The Felon's Track Part 3

I have only extracted from Mr. O'Connell's most elaborate letter, his distinctly expressed preference for Federalism, and the single reason upon which the preference is founded. The remainder consists for the most part of a sort of logical equation, balancing the component elements of both plans, from which is deduced the above conclusion.

Charles Duffy's answer, dated October the 18th, was triumphant and conclusive, at least in Mr. O'Connell's own mind, for he did not afterwards repeat the same sentiments. But a blow had been given the a.s.sociation from which it never recovered. The newspaper press, taken under three distinct heads, first the blind and heedless ech.o.e.rs of Mr.

O'Connell's doctrines, secondly the Whig organs in Ireland, and thirdly the papers in the English interest, gave way to unrestrained exultation.

The wisdom, the prudence, the holiness of the "great Liberator," were extolled as unmatched in the annals of statesmans.h.i.+p. A few whose self-interest constrained their subserviency, shrugged wisely and said nothing, while several provincial journals stoutly maintained the undoubted and enduring supremacy of the great national aim over every weak expedient.

Whatever hopes may be entertained by Mr. O'Connell, his suggestions met with no sustainment and no response, save the empty echoes of an adulating press. Among the great party to whom he appealed, not one voice was heard to suggest a practical step in the direction intimated.

The project fell, if indeed it were ever seriously entertained, leaving no memory and no regret. The first place Mr. O'Connell afterwards appeared in a public capacity, was at the Limerick banquet, given on'

the 20th of November. His speech on that occasion contained scarcely a reference to Federalism, and both his sentiments and those of the other speakers, including John, Archbishop of Tuam, as well as the Toasts and Mottoes, were distinguished for loftiness of tone, unflinching purpose and highest enthusiasm. But other elements were at work furtively sapping that purpose and dimming that enthusiasm.

Prominent among these was the spirit of religious dissension already under discussion, to which it is now time to recur.

At and after the period when the Roman Catholic prelates accepted the functions of administering a law insulting and obnoxious to the Catholics generally, much angry controversy prevailed. A report was rife that the Government not alone succeeded in deluding the Irish Bishops, but had accredited a minister plenipotentiary, whose mission was to conciliate the Court of Rome to a "Concordat" with England. A rescript said to be received by the Most Reverend Doctor Crolly, the Primate, was adduced to prove not alone the existence of the intrigue, but its partial success. The rescript contained an admonition to restrain the intemperate violence of political priests, and an advice to confine themselves more generally to the sacred functions of their holy office.

The English press magnified the advice into a command, and exulted over the failure of the Repeal movement whose extinction they augured from the withdrawal of the Catholic priesthood.

Mr. O'Connell, alarmed at the import of a command so fatal, p.r.o.nounced the rescript "uncanonical." This led to greater dissensions and bitterer recriminations. The prelates who condemned the Bequest Act, denounced those who accepted the task of administering it. One of the body thus writes:--

"The resolution [referring to one pa.s.sed at a meeting of the prelates, which was p.r.o.nounced by the ministerial press a vote of unanimous approval of the bishops' acceptance of the office of Commissioners] did not meet the approval of all the Bishops, neither could it convey to any one of the Episcopal Commissioners the most distant notion that in accepting the office he did not oppose the views and wishes of many of his Episcopal brethren. When the resolution was moved, there were six of the protesting Bishops absent, and a moment was not allowed to pa.s.s after it was seconded, when it was denounced in the strongest manner by two of the Bishops present. They solemnly declared before the a.s.sembled prelates that, in the event of any prelate accepting the odious office, they would never willingly hold any communication with him in his capacity as Commissioner."[4]

But, while disunion reigned at the council board of the Catholic Hierarchy, the Government plied their task of seducing, dividing and misrepresenting bishops, priests, people and nation. Out of all the elements of disunion, distraction and disaster over which they in turn gloated, the British newspapers, with wonderful accord, predicted and boasted of the complete overthrow of the Repeal Party. It was amidst these circ.u.mstances of gloom and evil augury the year 1844, a year within which range the most startling, extraordinary and trying events of Ireland's recent history, came to a close.

