CHAP. The last the Irish Parlia ment. delivered one of the most pathetic and argumentative speeches ever uttered. The peroration was in these words: 'Yet I do not give up the country. Though she is in a swoon, she is not dead; though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, there is upon her lips the spirit of life, and on her cheek the glow of beauty. Thou art not conquered: beauty's ensign yet Is crimson on thy lips and on thy cheek; While a plank of the vessel holds together I will not leave But the power of the Minister was too strong for the patriot bands. They fought the measure inch by inch, and the Speaker lent his best aid, and the forms of the House were used to obstruct a measure fraught with such ruin to Ireland-but in vain. The time for the passing of the Bill was close at hand. The Commons House of Parliament on June 10, 1800, afforded, according to Sir Jonas Barrington, the most melancholy example of a fine independent people betrayed, divided, sold, and as a State annihilated. British clerks and officers were smuggled into her Parliament, to vote away the constitution of a country to which they were strangers, and in which they had neither interest nor connection. They were employed to cancel the royal charter of the Irish nation, guaranteed by the British Government, sanctioned by the British Legislature, and unequivocally confirmed by the words, the signature, and the great seal of their Monarch. The Houses of Parliament were closely invested by the military: no demonstration of popular feeling was permitted. A British regiment, near the entrance, patrolled through the Ionic colonnades. The situation of the Speaker (Foster) on that night was CHAP. LXIV. The the Union. state of mons. of the most distressing nature: a sincere and ardent enemy of the measure, he headed its opponents; he resisted it with all the power of his mind, the resources of Speaker his experience, his influence, and his eloquence. It was, opposed to however, through his voice that it was to be proclaimed and consummated. His only alternative (resignation) would have been unavailing, and could have added nothing to his character. His expressive countenance bespoke the inquietude of his feelings; solicitude was perceptible in every glance, and his embarrassment was obvious in every word he uttered. The galleries were full, but the change was lamentable: they were no longer crowded with those who had been accustomed to witness the eloquence and to animate the debates of that devoted assembly. A monotonous and melancholy murmur ran Depressed through the benches, scarcely a word was exchanged the House amongst the Members, nobody seemed at ease, no cheer- of Comfulness was apparent, and the ordinary business for a short time proceeded in the usual manner. At length the expected moment arrived; the order of the day for the third reading of the bill for a Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland was moved by Lord Castle- Lord reagh. Unvaried, tame, cold-blooded, the words seemed reagh frozen as they issued from his lips; and, as if a simple moves the citizen of the world, he seemed to have no sensation on reading of the subject. At that moment he had no country-no God, the Bill. but his ambition; he made his motion, and resumed his seat, with the utmost composure and indifference. Confused murmurs again ran through the House; it was visibly affected; every character in a moment seemed involuntarily rushing to its index-some pale, some flushed, some agitated: there were few countenances to which the heart did not despatch some messenger. Several Members withdrew before the question could be repeated, and an awful momentary silence succeeded their departure. The Speaker rose slowly from that chair which The had been the proud source of his honours and of his high Speaker character. For a moment he resumed his seat; but the question. Castle third puts the LXIV. CHAP. strength of his mind sustained him in his duty, though his struggle was apparent. With that dignity which never failed to signalise his official actions, he held up the Bill for a moment in silence; he looked steadily around him on the last agony of the expiring Parliament; he at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are of opinion that this Bill do pass, say "Aye;" the contrary, say "No." The affirmative was languid, but indisputable. Another momentary pause ensued. Again his lips seemed to decline their office. At length, with an eye averted from the object which he hated, he proclaimed, with a The Ayes subdued voice, The Ayes have it.' The fatal sentence was now pronounced. For an instant he stood statue-like, then indignantly, and with disgust, flung the Bill upon the table, and sunk into his chair with an exhausted spirit. have it. Opinion of Irish lawyers upon the Union. Saurin's declara tion. The last meeting of the Parliament in College Green was held on Saturday, June 10, 1800; and although the Legislature of Ireland was abolished with English legal formalities, the ablest lawyers, Saurin, Ponsonby, Plunket, Bull, Bushe, Curran, Burrowes, Fitzgerald, A. Moore, and others, maintained, but more as politicians than lawyers, that the Act was a nullity; that the transaction, though fortified by sevenfold form, was radically fraudulent; that all the forms and solemnities of law were but so many badges of the fraud; and that posterity, like a great court of conscience, would pronounce its judgment. Saurin, one of the most eminent Irish lawyers, declared that resistance to the Union would be a struggle against usurpation, and not a resistance against law. 'You,' he said, 'may make the Union binding as a law, but you cannot make it obligatory on conscience. It will be obeyed as long as England is strong; but resistance to it will be, in the abstract, a duty, and the exhibition of that resistance will be a mere question of prudence.' CHAPTER LXV. LIFE OF LORD PLUNKET, LORD CHANCELLOR.-THE TRIAL OF ROBERT EMMET. THE passing of the Act of Union was regarded by the anti-Unionists as the death-blow to Ireland's independence. They felt at once like a beaten army, humiliated and depressed. They were turned adrift, as Grattan said, with safe consciences, but with breaking hearts. He retired to his country seat at Tinnahinch, County Wicklow, and only received the visits of a few friends who, like himself, had fought the battle to the last. Plunket was ever most welcome. CHAP. LXV. The effect of the Union on the anti Unionists. attends closely to his pro fession. As the closing of the Irish Senate House was regarded Plunket by Plunket as the extinguishing of his political life, he turned all his thoughts to his profession, and business came as rapidly as he could desire. His days were passed in the Four Courts, and such part of each evening as he could devote from the preparation for the following day he spent in the bosom of his family, who were then growing up. A few years elapsed when the Irish political horizon was again overcast, and the insurrection of Robert Emmet took place in 1803. Of this ill-fated enthusiast it Robert has been truly said, 'There is a certain poetical halo about Emmet. Emmet which makes many persons of opposite politics compassionate towards his memory. His romantic passion for Miss Curran and his enthusiasm for Ireland has made him a sort of hero with many sentimentalists. The lyre of Moore, and the graceful pen of Washington Irving, have done much to entwine Emmet's name with many tender associations.' Of the idol of his affections, Sarah Curran, Moore thus wrote: CHAP. The in suspected. She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains, He had liv'd for his love, for his country he died, This feeling of tenderness towards Emmet makes many forget the actual sentiments which were entertained towards him when he rekindled the flame of civil war, only to forge fresh fetters for his unhappy country.' Stripped of the romance with which prose and poetry have encircled him, the same author adds, "There was more of political energy and masculine power in any ten days of Wolfe Tone's life, than in as many years of Emmet, who was like one of those conventional artists whose works produce no permanent effect from their fatal prettiness. He was a fine inflammatory orator, with much natural talent for eloquence; but a weaker leader never did more mischief to his party.'2 He had, however, power to collect the disaffected, and had organised what was undoubtedly a very formidable insurrection, had his plans been carried into execution. An accidental explosion of gunpowder in a surrection house in Dublin caused their project to be suspected, but the Government took no steps to discover the conspiracy.3 On the evening of July 23, the rebellion broke out in Dublin, and Lord Kilwarden, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who was on his way from his country seat, Newlands, to Dublin, was murdered. The following is an authentic account of this atrocious deed :- The carriage 1 Ireland and its Rulers, part iii. p. 134. 2 Ibid. in note. The explosion took place on July 18; the outbreak of the rebellion was not until July 23. |