Lord Chancellor, Earl of Clare, continued

Chapter XLVI.

Life of Lord Chancellor Earl of Clare, Continued.

Fitz Gibbon was one of the members of the Dublin University when the electors called on him and on his colleague, Hussey Burgh, to support Mr. Grattan’s Declaration of Rights. Burgh’s reply forms a strong contrast to that of Fitz Gibbon. Burgh’s answer was concise and firm, short and pithy; Fitz Gibbon’s more diffuse and argumentative. It ran thus:-

‘Gentlemen, - I am just now honoured with your instructions, which have been forwarded to me by post. Be assured I shall always feel the utmost satisfaction in receiving the suggestions of that very great and respectable body which I have the honour to represent; and that you shall ever find me ready, to the best of my ability, to vindicate your rights. I have always been of opinion that the claims of the British Parliament to make laws for this country is a daring usurpation on the rights of a free people, and have uniformly asserted the opinion in public and in private. When a declaration of the legislative right was moved in the House of Commons, I did oppose it, upon a decided conviction that it was a measure of dangerous tendency, and withal inadequate to the purpose for which it was intended. However, I do, without hesitation, yield my opinion on this subject to yours, and will, whenever such a declaration shall be moved, give it my support. With respect to an explanation of the law of Poyning, I confess the more I consider the subject the more difficult it appears to me. Allow me to remind you that the University did, on a very recent occasion, experience that this law, in its present form, may operate beneficially. A total repeal of it will, I hope, on consideration, appear to you to be by no means a desirable object. You may rest assured. that the best attention I can give the subject shall be exerted; and I trust, and doubt not, that upon a communication with you upon this topic I shall be able to give you full satisfaction.

‘I agree with you most warmly that any advantage which we may derive from reformation must be precarious so long as the Articles of War shall continue to be a permanent and established branch of municipal law, which they certainly are under the present Act for regulating the King’s Army in Ireland. There is not a doubt in my mind that a perpetual Mutiny Bill lays the foundation of a military despotism in this country; on this principle I will, while I live, make every effort in my power to procure a repeal of it. The administration of law is certainly an object of the first importance; and therefore I will at all times concur in any measure which can be proposed to make the Judges of the land independent and respectable.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

‘John Fitz Gibbon.’

The expressions of liberality underscored in this letter lose much of their force when we learn that the writer, when writing it, was perfectly aware the Duke of Portland, then Viceroy, had been instructed to accede to Mr. Grattan’s demands. On April 16, 1780, the Secretary of State, Mr. Hutchinson, reported to the House he had his Majesty’s commands to express his Royal regret that discontent prevailed amongst his loyal subjects in Ireland upon matters of weight and importance; and his Majesty recommends to this House to take the same into their most serious consideration, in order to seek such a final adjustment as may give mutual satisfaction to his kingdoms of Britain and Ireland.’ A gracious answer was given to this most reassuring message.

Fitz Gibbon’s oratory, though far inferior to that of many of his great contemporaries -Grattan, Hussey Burgh, Yelverton, or Flood, was of no mean order. The ‘Note-book of an Irish barrister’ informs us [These able papers are printed through successive volumes of the Metropolitan Magazine, vide vol. xxiv. p. 339.] ‘it was bold, rapid, and forcible - ministering always to his wants, and rescuing him from difficulties by its quick and apposite application. He had the power of awakening attention, and infusing animation into the dull and flagging debate. When carelessness, or absence of interest, rendered the proceedings of the House stupid, he rushed forward, and by a sharp stroke of personal invective, or a vigorous attack upon the opposition generally, he elicited the applause of his own party, or provoked the indignation of his adversaries, so that the strife was again renewed, and sparks of a divine eloquence were generated in the collision.’

The Nationalists of Ireland carried successively the Declaration of Rights, the Independence of the Judges, and other patriotic measures. Lord Northington was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1783, when Fitz Gibbon was mentioned as a fit person to succeed Yelverton as Attorney-General for Ireland. In a letter dated November 18, 1783, the Viceroy excuses himself to Mr. Fox for recommending this appointment: ‘Many of our friends, you say, have disapproved of the proposed arrangements for Scott and Fitz Gibbon. Are they of this or your side of the water? If on my side, I can contradict it thus far - Grattan was consulted, and was content to act with Fitz Gibbon, and has no objection to Scott being Prime Serjeant. The Attorney-General [Yelverton] likewise approves of Fitz Gibbon. He stands foremost in rank, abilities, and professional knowledge. It is proposed he should take the lead in the House of Commons.’ [Grattan’s Life, vol. iii. p. 200.]

