Chapter LX: {victoria. 1848} (3)

“We are at peace, and we are desirous of remaining on good terms of equality, not with this or that part of Great Britain, but with Great Britain entire. We believe this peace to be useful and honourable, not only to Great Britain and the French republic, but to the human race. We will not commit an act—we will not utter a word—we will not breathe an insinuation at variance with the principles of the reciprocal inviolability of nations which we have proclaimed, and of which the continent of Europe is already gathering the fruits. The fallen monarchy had treaties and diplomatists. Our diplomatists are nations, our treaties are sympathies. We should be insane were we openly to exchange such a diplomacy for unmeaning and partial alliances with even the most legitimate parties in the countries which surround us. We are not competent either to judge them or to prefer some of them to others; by announcing our partizanship on the one side, we should declare ourselves the enemies of the other. We do not wish to be the enemies of any of your fellow-countrymen. We wish, on the contrary, by a faithful observance of the republican pledges, to remove all the prejudices which may mutually exist between our neighbours and ourselves. This course, however painful it may be, is imposed on us by the law of nations, as well as by our historical remembrances.

“Do you know what it was which most served to irritate France and estrange her from England during the first republic? It was the civil war in a portion of our territory, supported, subsidised, and assisted by Mr. Pitt. It was the encouragement and the arms given to Frenchmen, as heroical as yourselves, but Frenchmen fighting against their fellow-citizens. This was not honourable warfare; it was a royalist propagandism waged with French blood against the republic. This policy is not yet, in spite of all our efforts, entirely effaced from the memory of the nation. Well, this cause of dissension between Great Britain and us, we will never renew by taking any similar course. We accept with gratitude expressions of friendship from the different nationalities included in the British empire. We ardently wish that justice may found and strengthen the friendship of races; that equity may become more and more its basis; but while proclaiming with you, with her (England), and with all, the holy dogma of fraternity, we will perform only acts of brotherhood, in conformity with our principles and our feelings towards the Irish nation.”

At the conclusion of this reply some present exclaimed, “Vive la République!” others “Vive le Gouvernement Provisore!” and a few cried out, “Vive Lamartine!” but the general impression was one of dissatisfaction. Smith O’Brien and his companions retired discomfited. The British government and people received the intelligence of this reply with the greatest satisfaction, and their confidence in the provisional government, and in Lamartine, more especially, was much increased. There was already more reliance upon the friendly policy of the republic than there had been upon the monarchy and the monarchial ministry of Louis Philippe. In Ireland the reply of Lamartine gave satisfaction also to the Protestants, and such of the Roman Catholic citizens as were opposed to the O’Brien movement; but the Young Irelanders, and most of the Old Irelanders, were exasperated, and in their speeches and newspapers denounced Lamartine as the enemy of liberty, the sycophant of England, and the incubus of the French provisional government. It was said that he had married an English lady, and was more English at heart than French—that he would betray the republic to England or to monarchy. Those persons who had been foremost in holding him up as a demi-god, now abused him not only as a traitor, but as weak in purpose, policy, and intellectual grasp. John Mitchell denounced him as the great obstruction to the development of European freedom, which no doubt he was to such freedom as Mitchell advocated—the plunder and tyranny of a modified communism; for while essentially holding that theory, he in some way, not very intelligible to others, repudiated it. Lamartine began his career of power by emancipating the negro race; Mitchell commenced his career as a free exile in America, some years after, by the most violent advocacy of the fetter and the whip for the coloured population of that country. The _Nation_ newspaper, week after week, informed its readers that Lamartine was an idle dreamer, a mere theoretical politician; that his mind was only constituted for the regions of romance; and that his opinion on the affairs of Ireland, England, France, or Europe was worthless. A week or two before the same paper held him up as the very Achilles of freedom, and the hope of Ireland—for it was the habit of both the parties claiming nationality in Ireland, to hope for liberty from the courage and efforts of others rather than from their own. The reply of Lamartine caused as much despondency in Ireland among the seditious, as it inspired confidence among the loyal, and among all the intelligent citizens in Great Britain. Throughout the year the conduct of the French government was internationally just and courteous, and England had no cause for complaint, but every reason to be thankful that Louis Philippe and Guizot had given place to such men as Lamartine and Cavaignac.

The revolution in France was of more importance to England than the revolutions which took place in Italy and Germany—they require, therefore, only a comparatively brief notice.

ITALY.

All Italy felt the shock of the French revolution, although, in point of time, the revolutionary feeling developed itself in Italy before it burst forth in France. Throughout the year 1847 all Switzerland, and Austrian and Papal Italy, were uneasy; and in January, six weeks before the dethronement of Louis Philippe, there were disturbances in Milan. Indeed, from the moment Pius IX. ascended the papal throne, a change came over the people of Italy: it was supposed that the pope was a patriot, and would favour the struggle for Italian liberty, and this delusion was not dispelled until after the battle of Novara. It was then found that the pope and the kasir were allies, even while the troops of the former were marching forth ostensibly to do battle for Italy.

