Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry Part 32

So it will be again. Already men whose tongues, and pens, and hearts were busy pleading for better tenures and juster rents are silenced.

They will not clamour for rights when a.s.sa.s.sins may recruit their gangs with the words of the innocent. Already minds deep in preparing remedies for popular suffering are meditating means of popular coercion. The justice, not only of government but society, has grown cautious of redress, and is preparing to punish--a repet.i.tion of guilt will aggravate that punishment and postpone that redress.

Headstrong and vain men, your sins will not give you a landlord the less nor a persecutor the less; while ever the land is liable to the rent there will be found men willing to hazard their lives to get it, and you but arm them with fresh powers, with the sympathy of the public and the increased force of law and government, to lean yet heavier on you.

Why, too, should Munster lead in guilt? Our richest province, our purest race, our fairest scenes--oh! why should its bloodshed be as plenteous as its rains? Other people suffer much. The peaceful people of Kerry, the whole province of Connaught, many counties of Leinster are under a harsher yoke than the men of North Munster: yet they do not seek relief in butchery.

Thank G.o.d! they do not. How horrid a blot upon earth were Ireland, if its poor had no reliance but the murder of the rich; better by far that that people rose and waged open war. That were wild--that were criminal; but 'twould be wisdom and mercy compared with these individual murders.

How horrible is the condition of a district subject to such crimes! Few are struck, but all suffer! 'Tis as if men knew a.s.suredly that a spirit of plague were pa.s.sing through the land, but knew not whom it would wither. Think of a district where there has been peace--the People are poor, but they are innocent; some of the rich are merciless, but some are just, and many are kind and sympathising; in their low homes, in their safe chapels, in the faith of their fellows, in the hope of better days, in the effort for improvement, but above all in their conscious innocence, the most trampled of them have consolation, and there is a sort of smile even on the wretched. But let some savage spirits appear among them--let the shebeen house supply the ferocity which religion kept down, and one oppressor is marked out for vengeance, his path is spied, the bludgeon or the bullet smites, and he is borne in to his innocent and loving family a broken and stained corpse, slain in his sins.

Pursuit follows--the criminals become outlaws--they try to shelter their lives and console their consciences by making many share their guilt--another and another is struck at. Haunted by remorse, and tracked by danger, and now intimate with crime, a less and a less excuse suffices. He began by avenging his own wrong, becomes the avenger of others, then perhaps the tool of others, who use the wrongs of the country as a cloak for unjustified malice, and the _suspected_ tyrant or the rigid, yet not unjust, man shares the fate of the glaring oppressors. What terror and suspicion--what a shadow as of death is there upon such a district! No one trusts his neighbour. The rich, excited by such events, believe the poor have conspired to slay them.

They dread their very domestics, they abhor the People, rage at the country, summon each other, and all the aid that authority can give to protect and to punish; they bar their doors before sunset, their hearths are surrounded with guns and pistols--at the least rustle every heart beats and women shriek, and men with clenched teeth and embittered hearts make ready for that lone and deadly conflict--that battle without object, without honour, without hope, without quarter.

Then they cover the country with patrols--they raise up a cloud of hovering spies--no peasant, no farmer feels safe. Those who connive shudder at every pa.s.sing troop, and see an informer in every stranger.

Those who do not connive tremble lest they be struck as enemies of the criminal; and thus from bad to worse till no home is safe--no heart calm of the thousands.

As yet no district has attained this horrible ripeness; but to this North Munster may come, unless the People interfere and put down the offenders.

Will they suffer this h.e.l.l-blight to come upon them? Will they wait till violence and suspicion are the only principles retaining power among them? Will they look on while the Repeal movement--the educating, the enn.o.bling, the sacred effort for liberty--is superseded by the buzz of a.s.sa.s.sination and vengeance? Or will they now join O'Connell and O'Brien--the a.s.sociation, the Law, and the Priesthood; and whenever they hear a breath of outrage, denounce it as they would Atheism--whenever they see an attempt at crime, interpose with brave, strong hand, and, in Mr. O'Brien's words, "leave the guilty no chance of life but in hasty flight from the land they have stained with their crimes."

