PREFACE. (continued 2)

It was in vain that “Popery and the Pretender”^[72] was the cry mille fois repeté in the ears 128of this new and singular Lord Lieutenant,—that the old measures of the Boulters and the Stones were proposed as the golden rules of vice-regal 129conduct,—that preachers from the pulpit aroused the crusading spirit of intolerance against a sect beaten down to the earth,—that the domineering party of a haughty ascendancy assailed the audience-room of the Viceroy, and “stopped the chariot or boarded the barge,” to teach him how to rule, to force him to recur to a system beyond the rigour of the law, which enabled them to reign by dividing, while it placed him on the list of mannikin lord lieutenants, the wire-worked puppet of a bigoted faction. The acute, the elegant Chesterfield, soon fathomed the depths of their ferocious feebleness, and he played with the virulence he did not deign to wrestle with. When the advocates of intolerance preached persecution, he answered their counsels by an apotheghm and a bon-mot,—he quoted Cicero when they cited Nassau,—he gave them parties for their politics,—suppers for their sophistry, he forced them to swallow his measures with his claret,—and he stopped the 130mouths of many with good dinners on whom good arguments would have been thrown away. In a word, he knew them all, he defied them all; and in despite of that party in the ministry which supported an anti-national faction, he saved the wretched country they were driving into a rebellion, which at that peculiar moment might have separated Ireland for ever from the mother country.

By this personal combination of wisdom, humanity, and impartiality, Lord Chesterfield preserved a Catholic population in the most perfect peace and obedience, during the whole of that rebellion, which in Protestant England and Presbyterian Scotland had nearly restored the Stuarts to the throne they had forfeited by their blind and bigoted attachment to papal institutions—a memorable example of the value of an enlarged philosophy in governors, and of the disposition of the people to be grateful for kindness in their rulers, of their proneness to 131yield a willing obedience to authority, if encouraged by the slightest show of justice and fair dealing in those whom chance has placed over them.

But narrow hearts and narrow intellects, impervious to the more generous impulses of nature, and placing the whole force of government in the scaffold and the bayonet—oppressing those they fear, and fearing those they oppress—have too long exerted their baleful influence in brutalizing and debasing the Irish nation into permanent anarchy, creating those abuses, which they now plead in justification of their own unpitying rigour: and if in rare and distant intervals the patriotism and the kindly feelings of a Chesterfield have again found themselves under the canopy of the viceregal throne, the oppressor and the oppressed have alike been opposed to their beneficent activity. The good which Chesterfield effected in times of difficulty and danger, can now scarcely be hoped for even in the halcyon hour of peace: 132and should the British empire be again involved in foreign conflict, Ireland, unemancipated Ireland, might be urged to seek new destinies for herself in an alliance from which she might have something to hope, but from which she could have nothing to fear more terrible than she has already encountered during the ceaseless miseries of nearly six centuries. Of this truth, harsh and repulsive as it may seem, no one who has studied the subject can entertain a rational doubt. The example of America is before the eyes of the people, and the hope delayed and the promise and the pledge unredeemed lie deep in their hearts: restrictive and penal laws, too severe even for occasional application, have become also permanent on the statute book; famine and pestilence have grown almost periodical in their visitations. From such premises what other conclusion can be drawn? An influence behind the throne, and greater than the throne, has chilled the sympathies and arrested the outstretched hand of royalty; even the collective 133wisdom of the empire has cowered before a party, and truckled to a faction; the cup of reconciliation, though pledged by a sovereign, has been drugged with poison; and a divided cabinet has distracted the country and paralyzed the exertions of the only public functionary, who for years has administered the laws of the country with any thing approaching to the spirit of mercy and of fairness.

