CHAPTER XXII.

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND (1792-1815).

 

The year 1792 forms the dividing line between the earlier and later periods of Pitt’s career. That France was in convulsions and Europe in commotion seemed to Pitt no reason why he should cease adding to the edifice of financial reform and commercial prosperity at which he had toiled uninterruptedly for the last decade. In introducing the Budget he found himself able to assist the Sinking Fund and to diminish taxation; and, in the conviction that fifteen years of peace might be reasonably expected, he reduced the vote for seamen, and allowed the subsidy treaty with Hesse-Cassel to expire. That his composure was undisturbed was further shown by his warm support of the Libel Bill. Erskine’s plea that the jury had to determine the question of libel no less than the fact of publication had been adopted by Kenyon in 1789; and in 1791 Fox proposed to make this principle part of the law of the land. Considerable opposition was offered by Thurlow; but in 1792 the measure again passed the House of Commons unopposed, and was accepted by the Lords. Events in France had nevertheless begun to modify the grouping of parties. Many who were ready enough to suggest or support measures of political or religious emancipation in ordinary times deemed it unwise, in Windham’s phrase, to repair their house in the hurricane season; while in other quarters the Revolution was interpreted as a warning of the perils that attended the delay of reform. Early in 1792 the more liberal element in the Opposition formed the Society of the Friends of the People, from which Fox, who cared little for parliamentary reform, stood aloof, though it was joined by his chief lieutenants. Grey was deputed to introduce the question of reform in the following year; but, when he gave notice of his in­tention, Pitt rose to express his belief that such an attempt could not safely be made at the present time. This declaration, uttered on the last day of April, 1792, may be taken to mark the transition from the remedial to the repressive period of Pitt’s ministerial career.

The ultimate cause of this change was the Revolution in France; but its proximate cause was the rapid growth of Radical opinion at home. The Corresponding Society, founded at the end of 1791, was enrolling large numbers of artisans; and the immense circulation of Paine’s Rights of Man caused the gravest apprehension. Pitt made himself the interpreter of the growing anxiety by a royal proclamation on May 21, 1792, against “divers wicked and seditious writings.” The proclamation was supported by Windham and some less prominent Whigs in the Lower House, and by the Prince of Wales, Portland, and Spencer in the Upper; and so strong was the feeling of alarm that in neither House did its opponents hazard a division. The debate on the proclamation revealed to the world the differences of the Whigs. Lord Malmesbury, arriving in England at this moment from service abroad, at once set to work to consolidate the position of the section which disagreed with Fox; and the conferences that took place almost daily throughout June and July are described with incomparable vivid­ness in the pages of his Diary. The moving spirits were Loughborough, Fitzwilliam, Portland, Windham, and Gilbert Elliot; while Burke, who alone had openly quarrelled with Fox, strove by tongue and pen to encourage the dissentients. The situation developed when, on June 15, Thurlow was dismissed by Pitt in consequence of repeated acts of ministerial insubordination. Dundas called on Loughborough, and on behalf of Pitt offered the Chancellorship and three seats in the Cabinet as the price of a coalition. Fox had no belief in Pitt’s sincerity, and declared that the union must not be a mere accession of members to the existing Ministry, but a fair and equal division of power and patronage. Portland refused to join without Fox, and declared for a neutral Premier such as the Duke of Leeds. Malmesbury and Loughborough, on the other hand, felt that Pitt ought not to be asked to surrender the Treasury. The publication of the memoranda of the Duke of Leeds has made it clear that Pitt was not at this time really anxious for a coalition; and it soon became obvious that the disintegration of the Whig party had not proceeded far enough to admit of such a step.

The fall of the French monarchy, the September massacres, and the offer of aid to insurgent peoples increased the alarm of the country to fever point. Part of the militia was called out by proclamation on December 1, though such a step was only legal when insurrection could be alleged. Parliament met on December 13; and the King’s Speech pointed to designs to subvert the Constitution and social order. Fox replied that the duty of the Government was to redress grievances. His proposal to acknowledge the French Republic led to the renewal of the negotiations which had been broken off in the summer, though there was no longer any thought of including him in the coalition. The dissentient Whigs looked to Portland as their leader, because of his high rank, his wealth, and his long political career. But Portland was among the least efficient politicians of his age. He undertook to repudiate Fox; but, when Lansdowne and Lauderdale gave utterance to the opinions which he abhorred, he remained silent. Malmesbury, who sat by him, urged him repeatedly to speak. “He said he really could not; Loughborough had said all that could be said. I pressed him to say these very words and nothing more, but without effect.” This astonishing scene was afterwards attributed by Portland himself—a man who had been Prime Minister—to “want of habit in speaking in public.” Its real explanation was that Fox’s influence was still powerful, and that Portland was at the mercy of the last visitor at Burlington House. After a few more meetings the task was abandoned as hopeless; and Loughborough accepted the Chancellorship.

Fearing that the advent of royalist refugees might, if Paris fell, be followed by an inroad of Jacobin fugitives, Pitt introduced an Alien Bill (Jan. 1793) providing that foreigners must state the object of their visit, register their names, and procure passports. The Traitorous Corre­spondence Bill quickly followed (March), extending the law of treason to the supply of arms or military and naval stores to the enemy, and to the purchase of lands in France; and intercourse with France was forbidden except by special license under the Great Seal. When Grey brought forward the motion of which he had give notice in the previous session, he presented a striking report on the abuses and anomalies of parliamentary representation. But, though he only begged for a commission, not more than forty members supported him; and the Opposition remained approximately at this strength till the resignation of Pitt. A year later, on July 11,1794, a coalition with the dissentient Whigs was formally announced. Portland accepted the Home Office, Fitzwilliam became Lord President, Windham Secretary for War, and Spencer Privy Seal, which office he quickly exchanged for the Admiralty. A peerage was offered to Burke, but the death of his son led him to refuse it; and the heartbroken old man retired from Parliament and public life at the moment when the concentration of which he was the prime author was accomplished. When the Speaker asked Pitt if he did not fear being outvoted in his own Cabinet, he replied that he placed much dependence on his new colleagues, and still more on himself. While Pitt’s dictatorship was in no way impaired, the brilliant oratory of Windham, the admirable administrative work of Spencer, and the great social influence of Portland immensely strengthened the Ministry.

The position of the Foxite Whigs was now a lonely one. All who aspired to a title or to promotion in the Church or the Law found it wise to profess Tory opinions. The country gentlemen were Tory almost to a man; and the moneyed classes had rallied to Pitt long before the out­break of the Revolution. The Liberalism which advocated a moderate measure of parliamentary reform and opposed coercion was involved in a common condemnation with the Radicalism which demanded universal suffrage and annual parliaments. Yet the little band, though powerless in the division lobby and unregarded by the country, kept alive the spirit of freedom, and preserved the nucleus of a party to which men could rally when the war and the panic should be over.

In the spring of 1795 the affairs of the Prince of Wales were once more forced on the attention of the country. He was again deeply in debt, and had no choice but to extract money from Parliament by a promise to marry. The Duke of York, while campaigning, had met his cousin Caroline, the daughter of the Duke of Brunswick, and spoke highly of her to his brother. The King approved the suggestion, and despatched Malmesbury to the Court of Brunswick to ask her hand. Malmesbury reported that the Princess was spoiled by a bad education and bad examples, though with a good husband he believed she might turn out well. When the Prince met his future wife, he was unable to conceal his distaste for her. The mutual dislike of the royal couple was fostered by Lady Jersey, whom the Prince, with singular bad-taste, appointed to be lady-in-waiting to his wife; and, after tire birth of a daughter in the following year, a formal separation was effected.

By the autumn of 1795 the burdens imposed by the war and the operations of the press-gang began to be keenly felt. The enormous open-air meetings organised by the Corresponding Society so alarmed Pitt that he remarked to Wilberforce that, if he were to resign, his head would be off in six months. The King, on his way to open Parliament, was greeted with cries of “Bread! No War! No Famine ! ” and a pebble, or a bullet from an air-gun, broke the glass of his carriage. Pitt replied to the challenge by rendering illegal almost every form of agitation. A Treason Bill was introduced, imposing penalties on attacks intending bodily harm to the King; while to excite hatred of the King or the Constitution by writing or speaking was made punishable on a second conviction by transportation for seven years. A second measure, known as the Sedition Bill, forbade meetings of more than fifty persons without notice to a magistrate, who was ordered to apprehend the speakers if the Government or the Constitution were brought into contempt. Every public meeting was to be advertised by a paper signed by resident house­holders ; and a license was made necessary for houses, rooms, and fields where money was taken to hear lectures or speeches. Fox justly observed that this Parliament had taken more from the liberties and added more to the burdens of the people than any of its predecessors.

The currency question gave rise to much anxiety throughout the war. The rapid advance of prosperity had led to the issue of notes far beyond the gold reserves ; and a crisis began shortly before the out­break of hostilities. The situation was rendered worse by the action of the Bank of England, which, in the expectation of being required to supply a quantity of bullion for the expenses of the war, restricted its note issues. Pitt knew the country to be solvent, and authorised the issue of Exchequer Bills for five millions to merchants against securities or goods (1793). The advances were quickly repaid, and the panic ceased. But the causes which produced the shortage of bullion, among them the practice of advancing cash to the Ministry in payment of Bills of Exchange, continued to operate. When, in December, 1796, the French fleet reached Ireland, a panic ensued; and deposits were withdrawn from country banks, which in turn withdrew their deposits from the Bank of England. In February, 1797, the alarmed Directors applied for advice to Pitt, who promptly issued an Order in Council forbidding the Bank to pay in cash till Parliament could be consulted. The merchants of London agreed to accept and to tender bank-notes ; and the Bank Re­striction Act forbade the resumption of cash payments exceeding Pl until six months after the conclusion of peace. Suspension was on the whole a wise policy. It aided the raising of the great loans, and assisted commercial credit by enabling the Bank to increase the circulation with­out regard to the demands of Government. The Opposition foretold for the inconvertible paper the fate of assignats-, but the Directors of the Bank acted with caution, and the difference between the value of gold and that of notes in the early years of suspension was slight.

If the currency crisis and the Mutiny of the Nore rendered the year 1797 one of unusual anxiety, the parliamentary difficulties of the Ministry were lightened by the secession of the leading members of the Opposition. A Reform Bill was introduced by Grey; but its supporters were aware that the measure had no chance of passing, and announced that they would cease to take an active part in Parliament. The secession of Fox was for some years almost complete. He had lost the thirst for office, and was never so happy as at St Ann’s Hill, surrounded by his flowers and his books. The writers of Greece, Italy, France, and Spain were his daily companions, and his letters to Gilbert Wakefield and to his adored nephew, Lord Holland, reveal his intense delight in literature. Grey’s northern home was equally attractive, and his secession was scarcely less complete. Erskine gladly seized the oppor­tunity of retirement from an arena where he added nothing to his fame. These withdrawals left the stage free for the minor actors; and Tierney, whose financial ability rendered him a formidable opponent of Pitt, became the working head of the Opposition. The secession of the leaders was a tactical blunder, due chiefly to Grey, in which, according to Lord Holland, Fox acquiesced rather from indolence than judgment. The step was condemned by Lansdowne, Sheridan, and other influential Whigs; and its effect was neutralised by its incompleteness.

