The Irish parliament had hitherto been a mere body of perpetual dictators. By the Octennial Bill, this oligarchy was disbanded, and the House of Commons wore something of the appearance of a constitutional assembly, and there were found in it some men of integrity and sagacity. Ireland also had her advocates in the British senate; but whenever the people or the parliament gained a victory over the viceroy, some accident or blunder deprived the nation of reaping the fruits. The Commons became again corrupted, and the independence which Ireland obtained ceased to have a value. The corrupted Commons basely surrendered all that had been obtained. In vain the eloquence of Curran and Grattan. The Irish nation, without public virtue, a prey to faction, and a scene of corruption, became at last powerless and politically helpless. The rebellion of 1798 was a mere peasants' war, without intelligence to guide, or experience to counsel. It therefore miserably failed, but did not fail until fifty thousand rebels and twenty thousand royalists had perished.
In June, 1800, the Union of England and Ireland. union of Ireland and England was effected, on the same basis as that between England and Scotland in the time of Anne. It was warmly opposed by some of the more patriotic of the Irish statesmen, and only carried by corruption and bribery. By this union, foreign legislation took the place of the guidance of those best qualified to know the national grievances; the Irish members became, in the British senate, merely the tools of the administration. Absenteeism was nearly doubled, and the national importance nearly annihilated in a political point of view. But, on the other hand, an oligarchal tyranny was broken, and the bond of union which bound the countries was strengthened, and the nation subsided into a greater state of tranquillity. Twenty-eight peers and one hundred commoners were admitted into the English parliament.
Notwithstanding the suppression of the rebellion of 1798, only five years elapsed before another one was contemplated—the result of republican principles, and of national grievances. The leaders were Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell. But their treasonable designs were miserably supported by their countrymen, and they were able to make but a feeble effort, which immediately failed. These men were arrested, tried, and executed. The speech of Emmet, before his execution, has been much admired for its spirit of patriotism and pensive eloquence. His grand mistake consisted in overrating the strength of democratic influences, and in supposing that, by violent measures, he could overturn a strong military government. The Irish were not prepared for freedom, still less republican freedom. There was not sufficient concert, or patriotism, or intelligence, to secure popular liberty, and the antipathy between the Catholic and Protestant population was too deeply seated and too malignant to hope, reasonably, for a lasting union.
All the measures which have been adopted for the independence and elevation of Ireland have failed, and the country is still in as Condition of Ireland. lamentable a state as ever. It presents a grand enigma and mystery to the politician. All the skill of statesmen is baffled in devising means for the tranquillity and improvement of that unhappy and unfortunate country. The more privileges the people gain, and the greater assistance they receive, the more unreasonable appear to be their demands, and the more extravagant their expectations. Still, there are great and shameful evils, which ought to be remedied. There are nearly five millions of acres of waste land in the country, capable of the highest cultivation. The soil is inexhaustibly rich, the climate is most delightful, and the natural advantages for agriculture and commerce unprecedented. Still the Irish remain oppressed and poor; enslaved by their priests, and ground down to the earth by exacting landlords and a hostile government. There is no real union between England and Ireland, no sympathy between the different classes, and an implacable animosity between the Protestant and Catholic population. The northern and Protestant part of the island is the most flourishing; but Ireland, in any light it may be viewed, is the most miserable country, with all the gifts of nature, the worst governed, and the most afflicted, in Christendom; and no human sagacity or wisdom has yet been able to devise a remedy for the innumerable evils which prevail. The permanent causes of the degradation of the Irish peasantry, in their own country, have been variously attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood, to the tyranny of the government, to the system by which the lands are leased and cultivated, and to the natural elements of the Irish character. These, united, may have produced the effects which all philanthropists deplore; but no one cause, in particular, can account for so fine a nation sinking into such poverty and wretchedness, especially when it is considered that the same idle and miserable peasantry, when transplanted to America, exhibit very different dispositions and tastes, and develop traits of character which command respect and secure prosperity.
