I am about to write the life of a statesman whose character has been more violently attacked in the annals of England—I might almost say of Europe—than any other with whom I am acquainted. No one ever had to endure more outrages and insults, and no one ever displayed more inflexible firmness, in the course of a most chequered and agitated life. I shall offend many little prejudices, and hurt many vulgar opinions; but things of this sort have never prevented me from proceeding straight to the truths of history, respecting men who have accomplished a great political career.
On the picturesque Lake Foyle[50] in Ireland, whose shores are studded with ancient mansions, and whose waters are diversified with fertile islands, inhabited by little colonies of aged fishermen, a young man of eccentric manners, but whose appearance denoted a being of a superior class to those around him, had for two years fixed his residence. His only habitation was his boat: fishing, hunting, and violent exercises, filled up his time; and in the evening, surrounded by the fishermen, he made them relate to him all the old legendary tales of the country, and, in his turn, instructing the inhabitants of the district, he drew up laws respecting fishing, and hunting, as if he were the sovereign of this watery republic. No one could exhibit more intrepidity than did this singular being. Upon one occasion he set sail in his frail bark, in the strait that separates Ireland from England; and his shipwreck on the Isle of Man, where he had alone managed his yacht in a stormy sea, like one of the Ossianic heroes, was long recorded by the peasantry. His dreams were of the legends of the lake; and being deeply enamoured of the daughter of one of the fishermen named Nelly, he sacrificed every thing to this ardent and romantic passion, wearing simply the dress of the children of the lake, for he loved and was desirous of being beloved again. Enthusiastic and passionate in his feelings, he would endure no contradiction; and an attempt having one day been made to deprive him of his mistress, he defied his rival to a duel after the Scandinavian fashion—that is to say with battle-axes—and conducted himself with a degree of intrepidity that was celebrated all over Great Britain.
This young man, whose eccentricity took so poetical a form, for his youth was like a ballad, was Robert Stewart, afterwards Viscount Castlereagh and Marquess of Londonderry. His family was not originally Irish, but came from Scotland. James I., as every one is aware, created some great fiefs in Ireland, and bestowed them upon some of his most faithful subjects, in the hope of more closely uniting Ireland to the British empire. Eight of these fiefs, with a kind of suzeraineté, fell to the share of the Duke of Lennox; and the Stewarts, that noble name in Scotland, no doubt allied to the royal line, held some of the lands subject to the Lennox family. It has always been the fate of Ireland to be under the dominion of strangers to her soil; the yoke of conquest becomes more heavy after each impatient tumult. Her oppression arises from her disturbed condition; each unsuccessful revolt produces additional servitude, and much of her suffering is owing to the crime of the popular agitators, who are instigated by nothing but their own insatiable vanity to endeavour to destroy all old and respectable national feeling.
The Stewarts, however, decided in favour of William III., and of what is termed in England the glorious Revolution. As possessors of military fiefs they were naturally inclined to second the accession of a new dynasty, by whom their usurpation of the conquered country was likely to be sanctioned. When great alterations have taken place in the rights and tenure of property, a change of power is required, and, indeed, is almost indispensable to restore peace and quiet to the country. The Orangemen, therefore, formed a closely-united party in Ireland, and exercised military dominion over the people. In vain did the unfortunate James, in his rapid passage through Ireland, cause the parliament of Dublin to pronounce a sentence of confiscation, on account of felony, against the estates of Colonel Stewart, serving under William of Orange. This confiscation continued in force but a short time; and William, having gained the victory, lavished his rewards upon the officer who had so powerfully supported his cause. William Stewart, thus loaded with wealth by the king of 1688, was one of the most determined oppressors of Ireland—one of those who ruled with a rod of iron the country reconquered after the battle of the Boyne.
