One of my first acts after arranging the preliminary business of office, was to make a flying tour through Ulster. I was astonished at its beauty. Even after being familiar with the loveliness of the English landscape, I was in a state of continued surprise at the variety, richness, and singularity of nature in the northern counties. Mountain, lake, magnificent bay, and broad river, followed each other in noble and unceasing succession. I was still more struck with the skill and good fortune, by which the people had contrived to combine the industry of manufactures with the life of the fields; a problem which England herself had failed to solve. But, most of all, I was attracted by the independent air, and handsome and vigorous appearance of the people; almost every man was proprietor, and had the look which proprietorship alone can give. I found books in almost every cottage, decency of dress every where, and among the higher orders frequent elegance and accomplishment. The women were cultivated and intelligent; the men, spirited and enquiring. But the politics of France had made their way through a large portion of the province, and the glories of a republic "loomed large" before the popular eye. As it was my purpose to see all that I could with my own eyes, I mingled largely in society, made no distinction between honourable men of different political creeds, enjoyed to-day the stag-hunt and claret of the noble Whig, and to-morrow the stag-hunt and claret of the noble Tory, listened to all, laughed with all, and learned something from all. The English aristocrat, especially if he holds high official place, once haunted the imaginations of the Irish of all conditions, like an incarnation of an Indian deity—all fierceness and frigidity; and it must be acknowledged that the general order of viceroys and secretaries had not tended much to remove the conception. They were chiefly men of advanced life, with their habits formed by intercourse with the most exclusive class in existence, the English peerage, or rendered rigid by the dry formalities of official life. But I was young, had seen a good deal of that rough work of the world which gives pliancy, if not polish, to all characters; and I was, besides, really delighted with the animation, pleasantry, and winning kindness which exhibited themselves every where round me. I was half a son of Ireland already, and I regarded the recognition as the pledge of my success.
"Do you know," said one of the most influential and accomplished noblemen of the country to me, one day at his sumptuous table—"how many of the lords-lieutenant do you think have left a popular recollection behind them?"
I professed my ignorance, but enumerated some names remarkable for intelligence and vigour of administration.
"Oh," said my entertainer, "that was not the question! Great statesmen and showy governors, capital rulers of the country and bold managers of our factions, we have had in sufficient succession, but I speak of the faculty of being remembered; the talent of making a public impression; the power of escaping that national oblivion into which mere official services, let them be of what magnitude they may, inevitably drop when their performer has disappeared. Well, then, I shall tell you. Two, and no more."
I begged to know the names of those "discoverers of the grand secret, the philosopher's stone of popularity," the alchemists who had power to fix the floating essence of the Irish mind!
"Chesterfield and Townshend. Chesterfield, regarded as a fop in England, was a daring, steady, and subtle governor of the unruly spirits of Ireland, in one of the most hazardous periods. That the throne of the Brunswicks did not see an Irish revolt at the moment when it saw a Scottish invasion, was the service of Chesterfield. But he ruled not by his wisdom, but by his wit. He broke down faction by bon-mots; he extinguished conspiracy by passing compliments; he administered the sternest law with the most polished smile; and cut down rebellion by quotations from La Fontaine, and calembourgs from Scarron. But with these fortunate pleasantries he combined public and solid services. He threw a large portion of the crown lands in the neighbourhood of the capital into a park for the recreation of the citizens, and thus gave one of the earliest and most munificent examples of regard for the health and enjoyment of the people; a more enduring monument of his statesmanship could not have been offered to the gratitude of the country."
Of the Marquis Townshend I had heard as a gallant soldier, and a stirring viceroy, but I still had to learn the source of his popularity.
"Townshend was one of those singular men who possess faculties of which they have no knowledge, until the moment when they become necessary. He began life as a soldier, and finished his soldiership in the most brilliant victory of his day—the battle of Quebec. On his appointment to the viceroyalty, he found his government a nothing; a government faction superseding the governor, and an opposition faction engrossing the people. He now, for the first time, became a politician. He resolved to crush both, and he succeeded. He treated the government faction in Ireland with contumely, and he treated the opposition with contempt. Both were indignant; he laughed at both, and treated them with still more scorn. Both were astonished—the government faction intrigued against him in England, the opposition threatened impeachment. He defied them still more haughtily. They now found that he was not to be shaken, and both submitted. The nation joined him, was pacified, grew in vigour, as it required tranquillity; and here you have the secret of all the privileges which Ireland has obtained. Townshend performed, only on a smaller scale, the same national service which Pitt performed on a larger one. He took the people out of the hands of aristocracy, broke up the league of opulence and power, and gave the island that popular freedom which the great minister of England gave to the empire. For this the name of Townshend lives among us still. His bold satires are recorded, his gallant bearing is remembered, his passing pleasantries have become a portion of the national wit, and his rough but effectual services are among the memorials of our independence as a people."
