if a bounty on the exportation of printed linens be granted as a further encouragement to British linen, I should hope it may be thought proper that the same should be extended to Ireland. Follow my advice, and then the sooner Parliament meets the better, lest the country, hitherto affectionate, and contemning the private views of our opponents, when it finds itself punished for its indiscretion, through disappointment should join those whom it at present rejects."1 The favour so modestly requested was but a small instalment of the debt of justice which England really owed. Had it been freely conceded at this time, what mischief might not have been prevented! Political sagacity may be baffled. Political concessions may aggravate the evils they are meant to cure. Justice only never fails. A few A few years were to pass, and the entire fabric of commercial disabilities was to be swept away from its foundations. But the fall of it was to bring no gratitude, while the memory of the wrong was to remain for ever uneffaced and uneffaceable. The chain was allowed to remain till it was broken by the revolt of the American colonies, and Ireland was to learn the deadly lesson that her real wrongs would receive attention from England only when England was compelled to remember them by fear. North, Weymouth, Shelburne-any one of whom left to his own intelligence would have seen the fitness of instant consent-were deaf to advice. The manufacturing interests in Parliament were too powerful. Townshend's advice could not be followed. The bounties of which he spoke were violations even 1 To Weymouth, September 25. Most private and secret.' СНАР. II. 1770. BOOK of the miserable compacts to which Ireland's woollen. trade had been sacrificed. Ireland was denied the 1770. benefit of them; the Viceroy was driven back on the only remedy which remained-of wholesale and systematic bribery; while the essential interests of the island were contemptuously neglected or forgotten.1 The seizure of the Falkland Isles by Spain, in the summer of 1770, created a sudden danger of war. Weymouth ordered Townshend to be on his guard. Townshend had to reply that the country was still defenceless, and that if war came, he could not answer for the consequences. The Catholics infinitely exceeded the Protestants in numbers. They were miserable, mutinous, and devoted to their priests. Internal peace depended on the submission of the wealthy Roman Catholics to the Government.' As to foreign enemies, neither Waterford, Dungannon, nor Youghal could resist a frigate.' Cork, the finest harbour in the world, more important to Great Britain than Dublin, was defended only by a miserable battery, called Cove Fort.'2 'Common sense and common justice' had been so long forgotten in Ireland, 'that 6 1 The rise in the price of farm produce had not remedied the poverty of the people, for the landowners and middlemen, when they were not held in check by the Whiteboys, had secured the profit to themselves. Townshend was no more of a sentimentalist than English statesmen are apt to be, yet he summed up one of his descriptive letters by saying:-'In short, my lord, the distress of this people is very great. I hope to be excused for representing to his majesty the miserable situation of the lower ranks of his subjects in this kingdom. What from the rapacious ness of their unfeeling landlords and the restrictions on their trade, they are among the most wretched people on earth.'-' To Weymouth, November 23.' 2 Townshend himself examined Cork. It must,' he says, 'be a matter of curious speculation to whoever traces the old works about the harbour, to observe how much abler were the engineers in the years 1602 and 1644, when Lord Mountjoy and Prince Rupert commanded in this country. Dugnose and Ramhead were better positions than the job at the Cove.'-'To Weymouth, October 16.' the powers of party obliged the Government to mis- Of the condition of the army there had been recently a very painful illustration. Major Wrixon, who was with a battalion at Limerick, had carried off a young lady from her parents' house by force, and had kept her with him in the barracks. He was tried by court-martial, and cashiered. The court, however, H criminals. French vessels frequent CHAP. II. 1770. BOOK V. 1770. memorialized the Crown in his favour, on the ground that Major Wrixon's dismissal from the service would distress his sister! At Rathdowney, in Queen's County, there had been a scene no less characteristic. The Viceroy had reported that there was a wild ungovernable disposition in the people of many parts of the kingdom, which neither the common law nor the civil magistrates were able to restrain.' The military had to be called in at Rathdowney, but the military power was as little to be trusted as the civil power was inadequate. A sergeant's guard went into the town on market-day, apparently to buy provisions. Other privates of the regiment at the station followed them, and, with no discoverable provocation, fell promiscuously on the inhabitants, wounding some and killing others.' Not an officer was to be found in the place but the quartermaster. It was proved to be the practice of the officers everywhere to appear in quarters for a day, sign the returns, and then absent themselves till the next return.' Townshend hurried himself to the spot, and ordered the troops to be paraded without arms. Those of the rioters who could be identified were handed over to the civil authorities. The rest were marched to Dublin, and tried by a general court-martial. The officers were charged with being absent from duty without leave. They were found guilty, and dismissed the service; but, like Major Wrixon, were recommended to mercy. With such troops, such officers, and such court-martials, the Viceroy did not find his task more easy of defending the augmentation of the army. He refused to listen to the |