The Irish Race in the Past and the Present Part 46

This fact being indisputable, the conviction forces itself upon us that her improved condition is mainly, perhaps solely, due to Providence; and that the career upon which she has entered, and which she is now pursuing with a clear determination of her own, has been marked out, designed, and already partially run, under the guidance of that G.o.d for whom alone she has suffered, and who never fails in his own good time to dry up the tears shed for his sake, and crown his martyrs with victory.

Our task is merely to examine the progress made, the manner of its making, the direction toward which it tends, with the aim, if possible, of adding to its speed. We have no new plan to offer, no gratuitous advice to give. The plan is already sketched out--G.o.d has sketched it; and our only aim is to see how man may cooperate with designs far higher than any proposed by human wisdom.

The first thing that strikes us, standing on the verge of this new region, opening out dimly but gloriously before our eyes, is one great fact which is plain to all; which is greater than all England's concessions to Ireland, more fruitful of happy consequences, not alone to the latter country itself, but to the world at large; a fact which is the strongest proof of the vitality of the Irish race, which now begins to win for it respect by bringing forth its real strength, a strength to astonish the world; which began feebly when the evils of the country were at their height, but has gone on constantly increasing until it has now grown to extraordinary proportions; and which instead of, as their enemies fondly supposed, wresting Ireland from the Irish, has made their claim to the native soil securer than ever, by spreading strong supporters of their rights through the world. This great fact is emigration.

At this moment, Irishmen are scattered abroad over the earth. In many regions they have numbers, and form compact bodies.

Wherever this occurs, they acquire a real power in the land which they have made their new home. That power is certainly intended by Almighty G.o.d to be used wisely, prudently, but actively and energetically; not only for the good of those who have been thus transplanted in a new soil, but also for the good of the mother-country which they cannot, if they would, forget.

How can they utilize for such a purpose the power so recently acquired, the wealth, the influence, the consideration they enjoy, in their new country? How may such a course benefit the land of their nativity as of their origin? These are important questions; they are not airy theories, but rise up clearly from a standing and stupendous fact. The turning their power of expansion to its right use, the reproduction with Christian aim of that old power of expansion peculiar to the Celtic race three thousand years ago, is what we call the first true issue of the Irish question:- Emigration and its Possible Effects.

In order to judge with proper understanding of the prospective effects of Irish emigration, it is fitting to study the fact in all its bearings; to examine the origin and various phases of the mighty movement, the religious direction it has invariably taken, the immediate good it has produced, and the special consideration of the vast proportions which it has finally a.s.sumed. The task may be a long one; but it is certainly important and interesting; and it is only after the details of it have been thoroughly sifted that one may be in a position to judge rightly of the aid it has already furnished, and which it is destine to furnish in a still greater degree, to the uprising of the nation.

The movement originated with the Reformation. It began with the flight of a few of the n.o.bility in the reign of Henry VIII.; their number was increased under Elizabeth, and grew to larger proportions still under James I.; but a far greater number, sufficient to make a very sensible diminution in the population of the country, was doomed to exile by Cromwell and the Long Parliament. It then became a compulsory banishment.

The next following movement on a large scale occurred after the surrender of Kilkenny, when the Irish commanders, Colonel Fitzpatrick, Clanricard, and others, could obtain no better terms than emigration to any foreign country then at peace with England. The Irish troops were eagerly caught up by the various European monarchs, so highly were their services esteemed. The number that thus left their native land, many of them never to return, amounted, according to well-informed writers, to forty thousand men, of n.o.ble blood most of them, many of the first n.o.bility of the land, and almost all children of the old race.

The details of this first exodus are to be found in the pages of many modern authors, particularly in Mr. Prendergast's "Cromwellian Settlement."

