Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845

But there was one man among them, who would have distinguished himself in any council upon earth. He was a lawyer, and holding the highest office of his profession. But his ambition was still higher than his office, and his ability was equal to his ambition. Bold by nature, and rendered bolder by the constant success of his career, he would have been a matchless minister in a despotic government. Living under the old régime of France, the laurels of a Richelieu or a Mazarin might have found a formidable competitor in this man of daring and decision. He wanted but their scale of action, to have exhibited all their virtues, and perhaps all their vices.

At the bar, his career had been one of unexampled rapidity. He had scarcely appeared, when he burst through the crowd, and took the stand to which all the dignities of the profession seem the natural inheritance. He had scarcely set his foot on the floor, before he overtopped the bench. But the courts of justice were too narrow for him. It was in Parliament that he found the true atmosphere for his loftiness of flight, and keenness of vision. At that time the study of public speaking had become a fashion, and the genius of the country, singularly excitable, always ardent, and always making its noblest efforts under the spell of public display, exhibited the most brilliant proofs of its title to popularity. But in the very blaze of those triumphs, the Attorney-general showed that there were other weapons of public warfare, not less original and not less triumphant. No orator, and even no rhetorician, he seemed to despise alike the lustre of imagination and the graces of language. But he substituted a force, that often obtained the victory over both. Abrupt, bold, and scornful, his words struck home. He had all the power of plain things. He brought down no lightning from the heaven of invention, he summoned no flame from below; but the torch in his hand burned with withering power, and he wielded it without fear of man. By constitution haughty, his pride actually gave him power in debate. Men, and those able men too, often shrank from the conflict with one whose very look seemed to warn them of their temerity. But to this natural faculty of overthrow he added remarkable knowledge of public life, high legal repute, and the incomparable advantage of his early training in a profession which opens out the recesses of the soul, habitually forces imposture into light, and cross-examines the villain into reluctant veracity. There never was in Parliament a more remorseless or more effectual hand, in stripping off the tinsel of political pretension. His logic was contemptuous, and his contempt was logical. His blows were all straightforward. He wasted no time in the flourish of the sword; he struck with the point. Even to the most powerful of his opponents this assault was formidable. But with the inferior ranks of Opposition, he threw aside the sword and assumed the axe. Obviously regarding them as criminals against common sense and national polity, he treated them as the executioner might treat culprits already bound to the wheel, measuring the place for his blows with the professional eye, and crushing limb after limb at his leisure. The imperfect reports of debating in his day, have deprived parliamentary recollection of the most memorable of those great displays. But their evidence is given in the fact, that with the most numerous, powerful, and able Opposition of Ireland in his front, and the feeblest Ministerial strength behind him, the Attorney-general governed the parliament until the hour when its gates were closed for ever – when its substance was dissipated into thin air, and all but its memories sank into the returnless grave.

In the House of Lords, as chancellor, he instantly became the virtual viceroy. It is true, that a succession of opulent and accomplished noblemen, every two or three years, were transmitted from Whitehall to the Castle, to pillow themselves upon a splendid sinecure, rehearse an annual King's speech, exhibit the acknowledged elegance of noble English life, and, having given the destined number of balls and suppers, await the warrant of a secretary's letter to terminate their political existence. But the chancellor was made of "sterner stuff." His material was not soluble by a blast of ministerial breath. Not even the giant grasp of Pitt would have dared to pluck the sceptre from his hand. If struck, he might have answered the blow as the flint answers, by fire. But the premier had higher reasons for leaving him in the possession of power; he was pure. In all the uproar of public calumny, no voice was ever heard impeaching his integrity; with the ten thousand arrows of party flying round him from every quarter, none ever found a chink in his ministerial mail. He loved power, as all men do who are worthy of it. He disdained wealth, as all men do who are fitted to use it. He scorned the popularity of the day, as all men do who know the essential baseness of its purchase; and aspiring after a name in the annals of his country, like all men to whom it is due – like them, he proudly left the debt to be discharged by posterity.

