Growing up. Switzerland. Irish Brigade.

Chapter I.

1773-1795.

**Introduction - Birth in 1773 - School Friends - Dublin Schools in 1785-6 - College - House-property in Dublin, in 1791 and in 1801 - The Historical Society - Sojourn in Switzerland - Society of the Swiss Towns in 1793-4 - Its effect upon a young Irishman - The Amenities of war - The Irish Brigade - The French Army

• Le Beau Dillon and Pat Lattin - Lausanne.**

Notwithstanding the undoubted truth of Solomon’s proposition, that “there is nothing new under the sun,” it has always seemed to me that any man who has lived through three quarters of a century, must have had knowledge forced upon him, which, though not new, would yet, if communicated in a plain tale, teach many a useful lesson to those who are girding themselves for entrance upon that pilgrimage, of whose perils and joys the wisest of the young must always form an inaccurate estimate. Such a tale, honestly told, even though its events would too often fail to serve as beacons to warn against danger, or to point out the true course to the inexperienced voyager through life; yet would it, upon many an occasion, cast a cheering light upon the track through which he was passing, and not seldom sustain courage that would sink under disasters such as an unchastened imagination might look upon as unprecedented and irretrievable. It would (at least so my recollections tell me) do even more and better than this: it would prevent many a disaster, by teaching the most useful of all lessons to a passer through the world - that of forbearance and charity towards those with whom the accidents of his journey bring him into collision. Few of the injuries men suffer from each other would not be rendered less galling were the motives of both parties mutually understood; there are none that would not leave a slighter wound if a kindly view of human nature (such as experience tells me is the true one) were to influence the mind of the sufferer, in forming an estimate of the designs of his occasional opponents.

It is with impressions such as these fresh upon my mind, that I sit down to question my memory upon the occurrences of a life which has been neither short nor uneventful. I have lived during many years, seen many men, suffered and prevailed, been persecuted and honoured; and now, having laboured in my generation with, at least, a hearty desire to serve my fellow-men, I look at the past without even a passing feeling of unkindness, and at the present with, I trust, a reverential gratitude for the large share vouchsafed to me, by a beneficent Providence, of those three cardinal blessings of humanity-health, competence, and respect of men. A beginning and ending that can be thus characterised, constitute of themselves a fact worthy of being recorded; and if it shall excite in the mind of any reader, sufficient interest to induce him to accompany me in my efforts to illustrate it by reminiscences of the events of my life, I will promise him that he shall hear, if not an amusing or eloquent, at least a true tale.

I shall begin with the beginning, by noting that I was born in my father’s house, in Merrion-square, Dublin, on the 19th of August, 1773. I was then a younger son, and (my birth having occurred somewhat prematurely) a weakly child. I was nevertheless a great favourite with both my grandfathers, and continued to hold a high place in their regard up to the period of their deaths, which occurred at very advanced ages, and were occasioned, in the case of my paternal grandfather, by an injury from the kick of a horse; and in the other, I believe, by anxiety and grief, resulting from my protracted imprisonment in the Tower, during the years 1799 and 1800.

The circumstance of my not being an eldest son, I presume, procured for me the advantage of being sent, at the age of eight years, to a public school at Portarlington, where I was roughly enough treated as a “fag,” and, even at that early period, initiated into an experience of the rude course of life. In my case, however, this advantage was not obtained without its accompanying drawback, which came in the shape of a dislocated elbow, occasioned by a fall from a pent-house, from which I was pushed by a boy named Faulkner, afterwards the Sir Frederick Faulkner, who, many years subsequently, committed suicide at Naples. The confinement consequent upon this accident, and, I suppose, some neglect, acted upon the original delicacy of my constitution, and produced a scrofulous complaint, from which I suffered severely for four or five years. The malady was, however, completely rooted out of my system, as is proved by my long and uninterrupted enjoyment of health and strength. At the time, it had the effect of bringing me into the closest and most tender relations with the best and kindest of mothers, towards whom my feelings of respect and affection were never afterwards for a moment blunted.