Once again we ask the People--the guiltless, the suffering, the n.o.ble, the brave People of Munster--by their patience, by their courage, by their hopes for Ireland, by their love to G.o.d, we implore them to put down these a.s.sa.s.sins as they would and could were the weapons of the murderers aimed at their own children.

A SECOND YEAR'S WORK.

It was a bold experiment to establish _The Nation_. Our success is more honourable to Ireland than to us, for it was by defying evil customs and bad prejudices we succeeded.

Let us prove this.

Religion has for ages been so mixed with Irish quarrels that it is often hard to say whether patriotism or superst.i.tion was the animating principle of an Irish leader, and whether political rapacity or bigoted zeal against bigotry was the motive of an oppressor. Yet in no country was this more misplaced in our day than in Ireland. Our upper cla.s.ses were mostly Episcopalians--masters not merely of the inst.i.tutions, but the education and moral force of the country. The middle ranks and much of the peasantry of one of our greatest provinces were Presbyterians, obstinate in their simple creed--proud of their victories, yet apprehensive of oppression. The rest of the population were Catholics, remarkable for piety and tenderness, but equally noted for ignorance and want of self-reliance. To mingle politics and religion in such a country was to blind men to their common secular interests, to render political union impossible, and national independence hopeless.

We grappled with the difficulty. We left sacred things to consecrated hands--theology and discipline to Churchmen. We preached a nationality that asked after no man's creed (_friend's or foe's_); and now, after our Second Year's Work, we have got a _practical_ as well as a verbal admission that religion is a thing between man and G.o.d--that no citizen is to be hooted, or abused, or marked down because he holds any imaginable creed, or changes it any conceivable number of times.

We are proudly conscious that, in preaching these great truths with success, we have done more to convince the Protestants that they may combine with the Catholics and get from under the shield of England than if we had proved that the Repeal of the Union would double the ears of their corn fields.

There had been a long habit of looking to foreign arms or English mercy for redress. We have shared the labours of O'Connell and O'Brien in impressing on the People that self-reliance is the only liberator. We have, not in vain, taught that, though the concessions of England or the sympathy of others was to be welcomed and used, still they would be best won by dignity and strength; and that, whether they came or not, Ireland could redress herself by patience, energy, and resolution.

Yet, deficient as the People were in genuine self-reliance, they had been pampered into the belief that they were highly educated, n.o.bly represented, successful in every science and art, and that consequently their misery was a mysterious fate, for which there was no remedy in human means. We believe we have convinced them of the contrary of this.

Ireland has done great things. She has created an unrivalled music and oratory, taken a first place in lyric poetry, displayed great valour, ready wit--has been a pattern of domestic virtue and faith under persecution; and lately has again advanced herself and her fame by deliberate temperance, by organised abstinence from crime, and by increasing political discipline. Yet there is that worst of all facts on the face of the census, that most of the Irish can neither read nor write; there is evidence in every exhibition that this land, which produced Barry, Forde, Maclise, and Burton, is ignorant of the fine arts; and proof in every shop or factory of the truth of Kane's motto, that industrial ignorance is a prime obstacle to our wealth. We have no national theatre, either in books or performance; and though we have got of late some cla.s.ses of prose literature--national fiction, for instance--we have yet to write our history, our statistics, and much of our science.

We have week after week candidly told these things to the People, and, instead of quarrelling with us, or running off to men who said "the Irish have succeeded in everything," they hearkened to us, and raised our paper into a circulation beyond most of the leaders of the London press, and immensely beyond any other journal that ever was in Ireland.

What is more cheering still, they have set about curing their defects.

