Nothing can more mark the influence of wisdom and superior genius than the mention made of Dr. O'Leary in George Anne Bellamy's 'Apology' where she says the philanthropy and interference of that liberal man put an end to the scandalous conduct of Count Haslang's (the Bavarian ambassador's) chaplain on the death of that old representative of the corps diplomatique.[596]
The organ of the Irish Government does not praise O'Leary for political support. To do so would arouse suspicion whether well founded or not; but Higgins, from friendship or policy, seeks to exalt his prestige and popularity. In the 'Freeman' of November 20, 1784, we have a long account of how he put down Dr. Johnson, who had addressed him with boorishness. 'The literati,' it is added, 'consider themselves as much obliged by Dr. O'Leary's conduct on the occasion, as it has much humbled the imperious and surly behaviour of Johnson.'
The statement of Plowden, that O'Leary was pensioned on condition that he should withhold his pen in support of toleration,[597] will not bear test.[598] In 1784, O'Leary is conclusively shown to be subsidised. His dissuasive address to the common people of Ireland denunciatory of Whiteboyism, a bulky treatise, bears date 1786. It seems more likely that a subsidy would be given for writing in support of the oppressive laws of that day. This letter to the peasantry writes up that grinding impost—Tithes—in reference to which Bishop Doyle afterwards prayed, 'May our hatred of Tithes be as lasting as our love of justice!'
Pray, my brethren, what right have you to curtail, to your own authority, the income of the Protestant clergy? [O'Leary writes]. If the tithes became the property of the laity, they would raise their rents in proportion. Or is it because that, from the earliest ages of the world, those who believed in the true God have consecrated to Him a part of the fruits of the earth, you will think it an heavier burthen to pay the same thing because it was in conformity to the law of God that the laws of Christian states have appointed it? You know that the rules of justice extend to all without exception, and that, to use the familiar phrase, everyone should have his own, whether he be Protestant or Catholic, Turk or Christian. It is more your interest than you imagine, that the Protestant clergy of this country should be maintained in their rights. For many ages you have been defenceless, destitute of any protection against the power of your landlords, your clergy liable to transportation or death. The mild and tolerating spirit of the clergy of the established religion has been the only substitute for all other resources. They trained up from their early days the Protestant nobility and gentry in the principles of morality and virtue. If they preached against Purgatory, they enforced charity.... If they denied that the Pope is head of the Church, they taught their congregation that no man is to be injured on account of his religion, and that Christianity knows no enemy. As by nature we are prone to vice of every kind, and that the earliest impressions are the strongest, had it not been for those principles which they instilled into the minds of their hearers, long before now your landed men in this country would have treated you as Turks, who think it no scruple to violate the beds of the Jew, and warn the husbands that if they come into their houses whilst they are doing them this injustice they will cut off their heads.
Is it then to gentlemen of this description, the children of the first families in the kingdom, the instructors of the most powerful part of the community, the most moral and edifying amongst them, the most charitable and humane, that a handful of poor men are to prescribe laws tending to diminish the support of their offspring, destined to fill one day the most important offices in the State? What! a Rev. Archdeacon Corker, a Rev. Archdeacon Tisdal, a Rev. Mr. Chetwood, a Rev. Mr. Weekes, a Rev. Mr. Meade, a Rev. Mr. Kenny, who spent his time and fortune amongst you, relieving your wants, and changing part of his house into an apothecary's shop to supply you with medicines, which yourselves could not purchase, must from an apprehension of violence quit his house.[599]
In this strain O'Leary argued at much length; but the impartial historian of this very time describes 'the system of Tithes as the greatest practical grievance, both of the poorer Catholics and of the Presbyterians.'[600]
Most people have heard of O'Leary's controversy with the Bishop of Cloyne, in which, when the prelate disputed Purgatory, O'Leary retorted that he might 'go farther and fare worse.' The 'Critical Review' examined the controversy with a shrewdly penetrative eye. Lord Kenmare, in a letter dated October 2, 1787, writes: 'I read with the greatest pleasure the 'Critical Review' on the Cloyne controversy. It is the best performance that has yet appeared on the subject. Grattan is violent against the Bishop of Cloyne for his publication, and thinks, with the reviewer, that Government is at the bottom of it.'[601] O'Leary's reply, which runs to 175 pages, contains many excellent truths worthy of commendation; but it is a question whether this elaborate controversy may not have been inspired and encouraged from Dublin Castle. Law and order are, very properly, inculcated throughout by O'Leary, and powerful dissuasives addressed to the 'Whiteboys' are printed at the end.[602] As regards the Bishop of Cloyne, O'Leary assures him, in words somewhat supererogatory:
'I was not sent here to sow sedition (p. 119). I returned here, not as a felon from transportation, but as an honourable exile, who returns to his native land after having preferred a voluntary banishment to ignorance and the abjuration of the creed of his fathers.' Some years later, i.e. in 1789, he was falsely reported to have taken the latter step, and, like Drs. Butler and Kirwan, to meditate matrimony. 'Having from my early days,' he wrote, 'accustomed myself to get the mastery over ambition and love, the two passions which in every age have enslaved the greatest heroes, your correspondent may rest assured that I am not of the trio.'