At the age of 12 years I was placed at the school of the Rev. Dr. Burrowes, at Prospect, Blackrock, very near to my father’s villa of Maretimo, where I remained for about two years. Burrowes was an extremely good-natured and friendly man, possessed of taste and good manners; but he was no scholar, and otherwise ill-suited for his vocation, loving the pleasures of the table, and unfortunately also of the gaming-table. Poor man! I well remember the anxious haste with which he was accustomed to close the daily business of the school, in order that he might be at liberty to repair to Dublin, for the purpose of mingling in the more congenial occupations of the frequenters of the then fashionable clubs. A few years afterwards, in the natural course of things, my poor schoolmaster illustrated the result of the incongruity of his tastes with his profession, by visiting me in college, and borrowing a few pounds to relieve some urgent necessity.

At Prospect, there was among the assistants a Dr. Beatty, an excellent scholar and a most worthy man; but simple as a child, and consequently the martyr of all our schoolboy tricks. There was, at the same time, another assistant, a Master in the University of Dublin, where he was then celebrated under the *soubriquet *of Beau Myrtle. The very opposite of poor Dr. Beatty, this person was one of the most depraved, vicious, and filthy wretches that ever disgraced the name of man. His character was fortunately discovered, and he was banished from the school before he had time to do much mischief.

For the information of the highly-respectable fraternity of Irish schoolmasters of the present day, I must not omit to mention that Dr. Burrowes’ pupils then (l785-6) numbered from 80 to 100, all of rank, and of the first families in the country-earls, viscounts, lords, and squires. Among my school-fellows whose names I still remember, were Lords Shannon, Ponsonby, Mountcashel, John Creighton (the father of the present Earl of Erne), the last Lord Llandaff, and his brother, Montagu Mathew, the present Bishop of Derry, Lord de Vesci, and the late Knight of Kerry. It was the fashion of that day to educate boys in the community in the midst of which their duties and interests as men required them to live. We were not then sent to learn absenteeism and contempt, too often hatred, for our country, in the schools and colleges of England.

I must not omit to mention one person whose acquaintance I made during this period of my school life, and whose subsequent fate had a melancholy relation with my own. This was poor Trenor, the Master of Elocution in Dr. Burrowes’ household, who afterwards became my companion and secretary, and was accordingly arrested in 1798, at the same time as myself, upon an equally false suspicion of high-treason.

The ill treatment to which he was then subjected ultimately caused his death, which took place shortly after I was enabled, upon my succession to my father, to do something to evince my esteem for his fidelity and sympathy for the sufferings he endured as the consequence of his affectionate attachment to myself.

From the school of Prospect I was sent to the King’s School at Chester, at that time presided over by Dr. Bancroft. This step was taken in accordance with the advice of my father’s excellent friend, Dr. Cleaver, then Bishop of Chester, and Principal of Brazenose College, but who had previously been private secretary to the Marquis of Buckingham, with whom my father was on terms of close intimacy during his residence, as Lord Lieutenant, in Ireland. While at Chester I lived in the family of the Bishop, and was brought by him to Oxford, with the view of being entered of Brazenose College; but I prevailed upon my father to change his intention with respect to my destination, and to permit me to become a member of the university of my native city, from which I graduated in arts in the year 1791; as it happened, upon the day on which my father entertained the Lord Lieutenant (the Earl of Westmoreland) for the first time, at Mornington House, a residence in Merrion-street, which he had just purchased from the late Marquis Wellesley. Among the *notabilia *of this entertainment, I may mention the presence at it of the Duke of Wellington, who attended as an aid-decamp to the Lord Lieutenant. The *locale *was subsequently rendered infamous as the nidus of that miserable hatching of corruption, from which the union between the two kingdoms was evolved. Mornington House was rented from my father by Lord Castlereagh during the course of the Union debates, and in it were concocted those plots that ended in overturning the liberties, and arresting the prosperity of Ireland. There also were celebrated, with corrupt profusion suited to the occasion, the nightly orgies of the plotters.

