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THE
IRISH NATION:
ITS HISTORY CTTio
AND
\
ITS BIOGRAPHY.
-if-
>J7/. r
yf
BY
JAMES WILLS, D.D.,
AND
FREEMAN WILLS, M.A.
VOLUME IV.
. J u
1
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A. FULLARTON & CO.,
LONDON AND EDINBURGH.
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CONTENTS OF YOL. IV.
Political Series continued from Vol. III.
O'LogUen^
Maziere
1. Field - Marshal Viscount
Gough, .
2. The Earl of Bessborough,
3. Chief-Justice Doherty,
4. The Earl of Roden, .
5. General Chesney,
6. Sir Michael
Bart, .
7. Lord Monteagle,
8. Sir Thomas Wyse,
9. Baron Green,
10. John, Lord Keane,
11. The Rt. Hon.
Brady, Bart., .
12. Sir Richard Mayne, K. C. B
13. Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness,
Bart.,
14. "William Dargen,
15. Lord Rosse,
16. William Smith O'Brien
17. Sir William Shee, .
18. The Earl of Dunraven and
Mountearl,
19. Mr Justice Willes,
20. The Rt. Hon. Henry Arthur
Herbert,
21 John Francis Maguire,
22. The Rt. Hon. John Edward
Walsh, Q.C., LL.D.
23. The Earl of Mayo, .
24. Thomas Francis Meagher,
25. The Hon. Thomas D'Arcy
M'Gee, ....
26. General Sir de Lacy Evans,
27. Sir Henry Montgomery
Lawrence,
28. The Rt. Hon. Abraham
Brewster,
1
5
6
16
18
22
23
25
25
31
33
39
40
42
44
44
48
49
50
52
55
60
64
74
78
92
96
98
PAQB
29. Baron Martin, . . .103
30. The Hon. Sir Henry Singer
Keating, . . . 104
31. The Rt. Hon. Joseph
Napier, Bart., LL.D., . 104
32. The Rt. Hon. Richard
Keatinge, . . . 114
33. The Rt. Hon. David Richard
Pigot, .... 116
34. Baron Fitzgerald, . . 117
35. The Rt. Hon. James Henry
Monahan, . . . 118
36. The Rt. Hon. James White-
side, LL.D., D.C.L., . 119
37. Sir Robert John Le
Mesurier M'Clure, C.B. 137
38. The Rt. Hon. Sir John
Jjaird Mair, Baron Law-
rence, .... 140
39. The Duke of Abercorn, . 149
40. The Rt. Hon. Jonathan
Christian, . . .152
41. Lord O'Hagan, . . 159
42. The Rt. Hon. Richard
Deasy, . . , .168
43. Isaac Butt, Q.C., . . 169
44. The Rt. Hon. Thomas Ball,
Q.C., .... 175
45. Sir John Gray, M.D., . 181
46. The Rt. Hon. John David
Fitzgerald, B.C., . .183
47. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, . 184
48. The Rt. Hon. WUliam
Keogh, .... 185
49. The Rt. Hon. James An-
thony Lawson, LL.D., . 193
50. Lord Cairns, Lord Chan-
cellor of England, . . 201
vi
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PAGE
51.
Sir Francis Leopold M'Clin-
81.
The Rev. Csesar Otway,
456
tock, ....
206
82.
The Rev. William Bruce,
52.
The Rt. Hon. Edward Snlli-
D.D., ....
458
van, ....
207
83.
The Rev. Bartholomew
53.
Lord Carlingford,
211
Lloyd, D.D., .
459
54.
Baron Dowse, .
212
84.
The Rev. William Nelson,
55.
Earl of DufFerin, Viscount
D.D., ....
462
Clandeboye,
214
85.
John Jebb, Bishop of
56.
The Hon. David Robert
Limerick,
463
Plonket, ....
215
86.
The Rev. Charles William
Wall, D.D., .
469
87.
The Rev. Peter Roe, .
471
II.-ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
88.
The Rev. Charles Robert
57.
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St
Matiu-in, ....
477
Patrick's,
219
89.
The Rev. William Phelan,
480
58 John Sterne, Bishop of
90.
The Rev. Samuel O'Sul-
Clogher, ....
319
livan, D.D., .'
486
59.
Edward Synge, Bishop of
91.
The Rev. Charles Wolfe, .
495
Tuam, ....
321
92.
The Rev. Thomas Dix
60.
Hugh Boulter, Primate of
Hincks, LL.D.,
501
Ireland, ....
323
93.
The Rev. WiUiam Hamil-
61.
Thomas Parnell, Archdeacon
ton Drummond, D.D., .
502
of Clogher,
329
94.
The Rev. Charles Dicken-
62.
Dr Thomas Sheridan,
331
son, D.D.,
504
63.
George Berkeley, D.D.,
95.
The Rev. Henry Cooke,
Bishop of Cloyne, .
337
D.D., ....
506
64.
Dr Patrick Delany, .
362
96.
The Rev. Henry Mont-
65.
Philp Skelton, .
367
gomery, D.D.,
524
66.
The Rev. Dr Leland, .
368
97.
The Rev. Joseph Hutton,
67.
The Rev. Walter Blake
LL.D., ....
526
Kirwan, ....
370
98.
The Most Rev. John
68.
Thomas Percy, Bishop of
M'Hale, D.D.,
528
Dromore,
372
99.
The Rev. Hugh M'Neile,
69.
Matthew Young, Bishop of
D.D
529
Clonfert,
376
100.
The Rev. Thomas Drew,
70.
The Rev. Arthur O'Leary,
379
D.D., ....
536
71.
The Rev. Samuel Madden,
101.
Cardinal Wiseman, .
539
D.D., ....
381
102.
The Rev. James Henthorne
72.
William Magee, D.D., Abp.
Todd, D.D., .
546
of Dublin,
383
103.
The Rt. Hon. and Most
73.
Dr John Barrett,
427
Rev. R. C. Trench, D.D.,
549
74.
Thomas Lewis O'Beirne,
104.
The Rev. Wm. Archer
D.D., ....
431
Butler, ....
552
75.
John Thomas Troy, D.D., .
432
105.
The Venerable William
76.
Thomas Elrington, D.D.,
Lee, D.D.,
557
Bishop of Ferns,
434
106.
The Rev. William Arthur,
557
77.
The Rev. Adam Clarke,
107.
The Rev. Josias Leslie
LL.D
438
Porter, D.D., ,
558
78.
The Rev. Richard Graves,
108.
The Rev. John S. Monsell,
D.D., ...
442
LL.D., ....
569
79.
The Rev. Dr Miller, .
444
109.
The Rt. Rev. William
80.
The Rev. John Walker,
452
Connor Magee, D.D.,
560
1
1
CONTENTS.
vii
PAGE
PAOB
110
The Rt. Rev. Williair
I
150. Sir John Andrew Steven
Alexander, D.D., .
562
son, Mus. D., .
151. Michael William Balfe,
635
637
152. WiUiam Vincent Wallace,
639
III-
-SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND ART
153. Catherine Hayes (Mrs |
SERIES.
Bushnell),
. 640
Inteoduction, .
664
3. SCIENTIFIC AND GENERAL
WRITERS.
1. POETS AND DRAMATISTS
154. Sir Hans Sloane, M.D.,
644
111.
Oliver Goldsmith
572
155. James Ussher, .
647
112.
Philip Francis, .
582
156. David Macbride,
647
113.
Hugh Kelly,
583
157. Thomas Nugent, LL.D.,
647
114.
William Havard,
584
158. Patrick (Count) D'Arcy,
. 647
115.
Kane O'Hara,
584
159. The Rt. Hon. Isaac Barry,
648
116.
Henry Brooke, .
584
160. Robert Wood, . ^.
654
117.
Francis Gentleman, .
586
161. The Rev. Archibald Mac
118.
Thomas Sheridan,
586
laine,
. 655
119.
Charles Macklin,
589
162. Charles Macconnick, .
. 656
120.
Thomas Dermody,
590
163. The Abbe Edgeworth,
. 655
121.
Robert Jephson,
591
164. Joseph Cooper Walker,
. 655
122.
Arthur Murphy,
591
165. Edmund Malone,
656
123.
Ambrose Eccles,
692
166. William Halliday, .
656
124.
Edward Lysaght,
592
167. Richard Kirwan, LL.D.,
657
125.
Mary Tighe,
593
168. The Rev. John Lanigan
126.
Eaton Stannard Barrett, .
594
D.D., .
657
127.
Thomas Furlong,
694
169. William Marsden,D.C.L.,
660
128.
Jeremiah J. Callanan,
695
170. David Shea,
662
129.
John O'Keefe, .
596
171. Patrick KeUy, LL.D.,
663
130.
Gerald Griffin, .
597
172. Robert Murphy,
664
131.
William Maginn, LL.D.
601
173. Edward, Viscount Kings
132.
James Charles Mangan,
605
borough.
666
133.
Thomas Moore, .
608
174. John Banim,
667
134.
Thomas 0. Davis,
612
175. James M'Cullagh,
669
135.
The Countess of Gifford, .
614
176. Maria Edgeworth,
669
136.
Samuel Lover, .
614
177. The Countess of Blessing
137.
The Hon. Mrs Norton,
617
ton.
671
138.
William AUingham, .
618
178. William Hamilton Max
139.
John Anster, LL.D.,
618
well,
672
140.
Denis Florence M'Carthy, .
622
179. Thomas Crofton Croker,
180. Right Hon. John Wilson
673
2. ACTORS AND MUSICIANS
Croker, D.C.L.,
674
141.
Peg Woffington,
623
181. Lady Morgan, .
676
142.
James Quin,
625
182. The Rev. Dionysius Lard
143.
Spranger Barry,
626
ner, LL.D.,
677
144.
Miss Bland (Mrs Jordan), .
626
183. The Rev. George Croly,
145.
Miss Farren (Countess ol
LL.D., ....
678
Derby), ....
627
184. John 'Donovan, LL.D., .
679
146.
Charles John Kean, .
628
185. James Sheridan Knowles, .
681
147.
Miss O'Neill, .
631
186. Eugene O'Curry,
682
148.
Turlough O'Carolan, .
632
187. Sir William Rowan Hamil-
149.
Michael Kelly, .
635
ton, ....
683
t " 1
VUl
COITTENTS.
188. George Petrie,LL.D.,
189. Francis Sylvester Mahoney
(Father Prout),
190. William Carleton,
191. Sir James Emerson Ten
nent, Bart., .
192. Charles James Lever,
193. William Henry Betty,
194. Lieut. -General Sir Charles
James Napier,
195. Sir Martin Archer Shee
196. William Mulready, .
197. John Hogan,
198. Samuel Ferguson,
199. John Mitchel, .
PAGE
683
686
687
688
689
690
691
691
692
693
693
695
PAGB
200. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, . 697
201. Samuel Davidson, LL.D., . 697
202. Patrick MacDowell, K.A., . 698
203. James Roche, . . .698
204. Sir John Bernard Burke,
C.B., .... 699
205. James Barry, . . . 699
206. Francis Danby, . . 700
207. Marmion Savage, . . 701
208. Digby Pilot Starkey, . 701
209. Mrs Samuel Carter^Hall, . 701
210. Daniel Maclise, R.A., . 702
211. John Francis Waller, . 702
212. John Henry Foley, R.A., . 703
THE
IRISH NATION.
M D E R K
FIELD-MAKSHAL VISCOUNT GOUGH.
BORN 1779 DIED 1869.
The honours and distinctions of this galLint Irishman form a consider-
able list, and were all of his own earning. The Ilight. Hon. Sir Hugh
Gough, first Viscount Gough, of Goojerat, in the Punjaub, and of the
city of Limerick, and Baron Gough of Chin-kean-foo in China, and
of Maharajpore and the Sutlej in the East Indies, in the peerage of the
United Kingdom; and a Baronet, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., P.O., a
Field- marsiial in the army, Colonel of the Royal Horse Guards Blue,
Colonel-in-chief of the 60th Rifles, and Honorary Colonel of Volunteers,
was born, November 3, 1779, at Woodstown, tlie country seat of his
father, who was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Limerick Militia. He was a de-
scendant of the Right Rev. Francis Gough, Bisliop of Limerick in 1623.
The fortune of the family was thus founded in the county by a bishop,
in days when Irish bishops seldom failed to feather their nests; more
than two hundred years later it was ennobled by a soldier. Hugh
Gough was a fourth son ; his mother was Letitia the daughter of Mr
Thomas Buiibury of Lisnevagh and Moyle, in comity Carlow ; ar.d he
was educated at home, under her pure and refining influence, by a pri-
vate tutor. At the early age of thirteen he obtained a commission in
his father's regiment of militia, from whicii he was transferred to the
line, his commission as an ensign in the army dating from tlie 7th of
August 1794, and that of lieutenant from a month or two later.
His regiment was the 109th foot, and we find him serving as adju-
tant of that corps at an uiuisually early age. On the diibanding
of this regiment, he passed into the 78th Highlanders, which he joined
in 179.5 at the Cape of Good Hope, in time to take part iri the cap-
ture of that colony, and in that of the Dutch fleet in Saldanha Bay.
The second battalion of the 78th Regiment having been reduced,
we next find him serving in the 87tli (the Royal Irish Fusiliers) in the
West Indies, and present at the attack on Porto Rico, and the capture
IV. A Ir.
MODERN. POLITICAL.
of Surinam, and taking part in the brigand war in Sc Lucia. He liad
already gained a high reputation for soldierlike ability, when, in 1809.
he proceeded to the Peninsula to join the army under the Duke of
Wellington. As major, he had the temporary command of his regiment
then before Oporto, and at its head took a brilliant part in the opera-
tions by which Soult was dislodged. His next scene of action was
Talavera, where he was severely wounded in the side by a shell while
charging the enemy, and had his horse shot under him. On this occa-
sion his conduct was so distinguished, that the Duke of Wellington
recommended him for promotion to a lieutenant-colonelcy, urging also
that his commission should be antedated from the date of his despatch ;
and it is remarked,* in reference to this fact, that Hugh Gough was
the first officer that ever received brevet rank for services performed in
the field at the head of a regiment. At Barrosa, his regiment was
greatly distinguished, and had a large share in turning the fortunes of
the day. Among the spoils of the battle was a French Eagle, the first
taken during the war. It belonged to the 8th Kegiment of tlie enemy's
light infantry, and bore a collar of gold round its neck, an honour con-
ferred on that regiment because it had distinguished itself so much as,
on a former occasion, to deserve the thanks of Bonaparte in person.
It has ever since been borne as an honourable achievement on th<!
colours of the Royal Irish. It is almost needless to add, that the con-
duct of the Royal Irish and their gallant leader at Barrosa, was men-
tioned in terms of the highest praise in the General's despatches.
" The animating charges of the 87th," writes General Graham, " were
most distinguished. No expression of mine could do justice to the
conduct of the troops throughout. Nothing less than the unparalleled
exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and
the most determined devotion to the honour of His Majesty's arms in
all, could have achieved such brilliant success against such a formidable
enemy so posted." We next find him taking part in the defence of
Tarifa, where the portcullis tower and rampart, as the post of danger,
were entrusted to him and his regiment, and where they greatly dis-
tinguished themselves in repulsing the final attack of tlie enemy and
compelling him to raise the siege. Colonel Skervet on this occasion,
in his despatcii to Major-General Cook, was fully justified when he
wrote, "that the conduct of Colonel Gough and the 87th exceeded all
praise." Their conduct was scarcely less distinguished at Vittoria,
where the 87th captured the baton of Marshal Jourdain, the onlv
trophy of this kind taken during the war. Lord Wellington sent it to
England to be laid at the feet of the Prince Regent, who in return
sent him the baton of a field-marshal of England. At the battle of
Nivelle, a hard-fought field, Gough was again severely wounded, and
was rewarded fur his gallantry with the Gold Cross, and shortly after-
wards received the Order of St Charles from the King of Spain. For
his services at Tarifa and elsewhere, his countrymen, proud of him as
an Irishman, presented him with the freedom of the city of Dublin,
and with a sword of considerable value.
Returning to England at the close of the war, he enjoyed a brief in-
IlarL's Aril y List.
FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT GOUGII.
terval of repose; ai'tt-r whicli he was appointed to tlie coimiiand of tlie
22nd Foot, then stationed in the county Cork. This was in the interval
between 1821 and 1824. At the same time he discharged the duties
of a maq-istrate of the three adjoining counties, Cork, Limerick, and
Tipperary, during a period of great excitement and disturbance. In
1830, at the age of fifty-one, he attained the rank of field-officer; and
seven years hiter lie was called again into active service in India, where
he was destined to win a name in history as one of England's victorious
generals. Not long after he had proceeded to India, in order to take
the command of the Mysore Division of the army, difficulties arose at
Canton, which required the presence of an able and energetic military
commander. It is not within our province to dwell on the causes of
that war, or to enter into the history of the events which led to the
attack on Canton, but we cannot do better than recapitulate Gough's
services in China, in the eloquent words of Lord Derby (then Lord
Stanley), spoken in his place in Parliament : " I turn much more
gladly to contemplate the triumphant position in which England and
the British forces then stood, A force, consisting of 4500 ettectivo
men, under Sir Hugh Gough ; a fleet of 73 sail, including one line-of-
battle ship; 16 vessels of war of different descriptions, and 10 war
steamers, had forced their unassisted way, conquering as they went, up
this mighty and unknown stream, the Yang-tze-kiang, and penetrated
a distance of 170 miles, to the centre of the Chinese Empire. They
had achieved the conquest of towns and fortresses, mounting in all
above 2000 guns, which they had captured or destroyed, including
Amoy, Cliusan, Chapoo, Voosung, and Shanghai. They had subdued
cities containing a population varying from 1,000,000 down to G0,000
or 70,000. They had continually routed armies four or five, and some-
times ten times their own number; and they had done all this at a
great distance from their own resources, and in the heart of an enemy's
dominions, half across the glol)e from tlieir own native country. In
the course of all these proceedings they had maintained not only con-
stant and uninterrupted gallantry, but a soldierlike temperance and
discipline, which reflected on them a glory of the purest character
on them and on their leaders. Sir H. Gough and Sir W. Parker; and
now at length they had enabled Her Majesty's plenipotentiary, at tiie
head of a powerful fleet, and a highly disciplined army, to dictate
peace on the t^-ms prescribed by his sovereign, and had obtained
this peace on terms of perfect equality at the hands of the Emperor of
China."
On the conclusion of the treaty of Nankin, in 1842, when the
British troops were withdrawn, Sir Hugh Gough was created a baronet,
and invested with the Grand Cross of the Bath. He also received
the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and of the East India Com-
pany, for his Chinese services : the Duke of Wellington proposing the
vote in the Lords, and Lord Stanley in the Commons.
In August 1843, Sir Hugh Gough was appointed to the post of
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in India. Here, too, he well sus-
tained the reputation he had won in the West Indies, the Peninsula,
and China. He reached India in troublous times ; but having gained
the two important victories of Maharajpore and Puniar, Lord Ellen-
MODERN. POLITICAL.
borough was enabled to dictate a peace under the walls of Gwalior.
His next important operations were against the Sikhs in the Punjab,
where he was ably seconded by his gallant Peninsula comrade Henry
Yiscount Hardinge who then lield tlie Governor-Generalship. The
Sikhs had long shown signs of intended mischief, and in 1845 they
forced on a rupture with the Indian Government, and crossed tlie
Sutlej in vast numbers. The Governor-General was a most distinguished
soldier himself, but he remembered that he held the supreme civil com-
mand, and that the command of the troops belonged by right to his
old companion-in-arms, Sir Hugh Gough, under whom, however, he
volunteered to serve. Gough consented, and, ably supported by Lord
Hardinge, gave battle to the Sikhs at ]\Ioodkee on the 18th of
December, and on the 21st at Ferozeshah, where he carried by assault
the intrenched camp of the enemy, with ammunition stores and seventy
pieces of cannon. This he followed up by a third and even more
decisive victory, that of Sobraon, on the Sutlej, which was speedily
followed by the total rout of the Sikhs, and a peace dictated on our
own terms before Lahore.
The Sikhs having laid down their arms, it was hoped for ever, Sir
Hugh Gough was created a peer in April 1846, as Baron Gough, of
Chin-kean-foo in China, and of Maharaj[)ore and the Sutlej in the East
Indies, in the peerage of the United Kingdom. But the Sikhs, though
subdued for the time, were not conquered. In 1848 the ashes of the
Sikh war burst into flame again, and Lord Gough was forced once
more to take to the field. With the dash and energy of a younger
man, he went out to meet them, and defeated them a fourth time at
Kamnuggur, and again at the sanguinary and indecisive battle of
Chiiliauwallah. His crowning victory was at Goojerat, -where the
Sikh power was finally and decisively broken, and the fugitives were
pursued by Sir AValker Gilbert beyond the Indus, and being outmarched,
as well as defeated, had to lay down their arms.
Upon Lord Gough's return to England, he was advanced to a
viscountcy, by the title of Yiscount Gough of Goojerat in the Pun-
jab, and of the city of Limerick ; at the same time he again received
the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, togetlier with a pension of
i2000 a-year for himself and his two next successors in the peerage.
The East India Company followed the example of the Imperial Legis-
lature, voting him their thanks, and settling on him a corresponding
pension ; and the city of London conferred on him its freedom.
From that date Lord Gough !<aw no active service, but tlio nation did
not forget him. He was appointed Colonel-in-chief of the 60th Kifles
in 1854 ; in the following year he succeeded Lord Raglan as Colonel
of the Royal Horse Guards ; and in the year 1856 he was sent to the
Crimea to represent Her IMajesty on the occasion of the investiture of
Marshal Pellissier, and a large number of our own and of the French
officers, witli the insignia of the Bath. In 1857 he was installed a
Knight of the Order of St Patrick, being the first knight who did not
hold an Irish Peerage. In 1859 he was sworn a Privy Councillor ; in
1861 he was nominated a Kniglit Grand Commander of the Star of
India, and was appointed to the honorary Colonelcy of the London Iriiih
Volunteers; in November 1862, on tlie occasion of tlie Prince of
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH.
Wales coming of age, he received the hitest reward of a long life
spent in the service of his country in* the shape of a Field-marshal's
baton.
He died on the 2d of March, 18G9, at his residence, St Helen's,
Booterstown, and was succeeded in the peerage by his son. Lord
Gough, as a commander, showed the characteristics of his nation ; he
was hot and impetuous, and perhaps somewhat rash. With foes one
half as brave and determined as the troops he commanded, his Indian
battles might have been less glorious in their issue. His conception of
a battle was good ; but in working out its details he did not always
avoid or guard against those unfortunate mistakes by which English
battles are so often marred. Yet, taking all in all, he stands amongst
our greatest generals ; simple and affectionate, brave to excess in the
field, humble and deeply religious, Lord Gough was looked up to by
his profession and beloved in Irish society, of which, when his
military career was over, he was long an ornament and a pride.*
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH.
BOKN AUGUST 1781 DIED MAY 1847.
The Right Hon. John William Ponsonby, fourth Earl of Bessborough,
born August 31, 1781, was the eldest son of Frederick, third Earl of
Bessborough. His Lordship, who was better known as Lord Dun-
cannon, was returned in 1805 as member of Parliament for Knares-
borough, and sat successively for Higham-Ferrers and Malton. In
1826 he was retui'ned for his native county, Kilkenny, and again in
1831 ; but in 1832, he was displaced by the repeal movement, when,
rather than divide the Liberal party, he withdrew from the contest.
He next appeared in Parliament as member for Nottingham. Though
not possessed of brilliant talents, he was for many years one of the
-most active members and chief councillors of the Whig party. In
1831, Lord Duncannon was appointed First Commissioner of Woods
and Forests, and was at the same time sworn a Privy Councillor.
He continued in that office till the month of August 1834, when he
was entrusted by Lord Melbourne with the seals of the Home
Office. In April 1835, on the restoration of Lord Melbourne's min-
istry,. Lord Duncannon was appointed to his former office of First
Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and was also at the same time
entrusted with the custody of the Privy Seal. These two offices
remained thus united until, on the 16th of October 1839, Lord Claren-
* We regret that original materials for Lord Gough 's memoir have not enabled
us to do justice to the recent memory of this gallant veteran. It is scarcely
worth weaving into one of greater length, the well-worn threads of his life which
we have used in this short sketch. When sufficient time shall have passed away,
Lord Gough's son intends to undertake the publication of a memoir himself. It
sometimes happens, however, that when all contemporaries, whose feelings might
be hurt, are gone from the scene, the time for publication has also gonc^ by, and
the details, which if published immediately would have been read by all the
world with interest, are looked upon as mere rubbish of the past, and perused by
few or none.
MODERN. POLITICAL.
don was appointed Privy Seal, Lord Duncannon retaining the office of
Woods and Works. While filling this office, he deservedly earned the
gratitude of the public for the manner in which he effected most of
the tasteful improvements of the parks of London and of the Phoenix
Park in Dublin. In February 1844, by the death of his father, Lord
Duncannon became, in the sixty-third year of his age, fourth Earl of
Bessborough. When Lord Russell became Premier, in July 1846,
the Earl of Bessborough was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
His tenure of the viceroyalty, tliough of brief duration, was rendered
painfully remarkable by a crisis of unexampled magnitude in the his-
tory of Ireland, when famine and pestilence spread death and
desolation throughout the length and breadth of the land. The
condition of the country at the time the Earl of Bessborough became
viceroy, and the character of his administration, have been fairly
described by a Dublin journal, when announcing his death in the office
of Lord-Lieutenant :
" It is for the last stage of his quiet, though valuable life," says the
Freeman's Journal, " that Lord Bessborough's name will be held in
undying remembrance. He assumed the reins of power when men of
less resolute and practical minds refused the perilous duty of governing
a country whose social bonds were on the verge of dissolution, where
famine had made a fearful and desperate lodgment, where all classes
were filled with horror for the present and alarm for the future,
where the poor man was dying, the rich man desponding ; and poverty
and property struggled in death grips for the triumph and ascendancy.
There never was in the history of this country a more repelling period,
with less to invite and more to intimidate. It was in this terrible
exiiJjencv that the Earl of Bessborough came amoncj us. All welcomed
him as the representative of a house long dear to Ireland, and as con-
taining in his own character many of those elements which could not
fail to inspire popular confidence, and win the respect and forbearance
of all parties. From the moment of his arrival, not a harsli word was
spoken of his administration. He stilled the bitterness of party, and
by his measures, as well as by the kindness of his manner and amenity
of his temper, he brought all to love, to admire, and now to regret him."
He died on the 16th of May 1847, at Dublin Castle. He was the
second viceroy who died during his tenure of office the first was
George, fourth Duke of Rutland, who died some sixty years previously,
in the year 1787. The Earl of Bessborough married, November 1805,
Lady Maria Fane, third daughter of John, tenth Earl of Westmoreland,
by whom he had issue seven sons and six daughters. He was succeeded
in his title and estates by Lord Viscount Duncannon, M.P., Lord-
Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum for Carlow.
CHIEF-JUSTICE DOHERTY
BORN 1786 DIED 1850.
The life of John Doherty, Lord Chief- Justice of the Court of Common
Pleas, Ireland, afi'ords a striking illustration of social success, for it is
certain that he owed his elevation to the high rank he attained far
more to his personal talents, his polished manner, and his political con-
nection, tiian to his legal abilities, or tiie estimation in which he was
regarded as a lawyer. He had no advantages from birth or fortune.
The son of an attorney, living in no very great style, he yet took a
good place among tlie distinguished lawyers who then raised tlie Irish
bar to an honourable position, both in respect of attainments and elo-
quence. These men, when Ireland ceased to have her native Parlia-
ment, atoned, in some degree, for the loss of the "Lords and Commons
of Ireland, in Parliament assembled " and they upheld the fame of
iheir country for intellectual, as distinguished from mere professional
distinction.
In tlie now verv luifashionable street in Dublin called Steplien Street,
there lived, towards the close of the eighteenth century, an attorney
named Hugh Doherty. This street, extending from Longford Street
to Mercer Street, though now occupied by provision shops, leather
sellers, furniture brokers, and other traders, bears tlie impress of former
respectability in large houses, some of them quaintly gabelled, and
curiously adorned. Many of the finest of these mansions are let to
lodofers in tenements, and to this fate has fallen the dwelling in which
Hugh Doherty, Attorney-at-Law, breathed his last. He left a widow,
and several children, sons and daughters. One of his sons, John Doherty,
whose career forms the present memoir, afterwards tlie Lord Chief-
Justice of the Irish Court of Common Pleas, was born about tlie yetar
1786. After her husband's death the widowed Mrs Doherty removed
with her family to a small house in Stephen's Green. John Doherty
received a good education, and by his application rewarded his teacher's
care.
Having his mind well stored by his school training, John Doherty
entered Trinity College, Dublin, and completed his university career
by taking his Bachelor's degree in 1806.* He was at all times fond
of literature, and resolving to follow tlie legal profession, read law as
a student of the King's Inns. His intellectual qualities were of a
superior order. His understanding, though perhaps not capable of
grasping very subtle or abstract principles, was clear and tenacious. He
possessed deep natural feeling and refined taste, both productive of
poetical talent, which soon displayed itself. It is to be regretted that
the productions of this Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas have not
been published.
My informant states that he read a manuscript poem on " The
return of the British Army from the Peninsula," which well merited
being printed, but notliing could induce Mr Doherty to appear as an
author.
He was called to the Irish bar in Hilary Term 1808; an able man
was called about the same time, Francis Blackburne. The legal pro-
fession ill Ireland at this period boasted, as we have observed, many
whose names form a list of excellent lawyers : Plunket, Bushe, Burton,
Joy, Edward and Richard Pennefatlier, Robert Holmes, O'Connell, and
others. By the Union, being deprived of the arena of politics, which, for
* He subsequently became aii LL.D, in 1814.
8
8 MODERN. POLITICAL.
many years, before the close of the last century, had divided their atten-
tion with the studies and practice of their profession, they concentrated
all their energies upon law, and became in consequence the foremos-t advo-
cates of the dav. Some had been trained debaters in the Irisli House
of Common?, and their renown in oratory fired many an aspiring youth
to distinguish himself by the same means. Hence, perhaps the techni-
calities of the profession were too little attended to, while a flowery
mode of speaking was practised. Bushe, who was renowned for the
grace and beauty of his style, was much imitated. Doherty was con-
nected with the Bushes of Kilkenny, and naturally felt proud of the
fame of his kinsman.
Mr Doherty soon became very popular with his brethren of the bar.
He did not aspire to any very lofty eloquence, and was satisfied to be
regarded as a clever man, instead of a great lawyer. Indeed, there was
little of the lawyer about him, and if any one met him sauntering down
Grafton Street, or in one of the Dublin Squares, his tall gentlemanly
fiiTure, always well dressed, his erect bearing, and pleasant countenance,
had more the air of a dragoon officer in mufti, than a leading member of
the Irish bar. His manners partook of the same character; they were
frank and confiding; and his love of agreeable society was a marked
feature throughout his whole career.
In 1823 he was honoured by Lord Manners, then Lord Chancellor,
with a silk gown. The patronage of naming king's counsel rests with
the Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
Mr Doherty's connection with the celebrated statesman, George
Canning, naturally caused him to desire a seat in Parliament. He
was supported by the Marquis of Ormond in contesting the city of Kil-
kenny in 1826, and, although opposed by a scion of the house of
Ormond, Pierse Somerset Butler, Mr Doherty was elected after a very
severe contest. About this time he married Miss Wall of Coolnamuck,
who belonged to a family of the highest respectability, but impaired
fortunes, and the late eminent Dr Wall, Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, was one of the trustees of the marriage settlement. There
were several children of this union.
Mr Doherty's practice continued to increase on his circuit, where
his ability as a speaker, and his reputation as a good cross-examiner of
witnesses, caused him to be in much request. But he was not a mere
lawyer, a " book in breeches," as some one more pithily than elegantly
said ; he always displayed a taste for literature, and accepted the office
of Commissioner of Education. He also mixed in the troubled sea of
politics. When Mr Canning became prime minister in 1827, Mr Do-
herty was named for the office of Solicitor-General for Ireland ; but a
difficulty arose from a quarter where certainly none was expected, the
Irisl) Lord Chancellor refused to swear him into office. The reason
alleged was that he, J\Ir Doherty, was too junior a member of the bar
to be lifted over the heads of the seniors. Now, it was notorious that
he was of much longer standing in the profe'^sion than many who filled
the office. Not to refer to any date prior to the present century, I
may mention Mr M'Clelland, who was api)ointed Solicitor-General in
1802, called in 178'J, thus only thirteen years at the bar ; Mr Tlunket,
Solicitor-General in 1803, who was only sixteen years called ; and Mr
Bushe, appointed in 18U5, only thirteen years called. Tlius practice
and precedent were against the point raised by the Chancellor, for Mr
Doherty had been called twenty years. His appointment wfis regarded
with satisfaction by the Roman Catholics, as he was considered much
more favourable to their claims than Mr Joy, named as Attorney-
General. He had good temper, discretion, and that happy tact whicli
tends to keep the discordant elements of Irish society from disturbing
the Ministerial peace. The will of the people prevailed over the reluc-
tant Chancellor, and John Doherty was duly gazetted the King's
Solicitor-General for Ireland. He was again in the House of Commons,
where his talents as a debater and knowledge of Irish affairs gained
him a high reputation. He was, as might have been expected, a staunch
supporter of the principles of Mr Canning, and equally opposed the
section of the Whig party which adhered to Lord Grey, as to the
Tories, then led by Mr Peel.
Unfortunately the qualities which the Solicitor-General possessed as
a Crown prosecutor were soon put in requisition. He appears to have
been always preferred to the Attorney-General, Mr Joy, whose high
legal attainments were not so much regarded in criminal affairs as those
of his subordinate law officer.
Mr Doherty's manner and appearance were very winning. His mode
of speaking has been said to have much resembled Canning's :
' An eager and precipitated power,
Of hasty thought oustripping in an hour
What tardier wits, with toil of many a day,
Polished to less perfection by delay."
His social success in London was greater than that of any Irish bar-
rister since Curran's time. We liave been told that when his presence
was secured for a dinner party, the other invitations held forth as the
attraction, '"To meet the Irish Solicitor-General," and there was the
greatest avidity at the clubs where he was accustomed to dine to secure
the next table, and thereby come in for some of the good things which
emanated from this fascinating companion.
One of tlie important criminal cases in wluch Mr Doherty prosecuted
as Solicitor-General deserves mention here.* It is the case called " The
Doneraile Conspiracy," which was tried before Baron Pennefather and
Judge Torrens at Cork. A conspiracy, it was alleged, was formed to
murder Admiral Evans, Mr Creagh, and Mr Low, magistrates, resident
near Doneraile, in that county. The Solicitor-General and several
members of the Munster Circuit appeared for the Crown ; the prisoners
were defended at first by Messrs Pigot and McCarthy subsequently
by Daniel O'Connell. The Solicitor-General stated the case for tlie
prosecution in an eloquent and impressive speech, which was rendered
more effective by the excitement within and without the court. The
first batch of conspirators comprised four ; one, named Leary, was an
old and respectable tenant of Mr Creagh's father, and paid a rent of
220 a-year for his holding. The principal evidence was that of a pro-
fessional spy and informer, who was backed by two scoundrels, and
their allegation was that the conspiracy was hatched in a hut in Eath-
* An excellent etching of him is engraved.
10 MODERN. -POLITICAL.
olair oil the fair-day, when the old man, Leary, got the men assembled
to sign a promise to murder. That there had been attacks upon Mr Low,
and upon Dr Norcott's carriage in mistake for Mr Creagh's, was proved
in corroboration, and this was the entire evidence against the prisoners.
It was rendered improbable by the obvious falsity of a tale inserted into
their evidence by the informers, that '" if Mr Batwell of Charleville was
shot, Mr Daniel Clanchy, a Iiighly respectable magistrate and a deputy-
lieutenant of Cork, would give two hundred pounds to the man who
shot him." The counsel for the defence, however, were both young
men, without experience, and they failed to break through the brazen
assurance of tlie witnesses. The witnesses to cliaracter availed nothing,
although one of them was the father of Mr Creagh, and Leary 's land-
lord. The disturbed state of the country, the attempts upon life, and
the state of alarm and excitement into which the middle and upper
classes were tlirown, gave rise to a strong desire to oft'er up victims, and
inflict retribution on somebody : so that where it was so difficult to
procure any evidence, the worst was credited. The verdict of " Guilty"
was returned, and the four prisoners were sentenced to be hanged
within a week. This was on a Saturday, and the friends of the remain-
ing prisoners were in great alarm ; they knew that all depended on
breaking down the informer's evidence ; there was but one man whc
could be trusted to do it, and that was the first criminal lawyer of the
day, Daniel O'Connell. Both counsel urged that he should be sent for
without delay, and Burke, a friend of the prisoners, volunteered to go. Mr
O'Connell was at his country seat, Derrynane, ninety miles from Cork, in
a remote part of the county Kerry. It was five o'clock when Burke
started on horseback. All night long he urged his horse througii
the defiles of the county Kerry, and the sun had risen over the wild
iron-bound coast of Cahirciveen and the cliffs of Lamb's Head, and the
promontory separating Bantry Bay from the Kenmare river, and the
chapel bells were ringing for first Mass, and the roads were thronged
with peasantry in their Sunday garb, before the weary horseman drew
rein at the door of Derrynane. O'Connell saw this unusual-look-
ing Sunday morning visitor approaching, and divined that he was a
messenger on some important business. He ordered him to be shown
in at once.
" What brings you here to-day, my man ?" said O'Connell.
" Life or death. Counsellor," replied Burke. " At five o'clock last
evening I left Cork, and I rode since ninety long miles to tell you that
if you don't come to Cork to defend the next of the poor boys that
are to be tried at the Commission, Doherty will hang every one of
them."
O'Connell knew that this was very probably true, and that the young
men who had charge of the defence were quite incompetent to deal with
the class of witnesses who made their livelihood by prepared evidence
or treachery. Burke having got tlie Counsellor's promise to follow,
started on his return, and, as Monday morning dawned, was seen ap-
proaching Cork, after a journey of 180 miles performed on the same
horse in thirty-eight hours. From early dawn his advent was eagerly
watched and waited for, and when to the inquiry, "Is he coming?"
the joyous answer was returned, ' O'Connell will be here in an hour,"
CHIEF-JUSTICE DOHERTY. 11
a shout arose that broke the slumbers of judges and counsel. Mr
O'Connell was as good as his word ; in his light gig he drove all night
and early morning through the grandest scenery in Ireland, a strange
contrast in its silence and sublimity to the scene he was hastening to
as an actor. As he himself said, " At ten o'clock that morning, after
that glorious feast of soul, alas ! I found myself settled down amid all
the rascalities of an Irish Court of Justice."
When Mr O'Connell entered the Court-house, the Solicitor-Greneral
was stating the case against the prisoners tlien on trial. O'Connell
took advantage of the interruption caused by his entrance to apologise
to the Judges for not appearing in more professional garb than his green
frock coat. He also asked leave to have some refreshment in Court, as
he had been travelling all night. This was readily acceded to, and a
bowl of milk, some bread, and meat, constituted a repast wiiich his long
and rapid journey made most acceptable. It was plain, however, that
while Mr O'Connell was eating his breakfast, he was attentively
listening to the address to the jury, which the Solicitor-General had
commenced before he entered the Court-house. On liearing some
statement, Mr O'Connell immediately cried out, " Thafs not law."
The Judges were appealed to, and ruled with Mr O'Connell. Some-
what disconcerted, the Solicitor-General resumed, but had not pro-
ceeded much further when Mr O'Connell again interposed. " The
Crown," he said, " cannot make such a statement as that ; the Solicitor-
General has no rigiit to ofter such evidence to a jury." Again the
Solicitor-Genei-al contended he was justified in stating the case he
intended to prove ; but the Bench again coincided with the prisoners'
counsel, and the Solicitor-General's second speech was by no means
the triumphant and imposing harangue which impressed the jury on the
former day. The men then on trial were named Connor, Lynch, Wallis,
and Barrett. The principal witness against them was L)aly the spy,
who detailed that the conspiracy to murder the magistrates near
Doneraile had been a long time hatching ; that Admiral Evans was to
be shot for speaking in Parliament against the Catholics, that Mr '
Creagh and Mr Low were also marked men. Daly was corroborated
in his story by William Nowlan and David Sheehan, and the infamous
character of these tliree witnesses was a fair field for the unrivalled
skill and accurate knowledge of his countrymen possessed by O'Connell.
Accordingly he set to work to get the history of their lives from their
own lips, and it is stated, " The witnesses trembled under him, and
Nowlan, the most infamous character of the lot, cried out, 'Ah! indeed,
sir, it's little I thought I'd have to meet you here to-dav, Mr
O'Connell.' "
Not only did he expose the character of the witnesses for the pro-
secution, but he bewildered the Solicitor-General himself, and on
nearly every point the Court ruled with prisoners' counsel. He also
mimicked, witli drollery, though without much good taste, the Solicitor-
General's voice and manner. When the Crown prosecutor, in an
Anglicised tone, bade one of the witnesses leave the table, using the
usual words, " You may go down," O'Connell exclaimed, in bur-
lesque tones, " Naw daunt go daune, sir," which, sad to say, con-
vulsed the Court with laughter. Again, when the Solicitor-General
somewhat thoughtlessly said, " That allegation is made upon false facts ;"
" False fads" shouted O'Connell, " Here's a genuine Irish bull ! How,
in the name of sense, can facts be false?" The Solicitor-General
bitterly replied, " I have known false facts and false men too ! " At
lenofth, the wordv war grew so bitter that the other counsel for the
Crown felt it necessary to come to the aid of their leader, by. stating
" they shared the responsibility of the course he had taken, and nothing
was done without their approval."
The Judges then complimented the Solicitor-General, who, .in
thanking their Lordships, said, " that proud as he felt of the eulogium
of the bench, and his brethren of the bar, he was yet more proud of
the disapprobation of others," with a significant look towards Mr
O'Connell.
The jury, on this occasion, failed to agree to a verdict. They were
not satisfied with the story detailed by the witnesses for the prosecution,
who, they considered, were not to be credited. Mr O'Connell's success
in showing the true character of these wretches, and his triumph over
the Solicitor- General, was the subject of conversation throughout the
whole country.
A greater success was in store for the prisoners' counsel. When the
third trial was entered on, and John Burke and John Sliine were
standing at the bar, tried for the capital offence, O'Connell, while
cross-examining Daly the spy, was handed, by one of the presiding
Judtres, Baron Pennefather, the information made bv Dalv before the
Justices of the Peace. A very great discrepancy appeared between the
sworn deposition and the story told to the jury. This was made
known, and the matter was no sooner denounced by Mr O'Connell than
the jury unhesitatingly acquitted the prisoners.
This was the crowning triumph, for it was upon the same evidence
the men had been convicted in his absence, though neither M'Carthy nor
Pigot had the opportunity of seeing this discrepancy. The other
cases were not proceeded with. O'Connell had acted wisely if he had
I rested content with the success he had already gained at the trial. He
went on to attack the course taken by the Solicitor-General, whom he de-
nounced at several public meetings, and said he would impeach him for
his merciless conduct in withholdinof Dalv's information from the Court.
The Solicitor-General's answer was, " That he did not withhold the
information of Patrick Daly ; that it was upon the bench ; and that
the Crown did not rest the case upon Daly's evidence at all. That no
steps were taken without the advice and approval of Mr Serjeant Goold,
Mr R. W. Greene, and Mr George Bennett, three men eminent at tlie
bar, and remarkable for their humane and kind dispositions." The
Irish Solicitor-General was not the man to be provoked with impunity.
O'Connell stated repeatedly he would bring his conduct before the
House of Commons, and there Doherty resolved to fight for his reputa-
tion and maintain the propriety of his conduct. O'Connell had triumphed
in the Court-house before the people. Doherty knew that he would
have a more impartial auditory, and be listened to with more patience
by the British House of Commons ; so he waited impatiently until
O'Connell fulfilled his threat. But O'Connell showed no desire to do
so, and frequently, during the session of 1830, the members of the
CHIEF-JUSTICE DOHEETY. 13
House of Commons heard the Irish Solicitor refer to the subject, and
dare the hon. member to bring forward any charge against him. " I
curiously watch," he said, " every stone of the bridge that my adversary
so ingeniously lays down for the purpose of running away." Goaded
by those taunts, O'Connell at last gave notice for the 12th of May 1830.
Having detailed to the House the events which had taken place, Mr
O'Connell concluded by moving, that there be laid before the Hou>(j
copies of any deposition or information sworn by Patrick Daly, tin;
witness at the Special Commission held in Cork in October last, relative
to certain conspiracies to murder, wherewith Edniond Connor and
others were charged on that occasion ; and also copies of the notes of
the Judges who tried those cases.
Tiie Solicitor-General entered into a very elaborate defence of his
conduct when replying to O'Connell. He said he stood there to defend
the administration of justice in Ireland from a charge most singular in
its nature, and to resist a notion for which there was not, and he trusted
never would be, a precedent. He did not deny that he felt an indig-
nant, and he hoped a just, sense of an attempt made, for the first time,
to establish an appeal from the Judges and Juries of Ireland to that
House ; calling upon it, without the benefit of hearing witnesses, without
the power even of examining witnesses upon oath, to review, and per-
haps to reverse, the solemn decision of a Jury and a Judge, deliberately
formed after a patient examination, upon oath, of all tiiose who could
give evidence upon the matter. Yet to such a motion was he then
called upon to speak, though he had thought a charge was to be
brought against himself, directly and exclusively, for his conduct in the
case, in having gone on with the examination of a witness whom he
knew to be perjured, in order to get, at all events, a verdict against the
prisoners. The Solicitor-General then detailed the appointment of the
Special Commission, and his having been sent to Cork to conduct the
trials, as well as the course of the trial, and the verdict of guilty, although
the Judge had on the bench before him the important document, for a
copy of which the hon. and learned gentleman now called. He main-*
tained that, without that deposition, there was evidence to convict the
prisoners, although from that deposition, on a succeeding day, the
Judge saw enough to direct the acquittal of another prisoner. He did
not object to the hon. and learned gentleman preferring this charge
against him in Parliament, but what he did object to was, that the hon.
and learned gentleman had cast the most unfounded imputations upon
him in his absence elsewhere, and had attempted to excite public pre-
judice against him in Ireland. In that country, the charge that public
justice was not fairly administered never failed to produce fatal conse-
quences. Nothing could be more unjust than the imputation that he
had shown himself callous to the fate of the prisoners at Cork. He
tiien read extracts from O'Connell's denunciations of him at various
places, and described his opening speech at Cork as " but the hallooing
on of the country gentlemen against the wretclied peasantry of the
country." "Was it proper, he would ask, was it just, thus to descril)e
h.im ? Was lie who had passed his whole life amongst the people of
Ireland v,'ho had been brought up and lived in the country was he
whose pursuits and avocations brought him into hal)its of daily inter-
14
MODERN. POLITICAL.
course with the population of Ireland, to be thus held forth as a person
employed in " hallooing on the country gentlemen against the wretched
peasantry."* Having denounced in strong language Mr O'Conneli's
speech at Youghal, the Solicitor-General mercilessly lashed the member
for Clare for not having brought before the House the cliarges he pro-
mised to make against him (the Solicitor-General). "He had hastened
over from Ireland the first day of the session, expecting to be called,
as the hon. member had said, before the bar of the House. He had
waited a day or two, allowing something for the modesty of the profes-
sion to which the hon. member belonged; he had waited a few days
more, allowing something for the hon. member's own modesty ; he had
waited yet a little longer on account of his peculiar modesty both as an
Irishman and a lawyer ; but greatly to his surprise, the hon. gentleman
made no accusation against him in that House." He also alluded to
O'Conneli's intemperate speeclies respecting the treatment of Ireland,
aud how he (the Solicitor-General) had always been the zealous
advocate of Catholic emancipation. Alluding to Canning, he said,
' ' Oft has his voice my captive fancy led,
1 loved him living, I adore him dead.'
In reference to the Emancipation Act, he said Mr Canning declared
that he should rejoice in disappointing the guilty hopes of those who
delight not in tranquillity and concord, but in grievance and remon-
strance, as screens for their own ambitious purposes, and who consider
a state of turbulence and discontent as best suited to the ends they
have in view. " That effect the Bill had produced," added the Solicitor-
General. It had, by taking away the causes of agitation, falsified the
guilty hopes of those who sought distinction amidst trouble, and whose
turbulent ambition, which could only be gratified by the violence of
party contentions, was disappointed by the general tranquillity and
general satisfaction which that healing Act had effected. He concluded
by expressing his readiness to give the hon. gentleman the depositions
of Patrick Daly, but not the Judge's notes.f
The accession of Earl Grey to office in 1830 occasioned many important
changes in Ireland. Sir Anthony Hunt was succeeded as Lord-Chancellor
by LordPlunket. This caused a vacancy on the Common Pleas bench,
of which the great Irish orator, Plunket, was Chief-Justice, and to this
high place was appointed the Solicitor-General, John Doherty. The
appointment created very great surprise. It indicated open war be-
tween the Government and O'Connell ; for the Solicitor-General had,
in his speech on the Doneraile conspiracy, as we have seen, administered
llie severest castigation O'Connell ever received in or out of Parliament.
His having done so naturally made him popular with the Tories and
unpopular with the great mass of the Irish people, and for a Whig Go-
vernment to bestow so very exalted a judgeship upon such a man made
many wonder what would be the consequence. Besides, Doherty's
reputation at the bar diil not entitle him to be placed over the heads
of Warren. Blackburne, Edward Pennefather, or other barristers greatly
* Hansard, "Parliamentary Debates," vol. xxiv., second series, p. C16.
+ Hansard, "Parliamentary Debates," vol. xxiv., second series, p. 625.
motion was negatived by a majority of 58.
The
surpassing him in legal renown. It soon, however, transpired that the
new policy of Lord Anglesey was to be tliat of taking men of all
politics, and, by fusion, healing the old sores of Irish discontent. Tiius
he selected Mr Blackburne as Attorney-General, Mr Crampton as
Solicitor-General. This, he thought, would please the Protestant.^,
while making Mr O'Loghleii a Serjeant, and Mr Wolfe a Crown Pro-
secutor, would be sure to satisfy the Catholics. Moore, the poet, com-
pared his Excellency to an equestrian guiding a pair of horses :
" So rides along, with canter smooth and pleasant,
That horseman bold, Lord Anglesey, at present,
Papist and Protestant the coursers twain,
That lend their necks to his impartial rein ;
And round the ring, each honoured as they go
"With equal pressure from his graceful toe,
To the ohl medley tune, half ' Patrick's Day,'
And half ' Boyne Water,' take their cantering way
While Peel, the showman, in the middle cracks
His long- lashed whip, to cheer the doubtful hacks."
Ere long. Lord Anglesey was doomed to find the eflect of trying to
manage two doubtful hacks. The poet's warning was fully verified -
" If once my Lord his graceful balance loses
Or fails to keep each foot where each horse chooses,
If he but give one extra touch of whip,
To Papist's tail, or Protestant's ear tip.
Off bolt the severed steeds, for mischief free.
And down between them plumps Lord Anglesey."
Though there was a very great outcry upon the elevation of Mr
Doherty to the Bench, he soon sliowed that, so far as the duties of his
court were concerned, there was no just ground for complaint. Those
who carefully look through the volume of " The Law Recorder,"* which
contains many of his decisions from the first day he sat on the bench,
will find no ground for thinking he was not fully able to maintain his
position. Those who have practised before him have borne testimony
in his favour that he was painstaking, courteous, and patient. His
judgments in Lynet v. Lynet,f Roner v. Mahon,| O'Callaghan v. Clare,
and numeroub other cases to be found in the Irish Reports, prove that,
while the Cliief-Justice adhered to the views he believed to be true,
when any error was pointed out to him he readily yielded up his own
views, and pronounced the judgment of the Court with dignity. If
there was no very great display of erudition on his part, he showed
considerable acuteness and industry. When addressing jurors he was
always clear and concise, or, if the occasion demanded, full and expla-
natory, without being dictatorial. To the bar he was courteous and
impartial, never showing any individual preference, and, while pre-
serving due decorum, rarely betrayed into severe rebuke.
The Chief-Justice stood high in the estimation of the chiefs of all par-
ties. He was promoted to the bench by Earl Grey, and when Sir
Robert Peel became Prime Minister in 1834, he is said to have made
* " The Law Recorder," vol. iv. p. 88.
t Ibid. vol. iv. old series, p. 227.
J Ibid. vol. ii. new series, ii. p. 118.
Ihid. p. 129.
10 MODERlST. POLITICAL.
overtures to Mr Doiierty to exchange the Court of Common Pleas for
the House of Commons, in which his debating powers had made him so
useful. This attempt, if made, was not successful. Mr Doherty had
gained a position which combined high pay and light work, an elevated
station, unsliaken by the turmoil of politics, and undisturbed by changes
of Governments. He therefore remained Chief-Justice of the Common
Pleas. Many regretted this decision. They felt sorry that one so
fitted to adorn the Senate sliould be confined to the Common Pleas
that one so qualified to represent an Irish constituency with energy
and credit should not do so; but undoubtedly the Chief-Justice acted
wisely. He appears to have entertained hopes of one day entering the
Upper House, and, no doubt, his fine person and dignified address
rendered him well qualified for the more stately assembly of the
Peers. Here his intellectual gifts, his impressive oratory, his genial and
social nature, would have insured him a warm welcome. It has been
said that the Attorney's son was proud of his connection with aristo-
cracy, and the fine portrait of George Canning, which overhung the
mantel-piece of his dining-room in Ely Place, denoted at once his taste
and predilection. Indeed, in his play of feature, and habitual cast of
countenance, lie sometimes reminded one of Mr Canning, and. the late
Earl of Carlisle was so struck with the resemblance, tliat he addressed
some graceful verses to the Chief-Justice, in which he refers to this
likeness.
