On the 25th of February, the committee of the two Houses of Parliament having arrived in London, proceeded to Carlton House and presented the address. They were most graciously received, but two days before the king had recovered from his malady. It was thus unnecessary for the prince either to accept or reject the offer made to him by the Irish Parliament. He congratulated them on the happy change in his majesty's health, and assured them of the "gratitude and affecto the loyal and generous people of Ireland which he felt indelibly imprinted on his heart." This dangerous dispute was thus ended for that time. Its dangers were twofold. First, the prince might have refused the regency with limited powers; in that case the English Parliament would certainly have made the queen regent, and the prince might have accepted the Irish regency with unlimited powers; there would then have been two regents, and two separate kingdoms. Secondly, the prince might have accepted the regency precisely on the terms offered him in each country; he would then have been a regent with limited powers in England, and with full royal prerogative in Ireland, unable to create a peer in England, but with power to swamp the House with new peerages in Ireland; unable to reward his friends with certain grants, pensions, and offices in England, but able to quarter them all upon the revenue of Ireland. The peril of such a condition of things was fully appreciated, both by Mr. Pitt and by his able coadjutor in Ireland, Mr. Fitzgibbon. They drew from it an argument for the total annihilation of Ireland by a legislative union. Others who watched events with equal attention, found in it a still sounder argument for total separation.

an unwarrantable and unconstitutional ham; but scarcely one so intensely uncensure on the proceedings of both Houses popular. He was parsimonious and exof Parliament, and attempts to question travagant-that is, he saved pennies, and the undoubted rights and privileges of the squandered thousands of pounds; yet did Lords spiritual and temporal and Com- not squander them on the right persons. mons of Ireland." He talked economy and practised the most reckless profusion, yet in an underhand, indirect manner, which made him no friends and many enemies. In manner he was extremely reserved, whether from pride or from a natural coldness of disposition. In short, he was in every way unsuited to the Irish temperament: for there had lately been formed gradually a marked Irish character, even amongst the Protestant colonists before the era of Independence, and still more notably since that time. Gentlemen born in this country, and all whose interests and associations were here, no longer called themselves Englishmen born in Ireland, as Swift had done. The same powerful assimilating influence which had formerly made the Norman settlers, Geraldines and De Burghs "more Irish than the Irish" after two or three generations, had now also acted more or less upon the very Cromwellians and Williamites; and there was recognisable in the whole character and bearing even of the Protestants a certain dash of that generosity, levity, impetuosity, and recklessness which have marked the Celtic race since the beginning. They were capable of the most outrageous depravity and of the highest honour and rectitude; of the most insolent, ostentatious venality and corruption, as well as of the noblest, proudest independence. The formation of this modern composite Irish character is of course attributable to the gradual amalgamation of the privileged Protestant colonists with the converted Irish, who had from time to time conformed to the established church, to save their estates, or to possess themselves of the property of non-conforming neighbours. This was a large and increasing element in the Protestant colony ever since the time of Elizabeth; and of such families came the Currans, Dalys, Doyles, Conollys, as well as the higher names O'Neil, O'Brien, Burke, Roche, Fitzpatrick. The ancesters of these families, in abandoning their Catholic faith, could not let out all their Celtic blood, and that blood permeated the whole mass of the population, and often broke out and showed its origin, even in men partly of English descent, or at least of English names. Grattan, for example, in the character of his intellect and temperament, was as purely Celtic as Curran himself. In truth it had become very difficult to determine the ethnological distinction

CHAPTER XXIV.

1789.

Unpopularity of Buckingham.-Formation of an Irish character.-Efforts of Patriots in Parliament.-All in vain.-Purchasing votes.-Corruption.-Whig Club.-Lord Clare on Whig Club. Buckingham leaves Ireland.-Pension List.-Peepof-Day Boys and Defenders.-Westmoreland, Viceroy.-Unavailing efforts against corruption. -Material prosperity.-King William's Birthday. -French Revolution.

