It has been also attempted to connect | Ireland. Very important at the moment; Lord Castlereagh with some of the severi- but now that the object, the extent, and the ties beyond the law-the retaliation, we result of all those armaments have become may say, of the loyalists on conspiracy and matter of history, we do not see the use of rebellion. Such excesses were, we are old reproducing the rumours and conjectures to enough to know of our own knowledge, which they gave rise while in preparation. violently exaggerated; and, however much Lord Castlereagh's own letters are very few to be lamented, are, in the very circum-in number, and most of them of a mere stances of a civil war, inevitable-but they are in the first degree the guilt of those whose barbarities produce them—

'nec lex est æquior ulla Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.'

formal character. The following is the only passage we can select as giving any general view of the state of affairs, or of his own opinion on them :—

'Private.

'Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Wickham.

'Dublin Castle, June 12, 1798.

These despatches, however, as far as they Sir, I am honoured this day with your letter give us any additional information, prove of the 8th, the military intelligence of which that Lord Castlereagh never countenanced will prove most acceptable on this side of the any such excesses. His leaning was always water. It is of importance that the authority of to the side of mercy-and he was willing to England should decide this contest, as well with treat even the guilty with indulgence. In-a view to British influence in Ireland, as to make deed, Lord Brougham, who in the heat of much to a party in this country, highly exasper it unnecessary for the Government to lend itself too party had, in the speech already referred to ated by the religious persecution to which the Proon the state of the nation in 1817, insinuated testants in Wexford have been exposed. that Lord Castlereagh was privy to those 'In that county it is perfectly a religious alleged violences, has in his subsequent phrenzy. The priests lead the rebels to battle: publication generously admitted that the on their march, they kneel down and pray, complaints made against his Irish adminis-show the most desperate resolution in their, attration as regarded the cruelties during and after the rebellion were entirely unfounded (p.95;) and, again, that

'Lord Castlereagh uniformly and strenuously set his face against the atrocities committed in Ireland; and that to him, more than perhaps any one else, was to be attributed the termination of the system stained with blood,' &c.-Historical Sketches, vol. iii. p. 155.

and

tack. The enclosed certificate is curious, as

marking the complexion of the rebellion in that quarter. [It does not appear.] They put such Protestants as are reported to be Orangemen to death, saving others upon condition of their embracing the Catholic faith. It is a Jacobinical conspiracy throughout the kingdom, pursuing its object chiefly with Popish instruments; the heated bigotry of this sect being better suited to the purpose of the republican leaders than the cold, reasoning disaffection of the northern Presbyterians. The number of the insurgents is great,-so great as to make it prudent to assemble a very considerable force before any attempt is made to penetrate that very difficult and enclosed country.

proved an invaluable test of our national force, actually did, or professed, very extensively to rely. vol. i. pp. 219, 200.

on the disaffection of which our enemies either

This testimony delivered by Lord Brougham with the cautious candour of an historian, in contradiction of his former declamation, is honourable to him, and a final and The conduct of the militia and yeomanry sufficient vindication of Lord Castlereagh. has, in point of fidelity, exceeded our most sanLord Castlereagh had been hardly seven guine expectations. Some few corps of the latweeks in office when the rebellion-which ter, and but very few in that vast military estabwas already completely organized, and had lishment, have been corrupted; but in no inin some instances actually exploded-burst stance has the militia failed to show the most out in full violence all over the country on determined spirit. In this point of view, the inthe night of the 23rd of May. It is surpris-surrection, if repressed with energy, will have ing how little of the history, either political or military, of that rebellion this Correspondence gives. We have looked in vain for anything that was not already known. The greater portion of the volumes which comprise that period is of the class we alluded to at the outset of importance while matters were in suspense, but now of little or none for instance, the largest class of documents is the communications of the Under-Secretary of State in England to the Irish Government, of reports concerning the armaments in the ports of France, and the probabilities of their being destined for

This letter was written in the height of the rebellion, before the battle of Vinegar Hill, and while the issue still hung in some suspense; and the eulogy on the universal and unexceptionable loyalty of the militia. was premature; in the French invasion, two months later, some regiments chiefly composed of Roman Catholics exhibited a very different spirit (vol. i. p. 337). Our readers, however, will observe the passage

