William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose (book club reads txt) 📕

affair. No event could have

been more unfortunate. It led Irish patriots and the Whigs at

Westminster to inveigh against the perfidy and tyranny of Pitt. He was

unable to publish documents in his own defence, while Fitzwilliam

crowned his indiscretions by writing two lengthy letters charging the

Cabinet with breach of faith and Beresford with peculation. Nominally

private, they were published at Dublin, with the result that Pitt and

Camden were held up to execration and contempt. On reviewing this

question, we may conclude that Pitt erred in not procuring from

Fitzwilliam a written statement that he would make no sweeping changes

at Dublin, either in regard to men or measures, without the consent of

the Cabinet. It is, however, clear that Ministers regarded the verbal

understanding with Fitzwilliam as binding; for Grenville, Portland,

Spencer, and Windham sided with Pitt in this painful dispute, Portland's

chilling behaviour to the Earl on his return marking his disapproval of

his conduct.

 

Never did a Lord-Lieutenant enter on his duties under auspices more

threatening than those besetting the arrival of Camden on 31st March

After the swearing-in ceremony the passions of the Dublin mob

broke loose. Stones were flung at the carriages of the Primate and

Fitzgibbon. The rabble then attacked the Speaker's residence and the

Custom House, and not till two of their number fell dead under a volley

of the soldiery did the rioters disperse. The rebellion which

Fitzwilliam predicted on his departure seemed to be at hand.

 

Camden, on whom this storm was to burst three years later, was not a

strong man. He entered on his duties doubtfully and before long sent

requests for his recall on account of his family concerns. He might

well quail at the magnitude of his task. His instructions bade him by

all available means discourage the claims of the Catholics, and rally

the discouraged Protestants. Thereafter he might conciliate the

Catholics by promising relief for their parochial clergy, the foundation

of a seminary for the training of their priests, and some measure of

education for the peasantry. The instructions ended thus: "Moderate,

soothe, conciliate these jarring spirits. We have great confidence in

your judgment, firmness, discretion."[480] The despatch refutes the

oft-repeated assertion that the Ministry sought to inflame the

animosities of Protestants and Catholics in order to force on the Union.

That was the outcome of the whole situation; but in the spring of 1795

Ministers hoped to calm the ferment, which they rightly ascribed to the

imprudence of Fitzwilliam. Their forecast for a time came true. In the

first debates at Dublin the lead given by Camden's able Secretary,

Pelham, served to close the schism in the Protestant ranks. Despite the

vehement efforts of Grattan, his Bill for the admission of Catholics was

thrown out by a majority of more than one hundred; and Ireland entered

once more on the dreary path of reaction.

 

In the hope of softening the asperities of Irish life, Pitt favoured the

plan of founding a seminary for the training of Catholic priests in

Ireland. The proposal was alike one of justice and expediency; of

justice, because the expense of training Irish priests in foreign

seminaries had been a sore burden to their co-religionists; and of

expediency, because the change promised to assuage the anti-British

prejudices of the priests. Moreover, amidst the sweeping triumph of

secularism in France and Belgium, most of the seminaries frequented by

Irish youths had disappeared. The chief objections urged against the

scheme were the narrowness of view certain to result from the curriculum

of a semi-monastic institution, and the desirability of educating

priests at Trinity College along with Protestants. On these grounds we

must regret Pitt's decision to found a separate training college, albeit

at first intended for the education of lay youths as well. The

considerations above set forth, however, prevailed; and the chief

legislative result of the year 1795 at Dublin was the charter

establishing Maynooth College. Undoubtedly it was the outcome of Pitt's

desire to pacify Catholic Ireland; but the unhappy conditions of the

ensuing period told heavily against success. Indeed, as Wolfe Tone

predicted, that institution fostered insular patriotism of a somewhat

narrow type.

 

The trend of things in the years 1795-7 set steadily towards rebellion.

