CHAPTER XV.

THE OUTRAGE PERIOD INITIATED-O'CONNELL IN THE ASCENDANT-THE FIRST DASH OF CONCESSIONGRATTAN'S TRIUMPH AND DEFEAT-THE VETO.

RELAN

RELAND seems to have been prolific of acts of personal violence ever since it had a history, and presumably in prehistoric times also. A lively body in a lively mind, acting under a lively sense of personal wrong, and stimulated by a lively imagination concerning personal rights, seems to have been a lively combination of circumstances calculated to promote resort to a little lively physical force in all the Irish ages. Very little would seem to be enough to develop such tendencies into wholesale quantities.

As far as Ireland knew and could, Ireland had opposed and protested against the Union-had sought to cajole or extort from the Union a recognition of religious equality-had striven for a repeal of the Union-had groaned and struggled under its galling yoke to induce such modifications of unsuitable land laws as might be expected to relieve the pressure of the landlord upon the struggling tenants. These things had been done constitutionally. The Union Parliament had been repeatedly appealed to upon every leading point of recognized law, and the reply of the Union Parliament had been in effect, "We shall do by you what we think proper, and how and when we think proper. We have got you under our heel, and, for our own convenience, we mean to keep you there, and to teach you to know your place. Whether it is for your welfare or otherwise is a matter of indifference to us, as our own welfare and gratification are the first considerations; your only chance being to make the best you can of your misfortunes

ROBBERY OF NEWRY COACH.

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by cheerfully contributing to our aggrandisement. As for resistance to our heavy heel, or appeals to our unfeeling heart, the more you resist and the more you appeal the more we shall seek to keep you in conscious subjection." That was the Irish view of the case.

Disguise it how we may, that had always been the tone of the majority of the United Parliament, where Ireland was taunted with a pretence of representation by means of a powerless minority, with nothing but the right of registering the decrees of the adverse majority. To this the Irish had opposed every legitimate form of resistance. In the great rebellion that culminated in 1798 they had exhausted the last hope of regular military resistance. With the exception of Emmett's abortive project, nothing more had been tried in that direction. They had petitioned in the humblest terms over and over again. They had held meetings, and recorded the facts, and their just dissatisfaction with them. No one, not even leading English statesmen, denied the facts or disputed the hardship of them, but instead of redress the policy was coercion.

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the worst passions were cultivated in the popular mind; and it was inevitable that the outcome would be resistance, and appeal by secret and underhand resort to that personal violence that seems to have been indigenous and openly cultivated in all time. We have the record of the dark doings of the Threshers, but that was limited to a small part of the country. It was reserved for a later time to witness the cultivation and spread of revengeful sentiments, and their barbarous gratification, throughout the land-sentiments and barbarisms, the noxious weeds propagated by a hateful government in a too prolific soil.

Violence, for the sake of robbery alone, is so rare in Ireland that it would seem as though the criminal instincts of the population had been so much absorbed by revengeful outrage as to put mere robbery in the background. But a startling exception to the rule occurred in 1812. On the 4th of April the Newry coach (sarcastically called a "fly" coach) was stopped by a band of armed men, who fired into the coach (apparently with blank charges only, for no one was wounded),

and required the passengers to alight, handing them out, it would seem, with a certain degree of grim politeness of action, but accompanying the action by imprecations and violent threats as to what would occur if the passengers did not deliver up all they possessed. Two of the unfortunate passengers, Mrs. Hamilton and her daughter, were compelled to kneel down in the road on pain of being shot for not doing so. The result was that all the passengers' money, watches, trinkets, and superfluous clothes were plundered. It is said that one of the passengers lost two hundred pounds, another six hundred, and in all the booty was estimated at two thousand pounds' worth of property. In the midst of this, it is authentically recorded that one of the attacking party endeavoured to prevent robbery, declaring he would not allow the baggage to be touched. Other counsels prevailed, or the temptation was too strong for counsel; but it is evident the original cause of the attack was not plunder, though there is no record of any other motive; and whatever it was, it was eclipsed in public estimation by the magnitude of the robbery. Be that as it may, this prominent occurrence is regarded as the forerunner of violent outrages that afterwards became so peculiarly systematic throughout Ireland. It seems ridiculous to suppose that the various similar outrages, immediately succeeding that one happening to the passengers of the Newry coach, could have influenced political parties; but it is the earliest evidence that, accidentally or as a consequence, concessions to Ireland have usually, or always, succeeded or arisen out of widespread acts of personal violence.

