The Pigott Forgery (1887)

Chapter XXI*

The Pigott Forgery *(1887)

In October, 1886, *United Ireland *published an article styled “The Plan of Campaign,” signed by Tim Harrington, M.P., Secretary to the National League. It appeared while the Election Petition in Belfast was pending, and Sexton urged me not to support the Plan. He said Parnell had not been consulted, and would resent my doing so. I followed this advice, and at the next meeting of the National League in Dublin avoided the topic. O’Brien reproached me for not endorsing the Plan.

A chance remark of Parnell to me after his release from Kilmainham in 1882 had suggested it. Embittered by the failure of the farmers to obey his “No Rent” Manifesto (except on his own estate), he vowed, “I will never head another agrarian movement unless the tenants lodge in a common fund 75 per cent. of their rents.” I told this to Harrington, who embodied the idea in the “Plan of Campaign.” Meanwhile, times had changed owing to Gladstone’s acceptance of Home Rule, and Parnell disapproved of the new movement.

The rejection of his Tenants’ Relief Bill by the House of Commons in September, 1886, did not shake him, though a Royal Commission which sat later under the ex-Viceroy1 Lord Cowper, justified to some extent the “Plan.” Parnell, within a month of its Report, sent a communication to the Press from the Euston Hotel, London, saying that be had been suffering from a “gastric attack and complications,” and was lying under his mother’s care.

He declared he was not responsible for the “Plan,” and had not been consulted about it. He told Davitt that the Plan would be an embarrassment to Gladstone and a hindrance to Home Rule. His illness provoked scepticism, as it was suspected that he was trying to find “cover” to escape criticism for the acts of his subordinates.

A postcard from F. H. O’Donnell, ex-M.F., was sent to the extinct Ladies’ Land League from Germany, satirizing Parnell:

The Leader’s Mamma.

Who is the Being sent to guard

My freedom from a prison ward,

Perhaps my pate from truncheon hard?

My Mother.

Who fondly nursed my gastric pain,

While Dillon roamed the Connaught plain,

And Bill and Timmy bawled in vain?

My Mother.

Who kept newspapers far away

That might have forced me plain to say

My mind upon the corning fray?

My Mother.

I rest my head upon her knee,

And thank my stars - oh, gratefully!

That heaven still preserves to me

My Mother.

Parnell, however, was really ill, and continued to consult a Harley Street doctor under an assumed name.

Chief Baron Palles, when deciding against the legality of the Plan, said it emanated from “a master mind.” Parnell’s was the mind, and the hint to Harrington started it.

At the close of that year I got a note from William O’Brien: *

Christmas Eve, *1886.

My Dear Tim, -

“I don’t suppose it is necessary to assure you that in anything I said to-day in the course of our chat I was not complaining of your action, but only showing that we were not to blame. Your feeling that there was, or is, any desire on our part to act without your cognizance or advice is one absolutely baseless, and I hope you will dismiss it from your mind as a mistaken one.

The only possible ground of estrangement between us (and it is with the utmost sorrow we ever saw its shadow come between us) is as to Parnell-as to whom there is nothing more unalterably fixed in my mind than that he is the corner-stone of our Cause, and that the moment I would feel bound to renounce a frank allegiance to him would be my last in public life.

Pardon this (no doubt) superfluous explanation, and put it down to my anxiety to remain as I ever was,”

Yours sincerely,

William O’Brien.

The Plan of Campaign, like all surges of popular protest, was not without provocation.

The Land Act of 1881 denied to leaseholders and many other tenants the right to fix a fair rent. In 1886 the seasons bore hardly on farmers. Yet their leaders were prosecuted and imprisoned for advocating relief to the excluded tenants.

Without knowledge of Irish law a condemnation of the “Plan” by the Holy Roman Inquisition was issued in April, 1888, at the instance of English Catholics. Unaware of the exclusions, Pope Leo XIII summoned Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin (scarcely two years in his See), to Rome to question his support of the Plan.

Catholics know that the Vatican continually has theological problems submitted for its judgment. Its replies by expert theologians as to the lawfulness of a practice or omission guide confessors throughout the world, and are published in ecclesiastical magazines. Protestantism, being without a school of casuistry, remits everything to what is called “private judgment” - as that great Protestant, John Mitchel, styled it, “the right of private stupidity.”

