The Commercial Restraints of Ireland Part 3

Francis Hely--B.A. 1779, M.A. 1783.

Christopher Hely--B.A. 1788.

Abraham Hely--B.A. 1788, M.A. 1791; and Lorenzo Hely--B.A. 1790.

RICHARD HELY, the eldest son, and the first Lord Donoughmore, was a Commissioner of Accounts, Second Remembrancer, Chief Commissioner of Excise, Commissioner of Customs, Commissioner of Stamps, and Postmaster-General.

In 1776, he was elected simultaneously representative for Sligo and for the University (against the Attorney-General, Philip Tisdall), and chose the latter. He was unseated by parliamentary committee as not duly elected; and, in 1777, he was re-elected for Sligo without a new writ. In the University he was replaced by John Fitzgibbon (Earl of Clare). In 1783 he was M.P. for Taghmon. In 1788, he succeeded to the t.i.tle, on the death of his mother, and served in the Upper House, while his father and his two brothers were in the Commons. In 1794, according to the custom of the times, he raised a regiment, and got the command of it for his celebrated brother John.

FRANCIS HELY was returned for the University in the election of 1790. In the following year took place the celebrated pet.i.tion against his return, which is related in page xlii, &c. In 1799, he was member for Naas, and was re-elected in 1800, on having been appointed to the office of collector for the Port of Dublin. In 1792, on the debate on receiving the Catholic pet.i.tion in connection with Langrishe's Bill for giving, or giving back, the franchise, &c., to the Catholics, Mr. Froude says that: "Francis Hutchinson, the Provost's second son, soared into nationalist rhetoric. 'When the pride of Britain was humbled in the dust,' he said, 'her enemies led captive the brightest jewel of the imperial crown torn from her diadem, at the moment when the combined fleets of the two great Catholic powers of Europe threatened a descent upon our coasts, from whom did we derive our protection then?'... 'We found it in the support of three millions of our fellow-citizens, in the spirit of our national character--in the virtue of our Catholic brethren.' The motion for the pet.i.tion was lost by 208 votes to 23, and Langrishe's Bill was carried."--[_English in Ireland_, vol. iii., p. 53.]

Sir Jonah Barrington, in his "Personal Sketches." tells of the duel which Francis had at Donnybrook with Lord Mountmorris in 1798, in which his lordship was wounded.

CHRISTOPHER HELY was called to the Bar, but never much relished the profession, being altogether of a military turn. In 1795 he was elected member for Taghmon, county Wexford, in the Irish parliament on his father's death; and after the Union he represented Cork city in the Imperial parliament. He was Escheator of the Province of Munster. He was an earnest champion of the Catholic claims, as were also his father and brothers; he was a thorough supporter of the liberal policy of Lord Lieutenant Fitzwilliam; he mistrusted Lord Lieutenant Camden and Pitt, and he opposed the Union scheme. He is, however, far more celebrated as a soldier than as a lawyer or politician, and in 1796 he resigned his seat.

He adored his brother John, rivalled his brilliant courage, and served under him and with him at home and abroad with great distinction. He joined him in Ireland as a volunteer on the breaking out of the disturbances in 1798; but both of the brothers speedily got disgusted with the odious work, as did Cornwallis, and Moore, and Abercrombie, and Lake, and every other high-minded soldier, including Colin Campbell, afterwards in the t.i.the war. John soon got ordered off to Flanders, under Abercrombie, to fight the French; and thither Christopher followed him, and was wounded at the battle of Alkmar. Christopher followed John also to Egypt, and afterwards on his mission to St. Petersburgh, and to Berlin.

Christopher, on his own account, fought in the Russian ranks against the French, and was badly wounded by Benningsen's side at the battle of Eylau, in 1807. He fought also at the battle of Friedland. He died at Hampsted in 1825--[_Suppl. Biog. Univer._] It is worth noticing that this invaluable biographical dictionary makes a mistake in regard of the Castlebar battle in 1798, and a mistake of a kind that is not usual in French historians in affairs that concern the military glory of France. At Castlebar the French were victorious, and the Hutchinsons and the English troops were defeated disgracefully. The _Biog. Univer._, however, under "_Christophe Elie Hutchinson Cinquieme fils de Jean Elie Hutchinson, Prevot de l'Universite de Dublin_," says: "_Il eut part a l'affaire de Castlebar et fit prisonniers les deux Generaux Francais Lafontaine et Sorrazin au moment ou environne par leur corps il se croyait et devoit se croire perdu, et s'acquit ainsi l'estime de General en Chef Lord Cornwallis_." The writer confounds Castlebar with Ballinamuck.