In the very same month in which that outrage occurred, the United Parliament, as we have seen, rejected the Catholic claims by immense majorities. Apparently in imitation of the Newry coach affair, personal outrages rapidly multiplied throughout Ireland. In the succeeding summer a vast change was wrought. Lord Liverpool's ministry had succeeded that of Mr. Perceval. The Catholics of Ireland, though their convention was finally crushed, continued to hold aggregate meetings, and powerfully influenced the country. Their acknowledged leading champions at that time were Hussey O'Flannagan and Gorman

MOTIONS IN BOTH HOUSES.

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O'Grady, but the moving spirit was beginning to be recognized in Daniel O'Connell. He, the son of a small landed proprietor in Kerry, was born August 6, 1775. He was educated at the Catholic College of St. Omer and at the Irish seminary at Douay. He was at first intended for the Church; but as admission to the bar was conceded to Catholics in 1792, he was induced to become a barrister in 1798. His education not only made him intensely Catholic, but also anti-republican, so that he was not encumbered with those republican leanings that proved such serious obstacles, under the circumstances, to some of his patriotic contemporaries.

George Canning was just in his prime, and he, being strongly in favour of concessions, was deeply moved by the spirit-stirring reports that reached him of the Catholic speeches, the most effective of which were delivered at a great meeting of Catholics held in Dublin on the 18th of June, 1812. On the 22nd of the same month, after the reports of the Dublin meeting had reached London, Mr. Canning moved in the House of Commons "that the House will, early in the next session of Parliament, take into its most serious consideration the state of the laws affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in England and Ireland, with a view to such a final and conciliatory adjustment as may be conducive to the peace and strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all classes of his Majesty's subjects." Strikingly in contrast with the decision of the same Parliament in the previous spring, Canning's resolution was carried by 235 to 106. In the House of Lords a similar motion was brought forward by the Marquis of Wellesley. It was expressly opposed by Lord Eldon, and was rejected by a majority of one! This was regarded as a virtual defeat of the government. The Catholics were greatly elated, and the government was correspondingly alarmed, so the country was appealed to, and the ministry obtained an increased majority, it being evident that the subject of the war with France completely eclipsed the Catholic question in the estimation of most of the constituencies.

One of the first acts of the government under the new Parliament

was the prosecution of Mr. Maghee, of the Dublin Evening Post, wherein there had appeared a tirade against the Lord Lieutenant, then the Duke of Richmond. O'Connell defended Maghee in a speech that powerfully impeached the Lord Lieutenant, the judges, the jury, and the witnesses. Maghee being found guilty, and released under sureties to come up for judgment when called upon, published O'Connell's speech, which was considered such an aggravation of his offence that he was sentenced to pay a fine of £500, to be imprisoned in Kilmainham gaol for two years, and to give heavy security to keep the peace for seven years afterwards.

During these proceedings in Dublin, both parties were busily preparing petitions to Parliament, those in favour of the Catholics being about equally successful with those who were opposed to their claims. What was previously called the Catholic Committee was now called the Catholic Board, and in 1813 it met at the Exchange Rooms, and became daily more prominent, being characterized by speeches of increasing boldness. The Orange boys of the university combined to disturb the meetings, but they were defeated in their efforts, mainly, as O'Connell afterwards acknowledged, by the coal-porters, who rallied in support of the meetings, doing the "rough work," and eventually threatening to throw the students into the Liffey if they interrupted any more, and they never did again. The English Catholics, and some of their Protestant friends, also began to hold meetings about this time. Encouraged by such manifestations, and by recollections of the victory of Canning in the previous year, Grattan, with the concurrence of Canning, on the 25th of February, 1813, moved for a committee to take into consideration the Catholic claims. After a debate of four days, Grattan being materially aided by the petitions in his favour which were rolling in, the House, at the end of an extremely prolonged sitting, divided at four o'clock on the 2nd of March, and the motion was carried by a majority of 264 against 224, on the faith of which Mr. Grattan moved certain resolutions, which were also carried by 186 to 119. Elated with his success, Grattan introduced a bill on the 30th of April, which bill provided that Catholics might sit in Parliament