The discontent was most threatening among the sturdy Presbyterians of

Ulster, chafed as they were by the exaction of tithes by the Protestant

Established Church. The founders and the ablest leaders of the League of

United Irishmen were Protestants. For a time they aimed merely at a

drastic measure of Parliamentary Reform similar to that advocated by

English Radicals. But the disappointment of the hopes of Grattan and

Irish Whigs in the spring of 1795 exasperated all sections of reformers

and impelled the League towards revolutionary courses. Sops like

Maynooth they rejected with scorn; and at the close of that year, after

the passing of certain repressive measures, their organization became

secret; they imposed an oath on members and gradually devised means for

organizing the whole of Ireland in brotherhoods, which by means of

district and county delegations, carried out the behests of the central

committee at Dublin.

 

Yet their system was far from absorbing the whole of the nation. The

vivacity of the Celt and the hardness of the Saxon tell against close

union; and where the two races dwell side by side, solidarity is a

dream. Now, as always, in times of excitement the old animosities burst

forth. The Catholic peasantry banded together in clubs, known as

Defenders, to glut their hatred upon Protestant landlords and

tithe-reaping clergy. Their motives seem in the main to have been

agrarian rather than religious; but, as in Leinster, Munster, and

Connaught the dividing lines between landlords and peasants were almost

identical with those between Protestants and Catholics, the land feud

became a war of creed. The ensuing horrors, midnight attacks,

cattle-maiming, and retaliation by armed yeomanry, exerted a sinister

influence upon Ulster, where the masses were fiercely Protestant.

Certain of the Catholic villages were ravaged by Protestant Peep o' Day

Boys, until the Irishry fled in terror to the South or West, there

wreaking their vengeance upon squires and parsons. By degrees the Peep

o' Day Boys became known as Orangemen, whose defiant loyalty sometimes

caused concern to Camden and Pitt; while the Defenders joined the

better drilled ranks of United Ireland, which therefore became a

preponderatingly Catholic body.

 

Thus affairs revolved in the old vicious circle. Feuds, racial,

religious, and agrarian, rent Ireland asunder. Disputes about land have

ever sunk deep into the brooding imagination of the Celt; and the

memories of holdings absorbed, or of tithes pitilessly exacted in lean

years, now flashed forth in many a deed of incendiarism or outrage. To

Camden there appeared to be only one means of cure, coercion. An

Indemnity Act was therefore passed to safeguard squires and yeomen who

took the law into their own hands. Then followed the Insurrection Act,

for disarming the disaffected, and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus

Act for strengthening the arm of the law.

 

The outcome was that the United Irishmen turned towards France. Even in

the year 1793 the Republic sent agents into Ireland to stir up revolt.

Nothing definite came of those efforts, except that a section of Irish

patriots thenceforth began to strive for separation from Great Britain.

Early in 1796 Wolfe Tone proceeded to Paris to arrange for the despatch

of a French auxiliary corps. On 20th April General Clarke, head of the

Topographical Bureau at the War Office, agreed to send 10,000 men and

20,000 stand of arms. The mercurial Irishman encountered endless delays,

and was often a prey to melancholy; but the news of Bonaparte's

victories in Italy led him to picture the triumph of the French

Grenadiers in Ireland.[481]

 

Another interesting figure is that of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Sprung

from the ancient line of the Geraldines, and son of the Duke of

Leinster, he plunged into life with the gaiety and bravery of a Celt.

After serving with distinction in the British army in America he

returned, became a member of the Irish Parliament, and in 1790 during

the acute friction with Spain, received from his uncle, the Duke of

Richmond, an introduction to Pitt, who offered him the command of an

expedition against Cadiz. Nothing came of the proposal; but the incident

reveals the esteem in which the chivalrous young officer was held. He

soon married Pamela, the reputed daughter of the Duke of Orleans and

Mme. de Genlis, whence he himself was often dubbed "Egalité." The

repressive policy of Camden made him a rebel; and in May 1796 he made

his way to Hamburg, hoping to concert plans for a French invasion.