From the period of Lord Chesterfield’s administration, the effects produced by the permanent residence of the Irish gentry, were felt in that most blessed consequence, the developement of a public spirit. The English in Ireland, says Burke, began to feel that they were domiciliated, and had a country; and the Irish found that what was technically called “the English interest,” was gradually fading before one common and independent national will! It was in vain that one of the belligerent chiefs of the church (always the fomentors of Irish discord) still 134struggled to uphold a system which was ruin to the many and power to the few. The proud churchman and servile courtier, the arrogant and despotic primate of the day, was taught to feel that he had other times and other men to deal with than those living when the country sunk under the weight of Boulter’s iron crosier. It was in vain that he affected to “do the king’s business,” (as he termed it) as other Protestant Wolseys had done it; and openly avowed his intention of carrying every government measure, à coup de main, and in spite of all constitutional opposition; for he lived to see the Irish gentry arrayed against the undue influence of despotic churchmen under the standard of an Irish speaker! The Irish patriots, led on by the chief of the Irish aristocracy,^[73] and united with the 135middle and the mercantile classes, formed but one caste in feeling and in effort to array public opinion, against unconstitutional measures,^[74] and 136to put down for ever the direct and ruinous interference of ecclesiastical statesmen! The government was now awakened to the danger of employing the zealous and intemperate, by the resistance which the primate had roused into activity; and Stone, struck off the list of privy counsellors, the object of national hatred and party contempt, exhibited one more example of the vanity of unfounded ambition, and the weakness of that policy which is opposed to public virtue, and the plain rule of right.

The rapid progress which at this period public opinion and political science were making, 137through the agency of a resident and educated gentry, was so highly estimated, that an English Lord Lieutenant, (Lord Harcourt,) as the most popular measure he could bring forward to counteract the distasteful effect of other less gracious and salutary acts, proposed on the part of government (1773) a tax on absentees! Never was such a tax less called for; for the absentees were not in that day in the proportion of one to an hundred, compared with those of the present times. Yet the draining of the resources of Ireland in the smallest proportion, the pouring forth of any modicum of native treasure into foreign coffers, was considered as nothing less than high treason to the country. The great English landholders of Ireland made a powerful resistance to a tax which principally affected themselves; but the majority by which the measure was rejected was so small^[75] as 138to leave no doubt of its popularity, and of the feelings of the public on the subject.

Those feelings, whether founded or erroneous, were by no means unnatural; and the government, on its part, has never been slow to encourage and strengthen them. The greater portion of the absentee property had fallen to the lot of its English possessors, by fraud or violence, by legal quibbling or by open proscriptions; and under the most favourable circumstances, the cultivators of that soil, which on the general principles of right and justice they imagined still to be their own property, must naturally have regarded with a jealous eye the foreign intruders. But in a country so poor as Ireland, so divested of all other means of making money beyond the cultivation of the soil, this annual exportation of excessive and burthensome rents could not 139fail to be viewed with great discontent.^[76] In England at the present day, if all the landed proprietors were to export themselves to the Continent, and to spend their rents in its various capitals, their absence would scarcely be felt, amidst the multiplied resources of commercial activity. Wherever the lord of the soil abandoned his dwelling, an East India Nabob, a money-broker, or a merchant, would stand forth ready to occupy his station, and rule over his domains; and the sums expended abroad, would rapidly find their way home, in increased demands for the products of English industry. On the other hand, the nouveaux riches, divested of hereditary pretensions and feudal prejudices, and more deeply instructed in the true principles of political economy, would afford less opposition to the reception and diffusion of the 140lessons of experience; and would therefore be the more acceptable to the labouring classes, than those who, trammelled in the prejudices of hereditary consequence, obstinately stand still in knowledge, while all around them is moving in advance. In Ireland, however, it has always been otherwise. Land has been ever the only instrument of industry, and rent the only source of accumulated capital. The landed proprietors, together with their immediate dependants, the members of the learned professions, have long formed exclusively the educated classes; and their expenditure has produced the only stimulus which existed, to excite the petty commerce and circumscribed industry, which in the country towns of Ireland support half-a-dozen shopkeepers; who, dignified with the name of merchants, fill the municipal offices and send representatives to Parliament. When, therefore, these favourites of fortune, the landed proprietors, expatriate themselves, their mansions 141are left silent and desolate; and none remains behind to employ the tenantry, to spread illumination, or to distribute justice, but agents, middle men, and the clergy, whose ex parte notions of right and wrong, whose different creed and opposed pecuniary interests wholly unfit them for the civil duties which are thus devolved upon them.

With such reasons for the unpopularity of absenteeism, the interests of government in the prevalence of such a prejudice strongly conspire. When the wretched condition of the country is made matter of general declamation, the minister calls for specific abuses; and when a specific abuse is dragged to daylight, and remedies are loudly demanded, absenteeism is made a ready skreen to conceal the incapacity or unwillingness to redress of the governing faction. Tithe abuses are met by the charge of excessive rents and absentee consumption; corruption of the magistracy is defended by the absence of independent 142justices of the peace; and whatever is the evil to be averted, whatever the malpractice to be reformed, the Absentees are the ready scapegoats for every delinquent, and the plausible pretext for every forbearance.

