Addison. George I. Dean Wfit. Drapier's Letter.

Chapter XI.

1713-1759.

Anecdote of Addison - Parliament in 1713 - George 1. - The Court of Appeal - Statute 6 George I. to bind Ireland - Effect of Statute of William III. - Depressed Irish Trade - Dean Swift’s Advice - Legend of Minerva and Arachne - Wood’s Coinage - The Drapier’s Letters - The Irish Club - A Satire on the House of Lords.

It appears that during this session, Addison, then secretary to the viceroy and member for Cavan, showed how sometimes the gift of public speaking was wanting to the literary genius. It also happens that the gifted orator is by no means a ready writer, and this is instanced in the case of Henry Grattan. Addison having risen in the House to address the Irish Commons, had only said, “I conceive, Sir,” when he was mute. After a brief pause he again said, “Mr. Speaker, I conceive,” when he found himself wholly unable to continue. Cries of “Hear! hear!” brought him again on his legs, when he repeated, “I conceive, Sir,” and was once more at a loss how to proceed. He sat down amid stifled merriment, which broke forth into shouts of laughter when an honourable member said, “Sir, the member for Cavan has conceived three times, but brought forth *nothing.” *

It is seldom any good deed is attributed to the Earl of Wharton, but his selection of Mr. Brodrick to succeed Sir Richard Pyne as Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench in 1719, is instanced as a good deed. “He obtained that high post for one of the most worthy patriots of that kingdom as an instance of the care he took of the security of religion and liberty.” [Life of the Earl of Wharton.]

Mr. Brodrick was then knighted, and, as Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, called to the Upper House. On leaving the Commons on 20th May 1709, the following resolution was adopted:- “That the thanks of this House be given to the ‘Right Honourable Alan Brodrick, late Speaker of this House, and now Lord Chief Justice of her Majesty’s Court of Queen’s Bench, for his faithful and eminent services performed to this House, in the Chair, and during the time of his being Speaker;” and the Lord Mayor and Mr. Serjeant Caulfield were ordered to attend his lordship and acquaint him with the vote of thanks of the House. [Com. Jour. Ir. Vol. ii, p. 644].

So high a compliment could not fail of being very acceptable. The reply of the chief justice was as follows:-” I am extremely sensible of this great honour done me, as I always have been of the goodness of the House of Commons in supporting me in the discharge of the trust they were pleased to repose in me’; and I can’t sufficiently acknowledge their favour, or express the satisfaction I feel, that the witnesses of my behaviour during so many sessions of Parliament have unanimously approved of it, and given an uncontrovertible testimony of my having, in all instances, to the best of my power, done my duty to the Crown, the House of Commons, and the kingdom in England.” [Com. Jour. Ir. Vol. ii, p. 647.]

The separation between him and his brother members in the Commons was not of long duration. At this time the judges held their seats at the king’s, or rather the ministers’ pleasure, and a change of administration having occurred shortly after this, the ministry deprived Sir Alan Brodrick of the chief justiceship of the Queen’s Bench, to make room for Sir Robert Cox. A dissolution of Parliament took place on 6th May 1713, and new writs being is sued, Sir Alan Brodrick was returned one of the knights of the shire of Cork. The Duke of Shrewsbury opened the new Parliament on the 25th November following; and the Commons having re-elected their former Speaker, in the course of the usual speech announcing this fact, the Speaker shortly, but clearly, defines the duties of the office. To collect readily the true sense of a numerous assembly, to form the same into questions, in order to their final resolution, and to present their conclusions, declarations, and petitions to your Grace in the best manner, and with full advantage, is part of the duty which that man undertakes who is hardy enough to accept so ordinary a province; and the sense I have of my own imperfections and disabilities makes me tremble when I reflect on the difficulties under which learned, experienced, and wise men have laboured in the Chair of that House. But when I consider that my endeavours to serve her Majesty and this kingdom in the Chair of a former Parliament were so acceptable to, and approved by, the whole House of Commons, that they were pleased to express their sense of them by a signal mark of their respect, after I had ceased to be a member of their House; when I consider that, out of many gentlemen of great abilities and knowledge in the laws and methods of Parliament, the Commons have now again judged me capable of filling the Chair to their expectation, I have not put my own fears and diffidence of myself in balance with their superior judgment.”

He then went on to express strong hopes of unanimity, and that the warmest contest might be who should show most zeal in duty to the queen, adherence to the constitution in Church and State, and useful to the viceroy’s person and government. [Com. Jour. Ir. Vol. ii. P. 747.]

The chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps, and the Speaker, were at this time very bitter foes, so the chancellor merely informed the Speaker in very curt terms “that the viceroy acquiesced in the choice of the House of Commons.” Sir Alan Brodrick was not long left in the Chair. On the death of Queen Anne, George I. became King of Great Britain and Ireland, and one of his first acts was to create Sir Alan Brodrick Lord Chancellor of Ireland, with the title of Viscount Middleton. He was blamed for not influencing his son, a member of Parliament, to support the Government, who desired to repeal the Test Act, which his son stoutly opposed. Yet such conduct deserves praise, not blame. I find, in an article on the “Peels of Manchester,” [London Society, vol. ix. p.175.] **the first Sir Robert Peel intimated difference of opinion between him and his gifted son, the second Sir Robert, on the subject of the Currency Bill. In presenting a petition signed by many leading merchants of London, praying the rejection of the Bill introduced by his son, Sir Robert said: “To-night I shall have to oppose a very near and dear relation; but while it is my own sentiment that I have a duty to perform, I respect those who do theirs, and who consider that duty to be paramount to all other considerations.”

The son in reply was equally graceful. Referring to the difficulties which he had to encounter in bringing forward his measure, he remarked: “Not the least is one which it pains me to observe - I mean the necessity I am under of opposing myself to an authority to which I have always bowed from my youth upward, and to which I hope I shall always continue to bow with deference. My excuse now is, that I have a great public duty imposed upon me, and that whatever may be my private feeling, from that duty I must not shrink.”

While Sir Ralph Gore was Speaker, he was appointed one of the lords justices in the absence of the viceroy, Lord Carteret, in 1730, and a reprieve he granted gave rise to a curious question of criminal law.

On the death of Queen Anne, the House of Hanover supplied a monarch for Great Britain and Ireland in the person of George I. At this time the relations of the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland were not friendly. The difference respecting the House of Lords as the Court of Ultimate Appeal in legal matters was marked. While the English lords considered they were to decide, the Irish lords, acting on the opinion of the Irish judges, held they, and they alone, could decide on cases of appeal from the Irish Courts. The English Parliament resolved to teach the Irish lords a lesson. So by statute 6 George I. it was made law, that not only was the House of Lords in England the Court of Ultimate Appeal in all cases tried in the Irish Courts, but that the Parliament of Great Britain had full power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, because the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England.

While the Parliament of Great Britain was thus asserting its superiority over Ireland, this country was hampered by the shackles upon her trade, effected by the Acts of William III. No doubt these Acts were pressed at the instance of English traders, but some regard ought to have been shown to Ireland, which was then consigned to a terrible state of poverty and want.

The statutes of William III., which destroyed the woollen manufacture of Ireland, and the restrictions on Irish navigation, induced Dean Swift to make a vigorous effort to arouse a regard for national industry in Ireland. He accordingly published “a proposal for the universal use of Irish manufactures in cloth and furniture of houses, utterly refusing and renouncing everything wearable which comes from England. He mentions the saying of some person who suggested to Dr. Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam, that everything that came from England should be burned, except the people and the coals.”

The dean would prefer the people staying in their own country, and the coal mines of Ireland made more productive. Ovid’s legend of Minerva and Arachne seemed to the dean so *apropos *to the state of England and Ireland, that he referred to how the goddess Minerva, hearing the great fame of the spinster Arachne, resolved on a contest as to which could best spin. On the trial of skill, the goddess, jealous of her rival, condemned her to become a spider, and to be perpetually spinning from her own bowels. The dean considered Ireland much worse treated than Arachne, because the woollen substance of the bowels of Ireland was absorbed by England without being allowed to weave or spin. When the reign of George II. commenced in great hostility to the English Government, this monarch had granted a patent for the coinage of copper money to an ironmonger of Wolverhampton named Wood. This patent being granted, the money coined without reference to the Irish Parliament, causing national resentment, and the money being regarded as inferior, made all classes in Ireland refuse its circulation. The attempt to circulate Wood’s coinage caused Dean Swift to write the celebrated Drapier’s Letters Not content with denouncing Wood and his money, the dean, in his fourth letter, argued that the kingdom of Ireland was quite as independent of England as England was of Ireland. He referred to Molyneux as a greater authority, and the power of the Drapier Letters caused such a spirit of discontent against the Government, instructions were given to prosecute the printer, on the ground the letters tended to stir up enmity between England and Ireland. Public feeling, however, defeated the effort. Though Chief Justice Whitshed made every effort to induce the grand jury of the city of Dublin to find a bill of indictment, they refused to do so, and therefore there was no criminal trial. An attempt, however, was made to suppress the Drapier Letters; for though they were published anonymously, the dean was supposed to be the author, and became the idol of the people. The Duke of Grafton, then viceroy, and the Irish executive resolved to prosecute the printer, and Whitshed, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, presided at the trial of Waters, the printer, and sent back the jury *nine times, *in order to make them, if possible, return a verdict of guilty. They would not do so. By way of a compromise between the arbitrary conduct of the chief justice and their consciences, they found a special verdict; and the viceroy, on receiving instructions from England, directed the attorney-general to enter a *noli prosequi, *and Waters was no further tried. The dean is always regarded as a true patriot, and should we have our Irish Parliament restored, I hope his advice respecting the use of Irish manufactured goods may be acted on. I also hope the essays of Thomas Davis may be followed, as they contain most excellent suggestions for the youth of Ireland.

