The Glories Of Ireland Part 11

Irwin C. McDowell, who was brevetted captain at Buena Vista, commanded a corps in the Civil War. George A. McCall, brevetted lieutenant-colonel at Palo Alto, was a major-general in the Civil War. Francis T. Bryan was a hero of Buena Vista. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas P. Moore and Captain James Hogan both won fame in the 3rd Dragoons. Lieutenant Thomas Claiborn of the Mounted Rifles became a colonel in the Confederate Army. Lieutenant-Colonel J.W. Geary fought brilliantly and was to be heard from later with renown.

Colonel John F. Reynolds of the 3rd Artillery lived to be major-general in the Civil War, and to fall gloriously at Gettysburg.

Nor must we forget Major Folliot Lally's bravery at Cerro Gordo; Second Lieutenant Thomas W. Sweeny, a brigadier-general of the Civil War and the planner of the Fenian invasion of Canada in 1866; Lieutenant Henry B. Kelly of the 2nd Infantry, afterwards a Confederate colonel; Captain Martin Burke of the 1st Artillery, killed at Churubusco; nor Lieutenant William F. Barry of the 2nd Artillery, a brigadier-general in the Civil War. There were scores of other Irish named officers. In the whole American force of 30,000 engaged, the Irish born and Irish descended troops of all arms were numbered by thousands.

It was, however, in the Civil War that the flood of Irish valor and loyalty to the American Republic was at its height. The 2,800,000 enlistments on the Northern side stood probably for 1,800,000 individual soldiers serving during the four years of the war. Not less than 40 per cent, of these were Irish born or of Irish descent.

Of the 337,800 men furnished by the State of New York, 51,206 were natives of Ireland out of the total of 134,178 foreign born, or 38 per cent, of the latter, while not less than 80,000 of Irish descent figured among the 203,600 native born soldiers. Of the 2,261 engagements in the war, few there were that saw no Irishmen in arms, and certainly, in every one of the 519 engagements that made Virginia a great graveyard, the Irish figured largely. Of the 1,000,516 mustered out in 1865, not less than 150,000 were natives of Ireland, while those of Irish descent numbered hundreds of thousands. They fought well everywhere, and it would require volumes to give the names and deeds of those who distinguished themselves more than their fellows.

One name, however, shines with a great blaze above them all, the name of Philip H. Sheridan, one of the three supreme soldiers of the Union, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tec.u.mseh Sherman being the others. Had Ireland furnished only Sheridan to the Union cause, her service would be beyond reward. He was born in Albany, N.Y., in March, 1831, the year after his parents, John and Mary Sheridan, arrived there from the Co. Cavan, in Ireland. The family moved to Somerset, Perry Co., Ohio, the following year. There Philip began village life. How he gained the beginning of an education; worked in a grocery store; became a bookkeeper; longed for a West Point nomination and got it; how he worked through the Academy in 1853; served as lieutenant on the frontier, in Texas, California, and Oregon, until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was promoted captain and ordered east, can be quickly told. His history until the fall of the Confederacy would need many long chapters. His military genius included all the requirements of a great captain, and his opportunties of exhibiting all his qualities in action came in rapid succession. In every service from quartermaster to army commander his talents shone. His tremendous vigor, incredible mental alertness, and genius for detail, added to his skill and outreach, continually set him forward. He stood 5 feet 5 inches high, but somehow looked taller, owing to his erect, splendid bearing. There was something in the full chest, the thick muscular neck, the heavy head, the dark blazing eyes, and the quick bodily movements that arrested attention.

His name has come down to this generation mainly as a great cavalry leader, but he was a natural commander of all arms, a great tactician, a born strategist. His campaign of the Shenandoah Valley was a whirlwind of success. His great battles around Richmond were wonderful. General Grant's opinion of Sheridan, given thirteen years after the war, sums up the man. It is here quoted from J.R. Young's book, _Around the World with General Grant_. It runs, in part, as follows:

"As a soldier, as a commander of troops, as a man capable of doing all that is possible with any number of men, there is no man living greater than Sheridan. He belongs to the very first rank of soldiers, not only of our country but of the world. I rank Sheridan with Napoleon and Frederick and the great commanders in history. No man ever had such a faculty of finding things out as Sheridan, of knowing all about the enemy. He was always the best informed of his command as to the enemy. Then he had that magnetic quality of swaying men, which I wish I had, a rare quality in a general. I don't think anyone can give Sheridan too high praise."