When the tidings of the revolt in Paris reached Italy, the people flew to arms. General Radetzsky and his Austrian troops were driven from Milan; a provisional government was formed, and all Italy was called upon to arm. The King of Sardinia, who had proclaimed a most liberal constitution for his own kingdom, marched an army into Lombardy; Venice revolted; and Radetzsky retired upon Verona. The Austrian lines along the Mincio were forced, and the position of Radetzsky’s forces was dangerous. Two circumstances, however, favoured him—the supineness of the papal troops, and the junction of Nugent, an Irish marshal in the Austrian service, with the troops under his command. After various fortunes, the allied Italians were beaten; Lombardy and Venice were entirely subjected to the Austrian arms; and but for English and French diplomacy, Sardinia also would have fallen before the victorious Austrian. The English government was desirous to see Italy freed from Austrian domination, and would not have submitted to see Sardinia overthrown by an invasion of the kasir’s army. France, also, regarded events there with views similar to those entertained by England, but it did not suit the policy of either country to interfere beyond the diplomatic interposition by which Sardinia was saved. Probably they were also influenced by the suspicion that the royal house of Sardinia was more actuated by ambition than by a desire for the liberties of Italy. The fact of the king having granted a constitution did not altogether prevent such suspicions, because that was his only hope of gaining ascendancy in Italy; and the general tone of the Sardinian court and cabinet gave a colour to the impression that their policy was not entirely disinterested. His majesty was glad to consent to an armistice with Radetzsky, and to fall back behind the shields of France and England for safety. The king, however, was obliged to abdicate; shame, the defeat of his armies, the failure of his policy, and the certainty that if he remained upon the throne, the kasir would seize the first opportunity to make war upon him, determined him to abdicate.

THE PAPAL STATES.

Early in the year the pope published a new plan for the organisation of the executive government of his dominions, which gave satisfaction to the liberal friends of the popedom. On the 14th of March he proclaimed a new constitution. The resistance offered to the national will, in the case of Austria, caused him to become unpopular. On the 29th of April he addressed the cardinals in conclave, disavowing the act of the papal troops proceeding against the Austrian armies in Italy. This caused a popular tumult; the next day the people took possession of the post-office and the offices of state, and discovered that the pope and cardinals had been intriguing with Austria. The result was the entire sacrifice of the pontiff’s popularity; all confidence in his honour, and that of his cardinals, was erased from the Roman mind. Under the pressure of the public demand, he, on the 1st of May, proclaimed war against Austria, but never intended to adopt such measures as would carry the declaration into effect. He intended to deceive the people, seeing that they were determined on war; and he knew that this could be better done by retaining his authority over the troops, than by allowing the war to be carried out by a popular and lay administration, which would be in earnest. Early in May a new ministry of a liberal character was formed, but the pope’s private advisers counteracted their policy. The result was a revolution—not against the pope’s ecclesiastical, but solely against his temporal, authority. Scenes of the most dreadful nature followed, all of which might have been averted by an honest course on the part of the pontiff, and the college of cardinals. The pope was really willing to concede much; but the demand that the temporal government of the people should be by and for the people, he was not willing to admit; and by covertly attempting to destroy or counteract all that he publicly and ostensibly admitted, he filled the people with incurable resentment against those who surrounded him, and to whom they attributed, rather than to himself, the faithless and despotic policy in secret pursued. A chamber of deputies was convoked, to whom the pope formally surrendered his government, declining to take any part in their doings, or to afford any sanction. Several of the high ecclesiastics and lay authorities, by whose agency he sought to counteract the efforts for constitutional liberty which the people made, were slain, and others driven from Rome. At last, on the 24th of November, he disguised himself as a livery servant in attendance upon the Bavarian ambassador, and mounting the box of that gentleman’s carriage, beside his coachman, was driven to the house of the Bavarian embassy; thence, disguised as the chaplain to the embassy, he succeeded in escaping to Gaeta, a town within the Neapolitan territory. The flight of the pope was followed by a protest on his part against the liberalism of his people, who organised a regular government on liberal principles; their efforts were counteracted by the spies and agents of the pope, and the embassies of all the Roman Catholic powers: among the foreign representatives, none was more hostile to the incipient liberties of Rome than the ambassador of the French republic.

The pope, the kasir, the king of Naples, and the despots of the smaller Italian states, considered that England was the chief fomenter of Italian disturbance. This arose from one of those whig _mal àpropos_ movements for which their party had of late years earned a bad reputation. Lord Minto was dispatched to Italy in a semi-official capacity; the real object of his mission was to open diplomatic relations with the pope, who, although very desirous to respond to the wishes of the English Whigs, thought it a good opportunity to extort some concessions as to the interests of the Roman Catholic religion in British territory. The Whigs, knowing that they dare not face the public opinion of Great Britain, if they made such concessions as the pope’s demands and their own wishes would prompt, were baulked in their undertaking. They succeeded, however, in obtaining a certain amount of influence upon the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, restraining the latter from favouring the revolutionary designs existing in that country. It was remarkable that while the Irish Roman Catholics were abusing Lamartine and the French provisional government, for not assisting by arms revolution in Ireland,—that is, a revolution of a portion of the Irish who followed certain leaders,—they were equally abusive of the people of Rome for daring, against the will of the pope, to assert any measure of civil or religious liberty, however modest. Impudent threats were made of sending an Irish army to the pope’s assistance, at the very time that the persons so vaunting were afraid of the Dublin police!

The close of the year saw the pope a fugitive and the people free.

NAPLES AND SICILY.

