and tenantry to the Seat of Legislation, and replaced only by the griping hands and arbitrary sway of upstart deputies,--increases in proportion with the miseries and turbulence of the lower orders; and that the luxuriance of vegetation which clothes that capable Island, has, through the same causes, become only a harbinger of want, or the forbidden fruit of a famished peasantry.

It should therefore be the object of every pen and of every tongue, to render the Union as innoxious as its paralyzing nature can now admit of; to recall the proprietors of the Irish soil to a sense of their own security and their country’s welfare; and thereby strengthen the ties which should bind the two nations together, in equality, prosperity, and affection--on the firmness and durability of which _species_ of connexion depends, not only the constitutional security of England herself, but perhaps the political existence of both countries.

Such is the Author’s view in the completion of this Work. The obstacles to its progress are surmounted, and its publication is now in the hands of those who will spare nothing to render it worthy of its object, and ensure a lasting and beneficial record to the United Empire.

It is fortunate for Ireland, and disastrous to her calumniators, that a recent and great event has at once exposed the misrepresentations of her enemies, and displayed a great source of her misfortunes. The visit of a conciliating King to a distracted people rapidly disclosed their native character, and produced a burst of unfeigned, unanimous, genuine loyalty--never before experienced in such profusion by any Monarch from his subjects. The equivocating language of diplomacy was rejected for awhile. The King was a Patriot, and the People were loyal. For the first time they were allowed to approach each other. Both were sincere--and both were ardent. In a few days, the King became despotic in the affections of the Nation, and his Ministers descended into a comparative insignificance. When he arrived, he was respected as a British King--but when he departed, he was adored as an Irish Monarch. He saw at once that the existence of faction and discord was incompatible with the peace and the prosperity of Ireland; and that she hung on Great Britain, as a withering limb upon a healthful body--essential to its symmetry, but useless to its functions and injurious to its Constitution.

There was but one remedy--conciliation. His Majesty saw its efficacy and commanded its adoption.--But his commands were disobeyed by the _Regal Rebels_[81]--and Ireland is still seen withering and cankering--by the obstinacy of intolerant faction, the irritation of local tyranny, and the multiplying mischiefs resulting from disobedience to the benevolent and wise commands of the only British King who ever yet set foot on the Irish shore as a friend, and as a patriot.

Footnote 81:

Mr. Grattan’s definition of men, “Who make their loyalism a pretence
to perpetuate their supremacy,--and distract the peace of a Country
under colour of protecting it.”

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Transcriber’s Notes

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.

The spelling and diacriticals used in non-English words and phrases has not been modernised or corrected.

This book as printed included multiple complex footnotes, including footnotes to footnotes. All notes have been converted to endnotes for this ebook edition. The following changes and corrections have been made:

• p. 7: Added period after phrase “the recorded absenteeism of two
thousand years.”
• p. 19: Replaced “kings” with “king’s” in phrase “Lady Elizabeth Grey,
the king’s own kinswoman.”
• p. 20: Replaced opening with closing quotation mark after phrase
“having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere Irish.”
• p. 23: Replaced “of of” with “of” in phrase “England, in the face of
her own savage laws.”
• p. 27: Added period after phrase “for the Earl of Kildare to feare.”
• p. 28: Replaced apparent mid-dot with period after phrase “that you
tracke them out at pleasure.”
• p. 35: Added opening double quotation mark to indicate continuation
of quotation before paragraph beginning “One night, when the
lieutenant and he, for disport, were playing at _slide-groat_.”
• p. 35: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “there is
some mad game in that scralle, but, fall how it will, this throw is
for a huddle.”
• p. 45: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “gossipry and
alliance.”
• p. 45 note 16: Replaced “to to” with “to” in phrase “and granted to
those on whose counsel they had surrendered.”
• p. 103 note 53: Added period after phrase “the fair dames of Ireland
learned to expire at an opera.”
• p. 133: Replaced closing single quotation mark with closing double
quotation mark after phrase “the English interest.”
• Booklist item 14: Added commas after “Joseph II.” and “Gustavus III.”
in list.