FR-OUDE’S LECTURES
IRELAND ADE) IfiISHMEfi. ‘

A Course of Lecture: delivered by him in Association Hall, New York, during
October and November, 1872,

P'REFA 0E A ND N 0 TBS
COL. JAMES E. MCGEE,

AND

WENDELL PHILLIPS’S VIEWS OF THE SITUATION,

_ . NEWYonK:
'J. A. MOGEE, PUBLISHER,
No. 7 BARCLAY STREET.

1&2.

 

 

PREFACE.

.

REVIOUS'to the arrival of James Anthony
Froude among us, his advent was heralded

by sundry paragraphs in the New York papers,
which, from their uniform laudatory tone and strong
family resemblance, induced many sceptical people
to attribute them to that gentleman himself or to
some person deeply in his counsels. His subsequent
appearance in New York in the character of a lec-
turer on Irish history was the signal for renewed
encomiums on the "distinguished historian,” and
leading articles even were devoted by a portion of
the press to prove that he was all that was good,
great, and illustrious in modern historical literature.
The American people were congratulated on being
at last in a position to obtain a full and clear expo-
sitiOn of the history of the quarrel between England
and Ireland, and to hear an elaborate disquisition on

 

 

 

PREFACE.

REVIOUS'to the arrival of ‘ James Anthony
Froude among us, his advent was heralded

by sundry paragraphs in the New York papers,
which, from their uniform laudatory tone and strong
family resemblance, induced many sceptical people
to attribute them to that gentleman himself or to
some person deeply in his counsels. His subsequent
appearance in New York in the character of a lec-
turer on Irish history was the signal for renewed
encomiums on the "distinguished historian,” and
leading articles even were devoted by a portion of
the press to prove that he was all that was good,
great, and illustrious in modern historical literature.
The. American people were congratulated on being
at last in a position to obtain a full and clear expo-
sition of the history of the quarrel between England
and Ireland, and to hear an elaborate disquisition on

 

 

 

 

 

4 Pi'z‘faa'.

the causes that led to the disagreement between the
two countries, with a phi1050phic summary of the
mutual relations between the conquerors and the.
vanquished. All this was to be done by one, said
the New York Times, “who has studied Irish his-
tory as no other man has.” That ubiquitous but
inquisitive class of Bohemians, the interviewers,
speedily surrounded the eminent historian and
embryo lecturer, and reproduced in their respective
journals his most trivial remarks equally with his
most profound observations; a prominent publish-
ing house, probably with a keen eye to business,
féted him magnificently; while that portion of our
mercantile community which is composed of Eng-
lishmen or the agents of English houses fawned
on him with ahumility which argued more for
their patriotism or prudence than for their man-
hood. Everything, in fact, was done to excite
public curiosity, and thus, at least, obtain for the
distinguished visitor a large audience and a good
reception on the occasion of his first lecture.
Froude himself assisted in this combined move-
ment in his favor. In his speech at the Scribner
banquet, he was moderate, nay, even modest, in his
speech, and very conciliatory in his manner; while

 

 

 

 

 

Preface. 5

to the various gentlemen of the press who called
upon him for an expression of his views he was
courteous, communicative, and apparently candid.
He had no motive whatever, he assured them, in
coming to the United States to lecture but a desire
to do justice to the peOple of Ireland, whose many
good qualities he admired, and whose wrongs at
the hands of England he strongly deprecated. He
had lived thirty years in Ireland 3 knew the people
well, and admired them; had enjoyed their hospi-
tality, and had even been, during a long period of
illness, nursed with unusual tenderness by an hum-
ble peasant of the West; with many other remarks
of the same sort, and, .as it has since proved, all of
equal sincerity.‘ 1

Still, it seemed strange to many that a man who
had gained an enviable reputation of a certain sort
at home by maligning the ill-starred Mary Queen
of Scots, and by becoming the eulogist of her mur-
derer Elizabeth, and of the infamous Cecil, should
have come so far to advocate the cause of a people
who had suffered so much and so terribly from the
persecutions of the latter persOnages, their aiders and
abettors; that an Englishman whose sole title to
fame rested on his strong English and Protestant

 

 

 

 

6 Prcfc’zcc.

prejudices should be at the pains of leaving his
country and the society of his friends to vindicate
the character and defend the good name of Catho-
lic Ireland. Thus they wondered; but they said
little, preferring to await events.

These came soon enough, justifying and more
than justifying all their prognostications. The very
first lecture which Froude delivered in Association
Hall in this city, before a large and what is called
a fashionable audience, clearly demonstrated that
what the newspapers had said in favor of his learn-
ing and impartiality, and all that he himself had
averred of his love for the people of Ireland, and his
intention to defend the justice and truthfulness of
their cause, and arraign England before the bar of
the American people, were mere Shams, lures to
attract the public attention of a people the vast
majority of whom he well knew have ever been
and still are in full sympathy with the oppressed of
all nations, and particularly with the Irish. The
subject selected on that occasion was “The Con-
quest of Ireland by the Normans,” but the text of
the discourse bore little affinity to the title. The
condition of the country anterior to 1169, the long
Danish wars that had depopulated the country, im-

 

 

Preface. 7

’—

poverished the people, desolated the churches, dis-
organized the hierarchy and clergy, and demoral-
ized the people were not even alluded to. Ireland
was, through no fault of hers, then in a state of great
distress, and some dissension doubtless prevailed
among her local rulers; and Mr. Froude’s main
object seemed to have been to prove that Henry
II. and his filiéustero: were, therefore, justified in
attempting to subdue her. Now, it follows that if
this point be well taken, as the lawyers say, the
whole case is admitted; for, if England was justi-
fied in invading Ireland on account of the latter’s
internal dissensions, she [is justified, in holding her
as long as these dissensions exist; and as the for-
‘mer can and will always create these dissensions,
she is justified in holding Ireland for ever. This is
the matter in a nutshell, and it was evidently F roude’s
plea. But this issimply the argument of the robber ;
certainly not the doctrine of a Christian or of an
enlightened and philosophic historian, as Mr.
Froude’s friends claim him to be. But the lecturer
had another point to make—an assault on the
papacy ; and he of course introduced that much-dis-
puted and very inefficacious document known as
Pope Adrian’s Bull. His first effort was, in fact, but -

 

 

 

8 Prafacc’.

the prelude to a general attack on Irish nationality
as such, and on Catholics generally, no matter of
what nation.

His strategy was fully disclosed in his subsequent
fourlectures on “ Ireland Under the Tudors,” “The
Penal Laws,” “ Grattan and Curran,” and on “The
Present Condition of Ireland ” ; for even in his
very last appearance before a New York audience,
on the same subjects collectively, he wanders from
Ireland and England to the revolt of the Nether-
lands, and the alleged cruelties of the Duke d’Alva,
to the massacre of S. Bartholomew in Paris, and
even to Rome itself. In all his harangues, for it
would be too great a stretch of courtesy to call
them lectures, he carefully evades the main question
at issue: Have the people of Ireland always had a
right to govern themselves? and has not England
invaded those rights—persistently, cruelly, and un-
justly deprived the people of their own laws, soil,
and polity P and how has itbeen done P He dwells,
it is true, on the wars of the Anglo-Irish lords of
the Pale and the native Irish chiefs, the prolonged
struggle of the great O’Neil with successive Eng-
, lish armies, the uprising of 1641, the confedera-
tion of Kilkenny, the contest between James II.

 

 

 

 

Preface. 9

and William of Orange, the efforts of the Catholics
in the eighteenth century to evade the bloody pe-
nal code, and the poverty and destitution of the
people'of the present century ; but only to misstate
facts, deduce inferences not justified by history, and
draw conclusions totally absurd, if they were not so
gravely false.

Because -the Irish fought for their existence
in detail, Henry and Elizabeth were justified in
slaughtering them indiscriminately ; the Scotch
Presbyterians who purchased the confiscated land
of Ulster tolerated the presence and even employed
as menialsa few of the rightful proprietors of the
soil, consequently the sons of those so robbed had
no right to regain their own ‘lands as against the
Undertakers aforesaid ; Cromwell, the hero of Wex-
ford and Drogheda, on, account of hanging two of
his Roundhead soldiers for stealing a hen, was a
model of justice and clemency 3 the penal laws, the
most infamous code the modern world has yet seen,
were not so bad after all, as they were the natural
conseQuence of the stubborn and unreasonable re-
sistance of the people to the will of the sovereign,
who only wanted them to give up their religion;
the Union was necessary for the welfare of Eng-

 

 

 

 

I 0 Prz‘faa’.

land and afarfiorz' right ; and the terrible famine of
’46, ’47, ’48, was simply the consequence of the too
rapid increase of the population I This was the gist
of his argument.

Mr. Froude had respectable and, generally, in-
telligent audiences; but, as far as related to Ireland,
. their knowledge was less than of the interior of
Africa. Ireland is not fashionable, you know, and
then she is so Romish. They laughed heartily at
his stale jokes, believed his wholesale charges
against the character of the Irish peOple, and be-
came “ wild with enthusiasm,” we are told, when he
made a hit at the Catholic Church. The lecturer,
though neither a witty nor a brilliant man, had little
difficulty in seeing through their foibles. He ridi-
culed the Irish judiciously, maligned them profusely,
and now and then threw in a scrap of bigotry, by
way of seasoning, to keep their attention awake,
while he steadily pursued his chief design,_ which
was to convince or persuade them that all the com-
plaints of the Irish peOple against England are ill-
founded; that England is and ever has been the
benefactor of her victim; and, as a corollary, the
American people should turn a deaf ear to all the
accusations of the oppressed nation as causeless and

 

 

 

 

Preface. I I

unworthy serious consideration. _ This was the ver-
tebrae of his whole discourse.

Now, will any one say that all this was done
without a deep, far-seeing purpose? That a man
like Froude, so deeply engaged in important literary
labors in London, will leave his club, his coteries,
and his beloved State Paper Office, and spend
months in a foreign country, for the sake of a few
dollars or a slight increase of notoriety, is hardly
credible, and we certainly must be excused if we
do not believe it. He is but one of the many
whom England has been and is employing to carry
out her policy toward the exiled Irish on this con_
tinent. I-Ier vengeance is not bounded by the
Atlantic. There is not an English official in this re-
public, from the British Minister at Washington to
the lowest understrapper at the smallest Consulate
in the Union, who has not a lie or a sneer for the
Irish. It comes as natural to them as to draw
p their salaries 3 in fact, the two operations are more
intimately connected than many people suppose.

We do not know that Mr. Froude derives any
pecuniary emolument from his lectures here other
than that received from the sale of tickets; but if,
on his return, he does not become the recipient of

 

 

 

nun-n

 

I 2 Preface.

some token of gratitude from his Government, we
shall be very much disappointed. There are a
great many ways in a monarchy of rewarding a du-
tiful subject besides paying him money. Honors,
titles, social recognition in higher society than that
in which he is accustomed to move, influence in
Downing Street for his poor relations, and a thou-
sand other inducements we might mention, are held
out by the English authorities to those who serve
them well ; and, though Mr. Froude may not have
succeeded to any appreciable extent in dividing the
mass of Americans from their fellow~citizens of Irish
birth, his coolness, audacity, and zeal deserved suc-
cess. _

This gentleman may not be either a veracious or
a profound historian, but he wields a facile pen
dextrously, and has more twists and turns mentally
than the famous labyrinth of Crete is said to have
had topographically. Among others, he has a
fashion of uttering a falsehood, then denying it,
then mitigating it by another, and again, when de-
tected, offering on impossible terms to prove he is
guiltless. Doubtlcss he will issue his late lectures
on Ireland in book form, and, as he must, on reflec-
tion, be ashamed of many of the statements made

 

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m tJ-t ....-a.xu.t-_-,. _.. ,_, Alta. .. -n - ‘L'xf- .AQKLrAJ mu__-_ J‘u‘m m

 

Preface. I 3

by him to please his Association Hall audience, he
may possibly. seek to slur over, explain, or totally
eliminate them, we think it well to present them to
the public at the earliest moment as taken down by
the best reporters at the time of utterance, so that
all may be able to judge by comparison how little
faith James Anthony Froude has in his own asser-
tions or in his own knowledge of the true facts of
Irish history. I. E. M.

NEW YORK, December, 1872.

 

 

 

um-

 

 

FROUDE’S FIRST LECTURE.

DELIVERED OCTOBER 16, 1872.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I have come to this country to address
you on the history of the connection be-
tween two islands in both of which I
presume that you feel an interest, and I
cannot better introduce the subject than
by reading to you a letter once written by
an American Ambassador to an'English
Prime Minister. The occasion was the Irish
Reb‘ellioh of 1798, when -seventy Irish
gentlemen of birth and fortune who had
been secretly concerned in the insurrection
were in the hands of the Government.

 

 

 

 

I 8 Frantic": [.a‘z‘m'cs.

They had been engaged in correspondence
with the Directory of the French Republic.
They had been betrayed by their own
confederates, as so many times Irish con-
spirators have been betrayed, and they
were banished from Ireland on condition
that they should retire to some country
then at peace with Great Britain; and it
was understood that they meant to seek an
asylum in the United States. Your repre-
sentative in England then was Mr. Rufus
King, a name honorably known through
more than one generation of American
statesmen. There survives yet a letter of
iremonstrance addressed by Mr. King to
our Prime Minister, in which he urges
England to debar these seventy gentlemen
from making the United States their place
of retreat, dreading such an acquisitiOn to
any nation.

The lecturer read the letter, a quaintly
worded epistle, and made these comments :

 

 

 

Frozza’e’s Lectures. 19

I suppose that if an ambassador from this
country should write such a letter in these
days he would not have a very long tenure
of office. It is now the pride of both
England and America to offer a safe
asylum to any patriot or any refugee from
persecution and misfortune.

It is needless to say that the entreaty of
Mr. King was not acted upon, and that
most of these gentlemen died quiet citizens
of the United States, and America has been
since a land of promise to the Irish nation.
The Irishman at the present day looks to
America as his natural protector. Thus
she has become, whether for good or evil,
a party to Irish politics. She is the
Supreme Court of Appeal. in the Irish
' imagination, and if ever the hatchet is to be
buried, if ever Celtic Protestant and Irish
Catholic are to end their quarrel in a
general reconciliation, it will be when this
country has pronounced that Ireland ought

 

 

 

 

20 Froua’c’s Lccmrm.

to be satisfied and has no longer a griev-
ance which legislation can remove.

I am not here to talk commonplaces
about English tyranny or Irish acrimony,
but the fact remains that at this day, after
700 years of forced connection, we are still
unmatched. If the votes of the Irish
population were taken, men for men, two-
thirds would ask for a separation, immedi-
ate and eternal. It stands confessed before
all the world that after all our efforts we
have not made friends. Seven centuries of
of injury divide us. They desire us simply
to take ourselves away, and leave them to
manage their own affairs in their own way
as 'they best please. \Vhen we have clear-
ed out and trouble them no more, they will
then be willing, perhaps, to interchange
civilities with us, to take our money if we
are pleased to lend it to them. If they
could leave their anchorage and float their
island away into the middle of the Atlantic,

 

-1

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lectures. 21

I don’t think we should have any right to
object. To have to part from a high-spirit-
ed and brilliant race to whom we have
given our laws and language, who have
distinguished themselves in our institutions,
would be a disgrace to our statesmanship;
but, if the Irish persisted in it, we could not
deny that the experiment of a forced union
has been tried long enough.. We should
be obliged then to bid them God speed.
But phiIOSOphers have not yet discover-
ed how to uproot'the soil of Ireland, and so
long as England remains a great power,
with fleets, and navies, and commercial in-
terests in every corner of the world,
England cannot, England will not let go
her hold upon an island lying close under
her side. She cannot riskthe possibility
' of 'a hostile state establishing itself between
her and the Atlantic. She will not consent
either to a separation or to measures
designed to bring it about. Every con-

 

 

 

22 Froude’s Lectures.

cession which will promote the happiness
of the Irish people we are willing to make,
we are willing to volunteer; but we cannot
commit political suicide. Until England is
beaten upon her knees, Ireland must share
the fortunes of the stronger country. If
the Irish race refuses to be reconciled to
each

 

us, then we must continue as we are
a thorn in the other’s side—~or they must
themselves seek another home, or else they
must fight for their independence, and win
it like men. Should they achieve such an
enterprise, though my duty would then be
to my country, and though I would strug-
gle to hold Ireland to its obedience, yet, as
a member of the great human brotherhood,
when it was done, I should willingly wel-
come them as another among the nations
of the earth.

But political freedom, gentlemen, is too
precious a jewel to be lightly owned. It is
not to insubordination and mutiny, it is not

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 23

to oratory and newspaper articles, that the
fates award the crown of national independ-
ence. That crown is the reward only of
united, persistent determination to be free
——a determination which flinches from no
danger, admits of no compromise, but
expresses itself in deed as well as in word.
To win independence, they must first
learn to obey. They must learn subordi-
nation and self-sacrifice. They must forget
their quarrels and feuds, uniting themselves
into one harmonious whole with a common
purpose. To bestow independence upon a
people who have never earned it is to give
wings to those who have never learned to
fly. Those who desire to be free must first
show that they can control themselves.
. If I were to sum up in one sentence the
secret of Ireland’s misfortunes, I should say
it lay in this: that while from the first she
has resisted England, complained of Eng—
land, appealed to Heaven and 'earth against

 

 

 

 

24 Frozuz’e’s Lccz‘m’es.

the wrongs England has inflicted on her,
she has ever invited others to help her, and
never herself made an effective fight with
her own ranks. Compare the history of
Scotland with that of Ireland. England
first invaded Scotland, and endeavored to
incorporate it into England by force. The
whole Scottish people told Edward it
should not be. England could overrun
their country, build castles and garrison
them—she could intrigue, bribe, and threat-
en. The English failed. They could not
kill the whole pCOple, and while the pCOple
lived the people were determined to be
free. England found it had a wolf by the
throat. She could not strangle it, the
effort to hold it down was too exhausting
to be maintained, and the contest was aban—
doned. To-day a union exists between the
two, and it was effected on equal terms.
To-day Scotland retains her religion, all her
laws; the Scottish nobles remain on the soil

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 25

which they so nobly defended. Out of the
union of England and Scotland arose the
country which the world knows as Great
Britain.

Ireland, too, was invaded. Ireland, in-
stead of a narrow river and a dry marsh for
a frontier, had a trench of sea before her 70
miles across. She had a larger population
than Scotland, and a country no less diffi-
cult to be overrun ; yet the invaders fastened
themselves upon her soil, and she to-day re-
mains under the yoke of the stranger. She
has had no Bannockburn, she has had no
Bruce nor Wallace. She persists that she
is in chains, and she cannot break them.
She has all the liberty which England
and Scotland have. There is no country
in the world where a government can be
defied with so much immunity, and where
mutiny is allowed so much freedom of
speech, as in Ireland at the present day.
Yet she makes nothing of it.

 

26 Frozm’e’s Lecz‘ztres.

What is the explanation of the difference?
Are the Irish less brave than the Scots?
They have proved their courage on a bun-
dred battle—fields. Was Ireland occupied
in such overwhelming force that resistance
was impossible? Forty thousand British
were defeated at Bannockburn. For five
centuries the English available force in Ire-
land rarely exceeded 1,500 men. The Irish
were for ever quarrelling among themselves.
The Scots were together. A Douglas
cared more for his country than himself.
An O’Donnell would take the English side
if they would help him to a slice Of his
neighbor’s land. An old proverb says:
“When you find an Irishman on the spit,
you can always find two other Irishmen to
turn it.” O’Donnell was no exception.
He it was who, when reproached for selling
his country, said he thanked God that he
had a country to sell!

No people ever allowed performance to

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 27

limp so miserably behind promise. Look
at the history of Irish Rebellions, and you
read that the temptation of revenge upon
the hereditary foe has been stronger than
the hatred of the national foe. Who does
not know, if familiar at all with the history
of Ireland, that, if accident set Ireland free
to-morrow, the first step after a declaration
of independence would be a declaration of
civil war? But until Ireland is united in
itsdetermination to have liberty or die,
independence would be a curse to her.
England has only one wish for Ireland, and
that is to give her all the advantages and
blessings she can. Separation we cannot
agree to. All else we yield to, and I ap-
peal to American opinion to assist us in de-
termining what more can we do than has
been already done. The English and Irish
are divided by a cloud of mutual distrust,
and cannot understand each other. Ibe—
lieve you wish well to England. The Eng-

 

 

 

28 Froua’e’s Lccz‘zzrcs.

lish-speaking race are connected by ties
which cannot exist between any other
countries. Ireland lies between us. On
one or other or on both of us her future
fate depends. America may form the
intermediate element with which a combi-
nation hitherto impossible may be at last
eiTected.

At any rate, England will never be able
to resist the expressed opinion of America
as to the character of her relations with
Ireland. Let America pronounce any
judgment with the impartial authority of a
mutual friend, such a judgment will carry
a weight with it which we shall be unable
to oppose. Idon’t believe we shall desire
to oppose it. If we do, a declaration of
opinion in the name of justice will be likely,
sooner or later, in some shape or another,
at one time or another, to convert itself
into force. On the other hand, when the
voice of America tells the Irishman that

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecmres. 29

justice has been done to him; when he
learns from a quarter which he cannot sus-
pect that if he wants independence he must
win it for himself, and that he must rely in
l'uture upon his own industry, I believe the
Irishman will then be satisfied.

But the Irishman has been called a rebel
and whipped; he has been patted on the
back, and told that no poor country since
the world began has been treated as his
country has been. _ There is no remedy for
him, it has been said, but to manage him by
Irish ideas. Let us have the one thing
which has never yet been tried for him—
steady, impartial‘justice. The Irishman re-
quires to be ruled by just laws—laws which
shall defend the weak from the strong, and
the poor from the rich. If he is incorri-
gible, then I will give him up ; but the ex
.periment remains to be tried. A move
ment in this direction has lately been
begun. "The Irish Land Act of Mr.,Glad-

 

 

 

3O Froucz’e’s Lcclm'es.

stone is the most righteous measure which
has been passed for thirteen centuries. It
is no easy matter to touch in old countries
what are called the laws of property, and
we are compelled to move slowly. I don’t
know how you find it here, gentlemen, but
free institutions have a tendency in most
countries to throw quite as much power as
is good for them into the hands of the rich.
That, at least, is our experience. The rich
man finds the world so pleasant to him that
he thinks it well enough, and hardly cares
to have it do better, especially if he is
obliged to put his hand in his own pocket.
But we have made a beginning, and we
invite you to help us out with the problem.
You need not tell us to come out of Ire-
land, for we cannot and will not. There is
a case on both sides and a counter-case.
There are direct claims and indirect claims.
There are injuries which to the Irish imagi-

nation seem mountainous, and by us are

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lecmres. 31

not denied, yet can be explained, as we be—
'lieve.

