They were to be bribed and bullied. They resolved to bribe and bully in their turn : 'One of the plans,' continues Mr. II. Grattan, 'adopted and acted upon by the opposition, was to bring into Parliament members to vote against the Union; it amounted, in fact, to a project to outbuy the Minister, which in itself was unwise, injudicious, and almost impracticable, and in which they were sure to be behind the Government. A second plan was their literary war; this, as far as it went, was good, but it came too late and was too feeble a weapon at such a crisis. The third plan was to meet the Castle Club, and fight them at their own weapons. This would have proved the most effective and deadly of the three plans, but it was hazardous, and in principle it could scarcely be sanctioned; and was acted upon but in one instance (that of Mr. Grattan and Mr. Corry), and the meeting at Charlemont House rejected it.' were left to fire when they chose. 'I never,' said Curran, 'saw any one whose determination seemed more malignant than Fitzgibbon's. After I had fired, he took aim at me for at least half a minute; and⚫ on its proving ineffectual, I could not help exclaiming to him, It was not your fault, Mr. Attorney--you were deliberate enough.' In the duel between Corry and Grattan, Corry was wounded at the first fire, yet they went on covering each with their second pistols, each wishing to reserve his fire, until it was arranged that both should fire at a signal, which they did, and missed. The duel between Alcock and Coldclough, which took place in the presence of several hundred freeholders and eight or ten county magistrates, was preceded by a discussion whether, one of the combatants being near-sighted, neither should wear spectacles or both. Without my glasses!' exclaimed the near-sighted combatant; 'I could not see to shoot a man at twelve paces, if it was my own father.' Martin tried the temper of George Robert Fitzgerald's concealed armour by discharging two holster pistols pointblank against his ribs. Notwithstanding the repeated detection and exposure of this notorious bully's cowardly and treacherous mode of fighting, he retained a footing in society till he was hanged. He states that his father inclined towards the fighting scheme; and Barrington, who thinks that either plan, if spiritedly executed, would have defeated the Minister, owns with a sigh, that the supporters of the Union indisputably showed more personal spirit than their opponents during the ensuing session.' Mr. H. Grattan remarks: it is possible if two or three courtiers had been killed, the Union might have been prevented unquestionably Lord Clare and Lord Castlereagh deserved to die.' This speculation was thrown out as carelessly as The climax of unreason was reached in if the writer was merely repeating Sydney Curran's affair with Major Hobart, then Smith's comic suggestion, that railway car- Secretary for Ireland. Curran, having been riages would never be left unlocked until a affronted by a man named Gifford, declared bishop was burnt in one of them. Nor he would rather do without fighting all does either of these representatives of Irish his life than fight such a fellow;' but as feelings and opinion seem to know that Gifford was a revenue officer, maintained their fighting scheme is neither more nor that Major Hobart should dismiss him for less than a modified version of Bobadil's. his impertinence, or fight in his place. We would challenge twenty of the enene- The Secretary demurred, and on Curran's my; they could not in honour refuse. insisting, referred the question to Lord Well, we would kill them! challenge Carhampton, the commander-in-chief, who twenty more! kill them! twenty more; decided it thus: 'A secretary of state kill them too! and so on.' The truth is, fighting for an exciseman would be rather the scheme was in accordance with the a bad precedent, but a major in the King's manners of the period; and the Irish laws service is pugnacious by profession, and of duelling seemed framed for the express must fight anybody that asks him.' They purpose of encouraging bullies and neu- exchanged shots without harm to either. tralising any incidental good which has In one remarkable instance, Lord Carbeen supposed to result from the practice. hampton, the Colonel Luttrell of Middlesex Any anxiety for an explanation or accom- celebrity, did not abide by his own maxim; modation on the part of either seconds or for he refused to fight his father, not beprincipals was thought to betray a lack of cause he was his father, but because he courage. Challenges were given or pro- was not a gentleman. voked by way of mere bravado; and what would now be considered the most indefensible irregularities, were permitted on the ground. In the duel between Lord Clare, then Attorney-General, and Curran, the parties Station, however grave, was not claimed or accepted as a bar. The Provost of the College, Hutchinson, fought Doyle, a Master in Chancery; and when a pupil asked his advice about a course of legal study, replied, 'Buy a case of good pistols, learn the use of them, and they will get you on faster than Fearne or