Mr. Froude cannot have read this speech. It is a fervid denunciation of the penal laws, and of their cruelties and mischief; and it does not “talk either Liberal cant or Papal syllabus.” Colonel Hutchinson’s two speeches on the Petition and on Langrishe’s Bill, even as summarised in the Irish Parliamentary Report, are enlightened, able, and eloquent oratory. He was for complete emancipation. His liberal address to the Cork constituency, in 1796, is given by Plowden.
Hutchinson was an enthusiastic admirer of Lafayette, and of his ardent principles of popular liberty. When in Paris he attached himself closely to the general, and served on his personal staff.
During the troubles of 1798 he was employed here at the head of his brother’s regiment, under Abercrombie. He sat in the Irish parliament in 1800, and voted for the Union!—[Webb, and Barrington’s “Black List.”]
He commanded against the French at Castlebar, and he shared in the humiliating defeat which Humbert’s handful of men, supported by a body of Irish peasantry, inflicted on the royal army. Hutchinson was unable to stay the panic. His troops, which had signalised and enervated themselves by their licentious brutalities on a defenceless population, broke and fled—as Abercrombie foretold they would do—before the enemy. Their rout was as complete as it was disgraceful, and the barbarities which they committed on their retreat were diabolical. Hutchinson afterwards had the satisfaction of taking part in the affair at Ballinamuck, county Longford, where the French, including Generals Humbert, Sorrazin, and La Fontaine, laid down their arms.—[Cornwallis’s Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 396; Knight’s History of England, vol. vii., p. 367; Haverty’s History of Ireland, p. 760; and Bishop Stock’s Narrative of Killala.]
Hutchinson left the sickening Irish scenes, along with Abercrombie, for Flanders, in the Duke of York’s expedition. After that he accompanied Abercrombie to Egypt as second in command, and on his death at Aboukir he succeeded as chief. He was reinforced from home, and by Sir David Baird’s expeditionary contingent from India, took Alexandria and Cairo, and drove Menou and the French out of Egypt. For these distinguished achievements he was created Lord Hutchinson of Alexandria and Knocklofty; and, notwithstanding these achievements, he was never again employed in war service by the English Government. He made no secret of his anti-Toryism, and this was enough to ensure his rejection by a Government that selected the Chathams and Burrards. Lord Hutchinson was afterwards employed on some high diplomatic commissions at St. Petersburg and Berlin, and in these his independence of judgment was not altogether palatable to the London authorities. In 1825, on the death of his eldest brother, he succeeded to the Donoughmore title and estates, which, on his death without issue, in 1832, passed to his nephew, the third peer, better known as “Lavalette Hutchinson.”
This John Hely Hutchinson, the third of the name, was born in Wexford, in 1788. Having served through the Waterloo campaign, he was, on the allied occupation of Paris, in 1815, quartered there as Captain of the First Regiment of Grenadiers of the Guards. While there, in 1816, he, together with Lieutenant Bruce of his own regiment, and the celebrated Sir R. Wilson, effected Lavalette’s escape from France, after his deliverance from the Conciergerie by the romantic devotion and bravery of his wife.
The three friends were prosecuted in Paris for this violation of the law. They declined to insist on their right of having half the jury English, and trusted themselves entirely to the honour of the Frenchmen. They admitted what was charged against them, and were condemned in the mild sentence of three months’ imprisonment, and the costs of the prosecution. Captain Hutchinson, on the trial, told how he had lodged Lavalette in his own chambers for one night, supplied him with an English officer’s costume from a Paris tailor, procured passes, and on horseback escorted to the frontier Lavalette, who was in a carriage with Wilson. He was willing to give a distinct answer to any fair question about himself, but he peremptorily refused to say anything that would compromise anyone else. He declared that there was not a particle of political animus in the adventure. The French historians tell how the chivalrous young Irishman’s exploit was applauded by the whole nation, and how, on the trial, his manly and gracious bearing captured the court, which had to find him guilty of the deed that he acknowledged and related. Sir R. Wilson had been aide-de-camp to Hutchinson’s uncle the general. [Biog. des Contemp. and The Accusation, Examination, and Trial of Wilson, Hutchinson, and Bruce.]
Captain Hutchinson succeeded to the title in 1832. He lived and died at Palmerston, and in Chapelizod church a memorial tablet is erected to him, with the following inscription:—“Sacred to the memory of John Hely Hutchinson, third Earl of Donoughmore, Knight of St. Patrick, Lord Lieutenant of the county of Tipperary, and a Privy Councillor, having served his country in the Peninsular War and the Senate; and his country in troublous times. He died on the 12th of September, 1851, in the 64th year of his age, loved, respected, and regretted by all who knew him. This tablet has been erected in the church where he usually worshipped to record his many virtues by his widow.”
In Chapelizod churchyard there is a tombstone inscribed: “Beneath this stone rest the earthly remains of Mrs. Hely Hutchinson; departed this life 1st June, 1830, aged 72 years.
Between the Provost and his four sons they represented, for over 40 years, 11 constituencies, and besides this, one was in the Irish and English, and another in the English House of Lords.