I know, Sir, there have been periods, when there were persons in the country, who would have "overturned its most excellent constitution; but, thank God, these times are past. And I do believe, that, through the whole of this kingdom, there never was a minute, when the people were more satisfied with their Government, or more unanimous in their determination to support and "defend it; and it is with some degree of pride, I can say that the chief cause of this happy ffect "is the much reprobated treaty of peace. Before that, there had for some time prevailed an opi"nion, that the war might have been sooner terminated; but now, though it is so soon renewed, every one is sensible of its injustice on the part of the enemy, and the whole people are ready to join, heart and hand, in the defence of their King and Country, and, if necessary, to die in that I know, Sir, it was necessary for the security of the kingdom, to continue, for some time, "the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and some others; but I know that to the peace we "owe the restoration of those valuable bulwarks of the constitution, and they are not among the "least of its blessings."- -Mr. Addington's Speech, July 18, 1803. 66 * cause. 801] AFFAIRS OF IRELAND. LETTER IV. Dublin, Nov. 28, 1803. SIR,-In my second letter I stated to you the conduct of the government of Ireland at the time the rebellion broke out. In my third I endeavoured to ascertain of what materials that government was composed, and to inquire by what acts the sublime personages who are now become our rulers acquired their right to the description bestowed on them by the Doctor of being "truly great characters." But, perhaps, in adverting to that " truly great character," the late chancery pleader, I did not do justice to the Doctor. Great and little are certainly relative terms. And, although by the standard of public opinion, or of public service, the true greatness of the late chancery pleader may not appear, yet, whenever an intellectual microscope shall be formed of such magnifying power as to enable us to discover the real extent of the Doctor's own capacity, it may be found that, in a relative sense, between the applauder and the applauded, the description of a truly great character given to the latter, may not have been misapplied. I have traced these truly great characters through the night of terror; the one not having come forward at all, and the other having made good his retreat. I have, however, made one small omission with respect to Lord Hardwicke. It is a certain fact, that upon having been directed so to do by Mr. Marsden, his excellency did come to Dublin on the day of the rebellion, at two o'clock, and that he never attempted to retreat until about five o'clock in the evening, when it was the opinion of Mr. Marsden that his excellency should retreat, lest an alarm should be excited through the kingdom by his excellency's remaining in town VOL. IV. [S02 to dine at the Castle. And here ends the military career of Mr. Marsden and his excellency. Of the tendency of their civil conduct, afterwards, a few facts will be worth your observation. Mr. Marsden, in his first fright on the night of the 23d of July, had sent off dispatches to London. Of the contents of these dispatches we are ignorant; but we may infer something of their essence from their substantial effects. The British ministry must have acted under the information of these dispatches. Accordingly, bills for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and for the establishment of martial law for Ireland, passed through the Houses of Parliament in one night. Lord Hawkesbury, in his reply on that night to Mr. Windham, used this remarkable expres sion. "A rebellion has broke out in Ire"land more enormous than ever occurred "before." In Ireland, Sir, the City of Dublin was turned into the state of a blockaded town. Syracuse from Marcellus, and Saguntum from Hannibal were not more anxiously watched. Regular troops, yeomanry, general officers, and great guns; attornies-general and block-houses were all in commotion. Centripetal and centrifugal forces in equal motion, and in equality of counter-action to each other. Arms, from that precipitate revulsion of terror which marks the ague-fit of the mind, were indiscriminately put into any hands where tongues could be found to ask for them. To put down this most "enormous rebellion," a body of yeomanry were placed on permanent pay and duty, to the amount, in point of expense, of above. £100,000 per month, That this body of yeomanry was called out in aid of the regular force, merely for the purpose of meeting the rebellion, is evident | simple term of rebellion is every where from the following circumstance: that at this moment, while I am writing, although it is the very period at which the landing of a foreign enemy may most probably be expected, this body of yeomanry are, almost entirely, to be put off permanent duty, and to have their pay withdrawn. And, now, Sir, if you were to inquire at the Castle of Dublin, what had been the occasion of all this clatter of preparation, both civil and military, you would be told, indeed there "had been a DISPUTE in Thomas Street in the night of the 23d of July." Nay, Sir, I will venture to assert, that if any person were now to go to the waiting-room of Mr. Marsden, and were to presume to call the bloody transaction of the 23d of July, by any other name than "a dispute in Thomas Street," there is not a follower of Mr. Marsden, even to my Lord Lieutenant, who would not consider him as having talked very indecently. Great men are of ten known by little things, and there is one