Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843

Meantime it will add weight to any thing we can offer in behalf of the Irish policy now formally avowed by Government, if we acknowledge ingenuously that for some weeks we ourselves shared in the doubts upon its wisdom, not timidly expressed by weighty Conservatives. We believe it, indeed, natural and honourable that the first movement of feeling upon cases such as those now proceeding in Ireland, should be one of mere summary indignation. Not that scurrility and the basest of personalities from Mr O'Connell are either novelties, or difficult to bear. To hear an old man, a man whose own approach to the period of physical decay, is the one great hope and consolation of all good subjects in Ireland, scoffing at grey hairs in the Duke of Wellington—calling, and permitting his creatures to call, by the name of "vagabonds" or "miscreants," the most eminent leaders of a sister nation, who are also the chosen servants of that mistress whom he professes to honour: this might have been shocking in any man who had not long since squandered his own ability to shock. As it is, these things move only laughter or silent disgust, according to the temper of readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests, or men of education amongst Mr O'Connell's followers, but even the peasantry, must in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a general habit of self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any individual insult These were not the causes of public indignation. Not what Mr O'Connell said, but what he did, kindled the general wrath. To see him marching and countermarching armies, to find him bandying menaces with the Government of this great nation, and proclaiming (openly or covertly) that he would not be the party to strike the first blow, but that assuredly he would strike the second—thinking it little to speak as a traitor, unless also he spoke as an European potentate; this was the spectacle before which the self-control of so many melted away, and which raised the clamour for vindictive justice. It quickened the irritation to know, that hostile foreigners were looking on with deep interest, and every where misinterpreting the true readings of the case. Weeks passed before we could thoroughly reconcile our own feelings to the passive toleration, or apparent apathy, of the Government. Our sense of prudence took the alarm, not less than our feelings. And finally, if both could have acquiesced, our sense of consistency was revolted by what met the public eye; since, if the weak were to be punished, why should the strong be connived at? Magistrates, to the amount of three score, had been dismissed for giving their countenance to the Repeal meetings; and yet the meetings themselves, which had furnished the very principle of the reproach, and the ground of punishment, were neither dispersed nor denounced.

Rarely, however, in politics, has any man final occasion to repent of forbearance. There may be a tempest of provocation towards the policy of rigour; that policy may justify itself to the moral sense of men; modes even of prudence may be won over to sanction it; and yet, after all the largest spirit of civil prudence, such as all of us would approve in any historical case removed from the passions of the times, will suggest a much nobler promise of success through a steady adherence to the counsels of peace, than any which could attend the most efficient prosecution of a hostile intervention. The exceeding weight of the crisis has forced us into a closer comparison than usual of the consequences probably awaiting either course. Usually in such cases, we are content to abide the solutions of time; the rapid motion of events settling but too hastily all doubts, and dispensing with the trouble of investigation. Here, however, the coincidence of feelings, heavily mortified on our own part, with the serious remonstrances in the way of argument from journals friendly to Sir Robert Peel's government, would not suffer us to rest in the uneasy condition of dissatisfied suspense. We found ourselves almost coerced into pursuing the two rival policies, down to their separate issues; and the result has satisfied ourselves, that the minister is right. We shall make an effort for bringing over the reader to our own convictions. Sir Robert, we shall endeavour to show, has not been deficient in proper energy; his forbearance, where it has been most conspicuous, is either absolute—in which case it will be found to justify itself, even at present, to the considerate—or it is but provisional, and waiting for contingencies—in which case it will soon unmask itself more terrifically than either friend or enemy, perhaps, anticipates.