These countries did not escape the revolutionary contagion. Sicily flew to arms, and the revolt succeeded. The English government was desirous to see Sicily separated from Naples; and their emissary, Lord Minto, so betrayed this feeling to the king of the two Sicilies as to inspire him with intense hatred to England, and to confirm him in the opinion that English agency was busy in creating or sustaining the confusion of the continente, Lord Minto had the preposterous folly to suggest to the king that Sicily should only be garrisoned by Sicilian troops! This, of course, was indignantly rejected by both the king and cabinet.

The Sicilians published a manifesto of their free and moderate opinions, which was very excellent. The document was very deceptive, and designed to gain support in England and France. One of the false promises of the manifesto was the entire freedom of religion; one of the first acts of the Sicilians in their short-lived power was a rigorous establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, and this was enacted in terms which disclosed the bigoted feelings of the nation. Sicily wanted to be independent of Naples, but it had not the same wish to be separated from the despotic principle. An independent nation, without a free people, was the highest aspiration of revolted Sicily. England and France left her to her fate, except so far as Lord Minto’s meddling complicated her condition. The temporarily vanquished Neapolitans returned to the contest, and the revolution was ingloriously suppressed.

In Naples the victory of the constitution was as short as the independence, of Sicily. The king acted without sincerity, and the deputies without prudence. The king found an opportunity of resistance, for which he had well prepared himself. He was surrounded by Swiss guards, recruited from the bigoted Roman Catholic cantons of the Sonderbund, or what had been so termed before its tyranny was crushed the previous year. The king had also the lazzaroni on his side; some thirty thousand thieves, assassins, street beggars, and burglars were in his majesty’s royal pay and royal favour. They were enthusiastic for king, church, and plunder. It was alleged that the royal promise was held out to them that if they conquered the citizens they would be permitted to sack the city. The event seemed as if such allegation were true; the united Swiss and lazzaroni conquered, and the city was sacked. The king permitted, and his minions encouraged, the most infamous proceedings: riot, robbery, and debauch filled every street and almost every house, while blood, the blood of the best citizens of Naples, flowed in torrents. There is no knowing to what extent these horrors might have been carried by the “faithful lazzaroni,” had not the French admiral in the bay declared that he would act against the king if these inhumanities were not at once stopped. The lazzaroni must have been at the king’s beck, for the moment he was alarmed by threats of the interference of a French squadron, he called in his bloodhounds, and held the leash until the threatened danger passed.

BELGIUM.

Much concern was felt in England as to the part which Belgium would take in the terrible continental tragedy. The king being her majesty’s uncle, and also the uncle of her consort, the safety of his throne was regarded anxiously by the English court. As he had by his second marriage connected himself with the family of Louis Philippe, the French republicans looked upon him as a very suspicious neighbour; but the prudent policy of Lamartine prevented any collision, and checked the propagandism which both sections of French republicans desired to bring to bear upon Belgium. The “Reds,” perceiving that the provisional government was not disposed to embroil itself with foreign powers, organised an _émeute_ in Belgium with a sort of filibustering expedition of their own. Several hundred socialists made their way into Belgium, and used every effort to induce the people to join them, but in vain,—a few only, who like themselves, held extreme and impracticable views of democracy, made any insurrectionary movement; and the affair exploded as harmlessly as Smith O’Brien’s abortive attempt at revolution in Ireland. Had any success, short of a complete revolution, attended the efforts of the French “sympathisers,” the armed intervention of England might have been necessitated, and another long war with France have spread its terrors, havoc, and ruin in Belgium.

GERMANY.

The people of Germany were ripe for revolt when the tidings of the French revolution came suddenly as a flash along the electric wire. No people had ever been more basely deceived by princes than the Germans. Constitutions were promised, and the promises shamefully violated, sometimes ostensibly conceded, but really never acted upon. The oaths of kings were synonymous for falsehood throughout the great fatherland. Schiller has sung—

“The human being:
May not be trusted with self-government;”

but the poet and philosopher must have understood that the human being is as worthy to be trusted with self-government as with the irresponsible government of other men, no way his inferiors—perhaps, morally and intellectually, superior to him. The Prussian people could have governed themselves with as much ability as the king governed them. The Hanoverians could have managed their own affairs as morally as the English Duke of Cumberland, or his son George conducted them. Nor did the wisdom of the Austrian emperor, for matters of government, exceed the intelligence of the educated citizens of Vienna.

The first vibration of the great French earthquake was felt in the grand Duchy of Baden. The people, as one man, demanded liberty; the demand was too unanimously made to be resisted; the victory was won without a shot. On the 3rd of March the Rhenish provinces of Prussia felt the shock, and Cologne was in arms; on the 4th, Wisbaden; on the 5th, Dusseldorf; on the 8th, the Hessians of Cassel barricaded the streets, and flew to arms—their victory was won without blood. Early in March the people of Munich demanded their rights, which none but slaves consented to forego; they were refused; the people responded to the first cry “to arms” that was raised; the troops would not charge the people, but mingled in the shouts of “a republic! a republic!” The alarmed king conceded, tampered with his own concessions, and at last abdicated. His son and successor made a great flourish of proclamations and promises, throwing himself upon the popular sympathy until time enabled him to forswear himself. The credulous people who believed the oaths of kings, generally paid afterwards the penalty of their credulity in blood or fetters.

