THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 
 James Collins, 
 
 Drumcondra, Ireland. 
 
 Purchased, 1918. 
 
 94-1.55 
 
 Ml4\/ 
 
•» * 
 
THE VICEROY'S POST-BAG 
 
Works by the Same Author. 
 
 BISHOP DOYLE : A Biographical 
 AND Historical Study (The New 
 Irish Library). 
 
 THE BOOK OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 IRISH LIFE AND CHARACTER. 
 
 PARLIAMENT : Its Romance, Its 
 Comedy, Its Pathos. 
 
 THE LIFE OF DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
THE VICEROY'S 
 POST-BAG 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED 
 
 OF THE EARL OF HARDWICKE 
 
 FIRST LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND 
 
 AFTER THE UNION 
 
 BY MICHAEL MacDONAGH 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1904 
 

 INTRODUCTION 
 
 'A 
 : Letters a century old, and thousands of them ! They 
 deal with Ireland, political and social, in that dark and 
 dismal period when she lay physically prostrate, bruised 
 and broken, after the Rebellion of 1798, and had just 
 been discrowned of her legislative independence by the 
 Union. 
 
 rt: ^ * 
 
 How singularly interesting it is to go through old 
 letters, even if they but treat of the trivial details of the 
 daily round of life — the exchange of thoughts and ex- 
 periences between friend and friend in unromantic and 
 commonplace circumstances ! But here are communica- 
 tions from the most exalted political personages of the 
 opening years of the nineteenth century — Viceroys of 
 Ireland, Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State — and not 
 dry, formal official documents, but letters of the closest 
 intimacy, dealing with matters of high State policy, 
 revealing important secrets of Government, closely 
 guarded hitherto by the imperative injunctions, " Most 
 Private," "Strictly Private and Confidential"; letters 
 of men well known in Irish history, engaged in the 
 hazardous game of revolution ; letters of political 
 prisoners written in Dublin dungeons ; letters of 
 shameless place-hunters ; letters of knaves and hypo- 
 crites, in high places and lowly ; letters of pimps and 
 
 4CJ7 i;i9 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 informers. Here, surely, is romance and drama and 
 
 farce in abundance ! 
 
 * * * 
 
 It is a thrilling experience to peruse these papers of a 
 hundred years ago — many of them with ink as fresh as 
 if they were written but yesterday ; others faded and 
 yellow, and difficult to decipher — and to learn from all 
 the prominent actors in the transaction the hitherto 
 unknown tale of the liquidation of the bill in honours, 
 places, and pensions incurred by the Government of the 
 day in the barter of the Irish Parliament ; to read the 
 amazing story of the Emmet Insurrection of 1803 as it 
 is told by Viceroy, Chief Secretary, Under Secretary, 
 spies and informers ; to follow the development of the 
 treasonable plot, and the Executive counterplot ; to see 
 the revolutionary working in the dark, in fancied security, 
 and the secret agents of the Executive reporting his every 
 movement to Dublin Castle. 
 
 * * * 
 
 For the student of constitutional practice and political 
 history these letters are also most valuable. They 
 illustrate the official relations between the heads of the 
 various departments of the State, and the etiquette which 
 regulates correspondence between them on questions of 
 policy. They also lay bare the jealousies and quarrels 
 of Ministers. It is as if the walls of the departments in 
 Whitehall were removed, and the huge machinery of 
 Government disclosed at work to public view. 
 
 * * * 
 
 These most interesting and valuable documents are 
 from the post-bag of the Earl of Hardwicke, the first 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland after the Union of 1800. They 
 
INTRODUCTION vU 
 
 baffled the keen search of the late Mr. Lecky in the secret 
 archives of Dubhn Castle, and were therefore supposed 
 by him to have been destroyed, as he states in his 
 " History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," For 
 five years Hardwicke held the exalted office of Viceroy 
 of Ireland during the Addington Administration, and the 
 second Administration of Pitt, which followed. He was 
 most methodical and business-like in his habits. He not 
 only kept a copy of every letter, official and private, which 
 he wrote during his term of office to Ministers in London, 
 but retained the replies in his personal possession, and 
 carried them all off on his leaving Ireland in 1806. The 
 papers lay in the deed-room of Wimpole Hall — the seat 
 of the Hardwickes — until three years ago, when they 
 were sold to the trustees of the British Museum, and, 
 having been arranged and classified, were made accessible 
 last year in the Manuscript Department at Bloomsbury. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I have -been permitted by the Home Secretary, the 
 Right Hon. A. Akers-Douglas, to supplement the cor- 
 respondence dealing with the Emmet Insurrection of 
 1803 by extracts from the secret papers in the Home 
 Office — in three volumes, and marked " Ireland, 1803. 
 Most Secret and Confidential " — which are now also made 
 public for the first time. They tell a thrilling and true 
 story of Ireland when she began a new epoch iti her 
 strangely chequered career. 
 
 MICHAEL MacDONAGH. 
 
 London, 
 
 October^ 1904. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 THE UNION 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS - - I 
 
 II. THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS - - - 40 
 
 III. CONTEST FOR AN IRISH REPRESENTATIVE PEERAGE - 54 
 
 IV. THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE - - - - 66 
 V. THE PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS - 94 
 
 VI. THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS - - - - I20 
 
 VII. THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION - - " ^51 
 
 VIII. THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION - - - 1 76 
 
 IX. THE DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES - 193 
 
 X. A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS - 2l8 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE EMMET INSURRECTION 
 
 I. ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION- - -252 
 
 II. THE INSURRECTION ----- 269 
 
 III. WAS THE EMMET INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? - 298 
 
 IV. ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN - "331 
 V. CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CONDEMNED 
 
 CRIMINALS ------ 363 
 
 VI. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET - - - 388 
 
 VII. THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL - - "413 
 
 VIII. THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER - - 432 
 
 INDEX - - - - - - 455 
 
 ix 
 
THE VICEROY'S POST-BAG 
 
 BOOK I 
 THE UNION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 In February, 1801, Henry Addington, Prime Minister, 
 was engaged in the task of forming a new Administration. 
 Through the influence of his political chief and intimate 
 friend, Wilham Pitt, Addington had been elected Speaker 
 of the House of Commons in 1789 ; and he was again 
 unanimously called to the Chair on January 22, 1801, 
 the opening day of the first session of the United 
 Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland at Westminster. 
 At that time Pitt's position as Prime Minister seemed 
 to be supreme. For the long period of seventeen years 
 he had been at the head of the Government, and there 
 was every prospect at the opening of the year 1801 that 
 his career in office would extend, unchallenged and secure, 
 far into the nineteenth century. He had accomplished 
 the legislative Union of Ireland and Great Britain. 
 One of the first measures of the United Parliament was 
 to be an Act to throw open its doors to the Catholics, to 
 pay stipends to the bishops and priests of the Catholic 
 Church in Ireland, and to relieve, to some extent, at least, 
 the peasantry of the hateful impost of tithes for the main- 
 
 I 
 
2 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 tenance of the Protestant Establishment. The state- 
 ment that such was to be the consummation of Pitt's 
 Irish poUcy hail disarmed the hostiUty of the influential 
 Irish Catholics — prelates and gentry — to the Union. But 
 Pitt had reckoned without the stubborn conscientious 
 objection to Catholic emancipation of that honest Pro- 
 testant bigot, George III. 
 
 On January 31, 1801, the King held a levee to celebrate 
 the Union of the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 The intentions of Pitt with regard to the Catholics had 
 just reached the ears of the monarch. The news drove 
 him almost to distraction. Emancipate the Catholics ! 
 Was there ever heard such inconceivable folly and mad- 
 ness ? "I would rather give up my Throne," he pas- 
 sionately exclaimed, " and beg my bread from door to 
 door throughout Europe, than consent to such a measure !" 
 The enraged King encountered Henry Dundas, a Scottish 
 member of the Administration, at the levee, and stormed 
 at him : " What is this that this young lord has brought 
 over from Ireland, and is going to throw at my head ?" 
 He referred to Viscount Castlereagh, Chief Secretary for 
 Ireland, and the Bill to give civil rights to the Catholics. 
 " Listen !" he cried ; " I shall reckon any man my personal 
 enemy who proposes any such measure." Had he not 
 taken an oath at his coronation to maintain the Pro- 
 testant reformed religion ? Would he not perjure 
 himself by consenting to Catholics being admitted to 
 Parliament and to offices under the Crown ? Dundas 
 endeavoured to explain the subtle constitutional point 
 that the coronation oath bound the sovereign only in 
 his executive capacity, and that as an Estate of the Realm 
 he acted upon the advice of his Ministers, who alone were 
 responsible for legislation. " None of your Scottish 
 metaphysics, Mr. Dundas !" cried the blunt, simple- 
 minded, and unimaginative old monarch. " None of 
 your damned Scottish metaphysics !" 
 
 Pitt resigned. The King sent for the Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, a man of strong anti-Papist opinions, 
 nad appealed to him to form a Government to resist the 
 
GEORGE III. ON THE REIGN OF IRISH JOBS 3 
 
 claims of Catholic Ireland. Addington, doubtful as to 
 the result, was unwilling to attempt the task. " Lay your 
 hand upon your heart," said the distracted King, " and 
 ask yourself where I am to turn for support if you do not 
 stand by me." The Speaker then went to Pitt to ascer- 
 tain whether, if he were to form a Government, it would 
 have Pitt's support in the House of Commons. Pitt was 
 most friendly. Indeed, it is probable he was glad to 
 escape the tremendous project of endeavouring to carry 
 Catholic emancipation. " I see nothing but ruin to the 
 country, Addington, if you hesitate to take office," 
 said he. 
 
 Addington no longer hesitated. On February 10 he 
 announced to the House of Commons his resignation of 
 the Speakership in obedience to the King's command to 
 form an Administration. That night he had a long inter- 
 view with George III. about the men whom he proposed 
 to invite to serve under him in the new Government. The 
 next day the sovereign wrote to him : 
 
 " The more the King reflects on the conversation of 
 last night and the proposed arrangements, the more he 
 approves of them ; but he blames himself for having 
 omitted to mention the natural, nay very necessary, 
 return of the Marquis ComwaUis from Ireland. He 
 well knows many have thought the office of Lord Lieu- 
 tenant should altogether cease on such an event. The 
 King's opinion is clearly that, perhaps, hereafter, that 
 may be proper, but that at present it is necessary to fiU 
 up the office with a person that shall clearly understand 
 that the Union has closed the reign of Irish jobs ; that 
 he is to be a kind of President of the Council there, and 
 that the civil patronage may be open to his recommenda- 
 tion, but must entirely be decided in England." 
 
 Charles Abbot, a member of the House of Commons, 
 was offered by Addington the post of Chief Secretary of 
 Ireland, in succession to Lord Castlereagh. " He said 
 to me," says Abbot, " that, sorry as he should be to part 
 with me, he wished Lord Hardwicke to go to Ireland, 
 and me to go with him as his friend and adviser. That 
 
 I — 2 
 
4 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 the scene was great, and the business would be to render 
 the Union a real Union." Abbot accepted the office, and 
 at the request of Addington called on Lord Hardwicke 
 at his house in St. James's Square to inquire whether he 
 would go to Ireland as Viceroy if he received the King's 
 command. Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, was the 
 eldest son of the distinguished lawyer, Lord Chancellor 
 Yorke. He had sat in the House of Commons for his native 
 county of Cambridgeshire as a follower of Charles James 
 Fox, and, like all the Whigs of the period, had been friendly 
 to Ireland and to a settlement of the Catholic claims ; 
 but in the House of Lords, to which he succeeded in 1790, 
 he supported Pitt, and was still favourably disposed 
 towards Catholic emancipation. He was Colonel of the 
 Cambridgeshire Militia, and had been in Dublin with his 
 regiment during the closing stages of the RebeUion of 
 1798. At this time he was forty-four years of age, and 
 married. 
 
 " I went," writes Abbot on February 20, " and Lord 
 Hardwicke consented upon all public grounds, viz., that 
 he was against now agitating the question of Catholic 
 emancipation, reserving himself for other times and cir- 
 cumstances upon the principle,* and holding that peaceful 
 acts and peaceful demeanour were to be the future claims 
 for such a boon as the Catholics were now expecting." 
 
 The next day an official letter from the Prime Minister, 
 dated " Palace Yard, February ye 21, 1801," was de- 
 livered to Lord Hardwicke. 
 
 " My dear Lord," it ran, " I am very desirous of half 
 an hour's conversation with your Lordship, and should 
 be much obliged to you if you would take the trouble of 
 calling in Palace Yard at such time between the hours of 
 three and five to-day as it may be most convenient to you 
 to appoint." 
 
 Hardwicke, accordingly, waited upon Addington that 
 afternoon. He was offered the office of Lord Lieutenant 
 
 * Meaning that Hardwicke reserved the right to support 
 Catholic Emancipation in other times and in other circumstances. 
 
BEGGING LETTERS TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT 5 
 
 of Ireland, " not only with the King's command," as 
 Hardwicke subsequently wrote to a friend, " but with 
 his anxious wish that I should not decline it," and the 
 position was there and then accepted. 
 
 The King had fitful lapses into insanity, and weeks 
 passed before the appointment of Hardwicke as Viceroy 
 was confirmed. At last Hardwicke got this note from 
 the Prime Minister, dated " March ye 16 " : 
 
 " I have received his Majesty's command to request 
 that you will be at the Queen's House at twelve o'clock 
 to-morrow, for the purpose of kissing his Majesty's 
 hand as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and of being sworn 
 on the Council," 
 
 So, on St. Patrick's Day, 1801, Hardwicke was sworn 
 of the Privy Council, and declared Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, " at the Court of the Queen's House," and " in 
 the presence of His Most Excellent Majesty in Council." 
 
 * * * 
 
 On the news being published that Hardwicke was Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, every post brought him a shoal 
 of letters from all sorts and conditions of persons, appeal- 
 ing for something out of the bounty of his patronage. 
 
 Here is Sir John Dalrymple recommending his two 
 sons to the good graces of his Excellency. The elder 
 is Lieutenant-Colonel of the third regiment of Guards 
 " at the age of twenty-five "; the younger " was 
 reckoned the best Algebraist at Cambridge, and there- 
 fore must be infinitely useful to your lordship in accounts, 
 to which you are probably not bred." Even the accom- 
 phshments of his daughter-in-law were placed by this old 
 Scottish baronet at the service of the Viceroy. " My 
 eldest son's wife," says he, " is one of the finest creatures 
 that ever God made, beautiful and accomplished, draws 
 finely, and highly connected by relations. Lord Craven 
 is her cousin german. She would be a capital companion 
 for my Lady Hardwicke." " At the worst," he adds in a 
 P.S., " recommend my sons to the new Secretary at War." 
 
 Here is the Rev. Charles Chesterj a clergyman of the 
 
6 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 Established Church, in a parish with a small stipend in 
 Oxfordshire, and evidently a distant and poor relation of 
 the Lord Lieutenant. He writes to his brother Robert, a 
 dean, to bring him under the notice of the Lord Lieutenant, 
 and this Robert does by forwarding the letter to his Excel- 
 lency. " To procure the patronage of his lordship would 
 cheer my drooping spirits not a little," he says, "for I think 
 my prospects in life could not depend upon a better man," 
 '• You cannot imagine," he adds, " what a state of flurry 
 and anxiety it has put me in to find any chance of pre- 
 ferment hanging over my head, of which you know I am 
 in no small want, and most anxiously do I wish his lord- 
 ship may think of me." The post he desires is no less than 
 that of private secretary and chaplain to the Viceroy. 
 " Should his lordship be kind enough to take me, I shall 
 leave my wife and children with their friends in Wales, so 
 that my whole time should be devoted to his service." 
 The note of piteous entreaty thus swells higher and 
 higher in the letter, and finally concludes in the following 
 outburst : 
 
 " Indeed, I wish his lordship knew how anxious I 
 feel to accompany him ; but should he decline to take me, 
 I shall feel a double mortification here, as all my neigh- 
 bours, who know that we are related to Lord Hardwicke, 
 are asking me if his lordship does not take me with him." 
 
 Poor human nature ! How pitiable it figures in this 
 post-bag of an Irish Viceroy ! What meanness ! What 
 cupidity ! There are dozens of letters pouring the most 
 fulsome compliments on the Lord Lieutenant — (what a 
 blessing, they all exclaim, his appointment will prove to 
 Ireland and Great Britain !) — each and every one of them 
 concluding with an appeal for a job. " My son," says 
 one suitor, " who is lately connected and married into 
 one of the most respectable families in Ireland, desires 
 to unite with me in the same expression, and would 
 esteem the honour of serving your Excellency in the 
 Church as the utmost object of his ambition." 
 
 * * * 
 
THE MORTGAGE ON THE VICEROY'S PATRONAGE 7 
 
 Lord Hardwicke sent replies, at once courteous and 
 evasive, to his host of suitors. He had need to be ex- 
 tremely cautious and niggardly in his promises. " Keep 
 this advice in mind," wrote the Earl of Westmorland, an 
 ex- Viceroy : " take as few persons to Ireland as you 
 can help from this country, as they will be a constant 
 plague for a provision. Those you find there have not 
 that claim." But that was not the reason why Hard- 
 wicke refrained from entering into any engagement 
 whatever in regard to the exercise of the patronage of 
 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. After he had been 
 confirmed in office the following ominous epistle from 
 the Marquis Comwallis, the outgoing Viceroy, was laid 
 before him by the Duke of Portland — the Home 
 Secretary of Pitt's Administration — to whom it was 
 addressed : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " February 19, 1801. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " As my continuance in the situation I have the 
 honour to hold may not be long enough to enable me to 
 fulfil all the engagements which I have thought it my 
 duty to contract on the part of His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, and by direction of his Ministers, repeatedly con- 
 veyed to me by your Grace, I feel myself particularly 
 bound by every tie and obligation at the present moment 
 to draw your Grace's attention to this subject. 
 
 " The general nature and extent of those engagements 
 has been communicated and explained to your Grace by 
 the Chief Secretary, my Lord Viscount Castlereagh, and 
 he will lay before you an accurate detail of them. 
 
 " Much anxiety is daily manifested by those gentlemen 
 whose expectations I have not yet been enabled to fulfil, 
 and though I endeavour to impress on their minds an 
 assurance that their just hopes will not be disappointed by 
 any change in His Majesty's Councils, they intimate a 
 wish to receive that assurance from the authority of those 
 with whom the future administration of Ireland may be 
 connected. 
 
 " I am, therefore, to request your Grace will take the 
 earliest opportunity of conferring with His Majesty's 
 Ministers upon this subject, and that you wiU furnish me 
 
8 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 with an official authority to assure all those gentlemen 
 who have any promise of favour in consequence of the 
 Union that they will be fully provided for according 
 to the extent of the engagements made with them, and 
 that no new pretensions will be allowed to interfere with 
 their prior and superior claims. 
 
 " I have, etc., 
 
 " CORNWALLIS." 
 
 This was the embarrassing heritage which the Viceroy 
 who carried the Union left to his successor. 
 
 * * * 
 
 At length, on May 25, 1801 — more than two months 
 after his appointment as Viceroy — Lord Hardwicke 
 arrived in Ireland, and was inducted Lord Lieutenant 
 of Ireland in the Privy Council Chamber, Dublin Castle. 
 Two days later his predecessor, the Marquis CornwaUis, 
 sailed for England. It was a difficult situation, that in 
 which Hardwicke now found himself — the first Viceroy 
 of Ireland after the Union. He was a man of common- 
 sense and moderate views, with a practical judgment in 
 affairs. His correspondence also shows that he regarded 
 his office as that of a peace-maker — to win the esteem 
 and confidence of all classes of the Irish people for 
 himself, and to unite them in attachment to the Union 
 of Ireland and Great Britain. 
 
 On the first question of the time, the emancipation of 
 the Catholics, he sets forth his views in a private letter 
 to a friend, just on the eve of his leaving London for 
 Ireland : 
 
 " I am rather inclined to think with Mr. Pitt," he says, 
 " that had this measure of enabling the Catholics to sit 
 in Parliament been brought forward by the Government, 
 as a measure accompanying the Union, it would have 
 tended to produce conciliation and quiet in Ireland ; and 
 that it would have been hardly possible for the Catholics, 
 with all their intrigue and perseverance, to have brought 
 any number of members to the House of Commons. At 
 present, however, our business is to postpone it." 
 
PITT'S ENGAGEMENT TO THE IRISH CATHOLICS 9 
 
 Then he goes on to enlarge upon a still vexed point in 
 the history of the Union— whether Pitt definitely pledged 
 himself as Prime Minister to the Irish Cathohcs to propose 
 Catholic emancipation in the Imperial Parliament : 
 
 " You may be assured," he says, " that no pledge or 
 promise was given to the Catholics upon this subject, 
 and that it rests merely upon Mr. Pitt's general ideas 
 thrown out in his speech of January, 1799, when he 
 opened the question of Union. They had reason to 
 believe that it would be brought forward by Govern- 
 ment, and were, of course, more anxious for the Union 
 upon that account, but there has been no promise of any 
 sort whatever." * * * 
 
 The office of private secretary to the Lord Lieutenant 
 was filled by the Hon. and Rev. Charles Lindsay, a rela- 
 tion of Lord Hardwicke, and a clergyman who had two 
 livings " without care of souls " in England. Hardwicke's 
 brother, Charles Yorke, was Minister for War in the Adding- 
 ton Administration, and to him Lindsay sent several 
 letters reporting, at this early stage, the progress of the 
 Lord Lieutenant, which Yorke seems to have sent back to 
 his brother in Dublin. Writing in June, 1801, Lindsay says : 
 
 " The citizens of Dublin are by no means reconciled to 
 the Union. They have pettishly slackened their manu- 
 factures, and now begin to wonder that their articles are 
 wanted. It is at this precise moment, therefore, that all 
 are to be coaxed upon whom civilities have influence ; and 
 as trade must resume its channel, it will appear to receive 
 a greater stimulant than the reality from the patronage 
 of the female part of the Castle. With respect to the 
 first, I think you will agree with me in thinking that the 
 natural manner and real civility of our Chief Governor 
 will work their way with more effect than the com- 
 placency of a more finished courtier. And in regard to 
 the latter, as it is plain our fellow-subjects here are com- 
 pounded of self-love and vanity, having their interest 
 constantly in view — but in particular instances constantly 
 sacrificing it to their figure in life — it follows that a spur 
 to trade will operate on men, who mix the characters of 
 tradesmen and gentlemen so ridiculously together, with 
 manifold powers." * * * 
 
 "I* T* T* 
 
lo THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 The Union engagements practically deprived Lord 
 Hardwicke of the prerogative of patronage which attached 
 to his office as deputy of the King in Ireland. He had 
 little left to give to his own relations and friends, or to 
 those who had claims on his bounty for services rendered. 
 In the circumstances, how irritating must have been the 
 applications from unknown place-hunters. Here is a 
 specimen, the audacity of which is truly colossal : 
 
 " 13, Suffolk Street, Dublin, 
 ''May 27, 1 801. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " It is a matter of some relief to me that when I 
 enter upon the subject of an address to a man of your 
 birth and consideration I am not driven to the difficulty 
 of prefacing it by panegyrizing letters. The moment I 
 heard of your lordship's appointment to the Govern- 
 ment of this country, I sat down, and in the sincerity of 
 my heart congratulated your regimental surgeon, and 
 my worthy and highly-valued friend, Mr. Other, by letter 
 on that event. Mr. Other attended me whilst in Dublin, 
 and gave me his surgical and friendly aid when I met with 
 a very severe accident — indeed, that of having broken my 
 leg — which accident it has not been my fortune yet to have 
 retrieved. 
 
 " I am certainly unknown to your Excellency, and 
 would feel the usual dismay and embarrassment but for 
 the reasons I have already mentioned. In the seventh 
 year of an high and honourable profession, in which the 
 great and good Lord Hardwicke was the honour and the 
 ornament, my progress has been much impeded ; but 
 my loyalty to my Sovereign, and my love for the law, and 
 my personal exertions in their protection, were alert and 
 unremitting. Previous to the Rebellion I was one of the 
 few of the Irish Bar who voted for the armament of that 
 body, and when that Rebellion was at its height I directed 
 my eveiy effort to its final overthrow. Pardon me here, 
 my lord, for thus speaking of a fact which was no more 
 than a duty ; but as I discharged that duty with zeal and 
 fidelity, contrasted with other individuals, I presume to 
 have some claim to your Excellency's notice. 
 
 " On the subject of the Union I acknowledge I differed 
 with some of my old friends, and thought it a measure not 
 
AN IRISH PLACE-HUNTER ii 
 
 calculated for the benefit of either country, and there- 
 fore did from principle publicly write and speak against 
 it ; but I trust that a candour of that sort will not shut 
 me for ever from the countenance of a Government whose 
 ready and willing servant I have constantly proved myself 
 to be. 
 
 " Having still some interest in the city, I beg, under 
 your Excellency's encouragement, to use it to the pro- 
 motion of your wise and auspicious Administration. 
 Deign, therefore, to bear me in recollection, amid the 
 bustle and splendour of an arduous and important situa- 
 tion. Could I be but honoured with an interview I should 
 show in what manner that my humble services might be 
 employed. 
 
 " I pray your lordship's answer, and have the honour 
 to remain, with infinite truth and respect, your Excel- 
 lency's most devoted humble servant, 
 
 " Isaac Burke Bethel." 
 
 \ He was politely but decisively informed that no hope 
 of a place could be held out to him. But Isaac Burke 
 Bethel was not to be shaken off so easily. He called 
 on Lindsay at the Castle, but was not received. " I 
 did myself the honour of waiting upon you," he subse- 
 quently writes to Lindsay, " in order to tell you that I 
 have written a small essay complimentary of his Excel- 
 lency and his auxiliaries in office." The letter is endorsed, 
 " This kind of thing to be civilly discouraged. — C. L." 
 Bethel, however, still refused to be discouraged. On 
 October 23, 1801, he again writes to Lindsay : 
 
 " Having troubled his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant 
 with an offer of my humble services upon his arrival in 
 this kingdom, and having received a polite note from 
 you in answer as his relative and private secretary, I beg 
 leave again to intrude myself upon you, and to inform 
 you that I had it in contemplation to bring forward a 
 work, strictly and constitutionally loyal, which would 
 have produced me something very handsome by the sale, 
 in which, as may be seen in manuscript, the most honour- 
 able testimony of Lord Hardwicke's private character 
 is evinced. The arrival of that looked-for blessing. 
 
12 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 peace,* has induced me to lay aside the idea of publication 
 for the present. I still have a wish to show my readiness 
 to serve the Government in any way that is most con- 
 genial to his Excellency's mind. My professional re- 
 ceipts, I am sorry to say, have fallen off, and if his Ex- 
 cellency would prevail on the Chancellor to make me a 
 Commissioner of Bankruptcy, I should deem myself 
 most gratefully bound to his Excellency, to his Adminis- 
 tration, and to his family." 
 
 Lindsay now seems to have lost all patience with 
 Bethel. A copy of his reply to the place-hunter was not 
 preserved, but that it was neither civil nor polite is 
 apparent from the following humorous acknowledgment 
 from Bethel : 
 
 " Your letter, which I got last night on my table, cer- 
 tainly did not contain either oil or wine, I have now 
 only to request of you a favour which Sir Robert Walpole 
 granted to a young courtier similarly circumstanced, and 
 that is that you will do me the honour of a salute when- 
 ever you meet me. I hear that Sir Robert's condescen- 
 sion made the young fellow's fortune. The ladies in 
 St. James's Park were candidates for his person, and he 
 shortly yielded to the solicitations of one for whom he 
 had ten thousand reasons of making the successful partner 
 of his heart." 
 
 So Isaac Burke Bethel was kicked out into obscurity, 
 
 for we hear no more of him, or his small complimentary 
 
 essay, or his strictly constitutional and loyal work ; but — 
 
 the fortunate possessor of a light heart — he disappears 
 
 with a joke on his lips. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Rev. Charles Chester, one of Hardwicke's poor 
 relations, has already been mentioned as a suppliant for 
 preferment in Ireland. The Lord Lieutenant appointed 
 him one of the Viceregal Chaplains, which required only 
 an occasional visit to Dublin. But his ambition was a 
 place on the Irish Episcopal Bench ; and in a letter to 
 
 * The preliminary article of the peace between Great Britain 
 and France was signed on October i, 1801, the definitive treaty 
 being subscribed at Amiens in the March following. 
 
AN ENGLISH CLERGYMAN AS PLACE-HUNTER 13 
 
 Lindsay^ the Viceroy's private secretary, he sets forth 
 what he calls his " candid sentiments " on the chances 
 of having his object reaUzed. Candid, indeed ! It is a 
 barefaced manifestation of worldhness and avarice : 
 
 " BOTTISHAM, 
 
 " February 17, 1802. 
 
 " My dear Lindsay, 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your kind letter 
 which came to hand last night, and I was glad to find by 
 it that you were all going on well in Ireland. I am very 
 happy to hear that matters have enabled the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant to pay off so many claims, and now that promo- 
 tion seems dropping fast, I am particularly obliged to you 
 for thinking of me. 
 
 " But however acceptable any preferment in Ireland 
 might be to me, I am sorry to say there is not the smallest 
 chance of my being able to get the appointment of my 
 present Uving for anybody. It is, however, no great 
 matter, as it has never yet cleared to me £100. It is in 
 Oxfordshire, and in the disposal of Sir Clement Cottrell ; 
 and when I tell you that the church and parsonage are 
 in Sir C.'s park, and adjoining his own seat, it will at once 
 strike you that he never would give it to a stranger, nor 
 even to any man he did not highly regard, lest such man 
 should prove a disagreeable neighbour. So that I really 
 doubt if I could get it for my own son (were he old enough), 
 for if Sir C. did not like him I know he would not give it 
 to him. This point, therefore, cannot be gained, and I 
 can only say that I wish Lord Hardwicke should under- 
 stand that I am in no particular hurry to be preferred, 
 and can by no means expect anything till he has satisfied 
 aU prior engagements. 
 
 " Moreover, I often think of what you and I most fuUy 
 agreed upon, that there are very few Uvings (with care of 
 souls) in Ireland that can be desirable to an Englishman, 
 from the great uncertainty of their value, and therefore 
 I must own that I should hesitate at the idea of giving up 
 a small certainty in Oxfordshire for any great uncertainty 
 in Ireland ; for I at this moment know two men who, with 
 livings about ;^i,ooo a year, have not received a shilling 
 for the last four years, and worse times may yet come to 
 pass there. Add to this that if I could mend my income 
 some hundreds a year by living in Ireland, the difference 
 
14 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 of the expense of educating my family and occasional 
 calls to London by family duty and business would not 
 a little cut into it, and you will allow there should be a 
 good balance to compensate the sacrifice of leaving one's 
 country and all family connections, though I by no 
 means say that I may not be induced so to do by many 
 good things there besides bishopricks, and shall be thank- 
 ful for every offer that may be made to me. 
 
 " As you say in your letter to me, a bird in the hand is 
 better than a distant contingency. So it often is, and I 
 should, perhaps, for that reason, have been glad to catch 
 at the first offer from many a man in Lord Hardwicke's 
 station ; but I too well know his character and goodness 
 of heart to harbour the smallest doubt of his not providing 
 for me in due time ; and although the Irish Bishops have 
 not dropped as they did at the beginning of Lord Camden's 
 reign, whose second chaplain, Dr. Porter, got a bishoprick 
 in a few months, still, luck may be in store, and many 
 may drop in the course of another year or two. 
 
 " It is not improbable I may, some day or other, but 
 have to congratulate you on being seated at Dublin, 
 for the present Arch-B. is by all accounts a bad life, 
 and as Lord Hardwicke is now hkely to continue long 
 in his situation, he may very probably be able to place 
 me, and two or three more after you, upon the Irish Bench. 
 But in case of any unforeseen contingency preventing 
 his doing thus much for me, I cannot have a doubt but 
 you will be thus exalted ; and then, as you once hinted 
 to me, it could be no difficult matter for Lord Hardwicke 
 to procure one, if not both of your livings in England for 
 me. Such, my dear Lindsay, are my candid sentiments 
 upon this subject ; and such are my reasons for not being 
 in a hurry to grasp at a care of souls (not too good, I fear) 
 in Ireland. 
 
 " I am highly flattered by Lord Hardwicke's kind and 
 handsome intentions towards me ; and I am sure I am 
 greatly obliged to you for your kind anxiety to promote 
 my interest with him. I am obliged to you and the 
 other gentlemen who preached on the days appointed 
 for my turn, which I shall not forget when I come to 
 Dublin ; and am, 
 
 " Yours most sincerely, 
 
 " Ch. Chester." 
 
 y^ -^ ^ 
 
IRISH PEERS WANTING JOBS IS 
 
 Here is a letter from Richard Longfield, of Longue- 
 ville, CO. Cork, Lord Longueville, addressed, in April, 1802, 
 to the Earl of Westmorland, entreating the ex- Viceroy 
 to recommend him to Hardwicke : " It is now thirteen 
 years," he says, " since I accepted the patronage of the 
 district of Cork in heu of office. For some years I had 
 great satisfaction in the preference ; but for the last three 
 years my claims have been infringed, and attended with 
 very unpleasant circumstances." In truth, the Irish 
 Executive, during these three years, had employed all the 
 patronage at their disposal to sap and disintegrate the 
 opposition to the Union, a measure which was determined 
 upon by Pitt during the Rebellion of 1798. In the 
 Viceroy's post-bag I came upon a letter from Castlereagh, 
 written from Harrogate, where he was "taking the waters," 
 on August 10, 1801, to Hardwicke in reference to the Union 
 engagements. " The arrangements of the Government 
 with a view to the accomplishment of the measure were 
 begun," he says, " as early as in the month of October, 
 1798." 
 
 Lord Longueville goes on to point out that he wrote 
 to Pitt complaining of the action of the Irish Executive 
 in appointing over his head to offices in his patronage 
 within the Revenue district of Cork. " My wishes now," 
 he adds, " are to be left in uninterrupted possession of 
 the patronage of the district of Cork until an equivalent 
 in office shall be held out to me, or until a friend of my 
 recommendation shall get the Bishopric of Cork or 
 Cloyne. The patronage of either of those situations 
 would make me ample amends for the relinquishment 
 of the patronage of the Revenue district of Cork." What 
 were his services to the Government ? He had secured 
 the seats for Cork and Mallow in the Irish ParHament in 
 the interest of Pitt for years at a cost of £30,000, and had 
 supported the Union. And what was his reward ? He 
 forgets to mention, in replying to his question, that for 
 his services on behalf of the Union he was elected an Irish 
 representative peer in the first group of twenty-eight 
 Irish peers which, under the terms of the Act of Union, 
 
i6 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 were to represent Ireland in the House of Lords of the 
 Imperial Parliament ; and that in December, 1800, he 
 was advanced from a Baron to a Viscount in the Irish 
 peerage. What he does say is that he was ignored in 
 the distribution of offices and sinecures because he had not 
 made a bargain with the Irish Executive for his support 
 of the Union in the Irish House of Lords, and for the 
 votes of the representatives of his pocket boroughs in the 
 Irish House of Commons. " Lord Shannon, who has 
 ever been my opponent," he says, " is First Lord of the 
 Irish Treasury at ;£3,ooo a year. Lord Boyle has the 
 reversion of Lord Liverpool's place. Clerk of the Pells, 
 £3,500 a year. Lord Donoughmore, as Commissioner, 
 £1,000 a year ; as searcher, packer, and ganger, £2,000 
 a year." " Contrast their situations and mine," he says 
 in a final outburst of virtue unrequited. " I have never 
 varied in my support ; I never made terms for the Union, 
 or any measure Mr. Pitt or you recommended ; I never 
 by any accident received one guinea of public money for 
 my own use for any office or situation." 
 
 Richard Hely-Hutchinson, Lord Donoughmore, to 
 whom Longueville refers as one of his rivals in the dis- 
 tribution of the patronage of Cork, was advanced to an 
 earldom in December, 1800, for his services in support 
 of the Union ; and, as Longueville indicates, held two 
 lucrative offices under the Crown — a Commissionership 
 of the Revenue at £1,000, and the sinecure post of 
 " searcher, packer, and ganger " at £2,000, per annum. 
 His brother, Francis Hely-Hutchinson, M.P., was also 
 in the enjoyment of the Collectorship of Dublin Port, 
 with a salary of £1,200 a year. Another brother, John^ 
 a distinguished soldier, who commanded the army in 
 Egypt, had just been raised to the peerage, for his military 
 services, as Baron Hutchinson of Alexandria and Knock- 
 lofty, CO. Tipperary, with a pension of £2,000 a year. But 
 Lord Donoughmore was not yet satisfied with the many 
 good things which had fallen to his family. He desired 
 for another brother, Abraham Hely-Hutchinson, that 
 very post in Cork — a city represented in Parliament by a 
 
THE SERVICES OF THE HELY-HUTCHINSONS 17 
 
 fourth brother, Christopher Hely-Hutchinson — which 
 
 Lord Longueville, in writing to Westmorland, also 
 
 coveted Here is Donoughmore's letter to Lord Hard- 
 
 wicke : 
 
 " Knocklofty, 
 
 "April 8, 1802. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Mr. Foster, the Collector of Excise at Cork, being 
 represented to me to be so dangerously ill as to make 
 his immediate dissolution almost unavoidable, will your 
 Excellency have the goodness to permit me, in such an 
 event, to submit my brother, Mr. Abraham Hely-Hutchin- 
 son, to your Excellency's kind consideration for that 
 appointment ? The representation of the city in which 
 this vacancy is likely to take place has been held by my 
 family, without any interruption, since the commence- 
 ment of the present reign. Its present representative, 
 as well as the brother for whom I now solicit, have been 
 employed, not unworthily, as Volunteers with the troops 
 in Egypt ; and on the subject of Union, so interesting 
 to the British Empire, and on which so hard a battle was 
 fought, I coulJ with confidence refer your Excellency to 
 Marquis Coriiwallis, your Excellency's predecessor in 
 the Government of Ireland, from whom, as well as from 
 Lord Castiereagh, I have the satisfaction of having in 
 my possession the strongest and most honourable acknow- 
 ledgments of my exertions, and those of my family, on 
 that occasion. 
 
 " These are my humble pretensions to the favour I 
 take the liberty of sohciting ; to which I must b& per- 
 mitted to add those marks of personal attention which I 
 have on all occasions had the honour of experiencing from 
 your Excellency. I have the honour to be, with great 
 respect, my Lord, 
 
 " Your Excellency's faithful, humble servant, 
 
 " DONOUGHMORE." 
 * * * 
 
 Hardwicke sent the following reply to Donoughmore : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 "No circumstance has occurred since my arrival 
 in this country which has made me regret more sensibly 
 the very particular situation in which I am placed in 
 regard to engagements than the letter which I received 
 
18 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 from your lordship the day before yesterday. Before 
 my appointment to the government of this country I 
 was apprised of the numerous engagements which Lord 
 Comwallis had been obhged to make, and which, as there 
 could be little expectation of his being enabled to satisfy 
 them during the period he was Ukely to remain in Ireland, 
 had been expressly sanctioned by his Majesty's Govern- 
 ment in England, and were delivered to me under that 
 sanction by Lord Comwallis and Lord Castlereagh. I 
 am, therefore, under the necessity, in the disposal of 
 whatever situation may become vacant, of looking to the 
 satisfaction of one or other of the engagements which I 
 have adopted ; and am, therefore, precluded from making 
 any application of the valuable office which is lately 
 become vacant at Cork, that shall not have that object 
 particularly in view. 
 
 " I flatter myself your lordship will give me credit for 
 a very sincere disposition to satisfy your personal wishes, 
 and to show that respect and regard to your family to 
 which they are so well entitled. In both those sentiments 
 generally I am sure that every branch of the King's 
 Government will concur ; and I beg leave for myself to 
 assure your lordship that this feeling has received addi- 
 tional force from my personal acquaintance and inter- 
 course with your lordship since my arrival in Ireland. 
 If you should be of opinion that any mode can be pointed 
 out, in conversation with myself or Mr. Marsden, after 
 your lordship's return to Dublin, by which the wish you 
 have expressed can be made consistent with the object 
 to which I am bound most scrupulously to adhere, it will 
 afford me particular satisfaction."* 
 
 * * * 
 
 Further light is thrown on this struggle between Longue- 
 \alle and Donoughmore for the reversion of the Cork 
 CoUectorship of Excise, and on the determination of Hard- 
 wicke to satisfy, as speedily as possible, the Union 
 engagements, by the answer which was returned 
 to Longueville's letter to Westmorland. That com- 
 munication was sent by Westmorland to Addington, 
 forwarded by Addington to WiUiam Wickham — then the 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland — and upon it Wickham made 
 
 * Abraham Hely-Hutchinson was ultimately appointed to the 
 CoUectorship of Clonmel. 
 
"UNION ENGAGEMENTS MUST HAVE PREFERENCE" 19 
 
 a " private and confidential " report for the Prime 
 Minister, a copy of which he sent to the Lord Lieutenant. 
 It is dated " St. James's Place, April 25, 1802," and is 
 as follows : 
 
 " Lord Longueville had very considerable Parliamen- 
 tary influence in Ireland, always voted with the Govern- 
 ment, and strongly supported the Union, for which 
 services he obtained, among other things, a promotion 
 in the Peerage, a seat here in the House of Lords, a seat 
 at the Revenue Board, and what is called the patronage 
 of Cork, jointly with Lord Donoughmore. But the Lord 
 Lieutenant says, first, ' I will never suffer what is called 
 the patronage of a place to be construed to extend to 
 situations of £yoo a year, such as the Collectorship of 
 Cork, which must necessarily be reserved to Govern- 
 ment '; secondly, all engagements of the kind (supposing 
 the Collectorship to be included under the word patron- 
 age) must give way to positive and specified Union 
 engagements ; thirdly, Union engagements, ever since 
 Lord Hardwicke went over, have been, without exception, 
 preferred to all others, so that we should have some of 
 the first people, and many of our best friends, seriously 
 dissatisfied, and with reason, if an exception to the 
 general rule were made in favour of Lord Longueville. 
 
 " Lord Longueville knew all this long before he wrote 
 the letter you have sent me to Lord Westmorland, and 
 long before the place became vacant, for I find among 
 the Speaker's papers the following memorandum : 
 
 '''March, 1801. — Lord Longueville states quarrel 
 with Lord Castlereagh ; remains attached to Mr. Pitt 
 and Lord Westmorland ; desires patronage of Revenue 
 offices in Cork, or to recommend to Bishoprick of Cork 
 or Cloyne. Answered — That the application would be 
 remembered, but could not be agreed to, directly or 
 indirectly. 
 
 March, 1801. — Same demands renewed to Lord 
 Hardwicke thro' Lord Westmorland. Answered nearly 
 in same manner, adding that at all events Union 
 engagements must have the preference. 
 
 June 16, 1801. — Demand renewed again for patron- 
 age of Cork to Lord Lieutenant. Answered as before. 
 
 December 19.— Demand that Mr. Foster, the late 
 Collector, then Hving, should resign to Mr. O'Connor, 
 
 2—2 
 
20 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 the person whom Lord Longueville now wished to 
 appoint. Answered — That the thing could not be, 
 because the place in question must he reserved to fulfil 
 Union engagements.'' 
 
 " But the fact is that Lord Donoughmore has an equal 
 claim to the place with Lord Longueville, if any claim 
 at all be admitted, which we are all bound most stoutly to 
 deny. All that the Lord Lieutenant desires is to give the 
 place (being one of great confidence) to a proper person, 
 and to get rid of a Union engagement. For this purpose 
 he will give it either to Lord Donoughmore or Lord 
 Longueville against their respective promises of places, 
 under Union engagements, of £500 a year each, though 
 the Collectorship is £750, and you may be assured that 
 though they may chuse to make a great noise about the 
 matter, they will be, either of them, very glad to make 
 such an arrangement." 
 
 A few days later Wickham, writing to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, reports : 
 
 " N.B. — I saw Mr. Addington on the 27th April, who 
 told me that in consequence of my letter he had distinctly 
 told Lord Westmorland that Lord Longueville could not 
 have the Collectorship without giving up an equivalent 
 to satisfy an Union engagement." 
 
 Thus for years Lord Longueville persisted in advancing 
 his claim to appoint to the bishopric of Cork whenever it 
 might become vacant. But his claim was ignored, be- 
 cause it was not a Union engagement. Besides, his lord- 
 ship was a most constant supporter of the Government, 
 and therefore did not count. " With regard to Lord 
 Longueville," Hardwicke wrote to the Home Secretary 
 in 1803, " it would be certainly too much to promise him 
 the reversion of the bishopric of Cork, and it is not neces- 
 sary for the purpose of keeping him steady." 
 
 Even political services, however notable, were not 
 allowed by Hardwicke to supersede any claim, how- 
 ever insignificant or undeserving, on the sacred " List 
 
A REMINISCENCE OF THE REBELLION OF 1798 21 
 
 of Union Engagements." Here is a striking in- 
 stance of services to the State in troublous times allowed 
 to go unrequited because of the promises of posts and 
 pensions so lavishly distributed by Lord Cornwallis to win 
 support for the Union : 
 
 " Antrim, 
 " jth February, 1802. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " On the ground of public services rendered to 
 this Kingdom by my son and myself, I am convinced 
 your Excellency will pardon the trouble which I am 
 about to give, and which I should not at present do 
 but from an occurrence which has lately taken place 
 here. 
 
 " It will be necessary to make a short statement of 
 the services of my son and myself, as your Excellency is, 
 perhaps, unacquainted with them. It is no less singular 
 than true that the two pieces of intelligence, productive 
 of the events which the Secret Committees of the Houses 
 of Lords and Commons of Ireland reported to be the 
 salvation of the country, came, the one from me and the 
 other from my son. I prefer' d a memorial to the Mar- 
 quis Cornwallis on the loth of October, 1798, setting 
 forth that on the 17th day of February, 1797, I seized 
 papers which would have eluded the search of most people, 
 and which I transmitted to Government ; and I received 
 a letter from Mr. Secretary Cooke, dated 22nd February, 
 1797, thanking me, by Lord Camden's command, for the 
 most essential information contained in them. I stated 
 in this memorial that in consequence of this information 
 the decisive steps were taken on the 3rd of March, 1797, 
 which the Committees of the Lords and Commons reported 
 to be the salvation of the country. 
 
 " I forwarded on the nth October, 1798, a copy of 
 this memorial to Lord Camden, who was acquainted with 
 the facts stated in the memorial, in which I set forth that 
 the Secret Committee of the House of Lords reported that 
 the saving of the country was in a great measure to be 
 attributed to the spirited conduct of the Visitors of the 
 College at the College Visitation. I also stated that this 
 Visitation was held in consequence of information given 
 by my son to the Provost of the College, who told me 
 that the salvation of the College was owing to the spirited 
 
22 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 conduct of my son.* In consequence of this spirited 
 conduct he gave up the almost certain prospect of a 
 Fellowship in said College, as appeared by the certificate 
 of the Provost and Senior Fellows of the College, I 
 having taken his name off the books to avoid assassina- 
 tion, after his having risk'd his life more than once in 
 duels for the service of the country. In answer to my 
 letter enclosing the memorial stating the above facts to 
 Lord Camden I received the following letter from his 
 Lordship : 
 
 " Brighthelmstone, 
 
 " November 4th, 1798. 
 " ' Sir, 
 
 " ' I have received your letter of the nth 
 October. The statement you have made of the cir- 
 cumstances in which you were engaged, and of the 
 encouragement to expect preferment which you re- 
 ceived, is perfectly correct ; and I shall be very happy 
 to hear that you receive any mark of the attention of 
 Government. 
 
 " ' I am, sir, your most obedient servant, 
 
 " ' Camden.' 
 
 " In July last I wrote to Lord Pelham relating to my 
 son, and received the following answer : 
 
 " Putney, 
 " July 2ist, 1 801. 
 " ' Sir, 
 
 " ' I have this day received the favour of yours 
 of the 13th, containing copies of letters from Lord 
 Macartney and your son to yourself. I mentioned 
 your son's name to Lord Hardwicke before he left 
 England, and have no doubt that he will attend to my 
 recommendation. At the same time I cannot pretend 
 to say that he may be able to do so to the extent of 
 your son's wishes. My original application to Lord 
 Comwallis was for a Commission in the Engineers, and 
 
 ♦ The College Visitation is a well-known episode in the history 
 of the Rebellion of 1798. It was conducted by the Earl of Clare, 
 Lord Chancellor, to inquire how far treasonable sentiments had 
 permeated the students. The investigation led to the expulsion 
 of several scholars, students, and sizars, including Robert Emmet, 
 
CHURCH PREFERMENT WANTED FOR AN OFFICER 23 
 
 I believe that Lord Comwallis was at all times very 
 much inclined to serve your son. 
 
 " ' I am your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 " ' Pelham.' 
 
 " I heard yesterday, from Mr. McNaghten at Lord 
 O'Neill's, that my old class-fellow, Dean Dobbs, died on 
 Thursday last. He was Dean of Connor, a preferment 
 worth ;^400, which he communicated to me, having some 
 thoughts of exchanging with me for some of my prefer- 
 ments for his sons, if it could be accomplished. My son, 
 who was recommended to your Excellency by Lord 
 Pelham on the ground of pubhc services, and wlio is at 
 present a iirst Lieutenant in the Artillery, has taken his 
 degree in Dublin College, and has attended the course of 
 Divinity lectures, by which he is qualified to be ordained. 
 May I, on the ground of both our services, suggest to your 
 Excellency the measure of appointing me to the Deanery 
 of Connor, in which diocese I have been a beneficed 
 clergyman for upwards of thirty years, and leaving me 
 to apply to the Marquis of Donegall, from whom I got 
 all my preferment in the Church as a private patron, in 
 order to get my son presented to some of my parishes ; 
 by which means my son and I would be taken off the 
 hands of Government ; and I trust your Excellency will 
 be of opinion that my request is not unreasonable. 
 
 " In case this request cannot be at present complied 
 with, I trust you will not take the application amiss. 
 
 "I am your Excellency's most obedient, humble 
 servant, 
 
 " Geo. Macartney." 
 
 The reply of the Lord Lieutenant, which he scrawled, 
 with many emendations and alterations, on a vacant page 
 of Macartney's letter, to be copied and forwarded by his 
 private secretary, must have given little comfort to the 
 reverend doctor : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " From the statement you have made in your 
 letter of the 7th inst. I should have been very happy to 
 have had it in my power to return a more satisfactory 
 answer to your apphcation with respect to the deanery 
 of Connor. I am, unfortunately, so circumstanced in 
 
-'4 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 regard to ecclesiastical preferment, that whenever a 
 vacancy occurs I am under the necessity of applying it 
 to the satisfaction of one or other of the Union engage- 
 ments of my predecessor. I am consequently entirely 
 precluded at present from granting any of your 
 wishes." 
 
 Another claimant for recognition of services rendered 
 to the State was the Rev. Philip Johnson, Derriaghy, 
 Antrim. Writing in July, 1804, he says, with reference 
 to his public conduct in the years 1793 and 1796 : 
 
 " At the commencement of the former of those years 
 an attempt was made by some factious Democrats in this 
 neighbourhood to induce the inhabitants of my parish 
 to join in measures which I always considered as tending 
 to promote sedition and rebellion. They proposed to 
 send delegates from Derriaghy to Ballymena, to consult 
 with other delegates about new modelling the Constitution. 
 On this occasion I did not adopt the same timid line of 
 conduct with many others, I did not withdraw myself 
 from the danger, I met them in full assembly, I came pre- 
 pared for the contest, I opposed the resolutions, they were 
 rejected and others of a direct contrary tendency were 
 proposed by me, carried, and published. The odium of 
 every factious and disloyal man which I thus incurred 
 was much increased in the year 1796, when my contiguity 
 to that grand focus of sedition, the town of Belfast, and 
 the maturity which their schemes had then acquired, 
 made it necessary for every loyal man to take an active 
 decided part. Having as a magistrate received informa- 
 tion of the treasonable designs then in agitation, which I 
 communicated to Government, generally through the 
 medium of Lord Castlereagh, to whom I am well known, 
 I thought it proper to adopt measures which might check 
 their machinations ; and before the estabhshment of the 
 Yeomanry Corps I conceived a plan which I submitted 
 to Lord O'Neill, then Governor of the County, and to my 
 Lord Castlereagh, and thro' them to Government ; and 
 which at least was not disapproved of, and agreeable to 
 which I soon after formed five or six parishes, being a 
 principal part of my Lord Hertford's estates, into small 
 armed bodies, including every loyal Protestant, who 
 were in some degree organized and prepared to check the 
 
A PARSON AS MAGISTRATE 25 
 
 progress of sedition, and withstand the open attempts 
 of the disaffected. 
 
 " Their capabihty of doing so was exemphfied in my 
 own parish on the 12th of November, 1796, when the 
 first and only attempt was made in this neighbourhood 
 to assemble large bodies of the disaffected under the pre- 
 tence of digging potatoes for an individual who had 
 shewn that he possessed the same principles and was 
 then in confinement. I got information of their intention 
 before the time of meeting. The place where they were 
 to assemble was some miles distant from me, in the most 
 unfrequented and least civihzed part of my parish. Yet 
 I did not hesitate to meet them. I gave notice of my 
 design to the leading men of the loyalist associations. 
 We came upon them from different quarters, we instantly 
 dispersed them, and took more than forty prisoners, 
 whom I conducted to the town of Lisburn, and there 
 detained them till I sent for the late Lord Downshire, 
 who was then at Hillsborough, and they were afterwards 
 disposed of agreeable to his lordship's pleasure. 
 
 " The resentment was great which I had incurred from 
 the disaffected before this time, especially by the infor- 
 mations which I had received and communicated to 
 Government of their proceedings, and which even in- 
 duced my Lord Castlereagh to come to Lisburn that he 
 might superintend the execution of the arrests which 
 Government had resolved on. I had the honour to 
 second his lordship on this occasion. I assisted in form- 
 ing the plan, and was the person who in company with 
 his lordship made a prisoner of Charles Teeling in the 
 town of Lisburn,* which was the commencement of the 
 active measures then adopted by Government. I after- 
 
 * Charles Hamilton Teeling was one of the leaders of the 
 Ulster United Irishmen. In his " Personal Narrative of the 
 Irish Rebellion " he gives an interesting account of his arrest in 
 September, 1796. As he was riding with his father through the 
 streets of Lisburn Lord Castlereagh met them. " He accosted 
 us with his usual courtesy," says TeeUng. " We had proceeded 
 up the streets of Lisburn together, when, having reached the house 
 of his uncle, the Marquis of Hertford, we were about to take leave 
 of his lordship. ' I regret,' said he, addressing my father, ' that 
 your son cannot accompany you,' conducting me at the same 
 time through the outer gate, which, to my inexpressible astonish- 
 ment, was instantly closed, and I found mvself surrounded by a 
 military guard." Teeling was detained in prison without trial 
 for about two years, and then released. 
 
26 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 wards accompanied his lordship in several expeditions 
 by day and night to apprehend the persons against whom 
 I had received information, the immediate consequences 
 of which to myself were that repeated attempts were 
 made to assassinate me. One on the 8th of October, 
 1796, had nearly proved fatal. I was attacked by two 
 assassins armed with bayonets and pistols about nine 
 o'clock at night in a street of Lisburn, immediately after 
 I had taken into custody persons charged with treason. 
 One of the villains fired a pistol at me behind my back ; 
 the ball entered my shoulder, and was extracted at my 
 breast. Government offered a reward of £300 for dis- 
 covering these fellows, but in vain. 
 
 " I soon recovered from the effects of my wound, and 
 my ardour was not damped. On the 12th of November 
 following, before my wound was quite healed, I was able 
 to enter again on active service, as I have already men- 
 tioned. From that time to the present I have continued 
 to use every effort in my power to shew my loyalty and 
 to serve my countr}^ To enable me to do so I asked and 
 was appointed to be Captain of two Corps of Yeomanry, 
 the Ballymacash Loyal Infantry, and the Derriaghy 
 Supplementaries, — the former consisting of 150 non-com- 
 missioned officers and privates, the latter of 106. 
 
 " But I have not, as yet, received or asked from Govern- 
 ment any emolument or compensation to myself for 
 what I have done or suffered. I have been found fault 
 with by my friends on this account ; they urge me to lay 
 aside my reserve, and in compliance with their wishes I 
 have taken the liberty of laying this detail before your 
 Excellency. For the truth of everything I have here 
 mentioned I would appeal to any person who has had an 
 opportimity of knowing it, especially to my Lord Castle- 
 reagh, respecting those circumstances where I have used 
 his name, or to my Lord Hertford, on whose estate I was 
 bom and have always lived, and who knows my family, 
 my public and private character and myself. If, after 
 having ascertained that I have stated nothing but the 
 truth, your Excellency thinks me deserving of any favour, 
 I would receive it in the line of my profession as a clergy- 
 man with the sincerest gratitude, particularly if you will 
 confer on me the rectory of Ahoghil,* now vacant by the 
 
 * On the margin of the letter there is a note scrawled in pencil 
 by Hardwicke : " Given to the Rev, Mr. Leslie at the particular 
 request of Lord Hertford." 
 
THE ORANGEMEN AND THE UNION 27 
 
 death of the Rev. Edward Hudson, which is in the gift of 
 Government. 
 
 " I have the honour to remain your Excellency's 
 most faithful and devoted humble servant, 
 
 " Philip Johnson." 
 
 " To which I might have added — That at no period 
 either before or since 1796 have my exertions in support 
 of the Laws and Constitution been wanting when they 
 appeared likely to prove useful. I take no notice of 
 what I did in 1798, many thousands did the same — that 
 is, everything in their power to suppress an unnatural 
 Rebellion, which threatened ruin and destruction to all. 
 But in the year 1800 I found myself on the great question 
 of the Union in a peculiar and trying situation. I had 
 made up my own mind on the subject, and I thought 
 differently from many loyal honest men, with whom I 
 had formerly acted. Some time before this I had become 
 an Orangeman, when I was convinced that the Institution 
 was founded on principles in which all loyal Protestants 
 could join, that it could not be suppressed without in- 
 juring the cause of Loyalty, and that it might be highly 
 useful if properly directed, tho' like everything that is 
 good it might be liable to abuse. I could not after- 
 wards refuse, when called upon, to take a lead in it. I 
 was made a master, then district master of Lisbum, 
 and, on the first vacancy, grand master of the County of 
 Antrim. 
 
 " When the question of Union came to be agitated, 
 Orangemen were divided in their opinions, and publica- 
 tions appeared under their name repudiating the measure. 
 Some men in elevated stations, particularly the late Lord 
 Downshire, wished to make use of them as an instrument, 
 and encouraged them in their opposition. I was aware 
 of the bad effects which might attend their interference ; 
 and Mr. Smith of Lisburn shewed me a letter from Lord 
 Londonderry requesting his assistance in preventing the 
 Orangemen of this neighbourhood from throwing their 
 weight into the scale of opposition. Mr. Smith is not an 
 Orangeman, and could do nothing ; but at my desire he 
 sent his lordship a copy of the enclosed address then in 
 contemplation from the Grand Lodge of the County of 
 Antrim, which I proposed, brought forward, and which, 
 
28 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 being published, put a stop to the business.* From this 
 time they were never known as Orangemen to decide or 
 give an opinion on that or any other pohtical subject. I 
 enclose another address which, as Grand Master of the 
 County, I thought right to publish on the renewal of the 
 War. and a copy of our Obligation. 
 
 " I was unwilling, however, to mention these circum- 
 stances to his Excellency, not knowing whether they 
 would increase or lessen my interest with Administra- 
 tion ; tho' I might have assured him in the most positive 
 manner that my influence would continue to be exerted, 
 as it always has been, in promoting what is evidently 
 conducive to the cause of Loyalty, and a due obedience 
 to the Laws. I might have gone further, and have given 
 it as my opinion, to which my own conduct will, certainly, 
 be conformable, if our Government shall clearly and 
 decidedly express their wish totally to suppress the 
 Orange institution, that from thence forward it will be, 
 if not altogether dissolved, at least rendered incapable 
 of giving offence even to its enemies." 
 
 With Johnson's letter there is a half-sheet of note- 
 paper, on which the Lord Lieutenant wrote the following 
 pencilled directions for his private secretary : 
 
 " Inform Mr. J. that though it is not in my power to 
 comply with his request on account of the number of 
 
 * " In spite of the resolution in favour of neutrality passed by 
 the Grand Lodge, the Orangemen over a great part of Ireland 
 were straining fiercely, like hounds in the leash. Few things in 
 the history'' of this period are more curious than the many Orange 
 resolutions protesting against the Union. The Grand Lodge was 
 accused of having betrayed the country under the influence of a 
 few great placeholders. Representations of no less than thirty- 
 six lodges assembled at Armagh declared that it made no material 
 difference whether the Constitution was robbed by open and 
 avowed enemies or by pretended friends, w^ho were, in reality, 
 the deadliest enemies of the country, and that it was the duty of 
 all Orangemen to stand forward in opposition to the impending 
 measure. The representation of thirteen Orange lodges in the 
 county of Fermanagh at once echoed this language, and very 
 similar resolutions were passed by many other lodges in different 
 parts of Ireland. A large proportion of the lodges, it is true, 
 obeyed the direction of the Grand Lodge and kept silence on the 
 subject, and some individual Orangemen were conspicuous sup- 
 porters of the Union ; but there is not, I believe, a single instance 
 of an Orange resolution in its favour." (Lecky : " Ireland in the 
 Eighteenth Century.") 
 
THE CLAIM OF A POLITICAL PAMPHLETEER 29 
 
 engagements to which I have been obhged to pay atten- 
 tion, I have kept his memorial as a certificate of his 
 publick merits." 
 
 A very curious and interesting personalty who is to 
 be met with often in the Viceroy's post-bag — mainly 
 in the unheroic capacity of a place-hunter — is the Rev. 
 Thomas Brooke Clarke, D.D., an Irish Protestant clergy- 
 man living in London, and a political pamphleteer. He 
 sent to Hardwicke the following letter in support of his 
 claim to preferment in Ireland : 
 
 " 24, Alsop Buildings, Marylebone, 
 " 2%th May, 1802. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 "It is some and the sole alleviation of very 
 poignant feelings which I labour under at this moment, 
 that they bring with them the means of giving to your 
 Excellency perhaps some useful information, and afford 
 me an opportunity of testifying my zeal and attachment 
 to your interests. 
 
 " I had the honour of an interview with Mr. Wickham 
 two days since, of which I shall relate the occasion here- 
 after, during which he mentioned that the late and the 
 present Administration were on the best terms, and in 
 habits of mutual good offices arid strict friendship. On 
 this point I could only keep silence with respect to Mr. 
 Wickham. But it may not be unnecessary to apprise your 
 Excellency of some circumstances within my own know- 
 ledge, whereby you may, on combining them with others, 
 steer your opinion on the nature and consequences of 
 the connection now subsisting between the late and 
 present Government. I disclose these matters to you in 
 confidence, which I shall not do to any other man, though 
 I am not bound to secrecy but by my own discretion, and 
 a sense of the importance of such matters remaining 
 generally unknown. 
 
 " I had a long conference with Mr. Dundas the other 
 day on various topics. Your Excellency knows his 
 public sentiments, as uttered in the House, on the Peace. 
 But entering into different circumstances with me, relative 
 to the present Administration, he said they sometimes 
 consulted Mr. Pitt and him, who freely gave them their 
 opinions, but that no other connection subsisted between 
 
30 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 them. And he added, that such were the sentiments of 
 Mr. Pitt with respect to the present Government, that he 
 never would ask a favour from them, and, if I do not 
 mistake, he also said, never accept of one. The same 
 sentiments likewise he uttered for himself. But, my 
 Lord, something, perhaps, still stronger has come to my 
 knowledge within^these few days. Mr. Rose has in a con- 
 versation with a friend of mine — a man of great respect- 
 ability and considerable talent — condemned different 
 proceedings of the present Administration, some as in- 
 jurious to the country and totally opposite to the intentions 
 of Mr. Pitt, and others as dangerous in their immediate 
 and ruinous in their remote consequences. For the truth 
 of his having made these remarks I will venture to pledge 
 myself. 
 
 " The conclusion which I draw from these, and from 
 Mr, Dundas's public and private sentiments, as well as 
 from a variety of other circumstances, is this — Mr. Pitt 
 and his party are not bond fide friends to the Addington 
 Administration, but they do not appear hostile to their 
 measures ; they support them rather than add strength 
 to Opposition. Mr. Pitt and his friends, however, only 
 rest on their oars until the gale and the tide answer, when 
 Mr. Pitt will come into his former station in the Commons, 
 and Mr. Dundas be probably placed at the helm in the 
 House of Peers. Perhaps I draw wrong inferences from 
 true premises. If so, your Excellency will make better 
 use of them. But to your bosom alone, my Lord, I con- 
 fide them as facts which are too true to be generally 
 known. 
 
 " And now I shall pass to the personal circumstances 
 which led to a knowledge of the former. Here, my Lord, 
 I must entreat your pardon and your patience. I have 
 much at stake, but I shall be brief, and shall not state a 
 circumstance that is unnecessary. 
 
 " During my conference with Mr. Dundas I mentioned 
 to him Lord Castlereagh's interview with me while the 
 Union was pending, and his most earnestly advising me 
 to give up the point which I urged of a specific engage- 
 ment on a particular object, for the general one of my 
 name being put on the List of Irish Preferment. I men- 
 tioned to him that having supposed Lord Castlereagh's 
 advice to be founded on a liberal honesty in directing 
 me to do what he had the power of knowing was best 
 
CASTLEREAGH REPUDIATES A UNION ENGAGEMENT 31 
 
 for me under existing circumstances, and not having a 
 doubt of his honour in the performance of it, I yielded to 
 his counsel and told his lordship I would abide by his 
 advice, and commit the whole matter and my success to 
 his hands. I reminded Mr. Dundas also of his applica- 
 tion to Lord Castlereagh in my favour some few days 
 after this interview, and of Lord Castlereagh's confirma- 
 tion of his engagement to me by teUing Mr. Dundas what 
 had passed, and of his being apprised of my object before 
 Mr. Dundas's recommendation. Mr. Dundas answered 
 these representations, when I had submitted them to 
 him, by saying this was very true, and he thought I ought 
 to call on Lord Castlereagh and get him to perform his 
 engagement. 
 
 " I paused, however, to reflect on this, and feeling 
 some repugnance with respect to Lord Castlereagh from 
 his conduct, I consulted Mr. Beresford* as one in whose 
 judgment and honour I could confide. He advised me 
 to apply to Mr. Wickham and ask him to speak to Lord 
 Castlereagh, and try if he would acknowledge the engage- 
 ment, and desired me to refer Mr. Wickham for a confir- 
 mation of it to Mr. Dundas. It may be necessary here 
 to restate that after my interview with Lord Castlereagh 
 Mr. Dundas had one with him, and recommended me and 
 my claims to him, and finding that everything was settled, 
 and the business of my preferment fixed, he wrote a letter 
 to me saying that he had recommended me to Lord Castle- 
 reagh, but that he had told him that he had seen me 
 previously and was already apprised of my object. This 
 letter I once showed to your Excellency, and I have it 
 stiU. 
 
 " But a long time after aU applications to ensure pre- 
 ferment had been set at rest by promise and expectation 
 from Lord Castlereagh, I received a letter from him 
 swerving from his engagement to Mr. Dundas and me. 
 Struck by such conduct I went instantly with his lord- 
 ship's letter to Mr. Dundas, who said, much surprised, ' I 
 must confess. Dr. Clarke, this is extraordinary. Lord 
 Castlereagh gave me every reason to think that your 
 preferment was a matter fixed. When I spoke to him 
 he informed me that he had been apprised of your object 
 by yourself before I recommended you, and I certainly 
 
 * John Beresford, M.P., a politician who exercised enormous 
 influence in Ireland. 
 
32 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 understood both from his words and manner that it would 
 be accompHshed.' I shewed Lord Castlereagh's letter 
 swerving from his engagement to your Excellency in 
 New Cavendish-street, and I mentioned to you, at the same 
 time, my having shewn it to Mr. Dundas and his remarks 
 on it, as I have just now stated them. My object in 
 so doing was at Mr. Dundas's desire in order to get your 
 Excellency to join with him in an application to Mr. Pitt 
 when he found that Lord Castlereagh had violated his 
 engagement, or rather seemed inclined so to do. When 
 I shewed these letters to you,, and stated those remarks 
 of Mr. Dundas on Lord Castlereagh's engagement to me, 
 I never thought I should have occasion to call your 
 Excellency's recollection toward them now. 
 
 " Mr. Beresford said that if Lord Castlereagh would 
 acknowledge this engagement, and your Excellency think 
 proper to admit it, it would exonerate Lord Castlereagh 
 from carrying his engagement further into effect, of which 
 he, no doubt, would be glad, and fully empower your 
 Excellency to put me on the List, and act in whatever 
 manner you might think fit after. I followed the counsel 
 of Mr. Beresford, and waited on Mr. Wickham, whose 
 kindness, politeness and good sense I am fully sensible 
 of. He in a very handsome manner said, after hearing 
 my statement, that as a Minister he could not admit a 
 mere personal statement from any gentleman ; it must 
 be confirmed by the late Administration ; and that as he 
 found I was dissatisfied with Lord Castlereagh he could 
 not open the business to him, it was a matter of so much 
 delicacy. (I did not interrupt Mr. Wickham, and I 
 omitted afterwards to acquaint him that Lord Castle- 
 reagh had not the most distant knowledge of my senti- 
 ments or dissatisfaction with respect to him.) ' But,' 
 said Mr. Wickham, ' if Mr. Dundas will avow his promises 
 to you, and Lord Castlereagh acknowledge his, then, 
 indeed, the matter will come before me in a proper shape.' 
 I felt the force of this immediately, thanked Mr. Wick- 
 ham, and told him I left him perfectly content. To which 
 he very good-humoredly and in a very friendly manner 
 replied, ' Then, Dr. Clarke, I am truly sorry not to make 
 you more content.' 
 
 " But, my Lord, I was perfectly content when he said, 
 ' If Mr. Dundas would avow his promises, and Lord 
 Castlereagh acknowledge his, the matter would come 
 
THE PAMPHLETEER'S APPEAL TO THE VICEROY 33 
 
 forward in a proper shape.' Because, my Lord, I believe 
 that to your Excellency Mr. Dundas's promises are 
 abundantly known. Perhaps also in your kind inter- 
 view with him on my account he has himself stated to 
 you what has passed with Lord Castlereagh. If he has 
 not, I have no doubt but he will, if called upon. And, 
 my Lord, as my exertions on the question of the Union 
 are known to you, as the promises are, I believe, not 
 unknown to you, which really drew me from my profes- 
 sional engagements, and whereby I have sustained a loss 
 of some hundreds of pounds per annum, which I resigned 
 in order to devote myself wholly to the one object, perhaps 
 your Excellency will on these grounds of public justice, 
 backed by the earnest entreaties of private friendship, 
 interfere with Lord Castlereagh. To your Excellency he 
 will probably readily acknowledge his engagement, when 
 he understands that you are about to exonerate him 
 from the trouble of performing it, or the reproach of its 
 violation. It is, however, the opinion of Mr. Dundas, 
 ' that the knowledge of what has passed fuUy empowers 
 your Excellency to have my name inserted on the List 
 by your own desire, as a man whose claims on the ground 
 of service both the Government of England and Ireland 
 have acknowledged, and which are known likewise to 
 yourself.' Pardon this statement ; it is Mr. Dundas's 
 words, not mine. 
 
 " But, my Lord, if I have rendered services to the 
 country, it is to you the country is indebted. Perhaps 
 the letter forwarded by your Excellency to Mr. Pitt con- 
 taining reasons for the measure of an Union, six months 
 before he brought it forward, was of more service than 
 all the efforts of my mind afterward. However, my 
 Lord, I feel that this is the crisis of my future fortune. 
 All my exertions, my hopes and expectations, my loss 
 of income and waste of time, all are now at stake, all 
 must be lost, unless, my Lord, you stretch out an hand 
 to save me. If I succeed it can be only and wholly by 
 your generosity and kindness. Mr. Dundas's prornises, 
 I beheve, you know, or have reasons not to doubt of. 
 Lord Castlereagh's are not, perhaps, altogether unknown 
 to you, and he probably will not be sorry to acknowledge 
 his engagement when the bare acknowledgment will 
 rub out the score. Then, my Lord, you will have the 
 matter in proper shape before you, as Mr. Wickham said. 
 
34 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 At present it is in one that gives birth to very pregnant 
 sensations on my part. 
 
 " But, my Lord, while I am capable of feeling I shall 
 enjoy pleasure in being permitted to sign myself always, 
 
 " Your Excellency's faithful, attached, and obhged 
 humble servant, 
 
 " Thos. B. Clarke." 
 
 On June 8, 1802, Clarke sent the following note to the 
 Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " Though I had the honor of writing to your Excellency 
 only about a week since, yet the present object will, I 
 trust, plead for my taking up my pen again so soon. I 
 am going to collect my different pamphlets on the Union, 
 in order to form a volume. I beg permission to dedicate 
 that volume to you. If it has been useful to the country 
 or honourable to me, to you we are both indebted. All 
 the good of this volume belongs to your Excellency ; all 
 the bad to me alone." 
 
 The reply of the Lord Lieutenant to this communica- 
 tion was a brief, angry note telling Clarke to trouble him 
 no more with political tittle-tattle. Its effect on Clarke 
 is seen in the following letter : 
 
 " 24, Alsop Buildings, Marylebone, 
 "13 August, 1802. 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " Since the time I had the honour of making your 
 Excellency's acquaintance, I have passed so far down 
 the vale of life as to be not very distant, perhaps, from 
 the end of my journey. It has been, I may say with truth, 
 one of great labour and sorrow. I have, however, in 
 looking over my past accounts, minutely examined my 
 heart and conduct towards your Excellency throughout 
 that period. And, Heaven now witness my truth, that 
 I have borne along with me but one impression of attach- 
 ment toward your Excellency, pure, unaltered, uninter- 
 rupted. If, however, I have by any means erred of late, 
 my judgment may have been in fault — this I am ready 
 to avow — but my heart or my principles never. Indeed, 
 where I am induced to surmise I have erred is, perhaps, a 
 strong proof in itself of my zeal and feelings, accompanied 
 by respect for your Excellency. I thought it honest, I 
 
VICEROY DECLINES TO MAKE NEW ENGAGEMENTS 35 
 
 conceived it to be my duty, to conceal nothing from your 
 Excellency whereof the knowledge could prove useful, 
 by enabling you to correct, or to anticipate, or to prevent 
 consequences. Toward others for whom I felt not an 
 equal interest, I would not have been blind to the policy 
 of silence. But, my Lord, the transaction of the Univer- 
 sity* and the conversation of Mr. Dundas were, in my 
 opinion, of too much importance to be concealed one 
 moment from you. If, however, I have erred in com- 
 municating them I cannot now do such violence to the 
 settled habits of my Hfe as not to give way to feelings 
 which have grown up with me through youth and man- 
 hood for your Excellency, and say I am truly distressed 
 to have communicated anything which may have given 
 you one moment's uneasiness and displeasure. Youi 
 Excellency, I am sure, will do me the justice not to 
 doubt that my sole aim and object were not to offend 
 but to serve you — to give proof of my attachment, and 
 not of the errors of my judgment. 
 
 " I hope, therefore, after this declaration on my part, 
 and an appeal to your Excellency's head and heart, that 
 if any dissatisfaction exist its impressions will be done 
 away. But, my Lord, do not attribute this step to any 
 mean policy. My regret is the effect of a proud attach- 
 ment to yourself and your principles, not of a narrow 
 or selfish one to your distinguished situation or your 
 power. I have due feelings of respect for the character 
 of Viceroy of Ireland, but infinitely more than this for 
 the character of Lord Hardwicke. It is to your integrity 
 and virtues I have been attached throughout life ; and 
 still remain, my dear Lord, with truth and fidelity, 
 
 " Your Excellency's respectful and sincere servant, 
 
 " Thos. B. Clarke." 
 
 In reply to this letter the Viceroy, writing from the 
 Phoenix Park on October 21, 1802, assured Clarke that 
 
 * The allusion to Dublin University refers to an earlier letter 
 sent by Clarke to the Lord Lieutenant. In it he states that 
 he had had a communication from Dublin declaring that the 
 unsympathetic and, indeed, abrupt manner in which Lindsay, 
 his Excellency's private secretary, had received Prime Serjeant 
 Browne, who came to solicit the support of the Lord Lieutenant 
 for a Bill to be promoted in Parliament for enabling the Fellows 
 of the University to marry, had excited " a great ferment of 
 indignation in Trinity College." 
 
 3—2 
 
 ^ 
 
36 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 he had not received from the late Administration any 
 engagement with regard to his preferment, and that he 
 had reason to know that such was the sense both of Corn- 
 walhs and Castlereagh of the burden which had been 
 placed on his patronage by the Union Engagements, that 
 they would on no account consent to ask for the enlarge- 
 ment of the List by even one other name. 
 
 " I am well aware," he goes on, "as I doubt not Lord 
 Comwallis was, of the services rendered to the cause of 
 the Union by your literary labours ; and for that reason, 
 as well as on account of the length of our acquaintance, I 
 should have great pleasure in being able to promote your 
 views of better preferment in Ireland. But when I 
 recollect that to this hour the heavy mortgage left by my 
 predecessor on the patronage of the country has pre- 
 cluded me from paying attention to any claim, however 
 strong, and whether of a public or a private description, 
 I am sure you will not be surprised at my declining to 
 make any new engagements, or add to those which have 
 already been productive of so much embarrassment." 
 
 The kindlier terms of this letter touched the heart of 
 Clarke, and moved him to the warmest expressions of 
 gratitude. 
 
 " I have at this moment been honoured with your 
 letter," he writes on October 25, 1802, " which has 
 lightened a load that has oppressed me long and beyond 
 what I can or ought to attempt to describe. But let me 
 forget it in the moment that I wish to thank your Ex- 
 cellency, and assure you, my Lord, that however I have 
 suffered, my attachment and respectful esteem never 
 
 abated one instant." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The following letter, written to the Lord Lieutenant by 
 
 the Rear-Admiral Whitshed, in reference to his father, 
 
 the Bishop of Raphoe, shows that it was not an entirely 
 
 self-seeking age : 
 
 " Raphoe Castle, 
 
 " December 28th, iSo^. 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " When I had last the honor of seeing your Ex- 
 cellency you were so much hurried that I deemed it 
 
A BISHOP'S INATTENTION TO WORLDLY INTERESTS 37 
 
 imprudent to speak on a subject which I had previously 
 mentioned to Mr. Wickham, and in which I cannot help 
 feeling the most Uvely interest. The feeble and lethargic 
 state in which I find my poor father no way tends to lessen 
 that feeling, and altho' for the present he has recovered 
 from the attack he had, yet such a one at 80 cannot have 
 been made with impunity, and must be look'd on as the 
 forerunner of something more fatal. 
 
 " I am well aware, my Lord, that I have no claim m 
 my individual person that could for an instant justify 
 the request I am about to make. But I own I look with 
 the utmost confidence to your Excellency's kindness, and 
 I may almost say justice, fairly to consider the situation 
 in which the bishop's two sons will be placed on the day 
 of his dissolution, when the singular phenomenon will 
 be exhibited of a man having been a bishop thirty years, 
 and having one son upwards of twenty-four years and 
 another upwards of sixteen years in the Church, and yet, 
 together, not possessing above four hundred and fifty 
 pounds per annum in it. 'Tis natural that this statement 
 should excite some surprise, and the bishop must be 
 known before it can be well understood. The early part 
 of his Hfe exhibited the same inattention to worldly con- 
 cerns that the later periods of it have done ; and con- 
 scientiously and meekly to discharge his duty and to 
 walk humbly with his God, has been the sole object of 
 his existence in this world. Such, my Lord, in a few 
 words, is the character of this good man ; and your Ex- 
 cellency will, I am sure, no longer be surprised to hear 
 that every older and poorer person than his sons in his 
 diocese succeeded to vacant livings, and were provided 
 for before t- y obtained even what they now possess. 
 The same aignified feeling prevented his ever asking for 
 them what nothing would induce him to accept ; and I 
 know well that he has more than twice refused to hold, 
 before he was a bishop, two livings, and that almost any 
 man but himself, placed as he was, might have been Bishop 
 of Clogher. Your Excellency will not wonder then when 
 you are told that he used his influence in the country and 
 supported the measure of the Union in Parliament with 
 all his power, without a thought of himself and his family, 
 and true to his principles he conscientiously discharged 
 his duty. 
 
 " Having now, my Lord, stated the character of the 
 
38 THOSE EMBARRASSING UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 man, and laid the nature of his case before you, shall I 
 be too sanguine if I indulge the hope that your Ex- 
 cellency will not suffer the sons of the good man who 
 scom'd to barter his duty for his interest, to be worse off 
 than those who hesitated not to study their individual 
 advantage before the benefit of the State ? 
 
 " I have taken the liberty thus to address your Lord- 
 ship, preferring it to the roundabout mode of those 
 recommendations which I might procure to your Ex- 
 cellency from England, some of which, however, will I 
 dare say be presented, from the solicitude of my friends 
 there. But it would, indeed, be to me most flattering 
 and gratifying to think that to your Excellency's kindness 
 alone I owed the advancement of my brothers. 
 
 " I am now to apologise for the liberty I have taken, 
 and which, under all the circumstances of the case, I 
 trust your Excellency will forgive. I have the honor to 
 subscribe myself, with the highest respect, your Ex- 
 cellency's most obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 " J. Whitshed." 
 
 The Viceroy, as usual, was extremely careful in the 
 phrasing of his reply. The draft of his letter is full of 
 alterations. Dated January lo, 1804, it runs : 
 
 " I trust you will do me the justice to believe that I 
 enter entirely into the feelings which you must have on 
 the subject of your brothers, in consequence of the situa- 
 tion in which they are likely to be left from a pardonable, 
 tho' certainly an unfortunate delicacy on the part of 
 the Bishop of Raphoe. The circumstances you have 
 stated, and the interest which you very naturally take 
 in your brothers' welfare, render me very desirous of 
 holding out some expectation that I may be able, sooner 
 or later, in some degree to gratify your wishes. But as 
 I should be equally unwilling to promise more than I 
 am likely to be able to perform, I think it right to explain 
 to you the very unpleasant situation in which I have been 
 placed in regard to patronage, ecclesiastical as well as 
 civil, by the engagements which my predecessor was 
 under the necessity of contracting, and which devolved 
 upon me under the sanction of the late and present 
 Administrations. From this circumstance I have not 
 had the opportunity of disposing of a single Living that 
 
AN IRISH PEER IN DISTRESS 39 
 
 has fallen to the patronage of the Crown exceeding an 
 hundred pounds per annum, and I have still two or three 
 engagements for Church patronage unsatisfied. In the 
 meantime some engagements have had necessarily to be 
 made, to the liquidation of which I must consider myself 
 pledged, whenever this heavy mortgage of the Union is 
 paid off, and which, of course, it would be difficult to 
 supersede. 
 
 " I have troubled you with this long explanation, be- 
 cause I should really be happy to be able to say that I 
 was at liberty to comply with your request at an early 
 opportunity. Subject to those engagements by which I 
 am bound, and without binding myself for anything 
 specific, which is beyond my power, I shall have great 
 pleasure in recording your wishes, and I hope not in- 
 effectually, for I assure you it would afford me great 
 satisfaction to be instrumental in promoting the views 
 you have in favour of your brothers." 
 
 * 4: Hi 
 
 There was nothing left even for members of the Irish 
 peerage, upon whom misfortune and distress had fallen 
 through no fault of their own. Here is a petition from 
 Richard Meade, Earl of Clanwilliam, co. Tipperary, whose 
 father died in 1800 : 
 
 " His Majesty was pleased to grant to my father, the 
 late Earl of Clanwilliam, dignities of Peerage. I have 
 succeeded to those dignities, but find on looking into the 
 state of my affairs that the entire of the property which 
 should have been my paternal inheritance is involved, and 
 hable to more debts and charges than it is worth, and not 
 of my creating. I have been told that in similar situa- 
 tions the Crown has in many instances extended its 
 liberality for the support of the Peerage. May I take the 
 liberty of requesting your ExceUency laying this my case 
 before his Majesty ? j o j 
 
 "September 13th, 1801." 
 
 It was a sad case, but no assistance could be rendered. 
 Lord Clanwilliam was informed that the promises of 
 pensions for services on behalf of the Union must have the 
 prior claim on the Government, and that it would prob- 
 ably take years to redeem them.. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 What was this list of Union Engagements which so worried 
 Lord Hardwicke by mortgaging the patronage of his office? 
 What was this sinister document which cast the shadow 
 of perplexity and embarrassment over the entire five years 
 of his Viceroyalty ? It is notorious that the Irish Parlia- 
 ment, which in the session of 1799 refused to decree its 
 extinction, was induced by the distribution of honours, 
 places, and pensions among its members, and persons of 
 political influence outside, to carry the BiU of Union in 
 the session of 1800. CornwaUis, the Lord Lieutenant, 
 and Castlereagh, the Chief Secretary, were authorized by 
 the Cabinet of William Pitt, with the consent of the 
 King, to bestow any rewards and give any engagements 
 they thought necessary in order to win support for the 
 Union. " A shameless traffic in votes began," writes the 
 unprejudiced and impartial Lecky, " and many men of 
 great name and position in the world were bought as 
 literally as cattle in the cattle-market." 
 
 Even before the Union was carried the Lord Lieutenant 
 — as we learn from " The CornwaUis Correspondence " — 
 sent over to the Cabinet a list of sixteen names, all of 
 them, with a few exceptions, members of the House of 
 Commons, who had been promised Irish peerages for their 
 political services, with a request for the immediate issue 
 of their patents of nobility. King George III. grumbled 
 at the BiU. The Cabinet were reluctant to blazon forth 
 to the world in this fashion the shameful means by which 
 
 40 
 
" YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BRIBE ME " 41 
 
 they were endeavouring to effect the Union of Ireland with 
 Great Britain. But CornwalHs wrote peremptorily that his 
 engagements must be carried out, or else he should resign 
 " If the King withholds his consent," says he, " he will 
 be pleased to aUow me to retire from a station which I 
 could no longer hold with honour to myself, or with any 
 prospect of advantage to his service." So the account 
 was settled. After the Union had been carried, other 
 accounts, still more exorbitant in their character, were 
 presented by the Irish Administration to the Cabinet. 
 One was for the creation of twenty-eight Irish peerages ; 
 the raising of twenty Irish peers to higher ranks ; and 
 the conferring on six Irish peers of peerages of the 
 United Kingdom.* Another was for the payment of a 
 sum of £1,260,000 as compensation to the owners of eighty 
 pocket boroughs — returning 160 members to the Irish 
 Parliament — which were abolished under the Act of 
 Union, at the rate of £15,000 a borough. Both these 
 accounts were settled during the brief period that re- 
 mained of the Viceroyalty of Lord Cornwallis. Again, 
 the twenty-eight Irish peers who under the Act of Union 
 were elected for life to represent the Irish peerage in the 
 House of Lords of the Imperial Parliament were virtually 
 nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, and consisted ex- 
 clusively of supporters of the Union. 
 
 * * * 
 That much of the story of how the Union was carried 
 has long been known. But there was another portentous 
 biU of promises of places, pensions, legal appointments, 
 bishoprics, and promotions in the Irish peerage, for which 
 Cornwallis and Castlereagh had made themselves liable, 
 
 * On the principal stairs of Powerscourt House, co. Wicklow, 
 hangs a portrait of Richard Wingfield, fourth Viscount Powers- 
 court. The picture is inscribed : " You are not going to bribe 
 me." The story of the inscription is that during the negotiations 
 for the Union CornwalUs sent a message to Lord Powerscourt to 
 say that if he voted for the impending measure he would recom- 
 mend him to the King for a marquisate. In great indignation, 
 Powerscourt ejected the messenger from the house, saying, 
 " You are not going to bribe me." Powerscourt was one of 
 the small minority of Irish peers who opposed the Union. 
 
42 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 remaining undischarged at the fall of the Pitt Administra- 
 tion in the spring of 1801. These engagements are referred 
 to in " The Cornwallis Correspondence," but their nature 
 has hitherto been a profound secret. Lecky, who was per- 
 mitted to examine the secret papers of the period in the 
 archives of Dublin Castle for his " History of Ireland in 
 the Eighteenth Century," says the list and the negotia- 
 tions with respect to it were destroyed. What hap- 
 pened was that the careful and methodical Hardwicke 
 carried off the correspondence on quitting office in 1806. 
 Now, after the lapse of a century, this disgraceful record 
 leaps to light. In the year 1804 Hardwicke made a copy 
 of this list of Union Engagements, distinguishing the 
 promises which at that time had been fulfilled, and com- 
 menting on each case, for the information of Lord Hawkes- 
 bury, the Home Secretary of Pitt's second Administra- 
 tion. Accompanying the document was the following 
 letter : 
 
 Private and confidential. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " September 26, 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, — 
 
 " Not being certain whether your lordship may be 
 in possession of a copy of the Union Engagements which 
 were delivered to me by Lord Cornwallis, and which I 
 have been endeavouring to discharge as faithfully and 
 as expeditiously as possible, I enclose a copy of each of 
 the papers with some additional and confidential notes of 
 explanation. 
 
 " Your Lordship will easily believe on a perusal of the 
 enclosed papers that the task which I undertook to per- 
 form has not been free from difficulty and embarrassment. 
 In the application of offices and other objects of patronage 
 which have graduaUy become vacant I have naturally 
 been induced to select from the list those who appeared 
 most proper for the situations in which openings occurred. 
 The consequence has been that nearly all those who were 
 qualified for any offices of trust or situations of business 
 have been already selected from the list, and there is little 
 chance of the other engagements being satisfied, except by 
 sinecure offices which are not very easily found. 
 
BRIBES OF BISHOPRICS 43 
 
 " The greater part of those upon the different hsts who 
 
 had not actual engagements for specific offices received 
 
 the amount of their engagements from a fund, in which 
 
 I have had no concern, and of which I was entirely 
 
 ignorant at the time I received the papers. The fund for 
 
 these money payments has, I understand, been partly 
 
 supplied from his Majesty's privy purse, but the demand 
 
 on the fund has been gradually diminishing, as offices 
 
 have been provided for those who had engagements ; 
 
 and the payments are now limited to the few who still 
 
 remain unprovided for, for some of whom, with every 
 
 disposition to do so, it will be extremely difficult to find 
 
 situations which they will be competent or willing to 
 
 hold." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The following is a complete copy of this document. I 
 have enclosed in brackets the remarks of Lord Hardwicke, 
 which, in the original, are written in red ink : 
 
 Church Engagements. 
 
 The Archbishop of Cashel — To succeed to Dublin. 
 
 (Translated accordingly, vice Fowler, deceased.) 
 
 Rev. Mr. Alexander — The Bench. 
 
 (Done. Appointed Bishop of Clonfert by the removal 
 of Bishop Beresford to Kilmore, Kilmore to^Cashel, and 
 Cashel to Dublin.) 
 
 Bishop of Killaloe — Strong assurances given to Lord 
 Abercom of his being translated, which Lord Comwallis 
 intended to do after he had found an opportunity of re- 
 moving the Bishop of Kilmore to a better See. 
 
 (Translated to Londonderry, vice the Earl of Bristol, 
 deceased.) 
 
 Rev. Mr. Trench — The Bench of Bishops. 
 
 (Promoted to Waterford, vice Marley, deceased.) 
 
 Dean Warburton — Promised to recommend him strongly 
 to Lord Hardwicke on account of his general good char- 
 acter, and of his services during the Rebellion and the 
 Union contest. Lord Comwallis intended to have pro- 
 moted him to the Bench after the Union Engagements 
 had been fulfilled. 
 
 (The King has declared he will never make him a 
 Bishop. He was a Roman Catholick originally ; his 
 name, Mongan, and his father an Irish harper. He him- 
 
44 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 self was a missionary, and acquired, by plausible manners, 
 to the amount of £2,000 a year and upwards of Church 
 preferment.)* 
 
 Rev. Mr. Cleland — Tutor to Lord Castlereagh. Pro- 
 mised the Rectorship of Armagh. 
 
 (Promoted to the Precentorship of Armagh, vice 
 Alexander.) 
 
 Rev. Richard Straubenzie Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden's 
 nephew — Better preferment. 
 
 (He was promoted to the Prebend of Ticolme and 
 Rectory of Templepeter, in the Diocese of Leighlin and 
 Ferns ; also to the vicarage of Dunlackney and Agha, in 
 the said diocese, vice Alexander, promoted The above- 
 mentioned Prebend, etc., vacated by the unfortunate 
 assassination of Mr. Wolfe, t have been given to a son of 
 Dr. Kearney, the Provost, to whom I was desirous of an 
 opportunity of showing a personal attention, the College 
 being at present inclined to support his Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, and at all times an important body.) 
 
 Rev. Mr. Bisset — Promised a hving of £500 or £600 a 
 year, and to resign his present preferment of ;^300 a year. 
 Through him managed Cope, M.P. for Armagh. 
 
 (Not done, because the Primate refused to present a 
 person recommended by Government to his Living.) 
 
 Rev. John Hill, brother to Sir G. Hill — Promised pre- 
 ferment and to be recommended to Lord Hardwicke for 
 early promotion. 
 
 (Promoted to the Prebend of Clonmethan, vice Lord 
 Strangford, deceased.) 
 
 Rev. Mr. Paul, Lord O'Neill's tutor — His Lordship has 
 
 * Warburton, in a letter to the Lord Lieutenant, written at 
 Loughgilly Parsonage, Newry, states that his yearly income is 
 ;^2,25o. It is thus made up : three sinecures — Precentorship of 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, ;£400, Prebend of Killaloe, ;^ioo, 
 Deanery of Clonmacnoise, ;^ioo ; two parishes — Mohill, ,^700, 
 Loughgilly, ;^95o. He desires to exchange the parish of Mohill, 
 in the Diocese of Ardagh, for Dr. Alexander's parish of Killeny, 
 which lies close to Loughgilly. " My hope is," he says, " that the 
 Government may be equally accommodated by this exchange ; 
 yet I should feel it a serious obligation, inasmuch as it would afford 
 me the highest satisfaction which a conscientious clergyman can 
 possibly enjoy, that of having all his clerical duty within reach 
 of his daily inspection and personal attendance." His wish, 
 however, was not compUed with. 
 
 t Mr. Wolfe was murdered, with his uncle, Lord Chief Justice 
 Kilwarden, during the Emmet insurrection of 1803. 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF LIVINGS 45 
 
 had a positive promise that Mr. Paul should be pro- 
 
 "^(This was done accordingly by the Rectory and Vicar- 
 age of Knockbride, vice Thomas Smyth, deceased ) 
 
 Rev. John Molesworth Staples— Promised Lord Clifden 
 to give him a Living. 
 
 (The Rectory, etc., of Killeven, vice Lord Strangtord, 
 
 deceased.) 
 
 Rev. Joseph Palmer— Promised Mr. David LaTouche 
 
 to give him a Living. 
 
 (Done by giving him a Living in Co. Kildare.) 
 
 Rev. John Rowley— Promised his father, Mr. Clot- 
 worthy Rowley, that he should be promoted. 
 
 (Not yet done.) 
 
 Rev. Mr. Clemlow— Lord Cornwallis promised his 
 uncle, Mr. Mathew, that he would recommend him 
 strongly for preferment. 
 
 (This private wish was connected with a publick 
 transaction. His uncle was an old acquaintance of 
 Lord Cornwallis, but being one of Lord Downshire's 
 members, he was obliged to take away his place. As 
 some return, and to show that there was nothing personal 
 in it, he put down his nephew in the manner above stated. 
 Mr. Clemlow was accordingly promoted to the Rectory 
 of Westena, alias Vastina, in the Diocese of Meath, vice 
 Homan, deceased.)* 
 
 * Further light is thrown on this transaction by a letter from 
 Cornwallis to Hardwicke, dated " Culford, July 15th, 1802." It 
 shows that another nephew of Mathew had been deprived by 
 Cornwallis of some position because of his opposition to the 
 Union. The letter runs : 
 
 " My dear Lord, — Your goodness to me on all occasions has 
 been most strongly manifested, and in no instance more than in 
 your attention to my recommendation of Mr. Clemlow, which 
 could not be fairly classed in the Ust of pubUc engagements. The 
 unfortunate circumstance of my having been under the necessity 
 of using hard measures with regard to one of the nephews of my 
 old and very respectable brother soldier, Mr. Mathew, made 
 me very desirous of being the means of obtaining a post for 
 another nephew, in whose welfare he was most interested, in 
 addition to which Mr. Mathew's gallant and eminent services 
 at the period of the breaking out of the Rebellion in the North 
 give him some claim to public consideration. The Living in the 
 diocese of Meath, which Your Excellency is so kind as to offer, 
 will, I have no doubt, be gratefully accepted by Mr. Clemlow, 
 but at all events I shall feel that I have done everything that 
 could reasonably have been expected of me." 
 
46 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 The Rev. Dean Graves — Was promised preferment 
 both by Lord Comwallis and Lord Camden. 
 
 (Promoted to the Deanery of Connor, vice Dobbs, de- 
 ceased.) 
 
 Rev. Gilbert Holmes — A letter from Lord Comwallis, 
 5th August, 1801, stated that Mr. Holmes had been 
 forgot. 
 
 (Promoted to the Deanery of Ardfert, vice Graves, pro- 
 moted.) 
 
 Exclusive of the above list of Positive Engagements 
 in the Church, there are some applications which Lord 
 Comwallis would have been glad to have complied with, 
 if proper opportunities had offered, and which are entered 
 in a separate book of applications under similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Usher — A friend of Lord Belvedere. 
 
 (A supplementary engagement given in by Mr. Cook, 
 and satisfied by the Vicarage of Asnamurthis, in the 
 Diocese of Meath, vice Homan, deceased.) 
 
 N.B. — Besides those, I have presented the Rev. Pon- 
 sonby Gouldsbury to the Rectory of Raddinstown, 
 vacated by Dr. French, at the particular request of 
 Mr. Smyth, member for the Co. Westmeath, as well as his 
 colleague, Mr. Rochfort. Rev. Mr. Lee, brother to the 
 member for the County of Waterford, to the Deanery of 
 Kilmacduagh. Also Rev. Mr. Hunt, nephew of Mr. Hunt, 
 an old Surveyor-General and very inefficient, thereby 
 saving the expense of placing him on Income Incidents. 
 
 Civil Engagements. 
 
 Those marked (*) were members of the House of Com- 
 mons, and gave their support to the Union. 
 
 *Mr. M'Naughton, representative for Antrim — Rever- 
 sion of the Searchership of Cork, vice Yelverton, £5,000 
 a year. 
 
 (Not done, from a difficulty in form.) 
 
 *Mr. Walsh, Collector of Naas — To resign to his son. 
 
 (Done.) 
 
 ♦Colonel Burton, M.P., Co. Clare — To name the suc- 
 cessor to the Collection at Ennis. 
 
 (Done.) 
 
 *Mr. Faithful Fortescue — To get compensation for the 
 loss of his pension of £300 a year. 
 
BRIBES FOR MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT 47 
 
 \* 
 
 (To be put on the Pension List this year.)' 
 *Colonel Skeffington, Lieutenant-Governor of Cork- 
 Promised /300 a year in addition. 
 
 (Not done. I could appoint this gentleman to some 
 office of £600 per annum if I could appomt to the Lieu- 
 tenant-Government of Cork.) , XT xr J -r u 
 *Mr Hatton, brother-in-law of Lord Hertford— io be 
 removed to a more lucrative office. He lately declmed 
 the Board of Accounts, £800 a year. He had accepted 
 the Fellowship of the Exchequer, being a smecure of the 
 same value with the Accounts, but could not find the 
 necessary security. 
 
 (Now Commissioner of Stamps, £500 a year.) 
 
 *Mr. Rutledge — Brought into Parhament by his sister- . 
 in-law, Mrs. Bruen, widow of Colonel Bruen, who made 
 a great fortune in the American War, and purchased an 
 Irish Borough on speculation. 
 
 (He had a money payment. This was liquidated by 
 his being appointed to a seat at the Navigation Board, 
 £500 per annum.) 
 
 ♦Colonel Nesbit — Promised £500 a year. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 *Mr. Cotter, Lord Shannon's friend — ^To be employed 
 in Tontines, or in an office of £400 a year. 
 
 (Done by Tontine Office.) 
 
 ♦Colonel Macdonnell — Promised £500 a year. 
 
 (Done by a seat at the Board of Accounts, which 
 he was allowed to transfer. N.B. — ^This engagement 
 was liquidated by £800 per annum on account of his 
 having been appointed a supernumerary aide-de-camp, 
 in expectation of some employment of business.) 
 
 ♦Colonel MacNamara — Promised £400 per annum. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 * In the Lord Lieutenant's audience-book, in which Hard- 
 wicke entered the names of persons who called to see him at 
 the Castle, the object of their visits, and his replies, there is a 
 note which throws more light on this engagement : " June 2, 1 801 . 
 Mr. Faithful Fortescue, Lord Clement's nephew. States that 
 an engagement for a pension, instead of one which he gave up 
 on coming into Parliament for the life of himself and Mr. G. 
 Adair, was entered into for regranting said pension to himself and 
 wife. Told him that his name was not on the list given in by 
 Lord Castlereagh in London, but Lord Comwallis had stated it in 
 conversation on the 26th of May, as Mr. Fortescue does himself. 
 That a mem. was made of it, but it cannot be put on the Pen- 
 sion List till after those which were on that originally given in." 
 
48 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 *Major Creighton, Lord Erne's son — Promised the 
 Barrack Board, or an equivalent /8oo per annum. 
 
 (Done by the appointment to the Government of Heist 
 Castle.) 
 
 *Colonel Wemyss — ^£400 per annum. 
 
 (Done by Collectorship of Kilkenny.) 
 
 ♦Sir Vere Hunt — ^£500 per annum. 
 
 (Done by Weighmastership of Cork.) 
 
 *Mr. Straton, Lord Roden's brother-in-law — ^£400 per 
 annum. 
 
 (Done, first by Navigation Board, and afterwards by 
 Collectorship of Dundalk. He was first a Commissioner 
 of Navigation. Lord Roden claimed to appoint to the 
 Collectorship of Dundalk, as being always considered in 
 his patronage ; but I could not comply with this claim on 
 account of the engagement, and Mr. Straton vacated the 
 Navigation Board.) 
 
 *Mr. LesHe — ^£300 a year, recommended by Mr. Brooke, 
 member for Donegal. 
 
 (Done by the place of Judge Advocate.) 
 
 *Capt. Cane — ^£400 per annum. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 *Mr. George Knox — Dismissed from the Revenue 
 Board. Promised restitution, £1,000 per annum. 
 
 (Not done, because a seat at the Revenue Board is in- 
 compatible with his seat in Parhament. Query — How 
 can this debt be paid now ?) 
 
 *Mr. Baker — An employment of £250 a year. Recom- 
 mended by Lord Callan. Lord Callan had two members. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 *Mr. C. Tottenham — His son to be promoted from 
 Wicklow Collection, the reversion of which is promised 
 to Mr. Leigh, of New Ross. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 *Mr. Alexander Hamilton — To have the interest of 
 Government in the next General Election for the County 
 of Dublin.* 
 
 * There is a letter from Hardwicke to Marsden the Under- 
 Secretary, dated July 8, 1 802, and marked " Secret " in reference to 
 this engagement. " My dear Sir," it says, " I am decidedly of 
 opinion that we should not be justified in undertaking to support 
 Mr. Alexander Hamilton with money. We have fairly given him 
 the full benefit of all the support which Government could give 
 to any candidate for the County of Dubhn, and to make it the more 
 complete have abstained from intimating a wish in favour of any 
 
MORE BRIBES TO PARLIAMENTARIANS 49 
 
 (Done, but without success. N.B.— Mr. Hans Hamilton 
 and Mr. Faulkner, then members, were in opposition to 
 the Government.) 
 
 *Capt. Ormsby— First vacancy at the Paving Board, 
 £300 per annum. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 *Mr. M. Burke— Collection of Loughrea, in case Mr. 
 Trench retires (Lord Dunlo's brother), or an equivalent. 
 
 (Paid.) 
 
 *Col. Jackson (Co. Mayo) — A Surveyorship on the quay 
 in Dublin, for his brother-in-law, Mr. Ormsby, £350 per 
 annum. 
 
 (Done, being Commissioner of Stamps.) 
 
 Bishop of Meath — A Revenue situation for his brother, 
 from ;£200 to ,(300 per annum. 
 
 (Mr. O'Beirne is appointed Landwaiter on the quay at 
 Dublin.) 
 
 . *Sir George Shee — To be Paymaster of the Forces and 
 of-the Privy Council. If the appointment should not take 
 place, to succeed Sir Henry Cavendish as Receiver- 
 General. 
 
 (Now Secretary to the Treasury. Done by grant of 
 reversion of Sir Henry Cavendish's office, subject, how- 
 ever, to any alteration for the benefit of the Revenue 
 which may be thought necessary. N.B. — No further 
 Receiver-General of the Revenue should be permitted to 
 keep large balances in his hands, or to exact from the 
 different Collectors one per cent, for their bills. This is 
 the arrangement alluded to, and must be enforced.) 
 
 *Lord de Blaquiere — ^To be returned to Parliament on 
 the General Election. If not, his son to have the Board 
 of Works, ;^4oo per annum. 
 
 (Query — Done by Mr. Addington.) 
 
 Lord Dunlo — To name to the Collection or Military 
 government of Galway, whichever becomes first vacant. 
 He had two sons in Parliament. 
 
 Lord Wallscourt^A Revenue situation for his brother, 
 £400 per annum. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 other candidate, though all profess to be friendly to Government. 
 ... I shall be glad to know what you think upon the subject, 
 though if you have nothing to state per contra it may be as well 
 to hold this language to Mr, Hamilton when he calls upon vou 
 between three and four." 
 
50 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 Mr. George Browne — Promised a permanent employ- 
 ment of equal value (£400) per annum. Recommended 
 by Mr. Denis Browne, Member for Mayo. Now Commis- 
 sioner for Suffering Loyalists. 
 
 (Not done.) 
 
 *Mr. Archdale — Had a promise of an employment of 
 £500 a year, which he waived upon being brought into 
 Parliament. His claim is to revive when Parliament 
 expires. 
 
 (In Parliament.) 
 
 Mr. Mason's nephew — For an employment of £100 per 
 annum. 
 
 (Done by Barrackmastership of Millstreet.) 
 
 A great difficulty still exists in paying off several of 
 those engagements, viz. : 
 
 Lolonel JNesbit 
 
 • • £500 
 
 
 
 
 
 Colonel Macnamara 
 
 • • £400 
 
 
 
 
 
 Captain Cane 
 
 • • £400 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mr. Geo. Browne . . 
 
 . . £400 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hon. Geo. Knox . . 
 
 . . £1,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 The three first will accept no coUectorship, or Revenue 
 situations in the country, which requires attendance, and 
 are very unwilling to take any of that description, even 
 in Dublin ; and it is impossible to find snug sinecures for 
 them which admit of their residing where they please, and 
 require no attendance at all. 
 
 Honours. 
 
 Viscount Gosford — To be an Earl. 
 
 (At the instance of Mr. Acheson, his son. Lord Gosford 
 declined this honour at the late promotions, as he wished 
 to avoid the imputation that he had made any difference 
 on this account at the Union. He is now very desirous 
 of the dignity.) 
 
 Viscount Limerick — To be an Earl. 
 
 (Created Earl of Limerick.) 
 
 Viscount Dunlo — To be an Earl. 
 
 (Created Earl of Clancarty.) 
 
 Baroness Dufferin — Solicited to be created, originally 
 a Viscountess, which was declined, as it was not intended 
 to recommend any person for two steps in the first in- 
 stance. No promise was given as to future promotion, 
 and this fact is only here stated in case her Ladyship 
 
PROMOTIONS TO THE JUDICIAL BENCH 51 
 
 should hereafter desire that her claim may be considered 
 previous to Lady Newcomen's promotion, who is now 
 below her in rank. 
 
 (No claim or application has been made by Lady 
 
 Dufferin.) 
 
 Baroness Newcomen— To be a Viscountess. 
 (Created Viscountess.) 
 
 Law Engagements. 
 
 ♦Prime Serjeant Daly— Bench. 
 
 (Vice Baron Sir Michael Smith, now Master of the 
 Rolls.) 
 
 *Mr. R. Johnson — Bench. 
 
 (Vice Mr. Justice Kelly, who retired.) 
 
 *Mr. Serjeant Stanley — Prime Serjeant. 
 
 (Vice Daly. Afterwards Commissioner of Accounts.) 
 
 *Mr. C. Osborne — First Counsel to the Commissioners. 
 
 (Vice Johnson.) 
 
 *Mr. C. Ormsby — Second Counsel to the Commis- 
 sioners. 
 
 (Vice Osborne, now first Counsel.) 
 
 ♦Mr. M'Clelland — Received assurances of Legal pro- 
 vision. He supported the Union with ability. 
 
 (Solicitor-General, on Baron Smith's promotion.) 
 
 ♦Mr. W. Johnson — Similar assurances. He wrote and 
 spoke ably in support of the Union. 
 
 (Great difficulty attends the fulfilment of this gentle- 
 man's engagement. He looks to the Bench, but his 
 brother being already an Union Judge, and not highly 
 respected, it is scarcely possible to place him there also, 
 with any regard to what is due to the Profession.) 
 
 ♦Dr. Browne — Received assurances to the same effect. 
 He was agent to the late Primate ; on his death Govern- 
 ment undertook to interfere with his successor to continue 
 him, but without success. 
 
 (Prime Serjeant, on removal of Prime Serjeant Stanley 
 to the Board of Accounts.) 
 
 ♦Mr. Grady — £1,000 per annum. 
 
 (This was effected by his appointment to be Second 
 Counsel to the Commissioners of the Revenue, a place 
 which upon explanation is admitted to be worth double 
 .^the engagement.) 
 
 ♦Mr. Sharkey — £400 per annum. 
 
 (Assistant Barrister for the County Roscommon.) 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE LIST OF UNION ENGAGEMENTS 
 
 *Mr. Francis Knox— First vacant situation of Chairman 
 of Quarter Sessions. 
 
 (Chairmanship of County Leitrim. But ;^400 per 
 annum still due to him, which he receives privately, 
 having given up the place of Assistant Barrister of the 
 County Tyrone by Lord Castlereagh's desire in conse- 
 quence of a wish to oblige Lord Abercom with this 
 appointment. That Chairmanship is worth £800 per 
 annum.) 
 
 Mr. Bellew — Promised a similar situation. 
 
 (See Pension List. This gentleman is a son of Sir 
 Patrick Bellew, of the County Louth, a Roman Catholick, 
 and it was therefore thought very desirable to commute 
 this engagement, as he looked to the fulfilment of it in 
 the County of Louth, where the appointment would have 
 been very obnoxious to all the Protestant gentlemen.) 
 
 Mr. Donellan, brother to Lady Fingall — ^Promised £300 
 a year ; recommended by Lord Fingall. 
 
 (As a Roman Catholic, I preferred giving him the Office 
 of Customer of Waterford to making him an Assistant 
 Barrister.) 
 
 Mr. Lynch — The office of Chairman of the County of 
 Galway, when vacant. 
 
 Pensions. 
 
 Lord de Blaquiere — £1,000 per annum for the lives of 
 his wife and daughter ; £700 to be put on the Pension List 
 from March, 1802, and £300 from March, 1803. 
 
 (Done in the year 1802 by an arrangement with Mr. 
 Fortescue.) 
 
 *Sir Boyle Roche — £400 a year for his own life. 
 
 Mr. M'itenna — £300 a year for his literary services. 
 
 Mrs. Bromhead — £200 a year. 
 
 (Daughter of Sir Thomas French. An old engagement 
 of Lord Hobart's.) 
 
 Mrs. Armit — £300 a year. 
 
 Mr. Edward Winder — £100 a year. 
 
 Lord Bishop of Clonfert's Widow — £500 a year for 
 herself and eleven children. 
 
 Lord Belvidere — £200 a year. 
 
 (Done.) 
 
 *Mr. Faithful Fortescue — £300 for himself and wife in 
 lieu of the Pension he lost by coming into Parliament. 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF PENSIONS 53 
 
 Mr. Bellew — £150 a year. 
 
 (N.B.— The amount of this heavy mortgage on the 
 Pension List of Ireland is ;^3450 from March 25th, 1802 ; 
 for the year's grant from Lady Day, 1801, was completed 
 before my arrival in the May following. The grants have 
 therefore stood thus : 
 
 From Lady Day, 1802 to 1803, £1,200 
 
 1803 to 1804, £1,200 
 
 1804 to 1805, £1,200 
 
 £3,600 
 
 Leaving at the disposal of His Majesty's Government in 
 Ireland for the year ending March 25th, 1805, the sum of 
 £150! ! ! 
 
 And beyond that sum no pension can be placed on the 
 Irish Establishment till after March 25th, 1805, for the 
 ensuing year. Of this, it is understood that a pension of 
 £600 which His Majesty has been pleased to grant to 
 Lady Clare, and of £300 per annum to the Widow of the 
 late Judge Chamberlayne, are to be placed on the Irish 
 Establishment as soon as the above mortgage is paid off. 
 So that for the two years ending March 25th, 1806, the 
 sum of £150 may be granted in the first year, and of £300 
 in the second. 
 
 This state of things is highly inconvenient and pre- 
 judicial to the King's Government in Ireland, and the 
 disadvantage of it was certainly not foreseen, and has 
 probably never been sufficiently considered. How it is 
 
 g to be remedied I know not, but the fact is that the in- 
 
 ' convenience of the entire want of patronage of any descrip- 
 tion, occasioned by the engagements of which many 
 
 I remain still unsatisfied, has produced a variety of incon- 
 
 k veniences, and some dissatisfaction.) 
 
 I 
 
 t*\~ ^ 9|C 9(C 
 
 I This, then, is the incubus which the Union placed 
 I upon the unwilling shoulders of the Earl of Hardwicke. 
 I The story of the embarrassments and perplexities with 
 I which it strewed the pathway of the luckless Viceroy — a 
 I story of dramatic interest — I shall tell in subsequent 
 I chapters. 
 
 m^ 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CONTEST FOR AN IRISH REPRESENTATIVE PEERAGE 
 
 Hardwicke was only a few weeks in office when a dispute 
 between him and the Cabinet as to the exercise of the 
 Viceroy's patronage with respect to the bestowal of 
 honours led almost to his resignation. The incident shows 
 that the King, as well as Cornwallis and Castlereagh, 
 entered into engagements on his own account to further 
 the Union. In July, 1801, Lord Rossmore, who was 
 elected one of the first group of representative peers of 
 Ireland, in return for his services to the Union, fell ill. 
 Lord Charleville — Charles William Bury, of Shannon 
 Grove, co. Limerick — waited on the Lord Lieutenant, 
 and urged his claim to succeed to the first vacancy in 
 the representative peerage. He had not only supported 
 the Union, for which he was promoted in the Irish 
 peerage from Baron Tullamore to Viscount Charleville, 
 but he had given to the Government the nomination to a 
 seat in the United Parliament for the pocket borough of 
 Carlo w, by which Mr. Ormsby — described as " a useful 
 Parliament friend " to the Administration — was returned. 
 Hardwicke gave him a promise that he should have the 
 nomination of the Government when the expected vacancy 
 in the representative Irish peerage occurred. 
 
 Accordingly, on the death of Rossmore, early in August, 
 Hardwicke wrote to the Prime Minister informing him of 
 his promise to Charleville. " You may be assured," 
 replied Addington, in a note from Wimbledon, dated 
 " August ye loth, 1801," " of every assistance from hence 
 
 54 
 
THE KING'S PROMISE TO LORD THOMOND 55 
 
 in giving effect to your opinion and wishes in favour of 
 Lord Charleville." But this agreeable aspect of things 
 was transformed by a letter written by the Duke of Port- 
 land to Lord Hardwicke on August 12, which is endorsed 
 by the Lord Lieutenant as having been received on 
 August 16. Portland was Home Secretary under Pitt, 
 during the Rebellion of 1798 and the carrying of the Union, 
 and had just resigned office. His communication to 
 Hardwicke conveyed the unpleasant intelligence that the 
 King was pledged to give the first vacancy in the 
 representative Irish peerage to the Marquis of Thomond. 
 Before the Union Morough O'Brien was Earl of Inchiquin ; 
 after the Union he was created Marquis of Thomond. Of 
 the King's engagement to him Portland writes : 
 
 " When the late Lord Lieutenant transmitted the list 
 of those peers whom he thought the fittest to represent 
 that illustrious body, his Majesty expressed great dis- 
 appointment and concern at not finding Lord Thomond's 
 name amongst them. He has repeatedly expressed this 
 sentiment to Lord and Lady Thomond, and assured them 
 both that it had not been, and should not be, his fault if 
 Lord Thomond did not supply the first vacancy. As far 
 as his Majesty can commit himself, he is pledged upon 
 this occasion, and I therefore trust your Excellency will 
 find no difficulty in fulfilling the engagement his Majesty 
 has made. Although I am sensible that I have no longer 
 any right to trouble your Excellency officially upon such 
 a subject as this, I know too well how much his Majesty 
 is, and, indeed, ought to be, interested in it not to feel 
 that I should be wanting in my duty to him, and in respect 
 to your Excellency, if I omitted to represent those circum- 
 stances to you." 
 
 On August 13 Addington wrote to Hardwicke that he 
 was " extremely uneasy," on learning, for the first time, 
 of the King's promise to the Marquis of Thomond. " Such 
 an assurance must be strictly observed," he says, " though 
 unknown to, and not remembered by, Mr. Pitt, and 
 certainly never communicated to myself. I mean to 
 write to his Majesty to-morrow to express at once your 
 submission to his Majesty's pleasure, and my hope that 
 
56 CONTEST FOR AN IRISH PEERAGE 
 
 upon the next vacancy no obstacle will arise to the full 
 support of Government in favour of Lord Charleville." 
 But Hardwicke was a man of grit and determination, as 
 we shaU often see in the course of these researches in 
 his post-bag, and he was not going to yield, even to the 
 King. Immediately on receiving Portland's communica- 
 tion on August i6, he sat down and wrote letters to the 
 Prime Minister and to Pelham (who had succeeded Port- 
 land as Home Secretary) — which letters he despatched, 
 not through the post, but by special messenger — declaring 
 that he must insist upon the nomination of Lord Charle- 
 ville. He was too far committed in his engagement to 
 that nobleman. He had mentioned the matter to Lord 
 Clare. " A most proper man for the position," said the 
 Lord Chancellor. If the nomination were now set aside 
 it would be said that no reliance could be placed on his 
 engagements. Then he goes on : 
 
 " I have, therefore, only to request that you wiU lay 
 these circumstances before his Majesty, whose wish upon 
 such an occasion would have been a command, which I 
 should most cheerfully have obeyed, had any, the slightest, 
 intimation of it been communicated to me at the time of 
 my appointment. I undertook the Government with a 
 very heavy mortgage upon the patronage of the Crown, 
 but, until the arrival of the Duke of Portland's letter this 
 morning, was actually ignorant of any engagements what- 
 ever in regard to a recommendation on the part of the 
 Government to the first vacancy in the representation of 
 the Irish peerage. You seem to have been equally un- 
 informed of any such expectation having been held out 
 to Lord Thomond from the high Quarter to which I have 
 alluded ; and I therefore rely upon your kindness and 
 friendship to represent the circumstances which have 
 passed in their true light to his Majesty. I trust his 
 Majesty is too well acquainted with my devotion to his 
 service not to be convinced that I have acted for the best. 
 If the King entertains a wish in favour of Lord Thomond, 
 he ought to have a positive promise of being supported on 
 the next vacancy." 
 
 Writing again to Addington a few days later in a 
 " private and confidential " communication, the Lord 
 
VICEROY UPHOLDS CHARLEVILLE'S CLAIM 57 
 
 Lieutenant urged the Prime Minister to ascertain dis- 
 tinctly whether it was reaUy the wish of the King that 
 Thomond should have a positive promise of bemg re- 
 commended for the next vacancy in the representative 
 peerage. He says : 
 
 " I have, of course, refrained from communicating the 
 embarrassment which has arisen to anyone besides Mr. 
 Abbot and my private secretary ; but in a place where an 
 universal desire prevails of being acquainted with the 
 business and concerns of others, the despatching of a 
 messenger on an unusual day, and at an unusual hour, 
 has given rise to much speculation on the subject both at 
 the Post Office and the different offices about the Castle. 
 
