Ireland page 2

Such was the state of things in Ireland when the news of the French Revolution arrived and produced an electric effect throughout the country. The danger of permitting such atrocious incitements to civil war to be circulated among the people was obvious to every one, and yet Lord Clarendon allowed this propagandism of rebellion and revolution to go on with impunity for months. Mitchell might have been arrested and prosecuted for seditious libels any day; the newsvendors who hawked the United Irishman through the streets might have been taken up by the police, but the Government still remained inactive. Encouraged by this impunity, the revolutionary party had established confederate clubs, by means of which they were rapidly enlisting and organising the artisans of the city, at whose meetings the most treasonable proceedings were adopted.

In the meantime rumours were in circulation, said to have emanated from the Castle, to the effect that a conspiracy existed to massacre the members of the Government and the loyal citizens. However those rumours may have originated, they spread a panic through the city. People expected that when they woke some morning they would find the barricades up in the leading streets, and behold an imitation of the bloody scenes lately enacted in Paris. The Government seemed to share the alarm. Strong bodies of soldiers were posted in different parts of the city. Trinity College, the buildings of the Royal Dublin Society, the Linen Hall, and the Custom House, were occupied as temporary barracks. The Bank of Ireland was put in a state of defence, and cannon were placed on the roof in such a way as to command the streets. Bullet-proof shutters were furnished for the front of Trinity College. The Viceroy evidently apprehended some serious work, for he ordered the troops in all those extemporised fortresses to be furnished with rations for several days. These preparations for a siege continued during the entire of the months of March and April. For more than three months the chambers of the College were turned into barracks; the troops were paraded in the quadrangles every morning. In all the fortified positions the soldiers were kept under arms at unreasonable hours. In fact, the whole community was in a state of painful suspense, hourly anticipating the attacks of an imaginary enemy. During all this time there was not a single depot of arms seized nor a single rebellious leader arrested. The clubs, indeed, were meeting and plotting, and the Government spies were amongst them, but they had made no preparations for insurrection that should have excited alarm. There was much talk of the manufacture of pikes, but the only instance made public was one in which a blacksmith had been asked to make one by a detective policeman. " It is not to be wondered at," wrote an observer of these events, "if loyal men believed that Government must have had some secret information to justify preparations of so alarming a character. Men believed that the only protector against the horrors of a Red Republic and Social Revolution was the Lord-Lieutenant. The state of feeling was not unlike that which made the French people vote Prince Napoleon an absolute Sovereign and sole legislator. An address, with expressions of confidence in the chief governor, tendered to him the disposal, in support of Government, of the lives and fortunes of the subscribers, and was signed by multitudes of names, presenting an unprecedented array of the rank, the property, and the intelligence of the country. The few loyalists who withheld their signatures were marked as disaffected. To disbelieve in Lord Clarendon, or doubt the instant coming of a terrible insurrection, was lo expose the unhappy infidel to the imputation of being a rebel. It was then that John Mitchell carried on his rebellion on paper, by issuing his directions about barricades and vitriol. The more horrible the publication the greater the terrors in the Castle and the squares; and instead of stopping the whole matter, as he could have done, in one hour, and confining the terrible rebellion to a cell of five feet square, by lodging the writers of this wicked bombast in the body of a gaol, Lord Clarendon played into their hands, as they did into his, by making serious preparations against their threats, but still permitting them to go on."

During this protracted agony of suspense and alarm business was almost at a stand-still. Nobody seemed to think or talk of anything but the rebellion - the chances of success and the possibility of having to submit to a republic. There could not be a more striking proof of the inability of Lord Clarendon to cope with this emergency than his dealings with the proprietors of the World, a journal with a weekly circulation of only 500 or 600 copies, which subsisted by levying black mail for suppressing attacks on private character. It was regarded as a common nuisance, and yet the Lord-Lieutenant took the editor into his confidence, held private conferences with him on the state of the country, and gave him large sums for writing articles in defence of law and order. These sums amounted to £1,700, and he afterwards gave him £2,000 to stop an action in the Court of Queen's Bench. Mr. Birch, the gentleman in question, was not satisfied with this liberal remuneration for his services; the mine was too rich not to be worked out, and he afterwards brought an action for some thousands more against Sir William Somerville, then Chief Secretary, when Lord Clarendon himself was produced as a witness, and admitted these facts. The decision of the court was against Birch. But when, in February, 1852, the subject was brought before the House of Commons by Lord Naas, the Clarendon and Birch transactions were sanctioned by a majority of 92.