A British agent submitted to the Holy Roman Inquisition abstract questions from the landlords’ point of view as to the validity of the “Plan,” omitting relevant facts. The Inquisition advised the Holy Father that (in the premises) the Plan was unlawful. Leo XIII told Archbishop Walsh that when their advice reached him he was distressed that a bald pronouncement should be issued to a people like the Irish, who, for 1,500 years had owned the sway of the wearer of the Fisherman’s Ring, and had borne privations for the Church. His Holiness, therefore, sent back the proposed decree, unapproved, to his Cardinals, with the suggestion that “reasons” should preface its promulgation by the Inquisition.

Cardinal Monaco, their head, was misled by English advisers into stating that Irish tenants could resort to a court to fix fair rents. This was both true and untrue, for some could and some could not. The Plan was started because the Land Act did not allow lease-holders to resort to the courts. The reasons furnished to the Holy Father for condemning the Plan were that “for the settling of such contests courts have been established which - allowance being made even for failure of crops, or of disasters which may have occurred-reduce excessive rents and bring them within the limits of equity.” Yet the agitation began because of the denial to leaseholders of the right to apply to the Land Courts.

Archbishop Walsh told me that, although he was in Rome and within call when the decree was drawn up, he was never consulted.

Cardinal Moran, in his preface to Bishop Rothe’s book on Irish persecutions in Stuart days, exposes the prejudice of Vatican notables centuries ago, against Ireland, owing to the misrepresentations of her enemies.

The only Bishop to defend the decision of the Inquisition was Dr. O’Dwyer, of Limerick, who nicknamed the Irish Party a “Conciliabulum” (thieves’ kitchen), for pointing out the absurdity of the Roman reasons for the decree. A quarter of a century later His Lordship was acclaimed a bulwark of the extremists.

Parnell, at a dinner at the Eighty Club in London, repudiated the Plan, declaring it had been started without his knowledge when he was dangerously ill. His speech made havoc amongst his Party, and William O’Brien wrote a farewell article for *United Ireland *announcing his resignation from the editorship, and from Parliament, and left the office. Much being at stake, his foreman, Donnelly, went to Harrington, M.P., and got it suppressed. Although attacked on flank and front, O’Brien was persuaded not to quit the Movement, and withstood Parnell as he had withstood Crown Prosecutors who consigned him to many terms of imprisonment.

An arraignment of the “Plan” by the Government soon began. O’Brien, Dillon, William Redmond, Mat Harris, Sheehy, Condon, Crilly and other M.P.’s were indicted for conspiracy. The police seized the Plan moneys and made arrests. Counsel for the defendants were the ex-Attorney-General, Samuel Walker, Q.C. (afterwards Lord Chancellor), the MacDermot, ex-Solicitor-General, Dan O’Riordan, Q.C., D. B. Sullivan, Q.C., Richard Adams, Q.C., and myself. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (whose icy exterior concealed an honest heart) was Chief Secretary, so we tried a “preliminary canter” by subpoenaing him to the Dublin Police Court, where depositions were being taken.

He attended there in a foetid atmosphere for hours. At last he came to me, saying, “I’ve a lot of work to do. Could you let me off till I am needed, and I will return? ” “Of course,” I said, and forth he went. When we sent for him, he came back meekly to submit to examination as to the meaning of his phrase about “putting pressure on the landlords within the law.”

Political interest in that trial has evaporated, so I shall touch only on its lighter side. The night previous to the arraignment of the defendants at Green Street before Judge Murphy, we held a consultation at Walker’s in Rutland Square. The accused attended, but grew wroth on hearing the technique of the defence. It consisted in “challenging the array,” i.e., objecting to the validity of the jury panel, and “challenges to the poll” (objecting to jurors individually). Dillon, with beetling brow, questioned Walker (a subtle lawyer and the mildest of men), ” Is this the way we are to be defended? ” Walker, like a frightened rabbit, shrank from attack, and stammered, “Well - yes - at the outset.” “If so,” said Dillon, “we have no business here.” Then he arose and called on his fellow-traversers to withdraw. In Indian-file they left the room, deriding our legal subtleties. When the last of them had passed out, Adams, watching the final coat-tail disappear, and thrusting out his broad shoulders against the door, shouted, “By G—, I’d rather defend a menagerie!”

