had no knowledge; and the cultivation, the beauty, and the prosperity of the country, and the virtue and happiness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed, whatever might be the results of military operations. God forbid that I should be a witness, much less an actor, in the scene! And I only hope that the King's government will consider well what I have stated to your lordship; will ascertain, as it is in their power, the actual expenses of employing a certain number of men in this country, beyond that of employing them at home or elsewhere; and will keep up their force here on such a footing, as will, at all events, ensure their possession, without keeping the transports; if it does not enable their commander to take advantage of events, and assume the offensive." This letter decided the fate of the Peninsula. Massena was driven out of Portugal before the close of the year, and the question of French conquest was at an end!
In 1811, the Marquess Wellesley retired from the cabinet. He had expressed opinions on the abilities of Mr Perceval, which rendered it necessary that either one or other should resign. The nominal cause of difference was the Roman Catholic question; on which Perceval was as well-informed and principled, as the Marquess was ignorant and fanciful; his chief argument being, that the Protestant Church in Ireland was feeble – an argument which should have led him to look for the remedy in giving it additional strength. But the only view which reasoners like the Marquess have ever taken on the subject is, the force of numbers – "The Roman Catholics are three times as numerous as the Protestants." An argument which would have been equally valid against the original attempt to spread Christianity among the heathen nations, and would be equally valid still, for Paganism is still more populous than Christendom. In fact, the argument would be equally valid against any attempt whatever to enlighten mankind; for the ignorant are always the overwhelming majority. The true enquiry would have been, are the opinions of the Roman Catholics consistent with a Protestant throne? is their divided allegiance perilous or not to a Protestant government? are their religious prejudices consistent with the rights of the national religion? We have now the melancholy proof of the shallowness of all the declamation on the subject. We see that power has been used only for public disturbance; that pledges are scoffed at; and that, in the fifteenth year of this boasted conciliation, Ireland is more turbulent, faction more violent, prejudice more envenomed, and life more in hazard than ever.
The unfortunate death of Mr Perceval by the hand of a half-frantic ruffian, who was resolved to shoot one of the ministry, and in whose way the prime minister unhappily came, threw open the cabinet once more. A long negotiation followed, in which Lords Wellesley and Moira having failed to form an administration, Lord Liverpool was finally appointed premier, and retained power until 1827; a period of fifteen years, when he was struck by apoplexy, and died in December of the following year.
The policy towards Ireland was now sinking into that feeble and flexible shape, which has always characterised the predominance of Whig councils. The Marquess Wellesley had made some showy speeches on emancipation; and in 1822, and as if with the object of showing him the utter vanity of attempting to reform the bitterness of Popish faction by any measures of concession, the Popish advocate was sent to govern Ireland. He found the country in a state of the most frightful disturbance; half a century of weak and unstatesmanlike compliances had produced their natural effect, in party arrogance; and demands and conspiracy at once threw the ministry into confusion, and set the law at defiance. But the Marquess was received with national cordiality by the people. The city was illuminated on his arrival; the different public bodies gave him banquets; and, known as his opinions were on the Popish question, the Protestants forgot his prejudices in the recollection that he was an Irishman. But there was a faction still to be dealt with, which, having no real connexion with the substantial interests of the country, and living wholly on public credulity, uttered its ominous voice in the midst of all those acclamations. A paper from that faction lost no time in "reminding the Irish Catholics of the tantalizing and bitter repetition of expectations raised only to be blasted, and prospects of success opened to close on them in utter darkness;" finishing by a significant warning, "not to rely too much on the liberal intentions of the Marquess Wellesley."
The result of his lordship's government may be easily told. His personal favours to the Papists were received in the usual style of instalments; while the Protestant corporation stood aloof, and drank with renewed potations "the glorious and immortal memory of William III." Such is the dignity of politics in Irish deliberations. At length the unlucky conciliator had his eyes opened by the nature of things, and was compelled to apply to parliament for the insurrection act. The Attorney-general Plunket, the ablest advocate of the Papists, was compelled, by a similar necessity, to write a long official letter, in which he stated – "That he feared in five or six counties, great numbers indeed of the lower classes had been involved in the conspiracy; some of them from a love of enterprise and ready disposition for mischief; some of them on a principle of counteraction to associations of an opposite description; but most of them, he should hope, from terror on the one hand, and the expectation of impunity on the other." There was the point, which no man comprehended better in theory than this clever law-officer, and none better in practice than the Popish peasant. "This expectation, however," he observes, "must now be effectually removed, and the terror of the law, I trust, be substituted in place of the terror of the conspirators." Adding, "your Excellency will observe with regret, that the association has been founded on a principle of religious exclusion!"
Such had been the fruit of concession. The opposite plan, so often suggested, and so essentially necessary, was then tried; and its fruits too followed. Almost the whole of Ireland became instantly tranquillized; men were no longer murdered in open day; cattle no longer maimed; houses no longer burned. The Marquess thus writes the English government: – "During the summer and autumn of 1822, the measures sanctioned by Parliament for the restoration of tranquillity, combined with other causes, have produced such a degree of quiet, that no necessity existed for my usual communications."
We pass rapidly over the contemptible squabbles of the party mobs which fill up the modern history of Irish politics, and which must have deeply disgusted a statesman who had seen public life on the stately scale of Indian government and English administration. But he was now far advanced in years, and he was betrayed into the absurdity of suffering these squabbles to reach to himself. The decoration of the statue of William the Third, in one of the principal streets of the city, on his birthday, the 4th of November, had been an annual custom for upwards of a hundred years. But now the Papists resolved to regard the placing of a few knots of orange riband on this equestrian figure as a matter of personal offence, and prohibited the decoration. A patrol of horse surrounded the statue, and the decoration could not be accomplished. A letter from the secretary approved of the conduct of the civic authorities. Unluckily, within a few days after, the Marquess went in state to the theatre. The public disapprobation now vented itself in unmeasured terms. The uproar was incessant, and, in the height of the disturbance, a bottle was thrown by some drunken ruffian from the gallery into the viceregal box, but with so direct an aim, that it glanced close to the Marquess's head. A watchman's rattle, and several other missiles, were said to have followed the bottle. The unlucky result was, an indictment against several individuals for conspiracy by the Attorney-general; but the grand jury having ignored the bills, the case fell to the ground.
At this period, the Marquess, who had in early life married a Frenchwoman, fixed his regards on an American, the widow of Mr Patterson of America. In matters of this order public opinion can have no direct right to interfere. But the bride was a Roman Catholic. The marriage was solemnized by a Romish bishop, as well as by the Irish primate. The royal equipages were seen in regular attendance, subsequently, at her ladyship's place of worship; and, when the critical balance of public opinion at that period is considered, there was evidently more of the ardour of the lover than the wisdom of the statesman, in suffering that marriage to take place, at least before his retirement from the viceroyalty of Ireland.
On the formation of the Wellington cabinet, the illustrious brothers differing on the Romish question, the Marquess retired. In the debate on that occasion, the Duke of Wellington made one of those strong, declaratory speeches and renewed those pledges to the Protestant constitution in Church and State, which he made so solemnly before. The duke, after gracefully expressing his regret at being compelled to differ on the sentiments of his distinguished relative, said, "I wish, as much as my noble relation can do, to see this question brought to an amicable conclusion,