While the Irish Government was in this state of miserable trepidation, the Dublin confederates carried on then- proceedings with the most perfect unconcern - and consciousness of impunity. Among these proceedings was the sending of a deputation to Paris to seek the aid of the republican government on behalf of the " oppressed nationality of Ireland." The deputation consisted of Messrs. O'Brien, Meagher, and O'Gorman. They were the bearers of three congratulatory addresses, to which De Lamartine gave a magniloquent reply about the great democratic principle - " this new Christianity bursting forth at the opportune moment. " The destinies of Ireland had always deeply moved the heart of Europe. "The children of that glorious isle of Erin," whose natural genius and the events of its history were equally symbolic of the poetry and the heroism of the nations of the north, would always find in France under the republic a generous response to all its friendly sentiments. But as regarded intervention, the provisional government gave the same answer that they had given to Germany, to Belgium, and to Italy. " Where there is a difference of race - where nations are aliens in blood - intervention is not allowable. We belong to no party in Ireland or elsewhere except to that which contends for justice, for liberty, and for the happiness of the Irish people. We are at peace," continued Lamartine, " and we are desirous of remaining on good terms of equality, not with this or that part of Great Britain, but with Great Britain entire. We believe this peace to be useful and honourable, not only to Great Britain and to the French Republic, but to the human race. We will not commit an act, we will not utter a word, we will not breathe an insinuation, at variance with principles of the reciprocal inviolability of nations which we have proclaimed, and of which the continent of Europe is already gathering the fruits. The fallen monarchy had treaties and diplomatists. Our diplomatists are nations - our treaties are sympathies." The sympathies felt for the Irish revolutionists, however, were barren. Nevertheless, the deputation who were complimented as "aliens in blood" shouted " Vive la république" " Vive De Lamartine," who had just declared that the French would be insane were they openly to exchange such sympathy for "unmeaning and partial alliance with even the most legitimate parties in the countries that surrounded them."

Mr. Smith O'Brien returned to London, took his seat in the House of Commons, and spoke on the Crown and Government Securities Bill, the design of which was to facilitate prosecutions for political offences. He spoke openly of the military strength of the Republican party in Ireland, and the probable issue of an appeal to arms. But his address produced a scene of indescribable commotion and violence, and he was overwhelmed in a torrent of jeers, groans, and hisses, while Sir George Grey, in replying to him, was cheered with the utmost enthusiasm.

In the meantime the preparations for civil war went on steadily on both sides in Dublin, neither party venturing to interfere with the other. Lest the Government should not be able to subdue the rebellion with 10,000 troops in all the strong points of the city, and artillery commanding all the great thoroughfares, with loopholes for sharpshooters in every public building, an association was formed, to provide loyal citizens with arms, and combine them in self-defence. The committee of this body ordered six hundred stand of arms from the manufacturer, and also some thousands of knots of blue ribbon to be worn by the loyal on the night of the barricades. It was intimated that the Government would pay for those things, but as it did not, an action for the cost of the muskets was brought against a gentleman who went to inspect them. Circulars were sent round to the principal inhabitants, with directions as to the best means of defending their houses when attacked by the insurgents. There were instances in which the lower parts of houses were furnished with ball-proof shutters, and a month's provisions of salted meat and biscuits actually laid in. The Orangemen - regarded with so much coldness by the Government in quiet times - were now courted; their leaders were confidentially consulted by the Lord-Lieutenant; their addresses were gratefully acknowledged; they were supplied with muskets; and the certificate of the master of an Orange lodge was recognised by the police authorities as a passport for the importation of arms.

A ludicrous episode in this rebellious movement occurred on the 29th of April, in the city of Limerick. The Sarsfield Club in that place invited Messrs. Smith O'Brien, Mitchell, and Meagher to a public soirée. The followers of O'Connell, known as the Old Ireland party, being very indignant at the treatment O'Connell had received from the Young Ireland leaders, resolved to take this opportunity of punishing the men who had broken the heart of the "Liberator." They began by burning John Mitchell in effigy, and, placing the flaming figure against the window where the soirée was held, they set fire to the building. As the company rushed out they were attacked by the mob. Mr. Smith O'Brien, then member for the county of Limerick, was roughly handled. He was struck with a stone in the face, with another in the back of the head, and was besides severely hurt by a blow on the side. Had it not been for the protection of some friends that gathered round him, he would probably have been killed.