It is sad to think that the closing years of this genial and joyous
disposition should have been clouded with heavy losses. The railway
mania, for it was little else, which set in towards 1846, and lasted for a
brief but momentous space, involved the Chief-Justice in its frenzy. It
is stated that he realised no less than eighty thousand pounds, but better
he had never gained a penny. He did not rest satisfied with his gains.
What speculator ever does ? He went again into the market, when the
"tables turned ; shares went down, calls were made, the fluctuations had
ceased there was continual depression. The eighty thousand pounds
dwindled away; but that was not the worst, all tiie savings and accumu-
lations which the Chief-Justice had made went, and the hopes of his
life were blighted. The natural buoyancy of his spirit sustained him
long ; but who can bear the constant and continuous run of ill-luck.
At last his spirits gave way, his health failed, and he died at Beaumaris,
North Wales, on the 8th of September 1830.
THE EARL OF RODEN.
BORN OCTOBFR 1788 DIED MARCH 1870.
PiOBERT JoCELYN, third Earl of Roden, Viscount Jocelyn, and Baron
Newport of Newport, county Tipperary, in the peerage of Ireland,
Baron Clanbrassil, of Hyde Hall, in the peerage of the United
Kingdom, and a Baronet of England, was born October 27, 1788.
He succeeded to the title June 29, 1820. His lordship was Senior
Knight of St Patrick, to which dignity he was instituted in the year
1821 ; he was also a member of Her Mnjesty's Privy Council, both of
England and Ireland, and Gustos Rotulorum of the county Louth. He
-was the eldest son of Robert, second Earl, by his first wife. Miss
Frances Theodosia Bligh, oldest daughter of the Very Rev. Dr Bligh,
Dean of Elphin, and cousin of the second Earl of Darnley. He was
born at Urockley Park, Queen's County, and received his early
education at Harrow School, where he had for his school-fellows Feel,
Byron, Palmerston, and the late Earl of Ripon. During his father's
lifetime as Viscount Jocelyn, he represented the county of Louth in
Parliament, for about ten or twelve years, on the highest Tory prin-
ciples, and was from the very first a most unflinching opponent of
Roman Catholic emancipation. In 1820 he succeeded to the Irish
titles of his father, who had been one of the representative Peers for
many years before his death. He was thus debarred froTu sitting in
the Lower House for an Irish constituency, while his peerage gave
him no seat in the Upper House of the Imperial Legislature. In the
following year, however, at the coronation of George IV., in whose
household, as in that of George III., he held one or two offices of
dignity, first as Treasurer and afterwards as Vice-Chamberlain, he
was raised to an English peerage by the title of Baron Clanbrassil, a
dignity which had formerly belonged to his maternal ancestors, but had
become extinct. From a very early age, both in and out of Parlia-
ment, the noble Earl was a most zealous and consistent advocate of
the interests of the Irish Protestant party. Like his brotlier-in-law,
Lord Powerscourt, and the late Lord Farnham, he became identified
with what was called the "Evangelical party." At the great Pro-
testant meeting in Dublin, in January 1837, he strongly advocated
the preservation of the Protestant Church; and during the recent
agitation for its disestablishment, he was one of the most strenuous
opponents of that measure. In his political creed, too, he exhibited
the same strong and uncompromising devotion to high Conservative
principles. In his place as a member of the Upper House, Lord
Roden showed himself on every opportunity the steady champion of
the Irish Protestant party. In 1839 he succeeded in a motion for
inquiry into the state of Ireland, and obtained a select committee for
that jmrpose. In the same year he divided the House of Lords
against the second reading of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill, but
found himself with comparatively few supporters.
In 1831 he became president of the Irish Protestant Conservative
Society ; and some years later he enrolled himself, along with the
great mass of the Protestant yeomanry of the north of Ireland, in the
Orange Association. He was the principal mover in organising the
o-reat aggregate meetings of August 1834 and January 1837 ; to
which may be added the great Downshire meeting in the October of
the former vear. He was chairman of the Grand Orange Lodge;
when in 1836 it w^as resolved that the association should be dissolved,
in deference to an authority to which he felt obliged, though reluctantly,
to bow.
He was for many years a magistrate for the counties of Down and
Louth; but in 1840, he, with Mr Beers, Grand Master of Down, was
dismissed from the commission of the peace after the report of the
commissioners on the famous Dolly's Brae aflfair.
IV. B ^'-
18 MODERN. POLITICAL.
Ill lute years his declining health rendered hiia unfit for active
political life. He died at Edinburgh on the 20th of March 1870, in his
eighty-second year.
In private life Lord Koden vras universally esteemed and beloved,
and in spite of his known strong religious and political opinions, he
was respected for his personal good qualities by men of every
creed and party with whom he came in contact. He had the reputa-
tion of being one of the best landlords in Ireland. On the 29th of
January 1813, he married the Hon. Maria Frances Catherine Stapleton,
second daughter of Thomas, twenty-second Lord Le Despencer ; and
by that lady, who died in 1861, he had four sons and five daughters.
His eldest son, Eobeft Viscount Jocelyn (born 1816, died 1854),
was married in 1841, to Lady Frances Elizabeth Cowper, youngest
daughter of the fifth Earl of Cowper, and left two sons and two
daughters ; the eldest of these, Robert Viscount Jocelyn, Lieutenant
1st Life Guards, born 22d November 1846, succeeded to the late
Earl's titles and estates.
GENERAL CHESNEY.
BOEN 1789 DIED 1872.
Francis Eawden Chesney, the pioneer of the overland route to
India, was born at Bally veagh, in the nortli of Ireland, on the 16th of
March 1789, and was named after his sponsor, the late Marquis of
Hastings. He was educated at Woolwich, whence he entered the Eoyal
Military Academy in January 1804. In the November following he
passed his examination for the Eoyal Artillery, and obtained a first-
lieutenancy on the 28th of October 1805. In March 1808 he proceeded
with his regiment to Guernsey, where he remained for some time on
the staff as aide-de-camp to Sir A. Gladstanes, occupying himself in
the study of military tactics. Having seen some active service in 1815,
he became captain, and in 1821 he was sent to Gibraltar, whence he
returned in 1825, after the death of his wife. It was while he was
stationed at Gibraltar that he conceived the idea of crossing the
African desert to solve the problem of the source of the Niger, but the
project was abandoned. In 1827 and 1828, he visited the great
battle-fields of Europe, and afterwards carefully examined those
of the East. In 1829, Captain Chesney sailed for Constantinople, on
leave of absence, resolved to offer his services to the weaker side in
the struggle of 1828-9 between Eussia and Turkey. Having taken
with him strong recommendations from Sir Sydney Smith, he was
employed by the Porte in fortifying the passes of the Balkan;
but the treaty of Adrianople, which was concluded soon after his
arrival, terminated his operations. He now took the opportunity ol'
visiting the scenes of the late conflict, and collecting materials for a
narrative of the Eusso-Turkish campaign of 1828-9, a work which was
not published till long after the well-known narrative of Major von
Moltke, now the famous Marshal, had already occupied the field.
From the Danube, Captain Chesney having obtained an extension of
his leave of absence, proceeded to visit Greece and Asia Minor, and
was soon after despatched to Egypt on a political mission from Sir
Robert Gordon, the British Ambassador at Constantinople in 1829.
While in Egypt, he had placed in his hands, by Consul-General
Barker, a series of questions drawn up by tlie late Mr Peacock, tlie
Principal Examiner of the India House, as to tlie relative advantages
of tlie Egyptian and Syrian routes to India. Being strongly impressed
with the importance of these questions, he submitted pro})Osals to our
Government, through Sir Robert Gordon, that he should make a per-
sonal examination of the several routes and report the result. Taking
for granted that the Government would approve of his design, and that
no difficulty would arise about leave, Captain Chesney, with character-
istic energy, at once commenced the task he had proposed to himself, with-
outwailiiigfortheapproval expected, farless for anyfunds, save those pro-
vided by the assistance of private friends. "The approval came in good
time, but not the funds ; and it was eighteen years after the journeys
were completed, which prepared the way for his Euphrates expedition,
that the personal intervention of the Prince Consort procured the
repayment from the Treasury of the actual personal outlay incurred in
them by the explorer." Chesney, however, not foreseeing, and even if
he had foreseen, not being likely to bedeterredbydifficultiesof thiskind,
started on his expedition, and proceeding up the Nile to Cairo, and
thence to Suez, he sailed down the Red Sea to Kosseir. From Kosseir
he crossed the Desert to the Nile at Kenneh, ascended to the Second
Cataract, and returning, descended the river to the Damietta mouth.
On the many interesting details of this journey it would be unsuitable
to enter within the narrow limits of a memoir, but the results may be
stated as follows : " That a steamer might reach Kosseir from Bombay
in fourteen days, and that the transit of the mails from thence to Alex-
andria could be accomplished in four days ; while by the shorter line
Suez would be reached in fifteen days from Bombay, and the Mediter-
ranean at Damietta, or the entrance of the Nile in two more."
Besides examining the Damietta mouth, it was part of Chesney 's
duty to survey the Isthmus of Suez, and the outlets through Lake
Menzaleh, with a view to reporting on the practicability of carrying
out the great project of a ship canal, the first suggestion of which in
modern times was due to the savants of the French Republic. Owing,
however, to some serious errors in taking the line of levels in 180l^,
the French engineers had reported the Red Sea as 36 feet higher than
the Mediterranean; and at the time of Chesney's observations, the
belief prevailed that if the Isthmus was to be pierced by an opening
from sea lo sea, several towns along the shore would inevitably be
submerged.
Captain Chesney, with extraordinary boldness and discernment, re-
jected their conclusions as erroneous, and confidently expressed his
belief that a canal passage for steamers and other vessels could be
opened through the Isthmus of Suez, without even so much disadvan-
tage in respect of current as is experienced in the case of the Bos-
porus. This remarkable prediction, contained in his report on the
subject of the overland route, via Egypt, dated from Jafla, September
2, 1830, remained almost unnoticed, until disinterred from the Foreign
20 MODERN. POLITICAL.
Office Archives by a London journalist after tlie " Lesseps " canal had
become a declared success. In reference to his report, General Chesney
thus writes in 1868, in his narrative of the Euphrates Expedition :
" The practical question, however, appeared then as now to be one of
expenditure ; and considering the enormous cost on the one hand, and
the certainty of a speedy overland communication being established
across the narrow desert between Cairo and the Red Sea on the other,
the possibility of constructing a ship canal to Suez did not long con-
tinue to occupy my thoughts. They were now turned to the alterna-
tive route through Syria and Mesopotamia, the exploration of which
had next to be entered upon." The narrative of his journey through
Palestine, Syria, the region of Decapolis, and the Mesopotamian desert,
is full of incident and interest. It was on the 2nd of January 1831 that,
all preliminary difficulties having been surmounted, Chesney found
himself at last afloat on the great historic river, the Euphrates. The
history of these explorations has been given to the world in a volume
begun in the 77th year of the author's life, at the request of the Go-
vernment; and the narrative of the Euphrates Expedition, published in
the year 1868, is one of the most interesting on record. The name of
General Chesney is associated with tlie exploration of the Euphrate.3
even more indissolubly than that of Franklin, M'Clure, and M'Clin-
tock with the great and well-known expedition in the Polar Seas, or
that of Livingstone with Southern Africa. " From an ordinary posi-
tion as an unknown regimental officer, he stepped at once into fame in
consequence of his discoveries; and though never destined to see the
full accomplishment of his hopes in the completion of a mail route
down the Euphrates, he devoted many years of retirement to its ad-
vocacy, with unshrinking faith in the advantages of the scheme his
energy had first made possible. Chesney returned to England in
1832 ; and in 1834, the House of Commons having granted L.20,000
for the purpose of what is known as ' the Euphrates Expedition,' " was
undertaken " a task, as has been remarked, made difficult, not only
by physical obstacles, but by the opposition of the Russian Govern-
ment, the timidity or prejudices of some of our own Indian politicians,
and the ignorance of our mechanical engineers as to the possibility of
building flat-bottomed vessels for steam. The aid of a scientific friend,
'a mere theorist,' the late Professor Narrien, overcame the last obstacle;
and the energy of the projector, favoured by the royal countenance
William lY. who tooka warm personalinterestinthedesign didtherest."
On the 10th of February 1835, Chesney, with the rank of Colonel
on a particular service, and a staff" of his personal selection, sailed from
Liverpool for the East. After many difficulties and delays, which occu-
pied nearly nine months, the two steamers, the " Tigris " and the
" Euphrates," were transported across tlie desert bit by bit, and finally
launched on the great river, on tiie 16th of March 1836. One of these
ships, the " Tigris," with all her instruments, surveys, and journals, was
sunk by a violent typhoon, and when Chesney, who was on board,
with difficulty escaped, his two lieutenants and most of the crew
perished ; but the undaunted voyagers held on their way, and reached
the Indian Ocean in safety on the 19th of June, and Chesney reported
himself to tlie Indian Government at Bombay. Hurrying back
GENERAL CHESNEY. 21
to England in triumph, he found on his arrival at Leghorn on the 24th
of July that he had lost, by the death of William the IV., his, and the
expedition's best friend and supporter. Having arrived in London on
the 8th of August, a busy period ensued, attendant on the winding-up
of all the affairs of the expedition. Early in October Colonel Chesney
was busily occupied in moving, through Lord Glenelg, who had suc-
ceeded Sir John Hobhouse as President of the Board of Control, to ob-
tain promotion for the officers of the expedition. In November he laid
the completed maps before the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel,
who encouraged him to look for the assistance of Government in brinar-
ing out !iis intended work on the expedition, and the countries through
which it had passed. Early in 1838 the three naval officers, Charle-
wood, Fitzjames, and Eden, received their promotion ; but that of
Lieut. Cleaveland was delayed until he should fill up his sea-time.
The promotion of these officers, and the payment of their expenses, was
owing to the patient remonstrance of Colonel Chesney. By the be-
ginning of the new year the maps were far advanced, and a complete
account returned to the Treasury, when Chesney had the satisfaction of
hearing that the Lords of the Treasury considered some mark of appro-
bation due to the commander of the expedition. The hope of such a
recommendation gave Colonel Chesney great satisfaction, the more so as
it happened that the Government Minute had only been in part carried
out by conferring on him the brevet of Lieut.-Colonel from April 27,
1838, instead of the previous date of November 27, 183i. But in this,
as in mnny other matters, he was doomed to disappointment ; owing to
a change of Government, and his own employment for some years in
a distant regimental command, his eminent services remained unacknow-
ledged, and the subject of a special pension was allowed to fall through.
He was requested by the Government to undertake the history of
his labours in the East, and in the year 1852 he published in two
volumes an account of some of the results of the Euphrates Expedition,
including an historical and geographical survey of the regions traversed
by the Euphrates. In this work tiie author intended to have included
a full narrative of his first exploration of the rival routes through
Egypt and Syria, as well as a detailed account of the subsequent sur-
vey. In the prospectus of the proposed work, published in 1852,
this design was sketched out and given to the public ; but it appearing
to the department, under whose auspices this publication was con-
ducted, that the completion of such a design would be attended with
what then seemed undue expense, the author consented to limit the
work to the incomplete form in which it afterwards appeared. After
the lapse of sixteen years, however, it was thought advisable by Her
Majesty's Government, having regard to the greatly increased import-
ance of the Overland Route question, that it would be for the public
advantage that the materials of information remaining in Colonel
Chesney's hands should be rendered accessible, he received commands
to proceed with the work, which he afterwards gave to tiie ])ublic in
one volume in the year 18G8. To this we have already referred. Tlie
expenses attendant on the production of Chesney's first work were
very considerable, and notwithstanding the earnest rei)resentations ol
the late Prince Consort, Sir Robert Inglis, Baron Humboldt, and
others, he found considerable difficulty in recovering the full amounts
expended in his undertaking, and was still soliciting the Treasury for
liual justice in the matter when his health broke down. He died at
his residence in the county Down, on the 30th of January 1872,
at the advanced age of eighty-three, having served successive sove-
reigns through a period of sixty- seven years. He received such honours
as Universities and Royal Societies can bestow, and lived to refuse, as
coming thirty years too late, the honour which would have amply re-
paid him had it been bestowed when first he returned from the East.
Of his military life it has been well remarked, that he was an earnest
student of the theory of his profession, and an ardent reformer of our
artillery, when all reform was counted dangerous, and all reformers
were obnoxious. But though his work on artillery was once a standard
book, the science has long advanced beyond it. In 1852 he published
his " Observations on the Past and Present State of Fire-arms," and on
the probable eft'ects in war of the new musket, a work which in the
histoi-y of military science in this country will be referred to as a re-
markable example of prescience and sagacity.
He commanded the artillery in Ciiina as Brigadier-General, in
1&13-47, and held the command of the artillery in the south of Ireland
from 1848 till 1852. He attained the rank of Major-Greneral in 1855.
His reputation, however, rests on another and more lasting foundation
than that of his military services. " Other men have entered into his
geographical labours, and grown great by following them up ; but to
him sdll remains the credit of the undaunted efforts v.-hich opened to
modern civilisation the great river of ancient history." Ireland may
indeed be proud to count him among her sons, and the kingdom at
large will long recognise in him one of its most truly loyal and well-
deserving members.
SIR MICHAEL o'LOGHLEN, BAET.
BORN OCTOBER 1789 DIED SEPTEMEEU 1842.
The Eight Hon. Sir Michael O'Loghlen, born on the 1st of October
1789, was the fourth and youngest son of Colman O'Loghlen, a Justice
of tlie Peace, who resided at Port, county Clare, and traced his blood
through royal veins to the "Princes of Burren." In 1811, he was
called to the Irish bar, and for several years remained without
practice. It is said that he owed his first success to O'Connell's
unfortunate duel with D'Esterre. He was the junior counsel in a case
of importance, and in the absence of his leader, who was engaged
elsewliere in a trial of a very different kind, he was unexpectedly
obliged to take upon himself the sole advocacy of his client's case.
Though embarrassed at first by natural diffidence and inexperience, he
gradually warmed to his work, and after a masterly address of two
hours, he resumed his seat amidst the astonishment of the bench and
senior bar, and the audible approbation of his brother juniors. From
that time his reputation was established, and business flowed in so
rapidly, that in a few years he reached a position of wealth and
LORD MONTEAGLE. 23
eminence. As Mr Sers'eant 0'Los;hlen, lie contested the borough
election of the city of Dublin ; his opponents being Mr Shaw (after-
wards Recorder of Dublin) and Lord Ingestre. In 1834, he was
appointed Solicitor-General, by the Melbourne administration. In
1835 he entered Parliament, and in a short time attracted the
avourable notice of the House as a most efficient law officer, and most
successful debater. On the elevation of Mr Perrin to the Court
of Queen's Bench, at the close of the year 1835, Mr O'Loghlen
became Attorney-General for Ireland. He filled this high office for a
period of two years, and gave entire satisfaction to the legal and
general public. He was next promoted to the office of Ciiancellor of
the Exchequer in Ireland, but in a few weeks resigned that position,
and accepted the INIastership of the Rolls, which had become vacant by
the death of Sir William M'Mahon. He was afterwards created a
baronet. As a judge, he gave the highest satisfaction to the bar and
the suitors who came before him. In September 1842, he died in
England, to which he had repaired for the benefit of his health. The
bar of Ireland erected a statue to his memory in the hall of the Four
Courts, Dublin. In private life, he was esteemed and beloved ; in^his
jiublic career, he ever approved himself able, courteous, and just. Sir
Michael married, on the 3d of September 1817, Bidelia, daughter of
Daniel Kelly, Esq. of Dublin, and left issue eight children, of whom
the eldest, Colman, succeeded him in his title and estates.
LORD MONTEAGLE.
BORN FEBRTJARY 1790 DIED FEBRUARY 1866.
The Right Hon. Thomas Spring-Rice, Lord Monteagle, of Brandon,
county Kerry, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, F.R.S., F.G.S.,
&c., was the only son of Mr Stephen Edward Rice, of Mount
Trenchard, by Catherine, only child and heiress of Thomas Spring of
Ballvcrispin, county Kerry. He was born in Limerick on the 8th of
February 1790, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,
where he took his degree in 1811. On the 11th of July 1811 he
married a daughter of tlie Earl of Limerick ; and in 1820, he entered
Parliament as one of the members for his native city, which he continued
to represent in the Whig interest down to the passing of the Reform
Bill in 1832, when he was chosen for Cambridge, and sat for that
borough until his elevation to the Peerage in 1839, Mr Spring-Rice
was the fast friend of O'Connell, and as such took a prominent part in
the great Catholic question, and lent his support to all the other
liberal measures proj)osed by his party.
He was made under Secretary of State for the Home Department
in 1827 ; and when at length the Whigs came fully into possession of
their power, he became successively Secretary of the Treasury and
Secretary for the Colonies, and Ciiancellor of the Exchequer. The
first of these oflices he shared at one time with Mr Edward Ellice, and
afterwards with Sir Charles Wood ; the second he held for a very short
period ; the third he filled for five years, and it was in tlie discharge
24 MODERN. POLITICAL.
of its duties that he gained celebrity. In 1839, he resigned the office
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and succeeded the late Sir J. Newport,
as Comptroller-General of that department, being at the same time
raised to the Peerage.
He was a capable man of business, and as the mouthpiece of a
powerful Irish interest, he acquired with his party great influence in
the House of Commons. Though his abilities were not considered
as of a very high order, he managed to discharge the duties of the
several important posts which he filled most creditably, and faii'ly
earned the confidence of his friends. The Whig ministry was sorely
ridiculed in those days, and no one came in for a greater share of the
satire they provoked than Mr Spring-Eice. The smallness of his
stature was made the most of by his satirists, and turned into a very
serious cause for public ridicule and contempt. He was a dull and
tedious speaker, and was frequently accused of jobbing. To quote the
woi-ds of a candid reviewer of his life,* " If we must not speak of Lord
Monteagle as either a very strong or a high-minded man, we must do
him justice as a shrewd one, and a good partisan. If he was not a bril-
liant minister, he was at least a useful one; and if he failed as a
financier in a time of great difiiculty, it must be remembered in his
favour, that while Irish aftairs were all important, he did good ser-
vice, and fairly earned the confidence of his friends." After his re-
tirement from the Cabinet, he may be said to have almost retired into
private life, only that about six years before his death, when Mr
Gladstone's famous budget was announced, he led the attack upon it
in the House of Lords. Mr Gladstone and his friends naturally spoke
with contempt of an attack upon the budget led by a Whig financier,
who, as they said, had been laughed out of the Exchequer; but this
did not necessarily invalidate the criticism of Lord Monteagle; and it
was no small tribute to his prudence that, twenty-one years after he
had resigned the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, a considerable
party in the legislature AVhig and Tory were willing to regard hirn
as an authority on a question of finance. That was liis last appearance
on tlie great stage to which he had been so long accujtomed.
His Lordship frequently acted as a member of Ptoyal Commissions on
matters of taste and art, and bestowed considerable pains on the work
of examining and reporting upon the decimal coinage question. He
took a prominent part in the discussion of monetary and commercial
subjects in the Upper House such as the Limited Liability Bill, &c.
and also in those relating more particularly to Irish affairs. In 1861,
he opposed unsuccessfully the abolition of the Paper Duty ; and he was
a Commissioner of the State Paper Office, a Trustee of the National
Gallery, a Member of the Senate of the London University, as well
as of the Queen's University in Ireland.
He died on the 7th of February 1866, at his residence, Mount Trench-
ard, near Limerick, aged 76 years, all but one day.
* Tlie Times of Feb. 9th 1866.
*tr.
SIR THOMAS WYSE BARON GREENE. '21
SIR THOMAS WYSE..
BORN 1791 DIED 1862.
The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Wyse, K.C.B., H.M.'s Envoy Extra-
ordinary, and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Athens, eldest
son of Mr Thomas Wyse, of the Manor of St John, county Waterford,
was born in 1791. He received his earlier education at Stonyliurst,
and graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1812. He afterwards
became a student of Lincoln's Inn, but was not called to the bar. He
was M.P. for the county of Tipperary from 1830 to 1832, and for the
city of Waterford from 1835 to 1847 ; and he held office under Lord
Melbourne's administration, as one of the Lords of the Treasury, from
1839 to 1841, and as joint secretary to the Board of Control from 184G
to 1849, in which latter year he was appointed H.M.'s representative
at the Court of Athens, and became a member of the Privy Council.
In 1857 he was created a Civil Knight Commander of the Order of
the Bath. During his Parliamentary career he was in high reputation
as a statesman and an orator. In the literary world he was well known
as the author of a " Historical Sketch of the Irish Catholic Associa-
tion," " Walks in Rome," " Education Reform," " Oriental Sketches,"
and other works.
As representative of the ancient family of " Wyse," in Devonshire, he
held his estates direct from the Crown ; and as the lineal descendant
of the original grantee, under a grant of the year 1172, he inherited the
rights of the Prior of St John.
He married, in 1821, Lelitia, daughter of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince
of Canino, brother of Napoleon I., Emperor of the French, and had
issue two sons Napoleon Alfred Bonaparte, his heir, and William
Charles Bonaparte, Captain Waterford Militia, and High Sherift' of the
county of Waterford in 1855. Sir Thomas died at the British Le-
gation, Athens, on the 15th of April 1862.
BARON GREENE.
BORN 1791 DIED 1861.
Few men have left a nobler memory than Baron Greene, although
most men who have filled equally important positions have left ma-
terials for fuller and more interesting memoirs. If the country is
happy that has no history, happy also is the man whose perfect in-
tegrity and uniform discharge of duty have kept him out of all the
difficulties, false positions, or successful hazards which make the
story of life interesting. Baron Greene was a man who never got
into a difficulty from wliich the biographer has the task of rescuing
him, never deserted law for politics as a short cut to judicial advance-
ment, never served party in order to be raised by favour above the
heads of more deserving men. Tlie tardy advancement which he ob-
26 MODERN. -POLITICAL.
taiuod was earned by his own sterling ability, and met with general
approbation, for he belonged to a class very rare in Ireland, the non-
party men. Eichard Wilson Greene was the eldest son of Sir Jonas
Greene, Recorder of Dublin, and was born on the 14th of July 1791.
He early exhibited an earnest love for study, which all through his
youth and early manhood made him set aside the amusement and
gaiety which his position in society and the circumstances of his family
placed at his command. He went to school at the celebrated Samuel
Whyte's, where Sheridan, Moore, and most of the other well-known
men of the time were educated. One of the reminiscences of his
boyhood _is that he had an extraordinary love of order, a most im-
portant qualification of the judicial mind. This faculty often enables
a man of delicate frame and constitution to get through more work,
and to do it better and more quickly than stronger but less methodical
men. Such was exactly the case with Baron Greene, who was as
regular and unimpassioned as clock-work. He also showed a very
tenacious memory ; and so quickly did he master the elements of edu-
cation that he entered Trinity College, Dublin, when he was only
fourteen, and was greatly distinguished in his college career, winning
the gold medal for science, with other honours. He was also a very
distinguislied member of the Historical Society, in the records of
which his name frequently occurs. He was auditor of the society
in the year 1811-12. In 1814 he was called to the bar, and after
having " to bide his time," like others, his great attainments and
reliable qualities at length won for him an extensive and lucrative prac-
tice. In 182.5 he was appointed by the Marquis Wellesley to the
post of assistant-barrister of the county Antrim. He continued to
occupy this position for nearly two years, and on retiring from it in
1826 received the most flattering addresses from the inhabitants of
Belfast. The qualities for which he was praised were those which dis-
tinguished him through his whole life moderation, impartiality, great
erudition, perfect tact, and the courtesy and temper of a true gentle-
man. The cause of his retiring was his appointment, by Lord Plunket's
influence, to the law-advisership of the Castle.
In 1822 he was elected by Lord Plunket to assist in drawing the in-
dictments in the Bottle riot, and in 1823 he was appointed permanently
Lord Plunket's '' devil," and serving as such won that great lawyer's
warm regard and confidence. Plunket was then Attorney-General, and
it was said carried the appointment of Mr Greene against Mr Goulburn
by threatening to resign unless his wish should be complied with. Wo
will ])resently show that Plunket in later years endeavoured un-
availingly to procure the further advancement of his early favourite.
Mr Greene now became the mainspring of Government in Ireland ;
nothing could be done without him, and everything passed through his
hands. So indispensable did he make himself by his wonderful talent
for business, his tact, legal acumen, and despatch, that when, by Justice
Jebb's retirement, certain changes occurred, and Mr Greene was ap-
pointed Serjeant in the room of Mr O'Loghlen, who was made Solicitor-
General, it was impossible to find a substitute for him in the post of
Counsel to the Chief-Secretary. INIr Martley's name was mentioned,
but it was found that no one could be ii substitute for ]Mr Greene
BARON GREENE. 27
His ability had given the office aa importance and scope which it never
possessed before nor has it since ; for not only had he been the drawer
of all ex-officio and Crown indictments, as well as the framer of special
commissions and draughts of local acts, but in the extraordinary difii-
culties which the Government of Ireland then presented he officiated
as the oracle of the Lord-Lieutenant and the Chief-Secretary. Even
from liis opponents he had won the repute of " a clever, accurate, and
learned man, of a grave and rather plain cast of character." " I have
watched in vain," says the same critic, " for years to see him smile."
The following extract from a letter of the correspondent of the
Times shows how necessary was his retention of the second office :
"All Irish Acts of Parliament and all proposed acts are submitted to his
patient and all-enduring consideration. During Sessions time his office
in the Castle is often in a state of siege from tlie incidental applications
which pour in sometimes from distant Assize towns, where the Crown
Prosecutor is in some dilemma on a point of law artfully raised by a
post hint from ' the Counsellor,' O'Connell, or by those guardian angels
of the accused, Dominick Ronayne, M. P., or Pat Costello, gentleman
attorney in propria persona. Tiie prosecution is politely postponed,
or judgment is mercifully delayed, while a letter flies on the wings of a
police express to overtake the post, imploring the advice of Richard
Wilson Greene by return of post. He has, perhaps, to reply to twenty
urgent demands of a similar nature, oral or scriptural, in the course of
tlie morning, with only time to consult the extraordinary encyclopfedia
of law and practice his own memory. Any one can give an opinion if he
be allowed time to draw on his library for the amount of knowledge re-
quired; butwhocando so off-hand orinfalliblylikeR.W. Greene? Daniel
O'Cennell, perhaps ; but Irish secretaries have learned that there is some
danger in employing him as 'consulting counsel.' In short, it is ac-
knowledged that the office must be still left in the hands of Mr Greene,
with all its profits or perquisites, as nobody can safely supply his place
at this crisis at a moment's warning."
In the various appointments consequent on Justice Jebb's retirement,
O'Connell's wishes had been set aside, and this daring act of rebellion
on the part of the Government gave rise to a general outcry in the
O'Connellite newspapers. Mr Greene was accused of being an Orange-
man ; but nothing could have been further from the truth, for there
was no public man in Ireland more free from political bias. The bar
received his promotion with warm approbation; and O'Connell himself,
so far from joining in the yelping of his followers, said it was "the best
appointment he had ever heard of," and that he wished all were like it.
In another comment on the new Sergeant, he said that his opinions had
" the sterling ring of legal power."
It appertained to the office of Sergeant to supply any deficiency of
the Judges, and to go out on circuit and act as a Judge when occasion
required. Mr Greene, while Sergeant, went out as many as fourteen
times, and won the favourable opinion of the people and the profession.
He delighted all by his invincible patience and good temper, his strong
and clear decisions, his language bespeaking merciful justice. Men of
every shade of opinion went out of their way to eulogise his moderation,
fairness, the extent of his legal knowledge, and the readiness with which
28 MODERN. POLITICAL.
he applied it. In Civil Bill Appeals particularly he was noted as the
poor man's friend, always anxious to shield him from oppression.
In 1835 he was selected by Lord Anglesey, as a man who had the equal
confidence of both sides, to conduct a Government investigation into the
Orange outrage at Newtownbarry, and he acquitted himself on this
difficult commission in a manner that was perfectly satisfactory to all
concerned. Tliis capacity for doing justice Nvithout giving offence, and
in the most difficult positions, pointed him out as extraordinarily quali-
fied for the Irish Bench; but this peculiar qualification was just the
bar that hindered his promotion. Lord Wellesley, who gave him his
first step, often deplored that successive Governments had failed to
promote him to the bench, while recognising his great fitness for it.*
There never was a more glaring proof of the extent to which the de-
graded and unjust system of making the Judges' seat a reward of con-
duct the most unjudicial, viz., violent and avowed political partisan-
ship, and the utter unavailingness of merit to procure professional ad-
vancement in Ireland, than Mr Greene's long exclusion. It actuallv
seems to have been the fact that English statesmen were unable to
save anything from the voracity of partisanship, to bestow it upon
pure, modest, genuine merit. Successive administrations, as often as a
vacancy occurred on the bench, passed him over as if they had never
heard his name, although expressing the greatest admiration at other
times of his discharge of the functions of temporary judge or his man-
agement of some difficult commission. Virtus laudatur et alget. It was?
acknowledged with audacious candour that had Mr Greene belonged
to the English or Scotch bar, no Government could venture to treat
him with the same neglect and injustice that he experienced at their
hands. In 1840 his old friend. Lord Plunket, made an eflbrt to pro-
cure his promotion, as the following extract from a letter of that date
shows| :
" I felt bound to express my opinion to the Lord-Lieutenant that
your appointment would meet the full approbation of the respectable
portion of the bar of all parties. You very much overrate any services
I may have wislied to render you. I have only done what I thought
was due to your merits and talents; and I assure you that my sense of
them and my wish to mark it continue unabated. I am always, my
dear Greene, very faithfully your friend and servant,
Plunket."
Mr Greene had filled the office of Sergeant sixteen years when he
was appointed Solicitor-General in 1842, on Mr Blackburne becoming-
Master of the Rolls. His appointment was strongly urged by the
Roman Catholic organ, tlie Dub/ in Fast, and it was warmly praised by
the Protestant organ, the Dublin Mail. Mr O'Connell spoke of Mr
Greene's appointment as follows : " He thought the appointment of
that gentleman was an exceedingly good one, because he never had
taken an active part against the religion or the people of Ireland. He
never signed an anti-Catholic petition." In the scrutiny that his career
underwent on his appointment, it was remarked that, though supposed
to be a Tory, he had served as the law-adviser of a Whig Government
* Manuscript letter from Lord Hatliertou.
t Manuscript letter.
for four years, and he had shown signs of Liberalism in his interpreta-
tion of the Freeholders' Qualification Clause in the Reform Bill when
going as Judge of Assize, and by accepting a seat on the Coininissioii
of National Education. It was as Solicitor-General, with the Attorney-
General, Mr Smith, that he had the enormous task of conducting tiie
State trial of O'Connell and others. His speech lasted for two days, and
was one of the most able, in point of massive reasoning and legal
ability, ever delivered at the Irish bar. Its colouring was sober, and
it was entirely free from ornament, and its beauties were those of pure
reason and masterly statement. Commencing with a lucid exposition
of the law relating to conspiracy, he applied it to the language of the
speakers at the monster meetings, and showed the origin and mode of
prosecuting their objects. He demolished Sheil's brilliant oratory by
a few hard practical strokes; and his unprejudiced temperate reasoning
seemed to be the end of controversy, and gave nothing to be taken
hold of by Whiteside or O'Connell ; indeed, he left no place for
the advocate, for it seemed as if tlie judge had spoken. A good forensic
critic thus describes the impression derived from the speech :
" The Solicitor-General would not be reckoned a popular speaker in
a public assembly; for his address is throughout a piece of solid reason-
ing, without ornament, without relief, but firm, compact, and unassail-
able; and if it is a specimen of his usual style, he would not captivate
an ordinary audience. He resembles in his manner the Scotch old school
of metaphysicians dry, logical, sometimes terse or sarcastic, but refusing
always to touch anything imaginative, or to condescend to gild his
arguments by declamation. His style certainly is not abstract, but the
traversers and their counsel feel it to be practical. There is no means
of escape from his close remorseless investigation. He lifts all the col-
webs of sophistry stuck into nooks and corners of the case by Slieil
the tapestry hung over it by Whiteside the heraldic ornaments of
national feeling, pride, and prejudice placed upon, and above all, by
O'Connell lifts tliem one by one quickly but carefully, for Mr Greene
has no vehemence in his manner, and exposes the bare, naked, deformed
points, without the slightest compunction. There is a degree of pleasure
in noticing the quiet way in whicli he does the work of destruction. He
tears nothing, unlike Mr Shell, for example ; he makes no ravings about
the mistakes into which his learned friends fall, but merely puts them
aside in a very natural way, as if they had been born to commit errors,
and he had been sent into the world for the purpose of rectifying
them."
The Solicitor-General was the working-man in this ponderous and
responsible prosecution, and many manuscript testimonies are before us
as we write of the high sense entertained by the Government and by the
most competent judges of the great ability with which he fulfilled his
duty. The following is from the Home Secretary of the day. Sir James
Graham :
"Whitehall, lith February 1844.
" Slit, The great trial in which you have taken so conspicuous a
part being now concluded, it is luy grateful duty, on the part of tlie
Government, to offer to you our thanks and best acknowledgments for
the exertions which you have made, and which have been pre-eminently
30 MODERN. POLITICAL.
distinguished by sound learning, exemplary discretion, and the perfect
union of moderation and firmness.
" The result will have recompensed you for much anxiety and many
annoyances. You have rescued law and justice in your native country
from imminent danger ; you have sustained the character of the Irisli
bar in circumstances of great difficulty, which might have overpowered
inferior men; and, in addition to the reward of your own approving
conscience, you have won the respect of all classes in this country.
" I have great pleasure in expressing to you this opinion on the part
of the Government.
"I have the honour to be. Sir, yours very faithfully,
' James Graham."
Still, however, Mr Greene's eminent merits did not elevate him from
the bar to the bench, although men like Lord Stanley, then Colonial
Secretary, acknowledged* that the Government " could ill dispense with
the services of those who like you join with ability the rarer qualities,
at least in Ireland, of moderation and impartiality." At length, in
1851, Lord Clarendon recommended the Queen to grant Mr Greene
a patent of precedence, a distinction which had been held by three
lawyers at the Irish bar Plunket, Saurin, and O'Connell. He had
then been tliirty-eight years at the bar, and no man had worked harder,
or made himself so useful, or been so excellent in the capacity of a Crown
lawyer. He was justly compared for suavity and courteous bearing
to Follett, and few of the great lawyers who have taken their seats on
the English bench have exceeded in erudition this comparatively
obscure Irish lawyer. In 1852 his promotion to the bencli came at
last. Lord Derby had the honour of raising him to the post which he
had so long merited, and created him a Baron of the Exchequer in the
room of Lefroy, who became Chief-Justice, when the Chief-Justice
was made Chancellor. Need we say that whilst Baron Greene's failing
healtli permitted, he was one of the best and most merciful judges on
the Irish bench. In 1861 he was obliged to resign. Lord Wensley-
dale, in a letter before us, expresses his belief that Baron Greene could
not be replaced on the Irish bench, "because I am acquainted from
long experience with your great judicial talent, displayed in all the
judgments of yours which it has (been my duty to peruse, and which
has been confirmed by public report."
Baron Greene had married in early life a Miss Wilson, who survived
hiia for several years, and by her he had four sons and one daughter.
He did not retire to enjoy repose, but to boar with Christian hope and
firmness unusual suflTering. He had lived to see his second son Itichard
married to the grand-daughter of his friend, Lord Plunket, to whom,
on his retirement, he had presented the address of the bar. He him-
self received an equally aft'ectionate farewell from the members of his
profession. Baron Greene died in 1861, six months after his retire-
ment, at the age of 69.
* Srauuscrint letter, 1851.
JOHN LORD KEANE.
BOKN 1781 DIED 1844.
The Right Hon. Sir John Keane, Baron Keane of Ghuznee in
Affghanistan, and of Cappoquin, county Waterford, G.C.B. and
K.C.H., Lieutenant-Goneral in tlie army, Colonel of the 43d Regi-
ment, was the second son of the late Sir John Keane of Beliiiont,
county Waterford, by his first wife, Sarah, daugliter of Mr Koily of Bol-
grove. Lord Keane was born at Cappoquin on the 28tli of February
1781, and entered the army at a very early age, liis commission as
Ensign being dated in 1793. He was appointed to a company in the
124th Foot, on the 12th of November 1704. He was on half-pay from
1795 till the 7th of November 1799, when he obtained a company in
the 44th Foot, which corps he joined at Gibraltar. During the cam-
paign in Egypt, he served as aide-de-camp to Major-General Lord
Cavan ; and he was present in the actions of the 13th and 21st of
March 1801, and this year was created a baronet. On the 27th of
May 1802, he obtained a Majority in tlie 60tli ; he remained in the
Mediterranean, on the staff, till March 1803, when he returned to
England. On the 20th of August 1803, he was appointed Lieutenant-
Colonel in the 13th Foot, which he joined at Gibraltar early in 1804,
and served with that regiment in the campaign of Martinique, and was
present at the siege of Fort De.saix. On the 11th of January 1812, he
was appointed Colonel in the army ; and on the 25th of June follow-
ing, Lieutenant- Colonel in the 60th Rifles, and joined the Duke of Wei
lington's army in Spain the same year. His reputation was tiien such
that immediately on his arrival at Madrid he was intrusted with tlie
command of a brigade in the third division, in which he served until the
end of the war with France in 1814, and was present at tlie battles of
Yittoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, and Orthes ; the action atYic Bigorre,
the battle of Toulouse, and the several minor actions of that war. He
attained the rank of .Major-General on the 14th of June 1814 ; and he
received the Egyptian medal, and a cross of two clasps, for INIartinique,
Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orthes, and Toulouse. In August 1814 he
was appointed to a command ordered for particular service ; and on his
arrival in Jamaica, being senior officer, he assumed the conniiand of
the military force destined to co-operate with Vice-Admiral the Hon.
Sir Alexander Cochrane for the attack on New Orleans and the
province of Louisiana. On the morning of the 23rd of December, he
effected a landing within nine miles of New Orleans, and tlie same
night, with only 1800 bayonets on shore, repulsed a serious attack of
5000 of the enemy, assisted by three large armed vessels on their
flank. He held the command until the 25th, when he was superseded
by the arrival of Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham, who took the
command of the entire army. The day after the arrival of the general
officer he was appointed to the third brigailc, and was engaged and
present in the atlairs of the 28th December and tlie 1st of January, as
also at the assault made on the enemies' fortified lines on the morning
32
MODERN. POLITICAL.
of the 8th of January 1815, when he was severely wounded in two
places by grape-sliot. He returned to England the same year, too late
to be present at Waterloo, but he was appointed to the command of a
brigade in the army of occupation under the Duke of Wellington.
In the interesting period from 1823 to 1830 Sir John Keane
passed eight, years as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces at St Lucia
and Jamaica; and during a year and a half of that time he adminis-
tered the civil government also. In the year 1833, he succeeded Sir
Colin Halkett as Commander-in-Chief of the army in Bombay; and
after nearly six years service in that Presidency, on the 29th of
October 1838 he received authority, from the Government of India, to
organise and lead into Sind a force intended to co-operate with tin*
army then on the north-west frontier of India, under the command of
Sir Henry Fane. The object of this campaign was to relieve the siege
of Herat by the Persians, and to restore Shah Soojah to the throne.
In the month of December following, however. Sir Henry forwarded
his resignation to head-quarters, and the command of the combined
forces devolved upon Sir John Keane. He was now called upon to
lead a considerable army, and to conduct operations requiring not
merely military skill, but a large amount of tact and delicacy in dealing
with those half-friendly powers, whose intrigues and treachery have
proved a source of difficulty and discomfiture to men of the greatest
political experience. It seems to be too much to expect from great
military commanders, that they should be also, whenever occasion
requires, statesmen and diplomatists. In India, more than in any
other country, English generals have been expected to discharge the
functions of the strategist and the statesman at the same time, and
that too on the most sudden emergencies, when it is impossible to
wait for the advice of those on whom the purely administrative
duties of the country devolve. It is not, therefore, surprising that Sir
John Keane, thus suddenly placed in a position of such great difficulty,
came in for a share of that severe criticism which has been levelled
at most of the great military leaders who afterwards received the
highest rewards from their country for their services in India.
Whatever may have been the animadversions passed upon Sir John
Keane's policy in his delicate intercourse with the semi -civilised and
treacherous native powers, or upon his professional character as a
commander, one thing is certain, that when his conduct came to be
calmly judged by men above the influence of envy, wounded feelings,
or disappointed hopes, there was a unanimous verdict in his favour.
He received the thanks of the Court of Directors of the East India Com-
pany, on the ISth of December 1839 ; while on the 11th of the same
month he was raised to the Peerage, and obtained a pension of 2000
a-year for his own life and that of his two immediate successors in tin-
Peerage, added to which were the thanks of both Houses of Parlia-
ment ; and besides, in the month of February 1840, the thanks and
approbation of the Governor-General, fetes and entertainments at
Bombay, banquets at the London Tavern, and other marks of royal and
public approbation. To go through all Lord Keane's campaigns in India
would exceed our present limits, but of all the brilliant victories that he
achieved, special attention may be directed to the great and memorable
SIR MAZIERE BRADY, BART. 33
victory of Ghuznee, from which he derived his title of "Baron Keane
of Ghuznee in Affghanistan."
Lord Keane attained the rank of Lieutenant-General, July 22, 1839,
and received the Colonelcy of the 43d Regiment (the Monmouthsliire
Light Infantry) in August 1839. He married first, in 180G, Grace
Smith, second daughter of Lieutenant- General Sir John Smith, and
by her he had six children ; and second, in August 1840, Charlotte
Maria Boland, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Boland.
Lord Keane died at Burton Lodge, in Hampshire, on the 2Gth of
August 1844, in the 64th year of liis age, and was succeeded by his
eldest son, whom he named after the great commander of his early
years, Edward Arthur Wellington, who having been aide-de-camp to
his father when in command of the army of the Indus, shared in the
honours of that campaign.
THE RIGHT HON. SIR MAZIERE BRADY, BART,.^ LORD CHANCELLOR OF
IRELAND.
BORN' JULY 1796 DIED APRIL 1871.
Sir Maziere Brady was second son of Mr Francis Tempest Brady,
who carried on the business of a gold and silver smith at 45 Dame
Street, Dublin, where this son was born on the 20th of July 179G. It
is said his father first designed him for business, and actually proposed
that a looking-glass manufacturer should receive him as an apprentice ;
the proposal, however, was fortunately declined; and thus' the young
Maziere Brady was reserved for tlie highest law offices of his native
land. He possessed a studious disposition, with good capacity for re-
taining what he read; and having entered Trinity College, Dublin, in
1 812, he obtained a scholarship two years later, which is a good evidence
of his classical proficiency. Though hard working at both classics
and science, he showed also a turn for literature, and during his under-
graduate course he wrote English verse, which obtained the Vice-Chan-
cellor's prize, one of his poems being an ode to the Princess Ciiarlotte,
another on music. He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 181G, and
Master of Arts 1819. Having resolved upon adopting the law as his
profession, Mr Maziere Brady became a student at tlie Inns before he
completed his college career, and in the same term he obtained his
Master's degree and was called to the bar. Here his diligence and skill
as a pleader obtained him the favourable notice of Mr Louis Perrin,
one of the ablest common-law lawyers of the time ; and Mr Brady soon
obtained fair junior practice.
It is highly probable that it was his intimacy with Mr Perrin that
shaped the politics of the young barrister. At this period tlie Tory
party had almost a monopoly of all tlie good places at the Irish Bar,
and it was a rare thing for a young Protestant barrister, connected
moreover as Mr Brady was, with the Ultra-Tory Corjioration of
Dublin, to tlirow himself heartily into the ranks of the Liberals. Tliis
Mr Perrin had done, and this Mr Brady did also; both foresaw Liberal
IV. G ^'"-
34 MODERX. POLITICAL.
preponderance, and were wiser in their generation than those who
simply adhered to the strongest party. As Mr Perrin resided on the
north side of Dublin, Mr Brady removed from Dawson Street on the
south, to Blessington Street on the north, where he continued to reside
for many years.
When the Liberals came into power Mr Perrin and Mr Brady were
not forgotten. Several members of the Irish Bar were appointed com-
missioners in 1833 to examine and report on the Irish Municipal Cor-
porations, and Messrs Perrin and Brady were among them. Shortly
afterwards, in April 1835, Louis Perrin became First Law- Officer of
the Crown in Ireland, and one of iiis first, if not his first disposition of
patronage, was appointing Mr Maziere Brady his " devil," an office
usually regarded as a stepping-stone to something more lucrative. So it
proved in his case. Tiie death of Judge Vandeleur in 1835 elevated
Mr Perrin to the vacant seat on the King's Bench, and a run of pro-
motion so quickly followed that Mr Stephen Woulfe became Attorney -
General in 1836. In those days the balance of creeds caused tlie Go-
vernment to have a Protestant Attorney and Roman Catholic Solicitor-
General, or vice versa; and as Mr Woulfe, the Attorney-General, was a
Catholic, it was deemed proper to select some Liberal Protestant for
the Solicitor's place. Here the influence of Judge Perrin supported
the claims of Mr Brady, and he became Solicitor-General. The pro-
motion of Mr Woulfe as Chief-Baron of the Exciiequer in 18-39 caused
Mr Brady to succeed him as First Law-Officer, and then Mr Pigot was
appointed Solicitor-General. He had not long to wait for the repose of
the Bench. The failing health of Chief- Baron Woulfe succumbed to
the effects of an operation, and the Attorney-General, as of right, be-
came Chief-Baron Brady. At this time the Court of Exchequer
entertained suits in Equity as well as Law, and when adjudging at
either side of the Court the Chief- Baron displayed great professional
ability. Although his practice at the bar had been almost wholly con-
fined to the courts of Common Law, yet he displayed a knowledge of
the principles and practice of Equity business, which astonished his
friends and confounded his enemies. For, as we shall find presently,
he had enemies who made the fact of his not being known as a prac-
titioner in Chancery the ground of accusation against him. True it
was, as a Common-Law judge, and especially at Niui Prius, he shone
most. His wonderful knowledge of the mysteries of pleading, the law
of evidence, the rules and practice of the Court, made him quite at
ease in directing, and his natural common sense made him always come
to a right decision. Incidents in these trials, whether in Dublin or
on circuit, often amused him, and he loved to relate tlie droll remarks
and witty replies of the witnesses or the culprits. Thus, on the
Leinster Circuit, a man was indicted for stopping the mail-car at
Fethard, and on being asked to plead looked so stupid, that the Chief-
Baron interposed, and said, " Attend to me, my man. Are you guilty
ornot guilty?" The prisoner replied, " Shure I don't know, my Lord ;
'tis the jury is to say that." The judge could not help laugiiing at
the culprit's judicial answer. Again, when a little girl appeared, she
was asked " if she knew the nature of an oath 1" "I do, very well,"
she said, glibly. " Wliat will happen you," asked the Chief-Baron,
nl
"if you don't tell the truth?" "Then, my Lord, I won't get my
expenses." From 1840 to 1846, Cliief-Baron Brady discharged his
high judicial functions with credit and ability.
The accession of the Whigs to power in 1846 caused a vacancy in
the office of the Lord Chancellor, who always goes out with his party,
and the question was, who should succeed Sir Edward Sugden ? The
Government did not again venture to send over Lord Campbell, whose
appointment as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the peculiar circum-
stances of it, raised a storm of indignation in 1841. It is said the
office was offered to several, but this is not very likely. At all events,
it was accepted by Chief-Baron Brady. The fact tiiat he was to be
elevated to the post of Lord High-Chancellor of Ireland excited
very great surprise among the bar of Ireland. That he had been an
excellent Chief-Baron nobody could deny. His clear common sense
and business habits rendered the business of his Court easy, and
his bluff, unaffected manner, the readiness with which he disposed
of the motions of counsel or law arguments, and the very great ability
witii which he presided over a Court, composed as it was of very able
and distinguished judges, made him an admirable Common-Law judge.
What then were his qualifications as Chancellor 1 He never had any
practice in that Court. It was said he never received a single guinea
in the Court of Chancery, and yet he was appointed over the head of
men of acknowledged talent and competency as Equity lawyers, and
members of the Whig party, such as Kichard Moore and Baron Richards.