As an illustration of the economical effect of the extinction of Irish independence, I may mention that the house alluded to, which cost my father £8,000 in the year 1791, was sold, the year after the Union, as a part of his personal property, for £2,500. Although still in the best and most fashionable quarter of Dublin, it would not now, in all probability, fetch the odd £500. It is at present occupied by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

My course through the University was not free from storms; a strong antagonism then existing between the youthful patriotism of many of the students, and the bigotry and servility of the heads of the society. Among the latter, my tutor, Dr. Elrington, afterwards Bishop of Ferns, was remarkable. He was a learned man, but stupid and blockish, and thoroughly imbued with the narrowest bigotries of his class and position. It was he who accomplished the suppression of the Historical Society, then obnoxious to all who dreaded progression, as a nursery of genius and patriotism, and as opening a common field whereon the rising generation of Irishmen were learning mutual respect for each other, and, in the generous rivalry of their young ambition, beginning to forget those vain jealousies and discords of creed and caste, whereby alone the common oppressors of all have, for so long and dreary a period, borne rule in the land.

It is with many strangely-mingled feelings of pride and humiliation, of pleasure and sadness, that I call to my recollection, after the lapse of half a century, the games and the athletes of that celebrated arena. The former are now forgotten the latter have, with scarcely an exception, passed from the scene. I will only mention one, and that among the latest surviving of the friendships which I formed at the Historical Society, as affording no bad illustration of its operation upon society at large in Ireland, and the mutual influence of civilization and kindness it was calculated to extend over classes that now have no common meeting-place. The person to whom 1 allude was the late Edward Lawson, of the Irish bar. He was the son of a glazier; but, in the republic of the Historical Society, he became one of the most distinguished and respected chiefs. Between him and me an intimacy then began, in the continuance of which, I am happy to say, I was enabled long afterwards to secure a provision for his declining years. The instance is, perhaps, not worth much; but, in recording it, my design is to mark my regret that there should now be left in Ireland so few points of union between the multiplied grades, classes, and castes of her children.

Shortly after leaving College 1 went to Switzerland, in the year 1792, and remained there about two years. While in that country I resided first at Neufchatel, *en pension *in the family of a Protestant clergyman named Meuron, and subsequently in a villa at Lansanne. There were a good many English at that time in Switzerland, with most of whom I made acquaintance, which, in some instances, ripened into permanent friendship. Among those whose names I can now call to mind were the present Earl Digby (then Lord Coleshill), with whom I lived in the same house; His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, Lord Boringdon (afterwards Earl Morley), Lord Morpeth (father to the present Earl of Carlisle), the Duchesses of Devonshire and Ancaster, Lord Carmarthen (afterwards Duke of Leeds), Lord Cholmondely, and Mr. afterwards Earl Annesley.

During the period of my residence at Neufehatel, it was also visited by Mr. Beckford, the well-known author of “Vathek,” who made his journey in a style that would astonish the princes of the present degenerate days. His travelling *menage *consisted of about 30 horses, with four carriages, and a corresponding train of servants. Immediately upon his arrival, Mr. Beckford set up a fine yacht upon the lake, and, by his munificent hospitality, soon ingratiated himself with the young Englishmen of rank whose names I have mentioned. The friendship, however, was not of long endurance in the course of a few weeks, letters came from England to Captain Arbuthnot (Earl Digby’s tutor), as the result of which our visits to Mr. Beckford ceased.