After the failure of Pitt’s negotiations with the Directory in 1797, the question of ways and means became acute. He had so confidently expected a speedy pacification that he met the expenses of the early years almost entirely with loans. It was only slowly that he perceived that he had entered on a long struggle, demanding not only loans but heavy war taxation. During his first ministry the National Debt was increased by £334,000,000. Of this sum he only received about £200,000,000 in cash, as he borrowed in a low stock. He has been sharply blamed for not raising his loans in stock of a higher denomi­nation ; but he was most eager to do so, and his failure was due to the absence of public competition. The burden was reduced during the same period by more than £40,000,000 through the operation of the Sinking Fund. Pitt’s scheme of war taxation has been less censured; and in it his desire to spare the poor may be clearly traced. In 1796 he introduced a graduated Legacy Duty, incorporating the proposal in two Bills, one relating to personal, the other to real property. The former passed without difficulty; but the latter incurred so much hostility that it was deferred, the anomaly remaining till 1853. The Budget of 1797 tripled the assessed taxes, a few abatements being made for the poorer classes. A suggestion by Addington that wealthy men should be invited to make voluntary contributions was next adopted, and brought in £2,000,000 within the year. In the following year the triple assessment and the voluntary subscriptions were superseded by the Income Tax. Pitt estimated the taxable income of the country at £100,000,000, and proposed a levy of 10 per cent. Incomes under £65 a year were to escape, and those under £200 to pay at a graduated rate. Pitt reckoned the yield at about £7,500,000; but the tax brought in scarcely more than £6,000,000. His other taxes are too numerous to be mentioned here. They extended to every kind of food and drink, to the necessaries not less than to the luxuries of daily life, to every item of property and every operation of trade and business. But, despite the suffering they involved, exports and imports steadily increased throughout the war, while English shipping gained the place which it has never lost.

The penal code received its coping-stone in 1799. The political societies were not quite lifeless; and the Irish rebellion impelled Pitt to frame the Corresponding Societies Bill. The Corresponding Society was suppressed by name; and all associations were declared unlawful whose members were required to take an oath not recognised by law, or which included members or committees not known to the whole society. Unlicensed debating clubs and reading-rooms were to be regarded as disorderly houses; printing-presses and type-foundries were to be registered; and the printer’s name was to appear on every publication. Thenceforth the democratic movement ceased for a number of years.

The passing of the Union scarcely ruffled the surface of English politics; but Pitt had more than one ground for uneasiness in the summer of 1800. When Napoleon became First Consul, Pitt believed that another effort for peace should be made, though wide differences of opinion existed within the Cabinet. He was even more concerned at the economic condition of the country, declaring that the problem of peace or war was not half so serious as that of the scarcity. There was a third question, the complications of which Pitt did not at the time fully realise. He had always favoured far-reaching concessions to the Irish Catholics; and, though he was dissuaded by Clare from incorporating these concessions in the Act of Union, he was resolved that they should immediately follow it. Cornwallis had been empowered to invite Catholic support for the Union; and it was with confidence that Pitt summoned his colleagues to a Cabinet meeting. He informed Loughborough, who was at Weymouth with the King, that he desired to discuss the general state of the Catholics, tithes, and a provision for the Catholic and dissenting clergy. Loughborough showed the King Pitt’s letter, and learned his strong objection to the proposals. At the meeting of the Cabinet on Sept. 30, 1800, when Pitt advocated the substitution of a political for a sacramental test for office, and the commutation of tithes, Loughborough caused general surprise by declaring that he was opposed to the admission of Catholics to Parliament or office, though he approved the settlement of the tithe question. Pitt had no choice but to adjourn the discussion. The plot now matured rapidly. At the time of the Fitzwilliam episode, the King had asked the opinion of Chief Justice Kenyon and the Attorney-General, Sir John Scott, as to whether his assent to the admission of Catholics to Parliament would be contrary to his Coronation Oath, and had received a reply in the negative. He had then applied to Loughborough, who returned an ambiguous answer; and the King’s own feelings were strengthened by a document drawn up by Lord Clare asserting that the Coronation Oath was a bar to any such measure. The Archbishop of Canterbury was now invited to write a strong letter to the King; and a similar communication arrived from the Primate of Ireland.

Pitt was entirely unaware of the conspiracy, but he knew that his proposal had opponents besides the Chancellor. Portland, Westmore­land, Liverpool, and Chatham were hostile; but Grenville, Dundas, Camden, Windham, and Spencer supported the plan. Pitt made up his mind to go forward, and in January, 1801, wrote to Castlereagh that he was firm. The King was equally determined, and on January 28 he remarked to Dundas at the levee, “What is it this young Lord (Castlereagh) has brought over which they are going to throw at my head? The most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of!” Next day he requested Addington to see Pitt and “prevent him ever speaking on a subject on which he could scarcely keep his temper.” Pitt wrote to the King, explaining the proposal and begging leave to resign if he was not allowed to bring it forward. The King suggested that neither should recur to the subject. Pitt answered that he could not remain on those terms; and on February 5 his resignation was accepted. Thus the King and his Minister parted without an interview.

It is easy to understand the King’s indignation that a measure of such importance had been discussed by his ministers for months without any official intimation to him ; but the motive that led Pitt to withhold such intimation is clear. If he had informed the King of his intention to discuss the Catholic Question with his colleagues, the project might have been nipped in the bud by a peremptory veto. On the other hand the waiting course incurred two very grave dangers. There was nothing but Cabinet loyalty—in those days a broken reed—to prevent his colleagues from informing the King of what was going on; and, secondly, it was inevitable that the King should hotly resent being left without information. Pitt afterwards expressed regret that he had not informed the King at an earlier stage; but his original judgment is not necessarily invalidated by one formed subsequently at a period of painful agitation. Both courses were beset with difficulties. That which he pursued failed; but it is not clear that the other would have succeeded.

On the approach of the crisis, the King’s thoughts had at once turned to Addington; and, when Pitt resigned, the Speaker was invited to form an administration. Addington’s reply depended on the attitude of Pitt; but, having promised the King his support, he could not decline his invitation. Addington used in later life to declare that his resolution was taken when Pitt declared that hesitation meant ruin. Though the most pressing matter was thus easily settled, the excitement was too much for the King. After reading the Coronation Oath to his family, he remarked, “If I violate it I am no longer sovereign of this country, but it falls to the House of Savoy.” By the middle of February he was thoroughly ill. No business could be transacted during the King’s madness. Pitt had resigned, but was still in control. Addington had been appointed, but had not received the seals of office. The anomalous situation was only saved from danger by the affectionate relations between the actual and the prospective Minister.

When the King regained his senses, his thoughts still ran on the Catholic Question. He sent a message to Pitt through the doctor, “Tell him I am now quite recovered; but what has he not to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all?” Pitt was so affected that he immediately replied that he would never again bring forward the question during the King’s lifetime. This momentous communica­tion set all men asking why he had resigned; and Pitt himself had begun to doubt whether he bad acted rightly. On the evening of his Budget speech, February 16, he had talked for three hours with his friend Rose, Secretary to the Treasury, who relates that there were painful workings in his mind, and most of the time tears in his eyes. The dangerous illness of the King agitated him still more; and, when the reproachful message reached him, his resolution was taken. Some of his intimate friends had already urged him to resume office, and their efforts were now redoubled. Pitt favoured the idea, but refused to take the first step. Dundas begged the Duke of York to urge the King to restore Pitt; and, when the Duke, though sympathising with the project, refused, Portland offered to approach Addington. Pitt forbade the mission; but his friends were determined, and urged Addington to retire. Addington replied that they might speak to the King, but they ought first to ask the doctors if such an interview was likely to be dangerous. At this point Pitt definitely declared his intention of supporting Addington, and on March 14,1801, surrendered office.

The sudden resignation of Pitt gave rise to the belief that it was not exclusively due to the Catholic difficulty. There was in truth no ground for the suspicion that the chief or even a contributing cause of the resignation was a desire to escape the responsibility of making peace. The fear lest it should necessitate a reconstruction of his Cabinet might have influenced a weaker man; but Pitt’s confidence in himself was boundless. The subject of the peace was never mentioned in the long and confidential discussions held between Pitt and his intimate friends during the crisis; and, when the charge was made, it was indignantly and repeatedly repudiated by him. Nor is there any reference to it in the letters of Lord Grenville to his brother. Secondly, Pitt was willing, and indeed eager, to return to office a few days after his resignation, and was only prevented from doing so by Addington’s refusal to withdraw. In the next place, he aided Addington to negotiate the peace, discussed and approved every article with him, and defended it in public and in private. Again, why should it be supposed that the French would prove more accommodating in dealing with a weak than with a strong Cabinet? It is true that Malmesbury records a conversation in which Dundas spoke strongly in favour of Pitt’s return, and added that, if it were not feasible, the fact that the new Ministers would make peace would only smooth the way for his recall. But this was obviously an after-thought, not an efficient cause of what had taken place.

Peace having been made (March, 1802), Pitt continued to give Addington a sincere and disinterested support on the tacit understanding that the latter would not depart from his policy. The statements that Addington declared himself to be merely a locum tenens for Pitt, and that Pitt gave his successor a solemn pledge of support unredeemable by any lapse of time, rest on no first-hand authority and are inherently improbable. The Minister’s second pillar of support was the throne. He had long been a favourite at Court; and the King once paid him what was intended to be a compliment by saying, “When I converse with you I think aloud.” As Pitt had gone to the extreme of minis­terial independence, so Addington went to the extreme of ministerial subserviency. He consulted his master’s wishes in every detail, and was rewarded by letters of almost ecstatic satisfaction at his arrangements. Of all the Ministers who served George III, Addington was the one most completely fashioned to the royal mind. The King was perfectly contented, and at the first levee after the change he drew Pitt and Addington aside and said,  If we three do but keep together, all will go well.” Having such powerful allies, Addington could dispense with a strong Ministry. The King had made use of Loughborough’s intrigues ; but he had read his character, and replaced him in the Chancellorship by Eldon. Chatham, Portland, and Westmoreland remained in the Cabinet; Hawkesbury went to the Foreign Office, Lord St Vincent to the Admiralty; and Perceval became Solicitor-General. The first business of the new Ministry was the case of Home Tooke, the veteran agitator, who had been returned for Old Sarum. Tooke declared that he had thrown off* all clerical functions and had undergone a quarantine of thirty years; but Addington, who felt that the law was uncertain, proposed and carried a measure definitely forbidding the clergy to enter Parliament. The main business of the new Ministry, however, was the peace. The signature of the preliminaries in October was the signal for a great outburst of popular enthusiasm, but was received in higher circles with mixed feelings. The King called it experimental but unavoidable. Fox applauded it as ending a war which he had con­sistently opposed. Sheridan defined it as a peace of which all men were glad and none were proud. The only pronounced opposition came from the small section which followed Grenville, Spencer, and Windham.