 "The conversation that I have understood to have 
 arisen upon the subject has given me an opportunity of 
 inquiring whether any promises or expectations were held 
 out by the late Government, and I am informed upon the 
 best authority that amongst the appUcations to be in- 
 cluded in the original Ust which were conveyed to Lord 
 Comwallis, there was one from the Marquis of Thomond 
 and one from Lord Sheffield, one or both of which were 
 transmitted through the Duke of Portland. That the 
 answer returned by Lord CornwaUis was that it did not 
 appear proper in the selection of the representative peers 
 to recommend any who, notwithstanding they might have 
 Irish property, were yet resident in England ; that upon 
 this ground he had objected to Lords Thomond and 
 Sheffield ; and, further, that his Majesty had coincided 
 in this opinion, and had expressed his approbation of it. 
 I cannot help saying that the idea is a just one, and if 
 adhered to will save many difficulties hereafter, 
 
 " If, however, his Majesty should wish Lord Thomond 
 to be recommended upon the next vacancy, no objection 
 will, of course, be made on my part, and nothing but the 
 Duke of Portland's forgetfulness could have created any 
 embarrassment at present. The facts, however, being as 
 they are, I trust you will upon consideration feel the im- 
 possibility of undoing that which has been done under your 
 own authority, at least through the same instrument, 
 without reducing the Government to a state of perfect 
 nuUity and inefficiency, and a total incapacity of having 
 any weight or rendering any service." 
 
 * * * 
 
S8 CONTEST FOR AN IRISH PEERAGE 
 
 On August 20 the Lord Lieutenant, writing from 
 Phoenix Park to his brother, Charles Yorke, Minister for 
 War, addressing him " My dear Charles," in a " private 
 and confidential " communication, pours out his woes 
 with respect to the impediments placed in the way of the 
 exercise of his patronage. There were also troubles with 
 the Duke of York as regards army patronage, and about 
 these Hardwicke writes : 
 
 " I also send you a copy of the Duke of York's letter 
 and a copy of his answer to the list of recommendations 
 I sent for ensigncies and cometcies. I rather fear his 
 R.H. will make many difficulties, for surely it is very hard 
 upon Irish gentlemen who recommend their sons for 
 commissions that they shall be excluded from every 
 regiment that happens to be in Ireland. Was ever such 
 an answer returned to an English or a Scotch gentleman 
 applying for a commission as that their request would be 
 attended to, but not in Great Britain ? On what prin- 
 ciple, then, except to show that a Lord Lieutenant shall 
 have less to say to commissions in Ireland than any 
 other gentleman, can the Duke of York have thought it 
 right to return such an answer, through Col. Brownrigg, 
 of such a description ? 
 
 " I sincerely hope that the Duke of York may see the 
 propriety of leaving to the Lord Lieutenant the power of 
 recommending to ensigncies and cometcies, in the Army 
 in Ireland. It is indeed a necessary point, without which 
 the weight of the King's Government here wiU be too 
 rflUch reduced, and the Lord Lieutenant ought to be able 
 to recommend with greater certainty than a private noble- 
 man in England. All that the Duke of York says about 
 the Army here I have heard before ; but in point of fact 
 every Lord Lieutenant till now has had the power of 
 recommending not only to ensigncies and cometcies, but 
 to aU commissions. It is but right that that power, so 
 far as relates to first commissions, should be reserved, so 
 far as relates to regiments in Ireland ; but when once a 
 man is in the Army the Commander-in-Chief is the proper 
 judge of his future promotion, and the recommendation 
 of the Lord Lieutenant for higher commissions must be 
 guided by the same rules which guide the decision in the 
 case of other recommendations, viz., the merit of the 
 parties." 
 
VICEROY THREATENS TO RESIGN 59 
 
 Hardwicke then returns to the quarrel over the rival 
 claims of CharleviUe and Thomond for the vacant repre- 
 sentative Irish peerage, and tells his brother clearly that 
 unless the position was given to CharleviUe he should 
 resign. He says : 
 
 " As to the point of Lord CharleviUe, I should make so 
 foolish a figure to be obliged to retract, that, without being 
 punctUious, or assuming more than I ought to do (which 
 is not in my disposition), I cannot remain if Addington 
 insists now on Lord Thomond being recommended by 
 Government. It wiU be a siUy cause for a publick quarrel, 
 and what, I am sure, if properly explained to the King, 
 he would not approve. It is entirely owing to the Duke 
 of Portland, and I should think that a very sufficient 
 reason for explaining the matter fuUy and distinctly to 
 the King, who, I verily believe, wiU be found not to be so 
 anxious for the Marquis of Thomond, as to wish his Prime 
 Minister to break his word, and his Government in Ireland 
 to be held up to ridicule by every clerk in the Post Office, 
 Civil Department, etc. 
 
 "If you see Addington pray teU him that if I had felt 
 it possible to act otherwise I would have immediately 
 acquiesced in his second thoughts, which, however, upon 
 this occasion, I cannot say are better than the first. Not 
 that it is any question between the two men, or whether 
 the King's wish shall be attended to, but whether the King's 
 wish — concerning which aU those who were to act upon it 
 knew nothing — is to supersede a positive promise of the 
 King's Government, merely to save the Duke of Portland 
 the embarrassment of saying that he never recoUected the 
 King's recommendation, committed to his charge, untU 
 it was too late to give it effect without disgracing an 
 efficient part of the Government. This is the real state 
 of the case, and I shaU wait patiently for the event. 
 Abbot entirely agrees with me in thinking that I could do 
 nothing else ; and that it is much better for Addington to 
 support himself against such weakness than to give way 
 to it." 
 
 ^ "p 1" 
 
 Addington repUed to Hardwicke on August 20. He 
 
 deplored the situation. What pain it caused him ! But 
 
 he was determined to stand by the King's promise. He 
 says : 
 
6o CONTEST FOR AN IRISH PEERAGE 
 
 " I was fully justified in giving you the answer which I 
 sent to your first letter in favour of Lord Charleville ; but 
 I should think myself wanting in delicacy and in duty 
 towards the King if I could oppose even your lordship's 
 wishes and a letter of my own — written in ignorance of 
 what had passed — to the species of encouragement given 
 from that Quarter to the Marquis of Thomond. The 
 silence of one of my colleagues has occasioned this diffi- 
 culty ; but I know your lordship too well not to be con- 
 vinced that you could not be desirous of obviating it at 
 the expense of what is due to the word and, consequently, 
 to the feelings of the King." 
 
 Letters between London and Dublin crossed each other. 
 The correspondence assumed a tone of asperity. There 
 were angry reproaches, earnest appeals, bitter objurga- 
 tions. " Why should not Lord Charleville withdraw his 
 pretentions ?" cried Addington, Pelham, and Portland in 
 chorus. Did he know that the word of his sovereign was 
 at stake ? How could he call himself a friend to the 
 Administration if he were to continue in his obstinacy ? 
 Portland chided himself for not having communicated 
 the King's engagement to his colleagues in the Cabinet. 
 But the fault was not all on his side. As the Irish Depart- 
 ment was subordinate to the Home Ofiice, it was the duty 
 of the Lord Lieutenant, before he had committed himself 
 to Lord Charleville, to have ascertained the views of the 
 King's confidential servants through the Secretary of State 
 for the Home Department. " Portland is quite correct 
 on the constitutional point," says Pelham ; " that was the 
 custom when I was Chief Secretary for Ireland." From 
 the Prime Minister came entreaties to the Lord Lieutenant 
 to refrain from giving pain to the King. " You weU 
 know," he says, " that it ought to be particularly avoided 
 at this time." The poor King had an attack of insanity 
 every time his Ministers showed a disposition to thwart 
 his wishes, and he only recovered when they penitently 
 told him they would do as he desired. 
 
 But Hardwicke was inflexible. He resolved upon the 
 daring move of appealing to George III. direct. Here is 
 
HARDWICKE'S PETITION TO THE KING 6i 
 
 an extract from his letter to the King, and a manly, 
 straightforward letter it is. He says : 
 
 " In a publick view it is certainly indifferent in itself 
 on which of the two Peers the choice should fall, and it is 
 no otherwise material to myself personally than that it 
 involves the essential stability of the Government here, 
 which cannot be useful or efficient in hands from which 
 the means of executing the promises of your Majesty's 
 Ministers are withheld. This degree of weight and 
 authority was at all time important, but never more so 
 than at the present moment, when the general state of 
 the country is unsettled, and when cabals are on foot 
 hostile to the joint interest of the Empire as cemented by 
 the Union, the full benefits of which — so far as respects 
 due collection of the Revenue, the necessary economy in 
 its expenditure, and the improvement of the internal re- 
 sources of the country — can never be fully obtained but 
 by an impartial and uncorrupt Government, supported 
 by your Majesty's unquestioned favour and protection. 
 
 " Unless some arrangement can be made," he says in 
 conclusion, " which will enable me to fulfil promises which 
 I was regularly authorised to make, I shall feel that 
 nothing can repair the diminution of weight and authority 
 which your Majesty's Government in this country will 
 experience, and that it will be impossible for me to con- 
 tinue in this situation without any further prospect of 
 being useful to your Majesty's service." 
 
 Hardwicke, in a letter to the Prime Minister, enclosing 
 a copy of the address which he had sent direct to the King, 
 is more explicit on the subject of the cabals, which he says 
 had been formed to the injury of the Union. Though he 
 does not name him, he has the Earl of Clare in mind as 
 the head of the intriguers. Next to Castlereagh, Fitz- 
 gibbon, the Lord Chancellor, was among Irishmen the 
 most powerful advocate of the Union. He indeed it 
 was who first suggested the project to Pitt as far back as 
 1793. A man of immense ability and consuming ambition, 
 he beheved that the government of Ireland would be 
 virtually in his hands after the Union, and was grievously 
 disappointed on finding it was proposed to invest, as 
 heretofore, the supreme authority in the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
62 CONTEST FOR AN IRISH PEERAGE 
 
 He had a profound contempt for the stohd, plodding 
 EngHshmen, Hardwicke, the Viceroy, and Abbot, the 
 Chief Secretary, who were sent over to rule Ireland, and 
 he took no pains to conceal it. " Lord Clare," Abbot 
 complains, " conducted himself disrespectfully and dis- 
 ingenuously towards the Lord Lieutenant upon many 
 occasions, public and personal ; and impertinently toward 
 me by his letters and language to other people, but it 
 made no difference in the uniform propriety with which 
 Lord Hardwicke treated him ; and by my indifference to 
 it he at last thought fit to say that he had set foot upon 
 my neck." It is true that these commonplace English- 
 men did not possess a tithe of Clare's talent, but they had 
 that to which he could not lay claim — tact in the manage- 
 ment of men, and capacity for government and guidance. 
 Says Hardwicke to Addington : 
 
 " The cabals to which I have alluded are not merely 
 those of Anti-Unionists or Half-Traitors ; they are those 
 of persons, some of whom, perhaps, are of no small con- 
 sequence in this country, who, though they supported the 
 Union, supported it in the expectation of a change in the 
 system of Government by which their weight, influence 
 and power in the country might be increased ; those 
 who imagined that one consequence of the Union would 
 be the governing of Ireland by means of some of its leading 
 men, formerly known by the name of Undertakers, aided 
 by the co-operation and agency of others, who by such an 
 arrangement would be raised from a mere subordinate 
 situation to that of the real Ministers of this country. To 
 such men (and that there are such is an undeniable fact), 
 the continuing to govern Ireland by a Lord Lieutenant 
 from England has been a subject of mortification and dis- 
 appointment, and, without referring to any personal 
 dislike of myself, accounts for some things which I have 
 unavoidably observed. Anything, therefore, that would 
 tend to lower either the real or the supposed weight of the 
 Lord Lieutenant would be to them a subject of triumph, 
 and the real and immediate consequence would be an 
 inability to carry on with effect any of the proposed and 
 necessary inquiries into the different offices and depart- 
 
SETTLEMENT OF THE DISPUTE 63 
 
 ments, and the best mode of ensuring in future the due 
 collection and expenditure of the publick Revenues. 
 
 * * ♦ 
 To "My dear Charles" everything that happens is 
 reported by the Lord Lieutenant. His ExceUency, 
 sending copies of his letters to the King and to the Prime 
 Minister to Charles Yorke on August 21, explains that his 
 references in the letter to Addington are to Lord Clare, 
 and to Cooke, the Under-Secretary, who, having failed to 
 secure the Chief Secretaryship, was on the side of the 
 Lord Chancellor. " They are both disappointed men, and 
 they take care to show it," says Hardwicke. Cooke 
 joined in all the " impertinences and sneers " of the 
 " underlings in office " — the permanent officials of Dublin 
 Castle— when things were not done as they thought fit. 
 " He is, however," continues Hardwicke, " personally 
 civil and submissive, but abuses Abbot and me to those 
 who might very well be supposed to report it again." As 
 to the letter to the King, he says : 
 
 " Probably the point may be determined before the 
 King receives it, and possibly it may have no effect ; and 
 in that case I must beg that my leaving the Government 
 may make no alteration in your situation at home. I 
 shall never be induced to lend my aid to any factitious 
 opposition, but shall give the same support as if the case 
 had never happened, tho' I shall feel that I have some 
 reason to complain ; and what is worse, that the Ministry 
 will weaken itself, not by obliging me to return, but by 
 retracting a promise made by the Prime Minister, and 
 shaking all confidence in future and past engagements." 
 
 * 4: :tc 
 
 The final issue of the dispute is thus set forth in a letter 
 from the Prime Minister to the Lord Lieutenant, dated 
 " Wimbledon, September 2, 1801." 
 
 " Your lordship may be assured that his Majesty could 
 not have been reconciled to the postponement of the 
 Marquis of Thomond's claim, nor could any consideration 
 have induced me even to suggest it. His Majesty, how- 
 ever, has been graciously pleased to approve of an arrange- 
 
64 CONTEST FOR AN IRISH PEERAGE 
 
 ment which I thought it right to propose, and which ought 
 to be satisfactory to all parties. It is that of conferring 
 upon the Marquis of Thomond the dignity of a Peer of 
 the United Kingdom, in which case there can be no re- 
 maining impediment, on the part of the Government, 
 to the accompHshment of your lordship's wishes in favour 
 of Lord Charleville." 
 
 Accordingly, Viscount Charleville was elected a repre- 
 sentative peer of Ireland, and the Marquis of Thomond 
 was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron 
 Thomond of Taplow, Bucks.* 
 
 The \'iceroy, acknowledging the Prime Minister's 
 communication, writes : 
 
 " It is unnecessary to trouble you by repeating at any 
 length that the only interest I felt in the transaction arose 
 from a conviction of the effect which would have been 
 produced on the public mind by so strong a proof of the 
 inabiUty of the Irish Government to fulfil its engage- 
 ments. That conviction was confirmed by reports which 
 reached me in the progress of the business, of which 
 (though the particulars were never divulged, and wiU 
 now, I trust, be buried in obhvion) some idea had 
 nevertheless got abroad, and was evidently operating 
 to the injury of the public service. I therefore sincerely 
 rejoice in the very proper and honourable manner in 
 which you have been able, through his Majesty's con- 
 descension and goodness, to bring it to a conclusion." 
 
 At the end, the seriousness of the incident was relieved 
 by a piece of comedy, though, no doubt, neither of the 
 actors in it appreciated its humour. On September 7 
 the Lord Lieutenant sat down in the Viceregal Lodge to 
 write to his brother an expression of his satisfaction with 
 the manner in which an embarrassing situation had been 
 terminated by the King. Charles Yorke, in one of his 
 letters, had complained that the Lord Lieutenant should 
 have taken up so uncompromising an attitude, without 
 having first consulted him as to the effect it might have 
 on his own position in the Administration as Minister for 
 
 * Extinction has long since overtaken both these titles. 
 
A TOUCH OF COMEDY 65 
 
 War. " But," the Lord Lieutenant remonstrates in 
 reply, " you must acknowledge that from the nature of 
 the representations I was obliged to make without loss 
 of time such communication was morally impossible. 
 Besides that, if the King, upon the statement I thought 
 it necessary to transmit to him, had stated his wishes in 
 favour of Lord Thomond, even under the circumstances 
 which I laid before him, I should most probably have 
 thought it my duty to remain here." 
 
 But that does not end the humour of the situation. 
 The independent and fearless address threatening resigna- 
 tion which Hardwicke had sent the King — a threat upon 
 which we now know he did not intend to act — was never 
 delivered to his Majesty ! " I had written so far," says 
 the Lord Lieutenant in the same communication to his 
 brother, " when your letter of the 3rd arrived, with the 
 mail of the 4th from London." This letter from Charles 
 Yorke informed his Excellency that his address to the 
 King had been forwarded to Tittenhanger, when it was 
 discovered that his Majesty was at Weymouth ; and that 
 on the return of the letter, after several days' delay, to 
 London, he had decided to suppress it, as the dispute had 
 in the meantime been happily arranged. The Viceroy 
 was mortified, and he did not conceal his feelings from his 
 brother. " I am persuaded," he says, " that you acted 
 with the truest regard for me upon the occasion, and with 
 the most friendly intention, but I should not act with 
 sincerity if I did not say that it is one of those points on 
 which it is impossible for any person, however near and 
 dear, to judge for another." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 The Earl of Hardwicke was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 vested, according to his Patent of Office, with the royal pre- 
 rogative of patronage in Irish honours, places, and pensions, 
 and yet he had not a post to give to a relative, a friend, 
 or a supporter ! The position, surely, was intolerable ! In 
 August, 1 80 1, he consulted Pelham as to whether these 
 embarrassing Union engagements could not be repudi- 
 ated, as they had been contracted by a former Adminis- 
 tration, or else be lifted, by some means or other, off his 
 shoulders. But there was no escape from the burden. 
 
 " I humbly conceive," writes Pelham in reply, " that 
 the principles upon which Mr. Addington undertook the 
 Administration, and that your Excellency was appointed 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, were that those engagements 
 were as binding as if Mr. Pitt's Administration had con- 
 tinued. The engagements of one Lord Lieutenant were 
 always considered as binding upon his successor, if there 
 was no change of Administration at home, and it was very 
 necessary that they should be so considered in Ireland, 
 for if a contrary principle had been adopted the favours 
 conferred by one Lord Lieutenant would not be considered 
 by those who received them as influencing their support 
 of his successor ; and if this system was thought con- 
 venient during the independence of the Irish Parliament, 
 I am sure your Excellency will not hesitate about it at 
 this moment, when the Governments are identified and 
 consolidated. " 
 
 After this Hardwicke endeavoured straightforwardly 
 
 and candidly to discharge as quickly as possible the debt 
 
 66 
 
HARDWICKE'S ANXIETY TO PAY THE UNION BILL 67 
 
 incurred by the statesmen of the Union. It was not a 
 pleasant task, but there was nothing dishonourable in 
 it. Such seems to have been the view taken of the matter 
 by the Lord Lieutenant. He paid the Union account 
 without any sense of personal humiliation. There was 
 just a grumble now and then over the difficult and equi- 
 vocal position in which he unexpectedly found himself ; 
 there was just an occasional sulk that he was unable to 
 respond to the claims of relationship, to think of his own 
 favourites, in distributing the dignities, appointments, 
 and pensions which constituted the patronage of his office. 
 But it does not make him cynical. He does not preach ; 
 he does not moralize. There is not to be found in the 
 mass of his correspondence a single expression of surprise 
 or regret that it should have been found necessary to 
 carry the Union by the means disclosed in the List of Union 
 Engagements. Perhaps he viewed it merely as an ex- 
 hibition of the mean and sordid but inevitable side of 
 Government or of political life at the opening of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 The conscientiousness with which Hardwicke en- 
 deavoured promptly " to liquidate the Union engage- 
 ments " — to employ a phrase he was fond of using himself 
 —is seen in the paying off of the claim of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel John Creighton. Shortly after the arrival of 
 Hardwicke in Ireland the military post of Governor of Ross 
 Castle became vacant. On referring to the List of Union 
 Engagements, the Lord Lieutenant found that a military 
 situation, or an equivalent £800 per annum, had been 
 promised to Major Creighton, subsequently promoted to the 
 command of a regiment. Creighton was the second son of 
 the Earl of Erne, and he and his elder brother (afterwards 
 the second earl) had sat in the Irish House of Commons. 
 Both of them voted against the Union in the session of 1799^ 
 when it was defeated, but, rapidly changing their opinions! 
 like many other members of Parliament, they supported 
 it in the session of 1800, when it was carried. Their 
 
 5—2 
 
68 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 father also supported the measure in House the of Lords. 
 The rewards given for these services were the promotion 
 of the father from a viscountcy to an earldom, and the 
 promise of a military post for the second son. Ac- 
 cordingly, Hardwicke, feeling bound in honour — as he 
 expressed himself to the Home Secretary — to apply the 
 vacant situation of Governor of Ross Castle to the satis- 
 faction of a Union engagement, wrote to Lord Erne 
 offering the post to his son. The offer was accepted. But, 
 to the Lord Lieutenant's chagrin, the office was otherwise 
 disposed of in London, without the slightest reference to 
 him, by the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York. 
 Thereupon Hardwicke wrote as follows to Addington, 
 the Prime Minister : 
 
 " Private and confidential. 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " June 27, 1 801. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I am under the disagreeable necessity of troubling 
 you upon a subject which not only occasions a degree of 
 personal embarrassment to myself, but may, in its con- 
 sequences, have very unpleasant effects in regard to 
 Government. You are no stranger to the variety and 
 extent of the engagements which Lord Comwallis was 
 under the necessity of contracting for the purpose of 
 carrying the great measure of Union, engagements which 
 he was authorized to make under the King's sanction by 
 the Duke of Portland and Mr. Pitt, and which have been 
 delivered to me under your authority. From the observa- 
 tions I have already made I have no hesitation in saying 
 that if there were now a Parliament here, the publick 
 business could not be carried on with so heavy a mort- 
 gage upon the patronage of the Crown in this country, 
 and that even now the mere carrying of those engage- 
 ments into effect is a matter of no small difficulty. If 
 the faith of the Government is to be kept in regard to 
 those engagements, which are not personal in regard to 
 Lord Cornwallis, but entirely of a publick nature, and for 
 the sake of a measure which was thought and which daily 
 experience proves to have been essentially necessary, it 
 is my duty to fulfil them as soon as possible, and I look 
 
THE BRIBES OFFERED BY THE PATRIOTS 69 
 
 to that object upon the occasion of every vacancy where 
 the situation can be applied to that purpose. 
 
 " The government of Ross Castle, which was merely 
 a ten-shilling government,* appeared to be of that descrip- 
 tion ; and as it is stated to me that there are few if any 
 instances of any government in this country being dis- 
 posed of in England without some communication with 
 the Lord Lieutenant, I did not imagine that I was ex- 
 ceeding my powers in applying that government to satisfy 
 an engagement made for a great publick object. The 
 person whom I intended to recommend to his Majesty 
 was, as I conceive, properly selected for such an object 
 of patronage — I mean Lieut. -Col. Creighton, son of Lord 
 Erne, to whom there is an engagement for a situation of 
 £400 a year — and though the government in question is 
 far inferior to that amount, yet Lard Erne, who has always 
 expressed a wish for some military situation for his son, 
 had actually consented to accept it. In regard to Lord 
 Erne, therefore, who was amongst the most honourable 
 supporters of the Union, I am placed in the most awk- 
 ward situation, from which I trust H.R.H. the Duke of 
 York will relieve me by appointing Lieut. -Col. Creighton 
 to a government of equal value in Great Britain. 
 
 " But the consequences of the whole patronage of 
 Ireland of a similar description being at once taken from 
 the office to which his Majesty has been graciously pleased 
 to appoint me will, in the present moment at least, and 
 till the Union engagements are satisfied, be very serious 
 indeed ; more so, I am convinced, than you can be aware 
 of till they are distinctly explained. The fact is that the 
 bribes, almost openly offered by what Lord Clare caUed 
 the Consular Exchequer,t obliged the Government to 
 
 * The emoluments of the position were ten shillings a day. 
 
 t " A hundred thousand pounds was subscribed, or more 
 probably promised, by leading members of the Party, and some 
 desperate but manifestly hopeless attempts were made to combat 
 the Government by their own weapons. Two seats which the 
 Government believed they had secured were obtained by the 
 Opposition, and Peter Burrowes and Thomas Goold— two able 
 opponents of the Union— were introduced into the House 
 Saunn was soon brought in for one of Lord Downshire's boroughs 
 and other measures of a more than dubious kind were taken* 
 One venal member— a brother-in-law of Lord Clare— who had 
 voted for the Union in 1799, was unquestionably bribed by a sum 
 of ;^4,ooo to vote against it in 1800, and it is stated by Grattan's 
 biographer that another vote was only lost because the money 
 was not forthcoming for another bribe."— Lecky: "Ireland in 
 the Eighteenth Century." " 
 
yo THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 counteract their influence by the same system in order to 
 carry the measure ; and hence arose the engagements for 
 certain salaries without office, or money payments, which 
 are upon the hst of engagements, and which have already 
 created some embarrassment. These must somehow or 
 other be done away ; for as the gentlemen to whom they 
 are payable have very little delicacy upon the subject, 
 they will make no secret of the conduct of Government 
 if the payments are not made good, or (which more 
 particularly bears upon the question at present) if 
 they observe either an unwillingness, or an inability, in 
 Government to satisfy the engagements in general. 
 
 " I need add very little more upon the subject, except 
 that as Colonel Littlehales,* who was acquainted with all 
 the transactions at the time of the Union, has written 
 fully to my brother, Mr. Yorke, I wish particularly to 
 refer you to his letter. I also recommend myself to your 
 friendly support and assistance with the Duke of York, 
 for I feel that this appointment of General Johnston, 
 without any communication with me, direct or indirect, 
 will leave an impression not very favourable to the publick 
 interests in Ireland. Above all, though we were not per- 
 sonally concerned in them, it behoves us to prevent the 
 Union transactions from being divulged in Parliament, 
 of which there is great danger, if the faith of Government 
 is not strictly observed, and if there is not a general im- 
 pression that it will be." 
 
 A few months later, in August, 1801, another important 
 military post, the government of Kinsale, fell vacant. In 
 this case the first step taken by the cautious and circum- 
 spect Hardwicke was the sending of a letter to the Duke 
 of York, expressing his earnest wish that his Royal High- 
 ness would recommend Lieutenant -Colonel Creighton for 
 the post. He pointed out that Lord Erne was among 
 the most honourable of the supporters of the Union in 
 the Irish House of Lords ; that he had had two members 
 in the Irish House of Commons who voted for the measure ; 
 that he had asked, in return, a military situation for his 
 younger son, and had been grievously disappointed be- 
 
 * Littlehales was Military Secretary both to Lord Cornwallis 
 qnd to Lord Hardwicke. 
 
THE DUKE OF YORK ON THE ENGAGEMENTS 71 
 
 cause the government of Ross Castle^ which was promised 
 him, had been given to another. The Lord Lieutenant 
 then goes on to remonstrate with his Royal Highness : 
 
 " I have undertaken the Government of Ireland with 
 a very heavy mortgage on the patronage of the Crown, 
 arising, not from any private engagements of my prede- 
 cessor, but from the necessity of carrying through the 
 Irish Parliament the great measure of the Union, the 
 incalculable advantage of which to the King's service, 
 and to the particular interests of Ireland, and to the joint 
 security and strength of his Majesty's dominions, will, I 
 am convinced, become every day more and more apparent. 
 But I must beg leave to represent to your Royal Highness 
 that as the Union engagements of Lord ComwaUis, which 
 are both of a civil and military nature, were transferred 
 to me, under the King's sanction, the patronage of the 
 Crown in Ireland ought to be considered as applicable to 
 the purpose of satisfying them in the same manner as 
 it certainly would have been if Lord Cornwallis had con- 
 tinued in the Government himself." 
 
 The reply of the Duke of York, signed " Frederic," 
 insists that the first consideration in the disposal of 
 military posts must be the interest of the Army. Says 
 his Royal Highness : 
 
 " I shall not enlarge upon the manner in which the 
 Army promotions were made in Ireland, upon the abuses 
 which took place, and upon the melancholy state in which 
 the Troops were in Ireland in consequence. 
 
 His Majesty was so thoroughly aware of the neces- 
 sity of making a reform in this particular that from the 
 moment the Union was determined upon, it was decided 
 that the two Armies should be in all respects consolidated, 
 and so strongly was this impressed upon his Majesty's 
 nimd that after the first of this year his Majesty would not 
 admit of the usual form of Lord ComwaUis's transmitting 
 the recommendations for promotions in Ireland till they 
 were carried m by me. I cannot doubt your Lordship's 
 statement of Lord CornwaUis having promised military 
 governments in Ireland in satisfaction of Union engage- 
 ments, but I can assure your Lordship that I never heard 
 of them, and am the more astonished at it, as his Lordship 
 never hinted at any such measure to me. 
 
72 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 " I have entered thus fully into this statement, wishing 
 that your Lordship should receive every information on 
 the subject, and should be convinced that no want of 
 respect has been shown, or, I am sure, intended towards 
 you ; but that before ever Lord Cornwallis's resignation 
 was expected the present system was intended to be laid 
 down." 
 
 At the same time, the Duke of York declares he should 
 always be ready to give every assistance in his power to 
 the Government in carrying out their obligations. He 
 proposed to recommend Lieutenant-Colonel Gardiner for 
 the government of Kinsale, and Major Creighton to suc- 
 ceed Gardiner as governor of Hurst Castle, on the Solent. 
 Hardwicke, expressing to his Royal Highness his satisfac- 
 tion with the arrangement, says : 
 
 " At the same time I think it right to take this oppor- 
 tunity of explaining to your Royal Highness that the 
 Union engagements which were delivered to me by 
 Lord Cornwallis did not contain any specific promises of 
 particular military objects, but some of them being to 
 military men were capable of being liquidated by such 
 objects as that which I was desirous of applying to the 
 engagement made to Lord Erne in favour of his son ; and 
 the engagements being to a very considerable extent, it 
 was desirable to caD in aid every object of patronage in 
 the country that could with propriety be made appHcable 
 to any particular case. I thought it right to trouble 
 your Royal Highness with this general explanation upon 
 the subject, and to express my hope for your concurrence 
 in any similar instance which may occur hereafter. 
 
 " I should, of course, be careful to recommend no 
 
 person merely on the ground of an engagement unless 
 
 he were proper for the situation, independently of that 
 
 consideration." 
 
 * * * 
 
 In the List of Union Engagements wiU be found the 
 following entry : " Bishop of Meath — A Revenue situa- 
 tion for his brother, from ;^200 to £300 per annum." Dr. 
 O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath, had been a Catholic, and was 
 being educated for the priesthood when he joined the Pro- 
 testant Church. He is supposed to be the Irish Protestant 
 
THE QUEER CASE OF BISHOP O'BEIRNE 71 
 
 clergyman, O'Beirne, who performed the marriage cere- 
 mony between Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV. when 
 Prince of Wales, in December, 1785. He supported the 
 Whig cause in a series of pamphlets, with the result that 
 he accompanied Earl Fitzwilliam — appointed Viceroy in 
 1794 — to Ireland as first chaplain and private secretary. 
 In 1795 he was appointed Bishop of Ossory, and in 1798 
 was translated to the See of Meath. The Bishop was a 
 conspicuous supporter of the Union. Here is a letter 
 from him to the Viceroy in reference to the engagement : 
 
 " TuNBRiDGE Wells, 
 
 " June 27, 1801. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " In the multiplicity of business in which your 
 Excellency must be engaged, under the present circum- 
 stances of your Government, I am fearful of being guilty 
 of great impropriety by breaking in on your Excellency's 
 time with a private concern of my own. But a letter 
 which I have this day received from my brother compels 
 me to overcome my repugnance to such an intrusion, and, 
 I hope, will plead my excuse. 
 
 " I must be aware that it is to Lord Comwallis's recom- 
 mendation alone that I am indebted for the offer your 
 Excellency has been pleased to direct Col. Littlehales to 
 make to my brother of the place of Barrack Master to 
 the CasheU district. I could pretend to no other interest 
 with your Excellency. But as I cannot but feel highly 
 gratified by your Excellency's taking so early an oppor- 
 tunity of realizing the kind wishes of the late Government 
 in my favour, I scarce know how to reconcile myself to 
 the task my brother has imposed on me of begging leave 
 to decline the appointment. 
 
 " The promise of providing for my brother has been of 
 long standing, as old as my own particular connexions 
 with two Lord Lieutenants, both of whom staid too 
 short a time to fulfUl it. Mr. Pelham and Lord Camden 
 were kind enough to renew it towards the end of their 
 Administration, after I had the good fortune of recom- 
 mending myself to their notice. I was then encouraged 
 to apply for a specific place, that of Landwaiter on the 
 Custom House Quay in Dublin, a place generally esti- 
 mated at between ^400 and £500 per annum ; but at 
 
74 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 the same time I stated that any other of about that value 
 would fully gratify me, and something on that scale was 
 what I had reason to know was in their contempla- 
 tion. 
 
 " When Lord Camden was so good as to leave a memor- 
 andum of this, with the other promises he had made, I 
 do not know that he mentioned anything specific. In 
 my own conversations with Lord Cornwallis and Lord 
 Castlereagh on the subject I contented myself with 
 stating what I had expected from Lord Camden and Mr. 
 Pelham, and with the kind wishes they expressed, as 
 well in consequence of that recommendation, as from 
 what they were pleased to say of their desire of giving me 
 that additional mark of their own approbation of my 
 conduct ; and, except that towards the end of the last 
 session of the Irish Parliament I asked for the place of 
 one of the Commissioners of the new Navigation Board, I 
 did not trouble them with any specific application. 
 
 " I have ventured to enter into this detail to account 
 to your Excellency for what, otherwise, you might think 
 unwarrantable in my brother, and in the hope that you 
 wiU not be offended at refusing any mark of your Ex- 
 cellency's favour, which you might be pleased to extend 
 to him. The place of Barrack Master to the Cashell 
 district, I see by Col. Littlehales' letter to my brother, is 
 about ten shillings a day, requiring constant residence, 
 and that my brother should give up his company in the 
 Longford Militia. I need not tell your Excellency that 
 his company is more lucrative, even if the place of Bar- 
 rack Master, such as that of the district of Cashell, was the 
 place of a gentleman, which in the time of my being 
 acquainted with the nature of the Lord Lieutenant's 
 patronage, it was not considered to be, and from the 
 person who fills the place in my own neighbourhood it 
 cannot be now esteemed to be. 
 
 " I shall not obtrude any longer on your Excellency's 
 time than to beg leave to assure you of my most sincere 
 wishes *for the success of your Excellency's Government, 
 a^d of my earnest desire to contribute, as far as my 
 h&mble line will admit, to its credit and support. 
 
 ■'" I have the honour to be with the highest respect, my 
 Lord, your Excellency's most obedient and most humble 
 servant, 
 
 "T. L. Meath." 
 
O'BEIRNE'S DISAPPOINTMENT ALLAYED 75 
 
 In December, 1801, the brother obtained the post to 
 which he aspired, that of landwaiter on the quay of 
 Dubhn ; and the Bishop, in a letter to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, expresses his very grateful sense of the gracious 
 manner in which his Excellency had fulfilled the engage- 
 ment. " It has," he says, " changed what was originally 
 the promise of another into an act of kindness on the part 
 of your Excellency, that has much stronger claims on 
 my gratitude, and must ever command my warmest 
 acknowledgments." But the post proved disappointing 
 to the brother. Writing to the Viceroy from Ardbraccan 
 House, Navan, on May 23, 1804, the Bishop, after re- 
 counting the history of the transaction, says : 
 
 " When your Excellency was pleased to offer him the 
 place of Inspector-General of Barracks, I requested 
 Mr. Abbot to inform your Excellency that while I ac- 
 cepted with great thankfulness this proof of so early an 
 attention to the recommendation that procured my 
 brother the honour of your notice, I begged leave to state 
 that the place of Landwaiter on the Quay of Dublin was 
 what I had been encouraged to expect for him. 
 
 " In a short time after, your Excellency was so good 
 as to direct Mr. Abbot to offer him this place of Land- 
 waiter, and in the letter he wrote conveying to me your 
 Excellency's pleasure, he observed tjiat although it 
 might not be as lucrative, from some late regulations, as 
 I had known it to be when I first applied for it, yet he 
 could offer it as worth five hundred a year. This was, 
 certainly, much lower than the perquisites of the office 
 in Lord Camden or Lord Comwallis's time. Yet had it 
 proved to have been worth even that much, I never should 
 have obtruded upon your goodness with any further appli- 
 cations. But my brother can make it appear that in 
 consequence of the new regulations he is, at this moment, 
 scarcely receiving at the rate of three hundred pounds a 
 year ; while from the distinction that has been made 
 between the Landwaiters, and the difference of duty 
 assigned to those with whose class he has been thrown, 
 it has become a place of such drudging and slavery as 
 never could have been in the contemplation of anyone 
 succeeding, as he did, to Mr. French, who was one of the 
 older-estabUshed Landwaiters." 
 
76 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 What the Bishop now desired was that his brother 
 should succeed " Mr. Scanlan, whose place is worth 
 something more than £500 a year." His desire was 
 again satisfied ; for, writing on July 3, 1804, he offers his 
 " most grateful acknowledgments " to his Excellency. 
 But the exuberant thankfulness of the letter is best 
 shown by its concluding sentence : 
 
 " I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect and 
 
 most sincere attachment, my Lord, your Excellency's 
 
 greatly-obliged and most obedient humble servant, 
 
 "T. L. Meath." 
 * * * 
 
 In November, 1801, a vacancy in the collectorship of 
 Dundalk was anticipated. " Anne Roden," the Dowager 
 Lady Roden, at once wrote to the Viceroy — her son, the 
 Earl of Roden, being then absent in London attending 
 to his Parliamentary duties — that this post had always 
 been in the patronage of " the Family." Hardwicke, in 
 his reply, stated that the post, when vacant, must be 
 applied to the discharge of one of the Union engagements ; 
 and added that the engagement to Lord Roden for his 
 Union services had been fulfilled by the appointment of 
 his brother-in-law, Mr. Straton, to a position on the 
 Navigation Board, worth £400 a year. Lady Roden, 
 writing again, insisted that the office given to Mr. Straton, 
 her son-in-law, was the reward, not for Union services, but 
 for the return of Isaac Corry, Chancellor of the Irish 
 Exchequer, as member for Dundalk in the Imperial 
 Parliament. 
 
 " I beg leave to represent to your Excellency," she 
 adds, " that neither Lord Roden, my son, nor my son-in- 
 law in Parliament, have at any time received the least 
 consideration from the Government of this country on 
 account of their steady and uniform support of the 
 momentous question agitated in the last Session of the 
 Irish Parliament, which they so strenuously seconded 
 upon all occasions." 
 
 Then came the following letter from Lord Roden to the 
 Viceroy : 
 
" LORD JOCELYN'S FOXHUNTERS " 77 
 
 I " London, 
 
 - " 'November i6th, 1801. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " In consequence of having received a copy of 
 a letter your Excellency was pleased to write to the 
 Dowager Lady Roden, dated Phoenix Park, Nov. 5th, 
 respecting the disposal of the Collection of Dundalk (in 
 case a vacancy should occur), I find myself called upon 
 (for the sake of my Family and particularly for the sake 
 of my own feelings) to trespass upon your Excellency's 
 time, as I must conceive my situation, and the circum- 
 stances that attend the one to which I allude, have not 
 been perfectly made known to your Excellency. 
 
 " Your Excellency, I hope and trust, has been informed 
 of the public line of conduct of the Family to which I 
 belong, the elder part of which had the honour of being 
 much connected with an ancestor of yours. I thank 
 God, my Lord, before and since that period it has had 
 the pleasing satisfaction of shewing on every occasion its 
 loyalty and firm support of His Majesty's Government, 
 in consequence of which especial favours from the Crown 
 have been confer'd on different branches of it. As to 
 the recent ones, viz., Lord Comwallis having been pleased 
 to recommend my son to be appointed joint Auditor- 
 General with me, I have his Lordship's word, and if my 
 assertion could be doubted I can have it under his hand, 
 that that mark of Royal favour was confer'd on me in 
 consequence of my military services in Ireland,* and not 
 
 * " Another large body of rebels, who had agreed with General 
 Dundas to surrender their arms, were assembled for that purpose 
 at a place called Gibbet-rath, or the Curragh of Kildare. Sir 
 James Duff, who had just made a rapid march from Limerick 
 with 600 men, proceeded with his force to receive the weapons. 
 Unfortunately, a gun was fired from the rebel ranks. According 
 to the most probable account it was fired into the air by a rebel 
 who foohshly boasted that he would only dehver his gun empty. 
 Instantly a deadly voUey was poured by the troops into the 
 rebels, who fled m wild panic and disorder, fiercely pursued by 
 Lord Jocelyn's Foxhunters. The officers lost aU control over 
 their men. In the vast and open plain defence and escape were 
 alike impossible, and although General Dundas, on hearing what 
 had occurred, hastened to do all that was possible to arrest the 
 slaughter, between 200 and 300 men were killed. The affair 
 was plausibly, though untruly, represented as a dehberate plot 
 to massacre defenceless men who had been lured by the promise 
 of pardon into the plain, and it contributed perhaps more than 
 any other single cause to check the disposition to surrender 
 
78 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 in consideration of any political measure ; for I beg to 
 assure your Excellency that as to the great question 
 lately agitated, no power on this earth should have in- 
 fluenced me to have supported that most important 
 measure of Legislative Union, if I had not been most 
 decidedly of opinion of its great efficacy, for in my opinion 
 it was a question of too much import for any man of 
 honor to act upon but from positive conviction. As to 
 the appointment of my brother-in-law, Mr. Straton, to 
 the Navigation Board, the original promise was made for 
 returning Mr. Corry for Dundalk,* with the addition of 
 its being made an employment of £500 per annum, 
 instead of £400, which your Excellency was pleased 
 voluntarily to do in the most obliging possible manner, 
 which I shall ever remember with much gratitude. 
 
 " I have many apology's to make for taking up so much 
 of your Excellency's time, but the refusal of the patronage 
 of the town of Dundalk to our Family, contained in the 
 letter I have already aluded to, has been so unexpected 
 an event to me, that I must beg your indulgence for a 
 few moments. From the whole of the town and vicinage 
 of Dundalk having belonged to our Family, it has, 
 almost uninterruptedly, indeed I believe entirely so, 
 been considered that in case of any vacancy occurring in 
 the gift of Government within that situation, the nomina- 
 tion was offered to the representative of that property. 
 On the death of my uncle, the late Earl of Clanbrassil, I 
 became possessor of that estate, and since that event has 
 taken place I have had assurances from the different 
 Governments in Ireland that the same patronage should 
 be continued to me, and last year Mr. Gataker was put 
 
 arms." — Lecky : " Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." The 
 Lord Jocelyn of this incident in the Rebellion of 1798 is the 
 Earl of Roden of the letter to the Lord Lieutenant, 
 
 * Isaac Corry sat in the Irish Parliament for Newry. He was 
 one of the leading advocates of the Union, and was appointed 
 to the office of Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, of which 
 Sir John Parnell was deprived on account of his opposition to 
 the Union, The personal antagonism between Corry and Henry 
 Grattan became so bitter during the debates on the Union that 
 one night they left the House of Commons and fought a duel at 
 Balls' Bridge, outside Dublin, Corry was wounded in the arm, 
 and Grattan escaped unhurt. Corry lost his seat for Newry in 
 an election for the first United Parhament, but throixgh the Roden 
 influence was returned for Dundalk. 
 
LORD RODEN ON HIS FAMILY CLAIMS 79 
 
 into a Revenue situation there with my consent, and since 
 Mr. Purcell has been nominated to a Revenue situation 
 there at my request. I shall lament, indeed, if when I am 
 absent from Ireland supporting his Majesty's Govem- 
 men here, that your Excellency shall think proper to 
 deprive me of a similar mark of Royal favour that has 
 been bestowed by former Governments on my Family, 
 and put a stranger into a situation that has always been 
 filled by a person of our nomination. It will not only 
 materially affect me in the present instance, but be a 
 means of our Family never in future seeking it as a claim 
 of patronage. I can only say I trust neither I nor any 
 person belonging to my Family have committed any act 
 that should preclude us from a continuance of that line 
 of conduct that has uniformly been bestowed in the situa- 
 tion in question. I shall have to lament that under your 
 Excellency's Administration, I should be deprived of that 
 local patronage my ancestors ever possessed. 
 
 " From a conversation my brother, Mr. Percy Jocelyn, 
 mentions to have had the honor of having with your 
 Excellency, I learn that it was not your intention immedi- 
 ately to fill up the employment. I trust that the state- 
 ment I have had the honor to lay before your Excellency 
 will induce you to consider my situation, and that I may 
 not have the mortification to reflect that his Majesty's 
 existing Government in Ireland have judged proper at 
 this period to deprive me of a situation of patronage 
 which former Governments have ever consider'd as 
 belonging to my Family, and which has (by influence) 
 ever assisted us in the zealous support of his Majesty's 
 Government, which has ever been the pride and object 
 of our lives. 
 
 " I intreat your Excellency's forgiveness for the length 
 of this letter, the very great importance of the object it 
 contains, will, I trust, plead my excuse. I have only now 
 to request that your Excellency will permit me to return 
 you my sincere thanks for your obliging kindness on a 
 former occasion, and also for the flattering expressions 
 contained in a letter I had the honor sometime since to 
 receive ; and have the honor to be, my Lord, with high 
 respect and esteem, 
 (^ " Your Excellency's obliged, faithful, humble servant, 
 
 " RODEN." 
 
8o THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 On the same day Lord Roden wrote to Comwallis, 
 saying, "I am rather apprehensive, without your being 
 so good as to say that you promised me during your 
 Administration the patronage of the town (which you 
 was pleased to do in your own closet), I may be most 
 materially injured by a stranger being put in upon me 
 there." To this Comwallis, writing at Paris on Novem- 
 ber 23, 1 80 1, replied : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I feel very sensibly the honorable support which 
 your Lordship afforded my Administration in Ireland ; 
 and I perfectly recollect that I gave you the strongest 
 assurance that so long as I continued in the Government 
 of that country you should have the patronage of the 
 town of Dundalk." 
 
 Roden sent to the Viceroy copies of his letter to Com- 
 wallis, and of the latter's answer, in support of his own 
 communication to his Excellency, But it was all with- 
 out avail. The Lord Lieutenant refused to budge from 
 the position he had taken up in his letter to Lady Roden. 
 
 " I trust your lordship will give me credit for wishing 
 to show you every mark of respect in my power," Hard- 
 wicke replies, " and for doing full justice to your useful 
 and spirited exertions, both political and military, in 
 support of His Majesty's Government in Ireland. I am 
 also perfectly convinced that your conduct upon those 
 great and important events which have of late years 
 occupied the attention of the public in this country, was 
 the result of a sincere conviction, and the most honourable 
 feeling of duty, and that no other consideration could have 
 induced your lordship to have acted in the manner you 
 did upon a late question, which was one upon which the 
 most honourable men might fairly have differed, and, as 
 your lordship observes, of too great import for any man 
 of honour to act upon but from positive conviction." 
 
 Then the " but " comes in, represented by those 
 unfortunate Union engagements. Hardwicke continues : 
 
 " But if such an office as that of Collector at Dundalk 
 should become vacant before the engagements to which 
 
LORD WALLSCOURT 8i 
 
 I am personally pledged shall be fulfilled, I am sure your 
 Lordship will feel, if you place yourself in my situation, 
 that neither my own individual honour nor that of the 
 Government will allow me to have any other choice than 
 that of selecting, from those whose engagements may be 
 at the time unsatisfied, the person most proper to perform 
 the duties of the place. As there is not at present a 
 vacancy, I have no idea who that person may be ; but, 
 although he were a perfect stranger to me, if the faith 
 of the Government is generally pledged to him, and if 
 he is fit for the employment, I must prefer him to every 
 ether recommendation." 
 
 Roden, however, was not content. 
 
 " How my very much respected and sincerely esteem'd 
 
 friend, Lord Cornwallis," he writes to Hardwicke, " can 
 
 reconcile his having given me the patronage of Dundalk, 
 
 and fulfilling his engagements with an appointment 
 
 existing under that patronage, I cannot say ; but the 
 
 business is certainly attached to him and most clearly 
 
 not to your Excellency's Government. Under the present 
 
 circumstances of the case, I shall by this day's post write 
 
 to Mr. Straton to have the honor of waiting on your 
 
 Excellency, and shall recommend to him to resign his 
 
 situation at the Navigation Board in order that he may 
 
 accept of your Excellency's appointment to the Collection 
 
 of Dundalk."* 
 
 * * * 
 
 Joseph Blake, Lord Wallscourt, had his eye on this 
 collectorship of Dundalk in the interest of his brother. 
 The 'ingagement will be found in the " Civil " section of 
 the List of Union Engagements. " Lord Wallscourt — 
 A Revenue situation, for his brother, £400 per annum." 
 Among the persons to whom Lord Cornwallis in his letter 
 to the Duke of Portland of June 9, 1800 — while yet the 
 fate of the scheme of the Union was undecided — states 
 that he had " ventured to hold out a reasonable expecta- 
 tion that in consequence of their valuable services his 
 Majesty would in his goodness raise them to the rank of 
 peers in Ireland " was Joseph Blake, one of the members 
 
 * See Straton's case in the " Civil " section of the List of 
 Union Engagements. ^ 
 
82 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 for Galway. Blake was accordingly created Baron 
 Wallscourt. Writing from " Ardfry, near Loughrea," 
 on January 6, 1802, to Dr. Lindsay, the Viceroy's private 
 secretary, he says : 
 
 " Common report informing me that some vacancies 
 in public situations were likely to occur shortly, I took 
 the liberty of reminding Lord Castlereagh of an engage- 
 ment that the late Administration were pleased to enter 
 into for a provision for my only brother, to which his 
 Lordship has favoured me with a reply, of which I have 
 the honour to enclose a copy. 
 
 " The expected vacancies I allude to are the Collector- 
 ship of Dundalk, and the retirement of some of the Com- 
 missioners of the Revenue. Not that I look to any of 
 the latter situations for my brother, but possibly they 
 may be filled by gentlemen who vacate places of less con- 
 sequence. Should my information be correct, permit 
 me to take the liberty of requesting that you will be so 
 good as to solicit his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant to 
 appoint my brother (Henry James Blake) to one of those 
 vacancies, or any other situation of the annual value of from 
 £500 to £600 that may fall to his Excellency's disposal. 
 
 " His Excellency, I trust, will feel inclined to serve my 
 brother when he is informed that I represented the county 
 of Galway during ten years (and until his Majesty was 
 pleased to remove me to the Peerage), in the course of 
 which time my opinions, fortunately, coincided with the 
 measures of His Majesty's Ministers, so as to enable me 
 to give them my uniform support. Though conceiving 
 myself entitled to some attention, I did not trouble the 
 Government for any situation of emolument for myself 
 or any of my family, as will appear by none such being 
 held by any relation of mine at present. I am persuaded 
 that it is unnecessary for me to urge this matter further, 
 his Excellency being apprized of my hopes and wishes." 
 
 " I perfectly recollect," Castlereagh writes in the note 
 which Wallscourt enclosed, " the assurance you received 
 whilst I was in office of having a provision made for your 
 brother, in compliance with which the engagement was 
 handed over by Lord Comwallis to Lord Hardwicke ; and 
 I have no doubt his Excellency will take the earliest 
 opportunity of carrying it into effect. If I have an oppor- 
 
THE CASE OF SIR VERE HUNT 83 
 
 tunity, I shall be happy in conversation to suggest any- 
 thing that can promote your wishes. I am persuaded, 
 however, that no further suggestion from me is necessary 
 to secure the accomplishment of the engagement in 
 question." 
 
 Wallscourt's brother did not, as we know, obtain the 
 collectorship of Dundalk. The engagement to Walls- 
 court is endorsed by the Lord Lieutenant in the official 
 list as " not done." That was in 1804. But I find that 
 Henry Blake, Wallscourt's brother, was appointed subse- 
 quently to the portsurveyorship of Galway. 
 
 4i ^ ^ 
 
 Then there is the interesting case of Sir Vere Hunt, of 
 
 Curragh Chase, Limerick, who sat for that county in the 
 
 Irish Parliament, and was promised a post of £500 a year 
 
 for his support of the Union.* The Irish Executive 
 
 had considerable trouble in satisfying this claim. Here 
 
 is a memorandum sent from London by Wickham to the 
 
 Viceroy of an interview between him and Lord Limerick, 
 
 Hunt's brother-in-law : 
 
 " July 12th, 1803. 
 
 " Offered Sir Vere Hunt, through Lord Limerick, £500 
 a year until a place of the same value {not a sinecure) 
 should be given to him, admitting his claim to the £500 
 a year from the beginning of the year 1800, but no earlier. 
 
 " N.B. — Sir Vere Hunt claims from the beginning of 
 1799. 
 
 " Or, 
 
 " The Weighmastership of Cork {a sinecure) of £600 a 
 year, the appointment to date from the day of Mr. 
 Crosbie's death. Sir Vere Hunt renouncing all claim to the 
 arrears of his allowance of £500 a year. 
 
 '*This offer made as an ultimatum from which the 
 Irish Government will not recede. Sir Vere Hunt to 
 choose between the two, and until his choice is made to 
 receive nothing. 
 
 " N.B. — This was read over and over again to Lord 
 
 * Hunt was the father of Sir Aubrey De Vere the poet, author 
 of "Julian the Apostate" and "Mary Tudor," who in 1832 
 assumed by Royal Ucense the surname of'De Vere, and grand- 
 father of the late Aubrey De Vere, a most gracious figure in the 
 literary circles of the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 Limerick, who was not allowed, however, to take it away 
 in writing." 
 
 How the engagement was settled is thus humorously 
 recorded in a letter from C. W. Flint, of the Irish Office, 
 London, to Alexander Marsden, the Under-Secretary for 
 Ireland, dated July 20, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I had a very long battle with Sir Vere Hunt last 
 week on the subject of the ultimatum of the Irish Govern- 
 ment communicated to him at Mr. Wickham's particular 
 desire by Lord Limerick. He, of course, told me how ill 
 he had been treated by everybody except Mr. Wickham. 
 He abused Lords Castlereagh and Limerick most lustily, 
 and expressed himself particularly anxious that his 
 claims on the Irish Government should be referred to 
 the decision of a fair and honourable umpire, and men- 
 tioned Mr. Casey as a fit and proper man for this important 
 office. I told him that all umpires were out of the case, 
 and that he had only to choose between two very plain 
 and simple offers — a place of £500 a year (not a sinecure), 
 admitting his claim to ;^5oo a year from the beginning of 
 1800, but no earlier ; or the Weighmastership of Cork (a 
 sinecure) worth ;^6oo a year, the appointment to date 
 fiom the day of Mr. Crosbie's death, Sir V. renouncing 
 all claim to the arrears of this allowance of £500 a year. 
 He left me, very little satisfied ; but before he went away 
 he begged I would ask Mr. Wickham whether Lord Hard- 
 wicke would have any objection to insert his son's name 
 in the patent instead of his own. I told him I would 
 mention this to Mr. Wickham. 
 
 " Sir Vere called on me again this morning, when I 
 informed him of Mr. Wickham's desire that he must 
 either accept the ultimatum or he must reject it alto- 
 gether ; and that with respect to his son's name being 
 inserted in the patent instead of his own, it was a thing 
 quite out of the case. Poor Sir V. looked rather queer, 
 but seeing that we were not to be bullied, he very gravely 
 told me that he would accept of the Weighmastership, 
 and begged I would request Mr. Wickham to cause his 
 patent to be prepared as soon as possible. Thus, thank 
 God, have you got rid of him for ever." 
 
 But the Irish Executive were not yet rid of Sir Vere 
 Hunt, In a letter dated " Phoenix Park, July 28th, 
 
BOYLE ROCHE 85 
 
 1805," and marked " secret and confidential," addressed 
 by the Lord Lieutenant to Nicholas Vansittart, then 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland, there is an extraordinary 
 story told about Hunt's bribe and Edward Cooke, who 
 was Under-Secretary at the time of the Union. It says : 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 "It is a matter of some delicacy to explain the 
 grounds of Sir Vere Hunt's complaint. I understand 
 that he was promised a payment of £500 per annum till he 
 was appointed to an office of that value. That when he 
 called for payment at the Civil Office, Mr. Taylor, who had 
 charge of such proportions of the Secret Service Money as 
 were drawn from the Treasury and remained in readiness 
 for application, paid over to Mr. Cooke a sum of £500 
 which he promised to Sir Vere, who was then in the room, 
 should be remitted to him. When Sir Vere called upon 
 Mr. Marsden in the following year he asserted that he 
 had never received the money ; and though Mr. Marsden 
 and Mr. Taylor wrote to Mr. Cooke upon the subject, 
 stating Sir Vere's assertion, and the latter, Mr. Taylor, 
 particularly reminding him of the circumstances, they 
 have to this hour never received any answer to their letter. 
 
 " This was again complained of by Sir Vere Hunt when 
 he accepted the place of Weighmaster of Cork, and as 
 that office, which was called £600 per annum, certainly 
 exceeded £500, it was stated by Mr. Wickham both to Sir 
 Vere Hunt and Lord Limerick to be given in satisfaction 
 of all arrears, which, I understand, did not exceed the 
 one year's pa3mient of ^^500 which has been so unaccount- 
 ably withheld by Mr. Cooke." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Here is a letter signed " Boyle Roche."* What has 
 
 * "Sir Boyle Roche certainly was, without exception, the 
 most celebrated and entertaining anti-grammarian in the Irish 
 Parliament. I knew him intimately. He was of a very respect- 
 able Irish family, and, in point of appearance, a fine bluff, soldier- 
 hke old gentleman. He had numerous good qualities, and 
 having been long in the army his ideas were full of honour and 
 etiquette, of discipline and bravery. He had a claim to the title 
 of Fermoy, which, however, he never pursued, and was brother 
 to the famous Tiger Roche, who fought some desperate duel abroad 
 and was near being hanged for it. Sir Boyle was perfectly well 
 ZiT^ T^?^ l^^^ habits, had been appointed Gentleman Usher at 
 the Irish Court, and executed the duties of that ofl&ce to the 
 aay of his death with the utmost satisfaction to himself as well 
 
86 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 " the buffoon of the Irish Parliament " got to say ? He, 
 too, is a petitioner for a place. He had voted for the 
 Union, and, as will be seen on reference to the " Pension " 
 section of the Union engagements, he had received a pen- 
 sion of £400 a year for life. Writing to Hardwicke from 
 29, Thayer Street, near Manchester Square, London, 
 " May ye 12, 1801," he says : 
 
 " I believe your Excellency knows I had a place at 
 the Castle for above 23 years, which I resigned to Capt. 
 Bruce (a friend of Lord Castlereagh) for an annuity from 
 the Government," 
 
 He points out that the Gentleman Usher of the Black 
 Rod, though abolished by the Union as an office of the 
 House of Lords, remained as an office of the Order of 
 St. Patrick and of the Viceregal household, and presumes 
 that, as it had now no salary attached, it was probably 
 little sought for. 
 
 " As I have been so many years about the Castle town," 
 he says, " I shall feel displaced at being removed from it ; 
 and if your Excellency will have the goodness to appoint 
 me Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, without a salary, 
 which will give me an opportunity of attending about your 
 person, and in which I may be useful, being perfectly 
 acquainted with everything about the Castle, I shall con- 
 sider myself as highly honoured." 
 
 His wish was gratified by his appointment as a " Gentle- 
 man at Large " in the Viceregal household. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Opponents of the Union are also found in the thick 
 of the scramble for place. Here comes the name of 
 " Jonah Barrington," the Sir Jonah of that graphic work 
 
 as to everyone in connection with him. He was married to the 
 eldest daughter of Sir John Cane, Bart., and his lady, who was a 
 bos bleu, prematurely injured Sir Boyle's capacity, it was said, 
 by forcing him to read Gibbon's ' Rise and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire,' whereat he was so cruelly puzzled, without being in the 
 least amused, that in his cups he often stigmatized the great 
 historian as a low fellow, who ought to have been kicked out of 
 company wherever he was for turning people's thoughts away 
 from their prayers and their politics to what the devil himself 
 could make neither head nor tail of!" — Jonah Barrington: 
 " Personal Recollections of his Own Time?." 
 
SIR JONAH HARRINGTON 87 
 
 on the Union, " The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation.'' 
 He sat in the Irish House of Commons, and in his book 
 he poses as an impurchasable patriot. " Refused all 
 terms," he proudly writes of himself. A motion in favour 
 of the Union was, as I have said, defeated in the session of 
 1799. But in the session of 1800 the supporters of the 
 Union were in a decisive majority. There was no General 
 Election in the interval. Parliament had been packed by 
 the method of inducing many of the opponents of the 
 measure to make way for friends of the Government. 
 One of the patriots who resigned was Jonah Barrington. 
 Clogher, for which he sat, was a Government borough ; 
 and it was the rule in those days that the representative 
 of a nomination borough must vote as his patron directed 
 or resign.* However, in September, 1801, he called on 
 Hardwicke, with a letter of introduction from the Earl of 
 Westmorland, a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
 Hardwicke, writing on the subject to Westmorland, says : 
 
 " Mr. Barrington seemed desirous of explaining the 
 situation in which he has stood in regard to Government, 
 before the question of Union, and though he was aware 
 that he could not be considered as entitled to early favour, 
 yet he wished not to be looked upon as hostile, and 
 claimed some merit for having given up his seat in Par- 
 liament after the first session in which the Union was 
 discussed. He does not appear to have any particular 
 object, though I presume he some time or other will look 
 to the Bench." 
 
 * He opposed the Union, as he states in his " Personal Recol- 
 lections," by every means in his power, both in and out of Parlia- 
 ment. " In January, 1800," he says, " I received a letter from 
 Lord Westmorland, stating that as Clogher had been a Govern- 
 ment seat he doubted if I could in honour retain it. I had 
 already made up my mind to resign it when required. I men- 
 tioned the subject to Mr. Foster, the Speaker, who thought I 
 was not bound to resign. However, I acceded to the suggestion 
 of Lord Westmorland, and accepted an escheatorship. But no 
 office m His Majesty's gift, no power, no deprivation, would have 
 mduced me to support the Union." Barrington was ultimately 
 appointed Judge of the Admiralty Court, and knighted. In 1830 
 he fled to France, and by a resolution of both Houses of ParUa- 
 ment was removed from his office for embezzlement of the fees 
 of the Court. He died at Versailles in 1834. 
 
88 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 But until the legal engagements arising out of the Union 
 were settled, there was no place for Jonah Barrington. 
 
 Here, too, is John Egan, another barrister on the 
 hunt for, a job. He was member for Tallagh in the Irish 
 Pai^iam^nt.* In 1799 he was appointed Chairman of 
 thefKilmainham Sessions, in the hope of securing his vote 
 for the; Union. During the debate on the question it was 
 noticed that he appeared ill at ease. What side should 
 he take ? That was the question which perplexed him. 
 At last, making up his mind, he sprang to his feet, and 
 delivered a vehement, uncompromising speech against 
 the Union. The exclamation with which he concluded 
 is historic. " Ireland for ever !" he cried, " and damn 
 Kilmainham !" 
 
 Here is a curiously artless and ingenuous letter which he 
 
 addressed to Hardwicke : 
 
 "Ely Place, Dublin, 
 
 ''Oct. 17, 1 801. 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Baron Metge I know intends to resign his seat in 
 the Exchequer ; and if the wishes of that able and up- 
 right Judge could designate a fit successor, I am authorized 
 to say to your Excellency they rest upon me. Convinced 
 that the grandson of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, whose 
 pre-eminence in talents, as in virtues, is so familiar to the 
 lawyer's ear, will consult every means to fill the judicial 
 situations with learning, talents, experience, and integrity, 
 
 * "Mr. Egan, one of the roughest-looking persons possible, 
 being at one time a supporter of the Government, made virulent 
 philippics in the Irish House of Commons against the French 
 Revolution. His figure was coarse and bloated, and his dress 
 not over elegant withal. In fact, he had by no means the look 
 of a Member of Parliament. One evening this man fell foul of a 
 speech of Grattan's, and amongst other absurdities said in his 
 paroxysm that the right honourable gentleman's speech had a 
 tendency to introduce the guillotine into the very body of the 
 House ; indeed, he almost thought he could perceive it before 
 him. ('Hear him ! hear him !' echoed from Sir Boyle Roche.) 
 Grattan good-humouredly replied that the honourable member 
 must have a vastly sharper sight than he had. He certainly 
 could see no such thing. 'But though,' added Grattan, looking 
 with his glass toward Egan, ' I may not see the guillotine, yet 
 methinks I can perceive the executioner.' ' Order, order !' 
 shouted Sir Boyle Roche, but a general laugh prevented any 
 further observ^ation." — Barrington: " Personal Recollections of 
 his Own Times." 
 
SIR JOHN PARNELL 89 
 
 I felt that conviction forbids me as a candidate. But the 
 partiality of some friends, and particularly of Lord Avon- 
 more, manifested in a letter to his grace the Duke of 
 Portland in 1798, revokes the interdict pronounced by 
 myself, and emboldens me to entrude upon your Ex- 
 cellency's important avocations, by soliciting your 
 perusal of the enclosed copy of that letter, which I have 
 his lordship's permission to make use of upon any emer- 
 gency like the present. Will your Excellency be pleased 
 to accept as my apology for such intrusion the absence of 
 that noble lord upon circuit, who, I can venture to say, 
 will, if resorted to, press my pretensions to a vacancy in 
 his Court upon your Excellency, with the same warmth 
 and from the same motives, however partial and mis- 
 taken, that he did upon his grace the Duke of Portland. 
 Absence from this country in England, till within a short 
 space of time, prevented my having the honour of paying 
 my personal respects to your Excellency. 
 
 " I am, with unfeigned regret, your Excellency's most 
 obedient humble servant, 
 
 " John Egan." 
 
 But Egan, the opponent of the Union, had no chance of 
 promotion, however agreeable the simplicity with which 
 he might appeal for it. The vacant judgeship went to 
 the Solicitor-General, Michael Smith — one of the most 
 effective debaters on the side of the Union in the Irish 
 House of Commons — who had been appointed to the 
 second Law Officership of the Crown for his services 
 immediately after the Union was carried. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Lor4 Lieutenant and Chief Secretary, however, 
 were desirous of conciUating the most conspicuous and 
 able opponents of the Union. There was Sir John 
 Parnell, for instance, who had been dismissed from office 
 as Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer on account of his 
 opposition to the measure, and who now represented 
 Queen's County in the Imperial Parliament. In June, 
 1801, Abbot, the Chief Secretary, writes to Hardwicke : ' 
 
 " Mr. Addington has again upon this occasion ex- 
 pressed his wish that Sir John Parnell may obtain some 
 considerable situation in the Irish Government." 
 
90 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 Again he writes : 
 
 " Sir John Parnell left London last night upon his way 
 to Ireland, where he will most probably pay his respects 
 to your Excellency, and we hope you will give him a re- 
 ception that shall mark our friendly disposition towards 
 him, for he is an honest fellow, and may be a valuable 
 Parliament coadjutor." 
 
 Then there was John Foster, the last Speaker of the 
 Irish House of Commons. He employed all his influence 
 against the Union, and while the House was in Committee 
 on the Bill delivered a powerful speech in opposition to 
 the measure. Abbot, writmg to Hardwicke, on June 29, 
 1 80 1, says : 
 
 " I have just come to town from Lord Alvanley's, 
 where I slept last night. Pitt and Dundas were there 
 also. Pitt agrees to the propriety of cultivating Foster, 
 and advises to let him understand ' he is not to govern 
 Ireland,' but that his assistance in promoting its internal 
 improvements and local interests should be cordially 
 accepted, and that he should be allowed to feel that he 
 had considerable power in forwarding the execution of 
 aU beneficial measures of that description." 
 
 In December, 1801, John Beresford — a powerful mem- 
 ber of the Irish oligarchy, whom we shall meet again in 
 a subsequent chapter — resigned his office as head of the 
 Revenue Department. His salary was £2,000 a year, 
 including an extra £1,000 as First Commissioner of the 
 Board. Hardwicke, writing to Pelham, said that, of 
 course, the vacancy would be used to " liquidate a Union 
 engagement," but suggested that the extra £1,000 a year 
 should be applied to the creation of a tenth Commis- 
 sioner, and the new post given to Colonel Foster — son of 
 John Foster — ^who had had a seat on the Revenue Board, 
 of which he was deprived for his opposition to the Union. 
 
 " As this is a point," continues Hardwicke, " so nearly 
 connected with the interests and possible wishes of a 
 person who has borne so distinguished a part in the 
 poHtics of this country as Mr. Foster, the late Speaker, I 
 have thought it my duty to suggest it for the consideration 
 of jour Lordship, as his power of mischief is immense." 
 
THE LAST SPEAKER OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT 91 
 
 The Home Secretary promptly replied : 
 
 " The appointment of Colonel Foster would postpone the 
 completion of those Union engagements which, in my judg- 
 ment, ought to be satisfied before any other be thought of." 
 
 Hardwicke, a sensitive man, felt very keenly this 
 official reprimand. He wrote to Addington, the Prime 
 Minister, petulantly complaining of the tone of Pelham's 
 letter. No one, he protested, could be more "exactly 
 scrupulous " than he was to hasten the complete redemp- 
 tion of the Union engagements, and he points out that 
 if John Foster, who represented Louth in the Imperial 
 Parliament, was not conciliated he might become an 
 opponent of the Administration. He continues : 
 
 " It was natural to suppose that Mr. Foster, who had 
 long been accustomed to take a lead in Irish affairs, and 
 whose opinions carry with them a certain degree of 
 weight in this country, might sometimes take occasion 
 to object to measures in a manner which, though not 
 directly hostile, might be rather inconvenient to the 
 course of your business in the House of Commons, and 
 even invite opposition. On this ground it occurred to 
 me that you would not dislike to show a disposition to 
 concihation by offering to restore his son to an office 
 which he had lost by the Union, and if it could be done, as 
 I thought and am confident it might, without violating 
 a single engagement." 
 
 One of the most curious of the Union engagements was 
 that of Lord Blaquiere. The son of a French merchant 
 settled in London, Colonel John Blaquiere went to Ireland 
 as Chief Secretary to Lord Harcourt, Viceroy in 1772.* 
 
 * "Sir John Blaquiere was a little deaf of one ear, for which 
 circumstance he gave a very singular reason. His seat, when 
 Secretary, was the outside one on the Treasury Bench, next to 
 the gangway, and he said that so many members used to come 
 perpetually to whisper to him, and the buzz of importunity was so 
 heavy and continuous, that before one claimant's words had got 
 out of his ear the demand of another forced its way in, till the 
 ear-drum, being overcharged, absolutely burst, which, he said, 
 turned out conveniently enough, as he was then obliged to stuff 
 the organ tight, and tell every gentleman that his physician had 
 directed him not to use that ear at all, and the other as little as 
 
 ¥ossible !" — ^^Barrington : " Personal Recollections of his Own 
 imes." 
 
92 THE SCRAMBLE FOR PLACE 
 
 When he ceased to be Chief Secretary he remained in 
 Ireland, and, continuing to sit in the Irish House of 
 Commons, gathered to himself many valuable sinecures. 
 He was bailiff of the Phoenix Park ; he was alnager of 
 Ireland, an alnager being an officer formerly appointed 
 to inspect woollen cloth ; he was Commissioner of the 
 Paving Board. Blaquiere was a conspicuous supporter of 
 the Union. His house was twice wrecked on that account 
 by the Dublin populace. But, as may be imagined, 
 this remarkable pluralist had made an excellent bargain 
 for his services. He had his sinecures commuted for 
 £3,200 per annum for life. He secured — as will be seen 
 from the List of Union Engagements — a pension of 
 £1,000 for the lives of his wife and daughter. He ob- 
 tained an Irish Peerage. He also asked to be appointed 
 one of the representative peers to sit in the House of 
 Lords, but was induced to waive the claim in favour of 
 some less accommodating suitor, on the condition, also 
 set out in the List of Union Engagements, that he was to 
 be returned to Parliament — Irish peers having the right 
 under the Union to sit in the House of Commons for 
 British constituencies — at the first General Election, or 
 else that his son was to be given a position under the 
 Board of Works at £400 per annum. 
 
 Writing to Hardwicke from London, November 17, 
 1801, Lord Blaquiere says on the subject of his engage- 
 ments : 
 
 " The immediate point is this — by the stipulation 
 made with me a prominent feature is a seat in the Im- 
 perial Commons to compensate for my relinquishing the 
 seat for life engaged to me in the Lords. The Irish 
 Government being, however, aware of the difficulties 
 that might arise, put this alternative into the contract, 
 that if they should find it impossible to give me a seat, 
 the man I should name was to have a seat at the Board 
 of Works. 
 
 " Statements, how founded I know not — nay, I do not 
 believe them — talk of an immediate dissolution of Par- 
 liament. For thiity long years I have been — whether 
 useful or not becomes not me to say — a member. No 
 
LORD BLAQUIERES ENGAGEMENTS' 93 
 
 fish out of water can be more uncomfortable than I shall 
 feel if I am to be put upon the shelf. I wish much to 
 know, and humbly entreat of your kindness to let me 
 know, what it is that I am to expect from the Govern- 
 ment — whether the seat or the office, that I may arrange 
 myself accordingly ; but if, my dear Lord, I may be 
 allowed to express a wish, that wish unquestionably is 
 for the seat." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, in reply, says that, as Blaquiere 
 could only be returned for a seat in Great Britain, the per- 
 formance of that engagement was not so much in the 
 power of the Irish Government as the alternative appoint- 
 ment of his son to the Board of Works. However, his 
 Excellency promised to communicate with Whitehall on 
 the subject. Then came another letter from Blaquiere. 
 
 " The fact is this," says he, " that if your Excellency 
 shall be pleased to give me the nomination to a seat in 
 Ireland, I believe I would find no difficulty in getting it 
 exchanged for a seat in this country, some friends of 
 yours and mine, my dear Lord, having already offered 
 to do it, provided you give them sufficient notice." 
 
 Accordingly, Lord Blaquiere secured the last of many 
 valuable rewards in return for his services to the Union, 
 by being elected member for Rye in the General Election 
 of June, 1802, the first under the United Parliament.* 
 
 * " Nobody ever understood eating and drinking better than 
 Sir John de Blaquiere, and no man ever was better seconded 
 in the former respect than he was by his cook, Mrs. Smith, whom 
 he brought from Paris. His company seldom exceeded ten in 
 number, but so happily was it selected that I never yet saw a 
 person rise from his table who did not feel gratified. Sir John 
 was one of the old school, and with all the playful good breeding 
 with which it was distinguished, he had nothing of that starch 
 pride which, in more recent times, has supplanted conviviaUty 
 without making men either wiser, better, or happier" (Barring- 
 ton: "Personal Recollections of his Own Times"). Barring- 
 ton defends De Blaquiere, the noted pluralist : " If his money 
 came from the public purse," he says, " it was distributed to 
 the pubhc benefit ; if he received pensions from the Crown, 
 butchers, bakers, and other tradesmen pocketed every shilling 
 of it. He knew employment to be the best species of charity. 
 In short, Sir John de Blaquiere was as much abused and as 
 much regarded as any pubUc character of any period." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 " How I love to kick those whom my duty obhges me 
 to court !" This is the exclamation of indignation and 
 disgust to which Lord Comwallis gives expression in a 
 letter to his friend General Ross during the negotiations 
 with the Lords and Commons of Ireland for the purchase 
 of the Irish Parliament. Comwallis, we are told, was an 
 honest, bluff, hearty, straightforward English soldier and 
 statesman. But is it not curious that the immorality of 
 his own part in the transaction appears never to have 
 struck him ? The bribed, no doubt, deserved to be 
 kicked, but ought the bribers to have escaped the boot ? 
 Surely the ignominious punishment should have been 
 impartially distributed. However, Comwallis seems also 
 to have derived from the negotiations a share of sly, 
 cynical amusement. Here is a delightful extract from 
 one of his letters to the Duke of Portland : 
 
 "It was privately intimated to me that the sentiments 
 of the Archbishop of Cashel were less friendly to the 
 Union than they had been, on which I took an oppor- 
 tunity of conversing with his Grace on the subject, and 
 after discussing some preliminary topics respecting the 
 representation of the Spiritual Lords, and the probable 
 vacancy of the see of Dublin, he declared his great un- 
 willingness at all times to oppose the measures of the 
 Government, and especially on a point in which his 
 Majesty's feelings were so much interested, to whom he 
 professed the highest sense of gratitude, and concluded 
 by a cordial declaration of friendship." 
 
 94 
 
ARCHBISHOP AGAR 95 
 
 Dr. Charles Agar, thus shamelessly bribed, voted for 
 the Union, and he soon got his reward. Here is a letter 
 from him, dated " Cashel, 26th October, 1801," to Hard- 
 wicke, stating that he had heard from Abbot, the Chief 
 Secretary, that his Excellency had done him the honour 
 of interesting himself in forwarding his promotion to the 
 see of Dubhn, vacant by the death of Dr. Fowler : 
 
 " I cannot, therefore, avoid troubling your Excellency 
 with an acknowledgment of my obligations for this most 
 kind mark of your favour," he says, " which I hope to 
 prove by my conduct has not been conferred on one who 
 is capable of forgetting how much he is indebted to your 
 Excellency on this occasion." 
 
 Hardwicke replies : 
 
 " I assure your Grace I shall have great pleasure in 
 being instrumental in fulfilling the engagement of the 
 late Government in this particular instance."* 
 
 * * * 
 
 The death of Dr. Fowler, Archbishop of Dublin, in 
 October, 1801, led to the satisfaction of several of the 
 claims in the " Ecclesiastical " section of the Union engage- 
 ments. On October 2, 1801, Hardwicke wrote to Pel- 
 ham a private and confidential letter setting out certain 
 
 * "Dr. Agar was made a Viscount in 1800, Archbishop of 
 Dublin in 1801, and Earl of Normanton a few years later. He 
 tried very hard to obtain the Primacy of Ireland," but the Govern- 
 ment refused to relax their rule that no Irishman should hold 
 the place. However, Lord Cornwallis writes: 'His Grace had 
 my promise when we came to an agreement respecting the Union 
 that he should have a seat in the House of Lords for life ' 
 (* Cornwallis Correspondence,' ii., pp. 160-209). Archbishop Agar 
 was also remarkable for the zeal ^vith which he advocated san- 
 gumary measures of repression during the RebeUion of 1798 
 (Grattan's ' Life,' vol. iv., p. 390), for the large fortune which 
 he made by lettmg the Church lands on terms beneficial to his 
 own family (' Castlereagh Correspondence,' vol. ii., p. 71), and 
 for havmg allowed the fine old church at Cashel to faU into 
 ruins, and built in its place a cathedral in the most modem taste, 
 which he ordered to be represented on his tomb (Stanley's 
 ' Westminster Abbey,' p. 324). There is an extremely eulogistic 
 inscription to his memory in Westminster Abbey, and a fine 
 bas-reUef representing the angels bearing the mitre' to the saintly 
 prelate."— Lecky : "Leaders of PubUc Opinion in Ireland,'^' 
 1871). 
 
96 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 arrangements for which he asked the Home Secretary's 
 approval before he took official action. Dr. Agar, the 
 Archbishop of Cashel, was to go to Dublin, and Dr. 
 Charles Brodrick, the Bishop of Kilmore, to Cashel. 
 The bishopric of Kilmore, thus vacated, his Excellency 
 says, would, of course, be conferred upon the Rev. 
 Nathaniel Alexander, Precentor of Armagh, who had 
 the first engagement for the Episcopal Bench. 
 
 " I shall take no steps upon this subject till I hear 
 from your Lordship," he adds, in accordance with the 
 arrangement that every proposed exercise of patronage 
 by the Lord Lieutenant must first receive the sanction 
 of the Home Office, " and shall be obliged to you, there- 
 fore, if 3^ou will take an early opportunity of laying the 
 proposed arrangement for these ecclesiastical promotions 
 before his Majesty, that I may be authorized to write 
 to you officially upon the subjects." He adds : " The 
 second engagement for the Bench is Dr. Trench ; and if 
 circumstances should permit of it, I shall be glad to have 
 his Majesty's authority for giving an assurance to the 
 Bishop of Killaloe of a promotion to the see of Derry, 
 in which, I understand, there is a near prospect of a 
 vacancy." 
 
 Pelham, writing in reply on October 27, says that the 
 King was graciously pleased to express his approbation 
 of the arrangements proposed by the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 " I must, however," says the Home Secretary, " men- 
 tion to your Excellency his Majesty's observation on the 
 proposed assurance to the Bishop of Killaloe : ' He is no 
 friend to embarrassing his Government with promises of 
 what is not vacant.' At the same time his Majesty 
 speaks in very handsome terms of the Bishop of Killa- 
 loe." 
 
 But before Dr. Alexander was appointed officially to 
 the vacant bishopric of Kilmore there came to the Lord 
 Lieutenant a letter from John Beresford, asking that his 
 son, George de la Poer Beresford, Bishop of Clonfert 
 and Kilmacduagh, might be translated to the richer 
 diocese of Kilmore. John Beresford — a member of the 
 Waterford family — was a very important and powerful 
 
WILLIAM STUART, PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND 97 
 
 personage. " The King of Ireland " he was called, such 
 was his sway and authority, and all the weight of his 
 influence had been cast on the side of the Union. He 
 filled the lucrative post of First Commissioner of Revenue, 
 and now sat in the Imperial Parhament for Waterford, 
 the same constituency which he had represented in the 
 Irish House of Commons. Hardwicke wrote again to 
 Pelham, recommending that John Beresford's wish should 
 be gratified. He pointed out that Dr. Alexander had 
 received a promise simply that he should be raised to 
 the Episcopal Bench, but had no reason to expect one 
 bishopric more than another. The Home Secretary 
 agreed. In fact, he thought that Bishop Beresford, 
 having regard to the immense political influence of his 
 father, ought to have been promoted to the higher 
 dignity of the archbishopric of Cashel. 
 
 Now comes on the scene, with most unpleasant and 
 awkward consequences to the Government, the Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, William 
 Stuart, fifth son of the third Earl of Bute. The arch- 
 bishopric of Armagh fell vacant during the contest on 
 the question of the Union, and Comwallis endeavoured 
 to have it filled by one of the Irish bishops who 
 supported the Government. 
 
 "It would have a very bad effect at this time to send 
 a stranger to supersede the whole bench of Bishops," he 
 wrote, " and I should likewise be much embarrassed by 
 the stop that would be put to the succession amongst 
 the Irish clergy at this critical period, when I am beyond 
 measure pressed for ecclesiastical preferment." 
 
 But the King, with his ingrained prejudice against the 
 Irish — even the loyalist colonial Irish — refused to depart 
 from his long-settled policy of appointing an English 
 ecclesiastic to the first position in the Irish branch of the 
 Established Church ; and accordingly, in December, 1800, 
 Dr. Stuart was promoted from the see of St. David's, 
 Wales, to the archbishopric of Armagh and the Primacy 
 of All Ireland. In the account of Dr. Stuart in the 
 
98 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 " Dictionary of National Biography " there is a sentence, 
 well worth quotation, in view of the most interesting 
 correspondence between him and the Prime Minister and 
 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland which I find in the Vice- 
 roy's Post-bag. 
 
 "On the loth April, 1783," says the "Dictionary," 
 " he was introduced to Johnson by his countryman, 
 Boswell, who describes him as ' being, with the advan- 
 tages of high birth, learning, travel, and elegant manners, 
 an exemplary parish priest in every respect,' which certi- 
 ficate as to his highly respectable accomplishments and 
 character indicates a common type of ecclesiastic, and 
 nothing more ; and as to his individuality nothing further 
 is kno\vn than the dates of his promotions." 
 
 The individuality of Dr. Stuart becomes quite vivid 
 after a perusal of his correspondence. 
 
 The Primate, chief though he was of the Protestant 
 Church in Ireland, had no voice in the appointments of 
 bishops. The vacant see of Kilmore was in his own 
 province of Armagh, yet he was not consulted as to the 
 ecclesiastic most worthy to fill it. Abbot, the Chief 
 Secretary, wrote to him simply that it was the intention 
 of the Ministers to appoint Dr. Alexander, Precentor of 
 Armagh, to the diocese. That, it will be remembered, 
 was the first intention of the Government, until they 
 yielded to the appeals of their influential supporter, John 
 Beresford, on behalf of his son. Dr. Beresford had had 
 a living for years in Kilmore, and his reputation as a 
 pastor did not smell sweet in the diocese. The Primate 
 accordingly wrote the following most indignant letter to 
 Addington, the Prime Minister, protesting against Beres- 
 ford's translation to Kilmore ; 
 
 " Armagh, 
 " November 27, 1801. 
 " Sir, 
 
 "It is with great reluctance that I trouble you 
 even with a few lines, but a report prevails in this country 
 that you have promised to recommend Mr. Beresford to 
 his Majesty to succeed the Bishop of Kilmore ; and as I 
 firmly believe no measure can be more decidedly fatal 
 
" ONE OF THE MOST PROFLIGATE MEN IN EUROPE " 99 
 
 to the Established Church, I trust you will excuse the 
 liberty I now take of expressing the grounds of that 
 
 opinion. 
 
 " Mr. Beresford is reported to be one of the most pro- 
 fligate men in Europe. His language and his manners 
 have given universal offence. Indeed, such is his char- 
 acter that were His Majesty's Ministers to give him a 
 living in my diocese to hold in commendam, I should 
 be wanting in my duty if I did not refuse him institution. 
 
 " But, perhaps, it may be said that Mr. Beresford, 
 being a bishop, it matters httle whether he has two or 
 four thousand per annum, or in what part of Ireland he 
 is placed. This last circumstance is, however, of the 
 utmost importance. In the North, which is well known 
 to be the Protestant part of Ireland, and where, therefore, 
 if it be meant to preserve the Protestant interest, most 
 care should be taken to place the government of the 
 Church in proper hands, I have six bishops under me. 
 Three are men of tolerable moral character, but are in- 
 active and useless, and two are of acknowledged bad 
 character. Fix Mr. Beresford at Kilmore, and we shall 
 then have three very inactive bishops, and, what I trust 
 the world has not yet seen, three bishops in one district 
 reported to be the most profligate men in Europe.* Is 
 it possible to believe that such an arrangement will not 
 expose the Church Establishment to much real danger ? 
 Can any method be devised more effectually to ruin us, 
 even in the opinion of our own people ? Profligate 
 bishops never fail to produce a profligate clergy ; they 
 ordain the refuse of society, and give the most important 
 cures to the most worthless individuals. 
 
 " Even if every tale told to the discredit of Mr. Beres- 
 ford were false, it would scarcely mend the matter, as 
 most undoubtedly his reputation is bad, and these tales 
 
 * This statement recalls what Dean Swift wrote of the bishops 
 who were sent over from England by the Government to rule the 
 Irish dioceses in the eighteenth century. " Excellent and moral 
 men had been selected," he wrpte, " upon every occasion of 
 vacancy ; but it unfortunately happened that, as these worthy 
 divines crossed Hounslow Heath on their way to Ireland to take 
 possession of their bishoprics, they have been regularly robbed 
 and murdered by the highwaymen frequenting that common, 
 who seize upon their robes and patents, come over to Ireland' 
 and are consecrated bishops in their stead." It would seem' 
 however, as if Dr. Stuart at least had passed safely across 
 Hounslow Heath on his way to Armagh. 
 
 7—2 
 
lOO PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 are universally credited. As I have reason to believe 
 this measure is determined, I well know that my opinion 
 can have little weight. I should not have troubled you 
 upon the present occasion if the situation I hold did not 
 in some degree render it necessary. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with great respect, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 " Wm. Armagh. 
 
 ?? 
 
 It will be noticed that the Primate's letter is dated 
 November 27, 180 1. It was not until December 19, 1801, 
 that the Prime Minister was moved to take action upon 
 it. Writing from Downing Street on that day to the 
 Lord Lieutenant, he says : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I am quite ashamed to have so long delayed the 
 communication of the inclosed letter from the Primate. It 
 is, of course, in strict confidence that I now transmit it 
 to your Lordship. I should have great pleasure in hearing 
 that the information contained in his Grace's letter had 
 originated in misrepresentation, or, at least, in exagger- 
 ated accounts that had reached him of the disposition 
 and conduct of the person to whom he refers. It has, 
 however, been thought right to suspend the recommenda- 
 tion to his Majesty till we hear again from your Lordship ; 
 though it is wished that the letter I am now writing and 
 your answer may be considered as private communica- 
 tions." 
 
 The reply of the Lord Lieutenant to the Prime Minister, 
 dated " Phoenix Park, December 22nd, 1801," and 
 marked " Private," says : 
 
 " If his Grace's representation had been made at the 
 time the measure was only in contemplation and before 
 any steps had been actually taken with a view to the re- 
 spective promotions of Bishop Beresford and Dr. Alex- 
 ander, I have no hesitation to say that it would have been 
 entitled to every degree of weight. At the same time, I 
 think it but just to observe that no information un- 
 favourable to the character of the Bishop of Clonfert has 
 reached me since his promotion to the Bench. If there 
 were any circumstances of conduct or character sufficiently 
 strong to make his translation improper with a view to 
 
 i! 
 
ABBOT'S LETTER TO THE PRIMATE lor 
 
 the interests of the Church of Ireland, they ought to have 
 operated in a greater degree against his original promo- 
 tion, because it does not appear to me at aU material to 
 the credit of the Church, whether he is Bishop of Clonfert 
 or Kilmore ; more especially as I do not understand that 
 since his original promotion his character has been such 
 as ought in justice to preclude his translation. Besides 
 which, it strikes me forcibly that the putting him back 
 from a translation which had been already settled would 
 be fixing a stigma that would not only be highly injurious 
 to a man who may fairly be stated to be in the way of 
 redeeming his character, but would greatly reflect upon 
 the character of the Government which originally raised 
 
 him to the Bench." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Then comes a letter from Charles Abbot, the Chief 
 Secretary, to the Primate, dated "Phoenix Park, Dec. 23rd, 
 1801," and marked " Private and Confidential " : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " The mail which arrived last night from England 
 brought a private and confidential letter, dated the 19th, 
 from Mr. Addington to Lord Hardwicke, inclosing one 
 from your Grace to Mr. Addington, dated 27th of Novem- 
 ber, respecting the bishoprick of Kilmore ; and persuaded 
 as I am that your Grace has a full confidence in the sincere 
 desire of Lord Hardwicke's Administration in Ireland to 
 promote the great interests of the Established Church, 
 and to give the fullest weight to your Grace's opinions 
 upon every subject connected with those interests, I 
 cannot but regret most deeply that your Grace did not 
 at the time of writing to Mr. Addington write also to his 
 Excellency upon the same subject, as all recommenda- 
 tions and appointments to offices in Ireland, whether of 
 Church or State, by his Majesty's gracious permission, 
 pass invariably through the Lord Lieutenant ; and had 
 your Grace's representations upon this particular occa- 
 sion reached his Excellency at an earlier period, they 
 would, I doubt not, have been received with all the con- 
 sideration and respect to which they are at all times so 
 strongly entitled. 
 
 "I am not unaware that your Grace may possibly 
 think me in some degree to blame in the business ; and 
 I assure you it gives me very unaffected concern that you 
 
I02 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 should entertain that sentiment even for a moment. 
 Having by his Excellency's permission apprized your 
 Grace of the intended Church arrangement upon the 
 Archbishop of Dublin's death, so far as I then knew its 
 probable course, you might very possibly have expected 
 to hear again of any further incident as it arose. To this 
 charge I should not be altogether without excuse, if I 
 alledged the constant pressure of a multiplicity of im- 
 portant business ; but I would not willingly rest it upon 
 that ground, not only because I fully admit that none 
 can be more important than what regards the state of 
 the Church of Ireland, at this time more especially, but 
 because other reasons also weighed in my mind, whether 
 justly or unjustly is for your Grace's determination. 
 
 " The kind and flattering confidence with which your 
 Grace had conversed with me upon many things and 
 persons materially connected with Church affairs in this 
 country had given me the opportunity of knowing that 
 your Grace held the Bishops of Killaloe and Kilmore in 
 high estimation as the most exemplary characters upon 
 the Bench ; and with respect to all others, whether in 
 possession or expectancy, I had been led to suppose that 
 your Grace felt no particular preference or distinction. 
 Now I assure your Grace that so much did your selection 
 of characters weigh in the mind of his Excellency, that 
 upon the sole strength of your testimony, and without the 
 smallest intimation whatever from any quarter in or out 
 of Ireland, his Excellency, knowing that Bishop Knox 
 had a different object in view, recommended in the 
 strongest terms that Bishop Brodrick might be raised 
 to the archbishoprick of Cashel, and your Grace's testi- 
 mony to his merits was relied upon by Lord Hardwicke 
 in his letter to Lord Pelham as the most conclusive 
 reason which could possibly be assigned in his behalf. 
 
 "The expectation held out to Mr. Alexander being, in 
 general, a succession to any vacant bishoprick, it was 
 at that time conceived that his promotion to the then 
 only vacant bishoprick (Kilmore) was of course ; but 
 pending the progress of this arrangement, and before the 
 opening in Kilmore was made, a very powerful solicita- 
 tion was sent in behalf of Bishop Beresford, and as it 
 appeared to his Excellency that Bishop Beresford being 
 already on the Bench a mere translation from one see to 
 another was simply a question of emolument and con- 
 
" SIMPLY A QUESTION OF EMOLUMENT " 103 
 
 venience to the individual, and that in any event both 
 Bishop Beresford and Mr, Alexander would have episcopal 
 rank, it was not a case in which resistance to such a soHci- 
 tation was of any moment, it being always recollected 
 that the expectation given by Lord Comwallis to Mr. 
 Alexander was not of any particular see, but of such as 
 might be vacant. The consequence has been that his 
 Excellency has not felt himself warranted in recom- 
 mending that any alteration should now be made, and he 
 is even precluded from it by the progress already made in 
 the business. 
 
 " My own anxious desire to stand well in your Grace's 
 opinion has induced me to trouble you at this length, 
 because I feel most truly that any circumstance of any 
 sort, however imperfectly understood, which should 
 abate of your Grace's confidence in a Government sin- 
 cerely desirous of co-operating with your efforts in main- 
 taining, and (perhaps it might not be untruly said) in 
 settling the Church of Ireland on its best foundations, 
 would be a publick misfortune. For, as your Grace well 
 knows, it is not in your own province alone that the effect 
 of your authority and example is to be looked for, but 
 we have trusted that its beneficial effects will produce 
 infinite good throughout the country, and in no concerns 
 more than those which, as I understand from the most 
 respectable quarters, require your Grace's presence and 
 interposition in Dublin, where the great charitable in- 
 stitutions of the country are managed. 
 
 " May I hope that what has now occurred may, upon 
 the whole, enable us to prevent the recurrence of any 
 similar inconvenience, and that your Grace will not hesi- 
 tate to impart to his Excellency, or those in his Govern- 
 ment with whom you may have occasional intercourse, 
 your sentiments upon all matters instantly and unre- 
 servedly, where you wish them to be considered, as they 
 ever will be with the greatest deference and goodwill. 
 
 " Pardon me, my Lord, if upon some points not un- 
 connected with this subject, and of very great moment 
 to this country, and which for very many reasons I cannot 
 well commit to writing, I express a very earnest hope 
 that I may have an opportunity of speaking with your 
 Grace before I go to England, which I shall probably do 
 immediately after the present recess. I cannot well be 
 spared from hence at this time ; but if you have any 
 
I04 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 intention of coming next month to Dublin, I shall be 
 glad if what I have intimated may have the effect of 
 accelerating your journey and bringing you to Dublin 
 by the middle of next month, before which time I do not 
 expect to be called over." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Primate sent to Abbot, in reply, a long letter, and 
 a very interesting and most important letter. It is 
 dated " Armagh, December 27, 1801 " : 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " Your letter dated Wednesday night, I did not 
 receive till Friday night, and there being no post on 
 Saturday it was impossible for me to answer it before this 
 morning. Nothing would give me more real uneasiness 
 than to be thought capable of acting with impropriety 
 towards Lord Hardwicke. He is certainly entitled to 
 more than common respect. I beg therefore to be 
 believed when I assert that I had no intention of making 
 a foolish appeal to the English Government against any 
 measure his Excellency may please to adopt. I well 
 know that recommendations and appointments to offices 
 in Ireland pass through the Lord Lieutenant ; but it 
 sometimes happens that the English Minister influences 
 such appointments, and there were circumstances which 
 induced me to suspect that Mr. Addington had interfered 
 in the present instance." 
 
 His Grace then goes on to remind the Chief Secretary 
 of his first communication, telling him that Mr. Alexander 
 had been promoted to Kilmore, and says it led him to 
 believe that Beresford had been appointed by the Prime 
 Minister over the head of the Lord Lieutenant. After he 
 had received this letter from the Chief Secretary several 
 persons told him that Dr. Beresford was really the selec- 
 tion of the Ministers for the see. '' But," he says, " being 
 well acquainted with the practice of Irish gentlemen 
 to claim friendships with those with whom they are 
 scarcely acquainted, to detail conversations that were 
 never spoken, and to affect being entrusted with secrets 
 that do not exist, I gave no credit to their representa- 
 tions." However, two letters that came to him from 
 London dissipated all doubt on the point. One was from 
 
A CALAMITY FOR THE IRISH CHURCH 105 
 
 a friend who had heard John Beresford boast that Adding- 
 ton had given Kilmore to his son. " The other letter 
 says the Primate, " was from an Enghsh prelate of the 
 highest rank, and the most powerful influence m his pro- 
 fession, who informed me that I was universally blamed 
 for not endeavouring to avert such a calamity from the 
 Church by writing to his Majesty. Believing the arrange, 
 ments to be finally settled, I was unwilling to give the 
 King the uneasiness which, I think, a letter from me on 
 such a subject would have given him. But I thought 
 proper to write to Mr. Addington, whom I considered as 
 the author of the arrangement." He had been " blinded " 
 by Abbot's communication announcing the promotion of 
 Dr. Alexander. If he had had the slightest suspicion that 
 it was really intended to give the see to Dr. Beresford he 
 would have written at once in expostulation to the Lord 
 Lieutenant. " Have written to him !" he exclaims. 
 " Though I will not trouble him with those solicitations 
 which my predecessor almost daily carried to the Castle, 
 I would have fallen on my knees to Lord Hardwicke. I 
 would have surrendered my own private patronage, the 
 very situation I hold, if by these means I could have 
 averted a measure which I firmly believe will bring dis- 
 grace and ruin upon us all." 
 
 His Grace proceeds in the same bitter strain : 
 
 " I am heartily sorry to find from your letter that my 
 solicitation is not sufficiently powerful to overbear the 
 just claims of the Church in a point which concerns its 
 very existence. You cannot be serious when you write 
 that a translation from one see to another is simply a 
 question of emolument. It is not so in any country, and 
 in Ireland less than any other. You mention my example, 
 but the example of the Lord Lieutenant is of still more 
 importance. What will happen if the bishops of Ireland 
 follow this example, and adopt this language — promote 
 the most worthless clergymen, because when a man holds 
 a living a bad character is not to impede his preferment, 
 as a removal from one parish to another is simply a 
 question of emolument ? 
 
io6 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 " Indeed, my dear sir, I deplore this measure as a most 
 heavy misfortune. Nothing can have a more direct 
 tendency to ruin the Estabhshment, Had the Roman 
 Cathohcs gained their point we might by a prudent 
 conduct have averted any immediate ill effects. But 
 how are we to avert the consequences of our own bad 
 character ? 
 
 " This is the first unfettered act of the present Ad- 
 ministration. All other Church preferment has been 
 given in conformity to the promises of Lord Cornwallis, or 
 with a view to please him. But His Majesty's Ministers 
 were free to fill Kilmore as they thought proper.* You 
 inform me they have placed Dr. Beresford in that situa- 
 tion. Such a bad character will confessedly prove of 
 great detriment ; and since having been dean his char- 
 acter, his conduct, and his language are well known, and 
 held in universal detestation, by this is proclaimed that 
 though a man be ever so vitious and corrupt, he may, if 
 he joins some one faction in this kingdom, be placed in 
 the highest ecclesiastical situation — for where can the 
 man be found whose character is not as good as Dr. Beres- 
 ford's, and who, therefore, if he be supported by the same 
 interest, may not form the same pretensions ? 
 
 " By this measure, too, we are deprived of the advan- 
 tage promised to us by the Union. In truth, the two 
 Churches cannot be considered as united, unless they are 
 governed by the same principle. A bad moral character 
 would in England be an insuperable obstacle to the promo- 
 tion of a bishop — an obstacle which neither rank, nor 
 wealth, nor Parliamentary interest can enable a man to 
 surmount." 
 
 " The promotion of Mr. Beresford is, in my opinion, 
 decisive as to the fate of the Church," the Primate con- 
 tinues. " It cannot, therefore, be supposed that I shall 
 warmly concur with Ministers who have adopted measures 
 that have a manifest tendency to subvert the Establish- 
 ment to which I belong, and the religion which I profess. 
 I am, however, so far from wishing to give Lord Hard- 
 wicke any trouble that I sincerely wish to retire, and 
 entertain hope that his Majesty will be graciously pleased 
 to allow me to resign a situation which he compelled me to 
 
 * The Primate, of course, was in error on this point. 
 
THE PRIMATE THREATENS TO RESIGN 107 
 
 assume, and which I can no longer hold with advantage 
 to the country, or honour to myself. If his Majesty 
 should reject this request, I shall confine my attention 
 solely to the business of this diocese. With the province 
 I can have little concern. It would be absurd to inspect 
 the conduct of such a man as Beresford, for the same 
 interest which places him at Kilmore will most assuredly 
 be exerted to protect him." 
 
 On December 28, 1801, the Lord Lieutenant wrote the 
 following " private and confidential " letter to the Prime 
 Minister : 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " The concern which I feel at the manner in which 
 the Primate has expressed himself upon the subject of 
 Bishop Beresford's translation to Kilmore makes me very 
 desirous that you should be in possession of the whole 
 transaction, and consequently obliges me, though very 
 unwillingly, to trouble you with a few short extracts of 
 letters which passed upon that subject. I cannot, how- 
 ever, in justice to myself, omit, in the first place, to observe 
 that from the moment of my appointment to the Govern- 
 ment of Ireland I have felt a very anxious and unaffected 
 desire to be upon the best possible footing with the Primate. 
 In addition to a firm conviction of his strict honour and 
 integrity, and of his zeal for the interests of the Church, 
 I was not unacquainted with the opinion which his Majesty 
 entertained of his character and principles, and had really 
 nothing more anxious at heart than to co-operate to the 
 best of my abiHties in the station I have the honour to 
 hold with the exertions which his Grace would be desirous 
 to make for the interest and advantage of the Church, 
 which appeared by all the accounts I have heard to stand 
 so much in need of his vigilant and honourable super- 
 intendence. 
 
 " The transaction of which his Grace complains admits 
 of a short and simple explanation. The episcopal 
 arrangements consequent on the death of the Archbishop 
 of Dublin were principally settled by Lord Cornwallis's 
 engagement to promote the Archbishop of Cashel to 
 Dublin, and to raise Mr. Alexander to the Bench. In my 
 first letter to Lord Pelham I proposed to offer the arch- 
 
io8 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 bishoprick of Cashel to the Archbishop of Tuam, and the 
 vacant archbishoprick to the Bishop of Kilmore. Beyond 
 this, I had proposed no translations whatever, and if 
 Mr. Alexander had come up to Dublin from Armagh to 
 forward the completion of his engagement — which was 
 delayed, first, by our not being acquainted with his chris- 
 tian name, and description, and, secondly, by his not 
 being in possession of a Doctor's degree — his promotion to 
 Kilmore would have been so far settled as to have made 
 it impossible to have complied with Mr. Beresford's appli- 
 cation for his son's translation, which was conveyed to 
 me in a letter I received on the 4th of November. 
 
 " At this period, if it was proper to entertain Mr. Beres- 
 ford's application at all, no time was to be lost in trans- 
 mitting it regularly to England ; and you will perceive 
 that I did little more than take the earliest opportunity 
 of for\varding the letter, because I did not know what 
 expectation might have been given to Mr. Alexander of 
 succeeding to Kilmore, for which at that time (viz., a 
 fortnight after my first letter recommending the different 
 engagements) no other person had been proposed. I, 
 therefore, contented myself with simply stating the fact 
 that the engagement to Mr. Alexander was for the Bench 
 in general, and not for a particular bishoprick, and that 
 upon that ground no objection could arise to a compliance 
 with Mr. Beresford's application. 
 
 " I naturally conceived that it would not be disagreeable 
 to yourself and the Administration in general, to oblige 
 an old servant of the Crown, and I had reason to believe 
 that his Majesty himself entertained a good opinion of 
 Mr. Beresford. Had I been apprised of the Primate's 
 strong objections to Bishop Beresford's character, of the 
 grounds of which I am still ignorant, I should, certainl}^ 
 have made no sort of representation on the subject ; but 
 as circumstances stood at the time Mr. Beresford's letter 
 reached me there was no time for learning his Grace's 
 sentiments, and as he had been promoted to the Bench 
 subsequent to his Grace's advancement to the Primacy, 
 it did not occur to me that his Grace could entertain 
 objections to his translation so strong as those he has 
 expressed in his letter of the 27th inst. to Mr. Abbot, and 
 which, I have no doubt, he sincerely feels. 
 
 " I trust, however, when his Grace finds no disrespect 
 whatever was intended towards himself, nor (what I am 
 
THE VICEROY'S OPINION OF THE PRIMATE 109 
 
 sure he will consider of superior importance) any inten- 
 tional disregard of the interests of the Church, that he 
 will not think himself called upon to abandon the duties 
 of his high station, in which he may be so emmently 
 useful, on account of the translation of a person to whose 
 original promotion he did not feel the same forcible 
 objections." 
 
 To the Primate the Lord Lieutenant sent the following 
 communication : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " Dec. 2gth, 1801, 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " If I had had the good fortune to be better known 
 to your Grace, you would not have suspected me of any 
 unwillingness to co-operate to the best of my abilities 
 with your zealous and honourable exertions for the advan- 
 tage of the Church over which you preside ; and I am 
 confident that every branch of His Majesty's Government 
 is impressed with the same opinion of your Grace's 
 anxiety to fulfil the objects of your high station in this 
 country. For those reasons I am very desirous that your 
 Grace should be put in possession of all that has passed 
 on the subject of a transaction which I am concerned to 
 learn has made a strong impression on your mind ; and 
 for this reason I have requested my brother-in-law and 
 private secretary, Dr. Lindsay, to wait upon your Grace, 
 in order that he may have an opportunity of communi- 
 cating to you all that has passed in reference to the pro- 
 posed translation of the Bishop of Clonfert to the see of 
 Kilmore. Dr. Lindsay will set out to-morrow, and if he 
 cannot reach Armagh before a late hour in the evening, 
 will have the honour of waiting on your Grace on Thursday 
 morning. 
 
 " I cannot conclude without assuring your Grace that 
 I am very sensible of the pohte expressions you make use 
 of in regard to myself in your letter to Mr. Abbot, and of 
 what you are so good as to say in regard to your having 
 written to Mr. Addington. 
 
 " I remain, my Lord, with great truth and respect, 
 your Grace's most obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 " Hardwicke." 
 
 But in a " private and confidential " letter to the Prime 
 Minister, written also on December 29, the Lord Lieu- 
 
no PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PJIOFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 tenant, in announcing that he had sent his private secre- 
 tary to interview the Primate, is not so complimentary 
 with reference to his Grace's " zealous and honourable 
 exertions " in behalf of the interests of the Established 
 Church in Ireland. " I am more than ever convinced," 
 says his Excellency, "that a sincere desire to do the 
 utmost practical good that circumstances will admit is a 
 more useful quality in the administration of publick 
 affairs, of whatever description, than that furious though 
 honest zeal which disclaims everything short of theoretical 
 perfection, and abates entirely if disappointed in any 
 single instance." In other words, the Primate, in the 
 opinion of the Lord Lieutenant, was " a crank." His 
 Excellency continues : " I am sure I need not add that if 
 any statement of this affair should be laid before the 
 King, I shall conform cheerfully upon this as upon all 
 other occasions to his Majesty's commands ; and it 
 appears to me that after what has passed nothing short 
 of such an authority can properly stop the course of this 
 ecclesiastical arrangement, w^hich I am truly sorry has 
 been brought into question, and occasioned you so much 
 trouble." 
 
 The next letter is from the Prime Minister to the Lord 
 Lieutenant : 
 
 " Private and Confidential. 
 
 " Downing Street, 
 
 " Jan. 2nd, 1802. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I most entirely concur in all the sentiments you 
 have expressed on the circumstances which have occurred 
 respecting the proposed recommendation of Dr. Beresford 
 to the bishoprick of Kilmore ; and it appears to me that 
 a more proper step could not have been taken than that of 
 sending to the Primate a person so high in your Lordship's 
 confidence as Dr. Lindsay. 
 
 "It is my intention to wait for your next communica- 
 tion, and then to lay the whole matter in person before the 
 King, to whom I shall think myself bound to acknowledge 
 that but for an accidental delay an intimation, through 
 Lord Pelham, of my wishes in favour of Dr. Beresford 
 
THE PRIMATE STILL UNYIELDING 1 1 1 
 
 would have been transmitted to Ireland, previous to the 
 arrival of your Lordship's dispatch of the 4th of Novem- 
 ber. I must, however, be strangely ignorant of his 
 Majesty's sentiments if it can be necessary for me to 
 trespass long upon his condescension and patience, in 
 endeavouring to convince him that no disrespect to the 
 Primate was or could be intended by your Lordship or 
 myself ; or that we are either of us less deeply impressed 
 than his Grace with a sense of what is due to the purity 
 of the Church Establishment, and above all, to the 
 interests of religion. 
 
 " It is to me, I fairly acknowledge, a subject of regret 
 that a communication was not made to the Primate of 
 the intentions of Government respecting Dr. Beresford 
 before any step was taken for carrying them into effect ; 
 and if he had not been previously upon the Bench a 
 considerable degree of importance, and perhaps of blame, 
 might be attached by many to the omission. But such a 
 communication, even in such a case, though very proper, 
 has not I believe been very usual, and the want of it in 
 the present instance cannot, I think, be justly made a 
 subject of that grave and most serious description of 
 complaint which would be called for by a disregard of 
 institutions entitled to reverence, and of individuals who 
 from their situation and character have the strongest 
 claims to attention and respect. 
 
 " I have written in haste and more at length than I 
 intended. There are other points upon which I am de- 
 sirous of writing to your Lordship, but they must be re- 
 served for a future letter. 
 
 " I am ever, with true regard, my dear Lord, your most 
 obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 " Henry Addington." 
 
 The Primate, writing on December 31, 1801, replied 
 in the following brief and unyielding letter to the Lord 
 Lieutenant : 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 "I beg leave to assure your Excellency that I 
 am extremely sensible of your goodness in writing as 
 well as m giving me an opportunity of conversing with 
 Dr. Lindsay. 
 
 " I forbear to trouble you further upon the business 
 relatmg to Kilmore, as I wrote on Tuesday to Mr. 
 
112 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 Addington, who, I trust, will now advise his Majesty to 
 allow ine to resign the Primacy ; for I wrote in such a 
 manner as will convince him that I most sincerely desire 
 so to do. I deeply lament that any circumstance in 
 which 1 am concerned should gi\e your Excellency one 
 moment's uneasiness." 
 
 The failure of Lindsay's mission to the Primate is thus 
 reporteci by the Lord Lieutenant to the Prime Minister, 
 in a letter dated January 5, 1802 : 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I am very sorry to inform you that Dr. Lindsay's 
 visit to the Primate has not been attended with the good 
 consequences I had hoped and expected from it, as you 
 will see by the inclosed letter in which he refers to one 
 which he had written to you on the Tuesday preceding. 
 Dr. Lindsay communicated to his Grace all that had 
 passed on the subject of Bishop Beresford's proposed 
 translation, and had conceived from the conversation 
 which passed a different impression from that which is 
 conveyed by the letter. 
 
 " It is impossible to lament more than I do the step 
 which his Grace has taken in requesting you to advise 
 the King to allow him to resign the Primacy ; but ex- 
 traordinary and unprecedented as such a step would be, 
 I think it would be, in every view, much less injurious 
 in its consequences than his retaining the situation, and 
 living as a private bishop in the diocese of Armagh, 
 abandoning the care of the public charities to the boards 
 which are supposed to have mismanaged them for so 
 many 3'ears, and giving up that general superintendence 
 of the Church in which he might have been so eminently 
 
 useful." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Then followed a correspondence between the Primate 
 and the Prime Minister, copies of which were forwarded 
 by Addington to Hardwicke. 
 
 " Armagh, 
 
 " Dec. 2gth, 1801. 
 '• Sir. 
 
 " The removal of Dr. Beresford to the North of 
 Ireland is, in my opinion, the most fatal blow the Church 
 has ever received. To place among the Protestants a 
 bishop of indifferent character would, in the present 
 
PRIME MINISTER PLEADS WITH PRIMATE 1 1 3 
 
 moment, be a publick misfortune, but to place among 
 them a bishop whose immoralities have rendered him 
 infamous cannot fail to produce the most serious ill 
 effects. 
 
 " I now find myself in a situation in which I can do no 
 good, but in which I can do incredible mischief : a situa- 
 tion from which every man of honour must be anxious to 
 extricate himself. I, therefore, beg the favour of you to 
 lay my humble request before his Majesty that I may be 
 permitted to resign the archbishoprick of Armagh. This 
 measure cannot be productive of ill consequences as 
 the example is not likely to be followed ; and as I re- 
 signed the bishoprick of St. David's to obtain the Primacy 
 it cannot be illegal to resign Armagh to retire to a private 
 situation. 
 
 " If his Majesty is graciously pleased to grant this 
 request, I humbly hope the change may take place early 
 in the spring. Were I to presume to ask you a personal 
 favour it would be to give some small provision to my 
 chaplain, Mr. Carter, who quitted his preferment in 
 England to accompany me to Ireland, and who, having 
 been tutor to Prince William, I am persuaded his Royal 
 Highness will bear testimony to his worth and merit. 
 
 " I am sure your good nature will pardon this trouble, 
 and induce you to honour me with a few lines as soon as 
 circumstances will admit. 
 
 " I have the honour to be with the highest esteem and 
 respect. Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 "W. Armagh." 
 From the Prime Minister to the Primate : 
 
 " Downing Street, 
 "My Lord, " Jan. 7 th, 1802. 
 
 u ;, ^\ ^^^"^^ to defer troubling your Grace 'till I 
 had heard the result of Dr. Lindsay's visit to Armagh ; 
 but I feel that your letter of the 29th of December de- 
 mands immediate attention. 
 
 " It is unnecessary for me to recapitulate the steps 
 which have been taken in consequence of your Grace's 
 tirst letter. The opinion I entertain of your Grace's 
 justice is accompanied by a conviction that it is not 
 possible for you to suppose that any of his Maiestv's 
 
 tTon of nf r'''^%^*!.^^^T'^^'^S"^ *^^ P^^P^^ed transla- 
 tion of Dr. Beresford to the bishoprick of Kilmore were 
 
 8 
 
114 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 influenced by motives inconsistent with the highest re- 
 spect for your character and station, or with feehngs less 
 earnest than those by which your Grace is known to be 
 actuated, for the purity of the Church Estabhshment, and 
 the interests of rehgion. j 
 
 " Till I received your Grace's letter of the 27th of 
 November, no imputation had reached me that was dis- 
 creditable to Dr. Beresford. I cannot, therefore, re- 
 proach myself for having supposed that, countenanced as 
 he was by the Irish Government, and by Lord Pelham, 
 he was not unworthy of being removed to Kilmore. The 
 responsibility, however, of such an arrangement could 
 not, in any degree, attach upon your Grace. It would 
 fall upon certain individuals belonging to the English 
 and Irish Governments, and particularly, I acknowledge, 
 upon myself. 
 
 "■ I trust, therefore, that your Grace will not persist in 
 urging the performance of the painful task imposed 
 upon me by your last letter ; or rather that on further 
 consideration your Grace may be disposed to remain in a 
 situation which you could not quit without creating great 
 uneasiness to his Majesty and real detriment to the publick. 
 On the impediments that might arise to the accomplish- 
 ment of the wish you have expressed, 3^our Grace will 
 be pleased to observe that I have not presumed to 
 hazard an opinion. 
 
 " I have only to add that I shall wait with anxiety for 
 a further communication from your Grace, and that I 
 have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, 
 
 " My Lord, 3'our Grace's most humble and obedient 
 servant, 
 
 " Henry Addington." 
 
 From the Primate to the Prime Minister : 
 
 " Armagh, 
 " 14th January, 1802. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Your letter of the 7th of January I had not the 
 honour of receiving till last night. I feel and acknow- 
 ledge the very handsome manner in which you are pleased 
 to express yourself ; but I beg leave to assure you that 
 the request I ventured to propose was the result of much 
 serious thought, and did not originate from pique, ill- 
 humour, or party attachment. In truth I have no reason 
 
PRIMATE'S REPLY TO THE PRIME MINISTER 115 
 
 to complain of any disrespect— from Lord Hardwicke 
 and Mr. Abbot I have received every civility. The 
 character of the former is far above my praise, and from 
 the firmness, abihties, integrity and assiduity of the latter, 
 I am well persuaded this country will derive signal ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 " I have been refused no favour, for I hazarded no 
 sohcitation ; and I am not soured by contrariety of 
 opinion, for, till this business, I have had no reason to 
 differ from His Majesty's Ministers. I am utterly un- 
 acquainted with Mr. Beresford and his party, nor do I 
 know any individual of the party whose sentiments and 
 principles are opposite to his. I had no friend to recom- 
 mend to Kilmore. I expressed no wish in favour of any 
 person ; and I can affirm upon my honour that I objected 
 to Dr. Beresford upon publick grounds only. As emolu- 
 ment is the only object of this young man, whose character 
 is indisputably infamous, it might have been procured 
 for him in the Catholick part of Ireland where he could 
 do little mischief ; but surely it was unnecessary to re- 
 move him to the Protestant part where he can do a great 
 deal. It is certainly true that I am not responsible for 
 his removal, but I am unfortunately so for his conduct 
 when he is placed in my province, and am bound by the 
 laws and usage of this country to inspect it. 
 
 "Mr. Abbot having sent me, at the request of Lord 
 Hardwicke, the proposed arrangements, I entertained 
 no suspicion of any other till the 27th of November, when 
 I took the liberty of writing to you, a liberty which I 
 should probably have taken before had I suspected that 
 His Majesty's Ministers meant to promote Dr. Beresford. 
 This translation to the see of Kilmore is, in my opinion, 
 fatal to the Church EstabHshment. It exposes us to 
 ridicule and contempt ; it encourages that profligacy of 
 manners already too prevalent in Ireland, and it holds 
 forth to the young men of this country that morals are 
 of no estimation in the opinion of the English Minister. 
 My understanding suggests no surer method of destroying 
 the Church than by placing irreligious and profligate men 
 m those situations where the people have a right to expect 
 examples of piety and virtue. 
 
 " I will not, however, push this subject further, but 
 beg the favour of you, if Dr. Beresford is translated to 
 Kilmore, as your letter leads me to suppose, to lay my 
 
 8—2 
 
ii6 PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 humble request before his Majesty, and I most confidently 
 rely on the wisdom and goodness of the King that he will 
 allow me to resign a situation which I can no longer hold 
 with advantage to the publick, or credit to myself. 
 Before you submit the matter to his Majesty, I earnestly 
 entreat you to consider what will be the consequence of 
 compelling me to remain against my will, and if you do 
 so, I am well persuaded you will advise his Majesty to 
 permit me to retire. To tell you that I feel nothing on 
 this occasion would be to tell you what is not true. I 
 most deeply lament it as the greatest misfortune of my 
 life. No man ever resigned so high a situation or aban- 
 doned a profession in which he was so honourably dis- 
 tinguished, without great regret ; but if Dr. Beresford be 
 translated to Kilmore I should certainly have to struggle 
 with far greater evils, and should probably struggle in 
 vain, for the profession itself would shortly cease to exist. 
 I therefore adopt that part which appears to me least 
 liable to objection, and retire from a situation in which 
 I cannot continue without embarrassing His Majesty's 
 Ministers." 
 
 From the Prime Minister to the Primate : 
 
 " Downing Street, 
 
 " Jan. 2T,rd, 1802. 
 
 " Mv Lord, 
 
 " I have been honoured with your Grace's letter, 
 and I cannot forbear observing that you have not con- 
 descended to notice the concluding paragraph of mine of 
 the 7th of this month. As, however, it is not possible for 
 me to be influenced by general charges only, notwithstand- 
 ing my respect for the quarter from whence they have 
 proceeded, I think it incumbent on me to request, and, 
 indeed, to claim from your Grace's justice some specifica- 
 tion of the depravity which has led your Grace to pro- 
 nounce that ' the character of Dr. Beresford is indisputably 
 infamous '; and that ' if he is translated to Kilmore the 
 profession itself would shortly cease to exist.' 
 