Soon the secret was known : the Ministry wished to provide a
judicial place for Mr Pigot, and to make him Chief-Baron they pro-
muted Mr Brady. These appointments rankled in the minds of men
who, perhaps, conscientiously believed they were called upon to expose
them ; and a stinging pamphlet, called " The Voice of the Bar," de-
nounced them in scathing terms. A few passages from this publication,
which was speedily withdrawn from circulation, must serve as speci-
mens of the language usedin commenting on the late promotions : " The
system of raising the mediocrities of the bar into the highest and most
honourable places of the bench and executive power, must be put a
stop to. The legal profession in this country, and the mercantile com-
munity, are now beginning to feel the consequences of incapable
officials being admitted to posts which should be reserved exclusively
for signal talent and learning. A reaction is rising in the whole public
mind against the plan whicli iioists mediocrities into high places by the
leverage of clique and faction. The system must be stopped peremp-
torily, now and for ever. Wo will do it ! We will do so by an ex-
posure at once, bold, searching, and compreliensive, and in doing so,
discard party views and sectarian sympatliies, treating the whole ques-
tion on the broadest public grounds. We commence by paying our
respects to that venerable bench, which still contains men of the
greatest powers, and by their very talents we conjure our rulurs,
Whig and Tory, that the bench which boasts the superlative capacity
of a Blackburne, the splendid judicial virtues of a rennefatlier, the
vigour and black-letter reading of I'errin, the rciinement and academic
scholarsliip of Crampton, the astuteness and erudition of Lofroy, the
thurouglily legal intellect of Kichard Muore, the practical ability of
Richards, should not be allowed to degenerate from its rank, and be
gradually Pigotised." *
Having satirised a variety of the appointments, justly indeed with
regard to some, most unjustly and unfeelingly with regard to others,
this writer, or writers, for more than one were supposed to have
contributed to the " Voice," continued, " If any one had been told
ten years ago that Maziere Brady would one day be Lord Chancellor
of Ireland, it would have seemed as improbable as if it were now
announced that the Princess Royal of England was betrothed to the
hippopotamus. Mr Brady, as his fee-book can show, never received a
single guinea in the Court of Chancery. Yery few were the guineas
he received at the Common-Law bar. But the Melbourne Wliigs
wanted in 1835 some Protestant O'Connellites, and accordingly Mr
Brady was passed tlirough the Crown offices, over the heads of men
his seniors and superiors in all respects.
" We have no desire to deal harshly with Mr Brady, for none more
regrets his failure as a Chancellor. It is most painful to see Iiim
bewildered by the casuistry of a Christian,! baffled by the subtlety of
Francis Pitzgerald,| and badgered by the disputatious energy of
Brewster, rocked to and fro by the vigorous advocates of that Court
where he sits as a judge, but not as an authority. Is it not lamentable
to find an English judge expressing himself, in the case of Piers and
Piers, II upon the ' moiistrous errors' committed by the highest legal
functionary in Ireland?"
The best answer to all this malevolence is the fact that Mr Brady
sat upon the bench of the Court of Chancery, with occasional intervals,
for about eighteen years, during which time he decided a vast number
of important causes, and that only twenty of his decrees were appealed
from ; but, of these, twelve were affirmed, seven reversed, and one fell
to the ground.
The Lord Chancellor of Ireland has other functions to discharge
besides those appertaining to his judicial office. He is the head of the
magistracy, appoints and removes the justices of the peace. One of
the first acts of Lord Chancellor Brady was to restore Daniel O'Connell
and others, who had been removed by his predecessor. Sir Edward
Sugden ; but ere long, in 1849, he was compelled to adopt a like course
himself with regard to some magistrates who sympathised with the
Young Ireland party.
In 1850 the Queen's University was established in Ireland, in the
vain hope of satisfying the Roman Catholic demand for a University.
As no religious creed was recognised, Sir Robert 11. Inglis denounced
the project as a " gigantic scheme of godless education." The Yiceroy,
the Earl of Clarendon, at that time occupied the office of Chancellor,
and the Lord Chancellor Brady that of Yice-Ciiancellor of the Queen's
University. He continued to preside over th-e ceremonies of con-
ferring the di'grees in St Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle, for nearly
twenty years, and usually made a very hopeful speech, to show the
* The Voice of the Bar, p. 1.
t Afterwards Lord-Justio'e of Appeal in Chanc ery.
X Subsequently a Baron of the Exchequer.
Ouce Lord Chancellor of Ireland. il 13th Jurist.
SIR ^rAZIERE r.KADY, BART. 37
support which the Queen's Colleges received througliout the country ;
but in truth they proved utter failures, when we consider the vast
amount of public and private means expended upon their maintenance.
In 1852 the Whig GovernTnent, defeated in the Commons, resigned
office, and the Lord Chancellor Brady was succeeded by Mr Black-
burne. The shuffle of the political cards restored him the follow-
ing year, and he presided in the Court of Chancery thence until 1858,
when the Government of Lord Palmerston was displaced, and, on the
advent of the Tories, Mr Napier obtained the Great Seal. But again
in 1859 the Whigs were in the ascendant, and Brady Lord High
Chancellor. Thence for more than six years he uninterruptedly hold
the Great Seal. It was during this period, February 18G4, on the
bringing up of the report upon the Address to Her Majesty on the
Royal Speech, that the Right Hon. James Whiteside made a violent
attack upon the Irish Government, which he described as consisting of
Larcom and the police. He humorously described the antagonism of
the members of tlie Irish executive the Chief Secretary, Sir Robert
Peel, being regarded as a Conservative, Lord Chancellor Brady, an
O'Connellite, and Lord Carlisle, the Yiceroy, trying to act as mediator
between the contending parties. Some other observations with respect
to letters which appeared in the Dublin Evening Mail, and were said
to be written by a son of the Lord Chancellor, as also the subject of
distribution of patronage, called up the Attorney-General for Ireland,
who very forcibly and ably defended the Chancellor. The Whigs were
once more ejected from power by Lord Dunkellin's motion on the
Reform Bill, in June 18GG, and having finished his list. Lord Ciian-
eellor Brady sat for the last time.
During his vacations and after retiring into private life he amused
himself with scientific studies and the contemplation of works of art.
He was fond of geology and conchology, and possessed a large accumu-
lation of specimens. He was also a good judge of pictures, and had
a valuable collection of paintings.
In 1869 the Gladstone Government, desirous of testifying their
sense of his merits, conferred upon him the dignity of a baronetcy.
On occasions of public interest, or when tributes were to be paid to
illustrious Irishmen, the ex-Chancellor came forth from his retirement.
At the meeting held in the Mansion House, Dublin, Friday, the 21st
of May 1869, to erect a testimonial to the memory of the late Field-
Marshal Viscount Gough, the Right Hon. Sir Maziere Brady, Bart.,
moved the first resolution, which declared that Lord Gougli's eminent
services merited being commemorated by his countrymen.
Shortly after this he became very infirm, and was confined to his
house. Thus he was unable to attend as Vice-Chancellor of the
Queen's University when the time arrived. Chief-Baron Pigot, wlio
presided in the place of the Vice-Chancellor, thus alluded to his
absence :
"It only remains now for me to perform tlie duty that, by the
absence of the Vice-Chancellor and the Chancellor,* and by the desire
of the senate, it has become my function to perform. I cannot do so
* The Earl of ClarendoD.
without deeply lamenting the cause of its devolving on me. I do not
like, because of the strong and long-continued and earnest friendship
that has existed between me and your Vice- Chancellor, to trust myself
in saying much on the subject. This I think I may be permitted to
say, that I hope and believe all who hear me are disposed to concur in
that hope, that the cause of his absence will be but temporary, and
that before any considerable time shall elapse, and indeed I hope and
believe after a very short la|)se of time, he will give us again the benefit
of his enlarged knowledge, of his anxious care and assiduity in watching
over the interests of this institution, of his great experience, of his
remarkable aptitude for business, and of that which distinguishes him
most, that sound, clear, cautious, sagacious judgment by which all his
other endowments are guided and ruled. His Excellency has been
graciously pleased to honour us with his presence, and I would ask
him, as his predecessors have done, to do us the favour of distributing
the medals and prizes."
Tlie Lord-Lieutenant, *Earl Spencer, thus referred to the absent
Vice-Cliancellor :
" I may express my deep regret that your Vice-Chancellor, to
whom allusion has been made in such excellent and admirable terras
by the Lord Chief-Baron, is absent, and for the cause that prevents
his being present as usual on these occasions. I need not add a
word to the eloquent expressions that have been used by my Lord
Chief-Baron in reference to Sir Maziere Brady. I most sincerely
trust that, on the next occasion when your University meets here, we
shall find that the rest, which his prolonged and arduous labours
during life have necessitated, may have restored him to perfect health
and vigour, to assist at the ceremony which has always such- interest
at this season of the year."
These hopes were not destined to be realised ; he did not rally, and
his death took place on the 11th of April 1871. The deceased
Baronet was married first, on the 26th of July 1823, to Elizabeth
Anne, daugiiter of Bever Buchanan, of Dublin, by whom he had two
sons and three daughters. She died in 1858, and he married again in
1860, Mary, the second daughter of the Right Hon. John Hatchel.
On the first meeting of the Committee under whose management the
afternoon lectures were delivered in Dublin, 19th April 1871, Lonl
O'Hagan, who, on the death of Sir Maziere Brady, was elected presi-
dent, thus alluded to their recent loss. He said " It is not customary
that any one save the lecturer of the evening should address you in this
place. But I feel it quite impossible to occupy, for the first time, the
position of your president, without a word of reference to the good
and gifted man who held it for so many years, Sir Maziere Brady.
Almost sirice my boyhood he was my kind and true and steadfast
friend, and I lament deeply his departure from among us. And you
lament it, too, for he was one of the most efficient founders of your
Society, and by his constant sympathy and friendly countenance, pro-
moted the success of these exhibitions of intelligence and culture by
which you have done such credit to the Irish people. I am not here
to speak his panegyric. It is not the fitting time or the fitting place.
1 cannot toll you of his judicial eminence, his political integrity, or hia
SIR RICHARD MAYNE, K.C.B. 30
great public services. They will live in the history of Ireland, and lior
appreciation of them has already been testified by those of every creed
and party who thronged around his grave. But we, at least, cannot
forget his cultivated tastes, his varied accomplishments, and his muni-
ficent patronage of art ; and those who had the happiness of knowing
him, can testify, that through all tlie phases of a chequered but most
prosperous life in his greatness as in his humbleness from the
initiative of a career to which his jirinciples seemed at first to forbid
all progress to its successful culmination he was unaflfected, courteous,
and kindly without assumption and without pretence a true, a
simple, and an honest man. We lament his departure, but there is
consolation in the thought that he lived to enjoy the ripefulness of
many fruitful years, possessed all that should accompany old ago
'As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.'
" Now those friends mourn for him with true attachment, and hi-;
country holds him in kindly and grateful memory."
SIR RICHARD MAYNE, K.C.B.
BORN 1796 DIED 1868.
Sm Richard Mayne, Chief Conmiissioner of the Metropolitan Police
of London, was a son of the Hon. Edward Mayne, who was one of the
judges of the Court of King's Bench in Ireland from 1817 to 1820.
The Maynes are said to be of an old Kentish family that migrated
to Ireland in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and established itself in
the counties of Fermanagh and Monaghan. Richard Mayne was born
in Dublin in 1796, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and
afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, wliere he took his B. A. degree
in 1817, and proceeded M.A. in 1821. He was called to the bar at
Lincoln's Inn in the following year, and at once joined the Northern
Circuit. Possessing both talent and interest, he was a rising barrister
on that circuit in 1829, when he was appointed by Sir Robert Peel,
then the Home Secretary, to the post of Chief Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police. Sir Richard was nominated a Companion of the
Bath in 1817, in recognition of his official services, and was advanced
to the dignity of a K.C.B., civil division, at the time of the Great Ex-
hibition of 1851. He married, in 1831, Georgina, eldest daughter
of Mr Thomas Carvie of Wyke, Yorkshire, and of Moat Mount, High-
wood, Middlesex, by whom he left issue. His son Richard Charles
Mayne became a Commander in the Royal Navy.
He died on the 27th of December 1868, at his residence, Chester
Square, after a severe illness. By his death the public lost a valuable
and most meritorious servant. To form a correct estimate of his services,
it would be necessary to compare the condition of London as it was in
1829 with its condition in 1868, at the time of Sir Richard's decease.
It is not easy, now, to conceive the condition of a city consigned every
night to darkness, and the custody of a few decrepid watchmen. In
those days there was little gas ; no regulation of the thoroughfares; and
the law and its officers were scarcely known beyond' the precincts oi
40 MODERN. POLITICAL.
the Courts. With the rapid increase of population and traffic, the
establishment of a new and efficient police was felt to be a matter of
necessity, and yet its introduction raised a storm of popular indignation,
being regarded as nothing short of a dangerous encroachment on the
liberty of the subject and the foundations of the British Constitution.
Under such circumstances, it is not easy at the present time to conceive,
much less to realise the difficulties which Sir Richard Mayne had to
encounter. He and his colleague Colonel Rowan were called upon to
raise, organise, and train a small army, to instruct them in duties
hitherto unknown in England, and to teach them to discharge their
office with the utmost patience and consideration. How they succeeded
in organising such a force, and gradually reconciling the people to the
control of a novel power, of which at first they felt not a little sus-
picious, is now a matter of history. Nothing but great ability, industry,
and patience could have triumphed over such difficulties ; and these
qualities Sir Richard Mayne for the greater part of his life placed at the
service of the public with singular assiduity and devotion.
SIK BENJAMIN LEE GUINNESS, BART.*
BORN 1798 DIED 1868.
Sir Benjami?^ Lee Guinness, Bart., LL.D., J.P., and D.L., Lord
Mayor of Dublin in 1851, and one of the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners of Ireland, was born at Beaumont, in the county of Dublin,
on the 1st of November, 1798. The familv of Guinness claims descent
from the ancient and eminent liouse of the Magennis, in which formerly
vested the Viscounty of Iveagh. Several members of tlie Magennis
family lie interred in the churchyard of St Catherine's, Dublin, and in
the parisli register the transition of the name from Magennis to M'Guin-
ness or Guinness is clearly traceable. The first who bore the name
as at present spelt was Richard Guinness, of Celbrido'e, in the county
Kildare, born about the year 1680. He married Elizabeth, daughter
of William Read, of Hutton Read, county Kildare, and by her (who
was born in 1698, and died 28th August 1742) had issue, the eldest
son Arthur Guinness, of Beaumont, county Dublin, who married
Olivia, daughter and co-heiress of William Whitmore, of Dublin,
by Mary his wife, daughter of John Grattan, and cousin of the
Right Hon. Henry Grattan, and had issue, of which the second son
Arthur Guinness, of Beaumont, county Dublin, J.P. and D.L., born
12th March 1768, held for many years, honoured and respected
by all classes of his fellow-citizens, the foremost place amongst the mer-
chants of his native city of Dublin. His connection with the mercan-
tile community extended over more than sixty years, and his public
services during tliat long period may be estimated by the universal re-
gret of the whole country at his decease. He married Anne, eldest
daughter and co-heiress of Benjamin Lee, Esq. of Merrion, county
Dublin (of a branch of the English family of Lee, Earls of Lichfield),
* Wo, are indebted for this sketch to a friena of the late Sir Benjamin Lee
Guinness.
SIR BEN"JAMIN LEE GUINNESS, BART. 41
and had issue, William Smyth Grattan, of Beaumont and Park Annes-
ley, who died 21st March 1864; Arthur Lee, of Stillorgan House,
county of Dublin, who died unmarried 18G2; Benjamin Lee, the sub-
ject of this memoir; Susan, who was married in June, 1832, 'to the
Kev. John Darley, Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, who died Die.
1836, leaving issue; Mary Jane, who was married in October 184.5
to the Rev. David Pitcairn, of Torquay; Louisa, who died unmarried
18th January 1856; Elizabeth, who was married in April 1849 to the
Rev. William Jameson of Hollybank, county Dublin, and had issue ;
Rebecca, who was married in Juno 1844 to Sir Edmund Waller, Bart.,
of Newport, county Tipperary, who died 9th March 1851. Mr
Guinness died 9th June 1855; and his only surviving son was Sir
Benjamin Lee Guinness, who, in the year 1851, was elected first
Lord Mayor of Dublin under the newly reformed corporation ; the
dignity and magnificence with which he filled the oflSce is well remem-
bered. He received from the Crown the Commission of the Peace and
a Deputy Lieutenancy. He Mas elected one of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners of Ireland, and received from the Board of Trinity
College the honorary degree of LL.D. In the year 1865 he was re-
turned to Parliament as senior member for the city of Dublin, in place
of Sir Edward Grogan, who then retired. He was on the board of
many benevolent institutions, and took an active part in every really
good and useful work connected with the relief of the poor, the social
advancement of the people, or the promotion of religion. But the
great work with which his name will be chiefly identified in the history
of his native city is the restoration of the venerable Cathedral of Sc
Patrick. The splendid ceremonial, of which the restored edifice was
the scene on the occasion of the re-opeuing service on St Matthias'
day, 1865, will serve to perpetuate the memory of his energetic and
patriotic spirit and princely munificence. The citizens of Dublin were
justly proud of what had been that day accomplished. One of their
venerable cathedrals, built in the 12th century on the site of an ancient
church ascribed to their patron saint, and associated with the names of
the great "Archbishops Comyn and Henry de Landres, was presented to
them in renovated beauty and splendour, restored, almost from ruins,
by the bounty of their fellow-citizen, with a tender fidelity to its
original design. That a man should be then living in their midst,
capable of conceiving such a design from no other motives than love to
God, and a desire to restore for His worship a noble and venerable fane,
and preserve for his country and his native city a monument of such
antiquity and so many spirit-stirring associations of expending on this
object a princely fortune was surely a legitimate subject for pride to
the city which then counted him as one of her living sons. Many have
been found willing to bequeath to works of benevolence that wealth
which they could not carry with them out of this world few are capable
of that far higher liberality, which bestows during life the riches which
might more selfishly have been expended on personal gratification or
tamily aggrandisement.
But viewing the character of Sir B. L. Guinness generally, and not
especially in connection with the great work of his life, it may be safely
affirmed that i'ew men ever so worthily enjoyed the sincere respect
42 MODERIT. POLITICAL.
and attachment of their fellow-citizens. In his personal character he
displayed a rare combination of all those qualities which " win the
liearts of the people; " he was thus a favourite with all classes, and his
death excited universal feelings of the most profound regret.
He was created a baronet of the United Kingdom by patent, dated
15th April 1867, Her Majesty granting to him and his successors the
right to bear supporters. The restoration of St Patrick's, although the
i^reatesf, was not the last act of Mr Guinness' bounty. The Public
Library, founded by Archbishop Marsh, which adjoins St Patrick's, was
represented to him to be in a dilapidated condition. With prompt
liberality he directed its immediate restoration, and it is now another
monument to his open-hearted benevolence. Patriotic and public-
spirited men, such as he was, are benefactors not only of their own
age, but their noble deeds quicken the seeds of like virtues in genera-
tions to come.
" Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
"Whene'er is spoke a noble thought,
Our hearts with glad surprise
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost beiiig rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.
Honour to those, whose words and deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow,
Raise us from what is low ! "
Sir Benjamin married, on the 24th of February 1837, Elizabeth, the
tlurd daughter of the late Edward Guinness, Esq. of Dublin, and by
her had issue : Arthur Edward, who married Lady Olivia White,
daughter of the Earl of Bantry; Benjamin Lee, Captain Royal Horse
Guards Blue, born August 4, 1842; Edward Cecil, born November 10,
1847 ; and Anne Lee, who was married to Lord Plunket. Sir Benjamin
died on the 19th of May 1868, and was succeeded by his son, Sir
Arthur Edward.
WILLIAM DARGAN.
BOEN 1799 DIED 1867.
William Dargan was born in the county Carlow, Ireland, on the
28th of February 1799. He was the son of what is termed in Ireland
" a gentleman farmer." After leaving school, he was placed at an early-
age in a surveyor's office, where he soon evinced great skill in calcula-
tion, and a great aptitude for business. Shortly afterwards he obtained
an engagement in England under Mr Telford, and was employed in
the construction of the great Holyhead Road. His remarkable abilities
having gained him most favourable recommendations from his Englisli
employer, he had no difficulty, on his return to Ireland, in obtaining
the Government contract for the road then projected between Dublin
and Howth. The next great work in which he was engaged was the
Dublin and Kingstown Railwav, an undertaking the first of its kind in
Ireland, and indeed in the worM. By his great success in carrying
out these undertakings, he established for himself a reputation whicli
secured for him a preference in nearly all the contracts for the
great railway and other works thenceforth projected in Ireland.
Among the many successful undertakings with which his name is
pre-eminently associated, may be mentioned the Ulster Canal, between
Lough Erne and Belfast, the Great Southern and Western, the Mid-
land Great Western, and the Dublin and Wicklow Railways. But
although, by the successful accomplishment of these great works, his
abilities had been recognised and rewarded, it was not until the
year 18.33 that the character of William Dargan became fully known,
riot only to all his fellow-countrymen, but to all the civilised nations of
the world. In that year was opened the Dublin Exhibition, which owed
its existence solely to his patriotic munificence. The outlay amounted
to the large sum of 100,000, and although the exhibition was eminently
successful, he was ultimately a loser to the extent of 10,000. In
July 1853, a public meeting was held in Dublin to acknowledge Mr
Dargan's great and generous services to his country, and a subscription
was opened " to perpetuate in connection with his name the remem-
brance of the good he had effected, by the founding of some institution
that would be permanently useful in extending industrial education."
The funds thus collected being supplemented by a Government
grant, were applied in founding " The Irish Institution," which stands
on a portion of the ground occupied by the Exhibition building, in
Leinster Lawn. In the year of the exhibition, it was the Queen's
pleasure to offer Mr Dargan the honour of a baronetcy, but he declined
the distinction, influenced probably by the feeling that his efforts had
only for their object the advancement of his country, and perhaps too,
in the belief that he would be " spreto honore splendidior." It has
been remarked of Mr Dargan, that " he was one of the most remarkable
instances on record of men who are the architects of their own fortunes,
and the promoters at the same time of the progress and prosperity of
the country to which they belong. He possessed, in truth, in a
singular degree, the qualities which can alone place a man in the van
of civilisation and industrial progress. Prompt, sagacious, clear-
sighted, and far-seeing, he estimated character by instinct, and was
thus seldom mistaken in those whom he selected to carry out his
plans. Two appellations by which he was known will illustrate his
character " The workman's friend," and " The man with his hand in
his pocket." The former he well merited by the justice and wise
liberality of his dealings with the artisan class. The latter, while
it originated in Jones' celebrated statue (in which he is represented
in that attitude), and perpetuated by a not infelicitous poem, is
indicative of his readiness to spend his money freely, when his judgment
or his patriotism suggesteii it.
He died in February 18G7, at his residence, Mount Anne Villa, in
the county of Dublin.
LOUD EOSSE.
BORN 1800 DIED 1867,
William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, one of the most eminent practical
astronomers of the nineteenth century, was born on the 17th of June
1800. He was known during his father's lifetime under tlie title
of Lord Oxmantown, and was educated at the University of Oxford.
From 1821 till 1834, he was member of Parliament for King's County,
in which his family residence is situated. In 1831 he became a Fellow
of the Koyal Society, and he was for several years president of that
body. He was an Irish Ptepresentative Peer for many years, and was
a Knight of St Patrick, and received the decoration of the legion of
honour.
His great telescope, whose reflector is six feet in diameter and
the tube fifty-six feet in length, is famous over the world, and has
been the means of making extraordinary discoveries as to tiie struc-
ture of objects in the remoter regions of the heavens. Lord Rosse's
great achievement was the perfecting of the metallic specula of
reflecting telescopes to a degree before unknown. He succeeded, too,
in making them of unprecedented size. Descriptions of the processes
adopted by him in making specula are to be found in various volumes
of the Philosophical Transactions since 1840. Many and most
interesting accounts have been given in various popular works of
the great telescope and observatory at Parsonstown.
Lord Posse was elected Vice- Chancellor of the University of
Dublin on the 12th of November 1862, and died on the 31st of October
1867.
WILLIAM SMITH O'BEIEN.
BORN 1803 DIED 1864.
William Smith O'Brien, once M.P. for the county Limerick, the
second son of Sir Edward O'Brien, fourth Baronet of Dromoland,
county Clare, by the eldest daugliter and co-heiress of Mr William
Smith of Cahirmoyle, Limerick, w^as born October 17, 1803. His
eldest brother (better known as Sir Lucius O'Brien, long the Con-
servative M.P- for Clare) succeeded his father as fifth Baronet in 1837,
and became thirteenth Baron Incliiquin in 1855, on the death of his
kinsman the Marquis of Thomond. The name of William Smith
O'Brien has been long familiar to the public, and his career has been
so remarkable that a review of his life and adventures must possess a
deep interest, not only throughout the United Kingdom, but abroad
and in the colonies, and wherever Irishmen are found.
The O'Briens were Protestants and Tories. Notwithstanding the
patriotic associations connected with the history of the family, Mr
W. S. O'Brien was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College,
Cambridge, and entered Parliament in 1826 as the Tory M.P. for Ennis,
and gave his interest against O'Connell at tlie famous Clare election.
He was also member for the county of Limerick from 1835 to 1849,
wlien, in consequence of his conviction for 'high treason, he was
expelled the House. Not only were the O'Briens opposed to Mr
O'Connell at the Clare election, but Mr Smith O'Brien on one
occasion, in his place in the House of Commons, strongly censured the
conduct of the chief of the Repeal party. A great change, however,
subsequently passed over his political views. He became an ardent
friend of the national party, and advocated their cause with such
extreme enthusiasm, that he was continually embroiled in quarrels
with tlie House, which resulted on one occasion in his committal to
the custody of the sergeant-at-arms. Various explanations may be
assigned for the curious conversion of a middle-aged country gentle-
man, of Conservative opinions, and a "stanch Protestant," into a
violent partisan of the Young Ireland party. Perhaps he had looked
into the past, and pondered so long over the power of his family in
forgotten times, that his view of things present and future had
become infested with such notions of greatness. Tiie wrongs and
growing miseries of his country, which were set before him by the
eloquence of O'Connell, found, in the descendant of the great O'Brien
family who possessed an ardent and excitable disposition, a receptive
mind. Added to this, there may have been the disappointment of a
clever man at not being particularly successful in commonplace public
life. But, however we account for the change, he exhibited after it
tlie zeal of a convert ; the ambition to be a leader of the Irish popular
cause seemed to take complete hold of him, and having begun by
opposing O'Connell, he ended by out-Heroding Herod, and exciting the
jealousy of his former antagonist by usurping his place as a rival. It
may be imagined how great was the delight of the National party when,
at the commencement of the state prosecutions in 1844, which deprived
them for awhile of the Liberator himself, they saw his vacant chair, in
Conciliation Hall, occupied by this miraculously converted Pro-
testant, landlord, and Tory. His descent from King Brian Boru, th.e
hero of Clontarf, the only great purely Irish victory, kindled high the
flames of popular enthusiasm ; and the ardour of such a temperament
is sure to feed on the excitement it produces. When O'Connell returned
from prison, he was obliged to accept O'Brien as his lieutenant. But
there was a wide divergence between them. A party of irreconcile-
ables had grown up in Conciliation Hall ; its appeal was to the sword,
and it looked upon the moral force party with contempt, as semi-
Saxon and not truly patriotic. Mr O'Connell had never intended his
])hvsicar force demonstrations as more than a parade; the Young
Irelanders, who strove to raise Mr Smith O'Brien into the chief com-
mand, intended physical force seriously. O'Connell knew tlie power
of England to crush insurrection ; the Young Irelanders were- blinded
by enthusiasm, misty poetry, and ancient Irish history, and had as
little idea of the disproportionate nature of the struggle they were pro-
voking as if they had expected it to be waged with tiint-headed arrows,
seeming ignorant of the inventions of gunpowder, railway travelling,
and the telegraph. Again, O'Connell was a strict Uoman Catholic,
and would do nothing without the priests ; the Young Ireland party
adopted a Protestant leader, excluded religion, and proclaimed
secularism in treason. Tiiis was a principal cause of their complete
failure to rouse the people, or to invoke the courage that Irishmen
possess, in a cause of which their conscience approves. Smith O'Brien,
Davis, Duffy, Meagher, and the rest of the party, thought that a
national, as distinguished from a religious rebellion, was possible in
Ireland, but in this they found their wretched mistake. Witliout the
priests, the agitators were notliing, when it came to tlie point of
physical force. This was proved again in the Fenian insurrection.
As Meagher said to his fellow-prisoners in Richmond Bridewell,
" We made a fatal mistake in not conciliating the Roman Catholic
priesthood. Tlie agitation must be baptised in the old holy well."
In consequence of these difterences between Young and Old Ireland,
the former retired in a body from Conciliation Hall in 184G, and set
on foot the Irish Confederation, which contemplated the establishment
of an Irish republic, of which O'Brien was to be the president.
With such objects in view, the confederation in 1848 sent a deputation
to Paris to solicit the aid of the Republican Government then recently
established. The deputation consisted of O'Brien, Meagher, and
O'Gorman, wlio presented a congratulatory address to President
Lamartine. He told them that the great democratic principle was
" tlie new Christianity bursting forth at the opportune moment ; that
the destiny of Ireland had always deeply moved the heart of Europe ;
that the children of the glorious isle of Erin would always find in
France, under the Republic, a generous response to all its friendly
sentiments. But the Republic was at peace with England, and would
not utter a word or breathe an insinuation at variance with the prin-
ciple of the reciprocal inviolability of nations which it had proclaimed."
He concluded thus " Tlie fallen monarchy had treaties and diploma-
tists our diplomatists are nations." After his return from Paris, we
next find O'Brien,' in his place in the House, opjiosing the "Crown
and Government Securities' Bill," describing the military strength of
the Republican party in Ireland, and calculating its chances of success.
He was, liowever, interrupted by a scene of indescribable commotion,
and overwhelmed in a torrent of jeers, groans, and hisses; while Sir
George Grey, in replying to him, was cheered with the utmost
enthusiasm. The Bill, despite his opposition, became law, and under
its provisions John Mitchell was tried, found guilty, and transported.
O'Brien and Meagher were also tried, but, owing to a disagreement of
the jury, they were acquitted.
Towards the end of July Lord Clarendon took eftectual measures
for crushing the rebellion. In order to avoid arrest the leaders fled
from Dublin. On the iiiglit of the 22nd, O'Brien started by the
Wexford Mail, and proceeded to Enniscorthy. Tiience he crossed
the mountains into the county Carlow, where he visited the parish
priests, whom he expected to assist him in raising the country. Their
answer was, that in their opinion those who attempted to raise a
rebellion were insane. In the towns of Carlow and Kilkenny Ik-
harangued the people, and called upon them to rise. He then went tu
Cashel, where he left his portmanteau, containing a letter from Mr
Gavau Dufiy, which was produced as evidence against iiiiii. In the
meantime a reward of 500 was offered for the apprehension of
William Smith O'Brien, and 300 for eaeli of Meagher, Dillon, and
Dogherty. The insurrection had now actually commenced ; at a place
called Mullinahone, where at the ringing of the chapel bell, large;
numbers of the peasantry assembled in arms, they hailed Smith O'Brien
as their general. On the 2Gth of July he proceeded to a police
barrack coucaining six men, to whom he promised better pay and
promotion if they would join his ranks, bidding them refuse at
their peril. They peremptorily refused, and he marched off' without
attacking them. On the 29th he appeared on Boulagh Common,
near Ballingarry, on the borders of Tipperary. There, Sub-
inspector Trant, with about fifty men, had fortified himself in the
house of "the Widow Cormac." The rebels surrounded the house,
their chief standing in the cabbage garden, and parleying with the con-
stabulary through the window. He quickly retired, however, and
mounted a horse which he had taken from a policeman ; Trant, appre-
hending an attack, ordered his men to fire, and a fight ensued. Two
shots were aimed at Smith O'Brien, and a man that stood beside him
was killed. Another party of police, under the command of Mr Cox,
and accompanied by Mr Trench, a magistrate, came up at the moment
and fired on the rebels, who fled in the greatest confusion. Eighteen
were killed and a large number wounded, the constabulary suffering
no damage whatever. O'Brien now abandoned the cause in despair,
and concealed himself for several days among the peasantry, not one of
whom was tempted to betray him even for the large reward of 500.
Unaccustomed to, and not relishing his fugitive life, he ventured from
his hiding-place in the Keeper Mountain on the 5th of August, and
went to the railway station at Thurles. While taking a ticket for
Limerick, he was recognised and arrested by a railway guard named
Hulme. Thus ended the insurrection of 1818. O'Brien was tried
at Clonmel, by special commission, which opened on the 21st of
September. With him were tried Meagher and MacManus. The trial
lasted nine days. All three were found guilty of high treason, and
sentenced to be hanged. The sentence was commuted to transporta-
tion for life; but owing to the powerful intercession of friends, the
clemency of the Crown was extended to him after eight years, and lie
was permitted to return to his native land. Since that time, with few
exceptions, he kept himself aloof from politics, but his opinions were still
unchanged. After his return from Australia, he travelled extensively
on the Continent, and also in North America. When he got back to
Ireland he delivered lectures on the condition of that country, in
which he charged everytliing that was amiss in the country to English
misgovernment.
Personally, Mr Smith O'Brien was a man of the most estimable
character, and he was regarded by all parties as one of the most truth-
ful, honourable, and kind-hearted of men. His talents were respect-
able, and his errors and misfortunes arose perhaps from a natural
j)ride in his illustrious descent.* His sallow, interesting countenance,
* The O'Douoghue, in his " Historical Memoir of the O'Briens," has given a
special history of this fumily.
48 MODERN. -POLITICAL.
gentlemanly and quiet, but suggestive of enthusiasm and morbid senti-
ment, was remarked when he attended the debates of the College His-
torical Society, and listened to the youthful efforts of tlie members,
some years after his return from exile.
Mr O'Brien died at Bangor on the 18th of June 18G4. His re-
mains were conveyed to Ireland, and, contrary to the wishes of his
family, his funeral was made the occasion of a tumultuous gathering
of the Nationalist party.
SIR WILLIAM SIIEE.
BORN 1804 DIED 1868.
The Hon. Sir William Shee, one of the justices of the Court of Queen's
Bench, a distinguished lawyer, advocate, and judge, who died on the
19th of February 1868, was descended from an old Irish family. His
father, Mr Joseph Shee, of Thomastown, in the county Kilkenny, was
a London merchant, and his mother was Teresa, daughter of Mr John
Darrell, of Scotney Castle, in Kent. He was born at Finchley, Middle-
sex, in 1804, and he was educated at the Roman Catholic College
of St Cuthbert, Ushaw, Durham, whence he proceeded to the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh. Having been admitted a member of Lincoln's
Inn, he was called to the bar by that Society, June 19, 1828, and
began his distinguished career by going the Home Circuit, and attend-
ing the Surrey Sessions. Both there and in tlie London Courts he
rapidly rose to eminence. He was made a Serjeant-at Law in 1840;
and in tiie same year he published an edition of Lord Tenterden's
work oil shipping, in wliich he displayed a tliorough knowledge of that
difficult branch of law, and fully sustained his high character as a
sound and able lawyer. In 1847 he received a patent of precedence,
and was made a Queen's Serjeant in 1857. He unsuccessfully con-
tested the borough of Marvlebone at the general election in 1847.
In 1852 he was elected M.P. for his family county, K'^kenny, which
he represented in Parliament till 1857. He was subsequently rejected
by the constituencies of the county Kilkenny and of Marylebone. He
was a moderate and consistent Liberal in politics, and in the House of
Commons he supported the principles which he had always professed,
naturally advocating the claiuis of the Iloinan Catholics. After
practising at the bar for a period of thirty-five years, he was raised to
judicial rank in 1864, as a justice of the Court of Queen's Bench.
During liis professional career he had long been the head of his circuit,
and in London he was one of the most popular leaders. On mure
than one occasion he was appointed on circuit to preside in place of an
absent judge. He was the first Roman Catholic judge of the Superior
Courts of Westminster under the Roman Catholic Relief Act, the last
Roman Catholic judge before him having been Sir Richard Ally bine, a
justice of the Court of King's Bench, who died in the year 1688. He
was a man of the most amiable disposition and genial manners. In his
professional and political life he always evinced a high and independent
spirit, and unswerving integrity of purpose. To great talents he united
THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN AND MOUNTEARL.
49
a large share of sound common sense, and his elevation to the bench
was deservedly popular with both branches of the legal profession, and
all members of the law, as well as with the general public. Mr Justice
Shee was knighted in 1864. Of his short judicial career it has been
justly remarked that "his manly bearing and untiring energy, his sound
knowledge, and other excellent qualities, were making him also con-
spicuous on the bench, when, in the midst of apparent health, a sudden
illness carried him oil."
He married, in 1837, Mary, the daughter of Sir James Gordon, of
Gordonstown and Letterfowrie, the premier baronet of Scotland.
THE EARL 01? DUNRAVEN AND ilOUNTEARL.
BORN MAY 1812 DIED OCTOBER 1871.
Richard Windham Wtndham-Quin, third Earl of Dunraven and
Mountearl, and Viscount Mountearl and Baron Adare of Adare, in
the county Limerick, in the peerage of Ireland ; also Baron Kenry, of
Kenry, of county Limerick, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, was
the elder son of Windham Henry, second Earl (who was for uianv years
a representative peer of Ireland), by his wife Caroline, daughter and
sole heiress of the late Mr Thomas Wyndham, of Dunraven Castle,
Glamorganshire, whose name his father in consequence assumed. His
lordship was born on the 19tli of May 1812, and was educated at Eton.
He succeeded to the honours of the Irish peerage at his father's death,
in August 1850, and was made a deputy-lieutenant for Glamorganshire,
and lord-lieutenatit and custos rotulorum of the county Limerick. He
was the proprietor of large estates, both in England and Ireland, and
enjoyed a high character as a landlord. He also gave employment
largely to the labouring classes, expending considerable sums annually
in the improvement of his Irish estates. Born a Protestant, his lordship
became a convert to Koman Catholicism, and was distinguished for
his earnest devotion to the faith of his adoption. Upon his estate
in Limerick he restored tlie abbey, and built the convent of Adare.
He also contributed the greater part of the funds for the building of a
small church at Sneem, in the county Kerry. His lordship, who
was a man of high intellectual attainments, was a Commissioner of Na-
tional Education in Ireland. He devoted himself specially to archae-
ology, and in this branch of study he enjoyed no inconsiderable repute,
being well known as an active member of several archteological socie-
ties and academies of Great Britain and Ireland. He was one of
the members for Glamorganshire, which he represented in the Con-
servative interest from the general election of July 1837 till the year
1851, but he never took a prominent place as a ]>olitician. He was
for some years one of the representative peers for Irehuiil, and ob-
tained the honour of an English peerage, by preation. in June 1866.
Lord Dunraven was twice married first, in 1836, to August;! (thii'd
daughter of Tiionias Goold, a Master in Chancery, in Ireland), who
died in 1866; and second, in .January 1870, to Anne, daugliter of
Henry Lambert of Carnagh, county of Wexford, formerly M.P. for
IV. \) Ir.
50 MODERN. POLITICAL.
that county, by Catherine Talbot, sister of the late Countess of Shrews-
bury. By his first marriage his lordship had a family of five daughters
and one son, Windham Thomas, Lord Adare, a lieutenant in the 1st
Life Guards, who succeeded to the family honours as fourtu Earl.
Lord Dunraven died at Malvern, on the 6Lh of October 1871, at the
age of fifty-nine years.
We may mention that M. Montalembert dedicated the second volume
of his "Monks of the West" to Lord Dunraven, in a gracefully worded
and flattering Latin inscription, which first suggested to us the pro-
priety of placing this brief record among our memoirs. Graven by
such a hand, the dedication forms an enviable epitaph. A high archte-
ological authority has informed us that a posthumous work of Lord
Dunraven's is nearly ready to appear, and that this will establish his
reputation as an archaeologist, and fully bear out the flattering dedica-
tion of his friend, M. Montalembert.
MR JUSTICE WILLES.
BORN 1814 DIED 1872.
The Eight Hon. Sir James Shaw Willes, was born at Cork on the
]4th of February 1814. His grandfather and father, both named
James, were resident in Cork, the former as a merchant, and the latter
as a physician. His mother was Elizabeth Aldworth, daughter of John
Shaw, Esq., of Belmont, mayor of Cork in 1792. Young Willes was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained honours, and
graduated A,B. in 1836. He then entered, as a pupil, the chambers
of Mr Collins, a distinguished member of the Irish bar, who enjoyed
an extensive practice in the Courts of Equity and Common Law.
Coming to London in 1837, to qualify himself for admission to the
Irish bar by the requisite number of terms at the English Inns of
Court, he entered the chambers of Mr Thomas Chitty, and while there
his industry and ability were so favourably noticed, that he was in-
duced to abandon the Irish for the English bar. He was accordingly
called to the bar at the Inner Temple in June 1840, and having
shortly afterwards joined the home circuit, the reputation he had
already acquired in the chambers of Mr Chitty insured for him at an
early period a very considerable circuit practice. In a few j-ears, how-
ever, his reputation for solid legal learning became known in West-
minster Hall, and his general practice rapidly increased. In 1849 he
edited " Smith's Leading Cases," in conjunction with his distinguished
fellow-countryman, Dr Keating, one of the present judges of the Com-
mon Pleas. In 1850 he was appointed a Common Law Commissioner,
and assisted in drawing the Common Law Procedure Acts of 1852,
1856, and 1860, in accordance with the report of the commissioners.
In 1851 Mr Willes was made Tubman in the Court of Exchequer,
a position always esteemed one of great honour. In 1855, when a
vacancy occurred among the judges of the Common Pleas by the
retirement of Mr Justice Maule, Mr Willes was raised to the bench,
and received the honour of knighthood. At the time of his elevation
to the bench, lie had been at the bar only fifteen years, and hud not
obtained a silk gown, but his reputation as an able and learned lawyer
was so fully established, that his promotion was hailed with satisfaction
by the profession as well as by the public. In the following year he
married Helen, daughter of Thomas Jennings, Esq. of Cork.
During the whole period of his practice there was not a more hard-
working man at the bar ; and his industrious iiabits did not forsake
him during all the years he was on the bench. Unfortunately, his
physical system was too weak for the strain it had to bear ; mental
disorganisation was the result, and hence the painful catastrophe which
the profession and the public alike had reason to lament.
The sad termination of the life of this excellent man, by self-destruc-
tion, was announced to the public in October 1872, and no event in
our time has given a greater shock to the whole community, or caused
" such deep regret for the public loss, and pity for one whose honour-
able and distinguished career had ended in so sad a manner."'
To show the high estimation in which he was held as a lawyer and
a judge, we quote a few extracts from "The Law Magazine " of 1872 :
" It is not too much to say that Mr Justice Willes was the most learned
lawyer of our day. To a thorough knowledge of the history of
our own law in all its branches, he added a wonderfully large acquaint-
ance with foreign jurisprudence. He knew the principles of law not
merely from the teaching of others, but from having worked them
out for himself by the comparison of diti'erent systems, and by the
exercise of his own powers of analysis. With all the cases at hi.^
fingers' ends, he never rested on mere authority where a principle couM
be recognised. He was intimately acquainted with all the change;i
that our own common law had undergone, and with all the rules
and forms of the ancient system of pleading. He knew by heart
every old term of the law, every maxim of the law, every cantilena
of the law. All these he could avail himself of with the greatest ea^^e
for the purpose of illustration or argument, if not with uniform success
with reference to the point at which he aimed, yet with much interest
to those whose studies had been similarly directed. He was not only
a sound, but a scholarly lawyer, knowing exactly the relations which the
existing features of our legal system bore to those of earlier periods, and
familiar with the older as well as the more modern literature of the
law. It was not difficult to discover occasionally a tendency to over-
refining, but this rather affected the fringes of his argument than its
substantial texture, and in no respect attached to the conclusions he
sought to establish, which were always marked by sound common sense.
lie was too good and thorough a lawyer to allow himself to substitute
his own notions of justice in place of a clear rule of law ; but he had no
respect for technicalities, and had no difficulty in setting them aside
when they stood in the way of an obvious principle.
From the moment Mr Justice Willes became a member of the Court
of Conmion Pleas, it was evident that he contributed an important
element to the strength which that Court possessed during all the
changes that its bench underwent during a period of seventeen years.
"Whether sitting in banco, at Nidi I'rius, in the Crown Court, or on
election petitions, he never spared himself, and no one ever accused
him of being ialhienced on any occasion by the slightest feeling ot
partiality or prejudice, or of turning from the straight path by a hair's-
breadth, eitlier to the right hand or the left. In no judge on the bench
had the commercial community greater confidence.
His loss was especially to be deplored at a time when great and
important law reforms were engaging the attention of the Legislature.
There was no man more anxious to improve the laws and their
administration, and at the same time more competent to direct the
difficult and delicate work of legal reform. " Not only on the subject
of the reform of the system of judicature, but on all the other ques-
tions which have been brought forward respecting either the substance
or the form of our law, both the profession and the country would have
trusted much in the sound judgment, the ripe learning, the practical
sagacity, and the great experience of him whose loss we now
deplore."*
In 1860 the honorary degrees of LL.B. and LL.D. were conferred
on him bv Trinity College, Dublin. On the 3rd of November 1871
he was sworn of the Privy Council, with a view, it is understood, to
his becoming a member of the Judicial Committee under the recent
Act.
It is not unworthy of being recorded that Mr Justice Willes joined the
Inns of Court Volunteer Corps as a private, on its formation in 1859,
and continued to serve in i^s ranks till within a short period before his
death. He was fond of the society of literary men, and was on terms
of intimacy with Thackeray, Dickens, and various other authors of
eminence. No man had a more attached circle of private friends, and
those who knew him best esteemed him most.
THE RIGHT HONOUKABLE HENEY ARTHUR HERBERT,
BORN 1815 DIED 1866.
The Herberts of Muckross are chiefs of the great English house
which owns the titles of Herbert of Cherbury, Powis, Pembroke, and
Torrinston. The founder of the familv, Sir William Herbert, was
knighted by Henry V. on the field of Agincourt. It is a remarkable
fact that, with the headship of the Herbert family, the owners of
Muckross unite tlie distinction of being the representatives of the
great Irish chieftain, M'Carthy More, or the Great M'Carthy, whose
.son became Earl of Glencar, and married a daughter of Herbert of
Muckross ; on his death the estates came to the Herbert family, but
the title of Glencar is still, stranae to say, allowed to lie dormant.
The lovely scenes of the Killarney Middle and Upper Lakes, and part
of the Lower, are still, therefore, in the hands of those deriving from
their ancient Irish possessors. Mr Herbert of Muckross, in right of his
Irish descent, is hereditary Prior of Innisfallen, an island wliich still
retains some tottering arclies and ruins of the monastery where King
Brian Boru received his education, and the monks wrote their famous
Law Magazine, 1872.
THE PJOTIT HOK HENRY ARTHUR HERREHT. r>3
Annals. The position of Prior now confers on its Protestant owner
only some rit,rhts of fisliing in the lakes. Henry Arthur Herbert was
born in 1815, and was educated at Trinity Collcsre, Cainbrid:e. In
las early and stately prime he was one of the handsomest men of his
day, unitiuo: with the beautiful deep-lidded eyes of the ^lilesian the
bolder features of the Xorman. Personal ap|)earance tells greatly on
the southern Irish peasantry, and no doul)t tended to the popularity
which Mr Herbert enjoyed among his countrymen in Kerry. His
father died when he was a minor, and in the same year (183G) that
he came of aofe he was chosen High Sheritl. In the following year
he married Mary, daughter of James I'alfour, Esq. of Whittingham,
Haddingtonshire. It was not until 1847 tiiat he ottered himself as a
candidate for his native county. His early opinions rather leaned
to Conservatism and the support of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland ;
but although he entered Parliament as a Conservative he soon be-
came Peelite, and at last settled down into a steady follower of Lord
Palmerston. Whether as a Conservative or Liberal, he was alwavs
returned for Kerry without a contest, his liigh position in the county
and personal popularity making his seat impregnable. In Parlia-
ment he was not distinguished as a speaker, although he spoke with
good sense and ease, and on one occasion was seleeted to second the
Address; but he was an admirable man of public business, worked
fourteen hours a day, and his high-mindedness and perfect good
breeding made him a greatly respected 'member, and one whose judg-
ment outweighed that of a multitude of men, some possibly more
gifted, but none so sure to be instinctively right. He was, in short,
known as one of the best and most impartial men that sat in the House
of Commons, and as one of the hardest workers and most trusted
members of its committees. It was pre-eminently, however, his position
as one of the few great country gentlemen whom Ireland still possessed,
a resident landlord who lived amongst his own people, and as one of
the most judicious managers of an estate perhaps in the kingdom, that
Colonel Herbert was so generally looked up to and admired. For
these qualifications he was chosen as the most suitable person to fdl the
high post of Irish Secretary under the Earl of Carlisle in 1857. He
discharged the duties of that office with almost unequalled success,
showing an intimate knowledge of Irish afiairs, and a capacity for
dealing with them which has not always distinguished Irish secretaries.
He bestowed great pains on practical measures, such as the Fairs and
Markets Bill,^yeights and Measures, Lunatic Asylums, &c. When the
Whigs went out of power in the spring of 1858, it was a matter of
universal regret, even to his political opponents, that Colonel Herbert
could not honourably retain an office the duties of which he dis-
charged with so much success. He had served a good approntice-
sliip for condui'ting public afliiirs in the management of his estates
at Killarney. He was pre-eminently the man faithful over a few
things made ruler over many. His conduct as a landlord was not,
it must be admitted, exactly what pleased his tenantry. A writer in
the Times thus described his habits: " He liad to create among tiiem
habits of industry, cleanliness, and thrift. The gray dawn of morning
often found him many miles from home, l)aying an unexpected visit to
54 MODERN. POLITICAL.
some sleepy tenant, and then witli friendly good nature and genial
humour, he would set to right with his own hands the many defective
arrangements of an untidy Irish dwelling." He rode thus from house
to house, and paid constant visits of inspection, going into the minutest
details, and not sparing the filth and disorder to which the easy-going
tenantry were perfectly resigned. Everything under him had to be
kept in a state of perfection very uncongenial to their ordinary habits.
On succeeding to his property he found his fine estates in a ciiaotic con-
dition, the necessary result of a long minority, to the conclusion of which
everything was postponed. It took liira twenty years to bring it into
order ; but his energy and talent at last enabled him to make it a
model for all Ireland. His improvements were not confined to the
farming tenantry ; he looked also to the labourers on his estate, and
was the first to set the example of providing them with gardens to their
cottages. He protected them from the exactions of the farmers for
whom they worked, and the good results of his assiduous eftbrts appeared
in the superior bearing and physique of the Muckross tenantry. When
the dreadful famine years came, he set an example of self-sacrifice ; he
first sold his hounds, whose multitudinous voice sounded so har-
moniously about the hill-encircled lakes, and then reduced his rents
twenty-five percent.; and, in the case of his poor tenantry, undertook
for many years the whole poor-rate, which was then enormous; while
he made a liberal allowance to the larger occu])iers. By thus taking a
double share of the national misfortune, so far as it aflected his own
estates, he pulled his tenantry throui^h that dismal passage, and saved
them from an exile which seemed to them far worse than death. His
expression is worthy of record " If I go down, I go down with my
people ; if we are saved, we shall share in each other's prosperity."
The distinctions which he enjoyed as lord-lieutenant of his county,
colonel of the Kerry Militia, and custos rutulorum, and his brief
tenure of the ofiice of Ciiief Secretary for Ireland, would scarcely
entitle Colonel Herbert to a place in the crowded pages of biography,
had he not been one who may be held up as a model of all that Ire-
land wants in a landlord painstaking, just, considerate, kind, and
paternal, a lover of his home, of his people, and of his country. si
sic omnes ! His exertions in Parliament to obtain compensation for
the unfortunate savings' bank depositors, for wdiom he was the prin-
cipal instrument in collecting a relief fund, greatly increased the attach-
ment of the people to him. We may mention, as an instance of his
public spirit, that he gave his land gratuitously to promote a railway
through the county of Kerry.
His comparatively early death, in 18GG, after a premonitory stroke of
paralysis one year previously, took place at Adare Manor, the seat of
Lord Dunraven, and excited universal regret throughout Ireland.
JOHN FRANCIS MAGUIRE. 55
JOHN FRANCIS MAGUIRE.
BORN 1815 DIED 1872.
John Francis Maguire was born in the city of Cork in the year 1815.
He was originally intended for commercial pursuits, but his great natu-
ral genius soon became apparent, and by a species of instinct common
to most young Irishmen of talent, his thoughts were turned at an early
age to the Irish bar. He was admitted in the year 1843 ; but in the
meantime he had become devoted to literary pursuits, which he followed
with so much success, that he was encouraged to establish a newspaper
in his native city to advocate repeal; for into this cause he had flung
liimself with all the enthusiasm characteristic of his nature. The Cork
Examiner was established in the year 1841, and steadily advancing in
popular favour, it soon gained an influence rarely possessed by a pro-
vincial journal. Its great success, no doubt, was mainly, if not altogether,
due to the rare abilities and indomitable energy of its founder. He
now became so absorbed in all the great political questions of the day,
that he entirely abandoned the profession of the law, although there
could be no question that he possessed in an eminent degree all the
qualifications necessary for the successful lawyer. Being now fairly
committed to the arena of political life, Mr Maguire threw himself with
devoted energy into public aftairs, and became the vigorous advocate
with tongue and pen of every cause which he believed to be for the
benefit of his country. Side by side with the great repeal agitation,
the temperance movement was then at its height, and Father Mathew
found in him one of his most able and earnest supporters.* On the
platform, as well as in the columns of his paper, he soon became identi-
fied with those two great movements, and though comparatively a very
young man, he was accounted one among the most promising of the
many promising men of that stirring time.
But a critical moment was now fast approaching for those who de-
rived their inspiration from the great leader of the I'epeal agitation. As
long as O'Counell held undisputed sway, the course of politics was
comparatively smooth. When, however, a large number of his followers,
dissatisfied with his policy, had seceded, and the "Young Ireland" party
was formed, and openly declared its design of eftecting the independence
of Ireland by armed insurrection, it became necessary for men like Mr
Maguire to declare for one or other of the contending parties. Be-
lieving that successful armed insurrection was utterly impossible, Mr
Maguire remained true to the doctrine of peaceful and constitutional
agitation. In this diflicult situation it was his good fortune, without
any sacrifice of his honest convictions, to retain the good opinion and
friendship of most of his opponents. The same good fortune, too, seems
to have followed him in his subsequent Parliamentary career.