Praise from U.S. Grant is praise indeed. A peculiar feature of the Civil War was the growth of the generals: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, all conspicuously experienced it. With Sheridan, however, one point is notable, namely, that He triumphed in every branch in each successive extension of the field of his duties, and he went from captain to major-general in three years of the regular army. His care for his men was constant. His troops were always the best fed, best clothed, best rested in the armies en either side, but on no troops was there more constant call for endeavor, and they were never found to fail him. In action he is described as severe, peremptory, dominating, but his determinations were mighty things, not to be interfered with. He wanted things done and done at once.

His men of all grades soon conceded that he knew best what to do, and set about doing it accordingly. Out of action he was joyous of spirit, but, in fight or out of it, his alertness and his lightning-like decisions marked him apart from every other commander.

His career in the Tennessee campaign was meteoric. Of his score and more of great conflicts, the most picturesque was his wonderful battle at Cedar Creek, to fight which he rode at breakneck speed "from Winchester twenty miles away" through the dust and debris of a broken army to the extreme front, rallying the scattered regiments and turning a defeat into a crushing victory, which recovered all that had been lost, taking 25 cannon and 1,200 prisoners, and driving for miles the lately victorious enemy under Early. Captain P.J.

O'Keefe was one of the two who made the ride beside him. The battles of Waynesboro, Five Forks, and Sailor's Creek showed the same brilliant generalship on the part of Sheridan. His hold on the affection of the army and the admiration of the people continued to the day of his death, August 5, 1888, when he held the headship of the United States army as general in succession to the great Sherman.

General Sheridan, towards the end of the war, had a soldier's difference with Major-General George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, but that did not blind "Little Phil" to the real merit of the victor in the tremendous three days' battle of Gettysburg, handling an army new to his hand against Robert E. Lee.

The Meade family is of Irish descent. George Meade, the grandfather, came from Dublin and was a patriot in the American Revolutionary War.

General Meade commanded a division at Antietam and a corps at Fredericksburg, and held command of the Army of the Potomac to the end of the war. He was a fine soldier and gentleman. Of quiet manners at most times, he was most irascible in the hour of battle, but his temper did not becloud his judgment. General James Shields and General Irwin McDowell, both fine Irish soldiers, have already been mentioned.

It would be hard to compa.s.s in a brief article even the names of the general officers of Irish blood in the Civil War. General John Logan, who fought with the western armies, is worthy of high and honorable mention, as is General Thomas Francis Meagher, a patriot in Ireland, a prisoner in Australia, a soldier of dash in the Civil War.

Meagher's Irish Brigade left a record of valor unsurpa.s.sed: their charge at Fredericksburg up Marye's Heights alone should give them full meed of fame. General Michael Corcoran, a native of Ireland, commanded the wholly Irish 69th Regiment when it departed for the war in 1861, and after his exchange from a Confederate prison raised and organized the Corcoran Legion. Major-General McDowell McCook commanded brilliantly in the western campaigns. Who has not heard of the Fighting McCooks?--a family of splendid men and hardy warriors.

Brigadier-General Thomas C. Devin was a superb cavalry commander, who led the first division of Sheridan's Shenandoah army through all its great operations. General James Mulligan of Illinois was of the true fighting breed. Colonel Timothy O'Meara led his superb Irish Legion from Illinois up Missionary Ridge. Brigadier-General C.C. Sullivan of western army fame was one of the five generals, headed by Rosecrans, who recommended Phil Sheridan for promotion to brigadier-general after the battle of Booneville as "worth his weight in gold." General Brannan was a gallant division commander in the Middle Tennessee campaign. Colonel William P. Carlin made a name at Stone River.

General James T. Boyle, of the Army of the Ohio under Buell, was the brave man whose promotion to division commander left a vacancy for "Little Phil", that was to be an immediate stepping stone to higher opportunity. Brigadier-General McMillan, who commanded the second brigide at Cedar Creek; Colonel Thomas W. Cahill, 9th Connecticut; Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Neafie of the 156th New York; Captain Charles McCarthy of the 175th New York; Lieutenant-Colonel Alex. J.

