Part 50 (1/2)
and he, too, when the poor man was made still poorer by his sickness,
”Gave, while his eyes did brim, What I should give to him.”[556]
But a time came when the priest was able to do more. Men had seen, in some measure, the absurdity, if not the wickedness, of persecuting the religion of a nation; and at this time priests were tolerated in Ireland. Still, though they risked their lives by it, they could not see their people treated unjustly without a protest. The priest was independent of the landlord; for, if he suffered from his vengeance, he suffered alone, and his own sufferings weighed lightly in the balance compared with the general good. The priest was a gentleman by education, and often by birth; and this gave him a social status which his uneducated people could not possess.[557] Such, was the position of Father Nicholas Sheehy, the parish priest of Clogheen. He had interfered in the vain hope of protecting his unfortunate paris.h.i.+oners from injustice; and, in return, he was himself made the victim of injustice.
He was accused of encouraging a French invasion--a fear which was always present to the minds of the rulers, as they could not but know that the Irish had every reason to seek for foreign aid to free them from domestic wrongs. He was accused of encouraging the Whiteboys, because, while he denounced their crimes, he accused those who had driven them to these crimes as the real culprits. He was accused of treason, and a reward of 300 was offered for his apprehension. Conscious of his innocence, he gave himself up at once to justice, though he might easily have fled the country. He was tried in Dublin and acquitted. But his persecutors were not satisfied. A charge of murder was got up against him; and although the body of the man could never be found, although it was sworn that he had left the country, although an _alibi_ was proved for the priest, he was condemned and executed. A gentleman of property and position came forward at the trial to prove that Father Sheehy had slept in his house the very night on which he was accused of having committed the murder; but the moment he appeared in court, a clergyman who sat on the bench had him taken into custody, on pretence of having killed a corporal and a sergeant in a riot. The pretence answered the purpose. After Father Sheehy's execution Mr. Keating was tried; and, as there was not even a shadow of proof, he was acquitted. But it was too late to save the victim.
At the place of execution, Father Sheehy most solemnly declared, on the word of a dying man, that he was not guilty either of murder or of treason; that he never had any intercourse, either directly or indirectly, with the French; and that he had never known of any such intercourse being practised by others. Notwithstanding this solemn declaration of a dying man, a recent writer of Irish history says, ”there can be no doubt” that he was deeply implicated in treasonable practices, and ”he seems to have been” a princ.i.p.al in the plot to murder Lord Carrick. The ”no doubt” and ”seems to have been” of an individual are not proofs, but they tend to perpetuate false impressions, and do grievous injustice to the memory of the dead. The writer has also omitted all the facts which tended to prove Father Sheehy's innocence.
In 1771 a grace was granted to the Catholics, by which they were allowed to take a lease of fifty acres of bog, and half an acre of arable land for a house; but this holding should not be within a mile of any town.
In 1773 an attempt was made to tax absentees; but as they were the princ.i.p.al landowners, they easily defeated the measure. A pamphlet was published in 1769, containing a list of the absentees, which is in itself sufficient to account for any amount of misery and disaffection in Ireland. There can be no doubt of the correctness of the statement, because the names of the individuals and the amount of their property are given in full. Property to the amount of 73,375 belonged to persons who _never_ visited Ireland. Pensions to the amount of 371,900 were paid to persons who lived out of Ireland. Property to the amount of 117,800 was possessed by persons who visited Ireland occasionally, but lived abroad. Incomes to the amount of 72,200 were possessed by officials and bishops, who generally lived out of Ireland. The state of trade is also treated in the same work, in which the injustice the country has suffered is fully and clearly explained.
The American war commenced in 1775, and the English Parliament at once resolved to relieve Ireland of some of her commercial disabilities. Some trifling concessions were granted, just enough to show the Irish that they need not expect justice except under the compulsion of fear, and not enough to benefit the country. Irish soldiers were now asked for and granted; but exportation of Irish commodities to America was forbidden, and in consequence the country was reduced to a state of fearful distress. The Irish debt rose to 994,890, but the pension list was still continued and paid to absentees. When the independence of the American States was acknowledged by France, a Bill for the partial relief of the Catholics pa.s.sed unanimously through the English Parliament. Catholics were now allowed a few of the rights of citizens.
They were permitted to take and dispose of leases, and priests and schoolmasters were no longer liable to prosecution.
Grattan had entered Parliament in the year 1775. In 1779 he addressed the House on the subject of a free trade[558] for Ireland; and on the 19th of April, 1780, he made his famous demand for Irish independence.
His address, his subject, and his eloquence were irresistible. ”I wish for nothing,” he exclaimed, ”but to breathe in this our land, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chain and to contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied as long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clinging to his rags; he may be naked, but he shall not be in irons. And I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted; and though great men should apostatize, yet the cause will live; and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it; and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him.”