The lecturer then sketched somewhat at
length the wrongs of Ireland, pleading the
extenuations in behalf of his own country,
and addressing himself to his audience as
gracious and impartial arbitrators, inclined
naturally toward those who have been op-
pressed, and yet not unwilling to hear
What may be urged in the way of extenua-
- tion. He went back to the days of ,the
Norman Canuest, when England, though
permeated with a strange people, retained
her individuality, while Ireland lost her
own; and he made .an amusing delin-
eation of the characteristics which so
strongly mark the Irish character, an in-
dulgence in which, the lecturer argued, had
up to this time rendered them incapable
of intelligent and steady self-government.
The superstitious legends of saints and
their powers came in for a share of witty

 

 

 

32 Froude’s Lectures.

mention, and the Irish fondness for brawls
was not forgotten in the lecturer’s sum-
ming up of the discouraging elements in
the Irish disposition. He followed the
~ history of the Normans in Ireland from
the time they subjugated the whole people
with 60,000 of their own men, and conclud-
ed the lecture by reading a description of
Ireland as it was when left to itself at the
close of the fifteenth century, before the
second period of English interposition,
leaving it to the audience to judge for
themselves whether it was for the interest
of humanity that Ireland should then be
left to enjoy her independence.

 

 

 

 

FROUDE’S SECOND LECTURE.

DELIVERED OCTOBER 19, 1872.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

The only remark that I wish to make--
I trust I am not out of order in making it-—-
is that I observe a very distinguished ora-
tor of this city, Whose name is as well
known across the Atlantic as it is here, and
whose speeches I have often myself read
with very great pleasure and instruction,
was pleased to speak of the Bull of Pope
Adrian, to which I alluded in my last lec-
ture, as “being a thundering English lie."
Well, if it was an English lie, it was a Nor-
man lie; and I am sure Father Burke must

 

 

 

34 i Frozuz’e’s Lcclztre’s.

have made that remark with very great
distress to himself, being as he is a Nor-
man, of very eminent Norman descent.
There is no purer blood in Ireland than
that of the Burkes; and I think I can re-
lieve his mind about the fact of POpe Adri-
an’s having issued the Bull. If Father
Burke will have the kindness to look into a
volume of papers lately published from the
archives of the Vatican by Dr. Tiner, he
will not find that particular Bull; but he
will find a letter from his successor, in
which that Bull is spoken of, and dwelt
upon as the only basis of the authority
which the English exercised in Ireland. I
am quite sure Father Burke will have great
pleasure in doing that.

In my first lecture, I described the Nor-
man conquest of Ireland, and the final re-
sult of it after three centuries of universal
anarchy. I have now to draw your atten-
tion to the person of an English prince

 

 

 

 

Frozzde’s LECZ‘ZHT’S. , 35

Whom I have been accused of attempting
to whitewash—King Henry the Eighth,
the English Bluebeard! It is astonishing
what accusations people‘will allow them-
selves to make. In this place, happily, I
have nothing to do with King Henry’s ma-
trimonial relations, but have only to deal
with him as an English sovereign. He
was a hater of disorder, and he determined,
if possible, to end disorder in Ireland. He
sent the Duke of Norfolk over to invite the
Irish chiefs to a friendly conference. He
wished, he said, “to proceed with sober
ways and amiable persuasions founded in
law and reason, rather than by strength
and violence.” He didn’t mean to force
the Irish to submit to the English law ; still
less did he wish to deprive the chiefs of
their lands and heritages. He sought ra-
ther to conserve them in their own, to gain
their assistance in reducing Ireland to
quiet. They had laws of their own if they

 

 

 

 

36 Froude’s Lecz‘ures.

would execute them. He bade Norfolk
point to them how wretched they had
made their country. There could be no
order and prosperity, he said, until the sen-
sualities of an unbridled peOple were
brought under the law.

In this respect, at any rate, he must‘be
allowed to have been moderate. No re-
monstrance could have been more gentle.
The next step he took was harsher. You
have probably heard of Irish absentees,
who have never gone near their estates,
but lived away from them, and simply oc-
cupied themselves in consuming the rents
which came. For the modern English
statesman there is nothing so sacred _as
property. It was proposed, at the begin-
ning of the century, to attach the rents of
the absentees, and there was immediately a
great outcry all over the country; but
King Henry VIII. took an entirely differ-
ent view. He simply in one sweep took

 

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecz‘ures. 3 7

away the estates of those gentlemen and
gave them to others. It was confiscation,
but confiscation of a kind I heartily-wish
there was more of.

Neither this, however, nor the persua-
sions of the Duke of Norfolk produced any
effect upon the Irish chiefs. They pre-
ferred their own ways, and intended to
keep them. The Englishman who wrote
the description of Ireland I read in my
last lecture had stated very correctly that
the most deserving of the peOple in the
country were the Irish peasantry, whom
the chiefs were trampling on. He recom-
mended, if nothing else should serve, that
the peasantry should be armed, and drilled,
and officered, and 'in that condition, he
' reasoned, they would compel their masters
to be just to them. I wish it had been
adopted. It would have been best in every
way, and would have amounted to the
establishment of an Irish police three cen-

 

 

 

38 Frozm’e’s Lectures.

turies sooner. But it was thought too
violent a remedy, and was not tried. The
next best plan would have been to send
over a small English army to have acted as
police, to have established laws, and com-
pelled rich and poor to obey them. But
England did not like to pay taxes to main-
tain standing armies of this kind. The
Duke of Norfolk said he could no nothing
without a military force of some kind. SO
King Henry was driven back to trying
home rule in another form. There was an
Earl of Kildare, the head of the house of
Geraldine. He was exceedingly popular
with the Irish people. He promised to do
all that was right and proper if King
Henry would trust the government to him,
and so this method was tried. But the
Geraldines, although in London very much
like other people, over in Ireland were
more Irish than the Irish themselves. The
rule of the Geraldines was sim ply the rule

 

 

 

Fr’oua’e’s Lectures. 39

of Irish ideas: that every one was to do as
he pleased, and the stronger was to perse-
cute the weaker. Everything, then, went
on as before.

King Henry, with all his known weakness,
was a choleric sort of gentleman at times.
“ By heaven!” he seemed to say, “if this
people will not learn their lesson, I must
try the whip with them.” Kildare was
arrested and sent to London, and a few
companies were sent over to Ireland. And
now there comes one of the episodes of
'which you read. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald,
son of Kildare, as soon as he heard of his
father’s arrest, broke out in insurrection,
and called upon all to help him. He began
with the murder of an archbishop. There
was a great deal of satisfaction at that, and
everybody was in arms, and there was
shouting and hurrahing, and burning of
villages, and massacring of people, and all
the usual accompaniments of an insurrec-

 

 

4o Froua’e’s Lectures.

tion of this kind. It lasted until the
English Governor landed with a few hun-
dred soldiers, and then the patriot army
just melted away like a snowdrift. Lord
Thomas, with five of his uncles, was exe-
cuted for this business. When a nobleman
is sent to the scaffold, the eyes of all men
gush out like rivers, and the shout of in-
dignation rises. The meaner multitude
may perish by thousands, and their memo-
ry perishes with them. Mankind, truly,
are most absurd beings in their judgment
If young lords wish to keep their heads on
their shoulders, they ought not to murder
archbishops. But the time had come when
a new element was about to be introduced
into the quarrel between England and
Ireland.

To certain minds, especially the Teutonic
mind, the Catholic religion had become
incredible. Before the Norman Conquest.
Ireland’s devotion to Popery had been at

 

 

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lectures. 41

least lukewarm. Henry VIII., when he
broke with the Pope, had left Mass stand-
ing, so that the religious services remained
unaltered. The Irish bishops—I am speak-
ing now of the bishops of Henry VIII.’s
time, and not of Elizabeth’s time—for-
swore the oath and took the oath to the
King without any difficulty. That they
' afterward took the oath to Elizabeth is an
entire illusion, but it is perfectly certain
that they did for Henry VIII. There
were many hundreds of convents and
abbeys in Ireland. The King dissolved
them, and the lands were granted away to
the Irish fiefs. Irish religion, until that
time, had set singularly easy on both chief
and prelate. Some of the bishops had large
families. They.were a lax set; very unlike
the venerable. gentlemen whom we are
accustomed to see in such stations. Be-
tween them and the laity there was no
special affection. The young Lord Kil-

 

 

 

42 Fraud/s Lectures.

dare, a grandson of the Earl, in one of his
follies, burned a cathedral. He was called
to account afterward. “Be Jasus! my
lords,” he explained, “I could not have
done it, but I thought his grace the arch-
bishop was inside!” A change was com-
ing in these matters, but it had not come
in the days of Henry VIII. The Chiefs,
after the Geraldine Rebellion, seemed in-
clined to be on good terms with him. A
grand parliament was held in Dublin. All
seemed well disposed toward England.
Up to this time, the Pope had been the
actual sovereign of Ireland, and the kings
of England had ruled it only as the Pope’s
vicegerents. At this parliament, the .Pope
was thrown overboard. The King of Eng-
land was declared henceforward the King
of Ireland. The Celtic leaders came into
power.

For some reason or other, King Henry
VIII. seemed to please the Irish. It

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 43

is hard to say why, unless it was because
they felt that he meant well by them. He
showed no desire to seize the lands of Irish
owners and distribute them to adventurers,
and as long as he lived Ireland showed no
disposition to separate itself from England.

Whence, then, came the change which
followed immediately afterward? It arose
from two causes. The habits of centuries
cannot be changed in a generation, and the
quarrel with the Pope was followed by the
birth of the Protestant religion.

Henry VIII. had not altered religion,

strictly speaking. He had left the Mass .

standing, and, as far as the body of the
people were concerned either in England or
Ireland, the only true difference they ex-
perienced was that their affairs, whatever
they were, could be settled at home with-
out their having the trouble and expense
of sending counsel or other peOple to re-
present them at Rome. The immediate

 

 

- Vaughn... .4’

 

44 Froua’e’s Lectures.

successor of King Henry declared war
against the Mass. A ritual which had been
of universal use for many centuries was
abolished by a stroke of the pen. The pro-
tector, Somerset, and his companions con-
sidered that they had a mission to extirpate
idolatry. Churches were plundered, and
sacred desks were desecrated and turned
down. Every object of superstition was
insulted with ostentatious profanity. They
went too fast even for England, and drove
Ireland entirely wild. They taught her the
fatal lesson that unless she supported the
Pope she would have to part with religion
as well. At this critical moment, the mind
of Ireland thus received an irrevocable
twist. She was threatened with a revolu-
tion, social as well as spiritual, and Irish
ideas and traditions, which Henry VIII.
had begun to assail, linked themselves in-
separably with the laws of God and piety.
Queen Mary—“ Bloody Mary”——followed

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 45

her brother, and the pendulum swung
violently back, and the papal supremacy-
was restored. The creed, it was per-
ceived, could not stand without the Pope.
Ministers and bishops who had counte-
nanced the separation of Rome confessed
their errors anddid penance. England was
restored to the bosom of her mother, and it
was all settled by the funeral fires of three
hundred men and women who were
burned up at the stake. Ireland furnished
no such martyrs, for in Ireland not a Pro-
testant yet existed. Those who had been
sent from England fled away. The peni-
tent Irish chiefs replaced the monks and
nuns, with means sufficient to support
them. The young Earl of Kildare came
back and was reinstated. The Catholic
reaction which was sweeping around
through Europe caught the Irish .in its
stream. Ireland chose her place on the
Pope’s side, and chose it irrevocably, and

 

 

 

46 Frozzde’s Leciures.

from the moment another Protestant sovero
eign ascended the English throne the cause
of the Catholic religion and the cause of
Irish independence became inseparably and
irrevocably one.

So stood the matter at the opening of
the reign-——in some respects, I may call it
the great and glorious reign—of Queen
Elizabeth. It was then that England be-
came the ardent champion of the Reforma-
tion, burst her narrow limits, and became a
great power in the world. It was then—
but I must not linger over the brilliant
aspect of the period. I have to do with
the land on which the sun of all that glory
never shone, on which the shadow 'fell
darker from the lustre elsewhere, black as
polar midnight.

I shall endeavor to be just to all parties.
Elizabeth never sought the dangers thrust
upon her. Your own great historian,
whom I have been proud to call my friend,

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 47

Mr. Motley, rather blames her backward-
ness than finds fault with her overalacrity.~
While the Catholics speak of her as a
scourge and tyrant, Mr. Motley quarrels
with her lukewarmness. In a quarrel so
desperate, I think she did well in hesitating
to take up the sword. When she did draw
it,'she didn’t sheathe it again until the star of
liberty, which at one time was threatening
to come down in blood, became fixed for
ever in the northern heavens never again
to grow pale. That Ireland, having thrown
in her fortune in the losing side, should
share in the defeat and suffer from it was
inevitable. Would that I could say that
Elizabeth’s conduct” toward that country
had been as upright as her cause was just,
and-that she had borrowed no poisoned ar-
rows. from the quiver of her adversaries!
In the main, I insist that she'desired only
good to Ireland. Elizabeth came .to the
throne, and found she had to keen in order

 

 

 

48 ‘Froua’e’s Lectures.

two furious factions who, if she let them
loose, desired nothing so much as to tear
each other to pieces. She returned, as far
as the altered circumstances would allow,
to her father’s policy. She sent the Pope
about his business again, and established
the English Episcopal Church, with the
Apostolic succession, as it is called, and. a
liturgy so like the Mass that the clergy at
home now use it who difler from the Catho-
lies in nothing except the papal suprem-
acy; while it was elastic enough for Pro-
testants to use it in a sense of their own. It
was sometimes asked, Why could not Eliza-
beth have left her subjects to choose their
own religion—left religion free, as we say
now? Simply because it was impossible.
The Roman Catholic religion it was impos-
sible for her to tolerate, because the
Roman Catholic religion declared her ‘a
public enemy, and never ceased from the
moment she came to the throne to use

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 49

every possible means to drive her from it.
If she had allowed Catholics and Protest-
ants to have their separate chapels, it
would have been found in England as in
France that there would have been civil
war and fighting in every town and Village.
They say something may perhaps be urged
for this policy in England where they were
half Protestants, but why did she try it in
Ireland, Where there were no Protestants?
It is easier to blame her for what she did
than to say precisely what she ought to
have done.

The Irish pretend that if she had left
their religion alone they would have re-
mained good subjects. She would have
beenaan exceedingly sanguine person if she
had trusted to any such expectation. So
long as England was Protestant, Ireland,
whether she was disturbed in the matter of
her religion or not, would' have been equal-
LV on the side of Elizabeth’senemies: and

 

 

 

 

50 Froude’s Lecz‘m’e’s.

it is to be understood that the idea of gov.
erning Ireland by a province is repugnant
altogether to English principles. VVhat-
ever forms of freedom England possessed,
it was essential that Ireland should have
the same forms of freedom. Ireland was
to be governed constitutionally, it was said,
by her own Lords and Commons. The
bishops formed an actual majority in the
House of Upper Lords of Ireland, and to
have allowed them to remain there without
requiring from them so much as an oath to
the sovereign would have been to hand
over Ireland to her deadly enemies.

\Vhat, then, did Elizabeth do? These
Bishops had taken the oath of supremacy
to her father. She required them to take
it again. It would have been well if she
had gone no further. It is idle to pass laws
which cannot be executed; but it w’as the
will and custom that every important act
of Parliament passed in England should be

 

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lectures. 5 I

passed in the Irish Parliament also. It
was thought probable if a difference was
made it would give the English Catholics a
ground for- complaining. So the English
liturgy and prayer-book were’ formally
extended to Ireland, the Mass was pro-
hibited, and the service of the Established
Church was set up in its place. That was
the law, but'what was the execution of it?
At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, it
was not executed at all, and there was not
the slightest attempt to do it. Nine—tenths
of the Bishops refused to take the oath.
She removed two of them, and left all’the
rest to govern their dioceses in their own
way'. Having established Protestantism,
sheought to have sent over Protestant
clergymen and a handful of Protestant
colonists, but she did nothing of the kind.
For appearance’ sake, she had a Protestant
law, but left it to be laughed at like boys
at a scare-crow. Money Elizabeth was

 

 

 

 

52 Froua’e’s Lectures.

exceedingly chary of giving to any pur-
pose. Thus Ireland was abandoned to
anarchy. Enough had been done to exas-
perate the Catholics; nothing had been
done to weaken them. Elizabeth ordered
her viceroys to avoid exciting the pre-
judices of the people—to keep things
smooth. So fearful was she of giving
offence that for the first thirty years of her
reign she did not establish Protestant
schools in the country. In fact, she showed
that she was afraid to meddle with Popery.
She wished, like her father, to reform
Ireland, to put down murder, and establish
law, order, and security. For all those
years, the English garrison in Ireland
rarely exceeded 1,500 men, and she ‘pro-
voked resistance by her apparently weak
force. Why was this small number of
heretics allowed to remain in the land at all?
Why didn’t the Irish nation, who were
bound by no oath and no obligation, rise

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 53

with their sticks and pikes—for these
would have been sufficient—and drive
Elizabeth’s retinue of ill-clothed, ill-paid,
and half-starved mercenaries into the sea?
For this reason, that Ireland was not a
nation at all. Elizabeth understood their
nature only too well. She knew that they
hated each other too cordially to unite
against her in defence either of religion or
country; that there was a cheap and easy
way to manage them by turning their
swords against one'another. According to
the English Constitution, there was no
standing army and no organized police.
It was mockery to extend such a system
to Ireland- Elizabeth. ought to have I
established a force there answerable only
to the Viceroy, to enforce law and establish
order. Four thousand men distributed
-in garrisons would have been sufficient,
and the most honorable course in the long
run would have been the cheapest.

 

 

 

 

 

54 Frozza’e’s Lectures.

But Elizabeth fell back on the Constitu-
tion. The loyal part should keep in order
the disloyal part. She pitted the chiefs
one against another. In fact, a great Irish
leader becoming dangerous, she bribed a
neighbor to make war upon him, with the
promise of his land. The result was per-
fectly horrible. The forty-five glorious
years of Elizabeth were to Ireland years of
unremitting wretchedness.

\Vhere was then the Irish heart that
beats ever so true to the cause of Ireland’s
liberty? Where was it? Let the echoes
answer in the war-shrieks of the Irish clans.
Alas! for Ireland. She has many times
been found ready to betray her comrades,
and England never knew the plan of hiring
one to betray another fail. A terrible
record of blood and suffering follows. Mo-
thers and their children perished with hun-
ger, if not by the sword. And Elizabeth
wished no harm. She did not wish to

 

 

 

Frozza’e’s 1266125755. 55

hurt a single Irish person for its own sake.
Englishmen undertook to settle in the
country to keep the peace. Elizabeth
would not hear of it, because she said she
would not countenance what she called
spoliation, and so the murdering went on.
The English soldiery, their garrisons too
scanty to take prisoners, finally came to
look upon their enemies as wild beasts
which they were entitled to exterminate.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth was termi-
nated by one of the most magnanimous
acts, of her life. The question of strength
between the two countries had now been.
tried. Three times Ireland had resolved to
shake off the English yoke. 'Three times
she had failed, and now she lay panting and
exhausted; but the problem of a final set-
tlement "was as far off as ever. To govern
Ireland required a force of sufficient
strength to keep the peace, and for such a
state of affairs there was no provision made

 

 

 

 

56 Froude’s Lectures.

in the English Constitution. If Ireland
was ever to be identified with England, if
the two islands were ever to be linked to-
gether in one common unity of purpose,
there was only one expedient by which
such a thing could be brought about. Ire-
land must be colonized by men of another
race and of another creed on whom Eng-
land could rely. Not men like the Nor-
mans, but men who would themselves set
an example of industry, and introduce new
habits. The chance to bring about what I
may call this new reformation offered soon
after Elizabeth’s death. The Catholics had
everywhere believed that James Stuart was
at heart one of themselves, and that as soon
as he became King of England he would
proclaim his Catholic tendencies. James
had a shrewd Scotch head on his shoul-
ders. He had wit enough to see which
way the stream was running. The English
Catholics in their disappointment set Guy

 

 

 

 

Fraude’s Lectures. 57

Fawkes to blow him up. Ireland, though
still feeble and convalescing from her last
overthrow, raised her hand and struck a
weak and unavailing blow. Six of the best
counties in the North were declared for-
feited, and 10,000 Scotch and English fami-
lies were carried over to till the virgin soil
which until that hour had scarcely been
scratched by plough or spade since the
waters of the Deluge.

Such was the beginning of Ireland’s
troubles. The Irish had ever been the
owners of their own soil, and it was a hard,
cruel thing to strip them of their habita-
tions and turn them naked into the forests.
At that time, there was not more than
600,000 people in Ireland, and there was no
r00m for the new colonists. Old Ulster,
the centre of this colonization system, and
the point where it received its first practi-
cal benefits, was the garden spot of the pro-
vinces. For thirty years, Ireland had an era

 

 

 

 

58 .Froztzz’e’s Lccz‘zn‘es.

of peace. The Irish race was exhausted by
its struggle. Further Protestant immi-
grants streamed in. The Irish peasants
who were aliensllived side by side, ex-
changed hospitalities, and intermarried
among those who had preserved their
lands, holding them by English tenure,
recognizing the value of industry in the
other settlers, and preferred them as ten-
ants to their own people. A second Pat-
rick in the form of Protestantism had com-
pelled it to be done. ‘
The Reformation, however complete,
had left on one side a great Church estab-
lishment, with archbishops and bishops for
its chief ministers, and on the other side a
crown and aristocracy for its support; and
still again, on another side, a great English
nation which was Protestant in heart as
well as in name. \Vhere Romanism was
overthrown, there remained another power
in a contest which was to be waged be-

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 59

tween what was called divine right and the
principles of justice and truth—the high
doctrines of which brought the Earl of
Strafford and Charles the Second to the
scaffold. This new settlement in Ulster
was Calvinistic. In 1636, Sir Thomas
Wentworth, better known as the Earl of
Strafford, was sent there as an exile. Straf—
ford was two men in one. He waS‘the de-
voted servant of the monarchy and the em-
bodiment of the spirit that was arising in
England, and yet a clear-headed statesman
who knew that anarchy in Ireland could
only be held in check by English reforma-
tion. He saw the value of the Ulster set-
tlement, much as he disliked to respect the
materials of which it was composed. He
proposed to make another settlement—an
English settlement in the province of Kil-
gore, which he had hopes would contain
more loyal elements. He wished to
strengthen the English colony, but he

 

 

 

6O Froude's Lectures.

assisted his friends the bishops in imprison-
ing the Presbyterians, and the result of this
policy was to make deadly enemies of
them. In 1639, Scotland made the first
move in the great civil war against the
king.

