COERCOIN IN IRELAND. (Hansard, 5 March 1833)

The Earl of Roden

wished to call their Lordships' attention to a Petition which he had to present from an individual resident in the county of Wexford, relating to the state in which that county was now placed. He was happy to see a noble Viscount in his place, who, being a resident in that part of the country, could, upon his own knowledge, speak to the facts, his own personal experience having enabled him to corroborate them felly. He, perhaps, should not have said a word in presenting this petition, but for the reports which he had heard of their Lordships being charged elsewhere with what was called the indecent haste with which they had hurried through what was called the Irish Coercion Bill. After having heard such a charge, he felt it incumbent upon him, as one of those who supported the measure, though generally differing from those with whom it originated, to bring forward to the notice of the public any circumstances tending to prove the necessity there was for affording protection to the law and to the reign of peace in Ireland with as little delay as possible. He thought, and felt himself justified in saying, that any individual who held up 197 their Lordships' House as not caring for the comfort and protection, or for the liberties of the people of Ireland, when it passed that Bill, must cither make that assertion in ignorance, or from some sinister motives of their own; perhaps with a view to keep up agitation until they had passed an Act by which the Union would be virtually dissolved by the destruction of the Protestant religion and the Protestant Constitution in that country. The petitioner was a shopkeeper, residing at New Ross, in the county of Wexford, named William Strong-bow Everett. The petition stated the circumstances under which he had taken a farm in that place, and went on to say, that, on the 12th of May last, he received a notice, threatening him with destruction if he did not compensate the former tenant of the land which he held. He defied the threat, and the consequence was, that, although his house was situated in a main street in a populous town, on the morning of the 4th of June, it was surrounded and several shots fired into it, by which twenty-nine panes in the windows were broken, and the frames perforated with shots. After this, every one of the inhabitants refused to deal at his shop; and such was the intimidation practised, that he was obliged to get the crew of the Pike sloop of war to cut and carry his harvest, no resident daring to assist him in the work. Shortly after that four of his horses were houghed, and other property belonging to him destroyed and injured. The petitioner further stated, that, being desirous of obtaining proper education for his daughter, he had sent her to the school of a Mrs. Browne, upon whom a notice was served, that if his daughter was not sent away, every person connected with the school should be murdered. She was sent home, and he was unable to get her education attended to. He had, at the time of writing the petition, two acres of potatoes in the ground, and was unable to get any one to dig them; and stacks of barley and other corn on his farm, which no person dared thrash, or hire him a horse and cart for their removal. Fearing that their Lordships might doubt the truth of his statement, he had made an affidavit of the facts, a copy of which was set forth in the petition. The noble Earl said, that this petition was the answer he gave to the charges against the Bill which their Lordships had passed. It was called coercive, and it was coercive. It was intended to coerce the murderer 198 and the breaker of the laws, and to give protection to industry and peace. However he might have differed from his Majesty's Government upon other points, and however he might differ from them again, he would maintain, that they had acted most wisely and most judiciously in bringing forward a measure which, he trusted, would not only go to lay hold of the poor and deluded violators of the public peace, but also those who had secretly and covertly urged them and goaded them on to the crime they had committed. He knew that the measure had met with the approbation of the respectable of all classes in Ireland, who were not content with the state of things as they now were, but desired to see protection to persons and property; but by no class would it be more thankfully received than by those farmers who were desirous to see the laws obeyed, and who were on that account living in a state of terror not to be conceived or described, which, indeed, made the law a dead letter, and turned the Constitution, from being a blessing, into a curse. He did hope that the Bill would be suffered to come back to their Lordships' House pretty nearly as it left it; and that with the least possible delay it would be allowed to give that protection to the King's loyal subjects in Ireland to which they were so justly entitled.

§ Viscount Clifden

had it in his power to corroborate the general statement of the petitioner, as he knew him to have suffered most cruelly from the persecutions which he described. He was sorry to say, however, that he knew of cases of much worse atrocity which had occurred upon his own estates. Some of his tenants had lived upon their farms for many years, and paid no rent whatever, when he forgave them all arrears and ejected them. He subsequently let the land to three other individuals; and about three months ago the villains, whose principle was, that no landlord should be allowed to change his tenant, whether he got rent or not, came to the houses of the three farmers and attempted to break in. The first resisted, but they succeeded, and instantly shot the man dead and burned his crops. They then went to the second, where they could not force their way in, but they burned his crop and destroyed his cattle. The third was attacked, and it so alarmed him that he died of the fright. Thus, two of his tenants were murdered, and the other was 199 driven out of his farm. The course he had taken was to order that the land should not be let again, but left waste; and so he would ever act, though his whole estate should be without a tenant. if every landlord did the same, he had no doubt the evil would soon be corrected, for these villains would be the first to feel the misery they had created for themselves, and that they had derived no advantage from their crimes but the savage gratification of committing murder. If the present state of things were to continue for ton years, though inflicting a grievous loss upon himself and his family, every acre of that land should remain waste until his tenants could be protected, and could hold the lands in safety. The state of the farmer in Ireland was one whole scene of terror. He was informed that in many places they never thought of lying down in their beds. He believed, that the "voluntary tribute," as it was called, was collected by terror; and that fellows stood at the chapel doors and compelled them to put in their shilling and half-crown voluntary contributions. He wondered how men could be found to have the face, as he knew they did, to get up in the other House and declaim against the Bill, when they admitted in private that it was necessary.