ABRAHAM HELY was Commissioner of Customs, and Port duties, according to the Lib. Mun. and Sir Bernard Burke; and a clergyman, according to his father's will.

Lorenzo Hely took Holy Orders.

Besides these five the Provost had a son--his second born--

JOHN HELY HUTCHINSON, the most distinguished of all. He was born in 1757, and entered the army in 1774, the year in which his father was made Provost. In 1789 he became M.P. for Taghmon, county Wexford, on his brother Richard's call to the upper house, and in 1790 he became member for Cork city (the father going to Taghmon), and continued so until the Union. In 1792, in the debate on receiving the Catholic Pet.i.tion, "Prominent amongst their (Catholic) champions was Colonel Hutchinson, the Provost's son, who inherited his father's eloquence without his shrewdness. He talked the Liberal cant of the day, which may be compared instructively with the modern Papal syllabus."--[_Froude_, vol. iii., p.

53.]

Mr. Froude cannot have read this speech. It is a fervid denunciation of the penal laws, and of their cruelties and mischief; and it does not "talk either Liberal cant or Papal syllabus." Colonel Hutchinson's two speeches on the Pet.i.tion and on Langrishe's Bill, even as summarised in the Irish Parliamentary Report, are enlightened, able, and eloquent oratory. He was for complete emanc.i.p.ation. His liberal address to the Cork const.i.tuency, in 1796, is given by Plowden.

Hutchinson was an enthusiastic admirer of Lafayette, and of his ardent principles of popular liberty. When in Paris he attached himself closely to the general, and served on his personal staff.

During the troubles of 1798 he was employed here at the head of his brother's regiment, under Abercrombie. He sat in the Irish parliament in 1800, and voted for the Union!--[_Webb, and Barrington's "Black List."_]

He commanded against the French at Castlebar, and he shared in the humiliating defeat which Humbert's handful of men, supported by a body of Irish peasantry, inflicted on the royal army. Hutchinson was unable to stay the panic. His troops, which had signalised and enervated themselves by their licentious brutalities on a defenceless population, broke and fled--as Abercrombie foretold they would do--before the enemy. Their rout was as complete as it was disgraceful, and the barbarities which they committed on their retreat were diabolical. Hutchinson afterwards had the satisfaction of taking part in the affair at Ballinamuck, county Longford, where the French, including Generals Humbert, Sorrazin, and La Fontaine, laid down their arms.--[_Cornwallis's Correspondence_, vol. ii., p. 396; _Knight's History of England_, vol. vii., p. 367; _Haverty's History of Ireland_, p. 760; _and Bishop Stock's Narrative of Killala_.]

Hutchinson left the sickening Irish scenes, along with Abercrombie, for Flanders, in the Duke of York's expedition. After that he accompanied Abercrombie to Egypt as second in command, and on his death at Aboukir he succeeded as chief. He was reinforced from home, and by Sir David Baird's expeditionary contingent from India, took Alexandria and Cairo, and drove Menou and the French out of Egypt. For these distinguished achievements he was created Lord Hutchinson of Alexandria and Knocklofty; and, notwithstanding these achievements, he was never again employed in war service by the English Government. He made no secret of his anti-Toryism, and this was enough to ensure his rejection by a Government that selected the Chathams and Burrards. Lord Hutchinson was afterwards employed on some high diplomatic commissions at St. Petersburg and Berlin, and in these his independence of judgment was not altogether palatable to the London authorities. In 1825, on the death of his eldest brother, he succeeded to the Donoughmore t.i.tle and estates, which, on his death without issue, in 1832, pa.s.sed to his nephew, the third peer, better known as "Lavalette Hutchinson."