The example thus given was followed on many occasions. The Treaty of Limerick, October 3, 1691, gave the garrison under Saarsfield liberty to join the army of King William or enter the service of France. Mr. A.M. O'Sullivan has given a spirited sketch of the making of their choice by the heroic garrison as it defiled out of the city:

"On the morning of the 5th of October the Irish regiments were to make their choice between exile for life or service in the armies of their conqueror. At each end of a gently-rising ground beyond the suburbs were planted on one side the royal standard of France, and on the other that of England. It was agreed that the regiments, as they marched out with all the honors of war, drums beating, colors flying, and matches lighted, should, on reaching the spot, wheel to the left or to the right, beneath that flag under which they elected to serve. At the head of the Irish marched the Foot Guards, the finest regiment in the service, fourteen hundred strong. All eyes were fixed on this splendid body of men. On they came, amid breathless silence and acute suspense; for well both the English and Irish generals knew that the choice of the first regiment would powerfully influence all the rest. The Guards marched up to the critical spot, and in a body wheeled to the colors of France, barely seven men turning to the English side! Ginckle, we are told, was greatly agitated as he witnessed the proceeding. The next regiment, however (Lord Iveagh's), marched as unanimously to the Williamite banner, as did also portions of two others. But the bulk of the Irish army defiled under fleur-de-lys of King Louis, only one thousand and forty-six, out of nearly fourteen thousand men, preferring the service of England."

From that time out a large number of the Irish n.o.bility and gentry continued to enlist under French, Spanish, or Austrian colors; and the several Irish brigades became celebrated all over Europe until the end of the eighteenth century. It is said by l'abbe McGeohegan that six hundred thousand Irishmen perished in the armies of France alone. The abbe is generally very accurate, and from his long residence in France had every means at his disposal of arriving at the truth. Some pretend that double the number enlisted in foreign service. There is no doubt that in all a million men left the island to take service under the banners of Catholic sovereigns, and it is needless to dwell on the bravery and devotion of those men whom the persecution of an unwise and cruel Protestant government drove out of Ireland during the eighteenth century-it is needless to dwell upon it, for the record is known to the world.

Without following the fortunes of the Irish brigades, the history of one of which, that in the service of France, has been given us in the very interesting and valuable narrative of John R. O'Callaghan-its various fortunes and final dissolution at the breaking out of the French republic, when the English Government was glad to receive back the scattered remnants of it-the question which bears most on our present subject is: What was the occupation of those Irishmen on the Continent when not actually engaged in war? What service did their voluntary or compulsory exile do their native country? Was that long emigration of a century productive of something out of which Providence may have drawn good?

The first departure of a few under Hugh O'Neill and Hugh O'Donnell had already spread the name of Ireland through Spain, Italy, and Belgium. The reports of the numerous English spies, employed to dog their steps and watch their movements, reports some of which have been finally brought to light, conclusively prove that most of the exiles held honorable positions in Spain and Portugal, at Valladolid and Lisbon, where the O'Sullivans and O'Driscolls lived; at the very court of Spain, or in the Spanish navy, like the Bourkes and the Cavanaghs.

In Flanders, under the Austrian archdukes, were stationed the McShanes, on the Groyne; the Daniells at Antwerp; the posterity of the earls themselves with that of their former retinue. All held rank in the Austrian army, and even in times of peace were occupied in thinking of possible entanglements whereby they might serve their country, while they made the Irish name honored and respected all over that rich land. In Italy, at Naples, Leghorn, Florence, and Rome, in the great centres of the peninsula, the same thing was taking place, and there, at least, the calumnies, everywhere so industriously circulated about Ireland, could not penetrate, or, if they did, only to be received with scorn.

But, when the next emigration, at the end of the Cromwellian and Williamite wars, landed forty thousand soldiers, and twelve thousand more a few years afterward, on the European Continent, these armed men proved to the nations, by their bravery, their deep attachment to their religion, their perfect honor and generosity, that the people from which a persecuting power had driven them forth could not be composed of the outlaws and blood- thirsty cutthroats which the reports of their enemies would make them. How striking and permanent must have been the effect produced on impartial minds by the contrast between the aspect of the reality and the base fabrications of skilfully-scattered rumor!

And be it borne in mind that those men founded families in the countries where they settled; as well as those who continued to flock thither during the whole of the eighteenth century. They carried about with them, in their very persons even, the history of Ireland's wrongs; and the mere sight of them was enough to interest all with whom they came in contact in favor of their country. Hence the esteem and sympathy which Ireland and her people have always met with in France, where the calumnies and ridicule lavished on them could never find an entrance.