Next day the trial in Green Street began in the court where Robert Emmet met his death-sentence from Lord Norbury in 1803. The lawyers on both sides were numerous, and seats were unobtainable. The space allotted to the defendants’ counsel was diminished by a burly barrister, Charles Teeling, who was not retained. Our solicitor, Val Dillon (hailed by T. D. Sullivan in 1880, at the trial of the Land League traversers as “Val de Traversers”), was a man of portly build. He asked Teeling to make room or withdraw. Teeling refused, and high words begot a scene out of which Adams saw a chance of making fun. He scribbled a note in Teeling’s name to Val Dillon apologizing, and begging him to shake hands, and watched the result. Val at once thrust his digits under the table in forgiveness.

“How dare you touch me, sir? ” growled Teeling. “Touch you!” said Vat. “Didn’t you ask me to shake hands?” “Never sir, never! What do you mean?” “There’s your note,” replied Dillon. Teeling, knowing Adams’s writing, shrieked, “That scamp Adams!” and retreated from the Court.

Dick’s next prank was to use me as an instrument to discomfit his seniors. I was not three years at the Bar, but had raised a point which weighed with Judge Murphy. When the case was adjourned in the evening, Adams hastened to the Four Courts to make merriment. There he arranged with a group of barristers that they should meet his colleagues and bombard them with questions such as - “What about Healy’s point? Why was it left to a junior like him to make it?” Adams, from the gallery of the Law Library, surveyed the scene, chuckling at the mortification of his touchy friends.

The trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, and afforded an excuse for a new departure in Coercion.

First, it led to the resignation of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach as Chief Secretary on the plea of failing sight. He was disgusted with the Irish landlords and wrote to Lord Clanricarde to that effect. He was piqued too that when Randolph Churchill threw up the Exchequer, he was not thought of before Goschen became Chancellor.

His place in Ireland was taken by Arthur Balfour, the most remarkable of Irish Secretaries. Balfour brought in a perpetual Coercion Bill for Ireland in March, 1887. On the day fixed for its second reading in the House of Commons (Monday, 18th April, 1887), *The Times *published a forgery of Parnell’s signature to a letter containing an admission of guilt in connection with the murders of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke - the Chief and Under Secretaries for Ireland slain in the Phoenix Park (6th May, 1882).

Mr. Lawson (now Lord Burnham) challenged me as to the concoction as I entered the House (I had been re-elected a little earlier for Longford). His seriousness and apparent acceptance of the “letter” astounded me. On going to the Terrace I found Sexton much distressed. Then I went to the Reading-room to see *The Times, *and came back to tell Sexton that had the “letter” been witnessed by an archangel I should not believe it was genuine. I knew Parnell was incapable of writing anything so stupid.

Labouchere asked me that day who I suspected to be the forger. I replied, “Richard Pigott.” In Wednesday’s *Truth, *which Labouchere owned (dated Thursday), he ascribed the forgery, on my advice, to Pigott. A week later Pigott sent from Paris a feeble denial begging *Truth *to insert it, lest he might be murdered by the “Invincibles.”

This shook Labouchere, but I steadied him with the reminder that if Pigott were innocent a writ for libel would have been served. I own that if Pigott then had the pluck to assail *Truth *in the law courts he would have won. We had not a shred of evidence against him, but conscious guilt withheld the wretch. He returned to Ireland and daily took his swim in the sea off Kingstown. However bad the weather was Pigott would breast his way against the roughest waves with the airy corpulence of a porpoise. He enjoyed the society of Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, ex-M.P. for Kerry, President of Cork Queen’s College, and other Unionist “gobetweens.” I saw them often travelling together on the mail-boat to and from London.

Pigott loved wine, with other alliteratives, and the sensation his handiwork created was as musk to his nostrils. To ensnare a newspaper like *The Times, *a leader like Parnell, and baffle a genius like Gladstone, by a device which a schoolboy would have thought clumsy, was a gamester’s apotheosis.