They are founding Repeal Reading-rooms. They have noted down their ignorance in many portions of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, history, literature, and fine arts; and they are working with the Agricultural Societies, forming Polytechnic Inst.i.tutions for the improvement of manufactures, and giving and demanding support to the antiquarian and historical and artistical books and inst.i.tutions in Ireland. Large _cla.s.ses_ wished well to, and small ones supported each of these projects before; but in this journal _all_ cla.s.ses were canva.s.sed incessantly, and not in vain--and if there be unanimity now, we claim some credit for ourselves, but much more for the People, who did not resent harsh truth, and took advice that affronted their vanity.

A political impatience and intolerance have too often been seen in this country. It is one of the vices of slaves to use free speech to insult all who do not praise their faults and their friends and their caprices. We rejoice, in looking over our files, to see how rarely we were personal and how generally we recognised the virtues of political foes. It is an equal pleasure to recall that in many questions, but especially in reference to the Liberal Members not in the a.s.sociation, we stood between an impolitic fury and its destined victims. The People bore with us, and then agreed with us. We told them that men able and virtuous--men who had gone into Parliament when Repeal was a Whig buggaboo to frighten the Tories, were not to be hallooed from their seats because Repeal had suddenly grown into a national demand. These men, we said, may become your allies, if you do not put them upon their mettle by your rudeness and impatience. If they join you, they will be faster and more useful friends than men who compensate for every defect by pledge-bolting at command.

Mr. O'Connell, who had at first seemed to incline to the opposite opinion, concurred with us. Mr. O'Brien was zealous on the same side; the "premature pledges" were postponed to their fit time--an election--and the people induced to apply themselves to the Registries, as the true means of getting Repeal members.

We have maintained and advanced our foreign policy--the recognition and study of other countries beside England, and a careful separation of ourselves from England's crimes. We have, we believe, not neglected those literary, antiquarian, and historical teachings, and those popular projects which we pointed to last year as part of our labours; and we are told that the poetry of _The Nation_ has not been worse than in our first year. But these things are more personal, less indicative of national progress, and therefore less interesting than our success in producing political tolerance, increased efforts for education, and that final concession to religious liberty--the right to change without even verbal persecution.

The last year has been a year of hard work and hard trial to the country and to us. Our first year was spent in rousing and animating--the second in maintaining, guiding, and restraining. Its motto is, "Bide your time." Never had a People more temptation to be rash; and it is our proudest feeling that in our way we aided the infinitely greater powers of O'Connell till his imprisonment, and of O'Brien thereafter, to keep in the pa.s.sion, while they kept up the spirit of the People.

They and we succeeded.

The People saw the darling of their hearts dragged to trial, yet they never rioted; they found month after month go by in the disgusting details of a trial at bar, yet, instead of desponding, they improved their organisation, studied their history and statistics--increased in dignity, modesty, and strength. At length came the imprisonment; we almost doubted them, but they behaved gloriously--they recognised their wrongs, but they crossed their arms--they were neither terrified, disordered, nor divided--they promptly obeyed their new leaders, and, with shut teeth, swore that their "only vengeance should be victory."

They succeeded--bore their triumph as well as their defeat, and are now taking breath for a fresh effort at education, organisation, and conciliation.

It is something to have laboured through a Second Year for such a People. Let them go on as they have begun--growing more thoughtful, more temperate, more educated, more resolute--let them complete their parish organisation, carry out their registries, and, above all, establish those Reading-rooms which will inform and strengthen them into liberty; and, ere many years' work, the Green Flag will be saluted by Europe, and Ireland will be a Nation. The People have shown that their spirit, their discipline, and their modesty can be relied on; they have but to exhibit that greatest virtue which their enemies deny them--perseverence--and all will be well.

ORANGE AND GREEN.

Here it is at last--the dawning. Here, in the very sanctuary of the Orange heart, is a visible angel of Nationality:--

"If a British Union cannot be formed, perhaps an Irish one might.

