CH. XXVIII. MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. 275 of broken heads or banishment, and by-and-by it is possible I may see the body yield.'1 Parliament met on January 16. The speech from the Throne announced the Spanish declaration of war against England, and the failure of Lord Malmesbury's negotiations at Paris; congratulated Ireland on the failure of the expedition to Bantry Bay, and acknowledged in emphatic terms the loyal spirit shown on that occasion, by all classes of the people. As in the two previous sessions, the language of Grattan in dealing with the French war bore a greater resemblance to that of Fox, than at the beginning of the war. He urged the mismanagement of military affairs and the pressing necessity for peace, and he expressed doubts of the sincerity of the recent negotiation, and a strong opinion that it was the democratic character of the French Government that made the English Ministers disinclined to negotiate with it. These two last imputations, which were equally made by the Whig party in England, appear to me to have been essentially unfounded; but Grattan stood on much firmer ground when he denounced the negligence that had been shown in leaving Ireland during twelve critical days unprotected by an English fleet, although the intended expedition to Ireland had been for months foreshadowed by the Paris newspapers. This was the second war, he complained, within fifteen years in which Ireland had been involved by England, and then entirely abandoned. 'In 1779,' he said, 'your army was sent away, and you had no naval protection from England, and yet then, as now, you voted large sums and poured out your population to man the fleets and armies of Great Britain. Your volunteers then, as your yeomen now, were assigned as your sole protectors. Two years back, the British Minister played the same game in Ireland. By a dispensing power he withdrew from the kingdom the troops allotted by law for your defence, and left you but 7,000 men, and that, too, at a time when you had no volunteers.' And now, a third time have they left us without the protection of the British fleet, with raw troops, and to the accident of wind and weather for safety.' If the French had reached Cork, even though they had then met with a final defeat, this event would have thrown back beyond calculation 1 Rev. W. Hamilton, Jan. 14, 1797. (I.S.P.O.) the prosperity of Ireland. The first Irish interest was now to accelerate the peace, and he therefore strongly censured the position of the Government, that the surrender of Belgium by the French must at all hazards be insisted on. 'It is not that I do not wish to recover Belgium, but I do not wish to hazard Ireland. The Minister is now gambling, not with distant settlements and West India Islands, but with the home part and parcel of the British Empire.' He moved an amendment to the Address, pointing to peace, which only found six supporters, but the proposed intervention of the Irish Parliament in foreign politics was probably not without its effect in deepening Pitt's conviction of the possible dangers which such a Parliament might produce. It was admitted that the most strenuous and speedy efforts should be made to put the country into a state of defence, and it is remarkable that in this respect the language of the Opposition was much more emphatic than that of the Administration, who appear to have greatly dreaded an increase of any purely Irish force. A motion of Sir Lawrence Parsons for increasing the yeomen by 50,000, was warmly supported by Grattan, but rejected by the Government. A proposal of Sir John Blaquiere authorising the Government to raise 10,000 additional troops, who were to serve only in the British Isles, gave rise to much discussion. Grattan desired that this force should be exclusively devoted to the defence of Ireland, predicting that if this were not done it would be withdrawn in time of danger, to England; but the measure was ultimately carried in its original form, though not yet put in force. On February 21, Pelham, introducing the estimates of the year, stated that the military expenses amounted to a million more than in the preceding year, and he proposed to borrow 2,800,000l., and to raise 305,000l. of additional taxes to pay the interest. This sum was to be obtained by increased duties on sugar, tea, wines and salt; by imposing licences on malt-houses, and by some slight changes in the Post Office and in the import duties, and he strongly urged the propriety of making every practicable economy, by suppressing or diminishing bounties. In the course of this session, the bounty on the inland carriage of corn to Dublin, which had continued since 1759, was abandoned CH. XXVIII. THE ABSENTEE TAX. 277 after some curious and instructive debates, and in spite of the strenuous opposition of Parsons. An The question which was most debated in the first weeks of the session, was the revived proposal of Vandeleur to impose a tax of two shillings in the pound on the estates of absentees. Camden mentioned in his confidential correspondence, that it gave him great anxiety, as he found that there was a general disposition in favour of it among the servants of the Crown.' 