Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The Great Seal. Lattin. Browne.

Chapter VII.

**Changes observable on my Return to Ireland - Reminiscences of Friend - Lord Edward Fitzgerald - His Affectionate and Enthusiastic Character - The Earlier and the Later Designs of his Patriotism - Separation from England an Afterthought

• Its Foundation in the hopelessness of Prosperity coexisting with Political and Social Dependene - Neither Individual Men nor Nations grow to Maturity without Self-Reliance - why not adopt Lord Durham’s Colonial Policy? - Lord Edward’s Religious Sentiment - His Bravery - Refuge of Lady Edward in my Father’s House - Seizure of her Effects there - Capture of the supposed Great Seal of the Irish Republic - The True History of that Instrument - Curious Error in Treasonmongering and in Contemporary History - Reversal of Lord Edward’s Attainder, and my Trusteeship of his Estate - William Duke of Leinster - His Political Views - Efforts of the Government to drive him into War - Outrages committed on him, and their Favourable Effects upon his Fortune - Arthur O’Connor - Character of the Movement of which he and Edward Fitzgerald were Types - Patriots of those Days Men of Substance and Independene - Archibald Hamilton Rowan - His Personal Characteristics - His Chivalry - Letters from- Pedestrian Tour in company with him and Sir Thomas Frankland - An Interview with Sir Richard Arkwright - Rowan’s Social Position - His Means of Livelihood in America - Our Last Interview - Thomas Addis Emmett - M’Nevin - Bond - Sampson - Robert Emmet - General Lawless - His Narrow Escape - His Success in France - Letters; from Chancellor Ponsonby; from General Lawlass - The Rebel General Aylmer - His eventful History - Curran - His brilliant Social Qualities - His Decline after the Union - Misunderstanding between him and George Ponsonby - Monument to Amelia Curran - Grattan - His Transplantation to the English House of Commons - His Opinion of the Union - Political Lesson deducible from that Measure - Letter from Grattan - Patrick Lattin - Wogan Brown - His Dismissal from the Magistracy for kicking Football - His Narrow Escape from being Hanged - Characteristic of Irish Misfortune exhibited at his Funeral.**

Many sad events had occurred in Ireland during my lengthened absence. Upon my return, many a gap was visible in the ranks of my friends and associates.

Of those whom I had left, in 1797, full of hope for the future of their country, some had been roughly cut off in mid-career; others were in exile or captivity; the remnant were sunk into despair and apathy. I had left Ireland a nation containing within her society, it is true, the germs of corruption and dissolution, but yet from the slough of placehunting, and sycophancy, and base subserviency, in which they are plunged - no means of restoring self-reliance and mutual confidence to Irishmen - save in a measure which should lessen her dependence for support upon a parasitic connexion with a greater political body, and force her to put forth roots and branches sufficient for her own sustenance. Who that has known an Irish squirearch family, has not seen a brother or uncle, a Master Tom or a Master Dick, who, for 60 years of solar time, has been an occupant of the Hall or Castle, yet, in the estimation of himself and all around, is still a frolicsome or stupid boy, whom no one would think of trusting with any duty more important than that of mixing punch, or purveying game for the family table?

Would those ancient and indiscreet youths have continued in their state of feeble nonage, had the severance of their parasitic connexion with the parent stem forced them to exert their energies in the battle of life? The whole Irish nation, great and small, seems to me but an aggregate of Master Toms and Master Dicks, whom political and social dependence - hand-feeding to-day, and snubbing and whipping to-morrow - has kept in a condition of boyish immaturity and feebleness. There are in the dark caverns of the Styrian mountains, animals that have grown and grown in their embryo state, until they have far overpassed the ordinary standard of their size; but, wanting the maturing operation of the sun’s rays, they have never become developed into the perfection of their kind. So it is with the Irish people: they have grown into gigantic children; but deprived of the wholesome stimulus of self-government, they have never become men.

lordedward.jpg (29803 bytes)The experience of another half century has brought me to concur in the conclusion of Edward Fitzgerald [Pictured, right], that nothing short of a virtual separation between the governments of England and Ireland, as complete as that between Canada and Britain, can afford the smallest relief to those miseries into which the ill-arranged connexion has plunged both. Many signs indicate an approaching disruption of the crazy fabric of the British empire. Would to God! that the statesmanlike policy recommended by Lord Durham, in reference to our transatlantic colonies could be understood and more generally applied by our public men. A separation of the British provinces there will and must be sooner or later-probably much sooner than any one dreams of. Why should it not be made by friendly hands? Why should it not be a partition among brethren, rather than a furious and bloody scramble among incensed co-parceners in a spoil?

