gotry and intolerance. The critical combination of circumstances attending the discussion of the catholic question, most glaringly betrayed the weakness, and exposed the duplicity of Lord Hardwicke's government. He had been selected from the mass of peerage, as the best qualified to resist the emancipation of Ireland, under the insidious mission of reconciling her to thraldom. The ordinary manœuvres of the Castle upon Lord Fingall, and other leading men of the catholic body, to induce them to hold back their petition had failed. His Lordship could not consistently with his duty to his employers back, countenance, or recommend their petition, however just the claims, however worthy the claimants. He now stood doubly pledged to oppose the welfare and felicity of Ireland, by playing the same part under one Minister, who had declared the measure essentially necessary for the safety of the Empire, as he had under another, who professed it to be destructive of the constitution. The deception was to be henceforth encreased. Hollow profession and adulation had 'ceased to misguide any, but the few, whose weakness, vanity, or interest rendered them contemptible to the body at large. Under the British Minister's assurance of a decided majority against the question, the Irish Viceroy affected to favour the Catholic's application by discountenancing counterpetitions, as encroaching upon the freedom of parliamentary debate. He was sensible in this dif'ficult situation, that he could lay no claim to sin

1805.

1805. cerity without acting. An example was to be made and the experiment was singul r.

Mr. Gif

fard's oppo

Mr. John Giffard, who has before been noticed sition to the for his envenomed opposition to the claims of his Catholic pe catholic countrymen, had long possessed on that

tition.

merit a predominating influence in the corporation of Dublin. In reward of his unabating fervor for the Protestant ascendancy, he had been 22 years in the enjoyment of the lucrative office of surveyor and gauger on the Custom-house quay, Dublin. There is no question, but that some general indistinct, and not very consistent intimation from the Lord Lieutenant had gone forth into circulation, that he wished no marked, much less virulent opposition to be made by any corporation to the question then pending in Parliament, which his Excellency was by pledge, instruction, and principle engaged to resist. Mr. Giffard was heedless, though not unapprized of this temporizing manoeuvre of the Lord Lieutenant. He acted consistently with his long avowed professions. Aware, that he then commanded the sympathies of the corporation of Dublin, he played the undaunted hero on his own arena. On the 26th of April, at the Easter quarter assembly, Mr. Giffard reminded the Sheriffs of one of the most important duties. they had to perform. They were, in fact, driven to the dire alternative, whether they should for the next year have Protestant Sheriffs, or a popish magistracy, to support the Protestant ascendancy. He pressed upon them the imperious necessity of putting to every candidate for the high and impor

tant office of Sheriff, a probationary test to exert his utmost energies to oppose the petition of the Roman Catholics to be relieved from grievances and disabilities, which (he roundly asserted) had no existence. He launched without check or discretion into every inflammable matter, that was likely to acuminate the Anti-Catholic passions of his audience from the walls of Derry to the barn of Scullabogue. He even attempted to excite their sympathies for their violated wives and daughters: crimes, of which even the slanderous Musgrave has acquitted the rebels. Upon these observations he engrafted-three resolutions, which were carried, against only three dissentient voices, namely, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Hutton, and Mr. Semple. 1. That the assembly beheld with sorrow an occasion for their interference in objections against demands made in a petition then before the Imperial Parliament from the Roman Catholics of Ireland, which if yielded to, would subvert the Constitution, and militate against every privilege hithertó maintained inviolable by our ancestors*.

* This first resolution was warmly debated by the dissentients. Mr. Giffard's reply on that occasion proved, that he was more deeply initiated into the mysteries of the system, than those, who had to play the part of mock support. It was not then in "his contemplation, that his arguments against Catholic emanci pation, would in the short space of three years be the conditi onal grounds for their professed friends advocating that measure in a future Parliament. Little was he aware, that the objection raised to foreign nomination under George III. was but a revival of Henry VIII's rejection of the spiritual jurisdiction of the See of Rome. The new fangled terms of negative and positive veto,

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gs. That the Catholic petition was at that time peculiarly ungracious, whilst the horrors of the last 10 years were so strong within the public recollection and feeling. 3. That a committee of five be appointed to draw up a counter petition to the Legislature to protect the Constitution against the inroads intended to be made by the petition. Mr. Gif-1 Lord Hardwicke anticipating the ease, with missal from which the victory would be gained, considered that the sacrifice of one man might in the eyes of many keep up the semblance of conciliation, dismissed Mr. Giffard from his situation. The circumstance was represented and felt variously by the opposite parties. Few at the time reflected, that the Lord Lieutenant had rather severely

fard's dis

office.

t..

had not then been even broached. Mr. Giffard has certainly the merit of having compressed into few and significant words, the detailed and pompous reasoning of some Statesmen upon that question, as will appear hereafter. He said, "An affinity be"tween certain inhabitants of his devoted country and Bona"parte, might without any of the mysteries of genealogy be easily traced. Bonaparte makes a Pope. A Pope makes Popish bishops. Popish bishops make Popish Priests, and Popish Priests fabricate Irish Papists. Whilst the latter, true to a common principle of predilection for their kindred, it is scarce to be wondered at, that Bonaparte should find friends "and advocates amongst his spiritual connections and new-fan

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gled cousins." Whoever thinks so lightly of the apostolic succession of Church Governors, as to imagine, that it may be interrupted or diverted by the whim, vice, or power of temporal potentates, will of course give into the reasoning of Mr. Giffard and his more dignified followers. But it will be remem bered, that the Irish nation has submitted to three centuries of persecution for their conscientious difference upon this very point.

punished Mr. Giffard's mode of opposing a measure, which his Excellency was doubly pledged to resist. Like every hollow measure of state, it offended one party, and did not satisfy the other. At an adjourned Quarter Assembly on the 3d of May, that Gentleman addressed the meeting at great length and with much warmth.* He went through a highly coloured detail of his own meritorious services in the system, and closed with an animated profession of his unabated zeal for church and state. The resolutions, which his friend Mr. M'Auley proposed to and were carried by the meeting, shew the general tenor and spirit of his

* Mr. Giffard on this occasion well knew, that Mr. Grattan was at that time in England, to take his seat in the Imperial Parliament; and fearing no resistance in that assembly, he seized the opportunity of retorting and at the same time of verifying what Mr. Grattan said to him on the hustings, in 1801, (vide. I. vol.) He boasted of having the authority of the confidential Secretary of the Chief Governor, the Rev. Dr. Lindsay (now Bishop of Kildare, that the order of Government to dismiss him from his employment was solely the result of his endeavours to carry the counterpetition at the original Quarter Assembly: but denied, that the dismissal originated with Government. He was sure, Lord Hardwicke himself could not have authorized it. He attributed it to the interference and influence of Mr. Grattan, "that viper of sedition, the libeller of his King, who is

gone to agitate the minds of his Majesty's British subjects, after having excited commotions in this country, which had nearly deluged "it with the blood of its worthy and loyal inhabitants." He denied having ever received notice of his Excellency's wishes, that the counterpetition should not to be presented. Had he however received such notice, it would not bave prevented him from exercising his freedom of debate in that assembly. Ile justified his heat by the recollection of his murdered son..

1804.