The evening of this hospitable day concluded with a ball to the neighbouring families, and all was graceful and animated enjoyment. My host had travelled much in early life, and had brought home some fine pictures and valuable sculptures. He was an accomplished classical scholar—a quality which I found in some degree fashionable among the leading personages of the time, and which unquestionably added much to the high tone of conversation among the parliamentary circles. In his magnificent mansion an artist might have found studies, a scholar learning, a philosopher wisdom, and a man of the world all the charms of polished life. How soon, and how fearfully, were they all to be extinguished! How bitterly were all who honoured and esteemed that generous and highly-gifted nobleman, to feel what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!
Our mornings were chiefly spent in hunting over the fine landscape which spread, in all the various beauty of vegetation, within view of the mansion. On one of those days the attention of the field was caught by the fierce riding of a singular-looking man, scarcely above the peasant in his general appearance, and yet mounted on one of the finest English horses that I had ever seen. He rode at every thing, managed his horse with practised skill, and soon became an object of general emulation. To "ride up" to the "wild horseman," was found to be a task not easily accomplished, and at length all was a trial of speed with this dashing exhibitor. A glance which, when on the point of one of his most desperate leaps, he threw back at me, seemed to be a kind of challenge, and I rushed on at speed. The Irish hunter matchless at "topping" stone walls, but his practice has not lain much among rivers; and the English horse is sometimes his master at the deep and rapid streams which, running between crumbling banks, are perhaps the severest trials to both horse and rider. The majority of the hunt pulled up at the edge of one of those formidable chasms, and I was by no means unwilling to follow their example; but the look of the strange rider had a sneer along with it, which put me on my mettle, and I dashed after him. The hounds had scrambled through, and we rode nearly abreast through a broken country, that mixture of bog and firm ground which occurs frequently in newly cleared land, and over which nothing but the most powerful sinews can make way. We had now left every one behind us, were struggling on through the dimness of a hazy day, sinking into twilight. Suddenly my mysterious rival turned his horse full upon me, and to my utter amazement discharged a pistol at my head. The discharge was so close that I escaped only by the swerving of my horse at the flash. I felt my face burn, and in the impulse of the pain made a blind blow at him with my whip. He had drawn out another pistol in an instant, which the blow luckily dashed out of his hand. No words passed between us, but I bounded on him to seize him. He slipped away from my grasp, and, striking in the spur, galloped madly forward, I in pursuit. The twilight had now deepened, and he plunged into a lane bounded on both sides by steep hedges, and which, from some former hunting in this quarter, I knew to be a cul-de-sac. This doubled my determination to make myself master of the assassin; and even in the hurry of the moment I formed some conception of my having seen his face before, and that the attempt to put me out of the way was connected, in some way or other, with public affairs. This question was soon decided. He reached the end of the lane, which was shut in with a wall of about the height of a man. His horse shied at the obstacle. The rider, with an oath and a desperate exertion, pushed him to it again. I was now within a few yards of him, and arrived just in time to see the animal make a convulsive spring, touch with his hind feet on the top of the wall, and roll over. My Irish horse cleared it in the native style, and I found my enemy crushed under his hunter, and evidently in the pangs of death. He had been flung on a heap of stones, and the weight of the falling horse had broken his spine. I poured some brandy down his throat, relieved him from the incumbrance of the hunter—attempted to give him hope—but he told me that it was useless; that he felt death coming on, and that I was the last man who should wish him to live, "as he had pledged himself to my extinction." For a while, his recollections were wild, and he talked of events in France and Spain, where he seemed to have done some deeds which affected him with peculiar horror in the prospect of dissolution. But, after a brief period of those terrible disclosures, his pains totally ceased, his mind grew clear; and he acknowledged that he was one of the leading agents of a National Conspiracy to republicanize Ireland. "You are too kind," said he to me, "to one who now sees the madness of the design, and is sensible of the guilt of taking away the lives of honourable men." A lapse of weakness here tied his tongue; and I brought him a draught of water from a spring which gurgled beside the wall. He thanked me, and proceeded to say, that my "character for vigilance and activity had alarmed the principal conspirators, and that he, thinking all crimes meritorious in a popular cause, had resolved to signalize the commencement of his services, by putting the English secretary to death on the first occasion." For this purpose, he had followed my steps for some time in the metropolis, but without finding a fit opportunity. The intelligence of my hunting days in the north gave him renewed expectations, and he had followed me in various disguises; had been present at dinners and balls, where I was the principal guest; had even frequently conversed with me on public and foreign topics; in fact, had haunted me with a case of pistols constantly in his bosom; yet had never been able to find the true opportunity of despatching me without eclat. He had, at last, determined to give up the object as altogether hopeless; and had already prepared to act on a bolder scale by heading open rebellion, when he heard of my intending to hunt on this day. It was to be his last experiment; "and how rejoiced I am," said he, "that it has failed!" He now remained for a while in apparent meditation, and then suddenly raising himself on his hand, said, in a full and manly tone—"One thing I still can do in this world, if it may not be too late. Leave me here; I must die; go back in all haste to your friends, and tell them to prepare either to fly or defend their lives. This is the night appointed for the breaking out of the insurrection. Fifty thousand men are already armed in the mountains, and ready for the signal to march on the principal towns. The few troops in the country are to be made prisoners in their barracks. The government stores are to be divided among the people. Before twelve hours are over we shall have a force of a hundred thousand men on foot; and a republic will be proclaimed."