Captain Rock.
The Times, 1824-04-27T00:00:00

im l1u4ti late, we must-at least partially acquit ontiaslves Of. the -rmni6e to make exXracts from. the Memoirs, of Cap- taMt `R*kl. 'The passage we have niow ehiosen is thie 3d clkl)tr~Pieentngan outline of Irish History for upwards ofs 30 as,fo 11839 toa 1509-tbat is to'say, from the Thisepr oflienIL's reign to the eve of Henry VIll.'s. Thspr ft e book does not, to be sure, touch upon the PReform4ation ; but it brings the reader acquainted with'the maiterials Upon wvhich that great work had gifterwardIs to ?)Perat6i Wnrt with. some of thte dfifficulties.through which It must of necessity ha-ve struggled-we mean those.diffi-. culties Produced by a rapacious3, barbarous, and revolting %sterm- of oppresion, whic'h th rew a colouring, hideous to geunfortun:tte natives, over the gifts as well as th e de- snands of their pesctr;admade them regaxd withi sreinovable suspicion every measure proceedinig from the BrEitsh Government, no matter how obvious to a mind at ease the benefits to be derived from its adoption. There are few writers who, in the language of painting, poses h s3m acul of' massino- their tints, and grouping thire fi.Vre, Z tle kuthor OF?this lively yet solia and instr'sc- tv publication. Heseems -to have foundl the true royal road to knowledg, divestinig an obscure and unattactive hlstory of whatever coud alarm the indolent or perplex the dull, while the love of justice, humianity, and liberty, break,s out through every apostrophe of the author, how..- eveir bemay affect to veil his emotionsundersarcasm, levity, or scorn : er,iod betueen leniry II'. and Henry V711.-The It ish partial to P5istictc-Ineffectual ejbs-ts to obtain it.-Parallsl betweenMte Ba- r,,ns of Edward I. and the Orange Aseendancy.-Rebcliaiot of the Mac: and tYs.- -The Rocks in Danger.-1'enal Lawve urder Ed- tvard III.-..Captain Rock's Taste for 11usic.-Surp, 2sing lIn- griztitude anid Obstinacy of the Irish. " A short review of some of the reigac; that preceded the Reforma. tion will sufficiently acmcount for the distinguished part that my an- Cestors Played during the whole of that periodt. "Mr'I unlucky countrymen have always had a taste forjustice-s taste a-s inconvenient to them, situatedi a; they hatve always been, as a fancy for horse..racing would be to a Venetian. "1 in the reign of Eadward I., that part of the native popalation 'which came in immediate contact with the English settlements, and 'Which it was, ther-fore, a matter of the utmost importance to conci. Iiat.. Petitioned the iKing to adopt them as his subjects9, and to ad- mit ttlem under thte glhelter of thie English law. They, even tried the experimaent of bribing the throne into justice.I An applicatioil "Ias mnade,' says Leland, I'to Ufford. the chief governor, anti eight thousand marks offered to the King, provided he would grant the free enjoyment of' the laws of England to the whole body of the Irish inhabitants. A petition wrung from a people tortured by the painful feelings of oppression, in itself so just and reasonable, and in Its consequences so) fair and prontising, could not but be favourably received by a prince possessed with exalttd ideas of policy and go- 'vernment, and, where ambition (lid not interfere, a; friend to justice.' " But, thonirh the King was well inclined to) accede to their re- quest, and even ordered that n convention shouldI be summone-d to takte th' ition into consideration, luckily for the lovers of disccord xndm nEthis wise and benevolent intentions were not allowedi to take effect. The prouti Barons, to whom he had intrusted the go- verrnment of Ireland (or, in other words, the Orange Ascendancy o1 that day), could not so easily, surrender their privilege of oppres- "in a u,preferring victims -to subjects, resolved to keep the Iiiha hywere ;and the. arguments, or ra,ther evasions, by which theyr rot rid of the question altogether, so closely resemble thie shal- low pretexts which have been played off agaiost the claims of the Catholics in our own timet, that their folly, thouigh of so old a date, appears to us quite recent and modern, and they mnight have been Uttered by Mlr. Goulburn last week, without any breachi of costume or appearance of antchronism:-' Edward was assured that an imr. medtUtecomsplLance with his commands was not posslislein the presenti sTtate of things; that the kingdomi was in too great ferment and com- motion, &c. &c. I'4And such pretences,' atdds Leland, I'were sufficient, rwhere the aristocratic faction. rwas so powetful." "Read ',Orange faction' here, and you have the wisdom of our rulers at the end of near six centuries, in statis quo. "1 b]e Grand Periodic Year of the Stoics, at the close of whlich every tiring was to begin again, and the same events to be all re- acted in the same order, is, on a miniature scale, represenited in the History of the English Government in Ireland-every succeeding century being but a reniewed revolution of the satne follies, the same crimues, and the same tuirbulence that disgraced the former. But vive Il'Anunei .1' say 1 :-whoever may suffer by such measures, Ca?rairiRock,atleast, 'ill poper. "Ant& suchi was the' resl atthe period of whichi I am speaking. The rejection of a petition sohumble and so reasonable, Was fol.