The Minster's defence is best pursued through the turns of his own admirable speech in the recent debates on the grievances of Ireland. But, previously, let us weigh for a moment Mr O'Connell's present position, and the chances that seem likely to have attended any attempt to deal with him by blank resistance. It had been always understood, by watchful politicians, that the Repeal agitation slumbered only until the reinstalment of a Conservative administration. The Whigs were notoriously in collusion at all times, more or less openly, with this "foul conspiracy:"14 a crime which, in them, was trebly scandalous; for they it was, in times past, who had denounced the conspiracy to the nation as ruinous; in that they were right: but they also it was, who had pointed out the leading conspirator as an individual to national indignation in a royal speech; and in that they degraded, without a precedent, the majesty of that high state-document. Descending thus abjectly, as regarded the traitor, the Whigs were not unwilling to benefit by the treason. They did so. They adulterated with treason during their term of power: the compact being, that Mr O'Connell should guide for the Government their exercise of Irish patronage so long as he guaranteed to them an immunity from the distraction of Irish insubordination. When the Tories succeeded to power, this armistice—this treasonable capitulation with treason—of necessity fell to the ground; and once again Mr O'Connell prepared for war. Cessante mercede cessat opera. How he has conducted this war of late, we all know. And such being the brief history of its origin, embittered to him by the silent expression of defiance, unavoidably couched in any withdrawal of the guilty commerce, we all guess in what spirit he will wish to conduct it for the future. But there presents itself the question of his ability—of his possible resources—for persevering in his one mode of hostility. He would continue his array of mobs, but can he? We believe not. Already the hours of his sorceries are numbered: and now he stands in the situation of an officer on some forlorn outpost, before a superior enemy, and finding himself reduced to half a dozen rounds of ammunition. In such a situation, whatever countenance he may put on of alacrity and confidence, however rapidly he may affect to sustain his fire in the hope of duping his antagonist into a retreat, he cannot surmount or much delay the catastrophe which faces him. More and more reluctantly Mr O'Connell will tell off the few lingering counters on his beadroll: but at length comes the last; after which he is left absolutely without resources for keeping the agitation alive, or producing any effect whatever.

Many fancy not. They suppose it possible that these parades or field-days may be repeated. But let us consider. Already it impresses a character of childishness on these gatherings of peasants; and it is a feeling which begins to resound throughout Ireland, that there is absolutely no business to be transacted—not even any forms to be gone through—and, therefore, no rational object by which such parades can be redeemed from mockery. Were there a petition to be subscribed, a vote to be taken, or any ostensible business to furnish an excuse for the meeting—once, but once only, in each district, it might avail. As it is, we have the old nursery case before us—

"The king of France march'd up the hill,With twenty thousand men,"