As far back as 1878 Bennett Burleigh, the well-known lobbyist and war correspondent, told me that when Scotland Yard raided a dealer in indecent literature in Holywell Street, the largest customer in his books for filth was Pigott. Burleigh added that the seizure was so extraordinary that the Home Secretary (afterwards Lord Cross) invited Disraeli with his Cabinet to see it. Pigott was both a vendor and a purchaser of indecencies. He had also a taste for well-bound books - which he never read.

When the forgery appeared, Pat Egan, ex-treasurer of the Land League, sent me from America a packet of Pigott’s letters. These enabled Sir Charles Russell to smash him on cross-examination. Parnell’s denial of the letter in the House of Commons the day it was published was clumsy and unconvincing. He based himself largely on the fact that he never made an “S” or an “L” like those in the signature which appeared in *The Times. *Next day Mr. (now Sir Henry) Norman, who represented the *Pall Mall Gazette *in the lobby, showed me a genuine letter of Parnell’s making an assignation outside Chelsea Hospital signed in the exact style of the forgery

Then commenced a drama as moving as the opening of the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The British Parliament and Press vibrated with the clangour of controversy. The Act of Union of 1800 which Mr. Gladstone had partly undermined was at stake, and the Tories declared it must never be repealed. Irish landlords, fearful of losing rents, marshalled themselves behind the Government. Attacks were launched against the Irish Party, charging them all with complicity in outrage. Articles in *The Times, *written by Woulfe Flanagan, son of an Irish judge - said to be the most brilliant of its staff - heralded the onslaught. These were entitled “Parnellism and Crime.” I learnt their authorship through an Irish waiting-maid, who overheard Flanagan’s wife tell a guest of her husband’s achievements. (Years later Sir Robert Anderson, a Home Office Secret Service agent, in a magazine article, claimed the discredit of penning some of them.)

The object of the Conservatives was to ensnare the Liberal-Unionists, led by Chamberlain and Bright, into their fold. Without them they had no majority. Many of these M.P.’s were not pro-Tory, and were only anti-Liberal and anti-Irish on the question of Home Rule. It was necessary, therefore, to “ginger them up” by exhibiting Irish members as monsters, and their leader as an inciter to assassination of Liberal statesmen. To secure the second reading of the Coercion Bill without their adhesion was impossible. So on the day fixed for the division (after seven days’ debate) the Pigott forgery embellished the pages of *The Times *(18th April, 1887).

Until then few Liberal-Unionists outside Chamberlain’s entourage were cordial to the Tory administration. The forgery was timed (as a bomber times a fuse) for the day of the division. But for it, the majority of 101 could not have been obtained. Previous Coercion Acts had been limited in duration to a short period, and, therefore, Ministers feared that Liberals adhering to Chamberlain might be deterred from voting for a measure intended to be perpetual. Late on the night of the second reading, a Cornish member, Borlase, the learned author of the *Dolmens of Ireland, *said to me bitterly: “This is my last night in the House of Commons. Before resigning I travelled 200 miles to give a final vote for Ireland, After the division I found one of your men, Quinn, snoring in the smoke-room without having taken the trouble to vote.” The unconscious absentee was T. P. O’Connor’s nominee for Galway, who was given a seat in Kilkenny after O’Shea’s election, although no constituency was found for Lynch, despite Parnell’s promise. In the next division, in which Quinn voted, I trolled for the benefit of his patrons a parody on a stave from a well-known ballad:

“Sing, oh hurrah, let England quake,

Tom Quinn’s awake, Tom Quinn’s awake!”

When the Coercion Bill was carried, Sir Charles Lewis, Tory Member for North Antrim (who had been unseated for bribery in Derry a few months before), took action on the 3rd May, 1887, as to Pigott’s forgery. He moved that a publication of the previous day by *The Times *imputing to Irish members a conspiracy with criminals, was “a breach of privilege.” His party had arranged a meeting in London, to be presided over by a member of the Government, demanding investigation. Ministers, however, opposed Lewis’s motion, although Sexton, in what W. H. Smith, leader of the House, called an “impassioned speech,” accepted it on behalf of the Irish members, and demanded a Select Committee to inquire into the charges.