 " I have reason to believe that his Majesty's pleasure 
 in consequence of the vacancy in Kilmore will not be 
 made known till I have heard again from your Grace ; 
 and I trust you will pardon me if, till that period arrives, 
 I abstain from laying your Grace's letters and my 
 answers, with your correspondence with Lord Hardwicke 
 and Mr. Abbot, before the King." 
 
PRIMATE'S THREATS IGNORED 117 
 
 The next letter on the subject is Irom Addington to 
 Hardwicke, dated January 24, 1802 : 
 
 " It is in strict confidence," says the Prime Minister, 
 " that I acquaint your Lordship of my having already 
 apprized liis Majesty of what has passed, tho' the letters 
 have not yet been submitted for his perusal. I incline 
 to believe that no imputation can justly attach upon 
 Dr. Beresford, but that of gaiety and irregularity 
 at an early period of his life. Since he was upon the 
 Bench I understand his conduct has been irreproach- 
 able." 
 
 Acknowledging the receipt of this communication on 
 January 28, 1802, Hardwicke writes to Addington : 
 
 " I have only now to hope that this transaction may 
 be brought to an early, and I wish I could say satisfactory, 
 conclusion. Being perfectly unconscious of any inten- 
 tional disrespect to the Primate, or of any disregard or 
 indifference to the interests of religion, I am very sin- 
 cerely concerned at the stile and manner of his Grace's 
 letters, and at the unprecedented step which he proposes 
 to take on account of the translation of a person to whose 
 promotion to the Bench he did not feel himself called 
 upon to object with the same apprehension of its conse- 
 quences ; and yet it is remarkable that whatever objec- 
 tions could have been made to Dr. Beresford on the ground 
 of character and conduct arose from circumstances which 
 occurred previously to his original promotion, and con- 
 sequently before I had any opportunity of being ac- 
 quainted with them. 
 
 " I flatter myself that his Majesty, to whom you will 
 now be under the necessity of stating what has passed, 
 will be graciously pleased to put the most favourable 
 construction upon the share I have had in this transaction, 
 which is so fully explained in former letters that I should 
 not be justified in trespassing longer upon youc" time at 
 present." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The protests and threats of his Grace of Armagh were 
 ignored by the Government. Dr. Beresford was trans- 
 lated from Clonfert to Kilmore. From John Beresford 
 
iiS PRIMATE OBJECTS TO PROFLIGATE BISHOPS 
 
 came the following grateful letter to the Lord Lieutenant, 
 dated London, February 22, 1802 : 
 
 " My dear Lokp, 
 
 " Lord Pelham assured me that he would send off 
 the King's letter for Kilmore by this night's post. I 
 cannot suffer it to go without accompanying it with my 
 most sincere and heartfelt thanks to your Excellency for 
 your exceeding great kindness to me throughout a most 
 disagreeable and unprovoked business. I am perfectly 
 sensible of your Excellency's firm, manly, gentlemanlike, 
 and truly friendly conduct throughout the whole ; and 
 beg that you will accept of my best thanks, and be assured 
 that I shall ever retain the most grateful recollection 
 of it. 
 
 " I am, my dear Lord, with great truth and respect, 
 your faithful and much obliged humble servant, 
 
 " J. Beresford." 
 
 The news was conveyed to the Primate by the Lord 
 Lieutenant in the following letter : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " March 4th, 1S02. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 ''It is my duty to acquaint your Grace that in 
 consequence of the representations you have made in 
 regard to the removal of Bishop Beresford from the see 
 of Clonfert to that of Kilmore, Mr. Addington has sub- 
 mitted the whole case to his Majesty's consideration, and 
 that it did not appear to his Majesty, under all the cir- 
 cumstances, that there were sufficiently strong reasons 
 for negativing the translation. 
 
 " I am, however, desired to assure your Grace that 
 though this translation has been necessarily confirmed, 
 there is everj' disposition on the part of the King's 
 Ministers to consult your Grace's feelings and comfort 
 in any subsequent arrangement which you may consider 
 material to the interest of the Church Establishment. 
 For myself, I can only say that as I came to this country 
 with the most anxious desire of co-operating with your 
 Grace to promote whatever objects you might think 
 beneficial to the great publick interests which are more 
 immediately under your superintendence, I agree most 
 entirely in the sentiments which are felt by His Majesty's 
 Ministers in England, and should be very happy to have 
 
SUBMISSION OF THE PRIMATE 119 
 
 an opportunity of proving to you the sincerity of tfiis 
 declaration." 
 
 The tactful and courteous Lord Lieutenant succeeded 
 in soothing the ruffled feelings of the Primate. " William 
 Armagh," writing on March 11, 1802, expresses his grati- 
 tude for the Lord Lieutenant's extreme kindness. 
 
 " Whatever I may think of that translation and the 
 manner in which it may affect the Establishment in this 
 country," he says, " I cannot entertain a doubt of your 
 Excellency being sincerely inclined to promote the real 
 interests of the Church." 
 
 Dr. Stuart, accordingly, did not resign. For twenty 
 years more he was Primate of All Ireland. On May 6, 
 1822, he died from accidental poisoning by an embroca- 
 tion which he had taken in mistake for medicine. There is 
 a full-length marble statue of him in Armagh Cathedral. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 The Primate, as I have pointed out in a note to the last 
 chapter, was mistaken in stating in his letter to the Chief 
 Secretary that the Government were unfettered by the 
 Union engagements in appointing to the bishopric of 
 Kilmore. Dr. x\lexander's promotion to the Episcopal 
 Bench was, of course, a Union engagement. There re- 
 mained on the list one other promise of a bishopric — 
 that to the Hon. and Rev. Power le Poer Trench. This 
 clerg\'man's father was Lord Kilconnel in the Irish 
 House of Lords, and his elder brother, Richard Trench, 
 was member for co. Galway in the Irish House of 
 Commons. Richard Trench voted against the Union in 
 the session of 1799, but voted for it in the session of 
 iSoo. Lord Kilconnel, who supported the measure in 
 the House of Lords, was promoted to be Viscount Dunlo 
 in December, 1800, and was further advanced to the 
 Earldom of Clancarty in 1803. There was also an en- 
 gagement given by Lord Comwallis that the younger 
 son of the family, a clergyman, should be early promoted 
 to the Bench of Bishops. 
 
 Here is Pelham, the Home Secretary, writing to the 
 Lord Lieutenant, July 21, 1802, acknowledging the 
 official letter of his Excellency recommending Mr. Trench 
 for the united bishopric of Waterford and Lismore, then 
 vacant. The Home Secretary says he has delayed laying 
 the letter before the King, as he had not received from 
 the Lord Lieutenant the customary " private and con- 
 
 120 
 
THE TOTTENHAM LOFTUS CLAIM 121 
 
 fidential " communication which always preceded the 
 official letter. Of course, the Home Secretary goes on 
 to say, somewhat sarcastically, his Excellency's recom- 
 mendation was sufficient reason for thinking that Mr. 
 Trench was a proper person to be advanced to the 
 Bench of Bishops. Nevertheless, he should really Hke 
 to know what were the claims of Mr. Trench to Water- 
 ford, one of the best of the sees. 
 
 " If," says the Home Secretary, " he is the person I 
 presume him to be {younger brother of the member for 
 Galway), I should suppose any bishoprick would be con- 
 sidered by him a very great object." 
 
 The reply of the Lord Lieutenant is not wanting in the 
 same quiet irony : 
 
 " I am much obliged to your Lordship for saying that 
 my recommendation of Dr. Trench is a sufficient reason 
 for your thinking it fit that he should be advanced to the 
 Bench ; but I am sure you will do me the justice to 
 believe that if it had been really a recommendation origi- 
 nating from any wish of mine, either on private or on 
 publick grounds, of friendship or merit, instead of an 
 engagement of the late Administration in Ireland, 
 adopted by His Majesty's Ministers, as well as by myself, 
 upon undertaking the Government of this country, I 
 should not have contented myself with a mere official 
 letter, though it appeared to be sufficient in the case of 
 an engagement already known and recognised." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The appointment of Mr. Trench to the see of Waterford 
 satisfied the last claim for a bishopric on the List of 
 Union Engagements. But not until he was entirely 
 quit of Ireland did Hardwicke cease to be tormented 
 by confficting claims to vacant sees for services rendered 
 in the carrying of the Union. Here, for instance, is the 
 Prime Minister writing to the Lord Lieutenant, January 9, 
 1803, stating that Lord Loftus, son and heir of the 
 Marquis of Ely, sitting in the House of Commons for 
 the borough of Wexford, and a Lord of the Treasury, 
 had informed him that he had had at the time of the 
 
122 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 Union a positive promise from the Duke of Portland, 
 then Home Secietary, that his younger brother, the Rev. 
 Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus, should be raised to the 
 Bench of Bishops as soon as possible after he had reached 
 the age of thirty, the canonical age of a bishop. Adding- 
 ton says he assured Lord Loftus that if a written confir- 
 mation of the statement were obtained from Portland 
 the pretensions of the Rev. Lord Robert Tottenham 
 Loftus would be favourably considered by the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 " I told his Lordship," the Prime Minister goes on, 
 " that I would giv'e him one proof of a good disposition 
 towards him, which was that if his statement should be 
 verified the only friend for whom I felt extreme anxiety 
 with, a view to preferment in the Church in Ireland 
 should not stand in his way ; but that I could not pos- 
 sibly say more." 
 
 The friend for whom Addington was concerned was 
 Dr. Butson, Dean of Waterford, a college friend of his 
 Oxford days. 
 
 " He thanked me," says the Prime Minister in conclu- 
 sion, referring to Lord Loftus, " but did not appear satis- 
 fied, though he was particularly civil and even cordial 
 in his expressions towards the Government." 
 
 Thus opens the interesting and exciting story of the 
 hunt of the Tottenham Loftus family for a bishopric. 
 It is an amusing tale also ; but we will have to mingle 
 indignation with our merriment, for there is much in it 
 to shock our sense of virtue and duty, showing, as it 
 does, the low level of the public spirit, and the character 
 and the honour, of the men in whose hands the destiny of 
 Ireland unhappily lay at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. A few words, first, as to the Tottenham Loftus 
 family. The Earl of Ely, in the Irish Peerage, was the 
 owner of six boroughs which returned eight members to 
 the Irish House of Commons. Consequently, it was most 
 important to win him over to the side of the Union ; and 
 as he was determined to sell his influence dearly, it was 
 
A UNION ENGAGEMENT FOR A BISHOPRIC 123 
 
 obtained only at an enormous price. For himself, a Mar- 
 quisate in the Irish Peerage and a Baronage of the 
 United Kingdom, carrying, of course, a seat in the 
 House of Lords of the Imperial Parhament, and the 
 sinecure post of Postmaster-General for Ireland. He also 
 received the immense sum of ;^45,ooo " compensation " 
 for the loss of his nomination boroughs. For his eldest 
 son. Lord Loftus, a post in the Treasury, and for his 
 younger son, Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus, a bishopric. 
 As the latter engagement — the only one remaining un- 
 fulfilled — was given by the Duke of Portland, Home 
 Secretary, it did not appear in the list supplied by Corn- 
 
 wallis to Hardwicke. 
 
 * * * 
 
 In August, 1803, the see of Derry became vacant 
 through the death of its bishop, that eccentric ecclesi- 
 astic, the Earl of Bristol. Dr. Knox, the Bishop of 
 Killaloe, had an engagement, in return for his services 
 to the Union, for a translation to a wealthier diocese, 
 and as he was anxious to obtain Derry, the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant supported his claim. But there were rumours 
 that the Cabinet intended to set aside Knox, and appoint 
 some other ecclesiastic to Derry over the head of the 
 Viceroy, and Hardwicke — anxious, as usual, for the re- 
 demption of the Union engagements — thus writes, in 
 some perturbation of mind, to his brother, Charles Yorke, 
 now Home Secretary : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " August 13, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " I am obhged to write in some haste upon a point 
 which, though of minor importance to objects which claim 
 our immediate attention, is, nevertheless, of some con- 
 sequence to the credit and character of Government, as 
 well as to myself personally. On the List of Union En- 
 gagements, of which I have been the faithful and dis- 
 interested executor, the name of the Bishop of Killaloe 
 stands second, next to the Archbishop of Cashel, for a 
 translation to Dublin. The engagement was made by 
 Lord CornwaUis for promotion to a better see, and was 
 
124 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 made to Lord Aberdeen, who has, I understand, acted 
 very handsomely of late towards the present Ministry. 
 In November, 1801, the Bishop of Killaloe might have 
 been promoted to Cashel, if he had not previously — i.e., 
 in June, 1801— made his option of a translation to Derry, 
 for which he proposed waiting, and of which he had as 
 strong a promise as I believe is ever given on behalf of 
 his Majesty — that is, ' every assurance, short of an abso- 
 lute promise.' His large family, and the connexion of 
 his family with the North, induced him to prefer this 
 chance to the certainty of greater rank with £6,000 per 
 annum. 
 
 " I should have thought there had been no doubt of 
 his succeeding, but that a short note from the Speaker 
 informs me that translations and removes are intended ; 
 and that some Irish bishoprick will be opened for Dr. 
 Lindsay. I am now less interested for Dr. Lindsay's 
 objects than for the general character of this Govern- 
 ment, though I think if no engagement existed it would 
 be too much to say — after all that has passed, and that 
 I have done nothing for any friend or connexion what- 
 ever — that such or such a bishoprick is too good for 
 him, and that and this removes must intervene, I had 
 already written to Addington on the subject before I 
 received the Speaker's note ; but I rather apprehend 
 that the Bisjiop of Ferns, a very jobbing fellow, though 
 an English bishop, has pressed through other quarters 
 for a remove from the Irish to the English Bench. I 
 also hear that Dr. Goodenough is talked of for Derry, 
 which, at any rate, I should think an arrangement that 
 would not be very much approved, as Derry should cer- 
 tainly be given to some man of rank and family. 
 
 " But this is quite foreign to the purpose, and relates 
 also to the policy of removing from England to Ireland, 
 a plan which I think would be inconvenient. Besides, 
 the Bishop of Killaloe is really a respectable bishop, and 
 except the Archbishop of Cashel the most likely to be 
 useful in promoting the interests of the Church in this 
 country, which requires every support and encourage- 
 ment, notwithstanding its supposed and apparent opu- 
 lence. 
 
 " I hope you will prevent my being dishonoured in 
 this instance. At the same time, I assure you that 
 whatever is done this is a moment at which I should 
 
THE VICEROY'S SECRETARY GETS A BISHOPRIC 125 
 
 certainly not feel it possible to avert it by expressing a 
 desire to withdraw myself. 
 
 " Yours most affectionately, 
 
 " Hardwicke." 
 
 Ultimately, Dr. Knox was translated from Killaloe to 
 Derry. All the promises of bishoprics to supporters of 
 the Union being now satisfied, the conscientious Hard- 
 wicke thought he might fairly serve some of his own 
 relations. Accordingly, he recommended his brother-in- 
 law and private secretary. Rev. Charles Lindsay, for the 
 diocese of Killaloe, and his wish was gratified by the King. 
 
 "It is my earnest desire," says the Prime Minister, 
 conveying to Hardwicke his Majesty's approval of the 
 promotion of Lindsay, " that the next vacancy on the 
 Bench may be supplied by Dr. Butson." 
 
 The Marquis of Ely now thought it was time to 
 advance the pretensions of his son to a bishopric. So, 
 on September 30, 1803, he sent the following letter from 
 Dublin to Addington : 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I must entreat your forgiveness for presuming 
 to take up a moment of your precious time about my 
 own concerns, but my attachment to a favourite son 
 urges me to it. 
 
 " At the time of the Union, I trust I gave it as ample 
 and effective support as any other gentleman in Ireland. 
 I might have made a positive and a speedy bargain for 
 my son with the Lord Lieutenant of the day, had I been 
 as active as others of less claims. However, I made my 
 claims known to the Duke of Portland, who assured me 
 they should have his best support. All the episcopal 
 claims m consequence of the Union are declared to be 
 now fulfilled, except my son's, and Dr. Lindsay, brother- 
 m-law to Lord Hardwicke, fills the present vacancy of 
 Killaloe. May I now entreat the favour of you to have 
 my son noted down for the next vacancy ? I appeal to 
 the Duke of Portland for a promise from the Govern- 
 ment of the day that he should be taken care of. On that 
 score I once more entreat your pardon for all this trouble." 
 
 * * * 
 
126 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 Towards the cMid of the year 1803 the Bishop of 
 Raphoe lay ill. The news brought into the field a fresh 
 claimant for a bishopric in return for services rendered 
 to the Union. This was the Marquis of Waterford, 
 whose father, the first Marquis, voted for the measure 
 in the House of Lords, as his uncle, John Beresford, had 
 supported it in the House of Commons. His youngest 
 brotlier, Lord John Beresford, was rector of Termon- 
 maguirk, in the diocese of Armagh ; and the promotion 
 of this son to the see of Raphoe was the object of his 
 dearest solicitude. Lord Waterford further informed 
 Hardwicke that Dean Butson — Addington's friend — was 
 going about Waterford boasting that he had been pro- 
 mised the reversion of the next vacant see. Surely Lord 
 John George Beresford would not be set aside in favour 
 of such a man ! But here is Waterford's letter to the 
 Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " CURRAGHMORE, 
 
 " Dec. 2T,rd, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 "As a vacancy has occurred on the Bench of 
 Bishops by the decease of the Lord Bishop of Raphoe,* I 
 take the liberty of addressing your Excellency in behalf 
 of my brother. Lord John Beresford, to succeed to the 
 vacant see. 
 
 " Your Excellency was pleased, when last I had the 
 honor of seeing you in Dublin, to express yourself in the 
 kindest manner respecting Lord John. You were pleased 
 to acknowledge his pretensions to hold that situation 
 from his rank in life, his conduct as a clergyman, and 
 particularly the claims his family has on His Majesty's 
 Government for their unremitting and steady support. 
 Mr. Addington, in a conversation I had the honor to have 
 with him last winter, admitted in the strongest manner 
 my pretensions. He said he never made reversionary 
 engagements, and requested me not to urge what was 
 unusual, but offered by that night's post to write to your 
 Excellency on this subject. 
 
 * In a letter written at the same time to the Prime Minister, 
 Lord Waterford says : "A vacancy is soon likely to occur on 
 the Bench of Bishops by the decease of my Lord Bishop of 
 Raphoe." 
 
ANOTHER BERESFORD CLAIM TO A BISHOPRIC 127 
 
 " When I reflect on that conversation I cannot bring 
 myself to beheve that Mr. Addington ever could prefer 
 to Lord John Beresford a gentleman who has taken every 
 pains in his power to make it a matter of public notoriety 
 that he had a promise from Mr. Addington to succeed 
 on the first vacant see, to the Bench. I should hope, had 
 Mr Addington made such a promise, it was only of such 
 a nature that it was to be done if favourable circumstances 
 permitted ; but as the gentleman had betrayed his secret, 
 it now remains with Mr. Addington to say whether the 
 gentleman has the same claims on His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment as I have. 
 
 " Feeling myself unable to apologise for thus trespassing 
 on your Excellency, and relying on your Lordship's 
 friendship, I trust I shall have the pleasure to hear that 
 my wishes, and most anxious desire, are through your kind 
 interference accomplished. 
 
 " I beg leave to subscribe myself, my dear Lord, your 
 Excellency's most obliged, faithful servant, 
 
 " Waterford. 
 
 " P.S.— Lord John Beresford's preferments in the Church 
 are about four and twenty hundred, out of which he pays 
 three curates. The gentleman's preferments are scarce 
 sixteen hundred, out of which he pays three curates. The 
 above assertion I can prove." 
 
 The Viceroy's reply to Lord Waterford is as follows : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " Dec^ 27th, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 "I am sure your Lordship will have the candour to 
 acknowledge that I could not receive your letter of the 
 22nd inst. without being in some respects at a loss to 
 return so satisfactory an answer to it as I should always 
 wish to give to any letter of your Lordship. I shall, how- 
 ever, endeavour to answer it precisely as I feel, and I trust 
 you will give me credit for a fair and candid statement. 
 
 " Your Lordship is not unacquainted with the very 
 numerous engagements on the patronage of the Govern- 
 ment to which every claim of whatever nature has been 
 necessarily postponed. In the disposal of the higher pre- 
 ferments of the Church, it is impossible that I should at 
 any time pledge myself to particular engagements with- 
 out a positive certainty that the recommendation will be 
 
128 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 approved and sanctioned. This course has been uniformly 
 pursued in all cases of this description ; and if in any 
 instance I can consider myself warranted in forwarding a 
 recommendation officiiilly, without a previous assurance 
 that it will receive the King's sanction, it would be in the 
 case of a person recommended by the Prime Minister him- 
 self. With every disposition, both on private and publick 
 grounds, to promote your Lordship's wishes in the instance 
 of Lord John Beresford, and with a conviction also from 
 everything I have heard and know that whatever pre- 
 tensions he may derive from his rank and family, and 
 from the support which His Majesty's Government has 
 received from his connexions, are strengthened by his 
 character and respectability as a clergyman, I trust your 
 Lordship will not press me to interfere with those wishes 
 which Mr. Addington has uniformly expressed in favour 
 of the Dean of Waterford, by declining to forward a- 
 recommendation which, it was fully understood, was to 
 be made, upon the vacancy which may be shortly ex- 
 pected to occur. Though I certainly have not approved 
 of the declarations which have been made by that gentle- 
 man in regard to a supposed promise, and think that in 
 all such cases they had better be spared, yet this circum- 
 stance would not be considered as justifying me in with- 
 drawing my support of a recommendation in favour of 
 which, I am now at liberty to say, Mr. Addington has 
 expressed his wishes in the strongest manner. 
 
 " I have now explained to your Lordship very openly 
 the precise circumstances of this case, from which I am 
 sure you will be convinced that I cannot, after all that has 
 passed, decline recommending the Dean of Waterford if 
 a vacancy should occur on the Bench. I will, however, 
 if your Lordship wishes it, communicate your letter to 
 Mr. Addington." 
 
 Hardwicke, writing to Addington on December 28, 
 1803, thought the claim of Lord Waterford — " with very 
 fair pretensions to apply for such promotion for his 
 brother " — was, in the circumstances, most unreasonable. 
 Lord John George Beresford had only just attained to his 
 thirtieth year, the canonical age of a bishop. Besides, two 
 of the Beresford family were already on the Bench of 
 Bishops — the Archbishop of Tuam and the Bishop of 
 Kilmore. The Lord Lieutenant goes on : 
 
VICEROY SUPPORTS THE DEAN OF WATERFORD 129 
 
 " The Dean of Waterford, whose recommendation you 
 have desired me to forward whenever a vacancy occurs, 
 has certainly not acted with proper discretion in declaring 
 publicly that he has your positive promise of the first 
 vacancy. I was sorry to find that he was inclined to 
 press his recommendation as one that ought to have been 
 made, and that he was entitled to expect, on the death of 
 the Bishop of Derry. In answering Lord Waterford, I 
 have endeavoured to show him that the dean's indiscre- 
 tion, though I disapprove of it entirely, would not justify 
 me in wishing to supersede a recommendation for which 
 you have been so particularly anxious." 
 
 The Prime Minister, replying in January, 1804, says : 
 " I rather doubt whether the Dean of Waterford can have 
 made the declaration imputed to him, as it would not only 
 have been inconsistent with discretion, but with accuracy." 
 Butson had only reason to believe that Addington would 
 recommend him for a bishopric after the promotion of 
 the Viceroy's private secretary. " I do, however," adds 
 the Prime Minister, " consider myself bound to support 
 the pretensions of Dr. Butson, as the engagements with 
 which we have been so long encumbered are disposed of." 
 
 Lord Waterford also wrote to Addington in the interest 
 of his brother. 
 
 " I feel confident," he says, " that no other per- 
 son in this country can be found to have upon publick 
 or private grounds a stronger or fairer claim for pre- 
 ferment on the Bench than Lord John Beresford, my 
 brother. I am, therefore, to request that you will be 
 pleased to recommend Lord John Beresford to a seat on 
 the Ecclesiastical Bench on this occasion, and I have 
 reason to think that such preferment would not be dis- 
 agreeable to the Lord Lieutenant, to whom I have spoken 
 on this subject, but to whom application must be made, 
 as he never makes a promise." 
 
 But Addington, hurt, no doubt, by Waterford's tittle- 
 tattle about Butson, sent a curt reply, 
 
 " My Lord," says he in his note (a copy of which 
 he forwarded to Hardwicke), " Lord John Beresford's 
 personal character and his affinity to your Lordship 
 
 9 
 
I30 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 justly entitle him to look to a high situation in the Church ; 
 but I must beg to confine myself to this admission, and 
 to continue to decline to give any specific assurance or 
 pledge whatever." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, writing to Addington, January 13, 
 1804, deals with the rival claims of Waterford and Ely. 
 In the opinion of his Excellency, Ely had already been 
 sufficiently rewarded for his support of the Union ; and 
 as Waterford had received no return for his services 
 beyond a step in the Irish Peerage, Waterford rather than 
 Ely was entitled to the next vacant bishopric after the 
 claim of Dr. Butson had been satisfied. 
 
 * * * 
 The Bishop of Raphoe seems to have recovered. But the 
 Bishop of Kildare died in April, 1804, and Dr. Lindsay, 
 the Lord Lieutenant's brother-in-law, was translated 
 from Killaloe to Kildare. Then and only then did Lindsay 
 resign his post as first chaplain to the Viceroy, which he 
 had held in conjunction with the private secretaryship ; 
 and as an interlude to the Tottenham Loftus hunt for a 
 bishopric I will give here a remarkable letter from that 
 curious person, Rev. Charles Chester (Hardwicke's poor 
 relation), to tlie Lord Lieutenant as a claimant for the 
 position : 
 
 " Dame Street, Dublin, 
 , "April II, 1804. 
 
 I " My dear Lord, 
 
 " That I may not intrude upon you in a busy 
 moment, I take this method of reverting to a subject I 
 mentioned to you the other day, viz., my succeeding the 
 bishop as your Excellency's first chaplain ; and I do it 
 with the more confidence as you wished to know my 
 reasons for desiring it, and I think you said that if it was 
 a \ery great object to me, you would waive your objec- 
 tions. 
 
 *' I must begin then with saying that I have ever con- 
 sidered it as an object of the first importance to me ; and 
 that it is, as your objection stiU further convinces me, 
 for the honor of being appointed first chaplain to the 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland naturally attaches a great 
 degree of credit to the person, not only in this country, 
 
REAPPEARANCE OF THE REV. CHARLES CHESTER 131 
 
 but also in England, and especially in the University. 
 To me, therefore, who have so long lived in the neighbour- 
 hood of one, on this account it is greater than it might be 
 to many men ; and it is a well-known fact that the first 
 chaplain to a Lord Lieutenant has, and ever will be con- 
 sidered to have, a strong claim for handsome preferment 
 from the Minister in England, inasmuch as he is 
 generally considered as having a fair claim for an Irish 
 bishoprick. Now, although I never intend to press 
 for this honour, yet the great interest that such an 
 appointment would give me with the Minister in England 
 cannot but make me greatly wish it, because I shall then 
 be satisfied that the application you have already made 
 for me, and which, as I now stand, may be unattended to, 
 will then soon be answered with some handsome piece 
 of preferment. These reasons, my Lord, and the warm 
 interest you show for my welfare, make me hope you will 
 oblige me in this instance. But this is not all ; for from 
 my first appointment as second chaplain, I, of course, 
 looked forward in time to become the first, and so did all 
 my friends. 
 
 " Moreover, I was encouraged to look for it by your first 
 chaplain, then Dr. Lindsay, from the first of my coming 
 here ; and when you very lately told me that whenever the 
 Bishop would resign the office I should succeed him, and 
 he, at the same time, told me he should resign as soon as 
 the patent for his translation arrived, I, of course, flattered 
 myself that I was sure of it, and mentioned it to many of 
 my friends here, as well as by letter to those in England ; 
 which may appear premature, but as I found the Bishop 
 had named his intention and my succession to many of the 
 Household, by whom I was then congratulated, I could not 
 but consider it was certain. And it was but on Thursday 
 last that the Bishop told me in the presence of Mr. Camp- 
 bell that he should at once resign the office, and that I 
 might consider myself from that time as first chaplain. 
 
 " Think, then, my Lord, how great must be my disap- 
 pointment. But even that is nothing in comparison to 
 the disgrace I shall feel at having been brought into so 
 ridiculous a situation ; for, instead of being raised in con- 
 sequence in this country, I shall appear to my acquaint- 
 ances here, particularly to the College, and to my friends 
 in England, no better than a false boaster, and can only 
 expect to be despised for having presumed, without your 
 
 q— 3 
 
132 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 Excellency's previous concurrence, to speak of an arrange- 
 ment that will appear to them, by my disajipointment, 
 was never seriously in contemplation. Tiiinl:, then, my 
 dear Lord, how my feelings must be hurt at the idea of 
 labouring under such an imputation, and I trust you will 
 feel but little hesitation in obliging me. 
 
 " I should certainly regret tliat what would be so 
 advantageous and gratifying to me should be a source of 
 trouble to your Lordship ; but it appears to me that the 
 inconvenience you alluded to might be effectually pre- 
 vented by one letter from you to Mr. Addington, or Mr. 
 Yorke, announcing the arrangement, and explaining that 
 the Bishop of Kildare, as Dean of Christ Church, having 
 necessarily resigned the olhce of first chaplain, your second 
 chaplain and relation, Mr. Chester, in whose behalf you 
 had some time ago applied to him, had succeeded of course ; 
 but you thought it right to state to him that it was neither 
 his wish nor vour intention that he should interfere with 
 any Ministerial interest in this country ; but that you 
 hoped he would take an early opportunity of presenting 
 him to a stall in one of the great cathedrals, and that West- 
 minster would be the most eligible to him. 
 
 "■ Thus, my Lord, you may prevent the possibility of 
 
 being troubled with any letters on the subject ; thus you 
 
 may promote my interest with the Minister in the most 
 
 effectual manner ; you may save my feelings from being 
 
 severely wounded, and you will add a most gratifying 
 
 obligation to those already bestowed upon your obedient, 
 
 humble servant, 
 
 " C. Chester." 
 * * * 
 
 Dr. Nathaniel Alexander was translated from Clonfert 
 to Killaloe, and the question remaining for settlement 
 was which of the three claimants for a bishopric — Lord 
 Robert Tottenham Loftus, Lord John Beresford, or Dean 
 Butson of Waterford — should get the vacant see of Clon- 
 fert. The Lord Lieutenant sent to Whitehall the official 
 recommendation of Dean Butson for the position. But 
 the Tottenham Loftus family brought all their influence 
 to bear upon the Prime Minister, and, to judge by the 
 following letter from Lord Ely to the Viceroy, they seemed 
 to have, at last, attained their object : 
 
LORD ELY URGES HIS SON'S CLAIM 133 
 
 " May 1 1 /A, iHo^. 
 
 " My Loki), 
 
 " I took tlie e.'irliest opportunity of waiting on 
 your Excollc;ncy aft(;r receiving my ICnglish letters to 
 state tliat my son liacl a meeting by appointment, on 
 Monday last, with the Duke of Portland and Mr. Adding- 
 ton, on the subject of my younger son's claim on the favour 
 of Government to be placed on the Episcopal Bench in 
 the present vacancy ; and on looking it over they each 
 agreed that they conceived the faith of Government was 
 pledged at the time of the Union to give their assistance 
 to his being now appointed ; and Mr. Addington felt it 
 so forceably that he desired a gentleman present (General 
 Loftus) to write to Mr. Butson to give the reason why 
 he was not at liberty to recommend him to the present 
 vacancy ; and I was told that nothing remained but my 
 entreating your Excellency's kind recommendation to 
 have the business settled to my satisfaction. 
 
 " I trust from the very kind answer I received in your 
 closet at the time this vacancy happened, that you will 
 have no objection to grant your favourable recommenda- 
 tion, which will confer the highest obligation on your 
 Excellency's most obedient and very humble servant, 
 
 " Ely." 
 
 To this communication the Lord Lieutenant sent the 
 
 following reply : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " May nth, 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I am very sorry that you should have had the 
 trouble of calling here at a time when I had really not a 
 moment to spare, being anxious to finish some letters for 
 the express or mail of this day. 
 
 " Upon the subject of your Lordship's letter, which I 
 have just received, I think it much better to deal fairly 
 and candidly towards your Lordship, than to claim any 
 share in a favour for which, however interesting it must 
 be to your Lordship, you will be solely indebted to Mr. 
 Addington, if his Majesty should approve of the arrange- 
 ment in favour of Lord Robert Tottenham. 
 
 " Your Lordship knows that in the disposal of the 
 Church preferment and other patronage of this country, 
 since I have had the honour of holding my present situa- 
 tion, I have acted merely as a trustee of the late Govern- 
 
134 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 ment, and no one can say that I have not been anxious to 
 fulfil every engagement in an honourable and disinterested 
 manner. Had there been any other engagements that 
 received a similar sanction I should not have recommended 
 the Bishop of Killaloe for a seat on the Bench — the 
 only personal favour I have solicited or obtained for any 
 of my connections — nor subsequently, by Mr. Addington's 
 particular desire strongly expressed in different letters, 
 should I have forwarded an official recommendation of 
 the Dean of Waterford. But I cannot retract or super- 
 sede a recommendation transmitted officially at the 
 express desire of the Prime Minister, more especially as 
 the satisfaction of other engagements is connected with 
 the promotion of the Dean of Waterford, or of some 
 other clergyman under circumstances nearly similar in 
 respect to the preferment he holds, and not less proper in 
 other more important particulars. 
 
 " I flatter myself that even your Lordship, as well as 
 others who may judge impartially upon the subject, will 
 acquit me of any want of goodwill or of due respect and 
 regard towards your Lordship or your family. I have 
 no reason to entertain a contrary feeling, and am ready, 
 as I always have been, to admit your pretensions to 
 recommend your son to some of the higher situations in 
 the Church. But I should not act properly by your 
 Lordship, or consistently with my duty to the publick, 
 or to the King's Government, if I did not say that in 
 my opinion there are claims to which the interests of 
 both — if, indeed, they can be considered separate — 
 demand attention in preference to Lord Robert Totten- 
 ham. At the same time that I request your Lordship 
 to give me credit for acting upon a principle of consis- 
 tency, and upon publick grounds only in the opinions I 
 have given, I cannot conclude without assuring you that I 
 feel in no degree hurt at your having endeavoured to 
 promote the interest of your son in the manner which 
 appeared the most likely to succeed." 
 
 A few days later came a most important letter on the 
 subject from the Prime Minister to the Lord Lieutenant. 
 It is dated May 14, 1804, and in it Addington says it is 
 his last communication to Hardwicke as Prime Minister, 
 for on the next day he is to go out of office, to be succeeded 
 by William Pitt. It is a bitter letter. He is very angry 
 
THE DUKE OF PORTLAND'S PROMISE 13S 
 
 because he finds that the Duke of Portland— Home 
 Secretary at the time of the Union — had, with the 
 approval of the King, really given Lord Loftus the pro- 
 mise of a bishopric for his younger brother, in return for 
 the family support of the Union, and that Portland had 
 failed to communicate this engagement to his colleagues. 
 He says : 
 
 " Having resisted all the representations of Lord 
 Loftus (which were not deficient in earnestness, to say the 
 least) in favour of his brother, I was at length placed in 
 a situation of great difficulty by a declaration of the Duke 
 of Portland, made in the presence of Lord Loftus and 
 Lieutenant-General Loftus — viz., that he had given them 
 a promise in the King's name that when Lord Robert 
 Tottenham was of the proper age, and an opportunity 
 offered, he should be raised to the Bench ; and that he 
 considered this as an Union engagement, and so binding 
 as to admit of no fair alternative if Lord Ely and his 
 family insisted upon the literal performance of it. I had 
 been previously given to understand that his Grace did 
 not conceive himself to be further pledged than that Lord 
 Robert should stand fair for the Bench when a proper 
 opportunity offered, and that he was by no means pledged 
 for the first vacancy after Lord Robert should have 
 reached the age of thirty. 
 
 " The Duke of Portland, however, though wishing well 
 to Dean Butson, stated the engagement as I have before 
 described it, and it became, therefore, impossible for me 
 to be a party in violating a promise given by one of my 
 colleagues in the name of the King. I accordingly sug- 
 gested that the circumstances ought to be communicated 
 to his Majesty by the Duke of Portland, and an official 
 notification will, of course, be made to your Excellency 
 through the regular channel. I shall make no further 
 comment on this transaction, which is to me a very un- 
 pleasant one ; and will only add that it should not be 
 imputed to me with truth that any wish of mine has 
 obstructed the perform.ance of a single Union engage- 
 ment." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Hawkesbury, now 
 comes on the scene. He has been appointed to the Home 
 Office in the new Administration, and with him, and his 
 
136 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 chief, William Pitt, lies the decision of the question 
 whether the vacant bishopric of Clonfert is to go to Dean 
 Butson or to Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus. Writing to 
 the Viceroy on May 20, 1804, he says the Duke of Portland 
 had given an assurance that in his official capacity as 
 Home Secretary he had contracted an engagement with 
 Lord Loftus for a bishopric for his brother, and in the 
 circumstances Pitt and he had come reluctantly to the 
 conclusion that Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus must be 
 appointed Bishop of Clonfert. Hawkesbury goes on : 
 
 " I am happy, however, in being able to add that Pitt 
 entirely agrees with your opinion that the appointment 
 of young men of rank to bishoprics without any attention 
 to their requirements and other qualifications must, on 
 every account, be resisted in the future. The security 
 of the Protestant religion and of order requires the 
 utmost attention to be paid to the purity and respect- 
 ability of the two Benches. The Union engagements 
 have, in recent instances, most materially counteracted 
 these important objects, but it is to be hoped that they 
 are now at an end, and tliat we may be enabled to revert 
 to those principles, and that practice, which can alone 
 contribute to the tranquillity and happiness of any 
 country." 
 
 Portland's letter to Hawkesbury — a copy of which 
 Hawkesbury sent to Hardwicke — is extremely interest- 
 ing for the light it throws on the part played by Lord Ely 
 in the haggling and bartering by which the Union of 
 Ireland and Great Britain was effected : 
 
 " London, 
 " Friday, 18th May, 1804. 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " The vacancy which has lately happened upon 
 the Irish Episcopal Bench has, very naturally, brought 
 forward the claims of the Marquis of Ely in favour of his 
 younger son. Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus, and has 
 occasioned Lord Ely to call upon me to lay before the rest 
 of the King's confidential servants the testimony which, 
 perhaps, I alone am able to give in support of his title. 
 
 " It is unnecessary now to enter into the particulars 
 which made Lord Ely decline having any communica- 
 
PORTLAND CONFIRMS LORD ELY'S CLAIM 137 
 
 tion with the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or his 
 Chief Secretary, respecting the Union, and rendered him, 
 moreover, very averse to that measure. The fact is, of 
 itself, sufficiently notorious. But as his influence was 
 very considerable, a common friend of his and mine inter- 
 fered, and was so fortunate as to prevail upon him to 
 open that negotiation with me (who, your Lordship knows, 
 had at that time the honour of holding the Seals of the 
 Home Department) which he had positively refused to 
 do with Lord Cornwallis. Lord Loftus, accordingly, came 
 over, and among the conditions which he stipulated for 
 his father's support of the Union (all which conditions, I 
 must observe, have been rehgiously fulfilled) was in- 
 cluded the promotion of his brother. Lord Robert, to an 
 Irish bishoprick, when he should become of a convenient 
 age to have one conferred upon him. 
 
 " As that event has now taken place, as well as the 
 other. Lord Loftus is now come over again to claim the 
 performance of the engagement above specified ; and 
 the whole of Lord Ely's part of it having been correctly 
 and punctually fulfilled, I have no hesitation in giving it 
 as my opinion to your Lordship, that it is the duty of 
 His Majesty's Servants to see this only remaining article 
 of that treaty fully and completely executed, by recom- 
 mending to his Majesty to confer the vacant bishoprick 
 in Ireland upon Lord Robert Tottenham. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with great truth and regard, 
 your Lordship's faithful, humble servant, 
 
 " Portland." 
 * * * 
 
 It seemed a triumph for the Tottenham Loftus family. 
 But Hardwicke was now committed to the appointment 
 of Dr. Butson, and he was not going to see the Dean 
 sacrificed to Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus without a 
 strong protest. Here is a copy of a long letter marked 
 " Pnvate and Confidential," and dated " Phcenix Park, 
 May 24, 1804," which the Viceroy sent to Hawkesbury, 
 telling the whole story for the benefit of the new Prime 
 Minister and the new Home Secretary. He says : 
 
 " The recommendation of Dean Butson was originally 
 made m consequence of the particular desire of Mr 
 Addmgton, who had known him at Oxford as an excellent 
 scholar. Unfavourable reports had been circulated in 
 
138 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 this country rcspocting his moral character, as well as 
 the correctness ot his rehgious principles, the ground of 
 which I have ne\er been able to ascertain. At any rate, 
 he is a person who has many enemies, and his promotion 
 was by no means a popular measure in Ireland, so that in 
 supporting his recommendation I am not influenced by 
 any private wish of my own, which would rather have 
 induced me to recommend Lord John Beresford, not only 
 from liis rank and family connexions, but from his char- 
 acter as a clergyman. Mr. Addington's recommendation 
 of Dean Butson was strongly pressed from the very 
 moment he became IMinister till very recently ; and 
 even long after he had been apprised by Lord Ely and 
 Lord Loftus of their claim to a bishoprick grounded on a 
 supposed promise of the Duke of Portland. 
 
 '' It appears by a letter from Mr. Addington in January, 
 1803, that a reference was actually made to the Duke of 
 Portland, in consequence of Mr. Addington having offered 
 to withdraw his recommendation of the only friend for 
 whom he felt anxiety on the subject of Church prefer- 
 ment in Ireland, if Lord Loftus's statement should be 
 verified! But no written statement from the Duke of 
 Portland was then produced, though Lord Loftus appears 
 from Mr. Addington's letter of January the 9th, 1803, to 
 have given him reason to expect it ; and even so lately 
 as the ist of January last, when a vacancy on the Bench 
 was daily expected, Mr. Addington does not appear to 
 have admitted Lord Loftus's claim. I transmitted on 
 the 2ist inst. to Sir Evan Nepean extracts of some of 
 Mr. Addington's letters upon this subject ; and I think it 
 right to enclose copies of them as important documents 
 in this case, which has been so much embarrassed by the 
 recent admission of the Duke of Portland in consequence 
 of the perseverance of Lord Loftus. 
 
 " I enclose copies of two notes from Lord Ely to my- 
 self, the first written before I came to Ireland, the other 
 to solicit the first living which had fallen vacant in the 
 gift of the Crown. To the first of these notes I answered 
 generally that, admitting his Lordship's pretensions to 
 recommend his son for Church preferment, I could not 
 give him any hope of being able to provide for Lord 
 Robert till the Engagements which I had received from 
 Lord Comwallis had been satisfied, and to the second I 
 answered that the living in question was disposed of to 
 
ELY'S CLAIM REJECTED BY THE VICEROY 139 
 
 satisfy a positive engagement. The inference to be 
 drawn from these notes is that Lord Ely himself did not 
 at that time consider his son as having a promise of a 
 bishoprick* ; and from Mr. Addington's letters it appears 
 equally clear that the Duke of Portland, though called 
 upon by Lord Loftus, did not support his Lordship's 
 assertion respecting an engagement ; and, in consequence, 
 Mr. Addington's friend, the Dean of Waterford, was 
 officially recommended, a circumstance which would not 
 have happened if Lord Loftus's claim had been verified 
 and supported by the Duke of Portland. 
 
 " Every precaution, therefore, seems to have been used 
 by Mr. Addington to ascertain whether any such engage- 
 ment as that claimed by Lord Loftus had actually been 
 made, without the knowledge of Mr. Pitt, who was 
 Minister at the time of the Union, or without having been 
 communicated to me by Lord Cornwallis with the other 
 engagements, or at any time added to the List upon 
 subsequent recollection, or on being reminded of it by 
 the parties concerned." 
 
 Two days later, and, of course, before a reply to the 
 above letter was received from Whitehall, Hardwicke 
 again wrote to the Home Secretary on the same subject. 
 He says that on the previous day Lord Robert Tottenham 
 Loftus called upon him at the Castle to request his re- 
 commendation for the vacant bishopric, and he encloses, 
 for the information of the Home Secretary, a long but 
 deeply interesting document, which he entitles — " Sub- 
 stance of Lord Hardwicke's Conversation with Lord 
 Robert Tottenham, 25th May, 1804 " : 
 
 " Lord Robert Tottenham began by stating that his 
 father's support at the time of the Union was one of the 
 principal causes of the success of that measure ; that by 
 
 * The Lord Lieutenant had probably forgotten the following 
 entry which I find in his audience-book recording a call at the 
 Castle by Lord Ely to see his Excellency as early as September 15, 
 i8oi : " Going to the County of Wexford. Reminds me of the 
 application he made for his son, Lord Robert Tottenham, who 
 is in the Church. Says he w^as as much concerned in the Union 
 as anyone, and added that he had made NO BARGAIN ! If he 
 had, he says, he might have provided for his son, who has now 
 nothing but a very small living. RepUed, I must get through all 
 my engagements before I can possibly attend to his wishes." 
 
I40 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 the part he took upon the occasion he had made a great 
 sacrifice of personal influence, by which his family might 
 have been benefited and advanced. That upon this 
 ground a promise was made by the Duke of Portland in 
 the King's name that he, Lord Robert Tottenham, should 
 be promoted to the Bench upon the first vacancy after 
 he should be of the proper age ; that this promise had 
 been lately recognised by the Duke of Portland in the 
 presence of Lord Loftus and General Loftus ; and that 
 he came, in consequence, to request that I would transmit 
 the official recommendation. 
 
 " I told his Lordship that soon after I was appointed 
 to the Government of Ireland, I received from Lord Corn- 
 wallis, through Lord Castlereagh, in London, a very 
 numerous list of Church engagements, in addition to 
 many others, including two bishopricks, and many other 
 objects of considerable importance. Having undertaken 
 to fulfil these engagements of my predecessor, I had 
 applied every object of patronage that could be so applied 
 to the satisfaction of one or other of them ; and if his, 
 Lord Robert's, name had been included in the List, I 
 should have equally received it as a Union engagement. 
 That having, however, adhered so scrupulously to the 
 engagements which I had adopted, I felt a considerable 
 difficulty in abandoning an engagement made by the 
 express desire of Mr. Addington when he was Minister, 
 which had been pressed upon me for three years, and the 
 recommendation of which had been officially transmitted 
 at his particular instance, and with his perfect appro- 
 bation. 
 
 " It was notorious that Dean Butson was recommended 
 for a bishoprick entirely through the friendship of Mr. 
 Addington, who had known him many years ago at 
 Oxford, where he was distinguished as a scholar ; that 
 the deanery of Waterford and the living of Kilscoran 
 were both provided for in contemplation of Dean Butson's 
 promotion ; and that having already recommended that 
 gentleman for the vacant bishoprick, and made engage- 
 ments for his preferments, with Mr. Addington's appro- 
 bation also, I did not see with what consistency I could at 
 once abandon these engagements, and recommend his 
 Lordship. That I was aware his Majesty could dispose 
 of his bishopricks in Ireland, as well as in England, in 
 whatever manner he thought fit, but that it had not been 
 
TOTTENHAM'S INTERVIEW WITH THE VICEROY 141 
 
 usual to dispose of them without the recommendation of 
 the Lord Lieutenant, and that the promise now claimed 
 had never been admitted till after the recommendations 
 of Dean Butson had been sent over by Mr. Addington's 
 desire. 
 
 " In January, 1803, Mr. Addington informed me that 
 upon Lord Loftus claiming this promise of a bishoprick, 
 previously to his departure for France, he had told his 
 Lordship that if that promise could be established, the 
 only friend for whose preferment in Ireland he felt anxious 
 should give way ; but he added that though Lord Loftus 
 had given him reason to expect from the Duke of Portland 
 a written statement of the promise, he had not received it. 
 I could not help observing that if that statement had 
 even then been supplied, much of the present difficulty 
 and embarrassment would have been spared, for Dean 
 Butson would never have been recommended at all. 
 
 " Lord Robert Tottenham did not controvert any part 
 of the statement which I had made, except by asserting 
 that Mr. Addington had declared that Dean Butson was 
 not recommended by his desire (a circumstance which I 
 cannot explain, after Mr. A.'s letters upon the subject, 
 which were the whole cause of the recommendation). 
 He also added that Mr. Addington was perfectly satisfied 
 to withdraw the Dean's pretensions, and that the Dean 
 was also satisfied with what Mr. Addington had said to 
 him upon the subject. 
 
 " To this I could only say that the conduct of one man 
 was no rule for that of another ; that I was not particu- 
 larly fond of saying that what I called black one day was 
 white another ; that I did not consider Mr. Addington's 
 conduct upon this occasion at all creditable, and that 
 holding that opinion I could not avoid expressing it ; that 
 if he consented to abandon his friend, it was no reason why 
 that I should send over a recommendation directly incon- 
 sistent with that which was at this moment upon record 
 both here and in the Secretary of State's office in London. 
 
 "Lord Robert then repeated his question whether I 
 would transmit his recommendation, and upon my again 
 repeatmg the difficulty I felt he said, ' In what way, then 
 am I to proceed ?' To this question I repHed that I did 
 not wish to give any advice in a case of which I did not 
 approve, explaining, however, that by that expression I 
 meant nothing personally uncivil towards his Lordship 
 
142 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 but merely in reference to what had passed, and that I 
 was far from entertaining any hostile feeling towards his 
 Lordship or his family. 
 
 " Lord Robert added that Mr. Addington had told him 
 he did not desire the recommendation of Dean Butson to 
 be transmitted officially. He took his leave, with an 
 apology for having taken up so much of my time." 
 
 " Upon the best consideration which I have been able 
 to give the subject," says the Lord Lieutenant in his 
 covering letter to Hawkesbury, " it appears to me that 
 after the recommendation which I have officially sent by 
 the desire and with the consent of Mr. Addington, that I 
 cannot, with any propriety or consistency, supersede that 
 recommendation by transmitting another on any lighter 
 grounds than his Majesty's commands." Nothing could 
 be more determined and imperative. It meant simply — 
 " Appoint Dr. Butson Bishop of Clonfert, or I resign." 
 
 In another letter, dated June 9, 1804, sent by the Lord 
 Lieutenant to the Chief Secretary, Sir Evan Nepean, who 
 was then in London, his Excellency says : 
 
 " With respect to Lord Robert Tottenham, he is young 
 enough to wait, and if he is to be a bishop soon I think it 
 most likely he would prefer Ferns to any other, on account 
 of the interest of his family in the county of Waterford. 
 I flatter myself, therefore, whenever Mr. Pitt has an oppor- 
 tunity of mentioning and explaining the subject to the 
 King, that the King's Letters for the promotion of the 
 Dean of Waterford to Clonfert, and of the Rev. Mr. Cole 
 to the Deanery, will be sent over, for as the letter of recom- 
 mendation (at least for the former) is in Lord Hawkes- 
 bury's office no other will now be required. 
 
 " After this is arranged I shall probably be desired to 
 recommend Lord Robert Tottenham for the next ; but 
 whatever may be thought right upon the whole, I think 
 it will be at all events better for me to avoid a promise. 
 I apprehend that Lord Loftus and the rest of them will 
 be perfectly satisfied when they find that the Bench is not 
 to be taken by storm. I shall make an attempt to bring 
 over the Primate, and shall take occasion to write to 
 him when the whole is settled. I heard the other day 
 that his great cause of offence is that Mr. Clelland was 
 
TRIUMPH OF THE LORD LIEUTENANT 143 
 
 appointed Precentor of Armagh,* a situation which 
 brings him in immediate and frequent communication 
 with his Grace. This was a positive engagement deUvered 
 to me by Lord Comwalhs, was a private wish of Lord 
 Castlereagh in favour of a clergyman who had been a sort 
 of tutor or governor or companion of his, and who is now 
 an agent of Lord Londonderry. If this is a grievance, it 
 is none against the present Government, and at any rate 
 the Primate might have tried to manage some exchange 
 through the interest of Government and his own patronage, 
 instead of remaining by his fireside in anger with all the 
 world. Mr. Bissettf has declined the Deanery of Cloyne." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant triumphed. Here is a letter 
 written by Hawkesbury from Whitehall, June 18, 1804, 
 to his Excellency : 
 
 *' Mr. Pitt has seen Lord Loftus on the subject of the 
 vacant bishoprick, and has informed him that under all the 
 circumstances of the case his brother cannot succeed to it. 
 This disagreeable business is therefore at an end. The 
 difficulties which have occurred in it are certainly to be 
 ascribed chiefly to the Duke of Portland, who, if he was so 
 improvident as to make the promise, should at the time 
 have communicated it both to Mr. Pitt and Lord Com- 
 wallis, which he certainly did not do. The situation 
 which Mr. Pitt held at the time of the Union makes him 
 the properest judge how far the engagement could be 
 considered as imperatively binding or not, and with his 
 decision Lord Loftus has, not without much difficulty, 
 complied." 
 
 Lord Loftus then sent Pitt a letter, a copy of which was 
 forwarded to the Lord Lieutenant. It is dated June 13, 
 1804, and runs : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Having felt extreme concern at the disappoint- 
 ment that occurred yesterday, when I had the honour of 
 seeing you on the subject of my brother's promotion to 
 the Bench, and for which I was totally unprepared, I was 
 prevented at the moment from expressing those senti- 
 
 * See the Union Engagements, " Ecclesiastical " section. 
 ^.\f^J'''^^fJ' V""'^"^ ^^S^S^^ent. See "Ecclesiastical" section 
 ot 1.1st of Union Engagements. 
 
144 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 ments which have since occurred on reflecting seriously 
 on this painful subject. 
 
 " I can assure you, Sir, nothing could give me more^pain 
 than to induce a supposition that any object of mine, 
 however well founded my claims, tending to embarrass 
 you or your arrangements, should be pertinaciously 
 adhered to by me. I, therefore, do now, on the part of 
 Lord Ely and myself, wave our pretensions to' the present 
 vacancy, relying, as I most confidently do, on your assur- 
 ances, that my brother shall succeed to the first^ sub- 
 sequent vacancy on the Bench, without having to appre- 
 hend any impediment being thrown in the way by the 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland." 
 
 The letter contains the following pencilled note by, 
 Hardwicke : " N.B. — This was very unhandsome and 
 very unfounded, for Lord Loftus threw impediments in 
 the way of the arrangements which had been officially 
 recommended, by the desire of the Prime Minister after 
 a full consideration of Lord Loftus's pretensions, which 
 had been disavowed by the Duke of Portland and set 
 aside." However, Hardwicke, naturally, was joyous over 
 his success. He sent a letter to the Home Secretary, 
 declaring the deep thankfulness and gratitude with which 
 he had learned that Mr. Pitt " has settled the affair of the 
 bishoprick in so satisfactory and so honourable a manner." 
 Dr. Butson, Dean of Waterford, was accordingly pro- 
 moted to the bishopric of Clonfert. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Where, it will be asked, was the Marquis of Waterford 
 all this time ? The following letter supplies the answer : 
 
 " London, 
 " June 26, 1804. 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I should have waited until I had the pleasure of 
 seeing you in Dublin, if I did not think it incumbent on me 
 at present to express the gratitude I feel for your Excel- 
 lency's good intentions towards my brother, Lord John 
 Beresford. That he has not succeeded on the last 
 vacancy, and that he will not succeed on the next, I can 
 in no way impute to your Excellency. I am fully sensible 
 of your desire to serve me by advancing Lord John, and 
 
THE WATERFORD CLAIM FOR A BISHOPRIC 145 
 
 only lament the unfortunate arrangements which have 
 prevented the exercise of your friendship. 
 
 " When I was informed that the negotiation between 
 Lord Loftus and Mr. Butson was concluded, I thought 
 it my duty to wait on Mr. Pitt in order to endeavour to 
 place my brother in such a situation that he might not 
 be subject to any further disappointment. I will not so 
 far disguise my sentiments as not to say that I felt con- 
 siderable mortification on hearing that another engage- 
 ment* would prevent the accomplishment of my wishes as 
 soon as I expected ; but being convinced that embarrass- 
 ing circumstances alone could have induced the engage- 
 ment to be made, I acquiesced, and retired from a second 
 interview with Mr. Pitt in the fullest confidence that my 
 brother's having been kept back in his profession would 
 eventually not be of disadvantage to him. I hope your 
 Excellency will approve of my conduct, and give me 
 credit for the cheerfulness with which I have borne dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " Your Excellency will, I flatter myself, do me the 
 justice to acknowledge, that with whatever anxiety I 
 natupally may be supposed to feel in an object of so much 
 importance to one of m}' family, I have never pressed 
 you to interest yourself in a manner inconsistent with pro- 
 priety. I now hope that if this wished-for opportunity 
 should occur during your Excellency's Administration 
 you will have pleasure in co-operating with the wishes of 
 Mr. Pitt in placing my brother in a good bishoprick, and 
 thereby assisting me in the attainment of an object, 
 which it will be particularly gratifying to me to obtain 
 while your Excellency remains in the Government of 
 Ireland. 
 
 " Believe me, my dear Lord, your Excellency's faithful, 
 obliged, humble servant, 
 
 " Waterford." 
 
 Writing on July 10, 1804, to Lord Waterford, the Vice- 
 roy says : 
 
 " I have now the satisfaction of assuring you, and with 
 the entire concurrence of Mr. Pitt, that Lord John will 
 
 * On the margin of the letter there is a note in the handwriting 
 of Hardwicke m reference to this passage : " To Lord Robert 
 iottenham, so unaccountably sanctioned by the Duke of Port- 
 
 10 
 
146 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 be recommended to the Bench on the next succeeding 
 vacancy, when I flatter myself the object, concerning 
 which your Lordship is naturally so anxious, shall be 
 accomplished in a manner that will be agreeable to you 
 both. I shall only add that I have been really mortified at 
 the disappointment which your Lordship has experienced, 
 and that I shall be particularly gratified if the opportunity 
 of promoting your views upon the subject should occur 
 during my continuance in the Government of Ireland." 
 
 * * 3it 
 
 The Tottenham Loftus family were balked, but not 
 routed. " Lord Ely will never relinquish anything," 
 said Cornwallis, when the Duke of Portland wrote to 
 him in December, 1800, that the King was reluctant to 
 confer the marquisate which had been promised for 
 his services to the Union. The Marquis of Ely had an 
 interview with Pitt, the result of which was a letter 
 from Hawkesbury to Hardwicke, saying : 
 
 " It is Mr. Pitt's opinion that, under aU the circum- 
 stances of the case, it will not be possible to avoid pro- 
 moting my Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus to the Epis- 
 copal Bench on the next vacancy." 
 
 Nor had Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus long to wait 
 for his bishopric. In September, 1804, the see of Down 
 became vacant. The Lord Lieutenant wrote to Dr. Stuart, 
 the Primate, as Down was in his Grace's province, in- 
 forming him that Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus had 
 the first claim on the Government for promotion to the 
 Episcopal Bench. 
 
 " I am the more anxious that your Grace should con- 
 sider the point," says his Excellency, " because I recol- 
 lect your opinion, expressed on a former occasion, re- 
 specting the necessity of being very cautious as to the 
 character and conduct of those who were placed in the 
 bishopricks of the Protestant part of Ireland. I should, 
 therefore, wish to know, as I am not called upon in any 
 degree to recommend Lord Robert Tottenham to the 
 vacant see of Down, whether there is any bishop on the 
 Bench to whom your Grace would think it might be 
 offered with more propriety." 
 
SATISFACTION OF THE ELY CLAIM 147 
 
 The reply of the Primate is as follows : 
 
 " Armagh, 
 '• Sept. 28, 1804. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I have had the honor of receiving your Excel- 
 lency's letter. 
 
 " The diocese of Down is certainly of such importance 
 as to require an upright, active, and prudent bishop. 
 Of Lord Robert Tottenham's moral character I have 
 heard nothing, and, therefore, am willing to beheve 
 it not to be bad. But as I find it is universally said that 
 he is utterly unacquainted with his profession, never 
 having performed any clerical duties, I should conceive 
 it would be improper to place him in a situation where 
 even a slight imprudence might be extremely detrimental 
 to the Church. 
 
 " The Bishop of Ferns would, perhaps, be the fittest 
 person for the diocese of Down. He has temper, char- 
 acter, knowledge, and every requisite that would enable 
 him to fill it with credit to himself, and with advantage 
 to the public. But as there is no episcopal house, as the 
 income is inferior to that of Ferns, and as he looks for- 
 ward to other preferment, I can scarcely think he would 
 be inclined to change. 
 
 " The Bishop of KiUaloe having an estate and large 
 house in the diocese of Down, and being of a dissenting 
 family, and therefore being connected with the Dissenters 
 of the North, the bishoprick of Down would be peculiarly 
 acceptable to him. He has prudence and moderation, 
 but is, in other respects, inferior to the Bishop of Ferns. 
 As I conceive there are strong objections to the Bishops 
 of Ossory, Clonfert, and Killala, the Bishops of Ferns 
 and KiUaloe appear to be the only two who could with 
 any propriety be translated, if your Excellency should 
 not deem it prudent to place Lord Robert Tottenham in 
 the diocese of Down." 
 
 The Bishop of Killaloe was accordingly recommended 
 for translation to Down and Lord Robert Tottenham 
 Loftus for promotion to Killaloe. Hawkesbury, writing 
 from Whitehall, October 17, 1804, says : 
 
 Under all the circumstances of the case, it is impos- 
 sible not to fulfil the engagement of the Duke of Portland 
 to Lord Robert Tottenham Loftus for the vacant bishop- 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 rick, though I must own that the elevation of young men 
 of fashion to the Bench is hable to considerable objec- 
 tions, and especially in Ireland, where so much is want- 
 ing to be done for the encouragement of true religion." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant thus conveys the good news to 
 Lord Ely : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " 2T,rdOct., 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I am sorry that it has not been in my power to 
 make an earlier communication to your Lordship of the 
 diocese to which Lord Robert Tottenham will be recom- 
 mended on his promotion to the Episcopal Bench. I 
 have now, however, great satisfaction in acquainting you 
 that he will be recommended to the bishoprick of KiUaloe, 
 and that the oflficial letter to the Secretary of State will 
 be forwarded this day. 
 
 " The present Bishop of Killaloe having promised to 
 give me some assistance from the patronage of his diocese, 
 I shall rely upon Lord Robert Tottenham's disposition to 
 act the same friendly part, which is really material to me 
 on account of the great number of engagements which I 
 have had, and the limited patronage of Government in 
 Ireland in point of livings. 
 
 " I am happy to think that Lord Robert will find 
 Killaloe a very eligible situation, and I doubt not but 
 the present and late Bishop will give him every informa- 
 tion upon the subject." 
 
 Lord Ely replies : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I beg your Excellency to accept my thanks for 
 your very obliging letter which I had the honour of re- 
 ceiving yesterday, informing me that you had last night 
 recommended my son, Lord Robert Tottenham, to be 
 Bishop of Killaloe. I flatter myself that his conduct in 
 all respects will answer your Excellency's expectation, 
 and prove him to be not unworthy of the honor con- 
 ferred upon him. 
 
 " I can venture without consulting him {which I wish 
 at present to decline) to say that he will find much pleasure 
 
THE WATERFORD CLAIM ALSO SATISFIED 140 
 
 in conferring on any person your Lordship shall think fit to 
 recommend, the very first prefeiment in his patronage." 
 
 ♦ * * 
 The claim of Lord John Beresford was also quickly 
 satisfied. In January, 1805, another bishopric fell into 
 the hands of the Viceroy, by the death of the Bishop of 
 Cork and Ross. Lord John Beresford had the first 
 claim to the vacant see ; but his reverend lordship now 
 aspired to the richer diocese of Raphoe, the Bishop 
 of which was again extremely ill. It appears, from a 
 letter written by the Lord Lieutenant to the Home 
 Secretary on the subject of the vacancy in the see of 
 Cork, that the Bishop of Ferns had expressed a wish some 
 months before to be translated to the diocese of Raphoe, 
 and that Hardwicke had, with Pitt's consent, informed 
 him that when the expected vacancy occurred in Raphoe 
 the see should be his. Now the situation was complicated 
 by the desire of Lord John Beresford to wait for Raphoe 
 rather than to accept Cork. The Viceroy says : 
 
 " Upon the return of Lord Waterford to Ireland in 
 August he informed me that he had spoken to Mr. Pitt 
 on the subject of his son, Lord John, being appointed to 
 the bishoprick of Raphoe, and that on Mr. Pitt making 
 some objection on the ground of its being unusual to 
 solicit a bishoprick of the supposed value of Raphoe on 
 the first advancement to the Bench, Lord Waterford 
 observed that the situation of the diocese in the neigh- 
 bourhood of his property in the county of Derry made 
 it particularly eligible, and that his brother had experi- 
 enced delays and disappointments in his promotion to 
 the Episcopal Bench. That Mr. Pitt admitted that the 
 circumstance made a difference, and Lord Waterford 
 understood him to say that Lord John should have the 
 bishoprick of Raphoe. 
 
 " I told Lord Waterford that if he had at any time 
 expressed a particular wish for that bishoprick, I would 
 have taken care that no encouragement should be given 
 to any other person ; but as his Lordship had never men- 
 tioned any other wish than an hope that his son might 
 be placed in a good bishoprick I had concluded he 
 pointed to one in the South of those that were likely to 
 
I50 THE HUNT FOR BISHOPRICS 
 
 become vacant, in preference to one of those in the Pro- 
 vince of Connaught. 
 
 " From this short statement your Lordship will see 
 how the matter stands, and I should hope Lord Water- 
 ford might be induced to waive Raphoe for the present, 
 more especially as the vacancy which his brother is 
 entitled to till has occurred in another bishoprick, which 
 I understand is worth between £3,000 and £4,000 per 
 annum." 
 
 The Viceroy proceeds to say that if Lord John Beresford 
 persisted in claiming Raphoe, perhaps the Bishop of Ferns 
 might be induced to waive the promise he had received of 
 translation to that see, of course on conditions — namely, 
 " by holding out to him an expectation of being raised to 
 the rank of an Archbishop in case a vacancy should occur 
 by the removal of the Primate to England in the event 
 of the death of the Archbishop of York." In reply to this 
 letter, Hawkesbury, writing from Whitehall, January 30, 
 1805, says that Pitt agreed to the promotion of Lord 
 John Beresford to the see of Cork, if his lordship would 
 accept of it. He continues : 
 
 " The only objection that could at any time have been 
 made to his appointment arises from the circumstances of 
 there being already two Irish bishopricks in his family ; 
 but the error was in the appointment of John Beresford's 
 son to be Bishop of Kilmore, and it would not be just that 
 a person of Lord John's character should suffer on that 
 account. With respect to the holding out to the Bishop 
 of Ferns (as I understand you) the expectation of succeed- 
 ing to one of the Archbishoprics, and of thereby enabling 
 you to give the bishoprick of Raphoe, when it shall 
 become vacant, to Lord John Beresford, there does not 
 appear to be any objection to it. But I think it important 
 that you should be apprised that the idea of the Primate 
 being likely to succeed to the Archbishoprick of York is, 
 as far as I have any means of information, whoUy destitute 
 of foundation, and, under present circumstances, not at 
 aU likely to be accomplished." 
 
 In the end Lord John Beresford accepted Cork, in 
 February, 1805. He was promoted to the archbishopric 
 of Dublin in 1820, and to the Primacy in 1822. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 " The Bar was almost universally hostile to the measure 
 of Union, principally because it left to the members of 
 the profession no other theatre than the Four Courts on 
 which they might distinguish and advance themselves, 
 and it must be admitted that the legal appointments 
 which have taken place since the Union have been con- 
 ferred upon persons who, without that object of contest, 
 would never have been brought forward." 
 
 This is a passage from a letter dated September, 1803, 
 written by Hardwicke to Addington. In December, 
 1798, during the early stage of the agitation on the subject 
 of the Union, and on the eve of the first introduction of 
 the question in the Irish Parliament, a most representa- 
 tive meeting of the Bar was held in Dublin, and after a 
 long and very able debate, in which all the great lawyers 
 took part, a resolution was carried by 166 votes to 32 
 condemning the scheme. In that debate William 
 Conyngham Plunket displayed conspicuous ability in 
 opposition to the Union ; and during the passage of the 
 measure through the House of Commons there was no 
 more powerful, eloquent, or strenuous defender of the 
 Irish Parliament. Time passed, and Lord Kilwarden, 
 Chief Justice of the King's Bench, was murdered during 
 the Emmet insurrection in June, 1803. At the trial of 
 Emmet in September, 1803, Plunket held a brief for the 
 Crown ; and in his speech to the jury delivered a virulent 
 attack on the prisoner, picturing him as a viUain steeped 
 in iniquity, and repudiated the protestations of undying 
 
 151 
 
152 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 hostility to the Union wliich he himself had made in the 
 Irish House of Commons only four years before. A few 
 weeks subsequently, in the legal promotions consequent 
 on tlie death of Kilwarden, Plunket was appointed 
 Solicitor-General. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant seems to have been apprehensive 
 that the appointment to one of the law offices of the Crown 
 of a man who had been so prominent an opponent of the 
 Union — although unqucistionably a most able lawyer — 
 might be resented at Whitehall. He wrote a long letter 
 in explanation to Addington, from which I take the 
 passage that opens this chapter. " It is, therefore, highly 
 desirable," he also says, " and, indeed, essential to the 
 support and credit of English Government, since Parlia- 
 mentary objects are removed from this country, that the 
 character of Government should be redeemed by a strict 
 attention to merit and to what is due to public opinion 
 in the selection of persons for the higher legal appoint- 
 ments, and particularly for the Judicial Bench." This, 
 it will be recollected, was in September, 1803. By that 
 time all the legal engagements in connection with the 
 Union had practically been discharged. Not more than 
 five of the thirty-two barristers who had voted for the 
 Union at the Bar debate were without places ; and of the 
 twenty-three barristers who supported the Union in the 
 House of Commons in 1800, six were on the Bench, and 
 eight had other offices under the Crown. The Prime 
 Minister, therefore, like the Viceroy, saw no objection to 
 the appointment of William Conyngham Plunket to the 
 office of Solicitor-General, in succession to James M'Clel- 
 land — a Union appointment — who was promoted to the 
 Bench as Baron of the Court of Exchequer. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The wiping off of the legal account in the bill of the 
 Union engagements for a time progressed smoothly. In 
 June, 1 801, St. George Daly, the Prime Serjeant, was 
 appointed Baron of the Court of Exchequer ; Robert 
 Johnson was made a puisne Judge of the Court of Common 
 Pleas, and Edmund Stanley succeeded Daly in the office 
 
THE CASE OF EDMUND STANLEY 153 
 
 of His Majesty's Prime Serjeant at Law in Ireland, These, 
 as will be seen on reference to the List of Union Engage- 
 ments, had the first claims for promotion. 
 
 Stanley was Prime Serjeant for a few months only. He 
 was in deeply embarrassed circumstances. So closely 
 was he watched and pursued by his creditors that to avoid 
 arrest and imprisonment for debt he secretly fled from 
 Dublin. " Lately at the Four Courts," writes the Viceroy 
 to the Prime Minister, " when the Prime Serjeant was 
 wanted to give some explanation of a trial at which he 
 had presided at the last circuit, his residence could not be 
 ascertained, and the reference, of course, could not take 
 place." 
 
 This was a scandal that could not be tolerated, so in 
 December, 1801, Stanley was removed from the office of 
 Prime Serjeant. But he received another appointment. 
 Among the legal engagements there is the case of Arthur 
 Browne. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, and one of 
 the representatives of Dublin University in the Irish House 
 of Commons. With his colleague, George Knox, he de- 
 nounced the Union, and voted against it on the first intro- 
 duction of the question in 1799. In the following session 
 he changed his mind, and supported the Union. He 
 acknowledged that in so doing he was acting contrary to 
 the opinions and wishes of the majority of his constituents. 
 What, then, had induced him to alter his opinion on the 
 great question of the day ? We find it in the List of Union 
 Engagements: "Received assurances of legal provision." 
 This particular engagement gave the conscientious Hard- 
 wicke considerable trouble, for Browne was supposed to 
 be an indifferent lawyer. The Executive had a number 
 of the Irish seats in the United Parhament at their dis- 
 posal. Browne, who was turned out of the representation 
 of Dublin University, was offered one of these safe con- 
 stituencies. But he refused to be shelved in that fashion. 
 What he expected — as he told the Lord Lieutenant — 
 was not a seat in Parliament, but a seat on the Judicial 
 Bench. The office of Commissioner of Accounts, with a 
 salary of £800 a year, became vacant. It was tendered 
 
154 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 to him, and accepted, on the understanding that it was 
 not to be regarded as a satisfaction of his claim for legal 
 promotion. Then an exchange of posts between Browne 
 and Stanley was arranged in January, 1802. Browne got 
 the office of Prime Serjeant, and Stanley the place at the 
 Board of Accounts. The emoluments of both positions 
 were equal. 
 
 Clare, the Lord Chancellor, was not satisfied with the 
 manner in which judicial appointments were being filled. 
 In a letter to the Lord Lieutenant, dated September 16, 
 1801, and marked "Private," he thus pours forth his 
 indignation : 
 
 " As yet I have not received an answer from the 
 Attorney-General to a letter which I wrote to him from 
 Dublin, whilst I was there ; and if he should decline the 
 situation of a Judge I should feel some difficulty in select- 
 ing two or three persons for your Excellency's considera- 
 tion in recommending a successor to Baron Metge, and 
 am free to acknowledge that such a return on my part 
 strikes me not to be altogether consistent with the situa- 
 tion which I have the honour to hold in the Law Depart- 
 ment in this country. 
 
 " I have endeavoured to the best of my judgment to 
 recommend the persons best qualified for the Bench since 
 I have held the Seal of Ireland. In eveiy instance of a 
 vacancy which occurred during Lord Westmorland's 
 Government, he attended implicitly to my recommenda- 
 tion. In the Administration of Lord Camden political 
 considerations prevailed with him to overrule my opinion ; 
 and I must say that the law arrangements made by his 
 successor (the promotion of Mr. Justice Fox excepted) 
 are such as I did most unequivocally disapprove of. 
 
 " My only object is to promote the due administration 
 of justice, and if I am appealed to on the subject I will 
 conscientiously give the best and fairest opinion upon 
 it. But unless that opinion is to be attended to by the 
 Executive Government, without appeal from it, I shall 
 beg leave to decline altogether any interference in the 
 appointment of a Judge in Ireland. 
 
 " The answer made to me, when I made very strong 
 remonstrances against some of Lord Cornwallis's law 
 
DEATH OF LORD CHANCELLOR CLARE 155 
 
 promotions, was that his poHtical engagements made it 
 indispensably necessary that he should not attend to 
 them, but that after the Union the English practice 
 should prevail in Ireland. If I were to consult my private 
 feelings I would abundantly prefer the old abomiriable 
 practice of accommodating law promotions to the poHtical 
 objects of the Executive Government. But if it is pro- 
 fessed to take the opinion of the Chancellor as a guide 
 to the Executive Government so long as I have the 
 honour to hold the Great Seal, I will decline to give 
 any such opinion in the shape of a return of names for 
 the selection of one of them, and should feel such a pro- 
 ceeding to be utterly inconsistent with the situation which 
 I hold." 
 
 This communication contains the following observation 
 in the handwriting of Hardwicke : 
 
 " To this ill-tempered letter I made no reply ; and if a 
 letter of a different sort had not followed it my intercourse 
 with the writer must have been discontinued." 
 
 :|c 9|c * 
 
 The highest legal office in Ireland, the Lord Chancellor- 
 ship, fell into the hands of the Government through the 
 death of the Earl of Clare on January 28, 1802. The 
 Ministers almost exulted in the disappearance of the 
 proud, masterful, stiff-necked John FitzGibbon. As I 
 have already shown, he had a contempt for the English- 
 men sent over to rule Ireland after the Union, Hardwicke 
 the Viceroy, and Abbot the Chief Secretary — the im- 
 patience of the strong and able and domineering and 
 ambitious personality for the commonplace and mediocre 
 men that cross his path. " The death of Lord Clare," 
 says Abbot, " delivered the Irish, and also the British 
 Government, from great trouble. He had rendered 
 signal service to his country in a crisis of great violence ; 
 but his love of power and his overruling temper made 
 him unfit for the station of Chancellor, when no longer 
 coupled with the degree of authority which he had exer- 
 cised as Minister before the Union." What an end was 
 his ! In the Viceroy's Post-bag there is not a word of 
 regret for his premature and unexpected death from the 
 
156 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 Ministers whose interests in Ireland he had served so 
 well and so long, and he was buried in Dublin amid 
 the execrations of the people. A bitter anti-Papist, he 
 once declared that he would make the Catholics as tame 
 as cats. Dead cats were flung upon his hearse. The 
 Lord Lieutenant, however, in a note to Abbot, dated 
 February 2, 1802, endeavours to minimize the significance 
 of this unseemly demonstration. " The riot and disorder 
 at Lord Clare's funeral," says he, " was occasioned by a 
 gang of about fourteen persons under orders of a leader, 
 so that it does not tell so ill for the character of the 
 Dublin populace (whom I am not, however, going to 
 defend) as I had at first imagined." 
 
 Who was to succeed FitzGibbon as Lord Chancellor ? 
 He was the first Irishman that had ever filled that office. 
 The Lord Lieutenant was desirous that the precedent 
 thus set should be followed, and his choice was Lord 
 Kilwarden, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. While 
 Clare lay dangerously ill at Mount Shannon, his country 
 residence, near Limerick, Kilwarden called on Hardwicke 
 — as the Viceroy tells Addington, the Prime Minister, in a 
 letter dated January 19, 1802 — to urge his claim to the 
 Lord Chancellorship, should it become vacant. 
 
 His Excellency writes : 
 
 " He stated his pretensions with great diffidence, not 
 desiring any answer at present, and, of course, not re- 
 ceiving any other from me than that I should take the 
 earliest opportunity of informing His Majesty's Ministers 
 of the wish which his Lordship had expressed upon the 
 subject. I added that from the great importance of the 
 office itself, the determination must, of course, rest with 
 His Majesty's Ministers, to whose consideration I should 
 immediately submit his Lordship's pretensions. 
 
 " My private opinion certainly is, and I believe that of 
 the publick also, that the experience, character and talent 
 of Lord Kilwarden point him out as the properest person 
 to succeed Lord Clare. Of the other Chief Judges, Lord 
 Norbury, though a very worthy and pleasant man, is 
 scarcely fit for the situation to which he has been raised ; 
 and Lord Avonmore is deeply in debt, and is, besides, of 
 
WHO SHALL BE LORD CHANCELLOR? 157 
 
 a temper less adapted to such an office than Lord Kil- 
 warden. 
 
 " The policy of appointing an Irishman, or of selecting 
 a person from the English Bar, must, of course, be for 
 your consideration . If I were to give an opinion upon the 
 subject I should say that it would be better to appoint an 
 Irish lawyer at the present moment. The great theatre 
 for the talents of the Irish lawyers was taken away by the 
 removal of the Parliament, and they have now no other 
 objects of ambition to which they can look than those of 
 their own profession. With a view, therefore, to satisfy 
 that body, I should think the policy of selecting a Chan- 
 cellor from the Irish Bench, in many respects, far better 
 than that of resorting to the English Bar." 
 
 Lord Clare was subsequently removed to Dublin, with 
 the idea of going to England for the benefit of his health. 
 " He had been attacked," Hardwicke tells Pelham, " by 
 a violent bleeding from the nose, which lasted, without 
 intermission, for sixteen hours, and had reduced him to a 
 state of weakness which, he says, he cannot well describe." 
 Writing on January 28, 1802, Hardwicke informs the 
 Home Secretary that the Lord Chancellor died that 
 morning at half-past one o'clock at his Dublin house. 
 " He retained his senses to the last," says the Viceroy, 
 " but I fear that lately he must have suffered considerably 
 from the great difficulty of breathing, though I understand 
 he did not complain."* On January 30 Hardwicke re- 
 ported to Whitehall that Lord Avonmore, Chief Baron 
 of the Court of Exchequer, had called upon him that 
 morning as a suitor for the vacant Chancellorship. " His 
 Lordship stated," says the Viceroy, " that he hoped he 
 should not be considered as presuming in feeling ambitious 
 
 * Lord Clare in his will (extracts from which were sent to Hard- 
 wicke) warns his wife and children to have nothing to do with 
 his sister, Mrs. Jeffries, and her family, " all of whom," he says, 
 " he has known from long and fatal experience to be destitute 
 of every principle of justice, honor, and gratitude." What 
 a fierce and relentless personality he must have been, thus to 
 carry his hatreds to the grave ! He also desires that his books 
 may be removed from Mount Shannon to Dublin, " if this giddy 
 and distracted country," he says, " should ever be restored to 
 peace." 
 
158 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 to succeed as Chancellor the person who had succeeded 
 him in the office of Attorney-General. He further repre- 
 sented that he had been upwards of i8 years Chief Baron 
 of the Exchequer." 
 
 Baron Yelverton, for his advocacy of the Union, was 
 created Viscount Avonmore in the list of promotions of 
 December, 1800. But Lord Kilwarden was still the 
 choice of the Irish Executive for the post of Lord Chan- 
 cellor. Abbot, the Chief Secretary, writing to Adding- 
 ton, the Prime Minister, says : 
 
 " Lord Avonmore, whose learning and talents are un- 
 questionably great, is nevertheless so totally negligent of 
 propriety of manners, and so extremely embarrassed in 
 his private concerns, that it is hardly creditable for the 
 King's service for him to remain Chief Baron of the Ex- 
 chequer. His very salary of office is assigned to pay his 
 creditors, by deed enrolled in his own Court." 
 
 So certain was the appointment of Kilwarden regarded 
 that Hardwicke also reports to Pelham that Lord Nor- 
 bury, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas — who, 
 as John Toler, Attorney-General, had rendered the 
 Government powerful aid in carrying the Union — had 
 called on him in the guise of a petitioner for the higher 
 judicial position of Chief Justice, praying " that his 
 humble request may be laid at His Majesty's feet, that 
 he may be honoured with a promotion to the King's 
 Bench in case the office of Chief Justice should become 
 vacant in any intended arrangement." 
 
 But the post of Lord Chancellor was to go to an English- 
 man. On February i, 1802, Pelham sent the following 
 letter to the Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " There is great reason to hope that Sir John Mitford 
 will accept the Seals, which would be, in my opinion, 
 next to the Union, the greatest blessing to Ireland that 
 can be imagined. I entertain a very high opinion of 
 Lord Kilwarden's talents and virtues, and should have 
 no doubt of preferring him to any person at the Irish 
 Bar ; but, taking the Bar of the Empire, I have no doubt 
 in saying that Sir John Mitford is the fittest man to sue- 
 
APPOINTMENT OF SIR JOHN MITFORD 159 
 
 ceed to any vacancy that might arise in either Kingdom, 
 if I may still use that term of distinction. There is not 
 a doubt at the Bar of England of his being pre-eminently 
 the best equity lawyer in the profession." 
 
 Mitford had succeeded Addington as Speaker of the 
 House of Commons. The correspondence in the Vice- 
 roy's Post-bag shows that he by no means jumped at the 
 offer of the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland. He said he 
 was reluctant to quit England and take office in a country 
 wholly unknown to him. The entire influence of the 
 Ministry was brought to bear on him to induce him to 
 go to Ireland. The country was represented to him as 
 being in a state of chaos. On his acceptance of the office 
 of Lord Chancellor depended the re-establishment of law 
 and order in Ireland. Even George III. joined in the 
 implorings of his Ministers to Mitford to become the 
 saviour of the unfortunate sister island. Mitford yielded 
 to these flattering solicitations. His terms, however, 
 were that his salary as Lord Chancellor should be fixed 
 by Act of ParUament at £10,000 a year, and that he 
 should be promoted to the Peerage as Lord Redesdale. 
 They were readily granted. How keen he was about the 
 emoluments of the office is shown by the following letter 
 from Hardwicke to Addington : 
 
 " Private and Confidential. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " March i^th, 1802. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 "I am sorry to be under the necessity of com- 
 municating to you a letter which I have received from 
 Lord Redesdale, with a short statement of the circum- 
 stances which give rise to it. Before the event of Lord 
 Clare's death was known in England, a King's letter had 
 been sent from the Secretary of State's office for the 
 appointment of three Commissioners for the custody of 
 the Great Seal, as recommended by Lord Clare himself, 
 reserving to him, in the same manner as they were 
 reserved by the Commission during his absence last 
 year in England, the fees, perquisites, profits and emolu- 
 ments of the office. As soon as Lord Clare's death was 
 
i6o THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 known another letter was sent from the Secretary of 
 State's office for the appointment of the same Commis- 
 sioners, but instead of withholding the fees and emolu- 
 ments, giving to them all the profits, etc., etc., in as 
 ample a manner as to the Chancellor himself. At the 
 end of February, the King's letter arrived for the ap- 
 pointment of Lord Redesdale, from the terms of which, 
 whenever acted upon, it appeared that the emoluments 
 of the present Commissioners should cease. 
 
 " In order to ascertain the effect of the two Commis- 
 sions, and to clear up the apparent inconsistency between 
 them, Mr. Marsden had an interview with Lord Kil- 
 warden, who was of opinion that the Commissioners 
 would consider themselves entitled to the emoluments 
 given by their Commission so long as they continued to 
 discharge the duty. His Lordship, therefore, thought it 
 would be the safer and better course to write to England 
 in order to ascertain the effect of the two Instruments. 
 
 " In this state of things I thought it far better to write 
 to Lord Redesdale himself than to make any formal 
 application on the subject, not conceiving that it was 
 intended by the King's letter to put out of the receipt 
 of the emoluments the Commissioners who would neces- 
 sarily continue to discharge the duties under their ap- 
 pointment, and until the delivery of the Seal to Lord 
 Redesdale. You will, I am sure, not be surprised that 
 I should feel mortified at the manner in which Lord 
 Redesdale appears to have understood my letter ; but I 
 should not have troubled you upon the subject if he had 
 not expressed an intention of laying the matter before 
 His Majesty. The possibility of this having been done 
 makes it necessary that I should give you this explana- 
 tion, though as Lord Redesdale has desired his letter 
 might be considered as confidential I liave not written 
 upon this subject to any other person than Mr. Wickham." 
 
 Soon after this Redesdale arrived in Dublin. It is 
 characteristic of the man that the first thing he did was 
 to hold an inquiry into the salary, fees, and perquisites 
 of his office. There is a letter from him to the Lord 
 Lieutenant dated " Ely Place, 27th April, 1802," in 
 which he states the Prime Minister had promised that 
 his income should be £10,000 a year, British money, and 
 clear of all deductions. He says he had been informed 
 
1>-^ 
 
 THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S SALARY AND FEES i6i 
 
 by " Mr. Denyer, the secretary to the late Lord Clare," 
 that the income then properly belonging to the office was 
 ^5,000 a year. In addition to this Lord Clare received, 
 under the Act passed to compensate holders of offices 
 abolished by the Union for loss of income and emolu- 
 ment, two sums of £3,978 3s. 4d. and £161 6s. 8d. — in 
 respect of his offices as Speaker of the House of Lords — 
 raising the income received by him to a total sum of 
 £9,139 IDS. In the way of perquisites, Lord Clare was 
 paid £500 a year by his secretary out of his fees, and £50 
 a year by one of the messengers of the Commissioners of 
 Bankruptcy, which was derived from fees also. Redes- 
 dale thought that the messenger ought not to be charged 
 with this £50 a year, and he proposed to abolish the 
 liability ; but the £500 a year from the secretary to the 
 Lord Chancellor might, with propriety, be continued to 
 be paid for the benefit of the public. As to his own 
 salary of £10,000 per annum British " clear of all deduc- 
 tions," it was to be placed on the Irish Establishment, 
 and to secure that object he drafted a Bill which he asked 
 the Lord Lieutenant to send to the Ministers in London, 
 with a request that steps be immediately taken to pass 
 it into law. 
 
 He i|c 4c 
 
 The engagement to William Johnson of legal promo- 
 tion gave Hardwicke considerable trouble, as his note to 
 the case in the List of Union Engagements shows. The 
 following letter to Pelham, who had apparently written 
 to the Viceroy in the interest of Johnson, enters more 
 fully into the reasons of his Excellency's objection to 
 Johnson being made a judge : 
 
 (C 
 
 Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " March T;ist, 1802. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging 
 your Lordship's letter of the 25th inst., and think it my 
 duty to give you the best opinion I have been able to form 
 in regard to the propriety of holding out to Mr. William 
 
 II 
 
1 62 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 Johnson any expectation of being appointed to a seat 
 upon the Bench, instead of receiving some other Law 
 promotion, in consequence of his engagement from Lord 
 CornwaUis. I understood, and your Lordship may pro- 
 bably have heard, that some of the last promotions to 
 the Bench were not very satisfactory to the Profession, 
 and were not generally considered in the country as 
 reflecting great credit on the Government. Of this de- 
 scription was the promotion of Mr. Johnson, who was 
 appointed to the Common Pleas in the room of Judge 
 Kelly ; and though his brother, Mr. William Johnson, 
 is certainly a man of abihties, and materially assisted the 
 question of Union, I am very apprehensive that the pro- 
 moting him to a seat on the Bench would expose the 
 Government to a considerable share of censure and anim- 
 adversion. 
 
 " From the engagement made with him by Lord Corn- 
 waUis he is certainly entitled to be considered in his pro- 
 fession, and I was in hopes that he would be perfectly 
 satisfied with the prospect of succeeding to the situation 
 of Counsel to the Commissioners, whenever an opening 
 could be made in one of those offices. Hitherto the Law 
 promotions have been made entirely subservient to the 
 Union engagements, for the promotion of Baron Smith, 
 the late Solicitor-General, to the Bench, which was ap- 
 proved of, and indeed recommended by Lord Clare, made 
 an opening for Mr. M'Clelland. 
 
 " If there had been any positive engagement for the 
 Bench, it would, of course, have been necessary to have 
 adhered to it ; but as it is of great importance in every 
 point of view that the judicial situations should be filled 
 in a manner likely to afford general satisfaction, I should 
 hope Mr. Johnson would be gratified by an assurance of 
 being considered on the first opening of some such situa- 
 tion as that of Counsel to the Commissioners, to which 
 under his engagement he would have a very strong claim." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Another Union engagement that worried the Lord 
 Lieutenant is the one thus described in the legal section 
 of the official list : " Mr. Grady, £i,ooo per annum." 
 J. S. Grady, a Protestant barrister, was one of the few 
 members of the Bar who supported the Union at the 
 famous meeting of the lawyers to consider the question 
 
"MR. GRADY, i; 1,000 PER ANNUM " 163 
 
 in December, 1798. He was also active in promoting 
 petitions in favour of the Union in Munster. When the 
 time came for the payment of the reward whicti he had 
 been promised for his services — a legal appointment 
 worth £1,000 a year — the Irish Executive found them- 
 selves in an awkward predicament. He was notoriously 
 an incompetent lawyer, worse even than Arthur Browne, 
 the Prime Serjeant. What was to be done with him ? 
 In October, 1801, Abbot wrote on the subject to Lord 
 Castlereagh, and received the following apologetic defence 
 of the engagement : 
 
 " It is one of those arrangements pressed upon us by 
 the necessity of the case, at a moment when we were not 
 altogether in a situation, consistent with the safety of 
 the measure entrusted to us, to decide merely upon the 
 personal merits of those who had the means to forward 
 or impede it. The number of applications to which you 
 have been exposed as the result of that measure have 
 enabled you to judge of the embarrassment under which 
 we acted." 
 
 Castlereagh, however, thought there was no escape in 
 honour from the promise of promotion held out to Grady. 
 The post which Grady desired was that of a judge, but as 
 a compromise he was willing to accept the position of 
 counsel to the Commissioners of the Revenue. In June, 
 1802, Marsden, the Under-Secretary, was directed to send 
 a friend to Grady to ascertain whether he would be willing 
 to rehnquish his claim to this legal office in return for a 
 civil appointment of equal value. Grady, who by no 
 
 I means shared in the general opinion that he was unsuited 
 
 II for the office of counsel to the Board of Revenue, and was 
 besides a man of violent temper, rejected these overtures 
 ^n language unfit, certainly, for the ears of the pious 
 
 Viceroy. Marsden thus reports the result of the inter- 
 view : 
 
 The person employed by me to communicate with 
 him, had from me a statement in writing of the excessive 
 difficulties which lay in the way of Mr. Grady's promo- 
 tion in this line, and my strong recommendation that in 
 prudence he should yield to them. I further stated that 
 
 II — 2 
 
 Av 
 
1 64 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 in such case he should have a seat at the Revenue Board, 
 and a pension of £300 a year for his wife, or in case he 
 thought proper to retire from the Bar, that he should 
 have a Revenue situation at Belfast of £1,500 a year, 
 and a pension in like manner as in the other case. This 
 latter proposal I was able to make by Mr. Jocelyn having 
 offered his situation for a seat at the Revenue Board. 
 
 " Mr. Grady, it seems, has rejected this offer with very 
 strong expressions of displeasure, and has declared that 
 he will not accept of anything collateral to his profession 
 in lieu of the engagement made to him ; that beside his 
 claim upon the first agreement he was urged to accept 
 the place of Counsel to the Commissioners, when, a few 
 months ago, he was in London, to which he assented, 
 though such a situation was below what he had been 
 told he was entitled to. At a second interview with my 
 friend, Mr. Grady talked in a still higher tone, with some 
 personal observations as to some of the parties concerned 
 in making this overture to him, which nearly precludes a 
 further attempt at negotiation." 
 
 " I think, as it stands," says Marsden in conclusion, 
 " there is nothing left but to appoint Mr. Grady second 
 Counsel to the Commissioners, and to trust to making 
 an agreement hereafter by which he shall have an efficient 
 coadjutor, or to signify to him without explanation that 
 it is the determination of His Majesty's Ministers that his 
 appointment is not to take place." 
 
 At this time there was a puisne judgeship of the Court 
 of King's Bench vacant. Osborne, first counsel to the 
 Commissioners of the Revenue — a Union appointment — 
 was promoted to the Bench ; and Ormsby, the second 
 counsel — another Union appointment — succeeded to 
 Osborne's place. This was Grady's opportunity, and 
 he was not found wanting. Writing to the Viceroy from 
 York Street, Dublin, in July, 1802, he says he had learned 
 from Osborne that he had been elevated to the Bench in 
 succession to Judge Chamberlain. 
 
 " I thought," says he, " that as a matter of course the 
 announcement of my appointment as counsel to the 
 Board of Revenue would be made at the same time. I 
 
GRADY GETS A POST OF ^2,000 A YEAR 165 
 
 waited upon Mr. Marsden," he continues, " who informed 
 me that he had not as yet received any directions from 
 your Excellency for my appointment, and as far as I 
 could collect from him, seemed to make some difficulty 
 as to the succession to that office. Knowing as your 
 Excellency does how long I have been postponed, I trust 
 your Excellency will not permit any further procrastina- 
 tion of my appointment." 
 
 He got the office, and fared better than he had ex- 
 pected. His engagement was for £1,000 per annum. 
 " This was effected," it is amusing to read in the note 
 to the case in the Union engagements, " by his appoint- 
 ment to be second counsel to the Commissioners of 
 Revenue, a place which, upon explanation, is worth 
 double the engagement," 
 
 * * * 
 
 The appointment of Grady as counsel to the Commis- 
 sioners of the Revenue had disastrous consequences to 
 William Johnson, as is shown by the following letter from 
 Hardwicke to Castlereagh : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " June 26, 1805. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I shall be very happy if it is in my power to 
 enable you to answer the letter which you have received 
 from Mr. WiUiam Johnson, whose engagement I trust 
 you will do me the justice to believe I was from the first 
 as desirous of fulfilling as any of those which devolved to 
 me from Lord Cornwallis, and which I have from the 
 first endeavoured to satisfy in the best manner that the 
 means of Government would admit. Mr. WiUiam John- 
 son's engagement, which was for legal promotion, was 
 rendered more difficult by his pretensions to the Bench 
 and to the office of Sohcitor-General, which, though given 
 to Mr. M'Clelland— who had also a legal engagement — 
 is certainly an office in the disposal of which it seemed 
 necessary to look to the service of the Government, and 
 the general satisfaction of the Bar, as well as the higher 
 judicial situations to which that office may eventuallv 
 lead. ^ 
 
1 66 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 " The situation which would have best suited the 
 engagement, and which would, I apprehend, have been 
 entirely satisfactory, was that of Counsel to the Com- 
 missioners, and if I had been left at liberty to adhere to 
 the engagement to Mr. Grady, which, as stated in writing, 
 was for a Thousand Pounds per annum, generally, the 
 arrangement might have been settled for Mr. Johnson. 
 But Mr. Grady was permitted to amend his engagement 
 as delivered to me by Lord Cornwallis and your Lordship, 
 and, amongst other assurances, obtained an admission in 
 writing from Mr. Cooke by wliich it was explained to be 
 a promise of the first legal situation (of whatever value) 
 which became vacant after three persons had received 
 legal advancement, dating from the time the engagement 
 had been made by Lord Cornwallis's Government. 
 Under this interpretation of Mr. Grady's engagement it 
 became impossible to appoint Mr. William Johnson to 
 the situation of Counsel to the Commissioners, and hence 
 arose all the embarrassment which has since arisen in 
 regard to Mr. Johnson's engagement." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The contest between the arrogant J. S. Grady and the 
 meek and humble Arthur Browne as place-hunters is not 
 without its amusing side. Prime Serjeant Browne was 
 among the applicants for the position on the Bench 
 rendered vacant by the death of Judge Chamberlain. 
 Here is his letter to the Viceroy : 
 
 " The place which I have the honour of holding under 
 the Government, and which has been usually, though I 
 cannot say necessarily, considered as a step to the Bench, 
 will, I hope, excuse me from presumption, whatever may 
 be the event. My present time of life, the mortification 
 of being passed by, which, perhaps, may be termed 
 humiliation, and various other circumstances, more 
 proper in conversation than in letter, will further plead 
 my apology. But unless any humble pretensions of 
 mine be supported by merits, and the opinion of my 
 brethren, they can go but very little way. Those 
 humble pretensions I can only submit, I hope with 
 modesty, leaving their consideration, with the most 
 profound respect, to the wisdom of his Excellency, 
 
ARTHUR BROWNE'S MORTIFICATION 167 
 
 from whom the favours and kindnesses I have received 
 will always be most gratefully and feelingly acknow- 
 ledged." 
 
 The Viceroy was a very moral and a deeply religious 
 man. Browne was not only very humble, but, like the 
 Lord Lieutenant, he was very religious and very moral. 
 While on circuit in 1802 he wrote to Hardwicke express- 
 ing regret that he had been unable to see his Excellency 
 before leaving Dublin. 
 
 " I did wish also," he says, " to have the honour of 
 mentioning privately to your Excellency an indecorum 
 which universally prevails on the Circuits of travelling, 
 and being absent, consequently, from church, on Sundays ; 
 but as it cannot be altered during the present, I will defer 
 mentioning my humble ideas to your Excellency until my 
 return." 
 
 A year elapsed, and in July, 1803, there was another 
 vacancy on the Judicial Bench. Kilwarden, the Lord 
 Chief Justice, was murdered in Thomas Street on his way 
 to the Castle, the night of Emmet's insurrection. Browne 
 still hopes that his ambition for a place on the Bench may 
 be gratified, and is still very humble. 
 
 " Of my fitness for Judicial situation it doth not become 
 me to speak. That a stable settlement less laborious 
 than the Bar must at my period of Hfe be desirable is 
 certain. But whatever be the determination on this 
 subject I hope your Excellency will allow me ever to 
 acknowledge your Excellency's constant kindness and 
 condescendmg pohteness to me, and to testify my extreme 
 gratitude and respect." 
 
 Again Browne was passed over. Mr. Justice Downes 
 was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Baron 
 St. George Daly— a Union appointment— was made a 
 Judge of the King's Bench, James M'Clelland, the Sohci- 
 tor-General — another Union appointment — was made a 
 Baron of the Court of Exchequer, and WiUiam Conyng- 
 ham Plunket succeeded to the SoHcitor-Generalship. 
 
1 68 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 Even in his sore disappointment Browne did not cease 
 to be humble. He wrote as follows to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant : 
 
 "Sept. 14th, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I hope your Excellency, if you should think the 
 application I am about to make improper, will at least 
 pardon it in the present wounded state of my mind. 
 Whenever this country shall have the misfortune of 
 losing your Excellency, I am apprehensive that I shall 
 not longer have any political friends here, that any person 
 will be preferred to me, and that I shall have only to go 
 back to Parliament, and rest upon myself. Under these 
 impressions it is not unnatural to ask favours while your 
 Excellency is here, and before the transactions of 1800 
 are quite forgotten. I need not add that I have not the 
 presumption to expect any immediate answer from your 
 Excellency, or to wish anything more at present than 
 that the request should be taken into consideration. 
 
 " The place of Prime Serjeant has always been con- 
 sidered by the Bar in this country, it being first in pre- 
 cedence if not in consequence of the Crown Law Offices, 
 as giving a kind of preceding title to the Bench, at least 
 so far as to put in an inferior light the person passed over. 
 It also has generally been attended with a seat in the 
 Privy Council. Not being successful in the former, I 
 own if at any time during your Excellency's Administra- 
 tion I were thought worthy of the latter it would be ex- 
 tremely gratifying, provided it did not interfere with any 
 future prospects of the Bench. Having simply presumed, 
 and I hope humbly, to express my wishes on the subject, 
 I shall not trouble your Excellency further than only to 
 express the great and deep sense I always entertain of the 
 personal kindness I have received from your Excellency, 
 and to subscribe myself, with the most profound respect, 
 " Your Excellency's most obliged and most obedient 
 ser\ an , i, Arthur Browne." 
 
 More than a year later Browne again writes to the Lord 
 Lieutenant as a disappointed servant of the Crown : 
 
 " December ^rd, 1804. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Finding that I did not fully and clearly express 
 my ideas when I last was permitted to have the honor of 
 
THE PROVOSTSHIP OF TRINITY COLLEGE 169 
 
 an interview with your Excellency, I hope that your 
 Excellency will pardon me for referring to a paper which 
 fully express'd them, deliver'd to your Excellency about 
 twelve months since, and now I believe in the hands of 
 Sir Evan Nepean. 
 
 " I certainly myself have always conceiv'd that the 
 Government of Ireland was bound in honor, after I lost 
 my seat in Parliament by their means, and even by the 
 strongest implications from their language at and after 
 the time, to put me on the Bench ; and that even if it 
 had not been so, that being Prime Serjeant, and my 
 conduct tried upon five circuits, that my humble claims 
 had a preference ; and surely I would never have accepted 
 the place had I foreseen its mortifications, knowing the 
 expectations which the Bar have always annex'd to the 
 place. I did humbly hope also that tho' the Chancellor 
 might have a negative, that Government would be so 
 good to propose or mention me to him, as he inform'd me 
 was done on the last occasion. 
 
 " If, however, your Excellency thinks that the present 
 Administration of Ireland has nothing to do with the 
 language of the former, I hope that your Excellency will 
 not be displeased with my humbly representing to the 
 Minister and Lord Corn wallis, then in power, how I think 
 I stood with respect to them. 
 
 " I should not presume to be so troublesome to your 
 Excellency did I not feel that I have some enemies — tho' 
 I do not think I ever in my life gave cause for enmity — 
 who would be equally busy on any other occasion in 
 making objections to me. Thus if the Provostship was 
 vacant, and my senior pass'd over, it would be said that I 
 sought it pohtically, and that I was a layman, tho' my 
 humble pretensions would be grounded on being the next 
 senior as a Fellow, and on a strenuous denial of the extra- 
 ordmary position that a lay Fellow is not entitled to the 
 same privileges with every other.* 
 
 * At this time there was a rumour that Dr. Kearney, the 
 Provost of Trinity College, was to be promoted to a bishopric 
 on the next vacancy, and that he was to be succeeded as head 
 of the College by Dr. Browne. The Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald, the 
 Vice-Provost, sent a petition to the Lord Lieutenant expressing 
 the anxious hope that this slight to his position and character 
 was not in contemplation. He pointed out that the statutes of 
 the College ordained that the Provost must be a Professor or 
 at least a Bachelor of Divinity, and consequently that Browne 
 was ineligible. " Your memorialist," says Dr." Fitzgerald in 
 
I70 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 a 
 
 To your Excellency, personally, I must always 
 acknowledge the greatest obligations, and feel the highest 
 gratitude ; but I fear, however it may turn out for the 
 country, that the most unlucky day of my life will have 
 been that on which I voted for the Union. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, with the greatest and most 
 humble respect, your Excellency's much oblig'd and very 
 obedient humble servant, 
 
 " Arthur Browne." 
 
 Browne died in June, 1805, with his ambition for a 
 judgeship unsatisfied. The Irish Administration abolished 
 the office of Prime Serjeant, and appointed instead a first 
 Serjeant — besides the second and the third Serjeants 
 which were already in existence — as in England, giving 
 precedence over him to the Attorney - General and the 
 Solicitor-General. The Lord Lieutenant, writing on 
 June II, 1805, to Hawkesbury, says : 
 
 " The office has been established for many years upon its 
 present footing, and in former times, when it might have 
 enabled His Majesty's Government to gratify the pro- 
 fessional gentlemen of weight and talents, the advantage 
 may have been more than adequate to the inconvenience 
 which must occasionally have arisen from it. The offices 
 of Attorney and Solicitor General are, of course, conferred 
 upon lawyers of eminence and ability, and necessarily 
 lead to higher and more important professional situations, 
 and it is therefore desirable that they should take the lead 
 in all Crown prosecutions. This, however, they could not 
 do so long as the office of Prime Serjeant existed ; and for 
 this reason, as because at present the Prime Serjeant is 
 first in turn as a circuit Judge, I think it will be right to 
 abolish it. Upon a point of this description I have, of 
 course, consulted with the Lord Chancellor, who advises 
 strongly that the office should not be filled up. I also 
 understand from his Lordship that the Bar will be inclined 
 to approve of this resolution ; and in a case of this de- 
 scription it is satisfactory to know, the opinion of those 
 who are able to form a proper judgment upon the subject." 
 
 conclusion, " who has been many years a Doctor of Divinity, is 
 conscious that his character, whether considered in a moral or a 
 political point of view, will bear the strictest scrutiny, and that 
 his attachment to the King and Constitution is too well known 
 to require any comment or observation." 
 
SIR JAMES CHATTERTON STATES HIS CLAIM 171 
 
 The Home Secretary, in his reply, dated June 17, 1805, 
 
 says : 
 
 " I have communicated with his Majesty's confi- 
 dential servants upon the subject, and I beg to inform 
 your Excellency that from the explanation you have 
 given respecting the nature and circumstances of that 
 appointment they entirely concur in the arrangement 
 which your Excellency has proposed." 
 
 Dr. Arthur Browne was, therefore, the last of the Prime 
 Serjeants of Ireland. 
 
 *!• "f* "1* 
 
 Sir James Chatterton, the second Serjeant, applied to 
 the Lord Lieutenant for the new post of first Serjeant. 
 Just a year earlier, in July, 1804, he sent a petition to his 
 Excellency setting out his claim to a seat on the Judicial 
 Bench. It begins, " That he was for sixteen years, as a 
 member of the Irish Parliament, the zealous and constant 
 supporter of His Majesty's Government," and then goes 
 on : 
 
 " It may be asked why he did not go into the Union 
 Parliament The answer is that in the year 1791 he pur- 
 chased from the late Sir Barry Denny and his son a seat 
 in the borough of Tralee for that Parliament, for which he 
 paid a thousand guineas, but by their deaths in the inter- 
 mediate time he lost both his seat and money. 
 
 " That by that loss he was prevented from giving a 
 ParHamentary support to the measure of the Union, but 
 his wishes in the subject were evident by the part he took 
 in the D'Oyer Hundred Court at Cork, where he voted 
 for and was one of the Committee who proposed the address 
 presented to the Government on that occasion, certainly 
 attended with very useful consequences. 
 
 " That Sir James's only object in attending his Pro- 
 fession is the attainment of a seat on the Bench, which he 
 trusts his long and faithful service to the King's Govern- 
 ment, the high approbation he has constantly met with 
 as a circuit judge, his rank and property in the country, 
 and, he hopes he may venture to add, his respectability of 
 character both in pubHc and private hfe may be supposed 
 to entitle him to. 
 
 " That he begs leave to observe that in the event of his 
 
172 THE I AVVYRUS AND THI' UNION 
 
 professioiuil ;ulv;uutMnent, your Kxcelleucy will have the 
 disposal ol the two places which he has the honor of now 
 holding under Ciovernnient — the Paper Office;, an honor- 
 able sinecure of /'500 a year on the lilstahlishnient, and the 
 l)lace of the King's second Serjeant at Law, the fourth in 
 the rank at the Irish Har, attended with many advantages 
 to a professional man, and from the op})ortunities of going 
 the circuits reasonably estimated at ^500 a year more. 
 
 " Now, in reference to the j)Ost of hrst vSerjeant, Sir 
 James Chatterton submits to the Lord Lieutenant his right 
 to it in the natural course of succession, having hlled the 
 place of third Serjeant, and being the second Serjeant." 
 
 But there was then another claimant of the office in 
 William Johnson, who was supported by a letter from 
 Castlereagh, dated '' London, 17th June, 1805," urging his 
 title to promotion on account of his services to the cause 
 of the Union. 
 
 ''My wishes upon this point," says Castlereagh, "are 
 entirely governed b^^ a sense of personal duty to him 
 for the part he took upon that great question, never 
 having had any personal intercourse with him which 
 could create a more partial sentiment. This tie, however, 
 entitles him to my most earnest solicitation in his behalf, 
 and I am persuaded your Lordship will be disposed to 
 extend to him the same measure of favour and protection 
 which you have already in so many instances done to the 
 supporters of the Union." 
 
 That Chatterton failed to get the office is, therefore, 
 not surprising ; and his feelings of disappointment find 
 vent in the following letter to the Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " Great George Street, South, 
 " June 29, 1805. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I beg leave with great respect to state to your 
 Excellency that having received from the Lord Chancellor 
 the honor of a letter, in which he is so good to say that he 
 is sorry to learn from myself, as well as from your Excel- 
 lency, that I am disappointed in consequence of the 
 arrangements proposed to be made upon the vacancy of 
 the office of Prime Serjeant, and that his Lordship trusted 
 with my ample fortune and considering the state of my 
 health 1 would not, upon reflection, be disposed much to 
 
THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF CHATTERTON 173 
 
 blame those an ;ing(^m(!nts; and alsomeniioning the salaries 
 intended to be |)aid to the different Serjeants, however 
 that the salary could be no object to me, 1 have in my 
 answer stated to his Lordship (as 1 now beg leave to state 
 to your Excellency) that in returning his Lordship my 
 best thanks lor the honor of his letter, it would be doing 
 injustice to my own feelings, if 1 did not express my deep 
 sorrow and regret in finding it to be the intention of the 
 (Government to pass by, in the arrangement about to take 
 ])lace, the pretensions of an old and faithful servant. 
 That his Lordship does no more than justice in conceiving 
 that the question of emolument is not the consideration 
 wliich would weigh upon my mind. My fortune, which 
 his Lordship is so good to call an ample one, would prevent 
 the necessity of my making that a principal object of 
 j)ursuit. That it is rank in that Profession of which fiis 
 Lordship is the head is my object, and 1 trust I may call 
 it the legitimate object to which I have thought myself 
 justified in looking forward ; and having been in the habit 
 of discharging the duties of a circuit judge in almost every 
 part of Ireland, not discreditably to myself nor to his 
 Majesty's Commission, it could not fail to hurt me deeply 
 that in whatever arrangements may be thought necessary 
 my humble claims had not been fortunate enough to 
 have met the favourable consideration to which I trusted 
 I might have conceived them entitled. And that on the 
 score of my health I should feel no disqualification from 
 undertaking the discharge of the duties of any professional 
 situation for which the Government may do me the honor 
 of considering me to be fitted. 
 
 " These matters I presume to lay before your Excel- 
 lency, hoping you will be so good to pardon the trouble 
 you have received." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Another lawyer who thought his services to the Union 
 had been very ill requited was Edmund Stanley. Pelham 
 wrote to Hardwicke as early as July, 1802, stating that 
 Stanley had complained to him that he had been removed 
 from the office of Prime Serjeant " with more speed than 
 the pubHc service seemed to require," and that had more 
 time been allowed him he might have made an arrange- 
 ment with his creditors. Stanley also asked Pelham, 
 who, it will be remembered, was Chief Secretary during the 
 
174 THE LAWYERS AND THE UNION 
 
 Rebellion of 1798, to bear testimony to the Viceroy of his 
 loyalty and zeal in the public service. " This request I 
 feel myself bound to comply with," says Pelham, " and 
 I must fairly state to your Excellency that if his reputa- 
 tion for talent and professional experience had been equal 
 to his loyalty and public spirit he would certainly have 
 been advanced to higher situations." 
 
 In August, 1803, Stanley, still hoping to obtain another 
 legal appointment, wrote a long letter to the Viceroy in 
 which he recounted his services to the State, and told a 
 curious story of his pitiable condition owing to the 
 machinations of disloyal enemies. He had been thirteen 
 years in the Irish House of Commons, during which he 
 had most faithfully supported all the measures of the 
 Government. His pecuniary embarrassments were en- 
 tirely due to the large sums of money he had expended 
 (he does not say how) in the interest of the Irish Executive, 
 and to the fact that he had received no return until his 
 appointment as Prime Serjeant after the Union had been 
 carried. The position to which he had succeeded Arthur 
 Browne at the Board of Accounts — in exchange for the 
 office of Prime Serjeant — he had sold for £5,000. He 
 would have received more if " the respectable gentleman " 
 whom he had nominated to be his successor in the office, 
 and who was prepared to give him " a substantial sum," 
 had been accepted ; but £5,000 was all he was able to 
 obtain from the person sanctioned by the Government. 
 He offered to hand over this money in satisfaction of some 
 of the claims of his creditors, and for the payment of the 
 remainder to pledge the future expectations and resources 
 of his profession. Then he goes on : 
 
 " But though all fair and honourable men agreed to 
 this proposal, yet I am sorry to say I have too good reason 
 to believe that some persons in Dublin, who have got 
 possession of my securities, combine against me, and not 
 only refuse all amicable arrangement, but declare nothing 
 will satisfy them but to deprive me of my liberty for ever. 
 Some of my friends inform me that it is revenge these 
 persons want and not their money ; and the principal 
 
EDMUND STANLEY AND HIS ENEMIES 175 
 
 man who acts so I have long considered far from friendly 
 to the Government or their measures. He will listen to 
 no fair or honourable terms, or to anything short of my 
 ruin ; and, in fact, by such hostile conduct has defeated 
 all arrangement. No doubt can now be entertained that 
 such a spirit exists in Dublin ; and no question that some 
 of the disaffected have made use of the power they have 
 got over me to persecute me. 
 
 " Who made himself more obnoxious to the enemies of 
 Government, or took a more open and conspicuous part 
 against them, both as prosecutor, and afterwards in the 
 discharge of my duties as a judge, than I did for ten years 
 before the Union ? The histories of the late Rebellion 
 record how often my life was in danger, and my house 
 destroyed in Dublin. It is well known how often I was 
 held forth in the anti-Union papers, during that measure, 
 as an object of resentment, and my creditors in Dublin 
 excited against me. These vindictive resolutions have 
 had their effect. They did not, indeed, succeed in taking 
 away my life (though it was attempted) ; but am I not 
 deprived of everything worth living for — my liberty, pro- 
 fession, the comfort of my family and friends, and every 
 other enjoyment ? I can never persuade myself that it 
 is the intention of Government (after carrying their 
 objects) to desert a friend who worked hard in their 
 service for thirteen years, and leave him exposed to the 
 malice and vengeance of his enemies." 
 
 But all the appeals of Stanley to the Viceroy were in 
 vain. The last one, which he sent from London in 
 January, 1806, was that he and his daughter should be 
 given reversionary interests in his wife's pension on the 
 Irish Establishment, a request which his Excellency said 
 he was powerless to grant. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 The Catholics of Dublin were unquestionably opposed to 
 the Union. But it is impossible to arrive at any positive 
 conclusion as to the attitude of the great mass of the 
 Catholics in the provinces from a study of the annals of 
 the period, so contradictory are they on the point. There 
 was no means by which the Catholics of the provinces could, 
 as a body, express their opinion on any public question, 
 except the uncertain and unsatisfactory method of petition ; 
 and Catholics were represented equally in petitions for and 
 against the Union. Probably their state of mind was that 
 of indifference. This, however, is beyond question, that 
 the leading Catholic prelates and gentry — a small but 
 influential group, who were regarded as the representatives 
 of the general body, and had hitherto given expression 
 to their views and feelings on questions affecting their 
 religion and social status — were strongly in favour of the 
 Union. The three most conspicuous personages in this 
 group were Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, the Earl of 
 Fingall, and Lord Kenmare. They had long been in the 
 close confidence of Dublin Castle, and it was through them 
 that Cornwallis and Castlereagh endeavoured to secure 
 Catholic support for the Union. The Government were 
 extremely anxious to concihate Catholic feelings on the 
 subject, as is show^n by " The Cornwallis Correspondence," 
 but it is notable that in the long List of Union Engagements 
 which Cornwallis left to his successor to discharge there 
 are only four Catholics. These are Mr. Bellew, Mr. Lynch, 
 Mr. Donellan, and Mr. McKenna — all barristers. 
 
 176 
 
ARCHBISHOP TROYS' NEPIH^W 177 
 
 No doubt there were Catholics among those supporters 
 ot the Government who immediately received rewards 
 for their services during the struggle on the question of 
 the Union. Indeed, that such was the case is established, 
 I think, by some letters which I have found in the Vice- 
 roy's Post-bag. Here, for example, is a letter from Arcli- 
 bishop Troy to the Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " North King Street, Dublin, 
 " 28th June, 1802. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Two years have elapsed since my nephew, John 
 James Troy, was appointed Tide Surveyor at Queensboro', 
 near Drogheda, by Marquis Cornwallis, who had named 
 him a Landwaiter at Waterford, but afterwards deemed 
 it expedient to give this place to another at the recom- 
 mendation of tlic Marquis of Waterford. Sir E. B. 
 Littlehales and Mr. Marsden witnessed this transaction, 
 and Lord Cornwallis's declaration to me — ' that Govern- 
 ment would not fail to remedy my nephew's disappoint- 
 ment, by removing him to a more lucrative and respectable 
 situation.' 
 
 " The Surveyorship at Queensboro' does not produce 
 more, communihus annis, than £150 per annum, exclusive 
 of a house and garden. The Landwaitership at Waterford 
 is stated to be of quadruple value. I presume to state 
 these circumstances under the hope and expectation that 
 they will recommend my nephew to your Excellency's 
 notice and consideration. The Commissioners of his 
 Majesty's Revenue and the Hon. Colonel Napier will 
 certify his character and conduct. 
 
 " I need not add how gratefully I shall acknowledge 
 your Excellency's attention to his advancement, nor the 
 profound respect with which I have the honour to be, my 
 Lord, your Excellency's most obedient, most humble, and 
 devoted servant, 
 
 "J. T. Troy." 
 
 Archbishop Troy writes again to the Viceroy on 
 June 23, 1804, pressing his nephew's claim to promo- 
 tion. He refers to a rumour that a landwaiter at 
 Dublin was about to retire, and suggests that perhaps 
 an opportunity would thereby arise for removing his 
 nephew from Queensborough to the capital. It is curious 
 
 12 
 
178 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 to note that tho Lord Lieutenant, replying to the Arch- 
 bisho]i, addresses him as " Sir." His ICxcellency says 
 he tears there is little likelihood of a more eligible 
 situation lor John James Troy arising through the resig- 
 nation ot tlie Dublin landvvaiter. 
 
 " But," he goes on, "though it is difficult to fix any 
 precise time, or any specific object, I will certainly not 
 o\'erlook an opportunity of carrying out your wishes 
 vvhene\-er it shall be fairly within my power." 
 
 In January, 1806, on the eve of Hardwicke's depar- 
 ture from Ireland, Archbishop Troy once more addresses 
 the Lord Lieutenant on the subject of the advancement 
 of his nephew. He encloses a letter he received from 
 his nephew, who had just been promoted from Queens- 
 borough to Castletownsend, co. Cork. The nephew is 
 not satisfied with his new position, because he finds its 
 income has been considerably reduced. He says : 
 
 " As the time approaches when we are no longer to 
 have the happiness of being under Lord Hardwicke's 
 kindly care, I feel anxious that his Excellency might be 
 reminded to recommend me to the protection of his 
 successor, in the hope of being removed to a situation 
 not so remote from my friends, when an opportunity 
 shall offer, particular^ as the Custom House here, 
 which is a large building, is in a very ruinous state that 
 could not be made habitable until the summer should 
 be advanced ; and in the interim I shall be under the 
 necessit}' of residing in very inconvenient and uncom- 
 fortable lodgings in this village." 
 
