Volume III Part 13 (1/2)

The fall of this man, once so great and so much dreaded, the horror with which he was regarded by all the respectable members of his own party, the manner in which the least respectable members of that party renounced fellows.h.i.+p with him in his distress, and threw on him the whole blame of crimes which they had encouraged him to commit, ought to have been a lesson to those intemperate friends of liberty who were clamouring for a new proscription. But it was a lesson which too many of them disregarded. The King had, at the very commencement of his reign, displeased them by appointing a few Tories and Trimmers to high offices; and the discontent excited by these appointments had been inflamed by his attempt to obtain a general amnesty for the vanquished. He was in truth not a man to be popular with the vindictive zealots of any faction. For among his peculiarities was a certain ungracious humanity which rarely conciliated his foes, which often provoked his adherents, but in which he doggedly persisted, without troubling himself either about the thanklessness of those whom he had saved from destruction, or about the rage of those whom he had disappointed of their revenge. Some of the Whigs now spoke of him as bitterly as they had ever spoken of either of his uncles. He was a Stuart after all, and was not a Stuart for nothing. Like the rest of the race, he loved arbitrary power.

In Holland, he had succeeded in making himself, under the forms of a republican polity, scarcely less absolute than the old hereditary Counts had been. In consequence of a strange combination of circ.u.mstances, his interest had, during a short time, coincided with the interest of the English people: but though he had been a deliverer by accident, he was a despot by nature. He had no sympathy with the just resentments of the Whigs. He had objects in view which the Whigs would not willingly suffer any Sovereign to attain. He knew that the Tories were the only tools for his purpose. He had therefore, from the moment at which he took his seat on the throne, favoured them unduly. He was now trying to procure an indemnity for those very delinquents whom he had, a few months before, described in his Declaration as deserving of exemplary punishment. In November he had told the world that the crimes in which these men had borne a part had made it the duty of subjects to violate their oath of allegiance, of soldiers to desert their standards, of children to make war on their parents. With what consistency then could he recommend that such crimes should be covered by a general oblivion? And was there not too much reason to fear that he wished to save the agents of tyranny from the fate which they merited, in the hope that, at some future time, they might serve him as unscrupulously as they had served his father in law? [416]

Of the members of the House of Commons who were animated by these feelings, the fiercest and most audacious was Howe. He went so far on one occasion as to move that an inquiry should be inst.i.tuted into the proceedings of the Parliament of 1685, and that some note of infamy should be put on all who, in that Parliament, had voted with the Court.

This absurd and mischievous motion was discountenanced by all the most respectable Whigs, and strongly opposed by Birch and Maynard, [417] Howe was forced to give way: but he was a man whom no check could abash; and he was encouraged by the applause of many hotheaded members of his party, who were far from foreseeing that he would, after having been the most rancorous and unprincipled of Whigs, become, at no distant time, the most rancorous and unprincipled of Tories.

This quickwitted, restless and malignant politician, though himself occupying a lucrative place in the royal household, declaimed, day after day, against the manner in which the great offices of state were filled; and his declamations were echoed, in tones somewhat less sharp and vehement, by other orators. No man, they said, who had been a minister of Charles or of James ought to be a minister of William. The first attack was directed against the Lord President Caermarthen. Howe moved that an address should be presented to the King, requesting that all persons who had ever been impeached by the Commons might be dismissed from His Majesty's counsels and presence. The debate on this motion was repeatedly adjourned. While the event was doubtful, William sent Dykvelt to expostulate with Howe. Howe was obdurate. He was what is vulgarly called a disinterested man; that is to say, he valued money less than the pleasure of venting his spleen and of making a sensation. ”I am doing the King a service,” he said: ”I am rescuing him from false friends: and, as to my place, that shall never be a gag to prevent me from speaking my mind.” The motion was made, but completely failed.

