Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 85)

Sir C. G. Duffy, A Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition, pages 242-275.

ALSO IN: Lord E. Fitzmaurice and J. R. Thursfield, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 4, chapters 1-2.

R. M. Martin, Ireland before and after the Union.

IRELAND: A. D. 1841-1848. O'Connell's last agitation. His trial, imprisonment and release. His death. The "Young Ireland" Party and its rebellion.

In 1841, O'Connell "left England and went to Ireland, and devoted himself there to the work of organization. A succession of monster meetings were held all over the country, the far-famed one on Tara Hill being, as is credibly asserted, attended by no less than a quarter of a million of people. Over this vast multitude gathered together around him the magic tones of the great orator's voice swept triumphantly; awakening anger, grief, passion, delight, laughter, tears, at its own pleasure. They were astonishing triumphs, but they were dearly bought. The position was, in fact, an impossible one to maintain long. O'Connell had carried the whole mass of the people with him up to the very brink of the precipice, but how to bring them safely and successfully down again was more than even he could accomplish. Resistance he had always steadily denounced, yet every day his own words seemed to be bringing the inevitable moment of collision nearer and nearer. The crisis came on October the 5th. A meeting had been summoned to meet at Clontarf, near Dublin, and on the afternoon of the 4th the Government suddenly came to the resolution of issuing a proclamation forbidding it to assemble. The risk was a formidable one for responsible men to run. Many of the people were already on their way, and only O'Connell's own rapid and vigorous measures in sending out in all directions to intercept them hindered the actual shedding of blood. His prosecution and that of some of his principal adherents was the next important event. By a Dublin jury he was found guilty, sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and conveyed to prison, still earnestly entreating the people to remain quiet, an order which they strictly obeyed. The jury by which he had been condemned was known to be strongly biassed against him, and an appeal had been forwarded against his sentence to the House of Lords. So strong there, too, was the feeling against O'Connell, that little expectation was entertained of its being favourably received. Greatly to its honour, however, the sentence was reversed and he was set free. … The enthusiasm shown at his release was frantic and delirious. None the less those months in Richmond prison proved the death-knell of his power. He was an old man by this time; he was already weakened in health, and that buoyancy which had hitherto carried him over any and every obstacle never again revived. The 'Young Ireland' party, the members of which had in the first instance been his allies and lieutenants, had now formed a distinct section, and upon the vital question of resistance were in fierce hostility to all his most cherished principles. The state of the country, too, preyed visibly upon his mind. By 1846 had begun that succession of disastrous seasons which, by destroying the feeble barrier which stood between the peasant and a cruel death, brought about a national tragedy, the most terrible perhaps with which modern Europe has been confronted. This tragedy, though he did not live to see the whole of it, O'Connell—himself the incarnation of the people—felt acutely. {1788} Deep despondency took hold of him. He retired, to a great degree, from public life, leaving the conduct of his organization in the hands of others. … In 1847 he resolved to leave Ireland, and to end his days in Rome. His last public appearance was in the House of Commons, where an attentive and deeply respectful audience hung upon the faltering and barely articulate accents which fell from his lips. In a few deeply moving words he appealed for aid and sympathy for his suffering countrymen, and left the House. … The camp and council chamber of the 'Young Ireland' party was the editor's room of 'The Nation' newspaper. There it found its inspiration, and there its plans were matured—so far, that is, as they can be said to have been ever matured. For an eminently readable and all things considered a wonderfully impartial account of this movement, the reader cannot do better than consult Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's 'Four Years of Irish History,' which has the immense advantage of being history taken at first hand, written that is by one who himself took a prominent part in the scenes which he describes. The most interesting figure in the party had, however, died before those memorable four years began. Thomas Davis, who was only thirty at the time of his death in 1845, was a man of large gifts, nay, might fairly be called a man of genius. … The whole movement in fact was, in the first instance; a literary quite as much as a political one. Nearly all who took part in it Gavan Duffy, John Mitchell, Meagher, Dillon, Davis himself—were very young men, many fresh from college, all filled with zeal for the cause of liberty and nationality. The graver side of the movement only showed itself when the struggle with O'Connell began. At first no idea of deposing, or even seriously opposing the great leader seems to have been intended. The attempt on O'Connell's part to carry a formal declaration against the employment under any circumstances of physical force was, the origin of that division, and what the younger spirits considered 'truckling to the Whigs' helped to widen the breach. When, too, O'Connell had partially retired into the background, his place was filled by his son, John O'Connell, the 'Head conciliator,' between whom and the 'Young Irelanders' there waged a fierce war, which in the end led to the indignant withdrawal of the latter from the Repeal council. Before matters reached this point, the younger camp had been strengthened by the adhesion of Smith O'Brien, who, though not a man of much intellectual calibre, carried no little weight in Ireland. … Early in January, 1847, O'Connell left on that journey of his which was never completed, and by the middle of May Ireland was suddenly startled by the news that her great leader was dead. The effect of his death was to produce a sudden and immense reaction. A vast revulsion of love and reverence sprang up all over the country; an immense sense of his incomparable services, and with it a vehement anger against all who had opposed him. Upon the 'Young Ireland' party, as was inevitable, the weight of that anger fell chiefly, and from the moment of O'Connell's death whatever claim they had to call themselves a national party vanished utterly. The men 'who killed the Liberator' could never again hope to carry with them the suffrages of any number of their countrymen. This contumely, to a great degree undeserved, naturally reacted upon the subjects of it. The taunt of treachery and ingratitude flung at them wherever they went stung and nettled. In the general reaction of gratitude and affection for O'Connell, his son John succeeded easily to the position of leader. The older members of the Repeal Association thereupon rallied about him, and the split between them and the younger men grew deeper and wider. A wild, impracticable visionary now came to play a part in the movement. A deformed misanthrope, called James Lalor, endowed with a considerable command of vague, passionate rhetoric, began to write incentives to revolt in 'The Nation.' These growing more and more violent were by the editor at length prudently suppressed. The seed, however, had already sown itself in another mind. John Mitchell is described by Mr. Justin McCarthy as 'the one formidable man amongst the rebels of '48; the one man who distinctly knew what he wanted, and was prepared to run any risk to get it.' … To him it was intolerable that any human being should be willing to go further and to dare more in the cause of Ireland than himself, and the result was that after awhile he broke away from his connection with The Nation,' and started a new organ under the name of 'The United Irishmen,' one definitely pledged from the first to the policy of action. From this point matters gathered speedily to a head. Mitchell's newspaper proceeded to fling out challenge after challenge to the Government, calling upon the people to gather and to 'sweep-this island clear of the English name and nation.' For some months these challenges remained unanswered. It was now, however, '48,' and nearly all Europe was in revolution. The necessity of taking some step began to be evident, and a Bill making all written incitement of insurrection felony was hurried through the House of Commons, and almost immediately after Mitchell was arrested. Even then he seems to have believed that the country would rise to liberate him. The country, however, showed no disposition to do anything of the sort. He was tried in Dublin, found guilty, sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, and a few days afterwards put on board a vessel in the harbour and conveyed to Spike Island, whence he was sent to Bermuda, and the following April in a convict vessel to the Cape, and finally to Tasmania. The other 'Young Irelanders,' stung apparently by their own previous inaction, thereupon rushed frantically into rebellion. The leaders—Smith O'Brien, Meagher, Dillon, and others—went about the country holding reviews of 'Confederates,' as they now called themselves, a proceeding which caused the Government to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to issue a warrant for their arrest. A few more gatherings took place in different parts of the country, a few more ineffectual attempts were made to induce the people to rise, one very small collision with the police occurred, and then the whole thing was over. All the leaders in the course of a few days were arrested and Smith O'Brien and Meagher were sentenced to death, a sentence which was speedily changed into transportation. Gavan Duffy was arrested and several times tried, but the jury always disagreed, and in the end his prosecution was abandoned. The 'Young Ireland' movement, however, was dead, and never again revived."

E. Lawless, The Story of Ireland, chapters 55-56.

ALSO IN: Sir C. G. Duffy, Young Ireland.

Sir C. G. Duffy, Four Years of Irish History, 1845-1849.

Sir C. G. Duffy, Thomas Davis: Memoirs of an Irish Patriot, 1840-1846.

{1789}

IRELAND: A. D. 1843-1848. The Devon Commission. The Encumbered Estates Act.