Absenteeship, however, always founded in bad government, becomes ruinous only as it co-operates with other and mightier evils proceeding from the same cause. In a well-ordered community the number and influence of those who eat the bread of idleness and enjoy the means of expatriation, can never bear an overwhelming proportion to that of the industrious citizens chained down to a spot by the habits and the necessities of their laborious lives. Wherever this relative proportion is materially deranged, there will be found much to alter in existing institutions. In such a condition of things, a restraining tax is as futile as it is unjust. Government exists but to protect property; and any law which restrains the owner’s 143right of spending his money where he pleases, operates a violence, which the most urgent necessity alone could justify. On the other hand, to expect that a pecuniary mulct, of any amount short of an absolute seizure of the entire rental, would keep those at home, whom a sense of injustice, of insecurity, and of the absence of educated and liberal intercourse (of all that makes life endurable and wealth enjoyable) drives into exile, is to be utterly ignorant of human nature, and of the habits and feelings of the aristocratical part of the community.

To the pause which followed the commotions of 1745, succeeded an event which belonged not to one country or one age, but to the great history of mankind and to ages yet unborn! an event, which though it has produced the most extraordinary and wide-spreading consequences on the social condition, has not yet half worked out its mighty and incalculable effects. The American Revolution,—the greatest 144explosion that ever shook the complicated fabric of political abuses, the boldest step which civilization has yet made en avant,—was felt in its reverberations throughout all Europe; and even Ireland, remote, isolated, and oppressed Ireland, returned some vibration to the shock! England, amidst the host of ills which assailed her at this, the most awful crisis of her history, already beheld the children of the land she had so long oppressed, bursting their bonds and hailing with their wonted “ten thousand welcomes,”^[77] the hope of emancipation, which came to them from the greatest and freest region of the earth. It was then that a British minister, worked upon by his fears, or driven by his necessities, granted a reluctant boon, for the purpose of winning back the affections of an alienated people, whose co-operation he wanted, and whose desertion he had but too 145just a cause to apprehend. It was then that he admitted the Irish to rights for which during past ages they had sued in vain; and flattered those with eulogies to whom he had hitherto denied justice. It was not, therefore, wonderful, though it was new, that when an Irish member in the British senate ventured to observe, that “Ireland was the chief dependence of the British crown, and that it behoved England to admit the Irish nation to the privileges of British citizens,” there was not one dissentient voice to deny the fact, or oppose the proposition;^[78] and the bills which then passed the Parliament for the relief of the Catholics, and for the opening of the Irish trade, produced the usual effects of 146kindness on the human heart. From that moment America promised, and Franklin wrote in vain. “If,” says that patriotic philosopher,—the patriot of humanity, and the philosopher of common sense!—in his celebrated letter to the people of Ireland, “If the government whom you at home acknowledge, does not, in conformity to its own interests, take off and remove every restraint on your trade, commerce, and manufacture, I am charged to assure you that means will be found to establish your freedom in the fullest and freest manner; and as it is the ardent wish of America to promote, as far as her other engagements will permit, a reciprocal commercial intercourse with you, I can assure you that they will seek every means to establish and maintain it.”

But Ireland had not recourse to a foreign power to reclaim her rights. She placed her cause in the hands of her resident gentry: she committed it in the senate to a Grattan, and 147in the field to a Charlemont! The restrictions on trade, which America offered to break, were removed by the exertions of Irish patriotism, supported by that force, which is alone constitutional, a national militia! It was at this eventful epoch of Irish regeneration, that the combined exercise of those native energies to which, in a moment of exigency, a brave and unhappy people never fail to resort, produced that bulwark of national independence, the Irish Volunteers; and a whole people, with arms in their hands, and liberty in their hearts, stood forth the protectors of their native land, which an unnatural government had thus exposed to danger and seduction. Even England looked on with respect and gratitude at the efforts of the devoted and loyal Irish, who, forgetful of all past injuries, came forward no less in her cause than their own;^[79] and when the Irish volunteers 148presented themselves to the admiration of the empire, organised into a compact and disciplined body, under their illustrious chief the Earl of Charlemont, (whose name ever falls like light upon the page it illustrates,) it was declared in the British senate, by one whose words were then deemed as prophet’s breathings, “that this great event resembled, intrinsically and substantially, the glorious Revolution of England in 1688!”