followed by his most Christian majesty's successful countermarch. The very children in the streets would follow them with hootings, if these fooleries were reiterated. But, if that attempt were made, and in some instances should even succeed, so much the worse for the interests of Repeal. The effect would be fatal. No device could be found more excellent for killing the enthusiasm which has called out such assemblies, than the evidence thus forced upon the general mind—that they were inoperative, and without object, either confessed or concealed. Hitherto the toil and exhaustion of the day had been supported, doubtless, under a belief that a muster of insurrectionary forces was desired, with a view to some decisive course of action, when all should be found prepared. The cautionary order issued for total abstinence from violence had been looked upon, of course, as a momentary or interim restraint. But if once it were understood that this order was absolute, or of indefinite application, the chill to the national confidence would be that of death. For we are not to suppose that the faith and love of the peasantry can have been given, either personally to Mr O'Connell, or to Repeal, as a cause for itself. Both these names represent, indirectly, weightier and dearer objects, which are supposed to stand behind: even Repeal is not valued as an end—but simply as a means to something beyond. But let that idea once give way, let the present hope languish, let it be thrown back to a period distant or unassigned—and the ruin of the cause is sealed. The rural population of Ireland has, it is true, been manœuvred and exhibited merely as a threatening show to England; but, assuredly, on that same day when the Irish peasants, either from their own sagacity, or from newspapers, discover that they have been used as a property by Mr O'Connell, for purposes in which their own interest is hard to be deciphered, indifference and torpor will succeed. For this once, the nationality of Ireland has been too frantically stimulated for the toleration of new delays. Mr O'Connell is at last the martyr of his own success. Should the priestly order refuse to advance further on a road nominally national, but from which, at any moment, the leader may turn off, by secret compromise, into a by-road, leading only to family objects, universal mutiny must now follow. The general will of the priesthood has thus far quelled and overruled the individual will; but that indignant recusants amongst that order are muttering and brooding we know, as well from the necessities of human nature, as from actual letters already beginning to appear in the journals. Under all these circumstances, a crisis is to be dreaded by the central body of Repealers, which body is doubtless exceedingly small. And what will hasten this crisis is the inevitable result from a fact noticed as yet only for ostentation. It is this. The weekly contributions in money, and their sudden overflow, have occasioned some comments in the House of Lords; on the one side with a view to the dishonesty apparent in the management of this money, and to the dark purposes which it may be supposed to mask—on the other, with a view to the increasing heartiness in the service, which it seems to express. It is, however, a much more reasonable comment upon this momentary increase, so occasional and timed to meet the sudden resurrection of energy in the general movement, that the money has flowed so freely altogether under that sane persuasion which also has drawn the peasantry to the meetings—viz. the fixed anticipation of an immediate explosion. Multitudes in the belief, suddenly awakened and propagated through Ireland—that now at length, all further excuses laid aside, the one great national enterprize, so long nursed in darkness, had ripened for execution, and would at last begin to move—have exerted themselves to do what, under other circumstances, they would not have done. Even simple delay would now irritate these men beyond control. They will call for an account. This will be refused, and cannot but be refused. The particular feeling of these men, that they have been hoaxed and swindled, concurring with the popular rage on finding that this storm also, like all before it, is to blow over—if there be faith in human nature, will do more to shake the Repeal speculation than any possible course of direct English resistance. All frauds would be forgiven in an hour of plausible success, or even in a moment of undeniable preparation. But disappointment coming in the rear of extravagant hopes will be fatal, and strike a frost to the heart of the conspiracy. For it cannot be doubted that none of these extra services, whether in money or personal attendance, would have been rendered without express assurances from high quarters, and not merely from fond imaginations founded on appearances, that the pretended regeneration for Ireland was at land.

Now let us see how these natural sequences, from the very nature of the showy demonstrations recently organized, and from the very promises by which they must have been echoed, will operate in relation to the measures of the Government; either those which have been adopted, or those which have been declined. Had the resolution (a fatal resolution, as we now think) been adopted in the cabinet to disperse the meetings by force, blood would have flowed; and a plea, though fraudulent in virtue, would have been established for O'Connell—such as we may suppose to be built upon a fact so liable to perversion. His hands would have been prodigiously strengthened. The bloodshed would have been kept before the eyes of the people for ever, and would have taken innumerable forms. But the worst, ultimately the ruinous, operation of this official intervention would have lain in the plenary excuse from his engagements furnished to Mr O'Connell, and in the natural solution of all those embarrassments which for himself he cannot solve. At present he is at his wits' end to devise any probable scheme for tranquillizing the universal disappointment, for facing the relapse from infinite excitement, and for propitiating the particular fury of those who will now hold themselves to have been defrauded of their money. Leave this tempest to itself, and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to intercept that result, assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the estimate, therefore, of O'Connell, we may rely upon it—that a battalion of foot, or a squadron of horse, appearing in aid of the police to clear the ground at Mallow or at Donnybrook, would have seemed the least questionable godsend that has ever illuminated his experience. "O jubilate for a providential deliverance!" that would have been his cry. "Henceforward be all my difficulties on the heads of my opponents!" But at least, it is argued, the fact would have been against him; the dispersion would have disarmed him, whatever colouring he might have caused it to bear. Not at all. We doubt if one meeting the less would have been held. Ready at all times for such emergencies, the leader would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal quillet, sharpened and retouched, against the official orders. He would have had an interview with the authorities: he would have shown a flaw in the wording of the instructions: he would have rebaptized his assembly, and, where no business goes on, any name will answer: he would have called his mob "a tea-party," or "an agricultural association;" the sole real object concerned, which is the exhibition of vast numbers trained and amenable to instant restraint, would have proceeded under new names. This would no longer have languished when Government had supplied the failing impulse: and in the mean time to have urged that, merely by its numbers, combined with its perilous tendencies, the gathering was unlawful—would have availed nothing: for the law authorities in parliament, right or wrong, have affected doubts upon that doctrine; and, when parliament will not eventually support him, it matters little that a minister of these days would, for the moment, assume the responsibility of a strong measure. Or, if parliament were to legislate anew for this special case, the Repealer would then split his large mobs into many small ones: he would lecture, he would preach, he would sing, in default of other excuses for meeting. No law, he would observe coolly to the magistrate, against innumerable prayer-meetings or infinite concerts. The items would still be reported to one central office: the facit would be the same; and it would tell for the same cause.