Pitt’s support of the Prime Minister was disapproved by almost all his friends; and, when he paid a visit to the Bishop of Lincoln shortly before Christmas, his old tutor openly remonstrated with him. This interview was soon followed by a definite cause of offence. When Tierney accused Pitt of holding back charges which fell on his successor, Addington contented himself with a single sentence in denial. Pitt was pained at his friend’s silence, but professed himself satisfied with Addington’s explanations; and the Budget, repealing the Income Tax, was framed with his full approval. The late Minister’s fame indeed had many champions. Burdett moved for an enquiry into the conduct of the late Government, “ in order that punishment should follow guilt.” This unprovoked attack was met by an expression of the thanks of the House to Pitt “for his great and important services to his country”—a tribute without parallel; and a few days later Canning’s magnificent ode, “The Pilot that weathered the Storm,” was recited at a crowded banquet to celebrate Pitt’s birthday. The speech from the throne closing the session in June was approved by Pitt, who shortly afterwards pressed Castlereagh to accept the offer of a seat in the Cabinet.

These pleasant relations were, however, soon disturbed by the re­newed importunity of Pitt’s friends. After a sharp attack of illness in September, 1802, Pitt was ordered to Bath. Malmesbury reported that he had spoken during the summer to many leading men, who recognised the necessity of Pitt’s resumption of power. Canning, ever the most forward of the band, formed a plan for an address to Addington, urging him to replace the government in the hands of Pitt; and at his wish Malmesbury saw the Duke of York, who suggested that Addington should be approached through a friend or colleague. A memorandum was accordingly drawn up and presented to Eldon. At the same time Canning pursued his plan of collecting signatures for an address to Addington ; but, on hearing what was on foot, Pitt immediately forbade it. The agitation had not been wholly fruitless, for Pitt undertook to give the Government no further advice.

When Parliament met at the end of November, 1802, the return of Pitt was for the first time openly demanded. Grenville declared that he was the only possible helmsman; and Canning contended that, as France was made powerful by Napoleon, there was need of “one commanding spirit” to cope with him. On leaving Bath, Pitt went to spend Christmas with Rose. They studied the Budget together, and found a grave miscalculation. On December 30 Pitt wrote to Addington, who had asked him for an interview, that he feared there were many points to which he could not help looking forward with regret and anxiety. When the two men met in January, 1803, Addington hinted in an embarrassed manner at Pitt’s return; Pitt merely replied that he would consider the matter. Addington then discussed with Dundas, whom he had lately created Lord Melville, the plan of a coalition. Addington and Pitt were to be Secretaries of State under the nominal headship of Lord Chatham, and Melville was to replace St Vincent at the Admiralty. Melville entered warmly into the project, and set oft* for Walmer. Pitt replied that he would only come forward as the undisputed head of the Administration. Addington was pained and surprised, but said that he hoped Pitt would not insist on Grenville and his friends receiving places. Pitt replied that he could not bind himself, and proposed an arrangement by which Addington should become Speaker of the House of Lords. Addington, after consulting his colleagues, refused. Pitt replied that the negotiation was “ finally and absolutely closed”; and the letters of the old friends became stiff and formal.

The renewal of war in May, 1803, impelled Pitt to return to Westminster, where he at once delivered one of his greatest speeches, supporting the war but ignoring the Ministers. The militia were re­embodied ; and a reserve army of 50,000 men, raised by ballot for four years, was voted. The Military Service Bill provided for the enrolment of Volunteers; and before the end of the summer 300,000 responded to the call. Pitt entered with enthusiasm into the movement, and, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, raised 3000 Volunteers. But the issue of arms was slow; and no adequate response was made to local offers of help. The storm that had threatened during the session broke out after its close. A paper war began with a pamphlet written from materials provided by Bragge, brother-in-law of the Prime Minister, though without the knowledge of the latter. Pitt was deeply indignant, and supplied the facts for a reply. Other pamphlets followed, and both parties steadily grew more embittered. In January, 1804, Pitt refused an invitation of Grenville to join the regular Opposition; but he vigorously attacked naval mismanagement. By the end of March he had made up his mind to suggest to the King the formation of a broad Administration. When the Government majority fell to 21, Addington wrote to ask Pitt for his views. On Pitt’s reply that he would only communicate them to the King or someone selected by him, Addington asked permission to authorise Eldon to meet him. On April 25, after an attack by Pitt on the whole system of defence, Addington determined to resign; and Eldon informed Pitt that the King would be glad to have a written plan of a new Administration. Addington’s greatness had been thrust upon him; and he had played his part as well as anyone had a right to expect. But everyone except the Minister himself recognised the truth of Canning’s merciless epigram, “Pitt is to Addington as London to Paddington.” He was vain and mediocre; but his conduct is free from any personal imputation.

Pitt’s reply to the King’s invitation was to frame a Ministry drawn from all parties except the immediate followers of Addington. A sharp letter expressed the royal indignation at the inclusion of the names of Fox and Grenville. Pitt again explained the need for a national Ministry, and begged for an audience. The King agreed to accept Grenville and any friends of Fox, but not Fox himself. Fox magnani­mously urged Grenville to accept office, adding that he was too old to care about it; but his friends refused to enter the Ministry without him. Pitt made no complaint of the conduct of the Foxites; but he was deeply hurt at the refusal of his cousin, who in the previous year had urged upon him the formation of a cabinet in which Fox would have no post. He has been severely blamed for acquiescing in the exclusion of Fox; but he was apprehensive of another outbreak of madness. Thus nearly all Addington’s colleagues remained. Pitt rapidly regained his usual buoyancy of spirits; but his health inspired grave apprehensions among his friends. He had never been really strong since 1797 ; and, though the Bath waters and his open-air life at Walmer had done him good, he had lost his former elasticity. The King was polite, but not cordial. Pitt stood alone, and the burden proved too heavy for him.

His first task was to strengthen the national defences. At no time during the war was it an easy task to obtain soldiers; for the privates were subject to savage punishments; and their comfort and well-being were shamefully neglected. To procure a more regular supply, Pitt introduced his Additional Force Bill. Each parish was assessed at so many men, the fines for deficiency being used for the recruiting fund. As the Bill introduced an element of compulsion, it was violently attacked and narrowly escaped defeat. The debates revealed Pitt’s weakness; and in the autumn Addington was invited to enter the Cabinet. When the two men met, they at once yielded to the force of old memories.  I am sure you are glad to learn Addington and I are at one again”,' said Pitt to Wilberforce. “And then he added, with a sweetness of manner I shall never forget, ‘I think they are a little hard on us in finding fault with our making it up again, when we have been friends from our childhood and our fathers were so before us.” Addington accepted a peerage as Lord Sidmouth, and became President of the Council. Sidmouth’s accession strengthened the Ministry in voting power alone; and he proved a troublesome colleague.

In the session of 1805 an event occurred which darkened the close of Pitt’s life. Though Dundas, now Lord Melville, had undertaken the ill-conceived mission to Walmer, Pitt retained something of his old affection for him and had sent him to the Admiralty. Among St Vincent’s measures, when at the Admiralty, had been the appointment of a Commission of Naval Enquiry. The first nine reports were technical; but the tenth related to Melville’s conduct as Treasurer of the Navy in Pitt’s previous Ministry. Wilberforce was with Pitt when the report was brought to him, and could never forget how eagerly he looked into the leaves without waiting to cut them open. The report showed that Trotter, who had been made Paymaster by Melville, had paid national money in to his own account; and that a large sum, which Melville declared to have been used for secret service, was not accounted for. Pitt was only dissuaded from defending his friend at all costs by a threat of resignation from Sidmouth. When Whitbread’s resolutions were intro­duced, Wilberforce supported the censure and won over the independent members. The voting resulted in a tie, on which the Speaker gave his casting vote against Melville. Pitt put on the little cocked hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the evening, and jammed it deeply over his forehead to conceal the tears trickling down his cheeks. The same day Melville resigned his office, which was given to an admiral. Sidmouth had urged the appointment of one of the Ministers, with a view to creating a post for an adherent of his own. He now resigned, but Pitt could not afford to lose him; and it was arranged that, in regard to Melville’s case, Sidmouth’s friends should vote as they pleased. Hiley Addington, however, and other followers of Sidmouth joined so hotly in the attack that Pitt declared they had rendered themselves ineligible for office. Sidmouth once more resigned, and his resignation was this time accepted. But the loss was so serious that Pitt again implored the King to allow him to strengthen the Ministry. On the King’s refusal, he determined to introduce Canning into the Cabinet.

Pitt once more stood alone, and he knew that his strength was ebbing. When on November 9—a fortnight after Trafalgar—the Lord Mayor gave the toast of “the saviour of Europe,” Pitt rose and said, “Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example.” It was his last speech. A month later he went to Bath to prepare himself for the session ; but the news of Austerlitz (December 2) drove the gout to the vital parts, and he left for Putney a dying man. He had paid little attention to religious observances, but he derived comfort from reflecting on the innocency of his life. On January 22, 1806, he died.

Pitt’s instincts were for finance, for the peaceful development of national resources, for pushing forward the frontiers of political and religious liberty; but the period of his life surveyed in this chapter was one of almost unbroken failure. That he accomplished little which he regarded as necessary was due partly to the character of the King, partly to the French Revolution, but partly also to himself. No Minister has possessed greater self-confidence; but Pitt lacked persistence in domestic affairs. He deliberately put aside parliamentary reform ; but he permitted his colleagues and supporters to maintain the slave-trade, and he allowed his wise intention of combining Catholic relief with the Union to be overridden. Of his foreign policy this is not the place to speak. His repressive measures were the offspring of panic, and created more danger than they averted. As a financier he stands beside Walpole, Peel, and Gladstone. As a leader of the House of Commons he has perhaps been equalled by Peel alone. As an orator he excelled in polished and lofty declamation, though rarely rising to impassioned eloquence and lacking variety. Inferior to his father in dramatic power, to Fox in warmth and passion, to Sheridan and Canning in sparkling brilliance, he rivalled them all in logical statement and purity of diction. His private character was singularly attractive. Reserved and unbending in public, in congenial society he was sunny, buoyant, and companionable. He was loved like a father by his niece, Hester Stanhope, to whom he gave a home; and the passionate devotion of Canning is unique in the history of political friendships.

On Pitt’s death the Ministry resigned; and the King sent for Grenville. On his saying that he should first consult Fox, the King, who saw that there was no alternative, replied, “I thought so, and I meant it so.” Fox became Foreign Secretary, Spencer and Windham Secretaries for the Home Department and for War respectively; Grey went to the Admiralty; Lord Henry Petty commenced his long official career as Chancellor of the Exchequer; Erskine became Lord Chancellor, and Romilly Solicitor-General. Fitzwilliam, Moira, and Sir Gilbert Elliot received subordinate places. Sheridan, whose habitual excess in drinking prevented his inclusion in the Cabinet, was made Treasurer of the Navy. Sidmouth became Privy Seal, and insisted on the admission of a friend. Lord Ellenboro ugh, the Chief Justice, was accordingly admitted to the Cabinet, criticism being met by reference to the pre­cedent of Mansfield, and by the theory (followed under Lord North) that each member of the Cabinet is responsible only for his own department.