At the general election of 1847 he contested the representation of
* Strangely enough one of Mr Maguire's first literary efforts, long before lio
became a journalist, was a squib ridiculing the temperance movement when it
had just sprung into notice.
56 MODERN. POLITICAL.
Dungarvan, in the repeal interest, with Richard Lalor Sheil, whose
brilliant Parliamentary course had raised him to a seat on the Treasury
benches. On that occasion he was defeated by a majority of fifteen
votes. On the death of Mr Sheil he again contested the borough with
the Hon. Mr Ponsonby, now Lord de Mauley, but was again defeated.
At the general election of 1852 he once more appeared in the field,
and was elected by a considerable majority. The defeated candidate,
Mr Edmund O'FIaherty, having presented a petition against his return,
a compromise was come to, by the terms of which he was to resign at
the end of the session. This arrangement he was never called on to
fulfil, Mr O'FIaherty having in the meantime been appointed a Com-
missioner of Income-Tax. The circumstance was, however, made use
of against Mr Maguire. At the next general election Mr Gregory, the
late member for Gal way, and afterwards Governor of Ceylon, contested
the borough. It was alleged that this was a mere pro formd contest, in
order to found a petition against Mr Maguire on the ground of a cor-
rupt compromise. The petition was fought, and decided in Mr Maguire's
favour.
In 1852 he took an active part in promoting the Exhibition at Cork,
and drew up a report of its results, whicli he afterwards expanded into
a valuable book of statistics, showing the industrial progress of the
country. In the following year he became mayor of Cork, and his
mayoralty was distinguished by many useful reforms, for which he was
highly complimented at the end of his year of office. On the formation
of the famous " Independent Opposition League," he was one of the
sixty-two members of Parliament who pledged themselves to oppose
every Government which would not make Tenant-Right, Disestablish-
ment of the Church, a Catholic University, the repeal of the Ecclesias-
tical Titles Act, and some other enactments. Cabinet questions. It is
creditable to Mr Maguire that he was one of the few who kept the
solemn pledge of the League, and though the ranks of the Independent
Opposition were gradually thinned by desertion, he remained faithful
to the last; and not until the year 1868, when Mr Gladstone took up
the Irish question, and adopted, almost point for point, the old platform
programme of the Independent Opposition, did he consider himself ab-
solved from the solemn obligation of his pledge. In the interval, how-
ever, his position was anything but pleasant ; and that he himself most
keenly felt the painful part he had to play, we have the authority of
one who knew liim well, and thus describes the situation in which he
was placed. '' As the time wore on, the position of an Independent
Oppositionist in the House of Commons one of less than a dozen
amongst the six hundred and fifty became one of an absolutely painful
kind. Often and often has John Francis Maguire confessed to the
writer, in the bitterness of his soul, the pain it cost him to play such a
part. Looked on by both sides as enemies, unthanked for the support
you gave, but hated for the hostility you had from time to time to ofler,
vour very position being regarded as a standing reproach to each, it i.-.
not difficult to conceive how the duty often brought pain to a souJ
which after all was sensitive, and loth to give annoyance. This was
especially the case during the long years of Lord Palmerston's power,
when political scepticism was the ruling creed when 'to leave things
alone' was considered the perfection of statesmanship ; wlien to exclaim
that ' tenant-right was landlord wrong ' was to exhibit supernatural
wisdom ; and when both parties in tlie House of Commons avowed
their intention to coalesce whenever necessary to |)ut down any attempt
to right the immemorial wrongs of Ireland. Yet in that time, and alike
under its blandishments or discouragements, its sneers or its threats,
John Francis Maguire never swerved from the path he liad pledged
himself to follow, and never lost sight of the objects for the attainment
of which he had entered Parliament. He had assailed the formidable
Premier in the House, and with deputations ; he joined The O'Donoghue
in a formal proposal for a Land Act ; he was associated with George
Henry Moore in the preparation of a Land Bill. Night after night he
sat, as steadily as if he were the obedient servant of a ministerial whip,
in the House, watching now to carry some motion, now to defeat some
insidious clause, now to make some representation on behalf of an
oppressed interest, and all with the certainty thait he was in hos-
tility to the feelings of the great masses of those around him. This
may seem an easy thing to those who have not tried it, but there
is, in fact, no severer test of a man's constancy and public virtue.
The knight who will fight lifiants will often succumb to the witchery of
a smile ; the patriotism which can resist hot opposition or gross tempta-
tion, may find it hard to withstand the incessant sapping of the glance
of wonder, the shrug, the gentle reproach, the confidential assurance
that you are doing injury to the cause of the country, and ruining
yourself, with all the other macliinery of political seduction or menace.
John Francis Maguire's constancy, though put to every possible test,
stood them all firmly and bravely." This is, no doubt, a faitliful
account of Mr Maguire's position during that trying period ; but it is
not. however, to be supposed that he became completely isolated or
destitute of friends. Such eminent men as Mr Cobden, Mr Bright,
Charles Gavan Dufty, Frederick Lucas, and others, unfettered by party
ties, lionoured him with their friendship. Even Lord Palmerston
himself evinced, on many occasions, and in an unmistakable manner,
his respect for the sturdy and uncompromising Irish member ; and his
speeches were always listened to with attention whenever he had
occasion to address the House. It was, however, during the latter
years of his career that his character came to be more fully appreciated.
The proceedings at the Mansion House, Dublin, immediately after his
death, aftbrded ample proof of the estimation in which he was held.
On that occasion men of all creeds and politics came forward to testify
to his i)ublic and private worth. The resolutions which were tlieu
proposed by Mr Pirn, M.P. for the county of Dublin, and by the Hon.
Mr Plunket, Conservative M.P. for Dublin University, faithfully
expressed the feeling of the whole country on the loss it had sustained
by the early death of John Francis Maguire. The first resolution
conveys in a few words a very good estimate of his public life :
" That we share in the sorrow so widely prevalent amongst men of all
])arties, called forth by the sudden and early decease of our distinguished
countryman, John Francis JNIaguire, in whose public life and labours
we all recognise and lionour unselfish devotion to what he believed to
be the public good, a generous consideration for the feeliiigs of other?,
L.
and an indefatigable zeal in the advancement of the social, moral, and
material interests of this country." Several other resolutions were
adopted by the meeting, and all the speakers expressed themselves in
terms of the highest eulogy of the deceased with regret for his loss, and
many of them, speaking from the experience of long and intimate
acquaintance, bore the warmest testimony to his moral worth and private
virtues.
While Mr Maguire continued in the unfavourable position already
described, it was very difficult for him to carry any legislative measure
of importance, yet he did, almost single-handed, accomplish one
measure of great benefit to the poor of his native country. Under the
Law of Settlement, a residence of more than five years in one parish
was needed to entitle an Irish-born pauper to relief in an English
workhouse. The hardships and cruelties practised under this law were
of the most outrageous nature. All protests against the frequent acts
of gross injustice and inhumanity perpetrated under legal sanction were
unavailing. Mr Maguire addressed himself vigorously to redress this
crying evil. He first wrote an able pamphlet on the subject, and at
last succeeded in securing the formation of a select committee of the
House of Commons. As soon as the report of the Committee was
presented, he allowed the Government and the poor-law authorities no
peace until a Bill was brought in and passed, reducing the period of
settlement required for relief to six months, and imposing severe
penalties on any violation of the law, by the inhuman system of de-
portation of paupers, up to that time practised. If Mr Maguire per-
formed no other service while in Parliament, this measure alone would
have entitled him to the lasting gratitude of his countrymen.
A few years subsequently to his first mayoralty, he was again
elected to fill the civic chair, and made his year of office memorable by
an effectual crusade against nuisances and false weights. He also
turned his attention to promote various enterprises for the benefit of
the city. After much difficulty, he formed a local gas company in
opposition to the existing English company, which availed itself of a
monopoly to supply bad light at an extravagant price. This project
proved a great success. Later on he worked up the formation of the
Citizens' River Steamer Company, and so conferred an immense boon
on all classes of his fellow citizens. In 1856 Mr Maguire made his
first visit to Rome, and was received by the Pope with more than usual
cordiality. The result of this visit was his well-known work, " Rome
and its Ruler." His Holiness thanked him in an autograph letter, and
in acknowledgment of his services to the Church, conferred on him the
order of Knight Commander of St Gregory. He afterwards re-
modelled this work into an almost totally new book, under the title of
" The Pontificate of Pius tlie Ninth." It is thought very highly of
in Roman Catholic circles. Pope Pius Avrote a very beautiful letter of
consolation to his historian's widow, in which he expressed a high ap-
preciation of the writer and the man.
In 1866, Mr Maguire giving up his seat for Dungarvan, was returned
for the city of Cork, which he continued to represent down to the time
of his death.
Among his literary productions may be mentioned his life of Father
Matliew a most charming biograpliy of tlie great itliilantliropist
and enhancing perhaps, more tliuii any of his works, the reputation
of tlie writer. But of all Mr jNIaguire's wovlis, the most celehrated
and hest luiown is " Tlie Irish in America." Tiie following extract from
a notice of this work may not prove uninteresting:
" In the interval between his election and the introduction of the
Reform Bill, he had entered upon a characteristic undertaking, which
formed somewhat of an event in his life, and ap|)ears not to have been
without influence on public policy. Lover of Ireland as he was, he
remembered tliat there was another Ireland beyond the Atlantic.
There, powerful in numbers, and warm in their memory of native land,
were millions of (he Irish who lay under tlie ban of misrepresentation
by hostile English or careless American writers, until they seemed to be
a reproacli to tiie new land whose material greatness and whose glory
they had helped to build up. So he resolved to see and to examine
for himself, and the result was the book known as 'The Irish in
America.' The preparation of the materials cost him six months'
travelling in Canada and the States, and the most diligent use of his
faculties of observation and inquiry. Many of our readers, doubtless,
have perused the work, and need no criticism of its contents. It is
sufficient to state that while it admits obvious faults in the Irish
character, it shows that it has been grossly and deliberately maligned
in the literature of American travel, and that tlie Irish people have
steadily raised themselves in the social scale of their adopted country,
and have given it most chivalrous service in its hour of need. Tlie last
chapter was perhaps its most important feature. It resuscitated the
whole feeling of the Irish people in America as regards the relations of
the old land to England, and it spoke in tones of solemn and impressive
warning on the absolute necessity of a redressal of the wrongs of
Ireland, if the resentment, not of the Fenians alone, but of men who
had no connection with Fenianism, were not to be looked for the
moment the opportunity of vengeance came. This book appeared, and
produced no common effect. It made abundant fame, but we may
say, no profit for the author.''
His novel, ' The Next Generation," is too well known to need
description. He was an ardent advocate of justice to woman, and
this was a fanciful and somewhat sportive dealing with the theme,
though with a serious purpose too. His latest literary project was a
History of the Jesuits. In the midst of this task his health gave way,
and his death took place in St Stephen's Green, Dublin, on the 1st of
November 1872. It may be said, with truth, that he fell a victim to
overwork. The sorrow occasioned by his sudden and untimely death
was not confined to his native hind. In England, America, and
Australia, there was an unanimous expression of regret for the prema-
ture loss of a man whose public career was at once so energetic for the
right, and so stainless.
60 MODERN. POLITICAL.
THE RIGHT HON JOHN' EDWARD WALSH, Q.C., LL.D., MASTER OF THE
ROLLS IN IRELAND
BORN NOVEMBER 1816 DIED OCTOBER 1S69.
The Right Hon. John Edward "Walsh was born on the 12th ofNovember
181G, near Finglass, in the county of Dublin. He was the only son
of the Rev. Robert Walsh, LL.D., vicar of Finglass, who, in the earlier
part of his life, had been Chaplain to the British Embassies at St
Petersburg, Constantinople, and the Brazils, and was known in the
literary world as the author of several works of high merit. Mr Walsh
received his early education under the Rev. J. Burnet, at Bcctive
House School, which was then the principal educational establishment
in Dublin. In 1832 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and after a
distinguished career, in which he took the highest honours in classics,
ethics, and logics, and a scholarship in 1S35, he graduated in 1836,
obtaining the Senior Moderatorship in Ethics and Logics at the same
degree examination at which the Venerable W. Lee, afterwards Arch-
deacon of Dublin, obtained the like rank in mathematics. Like most
of the distinguished students of the University, Mr Walsh became a
member of the College Historical Society, and though he had to con-
tend with such formidable rivals as Butt, Ball, Kirwan, Keogh, Law-
son, Willes, and other men who then gave promise of their future
greatness, he was ranked among the most successful debaters of the
Society, and was selected, as Vice-President, to deliver the opening
address of the session in 1837. His address on that occasion was pub-
lished at the request of the Society, an honour not then, as latterly,
regularly accorded as a matter of course. He was called to the Irish
Bar in Trinity Term 1839, and, as is the usual fate of juniors who have
to make a connection for themselves, he remained for several years
without practice.
In 1843, and for some years after, he reported for the "Irish
Equity Reports," an occupation profitable to him, not so much in a
pecuniary as in a professional point of view, as leading to closer obser-
vation and knowledge of the practice and decisions of the Courts of
Equity. In 1840, in conjunction with Mr R. Nun, Assistant Barrister for
the county Tyrone, he published the well-known work on " The
Powers and Duties of Justices of the Peace in Ireland," which long
continued a text-book of the highest authority, and passed through
several editions. In 1850 Mr Walsh publislied a Commentary on the
Statutes 12 and 13 Victoria, chapters 69, 70, and 16, relating to the
duties of Justices of the Peace in Ireland ; but his business had
increased so rapidly within a few years, that he never had sulHcient
time at his conunand to bring out a complete work, embracing the
successive changes of the law, which had taken place since the last
edition of his original work was ))ublished in 1844. Like his father,
Mr Walsh was devoted to literature. In 1817 he published a volume
entitled " Ireland Sixty Years Ago," which attracted much attention
THE RIGHT HON. JOHN EDWARD WALSH.
01
at tlie time, :uk1 |);isscm1 tlirmiLrli several editions. He was also a i're-
quont contributor to the "Dul)lin University Miiirazine," and other
periodicals. His literary endeavours were almost invariably suggested
by Irish topics. As his practice at the bar increased, liis old love for
literary labour did not abate, but he had little time for its indulgence.
When, however, the comparatively light lal)ours of the bench gave
him more leisure, he was enabled again to gratify, to some extent, his
literary tastes.
The meeting of " The Association for the Promotion of Social
Science" in Belfast in the year 18G7 ailorded him an early oppor-
tunity of giving to the community at large the benefit of his high
attainments. He was asked to become President in the department of
" The Repression of Crime." He had for many years been Crown
Prosecutor for the city and county of Dublin, an office to which he
had been appointed in 1858. In the discharge of the duties of this
office he gained an experience, such as few had opportunity for
acquiring, in the working of the criminal laws of the country. His
address as President to the Association in this department had all
the weight which his past experience and his perfect knowledge of
the law was calculated to give it. It was looked on as one of the most
successful* of the session ; and both the congress and the press received
it with the most marked approval. It dealt in a masterly manner with
a subject 'of great difficulty and of the highest public importance, and
made valuable suggestions for the improvement of the law, some of
which have since been made the subject of legislation, and others, it is
probable, will in course of time be in like manner adopted. The
address included the consideration of deterrent punishment, reformatory
treatment, transportation, prison discipline, female convicts, juvenile
reformatories, retributive punishment, prevention of crime, pecuniary
fines, crimes of violence, prison labour, police organisation. It breathed
the desire which always animated its author in the discharge of his
public duties to be merciful and yet just, to aim at making the
criminal population reformed and useful citizens, and that with the
greatest amount of leniency consistent with the public good. The
address concluded in the expression of a hope which is the common
hope of all who have the interests of their fellow-men at heart : " It is,
perhaps, not to be hoped for, among imperfect beings as we are, that
society will ever exist in that exalted state which philanthropic
enthusiasts have delighted to paint, when crime shall be no more, but
it is not a wholly visionary hope that we may approach it more and
more nearly. Let us trust, under the blessing of God, that the topics
we have been considering will yearly become less important, and that
the time will yet arrive when the least engrossing branch of our studies
will be that which deals with punishment and reformation, and the least
extensive field of our labours ' the repression of crime.' "
Shortly before his death he was engaged in preparing for the press
" The Life and Times of Lord-Chancellor Clare," but he hail not done
uch more than collect materials for a work which he believed was
urgently called for injustice to the character of a distinguished Irishman
not afterwards heretofore justly estimated. In January 1857 he was
promoted to the rank of one of her Majesty's Counsel, Mr Lawson
!
62 MODERN. POLITICAL.
(Justice Lawson) at the same time receiving the like distinction; and he
became almost immediately a leader in the Equity Courts, taking as
well a foremost position in the Courts of Lavr, Probate, and Landed
Estates. He then had as his competitors, Brewster, Whiteside, Ball,
Lawson, Armstrong, Macdonagh, Chatterton, and other eminent men,
and yet, for the eight or nine years previous to his elevation to the
bench, there were few cases of any importance in wliich he did not
appear as counsel. In 1866, on the accession of Lord Derby's Ministry
to power, Mr Whiteside became Lord Chief-Justice of the Queen's
Bench, and ]\Ir Walsh, admittedly the foremost member of tlie Con-
servative party at the L'ish bar, was appointed Attorney-General, and
was selected, without opposition, to fill the vacancy in the representation
of the University of Dublin created by Mr Whiteside's promotion.
Upon the first rumour of the vacancy. Sir Edward Grogan, Mr Chatter-
ton, afterwards Vice-Chancellor, and Mr Warren, afterwards Judge of
the Probate Court, thought of addressing the electors; but they soon
gave place to one whose distinguished University career and whose pro-
fessional reputation, it was plain, had given the electors of the University
complete confidence in him. JNIr Walsh became Attorney-General at
a sad period in the history of Ireland. The Fenian* organisation had
but a short time before assumed alarming proportions. Towards the
close of Lord Kimberley's Vice-Royalty, the jails were filled witli
Fenian prisoners. It became the new Attorney-General's difficult and
responsible duty to decide in a great measure what was to be done with
these misguided men. Whether the event will prove that he was right
or wrong, Mr Walsh leaned to the side of mercy. He believed most
of these prisoners were the ignorant victims of designing men, who had
appealed to their worst passions for selfish purposes, and then abandoned
them to their fate. He gave his voice in favour of liberating all that
could with safety to the country be set free. In his maiden speech in
the House of Commons, a speech in support of a Bill for cuntinued
teraporarj'' suspension of the " Habeas Corpus Act," and which was
regarded as one that promised well for his future success in Parliamen-
tary debates,- he gave expression to the deep regret with which he dis-
charged this duty of curtailing the liberty of the subject. He spoke in
favour of leniency to his misguided countrymen. This was the only
opportunity he had of addressing the House ; before the close of 1866,
the new Attorney-General concluded his short official and Parliamentary
career. Tlie Master of the Eolls, the Right Hon. T. B. C. Smith, at
the early age of 49, died in the winter of that year. Mr Walsh was ap-
pointed to fill this office, the third highest in rank which he could hold.
During his short career as a member of the Irish Government, the
Marquis of Abercorn and his colleagues placed the most implicit con-
fidence in tlie opinion of their chief law-officer, and the estimation he
was held in by them and liis political chief thus found expression m
the letter in which Lord Derby congratulated him upon his appointment
to be Master of the Rolls "While 1 congratulate you, I cannot but
regret the loss to the Government of services which we anticipated would
be found of such great value."
He only sat for three years on the bench ; but during that time,
short as it was, he won golden opinions from all, of whatever creed or
THE RIGHT HON. JOHN EDWARD WALSH. 63
party, that came in contact with him. He united with singular felicity
the judicial qualities of learning, diligence, justice, and affability;
without projudice, without passion, he heard everyone, from the highest
witliin the bar to the humblest outside it. Of his many decisions
during that period, only three were reversed on appeal, and one of these
he himself said he had much doubt about wlien giving it. One case
of unusual dilliculty came before him, the "cause celebre " of "Mac-
Cormac v. Queen's University." It was a case in which there were no
precedents^to rely on, and consequently required much historical and
literary research in its determination. It afforded a good specimen of
the manner in which he dealt with difficult and intricate legal questions.
His judgment upon it was marked by such research and learning, by
such a masterly exposition of the law, that to assail its soundness was
considered hopeless, though there existed every possible inducement to
do so.
Wiien Mr Gladstone, in the early part of the year 18G9, brought in his
Irish Church Bill, it became evident that it would pass into law, and that
its immediate effect would be to disorganise tlie Irisli Cluu'ch com])letGly,
by the necessary violence of the transition from being established to
becoming a voluntary community. It was a crisis which called for
much prudence and promptitude on the part of the members of the
Cliurch. In order to make due preparation for the future, provisional
committees and conventions were elected ; on all of these his fellow-
Churchmen appointed the Master of the Rolls. He had in times past
been ever a willing and effective advocate on the platform for her
religious societies, and he now took a prominent part in her cause during
the difficult work of reconstruction. Of his valuable services to the Irish
Church at this most critical period, the Rev. George Salmon, D.D.,
Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin, thus spoke:
" Perhaps there are no persons who will feel his loss more strongly than
the members of our Church in the crisis that has come upon us. It has
been my lot during the past year to have worked with him a good
deal, and I don't know whether there was any one with whom it was
more pleasant to work ; there was so little self-assertion, so little
obtrusiveness of himself, so little obstinate adherence to any views
because they were his own, and at the same time placing his faculties
at our disposal, that even as a hewer of wood and drawer of water he
mioht advance the cause which we all had at heart. In the reoraani-
sation of our Church we shall sadly miss him, for his legal knowledge,
for his sound wisdom, for his moderation, and for his conciliating
manners." He had gone abroad during the autumn of 1869, in
excellent health, with his family, and after a tour tln-ough Italy, he
was hurrying home to be in time to take part in a convention relating
to the organisation of the Irish Church. At Paris he was seized with
malignant inflammation, of wdiicli he died in little more than a week,
at the early age of 52. His family, who were present at his sad and
untimely death, brought his remains home to Dublin, and laid them
in Mount Jerome Cemetery, amidst the regret of men of all creeds and
politics, who thronged to his funeral to pay him their last melancholy
tribute of respect. " His death was deeply deplored by a large circle
of friends and former colleagues. No man was more respected in
64 MODERN. POLITICAL.
private life, or looked upon witli more confidence by those wlio intrusted
their interest to his powerful advocacy."*
Short as was the period during which he presided over his Court,
it was long enough to prove him a most excellent judge. By inde-
fatigable industry, by kindness and urbanity to all who were in com-
munication with him, by patience and discrimination in investigating
the rights of the parties before him, and by firmness and perspicuity
in delivering his judgments, he gave universal satisfaction, and estab-
lished for himself the highest character as a courteous and right-
minded just judge.
He married, on the 1st of OctoVjer 1841, Blair Belinda, only
daughter of the late Gordon M'Neill, Captain 77th Regiment, by
whom he left issue five sons and one daughter.
THE EARL OF MAYO.
BOEN FEBRUARY 1822 DIED FEBRUARY 1872.
The Ilight Hon. Richard Southwell Bourke, sixth Earl of Mayo, Vis-
count Mayo of Monycrower, and Baron Naas of Naas, co. Kildare,
in the peerage of Ireland, K.P., G.C.S.I., P.C., late Governor-
General of India, Chief Secretary of State for Ireland, was born in
Dublin n February 21, 1822. His father was Robert the fifth EarL
His mother was Anne Ciiarlotte, only daugliter of the Hon. John
Jocelyn, third son of the first Earl of Roden. The Bourkes of the
county Kildare, whom Lord Mayo represented, have been connected
by the ties of family and property with that county ever since the
Irish rebellion of 1641, when their ancestor, John 13ourke, a son of
Bourke of Monycrower, in Kilmain,'in the county Mayo, and a descend-
ant of the Bourkes of Ballinrobe, who held a captaincy of horse under
Lord Ormonde, settled at Kill in the county of Kildare. His son became
" of Palmerstown," near Naas, which is still the seat of the family ; and
his grandson, the Right Hon. John Bourke of Kill and Monycrower,
was raised to the Irish peerage as a baron, and subsequently advanced
to the viscountcy and earldom. Tiie third Lord Mayo became Arch-
bishop of Tuani ; his son, grandfather of the late Governor-General,
was Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and died in November 1832.
The bite Earl of Mayo was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, being
then Mr Bourke, and took the degrees of A.B. in 1844, A.M. in 1851,
and hh.D., jjer dijtJoma, in 1852, as Lord Naas. He travelled in
Russia, and published in 1846 a book of descriptive and historical
notices, called " St Petersburg and Moscow ; or, A Visit to the Court
of the Czar." Mr Bourke held, from July 1844 to July 1846, the
appointment of gentleman of the bed-chamber to Lord Heytesbury,
then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. He bore the courtesy-title of Lord
Naas from the date of his father's accession to the earldom in 1849.
During more than twenty years he occupied a seat in the House of
Commons, and represented, during his parliamentary career, three
* " Irish Timrs."
constituencies. Entering the House in August 1847 as M.P. for
Kildare, he retained that seat nearly four years until March 1852.
He was tlien returned for Coleraine, for which he sat five years
until tiie general election in March 1857 wlien he was returned
for Cockermoutli in Cumberland, and represented that constitu-
ency down to the year 18G8, wlion he accepted the Governor-General-
ship of India. At the death of his father, on August 12, 1867, he
succeeded to the earldom of Mayo ; but, as an Irish peer, he still
retained his seat in the House of Commons. He was througliout
life an earnest and consistent Conservative. As such, he held a con-
spicuous position in eacli of the Derby administrations. Tlie post he
occupied in the first he resumed in the second, and again in the third
government formed under Lord Derby's premiersliip. In all of tliem
tlie Conservative Prime Minister appointed him the Chief Secretary of
kState for Ireland. Lord Naas first held that office nine months, namely,
from Marcli till December, under the cabinet of 1852. On tlie resto-
ration to power of the Conservatives, he was reappointed to the same
office in February 1858, holding it that time upwards of a twelvemonth,
until the June of 1859. Seven years afterwards in June 18GG
he was again named to the Irish Secretaryship. On the reconstruc-
tion of the Conservative ministry, nearly two years later, when Lord
Derby, through ill health, on May 25, 1868, tendered his resigna-
tion as First Lord of the Treasury, and tlie premiership passed into
the hands of Mr Disraeli, Lord Mayo under the latter was still the
Irish Secretary. During the latter part of the autumn of that year,
however, when the Disraeli government was fast approaching its close.
Lord Mayo's career as Secretary for Ireland was terminated by his
political chief, with a view to his advancement. In the early winter
of 1868, having been created a Knight of St Patrick for his Irish ser-
vices, he was appointed Governor-General of India. He arrived at
Calcutta on the 12th of January 1869, and immediately entered upon
his duties as Viceroy.
Lord Mayo, while in Parliament, was a most popular and influential
member of the House of Commons, and as Chief Secretary for Ireland
lie displayed considerable ability in the administration of Irish affairs.
He revived Pitt's policy of concurrent endowment, which met with
the approval of all wise men, but was opposed by the leaders of the
prejudiced masses, and the extreme demands of the Roman bisliops
gave him an opportunity of withdrawing from an impracticable at-
tempt : the field was then left clear for Mr Gladstone's policy of
disestablislmient. It was probably in consequence of his being thus
compromised that he was deemed unfit, in the approaching conflict, to
act as the Conservative Chief Secretary for Ireland, and it was deter-
mined to transfer him to a field of action where his statesmanship
could move untrammelled, where there was neither Wiiig nor Tory,
neither Roman impracticability nor tlie bigotry of a party cry.
But although during a triple term of office he discharged its onerous
and trying duties with admirable tact and efficiency, yet his nomina-
tion by Mr Disraeli to the high and important post of Governor-General
of India came upon ihe world with some surprise, and excited no small
amount of hostile criticism at the time. How ill-founded were the
IV. E Ir.
66 MODERN. POLITICAL.
fears or doubts wliich had been raised in the minds of some of the
Liberal party on his selection for such high office, has been fully shown
by the universally admitted success of his Indian administration ; and
it is now perfectly certain that Lord Mayo amply justified the sanguine
expectations entertained of him by his friends and colleagues, and that
he proved himself one of the ablest and most popular of Lidian vice-
roys. The high tributes paid to him by the Duke of Argyll and Mr
Gladstone in their respective places in parliament on the arrival of tlie
news of his assassination, received the warmest assent from every one
who had followed him through his short but brilliant career. Li the
House of Lords the Duke of Argyll, after referring to the circumstances
of the viceroy's assassination, said : " It is my duty on behalf of the
govei-nment to express, in the first place, the deep sympathy which we
feel with the family of Lord Mayo in a calamity so unlooked for and
so overwhelming. As regards the friends of Lord Mayo, this House is
full of his personal friends. I believe no man ever had more friends
than he, and I believe no man ever deserved better to have them. For
myself I regret to sav that I never even had the honour of Lord
Mayo's acquaintance ; but we came into ofliice at almost the same time,
and I am happy to say that from that time our communications have
been most friandly, and I may say most cordial. I think I may go
further, and say that there has not been one very serious difference of
opinion between us on any question connected with the government of
India. I hope, my Lords, it will not be considered out of place, con-
sidering my official position, if, on behalf of Her JNIajesty's Govern-
ment, I express our opinion that the conduct of Lord Mayo in his
great office the greatest, in my opinion, which can be held by a sub-
ject of the crown amply justifies the choice made by our predecessors.
Lord Mayo's Governor-Generalship did not fall in a time of great trial
or great difficulty, from foreign war or domestic insurrection ; but lie
had to labour under constant difficulties and great anxieties, which are
inseparable from the government of that mighty empire. This I may
say, I believe with perfect truth, that no Governor-General who ever
ruled India was more energetic in the discharge of his duties and more
assiduous in performing the functions of his great office ; and above
all, no viceroy that ever ruled India had more at heart the good of the
people of that vast empire. I think it may be said further, that Lord
Mayo has fallen a victim to an almost excessive discharge of his public
duties. If Lord Mavo had a fault, it was that he would leave nothins
to others. He desired to see everything for himself. On his way to
Burmah, he thought it his duty to visit the Andaman Islands to see
the convicts, and in what manner the rules and discipline of a convict
prison were carried out there. It was in the discharge of this duty he
met his death. I believe his death will be a calamity to India, and
that it will be sincerely mourned not only in England and in his native
country Ireland, but by the well-afi'ected millions of Her Majesty's
sulvjects in India."
In like manner, in the House of Commons, Mr Gladstone tlius con-
cluded his observations on the same subject : " But I cannot communi-
cate to the House this most painful, most grievous information without
stating on my own part, and on the part of the government, the grief
THE EARL OF MAYO. 67
we feel at receiving it, and our sense of the lieavy los.'s ic announces to
the Crown. Lord Mayo has passed a career in India wortliy of the
distinguislied services of his predecessors. He lias been outdone by
none of tiiem in his zeal, intelligence, and untiring devotion to the
public service. So far as it is in our power to render testimony to iiis
high qualities, so far as our approval can in any degree give him
credit, I am bound to say that the whole of his policy and conduct has
won for him tlie unreserved and uniform confidence of the Govern-
ment." Similar tributes were paid to him by the Duke of Ilichmond
in the Lords and by Mr Disraeli in the Commons.
Tlie Government of India, about the same time, in a notification
announcing the Viceroy's assassination, alludes to the public and per-
sonal merits of Lord Mayo in terras not less complimentary : " Tiie
country has lost a statesman who discharged the highest duties tliat
the Queen can entrust to any of her subjects with entire self-devotion,
and with abilities equal to the task. Those wlio were honoured by
the Earl of Mayo's friendship, and especially those whose pride it was
to be associated with him in public affairs, have sustained a loss of
which they cannot trust themselves to speak. The Government of
India therefore abstains at present from saymg anything of this great
calamity."
Such were the expressions of feeling which emanated on this sad and
impressive occasion from high official sources, and from independent
members of both Houses of Parliament ; and it is evident that they
were not mere conventional words of eulogy and regret, or mere for-
mal recognitions of meritorious public services. They were, in trutli,
a faithful echo of the feeling which pervaded all classes of the commu-
nity, both in this country and in India. The calamity which befel
Lord Mayo, independently of every feeling of personal regret, was
deplored as a calamity to the State, and especially to the great pro-
vince over which he ruled so well. Although a period of scarcely
three years had elapsed from the time he entered on the duties of his
office until he was struck down by the hand of a sanguinary fanatic,
his viceroyalty was marked by the most extraordinary activity. No
one ever in a similar space of time had seen so much of India, or so
thoroughly made himself master of the condition of tliat vast empire.
From the very outset he was determined to see and judge for himself;
and this independence of thought and judgment soon produced the
most beneficial results in every department of the Government. The
development of agriculture and commerce, the removal of radical de-
fects and abuses in the system of public works, the diffusion of educa-
tion on sound principles, large schemes of internal communication by
a railway and telegraphic system specially fitted for the country, were
some of the measures of improvement and reform wliich he either
initiated, advanced, or perfected. His dealings with the natives, high
and low, were unexceptionable. He received the princes with be-
coming state, and with a dignified courtesy which made a deep im-
pression on the Asiatic mind, and excited sentiments of personal
attachment and regard. He held some of the most brilliant durbars
that had ever been witnessed in India, and on these occasions or cere-
mony his bearing was dignified and imposing, and worthy of the
68 MODERN. POLITICAL.
representative of royalty. The great durbar held at Umballah on the
27th March 1869 was one of the first events of importance in Lord
Mayo's viceroyalty. The object of that conference was to form an
alliance with Shere Ali, the Ameer of Afghanistan, and so present a
barrier in tliat quarter against Russian encroacliment on British India.
The progress and attitude of Russia in Central Asia had long engaged
the attention of Indian statesmen. Many ridiculed what were deemed
the visionary traditions bequeathed by Peter tlie Great, and regarded
a scheme of conquest so colossal as to embrace British India and
Cliina in the Russian Empire as chimerical and absurd. There could
be no doubt, however, that the question of Russian aggression had
caused serious alarm ; and the practicability of converting Eastern
Afglianistan into a barrier for the defence of British India had been
seriously considered by several previous Viceroys. Lord Minto
first entertained the project, but took no active steps towards its
accomplishment. But in Lord Auckland's time Russian intrigues
assumed such a threatening aspect that it was deemed advisable to
secure an alliance with Afghanistan by armed intervention. Accord-
ingly, in 1839 a large Britisli force was sent into that country ; Dost
Malnnood, the father of Shere Ali, was driven out, and his brother
Shoojah was placed on tlie throne. The disastrous results of this
interference are well-known matters of history, and furm one of
the darkest pages in the annals of British India.* Lord Auckland
was censured for taking up tlie cause of the wrong man, and his
policy was condemned as the result of " blinded and pernicious acti-
vity." Lord Lawrence in his turn, when Shere Ali appealed to him
for aid, was censured for not espousing the cause of the right man,
and his policy was stigmatised as the result of " masterly inactivity."
Lord Lawrence, it is said, refused to aid Shere Ali until he had
given further proof of his cause being successful. It was,, perhaps,
only natural that Lord Lawrence should be somewhat cautious, having
before his eyes the disasters of Lord Auckland's time, and the recent
history of Affghanistan, which was one continued struggle for the sove-
reign power, might, not right, constituting the best title to the
* Of the early history of Afglianistan very little is known. In 1713 Nadir
Shah conquered the country. Ten years afterwards, he was murdered by the
Persians, and was succeeded by Ahmid Shah, the founder of the Dooranee
dynasty, who was crowned at Kandahar in 1747. His reign, which continued
for twentj^-six years, was occupied with continual wars, external and internal.
On his death he was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah ; who was again suc-
ceeded by Zeman Shah, a younger son of the deceased prince. The latter was in
turn displaced b}' his elder brother, Mahniood, by whom he was imprisoned and
deprived of sight. Slahmood was subsequently dethroned by another brother,
Shoojah Ool Moolk, who imprisoned him. In the course of the intrigues and
convulsions which succeeded, Mahniood obtained his freedom, reappeared in
arms, and recovered the throne Shoojah having fled and found a retreat in the
Britisli territory. In the year 1S37 the British Government, thinking it advis-
able to establish a friendly alliance with the ruling princes in Afghauistan,
restored Shoojah to the throne by means of a large armed force. In April 1842
the British were driven from the country under circumstances of the most
atrocious barbarity and treachery, which, however, were amply revenged in the
same year by another British army under General Pollock, who, advancing
through the Khyber Pass, recaptured Cabul, and re-established British supre-
macy iu the country. EljpMnslonc' s Cabid.
THE EARL OF MAYO. HO
throne. Lord Lawrence, liowever, did ultimately grant a subsidy to
Shere Ali. Such was the position of affairs with respect to Aftghani-
stan when Lord Mayo become Governor-General. Having arrived at
the seat of liis Government at Calcutta on the 12th of January 1869,
the new Viceroy at once addressed liiiiisolf to what he rightly deemed
the most urgent question of Indian politics. Viewed by the light of
recent events in Khiva, the prompt and decisive steps taken by him to
secure the friendship of the Ameer clearly shew what a correct view
he took of the posture of affairs in 1869, and are creditable to his wis-
dom and sagacity as a statesman. In an incredibly short space of
time his determined energy triumphed over diliiculties which seemed
well-nigh insurmountable. A conference with Shere Ali was arranged
for the 27th March at Umballah. To the very last some of the
"wise men of tiie East" were incredulous. It seemed to them ail
but impossil)le that Shere Ali, after all the treachery and vicissitudes
he had experienced in his eventful life after all the terrible disasters
sustained by Englishmen in liis country could be induced to put faith
in the simple assurances of a British Viceroy, and travel some 500
miles away from his own country to confer with a foreign potentate on
foreign soil. It was therefore no matter for surprise that the pro-
posed Durbar at Umballah should be watched by the Indian public
with feelings of more tlian ordinary interest, and that its successful
issue should have been hailed with intense satisfaction by all who
could appreciate its Jiistorical importance. The memorable meeting
between Lord Mayo and the Ameer took place on the 27th of March
1869. It was, indeed, a strange and significant fact to see the son
and successor of Dost Mahmood received by one of Lord Auckland's
successors as tlie lawful sovereign of Aftghanistan and the equal and
warm ally of a British Governor- General. Before the conference
ended, its good fruits were already apparent ; while yet at Umballah, the
Ameer received intelligence that the Ameer of Badakshan and all
the Sirdars of Turkistan had given in their allegiance to him, and
that the son of his brother and rival, Azim Khan, liad fled across
the Oxus. The Ameer having expressed his warm thanks to
Lord Mayo, left the Britisii territory, greatly elated at this news,
which he attributed, and no doubt rightly attributed, to the Umballah
conference. All the heads of the Khyber tribes accompanied the
Ameer from Jamrood. Thus ended the memorable Durbar of Umbal-
lah : and if any doubts had existed in the public mind as to the state
of Russian feeling with respect to British dominion in India, such
doubts would have been immediately dispelled. No sooner had the
news of the alliance with the ruler of Cabul reached Europe, than
the leading journals of Russia launched forth into the most bitter
invectives against England. Affecting to ridicule the proceedings at
Umballah as a piece of solemn jugglery and empty pageantry, they
affirmed that Shere Ali, after accepting ])resents and a subsidy from
the English Viceroy, woidd the next day have willingly accepted
Russian friendship and Russian gold. In a country where the utter-
ances of the press are made subject to state control and direction, the
unmistakable language used on this occasion was suflici'ently alarm-
ing, and clearly proved that Lord Mayo was not mistaken in his views
70 MODERN. POLITICAL.
of Kussiaii designs in Central Asia, or of the expediency of establish-
ing sound and healthy relations with Affghanistan.
Though short the duration of his viceroyalty, such was the indefatig-
able activity of Lord Mayo, that it would be hopeless here to attempt
to follow him in his various progresses through the vast empire under
his care, or to give an account of the many occasions in* which he
displayed the grandeur and power of the British nation. Brilliant ,
receptions and splendid pageants may be deemed ridiculous by sober-
minded people at home, but any one acquainted with oriental ideas
Avell knows that there is nothing so eminently calculated to fascinate
and attract the princes and peoples of the East. Of this no one was
more sensible than Lord Mayo, and it is certain that he effectually
employed such means with others to make a favourable impression
on the native chiefs and princes, and bind them in fast friendship and
allegiance to the English throne.
It was during Lord Mayo's viceroyalty that H.R.H. the Duke of
Ediaburgii paid his visit to various parts of Hindoostan, the sojourn
of the Prince there extending from the December of 1869 to the
April of 1870. In January 1872, the King of Siam was received by
Lord Mayo at Calcutta and entertained with great splendour. The
festivities at Government House on both those occasions were on a
scale of the greatest magnificence. Lord Mayo's ordinary hospitalities
during his stay at Calcutta were all in true viceregal style and most
liberally dispensed. Socially his popularity was. very great, and it
was said of him that he had restored the old regime which prevailed
in Lord Dalhousie's days.
After visiting the north-west provinces in the January of 1872,
the Governor- General returned to Calcutta on the 14th of that month
to receive the King of Siam. Immediately after he embarked in
H.M.S. Glasgow for Burmah, and after visiting Rangoon, where he
received a most cordial reception, his Excellency and party left Mool-
mein on the 0th of February, in order to gain a few hours' inspection
of the convict settlement at Port Blair. On the 8th of February the
Glasgow anchored off Ross Island, the head-quarters of General Stewart
the superintendent of the settlement. The Andaman Islands, which
lie on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, opposite the coast of
Tenasserim, are surrounded with coral cliffs, and covered to tlie water's
edge with dense and luxuriant vegetation, and enclose some of the
grandest and most picturesque harbours in the world. After making
an inspection of the establisluiients in Ross, Viper, and Chatiiam Islands,
the Viceroy and party proceeded to Hope Town, in order to visit
Mount Harriet, which had been spoken of as an excellent site for a
sanitarium for Bengal. After visiting Mount Harriet, and as the
party were approaching the landing-place, it began to grow very
dark. The convict authorities had sent up a few torches to light
them on their way, but the Viceroy ordered the torch-bearers to
keep well to tlie front, as he disliked the smell and smoke. When
within about fifty yards from where the boat lay at the end of the
pier, a rushing noise was heard, and a man was seen fastened like a
tiger on the Viceroy's back. Tiie whole occurrence was momentarv,
and took place in almost total darkness, some of the torches having
gone out during the confusion. According to the account given by
iin otHcer of tiie Glasgow, tliere were two men engaged in tlie attack.
" Two men," he writes, " natives and convicts, glided through the
guard, reached Lord Mayo, he fell, stabbed in the back in two places,
and rolled down the bank into the water mortally wounded. Every
one too late rushed to his assistance. He was carried up the bank,
and the blue jackets of the launch conveyed hira down to the boat.
In the meantime the guard had taken one of the convicts, red-handed,
with his knife in his hand, the other having escaped. The murderer
and his noble victim were taken on board in the same boat. Imme-
diately when they got Lord Mayo into the boat they cut his coat
and waistcoat off and bound up his wounds, but the blood flowed fast,
and internal haemorrhage hastened the end. He expired just before
the boat came alongside, the only words he uttered after he was struck,
when they were lifting him out of the water, were, " I don't think
I 'm much hurt," and just before the end, " lift up my head." ....
Immediately when they were alongside, Major Burne, the Viceroy's
private secretary, rushed up to break the news to Lady Mayo before
she should hear it at other hands. " Poor thing," he says, " she bore
up very bravely, though how should she realise it yet? The murderer
was brought up immediately after the corpse, strongly guarded. . . .
Anything more awful than the deep quiet that reigned throughout
the ship I have never experienced, although over six hundred souls
were on board. There was not a sound that the ear could catch.
Every one's voice sank to the lowest whisper, and they hardly seemed
to draw breath, so oppressive was the death-like calm tliat existed
everywhere."
Next day the Grlasgow proceeded to Calcutta, and the Yiceroy's
remains were conveyed in state to Government House amidst a public
demonstration of grief and indignation as general and profound as
had ever been expressed, at any of the most terrible calamities
through which the country had ever passed. The remains were soon
afterwards brought over to Dublin, where they were received in state
by his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and conducted througli the
city amid a most impressive military display and public mourning.
From Dublin they were conveyed to Naas, followed by tlie relatives
and the tenantry of the deceased Earl, and finally deposited in the
family burial-ground at Palmerstown.
Such was the sad and untimely end of this great man of whom
Ireland may be justly proud. An able statesman, an admirable
administrator, a most estimable and kind-hearted man. Lord Mayo left
behind him, in the words of the Duke of Richmond, "a name second
to none of the illustrious men who filled before him the high office of
Governor-General of India."
In further testimony of the feeling of the country, and in recog-
nition of Lord Mayo's services, the House of Commons voted a pension
to Lady Mayo. A memorial fund, called " The Mayo Memorial Fund,"
has also been raised large contributions coming from native Indian
princes.
The late Earl married, in October 1848, the Hon. Blanche Julia
Wyndham, fourth daughter of Lord Lenconfield, by whom he left a
family of two daughters and four sons, all under age at the time of his
death. He was succeeded in his title and estate by his eldest son,
Dermot Robert Wyndham, Lord Naas, of the lOtli Hussars, who was
born in July 1851.
As showing tlie chances on which the fame of really great men may
often depend, the following extract from a leading English Journal,
which had been loud in its condemnation of Lord Mayo's appointment
to the Governor-Generalsiiip of India, may not prove uninteresting.
" Our loss is great, and England now learns a lesson often taught
and often forgotten, that good and great men are never known or
never thoroughly appreciated till they are gone. The truth is, they
come in homely guise, toiling and moiling in the great dusty workshop
of measures, policies, and laws, stooping like mechanics to the drudgery
of details, figures, and phrases. Wellington at his desk was even a
greater man than in the battle-field, for the work was harder and
more ungenial, and simply nothing in the scale of glory. Lord Mayo,
till the other day, was one of the crowd. We overlook, while we are
searching for the man, a head and shoulders taller than the common
rank. Had he then died, he would hardly have left a name, except in
the memory of friends, or in some official records. Had he died a
week ago in the midst of receptions, shows, and progresses, he would
have adorned the annals of India, of Ireland, and of a noble house. Pro-
vidence designed for him something more and better. Whether by
holy or common reckoning he dies a martyr to the highest calls of his
country and his faith, and in that way, the highest benefactor of the
races under that vast and varied rule."
With respect to the motive for tlie murder of Lord Mayo, there
seems now to be no doubt, that it was not connected with any political
organisation. Following so close after the murder of Chief-Justice
Norman, there was at first some ground for supposing that the motive
was political. The better opinion now seems to be, that it was the
isolated personal act of a Mussulman fanatic. The assassin, Shere Ali,
was a Wahabee, or one of the followers of the prophet Wahaba.
The Waliabees were the fanatics of Mohammedanism just as the
Kookas were the fanatics of Brahmanism. Their grievance was that
India was not governed according to the precepts of the Koran, and
that unbelievers were allowed to take the place of the faithful. The
object of the Kookas was to restore intolerance in tlie Punjab ; that of
the Wahabees the revival of similar principles in the government of
the empire. The Wahabees considered the murder of a Christian
in their eyes an idolater and a blasphemer the best service they could
render to the Deity of their own worship. It would appear, then,
in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the murder of Lord
Mavo was the act of a fanatic exasperated at the notion of religiou.s
equality, and urged on by the spirit of fanaticism to some deed of
fancied retaliation or of religious merit.
The following brief but ajipreciative sketch of the career and charac-
ter of Lord Mayo is from the pen of a resident of Calcutta, and is
valuable as showing the opinion entertained by those who had the
opportunity of close observation, and knew the true state of public
feeling in India :
" Lord Mayo came to India three years ago. He worked harder
than a solicitor's clerk ; old Indians stood astounded at the work he
got through. He saw more of India in three years than almost any
other man saw in twenty, and he carried sunsliine and inspired loyalty
wherever he went. No matter who or what the native chief was
what in race or faith he had a father and friend in the Viceroy so
long as he was doing right. You will recall some of tiiose noble
speeches of his, and I can assure you they were his own sentiments
and words sentiments and words which made many a native heart
beat as it never had beaten before. He found India with a deficit in
finance; he left a surplus. He found her without a foreign policy; he
left one so clear and intelligible that if it is adhered to witli statesman-
like intelligence, and made to rest on the same internal policy, we may
defy the world in arms so far as India is concerned. It will he remem-
bered, too, that he did not come here to lind statesmen. If a (xovernor-
General determines on statesmanship as his guide in India ho must
bring it, unless in time of danger, when men of capacity will always
rise to the surface of affairs. Lord Mayo certainly brought that states-
manship for his foreign policy, and he has left us with friendly rela-
tions which extend beyond the frontier on every side. His weak point,
or the weak point of the Foreign Office, was that of imperfect informa-
tion of facts beyond the frontier. Some of the published reports are
wretched, both as to matter and style, and there is no doubt that
Russia knows a thousand things tliat we do not and cannot know.
No Viceroy can do everything; and Lord Mayo did so much that we
should be unreasonable "to expect more, or to mention a defect, save
as a hint for the future. The financial decentralization policy was
conceived and carried out on the same principle, and was equally
great, in spite of a department which has run its official head against
every stone wall it could find. c i ;
" That there were some faults of administration need not be denied ;
but there was no jobbery, no extravagance, no self-seeking. Lord
Mayo served his sovereign and country with entire devotion, and in
doing so stood high above all Indian cliques. His speeches were of
the simplest, his "ideas always leaned to the practical, and when he
had given his word he had given his bond. You never will send us a
Viceroy who will retire more endeared to the country than Lord Mayo.
You never will send us a harder worker, or a juster, or kinder, or more
single-hearted man. You may send us a sterner man, and, perhaps,
we need one of that class. The late Viceroy was not stern as a rule.
He hated revolutionary work. He ' cleansed the Augean stable,'
little by little, now putting down a gutter, now a drain, now disinfect-
in-,', but always working like a man who counted the hours in advance
and resolved "to make the most he could of the present ones. We
never knew him as a Wiiig or Tory. He was the representative of the
Queen, and magnificently he represented her. He had no creed,
hatred, or prejudice, no cant, and immense charity and forbearance
towards every native custom not immoral. I never saw anytliing more
marked than the mixture of dignity and humility with which he
represented her Majesty. A stranger dropped from the clouds into
the Durbar at which the king of Siam was received would have said of
the Viceroy ' He cannot be a king, and yet neither can he bo a
subject to-day.' I know no other way of expressing the fact that
seemed to impress every one. That, at all events, is Lord Mayo as
we viewed him here, and as his memory will remain for many long
years to come."
THOMAS FKANCIS MEAGHER.
BORN AUGUST 1823 DIED JUNE 1867.
Thomas Francis Meagher, Brigadier-General in the American
Federal Army, was born in the city of Waterford on the 3rd of August
1823. His father, Thomas Meagher, was a wealthy retired merchant
of Vfaterford, which city he represented for some time in the British
Parliament. In the year 1834, at the early age of eleven years, he
was placed under the care of the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College,
in the county Kildare. Here he gave early evidence in his school-
orations of those rare and brilliant oratorical powers for which he
shortly afterwards became so distinguished. After completing the
usual six years' course at Clongowes, he went to Stonyhurst College,
Lancasliire, to finish his education. At both seminaries he was a general
favourite. His assiduous attention to his studies won for him the
good opinion of his tutors, while his frank and happy nature endeared
him to all his associates. In English composition and rhetoric he ex-
celled all competitors, and carried oft" the medals in those subjects from
his numerous school-fellows, both at Clongowes and Stonyhurst. In
the year 1843 he left college, and, after a few months' tour on the
continent, returned to his home in Ireland. At that time the Repeal
agitation was at its height, and before the close of the year 1843
Meagher entered upon the busy scenes of political strife. He attended
the great meetings held at Lismore, Kilkenny, Killarney, and other
places, and soon attracted considerable attention by the power and
eloquence of his appeals in the national cause.
In 1844 he removed to Dublin with the intention of studying for
the bar; but the political platform afforded a readier and more con-
genial field for his youthful ambition, and left him little, time for the
prosecution of his legal studies. It was towards the middle of the
same year that tlie Irish State trials terminated in the conviction of
O'Connell, who was sentenced to pay a fine of 2000 and to be
imprisoned for a year. This judgment was afterwards reversed in the
House of Lords ; but the prosecution had to some extent answered its
purpose, O'Connell's credit as a politician was impaired, and on the
return of the Whigs to power in 1846, his policy not satisfying a large
number of his followers, a secession took place, which resulted in the
formation by the " Young Ireland " party of the " Irish Confedera-
tion," at the beginning of the year 1847. Of this new organisation,
Meagher was one of the leading spirits ; and his genius, enthusiasm,
and eloquence, contributed more, perhaps, than any other agency, to
give the semblance of vitality to a movement which shortly after so
suddenly and miserably collapsed. Of the attempt at revolution in
1848, the most that can be said on behalf of Meagher and his associates
is, that it was precipitated and forced into a premature explosion by the
violent policy and subsequent banishment of Mitchel, by the ferment
created by the French revolution of IS-iS, and the passing of the Treason-
felony and Habeas Corpus Suspension Acts. The ellect of these
measures was to compel the leaders to retire to the country, and commit
themselves to open rebellion. Large rewards were ofl'ered for tlieir
apprehension, and the chief men, O'Brien and Meagher, were captured,
tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. By special act of royal
clemency, however, this sentence was commuted to banishment for life
to the convict settlement at Van Dieman's Land. As we have referred
to Mr Meagher's eloquence, we may quote as a favourable specimen of
it his dock address : " My Lords, it is my intention to say only a few
words. I desire that the last act of a proceeding which has occupied
so much of the public time shall be of short duration. Nor have I the
indelicate wish to close the dreary ceremony of a state prosecution
with a vain display of words. Did I fear that hereafter, wlien I shall
be no more, the country which I have tried to serve would tiiink ill of
me, I might indeed avail myself of tliis solemn moment to vindicate my
sentiments and my conduct. But I have no such fear. The country
will judge of those sentiments and that conduct in a light far ditlerent
from that in which the jury by which I have been convicted have
viewed them ; and by the country, the sentence which you, my Lords,
are about to pronounce, will be remembered only as the severe and
solemn attestation of my rectitude and truth.
"Whatever be the language in which that sentence be spoken, I
know my fate will meet with sympathy, and that my memory will be
honoured. In speaking thus, accuse me not, my Lords, of an indecorous
presumption. To the efforts I have made, in a just and noble cause,
I ascribe no vain importance, nor do I claim for those efforts any high
reward. But it so happens, and it will ever happen, that they wlio
have tried to serve their country, no matter how weak the efforts may
have been, are sure to receive the thanks and blessings of its people.
" With my country, then, I leave my memory my sentiments my
acts proudly feeling that they require no vindication from me this
day. A jury of my countrymen, it is true, have found me guilty of
the crime of which I stood indicted. For this I feel not the slightest
resentment towards them. Lifluonced as they must have been by the
ciiarge of Chief-Justice Blackl)urne, they could have found no other
verdict. What of that charge? Any strong observations on it, I feel
sincerely, would ill befit the solemnity of the scene; but earnestly
beseech of you, my Lord, you who preside on that bench, when the
passion and prejudices of the hour have passed away, to appeal to your
conscience, and ask of it, Was your charge, as it ought to have been,
impartial and indifferent between the subject and the crown?
"My Lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me, and
perhaps it might seal my fate. But I am here to speak tlie truth
whatever it mav cost. I am here to regret nothing I have done, to
retract nothing I have ever said. I am here to crave witii no lying
lips the life I consecrate to the liberty of my country. For from it,
even here, here, where the thief, the libertine, the murderer, have left
L.
76 MODERN. POLITICAL.
their footprints in the dust, here, on this spot, where the shadows of
death surround me, and from wliich I see my early grave, in an un-
anointed soil, open to receive me, even here, encircled by these ter-
rors, the hope which has beckoned rae to the perilous sea upon which I
have been wrecked still consoles, animates, and enraptures me. No, I do
not despair of my old country, her peace, her glory, her liberty ! For
that cuuntry I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift this island
up, to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being the meanest
beggar in the world to restore her to her native power and her
ancient constitution this has been my ambition, and my ambition has
been my crime. Judged bv the law of England, I know this crime
entails the penalty of death ; but the history of Ireland explains this
crime and justifies it. Judged by that history I am no criminal you
(addressing Mr M'Manus) are no criminal you (addressing Mr
O'Donoghue) are no criminal. Judged by that history, the treason of
which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, is sanctified as a duty, will
be ennobled as a sacrifice !
" With these sentiments, my Lords, I await the sentence of the Court.
Having done what I felt to be my duty, having spoken what I felt to
be truth, as I have done on every other occasion of my short career,
I now bid farewell to the country of mj' birth, my passion, and rny
death. Pronounce, then, my Lords, the sentence which the law directs.
I trust 1 shall be prepared to meet its execution ; I hope to be able,
Avith a pure heart and perfect composure, to appear before a higher
tribunal, a tribunal where a Judge of infinite goodness as well as of
justice will preside, and where, my Lords, many, many of the judgments
of this world will be reversed."
In the spring of 1852, after nearly four years of exile, Meagher
effected his escape, and landed in New York in the latter part of May.
On reachiiig the city he was received with the utmost enthusiasm by
his fellow-countrymen and the citizens in general. For two years
after his arrival in America, Meagher followed the profession of a public
lecturer, meeting with marked success. His first subject was " Aus-
tralia," and was a brilliant effort of elocution. Keturning to New
York, in 1855, he engaged in the study of the law under Mr Emmett,
afterwards judge, and was subsequently admitted to the New York
bar. In 1856 he became the editor of the Irhh News in New
York, and in 1857 he undertook an exploring expedition to Central
America. In 1861, when the war in the South broke out, Meagher,
abandoning his profession, joined the army of the North. Organising
a company of Zouaves, he joined the 69th New York Volunteers,
under Colonel Corcoran. At the battle of Bull's Run, July 21,
1861, he was acting-major of his regiment, and had his horse shot
under him. On the expiration of his three months' service, he
returned to New York, and in the latter part of 1861 organised the
celebrated Irish Brigade. He was elected colonel of the 1st Regiment,
and as senior ofHcer, assumed the command of the brigade, and took
it to Washington. Here it was accepted by the Government, and
Colonel Meagher was assigned to it as permanent commander, with the
rank of brigadier-general. On arriving at the camp of General
M'Clellan's army, the Irish Brigade was attached to Richardson's
division of Sumner's corps, and participated in tlie advance of the
Union forces upon the Confederate position during the month of Marcli
1862. " The conduct of General Meagher," writes tlie New York
Herald, " and liis gallant men, in those days of gloom and disaster, form
a bright and conspicuous page in tlie annals of the late war. At the
head of his men he participated in the seven days' battles around Rich-
mond, winning general praise for the heroism and skill with which he
led the brigade to action. At the second battle of Manassas, Mary-
land, the brigade, then attached to Pope's army, fought with great
desperation; and at Antietam, September 17, 18G2, won a greater repu-
tation for itself and its general, by the valour and order of its men,
and was most flatteringly noticed in the official ref)()rt of General
M'CIellan. In this battle the general's horse was shot under him,
and being injured by the fall, he was compelled to leave the field.
Tlie disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, fought December 12, 1862,
only added to the reputation of General Meagher and his men.
Charge after charge was headed by him, up to the very crest of the
enemy's breastworks, and the number of dead men with green colours
in their hats told of the fearful slaughter of the brave Irishmen. In
this engagement the general received a bullet wound in the leg, which
temporarily incapacitated him from active service. He had, however,
sufficiently recovered in April to resume command, and at Chan-
cellorsville, from the 2d till the 4th of May 1863, he led the remnant
of the Irish brigade into action for the last time. It was, indeed, the
merest remnant of what had been the pride and flower of the army ;
and finding that its numbers were reduced to considerably below the
minimum strength of a regiment, on the 8th of May General Meagher
tendered his resignation, and temporarily retired from the service." *
During the early part of 1864 Meagher was reconnnissioned bri-
gadier-general of volunteers, and appointed to the command of the dis-
trict of Etowah, including portions of Tennessee and Georgia. His
administration of the aftairs of this district was signally successful, and
he was highly complimented for it by Major- General Steetlman. At
the close of the war he was appointed acting governor of Montana ter-
ritory, and it was while engaged on business connected with his office
that he fell into the Missouri from the deck of a steamer, and was
drowned. His melancholy death, at the early age of forty-four years,
excited the deepest sorrow amongst his own countrymen and the people
of the United States. He was but a youth when he stepped upon the
political platform at one of the stormiest periods in the history of his
country. And much as many of his countrymen diflered from him in
politics, and questioned his prudence, no one doubted his honesty or
the sincerity of his devotion to the cause of " Irish Independence."' In
his military career, too, he gave good proof that it was no simulated
courao-e which inspired him when he called his countrymen to arms ;
and Meagher " of the sword," as he was derisively called in '48, was
* The above full extract on the military career of ]\Ieagher, written at the time
of his death, in July 1867, has been given in justice to his character as a general.
Other leading American papers have paid a hke tribute to liis valour and skill as
a commander. Prince de Joinville, too, has phiced on record his estimate of the
gallant stand made by Meagher and his Irish brigade.
78 MODERN. POLITICAL.
among the first to draw the sword in the defence of his adopted country,
and to the last he proved himself the " bravest of the brave" in all the
terrible conflicts of that disastrous war.
His death took place in the niglit of the 1st of July 1867. He left
a widow and an only child, a son.
THE HONOUEABLE THOMAS D'aECY M'GEE.*
BORN 1825 DIED 1868.
This eminent man poet, orator, historian, statesman was born, on
the 13th of April 1825, at Carlingford, in the county of Louth,
Irel-and. On his birthday anniversary in 1868 his remains were laid
in the cemetery at Cote des Neiges, in the city of Montreal. Canada,
the land of his adoption, gave him a public funeral, the greatest demon-
stration ever seen in Montreal. " Tiie day was, as it were, a Sabbath;
all business was suspended, and shops and other places of business
closed, while the citizens turned out by tens of thousands. Tiie sur-
rounding country also sent forth crowds into the city. Probably not
less than one hundred thousand persons, in one way or other, joined in
the demonstration." It may be asked. How had this man humbly
born, and for the most part self-educated won for himself the gratitude
and love of a nation, and at a comparatively early age for at' the time
of his death he had not fully attained his forty-third year left his
mark on the history of his own time ?
The best answer to these questions will be a brief retrospect of his
life its aims and aspirations, with their accomplishment. Thus, too,
will best be seen the qualities of mind and force of character which,
without any of the advantages conferred by family, fortune, good looks,
or other adventitious aids, could yet directly influence the destinies
of the Dominion of Canada, and indirectly much, of the course of
recent legislation for Ireland. His teaching ^which won for M'Gee
the soubriquet of " The Peacemaker " has sown seed which we hope
and believe may yet ripen into the fruit of mutual good-will and
toleration among all classes and creeds in the British empire.
He M-as the fifth child of Mr James M'Gee by his" wife Dorcas
Catherine Morgan, daughter of a bookseller of Dublin. Mr M'Gee,
Avlio was in tlie Coast Guard Service, removed to the town of Wexford
when his son was about eight years of age. Here Mrs M'Gee died,
and her family mourned the loss of a tender and loving mother.
Child though he was, her elevated character left its impress on the
mind of her son. She sang to him the wild songs of his native land,
and inspired that love of country which was the master-passion of- his
life. Of his father, also, he ever spoke with reverence and afiection ;
his heart all through life clung to his early home.
" Wishing-cap, wishing-cap, I would be
Far awajf, far away o'er the sea,
In Carman's ancient town ;
* The editor gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to an intimate friend of
Mr M'Gee for assistance rendered in writing this memoir.
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE. 79
For I would kneel at my mother's grave,
Where the palmy churchyarfl elms wave,
And the old war walls look down."
The subject of this memoir was only seventeen when he crossed the
Atlantic to seek his fortune in the United States ; and he was in Boston
when the anniversary of American Independence was commemorated
tliere, on tlie 4th July 1842. He addressed the multitudes, and even
then displayed marked oratorical power. He was at once offered em-
ployment on tlie staff of the Boslon Pilot, of which he became chief
editor two years later. His leading articles and speeches attracted the
notice of O'Connell, who spoke of them as " the inspired writings of a
young exiled Irish boy in America." He was ere long invited to re-
turn to Ireland as editor of i\\e Freeman s Journal, but soon transferred
his pen to the service of the Nation, a paper newly started, under the
auspices of Charles Gavan Duffy, Thomas Davis, John Mitchel, and
other ardent young patriots.
Tlie cautious policy advocated by O'Connell was utterly distasteful
to the " Young Ireland " party, which looked up to these men as leaders.
O'Connell aimed at a repeal of the legislative union between Great Bri-
tain and Ireland by the legal process of Parliamentary agitation. Moral
suasion, which he preached, was too slow a method for the fiery advo-
cates of physical force. The great leader, in apostrophising the masses
of " hereditary bondsmen " for whom his persistent agitation had won,
in '29, the boon of Catholic Emancipation, urged on them a peaceful
struggle only ; while the younger and more ardent spirits taught, on
the contrary, tliat tliose " who would be free, themselves must strike
the blow." The inevitable disruption was accelerated by the terrible
famine in Ireland consequent on the failure of the potato crop, and the
death of O'Connell in 1847.
But before we come to the unwise, disastrous, vet chivalrous risins:
of the leaders of " Young Ireland " in '48, we may dwell for a moment
on the personal characteristics of one among those remarkable men.
Tliomas Davis, a rising barrister, poet, and man of letters pure,
high-minded, disinterested had done much by his writings to stimu-
late a healthy national sentiment and cordial union among Irishmen,
irrespective of creed or party. He died of fever in 1845, beloved and
revered by all with whom he came in personal contact, whether they
were jjolitical friends or political opponents.
" A hundred such as I will never comfort Erin
For the loss of the noble son,"
was the heart-utterance of one who had felt the electric thrill excited
by his ardent mind and love of country. It was a sentiment which
found a true echo in many sorrowing hearts who mourned his early
death. The literary leadership of the party was from that time per-
haps most truly represented by the editor and sub-editor of the Nation,
and the able contributors whom they enlisted in the service of that
newspaper.
How strange the career of these men ! Sir Charles Gavan Duffy,
recently knighted by tlie Queen for his services in Australia, head of
the administration in Victoria, ex-editor of the Nation. Thomas
80 MODERN POLITICAL.
D'Arcy M'Gee, Canadian Minister of Agriculture and of Emigration,
President of the Executive Council, accredited Commissioner fronr.
the land of his adoption, cliief framer of the federal union which con-
stitutes the Dominion of Canada, martyr to his loyal attachment to
British connection, ex-sub-editor of the Nation.
The friends were parted in '48, never again to meet. Long after-
wards M'Gee thus wrote in Canada :
" To A Fkiend in Australia.
" Old friend ! though distant far,
Your image nightly shines upon my soul :
I yearn toward it as toward a star
That points through darkness to the ancient pole.
Out of my breast the longing wishes fly,
As to some rapt Elias, Enocla, Seth ;
Yours is another earth, another sky,
And I I feel that distance is like death.
Oh ! for one week amid the emerald fields,
"Where the Avoca sings the song of Moore ;
Oh ! for the odour the brown heather yields,
To glad the pilgrim's heart in Glenmalure !
Yet is there still what meeting could not give,
A joy most suited of all joys to last ;
For ever in fair memory there must live
The bright, unclouded picture of the jiast.
Old friend ! the years wear on, and many cares
And many sorrows both of us have known ;
Time for us both a (j^uiet couch prepares ^.
A couch like Jacob's, pillow'd with a stone.
And oh ! when thus we sleep, may we behold
The angelic ladder of the patriarch's dream; .
And may my feet upon its rungs of gold
Yours follow, as of old, by hill and stream ! "
The abortive rebellion of 1848, under the leadership of William Smith
O'Brien, need not here be dwelt on.* To M'Gee had been assigned the
task of stimulating the people to take up arms. He had been arrested
for a speech made in the county Wicklow, had succeeded in getting a
release, and had gone to Scotland to stir up the Irish there, when the
rising took place and failed, and a reward was offered for his appre-
hension. We learn from a note appended to Mrs Sadlier's interesting
biographical sketcli prefixed to tlie volume she has edited of his poems,
that M'Gee's conduct. of this affair had been questioned. She quotes
C. G. Duffy's justification of M'Gee and estimate of his value as a
fellow- worker.
" To forty political prisoners in Newgate, when the world seemed shut
out to me for ever," writes Duffy, "I estimated him as I do to-day. I
said, ' If we were about to begin our work anew, I would rather have
See page 44 of this volume
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE. 81
his help than rxny man's of all our confederates. I said he coidd do
more tilings like a master than the best amongst u.s since Tliomas
Davis ; that he had been sent, at the last hour, on a perilous mission,
and performed it not only with unflinching courage, but with a success
wliich had no parallel in tliat era ; and, above all, that he has been
systematically blackened by the Jacobins to an extent that would have
l)iackened a saint of God. Since he has been in America, I have
watched his career, and one thing it has never wanted a fixed devo-
tion to Irish interests.'"
When the horrors of war, and especially the horrors of civil war, are
fairly considered, we have no language strong enough to express how
culpable are the stimulators and the leaders of an unsuccessful revolt.
Those who rebel against constituted authority are bound to consider
not only the abstract justice of their cause, but also the chances of
successful resistance. In Ireland especially, what has hitherto been
the course of its history? Partial conquest; impotent resistance; penal
enactments, provoking fresh outbursts of popular fury; cruel retribution,
leaving behind a thirst for vengeance ; a devastated soil, left destitute
of inhabitants, barren of crops, of flocks and herds ; man and nature
relapsing into savagery ; wide-spread confiscations, reducing to abject
misery the lords of the soil and their families ; the location here and
there of intruding colonisers, forced from the necessities of their position
to be a hostile, garrison, rather than kindly citizens till the Ireland of
our own day presents well-nigh hopeless problems for the solution of
the statesman, as well as the philosophic thinker. How may the hostile
races be blended so as to constitute a houiosfeneous nation ? How are
the opposing Churches to be made practically Christian? How may the
reproach be removed from ditiering creeds of "hating one another for
the love of God ? ' A step in the solution of the problem was surely
taken in the magnanimity which forgave the rebels of '48, permitted
to them a colonial career, and acknowledged the disinterestedness of
the men most of them young, ardent, irrepressible, and inexperienced
whose lives, through their mistaken enthusiasm, lay forfeit and at the
mercy of the Crown. That "quahty of mercy" was indeed "twice
blessed." Those who, without its exercise, might have perished on
the scaftold have lived to do good service to the cause of law and
order in Australia, and to help to rear up in British America a powerful
and intensely loyal federation of previously feeble, because disunited
States, and to bind the Dominion of Canada by the strongest ties to
tlie British Crown.
But in 1848 Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee bent all the energies of his
mind and will to sever the connection between Great Britain and
Ireland. He has himself recorded the motives and feelings which
actuated him at that period of his career :
" My native disposition is towards reverence for things old, and
veneration for the landmarks of the past. But when I saw in Ireland
the people perish of famine at the rate of five thousand souls per day ;
when I saw children and women, as well as able-bodied men, perishing
for food under the richest government within the most powerful empire
of the world, I rebelled against the pampered State Church I rebelled
against the bankrupt aristocracy I rebelled against Lord John Kussell
IV. ' F Ir
82 MODERN POLITICAL.
who sacrificed two millions of the Irish people to the interests of the
corn buyers of Liverpool. At the age of twenty-two I threw ravself
into a struggle a rash and ill-guided struggle I admit against that
wretched condition. I do not defend the course then taken ; I only
state the cause of that disaffection, which was not directed against the
Government, but against the misgovernment of that day. Those evils '
in Ireland have been to a great extent remedied, but those only who
personally saw them in their worst stages can be fair judges of the
disgust and resistance they were calculated to create. I lent my feeble
resistance to that system, and though I do not defend the course taken,
I plead the motive and intention to have been both honest and well-
meaning.
In the midst of these troublous times M'Gree married. His wife,
gentle and retiring, shared his lot both in days of perplexity and of
triumph, and ever retained the place in his heart which a true wife only
can fill. Mrs M'Gee had borne her husband two daughters. At the
time of his death, the Government of Canada voted a liberal provision
for his family. The widow did not long live to enjoy her pension.
Their married life, however, had but commenced when M'Gee started
on the Scottish mission of which we have already spoken. While in
North Britain, he heard of the rising in Tipperary and of Smith
O'Brien's utter failure. Implicated as he was, it was necessary that
M'Gee should fly for his life, but he could not bring himself to cross
the Atlantic without bidding his wife farewell. Tlirough the good
offices of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Derry, Dr Maguire, this was
accomplished.
M'Gee returned to Ireland, and in the guise of a clerical student
made his way to Londonderry and thence to Inishowen. That wild
mountain district, enclosed between Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly,
proved a safe asylum. There he remained in concealment in a farm-
house near CuldafF. and when the emigrant ship in which a passage
had been secured for him passed along that northern coast on its route
from Derry to the States, a small boat put out fi'ora Culdaflf", and the
young rebel was safely conveyed on board. M'Gee, so recently be-
come a husband, bade adieu to liis wife and his native land with emotions
which he has described in the following verses :
Memories.
' ' I left two loves on a distant strand,
One young, aud fond, and fair, and bland;
One fair, and old, and sadly grand
My wedded wife and my native land .
One tarrieth sad and seriously
Beneath tlie roof that mine should he ;
One sitteth sybil-like by tlie sea,
Chanting a grave song mournfully.
A little life I have not seen
Lies by the heart that mine hath been ;
A cypress wreath darkles now, I ween,
Upon the brow of my love in green.
The mother and wife shall pass away,
Her liands be dust, her lips be clay ;
But my other love on earth shall stay,
And live in the life of a better day.
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE. 83
Ere we were born my first love was,
My sires were heirs to her holy cause ;
And she yet shall sit in the world's" apjilausc,
A mother of men and blessed laws.
I hope and strive the while I sigh,
For I know my first-love cannot die ;
From the chain of woes that loom so high
Her reign shall reach to eternity."
Another poem utters touchingly an absent husband's yeanang love.
"Sebastian Cabot to his Lady" purports to be a letter from tlio
Portuguese navigator of the fifteenth century to his wife, written bv
her lord at sea. But it is plainly autobiographical; and the "Mary,"
so tenderly ajiostrophised as the "perfect wife," was M'Gee's own
Mary, left behind in Ireland, while her husband crossed the Atlantic
sad and solitary.
Sebastian Cabot to his Lady.
" Dear, my lady, you will understand
By these presents coming to your hand,
"Written in the Hyperborean seas
(Where my love for you doth never freeze),
Underneath a sky obscured with light.
Albeit call'd of mariners the night.
That my thoughts are not of lands unknown,
Or buried gold beneath the southern zone,
But of a treasure dearer far to me,
In a far isle of the sail-shadow'd sea.
I ask'd the Sun but.lately as he set.
If my dear lady in his course he met
That she was matronly and passing tall.
That her young brow cover 'd deep thought withal,
That her full eye was purer azure far
Than his own sky, and brighter than a star ;
That her kind hands were whiter than the snow
That melted in the tepid tide below,
That her light step was stately as her mind,
Steadfast as Faith, and^soft as summer wind ;.
Whether her cheek was pale, her eye was wet.
And where and when my lady dear he met ?
And the Sun spoke not ; next I ask'd the Wind
Which lately left my native shores behind,
If he had seen my Love the groves among.
That round our home their guardian shelter flung,
If he had heard the voice of song arise
From that dear roof beneath the eastern skies,
If he had borne a prayer to heaven from thee
For a lone ship and thy lone lord at sea ?
And the Wind answer'd not, but fled amain,
As if he fear'd my c|uestioniug again.
Anon the Moon, the meek-faced minion, rose.
But nothing of my love could she disclose,
Then my soul, moved by its strong will, trod back
The shimmering vestige of our vessel's track.
And I beheld you, darling, by our hearth.
Gone was your girlish bloom and maiden mirth,
And Care's too early print was on the brow,
Where I have seen the sunshine shamed ere now ;
And as unto your widow'd bed you pass'd,
I saw no more tears blinded me at last.
84 MODERN. POLITICAL.
But mourn not, Mary, let no dismal dreani
Darken the current of Hope's flowing stream ;
Trust Him who sets his stars on liigii to guide
Us sinful sailors through the pathless tide ;
The God who feeds the myriads of the deep,
A.ud spreads the oozy couches where they sleep ,
The God who gave even me a perfect wife,
The star, the lamp, the compass of my life,
Aho will replace me on a tran(|uil shore,
To live with Love and you for evermore.
TliC watch is set, the tired sailors sleep,
The star-eyed sky o'erhangs the dreamy deep
Ko more, no more : I can no further write ;
Vain are my sighs, and weak my words this night;
But kneeling here, amid the seething sea,
I pray to God, my best-beloved, for thee ;
And if that prayer be heard, as well it may, \
Our parting night shall have a glorious day. "
On the 10th of October 1848 jNI'Gee landed in America, and a fort-
night later had started the Neio York Nation. Its leadingr articles did
not lack genius and vigour, though the bitterness of his attacks ont
England, and also on the hierarchy of his own Church in Ireland, who I
had used their influence to restrain their flocks from joining the standard
of revolt, alienated from the editor the sympathies of many of his
countrymen. The attitude assumed by the priests in '48 was justified
by the Roman Catholic Bishop of New York ; and the journalist found
himself engaged in an angry controversy with Bishop Hughes, which
was afterwards a source of regret to M'Gee, then, and always, a sincere
Roman Catholic. His paper likewise suflered. He abandoned it, re-
moved to Boston, and there started in 1850 a new journal the
American Gelt.
For the ensuing seven years this able organ of opinion steadily rose
in public estimation. It was published first at Boston, afterwards at
Buff"alo, and, at ;i later period, in New York. During these years
from 1850 to 1857 M'Gee's political views became largely modified.
What he had seen of the corruption and tyranny of mob rule in the
United States revolted him; and democracy ceased to be, in his eyes,
the highest form of government. The revolutionary ardour so natural
to a young mind had yielded to the riper experience of life. This
cliano-e of opinion was altogether uninfluenced by personal considera-
tions. It was natural, gradual, disinterested, entirely the result of
conviction, openly and frankly avowed. But in M'Gee's case it was
cruelly misrepresented. It made him unpopular in the States ; it
made him still more unpopular with a certain section of his country-
men, who loudly accused him of betraying tlie national cause. He
wiio tlien, as ever, loved Ireland with a passion which never through
life abated, wlio watched and laboured for her honour, whose pen
was occupied with her story, whose muse was inspired by the memory
of. her greatness, lier history, and her scenery, who, in the practical
business of life, never omitted an opportunity of using pen and speech
in strenuous endeavour to raise and elevate Irish men and Irish women,
this man was called a traitor to the Irish cause ! His life paid the
penalty of this delusion, when, in after years, he became a mark for
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE. 85
the bullet of the Fenian assassin. But time remedies injustice and
misconceptions. His memory, despite a passing obloquy, survives
in the iiearts of his countrymen, even as he iiimself passionately
desired.
Am 1 IIememhereu.
" Am I remember 'd in Erin
I charge you, speak me true
Has my name a sound, a meaning
In the scenes my boyhood knew ?
Does the heart of the mother ever
Recall her exile's name ?
For to be forgot in Erin,
And on earth, is all the .same.
mother ! mother Erin !
Many sons your age hath seen
Many gifted, constant lovers
Since your mantle first was green.
Then how may I hope to cherish
'l"he dream that I could be
In your crowded memory number'd
With that palm-crown'd companie ?
Yet faint and far, my mother.
As the hope shines on my sight,
1 cannot choose but watch it
Till my eyes have lost their light ;
For never among your brightest,
And never among your best,
AVas heart more true to Erin
Than beats within my breast. "
Meanwhile, in the columns of the American Gelt, as elsewhere,
M'Gee sedulously devoted himself to the task of benefitting the con-
dition of the Irish in America. He wrote, he lectured, he inaugurated
the " Buiialo Convention." This committee of gentlemen took into
their consideration the circumstances of their countrymen in the States,
and proposed many valuable projects for tlieir amelioration. The Irish
emigrant, whose previous training generally fitted him for agricultural
work, was urged to settle in the Western States as land owner and
tiller of the soil, and to avoid the demoralising influences of the great
cities. Warnings, such as those uttered in the columns of the American
Celt, were needed, and in its editor the Irish in America found a friend
ever interested in their moral and social well-beinsr. M'Gee urtjed on
them the duty of self-respect, thrift, sobriety, and the value of educa-
tion, while he aided largely in the establishment of niglit-schools. Ho
recommended to the Irish to be the subservient tools of no political
party, but to be honest citizens of the country which afforded them a
home and a career. His teaching on this point was alike given to the
Irish in tlie States and in Canada, He narrated for his countrymen the
story " of the dea.r ancestral island," and iiis History is written in a
spirit of truth, candour, and displays rare literary merit. In speaking of
tins History of Ireland, its author himself said, " No one is more sensible
of its many deficiencies than 1 am, and if I live I hope to remedy some
of them ; but it certainly was to me a labour of love, and I believe it
is the first time that a History of Ireland has ever been commenced and
?6 MODERN. POLITICAL.
completed by a person situated as I was at tlie time, in a distant eoluny,
after his personal connection with the motiier country might be supposed
to have closed for ever." Other books on the subject may have more
value for their reference to authorities, but as a readable and interest-
ing narrative, M'Gee's work has never been surpassed. It has the rare
merit, also, of being free from bitterness, or any taint of religious bigotry
or sectarian narrowness. Would that its author had lived to indite a
work which was the dream of his life a Ballad History of Ireland. " I
have some thoughts of a volume," he wrote to friends in Ireland but a
few days before his death, " Celtic ballads ; " he had already pub-
lished many lyrics which would contribute towards " that desideratum,
a Ballad History of Ireland." " If," he continued, " I have any work
in me, walking in the wake of and , I could do it more
heartily and cheerfully, if I was sure there was some public growing up
somewhere witliin the circle of the English language, to whom sucli
work and workers might look for encouragement and sustenance."
One marked characteristic of M'Gee's mind was its generosity. He
heartily accorded his meed of praise to other workers in the same vein.
So that noble work was done for fatherland, he cared not by what
hand. In a paper read before the Montreal Literary Club, Dec. 3,
1866, he is reported to have said :
"In closing this rough sketch of what has been done chiefly in our
days to add a new kingdom to the realms of history, to elucidate the
antiquities of one of the main divisions of the human family, I trust
you will permit me to pay the tribute of my profound respect to those
great scholars, both the living and the dead, by whom these researches
have been conducted. It has been my good fortune to know some of
them a little, and one or two of them intimately, and I shall always
account it as the highest honour I could receive, that three or four
years ago they unanimously elected me a member of their Academy.
Personal feelings of gratitude may, therefore, bias, perhaps, my judg-
ment ; but I do venture to say, on a pretty full review of all that has
been done for Celtic Literature in Ireland, during the last thirty or
forty years especially, that the world has not seen a school of men
more devoted, more laborious, or, all fair allowance made, more suc-
cessful. Amid much tliat is disheartening, and much that is painful
connected with current events in Ireland, I for one, as a sincere lover
and well-wisher of the country, have often turned for consolation and
encouragement to the recollection of those pious, patient men, grown
gray in the work of national restoration ; I have followed them in
thought as they bent over their tasks, in the silent magnanimity of their
souls, and in their works and their examples I have found not only
the rescue of much that is most valual)le in tlie past, but the promise
of a wiser and better Ireland hereafter, than any the jiast has ever
known."
No poems of M'Gee's but such as are autobiographical appear in
this sketch. But the reader may find an elucidation of the sentiments
expressed in tliis speech in the exquisite lyrics : " The Four Masters,"
" Brother Michael," " Sursum Corda," and the lament for " Eugene
O'Curry," and " The Dead Antiquary, 0"Donovan." Here are the
opening stanzas of tlie last-named elegy. How Hebrew-like is the
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE.
87
love here expressed for the work, the worker;
whose fame tliey hiboured !
and the country for
The Dead Antiquary, O'Donovak.
" Far are the Gaelic tribes, and wide
Scatter'd round earth on ever}' side
For good or ill ;
They aim at all things, rise or fall,
Succeed or perish but through ail
Love Erin still.
Although a righteous Heaven decrees
'Twixt us and Erin stormy seas
And barriers strong.
Of care, and circumstance, and cost,
Yet count not all your absent lost,
Oh, land of song !
Above j'our roofs no star can rise
That does not lighten in our eyes,
Nor any set
That ever shed a cheering beam
On Irish hillside, street, or stream,
That we forget.
No artist wins a shining fame,
Lifting aloft his nation's name
High over all ;
No soldier falls, no poet dies,
But underneath all foreign skies
We mourn his fall !
And thus it comes that even I,
Though weakly and unworthily
Am moved by grief
To join the melancholy throng.
And chant the sad entombing song
Above the chief
The foremost of the immortal band
Who vow'd their lives to fatherland ;
Whose works remain
To attest how constant, how sublime
The warfare was they waged with time ;
How gi-eat the gain ! "
His labours in the cause advocated by the " Butlalo Convention ''
proved the turning-point in M'Gee's career. He had visited Canada
in common with other districts of the North American continent
to interest his countrymen in the scheme for Western colonisation.
There he found what he had not previously suspected that the Irish
were well contented with their position, and had^no desire to exchange
their practical freedom, under British sway, l^r the mob rule, and the
" Know Nothing " agitation of the States. His own opinions founded
on personal experience were gradually becoming more and more
adverse to democracy and in favour of monarchy, as more congenial in
spirit, and better suited to the Irish temperament. He abandoned tlie
scheme of Western colonisation, took up his abode in Montreal, started
the Nero Era, a journal which proved but short-lived, for before lie was
many months in Montreal he was elected, by the Irish vote, one of the
88 MODERN. POLITICAL.
representatives of the city, and took his seat in the Canadian Parlia
nient in 1858. M'Gee, returned triumphantly by the Irish vote, and
looked on with not unnatural suspicion by the Conservative party,
found himself of necessity, at first among the ranks of the Reform party.
But lie gradually sided with the party to which his disposition, inclined,
as he himself expressed, " towards reverence for things old, and venera-
tion for the landmarks of the past," naturally led him. In the general
election of 1861 he was again returned for Montreal with acclamation,
and in 1862 entered the Government as President of the Council. In
1864, under the Tache-Macdonald government, he was Minister of
Agriculture, and bent all the energies of his great mind to tiie accom-
])lishmeiit of that Federal Union which was so happily achieved in
1867, when, by the union of the maritime provinces with Canada, the
" Dominion" commenced its political career, a great and united State.
" There are before the public men of British America," said M'Gee,
in one of his speeches in reference to this project, " at this moment but
two courses, either to drift witli the tide of democrac}', or to seize the
golden moment and fix for ever the monarchical cliaracter of our institu-
tions. I invite every fellow-colonist who agrees with me to unite our
efforts, that we may give our Province the aspect of an Empire, in
order to exercise the influence abroad and at home to create a State,
and to originate a history which the world will not willingly let die ! "
And again :
" If that way towards greatness which I have ventured to point
out to our scattered communities be practicable, I have no fear that it
will not be taken even in my time. If it be not practicable, well, then,
at least, I shall have this consolation, that I have invited the intelli-
gence of these Provinces to rise above partizan contests and personal
warfare to the consideration of great principles, healthful and ennobling
in their discussion to the minds of men."
And again, in a speech in the Canadian Parliament :
" I look to the future of my adopted country with hope, though not
without anxiety. I see in the not remote distance one great nationality,
bound, like the shield of Achilles, by the blue rim of ocean. I see it
quartered into many communities, each disposing of its internal affairs,
but all bound together by free institutions, free intercourse, and free
commerce. I see within the round of that shield the peaks of the
western mountains, and the crests of the eastern waves; the winding
Assiniboine, the five-fold lakes, the St Lawrence, the Ottawa, the
Saguenay, the St John, and the Basin of Minas. By all these flowing
waters, in all the valleys they fertilise, in all the cities they visit in their
courses, I see a generation of industrious, contented, moral men, free
in name and in fact men capable of maintaining, in peace and in war,
a constitution worthy of such a country,"
In 1865, the Hon. T. D. M'Gee arrived in Ireland to be present as
representative of Canada at the Dublin Industrial Exhibition. He had
fled from his native land, in secrecy and danger, seventeen years before;
he returned, a minister of the crown, with a well-earned reputation, as
statesman and author. As a citizen of Canada he was intensely loyal,
believing heartily in British connection for his adopted country. He
remained as strongly opposed as he had ever been to many items of
British rule in Ireland, but now urged their removal- by peaceful and
constitutional reforms.
He addressed his countrymen at Wexford in a speech of remarkable
power. As Minister of Emigration he pointed out the inducements
which Canada had to offer, and contrasted the position of Irishmen
tliore with the career before tliem in the United States. He spoke
strongly against Fenianism, then rife in both countries, and in so doing
increased his unpopularity with a section of the people. He was branded
as an informer and traitor to the cause of Ireland. He warmly resented
this unfounded charge.
" If I have avoided for two or three years much speaking in public
on the subject of Ireland, even in a literary or historical sense," he said,
in 1868, " I do not admit tliat I can be fairly charged in consequence
with being either a sordid or a cold-hearted Irishman. I utterly deny
that because I could not stand still and see our peaceful unoffending
Canada invaded and deluged with blood, in the abused and unauthorised
name of Ireland, that therefore I was a bad Irishman. I utterly deny
the audacious charge, and I say that my mental labours will prove, such
as they are, that I know Ireland as well, both in her strength and her
weakness, and love her as dearly, as any of those who, in ignorance of
my Canadian position in ignorance of my obligations to my adopted
country not to speak of my solemn oath of office have made this
cruelly false charge against me. ... I will further take the liberty
to mention that when, in 1865 and 1867, by the consent of my colleagues
and my gallant friend here (Sir John A. Macdonald), I went home to
represent this country, I on both occasions, in I860 to Lord Kimberley,
then Lord-Lieutenant, and last year to the Earl of Derby, whose re-
tirement from active public life, and the cause of it, every observer of
his great historical career must regret I twice respectfully submitted
my humble views, and the result of my considerable Irish-Americaa
experiences, and th.at they were courteously, and I hope I may say
favourably, entertained. ... I felt it my duty to press the trans-
Atlantic consequences of the state of Ireland on the attention of those
who had the initiation of the remedy in their own hands, believing that
I was doing Ireland a good turn in the proper quarter. I cannot ac-
cuse myself of having lost any proper opportunity of doing so, and if I
were free to publish some very gratifying letters in my possession, I
think it would be admitted by most of my countrymen that a silent
Irishman may be as serviceable in some kinds of work as a noisy one.
... I will only say further, on the subject of Ireland, that I claim the
right to love and serve her, and her sons in Canada, in my own way,
which is not by either approval or connivance with enterprises my reason
condemns as futile in their conception, and my heart rejects as criminal
in their consequences."
Feeling thus, and as a representative man of the Irish in Canada, he
felt it incumbent on him in 1866 to take an active part in the repres-
sion of Fenianism in that colony. He received hosts of threatening
letters in consequence, and three distinct warnings from individuals,
that unless he desisted from these efforts he would be assassinated.
Personal danger, however, could not deter him from what he deemed
to be the path of duty.
90 MODERN. POLITICAL.
In 1867 M'Gee returned to Europe, and with his brother delegates
repaired to London to arrange with the Imperial Government the legis-
lative acts necessitated by the federal union of the Provinces, thence-
forward constituting the Dominion of Canada. He then visited Paris,
as Commissioner from Canada to the French Exposition, and afterwards
visited Rome as one of a deputation from the Catholic inhabitants of
Montreal, where he had an interview with the Pope on the subject of
the affairs of St Patrick's congregation in that city. In Paris he suffered
from severe illness, and returned to Canada with greatly impaired health.
This continued during the winter, but in March ]868 he wrote to friends
in Ireland "For the first time in six months I got out last week. . . .
I have been at Death's door, but did not go in. On the contrary, I
hope and trust I have got a new lease for some years more. I have
done nothing the last few days but write Gaelic ballads, of which you
shall have a sample or two shortly." One of these was forwarded from
Ottawa on St Patrick's Eve, with an intimation that by next post others
should follow. " To-morrow, St Patrick's Day," he adds, " I am to be
dined here by certain leading citizens, Irish Protestants and Catholics,
at which (as on every other occasion) I intend to say something on the
always agreeable subject of our recent national literature. ... I wish
to Heaven it was in my power to draw the minds of a few hundreds or
thousands of the Irish on this side the sea to the duty and wisdom of
encouraging native writers."
The festive entertainment was given, and the Ottawa Times of the
18th of March 1868 thus describes it: " The dinner to the Hon. Mr
M'Gee was an entirely exceptional display such as never before occurred
in Canada of respect to a public man, whose great services to the coun
try are alike appreciated by all classes, . . . public services which have
become the historic property of a nation." The speech was made, with
its generous mention, individually and by name, of recent Irish writers.
" Even I," continued the orator, warming to his subject, " in this far
north of the New World, catch sometimes by reflection a glow of the
same inspiration, and venture my liumble word to cheer on and applaud
those true patriots, and true benefactors of their country and country-
men."
Upon another subject no less dear to his heart mutual toleration
and mutual good-will among men of different creeds Mr M'Gee
adds :
"As for us who dwell in Canada, I may say, finally, that in no other
way can we better serve Ireland than by burying out of sight our old
lends and old factions in mitigating our ancient hereditary enmities
in proving ourselves good subjects of a good government, and wise
trustees of the equal rights we enjoy here, civil and religious. The
best argument we here can make for Ireland is, to enable friendly ob-
servers at home to say, ' See how well Irishmen get on together in
Canada. There they have equal civil and religious rights ; there they
cheerfully obey just laws, and are ready to die for the rights they enjoy,
and the country tliat is so governed.' ... I hold that man an insin-
cere man who does not heartily prefer his own religion to any other,
and an unfortunate man who does not practise the religion he holds
dear; but surely we can all sincerely believe, and loyally live up to.
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE. 91
our own religious convicrions, and yet remember tliat of the glorious
trinity of evangelical virtues, ' the greatest of these is charity.' What-
ever else any Church claiming to be Christian teaches its members
whatever dogmas any of us hold or reject we are all equally and alike
taught this one and the same doctrine, ' Do unto others as you would
they should do unto you.' Now, it is on this eminently social, just, and
patriotic principle we meet here to-night, and it is a principle which
ought to commend itself to the general approbation of all good men,
Mr Mayor, I know it is because I have endeavoured in my weak way
to set forth and illustrate this principle that you have graciously con-
nected my humble name with this St Patrick's festival of 1868; and it
is because I am deeply grateful to my adopted country, and because I
am honestly ambitious to be reckoned somewhere, however lowly the
place, in the catalogue of her patriots, that I tliank you most unaffectedly
for this great impetus to the good cause of future peace and good-will
among us all. ... I thank you again . . . for the opportunity you have
afforded me of saying a word in season in behalf of that ancient and
illustrious island, the mere mention of which, especially on the 17th
of March, warms the heart of every Irishman, in whatever latitude or
longitude the day may dawn or the stars look down upon his political
destinies or his private enjoyments."
So spake the true Canadian patriot, the true and ardent lover of Ire-
land, on the evening of St Patrick's .day, Tuesday, 17th March 18C8.
Three weeks later, on Tuesday the 7th of April, he was no more! His
last speech, made in the House of Representatives at Ottawa, on the
night of his assassination the final one of the session was characterised
by his wonted vigour. His life was about to be the sacrifice for opinions
frankly avowed, but unpopular and misinterpreted; and his last words,
viewed in the light of subsequent events, have a strange significance.
" Popularity," he said, " is a great good, if we accept it as a power and
a means to do good to our country and our fellow-men, something
to be cherished and clung to. But popularity for its own sake is no-
thing worth worse than nothing if purchased at the sacrifice of one's
convictions of right. . . . Base indeed would he be who could not risk
popularity in a good cause that of his country." During the progress
of the debate, M'Gee, having spoken, occupied himself in writing a letter
for that night's mail, which he dropped into the letter-box as he was
leaving the House. It was to a friend in Ireland, and was occupied
with the political debate just concluded. But a postscript was added,
brief, but of much consolation to the heart of the recipient. It was to
the efl'ect that his correspondent would be glad to learn that for some
time past he had been a total abstainer, being anxious as to a growing
tendency to the use of stimulants, that he had been a recent communi-
cant, and had been thinking more seriously than formerly during the
period of his long illness. He left the House, arm in arm with the mem-
ber for Perth, Mr Macfarlane. Tliey parted at the corner of the street
where M'Gee had temporary lodgings. " Good night, and God bless
you." " Good morning rather it is morning now." His friend hail
barely left him, when, as he was opening his door with his latch-key,
the fatal shot was fired in the moonlight, and a few days before his
forty-third birthday, and a few hours before his expected return to wife
92 MODERN. -POLITICAL.
and children at Montreal, Thomas D'Aroy M'Gree fell, the victim of
Fenian assassination. Comparatively young though he was when thus
cut off, he had yet had time and opportunity to accomplish his life's
labour, and to realise the wish he had fondly expressed, in this last
aspiration, which is extracted from his poetical remains.
"A Fragment.
(<
I would not die with my work undone,
My qi;est unfound, my goal unwon,
* Though life were a load of lead ;
Ah ! rather I'd bear it day on day.
Till bone and blood were worn away,
And Hope in Faith's lap lay dead.
I dream'd a dream when the woods were green,
And my April heart made an April scene.
In the far, far distant land,
That even I might something do
That should keep my memory for the true,
And my name from the spoiler's hand. "
GENERAL SIR DE LACY EVANS.
BORN 1787 DIED 1870.
General SirDe Lacy Evans, son of Mr William Evans of Milltown,was
born at Moig, in the county Kerry, in 1787. He received his early
education at the Woolwich Academy, and entered the army in 1807. He
spent the first three years of his military life in India, and was actively
engaged in the operations against Ameer Khan and the Pindarees, and
he also shared in the capture of the Mauritius. For nearly half a cen-
tury, from 1807 until near the close of the Crimean War in 1854, he
enjoyed few intervals of repose from active military service ; and it
may be said that from the day when the youthful soldier first served in
India, until tiie memorable oth of November, when tlie veteran closed
his brilliant military career on the bloody field of Inkermann, his life
had been passed almost exclusively amidst the incessant din of arms,
and the heat and excitement of war. During that period he was re-
gularly attached to eiglit armies, and engaged in fifty considerable
battles in Asia, Europe, and America, besides minor conflicts innumer-
able. He seems, indeed, to have had " a charmed life," considering
that he had no less than eight horses shot under him, and was himself
severely wounded on four occasions. He was always to be found in
the midst of the hottest fighting ; and wherever there was a service of
danger to be performed a storming party or any other daring ex-
ploit De Lacy Evans never lost an opportunity of adding to his laurels.
For personal bravery he was unsurpassed, even by his gallant country-
men Beresford and Gough ; and if "the love of fighting" be rightly
ascribed to the Irish people as a national characteristic, he was cer-
tainly a faithful representative of his race. All through his career his
personal gallantry was not only conspicuous, but something wonderful
"something seemingly more than human," observes a witness of his
chivalric feats ; and it is recorded tliat " he acquired most 'distinction
by volunteering for storming parties, and all enterprises where honour
was to be gained at terrible risk, by the display of the highest military
qualities." During the intervals of peace, for want of more congenial
employment, he endeavoured to stratify his warlike propensities by
lighting the constitutional battles of his country. Such pastimes, how-
ever, did not possess excitement strong enough for one of his ardent
temperament, and he longed for battles and the stern chances of war.
He was not doomed to find his occupation gone. There was soon
a chance for the martial senator to return to his favourite pursuits.
Accordingly, in 1835, we find him at the head of " the British Legion "
fighting for the Infanta Isabella and the liberties of Spain. In like
manner, again, in 1854:, he was released from Parliamentary duties to
take the command of a division in the Crimean War. During both
these campaigns he retained his seat in Parliament for the city of
Westminster, by the special favour of his constituents, Wlien he ac-
cepted the command of "the British Legion" in Spain, it was not in
answer to anything like a call of duty, or from any pressure put upon
lum, tliat he did so, but solely, we believe, from the impulse of his own
warlike nature. Indeed, one can scarcely suppress a smile at the pic-
ture of the gallant member solemidy appealing to tlie peaceful folk of
Westminster to be let off to fight Don Carlos, on a two years' leave
of absence like a schoolboy begging for a holiday for some special
trip of pleasure.
In 1810 Evans joined the army under Wellington in the Peninsula,
and accompanied the British forces on their retreat from the unsuc-
cessful siege of Burgos, and from that period took part in all the prin-
cipal battles during the war. When Wellington was about to enter
France, De Lacy Evans was sent forward by Sir George Murray to
survey the passes of the Pyrenees. This work he performed with such
ability that he obtained staff employment. Soon after the advance into
France he was present at tlie battle of Toulouse, when he had a horse
shot under him, as he had had ])reviously at theinvestment^of Bayonne.
In January, May, and June 1815 he was successively promoted to tiie
rank of captain, major, and lieutenant-colonel, expressly for distin-
guished services against the enemy. Previous to these promotions,
he had been transferred in 1814 from the army of Wellington to
another field of action, being ordered on active service to North
America, to take part in the war against tlie United States. It was
De Lacy Evans who, on the attack on Washington, forced the House of
Congress at the head of only 100 light infantry. He also took part in
the attack on Baltimore ; and in the battle of Bladenburg, where he
signally distinguished himself, he had two horses sliot under him.
From a contemporary writer we learn " that he was the only volunteer
from the army that accompanied the boat's crew of the English fleet,
which boarded and captured the strongly-armed American sloop-of-
war posted for the defence of Lake Borgne before New Orleans."
He was severely wounded in December 1814, and again in January
1815 in the disastrous assault on New Orleans. On the latter occa-
sion the two English generals, Pakenham and Gibbs, were killed, and
the British army defeated by the Americans under the celebrated
Andrew Jackson, afterwards President of the United States.
Recalled to European service, lie arrived in the spring of 1815, in
time to join the army in Flanders under the Duke of Wellington, and
was eno-ao-ed in the battle of Quatre Bras, and two days subsequently
in the final battle of Waterloo, where, as usual, he proved himself the
bravest of the brave, and had two horses shot under him. He advanced
with the army to Paris, and remained on the staff of the Duke of
Wellino'ton during the occupation, after which he returned to Eng-
land with the British contingent, and lived for several years in honour-
able retirement. He now began to devote his active and energetic
mind to politics. During the agitation consequent on the Reform
Bill, Colonel Evans was returned on Radical principles for the borougli
of Rye, wliich he represented in one short Parliament. In December
1832 he lost his seat for Rye, and was shortly afterwards unsuccess-
ful in his efforts to be returned for the more important constituency of
Westminster. In May 1833, however, he was returned for the latter
constituency, when Sir John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards Lord Brough-
ton) sought re-election at its hands, having resigned for the purpose
of allowing his constituents to vote on his conduct in reference to
the house and window taxes. While Colonel Evans represented
Westminster, he seems to have given satisfaction to his constitu-
ents ; more perhaps from his popularity as a model of British heroism,
than from any reputation he could have acquired as a politician or
a statesman. But occupation more congenial to his tastes was
before him. In 1835, as already mentioned, the Queen Regent of
Spain obtained leave from the British Government to raise an auxiliary
force in tliis country, in order to support her cause, and that of her
daughter Isabella, against her absolutist rival Don Carlos. A force of
10,000 men was raised accordingly, and the command of the "British
Legion" was accepted by Colonel Evans. But he had no sooner
accepted the command, than he found that he had " to contend not
only with the influence of a powerful party in England, who sym-
pathised with the cause of absolute government all over the world, but
with that of the Court, the military authorities, and even the king
himself in obedience to whose ends the enterprise was untertaken."
There could be no doubt that the cause of Don Carlos was the
national and popular one, and would have prevailed, were it not for
foreign intervention. Under these circurastances, the policy of raising
a British Legion at all was most severely criticised at the time both in
and out of Parliament, and Lord Palmerston, then Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, and in consequence of whose concessions the remission
of the rule as to foreign enlistment was sanctioned by the Privy Coun-
cil, came in for a large share of the odium of an enterprise which
should never have been undertaken. Colonel Evans, too, as the cap-
tain of the unpopular expedition, and perhaps in no small degree as
the Radical member for Westminster, was in his absence made the
subject of the most bitter invective and vituperation. All the calami-
ties which befell that ill-organised and ill-treated " British Legion "
were attributed to his incapacity, and all their successes were attri-
buted to accident. But Colonel Evans, on returning home in 1837, so
tlioroughly vindicated his conduct from all accusations, that shortly
afterwards he was nominated a Kniglit Commander of the Bath, in
recognition of his services in Spain. From the Spanish Government
he received the Grand Cross of SS. Ferdinand and Charles.*
In 1835, as we have seen, he was member for Westminster, and
again in 1837; but at the general election in 1841 he lost his seat,
being defeated by Captain, now Admiral llous. At the next dissolu-
tion, however, he regained his place, and continued to represent that
constituency down to 1805, when he retired from political life. In
18+6 Sir De Lacy attained the rank of major-general; and on the
breaking out of the Russian War in 1854, he was appointed to the
command of the second division of the Eastern army, wuth the rank of
lieutenant-general. At the battle of the Alma, his was one of the leading
divisions, and was led by him across the river in the most dashing and
intrepid style, under a murderous fire of grape, round shot, cannister,
case shot, and musketry. Uis troops suffered terribly on that memor-
able occasion, and Evans received a severe contused wound in tho
right shoulder. He again showed his worth as a man and a general on
the 26th of October, during the siege of Sebastopol, when his division
was attacked by a large force of Russians, which moved out of the
town for that purpose, amounting to 6000 men. The enemy advanced
with masses of infantry supported by artillery, and covered by largo
bodies of skirmishers. Such, however, was tho warmth of their recep-
tion, that, in less than half-an-hour, the Russian artillery were com-
pelled to retire. The Russian columns, exposed to the fire of the
English advanced infantry, were soon thrown into confusion. The
English then literally chased them over the ridges, and down to-
wards the head of the Bay of Sebastopol. The English loss was 80
killed and wounded; 80 was also the number of Russian prisoners
taken ; but the total loss of the enemy was about 800, Lord Raglan,
in reporting on the battle, declared that he could not too highly praise
the gallant manner in which Evans met the attack, and that nothing
could have been managed with more consummate skill and courage. f
But the close of his glorious career was now at hand. On the
morning of the 5th of November 1854 commenced the ever-memorable
battle of Inkermann. Evans, worn out by illness and fatigue, had gone
on board a vessel, lying in the harbour of Balaklava, leaving General
Pennefather in command of the division. On hearing, however, that
a desperate battle was raging before Sebastopol, the gallant veteran,
sick and exhausted as he was, insisted on leaving his bed, and pro-
ceeded at all hazards to the front, but not to take the command from
General Pennefather, or deprive that brave officer of the honours of
the day, but to help him with his advice in the momentous crisis of
that terrific fight. As might bo expected, his noble conduct on this
occasion was made the subject of special commendation in the de-
spatches of the commander-in-chief, and again in the despatch from
the Minister of War, which conveyed Her Majesty's thanks to the army
* For full particulars of the Spanish expedition, we refer the reader to
"Memoranda of the Contest in Spain," jmblished by Sir De Laey Evans in
1840, and dedicated to his constituents of Westminster; also to "A Concise
Account of the British Auxiliary Legion in Spain," published at Scarborough in
1837. Some of the most severe criticisms on Lord Palnierstou and Sir De Lacy
will be found in BlacJnoood's Magazine, vols, xl., xlii., xliii., xlvi., and xlix.
t See Russell's " War in the Crimea."
of the East. In the follo\Ting February, immediately on his return to
Enghmd invalided, and the re-assembling of Parliament, Sir De Lacy
Evans received in person, in his place in the House, the thanks of the
House of Commons " for his distinguished services in the Crimea,"
the vote being conveyed to him in an admirable speeeh from the
speaker, who referred in the most complimentary terms to his illustrious
services. His reply on this occasion was modest and manly, and
thoroughly characteristic. While he acknowledged the high honour
done him by that august assembly in the most respectful terms, he did
not forget to remind his hearers of the very different feeling which
had been displayed in that House some eighteen years before, when,
after returning from duties like those which he had so lately per-
formed, he had been assailed with all the bitterness of party and per-
sonal rancour. He claimed for himself to have been as good a soldier
in 1837 as he was in 1855, and protested against the injustice of attack-
ing a man with slander and vituperation, merely because the enter-
prise with which he was intrusted did not happen to be agreeable to
the tastes and doctrines of his political opponents. In the same year
he was promoted to be a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the
Bath, and created an honorary D.C.L. by the University of Oxford,
and in 1356 a grand officer of the Legion of Honour. He died at his
residence, Great Cumberland Street, London, on the 9th of January
1870, at the age of eighty-two. His death caused a general feeling of
regret in public and in private circles, as he had acquired not less esteem
and affrtctionate respect in his private relations than he had of public
admiration for his brilliant achievements.*
SIR HENRY MONTGOMERY LAWRENCE.
BORN 1806 DIED 1857.
Brigadier-General Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, K.C.B., was
born at Mattura, in Ceylon, 28lh June 1806. He was the eldest son
of the late Lieutenant- Colonel Alexander William Lawrence, of the
county of Londonderry, some time Governor of Upnor Castle, Kent,
an officer of great gallantry, and who distinguished himself at the capture
of Seringapatam. He received his early education at Foyle College,
Londonderry, and afterwards at the Military College, Addiscombe,
entering in 1821 the service of the East India Company, as a cadet in
the Bengal Artillery. Early in his career he attracted the favourable
notice of his superiors; and long before he had an opportunity of display-
ing his high qualities, he was recognised as one of the most efficient and
promising officers in the service. He served in the Cabul campaign of
1843 under Sir George Pollock, and was raised to the rank of major.
Hritish ludia (London, 1829). An account ot the campaign m Amonca will be
found in his work, entitled "Facts relating to the Capture of Washington"
(London, 1829)
Ill the same year lie became Briti^li lle-sideiit at Ne|iaiil. He afterwards
took a distinguished part in tlic Sutlej campaigns, and was promoted
for his services to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and created a mili-
tary C.B. In 1846 he was api)ointed Resident at Lahore, and agent
for the Governor-General on the north-w^est frontier ; and for the able
discharge of the duties of this important post he was created a K.C.B.
in 1848. On the annexation of the Punjab in 1849, Sir Henry was
appointed the chief commissioner of that province his brother, Mr John
Lawrence, afterwards Lord Lawrence, and ]Mr Grenville Mansel being
the other members of the board of administration. These gentlemen
undertook separate branches of the administration. Sir Henry Lawrence
conducted all the political business with the Punjab chiefs, whilst Mr
John Lawrence superintended the revenue administration. From
the Punjab he was removed to the superintendence of the Ilajpoot
states, where his measures were equally successful, as in the Punjab,
in conciliating the chiefs, and ameliorating the moral and social condi-
tion of the people. In 1854 he attained the rank of colonel, and was
appointed an honorary aide-de-camp to the Queen. On the annexation
of Oude, Sir Henry was nominated the chief commissioner at Lucknow
an ofhce which virtually made him governor of the new province. On
the breaking out of the mutiny of 1857, all Oude was speedily in arms,
although he had taken every precaution that prudence and foresight
could suggest to prevent an outbreak. The mutiny at Lucknow broke
out on the 30th of May, and the conduct of Sir Henry under the ter-
rible circumstances is described as " worthy of his character as a valiant
and skilful soldier, and a great ruler." For a long time he held his
mutinous regiments to their allegiance by the force of his character; and
when finally the torrents of disaffection swept away these also, he
retired into the Residency, which he had hastily fortified, witli a hand-
ful of brave Europeans, soldiers and civilians, and a crowd of helpless
women and children, and a few steadfast native soldiers, who held fast
to their affection for Lawrence, with the devotion of the early Sepoys
to Clive.*
The circumstances of the death of Sir Henry Lawrence are these:
He had taken up his quarters in a room of tlie Residency very mucli
exposed to the enemy's fire. On the 1st of July an 8-inch shell burst
in this room, between him and Mr Cowper, close to both, but without
injuring either. The whole of his staft' implored Sir Henry to take up
other quarters, as the Residency had become the special target for tlie
round shot and shell of the enemy. This, however, he jestingly
declined to do, observing tliat another shell would certainly never be
pitched into that small room. Unhappily the chances were adverse.
On the following day another shell burst in the same spot, mortally
wounding Sir Henry, Captain Wilson, deputy-assistant-adjutant-
general, receiving a contusion at tlie same time. Colonel Inglis, wlio
succeeded to the command at Lucknow, in his despatch, dated
September 1857, thus describes the last moments of this brave
* For an account of the resolnte defence of Lncknow, the daring exjiloits and
devoti'd sacrifice of the men, and of tlie patient eiuUu'ance and terrible sulferiiigs
of tli(> women and children, the reader is referred to Mr Giibbiu's account of the
mutiny in Oude.
IV. G Ir.
commander : " Knowing that his last hour was rapidly approaching, he
directed me to assume command of the troops, and appointed Major
Banks to succeed him in the officer of chief commissioner. He lingered in
great agony till the morning of the 11th of July, when he expired, and
the Government was thereby deprived, if I may venture to say so, of
the services of a distinguished statesman and a most gallant soldier.
Few men have ever possessed to the same extent tlie power whicli lie
enjoyed of winning the hearts of all those witli whom he came in con-
tact, and thus insuring the warmest and most zealous devotion for him-
self and the Government which he served. The successful defence of the
position has been, under Providence, solely attributable to the foresight
he evinced in the timely commencement of tlie necessary operations and
the great skill and untiring personal activity which he exhibited in
carrying them into effect. All ranks possessed such confidence in his
judgment and his fertility of resource, that the news of his fall was re-
ceived tliroughout the garrison with feelings of consternation, only
second to the grief which was inspired in the hearts of all by the loss
of a public benefactor and a warm personal friend. . . In him every
good and deserving soldier lost a friend, and a chief capable of discrimi-
nating and ever on the alert to reward merit, no matter how humble
the sphere in which it was exhibited."*
Another writer says : " A nobler soldier, a more devoted public
servant, a more benevolent and large-hearted man, never died."
Of his wisdom and practical benevolence a lasting memorial survives
in the noble institution which bears his name " the Lawrence
Asylum'' which was established for the reception of the children of
European soldiers in India. The necessity and utility of this institu-
tion were soon so fully recognised by the Indian public, that on the death
of the estimable Lady Lawrence, the English in India, who knew her
high qualities, subscribed a very considerable sum in augmentation of
the funds of the Asylum, thinking that there could be no testimonial
more worthy of the deceased, or more respectful to the memory of her
husband. The Government, too, have accorded it a liberal support.
For many years Sir Henry devoted a portion of his leisure from official
labours to literary pursuits. His contributions to the Calcutta Revieio
in the years 1844-56 have been collected since his death, and were
published in London in 1859 as " Essays, Military and Political." Two
of these essays are especially remarkable ; they were written in the
year preceding the mutiny, and prefigured with extraordinary foresight
the terrible calamity that was then impending.
In recognition of Sir Henry's services, his eldest son has been created
a baronet.
THE RIGHT HON. ABRAHAM BREWSTER, P.O., EX-LORD-CHANCELLOR
OF IRELAND.
BORN 1796.
The Riglit Hon. Abraham Brewster was born at Ballinamulta, in the
countv Wioklow, in the year 179G. He was the eldest son of tlie
* See also Mr Gubbin's account of the mutiii}' of 1857-
THE RIGHT HON". ABRAPIAM BREWSTER. 99
late Williani Bagenal Brewster, Esq. of Ballinamuha, by Miss Bates,
daughter' of Mr Bates of Killenure, county Wicklow. His grand-
father William was the second son of Samuel Brewster, Esq. of
Ballywilliam Roe, county Carlow, and was descended from a branch
ot the East Anglian family of Brewster. He received his early educa-
tion at Kilkenny College, graduated A.B. 1817 at Trinity College,
Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar in the year 1819. In 1835
he was promoted to the inner bar, where he enjoyed a most distinguished
practice as a leader until his elevation to the bench in 18G6. He was
law adviser for many years to successive Lord-Lieutenants of Ireland.
In 1846 he became Solicitor-General under Sir Robert Peel's Ministry,
but filled that post for a few months only, namely, from February to
June of that year. In the same year he was elected a Bencher of the
Honourable Society of King's Inns. On the formation of Lord
Aberdeen's Ministry in 1852, Mr Brewster was made Attorney-General
for Ireland, and held that office until March 1855. He was added
to the Privy Council on becoming Attorney-General. During Lord
Derby's second administration, in 1866, Mr Brewster was appointed
Lord-Justice of Appeal in the room of Mr Blackburne, who resigned
that office to accept the Great Seal for a second time. Early in 1867
Mr Blackburne, owing to his failing health, retired from the Cliancellor-
ship, and Mr Brewster was promoted to the office of Lord Chancellor,
which he vacated on the retirement of the Derby administration in
December 1868.
When Mr Brewster was promoted to the most exalted position open
to him in the law, there was no one who could dispute his title to the
highest honours which the country could confer upon him ; nor could
any one deny that if merit had been made the ground of preferment,
he should have been advanced to the foremost place many years before
he was. Nothing but the consciousness of this could have sustained
him during a long servitude to the arduous labours of professional life.
For a period of twenty years, from the time he was Solicitor-General in
1846 until he became Lord- Justice of Appeal in 1866, he was doomed
to plead before judges in the Courts of Law and Equity, whose claims
to judicial honours were in nearly every instance much inferior to his
own. But it is creditable to him that he always bowed with respect to
the offices, if not always to the men, and never evinced, in public at
least, any symptoms of jealousy or bitterness towards his more fortunate
legal brethren.
In Ireland there is not, as in England, the same division of legal
labour ; and a junior barrister in the former country must be ready to
plead in every court, whether of Law or P^quity, at tlie .'shortest notice.
The result of these multifarious demands upon Irish barristers is suffi-
ciently obvious in the fact, that few of them have time to attain that
high excellence in any one department which distinguishes their more
fortunate brethren on the other side of the water, as lawyers, authors,
and judges, and has been unfairly ascribed to the difference of race. If
to this state of things which is to a great extent the necessary conscr
quence of the dearth of business in Ireland, as compared with England-^
be added the pernicious system of making political agitation and
parliamentary services the passport to advancement, it seems more
reasonable to conclude that Irish lawyers could never have been as
successful as they have been, but for their superior natural quickness
and versatility of talent. With this latter difficulty, the distractions of
political and parliamentary life, Mr Brewster had not so much to con-
tend ; although, of course, as law adviser to the Castle, and as Solicitor
and Attorney-Greneral, and especially as a Privy Councillor, there were
considerable demands upon his time in relation to the political questions
of the day. With the former difficulty, arising from the distracting claims
of his profession, his extraordinary powers, physical as well as mental,
enabled him to contend more successfully than any man at the Irish
bar. He was equally at home in the Courts of Common Law, as he
was in those of Equity. But in self-defence he was for many years
obliged to refuse accepting a brief in tlie former courts, unless under a
special fee. His services, however, were so highly esteemed, that he has
appeared in all the important cases which have occupied those tribunals
up to the time of his elevation to the bench. As a cross-examiner he
was never surpassed. His natural shrewdness and powers of discrimin-
ation, developed by long training and close observation, gave him a
profound insight into human nature and the springs and motives of
human action, never possessed by any other advocate in a higher degree.
Hence his weight with judges and juries was immense. He never
attempted lofty -flights of eloquence ; but there was always a force in
liis words more impressive and more lasting tiian the most brilliant
feats of impassioned declamation. In the Courts of Equity, there was
no case, great or small, in which he was not engaged as counsel. His
knowledge of the law and practice of the Court of Chancery was so
perfect that he could never be taken by surprise. His influence with
the successive Chancellors who presided over the Equity Courts in his
days was naturally very great ; and when the balance of intellectual
power was to some extent disturbed by the withdrawal of Mr Christian
and Mr Fitzgerald, this influence may have unduly affected the judg-
ments of these courts. In using the word " unduly," we do not mean
to attribute anything like an improper use of his great powers in dis-
charging his duty for the best interests of his clients ; but that there
was abroad the impression that his advocacy was at that particular time
more than ever worth securing is clear from the anxiety evinced in
every case by practitioners to retain his services, the moment a suit was
duly constituted and fairly in court. This impression, however, was of
very short duration, as the great abilities of Mr Lawson, Mr Sullivan,
and otlier eminent men, soon became so fully recognised, that there
was little ground for apprehension that the Equity judges should go
far astray in their decisions from not being fully advised as to the law
and facts on both sides of every case which came before them. In tlic
Court of Probate, too, from the time of the establishment of that most
important tribunal in 1857, until his retirement from professional life,
Mr Brewster figured conspicuously in every celebrated trial. As a
case-lawyer he held the highest reputation in England as well as
Ireland ; and his opinions have been frequently sustained against the
opinions of some of the most eminent lawyers of both countries. His
appointment to the high post of Lord- Justice of Appeal was as credit-
able to Lord Derby's Ministry as the appointment of Mr Blackburne to
THE RIGHT HON. ABRAHAM BREWSTER. lUl
the same office on its institution in 1857 was creditable to Lord
Palaicrston's administration. Both were fairly made from a regard
to merit independently of party considerations. When Mr Brewster
was first named as the probable successor of Mr Blackburne as Lord-
Chancellor in 1867, there were some objections urged against his
appointment, on the ground that the Chancellorship was essentially a
political office as nmch as the Lord- Lieutenancy, and that his elaims on
the Conservative party were not as strong as those of others ; but those
objections were soon silenced, when Lord Derby announced his inten-
tion of regulating his choice on the broad basis of merit, apart from
political services. Of the manner in which Mr Brewster discharged the
duties of Lord-Justice of Appeal and of Lord- Chancellor, it would be
presumptuous to attempt any criticism. The rule of reticence and
reserve, which is generally observed in the case of living judges, may
not be strictly applicable in the case of an ex-Lord-Justice or an ex-
Lord-Chancellor. But as the right lion, gentleman may again be
called upon to fill the latter high office, it seems better taste to observe
than break the rule on the present occasion, so far as his Chancellor-
ship is concerned. We have, however, no hesitation in giving the
following extract from TJie Irish Law Times and Solicitor's Journal,
as showing the opinion entertained of Mr Brewster's qualifications in
legal circles, both in England and Ireland: " The recent legal
appointments consequent on the resignation of the Right Hon. Francis
Blackburne have been already very fully discussed both liere and in
England ; and it is gratifying to us to be able to congratulate the
public and the profession upon the satisfacti<jn with wliich the leading
journals, representing every shade and variety of political opinions, have,
with one voice, expressed themselves as to the selection made by the
Government. This singular unanimity of opinion is the best proof
that can be given that these appointments have not been bestowed as a
reward for mere political services, without regard to the merits or
peculiar suitability of the individuals upon whom they have been con-
ferred. The Right Hon. Abraham Brewster, as Lord- Chancellor of
Ireland, is unquestionably the right man in the right place. A writer
in an English Review, alluding to Irish legal appointments consequent
on the change of Government, speaks of our Irish establishments as
affording ' a safe and lucrative retreat for ex-politicians ;' but in
reference to Mr Brewster's elevation to the office of Lord-Justice of
Appeal, the same writer says, ' Here, it must be confessed, was a rare
instance of promotion by merit ; of his appointment no complaint can
be made, except by those extreme politicians of a class, by no means
extinct in Ireland, who regard party services as alone, worthy of being
estimated.' We feel it would be simply a piece of impertinence to tlie
readers of this journal to expatiate on the subject of Mr Brewster's fit-
ness for the high and important duties which he is now at length called
upon to discharge. It must, however, be admitted, that some feeling of
disappointment was produced among many members of both branches
of the profession immediately upon Mr Brewster's entering upon his
duties as Lord-Justice of Appeal. But we feel confident that tliis
feeling, if it still exists, will be very soon effiiced, and that there will
be no ground to apprehend that the advantage to be derived l)y the
102
MODERN.-POLITICAL.
public from ability of the highest order, vast experience, and profound
learning, shall be marred by anything resembling an exhibition of
impatience during the progress of a cause. Many great judges have at
first forgotten that ' 'Tis excellent to have a giant's strength ; but it is
tyrannous to use it like a giant,' and that great mental acuteness often
generates a ' liabit of interruption by frequent questions, and of inti-
mating a decided opinion during the progress of an argument.' It is.
to be remarked of Mr Brewster, when at the bar, that it was almost
impossible to take him by surprise. His great learning was always
ready at his command, and any interruption from the bench or bar
seemed only to give him additional strength. His very style was indi-
cative of liis great powers, and his arguments wore the appearance of
expositions of the law, drawn, for the time, from his great resources,
rather than of systematic preparation for the particular occasion.
Hence he never experienced any inconvenience from any sudden
derangement of a line of argument elaborately arranged." We will
only add, in reference to the feeling of disappointment above referred
to, that the condition of the Chancery bar at the time of his appointment
was well calculated to produce something like an exhibition of petulance
or impatience on the part of a man of Mr Brewster's calibre. Its
ranks had been so thinned by the promotion, or the absence on parlia-
mentary duties, of some of its most eminent members, that a considerable
share of the Equity business devolved on men who never could attain
the rank of even respectable mediocrities. Men of this class, no doubt,
felt it highly inconvenient to be " hauled up" occasionally, and were onlv
too slad to attribute their own discomfiture to the hastiness of the Lord-
Justice of Appeal. The platitudes of counsel become simply intolerable
in Appeal cases. The issues between the parties are reduced to
writing ; the cases have been previously argued, and decided upon, and
there is ample time for preparation; so that it is utterly absurd to expect
the same amount of indulgent forbearance from the bench to tlie bar
that is usually extended to counsel when arguing a case brouglit for
the first time before the consideration of a court.
In concluding this brief and imperfect sketcli of Mr Brewster, the
first on our list of living celebrities, we are forced to repeat the remark,
of wliich we have been recently reminded, that " though dead men are
supposed to tell no tales, their memoirs are generally more amply pro-
vided for than tliose of the living." Most public men, it is to be
presumed, would rather wait for the benefit of the " nil de mortuis"
doctrine ; and memoir writers are released from all feelings of reserve
and delicacy in descanting upon departed virtues, as well as from all
terrors of consequences, if they should happen to defame the " noble
dead." Envy, too, is supposed to be buried with them on true philoso-
phic principles :
' ' Urit enim fulgore suo, qui prregravat artes
Infra sepositas ; extinctus amabitur idem."
Mr Brewster married in 1819 Miss Gray, daughter of Robert Gray,
Esq. of Upton, county Carlow.
BARON MARTIN. ]03
3AK0N MARTIN.
BORN 1801.
Sir Samuel Martin, one of the present Barons of the English Court
of Exchequer, is second son of the late Samuel Martin, Esq., of Cal-
inore, in the county of Londonderry, and of Arabella his wife. Born
on September 3, 1801, he received his education at Trinity College,
Dublin, where he obtained the degrees of A.B., 1821 ; A.M., Nov.
1832; and LL.D., Sept. 2, 1857.
He at first entered as a student in Gray's Inn in May 1821, but in
December 1826 he transferred himself to the Middle Temple, by which
society he was admitted to the bar on January 29, 1830, having in the
interim practised for two years as a special pleader. He joined the
Nortliern Circuit, where he speedily won a high reputation by the
ability he exliibited in the conduct of his cases. In thirteen years he
acquired such a leading position on Circuit and in London that he was
promoted to the rank of Queen's Counsel in 1843. At tiie general
election of 1847 he was elected on Liberal principles M.P. for Ponte-
fract. That borough he represented till 1850, when he was promoted
to the Bench of the Exchequer, receiving the usual honour of knight-
hood.
In 1838 the Baron married Frances, the eldest daughter of Sir Fre-
derick Pollock, afterwards the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
His reputation for high legal attainments and judicial excellence stands
deservedly high.
In alluding to Baron Martin, an eminent English writer * makes the
following remarks : " The fairness with which judicial honours are
allotted, and the absence of all national prejudice in their distribution,
is exemplified in the fact that in each of the three courts there is a
judge who honestly prides himself in being a native of our sister isle.
Sir Samuel Martin, one of the present Barons of the Exchequer, is not
only of Irish extraction, but was also born and educated in Ireland, and
by his learning and acquirements encourages the expectation that manv
another representative of his country will be welcomed on the bencli."
The other judges referred to were Sir William Shee, Justice of the
Queen's Bench, and Sir James J. S. Willes, Justice of the Common
Pleas, both since dead. The writer might have also referred to Sir
Henry O. Keating, Justice of the Common Pleas, who is still alive. It
was not till some years after tlie above remarks were published, in 18G4,
tliat Lord Cairns became Lord-Justice of the Court of Appeal in
Chancery in 18G6, and in March 1868 Lord-Ciiancellor. He had lilled
the office of Solicitor-General in 1858-9, and Attorney-General in
1866.
* Mr Foss, F.S.A., of the Inner Temple, author of " The Jiulges of England."
104
MODERN. POLITICAL.
THE HONOUKABLE SIR HENEY SINGER KEATING.
BOSN 1804.
Sir Henry Singer Keating, one of the present judges of the Com-
mon Pleas, was born in Dublin in 1804. He is the third son of the
late Lieut.-General Sir H. S. Keating, K.C.B., who highly distinguished
himself in the West Indies and other parts of the world, and of the
daughter of James Singer, Esq., of Annadale, in the county of Dublin.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated A.B.
1828, and A.M. 1832. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple
in 1832, and in 1834 joined the Oxford Circuit, and soon obtaining a
first-rate practice, he became a leader after Serjeant Talfourd's elevation
to the bench in 1849. In the same year he obtained a silk gown, and
was elected a Bencher of the Inner Temple. He edited, jointly with
his distinguished fellow-countryman, Mr Willes (afterwards Mr Justice
Willes), the well-known legal work, " Smith's Leading Cases," which
will ever remain a monument of their industry and legal attainments.
The first edition of that celebrated work appeared in 1841). It has
since gone through several editions. In 1852 he entered Parliament
as member for Beading, on Liberal principles. Supporting the Liberal
party in the House, he was appointed Solicitor-General in May 1857,
and knighted during the first ministry of Lord Palmerston, on whose
defeat in the following February he retired, but was replaced in June
1859 on the return of Lord Palmerston to power. Only half a year
had elapsed before he succeeded Mr Justice Crowder as Judge of the
Common Pleas, in which Court he has sat from December 14, 1859,
till the present time. Amongst the measures of legal reform with which
his name is associated, the one best known to the general public, if not
the most useful, was the Bills of Exchange Act, 18 & 19 Vict. c. G7,
enabling the holders of bills and notes, not more than six months over-
due, to get judgment summarily when there were no legal grounds of
defence.
He married in 1843 a daughter of Major-General Evans of the Ar-
tillery.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOSEPH NAPIER, BART, LL.D.
BOEN 1804.
The Right Hon. Joseph Napier, a younger son of William Napier,
Esq., a descendant of the Merchiston branch of the Napier family.
by the daughter of Samuel M'Naghten, Esq., was born in Belfast
on the 26th of December 1804. At an early age he was placed under
the private tuition of the great dramatist James Sheridan Knowles,
who afterwards was master of the department for teaching the English
language in the Belfast Academical Institution, in which young Napier
became a pupil, and continued for several years under the care of
THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH NAPIER, BART. LL.D. 103
tliat accom|)li:,lied preceptor. To tlio training whicli he thus under-
went, during tliis iinportant portion of his educational career, may 1)6
justly ascribed thj^t purity of taste and true appreciation of our noble
English literature for which all through his aftcrdife he has been so pre-
eminently distinguished. He ne.xt studied classics under Dr O'lieirne,
afterwards master of the Royal School of Enniskillen, and subsequently
under the Rev. William Neilson, by whom he was prepared for
Trinity College. He also enjoyed the advantage of studying mathe-
matics under the special care of the late Dr Thomson of Belfast,
the father of the celebrated professor in the Universitv of Cambridere.
In November 1820 he entered Trinity College, Dublin, uiuler Dr
Singer, late Bishop of Meath. During his undergraduate course,
while he attained a high reputation for classical scholarship, he was
more especially distinguished as a mathematician. Before the termina-
tion of his first year, lie published a demonstration of the Binomial
Theorem, which brought him under the early and favourable notice
of his fellow-students and some of the leadinsr fellows of the CoUese.
Among the latter was the well-known Mr Charles Boyton, whose
influence was destined to have such a marked effect on the political
views of the young student. In |82o he graduated as Bachelor of
Arts, and his first intention was to read for a fellowship a distinc-
tion to which he was fully justified in aspiring by the success of his
undergraduate career. After prosecuting his studies for this purpose
for some time until after he became a resident master, he was induced
to abandon his original intentions, and apply himself to study for the
bar. During the intervals of repose from severer labours, he culti-
vated his taste for polite literature, and was an occasional contributor
to some of the principal periodicals of the day. While residing
within the college, he formed an intimate acquaintance with the late
Dr William Cooke Taylor, Lord Chief- Justice Whiteside, and other
assqciates, with the aid of whom Napier energetically set to work in the
endeavour to revive the College Historical Society, and their joint
efforts succeeded so far as establishing an Oratorical Society without
the walls of the college. Looking now at the long roll of illustrious
names which have since that time been honourably associated with
the revived College Historical Society and have shed a bright lustre
on their country and its university, we believe there is not one of
the many brilliant triumphs of their lives to which those two great
living Irishmen can now look back with more justiliuble feelings of
pride.
In 1828, while yet a student of law, Mr Napier made his first essay
in the arena of politics. In this year the Brunswick Constitutional
Club was formed, of which Mr Boyton was one of the leading mendjcrs.
The establishment of local clubs throughout the country soon followed ;
and on the 28th of October, a meeting of the graduates of the uni-
versity was held at Morrison's Great Rooms, for the purpose of
forming a College Club. On this occasion, Mr Nai)ier, in a speech of
great promise, reviewed the early constitution of Eni,dand and the
Protestant institutions of the country, from the period of the Reforma-
tion, and contended with great force and eloquence that the safety
and welfare of the kingdom depended on maintaining in its integrity
106 MODERN. POLITICAL.
the constitution as then established. In adopting and warmly urging
these views, he was only following the leaders of the great body of
the Irish nobility and gentry. It was not, therefore, to be expectetl
that the young orator, in liis first essay on the platform, should have
been more temperate in his tone than the majority of his associates
of double his age and experience. The inspirations of Mr Boyton
a politician not of the mildest type working on a youthful mind,
naturally energetic and impulsive, the violent agitations of party
strife, and the traditions of a long-established ascendancy, should
be all taken into accoiuit in passing judgment on his first appearance
in the great struggle of that eventful period. We believe, however,
tliat the part which Mr Napier then took in opposition to the Catholic
Emancipation will never be forgiven or forgotten by many of his
countrymen. That he has since that exciting period considerably
toned down in his political views, whether from choice or necessity,
there can be no reason to doubt ; but the hostility which he tiien excited
has not altogether subsided, and, like many otlier great jHiblie men, he
has been often most unfairly assailed, and his motives and cliaracter have
been grossly misrepresented and traduced. Shortly previous to this
time, Mr Napier, as before stated, had abandoned his intention of
reading for a fellowship, and turned his attention to the bar. lie
went to London with tliis object, and commenced his legal studies
under Mr Amos, the professor of Common Law at the London University,
and the author of many learned books, and the successor of Macau-
lay in India. He afterwards became a pupil of the late Sir John
Patteson, the most eminent special pleader and rising lawyer of
the dav, and haviiijr gained an accurate' knowledge of the then abstruse
science of pleading, he commenced to practise in London as a special
pleader, soon after the elevation of Mr Patteson to the King's
Bench in 1830. Yielding to the urgent solicitations of his friends at
home, he returned to Ireland in 1831, and was called to the bar in
the Easter Term of that year. The following year he joined tlie
North-East Circuit, and speedily got into good practice, establishing
for himself the reputation of a sound lawyer and an accurate pleader.
In those days when venues were local, and not transitory as at the
present time, a much larger amount of business was done on the
several circuits, and a good connection once gained on circuit was
sure to bring a large business in Dublin. Accordingly we find Mr
Napier soon taking a foremost place among the rising juniors of
the metropolis. A good deal of his success no doubt was due to
the training he received under Mr Patteson in the technical niceties
of special pleading. His attachment, however, to " the mysterious art,"
of which he was such an accomplished master, was not so blind as
to prevent him, in after years, from cooperating with Mr White-
side in sweeping away the whole system, and introducing in its
stead a more simple mode of procedure in the superior Courts of
Common Law in Ireland. But long before this period we find
him in the character of a reformer, earnestly engaged in introducing
an improved system of legal education in Ireland. In 1841 Mr Napier,
with some other members of the bar, originated the Law Institute, and
so laid the foundation of that more enlightened provision for legal
education whicli has since been made, and of wliioh the trood fruits are
now so apparent. At the period wo speak of, when Mr Napier aiKl
his friends took up the subject, all that was required for admission t()
the bar was the production of certificates of having kept a certain number
of terms in England and Ireland. Those terms were kept by eating
five dinners at least out of seven paid for, in each term students of
the universities were, by a special grace, allowed to keep tlieir term^
on eating three a privilege for which they never appeared to have
been sufficiently grateful, as they generally took the full vulue of their
money by eating seven dinners in each term, unless, indeed, prevented
by illness or other unavoidable causes. There were no lectures, no
examinations, no test of qualification before admission to the bar. But
this state of tilings no longer exists, and to the exertions of Mr Napier
and his associates in founding the Law Institute in 1841 may justly be
ascribed the institution of the present admirable system of legal educa-
tion in Ireland.
The dinner-eating probation, it is true, still survives, and, so far a-i
Ireland is concerned, there appears to be no great hardship in retaining
it ; but it is not easy to perceive the advantages whicii candidates for
the Irish bar derive from the mere luxury of feasting periodically in
the dining halls of the Temple or the otlier English Inns of Court,
" pursuant to the provisions of the statute in sucli cases made and pro-
vided." Some attempts, no doubt, have been made to redress this
truly Irish grievance. The most recent, we believe, vyas made in 1872,
when Sir Coleman O'Loglilen introduced a bill to remove tliis apparent
injustice. But the Hon. Society of the Benchers qf the King's Inns
immediately convened a special meeting to consider what action they
should take upon the matter. Of the secret deliberations of that
august conclave we can give no account, save that they decided on
calling on Sir Coleman to withdraw his bill, and the bill was accords
ingly withdrawn. Whether Sir Joseph Napier was present during the
discussion of that momentous question we are also unable to say,
though we confess we should like to know his opinions on the subject.
There seems to be only one argument in favour of leaving things as they
are, namely, that by the proposed change, the Irish students would
be deprived of the privilege of competing for certain studentships
at present open to them while members of tiie English Inns of Court.
This, no doubt, appears at first sight a most important consideration,
but there are so many causes to discourage Irish students from entering
the lists with English competitors, that the privilege has been seldom
taken advantage of. It is only just, however, to state that in nearly every
instance in which Irish students did compete, their efforts were rewarded
with success. Wiien speaking of the Law Institute of 1841, we omitted
to state that Mr Napier, Mr Whiteside, and others who took an
active part in its educational objects, delivered gratuitously a series of
lectures on several branches of the law, which were highly popular and
instructive, and mainly contributed to the success of the movement
from which such important benefits have since accrued to the bar and
the public at large.
In 1843 Mr Napier wa.^ first brought into notice in England by his
arguments at the bar of the House of Lords in the case of " The Queen
108 MODERN. POLITICAL.
V. Gray." In that case, wliich was tried before Mr Justice Perrin at
the spring assizes of that year at Monaghan, tlie prisoner, Samuel Gray,
was indicted for firing a pistol at one James Cunningham, with intent
to kill him, or do him grievous bodily harm. The offence was declared,
by the 1st Victoria, cap. 85, to be a felony, and punishable with trans-
portation for life, or for any term not less than fifteen years, or
imprisonment for any term not exceeding three years. When the jury
panel was called over, Mr Na]ier and Mr Whiteside, who were assigned
by the judge to defend Gray, challenged one of the jurors peremptorily,
and the Crown demurred to tlie challenge, relying on the law being,
as had been more than once decided by the Irish judges, that in cases
of capital felony alone such a right existed. The challenge was dis-
allowed, and the trial proceeded and terminated in a conviction. The
question so raised at the trial was put on the record, and subsequently
argued by Mr Napier and Mr Whiteside before the Queen's Bench.
The Court ruled in favour of the Crown, Mr Justice Perrin alone
dissenting. The prisoner's counsel advised an appeal to the House
of Lords, and after an elaborate argument, in which the law staff of
both countries were engaged in upliolding the decision in favour
of the Crown, Mr Napier, single handed, succeeded in reversing
the decision of the Court below. The argument of Mr Napier
was spoken of in tlie most favourable terms by high judicial persons and
legal authorities in London.
About the same time, tlie case of "The Queen v. O'Connell and others"
was brought on a writ of error before the House of Lords, Mr Napier
appearing as one of the counsel for the Crown. It appears that, at the
first, retainers from the Crown and the traversers were sent to his house
in Dublin on the same day, and forwarded by the same mail to him at
Belfast, wliere he then was ; but while the retainer for the Crown
arrived in due course of post, that of the traversers, which was made
up in a parcel, did not reaeli Mr Napier for many hours later, and
after Mr Napier had accepted the retainer for tlie Crown, and posted
his acceptance in a letter to the Crown Solicitor. A discussion thereupoii
arose between tlie respective agents of both parties, and ultimately the
matter was referred to Mr Holmes, the head of the bar, who decided
that Mr Napier was for the time the property of the Crown.
On his return to Ireland, after the decision of these two celebrated
cases, he received a silk gown from Sir Edward Sugden, then Lord
Chancellor of Ireland, and at once took a place amongst the leading Com-
mon Law practitioners. In the following year (1844) lie again appeared
before tlie House of Lords, in the great case of " Dungannon v. Smith,"
and completely established his fame by liis masterly argument, which
called forth the highest eulogiums from the Lord Ciiancellor (Lord Lynd-
hurst), Loi'd Brougham, and Lord Campbell; among the judges in at-
tendance on tlie House, ]\Ir Baron Parke (afterwards Lord Wensleydale)
and Mr Justice Patteson adopted the argument of Mr Napier. The
decision of the House was adverse to his noble client, but Mr Napier
had tlie satisfaction of receiving the highest acknowledgment from
Lord Dungannon, as well as from those who were among the best
qualified to give an opinion on the subject. In a letter from Lord
Dungannon, that nobleman writes : " Mr T. told mo that Baron
Parke had stated to him on tlie circuit, that tlie argument was one of
the most able and masterly he had ever listened to ; and sucli, he
added, was the opinion of Lord Lyndhurst." Another eminent person
observed on the same subject, " I (.-ertainly never read a more able and
intellectual appeal, showing great talent and acuteness, with a |)erfect
knowledge of his subject ; and his arguments are powerfully backed by
cases which must have occupied immense labour and industry to have
collected together ; moreover, Ids language is really classically beau-
tiful." lie also received the most flattering tribute from Mr Ilolmes,
the leader of his own circuit, and the father of the bar.
Mr Napier's professional eminence was so fully established in
England that he was frequently engaged in Irish appeals to the House
of Lords, and he always commanded the marked attention of that high
tribunal.
Mr Napier now began to turn his attention to the House of Com-
mons, and after the dissolution of Parliament in 1847, he contested
the representation of the University with Mr Shaw. Tliough on that
occasion unsuccessful, lie was in the following year, upon the resigna-
tion of Mr Shaw, returned without opposition.
Early in March 1848 Mr Napier took his seat in the House of
Commons. On the i4th he spoke briefly on the debate upon the
punishment by death, and in a few days afterwards upon the proposi-
tion for extending the income tax to Ireland, a measure which he
strenuously opposed. But his first speech of any importance was on
Mr Sharman-Crawford's " Outgoing Tenants' Bill." His next great
speech was on the debate on the relief of the distress in Ireland, which
took place early in the ensuing year. After reviewing the condition
of Ireland from the time of the Union, in a most exhaustive and telling
speech, he continued : " Upon the passing of the Emancipation Act^
wliat remained for the Government and Parliament to do, but to take
the social evils of that unhappy country into their serious consideration,
and to apply a remedy for the correction of them ? They were now-
paying the penalty of their long-neglected duty. Instead of taking
the course which was so clearly pointed out to them, they made Ireland
the battle-field of party. A systeni of policy was pursued, fomenting
discord and division ; it curdled the charity of human hearts, wasted
the energies, and augmented the social miseries of the people. Let
tliem, however, now learn wisdom from tlie experience of the past.
He admitted there was nothing more unwise towards Ireland than to
hold out to her the prospect of removing all her evils by legislation,
evils which no legislation of itself could remedy. He often remarked
that this induced a class of people to look forward to the most romantic
benefits from legislation. In the face of all the evils that atHicted
Ireland, there was not one measure of a statesman-like character pro-
posed to save the country. He had certainly supported with all
ins heart the Government in the measures tliey had brought forward
to secure that peace and repose. Let them have some measures for pro-
moting the cmjiloymeiit of the people. Society in Ireland some
portion of it at least must be reconstructed ; and lie firmly hclieved
that there never was a nobler opportunity for doing so, and placing it
upon a permanent and peaceful footing, than the present."
110 MODERN. POLITICAL.
It would be impossible, within the narrow limits allowed us in these
pages, to notice, even in the most cursory manner, the many very able
and admirable speeches which he delivered during his brilliant Parlia-
mentary career. His industry and resources were perfectly marvellous.
In every important debate he took a prominent part, and in everv
instance he appeared to be thorougldy master of liis subject, and never
failed to command the marked attention of tlie House. Out of such a
muhitude it is very difficult to make a selection ; we venture, however,
to give a few further specimens of his great debating powers. In the
debate on the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, Mr Roche, one of the
members for Cork, asserted of the Protestant Establishment, that
" that gross and intolerable monopoly stood at the head and front of
Ireland's grievances." Mr Napier, though he had not intended to have
spoken on tlie matter before the House, thus replied, " But, after the
cliallenge made that night with regard to tlie Irisli Established Church
by the hon. member for Cork, he felt called upon, as one of the
representatives of that Church, to rise and meet the challenge with as
much boldness and firmness as it had been given. He never wished to
be ostentatious of his religion, but he trusted he should never be tlie
man to be ashamed of it. He was ready to meet the challenge against
the Church upon every ground upon the ground of its antiquity; the
truth of its doctrine, as being conformable with Scripture ; the correct-
ness of its discipline ; the unbroken succession of its spiritual leaders
from the earlier ages down to the present times ; all its long catalogue
of bishops, many eminent for their piety and their learning, could
trace their descent from the days of St Patrick. Mr Napier upheld
the creed of that Church, on which his humble but immortal hope
depended. He admitted that others differed from him ; but let
them show him one point of toleration upon wliicli their liberty
was pressed, and he would help to remove their ground of
complaint. Nine-tenths of the property of Ireland belonged to
Protestants, and support of the Church was a tax on property;
no personal tax was exacted in Ireland from any man to pay foi'
a religion of which he did not approve, save and except, indeed,
so far as funds were regularly taken from tlie national exchequer to
keep up Maynooth, and for other similar matters. Tliere was a charge
on the property, and those who took that property surely ought not to
refuse to pay tlieir creditor what they had engaged to pay him, merely
because he differed in religion. But he would go from tlie south to
the north of Ireland, and trace in all its territorial extension the benefits
and advantages of Protestantism, which contained the germs of every-
thing that could make a people prosper for time and for eternity."
Tlie important question of the rate-in-aid came before the House in
March 1849. It involved a principle of great importance to many
parts of Ireland namely, the justice of making the solvent unions bear
rlie defalcations of those tliat were insolvent. Against this proposition
Mr Napier contended in a speech of great research and remarkable
ability. He insisted that neither the law of Elizabeth nor that of 1838
recognised the principle of responsibility beyond the limits of tlie parti-
cular union, much less could the Poor-Law Extension Act be con-
sidered to do so. He urged two main objections to the applicability of
THE- RIGHT HOK JOSEPH NAPIER, BART. LL.D. Ill
the measure, first, that it was uiijust ; and, secondly, tliat it was un-
wise. "Was it wise," he asked, '"or generous for this great cuuntry,
whose resources and power enabled it to throw down the gauntlet to
the rest of the world in defiance, to fasten upon a few parties in Ireland
the burden of this race, wiio had already been almost exclusively taxed
under the Poor-Law for the support of the destitute in their island,
which was an integral part of the British Empire ? The calamity under
which Ireland was suffering was providential, and the charge consequent
upon relieviny her from it outiht to be borne bv the kint'doiu irenerallv.
Upon a matter of this description and magnitude, they ought
to take a large and comprehensive, as well as wise and generous view
of the policy to be pursued. There were three things Ireland wanted
in order to promote her welfare. The first was repose, a cessation of
political differences and angry feelings and disputes ; secondly, capital ;
thirdly, the exertion of private individuals for the purpose of agricul-
tural improvement. Any policy that would insure even one of those
three things ought, in his opinion, to meet with favour on the part of
the House ; and any course of action which was likely to have a con-
trary effect ought to be discouraged. Now, let him for a moment test
these three subjects by the feeling of the people of Ireland, and a
large proportion of them were perfectly capable uf forming a judgment
upon them. The House must be already aware that the majority of
the Irish people had expressed opinions unfavourable to the measure,
and that in some instances threats had been held out with respect to
obedience to the law. His own hope was, that if the bill should pass,
its provisions would be quietly obeyed ; but, at the same time, he was of
opinion that obedience might be purchased at a very dear price. Prom
the opinion which was known to prevail upon the subject of the measure,
he thought that it would tend to weaken the affections of the loyal
portion of the people of Ireland towards England, and that it would
engender feelings of animosity towards British legislation
With regard to the question of capital, if it was considered advisable to
make advances of the public money, could they not be made under
ordinary circumstances, and not by diminishing the shattered remnant
of the capital wliich remained in tlie country ? The constant .system of
taxing property in Ireland it was that deterred men who had capital
from employing it, and thus private enterprise was paralysed
With regard to the financial argument in respect of Ireland, if it were
the real sound feeling of England ^not that unhealthy feeling whicii
induced a desire to shift a burden from their own to other shoulders
if the sound feeling of this country were that Ireland ought to bear
any additional taxation, he would not put forward a mere financial
argument against such a feeling, because he was very anxious that there
should be good feeling on both sides ; ill-feeling on either or both
sides could only be injurious to both countries; therefore, he thought it
both unwise and ungenerous to press such a measure. There ought, in
conmion justice, either to be local rating and local taxation, or, tliat
failing, then the appeal for aid ought to be made to the iiiiperi:d
treasury."
Sir Robert Peel followed Mr Napier, anil spoke in terms of high
eulogy of his speech an eulogy all tiie more valuable, as the riglit
112 MODERN. POLITICAL.
honourable baronet was always chary of his commendation. Mr Napier
was contjjratulated on every side ; and as he passed through the lobby
of the House, shortly afterwards, he met Sir James Graham, who said,
" I congratulate you on your most able and eloquent speech it was
\vorthy of the best days of old Ireland, the days of Pluuket eloquence."^
]Mr Napier opposed the measure introduced by Lord Jolin Russell in
1849 for the admission of Jews into the Legislature. He also spoke
in the debate on the ministerial measure for legislation of marriage with
a deceased wife's sister, and gave it his most strenuou.s opposition.
The next important measure which he most ably opposed was the bill
introduced by Lord John Russell in May 1850 for the abolition of the
Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. He also vigorously resisted Mr Hey-
wood's motion for a commission to inquire into tiie state of Oxford,
Cambridge, and Dublin Universities. On the sudden and melancholy
death of Sir Robert Peel in 1850, Mr Napier paid an eloquent tribute
of respect to the lamented baronet.
At the opening, of the year 1851, the Papal aggression ferment was
at its height. Lord John Russell, on the 7th of February, moved for
leave to bring in a bill (the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill) for counteracting
the aggressive encroachments of the Church of Rome. Mr Napier,
with other eminent men, supported that measure, and his speech on
that debate showed great research and ability.
Upon the sudden resignation of Lord John Russell in the month of
March 1852, and the accession of Lord Derby, Mr Napier was appointed
Attorney-General for Ireland a post which he held till the defeat of
the Derby Ministry in December of the same year. One of the most
pressing questions at this time was the settlement of the relations be-
tween landlord and tenant in Ireland. Mr Napier at once addressed
himself to this most difficult and critical question. He accordingly in-
troduced for this purpose four land bills : 1st, a Land Improvement
Bill; 2nd, a Leasing Power Bill; 3rd, a Tenant's Improvement Compen-
sation Bill ; and, 4th, a Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Bill. It
would be useless now to comment on tiieir scope and merits. On so deli-
cate and vexed a question, it was a bold attempt on Mr Napier's part to
endeavour to grapple with the difficulty. And whatever opinions may
have been expressed in approval or dissent, it is only just to give Mr
Napier credit for the manly and honest manner in wliich he laboured to
make a satisfactory adjustment of the relations between the owners and
occupiers of land in Ireland. The bills were referred to a committee,
and it is now needless to discuss their merits and demerits. The recent
Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act has attempted to remove the griev-
ances, real or imaginary, of the Irish occupiers, and although it has been
in operation now for some time, the opinions as to its success or failure
are so various and conflicting that it is not easy to form a correct esti-
mate on the subjeet.
When Lord Derby resigned the seals of office at the close of 1852,
Mr Napier was remitted to non-official life. We find him next in his
place in Parliament, taking part in all the important discussions of
the dav. Among the principal measures brought forward by the
' Dublin University Mkgaiitics fo'r 1853, p. 312.
THE EIGHT HON. JOSEPH NAPIER, BART., LL D. 113
Government were the " Canadian Reserves Bill," and the " Conventual
Establishment Bill." The former measure he opposed vigorously, hut
ineffectually ; of the latter he disapproved only on tlie grounds of the
inadequacy of its provisions. In the Formoy Peerage Case (1856) he was
selected l>v the Committee of Privileges in the House of Lords as their
Counsel, the Attorney-General having declined to appear, in his cha-
racter of ex-officio adviser to the Committee of Privileges, as officially he
had approved of tlie Patent of Peerage. At the general election of
1857, Mr Napier was again returned for Dublin University, with his
old colleacrue, Mr Geors-e Alexander Hamilton Mr Lawsoii, afterwards
a Justice of the Common Pleas, having unsuccessfully opposed him.
On the sudden breaking-up of Lord Palmerston's Ministry in Marcli
1858, Lord Derby returned to power, and Mr Napier was raised to the
highest office in his profession, being appointed Lord Chancellor of
Ireland. It appears that the arrangement first completed by the
Government was to the effect that Mr Blackburne should be Lord
Chancellor, and Mr Napier should take his place as Lord Justice of
Appeal. Mr Blackburne, however, declined to do on that occasion
what he consented to do in Lord Derby's third administration, and Mr
Napier, it is said, much against his wishes, accepted the seals, which he
held until the resignation of the Derby Ministry in 1859. Gn the first
day of Easter Term (15th April 1858) Mr Napier took his seat as Lord
Chancellor of Ireland. On the manner in which he discharged the
duties of his high office we do not intend to make any comment, fur-
ther than to say that, though short his tenure of it, he acquitted himself
in every respect in a manner worthy of his antecedent career. To at-
tempt any minute criticism of the numerous decisions whicii he pro-
nounced in that period would be impertinent, if not absurd. They
are all to be found collected in a volume entitled " Drury's Cases in
Chancery" temj). Napier. Legal critics must judge for themselves ; we
believe they exhibit evidence of extraordinary industry, research, and
learning. Tiiere were only two appeals from his decisions of tiiese
one was affirmed and one reversed.
In the year 1858, Mr Napier (then Lord Chancellor) was elected
President of the department of Jurisprudence of the Social Science
Association, and was to have delivered the opening address in that sec-
tion at the meeting held at Liverpool in the October of that year. He
was, however, unable to attend the Royal Warrant to sanction his ab-
sence from Ireland not having arrived in sutticient time, and his
address was read by Lord John Russell, who expressed his regret for
the Chancellor's absence, and the loss which " they would all feel dur-
ing the week of so able a man."
In 1861, Mr Napier was again selected to preside over the same de-
partment at the Social Science meeting held in that year in Dul>lin.
His addresses on both of these occasions evince great learning and re-
research, and fully sustain Mr Napier's reputation as an able and
zealous law reformer.^
^ These addresses will be found in the volumes of tlie proceedings of tlie Asso-
ciation for those yccars. The addresses delivered at the Liverpool nieetin,!; are
jiublished in a cheap pamphlet form by Partridge & Co., Paternoster Row,
London.
IV. II Ii*.
114 MODERN POLITICAL.
We can only refer by name to a few of the other numerous literary
performances of Mr Napier. Lectures : " the increase of Knowledtre"
(18.31) : "Kichard Baxter and his Times" (1855) ; "Edmund Burke"
(1862) ; " W. Bedell " (1863) ; " Opening Address at the beginning of
the 2nd session of the afternoon lectures on Literature and Art "
(1863) ; " Old Letters " (afternoon lectures 1863) ; introduction to
" Seven Answers to the Seven Essays and Reviews," by the Bev. John
Nash Grifiin ; the "Facts and Fallacies of the Sabbath Question"
(1856); '-Things Old and New" (a lecture before the Church of Eng-
land Young Men's Society, 1856) ; a pamphlet entitled ' The Education
Question" (1860) ; " Addresses on the Church in relation to the State
in Ireland" (186G) ; "Answer to the Speech of the Dean of St Paul's
against subscription to the Articles of Religion " (1865) ; " England or
Rome, which shall govern Ireland, a reply to the letter of Lord Mont-
eagle " (1851) ; "Labour and Knowledge," " Labour and Rest" (two
lectures, 1859) ; " Lectures on Butler's Analotry, before the Young
Men's Christian Association, Dublin" (1864) ; " Butler's Argument on
Miracles explained and defended, with observations on Hume, Powell,
and Mill " (1863), and many others.
Sir Joseph Napier also rendered invaluable services in the work of
reconstruction of the Irish Church. In 1873 he wrote a |)amphlet on
the proposed changes in the Ordinal, his arguments against them being
able and conclusive.
The following are among the numerous distinctions that have been
conferred upon him : Tlio honorary degree of LL.D. of Dublin Uni-
versity, and D.C.L. of Oxford. He was chosen President of the College
Historical Society in 1856. In 1866 he was offered the high office of
Lord Justicesiiip of Appeal, but declined it. He was created a baronet
by Lord Derby, 9th April 1867, and was appointed Vice-Chancellor of
the University of Dublin in the October of the same year. In 1863 he
was made a Privy Councillor of Great Britain, and was subsequentlv
in the same year constituted a member of the Judicial Committee of the
Council.
Sir Joseph marrit^l, 20th August 1831, Charity, second daughter of
John Grace, Esq. of Dublin a member of the ancient family of Grace.
At the centenary dinner of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions he was
invited to represent the Historical Society of the University of Dublin
at the banquet, and was the guest of the Vice-Chancellor of the Univer-
sity of Oxford,
THE EIGHT HON. EICHARD KEATINGE.
BOKN A.D. 1793.
The Right Hon. Richard Keatinge, second son of the late Maurice
Keatinge, a meml)er of the Irish Bar, was born in Dublin in 1793.
He married in 1814 tlie third daugliter of tlie late Samuel Joseph,
Esq., of Bedford Square, London. He was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin, where he graduated A.B., 1810, LL.B. and LL.D., 1818.
He was called to the Irish Bar in 1813; appointed King's Counsel,
THE RIGHT HON. lilCHAKD KEATIXGE. 115
1835; Queen's Serjeimt, 1842. He was raised to the Bench in 1843,
as Judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland, whs sworn a Privy
Councillor in the following month, and elected a Bencher of the King's
Inns, Dublin, in 1843. He was Judge of the Probate Court in Ireland
from Jiuiiiurv 1858 to October 1868. He never held a seat in
Parliament.
During the fifteen years he presided over the Prerogative Court he
maintained the high cliaraeter he won at the bar; but it is chiefly in
connection with tlie Court of Probate that his name is most favourably
known. There are not, perhaps, to be found in the history of legal
reform instances of measures more sweeping in their character, or
more productive of beneficial results, than those introduced into England
and Ireland by the Probate Acts of 1858. The provisions of the Irisli
Act were identical with those of the Englisli, mutatis mutandis. But
the difficulty of administering tlio new law was far greater in Ireland,
owing to the disturbing elements of religious prejudices excited
in every case, involving a question of undue influence, alleged to have
been exercised by persons in ecclesiastical positions. It is, however,
creditable to the independent spirit of tlie jurors called upon to serve
in the Irish Court of Probate in cases of this nature, that tliey almost
without an exception returned verdicts satisfactory, not only to the
judge, but to all classes of the community having no interest in
I he issues except the furtherance of justice. To the judicious but
fearless manner in which the judge discharged his duties are mainly to
be attributed these satisfactory results. He possessed, perhaps in a
higher degree tlian any of the ablest or most experienced of the Com-
mon Law Judges, the power of presenting the most complicated cases
in the clearest and most exhaustive manner to a jury But wliile he
fuUv reviewed the evidence on both sides in all its bearings, he never
hesitated to indicate his own impression. As a natural consequence of
this tendency, it was only to be expected that his charges should have
been sometimes censured by disappointed suitors and their counsel as
too one-sided, and usurping the proper functions of the jury. This,
however, is an objection which has been made at some time or other
against the ablest Judges of the benches of England and Ireland ; but
there are occasions when it seems proper that a judge should give a
decided opinion on questions of fact, rather than add to the bewilder-
ment of a jury by a vague and uncertain charge.
Judge Keatinge's knowledge of the Law of Evidence was only sur-
passed by his knowledge of Testamentary Law ; and it always seemed
hopeless to move for a new trial on the ground of the improper recep-
tion or rejection of evidence, or of misdirection on questions of law by
this learned Judge. But it was not alone as a judge presiding at a
trial before a jury that he gained his high reputation in contentious
business of every kind his knowledge of Probate Law and practice was
equally remarkable.
When Lord Derby's Adndni-strations of 1858 and 18GG were in course
of formation, Judge Keatinge was confidently named for the Chancel-
lorship ; and there can be no doubt that his a[)pointment to the higliest
office in the profession would have been hailed with the greatest satis-
faction on the part of the legal and general public.
THE EIGHT HON. DAVID RICHARD PIGOT, LORD CHIEF BARON OF
THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER IN IRELAND.
BORN 1796 DIED 1873.
The Right Hon. David Richard Pigot, son of a physician at Kilsvortli,
county Cork, was born in 1796. He was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin, and took the degrees of A.B. in 1819, and A M. in 183'2,
and was called to the Irish bar in 1826, and made King's Counsel in
1835. He was Solicitor-General for Ireland in 18";9, Attorney-
General from 1840 till September 184.1, and was appointed Cliief
Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1846. He sat for Clonmel in
the Liberal interest from 1839 till 1846. He was appointed one of
the visitors of Maynooth College in 1845. He was sworn a Privy
Councillor on becoming Attorney-General for Ireland in 1840. He
became a member of the Senate of the Queen's University in Ireland,
and a Commissioner of National Education. He was elected a Bencher
of the Hon. Society of King's Inns in 1839, and elevated to the Bench
as Chief Baron in 1846, in the room of Chief Baron Brady, appointed
Lord- Chancellor of Ireland.
Mr Pigot, as Solicitor- General for Ireland and member for Clonmel,
entered Parliament at a very stormy period in the history of Irisli
politics. The murder of Lord Norbury in January of the year 1841
had produced the greatest excitement among the nobility and landed
gentry throughout the country. On the assembling of Parliament,
Mr Shaw, one of the members for Dublin University, brouglit forward
his celebrated motion for returns on the criminal statistics of Ireland.
On this debate the Irish Solicitor-General made his first appearance,
and created a most favourable impression in the House. He next took
part in the adjourned debate on the same motion, which was renewed
after the recess with increased vigour on both sides. On this occasion
Mr Pigot added considerably to his reputation as a debater, and as an
able representative of the Government, All through his subsequent
Parliamentary career he took part in all the principal debates on Irish
questions, and carried many important measures ot reform, affecting the
administration of the law in Ireland. Few Irish law officers have
been more fortunate in gaining the respect and high opinion of all
parties in the House of Commons, and his elevation to the Bench on
Lord Russell's return to power in 1846 was justly considered the well-
earned reward of his services to the Government as Solicitor and
Attorney-General, and to his party as a private member in the interval
between the end of the year 1841, when he resigned the post of
Attorney-General, and the end of the year 1846, when he was created
Lord Chief Baron.
From that period till his death on the lf2nd of December 1873, he
maintained the highest reputation as a learned and upright judge. For
sound legal erudition his name stands deservedly high, both among
his Irish brethren and the English Judges and Law Lords.
As a Nisi-Prius Judge, the Chief Baron w^as accused of over-
scrupulousness in taking down the testimony of witnesses : but after a
BARON FITZGERALD. 117
judicial career of twenty-seven years, it may be said tliat an extreme
anxiety to do justice was the onlj' fault that could be laid to his charge.
As an amiable and accomplished gentleman, there were few men more
highly esteemed. He is interred at Kilworth, his native place.
BAEON FITZGERALD.
EOKN A.D. 1805.
The Hon. Francis Alexander Fitzgerald, second Baron of the Court of
Exchequer in Ireland, was the second son of Maurice Fitzgerald, Esq.,
M.D. He was born in 1805, and received liis early education at
Middleton School, in the county Cork. After a brilliant under-
graduate career. he took the degree of A.B. in Trinity College, Dublin,
in 1827, and of A.M. in 1832. He was called to the bar in Ireland
in 1834 ; appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1849 ; and a Bencher of the
King's Inns, Dublin, 1857. He was raised to the Bench in 1859 as
fourth Baron of the Court of Exchequer.
Mr Fitzgerald while at school gave early indications of those brilliant
abilities which secured his fame and advancement in after life. His
brother, the present Bishop of Killaloe, so favourably known in the
literary world, was also educated at Middleton, and Mr Turpin, the
master of that celebrated school, and one of the most distinguished
scholars of the day, truly foretold the destinies of the two brothers
when he declared that the elder should be a bishop, and the younger a
judge. Having carried off the highest honours in College, Mr Fitz-
gerald graduated in 1827, and commenced to study for the bar. Soon
after his admission in 1834, he selected the Equity Bar, and was a
constant attendant in the Court of Chancery and the Rolls. It was
some time, however, before his abilities became known, and it has been
said that he seriously determined at one time to abandon the profession
iu disgust. But wiser counsels prevailed, and he persevered until he
got the wished-for opportunity of proving his extraordinary capacity as
a lawyer. In a very few years afterwards his abilities were publicly
recognised, and his reputation for industry and learning became fully
established. His progress was now so rapid that he became a Queen's
Counsel in 1849, and took rank beside the great leaders of the Equity
Bar. He never took any active part in politics, and his preferment
was the reward of his acknowledged ability.
Mr Christian, who was brought into constant rivalry with Mr Fitz-
gerald, although junior in years, had a considerable start, having bee.n
called to the Inner Bar in 1845. The latter, however, quickly made
up for this disadvantage, and it soon became a moot question to which
of the two eminent and accomplished lawyers the higher rank should
be assigned. On this nice point a good deal of eloquence and inge-
nuity was expended by the junior Bar and the Solicitors of the Court
of Chancery. The result of this competitive examination appears to
have been that in point of legal learning they were considered nearly
on a par ; tliat Mr Fitzgerald posse.ssed a somewhat higher order of
intellect ; aad that their respective styles, though widely ditlcrent, were
118 MODERN. POLITICAL.
equally effective. Mr Fitzgerald's manner was more natural and
energetic, and occasionally impassioned. Mr Christian's, on the otlier
hand, was artificial, elaborate, and calm, and derived its .force rather
from the vigour of language than the vigour of elocution. It is not
easy to determine whether this comparison affords a just appreciation
of the characters of the two men, but if their merits are to be mea-
sured by professional success, they stand on an almost perfect equality.
Mr Fitzgerald, so far as we can ascertain, never practised in the
Common Law Court, his first and only appearance before one of those
tribunals being in O'Brien's case, when he acquitted himself in a
manner worthy of the high estimate formed of him by his client.
Since his elevation to the bench Mr Baron Fitzgerald has exhibited
all the requisite qualities of a good judge clearness of intellect, in-
tegrity of purpose, urbanity of manner, strict impartiality, and a total
absence of religious or political bias. His advance in dignity had not
the common efiiect of rendering him either proud, formal, or reserved.
In the sacred seclusion of private life he commands the admiration and
affectionate esteem of all.
THE EIGHT HON. JAMES HENRY MONAHAN, CHIEF- JUSTICE OF THE
COMMON PLEAS IN IRELAND.
BORN A.D. 1805.
The Right Hon. James Henry Monahan was born at Portumna, county
Galway, in 1805. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where
he obtained the gold medal of 1823 in science. He graduated A.B.
in the same year, and in 1860 took the degrees of LL.B. and LL.D.
He was called to the Irish Bar in 1828; and he was made a Queen's
Counsel in 1840. He was Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1846-7,
and Attorney-General in 1847-50, when he was appointed Chief-
Justice of the Common Pleas. He was elected a Bencher of the Hon.
Society of King's Inns in 1847, and appointed a Commissioner of
National Education in 1861. He was one of the members in the
Liberal interest for Galway from February to August 1847. He was
sworn a member of the Privy Council on becoming Attorney-General.
As Solicitor and Attorney-General Mr Monahan discharged his
duties to the Crown most efficiently during a very trying and critical
period in the history of his country. His reputation as a sound and
able lawyer always stood deservedly high Since, his elevation to the
Bench he has enjoyed the entire confidence of the Bar and public as an
upright and conscientious judge. The very opposite of his contempo-
rary, the Cliief Baron, he has been accused of erring occasionally by an
over-expeditious method of disposing of Nisi-Prius business. His
career in Parliament was very short, and requires no particular com-
ment. His public services were so fully recognised at that period
that he was [iromoted to the first vacancy, vvhicli occurred a few months
after he entered Parliament as the representative of his native county.
THE RIGHT HOX. JAMKS WHITESIUK. 119
THE KIGHT HONOURABLE JAMES WHITESIDE, LL.D., D.C.L- P.O.,
LOKD CHIEF-JUSTICE OF IRELAND.
BORX A.D. 1806.
Chief-Justice Whiteside is one of the most distinguished living
Irisliinen, whether we look to the part wliich he has borne in the
home politics of Ireland, with which he was connected in a leading
but chiefly professional capacity, or to his position in the House of
Commons, in which lie was one of the principal Conservative debaters.
It has been truly said that he is " the only survivor of the old eloquence
at tlie Irish bar," and in Parliament he was on several occasions put
up asjainst Mr Bright, Sir James Grrahara, Mr Gladstone, Earl Russell,
and Lord Palmerston, as an antagonist of similar calibre. He is one of
those whose great speeches are each in itself a title to fame. He could
brace himself up for some grand occasion, and erect to himself a monu-
ment of speech. If it must be admitted that on slight occasions Chief-
Justice Whiteside, when at the bar, was too fond of sporting with his
subject, such Samson-like sport was counterbalanced by Samson-like
feats of intellectual strength when a great occasion demanded. He
was born at Delgany, in the county of Wicklow, in August 1806, and
was a son of the Rev. William Whiteside, and brother of the late Rev.
Dr Whiteside, vicar of Scarborough. He married, in 1833, Rosetta,
daughter of William Napier, Esq., of Belfast, and sister of Sir Josepli
Napier, Bart., ex-Lord-Chancellor of Ireland. During his university
career he was a highly distinguished member of the Historical
Society which preceded the present. We have not been able to find
his name as an office-bearer, but he gave brilliant and showy promise
of a great oratorical success. He was a contemporary of Mr Butt,
wiio was twice auditor, or president as the office was then called, Dr
Ball, Archer Butler, M'Cullagh, and other eminent men, since become
remarkal)le in politics and letters. He graduated with honours in
1827, having obtained many classical honours and a scholarship in
his undergraduate course. The honorary degree of LL.D. was con-
ferred on him by his own university, and he was created D.C.L, at
Oxford in 1863.
After obtaining his degree in Dublin, he proceeded to London,
and commenced the study of the law, to which he apj)lied himself
with srreat assiduity. The next three vears of his life were spent
at the Temple ; during this period he belonged to the first Law Class
of the London University, and obtained honours in it. lie had the
advantage of studying under Professor Amos, the author of several
legal works, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and successor
of Macaulay in India. During his London life Mr Wliiteside made
a remarkable figure at a public deba-ting club in which he maintained
his practice as a speaker. He also studied from the living models
of the English law-courts; and his " Early Sketches" of Denman,
Macintosli, Sfarlott, Wetherell, and Wilde, and of Earl Grey as a
statesman, show him to iiave been a keen observer of the men who
120 MODERN. POLITICAL.
then occupied the public stage, as well as master of an original and
characteristic style. Some of these sketches were published in an
Irish periodical called The National Magazine, one in the Dublin
University, and the others in Englisli periodicals. They have recently
been republished in a collection edited by Mr W. D. Ferguson, and
strongly remind the reader of the similar sketches by Shell and
Curran. It is no little credit to the compositions of the youthful
student that they bear out the brilliant reputation of the man whose
fame has been won as an advocate and debater. It is a proof of
individuality of style to find the same characteristics which appear
in maturity developed in such early productions ; and especially it
ihows that the peculiarities which we notice are not affectations.
To give an instance of the opposite, there is a discreditable differ-
ence between the dull prose of the Life of Schiller and the German
mysticism of the Life of Frederick the Great, in which ideas too
vast for words, even though these be sentences strung together, struggle
in vain to evolve themselves ; and this difference is damaging evi-
dence of affectation and obscurity of style wilfully and deliberately
adopted. Mr Whiteside, on the contrary, writes in the same style
when a student of the Temple as, many years later, in his "Vicissitudes
of Rome."
We shall have occasion further on to notice his literary performances
in relation to his oratory. In 1830 he was called to the Irish bar,
and the expectation was not disappointed which had been raised
by his debating society career. His [)rogress was rapid, though
laborious atid severe. Business soon flowed in abundantly on the
north-east circuit, and frequently on other circuits where he was
specially retained, and in the Four Courts of Dublin. His reputation
in 1842 was so deservedly high that he tlien obtained a silk gown,
and from this period he was employed in every important case that
occupied the Irish law-courts. But it was in tlie trial of Daniel
O'Connell and others that his abilities were brought into the most
prominent relief. Here he stood in a group with two of the greatest
orators of his day, but his eloquence, instead of'paling in contrast with
Sheil's or losing in manly power beside O'Connell's, both in respect
of brilliancy and power eclipsed the efforts of both. It has been said
without exaggeration that this speech was " among the most successful
efforts of modern times." Mr Whiteside is not, and never was,
a " patriot" in the Irish sense of the word, but no man was able to
sweep with more overpowering effect on the chords of Irish national
feeling ; and his speech on this occasion excited a sensation that was
novel even in the Celtic capital. His contrast of the present with
the past, his allusion to the deserted Parliament House, his splendid
passage on free discussion, made the audience feel that they listened
to one of the great orators of whom they had read, but never in their
generation heard. The closing passages each day, it has been said by one
who was pi esent, " witliout any abuse of language, electrified the court."
It is aliiiOst an injustice to quote from this great speech ; we doubt
if really great speeches ought ever to be printed. A speaker may be
able to lilt up his audience from the earth, and carry them whither he
will, but the magic is lost in the printed report his speech is only a
THE RIGHT HON. JAMES WHITESIDE.
121
corpse from which the life is quenched. It is therefore suhjected to
a dangerous test ; for no beauties remain but those of form, and these
are but a small part of the qualities of great eloquence. Form alone
cannoc enable the reader to believe what he has heard ; he possibly
finds in the leading article of tiie same public journal that contains
the reported speecli greatly better composition, regarding the speech
only in that ligiit. Besides, the speaker's intellectual fibre can then be
subjected to the analysis of the critics ; he can borrow no help from
the impressive occasion, from elocution, from the speaking eye, from
the countenance commanding sympathy, from the passion of the mo-
ment, the rapidity of thought and expression, wonderful in itself, the
tear-accented delivery of pathetic passages, the rising and falling of
tlie voice, the action that flasiies out, anticipating the roll of the elo-
quent sentence. Of how^ much of all this liad Mr Whiteside to divest
himself when he spoke from the expressionless face of paper ! No man
had more to lose. The pliant figure, the face so free and large-expres-
sioned, the confident moutii, the eyes rather small, but with a peculiar
grey power and sagacity, the perfect voice, elocution, and action, all
this he lost in a printed report. Yet to one who had heard him often,
Mr Whiteside has always spoken so characteristically tiiat we can re-
habilitate what we read ; we read it off" his countenance, and give
to it the appropriate action and elocution. Such is the modification
of wliat we have said of printed speeches, so far as regards the great
audience that, from time to time, has heard and seen a public speaker.
Mr Wiiiteside's 'personnel was remembered with facility. No one came
oft' himself more easily. Even to those wlio had no frontispiece of
him iu their 'memory to illustrate the j)rinted speech, there was a pecu-
liar quality or flavour in it strongly suggestive of the man. An im-
portant spring of this was probably the buoyant spirits which Mr White-
side was so fortunate as to possess. A day of the severest drudgery in
court did not diminish the sportiveness with which he would astonish
those who had only seen him previously in harness. His sport was
like Leviathan's; it was not awkward, because there was power and
agility proportioned to the bulk ; but it was sometimes of a nature
wliicli, however diverting to Leviathan himself, obliged the looker-on
to get well beyond the reach of his gambols. This cliaracteristic is ob-
servable in'his reported speeches; and even on the gravest parliamen-
tary occasions he could never wholly restrain this sportive disposition.
One consequence was, that Mr Whiteside never had the valuable power,
which conduces so much to the character and reputation of a statesman,
of being at times protractedly dull. Not having had opportunities of
observing, we cannot say if this characteristic has been lost upon the
Bench ; but we should be surprised to find that the Chief- Justice of
Ireland had been able to hide his light under tlie judicial busliel.*
The 'following passage may serve as a specimen of Mr Whiteside's
humour ; but it is necessary to premise that it was a skilful attempt to
laugh oft' a serious part of the case, and that Judge Burton, "the
shrivelled-up oracle of black-letter law," looked very like the somewhat
* Since the above was written, we have heard that the Chief- Justice has wonder-
fully controlled his humorous proclivities.
122 MODERN. POLITICAL.
mythical personage described as Ollani Fodhla : " I next come to tlie
volunteers' card ; and were it not for the valuable assistance which I
am sure I sliall receive from your lordships in the interpretation of it,
I should approach the task with fear and trembling. My lords, I find
a likeness faithful, I am to presume of a celebrated Irish legislator
who rejoiced in the appellation of 011am Fodhla. I confess with shame
my incompetency to treat of the merits of this gentleman ; but my
Lord Chief-Justice (Pennefather), who is deeply read in Irisli lore, is
conversant, no doubt, with his writings, and will state to you, gentle-
men, the laws which were propounded by the illustrious Solon. He
will explain to you the principles which were inculcated by this wise
legislator, and the nature of the wicked, abominable, and seditious
crime of putting the somewhat formidable name of Ollam Fodhla, and
his exceedingly handsome face, drawn by Mr Tiiacker, on this card.
But, gentlemen of the jury, I am sorry to inform the Attorney-General
tliat the judges of the Queen's Bench are parties to this conspiracy;
for if you take the trouble of looking up as you pass through the hall,
you may see the bust of Ollam Fodhla gazing on the angry litigants
below, pointing and directing those who look for justice to the Queen's
Bench. You may give credit for purity of intention to those who
thought that Ollam Fodhla ought to be a model of uprightness and
purity ; but I do not see why the members of the Repeal Association
are to be held to be conspirators because they have placed his likeness
on their card. Here is a name which I confess puzzles me a little; and 1
must certainly apply in this case to Mr Justice Burton for assistance. It
is tlie next name on the card Dathe ! Did you ever hear of such a name
as Dathe? Why, there is a conspiracy in the verj' sound of it. But
who he was, what were his thoughts and opinions, and how he con-
ducted himself, whether conformably to or against law, I am not com-
petent to say ; and I feel therefore that my only course is to apply to
some person acquainted with the antiquities of Ireland to throw some
light on the matter; and if there was anything particularly wicked in
his conduct, I leave it for the learned judge to explain to you how tlie
people who put his name on this card are conspirators. All I have been
able to discover about the gentleman is that he was a pagan, and Mr
Moore says he was killed at the foot of the Alps by a flash of lightning.
But why his name was put on the card along with Ollam Fodhla I can-
not discover. The learned Attorney-General forgot to prove to you
that such persons as Dathe or Ollam Fodhla ever lived." This grave
humour, so irresistible as it was spoken, can scarcely be made intelligiblw
to the reader who does not know the expressions of Mr Whiteside's
face, and has not heard the inimitable tones of his voice. Another pas-
sage will give an idea of the higher eloquence of the speech : " The
glorious labours of our gifted countrymen within these walls have not
been forgotten. The works of the tnulerstanding do not quickly perish.
The verses of Homer had lived 2500 years without the loss of a syllable
or a letter, while cities, and temples, and palaces have fallen into decay.
The eloquence of Greece tells us of the genius of her sons and the free-
dom which produced it. We forget her ruin in the recollection of her
greatness; nor can we read even now without emotion the exalted senti-
ments of her inspired children, poured forth in their exquisite language,
to save the ex|)iriiig liberties of tiieir eouiitry. Perliaps tlieir genius
liad a resuirectioiiary power, and roused tlietn from tiie letliargy of
slavery to the activity of freedom ? We too have liad amongst us, in
better times, men who approaelied the greatness of antiquity. Tlie im-
perishable record of that eloquence will ever keep alive in our hearts
a zeal for freedom and a love for country. Tlie comprehensive genius
of Flood, the more tlian mortal energy of Grattan, the splendour of
Bushe, the learning of Ball, the noble simplicity of Burgh, the Demos-
thenic fire of Phuiket, and the eloquence of Curran, rushing from the
iieart, will sound in the ears of then- countrymen for evei-. Tliev toiled
to save the ancient constitution of Ireland; but wit, learning, eloquence,
and genius cast their power over the souls of men. With one great
exception, our distinguished countrymen have passed away ; but their
memories cannot perish with them. Their eloquence and their names
will be remembered by the grateful patriot while genius is honoured
or patriotism revered.
" The Irish ' the mere Irish ' have been described as creatures of
impulse, without a settled understanding, a reasoning power, a moral
sense. They have their faults, I grieve to say it ; but their faults are
redeemed by the splendour of their virtXies. They have rushed into
this agitation witli ardour, because it is their nature, when they feel
strongly, to act boldly and speak passionately. Ascribe their excesses
to their enthusiasm, and forgive. Recollect that same enthusiasm has
borne them triumphantly through fields of peril and of glory, impelled
them to shed flieir dearest blood and offer their gallant lives in defence
of the liberties of England. The broken chivalry of France attests the
value of that fiery enthusiasm, and marks its power. Nor is their high
spirit useful only in the storm of battle : it cheers their almost broken
hearts, and lightens their load of misery when it is almost insupport-
able sweetens that bitter cup of poverty which thousands of our coun-
trymen are doomed to drink. Without enthusiasm, what that is truly
great has been won for man ? The glorious works of art, the immortal
productions of the understanding, the incredible deeds of heroes and
patriots for the salvation of mankind, have been prompted by enthu-
siasm, and nothing else. Cold and dull were our existence here below
unless the deep passions of the soul, stirred by enthusiasm, were sum-
moned nito action for groat and noble purposes, the overwheln;ing of
vice, wickedness, and tyranny the securing and sustainment of the
world's virtue, the world's hope and freedom. The hand of Omnipo-
tence, by whose touch this island started into existence from amidst
the watci's by which it is surrounded, stamped upon its people noble
qualities of the intellect and the heart. Directed to the wise purposes
for which Heaven has designed them, they shall yet exalt, redeem, and
regenerate Ireland."
It was an extraordinary compliment for so young a man, and a poli-
tical opponent, to be selected by O'Connell to conduct his defence ;
nor could any man have made a more splendid return for the compli-
ment than Mr Whiteside. It is said that the peroration of his speecli
moved to tears even the occupants of the bench. On the conclusion
of the first dav's address, " a cheer, such as was never, we believe, heard
in a court of justice, arose from the entire bar, and from the thronged
124 MODERN. -POLITICAL.
galleries, without distinction of sect, politics, or sex ; for the court and
even the judgment-seat was thronged with ladies. It was taken up in
the hall without, and found a gigantic echo in the crowded avenues of
the court. It was so intense and general that neither the officers of
the court nor the judges attempted to check it. The Chief-Justice
expressed his disapprobation the next morning.*
Mr Whiteside did not gain this triumph, on which so much depended,
and which was sure eitiier to make or to mar his future reputation, with-
out expending upon it considerable labour and anxiety ; and in conse-
quence of overwork he was driven to Italy for health. During his
sojourn in Eome he wrote into a book what passed naturally through
the mind of a visitor so capable of appreciating the associations of the
place, "Vicissitudes of the Eternal City." He also wrote a translation
of Canina, with notes, and a more elaborate work, in three volumes, on
" Italy in the Nineteenth Century."| The Vicissitudes show much
original classical thought and considerable scholarship, and suggest how
dift'erent such a place as Rome is to the ordinary visitor and to one who
can not only see it in its wonderful poetical aspect, but to whose eyes
the past so distinctly unrolls itself, and who can walk the streets amid the
Roman Republicans, or hear the Caesars passing by. In " Italy in the
NineteenthCentury,"iMrWhite3ide shows the same influence of mediaeval
history on his mind that forms tlie haunting spirit of the provinces asi
the classical history does of the capital. He is an admirable and in-
structive companion in visiting famous localities, and seeing the events
of that most important period at which he wrote his book. Of course
he looks from a Conservative point of view at Italian politics, and from
a strongly Protestant conviction at the religious aspect of aftairs in,
Italy ; this causes curious cross-currents of sympathy and dislike to
appear.
Mr Whiteside was an admirable lecturer : in 1840 he was elected
to deliver lectures at the Dublin Law Institute, then in its second
session, and in his inaugural address he alluded to the benefit which
he had derived from attending law lectures at the London University
as the origin of his conviction that such a system ought to be introduced
into Ireland. He expressed his conviction of the necessity of master-
ing the principles of law more than was customary with Irish lawyers,
whose practice was to live from hand to mouth, examining isolated
statutes as necessity arose, but not taking them with a general course
of reading, or endeavouring to master the philosophy of law. At a
later period Mr Whiteside delivered an interesting course of lectures
to the Dublin Young Men's Christian Association, which was published
by the committee in a separate volume, revised and amended by the
author, in 18G8. The first of these contains an outline of Irish Parlia-
mentary history, written in a most entertaining style, full of interest-
ing facts and striking historical generalizations. " The City of Rome
and its Vicissitudes " contains, we believe, a compression of Mr White-
side's larger work. The volume also contains essays on "The Homely
Virtues," and "The Church in Ireland;" but the essay which will be
* Gartlan's Sketch of an Irish State Prosecution.
t Bentley, 1848. This work has gone through three editions.
read with most pleasure is that upon Oliver Goldsmith and his critics.
At the time it was delivered a statue was about to be erected to the
memory of tht- poet outside the gates of 'J'rinity College, Dublin,
which he had so often passed and repassed. We will quote the
admirable short speech delivered by Mr Whiteside on the occasion of
unveiling tlie statue. It breathes the spirit uf the essay :
" It would be bad taste in me to attempt to follow the example
which his Excellency (the Earl of Carlisle) lias set, and to descant on
the merits of Cjioldsmith as a jioet, a novelist, and a man ; but tlie
nature of the ceremony in which we are engaged may suggest a reflec-
tion. We wag ethe battle of life in these busy times so fiercely that
the living allow but little leisure to recall the memory of tlie dead.
The light of genius is sometimes suddenly extinguished amung us.
A Thackeray will be struck down in the ])ride of his intellect, and in
the possession of fame, and his friends and admirers assemble to niuuru
over liis tomb. At the same time, in tlie quick succession of events, the
claims of the living will sometimes prevent us from recollecting sulH-
ciently the virtues of the dead. And, on the other iiand, it often
happens that an unobtrusive genius in life is depreciated, his labours
are derided, and his merits are forgotten ; but in death the same man
will be respected. Then his merits are discovered, and his labours
felt and acknowledged by posterity for ever.
' Urit enim fidgore suo, qui prregravat artes
Infra se positas : extiuctus amabitur idem.'
The fame of Goldsmith is now confessed wherever the English lan-
guage is spoken throughout the world. The fame of the orator, unless
it be entwined with the history of his country, is written on sand. The
fame of the politician is limited to his time, to his party, and periiaps
to tlie kingdom he protects. The fame of the historian will last only if
the facts he records are worthy of remembrance ; but the fame of the
true poet is universal and immortal. Tlie verses of Homer have lived
for 2500 years and more, without loss of a syllable or a letter, while
cities have fallen and commonwealths have perished. The poetry of
Goldsmith has rejoiced the heart of the solitary emigrant in our
remotest colonies; it has gladdened the fireside in civilized life; it
has enchanted and instructed the rich and the poor, the ignorant and
the learned, the peasant and the king. This is the true test of poetic
genius. It commands the homage of mankind and sits enthroned in
their affections. I have read within the last few days a pleasing
criticism on a new edition of Robinson Crusoe. The critic, with excel-
lent effect, argued that each successive year added to the fame of
Daniel Defoe, and added to the charms of that incomparable work. I
bought the new edition ; refreshed my eyes with the well-remembered
picture of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. I felt the force of that
criticism, that a work of genius never dies ; but can that tale- be com-
pared with the incomparable work to which his Excellency has so
happily referred, the 'Vicar of Wakelield ?' No. The. deep pathos,
the exquisite simplicity, the sympathy with suffering virtue the picture
of the man of God, in his misfortune overcoming vice, subduing w'wk-
edness, and reforming tlie jail present a picture that will be felt,
honoured, admired, and loved, everA'where and for ever. It has been
objected to us that Irishmen have not been sensible of the merits of
their great men, and it has been said tliat this statue comes too late.
To the first objection I answer, we live now in happier times, and we
have learned to understand that the erentness of our country consists
mainly in maintaining the fame of her poets, her philosopliers, and her
patriots. Nor does the statue of Goldsmith come too late. He is still
as warmly clierished in the heart he is as high in our esteem, he is as
heartily loved as he was on that day when his friends of the Literary
Club laid his mortal remains in the churchyard of the Temple. He
grows in reputation ; he grows day by day ; and wherever an Irish-
man throughout the world lives, he will repeat with affection and
respect the name of Oliver Goldsmitii. Sir, we have a model for the
course we pursued to-day. All tlie exemplar states of antiquity
raised to the memory of their great men the tall column, the triumphal
arch, the graceful statue. They still point in Home to the statue of
him who fulminated over Greece, and in this practice there is a deep
significance. Those nations believed tliat by acknowledging the merits
of tlieir famous men by paying homage to illustrious talent they
might encourage the youth of the country to walk in their footsteps
and emulate their fame. Let us not fall short of that noble example ;
and, as his Excellency has truly observed, in this same university
where Goldsmith learned, and struggled, and suflered where he
showed his foibles which are now forgotten, his failings which are now
forgiven tliere struggled and learned with him another Irishman
Edmund Burke. As they were friends in life, let it be our pride and
privilege to place them here, side by side, before the university thej'
adorned, and in the country wliich they loved. Thus we show our-
selves worthy of that country by honouring our great dead men, and
by proving that we know how to appreciate that genius which, it has
been often said, lias been elswhere more keenly appreciated than
amongst us. Nor do we fail to find a sculptor who can exhibit his
own genius while he portrays for us the life, the genial good humour,
the intelligence, and the character of Oliver Goldsmith."
The state trial of 1848 again brought out Mr Whiteside on an occa-
sion worthy of liis powers as an advocate. He was associated with
Mr Fitzgerald in the defence of Smitli O'Brien, charged with high
treason before the special commission sitting at Clonmel. The presid-
ing judges were Dolierty, Blackburne, and More, and the prosecution
was conducted by the Attorney and Solicitor General.
Mr Whiteside made a determined eflort to obtain the names of the
witnesses against his client, but it was decided that this right, con-
ceded to tlie accused by the law of England, did not exist in Ireland.
He used this injustice in his powerful defence of the prisoner, showing
the disadvantage it placed liim under of being unable to bring forward
evidence against the ciiaracter or veracity of the witnesses for the
Crown.
The facts of the treason were too obvious to admit of success in
grappling with th-em ; but Mr Wliiteside's pathetic appeal for Mr Smith
O' rien produced a marked sensation in tlic court. He called M.ijoi-
General Napier, the historian of the Peninsular war, as a witness, to
THE RIGHT HOK JAMES WHITESIDE. 127
show that in England the agitation previous to tlie Eeforin Bill was
carried on with equal violence and elements of conspiracy as tlie
rising in Ireland, but that no one had thought of accounting it
treason.
As a cross- examiner Mr Whiteside had no rival at the Irish bar.
We quote the writer of a clever sketch in the Temple Bar Magazine
(No. 50) for a description of his examination in the trial of Dobbyn the
approver:
" I think I see the withered, wretched-looking little deceiver trem-
bling and shivering, growing smaller and smaller, until he appeared
to shrink into his miserable tortoise or snail-like shell; while \\"hite-
side drew liim forth as a ferret would a frightened rabbit, or a dog
an agitated and bewildered badger. 1 could not leave the court
(iurin<f the cross-examination; had I been eno^aged in takins notes for
the press, I should not have been sufficiently calm and indili'erent to
have written out the evidence correctly. The auditor was carried
away by its quick, electrical, overwhelming sensations; and he felt
at once that the scene then being enacted was the chief one of the
drama. Tiie little palsied informer, the quaking, sneaking spy, covered
with the sudden fit of ague brought upon him by the uncongenial
region into which his turpitude had tlirown him, sat, or rather wriggled
and shifted perpetually upon his unsteady chair, mesmerised by tlie
eye of Whiteside. When I read the cross-examination in the volume
of the trial, compiled so accurately by Mr Hodges, I wondered in what
its effect had upon me consisted. It appeared to me, on reading it, to
be one of the ordinary efforts of an able cross-examiner; and 1 perceived,
on reflection, that the effect had entirely ai'isen from the two characters
that were before me. The expressive faces, so full of contempt on one
side and terror on the other, ilie thundering vitupei-aiion of the advo-
cate, the broken voice and quivering limbs of the discomfited spy, were
wanting in the printed report."
The following graphic and faithful description, by the same writer,
will enable the reader to understand how such efleets could be pro-
duced :
" The character of Whiteside's face is entirely Milesian ; it is pale,
or rather the colour of that material upon which he has so often written
as an able conveyancer parchment, and his face is as free from a
blush as it is from a beard : he strides or stalks across the hall with tlie
bustling air of a man of business, and the port of a self-reliant and
able man 'Who dare oppose me? who shall enter the lists with me?
who shall resist me in my client's cause?' This is his look: there
is nothing mean, insignificant, crouching, cringing, sneaking, or dodging
about him; he does not slope along, sneak along, simper along; he
stalks or strides, the Right Honourable James Whiteside! He has
some peculiar tones that arrest attention deep guttural notes, harsh,
grating, short, rougli grunts or snarls, that have a singular eifect in his
mode of rendering some passages. His scorn is withering ; his sarcasm
bitter, blighting, blistering; his love of the ridiculous irrej)ressible.
He is, witliout doubt, the wittiest and most humorous man at present
at the bar of Ireland."
Exclusive of his great speech in the O'Connell case, in defence oi
128 MODERN. POLITICAL.
Duffy, Mr Whiteside's greatest triumph as an advocate was in the
Yelverton case in 1851. Major Yelverton, son of Lord Avonmore,
contracted an irregular marriage with a Miss Theresa Longworth, wlio
was extremely prepossessing in appearance and skilled in the arts by
which men are won ; indeed, it was questioned whether her capture of
Major Yelverton was not almost as irregular as the mode by which he
submitted to be captured. Having tired of this lady, Major Yelverton
married once more, the widow of a professor, and this time in earnest.
Popular sympathy in Ireland was, of course, enthusiastically in favour
of Miss Longworth, or the Hon. Mrs Yelverton, and the trial of the
case rose to the highest level of public interest and excitement. Mr
Whiteside was engaged for the lady, and threw himself into the cham-
pionship of her cause with a chivalry and fervour which reminded one
of Hamilton Kowan's famous espousal of a similar case of wrong ; and
his gallantry procured for him a large share of the enthusiasm felt for
Miss Longworth herself. His cross-examination of the Scotch advo-
cates who were produced for the defence to prove the state of t)ie
Marriage Law in Scotland, was a masterly performance ; the knowledge
which he displayed of that most difficult subject astonished bench and
bar alike, and, perhaps, none more than the learned advocates them-
selves. It showed what extraordinary powers he possessed in being
able to master, in an incredibly short time, tha most subtle questions
of law *
"* It is often difficult in a country like Ireland to form a true estimate of public
men. There are so many conflicting influences at work, and, unfortunately,
sectarian bitterness is imported into every question, great or small, and poisons
the channels of public opinion. The critics are divided into hostile camps, and
make it a point of religion to disagree on every subject ; hence it hajipens that
men who take a decided part in the questions of the day are as heartily abused
by one section as they are lauded by the other. It is sometimes hard to know
wliich side to believe ; and though an impai'tial man, by steering between the
extremes, may generally arrive at the truth, it not unfrequently happens that he
is misled. Abuse is always more adhesive than praise, and according to the laws
of the critics, the judgment usually leans to the side of censure. As for the
legal critics, they seldom, if ever, allow any man who has figured conspicuously
in the political arena to depart therefrom in peace. They are generally men who
have plenty of time to devote to their censorial functions, and seem to think that
the great mysteries of the law are locked up in their own exclusive bosoms. It
was then scarcely to be expected that Mr Whiteside, on his elevation to the
bench, should entirely escape the attentions of this vigilant body, anymore than
many other eminent men who had passed through the same ordeal before him.
His popularity, however, was so great with all classes, without distinction of
creed or p'oHtics, that he was never assailed, so far as we can learn, unless,
perhaps, by the insignificant gossips of the Librar}'. Of course there is no deny-
ing tiiat, in the case of barristers who have got into large Nisi Prius business
early in their career, they have little time to devote to the general study of the
law, and are obliged by necessity, to a great extent, to prepare themselves
specially for every case involving difficiilt legal questions, as the occasion arises.
Mr Whiteside, fortunately for himself, had been, as we have seen, a most dili-
gent student, and improved the interval (short as it was) between his call to the
bar and the accession of extensive Nisi Prius practice on circuit and in Duldin ;
otherwise he could never have been so successful as he was. As a Term lawyer,
any one familiar with the law reports of his time cannot fail to recognise his high
legal attainments. The instance above referred to shows how a man of quick
perception and retentive memory can become equal to any emergency, and rise to
the occasion. Another small incident, tending in the same way, is wortliy of
THE RIGHT HON. JAMES WHITESIDE.
129
The trial was a long and exciting one, and a nioiuber of Mr White-
side's family fell dangerously ill on the very eve of his address to the
jury. It was rumoured that he could not appear in Court, and that
the notes of his speech were to be read by one of the other counsel.
Fortunately, however, the danger of a sad domestic calamity abated,
and he was able to appear, though evidently suttering from the efi'ects
of anxiety and want of rest. The Court was crowded to its utmost
capacity, and every nerve of the auditory was strained with excitement
wlien the champion rose, and in a voice which wanted its usual tide of
volume and force, but made up for tliis lack in the intensity of its sup-
pressed feeling, commenced the defence of his client's honour. Through
the day he kept his audience enchained to his lips, and even the
Chief- justice did not attempt to disguise his emotion when Mr Wlute-
side drew a picture of a woman's love and betrayal ; and when he
described the defendant as a man with "a forehead of brass, a heart
of iron, and the morals of a monkey," every eye turned to the place
occupied by Major Yelverton. If old Barry Yelverton, first Lord
Avonmore, could have resumed his judicial seat once more, to have
beheld his grandson's position, tlie old Chief-Justice's wrathful eyes
could scarcely have been more terrible than the withering look and
action of the speaker.
He next proceeded to describe the ravages of sorrow on the once fair
form of his client, and skilfully glossed over in a few words the indis-
cretions on which Serjeant Armstrong had dwelt so much. "You
cannot," he said, " restore the bloom to her fa'ded cheek, the lustre to
her tear-dimmed eye, or the buoyancy to her heart, crushed down by
the weiglit of her multitudinous sorrows. But you can restore that
which she holds dearer than life itself you can set her right before the
world, as she stands right before Heaven you can by your verdict to-
day declare her to be the true and lawful wife of the man who now
would cast her off the husband of her young and ardent atl'ections.
Her love for him was great too great for words to tell perhaps it
was unwise. Ah ! it might have been better for her, before she had
tasted the bitter cup of sorrow, when she was bereft of a tender mother's
care, if the cold hand of death had touched her, and she had been
borne to a happier sphere, to join the spirits of the 'just made perfect,'
throughout the countless ages of eternity."
As evening drew on, and in the twilight, the speaker approached iiis
peroration, tlie pale earnestness and power of that one face, lined round
the eyes with traces of fatigue, seemed to stand out with unnatural dis-
tinctness from the gloom, and every movement of his lips was watched
with strained intentness. Perhaps it was not very much in the words
tliat the extraordinary power of Mr Whiteside's speech lay a power
wliich became painful as the last words were rung out; but a tre-
mendous spell seemed broken as he concluded ; and never, even in an
being recorded. In the important case of Corry v. Crcmorne, in the Court of
Chancery, Mr Whiteside appeared as one of the counsel I'oi- Lord Creniorne ; and
on that occasion an eminent and profound lawyer, who is now a most distin-
guished judge, in reply to an observation made in his hearing, warmly retorted
(using one of those strong expletives in which he occasionally indulged), " Wliite-
side in Chancery ! Whiteside is fit to go anywhere."
IV. I If.
Irish Court of Justice, certainly not since the great O'Connell speech,
was such a burst of cheering lieard. Mr Whiteside was at the time a
prominent Member of Parliament, and when, a few days after this trial,
he walked into the House of Commons, the wliole House, by a single
impulse, rose at his entrance in admiration of the man and the speech.
Of all tlie other great civil cases in which Mr Whiteside added to his
laurels it would be simply impossible to attempt anything like a de-
tailed account. Though it is almost an injustice to him to refer to any
of them in particular, we cannot resist mentioning a few of the most
remarkable that occur to our recollection viz., the Mountgarret Peer-
age case, tried in 185i and 1855 ; the Colclough Will Case, in which
he eminently distinguished himself ; Kelly v. Dunbar, which afforded
full scope for the play of his humorous and sarcastic powers ; Fitz-
gerald tf. Fitzgerald, in which case he succeeded in setting aside the
will of Sir Edward Fitzgerald, though there was arrayed against him
Brewster, Butt, and Ball.
On Lord Derby's accession to power in 1852, Mr Whiteside was
appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, in the March of that year, and
held that office till January 1853, when he went out with his party.
He was elected a Bencher of the King's Inns in 1852. On the forma-
tion of Lord Derby's Administration in March 1858, he became Attor-
ney-General for Ireland, and a Privy Councillor, resigning office in
June 1859; and upon their re-accession to power in 1866, he again
became Attorney-General, and filled that office until July 1866, when
he was appointed Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland in the room of Chief-
Justice Lefroy, who had retired.
The Parliamentary life of Mr Whiteside dates from 1851. In that
year he was returned for the borough of Enniskillen, for which he sat
till 1859, wlien he resigned, and was elected one of the members for
the University of Dublin, which he continued to represent until his
elevation to the bench in 1866. As already remarked, Mr Whiteside
soon attained the highest position in the House as a debater, and a
prominent position was always assigned to him in all the great debates.
Among the greatest of his parliamentary successes may be mentioned
his speeches on the Crimean War in 1854 ; his reply to Mr Gladstone,
in May 1855; his speech on the Kars debate, in April 1856; his
speech on Mr Cardwell's motion on the Government of India, in Alay
1858 ; that on the afl'airs of Italy, in July 1859 ; on Education
in 1861; on America, in 1861; and on the Irish Church debate,
in May 1863. His speech on the amendment proposed by Sir
F. Baring (now Lord Northbrook) to Mr Disraeli's motion on the
prosecution of the war (delivered May 1855), is one of the best
specimens of Mr Whiteside's debating powers. He opened his
speech with a withering fire on Mr Gladstone and Earl Russell,
pointing out wdth great force and telling efleet the gross incon-
sistencies between the views taken by them in their speeches on that
occasion. He next drew a picture of Mr Gladstone as he appeared at
the beginning of the war, and after the Conference at Vienna ; pre-
senting in strong contrast the warlike utterances of the hon. gentleman
a few years before with the pacific tones of a spirit once so terribly
bellicose. Perhaps one of the happiest hits that he made was wlieu
THE RIGHT HON. JAMES WHITE>;iDE. 131
lie said he would take the liberty of continuing the quotation wliich
Mr Gladstone made in tlie course of his speech. The quotation was
from Virgil, and the remaining portion, as supplied by Mr Wiiite-
side, was about the most appropriate quotation tliat could have been
used against the Ministry by its bitterest assailant. "''
Tiie speaker next proceeded to give a masterly sketch of Russian
intrigue and aggression from the earliest times, and arguing with
almost irresistible force that no faith was to be placed in llussian trea-
ties, he concluded one of the most magnificent speeches tliat he ever
delivered in Parliament with a burst of eloquence seldom if ever
surpassed.
For the benefit of our readers who have not " ITansard " at their
command, we give two short extracts from tiiis remarkable speecli.
Speaking of the inconsistencies between the views taken by Earl
liussell and Mr Gladstone in their speeches on this occasion, Mr White-
side said : " Tliey had the advantage of listening to the noble lord
the member for London, and the right hon. member for the University,
each of whom expounded his views with great ability, but with the
mosi marked contrariety. Indeed, any impartial hearer of those two
eminent men must have been struck with tlie proofs of inconsistency of
opinion and uncertainty of conduct, not upon a minor subject, but upon
the weightiest matter that could occupy the minds of statesmen, whicli
were exhibited in their speeches. And one could not help asking him-
self, when he listened to the strange evidences of discrepancy between
them, ' Did these two gentlemen sit so lately in the same Cabinet ?
Did they meet and deliberate together on the awful questions of peace
and war, and on the negotiations which might affect the one or the
other ? Did they guide the destinies of the nation at a moment when
it was above all things indispensable that a united and powerful com-
bination of statesmen, acting on a common principle, should direct the
energies of tliis country in a manner correspondent with its duties and
obligations as a first-rate Power?' A Ministry whose individual
opinions in such a crisis were diametrically opposed, contradictory, and
discordant, could not fail to bring about the signal misfortunes which
had recently befallen our country. Let the House not be fascinated
with the eloquence of the right hon. gentleman or misled by the
authority of tlie noble lord, but attentively examine the substance and
tenor of their arguments. The noble lord's views appeared to be bent
on war, but the right hon. gentleman's tlioughts were turned on peace.
Tiie right hon. gentleman said the terms conceded by Russia would
* The quotation by Mr Whiteside is as follows :
" Cur indecores in limine primo
Deficimus ? Cur ante tubani tremor occupat artiis ?"
The line immediately preceding runs thus :
" Sunt illis sua f'unera, parque per omnes tempestas."
"VVe presume this was tlie quotation referred to. It does not appear in Mr Glad-
stone's speech as reported in Hansard, but from Mr Whiteside's remarks it must
liave been the one used by Mr Gladstone in reference to the losses sustained by
both sides, when lie elo(|Uently described the horrors of the war, and argued
against its further prosecution. The lines occur in Virgil's "iEneid," Lib. xi.
vv. 423-6.
132 MODERN. POLITICAL.
give us a safe and durable peace ; while the noble lord the negotiator
in person maintained that those terms would give us a mockery. Ac-
cording to the right hon. gentleman, a treaty with Russia might be
sufficient; according to the noble lord, we ought to have substantial
guarantees. The revision of the treaty of 1841, said the right hon.
gentleman, would be of much value in the settlement of this vital ques-
tion. That revision would amount to nothing, said the noble lord,
because (he added very truly) without any fresh treaty the Sultan
might cry out for help when assailed. The right hon. gentleman held
that, should we accept the terms proposed, England would have been
successful in the result of the struggle in which her blood had been
profusely shed and her treasure lavished. The noble lord, with a little
more patriotism and truth, maintained that, if we acceded to those
terms, we sliould be confessing in the eyes of the world that we, and
our chivalrous ally France, had been defeated. The right hon. gentle-
man said that by the adoption of the terms proposed tlie safetv of
Turkey would be secured; and the noble lord, that the danger to
Turkey would be thereby increased. The right hon. gentleman in-
sisted that England and France would have gained their end, and estab-
lished a European peace ; the noble lord insisted that the preponder-
ance of Russia would be greatly augmented, not only over Turkey, but
over Europe. Such were the discordant opinions, on a grave question,
of two able and thoughtful men, who expected from the Parliament of
England an unanimous conclusion upon their conjoint counsels."
After expatiating at great length, and with rare argumentative
power and eloquence, on the other topics already indicated, Mr White-
side thus concluded this brilliant and masterly speech : " There should
be no ambiguous speeches, and no delusive schemes of peace. If the
management of the war had been in the hands of men capable of con-
ducting it to the honour and advantage of this mighty nation, what
might not have been the results ! Behold the difference between the
Ministry and the nation. On the one hand, timid negotiations, feeble
I^olicy, and divided counsels. What a contrast with the energy, enter-
prise, courage, and enthusiasm of a gallant people ! For wdiat are we
fighting? For the supremacy and greatness of England, a cause which
cannot be deserted or betrayed. You are not fighting for the mere
interests of commerce, though I do not wish to be understood as under-
valuing the advantages of commerce, for it spreads civilisation and
gathers wealth ; but you are fighting for something higher, nobler,
grander the greatness, the supremacy, and glory of the country for
bomething nobler than the interests of commerce, or the acquisition of
territory. I believe that the object of this great contest is to establisii
the authority of eternal justice, to vindicate the outraged laws of
nations, and to promote and advance, I ardently hope, the liberties of
the world."*
* We have given the above extracts not without some compunction our only
consolation being that the injustice so done to Mr Whiteside is not much greater
than the injustice done to him in the extended reports of his speeches as already
remarked, no speaker ever isufiered so much as he did by being transferred to
paper. For this and his other great speeches we must refer our readers to
" Hansard's Parliamentary Debates," mider the dates above mentioned.
THE EIGHT HOX. JAMES WHITESIDE. 133
But it was not alone as a consummate debater and a brilliuut orator
that Mr Wliiteside distinguistied himself in Parliament ; his name is
most favourably associated with many great and salutary measures of
legal reform. Poreiiiost amongst these may be mentioned the Common
Law Procedure Amendment Acts of 1853 and 1856. The object of
these Acts was to simplify and amend the course of procedure as to the
process, pi'actice, pleading, and evidence in tlie Superior Courts of
Common Law in Ireland, so as to make it less dilatory and expensive,
and to prevent substantial justice from being defeated by tlie variety of
forms of action, the tecluiicality of pleading, and the length of records.
Tills, no doubt, was a very ambitious scheme of reform, but it must be
gratifying to Mr ^Yhiteside to find that these Acts, although they
had to encounter much opposition, arising from the old prepossessions
and prejudices of the bench and bar, have worked most satisfactorily
for suitors, and conduced to the ends of substantial justice. Many of
the clauses of the Bill as introduced by Mr Whiteside were rejected by
Parliament at that time ; but it must have been satisfactory to him to
tind that most of his proposals were on further consideration adopted,
first for England, in the Procedure Act for 1854, and afterwards for
Ireland, by the Procedure Act of 1856. These Acts have, from their
passing up to the present, a period of nearly twenty years, regulated
the practice and procedure of the Common Law Courts in Ireland. Of
course, Mr Whiteside's legislation did not escape hostile criticism from
those who loved technicalities, and felt their craft was now in danger.