IRELAND may possibly have had worse viceroys than the Marquis of Bucking

M

between the inhabitants of this island; and surnames had long ceased to be a safe guide: because ever since the "Statutes of Kilkenny" in the 15th century, thousands of Irish families, especially of those residing near or in the English Pale, had changed their names in obedience to those statutes, that they might have the benefit of the English law in their dealings with the people of the Pale. They had assumed surnames, as prescribed by the statute, either from some trade or calling, as Miller, Taylor, Smith, or from some place, as Trim, Slane, Galway,—or from some colour, as Gray, Green, White, Brown. Gradually their original clannames were lost; and it soon became their interest to keep up no tradition even of their Irish descent. Of one of the families in this category, undoubtedly came Oliver Goldsmith, whose intensely Irish nature is a much surer guide to his origin than the trade-surname of Goldsmith adopted under the statute.

"his excellency found it necessary to restore to the officers in barracks their wonted allowance of firing which, in a former fit of subaltern economy, he had stopped from them. This pitiful stoppage had been laid on to the great discontent of the army, and being very ungraciously removed, the alleviation was received without gratitude." Mr Grattan, in a debate on this administration, says

"His great objection to the Marquis of Buckingham was not merely that he had been a jobber, but a jobber in a mask. His objection was not merely that his administration had been expensive, but that his expenses were accompanied with hypocrisy; it was the affectation of economy, attended with a great deal of good, comfortable, substantial jobbing for himself and his friends. That led to another measure of the Marquis of Buckingham which was the least ceremonious, and the most sordid and scandalous act of self-interest, attended with the sacrifice It has been said that surnames were no of all public decorum; he meant the dissure guide to origin; but in one direction posal of the reversion of the place of the surnames were, and are, nearly infallible: chief remembrancer to his brother, one of -a Celtic surname is a sure indication of the best, if not the very best, office in the Celtic blood, because nobody ever had any kingdom, given in reversion to an abinterest in assuming or retaining such a sentee with a great patronage, and a compatronymic, all the interests and tempta-pensation annexed. That most sordid tions being the other way. But an English and shameless act was committed exactly surname is no indication at all of English about the time when the kingdom was descent, because for several centuries-first charged with great pensions for the bringunder the Statutes of Kilkenny, after-ing home, as it was termed, absentee emwards under the more grievous pressure of the Penal Code, all possible worldly inducements were held out to Irishmen to take English names, and forget their own.*

From so large a mingling of the Celtic element, even in the exclusive Protestant colony, had resulted the very marked Irish character which was noticed, though not with complacency, by English writers of that period; and to this character the cold, dry, and narrow Marquis of Buckingham was altogether abhorrent. During the agitation of the regency question, he had succeeded in creating two new offices of great emolument-one by the separation of the excise and revenue board, which provided a place for a Beresford; another by appointing an additional commissioner to the Stamp-Office. "About this time also," as Mr. Plowden says maliciously,

*It would be a curious study to trace the history of Irish family names. For the first three centuries after the Norman invasion under Henry II., the movement was quite in an opposite direction, and De Burghs became Mac Williams, De Berminghams, Mac Feorais, the Fitzurses, Mac Mahons; and Norman barons became chiefs of clans, forgot both French and English, rode without stirrups, and kept the upper lip unshaven.

ployments. That bringing home absentee employments was a monstrous job; the kingdom paid the value of the employment, and perhaps more; she paid the value of the tax also. The pensioner so paid was then suffered to sell both to a resident who was free from the tax; he was then permitted to substitute new and young lives in the place of his own, and then permitted to make a new account against the country, and to receive a further compensation, which he was suffered in the same manner to dispose of."

