FORE:[See larger version]Agrarian outrage had thus been effectually put down by the special commission; but a much more formidable difficulty was now to be encountered by the Government, which was called upon to suppress a rebellion. In order that its origin may be understood, it will be necessary to sketch briefly the rise and progress of the Young Ireland party. It had its origin in the establishment of the Nation newspaper in 1842, by Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy, and John Mitchel. Davis was a native of the county of Cork, a member of the Church of England, and a barrister who had devoted himself to literature. He was a man of genius and enthusiastic temperament, combined with habits of study and a love of system. As a member of the Repeal Association, and as a writer in the Nation, he constantly advocated national independence. He was a vigorous writer, and also a poet. He was much respected personally by all classes, and would have exerted a powerful influence, but he was cut off by fever in the midst of his career. His memory received the honour of a public funeral, which was one of the largest and most respectable that had for some time taken place in Dublin. Mr. Duffy, the proprietor and editor of the Nation, a Roman Catholic and a native of Monaghan, had been connected with the press in Dublin. Mr. Mitchel, also a northerner and a solicitor by profession, was the son of a Unitarian minister in Newry. These men were all animated by the same burning love of Ireland, and unmitigated hatred of English domination. The Nation soon attained a vast circulation; its leading articles were distinguished by an earnestness, a fire, a power, an originality and boldness, till then unknown in the Irish press. Its columns were filled with the most brilliant productions in literature and poetry, all designed to glorify Ireland at the expense of England, and all breathing the spirit of war and defiance against the Government. In addition to the Nation, they prepared a number of small books, which they issued in a cheap form as an Irish library, devoted chiefly to the history of their country, and its struggles for independence. By their exertions, reading-rooms were established throughout the country, and a native literature was extensively cultivated. The orator of the party was Thomas Meagher, at a later period general in the American army, son of a Waterford merchant, who was afterwards member of Parliament. He was a brilliant, fluent, ardent, daring speaker; his appearance and manners were those of a gay, reckless, dashing cavalier; and his warlike harangues had won for him the designation, "Meagher of the Sword." His speeches fired his audience with wild enthusiasm. Since 1844, as we have seen, Mr. William Smith O'Brien had become the leader of this party, which differed in spirit and purpose from the Old Ireland party, of which O'Connell had been so long the leader. O'Connell's agitation even for Repeal was essentially religious. Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church were indissolubly associated in his mind. His habits as a nisi prius barrister made him an advocate more than a statesman; and having pleaded the cause of his Church for forty years, having been rewarded and retained for so doing by an annual "tribute" collected in the chapels of the kingdom, and having won his unparalleled popularity and almost kingly power by his services in this cause, he could not help regarding himself as the special champion of the Irish priests and their people. For them he courted Whig alliances, for them he abused the Tories, for them he sought Repeal, and for their sakes he deprecated war. He knew that the Protestants of Ireland would never sufficiently trust him or his ecclesiastical clients, to join them in a war against English supremacy, which they disliked far less than Roman Catholic ascendency. He knew that a war for Repeal must be a civil and religious war; and he too well remembered the horrors of 1798, and was too well aware of the[564] power of England, seriously to encourage anything of the kind. He talked indeed about fighting at the monster meetings, but he did so merely to intimidate the Government, confident of his power to hold the masses in check, and to prevent breaches of the peace. The State prosecutions and the proceedings of the Young Ireland party worked in him the painful and almost heart-breaking conviction that he had gone too far. Another essential difference existed between the two parties regarding religion. The Young Irelanders wanted to ignore religion in the national struggle. Their object was to unite all Irishmen in the great cause, to exorcise the spirit of bigotry, and to cultivate the spirit of religious toleration. But neither the Protestants nor the Catholics were prepared for this. The peasantry of the South especially would not enter into a contest in which their priests refused to lead and bless them; and these would neither lead nor bless except in the interest of their Church. This truth was discovered too late by Mr. Smith O'Brien and Mr. Meagher. The latter gentleman is said to have remarked in his prison, "We made a fatal mistake in not conciliating the Catholic priesthood. The agitation must be baptised in the old Holy Well."