Among the remarkable features in Lord Edward’s character was a very strong religious belief. He was a sincere and devout Christian, and a steadfast member of the Protestant Church, in which he had been brought up. I have had opportunities of witnessing attempts, persevering and repeated, to shake his convictions on these matters, but they were always unattended with success, although manifestly productive of much pain to his affectionate heart. These religious feelings, acting in combination with his strong love of country, and anxious desire to relieve the sufferings of his fellow-countrymen, impressed upon his patriotism a character of solemn enthusiasm that supplied the place of commanding talent, and well fitted him for influencing men. It is to this peculiarity, perhaps, that the veneration which still attaches to his name in Ireland, is, in a great degree, to be attributed.

One other popular quality was also possessed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, in a remarkable degree: he was brave to a fault. The events of his early military life, as well as those of his closing scene, sufficiently establish his courage and spirit: but I may mention an occurrence which I recollect showed those qualities off to the great admiration of the populace. He happened, on one occasion, while troops were encamped upon the Curragh of Kildare, to ride across the field dressed in a green neckcloth. This obnoxious garment was noticed by four or five officers, who approached the wearer, and ordered him in an insulting manner to remove it. Lord Edward replied by inviting the whole party together, or singly, to come and take the handkerchief from his neck, if they dared. The invitation was respectfully declined, and the parties slunk back into their mess-tent, before which his lordship rode back and forward several times.

secondseal.gif (9615 bytes)At the time of Lord Edward’s arrest, his wife (the well-known Pamela) had taken refuge with my sisters; and was, at the time, in my father’s house in Merrion-street, though without his knowledge. She was pursued there by the police in search of papers; and some which she had concealed in her bedroom were discovered and seized. Among other prizes taken, I believe, upon this occasion, was a seal, pronounced by the *quid nuncs *of the Castle to be the intended great seal of the Irish republic. In Appendix, No. 23, of the Report of the Secret Committee of the Irish House of Commons, printed in 1799, there is an engraving of the impression of this seal “found in the custody of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, when he was apprehended,” [Report from Committee of Secrecy, pp. 32 and 94.] together with the following description - “In a circle, Hibernia holding in her right hand an imperial crown over a shield. On her left hand is an Irish harp, over it a dagger, and at its foot lie two hogs.”

It was but lately that this engraving, and its inscription, fell under my notice, when in the former, much to my surprise, I recognised an old acquaintance, the little history of which may be amusing now, when the treasonmongering mistake it discloses is no longer likely to open a path to the scaffold.

The seal which the Committee of Secrecy looked upon with so much horror, was a cast from an original cut for me by Strongitharm, the celebrated gem engraver, during one of my earliest visits to London. The device is a harp, from which Britannia (not Hibernia) has removed with the right hand, not an imperial but an Irish crown, and planted a dagger in its stead. Her left hand is represented as breaking the strings of the harp; at the foot of which lie, not two hogs, but two Irish wolf dogs sleeping at their post. All this is very plain to be seen, even in the vignette of the Secret Committee. Britannia is arrayed in her ordinary helmet; and her shield, bearing the cross of St. George, lies beside her; the crown in her hand is as unlike the imperial crown as can well be imagined; it is manifestly the old Irish pointed diadem. [Pictured, above. Committee of Secrecy Seal is at the end of the chapter.]

The seal itself was not designed for the broad seal of the Irish, or of any other republic; but was simply a fancy emblem which I chose to illustrate my patriotic enthusiasm; just as the oak tree, with its motto of “Quiet good sense,” which I have already described, was selected for the device of *his *seal, by my friend John Reeves, in typification of his ultra-toryism. From the original, which is a fine cornelian, and is still in my possession, I had a few casts made in glass, by Tassie of Leicester-square - a well-known artist of the day. One of these casts, given by me to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, became renowned in story under the *imprimatur *of the Committee of Secrecy. In order to relieve poor Strongitharm’s memory from the stain of having his Britannia mistaken for Hibernia, and his dogs for hogs, I have had the engraving of the Committee copied in the annexed vignette. Of the identity of the two seals the curious reader may satisfy himself, by comparing the vignette on this page with that at the end of the chapter, which exhibits my original design. It will serve to commemorate a curious instance of a foregone conclusion, and to express, not inaptly even now, my own views of the dealings of Britannia with her sister.

Of the dying moments of Edward Fitzgerald, I, of course, had no personal knowledge; but when he was subsequently attainted, I wrote to the tenants upon his small estate, and, as the result, not a farthing of rent was ever paid by them to the crown. This barren acquisition was subsequently relinquished: the attainder was reversed, through the exertions of the present Duke of Leinster, and the estate vested in myself, as trustee, for Lord Edward’s children.