The young man dwelling among the fishermen on the shores of the lake, therefore, came of a noble lineage; and his mother was a Seymour, named Sarah-Frances, like the Puritan dames who have been re-animated by the genius of Walter Scott. Robert Stewart, like the rest of the youth of Great Britain, had pursued his studies at the University of Cambridge; and, on leaving college, he had precipitated himself into this romantic sort of life, some said from his love for the fisherman's daughter, while others, on the contrary, declared such a passage was merely incidental to his eccentric life, like a wreath of wild flowers on the brow of a Scandinavian warrior. He, however, led a generous life, for money appeared to be of no value to him; and he spent largely in constructing little ports for the fishermen, and distributing among them boats of a superior construction, like a beneficent deity. Such is the great source of the power enjoyed by the English aristocracy. While their public life is passed in the midst of cities, their private life is in the country. All that was benevolent in the old feudal system is still to be found in their castles: from their turrets flow the alms still, as in ancient times, conferred upon the people; the donjon is converted into a dispensary, where medicines and assistance are afforded to the sick. And thus the aristocracy reign over the peasantry, in virtue of the powerful aid they are ready to afford to all who require it in their neighbourhood.
Nevertheless, the wish to distinguish himself in public life began to animate the heart of young Stewart. Parliament appears necessary to the youth of Great Britain, and it is there they prepare themselves for political life, taking their place among the Whigs or Tories according to a certain order of political principles. It was necessary the Stewarts should have seats in the Irish parliament, for they had a great stake in the country; but, owing to the family being Protestants, the election was violently contested, and cost the successful candidate thirty thousand pounds. These corruptions are a general rule in England, and they even add to the strength of the country; for there is no danger a bad choice should result from them, every thing being fixed according to settled rules; every thing is so well foreseen and organised by the mechanical arrangements made, that the elections that take place are always of men of safe principles. Pecuniary corruption in the existence of states often acts as a corrective of another, and far more injurious, corruption for a people—I mean ideas tending to revolutionary principles.
The Irish parliament, then still existing, was a great cause of disorder in the unity of the British government, until the illustrious Pitt placed every thing under the common law of the triple crown. There is something strange and perfectly inconsistent in the pretensions of Ireland. The people profess to respect the Union without ever wishing to depart from it; and then they claim a parliament for themselves, and desire something resembling a republic independent of England. Let them exult in their Catholic emancipation; they have a right to do so, and cannot value it too highly. But do they wish still to make part of the British empire?—do they wish the harp of Erin still to hold her place on the escutcheon of England? Alone, Ireland cannot subsist. Her commerce is supported by the vast trade of England: she only exists by means of the colonies, and the day she ceases to be English she will be ruined. What, then, is the meaning of all those revolts, those protests on all occasions, which serve no purpose except that of conferring a certain sort of renown upon street orators and demagogues?
The election of Robert Stewart, however, though anti-Catholic, was not ministerial; for he promised on the hustings to support parliamentary reform, and on taking his seat in the House of Commons he placed himself on the opposition benches. This was a sort of sacrifice to popularity necessary from all statesmen at the beginning of their career, and the most powerful have not been exempt from paying this tribute to rhetoric. However, even at that time, young Stewart appeared to keep within certain limits of order and principles; and, avoiding declamation, he spoke seriously, and restrained himself while speaking. He was not an orator with a sonorous, reverberating voice, who, by means of biting epigrams, drew peals of laughter from his auditors. His speeches bore the impress of the Toryism of his family, and all his inclinations were those of an eminently Conservative mind.
England and Ireland were at this time agitated more especially by two questions; the first was parliamentary reform, and the other the free commerce of Ireland with the colonies. On the first of these points, the Castlereagh family, like the Wellesleys, considered it absurd to impose upon the Catholics a conscientious oath, which would exclude them from participating in the benefit of the elections; but, at the same time, was it not very unwise to prepare an indefinite reform, which would overturn the whole of the social condition of Great Britain? It was with a view to the admission of the Catholics into parliament that the Irish Tories became friends with the opposition; they shewed themselves favourably inclined to the emancipation of those who differed with them in belief, and at the same time opposed to radical reform: and this last subject was the cause of Castlereagh's withdrawal from the Irish agitators, who now began to aim murderous blows at the Union.