At length, after this mischievous delay, the Government ventured to lay hands upon the disseminators of sedition and the organisers of rebellion. On the 13th of May, John Mitchell was arrested, and committed to Newgate. While there, he wrote letters, which were published, in one of which he said, "As I sit here and write in my lonely cell, I hear just dying away the measured tramp of 10,000 marching men - my gallant confederates - unarmed and silent, but with hearts like bended bows, awaiting till the time comes. They marched past my prison windows to let me know that there are 10,000 fighting men in Dublin - felons in heart and soul. I thank God for it. The game is afoot at last. The liberty of Ireland may come sooner or later, by peaceful negotiation or bloody conflict; but it is sure, and wherever between the poles I may chance to be, I will hear the crash of the downfall of the thrice accursed British empire." On the 15th of May Mr. Smith O'Brien, who had been previously arrested and was out on bail, was brought to trial in the Queen's Bench, and arraigned on ex officio information as being a wicked, seditious, and turbulent person, and having delivered a speech for the purpose of exciting hatred and contempt against the Queen in Ireland, and inducing the people to rise in rebellion. He was defended by Mr. Butt, a Conservative barrister, who spoke of the ancient lineage and estimable character of the prisoner, concluding thus: - "Believe me, gentlemen, all cannot be right in a country in which such a man as William Smith O'Brien is guilty, if guilty you pronounce him, of sedition." At the conclusion of this sentence the majority of the bar, and of the people in court, rose from their seats and loudly cheered, the ladies in the galleries waving their handkerchiefs. The jury were locked up all night without refreshments, but they could not agree. The next day Meagher was tried, with a similar result, and was hailed by a cheering multitude outside, whom he addressed from a window in the Nation office. Mitchell, however, was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years; he was immediately conveyed in the police prison van to a small steamer which waited in the bay, and then to a man-of-war which conveyed him to Bermuda. The 10,000 marching men, who threatened never to allow him to be taken out of the country, were nowhere to be found. In their speeches and resolutions they were terrible, but when real danger appeared they were invisible.

But it was not till the end of July that Lord Clarendon obtained the extraordinary powers which he demanded for putting down rebellion. These were conveyed in an act to empower the Lord-Lieutenant to apprehend and detain till the 1st day of March, 1849, such persons as he should " suspect " of conspiring against Her Majesty's person or Government. On the 27th of July a despatch from Dublin appeared in the late editions of some of the London morning papers, stating that the railway station at Thurles had been burned; that for several miles along the line the rails had been torn up; that dreadful fighting had been going on in Clonmel; that the people were armed in masses; that the troops were overpowered; that some refused to act; that the insurrection had also broken out in Kilkenny, Waterford, and Cork, and all through the South. This was all pure invention. No such events had occurred. In order to avoid arrests the leaders all fled from Dublin, and the clubs were completely dispersed. Mr. Smith O'Brien started on the 22nd by the night mail for Wexford. From Enniscorthy he crossed the mountains to the County Carlow; at Graigamanagh he visited the parish priest, who offered him no encouragement, but gave him clearly to understand that, in the opinion of the priests, those who attempted to raise a rebellion in the county were insane. He passed on to the towns of Carlow and Kilkenny, where he harangued the people and called upon them to rise. He arrived at Carrick-on-Suir on the 24th, and thence to Cashel, where he left his portmanteau, which contained a letter from Mr. Gavan Duffy, telling him that he would be the head of the movement; that he would be loyally obeyed; that under him the revolution would be conducted with order and clemency; that without him it would be a bloody chaos j that he had got Lafayette's place, and had fallen into Lafayette's error of not using it to all its extent and in all its resources. He was advised to strike out a definite course for the revolution, and to follow it up. Leaders had been arrested - namely, Duffy, Martin, Williams, O'Doherty, Meagher, and Doheny. The act, which received the royal assent on the 29th of July, was conveyed by express to Dublin, and immediately the Lord- Lieutenant issued a proclamation ordering the suppression of the conspiracy, which should have been done six months before. In pursuance of this proclamation, the principal cities were occupied by the military. Cannon were planted at the ends of the streets, and all but those who had certificates of loyalty were deprived of their arms. The police entered the offices of the Nation and Felony seized all the copies of those papers, and scattered the types. Twelve counties were proclaimed, and a number of young men arrested having commissions and uniforms for the " Irish army of Liberation."