The new Ministry first directed their attention to the slave-trade. Fox had always felt strongly on the subject, and, after slight opposition, he pledged the House to take measures for its prohibition. In the Lords the resistance was so slight that he determined on a Bill to forbid the traffic in slaves after January 1, 1808, declaring that, if he had done nothing else in his forty years of public service, he would be content. The Bill was brought in by Grey and carried in the following year (March, 1807); but Fox did not live to see his measure become law His health was bad when he entered office; and its fatigues told heavily on him. Dropsy appeared, and he died after a short illness in September, 1806. The King had yielded to the spell of his winning personality, and remarked that he had never thought he should live to regret Air Fox. He had been debarred from office in his earlier years partly by his own errors, and in later years by the French Revolution. He lives as the greatest of debaters, the undaunted champion of liberty in an age of reaction, the most lovable of English statesmen.

On the formation of the Ministry, the Catholic Question had not been mentioned by the King or Grenville; but it was thought possible to remove one glaring anomaly. The Irish law of 1793 had opened to Catholics all posts in the army up to and including the rank of colonel; but, though the Union made the armies one, officers in Irish regiments could not hold rank when their regiments came to England. The King consented to the removal of this injustice, while declaring he would go no further. At this point the question was raised whether the existing restrictions as to rank were to remain in English regiments. The Cabinet decided that they should be removed; and Grey believed himself to have obtained the royal approval. But Portland wrote offering to form a Ministry; and on the day after the second reading the King informed the Cabinet that he could not accept the Bill. Ministers acquiesced, but drew up a Cabinet minute reserving the right of offering whatever advice relating to Ireland they might regard as necessary. The King replied by demanding a written declaration that they would never again recommend concessions to the Catholics. The demand was refused ; and the “ Ministry of All the Talents ” was dismissed. Its lack of homogeneity is vividly portrayed in Lord Holland’s memoirs; but its fall was due to two tactical errors. It was courting disaster to extend the Catholic measure without gaining the King’s express con­sent ; and the Cabinet minute could serve no useful purpose. Grenville was a man of high character and ability, of wide culture, and great experience ; but he was lacking in tact, and his fall was unregretted.

After a year’s exclusion, the Tories returned to office (March, 1807), nominally under the Duke of Portland, really under Perceval, and entered on a spell of power which lasted twenty-three years. Throughout this period there were two schools of Tory thought The one, led by Canning, drew its inspiration from Pitt, championed the Catholic claims, and was willing to consider any change except parliamentary reform; the other, which exerted the dominant influence, was represented if not founded by Eldon, whose philosophy was summarised by Sydney Smith in Noodle's Oration, and disappeared with the Reform Bill. The pro­longed exclusion of the Whigs was due to a variety of causes. In the first place, they suffered from the lack of a leader. Their titular chief, Lord Grenville, preferred the gardens and library of Dropmore to the anxieties of Westminster. Nor was there any one in the Commons to whom they could look for guidance. When, in 1807, Grey went to the Upper House, George Ponsonby, who had played a leading part in Ireland, was chosen as leader, merely because he divided the party the least. Whitbread was distrusted by the pure Whigs. Brougham entered Parliament in 1810, and at once became the most formidable opponent of the Government; but his character inspired no confidence. The second main cause of the impotence of the Opposition was that it was sharply divided into two sections; one, led by Grenville and Grey, representing the great families; the other, following Whitbread and Burdett, speaking for the middle and commercial classes, and pledged to a more advanced programme. The latter fought hotly against abuses and privilege, disapproved of the war, and led the onslaught on the Duke of York; and, when the Regent deserted his old associates, they retaliated by championing the cause of the Princess of Wales. Scarcely less detrimental to the party were the personal jealousies which divided the leaders. The publication of the Creevey Papers has gone far to explain why so many able men formed so feeble an Opposition.

While the Whigs were almost powerless in Parliament, their ideas steadily gained ground beyond its walls. In Holland House the men who cherished the memory of Fox found a rallying-point. But the most powerful factor in the revival of liberal ideas was the Edinburgh Review. During the long reign of reaction, Scotland had lain prostrate at the feet of Dundas. Freedom of thought survived in the Universities alone; and it was among the Edinburgh students that the flag of rebellion was raised. The idea of a Review occurred to Sydney Smith during a resi­dence in the northern capital, and was discussed by him with a number of young Whigs who met in the rooms of Francis Jeffrey in the spring of 1802. Smith was just over thirty; Jeffrey, who edited the Review till 1829, was a few months younger; Homer, the economist of the group, was twenty-four; and Brougham only twenty-three. The first number appeared in the autumn of 1802; and its effect was described by Lord Cockbum as electrical. Scott and other Tories contributed articles on non-political topics; but an article written on the Spanish War by Jeffrey in 1808 disgusted this section of its supporters. The idea of a rival organ had been suggested by John Murray to Canning in 1807 and was discussed by him with Scott in 1808. On the publication of the Spanish article in the Edinburgh, the plan was carried into execution by Canning, George Ellis, Southey, Frere, and other Tories, an editor being found in Gifford and a publisher in Murray; and the first number of the Quarterly Review appeared in 1809.

Bagehot has aptly characterised the first thirty years of the last century as a species of duel between the Edinburgh Review and Lord Eldon. But, in the assault on an effete Toryism, the Whig champions received valuable aid from two groups of men whose opinions by no means coincided with their own. Bentham had come to believe that the legal and other reforms which he advocated were only to be accomplished by an altogether different kind of Legislature; and in 1809 he wrote a Catechism of Parliamentary Reform demanding annual parliaments, the ballot, and universal suffrage. Though the influence of the Benthamites was confined to a comparatively small circle, their ability and their far- reaching proposals made them formidable opponents of the reigning philosophy. The second group consisted chiefly of the survivors of the Radical movement which Pitt had for a time suppressed. Though it was represented in Parliament by Burdett and Cochrane, its main work was carried on outside by Major Cartwright, Place, Henry Hunt, and other democrats. But its real leader was Cobbett, whose Political Register obtained an influence over the lower middle classes rivalling that of the Edinburgh Review in more cultivated circles.

On the fall of Grenville, Pitt’s old followers returned to office. Port­land was from the first a shadow in his own Cabinet, which was dominated by Perceval and Canning. The former had made his mark under Addington and Pitt as a powerful debater and a man of great parlia­mentary capacity. In private life he was genial and affectionate; but he was ignorant and acrimonious, and shared Eldon’s belief that every change was a step towards revolution. Canning possessed the qualities which Perceval lacked; he had wit, fancy, scholarship, genius; but he declared that his political allegiance was buried in the grave of Pitt; and he was never trusted by the orthodox Tories. The chief episode in the domestic history of the Portland Cabinet was a royal scandal. The Duke of York was the King’s favourite son, and warmly returned his father’s affection. In January, 1809, a colonel of militia, named Wardle, informed the House that commissions in the army were being sold by Mrs Clarke, the Duke’s mistress, and avowed his belief that the Com­mander-in-Chief shared the money. When the evidence had been taken, the Duke wrote to the Speaker regretting his connexion with Mrs Clarke, but maintaining his ignorance of her practices. A motion was carried declaring him ignorant of the traffic; but, before an address to the Crown for his dismissal could be moved, the Duke resigned. Parliament refused to decree his permanent exclusion from office; and he returned to his post in 1811.

The inorganic character of the Cabinet was soon illustrated by the Walcheren expedition (1809), which was arranged by Castlereagh. Canning, as Foreign Minister, declared that he could not share in the responsibility, and would resign if Castlereagh remained in the Cabinet. When the preparations became generally known, he repeated his demand.

The King implored him not to resign; and Portland told him the change would be made. On the failure of the expedition, Canning at once left the Cabinet. Castlereagh, whose position had been undermined by charges of corruption, and had till now known nothing of the agitation for his removal, also resigned. When Portland wisely followed their example, Wellesley was summoned from Spain to till the post of Canning; Liverpool succeeded Castlereagh at the War Office; and Perceval became Premier.

The condition of the currency again claimed attention. Towards the close of 1808 the price of gold had risen to more than 15 per cent, above the Mint price; and the rates of exchange with Hamburg and Paris fell heavily. Ricardo called attention to the matter in a masterly pamphlet; but the Bank denied depreciation, declaring that gold had risen in value owing to the subsidies, the needs of the armies, and the disposition to hoard. A committee appointed at the instance of Horner reported that there had been an over-issue of notes, and urged that the Bank should resume cash payments within two years. But, when Horner and Huskisson asked for legislation, the House voted that bank-notes were equivalent to gold, though £100 of paper were only worth £86. 10s. 6d., and declared the refusal to accept notes at their face value a misdemeanour. The paper currency therefore remained; and cash payments were not resumed until 1819.

A large share of public attention in 1810 was claimed by the contest between Sir Francis Burdett and the House of Commons. The exclusion of strangers from the House in the Walclieren enquiry was chosen as the topic of discussion in a debating society; and placards announcing the debate and denouncing the proposal were placed on the walls. There­upon the House declared the chairman of the society guilty of a breach of the privileges of Parliament, and ordered him to Newgate. The sentence was challenged by Burdett, who had been absent owing to illness. Finding only twelve supported, he published a “ Letter to his constituents denying the right of the House of Commons to imprison the people of England.” The House declared the letter a scandalous libel, and committed its author to the Tower. Burdett replied by barri­cading his house in Piccadilly, in front of which a huge mob assembled. When the house was forced, Burdett was discovered explaining Magna Carta to his little son, and was removed to the Tower. The affair ended with the prorogation of Parliament; but the vast crowds gathered to celebrate Burdett’s release were grievously disappointed on learning that their hero had returned home by water; and Burdett’s reputation as a champion of the people never entirely recovered the fiasco.

The old King’s Jubilee (October, 1810) had scarcely been celebrated when the clouds finally gathered round him. The exposure of the Duke of York, the failure of the Walcheren expedition, and the fatal illness of his fondly-loved daughter Amelia combined to overthrow his sanity; and Perceval carried resolutions in December establishing a Regency for a year on the model of that of 1788. The Prince chafed at the limitations, and asked Grenville and Grey to suggest a reply to the forthcoming address (January, 1811) requesting him to assume the Regency. The Prince sharply criticised their suggestions, and summoned Sheridan, the only Whig with whom he had remained intimate, to draw up another reply. The Whig Lords were indignant; and the breach rapidly widened. The doctors foretold the King’s speedy restoration; and the Queen asserted that his recovery would be jeopardised if he found new Ministers in office. Yielding to the pressure, the Prince announced that he should make no change; but at the end of the year he determined to strengthen the Government. Grenville and Grey replied with the inadmissible stipulation that they should be allowed to grant Catholic emancipation to Ireland. At this moment Wellesley resigned in disgust at the lack of support for the Peninsular War, and was succeeded by Castlereagh; and Sidmouth before long re-entered the Cabinet. Perceval had hardly time to congratulate himself on his retention of office when he was assassin­ated by a lunatic. Negotiations were at once resumed. Wellesley and Canning refused to serve with Castlereagh, and failed to arrange terms with Grenville and Grey. The Whig Lords then attempted to form a Ministry, but alienated Moira, the friend and counsellor of the Prince, by claiming entire control of the Household appointments. In face of these difficulties, the Regent retained the Ministry and appointed Liverpool Prime Minister. He had had long official experience and possessed considerable tact; but he was chosen merely because he seemed least likely to divide the party; and the real head of the Cabinet was Castlereagh, who led the House of Commons. The Catholic Question was expressly left open; but, though Peter Plymley’s Letters had set the country thinking, they had made but few converts at Westminster.