This JOHN HELY HUTCHINSON, the third of the name, was born in Wexford, in 1788. Having served through the Waterloo campaign, he was, on the allied occupation of Paris, in 1815, quartered there as Captain of the First Regiment of Grenadiers of the Guards. While there, in 1816, he, together with Lieutenant Bruce of his own regiment, and the celebrated Sir R.

Wilson, effected Lavalette's escape from France, after his deliverance from the Conciergerie by the romantic devotion and bravery of his wife.

The three friends were prosecuted in Paris for this violation of the law.

They declined to insist on their right of having half the jury English, and trusted themselves entirely to the honour of the Frenchmen. They admitted what was charged against them, and were condemned in the mild sentence of three months' imprisonment, and the costs of the prosecution.

Captain Hutchinson, on the trial, told how he had lodged Lavalette in his own chambers for one night, supplied him with an English officer's costume from a Paris tailor, procured pa.s.ses, and on horseback escorted to the frontier Lavalette, who was in a carriage with Wilson. He was willing to give a distinct answer to any fair question about himself, but he peremptorily refused to say anything that would compromise anyone else. He declared that there was not a particle of political animus in the adventure. The French historians tell how the chivalrous young Irishman's exploit was applauded by the whole nation, and how, on the trial, his manly and gracious bearing captured the court, which had to find him guilty of the deed that he acknowledged and related. Sir R. Wilson had been aide-de-camp to Hutchinson's uncle the general. [_Biog. des Contemp.

and The Accusation, Examination, and Trial of Wilson, Hutchinson, and Bruce._]

Captain Hutchinson succeeded to the t.i.tle in 1832. He lived and died at Palmerston, and in Chapelizod church a memorial tablet is erected to him, with the following inscription:--"Sacred to the memory of John Hely Hutchinson, third Earl of Donoughmore, Knight of St. Patrick, Lord Lieutenant of the county of Tipperary, and a Privy Councillor, having served his country in the Peninsular War and the Senate; and his country in troublous times. He died on the 12th of September, 1851, in the 64th year of his age, loved, respected, and regretted by all who knew him. This tablet has been erected in the church where he usually worshipped to record his many virtues by his widow."

In Chapelizod churchyard there is a tombstone inscribed: "Beneath this stone rest the earthly remains of Mrs. Hely Hutchinson; departed this life 1st June, 1830, aged 72 years.

Between the Provost and his four sons they represented, for over 40 years, 11 const.i.tuencies, and besides this, one was in the Irish and English, and another in the English House of Lords.

The names of the Provost and of his son Richard are on the roll of the Irish M.P.'s (1783-90) which Dr. Ingram has had framed and hung up in the f.a.gel wing of the College Library.

The present Lord Donoughmore, who is sixth in descent from the Provost, was one of the European Commission for organising Eastern Roumelia under the Berlin Treaty, and he is also the originator of the Lords' Committee of inquiry on the Irish Land Act. His lordship's father, in 1854, moved the second reading of Lord Dufferin's Liberal "Leasing Powers, and Landlord and Tenant Bills;" and in 1865 he made an able speech in the House of Lords on the grievances of the officers of the East India Company's army. He had previously served as a soldier with distinction in the East, and was always listened to with deserved attention by the peers.--[_Lord Dufferin's Speeches and Addresses._]

NOTE B. Page xxi.

DR. LELAND.

DUIGENAN'S disparaging mention of Dr. Leland is one of the most spiteful and unjust of his utterances. There does not seem to be any proof that Leland was guilty of any Academic disloyalty in being or becoming friendly to the Provost, and outside this indictment the celebrity of his varied intellectual distinctions added greatly to the l.u.s.tre and dignity of the College. He was probably the best cla.s.sical scholar of the country; he was an eloquent and popular preacher, constantly advocating the charities of the city, and although he did not contribute to either _Baratariana_ or _Pranceriana_ he was the most learned Irish author of the period. Dr.