The chancellor was not without his faults. His scorn was too palpable. He despised too many, and the many too much. His haughtiness converted the perishable and purchasable malice of party, into the "study of revenge, immortal hate." When he struck down an opponent in the fair strife of Parliament, his scorn was like poison in the wound, and the blow was never forgotten but in the grave. But as a statesman, his chief and unconquerable misfortune was the narrowness of his scene of action. He was but the ruler of a province, while his faculties were fitted for the administration of an empire. His errors were the offspring of his position. He was the strong man within four walls; by the very length of his stride striking against them at every step, and bruised by the very energy of his impulse against his hopeless boundaries.

At length a time of desperate trial arose. The Rebellion of 1798 burst out. He had foreseen it. But the men of the Castle, lolling on their couches, would not believe in its possibility. The men of the populace, stirring up the rabble with the point of the dagger, derided him as a libeller of the people; and even the Government of England – too anxiously engaged in watching the movements of the French legions from the heights of Dover, to have time for a glance at disturbers behind the Irish Channel – for a time left him to his fate. But he was equal to the emergency. He had been scoffingly called "the Cassandra of the aristocracy;" but he had neither the fortunes nor the failures of a Cassandra; he had not forfeited his virtues for his gift, and his prophecy was too soon and too terribly realized to be disbelieved. Of such times it is painful to speak, but of the men by whom such times are met, it is dishonourable not to speak with homage. Almost abandoned by authority, assailed almost by a nation, with the ground shaking under his feet, and the whole frame of Government quivering at every roar of the multitude in arms, he stood the shock, and finally restored the country. Language like this has not been the first tribute to the memory of this ardent, vigorous, and unshrinking statesman. But its chief use, and the noblest use of all tributes to the tomb of civil heroism, is, to tell others by what strength of principle, and by what perseverance of purpose, the rescue of nations is alone to be achieved. In the midst of alarm excited by the extent of the revolt, of ignorance from the novelty of the crisis, and of indecision from the dread of responsibility, he stood firm. The original intrepidity of his nature was even strengthened by the perils of the time; and with the whole storm of unpopularity roaring round him, he sternly pursued his course, and combated the surge, until it sank, and the state vessel neared, if it did not yet enter, the harbour.

It is the natural fate of such men, in such times, to be misunderstood, and to be maligned. The libel which cast every stone within its reach at his living name, long continued to heap them on his grave. But all this has passed away, and the manlier portion of his countrymen now appeal to the administration of the "Great Chancellor," in proof of the national capacity for the highest trusts of empire.

Why has not the history of this man, and of his day, been written? Why has not some generous spirit, impelled alike by a sense of justice and a sense of patriotism, adopted this argument for the intellectual opulence and moral energy which may still exist in the Irish mind? Is there no descendant to claim the performance of a duty, which would reflect a lustre on himself from the light which his filial piety planted on the sepulchre? Or why are the recollections of rebels to be taken down from the gibbet, and embalmed in history, while the name of him who smote the rebellion is suffered to moulder away?

I am not writing a panegyric. He had his infirmities; his temper was too excitable, and his measures were too prompt for prudence. But his heart was sound, and his spirit was made for the guidance of a state in the hour of its danger. If a feebler mind had then presided in the public councils, Ireland, within a twelvemonth, would have been a republic; and in every hour since, would have been agonizing under the daggers of rival factions, or paying the fearful price of her frenzy in indissoluble chains.

If this were the single act of his life, it was sufficient for fame. It is enough to inscribe on the mausoleum of any man, that "he rescued his country from a Democracy!"