The allusion which the Viceroy made to the share Mr. Grattan had in the promotion of one he afterwards found so formidable an enemy to his views on Irish questions is thus mentioned in the ‘Life by his son:’ [Ibid.] ‘Mr. Grattan was consulted as to this appointment, and in an evil hour he gave an opinion favourable to Mr. FitzGibbon: “ibi omnis effusus labor.” Mr. Grattan had known him at college, and when at the Temple. He had been a visitor at his favourite retreat at Sunning Hill, near Windsor; and the support that Mr. Fitz Gibbon gave him on his proposition for restoring the final judicature of Ireland, and his speech on that occasion, had still further increased their acquaintance, and perhaps even their friendship.’

Mr. George Ponsonby was against the appointment; so also was Mr. Daly, who said to some one recommending Fitz Gibbon for his national feelings: ‘You are quite mistaken; that little fellow will deceive gou all.’ [Grattan’s Life, by his son, vol. iii. P. 200.]

Mr. Henry Grattan complains bitterly of the ingratitude displayed by Mr. Fitz Gibbon towards his father, alleging: ‘He left no means untried to blemish the character of his former friend and patron; to beat down his public principles; to counteract every exertion in favour of freedom and of Ireland.’ I am therefore bound, as an act of justice to the man thus accused, to disprove the assertion. Within thirty pages of the one containing this charge, I find the following eulogium on Mr. Grattan pronounced by the Attorney-General in So debate in the House of Commons:-

‘From the first, I have ever reprobated the idea of appealing to the Volunteers, though I was confident Ireland was in no danger while they followed the counsel of a man whom I am proud to call my most worthy and honourable friend (Mr. Grattan), the man to whom this country owes more than any State ever owed to an individual; the man whose wisdom and virtue directed the happy circumstances of the times, and the spirit of Irish-men to make us a nation. Sir, I say, while the Volunteers continued under his influence, I feared no evil from them; but I apprehend what has since come to pass, that when they should forsake him, designing incendiaries would make them the tools of faction, the instruments of their vile ambition. Let me entreat gentlemen to recollect what has happened. After the 6th George I. had been repealed - after an Irish Mutiny Bill had passed - after the Law of Poyning’s had been explained - after the Judges had been rendered independent - at the period when the acclamations of the nation were loudest in praise of the man who had most justly become their idol - at the suggestion of some person everything was changed in a moment, and he was loaded with foul and unmerited calumny, for no other reason but because he ventured to have an opinion of his own, and chose rather to rely on the faith of a brave and generous nation than on the finespun quibble of a special pleader, which ninety-nine men out of every hundred that joined in the chase could not understand; and which they would be as ready to censure, if the same instigation that set them on to vilify the saviour of this country had declared against Renunciation.’ [Grattan’s Life, vol. iii. p. 232.]

During the session Mr. Molyneux, who was not a supporter of the Government, and had no communication with the Lord Lieutenant, moved ‘that the Viceroy’s salary should be increased from 16,000l. to 20,000l. per annum.’ As soon as notice was given of this motion, his Excellency directed the Attorney-General to express his satisfaction at his income, and that he sought no increase. The Attorney-General, however, did not manage the matter in accordance with the Viceroy’s directions, and the measure was carried. [Ibid. p. 234.]In March, 1784, Mr. Flood brought in his Bill of Parliamentary Reform. Out of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, twenty-six petitioned in favour of it; and when the debate came on, Mr. Fox’s prediction was verified, both Mr. Scott and the Attorney-General spoke and voted against it.

