“A chair! a chair for the lady!” cried out half a dozen of the crowd; but the cry was in vain. The chairs were, as I have said, all overturned, and even if this had not been so, a new excitement had arisen which had diverted the attention of the crowd from the lady and turned it on her father. The old gentleman had the misfortune to bear a striking resemblance to the then member for Maryborough, who was a thick and thin supporter of the Government, and was believed to be in favour of merging the Irish in the English Parliament.
Rigby, who was the Viceroy’s secretary, had given notice of a motion in favour of empowering the Lord Lieutenant to call Parliament together in certain emergencies without the usual notice, and the people got it into their heads that this was a clever attempt to pass an Act of Union without giving them an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the question.
It was this fear that had brought them into the streets. They swarmed from every lane and alley of the Liberties, and they held possession not only of the Green, but also of all the approaches to it, and some one amongst them suggested that while they should make way for the members of Parliament who desired to enter the House that they should administer an oath to every one of them that he would vote against every attempt to take away the Parliament.
The proposition was received with acclamation. The first M.P. who put in an appearance after it was adopted was Rowley. When called on to take the oath he at first refused.
“Pull the wig off of him!”
“Bring him to the Liffey. Let’s wash the English taste off of him!”
“To hell with Rigby! Down with Bedford!” (Bedford was the Lord Lieutenant). “Swear him! Swear him!”
Finding expostulation useless, Rowley took the oath amid deafening cheers, and was allowed to pass on.
It was shortly after this incident that the Quaker and his daughter were taken out of the coach. The coach should have gone down Parliament Street, but the crowd which had been up at the Castle all the morning, turned back to the Green on the news that the M.P.s were assembling, and literally bore it on with them.
When the likeness between the Quaker and the member for Maryborough was discovered by one of the crowd, and when his supposed name was called out——