This event, however, so glorious for the fame, and so profitable to the interests and independence 149of Ireland, never could have occurred, if the majority of the gentry, with their spirit, their wealth, their influence, and their education, had not been a resident gentry! and if there is one illuminated page in the dark story of Ireland’s misery! one pause in her sufferings! it belongs to this proud and blessed moment, when her people and their chiefs were armed, morally and physically, in her defence; when her senate resounded to an eloquence as pure and patriotic as the Forum ever echoed; when the private society of the capital became proverbial for its wit and festivity; and when all tended to, if it did not reach, the term of national prosperity and national glory.

But alas! this moment of promise and splendour was transient as a dream, and the bright effulgence of Irish patriotism, brilliant as the midnight meteor, was as suddenly succeeded by a midnight darkness. Causes on which it is now beside the purpose to dwell, paralysed 150the virtues, and marred the hopes of the honest and the brave. Engines were put into play, and agents into activity, to destroy or to sap the foundations of national independence. Corruption and injustice recommenced their suicidal career; the rebellion and the Union were got up, and succeeded beyond the hopes of their authors; and from that epoch every evil which can afflict humanity and degrade a nation has gathered to a foul and purulent head; every sad succeeding year has been marked by some new step towards social disorganization and national extinction.

“Scarcely had the law passed ratifying that great mischief—the Union—(says one of the ablest, and what is yet more, one of the honestest and most uncompromising writers on Irish affairs, of the present or of any age) when Absenteeism, the predominant calamity of Ireland, was fearfully accelerated. The chief proprietors fled from the metropolis, as from an 151invading army; and the country affording neither interest nor expectation, they expatriated themselves in shame, in disgust, in anguish, in despair. A category of evils beset the land.—Those who had entertained fair hopes soon found their prospects darken, and a long night close the transient day. To infatuation succeeded self-torment. A chief Judge died of a broken heart because he had participated in that signal treachery—another Judge asked pardon of God and his country, for sanctioning it with his vote. Pitt, the machinist, perished amidst the misfortunes of the Empire—and Castlereagh, in his pride and power, became his own executioner. The noble delinquents and their race perish together. Twenty-four Irish peerages have become extinct since the Union in January, 1801, exclusive of Peerages under a superior title, but continued in an inferior honour—and while I write, another of the noble order which stands between the prerogative 152and the people, as hounds between the huntsman and the hare, is extinguished. Thus nature takes vengeance on the exalted traitors to their country. The Union cannot subsist—Sin and Death have fixed their peremptory seal of doom upon it. Not all the vices of Ferdinand to his parentage and family and country—not all the deeds of the magnanimous Allies and the Holy Alliance to Spain, Germany, and Italy—no, not the repeated partitions of Poland by the Royal Robbers, the Austrian, and Frederic, and Catherine, equalled altogether the dreadful sum of sinning by the English Ministry, in preparing, prosecuting, and accomplishing that sad catastrophe—the Incorporate Union of Ireland with Great Britain.”—Ensor’s Address to the People of Ireland.

Previously to the Act of Union, Absenteeism, though encouraged by the geographical position of the country, and promoted by some inveterate habits derived from ancient abuse, 153was principally confined, among the native Irish, to a few individuals whose ill understood vanity tempted them to seek for a consequence abroad, which is ever denied to the unconnected stranger, a consequence which no extravagant expense can purchase. With a few exceptions, therefore, the malady was confined to the great English proprietors of forfeited estates, whose numbers must in the progress of events have been diminished, by the dissipations inseparable from unbounded wealth, and the growth of commercial and manufactural fortunes. It might, in some cases, indeed, be both a vice, and a ridicule, in the absent; but had the nation in other respects been well used and well governed, it would have been of no serious evil to those who remained at home. But the Act of Union, whatever may be its other operations, meritorious or vicious, at once converted a local disease into a national pestilence. The centre of business and of pleasure, the mart 154of promotion, and the fountain of favour, were by this one fatal act at once removed into a foreign land; ambition, avarice, dissipation and refinement, all combined to seduce the upper classes into a desertion of their homes and country: and as each succeeding ornament of the Irish capital abandoned his hotel, as each influential landlord quitted his castle in the country, or his house in the city, a new race of vulgar upstarts, of uneducated and capricious despots, usurped their place, spreading a barbarous morgue over the once elegant society of the metropolis, and banishing peace and security from the mountain and the plain.

