stations in society, and in places of authority, had every opportunity of intimate knowledge of my father's character and conduct, would not have continued for the space of forty years to address him in the tone of esteem, of friendship, of consideration, and of respect, exhibited by the writers of the letters contained in these pages; and that the highest among them all would not have repeated to my father's family after his death the stronglyworded and unequivocal expression of approbation and good-will contained in the above extracts, had he been, I will not say the degraded and infamous person he has been painted by the organs of a defeated faction, but had there been the slightest equivocal taint upon his character or conduct. "Governments unfortunately conceive themselves compelled, in certain circumstances, to make use of hired spies and informers, and other mean, degraded, and dirty instruments; they also pay them their stipulated reward; but we do not find the individual members of such governments hugging the tools to their bosoms-we do not find them addressing their vile instruments as their dear friends and respected correspondents when their services are no longer wanted-we do not find them carrying on a friendly correspondence for little short of half a century, and continuing to afford the strongest testimonies of good opinion and good-will to their families after them, on account of the merits of such tools. By the ancient custom of England, a man accused of crime might clear himself by producing compurgators, men of undoubted integrity, having an intimate knowledge of the character and conduct of the accused, who were willing to bear testimony to their belief of his innocence. "Here, then, are my father's compurgators I have here produced witnesses in such numbers, and of such rank, station, and character, as must render it im possible for any impartial man to believe that his conduct could have been in any respect dishonourable, whatever judgment may be formed of his prudence and foresight. But I have not rested his defence upon these noble testimonials, as I well might have done I have laid bare to the public his inmost thoughts, feelings, and motives, and I trust that I have so exhibited their connexion with his actions as to show beyond the power of contradiction that in all his words and deeds he was moved only by the most earnest desire to do his duty to God and man, to his king and to his country, as became a good Christian-an honest upright man a loyal subject—and a true patriot. If I have failed, the fault is entirely in my execution. I trust that hereafter an historian will arise both able and willing to do more effective justice to my father's character and conduct; and I humbly hope that these memoirs, if in other respects they are valueless, will afford to such an one a clue to guide him to the truth. "I know there are men whom no evidence, however clear, will convince, because they are determined not to be convinced. One of these persons, who will perhaps recognise himself if these pages should meet his eye, observed, on seeing some of the letters herein transcribed, I had rather believe all the writers of these letters to be villains than believe Mr. Reynolds to be an honest man.' For such men I do not write; their good or bad opinion is alike indifferent to me; but I write for honest men of all parties-for men who will fairly and impartially attend to evidence, and decide solely on the broad principles of justice; for them and posterity I write, and for them only, and I am satisfied to stand or fall by their unbiassed verdict. My task is now accomplished, and I quit my pen with feelings of unfeigned regret. Since the day I lost my father, whom I loved with no common affection, I have been so entirely occupied with these memoirs, that he has been in a manner always present with me, and, now that they are drawing to a close, I feel as if I were again parting with him. Other thoughts agitate my mind also. I know his cause is good, but I fear I have not been a good advocate. His wrongs demand an abler pen than minea more devoted one they could not have. From the public, to whom I now appeal, I have no boon to ask, but indulgence for the manner, strict and impartial scrutiny for the matter." 66 We have now brought to a close our sketch of these volumes. 66 Audi alteram partem" is but the maxim of justice; and considering the prejudices entertained in Ireland against Mr. Reynolds, we have felt it imperative on us to allow the defence of his memory by his son to have the benefit of our circulation. Time, however, has not yet softened down the asperities or removed the evil passions which the subject is calculated to excite. In other countries feuds and quarrels pass away with the generation of the actors-in Ireland they remain a legacy of strife to all posterity. We have already said that the natural impression on every person's t mind is to the disadvantage of an informer. A breach of good faith is, perhaps, the last crime that mankind will forgive, because it is the one that most sensibly affects their own interests. A certain degree of conventional confidence-a kind of honour among thieves -is requisite for the dealings of mankind with each other-and men, for their own sakes, demand that this