The Parliamentary History of Ireland, which ends with the Union of 1800, can scarcely be said to commence until 1753. Previous to that year there had been occasional and violent outbreaks, as in the case of Wood's half-pence,—there had been little confederacies of family interests struggling for places and pensions, but no regular and systematic party combinations. It is observed by a contemporary, that up to 1753 the Opposition in the House of Commons had never been able to muster above twenty-eight steady votes against any Government*; but so rapid was the rise in importance of the Irish House of Commons that a borough sold in 1754 for three times as much money as was given in 1750.† The troubles of 1753 had begun by a quarrel between Lord George Sackville, the Secretary under the ViceRoyalty of Dorset, and the Speaker Boyle, both men of ambition and ability. In 1756 Boyle was quieted by the Earldom of Shannon, and a pension of 2,000l. a year; but this example of rewarded faction in the Chair was tempting, and, as we have already seen, was followed by his successor. Violent as were these altercations, many of them turned on truly trifling points. The only one of real importance was the disposal of the surplus revenue. This the House of Commons wished to apply to the liquidation of debt. The Government concurred in this mode of application, but contended that any surplus of revenue belonged of right to the Crown, and could not be disposed of without its consent and approval. It was from the looseness of practice in Ireland as to clauses of appropriation that sprung this controversy, which could never have arisen according to English forms. In the result the Castle (for so the Government was termed at Dublin) carried by narrow majorities some votes in favour of its authority; but the real victory remained with its opponents, who took care, by strict application of the revenue, to guard against the recurrence of any unapplied surplus.†

Rutland, October 28. 1785. 1842.)

(Correspondence privately printed,

* Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 245. † Hardy's Life of Charlemont, vol. i. p. Hallam's Constit. Hist vol. iii. p. 543.

82.

1758

TUMULTS AT DUBLIN.

129

Tumults, though petty, and almost confined to Dublin, yet indicating the growth of popular ferment, kept pace with these Parliamentary discussions. Thus in 1754, an actor at the Theatre having refused to repeat some lines which appeared to reflect on men in office, and Sheridan, the Manager, not coming forward to justify the prohibition, the audience demolished the inside of the house, and reduced it to a shell. Thus also in 1759 the idea of an union with England was afloat; the English Government was supposed to entertain some such view; and one of the principal Irish Peers, Lord Hillsborough, had let fall an expression in its favour. Immediately all Dublin caught the alarm; the quiet citizens protested; the mob rose in arms. The rioters possessed themselves of the principal streets leading to the Houses of Parliament, stopped the Members as they passed along, and obliged them to take an oath that they would vote against an Union. This oath they administered, amongst others, to the Lord Chancellor and to the Bishop of Killala. Several persons were still more roughly handled. They stripped of his clothes one Rowley, a rich Presbyterian, and were proceeding to drown him in the Liffey, when they were, though with difficulty, dissuaded. Lord Inchiquin was despoiled of his periwig and red riband before the oath was proposed to him for repetition. His Lordship had an impediment in his speech; the rioters mistook his stammering for doubt and hesitation, and they would probably have torn him to pieces had not some one in the crowd called out that his name was O'Brien, upon which their fury was turned to acclamation. They next forced their way into the House of Lords, where they found Lord Farnham taking the legal oaths on the death of his father, instead of which they made him take their's. Their recklessness, as usual, growing with its own indulgence, they proceeded to various other acts of gross outrage in the Upper House, placed an old woman on the Royal Throne, and brought her pipes and tobacco. Meanwhile the Privy Council had been hastily called together, and advised the summoning a troop of horse to the rescue. This was done accordingly, though the troopers were ordered not to fire; but, riding in among the mob with their swords drawn, and cutting and slashing,