In Saxony there was no harmony between the court and people; the former were Roman Catholic, and the latter Protestant. The prudence of the monarch, however, prevailed over the solicitations of his court to treat his people with disdain, and he saved his throne and his honour.

The King of Hanover was less honest, as well as less compliant, but even he had to recognise, for the time being, a constitution.

Prussia proper was affected, as well as her less homogeneous provinces, by the grand convulsion. After a series of conflicts in the streets of Berlin, order was at last restored, and the constitution modified so as to satisfy a large portion of the people. The Poles in Posen revolted, and perpetrated the utmost atrocities, but were put down by the Prussian troops without obtaining any of the objects for which they so wildly fought, and so vaguely demanded. The people of Posen had been practised upon by their own nobles, and incited by their priests. Their insurrection was one of fanaticism, not of freedom; the revolters carried the symbols and images of their creed, not the banners of nationhood before them,—they deserved to fail. Their chief oppressors were the privileged classes of their own countrymen, from whom the Prussian government derived no aid in its efforts to meliorate the condition of the province. Education was resisted, industry discouraged, and the religious rights of minorities assailed by ignorant and fanatical mobs. The freedom required in Posen was an emancipation of the people from their own passions and prejudices.

THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE.

The revolutionary history of the Austrian empire during the year 1848 was instructive, and full of the most eventful changes and great results. On another page the progress of affairs in Austrian Italy was sketched, and the relation of the kasir’s interests there to contiguous Italian states pointed out. The whole empire was, however, convulsed, and the throes of every part communicated its vibrations to the whole. The revolt in Hungary constituted the most interesting and important part of the great transactions which occurred within the limits of the empire. The government of the kasir succeeded, by exciting the jealousy of Magyar and German, Croat and Hungarian, metropolitan and provincial, in holding the difficult balance, and in preserving the empire in its integrity from the flood which flowed over it with such disintegrating force.

The revolution in Hungary was completely successful, and Vienna itself was menaced by a Hungarian army. The heroism of an Englishman, General Guyon, rendered the greatest military services; and the eloquence and wisdom of a civilian, Louis Kossuth, guided the aspirations and resolves of armed Hungary. Ultimately, indeed, by the aid of Russian armies, the Austrian was enabled once more to tread out the fire of Hungarian liberty; but 1848 saw the gallant Magyars victorious.

The Viennese, notwithstanding their contiguity to the court and their close dependence upon the kasir, rose in arms, and obtained an extensive recognition of those rights which the people everywhere claimed. Those who by extreme measures and views marred the cause of freedom elsewhere, did so at Vienna. The socialist element was the ruin of the revolution. The thinking and the morally sound portions of the citizens were detached from the popular cause, in and out of Vienna, and the arms of the emperor finally triumphed over the barricades of the capital.

THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION.

Representatives from all the German states, where successful revolutions had been effected, assembled in Frankfort to form a closer confederacy of the German states. The ambition of Prussia and Austria found scope in this new sphere of action. The Prussian king was desirous to be elected emperor of Germany, and supposed that the Frankfort parliament would subserve his purpose. Never did an assembly of men utter finer, noble principles, than that, nor did any display such utter impracticability. They occupied the time in visionary schemes, which ought to have been devoted to secure the liberty of each individual state, and they sacrificed the interests of nations to the German invidiousness of race. The socialist party tried to force their own especial objects upon the assembly, and when unsuccessful, deluged Frankfort with blood. They followed the policy and conduct of their prototypes, the red republicans of Paris, in their resistance to the provisional government. The irreconcilable differences of opinion between the advocates of change gave kings advantage in the reactionary policy which they meditated before the year was out.

DENMARK.—SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.

The inhabitants of the duchies revolted against the king of Denmark; this arose partly from that hatred to all other races characteristic of the German. The Schleswig-Holsteiners could not endure amalgamation, or even close alliance with the Scandinavian race, much less with the Sclaves, should the Emperor of Russia inherit the throne of Denmark. The people of the duchies were desirous to be identified more with Germany, and this was, notwithstanding other pretences, the main-spring of the revolt. The King of Prussia, never true to his engagements, violated treaties, and marched his troops into the duchies. This dispute was one with which England might have been involved, as she had certain treaty obligations which rendered the possibility of such a result the subject of speculation.

RUSSIA.

The empire of the autocrat was undisturbed, but the revolutionary feeling seemed ready to invade it on all its European frontier. Large bodies of troops were gathered in Southern Russia for the purpose of entering the Turkish Danubian provinces, in order to suppress the spirit of revolution which there manifested itself, and found vent in a fervent political agitation. In Poland, also, the czar concentrated a great army. Warsaw bristled with bayonets; and a diplomatic message was sent to the court of Berlin, assuring it of the czar’s friendly feeling, but warning it that, in case of any disturbances on the Polish frontier of Russia, if they were not very promptly suppressed, the Russian government would take measures to effect the security of its own frontier. The message amounted to a hint that if a Russian army were needed by the Prussian monarch, the czar was not unwilling to lend it, or, if need should exist, he would find a reason, without being asked for his aid, to cross the frontier, and put down democracy.