Before I conclude this chapter, I must revert to a fact which, although unimportant in relation to the view of the question under consideration, deserves to be remembered in connection with future events. The date I cannot fix, as it was confined to the private circle of the a.s.sociation Committee, and no record of it remains. Immediately after the close of the State trials, as well as I can remember, Mr. O'Connell proposed the dissolution of the a.s.sociation, with a view of establis.h.i.+ng a new body, from which should be excluded all the "illegal" attributes and accidents of the old. The suggestion was resisted by Mr. O'Brien, and all those understood to belong to what was called the Young Ireland Party. They protested against such a course as false, craven and fatal, and Mr.

O'Connell at once yielded to their vehement remonstrances.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Doctor Cantwell to Mr. O'Connell. Given in the _Nation_, Vol. III., No. 119.]

CHAPTER III

FURTHER EMBARRa.s.sMENT CAUSED BY THE RESCRIPT--DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MR.

O'CONNELL AND THE PRIMATE.--FINANCIAL REFORMS IN THE COMMITTEE OF THE a.s.sOCIATION, AND CONSEQUENT DISSENSION.--'82 CLUB.--THE COLLEGES BILL.--DIFFERENCES AND CALUMNIES CONSEQUENT UPON IT. QUARREL WITH MR.

DAVIS.--THE GREAT LEVEE AT THE ROTUNDA.--DECLINE OF THE AGITATION.--CLOSING LABOURS AND DEATH OF THOMAS DAVIS.

Thus wrote Thomas Davis at the opening of the new year:--

"Hitherto our dangers have been few and transient. The product of mistake or enthusiasm, they were remedied by explanation and kindliness. There are dangers threatened now, and against them we shall try the same prompt and frank policy which never failed us yet. Already the English press are quarrelling for the spoils of the routed Repealers. They are almost unanimous in describing the people as disgusted, the leaders as exhausted, and the policy of the ministers as rapidly levelling the defences of the once great party.

"We do not quail. We remember that whenever the rent[5] has fallen, the same press cried out the people are sick of the agitation. Whenever righteous discussion took place in our councils, they exulted over our 'fatal divisions,' and at the beginning of each new blunder of the cabinet, they sang victory.

"If the Irish be a hot or capricious race, who plunge into a new policy because it is new, and abandon their dearest interests and most solemn vows because their success needs time, then indeed Repeal was hopeless and was always so. If the leaders have not sagacity enough to embrace the business of an empire and pierce through time, unwearied industry, pure hands and resolute spirits, then to repeal is hopeless until a new race of chiefs appears."

Almost contemporaneously with this article, the Catholic Primate contradicted Mr. O'Connell's a.s.sertion respecting the rescript, and laid rescript and contradiction before the public. "I was surprised and sorry," he writes, "to find that you had ventured to a.s.sert that a letter sent to me some time past from the Propaganda was not a canonical doc.u.ment." He adds that he laid the doc.u.ment before the a.s.sembled prelates, and appends the resolution in which they acknowledged its authenticity and approval of its counsel.[6]

Mr. O'Connell at once expressed his entire acquiescence and deep contrition. He bowed reverentially to the resolution of the prelates, retracted the hasty opinion, and apologised for his error, which, he said, resulted from his great anxiety of mind, caused by the avowal of the _Morning Chronicle_ that the Whigs had a secret agent in Rome.

But the prelates were far from unanimous in their construction of the rescript which they promised unanimously to obey. With the resolution among his papers, the Archbishop of Tuam proceeded directly from the Episcopal meeting to the Repeal banquet at Limerick, where he delivered a speech stronger in language and more violent in character than any he had ever uttered. Some pa.s.sages in that speech, wherein he eulogised the heroism of the women of Limerick who cut their long hair to supply the defenders of the city with strings for their bows, excited the wildest enthusiasm and most rapturous applause. Doctor Cantwell, in the letter already referred to, gives his construction, which he says was that of the majority.

"The Cardinal only evidently censures violent and intemperate language, in either priest or bishop, whether they address their flocks in their temples, or mix with their fellow-countrymen in banquets or public meetings. We inferred, and I think we were justified in the inference, that conduct and language at all times unbecoming our sacred character, and not our presence on such legitimate occasions, were the object of this salutary caution."

His construction was sustained more clearly and forcibly by Thomas Davis. "It [the rescript] announces the undoubted truth that the main duty of a Christian priest is to care for the souls of his flock, and both by precept and example to teach mildness, piety and peace. It does not denounce a Catholic clergyman for aiding the Repeal movement in all ways becoming a minister of peace. Nowhere in the rescript is the agitation as a system, or repeal as a demand, censured; but some reported violence of speech is disapproved."

The coincidence seems a strange one, that in the same paper, which thus disposes of the rescript, the same paper wherein appear the letters of Doctor Crolly, Doctor Cantwell, and Mr. O'Connell, the same paper in which is published the official denial of a Concordat with the Pope, under the viceregal seal, are also published the proceedings of the Repeal a.s.sociation, which consisted, to a great extent, of a violent attack on the exploded Concordat. At the meeting held on the 13th of January, it was denounced especially by two of Mr. O'Connell's friends, Mr. O'Neill Daunt and Mr. John Reilly, in terms the most vehement and indignant. Mr. Daunt used these words. "On that day fortnight he had proclaimed from the chair of the a.s.sociation, that if a rescript should emanate from Rome denouncing the national movement, the Catholics of Ireland would treat it as so much waste paper." This statement was made on the 13th, Doctor Crolly's letter is dated on the 11th, Mr.

O'Connell's on the 14th, and Lord Heytesbury's denial of the Concordat on the 15th of January. Contemporaneously with all these was also published an address of his clergy to the Archbishop of Dublin, deprecating in the strongest language certain calumnies against him, which they attribute to priests and people, Protestant and Catholic.

From these proceedings one inference is inevitable, namely, that they who have so strongly inculcated obedience to the Holy See, and denounced as an infidel any Catholic who refused blind obedience to its decisions, in reference to secular education, were not then troubled with the same sensitiveness or scrupulousness of conscience in regard to the authority of the Roman Pontiff. But of that one word hereafter. I here reproduce the historical facts connected with these letters, for another object. Although the excitement about the threatened Concordat was allayed, and the invectives against the Archbishop of Dublin abated in intemperance, the bitterness of feeling which swept over the country like an avenging scourge, left behind it germs of discord and weakness.

Publicly or privately the Seceders did not interfere. At the meeting of the a.s.sociation already alluded to, Mr. O'Brien made a most n.o.ble speech, inculcating education, self-reliance, organisation and progress, without stooping to refer to the perplexed question, which filled his audience with angry pa.s.sions, and supplied the other speakers with intemperate enthusiasm.

The whole endeavours of the Seceders were at this time devoted to the organisation of clubs or reading rooms on an educational basis.

Connected with this object was the augmentation of the Repeal revenue, which was antic.i.p.ated from the extended action of these political and social schools. The funds were greatly diminished, and the weekly collections had fallen to an average of about 150. It became necessary, as much as possible, to curtail the expenses, and a reduction of a very serious amount was effected during Mr. O'Connell's absence at Derrynane.

The effort was continued after his arrival in town, which led to differences of opinion with him, in committee. Sinecure situations, created by him, were abolished, and inquiries were inst.i.tuted which gave him great annoyance. He particularly resented and resisted the removal from one of those offices of Doctor Nagle. Doctor Nagle was appointed to be "curator of ma.n.u.scripts", the ostensible duty of which was to superintend the reports (then daily issuing from the press, and written for the most part by the Seceders) for the purpose of preventing the publication of anything illegal or dangerous. In effect, he was nominally, literary, legal and moral censor. But the unanimous and loud indignation of the essayists rendered his task a light one. He was content to accept the salary and leave those gentlemen the guardians of their own safety, their character and literary fame. Doctor Nagle continued to act as librarian and, weekly, delivered to the secretary certain lists of contributions that had been previously furnished him by that gentleman. His salary and certain fees given to other "patriots,"

came under the cognisance of a sub-committee consisting, as well as I remember, of the present member for Dublin,[7] a Mr. O'Meara and someone whose name I now forget. Their report adjudged the office useless, and recommended its immediate abolition. A motion was accordingly made in committee for Doctor Nagle's dismissal. Mr. O'Connell was in the chair.

All his sons were present, one of whom, I think, moved an amendment to the effect that he be continued at his then salary. A division took place, when the majority against the amendment was considerably over two to one. Mr.

O'Connell expressed himself deeply mortified at this result. Another amendment to the same effect was then proposed and negatived by a majority numerically somewhat less, when Sir Colman O'Loghlen moved, and John Loyd Fitzgerald seconded, an amendment to the effect that he be continued as clerk of the library at half his salary, that is 50 a year. The result would have been the same as before but that many of the majority had withdrawn under the impression that the question was disposed of; the number for the amendment was twenty-two, and the number against only twenty-three. Mr. O'Connell a.s.sumed the right to give two votes, one as member, which made the numbers equal, and a casting vote as chairman. It was then proposed and carried that every chairman should in future have two votes, and Sir Colman's amendment was allowed to pa.s.s in the affirmative. Doctor Nagle continued to fill his office until his appointment to a more lucrative one under the Whig Government.

The Eighty-Two Club which was projected in prison was finally organised in January, 1845. The differences which manifested themselves in Conciliation Hall imperceptibly extended to this body. The original members const.i.tuted the committee and were self-appointed. The others had to submit to a ballot. Some few were rejected, at which Mr.

O'Connell's friends took umbrage, and the rejected aspirants were sure to attribute their decision to their devotion to the "Liberator." Thus it happened that most objectionable candidates could not be resisted without incurring the imputation of opposing and thwarting the "saviour of his country."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles Lavan Duffy (1846)]

Mr. O'Connell himself, although he warmly approved of the club in the commencement, soon ceased to feel an interest in its proceedings. For the first year, its action was confined to some routine dinners, which attracted a very fas.h.i.+onable attendance, and furnished an occasion for some brilliant speaking. Yet the fame and respectability of such a body were seductions which few of the leading men in the confederacy could resist. The Eighty-Two Club became a standard toast at public dinners, and its members were received as distinguished guests or visitors wherever they appeared. Without having yet performed any distinct service, or realised the promise involved in its establishment, the club became a very important and imposing body.

Mr. O'Connell was its president, and Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Grattan, Sir Colman O'Loghlen and others, vice-presidents. The first committee was composed of the Members of Parliament, Mayors of cities, and men eminent in the different professions and literary pursuits. Complaints of inattention were made against some of its members, and at the election for officers after the expiration of the first year, others were subst.i.tuted for the inattentive and inefficient. The change for the most part was made by unanimous consent; but when a ballot was called for, other names were subst.i.tuted for those on the house list, recommended by the former committee, and the contest resulted in the rejection of Richard Barrett and one or two others. This was taken as an affront to Mr. O'Connell, though personally he neither took part in, nor was present at, the meeting. Whether it was owing to Mr. O'Connell's aversion to the green-and-gold uniform, to which he sometimes expressed his dislike, or his objection to the rejection of his soi-disant friends, or to his consciousness that the club was not subservient to his control, he took very little interest in its progress, and frequently spoke of it in terms of derision.

But that which produced the first sensible and vital difference between Mr. O'Connell and the Seceders was the Colleges Bill. Education had long been a subject of anxious solicitude with Mr. Davis, and he was in continual communication with Mr. Wyse, its great parliamentary champion.

He had repeatedly urged upon him the indispensable necessity of the principle of mixed education, as the basis of any collegiate system for Ireland. That basis was recognised in the system of national education which was accepted and approved of by the whole Catholic Hierarchy, with one exception, and most warmly sanctioned by the Catholic priesthood and laity. Extreme bigots of the Protestant school opposed and denounced it as unscriptural and G.o.dless, and one extreme bigot of the Catholic school echoed the objurgation. It was not to be supposed that a principle thus sanctioned, tried, and efficient as applicable to the children of the poor, would be objected to when applied to those who were higher in station and older in years. When, therefore, the Bill was introduced and its princ.i.p.al provisions announced, it was received with the utmost delight and, even, triumph. Mr. O'Connell proclaimed in a meeting of the committee his emphatic approval of the principle of the Bill.

As soon as its details were published, it was submitted to the parliamentary committee, and, during its discussion there, he expressed for the first time some doubts as to the practicability of a mixed system of education. Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Davis and others expostulated, and deprecated in unmistakable terms the fatality of engaging the a.s.sociation to a principle so sectarian, narrow and illiberal. He said he would take time to consider, and would meantime consult with Doctor MacHale. He was reminded that Doctor MacHale could not approve of the system without gross inconsistency, and requested to take the opinion of all the other Bishops as well. How far he was governed by this advice is unimportant and impossible to tell. But the bishops met in solemn synod and published the result of their deliberations in the following memorial:--

"That memorialists are disposed to co-operate on fair and reasonable terms with her majesty's government and the legislature, in establis.h.i.+ng a system for the further extension of academical education in Ireland.

"That a fair proportion of the professors and other office-bearers in the new colleges should be members of the Roman Catholic Church, whose moral conduct shall have been properly certified by testimonials of character, signed by their respective prelates. And that all the office-bearers in those colleges should be appointed by a board of trustees, of which the Roman Catholic prelates of the provinces in which any of those colleges shall be erected shall be members.