they did not quell the tumult until after the loss of fifteen or sixteen lives.*

It is one among the evils of long-continued misrule, that any departure from it seems at first almost as hurtful and as hateful as itself. Scarce ever in the early periods of national release do we find a just mean between servitude and turbulence. The rising aspirations of the Irish for freedom were manifested at this time by the rankest faction in their Parliament,-by the most wanton riots out of doors. Nor is it less remarkable how seldom these throes and struggles of the infant Opposition were aimed against any of the true points of their misgovernment. For the misgovernment of Ireland at that period was undoubtedly great and grievous, from whatever aspect we may choose to view it. If we feel any sympathy or relenting towards the great mass of the population, the Roman Catholics, - if we detest oppression even where it profits us, if we deem it unwise to exasperate by ill-treatment their, or any other, creed into a party-symbol,- if we think that their peaceable conduct during the two insurrections of 1715 and 1745 might have inspired some confidence or deserved some favour, we shall mourn to find that they were still denied by law the education of their children, that no Papist was allowed to keep a school, or to send his family for instruction in his tenets beyond seas, that a lady holding such tenets, and left a widow, could not be guardian to any child, not even to her own, - that on suspicion as to any of these things the burden of proving the negative was thrown on the accused, - that conversion to the Protestant faith was rewarded as a merit, and conversion from it punished as a crime, that among the holders of real property a Protestant son was enabled in a manner to disinherit a Papist father, that no new lands could be acquired by the proscribed party, except on short terms and rents not less than two thirds of the full value, that two Justices might at any time search any of their houses for arms. Blackstone himself could the plea that they were

only excuse such statutes on

Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol, i. p. 338., vol. ii. p. 401-407.

1758.

MISGOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.

131

seldom exerted to their utmost rigour.* But if, on the contrary, we incline to think that such severities were justified, either by the duty of religious conversion or by the danger of Stuart Pretenders, we shall, even from that point of view, find abundant cause to condemn the slackness of the ruling powers towards accomplishing their own designs. We shall concur with the excellent Bishop Berkeley in lamenting the neglect of the Irish language, the absence of all missionary zeal, the frequency of pluralities and non-residence at that time among the Clergy. † — We shall join a most accomplished Lord Lieutenant in desiring measures for the education, on right principles, of Connaught and Kerry. "Let us "make them know," he says, "that there is a God, a King, " and a Government,-three things to which they are at present utter strangers." We shall grieve to behold the Protestant Charter-Schools, intended by Primate Boulter as the most powerful engine of national conversion, so often dwindling into mere petty instruments for personal advantage. We shall inveigh against those factious schisms and selfish aims which so long divided and disgraced the dominant party, and which at length have opened an ever-widening inlet to the vanquished. How dark a shadow have such bygone abuses cast forward, even over our own times! How large a share of the furious animosities which still prevail in Ireland are clearly owing, not to any actual pressure felt at present, but only to the bitter recollections of the past!

66

* Comment., vol. iv. p. 56. ed. 1825. According to Montesquieu: "Ces loix sont si réprimantes qu'elles font tout le mal qui peut se "faire de sang-froid." (Esprit des Loix, livre xix. ch. 27.)

+ Berkeley's Works, vol. ii. p. 381, &c. ed. 1784.

Earl of Chesterfield to Bishop Chenevix, October 8. 1755

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE warfare of 1758 was waged through all the four quarters of the globe. In India, as we shall more fully see hereafter, the Gallic power had begun to sink before the fortune of England and the genius of Clive.- In Africa the French had succeeded in engrossing to themselves the gum trade, along five hundred miles of coast, from Cape Blanco to the river Gambia; they had built Fort Louis within the mouth of the Senegal; they had fortified the island of Goree. The idea of dispossessing them from these important settlements was first conceived by Mr. Thomas Cumming, a Quaker merchant. Peaceful as were both the tenets of his faith and the habits of his calling, he was not withheld by either from framing a scheme of military conquest.* This scheme he submitted to the Boards of Trade and Admiralty. It was approved; and a small squadron was despatched, under Captain Marsh, having on board Mr. Cumming himself, and a few hundred marines. On the 23d of April they appeared in sight of St. Louis, and no sooner were their forces landed than the French, finding themselves unequal to resistance, agreed to a capitulation on honourable terms.

The English armament was itself, as it proved, inadequate to the further conquest of Goree; but later in the year a fresh armament on a larger scale was despatched from home, the command being entrusted to Commodore Keppel, the same officer who had sat on Byng's Court Martial. He had on board 700 men of regular troops, while the French garrison of Goree could not muster half that number. The attack took place on

*When taunted with this religious inconsistency, Mr. Cumming used to answer by exclaiming that his military schemes, if there were but the blessing of Providence upon them, might all be accomplished without shedding a drop of human blood! (See an apologetic note in 'Smollett's History, book iii. ch. ix. sect. 1.)