The dean evidently refers to the prosecution of the printer in his satire on the House of Lords:

“Ye paltry underlings of state,

Ye senators who love to prate,

Ye rascals of inferior note, *

Who for a dinner sell a vote; *

Ye pack of pensionary peers,

Whose fingers itch for poet’s ears;

Ye bishops, far removed from saints,

Why all this rage? why these complaints?

Why against printers all this noise,

This summoning of blackguard boys?

Take my advice to make you safe,

I know a shorter way by half.

The point is plain, remove the cause,

Defend your liberties and laws.

Be sometimes to your country true,

Have once the public good in view;

Bravely despise champagne at court,

And choose to dine at home with port;

Let prelates, by their good behaviour,

Convince us they believe a Saviour;

Nor sell what they so dearly bought,

This country, now their own, for nought.

Ne’er did a true satiric muse

Virtue or innocence abuse;

And ‘tis against poetic rules

To rail at men by nature fools.”

[*Evidently alluding to the recent statute 6 Geo. I.]

Having thus lashed the peers, the House of Commons received a touch of the same brush:

“As I stroll the city, oft I

Spy a building large and lofty,

Not a bow-shot from the College,

Half the globe from sense and knowledge.”

The Parliament House on College Green was only the space of Westmoreland Street from Trinity College, Dublin.

The venality of the members was such as to merit this reproach:

“In the porch Briareus stands,

Shows a bribe in all his hands;

Briareus the Secretary,

But we mortals call him Carey;

When the rogues their country fleece,

They may hope for pence a-piece.”

The office of secretary to the viceroy was no sinecure. While in the reign of George II. it endangered the life of the holder, in our day his conduct is usually sharply criticised in the questions put in the Imperial Parliament.

This will appear in my next chapter, when an Irish riot of unexampled duration, in Ireland, took place. It may be as memorable in Irish annals as the Porteous riot in Edinburgh, or the Gordon riots in London; and it shows that, as we scan Ireland, the Irish aristocracy of peers and members of the House of Commons favoured the union with the Parliament of Great Britain. The Irish people sturdily opposed it.

During the reign of Queen Anne we find the desire for a union announced by the Irish Lords and Commons. A resolution passed by the Lords on 25th October 1703 is to desire that Queen Anne might qualify that Ireland should be represented in England; and in 1707, in an address from the Irish House of Commons congratulating the queen on the union with Scotland, the Irish House of Commons prayed that God might put it into her Majesty’s heart to add greater strength and lustre to her crown by a yet more comprehensive union. But the notion of a union with Ireland was not well received in England. So many Scotch adventurers had made good their hold on English soil, the English had no desire that a like importation from Ireland should occur. Though a desire for union was then shown by the Irish Parliament, it was not favoured by the Irish people. Considerable jealousy prevailed at this time as to the claim asserted by the English House of Lords to be the Court of Ultimate Appeal from Irish as well as English trials. [*Lords’ Journal, *ii. 29; *Commons’ Journal, *20th October, 1707.]

In 1713, the lord chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps, having incurred the displeasure of the House of Commons, by absenting himself when lord justice from the Orange body, who, on the anniversary of the landing of King William III. in Ireland, were accustomed to display their respect for the victor of the Boyne, by surrounding his statue in College Green, and showing a friendly feeling towards the Catholics, had a resolution condemning his action and a complaint made to Queen Anne on his partial conduct.

But the House of Lords and the corporation of Bandon most vigorously defended the chancellor, and the complimentary language of the House of Lords and the death of Queen Anne left the chancellor able to relinquish a position which afforded him no peace of mind. He was succeeded in his office of lord chancellor of Ireland by an excellent lawyer, Sir Richard Cox. He had not been long in office before an incident occurred which brought his legal skill into requisition.

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