Kenny of the 8th Indiana; Lieutenant Terrence Reilly of the Horse Artillery, all won distinction in the Shenandoah Valley. Such splendid fighters as General James R. O'Beirne, Colonel Guiney, Colonel Cavanagh, Colonel John P. Byron, Colonel Patrick Gleason, General Denis F. Burke, wrote their names red over a score of battle fields, but one cannot hope to cover more than a fraction of the brilliant men of Irish blood who led and bled in the long, hard, and strenuous struggle. The 69th New York Regiment was the mother of a dozen Irish regiments, including the Irish Brigade of Meagher and the Corcoran Legion. The 9th, 28th, and 29th regiments of Ma.s.sachusetts were all Irish. A gallant Irishman, born at Fermoy, was Brigadier-General Thomas Smyth, who made a name and died in the battles around Richmond. There was not a regiment from the middle western and western States that did not hold its quota of Irishmen and sons of the Irish. After the names of Porter and Farragut in the Navy stands next highest in honor that of Vice-Admiral Stephen C.

Rowan, born in Dublin, of the famous family that produced Hamilton Rowan, one of the foremost of the United Irishmen. It was the son of the vice-admiral, a lieutenant in the army, who carried "the message to Garcia" from the United States War Department to the Cuban commander in the eastern jungle of Cuba, before the outbreak of the war with Spain, and did it so well and bravely through such difficulties and dangers that his name will stand for "the faithful messenger" forever.

As a consequence of their stand with the American people in the Civil War, the position of the whole ma.s.s of the Irish and Irish-American people was vastly uplifted in American eyes. The unlettered poverty of scores of thousands of Irish immigrants, who came in mult.i.tudes from 1846 on, had made an unfavorable and false impression; their red blood on the battle field washed it out.

On the southern side as well, Irish valor shone. While the great flood of the mid-century Irish immigration had spread itself mainly north, east, and west, the larger cities of the South also received a share. The slave system precluded the entry of free labor into the cotton, corn, lumber, and sugar lands of the South, but such cities as New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Savannah, Vicksburg, and Richmond gave varied employment to many of the Irish who made their homes in the Southland, and so they came to furnish thousands of recruits to the local Confederate levies. The "Louisiana Tigers", who fought so valiantly at Gettysburg on the Southern side, included many Irish.

The Georgia brigade, that held the Confederate line atop of Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, up which the Irish brigade so heroically charged, had whole companies of Irish. There were scores of Irish in many of the regiments that made Pickett's memorable charge at Gettysburg. All through the Confederate armies were valiant descendants of the earlier Irish immigration that settled the uplands of the Carolinas and Virginia and the blue gra.s.s region of Kentucky.

Most famous, most glorious of these was "Stonewall"

Jackson--Lieutenant-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson--next to Robert E. Lee the greatest soldier on the southern side. No more splendid soldier-figure rises out of the contest. Educated at West Point, serving in Mexico, then a professor of philosophy--and artillery--next a volunteer with his State when Virginia took arms against the Union, his long and brilliant service included a large share in the victories at Bull Run, Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Cedar Mountain, Harper's Ferry, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, where he was accidentally wounded by his own men.

He was once defeated by General Shields, as has been noted. The piety and purity of his life belie the supposed necessity for the coa.r.s.er traits that are thought to go with the terrible trade. General Patrick R. Cleburne was born in 1828, near Cork, Ireland. He was in the English army three years, and, coming to the United States, became a lawyer at Helena, Ark. He enlisted in the Confederate army as a private, rose rapidly to the command of a brigade, and made a great name at Shiloh. As major-general he led divisions at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, and was thanked by the Confederate Congress. He fell at the battle of Franklin--a soldier of commanding presence, skill, and daring, beloved by the whole Army of the West.

The gallant colonel Thomas Claiborne was a striking cavalryman. It was Lieutenant Thomas A. Claiborne of the 1st South Carolina who, with Corporal B. Brannan, lashed the broken flagstaff on Fort Sumter in June, 1864, when, under a withering fire, the flag of the Confederacy had been shot away. The fighting of Major-General Gary of South Carolina around Richmond was desperate. He was the last to leave the city when it fell, as told by Captain Sullivan: "He galloped at night through the burning city, and at the bridge over the James cried out, 'We are the rear guard. It is all over; blow the bridge to h--l!' and went on into the night"

The story of the Civil War is a mine of honor to the Irish, and Irishmen should set it forth at length. Here it can be merely glanced at.