Thomas Leland was born in Dublin in 1722, and was educated in Sheridan's famous school in Capel-street. He entered College in 1737, got Scholarship in 1741, and Fellowship in 1746. In 1746 he was appointed Southwell lecturer in St. Werburgh's Church. He was Erasmus Smith Professor of Oratory and Modern History in the University, Librarian, Chaplain to Lord Lieutenant Townshend, Prebendary of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Rector of Rathmichael, which living he exchanged for St. Anne's, Dublin, with the Vicar, Dr. Benjamin Domville Barrington. In 1781 he resigned his Senior Fellowship and retired on Ardstraw, which he held by dispensation along with St. Anne's until his death, in 1785. He was a vehement opposer of pluralists until he became himself a pluralist. He published a "Translation of Demosthenes," "The History of Philip of Macedon," and "The History of Ireland" in three volumes, quarto. This last-named history is really a work of very superior merit. Leland supported the English in the spirit of Primate Boulter; and like Delany, he may have hunted for a bishopric from the English Government; but as a historian, he gave an honest and able record. No one need set out more fairly and forcibly the rapacity of our Irish Reformationists, the frauds of Strafford, and the barbarities of Cromwell. His book was furthermore quite a novelty in regard of fresh material, and would be almost worth re-editing. After Leland's death three volumes of his sermons were published, by subscription, by M'Kenzie of Dame-street, and the list of subscribers contains the names of Provost Hutchinson, the Vice-Provost, many of the Fellows, the Library, bishops, judges, peers, members of parliament, and most of the celebrities of the day, but it does not contain the name of Patrick Duigenan.

Concerning the "History of Ireland," Leland's greatest work, we see by the recently-issued Historical Ma.n.u.scripts Commission Report, that it was Charles O'Connor of Belanagare, the then most capable recordist of Ireland, who moved him (1767) to undertake it "because he has abilities and philosophy equal to the task." O'Connor writes again, that "we undoubtedly have [in Trinity College Library], by Dr. Leland's care, the best collection of old annals now in these islands. That learned and worthy gentleman has made me free of the College Library." In another letter O'Connor says: "Dr. Leland is now librarian, and promises me a warm room and all the liberty I can require relative to the College MSS., which are now a n.o.ble collection, indeed." It was Charles O'Connor who made Lord Lyttleton and Dr. Leland acquainted with each other, and we do not find it recorded that the English peer was of any service to the Irish scholar, although Dr. Leland generously supplied his lordship with valuable historical information for his history of Henry II.; and that, when he himself was engaged in describing the same events in his own work.--[See _Life_ prefixed to Sermons, and vol. viii. of _Hist. Man. Com. Reports_, 1881, p. 486.]

Dr. Johnston had a high regard for Dr. Leland, and he wrote to him a letter of personal thanks for the Dublin University's honorary LL.D. in 1765. Johnston complained to O'Connor that Leland "begins his history too late," and that he should have been more exact in regard of "the times, for such there were, when Ireland was the school of the West, the quiet habitation of sanct.i.ty and literature." It was the chance mention of Leland's history that drew from Johnston the indignant exclamation "The Irish are in a most unnatural state, for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the ten persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics."--[_Boswell._]

In the _Anthologia Hibernica_ for March, 1793, vol. i., p. 165, there is a notice of Leland which sharply disparages his "History of Ireland." The notice is otherwise friendly and appreciative, and it quotes Dr. Parr's eulogy on Dr. Leland.

His "History of Ireland" closes with the surrender of Limerick in 1691, and Hutchinson was correct in stating ("Letter 3," p. 23, _ante_) that Ireland had no professed historian of its own since that era, and that history furnished very imperfect and often partial views of her affairs.

NOTE C. Page xxi.

DR. DUIGENAN.

DR. PATRICK DUIGENAN, more familiarly termed "Paddy," was one of the most remarkable men enumerated in the list of the Fellows of Trinity College.

He was the son of the Master of St. Bride's Parish School, and, doubtless, he received his early education in the school which, in his father's days, was kept first in Golden-lane and afterwards in Little Ship-street. In allusion to this, Watty c.o.xe's Journal twits him with the diploma of "St.