The following arrogant presumption of divine right was put forth by the czar:—

“After the benefits of a long peace, the west of Europe finds itself at this moment suddenly given over to perturbations which threaten with ruin and overthrow all legal powers and the whole social system. Insurrection and anarchy, the offspring of France, soon crossed the German frontier, and have spread themselves in every direction with an audacity which has gained new force in proportion to the concessions of the governments. This devastating plague has at last attacked our allies the empire of Austria and the kingdom of Prussia, and to-day in its blind fury menaces even our Russia—that Russia which God has confided to our care. But Heaven forbid that this should be! Faithful to the example handed down from our ancestors, having first invoked the aid of the Omnipotent, we are ready to encounter our enemies from whatever side they may present themselves, and without sparing our own person we will know how, indissolubly united to our holy country, to defend the honour of the Russian name, and the inviolability of our territory. We are convinced that every Russian, that every one of our faithful subjects, will respond with joy to the call of his sovereign. Our ancient war-cry, ‘For our faith, our sovereign, and our country!’ will once again lead us on the path of victory: and then, with sentiments of humble gratitude, as now with feelings of holy hope, we will all cry with one voice, ‘God is on our side: understand this, ye peoples, and submit, for God is on our side.’”

On the whole, England preserved peace with all foreign states during the rage of this political tempest. Her attitude was morally sublime. The waves rose, and the hurricane raged around her, but she towered above the billow and the tempest, her crown bright with the glory which the sun of liberty shed upon it. The stranger who found a refuge and a home within her borders, might well offer to her the tribute which the poet Moore so gracefully inscribed upon the pedestal of her freedom and her power:—

“Hail to thee, Albion! that meetest the commotion
Of Europe, as calm as thy cliffs meet the foam;
With no bond but the law, and no bound but the ocean,
Hail, temple of liberty! thou art my home.”

IRELAND.

_Famine and Pestilence_.—Frightful as was the state of Ireland in 1847, it was still worse in the year 1848. Commercial affairs were embarrassed by so many disturbing circumstances, that public confidence was not restored throughout the year. The potato disease, agrarian outrage, Ribbonism, the repeal agitation, and an insurrectionary combination, all combined to restrict commerce.

The destitution of the people was terrible. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the horrid story: numbers perished of famine, and pestilence went forth with devastating fury where hunger had stricken. The “famine fever” carried away multitudes to an untimely grave. This disease extended also to the Irish in England. Many in London died of it, and great numbers in Manchester, but the affliction fell still more heavily upon Liverpool. Several Roman Catholic clergymen in those towns fell victims, nor did medical men escape. Efforts continued to be made by the government, and by voluntary charity, to mitigate the calamities which befel the country, but their variety and magnitude set at defiance all the noble efforts that were made, and the exhaustless compassions of the noble hearts that made them.

_Continuance of Crime and Outrage_.—The story of the two previous years was the same of this: crime raged everywhere; the hand of the assassin was constantly uplifted; and woe to the landlord who expelled a tenant for whatsoever violation of contract, and to the zealous Protestant, lay or clerical, who claimed a right to discuss his religious opinions, even in self-defence, or to circulate there, even in the most inoffensive manner.

Much of the crime of Ireland was to be attributed to a secret society which the government never made any adequate efforts to suppress, and which was commonly called the “Ribbon Society.” No means were taken by the respectable Roman Catholics to break up this exclusively Romanist confederacy, the chief object of which was the extermination of Protestants, and it was in 1848 that, in this respect, little was to be then expected from them. No public protest against the worst and the wildest of the ultramontane proceedings of previous years had been made by Roman Catholics, clerical or lay, English or Irish, or of any rank in life; and the “liberal Roman Catholics,” as they liked to be called, could not be surprised if Protestants began to put no faith in their liberal professions. Yet this section of the Roman Catholics had gained much confidence and respect with liberal Protestants in both countries. It was chiefly on their representations that the once formidable Orange societies were suppressed, and although these societies changed their constitution in compliance with the law, yet they never acquired public confidence after: through the instrumentality of Mr. Hume’s exposure of the dangerous tendency of the confederacy, the law was put in force against them. The liberal Romanists were accustomed to say that Ribbonism was, so to say, but the complement of Orangeism; that if the latter were made illegal, the other would die of itself. This was believed by the whig and radical parties of the day; and after a feeble resistance on the part of the Tories, Orangeism was at last discountenanced by the state, and literally turned out of doors, after having been used and misused, petted and pampered, for half a century. Instead, however, of Ribbonism taking a voluntary departure, as lay and priestly liberal spouters of the popular Roman Catholic party presumed, it increased in extent, numbers, and virus. Portions of Ireland where it had previously no footing became the high places of its power; every town in England where Irish Roman Catholics lived had affiliated societies formed; London, Manchester, Liverpool, and Lancashire generally, counted their tens of thousands of sworn enemies to the English government and name, and to the toleration and even existence of Protestants. The oaths of the members were again and again revised, becoming more relentless and bloodthirsty, just as every concession was made to Roman Catholic demands. As the system of Ribbonism was in 1848, nothing more bloody and diabolical was ever conceived by lost human minds. Nothing like it _could_ exist except amongst a people in whose hearts bigotry had so uprooted all tolerance and charity, that their ferocity of zealotism would vie with that which an Irish Romanist described of others:—

“Men of the saintly murderous brood.
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think, through unbeliever’s blood,
Lies the directest path to heaven.”

_Political Agitation_.—The Repeal Association continued its meetings, and notwithstanding the prevailing distress, considerable sums were subscribed; some weeks as much as £80 was received. Mr. John O’Connell presided at those meetings, which were barren of all utility for the party, and destitute of the eloquence which in the days of O’Connell and Shiel enlivened and gave importance to public meetings.