 Archbishop Troy, in forwarding his nephew's letter to 
 the Lord Lieutenant, writes : 
 
 " North King Street, Dublin, 
 " 2^ st January, 1806. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I take the liberty of enclosing a letter to me 
 from my nephew, and humbly solicit the favour he 
 requests. Your Excellency's gracious acquiescence will 
 confer an additional obligation on his family in general, 
 and on myself in particular, for which all will be ever 
 grateful. Permit me to add to his representation, that 
 
LORD KENMARE'S BROTHER-IN-LAW 179 
 
 another situation of equal rank in the Revenue Depart- 
 nient at the Custom Houses, Dubhn, would be perfectly 
 agreeable to him. His present residence among strangers, 
 at the distance of nearly two hundred miles from his 
 family and connections, is rather unsatisfactory. It is 
 principally on this account that he wishes to be removed 
 from it. 
 
 " I cannot but avail myself of this opportunity to 
 express my own and the general regret at your Excel- 
 lency's approaching departure from this country, where 
 the happy effects of your exemplary virtues and consum- 
 mate prudence in the Administration of His Majesty's 
 Government are strongly felt and will be long remem- 
 bered. May your Excellency continue to enjoy during 
 many happy years the enviable satisfaction of reflecting 
 that you had tempered justice with mercy and firmness 
 with moderation. 
 
 " Allow me, my Lord, to renew the unfeigned assur- 
 ances of profound respect and grateful attachment, with 
 which I have the honour to be, my Lord, 
 
 " Your Excellency's most obliged, most devoted, and 
 very humble servant, » j j, 'ppov " 
 
 V n* T *J 
 
 Then there is Lord Kenmare. Sir Valentine Browne, 
 Bart., of Killarney, was raised to the peerage as Viscount 
 Kenmare for his loyal services in 1798. 
 
 " Among the many engagements which I have been 
 obliged to contract in the event of the success of the 
 measure of a legislative Union," says CornwalHs, writing 
 in 1799, " I have promised to use my utmost influence 
 to obtain an earldom for Lord Kenmare." 
 
 He appears as Earl of Kenmare in the Union peer- 
 age promotions and creations of December, 1800. On 
 October 19, 1802, he sent from Killarney the following 
 curious communication to Lord Hardwicke, which shows 
 that he received other rewards for his services besides a 
 promotion in the Peerage : 
 
 " I feel encouraged by your Excellency's very great 
 kindness and attention on a former occasion, to take the 
 Uberty of troubling you once more with an application 
 
 12 — 2 
 
i8o THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 on a subject in which Lady Kcnniare and myself are, 
 indeed, greatly interested. It relates to Mr. Aylmer, my 
 brother-in-law, whom I had the honour of introducing 
 to your Excellency at Killarney. He is half-brother to 
 Lady Kenmare, and, though of one of the most eminent 
 and respectable families of this country, and entitled to 
 a \ cry large fortune by birth, finds himself bereft of all 
 those hopes by the irreparable derangement of his father's 
 affairs, which has rendered indispensably requisite the 
 sale of a very fine place in the county of Kildare, called 
 Lyons, and the entire of the family estate in that county, 
 to the amount of from four to five thousand pounds a 
 year. 
 
 " Those unfortunate circumstances first induced me to 
 make an application in his behalf to Lord Camden, who 
 was so kind as to appoint him to a small employment at 
 the Custom House, which his lordship then supposed to 
 be worth about ;^220 (pounds) a year, but which, by sub- 
 sequent arrangements, has not produced quite ;^ioo 
 (pounds) a year. On a further application the Marquis 
 Cornwallis was pleased to join Mr. Aylmer in an appoint- 
 ment with Sir Boyle Roche to the place of Surveyor of 
 the River Kenmare, which I understand to be worth 
 £300 a year, which Sir Boyle enjoys the whole of for his 
 life. The favour I have to ask of your Excellency is that 
 on Mr. Aylmer resigning his place at the Custom House, 
 which is worth so little, you will please to appoint him to 
 a place of higher emolument which he may be able to 
 retain together with the Surveyorship of the River Ken- 
 mare at Sir Bo3'le's death ; or else to grant him some- 
 thing at present equal to the produce of the two employ- 
 ments he would resign — the joint appointment to the 
 River Kenmare, with the place at the Custom House. 
 From the knowledge I have of your Excellency's way of 
 thinking, and knowing also Mr. Aylmer's delicacy, I need 
 nof say that I should not wish him to hold any situation 
 but such as would be quite consistent with his birth con- 
 nections." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, in reply, says he consulted 
 Mr. Wickham, the Chief Secretary, as to whether his 
 lordship's wishes with respect to Mr. Aylmer could be 
 satisfied ; but unfortunately there were then no means 
 of doing so at their disposal. 
 
A CATHOLIC LEADER l8l 
 
 " I can only say, therefore," he goes on, " that I shall 
 be very anxious for the moment when I may be at liberty 
 to offer Mr. Aylmer some situation of that description 
 consistent with the views your Lordship has for him. 
 Your Lordship must be aware that it is not in my power 
 to speak with certainty as to the time." 
 
 ♦ * * 
 
 There were also Catholics who were promised rewards 
 for their services to the Union, but by some mistake or 
 oversight were omitted from the official List of Engage- 
 ments. That fact is established by the following signi- 
 ficant letter from Cornwalhs to Hardwicke shortly after 
 the arrival of the latter as Viceroy in Dublin, and while 
 he was striving to arrive, with much bitterness of mind, 
 at a complete conception of the Union engagements by 
 which his patronage was mortgaged : 
 
 " CULFORD, 
 
 " July 19, 1 80 1. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " It has been a matter of much mortification to 
 me that your Excellency has been troubled by some in- 
 accuracies in the statement of my engagements ; but 
 from what you must have seen of the pressing mode of 
 solicitation on your side of the water, you will easily 
 conceive the distraction which those in the Government 
 must have felt during the anxious period while the great 
 measure of the Union was in suspense ; and will, I hope, 
 make some allowances for the confused manner in which 
 the promises have been brought forward. 
 
 " I trust, however, that every omission has now been 
 completely explained, except the claim of Mr. Myles 
 Keon for some provision for his son.* This gentleman 
 
 * Myles Keon is mentioned in Wolfe Tone's " Memoirs." Before 
 1792 Catholic affairs were managed by a general committee. 
 Tone being secretary, which was a self-appointed Dublin body, 
 and not nominated by the Catholics of the nation. " It is to the 
 sagacity of Myles Keon, of Keonbrook, co. Leitrim," says Tone, 
 " that his country is indebted for the system on which the general 
 committee was to be framed anew in a manner that should render 
 it impossible to bring it again in doubt whether that body were 
 or not the organ of the Catholic will. His plan was to associate 
 to the committee, as then constituted, two members from each 
 county and great city, actual residents of the place which they 
 
1 82 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 was supposed to have considerable influence with tlie 
 CathoHcs in the county of Roscommon, and as both the 
 members for that county had on the first discussion voted 
 against the Union, and one of them (CoUmel Mahon) was 
 disposed on the second struggle to take a less hostile 
 part, 1 felt it to be a matter of great consequence that 
 we should make a good figure, either in the meeting, or 
 in the sign.itures of the freeholders, I perfectly recol- 
 lect, on his j)romising to exert himself, that he had an 
 assurance of some jirovision for his son, but he neglected 
 afterwards to remind me of it, and the circumstance 
 escaped my recollection. 
 
 " His views ;ire, I believe, very moderate ; but if it 
 should not suit your Excellency to accommodate him in 
 anv manner during your Administration, I should hope 
 that you would allow him to stand over as claimant upon 
 Government. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with great regard, 
 
 " Your most obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 - " CORNVVALLIS." 
 
 * * * 
 
 I shall now deal with the cases of the Catholics 
 actually on the List of Union Engagements. There 
 is William Bellew, the younger son of Sir Patrick 
 Belle w, Bart., a member of an old and distinguished 
 Catholic family in Louth. He was one of the first 
 Catholics who joined the Irish Bar, when the legal pro- 
 fession was opened to Catholics by the Relief Act of 
 1793. At the Bar debate on the question of the Union 
 in December, 1799, Grady, a Protestant lawyer — whose 
 name appears on the List of Union Engagements, and 
 with whose strange case I have already dealt in the 
 chapter on " The Lawyers and the Union " — declared 
 that the Catholics desired the Union. The assertion 
 was contradicted by Bellew. The Catholics, said he, 
 had not yet begim seriously to consider the question, 
 and as yet had formed no decided opinion about it. 
 That, indeed, exactly described Bellew's own condition 
 
 represented, who were, however, only to be summoned upon 
 extraordinary occasions, leaving the common routine of business 
 to the original members, who, as I have already related, were all 
 residents of Dublin." 
 
WILLIAM BELLEW AND THEOBALD M'KENNA 183 
 
 of mind. Later on, as we learn from " The Cornwallis 
 Correspondence," he was with diflfiiculty restrained from 
 moving a resolution hostile to the Union at a meeting 
 of the Catholic gentry held in Lord Fingall's Dublin 
 house. He subsequently had several interviews with 
 Cornwallis, which resulted in his making up his mind 
 that the Union was most essential in the interest of the 
 Catholics, the promise of a Chairmanship of Quarter 
 Sessions helping him, no doubt, to that conclusion. 
 
 There is a curious note to his case in the List of Union 
 Engagements. 
 
 " This gentleman," writes Hardwicke, " is a son of Sir 
 Patrick Bellew, of the county Louth, a Roman Catholick, 
 and it was, therefore, thought very desirable to commute 
 this engagement, as he looked to the fulfilment of it in 
 the county of Louth, where the appointment would have 
 been very obnoxious to all the Protestant gentlemen." 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Chairmanship of Louth fell 
 
 vacant, and the Irish Government proposed to appoint 
 
 Bellew, in fulfilment of the engagement ; but they yielded 
 
 — despite the strong protest of Castlereagh — to a petition 
 
 from the Protestant magistrates of the county, declaring 
 
 that if Bellew were appointed to the office they would 
 
 refuse to act with him. 
 
 * * * 
 
 In the " Pension " section of the Union engagements will 
 be found the entry: "Mr. M'Kenna — £300 a year for 
 his literary services." Theobald M'Kenna, a lawyer of 
 considerable influence in Catholic circles, wrote one of 
 the first pamphlets in favour of the Union, entitled 
 " Memoir on Questions respecting the projected Union," 
 and was appointed by the Government to superintend 
 the publication and distribution of the hterature issued 
 to influence public opinion in favour of their scheme. 
 On October 13, 1801, he writes to Abbot, the Chief Secre- 
 tary, in a state of apprehension about his promised 
 pension. The four Administrations which successively 
 ruled Ireland from 1793 to 1800, he says, had each, 
 
1 84 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 unsolicited by him, called for his services " in the cause 
 of civil society and good government." 
 
 " But the affair of the Union," he adds, " constitutes 
 the ground on which my claim, at least to a certain 
 extent, is beyond all question irresistible. You know 
 that, in consequence of application made to me, I gave 
 up my time and trouble to the cultivation of that ques- 
 tion. If contributing nearly as much as any other 
 person to render that transaction palatable to the public, 
 and to extend the credit of it, be a service to the Govern- 
 ment, that service I must say I rendered. A positive 
 engagement was made to me." 
 
 This letter would seem to suggest that the Union 
 pensions were unpaid until they were regularly placed 
 on the Irish Establishment. But, as a matter of fact, 
 that was not so. New pensions on the Irish Establish- 
 ment could be created in each financial year only to the 
 amount of £1,200. But, meantime, until the pensions 
 " passed " — as the proper phrase had it — " the Great 
 Seal," the pensions were paid out of another fund. 
 That fund is indicated in a letter which Abbot, the Chief 
 Secretary, sent from London to Hardwicke, the Viceroy, 
 shortly after the latter arrived in Ireland in 1801, inform- 
 ing him of the arrangements which were being made for 
 the discharge of the Union engagements. 
 
 "■ The money," he says, " for engagements of the 
 Union, as authorized to be taken out of the privy purse, 
 to be settled between Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh." 
 
 Further light is thrown on the subject by the letter 
 written by the Lord Lieutenant to Hawkesbury, Home 
 Secretary, dated September 26, 1804, which I give fully in 
 the chapter dealing with the List of Union Engagements. 
 
 '• The greater part of those upon the different lists who 
 had not actual engagements for specific offices," says the 
 Viceroy in that letter, " received the amount of their 
 engagements from a fund in which I had no concern, 
 and of which I was entirely ignorant at the time I re- 
 ceived the papers. The fund for these money payments 
 has, I understand, been partly supplied from his Majesty's 
 privy purse." 
 
LORD FING ALL'S BROTHER-IN-LAW 185 
 
 I think this shows that not only were tlic pensions 
 paid out of the King's privy purse until they were placed 
 oil the Irish Establishment, but also the amounts of the 
 salaries promised in cases where, as Lord Hardwicke 
 says, there were no actual engagements for specific offices. 
 Take the case of another Catholic on the List of Union 
 Engagements. " Mr. Donellan, brother to Lady Fingall," 
 we read — " Promised £300 a year ; recommended by Lord 
 Fingall." In this instance no particular office is men- 
 tioned ; and Donellan, accordingly, received £300 a year 
 until he was appointed to an office in the Customs." As a 
 Roman Catholic," says Hardwicke in his note to the case, 
 " I preferred giving him the office of Customs of Water- 
 ford to making him an assistant barrister." Donellan, 
 desiring to retain the pension as well as the post, -enlisted the 
 good offices of Lord Dunlo, for I find the following letter 
 was written by Hardwicke to Dunlo on April 9, 1803 : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I requested Mr. Wickham to make my excuse to 
 you for having delayed to acknowledge your letter re- 
 commending Mr. Donellan for some situation equal in 
 value to that of Commissioner of Appeals or a Chairman 
 of Sessions, and to explain to you not only the cause of 
 the delay, but the manner in which I was already cir- 
 cumstanced in regard to this engagement. 
 
 " I was not at first quite certain whether he was the 
 same person to whom an expectation of provision had 
 been held out during Lord Cornwallis's Administration, 
 and to whom I was in some degree already pledged. 
 Finding he was the same gentleman, I did not think it 
 fair to claim a merit with your Lordship to which I was 
 not entirely entitled, though the manner in which you 
 interested yourself in his favour was an inducement to 
 me to make him an early offer in preference to others. 
 An opportunity occurred precisely at that time, and I 
 am happy to find that the situation which was offered 
 to him of Customs of Waterford and Ross, vacant by 
 the death of Mr. Crosbie, has proved acceptable to Mr. 
 Donellan, on account of its being compatible with his 
 profession, and not requiring residence in any particular 
 part of the country." 
 
1 86 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 Lord Diinlo, writing on April i8, 1803, from the Terrace, 
 Spring Gardens, London, to the Lord Lieutenant, says : 
 
 " Mr. Doncllan in his apphcation to me had informed 
 me that he was in possession of some pension from the 
 Irish Go\'ernment, and was desirous that through my 
 means the situation of Commissioner of Appeals, Chair- 
 man of Sessions of Meatli or Louth, or some other em- 
 ployment of equal value compatible with his profession 
 might be obtained for him, in addition to the income he 
 then enjoyed. It was for this reason, and with this view, 
 that my request was made to your Excellency that the 
 situation sought by me for him at your Excellency's 
 hands should be in addition to his present income. 
 
 " Mr. Donellan, however, fearing lest compliance with 
 the application made by me in his favour should deprive 
 him of the income he already enjoyed under your Ex- 
 cellency's Government, and thereby leave him in no 
 better plight than he formerly found himself, requested 
 that I should explain the matter in such wise as to guard 
 against any mistake, 
 
 " Actuated as well by private friendship (of which I 
 must confess I cannot divest myself in this instance) as 
 by public feelings, founded upon the exertions made 
 through the influence of his family, in very trying times, 
 in support of His Majesty's Government, and unwilling 
 to be more than necessarily troublesome in my own 
 person, I immediately applied to Mr. Wickham request- 
 ing that he would be the medium of expressing Mr. 
 Donellan's fears, now become mine, to your Excellency. 
 Mr. Wickham desired me to give him a note in writing 
 upon the subject, and that he would transmit the sub- 
 stance of it. This was accordingly done about the middle 
 of last month. The note stated my application to your 
 Excellency, Mr. Donellan's fears, and my wishes that 
 your Excellency's intentions in his favour might not 
 divest him of any former provision from Government. 
 Possibly Mr. Wickham may have forgotten to transmit 
 the substance of this note, as he certainly has not recol- 
 lected to deliver the kind message alluded to in your 
 Excellency's letter to me. I, therefore, take the oppor- 
 tunity which the acknowledgment of the receipt of this 
 last affords me to express my hopes and wishes that 
 ^Ir. Donellan's fears may not be realized, and that the 
 
CROSBIE THE SINECURIST 187 
 
 benefit he has hitherto derived from the favour of 
 Government may not be superseded by the recent 
 grant made to him, the effect of which, as I am given to 
 understand, would be to leave him in no better situation 
 than that in which he found himself upon my application 
 to your Excellency in his favour." 
 
 Sir Boyle Roche is mentioned in Lord Kenmare's letter 
 which I give in this chapter. He reappears in another 
 extraordinary letter to the Lord Lieutenant, signed 
 " W. Crosbie," in which we see him in the receipt, quarterly, 
 of the pension promised him before it was actually placed 
 on the Irish Establishment. " Gentlemen may tither 
 and tither and tither, and may think it a bad measure," 
 said he, addressing the laughing Irish House of Commons 
 in favour of the Union, " but when the day of judgment 
 comes, then hon. gentlemen will see that this is a most 
 excellent Union. Sir, there are no Levitical degrees 
 between nations, and on this occasion I see neither sin nor 
 shame in marrying our own sister." For uttering a few 
 " bulls " in this fashion in support of the L^nion Sir Boyle 
 Roche received a pension of £400 a year, in addition to 
 the sinecure post — mentioned in Lord Kenmare's letter — 
 of Surveyor of the River Kenmare, which he already 
 possessed. 
 
 Crosbie's amazing communication shows the bargaining 
 in Government offices and positions which went on in 
 Ireland, with the sanction of the Executive, at the 
 opening of the nineteenth century. The letter is written 
 from 5, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, London, and 
 is dated March 15, 1802. It was through the death of 
 Crosbie that Donellan obtained the sinecure post of 
 Customer of Waterford in 1803. Crosbie also held the 
 sinecure of the Weighmastership at Cork, with a salary of 
 £600 a year — the post which fell to Sir Vere Hunt. 
 Moreover, Crosbie was Commissioner of Stamps in the 
 Irish Department, with a salary of £500 a year. This post 
 was not exactly a sinecure. However, all that he had to 
 do to earn his £500 per annum, paid quarterly out of the 
 
1 88 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 Irish Exchequer, was to go to Dubhn occasionally to 
 sign some official documents. But he detested that 
 occasional journey. He wanted another sinecure under the 
 Irish CiO\ernnient which would give him £500 per annum 
 in London, without ever having to set foot in Ireland. 
 He recalls to the Viceroy the fact that he spoke to 
 his Excellency before he left for Ireland in 1801 about his 
 desire to exchange his post in the Irish Stamp Department 
 with Sir Boyle Roche for " a sinecure office." " That 
 sinecure olhce," he subsequently found, " had been 
 granted in reversion by Lord Cornwallis." It is not named, 
 but it is easy to guess that the " sinecure office " is the 
 Surveyorship of the Kenmare River, to which Aylmer, 
 Lord Kenmare's brother-in-law, was to succeed on the 
 death of Sir Boyle Roche. Crosbie then goes on : 
 
 " I mentioned to your Lordship at a late period when I 
 was in Ireland, with great confidence in your good wishes, 
 how material an object it would be for me to be relieved 
 by some arrangement from the necessity of making fre- 
 quent excursions to Ireland for the sole purpose of official 
 attendance. Being conscious that I could not expect to be 
 allowed to hold the situation I now do without discharging 
 the necessary duties, I now trouble your Excellency to 
 extend your approbation of an exchange which has been 
 proposed to me by Sir Boyle Roche, who is to be provided 
 for soon by a pension of £400 a year, and in the meantime 
 receives one hundred pounds per quarter till his pension 
 passes the Great Seal. He is ready to surrender his claim 
 to me, and to take my office in exchange, provided such 
 an arrangement shall be approved of by your Excellency. 
 I do not hesitate in making this part of my request, 
 because my office being £500 a year and Sir Boyle's 
 pension only four, I think it rather to the advantage of 
 Government to have a better thing on so bad a tenure as 
 Sir Boyle's life. 
 
 " But it is to your feelings for a very old acquaintance 
 that I must address myself to prevent my being a loser 
 in point of income, which I should be to the amount of 
 £100 a year. Having said this much of my wishes I 
 ought to point out the mode with all deference, and shall 
 merely suggest that I have the office of Customer of Water- 
 ford, the emoluments of which consist of small fees, but the 
 
HARDWICKE ON SIR BOYLE ROCHE 189 
 
 salary is only £14 a year. It has been customary under 
 the same circumstances — tliat is, where there has been a 
 wish to grant — to attach a certain salary to those sort of 
 employments ; and in my case £100 a year attached to 
 the Customership of Waterford, in addition to the present 
 £14, would secure me my present income, which is to the 
 extent of my wishes. 
 
 " If through your Excellency I can accomplish this 
 retreat, I shall feel myself most exceedingly indebted to 
 you. Something of the kind is absolutely necessary to 
 my comfort, for I wish to live in this country, but am too 
 poor to give up such a place. I should feel very unhappy 
 if I did not entertain sanguine hopes of accomplishing my 
 object, cither in the present instance or under some more 
 favourable circumstances, during your Excellency's Ad- 
 ministration ; for if I do not succeed now, with friends on 
 both sides of the water, I shall hereafter have little hope 
 of a more favourable issue. I have conversed with Lord 
 Pelham on the subject, who is my old and intimate friend, 
 but I have too much reliance on your kindness to think 
 his interference necessary." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant is most obliging in his reply. 
 " Dear Crosbie," he addresses his correspondent, " you 
 may be sure I shall have great pleasure in assenting to 
 any arrangement with regard to your office that may be 
 at all practicable." He sympathizes fully with Crosbie's 
 desire to enjoy his Irish salaries in London without having 
 to undergo the discomfort of an occasional visit to Ireland. 
 But was Crosbie sure that he was not doing himself an 
 injustice in the arrangement he proposed with Sir Boyle 
 Roche ? If Sir Boyle were to " dye "—so his Excellency 
 spells the word— before March 25, 1803, his pension could 
 not be placed on the Irish Establishment. " Sir Boyle, 
 between ourselves," his Excellency adds confidentially, 
 " is not exactly the man I should have chosen by way of 
 presenting to so pubHck and important an office as Com- 
 missioner of Stamps ; but no objection will arise to his 
 appointment, if you are satisfied with his security for the 
 payments which he is entitled to receive until his pension 
 of ;^4oo is placed on the Establishment, and to accept the 
 
i()0 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 risk arising from the contingency of his dyeing before this 
 
 time twelvemonths." 
 
 I cannot say whether the arrangement was carried out, 
 
 as there is no further correspondence in reference to it in 
 
 the Viceroy's Post-bag. No doubt it was, as both parties 
 
 were wilHng. Poor Crosbie's enjoyment in London of his 
 
 many Irish sinecures was, sad to say, soon brought to an 
 
 end, for the worthy man departed this Hfe in March, 1803. 
 
 As for Sir Boyle Roche — for whose shoes, as Surveyor of 
 
 the Kenmare River, Aylmer, the brother-in-law of the Earl 
 
 of Kenmare, was waiting — he lived until he died (as he 
 
 would say himself) at his residence in Eccles Street, 
 
 Dublin, on June 5, 1807. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The fourth Catholic on the List of Union Engagements 
 is Mr. Lynch. He was promised the Chairmanship of the 
 County of Galway " when vacant." I do not know 
 whether Mr. Lynch ever received his reward ; probably 
 he did not, for the position was not vacant during the 
 Viceroy alty of Hardwicke ; and, as I shall show in my next 
 article, the few Union engagements unfulfilled at the fall 
 of Pitt's second Administration, and the return of the 
 Whigs to power, were repudiated by the new Govern- 
 ment. But the following correspondence between 
 Matthew F. Lynch and Alexander Marsden, the Under- 
 Secretary for Ireland, will be read with interest. It tells 
 us how the first movement of the Catholics on behalf of 
 Emancipation after the Union was quietly suppressed : 
 
 " Galway, 
 " October 20, 1803. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " A number of Roman Catholic gentlemen, of the 
 first property and consequence in the county, having 
 come to the determination of petitioning Parliament and 
 addressing his Majesty on the subject of their claims, 
 applied to me to prepare the address and petition intended 
 to be proposed at the meeting to be convened on the 27th 
 inst,, according to public advertisement. 
 
 " Being unacquainted with the sentiments of the Irish 
 Administration on the subject, I have evaded giving a 
 
HOW THE CATHOLIC MOVEMENT WAS SUPPRESSED 191 
 
 final answer until informed whether the discussion of so 
 momentous a question at this crisis might not embarrass 
 the other arrangements of His Majesty's Ministers. The 
 situation in which I am placed by this application from 
 persons of the highest respectability will, I trust, plead 
 my excuse in trespassing on your important public 
 concerns." 
 
 Marsden, writing from Dublin Castle on October 25, 
 1803, says : 
 
 " As I conceive your letter to be written merely to pro- 
 cure for your private satisfaction the information you 
 desire to have, I can, only communicate to you such 
 opinion as I entertain myself on the subject, of which I 
 shall certainly make no disguise, and I confess I have 
 great doubts of the propriety at this period (which you so 
 properly term a crisis) of agitating a question in a public 
 assembly which might lead to a division of sentiment 
 amongst men who are all disposed and all interested in 
 supporting one common cause against the enemy of all 
 Establishment and property in this country. If the 
 address be lost many will be disappointed, and if it be 
 carried as many may be displeased ; and we cannot at 
 this time spare the heart and hand of a single member of 
 the community, 
 
 " Pray consider this, and recommend to the friends of 
 the measure the expediency of deferring to another season 
 the discussion of points which are not particularly called 
 for at the present crisis." 
 
 Lynch, replying on October 27, says : 
 
 " I had this day the honour of receiving your letter, 
 and am happy to fiave it in my power to inform you that 
 I have prevailed on the Roman Catholick gentlemen who 
 attended the meeting this day to postpone the considera- 
 tion of the question to a future indefinite period. 
 
 " I beg leave to return my particular thanks for the 
 kind and obhging manner in which you have been pleased 
 to communicate your sentiments to me on this subject. 
 They have guided me on this occasion, and confirmed the 
 opinion I entertained of the inexpediency of discussing 
 any question at this important moment which might 
 endanger the harmony of the country." 
 
192 THE CATHOLICS AND THE UNION 
 
 Over a year passes, and Lynch reappears in the Hard- 
 vvicke correspondence. In a " private and confidential " 
 letter dated December, 1804, from the Lord Lieutenant 
 to Sir Evan Nepean, the Chief Secretary, there is the fol- 
 lowing passage : 
 
 " As to ]\lr. Lynch, I think he should have the £300 
 per annum till his engagement is satisfied. His engage- 
 ment was made to him on account of his influence in 
 Galway, where his services may still be useful, and I 
 understand from Marsden that Mr. Lynch called to inquire 
 whether he was likely to succeed in that object." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 Long as is the List of Union Engagements which Corn- 
 walUs left to be redeemed by his successor, the Post-bag 
 of Lord Hardwicke makes it clear that there were, in 
 addition, a large number of supporters of the Union in 
 both Houses of the Irish Parliament, and of influential 
 persons in the counties — laymen and ecclesiastics, Catholic 
 and Protestant — active in promoting petitions in favour 
 of the measure, who were promised offices, pensions, and 
 titles, but whose cases were not entered on the official 
 List, because, probably, they were not sufficiently per- 
 sistent and clamorous in keeping themselves conspicuously 
 before the Executive. 
 
 In July, 1801, shortly after the arrival of the Earl of 
 Hardwicke as Viceroy in Ireland, the. creation of several 
 Irish baronets and knights was gazetted. It was the last 
 of ComwaUis's personal payments of the titles and digni- 
 ties which he had promised for aid rendered the Govern- 
 ment in carrying the Act of Union. A few days after the 
 announcement of these honours in the Irish newspapers 
 the post brought the following indignant letter from 
 Colonel Burton, one of the representatives of Clare in the 
 Imperial Parliament, for which county he had sat also in 
 the Irish House of Commons : 
 
 " Limerick, 
 
 "July 13, 1801. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Your Excellency will, I hope, pardon the liberty 
 I take in addressing you, and particularly on a subject that 
 does not immediately relate to your Administration. But 
 
 195 13 
 
194 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 I have heard so much of Lord Hardwicke's condescension 
 that it induces me to trespass upon your Excellency's time. 
 
 " It is necessary that I should inform your Excellency 
 that lor the eleven years I have been in Parliament I have 
 imiformly supported the King's Government in this 
 country, that the language I have ever held to your Excel- 
 lency's predecessors has been that there was no ofifice, 
 title, or emolument that they could offer me that I would 
 accept, nor did my agreeing with His Majesty's Ministers 
 on the question of the Union tempt me to hold any other, 
 or to ask for any distinguishing mark of favour for myself 
 or friends, except in the instance I have now to allude to. 
 
 " Mr. Joseph Peacocke, of Barntick, in the county of 
 Clare, a relative of mine, possessed of the second best 
 resident property in that county, attached to the Govern- 
 ment, and a strenuous supporter of all its measures, was 
 desirous of being made a Baronet. His wishes were com- 
 municated to Lord Castlereagh by Lord Conyngham. 
 The request was so trifling, when considered by whom and 
 at the time it was made, that my brother and I did not 
 think it necessary to make any inquiries after Lord Castle- 
 reagh's desiring to have Mr. Peacocke's place of abode, 
 etc. My surprise and disappointment, therefore, is very 
 great at finding his name being omitted in the list of the 
 Baronets gazetted on the 7th inst. 
 
 " I know not what Mr. Peacocke's feeling may be, but 
 unless he is gratified in the object he had in view, I shall 
 think it incumbent on me to resent it, and to show that 
 I am not insensible to the ridiculous point of view a 
 respectable gentleman has been placed in by my too great 
 confidence in Government, who will lose in me a steady 
 and disinterested supporter. I have at the same time 
 to assure your Excellency that, from my disposition to 
 support your Excellency's measures, I shall feel the utmost 
 concern at being driven to pursue a line of conduct so 
 different from what my family have ever observed, and 
 shall regret it the more since your Excellency is at the head 
 of the Government. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, my Lord, your Excellency's 
 most obedient and very faithful servant, 
 
 " Francis N. Burton." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, in reply to his irate correspon- 
 dent, points out that the Union engagements relating to 
 the title of Baronet were entirely settled before his arrival 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY HONOUR ENGAGEMENTS 195 
 
 in Ireland, and that he even was ignorant of the names of 
 the gentlemen upon whom the honour had been conferred 
 until he saw them in the Gazette. As to the claim of 
 Mr. Peacocke, he knew nothing of it ; it did not appear on 
 the list of engagements which he had received from Lord 
 Cornwallis, and he deeply regretted that all he could do 
 in the circumstances was to forward Burton's letter to 
 Whitehall. 
 
 Peacocke, however, did not get the baronetcy. The 
 King was reluctant to confer titles in Ireland, even in 
 cases where there were positive engagements. Therefore, 
 the man who was content with a loose verbal promise had 
 to go without his expected reward. 
 
 * * * 
 
 It will be seen, on reference to the official List of Union 
 Engagements, that in the " Honours " section earldoms 
 were promised to Viscount Limerick, Viscount Gosford, and 
 Viscount Dunlo, and a viscountcy to Baroness Newcomen; 
 Baron Glentworth and Baron Kilconnel were, in the long 
 list of Peerage creations and promotions of December, 
 1800, created respectively Viscount Limerick and Viscount 
 Dunlo for their services to the Union, and received pledges 
 of further promotion in the peerage at the first fitting 
 opportunity. Viscount Gosford, who supported the 
 Union in the House of Lords, was offered an earldom in 
 December, 1800 ; but on the advice of his son and heir, 
 Colonel Acheson, who sat in the Irish House of Commons 
 and opposed the Union, he declined the honour, so that it 
 might not be said that he voted for the Union to obtain a 
 step in the Peerage. Still, Viscount Gosford and his son 
 and heir were anxious, as wiU be seen later, that after a 
 decent lapse of time the family should obtain the earldom- 
 The Lady Newcomen mentioned in the List for a vis- 
 countcy — the wife of Sir William Newcomen, a member of 
 the House of Commons — was raised to the Peerage as a 
 baroness in December, 1800, in return for her husband's 
 political services. Baroness Dufferin, who also appears in 
 the List, was another of the twenty-two Union peerages 
 created, on the recommendation of Lord Cornwallis, in 
 
 13—2 
 
I06 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 December, 1800. Her son, Sir James Hlackwood, who 
 sat in the Irish Honse ol Commons for his own pork(;t 
 borough ot Killyleagh, in eo. Down, and snjiported 
 the Union, desired th.it his niotlier shouUl be created 
 orit;inally a \iscountess, he, of cours(% beinj^; heir to the 
 title ; but, as the note to the case in the List of Union 
 Kngagements states, this was refused, as it was decided 
 that no person should be recommended for two ste])S in 
 the Peerage at the same time. 
 
 The undertaking given with respect to these supple- 
 mentary honour engagements was that they should be 
 fulfilled after the first Cleneral Itlection for the United 
 Parliament. The Cieueral Election came oU in June, 1802. 
 Accordingly, in August Hardwicke— always most scrupu- 
 lous for the speedy liquidation of the Union account — 
 wrote to the Home Secretary recommending that these 
 promised promotions in the Peerage should at once be 
 conferred. There was a doubt in the case of Baroness 
 Dnfferin. It did not appear to his Excellency that her 
 advancement to a viscountcy was a positive engagement. 
 Castlereagh was consulted on the point. Writing to 
 Wickham, the Chief Secretary, Castlereagh said that if 
 Blackwood was very desirous of obtaining further promo- 
 tion in the Peerage for his mother, he (Castlereagh) would 
 ask the Lord Lieutenant to grant it as a favour to himself. 
 But no application had been received from Blackwood. 
 " I consider," says Castlereagh, " a step in the Peerage 
 too great a mark of favour to be either asked or granted 
 unless particularly desired ; and therefore, although I 
 wish to cultivate Blackwood's friendship as very material 
 to me in the county of Down, I have no wish to express 
 of this nature on the present occasion." No action was 
 taken, therefore, in the case of Baroness Dufferin. But 
 Viscount Limerick was created Earl of Limerick, and 
 Viscount Dunlo, Earl of Clancarty. In the case of 
 Viscount Gosford the earldom was again declined, as in 
 the opinion of the son and heir there had not yet elapsed 
 a sufficient time for the promotion to escape being de- 
 scribed as a U^nion engagement. 
 
 * * it 
 
THK I-:aF<L OI- KLANDAf'F 197 
 
 While writing to Loid PcUiam, tlic Home Secretary, <>n 
 the subject of these Union peerage jjrornotions, the Lord 
 Lieutenant set lortli the claim made to him lor advance- 
 nwnt in the l*e(!rage by th<i Larl of Landaff, of Thomas- 
 town Castle, CO. Tii)i)erary. The Earl had supported the 
 Union in the House of Lords, but his son. Lord Mathew, 
 who sat in the House of Commons, had voted against the 
 measure. Says the Vic(;roy : 
 
 " His Lordship called uj)on mo last week for tlie purpose 
 of repres(;nting that at the time of the discussirm of the 
 Union question he had a promise; from Lord Cornwallis 
 of promotion in the Peerage. That, having been much 
 distressed at the vote which his son. Lord Mathew, had 
 thought hims(;lf obliged to give against the Union, he 
 waited upon Lord Cornwallis to resign any pretension he 
 might have to tlie favour wliich had been promised to him. 
 That, having subsequently received a very handsome 
 letter from Lord Cornwallis, having attended a meeting 
 in Tipperary for the purpose of forwarding the wishes of 
 the Government by supporting an address from the county 
 in favour of the Union, and having twice brought into 
 Parliament a friend of Government, he thought himself 
 fairly entitled to the mark of favour which had been 
 originally promised. This is the statement which Lord 
 Landaff has made of the manner in which he understood 
 what passed at the time ; but it is evident that Lord 
 Cornwallis either did not consider himself as engaged to 
 his Lordship, or conceived himself entirely released from 
 the engagement, if any had been made. Lord Landaff 
 added, however, that he by no means wishes to found a 
 claim upon what had passed at that time ; but expressly 
 desires it to be considered as a new application, and hopes 
 that it may be favourably represented for his Majesty's 
 consideration." 
 
 The Earl of Landaff 's desire was not gratified. Both 
 Pelham, the Home Secretary, and Addington, the Prime 
 Minister, were against the promotion, as it was not a Union 
 engagement.* * * * 
 
 * The earldom of Landaff has been long extinct. Thomas- 
 town Castle, the home of the Mathews, and the birthplace of the 
 Apostle of Temperance, Father Mathew, is now in a state of ruin. 
 In the eighteenth centur^"^ it was said to be the most magnificent 
 
198 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 But the Earl of Landaff was not the only disappointed 
 seeker of a step upwards in the Peerage. There was John 
 Denis Browne, Marquis of Sligo, of Westport House, 
 Westport. He was Earl of Altamont in the Irish Parlia- 
 ment, and for his services to the Union was created 
 Marquis of Sligo, in the notorious twenty-two promotions 
 to higher grades in the Irish Peerage which were gazetted 
 in December, 1800. He was also made a representative 
 Irish peer in the House of Lords of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment. But he thought he also deserved to be included 
 in the Union Peerages of the United Kingdom — six of 
 which had been created — and, indeed, he was led to expect 
 the distinction by Addington, Prime Minister, at the next 
 creation. Great, then, was his chagrin on finding that in 
 July, 1802, two Peerages of the United Kingdom were 
 created — one of which was Lord Sheffield, of the Irish 
 Peerage, made Baron Sheffield of Sheffield — and that he 
 had been passed over. These creations, it is necessary to 
 say, had no relation whatever to the Union. But I will 
 let Sligo tell his own story. Writing to Hardwicke on 
 August 2, 1802, he says : 
 
 " Considering upon the L^nion of these countries that 
 my family from their situation might look to a permanent 
 seat in the House of Peers of the United Kingdom, I 
 waited on Mr. Addington as soon as I was sent over as an 
 Irish representative peer. I stated to him my situation in 
 this Kingdom. That six out of seven of the Marquises 
 above me in the Peerage had received that mark of dis- 
 tinction, and that it had also been conferred on the only 
 one that was my junior in it. That my fortune here was 
 equal to any of those who had been so distinguished, and 
 the prospects of my son in both countries considerably 
 beyond them all. Under the circumstances I was induced 
 to make the request ; and Mr. Addington having expressed 
 
 residence in Ireland. One of its lords had peculiar ideas. On 
 the arrival of his guests apartments were assigned to them, and 
 each guest was told that he was to regard his apartments as his 
 own house during his stay. Mathew himself was rarely seen, 
 and he never allowed himself to be thanked. A fully-equipped 
 tavern was fitted up in the Castle for those whose tastes lay in 
 that direction. Dean Swift was a guest of this remarkable host. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF SLIGO'S DISAPPOINTMENT 199 
 
 himself as favourably as possible to my pretensions, I 
 had very little doubt of succeeding in the attainment 
 of them. 
 
 " Had it been an object to have added insult to degrada- 
 tion and disappointment, I submit to your Excellency if 
 it could have been offered more pointedly than by choosing 
 those who were to receive what was withheld from me 
 from the lowest ranks of the Irish Peerage, persons who 
 had no situation in Ireland, and who had not even aided 
 in that measure as I had done, without which the dignity 
 of a Peer of the United Kingdom could not have been 
 conferred on anyone." 
 
 Hardwicke wrote in reply one of his characteristic 
 mollifying letters. He poured abundance of oil on the 
 wounded vanity of Sligo. Here is his Excellency's letter : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " igth August, 1802. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 ' ' I was desirous before I acknowledged your obliging 
 letter of the 2nd inst. to learn distinctly from Mr. Wick- 
 ham what has passed upon the subject, concerning which 
 you had conversed with Mr. Addington, and which is, 
 of course, highly interesting to your Lordship. I under- 
 stand from Mr. Wickham that the two Peerages to which 
 your Lordship refers were conferred in consequence of 
 promises of some standing, and that whatever difficulty 
 exists with regard to claims which, as in the instance of 
 your Lordship, are upon many grounds entitled to atten- 
 tion, arises from an unwillingness to make new engage- 
 ments for the Peerage after the great increase which it has 
 received of late years. 
 
 " I think it impossible that any prejudice can have 
 arisen which could alter a determination already taken, 
 and that the reason which Mr. Wickham has assigned is 
 the true and only explanation of what has struck your 
 Lordship in consequence of the late creations. I have 
 communicated generally to Mr. Addington what your 
 Lordship stated in your last letter. I have not heard 
 from him since he has received my letter ; but I trust 
 that what Mr. Wickham has written to you will do away 
 with every idea of anything having been taken up to 
 your Lordship's prejudice." 
 
2CX) DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 Sligo, acknowledging this letter, says : 
 
 " The pains yon are so good to take to reconcile to my 
 mind the severest disappointment I have ever met with, 
 I shall always hold in my remembrance ; and in whatever 
 situation I may stand I trust you will do me the justice 
 to consider me among those that you may entirely com- 
 mand and dispose of. 
 
 " Not being in the habit of much intercourse with states- 
 men, I can easily imagine that I might be led to give 
 weight to professions which they were not meant to con- 
 vey, and I should blame myself under that impression 
 if my interest in the object had led me to a conclusion in 
 which I was not justified. The interview I had the honour 
 of having with Mr. Addington was at his own desire, after 
 my object had been named to him by my brother, and I 
 can hardly persuade myself that on such an occasion 
 expressions could have been used to me little, if at all, 
 short of direct engagements, if it was known at the time 
 to the person using them that an insurmountable objec- 
 tion existed to that request being complied with. It is 
 so inconsistent with the honour, candour and fairness of 
 Mr. Addington's general conduct and character, that I 
 should have attributed the change of sentiment to any- 
 thing rather than to him if any part of my conduct since 
 had admitted of two interpretations, either in or out of 
 Parliament. Your Excellency may know what the one 
 has been, though I am sorry by report only ; and the 
 Secretary of State has done me the honour to acknowledge 
 the other on more than one occasion. 
 
 " As to me, I am of small importance, and I am quite 
 aware of it. Neither shall my claims or my expectations 
 be again speedily troublesome ; but if there be anything 
 like a general principle to unite; the hearts and minds of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, by keeping one in a state of 
 inferiority, by despising and rejecting the highest of our 
 birth, rank, and fortune, and ^ving priority without any 
 other claim than not being resident with us, I am afraid 
 it will not be found to answer, and I lament it exceedingly. 
 It will hurt me in a still sorer point than my pride, if it 
 takes from the strength of the Empire."* 
 
 * * * 
 
 * In February, 1806, Sligo's ambition was realized. He was 
 created Baron Monteagle of Westport in the Peerage of the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
THE NAPIER FAMILY 201 
 
 Even membership of the Irish Privy Council was re- 
 stricted solely to those who had engagements from the 
 Government for services in the cause of the Union. 
 There was the Hon. Colonel George Napier, an old and 
 valuable civil servant, Comptroller of the Army Accounts. 
 Besides, he was the son of a Scottish peer, and his wife 
 was Lady Sarah Lennox, a daughter of the ducal house 
 of Richmond (thus descended on the wrong side from 
 Charles IL), whom George IIL in his young days was most 
 anxious to marry, whose sisters were the Duchess of 
 Leinster (mother of Lord Edward FitzGerald) and Lady 
 Holland (mother of Charles James Fox) and Lady Louisa 
 ConoUy, wife of Mr. Conolly of Castletown, known as 
 " the great Irish Commoner," who figures herself as Lady 
 Sarah Napier in the exciting annals of the Rebellion of 
 1798, and who became the mother of those two famous 
 British soldiers. Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of 
 Scinde, and Sir William Napier, the author of the " His- 
 toiyof the War in the Peninsula." The Lord Lieutenant 
 informed Colonel Napier that in recognition of his services 
 to the State he proposed to recommend him for the Irish 
 Privy Council, and Colonel Napier accepted the distinc- 
 tion with gratitude. The nomination was forwarded for 
 sanction to Whitehall. It was rejected by his Majesty's 
 confidential advisers, on the ground that all such honours 
 must be confined to those who had claims on the Govern- 
 ment for services rendered during the Union crisis. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant was angry. He told Napier the 
 reason why his appointment to the Privy Council had 
 been refused by the Ministers. Napier was filled with 
 wrath at the news. He wrote an indignant letter to the 
 Lord Lieutenant. What, he asked, did the action of 
 the Ministers amount to ? As if they had said bluntly, 
 " We will confer the honour of Privy Councillor on those 
 political traffickers who supported Government on inter- 
 ested principles, but we cannot agree to your Excellency's 
 recommendation of a man of birth, character, and honour- 
 able services for that mark of his sovereign's approba- 
 tion." 
 
202 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 And this was his return for thirty-five years of faithful 
 services to the State ! He goes on : 
 
 " My Lord, I conceive there are occasions when a man, 
 without the imputation of egotism, may be permitted to 
 hazard a few words respecting himself, and I trust your 
 Excellency will admit that I am at present in a predica- 
 ment which justifies my availing myself of this license. 
 You will, therefore, allow me to observe that the son of 
 a peer, connected by birth or marriage with a considerable 
 part of the ancient nobility in both countries, could derive 
 no additional honour from mere association with the Irish 
 Privy Council ; and, in fact, had I been disposed to re- 
 ceive that distinction under ' a questionable shape,' or 
 had my friends been sufficiently venal to propose terms 
 when the dearest interests of this country were materially 
 implicated, I probably should not have to lament the 
 mortification of being compelled to consider myself as the 
 proximate cause of your Excellency proposing any measure 
 relative to Ireland which did not command that prompt 
 attention your exalted station, character, and Govern- 
 ment have a right to claim. But even those considera- 
 tions render this return to your Excellency's kind atten- 
 tion more ungracious, for surely those services must 
 be of slight importance which, sustained by such respect- 
 able testimony, are not esteemed worthy of a distinction 
 that may be bestowed without danger to the public safety, 
 or burthen to the public Purse, and which has hitherto 
 been granted without demur on every and any Chief 
 Governor's nomination. 
 
 " Respecting my own individual pretensions, I appeal 
 to your Excellency as a competent judge, and on incon- 
 trovertible evidence, that wheresoever the King's service 
 or the public interest have been implicated, I have neither 
 shunned the labour nor shrunk from the responsibility 
 and odium attaching to the extra official exertions pro- 
 posed to me by the Government of this country ; and I 
 feel it a duty I owe to myself to support the assertion by 
 requesting your Excellency will recollect the circum- 
 stance of my having been required to undertake a 
 laborious, confidential, and (what is still less pleasant) an 
 invidious task, totally abstracted from the duties of my 
 office, but importantly connected with the public interest. 
 I allude to that investigation of the conduct and practice 
 of the Board of Works, respecting the expenditure of 
 
SIR GEORGE SHEE 203 
 
 money confided to their disposal, in which most disagree- 
 able and troublesome undertaking I was associated with 
 two Privy Councillors— the principal Commissioner, 
 whose official character became the subject of discussion, 
 being himself a member of that body— and had I not on 
 this occasion expected that a similar distinction would 
 have been proposed to me, I probably should have com- 
 phed with the customs of this country by stipulating for 
 the reward before I undertook the service." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Sir George Shee was another official of the Irish Ad- 
 ministration.* He, too, desired a seat in the Privy 
 Council, and as his name appears in the List of Union 
 Engagements, of course his wish was gratified. The 
 following correspondence in reference to his claim took 
 place between Hardwicke and Cornwallis : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " September 14th, 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " A claim having been made by Sir Geo. Shee 
 since his succession to the office of Receiver-General, 
 which he considers as a part of his engagement delivered 
 to me by your Lordship, I am under the necessity of 
 troubling you for a short explanation of it, according 
 to the fair understanding of it at the time. 
 
 " The entry opposite Sir George Shee's name in the 
 List of Civil Engagements is 'To be Paymaster of the 
 
 * " Sir George Shee was, we have seen, among the most active 
 and most loyal of the Irish magistrates, and he was one of the 
 few members of his class who were strongly in favour of the 
 Union. He was intimate with Pelham, and on the first day of 
 1799 he wrote to him that he was never more certain of any 
 truth in his life than that a Union would be advantageous to 
 Ireland, and highly so to the Empire at large, but he could not 
 shut his eyes to the fact that the opposition to it was becoming 
 more formidable every day, and he could not subscribe to the 
 doctrine that the measure must be carried at all hazards. . . . 
 If the measure, he continued, ' cannot be carried in the majority 
 of the counties and towns, and all parties in general continue to 
 decline expressing approbation of it, I really think that a moment 
 should not be lost in reUnquishing it for the present, and by that 
 means quieting the ferment it has caused.' These words appear 
 to me to bear the stamp of true statesmanship, but the Govern- 
 ment had firmly resolved to flinch from no obstacle." — Lecky : 
 " Ireland in the Eighteenth Centurv'." 
 
204 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 Forces and of the Privy Council. If the appointment 
 shonld not take place to succeed to Sir Henry Cavendish 
 as Receiver-General.' Soon after your Lordship left 
 Ireland, Sir George resigned his office of Secretary to the 
 Treasury in order to accept the appointment of Under- 
 Secretary of State to Lord Pelhani, and to secure him 
 against the danger of losing his engagement, as far as 
 possible, I obtained for him a reversionary grant 'of Sir 
 Henry Cavendish's ofhce. L"^pon Sir Henry's death he came 
 over to Ireland in order to take possession of the office, and, 
 notwithstanding some regulations which it was always 
 intended to make in the office respecting fees and balances, 
 appeared to be well satisfied with the appointment. 
 
 " Within these few days, however, he has brought 
 forward a claim to be appointed a Privy Councillor, as 
 part of the engagement, and alleges that he had at all 
 events a promise to that effect. I certainly understood 
 from Lord Castlereagh, and it appears from the memo- 
 randum of which I send you a copy, that the Privy Council 
 was a part of the engagement only in case it had been 
 satisfied by the appointment of Paymaster of the Forces, 
 by way of giving dignity to a new office. But as it 
 has not been thought right to create such an office, I 
 have alwa3^s thought that Sir G. Shee's engagement has 
 been satisfied by the other alternative, viz., the office 
 of Receiver-General. 
 
 " If \^our Lordship sufficiently recollects the circum- 
 stances of the transaction, amongst so many of a similar 
 description, I shall be much obliged to you for a com- 
 munication of your opinion ; because I am not willing, 
 unless it should be necessary for the sake of preserving 
 the good faith of your Lordship's Government, to expose 
 myself to the embarrassment of so many other applica- 
 tions, as the appointment of Sir George Shee to be a 
 Privy Councillor would unavoidabl}' produce." 
 
 Comwallis's reply is as follows : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " CULFORD, 
 
 " September 2gth, 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " It is not without some difficulty that I can 
 attempt to give an answer that may be considered in any 
 degree satisfactory to your letter, dated the 14th instant, 
 ha\'ing had less personal concern in the engagement 
 with Sir George Shee than in almost any other which 
 
CORNWALLIS SAYS THE UNION HAD FEW FRIENDS 205 
 
 took place during the agitation of the Union question, 
 as the negotiation with that gentleman was entirely 
 carried on through Lord Castlereagh. 
 
 Sir George was not in a situation, nor, to do him 
 justice, was he disposed, to dictate terms, as many 
 others did, from which circumstance the agreement was 
 probably more loosely worded. I well recollect, however, 
 that the Privy Council was coupled with the office of 
 Paymaster-General. It seems that this was not expressed 
 in terms in case the engagement was to be satisfied 
 by the office of Receiver-General. Looking, however, to 
 the spirit of the transaction, I doubt, after his having 
 been disappointed of the higher office of Paymaster- 
 General, and taken that of Receiver-General with a dimi- 
 nution of its former emoluments, whether it would not 
 be consonant to the liberal proceeding which Government 
 has observed in the performance of the Union engage- 
 ments, that the Privy Council should still be given to 
 Sir George (provided there is no unfitness in a Receiver- 
 General being a Privy Councillor), especially if the 
 income of that office does not exceed that which he 
 enjoyed as Secretary of the Treasury, as that gentleman 
 would otherwise be, perhaps, the only one of our active and 
 zealous supporters on whom no mark of favour would 
 have been conferred, either in honours or emoluments. 
 
 " I feel it fairly due to Sir George to state from the 
 reports of those who acted most confidentially under 
 my Administration, during the agitation of the Union 
 question, that he served us with unqualified zeal, and 
 that he really did a great deal of good by his activity 
 in a cause which had few sincere friends. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, with very sincere esteem 
 and regard, my dear Lord, your most obedient and 
 faithful servant, 
 
 " CORNWALLIS," 
 
 A few days later came another letter to the Lord 
 Lieutenant from Cornwallis : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " CULFORD, 
 
 " Oct. 2nd, 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " Since I have had the honor of transmitting to 
 you my answer to your letter respecting the claim of 
 Sir George Shee to a seat in the Privy Council of Ireland, 
 Lord Castlereagh has sent me a letter which he has 
 
2o6 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 received from Sir George, in which the latter asserts 
 that Lord Castlereagh wrote to him from London, at 
 the time when the creation of the office of Paymaster 
 in Ireland was relinquished, to inform him that he was 
 to have the reversion of the Receiver-General's place, 
 together with the appointment to the Privy Council, 
 and his Lordship further informs me that as he has no 
 copy of the letter he cannot answer with precision for 
 the contents, but that he must suppose Sir George to 
 be correct in stating that when he notified to Sir George 
 that the creation of the office of Paymaster-General 
 was not to take place, he (Lord Castlereagh) expressed 
 himself in such a manner as would justify Sir George in 
 taking it for granted that the succession to the Council 
 was not to be affected by his having only the reversion 
 of Sir Henry Cavendish's office, instead of the Pay- 
 mastership in immediate possession. 
 
 " I am very sorry, my dear Lord, to have been obliged 
 to give you so much trouble on this subject, and beg 
 leave to assure you that I have the honor to be, with very 
 sincere regard, your most obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 " CORNVl^ALLIS." 
 * * * 
 
 It is interesting to discover that in 1805 both Lord 
 Gosford and his son were agreed that the time was 
 come when they might accept the earldom offered in 
 1800, in the sure conviction that, after such a lapse of 
 time, it would not be suspected of being a Union peerage. 
 Pitt was Prime Minister now, and Hawkesbury was 
 Home Secretary. Hawkesbury wrote to Hardwicke in 
 September, 1805, that as Pitt understood Viscount 
 Gosford was desirous of an advance in the Irish Peerage 
 he hoped his Excellency would forward an official letter 
 to be laid before the King recommending the Viscount 
 for an earldom. " I understand," adds the Home Secre- 
 tary, " his son is very anxious respecting it, and that it will 
 probably determine his political line." Gosford accord- 
 ingly was created an earl, and no doubt the support of his 
 son. Colonel Acheson, a member of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment, was in consequence secured by the Government. 
 
 * * * 
 
"CHAS. DUBLIN," ARCHBISHOP AGAR 207 
 
 In the same year there was another advance in the 
 Irish Peerage, as a reward for services to the Union, 
 though the case does not appear in the official List of 
 Union Engagements. Hawkesbury, writing from White- 
 hall, November 14, 1805, to Hardwicke, says : " I have 
 had an appHcation from Templetown for a step in the 
 Peerage which was offered to him at the time of the 
 Union by Lord Cornwallis, but was at the time refused 
 by him. He afterwards, in consequence of a change in 
 circumstances, altered his mind, and Lord Sidmouth 
 promised him he should be included in the first promo- 
 tions. I have spoken to Mr. Pitt on the subject, and 
 he has not the least objection to it. I should be obligejd 
 to you, therefore, if you would have the goodness to 
 recommend him for a Viscountcy." Accordingly, Baron 
 Ijempletown was created Viscount Templetown in 1806 
 fori his vote for the Union. 
 J* 
 
 4: 4c * 
 
 " Chas. Dublin," Archbishop Agar, again comes on 
 the scene. He was an Irish peer as well as an Irish 
 prelate. Raised to the Irish Peerage in 1795 as Baron 
 Somerton, he was promoted Viscount Somerton iu 
 December, 1800, for his services to the Union. In 
 February, 1805, he wrote to the Lord Lieutenant that he 
 desired to be created Earl of Normanton. Why his Grace 
 desired this promotion in the Peerage. is engagingly set 
 out in the following interesting letter written by his wife, 
 Countess Somerton, to " my dear Mr. Marsden," the 
 Under-Secretary at the Castle, who sent it on to the 
 Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " There is nothing that the Archbishop and I have so 
 near at heart as the adorning our dear son, now on his 
 travels, with a little feather to make him more present- 
 able, etc., etc., wherever he goes. On the Continent 
 Rank is inestimable, and even at home it is no small 
 addition to a young man whom, in our partiality, we 
 think wants nothing else to recommend him partout ; 
 having the advantages of the best education, the first 
 alliances, and possessing all fortune's goods, if an income 
 
20S DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 of ten thousand per annum can be so considered, and 
 which his father would leave him to-morrow. 
 
 " In short, this dear son's advantage is an object 
 with us deservedly precious. And no one acquainted 
 with the world can be ignorant of the value that is put 
 upon Rank, both in foreign countries and in one's own. 
 Since, then, this is indisputable, we naturally wish to 
 compass this for him, but which cannot be had in any 
 other wa}^ than by that of his father's advancing a step 
 in the Peerage. A step, certainly, of no use or conse- 
 quence to the A.B. himself, who is a flight of stairs above 
 it in his own person already, and it is hoped that this 
 favor would be the least embarrassing to Government 
 of any that cou'd be ask'd by his Grace, especially as 
 he happens to be so peculiarly and fortunately circum- 
 stanced as to have a claim to that favor beyond others." 
 
 A year later, in February, 1806, his Grace was created 
 
 Earl of Normanton, and his son got the courtesy title of 
 
 lord. 
 
 * * * 
 
 In October, 1804, a Ribbon of the Order of St. Patrick 
 fell to the Government by the death of the Duke of 
 Leinster, brother of Lord Edward FitzGerald, the leader 
 of the United Irishmen. The Duke, it is interesting to 
 note, was one of the few peers who opposed the Union. 
 An exciting contest for the Ribbon took place between 
 two noted champions of the Union — the Earl of Roden and 
 the Marquis of Waterford. Roden had been very early 
 in the field. So long before as July i, 1801, he wrote 
 to Hardwicke : 
 
 " From the various kind expressions Lord Cornwallis 
 was so good to make use of towards me, and his wishes 
 to show his regard for my general character, and (he was 
 pleased to say) military services during the late unfortu- 
 nate Rebellion in Ireland, on the death of the Lord 
 Marquess of Waterford I stated to Lord Cornwallis that 
 if he thought any military services of mine had been of 
 use, and that he had the disposal of the Ribbon then 
 vacant, on that ground I should be proud to receive it 
 from his hands. He wrote to me a very handsome letter 
 
KNIGHTHOOD OF THE ORDER OF ST. PATRICK 209 
 
 on tlie subject, and said I should certainly have had it 
 had it not been promised to Lord Conyngham. Though 
 there is none at present vacant, it might happen that one 
 would fall during your Excellency's residence in Ireland. 
 If that should be the case, I might flatter myself with the 
 hop(^s of succeeding to it." 
 
 Hardwicke, as usual, returned a most gracious reply. 
 He told Roden how he had written to Addington, the 
 Prime Minister, of his desire to become a Knight of the 
 Order of St. Patrick, and how he had expressed the 
 opinion " that his lordship's loyal and spirited services 
 during the Rebellion " entitled his claim to a favourable 
 consideration in the event of a vacancy. 
 
 " Your Lordship will be aware," his Excellency added, 
 with characteristic caution, " that it would be improper 
 for me at present to make an engagement without being 
 perfectly certain that it would be in my power to fulfil 
 it when the vacancy occurred. But I must beg you at 
 the same time to be persuaded that I am very sensible 
 of the justice of your claims, arising from your useful 
 services and example at a most critical period." 
 
 In October, 1804, as I have said, there was a Ribbon 
 of the Order of St. Patrick at the disposal of the Govern- 
 ment. Roden lost no time in again putting his pretensions 
 before the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 Hardwicke accordingly sent Roden the following letter, 
 dated November 8, 1804 : 
 
 " Your Lordship is aware that I cannot commit myself 
 upon a subject of this nature without a full communica- 
 tion with the King's Ministers ; nor am I at present able 
 to communicate to you what is likely to be the result of 
 the present vacancy. So far, however, I may venture to 
 assure your Lordship, that there is as much disposition 
 to admit your pretensions to this distinction in the present, 
 as in the late. Administration. Of the claims which have 
 been brought forward upon the present occasion there is 
 only one which appears to be prior in point of time to 
 your Lordship's, or, in my opinion, equal to it upon the 
 other grounds on which such Honours are generally claimed 
 or conferred. I will write to your Lordship again, as soon 
 
 14 
 
210 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 ;is I iiin onablod to say anything more precise, or am 
 justilied in giving yon a fnller explanation upon the 
 subject." 
 
 Writing from Toll3'more Park, on November lo, 1804, 
 Koden thus repHed : 
 
 " I trust your Excellency will have the goodness to 
 pardon a very lew observations which are only meant as 
 a statement of my claim for the Feather in question. I 
 have not the smallest doubt the one mention'd by your 
 Excellency to have a prior claim, in point of time, has 
 much more pretension on the grounds that such Honours 
 are generally claimed and conferr'd. I am certain that 
 his pretensions must be much superior to mine, as I can 
 never have deser\ed to claim any merit from any exertion 
 I have made, ha\ing nlerel3^ as I conceived, endeavoured 
 to do my dut\'. 
 
 " But I beg your Excellency will please to recollect that 
 the ground I had for troubling you originally on the subject 
 was Lord Coniwallis. soon after an end was put to the un- 
 fortunate disturbances in Ireland, having told me, on my 
 application for the Ribbon vacant by the death of Lord 
 Waterford, had it not been given by Lord Conyngham 
 he should have been happy to have given it to me. My 
 onh' wish to have got it then was in a military point of 
 view for my service I had perform'd with the Regiment 
 of Dragoons I then had the honor to command, to which 
 service Lord Comwallis had been an eye-witness. 
 
 " Subsequent to the conversation I had the honor of 
 having with your Excellency, Mr. Wickham sent to me in 
 London to let me know that His Majesty's Ministers were 
 vety happy in promising to comply with my former 
 request, namely, that I should have the first vacant 
 Ribbon of the Irish Order, which, coming from such 
 authority (considering him as acting as Secretary to the 
 Irish Government), I certainly conceived as conclusive, 
 and ever since did consider it in that hght. I am very 
 much flatter'd by your Excellency's assurance of the 
 same kind disposition of the present Administration to 
 admit my pretensions as the last, and have merely stated 
 mv case as it actually stands, which I consider my dut}^ 
 to do merely in my own justification for troubling your 
 Excellency on the subject. 
 
 •• \Miatever may be the determination of His Majesty's 
 
THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD K LORD RODEN 211 
 
 Ministers with respect to me, I can in no instance alter 
 the very sincere respect, attachment and high regard 
 with which I have the honor to be your Excellency's 
 obedient, faithful, humble servant, 
 
 " RODEN." 
 
 ♦ * * 
 
 Addington was no longer Prime Minister. The second 
 Pitt Administration was now in power. Therefore Hard- 
 wickc wrote a long letter to Hawkesbury, the new Home 
 Secretary, informing him of the early application of 
 Lord Roden for the next Ribbon, and of the favourable 
 disposition of Addington towards his pretension. He 
 adds : 
 
 " My opinion is that there is no peer in Ireland who has 
 fairer pretensions than Lord Roden to such a distinction, 
 or which would be more generally acknowledged. In- 
 deed, there is but one person whose claim from Rank and 
 Property ought to stand in competition with him : I 
 mean the Marquis of Waterford. I have not, however, 
 heard that he has wished it at present, but if he should 
 niake an application, and should press his claim the more 
 on account of the disappointment he has experienced 
 from the delays which have unavoidably taken place in 
 his brother's, Lord John Beresford's, promotion to the 
 Bench, I think Lord Roden might be prevailed upon to 
 postpone his claim to some future opportunity, as he has 
 another object of great importance to his family, con- 
 cerning which he is very anxious. The other object to 
 which I refer and which Lord Roden has lately repeated 
 in a letter is the advancement of his brother, Mr. Percy 
 Jocelyn, to the Episcopal Bench. I have told Lord 
 Roden that I would take an early opportunity of communi- 
 cating with His Majesty's Ministers upon the subject of 
 his application, but that I could not commit myself to 
 anything further at present." 
 
 The new Administration received the recommendation 
 of the Lord Lieutenant rather coldly. As a matter of 
 fact, the Marquis of Waterford had applied to Pitt for 
 the Ribbon. He mentioned that his father, who died in 
 1800, was a Knight of the Order of St. Patrick, and that 
 on deUvering the insignia of his father to Cornwallis, while 
 
 14 — 2 
 
 t. 
 
212 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 admitting that he could not then succeed to the Ribbon, 
 he had put in a claim to have his pretension allowed at 
 the earliest opportunity.* Pitt was disposed to regard the 
 claim with favour. Besides, Hawkesbury pointed out 
 to Hardwicke, the Prime Minister was of opinion that 
 nothing that had occurred with respect to Lord Roden 
 in 1 80 1 amounted to an engagement for the next vacant 
 Ribbon. Hawkesbury, in the same letter, also adminis- 
 ters the following rap on the knuckles to the Viceroy : 
 
 " I very much wish you would avoid giving Lord Roden 
 any engagement with respect to his brother succeeding 
 to the Episcopal Bench without further communication, 
 as I am of opinion that very great inconvenience may 
 arise from the Government being committed too deeply 
 with regard to engagements of this nature, and that 
 the Church Establishment of Ireland deserves every 
 attention that can possibly be paid to it." 
 
 Before this letter from the Home Secretary reached 
 the Lord Lieutenant, Lord John Beresford, Dean of 
 Clogher, and brother of the Marquis of Waterford, called 
 at the Castle to advance his title to a Bishopric — the 
 stopy' of which I have already told — and in the course 
 of the interview Hardwicke asked him to ascertain his 
 brother's sentiments with respect to the vacant Ribbon. 
 Accordingly, Lord John wrote to the Marquis on the 
 
 * The Archbishop of Dublin claimed, as Chancellor of the 
 Order of St. Patrick, the collars of the deceased knights. On 
 the death of the Duke of Leinster he demanded the Duke's 
 collar, which had been deposited with the Registrar of the Order, 
 and sent to the Viceroy, in support of his claim, the following 
 letter from " Francis Townsend, Windsor Herald," dated 
 " Heralds' College, 17th Nov., 1804." 
 
 *' Dear Sir, 
 
 " The Collar of a deceased Knight of the Garter has ever 
 been considered as the perquisite of the Chancellor of the Order, 
 and I find nothing in the statutes of St. Patrick repugnant to 
 the idea that the Chancellor of that Order should be entitled to 
 the same privilege ; but I never understood that any other parts 
 of the Insignia, except the Collar, were claimed as perquisites. 
 The Ribbon and Badge of the Garter are always restored to the 
 sovereign. The application for the Collar is made to the family 
 of the deceased." 
 
WATERFORD'S SUSPICIONS 213 
 
 subject, and sent the reply to the Lord Lieutenant. It 
 will be noticed that Waterford seems to have suspected 
 a design on the part of Hardwicke to supersede, by 
 the offer of the Ribbon of St. Patrick, the claim of his 
 brother to a seat on the Episcopal Bench : 
 
 " London, 
 " Nov. 1 2th, 1804. 
 
 " My dear John, 
 
 " I have just received your letter communicating 
 what passed at your audience with Lord Hardwicke. 
 The desire his Excellency obligingly expressed to know 
 what my wishes were on the subject of the vacant Irish 
 Ribband, marks that kindness on his part which is 
 extremely flattering. 
 
 " What I feel, however, with respect to the Irish Order 
 of Honor is that I should not make it an object of much 
 solicitation. If ever his Majesty thought proper to 
 select me as one of his Nobility to be invested with that 
 Order, I am ready to accept it most gratefully, and 
 given as a proof of my sovereign's esteem for my attach- 
 ment and fidelity I should receive it as conferring a very 
 distinguished favor. 
 
 " But neither this nor any other object shall for one 
 moment interfere with that which I have so much at 
 heart, your establishment in the northern Bishopric of 
 Raphoe, which from what passed between Pitt and me 
 (in whose word I have every confidence) I must rest 
 assured of. It is of too much importance to have you 
 well established so near my Derry property to embarrass 
 this engagement by any other personal consideration or 
 request of my own. 
 
 " Believe me, yours very affectionately, 
 
 ^ 4t * " Waterford." 
 
 Months dragged on, and Pitt could not — or, having 
 more important matters to consider, would not — make 
 up his mind as to the rival claims of Roden and Water- 
 ford for the Ribbon. The impatient Roden wrote as 
 follows to the Lord Lieutenant in February, 1805 : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I lament extremely trespassing on your Excel- 
 lency's time on a subject which, from being fully stated 
 before, I am distressed to renew, but considering all the 
 
214 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 circumstances it is impossible for me not to request 
 once more your kind attention on a business in which 
 my own feelings are so much concern'd. 
 
 " Having some time since troubled your Excellency 
 respecting the vacant Ribbon in the Irish Order, I did 
 not conceive that His Majesty's Ministers would have 
 delayed to fulfil a claim made upon so honourable, and, 
 I conceived, so positive a promise. So long a period 
 of time having elapsed since the communication took 
 place, I feel myself absolutely called upon (with all 
 possible respect) to request an answer, one way or the 
 other, on the subject. Why Mr. Wickham's promise 
 to me has not been performed I cannot say ; but the 
 object in question can never, in any possible degree, 
 be brought into competition with my having (from the 
 circumstances) consider' d myself authorized publickly 
 to declare the offer having been made ; which declaration, 
 not having been confirm'd, must put me in a most un- 
 pleasant point of view with friends who have ever con- 
 sider'd my declarations founded on honourable fact. 
 
 " I entreat your Excellency will excuse this intrusion, 
 and beg to assure you what I have said or done in this 
 business can, in no possible degree, be attached to you, 
 for whom I have a most high respect, and, if you will 
 allow me to say, a sincere regard. 
 
 Hardwicke, in his reply, dated February 12, 1805, 
 laments that it is not yet in his power to return a decisive 
 answer on the subject, and goes on to write : 
 
 " If Mr. Wickham* had authority from Mr. Addington 
 to assure your Lordship that the wish which you had 
 expressed, and which I had conveyed to the King's 
 Ministers, would be complied with upon the first oppor- 
 tunity which would occur, there can be no doubt of your 
 right to claim the performance of what you considered 
 as a promise, and which, if so understood, the present 
 Administration would, I am sure, have no disposition to 
 controvert. In stating this to your Lordship I trust 
 you will consider me as wishing that the matter may be 
 brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and that you 
 should, at all events, receive an early answer. 
 
 " The only memorandum I find in Mr. Wickham's 
 
 * Wickham had long since resigned the Chief Secretaryship. 
 
HARDWICKE'S EFFORTS FOR RODEN 215 
 
 books, of which I am in possession, is dated April 26, 
 1802, and states that in answer to a. letter received from 
 you about that time he had informed you that the 
 contents of your letter should be communicated to Mr; 
 Addington and me. The communication to which 
 your Lordship refers must have been of a very different 
 description, and I shall be glad to know whether it was 
 by letter or verbal ; because if you consider it as a dis- 
 tinct promise it stands upon a different footing from that 
 of being considered as an application to which no other 
 answer had been given than that which I had been myself 
 authorized to convey, though it showed every disposition 
 to consider the claim in the most favourable manner," 
 
 * * * 
 
 A year passed, and Pitt died on January 23, 1806, 
 leaving the question unsettled, like several others of 
 greater political moment in which he was more deeply 
 concerned. His Administration came to an end with his 
 death. But before they quitted office they decided that 
 the Ribbon should be bestowed on the Marquis of Water- 
 ford. Hardwicke was ~ annoyed by the decision. He 
 considered himself committed to Lord Roden ; and in 
 any case he naturally thought that his recommendation 
 as Viceroy ought to have been accepted. His anger was 
 further inflamed by the following curt note from Waterf ord 
 — who was aware of the Viceroy's efforts in the interest of 
 Roden — to the Under-Secretary, Alexander Marsden : 
 
 " CURRAGHMORE, 
 
 " February igth, 1806. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " It having been some time ago signified to me from 
 England that his Majesty has been graciously pleased 
 (without any solicitation on my part) to name me to fill 
 the present vacancy in the Order of St. Patrick, I am, 
 therefore, to request that you will have the goodness 
 to apply to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant to know 
 when it will be convenient to his Excellency to invest me 
 with that honor." 
 
 Hardwicke sat down on February 26, 1806 — while he 
 was awaiting the arrival of his successor, the Duke of 
 Bedford, Viceroy of the new Whig Administration — and 
 
2i6 DISTRIBUTION OF TITLES AND DIGNITIES 
 
 wrote a long letter, " private and confidential," on the 
 subject to Earl Spencer, the new Home Secretary. Here 
 is an extract from it : 
 
 " I feel it is necessary to inform your Lordship of a 
 circumstance which has occurred, and which places me 
 in some degree of difficulty in respect to the course which 
 I ought to take, and as it is possible you may not be 
 acquainted with it I am desirous of stating the case to 
 your Lordship, not considering it proper at this period to 
 decide upon a point of this nature without a full communi- 
 cation. 
 
 " On the 3rd instant I received an official letter from 
 Lord Hawkesbury, dated the 25th of January, conveying 
 to me his Majesty's pleasure that I would invest the Mar- 
 quess of Waterford with the Insignia of the Order of 
 St. Patrick, in which there has been a vacancy since the 
 death of the Duke of Leinster. I received at the same 
 time a private letter dated the 30th of January ex- 
 plaining the grounds on which the official letter was sent. 
 The same conveyance also brought a letter from Lord 
 Hawkesbury to the Marquess of Waterford, which was 
 forwarded to him on the 3rd instant, and which he must 
 have received on the following day. Had Lord Water- 
 ford been in Dublin, or had he come up on receipt of the 
 letter, I should have felt myself called upon to have acted 
 upon Lord Hawkesbury's letter ; but as three weeks had 
 elapsed before I received any communication from Lord 
 Waterford (though strictly speaking I might still be 
 justified in acting upon the letter of the 31st ulto.) I do 
 not choose to take such a step without apprising your 
 Lordship of the circumstances, and requesting you to 
 communicate to me your sentiments, as well as those of 
 Lord Grenville, upon this subject. 
 
 " I think it right to explain to your Lordship that this 
 Ribbon remained so long undisposed of in consequence 
 of Mr. Pitt not having determined between the claims 
 of Lord Roden and Lord Waterford, the former of whom 
 made an application for it on the first vacancy, in the year 
 1801, and which was communicated to Lord Hawkesbury 
 in a private letter, after the death of the Duke of Leinster 
 in 1804." 
 
 " I enclose," he says in a P.S., " copies of the letters to 
 which I have referred for your Lordship's information." 
 
WATERFORD GETS THE RIBBON 217 
 
 His Excellency was most anxious to have the Ribbon — 
 now almost round the shoulders of the Marquis of Water- 
 ford — transferred to the Earl of Roden. But he met 
 with a very decided rebuff. Says Spencer in reply : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I am much obliged to your Excellency for your 
 letter of the 26th ulto., marked ' private and confidential,' 
 in relation to the Marquess of Waterford being invested 
 with the Order of St. Patrick. As that measure was com- 
 pletely determined upon by the late Administration, and 
 the authority was given to your Excellency by my prede- 
 cessor in office some days before I had the honour to re- 
 ceive the Seals, I apprehend there can be no doubt of 
 the propriety of your Excellency carrying the directions 
 contained in Lord Hawkesbury's letter of the 25th of 
 January into execution, and on this occasion I beg leave 
 to take the liberty of desiring that your Excellency 
 would have the goodness to signify to the Marquess of 
 Waterford that though neither myself nor any of my 
 colleagues in office can, under the circumstances of the 
 case, claim any merit with him for a share in advising his 
 Majesty to confer this honour on his Lordship, we are, 
 nevertheless, anxious that he should do us the justice to 
 believe that we have great satisfaction in seeing it so 
 properly conferred." 
 
 Waterford had triumphed. The last letter on the 
 subject in the Viceroy's Post-bag is a brief note from the 
 Marquis, written from his Dublin residence, Tyrone 
 House, March 12, 1806, informing the Lord Lieutenant 
 of his arrival in town, and asking at what hour the next 
 day it would be convenient for his Excellency to invest 
 him with the Ribbon of the Order of St. Patrick. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 On the eve of the session of 1799, in which the question 
 of the Union was first brought up in the Irish ParUament, 
 Comwallis, the Lord Lieutenant, wrote to his friend, 
 General Ross, in London : 
 
 " The demands of our friends rise in proportion to the 
 appearances of strength on the other side ; and you, who 
 know how I detest a job, will be sensible of the difficulty 
 which I must often have to keep my temper." 
 
 The Earl of Hardwicke was a phlegmatic and most 
 courteous person, unlike the blustering soldier, Com- 
 wallis ; but even he must have found it exceedingly 
 hard to restrain himself often during the liquidation of 
 these Union engagements which his predecessor flung 
 about so lavishly and left him to discharge. I have 
 already given examples of the complaints and upbraidings 
 of persons included in the List of Engagements because 
 of the time they were kept waiting for their promised 
 rewards. But more poignant still are the wails of those 
 who were left out in the cold, who, though they supported 
 the Union for a price, were by some mischance excluded 
 from the official List of Engagements. 
 
 For instance, there was Mr. James Knox, Ranger of 
 the Curragh of Kildare, concerning whom I find the 
 following amusing entries in the Lord Lieutenant's 
 audience book for 1801 : 
 
 " June 9. — Mr. James Knox states the positive promise 
 of Lord Comwallis that he should be appointed a Com- 
 missioner of Revenue on giving up his present office. 
 The engagement as he states was on the idea of a vacancy 
 
 2l8 
 
MR. JAMES KNOX, RANGER OF THE CURRAGH 219 
 
 by Mr. Beresford or Sir Henry Langrish. Told him I 
 did not recollect his name, but I expected a correct copy 
 of the Engagements from England in a few days. N.B. — 
 Mr. Marsden says that Mr. Knox states the promise to 
 have been made somewhere after dinner, which, however, 
 Lord Comwallis denied." 
 
 " June 23. — Mr. James Knox again repeats his state- 
 ment of June 9th of a positive promise from Lord Corn- 
 wallis that he should be a Commissioner of the Revenue, 
 or that his present place of Ranger of the Curragh 
 should be made equal, by something in addition, to £800 
 per annum. Replied that he was not on the List, and 
 recommended him to write to Lord Cornwallis on the 
 subject. N.B. — Col. Littlehales has apprised Lord Corn- 
 wallis of Mr. K.'s intention." 
 
 " July 10. — Mr. James Knox, for the 3rd time, em- 
 ployed forty minutes in going through the old stoFy of 
 Lord Cornwallis's promise to give him a better place than 
 that of Ranger of the Curragh. Was much dissatisfied 
 with the extract Col. Littlehales had sent him of Lord 
 Cornwallis's letter, which, he said, amounted to a general 
 promise of something better, though nothing specific 
 was mentioned. That Lord Comwallis told him he should 
 be upon his List of Engagements. Pressed me over and 
 over again to promise something better after all the 
 engagements were fulfilled. I positively refused to 
 amend the List of Engagements, which I could not do 
 without involving myself unpleasantly with those who 
 were the objects of them ; and as to making any promise 
 of my own, I positively declined it as often as he pressed 
 it, but in civil terms, and would give him no advice as to 
 writing again to Lord Comwallis." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant adds the following note to the 
 entry, in big, sprawling characters : 
 
 f' The Lord deliver me from Mr. James Knox, Ranger 
 of t^ Curragh of Kildare ! ! ! !" 
 
 * * :tc 
 
 Again, here is a letter from a man who had been a 
 member of the Irish ParHament, Hugh Dillon Massey, 
 of Doonass, co. Limerick, dated December 2, 1801 : 
 
 " A near relation of mine, who is quite unprnvided for, 
 was my first object in the Administration of my Lord 
 
220 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 Cornwallis, and his Excellency was pleased to say, from 
 the decided and disinterested support that I gave to the 
 Union question, that I had strong claims upon their 
 Administration. My object was to have obtained a 
 pension upon the Irish Establishment of three hundred 
 pounds per annum for the life of my relation ; and upon 
 my soUciting this favour from my Lord Cornwallis, he 
 said that the Pension List was so limited, and that he 
 had so many reduced families at that time to provide for, 
 that he requested I would not then press it. For this 
 assertion I beg leave to refer your Excellency to Lord 
 Cornwallis. 
 
 "I am, my Lord, well aware that the Pension List 
 is equally limited in your Excellency's hands as it was 
 in my Lord Comwallis's, and as I feel that I have no sort 
 of claim to your Excellency's favour, it is with the greatest 
 deference that I now beg leave to solicit only one hundred 
 and fifty pounds per annum for my relation, instead of 
 the three hundred pounds which I had every reason to 
 expect, and which I have no doubt but I should have 
 obtained had I been in Ireland on the recall of your 
 Excellency's predecessor. 
 
 " I by no means presume to press my request until it 
 shall be perfectly at your Excellency's convenience ; 
 but if I may be flattered with a hope of obtaining this 
 object, at as early a period as circumstances will admit, 
 it will lay me under an everlasting obligation to your 
 Excellency and to your Administration." 
 
 " The present state of the Irish Pension List," says 
 the Lord Lieutenant, in the course of his reply, " and 
 the engagements of the late Government to which it is 
 liable, will, unfortunately, preclude me from paying 
 that attention to your request in favour of your relation, 
 even on the most limited scale, to which I have no doubt 
 he would be entitled from the circumstances to which 
 you refer." 
 
 " Request !" It was the word that Massey himself 
 had used ; but the adoption of it by the Viceroy annoyed 
 him. He wrote again to Hardwicke, insisting that his 
 apphcation must be regarded as " a claim founded upon 
 the most unequivocal assurance from Lord Cornwallis." 
 " I have no doubt," he adds, " that although hurry 
 
THE CLAIM OF HUGH DILLON MASSEY 221 
 
 of business at his departure may have occasioned 
 his omitting to include his engagement to me on the 
 List handed over to your Excellency, yet upon any 
 reference to him he will be most ready to verify what I 
 have asserted, and will recollect, upon his mentioning 
 the weight of engagements that must follow the measure 
 of the Union, my ready acquiescence in giving up one-half 
 of the provision, which I solicited for my relation, of 
 three hundred pounds a year." There was another 
 thing of which he was certain with regard to Lord Corn- 
 wallis. " The recollection of the disinterested and firm 
 support which I gave to his Lordship's Administration 
 (as a county member) upon that important question of 
 the Union will remain so strongly impressed upon his 
 mind as to lead him to do strict justice upon an appeal 
 through your Excellency to him." Massey himself 
 wrote to Cornwallis, reminding him of his application, and 
 asking him to " set the matter right with Lord Hard- 
 wicke." " I am well satisfied," he says, " that your 
 Lordship's representation of the facts to your successor 
 will lead to an immediate compliance with an object 
 which was at all times most material to me, and which 
 I flatter myself my zealous and disinterested support 
 will appear to have merited." 
 
 Cornwallis at this time was in the old French city of 
 Amiens negotiating, as plenipotentiary of Great Britain, 
 the famous Peace of Amiens, signed in March, 1802, 
 which brought to an end the war between England on 
 one side, and France, Spain, and Holland on the other. 
 Writing to Alexander Marsden, Under-Secretary for Ire- 
 land, on January 9, 1802, he says : " I am leading a 
 miserable hfe in this wretched town of Amiens, where I 
 am not only plagued to death, but am Hkely to be very 
 long detained by the low and ungentlemanhke chicanery 
 of my opponents." Then he goes on, in the same C5mical 
 vein, to deal with the claim of Hugh Dillon Massey : 
 
 " I enclose a copy of a letter which I have received from 
 your ' friend ' Massey, claiming a pension of £150 a year 
 for his cousin as a reward for his ' disinterested support 
 
222 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 of the Union.' I have, at present, no recollection of this 
 business, but as I was in the constant habit of taking 
 memorandums of all applications (which were either 
 granted or remained for consideration) as soon as they 
 were made, and of giving them the next morning to 
 Littlehales, I should imagine that if I gave anything 
 like an assurance to Massey it must be somewhere forth- 
 coming. As Littlehales has flown about very much 
 lately I have troubled you with an account of this business 
 from the certainty that you would be found upon your 
 station. If either you or he can throw any light upon 
 this businesis I shall be much obliged to you." 
 
 Whether Marsden was able to throw any light upon 
 the affair the Viceroy's Post-bag does not disclose. But 
 Hugh Dillon Massey failed to obtain the pension of 
 £300 or even of ;^I50, which he desired for his cousin. 
 
 ♦ * * 
 
 Here is a document in the handwriting of Lord Hard- 
 wicke, dated October 10, 1802, and entitled " Substance 
 of a Conversation with Lord Glandore," in which the 
 curious story of another Union disappointment is set 
 forth. 
 
 The Earl of Glandore (John Crosbie, of Ardfert, co. 
 Kerrj') tells the \^iceroy that his relative, Colonel Crosbie, 
 one of the members for Kerry, was opposed to the Union 
 when the question was first introduced in the Irish 
 House of Commons. Glandore, himself a supporter of 
 the measure, received a communication from the Govern- 
 ment urging him to try to induce Colonel Crosbie to take 
 the proper view of the matter. Accordingly, he had an 
 interview with Crosbie, and Crosbie consented to vote 
 for the Union on receiving an undertaking from Glandore 
 that if the Government did not reward him with an 
 office or pension he should resign in his favour the com- 
 mand of the Kerry Militia.* After the Union had been 
 
 * "At one of those large convivial parties which distinguished 
 the table of Major Hobart when he was Secretary in Ireland, 
 amongst the usual loyal toasts, ' The wooden walls of England ' 
 being given. Sir John Hamilton, in his turn, gave ' The wooden 
 walls of Ireland ' ! This toast being quite new to us all, he was 
 
CURIOUS STORY OF THE KERRY MILITIA 223 
 
 carried Glandore went to Comwallis, related what had 
 passed between him and Crosbie, and requested that he 
 should be relieved of his undertaking by some provision 
 being made for Crosbie by the Government. But Com- 
 wallis told him he was too late. He should have come 
 before the Act was passed. Now that the Union was 
 carried the Government could not possibly add to the 
 long list of engagements they had been obliged to enter 
 into in order to effect their purpose. Glandore was 
 asked why he had not applied sooner. " In answer to 
 this question," he observed, writes Hardwicke, " that 
 he did not like to make a bargain when a great measure 
 was pending, but now that it was passed he hoped 
 the services he had rendered would not be overlooked or 
 forgotten." He bitterly regretted the engagement which 
 he had, he says, " giddily and rashly " entered into with 
 Crosbie. He had raised the Kerry Militia ; he had 
 appointed its officers ; he had led it in the " campaign 
 of '98," and it would break his heart if he had to resign 
 its command. He appealed over and over again to 
 Comwallis to do something for Crosbie, but nothing could 
 be done, and so he had to give up the Colonelcy of the 
 Kerry Militia to Crosbie. Now, two years after these 
 events, he comes with the story of his wrongs to Hard- 
 wicke in the hope that he may be righted. The Viceroy 
 says : , c 
 
 " It appears from the correspondence which Lord 
 Glandore communicated to me that his first letter to the 
 Lord Lieutenant was dated September i, 1800. Lord 
 Comwallis, in answer to this letter, states the impossi- 
 bility of finding anything for Colonel Crosbie, which 
 could operate as an inducement to him to relinquish the 
 claim he had upon Lord Glandore for his resignation, and 
 regrets it in strong terms, calling himself, in one of the 
 
 asked for an explanation. Upon which, filling a bumper, he 
 very gravely stood up, and bowing to the Marquis of Wateriord 
 and several other country gentlemen who commanded county 
 regiments, he said : ' My lords and gentlemen, I have the pleasure 
 of giving you " The wooden walls of Ireland " — the colonels of 
 militia f " — Barrington : "Personal Recollections of his Own 
 Times." 
 
224 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 letters, ' a Ministerial Bankrupt,' and speaking of the 
 necessity of adhering to all his engagements for the sake 
 of his own honour. Several other letters passed between 
 the Lord Lieutenant and Lord Glandore, who seems to 
 have been extremely anxious to retain his regiment ; and 
 when at last he sent Colonel Crosbie a letter to be 
 delivered to the Lord Lieutenant expressive of his unwill- 
 ingness to delay any longer Col. Crosbie's appointment, 
 it was accompanied by a letter to Col. Crosbie which 
 marks in strong terms his reluctance to give up the 
 regiment, and desiring him, if in his conversation with 
 Lord Cornwallis he could make any impression, or open 
 any prospect, not to deliver it. 
 
 " To this letter, dated March 6, 1801, Col. Crosbie 
 wrote an answer in which he complains of Lord Glan- 
 dore's conduct as rather unkind, and adds that nothing 
 but pecuniary engagements into which he had entered 
 in the expectation of Lord Glandore's resignation would 
 have induced him to accept the appointment, so much 
 against his Lordship's wishes ; that he was so desirous 
 of accommodating Lord Glandore that he would even 
 have accepted of a ' Blackguard Pension ' for Mrs. 
 Crosbie, if it could have been had. This refers to an 
 application Glandore had made for a pension of £300 
 per annum for Mrs. Crosbie."* 
 
 The proposition Lord Glandore now made to Hard- 
 wicke, so that the Kerry Militia might be restored to 
 him, was that either a civil office should be found for 
 Crosbie, or that the regiment should be divided into two 
 battalions, and that he should have the command of the 
 first. Hardwicke goes on : 
 
 " In respect to his first proposition, I told him that 
 with every disposition to promote his views, the engage- 
 ments of the Government, to which I was executor, still 
 precluded me from making any arrangement for Colonel 
 Crosbie. That, however, I could safely say that, con- 
 sidering aU that had passed, his own wishes so strongly 
 expressed, and Colonel Crosbie's assurance, I thought 
 his Lordship entitled to expect that if Colonel Crosbie 
 
 * These pensions to ladies, of which there were, at the time, 
 several on the Irish Establishment, were supposed to have been 
 given for services that are not regarded as political. 
 
THE HUMILIATION OF LORD GLANDORE 225 
 
 should obtain any situation from Government his resign- 
 ing the Kerry Mihtia to Lord Glandore should be proposed 
 to him as a condition. That I saw no early prospect of it, 
 but thought it right to say that Colonel Crosbie had spoken 
 to me upon the subject of some consideration for himself. 
 " Lord Glandore observed that though Col. Crosbie 
 was now a distressed man, he was heir to an estate of 
 ;^3,ooo per annum, on the death of a gentleman eighty 
 years of age, and that he thought there would be no 
 difficulty in procuring for him the title of Baronet. Lord 
 Glandore then spoke of his own services : his moving the 
 Address on the Union, etc., etc., and -stated that since 
 the year 1790 he had received no favour whatever from 
 Government." 
 
 Glandore's desire to return to the command of his 
 beloved Kerry Militia was not gratified. No place could 
 be found for Crosbie, as the Union engagements had the 
 first claim on the Lord Lieutenant. About six months 
 later I find him writing to Hardwicke on the subject of 
 a fresh grievance. He was what was then called governor 
 of the county of Kerry. In May, 1803, the Irish Execu- 
 tive decided to divide the office, and, of all men in the 
 county. Colonel Crosbie was selected for the joint position. 
 Glandore protested that never again during the Adminis- 
 tration of Hardwicke would he trouble himself to forward 
 the interests of the Government in Kerry. " After the 
 sacrifice of my command of the Kerry Mihtia," he saj^s, 
 " I might have been saved this humiliation." To this 
 angry letter the Lord Lieutenant returned the following 
 civil reply : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " 20th May, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I cannot help feeling particularly hurt at your 
 Lordship's letter of the 20th ulto., which was delivered 
 to me on Tuesday the 17th inst. by the Knight of Kerry. 
 T am perfectly unconscious of any intention to offend your 
 Lordship by the appointment of Colonel Crosbie of the 
 Kerry Regiment of Militia to be a Governor of the County 
 of Kerry, and am, therefore, much concerned that your 
 Lordship should assign that appointment as a reason for 
 your determination to decline any further concern in 
 
 15 
 
226 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 the management of the interest of His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment in that county during the time I shall continue at 
 the head of it. 
 
 " Whether I shall be successful or not in convincing 
 your Lordship that no personal disrespect could possibly 
 be intended towards you in appointing Colonel Crosbie 
 to be a Governor of the County of Kerry, I am by no 
 means certain ; but it is very far from being indifferent 
 to me whether I am successful or not in this attempt, 
 because I can assure your Lordship with perfect truth 
 that I am much concerned at the manner in which you 
 have considered it, and at the determination you have 
 expressed. At all events, I most explicitly declare to 
 your Lordship that the measure of appointing those 
 Colonels of Militia who were not already Governors of 
 Counties to that situation was intended solely to facilitate 
 the execution of the Militia Laws ; and it can never be 
 supposed that a general measure which was adopted for 
 the publick service at a very critical period, when I was 
 called upon to raise the Militia with as little delay as 
 possible, could for a moment have been construed into a 
 ground of offence by any individual. 
 
 " When your Lordship communicated to me the cir- 
 cumstances which led to your resignation of the Kerry 
 Regiment, and your wish to be restored to it, I endea- 
 voured to explain the difficulty of accomplishing your 
 wishes upon that subject. I should not, however, be 
 the less gratified in finding the means of restoring your 
 Lordship to the situation you resigned by the injustice 
 which your Lordship has done me in imputing to me what 
 I certainly have never felt, a want of respect and atten- 
 tion for your Lordship, and a disposition to add to the 
 mortification you have felt from your resignation of the 
 Kerry Regiment." 
 
 The subsequent development of the affair is described 
 in the following letter from William Wickham, Chief 
 Secretary, to Lord Glandore, and Glandore's reply : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " 28/A January, 1804. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I have laid before his Excellency your letter 
 to Sir E. B. Littlehales,* of the 9th instant, informing him 
 that you had received a packet from the Tralee post-office, 
 
 ♦ The Military Under-Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
GLA"NDORE WITHDRAWS FROM PUBLIC LIFE 227 
 
 addressed to the Governor and deputy Governor of the 
 County of Kerry, and that your Lordship had imme- 
 diately transmitted it unopened to Colonel Crosbie ; and 
 observing that it would save both time and trouble to 
 address the Lord Lieutenant's commands relating to the 
 business of the County of Kerry, immediately and in the 
 first instance to that gentleman, as your Lordship must 
 adhere to the resolution made upon the occasion of his 
 Excellency having thought proper to appoint Colonel 
 Crosbie to be a joint Governor of the County of Kerry, 
 not to act while that Commission existed ; and that your 
 Lordship had explained to his Excellency your motive 
 for the line of conduct which you felt obliged to adopt. 
 
 " I am desired to inform your Lordship that his Ex- 
 cellency had flattered himself that the answer which he 
 wrote to your Lordship's letter of last spring, explaining 
 the grounds upon which Colonel Crosbie was appointed 
 a Governor of the County of Kerry, in common with 
 every other Colonel of Militia in Ireland who was not 
 previously a Governor, had been perfectly satisfactory to 
 your Lordship, and had done away, as it was his Ex- 
 cellency's wish to do, and as his Excellency conceives 
 that it might have done, anj^ idea that the smallest slight 
 or disrespect had been intended towards your Lordship. 
 His Excellency is, therefore, much concerned that your 
 Lordship should still entertain a feeling which cannot, in 
 fairness and candour, be considered as warranted by his 
 conduct towards you ; and regrets still more that at a 
 moment which calls for the exertion and aid of every 
 individual, your Lordship should on your return to Ire- 
 land take a step which must be considered as a resigna- 
 tion of your situation as Governor of the County of Kerry, 
 in which your exertions have been so useful on former 
 occasions, and where no one is better entitled or better 
 qualified to hold the situation. 
 
 " His Excellency, therefore, desires me to say that, 
 from motives of respect and regard to your Lordship, he 
 will postpone accepting your resignation till he is dis- 
 tinctly assured that your Lordship, in these times, has 
 really determined, for the reasons you set forth, to decline 
 all the duties that belong to the situation." 
 
 Glandore's reply is dated " Ardfert Abbey, Wednesday, 
 8th February, 1804." He says that the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant's letter had entirely removed from his mind any 
 
 15—2 
 
228 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 feeling that a personal incivility to him was intended in 
 the appointment of Colonel Crosbie to be joint Governor 
 of Kerry. But he held that such an appointment was 
 altogether unnecessary, as the Militia Act provided for 
 the absence of the Governor of a county in all cases. He 
 goes on : 
 
 " Another circumstance which has its weight with me 
 is the figure I must exhibit in the face of my county, 
 joined with an associate where I was accustomed to take 
 the lead and to preside alone. Much of my influence in 
 the county is of a personal nature, and lies, in a great 
 degree, in the southern and remote parts of the county, 
 where I have no property, and amongst gentlemen who 
 are as independent as I am. If I lessen myself in the 
 eyes of my countymen I lose my use with their esteem ; 
 and if I degrade myself I cannot serve my King. This 
 consideration I need not press upon a nobleman remark- 
 ably attached to his county honors, and who will natur- 
 ally feel for a man of equal rank with himself. 
 
 " If this county has been heretofore exempted from 
 the embarrassment of having a number of Governors 
 appointed for it, it may be owing to this cause, amongst 
 others, that it has come forward with such effect at every 
 important crisis from the time when it was the first 
 county in Ireland to express its reprobation of the armed 
 Convention of 1783, down to the period of the Union, 
 when it declared in favour of that great measure. 
 
 " From a thorough conviction that the office of a 
 Governor of the County does not permit of participation, 
 and that the duties of it cannot be discharged with a 
 divided authority, I think I consult the public service, as 
 well as my own honor, by retiring, conscious that in doing 
 so I cannot incur the reproach of a derehction of my duty, 
 but that I am compelled to take that step from the 
 peculiar circumstances in which I am placed." 
 
 In the List of Union Engagements — "Civil " section — 
 will be found the case of George Browne, who was pro- 
 mised a permanent employment of the value of £400 a 
 year, and was recommended by Denis Browne, member 
 
THE CASE OF GEORGE BROWNE 229 
 
 for Mayo.* " Not done " is the Lord Lieutenant's note 
 to the engagement. Why the engagement was not per- 
 formed is related in the following letter from Hardwicke 
 to the Marquis of Sligo, the qousin of George Browne : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " February 27th, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " In consequence of your Lordship's letter of the 
 2ist inst. reminding me of the engagement to Mr. George 
 Browne, which I had received from Lord Cornwallis, I 
 desired Mr. Marsden to offer him the two places of Customer 
 of Waterford and Ross, the first being £250 per annum, 
 besides a salary of £15 on the Civil List, and the second 
 amounting in fees to about ;^5o, with a salary also of £15 
 per annum, making together about £330 per annum. 
 This is the account which appears on the books of the 
 office ; but as the fees appear to be increasing, and as the 
 offices are perfectly sinecure, and require no residence or 
 attendance in any particular place, I conceive they are 
 well worth the acceptance of a gentleman who has an 
 engagement for four hundred pounds per annum, on the 
 expiration of his present employment of Commissioner 
 for Suffering Loyalists. Mr. Browne, however, has de- 
 
 * Wolfe Tone, in his " Memoirs," writing on October i, 1792, 
 refers to a consultation with John Keogh, the leader of the Dublin 
 Catholics in the movement for emancipation, as to their plan for 
 holding in Dublin of a Catholic convention representing the entire 
 nation : " Has had a letter from Myles Keon requiring somebody 
 of the Committee to go to Ballinasloe to meet the Catholic gentry 
 of Mayo and Galway. Denis Browne playing tricks in the 
 former county. Recommends a separate petition, and condemns 
 the plan. He is damned kind ! Wishes, if he could, to act the 
 patron to the Catholics that he might make a sale of 3,000,000 
 of clients at the Castle. A blockhead without parts or principles ! 
 But it won't do. The Catholics here smoke him. Last winter 
 they used to stare at me for speaking contemptuously of him, 
 a man who was brother to a Lord and a Member of Parliament. 
 They have got over all that now. Wonderful improvement in 
 their sentiments." On October 26, 1792, Tone writes : " Denis 
 Browne has been playing the rascal in Mayo. Procured a 
 meeting on the i6th, and knocked up our plan by securing the 
 measure of a separate petition from that county. Damn him ! 
 Yet he talks of his love for the cause, etc. The Catholics were 
 in a horrible rage. More and more losing their respect for the 
 brothers of Lords and Members of Parliament. " 
 
230 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 clined the offer, which I am sorry for ; first, because there 
 is great reason to beheve the two places exceed in value 
 the amount at which they stand in the office books ; and, 
 secondly, because it is, of course, uncertain how soon it 
 may be in my power to propose another situatioli for his 
 acceptance.'* 
 
 Sligo, replying from London, March 5, 1803, says : 
 
 " When your Excellency takes into consideration that 
 George Browne's promise of provision is of full ten years' 
 standing, which I am ready to prove to you, and that it 
 preceded every agreement made by Lord Cornwallis, I 
 hope you won't think him unreasonable and unwarrant- 
 able in being disappointed at an offer considerably inferior 
 at what he was led to expect, after waiting the perfect 
 convenience of Government for its fulfilment. It is, 
 however, his own act, and whatever his opinions are, if 
 expressed in any manner of disrespect, I beg to be en- 
 tirely separated from any concern whatever in them. I 
 believe that your Excellency will find that of the 
 employments offer'd to Mr. Browne there must be a 
 deduction of sixty pounds for a deputy, which leaves him 
 somewhat short of ;^200 a year for his life, without a pros- 
 pect of raising — a situation not so comfortable as imme- 
 diately to reconcile the mind of a man of very moderate 
 expectations from some share of disappointment. Had 
 it been your Excellency's convenience to have named 
 him to Crosbie's place, an arrangement might have been 
 made between him and my brother-in-law, John Mahon, 
 that would have given much happiness to the family.* 
 
 Evidently there was disappointment also among the 
 Irish Members of Parliament, for Lord Shgo goes on to 
 write : 
 
 " The Irish here murmur in private a good deal ; their 
 situations are not comfortable ; they consider them- 
 seh'es not taken notice of. Party men blow the coals — 
 
 * It was this sinecure of Customer of Waterford and Ross 
 which ultimately fell to Donellan, brother-in-law of Lord Fingall 
 (See " The Catholics and the Union.") The post which George 
 Browne desired, the sinecure of the Weighmastership of Cork, at 
 ^600 a year — vacant through the death of Crosbie — was given to 
 Sir Vere Hunt in satisfaction of his Union engagement. (See 
 " The Scramble for Place.") 
 
SIR RICHARD MUSGRAVE 231 
 
 I have seen it going forward — and ere it is long be assured 
 they will be a troublesome set to manage." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Still another disappointed supporter of the Union was 
 Sir Richard Musgrave, Bart., the well-known author of 
 " The History of the Rebelhon of 1798." For a quarter 
 of a century he was a prominent member of the Irish 
 Parliament, noted for his fanatic prejudice against his 
 Catholic fellow-countrymen. He was an out-and-out 
 supporter of the Union, and got his reward from Lord 
 Cornwallis in the post of the CoUectorship of Dublin ; 
 but he looked upon the office as a very inadequate return 
 for his services. Accordingly, he laid his grievance 
 before Hardwicke : 
 
 " I take the liberty of addressing your Excellency on 
 the subject of the Memorial, of which I had the honour 
 of presenting you a copy. I sat twenty-five years in the 
 Irish Parliament, and I can appeal to Mr. Hamilton, the 
 predecessor of Mr. Cooke, whether I did not during that 
 period display the most ardent zeal in serving the Crown, 
 particularly as a country gentleman, in consequence of 
 which the Government had such confidence in me that 
 they called upon me at different times to fill the office of 
 Sheriff in the County of Waterford ; but particularly in 
 the year 1786, a most perilous season, when the insurrec- 
 tion and disturbances of the Rightboys, a Popish banditti, 
 as alarming as those of the Whiteboys, their predecessors, 
 or of the Defenders, who succeeded them. I was so for- 
 tunate as to gain the approbation of Administration, 
 having restored peace and social order without the loss 
 of a single life.* 
 
 * " Whilst he was High Sheriff for the County of Waterford 
 an old man was sentenced to be whipped at the cart's tail for 
 some political offence, when, the executioner not being in readi- 
 ness, the High Sheriff — a Baronet and Member of Parliament — 
 took up the cat-o'-nine-tails, ordered the cart to move on slowly, 
 and operated himself with admirable expertness, but much 
 greater severity than the hangman would have used ! Thus 
 did he proceed to whip the old man through the streets of the 
 city, and when the extreme point was reached, and he was 
 scarcely able to lift his arm, he publicly regretted he had not a 
 little further to go." — Barrington : "Personal Sketches and 
 Recollections of his Own Times," 
 
232 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 " In the years 1794 and 1795 I wrote and published 
 some pamphlets in London in support of the Constitu- 
 tion against Republican principles, and to evince the 
 policy and necessity of the War, and they met the public 
 approbation, which appears by the Reviews, particularly 
 the Monthly of May, 1795. In the years 1797 and 1798, 
 I wrote more in the publick prints against treason and 
 sedition than any individual in Ireland, under the well- 
 known signature of Camillus, and my essays were so 
 much approved of in London that the Editor of the Sun 
 reprinted some of them. For my attack on two dis- 
 tinguished personages, who promoted rebellion in Ireland, 
 I take the liberty of referring your Excellency to the 
 Dublin Journal of June 23rd and July 12th, 1798, which 
 are to be seen in the Castle. 
 
 " The Duke of Portland, whose friendship and esteem 
 I have enjoyed all my life, informed me that my services 
 should be amply requited, and his Grace recommended 
 me to Lord Camden, who promised to give me an employ- 
 ment ; but the number of his engagements and his sudden 
 and unexpected departure from Ireland prevented him 
 from fulfilling his intentions, but he recommended me to 
 Lord Comwallis. 
 
 " To carry the Union it was necessary to dispense the 
 favours of the Crown in such a manner as to gain the venal, 
 to silence the factious, and to obtain the co-operation of 
 those who opposed it from selfish and sinister designs. As 
 my attachment to Government was well known, and as 
 I offered unconditionally to support the Union, I was, of 
 course, postponed in the list of expectants to those who 
 could bully and threaten and make a bargain beforehand, 
 which I abhorred. I obtained an employment with more 
 labour and responsibility and less emolument in propor- 
 tion than any under the Crown." 
 
 Musgrave goes on to say that his salary as Collector of 
 Dublin was £490 ; that he had an allowance of £130 for 
 the collection of hearth money, and another allowance 
 of £200 for two clerks, making a total of £820 a year. 
 But so heavy was the work of his office, owing to the in- 
 crease in new taxes, that he was obliged to employ four 
 clerks, to whom he paid /400, so that his salary amounted 
 only to £420. He further states that the Collector of 
 the County of Dublin had £1,500 ; that the Collector of the 
 
REV. THOMAS BROOKE CLARKE 233 
 
 Port of Dublin had £2,000 ; and that those officials had 
 Httle to do, and did it badly. Two years later, in De- 
 cember, 1804, Musgrave sent a fresh memorial to the 
 Lord Lieutenant, again claiming a better situation in 
 recognition of his services to the State, " particularly," 
 as he says, " since the dissemination of French principles 
 has threatened the subversion of our Constitution." 
 The business of Collector of Dublin had so much increased 
 of late, he says, that he never left his office without feeling 
 greatly fatigued. 
 
 " I am responsible for £600,000 a year," he goes on, 
 " every shilling of which I must pay out of my own 
 property if I do not collect and account for it ; and a 
 considerable part of the Revenue which I collect consists 
 of sums under five shillings. I recovered lately, by a 
 finesse, large sums of money which were due for malt 
 and wine in 1803, and which were considered as irre- 
 coverable." 
 
 Nothing further, however, was done for Sir Richard 
 
 Musgrave. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Even the Rev. Thomas Brooke Clarke, D.D., was left 
 among the disappointed. I am disposed to think that 
 Hardwicke entertained a contempt for him, despite, or 
 perhaps I should say because of, his fulsome protesta- 
 tions of attachment to the Lord Lieutenant, and his 
 offers of service on every occasion that afforded an 
 excuse for bringing himself under the notice of his Ex- 
 cellency. At any rate, Hardwicke sent him the following 
 cold acknowledgment of his last application — so far as 
 I can discover from the contents of the Viceroy's Post- 
 bag — for preferment in Ireland : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " 8th June, 1804. 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " If you had been acquainted with the real state 
 of the engagements by which I am unavoidably bound, 
 you would have been convinced of the impossibility of 
 my applying any of the preferments, which may become 
 
234 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 vacant by the succession to the see of Clonfert, in the 
 manner you would wish. In saying this, I wish you to 
 understand that I am in no degree surprised or hurt at 
 your having made the apphcation contained in your late 
 letters, but that the objects which you may have supposed 
 to be at liberty are, from circumstances, not properly 
 within my power." 
 
 Clarke, however, was still most warmly thankful, and 
 still his Excellency's most humble admirer. Here is his 
 letter : 
 
 " Alsop Buildings, Marylebone 
 
 "22 June, 1804. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " Accept my thanks for your Excellency's kind 
 letter, which is perfectly consonant with that goodness 
 so well known and esteemed by me during four-and- 
 twenty years. Certainly, the implicit confidence which 
 I placed in the reiterated promises of preferment made 
 to me by Mr. Dundas for services solicited by him on this 
 condition, and for the completion of which he repeatedly 
 pledged his own name and the name of Mr. Pitt, never 
 permitted me to suppose at the moment that to this com- 
 pact, formed with one of His Majesty's Ministers on the 
 public faith of Government, it was necessary to demand 
 a formal writing, whereby the Irish Government would 
 become bound, as a Party, to secure my preferment. 
 Consequently, as no such written engagement was handed 
 over to your Excellency, though you are not wholly with- 
 out knowledge of Mr. Dundas's arrangements with me, 
 nor of my services, for the better performance of which I 
 relinquished other occupations, on the solemn previous 
 assurances of Mr. Dundas that I should be amply re- 
 munerated, and have sustained a loss, notwithstanding, 
 of two years' income, which I have felt deeply, not only 
 in my fortune, but in what no fortune can compensate 
 for — my feelings. 
 
 " Yet, my Lord, I am devoid of every claim on the 
 Viceroy of Ireland. I therefore approached your Ex- 
 cellency lately on the sole ground of personal kindness, 
 and benevolent promises made to me, in case an oppor- 
 tunity should occur during your Viceroyalty. But I 
 really was not aware that the mortgages handed over 
 to you were of such an extent or nature as to embrace 
 the vacancies made by episcopal preferments during 
 
" HUMANITY MARTIN " 235 
 
 your Excellency's Government, or I certainly should not 
 have presumed to intrude myself on your remembrance, 
 whatever my anxiety might have been lest objects great 
 in number and moment should have concealed my little 
 concern from your Excellency's view. 
 
 " Be assured, my Lord, that my confidence in your 
 goodness is deeply rooted in a long knowledge of it, and 
 that I have the honor to be with high respect and faithful 
 attachment, your Excellency's obhged, sincere, and 
 humble servant, 
 
 "Thos. B. Clarke." 
 
 T» I* •!• 
 
 The famous Richard Martin of Ballinahinch, co. Gal- 
 way, " the animals' friend," makes a strange and unex- 
 pected appearance in the Viceroy's Post-bag. He was 
 one of the greatest of the Irish landlords, his estate of 
 200,000 acres extending — as he used to boast — thirty 
 miles from the door of his castle. A member of the Irish 
 House of Commons, he supported the Union, and con- 
 tinued to represent the county of Galway in the Imperial 
 Parliament until 1826. In the Parliamentary annals of 
 the first quarter of the nineteenth century he figures as 
 a whimsical member ; but in 1822 he carried the first 
 Act of Parliament " to prevent the cruel and improper 
 treatment of animals," an achievement that will ever 
 shed a halo round his name. " Humanity Martin " was 
 the title bestowed on him by George IV. He was one of 
 the founders of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals, at a meeting held at Slaughter's Coffee-House, 
 St. Martin's Lane, on June 24, 1824 ;* and his portrait 
 
 * "It was a thin meeting — that I recall ; but the Irish- 
 heartedness of Martin gave it warmth, fervour, and energy. 
 I do not believe there was another person present so sanguine 
 as to think that Parliament would ever be the protector of a 
 ' lower world.' Yet the advocates had not long to wait. It is 
 but a faint remembrance I have of the scene, but I can clearly 
 call to mind Dick uttering an oath, essentially Irish, ' That by 
 
 J he'd make 'em do it !' and somehow he did. Thus the wild, 
 
 energetic, heedless, and usually unreasoning Irishman is for this 
 act classed, and rightly so, among the benefactors of his country 
 and all other countries of the Old World and the New." — S. C. 
 Hall : " Recollections of a Long Life. " 
 
236 A CHArTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 hangs in the board-room of the society in Jermyn Street. 
 In the Viceroy's Post-bag Martin is conspicuous among 
 the sleepless hunters for places in return for services to 
 the cause of the Union. The truth is that, though he 
 was almost the feudal sovereign of Connemara, he was 
 ever in pecuniary difficulties. His estate, wide as it 
 was in extent, yielded him but little income, so heavily 
 was it mortgaged. 
 
 To begin with, here is a letter to the Viceroy from Lord 
 Dunlo — Martin's colleague in the representation of Gal- 
 way — complaining of Martin's conduct at a county 
 meeting to express, in an address to the King, its abhor- 
 rence and condemnation of the Emmet Insurrection of 
 1803: 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Galbally, 
 
 " August 14, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I think it my duty to inform your Excellency 
 that an address will be forwarded to you from a meeting 
 of the county of Galway, called for the purpose of address- 
 ing his Majesty on the late treasonable insurrection in 
 Dublin, and for the purpose of expressing the loyalty 
 of the inhabitants of the county, and their hearty co- 
 operation with Government against every enemy, foreign 
 and domestic. 
 
 " The result of this meeting was, however, somewhat 
 dissimilar to that projected. The address was, with the 
 exception of the last paragraph (marked in the enclosed 
 copy), proposed by my Lord Clonbrock, and with that 
 exception would have formed such an address as ought 
 to have been presented to his Majesty in the present 
 crisis.* Mr. Martin, my colleague, thought otherwise, 
 
 * The paragraph referred to, added to the address on the 
 motion of Mr. Martin, is as follows : " We beg leave to assure 
 your Majesty that it is the opinion of your faithful subjects that 
 the removal of every civil distinction arising from religious 
 difference of opinion between your Majesty's Catholic and other 
 subjects in this kingdom would materially tend to invigorate 
 every exertion of the loyal, and to defeat even the pretext of 
 the wicked to subvert our happy Constitution." It must be 
 mentioned that Martin supported every motion in favour of 
 Catholic Emancipation in the Imperial Parliament. 
 
MARTIN AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 237 
 
 and whether with a mistaken view of raising his own 
 popularity, or from some other cause which I confess 
 myself unable to divine, he has thought it necessary to 
 stir a question which, whatever may be the sentiment 
 of the individual, few men would wish to have agitated 
 at the present period. 
 
 " To the address, as originally framed, it was thought 
 that no dissenting voice could be found among the gentle- 
 men of the county ; but upon its proposal those who 
 were most anxious that a moment should not be lost in 
 those expressions of loyalty for which the times so im- 
 periously call were somewhat surprised at a motion 
 being made by a friend of Mr. Martin's that a committee 
 should be appointed to draw up an address, and con- 
 ceiving that something more than ordinarily disloyal had 
 given rise to a motion of this sort, in naming the com- 
 mittee they were only intent upon choosing those of 
 known attachment to our happy form of Government. 
 The majority of the persons chosen were of this descrip- 
 tion ; but not dreaming that any proposition could be 
 made foreign to the requisition, the majority was likewise 
 either Catholic, or too nearly so to be distinguished by 
 any other appellation. Mr. Martin's amendment to 
 the original address, moved by himself, was a matter of 
 absolute surprise ; and in consequence of the formation 
 of the committee was carried after much altercation ; 
 and as fighting such a battle at the meeting in so Catholic 
 a town as Galway could only tend immediately to dis- 
 turb, and among the rabble, privately convened for the 
 purpose of following the leader, would have been un- 
 attended with success, it was thought prudent to let 
 the matter pass in utter silence upon the report. The 
 representatives of the county are, therefore, to forward 
 the address ; and I have left my signature to a letter 
 for this purpose with Mr. Martin at Galway, in order that 
 the address may be conveyed to your Excellency for 
 the purpose of transmission. 
 
 " With respect to this county there is little to regret 
 in this procedure. Almost the whole of the respecta- 
 bility of the county are hostile to an addition to the 
 address which seems to propose a kind of condition for 
 their loyalty, and very many of the most wealthy and 
 respectable county gentlemen of the Catholic persuasion, 
 altho' at the time they gave a tacit assent to the propo- 
 
238 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 sition of Mr. Martin, have since much regretted their 
 not having withstood it to the utmost of their power. 
 The evil does not, then, exist as pecuharly affecting this 
 county, but it does exist in its probable effects upon 
 others. The thing to be apprehended is the bearing of 
 such an amendment upon other counties of Ireland, and 
 that in this moment of addresses to the Crown, neces- 
 sarily called forth from present circumstances, this our 
 address to his Majesty may furnish an example of dwellinv^ 
 upon the same point, and consequently calling forth 
 other counties, some of different sentiments, as strongly 
 to state their feelings, and by equal consequence foment- 
 ing those religious feuds which have too often proved a 
 curse to this island, and the existence of which can at no 
 time be more dangerous than at the present moment. 
 
 " Your Excellency will be pleased to give directions 
 that the official answer to the joint letter transmitting 
 the address may be directed to Mr. Martin and myself 
 at Galway." 
 
 Ten months later Hardwicke sent the following letter 
 
 to Sir Evan Nepean, the Chief Secretary, who was in 
 
 London at the time attending to his Parliamentary 
 
 duties : 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " June 17, 1804. 
 
 " Mv DEAR Sir, 
 
 " Mr. Martin, one of the members for the county 
 of Galway, who called upon me by appointment two or 
 three days ago, made a very long statement of grievances, 
 with a view to ascertaining upon what footing he was to 
 stand with the present Government, and whether his 
 support was thought to be worth having. After com- 
 plaining of the marked preference which had been shown 
 to his colleague. Lord Dunlo, and his family, he pro- 
 ceeded to state that before the Union Lord Castlereagh 
 proposed to him a place at the Revenue Board, and that 
 he had a positive promise of being placed there on the first 
 vacancy. That, however, from consideration of the 
 Government, and knowing how much they were pressed, 
 he waived his pretensions in favour of another person. 
 That he was afterwards appointed to the Board of 
 Accounts, Lord Castlereagh telling him that it was in 
 order that he might have a place tenable with Parlia- 
 
MARTIN AS A PLACE-HUNTER 239 
 
 ment, and that he should be afterwards removed to a seat 
 at the Revenue Board, 
 
 " He further stated that his present colleague, Lord 
 Dunlo, then Mr. Trench, was hostile to the Union, and 
 supported an address from the county of Galway against 
 the measure. Afterwards, when by the persuasion of 
 Lord Castlereagh, Lord Dunlo agreed to support the 
 Union, he found himself considerably embarrassed by 
 the pledge he had given to the county, and by the line 
 he had taken, and that without his, Mr. Martin's, assist- 
 ance he could not have been at liberty to support the 
 Union. Mr. Martin then stated that, notwithstanding 
 what had passed before, he procured an address at a 
 meeting of the county of Galway in favour of the Union, 
 which justified Mr. Trench in changing his opinion and 
 in voting for the measure. 
 