confidence should be kept, perhaps the more strictly, when the dealings are discreditable. This is the morality of the world, and by its rules a prejudice is naturally created against any informer. Of this prejudice Mr. Curran, with consummate skill, attempted to avail himself at the trials on which Reynolds appeared as a witness. The great object then was to make the witness appear perjured in the testimony which he bore on the subject of the conspiracy this imputation, at least, time has completely removed. The perfect correctness of every thing that he stated has been completely established to the letter by the subsequent revelations of the conspirators themselves. The truth of his testimony we may regard as admitted. The imputations, then, on his character resolve themselves into these that, being in needy circumstances, he betrayed the secrets of his associates for reward-that he attended their meetings as a spy-and lastly, that he betrayed the concealment of his friend, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The answer to these charges is already before the reader. It is denied that Mr. Reynolds was in need. On the contrary, his condition is represented as affluent, and it is asserted that he gave his information to the government without any hope of reward, or without their even knowing the person from whom it came-that he joined the United Irishmen believing their objects to be innocent, and that on discovering the guilty and sanguinary character of their designs, he ceased to attend their meetings, and never again was present at one of them. The charge of the betrayal of Lord E. Fitzgerald is met by a flat and distinct denial; and it is adduced, in support of this denial, that at the time of that unhappy nobleman's arrest, Mr. Reynolds was avowedly and notoriously under the patronage of government, and therefore the least likely person in the world to be entrusted with the secret of his retreat. This is a recapitulation of the account contained in these volumes. One thing appears manifest, that the account given by Mr. Reynolds of his first communication with the government was believed at the time. It was, in fact, the account to which he deposed on oath at the trials. If it was incorrect, he must have been committing a gross perjury within the knowledge of the executive government and the law officers of the crown. If they knew that account to be false, they were deeply criminal in offering his evidence on other matters. The jury, of course, believed it, or they could not have convicted on his testimony. How far this publication may be effectual for its object, we pretend not to say. At The prejudices against the memory of Reynolds render the task of his vindicator no easy onc. We have carefully avoided adding to his difficulties by a syllable that might seem to throw discredit on his account. the same time, we confess that account is not without its improbabilities, which we would wish to see reconciled. We have endeavoured, however, to leave the defence unprejudiced to the public, or to those who may be inclined to take an interest in the transaction. Few persons, perhaps, will take the trouble to sift the evidence with care enough to form a conclusion for themselves upon these intricate points. But we can promise our readers that all of them will find in these volumes an interest even in the narrative, which, though constructed without much skill, and sometimes with tediousness, possesses, from its verisimilitude, and the character of the transactions with which it deals, even more than the excitement of a romance. BY-WAYS OF IRISH HISTORY-CHAP. XXIII. THE HOUSE OF STUART-ROMAN CATHOLIC ECCLESIASTICS IN THEIR INTERESTS. "In the time of my father and uncle, the priests educated on the continent were Jacobites. They were enemies to a certain extent; while they submitted to the laws, their own opinions ran against the succession of the present family on the throne, and they were, perhaps, dangerous before the French Revolution in that respect."-D. O'Connell, Esq. Report of Com. Committee, March 4, 1825.Digest of Evidence, p. 111. 66 IN a subterranean chapel under St. Peter's, in the city of Rome, Mr. Matthews visited the tombs of members of the Stuart family who had died exiles in the imperial city. "Here, too, you may read," he says, what no person who has not descended into this subterraneous church, probably has read the histories of the reigns of Charles III. James IV. and Henry IX. Kings of England!-for so they are styled, in the royal chronicles, engraved on the tombs of the Pretenders; which, brief as they are, contain almost all that is memorable in the histories of these princes-the dates of their births and their deaths." If the accomplished writer had read the history of the departed exiles rather in the memorials they have left in Ireland, than upon their monuments at Rome, he would have seen that their lives were not so unworthy of historical celebrity as he imagined them, nor altogether so unmarked and innocent. That the Pretenders styled them selves Kings of England was a matter comparatively of no importance. In a healthy state of society and of the public mind, like that of Britain, the arts and endeavours of a pretender to the throne, who was without arms and money, or friends to supply