There is a great deal of correspondence concerning the machinations of the Irish rebels with the French Government, the evidence given before the Secret Committees of Parliament, and the revelations and final disposal of the state prisoners, the general features of which have been long before the public, and to which the details now given add little more than a general corroboration.

in which, even under the indignation and, the monarchy, and enlighten the deluded!'-vol. horror which the frightful massacres com- i. pp. 258, 259. mitted by the Wexford rebels excited, Lord Castlereagh was anxious to be enabled to maintain a due restraint over the exasperated Protestants. And this is the more important, because this letter was written some days before Lord Camden was superseded by Lord Cornwallis, and must therefore have spoken his sentiments as well as his secretary's, and thus answers an imputation which has been made on Lord Camden's government, of having fostered, or at least inflamed, the rebellion in order to strengthen Protestant ascendancy. The truth is, as we have often stated, that in all Irish rebellions the general aspect of the parties is, that the rebels have been Roman Catholic and the loyalists Protestant.

In this mass of official detail there is so

little personal anecdote that we are induced to give the following extract of a letter from Mr. Henry Redhead Yorke, then a reputed patriot, but, in secret, it seems the correspondent of the Government.

* August 3, 1798.—I was well acquainted in

Long after the Rebellion had been driven from the field, and the two French invasions defeated, Ireland continued in a most disturbed state. Various leaders little above the lowest class of peasants still maintained themselves with predatory corps of freebooters and rebels in some mountainous districts; in fact the precarious state of the country and danger of another insurrection kept alive the alarm of all the Protestants and of all the friends to British connexion, and no doubt forced the question of the Union on the Government at large. It is strange that we find in this correspondence Paris with the two Messrs. Sheares, who lately no hint of when, or how, or with whom suffered in Ireland. The fate of the younger did the direct proposal of that measure originnot surprise me, but I was astonished to learn ated. We have seen in Lord Castlereagh's that the elder was also implicated, for he was early speeches that he had adopted the apparently a man of most meek and exemplary principles on which it was founded; but manners, the father of an infant, and a widower his correspondence affords no trace of his -ties sufficiently strong, methinks, to have curbed his ambition. He was, however, entirely having been, as has been thought, the auunder the influence of his brother, and, though thor of the proposition. The first direct he said little, he was quite (as the French say), allusion we see to it is in a private letter of when he did speak, a la hauteur de la Révolution. Lord Camden in London to Lord CastleThe younger was the boutefeu of all the exiled reagh, undated, but indorsed 1798,' and patriots there. He was the man who proposed placed by the editor under the date of Ocan address to the Convention for carrying arms tober in that year, but which we, from inagainst this country. If you look into the pre-ternal evidence, are satisfied must have face of my trial, you will see the account, though been written in July-three months earlier. while he lived, I never mentioned his name. have heard it remarked, and I have found the In this letter, after explaining his own and remark just, that no subject of the British Crown, Mr. Pitt's views as to Lord Castlereagh's who entered into the views of the French, re- succeeding Mr. Pelham whenever the latter turned from France without importing with him should think proper to resign, he says :much of the ferocity of the French character, and much of the bombast of their style. This has been fully illustrated by the manifesto that was found upon the younger. Laying aside his politics, he was a very accomplished young man. I went with both of them to Versailles, and we visited the Little Trianon, which the Queen of France had constructed. The younger Sheares was so enchanted with the taste of a person who could conceive so beautiful a retreat, that he fell on his knees, and swore he would plunge a dagger in the heart of every Frenchman he met, if a hair of her head were touched. I have sent you this little anecdote of those unfortunate gentlemen, whom I presume you did not know. I will not conceal that I felt deeply afflicted at their fate, and I sincerely wish that the impression may not be lost in any part of our country. The example is awful. May it serve to guard

I

'The King and every one of his Ministers are inclined to a Union, and it will certainly be taken into consideration here, and you will probably hear from the Duke of Portland upon it.' vol. i. p. 376.

This rather looks as if the idea had originated in England.

