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PARTIES IN IRELAND.

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carried through, but not without great difficulties, and contrary, as is alleged, to the secret wishes of many who had voted in its favour. *

In October 1761 there had gone as Lord Lieutenant the Earl of Halifax, a statesman of some reputation, but who impaired his constitution by drinking, and his fortune by neglect.** In September 1763 was installed the Earl of Northumberland, a grandee of princely wealth and magnificence; and in October 1765 the Earl of Hertford, a courteous and high-minded gentleman. But these appointments were too transitory to be beneficial; and indeed no choice of the Viceroy, however judiciously made, could reach the social evils of the kingdom. Disturbances, almost rising to the dignity of rebellion, broke forth at various times both among the Protestants of the north and the Roman Catholics of the south, both in Armagh and Tipperary. In the former the moving grievance was the exorbitant exaction of tithe. The insurgents appeared in bodies of four or five hundred, headed, it was said, by farmers and yeomen of respectable property. All bore boughs of oak in their hats, from whence they were commonly called OAK-BOYS. Whenever any clergyman fell into their hands they compelled him to take an oath that he would not levy more than a certain proportion of tithe. One clergyman, by name Dr. Clarke, was especially obnoxious to them as having been the first to exceed what they thought the proper rate; so they seized him, held him fast on the top of his own coach, and drew him through several districts of the neighbourhood, amidst abundance of hisses and scurril jests. Thus their proceedings were not without some touch of the native Irish humour; and it is remarkable that though they insulted many persons, erected gallows, and threatened "ineffable perdition" to all their opponents, yet in fact they never took a single life nor maimed a single limb.

* Lord Chesterfield's Letters, vol. iv. p. 468. ed. 1845. ** Walpole's Memoirs of George III., vol. iv. p. 326.

In the south, on the contrary, the rioters, all of the lowest class, showed ferocious cruelty, and committed dreadful crimes. They were known by the name of WHITEBOYS, because as a mark among themselves in their attacks they frequently wore a shirt over their clothes. Their union was cemented by oaths of secrecy, and their vengeance wreaked upon any who betrayed, or who withstood, or even who refused to help them. The military force was sent against these banditti; many of them were killed or tried and sentenced, and one priest, Father Shehee, who had abetted them, was hanged. But disturbances of the same kind and in the same quarter, though often suppressed, as often broke forth anew until the close of that century, the very period when the last highwaymen were disappearing from the lanes and commons of more happy England! Partly as the effect of these outrages may be noticed the low state of agriculture in the south of Ireland. But though in part their effect, it was also in part their cause. So early as 1727 Swift complains that “even ale and potatoes are imported from "England as well as corn.' Another grievance which was felt both in north and south was the pressure of the rates for the making of roads, which roads in too many cases were directed with a view to private mansions, rather than to public thoroughfares. In other matters also the conduct of the country gentlemen of the south of Ireland gave much handle for complaint. When in 1763 the Earl of Charlemont, a most unexceptionable witness, attempted to explain the causes of the White-Boy risings, we find as the first and chief which he assigns, "low wages, exorbitant rents." At nearly the same period another no less acute and practised observer, the Earl of Chesterfield, writes as follows to the Bishop of Waterford: "I see that you are in fears again "from your White-Boys, and have destroyed a good many

* Short View of the State of Ireland. Works, vol. vii. p. 329. ed. 1814. ** Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, vol. i. p. 172. In another place Lord Charlemont severely censures "the Protestant Bashaws of the south "and west."

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"of them, but I believe that if the military force had killed "half as many landlords it would have contributed more effectually to restore quiet. The poor people in Ireland are used worse than negroes by their lords and masters, "and their deputies, of deputies, of deputies." *

66

Blackheath, October 1. 1764. This passage and several others in his correspondence with the Bishop of Waterford were suppressed by the first Editors of 1777, and it was not till 1848 that the whole letters in MSS. camu into my hands.

CHAPTER XLV.

FROM the train of events and the state of parties which have now been laid before the reader the weakness of the Rockingham administration is clearly manifest. It had hoped to lean on the resolute will and the lately returning favour of the Prince who had called it into being. But only a few weeks after its formation this its main prop was snatched away. On the 30th of October the Duke of Cumberland was playing at piquet with his Groom of the Bedchamber, General Hodgson, when he grew confused and mistook the cards. Next morning he appeared at Court, and returned to dine at home, but after dinner was seized with a suffocation and ordered the window to be opened. One of his domestics accustomed to bleed him in such attacks was called, and attempted to tie up his arm, but the Duke calmly said: "Too late! It is all over!" and expired.

The concern felt at the Duke's decease was, in England at least, deep and sincere. His former unpopularity was forgotten, or seemed only another claim in his behalf. It was observed that in London the middle and lower classes not only clad themselves in mourning, but wore it for a longer period than the Gazette prescribed. *

Of far graver import, however, both to the nation and to the Ministry, were the tidings which at this time came from North America. While the Assemblies were petitioning, the rabble were rioting, against the Stamp Act. Boston, above all, took the lead in such tumultuary proceedings. There, in the month of August, the house of Mr. Oliver, who had accepted the post of Stamp Distributor, was sacked and plundered, his effigy hung upon a tree **, carried upon

Lord Orford's Memoirs of George III., vol. ii. p. 226.

** This tree was afterwards held in honour, and surnamed Liberty Tree;

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TUMULTS AT BOSTON.

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a bier, and finally burned in a bonfire, and himself compelled under terror of his life to promise to resign his office. The authorities had sent a written order to the Colonel of the Militia Regiment to beat an alarm; but the Colonel replied that it would avail nothing, for that as soon as the drum was heard the drummer would be knocked down and the drum broken; and to this he added a still more cogent reason that probably all the drummers of the regiment were in the mob. In short it became apparent that many of the principal persons in the town were inclined to approve and justify the act. Thus the populace unchecked and inspirited ére long betook themselves to fresh deeds of violence. "On "the 26th of August," writes one of the correspondents of the Government, "towards evening some boys began "to light a bonfire before the Town-house, which is an usual "signal for a mob. Before it was quite dark a great com'pany of people gathered together crying, 'Liberty and "Property!' which is their usual notice of their intention "to plunder and pull down a house!" Accordingly they did proceed that night to plunder and in part demolish the houses of the Register-Deputy of the Admiralty, of the Comptroller of the Customs, and of the Lieutenant-Governor, destroying in the latter a large and valuable collection of papers. Next morning the streets were found strewed with money, pieces of plate, gold rings, and other effects which the depredators had dropped in carrying away. These last outrages had, however, the good effect of rousing the respectable inhabitants of the town and Colony to their own and the public defence. Moreover, the news of the change of Ministry in England might give them hopes of finding some more quiet method of redress. With such hopes

it stood on the main street of Boston." (Holmes, American Annals, vol. ii. p. 271. ed. 1805.) In August 1775 some of the English soldiers or their friends "with malice diabolical" cut it down. (American Archives, vol. iii. p. 472.)

*Correspondence relating to America, laid before the House of Commons by the King's command January 1766, and printed in the Parl. Hist vol. xvi. p. 112-133. See especially the letters from Boston of August 15, 16, 22, and 31, 1765.