The war of 1898 with Spain--that great patriotic efflorescence--was brief in its campaigning. Immediately provoked by the blowing up of the U.S.S. _Maine_ in Havana harbor on February 15, war was declared on April 19. Admiral Dewey sank the Spanish fleet in Manila Harbor, May 1. The first troops landed on Cuban soil June 1. The first--and last--real land battle before Santiago occurred on July 1-2, with 13,500 troops on the American side against an available Spanish force somewhat less in number, but holding strongly fortified and entrenched positions around the town. The advance and charges uphill necessary to capture El Caney and the steep heights of San Juan called for desperate courage. It was there, however, and the Irish in the army exhibited dash and persistence, as duty demanded. In the second day's fighting the Spanish a.s.saults on the American positions were repelled, and the land fighting was over. The Americans in the two days lost over 10 per cent killed and wounded. The destruction of Cervera's fleet on its attempt to escape from Santiago on July 3 ended the struggle. With the regiment of Rough Riders, under Theodore Roosevelt--who says he reckons "an O'Brien, a Redmond, and a man from Ulster" among his for-bears--were many gallant Irishmen--Kellys, Murphys, Burkes, and Doyles, for instance. His favorite captain, "Bucky" O'Neill of Arizona, fell at the foot of San Juan. The white regiments of the regular army had their quota of Irish, as had most of the volunteers. The 9th Ma.s.sachusetts was all Irish. The 69th New York, all Irish, never reached the front in the war, but shared the fate of the 150,000 troops cantoned through the Southern States, their only effective enemies being dysentery, typhoid, and malaria.

A little splash of Irish blood came with the Fenian dash into Canada on June 1, 1866. There had been active preparations for a real invasion by some 50,000 Irish-born or Irish-fathered soldiers who had served in the Civil War. The American government, using its army force, intervened to prevent the bellicose movement, not, however, before Colonel John O'Neill, who had served in the cavalry with Sherman on his march to the sea, with Captain Starr, one of Kilpatrick's cavalry, Captain O'Brien, and about 700 well-armed men, all Civil War veterans, had slipped across the Niagara River at Fort Erie. They made short work of all in sight, threw out a couple of hundred men who burned a bridge and tore up the railroad tracks.

Their scouts fired on a small British detachment, which ran. On the morning of June 2 news came of a larger Canadian force advancing, and O'Neill went out to meet them. Deploying his men in a field near the high road at a place called Ridgway, he sent his pickets forward.

They found heavy ground in front and about three-quarters of a mile away some 1,400 men of the "Queen's Own" of Toronto and the Hamilton Volunteers advancing rapidly in line. O'Neill, after a few rounds, withdrew his pickets, and the Canadians, taking the movement for flight, came briskly on. As soon as they were clear of cover, O'Neill, firing a volley, gave orders for a charge. At it they went with a cheer, and the whole Canadian line gave way. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, leaving some fifty killed and wounded. After chasing them for two miles, O'Neill halted his men and brought them back to Fort Erie, where they intrenched. The Canadians did not stop until they reached Colburne, eighteen miles away. The Fenian loss was twenty-five. In the night O'Neill learned that no help was coming from the United States' side, while news reached him that a force of 5,000 Canadian and British regulars was advancing on Fort Erie. Accordingly, at 2 a.m. on June 3, he surrendered to the United States forces with 400 of his men, who were detained for a few days on the U.S.S. _Michigan_ and then let go. The balance of his force, about 250 men, escaped in groups across the river. There was another little victorious skirmish with the Canadians lower down under Captain Spear, who also slipped back over the border unpursued.

What fighting took place was workmanlike and creditable.

There was a flicker of Irish fighting spirit in the Boer War. Many thousands, no doubt, were in the English army of 250,000 men brought against the 30,000 Boers, but there was a small "Irish Brigade" that fought on the Boer side, and was notably engaged at Spion Kop, where the English were driven so sweepingly from their position by desperate charges.

In the War of 1870, between France and Prussia, the good wishes of the Irish went with France, for the sake of the old friendship, largely helped, no doubt, by the fact that at the summit of army command was Marshal MacMahon, a descendant of a warrior of the old Irish Brigade. His service in Algiers; his skill and daring in the Crimean War before Sebastopol, where he led the division which stormed the Malakoff; his victories in the Italian War of 1859 against Austria, including the great battle of Magenta, all made him a striking, romantic figure. He failed in 1870 against the Prussians at Worth, and was made prisoner with his army at Sedan, but he suppressed the Commune after the war and was President of France from 1873 to 1879. The device by which 300 Irishmen took part on the French side in the war with Germany has a grim humor. They went as aides in an ambulance corps fitted out in Dublin by subscription, but, once on French soil, enlisted in the army. "Maybe we can kill as well as we can cure," said one of them. The _Compagnie irlandaise_, as it was called, did creditable work, and was in the last combat with the Prussians at Montbellard. Their captain, M.W. Kirwan, was offered a Cross of the Legion of Honor, but for some reason declined it. Dr. Constantine J. McGuire, who won the decoration for bravery before Paris during the siege of the Commune, did, however, accept it, receiving the cross from the hands of Marshal MacMahon, and, hale and hearty, wears the red ribbon on occasion in New York today.