O'Leary was a Franciscan friar who had made vows of voluntary poverty. The fact that he had long been accustomed to rest content with a little may help to explain the modest sum he was satisfied to accept for services which, if cordially rendered, were worth the amount twenty times told. And in judging the man for accepting this money it must be remembered that the bulk of it was spent in alms deeds. Bishop Murphy told Father England that when a youth he was frequently O'Leary's almoner, and that a number of reduced persons were weekly relieved in Cork to the average extent of two or three pounds. 'Charity,' we are told, 'covers a multitude of sins.'
FOOTNOTES:
[548] Cumberland's Memoirs, ii. 2-38. (London, 1807.)
[549] Cumberland several times calls it a 'treaty.'
[550] Vide Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, ii. 385-6. Del Campo's letters are written in excellent English; it appears that, though born in Spain, he had come from an English Catholic family named Field.
[551] Vide Annals of the English Catholic Hierarchy, by W. Maziere Brady, pp. 170-4. (Rome, 1883.) 'Sketch of a Conference with Earl Shelbourne,' The Dublin Review, vols. xx.-xxi. Trials of the rioters, The Rockingham Correspondence, ii. 419. This remarkable incident has been all but overlooked by historians. Dickens was greatly struck by its features.
[552] We have no proof that Parker was an Irishman.
[553] Orde to Evan Nepean, September 8, 1784 (see English in Ireland, ii. 413).
[554] In the postscript to O'Leary's letter (see Appendix) we catch a glimpse of some of the Catholic leaders in Dublin at this time, into whose secrets Orde assumes he could easily dive. They include Thomas Braughall, so often mentioned in Wolfe Tone's Diary as a Catholic organiser and United Irishman; Charles Ryan, a very important Catholic leader (fully described in Wyse's History of the Catholic Association, i. 138-9); and Mr. Kirwan, noticed at p. 177 of the same book. Sutton, 'the Brigadier,' also mentioned in O'Leary's letter, was, with Braughall, one of the thirty-three Catholic delegates who, in 1793, represented the City of Dublin (see Vindication of the Catholics of Ireland, p. 90.) (London: Debrett, 1793.) Edward Lewins, the two Sweetmans, Thomas Reynolds, and other afterwards very prominent rebels, figure in the said list of the Dublin delegates.
[555] Mr. Orde to Mr. Evan Nepean, October 17, 1784. See Froude's English in Ireland, iii. 414. But Mr. Froude will excuse me for adding that the chief passage he quotes is from a letter dated September 8, 1784.
[557] My Australian correspondent, Mr. Morgan McMahon, was puzzled to determine how O'Leary, the scene of whose labours was Ireland, could be summoned from London in 1784, inasmuch as his biographer states that it was not until 1789 O'Leary took up his residence in that city (Buckley, p. 304). The accuracy of Mr. Froude's date is, however, confirmed by a letter in the Life of George Anne Bellamy, iii. 120 (Dublin ed. 1785). On August 16, 1784, Mr. W. T. Hervey writes to that celebrated actress, then living at 10, Charles Street, St. James', and expressing the 'infinite satisfaction' he felt at meeting O'Leary at dinner.
[560] England, from whom Buckley recast and embellished this account, calls him 'a gentleman in the confidence of the Ministry' (p. 118). Was it Sir Boyle Roche—of whom presently?
[561] See England's account of the overtures made to O'Leary in London, ante, p. 220. England puts 'country' before 'religion.'
[562] In April 1783 the Coalition came into power. Pitt's administration dates from December 1783.
[564] O'Leary was specially weak in yielding acquiescence. Buckley states (Life, p. 355) that O'Leary, having been led to connive at the legislative union, he expressed remorse.
[565] Bird's-eye View of Irish History.
[569] Thomas Moore's Diary, iv. 112.
[570] See letter to Mr. Kirwan in Appendix. After 1783, no such bold tone is traceable in O'Leary's expressions.
[571] See Appendix. Their intercourse may have been strengthened by clannish claims. O'Leary was a Cork man, and Roche is described as 'a branch of the ancient baronial family of Roche, Viscount Fermoy.' See obituary in Gentleman's Magazine for 1807, p. 506. His wages comprised the baronetcy bestowed in 1782; a pension of 300l. a year, with a separate annuity of 200l. for his wife; and, later on, the miserable post of Gentleman Usher, or Master of Ceremonies, at Dublin Castle. It is remarkable that in all the contemporary reports of the discreditable transaction, as regards Lord Kenmare, the name of Sir Boyle Roche is suppressed, and George Ogle, afterwards a P.C., put in his place. Ogle and O'Leary were both 'Monks of the Screw.'