This brings us to the event of the Irish
Rebellion of 1641. The picture is so horri-
ble that it is only necessary to glance at its
leading features; but in passing I must ask
you to attend for a moment to a sketch of
the different parties into which the Irish
population was at this time divided. Im-
migration and peace had in fifty years
nearly trebled the Irish population. Sir
William Betty, who is a most excellent ap-
thority, claims that in 1641 there were
nearly a million and a half of people in Ire-
land—1,200,000 Catholics, 3oo,ooo Protest-
ants. Of the Protestants, 2oo,ooo were in
Ulster, and they were chiefly Nonconform-
ists. The other Ioo,ooo were English

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 61

gentlemen with their servants, dependants,
their friends, and those who had settled
around them, and were chiefly what we
call Cavaliers. There was also another
class, descendants of the Norman conquer-
ors. They were Cathdlics, and had trav-
elled as noblemen in England and on the
Continent, recognizing the spirit of . the
English institutions. They wished to see
the English Reformation destroyed, and
Ireland relapse .into anarchy. Such men
as these wished only to see the Catholic
religion re-established, and in other respects
that the country should continue as before
the Reformation. In English questions,
they were on the side of the king, and
were ever ready to assist him against the
Long Parliament. The second class of the
Catholics was opposed to a junction with
the old Irish settlers who in their own View
were the real owners of the land and the
rulers of the country. If the further View

 

 

 

62 Frozm’c’s La‘z‘m'cs.

is taken that there was no longer an Eng-
lish force in Ireland that could be relied
uoon, because every soldier was called
home to the civil war, and that every man
looked to the sword as the only means left
to settle the difficulty, you have the mate-
rials of that wild confusion that ruined the
peace of the country and distracted the
peOple.

The Catholic element in the Irish Parlia-
ment had determined to take possession of
the government. They held private meet-
ings among themselves to ascertain what
use they should make of the power that
they had given to it. Opinions differed.
The more moderate proposed that they
should declare in Parliament for Charles
1. against the Puritans, settle the admin-
istration in Dublin in the king’s name,
depose the Puritan authorities, and then
send a force into England to act with
the Royalist army. In addition, the Irish

 

 

 

 

Frondc’s 1.661257%. 6 3

conceived that it would be very foolish to
throw away an opportunity which might
never return. If they took the king’s side,
and the king got the better of the Parlia-
ment, the best they could expect would be
to be governed by the same parliamentary
construction. .

They might perhaps recover their reli-
gion, but not the land in the six counties
which had been taken from them ; and, that
English encroachment of the soil might
still continue, they shook themselves free,
and took the reigns into their own hands.
I have spoken of the horrible massacres of
the native Irish during the reign of Eliza-
beth. In my reading of history, one tre-
mendous phenomenon for ever forces itself
upon my mind, and that is that every
political crime or the payment of every
farthing, with compound interest, is de-
manded by justice when the bill is sent in
to the person representing the criminal.

 

 

 

 

64 Froua’e’s Lectures.

It is not those who commit the crime who
are generally to suffer for it. It falls on
others who are innocent, and this has been
so from the beginning of time in all the
great miseries of the provincial govern-
ments of the world. I cannot precisely
understand it, but there is one important
lesson which we may draw from this great
historical precedent. It is this: the man
who will do a wrong if he thinks that the
risk is his own and he only will be held
answerable will think more gravely over
it if he knows that he will escape scot-free,
and that the baneful eflects of his evil deed
will fall upon unborn generations. Sir
John Hawkins would never have gone into
the slave trade if he could have looked
forward and seen Gettysburg. I believe
he would have scuttled his ships, and sunk
them in mid-ocean. At the outbreak of
the Rebellion in 1641, the Irish race did not,
so far as we can understand, contemplate

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 65

first any tolerable murder. They looked
upon the settlers as robbers. They intend-
ed to dispossess them of all the wealth
they had acquired, and to send them back
naked to the sea. Each Protestant’s house,
on the morning of October 23, was sur-
rounded by armed gangs. Men, women,
and children were seized, and stripped
naked to their skins, and turned out in the
wild autumn weather, to make their way
as they could, in that condition, to the
nearest port. Neighbor turned against
neighbor—servant against employer. The
valet who had undressed his master over
night was at his bedside with a pike when
he awoke in the morning. Churches were
burned, crOps were destroyed, and cattle
Were killed and left on the fields as carrion.
First Ulster suflered, and, in a few weeks,
the entire island was covered with miser-
able crowds, famished and wretched, hunt-
ed along the road by fierce and desperate

 

 

 

 

66 Frozza’e's Leciztres.

men. So sudden, so overwhelming was
the convulsion that, for the first day or
two, there was no respect for the blood
shed. Saxons and Scots suffered alike.
Fighting brought on murder, murder mas-
' sacre, and massacre was followed by further
massacre. The Long Parliament at VVest-
minster soon rang with the story that
150,000 Protestants had been deliberately
murdered in cold blood.

Later writers now treat the massacre of
1641 as the creation of pure imagination.
Impartial investigators generally find the
truth between the extremes, and Sir \Vil—
liam Petty, one of the most cool and dis-
passionate of men, states the number killed
in the rebellion to have been 38,000. Look:
ing at the matter as we are now able to
do, we can see in this outburst of frenzy
the natural retribution of offended justice.
The English Government were conscious
that they had done no harm to Ireland.‘

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecmres. , 67

The :tyranny of the Earl of Strafford had
formed one of the greatest questions in the
prosecution which ended in his execution.
- In 1641, as I said, there were a million .and
a half of people in Ireland. In 1650, there
were not 900,000. More than one-half of
the population in those nine years had
been destroyed by sword and famine.
What the sufferings were in detail it is too
easy to conjecture, but observe ‘what hap-
pened after this bloody strife. Oliver
Cromwell landed in Dublin in 1649; he
brought with him some 14,000 men, foot
and horse, which, together with the garri-
son at Dublin, made a total force of 18,000
men to operate against 200,000, and not a
fortress, not a trench, for protection. The
speaker continued in an eloquent manner,
describing the operations of Cromwell, and
in conclusion, in speaking of Ireland’s
troubles, said : “ What is the explanation .3
The Irish rebellions from first to last are

 

 

 

68 Froude’s Lectures.

made of loud promises and vain perform-
ances. They flame up like straw, and like
straw, after it has been blazed, they go out
in dust and ashes.” .

 

 

 

 

FROUDE’S‘ THIRD LECTURE.

DELIVERED OCTOBER 21, 1872.

 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

My last lecture ended with an account
01'. the rise, the consequence, and the col-
lapse of the great Irish Rebellion of 1641.
It commenced with massacre, and it ended
in ruin. For nine years the Irish leaders
held the destinies of their country in their
own hands.. These were years of anarchy
and mutual slaughter. A third of the
population perished in the most piteous
misery. The heaviest suffering fell upon
the innocent peasantry, their wives and
little. ones. Had the Rebellion been

 

 

 

 

 

7O Frozza’e’s Leciures.

sustained by an honest determination to be
free, had the Irish nation been purifying
itself in that furnace of calamity, when the
clouds cleared off had there been seen a
liberated peOple standing .erect amid the
ruins of their homes, the price would not
have been too much fOr the admission of
one more free commonwealth among the
nations of the world. The curtain rose
on a far different spectacle. Ireland, with
its chiefs and its armies, its patriotic heroes
and its devotees, lay prostrate at the feet
of a few thousand English Puritans. What
was to be done with it? I ask you, gentle-
men, with an experience of two centuries
of progress and enlightenment to guide
anew, what would you have had Cromwell
do? Will you say that he should have
proclaimed a universal amnesty, and have
bidden the Irish decide upon their own
destiny? They would have voted by
enormous majorities for the objects they

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 71

had sought and failed to gain by arms.
They would have hidden the English and
‘Scotch colonists to have simply taken
themselves away, and to have left Ireland
to her own people.

The English, you may say, had no busi-
ness there. It was too late to raise
questions of that kind. Ireland had form-
ed part of the dominions of England. I
will not say how it had come about.
England 120 years before had shaken off
the Papal authority. The Popes had
levied war upon their devoted subjects, as
they were pleased to call all PrOtestant
states. They had used the swords of
Spain and Austria to force them back into
submisSion, and the reek of slaughtered
men had gone up from hundreds of battle-
fields. It had pleased Ireland in this war
to take the Italian side. She had made her
provinces for centuries the theatre of
desperate insurrection. Had she succeeded

 

 

 

72 Froua’e’s Lectures.

in establishing her independence, she
would have still been a thorn in England’s
side. Had Elizabeth left her to herself,
it would have been but for the French
and Spaniards to come in; and, closed
around with hostile arms, and with hostile
nations on either side of her, England, and
the cause for which England was fighting,
would have come to an inglorious end. It
could not be, and the resolution once
formed that Ireland, whether she would or
not, must remain attached to England,
and the rest had followed as out of
necessity. We must look at the position
as men, and not as dreamers and enthu-
siasts.

What was Cromwell to do? I will .tell
you what he did, and you shall judge for
yourself whether he did ill. The Irish
demanded liberty of conscience. “I med-
dle with no man’s conscience,” the Lord
Protector answered; “but if you mean by

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lecz‘ures. 73

liberty of conscience liberty to have the
Mass, that will not be sufi'ered where the
Parliament of England has power.” “Mon-
strous 1” you may say. Well, gentlemen, I
suppose it will be easy for me to utter
some commonplaces on the beauties of
liberty of conscience. Speaking here in
this place, before the freest people in the
world, and speaking of a subject on which
the English people are more sensitive than
perhaps on' any other subject, at this time
I cannot utter those words. Before I de-
nounce a great man like Cromwell, I must
be sure that either you or I would have
acted more wisely or generously under the
same circumstances.

The Mass, as we know it, is the sacred
rite of a religion which is one of many
modes, and one of the oldest, and in some
respects the most beautiful modes,of wore-
Shipping our common Maker. It has bor-
rowed one precious jewel from the coronet

 

 

 

 

74 Frozuz’e’s sz‘ures.

of its adversary, for it has learned to re-
spect the rights of conscience in others,
and in learning that it has parted With the
single element which made it an object of
dread to others. In itself, the Catholic
creed has been and is the belief of some of
the noblest men who have done honor to
humanity.

But this is not the creed which Crom-
well refused to tolerate. The Mass, as he
knew it, was a system which, wherever it
had power, was at that moment punishing
by sword and by fire every deviation from
its own ordinances. It had made Germany
a charnel-house; Ireland it had plunged
into unutterable woe. I will not pro-
nounce whether Cromwell did right or
wrong; but this I know, that, if we or our
fathers had been struggling in a death-
wrestle for a century with such a spirit, we
should not hesitate, if the chance was in
our power, to stop the fountain from which

 

 

 

Froucz’e’s Lectures. 75

those waters of bitterness were flowing.
Had Cromwell’s policy toward Ireland
been persevered in as a whole, I believe I
should not be here addressing you on any
questions of difference between England
and Ireland. We had formed a design for
the pacification of that country which
would have made future trouble there im-
possible.

The Ulster settlers who had been driven
out on the first rising, and all other English
and Irish owners who had stood by the
English Parliament throughout the war,
were replaced in their estates. All the
other Irish landholders had been engaged
in the war against England, and the lands
of these were declared confiscated. The
honest peasantry who possessed any real
right in their farms by having performed
honest labor openly were protected, sub-
ject only to the condition to be obedient to
the new government; but noble lords and

 

 

 

76 Froua’e’s Lectures.

gentlemen whose trade was fighting, who
had called themselves lords of the soil, and
as such had maintained themselves by poor
men’s industry, were, by one huge sweep,
dispossessed. They were not driven out
of Ireland altogether, nor left without
means of support if they chose to exert
themselves. Of the four districts of Ire-
land, one was still to be theirs. The great
province of Connaught was assigned to the
gentry as exclusively their own. As the
Saxon conquerors of England drove the
Britons into Wales, so Cromwell pushed
the fighting Irishmen into Connaught. In
the rest of Ireland he planted the army
who had conquered it.

Each soldier had his lot assigned to
him. If he wished to return home he
would sell it toanother Englishman, who
would be ready to take it. Many Pro-
testant families were distributed over the
land, to promote industry and order. The

 

 

 

 

Froua’e's Lecmres. 77

reformed religion was made a reality.
Flemings and Huguenots, all were welcom-
ed, and all were encouraged to bring with
them their trades and occupations. Pre-
ceding settlers had introduced manufac-
tures into Ireland, and they had built
ships and begun to trade. Commercial
jealousy had taken the alarm in England.
These short-sighted, fantastic, absurd, and
iniquitous laws Cromwell tore up by the'
roots. He saw no justice in Irish indus-
try’s feeding the pockets of English manu-

facturers. He saw, if Ireland should be-
" come a full partner in England’s prosperity,
the fiction of a separate interest and sepa-
rate nationality ought to come to an end.
He abolished the Irish Parliament. Ire-
land was incorporated into England, and
made part of it, and her towns and counties
sent their representatives to Westminster.
Thus were the elements of mischief swept
out of the way, and a new and wholesome

 

 

 

 

 

78 Frondc”: Lectures.

stock of energetic Protestants planted in
her soil, with a' full and free participation
in every benefit which England possessed.
Cromwell bade Ireland turn a fresh leaf in
her tragical history, and enter upon a
career of honesty and prosperity. We
call all this tyranny from our modern point
of view. \Ve must look facts in the face
and not be frightened by words. In fifteen?
years, the three provinces which were thus
treated had grown from a" wilderness into
a garden. Bogs were drained and planted
with trees; dwelling—houses sprang up;
fields were fenced up; ships came back to
the harbors; life and property were made
secure; and the Irish peasant and farmer,
under the rule of the Cromwellians, lived
side by side, each adding to the other’s
welfare.

Enough of Cromwell. I, as an English-
man, honor him and glory in him as the
greatest statesman and the greatest soldier

 

 

 

Frouq’e’s Lecmres. 79

that our race has produced. What is more,
"gentlemen, I consider him to have been
the best friend, in the best sense, of the
peOple of Ireland. The Restoration came.
The Stuarts were brought back, and with
the Stuarts came the old story of ,com-
promises and half measures. The Irish
Parliament was at once set up again.
The Irish expected that Cromwell’s soldiers
would be expelled; that the confiscated
estates would be restored to their owners.
England was content to weaken the Pro-
testants without conciliating the Catholics.
Something over one-third of the lands was
restored. The Connaught plan was aban-
doned now; exiled Irishmen were allowed
to return to their homes. Two-thirds
of the land was left with the Cromwellians,
and old rivals were once more left face
i to face, with animosities deepened a
thousand-fold. The Episcopal Church was
re-established. It suited as ill the Irish

 

 

 

 

 

80 Froua’e’s Leciures.

Protestants as it suited the Scotch Presby-
terians. The latter set up their kirk; the
Irish Protestants were less fortunate.

The archbishops and bishops were re-
placed in their dioceses. To counterbal-
ance them, the Catholics were allowed to
establish a rival hierarchy. The Catholic
Primate was received in state at Dublin.
For the Protestant N onconformists, mean-
while, there was no mercy. They were
assumed to be republicans, and repub-
licans, just then, were looked upon as
venomous reptiles. The Northern Presby-
terians and the Cromwellians were the
bone and sinew of the Protestant interest.
They were the best soldiers, the best
farmers, the best artisans, and the best
men of business. In all matters, secular
and spiritual, they had the stern resolution
which distinguished Calvinism; yet it was
thought wise to let the bishops persecute
these men. Their chapels and schools

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecz‘ures. 81

were closed, their ministers were enjoined,
and it was a turning-point in the history
of the country. The proudest and bravest
of the Puritan colonists sold their allotments,
and bade Ireland a stern farewell. They had
given their blood in vain. Kings and priests
had come back again, and with kings and
priests it seemed they were to have no
abiding-place. They turned their faces
to. the setting sun, and the descendants
of the conquerors of Ireland are now
citizens of the United States of America.
Gentlemen,I was once present, a few
years ago, at a very extraordinary scene.
It happened that there was some uncer-
tainty as to where James VI. was buried in
Westminster Abbey. The Dean of West-
minster, who is my friend, had a c'ommis-
sion from the Secretary of State to search
' among the tombs and discover where
James’s coffin lay. It was not thought
prudent to conduct such an investigation

 

 

 

 

82 Froua’e’s Lectures.

by daylight. It was done at night, and he
asked me—perhaps one or two other gen-
tlemen—to be present. We went; and
there, by flaring torches, among those old,
dark arches, we were probing among the
ashes of the great dead. We looked upon
all that remained-of kings and princes and
warriors and statesmen and prelates. We
felt almost guilty for the liberty we were
taking in disturbing their august repose.
At last we came to a tomb where evidently
some great person had once lain. At first
we knew not what it was or who it was.
It was the tomb of Oliver Cromwell, Lord
Protector of England. They had taken
him up from his tomb. They had hanged
his body on the gallows at Tyburn, and
had posted his head on the spire of
Westminster Hall. They had flung out
the Cromwellians. They had flung out
Cromwell, and there was this sad and
awful memorial of what has been. It

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. _ 83

gave us thoughts which had better not
be uttered.

Well, gentlemen, the Cromwellians in
Ireland were gone. Other Englishmen
came in their place—money-makers, land-
jobbers, and speculators. The persecution
of the Protestants was checked after its
first success, and the Ulster settlement con-
tinued to prosper. But the Protestant
colonies in the South received their death.
blow. The Catholics overspread them or
absorbed them. The Catholic religion
swept back like. a returning tide. James
II. followed Charles, and James, himself a
Catholic, lent the influence of the crown to
the reaction. In both countries, he set him-
self to undo the Reformation. In Ireland, he
went to work without disguise. He placed
Catholics in the highest oflices in the state.
He appointed Catholic judges, a Catholic
chancellor, and Catholic magistrates, made
the army Catholic, and expelled the Pro-

 

 

 

 

84 Froude’s Lectures.

testant oflicers. He disarmed the Protest.
ant gentry, and, finally, he appointed the
brother of the Catholic archbishop vice-
roy. The next step was to have been the
reversal of the land settlement, and the
universal restoration of the Catholic pro-
prietors. It was to have been managed
quietly by form of law, but the English
revolution came in the way. James abdi-
cated and went to France, and William of
Orange became King of England. How
was all this to affect Ireland? According
to English lawyers, no act of the Irish Par-
liament was valid which had not passed
under the great seal of England. The
King of England, whoever he was, was held
to be King of Ireland also. The Irish inter-
preted the Constitution differently. They
insisted that, though James might have lost
the English crown, he was still King of
Ireland. They invited James to come to
them. and he came. They invited Louis

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 85

XIV. to'help them, and he sent money,
5,000 men, and some of his best ofiicers.
The factions Cromwell had overthrown
were once more in the possession of the
Irish Government. It remained for them
to accomplish at once what their grand-
fathers had failed to do, and root up con-
clusively and for ever the detested Pro-
testant settlements. They called a Free
National Parliament, and in the acts of it
you will see an inevitable tendency of the
English towards “home rule.” They were
perfectly natural acts. Under one con.
dition, they were perfectly righteous acts;
but their resolution on the field of battle
should equal their courage in the senate-
house. They destroyed Cromwell’s plan-
tations. They dispossessed the late colo-
nists who had been settled on their soil as
completely as they themselves had been.
You may say this was right, that
England ought to have acquiesced. I say

 

 

 

 

 

86 Froude’s Lectures.

it was right with one provision—that
Ireland was prepared to back up words
with d‘eeds. Where there is the question
of the dismemberment of an empire, the
province which aspires to a separate
existence must have strength to take it.
England would have been craven had
she consented to a separation at her own
free will which would be a death-blow
to her own liberty. Nor was Ireland
herself without men who would strike
a blow for English protection and for
their own hearths and homes. The new
king came in person to lead the movement,
and the work of the conquest had to be
over again. The times had changed in
England, and not for the better. William’s
troops were a motley compound of Dutch,
English, Germans, and French Huguenots,
little disciplined and dissolute. The Irish,
on the contrary, had never been in better
condition. ‘They had been drilled by

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. ‘ 87

French officers, and were well armed and
equipped. They were, besides, on their
own soil, fighting for everything they held
most dear. Yet the result was in no way
different from what it has always been
under similar circumstances. At the battle
of the Boyne, the Irish did not so much
as make a creditable stand, but were
beaten by their own negligence, being
driven from a position which the most
moderate care would have made impreg— -
nable. They fought bravely and well, but -
they stood only until the French general
had been killed by a cannon-ball; then
they broke into an irretrievable route, and
never rallied again.

William was unwilling to follow them.’
He was tolerant. He knew little of Irish
history, and understood little or nothing
"of the Irish people. He saw nothing but
a high-spirited and unfortunate race who
had been long misgovernedand oppressed.

 

 

 

 

88 Froua’e’s Lectures.

He was anxious to quiet Ireland on any
terms, and the easier the terms he allowed,
the sooner he thought the work would be
accomplished. Cromwell gave the Irish
no submission until they had submitted;
William insisted upon peace while they
were still in a condition to stipulate. The
war ended, but it only ended in the famous
articles of Limerick and Galway, and
reproaches for broken faith.

1 ask, then, why was the rebellion in
Ireland unsuccessful? I have already
indicated the answer, but I must again
repeat it. Because the hearts of the masses
of the people were not in the matter,
Never had life gone so well as under the
reign of Cromwell. No administration
will prosper which robs the poor and
leaves the rich free to strain the laws
for their own pleasure. An aristocracy
which existed only to be a drain upon the
resources of the country was little better

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 89

than a mockery and a curse. At that
time, the Huguenots were looking t0__
Ireland for a home. The Irish Catholics
were passionately attached to France, and
were going back to France in tens of
thousands, and it cannot but suggest itself
how happy it would have been for all at
that time if there could have been no such
population. With care and wisdom at
such a time, it might have been done with
the consent of all parties concerned.
Impossible! I belieVe statesmen find all
measures impossible except those that will
come about by themselves and without
any care from them.

