TWO:Mr. Smith O'Brien, early in July, gave occasion for another great debate on the state of Ireland, by moving that the House resolve itself into a committee for the purpose of taking into consideration the causes of the discontent prevailing there, with a view to the redress of grievances, and the establishment of a system of just and impartial government in that part of the United Kingdom. The honourable gentleman reviewed the history of the country since the union, discussed the questions of the National Debt and taxation, the Church Establishment, the position of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Government appointments, Coercive Acts, and land tenure. Lord Eliot, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, answered his arguments at length. A great number of speakers followed, continuing the debate for five nights. At length the House divided, when the numbers wereagainst the motion for a committee, 243; for it, 164. The whole of these vexed questions again came up on the 9th of August, when the Irish Arms Bill was set down for the third reading. On this occasion Sir Robert Peel made some remarks, expressing the feeling of his Government with regard to Ireland, declaring that he viewed the state of things there with deep anxiety and pain. He had hoped that there was a gradual abatement of animosity on account of religious differences; that he saw the gradual influence of those laws which removed the political disabilities of Catholics and established civil equality. He thought he saw, in some respects, a great moral and social improvement; that there was a hope of increasing tranquillity, which would cause the redundant and superfluous capital of England, then seeking vent in foreign and precarious speculations, to flow into Ireland. But the agitation had, in his opinion, blasted all those hopes.Dumouriez was now making his projected attack upon Holland. On the 17th of February, 1793, he entered the Dutch territory, and issued a proclamation, promising friendship to the Batavians, and war only to the Stadtholder and his British allies. His success was brief, and he was soon forced back at all points. He received peremptory orders from the Convention to retire into Belgium. He obeyed with reluctance. On Dumouriez' return to Belgium, he was greatly incensed at the wholesale rapacity of the Commissioners of the Convention. They had plundered the churches, confiscated the property of the clergy and the wealthy inhabitants, and driven the people, by their insolence and violence, into open revolt. He did not satisfy himself by simply reproving these cormorants by words; he seized two of the worst of them, and sent them to Paris under a military guard. General Moreton-Chabrillant, who defended the Commissioners, he summarily dismissed; he restored the plate to the churches, as far as he was able, and issued orders for putting down the Jacobin clubs in the army. On the 16th of March he was attacked at Neerwinden by the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and after a sharply-fought field, in which both himself and the Duke of Chartres fought bravely, he was routed with a loss of four thousand killed and wounded, and the desertion of ten thousand of his troops, who fled at a great rate, never stopping till they entered France, and, spreading in all directions, they caused the most alarming rumours of Dumouriez' conduct and the advance of the enemy. The Convention at once dispatched Danton and Lacroix to inquire into his proceedings, and, roused by all these circumstances, no sooner had these two envoys left him than he entered into communication with the Prince of Saxe-Coburg. Colonel Mack, an Austrian officer, was appointed to confer with Dumouriez, and it was agreed that he should evacuate Brussels, and that then the negotiation should be renewed. Accordingly, the French retired from Brussels on the 25th of March, and on the 27th they encamped at Ath, where Dumouriez[419] and Mack again met. The result of this conference was the agreement of Dumouriez to abandon the Republic altogether, to march rapidly on Paris, and disperse the Convention and the mother society of the Jacobins. His designs, however, were suspected by the Jacobins, and he was eventually compelled to go over to the enemy almost alone. Dampierre, who had been appointed by the Convention to supersede Dumouriez, took the command of the army, and established himself in the camp at Famars, which covered Valenciennes. He was there attacked, on the 8th of May, by the combined armies of Austrians, Prussians, English, and Dutch, under Clairfayt, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and the Duke of York. He was defeated with terrible slaughter, four thousand men being killed and wounded, whilst the Allies stated their loss at only eight hundred men. Dampierre himself lost a leg and died the next day. Lamarque, who succeeded him, might have easily been made to retreat, for the French were in great disorder; but the Allies had resolved to advance no farther till Mayence should be retaken. Lamarque, therefore, fortified himself in his camp at Famars, and remained unmolested till the 23rd of the month. He was then attacked and beaten, but was allowed to retire and encamp again between Valenciennes and Bouchain. The Allies, instead of pushing their advantages, waited the advance of the King of Prussia upon Mayence. Custine, who was put in command of the Rhine, was enabled to keep back the Prince of Hohenlohe, who had but an inconsiderable force, the King of Prussia having been compelled to send a large force to Poland, instead of forwarding it according to agreement to the Rhine.