 ' ' The first disappointment he met with was being obliged 
 to quit his office without obtaining another tenable 
 with a seat in Parliament. It was true that he had been 
 permitted to recommend a successor who had given him 
 £4,000 for it. But he has certainly been refused every- 
 thing he asked, amongst other things, a place for Mr. 
 Coney — either an Assistant Barrister's place or a Com- 
 missionership of Appeals — notwithstanding what he 
 considers a promise from Mr. Abbot ; that upon this 
 point he had received an answer from Mr. Wickham 
 which he considered as more than uncivil; a seat at 
 the Linen Board, the County Regiment, which is to be 
 perpetuated in one family; and, in short, whilst his 
 colleague and his family have been loaded with favors, 
 he is put in the " poussiere " by him — as he expressed it-- 
 and slighted by the Government. 
 
 " I endeavoured to convince Mr. Martin that it was 
 not owing to any unwillingness to oblige him that he 
 had not been gratified in the particular objects he had 
 mentioned. In the first place, the place at the Board 
 of Accounts was not tenable with a seat in Parliament, 
 under the Act which passed after the Union, and the 
 best was done for him that could be done under the cir- 
 cumstances of the case. With respect to the Linen 
 Board, there had been engagements which prevented his 
 appointment ; and as to the Regiment, I thought Lord 
 Dunlo had a strong claim to it. 
 
 *' When he said that he wished to travel on with the 
 Government and to support it, I said that I was glad to 
 
240 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 hear it, for that I rather apprehended from his adding to the 
 county of Galway address to the King last August a para- 
 graph upon a subject which, it had not then been wished 
 to bring forward, it had been conceived he had intended 
 to oppose the Government. He defended this by saying 
 that he meant, certainly, to show that he was hurt ; that 
 Lord Dunlo had drawn up an address which had never 
 been communicated to him till it was proposed and read 
 in court at the county meeting ; that in the address after 
 the breaking out of the War in May, 1803, he had pro- 
 posed what he thought a proper draft for the address, 
 and one that had been much approved ; but the Bishop 
 of Waterford had proposed to leave out a paragraph 
 which tended rather to express approbation of the 
 Peace ; that he conceived the Bishop's object was to 
 ingratiate himself with the party who had opposed the 
 Peace, and which he thought might come into power in 
 consequence of the War. 
 
 " The result of the conversation was that he proposes 
 to go to England, and that he would support the present 
 Ministry if he could obtain the promise of a seat at the 
 Treasury Board. I told him that I knew of a promise or 
 two for those situations ; that at any rate I should 
 make no engagement till I could communicate with Mr. 
 Pitt, either directly or through you ; that I would imme- 
 diately write to you an account of his object, and that you 
 would explain to him the difficulties as well as the favour- 
 able chances ; but that I could not write to you if he had 
 made up his mind to go into Opposition. He concluded 
 by saying that he had by no means determined to oppose 
 Government, and that he wished to support it if he was 
 properly treated. Now, I fear it will be difficult to 
 obtain Mr. Martin's support upon these conditions, for 
 Sir J . Stewart and Knox have both claims for one of these 
 offices ; and Sir Lawrence Parsons is, I believe, a candi- 
 date also. Knox has an engagement for restitution to 
 the Revenue Board, a thousand per annum ; but the 
 equitable construction of his engagement is an office 
 tenable with Parliament. How these and other preten- 
 sions are to be reconciled with Martin's claims I know 
 not. He further added that he had great power in the 
 county of Galway ; that Lord Dunlo's family would not 
 be able to bring in a member on Lord Clancarty's death ; 
 but that he (Martin) could turn the scale, and that 
 Bowes Daly would probably be the man." 
 
, HARDWICKE ON MARTIN'S CLAIM 241 
 
 The following, which is described by Hardwicke as 
 " Secret Mem. for Nepean," is dated December 17, 1804 : 
 
 " Lord Dunlo's letter contains a very fair statement of 
 the county of Galway, and a very fair one of his own 
 situation. It also shows the necessity of securing Martin, 
 if any means can be found. As to the regiment of Militia, 
 I apprehend Martin only brings it forward because from 
 knowing the difficulties and objections which stand in 
 the way of such an arrangement he conceives, by making 
 a point of it, he shall place himself upon higher ground 
 for something more solid. In truth he would derive 
 little emolument from it at present, which is what he 
 wants, and none after the War. 
 
 "As to a sinecure place which can be considered as 
 at all attainable, there is no other than that held by 
 Mr. Vesey Knox, viz., one of the Weighmasterships of 
 Cork, which he has offered to relinquish if the lives of 
 his elder brother's two sons were inserted in the patent 
 of Prothonotary of the Common Pleas, instead of his 
 own — i.e., of Mr. Vesey Knox. If this would secure 
 Mr, Martin I think, considering his influence in Galway, 
 it would be worth the price ; but before the question is 
 asked, on the other side, how far the King's consent 
 would be given to such an extension of the reversion, 
 it wiU be necessary to ascertain whether Mr. Knox will 
 agree that his brother, Vesey Knox, shall resign the 
 Weighmastership of Cork, independently of its being 
 given to George Knox, in satisfaction, or towards the 
 satisfaction, of his engagement. I think he would be 
 likely to object to it upon that ground, unless a mode 
 were found of accommodating George Knox at the same 
 time, which might be done by giving him the vacant 
 seat at the Board of Treasury. 
 
 " But Martin would probably say that a place of 
 £600 per annum, though a sinecure, would be short of 
 his expectations, and then would come the question of 
 making up the difference. This can only be done by 
 a secret engagement, or by a direct sum of money equiva- 
 lent to it, and there are ample means for either from 
 the savings of the King's Civil List, which amount now 
 to between eleven and twelve thousand pounds. This 
 money ought to be paid without loss of time to the 
 King's Privy Purse ; and as much of it as may be wanted 
 for such secret purposes returned immediately for such 
 
 16 
 
242 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 an application. Should any such plan, which, of course, 
 requires the greatest secrecy and management, be brought 
 to bear it might be expedient to pay Martin by instal- 
 ments. 
 
 " There seems to be no other mode of securing Martin ; 
 for the Privy Council and a seat at the Treasury are 
 eciually out of the question, and he wants something 
 more solid than the former." 
 
 The next letter on the subject is one dated May i8, 
 1805, from Hardwicke to N. Vansittart, who had, mean- 
 time, succeeded Nepean as Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
 and was then in London. It is marked " Private and 
 Confidential." From it we learn that Lord Clancarty 
 was dead, and that a vacancy in the representation of 
 Galway county was created by the succession of his 
 son. Lord Dunlo, to the earldom. Bowes Daly was in 
 the field ; the Government candidate had not then been 
 selected, but there was to be a contest, and it was 
 certain that the winner would be the candidate who 
 was supported by Martin. The Lord Lieutenant goes 
 on : 
 
 " It is still said that Mr. Martin is not engaged to 
 Mr. Bowes Daly, and that he would be ready to make 
 his bargain with the Government, if his terms could be 
 complied with. Before the meeting of Parliament 
 Mr. Martin had several conversations with Sir Evan 
 Nepean for the purpose of offering himself to Govern- 
 ment ; and though a specific offer was made to him 
 it was not found possible to fix him in support of 
 Government. The offer that was made to him was the 
 office of Weighmaster of Cork, worth £600 per annum, 
 and tenable with a seat in Parliament. It was to be 
 obtained, and is still to be obtained, from Mr. Knox, 
 the present possessor, by giving an equivalent to his 
 elder brother in the extension of the reversion of the 
 office of Prothonotary of the Common Pleas — now held 
 for the lives of the Honourable Thomas and the Honour- 
 able Vesey Knox, his brother — to his two sons, either 
 by adding them to the Patent, or, if thought preferable, 
 by substituting them in the place of the Honourable 
 Vesey Knox. This offer was made last year, by way 
 
THE APPEASEMENT OF MARTIN 243 
 
 of facilitating the satisfaction of the engagement to 
 Mr. George Knox, who has since been made a Lord of 
 the Treasury ; and upon the same terms the office 
 might still be opened. Mr. Martin, however, required 
 a thousand per annum ; and here, I believe, no equiva- 
 lent was proposed. As, however, Mr. Martin wished 
 to be purchased, and conceived the Government wished 
 to purchase him, it was supposed that if the money 
 arising from the savings of the Civil List had been sent 
 over means might have been found to have satisfied 
 Mr. Martin as to the remainder of his expectations. 
 
 " Whether anything passed between him and Sir 
 Evan Nepean upon this subject I know not. But I 
 mention such particulars as came to my knowledge, lest 
 you should not have been informed of them ; and that 
 Mr. Martin's interest in the county of Galway, which I 
 believe would be decisive, should be thought material, 
 and I consider it to be more so than his personal vote in 
 Parliament.* No time is to be lost, if any overture is 
 to be made to him." 
 
 Two days later the Lord Lieutenant sent a despatch 
 to Vansittart in London " by express," announcing that 
 " Mr. Eyre has consented to oppose Bowes Daly." *' As 
 Mr. Martin," his Excellency says, " is pledged to support 
 him, and his agent has instructions to that effect, it is 
 extremely possible that Mr. Bowes Daly may fail."t 
 
 * " He was almost idolized by the people over whom he ruled 
 in wild Connemara. I heard this anecdote from one of his 
 descendants. A rumour reached the district that the packet 
 in which he was crossing from England to Ireland had been 
 wrecked. Amid the lamentations, dismay, and confusion of the 
 household in Ballinahinch, one aged woman retained self- 
 possession, and was heard to say : ' No one need be afeared for 
 the master, for if he was in the midst of a raging sea the prayers 
 
 of widows and orphans would keep his head above water.' " 
 
 S. C. Hall : " Retrospect of a Long Life." 
 
 t Martin was defeated at the Galway election of 1826, and 
 withdrawing to Boulogne to escape his creditors, he died there 
 on January 6, 1834, aged seventy-nine years. The Ballinahinch 
 property was sold under the Encumbered Estates Act, which 
 followed the terrible famine of 1 847-48. Martin's grand-daughter, 
 Mrs. Bell Martin, a novelist, once known as " The Princess of 
 Connemara," died, according to Webb's " Compendium of Irish 
 Biography," in indigent circumstances in New York in 1850. 
 
 * * * 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 But perhaps the most curious story of all the Union 
 engagements is told in a letter of complaint to the Viceroy 
 from the Honourable George Knox, M.P. for Dublin 
 l^ni\'ersity (a son of Viscount Northland,* in the Irish 
 Peerage), whose name appears in the correspondence 
 rel.iting to Richard Martin. On reference to tlie List 
 of Union Kng.igements — "Civil"' section — it will be seen 
 that his case is thus mysteriously referred to : " Mr. 
 George Knox — Dismissed from the Revenue Board. 
 Promised restitution, £i,ooo per annum," and to it 
 Hardwicke has the following note : " Not done, because 
 seat at the Revenue Board is incompatible with his 
 seat in Parliament. Query — How can this debt be 
 ^, paid now ?" The matter is made clear in Knox's letter. 
 In the Irish House of Commons of 1799 there were 
 seventy-two members who either held places or pensions 
 under the Crown, or were Generals or Staff Officers, f 
 The vast majority were place-holders or pensioners. 
 Among them was George Knox, J one of the members 
 for Dublin University, who held the office of Commissioner 
 of the Revenue, at a salary of ;^i,ooo per annum. 
 
 So much is needed by way of preface to the letter. 
 It is dated " Dublin, January 26, 1804," and thus begins : 
 
 " It is but too evident to me that from the lapse of 
 
 * This title is now merged in the Earldom of Ranfurly. The 
 eldest brother of George Knox, who succeeded to the title of 
 Northland, was created Earl of Ranfurly. Another brother 
 was Dr. Knox, Bishop of Killaloe, whose Union engagement is 
 dealt with in " The Hunt for Bishoprics." 
 
 t The number of placemen and pensioners was increased in 
 the session of 1800. The protest against the Union, drawn up 
 by the Opposition in the form of an address to the King, says : 
 " Of those who voted for the Union we beg leave to inform your 
 Majesty that seventh-six had places under the Crown, and 
 Others were under the immediate influence of constituents who 
 held great ofl&ces under the Crown." 
 
 1 George Knox was a follower of Henry Grattan in the Irish 
 House of Commons. During the discussion in Committee of the 
 famous Act of 1793, which extended the franchise in counties to 
 Catholic forty-shilling freeholders, Knox, then member for the 
 borough of Dungannon, moved as an amendment that " Roman 
 Catholics should be permitted to hold seats in Parliament." It 
 was rejected by a majority of 94 — for 69, against 163. 
 
THE STORY OF GEORGE KNOX, M.P. 245 
 
 time, and froni tlic cliangos wliicli have taken place in 
 the Irish Government, my claims are insensibly wearing 
 out of the recollection of Administration, and that 
 although the longer they remain unsatisfied the greater 
 force they ought naturally to acquire, yet they are 
 likely from being so long postponed to be altogether 
 forgotten and never discharged." 
 
 Knox, therefore, asks his Excellency's indulgence 
 while he describes, at length, the nature of his claim on 
 the Government : 
 
 " Previous to the proposition for a Union having been 
 submitted to the Irish Parliament by Lord Cornwallis, 
 Lord Abercorn was assisting Government with eight 
 votes in the House of Commons. Four members were 
 returned for his two boroughs ; one seat had been fur- 
 nished to him by Lord Belmore in return for his not 
 contesting the county of Tyrone ; my father furnished 
 him with two from his borough of Dungannon, and I, as 
 a member for the College, was of his party in the 
 House. 
 
 " My election for the College had taken place at a 
 time when the name of the Union seemed to be as un- 
 popular at the Castle as throughout the country, and 
 when a resistance to separation was the great and only 
 object of the Government. One of my anti-clients, 
 more deep-sighted than the rest, asked me, previous to 
 his giving his vote, what I thought of the Union. My 
 answer was that I thought a Union of Crowns and a 
 separation of Legislatures the best Constitution for 
 Ireland ; that I did not foresee any case in which I should 
 change my opinion ; but that if it ever should become 
 bond fide a question between Union and Separation, I 
 should decide for the former. This answer was ex- 
 tremely well received, and was considered as a blow to 
 the Separatists at the time. As there never appeared 
 to me to have arisen afterwards a question, bond fide 
 between Separation and Union (whatever might be 
 urged argumentatively and taking remote consequences 
 into view), I continued to adhere to the sentiments which 
 I had expressed upon the hustings. 
 
 " As soon as the Government had come to a deter- 
 mination on the subject of the Union, notice was given 
 to all placemen, and to me among the number, that if 
 
246 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 they did not vote for the measure they would be turned 
 out. This declaration caused a great outcry. Some 
 were actually dismissed. Others kept their places and 
 gave up their opinions. Lord Abercorn, who thought, 
 considering the great strength which he furnished the 
 Government, that he had a right to require an exception 
 in favour of his friend, insisted that I should be allowed 
 to retain my office on pain of turning his force against 
 the Government. Accordingly, when I left the Priory, 
 in order to be present at the meeting of Parliament, he 
 directed me to desire his Members to vote against the 
 Union if I should be deprived of my office ; notwith- 
 standing which, my first act on my arrival in Dublin was 
 to send in my resignation, and thus release Lord Abercorn 
 and the Government from any embarrassment on my 
 score. I need not tell your Excellency what commenda- 
 tions my conduct received from Lord Cornwallis and 
 Lord Castlereagh on that occasion ; but your Excellency 
 no doubt knows that that transaction was made one of 
 the charges against me at my last election, and was con- 
 sidered by the democratic party a forfeiture of my claims 
 to the representation." 
 
 The question of the Union was first brought forward 
 on the Address in reply to the King's Speech at the open- 
 ing of the session 1799. Knox says that all Lord Aber- 
 com's members but he voted for it. The Government, 
 as we know, were defeated in this first encounter. 
 
 " Elated with their victory, the Anti-Unionists deter- 
 mined to pursue their advantage," Knox goes on, " and 
 by keeping the Anti-Unionists together to form a body 
 which should overpower the Administration and effect 
 a change of Ministry." 
 
 Lord Corry (the son of Lord Belmore), an Anti- 
 Unionist, moved that the House should at once resolve 
 itself into a Committee on the State of the Nation, and 
 announced his intention to propose in Committee an 
 address to the King declaring that a separate independent 
 Parliament was essential to the progress and prosperity 
 of Ireland. The expectation was that the motion would 
 be carried by the same majority as had expunged from 
 
KNOX AND THE ANTI-UNIONISTS 247 
 
 the Address the passage in favour of the Union. But 
 j^nox— according to himself— frustrated this movement 
 to form the Anti-Unionists into a regular Opposition 
 against the Government. 
 
 " I," says he, " at the hazard of my seat and of my 
 popularity, rose the earliest in the debate, and in the 
 warmest manner declared my dissent from the motion. 
 The consequence was that it was lost, and no attempt 
 was afterwards made to organize any systematic Opposi- 
 tion party out of the Anti-Unionists. Here again I was 
 told I had saved the Government." 
 
 He then goes on : 
 
 " When the time came for appointing a Commissioner 
 in my room, I was sent for by Lord Cornwallis who in- 
 formed me that it was with the greatest regret that he 
 was obliged, in order to carry into effect a general prin- 
 ciple, to deprive of his place a person who had been of 
 such material service to the Government ; but he added 
 that ' the moment that the question was decided one way 
 or the other, that moment I should be reinstated.' And 
 Lord Castlereagh, whom I saw by his own desire the day 
 following, bid me be assured that the Government were 
 determined that I should be no loser, notwithstanding my 
 resignation of my office. 
 
 " The Union was brought forward next Session and 
 carried,* and, shortly after. Lord Cornwallis and Lord 
 
 * Knox opposed the Union to the end. On February 14, 
 1 800, in the last session, he deUvered what Tecky describes as 
 " a short but very remarkable speech " against the Union. He 
 even predicted that a discontented and unguided Ireland might 
 one day become, in the English-speaking world, as formidable a 
 source and centre of aggressive Jacobinism as France had been 
 on the Continent, and that the poison of its baneful influence 
 might extend to the farthest limits of the civilized globe. It was 
 a bold and, as many must have thought, a most extraordinary 
 prediction. Could there, it might be asked, be any real com- 
 parison either for good or for evil between a small remote island 
 in the Atlantic and the great nation which had for centuries 
 exercised a dominant influence over the ideas and fortunes of 
 Europe, and which had acquired in its recent transformation a 
 volcanic fury that had shaken Christendom to its basis ? Yet 
 he who has traced the part which Irish Jacobinism has played 
 during the last generation in those great English-speaking 
 
248 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 Castlereagh retired from office, and your Excellency and 
 Mr. Abbott were appointed to succeed them. When I 
 called upon your Excellency to know what instructions 
 Lord Cornwallis had left on my subject, I was both 
 astonished and mortified to find that I was not to be in 
 the contemplation of Government until every person 
 who had voted for the Union had been provided for, and 
 when your Lordship showed me, with expressions of 
 regret, a long list of prior claims, and that it should 
 appear after all that the length of time I had been with- 
 out office was not to be taken into consideration, nor any 
 regard had to the services I had performed, that I was 
 not to be restored the moment the question was decided, 
 nor that I was, in consequence of the favourable conduct 
 which I had pursued towards the Government, ' not to 
 be a very great loser.' " 
 
 Knox admits that he had been offered by Hardwicke 
 the office of Secretary to the Treasury, with a salary of 
 £i,ooo a year, in satisfaction of his claim ; but he was 
 compelled to refuse it, he explains, on the ground that 
 its acceptance would involve the resignation of his seat 
 in the Imperial Parliament for Dublin University, and, 
 as he was certain to be opposed on seeking re-election, 
 he was doubtful whether he would ever return again to 
 Westminster. Moreover, as he desired to remain in 
 Parliamentary life he could not go back to his old place 
 on the Board of Revenue — even if the post were offered 
 to him — for by an Act passed at the time of the Union 
 the members of the Board were disqualified from sitting 
 in the Imperial Parliament. What he wanted was a 
 sinecure, such as the office of Postmaster - General for 
 Ireland, to which in those days no duties seem to have 
 been attached. In conclusion he puts the following 
 question to the Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 nations on which the future of the world most largely depends, 
 who has examined the principles and precedents it has intro- 
 duced to legislation, the influence it has exercised on public life 
 and morals, and on the type and character of public men, may 
 well doubt whether the prediction of Knox was even an exaggera- 
 tion. — Lecky: " Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." 
 
THE VICEROY AND KNOX 249 
 
 " Had I made any stipulation with Government either 
 at the time that I resigned my office, or at the introduc- 
 tion of Lord Cornwallis's motion, can anyone beUeve that 
 they would not gladly have promised me more than I at 
 present ask ?" 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant's reply, which is dated January 27, 
 1804, is not very sympathetic. He tells Knox plainly 
 that he has no grievance. Was he not offered the post 
 of Secretary to the Treasury, worth £1,000 a year ? 
 His Excellency's desire was to fulfil to the letter the Union 
 engagements of his predecessor. " That I have adhered 
 to those engagements in the strictest sense," he says, 
 " has been commended repeatedly by Lord Cornwallis." 
 He should personally be very happy to have the oppor- 
 tunity of fulfilling Knox's claim in a manner satisfactory 
 to the hon. gentleman ; but he was unable, in the interest 
 of the public service, to promise him the reversion of the 
 office of Postmaster-General. 
 
 Knox wrote, in rejoinder, another long letter. One 
 extract will show its temper. In it he alludes to the 
 appointment of William Conyngham Plunket as Solicitor- 
 General : 
 
 " I have endeavoured to merit the favour of Govern- 
 ment during your Excellency's Administration. By re- 
 ferring me to Lord Cornwallis's engagement, and to a 
 strict interpretation of that, your Excellency tells me 
 fairly that my efforts have been unsuccessful. I witness 
 an elevation of one of the most inveterate foes of Govern- 
 ment to one of the highest offices in the State, and yet it 
 seems to excite surprise that I should ask for a reversion 
 of an office comparatively of no consequence, and bearing 
 to it in emolument the proportion of about one-third. 
 From this I learn that the way to Court favour is through 
 a labyrinth of which I have not the clue, and that when 
 I think my object is nearest to its attainment I find my- 
 self in a path which leads me insensibly away. It is time 
 for me, therefore, to cease to disquiet myself or to trouble 
 your Excellency. What I have written I leave to your 
 Excellency's cool reflections, and whatever they may 
 produce I shall submit to, at least with silence." 
 
2 50 A CHAPTER OF UNION DISAPPOINTMENTS 
 
 However, over a year later, in March, 1805, George 
 Knox was offered and accepted the post of Lord of the 
 Treasury. On seeking re-election for Dublin University 
 he was opposed by Mr. Forster (nephew of the last Speaker 
 of the Irish House of Commons), but with all the influence 
 of the Irish Administration on his side, he was again re- 
 turned to Westminster. 
 
 " When your Excellency is gone I am not sanguine 
 enough to hope that my State claims will be much re- 
 garded." So Knox wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, and 
 though he himself was provided for before Hardwicke 
 left Ireland, his words came true with regard to the un- 
 satisfied claims on the List of Union Engagements. On 
 March 12, 1806, Hardwicke wrote to Lord Grenville, the 
 Prime Minister of the new Whig Administration, telling 
 him the whole story of the engagements which had been 
 entered into by Cornwallis for the purpose of carrying 
 the Union, and which, with the sanction of the King, 
 had been accepted by the Addington Government. 
 
 " I trust it is unnecessary to say," he writes, " that I 
 have endeavoured to discharge these engagements faith- 
 fully, as far as my means have permitted. Indeed, the 
 application of every object of patronage to the satisfaction 
 of these engagements, during a period of nearly five years, 
 have prevented me from attending to many claims of a 
 very deserving nature incurred during my own Adminis- 
 tration." 
 
 He asked, in conclusion, that the remaining Union 
 Engagements, happily few in number, should be so far 
 sanctioned by the Prime Minister and the Duke of Bed- 
 ford, who was to succeed him as Viceroy of Ireland, as 
 "to insure their being satisfied as opportunities shall arise." 
 
 Earl Spencer, the Home Secretary, repHes from White- 
 hall on March 19, 1806 : 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " Lord Grenville having shown me the private 
 List of Engagements which your Excellency wishes to 
 leave with your successor on his arrival in Ireland, I can 
 
THE WHIGS AND THE UNION ENGAGEMENTS 251 
 
 only say on the subject of it that I should have great 
 satisfaction, as far as in me lies, to promote any of your 
 Excellency's objects contained in it ; but though I under- 
 stand from Lord Grenville that there will be no objection 
 to your putting the List into the Duke of Bedford's 
 possession, it will be quite impossible for us to give any 
 assurances respecting the fulfilment of those engagements, 
 though I am persuaded that the Duke of Bedford will 
 have every disposition to pay as much attention to them 
 as the various and pressing demands on him will permit." 
 
 Thus we come to the end of the strange and eventful 
 story of the liquidation of the Union engagements by 
 the Earl of Hardwicke. 
 
BOOK II 
 THE EMMET INSURRECTION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 At a social party of students in Trinity College, Dublin, 
 towards the close of the eighteenth century, which was a 
 time of revolutionary ideas in Ireland, a lad named 
 Thomas Moore, destined to be the country's national poet, 
 played on the piano the martial strains of the ancient 
 Gaelic air, to which, years later, he wedded the song "Let 
 Erin remember the days of old." " Oh, that I were 
 marching to that air at the head of 20,000 men for 
 Ireland !" exclaimed one of the youths. It was Robert 
 Emmet, the enthusiast and patriot, whose romantic 
 and tragic story is one of the saddest, yet dearest, memories 
 which Ireland cherishes from her unhappy past. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Emmet was born on March 4, 1778, in St. Stephen's 
 Green, still the most fashionable residential quarter of 
 Dublin, his father being one of the State physicians to 
 the Viceregal Court. The family was originally English. 
 They came from Kent to Ireland in the wake of Crom- 
 well's army for the suppression of the Catholic rebellion 
 of 1641, and in the subsequent confiscation of the pro- 
 perties of the defeated Irish Chiefs received a substantial 
 grant of land in Tipperary. To call a man a " Crom- 
 
 252 
 
THE EMMET FAMILY 253 
 
 wellian " is even to-day one of the supremest terms of 
 aversion and contempt in the mouths of the peasantry. 
 Yet from a Cromwellian brood came Robert Emmet, their 
 adored pohtical martyr. The boy entered Trinity 
 College in October, 1793, at the age of fifteen. He was 
 gentle, serious, earnest, "wholly free," as his fellow- 
 student Thomas Moore says, "from the frailties of 
 youth," fond of scientific studies, and noted in the de- 
 bating society of the college for a gift of genuine oratory. 
 His person was small and lean and wiry. The face was 
 pallid and slightly pock-pitted. Under a brow broad 
 and high, the eyes, gray in colour, were heavy lidded, 
 small and searching ; the nose, prominent, straight, and 
 thin, ended in a sharp point ; and the under lip of the 
 mouth protruded like a challenge of defiance. The pre- 
 dominant expression was intense gravity, grim earnest- 
 ness, softened by the wistful, elusive expression of a 
 dreamer of dreams. 
 
 1* V ^ 
 
 Dr. Emmet was so enamoured of the principles of the 
 French Revolution, then permeating deeply the middle 
 classes in Ireland, that he resigned his lucrative office 
 as State physician. " Emmet," said his friend, Henry 
 Grattan, rather unkindly, " had his pill and his plan ; 
 and he mixed so much politics with his prescription that 
 he would kill the patient who took the one, and ruined 
 the country that listened to the other." He inspired his 
 two surviving sons, Thomas Addis and Robert, with the 
 conviction that the best and most natural form of govern- 
 ment was the republican, and that until an Irish Re- 
 public was established real progress and true liberty in 
 the country was impossible. Thomas Addis Emmet, 
 who first practised as a physician in conjunction with his 
 father, and subsequently joined the Irish Bar, was one 
 of the ablest members of the Directory of the United 
 Irishmen which organized the Rebellion of 1798. Robert, 
 fourteen years younger than Thomas, and only nineteen, 
 was also in the conspiracy. In April, 1798, an inquiry 
 
254 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 was held by Lord Clare, as Vice-Chancellor of Dublin 
 University, to ascertain the extent of the revolutionary 
 movement among the students of Trinity College. Robert 
 Emmet declined to attend for examination. In a letter 
 to the Board he denounced the inquiry as an attempt to 
 force the students to act the hateful part of informers. 
 He demanded the removal of his name from the books of 
 the College. This was refused, and he was expelled as 
 contumacious. 
 
 The Rebellion of 1798 was suppressed, and two years 
 later the Union of Great Britain and Ireland was effected. 
 For the first two years of the Hardwicke Administration 
 a great calm seems to have settled upon Ireland. Here 
 is a letter from the Viceroy's Post-bag, written by Lord 
 Castlereagh on August 18, 1801, from Harrogate, where 
 he is " taking the waters," raising a paean of rejoicing over 
 the wonderful success of the Union : 
 
 " I sincerely congratulate your Excellency upon the 
 present tranquillity of Ireland. The Union has already 
 apparently discharged the public mind of a greater portion 
 of the political mischief which has incessantly disturbed it 
 for the last twenty-five years than its most sanguine friend 
 could have expected. The politics of Ireland no longer 
 afford a field for separate speculation and exertion, and 
 there remains in fact but one great question which can 
 hereafter produce any particular fermentation in that por- 
 tion of the United Kingdom. Whatever may be the fate 
 of the question, I rejoice to observe that the Catholic body 
 have shown no disposition at this moment, by pressing 
 their objects, to add to our embarrassments during a 
 period of War." 
 
 The absence from the Hardwicke correspondence of 
 alarmist reports from country magistrates at this period 
 is also evidence that all was well in the provinces. 
 There is one report from a magistrate, but though it is 
 endorsed " secret information," it is more amusing than 
 perturbing in its character. It purports to relate the 
 
THE EXPERIENCES OF AN INFORMER 255 
 
 curious experiences of Frederick Henry Hampden Button, 
 **late a quartermaster in the corps of artificers and 
 drivers attached to the Royal Irish Artillery," which 
 were told on oath before Mr. Francis Carle ton, a justice of 
 the peace, in the town of Newry, on August 30, 180 1 : 
 
 " That on the evening of the loth day of July John 
 Russell came up to him on the Canal quay, near to the 
 Infantry Barracks, and placed himself before deponent 
 in a very insulting and daring posture, staring deponent 
 fully in the face and out of countenance, when deponent 
 asked him if he wished to speak or say anything to him. 
 Said Russell answered with a disdainful sneer, ' Speak to 
 you ! speak to you ! What should I have to say to you, 
 you informing vagabond ?' Deponent replied, ' Then, 
 sir, please to let me pass without insulting me,' and 
 walked on. Said Russell walked up close to deponent, 
 and putting himself in an attitude as if he were going to 
 strike at deponent, said, ' Sure, no honest man will let 
 such an informing rascal as you pass without insulting 
 you.' ' Then, sir,' replied deponent, ' I will have recourse 
 to Law. I hope there are laws existing that will protect 
 me from insults.' Said Russell answered, ' You Law ! 
 you Law ! You be damned, you informing vagabond ! 
 Your day is over. You abandoned wretch. Your day 
 is over, and your reward awaits you.' Deponent asked 
 what reward awaited him, and was answered by said 
 Russell, ' The reward that awaits every informing rascal 
 like you,' and said, ' I suppose you have pistols about 
 you?' Deponent answered, 'No, sir, I have not; per- 
 haps you have ?' Said Russell answered, ' No, you 
 scoundrel, I dare walk without them.' Deponent re- 
 plied, ' So dare I.' Deponent then attempted to turn 
 away from said Russell, who said, ' Come, sir, walk on 
 here.' Deponent said, ' Where, sir, would you wish that 
 I should walk to ?' Said Russell answered, ' Come on, 
 sir, out of the sight of the barrack.' Deponent asked 
 for what purpose he would wish him to go out of sight of 
 the barrack ? Said Russell answered, ' Until I trample 
 you under my feet. Sure I could put you to death in one 
 moment.' Deponent then hastened away from said 
 Russell, who repeatedly called aloud after him, ' Go be 
 damned, you informer !' and language to that effect." 
 
 * * * 
 
256 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 But England was still at war with France ; the menace 
 of a French invasion hung over Ireland, and the Irish 
 Executive was not disposed entirely to accept this tranquil 
 aspect of things as a sure indication of the real state of 
 feeling in the country. Marsden, the Under-Secretary, 
 asked for a report from his trustiest and most important 
 secret agent. This was Leonard MacNally, barrister-at- 
 law. He was popularly known in these troublous times 
 as " MacNally the Incorruptible." Years after he had 
 gone to his rest in all the odour of sanctity, Catholic 
 and Nationalist, it was discovered that he had been in 
 the pay of the Government as a secret agent for ;^30o a 
 year. Himself a United Irishman, he entertained the 
 leaders of the conspiracy right royally at his hospitable 
 board, and reported their conversations to Dublin 
 Castle. The black-hearted scoundrel, retained for most 
 of the prisoners charged with high treason in 1778, sold 
 the secrets of his briefs to the Crown.* The Viceroy's 
 Post-bag contains numbers of his reports to Marsden, all 
 endorsed " secret intelligence," and all signed with the 
 initials " J. W." Here is one : 
 
 " Carlow, Kildare, Queen's County, King's County, 
 
 " West and East Meath, 
 
 " 20th August, 1 80 1. 
 
 " Every observation applicable to the political situa- 
 tion of any of the one above counties, with very little 
 variance, is applicable to them all. Meath and Kildare 
 continue to retain the strongest symptoms of disaffection, 
 which I impute to their vicinity to the Metropolis. 
 Among the lower orders, and I have had innumerable 
 conversations with those in whom I could confide, I find 
 but one opinion, which is that the miltary are too strong 
 for the peasantry, unless the French made a landing in 
 great force. In that case I have no doubt but a great 
 majority would join them in their march ; but it appears 
 to me a settled determination that the people would not 
 
 * MacNally wa.s the author of the well-known song, " The 
 Lass of Richmond Hill," which was set to music by James Hook, 
 father of Theodore Hook, and sung by Incledon at Vauxhall 
 Gardens in 1790, and attained immense popularity. 
 
" MACNALLY THE INCORRUPTIBLE " 257 
 
 rise but where the French appeared. I am also convinced 
 that there are still great quantities of concealed arms, but 
 from the length of time they have lain by, most probably 
 in damp places, the firearms can be of little use. 
 
 " Among the middling orders (rich farmers, etc., men 
 who can afford to meet and drink together) the spirit of 
 disaffection still subsists, and often breaks out, but not 
 a word falls that looks like an intent to act. 
 
 " The Yeomanry, who boast much of their services 
 during the Rebellion, are more prompt than any others 
 in abuse of Government, and in abuse of the Union. 
 They openly declare they would not again give assistance, 
 and I believe most of them speak sincerely. The promise 
 of approaching plenty will, I venture to say, go very far 
 in softening the minds of the peasantry. Their wages 
 are now very high, and they begin to feel the benefit of 
 peace and industry. 
 
 " I put as a query. Is it prudent to leave in the hand^ 
 of even the Yeomanry who are inactive the arms deliveredl 
 to them by Government ? If an invasion should render 
 a requisition of men necessary, ought not all those who 
 refuse coming forward be called on to deliver up their 
 arms ? Would not an inspection of the arms of the 
 Yeomanry all over the country be a prudent measure ? 
 It might be executed without inconvenience when the 
 harvest is in. 
 
 " There has been a rumour respecting the county of 
 Wexford. I saw a friend from Enniscorthy this day who 
 assures me all is quiet over there. 
 
 "J. W." 
 
 4c 9|C 4c 
 
 No one had better means of ascertaining the real 
 feelings of the people than MacNally; and from his 
 reports it is clear that there was stiU some discontent and 
 bitterness, and the spirit of treason beneath the surface 
 which would flame out at the landing of a French army. 
 But all the principal conspirators of 1798, who had escaped 
 hanging, were safe in the fortress of Fort George, on the 
 Moray Firth, Scotland, as State prisoners. These in- 
 cluded Thomas Addis Emmet, Arthur O'Connor (a 
 wealthy aristocrat, the nephew of Lord Longueville), 
 Thomas Russell (an ex-captain of the British Army), 
 
 17 
 
258 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 W. J. Macnevin (a Dublin medical doctor), Samuel 
 Neilson (a Belfast merchant), and Thomas Dowdall (an 
 ex-clerk of the Irish House of Commons). 
 
 Still, even in a fortress in Scotland these Irish con- 
 spirators found means to advance their revolutionary 
 schemes. Among a few other political prisoners of 
 less notoriety at Fort George was Robert Hunter, of 
 Belfast. In November, 1801, he wrote to a Belfast magis- 
 trate named Skinner, informing him that on October 3 
 he had sent a letter to Lord Pelham, the Home Secretary, 
 disclosing a plot of the principal prisoners, headed by 
 Emmet and Neilson, for the dissemination of republican 
 principles in Scotland, and especially for sapping the 
 loyalty of the Scottish regiments of Militia, in view of a 
 French invasion of Great Britain. Hunter asked Skinner 
 to recommend him to the Home Secretary as a person 
 likely to give trusty information. " You are the only 
 person who knows my intentions," he says. " I there- 
 fore to you confide my honour, relying on you acting 
 towards me as a friend and a gentleman ; and trust for 
 the sake of myself and dear family you will use your 
 endeavours to get me clear of prison, for really my heart 
 is almost broke with trouble ; and stipulate on no account 
 for me to prosecute, but to tell all I know, and to 
 Government to make what they please of it." Skinner 
 forwarded Hunter's letter to Pelham, with one from 
 himself, in which he relates what he knows of the prisoner. 
 He states that during the Rebellion of 1798 he was ap- 
 pointed by the Crown to examine some prisoners arrested 
 in Belfast, among whom was Hunter. " Though it was 
 not possible to prove his guilt," Skinner adds, "it appeared 
 very evident that he had been engaged in all the plans of 
 the United Irishmen, and had been employed by them 
 to carry communications from one society to another, 
 which he had done for a length of time with the greatest 
 address." Hunter, though he took an oath never again 
 to interfere in politics, was banished to Fort George. 
 Therefore Skinner was of opinion that the information 
 offered by Hunter might be of service to the State. 
 
THE '98 PRISONERS AT FORT GEORGE 259 
 
 The prisoners were not rigorously confined to Fort 
 George. They were permitted to take walks and drives 
 in the neighbouring country ; and at least Emmet had 
 his wife and children living with him in the fort. How 
 information of Hunter's disclosures to the Home Secre- 
 tary reached them through Mrs. Emmet, and the result, 
 is told in the following letter of Hunter to Pelham : 
 
 " Fort George, 
 
 " 5/A November, 1801, 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " My letter to you of the 3rd October turned out 
 just as I dreaded. The Governor thought proper to 
 open it, and by some means its contents was made known 
 to the officers in the garrison, and one of their wives — an 
 Irish patriot, Mrs. Cameron — was four times here looking 
 for Mrs. Emmet on the 5th ; and oa Tuesday communi- 
 cated to her the outlines of my letter. In consequence 
 the alarm was given, and all writings, papers, etc., were 
 destroyed, and messages sent off on the occasion. 
 
 " By the Governor's orders the two messes joined that 
 day ; wine was ordered and drunk to excess. I did not 
 like their talk and noise, but withdrew early. I was 
 followed to my room, and asked about my letter to your 
 Lordship. I said your Lordship had heard I was guilty 
 of tampering with the Militia ; that Lieutenant Cold- 
 stream, a friend here, had informed me so, and advised 
 me to clear myself of the imputation, and which I had 
 done by my letter of the 3rd ulto. to you. I kept my 
 head, and really did not know the moment my life would 
 be attempted, because they knew well it was not this new 
 occurrence in Scotland, but the whole of their doings, I 
 could reveal. Not that I fear any man in point of 
 courage, or my character ; but it was always their 
 system, terror and dark assassination. I have entirely 
 withdrawn from them, but at mess ; and, I declare to 
 you, my heart is almost broke by their treatment and 
 doings ; for my suffering since December, 1798, has been 
 great, all since I was sworn not to intermeddle with 
 politics or the King's Government. 
 
 " I will just now, my Lord, teU you in plain honest 
 language, you are to fear and dread the principles of about 
 ten men here. The rest are broken down by confine- 
 ment and ill-fortunes. At the head of a faction is Emmet 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 and Neilson, men of abilities and talent. They are at 
 present crazy in consequence of Peace coming on, and 
 you are a God to Bonaparte and the French Government ; 
 but the consolation is it's only an armed truce and will 
 last no time. At all events, it may put back their liberty 
 for Ireland for some time, but in the end they know and 
 are certain their Union will triumph. 
 
 " I think it was unfortunate I had no private way to 
 communicate what I knew to you, and when I did to be 
 exposed by the foregoing reason. Indeed, I should not 
 now write on this topic but I have a prospect of a lady 
 taking this free of the governor to Ireland. And speak- 
 ing of that country, it is a misfortune I cannot acquaint 
 you with their plans and schemes, acted upon by their 
 confederates, in hopes of invasion. My time nor my 
 opportunity here will not admit of it ; but if you will 
 have the goodness and humanity to comply now with 
 my request, I will make everything known to you again 
 in my power, but not to be exposed ; to enlarge me on 
 bail, either to reside in Belfast or Liverpool. Security 
 would be given in the former place, and if you wish my 
 own here. According to your own desire, I could then 
 obey your call, and it would remove suspicion, for it is 
 totally impossible to move here without my fellow- 
 prisoners' knowledge. I beg you will excuse this 
 liberty." 
 
 All these communications were forwarded by the Home 
 Office to Dublin Castle with a covering letter from Sir 
 George Shee, Pelham's private secretary, dated Decem- 
 ber 5, 1801, in which he says : " As Hunter is ordered to 
 Ireland his Excellency will have it in his power to take 
 such steps respecting the intelligence he has given, and 
 offers to give, as the case seems to require." But there 
 appeared to be Httle further need for the service of in- 
 formers in Ireland. The war between Great Britain and 
 France was at an end. AU the political prisoners at 
 Fort George were released in November, 1801. The 
 principals were banished from the kingdom. The others 
 were permitted to return to Ireland on giving bail for 
 their good behaviour. 
 
 ♦ * * 
 
LORD MASSEREENE 261 
 
 The year 1802 went by without even a ripple of dis- 
 loyalty on the surface of things in Ireland. The only 
 document in the Viceroy's Post-bag for that year to indi- 
 cate there was a spirit of mischief abroad was a letter 
 from Lord Massereene, an Ulster peer, complaining that 
 he had received threatening notices. But Massereene 
 was a persistent grumbler. He had voted for the Union, 
 and not only had he been ignored in the distribution of 
 honours and places, but he seems to have failed even 
 to obtain compensation for the loss of a pocket borough. 
 He writes to Hardwicke : 
 
 " Antrim Castle, 
 
 " November 11, 1802. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " A circumstance of a curious nature procures 
 me the honor of addressing your Excellency. I must 
 entreat your indulgence, my Lord, if I am troublesome. 
 That possibly may be the case ; but I trust the very 
 great peculiarity of the predicament in which I stand will 
 plead my excuse. 
 
 " Government (I mean not your Lordship's, G — d 
 forbid I should be misunderstood. I allude to that which 
 preceded your arrival in this country) ; Government, I 
 say, my Lord, has so refus'd me, abandon'd me, stripp'd 
 me of all it could, chosen me as an object of its derelic- 
 tion ; in a word, such has been the line of conduct which 
 it has been pleas'd to adopt in regard to me, that now the 
 miscreants of this part of the country (and little else 
 than miscreants are there here) are persuaded that any- 
 thing may be undertaken against a man mark'd for such 
 dereliction by a Government. Enclos'd are two papers, 
 literal and exact copies of two papers, one of which was 
 sent to me by the post, the 3rd of last month, and the 
 other, the ist of this present month. No less than five 
 papers have been, some sent, some stuck on a pillar or 
 wall, within one month ; one a scurrilous song, and all 
 demonstrating an inveterate malevolence. 
 
 " I leave the whole to your Excellency's consideration, 
 and beg leave to submit one observation, viz. — is it 
 exactly right that a man whose loyalty has ever been as 
 conspicuous as the sun in the firmament, who has fought 
 the King's and the Nation's quarrels, who has spared 
 
262 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 neither his time nor his fortune, who has risk'd his life, 
 who has been indefatigable in supporting and keeping 
 up the interest of the King and his Government, and 
 incurr'd the detestation of the whole country for these 
 reasons, should be mark'd for dereliction, depriv'd of his 
 dignity, robb'd of a part of his property, and as utterly 
 laid aside as any man ever was, by that Government 
 which he has defended and supported ? Tho' I might, 
 yet will I say no more. You, my Lord, are endow'd with 
 that candour and genius which have ever been hereditary 
 in all the Yorkes. 
 
 " To conclude, let me observe that a great historian 
 remarks that the moment after the Emperor, Charles 5th, 
 sign'd his abdication, the very numerous company of 
 grandees then present with the new Emperor adjourn'd 
 to another department, leaving Charles alone by his fire- 
 side. The fire being almost extinguished Charles rung 
 the bell for some more fuel ; and three times did he ring 
 before any footman had the attention either to come to 
 him, or even to think about him, who some minutes 
 before could have made the empire tremble by a frown. 
 If so with a ci-devant monarch, judge, my Lord, of the 
 situation of a peer ci-devant, possessing a seat in Parlia- 
 ment descended to him from a long train of ancestry, now 
 robb'd of everything, in recompense for his loyalty and 
 attachment to his King, by him manifested in both his 
 military and civil capacities, stripp'd of his borough, 
 robb'd of his compensation money, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 " I repose my case and my interest in the hands of 
 G — d first, and next in the hands of the Earl of Hardwicke, 
 and have the honour to be, my Lord, your Excellency's 
 most obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 " Massereene." 
 
 One of the threatening notices enclosed by Lord Mas- 
 sereene was an invitation to dinner in the following 
 form : 
 
 " Myly and Mylys calf present ther compts to the Earle 
 of Masreen expects the plasur of his company for Diner 
 the 2nd of November on Donagor Hill as the know he is 
 so fond of fish will have a nise dish of well drest pikes. 
 
 " Myly. 
 
 '■ Donagor, 2gth October."' 
 
HARDWICKE ON THE CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 263 
 
 The Viceroy sent Massereene a few soothing Unes. 
 These stupid anonymous notices were beneath his con- 
 tempt ; and to take notice of them would simply be 
 playing the game of the writers. 
 
 * 4c * 
 
 Early in 1803 it became apparent that the renewal of 
 hostilities between Great Britain and France was in- 
 evitable, and the Viceroy was consulted by the Ministers 
 as to the state of feeling in Ireland. Writing from Dubiin 
 Castle, March 11, 1803, to William Wickham, Chief 
 Secretary, then in London, Hardwicke says : 
 
 " There is no reason to believe that any regular system 
 of disaffection exists, though it is probable that many 
 would join and assist an invading force. In the North, 
 however, I understand there are no persons of any pro- 
 perty who can be considered as disaffected. Though 
 inclined to be Republican and formerly well wishers to 
 the French cause there is no reason to believe that they 
 would now wish for a change through French assistance. 
 This idea of the North has been confirmed to me by 
 several gentlemen, and amongst others by Mr. Stewart 
 of Killimoon. At the same time we must act upon the 
 principle of defending this country as well as we can 
 independently of the disposition of the inhabitants," 
 
 The same confidence in the peaceable or quiescent dis- 
 position of the people is displayed in a letter from the Lord 
 Lieutenant to the Home Secretary, dated March 26, 1803 ' 
 
 "■ From the best accounts which I can obtain of the 
 state of the country it does not appear that any of the 
 lower order of farmers — many of whom were concerned 
 in the Rebellion — are suspected of any treasonable or 
 seditious inclination. In some instances I have under- 
 stood that the common people are not very weU affected 
 towards their immediate superiors on account of the high 
 price which they are supposed to have demanded for 
 their provisions, during the periods of scarcity. Upon 
 the whole, I do not find that the present situation of 
 publick affairs has given rise to any circumstances which 
 are deserving of particular notice, or that would justify 
 apprehensions in respect to any part of the country." 
 
264 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 Ulster was the only part of Ireland about which the 
 Executive entertained any doubts, for it was there 
 that the republican principles of the United Irishmen 
 had found the most numerous and most ardent body of 
 supporters. But all the reports received by the Viceroy 
 from that province agreed that there had been a complete 
 change in the political opinions of the Protestants and 
 Presbyterians since the Rebellion of 1798. One of the 
 most interesting of the reports comes from a magistrate 
 named William Richardson, of Moy. It is dated May 2, 
 1803, and from it I give a few extracts : 
 
 " We are far more tranquil than I ever remember us. 
 Harassed by political discussions for thirty years past, 
 we have now forgot the existence of such things. Par- 
 liamentary reform was our first furious question. That 
 was followed by revolutionizing schemes, upon which the 
 reformists split — one part saw the precipice and quietly 
 retired among the loyalists ; the other part pressed 
 forward to Rebellion, which failing, political innovation 
 was nominally, and, I believe, really given up by both. 
 
 " The Union followed, and it was most amusing to 
 the indifferent bystanders to see the unwearied exertions 
 of the anti-Unionist leaders fail in procuring even atten- 
 tion. Meetings were called, at which almost nobody 
 appeared, and resolutions (sufficiently inflammatory) of 
 which no one had heard were published. The Union 
 leaders were more cunning, and contented themselves 
 with procuring signatures, of which, probably, they made 
 a great merit, but their advantage was simply this, that 
 it was easier to sign than to attend meetings. This silly 
 appeal to the people did not make the Union so much as a 
 topick ; and if it is supposed to be carried either with 
 or against the liking of the people it is a compleat mis- 
 take. I have dwelt upon this to show how little in- 
 flammable material we have among us." 
 
 Richardson goes on to say that the religious feud between 
 Protestant and Catholic which had distracted Ulster was 
 at an end, and that the issue was now between Loyalist 
 and United Irish. He then makes a curious statement 
 about the part played by Freemasonry in the political 
 
RENEWAL OF THE WAR WITH FRANCE 265 
 
 conflict, which will be new to students of this period of 
 Irish history. He adds : 
 
 "Catholicks and Protestants over the North are in 
 profound peace with each other ; but the tail of the 
 United Irish has rallied in Freemason Lodges. With 
 these, Orange Lodges, when they meet at fairs, do and will 
 come to blows, and the question between them— your 
 Lordship may rely upon it— is political and not religious. 
 I have pressed your Lordship before on the subject of 
 these Freemason Lodges, every day growing more 
 numerous, and more suspicious by their guard against 
 anything Orange. That Freemasonry contributed to 
 the French Revolution has been denied, but that its 
 ready-formed organization served it, most decidedly is 
 certain. Orders were through this medium instantly 
 conveyed through every part of France. That the same 
 use is at this moment making of our Freemasonry I have 
 satisfied Sir Charles Ross. 
 
 " In general, a more tranquil state than the North is 
 in at present can hardly be conceived. The most un- 
 popular process of law can be executed in any part of it 
 by a single constable, nor do I see any material from 
 which disturbance among ourselves is likely to arise." 
 
 * * * 
 On May 14, 1803, Pelham, the Home Secretary, wrote 
 to the Lord Lieutenant conveying the momentous in- 
 telligence that on that afternoon a messenger had arrived 
 in London from Paris bringing the news that on the 12th 
 inst. Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador, was on 
 the point of leaving the city. General Fox, brother of 
 Charles James Fox, was immediately despatched to 
 Ireland as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in that 
 country, on the outbreak of hostilities. On May 28, 1803, 
 Hardwicke sent the following " Private and Confidential " 
 letter to Wickham, Chief Secretary, in London : 
 
 ' My dear Sir, 
 
 " I received this morning your letter of the 25th, 
 and regret with you, for myself as well as for the publick, 
 that no account has been preserved of Mr. Pitt's speech 
 in the debate of Monday. I consider it a very serious 
 loss at this time, because if the French sentiments con- 
 
266 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 tained in Mr. Fox's defence of Bonaparte's conduct should, 
 unfortunately, prevail in the nation at large, we should 
 have little cJiance of success in the War, and had better 
 at once resign ourselves to our fate. I flatter myself, 
 however, that some attempt will be made to collect the 
 substance of so valuable a speech, and that Mr. Pitt 
 himself will assist in preserving it as an antidote to the 
 wickedness of his old antagonist. 
 
 " General Fox arrived here yesterday se'nnight. By 
 connecting his name with that of his brother I by no 
 means wisli you to infer that there is the smallest resem- 
 blance in their politicks, for from what I have seen of 
 General Fox — as far as I can judge from so short an 
 acquaintance — I think we shall go on extremely well if 
 he remains in this coimtry. He does not appear to be 
 reserved, and seems desirous of being civil to those with 
 whom he is likely to be connected in business." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Meanwhile, magistrates in various parts of Ireland were 
 invited by the Executive to furnish reports of the state 
 of their various districts. They were all of the same 
 tenor — the people were peaceably absorbed in their own 
 affairs. Here is a letter from the Marquis of Sligo, in 
 reference to the condition of Mayo, addressed to Marsden, 
 the Under Secretary : 
 
 " Westport House, 
 
 "June 30, 1803. 
 
 " Considering the situation of affairs at present we 
 cannot be too vigilant as to all that passes around us. I 
 have two cards to play here — one which relates to the 
 publick safety, and the other the preservation of my own 
 political weight in the county, without which my powers 
 of being useful in other points would be much lessened. I 
 mention this, because tho' from the experience I have of 
 your discretion I will explain to you without reserve 
 every atom I can ascertain, I do it in the confidence of 
 not being quoted unnecessarily, nor of being brought 
 forward where my communications might give umbrage 
 to the most important of my friends. I don't know that 
 such difficulties ma}' occur ; I trust they will not ; but 
 the caution may not be useless even with respect to others. 
 
 '' I believe I see and I know as much of the lower people, 
 
REPORTS FROM THE WEST OF IRELAND 267 
 
 and especially of the suspected, as any other man of my 
 class of life in Ireland, and I can confidently say, and 
 assert that to this day my conviction is that not one of 
 them wish for an invasion ; but on the contrary I believe 
 that if they were told it was to be, I am persuaded they 
 would in their minds be sorry for it ; and the greatest 
 alarmists here are of the same mind with me to the fullest 
 extent of this assertion. That the disaffected of the 
 middle class have changed their opinions I am also clear. 
 And from those facts I do positively say that in the event 
 of the Militia being drawn away, the Yeomen will pre- 
 serve the publick peace ; and if well chosen as to the 
 Corps, kept up and exercised two days in the week, I 
 will venture to pronounce them as much force as those 
 parts want, even in the event of the Enemy being landed 
 in the Kingdom. I have much to lose here, not only in 
 property but in personal comforts, and many of them 
 more valued from being of my own creation. If, there- 
 fore, I mislead it will not be intentional." 
 
 From Lord Ashtown, a Galway peer, came the following 
 reassuring report of the state of his county to the Viceroy : 
 
 " WOODLAWN, 
 
 " July 4th, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " Agreeably to your Excellency's commands I sit 
 down to give some account of the state of this part of 
 the country, as far as I have been able to observe, or 
 learn from those with whom I have conversed. I have 
 the satisfaction to state that this part of the co. Galway 
 is perfectly quiet, and I have reason to suppose that the 
 disturbances in Connemara, as reported to your Ex- 
 cellency, have been much exaggerated. I find the lower 
 classes of people as peaceably disposed and as attentive 
 to their business as usual — finishing their potatoes, in 
 which they have been unusually retarded by the back- 
 wardness of the season, and cutting their turf. 
 
 " They also get drunk and break heads now and then, 
 as usual, at fairs and hurling matches. Your Excellency 
 may, perhaps, remark that this is an extraordinary proof 
 of a peaceable disposition, and such as none but an 
 Irishman would give. It is, however, unquestionably 
 true, that for some months previous to the late Rebellions 
 when they were mediatety to disturb the publick peace, 
 
268 ON THE EVE OF THE INSURRECTION 
 
 drunkenness was almost unknown, and private quarrel, 
 extremely rare. On the whole I am induced to believe 
 that there is no organization at present on foot ; and that 
 we shall not have any rising in this part of the country, 
 unless the French should land in considerable force, and 
 that even in that case they will be cautious how they join 
 them. 
 
 " While I am on this subject I shall beg leave to suggest 
 an idea, that I am sure has not escaped your Excellency's 
 attention, or that of Government on the other side, of 
 the importance of which I am strongly persuaded. It is 
 to make some Parliamentary provision for the Roman 
 Catholick clergy which would give them an interest in 
 the present order of things, and make them exert their 
 influence, which is still very great, in support of it. It 
 might now be done with a good grace, and I have reason 
 to think it would be thankfully received, but in time of 
 actual insurrection would be imputed to fear. I ask 
 pardon for obtruding my sentiments on this subject, but 
 the strong conviction I feel of the utility of the measure 
 must plead my excuse." 
 
 * * :ic 
 
 Nevertheless, at this very time, June, 1803, preparations 
 for an insurrection were in full swing in Dublin without 
 the knowledge of the Executive. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 At the head of the new conspiracy was the young en- 
 thusiast, Robert Emmet. The failure of the rebellion 
 of the United Irishmen in 1798, the execution or banish- 
 ment of all its leaders, the cowed and prostrate condition 
 of the country after the rigorously repressive measures 
 of the Irish Government, did not deter this extraordinary 
 youth from planning, two years after the Union of Ire- 
 land and Great Britain in 180 1, another attempt to 
 establish an Irish Republic. The Irish Executive knew 
 nothing definite of the preparations for this fresh insur- 
 rection until it burst about their astonished ears on 
 July 23, 1803. Then there was no lack of information. 
 Then the whole scheme was unfolded to them by some 
 of the terror-stricken conspirators on whom the law suc- 
 ceeded in laying its heavy hand. In the Hardwicke cor- 
 respondence there is a most interesting official paper on 
 the Emmet insurrection, prepared by William Wickham, 
 Chief Secretary, in December, 1803. "Account of the 
 Insurrection in Dublin on the 23rd July, 1803, and the 
 circumstances by which it was preceded " — so runs its 
 title — "prepared from the evidence in the late State 
 Trials, from the secret examination of several accom- 
 plices, and from various secret documents, particularly 
 from intercepted letters and other papers found in the 
 possession of several of the conspirators." With the 
 help of this document, the " private and confidential " 
 correspondence between the Viceroy and the Cabinet in 
 
 269 
 
270 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 London, and the secret papers of the Home Office, we 
 
 are enabled to follow the development of the plot. It is 
 
 an exciting tale of adventure and romance, a tale of the 
 
 deepest human interest, 
 
 * * * 
 
 Here, to begin, is an extract from William Wickham's 
 secret history of the conspiracy : 
 
 " Early in the year 1801 Mr. Robert Emmet went 
 over to the Continent with a mission to the French 
 Government from the Executive Directory of the United 
 Irishmen here. He was accompanied by a Mr. Malachi 
 Delany of the County of Kildare, now in custody on sus- 
 picion of being concerned in the last insurrection. Delany 
 had been formerly an officer in the Austrian service, 
 and was deeply engaged in the Rebellion of 1798. They 
 travelled through England and embarked at Yarmouth 
 for Hamburgh, Emmet (against whom there was no 
 charge) under his own name, and Delany under the name 
 of Bowers. 
 
 " They resided some time at Hamburgh, until at last 
 they obtained passports from General Angereau, com- 
 manding the French Army on the lower Rhine, and pro- 
 ceeded to Paris. At Paris they had communications 
 with the French Government, in the course of the year 
 1 80 1. What was the particular object of these com- 
 munications is not known, but whatever it was they were 
 put an end to by the Peace which was soon after con- 
 cluded, when Emmet left Paris and came to Brussels to 
 meet his brother, Thomas Addis Emmet, who had been 
 discharged from Fort George. 
 
 " He returned to this country in November, 1802, 
 where he remained unmolested, as he had done before, 
 there being no charge against him, this circumstance of 
 his having been sent on this treasonable mission having 
 only been discovered since the Insurrection of the 23rd 
 of July." 
 
 Young Emmet was debarred from joining any of the 
 professions by his expulsion from Trinity College in 1798 
 for his connection with the revolutionary movement. 
 He therefore turned to trade. 
 
EMMET'S PLAN 271 
 
 " When Emmet came over in November," continues 
 the narrative of the Chief Secretary, " he applied him- 
 self, together with Patten, a nephew of Mr. Colville, the 
 Governor of the Bank, to the tanning business, which they 
 were to learn from a notoriously disaffected, but a very 
 ingenious man of the name of Noms, whom they took 
 into a sort of partnership, Patten furnishing the money." 
 
 If the venture failed, they were determined, all three, 
 on emigrating to America. But Emmet was turned by 
 the death of his father, and the outbreak of war between 
 Great Britain and France, irrevocably from the prosaic 
 if peaceful ways of industry to the romantic if hazardous 
 career of a revolutionist. Under the will of his father 
 he received in April, 1803, a sum of £3,000j and with this 
 money at his back the boy revolutionary proposed to 
 wrest Ireland from the grasp of the strongest and most 
 wealthy Power in the world. But he had no misgiving 
 as to the success of his scheme. Was it not, for one 
 thing, absolutely new and original ? He was not so 
 foolish as to foUow the example of the United Irishmen 
 by attempting to establish a well-organized revolutionary 
 society, with clubs in every part of the country, and 
 counting its numbers by the hundred thousand. That 
 scheme had proved abortive because of the scope it 
 allowed to traitors, who reported every move in the game 
 to the Government. His plan was, first, to spend his 
 fortune on the manufacture and collection of munitions 
 of war in the metropolis, taking but a dozen tried and 
 trusty friends into his confidence ; then, when aU his 
 preparations were completed, to summon a thousand 
 desperate men to his aid from the disaffected in and 
 around Dublin, arm them from his stores, and, surprising 
 the unsuspecting and consequently unprepared Irish 
 Executive, plant the flag of revolution on the battlements 
 of Dublin Castle. This much accomplished — ^and to the 
 romantic youth it was but a little thing — Ireland, at the 
 sound of his trumpet, would shake off her fetters, and 
 arise a free and independent Republic. 
 
 * * * 
 
272 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 Emmet accordingly confided his scheme only to a few 
 subordinate leaders of the Rebellion of 1798 in Dublin, 
 and in Kildare and Wicklow, two counties adjoining the 
 metropolis. These were to have the men ready to 
 respond to his call when he passed the word that the 
 day had come to rise. His two chief confederates of 
 his own class were Thomas Russell, the fellow-prisoner 
 of his brother, Thomas Addis Emmet, in Fort George, 
 and William Hamilton, an Irish officer in the French 
 Army, who was married to Russell's sister. Another 
 powerful ally was Michael Dwyer, an insurgent leader, 
 " on his keeping " in the Wicklow hills for his connec- 
 tion with the Rebellion of 1798. But in the immediate 
 work of manufacturing arms and gunpowder his trusted 
 confederates were not more than eight workmen in the 
 humblest walks in life. The two principals were Michael 
 Quigley, a bricklayer, and Nicholas Stafford, a baker. 
 Ouigley had been concerned in the Rebellion of 1798, 
 and after a term of imprisonment was released on con- 
 dition that he left the country under the Banishment 
 Act. He went to Paris, where he worked at his trade 
 for a time, and became acquainted with Russell and 
 Hamilton. On their invitation he joined the conspiracy, 
 and returning to Dublin about April, 1803, was appointed 
 by Emmet his first lieutenant. One day he accidentally 
 met Stafford, the baker — an old acquaintance — and 
 induced him to give his services to the cause. Two 
 depots were taken in the most crowded centre of Dublin 
 — one in Patrick Street and the other in Marshalsea 
 Lane, off Thomas Street. It is stated in Wickham's 
 narrative that such was the secrecy with which Emmet 
 conducted these initial operations of his plot that not even 
 his chief fellow-conspirators knew exactly the situation 
 of the depots. Emmet himself so completely disappeared 
 from his social circle at the beginning of April — on re- 
 ceiving the money left him in his father's wiU — that the 
 secret agents of the Executive were unable to discover 
 what had become of him, or to determine whether he 
 was in Dublin, or in the provinces organizing, or had 
 
SAMUEL TURNER, THE SPY 273 
 
 left Ireland altogether. He took a lonely country house 
 in Butterfield Lane, Rathfarnham, just outside the city. 
 Here he hved in absolute seclusion as " Robert Ellis," 
 with a faithful girl servant, named Anne Devhn, niece 
 of Michael Dwyer, and here he was visited at night by 
 his principal agents. He does not seem even to have 
 ever inspected his depots in Patrick Street and Marshal- 
 sea Lane. Of the eight workmen employed in the manu- 
 facture of the warlike stores, only Quigley and Stafford 
 were aware that he was at the head of the movement, 
 and knew where he was to be found. To them he gave 
 the necessary money for the purchase of materials, and 
 for the payment of five shillings a day to the mechanics 
 employed in the depots. From them he received regular 
 reports as to the progress of the work. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Government, as I have said, had no information, 
 definite and trustworthy, of the mine which was thus 
 being secretly laid for explosion under their very feet. 
 In the intimate and confidential letters of Lord Hard- 
 wicke to his brother, Charles Yorke, the Minister for 
 War — just about to be promoted to the Home Office in 
 succession to Lord Pelham — the Viceroy roams over a 
 variety of subjects, public and private, speaking his 
 mind freely about all to " my dear Charles "; but I 
 cannot find the least apprehension expressed, now that 
 war had broken out again between Great Britain and 
 France, that trouble was brewing among the disaffected 
 in Ireland. 
 
 It is true the spies of the authorities reported that 
 another insurrection was being organized, but their 
 information was most indefinite. The Viceroy's Post- 
 bag contains several secret communications from one 
 of these agents signed " Belfast," and addressed to 
 Marsden, the Under-Secretary. This was a barrister- 
 at-law named Samuel Turner, an ardent and active 
 patriot, who had betrayed the Ulster Executive of the 
 United Irishmen to the Government in 1798, had fied to 
 
 18 
 
274 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 France with other rebel fugitives, and returned to Ireland 
 after the Peace to continue his role as spy, still unsus- 
 pected as a traitor by his fellow-revolutionaries. Here 
 is one of his reports to Marsden : 
 
 " 315/ May, 1803. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " From every circumstance which has occurred 
 since my return here, I am satisfied that Russell or some 
 others of the Fort George exiles have returned, and are 
 at present in Dublin. Late on Saturday night, William 
 Metcalf, with whom all along I have been so intimate, 
 and the person of the greatest confidence with the people, 
 called on me to acquaint me that a person was specially 
 sent from the Executive in Dublin for him to attend 
 them there without delay ; but some apprehensions 
 being entertained as to the truth of the message and the 
 messenger, he (Metcalf) thought it advisable to consult 
 with me, and now from every enquiry he is satisfied and 
 determined to attend. 
 
 " This man was formerly of Ballymena, his name is 
 either Ross or Cross, and has been for some time in 
 Dublin ; is of the lower order, and has but little to say, 
 is pretty well-clothed and has money with him to defray 
 expenses ; offered Metcalf some, but I ordered him to 
 refuse it. I have promised to assist Metcalf, and he intends 
 setting off on Friday on foot for Dublin. He meets me 
 there, and of course I will get all the information of what 
 is doing. 
 
 " He tells Metcalf that he will introduce him to the 
 entire Executive, and that he will see many whom he 
 knew, and some who have been abroad. Speaks of an 
 immediate business, and fears something may take place 
 before he returns. He is now gone to Ballymena, and 
 returns here on Thursday. Says we are to have 10,000 
 French immediately. Has with him a person who was 
 sent to Scotland on the same business, and who is re- 
 turned. Metcalf is to carr}^ with him the Scotch reports 
 (they are to be delivered verbally). I will, I expect, 
 know them. -| 
 
 '' Metcalf has just parted from me, and is to see me before | 
 he goes, and will then appoint to meet him in Dublin, on 
 about the 12th. I can't leave this sooner. He goes to 
 James Hooper who lives in the Liberty, an old friend of 
 
TURNER'S REPORTS TO THE GOVERNMENT 275 
 
 mine. I don't know where there he lives. I should 
 think he ought not to be arrested until I see him in Dublin, 
 for through him I will be able to ascertain everything." 
 
 On this report there is a note by Hardwicke as follows : 
 
 " This person can't give any satisfactory information ; 
 but tells Marsden he'll know everything when he arrives 
 in Dublin." 
 
 "Belfast," again writing from Belfast, sent Marsden 
 the following report, dated June 4, 1803 : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Metcalf was with me at a late hour last night, 
 and from him I understand the person with whom he was 
 to travel to town had returned here. He had not then 
 seen him, and consequently I could not know all I ex- 
 pected. They were to leave this place early this morn- 
 ing, and from Metcalf's not calling to-day I conclude they 
 are gone. Metcalf will remain in Dublin until I go up. 
 This we have settled ; and unless some of my old friends 
 Emmet, Lawson, Wright, and Teeling, whom O'Hanlon 
 after he escaped from the Tower endeavoured, and in a 
 degree led to believe that I was the means of their arrests, 
 will prevent me seeing him there, I will be able to ascer- 
 tain everything from him. Yet, I think he will not 
 credit anything that might be said without acquaint- 
 ing me. 
 
 " The messenger's name is Scott, and not Ross, as I 
 stated ; and the person who was in Scotland is one 
 Witherspoole, from the neighbourhood of Castlereagh 
 near this town (Co. Down). I don't find he has brought 
 with him any particular reports from Scotland. He says 
 they are doing well there, and would assist us if a Rising 
 would take place ; but I can't find whether he was par- 
 ticularly sent there or not, and am inclined to think he 
 was not. Yesterday I saw William Minis from Saint- 
 field ; he came here for news ; he says that part of the 
 country is quiet, but anxiously waiting for invasion. 
 They have had no meetings lately. The spirit yet con- 
 tinues to a great extent. 
 
 " A great number of the inhabitants here are joining 
 the different Yeomanry corps. I am at present on a 
 delicate footing with regard to this. If I don't join a 
 corps I'll be despised and discountenanced in my pro- 
 
 18—2 
 
276 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 fession* by the gentlemen of the country ; and, on the 
 other hand, if I do, I can't serve you. I hope altogether 
 I am to be considered and that a handsome recompense 
 will be allowed me, cither pecuniary, or by an employment. 
 What I get is not near adequate to my expenditure. 
 
 " I intend leaving this for town by the latter end of the 
 ensuing week. Charles Teeling is here. I was speaking 
 with him ; nothing from him political ; our interview 
 was but short, and merely by accident. 
 
 " I gave Mctcalf some money to assist him up, as he 
 refused to accept any from Scott lest he should be a spy. 
 Metcalf must not by any means be arrested." 
 
 On July 2, 1803, " Belfast " is in Dublin, and writes to 
 Marsden : 
 
 " Metcali, I presume, is gone home. He hasn't called 
 since. He called one evening before I saw you, but I 
 happened to be abroad. He told me when I saw him he 
 would immediately leave town if he was not introduced 
 to the Executive ; and it was agreed that if he was to 
 be introduced he was to call on me. I, therefore, con- 
 clude that he is gone. I leave this for the North to- 
 morrow evening. Any commands sent in the former way. 
 You shall hear from me on my arrival there. I received 
 the cash from McP." 
 
 '' Belfast," on July 8, 1803, thus writes from Belfast 
 to Marsden : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Metcalf is again returned here, and I find Hooper 
 is also down expecting a command. Metcalf returned 
 here on Thursdav last. I haven't since seen him. I 
 understand that he is ordered by the Executive not to 
 communicate much with me. He is now in the County 
 Do^v'n gone towards Loughin island, endeavouring to 
 persuade the people to a general rising. He gives out 
 that Dublin is immediately to be attacked, and has no 
 doubt but it will be taken. Everj^ means is used to rouse 
 the people. Sometimes he tells them if they don't turn 
 out they will all be put into requisition by the Govern- 
 ment, and at other times represents to those the less 
 
 * There is a note to this in Hardwicke's handwriting — " An 
 Attorney." 
 
MACNALLY'S INFORMATION 277 
 
 ardent that he comes also through me. He was yesterday 
 about Saintfield, and is expected in town to-morrow. 
 
 " The idea of a general insurrection has spread much 
 through both counties. Some will turn out, but I find 
 from Mr. Minis, to-day, from the neighbourhood of 
 Saintfield, that the greater number as well as himself 
 look upon it as a desperate enterprise. He tells me the 
 County Down will certainly look to me. I have em- 
 powered him if the leaders chose me, to say that I will 
 take the command at some time, telling him (as he thinks 
 himself that we must be defeated) to prevent the people 
 as much as possible from doing anything rashly. He is 
 to come expressly to me if any determination is likely to 
 take place. From the minds at present of the people 
 they will wait the result of the attack on Dublin. 
 
 " I have written for Bones to Ballymena, and expect 
 to see him about the latter end of the week. With him I 
 will be able to concert some measure to prevent Metcalf 
 and his companion having much influence. Metcalf 
 gives out that leaders (experienced officers) will attend, 
 and even turn out with three men, but can't tell what 
 plan is meant to be pursued. Goes entirely on the 
 old system of 1799, formed by young Emmet, etc.* 
 
 " I wrote you some days ago the conversation I had 
 before I left Dublin. I repeat again, the only and prin- 
 cipal allegation here in not turning out is the want of 
 arms. If you mean to arrest Metcalf instruct Mr. Skinner 
 the magistrate as no doubt he can have full information 
 to convict him. I should wish to know how I am to act 
 upon this occasion. At present I have the strongest 
 party. I have no doubt but Metcalf will call upon me 
 when he returns. He understood that Captain Russell 
 is still in the country, and is to command here." 
 
 The only other secret agent from whom the Govern- 
 ment received a report was Leonard MacNally, or " J. W." 
 He was as vague as " Belfast," and as ignorant of what 
 was really going on. Under date July 19, 1803, he 
 reports to Marsden : 
 
 " I find from the most minute inquiry which I con- 
 stantly keep alive, that all the respectable Catholics and 
 
 * There is a note to this in the handwriting of Hardwicke, 
 which runs : " This was by communicating to very few, and not 
 by visiting." 
 
278 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 those of the middhng rank are decisively against insur- 
 rection, even in the case of invasion. Clone assured me 
 this morning, which is the occasion of my writing, that 
 an emissary from France has been in Dublin, and still 
 remains here, and has had conferences with several per- 
 sons who have come to Dublin specially for that purpose, 
 from almost every county. He cannot specify names, 
 but he assures me the fact was communicated to him from 
 a person who had the information from young Emmet. 
 
 " I daily see different people from the Home Circuit 
 counties, who were implicated in the last Rebellion, and 
 the report of them all is that there is neither system nor 
 organization in the country. They, however, allow that 
 an invasion is expected, in which case they admit a rising 
 would take place whenever the enemy appeared. 
 
 " I can assure you that the disaffected in Dublin look 
 forward to a serious rising in London, in case England 
 should be attacked. They speak of no less than fifty 
 thousand disaffected in that Metropolis." 
 
 * * * 
 
 To these unsubstantial reports the Irish Executive, 
 naturally, attached little credence. They had no in- 
 former inside the inner ring of the conspiracy. Even 
 the personal appearance of Emmet was unknown to 
 their police. The town Major was Sirr, a capable and 
 daring officer, who had had the experience of counter- 
 mining and breaking up the conspiracy of the United 
 Irishmen five years before in Dublin. Yet this keen- 
 eyed and alert watch-dog of the law had never to his 
 knowledge seen Emmet. Impressed by the statements 
 of " Belfast " and " J. W." that " Young Emmet " was 
 the head and front of whatever movement there might 
 be among the disaffected, he obtained a description of 
 the youth's appearance from Dr. Elrington of Trinity 
 College, who in 1798 was his tutor in mathematics. It 
 is not very flattering to the young revolutionary : 
 
 " June yth, 1803. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " Miss Bell having mentioned to me that you 
 wished for a description of Robert Emmet I send the 
 best I can get of what he was five years ago. I know no 
 
EXPLOSION IN THE PATRICK STREET DEPOT 279 
 
 person who can give you an account of the alteration 
 that may have taken place in his figure since. 
 " Believe me, dear Sir, yours very truly, 
 
 " Thomas Elrington. 
 " In 1798 was near twenty years of age, of an ugly 
 sour countenance ; small eyes, but not near-sighted ; a 
 dirty-brownish complexion ; at a distance looks as if 
 somewhat marked with small-pox ; about five feet six 
 inches high, rather thin than fat, but not of an emaciated 
 figure ; on the contrary, somewhat broad-made ; walks 
 briskly, but does not swing his arms." 
 
 * * * 
 
 On the morning of Saturday, July 16, 1803, a most 
 untoward accident happened to the conspirators. An 
 explosion occurred in the Patrick Street depot. One of 
 the workmen was killed. But, worse calamity, the sus- 
 picions of the authorities were aroused, the place was 
 examined, and its stores of pikes, blunderbusses, rockets, 
 and gunpowder seized. The Lord Lieutenant sent the 
 following report of the affair to Addington, the Prime 
 Minister : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Phcenix Park, 
 
 " July 20, 1803. 
 " My dear Sir, * 
 
 . ; " The accounts which have recently come to my 
 knowledge in regard to the intentions of the disaffected, 
 and particularly in regard to their proceedings in Dublin, 
 are by no means so satisfactory as they were some time 
 ago. It still appears that there are no leaders of any 
 consequence ; but it is equally true, and it is a fact which 
 ought not to be concealed from the Government in Eng- 
 land, that agitators are certainly at work, and that there 
 is reason to believe, whenever an opportunity offers of 
 striking a blow, that the Metropolis will be the principal 
 object of insurrection. All our intelligence of late has 
 gone to that point, and I must add that the accounts re- 
 ceived from the country, and particularly from the North, 
 within a day or two, are less favourable than they were, 
 the hope and expectation of a rising gaining ground in 
 those parts, according to information given by persons 
 who from their connexions with the disaffected must be 
 
28o THE INSURRECTION 
 
 supposed to know their secrets. A rising is also talked 
 of wherever and whenever the Enemy may happen to 
 land. 
 
 '' A circumstance occurred a few days since which, as 
 connected with any scheme of insurrection in the Metro- 
 polis, is not uninteresting. On Saturday evening an 
 explosion took place at an house in Patrick-street, by 
 which two men were badly wounded. One of them is 
 since dead. They appear to have been employed in 
 manufacturing gunpowder, and had made use of a 
 machine, which was lately purchased to bruise oats, for 
 the jiurpose of preparing and grinding the ingredients. 
 The men were of the lowest order ; but the survivor has 
 not made any discovery of his accomplices, some of whom 
 are known and, of course, watched. 
 
 " Connected with this accident, another circumstance 
 occurred on Sunday, the 17th inst. About 4 o'clock in 
 the morning of that day two men were observed by the 
 watchmen carrying a large cask from Patrick-street. 
 The two watchmen enquired to what place they were 
 carrying the cask, to which they replied, ' If you wish to 
 know you will see presently.' They then turned the 
 corner of Kevin-street, and set down the cask at the door 
 of an house inhabited by one Palmer, a grocer. The 
 two men, after having set down the cask on the pave- 
 ment, went away, and Palmer, who came down apparently 
 to receive the cask, on perceiving the watchmen, shut the 
 door of his house and walked away to another street. 
 The watchmen then took up the cask and were conveying 
 it to the Watch-house, when they were met by four or 
 five men who took the cask from them, and afterwards 
 were joined by others who fired at the watchmen and pur- 
 sued them, ridiculing the idea of their supposing they 
 could retain possession of it. As this happened in the 
 neighbourhood of the Coombe, where there is a barrack, 
 the watchmen applied for assistance, but the guard de- 
 chned interfering without the order of the magistrate. 
 The two men therefore escaped, and the only information 
 obtained of the contents of the cask is from the accident 
 of a part of it having burst by the shock of being set 
 down on the pavement, when several ball cartridges 
 are stated to have dropped out, and some rings used for 
 the fixing of pikes to the handles. 
 
 '■ Palmer was taken up and examined yesterday. His 
 
THE VICEROY'S REPORT ON THE SITUATION 281 
 
 liouse had been searched on Sunday morning, but nothing 
 was discovered which could give rise to any suspicion ; 
 and as he knew it was impossible to prove anything 
 against him, or even to detain him, he gave no informa- 
 tion whatever, nor any explanation of his being up and 
 dressed at so early an hour of the morning. Palmer is 
 the father of a notorious rebel, and was a short time 
 previous to the Rebellion actively employed himself in 
 posting up seditious handbills in different parts of Dublin, 
 and still remains there ; and it is said that he has had 
 conferences with several persons from the country, of 
 which, however, there is no certainty. 
 
 " Our information states that the disaffected in Dublin 
 look forward to a serious rising in London, in case England 
 should be attacked, and that there are no less than 50,000 
 disaffected persons in the Metropolis. An emissary of 
 rebellion in the County of Antrim gives out that Dublin 
 is expected to be attacked, and that there is no doubt of 
 success. In addition to this expectation which he holds 
 out to induce the people to rise, he tells them that if they 
 don't turn out they will be put in requisition by the 
 Government. The idea of a general insurrection is said 
 from the same quarter to have spread much through 
 the Counties of Down and Antrim ; but it is also stated 
 that it is considered by the greater number as a desperate 
 enterprize. 
 
 " It is certainly true, so far as we can judge from all the 
 information received from various quarters, that there are 
 no leaders of any consequence or influence. But though 
 an insurrection upon that account may be less formidable 
 and not so ably conducted, that circumstance of itself 
 is by no means a security against it, and leaders may rise 
 up from the lowest class under whose guidance much 
 mischief may be effected. I wish, therefore, to suggest 
 to your consideration that great inconveniences may 
 arise from the want of a power being vested in Govern- 
 ment to take up suspected persons. I am aware of the 
 general objection to any supervision, however partial, of 
 the Habeas Corpus Act, and that it is desirable to avoid 
 it if possible for any part of the United Kingdom, if it 
 can be done with safety ; but on the other hand it may 
 be urged that it is better to prevent mischief by detaining 
 those who are preparing for insurrection, than to trust 
 it to their subsequent detection and punishment, and it 
 
282 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 can hardly be expected that disaffection shonld have 
 entirely ceased in this country, or that the enemy should 
 not use every means to revi\'e and increase it." 
 
 In consequence of the Patrick Street explosion Emmet 
 decided to make the Marshalsea Lane depot his habita- 
 tion, in order that he might personally supervise the 
 further progress of operations. He also decided to 
 hasten the day of the insurrection, and accordingly ap- 
 pointed the evening of the following Saturday, July 23. 
 Saturday was market-day in Dublin, when it was the 
 custom for crowds of the surrounding agricultural popu- 
 lation to come in to sell their produce ; and, besides, the 
 streets on that evening were usually thronged with artisans 
 and labourers, so that the assembly of the rebels at various 
 points of the city, for the simultaneous attack on the 
 Castle and the military barracks, was likely to pass un- 
 noticed. Therefore, on Friday, July 22, Emmet sent 
 commands to his confederates in Dublin, Kildare, and 
 Wicklow, to be ready with their men at allotted posts 
 within the city at nine o'clock on Saturday evening, 
 when arms would be distributed to them and instruc- 
 tions issued as to their respective operations in the 
 capture of Dublin. 
 
 What passed in the depot meanwhile is thus graphi- 
 cally described in the Chief Secretary's narrative : 
 
 " Until a week before the Insurrection not more than 
 a dozen persons on the whole were admitted to the Depot, 
 and no more than seven or eight were there at any one 
 time. These persons, though chiefly of an humble class 
 in life, were entirely confidential, and of known attach- 
 ment to the cause. They brought in from time to time, 
 in small bundles or baskets, or under their great-coats, 
 pikeheads, pistols, blunderbusses, and ammunition. 
 Boards were brought there of a length and thickness 
 to be cut into pike handles, and a few beams which were 
 afterwards hollowed in different ways — some to contain 
 pikes, some to be charged with combustibles and laid 
 in the streets to impede or destroy the military. The 
 lease of the depot having been taken by a working car- 
 penter, Henry Howley, for the express purpose of 
 
LIFE IN THE MARSHALSEA LANE DEPOT 2S3 
 
 making it his workhouse, no danger was apprehended 
 from bringing the beams or boards in the most pubHc 
 manner, or from the noise of the tools used in manufactur- 
 ing them, more especially as any work that could excite 
 suspicion was done on one of the lofts, to which the only 
 access was by a ladder and a small hole in the floor. 
 
 " As the quantity of pikes increased, these securities 
 being considered insufficient, a partition of brick and 
 mortar was built from the ground floor through all the 
 lofts to the top of the building. This partition stood 
 parallel to one of the walls at the distance of about six 
 feet. On each loft a door was made in it of a very peculiar 
 kind. It was small, and consisted of a frame of timber, 
 in which bricks were laid in mortar. When shut it 
 seemed to be part of the wall, so that no door appeared, 
 and any person coming in might suppose the partition 
 to be one of the walls of the building. Behind this 
 partition the pikes when finished were deposited. 
 
 " At one time the landlord desired to see the premises, 
 which alarmed Quigley and his party not a little ; but 
 having contrived to postpone him till the next day, and 
 having in the meantime sent to Emmet for directions, 
 they by his desire placed a trap door, with a lock and key, 
 on the hole leading to the lofts, and resolved to say that 
 the upper part had been let to a country man for corn 
 stores. The landlord having no particular suspicion did 
 not return. 
 
 " At one time two deserters were brought secretly, 
 with their muskets, into the Depot, which they did not 
 afterwards leave until the night of the Insurrection. 
 During that time they were employed chiefly in making 
 cartridges. At another time one of the Depot men 
 brought in two muskets carefully concealed. These four 
 muskets, so brought in, were the only arms of that kind 
 they had. There were but twelve blunderbusses in the 
 Depot until the day of the Insurrection, when six more 
 were brought in. There were not at any time more than 
 3,000 pikes, twelve cases of pistols, and there was no 
 sword but Mr. Emmet's. A rich General's uniform was 
 prepared for Emmet ; and a few other uniforms for the 
 Colonels, laced also but not so richly, and several without 
 lace for persons of inferior class. They were all green 
 faced with white ; the cloth for all was got at the shop of 
 Allen & Hickson." * * * 
 
284 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 About eleven o'clock on Saturday morning, July 23, 
 ten of the leaders of the disaffected in Kildare arrived 
 in Dublin. " They are all known to the Government," 
 sa^^s Chief Secretary Wickham in his report, written in 
 December, " and most of them are now in custody." 
 Emmet met them at the White Bull Inn, Thomas Street, 
 from which there was a back passage to the depot in 
 Marshalsea Lane. The Kildare men were all substantial 
 farmers. Their natural impulsiveness and irresponsi- 
 bility as Irishmen were somewhat toned down by the 
 phlegm and caution which Mother Earth imparts to 
 those in close relations with her. They had heard of 
 Emmet, of course, but they had never seen him before, 
 and these veterans, many of them, were not impressed 
 by the youth of the revolutionary chief. The rumour 
 had gone abroad that the Dublin leaders of the con- 
 spiracy had refused to act. The countrymen accord- 
 ingly insisted upon being introduced to their city con- 
 federates. They were not going to trust their lives and 
 liberties, they said, to a raw, enthusiastic boy. But 
 Emmet peremptorily refused to produce them ; first, 
 because it was only too true that the Dublin leaders — 
 mainly shopkeepers — had proved unreliable ; and, 
 secondly, and mainly, because, as things were now ap- 
 pearing desperate, he chivalrously desired to hide as 
 far as possible the identity of the men implicated in 
 the plot. 
 
 The Kildare farmers then demanded to be shown the 
 depot of arms. To this Emmet agreed. He conducted two 
 of the band to the neighbouring arsenal in Marshalsea 
 Lane. He pointed out to them the piles of pikes — sharp 
 and deadly weapons they had proved to be in the hands 
 of the infuriated peasantry during the Rebellion of 1798 — 
 their hafts hinged in the centre, so that they might be 
 doubled up and secretly carried beneath a great-coat. 
 He showed them also an immense store of musket ball- 
 cartridges. So far so good. But in the way of fire- 
 arms there were only eighteen blunderbusses and four 
 muskets, which had been brought in by two army 
 
THE KII.DARE CONSPIRATORS 285 
 
 deserters. The only sword in the place was one that 
 Emmet had procured for himself. Some extraordinarily 
 primitive weapons were exhibited. There were 104 quart 
 bottles filled with gunpowder, fitted with fuses and 
 quilted round with musket bullets, to do duty as hand 
 grenades. There were eight logs of deal, 10 feet long 
 and I foot square, bored in the centre, charged with 
 gunpowder and stones, to supply the place of cannon. 
 Emmet also showed the Kildare farmers 1,000 rudely- 
 printed copies of the address of " The Provisional Govern- 
 ment to the People of Ireland," which the youth himself 
 had composed. It was a flamboyant production. But 
 it emphatically declared that during the revolution life 
 and property were to be held sacred. The first of the 
 thirty decrees it promulgated was that tithes for the 
 support of the clergy of the Established Church were for 
 ever abolished, and that Church lands were the property 
 of the nation. Finally, Emmet, with boyish pride, dis- 
 played the gorgeous uniform which he was to wear that 
 evening as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of the Irish 
 Republic. 
 
 But these unimaginative, unromantic tillers of the 
 soil scoffed at the boy's arsenal and his proclamations, 
 and even at his magnificent dress. " Be the wars," they 
 reported to their comrades in the White Bull Inn, " they 
 wor made a nice game of be the youngster ! They wor 
 to attack the Artillery barracks, nothin' else, with a few 
 ould blunderbusses ! Oh, the divil was in it, intirely ! 
 It was to put the rope round the necks of dacent men the 
 boy wanted ! As they worn't fools, they would have no 
 hand, act, or part in the business !" " The whole of 
 them returned to their homes," writes Chief Secretary 
 Wickham, " sending back their followers whom they 
 \met on the road." 
 
 * * * 
 
 What were the Irish Executive doing on that fateful 
 Saturday, July 23, 1803 ? It is clear that the danger 
 they feared was not an insurrection, but a French in- 
 
286 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 vasion. On July 12 General Fox, Commander of the 
 Forces, set out on a tour of inspection in the West, to 
 see that the military were prepared for a probable repe- 
 tition of the French descent on the coast of Mayo under 
 General Hambert in 1799. Two days later occurred the 
 explosion at Emmet's depot in Patrick Street. The 
 Lord Lieutenant sent a hurried despatch to General Fox, 
 informing him of the incident, and urging the necessity 
 of precaution and watchfulness on the part of the military 
 forces in Dublin. This letter miscarried in some way, 
 and never reached the Commander of the Forces. Late 
 on the night of July 22 General Fox returned to Dublin. 
 Next da\% Saturday, July 23, at two o'clock, he called 
 by arrangement on the Viceroy at the Viceregal Lodge, 
 Phoenix Park, for a consultation on the state of the 
 country. Hardly had they sat down to discuss matters 
 when the Viceroy received the following disquieting 
 note from IMarsden, the Under-Secretary, written in 
 Dublin Castle at two o'clock : 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " On coming to town I find a considerable degree 
 of alarm in the apprehension of a rising this night or to- 
 morrow morning in Dublin. I have reason to think that 
 something serious is intended. I wish your Excellency 
 would come to town with General Fox in your carriage, 
 which I would not request upon any light grounds." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant and the Commander of the Forces 
 set out immediately for Dublin Castle. Marsden told 
 them that a person in the secrets of the disaffected had 
 informed him there was to be an outbreak that night, 
 though he was unable to give any particulars of the nature 
 of the plot ; that Mr. Alderman Manners had reported 
 that a priest told him that morning " that a person 
 whom he would not name had communicated to him 
 intelligence of an intended rising," and that several 
 people had informed him that considerable numbers of 
 men were observed, in the course of the morning, coming 
 into town, particularly from Kildare. This was the 
 
THE FIRST NEWS OF THE CONSPIRACY 287 
 
 sum total of the knowledge possessed by the Executive 
 of the insurrection a few hours before its explosion. 
 
 All were agreed that there was not the remotest pos- 
 sibihty of a rising attaining to any degree of success in 
 the metropohs, with its garrison of 3,000 men— infantry, 
 cavalry, and artillery. The idea of an attack upon the 
 Castle was considered especially ridiculous. It not only 
 had its own strong guard, but in Parhament Street— 
 within a stone's-throw of its chief entrance— there was a 
 barrack with an infantry regiment, while the Royal 
 Barracks, where the bulk of the garrison was stationed, 
 was at the other side of the river, within a quarter of an 
 hour's ride. Disturbances might take place on the out- 
 skirts of the city, but nothing more serious was appre- 
 hended. However, General Fox undertook to send 
 directions to the military in the various barracks and 
 guard-houses to hold themselves in readiness during the 
 night to suppress any popular tumult. Marsden also 
 arranged to stay in the Castle all night, instead of sleep- 
 ing in the Under-Secretary's lodge in the Phoenix Park. 
 But it is significant of the complete absence of any in- 
 formation or any suggestion as to the probable form 
 the rumoured insurrection would assume, should it come 
 to a head, and of the ease of mind of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, that his Excellency decided to return to the 
 Viceregal Lodge — than which, owing to its remoteness 
 from town, there could hardly have been a more incon- 
 venient or a more insecure place for the head of the 
 Government in the event of a rising — and on the way 
 back, between five and six o'clock, he actually drove in 
 his carriage through a thoroughfare off which was Mar- 
 shalsea Lane — the headquarters of the insurgents — with 
 its stores of powder and ball and pikes. 
 
 At nine o'clock half a dozen of the principal officers of 
 the garrison, including General Sir Charles Asgill, com- 
 manding in the Dublin district, and Brigadier-General 
 Dunne, of the Royal Barracks, assembled on the summons 
 of General Fox at his headquarters, the Royal Hospital, 
 Kilmainham. They were told by the Commander of the 
 
288 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 Forces of the runiour at the Oistle that a rising was to 
 take place that night. '' For my part," he added, " I 
 c.mnot give nuich credit to it ; and, indeed, the general 
 opinion of the civil anthorities seems to be that it is 
 almost impossible such an e\ent could take place ui 
 Publin." '^ Well," said Sir Cliarles Asgill, " I have been 
 in Ireland during the whole of the late Rebellion, and I 
 have seen very extraordinary things happen, so that it 
 is best to be on the alert and prepared for everything." 
 
 Accordingly-, the othcers were dismissed to their posts 
 with the injunction to keep their men " ready to get 
 under arms on any alarm, and on no account to be per- 
 mitted to take off their accoutrements until one hour 
 after daylight." Sir Charles Asgill was sent by General 
 Fox to the Castle to inquire whether Marsden had any 
 fresh information. James Street and Thomas Street lie 
 in a direct line between the Royal Hospital and the 
 Castle. As Asgill was riding down James Street he saw 
 a crowd of men armed with pikes in conflict with a com- 
 pany of soldiers. His iirst thought was to go to the aid 
 of the military, but changing his mind, he decided to 
 return to the Royal Hospital to inform General Fox 
 that the insurrection had begun. He was surrounded 
 by a party of the mob, brandishing their pikes and 
 shouting, and it was with difficulty that, putting spurs 
 to his horse, he succeeded in forcing his way through 
 them. Two of the other officers, riding the same way 
 to their barracks, had also to fly for their lives. 
 
 Just as Asgill got back to the Royal Hospital with his 
 alarming news a note from the Lord Lieutenant was 
 delivered to the Commander of the Forces. Written at 
 ten o'clock, it stated that Lieutenant-Colonel Aylmer, of 
 the Kildare Militia, had just called at the Viceregal 
 Lodge to say he had been told that the peasantry of 
 Ma^Tiooth, CO. Kildare, were marching on Dublin, and 
 that they intended to attack the Lodge on their way. 
 " At the same time that he thought it right to com- 
 municate the information he received, he admits," 
 added the Viceroy, " that he feels a difficulty in giving 
 
THE FATEFUL EVENINC; 2^,, 
 
 credit to it." That Hardwickc shared in Ayhner's in- 
 creduHty is shown by his surprise at tlie action oi Cieneral 
 Fox in ordering — after he had left the Castle — that th(.' 
 military guard at the Viceregal Lodge (usually a sergeant 
 and twelve men) should be increased. 
 
 " I have just learned," says his Excellency in a P.S. 
 to the letter, "that you have given directions for augment- 
 ing the guard licre to an officer and thirty men. I con- 
 clude from it that you have received some further 
 information which induces you to tliink it advisable, and 
 that, as alarm has been given, that precaution will not 
 greatly add to it." 
 
 The reply of General Fox to the Viceroy, written in 
 sprawling, shaky characters, is as follows : 
 
 " Royal Hospital, 
 " J'^iy 23, 1803. II o'clock p.m. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " At the moment I was honoured with your Lord- 
 ship's letter the firing in James-street commenced, and 
 I was of course anxious to ascertain the cause of it before 
 I answered your Excellency. The account given by the 
 officer commanding the detachment of the 21st Regiment 
 in James-street is that a body of men with pikes dashed 
 suddenly upon his party, and that upon his firing upon 
 them part of them threw down their pikes and the whole 
 dispersed. One of the privates was severely wounded, 
 two men made prisoners and fifteen pikes taken. 
 
 " It is impossible for one to say or presume to give any 
 opinion how far it may be advisable for your Excellency's 
 family to remain in the Park or go to the Castle. If I 
 was to give any it would be to remain at the Lodge this 
 night. I have given orders to Colonel Cotton with his 
 patrole to pay particular attention to aU the avenues of 
 the Park, and have directed your Excellency's Guard to 
 be augmented to a Captain and 60 men." 
 
 * * * 
 
 At nine o'clock that fateful evening of July 23, 1803, 
 the great hour had come for Robert Emmet — the hour 
 of his rapturous patriotic dreamings ; the hour of a 
 
 19 
 
290 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 groat national awakening and uprising, when he should 
 place hinisell at the head of a thousand determined men, 
 and set out to seize Dublin Castle in the name of the 
 Irish Republic. But what a consummation of his hopes 
 and ambitions, of his months of feverish preparation for 
 the great revolution ! The Dublin men refusing to rise, 
 the Kildare farmers gone home in disgust ! IBut Emmet 
 was determined that, whoever might be wanting, lie, at 
 least, should see the thing through. He put on his grand 
 uniform as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of the 
 Irish Republic. The coat was green, with heavy golden 
 epaulets. There was a white waistcoat, a,nd tight panta- 
 loons of the same colour, and Hessian boots. In the 
 crimson sash round his waist were a brace of pistols, and 
 by his side hung a sword. On his head was a beaver 
 cocked hat with white feathers. His two chief Generals, 
 Michael Quigley the bricklayer and Nicholas Stafford 
 the baker, also wore green uniforms, but they paled 
 before the glory of their young leader's regimentals. 
 Emmet had all the assurance of youth in its own invinci- 
 bility, and he readily put it to the touch. Forced by cir- 
 cumstances to a premature rising, before his elaborate 
 and well-thought-out plans were ripe for execution, yet 
 no thought of failure or death seems to have disturbed 
 him. It was a beautiful summer evening, and in the 
 soft setting sunshine and the radiant blue skies he saw 
 not the shadow of the gallows, nor the glint of the execu- 
 tioner's knife. So, drawing his sword, he sallied forth 
 from the depot in Marshalsea Lane, with firm step, erect 
 front, and joyful heart, to certain outlawry and a shame- 
 ful death ! 
 
 Following Emmet as he appeared in Thomas Street 
 from Marshalsea Lane were about a hundred men, twenty 
 or so provided with blunderbusses, and the others armed 
 with pikes. There was much shouting and yelling. The 
 peaceable marketing crowds in that busy thoroughfare, 
 highly puzzled, asked each other " What's up ?" The 
 inhabitants crowded the windows and looked down on 
 the scene with amazement. Soon a panic set in. The 
 
EMMET AT THE HEAD OF THE INSURGENTS 291 
 
 shopkeepers, interrupted at their busiest hour, hurried 
 to put up their shutters, as they cursed the youth in the 
 green and gold and white uniform— the patriot and 
 dreamer— who, in setting out to make them free, had 
 spoiled their evening's takings. Drunken ruffians poured 
 out of the low inns and, arming themselves with pikes, 
 joined the insurgents, bent solely on pillage and murder. 
 Emmet, turning to the left, towards Dublin Castle, drew 
 up his followers in Francis Street, and had them counted 
 by Quigiey and Stafford. About 300 they numbered, 
 but not more than 100 were reliable. The youth then 
 addressed them. He said that, as they were not strong 
 enough to capture Dublin Castle, he proposed to lead 
 them to the Wicklow mountains to await a more favour- 
 ing chance for establishing the Irish Republic. What 
 was that ? Take them away from Dublin, where there 
 were Sassenachs to be piked ! And to the desolate, 
 hungry Wicklow hills ! Did anyone ever hear the like ? 
 Who was this gossoon who dared say so ? To the devil 
 they pitched the youngster, and his green and gold uni- 
 form ! The yelling mob thus hurled their indignation at 
 the boy. Let him run away, the coward, to the Wicklow 
 mountains if he liked ! They could get on very well 
 without him in piking the Sassenachs ! Just then a 
 dragoon rode up Francis Street, from the direction of 
 the Castle. He was an orderly, leisurely on his way to 
 the Royal Hospital, the headquarters of the Commander 
 of the Forces. Poor fellow ! he was to be the first 
 victim of the insurrection ! With savage cries, the mob 
 surrounded him, flung him from his horse, and piked 
 him as he lay on the ground. Emmet was overwhelmed 
 with horror by the cruel deed. This was not insurrec- 
 tion as he had imagined it — with banners flying, drums 
 beating, bugles blowing, his gallant followers in deadly 
 grapple with gallant foes ! Collecting ten of his chief 
 supporters — including Michael Quigiey the bricklayer 
 and Nicholas Stafford the baker — he fled from Francis 
 Street to his house in Butterfield Lane. They reached 
 the place just at eleven o'clock. Young Anne Devlin 
 
 19 — 2 
 
292 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 was there, praying for the success of the rebelHon. 
 " Who's that ?" she called out, on hearing the noise 
 in the yard. " It's me, Anne," replied Emmet, coming 
 into the girl's view. She saw his green and gold and 
 white uniform. But what a contrast to its gallant 
 bravery was that face of sorrow beneath the cocked 
 hat and white feathers! "Oh, bad welcome to yez !" 
 cried the girl bitterly in an Irish exclamation. " Is the 
 world lost by yc, cowards that yez are, to lead the people 
 to destruction, and then to lave them !" " Don't 
 blame me, Anne ; the fault is not mine," was Emmet's 
 
 dejected reply. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The mob broke up into several parties after Emmet 
 had fled, and for two hours held complete possession of 
 James Street, Thomas Street, and Francis Street, almost 
 the entire route between Dublin Castle, the seat of civil 
 government, and the Royal Hospital, the headquarters 
 of the military. Their principal leader was a soldier 
 named James Bannan — one of the two deserters who 
 had been in hiding for days in the depot at Marshalsea 
 Lane — and in his red coat he was a conspicuous figure 
 in the turbulent scenes that followed. There was a 
 barrack in James Street occupied by 150 men of the 
 2ist Regiment, or the Royal North British Fusiliers. 
 The senior officer on duty, suspicious of the movements 
 of the mob in James Street, but without even the re- 
 motest idea that an insurrection had broken out, 
 despatched Lieutenant Brady, with a company of the 
 regiment, to fetch Colonel Brown from his lodgings on 
 Usher Quay. A body of pikemen rushed suddenly upon 
 the soldiers as they were marching through James Street. 
 They soon fled, however, flinging away their weapons, 
 before the musketry fire of the " red-coats." Mean- 
 while, Colonel Brown, on the way to the barracks, 
 accompanied by a servant, fell into the hands of another 
 party of the rebels, and was piked to death by their 
 leader, Henry Howley the carpenter. 
 
THE MURDER OF LORD KILWARDEN 293 
 
 A private carriage came along Thomas Street, driving 
 in the direction of the Castle. In it were two gentlemen 
 and a young lady. It was stopped by the mob. " What 
 do you want ?" demanded the elder of the gentlemen. 
 " I am Kilwarden, Chief Justice of the King's Bench." 
 The judge— one of the most humane dispensers of the 
 law in a rather brutal age— was immediately pulled out 
 of the carriage and piked. He resided at Newlands, a 
 few miles outside the city, and, hearing the rumours of 
 an insurrection, decided that as a member of the Privy 
 Council his post was at the Castle. The other gentleman, 
 the Rev. Richard Wolfe (Kilwarden's nephew), was also 
 cruelly murdered. The young lady was the judge's 
 daughter. With the departure of Emmet, the rebellion 
 had fallen into the hands of the offscourings of the lowest 
 quarters of Dublin. But the Irish instinct of respect for 
 women was alive even in the breasts of this rabble. In 
 all the horrors of 1798 in Wexford the peasants laid not 
 a hand immodestly upon any women of their opponents, 
 while their own wives and daughters and sisters were 
 being outraged by the military. " Run away with you, 
 miss, and God save you !" cried the insurgents to Miss 
 Wolfe — after they had foully murdered her aged father 
 before her eyes — and the unhappy young lady, dis- 
 traught and hysterical, hastened unmolested to the 
 Castle. 
 
 Another section of the mob attacked a guard-house, 
 occupied by a few companies of the 21st Regiment, in 
 the Coombe, the back lanes of Thomas Street, but were 
 easily repulsed. There were two or three other murders 
 within the area of disturbance. But by eleven o'clock 
 detachments of infantry and cavalry arrived, and stamped 
 out what remained of the smouldering embers of the 
 insurrection. About thirty of the rebels were killed. 
 The Yeomanry were also called out, and passed the 
 night searching the houses of the district. By morning 
 the prisons were crammed with suspected persons. 
 
 JH * * 
 
294 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 The following hurried despatch from Marsden, Under- 
 Secretary, to Lord Pelham conveyed the first ne^s of 
 the insurrection to Whitehall : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 " /"^y 23, 1803, II o'clock p.m. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I am much afflicted to be obliged to inform your 
 Lordship that a very serious degree of Insurrection has 
 broken out in Dublin, and its vicinity. 
 
 " For some days past we had heard that a rising was 
 talked of, and it was asserted by many that it would take 
 place. Such precautions were taken as the circumstances 
 appeared to warrant, but the mischievous disposition 
 which prevails at present is beyond what was calculated 
 upon. 
 
 " Early this day we heard from the neighbourhood of 
 the capitiil, particularly on the Kildare side, that the 
 country people had forsaken their labour under an idea 
 of marching to Dublin. The sensation excited by this 
 in Dublin and in the country increased in that degree 
 during the day that the mobs in the streets towards 
 evening assumed a very formidable appearance. 
 
 " General Fox and Sir Chas. Asgill concerted measures 
 with the Lord Lieutenant to make the best disposition 
 of the forces in the; garrison that circumstances would 
 admit of, and the Yeomanry collected and their services 
 were made use of. 
 
 " As yet order is in no degree restored, and I am dis- 
 tressed beyond measure to acquaint your Lordship that 
 I heard Lord Kilwarden has been stopped in his carriage 
 in Thomas Street, and has been put to death ; and I 
 believe his son has shared the same fate. A magistrate 
 of the name of Clarke has also been shot at in the street, 
 and is badly wounded. 
 
 " I write this to your Lordship without being able to 
 communicate with the Lord Lieutenant, who is in the 
 Park. I shall send another messenger in the morning to 
 inform your Lordship of what further occurs in this most 
 distressing business. 
 
 " I do not hear of any other personal injury of con- 
 sequence but what I have mentioned. 
 
 '' Your Lordship's very obedient and humble servant, 
 
 " A. Marsden. 
 
 " Right Hon. Lord Pelham. 
 
A CONTRAST IN HUMAN NATURE 295 
 
 " Miss Wolfe was in the carriage with her father and 
 brother, and she says that both were killed. It may not 
 be fact ; but the tide will have fallen if I detain the 
 
 messenerer."* 
 
 ° * * * 
 
 The next day, Sunday, July 23, the Lord Lieutenant 
 received two letters which afford a curious contrast in 
 human nature. One was from Colonel Napier, Pay- 
 master of the Forces, to whom we have already been 
 introduced, t 
 
 " Castletown, 
 " Sunday morning, 8 o'clock. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I am sorry to inform your Excellency that my 
 servant has just come from my house at Celbridge,J 
 which was attacked by a party of men with arms about 
 six o'clock. Their number, he tells me, amounted to 
 about fifty. They demanded his arms, threatening to 
 shoot him in case of refusal, and they obtained a fowling- 
 piece and two carbines, with which, they made off towards 
 Clare or Maynooth. They asked him if there were any 
 other houses in the neighbourhood where they were likely 
 to find arms, and told him they wanted nothing else. 
 One of them, who appeared to be a leader, was dressed in 
 
 * From " Ireland, Private and Secret, 1803." — Home Office 
 Papers. 
 
 t See Chapter IX, " The Distribution of Honours." 
 I The Napiers resided at Celbridge Abbey, co. Kildare, a 
 house rich in historic and hterary memories, associated with 
 the names of Dean Swift and of Henry Grattan. Celbridge 
 Abbey was, early in the eighteenth century, the residence of 
 Bartholomew Van Homrigh, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 
 1698, and the father of Esther Van Homrigh, the " Vanessa " of 
 Swift's peoms. Dean Swift was for years a frequent guest and 
 visitor at Celbridge Abbey. And then, some sixty or seventy 
 years later, Celbridge Abbey was the residence of Colonel Marlay, 
 the uncle of Henry Grattan. When Grattan 's Liberal politics 
 and patriotic leanings became so displeasing to his father as to 
 render home-life unpleasant, he frequently retired to Celbridge 
 Abbey, where he was always received with affection by his uncle. 
 Colonel Marlay, and another uncle, Dr. Marlay, Dean of St. 
 Patrick's, and afterwards Protestant Bishop of Waterford, who 
 sympathized with him in his views of political affairs, which were 
 repugnant to his father, the Tory Recorder of Dublin. There 
 is a grotto in the grounds of Celbridge Abbey overlooking the 
 Liffey which was a frequent resort of Swift and " Vanessa," and, 
 in a later generation, of Henry Grattan. 
 
296 THE INSURRECTION 
 
 a sort of green iiniforni faeed with orange. My servant 
 being an old Scotch soldier, I can depend upon his in- 
 telligence, which I would have conveyed to your Excel- 
 lency in person had I not been convinced that you would 
 prefer my staying here to take measures for defending 
 this house, where there are a considerable number of 
 arms. 
 
 " I shall try every means of gaining further informa- 
 tion on this serious subject, as I am well accpiainted with 
 the topography of the country. Your Excellency will find 
 me prepared to receive and obey whatever instructions 
 you may deem it necessary to give me ; and I trust that 
 any risk which might attend the execution of whatever 
 you may deem expedient for the King's service, and the 
 safety of the public, will not make you hesitate a moment 
 in accepting my services, as I must think my life well 
 disposed of in a cause where a lenient and impartial 
 administration of justice has left the disaffected no 
 excuse for their wild and wicked extravaigance. 
 
 '' I have the honour to remain, my Lord, your Ex- 
 cellency's obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 " Geo, Napier. 
 
 " P.S. — I this moment hear that the villains are re- 
 turning, and are at the border of the wood. If they 
 come hero I hope we shall receive them warmly." 
 
 The other letter was from the Rev. Dr. Kearney, 
 Provost of Trinity College : 
 
 " Provost's House, 
 
 "Trinity College, Dublin, 
 " July 24th, 1803. 
 '■ My Lord, 
 
 " At such a crisis as the present I am ashamed to 
 intrude on your Excellency with a request. 
 
 " I have two sons in Orders for some years, unbeneficed. 
 I have been an awkward solicitor for their advancement, 
 and have had no success with the Bishops hitherto, 
 except in a slight instance for the eldest. The horrid 
 murders of last night have left a living vacant, held by 
 ni}' lamented friend. Lord Kilwarden's nephew. Should 
 your Excellency think proper to confer it on the Reverend 
 Tl>omas Henry Kearney, I shall feel a great private 
 obligation added to my unfcign'd and high respect. 
 
THE PROVOST OF TRINITY COLLEGE 297 
 
 " I shall only add that my situation is attended with 
 as great expenses as that of a bishop, and I am utterly 
 destitute of any patronage. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, my Lord, with warm and 
 perfect esteem, your Excellency's faithful, obedient, 
 humble servant, 
 
 " John Kearney." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WAS THE EiMMET INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 On Sunday the Lord Lieutenant sat down in Dublin 
 Castle to prepare accounts of the insurrection for London. 
 The following is his oilicial report to Lord Pelham, as 
 Home Secretary : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " 24th July, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " It is with the greatest concern that I am under 
 the necessity of informing your Lordship that an Insur- 
 rection of a very serious nature broke out yesterday 
 evening in the city of Dublin, and tho' it was fortunately 
 suppressed by the exertion of the officers and troops 
 composing the garrison, and by the zeal and alacrity with 
 which e\'ery Yeomanry corps came forward in the course 
 of the night, was attended with some circumstances of 
 a very atrocious nature, which it is my painful duty to 
 relate to your Lordship. 
 
 " In the course of yesterday morning a report reached 
 me that an attack was intended on the city of Dublin in 
 the course of the night, and in consequence of information 
 to the same effect being communicated to me at a later 
 hour of the day, I consulted with General Fox as to the best 
 steps to be taken for the security of the city. 
 
 " In the afternoon a general alarm seemed to prevail, 
 but no act of violence was committed till between 9 and 
 10 o'clock, when an attack was made upon Lord Kil- 
 warden's carriage in Thomas Street, between the Royal 
 Hospital and the Castle, as he was coming to town from 
 
 298 
 
THE VICEROY'S OFFICIAL REPORT 299 
 
 his house near Rcathcoole. The whole of that part of 
 the street was filled with people, most of whom were 
 armed with pikes or firearms. A party of them, 
 upon stopping the carriage, forced Lord Kilwarden 
 and his nephew, Mr. Richard Wolfe, to get out, and 
 stabbed them with pikes in presence of his daughter, 
 who escaped to the Castle almost in a state of insensi- 
 bility. 
 
 " "It is also with great concern that I am obliged to 
 acquaint your Lordship that Colonel Browne of the 21st 
 Regiment of Foot was murdered on his way to the barrack 
 in James's Street and that two men of the i6th Light 
 Dragoons were killed on passing thro' the street on 
 duty. 
 
 " The only regular attack that was made in any part 
 of the town was upon the barrack of the 21st Regiment 
 in James's Street, where, after two discharges of musquetry 
 from the Guard, the assailants retired, leaving several 
 pikes, a few prisoners, and one man badly wounded. 
 Several persons were also killed in Thomas Street, many 
 of whom could not be ascertained, and are supposed to 
 have come from the country. 
 
 " A considerable number of pikes, several barrels of 
 gunpowder and a quantity of ammunition were found, in 
 the course of the night, in a house in the neighbourhood of 
 Thomas Street, with a great number of proclamations 
 and handbills recently printed, and which, it was said, 
 were to have been issued this day. 
 
 " In the midst of this unhappy detail, I am happy to 
 acquaint your Lordship that the mail coaches, both 
 those of the country and those which arrived in town, 
 either escaped or resisted the attack which was made upon 
 them near Dublin. The only one that was attacked was 
 fired at in the town of Maynooth, but by the intrepidity 
 of the guards, it effected its passage through the town 
 without being stopped. 
 
 " I have thought it my duty, with the concurrence of 
 the Chancellor and the Commander of the Forces, to place 
 upon permanent duty all the Yeomanry Corps of the 
 city and county of Dublin ; and notwithstanding their 
 recent formation I can with great truth bear testimony 
 to the spirit and alacrity with which they have under- 
 taken the service which they may be required to per- 
 form." 
 
300 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 Pelluim's reply shows that the King and the Cabinet 
 were dissatisfied with the meagre information of the in- 
 surrection contained in the Lord Lieutenant's despatch : 
 
 , " Stratton Street, 
 
 " 2S/A July, 1803, 10 o'clock p.m. 
 
 " 1 have it in command to inform your Excellency that 
 his Majesty has been pleased to send a message to both 
 Houses of Parliament, a copy of which is enclosed ; and 
 his Majesty's conlidential servants have thought it neces- 
 sary to propose to Parliament for the Suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, and a Martial Law Bill similar to 
 the one which was in force during the late Rebellion in 
 Ireland. It is hoped that Parliament will be induced to 
 dispense with the usual forms of proceedings, and that 
 these Bills may receive the Royal Assent to-morrow. 
 
 " His Majesty approves of the measure which your 
 Excellency has adopted of putting the Volunteers and 
 Yeomanry Corps upon full pay, and relies upon your 
 Excellency's vigilance and attention being directed to 
 every measure of precaution and vigour which the situa- 
 tion of the country may require. 
 
 " Various reports have reached London in private 
 letters. It is, therefore, important that your Excellency's 
 dispatches should enter into details, as far as may be 
 consistent with the exertions you must be called upon 
 to make at this moment ; and it is to be hoped that in 
 the progress of the inquiries that your Excellency may 
 have instituted the origin of this daring and seemingly 
 unexpected convulsion may be discovered. 
 
 " A very important printed paper, entitled ' The Pro- 
 visional Government to the People of Ireland,' has been 
 communicated in a private letter, and your Excellency 
 has said in your letter of the 24th that proclamations 
 recently printed, and which were to have been issued on 
 the following day, had been found in the course of the night 
 of the 23rd ; but as your Excellency did not transmit 
 any of these proclamations, I wish to be informed whether 
 any papers of the description I have mentioned were 
 amongst those alluded to by your Excellency." 
 
 The message of the King to Parliament, a copy of 
 which was enclosed, runs : 
 
THE VICEROY'S CONFIDENTIAL LETTERS ,301 
 
 " His Majesty feels the deepest regret in acquainting 
 this House that a treasonable and daring spirit of Insur- 
 rection has manifested itself in Ireland, which has been 
 marked by circumstances of peculiar atrocity m the city 
 
 of Dublin. 
 
 " His Majesty relies with perfect confidence on the 
 wisdom of his Parliament that such measures will be 
 forthwith adopted as are best calculated to afford protec- 
 tion and security to his Majesty's loyal subjects in that 
 part of tlic United Kingdom, and to restore and preserve 
 
 general tranquillity." 
 
 * * ♦ 
 
 The Viceroy is more outspoken and interesting in his 
 unofficial " private and confidential " communications to 
 his brother, Charles Yorke. Writing on Sunday morning, 
 July 23, his Excellency says : 
 
 " With an increased Guard, which appeared to be very 
 necessary, I remained with my family at the Park till 
 this morning, when I came to town at an early hour to 
 meet the Chancellor, who was escorted by a party of the 
 Lawyers' Corps from Kilmacud in the course of the 
 night. By living at the Castle I am more in the way of 
 intelligence and of business, with less inconvenience to 
 those with whom I shall have to transact it. We have 
 this day issued a Proclamation, which gave rise to some 
 discussion whether Martial Law should not be proclaimed 
 thro' the country. But as we have no proof of treasonable 
 Insurrection in any other part of the country, I think it 
 would have been improper to have suspended the Cir- 
 cuits, and to have created so great an alarm in England 
 as such a declaration of general rebellion in Ireland would 
 necessarily have excited. I was therefore happy that 
 the Chancellor and myself, supported by Mr. Fitzgerald, 
 the Attorney - General, and the Archbishop of Dublin, 
 persuaded the Council to suspend any Proclamation of 
 greater violence and extent till to-morrow, when we may 
 expect some information concerning the state of the 
 country. 
 
 " Everything has been quiet this day, and I am likely 
 to pass the night undisturbed. The rebels have mostly 
 left the town, and it is said that they will try a battle 
 at Naas, after which, if they succeed, they will attack 
 
ioj WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 Dublin. They do not seem to have been ably com- 
 manded, and indeed everything shows that this Insur- 
 rection was the work of a rabble without leaders." 
 
 On the 25th the Viceroy writes that there had been no 
 further disturbance in Dublin, 
 
 " It is also a satisfactory circumstance," he adds, " that 
 
 the mail coaches from the country arrived in due course 
 
 this morning, without having been attacked, and that the 
 
 guards report the country through which they had passed 
 
 everj'Avhere quiet." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Meanwhile , it was freely said the Government had been 
 caught napping. The civil department had no previous 
 uiformation of the conspiracy ; the military department 
 was unprepared to cope with the sudden emergency. 
 Though the scene of the insurrection was within a few 
 minutes' ride of the Royal Barracks, two hours elapsed 
 before the garrison was turned out. The gentry, especi- 
 ally, were extremely indignant. They declared that if 
 they had their native Parliament adequate measures 
 would have been taken for their protection. 
 
 "It is unfortunate," the Lord Lieutenant admits in 
 a " private and confidential " letter to Charles Yorke, 
 on July 26, "that such a conspiracy should have been 
 formed and brought to such a point without being dis- 
 covered, and that it should be possible for a secret of 
 such a nature to be so well kept. Some people find fault 
 and affect to blame both Marsden and Wickham, for too 
 great a degree of credulity on the state of the country. 
 As to Wickham, he has been absent for some time ; but 
 from what he saw at Limerick he has no great reason to 
 trust to vague rumour.* Marsden has all the connexions 
 and correspondents who gave information in the Re- 
 bellion, and knows them aU well." He adds : " I had 
 some vague information of risings in Belfast and Dublin ; 
 but it was not of a nature to act upon, and the writer 
 
 * In 1 802 reports were received from Limerick of the existence 
 there of a pohtical conspiracy. The Chief Secretary held an 
 investigation on the spot, and found that the movement was 
 agrarian, and directed entirely against landlords and tithe 
 proctors. 
 