- 10wed, as a matter of' course, by one of those daring rebellions, into which the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth. The MN'Cartys, the O'Briens, and all the other Macs and O's, (b) who have been kept upton the alert by similar causes ever since, (c) flew to arnna under the command of a chieftain of my family, and, as the PrOfFered handle of the sword had been rejeeted, made'their inexor- able masters at least feel its edge. " Still, such a hankering had the poor Irish after law and justice, that, about fifty years after, in the reign Edward III., they again tried to soften the hiearts of their oppressors, and ' addressing themselves once maore to the Throne of England, petitioned that all those odiousi distinctions, which had so long deluged the land withi blood, should, at last, be abolished, and that the Irish inhabi- tants -should be admitted to the state and privileges of English subject.s.' "We need not ask what W,as the fate of this secoind memorable peiion. Had it succeeded, Captain Rock wo4ld not have been h_er~e to tell the story. Gibbon says in speaking of some early c tion in which 317aho'met wa engaeJ 'At that moment theT.lance- of an Arab Might have chaangedatghee destinies of the world ;' and it Is not less truec, that a stroke from the pen of Edward Il-I. might, at tlitle period, have changed the destinies of the Rocks for ever. " But'I Dis alter visrumest'..that spirit,which hasalways watched over the Anelo-Irish couneils, never sufFfering themr in a single in- stance to deviate into righit, prevailed as usual, and the result was as follows-_' The petition was remnitted to the Chief Governor Darcy. He wasi directed to rerer it to the Irish Parliament, anti, as usual, it was either clandestinely defeated, or openly rejected.' "Up rose the 0's andiMacs again, and agaitidid the flame of war extend ats before, through Meath, Miunster, and those other classic regionis of turbulence, which still ' live in numbers and look green in song ;' and so wreakened were the Eniglialh by the hostility they had thus provoked, that (as the historian remarks) I'it was only the wanit of concert and unionT among thie Irish that prevented them fromi dermolishing the whole fabric of Englihb power.' "The following laws, passed during this glorious buit arbitrary reign, abundantly prove that the spirit of rise penal code did not wait to be evoked by religious rancour (d), but was as active and virutlent when both parties were Papists, as it has been since Henry VII I. made it a war of creeds as; well as nations. ' It was eninined by royal mandate that no mere Irishman should he admitteef into any offce or trust in any city, borouglh, or castle in the King's land.' Again, hy the parliamentary ordinance called the Statutes of Kil- kenny, it was enacted, ' that marriage, nurture of infants, and gos-- aipred wvith the Irishi, skhould be considered and punished as high treason,' and 'it was also made highly penal to the English to per- mit their Irish neiLhbours to graze their lands, to Present them to ecclesiastical beneficeis, or to receive them into monasteries or reli- gious houses.' Even the poetry and music of the poor Irish were proscribed, and it was made penal ' to entertain their bards, who pervertd the impagination by romantic tales.' " In the reign of Henry IV., the Irish ' enemy' (for so the na- tives 'were styled in all legal documents) showedl, naturally enough, a disposition to emrig-rate-but by a refined mixture of cruelty and ab- surdity, which is only, to be found genuisne in Irish legislation, an act of Parliament was passed to prevent them. Those whom the English refused to incorporate as subjects, they would yet compiel to remain As rebels or as slaves. ' Bv an act of the Irish Parlia- ment, in the 11th yrear of He?rry TV,' it was ordained that no Irish eney soul bepermitted to depart from the realm;' We have hear ofabrdgeof old for a flving enemv but an 'act of Parlia- 'net.eswrpelhfmto stand his g'round could 6nly have been passed