In connexion with this slight notice of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, I may say a word or two of his brother, William Duke of Leinster. This nobleman, although deeply imbued with the liberal and patriotic feelings which have ever distinguished his family, was in no way connected with any of the secret projects of the national party. He was, upon every occasion, ready to take his constitutional place, as the first of the Irish nobility, in fighting the battle of the country in parliament, but was not driven, by the unconstitutional triumphs of venality and corruption in that arena, to change the scene of conflict. Yet, everything that could be done was done to force him to the adoption of that alternative. When Lord Edward became obnoxious to the law, Leinster House was ransacked in the most insulting manner, in a search for criminatory documents; and when the rebellion broke out, a number of the houses in the Duke’s town of Kildare were wantonly burned, and several of his tenants hung upon the elm trees in the avenue leading to his house at Carton.

It is a curious fact, that both these brutal outrages involved incidents productive of very considerable advantages to the subject of them. By the burning of the houses in Kildare, a wholesale clearance of an idle and mischievous tenantry was effected, much to the benefit of the property, but which his Grace’s kindness of heart prevented him from accomplishing. Among the tenants hanged, to annoy the landlord rather than to punish the immediate sufferers, was, I believe, a man upon the fall of whose life a number of leases expired, and a considerable addition to the Duke’s income immediately accrued. So short-sighted do men often show themselves, in doing the bidding of their evil passions, no less than in their attempts to accomplish good.

My old friend, Arthur O’Connor, is, I am happy to say, not only alive, but actively engaged in the preparation of memoirs of his long and eventful life. He will tell his own tale ; but I cannot write his name upon the same page with that of Edward Fitzgerald without reflecting upon the peculiar character of the national movement of which these two men were types and leaders. In casting in their lot with those who desired to reform and regenerate their country, and who, in pursuit of that end, went the extreme length of treason, both O’Connor and Fitzgerald proved their sincerity by putting in jeopardy the most enviable positions which men could attain to in Irish society. To both, the road to high station and wealth was open; both unhesitatingly struck off into a narrower path, that seemed to lead them towards the good service of Ireland, but that eventually conducted the one to exile and disinheritance, and the other to a violent death. Arthur O’Connor would have inherited the estate, and, in all probability, the title of his uncle, Lord Longueville, whose borough he represented in parliament, had he followed his Lordship in supporting the government: his sincere conviction was, that to do so would be to oppose the cause of his country, and he acted in accordance with that conviction.

I have said that O’Connor and Fitzgerald were types of the movement in which they led; and so it was, in fact. The Irish patriot leaders of those days were, almost without exception, men of substance and station. *Pro patria mori *did not then mean an apotheosis to a secretary’s office, or to a seat on the bench, or to a poor-law vice-guardianship. Men staked on the cause of their country, property, and liberty, and life: the cry of “Places, Places” for poor patriots had not then preoccupied the public ear.

An instance strongly in point to the observation I have just made, was afforded by another of my early friends. If ever knight-errantry was realised in ancient or modern days, it was so in Archibald Hamilton Rowan. Endowed with a figure of the grandest proportions, he possessed a mind guileless and romantic to a degree that, if depicted in a novel, would be looked upon as forced and incredible. Confident in his great strength and courage, and prompted by his generous feelings, he was always ready to undertake the redressal of the wrongs of distressed damsels, or of the needy and oppressed of either sex; it was not, therefore, matter of wonder that he should have devoted himself with a hearty enthusiasm to the cause of the relief of his suffering country. He did so in the purest spirit of patriotism, and with the most entire disregard of his personal interests; and, up to his last moments, like feelings continued to influence him. The following letters show how he still felt towards the close of his long career, even though the signs of the working of time are manifest upon them:- *

Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Es g., to Lord Cloncurry.*

Killyleagh, 13th November, 1830.

“My dear Lord - In my eightieth year, and retired, as well as forgotten by the busy world, except by a few like yourself, it was with pride and pleasure I received your letter [in answer] to Mr. Murphy’s circular letter, because it seems to me that we agree, that the question of the principle of every country being governed by its natives, who can best know its wants, nor the necessity of the legislative union being dissolved [will not be compromised], by waiting to see the effects of Sir H. Hardinge’s motions. I therefore send you (the only. copy I have given) of a letter I wrote to him this week.

I am, my dear friend, your sincere friend,

Arch. Hamilton Rowan.” *

Copy of a Letter to Sir Henry Hardinge.*

Castle of Killyleagh, County Down, Ireland,

10th Nov., 1830.

“Sir - Having the nomination of the seneschal of this manor, I yesterday signed a notice, to be posted in the news-room of this town, advising the inhabitants to invite the seneschal to call a meeting of those in his district who might be of opinion that parliament, constituted as it is, would assuage the present ferment, by passing some laws, and repealing others, which press upon the people, and are, in reality, a disgrace to a country, enjoying the same constitution, the same laws, and the same king, from which may we never be separated.

But, by the papers of this day, I find that you have given a notice of your intention of pursuing that course in parliament. I have this day withdrawn the notice I alluded to, and remain, very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

A. Hamilton Rowan.” *

Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Es q., to Lord Cloncurry.*

Rathcoffey, 2d May, 1834.