There he was joined by Arthur O'Connor, who impressed Reinhard with a

sense of ability and power. Together the two Irishmen travelled to

Basle, where they induced Barthélemy to favour their scheme. Meanwhile

the French Directory entered into the plan of Wolfe Tone; the mission of

Fitzgerald had no direct result, apart from the revelation of his plan

to a travelling companion, who had been the mistress of a British

Minister, and now forwarded a description of it to London.[482]

 

Meanwhile Wolfe Tone had sketched the outline of the enterprise to

Clarke and General Hoche, predicting to the latter, the commander-elect,

that he would "amputate the right hand of England for ever."[483] As is

well known, Hoche's expedition to Bantry Bay at the close of the year

1796 was an utter failure; and the sterner spirits in Ulster believed

that the French had designed that it should end so. The malcontents

therefore relaxed their efforts for a time, until, in the spring

following, the mutinies in the British fleet aroused new hopes. It seems

probable that their intrigues had some effect on events at the Nore. In

quick succession United Ireland despatched to Paris two delegates, named

Lewins and McNevin, to concert plans for another landing. The Directory

sent an agent to treat with the League. Fitzgerald met him in London,

and declared that the Irish Militia and Yeomanry would join the French

on their landing. The United Irishmen also sought help from Spain.[484]

 

In Ireland the organisation went on apace until Camden struck sharp

blows through the military. In the middle of May 1797, when the

malcontents were excited by news of the second mutiny at Portsmouth,

they rose in the North, but in three or four engagements the loyal

Militia and Yeomanry broke up their bands. The South remained quiet, and

the efforts to seduce the army and Militia were fruitless; but Lord

Clifden, writing to Abbot on 15th May, predicted a general rising when

the French attempted a second invasion, as they certainly would.[485] On

19th June Beresford wrote from Dublin to Auckland, stating that, but for

the repressive measures and wholesale seizures of arms, not a

loyalist's head would have been safe.[486] The spring of 1797 was

indeed a time of great risk. But for the weakness of the Dutch and

French navies, a landing in Ireland could have taken place with every

chance of success. As it was, Camden's vigorous measures so far cowed

the malcontents that the rebellion was deferred for a year. This respite

probably saved the British Empire. Amidst the financial and naval

difficulties of the first half of the year 1797, a telling blow struck

at Ireland could scarcely have failed of success. Rarely were the

enemies of England so formidable; never were her means of defence so

weak. Fortunately, no blow was aimed at her until the month of October;

and then, when the Dutch fleet set out to convoy an expedition to

Ireland, it was utterly crushed by Duncan at Camperdown. There was

therefore little risk of an invasion in force after October 1797, the

very month which saw Napoleon Bonaparte set free from his lengthy

negotiations with Austria. Verily, if Fortune pressed hard on Pitt at

Toulon and in Flanders and Hayti, she more than redressed the balance by

her boons at sea in the year 1797.

 

Camden's letters to Pitt reveal the imminence of bankruptcy in Ireland

throughout that year; and it is noteworthy that the loan raised for the

Irish Government in January and February was the final cause of the Bank

crisis in London. Even so, the Irish Exchequer was in dire need. On 25th

April Camden informed Pitt that only £8,000 remained in the Exchequer,

and he had no means for equipping the troops if the French should land.

The sum of £200,000 must be sent at once. Such a demand at that time was

impossible; and not until the end of May could Pitt forward the half of

that sum, Camden meanwhile borrowing money in Dublin at 8 3/8 per cent.

On 1st June he wrote to Pitt a confidential letter, laying bare his real

aims. He urged him to do all in his power to procure peace from France.

He had recommended this step in April; but now his language was most

insistent. Assuming that it would be sheer madness to tempt fortune in

another campaign, he suggested that, if the French terms were too

onerous,