What could Repeal take from Irish Protestants that they are not gradually losing '_in due course_'?

"However improbable, it is not impossible, that better terms might be made with the Repealers than the Government seem disposed to give. A hundred thousand Orangemen, with their colours flying, might yet meet a hundred thousand Repealers on the banks of the Boyne; and, on a field presenting so many solemn reminiscences to all, sign the Magna Charta of Ireland's independence. The Repeal banner might then be Orange and Green, flying from the Giant's Causeway to the Cove of Cork, and proudly look down from the walls of Derry upon a new-born nation.

"Such a union, not to be accomplished without concession on all sides, would remove the great offence of Irish Protestants--their Saxon attachment to their British fatherland. Cast off, as they would feel themselves by Great Britain, and baptised on the banks of the Boyne into the great Irish family, they would be received into a brotherhood which, going forward towards the attainment of a national object, would extinguish the spirit of Ribbonism, and establish in its place a covenant of peace."

So speaks the _Evening Mail_, the trumpet of the northern confederates, and we cry amen! amen!

We exult, till the beat of our heart stays our breathing, at the vision of such a concourse. Never--never, when the plains of Attica saw the rivals of Greece marching to expel the Persian, who had tried to intrigue with each for the ruin of both--never, when, from the uplands of Helvetia, rolled together the victors of Sempach--never, when, at the cry of Fatherland, the hundred nations of Germany rose up, and swept on emanc.i.p.ating to the Rhine--never was there under the sky a G.o.dlier or more glorious sight than that would be--to all slaves, balsam; to all freemen, strength; to all time, a miracle!

If Ireland's wrongs were borne for this--if our feuds and our weary sapping woes were destined to this ending, then blessed be the griefs of the past! His sickness to the healed--his pining to the happy lover--his danger to the rescued, are faint images of such a birth from such a chaos.

It is something--the cheer of an invisible friend--to have, even for a moment, heard the hope. It must abide in the souls of the Irish, guaranteeing the moderation of the Catholic--wakening the aspirations of the Orangemen. There it is--a cross on the sky.

It may not now lead to anything real. Long-suffering, oft-baffled Ireland will not abandon for an inch or hour its selected path by reason of this message.

We hope from it, because it has been prompted by causes which will daily increase. Incessantly will the British Minister labour to gain the support of seven millions of freed men, by cutting away every privilege and strength from one million of discarded allies.

We hope from it, because, as the Orangemen become more enlightened, they will more and more value the love of their countrymen, be prouder of their country, and more conscious that their ambition, interest, and even security are identical with nationality.

We hope from it, because, as the education of People and the elevation of the rich progress, they will better understand the apprehensions of the Orangemen, allow for them in a more liberal spirit, and be able to give more genuine security to even the nervousness of their new friends.

We hope most from it, because of its intrinsic greatness. It is the best promise yet seen to have the Orangemen proposing, even as a chance, the conference of 100,000 armed and ordered yeomen from the North, with 100,000 picked (ay, by our faith! and martial) Southerns on the banks of the Boyne, to witness a treaty of mutual concession, oblivion, and eternal amity; and then to lift an Orange-Green Flag of Nationhood, and defy the world to pull it down.

Yet 'tis a distant hope, and Ireland, we repeat, must not swerve for its flashing. When the Orangemen treat the shamrock with as ready a welcome as Wexford gave the lily--when the Green is set as consort of the Orange in the lodges of the North--when the Fermanagh meeting declares that the Orangemen are Irishmen pledged to Ireland, and summons another Dungannon Convention to prepare the terms of our treaty; then, and not till then, shall we treat this gorgeous hope as a reality, and then, and not till then, shall we summon the Repealers to quit their present sure course, and trust their fortunes to the League of the Boyne.

Meantime, we commend to the hearts and pride of "the Enniskilleners"

this, their fathers', declaration in 1782:--