VII. 1786. August. BOOK gibbon, who hated injustice as heartily as Grattan, was obliged to withhold his consent from the Government proposal. He had himself, he said, known a hundred and twenty processes for tithes to be going on at once in the county of Limerick against poor Catholic peasants. The clergy, he said, must be provided for by some less oppressive means. The tithes must be commuted into a charge upon the lands, and pending further consideration he advised that the present Bill should be withdrawn. Fitzgibbon was right in principle. The Secretary consented, and the session ended; yet the effect was to leave the clergy exposed for another season to the Whiteboys' devilry. These gentry had been prudently quiet while Parliament was sitting. The prorogation was a signal that their victims were again in their hands, and the failure of the Protection Act was taken as a confession that justice was on their side. Notices were posted on church and chapel doors, limiting the tithes which the peasantry were allowed to pay, and under pretence of impartiality they connected with tithes the dues of the priests.1 Threatening letters were addressed to the country gentlemen, written evidently by men of education and ability. The war was carried on with a regularity of movement and purpose which showed that it was guided by organised authority. The few prisoners occa sionally taken refused, as usual, to betray their leaders. They pleaded that strangers had come to them at night, and had sworn them to their work 1 'The manner in which the insurgents have connected in the general attack the Popish priests with the Protestant clergy is, I am persuaded, intended to conceal their real drift.-The Duke of Rutland to Lord Sydney, August 1786.' II. 1786. August. with the most horrible threats if they disobeyed; CHAP. while too many of the gentry and wealthy farmers, looking to their immediate interest in the reduction of tithes, if they did not encourage the Whiteboys, declined to take part against them.' It was strange,' as Lord Sydney observed, that they should not understand that by destroying the provision for the Protestant clergy they were endangering the stability of the Protestant interest.'1 เ So very serious was the aspect of Munster by the middle of the summer, that the Viceroy even thought of re-assembling Parliament. His special fear was that the movement against tithes should extend to Ulster, and produce the union between Protestant Dissenters and Catholics which the madness of ecclesiastical legislation had made a too formidable probability.2 The Privy Council would give no advice. The Viceroy had no force to rely upon but the British regiments, and to employ British soldiers as policemen was to intensify the animosity between the two countries and to raise the Whiteboys into a patriot army. The outrages at length became so appalling that Lord Luttrell was sent down with a detachment of troops to see what he could do. His difficulty was to discover his enemy. The Whiteboys were everywhere and nowhere. The car driver on the road, or the peasant digging potatoes in the field at its side, the shopman behind the village counter, or the trusted servant in the mansion or parsonage, were the same men who at night were carding tithe-proctors and banishing sleep from the bedsides of the clergy and their families. Prisoners were taken only 1 Lord Sydney to the Duke of Rutland, September 6, 1786.' BOOK 1786. August. 'The gentle to be dismissed for want of evidence. The spell was broken at last, by the same means which had ended the tarring and feathering in Dublin. Lord Tyrone had arrested a couple of Whiteboys in Waterford, and by great exertion had obtained evidence to compel their conviction. Their offence was not capital. One was sentenced to be imprisoned, the other to be publicly flogged. In a wholesome state of society neglect of duty would be punished as severely as crime. The commissioned officer who deserts his post or allows those under him to fall into disorder by want of discipline is justly cashiered. The absentee landlords and clergy who drove the peasants mad by extortion, and gave them guidance in return neither for body nor soul, deserved probably, in nature's court of equity, a place at the cart's tail by the Whiteboy's side. The people were wronged. The law gave them no redress; and when they attempted wild justice for themselves, they were handed over to the executioner. An unequal balance always yields an unsound result; and if justice cannot be distributed evenly—if the whip or gallows are reserved for the poor offender, while the rich is left to his fine houses and three courses a day-the social wound remains unhealed. In proportion as the resentment of the favoured section of society is strong against the rude redressors 1 Report of General Lord Luttrell, September 21, 1786.' S.P.O. of general injuries, so among their fellow sufferers the general sympathy will be on their side, and will regard them as soldiers suffering for a popular cause. No State, however, can permit the wild justice to continue which never strikes the true criminals. Harmless curates and their wives could not be allowed to be torn from their beds, sliced with knives, or torn with briars. Whiteboyism had to be put down. The convicted Whiteboy was therefore to be flogged. But who was to inflict the flogging? The common officers refused, though with loss of place and salary. High rewards were offered. The debtors' prison was searched for some one who would do the work in return for liberty. Not a man could be found. The High Sheriff was the person responsible for the execution of the sentence.1 He determined that the law should not become a jest; and, since none else would do it, he himself with his own hand flogged the prisoner through the streets of Waterford. The effect was once more instantaneous. The reign of terror was over. Timid lords and gentlemen took courage from Musgrave's example. Well-meaning farmers and peasants, seeing that they might count upon protection, came forward with information. Lord Kenmare, though himself a Catholic, hunted down the insurgents of Kerry,' dragging them from the very altars of the Popish chapels to which they had flown for concealment and protection.'2 A company of soldiers, attacked by a gang of Whiteboys, in Clare, fired into them, and four were killed. Others were betrayed and taken, and were sent in shiploads 1 Sir Richard Musgrave, notorious afterwards as the historian of the Rebellion of 1798. 2 The Duke of Rutland to Lord Sydney, September 26, 1786. Secret.' CHAP. II. 1786. September. BOOK VII. 1786. October. to Botany Bay. Luttrell, whose mission threatened at first to be a hopeless failure, returned to Dublin in October, leaving the country quieted, the clergy breathing freely again in their glebe houses, and the Whiteboys prepared to wait till their complaints could be considered by Parliament.' 1 A respite had been gained, but a respite only. Their arms were still in their hands, and commotions would infallibly break out again if Parliament failed to find a remedy. The Viceroy declared himself unable to offer an opinion what was fittest to be done in so delicate and complicated a question.' He rather hinted than advised the commutation system, to which Fitzgibbon had pointed as the fittest solution." 1 'Duke of Rutland to Lord Sydney, October 29, 1786. Secret.' |