Grant that this was impossible, then, at
this juncture. I think the time had come
that there should have been an end of
penal law. I can make allowance for those
Who thought differently, for in reflecting
moments I often think differently myself.
I dare say after the revolution I should

 

 

 

 

90 Froua’e’s Lectures.

have concluded that it was impossible for
the two religions to stay safely side by side.
In Catholic countries, there was no tolera-
tion for Protestants. Take human nature
as it is, there is no great wonder that
ordinary Protestants should have been in-
clined to have set the example; but all ex-
perience had proved that penal laws could
not have been enforced in Protestant
countries. They were against the genius
of free institutions. Penal laws might suit
Spain or Italy, where they fell in with the
opinions of all the people. I say expe-
rience had shown that they could not have
been carried out in Ireland. The revolu-
tion had left the Catholics for the present
deprived of power to hurt, and oppressive
laws proved only a mockery and an insult.
Religion should have been declared free.
Their law should have been Protestant in
return; for, notwithstanding the bishops’
persecutions, there were still Presbyterians.

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 91

The loyalty of the Presbyterians had been
prOved in the Rebellion.

Protestants of all persuasions should have
been allowed to settle there, and the dis-
abilities of the Nonconformists ought to
have been for ever abandoned. With a
broad platform which embraced members
of all reformed communions, a vigorous
system of school teaching, an influx of
skilled artisans, and the extinction of all
political disaffeCtion, how different would
have been the fate of Ireland !

Two considerable manufactories had
already been established, and were thriving I
there. The linen manufacture in the North
was Protestant. The woollen manufacture
was spreading over the country—every
cabin had its spinner’s wheel, and every
village in the country its hand-looms.
Irish woollen was the very best in the
world. Labor was cheap in Ireland, and
the water-power unsurpassed. Assisted by

 

 

 

92 Froua’e’s Leclures.

all these advantages, there was no telling
what might have been the extension of this
particular branch of industry. Mechanics,
Scotch, English, and Dutch, and colonies
of Shipwrights, were only waiting for politi-
cal quiet to emigrate to her borders. The
Catholics might have been left unmolested
for ever, and would have been, if there had
been an assurance in the general prosperity
of the country that the two religions would
have lost their sectarian bitterness in com-
mon occupation and common thriving
labor. The Rebellion had widened the
breach between the two creeds, and un-
happily the manner in which it was dealt
with made the wound incurable.

The Catholics made a violent effort to
recover the forfeiture of their estates, and
according to law they were supposed .to
have forfeited also all the lands which they
retained. The Rebellion had cost England
£9,000,000 of money before it was subdued.

 

 

 

 

Fraude’s Lectures. 93

The English Parliament insisted that the
remaining lands should be sold, and that
the proceeds should be applied to, pay the
bill. Had this been done, there would have
been, at any rate, none of the excuses which
were afterward given for interfering with
Irish trade. Industrial prosperity, at any
rate, would have gone on undisturbed.
Good intention in one direction and fault in
,.another blighted the prospects and de-
stroyed an opportunity which can never
return.

The articles of Limerick and Galway
were adopted, and the Catholics claimed
the same toleration which they had enjoyed
under Charles II., and claimed that it was
part of the conditions of the treaty that
they were to be allowed to retain their
estates. The estates had been actually for-
feited; but instead of being sold, as the
English Parliament demanded, they were
given away to King VVilliam’s favorites, so

 

 

 

94 Froude’s chz‘ures.

that from this source there was no fund
at all to pay the cost of the war. The
English Parliament was exasperated, and
the two branches of that old body were
irritated by quarrels an'd recriminations.
These difficulties might in time have
quieted themselves, but unhappily every
,day and amid fresh causes of suspicion the
question arose, Who was to be King of
England after King William died, and
Queen after Queen Mary?

England itself had had enough of the
Stuarts, and decided for the House of Hano-
ver. The Irish Catholics very naturally
declared for the Pretender, and asserted that
the Stuarts were the lawful heirs to the
throne, while the Protestants naturally in-
sisted that peOple attached to these doc-
trines should be silenced or driven out of
the country. This disturbing spirit was
not confined to the Catholics, but showed
tself among the peers and bishops of the

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lecz‘ures. 95

Established Church. An attempt having
been made to assassinate King William, the
English Parliament passed a severe act for
the protection of the king’s person. This
act they sent over to be re-enacted by the
Parliament in Ireland.

At this time, woollen weaving was grow-
ing so prosperous in Ireland that the Eng-,
lish manufacturers were trembling for their
own supremacy. England thought of Ire-
land only as a colony, and we all know how
England has handled her colonies in the
7 last century. Was England to be ruined
for the sake of a miserable and troublesome
dependency? Her manufacturers peti-
tioned Parliament to lay such restrictions
upon Ireland and the Irish trade as should
destroy that trade for ever. Parliament re-
garded Ireland as powerless to resist, and
the fatal laws were forced on her which at
one swoop overwhelmed her woollen trade,
and cut off at a single blow that great

 

 

 

 

95 Froua’e’s Lectures.

source of employment for her unhappy
people.

Thus was her trade struck away, and she
was a prostrate, ruined country. Twenty
thousand Protestant workmen immediately
left Ireland, and either came to this coun-
try or returned to the places from which
they had gone out. Many more followed,
and this sad detriment to the country was
accelerated by another cause, which was
scarcely less absurd and pernicious.

The Episcopal Church had been rein-
stated in its privileges. By the Act of
Uniformity, no person might preach in a
church or chapel who had not been or-
dained by the bishops. In England,’the
law had been softened by a Toleration Act.
In Ireland, there was no Toleration Act;
and, in passing, I must say I believe bish-
ops have produced more mischief in .the
world than any other set of men. The
bishops took upon themselves to enforce

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 97

the Act of Uniformity. England’s arms
had borne the brunt of the battle in the
Rebellion, and this was their reward. “ The
Irish Parliament, dismayed and distracted,
saw no better remedy now than to recall
the promise of toleration which had been
made to the Catholics.

In this emergency, England behaved
more than cruelly, for she allowed the Irish
Parliament to pass laws which foreshad-
owed distress; but the Irish judges and
magistrates received private orders that
the laws were not to be enforced. The
Irish Protestants admitted the tyranny of
these laws, and in its despair the Irish Par-
liament appointed a commission, and Pro-
testant Ireland prayed for admission into
the Empire on the same occasion. She
laid herself at the feet of Great Britain. I
sflppose that when the history of my coun-
try isiread no more unkind act can be
found than this refusal to Ireland’s request

 

 

 

98 Froude’s Lectures.

when it was presented to her in the year
1704. But England—fifty years before, the
England of Cromwell and of the Puritans—
was now filled with men of money, capital-
ists, manufacturers, and traders who have
no interest beyond their ledgers, and
whose political foresight looks no further
than to the balance-sheet of the succeeding
year; and to have admitted Ireland to the
union would have been to admit Ireland to
free trade. It would have been to open the
manufactures of which England has now
the monopoly. Union was refused, and the
Irish Parliament was left to find some
other means of self-protect1on

The problem which presented itself to
the churchmen, lay and spiritual, who ruled
Ireland at the beginning of the century
was at once to keep the dissenters down,
and invent some plan which would prevent
the further growth of Popery. An act had
been passed in England to disable Catho-

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lecz‘ures. 99

. lics from purchasing inherited property in
‘ land.

Now, then, what was the eHect‘of this.
act? The effect was to root out all moral
principle from the middle and upper classes
in the country. Worthless children pre-
tended to be Protestant in order to make
themselves independent of their parents.
Gentlemen affected conversion'that they
might be sheriffs and magistrates, and able
to buy a piece of land. Lawyers qualified
themselves to be admitted to the bench and
bar. Ireland was filled with men perjured
to the lips to save themselves. It was
ruled, in addition, that no one was a Pro-
‘ testant in the eye of the law who was not a
member of the Established Church. Non~
conformists had hitherto a recognized ex-
istence;‘ they were liable to banishment,
but to no special disability. Their presence
was. acknowledged by the law, but they
were placed in the same position as a Cath-

 

 

 

 

I 00 Frozm’e’s Leciure’s.

olic. No one was allowed to'serve his
country in any capacity, except that of a
petty constable, until he had received the
sacrament from an ordained clergyman.
One more touch had still to be added to
the picture of the condition to which Ire-
land had been reduced. The English cloth
manufacturers possessed the monopoly of
the European markets. The Irish weaving
industry was at an end. The advantage of
England lay in the quality of her wool.
If Irish wool were mixed with French wool,
the French could compete successfully
with England. The Irish wool must be
monopolized for the English manufacturer.
The English Parliament passed an act that
no Irish wool should be exported, except
to England. England fixed the price which
she thought it was best to pay for it. The
French were willing to pay much more for
it. Stringent laws were passed by which
England thought to prevent smuggling.

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. IOI

" Ireland’s coast is very favorable for this.
It is indented with dangerousrbays‘naZVi-
' gable only by the natives: ’1 Coastfguards
were bribed. Every one; from £1154:- fie-met
to the highest, entered into the smuggling
trade. All of them went hand-in-hand to
defeat English avarice and evade English
laws. Ingenuity could not have devised a
system better suited to the Irish tempera-
ment. This state of things continued for
three-quarters of a century. It was count-
ed no sin to smuggle. A priest once con-
sulted his bishop 'as to what he, was to say
to it. The bishop said that, as King George
had no right to his crown, he certainly had
no right to the customs duties.

This was the condition of Ireland as she
stood at the accession of George I., and as
she stood until her chains were broken by
the war with the American colonies. The
viCeroy came over to open Parliament, but
stayed no longer. For the greater part of

 

 

 

 

102 Frozzde's Lectures.

the time, the country was governed by the
Low-"Chancellor and the Speaker of the
House. The Peers’being most' of them
absentees;~t'h‘e‘. fUpper-House was virtually
the House of the Bishops of the Established
Church.

Even with accessions, the Established
Church amounted to no more than one-
tenth of the population. It had the church
revenues. and if, with these advantages, it
made no progress, the reason is not far to
seek. The tithes, if properly distributed,
would have supported a clergyman in every
parish. But some, who had interest with
the higher authorities, held several bene-
fices; one had as many as sixteen. The
country went to ruin. The bishops were
appointed by the Crown. Some of them
were very excellent men. Bishop Berkeley
alone would have redeemed his order from
obloquy. Dean Swift said: “No blame
rests with the Court for these appointments.

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecz‘uras. 103

Excellent moral men are always selected,
but, unfortunately, it always happens that,
as the worthy divines cross Hounslow
Heath to take possession of their bishop-
rics, they are regularly robbed and mur-
~dered by highwaymen, who take their
robes, go to Ireland, and are consecrated
bishops in their stead.” I found in Dublin
Castle a request from a bishop for a sepa-
rate ship for himself and this property, and
to carry 4,000 ounces of silver plate.

From the wreck of her trade, the linen
manufacture escaped. Ulster was allowed
to retain its trade, and with it its Presby-
terian Church, but the inhabitants also
retained great indignation at the way their
religion was treated. The rest of the
country was left to the Parliament of Ire—
land, which I have described, and by which
and under which was formed the extra-
ordinary race of modern Irishmen with
whom we are familiar. Her state had no

 

 

 

104 F7oztcz’r’5 Lectures

longer any attraction for men of intellect.
Noblernen and men of fortune lived on the
continent. They leased their lands to
middlemen on easy terms, and asked no
questions so long as their rent was paid.

The lease-holder desired to be an easy
gentleman too. He was as much a Pro-
testant as any one. His creed was that of
his forefathers—that labor was dishonor-
able. So he underlet the land to men like
himself, who again underlet the property
Sometimes there were half a dozen men
holding leases of the same estate. All these
so-called gentry were living beyond their
means, eating, drinking—especially the
drinking—horse-racing, and borrowing
money. Under this cursed system, the
Irish people rather starved than lived, and
then we quarrel with them for being im-
provident and discontented. Never have
any people been so used; first plundered
violently by their agents, they were then

 

 

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lectures. 105

plundered by form of law. Except during
the short interval of Puritan rule, the dogs
were treated better than the poor Irish.
The prime fault rests with the English.
They took possession of Ireland for their
own purposes, and they must answer for
their injustice. The Irish middlemen must
bear their share of the blame. The Eng-
lish agents would have left a peasant a few
rags, but the Irish middlemen would have
only left him his bones. The curse was
too much liberty; not too much for the
poor, but too much for the rich. Lord
Donegal once plundered his tenants so,
ruling 6,000 people, that a cry of indigna-
tion went to the ears of the Viceroy. The
Viceroy, judging from what he said about
it privately, would have been glad to hang
Lord Donegal. But the law did not allow
the promotion of a noble lord in such a
style, and the 6,000 people, all Protestants,
all came to England. Every man kept his

 

 

 

106 Froua’e’s Lectm t5.

h0usehold armed. Half the county of
Kerry was ruled over for many years by
Donald Mahoney and his fairies. Donald
was head tenant of some lord who lived in
England. His fairies were 4,000 tenants, in
white sheets and blackened faces, whose
business was to 'see that no unwelcome
person set foot in Killarney. He be-
queathed his best blue breeches to his
daughter as the best man in Kerry.

Private wars were over, but faction fights
had taken their place. The black-thorn
had superseded the battle-axe, and it had
this advantage, that the beaten might not
be murdered entirely. Duelling became so
prevalent that it was proposed at last to
make the survivor pay for the support of
his late adversary’s family. When a new
secretary came over from England, he had
to be proved by. standing fire. At one
time, a new secretary came over, and an
opposition member of Parliament soon

 

 

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lectures. 107

picked a quarrel with him. They met in
Phoenix Park. The secretary fired in the
air. The member then took deliberate aim,
but his pistol missed fire. He cocked it
again, and again it missed fire. The secre-
tary bowed and said, “There appears to
be something the matter with your flint.”
That was fixed, but again it missed fire.
The secretary remarked, “I think you
had better change your-flint.” It was
changed, and this time he had better
success, and the ball went through his
opponent’s hat. The secretary was going
i to fire in the air again, but the member in-
sisted that he should shoot at him, and that
a refusal would be an affront. It was
finally settled, after some words, and they
shook hands. This was the most popular
secretary that ever held office in Ireland.
Where was the Irish Parliament of this
time? It was sitting regularly; it met at
alternate years, and voted supplies; but the

 

 

 

108 Froua’e’s Lectures.

Irish Parliament was managed, too. Half
the revenue of Ireland was settled regu-
larly on the Crown, and the Crown Claimed
the distribution of it. Out of these funds,
when political matters were more quiet,
were provided pensions for the mistresses
of the Georges. As the Irish Parliament
grew more troublesome, the money was
applied to purposes of political corruption.
\Vhen a man would get annoying, the
Viceroy would send privately to him, and
tell him that if he held his tongue he might
make something by it. The larger traitors
were corrupted with positions; and sine-
cure offices were created for others.

There is a treacherous motive manifested
in the usage that Ireland has undergone at
the hands of England, her mother country.
I did not mention to you what action the
English Parliament. took in regard to this
question, and before bringing this speech to
a close I will do so. Instead of sanctioning

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 109

the requests that were constantly and im-
peratively made by these would-be Irish

noblemen, Chancellors, and lords, they were,

considerably modified, so that several dema-
gogues who were seeking to despoil their
own country by occupying high positions
at the expense of the Irish people were
disappointed. In 1782, one of the Boyles
had gathered within himself hOpes of
achieving patriotic distinction, and mani-
fested to Parliament his desire to be made
a chancellor, the perquisites of the office
being something over ,5 2,000 per year.
Rebellious in 1798, these people, who
were desirous of distinction, sent a son of
Healy Hutchinson—one of Ireland’s ablest
statesmen—t0 Parliament with a petition
asking that a number of his friends be giv-
en oflice, the object being to ascertain if
England was willing to ofier bribes suffi-
cient to induce the Irish counsellors to
desert their clients, the Irish public. To

 

 

 

 

I I O Fraud/5 Lectures.

show you how modest this request was, I
will state that the conditions under which
‘these Irish partisan patriots—the counsel-
ors—offered to abandon their country’s
service were that Lord Shannon should
be made Lord Chancellor; that two sons
of Healy Hutchinson—the champion of
Irish liberty—be made viscounts; and that
Hutchinson’s wife be made a viscountess
for life. Lord Shelburne, in behalf of Par-
liament, stated to the petitioners that this,
although it might seem to those interested
a very trivial matter, involved many ques-
tions of rights which the English Govern-
ment was bound to respect, and reminded
the overzealous gentlemen that the major-
ity rule was a good one.

It was, in short, a petition which would
have deprived many of the Irish people of
their right to act, if, indeed, Parliament
ever recognized that right. Not only
would it have subjected them to still great-

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Leclzms. 1,1 I

er tyranny, but it would have taken the
precedence of other and perhaps better
laws which might thereafter have .been
enacted. It provided for the support of
Healy Hutchinson and his friends, at an
annual expense to the English Government
of over $3,000,000. And now the question
recurs, \Vhere would this money come-
from? I will tell you. It would come
from the hard toil of the poor Irish pea-
sants, and there is where most of the
money has come from that has in past
years supported these Irish aristocrats.

It is said that no one in this present age
can realize what hardships and sufferings
these oppressed people of Ireland have un-
dergone in times past; and, judging from
what we know of the reign of tyranny
there one hundred years ago, we can hard-
ly say that it would be diflicult to imagine
such outrageous proceedings on the part
of England, looking at her as she is to-day.

 

 

 

I 12 Frozza’e’s Leclures.

It is now becoming common for people to
think that corruption is very essential to
good government, and, looking at it from
the standing-point of late customs, I should
say it was. At least it seems as if this
peculiar phase of political life was creeping
into every kind of government. And now
the matter is reduced to this proposition:
We must either have liberty, and cast out
corruption; or have corruption, and cast
out liberty.

 

 

 

 

FROUDE’S FOURTH LECTURE.

DELIVERED OCTOBER 23, 1872.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I have described to you the principles
of government which prevailed in Ireland
during the greater part of the last century.
We have no right to be surprised that the
result was not satisfactory. The natural
remedy was revolution, and, if the Irish
could have made revolution, had they pos-
sessed suflicient unity of purpose, sufficient
national virtue, suflicient patriotism in the
proper sense of the word to have risen 11p
and Sworn that they would end their ser-
vitude or all die, the whole world would

 

 

 

I I4 Frozzdg’s Leclures.

have clapped their hands and cried out
that it was well done; but, whether people.
are strong enough to make revolutions or
not, the laws under which society is al-
lowed to exist do not fail in one way or
another to punish injustice. Misgovern-
ment, like curses, always comes home to
roost. \Vhat Ireland could not accomplish
for herself America accomplished for her.

For a century and a half the stream of
Protestant emigrants had set steadily from
the shores of Ireland to America. The
Cromwellians, the Scotch and English Ca1-
vinists, the artisans and mechanics, the mis-
sionaries of industry and reformation who
had been planted in the Isle at lucid inter-
vals of statesmanship, had. been driven out
by the restraints of government and the
pedantry of Episcopalianism. They had_
come to America in the same way, against
the mother‘country, which the Catholic
peasantry come now. They had brought

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I I 5

'with them a consciousness of wrong, and
waited only to pay England for her treat-
ment of them.

A century waned. Irish society began
to show symptoms of uneasy forces work-
ing within it. South and North there were
risings of the peasantry. The behavior of
the poor starving creatures was at first
most creditable to them. They tore down
fences. They hunted cattle over the coun-
try, but to human life there was little inju-
ry or none. They petitioned only to be
allowed to keep their little farms on terms
not wholly ruinous to them, and the Eng—
lish viceroys allowed that never had people
a greater justification for revolt. Allow
me to say they had a very great many
more wrongs to complain of at the time
than had America at the time she asserted
her own independence. Lord Townsend,
who was Viceroy in Ireland, in a dispatch
to the Home Government, drew a graphic

 

 

 

I 16 Froua’e’s Lectures.

picture of the landlord’s tyranny. But, of
course, there was no redress. A constitu-
tional government could act only by Parlia-
ment, and Parliament law at that time was,
unfortunately, the landlords’ law. The year
before the tea had been sent floating in
Boston Harbor, the Ulster grandees had
sent out a contingent of exasperated emi-
grants unusually numerous. The Ulster
linen manufacture had been deve10ped by
the skill and industry of the Presbyterians.
Compared with the Southern provinces,
Ulster was a garden. Land had increased
greatly in value. Capital made in trade
had been sunk in the soil, and educated,
enterprising peasantry had converted bog
and mountain into corn and flax fields.
The noble lords to whom a large part of
these lands belonged, as it was called, who
had never, perhaps, so much as cast their
eyes on the surface of their property, con-
cluded that the increased value did not be-

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I I 7

long to the tenants who had created it, but
to themselves who had allowed it to be
created. As leases fell in, they demanded
enormous fines before they would renew
them, or rents which could not possibly be
paid. They served ejectments without a
scruple. Families which had been a hun-
dred years upon the soil, chiefly Protes-
tants, were turned adrift. These were
made homeless and houseless, and were
robbed—for no other word can be used
about it—by those who ought to have been
their natural protectors.

Most, if not all, of these poor people
came off to New England. In the Whole
. number there was probably not a man who
could draw trigger or carry a knapsack
that did not try to clear scores with the
representatives of England in the War of
Independence. Nor, as I told you in my
first lecture, were the arms of these exiles
the sole auxiliaries which the Irish contri-

 

 

If—

 

 

 

I 18 Froua’e’s Lecz‘ures.

buted to the American cause. The entire
Protestant population left in Ireland, ex-
cept that portion belonging to the Estab-
lished Church and the landed gentry, saw
that the American cause was their own,
and in their hearts did what lay in them to
further American success.

There is no occasion for me to say any-
thing of the relation which now exists be-
tween the Irish Catholics and the American
people; the generous hospitality which
America extended to them in their dis-
tress; the affectionate and grateful hope
with which in the old country they look to
America. 80 deep is that feeling upon
both sides now that I am rather bound to
insist on the bonds now forgotten Which
once existed between America and the
Irish Protestants. Whatever difference of
Opinion may now be entertained here on
these Irish questions, there was a time
when the Irish Protestants were nearer to

 

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lectures. , I 19

America in heart and in sentiment than the
Catholics. As this statement of mine has
been loudly questioned, I shall. prove what
I say. '

You must allow me to read an address
to you from the leading Catholics of Ireland
to the Irish Secretary, in the momentous
year of 1775. It was signed by many of
the Catholic nobility, and purports, as you
see, to represent the feeling of the whole
Catholic community.