ThisusvayingsYstem of hostility and oppression, whilch had hee hftieh, iretedonly against the natives, was now extended to su'ls ee 'dats f the olctEnglish settlers as had adopted a more ustralpolcy hanthe Government, and by marriage, commerce, asi oter eacfulmediums, become gradually mingled with the potie ppulaion(e)Upsoh these, as lying most within the reachb of tei inoec,te n,ew comers of English birth ptarticularly in- dulgd i th mdt wanton tyranny; and thus not only gave birth to th ditnto fan English and Irish interest, but by identifying some of the oldest Englishi families with the latter, arrayed a new force on the sidie of their enemies, and gave an additional strength and respectabitity to rebellion. (f) "~ Perfect policy, throughout I-never in the pathrs of legislation, wgere there rneilleurs guidcs p.our s'igarer. SO uniformly, too, has the same tree prodluced the same fruits, that, at three such distant epochs as the reigns of Henry IV., Elizabeth, and George Ill., we finid thie noble and English name of Fitzgerald I'flaming in the front' of revolt ! "1 Amnong many minor points of' resemb'lance between our Popish rulers of thos days, and our retformed ones of the present(g), may be counted thlat quick and distracting change of Licutenantces, sue-. ceedin; one another like the groups of a mnagic lantern, each in its separate frante or slider, each differing from its, predecessor in plans .13d opinions, and thus rendering the Government, like Penelope'a wReb, a mere systemn of doing and undoing. " 'The account given by Spenser of this motley procession of Lord. Lieuteniants is like a picture painte yesterday--so fresh are a]llits colOUTrs ad so living its likenesses. 'The Governors t,,ys he) re sualy nvius f Oe ao:he's reaer lor, w ichif hey woud aek o ecelby ettr ovenmet, t wuld'bea matlaud. al~emlatin- Bt the doequit othewise Forthisis the com - mon rde of hem tha wh comth extin place will not follow thatcoure ofgovrnmet whch hs pedecesors held, either for disdii o hisel, r dubttohav hi dings drowned in anothes TrinI's prai6 but wilt straight take a way quite contrarv to the for. ner o asi`FIe forrmer th ought by keeping under the Irish to reformne c;/h; th&e ext, by diTcountenrantcinig the Rtsglih, willezurryfa. ,our with titfe Irish. and so nzake hi-s governmzent s.een plausible. as haoio,rthe /ruih at his conemrand. But hle thut cotes after w'illper- h.ap: follow neither the one nor tlie other, bat will dandle the one nt,I.the other in such sort as he wiU sucke sweet out of them both and lave bifternesse to the poor coustrpf. "1 Our modiern plan, it must be confessed, improves upon the distraction of this, for not only have we Governors of discordant politics succeeding each other, but every new Governor is provided with a secretary to differ with him for the time being, and bpth. re- ceive their instructions front a cabinet, not one member of which ;rees with another. If this is not sounding a pitch-pipe of discord, Captain Rock has no ear for that kind of music. I i have thus selected. zursortly and at random, a few features of thereigns.preceding the RefOrnmation, in ordertosihowwhatgood use was made of those three or four hundred years, in attaching the Irish people to their English governors; and by what a gentle couTse of alteradves they were prepared for the maculation of a new reli. gion, which was now 2bout to be attenmpted upon them by the same kilfal and friendly hands. "4 Henry VILr appears to have been ihe first monarch to whom it eccurred that matters were not managed exactly as they ought in this pare of his dominions and we find irmr_wit a simplcity ~w1ffch is stili fres6i anr youthful among otur rulers-expressing his surpriee that 'his subjeca of this l and skould be-go prone to faction nd rebellion and that so little advantage hadl b~eeahithetto derived Irons the acquisitiOnS of his predecessors notwithstanding the fruit. fues3nac nd naturav advantages of Irenadci.' " Surprsiz, indeed, that a policy such as wvc have been descrlb. ing, shoald not have convtted the wbolt ouritny into apeetetAta- lantis of happiness-ahould not have made it like tbe imagi5lry island of Srr Thomas Mlore, where ' tota insuta veut uenaJailia est !'