Blackstone.' Toler (Lord Norbury) followed this method so successfully that he was said to have shot *up into preferment. A curious specimen of his language has been preserved, along with many other curious traits of Irish manners, by Mr. Charles Phillips: Had I (said Toler) heard a man out of doors using such language as that by which the honourable member (George Ponsonby) has violated the decorum of Parliament, I would have seized the ruffian by the throat and dragged him to the ground.' The only gleam of good sense in their code of honour was the common understanding that no affront was implied in a joke, as when, in a debate on the Sinecure Bill, Curran declared he was the guardian of his own honour; and Sir Boyle Roche retorted, 'Then the Honourable Gentleman has a very pretty sinecure, and has taken the wrong side.' It was consequently not grossly improbable that some such scheme as that mentioned by Grattan and Barrington should have been meditated; but it was absurd to father it on Lord Castlereagh, who combined a polished calmness of demeanour with imperturbable courage. He coolly and almost contemptuously replied to an unparliamentary provocation from Grattan: 'Every one must be sensible that if any personal quarrel were desired, any insulting language used publicly where it could not be met as it deserved, was the way to prevent and not to produce such a rencounter.' One story currently related, and generally believed by his ill-wishers, was, that a member of the Irish Parliament, who had stood out for higher terms, fell ill, and was visited in his sick-room by his Lordship, who announced that he had made up his mind to accede to them. It is too late, my Lord,' said the invalid; I have been at the point of death, and I made a vow, that if ever I got well, I would lay all that has passed between us before the House of Commons.' 'And if you do,' replied Lord Castlereagh, I will give you the lie direct first, and shoot you afterwards.' Most of our readers will recollect a somewhat similar anecdote traditionally recorded of Wilkes, on Luttrell's threatening to expose him from the hustings. The Irish Parliament met on January 22, 1799, and the question of the Union, already broached in the British Parliament by Mr. Pitt, was made the subject of an animated discussion in the House of Com mons. It arose on an amendment to the address moved by Mr. Ponsonby, That the House would be ready to enter into any measure short of surrendering their free, resident, and independent Legislature, as established in 1782.' The point on which the Opposition principally relied was the incompetency of Parliament to entertain the question. The debate continued without intermission twenty-one hours,* from Tuesday, January 22, 4 P.M., to Wednesday, January 23, 1 P.M., when the division took place, and the numbers were 105 for the amendment and 106 against, giving the Government a majority of one. All sorts of stories were afloat as to the manner in which this majority was obtained. The Opposition organs asserted that, whilst the debate was proceeding, Mr. Cooke, the Under-Secretary, was observed in close communication with Mr. Trench, afterwards Lord Ashtown, who, having spoken strongly for the amendment, voted against it; and such things had been far from rare in that assembly. Sir Henry Cavendish was famous for the accuracy of the reports which he was in the habit of sending from the House to the Castle. One evening the Lord-Lieutenant asked Sir Hercules Langrishe whether Sir Henry had been taking notes? had been taking notes? I believe,' said Sir Hercules, he has been taking either NOTES or ready money, but I don't know which.' The day following, on Sir Lawrence Parsons moving to expunge a paragraph from the Address, the contest was renewed with increased asperity, the Castle party accusing the Opposition of having 'unfurled the bloody flag of rebellion,' and the Opposition denouncing Ministers for flinging abroad the banner of prostitution, corruption, and apostasy.' Lord Castlereagh made a speech which, in the opinion of his *The longest debates, says Mr. Ross, ever known in the Imperial Parliament were those on the Walcheren expedition in 1810; on the committal of Sir F. Burdett to the Tower in the same year; and on the Reform Bill in 1831. In the first the fourth division took place about 8 A.M. on the following day; the second also lasted fifteen hours; and in the last Mr. Fergusson found the House still sitting between seven and eight in the morning, when he came down to take his seat for the debate of the ensuing night. Another version was that Trench had stood out for a peerage, and that, shortly before the division, Lord Castlereagh handed him a scrap of paper containing merely the name of the place from which the title, as originally proposed, was to be taken. Trench wrote 'Ashtown' instead, and returned the paper. Lord Castlereagh nodded, and the bargain was complete. friends, demolished Ponsonby, and, in the opinion of Ponsonby's, was a dead failure. In the course of the debate,' writes Lord Cornwallis, Mr. Smith, son to one of the Barons of the Exchequer, delivered a very fine and complete