The Regent disliked business, and intervened little in purely political affairs; but his unpopularity was great, and he was denounced as a libertine by Leigh Hunt and lashed in Moore’s stinging lampoons. His elevation to the Regency brought into greater prominence the quarrel with his wife. When the King became insane she lost her only pro­tector ; and her intercourse with her daughter was still more narrowly restricted. The Regent was not kinder to his daughter than to his wife; and when, in 1814, the Princess Charlotte broke off her engagement to the Prince of Orange, her household was dismissed, and she became a virtual prisoner in a lodge in Windsor Forest. The royal visits of 1814 made the exclusion of the Princess of Wales still more painful; and in the autumn she went abroad. Her daughter was soon to find escape in a marriage of brief happiness.

The economic condition of the working-classes throughout the great war gave rise to the most anxious reflections. There was an almost unbroken succession of bad harvests from 1789 till the Peace of Amiens. The attack on the King in 1795 made Pitt aware of the urgency of the problem, and led him to appoint a committee of enquiry. The report did not satisfy Whitbread, who proposed to revive the old practice of settling wages at Quarter Sessions. Pitt opposed the demand, but undertook to introduce a comprehensive measure. His Bill advocated Schools of Industry for the destitute poor—the materials to be bought, the products to be sold, and the wages to be fixed by the local authorities. Land was to be bought or hired; and commons might be enclosed. Persons having more than two children were entitled to relief; and money for the purchase of a cow or some other animal might be advanced in deserving cases. The Bill was so sharply criticised in Parliament and subjected to so ruthless an analysis by Bentham that it was withdrawn. But the measures actually adopted were no less crude. In 1795 the Berkshire Justices met at Speenhamland, and granted allowances from the rates according to the price of corn to supplement wages. Though this step was taken only in order to meet a local and temporary crisis, the allowance system was widely adopted. It largely contributed to reckless marriages, the raising of the rates, and the fall of wages. A second potent cause of suffering was the rapid increase of enclosures. Bakewell had improved the breeding of stock; but there was a great want of cereals. The problem of the food-supply became urgent with the expansion of population and the interruption of foreign trade. To develop the food-supply of England was the life-work of Arthur Young, and the object of the Agricultural Board of which he was the chief founder. A General Enclosure Act was passed in 1801; and over five million acres were added to the cultivated area of England and Wales during the war. But, though the change was economically profitable, it brought with it considerable hardships. The small farmers disappeared; pasture-rights were lost; and the labourer became entirely dependent on his wage. Village industries were gradually extinguished by the industrial revolution; and the high price of corn benefited the landlord and the farmer rather than the labourer.

The sufferings of the towns were still graver. The new conditions created by the industrial revolution, the rapid growth of population, heavy taxation, the closing of foreign markets, currency difficulties, fluctuations of trade, and the decreased purchasing power of the community, led to wide-spread distress. In the belief that sedition might lurk behind labour meetings, and in consequence of the rapid growth of unions among the textile workers of Yorkshire and Lancashire, a severe Combination Act was passed in 1799. Though the law equally prohibited combinations of employers, its infringement on that side went unpunished; and it was used to stifle the interests of labour in every possible way. In only one direction did the Legislature recognise the duty of protecting labour. The first Factory Act was passed in 1802 at the instance of the elder Sir Robert Peel, for the protection of apprentices in cotton and other factories. But no adequate machinery was provided for its enforcement; and the Act is only important as the first step in the modem system of industrial regulation. If improvements were made, they were due to humane employers such as Robert Owen at New Lanark. The working-classes clamoured for protection against employers; but opinion in Parliament ran strongly in the contrary direction, and no alleviating measures were introduced.

Distress reached its climax in 1811-2, when the harvest failed all over Europe. The sufferings of the workers in certain trades were intensified by the introduction of machinery. In 1811 the hosiers of Nottingham were enabled to discharge a large number of workmen. An attack on the factories followed; and new machinery was destroyed before it reached the town. The frame-breakers were called Luddites, after an imbecile who had formerly broken some stocking-frames. A law was hurried through Parliament, rendering the destruction of machinery a capital offence; but the movement spread rapidly through the Midlands. The most glorious period of British arms abroad was the time of the greatest misery at home.

The only way in which effective aid was rendered to the people during the reaction was in regard to education. In 1798 a young Quaker named Lancaster began to teach a few poor boys in a shed in south London. He soon had so many pupils that he adopted a system which had been applied by Dr Bell in Madras, by which children were set to teach one another. lie formed a plan for covering England with schools; and in 1810 his friends and supporters, including James Mill, Brougham, Place, Rogers, and several Nonconformists, created the Royal Lancastrian Association, which in 1813 became the British and Foreign School Society. The movement, which was unsectarian, grew so rapidly that in 1811 a number of Churchmen, under the leadership of Joshua Watson, formed the National Society for the education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church. By these rival organisations elementary education in England was carried on till the introduction of a national system in 1870.

In one other direction there was progress to be recorded. The criminal law was condemned by nearly all English opinion. Com­passionate juries acquitted prisoners; and extreme sentences were rarely carried out. But Eldon and Ellenborough saw nothing to change; and it was with the utmost difficulty that Romilly secured a reduction in the number of capital offences. Of greater importance was the abolition of imprisonment for debt. The noble efforts of the Thatched House Society had succeeded in buying out thousands of victims; but it was not till the evils were fully exposed in a report drawn up by Grey that action was determined on. The distinction between poverty anil crime was at last recognised by the Act of 1813, which discharged debtors on rendering a true account of their debts and property, and placed them under the jurisdiction of a Court. It was in the same year that Elizabeth Fry resolved to continue Howard’s work, and paid her first visit to Newgate.

We turn now to the affairs of Ireland, with which, for the sake of clearness, it has been thought better to deal separately. The Regency question had thrown Irish politics into confusion ; but, with the recovery of the King in February, 1789, the Administration regained its power. Fitzgibbon, the Attorney-General, who had borne the brunt of the struggle, received a peerage, and shortly after succeeded to the Chancellor­ship. Pitt hoped that the termination of the dispute and the withdrawal of Buckingham would lead to quieter times; but, within a few days of the Viceroy's departure, the Whig Club was founded to maintain the principles enunciated in the Regency debates. Among its members were Charlemont, the Duke of Leinster, Grattan, Parsons, and George and William Ponsonby. Though not a few were individually in favour of parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, the club in its cor­porate capacity was a defensive rather than aggressive organisation, demanding nothing more revolutionary than Place and Pension Bills and the reduction of sinecures. The crying needs of Ireland found no place in its programme; and it was to those needs that the more advanced members called attention when, in January, 1790, the new Viceroy, Lord Westmoreland, arrived, and Parliament assembled.

The interest in political discussion that had been kindled by the Regency debates was further stimulated by the events that were taking place in France. Religious disabilities and the tithe system—the two most acutely-felt grievances under which Irish Catholics laboured—were mitigated by the first breath of the Revolution ; and the revolt of a people against misgovernment was viewed by the Presbyterians with the same approval that they had extended to the uprising of the American colonies. The Volunteers were urged to refill their ranks; and resolutions were passed eulogising the measures of the French reformer's. When Parlia­ment met in January, 1791, everyone was conscious that opinion was changing; but motions for enquiry were defeated, and a short session terminated without additions to the statute-book. The obvious futility of direct parliamentary attack set earnest reformers searching for other modes of influencing the Government. The Volunteer movement had been purely and even militantly Protestant; but the steady decline of religious bigotry among the educated classes, reflected in men so eminent as the Bishop of Derry, Hely Hutchinson, and Kirwan, facilitated co­operation. In July the Belfast celebration of the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille was signalised by the demand for emancipation as well as reform. The acknowledgment by some Catholic bodies of a resolution in favour of the abolition of religious disabilities marks the first overt step towards the union of Presbyterians and Catholics.

The idea of cooperation that was stirring in many minds was set forth with consummate force in an anonymous pamphlet which appeared in September. Its author, who called himself a Northern Whig, was Wolfe Tone, a young Protestant lawyer already known to a wide circle of friends as a man of advanced views and unusual ability. The reforming Whigs desired to extend and purify the existing Constitution; Tone boldly brushed aside the whole system of 17S2. Three-fourths of the people were without political rights. The paralysing influence of English dictation could only be removed by the efforts of a united nation; for, so long as the sects were at war, the Administration could defy them both. The pamphlet circulated by thousands; and within a month the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast to carry its ideas into practice. Communications were opened with the Catholic Committee; and a branch was speedily formed in the capital. Members of the United Irish Societies pledged themselves to nothing more than Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform; but the ultimate programme of some at least of the leaders indicated a standpoint that was new in Irish politics. In a letter written in the summer of 1791 Tone declared his opinion that separation from England would be the regeneration of Ireland; and the attitude of the Society as a whole towards England was from the beginning one of indifference verging on disaffection. In the second place, the United Irishmen frankly rejected the Whig philosophy. While Grattan declared an Upper Chamber indispensable and believed that a democratic franchise would lead to an attack on property, Tone pleaded for equal electoral districts, manhood suffrage, and annual parliaments. Finally, while Grattan was resolutely opposed to the use of force, Tone was prepared to employ whatever means were necessary to nationalise the government of Ireland.

While the Presbyterians and the advanced Protestant reformers were championing Catholic claims for their own purposes, the Catholics them­selves were awakening from their slumber’s. The Catholic Committee carried so little weight that in 1790 they could not induce any member of Parliament to present a petition. But the partial removal of restric­tions had led to the growth of a prosperous middle class; and in John Keogh, a wealthy Dublin tradesman, the advocates of a more active policy found a leader. Frightened by schemes for political union with the Dissenters, the conservative or country section, led by Lords Kenmare and Fingal, seceded. The control of the Committee passed into the hands of Keogh; and addresses from most of the towns approved the policy of the first plebeian leader of Irish Catholicism. In October, 1791, the Committee issued a strongly-worded demand for the abolition of the penal code, invited Richard Burke to be their agent, and deter­mined to send a deputation to England.

Pitt and his principal colleagues were without the slightest taint of religious bigotry, and were convinced that the Catholics might be made one of the most effective bulwarks against the onrush of the revolutionary flood—a conviction set forth with matchless power by Burke in his Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe. Before the deputation reached London, the Cabinet had occupied itself with the matter; and in December, 1791, Westmoreland was informed that far-reaching concession was considered indispensable. The Viceroy replied angrily that his advisers were unanimously opposed to such a departure, since the connexion of England with Ireland rested on the unimpaired maintenance of the Protestant ascendancy. Pitt consented to postpone his larger schemes, but informed the Viceroy that they were not abandoned. The intro­duction of a modest Relief Bill in the session of 1792 gave rise to little direct opposition. The measure opened to Catholics the lower branches of the legal profession, repealed the laws limiting the number of apprentices and relating to marriage with Protestants, and removed the obsolete prohibition against educating their children abroad.

