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CHAP. IX.] HIS CELEBRATED LETTER," ETC. 305

greatly provoked and abused in the extreme, charged with every bad intention, and every deed and word short of high treason.-Curran had been driven from Chancery by one judge,* and censured for being counsel to the United Irish by another;† so that their opponents had entirely disentitled themselves to any lenity or forbearance. But whatever may have been the criticism of the times, such nice distinctions will be unknown in the records of its history; the production will live not only on account of its talent, but its truth. To the Irish minister it will ever remain a bitter reproach,-of the memory of Mr. Pitt the severest, because the justest condemnation. The concluding passage is the only one that is here introduced :

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"Self-legislation is life, and has been sought for, as for being. It was that principle that called forth resistance to the House of Stuart, and baptized with royalty the House of Hanover, when the people stood sponsors for their allegiance to the liberty of the subject; for Kings are but satellites, and your freedom is the luminary that has called them to the skies. It was with a view therefore to restore liberty, and with a view also to secure and immortalize royalty, by restoring to the people self-legislation, we proposed reform. A principle of attraction about which the King and people would spin on quietly and insensibly in regular movements, and in a system common to them both. No-no-no-the half-million,' said the Minister, that is my principle of attraction. Among the rich, I send my half-million, and I dispatch my coercion among the people.' His devil went forth-he destroyed liberty and property-he consumed the presshe burned houses and villages-he murdered, and he failed. 'Recal your murderer,' we said, 'and in his place dispatch our messenger-try conciliation. You have declared you wish the people should rebel, to which we answer, God forbid !—rather let them weary the royal ear with petitions, and let the dove be again sent to the King; it may bring back the olive-and as to you, thou mad Minister! who pour in regiment after regiment to dragoon

*Lord Clare.

VOL. IV.

† Carleton. See ante, Vol. III. p. 422.

X

306 LETTER TO HIS FELLOW-CITIZENS.

[CH. IX. the Irish, because you have forfeited their affections, we beseech, we supplicate, we admonish,--reconcile the people -combat revolution by reform-let blood be your last experiment.' Combat the spirit of democracy by the spirit of liberty-the wild spirit of democratic liberty by the regulated spirit of organized liberty, such as may be found in a limited monarchy with a free Parliament; but how accomplish that but by reforming the present Parliament, whose narrow and contracted formation in both countries excludes popular representation-i. e. excludes self-legislation-i. e. excludes liberty, and whose fatal compliances, the result of that defective representation, have caused, or countenanced, or sanctioned, or suffered for a course of years, a succession of measures which have collected upon us such an accumulation of calamity-and which have finally at an immense expence, and through a sea of blood, stranded these kingdoms on a solitary shore, naked of empire, naked of liberty, and naked of innocence, to ponder on an abyss which has swallowed up one part of their fortunes, and yawns for the remainder.

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May the Kingly power, that forms one estate in our constitution, continue for ever; but let it be as it professes to be, and as by the principles and laws of these countries, it should be, one estate only-and not a power constituting one estate, creating another, and influencing a third.

"May the Parliamentary constitution prosper; but let it be an operative, independent, and integral part of the constitution, advising, confining, and sometimes directing, the Kingly power.

"May the House of Commons flourish; but let the people be the sole author of its existence, as they should be the great object of its care.

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May the connexion with Great Britain continue; but let the result of that connexion be, the perfect freedom, in the fairest and fullest sense, of all descriptions of men, without distinction of religion.

"To this purpose we spoke-and speaking this to no purpose, withdrew. It now remains to add this supplication:However it may please the Almighty to dispose of Princes, or of Parliaments-MAY THE LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE BE IMMORTAL!

"HENRY GRATTAN.”

CHAP. IX.] INTEMPERANCE OF LORD CLARE. 307

The disorders and the misfortunes of the country were greatly increased by the character and tone of the Irish Government, composed of men violent, prejudiced, and intemperate the principal of these was Lord Clare, who seemed not to possess the power of keeping his temper under any controul whatsoever, but allowed it to grow overbearing and petulant in the extreme; accompanying it with an insulting style and address, so that his passions seemed to get the complete mastery of his understanding, and his judgment ceased to direct or influence. At the opening of the session he had begun with a violent attack on the leaders of the Opposition, and on the great measures that had been obtained for the country: he went through their history from 1778 to 1797, denouncing the friends of the country as enemies to all well-regulated Government: to the connexion between the two countries, and attributing to them and to their speeches, the demands put forward by the Catholics, and the discontent that prevailed among the people.