circumstance which is scarcely worth notice, but as a trait of character. On the 1st of August, the bill, which had been brought into Parliament on the 28th of July arrived in Ireland. By that day our " truly great characters" had, in some degree, recovered that portion of understanding with which it has been pleased God to endow them. By that day they began to perceive the difficul ty under which their conduct had brought them. Did a rebellion break out? Had it been eight months in preparation? Had arms and ammunition for 20,000 men been deposited within half a mile of the Castle of Dublin? If so, were the government prepared? And if not, what had they been doing? And if they were prepared, why (to use the phrase of Mr. Whiteford's cross reading of the newspapers), did the Lord Lieutenant like those who presented the petition at St. James's, which missed fire, avoided; and the act is, in one line, deno- make off?" These were questions which then began to ferment in the understandings of these truly great characters, and they deemed it wise, in order to soften as far as possible the inevitable and cruel answers to such interrogatories, to withdraw the fact of rebellion, as far as possible, from the public eye. For this purpose, the skill of that truly great character, the Doctor's lawyer, and of Mr. Marsden's attorney-general was resorted to. And accordingly, in the phrases of the proclamations, which were issued from the The circumstance, therefore, was Privy Council on the 1st of August, we can not at first attended to. There is published perceive a cunning struggle of duplicity in this city a newspaper called the Doblin with fact, and a ridiculous combination of Journal. It is, in general, conducted with ear with folly. The well defined and legal good sense, loyalty, and a regard to truth; mind. but, in particular deviations, it is known to be under the control and immediate direction of government. In that paper of the 20th of October last, a publication appeared, which purported to be a charge given by the junior judge above alluded to, to the grand jury of the county of Antrim. In this place I beg now to declare, that I am far from attempting to assert, that the learned judge did pronounce any such charge; and when i speak of his charge, I request you will understand I mean only the newspaper publication above-mentioned. In the newspaper publication the learned judge is made to tell the grand jury, that "through "the well-timed efforts and strenuous exer"tions of a wISE and ENERGETIC govern"ment, &c. the progress of such crimes as "lately disgraced this country had been ef"fectually checked." If the learned justice did make any such assertion, (which I am far from supposing) with what amazement the grand jury must have received such a broadside, poured upon the truth of the fact, I cannot, as I was not present, know; but I can very well imagine what the feelings of twenty-three well informed gentlemen must have been. Their respect, and a thorough knowledge of their duty would necessarily keep them silent. But though men remain silent under the proper awe and control of a court of justice, their language only becomes more strenuous when that restraint is taken off, and they meet together in private confidence. They who have read the paper to which I have alluded, do not scruple to say, that they are willing to assent to the language attributed to the learned justice, if it shall be admitted that the picture of Mr. Marsden wringing his hands and calling upon God to help him, when Captain King, of the Lawyers' Corps, forced his way into Mr. Marsden's presence on the night of the 23d of July, be a proof of the wisdom and the energy of government. If poor Sir Edward Baker Littlehales having fallen into hystericks upon seeing the unfortunate daughter of Lord Kilwarden be a proof of the wisdom and the energy of the government. If the retreat of the Lord Lieutenant to the Park, there to remain within cover of the guns of the battery, be a proof of the wisdom and the energy of the government. If all these facts be evidence of that wisdom and that energy, then they say they will be willing to assent to the assertion, which the government, in their newspaper have attributed to the learned justice. They say, if it should be admitted that a conspiracy and plot having existed in various parts of the kingdom since 1 the time at which the charge of the learned justice is supposed to have been pronounced: if committees in actual debate (parly com posed of the King's militia) having been since taken up by the yeomanry, and the prisons filled with them, be proof that an "effectual check" had been, before, put to the crime of rebellion, then they say they will assent to the charge attributed to the learned justice. But, Sir, suggestion does not stop here. Men ask, how could (if the learned justice did make any such assertion) the learned justice be led to give credit to a position which contradicts the evidence of the senses of every man in the kingdom, who was present at, or knew any thing of the transaction? How could a learned judge be supposed to assert that, which no man in the kingdom would assert, unless he had some reasons of the same nature as those which prevailed on Mr. Marsden's attorneygeneral, on the trials for high treason, to assert something of the same kind? Men, Sir, couple the extraordinary selection of the learned justice from amongst his fellows, with the extraordinary assertion attributed to him in a government newspaper, and they ask, if he made that assertion, where did he get his information? Was he ever in Mr. Marsden's audience-room since the night of the 23d of July? What