In 1843, Mr. Sharman Crawford "succeeded in obtaining the appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate the 'occupation of land in Ireland.' This Commission, known from its chairman, Lord Devon, as the Devon Commission, marks a great epoch in the Irish land question. The Commissioners, in their Report, brought out strongly the facts that great misery existed in Ireland, and that the cause of the misery was the system of land tenure. The following extract from the Report indicates the general nature of its conclusions: 'A reference to the evidence of most of the witnesses will show that the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to suffer the greatest privations and hardships; that he continues to depend upon casual and precarious employment for subsistence; that he is badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour. Our personal experience and observations during our enquiry have afforded us a melancholy confirmation of these statements, and we cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain.' And the remedy for the evil is to be found, continues the Report, in 'an increased and improved cultivation of the soil,' to be gained by securing for the tenant' fair remuneration for the outlay of his capital and labour.' No sooner was this Report issued than great numbers of petitions were presented to the House of Lords, and supported by Lord Devon, praying for legislative reform of the land evils; and in June, 1845, a bill was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Stanley, on behalf of the government of Sir Robert Peel, for 'the purpose of providing compensation to tenants in Ireland, in certain cases, on being dispossessed of their holdings, for such improvements as they may have made during their tenancy.' By the selfish opposition of the Irish landlords this bill was thrown out. Two days after its rejection in the House of Lords Mr. Sharman Crawford brought into the House of Commons a Tenant Right Bill, and met with as little success. In 1846 a government bill was introduced, bearing a strong resemblance to that of Lord Stanley; but the ministry was overthrown, and the bill was dropped. A Liberal ministry under Lord John Russell came into power in July, 1846, and Irish hopes again began to rise. In 1847 the indefatigable Mr. Crawford brought in a bill, whose purpose was to extend the Ulster custom to the whole of Ireland; it was thrown out. A well-meant but in the end unsuccessful attempt to relieve the burdens of embarrassed landlords without redressing the grievances of rack-rented tenants, was made in 1848 by the measure well known as the Encumbered Estates Act. This Act had for its object to restore capital to the land; but with capital it brought in a class of proprietors who lacked the virtues as well as the vices of their predecessors, and were even more oppressive to the tenantry."

E. Thursfield, England and Ireland, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: H. L. Jephson, Notes on Irish Questions, chapter 15.

D. B. King, The Irish Question, chapter 9.

IRELAND: A. D. 1844. The Maynooth Grant.

Towards the close of the session of Parliament in 1844, Sir Robert Peel undertook a measure "dealing with higher education in Ireland. Means were to be found, in some way, for the education of the upper classes of the Irish, and for the more efficient education of candidates for the Roman Catholic priesthood. Some provision already existed for the education of the Irish people. Trinity College, with its considerable endowments, afforded opportunities to wealthy Irish. The National Board, which Stanley had instituted, had under its control 3,153 schools, and 395,000 scholars. But Trinity College retained most of its advantages for the benefit of its Protestant students, and the 395,000 scholars, whom the National Board was educating, did not, after all, include one person in every twenty alive in Ireland. The Roman Catholic, since 1793, had been allowed to graduate at Trinity; but he could hold neither scholarship nor professorship. … Some steps had, indeed, been taken for the education of the Roman Catholic priesthood. In 1795, Fitzwilliam had proposed, and his successor, Camden, had approved, the appropriation of an annual sum of money to a college formed at Maynooth for the education of Roman Catholic priests. The Irish parliament had readily sanctioned the scheme; the payment of the grant had been continued, after the Union, by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and, though the sums voted had been reduced to £9,000 a year in 1808, this amount had been thenceforward regularly allotted to Maynooth. In some respects the grant was actually disadvantageous to the college; it was too small to maintain the institution; it was large enough to discourage voluntary contributions. The surroundings of the college were squalid; its professors were wretchedly paid; it was even impossible to assign to each of the 440 students a separate room; it was dubbed by Macaulay, in a memorable speech, a 'miserable Dotheboys' Hall,' and it was Peel's deliberate opinion that the absolute withdrawal of the grant would be better than the continuance of the niggardly allowance." The Government "asked Parliament to vote a sum of £30,000 to improve the buildings at Maynooth; it proposed that the Board of Works should in future be responsible for keeping them in repair; it suggested that the salaries of professors should be more than doubled; that the position of the students should be improved; that the annual grant should be raised from about £9,000 to about £26,000, and that this sum, instead of being subject to the approval of the legislature once a year, should be placed on the Consolidated Fund. Then arose a series of debates which have no parallel in the history of the British Parliament. … 'The Orangeman raises his howl,' said Macaulay, 'and Exeter Hall sets up its bray, and Mr. MacNeile is horrified to think that a still larger grant is intended for the priests of Baal at the table of Jezebel, and the Protestant operatives of Dublin call for the impeachment of Ministers in exceedingly bad English.' {1790} A few years later a man, who was both a Christian and a gentleman, declared the Irish famine to be a dispensation of Providence in return for the Maynooth grant. … Night after night it rained petitions; 298 petitions against the bill were presented on the 3rd of April, when Peel explained his scheme; 148 on the 8th; 254 on the 9th; 552 on the 10th; 2,262 on the 11th, when the bill was put down for a second reading; 662 on the 14th; 581 on the 15th; 420 on the 16th; 335 on the 17th; 371 on the 18th. The petitions hardly allowed a doubt to remain as to the opinion of the country. Peel, indeed, was again exposed to the full force of the strongest power which any British Minister can encounter. The Mussulman, driven to his last defence, raises the standard of the Prophet, and proclaims a holy war. But the Englishman, if Protestantism be in danger, shouts, 'No Popery!' and creates equal enthusiasm. … Yet, vast as was the storm which the Minister had provoked, the issues which he had directly raised were of the smallest proportions. Hardly anyone ventured to propose that the original vote to Maynooth should be withdrawn. A grant, indeed, which had been sanctioned by George III., which had been fixed by Perceval, which had been voted in an unreformed Parliament, almost without debate, and which had been continued for fifty years, could not be withdrawn. Peel's opponents, therefore, were compelled to argue that there was no harm in sacrificing £9,000 a year to Baal, but that a sacrifice of £26,000 was full of harm. … They debated the second reading of the bill for six nights, the third reading for three nights, and they seized other opportunities for protracting the discussion. Even the Lords forgot their customary habits and sat up till a late hour on three successive evenings to discuss an amendment for inquiring into the class of books used at Maynooth. But this unusual display of zeal proved useless. A majority in both Houses steadily supported the Minister, and zealous Protestants and old-fashioned Tories were unable to defeat a scheme which was proposed by Peel and supported by Russell."

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 19 (volume 4).

ALSO IN; H. Martineau, History of the Thirty Years' Peace, book 6, chapter 8.

IRELAND: A. D. 1845-1847. The Famine.