“SIR (so it runs): We flatter ourselves
that the occasion, the motives, and your
goodness will engage you to excuse this
trouble. As we are informed that an
intended subscription among his majesty’s
affectionate, loyal, and dutiful Roman
Catholic subjects of the kingdom of
Ireland to raise a fund among ourselves to
be employed to encourage recruits to
enlist for his majesty’s service was never
judged necessary by the Government; yet

 

 

 

120 Froua’e’s Lectures.

being desirous to give every assistance
in our power, and to give everyproof of
our sincere affection and grateful attach-
ment to the most sacred person and
Government of the best of kings; and
justly abhorring the unnatural rebellion
which has lately broken out among some
of his American subjects against his
majesty’s most sacred person and Govern-
ment; impressed with a deep sense of our
duty and allegiance; and feeling ourselves
loudly called upon by every motive and
every tie that can affect the hearts of good
and loyal subjects, we take the liberty to
make on this interesting occasion an hum-
ble tender of our duty and affection to our
good and gracious king; and we hum-
bly presume to lay at his feet 2,000,-
000 of loyal, faithful, and affectionate
hearts and hands, unarmed indeed, but
zealous, ready, and desirous to exert them-
selves strenuously in defence of his majesty

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. 121

against all his enemies of what denomina-
tion whatever, in any part of the world
wherever they may be; and to exert in; an
active manner the loyalty and obedience
which has always been with them unan-
imous, constant, and unalterable,” etc., etc.

This remarkable address might tempt
English administrators less virtuous than
Mr. Gladstone to reconsider their policy
towards the Irish Catholics. Eighty years
of penal laws had produced this passionate
devotion to the “best of kings.” Seventy
years had followed of apologies, abject
apologies, concessions of justice to Ireland,
and we are called tyrants and oppressors,
and assassins of Irish liberty.

But I am speaking here of the relations
of the two parties in Ireland and America ;
and by the side of this address of the
Catholics I will lay a letter of the 'viceroy
to Lord North, written at precisely the
same‘time. The Irish House of Commons

 

 

 

 

122 Froude’s Lectures.

was composed almost entirely of the landed
gentry, the members of the Established
Church, and of all classes of Irish Pro-
testants, those less likely to sympathize
with America. Through a house so com-
posed the Viceroy had succeeded in car-
rying with very great difficulty, as he
confessed, and with the help of a purchased
majority, a bare vote condemning the
revolt of the Colonies.

The letter alluded to the gaining strength
of the Presbyterians in the North, who in
their hearts, it says, are Americans, and
who are seeking to induce Ireland to take
an adverse part in this contest.

You will see from these papers, resumed
the lecturer, that I have not misstated the
part taken by the two sections of Ireland
at the opening of the war. Well, gentle-
men, the Revolution broke the chains of
Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant. The
same questionswere at stake on both sides

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 2 3

of the Atlantic—the right of the mother
country to utilize her so—called dependen-
cies for her own interest ; and the struggle
decided in one country was decided in the
other. I will not weary you with details
of the familiar story. As the wrestle with
America grew more intense, England’s
other enemies took advantage of her diffi-
culties. France, Spain, and Holland suc-
cessively declared war against her. She
stood, a little country with her 8,000,000
souls, assailed at home with the strongest
powers in Europe, and fighting desperately
to retain her hold on this enormous conti-
nent. Unjust and arrogant as was the pol-
icy that led her into her difficulties, I am
most proud as an Englishman, from the
very bottomof my heart, of the courage
with which she bore herself in that tremen- .
dous , conflict. She could not conquer
America, but she could still give account
of those neighbors of hers who thought to

 

 

 

124 Froua’e’s Leclures.

quit reckoning with her when her hands
were tied. Her Rodneys could still shat-
ter the armies of France, her Elliotts could
still make bonfires of the floating batteries
that thought to drive her out of Gibraltar.
She was never more fierce and dangerous
than when it was seen she was beaten upon
her knees.

But her experience here had not been
thrown away. She understood that if she
was to keep her remaining colonies she
must listen to their just complaints, and she
did not care to provoke another domestic
war. A beginning was made in Ireland,
with the repeal of some Roman Catholic
disability. So fast as any law was seen to
be clearly wrong .and impolitic, England
now made haste to repeal it, and, haVing
once launched upon a career of reform, in
a very few years she would not have left
the Irish one civil or social grievance to
complain of, had it not been for one cause.

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 2 5

I say there was no practical wrong at
that time of which Ireland had to complain
that would not have been removed com-
pletely, and in a very few years, under the
Constitution as it stood at the time of Lord
Cornwallis’s surrender. But Ireland de-
manded the concession of her own Parlia-
ment and freedom from English legislation.
You say Ireland was the best judge of her
own disorders, and the best judge of the
remedies that would cure them. I reply
that self-government is the best of all forms
of government, and for that reason it re-
quires the best kind of men to administer
it. It requires experience, wisdom, self-re-
straint, union, patriotism. England had
governed Ireland ill, most ill. Granted;
but,_looking to Ireland’s actual state and
the condition of the Irish people, was there
better hope for Ireland if the authority of
England was altogether removed ?

I wish to speak with all honor, admira-

 

 

 

126 Fromz’c's Lectures.

tion, even enthusiastic admiration, of Mr.
Grattan. Not only was Mr. Grattan one of
the most brilliant orators of his own and of
any age, but, what is more to the purpose,
one of the most honest of men. In the
secret state correspondence of those years,
I have looked into mysteries which the
right hand that wrote them would gladly
have concealed from the left. In these sin-
gular labyrinths of intrigue and treachery,
I found Irishmen, whose names stand fair
enough, concerned in transactions which
show them to have been knaves and scoun—
drels, but I never found a shadow of stain
on the reputation of Mr. Grattan. I say
nothing of the temptations to which he
was exposed. There were no honors with
which England would not have decorated
him. There was no price so high which
England would not have paid to silence
him. He was one of those perfectly disin-
terested men who do not feel temptations

 

 

 

Pym/Me’s Lecmres. I 2 7

of this kind. They passed by and over
him without giving him even the pain of
turning his back upon them. At every
step of his life, Grattan was governed en-
tirely by what he conceived to be the
interest of his country. Whether he was
as wise as he was upright is another ques- '
tion altogether. "

As the American war approached its last
year, every available soldier was with-
drawn from Ireland. The people demand-
ed arms for their own protection, and the
request was one which could not be re-
fused. Corps of volunteers were formed
all over the country. In a few months,
forty to fifty thousand of them enrolled,
and there was no other military force in
Ireland. Mr. Grattan took the opportun-
ity of demanding a free constitution for his
country. The volunteers turned politi—
cians, and rapped their hands on the butts
of their muskets. Ireland, had been a

 

 

 

128 Froua’e’s Lecmres.

province too long. She should now be
free.

America was winning absolute independ-
ence. Mr. Grattan didn’t go so far as
America. She was willing Ireland should
remain united by the tie of a common
sovereign, but she wanted to be inde-
pendent of the English Parliament, the
English Minister, and the English law
courts. She should have her own Legis-
lature and her own Cabinet, and she
should be governed henceforward by such
laws, and no other, as the representatives
of her own peOple had made for her.
England had had enough just then of at-
tempting to coerce unwilling representa-
tives. English statesmen did not conceal
from themselves the danger of the experi-
ment to be tried.

It was not withOut having considered
that question from a point of view little
dreamed of by the Irish patriots that they

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecmres. 129

were willing at last that the experiment
should receive a trial. They gave way.
The Constitution of I782 was established,
and, amid cannon salvo, patriOtic elo-
quence flowing like water-spouts, and a
volley of 50,000 muskets, Ireland was de-
clared a nation. Esta perpetual exclaimed
Grattan, winding up the magnificent pero-
ration of the finest speech ever heard in
the House, on College Green. If the cur-
tain could then have fallen on Ireland,
could she then have withdrawn among her
own mists, we should have taken leave of
her at that moment with the belief that she
had shaken off her mourning weeds, and
that her regeneration was at last complete.

History dispels the illusion. How could
it be otherwise? So little hope had Eng-
land-that good would come of the rash
adventure that at one time in the English
Cabinet thoughts were entertained of tak-
ing Ireland at her word. The volunteers

 

 

 

I 30 Froude’s chmres.

threatened that if the Constitution was re-
fused they would break from England alto-
gether. “That if England had told them
they were free to go? If she was to retain
no control over the Legislature of Ireland,
and no control over the military force,
then was it worth While to retain a mere
titular sovereignty?

\Vhat had she before done to the million
Protestants and the two million Roman
Catholics, since they were so anxious to be
independent, and to take their independ-
ence, and then settle their own differences?
Was it likely that this revolution was seri-
ously contemplated? Lord Rodney had
destroyed the French fleet in the \Vest
Indies, and America was strong enough to
strangle a serpent that came seeking her,
but too young yet to search adventures in
the other hemisphere. No other power
would have been able to interfere, and a
few years’ experience under such condi-

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Leann/es. I 3 I

tions might have done more than other con-
ditions of affairs to make Ireland sick of it.
The Duke of Portland, however, after spe-
cifying certain conditions which he intended
to exact from the Irish Parliament in his
‘ new position, went on thus in a most pri-
vate and secret dispatch :

“ The refusal of the Irish Parliament to
consent to the subject is such an indication
of sinister designs as would warrant Eng-
land in throwing up the government, and
leaving it to that fate which their folly and
treachery should deserve. If such should

be their sentiments after our effort to en-V

deavor to bring them to a sense of their
condition and of the responsibility of such
refusal, I should hesitate but little to order
the first, and leave them to be the victims
of their own_ insanity, as the country, on
such terms, would not be worth pasturing.”

If the English Cabinet had been troubled
with moral scruples, I do not doubt that to

 

 

 

 

I 32 Frozzde’s Lectures.

have left Ireland awhile in this way to her-
self would have simplified the Irish prob-
lem for all time. No friend to either party
would have entered the island, and Protes-
tant and Catholic would have been left to
fight out their battles in their own way.
The Protestants were inferior in numbers,
but they had the wealth, the education, and
the arms. They had the energy and the
industry, but they had split into Conform-
formists and Noncomformists. I, for my
part, looking at the relative condition of
the two parties at that time, think that the
numerical strength of the Celtic Catholics
would have availed them little, and they
would have been, in all probabilty, either
exterminated or completely subjugated.

The answer to the papers was not satis
factory, but in justice to the Catholics the
Duke of Portland was not allowed to fulfil
his threat. England determined to make
the best of the opposition.

 

 

Frozza’e’s Lectures. I 3 3

You will now have to observe the value
of self-government to a country conditioned
as Ireland was. England had a pretty clear
and direct authority to hold the Empire
together. It was necessary for her to have
some authority, still more if she intended .
to follow out the cause of beneficent legisla-
tion which she had commenced for the
regeneration of the country. Ireland had
obtained liberty; Ireland had obtained ju-
dicial independence. If liberty and inde-
pendence were to realize anything, now at
last the field would be clear, and the land-
lords who had clamored for political reform
were in alliance with the genius of the
peasant. Dean Swift somewhere says the
greatest blessing to a country is the man
who can make land grow two years of corn
where only one grew before. Grattan’s
Reform Law for Ireland was as barren as
they found it. The Constitution of 1782
'might hold out against the encroachment

 

 

 

I 34 Frozzdc's Lectures.

of England, but there were no guarantees
against famine, anarchy, and social tyranny.
Here is Ireland—here is Dublin described
by an eye—witness in 1783, within a year of
that ever-memorable event :

“The Defenders,” so this writer says,
“lived on the spoils like wasps sucking a
people’s blood. Farmers are ruined; the
avenues to the Parliament House are be-
set by strife; manufacturers are praying
for relief against approaching famine; the
guards of the city are doubled, and ordered
to hold themselves ready to massacre the
people.”

In the midst of this scene occurs a singu-
lar illustration of the new judicial system.
There was nothing for which Grattan had
fought harder. Irish causes were to be
decided in Irish courts, and appeals were
to be heard in the Irish House of Lords.
The very first case which came on for hear-
ing was an exceedingly difficult one. It

 

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lecz‘ure's. I 35

involved a large prOperty which was to be
divided, and debts were of the greatest
consequence. A decree had been given by
the judges, but such was the plan that the
decision had been rendered by the casting
vote of the Lord Chancellor. The case
was carried up before the-House of Lords,
and an Irish nobleman, who, besides his
peerage, was clergyman, the Dean of
Derry, actually wrote to one of the liti-
gants, and promised him his vote for ;6 zoo.

And what was Grattan about, now that
he had emancipated his country? Was
Grattan discovering how the peasants
should feed their starving children? The
members of the House of Commons were
engaged then in obstructing the ad-
ministration, and Grattan had no longer
power to lead them. They had discovered
that by their new opposition their power
of imprisoning the Government was in-
creased, and they were engaged in ad-

 

 

 

 

I 36 Froua’e’s Lectures.

justing their demands upon the Irish
Opposition members, which their peace
now rendered necessary. Corruption,
which was before so scandalous, had now
become infamous. The ordinary business
of administration could not be carried on
until the members of Parliament had been
rewarded according to their notion of their
own deserts. The English viceroys could
not help themselves, for the purse-strings
were speedily untied by designing men.
Dublin soon became an open market for
Government offices; and sinecures, peer-
ages, and places of state were openly ex-
posed at public sale. Irish political
morality was completely sapped. The
Houses of the Legislature were filled with
an army of noblemen greedy to swallow
the golden bait. The free Ireland, wel—
comed in with so much enthusiasm, existed
only to bring liberty into contempt.

The principal thing for the Irish member

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 3 7

of Parliament to look at was for opportuni-
ties to destroy the Government, and not for
any public purpose of good or any useful
association, but simply to extort further
benefits of money and promises for its lead-
ing members. The Government was some-
times resisted amid mingled indignation
and distrust, but resistance, if successful,
was possibly won by further uses of the
same dishonorable influences. Such was
Ireland in the times before the Constitu-
tion of 1782 from a living reality. Such
was Ireland when she saw in Europe, high
above the smoke of the burning Bastile,
arising the terrible portent of the French
Revolution. _

Already they had demanded parlia-
mentary reform in Ireland. The House of
Commons, as it stood, Was too evident a
mockery. It consisted at this time of 300
members, 64 of them returned for county
and 236 for borough towns. Of the 300

 

 

 

 

I 38 Frozzde’s Lectures.

seats about sixty were fairly open to bid‘
ders. Protestants could not be voted for,
and Protestants could only be elected; and
atone time a particular nobleman, owning
from 10 to 12 boroughs, controlled fr0m IO
to 30 members. The Irish seats were sold,
f, 2,000 being the average price. A noble-
man could sell a peerage for £12,000, and
buy halfa dozen seats with the money.
Mr. Grattan and other prominent Irish
noblemen, finding that the condition of
affairs was simply ridiculous, formed them-
selves into an organization. It was called
the “Whig Club,” and was designed to
promote parliamentary reform; but what
that reform was to be they could not agree
among themselves, so great was the oppo-
sition of the Catholics.

Generally in Europe, when the Catholics
came in contact with the spirit of reform.
it was not as friends, but as enemies.
There were too ugly stories of rampant

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. I 39

spoliation of many kindsin circulation. The
Protestants held nine-tenths of the land,
and the Irish masses stood uncertain when
the French Revolution broke out. After
the first year or two, the friends of liberty
were in ecstasy, but as the sky darkened and
the true meaning of that tremendous trans-
action became apparent, the Whig spirits
were dismayed and horror-struck. All hu-
man society appeared to be threatened, and
established courts and established institu-
tions instinctively drew toward each other,
in defence of religion and good order.
England declared war against the Jacobins,
and her attitude toward the Roman’Catho-
lics immediately changed. Hitherto the
Roman Catholic religion had been treated
as its. dangerous enemy. It was now held
as conservative law. Hitherto she had not
been disposed to shield the Catholics from
the severe execution of the penal law, but
now the great English Statesmen, William

 

 

 

I40 Froua’e’s Lecz‘ures.

Pitt and Burke, took up the cause of Cath-
olic Emancipation. The Presbyterians of
the North had been Republican from the
very first. They retained their approbation
of the Long Parliament, and the success of
the Revolution in America had quickened
the ashes of the old fires. Calvinism was
dying away. The spirit of the dead passed
from religion to politics, and their animosity
for Catholics was but little less than their re-
sentment against the landlords. Some of
the more ardent spirits in Dublin and Belfast
believed that the time was coming when
Ireland might indeed rise out of the ashes
of the Catholic and Protestant religions, and
then make a supreme effort to establish an
Irish Republic. I need only mention to you
the names of the two Emmets, of Wolf Tone,
of Arthur O’Connell, and Lord Edward
Fitzgerald. They were patriots, true pa-
triots—generous, brave, enthusiastic, and
unable to believe that they could fail.

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 141

They were filled with the passionate con-
viction that without political independence
all their blessings would fail. Like Grat-
tan, they meant separation from England,
and as a step toward it they demanded par-
liamentary reform, and so far were unwill-
ing to act with the Whig Club. They or-
ganized themselves into the celebrated
body of United Irishmen, with central
lodges at Belfast and the capital, with sub-
ordinate branches scattered through the
country. Every true Irishman was invited
to enroll his name. The genius of the Rev-
olution had touched the Irish harp and
struck its strings with passionate impulses
of the Irish people. Between the Govern-
ment and the United 'Irishmen lay the Cath-
olic gentry, bishops, and .clergy. They
saw there how they were agreed to have"
done forever with thraldom, in order to
recover their valued privileges as citizens ;
but whether to receive their emancipation

 

 

 

 

142 Froude’s Lecz‘ures.

- from Pitt and England, or from Wolf Tone
and the Revolution, was not easy for them
to decide. They, too, were organizing
themselves. They had their Catholic Com-
mittee, which sat in Dublin as a Second
Parliament, and Mr. Pitt had not only mis-
' conceived their probable sentiments, but
some of them, the bishops especially, were
deeply shocked, and had a fresh cause to
shudder at the thought of an alliance with
the assassins of Louis XVI. If the Gov..
ernment would do them justice, they were '
mOre inclined to stand by the Government.
Conciliation admitted of progress; and,
w hile the Catholics had already recoVered
the elective franchise in 1793, they had yet
to recover the right to sit in Parliament.
But the spirit of 1641 was awake again.
' It was made bountifully clear that half the *
Catholics were in league with the United
Irishmen. In the presence of such a spir‘t,
further concessions were necessarily ex-

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I43

tended, and those gradually, as other dis-
contented parties demanded them under
the protection of the Republicans.

Such were the fruits of ten years of lib-
erty—a liberty which had been, held by
Grattan as the dawn of a new era of peace
and prosperity. The constitution tied the
hands of the Government. They saw rebel-
lion‘ approaching at that time, and knew
not how to check it. In the provinces, in
connection with the United Irishmen, there
was a bodyof defenders formed—defenders
of the rights of the peasantry. They were
combinations against a landlord’s tyranny,
and a reign of terror ensued. Houses
were burned, villages plundered, and col-
lisions between the defenders and bodies
of soldiers were of frequent occurrence.
The lodges for the United Irishmen spread
over the whole island, and whole shiploads
of arms were being shipped from France
for their revolutionary army.

 

 

 

 

I44 Froua’e’s Lemmas.

Now, once more, Ireland had a real
chance. England had flung her whole
strength into the war with France, and the
success of the revolutionary arms promised
a long and most desperate struggle. The
Northern Presbyterians appeared to be at
last heart and soul with the Catholics.
One hundred thousand Protestant farmers
living in the Ulster province had been
sworn into the association, all armed, all
reconciled, all determined to have done
with church, and land, and landlords, and
English tyranny. Two hundred thousand
Catholics, at least, had been enrolled in the
other provinces. The great towns of Dub-
lin and Belfast especially were enthusiastic
for the cause. Something ought to have
come at least of such a mighty preparation.
Then, if ever, Irish nationality ought to
have become effected. There was, how-
ever, from the first, visible in the proceed-
ings of the United Irishmen a conflict of

 

 

 

 

Frantic”: Lectures. V I4 5

creed. Wolf Tone, who appears to have
been another Franklin, listened to the
original plan for the formation of his so-
ciety—a society to be formed in Dublin
with a secrecy something of the ceremo‘
nial of Freemasonry. “ Secrecy,’
“is expedient and necessary. It will make
the spirit of the nation more ardent, and
will confound and terrify by its agency.”
This is not the stuff of which successful
revolutions are made. This is the stuff of
which most admirable and most excellent
leading articles are made. Attached to
this paper is a private letter of , Wolf
Tone’s, containing a further account of his

’

it said,

views. He mentions the names of a few
of his friends who had promised to stand
by him. Where did I find these papers?
In the English State Paper Office. Before
long, before it was printed, almost before
the ink was dry, it was in the hands of the
English Government. Among the men

 

 

 

 

146 Froua’e’s Lecmre’s.

taken into their counsel, one must have
been a traitor. From the first dawn of the
conspiracy, one of his dearest friends had
been betraying him, and the members of
the Council of the United Irishmen, united
in what they professed to regard as a most
holy cause, were from the very beginning
selling their secrets and lives to the English
Minister. Of such material have the con-
spiracies in that unhappy country been
formed. There is no more spot upon Wolf
Tone’s honor than upon Grattan’s. Among
the Irish there ran many veins of down-
right treachery. Men to Whom to the last
were entrusted the most dangerous secrets
got, by treachery, the miserable profits of
their baseness, only stipulating that they
should not be brought into the courts of
justice. I know that one of his best friends
betrayed Wolf Tone. These damning evi-
dences of treachery would have convinced
him of the entire impossibility of a suc-

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I4 7

cessful combination for the severance of
Ireland from England being formed out of
Irish material. The Government could‘not
meddle with it until it entangled itself in
some act of treason. Now and then some
one made a slip, wrote a treasonable letter,
or something of that kind. Papers Were
seized, and men were tried. No one knew
where the information came from.
Hamilton Rowan escaped to America.
He distrusted the atmosphere. Wolf Tone
also fled to America with his wife and
children. Tone escaped, but went back to
Paris, and worked to bring about an inVa-
sion of Ireland. The Irish only needed
a spark of encouragement from abroad.
Lord Edward Fitzgerald went to the Con-
tinent for the same purpose, and had an
interview with the French Minister of
War. Almost before they met, a little
bird carried the news to Downing Street
Lady Edward, the celebrated Pamela, hac

 

 

 

I48 Frozta’e’s Lectures.

a house at Hamburg. There the Irishmen
could meet, and from there communicate
with their friends in Ireland. But her
most trusted friend was coiling like a snake
upon her path. There came one night
to the minister’s house in London a man
wrapped in a great cloak. He had secrets
to tell of the greatest importance concern-
ing a movement against the Government,
and his conscience w0u1d not allow him
to keep them. His information tallied
with what the Government had already
learned, and they saw, therefore, that they
might trust and use him. He went to
Hamburg; he lived in Lady Edward’s
house; and saw and spoke with, unsuspect-
ed, every one who came there. He gave
information which led Mr. Pitt to seize let-
ters of the utmost importance. When all
was over, he had a pension from the
Crown. His name was—I would better
not mention his name.