FEELING AGAINST THE IRISH EXECUTIVE 303 
 
 desired a sum of money at the same time, which appeared 
 to explain his motives. In addition to this the vague 
 rumours which many people are fond of circulating make 
 one less disposed to credit those which are real. 
 
 In another communication to Charles Yorke the 
 Viceroy states that Patrick McCabe, a chandler of 
 Francis Street, who had been arrested, confessed that 
 he was one of the leaders of the insurrection ; but as- 
 serted positively that, though he breakfasted on Satur- 
 day morning, July 23, at a public-house near Island 
 Bridge with three others for the purpose of concerting 
 a plan of attack on the artillery barracks of the district, 
 he was not apprised of the intention of rising on that 
 day, or informed of the existence of the depot of arms 
 and ammunition in Marshalsea Lane. 
 
 " If this is true it is a curious circumstance," comments 
 the Viceroy ; " but if such a system of secrecy is observed 
 amongst those who are to execute a plan of insurrection, 
 at the same time that it diminishes our chance of pro- 
 curing good information, it must greatly diminish their 
 chance of success at any point." 
 
 The feeling of indignation against the Irish Executive, 
 however, continued to swell. 
 
 " One cannot wonder at the loyal inhabitants and 
 landlords of Ireland being highly exasperated and 
 alarmed at the prospect of another rebellion," the Viceroy 
 writes to his brother on July 29. " They are certainly 
 rather too impatient for punishment, and would be in- 
 clined to very violent measures ; but I am sorry they 
 should draw the comparison between the security they 
 would have enjoyed at such a moment from the decisive 
 and early measures of their own Parliament in College 
 Green, and the danger of their case not being so well 
 understood by a Parliament sitting in Westminster." 
 
 Charles Yorke, writing to the Lord Lieutenant on 
 Angust 2, 1803, says : 
 
 " I ought not to conceal from you that very insidious 
 attempts are making in various quarters to make the 
 world believe that the Irish Government were surprised. 
 
304 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 that yon had no intelhgence or paid no regard to it, and 
 that no proper mihtary precautions were taken in the 
 course of Friday and Saturday morning. These repre- 
 sentations are contained in many private letters, many 
 of which appear to be written by people who are no 
 friends to the present Administration, and I guess that 
 Cooke* and his friends have been sufficiently active in 
 propagating these stories. 
 
 " Another circumstance which has been dwelt upon, 
 and which I confess gave me considerable uneasiness, 
 was the tot;il want of any official details as to what really 
 did pass in the course of the 23rd. I hope, however, 
 when I go down to Whitehall to-day to find that some 
 are arrived, for in truth it is very necessary. Hitherto 
 Government have been able to publish literally nothing to 
 quiet people's minds, or to set them right. The newspapers, 
 therefore, with their exaggerated or false private state- 
 ments, are completely in possession of the publick ear." 
 
 In the same "private and confidential " communica- 
 tion Charles Yorke relates that he has been offered pro- 
 motion from the War Office to the Home Office — in suc- 
 cession to Lord Pelham — with a seat in the Cabinet. 
 
 " After all, I must own to you," he says, " that I feel 
 verv little inclined, indeed, to this same elevation. 
 Nothing should induce me to consent to it but the idea 
 that we should be co-operating, and that I might be able 
 to make the remainder of your Government more easy 
 and comfortable." 
 
 Looked at from any other point of view, he could see 
 nothing encouraging in the situation. Addington was a 
 weak Prime Minister, and Pitt, anxious to return to 
 office, was hostile to the Administration. 
 
 " Again," continues Charles Yorke, " with the excep- 
 tion of Lord Castlereagh, Lord Hawkesbury, and Lord 
 Hobart, the Cabinet is absolutely detestable ; and I 
 cannot comprehend how it will be possible for me to 
 get on with Lord Westmorland, his manners are so 
 disagreeable and repugnant to my feelings." 
 
 * Edward Cooke was Under-Secretary for Ireland under Corn- 
 wallis, and on the appointment Hardwicke resigned, because he 
 was not made Chief Secretary. 
 
GEORGE III. AND THE IRISH EXECUTIVE 305 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, replying on August 5, recognises 
 the force of his brother's objections to entering the 
 Cabinet as Home Secretary. 
 
 "You will certainly find in the present Cabinet," he 
 says, " some of whom you cannot have a very high 
 opinion, and with whom you cannot act very cordially." 
 He goes on : " On the other hand, you will certainly be 
 a support to the Administration in the Cabinet, and in 
 the Home Office you will have an opportunity of being 
 particularly useful to Ireland ; for the disadvantage of 
 a weak, inefficient and hostile Secretary of State is greater 
 than you can conceive, without having been called upon 
 to consider all the points on which it bears. So long, 
 therefore, as I remain in my present office, which, at 
 present, I could not with propriety think of leaving 
 (unless it should be thought advisable for the public 
 service), I shall feel a great comfort and support in having 
 you at the head of the Home Department. But I would 
 not have you lay too much stress upon that consideration, 
 so far as it affects me personally, though I assure yoa 
 that I feel all the kindness of it." 
 
 On August 4 Charles Yorke was able to convey to 
 the Lord Lieutenant the gratifying intelligence that 
 Geroge IIL and his Cabinet held the Irish Government 
 blameless in the matter of the Insurrection. 
 
 " Addington desires me to tell you," says Charles 
 Yorke, " that yesterday in the closet the King said to 
 him that he was perfectly satisfied that there had been 
 no remissness whatever on the part of the Irish Govern- 
 ment, and that he was much displeased at the reports 
 that had been propagated upon the subject. I am also 
 desired to mention that the King said this of his own 
 mind, and without having been led to the subject by 
 Addington. God bless you 1" 
 
 In the following letter Charles Yorke conveys to the 
 Lord Lieutenant the news that he is Home Secretary : 
 
 " Private and Confidential. 
 
 " Charles Street, 
 
 " My dear Lord, " ^"^"'^ '^^^' '^°^- 
 
 " I was detained so late at St. James's yesterday 
 that I did not get home till six o'clock with the Seals, 
 
 20 
 
3o6 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 which, by-the-bye, Lord Pelham never sent, as had been 
 settled ; and the King, after wasting some time, was 
 under the necessity of sending the Duke of Portland to 
 fetch them. My companions have not contributed much 
 to my rest last night, assisted by a good deal of feverish 
 indisposition caused by the extreme heat of the weather, 
 and the agitation and hurry of the last four or live days. 
 God send me health and spirits equal to the task, for in 
 truth I find them very unequal to it in these times ; and 
 there is nothing that can support me under it than the 
 idea that I am acting with you and assisted by Pole 
 Carew.* I certainly said everything that could be said 
 to Addington to induce him to select somebody else who 
 was likely to be of more use, but in vain. 
 
 "'' The King was extremely gracious to me as usual, 
 and spoke very kindly about you. At the same time it 
 was easy to perceive that some impression had been made 
 on H.M.'s mind to the disadvantage of some of the sub- 
 ordinates in the Irish Government, particularly Marsden, 
 as if he had neglected to collect and furnish proper in- 
 telligence of the plans of the disaffected. I said what 
 appeared to be proper to remove these impressions, and 
 to place circumstances in a just point of view ; and, I 
 am in hopes, with some effect." 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, in a letter of congratulation to 
 his brother, says : 
 
 " For myself I need not say how material a change 
 for the better, both on public and private grounds, I 
 shall feel for your appointment to the Home Depart- 
 ment ; and whenever you have time to look back into 
 the despatches both to and from the Office you will see 
 how little support I received, how meagre the corres- 
 pondence has been on the part of Lord Pelham, and how 
 little advantage the public has derived from his services 
 
 as Secretary of State." 
 
 * * * 
 
 An inquiry into the origin of the conspiracy was at 
 once instituted by the Lord Lieutenant. Was it religious 
 and CathoHc, or political and republican ? That was the 
 question which agitated the mind of the Viceroy. His 
 
 * An Irish official whom Yorke had appointed his principal 
 private secretary. 
 
SIR RICHARD MUSGRAVE ON THE INSURRECTION 307 
 
 Excellency, of course, received many letters on the subject. 
 Here is an interesting communication from Sir Richard 
 Musgrave, the Customs official, and the author of a 
 " History of the Rebellion of 1798 " : 
 
 " Custom House, 
 
 " July zgth, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I take the liberty of addressing your Excellency 
 on the following occasion. I have been frequently asked 
 since last Saturday night whether I had not given infor- 
 mation to Government of the intended rebellion before 
 its explosion ; and I uniformly declared, what I now say, 
 that I had no suspicion of it until I saw Mr. Humphrey 
 French, a wine merchant in Dame Street, about nine 
 o'clock on that night, and he informed me that he fell 
 into the hands of a body of pikemen, near the Canal ; 
 that they stopped and threatened him, and asked him 
 his religion, and that he believed they would have mur- 
 dered him, but that he falsely told them that he was a 
 Papist, It would have been highly criminal in me to 
 have withheld any information of that kind, had I been 
 in possession of it. But that dreadful plot had been 
 concerted with such deep dissimulation that I had not 
 the most distant suspicion of it till the eve of its explosion. 
 
 " Some Protestant mechanics have informed me that 
 many of their Popish neighbours exultingly boasted 
 about ten o'clock on Saturday night that no Protestant 
 would be left alive in the city of Dublin at one o'clock. I 
 have been well assured for some months past that great 
 numbers of the leaders in the late Rebellion of 1798 had 
 frequently come to Dublin, and had meetings, particu- 
 larly from Kildare and Wicklow. Roger O'Connor,* who 
 and whose family were so conspicuous in that dreadful 
 business, has been recently in town for days together, 
 and used to meet persons of similar principles at the house 
 of a man notoriously disaffected. 
 
 " I have undoubted authority for saying that the Popish 
 multitude all over Ireland have not in the smallest degree 
 changed the sanguinary principles, and the treasonable 
 opinions, which they manifested in the Rebellion of 1798 ; 
 and I am convinced that the Popish clergy never will 
 
 * Roger O'Connor, a county Cork gentleman, was the father 
 of Fergus O'Connor, M.P. for Nottingham, the leader of the 
 Chartists. 
 
 20 — 2 
 
3o8 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 suffer them to abate. The late infernal plot had been in 
 contemplation many months, and it was known to the 
 Popish multitude in the Metropolis and in a circuit for 
 many miles round it, and it did not transpire until it 
 was on the point of exploding. Such singular secrecy 
 could not have been maintained so long, unless the Popish 
 priests had enjoined it under the strongest sanctions of 
 their religion. I am thoroughly convinced that there is 
 not a Popish priest in the archdiocese of Dublin that 
 was not privy to it, and did not promote with the utmost 
 zeal the dreadful rebellion which was lately intended. 
 And yet Dr. Tro3^* with that dissimulation which was 
 ever a characteristic of Popery, particularly in all the 
 Irish rebellions, publishes a pastoral exhortation to pro- 
 mote loyalty and obedience to the Protestant State ! 
 
 " The Popish multitude, under pain of eternal damna- 
 tion, are obliged to disclose to their clergy in their con- 
 fession boxes the inmost secrets of their hearts. Could, 
 then, the fabrication of pikes and of various implements 
 of war, could a manufacture of gunpowder, could large 
 sums of money to form a military chest be collected 
 among the people, without the knowledge of the Popish 
 priests ? Doctor Troy was actively concerned in the year 
 1792 in the proceedings of the Catholic Committee, or Back- 
 lane Parliament, even after the Lords Kinmare, Fingall, 
 and a few loyal Popish gentlemen had been expelled 
 from it, because they endeavoured to inculcate modera- 
 tion. He signed all their declarations and protestations, 
 expressing the warmest loyalty and indicative of the 
 purest principles of the Christian religion ; and yet, 
 though a plot was formed at so early a period for the 
 subversion of the Constitution, and the massacre of the 
 Protestants, Doctor Troy did not disclose it to Govern- 
 ment. On the contrary, he was actively employed among 
 the agitators of 1795, when the Kingdom was convulsed 
 from one end to the other, and the Metropolis was con- 
 stantly in eminent danger. 
 
 " Soon after the Papists obtained the elective fran- 
 chise, a concession which has been so fatal to the peace 
 of Ireland, and to the security of the Empire, Doctor 
 Troy published a pastoral letter, trusting to enkindle 
 fanaticism in the multitude, and avowing many of the 
 most dangerous doctrines of Popery. It was so very 
 
 * The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
THE EXTERMINATION OF PROTESTANTS 309 
 
 exceptionable that his own sectaries bought up the whole 
 impression and destroyed it. However, I procured one 
 
 copy. 
 
 " The most striking difference between the former 
 Rebellion and the present is this— a total exclusion of 
 Protestants. In the conspiracy which preceded the 
 Rebellion of 1798, the Popish conspirators prevailed on 
 a few Protestants in Dublin who were republicans to 
 join with them, and by flattering them they persuaded 
 them to appear more active and ostensible than any 
 members of their own religion ; by which they masked 
 their sanguinary design of exterminating Protestants of 
 every description, which they manifested universally on 
 the explosion of the Rebellion. 
 
 " The Popish conspirators of that day had two oaths. 
 One was calculated to inveigh Protestants ; the other, 
 suited to their own flock, contained an obligation to 
 murder all Protestants, and on the present occasion they 
 have adopted exclusively the latter. The new system 
 was embraced soon after the late Rebellion — I mean of 
 1798 ; and the above-mentioned oath has been univer- 
 sally taken by the Popish multitude. A rebel has acknow- 
 ledged this in an affidavit which I have now before me, 
 and which was sworn the 6th of June, 1803. It contains 
 the following words : ' That he was sworn an United 
 Irishman in the late Rebellion ; and that on or about the 
 month of September last he was sworn to the new rebel 
 test oath, according to the system now established by 
 United Irishmen, to the following effect : to be true to 
 and assist the French on their landing ; to overturn the 
 present Constitution, to murder the Protestants of the 
 country and to possess themselves of their property.' 
 
 " But oaths are unnecessary, because the first and 
 most sacred duty of a priest is to inspire the children 
 of his communion with a bitter and fanatical hatred of 
 an heretical State, and of their Protestant fellow-subjects ; 
 and for this reason the mass of the Irish Papists never 
 cease to thirst for the blood of Protestants of every de- 
 scription. The great misfortune is, and has been, that 
 Englishmen are unacquainted with, and cannot be per- 
 suaded to believe, that the principles of Irish Papists are 
 so malignant and deep-rooted ; and therefore they think 
 and hope that they may be conciliated and made loyal to 
 the State by being admitted within its pale. But the 
 
3IO WAS THE INSURRFXTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 fatal concessions granted to them in the present Reign 
 prove beyond a doubt that this will be a sisyphean 
 attempt. Nothing can palliate the conduct of the British 
 Cabinet towards this kingdom for forty years but their 
 radical ignorance of what I have stated. I have given a 
 short sketch of this in my History, page 41. 
 
 " I shall conclude with congratulating your Excellency 
 on the narrow escape which the Government and the 
 loyal subjects have had, and of assuring you that I believe 
 the desperate design of the Irish Papists is for the present 
 completely defeated. 
 
 " I have the honour to be with the utmost respect, 
 j^our Excellency's most obedient humble servant, 
 
 " RiCHD. MUSGRAVE.*" 
 
 The very next day, July 30, Musgrave, writing again 
 from the Custom House, the scene of his official duties, 
 sent the following letter to Dr. Lindsay, the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant's private secretary : 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " I beg leave to communicate to you for his Ex- 
 cellency's information that Father Neil, parish priest of 
 Ballymacoda, near Youghall, in the county of Cork, was 
 transported to Botany Bay, for having given absolution 
 
 * " Sir Richard was literally insane on all political subjects, 
 his imagination being occupied night and day with nothing but 
 Papists, Jesuits, and rebels. Once in the dead of the night his 
 lady was awakened by a sense of positive suffocation, and, rousing 
 herself, found that Sir Richard was in the very act of strangling 
 her ! He had grasped her by the throat with all his might, and, 
 muttering heavy imprecations, had nearly succeeded in his 
 diabolical attempt. She struggled, and at length extricated 
 herself from his grasp, upon which he roared out, making a fresh 
 effort : ' You infernal Papist rebel ! You United Irishman ! 
 I'll never part with you alive if you don't come quietly !' In fact, 
 this crazy Orangeman had in his dream fancied that he was 
 contesting with a rebel whom he had better choke than suffer to 
 escape, and poor I.ady Musgrave was nearly sacrificed to his 
 excess of loyalty. In her robe de chambre and slippers she con- 
 trived to get out of the house, and never more ventured to return, 
 as she now clearly perceived that even her personal safety could 
 not be calculated on in her husband's society" (Barrington: 
 " Personal Recollections of his Own Times.") Musgrave allowed 
 his wife £700 a year for her separate maintenance ; but in the 
 Hardwicke Correspondence there' are several letters from her 
 brother to the Lord Lieutenant complaining that the allowance 
 was not paid regularly. 
 
THE POWER OF THE PRIESTS 31 1 
 
 for murder in 1798. See appendix xi., page 47 of my 
 History. He returned lately, and he is now dissemmat- 
 ing treason and sedition in the vicinity of Cloyne, in the 
 county of Cork. He usually mounts a hayrick, when 
 with his arms expanded and his eyes turned to heaven, 
 he is surrounded by many thousand fanatics, in whom 
 the sight of him kindles such a degree of false zeal that 
 I am persuaded he could induce them to commit any 
 atrocity, or to face any danger, how great soever. They 
 appear before him sighing, groaning, crying, and beating 
 their breasts. 
 
 " About nine o'clock on Saturday night the 23rd inst., 
 a relation of mine, passing over the lower ferry, saw a fire 
 on the mountains to the south of Dublin ; and having 
 asked what it meant, a fellow, half-drunk, said ' there is 
 to be a Rising in Dublin this night.' It is a positive fact 
 that heaps of turf were piled on many mountains to the 
 south and west of Dublin ; and there were persons ready 
 to set fire to them had the insurgents succeeded in getting 
 possession of the Metropolis. In a few days I shall learn 
 how far they extended. 
 
 " Though the Irish Protestants have been in a woeful 
 state of persecution, as long as I can remember, the 
 Papists have succeeded in representing them as their 
 persecutors. It is astonishing what a^mimber of writers 
 and missionaries they have employed in England for that 
 purpose. Government have been so far imposed on by 
 them that they have given pensions to some of the most 
 dangerous incendiaries whose names I can mention. 
 One of these was Father Hussey, whom Mr. Plowden, 
 a great blockhead and a bigot, praises in a most extra- 
 ordinary manner in his voluminous and stupid work on 
 Ireland, which I have bought for the purpose of answer- 
 ing it. 
 
 " Nothing endears the Popish priests to their flock so 
 much as their punishment for crimes, how heinous so- 
 ever, under a Protestant State. Miracles are supposed 
 to be wrought by the clay of Father Sheehy's tomb, near 
 Clonmel. When at Lord Lismore's I have seen numbers 
 of the Popish multitude round it on their knees. Neil is 
 regarded at present as a saint. Thus the blood of Father 
 Gurnet, the Jesuit, received on a cloth, was supposed in 
 Elizabeth's reign to work miracles in England and even 
 in Spain. See in my History an account of that glorious 
 
312 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 martyr, Father Nicholas Sheehy, page 33 of the text, and 
 page 3 of the appendix. I remember all the enormities 
 perpetrated by him, as described by me. It was said, 
 and believed by the besotted multitude, that all the jury 
 who convicted him died untimely and unnatural deaths ; 
 but I extracted their names from the Crown Office, and 
 inserted them in the 3rd edition of my History, and 
 proved that they all died in their beds.* 
 
 " On Saturday night the Attorney's corps rallied at 
 the Castle, and mustered strong. On seeing them drawn 
 up in the Castle yard I said to myself, if these men were 
 Papists, instead of depending on their loyalty to defend 
 the Government we must have had persons to watch 
 them." 
 
 Musgrave adds : 
 
 " I have been so much overcome with watching and 
 fatigue, that I have scarcely strength or sight to guide 
 my pen, which I hope will plead my excuse for the incor- 
 rect manner in which this is written." 
 
 Two days later, on August i, 1803, he sent another long 
 and very extraordinary letter to Dr Lindsay, from which 
 I give an extract : 
 
 " On Thursday, the 21st of July, Doctor Troy and his 
 brother dined at the house of one ReiUy, a mean huckster 
 at Lucan, in company with the titular Bishop of Kilkenny, 
 two priests of the name of Ryan and Dunn, and Bernard 
 Coyle, a noted rebel, who had been imprisoned, but was 
 
 * Rev. Nicholas Sheehy, parish priest of Clogheen, co. Tipperary, 
 was believed by the Government to be the organizer of a band of 
 Whiteboys, who perpetrated many outrages in his parish. In 
 1764 an informer named Bridge disappeared, and although his 
 body was never discovered, it was concluded that he had been 
 murdered. Father Sheehy was evading arrest on the charge of 
 high treason, but surrendered on the condition that he would be 
 tried in Dublin and not in Clonmel. The trial did take place in 
 Dublin in 1765, and the prisoner was acquitted. He was im- 
 mediately arrested for complicity in the murder of Bridge, was 
 brought to Clonmel, despite the engagement of the Government, 
 was tried there with his brother Edmund, with the result that 
 both were convicted and hanged on March 15, 1766. His grave 
 near Clonmel is still an object of pilgrimage to the peasantry. 
 
ARCHBISHOP TROY 313 
 
 liberated without being tried by Lord Cornwallis. This 
 was the man who fought Mr. Ogle.* 
 
 " It was considered as a singular and suspicious cir- 
 cumstance that Doctor Troy should dine in the house of 
 so low a person, where the accommodation was so bad, 
 as there was a good inn and a hotel at Lucan. The 
 titular Bishop of Kilkenny is a suspected person, and 
 there was a serious alarm that a rising would take place 
 in that city. These two priests reside at Lucan, and I 
 believe were concerned in conducting Lord Edward Fitz- 
 Gerald to Dublin, for which one of them got a very good 
 living from Doctor Troy. Lord Edward FitzGerald 
 approached Dublin to head the Rising here through 
 Lucan and Leixlip, in the guise of a pig-driver. These 
 two priests assisted him in his progress, and one of them 
 had him at his house. Coyle recently became a bank- 
 rupt, and would therefore be glad of a scramble. 
 
 " Immense numbers of the Popish multitude came to 
 Dublin from Lucan and Leixlip and their vicinities on 
 Saturday the 23rd inst. In short, all the chapels on 
 Sunday the 24th were deserted. I desired the person 
 who communicated this circumstance to me to let me 
 know what appearance they made yesterday, and this 
 morning he writes to me that they were very much 
 crowded yesterday. 
 
 " Last Saturday an English lady went into a shop in 
 Sackville Street to buy some articles. She said that she 
 and a few friends had come to make the tour of Ireland, 
 but that the disturbed state of the country deterred them 
 from doing so. A Popish priest who happened to enter 
 the shop said : ' The disturbances are occasioned by the 
 Protestants, who will never stop till they wade in the 
 blood of Roman Catholicks.' This incident was related 
 to me by two persons who were present. The Popish 
 priests never cease to instil such notions into their flock, 
 
 * George Ogle was a celebrated member of the Irish ParUa- 
 ment, a man of fashion, and a song- writer. His best-known com- 
 positions are " Banna's Banks " and " Molly Asthore." Although 
 a Whig and a follower of Henry Grattan, he was opposed to 
 Catholic emancipation. He was challenged to a duel by Barney 
 Coyle, a whisky distiller and member of the CathoUc Board, in 
 1778, for having in the Irish House of Commons said that "a 
 Papist could swallow a false oath as easily as a poached egg." 
 Several shots were exchanged, but neither party was hit Ogle 
 afterwards declared that he had been misreported, that the 
 remark referred to " rebels," and not to " Papists." 
 
314 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 but they might be contented by the HberaHty, the bene- 
 volence, and humanity of the Protestants, whom they 
 denominated Orangemen, ever since the union of the 
 Protestants under that name for the defence of the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 " To counteract such abominable opinions, I used to 
 associate much with Roman Catholics in my country, 
 and I prevailed on a priest to dine and sleep often at my 
 house. But in the year 1795, when the conspiracy which 
 preceded the Rebellion of 1798 had made a great progress, 
 he deserted me altogether. I asked him the reason of it, 
 and he told me as a secret, after having drunk a large 
 quantity of port wine, that his Bishop desired him not to 
 associate with Protestants." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The most prominent Catholic in Dublin associated 
 with the movement for Catholic emancipation was John 
 Keogh, a wealthy woollen merchant. He had publicly 
 repudiated the Rebellion of 1798, and he was now a very 
 old man. In these circumstances it was most unlikely 
 that he would have associated himself with young 
 Emmet's rash and hopeless enterprise. But he fell 
 under the suspicion of the Executive, and accordingly 
 his house was visited by the Yeomanry and his papers 
 seized. The result is thus reported by the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant to Charles Yorke, under date July 30, 1803 : 
 
 " Marsden had much conversation with a man of the 
 name of Keogh, a wealthy R.C. merchant of this City. 
 His house was searched yesterday in common with almost 
 every other in the town for arms, and his papers were 
 also seized. He complained of this mark of distinction, 
 which was owing to his having been connected with the 
 last Rebellion with Emmet and others, but admitted that 
 the Yeomen treated him with civility. The papers con- 
 sisted of nothing but a correspondence with his three 
 sons, one of whom is settled at Fribourg, another in 
 Holland, and a third in Liverpool. He spoke very fully 
 and with apparent openness to Marsden, declaring his 
 positive belief that the Roman Catholics as a body had 
 no knowledge or concern in the conspiracy, and admitting 
 that in the general confusion and struggle all those who 
 
LORD SLIGO ON THE SITUATION 315 
 
 possessed any property must of course sacrifice it with 
 that of the Protestant gentlemen, drawing from thence 
 an argument against the probability of their being so 
 implicated. He did not consider the plot as formidable, 
 and considers it as having been very unskilfully 
 managed." 
 
 As to the attitude of the Catholic population in the 
 West of Ireland, the Marquis of Sligo sent the following 
 report in reply to a communication from Under-Secretary 
 Marsden : 
 
 " Westport House, 
 
 " August ist, 1803. 
 
 " The late occurrence furnished us too fair an oppor- 
 tunity to leave us in the smallest doubt with respect to 
 the publick mind of Ireland. Intended by the disaffected 
 to feel the general pulse, by a small share of observation 
 we could also avail ourselves of it. If the knowledge 
 obtained produces attention to our wants, it may have 
 been sent by Providence for our safety, and may rescue 
 the Empire from destruction. 
 
 " All appears around us tranquil. The publick mind 
 alone seems alive to our danger, and one ignorant of all 
 but appearances would wonder from whence came such 
 cause for apprehension. The unequivocal result of my 
 observations is that in the event of a serious French in- 
 vasion of Ireland the lower order of Catholicks would join 
 the French, and that those possessing property of that 
 persuasion will for a considerable time stand neuter, 
 privately wishing it well, and ultimately joining to 
 overturn the Establishment. AH now is industry, and 
 none seem anxious for disturbance. But my eyes are 
 opened beyond being deceived. The priests in whom 
 I confide agree in that opinion. They knew it before. 
 I have only become acquainted with it from what has 
 recently happened. The priests now are doing their 
 duty. They have thundered curses against all who 
 disturb the publick peace, or profess rebellious principles. 
 But I have found out that but one chapel of this province 
 had returned thanks for the Peace, and the priest who 
 there officiated has been turned out of his parish by Dr. 
 Dillon, titular Archbishop of Tuam, and one of the most 
 daring and dangerous villains of his cloth. 
 
3i6 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 " What alarms me most is that England is not enough 
 aware of our situation, nor of what she has to expect 
 herself from an invasion from this side, formed from the 
 mass of the people of this country, as brave and more 
 warlike and more disciplined than the people of England. 
 Be assured this will be and must be the mode they will 
 adopt for attacking Great Britain, and if ever she is 
 subdued, it will be from Ireland. The French have only 
 to land the men here ; they will be supplied with every- 
 thing. Driving the coast is impracticable. Who could 
 it be done by ? The Papists won't do it, and the only 
 chance of the Protestants is by standing together to 
 save and defend themselves. The mountains add to 
 the difficulty of starving an enemy in Ireland. If I 
 want my own sheep from hence, ten men would scarce 
 collect them in a week. How can provisions be de- 
 stroyed ? It would take a good army to dig a moderate 
 potato-field, and when dug potatoes could not be easily 
 rendered useless. Neither fire nor water would do them 
 much injury. 
 
 " There did not appear to me to be any expectation 
 here at all of the riot in Dublin ; and if there was concert 
 among the disaffected I believe on that occasion those 
 of these parts were in perfect ignorance. An emissary, 
 the morning after the news, came here from Galway 
 spreading reports of a meeting among the troops at 
 Athlone and other alarms. He very narrowly escaped 
 my hands. The same day, the rebel chiefs from Conne- 
 mara crossed the Killery harbour (between Galway and 
 Mayo) and came armed into the mountains of Mayo, 
 which they had not ventured on for the last three years. 
 They were not joined by followers, and shall be out of 
 Mayo or in the jail of it before to-morrow night. 
 
 " But it is a shame that outlaws, murderers and traitors 
 should be allowed to remain openly everywhere in the 
 King's dominions unmolested. I understand Father 
 Miles Prendergast has been sent b}^ a subscription from 
 the Bishops and priests to Rome ; but John Gibbons, 
 junr., and Valentine Jordan, and two or three others 
 whose names I could not spell or write, being Irish, still 
 live openly in Connemara, and thus they could and should 
 be driven from it. 
 
 " Col. Martin and Mr. Geoghegan are those who have 
 most influence in those parts. Both of those gentlemen, 
 
CURIOUS STORY OF THE LIMERICK MILITIA 317 
 
 I believe, have Yeomen corps paid by the Crown. Was 
 it intimated to their leaders that their corps should be 
 put down if those outlaws were not secured or driven out 
 of the district within a week ? I have no doubt of the event. 
 And is it right the King's pay should be continued to 
 three or four hundred men, not capable of driving from 
 their skirts half a dozen proclaimed outlaws and rebels ? 
 I beg not to be understood as speaking disrespectfully 
 of anyone. Mr. Geoghegan I have known for many 
 years, and I know him to be a worthy man. But delicacy 
 to anyone is out of the question when the general good 
 is endangered by it. These chiefs have not been joined 
 by any followers. They will shoot three or four loyalists 
 probably, and then go to their home again." 
 
 Davis Browne, M.P., brother to the Marquis of Sligo, 
 writing to the Lord Lieutenant from Mount Browne, 
 CO. Mayo, under date August 13, 1803, says : 
 
 " I am happy to be now able to assure your Excellency, 
 from sources of observation and information that cannot, 
 I think, be mistaken, that this populous and extensive 
 county is entirely free from all conspiracy, or concert 
 of mischief, and that the great body of the people 
 anxiously wish for peace." 
 
 He then goes on to tell a most curious story : 
 
 " I have felt so happy in having it in my power to give 
 your Excellency these assurances of the state of this part 
 of the kingdom, and at the prospect I think we have of 
 security to all dear to us, that I had almost forgot the 
 object of troubling you at present. It is to inform your 
 Excellency that a most wicked attempt was lately made 
 by some soldiers of the County of Limerick Militia, 
 quartered at Ballinrobe, to disturb our tranquility. 
 
 " An account came to our Assizes at Castlebar that a 
 conspiracy had been discovered in the neighbourhood 
 of Ballinrobe to burn the barracks, massacre the officers 
 and loyal inhabitants ; that the rebels met in great force 
 near that town, headed by a gentleman of the neighbour- 
 hood ; that in consequence the Regiment had been out 
 several nights and had taken up a number of people. This 
 occasioned at Castlebar and through the county the most 
 serious alarm, women and children preparing to leave, 
 and great confusion every way was occasioned by it. 
 
3i8 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 " I felt it my duty to repair directly to Ballinrobe, 
 where, with other magistrates of the district, we inquired 
 into this alarming business. There were fifteen persons 
 in custody all charged with high treason. It appeared 
 to be entirely void of any sort of foundation. The wit- 
 nesses on whose depositions these proceedings had been 
 taken, on close examination, acknowledged that they 
 had fabricated the whole story for the hope of obtaining 
 rewards from Government. To a mind moral and 
 correct as your Excellency's it is unnecessary to dwell on 
 the depravity of those wretches ; but the publick danger 
 from such is of great consequence. If such charges are 
 believed and acted on, it leads the people to look to a 
 foreign enemy for relief from oppression, and the Govern- 
 ment as hostile to them. Such in every way misleads, for 
 if from the frequency of false alarms we are led to doubt 
 every information that is offered, real danger may arise, 
 be overlooked, and be destructive. 
 
 " Your Excellency will determine what should be done 
 in this business, and I shall feel confidently that you 
 will decide wisely ; but I am of opinion that a striking 
 example should be made of those false witnesses ; that 
 they should be tried by a martial court, and punished as 
 it shall direct." 
 
 On the other hand, I find in the handwriting of Lord 
 Hardwicke the following account, marked " Secret and 
 Confidential," of an interview the Bishop of Elphin had 
 with him at the Castle as to the disposition of the Catholics 
 in the West of Ireland : 
 
 " The Bishop of Elphin, who is one of the most shrewd 
 and intelligent men in Ireland, makes a very unpleasant 
 report of the present temper and views of the Roman 
 Catholicks in the province of Connaught. When he first 
 knew the country the disposition of the Roman Catholicks 
 was favourable to monarchical government. The people 
 were generally loyal and orderly, and if a sheep were 
 stolen from a gentleman's demesne the priests were active 
 in discovering the thief. At present they are entirely 
 changed. Their disposition is republican, and their 
 object to get possession of the country and to effect a 
 separation from England. The Bishop asserts that he 
 has had communications to this effect from more than one 
 priest in the County of Roscommon, to whom he has 
 
THE BISHOP OF ELPHIN ON THE CATHOLICS 319 
 
 had opportunities of shewing acts of kindness. The 
 tenor of these communications has been that no credit 
 is to be given to any pretended exhortations to loyalty 
 delivered in the Roman Catholick chapels; that they 
 are intended as a blind ; and that as soon as a French 
 army of sufficient force to maintain themselves in the 
 country shall effect a landing the people will universally 
 
 rise. 
 
 " The Bishop has the worst opinion of the disposition 
 of the Irish. He thinks that no dependence is to be 
 placed in their professions or in their present appear- 
 ances ; that they will act the fox as long as it is necessary, 
 and that whenever an opportunity offers the tiger will 
 break loose. In answer to a question I put to him whether 
 he was of opinion that the stipend which had been pro- 
 posed for the Popish priests would so far connect them 
 with the State as to answer the object, and induce them 
 to preach different doctrines, he replied that the Popish 
 clergy would not at the present moment accept of any 
 stipend from the Government, as they conceive it would 
 diminish their popularity with the people. 
 
 " I asked the Bishop of Elphin whether he did not 
 consider the lower Irish as labouring under a grievance 
 from the total want of any legal provision lor the poor 
 who are disabled from work either by age or sickness ; and 
 whether this might not operate to increase the discon- 
 tent. He replied that he did not believe that had much 
 effect ; and in answering this question he made an 
 observation which, after what he had before said of them, 
 is entirely creditable to the Irish character, that the lower 
 orders of people were very kind to their families and 
 relations. 
 
 " I asked him what he considered to be the disposition 
 of the Roman Catholick gentlemen of property. He 
 said that some of those who were advanced in life were 
 loyal and weU disposed, but that their sons were to a 
 certain degree more or less tainted with republican prin- 
 ciples. That from the conduct of the three first Dukes 
 in Europe it was impossible to argue that men would be 
 deterred by personal interests from following the dictates 
 of folly and passion. The conduct of the Duke of Orleans 
 in France, the Duke of Leinster in Ireland, and the Duke 
 of Norfolk in England, proved the fallacy of such reason- 
 ing. The latter, he understood, was to have the Garter, 
 which, certainly, is better than a halter. 
 
320 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 " The Bishop said he was very sorry to make such a 
 report (which he did in great confidence), but he firmly 
 beheves it to be true, and that there is no remedy but a 
 strong force." 
 
 Lord Redesdale, the Lord Chancellor, was also con- 
 vinced that the Emmet insurrection was intended to be 
 a religious war for the extirpation of the Protestants. 
 He seems to have written to that effect to Lord Carleton, 
 at this time, for he sends to the Viceroy the answer he 
 received from that judge, as follows : 
 
 " I am truly thankful for your having given me the 
 gratification of receiving your last letter. Until now I 
 had not received any hint that the Roman Catholicks 
 had, as such, taken any distinguished part in the Re- 
 bellion, except by one letter which stated to me some 
 of the leading ideas of an oath of association which was 
 said to have been administered in some parts of Ireland, 
 and which were evidently Roman Catholick. But it 
 having been surmised that the oath was fabricated by 
 the Orangemen in order to discredit the Roman Catho- 
 licks, I know not how far its authenticity could be relied 
 on to furnish any well-founded inference. However, 
 you have had such ample opportunity of investigating 
 the subject, and must be possessed of so extensive a 
 fund of intelligence relating to it, that I have no scruple 
 in giving my full assent to what you have stated ; and I 
 do so the more readily because your statement corre- 
 sponds with what appeared to me to have probably been 
 the case. 
 
 " The bigotry of Mr. Burke (who nearly thirty years 
 ago began to stimulate the Roman Catholicks to demand 
 the repeal of the Popery Laws in Ireland), the lax 
 political and religious principles of Lord Melville, and 
 the reluctance of the British Cabinet on some former 
 occasions to submit to the trouble of thinking on the 
 state of Ireland, and of fairly investigating the conse- 
 quences likely to result from giving way to the demands 
 of the Roman Catholicks, have led to that part of the 
 difficulty of the present day which arises from the con- 
 duct and requisition of that body of men. I have long 
 been most fuUy convinced that the restitution of the 
 forfeited estates, the downfall of the Protestant religion, 
 
PITT'S ENGAGEMENTS TO THE CATHOLICS 321 
 
 and the substitution of the Popish rehgion in its place 
 were the objects to which the Roman Cathohcks directed 
 their steady attention. The equivocal expression of 
 'CathoHc Emancipation' was used only to veil their 
 real designs, and now even that disguise seems to have 
 been laid aside, and their real objects to be avowed in a 
 tone of threat and denunciation, calling on the people of 
 the United Kingdom to determine whether they will 
 relinquish the established religion of the State. 
 
 " A paper which was circulated on the resignation of 
 Mr. Pitt and others of the Cabinet, intimating that ' the 
 retiring Ministers were pledged to the Catholicks not to 
 accept of office again, except on the terms of everything 
 being ceded to that body of men,' has, I believe, greatly 
 contributed to accelerate the extension and ripening of 
 the mischief. It was said to have been sanctioned by 
 Lord Comwallis and Lord Castlereagh. Its tendency 
 was highly mischievous, and its allegation of ' a pledge 
 having been given to the Catholicks,' if referred to any- 
 thing supposed to have passed whilst the Union de- 
 pended, was, I believe, absolutely untrue. Those two 
 Lords knew they were not authorized to enter into such 
 a stipulation. The Papists' influence on the subject of 
 the Union had not the weight of a feather, nor could 
 have called for such a compact, which could not have 
 been entered into without committing a gross breach of 
 faith with the Protestants, the real supporters of the Union. 
 
 " Lord Cornwallis, certainly, wished to have ceded 
 everything to the Catholicks, but he was aware that he 
 was not at liberty to carry his wishes into execution ; 
 and Lord Castlereagh wished to keep the question com- 
 pletely open, until his loss of office touched his resent- 
 ment, took from the natural coldness of his disposition, 
 for a moment suspended his discretion, and induced him 
 to give his sanction to a pledge, the futility of which his 
 acceptance of office has demonstrated. However, the 
 evil of the present day has been, I think, greatly enhanced 
 by that injudicious publication ; and the difficulties 
 which Ireland has to struggle with receive great increase 
 from the present conduct of the Catholicks, who now, 
 for the first time, publicly avow their real object, and 
 at the same time point out by the extent of their claims 
 the impossibility of their being ceded to them."j 
 
 ?jc :{: ^ 
 
 21 
 
 I 
 
322 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 One of the Catholic suspects was Dr. Hussey, the 
 Bishop of Waterford.*' He had just died, and the Irish 
 Executive was most anxious to examine his papers. 
 The strange story of how this purpose was effected is 
 told in the following communications from Hardwicke 
 to the Home Secretary : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " August 24ih, 1803. 
 
 •' My dear Charles, 
 
 " Amongst the persons whom it was intended to 
 take up whenever the Habeas Corpus Act should be sus- 
 pended in Ireland, after the breaking out of the War, 
 Dr. Hussey, the late Roman Catholick Bishop of Water- 
 ford, was one of the most conspicuous. From the tenor 
 of his pastoral letter, published, I think, at the beginning 
 of the year 1797, and from everything that I had heard 
 of his conduct, bigotry, and principles, I could not help 
 feeling some degree of anxiety to secure his papers after 
 his death, more especially as it was known that he had 
 been in France, and had been reported that he had been 
 
 * Thomas Hussey, born in Ireland in 1741, was a very remark- 
 able ecclesiastic. Early in his career as a priest he took service 
 in the Court of Spain. In 1 767 he was appointed chaplain to 
 the Spanish Embassy in London. He became a Fellow of the 
 Royal Society, and was a member of the famous literary circle of 
 which Johnson was the centre. On the revolt of the American 
 colonies Hussey was sent to Madrid by the Ministers of George III. 
 to try to detach Spain from France, who took sides with the 
 colonists. Through the influence of Portland and Pitt, he was 
 sent to Ireland in 1794 as controller of Roman Catholic Military 
 Chaplains, for the purpose of checking disaffection in the Irish 
 regiments of the Line and the Militia. On the establishment of 
 Maynooth College for the training of the Irish priesthood in 1795, 
 he was appointed its first president, with the consent of the 
 Government, and a year later was made Bishop of Waterford and 
 Lismore. In 1797 he issued a pastoral letter to his clergy strongly 
 in favour of Catholic emancipation, and urging that the British 
 Government had no authority or right to exercise jurisdiction in 
 the spiritual affairs of Roman Catholics. So strong was the feel- 
 ing aroused in Government circles by the pastoral that Hussey 
 left Ireland, with the permission of the Pope, in 1798. While in 
 Paris he took part in the negotiations between Pope Pius VII. 
 and Napoleon which led to the establishment of the Concordat. 
 He died from a fit while bathing in the sea at Tramore, near 
 Waterford, on July 1 1 , 1 803, and was buried in the Roman Catholic 
 Cathedral, Waterford. 
 
BISHOP HUSSEY OF WATERFORD 323 
 
 employed by Buonaparte in settling with the Pope the 
 Concordat for the re-establishment of the Roman Catho- 
 lick religion in France. 
 
 " I therefore desired Mr. Marsden to write to Brigadier- 
 General Meyrick upon the subject, and after ascertaining 
 who was Dr. Hussey's executor, to endeavour to secure 
 his papers. General Meyrick has effected the object, 
 without any violent seizure of papers ; and though there 
 are some circumstances that are rather curious, yet they 
 do not afford any proofs of Dr. Hussey having been 
 engaged in any treasonable conspiracy." 
 
 In this letter the Lord Lieutenant enclosed a copy of 
 the report received by Marsden from General Meyrick. 
 It is as follows : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " Waterford, 
 
 " 14th August, 1803. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " I had the honour of writing to you on the second 
 in reply to your letter of the first inst. respecting the late 
 Doctor Hussey. I thought the first point to ascertain 
 was in whose charge the papers then were ; and, secondly, 
 whether they had been examined, and by whom, since 
 his death. In making this inquiry much precaution was 
 necessary, and this has been the cause of my not sooner 
 acquainting you with the result. 
 
 " Having learned that the papers were in the posses- 
 sion of Mr. Quin, a Roman Catholick merchant, and 
 that a few only of them had been examined, I determined 
 to request I might be allowed to inspect them. Being 
 aware that this would be an invidious task in the eyes 
 of a number of people here, if it was conceived that I was 
 actuated by any suspicion of the late Doctor's loyalty, I 
 availed myself of a very prevalent opinion that he was 
 confidentially employed by Government, particularly by 
 the Duke of Portland, and that he was in the habit of 
 correspondence with tlie Duke, when Secretary of State, 
 respecting the affairs of this country. I therefore said 
 to Mr. Quin that ' he no doubt was apprized that there 
 had been a correspondence between Government and 
 the late Doctor Hussey.' He replied ' that he had 
 heard so, but that he believed all intercourse of that 
 nature had ceased for some time.* I replied ' that the 
 
 21 — 2 
 
324 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 period of the correspondence made no difference, and 
 that I had reason to think (if not destroyed) letters 
 highly important to be kept secret would be found 
 amongst his papers.' 
 
 " After some further conversation of an immaterial 
 nature, I went with Mr. Quin, and the titular Dean 
 Hearn, to the late Doctor Hussey's house, and searched 
 every desk and trunk I could find, and examined every 
 paper. Most of the letters were of a private nature ; a 
 good many from the late Edmund Burke, one from a 
 priest of the name of Charles O'Connor, written from 
 Storne soon after the Doctor's famous pastoral letter, 
 in which he extols the principles and doctrines of the 
 above pastoral, and applauds the Rev. Doctor for leaving 
 the country, adding 'as it will serve to convince our 
 gentry that a Bishop has the courage to speak the truth, 
 and at the same time will convince them by doing so he 
 is subject to persecution and forced to fly the country.' 
 I should have taken this letter but that I thought it 
 would destroy the excuse I had framed for searching 
 the papers. I therefore brought away the two letters, 
 enclosed herewith, from the Duke of Portland. I am 
 extremely glad the one marked No. 7 was found, as it 
 seemed completely to convince both Dean Hearn and 
 Mr. Quin that I had full grounds for the suspicions I 
 professed. 
 
 " I have not been able to trace anything sufficiently 
 against Luke Murphy to make it advisable to take him 
 up. An English gentleman who lives next door to him 
 at Dunmore has promised to watch him closely, and to 
 give me notice in case in remarks anything suspicious." 
 
 * * * 
 
 At any rate, the leading Catholic gentry and prelates 
 presented to the Viceroy an address expressing their 
 utmost horror of " the late atrocious proceedings," and 
 their most devoted and loyal attachment to the King. 
 They said that it was " to the free and unbiassed deter- 
 mination of the Legislature " they alone looked for the 
 realization of their ardent desire to participate in the 
 full enjoyment of the benefits of the British Constitu- 
 tion. That address is the subject of the following official 
 letter from the Lord Lieutenant to the Home Secretary : 
 
CATHOLIC ADDRESSES TO THE VICEROY 325 
 
 " Confidential. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 "August 24th, 1803. 
 Sir 
 
 '' It is my duty to acquaint you for his Majesty's 
 information that I have received three addresses from 
 the Roman Catholicks of Ireland, in which they desire 
 me to convey to his Majesty their humble assurances of 
 attachment to his Majesty's royal person, family, and 
 Government, and their determination to stand or fall in the 
 common exertion which is called for in the present crisis. 
 
 " The first address, which originated in Dublin, was 
 intended to be general, and was sent to the principal 
 cities and towns for the purpose of receiving signatures. 
 But in consequence of a paragraph having been inserted 
 containing the following words, ' We beg to reiterate to 
 your Excellency the assurances of attachment which we 
 have so often expressed to our most gracious Sovereign, 
 and to the Constitution of this Realm ; and think our- 
 selves called on, at the present moment, to declare that 
 however ardent our wish may be to participate in the 
 full enjoyment of the benefits of that Constitution, the 
 excellence of which, in common with our fellow-country- 
 men of every description, we so fully admire, we never 
 can be brought to seek for such participation through any 
 other medium than that of the free and unbiassed deter- 
 mination of the Legislature,' a difference of opinion 
 arose as to the propriety of introducing any reference to 
 what is called the Roman Catholic question at the 
 present moment. The consequence has been that several 
 Roman Catholicks declined adding their signatures to 
 the intended general address, and that the Roman 
 Catholick- inhabitants of Waterford and Kilkenny have 
 sent up separate addresses expressive of their loyalty to 
 the King, and their determination to unite in the common 
 cause, but omitting any allusion to the object of the 
 Roman Catholick laity of being permitted to hold offices 
 and to sit in Parliament. 
 
 " The general address was presented by a deputation 
 of twelve, consisting of Lords Fingall, and Gormanstown, 
 Mr. McDonnell, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Val O'Connor, and 
 other Roman Catholic merchants of this city, with some 
 gentlemen of the Bar, and Drs. Reilly and Troy, the 
 titular Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin. 
 
 " I conceive the circumstances which I have stated will 
 
326 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 be considered as sufficiently important to justify me in 
 a departure from the usual course of communicating 
 such addresses only as are immediately intended to be 
 transmitted to his Majesty." 
 
 The Viceroy's reply to the Catholic deputation was 
 couched in the customary official terms. How pleased 
 he was to receive this gratifying declaration of the 
 attachment of the Irish Catholics to the Throne and 
 Constitution ! But the real views of his Excellency on 
 the subject are no doubt better expressed in the follow- 
 ing letter written by him to his brother : 
 
 " It is suspected by some persons whose letters I have 
 seen that Buonaparte has assured the Roman Catholics 
 that if they will undertake to aid him to conquer Ireland, 
 he shall establish a Roman Government, and it is thought 
 not improbable that he has made the Pope give his 
 sanction to the measure. I think Dr. Troy's pastoral 
 letter to the popish clergy of the Archdiocese of Dublin* 
 is the greatest piece of craft, dissimulation, and hypocrisy 
 that I ever read. It has the appearance of having been 
 written some time, and of being well weighed and con- 
 sidered. Nobody can give the least credit to his total 
 ignorance of the conspiracy. The students of Maynooth 
 are, I fear, among the disaffected. That seminary will 
 excite much indignation, and I think it will bear a ques- 
 tion whether the priests would not be more civilized by 
 a foreign education. f But this is, of course, private." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Chief Secretary Wickham imparts his views of the 
 Insurrection in the following " private and confidential " 
 communication to Pole Carew of the Home Office : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 "Dear Sir, " 27th August, i^o^. 
 
 " I send you inclosed by the Lord Lieutenant's 
 direction, for Mr. Yorke's information, copy of some 
 intelligence that has been received from a person in the 
 
 * A pastoral denouncing the insurgents in unmeasured terms. 
 
 t Before the estabUshment of Maynooth College, in 1795, the 
 Irish priests were trained in Roman Catholic colleges on the 
 Continent. Maynooth was subsidized by the Government on 
 the ground that a home training would obviate the danger of the 
 priesthood imbibing Jacobin and revolutionary ideas abroad. 
 
SECRETARY WICKHAM ON THE INSURRECTION 327 
 
 North giving (among other things) an account of the 
 present mode by which the Rebels communicate with 
 each other. The whole system is evidently inferior to 
 that which was adopted, and carried to such perfection 
 by Lord Edward FitzGerald, Tone, McNevin, Emmet, and 
 their accomplices. It is ill calculated for giving effect to 
 anything but a tumultuous rising, and carries with it a 
 convincing proof that there is a general want of leaders 
 among the disaffected throughout the whole country. 
 
 " The Lord Lieutenant and the Chancellor are both 
 convinced that on the late occasion there existed no 
 general organized system of insurrection, and that the 
 confidence of the persons who planned it rested on the 
 efforts of individuals directed to particular points, and 
 on an exaggerated opinion of the courage and confidence of 
 the people at large, and of their willingness to engage again 
 in open rebellion whenever the standard should be raised. 
 " That no material change has been wrought in the 
 opinions and temper of the lower orders of the people, 
 except in the North, is very manifest, but it is, I think, 
 equally so, that the Rebellion has acquired no new 
 converts, and that many who were engaged in it before of 
 the middle classes are now most unwilling to take a part 
 in any new project. I think every day furnishes new 
 proof of the truth of what I am saying ; and I am very 
 much mistaken, indeed, if that point be not most satis- 
 factorily made out to the conviction of every reasonable 
 mind before the meeting of Parliament. 
 
 " If the Lord Lieutenant is not mistaken in this view 
 of the subject, the measure that his Excellency is adopting 
 of endeavouring to secure and detain all the remaining 
 leaders of the disaffected seems obviously pointed out 
 to us as that which is most likely, if not to reduce the 
 numbers of the disaffected in the country, at least to 
 render insurrection partial and tumultuary, which is 
 all that we can hope for some years to come. 
 
 " You will, no doubt, have read frequent accounts of 
 sentinels fired on at their posts, and suchlike alarming 
 accounts, and perhaps Mr. Yorke may have been surprised 
 that no report on the subject has reached his office. I 
 have much satisfaction in assuring you that not a single 
 instance of a sentinel having been attacked or fired upon 
 has occurred since the 23rd ulto., nor to my knowledge 
 has there been a single murther committed ; and but one 
 
328 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 attempt to murther (except the attack on the mail coach 
 at Naas) since that day. 
 
 " You will probably ask, why then are all the precau- 
 tions taken, about which we are now so much occupied ? 
 To which the Lord Lieutenant will answer that they are 
 intended, not only to reduce as much as possible the 
 power of doing mischief at a more favourable oppor- 
 tunity^ — I mean should the enemy effect a landing ; but 
 to give spirit and confidence to the loyal, and to augment 
 their numbers by convincing the timid that they may 
 safely join the standard of loyalty. 
 
 " We must give the enemy no breathing time. Every 
 day will produce new discoveries, and, I hope, give new 
 reason to the disaffected to mistrust each other. These 
 advantages must be followed up throughout Ireland. 
 The fugitives must be pursued into every corner, 
 rewards offered for apprehending them whenever they 
 escape ; so that the leaders, if not taken, shall find 
 nowhere any resting-place. Insurrection, wherever 
 it shews itself, must be instantly beat down and most 
 severely punished by military execution ; and above all 
 things those who harbor traitors and facilitate their 
 escape must be most severely punished. Let this system 
 be but steadily and unremittingly pursued for twelve 
 months, and large rewards and open protection and 
 encouragement to all who shall discover and apprehend 
 known traitors, and I think Lord Hardwicke may safely 
 answer for the peace of Ireland for some years to come 
 against all attempts to disturb it by the leaders of the late 
 Rebellion or their abettors and successors. 
 
 " Into what new parties this unfortunate country 
 may be divided, or what new pretexts may be found by 
 ambitious men of a new cast who will probably soon 
 start up, for working on the restless and discontented 
 spirit of the people, I cannot presume to foresee. I 
 speak only of the old Union, as it is called, which I persist 
 in thinking may by steady and determined conduct be 
 rendered no longer formidable to the peace and security 
 of the country, I should not, however, be surprised if 
 the measures now adopted should render the leaders 
 desperate, and force them to make some partial attempts 
 at insurrection. 
 
 " You will observe that all I have written supposes 
 that we are not to be disturbed by foreign invasion. 
 Such an event would certainly retard our progress ; but 
 
HOW THE IRISH EXECUTIVE WAS IMPOSED UPON 329 
 
 if not ultimately successful would perhaps do us in the 
 event more real service than harm. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with great regard, dear Sn-, 
 " Most faithfully yours, 
 
 "Wm. Wickham."* 
 * * * 
 
 A strange story, showing how the Irish Executive was 
 
 imposed upon in this time of stress and difficulty, is told 
 
 in another despatch from Chief Secretary Wickham to 
 
 the Home Office : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " 28 August, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 "In my letter of the 25th instant I gave you a 
 hasty account of some persons having been arrested at 
 Dundalk. By the Lord Lieutenant's directions I now 
 communicate to you, for Mr. Yorke's information, the 
 following particulars : 
 
 " A person of the name of Houlton, who was formerly 
 in the Navy, but is now a notorious smuggler, and strongly 
 suspected of having been implicated in the Insurrection 
 of the 23rd ulto., as well as in the last Rebellion, gave 
 some information here of several disaffected persons at 
 Dundalk and Belfast, who were to have assisted the 
 people from Howth in an attack on the Pidgeon House, t 
 to be made in wherries, from Dublin Harbour. His 
 character was well known, and the suspicions entertained 
 against him were considered to be well founded ; but as 
 there was no proof of his guilt it was thought advisable 
 to accept an offer that he made to go down to the North 
 and procure information of the designs of the disaffected 
 at Dundalk and Belfast. 
 
 " He returned from Belfast in about a week, and 
 brought with him so strange a story that no credit would 
 have been given to it, but for the readiness with which 
 he offered to give a letter of recommendation to the 
 persons whom he had seen in the North in favour of any 
 confidential person that Government would send down 
 there. This offer was accepted, and a person sent down 
 to Dundalk who was received with open arms by the 
 individuals to whom he was addressed. He was carried 
 
 * From "Ireland, Private and Secret," 1803.— Home Office 
 Papers. 
 
 t A fort in which munitions of war were stored, on the river 
 Liffey, below Dublin. 
 
330 WAS THE INSURRECTION A POPISH PLOT ? 
 
 from house to house (chiefly among the lower orders), 
 and was proceeding in his visit when he was arrested as 
 a suspicious person (together with one Bernard Haley, who 
 was accompanying him) by Mr. Straton, Lord Roden's 
 brother-in-law, who knew Haley to be an old rebel. 
 
 " This was a most unfortunate circumstance, as upon 
 a crowd of people getting together to see the prisoners, 
 a Yeoman recognised the person we had sent down, and 
 claimed him so openly that there was no hope afterwards 
 of re-establishing his credit with the disaffected, to the 
 chief of whom he was to have been introduced that night. 
 
 " He was with them, however, time enough to ascertain 
 a fact stated by Houlton, that a soldier of the 67th regi- 
 ment was engaged in the plot. Houlton sent this man 
 a piece of green cloth. The house of a taylor of sus- 
 picious character having been searched, a green uniform 
 was found in it, and on the taylor being taken into cus- 
 tody he declared that he had made it for a soldier of the 
 67th, who was identified, and proved to be the very man 
 to whom Houlton had sent the green cloth. 
 
 " But tho' everything that Houlton had stated with 
 respect to Dundalk proved to be correct, so far as our 
 inquiries went, there is reason to believe that there was 
 not a word of truth in his information respecting Belfast ; 
 and with respect to Dundalk it seems nearly certain that 
 he himself had given the plan into which the people there 
 so largely entered. I am inclined to hope and believe 
 that few, if any, of the soldiers of the 67th regiment had 
 been corrupted, except the man I have mentioned. 
 
 " It is not the less true, tho' the persons arrested are of 
 the lowest orders, that positive assurance was given to the 
 man that we sent down that he would be introduced 
 that night to persons of a superior description ; and that 
 whether Houlton was the contriver of the plot or no, he 
 had found at Dundalk a number of persons ready to 
 second him. 
 
 " The Lord Lieutenant will direct such proceedings 
 against the persons in custody as the law servants of the 
 Crown shall advise ; and should anything material occur 
 in the course of a further investigation of the business, 
 you shall not fail to hear from me. 
 
 " Believe me to be, my dear Sir, most faithfully yours, 
 
 " Wm. Wickham.* 
 
 " Reginald Pole Carew, Esq. 
 
 ♦ From Home Office Papers 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 Meanwhile, the information obtained by the Executive 
 convinced them that the chief organizer of the conspiracy 
 was Robert Emmet, and their agents were most vigilant 
 and active in their endeavours to track down the young 
 insurgent. One day a body of Yeomen surrounded 
 Emmet's house in Butterfield Lane. They demanded of 
 Anne DevHn to tell them all she knew about " Mr. EUis." 
 " I know nothing about him ; I'm only a servant," she 
 repHed. They swore at her that she lied, which, though 
 brutally said, was the truth. But not content with that, 
 they dragged her into the yard, backed her against the 
 wall with their bayonets, and stabbed her until the blood 
 flowed, vowing that they would kill her if she did not 
 tell them where Robert Emmet was hiding. " I'll tell 
 you nothing," she answered. Then they put a rope 
 round her neck, tilted up a cart, and, passing the halter 
 over the cross-belt of the shafts, pulled until the girl 
 was lifted from her feet. But not even the imminence 
 of death by strangulation could shake the constancy and 
 devotion of this humble servant-girl to the young master. 
 She fell unconscious to the ground, and was hustled of^ 
 to Kilmainham Prison. 
 
 The house of every relative and friend of Emmet in 
 Dublin was searched. Here is a letter from Lady Anne 
 FitzGerald to the Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 331 
 
^32 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 " Gloucester Street, 
 
 " y«^y 29/A, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I hope your Excellency will pardon the liberty 
 of this letter. But finding that some persons have 
 thought proper to say that I am aunt to the unfortunate 
 Lord Edward FitzGerald, and think in consequence I 
 would harbour Mr. Robert Emmet, so, of course, they 
 twice searched my house and garden yesterday. Nothing 
 certainly could be more polite than the Yeomen were. 
 But your Excellency may easily conceive how dreadfully 
 my feelings must be wounded at any person suspecting 
 that I, who am all loyiilty, should be capable of harbour- 
 ing any traitor. No, my Lord, were he my nearest and 
 dearest relative, and capable of such conduct, he should 
 not find refuge in my house. 
 
 " I beg leave to mention to your Excellency that I am 
 sister to the present Earl of Kerry, who had, I believe, 
 the honour of being known to your Excellency, and 
 widow of the late Maurice FitzGerald, Knight of Kerry, 
 both well known to be strictly loyal subjects. 
 
 " My servants inform me that some deal sticks, which 
 I had for my flowers, were taken away, lest they might 
 be used as pike handles. If they will look over my 
 garden they will find hundreds of the same affixed to 
 different flowers. I mention this only for fear that your 
 Excellency should hear that any pike handles were 
 found. 
 
 " From all that I can judge by the conduct of m}^ 
 servants, they are really sober, and in every respect well 
 conducted. They all know my sentiments of loyalty, 
 but as in these times there is no being certain of any- 
 thing, I should be very happy if your Excellency should 
 think it proper to order a couple of well-conducted 
 soldiers to guard my house, for as an unprotected old 
 woman I cannot help feeling most acutely that any 
 suspicion should fall on my house. 
 
 " Permit me to subscribe myself, your Excellency's 
 most obedient, very humble servant, 
 
 " Anne FitzGerald." 
 
 As an immediate answer to this communication was 
 not returned by the Viceroy, the lady was moved to 
 have handbills printed and distributed publicly, declaring 
 her loyalty, and her descent — though she was not the 
 
 fS 
 
THE SEARCH FOR EMMET 333 
 
 aunt of Lord Edward FitzGerald— from an ancient Irish 
 family. " She is incapable," she says, " of suffermg her 
 house, carriage, or servants to give protection and shelter 
 to Mr. Robert Emmet, or any other traitor to his King 
 and country." A copy of this handbill she sent to Mr. 
 Latouche, a well-known Dublin banker, with an interest- 
 ing letter in which she explains the incident that gave 
 rise to the story that Robert Emmet had escaped from 
 Dublin in her carriage. These communications were for- 
 warded to the Lord Lieutenant by Mr. Latouche. Here 
 
 is the lady's letter : 
 
 " Gloucester Street, 
 
 " July 3 IS/, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " The many ridiculous stories that I hear has 
 been propagated respecting the search made at my 
 house on Thursday for Mr. Robert Emmet, and the 
 not having had any notice taken of the letter I wrote 
 to the Lord Lieutenant, and sent by the Knight, has so 
 wounded my feelings that I could no longer resist from 
 publicly avowing my principles of loyalty, and making 
 it known from whom I am descended, for though cer- 
 tainly my rank is not so high as some have since Thurs- 
 day been pleased to raise it, yet as I have ever been 
 foolishly proud of being of the House of Lixnaw, I do 
 not at present wish to forfeit my title to it. 
 
 " The search I thought nothing of, because it is highly 
 proper that every exertion should be made to find out 
 so vile a traitor ; but I own I think when that was twice, 
 indeed I may say, thrice, made in the most minute 
 manner, even to the searching the clock ; and that my 
 servants took their oaths that no man had been in my 
 carriage that day, but that unluckily my footman, 
 having had dreadfully sore eyes, and the dust very great, 
 thought that as it was only an old carriage the coach- 
 maker had lent me, he might shelter himself in it, and 
 draw up the side blinds that he might not be seen, as 
 he knew how angry I should be if he went into it, as had 
 once before happened with my own carriage, and I then 
 declared that if ever he did it again I would turn him 
 off. 
 
 " What I suppose made them suspect anything of the 
 kind was my having requested of Mrs. Spring, on my 
 
334 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 hearing that Mr. Hohnes was taken up, to take the 
 carriage, and go to Mrs. Temple's lodgings in Dawson 
 Street, and ask if they had heard anything of it.* I 
 know there can be no one whatever more loyal than 
 Mrs. Temple, and her late husband paid dearly for his 
 loyalty in America, as he lost his fine estate there, and 
 Government, in consideration of it, gave a small pension 
 to his -widow a.nd daughters. I mention this to show 
 that I could not suppose there was any harm in my 
 carriage going there, and as I had reason to think that 
 Mr. Holmes reprobated the former Rebellion I could not 
 help being shocked. 
 
 " I shall never deny the regard I ever had for Doctor 
 Emmet. I owe him my life, and I am convinced he 
 never knew till long after his son Tom was taken up 
 that he had gone the lengths he did. He in the most 
 solemn manner declared so to me, and, in truth, con- 
 demned it. I never saw Mr. Tom Emmet since he was 
 taken up, nor Mr. Robert since two days after the poor 
 Doctor's death, when I went to see his poor wretched 
 mother. And surely I who can never forget my own 
 sad loss must feel for anyone in a similar situation, and 
 perhaps with greater aggravation, for, alas ! her sons, 
 instead of blessings, as they might have been, have by 
 their conduct made themselves incapable of being so, 
 and must assuredly bring shame to her. 
 
 " My servants do not even know Mr. Robert Emmet, 
 as they assure me. I am told it has been reported that 
 Alderman Carleton said I had told him that both Mr. 
 Tom and Mr. Robert Emmet had dined with me a few 
 days before the search. At first I did not mind his 
 saying so to my servants, as it might have been done to 
 try to get them to own if they knew anything of him ; 
 but I really think that the Alderman should have taken 
 care that that falsehood should not be propagated. No 
 one, even if my rank was as high as they chose to make 
 it, is above censure. Nor has age so blunted my feelings 
 as to make me careless, because I know my innocence, of 
 what is said. This business has shattered me more than 
 had it not happened I am certain ten years taken from 
 my life could have done. 
 
 * Robert Holmes, barrister-at-law, who was married to 
 Emmet's sister, was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the 
 Insurrection, but was released without having been brought to 
 trial. The Temples also were relatives of Emmet. 
 
A ROMANTIC LOVE EPISODE 335 
 
 " The enclosed I had hoped would have been early 
 enough at the printer's to have appeared in last night s 
 Sng Post ; but as it was not I have had these struck 
 off May I request you will show one of them to the 
 Lord Lieutenant, in hopes that this publick avowal of 
 mv principles (which will most assuredly make me a 
 marked victim to the Rebels) will convince his Excellency 
 that both me and all my House are what we ought to 
 be, as, I fear, from not hearing from the Castle, my letter 
 
 ^" I have many apologies to make to you for this long 
 scroll but I have had so many proofs of your friendship 
 that i think you will pardon it, and compassionate niy 
 feelings, which has actually deprived me almost of the 
 power of holding my pen. I shall hope to hear that Mrs. 
 Latouche's cold is better, and beg that you will ever 
 believe me to be, dear Sir, your much obliged and most 
 
 sincere friend, 
 
 " Anne FitzGerald. 
 
 " I much fear you can't make out this, but my agita- 
 tion is so great I can't write to be read. 
 
 " I beg leave to mention to you that the sticks I had 
 for tying hollyhocks and lillies to have been reported to 
 be pike handles." 
 
 * * * 
 
 It was not until August 25 that the Lord Lieutenant 
 was able to announce to the Home Secretary the arrest 
 of " young Emmet." The insurgent leader was captured 
 that evening in a house at Harold's Cross, a suburb of 
 Dublin. The Viceroy adds : 
 
 " There is every reason to believe that he was deeply 
 implicated in the affair of the 23rd ultimo, but I confess 
 I had imagined that he had escaped. His having re- 
 mained here looks as if he had been in expectation of a 
 further attempt." 
 
 Here the glamour of a romantic love episode is flung 
 around the story of the Insurrection. It was as a 
 lover, not as a rebel, that Robert Emmet lingered in 
 Dublin, while the sleuth-hounds of the outraged law were 
 eagerly searching to run him down. On the Monday night 
 
336 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 after the Insurrection the insurgent and his companions 
 fled from the house in Butterfield Lane to the Dublin 
 mountains. Anne Devlin, going up there a few days 
 later with letters, found Emmet, still in his uniform of 
 green and gold and white, sitting outside a cabin. The 
 patriot's trappings were soiled and bedraggled. But his 
 pride in them was dead for another reason. Being unable 
 to procure a change to everyday attire, he was tied to 
 the Dublin hills, while he pined to go back to the city 
 to see his sweetheart. Sarah Curran was her name. 
 She was the youngest daughter of John Philpot Curran, 
 the famous advocate, who had defended, with amazing 
 skill and devotion, the leaders of the Rebellion of 1798, 
 brought to trial before the ordinary legal tribunals. A 
 sweet shy young girl is Sarah Curran, as we see her in 
 Romney's portrait. Silky hair ripples over her white 
 forehead. The gleam in her dark eyes — the glow- 
 ing eyes of her witty and eloquent father — show that, 
 like her lover, she was a dreamer and enthusiast, and 
 though the curling lips are parted by a smile, the pre- 
 dominant expression of the face is sad. She was then 
 only twenty-one years old. 
 
 Early in August Robert Emmet effected a partial 
 change of his dress. He was able to cast aside the 
 cocked hat with white feathers, and the green and gold 
 jacket ; but he had still to retain the white waistcoat 
 and pantaloons and the Hessian boots. In this attire, 
 half military and half civilian, he returned to Harold's 
 Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin, and lodged with a poor 
 widow named Palmer, an old retainer of the Emmet 
 family. The house was on the highroad between the 
 Priory, the residence of John Philpot Curran, at Rath- 
 famham, and the city. Emmet arranged a meeting with 
 Sarah Curran. He told her that he proposed, when the 
 pursuit slackened, to endeavour to quit the country for 
 America. But that was not to be. The authorities 
 received information that a young man, possibly Emmet, 
 was in hiding at Mrs. Palmer's, Harold's Cross. The 
 chief of the police, Major Sirr, rode out there at mid- 
 
ARREST OF EMMET 2,2>7 
 
 day on August 25, attended by a soldier, and, entering 
 the house, found the young man just about to sit down 
 to dinner. " What's your name ?" asked the police 
 officer. "Cunningham," was the reply. "How long 
 have you been here ?" " I came only this morning." 
 Sirr then sought Mrs. Palmer, and was told by her that 
 the lodger's name was Hewitt, and that he had been 
 with her for several weeks. During the interview with 
 the landlady Sirr heard the noise of a scuffle at the back 
 of the house, and, hastening out, saw the young man 
 running off. Sirr ordered the sentinel to fire, and then 
 gave chase himself, regardless of the command. " The 
 guard's piece," says the Viceroy in a circumstantial 
 report of the arrest to the Home Secretary, " fortunately 
 missed fire, or it would have shot Major Sirr, who was 
 close to Emmet at the time." The police officer cap- 
 tured the runaway, and handcuffed him, expressing con- 
 cern that it was necessary to employ measures so rough. 
 " All's fair in war," was the young man's reply. Brought 
 to Dublin Castle, the prisoner admitted that he was 
 Robert Emmet. He was committed to Kilmainham 
 Gaol on the charge of high treason. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Wickham, the Chief Secretary, was away from Dublin 
 during the stirring events of July. He lay ill at his 
 house at Norwich. But on the 31st of the month he 
 wrote to Marsden from London, stating his intention to 
 proceed to Ireland as soon as possible. In a letter to the 
 Lord Lieutenant on the eve of his departure from London 
 he writes : 
 
 " I wish you would say a word in the newspapers 
 announcmg my arrival with my family, to show that we 
 are not afraid, and accounting for my absence, such as 
 that I had been confined for three weeks, and unable to 
 attend to my duty in Parliament." 
 
 He was now installed in Dublin Castle, and to him we 
 are mdebted for several of the most interesting communi- 
 cations in the secret papers of the Home Office which 
 
 22 
 
OJ)^ 
 
 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 deal with the Emmet Insurrection. He sends to the 
 Home Office, on August 28, the following extract from 
 the depositions of Mrs. Ann Palmer, the lodging-house 
 keeper at Harold's Cross : 
 
 " About four weeks ago Robert Emmet took a lodging 
 in her house, and remained there until he was arrested 
 by Major Sirr. On his coming to the house he was 
 dressed in white cashmere waistcoat and breeches, and 
 a black stock and boots. He told her that he had lately 
 a very handsome uniform coat with a handsome epau- 
 lette, but the coat he wore on coming to her house, and 
 which he continued to wear there, was a brown coat. 
 The name he assumed was Hewitt, and every person 
 who called to see him inquired for him as Mr. Hewitt. 
 When she directed her son to make out a list of the in- 
 habitants of the house, to post on the door, as the In- 
 surrection Act directed, Emmet requested her to omit 
 his name, as he intended to stay in the house but a day 
 or two. He also told her that he was concealing himself 
 on account of the troubles ; and that in case of any alarm 
 at the front-door of the house he would escape out of a 
 back window, and hide himself in a corn-field at the rear. 
 He told her that the killing of Lord Kilwarden had 
 shocked his heart ; that he had left Thomas Street before 
 it occurred ; and that anyone that saw the Rebel Pro- 
 clamation knew there was an order in it against such 
 crimes. The only thing she heard Emmet lament, rela- 
 tive of the Rebellion, was the death of Lord Kilwarden. 
 She had often seen him write. He was in the habit of 
 writing different hands, sometimes larger and sometimes 
 smaller."* 
 
 Wickham's letter to Pole Carew, secretary to Charles 
 Yorke, forwarding Mrs. Palmer's testimony, is as follows: 
 
 " Secret and Confidential. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " 28 August, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I send you enclosed copies of the two deposi- *■ 
 tions that affect Emmet the most materially. Mrs. 
 Palmer was owner of the house in which Emmet was 
 
 * From Home Office Papers, labelled, " Ireland, Private and 
 Secret, 1803." 
 
THE EVIDENCE AGAINST EMMET 339 
 
 taken— the other deponent is her son. This information 
 was not obtained until the close of a very able and 
 judicious examination of these two persons, which lasted 
 from twelve at noon till past six. It was conducted by 
 the Attorney-General, in presence of the Chancellor, 
 myself, and Mr. Marsden. 
 
 " Mr. Yorke will observe that Mrs. Palmer says that 
 Emmet wrote several different hands. This is unfor- 
 tunately too true ; and if the prosecution against him 
 should fail, it will probably be owing to his act in chang- 
 ing frequently his manner of writing. We cannot, I 
 fear, convict him without producing as his handwriting 
 different papers written apparently by different persons. 
 
 " Those who know his handwriting in better days can- 
 not say that they believe the papers of which we are in 
 possession to be written by him. He was very much 
 beloved in private life, so that all the friends of his 
 family, even those who abhored his treasons, will be 
 glad of any pretext to avoid appearing against him, and 
 we shall be left, I fear, to accomplices in his own guilt, 
 who will give most reluctant testimony against the man 
 who was considered as the chief of the conspiracy. 
 
 " The only evidence that could at present be produced 
 against him is what follows : 
 
 " I. The original draft of the printed proclamation 
 found in his handwriting in a bureau, in which bureau 
 was also found a letter signed Thos. Addis Emmet, 
 written from abroad, directed to Mrs. Emmet, but be- 
 ginning ' My dear Robert,' and from the context evi- 
 dently addressed to Robert Emmet. This bureau was 
 found in the great depot of arms in Bridge-foot Lane.* 
 
 "2. An unfinished draft of a letter, of which I send a 
 copy enclosed, found in the room where he was taken, 
 in the same handwriting as the draft of the Proclama- 
 tion. The writer of this letter avows himself to be a 
 rebel. 
 
 "3. Letters found in the same bureau with the draft 
 of the Proclamation, evidently written by him, but in a 
 different handwriting from that which he used when 
 writing the two last -mentioned papers. These letters 
 could unquestionably fix upon him the possession of the 
 bureau, but on account of the dissimilarity of the hand- 
 
 * This is Marshalsea Lane. It was sometimes called Bridge 
 
 22 — 2 
 
340 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 writing it will probably be thought most prudent not to 
 produce them. 
 
 " 4. A letter found upon him, copy of which I send 
 enclosed, which clearly proves him to have been one of a 
 party engaged in a conspiracy against the State. 
 
 " 5. The circumstances of his flight, his concealment, 
 his dress (military all except the coat), and his attempt 
 to escape when apprehended. 
 
 " 6. The evidence of the two Palmers. The question 
 of bringing forward secret information has been well con- 
 sidered and discussed, and there is but one opinion on 
 the subject — viz., that it were a thousand times better 
 that Emmet should escape than that we should close 
 for ever a most accurate source of information. 
 
 " 7. A material cypher, copy of which I enclose, found 
 also in the bureau, addressed to R. E. 
 
 " I am sorry to have to add that there is strong reason 
 to believe that a young man, most respectably connected, 
 of the name of Patten, nephew of Mr. Colville, the late 
 Governor of the Bank, is deeply implicated with Emmet. 
 He is in custody, having been committed for refusing to 
 answer questions respecting his knowledge of the place 
 of Emmet's concealment. 
 
 " A man of the name of Farrell, who was in the depot, 
 and whose examination I also inclose, refuses to identify 
 Emmet. 
 
 " The above are the strong points of the case against 
 Emmet, as it now stands. There are others of apparently 
 less moment that may, by possibility, produce still 
 stronger and more direct evidence than any of which we 
 are now in direct possession. I shall receive the Lord 
 Lieutenant's commands to write to you on that part of 
 the case from time to time, as we shall make any effective 
 progress in our inquiries. Emmet was certainly the 
 proprietor of the depot, and lived there occasionally for 
 some time before the breaking out of the Insurrection. 
 
 " It will not escape Mr. Yorke's observation that the 
 information we have received of the refusal of the people 
 to act on the late occasion, and of the difference of opinion 
 with respect to the time of rising, is confirmed by the 
 letter found upon Emmet. The expressions used, as 
 coming from a person evidently of consideration among 
 the disaffected, are very striking. ' The people are in- 
 capable of redress and unworthy of it. This opinion 
 
SUPINENESS OF THIC DUBLIN POLICE 341 
 
 he is confirmed in by the late transaction, which he thinks 
 must have succeeded, but for their barbarous desertion 
 and want of unanimity.'' 
 
 " It is a melancholy thing that on such an occasion as 
 this the Government should receive no assistance what- 
 ever from the Police, Indeed, nothing can be in a more 
 deplorable state than it is now in. The whole is become 
 a job supported at an enormous expense to the public, 
 and rendering less service than is derived from Mr. 
 Justice Bell, and two or three more trading Justices to 
 whom Government of necessity is obliged iy) have recourse. 
 The Lord Lieutenant will probably recommend an appli- 
 cation to Parliament next year for the purpose of establish- 
 ing a totally new system, similar, as far as local circum- 
 stances will admit, to the plan now existing in West- 
 minster. It will meet with opposition from the 
 Corporation of Dublin, but from the Corporation only. 
 In the meantime a system has been established here 
 which is already working well, which is generally ap- 
 proved, by none more than the Corporation, and is 
 already found to be of material service. I mean the 
 plan for dividing the City of Dublin into districts, a copy 
 of which has already been transmitted to Mr. Yorke. I 
 now transmit for his information, by the Lord Lieutenant's 
 directions, a copy of the instructions under which the 
 gentlemen act who have undertaken this duty. They 
 are incorrectly printed, particularly towards the end. 
 
 " It is from Dublin and the County of Kildare that all 
 the mischief proceeds and spreads itself all over Ireland. 
 It is there that it must be attacked, and I trust extir- 
 pated. I trust there will be no question of local privi- 
 leges, when not only the preservation of the lives and 
 properties of the inhabitants of a great city, but the peace 
 and security of all Ireland, and in some measure of the 
 whole United Kingdom, depend on the good government 
 of this particular place from which I write. For without 
 Dublin even Kildare would cease to be formidable. 
 
 " My dear Sir, most faithfuUy yours, 
 
 " Wm. Wickham. 
 
 " P.S. — If Mr. Yorke or yourself should see the Chan- 
 cellor or the Attorney-General, the Lord Lieutenant 
 wishes that the above statement of the evidence against 
 Emmet, as it now stands, should be communicated to 
 them. It is possible that the Chancellor, whose services 
 
342 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 at this moment are invaluable to the Government, may 
 have written to them on the subject. 
 
 " P.S. — A material fact against Emmet is his having 
 desired that even his assumed name of Hewitt should 
 not be inserted in the list of persons inhabiting Mrs. 
 Palmer's house, which, under the provisions of the 
 Insurrection Act, she was obliged to affix to her door. 
 We are, besides, in possession of the list, in which Emmet's 
 name is omitted."* 
 
 Emmet retained for his defence John Philpot Curran, 
 the ablest advocate of the day, and the father of his 
 sweetheart. Curran was an intimate friend of the 
 Emmet family, and knew Robert well ; but he was 
 absolutely ignorant of the relations between his daughter 
 and the plotter and leader of the late Insurrection. The 
 news came to him in a dramatic manner, and with 
 crushing effect. 
 
 The letters which, as Wickham says, were found in 
 Emmet's possession when arrested were in a lady's 
 handwriting. As they showed that the writer was in 
 the closest confidence of Emmet, the Executive were 
 most anxious to discover her identity, but all their 
 investigations to that end were baffled until an extra- 
 ordinary act of indiscretion on the part of Emmet re- 
 vealed h*er as Sarah Curran. The letters, the originals 
 of which are deposited in the Home Office Papers, 
 " Ireland, Private and Secret, 1803," are as follows : 
 
 No. I. 
 
 " I have been intending these many days past to 
 write you a few lines, but was really incapable of convey- 
 ing anything like consolation, and altho' I felt that there 
 might have been a momentary gratification in hearing 
 from me, I feared that the communication of my feeling 
 would only serve to irritate and embitter your own. 
 Besides this, I felt a degree of reluctance to writing which, 
 
 * From " Ireland, Private and Secret, 1803." — Hume Office 
 Papers. 
 
SARAH CURRAN'S LETTERS 343 
 
 after what has passed, may be rather inconsistent, but 
 which is increased by considering the extent of the 
 risque I run, as well as by the breach of propriety it 
 occasions. 
 
 " I do not know whether to consider it as a circum- 
 stance of congratulation, or rather an aggravation of my 
 unhappiness, that I cannot apply to myself the proverb 
 which says that the first step alone costs us anything ; 
 but I can say with truth, whether the acuteness of my 
 feelings be fruitlessly afflicting, or ultimately salutary in 
 their effects, that hitherto with me every subsequent 
 departure from duty has been attended with that self- 
 reproach which is generally attached to the first breach 
 of it. These sentiments alone interrupt the satisfaction 
 I feel in sharing every anxiety with you, and of pre- 
 serving to you, in spite of other mischances and dis- 
 appointments, the consolation of a friend. 
 
 " And such is the perfect confidence that I feel subsists 
 between us that I have no fear of misconstruction on 
 your part of any uneasiness I feel. On the contrary, I 
 know you share it, and cannot think it blameable. At 
 all events, I wish you to know me exactly as I am. I 
 cannot bear to conceal anything from you ; and at some 
 future time, perhaps, when your opinion of me should 
 be more influenced by judgement than any partial feeling, 
 I should wish you to recollect that the violation of pro- 
 mise or duty brought most abundantly with it its punish- 
 ment ; and that at a time even when I was sunk by dis- 
 appointment, without hope or future prospect of com- 
 fort, I almost shrunk from availing myself of the only 
 consolation which still remained, altho' the one I prized 
 above every other — that of sympathising with you, and 
 endeavouring to atone for what you had lost. After 
 all, in looking forward to any circumstance that might 
 ultimately unite us, should we not, like the rest of the 
 world, judge by the event ; and those sentiments which 
 I am now forced to consider as a perverse inclination, 
 not fed by any rational hope but rather strengthened 
 by disappointment, I should then hold forth to myself 
 as the triumph of resolution and constancy over tem- 
 porary disaster and opposition. 
 
 " I am afraid you heard no very gratifying account 
 by the last express of my health and spirits. I was so 
 certain of hearing from you early in the day, as she had 
 
344 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 promised, that I concluded the poor greyhound was 
 lost, or, still worse, might have been found. Altho' 
 I may laugh now, I assure you I then feared the worst, 
 and was never more unhappy. I shall never forget 
 the sensation of agony I felt while reading your letter. 
 I assure you that my head suddenly felt as if it was 
 burning, and for a few minutes I think I was in a fever. 
 As for your letter, I did not understand it at the time, 
 and had only a confused idea that you must leave the 
 country for ever, as your mother wished it. You must 
 therefore attribute to mental derangement my wish of 
 seeing you at present. Do not think of it, unless it might 
 be done with safety, which I think impossible At any 
 rate, in the present circumstances, is it not wiser to limit 
 myself to the gratification of knowing you are well and 
 safe ? 
 
 " I should wish particularly to know from you how 
 matters stand at present (if you would not be afraid) ; 
 particularly what are your hopes from abroad and what 
 you think they mean to do, and whether if they pay us a 
 
 visit we shall not be worse off than before. * (which 
 
 I hope you understand) is not, as he was formerly called, 
 ' a sorry cur.' I believe he would lay down his life as 
 freely as if it were a counter if it would benefit this 
 country. He is very disponding, however, and says the 
 people are incapable of redress, and unworthy of it. 
 This opinion he is confirmed in by the late transaction, 
 which he thinks must have succeeded, but for their 
 barbarous desertion and want of unanimity. As to the 
 French Invasion, he thinks it may not take place at all, 
 and that their plan may be to wear down the English 
 by the expense of a continual preparation against it, 
 which must end in their destruction. This, however, 
 must be all conjecture. He thinks the quiet here is merely 
 temporary. 
 
 " I had almost forgot to mention the letter I so offi- 
 ciously wrote to inform you of the honour intended your 
 country residence by his Majesty's troops, which I 
 suspected the day before it happened ; and having with 
 my usual sapience written the letter and mentioned in 
 the outside cover the number of our house and name of 
 
 * The name in the letter was carefully scratched out, evi- 
 dently with a penknife, but whether by Emmet or by the 
 authorities it is impossible to say. 
 
THE MESSENGERS OF THE LOVERS 345 
 
 street for fear of any mistake, I only waited for an 
 ambassador, when unfortunately for Homer he pre- 
 sented himself and was unlucky to be trusted. As he 
 approached the bridge, seeing what was going forward, — 
 about nineteen people whose pockets were searching — he 
 committed his precious deposit to his boot, and marched 
 up to the gate like another Achilles, vulnerable only in 
 the heel. His pockets were soon turned inside out, 
 where, to use an elegant phrase, the devil might have 
 danced a hornpipe without kicking his shins against a 
 halfpenny. His Horace was taken for the inspection 
 of Government, and he was sent back in disgrace. 
 
 " I forgot to tell you that the evening before, he had 
 been in the country where he quite domesticated him- 
 self. He waited for two hours in great anxiety for the 
 return of the young lady he wished to see, and whom, 
 upon a minute inquiry, he acknowledged he should not 
 know. The only regret of your worthy representative 
 is that he did not put him to some easy death upon the 
 spot, and try perhaps how the bones and body of a spy 
 would answer your cherry-trees. In this case he may 
 more easily take the will for the deed, as his pilgrimage 
 here upon earth will be considerably shortened by the 
 treatment he experienced from both parties, and I should 
 consider any interval of tranquility as a lightning before 
 death. 
 
 " I hope you are not angry with me for writing so much 
 about him ; but you ought to be obliged to me for making 
 you laugh — malgre vous. I believe you will find out that 
 I began and ended this letter in very different moods. I 
 began it in the morning, and it is now near two o'clock at 
 night. I passed the house you are in twice this day, but 
 did not see you. If I thought you were in safety I 
 would be comparatively happy, at least. I cannot help 
 listening to every idle report ; and although I cannot 
 suppose that the minute events which occur now can 
 materially influence the grand and general effect in view, 
 yet my mind is risen or depressed as I suppose them 
 favourable or otherwise. I cannot tell you how uneasy 
 I shall be until I know if you have got this. Let me 
 know immediately. / request you to burn it instantly. I 
 shall expect a letter from you to tell me if you are well 
 and in spirits. Try and forget the past, and fancy that 
 everything is to be attempted for the first time. I long 
 
346 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 to know how your wife and ten small children are. Good- 
 bye, my dear friend, but not for ever. Again I must bid 
 you bum this." 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 *' I know so well by experience the pleasure of hearing 
 in any way from a friend, that I have not resolution to 
 deny it to you, while I have it in my power. I feel 
 myself cheered even by the sight of your handwriting, 
 and find more consolation from your letters than from 
 any effort of reason on my mind. Your last, particularly, 
 made me quite happy when I received it. You know I 
 can laugh at the worst of times. 
 
 " Since that, however, I have had new causes for 
 anxiety — one which fiUs me with apprehensions, the 
 
 return of from England, which I expect soon. I 
 
 have not entirely resolved how to act yet, and fear I 
 shall not have magnanimity of mind enough to abide by 
 the consequences of the conduct I have chosen. The 
 more I consider this alternative I see it unproductive 
 of anything but humiliating reproach to myself. The 
 other, tho' not so dangerous, is scarcely less odious. 
 It is placing my whole reliance upon his opinion of my 
 integrity hitherto, and not questioning me at all, or, if 
 he does, giving me credit for candour I do not possess. 
 I have heard of a report that you and he had left Dublin 
 at the same time, which I think may be very injurious 
 to him. Perhaps, however, I may be alarming myself 
 causelessly. 
 
 " I long to hear from you again, and hope the messenger 
 will have a letter if she comes this day. I hate to desire 
 you to destroy my letter, as I know I should find some 
 difficulty in complying with such . a request from you ; 
 but I think it very unsafe for you to keep it. At all 
 events you ought to be tired of it by this time ; besides, 
 you may keep this instead of it. I believe it is from the 
 same principle that the last child is always the favourite 
 that I would not give up your last letter for all the others. 
 Do not let this be any encouragement to you. Indeed, 
 I see plainly you are turning out a Rebel on my hands ; 
 but be assured that if I could lay hold of my handy work, 
 as you call it, it should be anything but a moment of 
 delight to you. 
 
 " I must not forget to tell you that I have heard a 
 
EXAMINATION OF EMMET 347 
 
 great many things lately which in your great wisdom 
 you would not tell me of, which adds to my resentment, 
 and I long to see you for the purpose of mortifying you. 
 I enclose you a bit of Ribbon, which was not originally 
 intended for a willow, but which may break with dumb 
 eloquence the tidings of my inconstancy. I intend 
 shortly to make a worthy man happy with my heart and 
 hand, which unhappily for you do not always go to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Adieu, my dearest friend. I hope you will forgive 
 my folly, and believe me always the same as you would 
 wish. I am quite well, except that I sleep badly. My 
 thoughts are running almost equally on the past and 
 future. I remember when I was a child iinding an un- 
 failing soporific in the 29th Psalm, which, except my 
 prayers, was the only thing I had by heart. It had this 
 advantage of anything an apothecary's shop affords, 
 that its effect increased every time, instead of growing 
 weaker." 
 
 On the cover of this letter Miss Curran writes : 
 
 " I am very uneasy about the Poems I wrote for you. 
 There were initial letters under them all. Tell me if 
 there is any danger of the writer." 
 
 * * * 
 
 On August 30 Emmet was brought before Redesdale, 
 the Lord Chancellor ; Wickham, the Chief Secretary ; 
 and Standish O' Grady, the Attorney-General, for secret 
 examination, as was the custom in those days in the case 
 of prisoners charged with high treason. At this time the 
 Executive were ignorant of the identity of the writer of 
 the papers found on Emmet. The following report of the 
 examination is deposited in the Home Office Papers : 
 
 Attorney -General. What is your name ? 
 
 Emmet. Robert Emmet. Having now answered to my 
 name, I must decline answering any further questions. 
 
 Informed that he was sent for that he might have an 
 opportunity of explaining what appeared suspicious in 
 his late conduct. 
 
 Is sure it is meant to give him the opportunity, and is 
 much obliged, but must still persist in declining. At the 
 same time wishes it to be understood that there is nothing 
 
34S ROTJERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 which could come within the limits of this society to ask 
 him which he could not answer with pride. It might be 
 a breach of confidence unless the limit was laid down ; 
 but if he once began there could be no stop. If he 
 answered one and not others he would draw an invidious 
 distinction, which he would not wish to do. Is aware 
 that an unfavourable conclusion must be drawn. Hopes 
 that no unfavourable conclusion can be drawn as to the 
 point of honor. Has laid down this rule to himself. 
 
 Have you been in France within these two years ? 
 
 I have already mentioned that I stop the examina- 
 tion. 
 
 Where did you first hear of the Insurrection ? 
 
 I decline answering any question. 
 
 Had you any previous knowledge of it ? 
 
 Same observation. 
 
 Were you in Dublin that night ? 
 
 Same answer. 
 
 Have you corresponded with any persons in France ? 
 
 No answer. 
 
 It is unnecessary, then, to put any question ? 
 
 Certainly. 
 
 Why did you change your cloaths ? 
 
 Asked Dr. Trevor's permission to borrow cloaths 
 [Major Sirr said of St. John Mason]. It would be infring- 
 ing on the rule already laid down to go any further. 
 
 Are you acquainted with a person of the name of 
 Howley ? 
 
 Same answer. 
 
 Have you gone by the name of Hewitt, of EUis, of 
 Cunningham ? 
 
 Has only to mention what he has already said. 
 
 Are you inclined to answer as to your handwriting ? 
 
 No. 
 
 Did you ever see a Proclamation purporting to be a 
 Proclamation of the Provisional Government ? 
 
 I have only to make the same answer. 
 
 Have you seen the same in manuscript ? 
 
 I have only to make the same answer. 
 
 Have you seen the same in your own handwriting ? 
 
 Same answer. 
 
 By whom were the letters written that were found on 
 your person ? 
 
 As to the letters taken out of my possession by Major 
 
EMMET'S EFFORTS TO SHIELD SARAH CURRAN 349 
 
 Sirr, how can I avoid this being brought forward ? Can- 
 not say whether they were committed to my care or not. 
 Would not say but they might be deUvered to keep, or 
 unopened. Would wish to give the benefit of those 
 letters without making public by whom written. If 
 the letters were years in his custody — suppose a friend 
 left those letters on a sudden. May I ask if the name of 
 the writer might be mentioned to me ? May I know by 
 what means those letters may be prevented from coming 
 forward ? Has anything been done in consequence of 
 those letters being taken ? May I learn what means, or 
 what has been done upon them ? 
 
 Attorney -General. You cannot be answered as to this. 
 
 Emmet. You must, gentlemen, be sensible how disagree- 
 able it would be to one of yourselves to have a delicate 
 and virtuous female brought into notice. What means 
 would be necessary to bring the evidence in those letters 
 forward without bringing the name forward ? Might the 
 passages in those letters be read to me ? 
 
 Attorney-General. The expressions in those letters go 
 far beyond a confidential communication between a 
 gentleman and a lady. There are evidences of High 
 Treason, and therefore their production is necessary. 
 
 Emmet. Might those be mentioned ? 
 
 Attorney - General. Producing some parts and with- 
 holding others never was done. 
 
 Emmet. May I not be told the utmost limit to go to 
 prevent the exposure ? Then nothing remains to be 
 done. I would rather give up my own life than injure 
 another person. 
 
 Attorney -General. We knew before you came into the 
 room that this was the line you would take. 
 
 Emmet. I am glad you have had that opinion of me. 
 Have any proceedings been taken on those letters ? I 
 will mention as near as I can the line I mean to adopt. I 
 will go so far as this. — If I have assurances that nothing 
 has been done, and nothing will be done, upon these 
 letters, I will do everything consistent with honour to 
 prevent their production. May I know whether anything 
 has been done ? Might I, in the meantime, have assistance 
 of counsel ? Might I then make one request — that until 
 my arraignment nothing has and nothing will be done ? 
 
 Attorney -General. You are at liberty to make the re- 
 quest ; but cannot receive an immediate answer. 
 
350 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 Emmet. I can only repeat what I have already said, 
 that I would do anything to prevent the production of 
 those letters. Personal safety I throw out of the question. 
 With notions of honour in common, persons may have 
 different principles, but all might be agreed as to what a 
 person might owe to a female. Personal safety would 
 weigh nothing if the production of those letters could be 
 prevented. 
 
 Are you aware that they form evidence against the 
 person who wrote them ? 
 
 As to that, I do not know how far there can be proof 
 as to who wrote them, however, there may be opinions ; 
 and I am not aware how far similarity of handwriting 
 might be evidence. But if the person who is primarily 
 concerned does all that in him lies it is very unnecessary 
 and very cruel to proceed against the writer. I feel the 
 more acutely on this point, because it is the only act of 
 my life, within these five months, of which I have to 
 accuse myself. 
 
 Do you mean that the female who wrote those letters 
 only had opinions ? 
 
 I say it on my honor. I only say that a woman's 
 sentiments are only opinions and they are not reality. 
 When a man gives opinions it is supposed he has actions 
 accordingly ; but with a woman the utmost limit is only 
 opinion. I declare on my honour as a man that the person 
 had only opinions. I admit in the eye of the law it is 
 otherwise, but they may have laid down the law where it 
 is not necessary. The same sword cuts down a man as 
 a babe, but it is the mind of the man which teaches him 
 how to use it. 
 
 Do you know of any depot of arms or ammunition ? 
 
 I have mentioned the only point on which I will 
 speak. 
 
 Perhaps you consider the disclosure of names as incon- 
 sistent with your notions of honor ? 
 
 I will purchase honor with personal safety. 
 
 You cannot expect to draw forth any compromise on 
 the part of Government. However, if you could render 
 a service to Government by making a disclosure which 
 may entitle this person to some favour, it might be 
 attended to as far as respects that person, although not 
 extended to yourself. Is disclosing concealed arms dis- 
 honorable ? 
 
EMMET'S AGITATION 351 
 
 I must adhere to my former rule. 
 
 As a matter of curiosity I may put to you a question — 
 Why Government should indulge you with consenting 
 to a partial disclosure of these letters, when you decline 
 on your part to make any satisfactory answer ? 
 
 It is not as an indulgence. I only ask it as if I was in 
 a situation of power I would grant a like favour. I wish 
 everyone in Ireland and England was as innocent as she 
 is. I know when I say it is the only criminal act ; that 
 the young woman's affections were engaged without the 
 knowledge of her friends, and in fact without her own. 
 My resolution is taken. I have mentioned that I will 
 never save honor at the expense of what I think my 
 duty. I wish I knew what is expected, that I might in 
 my own mind consider what is my duty. 
 
 Then I am to understand that nothing will induce you 
 to make a full disclosure ? 
 
 No ; I never will. 
 
 You must draw the line and say how far you can go. I 
 am not asking you where Mr. Dowdall may be appre- 
 hended. I am not asking you who visited you two hours 
 before you were taken. 
 
 May I not ask — although I am not told what I can do, 
 or how far I am to go — whether those letters lie there to 
 be used or not ? — whether any disclosure has been made 
 by them or any arrest has taken place ? 
 
 Would it answer your purpose to have the writer 
 brought into the same room with you ?* 
 
 It might perhaps answer yours better. [He rose from 
 his chair in much agitation.] In respect of the person 
 at whose house I was arrested, the lady was under per- 
 sonal obligations to a part of my family ; her sentiments 
 were not the same as mine. Their name might lead to a 
 supposed connection with a person of the name of Palmer 
 on the Coombe. 
 
 The person who had the gunpowder or to Mr. Patten ? 
 
 I do not mention the gunpowder ; I do not mention 
 who. 
 
 Some one under obligations to you ? 
 
 * A " N.B." to the report of the examination says : " This 
 was asked on the supposition that the writer of the letters was 
 Mrs. Holmes, Emmet's sister, and that the language of a love- 
 intrigue had been assumed as a means of misleading Government 
 in its search for her." 
 
352 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 Few people have obligations to me. 
 
 If you come to any resolution you may have an oppor- 
 tunity for a further communication. 
 
 In a case of this kind a person naturally wishes to have 
 the opinion of some one beside himself. 
 
 Who would you wish ? 
 
 It may be a very harmless person. To remove any 
 doubt I name an Englishman whom I never saw but 
 once and then not alone. May I ask to know whether it 
 will occasion any prejudice to him ? 
 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Counsellor Burton is the person.* May I ask another 
 thing from the honor of every person here present — 
 that no hint or suggestion will be thrown out of what I 
 have mentioned ? There are things such as informers 
 talked of. I hope that those things which go about may 
 go without any foundation. I wish I had been called 
 up sooner. Might I know whether anything has been 
 done to the person in whose house I was taken ? I 
 believe, gentlemen, there are occasions in which you 
 would not think it criminal in me to shelter any of 
 you. 
 
 You are aware that the persons in '98, among whom 
 was your brother, made disclosures, concealing only the 
 names of persons ? 
 
 I believe they of '98 were differently situated. The 
 object for which they spoke was to save the lives of others, 
 their own never having been in any danger. I know the 
 comparison you are going to draw, and that it will be 
 taken down (smiling). 
 
 You are aware how far they went in '98. There was no 
 minute circumstance relating to the plot which they did 
 not disclose ? 
 
 May I know when my arraignment will take place ? 
 Might I not be permitted to see the gentleman I men- 
 tioned, previous to it ? 
 
 Attorney-General. It certainly is unusual to permit a 
 person in your situation such an indulgence. 
 
 Chancellor. Mr. Emmet's feelings are a good deal 
 affected. 
 
 Emmet. I wish they were at an end. I wish you good- 
 morning, gentlemen. 
 
 * :): * 
 
 * A " N.B." says: " Counsellor Burton is Mr, Curran's clerk." 
 
THE CHARACTER OF SARAH CURRAN 353 
 
 I have examined with interest and curiosity those 
 letters of Sarah Curran for some indication of her char- 
 acter. They are extremely clever productions for a girl 
 of twenty-one, and are the more remarkable because 
 of the peculiar circumstances under which they were 
 written. Her lover was an outlaw, with the agents of 
 the Government eagerly on his track. Such a situation 
 would have been heartrending to most girls, and their 
 agony of mind must have been reflected in any com- 
 munication to the hunted lover. 
 
 But I cannot trace the slightest tremor in the bold, firm 
 handwriting of Sarah Curran's letters to Robert Emmet, 
 nor do their lucid and sprightly phraseology betray any 
 mental perturbation. Obviously, she was proud of her 
 lover as the head and front of a plot to establish an Irish 
 Republic. But did she realize the perils which menaced 
 him, now that the plot had failed, and that death was 
 the penalty he must pay should he fall into the hands of 
 the outraged law ? She seems to have regarded con- 
 spiracy as something like the childish game of hide-and- 
 seek. What fun it was ! And the romance of it ! 
 Fancy Dublin in a terrible commotion, the Yeomanry 
 hunting everywhere for Robert, and she knowing where 
 he was hiding, and in possession of all his secrets ! In 
 these letters the e are no gloomy anticipations as to the 
 end of it all — an ignominious death for one, and a few 
 years of broken-hearted existence for the other. Poor 
 girl ! This apparent unconcern may have been all pre- 
 tence. What appears to us as the unseemly gaiety, the 
 ill-timed witticisms of the letters, may have been but 
 the effort of a distracted mind to hide its own grief, and 
 give encouragement and hope to a banned and harassed 
 lover. Anyway, Sarah Curran was soon to be brought 
 into agonizing collision with the grim realities of the 
 situation. Soon the sinister figure of Major Sirr was to 
 appear in her very bedroom at the Priory to arrest 
 her, and search for compromising papers to help to 
 send her lover to the gallows. Then it was that the 
 winsome and light-hearted girl was heavily smitten 
 
 23 
 
354 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 with anguish and despair, to the very unhingement of 
 her mind. « « * 
 
 In the Home Office Papers there is a document which 
 further shows the dreadful anxiety of Emmet, before the 
 examination, for the safety of Sarah Curran. It was 
 written for the Castle by Dr. Trevor, who resided in 
 Kilmainham Gaol in the dual capacity of physician and 
 assistant-governor. Referring to Emmet, it says : 
 
 " When he came up for examination on Tuesday last 
 he expressed very considerable anxiety to prevent any 
 proceedings being taken against a particular person, and 
 that to protect that person he would sacrifice his own 
 personal safety. He was told that no such sacrifice was 
 desired, and that he was not required to furnish any 
 evidence against himself. But as he expressed such con- 
 siderable anxiety for that person, it was suggested to him 
 to consider how far his notions of honour, as he explained 
 them, would permit him to make such communications 
 to Government respecting the late Insurrection, further 
 depots of arms, ammunition, etc., etc., as might justify 
 the Government in acting towards that person with the 
 delicacy he required. So far the Government may be 
 induced to go upon receiving information equivalent to 
 the indulgence ; but it never entertained any idea of 
 receiving any information from Mr. Emmet which could 
 extend to protect him, or any of the persons engaged with 
 him, further than that particular person.^^ 
 
 That harassing state of mind from which Emmet was 
 suffering was increased rather than appeased by the 
 ex'amination. After pondering over the situation for a 
 few days he sent the following letter to the Chief Secretary, 
 in which he deals with the suggestion that had been made 
 to him that, following the example of some of the leaders 
 of the United Irishmen — his brother, Thomas Addis 
 Emmet, among them — he should make a disclosure of 
 the conspiracy : 
 
 " Sir, ^^'^^' 3' ^^°3- 
 
 " I have heard of you as an honourable man, and 
 as such I commit myself to you without reserve. I have 
 weighed well the proposal that was made to me when I 
 
PLOT FOR THE ESCAPE OF EMMET FROM GAOL 355 
 
 was before the Privy Council. I know how much I owe 
 to one whose peace of mind I have already too deeply 
 injured, but every way that I turn I find obstacles almost 
 insurmountable. Between the case that was held out 
 to me and the present I can find no parallel. What was 
 done then was neither done by one, nor for one, nor to 
 spare their own personal feelings, nor to obtain an object 
 of a private nature, totally unconnected with the public 
 act that was done. Give me the same advantages. Let 
 me have free communication with some friends ; let the 
 lives of others be spared ; let the documents affecting 
 another person be suppressed, and I will try how far in 
 my conscience, and according to my notions of duty, I 
 ought to go. But I will stand my trial, for I will not 
 purchase my own safety. If this proposal can be agreed 
 to I request that the gentleman I mentioned may be per- 
 mitted to wait on me. 
 
 " I have the honour to be your very obedient humble 
 servant, 
 
 " (Signed) R. Emmet. 
 
 " Right Honourable William Wickham." 
 
 Emmet was told, in reply to this letter, that the 
 
 Executive would consider any statement he might desire 
 
 to make ; but they refused to bind themselves by any 
 
 conditions respecting it. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The next development of the drama was an attempt to 
 effect the escape of Emmet from gaol. The numerous 
 prisoners confined in Kilmainham on suspicion of being 
 concerned in the Insurrection included a gentleman 
 named St. John Mason, cousinto the principal conspirator. 
 Acting on the suggestion of Emmet that a substantial 
 bribe might induce George Dunn, the turnkey in attend- 
 ance on the political prisoners, to aid his flight from Kil- 
 mainham, Mason offered Dunn £500 for his assistance, 
 and an additional ;£5oo should Emmet escape. What 
 happened is best told by extracts from documents in the 
 Viceroy's Post-bag. Here is the report of the transaction 
 which George Dunn drew up for Dr. Trevor, and the 
 latter forwarded to the Chief Secretary : 
 
 23—2 
 
356 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 " Conceiving it my duty to prevent if possible the 
 execution of such a plan, and that the best mode of 
 doing so was not to immediately reject his proposal (by 
 which I should be precluded from all further informa- 
 tion), I told him I would consider upon what he men- 
 tioned. I immediately informed you thereof, and re- 
 ceived 3^our directions how I should act, in consequence 
 of which I had another interview with Mr. Mason, and 
 said I would endeavour to comply with the request, upon 
 which he gave me a note to deliver to Mr. Emmet, which 
 I gave to you, and which you since informed me you 
 handed to Mr. Secretary Wickham. Mr. Mason then pro- 
 posed (with which I seemed to comply) that I should 
 procure the key from Mr. Dunn* while at dinner, and 
 let Mr. Emmet escape, and to inform him (Mr. Emmet) 
 thereof, that he might take such steps as he thought 
 necessary, which I accordingly did, and Mr. Emmet gave 
 me a note to Mr. Mason to procure clothes for the pur- 
 pose of disguise, which note I showed by your directions 
 to Mr. Dunn the keeper. I afterwards delivered it to 
 
 Mr. Mason, who informed me that would be with 
 
 him the following day, and procure what was desired. 
 In two days after Mr. Mason gave me several things to 
 carry to Mr. Emmet, which I immediately showed to 
 you, and then delivered them, except some articles which 
 you mentioned to me were improper to be conveyed to 
 him." 
 
 Emmet's note to St. John Mason — a copy of which 
 was sent to the Chief Secretary — is as follows : 
 
 " Ask G.f at what time Mr. D.J dines, and if he leaves 
 anyone at the door then. Though it might be a little 
 early, yet as he is longer away then than at any other 
 time, it would better enable us all to go out, and with 
 the change of dress would not be noticed. If it cannot 
 be done, then G. must watch the first opportunity after 
 dinner that Mr. D. goes down to the house, and let me 
 out immediately. I will be ready at the moment. 
 Don't let him wait till the guards are doubled, if he can 
 avoid it, but if he cannot do it before let me be on the 
 watch then, as D. will probably go to give them instruc- 
 
 ♦ John Dunn, the Governor of Kilmainham. 
 t George Dunn, the turnkey. 
 i John Dunn, the Governor. 
 
IDENTIFICATION OF SARAH CURRAN 357 
 
 tions when placing them in the yards, as he did last 
 night. 
 
 " I am anxious not to defer it till to-morrow, as I 
 heard the officers who came the rounds consulting with 
 him about placing the sentries for better security, and 
 think I heard them mention me in the hall. D. also 
 came in at one o'clock last night, under pretence that 
 he thought he heard me calling. If it is delayed till 
 to-morrow it must be done at dinner-time. If sentries 
 are placed in the hall by day the only way will be, when- 
 ever D. goes down let G. whistle God save the King in the 
 passage, and I will immediately ask to go to the neces- 
 sary, and will change my clothes there instantly ; but 
 in this case G. must previously convey them there. 
 Send for a pair of spectacles (No. 5 fits my sight), which 
 will facilitate the disguise. After I am gone G. must 
 convey the clothes I wore away." 
 
 On the day of the night on which the flight from prison 
 
 was to be attempted, George Dunn informed St. John 
 
 Mason that the affair was hopeless, as the Governor, 
 
 whose suspicions had been aroused, had removed his 
 
 quarters to the side of the gaol in which the State 
 
 prisoners were confined. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The first overture was made to George Dunn on Sep- 
 tember 5, when Emmet's conditions for a disclosure of 
 the conspiracy were rejected by the Executive. On Sep- 
 tember 7 Emmet was told of the futility of any attempt 
 at escape. On the following night he wrote a letter to 
 Sarah Curran, and entrusted its delivery to George Dunn, 
 whose treachery neither he nor St. John Mason had yet 
 reason to suspect. The letter, within an hour, was 
 in the hands of the Chief Secretary at the Castle. It 
 revealed to the Executive the information which they 
 were most anxious to obtain — the identity of the writer 
 of the remarkable letters found on the person of Emmet 
 when arrested. Thus by an act of simple trustfulness, 
 by a curious lapse of caution and discretion — due no 
 doubt to his overpowering desire for news of his sweet- 
 heart — Emmet brought on himself the most crushing of 
 
358 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 all the disasters that fell heavy on him during his brief 
 career as a conspirator. The letter, which is openly 
 addressed to " Miss Sarah Curran," is as follows : 
 
 " My dearest Love, 
 
 '' I don't know how to write to you. I never felt 
 so oppressed in my life as at the cruel injury I have 
 done to you. I was seized and searched with a pistol 
 over me before I could destroy your letters. They have 
 been compared with those found before. I was threatened 
 with having them brought forward against me in Court. 
 I offered to plead guilty if they would suppress them. 
 This was refused. Information (without mentioning 
 names) was required. I refused, but offered since, if I 
 would be permitted to consult others, and that they 
 would consent to enter into any accommodation of that 
 nature to save the lives of those condemned, that I would 
 only require for my part of it to have those letters sup- 
 pressed, and that I would stand my trial. It has been 
 refused. My love, can you forgive me ? 
 
 " I wanted to know whether anything had been done 
 respecting the person who wrote the letters, for I feared 
 you might have been arrested. They refused to tell me 
 for a long time. At length, when I said that it was but 
 fair if they expected that I should enter into any accom- 
 modation that I should know for what I was to do it, 
 they then asked me whether bringing you into the room 
 to me would answer my purpose, upon which I got up 
 and told them that it might answer theirs better. I was 
 sure you were arrested, and I could not stand the idea 
 of seeing you in that situation. When I found, however, 
 that this was not the case, I began to think that they 
 onl}- meant to alarm me ; but their refusal has only come 
 this moment, and my fears are renewed. Not that they 
 can do anything to you even if they would be base enough 
 to attempt it, for they can have no proof who wrote them, 
 nor did I let your name escape me once, nor even acknow- 
 ledge that they were written directly to myself. But I 
 fear they may suspect from the stile, and from the hair, 
 for they took the stock from me, and I have not been able 
 to get it back from them, and that they may think of 
 bringing you forward. 
 
 "I have written to your father to come to me to- 
 morrow. Had you not better speak to himself to-night ? 
 
MAJOR SIRR'S VISIT TO THE PRIORY 359 
 
 Destroy my letters that there may be nothing against 
 yourself, and deny having any knowledge of me further 
 than seeing me once or twice. For God's sake, write to me 
 by the bearer one line to tell me how you are in spirits. 
 I have no anxiety, no care, about myself ; but I am 
 terribly oppressed about you. My dearest love, I would 
 with joy lay down my life, but ought I to do more ? 
 Do not be alarmed ; they may try to frighten you, 
 but they cannot do more. God bless you, my dearest 
 love. 
 
 " I must send this of^ at once ; I have written it in the 
 dark. My dearest Sarah, forgive me."* 
 
 * * * 
 
 The next morning, September 9, Major Sirr and a 
 party of Yeomanry appeared at the Priory, Rathfarn- 
 ham, with warrants to search the house for papers, and 
 arrest Sarah Curran. Sirr also bore the following letter 
 addressed to John Philpot Curran by the Chief Secre- 
 tary : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 "Sept. 8th, 1803. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " It is with extreme regret that I find myself 
 under the necessity of informing you that the Lord 
 Lieutenant is obliged to direct that a search should be 
 made in your house for papers connected with the late 
 treasonable conspiracy. The Lord Lieutenant is per- 
 suaded that they have been concealed there without your 
 knowledge, but it is not the less necessary that the search 
 should be made with the utmost exactness. 
 
 " As the circumstances which lead to this investiga- 
 tion particularly affect Miss Sarah Curran, it will be 
 necessary that she should be immediately examined, and 
 if it would be less distressing to you that that examina- 
 tion should take place at your own house in town rather 
 than at the Castle, his Excellency will give directions to 
 that effect, in which case you will have the goodness to 
 bring Miss Curran there without delay, and inform me 
 as soon as you shall arrive."! 
 
 * Home Ofj&ce Papers. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
36o ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 What happened at the Priory is thus graphically 
 described by Chief Secretary Wickham in a letter to 
 the Home Secretary : 
 
 " Secret. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 "My dear Sir, "9SepL,iSo3. 
 
 " The writer of the letter found in Mr. Emmet's 
 pocket is discovered. She proves to be Mr. Curran's 
 youngest daughter. This discovery has given rise to 
 some very unpleasant and distressing scenes. It became 
 indispensably necessary to search the apartment of the 
 lady for papers. She resided at her father's house in the 
 country near Rathfarnham, within a short distance of 
 Butterfield Lane. Major Sirr was sent down there this 
 morning with a letter addressed to Mr. Curran, of which 
 I send a copy inclosed. Unfortunately, Mr. Curran was 
 not at home, and still more unfortunately the young lady 
 was not up, tho' the rest of the family (two other daughters 
 and a son) were assembled at breakfast, so that the Major 
 entered the room where she was still in bed. This cir- 
 cumstaiice occasioned a scene of great confusion and 
 distress, and was also productive of some inconvenience, 
 for whilst the Major and the other daughter were giving 
 assistance to Mr. Emmet's correspondent — who was 
 thrown into violent convulsions — the eldest Miss Curran 
 continued to destroy some papers, the few scraps of which 
 that were saved are in Mr. Emmet's handwriting. 
 
 " I have the satisfaction to add that Mr. Curran is 
 satisfyed that Government has acted throughout with 
 great personal delicacy towards him, and that on his 
 part he has acted fairly towards Government, and that 
 he was unquestionably ignorant of the connection between 
 his daughter and Mr. Emmet. 
 
 " The Lord Lieutenant particularly requests that Miss 
 Curran's name may not be mentioned. It is difficult 
 that it should, be long concealed, but it is desirable that 
 it should not be first mentioned by any member of 
 Government in either country. 
 
 " The Attorney-General, who has had the kindness to 
 go himself to Mr. Curran's house at Rathfarnham, gives 
 the most melancholy and affecting account of the state in 
 which he left the whole family."* 
 
 * Home Office Papers. 
 
CONDUCT OF JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN 361 
 
 On Curran's return to his house that September g, 
 1803, he learned for the first time of the relations between 
 his daughter and Emmet, and of the implication of his 
 daughter in the conspiracy. He was overwhelmed by 
 the news. His anger against Sarah was intense. This 
 great lawyer, this orator with the tongue of fire, this wit, 
 from whose recorded sallies the lapse of a century has not 
 evaporated the spirit of laughter, was, with all his genius, 
 a mean-souled creature. His conduct, as disclosed by 
 the Hardwicke Correspondence, was most despicable. It 
 was not for his daughter, suffering from the cruellest 
 pangs that can lacerate the ardent heart of a young girl 
 in love, that he was concerned. He was fearful lest his 
 prospects of promotion to the Bench might be imperilled. 
 He hastened in a mad rage to the Castle, saw the Attorney- 
 General — Standish O'Grady — vituperated Emmet, de- 
 nounced his daughter, tendered his person and his papers 
 to the Government, to abide any inquiry they might 
 deem it expedient to direct. Accordingly, he appeared 
 before the Privy Council, and, after examination, was dis- 
 missed without a stain on his mean and contemptible 
 character. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant — a kindly, generous man, as his 
 correspondence shows — decided that no action was to be 
 taken against Miss Curran. The poor girl for a time lost 
 her reason, and could not in any circumstances have 
 been removed to prison. The Home Secretary, writing 
 to his Excellency from Whitehall, September 16, 1803, 
 says : 
 
 Your delicacy and management with regard to the 
 Curran family is highly applauded. The King is particu- 
 larly pleased with it. It is a sad affair. Mademoiselle 
 seems a true pupil of Mary WooUstonecraft." 
 
 The King's own comment in a note to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant is : " Emmet's correspondence with the daughter 
 of Mr. Curran is certainly curious." 
 
 * * * 
 
362 
 
 ROBERT EMMET AND SARAH CURRAN 
 
 Poor Emmet ! He was indeed sorely stricken by the 
 discovery of his sweetheart's association with him in his 
 dreams and ambitions, his projects and efforts for the 
 overthrow of the British power in Ireland. He appealed 
 fervently to the authorities for the destruction of the 
 papers. He offered to plead guilty to the charge of high 
 treason and to walk to the gallows without a word — 
 giving up his right to address the court from the dock 
 and the people from the scaffold — if, in return. Miss 
 Curran and her relatives were spared the annoyance and 
 the grief of the public disclosure of these documents. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CONDEMNED 
 
 CRIMINALS 
 
 I HAVE quoted in the last chapter a letter from Charles 
 Yorke to the Lord Lieutenant, in which he relates that 
 on the occasion of his receiving the seals of the Home 
 Office from the King, his Majesty censured the officials 
 of Dublin Castle for their failure to procure information 
 of the conspiracy before it exploded on July 23. To that 
 communication the Viceroy thus replied : 
 
 " Private and Confidential . 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " August 2 T,rd, 1803. 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " From the confidential communication contained 
 in your last letter of the i8th inst., respecting the impres- 
 sion which appears to have been made on his Majesty's 
 mind respecting the want of intelligence of the plans of 
 the disaffected in Ireland, I think it highly necessary that 
 a very short and circumstantial detail should be trans- 
 mitted in an official shape of the Insurrection of the 
 23rd of July, and of the intelligence that had been pre- 
 viously obtained of the intention of rising. The truth is, 
 and I am more and more convinced of it, from every cir- 
 cumstance that has reached me, that an idea of an in- 
 surrection in Dublin likely to endanger the safety of any 
 part of the city, with a garrison consisting of the 21st, 
 23rd, 28th, and 62nd Regiments of Infantry, and the i6th 
 Light Dragoons, was perfectly ridiculous and absurd. I 
 cannot deny that many proper and obvious precautions 
 were omitted, and that I have borne in the publick opinion 
 
 363 
 
364 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 a share of the blame which is attached to the Government 
 generally, but which is owing only to a want of proper 
 notice being sent to the Barracks and to the officers of the 
 garrison. 
 