“My Lord - I send you a copy of the original charter of the borough of Killyleagh; from it you will perceive that all the inhabitants of that town are freemen, but, by the purchase of government from Mr. Blackwood, are deprived of that invaluable right, of being represented in the imperial parliament.

It is in their favour alone I wish for your interference (should their petition be presented, and you be in the house), without any reference to my claim, except as a friend of those who are thus disfranchised. Scarcely able to hold a pen,

I remain yours, most sincerely,

Arch. Hamilton Rowan.”

Those who remember the streets of Dublin 30 years since, can scarcely have forgotten that gigantic old man, in his old-fashioned dress, and with his following of the two last of the race of Irish wolf-dogs. His appearance then, however, could scarcely convey a notion of what he was some five-and-twenty years earlier, when he and I made a pedestrian tour of England together, and when, as I well remember, his practice at starting from our inn, of a wet morning, was to roll himself into the first pool he met, in order that he might be beforehand with the rain. [Rowan and I were accompanied upon this pedestrian tour by Sir Thomas Frankland, and a pleasant party we made. Frankland was a man of very considerable ability; but what he chiefly valued himself upon, was his lineal descent from Oliver Cromwell, a fact with which he assailed Sir Richard Arkwright, much to the astonishment of that ingenious knight. In passing through Derbyshire, we were desirous of visiting Sir Richard’s factory, and accordingly presented ourselves at his door, and sent in our names, requesting permission to see the works. The old gentleman was not, I believe, very willing to submit the niceties of his machinery to the public gaze, and he certainly showed us no particular courtesy. We were kept waiting in the hall for a considerable time; and when, at length, Sir Richard made his appearance, in his morning gown and nightcap, the permission he gave us to enter his factory was a very gruff and unwilling one. We, nevertheless, made use of it; but not before Frankland had read Sir Richard a lecture upon his discourtesy and failure in the respect that was proper to be shown by a person in his position to a gentleman who, like himself, was a descendant of the great Protector. The old barber treated the house of Cromwell with great contempt, but he did not withdraw the leave he had granted to us to see his looms.]

The laurels were then fresh which he had won by the performance of a grand feat, under the eyes of *Marie Antoinette, *and of which he was not a little proud. He had run a foot race, in presence of the whole French court, in jack-boots, against an officer of the *Garde de Corps, *dressed in light shoes and silk stockings, and had won with ease, to the great admiration of the queen, who honoured him with special marks of her regard.

When I first knew Rowan, he was master of a fortune of full £5,000 a-year, upon which, however, his philanthropic escapades caused heavy drafts. He had always some adventure upon hands; and two or three of these, in which he rescued distressed damsels from the snares and force of ravishers of rank, made a good deal of noise at the time; the particulars being made known by means of a private printing-press, which he kept in his house, ready for such occasions. While he was obliged to take refuge in America, he was frequently in pecuniary distress, owing to the uncertainty with which remittances reached him from home; and I recollect his telling me, that he was for a good part of the time indebted for a livelihood to his mechanical knowledge, which was very considerable, and enabled him to take charge of a cotton factory in New York.

The last time I saw him was at his house of Rathcoffey, in the county of Kildare, where I went for the purpose of introducing to him Lady Campbell, the daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who was on a visit at Lyons. He was unable to leave his room, and but the mummy of the former Archibald Hamilton Rowan; yet that the spirit of the *preux chevalier, *who had won the smiles of the Queen of France, still lived in that skeleton, was abundantly manifested in the affectionate gallantry with which he received and greeted the daughter of his early associate and friend.

With both the Emmetts, and with M’Nevin, Bond, and Sampson, I was familiarly acquainted; and I can say of all four, with equal truth, that they were altogether uninfluenced by mean or sordid motives; and that, by the part they took, they made sacrifices of property and station not inferior to those of the leaders whose names I have already mentioned, although their different position in life rendered the circumstance less remarkable. Thomas Addis Emmett was a barrister, with good prospects; Dr. M’Nevin was a physician in considerable practice; and Bond and Sampson were, the former a merchant, and the latter a respectable member of the bar.

When I left Ireland, in 1797, Robert Emmett was a mere boy, but full of talent, enthusiasm, and kind feeling. Both brothers dined with me in Paris the day before Robert returned to Ireland for the last time previous to his fatal outbreak; and although that catastrophe was not then thought of, I remember the most urgent entreaties being vainly used by his friends, to dissuade him from a visit, which all felt to be full of danger to him, and the sad consummation of which so fully justified those gloomy forebodings.