The Ministry were resolved to suppress the Irish Volunteers, and when Mr. Flood brought forward his Reform Bill, approved of by the Delegates of the various Volunteer corps which sat in convention in the Round Room of the Rotunda, and appeared in the House of Commons in his Volunteer uniform, to try the issue of the day, the Attorney-General made the following most powerful reply to arguments in support of the Bill:- ‘I did hope that some new proof of the necessity of reform would be urged, and that we should not be entertained with the flights of visionary speculatists, with the vagaries of theory and absurd hypothesis; but we endure all this because the wise men of 1783 cannot reconcile certain abstract ideas of irrational system-mongers in England with the free and happy constitution of this country. I do not oppose the introduction of the Bill, because it is a farrago of nonsense, a compound of constitutional absurdities, and directly contrary to the first response of the great Dungannon oracle. No, I will oppose it because it comes under the mandate of a turbulent military congress. I will undertake to trace it back to its source, and show it is the production of a military congress, assembled in the capital, appearing in military parade and all the mock order of a legislative assembly. Mr. Henry Joy, junior, Secretary of the Volunteers of Belfast, wrote circular letters describing this House - to which he asserts there are but sixty-four persons fairly returned, the rest the off-spring of venality - he writes to a number of friends in England, and with their answers, garbled and mutilated to his purpose, Mr. Henry Joy, junior, of Belfast, printer and secretary, proceeded to Dungannon. They then enter into sundry resolutions, and vote that a grand National Convention shall sit in Dublin. The Convention is now assembled, they have been sitting for three weeks, they have printed their resolutions, every man has read them, and I have heard they are the most moderate ever entered into by 50,000 men in arms, with an equal number ready to join them. Gentlemen say it is dangerous to commit the Parliament with the Volunteers. I know the man who does so should answer the crime with his head, but I also know the force of the law is sufficient to crush them to atoms, and as one, I say that I do not think life worth holding at the will of an armed demagogue. If ever there was an occasion that called on every man possessing one sentiment of liberty to exert it in defence of the Constitution, it is this. I say emphatically this.’ The Government party defeated Mr. Flood’s motion by an overwhelming majority. [For Flood’s Motion 77, against it 167. History of Dundalk by D’ Alton and O’Flanagan, p. 197.] After some time the Convention broke up, and the state of the country grew every day more disturbed. A second Reform Bill was introduced by Flood in 1784, and received a second reading, but the array of place-holders and pension-holders in the Irish House of Commons threw it out on a motion for its committal by a majority of seventy-four. The Volunteers degenerated into a disaffected multitude finding no redress from the Parliament of Ireland, and soon the effects of the French Revolution were felt in Ireland.

The political proclivities of the Attorney-General soon broke out on another occasion against the Volunteers. A petition was presented by the Leinster Corps, so patriotic, that the nationalists in the gallery loudly applauded, whereon the Attorney-General rushed to the table, and, not content with suggesting to the Speaker that strangers were present, he drew up a resolution, and moved, ‘That a gross outrage had been perpetrated by strangers in the gallery, and, therefore, that the Serjeant-at-Arms do, from time to time, take into custody any stranger that he shall see, or be informed to be in the House while any Committee of the whole House, or any Committee of Privileges is sitting, and this order be strictly enforced.’ The motion was resisted. Mr. Flood argued, ‘That the disorderly conduct of a few individuals should not deprive the people of their constitutional right to be present at the debates of their representatives.’ The Government party, however, went to a division, and the Attorney-General carried his motion.

Fitz Gibbon assumed a superiority which was often tamely submitted to. Yet one who has displayed a keen appreciation of his singularly compound character states, this superiority which formed his most striking characteristic resulted less from the greatness than the meanness of his mind; if he was sovereign, he was also slave; he halted at no intrigue or servile condescension to insinuate himself into favour; and such was the hold he obtained, such power did he acquire over the fears or affections of the objects of his past adulation, that both changed places, Fitz Gibbon became the master, the other the dupe and slave. [The Note Book of an Irish Barrister. - Metropolitan Magazine, vol. xxiv. P. 338.]