"In 1841 the population of Ireland was 8,175,124 souls. By 1845 it had probably reached to nearly nine millions. … To anyone looking beneath the surface the condition of the country was painfully precarious. Nine millions of a population living at best in a light-hearted and hopeful hand-to-mouth contentment, totally dependent on the hazards of one crop, destitute of manufacturing industries, and utterly without reserve or resource to fall back upon in time of reverse; what did all this mean but a state of things critical and alarming in the extreme? Yet no one seemed conscious of danger. The potato crop had been abundant for four or five years, and respite from dearth and distress was comparative happiness and prosperity. Moreover, the temperance movement [of Father Mathew] had come to make the 'good times' still better. Everything looked bright. No one concerned himself to discover how slender and treacherous was the foundation for this general hopefulness and confidence. Yet signs of the coming storm had been given. Partial famine caused by failing harvests had indeed been intermittent in Ireland, and, quite recently, warnings that ought not to have been mistaken or neglected had given notice that the esculent which formed the sole dependence of the peasant millions was subject to some mysterious blight. In 1844 it was stricken in America, but in Ireland the yield was healthy and plentiful as ever. The harvest of 1845 promised to be the richest gathered for many years. Suddenly, in one short month, in one week it might be said, the withering breath of a simoom seemed to sweep the land, blasting all in its path. I myself saw whole tracts of potato growth changed in one night from smiling luxuriance to a shrivelled and blackened waste. A shout of alarm arose. But the buoyant nature of the Celtic peasant did not yet give way. The crop was so profuse that it was expected the healthy portion would reach an average result. Winter revealed the alarming fact that the tubers had rotted in pit and store-house. Nevertheless the farmers, like hapless men who double their stakes to recover losses, made only the more strenuous exertions to till a larger breadth in 1846. Although already feeling the pinch of sore distress, if not actual famine, they worked as if for dear life; they begged and borrowed on any terms the means whereby to crop the land once more. The pawn-offices were choked with the humble finery that had shone at the village dance or the christening feast; the banks and local money-lenders were besieged with appeals for credit. Meals were stinted, backs were bared. Anything, anything to tide over the interval to the harvest of 'Forty-six.' O God, it is a dreadful thought that all this effort was but more surely leading them to ruin! It was this harvest of Forty-six that sealed their doom. Not partially but completely, utterly, hopelessly, it perished. As in the previous year, all promised brightly up to the close of July. Then, suddenly, in a night, whole areas were blighted; and this time, alas! no portion of the crop escaped. A cry of agony and despair went up all over the land. The last desperate stake for life had been played, and all was lost. The doomed people realised but too well what was before them. Last year's premonitory sufferings had exhausted them, and now?—they must die! My native district figures largely in the gloomy record of that dreadful time. I saw the horrible phantasmagoria—would God it were but that!—pass before my eyes. Blank stolid dismay, a sort of stupor, fell upon the people, contrasting remarkably with the fierce energy put forth a year before. It was no uncommon sight to see the cottier and his little family seated on the garden fence gazing all day long in moody silence at the blighted plot that had been their last hope. Nothing could arouse them. You spoke; they answered not. You tried to cheer them; they shook their heads. I never saw so sudden and so terrible a transformation. When first in the autumn of 1845 the partial blight appeared, wise voices were raised in warning to the Government that a frightful catastrophe was at hand; yet even then began that fatal circumlocution and inaptness which it maddens one to think of. It would be utter injustice to deny that the Government made exertions which judged by ordinary emergencies would be prompt and considerable. {1791} But judged by the awful magnitude of the evil then at hand or actually befallen, they were fatally tardy and inadequate. When at length the executive did hurry, the blunders of precipitancy outdid the disasters of excessive deliberation. … In October 1845 the Irish Mansion House Relief Committee implored the Government to call Parliament together and throw open the ports. The Government refused. Again and again the terrible urgency of the case, the magnitude of the disaster at hand, was pressed on the executive. It was the obstinate refusal of Lord John Russell to listen to these remonstrances and entreaties, and the sad verification subsequently of these apprehensions, that implanted in the Irish mind the bitter memories which still occasionally find vent in passionate accusation of 'England.' Not but the Government had many and weighty arguments in behalf of the course they took. … The situation bristled with difficulties. … At first the establishment of public soup-kitchens under local relief committees, subsidised by Government, was relied upon to arrest the famine. I doubt if the world ever saw so huge a demoralisation, so great a degradation, visited upon a once high-spirited and sensitive people. All over the country large iron boilers were set up, in which what was called 'soup' was concocted; later on Indian-meal stirabout was boiled. Around these boilers on the roadside there daily moaned and shrieked and fought and scuffled crowds of gaunt, cadaverous creatures that once had been men and women made in the image of God. The feeding of dogs in a kennel was far more decent and orderly. … I frequently stood and watched the scene till tears blinded me and I almost choked with grief and passion. … The conduct of the Irish landlords throughout the famine period has been variously described, and has been, I believe, generally condemned. I consider the censure visited on them too sweeping. … On many of them no blame too heavy could possibly fall. A large number were permanent absentees; their ranks were swelled by several who early fled the post of duty at home—cowardly and selfish deserters of a brave and faithful people. Of those who remained, some may have grown callous; it is impossible to contest authentic instances of brutal heartlessness here and there. But … the overwhelming balance is the other way. The bulk of the resident Irish landlords manfully did their best in that dread hour. … In the autumn of 1846 relief works were set on foot, the Government having received parliamentary authority to grant baronial loans for such undertakings. There might have been found many ways of applying these funds in reproductive employment, but the modes decided on were draining and road-making. … The result was in every sense deplorable failure. The wretched people were by this time too wasted and emaciated to work. The endeavour to do so under an inclement winter sky only hastened death. They tottered at day-break to the roll-call; vainly tried to wheel the barrow or ply the pick, but fainted away on the 'cutting,' or lay down on the wayside to rise no more. As for the roads on which so much money was wasted, and on which so many lives were sacrificed, hardly any of them were finished. Miles of grass-grown earth works throughout the country now mark their course and commemorate for posterity one of the gigantic blunders of the famine time. The first remarkable sign of the havoc which death was making was the decline, and disappearance of funerals. … Soon, alas! neither coffin nor shroud could be supplied. Daily in the street and on the footway some poor creature lay down as if to sleep, and presently was stiff and stark. In our district it was a common occurrence to find, on opening the front door in early morning, leaning against it, the corpse of some victim who in the night-time had 'rested' in its shelter. We raised a public subscription, and employed two men with horse and cart to go around each day and gather up the dead. One by one they were taken to a great pit at Ardnabrahair Abbey and dropped through the hinged bottom of a 'trap-coffin' into a common grave below. In the remoter rural districts even this rude sepulture was impossible. In the field and by the ditchside the victims lay as they fell, till some charitable hand was found to cover them with the adjacent soil. It was the fever which supervened on the famine that wrought the greatest slaughter and spread the greatest terror. … To come within the reach of this contagion was certain death. Whole families perished unvisited and unassisted. By levelling above their corpses the sheeling in which they died, the neighbours gave them a grave."

A. M. Sullivan, New Ireland, chapter 6.

"In July 1847 as many as three millions of persons were actually receiving separate rations. A loan of £8,000,000 was contracted by the Government, expressly to supply such wants, and every step was taken by two successive administrations, Sir Robert Peel's and Lord John Russell's, to alleviate the sufferings of the people. Nor was private benevolence lacking. The Society of Friends, always ready in acts of charity and love, was foremost in the good work. A British Association was formed for the relief of Ireland, including Jones Lloyd (Lord Overstone), Thomas Baring, and Baron Rothschild. A Queen's letter was issued. … Subscriptions were received from almost every quarter of the world. The Queen's letter alone produced £171,533. The British Association collected £263,000; the Society of Friends £43,000; and £168,000 more were entrusted to the Dublin Society of Friends. The Sultan of Turkey sent £1,000. The Queen gave £2,000, and £500 more to the British Ladies' Clothing Fund. Prince Albert gave £500. The National Club collected £17,930. America sent two ships of war, the 'Jamestown' and the 'Macedonian,' full of provisions; and the Irish residents in the United States sent upwards of £200,000 to their relatives, to allow them to emigrate."

L. Levi, History of British Commerce, part 4, chapter 4.

"By the end of 1847 cheap supplies of food began to be brought into the country by the ordinary operation of the laws of supply and demand, at far cheaper rates, owing to an abundant harvest abroad, than if the Government had tried to constitute itself the sole distributor. The potato harvest of 1847, if not bountiful, was at least comparatively good. … By March, 1848, the third and last period of the famine may be said to have terminated. But, though the direct period of distress was over, the economic problems which remained for solution were of overwhelming magnitude. … A million and a half of the people had disappeared. The land was devastated with fever and the diseases which dog the steps of famine. … The waters of the great deep were indeed going down, but the land was seen to be without form and void."

Lord E. Fitzmaurice and J. R. Thursfield, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 4, chapter 4.

{1792}

"The famine and plague of 1846-47 was accompanied, and succeeded, by a wholesale clearance of congested districts and by cruel evictions. The new landlords [who had acquired property under the Encumbered Estates Act], bent on consolidating their property, turned out their tenants by regiments, and in the autumn of 1847 enormous numbers were deported. It is absolutely necessary to bear this strictly in mind, if we would judge of the intense hatred which prevails amongst the Irish in America to Great Britain. The children of many of those who were exiled then have raised themselves to positions of affluence and prosperity in the United States. But they have often heard from their fathers, and some of them may perhaps recall, the circumstances under which they were driven from their old homes in Ireland. … But there is a further and awful memory connected with that time. The people who had been suffering from fever carried the plague with them on board, and the vessels sometimes became floating charnel-houses. During the year 1847, out of 106,000 emigrants who crossed the Atlantic for Canada and New Brunswick, 6,100 perished on the ocean, 4,100 immediately on landing, 5,200 subsequently in the hospitals, and 1,900 in the towns to which they repaired. … Undoubtedly, historical circumstances have … had much to do with the political hatred to Great Britain; but its newly acquired intensity is owing to the still fresh remembrances of what took place after the famine, and to the fact that the wholesale clearances of Irish estates were, to say the least, not discouraged in the writings and speeches of English lawgivers, economists and statesmen."

Sir R. Blennerhassett, Ireland ("Reign of Queen Victoria," edited by T. H. Ward, volume 1, pages 563-565).

"The deaths from fever in the year 1846 were 17,145, in the following year 57,000, to which 27,000 by dysentery must be added."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 4, page 164.

"Between the years 1847 and 1851 (both inclusive) the almost incredible number of over one million Irish—men, women, and children—were conveyed in emigrant ships to America—a whole population. In 1847, 215,444 emigrated; in 1849, 218,842, and in 1851, 249,721."

H. L. Jephson, Notes on Irish Questions, page 298.

"The population of Ireland by March 30, 1851, at the same ratio of increase as held in England and Wales, would have been 9,018,799—it was 6,552,385. It was the calculation of the Census Commissioners that the deficit, independently of the emigration, represented by the mortality in the five famine years, was 985,366."

T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, page 125.

IRELAND: A. D. 1846. Defeat of Peel's Coercion Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.

IRELAND: A. D. 1848-1852. Tenant organizations. The Ulster Tenant Right. The Tenant League.

"The famine … and the evictions that followed it made the people more discontented than ever with the land system. The Democratic Association, organized about this time, adopted as its rallying cry, 'the land for the people.' … This association, whose aims are said to have been 'largely communistic and revolutionary,' opposed the Irish Alliance, the Nationalist Society organized by Charles Gavan Duffy. … During the years '49 and '50 numerous Tenant Protection Societies were formed throughout the country, the Presbyterians of Ulster taking quite as active a part as the Celtic Catholics of the other provinces. In May, 1850, the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster … resolved, against the protest, it is true, of the more conservative men, to petition Parliament to extend to the rest of Ireland the benefits of rights and securities similar to those of the Ulster custom. … The Ulster tenant right … has occupied an important place in the Irish land question for a long time. … The right differs much on different estates. On no two does it seem to be precisely the same. It is therefore not a right capable of being strictly defined. Nor did it have any legal sanction until the year 1870. The law did not recognize it. One of its chief incidents was that the tenant was entitled to live on his farm from year to year indefinitely on condition of acting properly, and paying his rent, which the landlord might raise from time to time to a reasonable extent, but not so as to extinguish the tenant's interest. In the second place, if the tenant got in debt, and could not pay the rent, or wished for any other reason to leave the holding, he could sell his interest, but the landlord had a right to be consulted, and could object to the purchaser. In the third place, the landlord, if he wanted to take the land for his own purposes, must pay the tenant a fair sum for his tenant-right. In the fourth place, all arrears of rent must be paid before the interest was transferred. These are said to be universal characteristics of every Ulster tenant-right custom. There were often additional restrictions or provisions, usually in limitation of the tenant's right to sell, or of the landlord's right to raise the rent, veto the sale of land, or take it for his own use. There were commonly established usages in reference to fixing a fair rent. Valuators were generally employed, and on their estimates, and not on competition in open market, the rent was fixed. … The Irish Tenant League was organized August 6, 1850, in Dublin. Among the resolutions adopted was one, calling for 'a fair valuation of rent between landlord and tenant in Ireland,' and another, 'that the tenant should not be disturbed in his holding as long as he paid his rent.' The question of arrears received a great deal of attention. The great majority of the tenants of Ireland were in arrears, owing to the successive failures of the crops, and were of course liable to eviction. … The Tenant League was a very popular one and spread throughout the country. There was much agitation, and in the general election in 1852, when the excitement was at its height, fifty-eight Tenant Leaguers were elected to Parliament. The Tenant League members resolved to hold themselves 'independent of and in opposition to all governments which do not make it a part of their policy' to give the tenants a measure of relief such as the League desired. It looked as though the party would hold the balance of power and be able to secure its objects. When however Sadlier and Keogh, two of the most prominent men in the party and men of great influence, accepted positions in the new government, 'bribed by office,' it has always been charged by the Irish, 'to betray the cause to which they had been most solemnly pledged,' the party was broken up without accomplishing its purpose."