The young Ireland party was all activity, and although few of its orators were really eloquent, there were many of them good speakers, several who rose to the rank of superior platform address, and one (Mr. Meagher) of surpassing eloquence. The Young Irelanders, on the whole, wrote better than they spoke, and very able articles appeared from their pens in the press, not only in Dublin, but throughout Ireland. The _Nation_ newspaper, conducted by Charles Gavan Duffy, a man of wonderful energy and courage, of discriminating literary taste and fine talents, was perhaps the most ably managed newspaper in the British Isles, so far as literary claims were concerned. The most passionate and exciting ballads, full of poetical and patriotic fervour, the most elaborate and elegantly written dissertations on Ireland, her history, music, poetry, language, and people, and popularly written and able articles on politics, filled its columns. Their influence upon the mind of the young men of Ireland who were of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and of many Protestants who were too liberal in sentiment to suspect their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen of desiring religious ascendancy, was great. When John Mitchell considered that the _Nation_ had too little sympathy with red republicanism, he set up a paper called the _Irishman_, which he made the vehicle of the most outrageous doctrines, political and social. The leading articles of the _Irishman_ were written by Mr. Mitchell himself, with a nervous power, eloquence, boldness of thought, and audacity, which were very extraordinary. These articles were amongst the ablest specimens of newspaper writing which had ever been known in Ireland. Their effect was electric; they maddened the young men of the movement with a fierce spirit of nationality. The clubs read them with ecstasy, and John Mitchell was the idol and hero of all men of extreme opinions. His defiance of government, his incitements to rebellion, were so open and intrepid, that they seized upon the imagination of the people, and much disturbed the government. Pikes and side-arms were manufactured in every part of the country, and John Mitchell wrote various articles on the proper pattern of a pike, on the best way of using that “queen of weapons,” as he termed it, and to prove how hopeless it would be for either cavalry or infantry, disciplined on the ordinary system, to face corps of Irish pikemen disciplined on his plan. These military articles were eminently absurd, and excited the ridicule of military men; but the style in which they were written was so admirably adapted to the taste and tone of thought of those whom they were designed to influence, that they told wonderfully, and inspired confidence in the clubs and in the country, that means were at last found by which the trained troops of England could be encountered with a superior weapon.

Meanwhile the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Clarendon, proved himself a most vigorous governor. He entered into negotiations with the Orangemen, who were true to the throne to a man. One hundred and fifty thousand men of that confederacy, and of the Protestants who held their principles and sympathised with their party, although not enrolled in the lodges, were ready to take up arms on the side of the government, and many stand of arms were to be distributed should necessity arise. A very large distribution was made, and the Orangemen, and vast number of other Protestants, were ready to turn out at a moment’s notice. The number at the call of the government were quite sufficient, with a small body of troops as a point of support, to put down any force the disloyal could bring into the field. How such men as Mitchell, Meagher, O’Brien, and Duffey could fail to see that, was extraordinary. They still went on, talking of Ireland as about to “arise in her majesty and shake off the English yoke,” at a time when a million and a half of Irish Protestants would have preferred any yoke under heaven to that of their own Roman Catholic countrymen; and while some of the most papal of the Roman Catholics themselves had no hope in the movement, no confidence in the leaders, and a strong conviction that any effort against England was impracticable, and would lead only to a waste of blood. His excellency displayed such vigour that, early in the spring, two hundred and eighty thousand persons, comprising the wealth and intelligence of the country, signed a document expressive of their confidence. His lordship was keenly alive, also, to the influence of the press, and subsidised various papers to oppose the Young Irelanders. He did not display as much caution in this department of his policy as he did vigour and sagacity in other directions. He hired a man named Birch, who edited a paper called the _World_, which was very ably conducted. The terms on which his excellency put himself with Mr. Birch were discreditable to the government, and the spirit in which he wrote and acted was insulting to the country, and when his connection with the Castle became known, the hands of government were weakened by the circumstance.

The negotiations with Rome were productive of more effect than giving subsidies to the press, for both sections of the anti-union agitation did their utmost to gain the priests over to their cause. The priesthood was, however, suspicious of the Young Irelanders, from the conviction that they were generally indifferent to religion. This impression was also received at Rome; and the English government, by its secret agency, did its best to strengthen that opinion. The pope had sufficient reason to dread any tendency to red republicanism in any part of the world where his disciples or subjects might be influenced by it. He accordingly issued a rescript, which created a powerful sensation in Ireland. The _Nation_ newspaper, and the press generally which sympathised with it, denounced the English government, and the English Roman Catholics, with having, by false representations, induced the pope to issue this document. The censures fell with especial weight upon the English Roman Catholic aristocracy, who were believed to have a peculiar prejudice against Ireland, and in this case to have allowed their antipathies of race and nationality to interfere with the good of their religion; for it was alleged that the promotion of agitation, and even revolution, in Ireland by the priesthood, was the surest way to make England concessive to the Roman Catholic clergy and people. It was also maintained that the severance of Ireland from England would give a wider scope to the influence of the church, and rescue one of her fairest provinces from the sceptre of a heretic sovereign. These different grounds were taken up by various organs of the press, according to their degrees of prudence, or the especial light in which they regarded the transaction. At all events, it was felt that the rescript would baulk the efforts of the Young Irelanders to engage any portion of the priesthood on their side, and greatly lessen the chances of their success. The Protestants of Ireland, ignorant of the true nature of the mission of Lord Minto to Italy, which the government organs systematically misrepresented, and ignorant also of the progress which the English government had made at Rome, through certain Roman Catholics of influence, considered the rescript as a _ruse_ on the part of the pope, acting in concert with the Irish episcopacy, to throw the English government off its guard. The Protestants were therefore stirred up to more vigorous preparation to resist the approaching insurrection, while, at the same time, the hopes of the opposite party were damaged, and depression was necessarily communicated to their exertions.

