surrection had taken place in the province of Munster. I have been through all the disaffected districts, and found nothing but tranquillity, the people employed in cultivating their lands, and following their usual avocations. They were civil and submissive, and although I never took any escort, or anything more than one servant, I was under no apprehension, even the most distant, of any danger. Several robberies have been committed, as has been, at all times, the custom in this country; some private quarrels have been avenged, and arms have been taken from the Protestants. The people, however, are induced to give them up partly through fear, partly through persuasion. I do not, however, doubt, that if an enemy should land, the Roman Catholics will rise, and cut the throats of the Protestants. I really think Lord Camden is ill advised to declare the kingdom in rebellion, and to establish something more than martial law over the whole kingdom. It was, perhaps, right to do something in that way, in some particular districts where the greatest outrages had been committed, and where the magistrates had fled from their duty. I am now convinced that a writ may be executed in any part of Ireland. Do not, therefore, be under any immediate apprehension about this country.'

Abercromby is nearly the last figure of any real interest that, in the eighteenth century, flitted across the troubled scene of Irish politics. He left Ireland towards the end of April, just a month before the rebellion broke out, and he was replaced by Lake, who, more, perhaps, than any other military man, was associated with the abuses which Abercromby had tried to check. The reign of simple force was established beyond dispute, and the men whose policy had driven

1 Dunfermline's Abercromby, pp. 127, 128.

Lord Fitzwilliam from Ireland, and Grattan from Parliament, were now omnipotent.

Abercromby himself in after years looked back on his brief Irish command as the most meritorious page of his long and brilliant career. After the scene of blood that was opening in Ireland had closed, and when the measure of a legislative Union was in contemplation, he wrote some melancholy lines, giving his impressions of Irish life. To the illiberal, the unjust, and the unwise conduct of England during the long period of her government, he mainly attributed the profoundly diseased character of Irish life. The Legislature and the Executive had become corrupt; the upper classes dissipated, neglectful of duty, and too often oppressive to the poor; the peasantry cunning, deceitful, lazy, and vindictive. Although,' he said, the French Revolution and Jacobin principles may be the immediate cause of the events which have lately taken place in Ireland, yet the remote and ultimate cause must be derived from its true origin, the oppression of centuries.' It will need a long period, and the wisest system of government that can be devised, to cure the evil. 'In the mean time you must trust to the due execution of the law, and to a powerful and well-disciplined army, for your protection. . . . Till a new system has begun to take effect, the Irish people will remain the tools of a foreign enemy, or of domestic agitators and demagogues. God grant that the measures on the affairs of Ireland, which they say are now under consideration, may be well weighed, and that the spirit of party may give way to true wisdom!' 1

It will not be surprising to the reader, that everything of the nature of political concession was at this time obstinately refused, though representations often

1

1 Dunfermline's Abercromby, pp. 127, 129, 130, 216.

came to the Government, pointing out its importance and its necessity. Pelham wrote from London, in the last days of 1797, that he found a strong disposition in English ministerial circles, to endeavour to alienate the Catholics from the conspiracy by some measures of concession, if the Irish Government would consent; and he begged Camden to consult with the Chancellor on the subject; but the answer was an absolute refusal.1 Francis Higgins, the shrewd proprietor of the 'Freeman's Journal,' was at this time much about the Government, and gave them very valuable information. No. one who was not himself a United Irishman knew better the movements and changes of popular Irish feeling, and he strongly urged the importance of doing something to conciliate the Catholics. He told them that there had been a meeting of United Irishmen, in which Emmet, Sampson, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and others, had expressed extreme alarm lest the Speech from the Throne should give hopes of a measure of Catholic emancipation, declaring that in that case there would be an end to freedom and their design.' In the opinion of Higgins, the wisest thing the Government could do, would be to enter on such a course, and especially to make use of the services of his illustrious friend Arthur O'Leary. I know,' he said, 'O'Leary would be a tower of strength among them. He was their first champion, and is most highly respected by the multitude. His writings and preaching prevented the Whiteboys and insurgents of the South from joining the rabble of Cork, and rising en masse at the period when the combined fleets of Spain, France &c. were in the English Channel.2

Pelham to Camden, Dec. 21; Camden to Pelham, Dec. 26, 1797.

2 See the letters of F. H., Dec. 9, 22, 29, 1797; Jan. 2, 12, 16, 1798. The Freeman's Jour

Another letter arrived, to which no great weight can have been attached, but which may be noticed in passing, as it is, I believe, with one exception, the last appearance in Irish politics of a strange, wild figure, which fills a considerable space in an earlier portion of this narrative. Lord Bristol, the Bishop of Derry, now lived entirely in Italy, from whence accounts of his mad pranks were from time to time brought back by travellers. In the spring of 1797, his palace at Derry had been occupied by soldiers under Lord Cavan, and he wrote a furious letter, ordering that legal proceedings should be immediately taken against that officer.2 In the beginning of 1798, Pelham received a long letter from him, dated from Venice, and giving his views of the state of Ireland. It is full of poetical quotations, and very extravagant in form, but not in substance. The diocese of Derry, he said, was the real centre of rebellion in Ireland, and the present was the third paroxysm which had taken place in the last thirty years. The Hearts of Oak, the Hearts of Steel, and the Defenders were all symptoms of the same deep-seated discontent and disease; and as he had gained the confidence of his turbulent people more completely than any other member of his cloth, he could tell the ministers confidently, that there were only two measures which could ever effect a real and radical cure. first was, a complete change in the law of tithes. He described at length the hardship and irritation the existing system produced in Ulster, and continued: 'My remedy for all this evil is simple. I proposed it in 1774, and it was accepted by the Bench of Bishops assembled at the late Primate's, but-by way of experi

nal wrote, on the whole, favourably towards the Catholics. See Madden's History of Irish Periodical Literature, ii. 480-482.

1 See vol. ii. p. 429.

The

2 Lord Cavan to Pelham, May 27, 1797.

ment-confined to the diocese of Derry; but my illness. and other circumstances made me drop it. This was the remedy, grounded on the English statute for inclosing parishes, an Act to enable every rector and vicar, with consent of the patron of the parish and the bishop of the diocese, to exchange his tithe, or any portion of his tithe, for land of the same value, so that the exchange will only be gradual in the parish.'

He explained the process by which such a measure could be made to work, but added that it must be accompanied by another great change, the payment of the priests and Dissenting ministers. The Presbyterians, who had a few years before, so enthusiastically supported the Bishop as the great champion of religious liberty, would have been somewhat startled had they seen the very plain language in which he now expressed his views on this subject. Is it not a shame that in any civilised country, and where there is an established religion as well as a Government, there should be teachers professedly paid by their hearers for preaching against both the one and the other? Neither Popish nor Presbyterian parson should, in my opinion, be permitted by law to preach or pray indoors but under the Great Seal of Ireland. The Crown should be the patron of all Dissenters, seceders, and schismatics whatever, and the Crown should either pay them, or be the cause of their being paid, and then Government would be certain of the people they appoint, and the doctrines they would teach.' The payment might be made either by a direct grant, or by a county or baronial rate, or by dividing the Church funds as livings became vacant. 'This would effectually tear up rebellion by the roots.

Where the treasure is, there would be the heart likewise. . . . Anything so anomalous as a man in a civilised state paid for preaching anarchy, confusion, and rebellion, I do not conceive.' Unless some radical