D. B. King, The Irish Question, chapters 5 and 9.

ALSO IN: Sir C. G. Duffy, League of the North and South.

A. M. Sullivan, New Ireland, chapter 13.

J. Godkin, The Land War in Ireland, chapter 17.

{1793}

IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867. The Fenian Movement.

"The Fenian movement differed from nearly all previous movements of the same kind in Ireland, in the fact that it arose and grew into strength without the patronage or the help of any of those who might be called the natural leaders of the people. … Its leaders were not men of high position, or distinguished name, or proved ability. They were not of aristocratic birth; they were not orators; they were not powerful writers. It was not the impulse of the American Civil War that engendered Fenianism; although that war had great influence on the manner in which Fenianism shaped its course. Fenianism had been in existence, in fact, although it had not got its peculiar name, long before the American War created a new race of Irishmen—the Irish-American soldiers—to turn their energies and their military inclination to a new purpose. … The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, in consequence of the 1848 movement, led, as a matter of course, to secret association. Before the trials of the Irish leaders were well over in that year, a secret association was formed by a large number of young Irishmen in cities and towns. … After two or three attempts to arrange for a simultaneous rising had failed, or had ended only in little abortive and isolated ebullitions, the young men became discouraged. Some of the leaders went to France, some to the United States, some actually to England; and the association melted away. … Some years after this, the 'Phœnix' clubs began to be formed in Ireland. They were for the most part associations of the peasant class, and were on that account, perhaps, the more formidable and earnest. … The Phœnix clubs led to some of the ordinary prosecutions and convictions; and that was all. … After the Phœnix associations came the Fenians. 'This is a serious business now,' said a clever English literary man when he heard of the Fenian organisation; 'the Irish have got hold of a good name this time; the Fenians will last.' The Fenians are said to have been the ancient Irish militia. … There was an air of Celtic antiquity and of mystery about the name of Fenian which merited the artistic approval given to it by the impartial English writer whose observation has just been quoted. The Fenian agitation began about 1858, and it came to perfection about the middle of the American Civil War. It was ingeniously arranged on a system by which all authority converged towards one centre [called the Head-Centre], and those farthest away from the seat of direction knew proportionately less and less about the nature of the plans. They had to obey instructions only, and it was hoped that by this means weak or doubtful men would not have it in their power prematurely to reveal, to betray, or to thwart the purposes of their leaders. A convention was held in America, and the Fenian Association was resolved into a regular organised institution. A provisional government was established in the neighbourhood of Union Square, New York, with all the array and the mechanism of an actual working administration. … The Civil War had introduced a new figure to the world's stage. This was the Irish-American soldier. … Many of these men—thousands of them—were as sincerely patriotic in their way as they were simple and brave. It is needless to say that they were fastened on in some instances by adventurers, who fomented the Fenian movement out of the merest and the meanest self-seeking. … Some were making a living out of the organisation—out of that, and apparently nothing else. The contributions given by poor Irish hack-drivers and servant girls, in the sincere belief that they were helping to man the ranks of an Irish army of independence, enabled some of these self-appointed leaders to wear fine clothes and to order expensive dinners. … But in the main it is only fair to say that the Fenian movement in the United States was got up, organised and manned by persons who … were single-hearted, unselfish, and faithfully devoted to their cause. … After a while things went so far that the Fenian leaders in the United States issued an address, announcing that their officers were going to Ireland to raise an army there for the recovery of the country's independence. Of course the Government here were soon quite prepared to receive them; and indeed the authorities easily managed to keep themselves informed by means of spies of all that was going on in Ireland. … Meanwhile the Head Centre of Fenianism in America, James Stephens, who had borne a part in the movement of 1848, arrived in Ireland. He was arrested … [and] committed to Richmond Prison, Dublin, early in November, 1865; but before many days had passed the country was startled by the news that he had contrived to make his escape. The escape was planned with skill and daring. For a time it helped to strengthen the impression on the mind of the Irish peasantry that in Stephens there had at last been found an insurgent leader of adequate courage, craft, and good fortune. Stephens disappeared for a moment from the stage. In the meantime disputes and dissensions had arisen among the Fenians in America. The schism had gone so far as to lead to the setting up of two separate associations. There were of course distracted plans. One party was for an invasion of Canada; another pressed for operations in Ireland itself. The Canadian attempt actually was made. …

See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

Then Stephens came to the front again. It was only for a moment. He had returned to New York, and he now announced that he was determined to strike a blow in Ireland. Before long the impression was spread abroad that he had actually left the States to return to the scene of his proposed insurrection. The American-Irish kept streaming across the Atlantic, even in the stormy winter months, in the firm belief that before the winter had passed away, or at the farthest while the spring was yet young, Stephens would appear in Ireland at the head of an insurgent army. … Stephens did not reappear in Ireland. He made no attempt to keep his warlike promise. He may be said to have disappeared from the history of Fenianism. But the preparations had gone too far to be suddenly stopped. … It was hastily decided that something should be done. One venture was a scheme for the capture of Chester Castle [and the arms it contained]. … The Government were fully informed of the plot in advance; the police were actually on the look-out for the arrival of strangers in Chester, and the enterprise melted away. {1794} In March, 1867, an attempt at a general rising was made in Ireland. It was a total failure; the one thing on which the country had to be congratulated was that it failed so completely and so quickly as to cause little bloodshed. Every influence combined to minimise the waste of life. The snow fell that spring as it had scarcely ever fallen before in the soft, mild climate of Ireland. … It made the gorges of the mountains untenable, and the gorges of the mountains were to be the encampments and the retreats of the Fenian insurgents. The snow fell for many days and nights, and when it ceased falling the insurrectionary movement was over. The insurrection was literally buried in that unlooked-for snow. There were some attacks on police barracks in various places —in Cork, in Kerry, in Limerick, in Tipperary, in Louth; there were some conflicts with the police; there were some shots fired, many captures made, a few lives lost; and then for the time at least all was over. The Fenian attempt thus made had not from the beginning a shadow of hope to excuse it." Some months afterwards a daring rescue of Fenian prisoners at Manchester stirred up a fresh excitement in Fenian circles. A policeman was killed in the affair, and three of the rescuers were hanged for his murder. On the 13th of December, 1867, an attempt was made to blow up the Clerkenwell House of Detention, where two Fenian prisoners were confined. "Six persons were killed on the spot; about six more died from the effects of the injuries they received; some 120 persons were wounded. … It is not necessary to follow out the steps of the Fenian movement any further. There were many isolated attempts; there were many arrests, trials, imprisonments, banishments. The effect of all this, it must be stated as a mere historical fact, was only to increase the intensity of dissatisfaction and discontent among the Irish peasantry. … There were some public men who saw that the time had come when mere repression must no longer be relied upon as a cure for Irish discontent."

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 53 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, chapters 7.

G. P. Macdonell, Fenianism, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 5, chapter 4.

IRELAND: A. D. 1868. Parliamentary Reform.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868.

IRELAND: A. D. 1868-1870. Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870.

IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1894. The land question and the recent land laws.