Even as this chronicle of daring deeds and daring doers is being penned, in the ranks and as commanding officers on the side of the allies in the far-flung battle lines of the great European war, are men of Irish birth, and, let it not be forgotten, not a few of the opposing side are the descendants of the Irish military geniuses who, in days gone by, fought so gallantly across the continent "from Dunkirk to Belgrade". They are all, every man of them, bearing bravely, as of yore, their own part amid the dangers and chances of the fray.

If the inspiring story is of necessity here barely sketched in outline, it nevertheless clearly indicates that, as it has been for two thousand years of Irish history, so it will be to the end of the human chapter--the Irish race is the Fighting Race, and willing, even eager, to risk life itself for vital issues.

REFERENCES:

Keating's, MacGeoghegan's, Mitchel's Histories of Ireland; J.C.

O'Callaghan: The Irish Brigades in the Service of France, The Green Book; Lossing: Field Book of the Revolution, Field Book of the War of 1812; Several Mexican War Histories; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War; The Irish at Home and Abroad (New York, 1856); Canon O'Hanlon: Irish-American History of the United States; O'Hart; Irish Pedigrees; Martin I. Griffin: Life of Commodore Barry; John D. Crimmins: Irish Miscellany; Joseph Denieffe: Fenian Recollections; Plowden: Historical Review of the State of Ireland (London, 1803); Hays: History of the Irish (1798) Rebellion; Macaulay: History of England; J. R. Young: Around the World with General Grant; several valuable articles and records of research by Michael J. O'Brien of New York.

THE SORROWS OF IRELAND

By JOHN JEROME ROONEY, A.M., LL.D

"The sorrows of Ireland"! What a vision of woe the words conjure up.

The late Goldwin Smith, himself an Englishman and a Unionist, in his _Irish History and the Irish Question_, finds that "of all histories, the history of Ireland is the saddest. For nearly seven centuries it was a course of strife between races, bloodshed, ma.s.sacre, misgovernment, civil war, oppression, and misery."

The first of the great scourges of Erin was the coming of the Danes, the bloodthirsty and conquest-loving Vikings of the North, the worshipers of Thor and Odin, the G.o.ds of thunder and of strife. These warriors, in never-ending invasions, had for four hundred years overrun Britain and finally conquered the northern provinces of Gaul.

Until the end of the eighth century Ireland had been free from the Scandinavian scourge. About this time the invaders made lodgments along the caasts, pa.s.sed inward through the island, burned and looted religious houses and schools of learning, levied tribute upon the inhabitants, and at length established themselves firmly at Limerick, Waterford, Dublin, Wexford, and Carlingford. Fortified towns were built, trading communications with Britain and the continent were set up, and the Northman, though not in actual possession of the interior of the island, was apparently in substantial control of its destinies. Brian Borumha, or Boru, brother of the king of Munster, of the Dalca.s.sian race of O'Brien, refused to submit, roused his brother, fought the Danes of Limerick at Sulchoid (A.D. 968), and captured Limerick. Brian later succeeded his brother, became sovereign of all Ireland (A.D. 1001), and, on Good Friday, A.D.

1014, joined battle with the Danes upon the famous field of Clontarf.

Here the power of the Northmen was forever broken, Brian falling at the moment of victory, while in his tent, by the hand of a fugitive Dane.

With the death of Brian the united government dissolved. The provincial kings, or princes, resumed separate authority and a struggle arose among them, with varying success, for the national sovereignty. The central government never had been strong, as the nation was organized on a tribal or family basis. In this weakened condition Dermot MacMurrough, king of Leinster, abducted the wife of O'Rourke, prince of Breffni, while the latter was on a pilgrimage.