In truth the proposition, that mere accusation, never prosecuted to conviction, ought to be considered as a decisive proof of guilt, was shocking to natural justice. The faults of Caermarthen had doubtless been great; but they had been exaggerated by party spirit, had been expiated by severe suffering, and had been redeemed by recent and eminent services. At the time when he raised the great county of York in arms against Popery and tyranny, he had been a.s.sured by some of the most eminent Whigs that all old quarrels were forgotten. Howe indeed maintained that the civilities which had pa.s.sed in the moment of peril signified nothing. ”When a viper is on my hand,” he said, ”I am very tender of him; but, as soon as I have him on the ground, I set my foot on him and crush him.” The Lord President, however, was so strongly supported that, after a discussion which lasted three days, his enemies did not venture to take the sense of the House on the motion against him. In the course of the debate a grave const.i.tutional question was incidentally raised. This question was whether a pardon could be pleaded in bar of a parliamentary impeachment. The Commons resolved, without a division, that a pardon could not be so pleaded, [418]

The next attack was made on Halifax. He was in a much more invidious position than Caermarthen, who had, under pretence of ill health, withdrawn himself almost entirely from business. Halifax was generally regarded as the chief adviser of the Crown, and was in an especial manner held responsible for all the faults which had been committed with respect to Ireland. The evils which had brought that kingdom to ruin might, it was said, have been averted by timely precaution, or remedied by vigorous exertion. But the government had foreseen nothing: it had done little; and that little had been done neither at the right time nor in the right way. Negotiation had been employed instead of troops, when a few troops might have sufficed. A few troops had been sent when many were needed. The troops that had been sent had been ill equipped and ill commanded. Such, the vehement Whigs exclaimed, were the natural fruits of that great error which King William had committed on the first day of his reign. He had placed in Tories and Trimmers a confidence which they did not deserve. He had, in a peculiar manner, entrusted the direction of Irish affairs to the Trimmer of Trimmers, to a man whose ability n.o.body disputed, but who was not firmly attached to the new government, who, indeed, was incapable of being firmly attached to any government, who had always halted between two opinions, and who, till the moment of the flight of James, had not given up the hope that the discontents of the nation might be quieted without a change of dynasty. Howe, on twenty occasions, designated Halifax as the cause of all the calamities of the country. Monmouth held similar language in the House of Lords. Though First Lord of the Treasury, he paid no attention to financial business, for which he was altogether unfit, and of which he had very soon become weary. His whole heart was in the work of persecuting the Tories.

He plainly told the King that n.o.body who was not a Whig ought to be employed in the public service. William's answer was cool and determined. ”I have done as much for your friends as I can do without danger to the state; and I will do no more,” [419] The only effect of this reprimand was to make Monmouth more factious than ever. Against Halifax especially he intrigued and harangued with indefatigable animosity. The other Whig Lords of the Treasury, Delamere and Capel, were scarcely less eager to drive the Lord Privy Seal from office; and personal jealousy and antipathy impelled the Lord President to conspire with his own accusers against his rival.

What foundation there may have been for the imputations thrown at this time on Halifax cannot now be fully ascertained. His enemies, though they interrogated numerous witnesses, and though they obtained William's reluctant permission to inspect the minutes of the Privy Council, could find no evidence which would support a definite charge, [420] But it was undeniable that the Lord Privy Seal had acted as minister for Ireland, and that Ireland was all but lost. It is unnecessary, and indeed absurd, to suppose, as many Whigs supposed, that his administration was unsuccessful because he did not wish it to be successful. The truth seems to be that the difficulties of the situation were great, and that he, with all his ingenuity and eloquence, was ill qualified to cope with those difficulties. The whole machinery of government was out of joint; and he was not the man to set it right. What was wanted was not what he had in large measure, wit, taste, amplitude of comprehension, subtlety in drawing distinctions; but what he had not, prompt decision, indefatigable energy, and stubborn resolution. His mind was at best of too soft a temper for such work as he had now to do, and had been recently made softer by severe affliction. He had lost two sons in less than twelve months. A letter is still extant, in which he at this time complained to his honoured friend Lady Russell of the desolation of his hearth and of the cruel ingrat.i.tude of the Whigs. We possess, also, the answer, in which she gently exhorted him to seek for consolation where she had found it under trials not less severe than his, [421]