My sojourn, during those years, in Switzerland, was attended with circumstances which, no doubt, considerably modified the future events of my life. I left Ireland with a mind freely sown with the seeds of love of country and nationality, and hatred of the oppressions imposed upon the Irish masses by the oligarchy into whose hands the legislative power had fallen. These seeds had begun to germinate under the culture of the Historical Society; their growth was not smothered at Neufchatel, Geneva, and Lausanne. In addition to the English society in which I mixed in these places, I met many officers of the Irish Brigade, [There could not be a better example of the physical advantages of crossing blood, than was afforded by these gentlemen. They were generally the offspring of Irish fathers and French mothers, and were the finest models of men I ever recollect to have seen. Morally, I regret to he obliged to say, they were fashioned somewhat too closely, in certain particulars, in the likeness of the two nations. Brave, spirited, and generous, they were also reckless, dissipated, and profuse.] who had been forced to emigrate from France, and many French patriots of the parties beaten in the struggles of the Revolution, then in the height of its most feverish paroxysm. The former of these, though sufferers in the cause of royalty, and aristocrats by nature and habits, had yet the tale to tell of their father’s expulsion from their country for opinions’ sake; the latter were glowing with the ardour of their recent contests with tyranny and despotism. Surrounded by such society, it was natural that my thoughts should dwell upon the rights of men, the abuses of party domination, and especially of that form of the latter, which had so long held Ireland back in the progress of civilization. Thus my residence in Switzerland sent me home to Ireland more Irish than ever; I lamented her fate, ardently desired to be able to aid in ameliorating it, and became filled with a passionate love of country, which neither persecutions, nor disappointments, nor even the efflux of time, have, I am happy to say, rooted out of my heart.

In the peculiar condition of Europe, and especially of Switzerland (as a neutral state), that country was the scene of many strange occurrences during the period of my visit. I have just referred to the incongruous mixture of society in the Swiss towns, where English people of fortune and rank, and the double exiles of the Irish Brigade, French royalist *emigre’s, *and repudiated revolutionary patriots, were huddled together in extraordinary, but not uninteresting confusion. Still stranger conjunctions also frequently took place. At Basle, in 1793, I remember to have frequently profited in the increase of my amusements, by the amenities of civilized war. The French under (I think) Hoche were encamped upon one bank of the Rhine, and the Austrians upon the other; but the officers of both armies frequently met, on the most friendly terms, upon the neutral ground of the coffee-houses and hotels of Basle. It was also a common pastime with us to lounge in boats upon the river, while perhaps eight or ten bands from each camp came down to the water’s edge, upon the opposite banks, and played, alternately, the *Marseillaise, *and Oh, Charles! oh, mon roi!

The French officers were very courteous, inviting the English, whose acquaintance they made, to visit their camp. I recollect availing myself of their civility, and dining and spending a very pleasant day among them; not being influenced by the same sturdy John Bullism as my late friend General Taylor, who was then among our party at Basle. He most loyally declined to accept the republican invitation to dinner, when it was intimated to him that it would be considered prudent as well as polite for the guests to mount a tri-coloured cockade in their hats for that special occasion.

The French camp was a splendid military spectacle, although (as might, indeed, be inferred from the recommendation respecting the cockade just referred to) the discipline of the troops was better adapted for the field of battle than for the cantonment. Immediately prior to the period to which I refer, Le Beau Dillon, a well-known Irish officer, who commanded that portion of the Brigade that remained in the service of the revolutionary government, was dragged out of his cabriolet and murdered by the French soldiers, upon the suspicion of his being influenced by royalist predilections. His aid-de-camp, who was in the carriage with him at the time of his murder, was my late worthy friend Pat Lattin, who immediately afterwards resigned his commission, and retired to his patrimonial estate of Morristown-Lattin, in the county of Kildare, where he lived many years, the centre of a circle of friends, whom he delighted by the brilliancy of his wit, and his eminent social qualities.

I may here anticipate so far as to note that, some some years afterwards, I was able, through the influence of my friend, Marshal Berthier, to procure from Napoleon permission for Mr. Lattin to return to Paris and reside in a house, of which he was the owner, in the Rue Trudon. This was, at the time, esteemed a very great indulgence, as all English subjects were then exposed to the most rigid treatment in France.

