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1828.

rather crofts, worth forty shillings each, and giving the CHAP. tenants a right in them for life, in order to increase the political influence of the owner of the estates. The situation of Ireland-without commerce or manufactures over the greater part of its surface, and consequently without outlets for the younger sons of the landholders-rendered this multiplication of voters a great object to the proprietors, because it promised to increase their influence at the Castle of Dublin, from whence commissions in the army or political appointments might flow. The priests cordially supported the same system, because, by multiplying the holders of land who had a bare subsistence and no more, it both increased their influence and enlarged the circle from which the heavy fees on marriages and births, the chief source of their income, were derived. Finally, the extension of the elective franchise to Catholics by Mr Pitt, in 1793, let in the whole cultivators of that persuasion to the suffrage-a portentous state of things in a country possessing at that period above a million of cultivators. It is a curious but instructive circumstance, that the greatest misfortunes of Ireland in recent times have arisen from the extension Ann. Reg. 1828, 122, to its inhabitants of the most highly-prized privileges of 123; MarEnglish subjects, and for which her own patriots had 472. most warmly and resolutely contended.1

1

tineau, i.

lic Associa

to tion gets the

complete

the forty

Mr O'Connell, and the other able leaders of the 113. Catholic Association, saw the advantage which this state The Cathoof things would afford them, and prepared to turn it the best advantage. He did not destroy the battery, command of but seized it, and turned its guns against the enemy. shilling freeHitherto the landowners had entirely directed the votes holders. of their tenantry, and both would not have been more surprised if the mountains had fallen, or the earth opened beneath their feet, than if any separation had taken place between them. But now the fatal effects of the domination of a foreign power over the priesthood at once appeared. In obedience to orders received from Rome,

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1828.

66

CHAP. and communicated through the Catholic hierarchy, the clergy of that persuasion everywhere set themselves with the utmost vigour to aid the efforts of the Association. In Mr Sheil's words, one of their ablest supporters, every altar became a tribune." Those who were slow in the work, or leagued with the enemy, were denounced in all the churches as enemies to God and His Anointed. Immense was the effect of this new engine applied to the human mind. The inflammatory harangues of the itinerant orators, who were sent down into every part of the country by the Catholic Association, were aided by the still more powerful voice which issued from the altar, and proclaimed the rewards of heaven to those who engaged in the good fight, the pains of hell to such as were backward in the cause of the true faith. The effect of this, and of the admirable organisation which, by means of the hierarchy and local clergy, the Church of Rome had established over the whole country, and their unbounded influence over their flocks, was, that the entire peasantry of Ireland were prepared, at the next election, i.472; Ann. to vote for the candidate of the Association in opposition Reg. 1828, 122, 123. to their landlords; and all other influences were utterly swept away.1

1 Martineau,

114.

nell elected

for the county of Clare.

The first trial of the new system was made in the Mr O'Con- county of Clare, on occasion of the vacancy occasioned by the acceptance by Mr Vesey Fitzgerald of the office of President of the Board of Trade under the Duke of Wellington's administration. It proved eminently successful. There was no impediment by the existing law to a Roman Catholic sitting in either House of Parliament, excepting the oaths to be taken by persons elected before they took their seat, which were purposely intended to exclude persons of that persuasion, and had hitherto effectually done so. Mr O'Connell, however, whose reputation as a lawyer deservedly stood very high in Ireland, pledged himself and his legal character that he would sit and vote in the English House without

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taking the oaths; and in this he was supported by the CHAP. elaborate written opinion of Mr Butler, an eminent English Catholic conveyancer. Fortified by this authority, Mr O'Connell presented himself as a candidate for the county of Clare, and the whole Catholic influence of Ireland was immediately brought to bear on its electors. Mr Fitzgerald was the sitting member-a Whig, an advocate of Catholic emancipation, a Cabinet Minister, and supported warmly by the whole body of proprietors, by whom he was much beloved. All these influences, however, which in former times would have been allpowerful, were blown to the winds by the first blast of the Catholic Association. Its emissaries and the priests traversed the county in every direction. Night and day the work of agitation went on-crowds assembled in every church, around every chapel if an orator arrived at dead of night, he was surrounded by a crowd in five minutes. Nothing was thought of, nothing done, but the work of agitation. When the election began, Mr O'Connell was proposed by O'Gorman Mahon, the secretary of the Association. Bands of electors, escorted by excited crowds headed by their priests, came pouring in from all quarters—all old influences and connections were snapped asunder, all former obligations forgotten. The result was, that, after a few days' polling, Mr Fitzgerald retired from the contest, and Mr O'Connell was declared duly elected. An objection taken to his return, upon the 1 Ann. Reg. ground of his being a Roman Catholic, was rightly over- 1828, 123, ruled by the assessor, upon the ground that there was tineau, i nothing to hinder a Roman Catholic sitting in Parlia- Hughes, ment except the taking of the test, and that it could 175. not be anticipated ab ante that he would refuse to do so.1