To some of those Irishmen who were forced to fly from their country by the events of ‘97 and ‘98, their exile was but the opening of a career more brilliant than that from which they had been removed, and in the fortunate list I may, perhaps, include General William Lawless. This gentleman, who was a distant relative of my own, was a medical man, in good practice in Dublin, and a professor in the College of Surgeons. He, however, fell very early under the suspicion of the government, and with great difficulty made his escape, getting, as I have heard, on board a vessel, in the disguise of a butcher’s man, and carrying a side of beef upon his shoulder. He did, nevertheless, get safely to France, and having entered the army, in due time rose to the rank of major-general. The blot in his fortune was the loss of a leg at Flushing, but he lived many years after that occurrence, and was in good consideration with Bonaparte, and his soldier-noblesse.

In connexion with his name, the following letters may, even at this distance of time, not be devoid of interest:- *

Chancellor Ponsonby to Lord Cloncurry.*

[Private and confidential.]

Ely-Place, January 21st, 1807.

“My dear Lord - I trust you need not be assured how happy I shall always feel in being able to comply with any wish of yours, and I shall therefore do all in my power to serve Mr. Lawless in the way you desire, but I must at the same time apprise you, that I have already interested myself for Mr. Jackson and for Mr. Sweetman, and therefore, in justice to them, cannot allow my application for Mr. Lawless to interfere; but if I can *also *serve him I will, for my own opinion is, that where the person applying to be restored to his country is one of irreproachable private character, and the *sincerity *of his professions of attachment to its government can be depended on, he ought to be allowed to return. I am, my dear Lord, with great respect and regard,

Your faithful, humble servant,

Geo. Ponsonby, C.” *

General Lawless to Lord Cloncurry*

[Extract]

Paris, 15th August, 1815.

“I have to acknowledge the letters confided to Sir Charles Morgan and Mr. Nolan. I profit of the latter to send this, and will again write by Lady Morgan. I like extremely this lady: she is agreeable, witty, and with as little conceit as can be found in a woman of her merit. I think of her husband just as your Lordship. From Mr. Nolan I learned much details that interested me; he is a frank, honest fellow, and he gave me a full account of the improvements and beauties of Lyons, the good consideration and respect in which the owner is held, and with how much wisdom and real philosophy he walks the rugged paths of this insignificant world. Your Lordship does not seem to have known that I enjoy the rank of mareschal-decamp, equivalent to major-general in the English service. Mr. Nolan was surprised to find me only with one leg. I thought I had communicated, long since, all these details. The English papers which I saw were very much vexed with the king for promoting me; the truth is, my commission was in Buonaparte’s *portfeuille *at the period of his first dethronement. If I had not had the misfortune to lose my leg, I should have been now lieutenant-general; however, I must not complain. If ever the common saying, “Things might be worse,” carried with it consolation for disappointment, it is in the present state of the world. I hope the accounts we have here from the other side arc exaggerated; if we are to believe the halt, it is bad enough. The situation of the *United *Kingdom must strike every [one] as not to stay as it is - it must be worse or better. The communications are now so frequent that it deprives us of the pleasure of giving news, yet I apprehend those who come see things through a very false medium. I mean to profit of Lady Morgan’s departure, and write a long letter. I must conclude this, by soliciting once more your Lordship’s patience for a very short time, and I trust I will make amends for delays and disappointments. I remain, my dear Lord, with great respect, and the truest sense of obligation,

Your servant and friend,

W. Lawless.”

A still more curious romance of real life was the history of the rebel General Aylmer, whose adventures deserve a short record. William Aylmer, the son of a tenant of Mr. Wogan Browne, who resided not far from my House of Lyons, was a lieutenant in the Kildare Militia, and was quartered with his regiment in the hutted camp formed at Loughlinstown, near Bray, in the year 1796. I was at that time in the frequent habit of going to the camp to dine with the Duke of Leinster, then colonel of the Kildare regiment, and, also, to visit General Crosbie, the chief in command.

Upon one of those occasions I was accompanied by Mr. Sampson, then a member of the Irish bar, and in the full blossom of his United-Irish sins; and then Aylmer and Sampson became acquainted, and an intimacy was begun, which ended in a full conversion of the former to the political opinions of his new friend. On the occasion alluded to, Sampson illustrated the reckless character of his zeal by privately scattering rebellious tracts as he walked through the camp after dinner. Nevertheless, he was able to influence Aylmer, who, in the course of a year afterwards, was promoted from his lieutenancy in the Royal Militia, to a general’s command in the rebel army.

In that position he maintained a struggle for a considerable time in the county of Kildare, and, finally, fought the battle of Ovidstown with so much skill, as to be able to make a capitulation with the King’s troops, under the terms of which his life was spared. After lying some time in jail, Aylmer was allowed to leave the country, and I observe among the Castlereagh papers, a letter complaining of his being permitted to be at large about the streets of London. Eventually he entered the Austrian service, in which he distinguished himself so much, that he was appointed to command the escort that attended Maria Louisa, on her return from Paris to Vienna, after the fall of Napoleon. One of the spoils of this expedition, a fowling-piece, from the Ex-Imperial Armoury, was afterwards presented to me by Aylmer, and is at present at Lyons. When the allied sovereigns visited London in t814, Aylmer accompanied the Emperor of Austria, and, upon the request of the Prince Regent, he was selected and left in England to teach the sword exercise to the British army. His immediate pupils were the 10th Dragoons, and he conducted himself so satisfactorily in his task, that he received a free pardon, and was presented with a handsome sword by the prince.