The next allusion is in a letter from Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Pitt (17 September, 1798), in which, after detailing the unsettled state of the country and the disaffection of several regiments of Irish militia, and expressing his pleasure at the promise of large reinforcements from England, he adds :—

'I consider it peculiarly advantageous that we, ed, and Lord Castlereagh was regularly shall owe our security so entirely to the inter-nominated his successor. We hinted a few position of Great Britain. I have always been apprehensive of that false confidence which pages ago that we should venture a conjecmight arise from an impression that security had ture as to the extraordinary delay of Mr. been obtained by our own exertions. Nothing Pelham's resignation; it is this. We think would tend so much to make the public mind it highly probable that some of the Cabinet impracticable with a view to that future settlement, the Duke of Portland for instance-were

without which we can never hope for any permanent tranquillity.'—vol. i. p. 337.

This if written, as the Editor places it, before Lord Camden's letter, would look like an overture on the part of Lord Castlereagh, but it was really of a subsequent date.

adverse to the appointment of so young a statesman, placed as they might think in so prominent a station by the nepotism of Lord Camden. It is certain, also, that strong objections were made, and we suspect by the King himself, to the appointment of an Irishman to that office; and we know from Mr. Pelham himself that he was induced by the opinion of persons, for whom he had the greatest respect, to suspend his resignation.' That 'opinion' may have been the result of a hope on the part of the opponents, that either he might be persuaded to resume his office, or some other candidate be found to set aside the young Irishman. Lord Cornwallis was, we believe, not at first inclined to continue Lord Castlereagh in office; but the crisis at which he arrived was too perilous to allow of a change, and being, after a little experience, convinced of Lord Castlereagh's official abilities, and won by his personal qualities, he recommended him so strongly, and Mr. Pitt was already so strongly impressed with his claims and talents, that all objections from whatever

ham willingly, and with much personal kindness to Lord Castlereagh, made way for him. This event concludes the first volume of the correspondence.

Mr. Pelham writes to him on the 13th of September, that he had some talk with Mr. Pitt on a subject (evidently the Union) to which he heard that Castlereagh was more friendly than he (Pelham). Yet on the 26th of September, Mr. Marshall, private secretary to Mr. Pelham, and also very much in Lord Castlereagh's confidence, writes from London to acquaint him that the Union is resolved on-that the conditions are under discussion in the Cabinet; and he even enters into detail on some of the most important features of the intended arrangement and this in a tone as if he was giving Lord Castlereagh information on a subject with which he was unacquainted. Early in October, Lord Chancellor Clare came over expressly to confer with the Bri-quarter were abandoned, and then Mr. Peltish Cabinet on this subject; but chiefly with the view-in which he unhappily succeeded of overruling in Mr. Pitt's mind the opinion of, we believe, the majority of the Cabinet, that the settlement of the Ca- The second opens with intelligence from tholic question should be a condition sine the secret informants of the Government qua non of the projected Union. We are, concerning the movements of the Irish emion the whole, unable to affiliate the first grants at Paris to obtain fresh assistance proposition of this great measure to any in- from France, and a corresponding activity dividual minister, and we rather suppose of preparation among the disaffected at that it had been suggested by the circum- home. Amidst the mass of treason revealed stances of the time-and nearly simultane- in these communications, we find one pasously to the mind of every statesman who sage that attests the accuracy of the inforlooked attentively at either the past history mant, who states that when it was supposed or future prospects of the two countries. that an expedition from the Texel was inAn independent Ireland become a political, tended for Ireland, it was agreed that, as we had almost said a physical impossibility. soon as the landing should be effected there, Ireland may revolt-may even for a mo- an insurrection should take place in London. ment be revolutionized; but nature and the Colonel Despard was to be the leading perintermixture of blood, the interchange of son-the King and Council were to be put property, the community of language and to death, and his force was estimated at laws, and the social intercourse and habits 40,000 men ready to turn out.'-(ii. 3.) of seven hundred years, have decided that This information, which must at that time the two islands must be one nation. And have appeared almost incredible, was but we believe that there was not then, and too completely corroborated in February, there is not now, one unprejudiced and dis- 1803, when Despard and six of his associinterested person of a different opinion. ates were convicted and executed for a plot On the 2nd of November. Mr. Pelham's to murder the King on his way to Parliaresignation was at length officially announcment. We notice this, because any one