"The reason for exceptional legislation in Ireland rested chiefly on the essential difference between the landlord and tenant systems in England and in Ireland. In 1845 the Devon Royal Commission reported that the introduction of the English system would be extremely difficult, if not impracticable. The difference, it said, between the English and Irish systems 'consisted in this, that in Ireland the landlord builds neither dwelling-house nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., into good order before he lets his land. In most cases, whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant; and, in the ordinary language of the country, houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences are described by the general word "improvements," which is thus employed to denote the necessary adjuncts to a farm without which in England or Scotland no tenant would be found to rent it.' Thirty years later, John Bright summarized the matter by saying that if the land of Ireland were stripped of the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occupier, the face of the country would be 'as bare and naked as an American prairie.' This fundamental difference between the English and Irish land systems has never been fully appreciated in England, where the landlord's expenditure on buildings, fences, drainage, farm roads, etc., and on maintenance absorbs a large part of the rental. Reform of the Irish system began in 1870. Before that time little had been done to protect the Irish tenant except to forbid evictions at night, on Christmas Day, on Good Friday, and the pulling off the roofs of houses until the inmates had been removed. The Land Act of 1870 recognized, in principle, the tenant's property in his improvements by giving him a right to claim compensation if disturbed or evicted. This was not what the tenants wanted, viz., security of tenure. The results of compensation suits by 'disturbed' tenants were uncertain; compensation for improvements was limited in various ways, and the animus of the courts administering the act was distinctly hostile to the tenants. Many works necessary to the existence of tenants on small farms were not improvements in the eyes of the landlord, of the law, or of the judges; it was often impossible to adduce legal evidence of costly works done little by little, and at intervals, representing the savings of labor embodied in drainage, reclamation, or fencing. Buildings and other works of a superior character might be adjudged 'unsuitable' to small farms, and therefore not the subject of any compensation; moreover, it was expressly laid down that the use and enjoyment by the tenant of works effected wholly at his expense were to be accounted compensation to him by the landlord, and that, therefore, by lapse of time, the tenant's improvements became the landlord's property. The act of 1870 tended to make capricious and heartless evictions expensive and therefore less common; but it gave no security of tenure, and left the landlord still at liberty to raise the rent of improving tenants. It left the tenant still in a state of dependence and servility; it gave him no security for his expenditure, for the landlord's right to keep the rent continually rising was freely exercised. Even if the act had been liberally administered, it would have failed to give contentment, satisfy the demands of justice, or encourage the expenditure of capital by tenant farmers. Measure after measure proposed by Irish members for further reforms were rejected by Parliament between 1870 and 1880, and discontent continued to increase. … The Land Law Act of 1881 was based on the Report in 1880 of the Bessborough Royal Commission, but many of the most useful suggestions made were disregarded. This act purported to give the Irish yearly tenants (1) the right to sell their tenancies and improvements; (2) the right to have a 'fair' rent fixed by the land courts at intervals of fifteen years; (3) security of tenure arising from this right to have the rent fixed by the court instead of by the landlord.

{1795}

… No definition of what constituted a fair rent was embodied in the act, but what is known as the Healy clause provided that 'no rent shall be allowed or made payable in respect of improvements made by a tenant or his predecessors.' … When the Irish courts came to interpret it, they held that the term improvements' meant only that interest in his improvements for which the tenant might have obtained compensation under the Land Act of 1870 if he had been disturbed or evicted, and that the time during which the tenant had had the use and enjoyment of his own expenditure was still to be accounted compensation made to him by his landlord, so that by mere lapse of time the tenant's improvements became the landlord's property. … In view of the continually falling prices of agricultural produce and diminishing farm profits, the operation of the land laws has not brought about peace between landlords and tenants. … In 1887 the Cowper Commission reported that the 200,000 rents which had been fixed were too high in consequence of the continued fall in prices. As a result of the report of this commission the fair-rent provisions of the law were extended to leaseholders holding for less than sixty years; but the courts still adhering to their former methods of interpretation, numbers of leaseholders who had made and maintained all the buildings, improvements, and equipments of their farms found themselves either excluded on narrow and technical points, or expressly rented on their own expenditure. In 1891 the fair-rent provisions were further extended to leaseholders holding for more than sixty years by the Redemption of Rent Act, under which long leasehold tenants could compel their landlords either to sell to them, or allow a fair rent to be fixed on their farms. … Concurrently with these attempts to place the relations of landlord and tenant on a peaceful and equitable basis, a system of State loans to enable tenants to buy their farms has been in operation. … It is now proposed to have an inquiry by a select committee of the House of Commons into

(1) the principles adopted in fixing fair rents, particularly with respect to tenants' improvements; (2) the system of purchase and security offered for the loans of public money; (3) the organization and administrative work of the Land Commission

—a department which has cost the country about £100,000 a year since 1881. The popular demand for inquiry and reform comes as much from the Protestant North as from the Catholic South."

The Nation, February 15, 1894.

IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879. The Home Rule Movement. Organization of the Land League.

"For some years after the failure of the Fenian insurrection there was no political agitation in Ireland; but in 1873 a new national movement began to make itself felt; this was the Home Rule Movement. It had been gradually formed since 1870 by one or two leading Irishmen, who thought the time was ripe for a new constitutional effort; chief among them was Mr. Isaac Butt, a Protestant, an eminent lawyer, and an earnest politician. The movement spread rapidly, and took a firm hold of the popular mind. After the General Election of 1874, some sixty Irish Members were returned who had stood before their constituencies as Home Rulers. The Home Rule demand is clear and simple enough; it asks for Ireland a separate Government, still allied with the Imperial Government, on the principles which regulate the alliance between the United States of America. The proposed Irish Parliament in College Green would bear just the same relation to the Parliament at Westminster that the Legislature and Senate of every American State bear to the head authority of the Congress in the Capitol at Washington. All that relates to local business it was proposed to delegate to the Irish Assembly; all questions of imperial policy were still to be left to the Imperial Government. There was nothing very startling, very daringly innovating, in the scheme. In most of the dependencies of Great Britain, Home Rule systems of some kind were already established. In Canada, in the Australasian Colonies, the principle might be seen at work upon a large scale; upon a small scale it was to be studied nearer home in the neighbouring Island of Man. … At first the Home Rule Party was not very active. Mr. Butt used to have a regular Home Rule debate once every Session, when he and his followers stated their views, and a division was taken and the Home Rulers were of course defeated. Yet, while the English House of Commons was thus steadily rejecting year after year the demand made for Home Rule by the large majority of the Irish Members, it was affording a strong argument in favour of some system of local Government, by consistently outvoting every proposition brought forward by the bulk of the Irish Members relating to Irish Questions. … Mr. Butt and his followers had proved the force of the desire for some sort of National Government in Ireland, but the strength of the movement they had created now called for stronger leaders. A new man was coming into Irish political life who was destined to be the most remarkable Irish leader since O'Connell. Mr. Charles Stuart Parnell, who entered the House of Commons in 1875 as Member for Meath, was a descendant of the English poet Parnell, and of the two Parnells, father and son, John and Henry, who stood by Grattan to the last in the struggle against the Union. He was a grand-nephew of Sir Henry Parnell, the first Lord Congleton, the advanced Reformer and friend of, Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne. He was Protestant, and a member of the Protestant Synod. Mr. Parnell set himself to form a party of Irishmen in the House of Commons who should be absolutely independent of any English political party, and who would go their own way with only the cause of Ireland to influence them. Mr. Parnell had all the qualities that go to make a good political leader, and he succeeded in his purpose. The more advanced men in and out of Parliament began to look up to him as the real representative of the popular voice. In 1878 Mr. Butt died. … The leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party was given to Mr. William Shaw, Member for Cork County, an able, intelligent man, who proved himself in many ways a good leader. In quieter times his authority might have remained unquestioned, but these were unquiet, times. The decorous and demure attitude of the early Home Rule Party was to be changed into a more aggressive action, and Mr. Parnell was the champion of the change. It was soon obvious that he was the real leader recognised by the majority of the Irish Home Rule Members, and by the country behind them. Mr. Parnell and his following have been bitterly denounced for pursuing an obstructive policy. {1796} They are often written about as if they had invented obstruction; as if obstruction of the most audacious kind had never been practised in the House of Commons before Mr. Parnell entered it. It may perhaps be admitted that the Irish Members made more use of obstruction than had been done before their time. … The times undoubtedly were unquiet; the policy which was called in England obstructive and in Ireland active was obviously popular with the vast majority of the Irish people. The Land Question, too, was coming up again, and in a stronger form than ever. Mr. Butt, not very long before his death, had warned the House of Commons that the old land war was going to break out anew, and he was laughed at for his vivid fancy by the English Press and by English public opinion; but he proved a true prophet. Mr. Parnell had carefully studied the condition of the Irish tenant, and he saw that the Land Act of 1870 was not the last word of legislation on his behalf. Mr. Parnell was at first an ardent advocate of what came to be known as the Three F's, fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale. But the Three F's were soon to be put aside in favour of more advanced ideas. Outside Parliament a strenuous and earnest man was preparing to inaugurate the greatest land agitation ever seen in Ireland. Mr. Michael Davitt was the son of an evicted tenant. … When he grew to be a young man he joined the Fenians, and in 1870, on the evidence of an informer, he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude; seven years later he was let out on ticket-of-leave. In his long imprisonment he had thought deeply upon the political and social condition of Ireland and the best means of improving it; when he came out he had abandoned his dreams of armed rebellion, and he went in for constitutional agitation to reform the Irish land system. The land system needed reforming; the condition of the tenant was only humanly endurable in years of good harvest. The three years from 1876 to 1879 were years of successive bad harvests. … Mr. Davitt had been in America, planning out a land organization, and had returned to Ireland to carry out his plan. Land meetings were held in many parts of Ireland, and in October Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, Mr. Patrick Egan, and Mr. Thomas Brennan founded the Irish National Land League, the most powerful political organization that had been formed in Ireland since the Union. The objects of the Land League were the abolition of the existing landlord system and the introduction of peasant proprietorship."

J. H. McCarthy, Outline of Irish History, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, chapters 8-10.

A. V. Dicey, England's Case against Home Rule.

G. Baden-Powell, editor, The Truth about Home Rule.

IRELAND: A. D. 1880. The breach between the Irish Party and the English Liberals.