After this, Aylmer settled in his native county, where his constitutional activity led him into a quarrel with the Duke of Leinster’s gamekeepers. Much mortified at being interrupted in some of his sporting excursions over the Duke’s preserves, he complained to me, and I brought him to Carton to negotiate a peace. This visit he thought it right to make, attired in his full Austrian uniform, with sabre and helmet, a display that somewhat surprised his Grace. The pursuit of hares and partridge, however, soon ceased to interest Aylmer’s stirring mind, and he joined General Devereux in heading an expedition of Irish sympathisers, designed to aid the South American patriots, then in the beginning of their struggle under Bolivar. Soon after his arrival at the scene of action, he fell a victim, as I have heard, to an ancient love for new rum, his immoderate indulgence in which brought on a fever, that ended in his death.

Among those devoted friends of Ireland, whom her enemies failed to destroy or banish, but whose sun set together with that of their country, in the fatal Union, the most considerable were certainly Curran and Grattan, with both of whom I was for many years upon terms of the closest intimacy. Those great men have already found fitting biographers; and it is not in my power to add much to the interesting memorials of their lives, that have been given to the world by those whom nature pointed out as the most proper undertakers of such a task. The more brilliant the hours of social intercourse, the less fixed are the traces they leave upon the memory; and, pleasant as are my recollections of days and nights enlivened by the continued flashing of Curran’s exhaustless wit, or brightened by the warm glow of Grattan’s eloquence, yet feeling the entire vanity of any attempt to convey a notion of these cheering remembrances to another mind, I place the venerated names upon my page, rather as a record of friendship, than with any hope of being able to add to the light that surrounds them.

I have said that the sun of Curran’s career set with the Union; and such was the fact, although it was subsequently to that event that he attained his highest professional position. He then, indeed, became Master of the Rolls; but the spirit of hope for his country, that had formerly sustained him through many a hard struggle, no longer lived within him, or animated his political exertions. In former times he was wont to say that he “could fight for Ireland even though cut down to his jurymasts” by the persevering enmity of Lord Clare, which drove him from the Court of Chancery, and forced him into the more popular, though less profitable, channel of *nisi prius *practice. Those times had now gone by, and with them had passed away much of that lofty ambition which had raised Curran to the highest point in the affections and admiration of his fellow-countrymen. After the Union, though he never compromised a particle of political principle, yet, even to him, the idea of simple unplaced patriotism ceased to seem tenable, and he sank - by what other word can I describe Curran’s approach towards office?

• without further struggle, into the ranks of an English political faction.

As the consequence of this new direction of Curran ‘s views, an agreement was entered into between him and George Ponsonby, to the effect that the former would take the second Irish law appointment under a Whig ministry, in which the latter was to have the first - that is to say, that Curran should be Attorney-General whenever Ponsonby should be Chancellor. When the time arrived, however, this arrangement was rendered null and void by the obstinate refusal of Lord Ellenborough to act in a cabinet which should sanction the appointment of Curran as Attorney-General for Ireland. Of this circumstance no mention was made at the time by Ponsonby, nor did he communicate at all on the matter with Curran, until, at the instance of the latter, who was then on a visit at my house, a mutual friend, Mr. John Burne, wrote a letter of expostulation and inquiry to the new Chancellor. This led to an explanation, in the course of which Ponsonby told Curran that he had secured for him the Mastership of the Rolls, as a better place than the Attorney-Generalship; but that he should settle a retiring pension, I think of £500 a-year, upon the person who was then Deputy-Master of the Rolls. This Curran refused to do, declining to be a party to any transaction bearing a resemblance to the purchase of an office.

After the matter had been productive of a good deal of unpleasantness, it was finally concluded by Curran’s becoming Master of the Rolls, and George Ponsonby himself settling the pension upon the retiring deputy from his own resources-a Contingency which he ever afterwards made the subject of complaint, though unreasonably, as the original bargain, as I have stated it, was a precise and definite one, binding each party to protect the interests of the other in any negotiation for the acceptance of office. I can speak from positive knowledge that Curran ‘s own wish was to reject the compromise of the Attorney-Generalship for the Mastership of the Rolls, and that he only agreed to accept the latter place at the urgent instance of his family, and from the beginning positively refused to undertake the payment of a shilling, in the shape of compensation money, out of the proceeds of the office.