The first news of the revolt which reached England, produced a formidable effect on the legislature. Even the sagacity of the premier had been deceived, and his cabinet evidently staggered on the effect of the surprise. Opposition had been equally startled, and were still more perplexed in their decision. Dealing for years in all the high-sounding topics of national wrong and national difficulty, they were astonished at the first actual realization of popular revenge. The Englishman had heard of wars as the child hears of spectres – none had seen them, and the narratives served only to excite the imagination. But the tremendous novelty of revolt was now at their doors. Whether the Irish revolters acted in concert with the undying hostility of France, or with the factions reform of England; the danger in either case assumed a shape of the most appalling magnitude. Opposition, in the very prospect of power, shrank from possession; as the stormers of a fortress might start back when they saw the walls rolling down before them in some sudden convulsion of nature. They had predicted every casualty which could befall a country, ruled by a cabinet inexorably closed against themselves. But when their predictions had changed their character from the fantastic and remote into the substantial and immediate – when the clouds which they so often predicted to be advancing over the prosperity of the land, seemed to have suddenly rushed forward, and condensed and darkened with the full freight of national havoc; they as suddenly flew to shelter in utter inaction, and left the minister to meet the storm. Pitt was soon equal to the crisis. The orders which he dispatched to Ireland were stamped with all the considerate vigour of his matchless ability. I had sent him all the information which could be obtained of the progress and purposes of the revolt, with the suggestions arising from the contingency. His remarks on my communication were brief, but incomparably clear, direct, and decided. Their tenor was, that I should distinguish accurately between the deluded and the deluders – that I should assure the loyal of the unhesitating support of England – and that, in all instances, I should cultivate the national loyalty, reward the generous obedience, and sympathize with all the gallant and generous qualities of a people with whom every thing was to be done, by taking an interest in their feelings. These principles were so entirely my own, that I acted upon them with double zeal, and with complete success. The loyalty of Ireland rapidly exhibited itself in the most willing sacrifices; all ranks of opinion coincided in the necessity of bold and instant action; and from day to day, party, absorbed in the sense of the national exigency, disappeared, and patriotism rose. The leading men of both sides of the House ranged themselves in the ranks of the voluntary corps which came forward to assist in the public defence, and the fine metaphor which had once made the senate thunder with applause – "The serpent's teeth, sown in the ground, sprang up armed men," – was now amply, but more fortunately, realized. The bitternesses and schisms of public opinion were hidden in the earth, and the harvest was a brave and spontaneous armament of men prepared to undergo all hazards for the sake of their country.

"Happy," says the French wit, "the land which has nothing for history." This happiness has never belonged to Ireland. Her annals are a romance. But the period of which I speak exhibited her senatorial strength with an energy, almost compensating for her popular misfortunes. While Parliament in England languished, parliament in Ireland started into sudden power. It was aroused by the visible presence of the public peril. Ireland was the outpost, while England was the camp; there the skirmish was at its height, while the great English brigade moved up slowly from the rear. The ardour and activity of the national temperament were exercised in perpetual conflict, and every conflict produced some new champion.

The actual construction of the senate house stimulated the national propensity for display. The House of Commons was an immense circular hall, surmounted with a lofty dome. A gallery supported by columns was formed round the base of the dome, with seats for seven hundred persons, but on crowded occasions capable of containing more; the whole highly ornamented, and constituting a rotunda, uniting grandeur with remarkable architectural elegance. Thus every member acted in the sight of a large audience, however thin might be the assemblage below; for the curiosity attached to the debates was so powerful, that the spacious gallery was generally full. But the nature of that audience excited the still stronger temptation to the bold extravagances of the Irish temperament. The chief portion of this auditory were females, and those the most distinguished of Ireland; women of wit, beauty, and title, the leaders of fashion, and often the most vivid and zealous partizans in politics – of all audiences, the most hazardous to the soberness of public deliberation. As if with the express purpose of including every element adverse to the calmness of council, the students of the neighbouring university possessed the privilege of entrée to the gallery; and there, with the heated imaginations of youth, and every feeling trained by the theories of Greek and Roman Republicanism, they sat, night after night, watching the ministerial movements of a harassed monarchy.