Many whom temptation could not hitherto seduce from home, were now forced by fear to fly; and every passion, every motive combined to drive from the happy land, all those who were possessed of the means of flight. It is in vain that patriotism struggles and conscience arrests the departing step of those 155who yet linger behind in painful vacillation. Self-preservation must and will in the end prevail. Whatever is educated, whatever is tasteful, whatever is liberal, will too probably fly a land, where the insolence of official rank supplies the amenity of an admitted aristocracy, and where vulgar wealth, acquired by political subserviency, and too frequently unaccompanied by knowledge, holds talent at arms’ length, and rejects wit from its coteries as dangerous to its own dull supremacy and hostile to the repose of its own “fat contented ignorance.” Philanthropists, disgusted with the perpetual spectacle of hopeless wretchedness and irredeemable despair, will seek relief by flying the misery they cannot mitigate; the enlightened and the liberal will turn with horror from the country where laws of exception have been adopted into the permanent code, and where necessitated violence is only met by judicial severity and legal murder. The landholder, wearied by his contests with the clergy, and intimidated 156by the armed and masked opposition of his tenantry, will be contented to purchase repose by abandoning at once the soil and its produce, to the proctors, the police-men and their chiefs. The sbirri of Ireland will alone find in a land, thus every way accursed, the elements congenial to their existence, as the reptiles and insects subsist in that putrefaction, which spreads disease and death among the nobler animals.

In the present political prospect of Ireland, the eye of philosophy and philanthrophy turns on every side in search of a principle of regeneration, and turns in vain. On every side a circle of recurrent cause and effect, like the mystic emblem of the Egyptians, points to an eternity of woe, and to endless cycles of misgovernment and resistance. As long as the actual system continues, (as long as every cause is forced to concur in rendering Ireland uninhabitable,) so long will it be impossible to organize 157any plan for civilizing, tranquillizing, and enriching the country. It is an empty and an idle boast in the British House of Commons, that it devotes its successive nights to the debating Irish affairs, so long as the religious division of the people and the proconsular government founded upon that division are to be recognized as sound policy or Christian charity. The half measures which have hitherto been adopted, far from proving beneficial, and composing the contentions of hostile factions, have served only to increase discontent and disarm inquiry.^[80] Nor can the ministers be entitled to any praise for 158generosity who dare not, in the first place, be just. In spite, therefore, of all their professions of zeal and compassion for the national distress; in spite of all their parliamentary tamperings with the national abuses, they must still remain answerable for the greater part of the absenteeship which they strenuously hold up as the giant ill, over which they have no controul, and for the existence of which they imagine themselves not responsible.

The grand principle of “divide et impera” has produced both the religious question and the question between landlords and tenants, which are the hinges on which all the misfortunes of Ireland turn. To commence the work of regeneration in earnest, that principle must be fairly and honestly abandoned: when this is done, and not before, absenteeship, with every other evil which has grown out of the monstrous anarchical system, that has so 159long subsisted, will gradually disappear; and proprietors in Ireland, as in other countries, will inhabit their country, when their country becomes inhabitable.—“Ubi bene, ibi patria” is a maxim not altogether unreasonable; and, surely, if in any circumstances it is entitled to toleration, it is in that land where the greater the patriotism and virtue, the less chance is there of social comfort and rational happiness. To the absentees themselves we would willingly appeal with every invocation that can bind the conscience or awaken the heart. But the appeal were worse than idle, it would in fact be injurious, by pointing to effects and disengaging the attention from causes. In the present condition of affairs, absenteeism is a necessitated evil!! In the absentees it is less a crime than a misfortune; and with respect to the government it is so far from being a justification of its acts, that it has become a pregnant and a pointed conclusion of 160its ignorance of all sound principle, or its heartless indifference to all those interests which the unhappy destiny of “the most unhappy country under heaven,” has committed to its charge.

THE END.

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Unforeseen circumstances, over which the Author had no influence or controul, had altogether checked the progress of this Work, suspended the publication of its latter parts, and left them on the Publisher’s shelves unadvertised and uncirculated.

This temporary relinquishment had given rise to unfounded and injurious reports of its suppression; an object which never was for one moment in the contemplation of the Author, nor sought for, or even suggested, by the Government of England.