Bride's College." From St. Bride's Parish School the lad Patrick was sent to St. Patrick's Cathedral School, then presided over by Mr. Sheills (or Shiel), and thence in the year 1753 he entered Trinity College, as a Sizar. Whether he obtained the Sizarship by compet.i.tion or by nomination we do not find recorded; but _quocunque modo_ a sizar he entered, and next to him on the form sat another sizar stripling, Barry Yelverton, afterwards an usher in Buck's School in North King-street, and subsequently Lord Chief Baron and Lord Avonmore.[104] In 1756, Duigenan obtained Scholarship; in 1761, Fellowship; and in 1776, he retired on the Professorship of Laws, having been, in fact, turned out by Provost Hutchinson. He was M.P. for Armagh, King's Advocate-General, Privy Councillor, Vicar-General, and Judge of the Prerogative Court. He was a bl.u.s.tering and honest man; a fanatical anti-Catholic and a fierce Unionist, and he is accordingly hero-worshipped by Mr. Froude. He was a hanger-on, first of Philip Tisdall, and then of Lord Clare.

Wills, in his "Distinguished Irishmen," says that Duigenan was the son of the parish clerk of St. Werburgh's; and Dr. Madden, in his "United Irishmen," gives a letter saying the same, and that the father died a Catholic. There is no foundation for either of these a.s.sertions. Hugh Duigenan, the father, died St. Bride's parish schoolmaster, and he, as well as his wife Priscilla, was buried in St. Bride's churchyard. It is said in the "Life of Curran" that Duigenan once avowed in the House of Commons that he was the son of a parish clerk, and if so the father must have held that office in Derry before he came to Dublin. Dr. Maddens contributor says that Duigenan was appointed to St. Bride's School through the influence of Fitzgibbon, the father of Lord Clare. This is quite probable, as the Fitzgibbons lived in the parish--in Stephen-street, and many of the family were baptised in the church and buried in the graveyard. There may be truth in the tradition that the father was originally a Catholic and conformed. Grattan says that Duigenan was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood; that he was a hanger-on of Tisdall: that his manner of speaking resembled that of a mob-man in the last stage of agony; and Curran said his "_oratory was like the unrolling of a mummy, nothing but old bones and rotten rags_," and that he had a vicious way of "gnawing the names of papists." He was employed by Castlereagh to administer the Union bribe of a million and a half, and in 1807 he was employed by Sir Arthur Wellesley, then Chief Secretary, to negotiate about the Charter Schools and the Irish Protestant bishops.[105]

He was also one of the Public Record Commissioners.

His first wife was a Miss Cusack, a Catholic, and to her, in regard of religious matters he was most indulgent. This was the only instance of toleration that Duigenan was ever known to show. In 1799 he supported Toler's (Lord Norbury) Indemnity Bill, freeing all who in 1798 had committed illegal acts against the people. It must have cost him some trouble of mind when, as Vicar-General in 1783, he had to license Dr.

Betagh's Catholic School in Fishamble-street, as well as some other Catholic Schools, in obedience to Gardiner's Catholic Relief Act of the previous year. His second wife was the widow of Hepenstal, the "Walking Gallows." Duigenan died at Sandymount in 1816, and bequeathed his fortune to his first wife's nephew, Baron Smith. It was a brave thing of Duigenan when he had become a prominent man to go and reside in Chancery-lane amongst the lawyers, within a stone's throw of the lane in which he was reared as a poor boy; and it was not less brave of him to be a liberal subscriber to St. Bride's parish school. He was not ashamed to look back at the rock whence he was hewn. Very few parvenus have this sort of n.o.bility.

NOTE D. Page lxxiv.

The life-long compet.i.tion between Fitzgibbon and Grattan was so individual and so keen, and commenced so early, that the following quotations from the College books, now for the first time given, will probably be interesting. Can any other University produce a corresponding record?

The two splendid rivals, it will be remembered, carried far into public life their early friendship. Fitzgibbon was as earnest as Grattan for Irish parliamentary independence. He was one of Grattan's most fervid eulogists, and it was Grattan that got him made Attorney-General in 1785.

Their first serious difference was on the Navigation Act in 1786; three years later they fell out finally on the Regency Bill.

EXTRACTS FROM THE MATRICULATION BOOK, T.C.D.

"1763.

"John Fitzgibbon, F.C., June 6th (next cla.s.s). Educated by Mr. Ball.

Tutor--Mr. Law. Cla.s.s begins July 8th, 1763.