'It was not,' he said, 'the mere drain of rents into Great Britain which affected their opinions, but the convulsed state of the lower classes, which they attributed entirely to the want of influence which arises from resident landlords.' Vandeleur urged, in supporting the tax, that the Irish debt would rise in the course of this year to little less than ten millions; that the new taxes on salt and leather would press very heavily on the poor, and that it was unjust that a considerable body of rich. men should, in this time of great national difficulty, contribute nothing to the country which defended their property. Irish landowner who resided in England, paid neither the English land-tax nor the Irish duties on consumption. Vandeleur estimated the number of these proprietors at eighty-three, and he supported his case by citing the law which prevented 'poor artificers' from leaving their country. The proposal was defended, among others, by Grattan and Parsons, and opposed by Castlereagh, who argued against the tax chiefly on the ground that it tended to separate the two countries. Grattan ridiculed this plea, and dwelt especially on the danger and the injustice of exempting a rich class from taxation, when it was found necessary to impose new and severe taxes on the poor; but Camden reported to the Government that he spoke feebly, as if he were half-hearted, and only when the House was exhausted. Forty-nine members supported, and 122 opposed the tax, and this is said to have been the best division obtained by the Opposition during the whole session. You can hardly conceive,' wrote Camden, 'how very extensively the determination to impose that tax had spread, and with how much difficulty I was enabled to withstand the torrent of public opinion.'1 1 Camden to Portland, Feb. 20, March 1, 2, 1797; Irish Parl. Deb. xvii. 378-403; Grattan's Speeches, iii. 292-296; Plowden, ii. 598, 599. On February 26, in accordance with an order of the English Privy Council, the Bank of England suspended cash payments; and on March 2, by the direction of the Lord Lieutenant and Irish Privy Council, a similar course was taken by the Bank of Ireland. The directors, however, in announcing their intention of following the injunctions of the Governments of England and Ireland, added that they were happy in being able to inform the public that the situation of the Bank is strong, and its affairs in the most prosperous situation, and that the governors and directors will accommodate the public with the usual discounts, paying the amount in bank notes.' A meeting was at once held of the chief merchants and traders in Dublin, who declared their approval of the measure, their full confidence in the solvency of the Dublin banks, and their readiness to receive their notes.1 Much more serious, however, than the shock to public credit, was the anarchy which was now rapidly spreading through the North, and which in a few weeks rose to the point of virtual rebellion. In order to estimate the coercive measures that were taken by the Government, it is necessary to endeavour to obtain a clear notion of the extent, and the kind of the evil. The subject is one which lends itself easily to opposing exaggerations, and it has been chiefly dealt with by historians who are violent partisans. There exists, however, in the confidential letters of magistrates, which are now in Dublin Castle, a large amount of authentic and entirely unused material, and by pursuing the sure, though I fear very tedious, process of bringing together a multitude of detailed contemporary testimonies, it will, I think, be possible to arrive at some just conclusions. The disturbances were clearly organised, and their centres were innumerable small societies of United Irishmen, which acted very independently of one another, and which were multiplied by incessant propagandism. They consisted of men who, either through French principles, or through disgust at the corrupt and subservient condition of the Government and Parliament in Dublin, now aimed distinctly at a separate Seward's Collectanca Politica, iii. 185-187. CH. XXVIII. STATE OF DONEGAL. 279 republic, and hoped to attain it by armed rebellion. This rebellion was not to take place till a French army had landed. In the mean time, their business was to prepare for the French by nightly drilling, by the manufacture of pikes, by the plunder of arms, by preventing the farmers from enlisting in the yeomanry, by seducing the soldiers and the militia, by systematically paralysing the law. But with the political movement, there was now combined the whole system of Whiteboyism and Defenderism-all the old grievances about tithes, and taxes, and rent, which had so often stirred the people to outrage-and on the outskirts of the whole movement hung a vast assisting mass of aimless anarchy; of ordinary crime; of the restlessness which is the natural consequence of great poverty. Donegal and Roscommon appear at first to have been the worst counties. The improvement which Dr. Hamilton noticed in the middle of January soon passed away, and in several graphic letters, he paints the utter anarchy that prevailed near Lough Swilly, where he was magistrate. In one of those letters, written in the beginning of February, he describes how, between his house and Raphoe, houses were everywhere robbed of arms and money, corn destroyed, turf-stacks burnt, windows broken. He succeeded in capturing some of the depredators, and confining them with a guard in his own house, but from 150 to 200 men speedily assembled and attempted a rescue. Hamilton sought for assistance, but found that all the boats on Lough Swilly were destroyed, and that the whole country was watched. He succeeded, however, together with a certain Captain Smyth, in making his way to Derry. Lord Cavan gave him a reinforcement of thirty-two men; he returned with these by a night march to his home, found the prisoners still safe, and began to scour the country. The principal offenders,' he wrote, 'who are almost universally Dissenters, have fled.' 'Paine's "Rights of Man," French support, immunity from revenue laws, from tithes, &c., and the overthrow of the King and our form of government in general, seem all to have been resorted to, as principles and topics to influence their party. . . . From common and poor men I have followed up the association to comfortable farmers; from them to Dissenting ministers, not in |