320 CURRAN ON ORR'S EXECUTION. [CHAP. IX. choly reflection, so much spilling of blood—guilty or innocent. I don't believe you will have peace. I have not seen the paper since the 14th. I send to-day to Limerick, and shall get them, they come now regularly. Mrs. Grattan is very well, and has received great benefit from the waters. You will have, I believe, no peace. I read part of the pamphlet it is no great thing-it labours and labours to make out a paradox. Yours ever, H. GRATTAN. ticularly. An extract of what he addressed to the jury is worthy of a place in any history. "Let me beg of you to suppose, that any one of you had been the writer of this very severe expostulation with the Viceroy, and that you had been the witness of the whole progress of this never-to-be-forgotten catastrophe. Let me suppose that you had known the charge upon which Mr. Orr was apprehended, the charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and disgraced his country, of pledging himself to restore the people of his country to their place in the constitution, and of binding himself never to be the betrayer of his fellow-labourers in that enterprise; that you had seen him, upon that charge, removed from his industry, and confined to a jail; that through the slow and lingering progress of twelve tedious months you had seen him confined in a dungeon, shut out from the common use of air and of his own limbs; that day after day you had marked the unhappy captive, cheered by no sound but the cries of his family, or the clinking of chains; that you had seen him at last brought to his trial; that you had seen the vile and perjured informer deposing against his life; that you had seen the drunken, and worn out, and terrified jury give in a verdict of death; that you had seen the same jury, when their returning sobriety brought back their consciences, prostrate themselves before the humanity of the bench, and pray that the mercy of the crown might save their characters from the reproach of an involuntary crime, their consciences from the torture of eternal self-condemnation, and their souls from the indelible stain of innocent blood. Let me suppose that you had seen the respite given, and that contrite and honest recommendation transmitted to that seat where mercy was presumed to dwell; that new and before unheard-of crimes are discovered against the informer; that the royal mercy seems to relent, and that a new respite is sent to the prisoner; that time is taken, as the learned counsel for the crown expressed it, to see whether mercy could be extended or not; that after the period of lingering deliberation had passed, a third respite is transmitted; that the unhappy captive himself feels the cheering hope of being restored to a family that he has adored, to a character that he had never stained, and to a country that he had ever loved; that you had seen his wife and children upon their knees, giving those tears to gratitude, which their locked and frozen hearts could not give to anguish and despair, and imploring the blessings of Eternal Providence upon his head who had graciously spared the father, and restored him to his children; that you have seen the olivebranch sent into his little ark--but no sign that the waters had subsided. "Alas! nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, nor friends nor sacred home!" No seraph in mercy unbars his dungeon, and leads CHAP. IX. MR. GRATTAN IN RETIREMENT. MR. GRATTAN TO MR. M'CAN. 321 Limerick, 27th Sept. 1797. DEAR M'CAN,-I wrote, by a private hand, a letter which I suppose you got on Sunday or Monday—it mentioned that I got your draft. I told you there would be no peace. How do we stand as to revenue? Is there to be a meeting of Parliament? I tremble at the state of thingshere, however, I find quiet and health-the State cannot say so much. The waters have done me so much good, and Mrs. Grattan also, that I shall stay for ten days longer, perhaps a fortnight. him forth to light and life—but the minister of death hurries him to the scene of suffering and shame-where, unmoved by the hostile array of artillery and armed men collected together, to secure or to insult, or to disturb him, he dies with a solemn declaration of his innocence, and utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty of his country. Let me now ask you, if any of you had addressed the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a subject, in what language would you have conveyed the feelings of horror and indignation? Would you have stooped to the meanness of qualified complaint? Would you have been mean enough- -but I entreat your forgiveness; I do not think meanly of you; had I thought so meanly of you, I would not suffer my mind to commune with you as it has done; had I thought you that base and vile instrument, attuned by hope and by fear, into discord and falsehood, whose vulgar string no groan of suffering could vibrate, no voice of integrity or honour could speak,-let me honestly tell you, I should have scorned to fling my hand across it; I should have left it to a fitter minstrel. * * * * “Gentlemen of the Jury,—If you think that the man who ventures at the hazard of his own life, to rescue from the deep the drowned honour of his country, must not presume upon the guilty familiarity of plucking it up by the locks, I have no more to say. Do a courteous thing. Upright and honest jurors! find a civil and obliging verdict against the printer! and when you have done so, march through the ranks of your fellow-citizens to your own homes, and bear their looks as you pass along! Retire to the bosom of your families and your children, and when you are presiding over the morality of the parental board, tell those infants, who are to be the future men of Ireland, the history of this day. Form their young minds by your precepts, and confirm those precepts by your own example; teach them how discreetly allegiance may be perjured on the table, or loyalty be forsworn in the jury-box; and when you have done so, tell them the story of Orr—tell them of his captivity, of his children, of his crime, of his hopes, of his disappointments, of his courage, and of his death: and when you find your little hearers hanging from your lips, when you see their eyes overflow with sympathy and sorrow, and their young hearts bursting with the pangs of anticipated orphanage, tell them that you had the boldness and the justice to stigmatize the monster who had dared to publish the transaction!!!" 