passed there? What were the pre-disposing causes which induced government to select particularly that learned justice? Could government have foreseen (and if so, by what faculty) that the learned justice would have given an instruction to the grand jury, so very useful and so very grateful to the government? What night telescope could have been applied to the eye of Mr. Marsden, which, through the dark womb of things unborn, could have enabled him to perceive through this little future star of praise, springing from the creative lips of the learned justice? Here, Sir, decorum towards you and towards the Public induces me to be silent as to other, and perhaps stronger observations. But I may, I believe, add what men also say, that if it were possible the ermined robe of the most awful attribute of his Majesty should have been wrapped round the acts of Mr. Marsden, in order to screen them from public disgrace, we might then look for another, but not less fatal end to our liberties and to our constitution than that which rebellion or invasion could produce. And in truth, they say, that except as to momentary effects, rebellion and invasion might be viewed with indifference, if it can be supposed, that the stained hands of a petty clerk had been wasi.ed in the very fountain of justice. I am compelled here by the duty of civility and respect, to turn aside from the general course of my subject, in order to take notice of a letter signed Cambricus, which appeared in your paper of the 12th instant. Cambricus has done me the honour to advert to a sentence in a former letter of mine, in which the name of Lord Kenyon was mentioned. I am not surprised at Cambricus having been offended, when he found his countryman introduced into such company. I am ready to confess, that when I placed the name of Lord Kenyon in that sentence, I ought to have added some observations to it which I am now very sorry were omitted: and, though I know my letters were written for a good public purpose, and though I think they have not been without some effect, yet I do assure Cambricus, I would almost wish they never had been published, rather than one line of them should have given of fence to any honest gentleman of Wales. But, I am ready to confess my fault and to make atonement; and when I say so much, if Cambricus be a genuine son of St. David, I am certain of his forgiveness. I not only agree with Cambricus in every part of the character which he has given of Lord Kenyon, but I will go a little further, and I will do so publicly, that in this instance Cambricus may cease to compare me with the author of the Pursuits of Literature, who, by the account of Cambricus, corrected in private only, the misrepresentation he had uttered in public. Lord Kenyon was a man of eminent knowledge as a lawyer. He was, besides, a man of remarkable purity and singleness of heart; and I make no doubt of his having now fully experienced the truth of that consoling sentence of Hooker "It is not the deepness of their "knowledge but the singleness of their "belief which God accepteth." But to these high acquirements; and to these virtuous natural dispositions, Lord Kenyon added one singular branch of knowledge, which is, perhaps, more rarely possessed than any other. Lord Kenyon knew, or at least acted as if he knew, the precise bounds and limits of his own powers and his own attainments. Cardinal Richelieu was a very great statesman: he wished to be thought a very great poet; and he made very bad verses. Lord Kenyon was neither a wit nor a statesman: but he knew himself, and so he never became either ischievous or ridiculous. Whether this conduct in my Lord Kenyon proceeded from an innate modesty of nature, or from a penetrating logical faculty, turning in upon and viewing itself. (its hardest exercise) I cannot, nor is it necessary for me to determine. Instead of calling him to the high station which he so ably filled, had it pleased his Majesty to bless the western neighbours of Cambricus (who certainly owe the honest and warm-hearted principality no ill will) with Lord Kenyon for their Chancellor; I can very well conceive what Lord Kenyon, in such a situation, would have done, and also, what he would not have done. From a rare modesty of nature, or from a rare precision of selfknowledge, Lord Kenyon would have acted with reserve and circumspection, on his arrival in a country, with the moral quali ties of the inhabitants of which, and with their persons, manners, and individual characters and connexions, he must have been utterly unacquainted. In such a country, torn with domestic sedition and treason, threatened with foreign invasion, and acting, since the union, under an untried constitution, if Doctor Addington had required that Lord Kenyon should direct a Cambridgeshire Earl" in ALL his councils," Lord Kenyon would as soon, at the desire of Lord St. Vincent's, have undertaken to pilot a line of battle ship through the Needles. Particularly, the integrity of Lord Kenyon would have shrunk from such an undertaking, if a condition had been added to it that no one nobleman or gentleman who possessed any rank, estate, or connexion in the country, should upon any account be consulted. His pride would have spurned at the undertaking, if he were told, that to the Cambridgeshire Earl and himself, in the cares of government, a clerk in the secretary's office, and a couple of lawyers without political habits, political information or honourable connexion, were to be joined as assessors, and to be the only assessors. And Lord Kenyon's pride and integrity would have both joined in preventing him from being, himself, the instru ment of