HC Deb 29 February 1844 vol 73 cc411-21
Colonel Rawdon

rose, in pursuance of his notice, to move a resolution— That it is the opinion of this House, upon considering the lateness of the period at which was issued the Proclamation of the Irish Government, intended to prevent the assembling of a meeting announced to be holden at or near Clontarf on the 8th day of October, 1843, that a risk of disastrous collision was incurred, and a precedent thereby 'created dangerous to the lives and liberties of Her Majesty's subjects. He had not yet heard a satisfactory reason why Ireland, and the Representatives of the Irish people, should not call upon the House for that which had not yet been given, viz., the expression of its opinion upon that Proclamation. He gave the noble Lord (Lord Eliot) full credit for being sincerely anxious to perform the duties of his office for the benefit of Ireland, and he was quite sure every Irish Member who had heard the noble Lord's speech must be convinced of the deep sympathy he felt for the Irish people. But he charged the Government of which the noble Lord was a Member, in reference to the Clontarf Proclamation, with supineness and inactivity, and with a neglect of their duty which might have led to the most deplorable results. It had been happily said by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) that the Government had been weighing words when they should have been weighing lives. If he understood the facts correctly, the noble Lord the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had left London for Ireland on the Wednesday, but it appeared that he did not arrive in Dublin until the Friday morning. Seeing the necessity for his presence, why had he not as he might have arrived on the Thursday? The Council, it appeared, met on the Friday, and deliberated, and why was not the Proclamation issued on Friday? They had as yet received no explanation of the delay. A Proclamation was the exercise of a portion of the Royal Prerogative; but the Proclamation issued by the Irish Government was destitute of the most beautiful feature of the Prerogative—mercy. The Proclamation was riot issued till the Saturday night when the meeting was to take place on the Sunday. It had been asserted that it was issued early on the Saturday, but he had received a letter that day which said— There can be no question whatever that three o'clock, or a few minutes before, on the Saturday afternoon, was the earliest moment at which the Proclamation was issued. I am surprised at the statement of Sir Robert Peel that the Government Proclamation was out early on the Saturday, for he must have known the contrary. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Home Department, and the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, stated that measures had been taken for posting up the Proclamation, immediately upon its being issued, in all places within thirty miles of Dublin. The hon. and gallant Member read several documents containing declarations from various persons in humble life in Dublin, as to the hour at which the issuing of the Proclamation became generally known in Dublin, and the towns around it. One person had gone on the evening of Saturday to Leighlin town, where he saw no Proclamation; and at Bray, at a quarter past ten o'clock at night, there was no Proclamation posted. Another person had gone to Maynooth on the evening in question. He started from Dublin at ten o'clock, and passed various populous towns, amongst others, Farmer's-town, where he had seen no Proclamation posted. He reached Maynooth at half-after two o'clock next morning, where the Proclamation was generally exhibited. Surely, these declarations proved that the instructions issued by Government to post up the Proclamation had not been observed. The persons whose declarations he had read were ready, he believed to depose on oath to their statements, and they added that the police had information of the intended proceedings of Government with regard to the people. Was such the conduct of a paternal Government? Surely, when infor- mation was given to the police it might have been given at the same time to the people. The declaration of the guard of the Naas caravan was to the effect that he had not seen the Proclamation on the evening on which it was issued in any of the towns betwixt Dublin and Naas. In some instances the people were only informed of it, next morning, through the medium of their clergymen. A bill-sticker in Dublin who might be supposed to be a tolerably good judge of such matters, stated that he had not seen the Proclamations stuck up in the principal streets in Dublin until four o'clock, when he saw a policeman posting one up with wafers. Now, if the places to which he had alluded were English towns, the proceedings of the Government in regard to their delay in posting up the Proclamations would not have been allowed to pass without severe question. With reference to the Cavalry Proclamation issued by the Repealers, of which so much had been said, and upon which the defence of the Ministry had so specially rested; that Proclamation appeared in The Nation newspaper upon the Saturday week before the Clontarf meeting. As soon as it became known at the Corn Exchange that such an article had appeared, a message was sent to The Nation office, and another edition was published without the Proclamation. The Pilot evening newspaper appeared without it. It was well