THREE:Besides these leading histories, this reign produced many others of great value. Amongst these[178] appeared, in 1763, a "History of England," by a lady, Catherine Macaulay, from James I. to the accession of the House of Hanover; which was followed by another series, from the Revolution to her own time. Mrs. Macaulay was a thorough-going Republican; had gone to America expressly to see and converse with Washington, and her history presented the very opposite opinions and phase of events to those of Hume. Lord Lyttelton wrote a "History of Henry II.," in by no means a popular style; and the book is now forgotten. In 1776 there was published the first volume of Lord Hailes's valuable "Annals of Scotland," of which Dr. Johnson entertained so high an opinion. Besides these may be named Macpherson's "History of Great Britain from the Restoration;" Stuart's "History of the Reformation in Scotland," and "History of Scotland from the Reformation to the Death of Queen Mary;" Whitaker's "History of Manchester;" Warner's "History of Ireland;" Leland's "History of Ireland;" Grainger's "Biographical History of England;" Ferguson's "History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic;" Watson's "History of Philip II. of Spain;" Orme's "History of the British Nation in Hindostan;" Anderson's "Annals of Commerce." In 1784 Mitford published his "History of Ancient Greece," and two years later Gillies published another "History of Greece." In 1789 Pinkerton published a "History of the House of Stuart down to Queen Mary." In 1790 Boswell published his "Life of Johnson," the most interesting biography ever written; in 1796 Roscoe his "Life of Lorenzo de' Medici," and, in 1805, the "Life and Pontificate of Leo X."
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THREE:On the very day that this report was being read in the House died one of the accused, James Craggs, Secretary of State. His complaint was smallpox; but the state of mind induced by this exposure is supposed to have rendered the malady fatal. His father, who was Postmaster-General, was so shamefully involved in the same dishonest proceedings, that he took poison.For a short time quiet prevailed, as if the nation, and Europe, too, were stunned by the news of the execution of the king. In spite of the loud talk of the Jacobins and sansculottes throughout France, there was a startled sense of terrora foreboding of calamity. In La Vende there was intense horror and indignation. Abroad, every monarchy seemed thrown into a new attitude by the death of Louis. Spain and England, which had maintained a careful neutrality, assumed a threatening aspect. Germany, which had not yet federally allied itself with the movements of Austria and Prussia, became agitated with resentment; and Holland, by the fear of suffering the fate of Belgium. The axe which severed the head of Louis from his body seemed to sever every international sympathy with France. In England, the sensation on the news of the execution was profound. People in general had not believed that the French would proceed to such an extremity with a monarch of so inoffensive a character. The crime seemed to verify all the predictions and the denunciations of Burke. There was, except amongst a certain class of almost frantic Republicans, a universal feeling of abhorrence and execration. There was a gloomy sense of approaching war; a gloomy sense, as if the catastrophe was a national rather than a foreign one. Pitt had hitherto maintained a position of neutrality. He had contrived to avoid giving any support to the royal family of France, which must have produced immediately hostile consequences, but he had not failed, from time to time, to point out in Parliament the atrocious conduct of the French revolutionists, which justified all the prophecies of Burke, and threw shame on the laudatory language of Fox.
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THREE:When the returned Emperor, therefore, drove up to the Tuileries, at nearly ten o'clock on the night of the 20tha foggy and wet nighthis carriage, covered with mud, was surrounded by his friends, as if he had only been absent on one of his campaigns. As he stepped out of his carriage in his old grey great-coat and cocked hat, now to be seen in the museum of the Louvre, he was instantly so hemmed in that he called out, "My friends, you stifle me!" and a number of general officers at once hoisted him upon their shoulders, and thus bore him into the palace and up into the State apartments amid deafening shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!"
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THREE:Mr. Lamb had retired with Mr. Huskisson, sending in his resignation to the Duke of Wellington, and was succeeded as Chief Secretary by Lord Francis Gower, afterwards Lord Ellesmere. Among the offices vacated in consequence of the recent schism in the Government, was that of President of the Board of Trade, which was accepted by Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, one of the members for the county Clare. He was consequently obliged to offer himself for re-election to his constituents, and this led to the memorable contest which decided the question of Catholic Emancipation.
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