tell them how necessary it is for them to be armed. The Volunteers have been discouraged because they threw off the open and avowed dominion of Great Britain. These yeomen corps have been raised to support the concealed deadly influence she has gained by corruption and treason.' i The Administration might be impotent to arrest the progress of secret conspiracy, but it had spirit and power to resent the open insolence of Mr. O'Connor. It could not furnish him with the halter which was his due. He was not even suspected of having ventured into actual crime. But a public defiance, re-issued as it was in loose sheets, spread broadcast over the country, and showered from the galleries of the theatres, was not to be passed over, and the ssionate patriot was provided with a lodging in Le Birmingham Tower, at Dublin Castle. Sir Francis Burdett, who was O'Connor's relative, made his arrest an occasion of a philippic in the British Parliament, characteristic both in its presumption and its ignorance of the tone of English Liberal politicians in speaking of Irish subjects. 'One person,' he said, in a savage invective against the Viceroy and the Chancellor, 'now immured within the walls of a dungeon in Dublin Castle, I have the honour of being connected with, whom I know to be as incapable of treason towards his country (good God! that treason to Ireland and the name of O'Connor should be preposterously coupled together) as he is capable of everything that is generous and noble for his country's good; a man whose private virtues equal, they cannot surpass, the integrity of 1 See Plowden, vol. iv., Appendix 10, where there are ten pages of this rhodomontade. CHAP. II. 1797. January. BOOK IX. 1797. January. his public conduct. When such men become objects of fear and hatred to Government, it is not difficult to ascertain the nature of that Government.' The reproaches which have been showered by historians on Lord Camden's government of Ireland are based on the same ignorance of fact which so grossly dictated the laudations bestowed by Sir Francis Burdett on the most worthless of Irish traitors. The ignorance has no longer an excuse, but the prejudice continues. The florid rhetoric of patriotic incendiaries has been so agreeable to the palate of modern Liberal philosophers, that the crimes and follies of the United Irishmen are forgotten in the spurious beauty of political sentimentalism. Public opinion upon Ireland has been formed by men Whose virtue is To make him worthy whose offence subdues him, SECTION II. THE Constitutional friends of liberty were choosing their ground with more judgment, and using arguments more likely to receive attention. Arthur O'Connor had all but invited the Irish, in an open address, to ally themselves with France. Lord Moira used their apparent orderliness at the time of the invasion as a plea for a conciliatory policy. The Prince of Wales was induced to offer his services as Viceroy. Moira, supposing the time come for the rainbow to show itself, was prepared to attend him as Commander-in-Chief. The Prince submitted to Pitt an outline of the healing measures which his Irish advisers recommended; while Grattan and Ponsonby were denouncing, in the Irish House of Commons, the negligence which had exposed the country to a danger from which only accident had saved her, and were finding willing listeners. It was The attack was made in various forms. urged plausibly that the ease with which the attempt had been made encouraged a repetition of it. Rumour said the armament was being refitted, and the chances of a second expedition were on every one's lips. It was alleged also, and with perfect truth, that the least confident of the Irish were encouraged by the fact that the French had actually come, and were venturing boldly and enthusiastically into the conspiracy.1 The Government had affected to compliment 1 'Evidence of Dr. MacNeven.'-'Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, 1798.' CHAP. II. 1797. January. BOOK IX. 1797. February. the peasantry on their loyalty, as if they had depended on it beforehand, and had been justified in their confidence. The Irish gentry, who knew better how the truth stood, were indignant at such idle folly. They were perfectly aware that if Hoche had landed with his entire force, Dalrymple must have been overwhelmed, Cork would have been taken, the whole of Ireland would have been in arms. Where, it was angrily asked, had been the vaunted British fleet? and the answers did not tend to allay uneasiness. Admiral Colpoys ought to have been outside Brest with fifteen sail of the line. For some unknown cause he had been off his post when Hoche slipped out; and when he found Hoche was gone, instead of following him, he had gone up Channel to Portsmouth. It was reported at the Admiralty on the 20th of December that the French expedition had sailed. Lord Bridport was at Spithead with the Channel fleet. He might have joined Colpoys and gone in pursuit, and the east wind would have carried him to Bantry in forty hours. But as late as the 26th the Cabinet was incredulous. On the 27th the wind had gone round, a westerly gale was blowing, and he could not leave his anchorage. This was small consolation to Ireland. The sheetanchor of her safety had failed at the hour of need. To secure protection for the future, either, it was argued, there must be concession to the Catholics, and the pretext for disaffection must be removed, or the military force must be increased. Parliament must vote additional taxes. Private gentlemen must strain their embarrassed fortunes in raising Yeomanry. Especial bitterness was felt against the noble lords and gentlemen who, drawing their incomes from Ire on, what more II. 1797. February. land, were spending them in London, and contributing CHAP. nothing, either in purse or person, to the public defence. If new taxes were to be laid proper than an absentee tax? Such a tax was certain to be proposed should Government ask for more money, and Camden wrote to Portland for instructions how to act towards a measure which would be very unpleasant to the feelings of the absentees.'1 Lord Shannon, Lord Ely, Lord Waterford vehemently pressed it. The best men in the country, the most active friends of Government, as Camden admitted, were in its favour. The impolitic backwardness of the absentees in not stepping forward with decision and liberality in the late alarm had added a feeling of resentment to the sense of public injury.' Mr. Vandeleur at length brought the subject forward formally, and proposed a tax of two shillings in the pound on the net produce of the absentee rents. As a speaker he was unequal to what was called 'influencing the debate,' but no one ever spoke more truth in the Irish Parliament. All the disturbances which had taken place there, which had disgraced its character and checked its growth,' he accurately declared to 'have been found to commence on the lands of absentees.' Had they been resident, as they ought to have been, their authority as landlords would have prevented disorder, and acts of kindness would have removed the temptation to it. 'A tax,' Mr. Vandeleur said, ' which would compel the landowners to return to their duties would do more to tranquillise Ireland than all the repressive laws which Parliament could devise.' 1 Camden to Portland, February 20, 1797.' |