Dr. Wills[74] gives Provost Hely Hutchinson a very high place amongst the eminent men of the country, and mentions his eloquence and college reforms as well as his greed.
Even Mr. Froude,[75] who vastly dislikes himself and his sons, is constrained to call him the “able and brilliant Hely Hutchinson,” and to tell of his “meridian splendour.” He quotes Lord Lieutenant Townshend’s statement that he was “the most popular man in parliament to conduct a debate.”
The famous Colonel Isaac Barrè,[76] who, as he got Scholarship in 1744, was a college class-fellow of Hutchinson, gives the following description of him in 1768:—“When the Army Augmentation Bill was introduced by Tom Connoly, it was opposed by Sexten Pery on constitutional grounds, and by the Attorney General (Tisdall) on grounds that left him free to support the Bill afterwards if it were his interest to do so.[77]
“The Prime Serjeant (Hutchinson)” says Barrè “was not so prudent[78] (as Tisdall), and opposed it in a long, languid speech, full of false calculations; among the rest this curious one, that adding £40,000 per annum to the national expense was, in fact, adding a million to its debt, and that the nation, in the next session, would be £1,800,000 in debt. If all this is true, how will he have the impudence to support this measure hereafter? But, indeed, he has contradicted himself three or four times in the course of this session upon this subject.[79] He talks now of being dismissed. His profit by his employment is trifling, not above three or four hundred a year.[80]
“He is personally disliked, a mean gambler—not one great point in him—and exceedingly unpopular in this country. I must tell you a short anecdote which put him very much out of temper. The day after the first division he came to Council in a hackney chair, which happened, unluckily, to be No. 108 (the number of the majority). A young officer at the Castle wrote under the number of the chair, “COURT” in large characters, and at the top a coronet was drawn.[81]
“He denied positively in the beginning of his speech, any bargain or terms proposed by him at the Castle, but was not believed.... As far as I am able to judge,” continues Barrè, “this country is manageable easily enough. The prevailing faction exists only by your want of system in England. They have no abilities, and their present and only friend, Hutchinson (for Tisdall is quite broken), cannot be depended on for a moment.”
In the last volume (vol. viii.) of the “Historical Manuscripts Report” we find some very interesting mentions of Hutchinson in the letters that passed between “Single Speech” Hamilton and Edmund Sexten Pery. Both of these eminent men entertained a high opinion of, and a sincere personal regard for, the Provost. In 1771, Hamilton, who was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, and had been Chief Secretary to two Lord Lieutenants (Lords Halifax and Northumberland) wrote to Pery, the Speaker[82] of the House:—“As long as you and Andrews and Hutchinson are in being and business, Ireland will never want attractions sufficient to make me prefer it to a situation of ‘more splendour and greater influence.’”
Two years later, Hamilton wrote to Pery about the collapse of the negotiations for his resigning the Exchequer Chancellorship in Hutchinson’s favour, and begged that Hutchinson would not again require him to sacrifice his own solid and substantial interests. Another letter, dated 1779, says that Flood was eagerly canvassing for the post, and that Hutchinson was discontented. The Chancellorship was not given to either of the rivals—it was given to Foster, who was afterwards Speaker; and Hutchinson accordingly failed to score a second triumph over “the generous-minded, ornamental, sonorous-voiced Henry Flood, who was eclipsing his meridian splendour.”[83]
In 1777 the Corporation of Dublin petitioned the Provost and Board for a free education for the son of the deceased patriot, Dr. Lucas. The College authorities responded in a literal spirit, and generously granted to the lad not only a remission of fees, but free rooms and free commons as well.[84]
In 1779, were published the “Commercial Restraints,” which in its original shape was, a contribution to Lord Lieutenant Buckinghamshire as to the best method of extricating the country from its discontent and troubles. Froude says (vol. ii., p. 223), that it was the most important of all the opinions gathered by the Viceroy, and that it earned Hutchinson’s pardon from Irish patriotism for his subserviency to the Court and Lord Townshend. The work is an extremely able review of the whole history and condition of our native Irish trade and industries, and it is as loyal in its nationality as it is able. It is the only specimen we have to show us the Provost as a writer and as an economist, and it certainly secures him a high place in these two estimates.