introducing such men into a cabi net of government. If any one man could be found, of whom a young but unhappy victim of the justly offended laws of his country, had, in the moment of his convic tion and sentence, uttered the following apostrophe That viper! whom my "father nourished! He it was from whose "lips I first imbibed those principles and "doctrines, which now, by their effects diag me to my grave; and he it is who is now brought forward as my prosecutor, "and who by an unheard of exercise of "the prerogative, has wantonly lashed, "with a speech to evidence, the dying soa of his former friend, when that dying son had produced no evidence, had made no "defence, but, on the contrary, had acknowledged the charge, and had submit"ted to his fate."Lord Kenyon would have turned with horror from such a scene, in which, although guilt was in one part to be punished, yet in the whole drama, jus tice was confounded, humanity outraged, and loyalty insulted. Of Lord Kenyon, therefore, (Cambricus must well know) it never could have been believed, that he himself would lead such a character forward, introduce him to the favour of a deceived Sovereign, clothe him in the robes, and load him with the emoluments of office. Lord Kenyon must have known that a noble Duke for having toasted at a drunken club, in a common tavern, to a noisy rabble," the sovereignty of the people," was struck, by his Majesty's command, out of the privy council, and deprived of all his offices both civil and military. If therefore, any man were to be found, who, not at a drunken club, or to a brawling rabble, but in a grave and high assembly; not in the character of an inebriated toast-master, but in that of a sober constitutional lawyer, had insisted on the sovereignty of the people as a first principle of the English law; and had declared, that by law an appeal lay from the decision of the tellers of the Houses of Parliament, to that of the "tellers of the nation;" and, that if a particular law were disagreeable to the people, however it might have been enacted with all royal and parliamentary solemnity, nevertheless, it was not binding, and the people by the general law were exempted from obedience to such a particular law, because the people were the supreme and ultimate judges of what was for their own benefit.--Lord Kenyon, if he had been Chancellor in any kingdom in Europe, would have shrunk from recommending any such man to the favour of a Monarch, while there yet remained a shadow of monarchy visible in the world. If Lord Kenyon had been Chancellor, he would have applied himself to his particular duty with exemplary diligence. He would, probably, have sat in his court for five hours in each day. But, if he did, vanity (for poor Lord Kenyon had not any vanity) would never have defeated his labour by inducing him to waste two hours and a half out of each five, in law lectures upon general topies to excite the wonder of the junior lawyers at the extent of his learning, and to turn a grave court of judgment into a theatre for didactic exercise. Lord Kenyon would have known that his duty, there, was precise and particular de cision, and not diffuse and elementary discussion. Lord Kenyon, knowing his duty, had no one sorry passion which could lead him from the execution of it; and, therefore, by the delay of gratifying any such sorry passion no arrear of causes could have been accumulated in his court, which would have starved the bar, and harassed the suitor. It was said of Lord Kenyon that he loved money. If so, he loved his own money only, and not the money of any other man. Lord Kenyon therefore, as Chancellor, never would have made any rule or order by the effects of which, the secretary of a Master of the Rolls would be deprived of all fees, for the purpose of throwing all those fees into the hands of the secretary to the Chancellor, the better to enable that secretary to discharge the pension of some unknown annuitant on his official profits. The mild spirit of Lord Kenyon would have remembered, that in this age of toleration every man's conscience was his own while he obeyed the laws. Lord Kenyon, therefore, never would have fixed upon a nobleman of ancient blood, and of a loyal and a gallant spirit to insult and rate in tedious letters on points of controversial doctrine. Innocent as Lord Kenyon was, he would not have displayed his ignorance of the world by attacking his superiors with his knowledge of the Council of Constance. Lord Kenyon would not have made his labours ridiculous, and his rank contemptible by any such silly interference. Cambricus has observed, that Lord Kenyon was apt to indulge himself in a super-abundance of quotations from the Classics. From having indulged myselt a little in the same sort of exercise, it is not probable that I should have censured such a practice in his lordship. If Lord Kenyon had been tempted by such a man as Doctor Addington to play the politician, the classical recollections of his lordship might have been of some use to him. He might have remembered many observations, which would have shewed him the vast difference between the mind of a statesman and the cases of a lawyer. Of Cicero's opinion of the lawyers he would have recollected.Primum dignitas in tam tenui scientiá que potest esse? res enim sunt parve, prope in singulis literis, atque inter functionibus verborum occupate.And again. At aiunt in Græcis artificibus eos aule dos esse qui citharedi fieri non potuerint; sie nonnullos videmus qui oratores evadere non potuerunt ers ad juris studium devenire. Even old Nævius cannot abstain from thein. Cedo qui vestram rempublicam tantam anisistis tam cito entre |