 " It is a delicate matter to state even common facts 
 when they amount to what, — if an inquiry were made, — 
 would constitute a charge. When General Fox left me 
 at the Castle, after Marsden had stated the grounds of 
 alarm, and of the agitation which prevailed, it was almost 
 half -past four o'clock ; and he observed that it was a very 
 fortunate circumstance that so sensible a man as Colonel 
 Vassal was field officer of the day. I understood that he 
 intended to send for him immediately. It turns out, 
 however, and I did not know this circumstance till very 
 lately, that he sent notes to Colonel Vassal, Sir Charles 
 Asgill, and General Dunne, to call upon him at the Royal 
 Hospital at a quarter-past nine o'clock. Previously to 
 that hour no directions were given by General Fox, and 
 Sir Charles Asgill, as well as General Dunne and Colonel 
 Vassal, were obliged to run for their lives in passing from 
 the Royal Hospital to the Barracks, through a part of 
 James's Street, in order to get to the Queen's Bridge. A 
 note was sent to Colonel Manley about the same time to 
 desire that he would have an eye to the Artillery Barracks ; 
 and it was on returning with his answer that a dragoon 
 was killed. Sir Charles Asgill went to the Barracks 
 between nine and ten from the Royal Hospital, without 
 any power to act on account of General Fox telling him 
 that he would follow him shortly. Colonel Beckwith, 
 however, observing that he ought to remain at the Royal 
 Hospital, he countermanded his horse, but without 
 sending orders to Sir Charles, who remained in expectation 
 of them upwards of an hour. In short, it was near one 
 o'clock in the morning before any troops were marched 
 from the Royal Barracks, and after the whole Insurrection 
 had been suppressed by two companies of the 21st 
 Regiment. 
 
 " A narrative of what passed without, however, entering 
 into these particulars, which cannot be stated without 
 making matter of accusation, will be transmitted officially, 
 founded upon the paper I sent you some time ago. 
 Marsden also has made a statement to me which I ha^'e 
 desired him to put under the form of a letter to me ; and 
 the Chancellor has suggested that I should order an in- 
 
DISCLOSURES ABOUT UNDER-SECRETARY COOKE 365 
 
 quiry to be made into the conduct of the Under-Secretaries 
 by himself, Wickham and the Attorney-General, that a 
 report might be made upon the subject as a future docu- 
 ment. 
 
 " I understand that Corry and Lord Limerick have been 
 two of the most violent against Marsden on the late occa- 
 sion. The latter is connected with a party at Limerick 
 who always endeavoured to represent that county in a 
 state of particular danger last winter, for which there was 
 no real ground ; and at that time I have always thought 
 that the representing of any part of Ireland in a state 
 bordering upon rebellion was likely to influence the 
 counsels of the French Government in any question of 
 peace or war. 
 
 " Cooke,* too, has of course been very active in dis- 
 seminating his opinion to the disadvantage of Marsden. 
 First, because he is probably very angry with himself 
 for having quitted his situation ; and secondly, because 
 Marsden knows some circumstances not much to his 
 credit, which, however, to the credit of Marsden, he has 
 divulged to none but those who must necessarily know 
 them. One was no less than Cooke having diverted from 
 its proper channel a thousand pounds charged to the 
 secret fund, and intended as a reward to the person who 
 discovered Lord Edward FitzGerald. This was discovered 
 
 * Edward Cooke was an Englishman. When Earl Fitzwilliam 
 went to Ireland in 1795 as Viceroy of the Whig Government, 
 Cooke was Under-Secretary of the Military Department of 
 Dublin Castle. " He was a Minister, not a clerk," said Fitz- 
 william. He was dismissed by the Lord Lieutenant — an act 
 which was one of the causes of the recall of Fitzwilliam within a 
 few months — and the succeeding Viceroy, Lord Camden, rein- 
 stated him in 1796 by appointing him Under-Secretary. Cooke 
 sat in the Irish House of Comraons from 1790 till the Union for 
 the borough of Old Leighlin, Carlow. A pamphlet entitled 
 " Arguments for and Against an Union between Great Britain 
 and Ireland Considered," which was published anonymously 
 during the controversy, was written by him, and was regarded 
 as the most able statement of the views of the promoters of the 
 scheme. He was a supporter of Catholic emancipation, like 
 his chiefs Cornwallis and Castlereagh. He resigned his office 
 as Under-Secretary shortly after the arrival of Hardwicke in 
 Ireland, because of his disappointment in not having been made 
 Chief Secretary in succession to Castlereagh. Such was the 
 confidence of Castlereagh in Cooke that he retained his services 
 in all the various departments which he successively filled as 
 Minister. 
 
366 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 by Cooke's bond being found by an executor amongst the 
 papers of a Government spy who was employed to pay the 
 money to a subordinate person who has never received 
 it, and who has since been an appHcant for remuneration 
 for that important service. The other was a transaction 
 never explained ; but from which he appears to have 
 applied to his own use £500 that was to have been paid to 
 Sir Vere Hunt, and which was paid by Mr. Taylor, first 
 Clerk in the Civil Office, to Cooke himself for that purpose. 
 Sir Vere denies that he ever received it, and Cooke has 
 never answered either Marsden's or Taylor's letters of 
 inquiry upon the subject. Sir Vere, therefore, considers 
 himself as entitled to that sum from the Irish Government, 
 and is now a claimant for it, though already paid. These 
 anecdotes are to give you some idea of the grounds that 
 Cooke has for abusing Marsden, if it is true that he has 
 done so, and it is fair you should know them, though they 
 are not of a nature to be generally known. They are, 
 however, facts, and with other circumstances that I have 
 heard will fix my opinion of the man, and regulate my 
 conduct to him through life." 
 
 In a subsequent letter the Lord Lieutenant deals more 
 fully with the reward paid for the betrayal of Lord 
 Edward FitzGerald in 1798, and throws fresh light on 
 that secret service transaction : 
 
 " In the private account of disbursements for Rebellion 
 secret service a sum of a thousand pounds is charged by 
 Mr. Cooke for a person who gave the information which 
 immediately led to the apprehension of Lord Edward 
 FitzGerald. The money appears to have been paid to 
 one Higgins, an attorney, but he was, in fact, only the 
 channel through which it was to be conveyed to the 
 party himself, a barrister of the name of Magan, who had 
 correct intelligence of the proceedings and connexions of 
 the Kildare rebels.* 
 
 * Francis Magan, the betrayer of Lord Edward FitzGerald, 
 was the son of a woollen dra^per of Dublin, a graduate of Trinity 
 College, and a barrister-at-law. He was one of the leading mem- 
 bers of the United Irishmen in Dublin, Being in financial diffi- 
 culties, he was induced by Francis Higgins, proprietor of the 
 Freeman's Journal — known in the history of the period as " the 
 sham squire " — to betray, through him, the secrets of the organi- 
 zation. He supplied the authorities, through Higgins, with the 
 
THE BETRAYAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD 367 
 
 " On the death of Higgins, between two and three 
 years ago, his executors came into possession of a bill or 
 promissory note of Mr. Cooke for a thousand pounds, 
 and shortly afterwards Mr. Magan stated that he had 
 never received any reward for the effectual service which 
 he had rendered in May, 1798. Upon this representa- 
 tion, which necessarily brought to my knowledge the cir- 
 cumstances of the transaction on which it was grounded, 
 I thought it right to authorize a payment to Mr. Magan 
 of £500, as the amount of the other bill, if recovered from 
 Mr. Cooke, would become the property of persons for 
 whom it was evidently never intended. Thus in one 
 instance the misapplication of this secret service money 
 has occasioned an additional charge upon the fund, and 
 has given rise to claims and applications which ought 
 now to have been set at rest, and which it is extremely 
 difficult to gratify. 
 
 " These circumstances, from the nature of the trans- 
 actions themselves, and as relating to a person that has 
 held and again holds a situation of great publick trust 
 and confidence, are of course known to very few ; to 
 none, I believe, but to those who became officially ac- 
 quainted with them. I think it right that you should 
 be apprised of them, as you would be if you were to look 
 into recent and interesting transactions here ; and though 
 I am very far from wishing to injure anyone, I will never 
 disavow my knowledge of the circumstances, if, being 
 known by others, their authenticity should be ques- 
 tioned." 
 
 The Home Secretary's official reply to the Lord 
 Lieutenant must have been gratifying to his Excellency : 
 
 " Confidential. 
 
 " Whitehall, 
 "My Lord, " 12th Sept., 1803. 
 
 " Your Excellency's most confidential dispatch of 
 the 25th ulto., received here on the 30th, would have been 
 sooner acknowledged but from my wish that it should be 
 
 information which led to the capture of the outlawed leader 
 of the conspiracy. Lord Edward FitzGerald, in a house in Thomas 
 Street. Magan, whose treachery was never suspected during 
 his lifetime, died in Dublin in 1833. He left an endowment to 
 his parish church, SS. Michael and John, Dublin, for perpetual 
 Masses for the repose of his soul. 
 
368 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 circulated among his Majesty's confidential servants, in 
 order that a full opportunity might be given for con- 
 sidering and investigating the very important details 
 contained in it. 
 
 " I have now the satisfaction of being able to inform 
 your Excellency that the account which you have trans- 
 mitted of the state of the intelligence possessed by your 
 Excellency's Government respecting the plans and designs 
 of the rebels previous to the wicked and malignant In- 
 surrection of the 23rd July, as well as the principal cir- 
 cumstances which attended the atrocious transaction, is 
 considered as affording a complete and satisfactory 
 answer to all the insinuations which have been thrown 
 out against the activity, the diligence, and the informa- 
 tion of your Excellency's Civil Government ; and further 
 his Majesty has been graciously pleased to command me 
 to acquaint your Excellency that he is satisfied that no 
 blame whatever is imputable to it upon that unhappy 
 occasion. 
 
 " Much as the execrable assassination of that excellent 
 and venerable magistrate, Lord Kilwarden, as well as the 
 various other atrocities committed on that melancholy 
 night by a band of misguided and ferocious wretches, are 
 to be deplored, there appears no reason for supposing, 
 upon a view of all the circumstances which have come to 
 light, that such occurrences could have been wholly pre- 
 vented, for altho' the intention of rising in some part or 
 other of the city in the course of the night was known 
 and ascertained in the afternoon of the 23rd July, yet 
 it is not difficult to conceive that the precise point at 
 which the Insurrection was to commence might remain 
 concealed from your Excellency's Government, when, 
 as is evident from subsequent information, several of 
 the rebel leaders themselves were wholly unapprized 
 of it. 
 
 " I cannot conclude this dispatch," the Home Secretary 
 and the Lord Lieutenant's brother says, " without express- 
 ing my opinion of the judgment, firmness, and steadiness 
 manifested by your Excellency in the various proceedings 
 you have thought it proper to adopt for punishing the 
 rebels and their abettors, for the security and protection 
 of his Majesty's faithful and loyal subjects in Dublin and 
 its vicinity." * * * 
 
THE FIRST OF THE EXECUTIONS 369 
 
 Meanwhile, a Special Commission was sitting in Green 
 Street Court-house, Dublin, for the trial of the prisoners 
 arrested in the Thomas Street district on the night of the 
 Insurrection. 
 
 The Viceroy writes unofficially as follows to the Home 
 Secretary : 
 
 " Private and Confidential. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " ist Sept. ,1803. 
 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " I have great satisfaction in acquainting you that 
 the result of the two first days of the trials has been per- 
 fectly satisfactory. Yesterday, Kearney, who was taken 
 in the attack upon the barracks in Thomas Street, was 
 found guilty upon the clearest evidence. The Attorney- 
 General's speech was extremely good, and as there is a 
 tolerable report of it in the Dublin Evening Post, I have 
 sent you the paper. The man was executed to-day at 
 one o'clock in Thomas Street. His conduct was not 
 improper, for though he denied his guilt he said to the 
 people, ' This is a bad business, boys. I advise you to 
 have nothing more to do with it.' 
 
 " Major Huxley went into the midst of the crowd in 
 the street, and did not observe any unpleasant symptoms 
 in the countenances of the people, nor was any rebellious 
 expression uttered in his hearing. There was, however, 
 very little said of any sort, and the guard, of course, 
 rendered any attempt at riot perfectly hopeless. Two 
 others have been convicted to-day." 
 
 Chief Secretary Wickham writes a fuller and more 
 interesting account of the demeanour of Kearney in his 
 last hours to Pole Carew, of the Home Office : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " ist Sept., 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " Kearney, who was convicted 3'esterday, was 
 executed in Thomas Street to-day at one o'clock. His 
 conduct from the time of his conviction exhibited a 
 strange mixture of rehgion and profaneness, of truth 
 and hypocrisy, of loyalty and of attachment to the cause 
 for which he suffered. 
 
 24 
 
370 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 " Nothing could be more outrageous and indecent than 
 his behaviour in prison, and at the prison door when he 
 was brought out to be put into the cart. On his way to 
 the place of execution he prayed most devoutly, without 
 anything of affectation or of religious enthusiasm. At 
 the gallows he exhorted the people in a firm, manly voice, 
 and with some degree of eloquence, to avoid drinking in 
 publick-houses, which he said had brought him to his 
 untimely end, and not to engage in seditious or rebellious 
 practices, which could bring them to no good. He then 
 solemnl}' declared that he dyed an innocent man, for 
 that the witnesses against him had sworn that he was in 
 Thomas Street, where he solemnly declared that he had 
 never been that night. 
 
 " The fact is that he was taken with a pike in his hand, 
 stepping out before the party that he was leading, and 
 exhorting them to attack the military, by a soldier of the 
 2ist, who darted out of the ranks, seeing the man 
 advanced before his fellows, seized him, and delivered 
 him to his corporal. As to this point nothing could be 
 more clear than the evidence. But the place where this 
 happened being near the junction of Thomas Street and 
 James Street — which in fact are one and the same, the 
 one being a prolongation of the other — this poor deluded 
 wretch rested his charge of perjury on the witnesses, and 
 his proof of his own innocence, on the question whether 
 the troops had actually quitted James Street and entered 
 Thomas Street before he was taken. 
 
 " There was a prodigious crowd at the execution, which 
 took place in a wide street ver}^ much resembling Broad 
 St. Giles's. Not the least tumult or disorder, nor any 
 Irish groan, or sign of disapprobation of any kind. 
 
 " All is quiet and submission ; and if I am not very 
 much mistaken, indeed, all will remain so. 
 
 " Since I last wrote we have procured evidence against 
 Emmet which will make out the compleatest case of 
 circumstantial evidence that I ever remember to have 
 heard or read of. We trace him to the mountains in the 
 green uniform of which we have heard so much, and in 
 the character of a French General speaking broken English 
 to his followers. Two persons in whose house he took 
 refuge, with his followers, in the above disguise, have seen 
 him in Kilmainham Gaol, and sworn to him positively, 
 notwithstanding his change of dress, as the French General 
 
FRESH EVIDENCE AGAINST EMMET 371 
 
 whom they saw in the mountains. They had first de- 
 scribed him so accurately in this room that no one who 
 had heard them, and who knew Emmet's person, could 
 suppose it possible that they could be mistaken. 
 
 " As soon as I have a little leisure you shall receive a 
 copy of Emmet's examination before the Chancellor, tlie 
 Attorney-General and myself. It is very curious, tho' it 
 makes no new discoveries. 
 
 " I send you a copy of a letter I received half an hour 
 since from the Solicitor-General on the subject of the trials 
 of to-day. 
 
 " A little patience, and Mr. Yorke and all Lord Hard- 
 wicke's friends will see his Excellency's character rise 
 out of this temporary cloud in a manner that will leave 
 to them nothing to regret, and entirely confound all his 
 enemies. 
 
 " Believe me to be, my dear Sir, rnost faithfully yours, 
 
 " Wm. Wickham. 
 
 " P.S. — I believe we have found a man who can identify 
 Emmet as one of the officers in green uniforms who were 
 in the depot. It is most provoking to think that eleven 
 men who were taken in the depot were so mixed in the 
 prison with fifty other prisoners that no one can now 
 venture to identify them."* 
 
 The following is the letter from James M'Clelland, 
 Solicitor-General, to which the Chief Secretary refers : 
 
 " Thursday evening, ist Sept., 1803. 
 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I am just returned from the Commission Court, 
 and have received your note. There were two prisoners 
 tried to-day, and both found guilty. .The first was called 
 Roach, and his case exactly resembled the case of yester- 
 day. He was taken by the same party of the army, and 
 nearly at the same time as Kearney, who was convicted 
 yesterday. 
 
 " The second prisoner tried to-day was a man of the 
 name of Kirwan, who was proved to have assembled a 
 party of rebels in his house in Plunket Street on the night 
 of the 23rd of July, and to have sallied out at their head. 
 
 " He was defended by Mr. Curran, who made a most 
 
 * From Ireland, " Private and Secret, 1803." — Home Office 
 Papers. 
 
 24 — 2 
 
372 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 extraordinary speech. He set out with praising Govern- 
 ment, congratulating the court on the loyalty of the great 
 majority of the people, professing his own loyalty, abusing 
 Buonaparte for his causing the present Rebellion, and 
 advising the mob, as an old friend, against their present 
 folly. So far his speech did him credit. But then, for- 
 getting all he had said, he occupied the court nearly an 
 hour in proving no Rebellion existed, and then sat down, 
 having totally forgotten his client in the transaction. 
 
 " I once thought it would have been necessary to have 
 spoken to evidence, in reply to Mr. Curran ; but the latter 
 part of his speech was so extravagant, and the witnesses 
 produced for the prisoner were guilty of such gross con- 
 tradictions, that I declined speaking. 
 
 " I think there could not be two more satisfactory 
 convictions than took place to-day." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Denis Lambert Redmond, a coal factor, with a large 
 place of business on the Quays, was one of the few Dublin 
 traders intimately associated with the conspiracy. In 
 the elaborate plan of campaign drawn up by Emmet the 
 duty assigned to Redmond was to lead a large force of 
 the rebels from the Quays to an attack on the Castle, 
 while Emmet himself advanced from Thomas Street. 
 On the night of July 23, after the collapse of the insur- 
 rection, Redmond fled from Dublin, and was arrested a 
 few days subsequently as he was about to leave Newry 
 in a vessel bound for America. 
 
 On September 4 Dr. Trevor of Kilmainham Gaol writes 
 as follows to the Chief Secretary : 
 
 " Redmond proposes to make a full discovery of all the 
 sources from which money was advanced to the rebel 
 chiefs ; of all persons concerned ; of the place and 
 manner of procuring ammunition, and of everything done 
 within his knowledge either in France, England or Ireland. 
 But, as a preliminary to this, he requires an interview 
 with R. Emmet of an hour in order to settle with him the 
 conditions of such explicit confession, and have his assist- 
 ance therein."* 
 
 * Home Office Papers. 
 
THE REBEL LEADER REDMOND 373 
 
 To this the Chief Secretary returned the following 
 reply : 
 
 " The proposed interview with Mr. Emmet is totally 
 inadmissible. With respect to the terms on which any 
 discovery is to be made, Government will bind itself only 
 to this, that such discovery shall not in any way be made 
 use of on the trial of Mr. Redmond. As to everything 
 else, Mr. Redmond must rely on the discretion of the 
 Government, which will be regulated by the importance 
 of the discovery, and the use that may be made of it. It 
 is also thought fit to apprize Mr. Redmond that his trial 
 must proceed to-morrow morning, unless some previous 
 communication from him to Government shall induce a 
 change."* 
 
 On September 5 the Viceroy writes to the Home Secre- 
 tary that Redmond had that morning shot himself with 
 a pistol just as he was about to be removed from New- 
 gate Gaol to Green Street Court-house for trial. His 
 Excellency proceeds : 
 
 " He placed the pistol to his head, just above the ear, 
 but the surgeon who examined the wound reported that 
 the ball had not entered the skull, and that he might 
 possibly recover. This evening, I am informed that he 
 has made application in writing for some whey, and has 
 shown other symptoms of sensibility, so that he may 
 possibly yet survive to take his trial. 
 
 " We are endeavouring to ascertain the means by which 
 he became possessed of a pistol ; and it appears that this 
 morning he was visited by a Mrs. Hatshell, his aunt, 
 Redmond, his cousin, a surgeon, Curran his counsel and 
 McNa]ly,j* an attorney. It is probable that the pistol 
 was brought by one of the two first. At any rate, the 
 prison, which is entirely under the jurisdiction of the city, 
 is very ill administered." 
 
 " A paper was found in his pocket of a most wicked 
 and malignant description, which appears to have been 
 written this morning. I enclose a copy of it, the only one 
 which has been made, for I do not think it is of a nature 
 
 * Home Office Papers. 
 
 t This McNally was a son of Leonard MacNally, barrister-at- 
 law and Government spy. 
 
374 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 that ought to be made pubhck. The prisoner who was 
 tried to-day, of the name of Clare, whose conviction was 
 thought the most doubtful, was found guilty." 
 
 The following is the document which was found in 
 Redmond's pocket. It is dated " New Prison, August 5th, 
 1803," but obviously the month should be September : 
 
 " To the Government. 
 
 " Remember that you have destroyed my property, my 
 liberty, and what is more you have drove me to a state of 
 desperation beyond conception, by your sanguinary pro- 
 ceedings this time back. For God sake stop your murder ; 
 that is, I mean, what you call executions. I do not mean 
 to resort to threats or menaces, for you well know how 
 you stand. You may rest assured there will be a retalia- 
 tion, and that shortly. For God's sake, I again beg of 
 you not to be bringing innocent men into trouble. I 
 will repeat it again, that there never was so wanton an 
 attack made upon any poor young man. It is enough 
 to disgrace the most savage nation. It is too well known 
 to the publick, and I am sure will never be forgot. 
 
 " What supposed lenient measures ! my God, will 
 ever that day arrive when the liberty of the citizen will be 
 realized. Farewell, you tools of oppression. I will not 
 give you that satisfaction you so wantonly expected in 
 taking my life. I will be remembered when you are all 
 forgot. Adieu, you poor wretches. You will shortly 
 meet the fate of all tyrants. 
 
 " Citizen Denis Lambert Redmond. 
 
 " May God forgive me, as you have drove me to it. 
 O poor Emmet. He's deceived and betrayed into the 
 hands of a lawless enemy. 
 
 " O my dear friends, all is not over, thank God. May 
 God protect all the friends of Liberty. May God deliver 
 Mr. Emmet from the hands of his enemies, so I say. 
 
 " The very tortures that I have seen exercised by the 
 miscreants of Despotism on those poor men, who were 
 executed these few days back, previous to their being 
 executed, is beyond all the conception of liberal ideas. 
 Fellows grinning and laughing when they would ask a 
 question. 
 
 " Let my body not be ill used, but given to my friends, 
 that my dust may be with my poor father and mother. 
 
REDMOND OFFERS TO MAKE DISCLOSURES 375 
 
 " Adieu, my fellow-prisoners, and may God protect you 
 in the hour of danger. Adieu ; adieu." 
 
 " My dear Lord," says Yorke, writing from Charles 
 Street, London, September 10, " yours of the 5th relat- 
 ing to Redmond, with its diabolical enclosure, is just 
 received. I hope his life will yet be preserved, to 
 be ultimately rendered up as an atonement for such 
 atrocious crimes." 
 
 The pious wish of Charles Yorke was fulfilled. Red- 
 mond recovered, and once more offered to make dis- 
 closures on condition that his life was spared. Dr. Trevor 
 reports to the Chief Secretary : 
 
 " September 30, 1803. 
 
 " Redmond is ready to give an account of his whole 
 proceedings from the loth July to the 23rd, as well as he 
 can recollect, except the names of the persons that he was 
 actually to command, who were of the inferior order. 
 
 " He will inform Government where he got acquainted 
 with the chiefs, as well as of the different plans for sur- 
 prising the capital, which he thinks Government is already 
 in possession of. 
 
 ' After giving the foregoing information, and pleading 
 guilty to the indictment, he expects that his life shall be 
 spared, and sent within one month to any place, except 
 Botany Bay. 
 
 " He has no knowledge of any of the county of Wexford 
 men, or any other county. He is chiefly acquainted with 
 the lower order of Dublin men that are concerned ; he 
 thinks almost the whole of them, 
 
 " He will also inform the Government where the French 
 were to land. He says not in Bantry Bay. 
 
 " He will not be a prosecutor. The principal persons 
 engaged for Dublin are those already proclaimed. He 
 will inform of any other he can recollect. 
 
 " He was in company with four French officers. He 
 knows the names of two of them ; and one he believes to 
 be the rank of a General. He supped with them at the 
 Globe Coffee House. Mr, Emmet was of the party. 
 
 " There was a French officer to command in every 
 county in Ireland, and he believes that a great number 
 were in the country at the time of the Insurrection, and 
 
376 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 have since escaped to France. He also believes that the 
 principal Irish leaders engaged in the Rebellion have 
 reached France."* 
 
 The Chief Secretary, commenting on the statement 
 about the French officers, in the last paragraph writes : 
 " I incline to think that this language was holden by the 
 principal conspirators to keep up the spirits and hopes 
 of their" followers ;" and with respect to the assertion that 
 the principal Irish leaders had reached France, he saj^s : 
 " This is not true with respect to the great majority of 
 them." He further writes : " I am nearl}' satisfied there 
 were no French officers in Dublin. I also believe that 
 Redmond was not admitted into the conspiracy till very 
 late." 
 
 . The Executive came to the conclusion that Redmond 
 could tell them nothing about the Insurrection which 
 they did not already know. " His offer," writes the Chief 
 Secretary, " was rejected on account of his persisting in 
 his refusal to disclose any names but those which were 
 already known to the Government. "t 
 
 Redmond was brought to trial for high treason, and 
 convicted. What happened, the Lord Lieutenant tells 
 his brother in the following " private and confidential " 
 unofficial letter : 
 
 " Dublin CaStle, 
 
 ''Oct. sth, 1803. 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " The trial of Redmond came on to-day, and he 
 was convicted on evidence as clear as an}^ of those who 
 have been found guilty since the opening of the Special 
 Commission. It is very extraordinary that after having 
 offered to disclose whatever he knew before the day was 
 originally fixed for the trial, and having attempted to 
 destroy himself after this offer was rejected, he should have 
 gloried in his guilt instead of attempting either to disprove 
 or to palliate it. I understand his speech to the Court, 
 after the verdict was pronounced, was entirely of that 
 tendency, extolling the French Government, and repre- 
 
 * Home Office Papers. t Ibid. 
 
CONVICTION OF REDMOND 7,77 
 
 senting it as the hope to which the people of this country 
 were to look to overthrow their own. He will be executed 
 to-morrow opposite his house on the Coal Quay, where 
 there was a bonfire on the 14th of July to commemorate 
 the French Revolution, which, it is highly probable, was 
 furnished by Redmond himself. 
 
 " Keenan was executed this day. Mackintosh, who was 
 hanged on Monday, confessed his guilt, but refused to 
 address the people. He was the person who hired the 
 house in Patrick-street, and who was taken at Arklow 
 after the 23rd of July. He came from Scotland about the 
 year 1793, and having married a sister of Keenan, died a 
 Roman Catholick. He had positively denied any know- 
 ledge of the conspiracy, and refused to give any informa- 
 tion whatever, tho' he might have saved his life and 
 returned to his own country in perfect safety." 
 
 * * * 
 
 In the course of the executions an interesting question 
 arose as to the demeanour of the convicts who were 
 attended to the scaffold by priests : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 ''Sept. 10th, 1803. 
 
 "Sir, 
 
 " A question has arisen since the commencement 
 of the trials which, as deserving of importance from cir- 
 cumstances with which it is connected, I think it right 
 to communicate to you for the information of his Majesty's 
 confidential servants, in order that if it should be neces- 
 sary I may receive his Majesty's commands upon the 
 subject. 
 
 " The two first prisoners who were found guilty before 
 the Special Commission were not attended by any priest 
 either to administer the sacrament to them in prison, 
 or to receive their confession at the place of execution. 
 As soon as I learned this circumstance, which was entirely 
 unknown to me till after the second execution, I directed 
 an inquiry to be made into the cause of the omission, 
 and found that the sheriffs of the city had taken upon 
 themselves to prevent the attendance of a priest on the 
 prisoners in Newgate. Considering, however, that persons 
 who had been permitted by the State to be brought up 
 in a particular religion had a right to the consolation it 
 might afford in their last moments, and that no justi- 
 
378 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 fiable cause could be alledgcd for denying it, I directed 
 immediate orders to be given for the admission of priests 
 to the other convicts. 
 
 " Strong representations have since been made by the 
 sheriffs in consequence of their observations on the 
 different conduct of the prisoners who had been so cir- 
 cumstanced, as they have not been disposed to confess 
 or admit their crimes, and appear to consider themselves 
 as having satisfied every duty by communicating with 
 the priest, whilst the two convicts to whom I have 
 referred, not only admitted their guilt, but exhorted the 
 people to avoid the crime of rebellion. The others who 
 communicated with a priest exhorted the people to give 
 up their pikes and abstain from rebellious practices, but 
 have uniformly declared that they died innocent. 
 
 " Whence does the difference of the conduct of the 
 persons so circumstanced arise ? Is it that they mean 
 to deny the proof of their guilt, and to arraign the ad- 
 ministration of publick justice, or that they consider 
 themselves as perfectly absolved and restored to inno- 
 cence by the absolution of the priest ? Certain it is, 
 however, that representations have been made to me 
 that it is generally understood that the confession to the 
 priest answers every purpose and every duty, and super- 
 cedes the necessity of any confession to the Govern- 
 ment, or any admission of the crimes which have been 
 proved. 
 
 " I have thought these circumstances and the observa- 
 tions so stated of so serious a nature, that I have directed 
 Mr. Wickham to inquire of Dr. Troy into the truth of 
 these allegations, and beg leave to refer you to his account 
 of the substance of his conversation with Dr. Troy upon 
 the subject, herewith enclosed. 
 
 " I trust you will agree with me in thinking that I 
 could not have properly sanctioned a refusal to the 
 convicts of a priest of their own religion. It appeared 
 to me, therefore, that the middle way was not to 
 permit the priest to be alone with the prisoners at the 
 time of their receiving the confession and administering 
 the sacrament. But this seemed to be a point of so much 
 importance connected with the discussions that have 
 taken place, that I cannot help considering it as a ques- 
 tion of State, and have not thought it advisable to take 
 that step without knowing the opinion of His Majesty's 
 
DECLARATIONS BY CONDEMNED PRISONERS 379 
 
 Ministers, and receiving his Majesty's commands. All 
 that I have thought myself at liberty to do, in a question 
 of so delicate a nature, is to ensure the attendance of a 
 priest of good and respectable character, and not to 
 suffer the interference of those priests with whom the 
 prisoners may have been in the habit of communicating, 
 and to whose assistance they would naturally be desirous 
 of resorting. 
 
 " I cannot conclude without observing that the publick 
 declarations of innocence which are so frequently made 
 in this country by persons of the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion, who suffer by the sentence of the Law, are by no 
 means confined to crimes of treason and rebellion, but 
 that they are generally made by all who suffer, whether 
 for crimes against the State or of any other description. 
 It would not, therefore, be fair to presume that the 
 priests inculcate concealment from improper motives, or 
 confine their injunctions to concealment (if such are 
 actually made) to crimes of treason and rebellion ; but 
 that the unfortunate culprits consider themselves re- 
 stored to innocence in consequence of the absolution of 
 their priests, without meaning to arraign the justice of 
 their sentence, or to deny their having committed the 
 crime for which they are condemned to suffer. 
 
 " If the subject appears to you to be of sufficient con- 
 sequence, I would suggest the propriety of putting some 
 questions to the Roman Catholic bishops in England, 
 and to ascertain from any of the emigrant French bishops 
 or clergy, with whom it may be thought proper to com- 
 municate, how far the practice of considering the con- 
 fession of a criminal to a priest as superceding the neces- 
 sity of a confession to the State obtained in France under 
 the old Church, or is understood to prevail in countries 
 where the Roman Catholic religion is established, and 
 whether in such countries the priest to whom confession 
 of a crime had been made would consider himself at 
 liberty to grant absolution until the same confession 
 had been reported to the Government or to the police 
 of the country. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with great truth and respect. 
 Sir, your most obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 " Hardwicke.* 
 
 "The Right Hon. Charles Yorke." 
 
 * Home Office Papers. 
 
38o CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 The following is the Chief Secretary's report : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " Sept. loth, 1803. 
 
 " According to your Excellency's desire, I have seen 
 Dr. Tro}', the titular Archbishop of Dublin, and had a 
 long conversation with him on the subject of the received 
 opinions of the Romish Church with respect to what 
 they call the Sacrament of Penance, of which confession 
 and absolution make a part. 
 
 " I lust asked him whether confession could be re- 
 ceived and absolution 'given in the hearing of a third 
 person, spiritual or layman ? To which he answered, 
 ' No, not in any case.' 
 
 " I then asked him whether the priest receiving con- 
 fession considered himself at liberty to disclose the whole 
 or any part of what should be revealed to him, either to 
 the Government of the country, or to any other person ? 
 To this he answered that the priest was not only not at 
 liberty to disclose, but was bound not to disclose any 
 part of such confession either to the Government of the 
 country or to any other person whatever ; and that the 
 same rule held good whether the confession was or was 
 not sufficiently full and sincere to entitle the person who 
 made it to receive absolution. 
 
 " But he said that if in confession any plot against 
 the existing Government were disclosed to the priest he 
 would be bound to give information to Government that 
 such plot was in agitation, taking care to say nothing that 
 could in any way lead to a suspicion of the person from 
 whom, or the manner in which, the information had been 
 obtained. 
 
 " I then asked him whether such confession so made 
 to the priest, particularly in the case of a crime against 
 the State, was considered as a full atonement, so as to 
 entitle the penitent to absolution without a disclosure of 
 such crime being first made by him to the police or to 
 the Government of the country ? To this the Doctor 
 answered very distinctly that he did not consider the 
 confession to the priest alone, under such circumstances, 
 a sufficient atonement ; and that either the priest ought 
 to insist on such confession to the State or to the police 
 being previously made, or to enjoin the making such dis- 
 closure subsequent to absolution, in like manner as 
 penance is enjoined under similar circumstances, which 
 
ARCHBISHOP TROY ON ABSOLUTION 381 
 
 latter mode he admitted to be tlie more usual practice 
 here. 
 
 " 1 then asked him whetlier, if absolution should be 
 denied to a prisoner on the ground of his refusing to 
 make to the Government of the country tliat disclosure 
 which he had already made to the priest, it would be 
 competent to the priest to state to (government the fact 
 that he had denied the man absolution, and if so, whether 
 he would be at liberty to state his reason for such denial ? 
 To this the Doctor answered that the priest could not, 
 consistently with the principles and practice of the 
 Romish Church, declare to the Government, or to any 
 other person spiritual or temporal (not even to the Pope), 
 that he had refused absolution to any individual, under 
 any circumstances whatever. 
 
 " I then asked whether if the priest had a thorough 
 persuasion in his own mind that a criminal had made a 
 full confession of his crime, and was sincerely penitent, 
 he could grant him absolution, tho' the form of confes- 
 sion could not be strictly performed in all its parts in 
 the manner required by the Catholic Church ? To this 
 he answered that he unquestionably might grant abso- 
 lution in such a case, as for instance where a man was 
 deprived of his speech by a stroke of the palsy, or any 
 other visitation of God, and that in such case he should 
 consider the Sacrament of Penance as complete. 
 
 " On putting this last question, I warned him that it 
 had a practical object in view — meaning that he should 
 understand that I looked to the possibility of its being 
 necessary that the priest should not be left alone with 
 the prisoners now under sentence of death, and I am 
 persuaded that he so understood me. 
 
 "Wm. Wickham."* 
 
 The Home Office Papers, " Ireland, Private and Secret, 
 1803," contain the draft of the Home Secretary's reply 
 to this important communication from the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland. This very document appears to have 
 been laid for approval before the Cabinet, for it contains 
 on the margins written comments by several Ministers, 
 including " Eldon," the Lord Chancellor, and " H. A." 
 (Henry Addington), the Prime Minister. The following 
 is a copy of the draft : 
 
 * Home Ofi&ce Papers. 
 
382 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 " Whitehall, 
 
 "Sept. 28ih, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I should sooner have acknowledged your Ex- 
 cellency's confidential despatch of the loth inst. (re- 
 ceived here on the i6th), communicating some very inter- 
 esting and important information respecting certain 
 tenets of the Popish Church, with reference to the Sacrr. • 
 ment of Penance and Confession, and to its effects upon 
 the minds of some of the ignorant and misguided Rebels 
 who have lately undergone the punishment due to their 
 crimes, had I not waited for the result of a communica- 
 tion which it was thought proper to make to some of the 
 most respectable clergy of that persuasion at this time in 
 England. 
 
 " Having in the course of yesterday been enabled to 
 meet with Dr. Douglas, one of the principal titular 
 bishops near London,* I had the opportunity of examin- 
 ing him very fully upon the subject, taking for my guide 
 the outline of the questions so ably and judiciously put 
 to Dr. Troy by Mr. Wickham. I have now the honour 
 to inclose for your Excellency's information the sub- 
 stance of that conversation, which I hope will prove 
 satisfactory, and not the less so because it appears to 
 differ in some material particulars from the doctrines 
 laid down by the Catholic Archbishop on your side the 
 water. 
 
 " Indeed, it appears to me that the principles avowed 
 by Dr. Douglas are much more consistent with the dic- 
 tates of genuine Christianity, sound morality, and true 
 policy, than those of Dr. Troy, which are indeed suffi- 
 ciently mischievous, and calculated, when combined with 
 Jacobin Plots, and the system of United Irishmen, to 
 give every possible effect to detestable intrigue and 
 treasonable conspiracies. f 
 
 " I have likewise the honour to transmit for your 
 
 * Note by the Lord Chancellor : "I think it necessary to 
 avoid using any such expression as ' Titular Bishop.' In this 
 country I have doubts whether it is not giving a sanction to a 
 name which it might be possibly thought a misdemeanour for 
 the person to arrogate to himself ; perhaps a few years ago a 
 very considerable misdemeanour. — Eldon." 
 
 t Notes by Ministers : " The censure upon Dr. Troy, con- 
 trasted with the commendation of the other priest, appears to 
 me more severe than the difference in their opinions would seem 
 to warrant." — W. " Is this paragraph necessary ?"^H. A. 
 
THE VIEWS OF THE CABINET 383 
 
 Excellency's perusal an original paper containing answers 
 to certain questions proposed by me to that excellent and 
 respectable prelate, the Bishop of St. Pole de Leon, which 
 will be found to agree much more with the tenets of Dr. 
 Douglas than with those of the titular Archbishop of 
 Dublin. It is altogether a curious document, and worth 
 perusing. 
 
 " Having communicated your Excellency's letter with 
 its inclosure to his Majesty's confidential servants, I have 
 the satisfaction to find that we are of the same opinion 
 with respect to the judgment and propriety of the steps 
 taken by your Excellency with regard to the criminals 
 in need of the spiritual assistance of Catholic confessors. 
 It appears to be absolutely essential that the priests who 
 may be permitted to give their attendance in cases of this 
 nature should be persons of respectability, and whose 
 moral characters are known to be unimpeach'd.* They 
 should, if possible, be likewise such as are conscientiously 
 convinced that no criminal can be entitled to the benefit 
 of absolution who is not fully determined to make all the 
 atonement in his power by disclosing such wicked and 
 malignant plots as he may be privy to, either against the 
 Government of the country or the safety of individuals. 
 
 " With such a persuasion, and under the influence of 
 such salutary exhortation, no great mischief can be 
 apprehended from the admission of Catholic confessors 
 to condemned criminals. Where such persuasion and 
 exhortation is suppressed, or unavailable, the office of 
 the priest is nothing more than a mockery, and the 
 penitent cannot be considered as being in a state of mind 
 proper to receive the benefit of the Rite, such as it is. 
 
 " With regard to what your Excellency suggests about 
 the authorized presence of a third person at the time of 
 receiving the confession and absolution by criminals 
 under sentence of death, I confess that I cannot but con- 
 sider it a very delicate subject. With the consent of 
 the penitent there can be no question but that a third 
 
 * Note by the Lord Chancellor : "In the case of O'Coigley 
 [Father O'Coigley, an Irish priest, was convicted of high trea- 
 son at Maidstone in 1798 and hanged] at Maidstone, I believe 
 the person called the Titular Bishop of London in this paper, 
 but certainly some considerable member of that persuasion, 
 recommended, at the desire of Government, a priest to attend 
 him, and from that moment all information was lost. Lord 
 Redesdale will remember this." — E. 
 
384 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 person may be present at such confession and absolution, 
 
 but if he objects to it it appears to me that to insist upon 
 
 the intervention of another auditor, is, in fact, to deprive 
 
 him of the benefit of such spiritual assistance as he 
 
 requires, just as much as if the priest were altogether 
 
 prohibited from seeing him.* 
 
 " Charles Yorke." 
 * * * 
 
 There is another interesting side issue to the story of 
 the Insurrection. It deals with the action of the Duke of 
 Leinster at Maynooth on the night of July 23, 1803. His 
 Grace did not stand well with the Government. He was 
 the brother of Lord Edward FitzGerald, the leader of 
 the United Irishmen of 1798. He had opposed the 
 Union, and Kildare, where his property was situated, 
 and where his influence was predominant, was the most 
 disloyal county in Ireland. Here is a letter he sent to 
 the Viceroy, reporting the occurrences at Maynooth on 
 the night of July 23 : 
 
 " Carton, 
 
 "July 24, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 "It is with infinite concern that I am to inform 
 your Excellency of a very extraordinary event that took 
 place last night at Maynooth. The town had been alarmed 
 in the course of the day by a report that the town was to 
 be attacked by a set of people, and that they intended to 
 stop the mail coach last night. As the report was so 
 universal, and so much talked of that I thought it could 
 not be intended, knowing that various reports were 
 spread. Had they only mentioned the mail coach I 
 should have informed the Post Office, but the report 
 mentioned there was also to be a Rising in Dublin, but 
 I did not think the reports came to me from good 
 authority. 
 
 " However, before ten o'clock, just at dark, a number 
 
 * Note by the Lord Chancellor : "I think it very difficult to 
 deny to the convict the assistance of the priest, of whom the best 
 opinion can be formed. I am tolerably certain, however, as I 
 understand the case of O'Coigley, that where a respectable 
 opinion is formed the effect of the attendance is likely, possibly, 
 to be the same, or nearly the same, as if any person had been 
 received. But still I think, under all the circumstances, the 
 assistance cannot be denied." — Eldon. 
 
THE DUKE OF LEINSTER 385 
 
 of people sallied out of the different publick-liouses, 
 better dressed, as I am informed, than the commonality 
 of labourers, marched about the town, arm in arm. After 
 some time they stopped a carriage, fired a pistol, and gave 
 a huzza, and then all was quiet and no noise heard. They 
 soon after parted, and the great part of them went off 
 towards Salins. About thirty, they say, stayed to 
 attack the mail coach, which, I understand, escaped by 
 the coachman driving ; that one of the guards is wounded. 
 There certainly was not much firing, as I had people up 
 all night watching. Indeed, I did not go to bed till day- 
 light. 
 
 " There being no troops at Maynooth, I since under- 
 stand they carried oft" two inhabitants with them, and 
 several horses ; that they went towards Kill on the great 
 Munster road, where they expect to be joined by the 
 people from the mountains. I should hope that your 
 Excellency will be so good as to order a part of the Army 
 to Maynooth, as I understand there are but very few at 
 Kilcock." 
 
 By order of the Lord Lieutenant an inquiry was held 
 at Maynooth, and the result is thus communicated by 
 his Excellency to the Home Secretary, Charles Yorke : 
 
 "Dublin Castle, 
 
 " August 2gth, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " You will receive by this mail an official letter 
 enclosing a report from the Solicitor-General on the 
 subject of the rising at Maynooth, on the evening of the 
 23rd of July, and the proceedings of the rebels in the 
 county of Kildare at that time. I think it, however, 
 necessary so far to explain the Solicitor-General's report 
 as to say that no imputation has fallen on the Duke of 
 Leinster of any previous knowledge of the Insurrection. 
 It is, however, difficult to suppose that some few members 
 of the College* were not acquainted with it. 
 
 " But though I have no belief that the Duke of Leinster 
 had any previous knowledge of the intentions of the people 
 at Maynooth, yet I am sorry to say that such has been the 
 state of the county of Kildare since the Rebellion in 1798 
 as to require at all times the particular attention of 
 
 * The college for the training of the Irish priesthood at 
 Maynooth. 
 
 25 
 
386 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION OF CRIMINALS 
 
 Government, and that there is a more general and rooted 
 spirit of disaffection in that county than in any other 
 part of Ireland. This circumstance, which is very unfor- 
 tunate on account of the vicinity of Kildare to the 
 Metropolis, is in a great measure, if not entirely, to be 
 attributed to the industry with which Lord Edward Fitz- 
 Gerald corrupted the whole of the county ; and to the 
 impression which has been very generally conceived by 
 the lower orders of people that the Duke of Leinster 
 approved of this conduct, an idea which originated in 
 the part taken by his brother, and which never has been 
 counteracted by any decisive line of conduct on the part 
 of his Grace. 
 
 " When it was first proposed by the magistrates to 
 proclaim the county the Duke of Leinster declared he 
 should set his face against it, but when it was distinctly 
 explained to him that it was necessary to enforce the 
 Insurrection Act in the counties near Dublin, he not only 
 acquiesced in it, but signed the memorial and brought it 
 to me himself ; and afterwards attended the Council, and 
 signed his name to the Proclamation. Indeed, so general 
 was the opinion of the magistrates upon the subject that 
 it would have been done at any rate ; but it was better 
 for the public, as well as for the Duke himself, that he 
 took the part he did." 
 
 The Home Secretary sent this communication to the 
 King, with the following note : 
 
 " Mr. Yorke most humbly presumes to submit the 
 enclosed letter from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 received this day, and relating to the late seditious 
 practices in the county of Kildare, for your Majesty's 
 perusal." 
 
 " Whitehall, 
 " September 2nd, 1803." 
 
 His Majesty returned the letter with the following 
 endorsement : 
 
 "It is impossible to be more delicate than the Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland on the subject of the Duke of 
 Leinster, though Mr. Secretary Yorke must feel the 
 extreme weakness of the Duke's whole conduct. — G. R." 
 
THE VICEROY ON LEINSTER'S CONDUCT z^j 
 
 On September 4 the Lord Lieutenant sent the following 
 letter, marked " private and confidential," to the Home 
 Secretary : 
 
 " I had yesterday a visit from the Duke of Leinster, 
 who is much hurt at the reports which are circulating 
 against him, in consequence of the examination of a 
 person of the name of CoUinson, son of the postmaster 
 at Maynooth. The information was stated in a paper 
 which I lately transmitted, and goes to the conduct of 
 one of his Grace's servants, who is said to have told the 
 rebels at Maynooth that if they would come to Carton 
 the arms would be delivered to them, and that they 
 would find supper on the table. The Duke said he must 
 justify himself to the public ; that he can no longer act 
 as a magistrate in the county of Kildare, etc., etc. I 
 advised him to do nothing hastily. That the informa- 
 tions given by those who are permitted to give informa- 
 tion are not publickly known unless they are acted upon 
 and the persons brought forward. The Solicitor-General's 
 inquiry as to the affair at Maynooth went not only to 
 facts relating to the attack on the mail coach, but to 
 the plans of the rebels of which it was not supposed his 
 Grace had previous knowledge. He added that he had 
 endeavoured to do his duty as a magistrate, but that he 
 would not fill the gaols. He proposed to converse with 
 Lord Redesdale upon the subject, to which I of course 
 assented. 
 
 " It is impossible exactly to know what the Duke of 
 Leinster means, for he converses so much in detached 
 sentences that he can be brought to no distinct point. 
 I believe he means well, but he is so much guided by 
 others and particularly by a Mr. Wogan Browne, who 
 was rather implicated in the Rebellion, that his conduct 
 is not only not useful to the public, but often embarrass- 
 ing to the Government. His compromise with the 
 people who attacked the mail coach at Maynooth on the 
 23rd July, and his receiving a few old arms and a pitch- 
 fork, are sufficient proofs of his want of judgment, firm- 
 ness, and decision. His county is, however, proclaimed, 
 and we shall act independently of any opinions he may 
 entertain upon the subject." 
 
 25—2 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, in a " private and confidential " 
 letter to Charles Yorke, relating the discovery of the 
 writer of the letters to Emmet, says of John Philpot 
 Curran : 
 
 " Wickham has seen him, and he professes entire 
 ignorance of the connection between Emmet and his 
 daughter, but I think he must decline being counsel for 
 Emmet in a case in which his daughter may be impli- 
 cated. It is a very extraordinary story, and strengthens 
 the case against Emmet." 
 
 Curran threw up his brief for Emmet. He sent the 
 prisoner the following cold, curt note : 
 
 " Sept. loth, 1803. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " From the circumstances which you must sup- 
 pose have come to my knowledge, you could not have 
 been surprised at my intimation this morning to your agent 
 that I could not act as your Counsel. I write this merely 
 to suggest to you that if those circumstances be not 
 brought forward by Crown, which from their humanity 
 I hope will be suppressed, it cannot be of any advantage 
 to you to disclose them to your agent or Counsel. 
 
 " (Signed), J. P. Curran.* 
 "Robert Emmet, Esq." 
 
 The trial of the prisoner was consequently delayed, in 
 order that other counsel might be instructed. Ulti- 
 mately Leonard MacNally and Peter Burro wes were 
 
 * From "Ireland, Private and Secret, 1 803 " (Home Ofi&ce Papers.) 
 
 388 
 
CURRAN DECLINES TO BE EMMET'S COUNCIL 389 
 
 retained. It was MacNally, counsel for Emmet, whose 
 son was the prisoner's soHcitor, that suppHed the Irish 
 Executive with the information about Emmet referred to 
 in the following letter from Chief Secretary Wickham to 
 R. Pole Carew of the Home Office : 
 
 " Sept. 14, 1803. 
 
 " Inclosed I send you by Lord Lieutenant's commands 
 for Mr. Yorke's information two secret papers containing 
 some curious particulars respecting Emmet. They come 
 from a source upon which I can thoroughly depend. 
 Emmet was brought up to-day to plead. His trial comes 
 on on Monday. Counsellor Burton has refused to act for 
 him from a motive of delicacy. Emmet has in conse- 
 quence named Mr. Burrowes to be his Counsel. Mr. 
 MacNally is the other. 
 
 " I must not omit mentioning that I have the strongest 
 reason to believe that the person mentioned in the en- 
 closure (marked No. 2) as having gone to France on the 
 Tuesday after Emmet's arrest was specially instructed 
 to use every means in his power to prevail upon the French 
 Government to constitute the English prisoners now in 
 France hostages for such persons as might be taken up 
 by order of the Government here."* 
 
 The following are MacNally's communications : 
 
 " Enclosure i. 
 " Secret. 
 
 " Sept. 1 2th, 1803. 
 
 " Curran's refusing to act for Emmet will render him 
 very unpopular ; being assigned, the Party say he is 
 bound to act. Emmet, I have it from his agent, re- 
 ceived the account with perfect calmness, and without 
 the least agitation wrote him a long letter. I expect 
 there will be a motion on the subject this day in Court to 
 assign other Counsel. 
 
 " But of what use can Counsel be when, as I understand, 
 he will not controvert the charge by calling a single 
 witness ? 
 
 " Frank, the stockbroker of St. Andrew-street, says 
 that on the 22nd July there were not less than six priests 
 
 * From Home Office Papers. 
 
390 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 at his office wanting to exchange bank-notes for guineas 
 under pretence of sending them to the North. 
 
 " Ciirran was cruelly agitated at the visit to his house ; 
 but speaks of the manner of doing it in very handsome 
 terms. He also feels greatly obliged to Mr. Wickham and 
 the Attome3'-General." 
 
 " Enclosure 2. 
 
 " Secret. 
 
 " Sept. 12th, 1803. 
 
 " Emmet appears deeply affected on account of the 
 young lady whose letters are in the possession of Govern- 
 ment. He says he offered before the Privy Council to 
 plead guilty if they would suppress those letters, which 
 they refused and required him to give information with- 
 out mentioning names. That he declined this offer then ; 
 but proposed afterwards that if an accommodation was 
 entered into whereby the lives of others could be saved, 
 particularly of those condemned, he would require for him- 
 self only the suppression of the letters and stand his trial. 
 This, he says, was also refused, and nothing would satisfy 
 those he was before but individual information, which 
 he declined untill he could see Mr. Curran his then Counsel. 
 
 " He prevailed on a turnkey, the same evening, to 
 
 convey a letter to Miss S C , telling her to put 
 
 those letters she had in her possession out of the way, and 
 to deny having ever written to him. This messenger 
 was too late, and he was apprehended. He threw the 
 letter, he thought, into the river, but he supposes it fell 
 on the strand. 
 
 " On this subject his mind seems wholly bent, and 
 cruelly afflicted. For his own personal safety he appears 
 not to entertain an idea. He does not intend to call a 
 single witness, nor to trouble any witness for the Crown 
 with a cross-examination, unless they misrepresent facts. 
 
 '' He expects that a person named Farrell, and another, 
 who were made prisoners at the depot in Dirty Lane, with 
 McCabe, will be witnesses against him. 
 
 " He received letters from France lately, but had not 
 the cypher to make out the contents ; but declares it 
 never was his intention that France should have a footing 
 in Ireland. I understand that a person went for France 
 on the Tuesday after Emmet was taken, on board a 
 neutral vessel from this port." 
 
EMMET'S LETTER TO CURRAN 391 
 
 MacNally was wrong in his account of how Emmet's 
 letter to Sarah Curran fell into the hands of the Execu- 
 tive. He simply repeated the story of the ill-luck of the 
 turnkey, who was Emmet's messenger, which was told 
 to the prisoner by the gaol authorities. But as to that 
 the Government required no information from MacNally. 
 What was valuable to them was his disclosure of the 
 line of defence which Emmet intended to adopt. The 
 Executive also had an earlier intimation than Mac- 
 Nally's of the letter which Emmet had written to Curran. 
 It is a long letter, as MacNally describes it, and deeply 
 interesting : 
 
 " I did not expect you to be my counsel : I nominated 
 you becuse not to have done so might have appeared re- 
 markable. Had Mr. been in town I did not even 
 
 wish to have seen you, but as he was not I wrote to you 
 to come to me at once. I know that I have done you 
 very severe injury, much greater than I can atone for 
 with my life. That atonement I did offer to make before 
 the Privy Council, by pleading guilty if those documents 
 were suppressed. I offered more. I offered, if I was 
 permitted to consult some persons, and if they would 
 consent to an accommodation for saving the lives of 
 others, that I would only require for my part of it the 
 suppression of those documents, and that I would abide 
 the event of my own trial. This was also rejected, and 
 nothing but individual information (with the exception of 
 names) would be taken. My intention was not to leave 
 the suppression of those documents to possibility, but 
 to render it unnecessary for anyone to plead for me, by 
 pleading guilty to the charge myself. 
 
 " The circumstances that I am now going to mention 
 I do not state in my own justification. When I first 
 addressed your daughter I expected that in another 
 week my own fate would be decided. I knew that in 
 case of success many others might look on me differently 
 from what they did at that moment, but I speak with 
 sincerity when I say that I never was anxious for situa- 
 tion or distinction myself, and I did not wish to be united 
 to one who was. I spoke to your daughter neither ex- 
 pecting, nor, in fact, under those circumstances, wishing 
 that there should be a return of attachment, but wishing 
 
3Q2 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF KMMET 
 
 to judge of her dispositions — to know how far they might 
 be not unfavourable or disengaged, and to know what 
 foundation I might afterwards have to count on. I re- 
 ceived no encouragement whatever. She told me she 
 had no attachment for any person, nor did she seem 
 likely to have any that could make her wish to quit you. 
 
 " I staid away till the time had elapsed when I found 
 that the event to which I alluded was to be postponed 
 indefinitely. I returned by a kind of infatuation, think- 
 ing that to myself only was I giving pleasure or pain. 
 I perceived no progress of attachment on her part, nor 
 an3'thing in her conduct to distinguish me from a common 
 acquaintance. 
 
 '" Aftei"wards I had reason to suppose that discoveries 
 were made, and that I should be obliged to quit the 
 Kingdom immediately ; and I came to make a renuncia- 
 tion of any approach to friendship that might have been 
 formed. On that very day she herself spoke to me to 
 discontinue my visits. I told her that it was my intention, 
 and I mentioned the reason. I then for the first time 
 found, when I was unfortunate, by the manner in which 
 she was affected, that there was a return of affection, and 
 that it was too late to retreat. My own apprehensions, 
 also, I afterwards found were without cause, and I re- 
 mained. 
 
 " There has been much culpability on my part in all 
 this ; but there has also been a great deal of that misfor- 
 tune which seems uniformly to have accompanied me. 
 
 " That I have written to your daughter since an unfor- 
 tunate event has taken place was an additional breach 
 of propriety, for which I have suffered well. But I will 
 candidly confess that I not only do not feel it to have 
 been of the same extent, but that I consider it to have 
 been unavoidable after what has passed ; for though I 
 will not attempt to justify in the smallest degree my 
 former conduct, yet, when an attachment was once 
 formed between us — and a sincerer one never did exist — 
 I feel that, peculiarly circumstanced as I then was, to 
 have left her uncertain of my situation would neither 
 have weaned her affections nor lessened her anxiety ; 
 and looking upon her as one whom, if I had lived, I 
 hoped to have had my partner for life, I did hold the 
 removing of her anxiety above every other considera- 
 tion. I would rather have had the affections of your 
 
m.UNKET'S SPEECH AT EMMET'S TRIAL 393 
 
 daughter in the back settlements of America, than the 
 first situation this country could afford without them. 
 
 " I know not whether this will be any extenuation of 
 my offence. I know not whether it will be any extenua- 
 tion of it to know that if I had that situation in my power 
 at this moment, I would relinquish it to devote my life 
 to her happiness. I know not whether success would 
 have blotted out the recollection of what I have done. 
 But I know that a man with the coldness of death on 
 him need be made to feel any other coldness, and that 
 he may be spared any addition to the misery he feels, 
 not for himself, but for those to whom he has left nothing 
 
 but sorrow. 
 
 * * * 
 
 On Monday, September 19, 1803, Robert Emmet was 
 arraigned for high treason in Green Street Court-house, 
 before a Special Commission — at which Lord Norbury, 
 Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (the " hanging judge " 
 of '98), presided — and a jury of Dublin citizens. The 
 Attorney - General (Standish O'Grady), the Solicitor- 
 General (James McLelland), and William Conyngham 
 Plunket, appeared for the Crown. The prisoner was 
 defended by Leonard MacNally and Peter Burrowes. 
 Witnesses were examined to prove that Emmet — as the 
 Attorney-General expressed it — was " the origin, the 
 life, and the soul " of the Insurrection. No evidence 
 was produced for the defence. MacNally said the 
 prisoner had no desire to take up the time of the Court 
 by making a defence, and had instructed his counsel not 
 to address the jury on his behalf. The death sentence 
 — in Emmet's opinion — had already been pronounced at 
 Dublin Castle, Though no witnesses for the defence had 
 been called, Plunket replied on behalf of the Crown. In 
 the course of his strenuous and eloquent resistance to the 
 measure of the Union in the Irish House of Commons, 
 Plunket had declared that if the Bill were carried he 
 would fling his allegiance to the winds, and bring his 
 children to the altar to swear eternal hostility to the 
 Union. His gratuitous speech at the trial of Robert 
 Emmet was intended by Plunket as a recantation of 
 
394 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 these opinions, which, so far, had been an obstacle to 
 his promotion. Ireland, he declared, was enjoying the 
 blessings of a venerable Constitution, and growing rich 
 and happy under it. At such a time an infamous con- 
 spiracy was formed for the separation of Ireland from 
 Great Britain. " To sever the connexion between 
 Great Britain and Ireland!" he exclaimed, and went 
 on : 
 
 " Gentlemen, I should feel it a waste of words and of 
 public time were I to talk of the frantic desperation of 
 the plan of any man who speculates upon the dissolution 
 of that Empire, whose glory and whose happiness depend 
 upon its indissoluble connexion. But were it practicable 
 to sever that connexion, to untie the links that bind us 
 to the British Constitution, and to turn us adrift upon 
 the turbulent ocean of revolution, who could answer 
 for the existence of Ireland as an independent country 
 for a year ? God and nature have made the two countries 
 essential to each other ; let them cling to each other to 
 the end of time, and their united affection and loyalty 
 will be proof against the machinations of the world." 
 
 The jury, without leaving the box, found the prisoner 
 guilty. " Prisoner at the bar," said the Clerk of the 
 Crown, " have you anything to say why judgment of 
 death and execution should not be awarded against you, 
 according to law ?" Yes, he had something to say to 
 vindicate the principles for which his young life was 
 about to be sacrificed, and he said it in one of the noblest 
 speeches that have ever been delivered from the dock 
 under the shadow of the scaffold. Emmet looked death 
 in the face with the fortitude and serenity of twenty- 
 five. He was young, and therefore indifferent to his fate. 
 Being young, he desired to leave the world grandly, with 
 flying colours. It was now half-past nine o'clock at 
 night. The trial had begun at half-past nine o'clock in 
 the morning. For twelve hours Emmet had stood in the 
 dock. There was no interruption for refreshment, no 
 interval for rest. The proceedings had been pushed on 
 pitilessly by the judges to their grim and gruesome 
 finish. A sprig of lavender, handed to the prisoner to 
 
THE SPEECH FROM THE DOCK 395 
 
 relieve the oppression of the heated atmosphere of the 
 crowded court, was snatched away by his guards. It 
 was feared it might contain poison. Unworthy sus- 
 picion ! The hangman's halter had no degradation for 
 that serene, indomitable young soul in the dock. So 
 with exalted spirits Emmet delivered, in vindication of 
 his policy, a deathless oration, which alone would have 
 preserved his memory green in Ireland for all time. He 
 spoke for an hour. His voice was clear and distinct, its 
 cadences being modulated to suit the sentiments, and as 
 he warmed to his address he moved rapidly but not un- 
 gracefully about the dock. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable passages in the speech 
 are those in which the young revolutionary repelled the 
 charge that he was an emissary of France, and that his 
 object was to establish French power in Ireland. He 
 said : 
 
 " Connexion with France was, indeed, intended, but 
 only as far as mutual interest would sanction or require. 
 Were they to assume any authority inconsistent with 
 the purest independence of Ireland it would be the signal 
 for their destruction. We sought their aid, and we 
 sought it — as we had assurance we should obtain it — as 
 auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace. Were the French 
 to come as invaders or enemies, uninvited by the wishes 
 of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of 
 my strength. Yes, my countrymen, I should advise you 
 to meet them upon the beach, with a sword in one hand 
 and a torch in the other. I would meet them with all 
 the destructive fury of war. I would animate my 
 countrymen to immolate them in their boats before they 
 had contaminated the soil of my country. If they suc- 
 ceeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior 
 discipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, burn 
 every blade of grass, and the last intrenchment of liberty 
 should be my grave. What I could not do myself, if 
 I should fall, I should leave as a last charge to my country- 
 men to accomplish ; because I should feel conscious 
 that life, even more than death, would be unprofitable 
 when a foreign nation held my country in subjection. 
 Reviewing the conduct of France towards other countries, 
 
396 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 could \vc expect better towards us ? No ! Let not, 
 then, any man attaint my memory by believing that I 
 could have hoped to give freedom to my country by 
 betraying the sacred cause of liberty, and committing 
 it to the power of her most determined foe. Had I done 
 so I had not deserved to live ; and dying with such a 
 weight upon my character, I had merited the honest 
 execration of that country which gave me birth, and to 
 which I would give freedom." 
 
 Here is the memorable peroration, answering to 
 Burke's description of perfect orator}^ — " half poetry, 
 half prose ": 
 
 " I have but a few more words to say. I am going 
 to my cold and silent grave — my lamp of life is nearly 
 extinguished — my race is run — the grave opens to 
 receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one 
 request to ask at my departure from this world : it is 
 the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph ; 
 for, as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate 
 them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let 
 them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb 
 remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until 
 other times and other men can do justice to my character. 
 When my country takes her place among the nations of 
 the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be 
 written. I have done." 
 
 Norbury sentenced him to be executed in Thomas 
 Street — the scene of the Insurrection — the next after- 
 noon. He passed for a wit, this judge. Yet he was a 
 callous — indeed, a brutal — man. There are stories told of 
 his unseasonable jests at the expense of men whom he 
 was consigning to the gallows. " Give me a long day, 
 my lord !" exclaimed one poor wretch as Norbury put 
 on the black cap. " You shall have it, my boy," replied 
 the judge, " for to-morrow is the 2ist of June, the 
 longest day of the year." But the pathos, the tragedy, 
 of the present scene touched him deeply, and on con- 
 cluding the sentence he burst into tears. As Emmet was 
 being removed from the dock, his counsel, Leonard Mac- 
 Nally, flung his arms around him and kissed him on the 
 
THE KISS OF A JUDAS 397 
 
 forehead. It was the kiss of a Judas ! It is ever thus 
 in the records of Irish conspiracy — the vilest treachery 
 walks hand in hand with the noblest heroism. Surely, 
 in the black record of human baseness there is no 
 viler name than that of " Leonard MacNally the incor- 
 ruptible."* 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, writing that night from Dublin 
 Castle a private letter to Charles Yorke, acquainting him 
 of Emmet's conviction, says : 
 
 " It is a most fortunate circumstance that the evidence 
 against this man was so complete, for singular as it may 
 appear, though we were in possession of several letters 
 and papers that were written by him, it was impossible 
 to obtain proof of his handwriting. He seems to have 
 practised the writing of different hands ; and though he 
 was educated at the College, and had resided so much in 
 Dublin, there was no person to be found who could prove 
 his handwriting in a legal manner." 
 
 The official despatch of the Viceroy to the Home Secre- 
 tary was as follows : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " Sept. 20, 1803. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " The trial of Emmet, which was brought forward 
 yesterday, terminated, as there was every reason to con- 
 clude, in a conviction upon the clearest and most satis- 
 factory evidence ; and it is universally admitted that a 
 more complete case of treason was never stated in a court 
 of justice. 
 
 " He produced no witnesses and made no defence, but 
 after the verdict of guilty was pronounced by the jury 
 he was permitted to address the Court before the passing 
 
 * Mr. Edward B. Fitton writes to me from Malvern, 
 September 13, 1903 : " My father was at a Dublin school when 
 about six years old with Robert Emmet and Tom Moore, the 
 poet. He always retained a great affection for Robert Emmet, 
 who was a fellow-student at Trinity College, as well as an early 
 school-mate. My father, with other members of the College 
 Corps of Volunteers, was in court at Emmet's trial, and he and 
 other students in uniform shook hands with the prisoner in the 
 dock when the trial was over, and got into serious trouble for 
 so-called disloyalty in having shaken hands with a convicted 
 traitor while wearing the King's uniform." 
 
398 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 of the sentence. He admitted the facts that had been 
 proved, but disclaimed the character of a French agent, 
 and intention of reducing his country under the subjec- 
 tion of France ; but persisted in the opinion he had 
 entertained and the principles in which he had been 
 educated. He was more than once interrupted by the 
 Judge, and was prevented from proceeding to the con- 
 clusion of his speech, which appeared rather calculate! 
 to excite the indignation than the pity of those who were 
 
 present." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Chief Secretary Wickham, writing to Pole Carew of the 
 Home Office about the trial, says : 
 
 " Mr. Yorke will have observed that the Attorney- 
 General, when he gave in evidence such parts of the 
 young lady's letter found upon Emmet as it was found 
 necessary to produce, stated boldly that the letter from 
 which the extract was made had been written by a 
 brother conspirator. Unfortunately, a barrister of the 
 name of Huband, who is said to have paid his addresses 
 formerly to the young lady, recognised the handwriting 
 when the letter was laid on the table." 
 
 Wickham adds : 
 
 " I ought to add that the discretion and ability of the 
 law servants of the Crown is the subject of universal 
 praise here. I hope you will have read Plunket's speech 
 with attention. It is not so well given as the Attorney- 
 General's, because of his rapid manner of speaking, which 
 made it more difficult to follow him ; but enough appears 
 to satisfy you that it must have been a most masterly 
 performance. There is, indeed, but one opinion on the 
 subject."* 
 
 Nevertheless, the trial of Emmet casts a black shadow 
 over the otherwise brilliant lustre of the Irish Bar, The 
 end of the eighteenth century and the opening of the 
 nineteenth is regarded as its most illustrious period. 
 Surely, it is also its most infamous ! In its ranks at 
 that time were men of imperishable renown, and piti- 
 
 ♦ From Home Ofi&ce Papers. 
 
EMMET'S LAST HOURS 399 
 
 able creatures, self-seeking and base. John Philpot 
 Curran, cruel to his daughter because he thought her 
 relations with Emmet would spoil his chance of pro- 
 motion to the bench. William Conyngham Plunket, 
 atoning for his opposition to the Union by gratuitously 
 libelling Emmet in a speech to the jury. Leonard Mac- 
 Nally, betraying to the Government the compromising 
 statements of his trustful and unsuspecting client. 
 Each debased himself for preferment and pelf. What 
 an ignoble trio ! Truly, in Green Street Court-house, 
 Dublin, on that September 19, 1803, honour, purity of 
 motive, self-sacrifice, heroism, were to be found only in 
 
 the dock. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Emmet was brought back to Kilmainham Gaol at 
 midnight. He stayed up most of the night writing. 
 He wrote for his brother, Thomas Addis Emmet, one 
 of the leaders of the United Irishmen, and at the time 
 an exile in Paris for his complicity in the Rebellion of 
 1798, a long account of his military plans for the seizure 
 of Dublin — very coherent, very lucid — and a defence of 
 his policy, wonderfully vigorous, wonderfully buoyant ^ 
 for a youth with Death waiting at his elbow. Could 
 there be a more striking proof of his amazing courage ? 
 This extraordinary document was sent by the Lord 
 Lieutenant, not to the dear brother for whom it was 
 written, but to the Home Secretary. 
 
 " Sir," says his Excellency in the official letter which 
 accompanied it, " the enclosed paper, which contains an 
 account of the plans and objects of the late conspiracy, 
 as well as the means by which it was intended to make 
 the attempt, being of the most important and interesting 
 nature, I think it right to send you the original in the 
 handwriting of Mr. Robert Emmet, in order that it may 
 be placed among the Secret Papers of the Office." 
 
 This historical document is included in the volumes of 
 Home Office Papers marked " Ireland, Private and Secret, 
 1803." I perused it with the intensest interest, and 
 
400 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 marvelled at the fortitude and resolute purpose of the 
 young conspirator in devoting the dreary night hours 
 between his trial and execution to the preparation of 
 this elaborate and detailed story of his plot and schemes, 
 cogently composed, written in flowing characters, cover- 
 ing the four sides of a sheet of foolscap, with but few 
 erasures or alterations. 
 
 Emmet also addressed a communication to " the 
 Right Hon. W. Wickham, Chief Secretary for Ireland," 
 acknowledging the delicacy with which he had been 
 treated by the authorities, admitting the mildness of 
 the existing Irish Administration, the interest of the Lord 
 Lieutenant in the well-being and contentment of the 
 people, but justifying, nevertheless, his attempt to over- 
 throw the British Government in Ireland on the ground 
 that its influence generally was baneful. The communi- 
 cation concludes with elaborate courtesy : " I have the 
 honour to be. Sir, with the greatest respect, your most 
 obedient servant, Robert Emmet." There was, besides, a 
 pathetic epistle addressed to his friend and companion, 
 the brother of her whom he so dearly loved, intended, 
 surely, for her : 
 
 " My dearest Richard, 
 
 " I find I have but a few hours to live ; but if it 
 was the last moment, and that the power of utterance 
 was leaving me, I would thank you from the bottom of 
 my heart for your generous expressions of affection and 
 forgiveness to me. If there was anyone in the world in 
 whose breast my death might be supposed not to stifle 
 every spark of resentment, it might be you. I have 
 deeply injured you — I have injured the happiness of a 
 sister that you love, and who was formed to give happi- 
 ness to everyone about her, instead of having her own 
 mind a prey to affliction. Oh ! Richard, I have no 
 excuse to offer, but that I meant the reverse ; I in- 
 tended as much happiness for Sarah as the most ardent 
 love could have given her I never did tell you how 
 much I idolized her. It was not with a wild or un- 
 founded passion, but it was an attachment increasing 
 every hour, from an admiration of the purity of her 
 mind and respect for her talents. I did dwell in secret 
 
" MY LOVE, SARAH !" 401 
 
 Upon the prospect of our union. I did hope that suc- 
 cess, while it afforded the opportunity of our union, 
 might be a means of confirming an attachment which 
 misfortune had called forth. I did not look to honours 
 for myself — praise I would have asked from the lips of 
 no man ; but I would have wished to read in the glow 
 of Sarah's countenance that her husband was respected. 
 
 " My love, Sarah ! it was not thus that I thought to 
 have requited your affection. I did hope to be a prop 
 round which your affections might have clung, and 
 which would never have been shaken ; but a rude blast 
 has snapped it, and they have fallen over a grave. 
 
 " This is no time for affliction. I have had public 
 motives to sustain my mind, and I have not suffered it 
 to sink ; but there have been moments in my imprison- 
 ment when my mind was so sunk by grief on her account 
 that death would have been a refuge. God bless you, 
 my dearest Richard. I am obliged to leave off immedi- 
 ately. 
 
 " Robert Emmet." 
 
 In the morning came MacNally — the only " friend " 
 permitted to visit Emmet — with bitter news. There 
 was woe in his voice as he asked the youth would he 
 like to see his mother. " Oh, what would I not give to 
 see her !" exclaimed Emmet. " Take courage, Robert," 
 said MacNally ; " you will see her this night." As he 
 pointed upward, Emmet knew that death had visited 
 his sorrow-stricken mother — the mother who was so 
 proud of him, the mother to whom he was so devoted — 
 killed by the news of the doom of her son. " It is better 
 so !" Emmet cried, bowing his head. Emmet also had 
 a long conversation with MacNally about his plans and 
 their failure, which MacNally, as the following letter 
 shows, reported to Dublin Castle : 
 
 " Most Secret and Important. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 " 2Sth Sept., 1803, II p.m. 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I have just had a long conference with the 
 person who was admitted to see Mr. Emmet, from whom 
 you have alreadv received some most important and 
 
 26 
 
402 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 most confidential communications. I have selected 
 what follows from many things that he told me, because 
 they appeared more immediately to deserve Mr. Yorke's 
 attention. 
 
 " Emmet advised him strongly on the day of his execu- 
 tion to get rid of all his property in paper, saying that the 
 French would certainly come in force, and that he only 
 wished his trial to have been put off for ten days, as he 
 thought the}'^ would certainly be here within that time. 
 He said that the plan recommended to Buoneparte by 
 the Irish in Paris was to land in Galway Bay, but instead 
 of pushing for Dublin to march to the North and secure 
 Londonderry, taking a position with the county of 
 Donegal behind them, and waiting there till they should 
 receive, by small detachments, such a force as would 
 enable them to threaten not only Ireland but Scotland. 
 In this situation they trusted that the South would rise 
 in the rear of the British Army. 
 
 " Emmet persisted in saying that he had only the 
 command of the Dublin District, and that he was ignorant 
 of the names of the Generals of the other Districts. This, 
 however, cannot be true, for we know that he was in 
 direct communication with Russell, who was to have 
 commanded in the North, and that it was settled between 
 them that Dublin and Belfast should rise the same night. 
 It will also appear from a most curious and interesting 
 paper, which the Lord Lieutenant will transmit to Mr. 
 Yorke to-morrow, that he was in communication also 
 with the Commanders of Wicklow, Wexford and Kildare. 
 He persisted in saying that the money that had been 
 expended in preparing the Insurrection of the 23rd July 
 was entirely and only his own. It appears that he 
 carryd off a part of the thousand pounds that was brought 
 into the depot on Saturday afternoon (the 23rd July). 
 The rest was pillaged either by his own people or the 
 soldiers, except what was laid out in the purchase of 
 from forty to fifty blunderbusses. It is certain that the 
 prisoners are all miserably poor. Three and four guineas 
 are given with their briefs. In the year 1798 thirty 
 guineas were usually given to the leading Counsel. 
 
 " He persisted in saying that 300 men from Wexford 
 had arrived, and were actually assembled on the Coal 
 quay. He was told that this was scarcely possible, as 
 not one of the pikes collected at Redmond's house on 
 
EMMET'S ACCOUNT OF THE INSURRECTION 403 
 
 the Coal quay had been used, and that the Wexford 
 leaders had all left Dublin to avoid having anything to 
 do with the business. He was reminded also that he 
 had been grossly imposed on in many other instances. 
 He admitted that he had in many instances been most 
 cruelly deceived. He continued, however, to express 
 his firm belief that the Wexford men were all there, and 
 ready to join him. He says that the number of pikes 
 collected at the great depot in Mass Lane* did not exceed 
 four thousand. 
 
 " It was Emmet himself who engaged Mr. Wilson, 
 the peace ofhcer, the night of the Insurrection. His 
 account differs materially from Wilson's ; and yet when 
 it is considered that the night was uncommonly dark the 
 two stories may be reconciled. He says that when he 
 saw Wilson coming on very gallantly he stepped forward 
 himself, being then muffled up in his great-coat (exactly 
 as Wilson described the man who wounded him), and 
 ordered the pikemen to fall off to the right and left and 
 make way for the firearms, at the same time he struck 
 at Wilson with his sword, which was mistaken for a pike, 
 and wounded him in the belly. Wilson immediately 
 fired at him, but missed him. The watchmen fired 
 some other shots, which were returned by Emmet's 
 people, of whom he does not believe that one was 
 materially hurt, nor did any of them throw down their 
 pikes. 
 
 " He declared in the most solemn manner, and as a 
 dying man, that not more than ten persons knew that 
 the rising was fixed for the 23rd before the 21st or 22nd. 
 He says that most of those who came up to town did not 
 know of the day of the rising until the afternoon of the 
 23rd. 
 
 " Believe me to be, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Most faithfully yours, 
 
 " Wm. WiCKHAM.t 
 
 "Reginald Pole Carew, Esq." 
 
 There are other most interesting communications from 
 the Viceroy to the Home Secretary, dealing with the last 
 hours of Emmet : 
 
 * The lane off Thomas Street, in which Emmet's principal 
 depot was situated, is called at different times in those papers 
 Mass Lane, Marshalsea Lane, and Bridgefoot Lane. 
 
 t From Home Office Papers. 
 
 26 — 2 
 
404 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 " Private and Confidential. 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 "Sept. 20th, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " The trial and conviction of Emmet are of so 
 much importance at the present moment that I have 
 thought it fit to send you an account of some circum- 
 stances attending it in a letter which, tho' confidential, 
 may be considered official. I was very anxious that he 
 should have a fair chance of being brought to a proper 
 temper of mind before his death ; and it is possibly 
 owing to this circumstance that Mr. Gamble, who is 
 really a man of most humane and religious character, 
 felt himself justified in administering the Sacrament 
 to a person who professed a general repentance and sense 
 of religion, tho' he did not adnait the guilt of the crime 
 for which he suffered. 
 
 " In his conversation with Mr. Gamble and Mr, Grant, 
 Emmet admitted the lenity and moderation of the Govern- 
 ment, and that he had experienced as much of it as he 
 could possibly have expected in the situation in which 
 he had been placed ; that he felt there might be an 
 appearance of inconsistency in expressing such a senti- 
 ment, after having been the leader in a conspiracy to 
 overthrow the Government, but that as he disapproved 
 of the latter (meaning, probably, the form of Govern- 
 ment), the conduct of the individuals who administered 
 it could make no difference in his opinion ; and the more 
 it was likely to conciliate the people the more desirous 
 he would naturally be to lose no time in effecting his 
 object. 
 
 " From the account Mr. Gamble and the other clergy- 
 man gave he seems to have been a perfect enthusiast , 
 and his conduct proves that tho' he possessed talents 
 his judgment was weak. He was anxious to disclaim 
 any knowledge of the murders and assassinations of the 
 23rd of July, and solemnly declared to Mr. Gamble and 
 Mr. Grant that, finding himself deserted by those he 
 expected to join him, he had left Dublin before the 
 murder of Lord Kilwarden. He assured those gentle- 
 men that no more than ninety men came to the depot to 
 receive arms, and that of these about eighteen or twenty 
 left him very soon in consequence of an alarm ; and that 
 finding himself so entirely deserted he went away with 
 
THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF EMMET 405 
 
 Dowdell and nine of his followers to a place beyond 
 Rathfamham, and from there to the mountains in 
 Wicklow." 
 
 The enclosure to which the Lord Lieutenant refers in 
 the above letter is to the following effect : 
 
 " Mr. Gamble, the clergyman who attends the prisoners 
 in Newgate, visited him yesterday evening and again 
 this morning in Kilmainham prison, in company with 
 the Rev. Mr. Grant, a clergyman who resides at Island 
 Bridge. 
 
 " In their report which they have made to me of what 
 passed on their communication with Mr. Emmet, they 
 state that though their conversation did not produce all 
 the good they had hoped, it had, nevertheless, the effect 
 of bringing him to a more calm and in some respects a 
 better temper of mind than they had reason to expect 
 from a person professing the principles by which they 
 supposed him to be directed. They repeatedly urged 
 to him those topics which were likely to bring him to a 
 just feeling and acknowledgment of the crime for M^hich 
 he was to suffer, but were not successful in persuading 
 him to abjure those principles by which he was actuated 
 in his conspiracy to overthrow the Government. 
 
 " He disclaimed any intention of shedding blood, 
 professed a total ignorance of the murder of Lord Kil- 
 warden — before which he declares he had left Dublin — 
 and also professed an aversion to the French. He 
 declared that though persons professing his principles 
 and acting in the cause in which he had been concerned 
 were generally supposed to be Deists, that he was a 
 Christian in the true sense of the word, that he had re- 
 ceived the Sacrament, though not regularly and habitu- 
 ally, and that he wished to receive it then ; that what 
 he felt he felt sincerely, and would avow his principles 
 in his last moments ; that he was conscious of sins and 
 wished to receive the Sacrament. The clergymen 
 consented to join in prayer with him, and administered 
 the Sacrament to him, considering him as a visionary 
 enthusiast, and wishing him to bring his mind to a proper 
 temper and sense of religion. 
 
 " On their way to the place of execution they conversed 
 with him on the same topics, but could never persuade 
 him to admit that he had been in the v/rong. In answer 
 
4o6 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 to their question whether if he had foreseen the blood 
 that had been spilt in consequence of his attempt he 
 would ha\'e persisted in his design to overthrow the 
 riovernment, he t)bserved that no one went to battle 
 without being prepared for similar e\'ents, always con- 
 sidering his attempt as free from moral reproach, in 
 consequence of what he conceived to be the goodness of 
 the motive that produced it. 
 
 " At the place of execution he was desirous of address- 
 ing the people. He intended to have declared that he 
 had never taken any oath but that of the United Irish- 
 men, and by that oath he meant to abide. The clergy- 
 men who were present explained to him that an address 
 to that effect might possibly produce tumult and blood- 
 shed, and that it ought not to be permitted. He was 
 therefore obliged to acquiesce, and did so without appear- 
 ing to be disturbed or agitated. 
 
 " I enclose copies of two letters which he wrote this 
 morning. One of the acts of kindness to which he par- 
 ticularly refers in his letter to Mr. Wickham was his 
 being removed from the cell at Newgate, in which he 
 had been placed after the sentence, to his former apart- 
 ment at Kilmainham, as had been originally intended. 
 He had alluded to this in his conversation with the 
 clergymen, and admitted that the general conduct of 
 those who administered the Government was likely to 
 conciliate the people, though he did not approve the 
 form of the Government, and the British connection, 
 both of which he had been desirous to overthrow." 
 
 * * * 
 
 As Emmet emerged from Marshalsea Lane, on the 
 evening of July 23, in his green and gold and white uni- 
 form, and with drawn sword, on his way, as he fondly 
 hoped, to make Ireland a nation, straight before him, in 
 Thomas Street, loomed St. Catherine's Church, a severe 
 and gloomy edifice. In front of this Protestant place of 
 worship a scaffold had been erected during the night for 
 the execution of the conspirator. It was a simple and 
 rude structure. A platform was made by laying a few 
 planks across a number of empty barrels. From this 
 platform rose two posts, 15 feet high, with another beam 
 placed across them, from which hung a rope with a 
 
HOW EMMET MET HIS DOOM 407 
 
 running noose. Immediately beneath the cross-beam 
 and halter was a single narrow plank, supported on two 
 ledges, on which the condemned youth was to stand to 
 be launched into eternity. The main platform, being 
 about 6 feet from the ground, was ascended by a ladder. 
 A large force of military, horse and foot, surrounded the 
 scaffold. Outside their lines was a mass of sorrowing 
 spectators. 
 
 Emmet, on alighting from the coach at the foot of the 
 gallows, mounted alertly to the platform. In his de- 
 meanour there was not the slightest trace of fear. He 
 wished to address the people, as was the custom at public 
 executions. But in deference to the wishes of the clergy- 
 men — as the despatch of the Lord Lieutenant explains — 
 he made no speech. One sentence only did he address 
 to the weeping and moaning crowd, and that he uttered 
 in a firm and far-reaching voice : " My friends, I die in 
 peace, with sentiments of universal love and kindness 
 towards all men." 
 
 Then Emmet stepped on to the single plank beneath 
 the cross-beam. The masked executioner adjusted the 
 rope round his neck. The thin, sad face of the youth 
 was aflame with the glory of his sacrifice. But quickly 
 its light — the light, surely, that never was on sea or land — 
 was extinguished by the black cap which was drawn over 
 his head by the hangman. In his pinioned hands was 
 placed a handkerchief, the fall of which was to be the 
 signal to the executioner to tilt over the plank which 
 stood between him and death. " Are you ready, sir ?" 
 asked the hangman. " Not yet," was the reply. There 
 was a momentary pause. The handkerchief still fluttered 
 from Emmet's hands. " Are you ready, sir ?" once 
 again the executioner asked, and again came the reply : 
 " Not yet." The youth was reluctant to loose his grasp 
 of the handkerchief, and thus bring the agony of this 
 most harrowing scene to its inevitable end. What was 
 the reason ? Up to that moment never had the courage, 
 the enthusiasm of Emmet — his exaltation in the glorious 
 triumph of death for a great cause — been so magnifi- 
 
4o8 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 cently exemplified. Did his sublime fortitude collapse 
 at the last moment ? \\\as his soul seized on the verge 
 of eternity with the unutterable magnitude of his sacri- 
 hce, with the hollowness of earthly ambition ? Did the 
 black cap, which shut out the world from his eyes, bring 
 a rude awakening from his divine dream of being the 
 emancipator of a nation ? Did there come to him an 
 overmastering craving to sit a little longer at the glorious 
 banquet of life and taste of its sweet delights ? How 
 pleasant even the narrow monotonous round of daily 
 duties would be with Sarah Curran, far away from the 
 turmoil of revolutionary^ politics, in some remote, se- 
 cluded spot on the American Continent ! Did he feel 
 that, after all, the world has no more precious prize than 
 wife and children and a peaceful home ? Or was it that 
 a despairing rage took possession of him at the thought 
 that the great joy which flamed in his blood — his pas- 
 sionate love for Ireland — was about to be quenched in 
 him for evermore ? Who can tell ? He lifted his 
 pinioned hands, still grasping the handkerchief, as if 
 to pull off his head the accursed thing which shut out 
 the people for whom he was sacrificing his young life. 
 Perhaps he thought that if he could only see their tear- 
 stained faces they would nerve him to suppress the 
 desire to live that was surging in his blood, and to lose 
 himself willingly in the repellent taciturnity of death, in 
 the appalling mystery of eternal silence. It was said, 
 afterwards, he had heard there was to be an attempt to 
 rescue him. Perhaps he thought it was all but a hideous 
 dream, and that if he could wait a little longer this 
 horrible obsession would pass away. But there fell on 
 his ears no noise of commotion in the crowd, no shouts 
 of hope and encouragement — only the grief-laden, heart- 
 breaking Irish coine, that most agonizing wail of hope- 
 less sorrow. 
 
 " Are you ready, sir ?" asks the hangman for the third 
 time. But before the answer comes, before the hand- 
 kerchief falls, the supports of the plank are kicked away, 
 and Emmet is writhing at the end of a rope, in the 
 
" THIS IS THE HEAD OF A TRAITOR !" 409 
 
 agonies of the most revolting and degrading of all deaths ! 
 In half an hour the still quivering body is cut down, and 
 extended on a butcher's block, and from it the head is 
 rudely hacked with a butcher's knife. The brutal 
 fingers of the executioner grip its hair, and holding it 
 up, bloody and dripping, exposing the waxen features 
 and glazed eyes of the dishonoured thing to the moaning 
 crowd, he exclaims, as he parades the front of the scaffold, 
 '' This is the head of a traitor !" 
 
 * * * 
 The Lord Lieutenant sent to the Home Secretary a 
 copy of a letter, addressed to Thomas Addis Emmet and 
 his wife, which Emmet wrote before setting out to his 
 execution. That also was never delivered. It runs : 
 
 " My dearest Tom and Jane, 
 
 " I am just going to do my last duty to my country. 
 It can be done as well on the scaffold as on the field. Do 
 not give way to any weak feelings on my account, but 
 rather encourage proud ones that I have possessed forti- 
 tude and tranquillity of mind to the last. 
 
 " God bless you and the young hopes that are growing 
 up about you. May they be more fortunate than their 
 uncle ; but may they preserve as pure and ardent an 
 attachment to their country as he has done. Give the 
 watch to little Robert. He will not prize it the less for 
 having been in the possession of two Roberts before him. 
 I have one dying request to make to you. I was attached 
 to Sarah Curran, the youngest daughter of your friend. 
 I did hope to have had her my companion for life. I did 
 hope that she would not only have constituted my happi- 
 ness, but that her heart and understanding would have 
 made her one of Jane's dearest friends. I know that 
 Jane would have loved her on my account, and I feel 
 also that had they been acquainted she must have loved 
 her on her own. No one knew of the attachment till 
 now, nor is it now generally known, therefore do not 
 speak of it to others. She is living with her father and 
 brother, but if these protectors should fall off and that 
 no other should replace them, treat her as my wife and 
 love her as a sister. God Almighty bless you all. Give 
 my love to all my friends. 
 
 " Robert Emmet." 
 
4IO TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF EMMET 
 
 " The letter to his brother," says the Viceroy, " will 
 not be forwarded, but the message respecting Miss Curran 
 has been communicated to her father." John Philpot 
 Curran's reply to the communication emphasizes still 
 further the mean and despicable nature of the man. He 
 writes to Marsden, the Under-Secretary : 
 
 " Sept: 2isf, 1803. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I have just received the honour of your letter 
 with the extract enclosed by desire of his Excellency. I 
 have again to offer to his Excellency my more than 
 gratitude, the feelings of the strongest attachment and 
 respect, for this new instance of considerate condescen- 
 tion. To you also, Sir, believe me, I am most affection- 
 ately grateful for the part that you have been so kind to 
 take upon this unhappy occasion. Few would, I am 
 well aware — perhaps few could — have known how to act 
 in the same manner. 
 
 "As to the communication of the extract and the 
 motive for doing so, I cannot answer them in the cold 
 parade of official acknowledgment. I feel on the subject 
 the warm and animated thanks of man to man ; and 
 these I presume to request that Lord Hardwicke and 
 Mr. Wickham may be pleased to accept. It is, however, 
 only justice to myself to say that even on the first falling 
 of this unexpected blow, I had resolved, and so mentioned 
 to Mr. Attorney-General, that if I found no actual guilt 
 upon her, I would act with as much moderation as possible 
 towards a poor creature that had once held the warmest 
 place in my heart. I did even then recollect that there 
 was a point to which nothing but actual turpitude, or 
 the actual death of the parent, ought to make a child an 
 orphan, but even had I then thought otherwise, I feel 
 that this extract would have produced the effect it was 
 intended to have and that I should think so now. I feel 
 how I should shrink from the idea of letting her sink so 
 low as to become the subject of a testamentary order of a 
 miscreant who could labour by so foul means and under 
 such odious circumstances to connect her with his infamy, 
 and to acquire any posthumous interest in her person or 
 her fate. Blotted, therefore, as she may irretrievably 
 be from my society, or the place she once held in my 
 affection, she must not go adrift. So far, at least, ' these 
 
THE FATE OF SARAH CURRAN 411 
 
 protectors will not fall off.' I should therefore, sir, wish 
 for the suppression of this extract if no particular motive 
 should have arisen for forwarding it to its destination. 
 
 " I shall avail myself of your kind permission to wait 
 upon you in the coinse of the day, to pay my respects 
 once more personally to you, if I shall be so fortunate 
 as to find you at leisure. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with very great respect, 
 
 " Your obliged servant, 
 
 "John P. Curran."* 
 
 Sarah Curran was banished by her father. She found 
 asylum with a respectable Quaker family, named Pen- 
 rose, in Cork. But within two years of the execution 
 of her lover she was married. It seems out of harmony 
 with the fitness of things — a most prosaic and common- 
 place conclusion of a pitiful romance. But it was just 
 the ending that Emmet would have wished. In his last 
 letter to his brother he indirectly, but clearly, expresses 
 the hope that his sweetheart should find a husband. To 
 the last Emmet was enshrined in her tenderest memories, 
 and her husband, a gallant soldier named Captain Stur- 
 geon — nephew of the Marquis of Rockingham — only 
 loved her the more dearly for her faithfulness to her 
 shattered romance. She lived for a few years with her 
 husband in Sicily, where his regiment was stationed. 
 The following announcement in the Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine for 1808 tells of her premature death, and the realiza- 
 tion of her father's ambition for a judgeship : " May 5, 
 1808, at Hythe, in Kent, of a rapid decline, aged 26, 
 Sarah, wife of Captain Henry Sturgeon, youngest 
 daughter of the Right Hon. J. P. Curran, Master of the 
 Rolls in Ireland." She was buried with her father's 
 people in Newmarket, co. Cork. ' 
 
 * * * 
 
 By a cruel irony of fate the grave of Robert Emmet is 
 shrouded in doubt and mystery. After his execution, 
 Emmet's body was interred in the prison cemetery at 
 Kilmainham, but is said to have been removed at night 
 
 * From Home Office Papers. 
 
4t2 TRIAL AND EXFXUTION OF EMMET 
 
 by some friends and buried with great secrecy in one of 
 the Diibhn city churchyards. In the confusion of the 
 times these friends passed away without leaving any 
 authentic information of the grave. In 1903 Dr. Thomas 
 Addis Emmet of New York, grandson of Emmet's elder 
 brother, conducted a search with a view to discovering 
 the patriot's burial-place. The search was confined to 
 three places which various traditions have long asso- 
 ciated with the burial — the Emmet family vault in St. 
 Peter's Churchyard ; an uninscribed grave in St. Michan's 
 Churchyard, which for years had been accepted by the 
 majority of the Irish people as the authentic spot ; 
 and an uninscribed grave in Old Glasnevin Churchyard. 
 The ecclesiastical authorities of the Church of Ireland 
 readily granted the necessary permission, and elaborate 
 excavations were made in these three churchyards. In 
 St. Peter's Church a careful search failed to identify the 
 family vault of the Emmets. The uninscribed grave in 
 St. Michan's churchyard contained a skull and bones 
 which were declared by the doctors who examined them 
 to be those of an old man of tall stature, and Robert 
 Emmet was neither old nor tall. In the grave in the 
 parish churchyard of Glasnevin, where only a partial 
 examination was possible, no remains of any sort were 
 discerned. The riddle that has so long puzzled Irish his- 
 torians and antiquaries is, therefore, still unsolved, and 
 Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet's only conclusion was that by 
 exclusion the claims of St. Peter's Church were increased. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 Thomas Russell, Emmet's chief lieutenant, had gone 
 to Ulster to raise the standard of revolt in the Protestant 
 and Presbyterian counties of that province. Edward 
 Baynes of Lisburn, writing to the Lord Lieutenant on 
 July 25th, 1803, encloses a written copy of a printed 
 proclamation, which, he says, was found the day before 
 near Belfast at a place where a body of rebels had as- 
 sembled on the nigjit of Saturday the 23rd, with the 
 intention, it was thought, of attacking Belfast. The 
 proclamation is headed, " Thomas Russell, member of 
 the Provisional Government, and General-in-Chief of 
 the Northern District," It is dated " Headquarters, 
 July 23rd, 1803." 
 
 " Men of Ireland," it begins, " once more in arms to 
 assert the rights of mankind and liberate your country, 
 you see by the secrecy with which this effort has been 
 conducted, and by the multitudes who in all parts of 
 Ireland are engaged in executing this great object, that 
 your Provisional Government have acted wisely. You 
 will see that in Dublin, in the West, in the North, and in 
 the South, the blow has been struck at the same moment. 
 Your Enemies can no more withstand than they could 
 foresee this mighty exertion." 
 
 It goes on : 
 
 " Your valour is well known ; be as just and humane 
 as you are brave, and then rely with confidence that God, 
 with whom alone is victory, wiU crown you with success. 
 
 413 
 
414 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 " The General orders that hostages shall be seized in 
 all quarters ; and hereby apprizes the English Com- 
 manders that any outrage contrary to the acknowledged 
 laws of War and of Morality shall be retaliated in the 
 severest manner ; and he further makes known that 
 such Irish as, in ten days from the date of this, are found 
 in arms against their country, shall be treated as rebels, 
 committed for trial, and their properties confiscated ; 
 but all men behaving peaceably shall be under the pro- 
 tection of the laws." 
 
 On the same day, July 25, 1803, "Belfast," the spy, 
 writes as follows to Marsden, the Under Secretary : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Yours I received regularly on Saturday evening. 
 I presume by this time you find my statements true. 
 Metcalf was yesterday in town, and this morning ; but 
 since has not been seen. I apprehend he is gone to the 
 country. I am informed that only the parts of the county 
 Down which I have already mentioned will act, and par- 
 ticularly Loughlin Island. Metcalf I have not since seen ; 
 but his two particular companions — William Carroll, a 
 butcher, and Nevin Whitefield, a shoemaker, were with 
 me a considerable time last night. From these I under- 
 stand that the Rising was to take place this night or 
 to-morrow at farthest ; but that all would be ruled and 
 governed by the attack upon Dublin. 
 
 " I reproached Metcalf before those for not calling on 
 me. They told me he was so employed from one to the 
 other place that he had not time, and that they looked 
 upon me as too cautious a person, and consequently not 
 fit for this attack. They expressed great desire that I 
 would become more active, and that they would rather 
 have either of my brothers, as they conceived them more 
 desperate, but that I would always be looked . up to. 
 Finding I was likely to lose a regular communication I 
 sent my younger brother (who has a great influence with 
 the Defenders) to Metcalf on Saturday evening, and he 
 by his direction and with my approbation left this to 
 command the Malone boys. He remained out amongst 
 them all night ; but there being no appearance of a general 
 Rising, and not knowing from whom they were to get 
 further orders, returned early yesterday morning. He 
 has since been in search of Metcalf, but can't find him. 
 
REPORTS FROM THE SPY "BELFAST" 415 
 
 Metcalf speaks very freely to this lad, for, indeed, I am 
 sorry to say he is too determined a Patriot. He is to go 
 out if any Rising takes place, so that I'll be able to know 
 everything that may happen. They look much to the 
 non-arrival of the mail coach ; and this will govern their 
 conduct. 
 
 " A Mr. John Templeton of Malone, althougli not 
 suspected, will (if not already) be a very active person, 
 particularly in preparing plans for the military operations 
 of the rebels. He is a most sincere friend of Russell's, 
 and was on the last occasion the principal planner of 
 attack, etc. There are many more whom I shall point 
 out when you begin tlie arrests. All those whom hereto- 
 fore I have returned to you in and about Dublin, no doubt 
 by this you find principals. My elder brother is also here, 
 and of course will join the rebel army, and will no doubt 
 communicate with me. At present he is not concerned. 
 
 " The people in general seem all at a loss. Although 
 in many parts anxious for a Rising, yet they can't see 
 how it is to be effected, having no system amongst them. 
 Arms they have but few. I have under my own eye, 
 contiguous to my house, as I am told, a knowledge of 
 a quantity of pikes concealed since the last Rebellion. 
 These I shall take care of." 
 
 On July 26, 1803, " Belfast " writes : 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I wrote you last night, and I now write to 
 acquaint you of an interview I had to-day with Metcalf, 
 who came to me. He seemed much dejected and indeed 
 entirely disappointed, so much so from his appearance 
 that I think he is giving information. He told me Russell 
 expected the county Down to have risen with him on 
 Saturday night, but he was disappointed, and that they 
 intended to attack Belfast by the way I pointed out, that 
 is from Castlereagh Hill across the Lagan river, and up 
 the Mole at the rear of the Linen Hall. He excused him- 
 self in not calling on me, and said Dublin would again 
 and again be attacked by a strong determined body, and 
 no doubt this night. Said he would leave town and go 
 into the county Down, and if a Rising would take place 
 there to-night he would send me word. 
 
 " Russell was now he said in the county Antrim, and 
 to-night they would attempt something. Russell wished 
 
4i6 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 to take Downpatrick, and for this purpose lost his time 
 by going too far into the county Down. The other 
 General is not Emmet, but Hamilton. He is from 
 county Donegal, who is married to Russell's neice, and 
 was in the French Army for some time. Hamilton was to 
 command Antrim, and Russell Down. Emmet he tells 
 me is commanding in Dublin." 
 
 " Excuse this," he says in conclusion ; " I am surrounded 
 with persons." His conjecture that Metcalf was giving 
 information to the local authorities was unfounded. In 
 another report, dated July 28, he says the military are 
 searching for Metcalf. " He is not giving information, 
 as I thought. I have no doubt if taken but he will 
 develope the whole plan. No doubt he is in full posses- 
 sion of it." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The mission of Russell to the North was a complete 
 failure. What exactly happened is fully and graphically 
 described in a letter from the Solicitor-General, James 
 McClelland, from Carrickfergus-^a town near Belfast — 
 to Marsden, dated August 9, 1803. The Under-Secretary 
 sent the letter to the Viceroy with the written comment, 
 " \'ery satisfactory." Here is the communication : 
 
 " Since my arrival in this country I have taken much 
 pains to acquire the most accurate information of the 
 state of it ; and have endeavoured particularly to ascer- 
 tain how Russell and his emissaries were received by the 
 people who were formerly disaffected. And I am happy 
 to state that the result of my inquiries has been perfectly 
 satisfactory. In every instance where Russell endeavoured 
 to collect a numerous meeting of the people, or to incite 
 them to join him, he has totally failed. 
 
 " The first place where he endeavoured to collect the 
 people was at Carmoney, situate between this town and 
 Belfast, a place remarkable in the year 1798 for the dis- 
 affection of its inhabitants. The meeting consisted of 
 but eleven or twelve, eight of whom were strangers, and 
 unknown to the inhabitants of the place. The three or 
 four of the inhabitants who attended the meeting declined 
 Russell's entreaties to join him, at which he expressed 
 
RUSSELL JOINED BY THE CATHOLICS 417 
 
 great indignation, and suddenly left that part of the 
 country. This information was communicated next day 
 to a gentleman of the neighbourhood by a person present 
 at the meeting, and was stated to me by that gentleman. 
 
 " The next place where Russell attempted to convene 
 a meeting was at Broughshane, which was intended to 
 have been a meeting of all his friends in the county, and 
 considerable pains were taken for that purpose. How- 
 ever, the meeting did not consist of more than fifty, and 
 of that number a great proportion were strangers, who 
 appeared to be the agents employed by Russell in dis- 
 tributing his proclamations, etc. The people of tliis 
 country who attended the meeting were principally of 
 the very lowest orders in Society. A few farmers did 
 attend from curiosity, as it is alleged. 
 
 " Russell appeared dressed in a very splendid green 
 uniform. He urged the people strongly to take up arms, 
 promising them assistance from every part in this king- 
 dom, and declaring he was so confident of success that 
 if five hundred joined him he would publicly appear 
 with them in arms. His proposal was not acceded to, at 
 which he expressed great surprise and indignation. He 
 returned from the meeting to a cabin in the neighbourhood, 
 changed his uniform for a very shabby dress, and suddenly 
 left that part of the country. This information I received 
 from the quarter, and I believe it may be strictly relied on. 
 
 " The only description of people who are at all inclined 
 to join Russell are the lowest orders of the Catholicks. 
 Their clergy and the higher orders are generally con- 
 sidered here as loyal. This opinion with respect to the 
 Catholicks here is believed by all ranks of Protestants, 
 and has, I am confident, operated powerfully on the 
 minds of many of the Presbyterians, who from former 
 habits might otherwise have been still adverse to the 
 Government of the country. 
 
 " A considerable number of persons have been arrested, 
 and are in the custody of the Military at Belfast. I have 
 been endeavouring to get the charges against them 
 reduced into regular informations on oath ; but so far as 
 I have gone I have found nothing but suspicion against 
 the prisoners, which fully justifies the detention of them 
 on grounds of precaution, yet would not enable the 
 Crown to prosecute them with effect. There are two 
 exceptions to this general observation, but the evidence 
 
 27 
 
41 8 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 against the two persons I allude to cannot at present be 
 brought forward with advantage, as they cannot be tried 
 without bringing forward an informer who by remaining 
 concealed may be of further use." 
 
 McClelland also visited Down, and in his report de- 
 clared that his inquiry had satisfied him of " the general 
 loyalty" of that county. He writes : 
 
 " It appears that Russell in the latter end of July 
 determined to make an effort to raise an insurrection in 
 the county of Down. For that purpose he summoned 
 a meeting near Belfast, about the 19th or 20th of July, 
 of all those leaders he could depend on. But six or seven 
 attended him, and all of them men in low situations and 
 desperate circumstances. It appears that they despaired 
 on that consultation of exciting any Protestants to re- 
 bellion, and the only recourse they conceived left to 
 them was to attempt tempering with the inhabitants of 
 Loughlin Island, who were almost all Papists, and dis- 
 contented with some Orange societies in their neighbour- 
 hood. That attempt was made by Russell and all his 
 associates. For two days they continued in the parish, 
 using every exertion to excite a rebellion, in which he 
 completely failed, having been only able to assemble 
 seven persons on the 23rd July at the place appointed 
 for the rebels to meet. 
 
 " It appears he endeavoured to work on the religious 
 prejudices of the Papists against the Orangemen, but 
 failed ; and some of the people told him that Govern- 
 ment had protected them by prosecuting the Orangemen 
 whenever they committed any outrage, and mentioned 
 to him the prosecution against some Orangemen which 
 I had lately carried on at Downpatrick and succeeded 
 in ; and at length he was actually turned out of the 
 house (in the evening of the 23rd of July) where he 
 had principally endeavoured to excite to rebellion the 
 persons summoned to meet him on that day. On the 
 whole, I think the present state of the county of Down 
 
 safe and satisfactory.''' 
 
 * * * 
 
 Meanwhile, some characteristic letters of complaint 
 from Lord Massareene were received by the Lord Lieu- 
 
LORD MASSAREENE'S COMPLAINTS 419 
 
 tenant, which illustrate the jealousies and feuds of county 
 magnates : 
 
 " Belfast, 
 " August lo/h, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I had the honor of writing to your Excellency 
 four different letters within the last month. To none of 
 which has your Lordship thought it necessary to give 
 any answer. In one of my letters I requested you would 
 have the goodness, my Lord, to order one of your secre- 
 taries just to mention to me whether your Lordship had 
 or had not received my letters, but still (as before) no 
 answer, but a perfect silence. Without being in the 
 least unreasonable, my Lord, one may be a little astonished 
 at all this, the more so as I have always endeavoured to 
 trouble your Excellency as little as possible on trifling 
 matters. 
 
 " Now, my Lord, with the frankness of a soldier (the 
 only quality Government has been pleas' d to leave me 
 in) I must add that I plainly see that the cabal which has 
 eternally pursued me has found its way even into the 
 Castle. From Lord Hardwicke, certainly, I should not 
 have experienced the like was he left to himself, to his 
 own candor, to his own honor, to his own liberality. 
 You, certainly, my Lord, possess virtues which, me- 
 thinks, should seem to secure me from any such occur- 
 rences. But artful enemies, and virulent ones, may 
 bias the generous mind sometimes, if they possess its 
 confidence. 
 
 But this prelude, to be sure, is a long one, and possibly 
 may be a tiresome one. I'd fain hope not, tho'. But 
 now, my Lord, to proceed to other matters. Having 
 conducted some prisoners (sad miscreants) to Belfast, I 
 learn'd (judge, my Lord, of my astonishment) that a 
 Commission to raise 100 men — i.e., 80 infantry and 20 
 cavalry — had actually been made out to a man named 
 Thompson, a farmer and cloth merchant, living at Green 
 Mount, about a short mile from Antrim ; and that he 
 had actually got orders to have arms, etc., etc., for them. 
 Well, my Lord, this man your Lordship may be told is 
 naturaliz'd a Dane. You may also be told that he and 
 all his family never were, in the least, of the Loyal party, 
 but on the contrary. 
 
 " Well, in some of my letters I solicited and earnestly 
 
 27 — 2 
 
420 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 requested your permission to raise 250 or 300 men as a 
 legion to which I would give my name, assuring you, my 
 Lord, that that would suffice to guard Antrim and vicinity. 
 No ansxver ! But Farmer Thompson comes to Dublin, 
 and Veni, vidi, vici. He or his partisans (my enemies, 
 doubtless), and at once no sooner said than done. He 
 obtains a corps of 100 men, arms, etc., etc. Bravo, my 
 Lord ! 
 
 " Some time ago, about a month, I was order'd to 
 recruit 25 men to augment my corps. In a trice I had 
 them complete. Colonel Littlehales immediately sends 
 me word that orders were issued to the ordnance officers 
 to send arms and accoutrements for these men. But 
 what ? Vox ct prcEterea nihil, my Lord. No arms, no 
 pay, and no clothing ! Good G — d, is that shameful or 
 not, and whose the shame ? Let the world pronounce. 
 
 " Your Excellency surely never ordered all this from 
 yourself. Is there a loyal man would serve with this 
 fellow Thompson ? My Lord, I am so amazed that I 
 can scarcely believe my eyes and ears. Who, in the 
 name of all that is wonderful, could dare to advise you, 
 my Lord, to this affair ? Gracious G — d, surely my Lord 
 Hardwicke does not wish to arm all the rascals and 
 croppies in the country ! No, my Lord, no ; that's 
 impossible ; it cannot be supposed. Why, then, my 
 Lord, say, in the name of G — d, whether you will or will 
 not grant 7ne to augment my corps to a little legion, or 
 whether you will or will not grant me a single man. 
 For the country's sake, for loyalty's sake, for the King's 
 sake, for Government's sake, and for G — d's sake, do, 
 my good Lord, countermand this order, and as you wish 
 for success to his Majesty's cause, stop this most erroneous 
 measure. 
 
 " You can easily say that you do not want any more 
 at present ; that the country is sufficiently garrisoned, 
 etc., etc., etc. Your Lordship can never be embarrassed 
 to find excuses. But as you are a noble friend to the 
 King and his cause, stop without delay this pernicious 
 measure, and a most pernicious one it is, G — d knows. 
 Then, my Lord, if you will grant me an order for a legion, 
 it shall be executed, as shall all your orders, most punctu- 
 aUy. 
 
 '" What would old George the 2nd say (who was a pro- 
 found military authority), if alive and was to see a noble- 
 
ARREST OF RUSSELL 421 
 
 man, descended from a line of loyal ancestry, who has 
 expended fortune and time to support the cause of 
 Government, who has fought and expos'd his blood, his 
 bones, and his life, for his King, abandon'd, left aside, 
 and a puppy, croppy farmer and cloth bleacher promoted 
 to a military command ? 
 
 " Here let me close the horrid but true picture, and 
 assure you, my Lord, of the confidence with which I 
 have the honor to be, my Lord, your Excellency's obedi- 
 ent and most humble servant, 
 
 " Massareene." 
 * * * 
 
 Russell, after his failure in the North, returned to 
 Dublin, with the object of organizing an attempt to rescue 
 Emmet, and was in hiding in a house in Parliament Street, 
 under the very shadow of the Castle. He was discovered 
 and arrested on September g, 1803. The Lord Lieu- 
 tenant thus conveys the news to the Home Secretary : 
 
 " We have taken Russell. He was at a house in Par- 
 liament Street, and in consequence of intelligence which 
 Marsden received this morning of a man being concealed 
 there who was not known, Major Sirr went to his room, 
 up three pair of stairs ; and after saying his name was 
 Harrison — which is the name of the gunsmith's wife at 
 whose house he lodged — he pulled a pistol from his breast, 
 pointed it at Major Sirr, who seized him, and called in 
 the person who attended him. Russell does not deny 
 who he is, and declares himself as ready to dye on the 
 scaffold as in the field." 
 
 The prisoner was lodged in Kilmainham Gaol, where 
 he was seen by Leonard MacNally, who sent to the Castle 
 the following report of the conversation : 
 
 " I stated to him that I was apprehensive the dis- 
 turbances of this country arose from religious animosities 
 of Roman Catholics towards the Protestants. This he 
 attempted to deny, but he admitted the murders com- 
 mitted at Scullabogue,* and which he defended by saying 
 
 * During the Rebellion of 1798, in Wexford a barn at Sculla- 
 bogue, in which a number of Protestants were confined, was 
 set on fire by some retreating rebels, and the prisoners burnt 
 to death or shot. 
 
422 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 that they were goaded to those excesses by the ravishings, 
 honse-biirnings, tortures, etc., etc. 
 
 " He stated that at this moment there were as many 
 tears shedding for Emmet as would bathe him, and that 
 he would be considered by the people as a martyr ; and 
 that if ever the French landed, when the people could 
 rise they would certainly revenge the deaths of all persons 
 who had been executed. 
 
 '' He mentioned, let the })eople's grievances be re- 
 dressed, and the Ciovernment will have nothing to dread 
 from invasion. Assimilate Ireland and England as much 
 as possible; let them appear as sisters, and not allow one 
 to be the oppressor. I here told him every step to render 
 both countries alike was now the object. He said when 
 that would be accomplished all would be well. He very 
 frec]uently, during our conversation, expressed the neces- 
 sity of rendering the lower orders of the people of this 
 country more comfortable, which if done it would be 
 impossible (he believed) for any set of men to urge them 
 to rise. 
 
 " I stated to him that it was really shocking to find 
 that a person who was this day executed could possibly, 
 at so awful a moment, think of setting forth or framing 
 a notorious falsehood, the certainty of which I was fully 
 convinced of by the positive assurances of Emmet. I 
 told him that the person attempted to save his life by 
 these falsehoods, who stated that the Insurrection was 
 aided personally by four French Generals. Russell re- 
 probated this conduct much, and implored God to for- 
 give him, and said I might rely on what Mr. Emmet 
 stated ; and that everyone must know what the unfor- 
 tunate man mentioned must be false. He suddenly 
 asked, \\'as it Redmond ? — whom he said he did not 
 know, and that his assertion was not at all founded. 
 
 " He spoke much on the situation of the people of this 
 country. I asked him what would quiet them com- 
 pletely ? He answered, take off the tythes, the taxes, 
 and prevent the landlords' oppression. He talk'd of the 
 leases not being granted in perpetuity. He said one 
 matter in this country was alone sufficient to alienate 
 the majority of the people — their paying the Church 
 Establishment, which was complained of by the Roman 
 Catholics and the Presbyterians. I asked him did he 
 mean that the Church Establishment should not be sup- 
 
RUSSELL SENT TO ULSTER FOR TRIAL 423 
 
 ported ? He said he meant it should, but let the clergy 
 be paid out of the Treasury, and that a great many of 
 the expenses might well be dispensed with. 
 
 " He again nearly recapitulated all our former con- 
 versation with much anxiety, at the same time very 
 cautious lest he might be overheard by any other 
 person."* 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, writing to the Home Secretary 
 on September 24, 1803, states that a Special Commis- 
 sion, consisting of Baron George and Mr. Justice Osborne, 
 had been appointed " to clear the gaols " of the counties 
 of Down and Antrim. His Excellency says : 
 
 " Upon fully considering all the circumstances attend- 
 ing the case of Thomas Russell, who assumed in the North 
 the character of a General Officer of the rebel army, I 
 have thought it best to order that he should be tried 
 before this Commission. He might, it is true, have been 
 indicted in Dublin under the Act of 1798 for returning 
 to Ireland, after having been pardoned on condition of 
 banishment ; but considering the magnitude of his 
 treasons lately committed, and how great an object it 
 is to show how successfully they were exposed and 
 defeated, and also the strong desire expressed by several 
 gentlemen of the North to have him tried where the 
 example of his execution would have the greatest effect, 
 I have preferred sending him to the North to proceeding 
 against him as an exiled traitor. 
 
 "■ Should it, however, happen that the evidence of his 
 guilt in the North should not be sufficient to convict him 
 (of which, however, I am informed there can be little 
 doubt), he mtiy equally be tried there or here for the 
 offence of being found at large in the country." 
 
 Russell was accordingly conveyed to Downpatrick for 
 trial. Three days before his trial he gave to Dr. Trevor 
 of Kilmainham, who accompanied him to Downpatrick, 
 a remarkable paper, which he desired should be forwarded 
 to the Irish Government. Trevor, in his letter to William 
 
 * From " Ireland, Private and Secret, 1803." (Home Office 
 Papers.) 
 
424 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 VVickham, Chief Secretary, dated " Downpatrick, i8th 
 October, 1803," says : 
 
 " SiK, 
 
 " This day Mr. Russell handed me the enclosed 
 paper, with a variety of comments, and stated that he 
 could bring forward many proofs of the necessity of the 
 latter part of his paper. He mentioned that it was 
 e\ident that you and the Lord Chancellor are quieting 
 the country by such means as have not been adopted by 
 anv other i\dministration, which was felt by those per- 
 sons with whom he (Russell) acted. He added that he 
 respects your character most highly ; that there had 
 been more effectual steps taken during your residence 
 in Ireland to quiet this country than there had been for 
 a series of years before. He said that, of course. Govern- 
 ment know how to keep their own secrets, and that he 
 looked on me as a faithful friend of Government. He was 
 convinced from the state of the minds of the country 
 gentlemen it would be necessary that such a paper as the 
 enclosed should not be known as coming from him. He 
 this day appeared anxious relative to the three days after 
 his conviction, and said that he would make it appear 
 to the Solicitor-General that his paper required that time. 
 
 " He has not as yet mentioned a word relative to his 
 brother, and I have thought it best not to speak to him 
 on it lest he might suppose I was pressing for any other 
 object than the real one you intend towards his brother. 
 
 " His spirits seem to be the same as when in Kilmain- 
 ham prison. At the same time I can observe much 
 anxiety about him. The person who has the immediate 
 charge of the prison while Russell remains there is a 
 Captain Gordon, who mentioned to me that Russell 
 noticed the inclemency of the weather, and said it was 
 severe weather for duty, but he wished himself in the 
 creek of a rock. This I consider as sounding Capt. 
 Gordon under the idea of an escape. I conclude so on 
 account of the plans he had in view while he was in 
 Kilmainham jail. I have mentioned this circumstance 
 to the Solicitor-General, who will take the necessary steps." 
 
 Russell's paper, which is dated " Downpatrick, Oc- 
 tober 17th, 1803," states that the grievances which 
 principally affected the Irish people were : " ist, the 
 v/ant of sovereignty in its Government ; 2nd, the tenures 
 
RUSSELL ON IRISH GRIEVANCES 425 
 
 of land ; 3rd, taxes ; 4th, the mode of administering the 
 laws." " The first," he says, " is in the present state out 
 of the question, though it ultimately includes all the others, 
 and its want is more generally felt than is supposed." 
 With respect to the second grievance, the land, he writes : 
 
 " The second by the avarice of the land proprietors 
 keeps the people in a state of beggary, and consequent 
 discontent. I mean a great body of the people, and even 
 in the North which by manufacture is wealthier than the 
 rest of Ireland, it is felt by the mass as an intolerable 
 grievance, which they would run great risques to remedy. 
 1 shall not consider the effect this has on the prosperity 
 of the State, but on individuals, i.e., the whole peasantry 
 and poor of the nation, who, as I before stated, are not an 
 ignorant race. 
 