him with either, could be productive of little evil; but, in Ireland, where there was poverty, political disaffection, individual discontent, and religious acerbity, the case was very different ;— emissaries of sedition, traitors, incendiaries, could do serious evil; and here, therefore, (if we would read of enterprises in which the Stuart family endeavoured to win the power of wearing their titles otherwise than as the mortifying decorations of their exile, or as idle honors upon the tomb, where all distinctions are levelled)— here, in Ireland, we should look for the chief materials of their history. It is Here, in Ireland, the Stuarts had an army. They appointed the Roman Catholic bishops to their sees. natural to suppose that they exacted from them promises and oaths of allegiance. Directly or indirectly, they dispensed the patronage for which a body of priests, secular and regular, falling little, if at all, short of two thousand, were to owe their advancein their gift, came recommended by the mcnt; and the honors and emoluments additional attraction of defiance to the power of England. Seldom has in fluence been more effectual for its purposes-more happily adapted to reconcile feelings often in opposition to each other-to gratify the selfish instincts of the heart, and, at the same time, cultivate what was praised as a spirit of patriotism and honor. By returns, published 1725, which are given in the "Catholic Directory" for 1837, it appears that 1085 Roman Catholic priests were registered, pursuant to an act passed in the year 1703. There were, it is very probable, numbers not registered in Ireland at the time when those returns were completed and published, and there was, we must believe, a considerable increase afterwards, when in truth the penal laws were rather held out in terror than executed. † A paper was published in Exshaw's Magazine, in 1763, from which it appears that there were, on the continent, for the education of the British and Irish, 18 schools; or rather that among the continental schools that number is noticed Italy Portugal 2 2 naries of which it may be said the model schools were erected on the principle of hostility to Protestant England, and were, in their constitutions, so framed as to carry out that principle to the uttermost. Nor was the supply for Ireland limited to ecclesiastics. At Lorraine, and perhaps else where, physicians also were trained up in the principles which could render their medical services available to the promotion of the Pretender's interests. Such was the force by which the interests of the Stuart family were maintained in Ireland, a force well organised and disciplined, not likely to be soon exhausted—recruited and augmented, as it was, by unceasing supplies from the continental seminaries and convents. The Roman Catholic powers made this return at least for the liberality with which England allowed them to enlist Irish soldiers for their ranks. It was a curious species of reciprocity. Ireland, through the connivance of Great Britain, supplying the enemies of Britain with soldiers, and these enemies repaying the loan by supplying Ireland with priests-taking Irishmen into their armies to resist the force of Britain abroad, and sending Irishmen from their seminaries to undermine the strength of Britain at home. It was a reciprocity, we need scarcely observe, far from gainful to either Ireland or Great Britain. Of all the supporters the house of Stuart could command, the Jesuits were, unquestionably, the most powerful. Even their fall did not take from them the power to be eminently useful; and if it be the truth, as it is reported, that, in its favour, or its fears, or to meet the difficulties of the times, the court of Rome had released them from the obligation of all their vows except of obedience to the papal see, they had become more capable of performing great services, or at least of intriguing with success, than when they were embarrassed by the restraints and the distinction of the clerical profession. This order had placed itself at the disposal of the Stuarts, not incapacitated, by its fall, to render certain services by its declining popularity, not enfeebled, but disengaged, perhaps, to give it self more exclusively to the interests were of the cause to which it had become The change of ministers and measures anticipated on the accession of George III. to the throne-the elevation of the Marquis of Bute, and his well-known influence, encouraged expectations in many of the Jacobite party, which the latter knew to be, if not altogether groundless, by much too sanguine. They, however, caused an immigration of many restless spirits into England and Ireland. It is said that, in a company of persons at Bruges, preparing for a journey to England, one was cautioning the Jesuits who composed a part of the group against the dangers they must run-" There is little danger," was the reply. “We take money to vest in government security. In the judgment of Englishmen, this will place us beyond suspicion." They appear not to have underrated the danger. Complaints, angry and ineffectual, appear to have been made in the public prints of the audacity with which Jesuits and foreign priests affronted, as it were, the law speeches were made in Ireland, and notices given of the