What must be the condition of a minister, rising before such an audience, to pronounce the grave doctrines of public prudence; to oppose argument to brilliant declamation; to proclaim regulated obedience, in the midst of spirits fantastic as the winds; and to lay restraints, essential to the public peace, on a population proud of their past defiances, and ready to welcome even civil war? I was not conscious of any natural timidity; nor have I ever found occasion to distrust my nerve on any great demand; but I must acknowledge, that when in some of the leading debates of that most absorbing and most perilous period, I rose to take the initiative, the sight of the vast audience to whom I raised my eyes, was one of the severest trials of my philosophy. The members round me excited no alarm; with them I was prepared to grapple; it was a contest of argument; I had facts for their facts, answers for their captiousness, and a fearless tongue for their declamation. But the gallery thus filled was beyond my reach; its passions and prejudices were inaccessible by any logic of mine; and I stood before them, less as in the presence of a casual auditory than of a tribunal, and at that tribunal, less as an advocate than as a culprit on the point of being arraigned.

Another peculiar evil resulted from the admission of this crowd, and of its composition. Every casual collision of debate became personal. The most trivial play of pleasantry was embittered into an insult; the simplest sting of passing controversy was often to be healed only by a rencounter in the field. For the whole was acted on a public stage, with the élite of the nation looking down on the performance. The hundreds of bright eyes glancing down from the gallery, were critics whose contempt was not to be resisted; and no public assembly, since the days of the Polish pospolite, ever settled so many points of debate in the shape of points of honour.

At length Opposition rallied, and resolved to make a general assault upon the Administration. Like their English friends, they had been stunned for a while by the suddenness of the outbreak. But as the Turkish populace, in a conflagration or the plague, no sooner recover from their first fright than they discover the cause in the government, and march to demand the head of the vizier; the popular orators had no sooner found leisure to look round them, than they marshalled their bands, and demanded the dismissal of all antagonist authority. I was first to be torn down. I stood in the gate, and while I held the keys, there was no entrance for expectant ambition. I waved the flag in the breach, and until the banner was swept away, the storm was ineffectual. Yet this turning the whole weight of party vindictiveness on my head, gave me a new courage, the courage of passion, the determination which arises from a sense of injury, and which magnifies with the magnitude of the trial. In other times, I might have abandoned the struggle; but, with the eyes of a nation thus brought upon me, and all the ablest men of the opposite benches making my overthrow the very prize of their victory, I determined "to stand the hazard of the die."

The eventful night came at last; for days before, every organ of public opinion was in the most feverish activity; lampoons, pamphlets, and letters to the leading journals, the whole machinery of the paragraph-world was in full work round me; and even the Administration despaired of my being able to resist the uproar – all but one, and that one the noblest and the most gifted of them all, my friend the chancellor. I had sat long past midnight with him on the eve of the coming struggle; and I received his plaudits for my determination. He talked with all his usual loftiness, but with more than his usual feeling.

"Within the next twenty-four hours," said he, "your fate will be decided. But, in public life, the event is not the dishonour; it is the countenance with which we meet it, that makes all the difference between success and shame. If you fall, you will fall like a man of character. If you triumph, your success will be unalloyed by any baseness of purchase." I told him sincerely, that I saw in the vigour and resolution of his conduct a model for public men. "However the matter may turn out in the debate," said he, rising and taking his leave, "there shall be no humiliation in the conduct of government, even if we should be defeated. Persevere to the last. The world is all chances, and ten to one of them are in favour of the man who is resolved not to be frightened out of any thing. Farewell."