The following is a copy of the papal rescript, addressed to the Roman Catholic prelates of Ireland:—

“_Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord_,—The reports now for nine months circulated by the English newspapers concerning the political party-strifes in which some ecclesiatics have allowed themselves to be carried away, and the desecration made of some of the Irish churches for the purpose of aiding and promoting secular concerns—nay, more, the reports which have reached us relative to the murders which we are informed are so frequent, and by reason of which the clergy have been stigmatised, and some of them charged with imprudence, and as giving indirect provocation from the pulpit, or, at least, extenuating the guilt of these murders—these reports must surely awaken the solicitude of the sacred congregation.

“This sacred congregation cannot bring itself to believe that such reports, so extensively raised abroad, can be true; nor can it believe that ecclesiastics have forgotten that the church of God should be the house of prayer, not of secular concerns, or the meeting-place of politicians; neither can the sacred congregation believe that ecclesiastics have ceased to recollect that they are the ministers of peace, dispensers of the mysteries of God—men who should not involve themselves in worldly concerns—in a word, men who should abhor blood and vengeance. Nevertheless, this sacred congregation deems it its duty to require certain and satisfactory explanation on all these matters, that it may know what importance to attach to the above-mentioned damnatory reports. Wherefore, at the suggestion of his holiness, I have deemed it my duty to forward this letter to your lordship, praying you to satisfy this most reasonable solicitude of the congregation; and, meantime, it exhorts you to admonish the clergy, that seeking the things which are of Jesus Christ, they sedulously apply themselves to watch over the spiritual interests of the people, and in nowise mix themselves up with worldly affairs, in order that their ministry may not be brought into disrepute, and those who are against them may not have wherewith to charge them.

“I pray God long to preserve your lordship.

“J. Ph. Cardinal Fransoni.

“Rome. From the Congregation of the Faith,

“January 3rd, 1848.”

Early in the year the legislature passed stringent laws to suppress crime and outrage in Ireland, and to bring the perpetrators to justice. Proceedings were also taken of various kinds against several of the more prominent promoters of sedition.

On the 15th of May, William Smith O’Brien was tried before Lord Chief Justice Blackburn and a special jury, upon an _ex officio_ information, charging him with having delivered a speech, on the 15th of March, in the parish of St. Thomas, Dublin, for the purpose of exciting contempt and hatred against the queen in Ireland, and inducing the people to rise in rebellion. The traverser pleaded not guilty. There could be no doubt that in point of fact and law he was guilty, for it would be difficult to cull language from a seditious speech more pertinent to the charge than that quoted by the attorney-general from the speech of Mr. O’Brien on the 15th of March. He was ably defended by Mr. Butt, an eloquent queen’s counsel. The jury could not agree, and by the consent of the attorney-general they were discharged. It was not expected that the jury would agree in a verdict; there was a determination among the disaffected that when summoned as jurors they would not give verdicts in charges of this nature. The government were determined to procure convictions, if possible, and the trial of Mr. O’Brien was followed by an indictment of T. E. Meagher. He was also arraigned on an _ex officio_ information for a seditious speech delivered on the same occasion as that which furnished O’Brien with an opportunity for his delinquent oratory. When the jury returned into court they were asked if they had agreed in their verdict; the foreman replied, “We are not, my lord.” Mr. Favel, one of the jurors, remarked, “We are all agreed but one, and he is a Roman Catholic.” The report of this trial produced a very great sensation in England. Men everywhere remarked, “If a single Roman Catholic on a jury prevents the course of justice, a remedy must be found for such a state of things; there must be power accorded to the crown.” It was not generally understood in England that a Roman Catholic had often little reason to hope for justice when high party Protestants composed the jury.

In the Commission Court, before Mr. Baron Lefroy, and Mr. Justice Moore, John Mitchell, proprietor of the _United Irishman_ newspaper, was placed upon his trial. He had been arrested under the act passed in the beginning of the year to meet such cases, entitled, “An act for the better security of the crown and government.” True bills were found by the grand jury against him for felony. To each he handed in a plea praying that the indictment might be quashed, on the ground that one of the members of the jury was also a member of the town-council of the borough of Dublin, and as such disqualified. These pleas were put in merely to gain time, which led the attorney-general to enter a _nolle prosequi_ to each, and to file ex officio information against Mr. Mitchell. After various other artifices to obtain delay, the prisoner was compelled to plead, and he pleaded “not guilty.” The terms of the indictment were, that the traverser endeavoured to take away the style, honour, and royal name of our sovereign lady the queen, and to make war against her majesty, her heirs, and successors. The trial was chiefly remarkable for the bold and manly tone of Mr. Holmes, the prisoner’s counsel. Never did an advocate more fearlessly do his duty to his client and his country. The judge charged against the prisoner, and the jury, after three hours and a half’s deliberation, returned with a verdict of guilty. The sentence was transportation for fourteen years. The bearing of the prisoner was manly and dignified throughout. He was known to be a man of strong domestic affections, and of warm friendship, and the sentence was received with intense dissatisfaction throughout Ireland. The violent opinions and proceedings of Mr. Mitchell in his public capacity could not destroy the popular partialities for him as a brave, generous, and amiable man; it was allowed on all hands that the time had arrived for stopping his political career, but it was hoped that a temporary imprisonment would have satisfied the ends of justice. The public sympathy for his amiable wife and his little children was very strong, and it was desired by all classes that at the earliest possible occasion which would give the government an opportunity to exercise clemency, his sentence might be greatly mitigated.