known for three weeks previously, that the Clontarf meeting was to take place. The fact had been advertised over and over again. The Cavalry Proclamation had been suggested upon the Friday, and left at the office of The Nation for publication that night. It was his firm belief that had it not been for the Repeal Association—had it not been for the indefatigable exertions of the hon. Member for Cork, a collision would have taken place at Clontarf between the military and the people. He complained that the Proclamation had not been published in The Gazette before the meeting, at all events it should have been published upon Friday; it actually appeared in the Gazette upon the Monday after the meeting. Now, if this had been done exclusively by Irishmen, how much they would have heard of blunders of the Irish—of the new mode of warning people of danger after the danger was over. Why, the people in many cases, as stated by the declaration he held in his hand, believed that both the Government Proclamation and Mr. O'Connell's counter proclamations were hoaxes issued by the Orange party. Many people even went in the direction of Clontarf, and were only convinced that the Proclamation had really been issued by the formidable array of troops near the place, and by the exertions of Mr. Steele who had the blessing of God upon his head that day, as one of the instruments in warding off an appalling massacre. From these facts, therefore, the House must draw the inference, that the people had not been sufficiently warned. Adverting to the circumstance that the Clontarf meeting was called principally upon the requisition of clergymen, he thought that it was curious that the Government should have prohibited that particular meeting. It was well known that people had come to attend the meeting from Liverpool and Manchester. Now, could it be believed that the same wind which wafted them across the Channel, also brought over vessels of troops for the suppression of the meeting. Surely notice should have been given on the English side of the Channel of the intentions of Government as to the suppression of the meeting. It was notorious that the meetings up to the time of the Clontarf assemblage had been perfectly peaceable and tranquil. He was in Italy when he heard of the Clontarf Proclamation; and he certainly thought that something was expected at that meeting different from what had taken place at the others; that the Government were in possession of some information respecting it, of which the public knew nothing. But the result proved that such was not the case. Donnybrook, where a meeting had already taken place, was much in the same position, as regarded Dublin, as Clontarf, so that no objection could be taken to the latter on the score of situation. Some difference should have been made between the Proclamations issued to put down the meetings in Wales and Ireland. The Welsh meetings were attended with riot and violence—the people there were disguised, and armed with guns. But in Ireland nothing of the kind had taken place.—no circumstance had occurred which could have given the Government cause to fear a breach of the peace, The people met constitutionally to express an opinion—to express in the face of heaven an opinion against the justice of the Act of Union. He considered that there was no crime in that—he considered these meetings more in the light of their forming a safety valve than anything else. But there was another difference between the Welsh and the Irish Proclamations. The Welsh Proclamation called on "civil officers" to repress the outrages—the Irish Proclamation was addressed to the "officers connected with the preservation of the peace." Now he thought that this would apply to military as well as civil officers. He might be wrong, but still that inference might be drawn. By the wording of the Proclamation Government condemned itself; for it was clear, upon their own showing, that if the meetings should have been suppressed at all, they should have been suppressed long before the issue of the Proclamation forbidding the Clontarf meeting. So far as he could see, the military arrangements for the suppression of the meeting were well conducted, but at the same time he believed that, so great was the tranquillity and order of the people, that a corporal, with a file of men, could have effected the object. But complete as those military arrangements were, proper precaution had not been taken—due notice had not been given to the people. By their having permitted similar meetings so long, Government must be understood to have connived at them, and surely a better reason should have been given for their late and arbitrary proceeding than some miserable allusions to the cavalry Proclamation. By affirming his Motion, the House would show that they were alive to, and jealously watchful of the exercise of the Prerogative of Proclamation, and as mindful of the public peace and prosperity. He would tell the House that it would be a dangerous thing to allow the impression to go back to Ireland that they were not to have equal justice. Ireland was asking for equal laws, but it was also asking for equal justice. That equal justice it was determined to have, but by refusing to entertain a resolution on the subject—so guardedly worded as it was—he thought that they would be incurring a heavy responsibility. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by proposing his resolution.