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 49

Meanwhile, unconscious of the treason
which was undermining them, the Irish
leaders worked with unabated eagerness.-
T he Government was contented to watch
their movements, prepared to strike at' a
moment’s notice. The Irish showed sin-
gular skill. An English fleet was being
equipped. A number of Irishmen enlisted
among the crew, and soon brought about a
mutiny among the sailors. At last a fleet
sailed from 'France, taking Tone with it.
It reached Ireland, but a gale of wind pre-
.vented an immediate landing. The Eng-
lish were enabled to get together a force
sufficient to keep them in check. There
was no news of any rising among the peo-
ple, and the attempt at last proved a failure.
Tone himself had been against any attempt
in the South. '

Another expedition was formed. This
time a Dutch fleet was to pass around Ire‘
land. Admiral Danton, with sailors who

 

 

 

I 50 Froude's Lectures.

were anxious to cover up the disgrace of
their former mutiny, fell in with the Dutch
outside of the banks, and destroyed their
fleet. The English now issued orders for
a general disarming of the Irish people.
The rebel leaders felt that they could
wait no longer. They were, of course,
betrayed at a meeting. Lord Edward Fitz-
gerald was away, but his hiding—place was
revealed, and he died in prison. The peo-
ple rose under inferior leaders, and acted
just as their impulses moved them. They
surprised a few ports, and cut in pieces a
few English soldiers. In the South, and
everywhere except in Ulster, the insurrec-
tion assumed a character that long—sighted
people had long seen to be certain of com-
ing. The union of the two creeds, Catho-
lie and Protestant, became impossible, and
it turned into a war of religions. Protes-
tant churches and chapels were burned,
and the movement became a Catholic cru«

 

 

 

 

Frozta’e’s Lectures. I 5 I

sade. However fair the prospects of the
United Irishmen in the beginning, it was
but a struggle of the Celts to recover the
soil and of the priests to recover Catholic
supremacy. Horrible things are done
when mobs of unprincipled men get power
into their hands. But mobs never succeed
in doing anything but mischief.

What had Grattan done? What had
Grattan’s constitution' done for his coun-
try? Ireland, when the American war
broke out, lay under a code of laws so
unjust as to drive an unhappy people to a
revolution for a remedy. The restrictions
on trade had been'taken off, and the restric-
tions on the Catholics were fast passing
away. Had this been taken care of, all else
must have been righted. Grattan was led
away with what I call a delirium of nation-
ality. He insisted upon national independ-
enCe, and what was the result? Did any
peasant pav lighter rent to his landlord?

 

 

 

I 52 Froua’e’s Lectures.

Was any tenant saved from eviction?
Grattan said, “ Make Ireland a‘nation, and
Ireland will redress her own wrongs.”
She became a natiOn, and actions which
before were scandalous became infamous.
The Irish Parliament became a market in
which peers and‘commoners sold them-'
selves. Honest Irishmen formed in asso-
ciations to find deliverance in arms.
Where one or two were gathered together,
one was a traitor. The fruit of all this was
the death or banishment of most of them,
and a fresh list of massacres and horrors
swelled the lines of party hatred. Ifinsur-
gents are not strong enough to frighten the
government, government must and will put
down the insurgents. Do you suppose the
Irishmen would have governed Ireland
very beautifully if Ireland had been left to
them? Those unions only are fit to be in-
dependent which have strength and cour-
age to be their own liberators. The neces-

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 5 3

sary qualities are not yet to be found in
Ireland. POIitical agitators have been and
always will be a curse to Ireland. But all
peOple have a right to justice. When the
light shines in upon a definite injustice, it
cannot long remain in existence. A good
government is the light of all. The Irish
missed the substance in grasping at the
shadow.

To leave the Irish Parliament, standing
as it was after the Rebellion, was to leave
one of the most corrupt institutions that the
world has ever seen. To hand over Ire-
land to such a Parliament was to leave
Catholics and Protestants smarting under
the wounds of Derry. There was no
serious objection to a union with England.
Cromwell had seen the inevitable necessity.
She refused then, and at last was obliged
to sue for What she might have had them
begging her to take. When the Act of
Union was first proposed, a shriek of patri-

 

 

 

I 54 Froua’e’s Leciure’s.

otism ran over the country. Before their
constituents the members of Parliament
wept floods of tears. In private, a great
many of them, like sensible men, gave Eng-
land to understand that they were more
reasonable. Corrupt from the hour that
Grattan left them, having sold their con-
sciences for eighteen years, they ended in
selling their consent to the order which
terminated their existence. It was a
scandalous end to a scandalous existence.
It was the end, and, for my own part, I
hope from my heart, the final end. I, for
myself, will say for the Union what Grattan
said of his constitution, “ Esta perpetua.”

 

 

 

 

FROUDE’S FIFTH LECTURE.

DELIVERED OCTOBER 25, 1872.

MR. FROUDE began by alluding to a slight
inaccuracy he had made in his last lecture
in quoting from Mr. Grattan’s speech.
This was, however, simply an error of
arrangement, not of fact. He went on to
say that forms of government should not
be so much kept in View as the spiritual
and material condition of the people.
Aristocracies were only bad because they
were more liable to be distorted by self-
interest. Just laws were the first requisite ‘
of a good government, and it was only when
the government governed badly that the

 

 

 

 

I 56 Froua’e’s Lectures.

constitution should be attacked. But re-
verse this law, and begin political agitation
before you had a clear idea of what you
wished to destroy or to build up, and your
efforts were worse than useless. The Irish
had fallen into this mistake almost invaria-
bly, and scarcely had they ever got fairly
into the path of practical reform than
they had been thrown back again by foolish
political agitation. Just before the insur-
rection of ’98, all of Ireland’s grievances
were in course of redress; but these
concessions were simply interpreted by the
Irish as meaning that England was afraid
ofthem. In 1802, the constitution that
succeeded the Union was fairly at work.
Three-quarters of a country more fertile
than Scotland, and as fertile as the best
parts of England, was almost a desolate
wilderness. The lands were untilled, and
the peasantry dwelt in miserable cabins with;
out windows, which they shared with their

 

 

 

 

Frozza’e’s Lectun’s. 1 57

pigs. Their holdings were perhaps only an
acre or two, cultivated with potatoes, for
which they gave the old ruinous rack rent.
And yet the people were not unhappy;
their only fear was lest some neighbor
might bid a higher rent, and the landlord
should drive them away to starve in the
nearest ditch. The landlords were of sev-
eral kinds, the main classes being the great
magnates who lived in London, and the
squires. and squireens, who gambled and
drank and fought duels and ruined their
tenants.’ It was remarkable, however, that
this last was the most popular, while the
improving landlord was hated intensely,
because, finding his land littered with pau-
pers, he removed them to make way for
thrifty and industrious Scotchmen or Eng-
lishmen. After all, these paupers, or ver-
min, as they were called, were human
beings. Was it wonderful that they should
retaliate by the murder of the improving

 

 

 

I 58 Froua’e’s Lectures.

landlord, or of the improving landlord’s
agent or bailiff? Such was Ireland after
six hundred years of English rule. The
law had invariably been the enemy of Irish-
men, and they were therefore lawless. A
more powerful police was the next thing
called for. But it was of no good to reor-
ganize the police unless the iniquitous laws
that had led to crime were abolished.
Then, again, the religious question came
forward. The Established Church had
been set up to secure the conversion of
Ireland, yet four-fifths of the people were
Catholic, and would remain so, while of the
Protestants less than half acknowledged
this same state establishment. He (Froude)
did not think, however, that the religious
grievance of Ireland had been the greatest
of England’s wrongs. He, for one, recog-
nized the immense influence for good of
the Catholic clergy. There was no vulgar
crime in Ireland, and Irishmen showed a

 

 

 

 

Frozza’e’s Lectures. I 5 9.

delicacy and modesty of character which
was undoubtedly due to the influence of
their religious teachers. But the Romish
Church was a very different matter. So ,
long as the popes retained a hope of recov-
ering their old power, no Catholic was per-
mitted to be a loyal subject to a Protestant
prince ; and for two centuries a bitter war
was waged against the reformed religion.
Could England, therefore, allow the priests
to destroy their power in Ireland any more
than Prince Bismarck could to-day allow
the Jesuits to undo the German Confeder—
acy? The Irishman for centuries looked
upon his allegiance to the pope as superior
to his English sovereign. Far more blame
was due to England for her cruelty and
oppression to the Irish Nonconformists
than for her treatment of the Irish Catho-
lics. After the peace of Utrecht, politics
assumed a different complexion.

I. It ceased to be the avowed duty of

 

 

 

160 Froua’e’s Lecturcs.

the Catholic to never recognize the autho-
rity of a Protestant prince. But for the
United Irishmen and the Rebellion of ’98
Catholic emancipation would have been at
once passed as a just and necessary law,
whereas it was reserved for O’Connell to
achieve it by a long and tedious struggle.
But much remained to be done after eman-
cipation was granted. The peasant was
worse off than ever. His landlord was
generally a Protestant, and said to him,
“You must vote as I do, or I will turn you
off my land”; while the priest said, “ You
must vote as I wish you, or I shall excom-
municate you.” O’Connell, if he had
wished, instead of clamoring for repeal,
which he knew he would never get, might
have secured many years sooner a just land
law, such as Mr. Gladstone had recently
passed. The English reformers, such as
Sir Robert Peel, had, however, succeeded
in giving the Irish a satisfactory measure

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I‘6I

of education; but this had been greatly
nullified by the influence of the priests, who
desired that the sheep should be separated
from the goats on this as well as on the
other side of the day of judgment. The
great evil of Ireland after emancipation was
the land tenure. The landlords for the
most part were impoverished and out at
elbows, While the peasantry multiplied ex-
ceedingly, owing to the encouragement of
both the priests and the landlords, the
former in order to avoid immorality, and the
latter'because the more people there were
the higher r05e his rents. In 1846, there
were 9,000,000 of people, 2,000,000 of whom
were beggars, and all living on the eternal
potato. We most of us remembered how
sadly all this ended. The note of warning
had long been sounded. Cobbett had.

shown the folly of allowing an immense I
population to spring up, trusting for sup-
port to one single precarious crop. The

 

 

 

 

I 62 Frona’e’s Lectures.

potato failed, and there came the famine.
The Irish bore the calamity with a patience
and heroism that could not be too highly
admired. A quarter of a million of them
perished of sheer hunger. As fast as it
could be done, supplies were sent by Eng-
land, and the government voted ten mil-
lions of money, eight of which he believed
had been stolen. America also forwarded
magnificent contributions, and from all
parts of the world there came help and
succor. At length the famine was stayed,
and, as usual, the blame was thrown on the
wrong shoulders.

Political economists upbraided the Con-
nemara peasant because he was not suffi-
ciently well up in “Matthews on Popula-
tion.” The first result of the famine was
the revival of political delirium. O’Con—
nell preached repeal as the spring of Ire-
land’s misery, just as he had previously
preached the same thing about emancipa-

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 63

tion. Then suddenly came the report that
400,000 Irishmen were prepared for revolt.
He (Froude) had himself gone to Ireland,
believing that the day of judgment had
indeed come at last. But how miserably it
all ended ! A scuffle in a cabbage-garden,
and the appearance of the police—that was
all. Never before had insurrection met so
miserable a fate; for it was now in Ireland
for the first time ridiculous. The next
effect of the famine was the passage of an
act through the Irish Parliament that the
Irish land should support the Irish poor.
This completed the ruin of the encumbered
Irish landed gentry, and they had now
faded for ever away. The 9,000,000 of the
Irish people had also, in consequence of the
famine, dwindled down to 5,500,000, which,
allowing for the natural rate of increase,
showed an emigration of between five and
six millions. The famine also stimulated
many of the landlords to raise the condition

 

 

 

I64 Froua’e’s Lectures.

of their tenants, and on many Irish estates
now the farmers and peasantry were much '
better off than his English‘fellow-subjects.
But the good landlords were few, and, to
get rid of the impoverished remainder,
Parliament passed the Encumbered Estates
Act, which enabled a creditor to demand the
sale of his debtor’s land. The new purcha-
sers of the land. very generally reduced the
number of their tenants. They were most-
ly prosperous business Irishmen, who had
little pity for their poorer countrymen.
Some of the purchasers, also, were land
speculators, who would buy an estate on a
promissory note, and, having cleared the
estate of its superfluous tenantry, would
again throw it into the market, and sell it‘ at
a highly advanced price. The poor pea-
Santry were told to go—to go to the devil
if they could find nowhere else to go to;
and so they went to America. He (Froude)
thought that if the English government had

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 65

managed properly they might have made
this necessity of emigration a conciliatory
measure. They might have said to the
evicted tenant, “It is true we can’t keep
you here at home, but in our colonies we
will give you each 200 acres of land, with
provisions out of the public funds for their
maintenance during the first year of occu-
pation.” This might have cost about twice
as much as the Abyssinian war had in-
involved, or half what had been thrown
into the mud at Balaklava, but it would
have been a good money investment. It
was needless, however, to say that nothing
of the kind was done. The emigrants left
for America with bitterness in their hearts,
while the Irish peasantry at 'home formed
themselves into disloyal bands, and re-
dressed their wrongs by the wild justice of
murder.

The landlords would have had their hands
tied sooner than had been the case but for

 

 

 

I66 Froua’e's Lectures.

the cropping out again of the old folly of
political agitation. He (Froude) did not
blame the Irish for their desire for inde-
pendence. He admitted the “ sacred right
of revolution,” but it was sacred only when
the insurgents had power to achieve it. It
was only when justice was denied and the
last hope of redress had died away that it
was lawful to call up the spirits of fire and
blood. Never had there been a more un-
justifiable revolt, judged from this point of
View, than the Fenian Rebellion. The Re-
bellion of 1848 had ended in a comedy, and
the Fenian Rebellion had ended very little
better. But, in spite of the Rebellion, Eng-
land had resolved that if the Irish rebelled
again they should at least have no valid
grievances to complain of. Mr. Gladstone
took the matter in hand, and began by de-
nouncing the “upas-tree of Protestant as-
cendency.” This was a taunt altogether
unprovoked and unnecessary ; but Mr.

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. 167

Gladstone disestablished the Irish Church,
which would have been well enough had it
been abolished as a state establishment and
not as a religion. The priests then clam-
ored about the universal education that
prevailed in Ireland; but Ireland’s great
evil remained the same as ever—the land
tenure—and this had been redressed by Mr.
Gladstone’s healing Land Act of three years
ago. The landlord could no longer evict
the humblest peasant without having to
pay for his cruelty. He now had to pay
his tenant for every stroke of work he had
put into it, and something besides. The
Irish now demanded home rule, and, it
might be asked, why not grant this as well?
He answered, because no home-rule gov-
ernment would have ever passed the Land
Act. An Irish Parliament would necessarily
be composed chiefly of landed gentlemen,
who in Ireland would of their own free
will never do justice to the Irish peasantry

 

 

 

I68 Froua’e’s Lectures.

until afternoon on doomsday. Another ob-
jection to home rule was that Ireland was
not one nation, but two. Protestant ascen-
dency had been abolished, but he did not
wish now to see Catholic ascendency estab-
lished. He (Mr. Froude) believed that the
proud, high-spirited Protestants of the
North would never consent to be governed
by the mere numbers of the Catholic Irish
.majority. Within a year England would
be compelled to interfere to prevent civil
war. He hoped, therefore, that no such
rash and dangerous measure would be
attempted. Something, however, remained
to be done. The landlords had changed
their ideas, and now knew that they must
make their choice between power and Self-
indulgence. If they wished political influ-
ence, they must do something else than
merely spend their money. Eviction, too,
was still possible, and in these days of enor-
mous millonaires it might sometimes pay

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Leclures. 169

to sweep a barony clear of its people, and
turn it into a deer 'forest. This should be
remedied, and the English Parliament was
now no longer the representative of a mere
class, and English landed gentlemen would
soon have to live for nobler objects than
self-indulgence, or they would be swept
away. In the good work of reform, the
Irish people might help their English neigh-
bors if, listening only to nobler instincts
than nationality, they joined hands with
them in the cause of progress. He (Mr.
Froude) concluded by hOping that the sym-
pathy of the American Republic would be
given to the right side.

 

 

 

 

FROUDE’S REPLY TO FATHER
BURKE-

NOVEMBER, 30. 1872.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

If my object in coming to this country
was to draw attention to the Irish subject,
I may so far be said to have succeeded.
I have succeeded also, beyond my expec-
tation, in eliciting a counter-statement
containing the opinions of the Irish people
themselves on their past history, the. most
complete, the most symmetrical, the most
thoroughgoing which has yet been given
to the world.

The successive positions taken by Father
Burke have been long familiar to me,.some

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lectures. I 7 I

in one book and some in another. But no-
where have so many of them been com-
bined so artistically, and not t-illnow have
they been presented in what may be called
an authoritative form. Father Burke re-
grets that I should have obliged him to
reopen wounds which he would have pre-
ferred to have left closed. I conceive, on
the other hand, that a wound is never
healed so long as there is misunderstanding.
England and .Ireland can approach each
other only on the basis of truth, and so
long as Irish children are fed with the
story which Father Burke has so eloquent-
1y told, so long they must regard England
with eyes of utter detestation until full
atonement be made for past wrongs. If
Father Burke’s account is true, let England
know it, look it in the face, and acknow-
ledge it. If it be an illusion or tissue of
illusions, then it is equally desirable that
the Irish should know it, and a bridge of

 

 

 

 

I 72 Froude’s Lecz‘uws.

solid fact be laid across the gulf that
divides us. A subject of this kind can only
usefully be treated from the platform, if the
audience will bear their share of the
burden, if they will test by reference what
they hear, compare evidence, and analyze
it. You will learn more from the books
to which I shall refer you than you can
learn from me in the time for which I will
address you. I shall myself venture to
indicate the particulars where Father
Burke’s narration specially needs examina-
tion, and refer you to authorities. That an
Irishman’s view should be diiferent from
an Englishman’s view is natural and
inevitable; but the difference must be
limited by facts, which are easily ascertain-
able. When they are not ascertainable
elsewhere, as, for instance, when Father
Burke attributes words to me which I
never uttered, I shall venture to speak
with authority.

V’—

 

 

 

 

Frozm’e’s Lecmres. I 73

'I must throw off with 'a point of this kind.
The Father says I have come to America
to ask for the extraordinary verdict that
England has been right in the manner in
whichshe has treated Ireland for seven hun—
dred‘ years. Considering that I have drawn
a heavier indictment against England in the
course of my lectures than she will prob-
ably thank me for; considering that I have
described the history of her connection
with Ireland from the beginning as a scan-
dal and reproach to her, I must meet this
assertion with a simple denial. Father
Burke goes on to suggest that England is a
decaying empire, that her power is broken,
her arm grown feeble, the days of Macau-
lay’s “New Zealander” not far off, that
England is afraid of the growing strength
of the Irish in the United States, the
8,000,000 of them who have come from the
Old Country, and the 14,000,000 of Irish
descent. It is scarcely becoming for two

 

 

 

 

I 74 Frozm’a's Icahn/£5.

British subjects to be discussing in this
country whether Great Britain is in a state
of decadence. England is afraid, however,
and deeply afraid. She is afraid‘of being
even driven to use again those measures of .
coercion against Ireland which have been
the shame of her history.

But Father Burke’s figures, I confess,
startled me. Of the 42,ooo,ooo of American
citizens, 22,ooo,ooo were either Irish born
or sprung from Irish parents. Was this
possible? I referred to the census of 1870,
and I was still'more confounded. The entire
number of immigrant foreigners who were
then in the United States amounted to
5,556,566. Of these, under two millions
were Irish. The entire number of children
born of Irish parents was under two mil-
lions also. From these figures, it follows, if
Father Burke is correct, that in these two
last years there must have come from Ire-
land no less than 6,ooo,ooo persons, or more

 

 

 

 

Froua’e’s Lecmres. I 7 5

than the entire population of the island, and
that in the same two years the Irish mothers
mothers must have produced not fewer
than 12,ooo,ooo infants. I knew that their
fertility was remarkable, but I was not pre-
pared for such an astounding illustration
of it.

But Father Burke considers me unfit to
speak upon this subject, and for three rea-
sons: First. Because I despise the Irish
people. I despise them, do I? Then why
have I made Ireland my second home?
Why am'I here now? Am I finding my
undertaking such a pleasant one? I say
that for various reasons I have a peculiar
and exceptional respect and esteem for the
Irish people—I mean for the worthy part of
them, the peasantry—and I am endeavoring
- to serve them. I'say the peasantry. For
Irish demagogues and political agitators—~.
well, for them, yes, I confess I do feel con?
tempt from the bottom of my soul. I re-

 

 

 

I 76 Froua’e’s Lectures.

joice that Father Burke has disclaimed all
connection with them. Of all the curses
which have afflicted Ireland the dema-
gogues have been the greatest.

Once more: Father Burke says I am
unfit to speak of Ireland because I hate the
Catholic Church. I show my hatred, it
appears, by holding the church answera-
ble for the cruelties of the Duke of Alva
in the Netherlands, and for the massacres
of St. Bartholomew’s Day in France.
Here is what the Father says on the first
of these matters: “ Alva fought in the
Netherlands against an uprising against
the authority of the state. If the rebels
happened to be Protestants, there is no
reason to father their blood upon the
Catholics.” I beg you to attend to this
passage. This is the way in which modern
Catholic history is composed, and you may
see from it what kind of lessons children
will be taught in the national schools it

 

 

 

 

Fraua’e’s Lectures. I77

Catholics have the control of the text-books.
Father Burke himself, perhaps, only repeats
what he himself learned. I suppose he
never heard of the edicts of Charles V.
By those ”edicts, which were issued at the
opening of the Reformation, every man
convicted of holding heretical Opinions was
to lose his head. If he was obstinate, and
refused to recant, he was to be burned.
Women were to be buried alive. Those
who concealed heretics were liable to the
same penalties as the heretics themselves.
The execution of the edicts was committed
to the Episcopal Inquisition, and ‘under
them, in that one reign, the Prince of
Orange, who was alive at the time, and the
great Grotius, whose name alone is a guar-
antee against a suspicion of exaggeration,
declare that not less than fifty thousand
persons were put to death in cold blood. '
Ihave myself expressed a doubt whether
these numbers could have been really so

 

 

 

I 73 Froua’e’s Lectures.

large; but a better judge than I am, a
man totally untroubled with theological
prepossessions, the historian Gibbon, con-
siders the largest estimate to be nearest to
the truth. Idon’t ask you to believe me,
ladies and gentlemen—read Grotius; read
the Prince of Orange’s apology; read the
pages of your own Mr. Motley. And then,
because the Netherlands, unable to endure
those atrocities, rose in arms to drive the
Spaniards out of the country, the Duke of
Alva may massacre 20,000 more of them;
they are only rebels. The church is inno-
cent of their blood.