On the contrary—the lamentable and unimproving march of Ireland from the period of the Union having fully proved the deceptious prospective given to that fatal measure by its mistaken or corrupt supporters, and exciting a novel interest and grave reflections of vital importance to the British Empire, the Author had determined to seize upon the first available opportunity of fulfilling his engagement to the friends and patrons of the Work, by its completion.

Those friends were not confined to one party. They were mingled in all—they comprised several of the highest orders of society—many who held, and some who still hold important stations in the Government of both countries;—and the commencing parts of the Work having been honoured by the approbation and encouragement of His present Majesty and other Members of His Royal House, it was with deep regret the Author found himself, from a succession of causes, for several years unable to fulfil his intentions, and gratify his own laudable ambition, by compiling into a compact Memoir, the most important Historic events of Ireland. In many of those he was himself a not unimportant actor. He possessed also the advantage of individual intimacy or acquaintance with the most celebrated personages of all parties; without which, and the fidelity of a contemporary and independent pen, the delineation of their characters and the record of their conduct, if not lost for ever, would have descended to posterity with imperfect details and an ambiguous authenticity;—or have left a wide chasm in a highly interesting epocha of British History.

The fallacious measure of a Legislative Union,—the progress of which from commencement to consummation the Author energetically resisted—has proved by its inoperative or mischievous results, the justness of that resistance. And he now, in common with many of the most distinguished of its original supporters, deeply deplores its accomplishment. But established by lapse of time—confirmed by passive assent—and complicated with some beneficial, and many political and financial arrangements, its tranquil reversal seems to have passed feasibility. Yet—as an hereditary friend to British connexion—the Author hopes, by the revival and completion of this History, to open wide the eyes of Great Britain to the present dangers of Ireland—to draw aside the curtain of ignorance and prejudice by which her history has been so long obscured—to compare her once rising prosperity with her existing miseries—to discover the occult causes of their continuance and the false principles of her misrule—to display her sacrifices for England—and to unmask her libellers in both countries.

Developments such as these may rouse the Legislature to probe her wounds to their depth—to employ her labour—to succour—to foster—and to rule her on the broad principles of a steady and philanthropic policy—and to relinquish for ever that system of coercive Government, which an experience of many centuries has proved to be destructive of almost every thing—except her crimes and her population.

The British people should also learn that the absence of the ancient Nobles and protecting Aristocracy of Ireland,—drawn away by the Union from their demesnes and tenantry to the Seat of Legislation, and replaced only by the griping hands and arbitrary sway of upstart deputies,—increases in proportion with the miseries and turbulence of the lower orders; and that the luxuriance of vegetation which clothes that capable Island, has, through the same causes, become only a harbinger of want, or the forbidden fruit of a famished peasantry.

It should therefore be the object of every pen and of every tongue, to render the Union as innoxious as its paralyzing nature can now admit of; to recall the proprietors of the Irish soil to a sense of their own security and their country’s welfare; and thereby strengthen the ties which should bind the two nations together, in equality, prosperity, and affection—on the firmness and durability of which species of connexion depends, not only the constitutional security of England herself, but perhaps the political existence of both countries.

Such is the Author’s view in the completion of this Work. The obstacles to its progress are surmounted, and its publication is now in the hands of those who will spare nothing to render it worthy of its object, and ensure a lasting and beneficial record to the United Empire.

It is fortunate for Ireland, and disastrous to her calumniators, that a recent and great event has at once exposed the misrepresentations of her enemies, and displayed a great source of her misfortunes. The visit of a conciliating King to a distracted people rapidly disclosed their native character, and produced a burst of unfeigned, unanimous, genuine loyalty—never before experienced in such profusion by any Monarch from his subjects. The equivocating language of diplomacy was rejected for awhile. The King was a Patriot, and the People were loyal. For the first time they were allowed to approach each other. Both were sincere—and both were ardent. In a few days, the King became despotic in the affections of the Nation, and his Ministers descended into a comparative insignificance. When he arrived, he was respected as a British King—but when he departed, he was adored as an Irish Monarch. He saw at once that the existence of faction and discord was incompatible with the peace and the prosperity of Ireland; and that she hung on Great Britain, as a withering limb upon a healthful body—essential to its symmetry, but useless to its functions and injurious to its Constitution.

