This agitation, which enlisted the attention of so many respectable persons, was never supported by the people. Had the priests, and their lay agents, and organs of the press favoured it, it would in all probability have attained to some degree of importance. The people began to lose faith in all associations, and the programme of this was not sufficiently piquant for the political taste of the violent and bigoted sections of the community. The association met with some favour in high quarters in England, but not with so much as its promoters believed would be the case.
Religious Feuds.—Conflicts between Landlords and Tenants.—The social and agrarian warfare continued when the political fires were quenched. Men were waylaid and murdered on account of their religious opinions being too prominently expressed for the bigotry of their assassins, and the utmost religious animosity raged through the land. Landlords who were active in proselytising, or who in any way showed religious zeal or earnestness, were subject to insult and injury in every form.
The conduct of the owners of land was not generally forbearing and praiseworthy, while the laws were all designed to operate in their favour. The tenantry were not more just than the owners of the soil; and altogether the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland were most unhappy. A letter written from Ireland at the close of the year, thus depicted the state of affairs:—“The evictions and house-levelling do not cease in activity. At Ardnacrusha, a little hamlet about two miles from Limerick, twenty houses were levelled on Monday. Thousands of the fertile acres of Tipperary are waste, and these are increased each day by further evictions. The case is the same in Limerick and in Clare. We find daily announcements of large farmers running away, and sweeping all with them. They grow alarmed lest their turn may soon come, and they evade the fate of others by leaving the land naked on the landlord’s hands. A few days since, in a district of Clare, while the farmers were at market with their produce, the landlord’s agents descended on the farmers, with a large body of armed followers, and without legal process or authority of any kind, it is said, swept away all the stock on the land to satisfy the landlord’s claims. On the other side of the picture we find that a tenant, holding ninety-seven acres of land, had sold off everything, and, with the whole of the produce in his pocket, had reached Limerick, to emigrate, when he was arrested at the suit of his landlord and other creditors.”
Advent of Cholera.—Many as were the social and political evils of Ireland during the sorrowful year of 1848, there was a providential visitation which added to her miseries. Cholera made its appearance in several places during the autumn; the cases were not very numerous, but were in general fatal, and excited great apprehension as to the progress of the pestilence, which, in the following year committed fearful ravages. It was observable that the famine fever disappeared as this still more deadly enemy approached.
Such was the history of Ireland during one of the most eventful years in the annals of the world. She had passed through a terrible ordeal, and although not wholly uninstructed by it, yet any lessons it was calculated to teach were reluctantly received and imperfectly learned.
ENGLAND.
Political Events.—On former pages we sketched the violent political convulsions of continental Europe, and the relation which England bore to the changes which so rapidly took place: within her own confines there was much uneasiness, and some danger, but law and order triumphed over their adversaries.
The chartist confederacy put forth all its force, and its leader, Fergus O’Connor, assumed unwonted boldness, both in and out of parliament. Meetings were held in various parts of the country, in which the government was denounced for not employing the people; and the virtue (as it appeared to these assemblages) of appropriating the property of the landholders and manufacturers, was loudly insisted upon.
One of these meetings, which excited considerable apprehension, was held at Kennington Common, on the 13th of March. Much preparation appeared to be made by the chartist leaders to give it the appearance of a very great popular demonstration. Nearly fifteen thousand persons assembled, the greater number from curiosity, the love of mischief, or any other than political feeling. The speeches were inferior to those usually made at such meetings, and except in the more than usual amount of abuse offered to all who were not operatives, the meeting was not remarkable, and was dispersed by a shower of rain. The consequences of the assemblage were of more importance: many respectable persons were robbed and beaten; provision dealers were plundered, and a pawnbroker’s house of business was stripped of all valuable articles. Rioting subsequently occurred, although nearly four thousand police were in the neighbourhood or in reserve. This meeting seriously damaged the chartist cause in the metropolis. The upper and middle classes saw that plunder and molestation awaited them and the peaceable portion of the poor, if Chartism should gain the ascendant; and a determination arose to meet and suppress, with a resolute hand, the first outbreak. Early in April, fifteen of the rioters were put upon their trial for robbery with violence; eleven were convicted, and sentenced to various terms of transportation. This infuriated their confederates, and preparations were made for another demonstration of immense magnitude, to which Mr. Fergus O’Connor gave all his energy and influence. It was proposed to hold another meeting at Kennington Common on the 10th of April, ostensibly to carry a petition to the parliament house for making “the Charter” law. One hundred and fifty thousand Chartists were expected to assemble from very great distances. It was generally believed that the intention was to effect an English socialist revolution. Probably on no occasion, since the apprehension of invasion from the great Napoleon, was the London public so much alarmed. The subject, of course, fell under the consideration of parliament, where Fergus O’Connor was accused of attending seditious meetings and making treasonable speeches; this he denied with the greatest effrontery, affecting to be a pattern of order and law, although it was notorious that he was bent upon revolutionary attempts, and that his main motive was to resent certain affronts offered to himself by the Whigs. He had been jealous of O’Connell, whom that party to a certain extent petted, giving him private power and patronage, while Fergus was treated, as he himself believed, without consideration. His first attempts at agitation were in his own country, Ireland; but O’Connell turned him into ridicule, and eventually denounced him. Fergus then saw that the only hope of becoming an agitator of name and influence lay among the discontented English operatives; and he sought fame and power in that direction by means unworthy of any man, and ultimately ruinous to himself and to many of his dupes. On Tuesday, the 5th of April, the following conversation occurred in the commons, which showed the apprehensions of government and of the public, the hypocrisy of Mr. O’Connor, and the folly of Mr. Hume, who, always meaning well, so often inflicted injury on the liberal cause by his imperfect judgment and decided prejudices:—