Still, the crisis was a trying one, and my occupation during the day was but little calculated to smooth its anxieties. The intelligence from the county announced the increased extent of the revolt; and the intercepted correspondence gave startling proof of an organization altogether superior to the rude tumults of an angry peasantry. Several sharp encounters had taken place with the soldiery, and in some of them, the troops, scattered in small detachments and unprepared, had suffered losses. Insurrectionary proclamations had been issued, and the revolt was already assuming a military form; camps were collected on the mountains, and the arming of the population was become general. My day was occupied in writing hurried despatches to the magistrates and officers in command of the disturbed districts; until the moment when the debate was expected to begin. On my way to the House, every thing round me conspired to give a gloomy impression to my mind, weary and dark as it was already. Public alarm was at its height and the city, with the usual exaggerations of undefined danger, presented the appearance of a place about to be taken by storm. The streets were crowded with people hurrying in search of news, or gathered in groups retailing what they had obtained, and evidently filled with the most formidable conceptions of the public danger. The armed yeomanry were hurrying to their stations for the night, patrols of cavalry were moving out to scour the environs, and the carriages of the gentry from the adjoining counties were driving to the hotels, crowded with children and domestics; while waggons loaded with the furniture of families resident in the metropolis, were making their way for security into the country. All was confusion, hurry, and consternation. The scene of a great city in alarm is absolutely inconceivable but by those who have been on the spot. It singularly harassed and exhausted me; and at length, for the purpose of escaping the whole sight and sensation together, I turned from the spacious range of streets which led to the House; and made my way along one of the narrow and obscure lanes which, by a libel on the national taste, were still suffered to remain in the vicinity of an edifice worthy of the days of Imperial Rome.

My choice was an unlucky one, for I had scarcely gone a hundred yards, when I found my passage obstructed by a crowd evidently waiting with some sinister purpose. A signal was given, and I was called on to answer. I had no answer to make, but required that I should be suffered to pass on. "A spy, a spy! down with him!" was the exclamation of a dozen voices. A rush was made upon me, and notwithstanding my struggle to break through, I was overwhelmed, grasped by the arms, and hurried into the entrance of a house in utter darkness. I expected only a dagger in my heart, and from the muttered tones and words which escaped my captors, not one of whom could I discern, I seemed evidently about to encounter the fate of the spy which they deemed me. But, convinced that nothing was to be gained by submission, I loudly demanded by what right I was seized, declared myself a member of Parliament, and threatened them with the especial vengeance of the law, for obstructing me in the performance of my duty.

This announcement evidently had its effect, at least in changing the subject of their consultation; and, after another whisper, one of their number stepped up to me, and said that I must follow him. My refusal brought the group again round me, and I was forced down the stairs, and through a succession of airless and ruined vaults, until we reached a massive door. There a signal was given, and was answered from within; but the door continued closed.

My emotions during all this period were agonizing. I might not have felt more than others that fear of death which belongs to human nature; but death, in darkness, without the power of a struggle, or the chance of my fate being ever accounted for; death by the hands of assassins, and in a spot of obscure butchery, was doubly appalling. But an hour before, I had been the first man in the country, and now what was I? an unhappy object of ruffian thirst of blood, destined to die in a charnel, and be tossed among the rubbish of ruffian hands, to moulder unknown. Without condescending to implore, I now strongly attempted to reason with my captors on the atrocity of offering violence to a stranger, and on the certainty that they would gain more by giving me my liberty, than they could possibly do by burying their knives in my bosom. But all was in vain. They made no reply. One conception alone was wanting to the torture of the time; and it came. I heard through the depth of the vaults the sound of a church clock striking "eight." It was the very hour which had been agreed on for commencing the debate of the night. What must be thought of my absence? What answer could be made to any enquiry for my presence? What conceivable escape could my character as a minister have, from the charge of scandalous neglect, or more scandalous pusillanimity; from treachery to my friends, or from an utter insensibility to personal name and official honour in myself? The thought had nearly deprived me of my senses. The perspiration of mental torment ran down my face. I stamped the ground, and would have dashed my forehead against the wall, had not the whole group instantly clung round me. A few moments more of this wretchedness, and I must have died; but the door at length was cautiously opened, and I bounded in.