The new code of procedure was denounced as a huge legal " Brad-
shaw," which, while it professed to make everything simple, created an
utterly hopeless state of confusion. However, during that long period
there has been only one attempt at improved legislation. In 1865, a
Bill was prepared with the object of assimilating the law in Ireland to
the law in England ; but it has been allowed to slumber quietly ever
since ; although the sister Bill for amending the practice of the Court
of Chancery was promptly advanced, and became law on the 1st of
November 1867. It has been significantly remarked that the former
Hill involved little or no patronage. Mr Whiteside's able statement,
when introducing the Act of 1853 into the House of Commons, proved
him thoroughly qualified for the difficult task of legal reform. He
showed himself thoroughh^ versed in the law as it then existed, in all
its inti'icacies, and having exposed its defects and absurdities with
unsparing hand, he unfolded in a clear and masterly manner the
measure of reform which he proposed to introduce. His speech, too,
was, in portions of it, one of those happy efforts of his humour on grave
subjects of dc^bate. We quote for the reader the following passages,
where, with affected gravity, he ridiculed the absurdity of the numerous
forms of action : " The value of retaining these forms would be dis-
covered by the recollection of the great case of the Squib. A party at
a fair fired off a squib it fell on some gingerbread another party at
hand took it uj) and threw it at a third it struck him in the eye, and
he lost his sight. He brouglit his action of trespass against the party
who fired off the squib; the jury gave him a verdict for damages, but
a question arose upon the form of the action. A reasonable person
would have supposed that the substantial question was whether the
plaintiff had lost his eye by the act of the defendant ; but no, said the
lawyers, that is immaterial ; the real question is, whether it should be
called an action of trespass vi et armis, or an action of trespass on the
case, because the squib had first touched the gingerbread. That was
an English case, 1 will now give an Irish case of the same nature. A
priest was travelling outside a stage-coach, a collision took place be-
tween that and a rival coach, and the coach on which the priest was
seated was about being overturned. The priest was alarmed he
threw himself ofi' the coach and broke his leg ; he brought an action
for the injury, but the pleader unluckily called it by the wrong name
he called it trespass. It was argued that it was an act of necessity
that the priest threw himself ofl^' to save his life. On the other side, it
was said he had not been struck that the act was his own ; and be-
cause he would not remain on the coach and lose his life, to setile the
point of law, his action was held to be wrong, and he not only lost his
leg, but his damages also."
It was, we believe, chiefly owing to Mr Whiteside's powerful opposi-
tion that the Bill, already referred to, for Amending the Practice and
Procedure of the Court of Chancery in Ireland was thrown out on its
introduction byt he Attorney and Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr
Lawsou and Mr Sullivan). The division on that occasion was so close
that the Bill was lost by the accident of an Irish member (Sir C.
O'Loghlen) going by mistake into the wrong lobby. The same measure
was afterwards brought forward during the last Derby administration,
by Mr Chatterton, the Attorney-General, and became law from and
after the first day of Michaelmas Term, 1867, save as to Part I., which
appointed Mr Chatterton Vice- Chancellor of Ireland, and took effect
from the 1st day of August previous. After many years' trial of tliis
Act, Mr Whiteside's opinions do not seem to have been far astray when
he said that things went on most satisfactorily under the Chancery
Regulation Act of 1850, and no change was desirable ; and that the
measure then proposed, under the pretext of establishing uniformity of
practice in the English and Irish Courts, was in many respects
unsuited to Ireland. Of the other legal measures which he intro-
duced or helped through Parliament it would be impossible here
to attempt to give an account. In justice, however, to Mr White-
side, we must allude to a well-known enactment with which (whether
rightly or not we cannot now say) his name has been associated.
We refer to the Jude:ment Mortgage Act of 1850. Owine' to the
carelessness of practitioners, and the narrow construction put upon
the Act by the judges, and not to any fault of the draftsman or the
members whose names were on the Bill, sad losses were occasioned to
creditors who had imperfectly registered their judgments as mortgages.
The fatalities were due, not to any difficulty or defect in the Act of
Parliament, but to the conduct of the practitioners, who relied on the
printed forms of affidavit issued by the law-stationers, and never
troubled themselves to look at the words of the statute. The decisions
of the Common Law and of some of the Equity Judges which were in-
fluenced by previous decisions on similar language in another statute,
brouffht no small discredit on the administration of the law. Finallv,
by a decision of the House of Lords, the Irish Judges were released
from their fetters, and left i'mr to decide accordiiiij to justice and com-
mon sense. It was therefore utterly unfair to visit on Mr Whiteside
the sins of others, for which he was in no way accountable ; but this is
one of the risks which all public men must run.
When Mr W hiteside was raised to the bench, a strange feeling pre-
vailed amongst a large section of the Dublin community. Not that any
one grudged the right hon. gentleman any lionours, however great,
which the country could confer upon him ; but people, somehow,
seemed to look on him as a species of public j)roperty, and to be
aggrieved by his withdrawal to the bench, as if they had been ousted
of some valuable ancient right. It was not so much the loss of an able
advocate which, whether actual or prospective, atfected comparatively
tew as the loss of an established favourite, who delighted the multi-
tudes by his brilliant wit and eloquence, which caused something like
feelings of disappointment and regret at his elevation. It certainly is
no exaggeration to say that his popularity was immense, and nothing
could exceed the public admiration of this gifted and extraordinary
man. And the mania (as it may be truly called) was not confined to
the mere liahitues of the Four Courts, who, during the Nisi-Prius sittings,
followed him from Court to Court wherever there was a cliance of
hearing Whiteside. In the Courts, at public meetings, the lecture-
halls, or elsewhere, crowds were sure to be attracted to the spot.
Strangers from all parts visiting Dublin were taken to hear him as a
special treat. He was, in fact, one of the great ' lions " of the Irish
metropolis, and it was now pronounced to be " a sin to cage him "
within the judicial precincts of Her Majesty's Court of Queen's Bench.
We believe it is not too much to say, that no one who ever heard him
was disappointed. But he should be heard and seen to be thoroughly
appreciated. Whiteside on paper and Whiteside in the tlesli were two
different beings different as night and day. He was never dull or
uninteresting, and on every occasion, ordinary or extraordinary, he
astonished and delighted his hearers. His exquisite humour, which
never verged on coarseness or vulgarity, was perfectly irresistible ; and
the most accomplished actor that ever appeared on the stage never
charmed an audience as he did by the natural sallies of his inexhaustible
wit. But it was not the outside public alone that was attracted by the
charms of his wit and eloquence. The bar, too, busy and briefless
alike, succuml)ed to the general fascination. To those men who had
chosen tlie learned profession " otiandi haud negotiandi causa,''' for
enjoyment, not employment, his elevation to the bench was really
nothing short of an irreparable loss ; the great charm of their legal life
was gone. It was no uncommon occurrence in the library of the
Four Courts, when the cry was heard, " Whiteside is on," to see the
busy men flinging away their briefs, and rushing off, after the manner
of the briefless, clients and attorneys to the contrary notwithstanding.
The same scene exactly was repeated in the House of Commons, and
hon. members rushed from all quarters to the House when " Whiteside
speaking " was announced. It was no wonder, then, that people said
it was a pity " to cage" him on the bench ; and we liave no ilout>t, if
the truth were known, that the Bight Hon. James Whiteside himself
somewhat shared the popular sentiments, and that it was with no
136
MODEEN . -^POLITICAL.
ordinary pang of regret he left the exciting scenes of his brilliant
triumphs for the comparative seclusion of the bench. We now come
briefly to consider him in his new sphere of Lord Chief-Justice of
Ireland. It was, no doubt, a trying change for one of his peculiar
temperament, whose whole life was one long uninterrupted scene of the
hottest strife and agitation, to be suddenly transplanted into tlie
cliilling atmosphere of the Queen's Bench. The new Chief-Justice took
his seat between two judges who had been on the bench for many
years, and were cool from experience, if not " by nature placid, and of
gravity severe." We intend no disparagement of those most excellent
judges, who stand deservedly high in the estimation of the bar and the
public. Of one of them, indeed, it has been often said (and we men-
tion it in no invidious contrast), that for dignity, learning, and in-
tegrity, he could not be surpassed by any judge on the Irish or English
bench. But in one point, at least, there was nothing in common
between them and the new Chief-Justice. If they were possessed of
brilliant wit and a keen sense of tlie ridiculous, no one certainly ever
accused them of showing any indications of these qualities on the
bench. This was, indeed, strange company for Chief-Justice White-
side ; and the legal prophets foretold that his irrepressible humour
would ere long disturb the judicial composure of his sober-minded
brethren. Such, however, has not been the case, and, with the excep-
tion of some few pardonable outbreaks, the seemingly incorrigible Chief
has wonderfully controlled " the unruly vein," and given no occasion
for scandal or offence. But that high tone and dignified bearing of a
polished and courteous gentleman, for which he was all tlirough his
previous life so distinguished, have followed him to the bench, and in
these respects he thoroughly becomes his high position. As an honour-
able and upright man there never was a spot or blemish on his
reputation ; and though he lield strong views, and took a decided part
in the religious and political questions of the day, he was always honest,
manly, and free from guile ; and since his elevation to the bench
we believe his uprightness and impartiality as a judge has never been
suspected or impeached, unless, perhaps, in the columns of some Ultra-
montane journal. But in this respect few of the Irish judges who
ever took a ])rominent part in politics have entirely escaped. In the
celebrated case of '- O'Keefe v. CuUen." any suggestions that could be
made as to his charge are met at once by the fact that a mixed jury of
Protestants and Roman Catholics found a verdict for the plaintiff. It
is true that a new trial was granted in that case on the ground of mis-
direction by the learned judge, but this, of course, was purely on a
question of law ; and if the case ever goes before the Exchequer
Chamber or the House of Lords, it remains to be seen whether the
Chief-Justice was right or wrong in his view of tlie law.
Of all his legal decisions, indeed, it may be truly said that they
evince creat learnins: and researcli, and are reasoned out witli much
force and perspicuity. Of course, Chief-Justices are not infallible more
tiian other men, but we believe that his judicial career will prove no
unfitting sequel to the matchless achievements of his earlier life.
SIR ROBEP.T JOHN LE MESURIER M'CLURE.
137
I I
SIR ROBERT JOHN LE MESURIER M'CLURE, C.B.
BORN 1807 DIED 1873.*
8iR Robert John Le Mesurieh M'Clure. son of Captain M'Clure
of the 89tli Itcgiinent, was born in Wexford, January 28tli, 1807. lie
was born after the tleatli of his fatlier, and at the earlv aire of four
years was received under the care of his godfather, General Le Mesurier,
Governor of Aldernev, wliere he remained till twelve vears of acre,
when he was sent to Eton, and afterwards to Sandhurst. Abandoniui;
* The death of Sir Robert M'Clure occurred shortly after our memoir was
written. In the obituary notice which appeared in all the leading journals
throughout the kingdom, he was described as the "Discoverer of the North- West
Passage." This led to a long and rather angiy newspaper controversy, in which
one side denied as strongly as the other side affirmed that M'Clure was entitled
to claim priority of the discovery of the North-West Passage. It will be seen
that we quoted on this subject a note from Captain Osborn's book, in which he
gives the credit of the discovery to Franklin's expedition. We now gladly append
an article from a notice of Sir Robert which appeared in the "Athenajum" of
the 1st November 1873. It was wi'itten after the controversy ha-d closed, and
thus deals with the question at issue : " In the following year M'Clure per-
formed, probably, the most wonderful feat of ice navigation on record, passing
round the south and west sides of Bank's Land, between the shore and the stu-
pendous ice-fields of that -inland sea, until he reached the ' Bay of God's Mercy '
on the northern coast. The two winters passed in this cheerless spot well nigh
exhausted the provisions, and M'Clure had made all his preparations for aban-
doning the ship, when, on the Gth of April 1852, a party from the ' Resolution '
eajne to his relief. The comparatively short march from the Bay of Mercy to the
' Resolution's' position off Melville Island comjdeted the North-^y est Passage ;
and M'Clure and his ' Investigators ' are the only men who have ever passed froni
ocean to ocean round the northern side of North America. It is, therefore, much
to be regretted that any atte-m]jt sliould have been made, especially at such a
time as this, to diminish the fame of Sir Eobei't M'Clure's glorious achievement.
Sir John Franklin made an equally gallant attempt to solve the problem of three
centuries, and fell a martyr to the cause of science. Ail honoul' to liis memorv
and that of his brave companions ! But the fact that M'Clintock found a skeleton
a short distance beyond Simpson's Cairn is insufficient to justify a claim to dis-
covery ; for the poor fellow was probably unconscious of his position, and, iudeed,
never could have reported it. iloreover, the discoverer of tho North-West Pas-
sage must be one who has made it by sailing, or walking on the ice, from ocean
to ocean. This was done by M'Clure and his ' Investigators,' and b)' them alone.
The discoverer's commission as Post-Captain was dated back to the day of his
discovery, and he received the honour of knighthood. It never was more worthily
bestowed. A select committee of the House of Commons reported that Sir
Robert M'Clure and his companions 'performed deeds of heroism, which though
not accompanied by the excitejnent and the glory of the battle-tield, yet rivalin
bravery and devotion to duty the highest and most successful achievements of
war.' Accordingly, a reward of 10,000 was granted to the officers and crew of
H.M.S. ' Investigator' as a token of national approbation.
"Sir Robert M'Clure, while in command of H.M.S. 'Esk,' afterwards did
excellent service during the Chinese war. This was the last time he was actively
employed. When lie died somewhat suddenly on the 17th of last October, he
had obtained the rank of Vice-Admiral, and he received a Companionship of the
Bath for his services in China.
"The funeral of the brave discoverer took place in Kensal Green Cemetery on
the 25th, when many brother Arctic explorers assembled round his grave.
" In this generation there are very few men who have achieved more lasting
fame than Robert M'Clure. Wo earnestly hope that the nation will sec that his
widow receives a pension in proportion to the services of the illustrious dead."
the military profession as distasteful, lie was placed in the naval service,
and served on board the " Victory,"' the " Hasrinffs" (home station), the
"Niagara " (on the lakes of Canada), and the "Pilot" (coast of North
America and the West Indies). In 1836, having attained the rank of
lieutenant, he volunteered to join the expedition then setting out to the
Arctic Seas, under kSir George Buck. On his return he was made
lieutenant of the "Hastings," which conveyed Lord Durham to Canada,
where M'Clure signally distinguished himself by successful operations
against a strong band of freebooters, which he completely dispersed,
having taken prisoner their notorious leader Kelly, for whose capture
the British Government had offered a reward of 5000. This reward,
however, M'Clure never received, the Government declining to pay, on
the grounds, as it is alleged, that the capture was made on the American
side of the frontier. He was next employed as superintendent of the
Quebec Dockyard, subsequently in the Coast-Guard Service, in the
command of the " Romney," which he retained till 1846. In 1848 he
joined Sir J. Ross's expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. On this
expedition the "Enterprise," of which M'Clure was first lieutenant, and
the "Investigator" sailed on the 12th June 1848, but were obliged to.
return from their perilous operations without success in November
1849, when M'Clure was promoted to the rank of commander in con-
sideration of distinguished services. In 1850 another expedition tu
resume the search having been determined upon by Government, he
was appointed to command the " Investigator," Captain CoUinson, C.B,
commanding the "Enterprise" as senior officer of the expedition. On the
20th of January 1850, tliis Arctic squadron sailed from Plymouth.
Tlie two ships kept together for some time, but were at last finally
parted by a gale in the Straits of Magellan. The "Investigator" pro-
ceeded alone, and the narrative of her voyage, edited by Captain
Sherard Osborn, C.B., is one of the most interesting that has ever
appeared in the annals of Arctic exploration. On the 31st of June
M'Clure met Captain Kellett, of the "Herald," in Behring's Straits, and
the former having given up all hope of meeting the "Enterprise," it was
decided that the "Investigator" should part company and proceed alone.
They reached Cape Bathhurst on tlie 31st of August, and Cape Parry
on the 6th of September. Here new land was discovered, whicli was
named " Baring Island," after the then First Lord of tiie Admiralty,
Sir Francis Baring (Lord Northbrook). The supposition that it was
an island, however, was afterwards found to be erroneous, as it
turned out to be connected with Bank's Land. Thence they passed
up a strait which was named Prince of Wales's Strait, the land on the
other side being named after Prince Albert. When within twentv-
five miles of Barrow Strait, a north-west wind drifted the ice upon
them, blocking up their passage. A floe grazed the ship, and it finally
drifted back many miles, till it was frozen in on the 30th of September,
having accomplished, in the words of Sir Edward Parry, "the most
magnificent piece of navigation ever performed in a single season, and
which the whole course of Arctic discovery can show nothing to equal."
From the 10th to the 21 st of October preparations were made to
despatch a sleilge-party to the northward to reach Barrow Strait, and
positively to assure themselves of their having discovered a north-west
passage. Having " housed over " tlie ship, and left her in charge of
Lieutenantllaswell, Captain ]\I'Clure,on 2 ist of Oetol)er 1850, started with
a sledge manned by six men for Barrow Strait. On the 26th of October
Captain M'Clure and his party pitched tlieir tents on the shores of Barrow
Strait. Having started before sunset they ascended a hill GOU feet
above the sea-level, and patiently awaited the increase of light to reveal
the long-sought-for North-West Passage. " As the sun rose, the pano-
rama slowly unveiled itself. First the land called after H.R.H. Prince
Albert showed out on an easterly bearing ; and from a point, since
named after the late Sir Robert Peel, it evidently turned away to the
east, and formed the northern entrance of the channel upon that side.
" The coasts of Bank's Land, on which the party stood, terminated
at a low point, about twelve miles further on, thus forming a part of,
and connecting itself with, that land, the loom of which had been so
correctly reported and so well placed on our charts by Sir Edward
Parry's expedition, more than thirty years before. Away to the north, and
across the entrance of Prince of Wales's Strait, lay the frozen waters of
Barrow, or, as now called, Melville Strait ; and raised, as our explorers
were, at an altitude of 600 feet above its level, the eyesight embraced
a distance which precluded the possibility of any land lying in that
direction between them and Melville Island.
" A North-West Passage was discovered ! All doubt as to the
existence of a water communication between the two great oceans was
removed ; and now alone remained for Captain M'Clure, his officers
and men, to perfect the work by traversing a few thousand miles of
hnoivn ground between them and their homes."
In a note to the above extract from Captain Osborn's book, he thus
writes in reference to Sir John Franklin's expedition ; " The subse-
quent recovery, by Captain Sir Leopold M'Clintock, of the relics and
records of the expedition under Sir John Franklin, proved that his ill-
fated crew, coming from the Atlantic, did in the year 1848 perish on
the coast of America, on or about the mouth of the Great Fish River.
That position has been long known to communicate directly with tho
Pacific Ocean by way of Behring's Strait. The priority of the discovery
of the North-West Passage clearly, therefore, belongs to Franklin's
expedition ; but the credit of discovering two other water communica-
tions, ice-choked tliough they be on either side of Bank's Land, be-
tween the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, belongs to Sir Robert
M'Clure."
On the 31;5t they had returned to the ship, having travelled 156
miles in nine days. For ten months the " Investigator" was ice-bound.
In July 1851, M'Clure blasted the floe with gunpowder, and was once
more free ; but the northern passage was still closed with ice, so he
retraced his way southwards, and turned northward round the western
coast of Barrow Island, and, after innumerable perils, reached Mercy
Bay, where they were again frozen in on the 24th of September. The
privations endured by M'Clure and liis crew till their final reliei in
Ai)ril 1853 were almost unparalleled in the history of Arctic explora-
tion. Their rescue from what seemed inevitable death was due to the
fortunate discoverv by jNI-Ciintock of a notice left by M'Clure on
Melville Island. M'Clure was still unwilling to abandon his ship,
I I
hoping yet to be al)le to accomplish the passage with her. Part of his
crew returned with Captain Kellett, and eventually M'Clure, having
lost all hopes of extricating the " Investigator," left her to her fate and
returned home. His reception in England was such as was due to a
man who, by one of the greatest Arctic achievements on record, had
secured to the Royal Navy and to Great Britain the imperishable
renown of having successfully accomplished an enterprise long attempted
in vain. The well-merited honour of knighthood was conferred upon
him, and the substantial reward of 5000. He afterwards served in
the Chinese Seas, as stated in the note on page 137.
THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN LAIRD-MAIR, BARON LAWRENCE.
BORN A.D. 1811.
The Right Hon. Sir John Laird-Mair Lawrence, Baron Lawrence of
the Punjab, and of Grately, Ha-nts, in the Peerage of the United
Kingdom, G.C.B., G.C.S.L, P.O., and a Baronet, Chairman of the
Metropolitan Board of Education, and formerly Governor-General of
India, was born March 4, 1811. His Lordship is the sixth son of the
late Colonel Alexander William Lawrence, son of William Lawrence of
Portrush, county Antrim, some time Governor of Upnor Castle, Kent (who
died in 1835), l)y Letitia, daughter of the late Rev. George Knox, Rector
of Strabane, county Tyrone. He received his early education at Foyle
College, Londonderry, and at the East India College, Haileybury,
where he highly distinguished himself, carrying off tlie law medal, the
history prize, and three prizes for proficiency in Oriental languages.
He oljtained his nomination to India as a civil servant in 1829 ; and
in 1831, he became Assistant to the Chief Commissioner and Resident
at Delhi. He subsequently filled a variety of offices, chiefly in connec-
tion with the ccdlection of the revenue in the north-west provinces,
until February 1840, wheii he proceeded to Europe on furlough. In
December 1842 he returned to India, and was appointed Commissioner
of the Delhi Division. It was not until 1845, when Mr John Lawrence
was thirty-five years of age, that he first attracted the special notice of
the Governor-General. The first Sikh war had broken out, and Lord
Hardinge, who was marching through the Delhi Division towards Sikh
territory, duly appreciated the energy and promptitude with which
supplies were furnished to his camp by Mr John Lawrence. Mean-
time, great powers of administration and organisation were being dis-
played by the Commissioner* and at the conclusion of the campaign in
1846, he was appointed by the Governor-General to the important post
of Commissioner of tlie Trans-Su.tlej provinces. In this trying position
he displayed administrative powers of the highest order. By tlie exer-
cise of great ability and perseverance, he succeeded in reducing the pro-
vinces under his charge into a state of order, political and social, from
an almost hopeless condition of anarchy and confusion. But his efibrts
were interrupted by the general insurrection in the Punjab, which
THE PJOHT HON. BARON LAWRENCE. 141
followed on the assassination of the English envoys, Mr Agnew and
Lieutenant Anderson, April 18, 1848. After the final defeat of the
Sikhs by Lord Gough at Goojenit, February 21st, 1849, their territory
was surrendered into the hands of the British, and was declared by
Lord Dalhousie to be thenceforth annexed to our Indian empire.
Accordingly a Board was formed for the administration of the Bunjal),
consisting of throe members, namely, Sir Henry Lawrence, jNlr John
Lawrence, and Mr Charles Grenville ManseJ. The Board worked on
till 1853, when Lord Dalhousie abolished it, and appointed Mr John
Lawrence to ha Cliief Commissioner of the Punjab. From 18-33 lie
rule-d the Punjab alone until 1858, when he returned to England, and
obtained a Baronetcy as a reward for his services during the mutiny of
1857. He was then ajjpointed to a seat in the new Indian Council,
and on the death of Lord Elgin in 18G3 he was created Viceroy and
Governor-General.
We now proceed to fill up in detail the foregoing brief outline of
Lord Lawrence's career, and we approach the task with no ordinary
feelings of diffidence. In a country of such vast extent as IJritisli
India, embracing, as it does, a population of over two hundred millions^
differing in race, religion, and customs, it is not unreasonable to expect
a great diversity of opinion on all questions of social and political im-
portance. This not unnatural diversity of opinion, sufficiently per-
plexing in itself, is considerably increased by the inveterate hostility
which has at all times prevailed, and will never, perhaps, be entirely
extinguished, between the two rival sections of which the administra-
tive machinery has been, and is still to some extent, composed. The
military section, clingi-ng devotedly to the old regime, denounce their
civilian riyals and supplanters as '" the curse and bane of the country."
The civilians, on the other hand, no less bitterly hurl back defiance ;
they seem, in fact, to have complacently adopted the " Ceda?it
arma for/ce " motto of the great Roman citizen, with all his vanity, and
with little of his just pretensions. But the evil goes further still, and
the spirit of discord manifests itself in their own ranks ; and for want of
more legitimate foes, civilians and military alike do battle amongst
themselves. The other classes of society, too, not nicluded in the
civilian section or paid servants of the Crown, lawyers, merchants,
tea, and indigo planters, et hoc genus or/me, seem to agree on one
point only, namely, to differ most inconceivably on every conceivable
subject. Amid this general chaos, it is not to be expected that much
harmony should prevail amongst the different organs of public opinion;
and although the press of India has been and is generally conducted
with great ability and independence, it is not easy at all times to arrive
at any certain conclusions amidst its conflicting utterances on tiie
merits and demerits of tlie men and measures of the day. It was no
wonder, then, that Lord Lawrence, when Viceroy, declared that it was
utterly impossible to please everybody, or give anything like general
satisfaction in the government of India. Lord Mayo's success may, in-
deed, be attributed mainly to the fact that he examined everything foi
himself, and exercised an independent judgment on all important ques-
tions of foreign and internal policy. One great advantage he certainly
enjoyed over his predecessor the advantage of long training in ati
142 MODERN. POLITICAL.
imperial school of statesmanship. His Parliamentary and official ex-
perience gave him an insight into men as individuals and in parties, the
want of which was, perhaps, the chief defect in Lord Lawrence's quali-
fications for the high post of Governor- General of India. But, though
venturing to give this opinion, we must again and again impress on
our readers the great difficulty of forming a correct judgment on any
question of Intiian politics. Too much stress cannot be laid on the
foregoing considerations, trifling as they may appear at first sight ; and
before leaving the subject, we cannot resist the temptation of repro-
ducing here a portion of Dr Russell's witty but truthful sketch of
Anglo-Indian pundits in his " Diary in tiie East," especially as it is
expressly connected with the subject of this memoir : " Already my
Indian difficulties comriience. There are pundits on board, and learned
ones. They have spent their lives in Hindoostan among the people.
They have mastered their languages tliey have administered justice
from the day when, very babes in the Company's swaddling-clothes,
tliey began their lives in India. Do they agree on any one point con-
nected with the mutinies or with the character of the people? Not
one. There is one man who has been the annual historian of the Pun-
jab, who believes that the only salvation for India is the application
of the system of the Punjab and John Lawrenceism to all India.
There is another who has passed a long career of active governmental
life in Bengal, who declares that the attempt to introduce such a Law-
renCeciatic, irresponsible, and arbitrary rule, would convulse his "beloved
province to the very centre. One man ' hates the rascally Mahome-
dans/ and says there will be no safety for us till they are ' put down,'
but whether into the earth, or by what process, he does not indicate.
Another thinks that, after all, the Mahomedan can be made some-
thing of, if a career is opened to him ; but that those slimy, treacherous
Hindoos, with their caste, and superstitions, and horrid customs, con-
stitute the real difficulty of the Government. Our American friend,
' tliough opposed to slavery in general terms,' thinks the system of
slave labour could be introduced with advantage into your British
possessions in the East, and quotes a few passages in support of his
views from the Old Testament. Meantime, sitting almost apart from
the I'est of the passengers, a few Englishmen, whom no one noticed,
shook their heads as they listened, but the civilians took no thought of
them. They had the brand of wicked, interloping, jealous Cain upon
them. They were traders, merchants, indigo planters, and such like,
who viewed with as much prejudice and antipathy the servants of the
Government under which they lived, as the latter exhibited in their
demeanour for men who were undoubtedly developing the resources of
tiie country in which they were passing the best part of their lives, and
making fortunes. All the evils that afflict India were and are,
according to tiiese gentlemen, the direct results of the rule of the Com-
pany. Why should they not be permitted to bring in their capital,
and purchase the soil of India ? Wiiy should they not be magistrates,
and sit on tlie bench, and adjudge disputes between themselves, or
their representatives, and the native land-holders or labourers ? Why
should they, as Englishmen, not be exempted from the operation of
the ordinary tribunals of the land in which they lived, and have
THE RIGHT HON. BARON LAWREN^CE. 143
special courts of their own, as being peers and nobles of a natural
aristocracy, placed among serfs and ignobles?'' *
When the mutiny was fairly oscr, and order was restored in the
country, Mr Lawrence rcturnud to Enghuid amidst general acchvniation,
to receive the rewards whicli were justly due to one of tlie saviours of
India. It was, no doubt, owing to his services during tlie mutiny that
Lord Lawrence gained tliat high reputation whicli earned for him the
title of "Saviour of Lidia;" but it would be unfair at the same time
not to give him full credit for Ins wise and vigorous administration of
the Punjab during a period of nine years before tlie mutinies ; and as
his administration when Viceroy has been chietly judged by ids mea-
sures in that province, it will be necessary to take a brief survey of the
early portion of his service, and the influence it is supposed to have had
on his views and policy wlien he was appointed to adnunister the
affairs of the Punjab, and of the condition of that province at the time
of its annexation.
It will be seen, from our introductory sketch, tliat for nearly twenty
years of his earlier career, Lord Lawrence was chiefly engaged in the
revenue department of the nortli- west provinces, and the line of policy
which lie adopted in his government of the Punjab has boon ascribed
to the ideas which he imbibed from his early training under what has
been called the " north-west provinces system." The nature and
results of this sj-stem have been stated at great length and with much
ability by a writer in the Calcutta Reclcw, iov tlie year 1SG9; and
although we do not adopt his views as to the impolicy of the system,
his account of its objects and effects may be accepted as accurate and
impartial, so far as we are able to judge, on tin's much-vexed question of
Indian politics. The importance of the subject in connection with
Lord Lawrence's subsequent career, and his character as a statesman,
will be the best excuse for giving a few extracts from this Review,
which was written after the close of his Lordship's Viceroyalty :
" The revenue settlement of the north-west provinces is, perhaps,
an obsolete question now-a-days ; but without attempting to revive the
discussions of a past generation, it may be advisable to indicate very
generally the great social revolution and practical transfer of landed
property from one class to another which were involved in what has
been familiarly known as the north-west provinces' system; inas-
much as it was the notions which Sir John Lawrence imbibed during
his training in the north-west provinces that ultimately damaged his
reputation as a statesman, and led to those personal detractions and
aspersion:: with wdiich he was assailed by the Indian ])ress during a
considerable part of his viceregal career.' The writer, then, in
support of his views, proceeds to give a sketch of the landed aris-
tocracy of Ilindoostan, which he maintains was an aristocracy re-
spected by the people, and capable and willing to render good
service to the British Government, which had delivered them from
the tyranny and oppression of the Mahrattas. After drawing a
picture of the state of atfairs in the north-west provinces during the
period of lawless anarchy which characterised the days of JNIaiiratta
* "My Diary iu ludia, in the year 1858-59," vol. i., chap. 4. By W. H.
Russell, LL.D.
144 MODERN POLITICAL.
ascendancy, and alleging that the landlords held their lands by the
same right that the British Government held their territories, namely,
that of the sword and the sword alone, the reviewer thus describes
the objects and results of tlie north-west province system:- "The
north-west settlement was undertaken and carried out some thirty
years after the campaign of Lord Lake. It simply ignored the rights
of the sword, and attempted to settle the country by the light of land-
tenures, which belonged to an obsolete order of things. It was carried
out under the idea tliat a landed aristocracy was a mistake, and tliat it
was better that British officials should perform the part of landlords,
and be brought into direct contact with the cultivators. The rights
and wrongs of this policy have been discussed ad nauseam. The
result of the investigation and settlement was that the aristocracy was
shorn of its possessions, and the famine of 1837 completed the good
work which the settlement had begun. In a word, we abolished the
landlords, and encouraged and fostered the money-lenders, and intro-
duced all the tender mercies of law and regulation. We are told,
however, that the country has prospered from this date, but we hold
that this proposition proves nothing. Lord Macaulay tells us that
after a large proportion of the population of Ireland had been literally
massacred by Oliver Cromwell, the country began to prosper ; but he
does not thereby leave his readers to infer that the massacre of the
Irish was a justifiable measure. The fact is, that any foreign inter-
ference with existing institutions, such as land, marriage, or religion,
is always dangerous, and frequently productive of evil. Such institu-
tions form part of the natio'.ial growth, and are often essential to the
national being. The result of the destruction of the aristocracy by our
settlement operations has deprived the British Government of the loyal
support in the hour of trial of the most influential class of the native
community, and has rendered the extension of British empire obnoxious
to the popular sentiment, because it has been accompanied by the rapid
disappearance of the old landed nobility." Wiiether this be a true
account of the "north-west province system" or not, it is not easy
even at the present time to determine.
On the wisdom of that policy we offer no opinion ; but, whether
right or wrong, it seems to have been the policy adopted by Mr Law-
rence in his administration of the Punjab, and to have been productive
of the most salutary results. When that country became annexed to
our Indian empire, its condition dift'ered in no material degree from the
old state of things which prevailed in the north-western provinces. It
is alleged that Sir Henry Lawrence, who had been resident in Lahore
since 1846, and was President of the new Board of Administration,
wished " to deal tenderly with the old Sikh aristocracy ; whereas Mr
John Lawrence, who had been imbued with the north-western system,
was apparently prepared to wipe it away altogether." Lord Dalhousie,
the Governor-General, was a statesman of tlie thoroughly English type.
He had little faith in Asiatics, and no sympathy with their ideas and
aspirations ; and although a member of the aristocracy of Great
Britain, he entertained but small respect for the aristocracy of India,
and failed to perceive the important part it might be called to play in
the extension and colisolidatiun of the English empire in the east. He
THE RIGHT HON. BARON LAWRENCE.
14/
was a profound believer in modern European civilisation, as the grand
panacea for all political and social evils ; and inspired witli this belief,
he did more towards developing the resources of India and of pro-
moting the national pros|)erity of her people than any otlier statesman
had ever done before. The Punjab was a new province, and it was tlie
ambition of Lord Dalhousie tliat it sliould be a model province. Under
such circumstances, the Board at Laliore could scarcely be ex|)ected to
work well. The three members undertook separate brandies of tiie
administration, but were actuated by different principles and ideas. Sir
Henry Lawrence conducted all the political business with the Punjab
chiefs, wliile Jolui Lawrence superintended the revenue administra-
tion; and some clashing was, therefore, to be expected, and seems to
liave taken place. Ultimately, Lord Dalhousie appointed John Law-
rence to be the Chief Commissioner of tlie Punjab, and provided for Sir
Henry Lawrence elsewhere.*
It is not intended here to offer any opinion as to the relative merits
of the two brothers in point of statesmanship ; it is sufficient to sav
tliat Lord Dalhousie decided in favour of the policy advocated by Mr
John Lawrence, and that in carrying out the views of the Indian
Government, nothing could have been more successful than the efforts
of the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab from 1853 until 1858. It
may be true, for all this, that Sir Henry Lawrence was by far the
greater and wiser statesman of the two, and that (as the reviewer
ah-eady referred to contends) had his counsels been followed, annexa-
tion to the British empire would have been a popular aspiration
throughout India, and the mutiny of 1857 would never have attained
the importance of even a military revolt. But we have to deal with
facts, and not theories, and the verdict of the country has been given
in favour of Lord Lawrence, and completely vindicated his character
from the strictures of some of his Anglo-Indian critics. Some slight
idea of the labours of the Commissioners on their appointment in 1849
may be formed from the fact tliat the superficial area of the country is
50,400 square miles, and that it contains a vast population, partly
military and partly agricultural, of various races and religious creeds,
who ail " hated every dynasty except their own, and regarded the
British as the worst, because the most powerful of usurpers." Under
their former sovereign, Runjeet Singh, the administration was in the
most deplorable condition; there was scarcely a crime for which immu-
nity could not be purchased by bribes; while the oppressive exactions
of the provisional governors who farmed the taxes were unchecked.
The first labour undertaken by the Commissioners was to organise " a
comprehensive system of law and justice, and of social and financial
improvement throughout the Punjab. It was found necessary to dis-
band the Sikh soldiery, though many of them afterwards entered the
British service; and an irregular force, consisting of ten regiments, was
raised for the protection of the western frontier." In consequence of
tliese measures, at the end of two years, the Board was able to report
to the Governor-General, " tliat the entire British system and its insti-
tutions were thoroughly introduced into the Punjab." Such triumphant
IV.
The "Calcutta Review," 1869.
K
Ir.
146 MODERN. POLITICAL.
results in so sliort a time seem almost incredible, but the statements of
the Commissioners' Report as to the desperate condition of affairs in
1849, and the improvement accomplished in 1851, are fully borne out
by the fact that in the mutiny of 1857 the province remained faithful
to British rule, and mainly contributed to the preservation of our
Indian empire. As before stated, Lord Lawrence was appointed Chief
Commissioner and agent to the Governor-General for the north-west
frontier in the year 1853, and held this position until 1858. Tiie
part which Lord Lawrence took in the terrible crisis of 1857 has long
been a familiar matter of history. kSoon after the telegraph brought
him the intelligence of the success of the mutiny at Dellii, all tele-
graphic communication with Calcutta was interrupted, and he had to
act on his own responsibility altogether, and nobly he performed his
work. A movable column was formed to march on any point of the
Punjab where any attempt at an outbreak might occur ; suspected
Hindoostanee regiments were removed to the frontier, and replaced by
local irregular troops ; mutinies at Peshawar and Lahore were promptly
crushed.
Larcje loans were effected in an incredibly short space of time, and a
new Sikh army, consisting of 60,000 men, was raised and despatched
fully equipped, under the gallant Nicholson, to aid in the recapture of
Delhi. All these measures were carried out with an amount of promp-
titude and decision which was worthy of the master mind with whicii
they originated. For these signal services the "Saviour of India" was
rewarded with well-merited distinction. He was created a baronet,
August 6, 1858, on his return to Entrland, having been previously
advanced in 1856 to the dignity of K.C.B. for his services as Chief
Commissioner of the Punjab, and in 1857 to the dignity of a G.C.B.
for his services during the mutiny. In 1858 he was sworn a member
of the Privy Council, and on the creation of tlie Order of the Star of
India was made a G. C.S.I. He also received the thanks of Parlia-
ment, and a pension of ^2000 a-year from the East India Com|iany.
On the construction of the new Government of India he was appointed
a member of the new Indian Council. In December 1863, he suc-
ceeded the late Lord Eltiin as Governor-General of India. Arrivins:
at Calcutta in January 1864, the new Viceroy was received with a
more universal demonstration of welcome than had been accorded to
any previous Governor-General. Immediately on his arrival, he set
himself vigorously to work to clear off the arrears which had accumu-
lated in consequence of the sickness of his predecessor. Endowed with
an immense capacity for dealing with details, he soon gained a high
reputation as a " working " Viceroy. His great experience as Cliief
Commissioner of the Punjab gave him a special qualification to discharge
the most laborious, though not, perhaps, the most important duties of
his high office. He exercised the most salutary supervision over all the
public departments, and his administration in this respect was most
complete and thoroughly efficient. No branch of the service could
now complain of inattention or want of sym])athy at Government
House ; and Lord Lawrence could not be accused, as Lord Elgin was,
of outraging experienced officials by declining to discuss with them any
question of Indian administration. So far things worked smoothly
THE RIGHT HOX. BAllON LAWRENCE. 147
enouij;li, but tlie unollicial portion of the comnuiiiity soon began to
express their dissatisfaction. A true viceroy, in tlieir opinion, should
have a soul above figures and dry details, and the military croakers
indignantly asked. What could be expected from tlie stupid attempt of
Sir Charles Wood and other liome-bred politicians to make a Governor-
General out of a mere civilian ? To this inquiry we vouclisafe no
answer. The suggestions already made may be of some help in esti-
mating the true value of opinions emanating from such a quarter.
What a viceroy ought to be, so as to give general satisfaction, it is not
very easy to determine. An eloquent writer in a Calcutta paper gives
us his idea on the sulyect : " A viceroy of India should be a states-
man educated in imperial views, endowed with iiigh moral courage and
intellectual sagacity, grave and deliberate in council, but prompt and
resolute in action, dignified and gracious on all occasions, and ever
forgetful of all private and personal considerations, whilst performing
the arduous but liunourable duty of representing our Sovereign Lady
Victoria, in the Government of the empire of India, and control of its
various principalities." This seems a standard, in all conscience, sufli-
ciently high; and we will merely observe in connection with it, that "the
head and front" of Lord Lawrence's oti'ending was that he had not
been duly initiated into the mysteries of St James's, and was not
endowed with the true imperial spirit of a British statesman. It has
also been urged against him by some of his critics that he w;is too inde-
cisive and vacillating, and overcautious in action. Others blamed him
for being too determined once he had taken a notion into his head.
In the " Oude unsettlement question," as it was called, he was censured
for pernicious activity, while others characterised his viceroyalty as a
period of " masterly inactivity." His hesitation in granting a subsidy
to Shere Ali Khan, and so interposing an efi'ectual barrier against
llussian attempts on British India, was made tlie subject of the most
liostile criticism and denunciation. Not that the Calcutta oracles were of
one voice on the subject of " Central Asia," nor were the boarding-house
politicians and old ladies of Chowringhee at all agreed that, if the viceroy
liesitated much longer in stopping the gap on the western frontier, the
Itussian bear would ere long be reclining under a punkah in Govern-
ment House. Tliat there were not occasional mistakes in his adminis-
tration it would be absurd to maintain, but in the spirit of fair play,
we must protest against the indiscriminate censure which has been pro-
nounced on many portions of his viceregal career. He might, no doubt,
liave more promptly interfered for the relief of the Orissa famine, and
his action with respect to the Bombay Bank is perlia})s open to the
same remark. But it still remains a difiicult question to determine
who was responsible for these sad disasters, which brought so mucii
obloquy on the British Government in India. His foreign policy was
cautious, but ultimately successful. The jiernicious results of Lord
Auckland's interference in the aflairs of Afghanistan were naturally
calculated to make liim careful in his dealings with Afghan princes ; but
liaving once accepted the recognition of Shere Ali as the legitimate
ruler of Cabul, he steadily adhered to that policy, and finally granted
him a subsidy. In his dealings with the native states witliiii the fron-
tier during the five vears of liis administration, he maintained sound
1-48 MODERN. POLITICAL.
and healthy relations between them and the British Government. In
the Public Works Department he exerted himself vigorously to correct
abuses, and initiated important measures of reform, which were after-
wards so successfully carried out by Lord Mayo. Lord Lawrence
devoted himself with great zeal and success to the advancement of
education. The as'ricultural and commercial interests of the country
also received his most careful attention. The relations between revenue
and expenditure were favourably adjusted, and although the outlay was
liberal the condition of the finances was satisfactory. The military
administration, too, was most successful. We now proceed to Lord
Lawrence's measures in Oude. Although we have not been able to
discover any evil consequences flowing from the viceroy's interference
with the land tenures of that province, which had been settled by Lord
Canning in 1856 and 1858, it seems to have been impolitic, under the
circumstances, to have disturbed a state of things with which, so far as
we can learn, all parties in Oude were satisfied. Few questions, how-
ever, excited such an amount of political ferment at the time ; and the
press generally condemned Lord Lawrence's interference as uncalled
for, and likely to produce the most pernicious results. The " Calcutta
Review " for 1869, appears to give the fairest account of the question,
and we give a brief summary of its remarks on this important subject.
When Sir John landed in India in 1864 there had been two landed
settlements in Oude, one in 1856 and the other in 1858. The settle-
ment of 1856 was carried out immediately after the annexation, much
in the same spirit as that which had been made in the North-West
Provinces and the Punjab. The settlement of 1858 made by Lord
Canning, as Governor- General, immediately after the mutiny, seems
to have worked well during the last four years of his administration ;
and again, during the government of Lord Elgin, in 1862 and 1863,
the question of land tenures seemed at rest for ever. All parties,
Talookdars, sub-proprietors, and village occupants, if not in all cases
satisfied with the extent of their holdings, were at any rate under the
full impression that their status was final, and never would be disturbed.
This was the settlement which Sir John Lawrence deliberately upset,
on the ground that the rights of inferior zemindars and village occu-
pants had not been sufticiently recognised by the settlement made six
years before in 1858. It was urged upon him that no complaints had
proceeded from the classes he sought to benefit, and that the settlement
had been fully accepted by the people of Oude. A special commis-
sion had reported that no such rights as those proposed to be established
ever existed in the country ; but in the face of these facts Sir John
Lawrence, true to his old North-West Province ideas, adhered to his own
convictions, and for two years, namely, from 1864 to 1866, the " un-
settlement of Oude " was the great question of the day. At length in
1866, a so-called compromise was eft'ected ; .... but whether
this compromise would continue to stand, or whether it would ultimately
be found necessary to modify it, or set it aside, the reviewer would not
venture to say.*
In his social arrangements, Sir John Lawrence took little pains to
gain popularity with the residents of Calcutta; and his triumphs in
* Calcutta Keview, 1869.
THE DUKE OF ABERCORN. 149
Government House were of a very different order from those of society.
If loft to his own inclinations, he would, perhaps, have gladly dispensed
with all that i)omp and display, which have from time immemorial been
expected from the representatives of the British Crown in our Eastern
dominions. On his return to England he was raised to the Peerage,
with the title of Baron Lawrence, of the Punjab, and of Grately in the
county of Southampton. lie also received the honorary degrees of
D.C.L. and LL.D. from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
His lordship married, in 184:1, Harriott Kathorine, daughter of the
Rev. Richard Hamilton, rector and vicar of Culdotf, in the county of
Donegal
THE DUKE OF ABERCORN.
BORN A.D. ISll.
Sir James Hamilton, K.G., P.O., Duke Chatellerault in France, heir
male of the house of Hamilton, was the eldest son of James Viscount
Hamilton, by the second daughter of the late Honourable John Douglas.
He was born on 21st January 1811, and succeeded his grandfather as
Marquis of Hamilton in 1818 ; he married, in 1832, Lady Lousia Jam;
Russell, second daughter of John, sixth Duke of Bedford. He was
educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and created an honorary D.C.L. of
that University in 1856. His Grace, who held the office of Groom of
the Stole to H.R.H. Prince Albert, was, on the accession to power of
Earl Derby's administration in 1866, appointed Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland, which office he retained till 1868, when he was created Duke
of Abercorn. He was created an honorary LL.D. of Trinity College,
Dublin, in 1868, and was Grand Master of the Order of St. Patrick
during the same period. He is Lord-Lieutenant and Custos Rotuloruni
of the County of Donegal, Colonel of the Donegal Militia, and Major-
General of the Royal Arcliers (the Queen's body guard of Scotland).
The title of Baron of Paisley was created in 1587; Baron of Aber-
corn, 1603 ; Baron of Hamilton and Earl of Abercorn, 10th July
1806, in the peerage of Scotland; Baron of Strabane, kc, 2d De-
cember 1701, in the peerage of Ireland ; Viscount Hamilton, 1786 ;
Marquess of Abercorn, in Great Britain, 18th October 1790 ; Marquess
of Hamilton and Duke of Abercorn, in the peerage of Ireland, 10th
August 1868.
The noble family of Hamilton is said to be descended from Sir
William de Hameldon, one of the youngest sons of Robert de Bello-
mont, third Earl of Leicester; Sir William de Hameldon's son. Sir
Gilbert de Hamilton, having expressed himself at the court of Edward
II. in admiration of King Robert Bruce, received a blow from John de
Spencer, which led the following day to an encounter, in whicli Spencer
fell, and Hamilton sought security in Scotland, about the year 1323.
Being closely pursued, however, in his flight, he and his servant
changed clothes with two wood-cutters, and taking their saws, were in
the act of cutting through an oak tree when his pursuers passed by.
Perceivinir his servant notice them, Sir Gilbert hastily cried out to
ir)0 MODERK. POLITICAL.
him, "Through ! " which word, with the oak and saw through it, he
tooic for his crest, in commemoration of his deliverance. This is the
account which lias been transmitted through tradition ; but Sir Bernard
Burlve thinks it more probable that the ancestor of the family of
Hamilton was one of tlie youngest sons of Robert, second Earl of
Leicester, who was the son of Robert de Bellomont, first Earl of Leices-
ter in England, and Count of Mellent in Normandy, by the daughter
of Hugh, Count of Yermandrois, son of Henry I., King of France.*
Sir Gilbert de Hamilton, the immediate ancestor of this great
family, lived in the reign of Alexander IL of Scotland, and he married
Isabella Randolph, sister of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray. His
son, Sir Walter Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton, swore fealty to King Edward I.
in 1292-1294. Attaching himself to King Robert Bruce, he had
divers grants of lands ; among others the Barony of Kenel (Kinniel)
and that of Cadzow (Hamilton), which became the chief lordship
and seat of the Hamilton family.
Sir David Hamilton, second Lord of Cadzow, was made prisoner at
the battle of Durham in 1346. In 1361 he was a benefactor to the
see of Glasgow. He was one of the Magnates Scotise wlio consented
to tlie settlement of the Crown in 1371. Sir James Hamilton, fiftii
Earl of Cadzow, being one of the principal nobles of Scotland, was a
liostaQ:e for tlie ransom of King James I. from England in 1424. Sir
James Hamilton, the sixth Earl of Cadzow, was created a Lord of
Parliament, by Royal Ciiarter, 28th June 1445, as Lord Hamilton.
He married in 1474 the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of James II.,
and relict of Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran. His son, James IL, Lord
Hamilton, obtained a charter of the lands and earldom of Arran, dated
lOtli August 1503. This nobleman, who took a prominent part in the
affairs of Scotland, was constituted lieut.-general of the kingdom,
warden of the marches, and one of the lords of the regency in 1517.
His son James, second Earl of Arran, on the death of James V., in
1542, was unanimously chosen Regent of Scotland by the nobles
assembled for that purpose, the public voice applauding their choice ;
the next year he was declared by Parliament heir presumptive to the
crown, appointed guardian to Queen Mary, and governor of the realm
during her Majesty's minority. In 1548 his Lordship was invested
with the French Order of St. Michael, and made in 1549, by Henry II.
of France, Duke of Chatellerault, in Poictou.f This dukedom, with a
considerable pension, was, according to Sir Walter Scott, conferred
upon him by the French king, in order to induce liim to consent to the
projected match between Mary, tlie infant queen of Scotland, and the
Dauphin of France. James III., Earl of Arran, upon the arrival of
Queen Mary in 1561, openly aspired to her hand, "but opposing the
Queen's free exercise of her religion, and entering a protestation
against it, his lordsliip entirely forfeited her favour." His love, how-
ever, inflamed by disappointment, and his impatience exasperated by
neglect, gradually preyed on his reason, and after many extravagancies,
broke out at last in ungovernable frenzy. He was inconsequence
* Burke's Peerage and Baronetage (1873;.
t J>urke's Peerage and Baronetage (l873).
THE DUKE OF ABERCORN. ^''l
declared to be in a state of insanity by the cognition of an inquest
passed on a brief directed out of the Court of Cliancory, and tlie estates
of liis deceased father devolved on his brother, Lord Jolin Hamilton,
who with his younger brother, Claud, was banished from Scotland in
1579, but returned in lo85, the Act of forfeiture which had been
passed being annulled. He was elevated to the peerage, in loOd, as
Marquess of Hamilton. This nobleman remained fast in his allegiance
to the unliap|)y Quec^n !Mary ; and so conscious was the unfortunate
princess of Ids fidelity, that one of her latest acts was to transmit to
him a ring (which is still treasured in the family) through the medium
of an attendant. His son, James, the third Marquess, was created in
16-43 Duke of Hamilton. His Grace, actively espousing the cause of
Charles I., was defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Preston,
and was beheaded in Old Palace Yard, 9th March 1G49. He was
succeeded by his brother William, who received a mortal wound
in the service of Charles II. at the battle of Worcester, Ey Cromwell's
Act of Grace, passed in 1654, he was excluded from all benefit thereof,
and his estates were declared forfeited, save as to a sum of 400 a
year for his duchess for life, and after her death, 100 a year to each
of his four daughters and their heirs for ever. At the death of ^Villiam,
second Duke of Hamilton, the male representation of the great house
of Hamilton devolved on his grace's kinsman and next male heir,
James Hamilton, second Earl of Abercorn. This nobleman had been
previously advanced to the Peerage of Ireland, 8tli May 1617, by the
title of Lord Hamilton, Baron of Strabane, Claud Lord Strabane,
fourth Earl of Abercorn, attended King James II, after the
Revolution from France, and was sworn of the Privy Council upon
his arrival in Dublin. His Lordship, after the battle of the Boyne,
liaving embarked for France, perished on the voyage. In
1691, he had been outlawed, and forfeited the estates and title of
Strabane ; but the earldom of Abercorn devolved on his brother
Charles, who succeeded likewise to the title and estates of Strabane,
the attainder having been reversed. Charles, the fifth Earl, having
died without issue, the honours and estates devolved on his kins-
man, James Hamilton, who declined assuming the title of baronet, but
was known as Captain Hamilton. He was in the military service of
James II. ; but espousing the cause of William, took a distinguished
part at the seige of Londonderry against his royal niaster. Succeeding
to the earldom of Abercorn, he took his seat in virtue thereof as a
member of the Scottish Parliament. Ireland, however, was the usual
place of his residence, and of that realm he was created Baron Mount-
eastle and Viscount Strabane, He married, in 16S6, Elizabeth,
daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Reading, Baronet, of Dublin, by
whom he had issue nine sons and four daughters. His eldest son,
James, was the eighth Earl, who died without issue, and was succeeded
by John James as ninth Earl, who was created Marquess of Abercorn,
and subsequently installed a Knight of the Garter. His son James
was the father of James, the present Duke of Abercorn.
During his short tenure of office as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the
duke of Abercorn won the respect and confidence of all classes. As a re-
sident nobleman, he was intimately acquainted with the country he wa?
152 MODERN. POLITICAL.
called on to rule as viceroy, and on all public occasions he expressed him-
self not as the mere mouth-piece of the party to which he belonged, but as
one who had the true interests of the country alone at heart. In dispens-
ing the patronage of his office, he was obliged, of course, to consult the
wishes of the Conservative section of the community ; but he endeavoured
even in this, as in all other respects, to act on his own independent
judgment, his sole object appearing to be to benefit his countrymen,
and not to win popularity for his political chief. We have no doubt
that it was the success of his administration which suggested the idea
recently advanced by a very eminent man of making the viceroyalty
independent of the changes of party. Whatever may be thought of
this theory, one thing is certain, that the termination of the Duke o