It was allowed on all hands that the government were compelled to prosecute. In the pages of the _United Irishman_ he had uttered the most vehement defiance to the government, and to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland especially. He had invoked a prosecution, and in one furious article in the _United Irishman_ had told the vice-regal government that if it did not pack a jury and prosecute him, it was restrained only by cowardice. What the motives of Mr. Mitchell were in thus wishing to be made a victim it is impossible to affirm. Many believed that he wrote in the confidence that no Irish jury, however packed, would find him guilty; others supposed that he calculated upon a packed jury finding a verdict against him, but that he felt sure of a popular revolt for his rescue, and thus desired to precipitate the insurrection. A large class of persons who did not sympathise with his doctrines and efforts, alleged that, foreseeing the utter hopelessness of the cause upon which he had embarked, he desired to bring matters as regarded himself at once to a conclusion, and as he could not withdraw with honour from the course he had espoused, he was anxious to incur the lesser penalty for sedition, than to risk encounter with the queen’s forces as the leader of a bootless insurrection. His sentence was rapidly carried out, the populace making no effort to save him. The leaders found various excuses for not at once rising, and Mitchell was carried ignominiously away, and departed before their eyes, not an arm raised, not a blow struck by those who vehemently cheered him in his career of folly, and promised to follow him to the death.

During and immediately previous to these transactions, the Repeal Association and the Young Irelanders made a great parade, after their own fashion, for their own ostensible objects. The Young Irelanders called a convention of three hundred representatives or delegates from every part of the country; these were, in fact, to be the representatives of the insurrectionary clubs, ostensibly of the people. Smith O’Brien, the last time he appeared in the English House of Commons, had the temerity and absurdity to advise the premier to put himself in communication with this council of three hundred, and be guided in his measures by them. This was after the visit of the honourable member to Paris, to induce the French government to espouse the cause of insurrection in Ireland. His recommendation was received with shouts of derisive laughter, and his treason was chastised by the premier reminding him that he had taken the oath of allegiance, and at the same time was encompassing the dishonour of the queen’s throne.

At a meeting of the Old Irelanders in April, in Conciliation Hall, a Mr. Aikins in the chair, the following business was transacted, which will show the position which that party desired publicly to take both to the Young Irelanders and to the government:—

“Mr. Maurice O’Connell proposed, and Mr. T. Galway seconded, the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:—‘That we, this association, view with disgust and indignation the bill brought in by the ministers, entitled, A bill for the better security of the crown and government of the United Kingdom. That we consider such bill, instead of answering its professed purposes, to be of such a character as the odious six acts of Lord Castlereagh’s ministry, with the aggravation that the latter were only legal and temporary, while this is intended as general and perpetual. That we consider such bill as in fact a bill to encourage the odious spy system, and prevent all discussion of the wants of the people, whether by the press or at meetings. That we therefore express our detestation of this measure, and call upon the repeal members of parliament to oppose the passing of such bill by all constitutional means.’

“Mr. O’Connell next proposed, and Mr. Galway seconded, a resolution, that it be referred to the committee to have a case prepared for counsel upon the construction of the convention act, 33 George HI., cap. 29. Mr. O’Connell observed that although his father had not matured the project of assembling three hundred delegates in Dublin, he had never abandoned it up to the period of his death. (Cheers.) ‘The liberator’ had frequently consulted lawyers of great celebrity, to fortify his own opinion, but the result of his consultation with others was that he had grave and fearful doubts as to its legality. The project was accordingly suffered to remain in abeyance. They were determined never to advise or sanction any rash or precipitate act; they would act only within the law, and were anxious to ascertain whether the delegates could assemble legally in Dublin. This was the object of obtaining counsel’s opinion upon the subject; and if the step could be taken with safety, and within the bounds of law, in the name of God they would take it. (Cheers.)

“Mr. O’Connell called the attention of the association to a resolution adopted at the last meeting of the Confederation, admitting ‘to membership all enrolled members of the Conciliation Hall, on the same ternis as members of the Confederation.’ It was also intimated that seats would be reserved at the meeting of the Confederation for the accommodation of the members of Conciliation Hall. Now he (Mr. O’Connell) wished to warn every member of the association against accepting that invitation, or making use of the privileges (if privileges they were) thus offered by the Confederation. (Hear, hear.) The safety of the association consisted entirely in keeping strictly within the letter of the law, and he hoped none of its members would directly or indirectly sanction or identify themselves with any of the proceedings of the Confederation.”