MacMurrough was compelled to fly to England. He sought the protection of the Angevin English king, Henry Plantagenet. As a result of this appeal, a small expedition, headed by Strongbow (A.D. 1169), was sent to Ireland, and Waterford, Wexford, and Dublin were taken. Then came Henry himself, in 1171, with a fleet of 240 ships, 400 knights, and 4,000 men, landing at Waterford. This expedition was the beginning of the English attempted conquest of Ireland--a proceeding that, through all the ruin and bloodshed of 800 years, is not yet accomplished.

Henry's first act was to introduce the feudal system into that southern half of the island which he controlled; he seized great tracts of land, which he in turn granted to his followers under feudal customs; he introduced the offices of the English feudal system and the English laws, and placed his followers in all the positions of power, holding their lands and authority under the feudal conditions of rendering him homage and military service.

This was the root of the alien "landlordism" and foreign political control of future times which became the chief curses of Ireland, the prolific source of innumerable woes. The succeeding years till the reign of Henry VIII. witnessed the extension, and at times the decline, of the Anglo-Norman rule. When Henry VII. became king of England the Anglo-Norman colony or "Pale" had shrunk to two counties and a half around Dublin, defended by a ditch. Many of the original Norman knights had become "more Irish than the Irish themselves."

Such was the great family of the Geraldines or Fitzgerald--the most powerful, with the O'Neills of the North, in Ireland. A united attack at this time would most certainly have driven out the invader; for it must be remembered that Dublin, the "Pale"--"the Castle government"

of later times--was the citadel of the English foreign power, and before a united nation would most certainly have succ.u.mbed.

When Henry VIII. ascended the throne of England, the policy of peace in Ireland was continued during the early portion of his reign. Then came Henry's break with the Pope over the royal divorce. The Irish beyond the Pale, and many within it, were loyal to the Church of their fathers, to the faith of Patrick, the faith of the Roman See.

To Henry and his daughter Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who displaced Henry's lawful wife, this was treason. Henceforth, to the bitterness of race hatred and the pride of the conqueror were to be added the blackest of religious feuds, the most cruel of religious persecutions in the history of the world. Again let Goldwin Smith, the English Unionist, describe the result: "Of all the wars waged by a civilized on a barbarous _(sic)_ and despised race these wars waged by the English on the Irish seem to have been the most hideous. No quarter was given by the invader to man, woman, or child. The butchering of women and children is repeatedly and brutally avowed.

Nothing can be more horrible than the cool satisfaction with which English commanders report their ma.s.sacres." Famine was deliberately added to the other horrors. What was called law was more cruel than war: it was death without the opportunity for defense and with the hypocrisy of the forms of justice added.

Out of this situation came the infamous Penal Code, which, by the period of William the Third, about 1692, became a finished system.

This is the "Irish Code" of which Lord Brougham said: "It was so ingeniously contrived that an Irish Catholic could not lift his hand without breaking it." And Edmund Burke said: "The wit of man never devised a machine to disgrace a realm or destroy a kingdom so perfect as this." Montesquieu, the great French jurist-philosopher, the author of the epoch-making _Spirit of the Laws_, commented: "It must have been contrived by devils; it ought to have been written in blood; and the only place to register it is in h.e.l.l." Yet for two hundred years this code of death, national and individual, was the supreme law of Ireland.

Wendell Phillips, the great American orator, in his lecture on "Daniel O'Connell," summed up this Penal Code in words that will not soon be forgotten by the world. His reference to Mr. Froude is to James Anthony Froude, the English historian. He says:

"You know that, under it, an Irish Catholic could not sit in the House of Commons; he could not hold any commission from the Crown, either civil or military; he could be a common soldier--nothing more.

He could neither vote, nor sit on a jury, nor stand on a witness stand, nor bring a suit, nor be a doctor, nor be a lawyer, nor travel five miles from his own home without a permit from a justice of the peace. The nearest approach that ever was made to him was a South Carolina negro before the war. He had no rights that a Protestant needed to respect. If he was a land-holder, if all his children were Catholics, he was obliged to divide the land equally between them.

This was the English plan for eliminating the Catholic tenure of the land and letting it slip out of their hands. Then, if any of the children, during their father's life, concluded to become Protestants, in such case they took the whole estate; or, indeed, they might compel the father to put his estate in trust for their benefit. So, if the Catholic wife would not go to an Episcopalian church once a month--which she deemed it a sin to do--she forfeited her dower. But if she went regularly, she could have all the estate.