This style being quickly imitated, proved to be of great disservice, and very injurious, not merely to the gravity of debate, but to the tone and temper that should regulate the proceedings of a deliberative assembly; and above all, when such grave affairs distracted the country.

The first victim of his anger was Lord Aldborough: -he had disapproved of some parts of the address at the opening of the session, in consequence of which Lord Clare fell upon him with bitter scorn, and relentless rage. The former replied with becoming spirit, but introduced much extraneous matter relating to a cause in court, in which he was interested, and on which the Chancellor had decided, in his opinion, partially and unjustly. This speech Lord Aldborough published; it was

308

TRIAL OF LORD ALDBOROUGH. [CHAP. IX.

represented to the House by Lord Clare, as libellous; the Lords directed the Attorney-General to prosecute Lord Aldborough, and he was subsequently tried,* found guilty, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, and a fine of one thousand pounds.

Lord Clare's attack upon the proceedings of 1782, and upon those men who upheld the interests of the country, and the rights of the people, was not, however, equally successful. Mr. Grattan took a prompt opportunity of defending them,-a step indispensably necessary, as the leaders of the Opposition were now so assailed, that they would have soon ceased to be respected, if these repeated attacks by the Government party had been suffered to pass without reprehension. Accordingly, on the debate on the Channel trade, he alluded to the conduct which had been adopted towards his friends, which he vindicated from the aspersions cast upon them, defending the measures of 1782, and the subsequent efforts that were made on behalf of the rights of the country. He concluded

as follows:-

"It is not opposition, nor the language of opposition, nor public injury; but it is insult added to injury; it is both the injury and the insult, inflamed by a feverish and idle tongue, and by the public nuisance of gross, petulant, and offensive manners. These are the circumstances that irritated the people,-the little penknife of the implacable pleader and his dirty quill, mangling his country's character, and her wounds, are best calculated to make her frantic.

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*

"Against such charges and statements, I beg to enter my protest, as opprobrious and pusillanimous, as arraigning past concessions, as tending to prevent future ones, betraying the fair pretensions of the country, disparaging for seventeen years back, without distinction, all her exertions; as fraught with charges against the public and the

* Mr. Downes, afterwards Chief Justice, who tried the Catholic delegates in 1812, presided at this trial.

CHAP. IX.] MR. PITT'S DISAPPROVAL.

309

individuals demonstratively false, and introduced with a lurking and dirty view, to flatter a British court at the expence of the Irish character, and conveyed in an unmannered strain of feminine intemperance."

It may, however, be questioned, on the whole, whether Lord Clare was not mismanaged, and whether it would not have been better to have left him to himself. Mr. Pitt would have soon grown tired both of him and his party, and have treated them before the Union, as he did after it, with neglect. He did not approve of his measures; for when Mr. Sheridan made a motion* in the British House of Commons respecting Ireland, Mr. Pitt's friend (George Canning) went across the House, and told him that Pitt disapproved of the proceedings of Lord Clare as much as he (Sheridan) did, but shaped, as the motion was, that Mr. Pitt could not support it. Unfortunately, the United Irishmen set him up, by their violence and illegal conduct, and gave him the victory. If they had not joined the French against England, Mr. Pitt would not have joined Lord Clare against them; but when he found that they proceeded to treason, he abandoned them. Their error was in joining with France: had it not been for this, they would have succeeded; but when Pitt found that they abandoned England for France, he abandoned them to Lord Clare. It would have been a wiser course for the Opposition to have protested equally against him and against the United Irishmen; they could have been moderate, but firm, and would have shown more prudence if they had been less violent. They should have stated, that they would support Government if they acted mildly; if not, that they would retire. But politicians, in the heat of action, cannot become philosophers; and, certainly, they had every reason to be

* Motion on supply, 1797.

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