The manner in which he carried his public resentments into private intercourse, and vice versa, is also happily noticed in the truly valuable paper to which I have referred. He had not the judgment to reflect that men may be fierce political opponents in the senate, and yet preserve the social intercourse of life outside, without an infraction of duty or the abandonment of principle, that raillery or attacks in the Courts or Parliament ought not to supersede the warmth of private friendship, and that an apology might well be discovered for both in a zealous defence of the native’s or a client’s interests. How often have I in common with others given and taken words uttered in warmth while engaged in Court, but they were neither meant or received as a cause of enmity. I have seen brothers and brothers-in-law squabble and browbeat each other with an amount of real or assumed irritation that had the appearance of the direst war, but they walked home arm-in-arm to dinner. It was not so with Fitz Gibbon; he could not be argued with, or joked with, without the risk of provocation, and his haughty temper made mountains out of mole-hills. The most trifling word was caught up and twisted into an affront, every little dispute was a cause of hostility, and while his cold and ungenial nature repelled, few regarded him as a friend, but he had no lack of those whom he was disposed to rank as enemies.

The influence which Fitz Gibbon exercised was immense. ‘He was,’ to use the eloquent and truthful language of a valued friend, [The Note Book of an Irish Barrister.-Metropolitan Magazine, vol xx. p.338.] , the pivot on which all the movements of the Castle turned; the centre from which all its schemes and designs radiated; his words were strong as written law with successive administrations. On every question, from the most important to the most trivial, from the commercial proposition to the picketing of a rebel, he was appealed to; nothing was undertaken without his oracular sanction. His will was the law of seven Governments; he ruled in every department with unbounded activity - in the Lords, the Privy Council, and Chancery Court.’

None dared look independently at him; if he did, his fate was sealed; all offices and emoluments were closed against him. The instances of the correctness of this statement are numerous. When the repeated efforts of the Reformers to carry a measure in the House of Commons totally failed, as was to be expected, a good deal of public excitement followed. A meeting was held in Dublin, at which Stephen Reilly, Esq., High Sheriff, presided, and it was then proposed and carried, ‘that Delegates should attend a National Congress.’ Upon this the Attorney-General addressed the following letter -

‘To the High Sheriffs.

‘Gentlemen, - I have read with great surprise a formal summons signed by you, as High Sheriffs of the city of Dublin, calling upon the freeholders and freemen of your bailiwick to meet on Monday next, for the purpose of electing five persons to represent the city of Dublin in National Congress. I must inform you, that in summoning the freeholders and freemen of your bailiwick to meet for such a purpose, you have been guilty of a most outrageous breach of your duty; that if you proceed to hold any such election, you are responsible for it to the laws of your country: and that I shall hold myself bound, as the King’s Attorney-General, to prosecute you in the Court of King’s Bench for your conduct, which I consider to be so highly criminal that I cannot overlook it.

‘I am, Gentlemen,

‘Your very obedient Servant,

John Fitz Gibbon.

‘Ely Place, September 10, 1784.’

This was plain speaking on the part of Mr. Attorney, and put the Sheriff, Mr. Reilly, in an awkward position. He had no desire to incur a State prosecution, and when the meeting assembled, which it did in great strength at the time appointed, the High Sheriff read the letter he received from the Attorney-General, and declined to take the chair. We may be certain the letter called forth no small share of popular denunciation, in the midst of which up rose no other than the Attorney-General himself. In the boldest and most undaunted manner, despite the yells and hootings of the uproarious assembly, he defended his letter and his law, and repeated his resolve to prosecute the Sheriff if he dared take the Chair, or hold the meeting. The effect was that the multitude dispersed, and although it was not perhaps a decorous, and certainly was an unseemly position for an Attorney-General to place himself in, I give it as a proof of the fearlessness of the man, and the boldness of the official. This proceeding [Grattan’s Life, by his Bon, vol. iii. p. 209.] put an end to the thoughts of a National Congress.

The Duke of Rutland, then Viceroy, wrote the following highly complimentary letter to Fitz Gibbon, which showed the sense the Government entertained of this bold step of the Attorney-General:-

‘Phoenix Park, October 1, 1784.

‘Dear Sir, - I wished to have seen you before you had quitted Dublin, to have returned you my most particular thanks for the manly and spirited part you have taken in the support of my Government, and in the assertion of the Constitution of your country.

‘I should not, however, on that account alone have troubled you with it farther, had I not received in addition the King’s commands to express to you his entire approbation of every part of your conduct. No words of mine can add weight to so honourable an encomium, but I assure you that I feel a singular satisfaction in being the instrument of conveying it to you. I must desire you at the same time to consider this letter not merely as a matter of compliment and form, but as dictated by the feelings of one who is most sensibly impressed with the importance of your services and the effects of your exertions, to enable him to persevere in the arduous task. which he has undertaken.