129; Mar

472, 473;

vii. 174,

results

Vast was the sensation produced by this victory, not 115. in Ireland merely, but over the whole empire. The Immense Catholics were everywhere in raptures. Mr O'Connell of this was lauded to the skies as a saviour, a deliverer; and triumph. in the first moments of his triumph he boasted, apparently

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CHAP. with reason, that at the next election he would displace eight-and-twenty county and borough members, and return such a majority of Catholics as would "make the Great Captain start," and compel a recognition of their rights even from a reluctant House of Peers. The Catholic Association had never been proceeded against under the Act of Parliament intended to put it down, from the certainty that the unhappy requisite of unanimity in the jury would cause any prosecution, how well founded soever, to fail; and now, after having gained such a victory, it became more audacious than ever, and was, in truth, the governing power in the country. The Catholics became so threatening, they met so often, and in such enormous masses, that the Orangemen in the north, justly alarmed, organised themselves in a counter-defensive league, which was immediately denounced in the most violent terms by the Roman Catholics. It is a curious circumstance, that none are so alive to the dangers of any proceedings, or declaim against them so violently, as those who are engaged in, or prepared to set about, similar acts themselves.1

1 Ann. Reg.

1828, 129,

130; Mar

tineau, i. 474.

116.

Mr Law

less's pro

north.

So bold did the Catholic leaders become, and so fully did they rely on the number and organisation of their gress to the followers, that one of the most unscrupulous of their number, Mr Lawless, openly boasted that he would beard the lion in his den, and enter the strongholds of the Orange party in the north at the head of fifty thousand Catholics. In effect, he did enter several Protestant towns, at the head of thirty thousand, banded, and marching in military array. This so roused the Orangemen that they mustered in similar numbers, and on the day on which he had announced his intention of entering Armagh, they were assembled in its vicinity in such numbers that he was obliged to turn aside and desist from his purpose. He proceeded to Ballybay in Monaghan, which he entered, according to his own account, at the head of 250,000 followers, and who perhaps might amount

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to a fifth of the number. So sturdy, however, was the CHAP. resistance of the Protestants, that it led to bloodshed in some quarters; and the Catholic Association, not deeming things sufficiently advanced, issued orders to stop these tumultuous assemblages, which order was immediately and universally obeyed: so complete was the discipline and organisation of the country under their orders. Meanwhile crime everywhere diminished and agrarian outrages disappeared, insomuch that the judges everywhere congratulated the grand juries upon the unprecedented lightness of the calendar!-A perilous and portentous state of things, when faction and party spirit have gained such a Ann. Reg. command of a country that it has fettered even the ten- 140; Mardency to crime itself, and turned outrage, from separate 479. acts, into one united volume to overwhelm the State.1

1

1828, 135,

tineau, 476,

description

at this

The condition of Ireland at this period was described 117. with not less truth than eloquence, in a speech delivered Mr Sheil's by Mr Sheil, a leading orator of the Catholics in the Asso- of Ireland ciation in Dublin, in the end of September. "The period. Catholics," he said, “have attained the perfection of national organisation; they have almost reached the excellence of military array. But an immense population, thus united, thus affiliated, thus controlled, in such a state of complete subordination, affords matter of the most solemn meditation. A feeling of expectation has begun to manifest itself among the people; they put painful questions. But if the state of the Catholics be deserving of attention, that of the Protestants calls also for remark. It is in vain for us to hide it from ourselves. The Protestants are becoming every day more alienated by our display of power. The great proprietors, and all who have an influence in the State, are anxious for a settlement of the question; but still their pride is wounded, and they see with some disrelish the attitude of just equality which we have assumed. Our Protestant advocates, with some exceptions, declined to attend our late meetings. As individuals, I hold them in no sort of account; but their

VOL. IV.

K

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