The country was agitated to the very core. A few links of the chain had been broken. A mighty reaction set in after long bondage. The newly-freed members of the body politic were enjoying all the delicious sensations of a return from a state of disease to a state o partial health. The Celt was not one to be stupefied or numbed by long confinement; and if the restraint were loosened a little more, he was ready to bound into the race of life, joyous and free, too happy to mistrust, and too generous not to forgive his captors. But, alas! the freedom was not yet granted, and the joy was more in prospect of what might be, than in thankfulness of what was.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Grattan demanding Irish Independence.]
The Volunteer Corps, which had been formed in Belfast in 1779, when the coast was threatened by privateers, had now risen to be a body of national importance. They were reviewed in public, and complimented by Parliament. But they were patriots. On the 28th of December, 1781, a few of the leading members of the Ulster regiments met at Charlemont, and convened a meeting of delegates from all the Volunteer a.s.sociations, at Dungannon, on the 15th of February, 1782. The delegates a.s.sembled on the appointed day, and Government dared not prevent or interrupt their proceedings. Colonel William Irvine presided, and twenty-one resolutions were adopted, demanding civil rights, and the removal of commercial restraints. One resolution expresses their pleasure, as Irishmen, as Christians, and as Protestants, at the relaxation of the penal laws.
This resolution was suggested by Grattan to Mr. Dobbs, as he was leaving Dublin to join the a.s.sembly. It was pa.s.sed with only two dissentient votes.
The effect of this combined, powerful, yet determined agitation, was decisive. On the 27th of May, 1782, when the Irish Houses met, after an adjournment of three weeks, the Duke of Portland announced the unconditional concessions which had been made to Ireland by the English Parliament. Mr. Grattan interpreted the concession in the fullest sense, and moved an address, ”breathing the generous sentiments of his n.o.ble and confiding nature.” Mr. Flood and a few other members took a different and more cautious view of the case. They wished for something more than a simple repeal of the Act of 6 George I., and they demanded an express declaration that England would not interfere with Irish affairs. But his address was carried by a division of 211 to 2; and the House, to show its grat.i.tude, voted that 20,000 Irish seamen should be raised for the British navy, at a cost of 100,000, and that 50,000 should be given to purchase an estate and build a house for Mr. Grattan, whose eloquence had contributed so powerfully to obtain what they hoped would prove justice to Ireland.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GOLDSMITH'S WELL.]
FOOTNOTES:
[547] _Government_.--Harris' _Life of William III_. p. 357.
[548] _Insignificant_.--A pet.i.tion was sent in to Parliament by the Protestant porters of Dublin, complaining of Darby Ryan for employing Catholic porters. The pet.i.tion was respectfully received, and referred to a ”Committee of Grievances.”--_Com. Jour_. vol. ii. f. 699. Such an instance, and it is only one of many, is the best indication of the motive for enacting the penal laws, and the cruelty of them.
[549] _Property_.--It will be remembered that at this time Catholics were in a majority of at least five to one over Protestants. Hence intermarriages took place, and circ.u.mstances occurred, in which Protestants found it their interest to hold property for Catholics, to prevent it from being seized by others. A gentleman of considerable property in the county Kerry, has informed me that his property was held in this way for several generations.
[550] _Earn_.--One of the articles of the ”violated Treaty” expressly provided that the poor Catholics should be allowed to exercise their trade. An Act to prevent the further growth of Popery was pa.s.sed afterwards, which made it forfeiture of goods and imprisonment for any Catholic to exercise a trade in Limerick or Galway, except seamen, fishermen, and day labourers, and they were to be licensed by the Governor, and not to exceed twenty.--_Com. Jour_. vol. iii. f. 133.
[551] _Palatable_.--In his fourth letter he says: ”Our ancestors reduced this kingdom to the obedience of England, in return for which we have been rewarded with a worse climate, the privilege of being governed by laws to which we do not consent, a ruined trade, a house of peers without jurisdiction, almost an incapacity for all employments, and the dread of Wood's halfpence.”
[552] _Scheme_.--The very bills of some of the companies were so absurd, that it is marvellous how any rational person could have been deceived by them. One was ”for an undertaking which shall be in due time revealed.” The undertaker was as good as his word. He got 2,000 paid in on shares one morning, and in the afternoon the ”undertaking” was revealed, for he had decamped with the money. Some wag advertised a company ”for the invention of melting down sawdust and chips, and casting them into clean deal boards, without cracks or knots.”
[553] _Schomberg_.--He wrote to William of Orange, from before Dundalk, that the English nation made the worst soldiers he had ever seen, because they could not bear hards.h.i.+ps; ”yet,” he adds, ”the Parliament and people have a prejudice, that an English new-raised soldier can beat above six of his enemies.”--Dalrymple's _Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 178.
According to the records of the War Office in France, 450,000 Irishmen died in the service of that country from 1691 to 1745, and, in round numbers, as many more from 1745 to the Revolution.
[554] _Va.s.sals_.--Young's _Tour_, vol. ii. pp. 41, 42. It should be remembered that Mr. Young was an Englishman and a Protestant, and that he had no property in Ireland to blind him to the truth.
[555] _Government_,--Curry's _Historical Review_, vol. ii. p. 274, edition of 1786. This work affords a very valuable and accurate account of the times, written from personal knowledge.