Restrained within the narrow routine of judicial duties, even Curran’s ancient patriotic ardour could scarcely have survived; damped, as it already was, by the prostration of his country, it thenceforward showed no signs of vitality, save in the low mutterings of habitual complaint.

My friendship with Curran and his family was for many years of the closest and heartiest kind. During the past year (1848) I had the melancholy satisfaction of marking my recollection of it, by causing a memorial of her own worth, and of my continued esteem, to be placed near the final resting-place of the eldest of his daughters. A tablet, designed and executed by Hogan, and bearing the following inscription, has been erected in the Church of St. Isidore, at Rome, within the last few mouths:- **

“Amelia Curran was the most

talented and virtuous daughter of

John Philpott Curran,

Who fearlessly pleaded the cause of his country and his

oppressed fellow-citizens, before corrupt judges and hostile juries.

They were true patriots.

To their memory this tablet is inscribed by

their surviving friend, Valentine, second

Lord Cloncurry.

**

The setting of Grattan’s sun in the clouds of the Union, although not less complete, was yet marked by a more prolonged twilight than that which attended the closure of the course of his great colleague and friend. Grattan was transplanted into the English legislature, and his reputation as an orator and a statesman outlived the change, but in a condition of languid vitality, incapable of effecting more than the preservation from decay of the relics of that name and genius, under whose influence Ireland had, for a short space of time, been raised into the place of a nation. That he was, himself, conscious of this fatal change in his position, was often made manifest to me in the progress of our intercourse, and that he still hoped for a *renaissance *for his country and himself was pretty plainly shown in a few words of his answer to a deputation, of which I was a member, together with the late Sir George Cockburn, and one or two others, which waited upon him, for the purpose of inviting him to stand for the city of Dublin:- “Gentlemen,” he said, “the best advice I can give my fellow-citizens upon every occasion is, to keep knocking at the Union.”

The advice, however, was all that the liberator of the legislation and commerce of his country could then give to Ireland; the corruption of the English government, and the venality of Irishmen, had broken his spirit, as it had demolished the structure of freedom and national independence he had raised at so great a cost of talent and labour. Grattan did not, with his own hand, “Knock at the Union;” and when his advice seemed to be acted upon, the blows given were but runaway knocks - the feeble efforts of idle disturbers or of passing place-beggars. That his advice was as sound as I know it was sincere, the state of Ireland, after half a century of Union with England, is sufficient proof - torn and distracted by civil and religious strife, and yet sunk into a slough of despondence and political apathy, from which the physical suffering of all classes, from the peer to the peasant, cannot rouse her, our unhappy country presents a spectacle of warning to the world; showing to the nations the folly of purchasing even existence at the cost of national independence, and, more instructive still, teaching the strong, in a lesson that cannot be misunderstood, how heavy a punishment surely attends the crime of national oppression.

Ireland sinks into a despair that may be the forerunner of desperate activity, as the result of the sale of her independence and the attendant abrogation of her responsibility as a nation; England groans and faints under the load of obligations which her dishonest purchase of the liberties of Ireland has entailed upon her. For political as for moral sin there is but one mode of honourable expiation - a penitent and ample restitution. In the matter of the Poynings sin, and of those committed in the commercial legislation of the parliament of William III., Grattan officiated as grand penitentiary-unhappily for Ireland there has not yet arisen a successor in the office.

The following note is the only autograph of Grattan I can find among my papers. It was written in reply to a letter of mine sympathising with him upon his escape from a savage attack made upon him in the streets of the capital of the country for which he had done so much, upon the occasion of his being chaired, after his election as one of the representatives for the city of Dublin in the imperial parliament:- *

The Right Hon. Henry Grattan to Lord Cloncurry.*

Tinnehinch, July 24, 1818.

“My dear Cloncurry - I should have thanked you before, but was forbidden to write. My eye is now recovered, and lives to see my friends, and to thank them, among whom I am proud to count my old friend, though a young man, Cloncurry. It was an odd event, but to me singularly fortunate. Remember me to Lady Cloncurry, and to Douglas when you see him.

Yours, most truly,

H. Grattan.”

While recalling recollections of early friends, I must not omit the names of two of the earliest-Patrick Lattin and Wogan Browne.

Of the story of the former, I have already mentioned a few particulars. When he quitted the Irish Brigade, after the murder of le beau Dillon, he settled at his house of Morristown-Lattin, and was thence-forward, to the close of his life, almost constantly a near neighbour and a frequent guest of mine at Lyons. He was one of a race now, I believe, extinct. A genuine Irishman in heart and person, his service in France, as an officer of the Irish Brigade, had added to his natural gaiety and warmth of feeling the polish and gallantry of a French gentleman, while his manly figure was set off in full perfection by the air and habits of a soldier of the old school. Light-hearted and joyous, the brilliancy of his wit was never clouded, nor his enjoyment of present mirth ever damped by thoughts of the morrow. When his purse was full he drew upon it without scruple, to gratify his taste for pleasure, or to help a friend; when it was empty, I have known him to sit down, and, in three months’ work, to complete a translation of the *Henriade, *in order that he might relieve the necessities of an *emigre *friend with the proceeds of its publication. In the one case and in the other, he was equally blithe, and victorious over care.