"The new Irish party which followed the lead of Mr. Parnell has been often represented by the humourist as a sort of Falstaffian 'ragged regiment.' … From dint of repetition this has come to be almost an article of faith in some quarters. Yet it is curiously without foundation. A large proportion of Mr. Parnell's followers were journalists. … Those who were not journalists in the Irish party were generally what is called well-to-do. … At first there seemed no reason to expect any serious disunion between the Irish members and the Liberal' party. … The Irish vote in England had been given to the Liberal cause. The Liberal speakers and statesmen, without committing themselves to any definite line of policy, had manifested friendly sentiments towards Ireland; and though indeed nothing was said which could be construed into a recognition of the Home Rule claim, still the new Ministry was known to contain men favourable to that claim. The Irish members hoped for much from the new Government; and, on the other hand, the new Government expected to find cordial allies in all sections of the Irish party. The appointment of Mr. Forster to the Irish Secretaryship was regarded by many Irishmen, especially those allied to Mr. Shaw and his following, as a marked sign of the good intentions of the Government towards Ireland. … The Queen's Speech announced that the Peace Preservation Act would not be renewed. This was a very important announcement. Since the Union Ireland had hardly been governed by the ordinary law for a single year. … Now the Government was going to make the bold experiment of trying to rule Ireland without the assistance of coercive and exceptional law. The Queen's Speech, however, contained only one other reference to Ireland, in a promise that a measure would be introduced for the extension of the Irish borough franchise. This was in itself an important promise. … But extension of the borough franchise did not seem, to the Irish members in 1880 the most important form that legislation for Ireland could take just then. The country was greatly depressed by its recent suffering; the number of evictions was beginning to rise enormously. The Irish members thought that the Government should have made some promise to consider the land question, and above all should have done something to stay the alarming increase of evictions. Evictions had increased from 463 families in 1877 to 980 in 1878, to 1,238 in 1879; and they were still on the increase, as was shown at the end of 1880, when it was found that 2,110 families were evicted. An amendment to the Address was at once brought forward by the Irish party, and debated at some length. The Irish party called for some immediate legislation on behalf of the land question. Mr. Forster replied, admitting the necessity for some legislation, but declaring that there would not be time for the introduction of any such measure that session. Then the Irish members asked for some temporary measure to prevent the evictions … ; but the Chief Secretary answered that while the law existed it was necessary to carry it out, and he could only appeal to both sides to be moderate. Matters slowly drifted on in this way for a short time. … Evictions steadily increased, and Mr. O'Connor Power brought in a Bill for the purpose of staying evictions. Then the Government, while refusing to accept the Irish measure, brought in a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, which adopted some of the Irish suggestions. … On Friday, June 25, the second reading of the Bill was moved by Mr. Forster, who denied that it was a concession to the anti-rent agitation, and strongly denounced the outrages which were taking place in Ireland. … This was the point at which difference between the Irish party and the Government first became marked. {1797} The increase of evictions in Ireland, following as it did upon the widespread misery caused by the failure of the harvests and the partial famine, had generated—as famine and hunger have always generated—a certain amount of lawlessness. Evictions were occasionally resisted with violence; here and there outrages were committed upon bailiffs, process-servers, and agents. In different places, too, injuries had been inflicted upon the cattle and horses of landowners and land agents. … There is no need, there should be no attempt, to justify these crimes. But, while condemning all acts of violence, whether upon man or beast, it must be remembered that these acts were committed by ignorant peasants of the lowest class, maddened by hunger, want, and eviction, driven to despair by the sufferings of their wives and children, convinced of the utter hopelessness of redress, and longing for revenge. … The Compensation for Disturbance Bill was carried in the Commons after long debates in which the Irish party strove to make its principles stronger. … It was sent up to the Lords, where it was rejected on Tuesday, August 3, by a majority of 231. The Government answered the appeals of Irish members by refusing to take any steps to make the Lords retract their decision, or to introduce any similar measure that session. From that point the agitation and struggle of the past four years [1880-1884] may be said to date."

J. H. McCarthy, England under Gladstone, 1880-1884, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: T. W. Reid, Life of William Edward Forster, volume 2, chapter 6-7.

IRELAND: A. D. 1881-1882. The Coercion Bill and the Land Act. Arrest of the Irish leaders. Suppression of the Land League. The alleged Kilmainham Treaty, and release of Mr. Parnell and others.

Early in 1881, the Government armed itself with new powers for suppressing the increased lawlessness which showed itself in Ireland, and for resisting the systematic policy of intimidation which the Nationalists appeared to have planned, by the passage of a measure known as the Coercion Bill. This was followed, in April, by the introduction of a Land Bill, intended to redress the most conspicuous Irish grievance by establishing an authoritative tribunal for the determination of rents, and by aiding and facilitating the purchase of small holdings by the peasants. The Land Bill became law in August; but it failed to satisfy the demands of the Land League or to produce a more orderly state of feeling in Ireland. Severe proceedings were then decided upon by the Government. "The Prime Minister, during his visit to Leeds in the first week of October, had used language which could bear only one meaning. The question, he said, had come to be simply this, 'whether law or lawlessness must rule in Ireland;' the Irish people must not be deprived of the means of taking advantage of the Land Act by force or fear of force. He warned the party of disorder that 'the resources of civilisation were not yet exhausted.' A few days later Mr. Gladstone, speaking at the Guildhall, amid enthusiastic cheers, was able to announce that the long-delayed blow had fallen. Mr. Parnell was arrested in Dublin under the Coercion Act, and his arrest was followed by those of Mr. Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, and other prominent leaders of the agitation. The warnings of the Government had been met at first with derision and defiance, and the earlier arrests were furiously denounced; but the energy and persistence of the Government soon began to make an impression. … A Parthian shot was fired in the issue of a manifesto, purporting to be signed, not only by the 'suspects' in Kilmainham, but also by [Michael] Davitt, … in Portland Prison, which adjured the tenantry to pay no rent whatever until the Government had done penance for its tyranny and released the victims of British despotism. This open incitement to defiance of legal authority and repudiation of legal right was instantly met by the Irish Executive in a resolute spirit. On the 20th of October a proclamation was issued declaring the League to be 'an illegal and criminal association, intent on destroying the obligation of contracts and subverting law,' and announcing that its operations would thenceforward be forcibly suppressed, and those taking part in them held responsible."

Annual Summaries reprinted from The Times, volume 2, page 155.

"In the month of April [1882] Mr. Parnell was released from Kilmainham on parole—urgent business demanding his presence in Paris. This parole the Irish National leader faithfully kept. Whether the sweets of liberty had special charms for Mr. Parnell does not appear; but certain it is that after his return to Kilmainham, the Member for Cork wrote to Captain O'Shea, one of the Irish Members, and indirectly to the Government, intimating that if the question of arrears could be introduced in Parliament by way of relieving the tenants of holdings and lessening greatly the number of evictions in the country for non-payment of rent, and providing the purchase clauses of the Land Bill were discussed, steps might be taken to lessen the number of outrages. The Government had the intimation conveyed to them, in short, which gave to their minds the conviction that Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly, once released, and having in view the reforms indicated to them, would range themselves on the side of law and order in Ireland. Without any contract with the three members the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly was ordered, after they had been confined for a period bordering on three months. Michael Davitt had been released, likewise, and had been elected for Meath; but the seat was declared vacant again, owing to the conditions of his ticket-of-leave not permitting his return. Much has been said, and much has been written with regard to the release of the three Irish M. P.'s. The 'Kilmainham Treaty' has been … a term of scorn addressed to Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. … As a fact … there was no Kilmainham Treaty. … Mr. Forster [the Secretary for Ireland] resigned because he did not think it right to share the responsibility of the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly. The Government had detained the Queen's subjects in prison without trial for the purpose of preventing crime, not for punishment, Mr. Forster said in vindication. Mr. Forster contended that the unwritten law, as promulgated by them, had worked the ruin and the injury of the Queen's subjects by instructions of one kind and another—biddings carried out to such a degree that no power on earth could have allowed it to continue without becoming a Government not merely in name but in shame. {1798} Mr. Forster would have given the question of the release of the three consideration, if they had pledged themselves not to set their law up against the law of the land, or if Ireland had been quiet, or if there had been an accession of fresh powers on behalf of the Government: but these conditions were wanting. What Mr. Forster desired was an avowal of a change of purpose. He entreated his colleagues 'not to try to buy obedience,' as he termed it, and not to rely on appearances. The Government did rely on the intimation of Mr. Parnell … ; there was no treaty."

W. W. Pimblett, English Political History, 1880-1885, chapter 10.

IRELAND: A. D. 1882. The Phœnix Park murders.

Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned in April, 1882, and was succeeded by Lord Frederick Cavendish, brother of the Marquis of Hartington and son of the Duke of Devonshire. Earl Spencer at the same time became Viceroy, in place of Lord Cowper, resigned. "On the night of Friday, May 5th, Earl Spencer and Lord Frederick Cavendish crossed over to Ireland, and arrived in Dublin on the following day. The official entry was made in the morning, when the reception accorded by the populace to the new officials was described as having been very fairly favourable. Events seemed to have taken an entirely prosperous turn, and it was hoped that at last the long winter of Irish discontent had come to an end. On Sunday morning there spread through the United Kingdom the intelligence that the insane hatred of English rule had been the cause of a crime, even more brutal and unprovoked than any of the numerous outrages that had, during the last three years, sullied the annals of Ireland. It appeared that Lord Frederick Cavendish, having taken the oaths at the Castle, took a car about half-past seven in order to drive to the Viceregal Lodge. On the way he met Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary, who, though his life had been repeatedly threatened, was walking along, according to his usual custom, without any police escort. Lord Frederick dismissed his car, and walked with him through the Phœnix Park. There, in broad daylight—for it was a fine summer evening—and in the middle of a public recreation ground, crowded with people, they were surrounded and murdered. More than one spectator witnessed what they imagined to be a drunken brawl, saw six men struggling together, and four of them drive off outside a car, painted red, which had been waiting for them the while, the carman sitting still and never turning his head. The bodies of the two officials were first discovered by two shop-boys on bicycles who had previously passed them alive. Lord Frederick Cavendish had six wounds, and Mr. Burke eleven, dealt evidently with daggers used by men of considerable strength. Lord Spencer himself had witnessed the struggle from the windows of the Viceregal Lodge, and thinking that some pickpockets had been at work sent a servant to make inquiries. A reward of £10,000, together with full pardon to anyone who was not one of the actual murderers, was promptly offered, but for many long months the telegrams from Dublin closed with the significant information—'No definite clue in the hands of the police.' All parties in Ireland at once united to express their horror and detestation at this dastardly crime."

Cassell's Illustrated History of England, volume 10, chapter 50.

ALSO IN: Sir C. Russell, The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech, pages 282-291.

IRELAND: A. D. 1884. Enlargement of the Suffrage. Representation of the People Act.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

IRELAND: A. D. 1885-1886. Change of opinion in England. Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill and Irish Land Bill and their defeat.

"All through the Parliament which sat from 1880 till 1885, the Nationalists' party, led by Mr. Parnell, and including at first less than half, ultimately about half, of the Irish members, was in constant and generally bitter opposition to the Government of Mr. Gladstone. But during these five years a steady, although silent and often unconscious, process of change was passing in the minds of English and Scotch members, especially Liberal members, due to their growing sense of the mistakes which Parliament committed in handling Irish questions, and of the hopelessness of the efforts which the Executive was making to pacify the country on the old methods. First, they came to feel that the present system was indefensible. Then, while still disliking the notion of an Irish Legislature, they began to think it deserved consideration. Next they admitted, though usually in confidence to one another, that although Home Rule might be a bad solution, it was a probable one, toward which events pointed. Last of all, and not till 1884, they asked themselves whether, after all, it would be a bad solution, provided a workable scheme could be found. But as no workable scheme had been proposed, they still kept their views, perhaps unwisely, to themselves, and although the language held at the general election of 1885 showed a great advance in the direction of favoring Irish self-government, beyond the attitude of 1880, it was still vague and hesitating, and could the more easily remain so because the constituencies had not (strange as it may now seem) realized the supreme importance of the Irish question. Few questions were put to candidates on the subject, for both candidates and electors wished to avoid it. It was disagreeable; it was perplexing; so they agreed to leave it on one side. But when the result of the Irish elections showed, in December, 1885, an overwhelming majority in favor of the Home Rule party, and when they showed, also, that this party held the balance of power in Parliament, no one could longer ignore the urgency of the issue. There took place what chemists call a precipitation of substance held in solution. Public opinion on the Irish question had been in a fluid state. It now began to crystallize, and the advocates and opponents of Irish self-government fell asunder into two masses, which soon solidified. This process was hastened by the fact that Mr. Gladstone's view, the indications of which, given by himself some months before, had been largely overlooked, now became generally understood. … In the spring of 1886 the question could be no longer evaded or postponed. It was necessary to choose between … two courses: the refusal of the demand for self-government, coupled with the introduction of a severe Coercion Bill, or the concession of it by the introduction of a Home Rule Bill. … {1799} How the Government of Ireland Bill was brought into the House of Commons on April 8th, amid circumstances of curiosity and excitement unparalleled since 1832: how, after debates of almost unprecedented length, it was defeated in June, by a majority of thirty; how the policy it embodied was brought before the country at the general election, and failed to win approval; how the Liberal party has been rent in twain upon the question; how Mr. Gladstone resigned, and has been succeeded by a Tory Ministry, which the dissentient Liberals, who condemn Home Rule, are now supporting—all this is … well known.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.

… But the causes of the disaster may not be equally understood. … First, and most obvious, although not most important, was the weight of authority arrayed against the scheme. … The two most eminent leaders of the moderate Liberal, or, as it is often called, Whig, party, Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen, both declared against the bill, and put forth all their oratory and influence against it. At the opposite extremity of the party, Mr. John Bright, the veteran and honored leader of the Radicals, Mr. Chamberlain, the younger and latterly more active and prominent chief of that large section, took up the same position of hostility. Scarcely less important was the attitude of the social magnates of the Liberal party all over the country. … As, at the preceding general election, in December, 1885, the Liberals had obtained a majority of less than a hundred over the Tories, a defection such as this was quite enough to involve their defeat. Probably the name of Mr. Bright alone turned the issue in some twenty constituencies, which might otherwise have cast a Home Rule vote. The mention of this cause, however, throws us back on the further question, Why was there such a weight of authority against the scheme proposed by Mr. Gladstone? How came so many of his former colleagues, friends, supporters, to differ and depart from him on this occasion? Besides some circumstances attending the production of the bill, … which told heavily against it, there were three feelings which worked upon men's minds, disposing them to reject it. The first of these was dislike and fear of the Irish Nationalist members. In the previous House of Commons this party had been uniformly and bitterly hostile to the Liberal Government. Measures intended for the good of Ireland, like the Land Act of 1881, had been ungraciously received, treated as concessions extorted, for which no thanks were due—inadequate concessions, which must be made the starting-point for fresh demands. Obstruction had been freely practised to defeat not only bills restraining the liberty of the subject in Ireland, but many other measures. Some members of the Irish party, apparently with the approval of the rest, had systematically sought to delay all English and Scotch legislation, and, in fact, to bring the work of Parliament to a dead stop. … There could be no doubt as to the hostility which they, still less as to that which their fellow-countrymen in the United States, had expressed toward England, for they had openly wished success to Russia while war seemed impending with her, and the so-called Mahdi of the Sudan was vociferously cheered at many a Nationalist meeting. … To many Englishmen, the proposal to create an Irish Parliament seemed nothing more or less than a proposal to hand over to these men the government of Ireland, with all the opportunities thence arising to oppress the opposite party in Ireland and to worry England herself. It was all very well to urge that the tactics which the Nationalists had pursued when their object was to extort Home Rule would be dropped, because superfluous, when Home Rule had been granted; or to point out that an Irish Parliament would probably contain different men from those who had been sent to Westminster as Mr. Parnell's nominees. Neither of these arguments could overcome the suspicious antipathy which many Englishmen felt. … The internal condition of Ireland supplied more substantial grounds for alarm. … Three-fourths of the people are Roman Catholics, one-fourth Protestants, and this Protestant fourth sub-divided into bodies not fond of one another, who have little community of sentiment. Besides the Scottish colony in Ulster, many English families have settled here and there through the country. They have been regarded as intruders by the aboriginal Celtic population, and many of them, although hundreds of years may have passed since they came, still look on themselves as rather English than Irish. … Many people in England assumed that an Irish Parliament would be under the control of the tenants and the humbler class generally, and would therefore be hostile to the landlords. They went farther, and made the much bolder assumption that as such a Parliament would be chosen by electors, most of whom were Roman Catholics, it would be under the control of the Catholic priesthood, and hostile to Protestants. Thus they supposed that the grant of self-government to Ireland would mean the abandonment of the upper and wealthier class, the landlords and the Protestants, to the tender mercies of their enemies. … The fact stood out that in Ireland two hostile factions had been contending for the last sixty years, and that the gift of self-government might enable one of them to tyrannize over the other. True, that party was the majority, and, according to the principles of democratic government, therefore entitled to prevail. But it is one thing to admit a principle and another to consent to its application. The minority had the sympathy of the upper classes in England, because the minority contained the landlords. It had the sympathy of a large part of the middle class, because it contained the Protestants. … There was another anticipation, another forecast of evils to follow, which told most of all upon English opinion. This was the notion that Home Rule was only a stage in the road to the complete separation of the two islands."

J. Bryce, Past and Future of the Irish Question (New Princeton Review, January, 1887).

IRELAND: A. D. 1886. The "Plan of Campaign."