"That the Roman Catholic pupils could not attend the lectures on history, logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy, geology, or anatomy, without exposing their faith or morals to imminent danger, unless a Roman Catholic professor will be appointed for each of those chairs.

"That if any president, vice-president, professor, or office-bearer, in any of the new colleges shall be convicted before the board of trustees of attempting to undermine the faith or injure the morals of any student in those inst.i.tutions, he shall be immediately removed from his office by the same board."

It will be observed that the principle of mixed education is not here directly approved or condemned. But approval is an inference, as clear and emphatic as words could express. The memorial prays for distinct and specific alterations in the details of the Bill. It demands that certain branches of secular education should be taught to the Catholic students by Catholic professors approved of by the prelates, and it insists upon other guarantees to secure the Catholic youth from the danger of all and every species of interference with the tenets of their faith.

How far the demands of the bishops were just or extravagant, is not a fit subject of inquiry here. But the fact of making the demands stamps the principle of the bill with their incontrovertible approval. The argument which denies it involves an accusation against those Most Reverend and Right Reverend divines, of evasion, treachery and untruth.

Any defence which implies that they avoided the direct condemnation of the principle because they knew their memorial would be disregarded, which would enable them to interdict the whole Bill, principle and details, on the ground of the immorality of the latter, involves an implication that moral and Christian turpitude is synonymous with Catholic zeal. Such an implication, inevitable from the premises a.s.sumed by the opponents of the mixed system, would be foulest calumny. The Catholic prelates were eminently sincere; and had they been warmly seconded they might have obtained such ameliorations in the details of the system as would be satisfactory to every rational, liberal and honest man. But the old jealousy, division and calumny which had grown out of the Bequests Act, obtruded themselves on every attempt at calm consideration, and scattered the elements indispensable to successful moral combination. The principle and details of the academic project became confused and confounded, and while some clamorously opposed, others unthinkingly supported, the entire. Thus the minister was enabled to balance the voice of public opinion as he found it arrayed for and against his measure, and under pretence of indifference to despise both parties. For a long while, the action of the a.s.sociation was paralysed.

There were deeper questions at issue there than even those which appeared on the face of the bill. The educational party insisted that any measure which did not embrace the University was scanty and illiberal. They claimed its honours, advantages and emoluments for all the youth of Ireland alike; and they sought to make the academic subordinate to and parcel of the collegiate system. The Dublin University and Trinity College are separate and distinct foundations and establishments. They proposed that Maynooth and Trinity College should be both sufficiently endowed for all purposes of ecclesiastical education, without any interference, direct or indirect, from each other or the Government, while the University should be open alike to all who had obtained distinction in the provincial colleges. Any measure of narrower scope would, they contended, leave dullness and bigotry where it found them.

Mr. O'Connell, on the other hand, insisted on the inviolability of Dublin College as a Protestant inst.i.tution, inaccessible to Catholics, except through the slough of perverted and perjured faith. He would then have new colleges purely Catholic and entirely under the control of the Catholic bishops, but endowed by the State, and chartered to confer literary degrees. He would extend the same right to the members of other religious persuasions. It was answered that these positions and his arguments addressed to the academic question were irreconcilable and incompatible. Catholics were already admissible to Dublin College, and ent.i.tled to certain degrees and a vote. He either intended that they should be thenceforth excluded or he did not. If not, then the argument against mixed education would hold for nothing: if he did, then he attempted what was impracticable, or, if not impracticable, preposterous and absurd. It is not conceivable that Catholic young men, of laudable ambition, would be deterred from entering the lists with their Protestant contemporaries where most honour was won by superior eminence, or that they would be swayed by a warning that a college course would be attended with risk to their faith and morals, when they remembered that for the past century, while the risk was infinitely more imminent, no such warning had been ever heard from council, synod or conference. It is a strange fact in the history of these troubled times that no voice of denunciation against Dublin College could be heard in the polemical din, although it was well known that its literary honours stamped preliminary degradation on the Catholic aspirant, and were used at once to mock his political condition and pervert his faith--no voice was heard although one at least of the prelates had obtained degrees in the University, while the bishop and priests of an entire diocese, in conclave a.s.sembled, solemnly resolved that they would refuse sacraments to any Catholic parent who sent his son to one of the G.o.dless colleges.