measure which, however promising to public interests it might be, was so sudden an extinguisher of the most natural and most reasonable personal prospects? These volumes prove, and we know of our own knowledge, that many signal and noble sacrifices of private to public interests were

curious to trace the Jacobinical conspiracy, British House of Lords-was it, we say, to which maintained the rebellious spirit in be expected that all these great classes Ireland so long after the open Rebellion were to be voluntary accomplices in a was put down, will find a good deal of such matter in the communications made by the Home Office in England to that of the chief secretary. They have little relation to Lord Castlereagh personally; they serve, however, to show a state of things which certainly the Government had no share in producing, but which rendered indispens-made-but no doubt the adverse feelings of able vigorous measures of immediate repression, and the Union as the future and inevitable remedy.

Immediately on Lord Castlereagh's permanent appointment that measure began to take an official shape. Early in November, 1798, the English Cabinet transmitted to Ireland the proposed articles of Union, and Lords Cornwallis and Castlereagh began to sound their friends in both houses on the question. Here, and in the course of the long parliamentary struggle that ensued, the reader will probably look for a rich harvest of political scandal. We have heard so much of the corruption of the Irish Parliament, and of the profligate means by which the Union was carried, that it might naturally be expected that the confidential correspondence of the chief manager and tempter would afford some curious revelations. Such expectations will be disappointed. Whether Lord Castlereagh, with his characteristic good faith and honourable feeling, destroyed all papers that might have involved those who confided in him, or whether the editor's discretion has kept back anything that would tend to personal scandal, or whether, finally, the means by which the Union was carried were, in fact, not so generally and flagrantly corrupt as they were said to be, we cannot altogether decide; each of these three causes may probably have had some effect, but the result is certain, that these papers contain less evidence of corruption, or even undue influence, than we ourselves--who never believed half we heard of them--had anticipated.

others not actuated by so high a principle were in many instances propitiated by favours, some of which might be justly stigmatised as jobs, or even worse. But this we also know, that if many were induced by such low motives to support the Union, a number quite as large were led by motives of just the same class, but acting in the opposite direction, to oppose it. All who are, like ourselves, old enough to recollect the time are well aware that the favour which won one vote lost sometimes another, and must admit that the conduct of the soi-disant patriots was liable to as much imputation as that of the courtiers. There was, however, this remarkable difference in favour of the latter-that there was not, we are confident, in either House of Parliament any man who did not abstractedly, and in his own mind, admit that the Union was necessary to the safety of Ireland, and the integrity of the empire. A needy proprietor of a borough was not sorry to receive a large sum by way of compensation for it -he supported. A rich one felt the borough to be of much more value than the compensation-he opposed. One noble lord wished for a step in the peerage; it seemed reasonable, and was given-he supported. Another asked the same favour; the circumstances were not so favourable— he was refused and he opposed. A few such cases may be traced in this correspondence by those who know something of the under-history of the time-though they will perhaps escape younger readers. Lord Brougham, who was intimately acquainted We cannot say that they did not exist with the most eminent opposers of the they did, we make no question, to a certain Union, frankly testifies that Lord Castledegree. Was it to be expected that the reagh had certainly no direct hand in the Members of an independent representative bribery practised.' We go a step farther. assembly, who had hitherto enjoyed, and We believe that if there had been bribery justly, the patronage of their native country he must have known it; and we therefore -that the Bar, who found in the local par- accept Lord Brougham's evidence not liament a ready road to wealth and rank-merely as an exculpation of Lord Castlethat the higher classes of the landed gen-reagh, but as a corroboration of our own try, to whom the House of Commons opened the prospect of the peerage—and, finally, that the Peers themselves about to be merged by a species of decimation in the

opinion that the alleged corruption was extravagantly exaggerated, and we have, for example, a strong conviction that, if the whole truth were told, the Union transac

tions would stand a very favourable com- | pendently of the Union question, disposed parison with those by which the Reform to Emancipation and it may very well be Bill was carried.