The first attack on him was made in the Upper House. Some Whig Lords, among whom the wayward and petulant First Lord of the Treasury was conspicuous, proposed that the King should be requested to appoint a new Speaker. The friends of Halifax moved and carried the previous question, [422] About three weeks later his persecutors moved, in a Committee of the whole House of Commons, a resolution which imputed to him no particular crime either of omission or of commission, but simply declared it to be advisable that he should be dismissed from the service of the Crown. The debate was warm. Moderate politicians of both parties were unwilling to put a stigma on a man, not indeed faultless, but distinguished both by his abilities and by his amiable qualities. His accusers saw that they could not carry their point, and tried to escape from a decision which was certain to be adverse to them, by proposing that the Chairman should report progress. But their tactics were disconcerted by the judicious and spirited conduct of Lord Eland, now the Marquess's only son. ”My father has not deserved,” said the young n.o.bleman, ”to be thus trifled with. If you think him culpable, say so.

He will at once submit to your verdict. Dismission from Court has no terrors for him. He is raised, by the goodness of G.o.d, above the necessity of looking to office for the means of supporting his rank.”

The Committee divided, and Halifax was absolved by a majority of fourteen, [423]

Had the division been postponed a few hours, the majority would probably have been much greater. The Commons voted under the impression that Londonderry had fallen, and that all Ireland was lost. Scarcely had the House risen when a courier arrived with news that the boom on the Foyle had been broken. He was speedily followed by a second, who announced the raising of the siege, and by a third who brought the tidings of the battle of Newton Butler. Hope and exultation succeeded to discontent and dismay, [424] Ulster was safe; and it was confidently expected that Schomberg would speedily reconquer Leinster, Connaught, and Munster. He was now ready to set out. The port of Chester was the place from which he was to take his departure. The army which he was to command had a.s.sembled there; and the Dee was crowded with men of war and transports.

Unfortunately almost all those English soldiers who had seen war had been sent to Flanders. The bulk of the force destined for Ireland consisted of men just taken from the plough and the thres.h.i.+ng floor.

There was, however, an excellent brigade of Dutch troops under the command of an experienced officer, the Count of Solmes. Four regiments, one of cavalry and three of infantry, had been formed out of the French refugees, many of whom had borne arms with credit. No person did more to promote the raising of these regiments than the Marquess of Ruvigny. He had been during many years an eminently faithful and useful servant of the French government. So highly was his merit appreciated at Versailles that he had been solicited to accept indulgences which scarcely any other heretic could by any solicitation obtain. Had he chosen to remain in his native country, he and his household would have been permitted to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d privately according to their own forms. But Ruvigny rejected all offers, cast in his lot with his brethren, and, at upwards of eighty years of age, quitted Versailles, where he might still have been a favourite, for a modest dwelling at Greenwich. That dwelling was, during the last months of his life, the resort of all that was most distinguished among his fellow exiles. His abilities, his experience and his munificent kindness, made him the undisputed chief of the refugees.

He was at the same time half an Englishman: for his sister had been Countess of Southampton, and he was uncle of Lady Russell. He was long past the time of action. But his two sons, both men of eminent courage, devoted their swords to the service of William. The younger son, who bore the name of Caillemote, was appointed colonel of one of the Huguenot regiments of foot. The two other regiments of foot were commanded by La Melloniere and Cambon, officers of high reputation. The regiment of horse was raised by Schomberg himself, and bore his name.