The Viceroy informed the Cabinet that the Catholics were grateful and satisfied, and that the country was tranquil; but the events that occurred during the recess pointed to a less sanguine conclusion. The Volunteers of Belfast sent an address to the French nation on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. In Dublin, a military association, modelled on the National Guards, adopted as their emblem the harp without a crown, surmounted by the cap of liberty. This overt mani­festation of republicanism was followed by the spread of French fashions; and Charlemont lamented that the Volunteers had long ceased to ask his advice. The Catholic Committee replaced Richard Burke by Tone, who at once issued invitations to every priest to elect delegates to a Catholic Convention. In December, 1792, the Dublin United Irishmen invited the Volunteers to resume their arms and resolved that a deputation should be sent to the forthcoming Convention. So threatening was the outlook that Grattan formed a society called the Friends of the Consti­tution, with the dual purpose of working for reforms which the Whig clubs would not officially recommend, and resisting republican tendencies. There was however at present little real disaffection among the Catholics outside Dublin. The prelates, the priests, the gentry, and the peasantry were almost untouched; and, when the Catholic Convention met in December, even the Viceroy admitted the loyalty and moderation of its conduct. A petition to the King for the removal of Catholic dis­abilities was drawn up; and Keogh and four of his colleagues were deputed to present it. Pitt and Dundas at this point informed the Viceroy that the concessions which they had postponed must now be granted. The deputation were graciously received at Court; and in the King’s Speech at the opening of the Irish Parliament in January, 1793, the condition of “ His Majesty’s Catholic subjects,” no longer “ Papists,” was commended to the attention of members.

The Executive v as the mouthpiece of the English Cabinet; and the Chief Secretary introduced and carried a Relief Bill which the Irish Government had iu the previous year assured Pitt would have no chance of passing. It gave the franchise to Catholics on exactly the same terms as to Protestants, swept away the remaining disabilities relating to property, admitted them to grand juries, allowed them to become magi­strates, threw open to them degrees in Dublin University, permitted them, subject to a property qualification, to carry arms, and rendered them eligible to receive commissions in the army and navy, and to hold, with a few exceptions, any civil office. Grattan vehemently urged the Govern­ment to complete their work by admitting Catholics to Parliament, pointing out that to give power to the peasantry and withhold political influence from the gentry was to risk detaching the people from their natural leaders, whose loyalty was above suspicion; but Pitt had no mind to renew his struggle with the Irish Executive. Even without this addition, the Catholics gained a position superior to that occupied by them or by Protestant Nonconformists in England. It has been esti­mated that the number of electors in Ireland was tripled ; and Catholic voters obtained a clear majority of votes in the rural constituencies out­side Ulster and in many of the open towns. On the other hand, the private borough system was unaffected; and the Protestant ascendancy remained impregnably entrenched behind the nomination members, who formed a majority of the House of Commons.

During the same session the Government accepted a Place Bill, ex­cluding revenue officers and holders of offices created after the passing of the Bill from sitting in Parliament, and made re-election necessary in the case of members accepting places of profit already in existence. The English Libel Act was adopted; an Appropriation Bill on the English model became law; and the East India trade was thrown open to Ireland. The Volunteers were suppressed in March; and a Convention Act was passed to check the practice which had grown up of summoning large assemblies independent of Parliament; for, though the Catholic Conven­tion had dissolved itself on the passage of the Relief Bill, the United Irishmen were planning a similar gathering. The longest, most eventful, and most profitable session since 1782 closed in August, 1793.

Outside Parliament, however, the horizon was overcast. Grattan’s support of the war completed the breach between the Whigs and the radical reformers. The annual Synod of Ulster Presbyterians expressed its approval of the Relief Bill and its dislike of the war. Equally threatening was the attitude of the Catholic peasantry in certain districts. The quarrels of the Peep-of-Day Boys and the Defenders had originated about 1785 in Armagh, where the poorer Presbyterians wrecked the houses and chapels of Catholics. In 1791-2 the disturbances became so general that early in 1793 a Committee of the House of Lords was appointed to investigate the matter. The report showed that the Defenders had become a secret organisation, whose chief object was the abolition of tithes; and that through this channel many of the Catholic peasantry were passing into the ranks of disaffection.

The chief feature of the session of 1794 was a Reform Bill, introduced by George Ponsonby and supported by Grattan. Each county, and the cities of Dublin and Cork, were to have a third member; and large tracts of the surrounding country were to be thrown into the small borough constituencies, the franchise being extended to ten pound freeholders. But the measure aroused little interest, and was rejected by a majority of three to one. Parliament was prorogued in March; and the attention of the Government was at once called to the United Irishmen. An Anglican clergyman of low character, named Jackson, who had long resided in Paris, was sent by the French Government to discover what support the English democrats were likely to render in case of an invasion. Finding no encouragement in England, Jackson crossed to Dublin, taking with him an acquaintance who secretly reported his doings to the Government. At Jackson’s request, Tone drew up a paper on the state of Beland; but the document which was destined for Paris found its way to the Castle. Jackson was imprisoned; and the United Irishmen were in consternation. Tone was allowed to go into exile in the United States, but was compelled to leave behind him an account of his relations with Jackson, which would serve to convict him of treason if he returned. The Dublin Society of United Irish was broken up, and its papers were seized.

The junction of the dissentient Whigs with Pitt in 1794 ushered in one of the most important episodes in Irish history. The Whigs under­stood that Portland, the Home Secretary, was to have the chief direction of Irish affairs; and the viceroyalty was offered to and accepted by Fitzwilliam, on the understanding that the appointment should not take effect till Westmoreland received some other post. Fitzwilliam at once began to make arrangements for taking office, and told Grattan that he looked to him and the Ponsonbys for counsel and support. The appoint­ment, and the change of policy that it appeared to foreshadow, soon became known in Ireland. Pitt and Grenville, on learning from their Irish friends that there was open talk of a change in men and measures, were deeply annoyed; and, when Portland urged that Fitzwilliam’s appointment should take effect, the relations between Pitt and his Whig colleagues became seriously strained. Pitt repeated that nothing could be done till a place had been found for Westmoreland, and that the removal of Fitzgibbon, which was demanded by Grattan, was not to be entertained. It would be best, he wrote in a memorandum, that Fitzwilliam should not go to Ireland; but, in any case, his appointment must be on the understanding that all idea of a change of system should be given up, and that no supporters of the Government should be displaced.

After some weeks of severe strain, Fitzwilliam was formally appointed.

The powers of the new Viceroy were not defined in writing; but, shortly before his departure, Pitt and Grenville met Portland, Spencer, Windham, and Fitzwilliam. No notes of the meeting were made at the time; but in March, 1795, after the quarrel had taken place, a memorandum was drawn up, probably by Grenville, and approved by the other Ministers present with the exception of Fitzwilliam. According to this, the new Viceroy said that he desired to admit the Ponsonbys to places in the Government, and that he intended to reduce the Revenue Board. Pitt acceded to the former request; but, with respect to the latter, Fitzwilliam was to consult him before any step was taken. Beresford’s name, accord­ing to the memorandum, was not mentioned. As regards emancipation, which was only briefly discussed, it was arranged that Fitzwilliam should endeavour to prevent its agitation; but, if it were strongly pressed, he was not to oppose it, though he was not to commit the Government without further instructions. It is thus clear that Fitzwilliam left England bound by definite though unwritten instructions.

The Viceroy landed in Dublin on January 4, 1795, and two days later dismissed several members of the Administration with pensions. The most notable, John Beresford, though holding the subordinate office of Commissioner of the Revenue, possessed enormous borough influence, and occupied a position second only to that of Fitzgibbon, being often spoken of as the King of Ireland. Fitzwilliam afterwards stated that he had distinctly told Pitt that he might find it necessary to remove Beresford, and that the Premier had acquiesced by his silence. Pitt replied that he had no recollection of such an incident. In any case, a man of such importance should not have been removed without communicating with the Home Government; and Pitt was justified in declaring the step to be an open breach of a solemn engagement.

The Viceroy’s attention had also been claimed by the Catholic Question from the moment of his arrival. Four days after landing, he informed Portland that it would be exceedingly impolitic and even dangerous not to grant cheerfully what the Catholics demanded, and that nothing could prevent the matter being brought before Parliament. On January 15 he wrote that he was endeavouring not to commit the Government, but that, if he received no orders to the contrary, he should acquiesce in the demand for the admission of Catholics to Parliament. The session of 1795 opened on January 22; and Fitzwilliam informed Portland of the unanimity of the Catholics and the readiness of the Protestants. No mention of concessions was made in the King’s Speech; but the Viceroy acquiesced in Grattan’s giving notice of an emancipating measure. Despite the pressing communications of Fitzwilliam, Portland made no reference to the matter till February 9, when he urged the Viceroy not to commit himself. On the following day Pitt wrote censuring the removal of Beresford, but without mentioning the Catholic Question. Fitzwilliam replied that Pitt must choose between him and Beresford; and to Portland he wrote that he would not risk a rebellion by deferring the measure. These letters crossed two from Portland, opposing the whole policy of emancipation. Without waiting for a reply, Portland wrote on February 18 in peremptory terms that Grattan’s measure must go no further; and on February 19 the Cabinet agreed to Fitzwilliam’s recall.

In the letters to Lord Carlisle, in which Fitzwilliam defended his conduct, he asserted that the cause of his removal was not the Catholic Question but the dismissal of Beresford and the intrigues of Beresford’s friends in England. In this opinion Grattan, Burke, and other friends of the Viceroy concurred. Westmoreland and Buckingham were in­dignant at the reversal of their policy; and Auckland, who was primed by Beresford, led Pitt to believe that the whole patronage of the Irish Government was passing into the hands of the Ponsonbys. That Fitzwilliam’s dismissals were a contravention of the understanding on which his appointment rested is beyond doubt. On the other hand, the Home Government were not less to blame for their conduct in regard to the Catholic Question than was Fitzwilliam in respect of the dismissals. The silence of Pitt may be explained by the assumption that Portland did not show him the Irish despatches; but Portland’s reticence was utterly inexcusable. The most probable explanation seems to be that the Home Secretary, to whom all decisions were odious, had not made up his mind and allowed matters to drift Meanwhile the King learned Fitzgibbon’s view that the admission of Catholics to Parliament would involve a violation of his Coronation Oath, and drew up a memorandum, dated February 6, vetoing emancipation. The Cabinet met next day, apparently for the first time since Fitzwilliam’s arrival in Dublin, and determined to censure and disavow the Viceroy. Portland received his cue, and wrote the letters to which reference has been made. Fitzwilliam was a warm-hearted and generous man, who saw clearly that the system of Irish government was a thoroughly vicious one; and that, if a policy of conciliation and reform was to be undertaken, it could not be carried out by men who were opposed to it. It would therefore have been best if he had refused to undertake the viceroyalty on the conditions imposed by Pitt; but, having accepted the terms, he ought to have observed them. The fact that his Whig friends and colleagues, Portland, Spencer, and Windham, approved his recall is conclusive evidence that he broke the agreement. It is possible, however, to blame Fitzwilliam’s conduct, and yet to believe that his policy was sound. Pitt was in favour of admitting Catholics to Parliament; but the strong protests that reached him from Ireland determined him to defer emancipation till a Union had been accomplished. His conduct is intelligible; but his vacillation is more responsible for the tragic occurrences of the succeeding years than is the generous rashness of Fitzwilliam.