Thus it appears that no fact would have resulted against the Repealers, had the Government taken a severe course. Still, may it not be said that a fact, and a strong one, survives on the other side, viz. against the Government, under this forbearing course which they really have taken? What fact? Is it the organization of all Ireland? Doubtless that bears an ominous sound: but it must be considered—that if the leader cannot wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own, and plainly he cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action from the indiscretion of his opponents, but on the contrary must be ruined—cause and leader, party and partisan chief, by the very 'lock' (or as in America is said, the 'fix') into which he has brought himself, by the pledge which he cannot redeem—far less can that organization be used by others or for any other purpose. It is an organization not secret; not bound by oaths; loose and careless in its cohesion; not being good for its proper object, it is good for no other, and we hear of no one attribute by which it threatens the public peace beyond its numerical extent.

But is that true? Is it numerically so potent as it is represented? We hardly need to say, that the exaggerations upon this point have been too monstrous to call for any pointed exposures. With respect to one of the southern meetings—that at Cork, we believe—by way of applying some scale or measurement to the exaggerations, we may mention that a military man, actually measured the ground after the retirement of the crowd. He ascertained that the ground could barely accommodate twenty-five thousand men standing in regimental order. What was the report of the newspaper? Four to five hundred thousand, as usual. Indeed, we may complain of our English Conservative Journals as, in this point, faithfully reflecting the wildest statements of the Repeal organs. So much strength was apparently given, for the moment, to the Repeal interest by these outrageous fictions, that we, for our own parts, (whilst hesitating as to other points of the Government policy,) did not scruple to tax the Home Minister and the Queen's Lieutenant with some neglect of duty15 in not sending experienced officers of the army to reconnoitre the meetings in every instance, and authentically to make returns of the numbers present. Since reading the minister's speech, however, we are disposed to think that this neglect was not altogether without design. It appears that Sir Robert relies in part upon these frightful falsehoods for effecting a national service by rousing the fears of the Roman Catholic landholders. In this there is no false refinement; for, having very early done all the mischief they could as incendiary proclamations of power to the working classes, the exaggerations are now, probably, operating with even more effect in an opposite direction upon the great body of the Catholic gentry. Cordially to unite this body with the government of Ireland would, by much, overbalance the fickle support of the peasantry, given for the moment to the cause of disaffection. That disaffection, under its present form, is already, perhaps, on the point of unlocking its union. It cannot be permanent as an organization; for, without hope, no combination can sustain itself, and a disaffection, founded purely upon social causes, can be healed by no Government whatever. But if the Catholic gentry, treated as they now are with fraternal equality, should heartily coalesce with the party promoting a closer British connexion, that would be a permanent gain.

The Irish policy, therefore, the immediate facts of the policy, pursued by the Government, if we distinguish it from the general theory and principles of their policy as laid down in the speech of the Premier, has not been what it is said to have been. Summing up the heads, let us say that we are not resigned negligently to the perils of civil war; those perils, though as great as Mr O'Connell could make them, are not by any means as great as Mr O'Connell describes them; the popular arrays are ridiculously below the amounts reported to us: in some instances they have been multiplied by 20, probably in all by 15; the rumour and the terror of these arrays have operated both ways; for us more permanently than against us. Lastly, it is not true that the Government has proceeded only by negative steps; the army has been increased in Ireland, the garrisons have been better arranged; military stations have been strengthened, and seditious magistrates have been dismissed.

