did compel it, to embrace his darling scheme of Union.

Lord Charlemont, Mr. Barry, Mr. Ogle, Mr. Brownlow, and the great majority of the authors of the revolution of 1782, were as zealous in the cause of parliamentary reform, as they were averse from the emancipation of their Catholic countrymen; and it scarcely needed the terrors of the French revolution, to detach these statesmen and the vast majority of the Irish gentry who thought with them, from the cause of reform, after the act of 1793, by conferring the elective franchise on Catholics, had made that measure an inevitable step to a complete Catholic ascendancy. It is therefore clear, that independently of the effect of the French revolution which determined such men as earl Fitzwilliam, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Windham, to retrace their efforts in the cause of reform, there arose in Ireland between 1792 and 1794, ample motives for viewing this great question in a new light.

Mr. Stewart was not long in Ireland a silent senator, his maiden speech has not been preserved, but it is said to have obtained the approbation of lord Charlemont, a man of profound judgment and exquisite taste. During the three or four first years of his parliamentary career, he voted with the Opposition, but it was with the aristocratic Opposition ; and his speeches were qualified by the dignity of the party to which he more particularly adhered, and by the natural gentleness of his temper. They do not, therefore, accord well with the spirit of most of the harangues of the Irish Opposition leaders during the same period.

The excited ambition of the Catholics, acted upon by the conta

gion of the French revolution, raised, in 1794, an enemy much more formidable to the Irish gentry than the supremacy of English councils, of which they had lately been jealous, and the ranks of Opposition were suddenly and extensively deserted. Among others, Mr. Stewart passed to the side of the government. The mission of earl Fitzwilliam to Ireland, in 1795, and his recall in a few months afterwards, exasperated still more the fears of the Protestants, and the resentment of the Catholics. At this time we find lord Charlemont acknowledging the amiable qualities of Mr. Stewart, and lamenting his devotion to the principles of Mr. Pitt, to which he adhered during the remainder of his life, with a firmness and consistency, such as few public men can boast of, with regard to principles taken up at the age of twenty-five years. In October, 1795, "Mr. Stewart as a member of the British parliament, seconded the address to the throne in a speech, which, in respect to his high reputation, was thought a grievous failure. The inexplic able mission of earl Fitzwilliam, was terminated by his equally inexplicable recall on the last day of March, 1795. 6257a

The new viceroy," earl Camden, wisely determined against agitating the country by any violent change of system, resolved to consummate as far as he was permitted, all the more moderate measures comTM

menced by his predecessor; farther privileges were extended to the Catholics, and all the moderate Oppositionists were solicited to give their support to the administration. The earl of Charlemont, the patriarch of Irish freedom, was all but gained by the courtesy and apparent good disposition of the lord lieutenant, and it is not sur prising that his sister's husband, lord Londonderry, and that nobleman's son, openly joined earl Camden's administration. When the lord lieutenant met the parliament in 1796, the Opposition was, to borrow Mr. Hardy's phrase,* "shrunk within a very narrow stream, its numbers seldom consisting of more than sixteen."

The last effort in favour of parliamentary reform in the Irish parliament, was a motion by Mr. (afterwards lord) Ponsonby, shortly before the dissolution in 1797. The motion was of course rejected, and the opposition declined exposing their weakness by a division. Mr. Stewart, now, by his father's promotion, lord Castlereagh, was again returned for the county of Down, and continued to support the measures of the government; but the task had become light, Mr. Grattan and the more ardent oppositionists having, in imitation of the English whigs, seceded from parliament,

During the year, 1797, lord Castlereagh, in the occasional absence of Mr. Pelham (now lord Chichester), frequently discharged provisionally, the duties of chief secretary; and in the commencement of 1798, upon Mr. Pelham's retirement, he was placed in abso

• Life of lord Charlemont, ii, 364.

lute possession of the office. It is but justice to the memory of the minister, whose career is hastily sketched here, to observe, that his acceptance of office was three years subsequent to the time when we find lord Charlemont regretting his adoption of the opinions of Mr. Pitt: it is impossible, therefore, to imagine any connection between the dereliction of his early opinion, and his promotion to the station of a minister.

The session of parliament which opened on the 15th of January, 1798, was, on many accounts, the most important in the history of Ireland, save that in which the national legislature was extinguished; but it was not very remarkable from the questions agitated..

Mr. Plunkett (now attorneygeneral for Ireland), who had but just entered parliament, assumed the station of Opposition leader abdicated by Mr. Grattan, but without rivaling his talents or his violence. Not absolutely justifying the rebellion as the latter had done upon more than one occasion, he urged the necessity of concession to the insurgents: to a suggestion of this nature on the 5th of March, lord Castlereagh replied in a sentence, which, with the most explicit candour, described the policy of the government, "The United Irishmen," he said, "are in open rebellion, and therefore only to be met by force."

The scenes which followed during that disastrous year, presented but too faithful a commentary upon this text. They are such as the friend of mankind would willingly pass unmarked; but the activity of slander renders absolute silence upon this topic,

impossible to the impartial biographer of the marquis of Londonderry.