The news of Fitzwilliam’s recall was received at Dublin Castle with delight and elsewhere with consternation. It was taken as a definite rejection of the Catholic claims; and large numbers of men henceforward despaired of achieving reform by peaceable means. The United Irish Society was already to a large extent a treasonable body ; and the recall of Fitzwilliam gave an impetus to violent counsels and attracted many recruits. Fitzwilliam’s recall was not the cause of the rebellion of 1798; but it intensified the bitterness and despair which were the principal factors in that event. The new Viceroy, Camden, son of the great judge, reached Ireland at the end of March, 1795. The promotion of Fitzgibbon to the earldom of Clare and the establishment of Maynooth College for the education of priests revealed the dual tendency of his policy. But Camden was a colourless personality; and Irish politics quickly relapsed into their chronic condition of conflict and repression. The Defenders became increasingly aggressive; and in September- a sharp conflict occurred at the village of the Diamond in Armagh. Though the Catholics had the larger force, and were on this occasion the aggres­sors, they were defeated with considerable loss. The following day the first Orange Society was founded. For a time the new organisation was nothing more than a league of defence, almost confined to the Protestant peasantry of Ulster. But the Peep-of-Day Boys rapidly became merged in the Orangemen, and a terrible persecution followed. Houses and chapels were burned or wrecked; and hundreds of Ulster Catholics fled destitute into Connaught. The revival of fierce sectarian passions struck right athwart the scheme of the United Irishmen. Though it furthered their plans in so far as it frightened multitudes of the Catholic peasantry into their ranks, it put an end to their dream of a rebellion in which the two religions would fight side by side.

The session of 1796 was short and uneventful save for the passage of the Insurrection Act, inflicting crushing penalties on the taking of a seditious oath, authorising the search for arms, and empowering Justices to send men to the fleet without trial. The United Irishmen replied by forming a military organisation and ordering their members to procure arms. Arthur O’Connor, an able man of high birth, Thomas Emmet, a lawyer, and William James MacNeven, a physician, and a cultivated Catholic, joined the Society in the autumn; and the control of its policy passed into their hands. In December a French fleet sailed into Bantry Bay; but Munster was far from Dublin, and its loyalty had not been affected. In March, 1797, General Lake, by order of the Viceroy, issued a proclamation which came near to a declaration of martial law in Ulster; and the search for arms led to horrible outrages by the yeomanry. A final attempt at conciliation was made by Grattan, who proposed a far-reaching Reform Bill, admitting Catholics to Parlia­ment and the great offices of state, and introducing household franchise; but only thirty members supported him. Inside and outside the House his influence was gone. Together with George Ponsonby, Curran, and a few others, he retired from Parliament. He disapproved both the conduct of the United Irishmen and that of the Government, and refused to encourage the one by attacking the other.

Sir Ralph Abercromby arrived in Ireland as Commander-in-Chief in December, 1797. Strongly disapproving the system of pure re­pression, he issued a General Order rebuking the licence of the troops, and forbidding them to act, unless attacked, without the orders of a civil magistrate. The proclamation was a direct censure of the Govern­ment ; and Abercromby was compelled to resign. Vain attempts to impose a check on military violence were made by Parsons, Bushe, and Plunket, the last of whom was at this time brought into Parliament by Charlemont. The United Irish movement was weakened by the confis­cation of arms, and by its want of skill, discipline, and unity. But the Executive believed that they had half a million members, and could count on 280,000 men to appear in the field. The insurrection, how­ever, was deprived of much of its danger by the betrayal of its leaders. Arthur O’Connor was seized at Margate on his way to France on February 28, 1798. The Leinster Committee were secured in Bond’s house in Dublin on March 12; and Emmet and MacNeven were captured in other parts of the city. On March 30 martial law and free quarters were proclaimed; and the following weeks witnessed scenes of ferocity and horror. The revolt was to be headed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who had served in the American War and had been expelled from the army for attending a dinner given in Paris in 1792 to celebrate French victories. He had subsequently thrown himself frankly into the revolutionary movement, his noble birth and winning nature rendering him a formidable popular leader. Clare was anxious that he should leave the country, but he refused to go; and ou May 19 he was betrayed and seized after a desperate resistance, in which he received wounds of which he died. Two days later Henry and John Sheares, who had assumed the direction after the arrest of the Leinster Committee, were captured.

The rebels were as sheep without a shepherd; but, since there were not more than 15,000 British troops in the island, they were not without hope. The mails on the roads round Dublin were stopped on the night of May 23; and next day the peasants gathered in arms in the counties of Kildare, Dublin, and Meath, the revolt spreading rapidly into Carlow and Queen’s County. The rising in the north was speedily quelled; but it flamed out in the south of Leinster, where it was not expected. In Wexford the rebels found leaders in Father Murphy, Father Roche, and Holt. After some successful skirmishes, Murphy entered Wexford with a force of 16,000 men, which rapidly swelled to 50,000. The rebels elected a Protestant, Bagenal Harvey, to command “the Army of the People,” and with Wexford as a base began to march north. But reinforcements were reaching the Government; and Lake took the rebel encampment on Vinegar Hill, and entered Wexford. The rebellion failed because there was no real harmony of aim between the Protestant and Catholic malcontents. The Protestants realised that, if it succeeded, they would become an inconsiderable minority in a Catholic and inde­pendent Ireland; and the excesses of the rebels gave the rising the character of a religious war. Thus the greater part of Ulster stood aloof. Connaught and Munster remained tranquil; and the priests, with some notable exceptions, took no share in the rebellion.

On the outbreak of the revolt, Cornwallis was induced to accept the viceroyalty, combined with military control. When he landed on June 20, the rebellion was almost over, but passion was running high. His letters lament the ferocity of the troops; and he describes the conversation at his table as turning on hanging, shooting, and burning. He stood out boldly for clemency, and succeeded in some degree in stemming the tide of vengeance. A few of the rebels were executed and a few transported; but the majority were allowed to return to their homes. The Sheares were defended by Curran, but were hanged on July 14. Thomas Emmet, Arthur O’Connor, and MacNeven consented to give information as to the movement, on condition of being allowed to go into exile. Scarcely was the insurrection over when Humbert, with a French force, landed in Killala; but he soon surrendered to overwhelming forces. A larger French expedition started in October, which also failed. Tone, who had accompanied it, was taken prisoner and condemned by court-martial, but committed suicide in prison. Till the founder of the United Irishmen, the ablest foe of the English connexion, was dead, the danger could not be said to be past.

The rebellion and the invasions turned men’s thoughts once more to the idea of a Union The legislatures had been combined by Cromwell; and a Union was demanded by both Irish Houses under Queen Anne. Adam Smith advocated it in conjunction with free trade; and Montesquieu expressed to Charlemont his approval of the idea. Every living ex-Viceroy except Fitzwilliam had long wished for it. On the other hand, the growth of national sentiment had changed the opinion of Irishmen. Arthur Young found the project highly unpopular; and the debates on the commercial propositions and the Regency proved that the Parliament was jealous of the slightest infringement of the settlement of 1782. It was not till the Relief Bill of 1793 that the idea began to find support with the champions of the English con­nexion. The dispute with Fitzwilliam strengthened Pitt’s inclination for a Union; but it was not till after the rebellion that he came to regard it as essential to the preservation of the Empire. So early as June, 1798, he was studying the Scottish Act of Union with Grenville; and Auckland’s advice was asked in regard to the commercial and financial settlement. Cornwallis approved the proposal; and Castlereagh, who had lately been appointed Chief Secretary, became its strongest advocate.

It is not difficult to understand the considerations that appealed with varying force to different sections of Irish opinion. The Protestants were alarmed for their lives, their property, and their Church, and may well have felt the need of closer connexion with England. Even many who were animated by friendly sentiments towards the Catholics believed that to open Parliament to them would endanger the Protestant ascendancy; while to retain the disqualifying laws seemed to ensure the permanence of discontent. On the other hand, the lawyers perceived that their professional opportunities would be diminished; the official classes foresaw the loss of their posts; and the borough-owners feared the disappearance of their political influence. There was also a class, weak in numbers but strong in character and ability, to whom the maintenance of a separate national life outweighed in importance any dangers which the continuance of the Irish Legislature might involve. The Catholics were less divided; and Cornwallis pertinently remarked that they considered any change better than the present system. If emancipation had been included, Catholic Ireland would have enthusi­astically supported the scheme. The opposition of the capital may be largely explained on commercial grounds.

In the autumn of 1798 the Government employed Cooke, the Under­secretary, to state the arguments for a Union. He dwelt on the benefits of the Union with Scotland and the dangerous preponderance of France in Europe, and held out hope of a provision for the priests. With the appearance of Cooke’s pamphlet the great debate fairly commenced. Meetings of the Dublin bar, the Dublin corporation, and the bankers and merchants condemned the plan, the speakers dwelling on the certain increase of absenteeism, and the probable merging of the National Debts, and dismissing the Scottish analogy on the ground that Scotland had been poor and Ireland was flourishing. But the Government was not to be deterred from its course. Parnell was dismissed from the Exchequer; anti-Unionist officials were replaced by Unionists. When Parliament met in January, 1799, the project was attacked by Ponsonby, Parsons, Parnell, Jonah Barrington, Bushe, and Plunket, Castlereagh standing almost alone in its support. An amendment to the Address condemning a Union was only defeated by one vote; and a second amendment to expunge the paragraphs of the Address relating to a Union was carried by five; but, when Ponsonby tried to pledge the House against future consideration of a Union, several anti-Unionists protested, and the motion was withdrawn. In the Lords the Address was carried by 52 to 17. A speech delivered by Pitt was at this stage widely distributed by the Government. He declared that a Union would give Ireland security and wealth, and he promised to keep the debts separate and to resist the increase of taxation. The problems that confronted Ireland (he said) could only be settled by a Legislature free from local prejudices ; a voluntary association of the two countries was not subjection but partnership. The Irish Opposition retorted by framing a Regency Bill to obviate the repetition of the crisis of 1789; but Castlereagh pointed out that it did not provide for such dangers as the refusal of supplies for war or the imposition of commercial restrictions on English goods. In this debate, the Speaker, Fester, delivered a speech which contains the most powerful presentation of the case of the anti-Unionists. lie had supported the Government in its opposition to the Catholics and its struggle with anarchy; and he was considered the greatest living authority on Irish commerce and finance. He asserted that taxation would increase, and that the material progress of the last two decades would be jeopardised; he reviewed the circumstances and probable fortunes of the leading industries, and pointed out that the Irish members would be a powerless minority in an ignorant and indifferent Parliament.

