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THE

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,

AND

LITERARY MISCELLANY.

MAY 1824.

MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROCK.

FROM time immemorial, the state of Ireland has been such as to excite in this country a mingled feeling of pain and alarm; and, instead of be ing an addition to the strength of Britain, it has always been the great est drawback on her peace, and the darkest speck in the general picture of the public prosperity. Instead of receiving from that quarter the cheering intelligence of peace, harmony, and increasing wealth, we are shocked and alarmed by riots, seditions, insurrections, and murders. What, we ask ourselves, is the reason of this? Is it that a worse specimen of human nature is produced in Ireland than any where else? Do the Irish differ from their species? Are they not of like passions with ourselves? or are they more prone to evil than others? We see no proof of this, nei ther in the case before us, nor in our experience of the Irish generally. They have, we observe, the same feelings as other men, and are excited to revenge by ill treatment, just as they are conciliated by an opposite line of conduct. There is nothing in the Irish nature that contradicts the general course of human action, nor do we at all see, from the history of Ireland, that hatred and gratitude spring from any other sources than elsewhere. What, then, is the cause of the universal dissension which always prevails there? This problem it is the object of the present extraordinary work to solve; and, according to the author's account of the matter, the causes do not lie very deep. The

VOL. XIV.

Irish are ill treated, and therefore they are angry. Treat them better, and they will be better pleased. This is our author's simple receipt for paeifying Ireland. Sweep away at once all the wretched machinery of jealousy for keeping Ireland at peace, but which truly keeps her at war, and throw yourselves, with love and confidence, on the gratitude and affections of the Irish, and you will have love and confidence in return. This is the advice given by the writer before us; and not at random either; for it is the conclusion which he draws from a most patient investigation of facts, and a long and detailed view of Irish history. His book is an epitome of the history of Ireland since its first connection with England; and, from a long unbroken train of historical evidence, his political views on the state of Ireland are deduced. But let not the reader for a moment suppose that the work, because it displays great research, and an admirable acquaintance with the subject, in all its minute parts, is therefore a mere dry detail of facts. Far from it. The great talents and genius of the writer is here chiefly displayed in rendering a work of such historical detail one, also, of the most brilliant fancy. He knew well that a common-place book on Irish politics would not be read; and he has therefore contrived to give a fanciful form to his narrative, by putting it into the mouth of Captain Rock, an ideal personage, the genius of insurrection, who is soothed or excited, ST

according as Ireland receives good or bad treatment. Far from being in any respect dry or repulsive, the subject is arrayed in all the brilliant colours of the imagination. The author seems to have been perfectly aware that it would by no means have answered to have written a mere ordinary history of Ireland. He seems thoroughly to have understood the nature and difficulties of the subject, and to have calculated aright as to his resources for overcoming them. The powers, accordingly, which he has brought to the execution of his task, are of the highest order. His work exhibits a copious display both of wit and imagery. There is no end of his illustrations, all of them appropriate and beautiful, and set off with infinite grace and spirit. His eye ranges everywhere for embellishments to his subject. He ransacks the stores of literature and history, ancient as well as modern, laying all under contribution to the sovereign ascendancy of his genius; and while he draws his images from so wide a range of knowledge, one great merit of them is, that they are all singularly appropriate, and conduce no less to the illustration than the embellishment of his subject. He throws a splendour on every thing he touches; and there is in his ordinary style a force, richness, and epigrammatic point, which has all the character of wit. In short, this work seems to be written in the happiest vein of genius; it is calculated for universal currency, and will therefore, we have no doubt, bring home the case of Ireland to the whole of our reading classes. It is thus that a body of public opinion will be at last formed, which, like the Roman battering-ram, will not at once, but by repeated and well-directed shocks, bring down, and level with the ground, the last strong-holds of intolerance. The great bane of Ireland has always been, that the few trample down the many; and, without adverting to this fact, many simple persons are astonished that those who are kept down should not be contented; they marvel that they should ever utter a complaint. Now, it is certain that we may, by the effect of power, hold down mankind, and exclude them from what they

justly demand. But nothing can make them contented in such a situation. Contentment is not the natural fruit of injustice, which never yet produced it, nor ever will. The object of the present writer, then, is to demonstrate, from a strict research into the history of Ireland, from the earliest periods, that this has always been the spirit of our policy ;—that the great body of the Irish have always been kept without the pale of the British Constitution; and not having been protected by it, they have never shewn any proper allegi ance to it, nor any proper submission to laws directed against themselves, but have rather trusted for security to their own exertions, which has led to all sorts of violences, kept the land in a constant broil, and prevented the manners of the Irish from being softened down by that spirit of modern refinement which has taken root, and spread in all other countries. The Irish were originally conquered by the English; and it would not have been wonderful if the immediate union of the two countries had been somewhat obstructed by the violence and insurrections of the conquered people. This might have been looked for. But that the coalition of the two nations should not have been perfected in the course of centuries, is certainly strange. "It has been the usual policy of conquerors and colonists," says the author of this work, "to blend as much as possible among the people among whom they establish themselves,-to share with them the advantage of their own institutions,-to remove all invidious distinctions that might recall the memory of their original invasion or intrusion; in short, to sow, in their new neighbourhood, the seeds of future shelter and ornament, instead of perversely applying themselves to the culture of poison, and sitting down, like witches, with a

plantation of night-shade around them." It was owing to the English pursuing an opposite course of policy that they converted Ireland into such a scene of discord; and the writer shews, from the testimony of all our early historians, that this was the universal complaint among them, "that," as Sir J. Davies says, "for the space

of 350 years after the English conquest, the English laws were not communicated to the Irish people, nor any protections allowed them; for," he observes, "as long as they are out of the protection of the laws, so as every Englishman may oppress, spoil, and kill them without controul, how is it possible they should be other than outlaws, and enemies to the crown of England?" This, then, in the earlier periods of Irish history, was the nature of the evils under which the people suffered. In the reign of Edward I., a petition was presented by the people, to be admitted under the protection of the English laws; and the King was favourably disposed to it. But the proud barons, or, as our author calls them, the Orange Ascendancy of that day, thwarted these just and beneficent intentions of the Prince, under such shallow pretences as that it was not possible in the present state of things, that the kingdom was in too great a ferment and commotion, &c. In consequence of the rejection of this just petition, the ferment and violence continued, and many of the English lords profited by the forfeitures consequent thereon.,

Our author traces the history of Ireland through various reigns, down to that of the Catholic Mary, pointing to the conclusions thence arising, with his usual force and liveliness. Ireland, during that bloody and persecuting reign in England, presented a picture of comparative tranquillity, on which Captain Rock wittily observes:

According to the usual rule of contrariety between the two countries, the reign of Mary, which was attended with such horrors in England, is almost the only interval of peace and quietness that the annals of my ancestors exhibit in Ireland. Some local fighting, it is true, took place among my relatives the O'Briens, O'Neals, &c., but little more than was absolutely necessary to keep their hands in practice against a change of administration.

The last Lord Cn, upon being found one day by a friend, practising with his sword against the wainscoat, before dinner, and being asked the reason of his assiduity at this exercise, answered, "I have some company to-day that I expect to quarrel with;"-and pretty much in the same manner the members of my family are obliged, occasionally, to re

hearse, even in their moments of tranquillity, for the reception of any new guests that may be sent them, in the shape of governors, from England.

The reign of Queen Elizabeth is described, by this writer, as one continued series of enormities against the Irish, during which they were persecuted both by famine and the sword, and provoked to rebel, by those who reaped the harvest of these violences, in the rich forfeitures which ensued. It is related of one of the Jameses, that, when travelling through the Carse of Gowrie, he observed, that Graham, the proprietor of the rich and fertile lands through which they were travelling, would "mak' a bonnie traitor;" a stroke of satire, no doubt; but it touches too truly on the policy of the treasonlaws, as they were administered in Ireland. An English proprietor stepping in when an Irish proprietor was turned out, the treason-laws thus became a most convenient engine of wealth; and the cupidity of the English was the measure of Irish discontent. So long as there were Irish estates to forfeit, so long as there remained "bonnie-traitors," there would be no want of treason; and accordingly the Irish, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, were almost literally exterminated by the unmerciful sword, and their lands taken possession of by their English oppressors. We have no regular history of Ireland during this or any other reign, but such incidental facts and notices as serve to illustrate the character of the English annals. "I am not writing a history of the English power in Ireland, (says the writer, in his own style,) but merely tracking its course by hasty glimpses, and pointing out a few foot-marks of the Hercules of Despotism, from which the rest of his colossal proportions may be estimated."

Pursuing the gloomy course of Irish history through the reigns of Proteus-like, changing its aspect, James and Charles, we have tyranny, and attacking the Irish through the medium of the law. It is well known, that, under Lord Strafford, the most extensive questions were stirred as to the existing titles of Irish property, and that whole provinces were, in this manner, swept away from their

rightful owners. These oppressions exasperated the country, and gave rise to the dreadful rebellion of 1642. He sums up his account of Lord Strafford with the following beautiful reflection:

The splendid talents of Lord Strafford, and the imposing dignity of his death, may well justify a feeling of sympathy in his fate; but there would be no living in this world if there were not such examples, to hang up in the halls where Power holds his revel, and, like those awful mementos in the banqueting-rooms of the Egyptians, chasten his pride and check

the exuberance of his riot.

By the rebellion of 1642 the forfeitures in Ireland were immense; the country was reduced under the vigorous arm of Cromwell, who parcelled out the forfeited lands among his soldiers; and at the accession of Charles II. this cruel injustice was confirmed by the Act of Settlement, 7,800,000 acres being, as Lord Clare observed, set out to a motley crew of English adventurers, civil and military, nearly to the total exclusion of the old inhabitants of the island. Thus, what Cromwell's soldiers gained by their rebellion, the Irish lost by their loyalty. The following reign, of King William, which brought light and liberty to Britain, but darkness and chains to Ireland, is vigorously sketched; as also that of Queen Anne, when the degradation of the Catholics was completed. The system now adopted in Ireland proceeded on the principle of considering every Catholic an enemy, and of binding him hand and foot, lest he should do mischief; so that the writer of this work observes, "if Pope had been born a MunsterPapist, instead of a London one, by the Act of William and Mary, and of Anne, he would have been voted an irreclaimable brute, and hunted into the mountains."

Captain Rock goes on with his memoirs, through the reigns of George I. and II., in the same lively and sarcastic strain, and with various stores of learning and wit. He mentions many grievances; and states, that the Church amply supplied the Irish with the "raw material of discontent, which they manufactured afterwards to their own taste." The plan of exempting the pasture-lands,

which mostly belonged to the rich, from the payment of tithes, he states as furnishing abundant means of keeping up the spirit of riot and insurrection. In consequence of this exemption of the lands of the rich, the whole burden of supporting the Protestant Church fell on the poor cotters; and, as they were more and more oppressed, they grew more and more discontented. This measure, therefore, or, as it is called, the abolition of the agistment tithe, was a master-stroke in the policy of the English rulers of Ireland. The turning out the poor cottagers, which was resorted to about this time, served to recruit the ranks of the discontented, as also a regulation in the Anti-Catholic Code, by which Papists were not only debarred from possessing any property in land, but by which any of the sons of a Catholic proprietor, on becoming Protestants, were not only cheerfully 'received, but, on giving information as to any property possessed by their fathers, were put in possession of it; the renegado, as a sort of qualification for the pure communion of the Reformed Church, thus enriching himself, and beggaring his whole family.

Captain Rock, we are told, was born in 1763, and as he was the tenth child, he was, according to his own account, devoted by his father to the cause. He was determined to this, it appears, by the following prophecy, which includes, in a few lines, the whole principle of the English Government of Ireland: As long as Ireland shall pretend, Like sugar-loaf, turn'd upside down, To stand upon its smaller end,

So long shall live old Rock's renown. As long as Popish spade and scythe Shall dig and cut the Sassanagh's tithe, And Popish purses pay the tolls, On heaven's road, for Sassanagh souls— As long as Millions shall kneel down To ask of Thousands for their own, While Thousands proudly turn away, And to the Millions answer "nay"So long the merry reign shall be Of Captain Rock and his family.