[572] The Rev. Dr. Wills, when writing his Lives of Distinguished Irishmen (v. 243), gathered curious facts from survivors of those times. Of Sir Boyle Roche we learn that 'it was usual for the members of the Irish Cabinet to write speeches for him, which he committed to memory, and, while mastering the substance, generally contrived to travesty into language, and ornament with peculiar graces, of his own. On many of these occasions he was primed and loaded for action by the industry of Mr. Edward Cooke, who acted during several administrations as muster-master to the wisdom of the Castle.' Sir Boyle felt that he had specially earned the gratitude of the Crown; and I find, by the Précis book of Lord Fitzwilliam, he had even applied for a peerage. In the Pelham MSS. he is constantly found worrying for honours and reward.
[574] Lord Kenmare died September 9, 1795. For a careful study of his temporising character see Wyse's Catholic Association. He had enjoyed his title merely by courtesy. In 1798 his son was advanced to a Viscounty, and the next year to an Earldom.
[575] Mr. Lecky says that 'it is a strange illustration of the standard of honour prevailing in Ireland, that a man who, by his own confession, had acted in this manner continued to be connected with the Government and a popular speaker in the House of Commons' (vi. 368). But, in point of fact, Dublin Castle could not get on without him.
[576] See Froude, ii. 415.
[578] The Convention had greatly alarmed the Government. In 1793, Lord Clare introduced the Convention Act, making all such assemblages henceforth illegal; but a popular leader remarked that it was the wisdom of Xerxes attempting with iron fetters to chain the sea. In 1811, Lord Fingall, Mr. Kirwan, and other Catholic delegates were arrested under the Act. It never became law in England, and about the year 1878 Mr. P. J. Smyth, M.P., succeeded in freeing Ireland from its pressure.
[579] The Letters of Orellana, an Irish Helot, to the Seven Northern Counties not represented in the National Assembly of Delegates held at Dublin in October 1784, for obtaining a more equal representation of the people. Halliday Pamphlets, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 482, p. 29.
[580] Besides the journals of the day, I have searched the litter of pamphlets to which that pregnant year gave birth; but, the names 'O'Leary' and 'Parker' never appear. Their mission, clearly, was a secret one. Sheahan's Articles of Irish Manufacture (Cork, 1833) certainly speaks of Mr. Parker, 'who fell in with a Doctor O'Leary' (p. 112); but, on hunting up the pamphlet from which he quotes, Plea for the Poor (p. 15), it appears that the date is 1819, and the Dr. O'Leary was a physician in Kanturk.
[581] Diplomatic letters, but fulsomely servile, are addressed by Orde to Grattan (vide Life, by his Son, iii. 209-11). Orde must have known that Grattan was jealous—first, of Flood, with whom he constantly quarrelled, and, secondly, of a new, bold, and thoroughly honest Protestant leader, who had just made his début, and worked hard to make the Congress a success. This was James Napper Tandy, commander of the Dublin Volunteer Artillery, and afterwards a general of division in the service of France.
[582] Dublin Evening Post, September 18, 1784.
[583] The Freeman's Journal, September 28, 1784. This journal, once the organ of Grattan, Flood, and Lucas, fell into the hands of an unprincipled adventurer, named Francis Higgins, who prostituted the once virtuous print to a venal executive.
[585] Dublin Evening Post, October 23, 1784.
[586] The policy of creating a schism has often since been acted upon. We have already seen Lord Northington's approval of such a scheme. The Viceroy, Cornwallis, addressing Portland, June 22, 1799, writes in reference to a public question: 'Dublin is not without material for a counter party, which I should have sanguine hope of collecting if my endeavours to produce a schism in the corporation should prove successful.'—Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 339.
[587] The Freeman's Journal, December 24, 1784.
[588] Life of O'Leary, by Rev. M. B. Buckley, p. 385. See also England's O'Leary, p. 289. (London, 1822.)
[589] The 'White Boys' were perpetually denounced by O'Leary.
[590] Historical Review of the State of Ireland, by Francis Plowden, ii. 104.
[591] Lecky, vi. 369.
[592] Irish Parliamentary Register, iv. 227.