The matter, however, was not to be settled by argument. The work of the recess is portrayed in the letters of the highminded Viceroy. “ My occupation is most unpleasant, negotiating and jobbing with the most corrupt people under heaven. How I long to kick those whom my public duty obliges me to court! ” Nearly all the great borough-owners were willing to consent to a Union if they received compensation for the loss of their influence. Pitt had adopted this principle in his Reform Bill of 1785; and even the United Irishmen included compensation of borough-owners in their scheme. Eighty boroughs, about a third of which belonged to opponents of the Union, were bought at the market price of £15,000 apiece; and the sum was added to the National Debt. In the case of boroughs which were to send one member to the joint Parliament, no compensation was given for the suppression of a second seat. In some cases, where a borough-owner was doubtful, the promise of a peerage was employed to turn the scale. During the recess sixty- three seats were vacated. A few of the vacancies were caused by the dismissal of officials who opposed the Union, but the greater number by the resignation of nominees. Finally, government patronage was steadily exerted in the same direction. One hundred and seventy members who held places or pensions knew that their promotion and even their tenure depended on their support of the Union. Direct money bribes were almost unknown, for they were scarcely needed. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that during the later months of 1799 the notion of a Union gained ground independently of corruption. A general idea of the measure projected was given to leading men; and Cornwallis declared that outside Dublin the feeling of the masses was indifferent. The active opposition was almost confined to Ulster, to those who were interested in maintaining the existing system, and to the little band of Nationalists who followed Grattan.

The Irish Parliament met for the last time in January, 1800. Dublin was as hostile as ever, and the Orange lodges sent numerous resolutions against the project; but the parliamentary majority was now secured, and Castlereagh explained the details of the proposal. The debts and taxation were to remain separate; and Ireland was to pay two-seven­teenths to Imperial expenditure. The commercial clauses were modelled on those of 1785. Though nothing was promised, the Chief Secretary hinted that an arrangement for both Catholic and dissenting clergy was under consideration. Two hundred seats were to be extinguished, and Ireland was to be represented by one hundred members—the counties to return sixty-four, Dublin and Cork two each, thirty-one other towns and Dublin University one each; while four spiritual peers were to sit in rotation, and twenty-eight representative peers to be elected for life. Foster delivered another powerful speech, demonstrating that, in offering the Union as an alternative to bankruptcy, Castlereagh was guilty of gross exaggeration, the financial distress being due to specific causes. Grattan, who had lately sought re-election, took higher ground. He predicted that the Union would be one of parliaments, not of peoples. To destroy the Parliament was to destroy an organ of national intelli­gence, a source and symbol of healthy national life. Ireland would become subordinate -without ceasing to be separate.

The fundamental weakness of the settlement of 1782 was that the Irish Administration was responsible not to the Irish but to the English Parliament. Friction between the Legislature and the Executive was thus almost inevitable, and was likely to increase with the growth of a vigorous national consciousness. Tire opponents of the Union pointed to the loyal record of Parliament, but did not deny that it was within its power to thwart the policy of England. The second weakness of the settlement was that Parliament represented only one of the three religious bodies into which Ireland was divided; and that a genuine representation might overthrow the Protestant ascendancy and thereby endanger the connexion with England. Whether national sentiment would have proved strong enough to overcome sectarian animosities and to weld the Churches and the races into a loyal and homogeneous com­munity, is a question which can never be answered with certainty. Grattan believed there would not be a Catholic majority, and that in any case the loyalty of the Catholics was secure; but he underestimated the risk to the Protestant ascendancy, of which he was a professed sup­porter. Thus the Union cannot be judged as a separate event. It was brought about by a number of circumstances, some of which were inherent in the Irish problem, while others were due to the selfishness and vacil­lation of the English and Irish Governments. Its defence must rest on the dual ground that, at least after 1798, the continuance of the Irish Legislature seemed likely to prove a source of weakness to Great Britain in her deadly struggle with France, and that it was the necessary pre­liminary to complete Catholic emancipation. If these grounds are accepted as conclusive, they must be borne in mind in judging of the means by which the Union was accomplished. If a Union was necessary, those means were necessary; for in no other way could it have been achieved. But it was a settlement by compulsion, not by consent; and the penalty of such methods is that the instrument possesses no moral validity for those who do not accept the grounds on which it was adopted. Pitt had hoped that Ireland would become a partner in the Empire; but she found herself a dependency, her true position being concealed by the presence of a hundred members at St Stephen’s. It was also Pitt’s inten­tion that the Union should be followed by concessions to the Catholics. Their most pressing needs were the commutation of tithes, the endow­ment of the priests, and the admission of Catholics to Parliament. The first and second were approved by many -who resisted the third; but with the fall of Pitt the opportunity was lost. Emancipation and the commutation of tithes had to wait till their concession exerted no healing influence, and the endowment of the clergy had become impos­sible. The Union, as Pitt designed it, might have proved a blessing for Ireland; as it was accomplished, it merely added to the store of bitter memories which constitutes the Irish problem.

The Union once carried, Ireland became quiet and almost indifferent. The brilliant society of the capital broke up; and the country sank back into the lethargy and provincialism from which Flood and the Volunteers had aroused it. But the fall of Pitt, bringing with it the resignation of Cornwallis and Castlereagh, was a bitter disappointment to the Catholics. The new Viceroy, Hardwicke, the Chief Secretary, Abbot, and Bedesdale, who succeeded Clare as Chancellor in 1802, were openly anti-Catholic. On the other hand, the Administration was mild and honest. Catholic chapels which had been burned or wrecked were rebuilt at public expense. The Peace of Amiens extinguished the hope of French aid ; and a reac­tion followed the excitement of the Union. The harvest of 1802 was good; and increased expenditure was concealed by loans.

In the summer of 1802 Redesdale wrote to Addington that the satis­faction he had previously expressed had been premature, and that nothing but the fear of consequences prevented a rebellion. The chief danger was to be apprehended from the survivors of the United Irishmen, who found a leader in Robert Emmet, younger brother of Thomas Addis Emmet, and a comrade and fellow-student of Thomas Moore at Trinity College. Robert Emmet left Ireland in 1801 for Paris, where he met his brother and Russell, the friend and colleague of Tone; but Napoleon gave him so little encouragement that he returned to Ireland next year. The elder brother remained as the accredited agent of the executive, and his diary shows that French aid was still expected ; but Robert, contrary to the advice of Arthur O’Connor and other exiles, determined not to wait for help which might never come. Arms were accumulated in Dublin; Russell was sent to organise a revolt of Ulster; and Emmet found a capable and daring colleague in Miles Byrne. But treachery was at work; and the Government received frequent reports as to the progress of the plot. On July 16,1803, the city was startled by an explosion of gunpowder in Emmet’s depot; but the Viceroy thought it best to take no action. A week later, at ten o’clock in the evening, a rocket gave the signal; and a few hundred men hurried to head-quarters. Pikes were handed out, and Emmet found himself at the head of an undisciplined rabble. But his followers, though he beckoned them to the Castle, lacked determination. While they hesitated, the carriage of Lord Kilwarden, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, approached. The horses were stopped; Kilwarden and his nephew were pierced by pikes; and his daughter, escaping in the confusion, carried the news to the Castle. Emmet had been powerless to stop the slaughter; and the appearance of a body of troops quickly scattered the crowd. Next day the insurrection broke out in Ulster; but it was at once suppressed, and Russell was captured and hanged. Emmet took refuge in the Wicklow Hills and might have escaped to France; but he wished, before he fled, to see Sarah Curran, the great advocate’s daughter, to whom he was attached. He visited Dublin, was betrayed, arrested, and hanged. The rising caused the greatest alarm. The Habeas Corpus Act was sus­pended, and martial law was proclaimed. Suspects were arrested and kept in prison without trial. The system of coercion thus introduced continued, except during the short interval of the Grenville Ministry, throughout the war.

On the news of Emmet’s rising, Lord Fingal armed his tenantry and placed them at the disposal of the Government. As a mark of recog­nition he was appointed a magistrate; but the Chancellor, in transmitting the warrant, took occasion to accuse Catholics of want of loyalty. His letter aroused great indignation, and it was determined to petition Parliament. Accordingly, when Pitt returned to office, Fingal and other prominent Catholics pressed their claims. Pitt regretfully replied that he could do nothing during the lifetime of the King. The matter was debated in 1805, when Grattan made the first and perhaps the greatest of his few speeches in the Imperial Parliament. On the death of Pitt, the Duke of Bedford became Lord-Lieutenant; and the suspects of the Emmet rising were liberated. For a brief interval Ireland was governed by the ordinary law of the land; but, on the fall of the Whigs, the Duke of Richmond, a man of unconcealed Orange sym­pathies, became Lord-Lieutenant; and Lord Manners, an equally strong anti-Catholic, began his twenty years’ chancellorship. Saurin, an able lawyer of high character but narrow views, became Attorney-General, and virtually governed Ireland till the arrival of Peel.

The Catholic Committee gave scarcely a sign of life for some years after the Union; but in 1805 an energetic protest against its lethargy was made by a lawyer well known in the Courts though as yet unknown beyond them. Bom in 1775, and educated in France, Daniel O’Connell had derived from the horrors of the Revolution an abiding attach­ment to monarchy and a hatred of violence. He was one of the few Catholics who openly denounced the Union; but he did not speak again on political matters till 1805, when he persuaded the Committee to petition. He continued to urge greater activity, and in 1810 he was unanimously elected chairman. Henceforward the history of the Catholic movement in Ireland, to be described in a subsequent volume, is the history of O’Connell.

O’Connell had never concealed his opinion that the repeal of the Union was essential to the restoration of the national life. Plunket, Saurin, Bushe, and other opponents of the Union had come to accept it. Grattan announced in 1810 that he would only work for repeal if the country unmistakably desired it; and he afterwards declared that, as the marriage had taken place, it was his duty to make it fruitful. But in 1808 there had been symptoms of discontent among the merchants of Dublin ; and in 1810 a meeting was held in the Exchange, at which resolutions in favour of repeal were carried. O’Connell declared that Ireland was governed by foreigners; but the Catholics had nothing to hope from repeal, and their attitude was one of indifference. In Ulster anti-Union sentiment had almost disappeared by 1815. The Regum Donum had been increased; Orange lodges had multiplied; anti-Catholic sentiment had revived. The linen trade, almost alone among the industries of Ireland, improved; and Belfast was growing into a prosperous port. On the other hand, the economic condition of the Catholic peasantry was not improved by the Union. The Irish Corn Laws of 1784 had led to a great increase of tillage; and bounties on the export of com and the growing English demand led to excessive subdivision of farms. Rents rose with the competition for land, and wages fell. Discontent spread; and Threshers and Ribbonmen appeared in protest against tithes and high rents. Taxation was nearly doubled, and Ireland was compelled to borrow. By the end of the war her debt had risen from £28,000,000 to £112,000,000; and the time contemplated by Pitt and Castlereagh when the debts and contributions of the two countries should be in the same ratio had arrived. In 1815 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the financial relations, and reported in favour of the consolidation of the Exchequers.

Though the closing years of the great struggle with France were not marked by the terrible distress which threw a dark shadow over England, the outlook for Catholic Ireland was exceedingly gloomy. In England it was possible, beneath the thick crust of Tory rule, to detect the germs of a new life. In Ireland it seemed as if the soul of the people was dead. There have been periods of far greater conscious suffering and material hardship; but at no time since the Union has there been witnessed such apathy, such hopelessness, such spiritual degradation.

 

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE.