THE GAME UP WITH REPEAL AGITATION.
"The game is up." Such were the words uttered with a somewhat different intonation, which last month, in speaking of Mr O'Connell's crusade against the peace of Ireland, we used tentatively, almost doubtfully, but still in the spirit of hope, in reference to the crisis then apparently impending, that the agitation might prolong itself by transmigrating into some other shape, for that case we allowed. But in any result, foremost amongst the auguries of hope was this—that the evil example of Mr O' Connell's sedition would soon redress itself by a catastrophe not less exemplary. And no consummation could satisfy us as a proper euthanasy of this memorable conspiracy, which should not fasten itself as a moral to the long malice of the agitation growing out of it, as a natural warning, and saying audibly to all future agitators—try not this scheme again, or look for a similar humiliation. Those auguries are, in one sense, accomplished; that consummation substantially is realized. Sedition has, at last, countermined itself, and conspiracy we have seen in effect perishing by its own excesses. Yet still, ingenuously speaking, we cannot claim the merit of a felicitous foresight. That result has come round which we foreboded; but not in that sense which we intended to authorize, nor exactly by those steps which we wished to see. We looked for the extinction of this national scourge by its own inevitable decays: through its own organization we had hoped that the Repeal Association should be confounded: we trusted that an enthusiasm, founded in ignorance, and which, in no one stage, could be said to have prospered, must finally droop spontaneously, and that once having drooped, through mere defect of actions that bore any meaning, or tendencies that offered any promise, by no felicities of intrigue could it ever be revived. Whether we erred in the philosophy of our anticipations, cannot now be known; for, whether wrong or right in theory, in practice our expectation has been abruptly cut short. A deus ex machinâ has descended amongst us abruptly, and intercepted the natural evolution of the plot: the executive Government has summarily effected the peripetteia by means of a coup d'état; and the end, such as we augured, has been brought about by means essentially different.
Yet, if thus far we were found in error, would not that argue a corresponding error in the Government? If we, relying on the self-consistency of the executive, and because we relied on that self-consistency, predicted a particular solution for the nodus of Repeal, which solution has now become impossible; presuming a perseverance in the original policy of ministers, now that its natural fruits were rapidly ripening—whereas, after all, at the eleventh hour we find them adopting that course which, with stronger temptation, they had refused to adopt in the first hour—were this the true portrait of the case, would it be ourselves that erred, or Government?—ourselves in counting on steadiness, or Government in acting with caprice? Meantime, is this the portrait of the case?
That we shall know when Parliament meets; and possibly not before. At present the attempts to explain, to reconcile, and, as it were, to construe the Government system of policy, is first almost neglecting the Irish sedition, and then (after half-a-year's sedentary and distant skirmishing, by means of Chancery letters) suddenly, on the 7th day of October, leaping into the arena armed cap-a-pie, dividing themselves like a bomb-shell amongst the conspirators, rending—shattering—pursuing to the right and to the left;—all attempts, we say, to harmonize that past quiescence (almost acquiescence) with this present demoniac energy, have seemed to the public either false or feeble, or in some way insufficient. Five such attempts we have noticed; and of the very best we may say that perhaps it tells the truth, but not the whole truth. First came the solution of a great morning journal—to the effect that Government had, knowingly and wilfully, altered their policy, treading back their own steps upon finding the inefficiency of gentler measures. On this view no harmonizing principle was called for; the discord existed confessedly, and the one course had been the palinode of the other. But such a theory is quite inadmissible to our minds; it tallies neither with the long-headed and comprehensive sagacity of Sir Robert Peel, nor with the spirit of simplicity, directness, and determination in the Duke of Wellington. Next came an evening paper, of high character for Conservative honesty and ability, which (having all along justified the past policy of vigilant neutrality) could not be supposed to acknowledge any fickleness in ministers: the time for moderation and indulgence, according to this journal, had now passed away: the season had arrived for law to display its terrors. Not in the Government, but in the conspirators had occurred the change: and so far—to the extent, namely, of taxing these conspirators with gradual increase of virulence—it may ultimately turn out that this journal is right. The fault for the present is—that the nature of the change, its signs and circumstances, were not specified or described. How, and by what memorable feature, did last June differ from this October? and what followed, by its false show of subtlety, discredited the whole explanation. It seems that notice was required of this change: in mere equity, proclamation must be made of the royal pleasure as to the Irish sedition: that was done in the Queen's speech on adjourning the two Houses. But time also must be granted for this proclamation to diffuse itself, and therefore it happened that the Clontarf meeting was selected for the coup d'essai of Government; in its new character for "handselling" the new system of rigour, this Clontarf assembly having fallen out just about six weeks from the Royal speech. But this attempt to establish a metaphysical relation between the time for issuing a threat, and the time for acting upon it, as though forty and two days made that act to be reasonable which would not have been so in twenty and one, being suited chiefly to the universities in Laputa, did not meet the approbation of our captious and beef-eating island: and this second solution also, we are obliged to say; was exploded as soon us it was heard. Thirdly, stepped forward one who promised to untie the knot upon a more familiar principle: the thunder was kept back for so many months in order to allow time for Mr O'Connell to show out in his true colours, on the hint of an old proverb, which observes—that a baboon, or other mischievous animal, when running up a scaffolding or a ship's tackling, exposes his most odious features the more as he is allowed to mount the higher. In that idea, there is certainly some truth. "Give him rope enough, and every knave will hang himself"—is an old adage, a useful adage, and often a consolatory one. The objection, in the case before us, is—that our Irish hero had shown himself already, and most redundantly, on occasions notorious to every body, both previously to 1829, (the year of Clare,) and subsequently. If, however, it should appear upon the trial of the several conspirators for seditious language, that they, or that any of them, had, by good affidavits, used indictable language in September, not having used it sooner, or having guarded it previously by more equivocal expressions, then it must be admitted that the spirit of this third explanation does apply itself to the case, though not in an extent to cover the entire range of the difficulty. But a fourth explanation would evade the necessity of showing any such difference in the actionable language held: according to this hypothesis, it was not for subjects to prosecute that the Government waited, but for strength enough to prosecute with effect, under circumstances which warned them to expect popular tumults. In this statement, also, there is probably much truth, indeed, it has now become evident that there is. Often we have heard it noticed by military critics as the one great calamity of Ireland, that in earlier days she had never been adequately conquered—not sufficiently for extirpating barbarism, or sufficiently for crushing the local temptations to resistance. Rebellion and barbarism are the two evils (and, since the Reformation, in alliance with a third evil—religious hostility to the empire) which have continually sustained themselves in Ireland, propagated their several curses from age to age, and at this moment equally point to a burden of misery in the forward direction for the Irish, and backwards to a burden of reproach for the English. More men applied to Ireland, more money and more determined legislation spent upon Ireland in times long past, would have saved England tenfold expenditure of all these elements in the three centuries immediately behind us, and possibly in that which is immediately a-head. Such men as Bishop Bedell, as Bishop Jeremy Taylor, or even as Bishop Berkeley, meeting in one generation and in one paternal council, would have made Ireland long ago, by colonization and by Protestantism, that civilized nation which, with all her advances in mechanic arts[30] of education as yet she is not; would have made her that tractable nation, which, after all her lustrations by fire and blood, for her own misfortune she never has been; would have made her that strong arm of the empire, which hitherto, with all her teeming population, for the common misfortune of Europe she neither has been nor promises to be. By and through this neglect it is, that on the inner hearths of the Roman Catholic Irish, on the very altars of their lares and penates, burns for ever a sullen spark of disaffection to that imperial household, with which, nevertheless and for ever, their own lot is bound up for evil and for good; a spark always liable to be fanned by traitors—a spark for ever kindling into rebellion; and in this has lain perpetually a delusive encouragement to the hostility of Spain and France, whilst to her own children, it is the one great snare which besets their feet. This great evil of imperfect possession—if now it is almost past healing in its general operation as an engine of civilization, and as applied to the social training of the people—is nevertheless open to relief as respects any purpose of the Government, towards which there may be reason to anticipate a martial resistance. That part of the general policy fell naturally under the care of our present great Commander-in-chief. Of him it was that we spoke last month as watching Mr O'Connell's slightest movements, searching him and nailing him with his eye. We told the reader at the same time, that Government, as with good reason we believed, had not been idle during the summer; their work had proceeded in silence; but, upon any explosion or apprehension of popular tumult, it would be found that more had been done by a great deal, in the way of preparations, than the public was aware of. Barracks have every where been made technically defensible; in certain places they have been provisioned against sieges; forts have been strengthened; in critical situations redoubts, or other resorts of hurried retreat, or of known rendezvous in cases of surprise, have been provided; and in the most merciful spirit every advantage on the other side has been removed or diminished which could have held out encouragement to mutiny, or temptation to rebellion. Finally, on the destined moment arriving, on the casus foederis (whatever that were) emerging, in which the executive had predetermined to act, not the perfection of clockwork, not the very masterpieces of scenical art, can ever have exhibited a combined movement upon one central point—so swift, punctual, beautiful, harmonious, more soundless than an exhalation, more overwhelming than a deluge—as the display of military force in Dublin on Sunday the 8th of October. Without alarm, without warning—as if at the throwing up of a rocket in the dead of night, or at the summons of a signal gun—the great capital, almost as populous as Naples or Vienna, and far more dangerous in its excitement, found itself under military possession by a little army—so perfect in its appointments as to make resistance hopeless, and by that very hopelessness (as reconciling the most insubordinate to a necessity) making irritation impossible. Last month we warned Mr O'Connell of "the uplifted thunderbolt" suspended in the Jovian hands of the Wellesley, but ready to descend when the "dignus vindice nodus" should announce itself. And this, by the way, must have been the "thunderbolt," this military demonstration, which, in our blind spirit of prophecy doubtless, we saw dimly in the month of September last; so that we are disposed to recant our confession even of partial error as to the coming fortunes of Repeal, and to request that the reader will think of us as of very decent prophets. But, whether we were so or not, the Government (it is clear) acted in the prophetic spirit of military wisdom. "The prophetic eye of taste"—as a brilliant expression for that felicitous prolepsis by which the painter or the sculptor sees already in its rudiments what will be the final result of his labours—is a phrase which we are all acquainted with, and the spirit of prophecy, the far-stretching vision of sagacity, is analogously conspicuous in the arts of Government, military or political, when providing for the contingencies that may commence in pseudo-patriotism, or the possibilities that may terminate in rebellion. Whether Government saw those contingencies, whether Government calculated those possibilities in June last—that is one part of the general question which we have been discussing; and whether it was to a different estimate of such chances in summer and in autumn, or to a necessity for time in preparing against them, that we must ascribe the very different methods of the Government in dealing with the sedition at different periods—that is the other part of the question. But this is certain—that whether seeing and measuring from the first, or suddenly awakened to the danger of late—in any case, the Government has silently prepared all along; forestalling evils that possibly never were to arise, and shaping remedies for disasters which possibly to themselves appeared romantic. To provide for the worst, is an ordinary phrase, but what is the worst? Commonly it means the last calamity that experience suggests; but in the admirable arrangements of Government it meant the very worst that imagination could conceive—building upon treason at home in alliance with hostility from abroad. At a time when resistance seemed supremely improbable, yet, because amongst the headlong desperations of a confounded faction even this was possible, the ministers determined to deal with it as a certainty. Against the possible they provided as against the probable; against the least of probabilities as against the greatest. The very outside and remote extremities of what might be looked for in a civil war, seem to have been assumed as a basis in the calculations. And under that spirit of vista-searching prudence it was, that the Duke of Wellington saw what we have insisted on, and practically redressed it—viz. the defective military net-work by which England has ever spread her power over Ireland. "This must not be," the Duke said; "never again shall the blood of brave men be shed in superfluous struggles, nor the ground be strewed with supernumerary corpses—as happened in the rebellion of 1798—because forts were wanting and loopholed barracks to secure what had been won; because retreats were wanting to overawe what, for the moment, had been lost. Henceforth, and before there is a blushing in the dawn of that new rebellion which Mr O'Connell disowns, but to which his frenzy may rouse others having less to lose than himself, we will have true technical possession, in the military sense, of Ireland." Such has been the recent policy of the Duke of Wellington: and for this, in so far as it is a violence done to Ireland, or a badge of her subjection, she has to thank Mr O'Connell: for this, in so far as it is a merciful arrangement, diminishing bloodshed by discouraging resistance, she has to thank the British Government. Mr O'Connell it is, that, by making rebellion probable, has forced on this reaction of perfect preparation which, in such a case, became the duty of the Government. The Duke of Wellington it is, that, by using the occasion advantageously for the perfecting of the military organization in Ireland, has made police do the work of war; and by making resistance maniacal, in making it hopeless, has eventually consulted even for the feelings of the rebellious, sparing to them the penalties of insurrection in defeating its earliest symptoms; and for the land itself, has been the chief of benefactors, by removing systematically that inheritance of desolation attached to all civil wars, in cutting away from below the feet of conspirators the very ground on which they could take their earliest stand. Finally, it is Mr O'Connell who has raised an anarchy in many Irish minds, in the minds of all whom he influences, by placing their national feelings in collision with their duty it is the Duke of Wellington who has reconciled the bravest and most erroneous of Irish patriots to his place in a federal system, by taking away all dishonour from submission under circumstances where resistance has at length become notoriously as frantic as would be a war with gravitation.
As to the fourth hypothesis, therefore, for explaining the apparent inconsistencies of the Executive, we not only assent to it heartily as involving part of the truth, but we have endeavoured to show earnestly that the truth is a great truth; no casual aspect, or momentary feature of truth, depending upon the particular relation at the time between Ireland and the Horse Guards, or pointing simply to a better cautionary distribution of the army; but a truth connected systematically with the policy for Ireland in past times and in times to come. Where men like Mr O' Connell can arise, it is clear that the social condition of Ireland is not healthy; that, as a country, she is not fused into a common substance with the rest of the empire; that she is not fully to be trusted; and that the road to a more effectual union lies, not through stricter coercion, but through a system of instant defence making itself apparent to the people as a means of provisional or potential coercion in the proper case arising. One traitor cannot exist as a public and demonstrative character without many minor traitors to back him. To Great Britain it ought to cost no visible effort, resolutely and instantly to trample out every overture of insubordination as quietly, peacefully, effectually, as the meeting of conspirators at Clontarf on the 8th day of October 1843. Ireland is notoriously, by position and by imaginary grievances—grievances which, had they ever been real for past generations, would long since have faded away, were it not through the labours of mercenary traders in treason— Ireland is of necessity, and at any rate, the vulnerable part of our empire. Wars will soon gather again in Christendom. Whilst it is yet daylight and fair weather in which we can work, this open wound of the empire must be healed. We cannot afford to stand another era of collusion from abroad with intestine war. Now is the time for grasping this nettle of domestic danger, and, by crushing it without fear, to crush it for ever. Therefore it is that we rejoice to hear of attention in the right quarter at length drawn to the radix of all this evil; of efforts seriously made to grapple with the mischief; not by mere accumulation of troops, for that is a spasmodic effort—sure to relax on the return of tranquillity; but by those appliances of military art to the system of attack and defence as connected with the soil and buildings of Ireland, which will hereafter make it possible for even a diminished army to become all potent over disaffection, by means of permanent preparations, and through systematic links of concert.
Fifthly comes Mr Stuart Wortley, the Parliamentary representative for Bute, who tells his constituents at Bute, that the true secret of the apparent incoherency in the conduct of Government, of that subsultory movement from almost passive surveillance to the most intense development of power, is to be found in some error, some lapse as yet unknown, on the part of the conspirators. Hitherto Mr Wortley, as lawyer, had persuaded himself that the craft of sedition had prevailed over its zeal. Whatever might be the animus of the parties, hitherto their legal adroitness had kept them on the right side of the fence which parts the merely virulent or wicked language from the indictable. But security, and apparently the indifference of the Government, had tempted them beyond their safeguards. Government, it is certain, have latterly watched the proceedings of the Repeal Association in a more official way; they have sent qualified and vigilant reporters to the scene; and have showed signs of meaning speedily "to do business" upon a large scale. We do not, indeed, altogether agree with Mr Wortley, that the earlier language, if searched with equal care, would be found less offending than the later; but this later we believe it to be which, as an audacious reiteration of sentiments that would have been overlooked had they seemed casual or not meant for continued inculcation, will be found in fact to have provoked the executive energies. We believe also, in accord with Mr Wortley, that something or other has transpired by secret information to Government in relation to this last intended meeting at Clontarf, which authorized a separate and more sinister construction of that, or of its consequences, than had necessarily attended the former assemblies, however similar in bad meaning and in malice. This secret information, whether it pointed to words uttered, to acts done, or to intentions signified, must have been sudden, and must have been decisive; an impression which we draw from the hurried summoning of cabinet councils in England on or about the 4th of October, from the departures for Ireland, apparently consequent upon these councils—of the Lord Lieutenant, of the Chancellor, and other great officers, all instant and all simultaneous—and finally, from the continued consultations in Dublin from the time when these functionaries arrived; viz. immediately after their landing on Friday morning, October 6th, until the promulgation and enforcement of that memorable proclamation which crushed the Repeal sedition. A Paris journal of eminence says, that we are not to exult as if much progress were made towards the crushing of Repeal, simply by the act of crushing a single meeting; and, strange to say, the chief morning paper of London echoes this erroneous judgment as if self-evident, saying, that "it needs no ghost to tell us that." We, however, utterly deny this comment, and protest against it as an absurdity. Were that true, were it possible that the Clontarf meeting had been suppressed on its own separate merits, as presumed from secret information, and without ulterior meaning or application designed for the act—in that case nothing has been done. But this is not so: Government is bound henceforwards by its own act. That proclamation as to one meeting establishes a precedent as to all. It is not within the power of Government, having done that act of suppression, and still more having spoken that language of proclamation, now to retreat from their own rule, and to apply any other rule to any subsequent meeting. The act of suppression was enough. The commentary on the proclamation is more than enough. Therefore it is, that we began by saying "the game is up;" and, because it is of consequence to know the principle on which any act is done, therefore it is that we have discussed, at some length, the various hypotheses now current as to the particular principle which, in this instance, governed our Executive. Our own opinion is, that all these hypotheses, except the first, which ascribes blank inconsistency to the Government, and so much of the second as stands upon some fanciful limitation of time within which Government could not equitably proceed to action, are partially true. If this be so, there is an answer in full to the Whigs, who at this moment (October 23) are arguing that no circumstances of any kind have changed since our ministers treated the Repeal cause with neglect. Neglect it, comparatively, they never did: as the cashiering of magistrates ought too angrily to remind the Whigs. But if the different solutions, which we have here examined, should be carefully reviewed, it will be seen that circumstances have changed, and, under the fourth head, it will be seen that they have changed in a way which required time, selection, and great efforts: what is more, it will be seen that they have changed in a way critically important for the future interests of the empire.
Yes; the game is up! And what now remains is, not to suffer the coming trials to sink into fictions of law—as a brutum fulmen of menace, never meant to be realized. Verdicts must be had: judgments must be given: and then a long farewell to the hopes of treason!
Yes, by a double proof the Repeal sedition is at an end: were it not, upon Clontarf being prohibited, the Repealers would have announced some other gathering in some other place. You that say it is not at an end, tell us why did they forbear doing that? Secondly, Mr O'Connell has substituted for Repeal—what? The miserable, the beggarly petition, for a dependent House of Assembly, an upper sort of "Select Vestry," for Ireland; and that too as a bonus from the Parliament of the empire. This reminds us of a capital story related by Mr Webster, and perhaps within the experience of American statesmen, in reference to the claims of electors upon those candidates whom they have returned to Congress. Such a candidate, having succeeded so far as even to become a Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was one day waited on by a man, who reminded him that some part of this eminent success had been due to his vote; and really— Mr Secretary might think as he pleased—but him it struck, that a "pretty considerable of a debt" was owing in gratitude to his particular exertions. Mr Secretary bowed. The stranger proceeded—"His ambition was moderate: might he look for the office of postmaster-general?" Unfortunately, said the secretary, that office required special experience, and it was at present filled to the satisfaction of the President. "Indeed! that was unhappy: but he was not particular; perhaps the ambassador to London had not yet been appointed?" There, said the secretary, you are still more unfortunate: the appointment was open until 11 P.M. on this very day, and at that hour it was filled up. "Well," said the excellent and Christian supplicant, "any thing whatever for me; beggars must not be choosers: possibly the office of vice-president might soon be vacant; it was said that the present man lay shockingly ill." Not at all; he was rapidly recovering; and the reversion, even if he should die, required enormous interest, for which a canvass had long since commenced on the part of fifty-three candidates. Thus proceeded the assault upon the secretary, and thus was it evaded. So moved the chase, and thus retreated the game, until at length nothing under heaven remained amongst all official prizes which the voter could ask, or which the secretary could refuse. Pensively the visitor reflected for a few minutes, and, suddenly raising his eye doubtfully, he said, "Why then, Mr Secretary, have you ever an old black coat that you could give me?" Oh, aspiring genius of ambition! from that topmast round of thy aerial ladder that a man should descend thus awfully!—from the office of vice-president for the U.S. that he should drop, within three minutes, to "an old black coat!" The secretary was aghast: he rang the bell for such a coat; the coat appeared; the martyr of ambition was solemnly inducted into its sleeves; and the two parties, equally happy at the sudden issue of the interview bowing profoundly to each other, separated for ever.
Even upon this model, sinking from a regal honour to an old black coat, Mr O' Connell has actually agreed to accept—has volunteered to accept—for the name and rank of a separate nation, some trivial right of holding county meetings for local purposes of bridges, roads, turnpike gates. This privilege he calls by the name of "federalism;" a misnomer, it is true; but, were it the right name, names cannot change realities. These local committees could not possibly take rank above the Quarter Sessions; nor could they find much business to do which is not already done, and better done, by that respectable judicial body. True it is, that this descent is a thousand times more for the benefit of Ireland than his former ambitious plan. But we speak of it with reference to the sinking scale of his ambition. Now this it is—viz. the aspiring character of his former promises, the assurance that he would raise Ireland into a nation distinct and independent in the system of Europe, having her own fleets, armies, peerage, parliament—which operated upon the enthusiasm of a peasantry the vainest in Christendom after that of France, and perhaps absolutely the most ignorant. Is it in human nature, we demand, that hereafter the same enthusiasm should continue available for Mr O'Connell's service, after the transient reaction of spitefulness to the Government shall have subsided, which gave buoyancy to his ancient treason? The chair of a proconsul, the saddle of a pasha—these are golden baits; yet these are below the throne and diadem of a sovereign prince. But from these to have descended into asking for "an old black coat," on the American precedent! Faugh! What remains for Ireland but infinite disgust, for us but infinite laughter?
No, no. By Mr O'Connell's own act and capitulation, the game is up. Government has countersigned this result by the implicit pledge in their proclamation, that, having put down Clontarf, for specific reasons there assigned, they will put down all future meetings to which the same reasons apply. At present it remains only to express our fervent hope, that ministers will drive "home" the nail which they have so happily planted. The worst spectacle of our times was on that day when Mr O'Connell, solemnly reprimanded by the Speaker of the House of Commons, was suffered—was tolerated—in rising to reply; in retorting with insolence; in lecturing and reprimanding the Senate through their representative officer; in repelling just scorn by false scorn; in riveting his past offences; in adding contumely to wrong. Never more must this be repeated. Neither must the Whig policy be repeated of bringing Mr O'Connell before a tribunal of justice that had, by a secret intrigue, agreed to lay aside its terrors.[31] No compromise now: no juggling: no collusion! We desire to see the majesty of the law vindicated, as solemnly as it has been notoriously insulted. Such is the demand, such the united cry, of this great nation, so long and so infamously bearded. Then, and thus only, justice will be satisfied, reparation will be made: because it will go abroad into all lands, not only that the evil has been redressed, but that the author of the evil has been forced into a plenary atonement.