Ruvigny lived just long enough to see these arrangements complete, [425]

The general to whom the direction of the expedition against Ireland was confided had wonderfully succeeded in obtaining the affection and esteem of the English nation. He had been made a Duke, a Knight of the Garter, and Master of the Ordnance: he was now placed at the head of an army: and yet his elevation excited none of that jealousy which showed itself as often as any mark of royal favour was bestowed on Bentinck, on Zulestein, or on Auverquerque. Schomberg's military skill was universally acknowledged. He was regarded by all Protestants as a confessor who had endured every thing short of martyrdom for the truth.

For his religion he had resigned a splendid income, had laid down the truncheon of a Marshal of France, and had, at near eighty years of age, begun the world again as a needy soldier of fortune. As he had no connection with the United Provinces, and had never belonged to the little Court of the Hague, the preference given to him over English captains was justly ascribed, not to national or personal partiality, but to his virtues and his abilities. His deportment differed widely from that of the other foreigners who had just been created English peers. They, with many respectable qualities, were, in tastes, manners, and predilections, Dutchmen, and could not catch the tone of the society to which they had been transferred. He was a citizen of the world, had travelled over all Europe, had commanded armies on the Meuse, on the Ebro, and on the Tagus, had shone in the splendid circle of Versailles, and had been in high favour at the court of Berlin. He had often been taken by French n.o.blemen for a French n.o.bleman. He had pa.s.sed some time in England, spoke English remarkably well, accommodated himself easily to English manners, and was often seen walking in the park with English companions. In youth his habits had been temperate; and his temperance had its proper reward, a singularly green and vigorous old age. At fourscore he retained a strong relish for innocent pleasures: he conversed with great courtesy and sprightliness: nothing could be in better taste than his equipages and his table; and every cornet of cavalry envied the grace and dignity with which the veteran appeared in Hyde Park on his charger at the head of his regiment, [426] The House of Commons had, with general approbation, compensated his losses and rewarded his services by a grant of a hundred thousand pounds. Before he set out for Ireland, he requested permission to express his grat.i.tude for this magnificent present. A chair was set for him within the bar. He took his seat there with the mace at his right hand, rose, and in a few graceful words returned his thanks and took his leave. The Speaker replied that the Commons could never forget the obligation under which they already lay to His Grace, that they saw him with pleasure at the head of an English army, that they felt entire confidence in his zeal and ability, and that, at whatever distance he might be, he would always be in a peculiar manner an object of their care. The precedent set on this interesting occasion was followed with the utmost minuteness, a hundred and twenty-five years later, on an occasion more interesting still. Exactly on the same spot on which, in July 1689, Schomberg had acknowledged the liberality of the nation, a chair was set, in July 1814, for a still more ill.u.s.trious warrior, who came to return thanks for a still more splendid mark of public grat.i.tude. Few things ill.u.s.trate more strikingly the peculiar character of the English government and people than the circ.u.mstance that the House of Commons, a popular a.s.sembly, should, even in a moment of joyous enthusiasm, have adhered to ancient forms with the punctilious accuracy of a College of Heralds; that the sitting and rising, the covering and the uncovering, should have been regulated by exactly the same etiquette in the nineteenth century as in the seventeenth; and that the same mace which had been held at the right hand of Schomberg should have been held in the same position at the right hand of Wellington, [427]

On the twentieth of August the Parliament, having been constantly engaged in business during seven months, broke up, by the royal command, for a short recess. The same Gazette which announced that the Houses had ceased to sit announced that Schomberg had landed in Ireland, [428]

During the three weeks which preceded his landing, the dismay and confusion at Dublin Castle had been extreme. Disaster had followed disaster so fast that the mind of James, never very firm, had been completely prostrated. He had learned first that Londonderry had been relieved; then that one of his armies had been beaten by the Enniskilleners; then that another of his armies was retreating, or rather flying, from Ulster, reduced in numbers and broken in spirit; then that Sligo, the key of Connaught, had been abandoned to the Englishry. He had found it impossible to subdue the colonists, even when they were left almost unaided. He might therefore well doubt whether it would be possible for him to contend against them when they were backed by an English army, under the command of the greatest general living.