It would be a great error to imagine that they were to be found only in the camp or in the garrisons of cities. They made themselves a home in their new country, and their children entered upon all the walks of life opened up to the citizens of the country in which they resided. Thus, at least, the name of Ireland did not die out altogether during that age of gloom, when their native isle was only the prison of the race, where it was chained down in abject misery, out of the sight of the world, the life of it stifled out in the deep dungeon of oblivion.

In all honorable professions they became distinguished-in the Church and in trade, as in the army. Thus, speaking only of France, an Irishman-Edgeworth-was chosen by Louis XVI. to prepare him for death and stand by him during his last ordeal of ignominy; another-Lally Tollendal-would have wrested India from England, if his ardent temperament had not brought him enemies where he ought to have met with friends; another yet-Walsh- during the American War, employed the wealth acquired by trade, in sending cruisers against the English to American waters.

It would take long pages to record what those n.o.ble exiles accomplished for the good of their country and religion, quite apart from the heroism they displayed on battle-fields, and their fidelity to principle during times of peace. Their very presence in foreign countries was, perhaps, the best protest against the enslavement of their own. They showed by their bearing that they owed no allegiance to England, and that brute force could never establish right. By identifying themselves with the nations which offered them hospitality and a new right of citizenship, they proved to the world that their native isle could be governed by native citizens. Their honorable conduct and successful activity in every pursuit of life showed that, as they were capable of governing themselves, so likewise could they claim self-government for their country.

The moral condition of France during the eighteenth century, and the depths of corruption into which the higher cla.s.s sank in so short a time, are known to all. To the honor of the Irish n.o.bility and gentry then in France, not a single Irish name is to be met with in that long list of n.o.ble names which have disgraced that page of French history. Not in the luxurious bowers and palaces of Louis XV. were they to be found, but on the battle-fields of Dettingen and Fontenoy. It was a Scotchman- Law-who infected the higher circles of the natives with the rage for speculation, and the folly of gambling in paper. It was an Italian- Cagliostro-who traded on the superst.i.tious credulity of men who had lost their faith. It was an Englishman-Lord Derwent.w.a.ter-and another Scotchman-Ramsay-who, by the introduction of the first Masonic Lodge into France, opened the floodgates of future revolutions.

Among those of foreign birth, no Irishman was found in France to contribute to the corruption of the nation, and give his aid to set agoing that long era of woe not yet ended.

And needless is it to add that never is one of them mentioned, among those who were so active in propagating that broad infidelity peculiar to that age. If a few of them shared to some extent in the general delusion, and took part with the vast mult.i.tude in the insane derision, then so fashionable, of every thing holy, their number was small indeed, and none of them acquired in that peculiar line, the celebrity which crowned so many others. -the Grimms, the Gallianis, and later on the Paines, the Cloots, and other foreigners.

As a body, the Irish remained faithful to the Church of their fathers, honoring her by their conduct, and their respectful demeanor toward holy names and holy things. Eventually they, in common with all Frenchmen, had to share in the misfortunes, brought on by the subversion of all the former guiding principles; but, though sharing in the punishment, they took no part in the great causes which called it down.

These few words will suffice for the emigration of the Irish n.o.bility, and its effects on foreign countries; as well as Ireland itself.

But another cla.s.s of n.o.blemen had emigrated to the Continent side by side with those of whom we have just spoken; namely, bishops, priests, monks, and learned men. England would not suffer the Catholic clergy in Ireland; she was particularly careful not to allow Irish youth the benefit of any but a Protestant education. Irish clergymen were compelled to fly and open houses of study abroad. Their various colleges in Spain, France, Belgium, and Italy, are well known; they have already been referred to, and it is not necessary to enlarge on the subject. But, though mention has been made of the renown thus acquired by Irishmen then residing on the Continent, it is fitting to speak of them again in their character of emigrants.

They took upon themselves the n.o.ble task of making the literature and the history of their nation known to all people; and in so doing they have preserved a rich literature which must otherwise have perished.

What was their situation on the Continent? They had been driven by persecution from their country, sometimes in troops of exiles to be cast on some remote sh.o.r.e; sometimes escaping singly and in disguise, they went out alone to end their lives under a foreign sky. Behind them they left the desolate island; their friends bowed down in misery, their enemies triumphant and in full power. The convents, where they had spent their happiest days, were either demolished or turned to vile uses; their churches desecrated; heresy ruling the land, truth compelled to be silent. All the harrowing details given by the "Prophet of Lamentations" might be applied to their beloved country.