 " I suppose it will be vain to expect any remedy for 
 this, as the common objection will be made that land is 
 private property. But land is a property different 
 from all others. All other property is derived from it ; 
 all other property has a terminable value ; but land will 
 be the same 10,000 years hence as now, should the 
 Creator continue it so long. Monopoly of land is, as 
 everything is derived from it, the greatest evil. The Jews, 
 whose laws were given from above, alone made this distinc- 
 tion. Land could not be sold for longer than seventy 
 years. It then reverted back to the old family, and its 
 accumulation was thus prevented. AU other property 
 could be sold for ever. The way lands are held makes the 
 people slaves to the landlords. They are too poor to 
 emigrate, and have no way left but to submit or starve. 
 I cannot see why a law should not be made as to the 
 length of leases, as well as for any other purpose ; and 
 it might be so managed as the poor should benefit by it, 
 and yet the rich not lose." 
 
 With regard to taxes, he complained most of the op- 
 pression of " tythes," which were imposed on the Catholics 
 for the support of the Established Church.* " If the 
 Government choose an Establishment," he says, " let 
 them pay the parsons from their Treasury or otherwise, 
 
 * Tithes were not abolished until 1837, when the Tithe Com- 
 mutation Act of the Melbourne Government reduced them by 
 30 per cent., and made then a rent-charge on the landlords. 
 
426 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 as they think fit." Deahng with the administration of 
 the laws, hu pointed out that the magistrates, from their 
 uncontrolled powers of punishment, were often local 
 tyrants. He says in conclusion : 
 
 " I do think Government would do well to appoint 
 magistrates, such as they could depend on, with salaries, 
 through the country ; and I am sure that if they acted 
 with common justice they would be esteemed by the 
 people a blessing, and the ex])cnse most cheerfully ])aid.* 
 I know tliat in many, many cases the people do look to 
 the Military officers of England for protection from the 
 oppressions of the gentry, and I do most earnestly, in 
 the name of humanity, exhort that they may be restrained. 
 What I have now said is in the hopes that some good may 
 arise. I think I know the country, and so long as the 
 present system lasts, I trust in God it will be governed 
 with an attention to the principles of justice and mercy. 
 My own opinion as to the connexion of the countries is 
 not now in point, though I shall reiterate what I said 
 before that their interests are now separate, but so long 
 as Providence continues the present Power, its interests, 
 as well as that of the people, requires that the poor should 
 be attended to, and that clemency, which never destroyed 
 a Government, should be shewn. God governs by mercy ; 
 let not man attempt it by severity." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Russell was found guilty of high treason by a jury of 
 County Down farmers. It is stated that the prisoner 
 said he was aware that six of the jurors, whom he had 
 known personally, had taken the oath of the United 
 Irishmen. He was publicly executed at Downpatrick 
 on October 21, the day after his conviction. 
 
 Chief Secretary Wickham, writing from Dublin Castle on 
 October 24, 1803, to Pole Carew of the Home Office, says : 
 
 " Mr. Yorke will perhaps be surprised at receiving no 
 account of Russell's execution. The fact is that nobody 
 thought it worth while to mention it, tho' we have re- 
 
 * The present system of stipendiary magistrates was established 
 by William Drummond, Under-Secretary for Ireland to the 
 Melbourne Administration, 183 5-1 840. 
 
RUSSELL'S DEATH 427 
 
 ceivcd several communications from the North since it 
 took place. He behaved with firmness and propriety. 
 
 " He earnestly entreated that a few days might be 
 granted him for the purpose of finishing a religious work, 
 in the writing of which he said he was engaged ; on this 
 condition, provided also that the lives of all his ac- 
 complices in the prisons of Down and Antrim should be 
 spared, he offered to make a full disclosure of the plans 
 of the disaffected, without mentioning an}^ names. It 
 was thought pro{)er to decline this offer, on the ground 
 that unless he consented to give up the names of his 
 accomplices very little benefit could be derived from any 
 disclosure it would be in his power to make. 
 
 " It was observed to him that in asking for further 
 time he was evidently looking to the arrival of the French 
 before his execution could take place ; which he indis- 
 creetly admitted, saying that much blood would be 
 saved should they arrive in time to prevent his being put 
 to death."* 
 
 Russell was buried in the churchyard at Downpatrick, 
 where moulders the dust of the three great Irish saints, 
 St. Patrick, St. Brigid, and St. Columbkille. Over the 
 spot is a plain stone with the simple inscription : " The 
 grave of Thomas Russell." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Lord Massereene thus continued to worry the Viceroy 
 with his grievances : 
 
 " October \yth, 1803. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " It probably would be useless (and certainly 
 somewhat importunate, at a time when your Excellency 
 must necessarily have much important business to occupy 
 your mind) were I to expatiate upon my own private 
 concerns. I will, then, only request your permission, 
 my Lord, to observe that when I had the honor of a 
 private audience from your Excellency, I mentioned the 
 dreadful state of this country, you could not imagine 
 that things were so bad as I represented them. I declar'd 
 at the same time that I wish'd heartily to be mistaken ; 
 but unless I was very eminently so that things were at 
 the height of desperation. Unfortunately, most unfortu- 
 
 * From Home Office Papers. 
 
428 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 nately, indeed, poor Lord Kilwarden, etc., etc., etc., 
 cvinc'd me, alas ! but too true a prophet. Well, my 
 Lord, no more on that head. 
 
 " But, my Lord, I requested a large augmentation of 
 my corps, and your permission to raise a legion of 200, 
 300 or more men ; to which, my Lord, your Excellency 
 did not think proper to give any answer, or any attention. 
 That my military conduct and attachment to my King 
 and his Government, and my indefatigable attention to 
 their service for seven years, merit some approbation, is 
 of sufficient notoriety. I think, my Lord, I can say that 
 without any presumption. Let me add, if you please, 
 my Lord, that in my humble opinion to give a large 
 respectable military corps to Noblemen, real gentlemen, — 
 officers on whose loyalty and attachment Government 
 can depend — I say, m}^ Lord, to give corps to such 
 methinks would seem sounder policy than to raise new 
 corps and give them, — to whom ? — men you know not, 
 men unknown, clothmakers, clergymen, etc., etc., etc. 
 But your Excellency thinks otherwise, and your will, to 
 be sure, must be done. 
 
 " Several names I had cautioned your Excellency 
 against — Clarke's, Ledlie's, Macartney's, etc., etc. — were 
 in the list. I gave it to you, my Lord, with my own 
 hand ; and immediately after, to convince me of the 
 attention with which you honour'd my information — 
 oh, strange to tell ! — you actuall3^ my Lord, gave a corps 
 to ^Macartney, the Vicar of Antrim,* of which he now, to 
 the no small amusement of the public, is positively 
 captain. He now appears in the quadruple capacity of 
 Doctor of Laws, Vicar of the Church, Justice of the 
 Peace, and Military Captain. Cereberus had but three 
 heads, but Macartney has four ! The country is on the 
 titter, and, in faith, well they may, my Lord. Another 
 corps is given to one Robert Thompson, a merchant, 
 naturalised a Dane. (Curious enough you will own, my 
 Lord, but so it is.) 
 
 " \\'hilst all this takes place, no legion is given to me, 
 but an actual refusal to every article or thing I ask for, or 
 propose. I declare, my Lord, I have sometimes thought 
 that it would have been what is called a good list if I had 
 
 * This is the Dr. Macartney who claimed Church preferment 
 for his son on account of pohtical services rendered in connection 
 with the Trinity College Visitation in 1798. See Book L, " Those 
 Embarrassing Union Engagements." 
 
THE CABAL AGAINST MASSEREENE 429 
 
 ask'd for no corps to myself, and had strenuously recom- 
 mended Messrs. Macartney, Thompson, Ledlie, Clarke, 
 etc., etc., etc. ; for probably then, my Lord, — to judge 
 analogically of the future by the past — my real wishes 
 would have been granted. 
 
 " I have a great respect for Lord Hardwicke. The 
 great Lord Hardwicke and my father had the same for 
 each other, in better times than these. But, my Lord, I 
 speak matter of fact, and my reasoning will, perhaps, 
 stand the test of examination. Why Government should 
 wish to return nothing but humiliation for my zeal, 
 attachment and services, I protest, must appear most 
 unaccountable to any unprejudiced man on earth. But 
 the Cabal, the never resting omnipotent Cabal, has cer- 
 tainly found its way into the Castle. The good, the 
 kind Lord Hardwicke, tho' of stern wisdom and dis- 
 cernment, has not yet been able to prevent its dreadful 
 effects, unfortunately for me, most unfortunately, indeed. 
 I beseech again, once more, my good Lord, to have this 
 legion, and not to be left in this subaltern state, — a 
 strange state for a nobleman who has deserv'd so much 
 otherwise from his King and his Government. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, my Lord, your Excellency's 
 most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 " Massereene, 
 " Only Captain of Yeomen.'' 
 
 At last, on October 27, 1803, the Lord Lieutenant 
 replied to Massereene's letters. His Excellency was 
 much hurt that the noble Lord should think no attention 
 had been given to his requests. 
 
 " With respect to the very numerous corps which your 
 Lordship proposed to raise," continues Hardwicke, 
 " though it certainly afforded a strong proof of your 
 loyalty and publick spirit, yet in considering the propriety 
 of so large an addition to the Yeomanry force in a par- 
 ticular part of the country, it was necessary to determine 
 the question on general grounds, however desirous I 
 might be — as I certainly was — to gratify your Lordship's 
 wishes." 
 
 Dr. Macartney obtained his corps " on the expressed 
 recommendation of two gentlemen of approved loyalty, 
 one of them a general officer in his Majesty's service "; 
 
430 THE FATE OF THOMAS RUSgELL 
 
 and as for Mr. Thompson, he was " a gentleman of con- 
 siderable property and respectable connexions, and the 
 report of his corps is very favourable." The Lord Lieu- 
 tenant assured Massereene, in conclusion, that there was 
 no disposition at Dublin Castle to treat him with any 
 want of respect or inattention. 
 
 Massereene's retort was the following extraordinary 
 communication : 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 " I must inform your Excellency of an atrocious 
 affair which took place this night in Antrim. The 
 country being in a perfect state of rebellion, insurrection, 
 etc., etc., I conceiv'd it to be prudent (especially as this 
 town is threaten'd to be attack'd by the miscreant United 
 Men) to place a small piquet guard of two men at the 
 different avenues by which the town could be vulnerable. 
 This I did (although my corps has not yet been put on 
 permanent duty) for the means of preservation from 
 nocturnal assassination and to prevent surprise. All 
 this duty my trusty men perform'd with alacrity. I 
 communicated my conduct to Brigadier-General Camp- 
 bell, commanding our Northern District, who had the 
 goodness to approve of it. 
 
 " This morning a company of blackguards and wretches 
 below all description were assembled in the Market- 
 house by Macartney, the vicar of this place, and a paper 
 written by Macartney was sent to me proposing for the 
 town men to do the duty without my soldiers ; and to 
 give it an air of plausibility it was alledg'd that it would 
 ease my men who might be harass'd by continual nightly 
 watching, etc., etc. I evidently saw (for I knew the man) 
 that this was only an insidious plot to get me to sanction 
 their schemes by acting and co-operating with them. 
 They are rebels almost to a man. Such a tumultuous 
 bloodthirsty rabble I will be bold to say you never saw, 
 my Lord, nor did Europe, but in France and Ireland. 
 So I sent a respectable clergyman to tell them in answer 
 to their paper (which they thought very cleverly and 
 cunningly contriv'd) that I could not give my sanction 
 to any such associations, and self-created military bands, 
 that I conceiv'd them to be very improper, not to say 
 illegal ; that my Corps, whose fidelity, valour, good 
 conduct and discipline are so well known, and had kept 
 
MASSEREENE'S PICTURE OF MACARTNEY 431 
 
 this town in the most dangerous times, was sufficient to 
 keep and preserve good order, and repel the attacks of 
 any enemy, and that I would never attempt to sanction 
 any levy of troops without being authorised by Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 " Immediately Macartney, in the distortion of a 
 paroxysm of rage, foaming at the mouth like a man in a 
 canine madness, after the most insane and wild frantic 
 declamation, declar'd he would have me broke of my Com- 
 mission. At every word he pronounc'd he was regal'd 
 by the loudest plaudits, and the most tumultuous roaring 
 and backing of the noisy mob. The clergyman declar'd 
 to me he thought himself in danger of assassination, and 
 if that infernal rabble of wild Irish rebels were to be 
 arm'd the most horrid consequences would ensue. Hos- 
 tilities between them and my men would be inevitable, 
 and blood, certainly, would flow copiously. 
 
 " Oh, my Lord, is it possible that Government would 
 ever confide a military department to this atrocious villain, 
 a man than whom a more mad exists not out of Bedlam, 
 a coward who ran away from Antrim when the battle 
 commenced, a friend to numbers of United villains, a 
 fellow void of honor, probity and every virtue ? My 
 Lord, I have to beseech your Excellency not to let him 
 have the slightest authority as a military man (which he 
 is not, and never was). To strike him off the list of 
 magistrates would be the wisest measure that could be 
 adopted in this town, at this crisis, and I most strenu- 
 ously beseech your Excellency's attention to this. And 
 next, for G — d's sake, my good Lord, let me have the 
 arms for my last 25 recruits and put us on permanent duty. 
 
 " The peace of the town will be preserv'd, and the 
 place defended from any enemy. I shall co-operate with 
 and under the direction of General Campbell, our Com- 
 mander ; and his and your Excellency's orders in all 
 things shall be punctually executed. But for G — d's 
 sake, my Lord, no innovator, and, above all things, no 
 infernal monster like Macartney, the Vicar not of Jesus 
 Christ but of Satan. 
 
 " I await your Excellency's orders with more im- 
 patience than I can express ; and have the honor to be, 
 with all confidence, my Lord, your Excellency's most 
 obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 " Massereene." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 On the conclusion of the Special Commission for the trial 
 of the Dublin prisoners, the Lord Lieutenant sent the 
 following official report of the results to the Home Secre- 
 tary : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " nth October, 1803. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " On Wednesday last the Special Commission for 
 trying the prisoners concerned in the late Insurrection 
 closed, not from having disposed of all the prisoners, 
 but because it was necessary that a new Commission 
 should now issue for the discharge of the ordinary public 
 business, which, of course, supersedes the former. The 
 prisoners yet to be tried are of a description not lit to 
 be passed over either from mercy or contempt. Others 
 may hereafter be apprehended who are of greater con- 
 sequence. But it is evident from what has appeared on 
 the trials, as well as by documents transmitted to your 
 office from time to time, that the persons principally 
 concerned in the late outrages have been brought to 
 justice. 
 
 " It gives me much satisfaction to find that however 
 active and malignant the infatuated partisans of Mr. 
 Emmet have been, the extent of the conspiracy has not 
 appeared to be such as to warrant the supposition that 
 any large proportion of the people of the country have 
 been corrupted ; and as scarcely a single outrage has 
 taken place anywhere since the 23rd of July — although 
 the scenes which passed in the Metropolis on that day 
 might well have excited to similar violences in the country 
 
 432 
 
THE VICEROY ON THE EXECUTIONS 433 
 
 —I am san{;u!ne in thinking; tliat 1 have not been dis- 
 appointed in my opinion that tlie general disposition and 
 the loyalty of the people of the conntry was improved, — 
 an object to wliicli 1 have so anxiously aj)j)lied my ex('r- 
 tions here, and the failure of which woidd hav(; occa- 
 sioned me so much real concern. 
 
 " The conviction of Mr. Emmet has been particularly 
 fortunate, as in his person the most guilty agent in the 
 conspiracy has suffered, and connected with his con- 
 viction the principal designs of his desperate associates 
 have been developed. 
 
 " Redmond, who has also suffered, was in the confi- 
 dence of Emmet, and although without any considerable 
 talents or education, yet from his enthusiastic turn of 
 mind he was to be considered as a most dangerous asso- 
 ciate in such a cause. Rourke, the son of an inn-keeper 
 at Rathcoole, had been deeply engaged in the Rebellion of 
 1798, and was supposed to have committed some murders 
 while he held a command among the rebels. He was 
 armed in the streets on the night of the 23rd July, and 
 his sanguinary disposition seems to have been the chief 
 recommendation to the rank of a leader which it is sup- 
 posed he held on the late occasion. Fourteen besides 
 these were convicted and have been executed. They 
 were all persons in inferior situations of life, and are only 
 of consequence from the relative importance of the parts 
 they were to act in the Insurrection. 
 
 " Kearney, the hrst person tried, was taken by the 
 King's troops in the act of encouraging and commanding 
 the pikemen to advance. Byrne, a baker, had been em- 
 ployed to reconnoitre the works at the Pigeon House, and 
 his Majesty's stores in Townsend Street. Kirwan, a 
 tailor, was much in the confidence of the leaders. He 
 was emploj^ed by them to make their laced uniforms, 
 and was apprised of all their signals. Hayes, who had 
 been in the Kildare Militia, and McCann, a publican, 
 were little inferior to Rourke in atrocity ; and Keenan, 
 a carpenter, was supposed to be one of the actual mur- 
 derers of Lord Kilward^n. Mackintosh, a carpenter, 
 besides being armed on the night of the Insurrection, was 
 an active agent in preparing the machines and the gun- 
 powder, which were to be made use of on the occasion. 
 He was proprietor of the house in Patrick Street which 
 served as a sort of workshop to the greater depot in 
 
 28 
 
434 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 Bridgefoot Street which Howley rented, who was also 
 convicted and executed, and who confessed his having 
 murdered Colonel Browne with his o\vn hand. 
 
 " The other persons executed were guilty of little 
 more than being armed with pikes on the night of the 
 23rd July. Of these it was thought i'lt to make an 
 example in order to convince the populace that if they 
 became the instruments of treason they must expect to 
 suffer for it. 
 
 " Two only of the whole number brought to trial were 
 acquitted, Doran and McDermott ; and in the case of 
 the former the jury expressly declared that they were 
 satisfied the prosecutor believed what he said to be true ; 
 and in the latter the counsel for the prisoner proceeded 
 on an admission to the same effect ; and in each case 
 the defence was expressly rested on a doubt whether the 
 witnesses might not be mistaken as to the identity of the 
 prisoners. These instances, therefore, brought no dis- 
 credit on the prosecutions, and have no other effect than 
 to shew with w^hat integrity and correctness justice has 
 been administered. 
 
 " I wish I could add that the persons convicted had 
 acknowledged their guilt at the place of execution. 
 Emmet, Mackintosh, Redmond, and Howley, directly 
 avowed it ; many were silent, and others persisted in 
 denying the justice of their sentence. Of this, a striking 
 instance occurred in the case of Rourke, who was more 
 than usually solemn in the protestation of innocence, 
 though the Government are now in possession of a written 
 offer sent by him after conviction to make a full disclosure 
 on a promise that his life should be saved, an offer which 
 it was not thought proper to accept. 
 
 " I cannot close this despatch without expressing the 
 entire satisfaction I have felt in the very able and prudent 
 conduct of the Crown lawyers in carrying on those pro- 
 secutions. I believe instances have rarely occurred in 
 which a series of State Trials have been carried through 
 with so little interruption to the complete proof in each 
 case, and such entire satisfaction to a very able Bench, 
 to respectable and impartial juries, and to every descrip- 
 tion of persons not immediately connected with those 
 wretched men who have forfeited their lives. It will 
 be particularly agreeable to me if you will, at a fit oppor- 
 tunity, represent to his IMajesty the services of the 
 
CURIOUS PROPOSAL OF THE VICEROY 435 
 
 Attorney and Solicitor-General on this occasion, whose 
 exertions and conduct have done great honour to them- 
 selves, and have been at the same time of very essential 
 benefit to the general interests, honour, and credit of his 
 Majesty's Government in this country." 
 
 Subsequently, the Lord Lieutenant, in a letter to the 
 Home Secretary, suggested that, following a precedent 
 which had been set after the Rebellion of 1798, the 
 prisoners still awaiting trial should be discharged on 
 condition that they joined the Army. His Excellency 
 writes : 
 
 " It will necessarily happen that after the trials a very 
 considerable number will remain in the gaols and military 
 prisons whom it will not be expedient to bring to trial, 
 but who stand in that degree of criminality that it would 
 be extremely dangerous to suffer them to be again at 
 large in this country, and many of whom were concerned 
 in the Rebellion which broke out here in the year 1798. 
 
 " They are men who, with few exceptions, would be 
 fit to serve in his Majesty's Armies abroad, and most if 
 not nearly the whole of them would probably be induced 
 to enlist to avoid a prosecution. I would therefore sub- 
 mit it to the consideration of His Majesty's Ministers 
 whether a mode should not, without loss of time, be 
 settled for having these men disposed of either by send- 
 ing them to join corps already in the West Indies, or on 
 such other service as shall be thought best, taking care, 
 however, as far as possible, that none of them by any 
 exchange of service should hereafter be allowed to return 
 into this country." 
 
 But, as the reply of the Home Secretary shows, the 
 Commander-in-Chief refused to sanction the proposal. 
 Charles Yorke writes, under date October 25, 1803, to 
 the Viceroy : 
 
 " I have submitted these letters to the consideration 
 of the Commander-in-Chief, and I beg leave to enclose 
 a copy of the answer I have just received from his Royal 
 Highness, by which your Excellency will observe that 
 his Royal Highness cannot feel himself justified in con- 
 curring in a measure from which he conceives mischief 
 
 28—2 
 
436 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 and inconvenience might ensue far greater than the com- 
 parative benefit which would result to the publick from 
 its adoption. Under these circumstances it will become 
 necessary to resort to some other mode of disposing of 
 the men in question. I know not whether it will be 
 judged practicable or expedient to receive them into the 
 service of the East India Company, but I will consult 
 with Lord Castlereagh on the subject, and will let your 
 Excellency know the result as soon as possible." 
 
 The Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief, in his letter 
 to the Home Secretary, encloses a copy of a communica- 
 tion which he directed to be sent to the military autho- 
 rities in Ireland, in 1802, explaining the reasons why he 
 was induced to put a stop to the practice of sending to 
 the regiments in the West Indies men taken up in Ireland 
 for treasonable practices : 
 
 " I am directed by the Commander-in-Chief to trans- 
 mit to you herewith for the information of Lord Hobart 
 extract of a letter from Lieutenant-General Grinfield, 
 commanding the forces in the Leeward Islands, relative 
 to the culprits sent from Ireland to serve as soldiers in 
 the West Indies, with copy of a return of the men of that 
 and similar descriptions which have been sent there since 
 the beginning of the year 1799. This is a subject which 
 the Commander-in-Chief requests to commend to Lord 
 Hobart's particular consideration as a growing incon- 
 venience to the Service and the public. The former is 
 demonstrated in the enclosed return, which shows the 
 great increase of that description of men in the several 
 Regiments remaining in the Leeward Islands who, being 
 proscribed from returning to Great Britain and Ireland, 
 must necessarily, as they become unfit for service, fall a 
 burthen on the public or be turned adrift in that country. 
 His Royal Highness therefore desires to submit to Lord 
 Hobart the expediency of discontinuing to send men of 
 the description in question as soldiers to the West Indies." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Emmet's first lieutenants, Quigley and Stafford, were 
 still at large. But on October 13, 1803, Wickham, the 
 Chief Secretary, writing to Pole Carew of the Home 
 Office, announces their arrest at a farm-house in the 
 
MICHAEL QUIGLEY 437 
 
 county of Galway. " Quigley," he says, " is by far the 
 cleverest man I have yet seen or conversed with of all 
 the Rebels." He adds : " Stafford is, I think, almost 
 without exception, the finest-looking man I ever saw." 
 " They had, like Emmet," he says, " their black stocks on 
 when taken, and all the rest of their military uniform, 
 except the green coat."* 
 
 On October 29 Wickham writes to Pole Carew : 
 
 " After several communications with Quigley, some 
 direct, others carried on through Dr. Trevor, the physician 
 to the gaol, the gentleman has at last consented to make 
 a full disclosure of all he knows, without concealing a 
 name of any person, high or low, and without any stipula- 
 tion whatever on the part of the Government. He has 
 only expressed a strong desire that the lives of five persons, 
 all of whom he led into the conspiracy, may be spared, 
 if his disclosures should appear to the Government to be 
 made fairly and without reserve, and of sufficient im- 
 portance to merit such an act of mercy and favour. 
 
 " Of the five persons that he has named — viz., Stafford, 
 the two Perotts, Frayne, and Condon — two are already 
 engaged secretly in the service of the Government (one 
 of them being the very man who betrayed Quigley him- 
 self) ; against a third there is no evidence ; the fourth 
 has a young wife and eight small children, and both the 
 third and fourth are the sons of an Englishman of as 
 good and loyal a character as any man in the United 
 Kingdom. t When the father removed to the county of 
 Galway as gardner and land surveyor to Mr. Blake 
 of Ardfry, a gentleman of very large landed property in 
 that county, he unfortunately left these two young men 
 behind him in the neighbourhood of Maynooth, where they 
 fell into the hands of Lord Edward FitzGerald, whose 
 attentions to them they were unable to resist, and so 
 entered deeply into the Rebellion. 
 
 " The question of shewing mercy to Quigley has been 
 well and deliberately discussed. It was determined from 
 the first, considering the very important part he had 
 acted in the conspiracy, not to hear of any terms or 
 stipulations of any kind that he might attempt to insist 
 
 * From Home Of&ce Papers, 
 t This refers to the two Perotts. 
 
438 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 upon either for himself or others. This was so distinctly- 
 signified, and so often repeated to him, in answer to 
 every condition that he wished to attach to the dis- 
 closures he offered to make that he yesterday threw 
 himself and his friends on the mercy of Government, 
 and immediately gave me some local information of 
 considerable importance, the substance of which will be 
 communicated to you from time to time for Mr. Yorke's 
 information. At present we are busily employed acting 
 upon it. 
 
 " It is my own opinion that the knowledge that Quigley 
 is giving information to Government will do more towards 
 pacifying the country and terrifying the disaffected than 
 the execution of twenty men of his rank and station in 
 life ; whilst his known abilities and the confidence re- 
 posed in him by the party will make so considerable an 
 impression on the publick mind as to the importance and 
 extent of the discoveries it is in his power to make, that 
 I can answer for the publick opinion being strongly in 
 favour of the measure that the Lord Lieutenant has 
 determined to adopt of sparing his life if his disclosures 
 be sincere and full. 
 
 " I ought at the same time to add that I do not expect 
 very much of new matter from his disclosures ; and that 
 I look more to them as reducing our doubts and sus- 
 picions to certainty, than as likely to open much new 
 light on the proceedings of the disaffected." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Michael Dwyer, the insurgent leader, still held out on 
 the Wicklow hills. In reference to him the Viceroy sent 
 the following letter to the Home Secretary : 
 
 " Dublin Castle, 
 
 " lAth Nov., 1803. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I beg leave to send you inclosed the copy of a 
 Proclamation which issued on Tuesday last offering large 
 rewards for apprehending Michael Dwyer, the noted 
 rebel, who still maintains himself in the fastnesses of the 
 county of Wicklow, and has acquired an extraordinary 
 ascendency over the inhabitants of those parts. 
 
 " I am in great hopes, if neither the rewards offered 
 in the above Proclamation, nor the threats by which they 
 are accompanied, should be attended with success, that 
 
SURRENDER OF MICHAEL DWYER 439 
 
 some more active measures which I have concerted 
 with the Commander of His Majesty's Forces will tend 
 ultimately to secure this man and enable me to bring him 
 to punishment. 
 
 " Before the Proclamation issued I offered him a 
 retreat from the kingdom with all his family and several 
 of his relations, a measure which I thought it right to 
 take, as well on account of the little hope I had been 
 taught to entertain of being able to apprehend him by 
 any ordinary means, as because his having taken an 
 active part in the Insurrection of the 23rd July seemed 
 to present a fair pretext for removing from the country 
 a very dangerous rebel by an act of lenity and indul- 
 gence which the loyal part of the country could not pos- 
 sibly disapprove. He thought proper, however, to reject 
 my offer, trusting, as I have reason to believe, to his 
 being able to make a new effort on the landing of the 
 French, an event which he is taught to consider as very 
 near, and represents to his associates as certainly to take 
 place before the winter." 
 
 I find in the Home Office Papers the following descrip- 
 tion of the insurgent leader : 
 
 " Michael Dwyer is aged about 34 years ; 5 ft. 10 inches 
 high ; very straight in the back ; short neck and square 
 shoulders ; a little in-kneed ; rather long-legged, with a 
 little rise on the shin-bones ; very long feet ; black hair 
 and dark complexion ; broad across the eyes, which are 
 black ; short cocked nose, wide mouth, thin lips, even 
 teeth, but stand separate ; very long from the nose to 
 the end of the chin ; full breasted and rather full faced ; 
 born in Imael, co. Wicklow." 
 
 At length, on December 14, 1803, Dwyer, his wife, and 
 several of his followers surrendered themselves to Captain 
 Hume, M.P., of Hume Wood, Wicklow. Brigadier- 
 General W. C. Beresford, sending the news to General Sir 
 Charles Asgill, Dublin, says : j 
 
 " I have reason to believe that the assurances which 
 have been given to him that his life shall be spared have 
 been somewhat stronger than there has been warrant 
 for, as the fellow does not appear to have any anxiety or 
 doubt on that head. Capt. Hume, however, tells me 
 
440 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 that he has thro\Mi himself unconditionally on the mercy 
 of Government, he promising him to use his personal 
 interest with Government to save his life. I cannot, 
 however, omit saying that if solicitations on this head 
 will or can be listened to, none deserve to be more attended 
 to than those of Capt. Hume, as his zeal, activity and 
 exertions have been unremitted and indefatigable. 
 
 " The account which Dwyer gives of the dispositions 
 of the people is to us very satisfactory, and the more so 
 as it is corroborated by every person with whom I have 
 of late conversed on the subject, as well as by the unasked- 
 for declarations and protestations of the people them- 
 selves." 
 
 The prisoners were tried and sentenced to transporta- 
 tion to Botany Bay. The last glimpse we get of them 
 on their way to Australia is afforded by the following 
 letter signed " John Conellan," and addressed to Alex- 
 ander Marsden, the Under-Secretary, from Madeira, 
 where the convict ship had called : 
 
 " The Captain has been remarkably attentive and 
 humane to the con\'icts, having taken the whole charge 
 upon himself to see the prison washed, scrubed and 
 swabed perfectly dry every day, and fumigating occasion- 
 ally. From the good conduct of the convicts, he has taken 
 the irons off twelve of them, and all the rest have but one 
 leg in irons. Their state of health in general is very 
 good, but we have not been free of fever since they came 
 on board. The greatest discontent that prevails among 
 them is the want of tobacco, which I understand was 
 ordered for them by you, but was neglected to be sent on 
 board from Cork ; but the Captain, always attentive to 
 their complaints, went on shore this day for the purpose 
 of buying as much tobacco as will be sufficient for them 
 until we arrive at Rio Janeiro. 
 
 " Dwyer's party have behaved very well. Their 
 women occupy one of the hospitals. The Captain has 
 been remarkably civil to them, particularly to Byrne's 
 wife, who is far advanced in pregnancy. He frequently 
 sends her fresh soup, mutton, etc., from his own table. 
 In short all the convicts, men and women, seem highly 
 sensible of the Captain's humane attention to them, and 
 I hope they will continue to deserve it." 
 
IRELAND AFTER THE INSURRECTION 441 
 
 It is interesting to learn that Michael Dwyer ulti- 
 mately joined the police, and for eleven years was High 
 Constable of Sydney. He died in 1826. 
 
 He 3K 4c 
 
 What was the condition of Ireland after the suppres- 
 sion of the Insurrection ? On that subject " J. W.," or 
 Leonard MacNally, thus reported to Dublin Castle : 
 
 " ^rd December, 1803. 
 
 " The suspension of the Yeomanry from permanent 
 duty has not been followed by the slightest instance of 
 an alarming nature. On the contrary, the City has been, 
 ever since that event, perfectly tranquil, neither robbery, 
 riot, tumult, nor indication of sedition, or even private 
 quarrel having appeared. 
 
 " The theatre is tolerably attended. The audience 
 peaceable and zealously loyal in their plaudits on every 
 occasion that offers, and, indeed, every sentiment in 
 favour of the British Constitution, the British Navy, 
 British bravery, etc., etc., is received and marked with 
 the most zealous approbation. 
 
 " The Rebellion I consider as completely down, unless 
 a foreign foe should succeed in landing. The country 
 gentlemen daily coming to Dublin to attend the Terms, 
 and daily receiving letters from the country, give the 
 strongest assurance that the peasantry are quiet, attentive 
 to industry, and, in many places, strong in their declara- 
 tions against the admission of a French force. I have 
 reason to believe that the Roman Catholic clergy have 
 been extremely serviceable in impressing the minds of 
 the common people with the dread of a French Govern- 
 ment, and I can assure you that the statements made 
 on this subject by the Counsel for the prisoners recently 
 tried for treason has produced very considerable and very 
 general effect.* Such is really the situation of the country, 
 that unless a general hypocrisy prevails, and veil the real 
 sentiments of the people, nothing can be more true or 
 better founded than what the King says in his Speech 
 respecting this country. 
 
 " Mr. Fox is egregiously wrong, t He founds his 
 
 * This, of course, is a reference to MacNally himself. 
 t Fox had said in the House of Commons that there was no 
 evidence of the conspirators having sought the aid of France. 
 
442 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 opinion on Emmet's declaration in pnblic when on trial. 
 Bnt sure Mr. Fox could never have read Emmet's speech, 
 in which my private note coincides with that published 
 by Mr. Ridgeway. He says : ' I am charged with being 
 an emissary from France for the purpose of inciting in- 
 surrection in the coimtry, and then delivering it over to 
 the enemy '; and this he denies. But does he not say : 
 ' It is true there were communications between the United 
 Irishmen and France,' and that at the moment he spoke 
 ' there was a new agent at Paris negotiating with the 
 French Go\-ernment to obtain from them aid sulftcient 
 to accomplish the separation of Ireland from England '? 
 The only question was whether she was to come as ' an 
 enemy or as a friend,' — in whatever way she was to come 
 to Ireland Mr. Fox must allow she was to come as an 
 enemy to England. 
 
 " Mr. Emmet assured my friend* on the day of his 
 execution, that his brother and others in Paris had nego- 
 tiated for a French force ; that if they came with a treaty 
 they ought to be joined, and that if Ireland was once 
 separated from England by treaty she ought to establish 
 her independence against both France and England by 
 beating the French out of the island, if they remained as 
 conquerors. Emmet had no objection to French aid by 
 treaty ; he only objected to France conquering Ireland 
 for herself. 
 
 " Mr. Fox's assertion is considered here with great con- 
 tempt by every man who has a knowledge of what was 
 the system of United Irishmen. The aid of France was 
 their great dependence ; without it they will not act. 
 Emmet, with a luxuriant imagination, an ambitious mind, 
 and a very weak understanding, acted from the impulse 
 of such a disposition ; and as he said himself, on the day 
 of his death, a hope of being able to head an Irish army 
 and render the aid of France unnecessary. But be assured 
 of this, his frantic conduct has been considered by those 
 United Irishmen who were of his brother's school as a 
 biain blow to their politics. Their object was not even 
 to give cause of suspicion to Government until a landing 
 from France were completely effected and to rise as the 
 French moved through the country. Emmet knew this, 
 and so did many of the fugitives in Paris. 
 
 "J. W." 
 
 * Here again MacNally is referring to himself. 
 
EMMET'S SPEECH FROM THE DOCK 443 
 
 It was said in Paris that the version of Emmet's speech 
 in the dock pubHshed by Ridgeway was a fabrication in 
 the interest of the Government, especially the declara- 
 tion against the French, which, it was asserted, Emmet 
 had never delivered.* A later communication from 
 "J. W." deals with that subject. Dated February 8, 
 1804, and addressed " A. Marsden, Esq., etc., Castle," 
 it is endorsed " secret information," with the initials, no 
 doubt in Marsden's handwriting, " McN.": 
 
 " A Doctor Harnadge is arrived from New York, on 
 what business I know not. He brought letters and a 
 newspaper to my friendf from Charles Smith, late of 
 St. Mary's Abbey, an old and true friend to the Republican 
 party. He writes to my friend thus : ' 9th December, 
 1803. This day we have had an account of the execution 
 of Captain Russell. His death and R. Emmet's are 
 much regretted by the people of this truly happy land. 
 I am requested by a number of the most respectable 
 characters here to request of you to send out Mr. Emmet's 
 speech on his trial in manuscript that we may give it a 
 fair publication in our papers. I am very happy to 
 inform you that every good Republican in America not 
 only respects the Irish, but loves them.' 
 
 " In the newspaper, which is a Government print, is 
 a long elegiac poem to the memory of Emmet, And 
 Smith encloses a letter to Hans Dennison of Longford, 
 inviting him in the name of his brother in New York to 
 come out and reside there, and to bring his father with him. 
 
 " My friend intends sending the MS. of Emmet. Its 
 publication will contradict the assertion in the Moniteur 
 that Ridgeway's report is not genuine. 
 
 "J. W." 
 
 * From the diary of Thomas Addis Emmet : " Paris, October 
 20th, 1803. — Swiney has brought me the details of my dearest 
 Robert's trial and execution. His conduct is my only consolation 
 for his loss, but his speech, as given by the English Government, 
 would be very offensive here." " January 21st, 1804. — Mr. 
 O'Reilly arrived from Ireland, and brought me some extracts of 
 my brother's speech, which completely contradicted the abuse 
 he had been said to utter against the French. I therefore deter- 
 mined to lose no time in laying this before the Government, 
 together with more details he had given me respecting the political 
 and military situation of England and Ireland." 
 
 t My friend is, of course, MacNally himself. 
 
.}.M Till-: iA)!^i) inmricNAN r (urrs niic GAkri-.K 
 
 " Poclor H;nn.ulgc shall iiol hi' foruiof (di. 
 " Smith s.iv's : ' DcMinisoii's it-lalions hcvc arc iUc mosl 
 ivspcrtablo of this Stalo/ "♦ 
 
 In tlio debates in the House of Commons the Irish 
 
 Administration had been se\erely eritieised for its luck 
 
 of ])revious information about the conspiracy, and the 
 
 hesitation and feebleness of the military measures for 
 
 its suppression ; ami to the indignation of Hardwicke, 
 
 Addington's defence was half-hearted and a])ologetic. 
 
 General Ih^x had been recalled from Ireland, only to be 
 
 placed in command of the London district. This was 
 
 regarded by Hardwicke as another affront. But in 
 
 November, 1803, came something in the nature of a 
 
 sah'e to his feelings in an offer of the Garter by the 
 
 Prime Minister : 
 
 " Downing Street, 
 
 "Nov. 18, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 '' Having felt it to be due to your Excellency's 
 station and services to bring vmder his Majesty's con- 
 sideration your just pretensions to the dignity of the 
 Garter, I have great satisfaction in acquainting you of 
 his ^fajestv's gracious intention that you should supply 
 the vacancy occasioned by the death of the Marquis of 
 Stafford. 
 
 " I will only add that his Majesty is fully aware that 
 no wish upon this subject has been expressed, nor the 
 slightest intimation given either by your Excellency or 
 any of your friends or connections." 
 
 * " Catholics may care to know, though they will hardly attach 
 much importance to the accession, that Leonard McNally, ' after 
 life's fitful fever,' sank into the bosom of Rome. Father Smith of 
 Townsend Street Chapel, on February 13, 1820, gave him the 
 last rites. This priest, having got word that ' the Counsellor ' 
 wished to see him, went to his house in Harcourt Street, where 
 Mrs. McNally informed him that her husband was then asleep, 
 and must not be disturbed. McNally's son, who happened to be 
 coming downstairs at the moment, reproved his stepmother for 
 the indisposition she evinced to admit the clergyman, adding : 
 ' Can't you let him go to the devil his own way ?' He then con- 
 ducted the priest to the sick man's room." — W. J. FitzPatrick : 
 Secret Service under Pitt. 
 
THE CAUVER 445 
 
 Writing Iroin Oubliii (^astlo on Novembftr 22, iHr/^, 
 Ilanlwickc thus acceptc.fl the honour : 
 
 " My dkak Sir, 
 
 I am legally at. a h)ss to (express fo yon the r;tat(:- 
 fnl Sfns(; 1 (;titcrtain of his Majesty's grar.ions intention, 
 wliicl) yon have c.ornrnnnif atc-d to inc in so friftrully and 
 handsome a manner, to confer npon me the very hononr- 
 abl(; distinction of {\\v. (iarter. Highly flattered as I 
 mnst necessarily hav(^ been at any jMtriod by so singular 
 a mark of his Majesty's favour, the valu(i of it is greatly 
 enhanced by the mf)ment, as well as by the manner, in 
 which it is b(!stowed, since I consider it as a proof that 
 my humble but anxious endeavours to jjursue a system 
 in Ireland adapted to the circumstances of the time, and 
 suitable to his Majesty's gracious views and objects, have 
 not been entirely disapproved by my Sovereign. 
 
 " I must request you to lay me at his Majesty's feet, 
 and to convey my humble and dutiful, but certainly 
 inadequate, expressions of grateful acknowledgment." 
 
 Among the congratulations which the conferring of 
 this honour brought to Hardwicke was the following 
 characteristic epistle from Dr. Thomas B. Clarke : 
 
 " 24, Alsop Buildings, Mary-la-Bonne, 
 " 26tA Nov., 1803. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I am proud to acknowledge that I have more 
 obligation to your Excellency than to almost any other 
 man. For, during the honour of a long acquaintance, 
 during youth and manhood to this moment, and while 
 immersed in the proceedings of policy and State, you 
 have displayed one characteristic throughout — you never 
 deceived me. But, my Lord, I am not laudator temporis 
 acti se puero, though Time does bring on me, with no 
 unsparing hand, its afflictions, and menaces me by warn- 
 ings of speedy and more serious losses. For, whatever 
 years take from or bring on me, I rejoice that they will 
 never take from your Excellency public esteem or pri\ate 
 love, for the sense, virtue, and charity which have dis- 
 tinguished your government of Ireland And the most 
 honourable and adequate proof of this exists in the 
 gracious act of his Majesty, yesterday, by conferring on 
 your Excellency the Order of the Garter. 
 
44f> THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 " I ha\o reason to say that no man is better instrueted 
 on the state of Ireland than his INhijesty. 1 do therefore 
 most sincerely and with pride — for I feel no ordinary 
 interest in your well-doing and well-being — congratnlate 
 your Excellency on this deser\ed mark of Royal approba- 
 tion. May Hea\en preserve and prosper your Family, 
 your Go\ernment, your Life, your Health, and your 
 Friendships. Ireland has long wanted, and may it Ion ,'7 
 retain, such a model ; and we, who have the honor of 
 long knowing you, want the aid of such a friend and such 
 a man. 
 
 "■ Futuritv, however, will possess you. And had I not 
 been so long studying in order to live, without yet being 
 able to live in order to stud3^ I had formed the plan of 
 writing the history of a particular period, wherein the 
 importance of the events and the protection of your 
 Excellency's name, and others concerned in them, might 
 perhaps have handed down to posterity the author's 
 memorv. But whether I live or die, with respect to the 
 present or future generations, be assured that I am with 
 the highest veneration and gratitude, fond of your 
 virtues, and bound by your kindness to be always, my 
 dear Lord, your Excellency's humble, obedient, and 
 faithful servant, 
 
 " Thos. B. Clarke." 
 
 Here, also, is an amusing letter from the Bishop of 
 Norwich, as Registrar of the Order of the Garter : 
 
 " December the gth, 1803. 
 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " As an old acquaintance, and one always affect- 
 ing your Lordship's friendship, you will allow me to con- 
 gratulate with you on the late accession to your Honors. 
 As Registrar of the Order, it belongs to me to record your 
 election, and to attach to the record such historical facts 
 or fictions as my knowledge of you may furnish or in- 
 genuity invent. In the original Register called ' The 
 Liber Niger ' (a very proper name for a book of scandal, 
 tho' some people will tell you that it is so called because 
 covered with black velvet) there are found several curious 
 anecdotes and a good deal of scandalous history written 
 in passable Latin. 
 
 " At the close of the last Reign, or beginning of this, 
 the entries were ordered to be made in English, and the 
 
ADDINGTON AND THE IRISH ADMINISTRATION 447 
 
 Rrgistrar, of course, has lost his opportunity of making 
 known his classical talents, bnt his talent for lying is 
 left perfectly at large. I shall, therefore;, take leave to 
 deliver your lixcellency over to Posterity as tiie most 
 corrupt, abandoned and tyrannical Viceroy that ever 
 presided over an abused and virtuous people. 
 
 " From, my dear Lord, your sincere friend, 
 
 " C. NOKWICH. 
 
 " P.S. — It is my duty to mention to your Lordship that 
 his Majesty has authorised me to call upon you for Fifty 
 Pounds as a subscription to the fund established by the 
 Knights of the (iarter for the repair of the painted 
 windows and other decorations of St, George's Chapel." 
 
 The reply of Hardwicke to this communication was not 
 couched in the same vein of humour. It betrays his dis- 
 satisfaction with Addington's weak and vacillating defence 
 in the House of Commons of the Irish Administration in 
 connexion with the Emmet Insurrection. Marked 
 " Private," and dated " Dublin Castle, December 19, 
 1803," it runs : 
 
 " The honour itself, for which I could never have been 
 in contemplation, except from the situation in which I 
 happen to have been placed, certainly received additional 
 value in my estimation from the moment at which it was 
 conferred. I will not, however, conceal from you that 
 some declarations respecting the 23rd of July (if we are 
 to believe reports of debates in Parliament) were lately 
 drawn from persons, who might have been better in- 
 formed, not strictly correct. This I conceive to have 
 originated from a desire to satisfy all parties, a policy 
 which, however commendable, generally fails of success. 
 
 " I have no wish to enrich the Liber Niger. I shall 
 therefore confide my character, whether it be recorded 
 in Latin or in English, to your hands. I shall always be 
 desirous of a continuance of your Lordship's friendship 
 and good opinion, because, without a compliment, I am 
 very sensible of their value." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant was so angry because of the feeble 
 defence of his Administration by the Prime Minister in 
 the House of Commons that he had a long statement 
 
44^ THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 prepared asserting that the Irish Government had been 
 adequately informed beforehand of the conspiracy, and 
 that its outbreak on the night of July 23 was due entirely 
 to the absence of proper military arrangements by 
 General Fox, and copies of this statement he sent to his 
 particular friends in both Houses of Parliament. Among 
 the replies he received was this from Lord Warren- 
 Bulkeley : 
 
 " Private. 
 
 " PoYNTON, Stockport, 
 
 " Jan- 24, 1804. 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " I had your kind and confidential letter of ye 
 14th, and you may depend on me that I shall not abuse 
 ye trust you have reposed in me ; and I hope no further 
 discussions will take place in Parliament on a matter 
 which may do much mischief and no good. But if they 
 do I shall speak in Society as a friend of yours, and 
 according to ye honest truths you have related to me, 
 without quoting your Lordship's name, for we all know 
 that discussions in Society on great political questions 
 and differences have much to do with those in Parlia- 
 ment, and vice versa. 
 
 " I will not disguise from your Lordship that great 
 industry has been used by ye most violent of The Orange 
 Party to represent ye affair of July as a compleat Re- 
 bellion, and a surprise on the Government of Ireland, for 
 which they were unprepared, and of which they were not 
 aware and informed ; and by The Catholics as a trifle, a 
 little riot, not worthy of ye name of Insurrection, much 
 less of Rebellion. In saying this I only relate to you 
 what The Sons of St. Patrick of different persuasions said 
 and do say, for man}' of them have fallen in my way in 
 Wales, where there are too many of them ; and you know 
 they differ with The Scotch — who are very guarded — 
 and let out their opinions whatever they are, wise or 
 foolish, right or erroneous, hasty or digested, to every- 
 bod\' and before everybody ; and there are reasons which 
 occasion their being seldom contradicted, whether they 
 talk like men of understanding, like fools, or like knaves, 
 or like all three. I must, however, do them all ye justice 
 to say that in general they speak very handsomely of 
 
LETTER FROM LORD WARREN-BULKELEY 449 
 
 your Lordship and Lady Hardwickc, and that you arc 
 both very popuhir and rcsi)ectcd characters in Ireland. 
 
 " I am afraid from your letter many circumstances 
 are very unpleasant to you ; but all successive English 
 ("lovernmcnts don't pay half attention enough to ye 
 affairs of Ireland ; and ye consequence of that neglect 
 on ye part of all English Cabinets your Lordship feels 
 ye effects of, as well as your predecessors, many of whom 
 I have heard have made bitter complaints and strong 
 remonstrances, but in vain. Telle cause Tel Effet, and 
 till The English Cabinet have a good system relative to 
 Ireland, and support that system without varying and 
 changing, and support their Viceroys in ye same manner, 
 The Unruly Spirit of the Irish cannot be kept down, 
 except by ye sword, ye firelock, and ye bayonet. 
 
 " The Orangeman and The Catholic of Ireland are, in 
 my opinion, so full of inveteracy and uncharitableness 
 than an angel from Heaven could not settle ye unfor- 
 tunate differences of opinion which agitate, inflame, and 
 separate them ; and I do most sincerely pity a liberal, 
 sensible, right-minded man like your Lordship who at 
 any time, and particularly ye times we now live in, is 
 placed in ye responsible situation you are, in ye midst 
 of such a people. However, ye greater ye risk and 
 danger, ye greater The Honor and Glory. I have no 
 doubt you will get through it with credit, as you have 
 hitherto done ; but your situation is a very difficult one, 
 as I am sure Fox and The Hutchinsons will push The 
 Catholic Emancipation ye ensuing Sessions, and ye agita- 
 tion of ye question, however small ye minority, or great 
 ye majority, will set ye common people of Ireland several 
 degrees more mad and bloodthirsty and murderous than 
 they are at present. 
 
 " Excuse all this nonsense on my part, my dear Lord ; 
 and with my compliments to Lady Hardwicke and with 
 every good wish, believe me, with much regard and 
 esteem, your sincere and faithful, 
 
 " Warren-Bulkeley." 
 
 * * * 
 
 In January, 1804, the Lord Lieutenant was startled 
 to learn from the Hon. George Knox, M.P. for Dublin 
 University, that in June, 1803, he had been the means 
 through which information of the existence of the Emmet 
 
 29 
 
450 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 conspiracy had been communicated to William Wick- 
 ham, the Chief Secretary, and that Wickham, probably 
 believing it to be unfounded, took no action. The in- 
 foiTOation came from Peter Burrowes, a lawyer, who had 
 been one of the most active and eloquent opponents of 
 the measure of the Union in the House of Commons. In 
 confirmation of his story Knox sent to Hardwicke the 
 following most interesting extract from his private 
 Diary : 
 
 *' June 1st, 1803, London. — Received the following 
 letter from P. Burrowes : 
 
 " ' May 28M. 
 " ' My dear Knox, 
 
 " ' Since I sealed my letter I have had a communica- 
 tion by mere accident which inclines me to think I mis- 
 informed you on the chief point of my letter. I am sorry 
 to say that I think there is an invisible revolutionary 
 Government in great forwardness and activity, and that 
 they have numerous partisans in the City of Dublin, and 
 all through Leinster, in the City of Limerick and other 
 parts. I believe also, notwithstanding Mr. Bell's assur- 
 ance, that Arthur O'Connor is the principal agent be- 
 tween the French Government and the emissaries here, 
 who are all men of inferior rank in life, but of boldness 
 and talents, natives of this country, and some of them 
 engaged, but not much noticed, in the battles which were 
 fought . I understand that several such men had quantities 
 of gold in Dublin, of which they were very liberal. The 
 person who spoke to me is a man of perfect veracity, who 
 would be received to any degree of confidence by the 
 party, who is rather of a Republican cast, but a man of 
 feeling and conscience, and perfectly awake to the final 
 inefficacy of a struggle and the misery which would 
 attend it. He is also a man having a family, and con- 
 siderable prospects in a profession. He has no scruple 
 of giving any information which may tend to defeat the 
 revolutionary objects, but will not do anything which a 
 man of principle and honor ought not to do. I know 
 him above twenty years, and am certain of his sincerity 
 and truth. If I should leam anything from him I really 
 know not any person through whom I could communi- 
 
DISCLOSURES BY PETER BURROWES 451 
 
 cate it to Government without the hazard of some un- 
 pleasant consequences. My friend is a Roman Catholic, 
 and not a lawyer. 
 
 " ' Yours truly, 
 
 " ' P. BURROWES.' 
 
 " I answered that I should keep the secret, and spe.ik 
 to the Minister. I showed Addington the letter in the 
 House, having previously torn off the signature. He 
 expressed himself obliged, thought it a matter to be 
 attended to, and wished me to speak about it to Lord 
 Castlereagh. 
 
 " Friday, June ^rd, 1803, London. — Saw Wickham. 
 We settled that Burrowes should write to Marsden under 
 the signature of ' Junius.' 
 
 " Friday, June 10th, London. — Received a letter from 
 Burrowes. The design of the rebels is to prepare the 
 common people for a rising, but not to organize them ; 
 not to arm them individually, but to have depots of arms 
 for them when the insurrection was to begin. The great 
 object then to be to seize upon the Capital. The French 
 at the same time that they are to invade England are to 
 land somewhere between Wicklow and Dublin, which is 
 to be the signal for an attack upon the Capital from 
 without and from within. Left his letter at Wickham's. 
 
 " Monday, June 13th, 1803, London. — A letter from P. 
 Burrowes. He consents that his name should be known 
 to Wickham, and that he should communicate with him 
 or Mr. Flint. Another person, a friend of his, who ought 
 to know the proceedings of the disaffected, gave him a 
 different account from the former, and represents matters 
 more favourably ; but he has rather more reliance on 
 the sincerity of the first. Sent Burrowes' letter to Wick- 
 ham." 
 
 The paper containing these extracts from the diary of 
 George Knox has the following note in the handwriting 
 of the Lord Lieutenant : 
 
 " N.B. — Not one word of this letter of the loth of June 
 was communicated to Dublin until after the 23rd of July. 
 Nor did I ever hear of these letters till some time after 
 
 29 — 2 
 
452 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 Mr. Wickham's arrival in August. I never saw these 
 copies till February, 1804, when the subject had been 
 mentioned in Parliament, and when I procured from 
 Mr. G. Knox what I could not obtain from Mr. Wick- 
 ham's papers. — H." 
 
 In a letter to Lord Cathcart, the new Commander of 
 the Forces in Ireland, dated March 8, 1804, enclosing a 
 copy of this document, the Viceroy says : 
 
 " The paper containing intelligence of the intentions of 
 
 the rebels is very curious at present, because the truth of 
 
 it has been since, unfortunately, confirmed, and had it 
 
 been communicated on this side of the water, instead of 
 
 the other, it might have produced some advantage, as 
 
 the connexions of the writer were known to have been 
 
 such as would have given credibility to any information 
 
 from that quarter." 
 
 * * * 
 
 The fate of the actors in the drama who survived the 
 Special Commission can be told in a few words. Dow- 
 dall and Allan the draper were the only leading members 
 of the conspiracy who succeeded in escaping from the 
 country. Hamilton, Russell's brother-in-law, was not 
 brought to trial, as he, like Quigley, made a full disclosure, 
 on condition that his life was spared. He lay in Kilmain- 
 ham, with Philip Long, the rich merchant who supplied 
 the funds, Patten, Emmet's friend, Anne Devlin, St. John 
 Mason, and others, under the Act for the suspension of 
 Habeas Corpus. The Act was to expire on March 16, 
 1806. In February the Whig Government of Grenville 
 and Fox had replaced Pitt's last Administration. Hard- 
 wicke, on the eve of his leaving Ireland, urged that the 
 Act should be renewed. 
 
 "If it should be thought necessary at the present 
 moment," he wrote, " to require evidence either of 
 existing conspiracy, or extended disaffection, in order 
 to justify a further continuance of the Act, it must be 
 confessed that no such evidence can at this moment be 
 produced. 
 
 5> 
 
THE SURVIVORS OF THE INSURRECTION 453 
 
 But he thought that as long as the War with France 
 continued the Government of Ireland ought to be in- 
 vested with power to arrest and detain in prison persons 
 suspected of disaffection. In reply, Lord Spencer, the 
 new Home Secretary, writing from Whitehall, Feb- 
 ruary 17, 1806, said the Ministers were unanimously of 
 opinion that, in the circumstances, it was impossible for 
 them to propose to Parliament a further suspension of 
 Habeas Corpus. This was in the official letter. In a 
 " private and confidential " communication which accom- 
 panied it Spencer writes : 
 
 " With regard to Quigley, whose particular case you 
 have noticed in your private letter to me of the 12th 
 instant, it would, no doubt, be highly proper to adopt 
 some means by which the advantage derived from his 
 disposition and power to give useful information should 
 be secured to Government as far as may be ; and for this 
 purpose I take the liberty of suggesting that it would be 
 advisable to secure to him whatever remuneration your 
 Excellency may deem reasonable out of the Secret Service 
 Money ; and with a view to prevent suspicion of his 
 connection with the Government, I also take the liberty 
 of suggesting that it might be desirable to release him 
 among the last, which, at the same time, would give us 
 the advantage of any intelligence he might obtain pend- 
 ing the gradual liberation of these people, by the same 
 means as I understand him to have used ever since they 
 have been confined." 
 
 So in March, 1806, the prisoners were released. Quigley 
 
 took a farm at Rathcoffey, his native place in Kildare. 
 
 He was evicted in 1842, but being at the time too ill to 
 
 be removed, the bailiffs allowed him to remain to die 
 
 in his old home. Anne Devlin, in her later years a poor 
 
 Dublin washerwoman, unknown and unnoticed, survived 
 
 until 185 1. 
 
 * * * 
 
 " They who make half revolutions dig their own 
 graves," says Saint-Just. Every established Govern- 
 ment is compelled by the instinct of self-preservation 
 
454 THE LORD LIEUTENANT GETS THE GARTER 
 
 to brand as " traitors " and to pursue to the death 
 those who by revolution seek its overthrow. But the 
 pathos of failure in a hopeless cause has an irresistible 
 fascination. To humanity it appeals with the glamour 
 of romance. The world will ever refuse to hold in execra- 
 tion the memories of those who give their lives on the 
 gallows for an idea. At any rate, in Ireland the tragic 
 story of Robert Emmet will endure for ever. He is 
 the dearest saint in the calendar of Irish political 
 martyrology. In the humblest cabins of the land may 
 be seen — with the pictures of the Blessed Virgin and 
 St. Patrick — rude portraits of Emmet, as he would wish 
 perhaps to be remembered — in his cocked hat and 
 feathers, his green and gold and white uniform, as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the Forces of the Irish Republic. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbot, Charles, Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland, 3, 57, 59, 95, 156, 
 248 ; Lord Clare's behaviour, 62, 
 155 ; Cooke's abuse of, 63 ; Sir 
 John Parnell, 89 ; John Foster, 
 90 ; his correspondence with the 
 Primate, 98, 101-105, 115 ; Mr. 
 Grady, 163 ; McKenna and the 
 pension fund, 183, 184 ; Mr. 
 Dick Martin, 239 
 
 Abercorn, Lord, 43, 52, 245, 246 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, 124 
 
 Acheson, Colonel, 195, 206 
 
 Adair, G., 47 
 
 Addington, Henry, Premier, i, 304, 
 305 ; his interview with George 
 III., 3 ; Hardwicke's promise to 
 Lord Charleville, 54, 60, 63 ; the 
 King's promise to Lord Thomond, 
 5S"57. 59. 63 ; Hardwicke on 
 Irish cabals, 62 ; Hardwicke on 
 Creighton and Ross Castle, 68 ; 
 Sir John Parnell, 89 ; John 
 Foster, 91 ; the Primate and 
 Bishop Beresford, 98-101, 107, 
 109, no, 1 1 2-1 18 ; on the Totten- 
 ham Loftus claim, 121, 122 ; Dr. 
 Butson and Lord John Beres- 
 ford, 125-130, 132-134, 137-142, 
 144 ; the lawyers and the Union, 
 151, 152 ; Lord Redesdale, 159 ; 
 Lord Llandafi, 197 ; Lord Sligo's 
 ambition, 198-200 ; his promise 
 to Templetown, 207 ; Lord 
 Roden, 209, 214 ; no longer 
 Premier, 211 ; Hardwicke's re- 
 port on the Emmet Insurrection, 
 279 ; Home Office Papers, 381 ; 
 his weak defence of the Irish 
 Administration, 444, 447 ; Peter 
 Burrowes, 451 
 
 Agar, Dr. Charles, Archbishop of 
 Cashel, then Dublin, 94-96, 207 
 
 Alexander. Rev. Dr. Nathaniel, 
 Bishop of Clonfert, 43, 96-98, 100, 
 102-104, 107 ; Bishop of Killaloc, 
 132 
 
 Allan, the draper, 452 
 
 Allen and Hickson, 283 
 
 Alvanley, Lord, 90 
 
 Amiens, Treaty of , 1 2 ; Peace of, 22 1 
 
 Angereau, General, 270 
 
 Archdale, M.P., 50 
 
 Armit, Mrs., 52 
 
 Asgill, General Sir Charles, 287, 
 288, 294, 364, 439 
 
 Ashtown, Lord, on feo. Galway, 267 
 
 Avonmore, Lord (Baron Yelver- 
 ton), 89, 156-158 
 
 Aylmer, Lieutenant-Colonel, 288 
 
 Aylmer, Mr., 180, 181, 188, 190 
 
 Backlane Parliament, 308 
 
 Baker, M.P., Mr., 48 
 
 Bannan, James, principal leader of 
 mob in Emmet Insurrection, 292 
 
 Barrington, Sir Jonah, 86-88 ; his 
 Personal Recollections of his 
 Own Times quoted, 86, 88, 91, 
 93, 223, 231, 310 ; author of 
 The Rise and Fall of the Irish 
 Nation, 87 
 
 Baynes of Lisburn, Edward, 413 
 
 Beckwith, Colonel, 364 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, Viceroy of Ire- 
 land, 215, 250 
 
 Bell, Miss, 278 
 
 Bell, Mr., 450 
 
 Bell, Mr. Justice, 341 
 
 Bellew, Sir Patrick, 52, 182, 183 
 
 Bellew, William, 52, 53, 176, 182, 183 
 
 Belmore, Lord, 245 
 
 Belvidere, Lord, 52 
 
 Beresford, John, " The King of 
 Ireland," 31, 32, 90, 96-98, 105, 
 115, 118, 126 
 
 455 
 
456 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Beresford, George De La Poer, 
 Bishop of Kilmore, 43 ; the Pri- 
 mate's protests, 96-1 19 
 
 Beresford, Lord John George, 
 Bishop of Cork, Archbishop of 
 Armagh, 126-129, 138, 144, 145, 
 149, i^'sc 211-213 
 
 Beresford, Brigadier-General W. C, 
 
 439 
 Bethel, Isaac Burke, 10-12 
 Bishoprics, the hunt for, 120-150 
 Bishops, profligate Irish, 94-119 
 Bisset, Rev. — , 44, 143 
 Blackwood, Sir James, 196 
 Blake of Ardfry, 437 
 Blake, Henry James, Port Surveyor 
 
 of Galway, 82, 83 
 Blaquiere, John, Lord de, 49, 52, 
 
 91-93 
 Boswell, 98 
 Boyle, Lord, 16 
 Brady, Lieutenant, 292 
 Bridge, an informer, 312 
 Bristol, Earl of, Bishop of Derry, 
 
 43. 123 
 Brodrick, Dr. Charles, Archbishop 
 
 of Cashel, 96, 102 
 Bromhead, Mrs., 52 
 Brooke, M.P. for Donegal, 48 
 Browne, Arthur, Prime Serjeant, 
 
 35, 51. 153, 154, 163, 166-171 
 Browne, Colonel, 21st Regiment, 
 
 292, 299, 434 
 Browne, Denis, M.P. for Mayo, 50, 
 
 22S, 229, 317 
 Browne, George, 50, 228-230 
 Browne, Wogan, 387 
 Brownrigg, Colonel, 58 
 Bruce, Captain, 86 
 Bruen, Colonel and Mrs., 47 
 Bulkeley, Lord Warren-, 448 
 -Burke, Edmund, 320, 324, 396 
 Burke, M., 49 
 Burrowes, Peter, 69 ; counsel for 
 
 Emmet, 388, 389, 393, 450, 451 
 Burton, M.P., Colonel Francis N., 
 
 46, 193, 194 
 Burton, Counsellor, 352, 389 
 Bute, Earl of, 97 
 Butson, Dr., Dean of Waterford, 
 
 122, 126, 128-130, 133-142 ; 
 
 Bishop of Clonfert, 144 
 Byrne, a baker, 433, 440 
 
 Callan, Lord, 48 
 
 Camden, Lord, Viceroy of Ireland 
 
 (1796), 14, 21, 22, 73-75, 154, 180, 
 
 232, 365 
 Cameron, Mrs., 259 
 
 Campbell,, Mr. 131 
 
 Cane, M.P., Captain, 48, 50 
 
 Cane, Bart., Sir John, 86 
 
 Carew, Reginald Pole, Charles 
 Yorke's secretary, 306, 326, 329, 
 338, 389. 398, 426, 436, 437 
 
 Carleton, Alderman, 334 
 
 Carleton, Francis, J. P., 255 
 
 Carleton, Lord, 320 
 
 Carroll, William, butcher, 414 
 
 Carter, Rev. — , Archbishop of Ar- 
 magh's chaplain, 113 
 
 Casey, Mr., 84 
 
 Cashel, Archbishop of, translated to 
 DubUn, 43 
 
 Castlereagh, Viscount, Chief Secre- 
 tary for Ireland, 2, 304, 436, 451, 
 the Union Engagements, 7, 15, 
 40, 140, 143, 163, 184 ; Lord 
 Donoughmore, 17, 18 ; Rev. 
 PhiUp Johnson, 24, 25 ; Dr. Thos. 
 Brooke Clarke, 30-33, 36 ; Lord 
 Wallscourt's reminder, 82; 
 Grady, 163 ; William Johnson, 
 172 ; Catholics and the Union, 
 176, 321 ; Joseph Peacocke, 194 ; 
 Lady Dufierin, 196 ; his promise 
 to Sir George Shee, 205, 206 ; 
 Mr. Martin, 238, 239 ; George 
 Knox, 246, 247 ; his pa^an of joy 
 over success of the Union, 254 ; 
 his confidence in Edward Cooke, 
 
 365 
 Cathcart, Lord, Commander of 
 
 Forces in Ireland, 452 
 Catholic Emancipation, 2, 4, 8 
 Catholics and the Union, 176-192 
 Cavendish, Sir Henry, Receiver- 
 General, 49, 204, 206 
 Celbridge Abbey, co. Kildare, 295 
 Chamberlayne, Judge, 53, 164, 166 
 Charles II., 201 
 Charleville, Charles William Bury, 
 
 Viscount, 54-57, 59, 60, 63-65 
 Chatterton, Sir James, 171, 172 
 Chester, Rev. Charles, and his 
 
 appeals to Hardwicke, 5, 6, 12, 
 
 130 
 Chester, Dean Robert, 6 
 Clanbrassil, Earl of, 78 
 Clancarty, Earl of, 49, 50, 120, 185, 
 
 186, 195, 196, 236, 238-241 
 Clanwilliam, Richard Meade, Earl 
 
 of, 37 
 Clare, John Fitzgibbon, Earl of. 
 Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the 
 College Visitation, 22 ; on Lord 
 Charleville, 56 ; a most powerful 
 advocate of the Union, 61 ; his 
 
INDEX 
 
 457 
 
 behaviour to Hardwicke, 62, 63 ; 
 the Consular Exchequer, 69 ; 
 the lawyers and the Union, 154 ; 
 his death, 155-157, 159 ; his 
 salary and fees, 161 ; his support 
 of Baron Smith, 162 
 
 Clare, Lady, 53 
 
 Clarke, a Dublin magistrate, 294 
 
 Clarke, D.D., Thomas Brooke, 29- 
 36. 233-235, 445 
 
 Cleland, Rev. — , Precentor of Ar- 
 magh, 44, 142 
 
 Clement, Lord, 47 
 
 Clemlow, Mathew, 45 
 
 Clemlow, Rev. — , 45 
 
 Clonbrock, Lord, 236 
 
 Clonfert, Bishop of, 52 
 
 Commission for trial of Dublin 
 prisoners. Special, 432 
 
 Coldstream, Lieutenant, 259 
 
 Cole, Rev. — , 142 
 
 College Visitation, the, 21, 22 
 
 CoUinson, 387 
 
 Colville, Governor of Bank, 271, 
 340 
 
 Condon, 437 
 
 Conellan, John, 440 
 
 Coney, Mr., 239 
 
 Connolly, Mr., 325 
 
 ConoUy of Castletown, " the great 
 Irish Commoner," 201 
 
 Conolly, Lady Louisa, 201 
 
 Conyngham, Lord, 194 
 
 Cooke, Edward, Under-Secretary 
 for Ireland, 21, 63, 85, 166, 231, 
 304, 365-367 
 
 Cork CoUectorship of Excise, 15-20 
 
 Cornwallis, Marquis, Viceroy of 
 Ireland, 3 ; his Union engage- 
 ments and promises, 7, 8, 21, 22, 
 40, 41, 68. 71-75. 120, 123, 138, 
 140, 143, 162, 193, 195, 218, 219 ; 
 Lord Donoughmore, 17, 18 ; 
 T. B. Clarke, 36 ; Lord Thomond, 
 57 ; Lord Roden, jj, 80, 81, 208, 
 210 ; the bribers and the bribed, 
 94 ; the Archbishopric of Armagh, 
 97 ; Dr. Alexander, 103, 107 ; 
 Lord Ely, 137, 146 ; his law pro- 
 motions, 154, 162, 165, 166 ; 
 Dr. Browne, 169 ; Catholics and 
 the Union, 176, 321 ; Dr. Troy, 
 177 ; his promise to Lord Ken- 
 mare, 179, 180 ; Myles Keon, 
 181 ; Bellew, 183 ; Sir Boyle 
 Roche, 188 ; Lord Llandafi, 197 ; 
 correspondence with Hardwicke 
 as to Sir George Shee, 203-206 ; 
 Lord Templetown, 207 ; Hugh 
 
 I Dillon Massey, 220 ; plenipoten- 
 j tiary at Amiens, 221 ; story of 
 the Kerry Militia, 223 ; Lord 
 Sligo, 229 ; Sir R. Musgrave, 231, 
 232 ; George Knox, 246-250 ; 
 liberates a rebel without trial, 
 313; wishes to cede everything to 
 the Catholics, 321 
 
 Cornwallis Corre'spondence, The, 40, 
 42, 95, 176, 183 
 
 Corry, Isaac, Chancellor of Irish 
 Exchequer, 76, 365 ; his duel 
 with Grattan, 78 
 
 Corry, Lord, 246 
 
 Cotter, M.P. (Tontine Ofhce), 47 
 
 Cotton, Colonel, 289 
 
 Cottrell, Sir Clement, 13 
 
 Coyle, Bernard, a noted rebel, 312, 
 
 313 
 
 Craven, Lord, 5 
 
 Creighton, Lieutenant-Colonel John, 
 Governor of Heist Castle, 48, 67, 
 69, 70, 72 
 
 Criminals, confession and absolu- 
 tion of condemned, 363-387 
 
 Crosbie, Colonel, 222-228 
 
 Crosbie, Mrs., 224 
 
 Crosbie, W., Weighmaster of Cork, 
 83, 84, 185, 187-190, 230 
 
 Curran, John Philpot, 336, 399 ; 
 Emmet's advocate, 342, 359-361 ; 
 defends Kirwan, 371 ; and Red- 
 mond, 373 ; throws up his brief 
 for Emmet, 388-391 ; his treat- 
 ment of Sarah, 410, 411 
 
 Curran, Richard, 400 
 
 Curran, Miss Sarah, 388, 390, 391, 
 400, 409 ; and Robert Emmet, 
 331-362 ; her character, 353 ; 
 banished by her father : marries 
 Captain Sturgeon, 411 
 
 Daly, Bowes, 242, 243 
 
 Daly, Mr. Justice St. George, 51 ; 
 
 Baron of Court of Exchequer, 
 
 152, 167 
 Dalrymple, Sir John, 5 
 Delany, Malachi, 270 
 Dennison, Hans, 443 
 Denny, Sir Barry, 171 
 Denyer, Lord Clare's secretary, i6i 
 Devlin, Anne, 273, 291, 292, 331 
 
 336. 452, 453 
 Dictionary of National Biography, 
 
 .98 
 Dignities and titles, distribution of, 
 
 193-217 
 Dillon, Dr., titular Archbishop of 
 
 Tuam, 315 
 
458 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dobbs, Dr., Dean of Connor, 23, 46 
 
 Donegall, Marquis of, 23 
 
 Donellan, Mr., Customer of Water- 
 ford and Ross, 52, 176, 185, 186, 
 230 
 
 Donoughmore, Richard Hely- 
 Hutchinson, Lord, and the Cork 
 CoUectorship of Excise, 16-20 
 
 Doran, 434 
 
 Douglas, Rev. Dr., 382 
 
 Dowdall, Thomas, 258, 351, 405, 
 452 
 
 Downes, Chief Justice, 167 
 
 Downshire, Lord, 25, 27, 69 
 
 D'Oyer Hundred Court at Cork, 
 171 
 
 Drummond, Under-Secretary for 
 Ireland, 426 
 
 Dundalk, CoUectorship of, 76-78, 
 80-83 
 
 Dublin Evening Post, 369 
 
 Dublin Journal, 232 
 
 Dublin University, 35 
 
 Duff, Sir James, yy 
 
 Dufferin, Baroness, 50, 195, 196 
 
 Dundas, General, yj 
 
 Dundas, Henry (afterwards Lord 
 Melville), 2, 29, 30-33, 35,90, 234, 
 320 
 
 Dunlo, Lord. See Clancarty, Earl of 
 
 Dunn, a priest, 312 
 
 Dunn, George, turnkey of Kil- 
 mainham Gaol, 355-357 
 
 Dunn, John, Governor of Kil- 
 mainham Gaol, 356 
 
 Dunne, General, 287, 364 
 
 Dutton, Frederick Henry Hamp- 
 den, 255 
 
 Dwyer, Michael, insurgent leader, 
 272, 438-440 ; High Constable of 
 Sydney, 441 
 
 Egan, John, 88, 89 
 
 Eldon, Lord, 381-384 
 
 Elphin, Bishop of, 318 
 
 Elrington, Dr., Trinity College, 
 278 
 
 Ely, Marquis of, 121-123, 125, 130, 
 132-139, 144, 146, 148 
 
 Emmet, Robert, 22, 151, 167, 432- 
 434, 442, 443 ; his birth and 
 parentage, 252, 253 ; expelled 
 from Trinity College, 254 ; head 
 of the Insurrection, 269-271 ; 
 his confederates and plans, 272 ; 
 Dr. Elrington's description of, 
 278 ; hastens the Insurrection, 
 282 ; and the Kildare farmers, 
 284 ; the fateful evening, 289 ; 
 
 his flight, 291 ; Sarah Curran 
 and, 331-362 ; his arrest at 
 Harold's Cross, 335-337 ; com- 
 mitted to Kilmainham for high 
 treason, 337 ; secret examination 
 of- 347'352 ; attempted escape 
 from Kilmainham, 355 ; trial and 
 execution of, 388-412 ; his speech 
 from the dock, 395, 396 ; how 
 he met his doom, 407 
 
 Emmet, Dr., 252, 253, 334 
 
 Emmet, Thomas Addis, 253, 257, 
 259. 270, 334, 339, 354, 399, 409, 
 412, 443 
 
 Emmet, Mrs. T. A., 259, 339, 409 
 
 Emmet Insurrection, 252-297 ; 
 explosion in the Patrick Street 
 depot, 279 ; a Popish plot (?) 298- 
 330 ; Special Commission for trial 
 of prisoners, 369-377 
 
 Erne, Lord, 48, 67, 69, 70, 72 
 
 Evening Post, 335 
 
 Farrell, 340, 390 
 
 Faulkner, M.P., Mr., 49 
 
 Ferns, Bishop of, 124, 147, 149 
 
 Fingall, Lady, 52, 185 
 
 Fingall, Lord, 52, 176, 183, 185, 
 230, 308, 325 
 
 Fitton, Edward B., 397 
 
 Fitzgerald, Attorney-General, 301 
 
 FitzGerald, Lady Anne, 331-335 
 
 FitzGerald, Lord Edward, 201,208, 
 313. 327. 332. 365-367. 384. 386, 
 437 
 
 FitzGerald, Maurice, Knight of 
 Kerry, 332 
 
 FitzGerald, Rev. Gerald, Vice- 
 Provost of Trinity College, 169 
 
 Fitzherbert, Mrs., yT, 
 
 Fitzpatrick, W. J., Secret Service 
 under Pitt, 444 
 
 Fitzwilliam, Earl, Viceroy of Ire- 
 land (1795). 7d>. 365 
 
 Flint, C. W., 84, 451 
 
 Fortescue, M.P., Faithful, 46, 52 
 
 Fort George, Irish conspirators of 
 1798 imprisoned at, 257-259 ; 
 released, 260 
 
 Forster, Mr., 250 
 
 Foster, John, last Speaker of Irish 
 Parliament, 87, 90, 91 
 
 Foster, Collector of Excise at Cork, 
 
 17. 19 
 Foster, Colonel, 90, 91 
 
 Fowler, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, 
 
 95 
 Fox, Charles James, 201, 266, 441, 
 
 442, 452 
 
INDEX 
 
 459 
 
 Fox, General, Commander of the 
 Forces in Ireland, 265, 266, 286- 
 288, 294, 298, 364, 444, 448 
 
 Fox, Mr. Justice, 154 
 
 France, war with, 256, 263, 265, 
 271 
 
 Frank, Dublin stockbroker, 389 
 
 Frayne, 437 
 
 Freeman's Journal, 366 
 
 Freemasonry in Ireland, 265 
 
 French, Rev. Dr., 46 
 
 French, Humphrey, 75, 307 
 
 French, Sir Thomas, 52 
 
 Galway County, 236-241 
 
 Gamble, Rev. — , 404, 405 
 
 Gardiner, Lieutenant-Colonel, 72 
 
 Gataker, Mr., 78 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 411 
 
 Geoghegan, Mr., 316 
 
 George, Baron, 423 
 
 George III,, and Catholic Emanci- 
 
 ^ pation, 2 ; appoints Addington 
 Premier, 3-5 ; grumbles at Bill 
 of Union, 40 ; and the Irish 
 Peerage, 54-65 ; and Lords Tho- 
 mond and Charleville, 55-65 ; 
 appoints Stuart Archbishop of 
 Armagh, 97 ; and Mitford, 1 59 ; 
 Lady Sarah Lennox, 201 ; on 
 Emmet Insurrection, 300, 305 ; 
 censures Dublin Castle officials, 
 306, 363 ; on Emmet and Miss 
 Curran, 361 ; and Duke of 
 Leinster, 386 
 
 George IV., 73 
 
 Gibbons, junior, John, 316 
 
 Glandore, John Crosbie, Earl of, 
 222-227 
 
 Goodenough, Rev. Dr., 124 
 
 Goold, M.P., Thomas, 69 
 
 Gordon, Captain, 424 
 
 Gormanstown, Lord, 325 
 
 Gosford, Lord, 50, 195, 206 
 
 Gouldsbury, Rev. Ponsonby, 46 
 
 Grady, J. S., Counsel to Revenue 
 Commissioners, 51, 162-166, 
 182 
 
 Grant, Rev., 404, 405 
 
 Grattan, Henry, his duel with 
 Corry, 78 ; and John Egan, 88 ; 
 his Life quoted, 95 ; his follower, 
 George Knox, 244 ; on Dr. 
 Emmet, 253 ; at Celbridge Abbey, 
 295 
 
 Graves, Dr., Dean of Connor, 46 
 
 Grenville, Lord, 250, 452 
 
 Grinfield, Lieutenant-General, 436 
 
 Gurnet, Father, the Jesuit, 311 
 
 Habeas Corpus Act suspended in 
 Ireland, 453, 454 
 
 Haley, Bernard, 330 
 
 Hall, S. C, Retrospect of a Long Life, 
 quoted, 235, 243 
 
 Hambert, General, 286 
 
 Hamilton (Russell's brother-in- 
 law), 416, 452 
 
 Hamilton, Mr., Under-Secretary 
 for Ireland, 231 
 
 Hamilton, M.P., Alexander, 48 
 
 Hamilton, M.P., Hans, 49 
 
 Hamilton, Sir John, 222 
 
 Hamilton, William, an Irish officer 
 in French army, 272 
 
 Harcourt, Lord, Viceroy of Ireland, 
 
 91 
 
 Hardwicke, Lady, 5 
 
 Hardwicke, Philip Yorke, Earl of, 
 first Viceroy of Ireland after the 
 Union, 4 ; his post-bag, 5 et seq. ; 
 an embarrassing heritage, 7 ; 
 his views on Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion, 8, 9 ; applications from 
 place-hunters, 10 ; the audacious 
 Bethel, 1 1 ; Rev. Charles Chester, 
 12, 130 ; Cork Collector ship of 
 Excise — Lords Longueville and 
 Donoughmore, 15-20; Macartney, 
 21 ; Rev. Philip Johnson, 24 ; 
 Thomas Brooke Clarke, 29, 233, 
 445 ; Admiral Whitshed's letter, 
 36 ; Lord Clanwilliam's petition, 
 39 ; List of Union Engagements, 
 40-53 ; dispute with Cabinet as 
 to patronage, 54 ; contest for an 
 Irish peerage — Lords Charleville 
 and Thomond, 54-65 ; the 
 scramble for place, 66-93 > 
 Colonel Creighton, 67 ; Bishop 
 O'Beirne, 72 ; Lord Roden and 
 the Dundalk Collectorship, 76- 
 81 ; Lord Wallscourt, 81, 82 ; 
 the interesting case of Sir Vere 
 Hunt, 83 ; Sir Boyle Roche, 85, 
 86, 189 ; Sir Jonah Harrington, 
 
 87 ; John Egan's hunt for a job, 
 
 88 ; Sir John Parnell, 89 ; John 
 Foster, the late Speaker, 90 ; 
 Lord Blaquiere, 91-93 ; Arch- 
 bishop Agar, 95, 207 ; the Pri- 
 mate and Bishop Beresford, 97- 
 119; the hunt for bishoprics, 
 120-150 ; Bishop Trench of 
 Waterford, 121 ; the Tottenham 
 Loftus claim, 122, 132-144; 
 Bishop Knox, 123-125 ; Lord 
 John Beresford, 126, 132 ; Dr. 
 Butson, 126, 132-144; the 
 
460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Waterford claim, 145 ; lawyers 
 and the Union, 151-175 ; So- 
 licitor-General Plunket, 152 ; the 
 case of Edmund Stanley, 153, 173- 
 175; Lord Clare, 154; Lord 
 Redesdale's terms, 159; William 
 Johnson, 161, 165 ; J. S. Grady, 
 163 ; Grady v. the humble 
 Arthur Browne, 166-170 ; Chat- 
 terton's claim, 171 ; the Catho- 
 lics and the Union, 176-192 ; 
 Dr. Troy's nephew, 177 ; Lord 
 Kennare's brother-in-law, 179 ; 
 Myles Keon, a Catholic leader, 
 181 ; Bellew and M'Kenna, 183 ; 
 Lord Fingall's brother-in-law, 
 185 ; Crosbie the Sinecurist, 
 187 ; Matthew F. Lynch, 190 ; 
 distribution of titles and digni- 
 ties, 193-217 ; Colonel Burton, 
 194 ; supplementary honour en- 
 gagements, 195 ; Lord Llandafi, 
 197 ; Sligo's disappointment, 
 198-200 ; the Napier family, 
 201 ; Sir George Shee, 303 ; Lord 
 Roden's and Lord Waterford's 
 contest for the Ribbon, 208-217 ; 
 liquidation of Union Engage- 
 ments, 218-251; "The Lord 
 deliver me from James Knox, 
 Ranger," 219; Massey's claim, 
 220 ; the Kerry Militia, 223 ; the 
 humiliation of Lord Glandore, 
 225 ; the case of George Browne, 
 229 ; Sir Richard Musgrave, 231, 
 307 ; Humanity Martin, 235- 
 243 ; the story of George Knox, 
 M.P., 245-250 ; Emmet Insur- 
 rection, 252-297 ; Lord Massa- 
 reene's grievances and com- 
 plaints, 261, 419, 427-431 ; his 
 views on condition of Ireland, 
 263 ; renewal of war with France, 
 265 ; Lord Ashtown's report 
 from Galway, 267 ; " My dear 
 Charles," 273 ; Turner's reports, 
 275 ; explosion in the Patrick 
 Street depot, 279 ; his report on 
 the situation, 279-281 ; first news 
 of the conspiracy, 286 ; the fate- 
 ful evening, 289 ; a contrast in 
 human nature — Colonel Napier 
 and Dr. Kearney, 295-297 ; offi- 
 cial report on the Emmet Insur- 
 rection, 298 ; his confidential 
 letters to his brother, 301 ; feel- 
 ing against the Irish Executive, 
 303 ; his brother Charles, Home 
 Secretary, 305 ; n Popish plot (?), 
 
 306 ; John Keogh, 314 ; Denis 
 Browne's story, 317 ; his inter- 
 view with Bishop of Elphin as 
 to West of Ireland Catholics, 318; 
 Redesdale's opinion of the Emmet 
 Insurrection, 320 ; Bishop Hus- 
 sey a Catholic suspect, 322 ; ad- 
 dress from the leading Catholic 
 gentry and prelates, 324 ; Lady 
 Anne FitzGerald, 332 ; Emmet's 
 arrest, 335 ; his decision about 
 Sarah Curran, 361 ; official neg- 
 lect, 363 ; Under - Secretary 
 Cooke, 365 ; betrayal of Lord 
 Edward FitzGerald, 366 ; the 
 Home Secretary's praise, 368 ; 
 the first of the executions, 369 ; 
 the rebel leader Redmond tried 
 and convicted, 373-376 ; declara- 
 tions by condemned prisoners, 
 377-379 ; views of the Cabinet, 
 382 ; Duke of Leinster's action 
 at Maynooth, 384-387 ; on J. P. 
 Curran, 388 ; Emmet convicted, 
 397 ; plans and objects of the 
 late conspiracy, 399 ; Emmet's 
 religious beliefs, 404 ; Russell's 
 arrest, 421 ; Special Commission 
 for trial of Dublin prisoners, 423, 
 432 ; his curious proposal, 435 ; 
 receives the Garter, 444 ; Bishop 
 of Norwich's congratulations, 
 446 ; Adding ton and the Irish 
 administration, 447 ; Lord War- 
 ren - Bulkeley, 448; George 
 Knox's diary, 449-452 
 
 Hardwicke Correspondence , 361 
 
 Harnadge, Dr., 443 
 
 Hatshell, Mrs., 373 
 
 Hatton, M.P., Commissioner of 
 Stamps, 47 
 
 Hawkesbury, Robert Banks Jen- 
 kinson, Lord, Home Secretary in 
 Pitt's second Administration, List 
 of Union Engagements from 
 Hardwicke, 42 ; the vacant 
 bishopric of Clonfert and Lord 
 Robert Tottenham Loftus, 135, 
 136, 146, 147 ; triumph of the 
 Lord-Lieutenant, 142, 143 ; Lord 
 John Beresford, Bishop of Cork, 
 150 ; the office of Prime Ser- 
 jeant, 170 ; the Irish Pension 
 Fund, 184 ; Lord Gosford, 206 ; 
 Lord Templetown, 207 ; the 
 vacant Ribbon — Waterford v. 
 Roden, 211, 212, 216, 217; an 
 exception, 304 
 
 Hayes of the Kildare Militia, 433 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 Hearn, Dean, 324 
 
 Hely-Hutcliinson, Abraham, Col- 
 lector of Clonmcl, 16-18 
 
 Hely-Hutchinson, Christopher, 17 
 
 Hely-Hiitcliinson, M.P., Francis, 16 
 
 Hertford, Marquis of , 24-26, 47 
 
 Higgins, Francis, proprietor of Free- 
 man's Journal, 366 
 
 Hill, Rev. John, Prebendary of 
 Clonmethan, 44 
 
 Hill, Sir Cx., 44 
 
 Hobart, Lord, 52, 304, 436 
 
 Hobart, Major, 222 
 
 Holland, Lady, 201 
 
 Holmes, Gilbert, Dean of Ardfert, 
 46 
 
 Holmes, Robert, barrister-at-law, 
 
 334 
 Holmes, Mrs., 351 
 Homan, Rev. — , 45, 46 
 Home Office Papers ("Ireland, 
 
 Private and Secret," 1803), 329, 
 
 338, 342. 354. 359. 371-373. 2>7(>. 
 
 379, 381, 388, 389, 398, 399, 403, 
 
 411, 423, 427, 437, 439 
 Hook, James, 256 
 Hook, Theodore, 256 
 Hooper, James, 274, 276 
 Houlton, a smuggler, 329, 330 
 Howley, Harry, a carpenter, 282, 
 
 292. 434 
 Huband, barrister, 398 
 Hudson, Rev. Edward, 27 
 Hume, M.P., Captain, 439 
 Hunt, Rev. — , 46 
 Hunt, Sir Vere, Weighmaster of 
 
 Cork, 48, 83-85, 187, 230, 366 
 Hunter, Robert, 258 
 Hussey, Dr. Thomas, Roman 
 
 Catholic Bishop of Waterford, 
 
 322-324 
 Hussey, Father, 311 
 Hutchinson of Alexandria and 
 
 Knocklofty, Baron, 16 
 Huxley, Major, 369 
 
 Incledon, Charles, 256 
 
 Inchiquin, Earl of. See Thomond, 
 Marquis of 
 
 Irish Pension Fund, 220 
 
 Irish representative peerage, con- 
 test for an, 54-65 
 
 Jackson, M.P., Colonel, 49 
 Jeffries, Mrs., 157 
 Jocelyn, Lord. See Roden, Earl of 
 Jocelyn, Hon. Percy, 79, 164, 211 
 Jocelyn's Fox-hunters, Lord, yj 
 Johnson, Mr. Justice, 51, 152, 162 
 
 Johnson, Rev. Philip, 24-28 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 98, 322 
 Johnson, William, 51, 161, 162, 165, 
 
 166, 173 
 Johnston, General, 70 
 Jordan, Valentine, 316 
 
 Kearney, Dr., Provost of Trinity 
 College, Dublin, 44, 169, 296 
 
 Kearney, Rev. Thomas Henry, 296 
 
 Kearney, a rebel, 369, 433 
 
 Keenan, a rebel, 377, 433 
 
 Kelly, Mr. Justice, 51, 162 
 
 Kenmare, Countess of, 180 
 
 Kenmare, Sir Valentine Browne, 
 Earl of, 176, 179, 180, 187, 190, 
 308 
 
 Keogh, John, leader of the Dublin 
 Catholics, 229, 314 
 
 Keon, Myles, 181, 229 
 
 KeiTy, Earl of, 332 
 
 Kerry, Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight 
 of, 332 
 
 Kerry Militia, 222-228 
 
 Kilconnel, Lord. See Clancarty, 
 Earl of 
 
 Kildare farmers, and the Emmet 
 Insurrection, 284, 285 
 
 Kilwarden, Lord Chief Justice, 
 murdered during Emmet Insur- 
 rection, 44, 151, 156, 160, 167, 
 293, 294, 299, 338, 368, 404, 405, 
 
 433 
 Kinsale, 70 
 
 Kirwan, a tailor, 371, 433 
 
 Knox, M.P., Francis, 52 
 
 Knox, M.P., Hon. George, 48, 50, 
 
 153, 241, 244, 245-250, 449-451 
 Knox, James, Ranger of the Cur- 
 
 ragh of Kildare, 218, 219 
 Knox, Dr., Bishop of Derry, 123- 
 
 125, 244 
 Knox, Hon. Thomas, 242 
 Knox, Hon. Vesey, 240-242 
 Langrish, Sir Henry, 219 
 Latouche, Mr., Dublin banker, 333 
 Lawyers and the Union, 1 51-175 
 Lecky, Ireland in the Eighteenth 
 
 Century, 28, 42, 69, 77, 203, 
 
 247, 248 ; " a shameless traffic in 
 
 votes," 40 ; Leaders of Public 
 
 Opinion in Ireland, 95 
 Lee, Rev. Dr., Dean of Kilmac- 
 
 duagh, 46 
 Leigh of New Ross, Mr., 48 
 Leinster, Duchess of, 201 
 Leinster, Duke of, 208, 212, 216, 
 
 319 ; his action at Maynooth, 384- 
 
 387 
 
462 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lennox, Lady Sarah, 201 
 
 Leslie, Rev. — , 26 
 
 Leslie, Judge Advocate, 48 
 
 Limerick, Earl of , 50, 83-85, 195. 365 
 
 Lindsay, Hon. and Rev. Charles, 
 Lord Hardwicke's private secre- 
 tary, 9, 82, 124, 131 ; Bethel's 
 appeal, 11, 12; the Rev. C. 
 Chester, 12 ; his visit to the 
 Primate, 109-111, 113; created 
 Bishop of Killaloe, 125 ; trans- 
 lated to Kildare, 130; Musgrave's 
 letters to, 310, 312 
 
 Lismore, Lord, 311 
 
 Littlehales, Colonel Sir E. B., 
 Military Secretary to Cornwallis 
 and Hardwicke, 70, 74, 177, 219, 
 222, 226, 420 
 
 Llandaff, Earl of, 197 
 
 Loftus, Lieutenant-General, 135, 
 140 
 
 Loftus, Lord, 121-123, 135-141, 
 
 143. 144 
 Loftus, Robert, Lord Tottenham, 
 
 122, 123, 132, 133-142 ; created 
 
 Bishop of Killaloe, 146-148 
 Londonderry, Lord, 27 
 Long, Philip, 452 
 Longueville, Lord, and the Cork 
 
 Collectorship of Excise, 15, 16, 
 
 18-20, 257 
 Lynch, Matthew F., barrister-at- 
 
 law, 52, 176, 190-192 
 
 McCabe, Patrick, a Dublin chandler, 
 
 303- 390 
 
 McCann, a publican, 433 
 
 Macartney, Rev. Dr. George, 21-23, 
 428-431 
 
 McClelland, James, Solicitor- 
 General, 51, 165, 371, 387, 393; 
 Baron of the Court of Exchequer, 
 152, 162, 167, 435 ; the mission 
 of Russell to the North and to 
 Down, 416-418 
 
 McDermott, 434 
 
 Macdonnell, M.P., Colonel, 47 
 
 McDonnell, Mr., 325 
 
 M c K e n n a, Theobald, barrister 
 (Memoir on Questions respecting 
 the Projected Union), 52, 176, 183, 
 184 
 
 Mackintosh, a rebel, 377, 433, 
 
 434 
 
 McNaghten, Mr., 23 
 
 MacNally, Leonard, barrister and 
 Government spy, " The Incor- 
 ruptible " (author of " The Lass 
 of Richmond Hill"), 256, 257, 
 
 '^77' 399' 401 ; counsel for 
 Emmet, 388, 389, 391, 393 ; the 
 kiss of a Judas, 397 ; his report on 
 Russell, 421 ; on Ireland after 
 the Insurrection, 441-443 
 MacNally, attorney, son of above, 
 
 373 
 MacNally, Mrs., 444 
 MacNamara, M.P., Colonel, 47, 50 
 M'Naughton, M.P., 46 
 Macnevin, Dr. W. J., 258, 327 
 Magan, Francis, betrayer of Lord 
 
 Edward FitzGerald, 366 
 Magistrates, Stipendiary (Ireland), 
 
 426 
 Mahon, Colonel John, 182, 230 
 Manley, Colonel, 364 
 Manners, Alderman, 286 
 Manners-Sutton, Charles, Bishop of 
 
 Norwich, 446 
 Marley, Dr., Bishop of Waterford, 
 
 43. 295 
 
 Marlay, Colonel, 295 
 
 Marsden, Under-Secretary for Ire- 
 land, 18, 84, 337 ; Sir Vere Hunt, 
 85 ; his interview with Lord Kil- 
 warden, 160 ; with Grady, 163- 
 165 ; Dr. Troy's nephew, 177 ; 
 correspondence with Matthew 
 Lynch — how the Catholic move- 
 ment was suppressed, 190-192 ; 
 Lady Somerton's letter, 207 ; 
 James Knox, 219 ; Cornwallis at 
 Amiens : Massey's claim, 221, 
 222 ; the case of George Knox, 
 229 ; MacNally's reports, 256, 
 443 ; Lord Sligo's reports, 266, 
 315; "Belfast's" reports, 273- 
 277, 414 ; the Emmet Insurrec- 
 tion, 286-288, 294, 364 ; too great 
 credulity, 302, 306 ; John Keogh, 
 314 ; General Meyrick's report, 
 323 ; Edward Cooke, 365, 366 ; 
 J. P. Curran, 410 ; mission of 
 Russell to the North, 416 ; the 
 prisoners en route for Botany 
 Bay, 440 ; Peter Burrowes, 45 1 
 
 Martin of Ballinahinch, Richard 
 (" Humanity Martin"), 235-243, 
 316 
 
 Martin, Mrs. Bell, " The Princess of 
 Connemara," 243 
 
 Mason, St. John, 348, 3SS-357. 452 
 
 Massareene, Lord, 261-263, 418- 
 421, 427-431 
 
 Massey, Hugh Dillon, 219-222 
 
 Mathew, Father, " The Apostle of 
 Temperance," 197 
 
 Mathew, Lord, 197 
 
INDEX 
 
 463 
 
 Maynooth College, 322, 326, 385 
 Maynooth rebels, the, 384-387 
 Meath, Bishop of, 49 
 Melville, Lord. See Dundas, Henry 
 Metcalf, William, 274-277, 414- 
 
 416 
 Metge, Baron, 88, 154 
 Meyrick, Brigadier-General, 323 
 Minis, William, 275, 277 
 Mitford, Sir John, afterwards Lord 
 
 Redesdale, 1 59-161, 320, 347, 387 
 Monthly Review, 232 
 Moore, Thomas, 252, 253, 397 
 Murphy, Luke, 324 
 Musgrave, Lady, 310 
 Musgrave, Sir Richard, Bart. 
 
 (History of the Rebellion of lygS), 
 
 231. 233, 307-314 
 
 Napier, Colonel the Hon. George, 
 Comptroller of the Army Ac- 
 counts, 177, 201-203, 295 
 
 Napier, Lady Sarah, 201 
 
 Napier, Sir Charles, 201 
 
 Napier, Sir William, 201 
 
 Napoleon Buonaparte, 266, 322, 
 323, 326, 402 
 
 Neil, Father, of Ballymacoda, 310, 
 
 3" 
 Neilson, Samuel, 258, 260 
 Nepean, Sir Evan, Chief Secretary, 
 
 138, 142, 169, 192, 238, 241-243 
 Nesbit, M.P., Colonel, 47, 50 
 Newcomen, Lady, 51, 195 
 Newcomen, Sir William, 195 
 Norbury, John Toler, Lord, Lord 
 
 Chief Justice of the Common 
 
 Pleas, 156, 393, 396 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 319 
 Normanton, Charles Agar, Earl of 
 
 (Archbishop of Dublin), 94-96, 
 
 207 
 Northland, Viscount, afterwards 
 
 Earl of Ranturly, 244 
 
 O'Beime, Dr. T. L., Bishop of 
 
 Meath, 72-76 
 O'Beime, Mr., Landwaiter on 
 
 Dublin Custom House Quay, 49, 
 
 73-75 
 O Coigley, Father, hanged for high 
 
 treason, 383 
 O'Connor, Arthur, 19, 257, 450 
 O'Connor, Father Charles, 324 
 O'Connor, M.P., Fergus, leader of 
 
 the Chartists, 307 
 O'Connor, Roger, 307 
 O'Connor, Val, 325 
 Ogle, George, 313 
 
 O'Grady, Standish, Attorney- 
 General, 347, 361, 365, 369, 390, 
 393. 398. 410, 435 
 
 O'Hanlon, 275 
 
 O'Neill, Lord, 23, 24 
 
 Orangemen, 27, 28, 448 
 
 O'Reilly, 443 
 
 Orleans, Duke of, 319 
 
 Ormsby, Mr., Commissioner of 
 Stamps, 49 
 
 Ormsby, M.P., Captain, 49 
 
 Ormsby, M.P., C, ist Counsel to 
 Revenue Commissioners, 51, 164 
 
 Ormsby, M.P. for Carlow, 54 
 
 Osborne, Mr. Justice C, 51, 164, 
 
 423 
 Other, Mr., 10 
 
 Palmer, a Dublin grocer, 280 
 Palmer, Mrs. Ann, lodging-house 
 keeper at Harold's Cross, 336-339, 
 342 
 Palmer, Rev. Joseph, 45 
 Parnell, Sir John, 78, 89, 90 
 Parsons, Sir Lawrence, 240 
 Patronage, exercise of Viceroy's 
 
 54, 67, 69 
 Patten, 271, 340, 351, 452 
 Paul, Rev. — , 44 
 Peacocke, Joseph, 194, 195 
 Peerage, contest for an Irish repre- 
 sentative, 54-65 
 Pelham, Lord, Home Secretary, 
 Dr. Macartney's appeal, 22 ; 
 Lord Charleville's claims, 56, 60 ; 
 those Union Engagements, 66, 
 90 ; Dr. O'Beirne, 73, 74 ; Hard- 
 wicke's proposed translations, 
 95, 107 ; Dr. Beresford, 97, no, 
 114 ; Dr. Trench, 120, 121 ; Lord 
 Clare's death, 157 ; Sir John 
 Mitford, 158 ; William Johnson, 
 161 ; Edmund Stanley's loyalty 
 and zeal, 173, 174 ; Lord Llandaff, 
 197 ; Sir George Shee, 203, 204 ; 
 Hunter's disclosures, 258, 259 ; 
 Hardwicke on condition of Ire- 
 land, 263 ; renewal of war with 
 France, 265 ; the Emmet Insur- 
 rection — Hardwicke' s official re- 
 port, 294, 298-300 ; the Seals of 
 Office, 306 
 Penance, Sacrament of, 380-382 
 Penrose, a Quaker of Cork, 41 1 
 Perotts, the two, 437 
 Pitt, William, 16, 29, 33, 40, 55, 
 68, 139, 184, 234, 304. 452; 
 resigns Premiership, 1-3 ; Catho- 
 lic Emancipation, 8, 9 ; resting 
 
464 
 
 INDEX 
 
 on his oars, 30 ; on John Foster, 
 90; Premier again, 134, 206, 
 211 ; Lord Robert Tottenham 
 Loftiis v. Dr. Butson, 136, 142- 
 145 ; Lord John Beresford, 140 ; 
 Templetown's claim, 207 ; 
 Waterford v. Koden, 211-213; 
 his death, 215 ; his speech v. 
 Napoleon. 265, 266 
 Pius VI L, Pope, 322 
 Plowden, Mr., the historian, 311 
 Plunket, William Conyngham, So- 
 licitor-General, 151, 152. 167, 
 
 ^40. 303, 304. 39«. 399 
 Porter, Dr., 14 
 Portland, Duke of, Pitt's Home 
 
 Secretary, 55-57, 59. 60, 6^. 81, 
 
 89, 94. 1^-2. 1-3. 1-5. 133-135. 
 
 13S-141. 143, 144. i4<>. 147. 232, 
 
 306. 323, 324 
 Powerscourt, Richard Wingfield, 
 
 fourth Viscount, 41 
 Prendergast, Father Miles, 316 
 Purcell, Mr., 79 
 
 Quigley, Michael, Emmet's lieu- 
 tenant, 272, 273, 283, 290, 291, 
 436-438, 453 
 
 Quin, a Roman Catholic merchant, 
 3-3. 324 
 
 Ranfurly, Earl of, 244 
 Rebellion of 1798, 254, 307 
 Redesdale, Sir John Mitford, Lord 
 
 Chancellor of Ireland, 1 59-161, 
 
 320, 347, 387 
 Redmond, Denis Lambert, rebel 
 
 leader, 402, 433, 434 ; his trial 
 
 and conviction, 372-377 ; his at- 
 tempted suicide, 373 
 Redmond, a surgeon, 373 
 Reilly, a huckster at Lucan, 312 
 Reilly, Dr., titular Archbishop of 
 
 Armagh, 325 
 Richardson, William, of Moy, 
 
 Magistrate, 264 
 Richmond and Gordon, Duke of, 
 
 201 
 Ridgway the publisher, 442, 443 
 Roach, 371 
 Roche, Sir Boyle, 52, 85, 86, 88, 
 
 180, 187-190 
 Roche, Tiger, 85 
 Rockingham, Marquis of, 411 
 Roden, Anne, Dowager Lady, 76, 
 
 77.80 
 Roden, Earl of, 48, 76-81 ; Ribbon 
 
 of the Order of St. Patrick, 208- 
 
 217 
 
 Roman Catholics and the Union, 
 176-192 ; and the Emmet Insur- 
 rection, 306-330 
 
 Rose, Mr., 30 
 
 Ross, Sir Charles, 265 
 
 Ross, General, 04, 218 
 
 Ross Castle, governorship of, 69 
 
 Rossmore, Lord, 54 
 
 Rourke, 433, 434 
 
 Rowley, Clotworthy, 45 
 
 Rowley, Rev. John, 45 
 
 Russell, John, 255 
 
 Russell, Captain Thomas, 257, 272, 
 274, 402, 443 ; Emmet's chief 
 lieutenant, 413-427 ; on Irish 
 grievances, 424-426 ; his execu- 
 tion, 426 ; and burial - place, 
 
 427 
 Rutledge, M.P., 47 
 Ryan, Father, 312 
 
 Sacrament of Penance, 380-382 
 
 St. Brigid, 427 
 
 St. Columbkille, 427 
 
 Saint Just, 453 
 
 St. Patrick, 427, 454 
 
 St. Pole de Leon, Bishop of, 383 
 
 Saurin, 69 
 
 Scanlan, 76 
 
 Scott, the messenger, 275 
 
 Scramble for place, the, 66-93 
 
 Scullabogue, the murders at, 421 
 
 Shannon, Lord, 16 
 
 Sharkey, M.P., Assistant Barrister 
 
 for CO. Roscommon, 5 1 
 Shee, Sir George, Secretary to the 
 
 Treasury, 49, 203-206, 260 
 Sheehy, Father Nicholas, 311, 312 
 Sheehy, Edmund, 312 
 Shefifield, Lord, 57, 198 
 Sirr, Major, Chief of Police, Dublin, 
 
 278. 336-338. 348, 353. 359. 360, 
 421 
 
 Skefftngton, Colonel, Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Cork, 47 
 
 Skinner, a Belfast magistrate, 258 
 
 Sligo, John Denis Browne, Baron 
 Monteagle, Earl of Altamont, and 
 Marquis of, 198-200, 229, 230, 
 315 ; on the state of Mayo, 266 
 
 Smith, Charles, 443 
 
 Smith, Baron Sir Michael, 51, 89, 
 162 
 
 Smith, Mr., of Lisburn, 27 
 
 Smith, Father, of Townsend Street 
 Chapel, 444 
 
 Smith, Mrs., Lord Blaquiere's cook, 
 
 93 
 Smyth, Rev. Thomas, 45 
 
INDEX 
 
 465 
 
 Society for Prevention of Crudty 
 
 f" to Animals, founded, 235 
 
 Somerton, Lady, afterwards Count- 
 ess of Norman ton, 207 
 
 Somerton, Lord, 207 
 
 Spencer, Earl, Home Secretary, 
 216, 217, 250, 251, 453 
 
 Spring, Mrs., 333 
 
 Stafford, Marquis of, 444 
 
 Stafford, Nicholas, Emmet's lieu- 
 tenant, 272, 273, 290, 291, 436, 
 
 437 
 Stanley, Edmund, Prime Serjeant, 
 
 51, 152-154, 173-175 
 Stanley, Dean, Westminster Abbey, 
 
 95 
 Staples, Rev. John Molesworth, 45 
 
 Stewart of Killimon, 263 
 
 Stewart, Sir J., 240 
 
 Stipendiary magistrates (Ireland), 
 
 426 
 Strangford, Lord, Prebendary of 
 
 Clonmethan, 44 
 Straton, Mr., Collector of Dundalk, 
 
 48 ; Navigation Board, 76, 81, 
 
 330 
 Stuart, William, Archbishop of 
 
 Armagh, 97-119, 146, 147 
 Sturgeon, Captain Henry, 411 
 Sun, 232 
 Sutton, Charles Manners, Bishop 
 
 of Norwich, 446 
 Swift, Dean, 99, 198, 295 
 
 Taylor, Mr., Clerk in Civil Office, 85, 
 366 
 
 Teeling, Charles Hamilton, leader 
 of Ulster United Irishmen {Per- 
 sonal Narrative of the Irish Rebel- 
 lion), 25, 275, 276 
 
 Temple, Mrs., 334 
 
 Templeton, John, of Malone, 415 
 
 Temple town. Lord, 207 
 
 Thomond, Morough O'Brien, Mar- 
 quis of, 55-57, 59, 60, 63, 65 
 
 Thompson, Farmer, 419-421, 428, 
 
 430 
 Tithe Commutation Act (Ireland), 
 
 425 
 Titles and dignities, distribution of, 
 
 193-217 
 Tone, Wolfe, Memoirs, 181, 229, 
 
 2,27 
 Tottenham, M.P., C, 48 
 Townsend, Francis, 212 
 Trench, Dr., Bishop of Waterford, 
 
 43. 96 
 Trench, Hon. Power le Poer, 
 Bishop of Waterford, 120, 121 
 
 Trench, Richard, 49, 120 
 
 Trevor, Dr., physician and Assistant 
 Governor of Kilmainham Gaol, 
 348, 354, 372, 375, 423, 437 
 
 Troy, Dr., Roman Catholic Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, 176-179, 308- 
 312, 325, 326, 378,380-382 
 
 Troy, John James, Tide Surveyor 
 at Queensboro', afterwards at 
 Castletownsend, 177, 178 
 
 TuUamore, Baron, afterwards Vis- 
 count Charleville, 54 
 
 Turner, Samuel, barrister-at-Iaw, 
 " Belfast," a spy, 273-277, 414, 
 
 415 
 
 Ulster, 264 
 
 Ulster United Irishmen, 25 
 
 Union Engagements, embarrassing, 
 1-39 ; List of, 40-53 
 
 Union lawyers and the Catholics, 
 151-175, 176-192 ; a chapter of 
 disappointments, 218-251 
 
 Usher, Rev. — , 46 
 
 Van Homrigh, Bartholomew, Lord 
 Mayor of Dublin in 1698, 295 
 
 Van Homrigh, Esther, Swift's 
 " Vanessa," 295 
 
 Vansittart, Nicholas, Chief Secre- 
 tary for Ireland, 85, 242, 243 
 
 Vassal, Colonel, 364 
 
 Vere, Aubrey de, 83 
 
 Wallscourt, Lord Joseph Blake, 49, 
 81-83 
 
 Walsh, M.P., Collector of Naas, 46 
 
 Warburton, Dean, 43 
 
 Warren-Bulkeley, Lord, 448 
 
 Waterford, Marquis of, 126-130, 
 144, 145, 149, 150, 177, 208-217, 
 223 
 
 Webb, Compendium of Irish Bio- 
 graphy, 243 
 
 Wemyss, M.P., Colonel, Collector 
 of Kilkenny, 48 
 
 Westmorland, Earl of, 7, 15, 87, 
 
 154. 304 
 Whiteboys, the, 312 
 
 Whitefield, Nevin, shoemaker, 414 
 Whitshed, Rear-Admiral, 36 
 Whitshed, Dr., Bishop of Raphoe, 36 
 Whitworth, Lord, British Minister 
 
 at Paris, 265 
 Wickham, William, Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland, Longueville v. Don- 
 oughmore, 18 - 20 ; Thomas 
 Brooke Clarke, 29, 31, 32 ; Ad- 
 miral Whitshed, 37 ; Sir Vere 
 
466 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hunt, S3-85 ; Aylmer's wishes, 
 180 ; Fingall's brother-in-law, 
 1S5, 186 ; Lord Sligo's grievance, 
 199 ; Roden and the Ribbon, 
 210, 214 ; the humiliation of 
 Lord Glandore, 226 ; Humanity 
 Martin's claim, 239 ; Hard- 
 wicke on state of Ireland, 263 ; 
 renewal of war with France, 
 265 ; his secret history of the 
 Emmet Insurrection, 269-271 ; 
 the Marshalsea depot, 282 ; the 
 Kildare farmers, 284 ; vague in- 
 formation, 302 ; view of the 
 Emmet Insurrection, 326-330 ; 
 Home Othce Papers, 337-342 ; 
 Emmet's secret examination, 
 354 ; Dunn's report, 356 ; Sarah 
 Ciirran, 343-347. 360, 388, 390, 
 398, 410 ; Edward Cooke, 365 ; 
 Kearney's demeanour, 369 ; Red- 
 mond's offer, 373, 376 ; confes- 
 sion on the scaffold, 378, 382 ; 
 some curious particulars respect- 
 ing Emmet, 389, 390, 401-403 ; 
 Emmet's letter to, 400 ; Thomas 
 Russell. 424, 426 ; Quigley and 
 Stafford, 436, 437 ; Peter Bur- 
 rowes' information, 450-452 
 
 Wilson, the peace officer, 403 
 
 Winder, Edward, 52 
 
 Witherspoole, 275 
 
 Wolfe, Rev. Richard Straubenzie, 
 
 44. 293, 296, 299 
 Wolfe, Miss, 293, 295-299 
 
 Yelverton, Baron (afterwards Lord 
 
 Avonmore), 89, 156-158 
 York, Duke of, 58, 69-72, 435, 
 
 436 
 
 Yorke, Hon. Charles, War Minister, 
 9 ; Hardwicke's private letters 
 to "My dear Charles," 58, 63, 
 123. 273, 301-306, 322, 363, 369 ; 
 a piece of comedy, 64 ; Home 
 Secretary, 123, 132, 304-306; 
 John Keogh, 314 ; Dr. Hussey, 
 a Catholic suspect, 322 ; Hard- 
 wicke's curious letter, 326 ; in 
 praise of the Viceroy, 368 ; Red- 
 mond's attempted suicide, 373 ; 
 his pious wish, 375 ; confession 
 and absolution of criminals, 377- 
 379, 382 ; Maynooth and the 
 Duke of Leinster, 384-387 ; Em- 
 met's conviction, 397 ; an extra- 
 ordinary document, 399 ; Mac- 
 Nally's report, 402-404 ; arrest 
 of Russell, 421 ; the Special 
 Commission, 423, 432 ; Hard- 
 wicke's strange proposal, 435 
 
 Yorke, Lord Chancellor, 4 
 
 THE END 
 
 BILLING AKD SOIiS, LTD., PRINTERS, Gl'ILDKORD. 
 
FROM MR. MURRAY'S LIST. 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA. 
 
 By the Right Hon. Sir Alfred Lyall, K.C.B., G.C.I.E., D.C.L., 
 LL.D. With Portraits, etc. Two vols. Demy 8vo. 
 
 This is the only biography of the late Lord Dufferin which has 
 the sanction and approval of his family, at whose request it has 
 been undertaken by Sir Alfred Lyall. 
 
 ESSAYS OF THE LATE LORD SALISBURY. Contributed 
 to the Quarterly Review. Two vols. Large crown 8vo. 
 
 THE CREEVEY PAPERS, 1768-1838. Edited by the 
 Right Honourable Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart, M.P, 
 Seventh Impression. With Portraits. Two vols. Demy 8vo. 
 31s, 6d. net. 
 
 *** With the exception of the correction of misprints and 
 errors, all the reprints of " The Creevey Papers " are the same as 
 the original edition. 
 
 GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 
 
 1628-1687. A Study in the History of the Restoration. By 
 Winifred, Lady Burghclere. With Portraits and Illustra- 
 tions. Demy Svo. 21s. net. 
 
 " This careful and well-balanced study . . . is the fruit of ungrudging care and of a sound 
 taste." — Times. 
 
 SIR WILFRID LAURIER AND THE LIBERAL PARTY. 
 
 A PoHtical History. By J. S. WILLISON. With Portrait. Two 
 vols. Large crown Svo. 25s. net. 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE DUKE OF 
 
 WELLINGTON. By Francis, First Earl of Ellesmere. 
 Edited, with Memoir of Lord Ellesmere, by his Daughter, Alice, 
 Countess of Strafford. Second Impression. With Portrait. 
 Demy Svo. los. 6d. net. 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF AN OLD CAMPAIGNER. M. DE 
 
 LA COLONIE, 1692-1717. Translated from the French by 
 Walter C. Horsley. With Maps and Illustrations. Demy 
 Svo. 1 8s, net. 
 
 THE FRENCH NOBLESSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 CENTURY. Translated by Mrs. CoLQUHOUN Grant from " Les 
 Souvenirs de la Marquise de Crdquy," published in 1834. Second 
 impression. Demy Svo. I2s. net. 
 
 Mrae. de Cr^quy is alive and vigorous, and we are much mistaken if, in the new English 
 dress, she does not make thousands of friends." — Tunes. 
 
 ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH FRANCE TO FLORENCE. 
 
 Reproductions in Colour of 48 Water- Colour Sketches. By 
 A. H. Hallam Murray. Accompanied by H. W. Nevinson 
 and Montgomery Carmichael, Medium Svo. 21s. net. Also 
 an Edition of 150 Copies on large paper, 42s. net. 
 
OLD TIME TRAVEL. Personal Reminiscences of the Continent 
 Forty Years Aj;o compared with Experiences of the Present Day- 
 By Alexander Innes Shand. With numerous Illustrations by 
 A. H. Hallam Murray. Square Demy 8vo. 12s. net. 
 
 " A work of travel almost uiiit|uc of its kind." — \'orkshire Post. 
 
 A CHEAP REVISED EDITION. 
 
 THE HEART OF A CONTINENT. A Narrative of Travels in 
 Manchuria, across the Gobi Desert, through the Himalayas, the 
 Pamirs, and Hunza, 1S84-1894. liy Col. Francis Edward 
 ^'OU.^fGHUSnAND, CLE., of the Indian Army, British Com- 
 missioner for Tibet Frontier Matters. Fourth Edition. With 
 Portrait of Author, a Map, and other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 
 6s. net. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 JOURNEY TO LHASA AND CENTRAL TIBET. By Sarat 
 
 Chandra Das, C.I.E., of the Bengal Educational Service, 
 Member of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, etc. With Map and 
 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. los. 6d. net. 
 
 "... most complete and authoritative account not only of the sacred city of Lhasa, but 
 of Central Tibet and its people." — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 LHASSA AND ITS GRAND LAMA UNVEILED. An Account 
 
 of the British Mission to Lhassa, 1903-1904. By Lieut.-Colonel 
 L. A. Waddell, CLE., LL.D., etc., Author of "The Buddhism 
 of Tibet," " Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley," etc. Demy 8vo. 
 
 RUSSIAN AFFAIRS. By Geoffrey Drage, Author of " Cyril," 
 
 *' The Labour Problem," " The Unemployed," " The Problem of 
 the Aged Poor," "The Foreign Report of the Labour Commission." 
 Second Impression. With Maps. Medium 8vo. 21s. net. 
 
 " We know of no book which covers the whole ground so completely as Mr. Drages, or is 
 so well calculated to put the general reader in possession of the main facts ; and it is for the 
 general reader rather than for the specialist that he has avowedly written." — Times. 
 
 A HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA, 1854-1904. By 
 
 Charles Ed.mond Akers. With Maps, Portraits, and other 
 Illustrations. Medium Svo. 2rs. net. 
 
 IRELAND IN THE NEW CENTURY. By the Right Hon. 
 Sir Horace Plunkett, K.C.V.O., F.R.S., Vice President of the 
 Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland ; 
 Member of His Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland ; Commissioner 
 Congested Districts Board, Ireland. Third Impression. Large 
 Crown Svo. 5s. net. 
 
 '". . . With such a book it is difficult to know where to begin and where to stop. 
 Sir Horace has something to say extremely valuable for all of us to ponder and digest. ..." 
 — Daily Teie^aph. i. 
 
 MODERN TARIFF HISTORY. Showing the Origin and 
 Growth of TaritTs in Germany, France, and the United States. 
 By Percy Ashley, M.A., Lecturer at the London School of 
 Economics in the University of London. With an Introduction 
 by the Right Hon. R. B. Hald.\NE, LL.D., K.C., M.P. Demy 
 Svo. los. 6d. net. 
 
 LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.