Mr. Villiers Stuart

seconded the resolution. Although he thought that it was brought forward under disadvantageous circumstances, not on account of the unwillingness of the House to listen to it, for he was bound to say that they had paid the utmost attention to the gallant Member, but in consequence of the long debate which had recently taken place in reference to Ireland,—notwithstanding this, he yet felt, that however unwilling he was to take a part in the present ques- tion, he would be neglecting his duty if he failed in coming forward to support it. It would certainly have been more consistent with their duty to the public if the Government had given a more early, a much more early, notice to those parties who intended to attend these great meetings, that they were in so doing acting illegally. There was danger likely to arise from the postponement of the Proclamation till so late a period as the Saturday preceding the Sunday on which this intended meeting was to take place, from the fevered and anxious state of mind of the friends of Repeal, who looked to the Clontarf meeting with the most excited interest, and were actually on their way to it from the neighbouring counties of Ireland. He would ask the noble Lord who represented the Government of Ireland in that House, why was it that the Crown Solicitor (Mr. Kemmis), who acknowledged that he might have done so, did not file his affidavits upon which this Proclamation was founded three weeks sooner? This was the more necessary when the advisers of the Crown must have been aware of the condition in which all who joined in these great meetings involved themselves, namely, that by so joining they rendered themselves liable to prosecution for all the consequences of the Repeal Agitation. But this was not the only instance of neglect the Government displayed in reference to those transactions. It appeared to him that when they were called upon more particularly to be present they had thought proper, under some pretext, to absent themselves and run away. Indeed, it would appear to him, from all the inexplicable conduct of the Irish Government at the time, that there was something radically imperfect and wrong in the constitution of the Irish Executive Government. It would, perhaps, be better that its form should be changed, and that the Irish people should be no longer subject to any but an effective and responsible Government, perfectly adequate on occasions like this to act without waiting for instructions from the Cabinet Ministers. Under these circumstances he felt it was desirable—for the sake more particularly of the effect such a vote would produce upon the minds of the Irish people—that a Vote should be taken upon the Motion of the hon. and gallant Officer, and it should therefore have his decided support.

Lord Eliot

must answer the speeches of the mover and seconder of the resolutions almost in the words used by himself and by his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department in the late Debate. He must say, that when the whole conduct of the Government of Ireland was made the subject of a nine day's Debate, on which the House had pronounced, a strong and decided opinion, if the present course could be justified, a discussion might again be revived on every particular act of that Government. He, nevertheless, was not disposed to shrink from all or any portion of the responsibility imposed upon him in consequence of the part which he had taken relative to the intended Repeal Meeting at Clontarf. The serious indisposition of his noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had appeared to most persons acquainted with the fact as a sufficient apology for his temporary absence from his government in the hope of reestablishing his health. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland had been unremittingly engaged in the business of his Court for many months, and it was but proper and customary that at that period of the year he should be enabled to enjoy some recreation. With respect to the character of the proposed Meeting at Clontarf it had quite altered from what it appeared on the first announcement of it to be, and that would be seen by the placards which were circulated immediately preceding the day appointed for the meeting. At first the invitation was addressed only to the people of Fingal, a district of inconsiderable extent. Subsequently the intention that was announced by means of placards, of mustering and marching in military array, through the streets of Dublin, large bodies of horsemen, perfectly authorised, or rather made it the duty of the Government to prevent the meeting. Indeed, if he had been left alone, and without the means of communicating with the Government here, he should have considered it to be his duty to assume all the responsibility of the act, and issue the Proclamation. The alterations that took place in the placards subsequently, such as substituting groups for troops, and which also appeared in the advertisement in the Nation, one of the papers of the Repeal party, could not be supposed to change the character of the meeting. It would be worse than quibbling to attempt to maintain that this artifice at all altered the object or the nature of the meeting. But he had thought it advisable to apprise the Government here of that alteration of this advertisement, and of the placards upon the 2nd of October, and it was not until the 4th that that communication reached London. A fresh consultation became necessary, and it was then determined by Her Majesty's Ministers, that the Lord Lieutenant and the Lord Chancellor, should return forthwith to Dublin, and that if circumstances remained unchanged, the Lord Lieutenant in Council should issue a Proclamation, prohibiting the Meeting. On Friday morning they reached Dublin. In the afternoon of that day a Meeting of the Members of the Government took place. The Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Chancellor, the Commander of the Forces, the Master of the Rolls, the Attorney and Solicitor General, and himself were present; and it was determined that a Proclamation should be issued. A Proclamation was accordingly drawn up that evening, and submitted the following morning to the Privy Council by two o'clock on that day, it was in the hands of the printer. Immediately upon its appearance there were placards posted on the walls of Dublin, in which the conduct of the Irish Government, and even the language of the Proclamation, were commented upon and censured. The hon. Gentleman had referred to letters relating to the time at which the Proclamation was posted in Dublin and its neighbourhood. His evidence was of a negative character, for the gentleman on whose authority he relied only said that he did not see any Proclamation. He (Lord Eliot) held in his hand a statement under the authority of Colonel M'Gregor, whose veracity was unimpeachable,—a statement which was signed and certified by the officers of the Constabulary Force under his command, about the stations within a circuit of nearly thirty miles round Dublin, where it was stated that at Howth, the Proclamation was posted at seven p.m. of the evening of Saturday; at Julianstown, seven p.m.; at Bray, at five o'clock; at Celbridge, between seven and eight p.m.; at Wicklow, between seven and eight p.m.; at Kilcock, at eight p.m.; at Drogheda, at nine p.m.; and so on. These meetings did not take place until one o'clock in the afternoon, and this very Proclamation which summoned the Repeal Cavalry did not summon them to meet in the heart of Dublin until twelve o'clock on Sunday; and, therefore, he contended that there was sufficient notice to parties proceed. ing to Dublin, and that very slight inconvenience and no danger was occasioned to any persons by the delay. He could speak from his own knowledge that he saw the Proclamation posted on the quays, and in many other parts of Dublin. It was in the hands of the persons at the Corn Exchange before three o'clock on Saturday. It was admitted that the military measures were well taken. It was true that there was a large and overwhelming force, but that was done from motives of humanity, to prevent any danger from the people taking possession of the ground. He regretted that any individual should have been inconvenienced. If he was, it arose from unforeseen circumstances over which the Government had no control. He did not contend that the meetings on previous occasions had been illegal, and there was no reason to apprehend till the Saturday, on which the placard had appeared, that this meeting would have differed from the others. The hon. Gentleman had commented on the policy of allowing meetings to Petition as a safety valve of the Constitution. In the course of the meetings, which spread over a period of nine months, he did not believe that a single Petition had been adopted, and therefore those meetings were only meetings under the pretence of Petitioning. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the amendment had said that Government were in possession of means of instituting a prosecution before the Clontarf meetings. He (Lord Eliot) had already said, that Government would have been guilty of a dereliction of duty if they had allowed a meeting, under such circumstances, to take place in the heart of Dublin. Although Clontarf was at some little distance, yet the assemblage of these men on horseback, and in military array, would have been a defiance of all law and of all order. The Government entertained no moral doubt whatever of the existence of a dangerous conspiracy, but had not obtained that legal evidence which would have enabled them, with hopes of success, to prosecute the parties. He believed he might appeal with confidence to the Attorney General for Ireland if the first proceedings were not taken the very moment Government were in possession of evidence which they believed would enable them to prosecute with effect. He denied that there was any intention of entrapping the people into the commission of crime, and indeed he was happy to find that that charge had been withdrawn. Under these circumstances he thought the hon. Gentleman had no ground for calling on the House of Commons to express its disapprobation of the conduct of Government in respect to the Clontarf Proclamation.