THREE:[See larger version]Very strong hopes were entertained by the Liberal party from the Administration of Lord Wellesley, but it was his misfortune to be obliged to commence it with coercive measures, always the ready resource of the Irish Government. The new Viceroy would have removed, if possible, the causes of public disturbance; but, in the meantime, the peace must be preserved and sanguinary outrages must be repressed, and he did not shrink from the discharge of his duty in this respect on account of the popular odium which it was sure to bring upon his Government. Mr. Plunket, as Attorney-General, was as firm in the administration of justice as Mr. Saurin, his high Tory predecessor, could be. The measures of repression adopted by the legislature were certainly not wanting in severity. The disorders were agrarian, arising out of insecurity of land tenure, rack rents, and tithes levied by proctors upon tillage, and falling chiefly upon the Roman Catholic population, who disowned the ministrations of the Established Church. The remedies which the Government provided for disturbances thus originating were the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the renewal of the Insurrection Act. By the provisions of the latter the Lord-Lieutenant was empowered, on the representation of justices in session that a district was disturbed, to proclaim it in a state of insurrection, to interdict the inhabitants from leaving their homes between sunset and sunrise, and to subject them to visits by night, to ascertain their presence in their own dwellings. If absent, they were considered idle and disorderly, and liable to transportation for seven years! These measures encountered considerable opposition, but they were rapidly passed through both Houses, and received the Royal Assent a week after Parliament met. Under these Acts a number of Whiteboys and other offenders were tried and convicted, several hanged, and many transported. Lord Wellesley must have felt his position very disagreeable between the two excited parties. To be impartial and just was to incur the hostility of both. Possibly he became disgusted with the factions that surrounded him. Whether from this cause, or from an indolent temper, or from the feeling that he was hampered and restrained, and could not do for the country what he felt that its well-being required, or from ill health, it is certain that he became very inactive. A member of the Cabinet writes about him thus:"I find the Orange party are loud in their abuse of Lord Wellesley, for shutting himself up at the Ph?nix Park, lying in bed all day, seeing nobody, and only communicating with Secretary Gregory by letter. Indeed, I believe that the latter is more than he often favours Secretaries Peel and Goulburn with." In another letter, the same Minister, Mr. Wynn, complains of his total neglect of his correspondence with England. This, he said, was inexcusable, because those on whom the chief responsibility rested had a right to know his views upon the state of Ireland, in order to be able to meet the Opposition during the sitting of Parliament. This was written towards the end of April, and at that time the Government had not for a month heard a syllable from him on the agitated questions of tithes, magistracy, and police. The state of Ireland, indeed, became every day more perplexing and alarming. A revolutionary spirit was abroad, and all other social evils were aggravated by famine, which prevailed in extensive districts in the south and west. The potato crop, always precarious, was then almost a total failure in many counties, and left the dense population, whose existence depended upon it, totally destitute. The cry of distress reached England, and was responded to in the most generous spirit. Half a million[223] sterling was voted by Parliament, and placed at the disposal of Lord Wellesley, to be dispensed in charitable relief and expended on public works for the employment of the poor. In addition to this, the English people contributed from their private resources the sum of three hundred thousand pounds for the relief of Irish distress. On the 30th of May there was a ball given for the same object, in the King's Theatre, London, which produced three thousand five hundred pounds.
Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per
THREE:
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THREE:On the other hand, the Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information kept up an open correspondence with the National Convention of France, even after the bloody massacres of September of this year, which we have yet to mention. Unwarned by these facts, they professed to see, in the example of Frenchmen, the only chance of the liberation of the English nation from the oppressions of the Crown and of an overgrown aristocracy. They made no secret of their desire to establish a Republic in Great Britain; and the Society for Constitutional Information included amongst its members a number of red-hot Americans. These Societies and the Revolutionary Society in London continued to send over glowing addresses to the French Convention, declaring their desire to fraternise with them for liberty and equality, and their determination never again to fight with Frenchmen at the command of despots.To reach the enemy the British had to cross the river, and that by a single bridge. This was commanded by the American artillery, and it might have been expected that it would not be easily carried; but, on the contrary, a light brigade swept over it, in face of the cannon, followed by the rest of the army; and the troops deploying right and left the moment they were over, this single divisionabout one thousand six hundred strongrouted the whole American force before the remainder of the British could come into action. Few of the Americans waited to be killed or wounded. Madison had the mortification to see his army all flying in precipitation, and the city open to the British.
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