argument, which made very great impression.' Barrington says: Mr. Egan trampled down the metaphorical sophistries of Mr. William Smith. Such reasoning he called rubbish, and such reasoners were scavengers. Like a dray horse he galloped over all his opponents, plunging and kicking and overthrowing all before him. No member on that night pronounced a more sincere, clumsy, and powerful oration. Of matter he had abundance of language he made no selection; and he was aptly compared to the Trojan horse, sounding as if he had armed men within him.' The debate again lasted through the night, and it was on the morning of the 25th that the House divided. The Mi nisters had only 105; the Opposition, who had withdrawn to the Court of Requests, 111. Egan, the 'dray horse' of the debate —a coarse, bluff, red-faced fellow-was the last who entered. His exultation,' says Barrington, knew no bounds. As No. 110 was announced, he stopped a moment at the bar, flourished a great stick which he had in his hand over his head, and with the voice of a Stentor cried out," And I'm a hundred and eleven!"' In the exultation of the moment, and in evil hour for his cause, Mr. Ponsonby attempted to improve his victory by pledging the House never to give up the undoubted birthright of Irishmen, an Independent Parliament; and he was on the verge of success when one of the 111, Mr. W. C. Fortescue, objected to such a pledge, and carried with him three or four others of the band. Ponsonby found his flank turned, and withdrew his resolution amidst the sneers and taunts of the adverse phalanx. It was a retreat after a victory,' exclaimed Sir Henry Cavendish, and Plunkett murmured as they broke up— 'The over-daring Ponsonby Has sullied all his gloss of former honour By this unheeding, rash, and desperate enterprise.' The House of Lords had favourably entertained the project; yet without waiting for the Ministerial defeat on the 25th, Lord Cornwallis had come to the conclusion that the attempt must be abandoned for the present. On January 23rd he had written to the Duke of Portland to this effect. But his energies rose as the difficulties increased, and although he never ceased complaining of the disagreeable work forced upon him, he went through it manfully and with an unalterable determination to succeed. Government influence was strained to the uttermost; prompt compliance was demanded as the condition of remaining in office, and both bribes and promises were distributed with unprecedented profusion. Lord Cornwallis knew that what Walpole said of the English Jacobites, was true of the noisest of the Irish patriots, All these men have their price ;' and he had made up his mind to pay it rather than be baffled in a scheme on which, like the English Minister, he had set his heart and staked his reputation. In a memorandum drawn up by Lord Castlereagh, the interested Opposition is resolved into its elements: the borough proprietors; the primary and secondary interests in the county representation; the holders of seats by purchase; the barristers in Parliament, fifty in number; and individuals connected by residence or property with Dublin. His calculation was that, after saving some of these interests as much as possible by alterations in the details of the measure, rather less than a million and a half would be required to buy them off. No less a sum than 1,260,000l. was subsequently voted to compensate the boroughholders; and the mode of distribution gave plausibility to the charge that most of it was meant and accepted as a bribe. Each borough was valued at 15,000l., which was Thus, of the 15,000l. paid for Tuam, Lord proportionally distributed. Yelverton 1000l.; of that for Knocklofty. Clanmorris got 14,000l. and the Hon. W. Sir Hercules Langrishe 13,8627. 10s., Sir received for seven seats, and Lord Ely for George Shee 11377. 10s. Lord Downshire six. The 45,000l. payable for those boroughs in which members of the Episcopal body were interested in right of their sees, was paid to the Commissioners of First Fruits. There is an audacity in this proceeding which startles us. Junius, indeed, a gued that the patrons of places, like Gratton and Old Sarum, might be bought off; but this is a very different thing from treating the entire borough representation of a nation as private property, and descending to the valuation of shares and fractions. The transaction was sanctioned by the British Parliament, and bears testimony both to the lax notions of the times and the supremacy of Pitt. Place-holders, with various other possessors or claimants of vested interests likely to suffer from the Union, were also compensated; and Mr. H. Grattan states on his father's authority, that of all the eventual supporters of the Union in | taken may be inferred from such language the House of Commons, there were only as this: seven who were not bribed in some shape. Certain it seems that, out of the barristers who stood by the Ministry, three-fourths were promoted or preferred, sooner or later. It was currently, though absurdly, reported that nearly three hundred Peerages were promised to carry the English Reform Bill. How many promises of