What a sparkling collision of wit marked the meetings of Lattin and Curran; and yet his amusing powers seemed still more striking when, at his own house in Paris (where I met him in 1805), he told his tales and launched his repartees alternately in French and English, to the mixed audiences which he used there to assemble round him. No thing, and no person, capable of being made the subject of pleasantry, ever escaped; and yet when a blow was given, it was with a skill and lightness that rendered it harmless to the object. Upon one of those occasions, I recollect a M. de Montmorency, whose Christian name was Anne, making his appearance, and announcing that he was enabled to return to France, in consequence of the First Consul having scratched out his name on the list of *emigres. *“A present done,” observed Lattin, “mon cher Anne, tu es un zebre --- un ane rayée.”

In one of his hours of industrial activity, Lattin wrote a pamphlet in support of the Catholic claims, which brought him into collision with the notorious Dr. Patrick Duigenan. That zealous partisan replied to Lattin’s brochure with so much of his wonted brutal ferocity, as to place himself within the reach of the law as a libeller. Lattin brought an action against him in Westminster Hall, and was awarded damages to the amount (I think) of £500, by an English jury. This result was the basis of a standing joke between Lattin and me. When he had written the original pamphlet, and shown it to me, he had said he was not then in funds to publish it, which I undertook to do, jestingly conditioning my outlay with a claim for half the profits. I used, accordingly, to demand from him a moiety of the damages, as being part of the proceeds of the venture.

Lattin died in Paris about 10 years since.

Wogan Browne, whom I have also already mentioned, as having been associated with me in an attempt to convene a public meeting in opposition to the Union, was a gentleman of good fortune in the county of Kildare, and the builder and owner of Castle Browne, now occupied as a Jesuit seminary, and known by the name of Clongowes Wood. He was a man of an extremely amiable disposition, and filled with the most ardent love for his country, and the most earnest desire to do his duty in all the relations of life. To what base uses such qualities might bring their possessor in Ireland in those days, will appear from the following anecdotes.

Living on the borders of Kildare, Meath, and Dublin, and fully qualified by his property and position, Wogan Browne was a magistrate for the three counties, and was at once highly popular and irreproachable in the performance of his magisterial duties. It happened, nevertheless, some time about the beginning of the year 1797, that he was, one Sunday, riding past a field where the country people were about to bold a football match. The whole assembly, of course, recognised, and paid their respects to him; and, at their request, he got off his horse, and opened the sports by giving the ball the first kick-a sort of friendly sanctioning of the amusements of their neighhours, which was then not unusual among the gentry in Ireland. The custom, however, was not approved of by the government; and Lord Chancellor Clare, upon being informed of what Wogan Browne had done, at once superseded him from the commission of the peace. He was afterwards restored by Chancellor Ponsonby, upon the accession of the ministry of “All the Talents;” but was again, without further cause, deprived of his commission for two of the counties, by Lord Chancellor Manners. This stupid insult, both to the individual and to the body of magistrates - for if Mr. Browne *was *unfit to be a justice of the peace for two counties, it was an insult to associate him with the magistrates of a third-was warmly resented by the gentry of Kildare, a large number of whom were only prevented from resigning their commissions by the earnest entreaties of Browne himself.

The facts of this case, though trifling in themselves, are highly significant of the relations that subsisted between the government and the magistracy, as well as of those which the former wished to subsist between the magistracy and the people. They show how frail was an independent gentleman’s tenure of honours revocable by the government. Another occurrence in the history of Wogan Browne shows how precarious was the hold which in those days such a man enjoyed of his life. He was, in the same year of ‘98, seized as a rebel, in the street of Naas, his county town, by some hostile soldiers, and a rope placed about his neck, for the purpose of hanging him, when the accidental arrival of a dragoon, with a letter addressed to him by the Lord Lieutenant, on public business, interrupted his captors in their work of murder.

Wogan Browne died at Castle Browne, about 20 years ago; and the final scene was again an illustration of a miserable phase of Irish society. He had been himself a Protestant; but his brother, who was a general in the Saxon service, and his sister, who, indeed, was a nun, were Roman Catholics. Upon these respective grounds, the two parties among his neighbours claimed the right of interring his body according to their particular customs; and they fought out the quarrel in the churchyard, over his coffin. Which party prevailed, I now forget; but this I know, that no man ever was buried, who, during life, exhibited or entertained less of sectarian rancour, or whose living feelings were less in unison with the passions that signalised his funeral.

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