The unhappy prince seemed, during some days, to be sunk in despondency.

On Avaux the danger produced a very different effect. Now, he thought, was the time to turn the war between the English and the Irish into a war of extirpation, and to make it impossible that the two nations could ever be united under one government. With this view, he coolly submitted to the King a proposition of almost incredible atrocity. There must be a Saint Bartholomew. A pretext would easily be found. No doubt, when Schomberg was known to be in Ireland, there would be some excitement in those southern towns of which the population was chiefly English. Any disturbance, wherever it might take place, would furnish an excuse for a general ma.s.sacre of the Protestants of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, [429] As the King did not at first express any horror at this suggestion, [430] the Envoy, a few days later, renewed the subject, and pressed His Majesty to give the necessary orders. Then James, with a warmth which did him honour, declared that nothing should induce him to commit such a crime. ”These people are my subjects; and I cannot be so cruel as to cut their throats while they live peaceably under my government.” ”There is nothing cruel,” answered the callous diplomatist, ”in what I recommend. Your Majesty ought to consider that mercy to Protestants is cruelty to Catholics.” James, however, was not to be moved; and Avaux retired in very bad humour. His belief was that the King's professions of humanity were hypocritical, and that, if the orders for the butchery were not given, they were not given only because His Majesty was confident that the Catholics all over the country would fall on the Protestants without waiting for orders, [431] But Avaux was entirely mistaken. That he should have supposed James to be as profoundly immoral as himself is not strange. But it is strange that so able a man should have forgotten that James and himself had quite different objects in view. The object of the Amba.s.sador's politics was to make the separation between England and Ireland eternal. The object of the King's politics was to unite England and Ireland under his own sceptre; and he could not but be aware that, if there should be a general ma.s.sacre of the Protestants of three provinces, and he should be suspected of having authorised it or of having connived at it, there would in a fortnight be not a Jacobite left even at Oxford, [432]

Just at this time the prospects of James, which had seemed hopelessly dark, began to brighten. The danger which had unnerved him had roused the Irish people. They had, six months before, risen up as one man against the Saxons. The army which Tyrconnel had formed was, in proportion to the population from which it was taken, the largest that Europe had ever seen. But that army had sustained a long succession of defeats and disgraces, unredeemed by a single brilliant achievement. It was the fas.h.i.+on, both in England and on the Continent, to ascribe those defeats and disgraces to the pusillanimity of the Irish race, [433] That this was a great error is sufficiently proved by the history of every war which has been carried on in any part of Christendom during five generations. The raw material out of which a good army may be formed existed in great abundance among the Irish. Avaux informed his government that they were a remarkably handsome, tall, and well made race; that they were personally brave; that they were sincerely attached to the cause for which they were in arms; that they were violently exasperated against the colonists. After extolling their strength and spirit, he proceeded to explain why it was that, with all their strength and spirit, they were constantly beaten. It was vain, he said, to imagine that bodily prowess, animal courage, or patriotic enthusiasm would, in the day of battle, supply the place of discipline. The infantry were ill armed and ill trained. They were suffered to pillage wherever they went. They had contracted all the habits of banditti.

There was among them scarcely one officer capable of showing them their duty. Their colonels were generally men of good family, but men who had never seen service. The captains were butchers, tailors, shoemakers.

Hardly one of them troubled himself about the comforts, the accoutrements, or the drilling of those over whom he was placed. The dragoons were little better than the infantry. But the horse were, with some exceptions, excellent. Almost all the Irish gentlemen who had any military experience held commissions in the cavalry; and, by the exertions of these officers, some regiments had been raised and disciplined which Avaux p.r.o.nounced equal to any that he had ever seen.