322 MR. PETER BURROWES. [CHAP. IX. If you happen to see Mr. Peter Burrowes,* mention me to him in the warmest manner-I have a very high opinion of him. I got the books, and I thank you. Is it possible that Sheridan could have written the strange attack on me?Alas!-I speak from what I hear, for I never read these attacks that would be endless labour-I find that I know men but little. Yours ever, H. GRATTAN. MR. GRATTAN TO MR. M'CAN. Castleconnell, Oct. 3, 1797. DEAR M'CAN,-I shall see you in the course of a fortnight. You see stocks look down-rely on it they will be lower-we shall be eaten up with armies. The conduct of Government regarding Ireland, depend on it, gives confidence to France, and is an additional obstacle to peace. How is Curran ? I am much better. War-war-you see war, and this country made the theatre of it. There was a moment when all this could have been prevented. I am sorry our quondam friend Charlest has acted by you so pitifully. I should never have thought it; but I don't know men. God bless you!-Yours, H. GRATTAN. MR. GRATTAN TO MR. M'CAN. Castleconnell, October 11, 1797. MY DEAR M'CAN,-I got a letter this moment from one of our children-that the Orange boys have got up in our country near us. Probably 'tis a vague report; but *One of Mr. Grattan's warmest and most attached friends. He sat in Parliament at the Union, and gave that measure every opposition. His speech at the bar in 1812, on the trial of the Catholic Delegates, in answer to the Attorney-general (Mr. Saurin), was a masterpiece of legal ability. Sir Arthur Piggott, (the English Attorney-general of 1806,) a great authority, assured me that it was unanswered and unanswerable. He expired in London, at a very advanced age, (upwards of 90,) in 1841. + Charles Sheridan:-this regards some private transactions. The Roman Catholics were apprehensive of being attacked by the Orangemen, and they assembled in great numbers between Bray and Arklow, to defend themselves. The yeomanry were, for the most part, an exclusive corps, which widened the breach between the parties; and in addition the houses burned were chiefly those of the Catholics. The circumstance here referred to I cannot now forget. The serjeant of the Powerscourt Yeomanry was clerk of the parish, and schoolmaster. He used to teach me to write; and coming one morning rather late, he made an apology to the French tutor (Mativet), saying, he had been out most of the night with his corps, and that they had burned a man's house not CHAP. IX.] LETTER TO REV. MR. BERWICK. 323 if true, I wish the children were sent to Mrs. Bermingham's till our return. Be so good as to enquire from Mr. Mativett about this report as soon as you receive this letter. I shall leave Castleconnell on Saturday, and go to Sir John Tydd's for three days; so stop my letters and paper, and direct to me, under cover, to him.-Yours, HENRY GRATTAN. MR. GRATTAN TO THE REV. MR. BERWICK. 26th October, 1797. TO MY DEAR BERWICK, health and happiness ! — I will go to see you when Mrs. G. will permit; but I will certainly go. I wish you joy-am happy at the safety of your lady, Madam Anne. I hope the boy will not be seized by an active magistrate, as a United Irishman. The magistracy have done as extraordinary things. I will go to Lord Pery,§ when I go to you. Your letter I got yesterday; it went to Tinnehinch-I was not there; it went to Clare-I was not there;-a gentleman found far from Tinnehinch. They approached it in the dead of the night. One of the party discharged his musket in the thatch, and set the house on fire. I persuaded the tutor to bring me to the place; and never shall I forget the dismal scene, or free my mind from the melancholy impression! I almost think I behold the smoking ruins, and the burned walls,—the little furniture partly consumed-wholly destroyed. Terror seemed to reign around. The few who dared to look, feared to speak; it was a scene of woe and desolation-" a death-like silence, and a dread repose." The poor peasant had fled-he and his family were driven amidst the flames upon the wide world-naked-penniless; his property destroyed his character blasted-an outcast—an outlaw-branded as a traitor-and for no earthly reason whatever ; but some one chose to suspect him—that sufficed. At this period no insurrection had broken out ; but acts such as these were the cause of it: and when men affect to be surprised that the Irish should have revolted, the only wonder is, that when such tyranny and cruelty forced them to draw their swords, they had not courage to sheath them in the heart of the Minister! Holt (a Protestant, in the county of Wicklow), was similarly treated. His house was burned by a gentleman whose family is well-known; and he assigns this as a reason for his taking up arms. He kept the county in a state of disturbance for a considerable period.-Memoirs of Holt. * His sister-in-law, then widow of his early friend Bermingham. She resided at the Blackrock, eight miles from Tinnehinch. The French tutor, whose escape from being hanged by the ancient Britons will be mentioned hereafter. Her son Walter Berwick, now assistant barrister for the county of Waterford, and one of her majesty's counsel-at-law. § He resided at St. Edmondsbury, on the banks of the River Liffey, near Mr. Berwick's. 324 CHARLES SHERIDAN. [CHAP. IX. it on the road, in its travels, wrapped it in a frank, and I received it yesterday unopened and unviolated. What do you think of the state of things? Pitt is more likely to depose the King of England, than restore the King of France. I am sorry about poor Sheridan; he was a pleasant wrangler, and has made a fool of himself by being too sad a courtier. He speaks of the people like Fitzgibbon; but little Fitz has an excuse, he has a snap by nature, and is a vinegar-merchant by profession, who throws his aigre flasks at the people. The other seemed to laugh at all that, and aspired to something higher. I am sorry for his health; I am sorry for his reputation. He had written a pamphlet, in which he attacked Mr. Grattan. |