The Government, on the other hand, maintained that a Select Committee was unfit to investigate allegations against members of the House, and suggested that the right course was to prosecute *The Times *through its counsel the Attorney-General, with the assistance of Counsel appointed by the Irish Party! Parnell was absent, but he telegraphed his acceptance of an inquiry by Select Committee.

On the 6th May, 1887 (the anniversary of the Phoenix Park murders of 1882), the House, after a debate of three days, declared by a majority of 84 that *The Times *article of 2nd May was not a breach of its privileges.

Then there came in aid of the Government a litigation which seemed at first freakish and only calculated to arouse banter. It was a libel action by F. H. O’Donnell, ex-M.P., who pretended that he was implicated in *The Times *indictment of the Irish Party. The intrusion of the “Derby dog” in the great race at Epsom would have been more appropriate.

O’Donnell had not been in Parliament since 1885, nor had he held any position in politics thereafter. He was a writer for the English Press, born in India, the son of a Scottish officer. Entering Galway Queen’s College, he registered his name as “Francis MacDonnell.” In 1874 he was elected for the borough of Galway as “Frank Hugh O’Donnell,” but was unjustly unseated by Judge Lawson on the ground that he had issued a placard, “Vote for Joyce and Keogh” -Joyce being his opponent, and Keogh the unesteemed judge.

O’Donnell felt that he had been hustled from the House of Commons, and that had he been allowed to remain undisturbed he might have become the Irish leader, instead of Parnell, or at any rate have had a “good start,” for Parnell was not elected until 1875, and at first was not vocal.

In 1876 O’Donnell was returned for Dungarvan at my suggestion, and at first backed Parnell and Biggar. However, in April, 1880, after the General Election, he surprised every one by an unprovoked letter to the *Freeman *declaring “there was patriotism in other halls than those of Avondale” (Parnell’s home).

In November, 3887, having been two years oat of Parliament, he launched against John Walter, of *The Times, *an action for libel as to the articles “Parnellism and Crime,” in which he was nowhere attacked or even named.

His case was tried and dismissed in July, 1888, but its consequences were grave. These will be described later. Meanwhile Coercion was upon us.

When crossing to London to oppose the 1887 Coercion Bill I got shaken in a collision at Euston and was compelled to take a rest. I visited Germany and Switzerland.

I wrote my brother from Cologne: *

22nd June, *1887.

“You will not forget Balfour’s promise on 17th May to give an appeal from all sentences, and this should be extended to those of ordinary magistrates. Cumulative sentences should also be put to an end.

The only disappointment we had was the town of Strasburg, which, though the old “Lied” calls it a “wunderschone Stadt” is nothing of the kind. The famous clock I would not cross the street to see, and the Cathedral is not much. The town is dull and lifeless, and the people don’t seem to know the bombardment is over yet.

We came from there through the Black Forest. The scenery along the railway is splendid, and the engineering wonderful, for at one moment you can see the line above and below you and at each side of you, and it is the same line all the while - such are the twists and turns and ascents it has to take. Constance isn’t much, and we are going away to-day.

Parnell has got a fixed idea that Gladstone is so certain to live long enough and to secure a majority, that be himself need not make much further fight either In the House of Commons or in Ireland. He must be more or less enervated by ill-health, and the stupid laudations of mistaken friends are not calculated to rouse him, or to warn others in time of the possibility of there being anything wrong…”

The breach by Arthur Balfour of his promise to allow an appeal from sentences by Resident Magistrates who inflicted a month’s hard labour weighed on me. I knew from letters by his followers in *The Times *that he had weakened, and wrote Maurice:

Interlaken,

*5th July, *1887.

“I read your letters in the *Daily News *and *Standard, *and to-day I saw yesterday’s *Times *with Balfour’s reply. His breach of faith about “appeals” I should have thought incredible. He has given way before the protests of Baumann and F. Fulton. I kept the portion of Hansard containing his promise. It was sent me on account of my own interruption, but I did not correct the mistake in their report of what I interjected as I don’t correct any stuff they send me. I thought there might be some attempt to minimize the effect of Balfour’s promise, but I never expected it would be thrown overboard. It is evident, from *The Times *comment he has been placed in a fix. I suppose it is too much to expect that Lord Spencer in the House of Lords will take any action upon it…

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