Father Burke, in like manner, declares
the church to be blameless for the de-
struction of the French Protestants. The
Te Dezmzs that were sung 'at Rome when
the news came, he says, were for the safety
of the king, and not for the massacre of
the Huguenots. Indeed! Then why did
the infallible popeissue a medal on which

 

 

 

 

Froude’s Lecmres. I 79

was stamped Hugmzoz‘orzmz strays—Slaugh-
ter of the Huguenots? Why was the de-
sign on the reverse of the medal an angel
with a sword smiting the Hydra of heresy?
Does Father Burke know? I suppose not.
That the murders in Paris were but the .
beginning of a scene of havoc, which over-
spread France and lasted for nearly two
months. Eighteen or nineteen thousand
persons were killed in Paris on the 24th of
August. By the end of September, the
list was swollen to 70,000. Strangely in-
cautious, infallible pope, if he was only
grateful for the safety of Charles IX.; for
what must have been the effect of the news
of the pope’s approval on the zeal of the
orthodox executioners?

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not hate the
Catholic religion; some of the best and
holiest men I have ever heard of have
lived. and died in the Catholic faith. But
I do hate the spirit which the church dis-

 

 

 

_180 Frozm’e's Lectures.

played in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and I hate the spirit which would
throw a veil of SOphistry over those atroci-
ties in the nineteenth. The history of the
illustrious men who fought and bled in that
long, desperate battle for liberty of con-
science, that very liberty to which Catho-
lics now appeal, is a sacred treasure left
in charge to all succeeding generations.
If we allow a legend like this of Father
Burke’s to overspread and cloud that
glorious record, we shall be false to our
trust, and through our irnbecility and cow-
ardice we may bequeath to future ages the
legacy of another struggle. Father Burke
himself is for toleration—the freest and the
widest. I am heartily glad of it. I wish
I could feel that he was speaking for his
church as well as himself. But my mind
misgives me when I read the Syllabus. In
the same number of the New York Tablet
from which I take his speech, I find an

 

 

 

 

Frozza’e’s Lectures. I 8 I

article condemning the admission of the
Jews to the rights of citizens. When I
was last in Spain, there was no Protestant
church allowed in the Peninsula. 1 used
to feel that, ifI had the fortune to die
there, I should be buried in a field like a
dog. If all that is now ended, it was not
ended by the pope and the bishops. It
was ended by the Revolution. Nor is it
very hard to be tolerant on Father Burke’s
terms. In his reading of history, the Pro-
testants were the chief criminals.

If on those terms he is willing to forgive
and forget, I, for one, am not. Father
Burke knows the connection between con-
fession and absolution. The first is the con-
dition of the second. When the Catholic
Church admits frankly her past faults, the
world will as frankly forgive them. If she
takes refuge in evasion, if she persists in
throwing the blame on others who were
guilty of nothing except resistance to her

 

 

 

 

182 Froua’e’s Leann/es. .

tyranny, the innocent blood that she shed
remains upon her hands, and all- the per;
fumes of Arabia will not sweeten them. I
will assume, then, that I am fit to speak On
this Irish subject, and I will at once pass to
it. I must be brief. I shall pass from
point to point, and leave irrelevant matter
on one side.

I go to the Norman Conquest itself, and
Pope Adrian’s Bull, which Father Burke
still declares to be a forgery. I need
hardly say that I attach no consequence to
the Bull itself. I suppose the Popes of-
Rome have no more right over Ireland
than I have over Cuba. The popes, how—
ever, did at that time represent the general
conscience. \Vhat a pope sanctioned was
usually what the intelligent part of man-
kind held to be right. If the Normans
forged such a sanction- to color their
Conquest, they committed a crime which
ought to be exposed. The naked facts are

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. I 8 3

these: King Henry, when he conquered
Ireland, produced as his authority a Bull
said to have been granted twenty years
before by Pope Adrian. It is a matter of
history that from the date of the Conquest
Peter’s pence was paid regularly to Rome
by Ireland. Ecclesiastical suits were
referred to Rome. Continual application
was made to Rome for dispensations to
marry Within the forbidden degrees.
There was close and constant communica-
tion from that time forward between the
Irish people and clergy and the Roman
court. Is it conceivable that, in the course
of all this communication, the Irish should
never have mentioned this forged Bull at
Rome, or that, if they did mention it, there
should have been no enquiry and exposure?
To me such, a supposition is utterly incon-
ceivable.

But the Bull, says Father Burke, is a
forgery on the face of it. The date upon it

 

 

 

184 Froude’s Lecz‘zzres.

18 1154. Adrian was elected Pope on the
3d of December, 1154. John of Salisbury,
by whom the Bull was procured, did not
arrive in Rome to ask for it till 1155.
What clearer proof could there be ? Very
plausible. But forgers would scarcely
have committed a blunder so simple.
Father Burke’s criticism comes from hand-
ling tools he is imperfectly acquainted
with. He is evidently ignorant that the
English official year began on the 25th of
March. A paper dated February, 1154,
was in reality written in February, 1155.
The popes did not use this style, but Eng-
lishmen did, and a confusion of this kind is
the most natural thing in the world in the
publication of a document by which Eng-
land was specially affected.

The lecturer here read extracts from Dr.
Theiner’s book, in which a letter from a
subsequent pope to King Henry III.
is extracted from the Vatican archives, also

 

 

 

Froude’s Lectures. - I8 5

a letter from [Donald O’Neill, calling him-
self King of Ulster, to the pope, speaking of
the Normans much as Father Burke speaks
of the English now ; complaining specially
of Pope Adrian for having, as an English
man, sacrificed Ireland to his countrymen.
Mr. Froude also spoke at length of the
bishops and the oath of supremacy to King
Henry, various points in the history of
James II., Elizabeth’s conduct in Ireland,
of the Rebellion, which he said was by far
the gravest matter he had to deal with, the
administration of the Earl of Strafford, of
the cowardice of the Irish, Mr. Froude
said :—Lastly, he accuses me of hav-
ing called the Irish cowards, and he
desires me to take the word back. I
cannot take back what I never gave.
Father Burke says that such words cause
bad blood, and that I may one day have
cause to remember them. That they cause
bad blood I have reason to know already, but

 

 

 

 

186 Froude’s Lectures.

the words are not mine but his, and he and
not I must recall them. Not once, but
again and again, with the loudest emphasis, I
have spoken of the notorious and splendid
courage of Irishmen. What I said was this——
and I will say it over again. I was asking
how it was that a race whose courage was
above suspicion made so poor a hand of
rebellion, and I answered my question thus:
that the Irish would fight only for a cause in
which they really believed, and that they
were too shrewd to be duped by illusions
with which they allowed themselves to
play. I will add that if 500 of the present
Irish police, Celts and Catholics, all or
most of them, enlisted in the cause of order
and good government, would walk up to
and walk through the large mob which the
so—called patriots could collect from the
four provinces of Ireland; if it be tocall
men cowards when I say that under the
severest trials the Irish display the noblest

 

 

 

Froude's Lectures. I8 7

qualities which do honor to humanity when
they are on the right side, then, and only
then, have I questioned the courage of

Irishmen.
. Mr. Froude then referred somewhat in

detail to the facts of the Rebellion, and
closed his lecture as follows: Father
Burke’s own knowledge of his subject is
wide and varied, but I can compare his
workmanship to nothing so well as to one
of the lives of his own Irish saints, in which
legend and reality are so strangely blended
that the true aspect of-things and character
can no longer be discerned. I believe that
I have shown that this is the true state of
the case, though from the state of Father
Burke’s mind upon. the subject he may be
unaware precisely of what has happened to
him. Anyway, I hope that we may now
part in good-humor; we may differ about
the past ; about the present, and for practi-
cal objects, I believe we are agreed. He

 

 

 

I88 Froua’e’s Leclures.

loves the Irish peasant, and so do I; I have
been accused of having nothing practical to
propose for Ireland. I have something ex-
tremely practical; I want to see the.pea-
sants taken from under the power of their
landlords, and made answerable to no
authority but the law. It would not be
difficult to define ~for what ofience a tenant
might legally be deprived of his-holding.
He ought not to be dependent 011 the
caprice of any individual man. If Father
Burke and his friends will help in that way,
instead of agitating for a separation from
England, I would sooner find myself work-
ing with him than against him. If he will
‘forget my supposed hatred to his religion,
and will accept the hand which I hold out
to him, now that our fight is over, it is a
hatred, I can assure him, which, like some
other things, has no existence except in his

own imagination.

 

 

 

 

NOTES.

GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, so often referred to as an
authority on the invasion of Ireland by the Anglo-
Normans, was no other than a certain adventurer,
of which the period was so fruitful, whose real
name was Gerald de Barry. He was a Welshman
by birth, a sycoPhant by nature, full of vanity and
mendacity, as his own writings show, and totally
ignorant of the matters treated in his books. He
visited Ireland but twice, and then for short times ;
once 'with his brother Philip and his uncle Stephen,
and again in 1185, sixteen years after the landing
of the Normans, as tutor to Prince John, the weak
and ungrateful son of Henry II. Totally ignorant
of the language of the country, its laws, customs,
and traditions, he had the hardihood, to please his
royal patron, to write a book about it, entitled,
“ The Conquest,” etc. Like a true follower of the
hordes of William the Bastard, he was sanguinarv.

l

 

 

 

 

 

190 Notes.

at least in theory, for he advised the utter exter-
mination of the natives. His apologist and trans-
lator, Hooker, however, says that he did not re-
commend the extirpation of all the Irish, but only
such as refused to submit to the royal authority
(book ii. C. 40). How far he carried his servility
may be seen in his book on his native country,
where in chapter viii., zle Illaudaéz’lzts, he suggests
this method of subjugation of the Welsh, the true
Britons: “The seas were to be guarded, war
shouldbe carried on during the winter, divisions
were to be fomented among the Welsh patriots.”
Could baseness go much further than this? A
complete refutation of Barry’s work on Ireland
was published two hundred years ago, under the
title of “Cambrensis Eversus,” of which Ware
says: “This work was written by John Lynch, a
secular priest and titular archdeacon of Tuam,
was a native of Galway. He publishedhis Cam-
érmsz‘s Everszts An. 1662, under the feigned
name of Gralz'amts Lucius. It was written in
Defence of his country against the fabulous and
malicious Reports made of it by Gerald Barry,
commonly called Caméremz's, wherein .with a
judicious and sharp Pen he exposeth the number-

i

 

 

 

Notes. 191;

less Mistakes, Falshoods, and Calumnies of that
Writer; shewing, in confuting him, that he was
well qualified to undertake the subject by a great
compass of knowledge in the history of his coun-
try, and in other polite learning.”

“THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF IRELAND.”—The
use of this phrase, though at one time in vogue,
shows the utter ignorance of Irish history in him
who uses it. There was neither conquest nor, in
the proper sense of the term, inVasion by the
Anglo-Normans of Ireland'in the time of Dermid
McMurrough. The only contemporary, authentic,
and true account, allowing for the natural bias of
the writer, we have of the defection of the King
of Leinster is from the pen of his trusty emissary
and interpreter, Maurice Regan. This fragment
of history, composed in 1177, was first translated
into French, and from thence into English, by no
less a personage than Sir GeOrge Carew, Lord
President of Munster under Elizabeth, whose
MSS. are still preserved in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin. Regan’s version of the aEair is
thus told :

 

 

 

192 Notes.

“Dermond, Kyng of Leinster, was a powerful
prince; he invaded O’Neal and the Kyng of
Meath, compelled them to gyve hostages, and
constrained O’Kerrall to send hym his son for a
pledge into Leinster. At that tyme O’Rory, Kyng
of Lethcoin, whose country was woody and full of
boggs, had to wyfe the daughter of Melaghlin Mac-
Colman, Kyng of Meath, a fair and lovely lady,
entirely beloved of Dermond, Kyng of Leinster,
who also hated O’Rory for an affront which his
men had received at Lethnuth in his country.

“ Dermond, by leters and messingers, pursued
her love with such fervency, as, in the end, she
sent him word that shee was ready to obey, and
yeld to his will, appointed him a tyme and place
where he should find her, and prayeing him to
come soe strongly, as that he might by force take
her away with him. Dermond presently assem-
bled his forces, and marched into the county of
Lethcoin; at Trimbruin he found this lady, tooke
her awaye with him, spoiled the county,- and re-
turned with victory and content into Fernes.

“ O’Rory, full of grief and rage, addressed hym-
self unto the Kyng of Connaght, complaining of
the wrong and scorne done unto hym by the Kyng

 

 

 

Notes. 193 .

of Leinster, and intreating his aid in the revenge
of so grete an outrage.

“O’Conner, Kyng of Connaght, moved with
honour and compassion, promised him succour,
and presently he dispatched messingers to the
King of Ossory unto Melaghlin, King of Meath, to
Hesculph, Mac Turkell Lord of Dublin, and

Morrough O’Birne, wyth whome he so muche prem

vailed, as they turned heads upon their Lord King
Dermond.

“ The King of Leinster seeing hymself forsaken
of his kinsmen, friends, servants, and principal
followers, having sume more confidence in Mur-
rough O’Birne than in the rest, took horse, and
rode to speak with hym.

“ King Dermond being returned to Fernes, and
lodged in the Abbey at Fernes, dedicated to the
Blessed Virgin Mary, commanded the abbot to
write a letre, which he subscribed, and to deliver
it to one of his monks to carry it to the Morrough
O’Birne, hOping thereby to perswade him to a
meeting. The monke being dispatched, dis-
charged the trust imposed upon him soe well as
that he delivered the letre to O’Birne. The King
followed the monke, and at a woodside saw Mor-

 

 

 

 

. 194 IVOZ‘e‘S.

rough O’Birne, who, beholdinge the King, men-
anced him presently to depart, or else he would
repentit

“The distressed King, almost destracted with
griefe and anger, returned to Fernes, and fearing
to be betrayed there, and delivered by his peOple
unto the King of COnnaught, resolved to abandon
his country, and instantly without delay he went
to the Horkeran, where he imbarqued hymself for
England, having in his company no other man of
marke then Awliife O’Kinade, and about sixty
persons.

“With a prosperous gale he arrived at Bristol],
and was-lodged with all his companie in the house
of Robert Hardinge, at St. Augustins, Where,
aftir some staie, he addressed his journey towards
France, to speak with King Henry, who then had
wars in that kingdom with the French King.-

“When he came to the presence of King Henry,
he related at large unto hym that he was forced
to run into exile, and beseeching hym to gyve
hym aid, whereby he may be restorid to his in-
heritance, which yf it should please him in his
goodness to grant, he would acknowledge hym to
be Louie, and serve hym faithfully during his life.

 

 

 

Notes. 195

“ This pitifull relation of the distressed king so
much movid King Henry to compassion as that
he promised him aid, and willed him to return to
Bristol], there to remain until he herd furthir
from hym; and with all he wrote to Robert Har-
ding, requiring hym to receve King Dermond and
his followers into his house, and to intreat them
with all courtesie and humanitie he could ; where-
of Robert failed in nothing.

“ After King Dermond had remained more than a

month in Bristol, and seeing no h-Ope of aid from
King Henry, weary of delaye, and comfortless, he
went to the Erle Richard, intreating succours
from hym, and promising, that if by his means he
might be re-established in his kyngdome, that he
would gyve hym his daughter towife, and with
her the whole Kingdom of Leinster for his in-
heritance.
. “The Erle, tickled with so fair an ofl'er, made
answeare, that if he could obtain leave of the
King, his mastir, he would not fail to assiste hym
in his person, and bring sufficient aid; but for the
present he desired to be excused; for unless the
King would give his assent therunto, he durSt not
entirtaine a business of that importance.

 

 

 

 

1 95 Notc’s.

“ This faire and discreet answeare so well con-
tented the exiled King, as he solemnly swore that
whensoever the .Erle did bring aide unto hym, he
would give him his daughter in marriage, and
after his death, the Kingdom of Leinster.

“These conditions being agreed to on either
party, Dermond departed, and went to St. David's,
where he staid until] shipping was provided to
transport hym into Ireland. '

“The King of Leinster finding it to be an im-
possibility for hym to recovir his kingdome, and
to prevaile in his designs, without aide out of
England, dispatched his trusty servant and inter-
preter, Maurice Regan, with letres in Wales, and
with authority in his name to promise all such as
would come to serve hym in his wars in Ireland,
large recompence in landes of inheritance to
souche as would staye in the country, and to
those that would returne, he would gyve them
good intertainment eyther in money or in cattle.
As soone as these promises were divulged, men
of all sortes, and from divers places, preparid
themselves to goe into Ireland, first, especially
Robert Fitz-Stephen, a man of good esteeme in

 

 

Notes. 197

Wales (who had lately been enlargid out of prison
by the mediation of Dermond), undirtooke the
imployment, and with hym some nine or ten
knights of good account.

“ A.D. 1169.—This little army, transported in
three ships, landed at a place called Ba'nn, not far
from the town of Wexford, from whence they
immediately dispatched messingers unto King
Dermond to give him notice of their arrival], who
without delay repaired unto them, and imbracing
them with much joy, and rendering them thanks
for their travile. they had taken, that night they
encamped by the sea-side. The next day Der-
mond and the Englishe marched directly to Wex-
ford, and instantly gave an assault unto the towne,
in the whiche eighteen Englishe were slain, and
of the defendaunts only three. Nevertheless, the
townsmen perceavinge themselves to be unable to
make any long defence, demanded parle, which be-
ing graunted, they offered hostages to the King and
to sware from thence forward to be evermore his
loyall vassals. By the advice of the Englishe-the
conditions were accepted, and the town of Wex-
ford rendered itself unto Dermond. Which done,
he went to Fernes, as well to cure his hurt men

 

 

 

 

198 Nole’s.

as to feast the Englishe, where they rested three

weeks.

“Then Dcrmond called to hym Robert Fitz-
Stephen and Maurice de Prindergast, tellinge
them how much they and their nation were feared
by the Irish; wherefore he had a purpose to in-
vade the King of Ossory, his mortal enemy, and
to chastise hym; but furst he required their ad-
vise and consent; who answered, l/zat t/zcy came 2‘0
t/mt land to 71.0 ot/zz'r cm! i/um 1‘0 serve lzym 2'7: lzz's
warm, and that they would not forsake hym in
any interprize whatsoever he would undertake.”

——

ADRIAN'S BULL—It has been long a disputed
question among the best writers on Irish history
as to whether POpe Adrian did or did not issue a
Bull empowering Henry II. to take forcible pos-
session of Ireland, and to reform the ecclesiastical
and other abuses said to be then existing
therein, though the weight of evidence hitherto
has been in favor of the authenticity of such a
document. Except to antiquarians, the matter has
little practical interest, for Henry did not claim

 

 

 

Notes. 199

that country as a dependency of his crown by
virtue of any authority other than that derived
from the fact that his subjects Strongbow, Fitz-
stephen, and others had obtained possession
of it, and their appearance in Ireland was the
. result ofcircumstances altogether independent of
clerical discipline or morals. Nicholas Break-
speare, afterwards Pope Adrian IV., was the only
Englishman that ever sat on the papal throne, and
his national partiality might have misled him into
giving too credulous an ear to the plausible calum-
nies of the crafty Normans against a people who
seem, from the days of Henry to those of Froude,
to be the special object of English Vituperation.
The Most Rev. Dr. Moran, thelearned Bishop
of Ossory, in Ireland, is of the opinion that the
Bull was a forgery, and in a recent elaborate com-
munication gives his reasons for so believing.
Among other things, he says: ‘Indeed, the Irish
nation at all times, as if instinctively, shrank from
accepting it as genuine, and unhesitatingly pro-
nounced it an Anglo-Norman forgery. We have
already seen how even Giraldus Cambrensis refers
to the doubts which had arisen regarding the Bull
of Pope Alexander; but we have at hand still

 

 

 

200 Noies.

more conclusive evidence that Adrian’s Bull was
universally rejected by our peOple. There is,
happily, preserved in the Barberini archives,
Rome, a MS. of the fourteenth century, contain-
ing a series of official papers connected with the
pontificate of John XXII., and amongst them is a
letter from the Lord Justiciary and the Royal
Council of Ireland, forwarded to Rome under the
Royal Seal, and presented to His Holiness-by
William of Nottingham, Canon and Precentor of
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, about the year
1325. In this important but hitherto unnoticed
document, the Irish are accused of very many
crimes, among which is insidiously introduced
the rejection of the supposed Bulls: ‘ ‘More-
over, {key assert i/zat i/ze King of England, under
false pre‘ienees and 5] false Bulls, obtained i/ze domi-
nion of Ireland, and 2722's opinion is eomnzonzy lzeld by
t/zem ’— ‘Asserentes etiam Dominum Regem
Angliae ex falsa suggestione et ex falsis Bullis
terram Hiberniae in dominium impetrasse ac-com-
muniter hoc tenentes.’ This national tradition
was preserved unbroken throughout the turmoil
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and on
the revival of our historical literature in the

 

 

 

 

Notes. 201

beginning of the seventeenth :century was regis-
tered in the pages of Lynch, Stephen White; and
other writers. '

“It will be well also, whilst forming our judg-
ment regarding this supposed Bull of Adrian, to
hold in mind the disturbed state of society, es-
pecially in Italy, at the time to which it refers.
At the present day, it would be no easy matter in-
deed for such a forgery to survive more than a
few weeks. But at the close of the twelfth cen-
tury it was far otherwise. Owing to the constant
revolutions and disturbances that then prevailed,
the Pontifl~ was oftentimes obliged to fly from
city to city; frequently his papers were seized
and burned, and he himself detained as a hostage
or prisoner by his enemies. Hence it is that
several forged Bulls, examples of which are given
in Cambrmsz’s Eversus, date from these .times.
More than one of the grants made to the Norman
families are now believed to rest on such for-
geries; and that the Anglo-Norman adventurers
in Ireland were not strangers to such deeds of
darkness appears from the fact that a matrix
forging the Papal Seal of such Bulls, now pre-
served from the R. I. Academy, was found a few

 

 

 

202 Notes.

years ago in the ruins of one of the earliest
Anglo-Norman monasteries founded by De
Courcy.