Among my personal adventures at Lausanne was a quarrel with a young Scotchman, named Bailey, upon the subject of the comparative merits of our respective countries, in the course of which words grew so high that Bailey challenged me to mortal combat. However, the Rev. Robert Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Ossory, but then a young man just admitted into orders, happening to be present at the dispute, interfered, and it was finally arranged that a duel ought not to take place, under the circumstances, in a foreign country, between British subjects. I was accordingly called upon to apologise, and to admit that, whereas I had said that no Scotch-man was worthy to salute an Irishman in a certain mode, more commonly made the subject of invitation than performance, I felt, upon reflection, that I was totally wrong in making any such assertion, and that I now fully recognised the fitness of all Scotch-men to aspire to such an honour. And so the affair passed off with a laugh, and Bailey and I became excellent friends.

Mr. Fowler did not, however, always distinguish himself as a peacemaker, as I recollect him, upon one occasion, to have been so excited at some revolutionary toast, proposed at a public table in Geneva, that be threw a glass of wine at the head of the Frenchman who filled the office of president - a feat which ended in the whole party spending the remainder of the night in a guard-house.

In connexion with my residence in Switzerland, I have found the following letter among some old papers, and I print it partly as being a contemporary (though slight) tracing of the life that was passing; but perhaps still more as a record, pleasing to myself of the feelings which I then entertained towards a be-loved and most estimable parent *

The Hon. V. B. Lawless to the Lady Cloncurry.*

Lausanne, June 30, 1793.

“In the midst of the pain, both of body and of mind, with which, spite of your virtues, God has been pleased to visit you, you still have, dearest and best of mothers, showed more anxiety for the well-being of me, to whom you not only gave life, but whose health you have, by so many years of care and difficulty, established, than for your own recovery, for which, if I did not perpetually beseech the Almighty, I should be truly unworthy of such a mother. How I wish for a letter, in which you will yourself assure me of your perfect re-establishment, and how I pray that, on my return to Ireland, I may see you stronger and happier than when I left you.

Be not uneasy on my account, for your parting advice made too strong an impression on me to suffer me to transgress; and my situation is otherwise much better than I could, from my circumstances, have expected. I have got a pleasant little lodging near the lake, about half a mile from town, with a little garden of fruit and vegetables, which are much better than meat during the present insufferable heats. I spend a good while every day in the bath, and at night it is impossible to go to bed, the whole air being on fire with perpetual flashes of lightning. I am almost the only Englishman in Switzerland that has not had a fever. I can’t at present think of making any tour, Meuron having so completely fleeced me before I left him, that 1 came off a third poorer than I expected.

I hope I shall be able to clothe and feed myself without running in debt - a thing I have not as yet done, though it is much the fashion here. Mr. Annesley, who my lord said had but £300 per annum, has £600, half from his father, and half from his uncle, yet he owes upwards of £200 in this town, without having ever travelled. I had already told you that £400 a-year would be enough for me whilst not travelling, and so it will; but for this I shall not be able to take one or two masters I would wish for. One of them is a Mr. Mortimer, an Englishman, acknowledged the best master in Europe for finances, eloquence, and modern history. ‘Twas he that taught Isaac Corry. He now gives lessons to Lord Morpeth, Lord Carlisle’s son, who is my neighbour, and a very accomplished, agreeable young man; and also Mr. Annesley, who, I am afraid, will not profit much. He costs a louis per week: when I am a little richer I shall take him. Otherwise Lausanne is a pleasant town, for you can have as much society as you please without being intruded on. Savoy, which is at the other side of the lake, is full of French, who often fire on boats going by. We have the English and all other newspapers here, but they contain nothing new.

Farewell, dear, dear mother; may God strengthen, and bless, and reward you, for your goodness and kindness to me,

Your ever truly affectionate and dutiful son,

V. B. Lawless.”

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