this sort were given by different agents of the Castle to carry the Union, we cannot pre tend to calculate; but we know that fortytwo Irish Peerages or promotions in the Irish Peerage, besides five English, were conferred on its supporters By the opening of the next session, the last of the Irish Parliament, the preparations were complete, but the Ministers had resolved to feel their way before committing themselves, and the Viceroy's speech was silent on the all-absorbing subject. The Opposition were the first to break ground and challenge the conflict, by moving an amendment declaratory of the resolution of Parliament to abide by the Constitution of 1782. A debate ensued, in which the appeals to reason were almost all on one side; but it must be admitted that in this and the subsequent debates some of the finest specimens of invective and declamation that exist in any language were called forth on the other. Plunkett pre-eminently distinguished himself in this line: The two Parliaments may clash! So in Great Britain may King and Parliament; but we see they never do so injuriously. There are principles of repulsion! yes; but there are principles of attraction, and from these the enlightened statesman extracts the principle by which the countries are to be harmoniously governed. As soon would I listen to the shallow observer of nature, who should say there is a centrifugal force impressed on our globe, and therefore, lest we should be hurried into the void of space, we ought to rush into the centre to be consumed there. No; I say to this rash arraigner of the dispensations of the Almighty, there are impulses from whose wholesome opposition eternal wisdom has declared the law by which we revolve in our proper sphere, and at our proper distance. So I say to the political visionary-from the opposite forces which you object to I see the wholesome law of imperial connexion derived I see the two countries preserving their due distance from each other, generating and impart ing heat, and light, and life, and health, and vigour; and I will abide by the wisdom and experience of the ages which are passed, in preference to the speculations of any modern philosopher.' 'The example of the Prime Minister of Engble Lord (Castlereagh). The Minister of England, inimitable in its vices, may deceive the noland has his faults; he abandoned in his latter years the principles of reform, by professing which he had obtained the early confidence of the people of England, and in the whole of his political conduct he has shown himself haughty and intractable; but it must be admitted that he has shown himself by nature endowed with a towering and transcendant intellect, and that the vastness of his moral resources keeps pace with the magnificence and unboundedness of his projects. I thank God that it is much more easy for him to transfer his apostacy and his insolence, than his comprehension and sagacity; wretched feebleness of her enemy. I cannot and I feel the safety of my country in the fear that the Constitution, which has been formed by the wisdom of sages and cemented by the blood of patriots and of heroes, is to be smitten to its centre by such a green and limber twig as this.' This green and limber twig' had been eight years in Parliament, and continued rising in reputation and authority till he was one of the four or five real arbiters of the destinies of Europe. his own knowledge that Bushe, afterwards Chief Justice, thus pourtrayed his own feelings after rejecting the overtures of the and for a moment almost doubted whether Treasury I threw myself in my chair, it was right in me to keep in such a state so many human beings, when I thought of the splendid offers I had refused-offers that astonished, almost bewildered me.' His talents prevented him from suffering for his integrity, and they were never displayed to greater advantage than in these debates. We can only spare room for a single extract: Mr. H. Grattan states as a fact within "What is it we are called upon to give up? I speak not of national pride or dignity; I declaim not upon theoretical advantages; but I tell you that you are called upon to give up that municipal parliament which has procured you within the memory of you all municipal advantages which no foreign parliament can supply. We hear of nothing but imperial topics. Good God! is the Parliament nothing but an instrument of taxation? Is nothing understood of a House of Commons but that it is an engine for raising money out of the pockets of the subject, and throwing it into the coffers of the Crown? Take up any volume of your statutes upon that table, you will find the Municipal Acts of Parliament in the proportion of more than forty to one to the Imperial. What has, within the memory of many men alive, changed the face of your land? What has covered a country of pasThe freedom of speech then allowed or ture with tillage? What has intersected an impassable country with roads? What has near-effort of no time, so neither is it a business of ly connected by inland navigation the eastern any strength; a pickaxe, and a common labourchannel with the western ocean? A resident er, will