If a Catholic had a lease, and it rose one-quarter in value, any Protestant could take it from him by bringing that fact to the notice of a justice of the peace. Three justices of the peace might summon any Catholic before them, and oblige him to give up his faith, or quit the realm. Four justices could oblige him to abjure his faith or sell his estates. If a Protestant paid one dollar tax, the Catholic paid two. If a Protestant lost a ship, when at war with a Catholic power--and at the time there was only _one_ Protestant power in Europe, besides Great Britain; that was Holland: so that the chances were nine to one that, in case of war, Great Britain would be at war with a Catholic power--in such a case, if a Protestant lost a ship, he went home and a.s.sessed the value on his Catholic neighbors, and was reimbursed. So, of education. We fret a great deal on account of a cla.s.s of Irishmen who come to our sh.o.r.es and are lacking in education, in culture, and refinement. But you must remember the bad laws, you must remember the malignant legislation, that sentenced them to a life of ignorance, and made education a felony in Catholic Ireland. If an Irishman sent his child to a Protestant schoolmaster, all right; but if the parent would not do so, and sent him to a Catholic school, the father was fined ten pounds a week; and the schoolmaster was fined five pounds a week; and for the third offense he was hung! But, if the father determined that his child should be educated, and sent him across the Channel to France, the boy forfeited his citizenship and became an alien; and, if discovered, the father was fined one hundred pounds; and anybody, except the father, who harbored him, forfeited all civil rights--that is, he could not sue in a court of law, nor could he vote. Indeed, a Catholic could not marry! If he married a Protestant, the marriage was void; the children were illegitimate. And, if one Catholic married another, it required the presence of a priest, and if a priest landed in Ireland for twenty minutes, it was death! To this ferocious 'Code', Sir Robert Peel, in our own day, added the climax, that no Catholic should quit his dwelling between the hours of sunset and sunrise, an exaggeration of the 'Curfew Law' of William the Conqueror. Now, you will hardly believe that this was enacted as a law. But Mr. Froude alludes to this code. Yes; he was very honest; he would paint England as black as she deserved. He said of Queen Elizabeth that she failed in her duty as a magistrate; she failed towards Ireland in her capability of being a great ruler. And then he proceeded, after pa.s.sing sentence, to give us the history of her reign, and showed that, in very many cases, she could not have done any different. For instance--oh! it is the saddest, blackest, most horrible statement of all history; it makes you doubt the very possibility of human nature--when you read that Spenser, the poet, who had the most ardent, most perfect ideas in English poetry--Spenser sat at the council board that ordered the wholesale butchery of a Spanish regiment captured in Ireland, and, to execute the order, he chose Sir Walter Raleigh, the scholar, the gentleman, the poet, the author, and the most splendid Englishman of his age!

And Norris, a captain under Sidney, in whose veins flowed the blood of Sir Philip, writing home to Elizabeth, begs and persuades her to believe in O'Neill's crimes, and asks for leave to send a hired man to poison him! And the Virgin Queen makes no objection! Mr. Froude quotes a letter from Captain Norris, in which he states that he found himself in an island where five hundred Irish (all women and children; not a man among them) had taken refuge from the war; and he deliberately butchered every living soul! And Queen Elizabeth, in a letter still extant, answers by saying: 'Tell my good servant that I will not forget his good services.' He tells us that 'The English n.o.bility and gentry would take a gun as unhesitatingly as a fowler, and go out to shoot an Irishman as an Indian would a buffalo.' Then he tells us, with amazement, that you never could make an Irishman respect an Englishman! He points to some unhappy Kildare, the sole relic of a n.o.ble house, whose four uncles were slaughtered in cold blood--that is the only word for this kind of execution, _slaughtered_--and he, left alone, a boy, grows up characterless and kills an archbishop. Every impetuous, impatient act is dragged before the prejudiced mind. But when Mr. Froude is painting Sir Walter and Spenser, blind no longer, he says: 'I regret--it is very sad to think--that such things should ever have been!'"

Such was the cup from which Ireland drank even into the days of men now living. Nor was this all. The rise of English manufactures brought a new chapter of woes to Ireland. The Irish cattle trade had been killed by an Act of Charles II. for the benefit of English farmers. The Irish then took up the raising of wool and woolen manufactures. A flourishing trade grew up. An English law destroyed it. In succession the same greed killed the cotton, the glovemaking, the gla.s.smaking, and the brewing trades. These were reserved for the English maker and merchant. These crimes upon Irish industry surpa.s.sed a thousand-fold the later English attempts upon the industries of the American colonies.