The first plan for Parliamentary Reform. parliamentary reform was brought forward by Pitt in 1782, before he was prime minister, in consequence of a large number of the House representing no important interests, and dependent on the minister. But his motion was successfully opposed. In May, 1783, he brought in another bill to add one hundred members to the House of Commons, and to abolish a proportionate number of the small and obnoxious boroughs. This plan, though supported by Fox, was negatived by a great majority. In 1785, he made a third attempt to secure a reform of parliament, and again failed; and with this last attempt ended all his efforts for this object. So persuaded was he of the impracticability of the measure, that he even uniformly opposed the object when attempted by others. Moreover, he changed his opinions when he perceived the full connection and bearing of the subject with other agitating questions. He was desirous of a reform, if it could be obtained without mischief; but when it became a democratic measure, he opposed it with all his might. Indeed, he avowed that he preferred to have parliament remain as it was, forever, rather than risk any prospects of reform when the country was so deeply agitated by revolutionary discussions. Mr. Pitt perfectly understood that those persons who were most eager for parliamentary reform, desired the overthrow of the existing institutions of the land, or, at least, such as were inconsistent with the hereditary succession to the throne, hereditary titles, and the whole system of entailed estates. Mr. Pitt, as he grew older, more powerful, and more experienced, became more aristocratic and conservative; feared to touch any of the old supports of the constitution for fear of producing a revolution—an evil which, of all evils, he most abhorred. Mr. Burke, though opposed to the minister, here defended him, and made an eloquent speech against revolutionary measures. Nor can we wonder at the change of opinion, which Mr. Pitt and others admitted, when it is considered that the advocates of parliamentary reform also were associated with men of infidel and dangerous principles. Thomas Paine was one of the apostles of liberty in that age, and his writings had a very great and very pernicious influence on the people at large. It is very singular, but nevertheless true, that some of the most useful reforms have been projected by men of infidel principles, and infidelity and revolutionary excess have generally been closely connected.
But the reform question did not deeply agitate the people of England until a much later period. One of the most exciting events, in the domestic history of England during the administration of Pitt, was the trial of Hastings and the difficulties which grew out of the aggrandizement of the East India Company.
In the chapter on colonization, allusion was made to Indian affairs until the close of the administration of Lord Clive. Warren Hastings. Warren Hastings continued the encroachments and conquests which Clive had so successfully begun. He went to India in 1750, at the age of seventeen, as a clerk in the service of the company. It was then merely a commercial corporation. His talents and sagacity insured his prosperity. He gradually was promoted, and, in 1772, was appointed head of the government in Bengal. But the governor was not then, as he now is, nearly absolute, and he had only one vote in the council which represented the company at Calcutta. He was therefore frequently overruled, and his power was crippled. But he contrived to make important changes, and abolished the office of the minister to whom was delegated the collection of the revenue and the general regulation of internal affairs—an office which had been always held by a native. Hastings transferred the internal administration to the servants of the company, and in various other ways improved the finances of the company, the members of which were indifferent, comparatively, to the condition of the people of India, provided that they themselves were enriched. To enrich the company and extend its possessions, even at the expense of justice and humanity, became the object of the governor-general. He succeeded; but success brought upon him the imprecations of the natives and the indignant rebukes of his own countrymen. In less than two years after he had assumed the government, he added four hundred thousand pounds to the annual income of the company, besides nearly a million in ready money. But the administration of Hastings cannot be detailed. We can only notice that part of it which led to his trial in England.
The great event which marked his government was the War with Hyder Ali. war with Hyder Ali, the Mohammedan sovereign of Mysore. The province of Bengal and the Carnatic had been, for some time, under the protection of the English. Adjoining the Carnatic, in the centre of the peninsula, were the dominions of Hyder Ali. Had Hastings been governor of Madras, he would have conciliated him, or vigorously encountered him as an enemy. But the authorities at Madras had done neither. They provoked him to hostilities, and, with an army of ninety thousand men, he invaded the Carnatic. British India was on the verge of ruin. Hyder Ali was every where triumphant, and only a few fortified places remained to the English.
Hastings, when he heard of the calamity, instantly adopted the most vigorous measures. He settled his difficulties with the Mahrattas; he suspended the incapable governor of Fort George, and sent Sir Eyre Coote to oppose the great Mohammedan prince who threatened to subvert the English power in India.
But Hastings had not the money which was necessary to carry on an expensive war with the most formidable enemy the English ever encountered in the East. He therefore resolved to plunder the richest and most sacred city of India—Benares. It was the seat of Indian learning and devotion, and contained five hundred thousand people. Its temple, as seen from the Ganges, was the most imposing in the Eastern world, while its bazaars were filled with the most valuable and rare of Indian commodities; with the muslins of Bengal, the shawls of Cashmere, the sabres of Oude, and the silks of its own looms.