supposed that, having strongly professed that opinion while canvassing the support of the Catholics to the Union, they, as well as Mr. Pitt, considered themselves bound to resign when they found that they could not carry their views into effect. We are again disappointed at finding that these volumes give us no more, and indeed much less, insight into the real character of that transaction than we already had from other sources, and particularly the well-informed gossip of Lord Malmesbury. Though Mr. Pitt re

The Union was recommended in the Lord Lieutenant's speech on the 23rd of January, 1799, and the address was carried in opposition to an anti-Union amendment by a majority of only two (103 to 105). This was almost equivalent to a defeat; and on the report the Union clause was rejected by a majority of five (111 to 106). Lord Castlereagh's share in these stormy and most difficult debates cannot be better explained than by the Duke of Portland's reply to his letter announcing the unfavour-signed, ostensibly-and, we have very little able result:

The Duke of Portland to Lord Castlereagh.

London, Tuesday evening, Jan. 29, 1799. My dear Lord,-The conduct you have observed respecting the Union, in the two extraordinary debates you have had to sustain, has been so perfectly judicious and so exactly what could have been wished, that I should do the rest of the King's servants, as well as myself, great injustice, was I to defer our fullest assurances of the satisfaction it has given us, and of the important advantages we anticipate-I should say, with more propriety-which have been derived from the temper, the firmness, aud the spirit you displayed on both these important and most trying occasions.'-vol. ii. p. 145.

doubt, really-because he was not able to fulfil the expectations held out to the Roman Catholics by Lords Cornwallis and Castlereagh, it seems as if he had had very little communication on the subject with either. Nothing, at least, in these papers shows that Lord Castlereagh knew more of what was going on in the Cabinet and the Closet than he might have heard in the clubs; and with this disappointment for us to the secret history of that remarkable resignation, the fourth volume of this work concludes.

It is one of the defects of this modern

Castlereagh's life, and all his papers that are of any permanent interest. But, as the matter now stands, these four volumes comprise barely three years of his life, and do not even bring him into the English Cabinet. We are thus abruptly forced to suspend, almost at his dawn, our sketch of his career.

fashion* of publishing in separate livraisons a work that, for aught we can discover, might be, and ought if possible to be, pubThe rest of the year 1799 was occupied lished together-that it interrupts very inby the Lord Lieutenant and his Secretary conveniently the thread of the narrative or in endeavouring, not always successfully, the course of a life; it tends also to proto maintain the public peace, and in pre-lixity. We see strong reason to believe that, paring for a renewal of the proposal of the if published at once, four volumes would have Union. The correspondence shows, some- amply sufficed to comprise the whole of Lord what tediously, the great and conscientious pains with which the ministers on each side of the channel studied the question and endeavoured to reconcile the contending interests and claims, political, financial, and commercial, of the two countries; but the only object of now surviving importance is the negotiation, or rather communication, of the Irish Government with the Roman Catholics. It has been often asserted that the latter had engaged to support the Union, and did, in fact, essentially contribute to carry it, upon a stipulation on the part of the Government that their emancipation should accompany or at least immediately follow it. This was not so. There was in truth no such stipulation, nor, if there had been, would the Catholics have been entitled to enforce it; for although some few of their leading men were personally favourable (and yet very feebly so) to the mea* We think it but justice to the noble Editor to sure, the general body professed absolute say that arrangements of this sort are generally neutrality, and were in reality hostile. But those of the publisher, who does not like to adboth Lords Cornwallis and Castlereagh may be a fair tradesman's view; but it is in many venture a whole work at once. This, we admit, were, on the general principle and inde-ways injurious to literature.

a

But though we cannot but think that a vast deal of adventitious matter might have been advantageously omitted, there is one voluminous topic which happens, under our present circumstances, to have again become of great interest-we mean STATE PROVISION FOR THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY of Ireland, which Lord Castlereagh considered not merely, an indispensable preliminary to the Emancipation, as it was called, of the laity, but a measure of justice and policy, which ought