There was but one remedy—conciliation. His Majesty saw its efficacy and commanded its adoption.—But his commands were disobeyed by the Regal Rebels^[81]—and Ireland is still seen withering and cankering—by the obstinacy of intolerant faction, the irritation of local tyranny, and the multiplying mischiefs resulting from disobedience to the benevolent and wise commands of the only British King who ever yet set foot on the Irish shore as a friend, and as a patriot.

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This Work forms an excellent supplement and companion to the admirable Letters of Don Leucadio Doblado. In giving a detailed history of his life, Don Esteban professes to present a faithful picture of the manners, habits, and customs of his countrymen. “He takes the reader into the interior of their private houses; introduces him to their Tertulias, Balls, Assemblies, and public places; leads him to the Romerias, Convents, Nunneries, and Palaces; and gives him an insight into the national private character of the Spaniards.—The work, besides, contains an account of the state of the Spanish Court under Ferdinand, which is worthy of Gil Blas, and puts us in mind of that Novel.”—(Globe and Traveller.)

9. GAIETIES and GRAVITIES. A Series of Essays, Comic Tales, and Fugitive Vagaries. Now first collected. BY ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE REJECTED ADDRESSES. 3 vols. post 8vo. 27s.

10. REMINISCENCES OF MICHAEL KELLY, of the King’s Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane; Abroad and at Home: including a period of nearly Half a Century: with original Anecdotes of many distinguished Persons, Political, Literary, and Musical. Dedicated, by permission, to His Majesty. In 2 vols. 8vo. with a portrait.

11. MEMOIRS of the COURT of FRANCE, during the Residence (above thirty years) of the MARQUIS DE DANGEAU, Now first translated from the French, with Historical and Critical Notes. In 2 vols. 8vo. 28s.

This very curious Work will be found to contain a great number of Secret Anecdotes and Facts, hitherto unknown, respecting the Courts of France and England.

12. A NEW FRENCH EDITION of the MEMOIRES de DANGEAU, with a Supplement by M. LE MONTEY, containing curious Autograph Notes, by an Anonymous Courtier of the same period. In 3 vols. 8vo. price 28s.

13. CAPTAIN C.S. COCHRANE’S JOURNAL of a RESIDENCE and TRAVELS IN COLOMBIA, during the years 1823 and 1824. In 2 vols 8vo. with a Map, and coloured Plates, 30s.

14. MEMOIRS and RECOLLECTIONS of COUNT SEGUR, Ambassador from France to the Courts of Russia and Prussia. 8vo. English, 12s.; French 10s. 6d.

The Count de Segur was connected by ties of friendship or consanguinity with all the remarkable personages of the Courts of Louis XV. and XVI. and was engaged in the intercourse of Affairs and Society with Catharine II., Frederic the Great, Potemkin, Joseph II., Gustavus III., Washington, Kosciusko, La Fayette, Mirabeau, and Napoleon, as well as with the Chiefs of the Aristocratical and Democratical Parties, and the most illustrious Writers of the times, of whom he records the most interesting particulars.

15. THE SPIRIT of the AGE; or, CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS. 8vo. 12s.

Contents.—Mr. Jeffery, Mr. Gifford, Mr. Southey, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Thomas Moore, Mr. William Godwin, Mr. Jeremy Bentham, Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Leigh Hunt, Mr. Wordsworth, Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Brougham, Sir F. Burdett, Rev. E. Irving, Lord Eldon, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Malthus, Mr. Crabbe, the late Mr. Horne Tooke, &c, &c,

16. THE LAST DAYS of NAPOLEON. By Dr. ANTOMMARCHI. In French and English, in 2 vols. 8vo. 21s.

17. LETTERS FROM SPAIN. By Don LEUCADIO DOBLADO. Second Edition, revised. In 1 vol. 8vo.

“This is an invaluable work.”—Morning Chronicle.

18. COUNT LAS CASES’ JOURNAL of the PRIVATE LIFE and CONVERSATIONS of the late EMPEROR NAPOLEON: a new edition, illustrated with Portraits of Napoleon and Las Cases; a View of the House in which Napoleon was born at Ajaccio in Corsica; four coloured views of St. Helena, taken on the spot; besides Maps, Plans, &c. complete in 4 handsome volumes, 8vo. Price 2l. 12s. in French or English.