‘I am, my dear Sir, with great truth, your most obliged and faithful humble servant,

‘Rutland. [Dublin Univ. Mag. Vol. xxx. P. 680.]

‘Right Honourable The Attorney-General,

‘Mount Shannon,

‘Limerick.’

This recognition of his services must have been most gratifying to Fitz Gibbon. That the King should have directed the Viceroy to state how pleased he was had not been anticipated, and already Fitz Gibbon considered his claims to the Great Seal, when the aged hands of Lord Lifford would no longer retain it, could not be questioned or disregarded.

The Attorney-General might have been content with his victory. The High Sheriff did not proceed after the cautionary notice. He supposed he had a right to convene the meeting on requisition, as commitatus of the county, and in ancient times the Sheriff was more the officer of the people than of the King. To the surprise of all but those who were familiar with the man, proceedings were instituted by the Attorney-General against Mr. Reilly, High Sheriff of the City of Dublin. He was proceeded against by attachment as for contempt of the Court of King’s Bench for calling an illegal meeting. The Court of King’s Bench, presided over by Scott, who had risen to the rank of Chief Justice, and the title of Lord Earlsfort, [Afterwards Earl of Clonmel.] adjudged the Sheriff guilty, and sentenced him to be fined five marks, or imprisoned for a week. [Grattan’s Life, vol. iii. P. 213.] The matter was brought before Parliament, and on February 24, 1784, Lord Charles Fitz Gerald moved, ‘That the proceedings of the Court of King’s Bench in attaching the Sheriff, and punishing him in a summary way, as for a contempt, was contrary to the principles of the Constitution, as depriving him of his trial by jury, and is a precedent of dangerous tendency.’ The motion was seconded by Mr. Brownlow.

The power of attaching the Sheriff for holding a public meeting, assembled pursuant to requisition, caused a very animated debate in the Irish House of Commons.

When Mr. Curran rose to address the ‘House, he observed the Attorney-General, whose conduct was most involved in the issue, indulging, or pretending to indulge, in sleep upon one of the benches. This was at once seized upon as a good text by the orator. ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘I may be allowed to speak to this great question without disturbing the sleep of any right honourable Member; and yet perhaps I ought rather to envy than to blame his tranquillity. I do not feel myself so happily tempered as to be lulled to rest by the storms that shake the land, but if they invite rest to any, that rest ought not to be lavished on the guilty spirit.’ [Curran’s Speeches.]

He then proceeded to argue the question before the Chair, and having concluded, the Attorney-General, who had awakened during part at least of Curran’s speech, delivered one of his usual caustic harangues, concluding with the opinion, ‘that it was vain for any puny babbler with vile calumny to blast the Judges of the land.’ Stung I by the plain personal allusion, Curran retorted, ‘The gentleman has called me babbler. I cannot think that this is meant as a disgrace, because in another Parliament, before I had the honour of a seat in this House, and when I was in the gallery, I have heard a young lawyer called babbler - the Attorney-General. I do not indeed recollect that there were sponsors at the baptismal font, nor was there any occasion, as the infant had promised and vowed so many things in his own name. Indeed, Sir, I find it difficult to reply, for I am not accustomed to pronounce a panegyric on myself. I do not well know how to do it; but since I cannot tell the House what I am, I will tell what I am not. I am not a young man whose respect in person and character depends on the importance of my office. I am not a man who thrusts himself into the foreground of a picture which ought to be occupied by a better figure. I am not a man who replies by invective when sinking beneath the weight of argument. I am not a man who denied the necessity of Parliamentary reform at a time when I proved the expediency of it by reviling my own constituents, the parish-clerk, the sexton, and the gravedigger; and if there is any man who can apply what I am not to himself, I leave him to think of it in the Committee, and contemplate it when he goes home.’

The Ministry had a majority, the resolution having only 71 for, to 143 against. A resoution was brought forward a few days later by Mr. Flood, ‘That the practice of attachment for contempt of court stands in the same ground of law in both kingdoms, and ought not to be extended further in Ireland than in England.’ This was also ably argued, but rejected by 120 to 48.

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