True, they could find peace and rest among those who offered them their hospitality; at least, the worship of G.o.d would be free and untrammelled there. But it was not the place of their birth, where they had received their first education; it was not the mission intrusted to them when they consecrated their lives to G.o.d. They would bear another language, see around them different manners, begin life anew, perhaps, in their old age.

What a contrast to their former hopes! What a sad ending to the closing days of their life!

Nevertheless, they might be of use to their countrymen. It was not for them now to convert Europe, and preach Christianity to barbarous tribes, as did their ancestors of old. The world which received them was languishing with excess of refined civilization; corruption had entered in, and was fast destroying it; and they could scarcely hope to hold it back from its downward career. But, at least, they might open houses for the reception of the youth of their own country, where they should receive an education according to the teachings of the true Church, which was denied them at home. So they went to Salamanca, to Valladolid, to Paris, Louvain, Douai, Rheims, Rome, wherever there was hope or possibility of directing Irish youth in the ways of true piety and learning.

The labors to which they devoted themselves, though unknown to posterity, were of great utility at the time. They saw the youth they educated grow up under their care; when their studies were concluded, they sent them to labor in the ministry among their countrymen; they heard of them from time to time of their arduous life, the dangers they braved, the many persecutions they underwent, their imprisonment when captured, their conviction, torture often, and death by martyrdom. And thus, through the exertions of those emigrant monks and priests, the true Gospel was preached in Ireland, and the faith of the people kept alive and strong.

A few of them chose another path, and consecrated the remainder of their days to literary labors, which have shed down on their persecuted country a halo of immortal glory.

Some Franciscan friars (two of them the brothers O'Cleary) had already begun this work in the island itself, when driven from their quiet homes to take refuge in the obscure "convents," that is, out-of-the-way farm-houses mentioned before, where they were received and hidden away from the world. The literature of Ireland was fast perishing; the rage of their enemies being as violently directed against their books as against their houses and churches. Precious ma.n.u.scripts were every day given to the flames and wantonly destroyed, seemingly for the mere pleasure of destruction. A very few years would have sufficed to render the former history of the country a perfect blank. In no spot of the same size on earth had so many interesting books ever been written and treasured up; but before long there would remain no friars on the island to preserve them, no library to contain them, no one to care for them in the least. The brothers O'Cleary saw this with dismay; and they, with two companions, became known as the "Four Masters." They interested in their work the faithful Irish who still retained possession of a farm, or a cabin with a few acres of ground attached; the men, and women even, were to search the country round for every volume concealed or preserved, for every parchment and relic, for vellum ma.n.u.scripts, even a stray solitary page, did one remain alone. The annals of Ireland were thus saved by the literary patriotism of poor and unknown peasants. All that remains of Irish lore was collected together in the rural convent of the O'Clearys, and an ardent flame was enkindled which lasted the whole of the seventeenth century.

To this initiative must be referred the subsequent labors of Ward, Colgan, Lynch, and others; herculean labors truly, which have enabled antiquarians of our days to resume the thread, so near being snapped, of that long and tangled web of history wherein is woven all that can interest the patriot and the Christian of the island.

Knowing the position in which the writers found themselves, it is astonishing to see what they wrote. It was not a work of fancy to which their pens were devoted: A strong, feeling heart and an active imagination were certainly theirs; but of little service could either prove to them in the ungrateful task of collecting ma.n.u.scripts, cla.s.sifying, reading them through, ascertaining their age and authenticity, and finally using them for the purpose of preserving the annals and hagiography of the nation.

The large libraries they found in the various cities which received them could be of little use to them. They had first to collect their own libraries, to summon their authorities from distant lands; many books were to be procured from Ireland itself. With what precautions! It was real, (though lawful) smuggling; for the export of Irish books was not only under tariff, but strictly prohibited; the mere sight of them was more hateful to a British custom-house officer of those days than the sight of a crucifix to a j.a.panese official of Nagasaki. It would be interesting to know the various stratagems devised to conceal them, tarry them away, and convey them triumphantly to Louvain, Paris, or Rome.

