characteristically put it with reference to the Irish, and with the great merit of absolute truth "We take their corn; We take their beef; And take their money too!" If the Union is really beneficial to Ireland-and there are many admissible arguments in its favour which cannot be put out of sightthe benefit is not of a material character, for such is the complication of industrial and social circumstances involved in the Union, that while the cream of the produce of Ireland passes into English markets, in extremely valuable augmentation of the food supply in the larger country, the money in payment for that food seldom leaves the English shores, and the complication perpetually results in the impoverishment and starvation of the Irish farmer, who in seasons of scarcity has no option but to send all the best of his produce to England to pay his rent, leaving to himself only the residue of potatoes and other of the humblest fare, for contentment with plenty of which he is taunted by the very people who are fed upon the bounty he has provided, and for starvation upon a deficiency of which he is taunted again for not growing that for himself which he is compelled to grow exclusively for others. The legislation of the year makes the case clear with reference to the intentions of Parliament, for while the grants intended for the poor are expressly stated to be for their employment, the advances for bolstering up manufactures and trade are expressed to be for their assistance. Not out of generosity, but purely for self-defence, is the further legislation of 1822 for the establishment of fever hospitals, the famine having rendered disease of that kind a public peril of great magnitude, to be regarded not so much with commiseration as with terror. Of a similarly defensive character was the establishment during the same reign in Dublin, by Act of Parliament, of a foundling hospital, and it is remarkable that this came to be regarded as so urgent a necessity there as to justify the appropriation of funds for it from the SUICIDE OF LORD CASTLERRAGH. 155 national exchequer, the very next year after the memorable visit of George IV. This famine year added a remarkably tragic personal event to the other annals of the time. Lord Castlereagh, who had been actively instrumental in effecting the Union, and who had all along been the prime mover against every form of concession, and in favour of every species of coercion, had succeeded to the title of Marquis of Londonderry so late as 1821. Almost the first thing he did, after his elevation to the peerage, was to introduce the last Coercion Acts devised by him into the House of Lords. On the 12th of the following August, 1822, he committed suicide by severing his carotid artery with a penknife. Of course he was insane, but how he became so is not so much of course. His friends said it was the mental strain of his arduous official duties. His foes said it was the torturing consciousness of his own manifold misdeeds. His friends procured him the honour of interment in Westminster Abbey, amongst his pall-bearers being the Duke of Wellington. Some of his foes vehemently resented the honour done to such a man, and saluted his funeral, to the very gates of the abbey, with shouts of execration. And so ended the career of a very conspicuous individual in history. CATHOLIC CHAPTER XXII. ACHIEVEMENTS TITHE COMMUTATION PROTESTANT RESISTANCE-RIOT AND DENUNCIATION W THILE the famine of 1822 was raging, the efforts of the Catholic leaders were naturally relaxed, but in the course of the session Canning was appointed to be Governor of India, and, as a final effort on his part to obtain an instalment of the concessions he favoured, he introduced a bill for the admission of Catholic peers into the House of Lords. Peel and the government opposed, but their opposition was overcome in the Commons by a majority of five! The Lords, as before, defeated the bill. This course of the government was the more remarkable, because, while any definite concessions were resisted, there was a constant desire manifested to conciliate the Catholics. It was for this cause that the Marquis Wellesley had been made Lord Lieutenant, as his sympathy with Catholic claims was well known; and he was so considerate towards the suffering people, and so courteous to the Catholics, some of whom he officially entertained, that he became a very popular favourite with the bulk of the people, and correspondingly excited the jealousy and ire of the Protestants. It was in this spirit that an Act was passed by the government for the commutation of tithes, which provided for the leasing of tithes under new restrictions, but especially for the deduction by the tenant from his rent of the amount he had paid for tithes, thus throwing the THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 157 tithes upon the landlords, to the partial relief of the tenants. This practical concession, which, on the face of it, threw upon Protestant landlords the obligation of paying for the support of the Protestant Church, so exasperated the noisiest of the Protestants, that they sought to avenge themselves upon the Lord Lieutenant. This determination came to a head in November 1822. It had been the custom of the Protestants to march, on the 4th of that month, to College Green, to decorate the statue of William III. with silken trappings. This annual ceremony had been for many years persevered in, because it was known to be a source of great vexation to the Catholics. Lord Wellesley, determining to put an end to such childish exhibitions of religious animosity, forbade the ceremony, and effectually prevented it by a strong guard. The Protestant party assumed to be so justly insulted by this that the corporation of Dublin (an exclusively Protestant body) passed a vote of censure upon their Lord Mayor for taking part with the Lord Lieutenant; and the so-called Guild of Merchants, another Protestant body, passed resolutions demanding repeal of the Union as a peevish set-off, but nothing came of it. The Protestants, determined not to be baulked of their revenge, got up a conspiracy to insult the Lord Lieutenant at the theatre, where, after riotous demonstrations of insult, a bottle and a fragment of a watchman's rattle were thrown at the viceregal box, amid a terrific uproar. The riot was only stopped by the intervention of a strong body of police. About the same time a certain Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, and his Protestant associates, sent a petition to Parliament to put down Popery and to send O'Connell to the Tower, and placards and newspapers were circulated denouncing "O'Connell, the Pope, and the devil" as three conspirators to be disposed of; and these denunciations suited the Protestants of the city, and contributed very much to the riot, the Marquis Wellesley being clearly hinted at as a fourth party. It was under these circumstances that O'Connell, with the newlyacquired co-operation of Shiel, founded the "Catholic Association," the first meeting of which, held in a tavern in Sackville Street, consisted of only twenty persons; but the early adhesion of Lord Killeen and the Earl of Kenmare soon added to its strength; and John Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, writing over the initials of " J. K. L.," contributed very much to the power of the movement. By the following year (1823) this association had acquired considerable force, and in 1824 it was gaining influence very successfully. It consisted of members who paid a guinea per annum, and associates paying one shilling. Regular meetings were held every Saturday, at which the members spoke in a conversational manner with businesslike calmness. At first the association excited little notice and some contempt, but in the second year it developed considerably, and O'Connell devised a new system of monthly subscriptions of one penny, which he called "Catholic rent," and the numbers of pence contributed being soon immense, it became evident that the movement had a deep hold upon the masses of the people, and the evidence of popular approval adduced by the amounts raised encouraged the leaders and correspondingly alarmed the government. It was said that the collections of rent sometimes amounted to as much as fifty pounds in a day, and reached aggregates of many thousands sterling. Writers who make a supreme merit of being anti-Catholic assert that these subscriptions of one penny per month were not voluntary, but were extorted by the influence of Popish priests and demagogues, and that a "poor, ignorant, and deluded peasantry" dared not refuse to pay the rent, which (one penny per month) was a heartless imposition upon an impoverished and suffering people. The evident extravagance of such assertions is their best refutation; and it is not necessary to be a Catholic to believe that a novel source of revenue, appealing to the imagination by statements of enormous aggregate results, was extremely likely to become very popular amongst those from whom the rent was obtained. Complaints that no accounts were rendered, and insinuations that the money was improperly made away with, however founded upon facts, come with a bad grace from those who had made laws for the prevention of the very publicity which the issue of systematic accounts must have implied. |