Part 4 (1/2)
”In supporting Home Rule for Ireland we abandon no principle of Irish nationhood as laid down by the fathers in the Irish movement for independence, from Wolfe Tone and Emmett to John Mitch.e.l.l, and from Mitch.e.l.l to Kickham and Parnell.”--(_J.
Redmond_.)
”Our ultimate goal is the national independence of our country.”--(Ib.)
”In its essence the National movement is the same to-day as it was in the days of Hugh O'Niell, Owen Roe, Emmett, or of Wolfe Tone.”--(Ib.)
”We are as much rebels to England's rule as our forefathers were in '98.”--(Ib.)
”I remember when Parnell was asked if he would accept as a final settlement the Home Rule compromise proposed by Mr.
Gladstone. I remember his answer. He said 'I believe in the policy of taking from England anything we can wring from her which will strengthen our hands to go for more.'”--(Ib.)
”When we have undermined English misgovernment we have paved the way for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the earth. And let us not forget that that is the ultimate goal at which all we Irishmen aim. None of us, whether we be in America or in Ireland, or wherever we may be, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England.”
(_C.S. Parnell_.)
”I know there are many people in America who think that the means which we are operating to-day for the good of Ireland are not sufficiently sharp and decisive ... I would suggest to those who have const.i.tuted themselves the censors of our movement, would it not be well to give our movement a fair chance--to allow us to have an Irish Parliament that will give our people all authority over the police and the judiciary and all government in the nation, and when equipped with comparative freedom, then would be the time for those who think we should destroy the last link that binds us to England to operate by whatever means they think best to achieve that great and desirable end? I am quite sure that I speak for the United Irish League in the matter.”
(_J. Devlin, M.P._)
”What was it, after all, that Wolfe Tone, and Fitzgerald, and Mitch.e.l.l, and Smith O'Brien, and O'Meagher Condon, and Allen, Larkins and O'Brien, and all the other gallant Irishmen strove for, who from generation to generation were inspired with the spirit of revolution? ... In what respect does our policy differ from the purpose of these men?”--(Ib.)
”In my opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of the advanced Nationalists of Ireland, the Repeal of the Union is not the full Nationalist demand; separation is the full Nationalist demand; that is the right on which we stand, the Nationalist right of Ireland.”--(_J. Dillon, M.P._)
”I should never have dedicated my life to this great struggle if I did not see at the end the crowning and the consummation of our work--a free and independent nation.”--(Ib.)
”We aim at nothing else than establis.h.i.+ng a new nation upon the map of Europe.”--(_Dr. Douglas Hyde_.)
”If there is any man in this audience who says to us as representing that Parliamentary movement--'I don't believe in your Parliamentary ideas, I don't accept Home Rule, I go beyond it; I believe in an independent Irish nation'--if any man says this, I say that we don't disbelieve in it. These are our tactics--if you are to take a fortress, first take the outer works.”--(_T.M. Kettle, M.P._)
”We want to carry on the work that the Fenians tried to do to a triumphal issue. The Fenians stood for an Irish Republic, and so do we. No policy which left England in control of the Irish Nation could be regarded as final. There is only one way, and that is to get the absolute and complete independence of Ireland, free from English rule and English domination. The Fenians did not go to the Prime Minister for concessions.
No: they started into arms, and if people of the present day believed in that they should arm themselves to get the independence of Ireland.”--(_B. Hobson_, speaking at a demonstration at Cork, on the anniversary of the ”martyrdom”
of Allen, Larkins, and O'Brien.)
”Should the Germans land in Ireland, they will be received with willing hearts and strong hands, and should England be their destination, it is to be hoped that they will find time to disembark 100,000 rifles and a few score of ammunition for the same in this country, and twelve months later this Ireland will be as free as the Lord G.o.d meant it should be.”--(_Major McBride_, who organized an Irish force to aid the Boers against England, and has consequently been appointed to a munic.i.p.al inspectors.h.i.+p by the Corporation of Dublin.)
”I appeal to you most earnestly to do all in your power to prevent your countrymen from entering the degraded British army. If you prevent 500 men from enlisting you do nearly as good work, if not quite so exciting, as if you shot 500 men on the field of battle, and also you are making the path smoother for the approaching conquest of England by Germany.”--(Ib.)
CHAPTER VIII.
THE REBELLION.
Early in 1797 it became evident to all but the most shortsighted of politicians that a rebellion, of which none could foretell the result, was imminent. As one shrewd observer wrote: ”I look upon it that Ireland must soon stand in respect to England in one of three situations--united with her, the Legislatures being joined; separated from her, and forming a republic; or as a half-subdued Province.” The supporters of law and order were naturally divided in opinion as to the course to pursue. Some were in favour of a policy of conciliation.
Grattan induced his friend Ponsonby to bring forward another Reform Bill, abolis.h.i.+ng the religious test and the separate representation of boroughs, and dividing each county into districts; and when he saw that the motion could not be carried, delivered an impa.s.sioned speech, declaring that he would never again attend the House of Commons, and solemnly walked out. It was a piece of acting, too transparent to deceive anybody. Grattan was a disappointed man--disappointed not so much because his proposals were not adopted, as because his own followers were slipping away from him. They had begun to realize that he was an orator but not a statesman; his ideas were wild, fanciful dreams. Whilst vehemently upholding the English connection he was playing into the hands of England's opponents by reminding them that England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity; whilst hating the very idea of a Union, he was making the existing system impossible by preventing the pa.s.sing of a commercial treaty; whilst pa.s.sionately supporting Protestant ascendancy, he was advocating a measure which at that moment would have brought about the establishment either of a Roman Catholic ascendancy or more probably of a Jacobin Republic.
He saw his supporters dwindling slowly from seventy-seven in 1783 to thirty in 1797. Men were now alive to the fact that the country was in an alarming condition. They saw what had happened in France but a few years before, and how little Louis XVI had gained by trying to pose as a liberator and a semi-republican; and, knowing that the rebellion with which they were faced was an avowed imitation of the French Revolution, they were coming to the opinion that stern measures were necessary. In almost every county of three Provinces conspirators were at work, trying to bring down on their country a foreign invasion, and stirring up the people to rebellion and crime by appealing to their agrarian grievances and cupidity, their religious pa.s.sion, and the discontent produced by great poverty. For a second time it appeared that Wolfe Tone would succeed in obtaining aid from abroad--this time from Spain and Holland; and the rebel party in Ireland were now so well organized, and Jacobin feeling was so widespread, that had he done so, it was almost inevitable that Ireland would have been lost to England. But once more the unexpected was destined to occur. Early in February Jervis shattered the power of the Spanish Fleet off Cape St.
Vincent; and in the summer, just when the Dutch s.h.i.+ps, with 14,000 troops on board, were ready to start, and resistance on the part of England seemed hopeless, a violent gale arose and for weeks the whole fleet remained imprisoned in the river; and when at length they did succeed in making a start, the English were ready to meet them within a few miles of the coast of Holland; after a tremendous battle the broken remnant of the Dutch fleet returned to the harbour defeated.
The rage and mortification of Wolfe Tone at his second failure knew no bounds.