But Ireland was not the only repository of Irish books. Many letters, official doc.u.ments, copies of old MSS., interesting relics of antiquity, had been gathered ages before and during all the intervening time, in convents, churches, houses of education, on the Continent, along the Rhine chiefly. It is said that even to-day the richest mines of yet unexplored lore of this character are scattered along both sides of the great German river. The frequent movements of various armies, the sieges of cities, the horrors of war which have raged there constantly from the days of Arminius and Varro down, have not destroyed every thing, could not exhaust the rich deposit of Irish ma.n.u.scripts there concealed. But the labor of striking the mine!-of' opening those musty pages falling to pieces between the fingers and leaving in the hand nothing but illegible fragments of half-blackened parchment; and the further labor of deciphering them, of discovering what they speak about, and if they are likely to prove useful to the purposes.

It is needless to descant on such a theme. It is impossible to give any true idea of the literary labors of those men, without having seen and perused their huge folios, many of which have not yet been published to the world. Poor Colgan could give us little more than his "Trial Thaumaturga and that was only destined to form the portal of the edifice he purposed erecting as a shrine to the memory of the whole host of saints nurtured in the island-the Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae

The grand idea, which first germinated in the minds of those men, expanded afterward in others under circ.u.mstances more favorable.

Did they not suggest to Bollandus and his fellows the thought whose realization has immortalized them?

In tasks such as these were the Irish emigrant monks of the time employed.

There was yet another cla.s.s of involuntary Irish exiles those shipped to the " plantations" of America, to the 11 tobacco" and 11 sugar" islands, to Virginia and Jamaica, but princ.i.p.ally to the Barbadoes. The origin of this new kind of emigration, already touched upon, is worthy of the times and of the men who called it forth.

After forty thousand soldiers had been allowed, or rather compelled, by Cromwell to enlist in foreign armies, it was found that many had left behind them their wives and children. What was to be done with these " widows" whose husbands and numerous offspring were still living ? They could not be sent to Coff as women, with children only, could not be expected to "plant" that desolate province; they could not be expected to "plant" that desolate province; they could not be allowed to remain in their native place, as the decree had gone forth that all the Irish were to "transplant" or be transported: it would have been inconvenient and inexcusable to do what had been so often done in the war-ma.s.sacre them in cold blood-as the war was over.

To relieve the government of this difficulty, Bristol merchants, and merchants probably from other English cities, trading with the new British colonies of North America, thought it a providential opening for a great profit to accrue to the soils of the benighted Irish women and children, and likely at the same time to add something to their own purses and those of their friends, the West India planters.

It was only under Elizabeth that permanent colonies were sent out from England to the continent and islands of the New World.

The Cavaliers of Virginia are as well known in the South as the Puritans of New England in the North. This last colony dated only from the time of the Stuart dynasty. The great question for all those transatlantic establishments was that of labor; but in the South it was more difficult of solution than in the North, where Europeans could work in the fields, a thing scarcely possible in the tropics. The natives as we know, were first employed in the South by the Spaniards, and soon succ.u.mbed to the demands of European rapacity.

In the West Indies, natives of two different races existed: the soft and delicate Indian of Hayti and Cuba, and the ferocious Caribs of many other islands. The first race soon disappeared; the other continued refractory, indomitable, choosing to perish rather than labor; and some remnants of it still remain, saved by the Catholic Church. As yet, African negroes had not been conveyed there in sufficient numbers.

A brilliant thought struck the minds, at once pious, active, and business-like, of those above-mentioned Bristol merchants-a thought which was the doom of thousands of Irish women and children.

The names of a few of those Bristol firms deserve to be handed down. Those of Messrs. James Sellick and Leader, Mr. Robert Yeomans, Mr. Joseph Lawrence, Dudley North, and John Johnson, are furnished by Mr. Prendergast, who tells us that-

"The Commissioners of Ireland under Cromwell gave them orders upon the governors of garrisons to deliver them prisoners of war . . . . upon masters of work-houses, to hand over to them the dest.i.tute under their care, 'who were of an age to labor,' or, if women, those 'who were marriageable, and not past breeding;'

and gave directions to all in authority, to seize those who had no visible means of livelihood, and deliver them to these agents of the Bristol merchants; in execution of which latter directions, Ireland must have exhibited scenes in every part like the slave-hunts in Africa."