Mr. Somers

protested against the sophistry of the noble Lord. There was no getting over the fact that it was by a miracle almost that a large unarmed multitude was not brought in contact with an overwhelming force, when the slightest accident might have occasioned an indiscriminate butchery. The present Government received Ireland prosperous and peaceful, and it was now a camp.

Mr. Sherman Crawford

said, the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland had objected to this discussion on the ground that the whole question of Ireland had been so fully debated on the recent occasion, but he did not see any reason why every question relating to Ireland should not be repeatedly discussed in that House. With regard to the delay in issuing the Proclamation, if the Lord Lieutenant were obliged on every occasion to refer to the English Government and consult with them, where was the use of that Functionary? He contended that the use of the words "troops" in the Repeal Proclamation did not constitute illegality. The noble Lord said that the illegality of the meeting arose from the Notice, which indicated that the people were to assembled in military order. Had they not assembled in military order before? Did the mere use of the word "troops" constitute illegality, when such things had been done before? But he denied that the appearance of military array constituted the illegality of the meeting. There were precedents, in Irish history, of military array being adopted for thirteen years and not noticed by the Government. When the Orange processions took place, they formed in military array and carried arms and fired shots. The noble Lord said the real purpose of the meetings was not to prepare petitions, but was the noble Lord in the House on a previous day when the hon. and learned Member for Cork presented a whole pile of petitions agreed to at those meetings? He gave the most decided support to the Motion of his hon. and gallant Friend, and he hoped that more Motions of a like kind would be made on other points connected with the late proceedings. He trusted that some consti- tutional lawyer would yet take up the conduct of the Attorney General for Ireland in the Court during the late trial, which he could regard in no other light than as an insult to the dignity of justice, an outrage on the bench, and a dangerous attack on the liberties of the subject.

Mr. E. B. Roche

would support the Motion on the ground that Ministers had not meted out the same measure of justice to Ireland in this case as they would have done under similar circumstances to England. Whatever were their motives, the effects of their acts might, perhaps, have been to have created a slaughter of the people on the ground of Clontarf, had it not been for the aid they received from the hon. and learned Member for Cork. Government ought to have had recourse to a Baal-fire on the top of the castle of Dublin, to give notice of the stoppage of the meeting; if they chose to wait till the night before, they ought to have employed some extraordinary means to spread the intelligence. He did not doubt that the military measures had been good, and that the ground had been judiciously occupied; but the publication of the Proclamation would have served little purpose had it not been for the aid of the hon. and learned Member for Cork. He did not know why so much stress had been laid on the gasconade inserted by some senseless blockhead in the Nation newspaper. Every party had some brainless fools attached to it; but was a nation to run the risk of being plunged into civil war because some foolish thing was done which was not acknowledged by the party? He thought the hon. and gallant Officer was quite right in bringing forward this Motion. It was the contemptuous treatment which Irish affairs and the claims of the Irish people received at the hands of that House which had made him a firm and decided Repealer, and he should continue to be so, so long as there was one measure of justice for England and another for Ireland. He had but one course to pursue, and that was, in spite of the threats of Gentlemen opposite, to continue the Agitation of the Question of Repeal, as long as he could, and as ardently as he could within the limits of the Constitution.