We have a very brief and conclusive sketch of the state of the institutions for education, shewing their defective state,-the erroneous principle on which they are founded, partaking, originally, with all the other es

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tablishments in Ireland, of the deadly taint of animosity to the Catholics, and having also fallen into a complete state of dilapidation, from the want of funds. He proceeds to describe the Charter Schools, and Schools of Royal Foundation; and he gives the following piquant account of the Charter Schools:

These Charter Schools, under the general name of the Incorporated Society, were founded under George II., in the year 1733, for the professed object of 66 teaching the children of the Popish and other natives ;"--and had they suffered us youth of the Roman faith to drink at the same spring of instruction with our little Protestant fellow-countrymen, without insulting or interfering with the religion we brought from home with us, there is no saying to what an alarming degree of amity the two religions might have been brought in time. Nay, there was even an opportunity for trying the experiment, whether a Catholic could be turned into a Protestant without the employment of actual force.

But our Irish rulers have always proceeded in proselytism, on the principle of a wedge with its wrong side foremost. It was soon found by the Catholic parents, who had entrusted their children to these Protestant institutions, that hatred to their religion was the chief actuating motive of its directors; and that, like Vathek, when he seduced the fifty little ones to the brink of the chasm, in order to hurl them in as a sacrifice to the Giaour, the Incorporated Society but took possession of those children, for the purpose of plunging them headlong into Protestantism-a creed, unknown to them but by the Spirit of persecution that dwelt in it, and by the voracity for fresh victims with which that Spirit, like the Giaour, had always cried out from the chasm, "more, more !"

It may easily be imagined with what horror this design was regarded by a people who looked upon their faith as the only treasure and consolation left them, and whose tenacity in that faith had been tried by sword, famine, and fire, for centuries. Too indigent, however, to procure instruction in any other way, and the laws forbidding persons of their own persuasion to teach, some wretched parents, anxious at all risks to educate their children, continued to let them drink at this dangerous source-with the same trembling apprehension with which the people of the East visit those fountains supposed to be the haunt and ambush of banditti, and on some of which are in

scribed the warning words "Drink and away!"

In proportion to their fears, their hatred, of course, increased while the children, compelled to act the part of converts while at school, took revenge for this forced hypocrisy of their youth, by a life of open bigotry and disaffection

ever after.

Still, however, the association with Protestant play-fellows gave a chance of future friendships and connections, which, if they did not end in conversion, at least would lead to tolerance; and encouraged, at a time of life when the heart is most impressible, that familiar collision by which asperities are smoothed away, and the exclusiveness of the sectarian is lost in the fellowship of the man.

But even this chance, which let in a gleam of light too strong for the eyes of the Incorporated Society to bear, was shut out by a Resolution of that body in the year 1775, declaring that none but the children of Papists should be admitted to the schools and how delicately they accommodated themselves to the prejudices of these chosen and exclusive pupils, will appear by the following extracts from a Catechism, which they continued to use to as late a period as 1811, when the recommendation of the Board of Education induced them to relinquish it:

"Q. Is the Church of Rome a sound and uncorrupt church? A. No; it is extremely corrupt in doctrine, worship, and practice."

"Q. What do you think of the frequent crossings, upon which the Papists lay so great a stress? A. They are vain and superstitious. The worship of the crucifix is idolatrous."

The courteous address of Launcelot to the young Jewess, "Be of good cheer, for truly I think thou art damned," seems to have been the model upon which the Protestant Church has founded all its conciliatory advances towards the Catholics.

Respecting the other schools, name ly, the Schools of Royal Foundation, he shews that they are endowed with estates to the extent of 13,627 acres ; but that the funds, thus set apart for their support, have been dilapidated among men of influence in the country, and the interests of education in a great measure neglected. Inquiries have been made into these dilapidations, some of which, our author admits, have proved useful. But from the report of last year, on the state of these schools, they ap

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