As this work is universally acknowledged to form the most complete epitome of the Life, Character, and Opinions of this extraordinary man, it is presumed that this new edition, compressed into 4 vols. and published at a very moderate price, will be extremely acceptable to the public, and that there are few who will not be desirous of possessing it.

19. THE ILLUSTRATIONS to the JOURNAL of COUNT LAS CASES, separately, to complete the First Edition, price 5s. comprising a Portrait of Napoleon, engraved by Cooper after the original well-known Painting by DAVID, a Portrait of Count Las Cases, and four coloured Views of St. Helena, from Drawings taken on the spot by eminent artists.

20. THE FOURTH and LAST LIVRAISON of NAPOLEON’S HISTORICAL MEMOIRS. Dictated at Saint Helena, to Counts Montholon, Bertrand, Gourgaud, &c, and published from the original manuscripts. Corrected by Himself. 8vo. 14s. French, 12s.

This important work is now completed in 7 vols. comprising four of Memoirs, and three of Historical Miscellanies, and the public are advised to complete their sets without delay.

“This work bears impressed on it the stamp of the gigantic mind from which it emanated. It is wholly free from the usual vices of French composition; depth, originality, comprehensiveness, and great energy of expression are its prominent characteristics. A profound and intuitive sagacity, a clear and unerring insight into human character, mental resources almost preternatural, and an incredible knowledge of the minutest details of every subject discussed, are exhibited in almost every page: nothing escapes the observation, or transcends the capacity, of the Imperial Annalist. He combines the judgment and penetration of Tacitus with the prodigious versatility of Cæsar, and the more enlarged views of modern philosophy and science; policy, religion, war, civil administration, statistics, art, even literature,—in short, whatever he touches on,—seems to unfold its most recondite principles to his view, and to be fully comprehended and appreciated. To the future historian the value of the “Historical Miscellanies” is incalculable: with regard to the Memoirs themselves, no history can ever supersede them.”—Edinburgh Magazine.

“On these sheets are traced events that will never be forgotten, portraits that will decide the judgment of posterity. It is the book of life or death to many whose names are recorded in it.”—Opinion of Las Cases in his Journal.

21. JOURNAL of a RESIDENCE in ASHANTEE. By JOSEPH DUPUIS, Esq. late his Britannic Majesty’s Envoy and Consul for that Kingdom, comprising Notes and Researches relative to the Gold Coast and the Interior of Western Africa, chiefly from Arabic MSS. and Information communicated by the Moslems of Guinea. To which is prefixed an Account of the causes of the present War. In 1 vol. 4to. with a map and 15 plates, 2l. 12s. 6d. boards.

22. THE PRIVATE JOURNAL of MADAME CAMPAN’s CONVERSATIONS; comprising Original Anecdotes of the French Court; also Selections from her Correspondence, her Thoughts on Education, &c. 8vo. 14s. French, 12s.

Transcriber’s Notes

New original cover art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.

The spelling and diacriticals used in non-English words and phrases has not been modernised or corrected.

This book as printed included multiple complex footnotes, including footnotes to footnotes. All notes have been converted to endnotes for this ebook edition. The following changes and corrections have been made:

p. 7: Added period after phrase “the recorded absenteeism of two thousand years.”

p. 19: Replaced “kings” with “king’s” in phrase “Lady Elizabeth Grey, the king’s own kinswoman.”

p. 20: Replaced opening with closing quotation mark after phrase “having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere Irish.”

p. 23: Replaced “of of” with “of” in phrase “England, in the face of her own savage laws.”

p. 27: Added period after phrase “for the Earl of Kildare to feare.”

p. 28: Replaced apparent mid-dot with period after phrase “that you tracke them out at pleasure.”

p. 35: Added opening double quotation mark to indicate continuation of quotation before paragraph beginning “One night, when the lieutenant and he, for disport, were playing at slide-groat.”

p. 35: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “there is some mad game in that scralle, but, fall how it will, this throw is for a huddle.”

p. 45: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “gossipry and alliance.”

p. 45 note 16: Replaced “to to” with “to” in phrase “and granted to those on whose counsel they had surrendered.”

p. 103 note 53: Added period after phrase “the fair dames of Ireland learned to expire at an opera.”

p. 133: Replaced closing single quotation mark with closing double quotation mark after phrase “the English interest.”

Booklist item 14: Added commas after “Joseph II.” and “Gustavus III.” in list.