“The circumstances of the publication of the
Bull by Henry were surely not calculated to dis-
arm suspicion. Our opponents do not even pre-
tend that it was made known in Ireland till the
year 1175, and hence, though publicly granted
with solemn investiture, as John of Salisbury’s
testimony would imply, and though its record was
deposited in the public archives of the kingdom,
this Bull, so vital to the interests of the Irish
Church, should have remained dormant for twenty
years, unnoticed in Rome, unnoticed by Henry’s
courtiers, still more unnoticed by the Irish
bishops, and, Iwill add, unnoticed by the Conti-
nental sovereigns, so jealous of the power and
preponderance of the English monarch—for
such suppositions there is indeed no parallel in
the whole history of inves'titures. ”

PUBLIC RECORDS.— Much stress having been
laid on the importance of public records and
State Paper Office documents as illustrating the

 

 

 

 

Notes. 203

history of Ireland, we take from the Annals of
Dublin, AD. 1747, the following extract to show
how and in what manner these so-called precious
authorities were preserved and secured from
spoliation and interpolation :

“There is no perfect chain of records existing
through all the several periods of the English
government, occasioned partly by the decays of
time, partly by the negligence of oflicers, and the
bad condition of repositories in ancient days, and
partly from the casualties from fire. Of accidents
of this last kind, there is to be seen an ancient
memorandum enrolled in the Chancery Oflice,
anno 2~ Edward II., to this effect: ‘Memorandum,
that all the rolls of the Chancery, were, in the
time of Master Thomas Cantock, Chancellor of
Ireland, to the twenty-eighth year of King Ed-
ward, son to King Henry III., destroyed by an
accidental fire in the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, near Dublin, at the time when that abbey
was burned down, except two rolls of the same
year, which were delivered to .Masz‘er Walter de
T/zdrnbury, by the king’s writ. The loss is partly
supplied by Maurice Regan, partly by Giraldus
Cambrensis, and the Abbot Benedict, Alan’s

 

 

 

204 Notes.

Registry, and the Black Book of Christ’s Church,
Dublin.’ ”

THE FAMINE OF 1846-7-8-9.—In 1841, Ireland
had a population 0f8,175,125. In 1851, according to
the usual rate of increase, she should have had at
least 9,000,000; but the census commissioners re-
ported only 6,552,385, leaving to be accounted for
about 2,500,000. It has been very pertinently asked,
What became of this vast mass of human beings?
Some have said they emigrated, but this is im-
possible. In the “Annual Report of the Chief of
the Bureau of Statistics,” Washington, D. C., 1871,
we find, under the head of alien passengers arrived
in the United States from foreign countries from
1841 to 1850 inclusive, Ireland returned as sending
only 162,332, and “ Great Britain, not specified,”
848,366, who are stated to have been mainly Irish.
Now, let us suppose that ninety per cent. of the
latter were natives of Ireland, this would give us
763,529, to which, if we add the number reported
as Irish, we find the total emigration of natives
of Ireland to the United States during that decade
to have been 925,861, or considerably less than

 

 

 

 

Notes. 205

r,ooo,ooo. Though, as it is well known, this re‘
public is the great attraction for all the persecuted
Celts, still, if we allow that 275,000 went to Eng-
land and her colonies during the period referred
to—and we think this is by far too liberal an esti-
mation—there are still one million #2763 fizma’red
Mousmza’ to be accounted for. What became of
them? The only intelligent answer that can be
given is that they died of famine and fever or:
their own soil, the victims of English misrule and
tyranny. Before Mr. Froude again lectures on
Ireland, will he please examine these figures?

Is FROUDE A FORGER P—The following extracts
from a letter of Col. James F. Meline, author of
one of the ablest books of the period, “Mary
Queen of Scots,” shows how much reliance can be
placed on Froude’s veracity. That worthy him-
self, in his sixth lecture, declines Col. Meline’s
prOposition, on the grounds that he is at one side
of the Atlantic and his books and papers on the
other, a mere subterfuge, as our readers will see
for themselves :

“ If Mr. Froude had been accused in merely

 

 

 

206 Nora’s.

general and sweeping terms of bad faith in his
treatment of historical documents, he might justly
say that it is impossible for him to reply to the
vague and the indefinite, and demand something
specific. But that is not the case. The charges
made in the book to which you refer (“Mary
Queen of Scots, and her latest English Historian”)
are clear and eXplicit in every instance, citing
page and volume, chapter and verse. Wherever
the historian is charged with unauthorized asser- '
tion or suppression, with interpolation, with adorn-
ing his ow nlanguage with inverted commas, with
changing expressions which do not suit him for
such as do, every such objectionable passage is
designated by italics or otherwise, and, where he
claims quotation, confronted with the original in
such manner as to leave no possible room for
mistake. Now, these originals are not always Eng-
lish State papers. Many of them are published
works ; some relate to French history, some to the
Simancas papers. A very large number of Mr.
Froude’s historical assertions are totally without
support or reference, and what are charged as his
gravest offences—his suggestions, concealment,
innuendo, attributing of motives, pictorial exago

 

 

 

 

Notes. 207

geration, and pretended psychological introspec-
tion—are all matters which utterly elude any such
test as he prOposes.

“There are few indicted persons who specially
admire the indictment under which they stand '
charged. There are, probably, still fewer who
would not prefer one drawn in accordance with
their wishes, and from which should, first of all,
be excluded the larger part of the accusations
made. Of the gravity of the charges in the book
in question I am perfectly well aware, and so
' state (p. 9). I believe I have made them good.
It is not a mere attempt to show that certain
passages, as cited by the historian, do not agree
with the originals. It is an arraignment of his
historical method, his treatment of authorities,
his want of fairness, his absence of the judicial
sense, and what I can only designate as his in-
trepidity of statement. These are not matters to
be measured by anything in the State Paper
Oflice, and I confess my inability to understand
why it should be “impossible to reply in detail.”
The work referred to contains some 300 pages.
The inaccuracies charged may possibly number——
'for I have not counted them—some 400 or 500.

 

 

 

208 Notes.

If Mr. Froude were to select from these a few——
say some sixty or eighty—of the most important,
and refute them, the book, with all its charges,
would be injured beyond the power of further
annoyance. He has, in fact, made a beginning in
that direction. Why should he not continue? In
his eighth volume, he puts a sanguinary threat in
Mary Stuart’s mouth, and cites as his authority a
letter, ‘Randolph to Cecil, Oct. 5. Scotch MSS.,
Rolls House.’ He was told that there was no
such letter in existence, in or out of the Rolls
House. Claiming that there had been ‘either by
himself or a compositor a clerical error,’ he fell
back upon a letter of another date from the Earl
of Bedford. The author of the work you refer to
then sent to the English Record Office for a certi-
fied copy of the Bedford letter, which turns out
to be, not a Scotch, but an English MS., and falls
deplorably short of supporting Mr. Froude’s cita-
tion. A part of this controversy was carried on
in the columns of your paper, in October, 1870,
and Chapter VIII. of the book referred to‘gives
it in full, together with the Bedford letter.”

A remarkable instance of this “distinguished

V H

historian s weakness for perverting quotations

 

 

 

Notes. 209

is noticed in one of our leading daily newspapers
in the following temperate but not less severe
terms:

“Another and hardly less striking case we take
almost at random from the third volume of Mr.
Froude’s ‘History of England.’ It concerns an
eminent character in English history whom Mr.
Froude evidently and most cordially detests——-
Cardinal Pole. It is based not upon any recondite
manuscript, but upon a passage taken from awell-
known English historical authority—Strype. Mr.
Froude’s object in this instance is to present
Cardinal Pole in the light of an arrogant, vain-
glorious boaster. He says of him: ‘He studied
industriously at Paris and Padua, acquiring, as he
believed, all knowledge which living teachers
could impart to him, and he was himself so well
satisfied with the result that at the mature age of
thirty-six he could describe himself to Henry as
one who, though a young man, had ‘long been
conversant with old men; lead [072g judged Ike
eldest man t/mt Zz'wd too young for him to learn
wisdom from.’ ‘Many ambitious youths,’ Mr.
. Froude sneeringly continues, ‘haVe experienced
the same Opinion of themselves; few have ven-

 

 

“var

 

 

2 I 0 Notes.

tured on so confident an expression of it.’ The
reference of the words here quoted by Mr.
Froude is to Strype, vol. II, p. 305.

“ Now let us see what Strype really gives us as
the language of Cardinal Pole:

“ ‘ Your Grace [to the king] will think I speak as
a young man. I cannot deny but I am that young
man that have long judged the eldest that liveth
at tlzese day: too young for me to learn wisdom of
that have learned of all anz‘e'gnz'ey, of llze most
antz'ent t/zat ever were aforelz'nze, and of my time
hath had most acquaintance and most longest
conversation wz't/e tlzose Mat leave been t/ze flower of
wisdom in our tz'zne, wlzz'elz I leave song/z! in all places
and most enjoyed that wisdom of any young man
of my time—so tlzat 2f I were a sloeé I must needs
know somew/zat.’ '

“ Is it possible to imagine a more complete con-
tradiction than here exists between what Cardi-
nal Pole is really reported by Strype as saying
and the sense which Mr. Froude puts upon what
he claims that he is citing as the language of
Cardinal Pole from the pages of Strype P”

Is it any wonder that a man guilty of such un‘
blushing falsifications of history should decline

 

 

Notes. 21 1

any challenge that might be offered him as to the
correctness or fairness of his quotations? And
if a writer will be guilty of such tergiversation
toward his own countrymen, how much reliance
can be placed on his statements regarding a coun-
try whose nationality and religion are evidently
the objects of his most intense though ill-dis-
guised hatred? J. E. M.

 

 

AN. AMERICAN ON THE “SITUATION:

WENDELL PHILLIPS, whose eloquent lecture on
O’Connell has for years delighted and instructed
the thinking peOple ofalmost every city and town in
the Eastern, Middle, and Western States, in a dis-
course delivered on the third of December, 1872,
before the elz'z‘e of Boston, thus takes to pieces the
elaborately constructed s0phisms of the “ celebrat-
ed historian,”and exposes in all their nakedness the
hollow prejudices ofa man who came to us with
professions of impartiality and fairness On his lips,
but with deadly and implacable malice in his heart.
As an American, with no Irish proclivities, and as
one of the American jury appealed to by Froude,
his Opinions on the questions at issue are of
peculiar value. We copy his remarks‘from the
condensed report of the Boston Daily Advertiser:

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am to offer to you
one or two suggestions touching Mr. Froude’s lec-

 

 

 

An American on 1/16 “ Sz'matz’on,” 213

tures on the relations of Great Britain and Ireland.
He said he came here to argue his case before the
‘American people as ajury, and in my narrow way
I wish to use the hour you lend me to-night in
renderingaverdict.. It was a great privilege to
hear an English scholar’s View of these critical
relations between England and Ireland; it was a
theme deeply interesting to every student of Eng-
lish literature and politics, and the interest was
deepened into gratitude when with generous pur-
pose he gave the receipts of those lectures to the
sufferers of our great conflagration. I was grati-
'fied, also, at the channel which he chose for his
address to the American peOple—the lyceum. It
was a marked recognition of this new forum for
the public discussion of great national questions;
it was a conipliment, well deserved, to the impar-
tiality and intelligence of the audiences which
make up the great American lyceum. Of course,
being Froude, it was brilliant and picturesque in
narrative, graphic, instructive; and if he did not
bring us many new facts, at least in the manner
in which he told the old ones he revealed the
mood, the temper of mindhwith which England
looks at the question to-day, and that of itself is

 

 

 

214 An American on 1/13 “ Situation.”

a great revelation. Horne Tooke said once, when
Gibbon wrote his autobiography, that a man who
had anything to conceal ought to do anything ra-
ther than write his own life; that he should beg
his worst enemy to write it before he trusted the
unconscious betrayal of what he would have been
but too willing to conceal. So I think in the mode,
in the standpoint, in the whole inspiration of these
fine testimonies to the relation of Great Britain
and Ireland we have the latest, and the most au-
thentic, and the most trustworthy declaration of
the mode in which the leading Englishmen of to-
day regard the Irish question. We all had reason
to expect a scholar’s treatment, to expect that he
would bring order out of chaos, that the tangled
web of this Irish history which had confused all
students and puzzled the most patient enquirer
would be straightened out and cleared 'up. For
one, I never expected the exact statement, the
close narrative, the logical sequence, or the in-
stinct of the historian, for I think it cannot be
said that Mr. Froude has ever written anything
that deserves the name of history. Fairlyjudged,
he is a fervid, brilliant, and earnest writer of
party pamphlets, and, grouping together these

 

 

 

 

An American on fire “ Sz'z‘uatz'on.” 215

whole fine presentations of the Irish question,
after all they are so discordant, so partisan, so
fragmentary, so one-sided, that it only runs in
the line with the character of his whole literary
work. If he had not had occasion to name
frequently the O'Connells, the O’Neills, the Fitz-
geralds, the Geraldines, the Clairs, and the Des-
monds, I should hardly have known, as I listened,
that it was an Irish story. In my hasty way, I
have had occasion to study somewhat at length
the hiStory of Ireland in its relations to the British
government, and I confess, with the exception of
the dates and the names, I should not have recog-
nized the picture which the brilliant essayist drew.
I remember once Mrs. Butler read for us a strik-
ing extract from “ Marmion.” I have declaimed it,
listened to it, sung it, and crooned it over a hun-
dred times, and when I heard it announced it seem-
ed to me it would be but a tame piece to listen to;
but, when the deep studied and unequalled voice
and that soul that permeates all her public read-
ings gave me the piece anew, I thought I had
never seen it at all. So when I listened to this
history of Froude’s, taking out the names and the
dates, I did not recognize the story. No doubt, it

 

 

 

216 An American 072 t/ze “ Sz'tzzatz'mz.’

was fair enough to England. With rare justice, he
painted her as black as she deserved. That is hon-
estly to be said. But having given one broad,
liberal black pigment to the whole canvas, he took
it all off and brightened up the lines. As it was
said of Sir Joshua Reynolds that he would pro-
claim an artist the first of painters, and then in
detail deny him every quality of the artist, so
Froude, having told us in a sentence of marvel-
lous frankness, that Elizabeth was chargeable with
every fault that a ruler could commit, that she
lacked every quality of a worthy ruler, went
on, piece by piece, to say that in no other
possible way but the one she did could
she have met the exigencies of her reign.
Then, when you turn to Ireland, every statement,
Ithink, of the Englishman is false; false in this
sense, that it clutched at every idle tale which
reflected upon Ireland, while it subjected to just
and merciless scrutiny every story that told
against England. He painted the poverty, the
anarchy, the demoralization, the degradation of
Ireland for the last three centuries, as if it stood
out exceptional in EurOpe, as if every other king-
dom was bright, and this was the only dark and

 

 

 

 

An American on the “ Situation.” 217

disgusting spot on- the Continent; whereas, he
knew, and would not if questioned have denied,
that the same poverty, the same reckless immo-
rality, the same incredible ignorance which he
attributed to the pOpulation of Ireland, was true
of France at that day, true of England at the same
period, truer still of Scotland at every date that
he named. And then, when he came to the public
men of Ireland, he painted them monsters of cor-
ruption, steeped in the utmost subserviency, in
the most entire readiness to traffic for votes and
principles, when he knew that, all that being
granted, these men were only toiling and panting
in their narrow capacity to lift themselves up to
the level of the corruption of their English bro-
thers. He painted every leading Irishman but
Grattan either as a noisy demagogue or a childish
sentimentalist; and even Grattan, when he—had
said that he was honest, he finally ended him by
painting him as a simpleton. I know that you
can pick- out of his lectures here and there a just
sentence of acknowledgment; but I am endea-
voring to give the result of all the discourses—the
limpresSion that would be left on the patient
listener after hearing them all. Now, it seems to

 

 

 

 

218 An American on 1/26 “ Sz’tzmz‘z'ozz.”

me that all this indicatesthe partisan, the pampho
leteer, the pleader of a cause, not an impartial
searcher after a great truth, or the generous and
frank acknowledgment of a great national error.
Some men were surprised that an Englishman
should bring to this country a question apparently
of so little interest as the relations of Ireland, but
it would be only a superficial thinker that would
be led into that mistake. The relations of Ireland
are the gravest, the most important feature of
England’s political life. Eight years ago, I was
hissed in COOper Institute for having said that
England was a second-ratepower on the chess-
board of EurOpe; but to-day her journalists have
ceased to deny the fact, and are engaged in an
explanation of why she is so. And the two great
influences which have made her fall from a first-
class power is the neglect and oppressiOn of her
own masses, and seven centuries of unadulterated
and infamous oppression of Ireland. Mr. Froude
told us with epigrammatic force and great truth
that the wickedness of nations was always pun-
ished; that, no matter how long Providence
waited, in the end the wickedness of.a race was
answered by the punishment of their descendants.

 

 

 

An American on tlze “ situation.” 219

England has held for seven centuries to the lips
of her sister Ireland a poisoned chalice. Its ingre-
dients were the deepest contempt, the most un-
measured oppression, injustice, such as the world
hardly ever saw before. As Mr. Froude said,
Providence to-day is holding back that same cup
to the lips of the mother country, which has
within a dozen years felt the deep punishment of
her long injustice to Ireland. Ten years ago,
when Germany pressed to the wall the small king-
dom of Denmark, which gave to England her
Princess of Wales, England longed to draw her
sword; when, two years ago, Bismarck snubbed
her in the face of all Europe, again and again
insulted her, smote her actually in the face,
England longed to draw her sword, but she
knew right well that the first cannon she fired at
any first-rate power Ireland would stab her in
the back. Checkmated, she cannot move on the
chess-board of the great powers, and one of the
great causes of this sudden crippling of her
powers is the Irish question. I do not wonder
at all that the thoughtful Englishman should long
to explain to the world, if he can, how the steps
by which his country has been brought to this

 

 

 

220 An American on Me “ .Sz'tualzon.”

step have been inevitable ; that by no wit of states-
manship, by no generoSity of high-toned and
magnanimous honor, could she have avoided the
path in which she is treading. If Mr. Froude
could make out that pr0position, if he could con-
vince the world through the American peOple
that England accepted the inevitable fate which
the geographical proximity of Ireland had en-
tailed upon her, it would have gone half way to
wipe out the clots on his country’s fame. I do
not wonder he should make the attempt. I be-
lieve that, instead of England’s having conquered
Ireland, in the true, essential statement of the
case as it stands to-day Ireland has conquered
England. She has summoned her before the bar
of the civilized world to judge the justice of her
legislation; she has checkmated her as a power
on the chess-board of Europe; she has monopo-
lized the attention of her statesmen; she has
made her own island the pivot upon which the
destiny of England turns; and her last great
statesman and present prime minister, Mr. Glad-
stone, owes whatever fame hehas to the suppo-
sition that at last he has devised a way by which
he can conciliate Ireland and save his own coun-

 

 

 

A 72 American on the “ Situation.” 221

try. But in all the presentations of the case, it
seems to me that our English friend has been a
partisan and not a judge. Let me illustrate in
one or two instances what I consider tliejtistice
of this charge. The population of Ireland, pre-
vious to 1811, is wholly matter of guess. There
never was a census till after this century had
opened. Sir William Pettie, Tynes Morrison, the
secretary of Lord Mountjoy, and others have
formed an estimate of the different periods of the
population of Ireland. Now, what I charge as a
proof of partisanship is that, whenever it served
his purpose to adOpt a small guess in order to
excuse an English injustice or to bear hardly
down on the critical condition'of the Irish, he
has always selected the smallest possible estimate.
Whenever it served his purpose, on the contrary,
to exaggerate the moral inefficiency of the Irish
people, the divided councils, the quarrelsome
generations, the totally inefficient race, compares
with some interval of English rule, he has always
adopted the largest guess. For instance, the
historian’s estimate of the population of Ireland
made about the year 1600, the beginning of the
seventeenth century, by Tynes Morrison, puts it

 

 

 

222 An America-m on t/ze “ Situation.”

at from 500,000 to 600,000 men. Mr. Froude ad0pts
this when he wants to say that James I., in con-
fiscating six of the best counties in Ireland and
settling them on his followers, was not very harm-
ful, because, he says, there were very few inhabi-
tants in Ireland, and room enough for agreat many
more. I do not see myselfby what principle he
would justify a deposit in confiscating the coun-
ties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, Bristol,
and Worcester, turn out all the inhabitants, and
give the property to aliens, because there was a
great deal of vacant land in Nebraska! I do not
see any exact moral principle. Then he brings us
down to 1641—49, the era when Cromwell, with
14,000 tr00ps, subdued Ireland. Then it is his
purpose, as an advocate, to swell Ireland into
large proportions, and show you a great pe0ple
swept like a herd of stags before one single power-
ful English hand. Then he tells you that Sir
William Pettie has estimated the population of
Ireland in 1641 at a million and a half of human
beings, an estimate which Hallam calls prodigi-
ously vain, and it is one of the most marVellous
estimates in history. Here was an island, poverty-
stricken, scourged by war, robbed of its soil, and

 

 

 

 

 

An American on Me “ Situation.” 223

still it had trebled in population in about thirty-
eight years, when, with all our multitudinous and
uncounted emigration, with all our swelling pros-
perity, with all our industry and peace, with all
our fruitful lands, and no touch of war—with all
this, it took our country more time than that to
treble. It took France 166 years to treble; but
this poverty-stricken, war-ridden, decimated,
starved race trebled in a quarter the time. How-
ever, having put down that point, the advocate
goes on in order to exaggerate the trebled im-
morality and frightful fratricidal nature of
Irish life, and tells you that in the next nine
years this curious population, which had
trebled four times quicker than any nation
in Europe, lost 600,000 in the wars. How the
wars became so much more dangerous and bloody
and exhaustive in these nine years than in the
thirty-eight before nobody explains. He tells us
there were 900,000 men, women, and children
when Cromwell came to Ireland. These 900,000
were the old, the young, the women, the decrepit,
the home-keepers. Cromwell landed with 14,000
men, and how many did he meet? How many
did this population send out to meet him? Two

 

 

 

 

 

224 An American or: t/w “ Sz'tuaz‘z'on.”

hundred thousand men! Every other man in the
island went out. When France elevated herself
with gigantic energy to throwback the utter dis-
grace of ()ern‘ian :mnihilation, how many men did
she put into the field? One in fifty. When Ger-
many, moved to the contest for the imperial dig-
nity of Europe, raised all her power to crush
France in that terrific struggle, how many did she
raise? One in thirty-live. When the South, in
her terrible conflict with us, was said to have
emptied everything but her game-yards into the
camps, how many did she send out? One in
twenty. But this poverty-stricken, decimated,
Women and children population went out one in
tour!