do the one-a little lawyer, a little pimp, parliament. This is not theory: look at your a wicked minister, the other." statutes and your journals, and there is not one of those improvements which you cannot trace to some document of your own public spirit now upon that table, and to no other source or cause under heaven. Can this be supplied in Westminster? Could a Committee of this House make a road in Yorkshire? No; nothing can supply a resident parliament watching over national improvement, seizing opportunities, encouraging manufacture, commerce, science, education, and agriculture, applying instant remedy to instant mischief, mixing with the constituent body, catching the sentiment of the public mind, reflecting public opinion, acting upon its pulse and regulating its excess.' Corry replied, and replied bitterly; but their grand passage of arms was postponed till the 14th of February, when the House being in Committee, they could speak as often as they chose. It had been sworn before a Committee of the Lords, that Grattan had been in treasonable communication with some leaders or promoters of the rebellion at his country seat. He admitted the interview, but denied the complicity. The Lords in their Report took the least in-favourable view of his conduct; and but for Lord Castlereagh's interposition, a Committee of the Commons would have done the same. Lord Brougham states that this, coming to Grattan's knowledge, subsequently prevented his pushing a quarrel with his generous adversary to extremities. The charge or suspicion was too good a weapon to be thrown away, and Corry employed it without mercy or compunction. He thus brought upon himself the well-known diatribe beginning: I will not call him villain, because it is unparliamentary and he is a privy councillor; I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The best version is that of Mr. Charles Phillips, which differs materially from the one in the collected. edition of Grattan's speeches: The remarkable feature of this sitting was the entry of Grattan, who had been out of Parliament since 1797. He had been elected for Wicklow while the debate was proceeding. The return was signed between twelve and one of that very morning. According to his son, the messenger arrived at his house in Dublin about five. Grattan had been very ill, and was then in bed, and turning round, he exclaimed, Oh! have they come? why will they not let me die in peace?' With difficulty he was got out of bed and dressed. He went into the parlour, loaded his pistols, and put them into his pocket, apprehending, it is alleged, that he might be attacked by the Union party and be assassinated.' He was wrapped in a blanket and put into a sedan chair. He entered the House about seven, supported by Mr. W. B. Ponsonby and Mr. Arthur Moore, and took his seat on the second opposition bench. It was remembered that Lord Chatham entered the House of Lords for the last time leaning on his son William, and his son-in-law, Lord Mahon; and Grattan's enemies laughed at the scene as theatrical and got up. His friends recriminated that his late arrival was the result of a conspiracy to delay the return. He rose about seven and delivered, sitting, an obviously premeditated oration, marked by many of his wonted merits and defects; his mastery of his subject, his splendid imagination, his close logic, his earnestness, his love of antithesis, his redundancy of metaphor, not unfrequently mixed and overstrained, and the constitutional intemperance of language which has descended to his biographer. "Well," he exclaimed, "the minister has destroyed the constitution. To destroy is easy; the edifices of the mind, like the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only minutes to precipitate; and as the fall of both is an 'My guilt or innocence have little to do with the question here. I rose with the rising fortunes of my country-I am willing to die with her expiring liberties. To the voice of the peocalumnies of an individual hired to betray them ple I will bow, but never shall I submit to the and slander me. The indisposition of my body has left me perhaps no means but that of lying down with fallen Ireland and recording upon her tomb my dying testimony against the flagitious corruption that has murdered her indepenhas suggested examples which I should have dence. . . . The right honourable gentleman shunned, and examples which I should have followed. I shall never follow his, and I have ever avoided it. I shall never be ambitious to purchase public scorn by private infamy-the lighter characters of the model have as little chance of weaning me from the habits of a life tive land. Am I to renounce those habits now spent, if not exhausted, in the cause of my nafor ever, and at the beck of whom? I should rather say of what-half a minister-half a monkey-a 'prentice politician, and a master coxcomb. He has told you that what he said of me here, he would say any where. I believe he would say thus of me in any place where he thought himself safe in saying it. Nothing can limit his calumnies but his fears-in parliament he has calumniated me to-night, in the king's |