The insurrection which broke forth in May, 1798, though the loudest, was but the last peal of the tempest which had been raging with little intermission, in various parts of the island, for five years before. As early as 1793, the "Jacobin Club" of Belfast, and the "United Irish Club" of Dublin, established a correspondence with the French government, which was carried on by these bodies, their successors and affiliated associates, without interruption, until the final extinction of the republican form of government in France. At Wexford, in 1793; and in Cavan, Longfort, Westmeath, and Leitrim, in 1795, the rebels had joined with the king's troops in open combat. An invasion by the French solicited by the heads of the United Irish party, had been attempted in 1796; and at the commencement of the year 1798, as has been calculated, more than a thousand of the friends of the government had fallen by private assassination. Lord Castlereagh, therefore, is not in any respect chargeable with having excited the rebellion which, on coming into office, he found in an advanced stage, and upon the eve of its most formidable eruption.

The state of the Irish government was at this time highly perilous. While the insurrection was confined to unconnected and temporary explosions, it had been possible to meet it with the small force, of militia fencibles and regular soldiers, which had been allotted for the protection of Ireland; but when the rebel force had been consolidated by time and a regular

organization, the government found itself wholly unprepared for the great simultaneous effort, which it was known the leaders of the insurrection had in contemplation. Little aid was to be expected from England. The then inadequate military force of the empire, had been so mis-applied by Mr. Pitt, the most inefficient military minister that ever directed its resources, as to be utterly unavailable for the defence of Ireland. The Irish government had, therefore, no alternative, but to rouse a sec tarian feeling in the Protestants, and to throw itself into the hands of the party of whose loyalty it was assured. Unable to defend those upon whom it relied for safety, the government could not with much pretence of justice, dictate the mode in which the Protestants should defend themselves; and when the rebellion broke out, it necessarily assumed the character of the most savage civil war. On the side of the rebels, it was indeed a war of extermination; but on the part of the Protestants, it was more barbarous than sanguinary.

Under the impression that the insurrection might be successfully resisted by seizing the arms of the insurgents, and feeling, that to disarm, was more humane than to destroy, the Irish magistrates and yeomanry had recourse to flagellation (the appointed punishment of vagrancy in England, which until lately was commonly inflicted upon female vagrants) as the means of extorting a discovery of secret magazines of deadly weapons. Such a practice is unjustifiable upon the principles of British law, which, as we have seen, appropriates the punishment of whipping to a class of offences

very far removed from treason; and it would be a rash distinction of the Irish from every other civil war, to assert that this measure of extorting information (not evidence*) was never unjustly or cruelly employed; but it has been asserted, and never contradicted except in one case, that the infliction of stripes was always successful in eliciting a confession sufficient to prove a guilty knowledge, not unworthy of the punishment of death; and whatever may have been the wickedness or innocence of the use of flogging, the marquis of Londonderry can scarcely be held accountable for a practice which commenced before his accession to power, and which he could not have caused to be discontinued, without the danger of an universal extermination of all engaged in the rebellion. For, whatever benefits might have resulted from taking all discretionary power from the magistrates and yeomanry, the sparing of blood would not have been of the number.

The marquis Cornwallis succeeded to the vice-royalty in June, 1798, and continued lord Castle

In the law of England the distinction is perfectly recognized by the old practice of extorting a plea by the detestable torture of the Peine forte et dure. Torture for any purpose is abominably cruel, but for the purpose of obtaining evidence, it is also productive of injustice. It is no palliation of such atrocities as were practised in Ireland, to say that they did not lead to injustice, but it is always right to tell the truth when falsehood has been successfully employed to pervert history. The only extenuation of which the use of torture admits, if it admit any, must be found in seasons of ignorance, party heats, or public confusion.

reagh in the office of chief secretary. The rebellion had, in effect, been suppressed by the yeomanry before lord Cornwallis's arrival, and his lordship bringing with him a considerable military reinforcement, enjoyed the enviable privilege of receiving the vanquished rebels to mercy.

Humbert's invasion, which was swelled to importance merely by the cowardice of those who had the first opportunity of meeting the French army, served, by the alarm which it excited, to repeat the lesson so often inculcated by events during the five preceding years; and the English government saw that Ireland could be saved by an union alone, and an union was decided upon, at whatever cost.

It is the misfortune of statesmen, that necessity drives them to measures repugnant alike to honour and honesty. If it is difficult to defend the means employed for the suppression of the rebellion, it is perfectly impossible to justify or even to palliate, that by which the Union was effected. The Protestant gentry were assailed by the most gross and flagrant bribery; and the Catholic peasantry were made the dupes of a scandalous delusion. It is impossible to acquit lord Castlereagh of a participation in the guilt of Mr. Pitt, as far as respects the debauching of the Irish parliament; but there is no reason to suppose that he, ignorant, as he necessarily was, of the fixed determination of the king, and the temper of the English people, was a party to the fraud practised upon the Catholics.*

The following letter of which a fac simile is given by sir Jonah Bar