[593] 'For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade,' we know on the authority of Irish song, and the judge was baptised 'Louis' apparently in compliment to the French king, described as 'the assertor of American liberty.' The bias of the Perrins was always democratic, and the judge himself had been the attached friend of Robert Emmet, whom he embraced in the dock. The conduct of 'P. the Scholar' (T.C.D.) at this time is noticed by Archbishop Magee, then a fellow, in a letter printed in Plunket's Life. The judge's brother, Mark Perrin, rector of Athenry, in a letter to me, states that on the night Emmet was sentenced to death, Louis Perrin came home to their house at Chapelizod, bathed in tears. In that picturesque part of the 'Strawberry Beds,' where one can cross the Liffey by a ferry, access is gained to the old churchyard of Palmerstown, in which, partly smothered in weeds and fallen leaves, may be traced the epitaph of Judge Perrin's father. When Brougham declared in 1828 'The Schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him armed with his Primer against the Soldier in full military array,' he used the idea in a higher sense than could apply to M. Perrin and his 'Grammar,' who, unobtrusive as he seems to have been, caused some disquietude to Lord Clare, a man of all others the most difficult to perturb.
[594] 'I disclaim anonymous productions.'—Postscript to his Miscellaneous Tracts. (Dublin, 1781.)
[596] As service of a political or diplomatic sort might possibly be inferred from this paragraph, I thought it just to O'Leary to see the book from which 'Shamado' quotes. The incident is described by Mrs. Bellamy in the Apology for her Life, ii. 246-7 (Dublin ed. 1785). She complains that the remains of Count Haslang were not treated with due respect; and that a new chaplain, who had been assigned to the Bavarian ambassador, behaved towards 'the chaplains and domestics of the late count with unmanly arrogance ... had it not been for the timely arrival of that justly respected luminary Father O'Leary.' Her account is not very clear. In what year Haslang's death occurred is not mentioned; but the Gentleman's Magazine of the time throws in a few dates and facts. Count Haslang died at Golden Square, London, on May 29, 1783, after an embassy of forty-two years (liii. 454). George II. had formed an attachment for him in Hanover, and brought him to London. Haslang's son was Prime Minister of Bavaria, while his father, during a crisis in its history, filled the post of ambassador to England. On June 5, 1783, a solemn dirge, attended by all the corps diplomatique in London, was sung in Warwick Street (R.C.) Chapel; but 'owing to a dispute at the grave [in old St. Pancras] several of the ambassadors returned home without supporting the pall.' The dispute, which is not explained, at last obliged the Anglican chaplain to read the burial service over the deceased envoy of a Catholic power.
O'Leary, in finally adjusting the difficulties, may have discharged a diplomatic mission inspired from Downing Street. Mrs. Bellamy alludes to insults offered even to the domestics of Count Haslang. How serious it was to insult even a servant of the Bavarian ambassador is shown by the Gentleman's Magazine, xxv. 232-3. In 1755, we learn that 'T. Randall, late an officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex, pursuant to his sentence for arresting a servant of Count Haslang, was brought from Newgate before his Excellency's house in Golden Square, having on his breast a paper proclaiming that he had been adjudged by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and the Chief Justices to be a violator of the laws of nations, and a disturber of the public repose, and stands convicted thereof.' Randall was carried back to Newgate.
Mrs. Bellamy, in vaguely alluding to insults offered even to Count Haslang's domestics, doubtless includes herself, for Haslang describes her as his 'housekeeper' (Life, ii. 104). This woman, the natural daughter of Lord Tyrawley, ambassador at Lisbon, was introduced into society by his sister; became a very influential person, and shared the confidence of Fox and other Whig lights. O'Leary, she describes (ii. 8): '... who, with unaffected piety, is blest with that innocent chearfulness which, joined to his brilliant wit and sound understanding, makes him the admired darling of all who have the happiness of knowing him.'
Count Haslang's house in Golden Square has been, since 1789, the presbytery of Warwick Street R. C. Chapel; and its transfer to parochial uses dates also from that year.
[598] The Freeman, the subsidised organ of the Irish Government, after extolling O'Leary, added, on May 12, 1785: 'It were sincerely to be wished that this excellent writer and Christian philosopher would once more sit down and employ his talents in the service of his country and literature in general.' In the following year, i.e. 1786, he reviewed a 'forgotten controversy,' including a defence of Pope Clement XIV. in suppressing the Jesuits.
[599] The Rev. Mr. O'Leary's Address to the Common People of Ireland, pp. 12-14. (Dublin: Cooney, 1786.)
[600] Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century, vi. 540.
[601] Edward Hay, in his History of the Rebellion, says that the Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet 'was dedicated to the Spirit of Discord.' Dr. Woodward was hardly the bigot that he pretended to be; his epitaph in Cloyne Cathedral records that 'he was a warm friend to Catholic Emancipation.'
[602] A very clever, poetic version of this and other addresses of O'Leary, entitled The O'Leariad, appeared, and seems to have been written to direct attention to O'Leary's loyal pamphlets, and to enforce and imprint their arguments on the popular mind. (Printed in Dublin, and reprinted at Cork by Robert Dobbyn, 1787.) Vide Halliday Pamphlets, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 514.