It was undoubtedly in part owing to the excessive unpopularity of this viceroy that the short remainder of his government was so little satisfactory to himself and his employers in London, and that the Patriots were able to gain some trifiing advantages; not indeed to such an extent as to accomplish a single reform or abate a single abuse, but at least to shake the regular venal parliamentary majorities and alarm the Government. As the late gloomy prospect of a change in the Irish administration had driven many gentlemen to the opposition benches, Mr. Grattan was willing to avail himself of the earliest fruits of their conversion; accord

ingly, on the 3rd of March, 1789, he offered Buckingham. To get rid of the question, to the House a resolution which he thought an adjournment was moved and carried absolutely necessary from a transaction by a majority of 115 against 106. Thus which had lately taken place. He thought early had the old majority began to fall it necessary to call the attention of the into their former ranks. Still the supeHouse to certain principles which the riority of votes bore no proportion to 200 gentlemen, with whom he had generally and upwards, of which the former full the honour to coincide, considered as the majorities consisted. Mr. Grattan, acindispensable condition without which no cordingly, on the following day (4th of government could expect their support, March) moved for leave to bring in a bill and which the present Government had for the better securing the freedom of election resisted. for members to serve in Parliament, by disabling certain officers employed in the collection or management of his majesty's revenue from giving their votes at such election.

The first was a reform of the police. At present the institution could only be considered as a scheme of patronage to the Castle, and corruption to the city-a scheme which had failed to answer the end of preserving public peace, but had fully succeeded in extending the influence of the Castle.

Another principle much desired, was to restrain the abuse of pensions by a bill similar to that of Great Britain. That principle, he said, Lord Buckingham had resisted, and his resistance to it was one great cause of his opposing his Government. To this he would add another principle, the restraining revenue officers from voting at elections: this, he observed, was a principle of the British Parliament, and it was certainly more necessary in Ireland, from what had lately taken place, where, by a certain union of family interests, counties had become boroughs, and those boroughs had become private property.

But none of the measures proposed by Mr. Grattan could be carried in that House. In fact the deserting members of the majority were soon whipped back into their ranks: for on the 14th of March the lord-lieutenant made a speech to both Houses, officially informing them of the full recovery of the king. It was immediately apparent that Mr. Pitt was again supreme; and it was even intimated very plainly that the members of either House who had concurred in the address to the prince, or who had voted for a censure on the conduct of the marquis, should be made to repent of their votes.

The House having by this time been nearly marshalled into their former ranks, Mr. Grattan thought it useless to divide them on the second reading of the place bill, on the 30th of April; it was negatived without a division. The only subBut the principle to which he begged to ject particularly interesting to the history call the immediate attention of the House of Ireland which came before Parliament was, that of preventing the great offices during the remainder of that session, was of the state from being given to absen- the subject of tithes ; Mr. Grattan having tees that was a principle admitted by all presented to the House, according to to be founded in national right, purchased order, a bill to appoint commissioners for by liberal compensation, and every de- the purpose of inquiring into the state of parture from it must be considered as a tithes in the different provinces of that slight to the nobility and gentry of Ire-kingdom, and to report a plan for ascerland, who certainly were better entitled to the places of honour and trust in their own country, than any absentee could possibly be; but besides the slight shown to the nobility and gentry of Ireland, by bestowing places of honour, of profit, and of trust on absentees, the draft of money from this country, the institution of deputies (a second establishment unnecessary, were the principals to reside), the double influence arising from this raised the abuse into an enormous grievance. Mr. Grattan concluded with a motion to condemn this last practice.

taining the same: he followed up his motion with a very elaborate, instructive, and eloquent speech upon this important national object. The House adjourned from the 8th to the 25th of May, on which day the lord-lieutenant prorogued the Parliament, and made a speech of a general nature, without a word of reference to any of the extraordinary circumstances of the session.