frequent disembarkations of suspicious persons-of projects for instituting popish schoolsof the erection of popish chapelsof the activity of popish emissaries; but scarcely any person called out to have the penal laws enforced; and even while hunting down the poor misguided instruments of crime, with all the energy of the law, and cutting them off often by military execution, suspicion glanced uncertainly on those who were, perhaps, the movers in all the disorders; evidence did not reach them; and the penal laws by which they could have been arrested, were thought too severe to be enforced against individuals apparently so inoffensive. Of monasteries and convents supported by the English, there are noticed 33— Flanders France Portugal Of these, one (at Newport) claiming the Charter house, London, with its dependences-one, Sion house, in Surrey. This, we are aware, is not the language usually employed in discourses on this subject. The Roman Catholic priests in Ireland have furnished the favourite stock for declamation against the penal code, and the merciless fanatics by whom its severities were inflicted. To read the eloquence and the poetry of popular writers and speakers, one would suppose that the priestly victims of Protestant bigotry were numerous, and that religion was their only crime. "They* dwelt not," writes Mr. Wyse, “in the tranquil shadow of a protecting and paternal government, but in the midst of the shadow of death, with the inquisitoreye of a persecuting code about their path; teaching in the very sight of the gibbet, and often laying down their lives in testimony of the doctrines which they taught, with a calmness, a constancy, and an exaltation, which would have dignified even a primitive Christian-and in wilds and wastes, pathless and houseless, whose names, in more than one instance, were scarcely known to the very legislators who sought their blood." Often laying down their lives!!" We do not impute the fabrication of this fancy to Mr. Wyse, nor does his repetition of it surprise us. Roman Catholics are too often so pre-occupied by false representations in their early years, that to liberate themselves from their influence in after life, especially when they seem justified by success, demands the exercise of different faculties from any which Mr. Wyse has yet been called on to display. He has, with more grace and less acrimony of expression than is usual with his party, expressed the notions which they have put into circulation. Those who framed them first, and gave them currency, knew their inherent and their marketable -value, and felt how much safer it was to rely upon the effects of general declamation, than to commit themselves to any specific facts. It has never answered their views to have bills returned upon them, or to have their notes presented for payment. They have acted apparently on an assumption that the malignity of the human heart equals at least the fertility of the human imagination; and attempts to solve a problem of something to this effect, "given the penal laws and the bigotry of Protestants, to find the amount of Roman Catholic persecution," may explain many of those appeals to passion and feeling, in which the condition of Irish Romanists, priests and people, is described as a continued martyrdom. But, as we have already observed, the principle on which stories of persecution could thus be reasoned out was fallacious. The penal code, borrowed at very charitable distance from that of Bossuet and Louis XIV., differed from its model in another particular also, that of not being executed. It was a notification to Roman Catholics that they were in the power of the law; but, so long as they left the government undisturbed, the notification was, as to the severer parts of the code, held to be a sufficient exercise of authority. Thus, by the laws of discovery, as they were styled, the celebration of mass by a popish priest was a transportable offence; and Arthur Young informs us, that in companies where he has heard the penal laws, all and singular, warmly defended, he has smiled to see lists handed round among the champions of intolerance to receive subscriptions for the erection of a Roman Catholic chapel. We have already observed, that the pertinacity with which Roman Catholics and their friends have continued to serve out the tradition of Father Sheehy, as their proof that priests were persecuted, is of itself a clear indication that their case is not tenable. Was he one of the many who suffered for the exercise of their religion? His is the solitary name which Romanists have found it convenient to produce from the day of whiteboy disorder, in proof of their charge; and his is the name of one who suffered ostensibly Hist. Cat. Ass. p. 54. † We have heard, on good authority, of a Roman Catholic lady insisting, when engaged in an argument to defend her church from a charge of persecution, that at least Roman Catholics could not be accused of any enormity comparable to the Protestant massacre at Scullabogue barn. She had, actually, been persuaded that Protestants were the authors of that crime, and could not see in historical testimonies to the contrary, any ground for altering her conviction, or at least any call upon her to confess the alteration. See Tour in Ireland, vol. ii. p. 140. |