The House divided:—Ayes 62; Noes 90; Majority 28.

List of the AYES.
Baring, rt. hon. F. T. Barnard, E. G.
Barron, Sir H. W. Labouchere, rt. hn. H.
Bellew, R. M. Maher, N.
Bernal, Capt. Marshall, W.
Blake, M. Napier, Sir C.
Blake, M. J. Norreys, Sir D. J.
Blewitt, R. J. O'Connell, M.
Bowring, Dr. Plumridge, Capt.
Bright, J. Roche, E. B.
Browne, hon. W. Ross, D. R.
Busfeild, W. Russell, Lord J.
Butler, P. S. Scholefield, J.
Carew, hon. R. S. Smith, B.
Cave, hon. R. O. Somers, J. P.
Childers, J. W. Stansfield, W. R.
Clay, Sir W. Staunton, Sir G. T.
Cobden, R. Stuart, Lord J.
Collett, J. Stock, Mr. Serj.
Crawford, W. S. Strickland, Sir G.
Dawson, hon. T. V. Strutt, E.
Duncan, G. Thornely, T.
Evans, W. Trelawny, J. S.
Ewart, W. Tufuell, H.
Fielden, J. Villiers, hon. C.
Gibson, T. M. Wall, C. B.
Gore, hon. R. Wawn, J. T.
Greenaway, C. Williams, W.
Grosvenor, Lord R. Worsley, Lord
Hawes, B. Wyse, T.
Hay, Sir A. L. Yorke, H. R.
Hill, Lord M. TELLERS.
Hutt, W. Rawdon, Col.
James, W. Villiers, S.
List of the NOES.
Antrobus, E. Graham, rt. hn. Sir J.
Arbuthnott, hon. H. Greenhall, P.
Arkwtight, G. Greene, T.
Astell, W. Grogan, E.
Baillie, Col. Harcourt, G. G.
Bentinck, Lord G. Hardinge, rt. Hn. Sir H.
Borthwick, P. Hayes, Sir E.
Botfield, B. Hinde, J. H.
Bruce, Lord E. Hodgson, F.
Burrell, Sir C. M. Hodgson, R.
Chetwode, Sir J. Hope, hon. C.
Clerk, Sir G. Hope, G. W.
Clive, Visct. Hornby, J.
Clive, hon. R. H. Irton, S.
Colvile, C. R. James, Sir W. C.
Copeland, Mr. Ald. Jermyn, Earl
Cripps, W. Jones, Capt.
Davies, D. A. S. Kelly, F. R.
Dick, Quintin Kemble, H.
Dickinson, F. H. Knatchbull, rt.hn.Sir E.
Eaton, R. J. Lincoln, Earl of
Eliot, Lord Mackenzie, T.
Escott, B. Mackenzie, W. F.
Farnham, E. B. M'Neil, D.
Flower, Sir J. Mainwaring, T.
Follett, Sir W. W. Manners, Lord J.
Fuller, A. E. Masterman, J.
Gaskell, J. Milnes Mundy, E. M.
Gladstone, rt. hn. W.E. Neville, R.
Glynne, Sir S. R. Nicholl, rt. hon. J.
Cure, M. Packe, C. W.
Goulburn, rt. hon. H. Palmer, G.
Peel, rt. hon. Sir R. Stewart, J.
Peel, J. Sutton, hon. H. M.
Plumptre, J. P. Thompson, Ald.
Pollock, Sir F. Tomline, G.
Praed, W. T. Trevor, hon. G. R.
Pringle, A. Trotter, J.
Pusey, P. Vivian, J. E.
Rashleigh, W. Wood, Col. T.
Repton, G. W. J. Wyndham, Col. T.
Rushbrooke, Col. Yorke, hon. E. T.
Scott, hon. F. Young, J.
Sibthorp, Col.
Smith, rt. hn. T. B. C. TELLERS.
Somerset, Lord G. Freemantle, Sir T.
Stanley, Lord Baring, H.