Upon this last point, one word: we have seen nothing more grossly factious in the conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, that these magistrates ought not to have been dismissed. Well might the Chancellor say, that the discussion had been conducted by petty lawyerlike quibbles. The case stands thus: there are two principles concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's office—theoretic amenability to the letter of the law, and practical serviceableness for his duties. Either furnishes a ground of dismissal. To be scandalously indecorous, to be a patron of gambling in public places, would offer no legal objection to a magistrate; but he would be dismissed as a person unsuitable by his habits to the gravity of the commission. If you hire a watchman to protect your premises, and you discharge him upon the ground that he has been found drinking with reputed burglars, no man will hold the watchman to have been hardly used, because the burglars had not been convicted judicially. That allegation amounts to this: that he has not committed any offence known to the laws. What will you reply? "I know it," you say: "I grant it; and therefore I charge you with no offence. But I dismiss you on a principle of expedience. You have violated no law; but you have shown yourself to be a man disqualified for the very urgent duties of the post—much more disqualified than you would have been by sickness, blindness, or any other physical infirmity."

Mr O'Connell now threatens to pursue his career, by repeating that same absurd misdemeanour of summoning a mock parliament, which, some twenty and odd years ago, a Staffordshire baronet expiated by the penalties of fine and imprisonment. At that crisis we shall see the tranquil minister unmask his artillery. But could it be reasonable to look for a faithful discharge of painful duties, arising in these later stages of the Repeal cause (and duties applying probably to the cases of gentlemen, neighbours, fellow partisans,) from one who had already promoted that cause, in its previous stages, to the extent of sedition and conspiracy? He who has already signalized to the nation his readiness to co-operate in so open a mischief as dismemberment of the empire, wherefore should he shrink from violating an obscure rule of the common law, or a black letter statute?

But enough of the policy which has been pursued. That, by its nature is limited, and of necessity, in many points of recent application, is a policy of watching and negation. Now, let us turn to the general policy, as it is reviewed in the very comprehensive speech of the Prime Minister. This applies equally to the past and the future. The French journals, and in particular the Débats, complain that it is crowded with details. How should this be otherwise? Can there be an answer given to charges whose vice is their vagueness, otherwise than by circumstantial exposures of their falsehood? Ireland, for instance, has been unfairly treated as to taxes, partition of indulgences, pecuniary advances. That is the charge. Can it be met with another answer than by absolute arithmetic, tax-office proofs, or returns from the Exchequer? "But in these a foreigner takes no interest." Doubtless! and that should be an argument with the foreigner for his declining to judge upon the question. Want of understanding is not at all a worse disqualification for acting as a judge than want of interest in the subject. We mention this pointedly; because it is not to foreigners chiefly that this maxim applies: a profound injustice continually operates in this way amongst the parliamentary foes of Government. Often in private life we witness the unprincipled case—that, upon suspecting a man's vindication to be established by any investigation, men will decline to look into it, as really possessing too little interest for themselves; though these same people had not found any want of interest in the allegations—nay, had mastered all the details—so long as the charges pointed to some disgraceful issue, and the verdict threatened to be unfavourable. An instance of this baseness, truly shocking to the moral sense, is found in the ridiculous charge against the ministers, founded upon the mail-coach contract. This was not at all too petty to be pressed with rancour. However, it was answered. The answer, on the principle of the case, and coupled with the illustrations from parallel cases, is decisive. And then the taunt is—"But why fasten upon charges so minute and frivolous?" Minute and frivolous, we grant; but not so in that degree which prevented you gentlemen in opposition from dwelling on then with genial spite, as being odious in proportion to their pettiness. "You, you, it was," says Sir Robert, "that pressed the case!" Certainly: and they it was who would never have withdrawn the case had they not found it untenable. It is thus easy for two men to concert a collusive attack which shall succeed either way, and be dishonest both ways. "Do you," says the one, "try on this particular case for harassing the minister. If it tells, if it sticks, then we both pitch into him. If it fails, then rise I and say:—'How shameful in an official person to throw dust in the eyes of the House by detaining it upon a miserable trifle, whilst the criminal gravities of his conduct are skulking in the rear under this artifice for misleading the public attention!'"