-most rtubborn, truly and uiigrateful must that people be, upon whom, up to the Very Lour in which I write, such a long and unvarying course of penal laws, confiscations, and Insurrection Acts has been tried, without making them, in the least degree, in love with their rulers! " Heloisa tells her tutor, Abelard. that the correction which be inflicted upon her only increased tbe ardour of her affcction for him; but bayonets and hemp are no such eamoris stimuli. " One more characteristic anecdote of those times, and I have done. At the battle of Knocktow, in the reign of Henrv VII., when that remarkable mnan, the Earl of Kildare, assisted by the great O'Neal avd other Irish chiefs, gained a victory over Clanri- cardiof Connaught, moat important to the English Government, Lord Gorosanatewn, after the battle, in the first insolence of success, said, turnine to the Earl nf Kildare, 'We have slaughtered our eaensies. but to complete the goo2 deed, we must proceed yet fur- ther, and-cut tie throats of those Irish of our own party(h)." Who can wonder that the Rock family were active in those times ? (h) " ' The great English settlers found it more for their Interest that a free course should be left to their nppressions; that many ot those whove lands they coveted shoild be considered as aliens; that they rhould be fiurnished for their petty wars by arbitrary exactions; and in their rapines and massacres be freed from the terrors of a rigid- ly Impartial tribunal.'-Leland. (b) Aceording to the followingdistich, the titles STac and 0 are not merely what the logiclanscallaccidents, butaltogether essential to the very being aid siubstance of an Irishman:- tPer Niac atque 0, tu veros cognoscls ITihernos: ills duobus demptis, nulius Hlbernus adest. Thus translated by ene of our celebrated poets- "BY Mac and 0 "'You'll always know True Irishmen, tbey say; For if they lack Both 0 and Mac, No Irishmen are they. (e) The system of free-quartering, which wassosuccessfulin pro- voking Insurreetion In the year 1798, is, like all nrr other blessings, of ancient origin. 'The compendious meth.d,' snys Leland, 'of quartering the soldlers on the inhabitants, and leaving them to sup- port themselvesbyarbitaryeoxactionN, was adopted with alacrity, and execulted with rigour. Riot, irapine, massacre, and all the tre- mendous efforts of anarchy, were the natural consequences. Every inconsiderable partr. who, under pretence of loyalty, Yeeeived the King'scorm~ission torepel the adversary, In sotmepatrticular district, became pestilent enemies to the inhabitants. Their properties, their lives, the chastitv of their families, were all exposed to these barba- rians.' A historian of the rebellion of 1798 might transfer this pas- sage to his page wvith perfect truth and fitness. (d) " In thereign of Edward111.' says Leland. 'pride and self-in- terest concurred in regarding and representing the Irish aS a raee ut- terly Irreclaimable.' Four hundred years afterwards, In the time of Swifft,"t was the fashion, he tells its, in England, 'to think and to affirm that the Irish calilot be too hardly used.' A hundred years hence, perhsps, the same langtiage will be repeated. (e) "1 In remarking upon this coalition., Leland eensibly and can- didlyremarks- It rsy be doiubted whether such effectcould possibly have been produced, If the old natives had ever been possessed Invas- riably and unalterably with that inveterate national aversion, to which their repeated insurrectionis are commoinly ascribed. The sR- lutioni was easy, aud might have served the puirposes of a selfish poli- cy. bit there are other causes equally obvious to be assigned.' (f) "I English by birth and English by race were become termsof odious distinction: and every day produced violences, wvhich gra- dially became considerable enough to require the immediate inter- PAsititn of the King.' (gi " Thiere 'i no end to the resemblances betwveeu tlietwo periods. The follewing passatgels not more appiteable to the Englisb col-nists of those days, than to the English eapt5tlists of the present:-' Such conceptions had been forned Of the stateof Ireland rnd the disorders of its Inhabdianats, that even they who had received Irish grants could neither be persuiaded to repair thither, nor to send any persons to the cutstody of their lands, niotwithstandilig the reiterated edicts of the King.' Again, In the reign of Henry V.-' The King's personal appear- auIce In ireland Is most earnestly entreated tn save his people trom destruction.' And, in the sane reign,-'T he infection of party and jealousy spread throuigh ali orders, and was eauwht eves; ly the Clergy, who should have restrained and moderated It. The following coin- cidence Is still more curious-. Talbot coniducted the Government with the greater ease, as he seems to have resigned himself entirely to the reigning faction.' "Thuis, semper eadem'4and generally aceording to the Irish tran.- lation of it 'rorse and worse,') Is destined to be the motto of Irelanid to theend of time. (h) ILeland gives this anecdote on the authority of an Englishman." b1APTAIN ROCK.