It was therefore evident that the inefficiency of the foot and of the dragoons was to be ascribed to the vices, not of the Irish character, but of the Irish administration, [434]

The events which took place in the autumn of 1689 sufficiently proved that the ill fated race, which enemies and allies generally agreed in regarding with unjust contempt, had, together with the faults inseparable from poverty, ignorance, and superst.i.tion, some fine qualities which have not always been found in more prosperous and more enlightened communities. The evil tidings which terrified and bewildered James stirred the whole population of the southern provinces like the peal of a trumpet sounding to battle. That Ulster was lost, that the English were coming, that the death grapple between the two hostile nations was at hand, was proclaimed from all the altars of three and twenty counties. One last chance was left; and, if that chance failed, nothing remained but the despotic, the merciless, rule of the Saxon colony and of the heretical church. The Roman Catholic priest who had just taken possession of the glebe house and the chancel, the Roman Catholic squire who had just been carried back on the shoulders of the shouting tenantry into the hall of his fathers, would be driven forth to live on such alms as peasants, themselves oppressed and miserable, could spare. A new confiscation would complete the work of the Act of Settlement; and the followers of William would seize whatever the followers of Cromwell had spared. These apprehensions produced such an outbreak of patriotic and religious enthusiasm as deferred for a time the inevitable day of subjugation. Avaux was amazed by the energy which, in circ.u.mstances so trying, the Irish displayed. It was indeed the wild and unsteady energy of a half barbarous people: it was transient: it was often misdirected: but, though transient and misdirected, it did wonders. The French Amba.s.sador was forced to own that those officers of whose incompetency and inactivity he had so often complained had suddenly shaken off their lethargy. Recruits came in by thousands. The ranks which had been thinned under the walls of Londonderry were soon again full to overflowing. Great efforts were made to arm and clothe the troops; and, in the short s.p.a.ce of a fortnight, every thing presented a new and cheering aspect, [435]

The Irish required of the King, in return for their strenuous exertions in his cause, one concession which was by no means agreeable to him. The unpopularity of Melfort had become such, that his person was scarcely safe. He had no friend to speak a word in his favour. The French hated him. In every letter which arrived at Dublin from England or from Scotland, he was described as the evil genius of the House of Stuart. It was necessary for his own sake to dismiss him. An honourable pretext was found. He was ordered to repair to Versailles, to represent there the state of affairs in Ireland, and to implore the French government to send over without delay six or seven thousand veteran infantry. He laid down the seals; and they were, to the great delight of the Irish, put into the hands of an Irishman, Sir Richard Nagle, who had made himself conspicuous as Attorney General and Speaker of the House of Commons.

Melfort took his departure under cover of the night: for the rage of the populace against him was such that he could not without danger show himself in the streets of Dublin by day. On the following morning James left his capital in the opposite direction to encounter Schomberg, [436]

Schomberg had landed in Antrim. The force which he had brought with him did not exceed ten thousand men. But he expected to be joined by the armed colonists and by the regiments which were under Kirke's command.

The coffeehouse politicians of London fully expected that such a general with such an army would speedily reconquer the island. Unhappily it soon appeared that the means which had been furnished to him were altogether inadequate to the work which he had to perform: of the greater part of these means he was speedily deprived by a succession of unforeseen calamities; and the whole campaign was merely a long struggle maintained by his prudence and resolution against the utmost spite of fortune.

He marched first to Carrickfergus. That town was held for James by two regiments of infantry. Schomberg battered the walls; and the Irish, after holding out a week, capitulated. He promised that they should depart unharmed; but he found it no easy matter to keep his word. The people of the town and neighbourhood were generally Protestants of Scottish extraction. They had suffered much during the short ascendency of the native race; and what they had suffered they were now eager to retaliate. They a.s.sembled in great mult.i.tudes, exclaiming that the capitulation was nothing to them, and that they would be revenged. They soon proceeded from words to blows. The Irish, disarmed, stripped, and hustled, clung for protection to the English officers and soldiers.