The administration, alarmed by the late symptoms of disaffection, and by the renewed combination of the powerful aristocratic houses, as exhibited in the A very warm debate ensued, in which proceedings on that regency question, Mr. Corry and some other gentlemen now set itself deliberately to purchase admitted the principle of the resolution, back votes in detail, and again to although they opposed its passing, because check the Irish oligarchical influence. it was a censure on the Marquis of It has been already mentioned, in the

account of Lord Townshend's adminis- to go hand in hand with reward of service. tration, that he, at a very heavy It mattered not that, in response to the expense to the nation, broke up an atrocious threat of punishing those who aristocracy which before his time had had opposed the Government, the famous monopolised the whole power of the "Round Robin" was signed by the leadCommons, and regularly bargained for ing peers and most illustrious commoners terms with every new representative for of Ireland, denouncing this attempt at managing the House of Commons. Mr. intimidation and coercion. It was signed Fitzgibbon (and no man knew better) now by the Duke of Leinster, the Archbishop admitted that this manœuvre cost the nation of Tuam, and eighteen peers, as well as upwards of half a million; that is, that he by Grattan, Conolly, Curran, the Ponsonhad paid or granted so much to purchase bys, O'Neill, Charles Francis Sheridan, that majority in Parliament by which he Langrishe, Ogle, Daly, and many others, governed to the end of his administration. and declared that any such proscription Mr. Grattan, some years afterwards, was an attack on the independence of commenting on this declaration of Fitz- Parliament, and was in itself sufficient gibbon's, and the astonishing scene of ground for relentless opposition against corruption which followed it, broke out any government. The bold attorneyin this fierce language-" Half a million, general was not to be intimidated by this; or more, was expended some years ago to the Duke of Leinster himself, who held break an opposition; the same, or a greater an office of high rank, was forthwith dissum, may be necessary now; so said the principal servant of the crown. The House heard him; I heard him; he said it, standing on his legs, to an astonished and an indignant nation, and he said it in the most extensive sense of bribery and corruption. The threat was proceeded on; the peerage was sold; the caitiffs of corruption were everywhere—in the lobby, in the street, on the steps, and at the door of every parliamentary leader, whose thresholds were worn by the members of the then administration, offering titles to some, amnesty to others, and corruption to all."

missed; Mr. Fitzherbert, Mr. George Ponsonby, the Earl of Shannon, and a dozen other high officials who had supported the regency of the Prince of Wales, were unceremoniously treated in like manner. At the same time, the offices were given, or rather sold, to others for past or future service; and Fitzgibbon himself, who had indeed earned, and who was yet to earn, all the favours which the British Government can heap on one man, was made Lord Chancellor. Good working majorities were now secure, and "the king's business" was to be done in future without fail and with a high hand.

Indeed no bounds were now set, either It seems very strange now, that Mr. to the corruption or to the proscription. Grattan and his friends should not have The Government kept no measures with perceived the utter failure and futility of its enemies, and had nothing to refuse to their great and famous achievement of its friends. Mr. Fitzgibbon, the attorney-'82 for any practical purpose in checking general, and real governor of the country, the deadly domination of England. It was a man as audacious, as resolute, and is strange that he in particular, who nearly as eloquent as Grattan himself. had always avowed himself in favour of It is impossible to deny to the man, on this and on subsequent occasions, a certain tribute of admiration for his potent will and fiery manhood, and all the credit which may be supposed due to a bold, outspoken, insolent defiance and disdain of every sentiment of public conscience. Under his advice and superintendence, market-overt was held for votes and influence; prices of boroughs, and of parts of boroughs, of votes, titles, and peerages were brought to a regular tariff. Not a peerage, not an honour, nor a place nor pension was disposed of, but expressly for engagements of support in Parliament; and every little office or emolument that could be resumed by Government was granted upon a new bargain for future services. But this was not enough; proscription of enemies was

full emancipation to the Catholics, did not at last come to the conclusion that the only hope of the country lay, not in Parliament, but in preparation for armed resistance by a united nation. In short, the wonder is, that it was not Grattan himself who invented the association of United Irishmen. He, with his powerful political following, could have given to that organisation a consistency and a power such as it never possessed, and might have made of Ninety-eight a greater Eighty-two. But, in fact, he shunned all extra-parliamentary action, and denounced the United Irish to the last. He was so proud of the achievement of Eighty-two that he never could be brought to see its imperfection. Besides, there grows up in members of Parliament, after some years' habit of work