On the 11th of September Mr. Parnell had introduced in the House of Commons a bill to make temporary provision for the relief of suffering tenants in Ireland, and it had been defeated after a sharp debate by a majority of 95. The chief argument for the bill had been that "something must be done to stay evictions during the approaching winter. The rents would be due in November, and the fall in agricultural prices had been so great, that the sale of their whole produce by the tenants would not, it was contended, bring in money enough to enable them to pay in full. … The greatest public interest in the subject was roused by Lord Clanricarde's evictions at Woodford in Galway. … His quarrel with his Woodford tenants was of old standing. {1800} When the Home Rule Bill was before Parliament the National League urged them not to bring matters to a crisis, but their sufferings were too great to be borne, and they set the National League at defiance, and established a Plan of Campaign of their own. Lord Clanricarde would grant them no reduction, and they leagued themselves together, 316 in number, and when the November rent day came round in 1885 they resolved not to pay any rent at all if twenty-five per cent. reduction was refused. This was refused, and they withheld their rent. … The eviction of four of these tenants, in August, 1886, attracted general attention by the long fight the people made for their homes. Each house was besieged and defended like some mediæval city. One stone house, built by a tenant at a cost of £200, got the name of Saunders's fort. It was held by a garrison of 24, who threw boiling water on their assailants, and in one part of the fight threw out among them a hive of bees. … To evict these four men the whole available forces of the Crown in Galway were employed from Thursday the 19th of August to Friday the 27th. Seven hundred policemen and soldiers were present to protect the emergency men who carried out the evictions, and 60 peasants were taken to Galway gaol. It was to meet cases of this kind that, after the rejection of Mr. Parnell's Tenants' Relief Bill, the Plan of Campaign was started. In a speech at Woodford on the 17th of October Mr. John Dillon gave an outline of the scheme on which he thought a tenants' campaign against unjust rents might be started and carried on all over the country. … On the 23rd of October the 'Plan of Campaign' was published in full detail in 'United Ireland.' The first question to be answered, said the 'Plan,' was, How to meet the November demand for rent? On every estate the tenantry were to come together and decide whether to combine or not in resistance to exorbitant rent. When they were assembled, if the priest were not with them, they were to 'appoint an intelligent and sturdy member of their body as chairman, and after consulting, decide by resolution on the amount of abatement they will demand.' A committee of six or more and the chairman were then to be elected, to be called a Managing Committee, to take charge of the half year's rent of each tenant should the landlord refuse it. Everyone present was to pledge himself

(1) To abide by the decision of the majority; (2) To hold no communication with the landlord or his agents, except in presence of the body of the tenantry; (3) To accept no settlement for himself that was not given to every tenant on the estate.

Having thus pledged themselves each to the others they were to go to the rent office in a body on the rent day, or the gale day, as it is called in Ireland, and if the agent refused to see them in a body they were to depute the chairman to act as their spokesman and tender the reduced rent. If the agent refused to accept it, then the money was to be handed to the Managing Committee 'to fight the landlord with.' The fund thus got together was to be employed in supporting tenants who were dispossessed by sale or ejectment. The National League was to guarantee the continuance of the grants if needful after the fund was expended, or as long as the majority of the tenants held out."

P. W. Clayden, England under the Coalition, chapter. 8.

IRELAND: A. D. 1888-1889. The Parnell Commission.

Early in 1887, certain letters appeared in "The Times" newspaper, of London, one of which, printed in facsimile, "implied Mr. Parnell's sanction to the Park murders of 1882." It created a great sensation, and, "after many bitter debates in Parliament, a commission was appointed (1888) consisting of three judges to inquire not only into the authenticity of this and other letters attributed to several persons as their authors, but into the whole course of conduct pursued by many of the Irish Members of Parliament, in reference to the previous agitation in Ireland and their connexion with an extreme faction in America, who tried to intimidate this country by dastardly attempts to blow up our public buildings on several occasions between the years 1884 and 1887. The court sat from the winter months of 1888 until the summer of the following year, and examined dozens of witnesses, including Mr. Parnell and most of the other accused members, as well as dozens of the Irish peasantry who could give evidence as to outrages in their several districts. One of the witnesses, a mean and discarded Dublin journalist named Pigott, turned out to be the forger of the letters; and, having fled from the avenging hand of justice to Madrid, there put an end to his life by means of a revolver. Meantime, the interest in the investigation had flagged, and the report of the Commission, which deeply implicated many of the Irish members as to their connexion with the Fenian Society previous to their entrance to Parliament, on their own acknowledgment, fell rather flat on the public ear, wearied out in reiteration of Irish crime from the introduction of the Land League until the attempt to blow up London Bridge by American filibusters (1886). The unfortunate man Pigott had sold his forged letters to the over credulous Times newspaper at a fabulous price; and even experts in handwriting, so dexterously had they been manipulated, were ready to testify in open court to the genuineness of the letters before the tragic end of their luckless author left not a particle of doubt as to their origin."

R. Johnston, Short History of the Queen's Reign, page 65.

ALSO IN: Sir C. Russell, The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech for the Defence.

M. Davitt, Speech in Defence.

IRELAND: A. D. 1889-1891. Political fall and death of Mr. Parnell.

On the 28th of December, 1889, Captain O'Shea, one of the Irish Nationalist Members of Parliament, filed a petition for divorce from his wife on the ground of adultery with Mr. Parnell. The Irish leader tacitly confessed his guilt by making no answer, and in November, 1890, the divorce was granted to Captain O'Shea. In the following June Mr. Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea were married. The stigma which this affair put upon Mr. Parnell caused Mr. Gladstone, on behalf of the English Liberals, to demand his retirement from the leadership of the Home Rule Party. He refused to give way, and was supported in the refusal by a minority of his party. The majority, however, took action to depose him, and the party was torn asunder. A sudden illness ended Mr. Parnell's life on the 6th of October, 1891; but his death failed to restore peace, and the Irish Nationalists are still divided.

IRELAND: A. D. 1893. Passage of the Home Rule Bill by the British House of Commons. Its defeat by the House of Lords.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1892-1893.

—————IRELAND: End————

{1801}

IRENE, Empress in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 797-802.

IRISH NIGHT, The.

See LONDON: A. D. 1688.

IRMINSUL, The.

See SAXONS: A. D. 772-804.

IRON AGE.

See STONE AGE.

IRON CROSS, Order of the.

A Prussian order of knighthood instituted in 1815 by Frederick William III.

IRON CROWN, The Order of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY, The.

See LOMBARDY, THE IRON CROWN OF.

IRON MASK, The Man in the.

"It is known that a masked and unknown prisoner, the object of extraordinary surveillance, died, in 1703, in the Bastille, to which he had been taken from the St. Marguerite Isles in 1698; he had remained about ten years incarcerated in these isles, and traces of him are with certainty found in the fort of Exilles, and at Pignerol, as far back as about 1681. This singular fact, which began to be vaguely bruited a little before the middle of the 18th century, excited immense curiosity after Voltaire had availed himself of it in his 'Siècle de Louis XIV.', wherein he exhibited it in the most touching and tragic light. A thousand conjectures circulated: no great personage had disappeared in Europe about 1680. What interest so powerful had the government of Louis XIV. for concealing this mysterious visage from every human eye? Many explanations more or less plausible, more or less chimerical, have been attempted in regard to the 'man with the iron mask' (an erroneous designation that has prevailed; the mask was not of iron, but of black velvet; it was probably one of those 'loups' so long in use), when, in 1837, the bibliophile Jacob (M. Paul Lacroix) published a very ingenious book on this subject, in which he discussed all the hypotheses, and skilfully commented on all the facts and dates, in order to establish that, in 1680, Fouquet was represented as dead; that he was masked, sequestered anew, and dragged from fortress to fortress till his real death in 1703. It is impossible for us to admit this solution of the problem; the authenticity of the minister Louvois' correspondence with the governor of the prison of Pignerol, on the subject of Fouquet's death, in March, 1680, appears to us incontestable; and did this material proof not exist, we still could not believe in a return of rigor so strange, so barbarous, and so unaccountable on the part of Louis XIV., when all the official documents attest that his resentment had gradually been appeased, and that an old man who asked nothing more than a little free air before dying had ceased to be feared. There are many more presumptions in favor of Baron Heiss' opinion, reproduced by several writers, and, in the last instance, by M. Delort ('Histoire de l'homme au masque de fer'; 1825),—the opinion that the 'man with a mask' was a secretary of the Duke of Mantua, named Mattioli, carried off by order of Louis XIV. in 1679, for having deceived the French government, and having sought to form a coalition of the Italian princes against it. But however striking, in certain respects, may be the resemblances between Mattioli and the 'iron mask,' equally guarded by the governor St. Mars at Pignerol and at Exilles, however grave may be the testimony according to which Mattioli was transferred to the St. Marguerite Isles, the subaltern position of Mattioli, whom Catinat and Louvois, in their letters, characterize as a 'knave' and St. Mars threatens with a cudgel, ill accords, we do not say with the traditions relating to the profound respect shown the prisoner by the keepers, the governor, and even the minister,—these traditions may be contested,—but with the authentic details and documents given by the learned and judicious Father Griffet in regard to the extreme mystery in which the prisoner at the Bastille was enveloped, more than twenty years after the abduction of the obscure Mattioli, in regard to the mask that he never put off, in regard to the precautions taken after his death to annihilate the traces of his sojourn at the Bastille, which explains why nothing was found concerning him after the taking of that fortress. Many minds will always persist in seeking, under this impenetrable mask, a more dangerous secret, a mysterious accusing resemblance; and the most popular opinion, although the most void of an proof, will always doubtless be that suffered to transpire by Voltaire, under cover of his publisher, in the eighth edition of his 'Dictionnaire philosophique' (1771). According to this opinion, the honor of the royal household was involved in the secret, and the unknown victim was an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria. The only private crime of which Louis XIV. was perhaps capable, was a crime inspired by fanaticism for monarchical honor. However this may be, history has no right to pronounce upon what will never emerge from the domain of conjecture."