ing in that body, a kind of superstitious Tandy, the Volunteer Artillery comreverence for it; an unwillingness to mander, who was admitted by acclamaacknowledge any political vitality out-of- tion. Fitzgibbon (Earl of Clare), in his doors, and a morbid idea that the eyes of celebrated speech for the Union-which the universe are upon that House, or at is the most valuable historic document least ought to be. Here he stood, after concerning the events of his day (on the eight years of "independence," confront-side of plunder, corruption, and English ing an independent Parliament, of whom domination)-thus, with vindictive sarone hundred and four were bribed as casm, speaks of the buff-and-blue club :placemen or pensioners, and about a hun- " The better to effectuate the great nadred and twenty more owned by proprie- tional objects of a limitation of the pentors of boroughs, vainly fulminating his sion list, an exclusion of pensioners from indignant protests against corruption-all the House of Commons, a restriction of his efforts to reform any abuse whatever, placemen who should sit there, and a totally defeated-his Volunteers well got responsibility for the receipt and issue of rid of, and succeeded by a militia under the public treasury, a Whig Club was animmediate control of the crown, and a nounced in a manifesto, signed and counpolice force in the metropolis to make sure tersigned, charging the British Governthat no popular demonstrations should ment with a deliberate and systematic ever again attempt to overawe that "in-intention of sapping the liberties and subdependent Parliament;" and yet he could not think of admitting the only rational conclusion-that the united people should be organised to take the government out of hands so incompetent or so vile.

But although the Patriotic party did not go the length of revolutionary projects, they felt the necessity of combining and organising their parliamentary forces. The "Round Robin" was the parent of the "Whig Club." The leaders of opposition had found it advisable, in order to consolidate their force into a common centre of union, to establish a new political society under the denomination of the Whig Club; an institution highly obnoxious to the Castle-they adopted the same principles, were clad in the same uniform of blue and buff, and professedly acted in concert with the Whig Club of England. At the head of this club were the Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Conolly, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Forbes, both the Messieurs Ponsonby, Mr. Curran, and a number of leading members of opposition in both Houses. It was a rendezvous and round of cabinet dinners for the opposition. Here were planned and arranged all the measures for attack on the minis try. Each member had his measure or his question in turn; the plans of debate and manœuvre were preconcerted, and to each was assigned that share in the attack which he was most competent to perform. This club, aided by some popular newspapers, announced its days of dining, proclaimed its sentiments in the shape of resolutions, and enforced them in the press by articles and paragraphs. Some men, afterwards well known as United Irishmen, became members of the Whig Club; especially Archibald Hamilton Rowan, a gentleman of property in the county of Down, and James Napper

verting the Parliament of Ireland. All persons of congenial character and sentiment were invited to range under the Whig banner, for the establishment and protection of the Irish constitution, on the model of the Revolution of 1688; and under this banner was ranged such a motley collection of congenial characters, as never before were assembled for the reformation of the state. Mr. Napper Tandy was received by acclamation, as a statesman too important and illustrious to be committed to the hazard of a ballot. Mr. Hamilton Rowan also repaired to the Whig banner. Unfortunately, the political career of these gentlemen has been arrested; Mr. Tandy's by an attainder of felony, and an attainder of treason; Mr. IIamilton Rowan's by an attainder of treason. The Whig secretary, if he does not stand in the same predicament, is now a prisoner at the mercy of the crown, on his own admission of his treason; and if I do not mistake, the whole society of Irish Whigs have been admitted, ad eundem, by their Whig brethren of England. In the fury of political resentment, some noblemen and gentlemen of the first rank in this country stooped to associate with the refuse of the community, men whose principles they held in abhorrence, and whose manners and deportment must always have excited their disgust."

There was public thanksgiving in the churches of Dublin for the king's recovery: and in the Catholic chapel of Francis Street a solemn high mass was performed "with a new grand Te Deum composed on the occasion by Giordani. The Catholics were still unrecognised by the law, as citizens or members of civil society, and existed only by connivance;' but some Catholic writers tell us with complacency,